"Excuse me, mate, do you know the speed of light?"
Not a question I'd exactly anticipated, but since I'd been listening in on their conversation (which had bounced backwards and forwards between English and German), I was somewhat prepared.
Two nerds, arguing over the speed of light, on a train. At one point, they'd involved several hapless Japanese tourists in their debate, and at another, they were pointing out to two girls that this wasn't the best way for them to pick people up on trains, and that they did do better chat-up lines. As they headed towards the door, they asked a few people, me being the last of them, if they knew which of them was closer.
Given options of 3*10^8 (or "dreimal zehn hoch acht" as he'd been stating his case) and 1.1*10^9, I helped Guy No. 1 to victory.
It was only after they got off the train that I realised they were both right - one's in m/s and the other's in km/hr.
Oops.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Toilet Humour
I spent about an hour earlier typing something like 80% of a new post, my first for over four months. Was planning on finishing it off tomorrow. But here's a little aperitif before the main course gets published.
I was googling for some info on a national park I was hoping to visit in February. The best site for it came fifth on the list. On the way to that item, I had to go past this one.
I nearly did go past it without reading it. I'm very glad I didn't. Any of the following in isolation would have cracked me up :
The "suggest a toilet" link
"My toilet map"
The web address - it's a .gov.au site, i.e. run by the Federal government
The implication that, in light of the recent election, the content of the site is under review for potential political bias
Search for options, including toilet features
The National Continence Management Strategy
"Visit other sites about continence"
Find a toilet by latitude/longitude
Find a toilet by provider
"Some of the toilet counts do not add up. Why?" (in the FAQ)
"How can I use the Toilet Map with my Global Positioning System (GPS) device?" (also in the FAQ)
I need to go and wipe my eyes.
I was googling for some info on a national park I was hoping to visit in February. The best site for it came fifth on the list. On the way to that item, I had to go past this one.
I nearly did go past it without reading it. I'm very glad I didn't. Any of the following in isolation would have cracked me up :
I need to go and wipe my eyes.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Coping
I don't think I am. And it's starting to get a bit too much for me.
Job stress
I don't understand my role here. I'm generally given the impression that I'm doing really really well, and there are no problems, and everyone's really pleased with how I'm doing. I'm not, and they're wrong. I'm better-placed to judge than they are, and I don't seem to be able to convince anyone that there are whole swathes of my job that don't make sense to me.
There are large chunks of things that other people do that make no sense either. Mostly things I've now got to live with the legacy of, and in many cases justify on a monthly basis the results of. And I'm sick of it.
"Why is this doing this?" "Because the old system did." "OK, why did the old system do that?" "I don't know you'll have to ask {person who's now left." or "But A doesn't imply B." "It does the way we model things." "Well then the way 'we' model things is wrong, isn't it?!" It took me nearly a day in June to figure out why someone was worried about a pair of numbers in a spreadsheet not being the same as each other (subtle point of Australian regulation that I still don't "feel", it's just words). However, it only took 5 minutes to figure out why they would always and forever be different because neither of them was actually showing what they said they were. (And then another 3 attempts to explain this latter finding to the person who's noticed the former.)
That's not to mention the other swathes of the job that are pointless and unnecessary. Two weeks ago, I was asked to repeat the checks that we did last year on a certain rather monolithic and poorly-understood process. Some of the checks involved things like making sure that, because we were effectively re-doing some work we'd done earlier in the year only going about it in a different way, we ended up with the same answer at the end. "So why don't we just not do it again, and take the numbers we did the first time?" "Because that's how the process works." "Why don't we change it then?" "Too late now, we've already started."
Everything is planned using the reverse timetabling method. When's the due date? OK, then work backwards. If someone ends up being squashed flat by the volume of work needed, that's OK, we'll authorise weekend work (and this isn't always me - there's another person in the department whose only day off since the beginning of June has been the day she had jury duty).
