Oil Plunges!!!

OK, I'm totally over all the media crap that's killing hope. Petrol reaches $1.65/L here in Australia - headlines and endless news items on heartache following higher costs for cars and plane travel. Now, the price of oil drops more than half - what do you hear? Nothing! OK, a small mention of it now and then. Why would the media want to focus on good news when $1.65 sounds so awful, yet I filled up at $1.08 this last week. $1.08! Where's the jubilation, the cheers, the applause? That doesn't sell. Fuel surcharges being reduced, even removed altogether by an Asian airline. Good news? Yes. Worth focusing on? No, we prefer gloom and doom, and we each and every one of us sanction this every day by buying newspapers that are frankly embarrassing and watching TV news that's quite below par. Even the ABC TV news last Sunday featured a cross promotion of the Howard years documentary going out on their own channel the next night - 4 minutes long - hey, this is supposed to be news? Anyway, the storm damage that had hit Brisbane received 3 minutes that night (granted, it had not long happened). News? Shame, Aunty, shame!

Confidence

There were a few signs of confidence in the media this week. A review of projects already commenced or about to commence made me feel more optimistic. The Albion project is already under way, so is North Shore Hamilton:

South Bank, over the railway station.
The RNA show grounds close to the city centre.

Roma Street, the station and bus terminal long overdue for redevelopment.Hamilton North Shore - close by to where we live. Already commenced.

Milton - over the railway station.

Below, Albion (near us) also featuring the redevelopment of the railway station and an old flour mill.

Tacky

Hotel Atlantis opened this week in Dubai. Impressive, flashy, all of this, but I suspect there are a lot of wealthy Arabs in the UAE with very small penises - this preoccupation with size is a worry. Perhaps they're just size queens?




Lajamanu


Friday night saw Rene and I out to yet another art event, this time the opening of a small exhibition of art from the Warnayaka Art Centre in Lajamanu, NT. We met a couple of lovely ladies from there last year when we drove from Darwin to Katherine, then on to Lajamanu on the edge of the Tanami Desert, and these two as well as other Aboriginal desert artists from there were here in town for an education program assisting them with pricing, displaying and promoting their art.


Interesting notes from the evening:1. The land is Gurindji where Lajamanu is situated, but three Walpiri communities were moved there in 1948. The land was officially handed to the Walpiri by the Gurindgi in a tribal ceremony yet the act has never been acknowledged by the Government, and 2. when the ladies passed some homeless people on the streets in inner Brisbane they asked if they should give them money, but were discouraged. They were almost in tears seeing these people on the streets. Back home they all have a home in their community somewhere.


Another dinner party

Will it never end? I hope not. Last night we had some regular friends over for dinner plus a new couple. He is a Dutch journalism student who has written about Rene's gallery, and he was accompanied by his delightful Polish born wife (an architect). What a pleasure it was to meet them. Rene cooked the dinner and I enjoyed the house being full of excited conversation. We know so many wonderfully interesting folk.


It had to happen eventually


Yes, the dreaded school reunion. I vaguely remember avoiding one before but today I had a call from a former Senior of 1968 asking if I'd be interested in a 40th anniversary reunion, and I sort of said 'yes'. I think I'm ready for it now; my head is in a good space and I have a very positive outlook on life. It's on December 13 in Toowoomba, so I can go. Rene's invited, but I think he'd rather swim across a crocodile infested waterway than be caught dead at a reunion, but the weird thing is that I'm rather fascinated to see what's happened to the various classmates. I know friends who have done this sort of thing throughout their lives, but for me this'll be the first and the last time. Think of the gossip I'll be able to write up in this blog....should be worth several meaty entries. Mind you, the stuff they'll report about me (haha!!)

Blog Visitors
This week the visitors to this site came from the following countries:
Thank you for being one of them...