Ah, as we get a little older...

" My grandmother is over 80 and doesn’t need glasses. She still drinks straight out of the bottle.”

Henry Youngman (British born American comic and violinist 1906 - 1998)

(sent to me by Graeme - thanks)

I found more too!

I've been in love with the same woman for forty-one years. If my wife finds out, she'll kill me.

I've got all the money I'll ever need if I die by four o'clock this afternoon.

Just got back from a pleasure trip: I took my mother-in-law to the airport.

My wife dresses to kill. She cooks the same way.

When God sneezed, I didn't know what to say.

While playing golf today I hit two good balls. I stepped on a rake.

Enough, I tell you, enough!

Oil Spill

You've no doubt heard about our local disaster with oil - a container ship lost 32 containers off Moreton Island (near our favourite North Stradbroke Island - Straddie) and the containers holed the hull and 300 tonnes of oil spilled into the sea. Initially the ship said 20 - 30 tonnes, but it now appears two fuel tanks were punctured in the stormy seas created by Cyclone Hamish this week. We now have it spread over 60 kilometres of Moreton Island and the Sunshine Coast. We currently have a state election campaign in full swing (it's next Saturday) and the politicians are all throwing accusations around regarding the government not reacting quickly enough etc etc but the fact is that it seems to be best to WAIT for two or three days then start cleaning up, otherwise you clean one day and have to come back a day or two later again. We had very high tides, so that's good because it's mainly deposited high up on the beaches, but Moreton Island is nearly deserted, no roads or electricity, very hard to land people and machinery to clean it up. The experts appear to be doing a very good job, and many locals and volunteers are helping wildlife and collecting turtle eggs, trying to minimise the damage. It is still our worst ever environmental disaster here in Queensland. Yes, the ship's owners (the Swire Group in HK) will cover all costs of cleaning up, but what a tragedy for the environment.








The second picture down was Warana Beach where we lived on the Sunshine Coast 18 months ago with Rene walking along it in the distance. The first picture was Warana Beach on Friday this week. The third picture is also Warana and the dead puff fish is testimony to the destruction of sea life. The two lower pictures show Moreton Island's Coral Sea coastline covered in the stuff. It will be the most difficult area to restore because of the many inlets, creeks and so on, plus its remoteness.

Do you remember the '60's?

I've been watching Ab Fab episodes on DVD for some 'colour and movement'. They are always good fun. June Whitfield plays the mother in the series, and the following joke I read with her voice as the mother. It's a bit rude, so if you are put off by this fact, then I suggest you don't read any further:

"Sue likes to screw, you know," Mum informed him.

"Really?" Joe replied; eyebrows rose.

"Oh yes," the mother continued. "When she goes out with her friends, that's all they do!"

"Is that so?" asked Joe, incredulous.

"Yes," said the mother. "As a matter of fact, she'd screw all night if we let her!"

"Well, thanks for the tip!" Joe said as he began thinking about alternative plans for the evening.

A moment later, Sue came down the stairs looking pretty as a picture wearing a pink blouse and a hoop skirt, and with her hair tied back in a bouncy ponytail. She greeted Joe.

"Have fun, kids!" the mother said as they left.

Half an hour later, a completely dishevelled Sue burst into the house and slammed the front door behind her.

"The Twist, Mum!" she angrily yelled to her mother in the kitchen. "The bloody dance is called the Twist!"

Until next post, have a great week.

RSPCA

An artist has taken over the gallery for three days selling her paintings with 30% of sales going to the Brisbane RSPCA - Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I have no idea of how many people have been here, but many dozens I think. All for a good cause. Rene has donated the display spaces for free - there will be a place in Heaven for him (beside me). It's strange having loads of folk in your home (well, downstairs) and feeling disconnected with the event. In two weeks time Rene launches a new exhibition, and we will once again have many folk here in the house, but on that occasion it will feel right and good, but today I feel a little like when you have an open house inspection day when you are selling your home - just not quite right. I'll get over it.

World's Best Job

Will a Russian beauty suspected of being involved with the porn industry win the job as ambassador for the Great Barrier Reef here in Queensland (is the rumour true?). I watched her clip yesterday and stayed and watched about a dozen more. They were very interesting. You can watch too here at http://www.islandreefjob.com/#/Julia

iPod Shuffle

Just released - the brand new miniaturised iPod Shuffle with 4GB capacity at an amazing price of US$79. I want one for Rene (not myself) because he's always using his iPod. Apple are just plain amazing. Just today Rene was showing some visitors his iMac computer, and honestly it makes every PC look like the prehistoric fossil it really is. He got the usual questions, the first one being is it a lot more expensive, and of course it isn't. It also operates without a firewall and virus software program, and it is so very, very beautiful. I'll stop gushing here and now...