Presentation comes higher up the priority list than accuracy, auditability or amount of work required. E.g., 9am e-mail yesterday. "Friday's meeting said we need to adjust this number by 5m. I've got to present results on the new basis at 11am, so I'd like this fed into the presentation. Don't care how you split it." The number needs splitting into at least 4 pieces, the final split wasn't ready till the end of today, and different splits can change the message given by the results radically. The impacts on the presentation of any given split can be done in your head, whereas actually putting the numbers into the required spreadsheets and getting all the results for the presentation to hang together takes about an hour and a half, and now we have a final split for this, there's another hour and a half's work waiting for someone tomorrow morning to put the real numbers in since, inevitably, the assumed split wasn't the final one.
So, perhaps, an alternative would be to leave the presentation as it is and say "These don't have the effects of the 5m in there, as we haven't finished doing the work to split it properly yet. If the split works like this, the results would be .., and if like this, ..." When I suggested this, the reply was something like "I could, but it's much tidier if the numbers in the presentation are right."
And justifying things with comments like "Ah, but you can't deny we're world-class leaders in spreadsheet complexity" is not demonstrating a helping, constructive or supportive management style.
Financial stress
Direct debits don't really exist here in Australia, at least not in any sort of coordinated "why on earth would you pay bills any other way?" sense that they do in England. This has led to me receiving "final reminder" notices on 3 different accounts so far (in case you're still reading and care at this point, gas, electricity and credit card). I am exactly the sort of person for which direct debits were designed.
Internet banking to the UK is infuriatingly intermittent. Nationwide works about 1 out of 3 days, HSBC's not much better, and I still can't get Tesco's (which is the account of last resort, although given some of the unbudgeted expenditure in the first few months I was here, and that HSBC Oz won't have a bar of transferring money to HSBC UK, it's now borderline first resort) to work, despite re-registering twice and also ringing them (20 minutes on hold at international rates...) They don't know why it doesn't work. So for now, I'm stuck with ringing them to transfer money around.
And then there's Pickfords. I'm not going to go there.
Non-financial stress
I received an "urgent notice" letter 2 weeks ago saying that my health insurance company hadn't received my application form, and that if I didn't send it back to them 4 days ago (given the length of time between the date on the letter and when I got round to opening it) my cover would be cancelled. What it didn't explain was how they'd been charging me premiums for the last 6 months, or how they'd sent me a membership certificate and a welcome letter in February with all my details on. I rang them to explain/complain, and they said they'd now cancelled it and that I'd receive notice of this in the post in the next few days, and I could reapply next month. So that's going to involve some more irate phone calls over the next few days.
My lower right wisdom tooth is hurting nearly enough to make me go to the dentist. In case it's not clear how that's a problem, I tend to put dentists only slightly lower on the "dislikes" list than tarantulas. I've also no idea how much it'll cost, or even how to do it - too many types of dentist here, and it's one of those things that the locals "just understand." I ask, and they end up talking about bulk-billing and Medicare.
Relieving stress (no, not like that, you filthy-minded people)
I don't really have anyone in work that I can let off steam about all this - half of them don't understand a word I say, and most of the other half don't understand what I mean. I can't use e-mail at all any more, and am apprehensive about using the phone, since it leads to too many misunderstandings - I have to see how someone reacts to what I'm saying so I can tell if they've misunderstood me, so virtually everything's face-to-face. There are a number of things that just don't translate - unfortunately, most of them seem to be things I want to say.
I've bent Colm's ear a fair amount with this, for which I'm very grateful, and without which I might have gone postal by now, but it involves some treading on eggshells given he works for a competitor now. Other than that, local pressure release valves are pretty thin on the ground. And talking to someone in the UK via e-mail, or even Skype, just doesn't work that well.
Black holes
So I guess where I would like to end this post is a general apology for being increasingly uncommunicative, rude, slippery, uncontactable and unfriendly over the last 9 months. I really wanted this move to have gone better than it has. An awful lot better than it has. And I think that's probably the most depressing thing about it.
Job stress
I don't understand my role here. I'm generally given the impression that I'm doing really really well, and there are no problems, and everyone's really pleased with how I'm doing. I'm not, and they're wrong. I'm better-placed to judge than they are, and I don't seem to be able to convince anyone that there are whole swathes of my job that don't make sense to me.
There are large chunks of things that other people do that make no sense either. Mostly things I've now got to live with the legacy of, and in many cases justify on a monthly basis the results of. And I'm sick of it.
"Why is this doing this?" "Because the old system did." "OK, why did the old system do that?" "I don't know you'll have to ask {person who's now left." or "But A doesn't imply B." "It does the way we model things." "Well then the way 'we' model things is wrong, isn't it?!" It took me nearly a day in June to figure out why someone was worried about a pair of numbers in a spreadsheet not being the same as each other (subtle point of Australian regulation that I still don't "feel", it's just words). However, it only took 5 minutes to figure out why they would always and forever be different because neither of them was actually showing what they said they were. (And then another 3 attempts to explain this latter finding to the person who's noticed the former.)
That's not to mention the other swathes of the job that are pointless and unnecessary. Two weeks ago, I was asked to repeat the checks that we did last year on a certain rather monolithic and poorly-understood process. Some of the checks involved things like making sure that, because we were effectively re-doing some work we'd done earlier in the year only going about it in a different way, we ended up with the same answer at the end. "So why don't we just not do it again, and take the numbers we did the first time?" "Because that's how the process works." "Why don't we change it then?" "Too late now, we've already started."
Everything is planned using the reverse timetabling method. When's the due date? OK, then work backwards. If someone ends up being squashed flat by the volume of work needed, that's OK, we'll authorise weekend work (and this isn't always me - there's another person in the department whose only day off since the beginning of June has been the day she had jury duty).
Presentation comes higher up the priority list than accuracy, auditability or amount of work required. E.g., 9am e-mail yesterday. "Friday's meeting said we need to adjust this number by 5m. I've got to present results on the new basis at 11am, so I'd like this fed into the presentation. Don't care how you split it." The number needs splitting into at least 4 pieces, the final split wasn't ready till the end of today, and different splits can change the message given by the results radically. The impacts on the presentation of any given split can be done in your head, whereas actually putting the numbers into the required spreadsheets and getting all the results for the presentation to hang together takes about an hour and a half, and now we have a final split for this, there's another hour and a half's work waiting for someone tomorrow morning to put the real numbers in since, inevitably, the assumed split wasn't the final one.
So, perhaps, an alternative would be to leave the presentation as it is and say "These don't have the effects of the 5m in there, as we haven't finished doing the work to split it properly yet. If the split works like this, the results would be .., and if like this, ..." When I suggested this, the reply was something like "I could, but it's much tidier if the numbers in the presentation are right."
And justifying things with comments like "Ah, but you can't deny we're world-class leaders in spreadsheet complexity" is not demonstrating a helping, constructive or supportive management style.
Financial stress
Direct debits don't really exist here in Australia, at least not in any sort of coordinated "why on earth would you pay bills any other way?" sense that they do in England. This has led to me receiving "final reminder" notices on 3 different accounts so far (in case you're still reading and care at this point, gas, electricity and credit card). I am exactly the sort of person for which direct debits were designed.
Internet banking to the UK is infuriatingly intermittent. Nationwide works about 1 out of 3 days, HSBC's not much better, and I still can't get Tesco's (which is the account of last resort, although given some of the unbudgeted expenditure in the first few months I was here, and that HSBC Oz won't have a bar of transferring money to HSBC UK, it's now borderline first resort) to work, despite re-registering twice and also ringing them (20 minutes on hold at international rates...) They don't know why it doesn't work. So for now, I'm stuck with ringing them to transfer money around.
And then there's Pickfords. I'm not going to go there.
Non-financial stress
I received an "urgent notice" letter 2 weeks ago saying that my health insurance company hadn't received my application form, and that if I didn't send it back to them 4 days ago (given the length of time between the date on the letter and when I got round to opening it) my cover would be cancelled. What it didn't explain was how they'd been charging me premiums for the last 6 months, or how they'd sent me a membership certificate and a welcome letter in February with all my details on. I rang them to explain/complain, and they said they'd now cancelled it and that I'd receive notice of this in the post in the next few days, and I could reapply next month. So that's going to involve some more irate phone calls over the next few days.