WWW20

A tiny snippet of news yesterday on the web...

THE World Wide Web (WWW) marked its 20th anniversary Friday and its founders admitted there were parts of it they do not like: advertising and "snooping".
The creation of the web by British computer software genius Tim Berners-Lee and other scientists at the European particle physics laboratory (CERN) paved the way for the internet explosion which has changed our daily lives.

This was one birthday that ought to have had more fuss made over it since I can't think of one single creation or idea in the last generation that has brought about as much revolution in people's lives.

Australia - G20 second tier

It has come to pass via leaked briefing papers that Australia has been relegated to a second tier status ahead of the April G20 Summit in London. We share this 'honour' with the likes of Russia and Canada. Mind you, I'm not sure about Russia, but both Canada and Australia's banking systems have survived in remarkably good shape following the Economic Crisis. Not one bank has failed in either country.

"This is a very indicative list and based on the prevalence and scale of well-developed non-governmental organisations, media, civil society, academia, trade unions and non-traditional actors like sovereign wealth funds, not on how objectively important or not each country and its government were, either to the UK more widely or in a G20 context."
The newspaper said the confidential documents were part of a tender issued last December by the British government's Central Office of Information on behalf of the Foreign Office "for the supply of PR services for the London summit". (quoted from a UK Government release)

I'm still struck dumb when trying to work out why Australia's dollar has such an ordinary exchange rate whereas Japan and America - both broke - attract such favourable exchange rates? True, our resource sector has taken a bit of a hit, but our banking and monetry policy is second to none internationally and although we hover near it, we haven't been declared as being in recession, unlike 7 of the 10 leading OECD nations - and I passed economics at university (admittedly 40 years ago).

One Man Lost A$98 Billion.

How is this possible? Bernard L Madoff (notice the use of the middle initial - usually used when describing serial murderers) pleaded guilty this week of losing and defrauding folk of US$65 billion over decades. He admitted remorse over his actions, but I'd have preferred his jumping off a very tall building - so much more sincere. His pleading guilty removes any necessity to admit that others aided him in this gross act of deception, but hopefully those others will be brought to some sort of justice. He says he acted alone but I'm far from convinced. And to think he'd still be dealing this way had the crisis not loomed large. His only remorse is being caught out. Scum!

Cheap flights to the US

V Australia are advertising return flights to Los Angeles from A$971. That's a massive saving. You can only stay 30 days, but that's enough for most travellers. New aircraft, attention to detail, inexpensive fares - I just wish I could fly outside sch0ool vacations.

...quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

At last, we have the basic garden finished. The lot is a mere 407 sq m so there's not a lot of garden to establish. The land was compacted to build it above the Q100 (once in a hundred years flood) level. Our slab is on top of that level, therefore short of Armageddon we should be safe from any chance of inundation from the neighbouring brook. There has had to be a lot of work done on the compacted clay soil to enable plants to grow well. So far all seems good - we've only had two deaths amongst the plants, so that's good for my usual record.We have lots of dry tolerant plants and also stored water for the gardens. The stones (lower right) are surrounding a storm water drain (we have two along this side). The smaller grey tank holds 3000L.

The small backyard has a Patio Lemon tree (dwarf), a Tahitian Lime (also dwarf) and an olive tree. The other plants are for screening and adding some colour - eventually.On the left you can just see the edge of the 5000L main water tank supplying water to the three toilets as well as the washing machine. Rene gets to look out from the downstairs gallery on a lovely vista of palms and other plants.
Our southern side is very rarely used and goes from the laundry to the folding line. Notice how close we are to the other house? This is happening more and more as people build more densely closer in to the city centre.

You have to have your utilities somewhere. Ours are along the northern side. Behind the grey screen is our hot water system, solar panels are on the roof above - the northern side gets the most sun here in Australia. The air conditioner unit looks very industrial. It works remarkably well after its initial teething problems.

Busy weekend

I certainly hope your weekend was as interesting as ours. Friday saw dinner over at friends who were jointly celebrating birthdays and the departure of another to the States.

Three friends came over for lunch Saturday and then in the evening we ventured across the river to Lota and had a superb dinner put together by our friends Peter and Bernadette. He had prepared Persian lamb meatballs on couscous drizzled with sour cherry sauce - stunning. Dessert was grapes marinated in rose water with ice cream and Persian fairy floss on top (tasted almondy). Very adult flavours, quite delicious. I should say Peter cooked but Bernadette also did the serving and tables. One guest at dinner was just back again from Qatar, and with various guests about to jet off hither and yon I felt quite the one left out (with Rene) because we're not heading off anywhere in the foreseeable future.