My lower right wisdom tooth is hurting nearly enough to make me go to the dentist. In case it's not clear how that's a problem, I tend to put dentists only slightly lower on the "dislikes" list than tarantulas. I've also no idea how much it'll cost, or even how to do it - too many types of dentist here, and it's one of those things that the locals "just understand." I ask, and they end up talking about bulk-billing and Medicare.
Relieving stress (no, not like that, you filthy-minded people)
I don't really have anyone in work that I can let off steam about all this - half of them don't understand a word I say, and most of the other half don't understand what I mean. I can't use e-mail at all any more, and am apprehensive about using the phone, since it leads to too many misunderstandings - I have to see how someone reacts to what I'm saying so I can tell if they've misunderstood me, so virtually everything's face-to-face. There are a number of things that just don't translate - unfortunately, most of them seem to be things I want to say.
I've bent Colm's ear a fair amount with this, for which I'm very grateful, and without which I might have gone postal by now, but it involves some treading on eggshells given he works for a competitor now. Other than that, local pressure release valves are pretty thin on the ground. And talking to someone in the UK via e-mail, or even Skype, just doesn't work that well.
Black holes
So I guess where I would like to end this post is a general apology for being increasingly uncommunicative, rude, slippery, uncontactable and unfriendly over the last 9 months. I really wanted this move to have gone better than it has. An awful lot better than it has. And I think that's probably the most depressing thing about it.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Singular
Hmmm. Taken me a while to write this one - with good reason!
I have returned from my trip to the "last great wilderness" - not my words, but a reasonably accurate description of the Kimberley in northern WA. Nobody seems to be quite sure whether there's one or many Kimberleys - I've been corrected 3 times when I've said one or the other. I'm sticking with the singular version from now on - sounds nicer.
The Kimberley is really just a very large, almost empty section of Australia. For most of the first 5 days, we were travelling along the Gibb River Road, which was built to enable easier transportation of cattle from the various cattle stations in that area of the country to Wyndham, the nearest convenient port. I dread to think how they must have done it before the road was built, as it's basically just a 600-mile-long dirt track. This was about as good as it got. All that way and we didn't actually even see the Gibb River!
First real stop on day 1 (barring toilet breaks like the one in Derby, where there was one toilet for 15 people - until another bus of 30-odd turned up, then the blokes realised there were lots and lots of trees...) was lunch by a large pool in a creek. The Gibb River Road ran over a bridge over this creek where it entered the pool. It was, for some reason, a condition of travel with Western Xposure, that we jump into every pool of water from any available high thing nearby - 15 feet or so, didn't look too bad from beneath, quite scary from above! Second stop for the day was Tunnel Creek, a 1km tunnel all the way through a limestone escarpment carved by a creek. Hence the name! This was interesting, but not quite as spectacular as I'd been expecting. It was the hideout for a local Aboriginal "Ned Kelly" figure about 100 years ago, and we went into the area of the cave where he'd lived - totally dry at the moment (it being the Dry - see later), but filled with some quality, and very sparkly, stalactites and stalagmites.
We spent most nights at reasonably well-defined campsites, and the first night was a short hop from Tunnel Creek at Windjana Gorge, where it was suggested that we don't go wandering, as we might encounter crocodiles. The gorge is an amazing place - like several of the spots we visited, I would like to have spent more time there. Then on to Bell Gorge (in what became something of a theme - I think, on the original plan, we'd have seen at least one gorge per day!) This is one of the most well-known gorges in the Kimberley, and it was quite busy (relatively) - there were 4 or 5 other people there when we turned up. More swimming and jumping ensued. Then quite a bit more driving, till we got to ...
Manning River and Gorge, which was a lovely place. It was full of woollybutts, a beautiful flowering gum tree whose name I am unable to type correctly at first attempt, and boabs or bottle trees, which look like someone's attached a pump to a normal tree and left it to inflate for an hour. I was head chef for our first barbie (my first time in charge at an Aussie barbie!), and this was the site of our introduction to the Clinker game.
This needs some digression. The only Aussies on the trip were a 50-something couple who'd not grown up past about 25 - they were great! About 20 years ago, when their children were very young, they invented the Clinker game. Clinkers are an Australian sweet, which don't have a UK equivalent sweet I can say they're like - it's got a centre like a Malteser, but somewhat harder, is shaped like a rugby ball, and is coated in chocolate. The key to the game is that the centre comes in one of three colours, pink, green or yellow. So everyone sits in a circle and is given a Clinker, and takes it in turn to guess the colour of the centre, before biting it in half and revealing the centre to the adjudicator. Those who succeed in "becoming the Clinker" and getting the colour right advance to the next round, which repeats until either a draw (everyone in a round gets their colour wrong ... or the bag of Clinkers runs out!) or an outright victory (only one person in a round gets theirs right). At this point, they are crowned the Undisputed Clinker Master. At least until the next game starts.
Greg and Sue swear they're going to patent this game at some point!
The third day was my favourite of the whole trip. Firstly, we walked down to the river itself at the bottom end of the campsite. And then swam across it, towing our valuables in the conveniently-provided polystyrene boxes! Then an hour or so's slog across rocky outcrops and sandy soil, surrounded by ghost gums, till we reached Manning Gorge and its wonderful waterfall and swimming pool. (And jump-off point...) I found its rainbow, although couldn't get the camera there as it would have drowned, and spent a bit of time chatting to someone from Queensland who'd got there on a motorbike trip with his 2 mates, a third of the way round a 10-week tour of the northern coast of Oz. After we headed off from here, we stopped for lunch by Galvan's Gorge, the best place of the trip - plenty of swimming, rope-swinging (with the obligatory big splash in the water at the end) and waterfall massages. Plus Steve, the insane guide, jumped off the top of the waterfall - a jump of about 15m.
Then several hours of driving, till we reached our camp in the middle of the bush - weren't sure we'd be getting back out of it after Steve drove down to it off the road on a 30-odd degree gravel slope. Here we had al fresco toilet facilities, damper (aka bush bread) cooked by the fair hand of Steve, and honey and soy beef stir fry, cooked by the fair hand of me (I ended up in charge of food quite a few times!) - this almost ended in disaster, as we found out just in time that Anna was allergic to nuts. 100 miles from anywhere is not where you want someone to go into anaphylactic shock. We were surrounded by dingoes that night too, and we could hear them howling through the night.
At this point, I should mention the American. Richard. He was very definitely an American. Complaining about everything (including, as far as I could work out, the fact that there weren't many facilities at the campsites we were staying at - we were in the bloody Outback, you fool!) His wife, Jenny, was Scottish, and, to quote Steve, "not the brightest cookie in the jar." She's one of those people that need to be told everything about everything on a trip (the morning she spent in the driver's cab with Steve nearly ended with him killing her until he asked Anne Marie to swap with her). They insisted on placing their tent as far away from everyone else's as they could, and that really set the tone for them for the whole trip. He started to get on my nerves when I overheard him talking about me to some of the other people that night when I wasn't supposed to be able to hear - nothing bad in itself, but that sort of thing annoys me (and brought back memories of PV=nRT in Venezuela...) So he was off my Christmas card list from then on - and much of the subsequent days he moved himself further and further off it!
And so to day 4, and El Questro station. This is a former cattle station that's turned itself into a bit of a Wild West dude ranch, and gets so many visitors that I had a bit of a Beach moment at the bar that evening and had to go off back to the forest where we were camped out. It has some amazing things to see though - Zebedee Springs (yes, they have both the Magic Roundabout and a sense of humour here!) which are rock pools fed by hot springs, far too many gorges to count (of which we visited Amalia and had it to ourselves for over an hour) and the slowest taps in the world - Steve asked me to go fill our 50 litre water barrel. It took 40 minutes. And cold ginger beer too! Plenty of wildlife around, and it was here that I saw my first kookaburra.