Sunday was friends around for coffee and cake, then I went in the evening to the airport to pick up a friend from Canberra who has a meeting in Brisbane today. Rene and I joined him in walking to dinner at a very nice Thai restaurant, and then when we returned we found this Tawny Frogmouthed owl (see above) sitting on our deck railing. Must dash, off to work for a rest.
Rene's photograph is below, mine above. He has a much better camera.

Refugees, Migrants and being Australian.

Work has been very interesting lately, and as usual as the term advances you get to know more and more about the children's stories. One child I take each week for a couple of sessions just casually mentioned this week his step father (an uncle) that he doesn't care much for and how his father shot himself with a gun hidden under his pillow - events happened back in India. Another has a father (presumed kidnapped and dead) returning after being away for 4 years (he was imprisoned and discovered accidentally by the American troops in northern Iraq) - she is living with a virtual stranger at home, a changed man. Then this week from Lahore in Pakistan we saw the Sri Lankan cricketers attacked and the terrorists just sauntering off unhindered, unafraid and unchallenged. My Sri Lankan students were deeply alarmed at this attack, even from thousands of kilometres away.

We take so much for granted here in the relative safety of Australia. We are safe, the economy teeters on the edge of a recession but so far is just on the positive side, we are undoubtedly the Lucky Country. I for one don't take this for granted. I will be so proud when Rene obtains his Australian Citizenship in the near future. It will be some time after his initial citizenship test on April 21.

Look Ma! No cooking...

We are out to dinner for the next three nights. What a tough life! Tonight we are out visiting friends in Mt Gravatt, tomorrow night at Lota on the Bay we are guinea pigs when a new dish is prepared for the first time (more on that after the event) and Sunday night a friend from Canberra is visiting and taking us to dinner. That leaves Monday to cook at home, then Tuesday we're out again at the pub for dinner and trivia (we finished 5th this week - ouch!).

V Australia takes off

Brisbane-based V Australia has commenced flights to the US at last! Held up by delivery issues at Boeing, the first B777 flight flew SYD/LAX this week. I saw this aircraft parked near the perimeter of Brisbane Airport a couple of weeks ago and it looks lovely. Brisbane services to LAX commence in June when there are more aircraft delivered. Backed by Virgin Blue, it is sure to set the cat amongst the pigeons on the Pacific route to the States.

This is the Business Class bar on V Australia. There's a Premium Economy bar too!

Rene's new job

This week Rene started a new part time job to fit in with the gallery hours. It has been quite a departure to have him getting up before me for a change. The following pictures are from the front deck at the ungodly hour of 6:15am. Nice and cool in the early hours too.

QC

My delightful cousin Rachel in London is to be made a Queen's Counsel on March 30. Congratulations Rachel on managing two children, a husband and a career. I sent out an email this week to a few close friends featuring the working of a woman's brain (compared to that of a man), a somewhat humorous rendition of what is a quite complex mind. By immediate reply I received Rachel's happy news. Once again, congratulations!

Portrait Prize

A portrait of ARIA award-winning blind musician Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu has won this year's Archibald Prize. It is a stunning picture in a competition where many varied artists convey a person through sometimes quite abstract forms. I'm still amazed today at just how short a period of time it seems since the last announcement of an Archibald winner twelve months ago.

Another already?

Some phone camera pictures I downloaded this evening...
Hi, just a very quick post today. Yesterday's post resulted in a couple of comments, one being from a reverend with the WBC. It was total rubbish and I reserved the right to delete the comment.

Me in the pool this morning near Cooroy. The 'infinity' pool is beautiful in front of an impressive rural view.

Rene, also this morning, displacing lightly less salt water from the pool. It was 28C in the water.

We came back mid afternoon from the night at a farm near Cooroy, in the Sunshine Coast hinterland. The first day of autumn here produced 34C, and driving through the Caboolture area the car registered up to 37. The pool was delightful, as you can see from the pictures.

A friend dropped around at 4:45 and woke us from our gentle slumber, the result of having got to bed after 3am and up before 8. I'm off to bed again in a minute or two. We had a marvellous time last night playing cards, drinking and chatting. The food was huge and delicious - thanks Steve.

The 'Oriana' visited in mid February. Very elegant.

This ship, the 'Nautica', was in Brisbane early in February. It was the cruise ship attacked by Somali pirates a few days before.

The ducted air has been working well after 5 today with the whole place cool and pleasant. This evening we just have vented air operating, all in all very comfortable. I'm pleased with our investment. Some rain forecast for tomorrow, after 31C. Of course I'm back to work, but that's nice enough. have a great week wherever you are.

Found on my phone, a picture of the huge 8kg coral fish eaten at a recent dinner at a friend's home. It was so large it had to be cooked in two pieces.