Day 5, and the end of the Gibb River Road, and back to tarmac. A brief detour to Wyndham (spelt correctly, unlike the Gibb River signmakers) and the Five Rivers Lookout (Durack, King, Ord, Pentecost and ... another one), and a snack stop at Doon Doon roadhouse where I had the bittersweet experience of eating a Mrs Mac's Chilli and Cheese pie in 38C temperatures, then a long drive down to the Bungle Bungles. The national park in which they live is reached via a 50km dirt road that was in a lot worse state than the Gibb River Road. We stopped to have lunch by one of the fords across the various creeks the track crosses. Rangers station about 3.30 (having left the tarmac at about 12, with an hour or so for lunch).
The Bungles were, unfortunately, a washout. In 16 years, Steve claims never to have seen rain in May at the Bungles (this part of the world has two seasons, the Wet from Nov to mid-Apr, and the Dry from mid-Apr to Oct). 2 hours or so after we arrived (fortunately after we'd pitched the tents and got the fire going) it began to rain a little. Then a bit more. Then more. Then it started pissing it down. Then a bit more. Then... well, you get the idea. Most of the tents were about an inch deep in rainwater inside the tents the following morning, as the rain covers had bowed under the pressure of the rain, touched the inner tent, and leaked through. As the creeks were now at risk of flash floods, and the dirt track was in a bit of a state, the park was closed to both entrants and departees - we were stuck in there. At one point, there was even talk that it could be 4 or 5 days before we'd be permitted to leave! Still, it wasn't a complete write-off as far as the holiday went. With the exception of the American, we actually saw it as a bit of a bonding experience. The first night, we told ghost stories and played Shithead (an apparently universal card game, which I have now played on 4 different continents) on the bus.
On day 6, during a relatively long rain break, we played cricket with one of the groups in the neighbouring camps, set up a tarpaulin big enough for us all to be miserable together under, and played "Strand the Ants" (where you put a small rock covered in ants into the centre of a puddle, and see whether any of them can swim). There was also Blindfold Karaoke (which wasn't fun), Charades (which was) and Celebrity Heads (I was Victoria Beckham - "Am I an entertainer?" "Well, you'd like to think you are." gave me the answer!) by the campfire.
Day 7 dawned, and we got the go-ahead to leave, in convoy with everyone else staying in the park. A somewhat tense 3 hours later, and Steve pulled onto the tarmac to a round of applause. From there, we intended to make a 250km slog all the way to our campsite at Kununurra. However, a happy circumstance arose. As we stopped for lunch at a service station, we noticed helicopter flights over the Bungles were being run from just down the road. Enquiries were made. Affirmatives were received. We were going to see the Bungles! (And from a helicopter, my first time in one.) A fairly amazing (and stifling too - we'd asked for the doors to be left off, for better photos and more "realistic" experience, but the pilot obviously thought I would be cold in my T-shirt and shorts (temperatures were a frigid 24C - it was nearly the middle of winter, after all), so he put the heaters on! I was sweating like anything when we got out!) 45 minutes later, we landed again, happy to have seen the Bungles in some way. The night at Kununurra was punctuated by our trip to their carnival, at which we saw quite a good local band, and Anne Marie was asked if she knew Lily, who was also from Ireland.
Day 8, and dawn was, happily, spent by the side of Lake Kununurra, one of several artificial lakes resulting from damming projects in the area. First to Mirima National Park, which is similar to, but on a much smaller scale than, the Bungle Bungles. Then to a rum distillery (or hoochery - officially, as the guy who owns the place has patented that as a name for his outfit) where I did have a shot, and also an extremely nice slice of chocolate rum cake. Thence to Lake Argyle, a much bigger artificial lake, which is used for ... well, not much really. It was intended partly as a hydro power station and partly for agriculture, but neither have really taken off, so it's just a lake that contains 17 times as much water as Sydney Harbour sat in the middle of nowhere. (They're actually considering building a pipeline from it to Perth to help shore up the city's almost non-existent reservoirs - Perth's only about 2000 miles away.) Many semi-tame birds around, including these two who sat still and posed for us for a while. The rest of the day involved a fairly long drive to our final campsite, punctuated only by our entry into the Northern Territory, the only mainland state I hadn't visited before.
For our final night, we had another barbie, and I was head chef again. Some friendly rivalry ensued in the subsequent clinker game, with Steve having to cheat to keep up with me. In the end, I was crowned Undisputed Clinker Master (the only one of the trip, no less), so I did a lap of victory. Around Steve.
Our last day was not terribly exciting - we were about 600km from Darwin, where we needed to end up at, so it was mostly driving. We did stop for lunch and a swim at Edith Falls which was quite a nice place, but unremarkable by comparison to some of the other places we'd been. It did have a little river-rapids section though, and a blowhole where Steve scared Greg quite a bit! Darwin itself seemed a reasonably nice little town, but it's a lot smaller than York and you can walk around it in about 20 minutes - filled with backpackers, for some reason. This, actually, was a good thing, as it meant Michael and I (who were flying out of Darwin that night) could have showers ... once I asked the Scouse lady serving behind the desk in my best Netherton accent if it would be OK for us to use their showers, even if we weren't staying there. After a "night out on the town" with everyone else to say goodbye, Michael and I headed off to the airport. Once there, I tried to smuggle a penknife through the airport security scanners. Unwittingly - I could have sworn I'd put it in my main bag! This being Australia, they were relaxed about it, and gave me it back and suggested I go and check it in (in my rucksack) as hold baggage.
And that's where the holiday really came to an end. A 2am flight that was delayed till 3am, arriving at 7am in Melbourne, and I was in work by 9.30! (In body, at least - I was decidedly not there mentally for most of the day!)
All in all, an excellent holiday, marred only by the weather in the Bungles, and by that bloody American.
Spoken Highlights
"Poor little fucker."
"This is Qantas flight QF429."
"I thought your fingernails looked spotless."
"Pink."
"The family that squats together stays together."
"Do you know Lily?"
"Thunderbirds do the Beegees."
"Night Fever, Night Feeeeeeveeeeer."
"Jen, can you hop out? The trailer door's opened up again."
"I think I was up to about 46 by the time you jumped!"
"Did you move my tent?"
I have returned from my trip to the "last great wilderness" - not my words, but a reasonably accurate description of the Kimberley in northern WA. Nobody seems to be quite sure whether there's one or many Kimberleys - I've been corrected 3 times when I've said one or the other. I'm sticking with the singular version from now on - sounds nicer.
The Kimberley is really just a very large, almost empty section of Australia. For most of the first 5 days, we were travelling along the Gibb River Road, which was built to enable easier transportation of cattle from the various cattle stations in that area of the country to Wyndham, the nearest convenient port. I dread to think how they must have done it before the road was built, as it's basically just a 600-mile-long dirt track. This was about as good as it got. All that way and we didn't actually even see the Gibb River!
First real stop on day 1 (barring toilet breaks like the one in Derby, where there was one toilet for 15 people - until another bus of 30-odd turned up, then the blokes realised there were lots and lots of trees...) was lunch by a large pool in a creek. The Gibb River Road ran over a bridge over this creek where it entered the pool. It was, for some reason, a condition of travel with Western Xposure, that we jump into every pool of water from any available high thing nearby - 15 feet or so, didn't look too bad from beneath, quite scary from above! Second stop for the day was Tunnel Creek, a 1km tunnel all the way through a limestone escarpment carved by a creek. Hence the name! This was interesting, but not quite as spectacular as I'd been expecting. It was the hideout for a local Aboriginal "Ned Kelly" figure about 100 years ago, and we went into the area of the cave where he'd lived - totally dry at the moment (it being the Dry - see later), but filled with some quality, and very sparkly, stalactites and stalagmites.
We spent most nights at reasonably well-defined campsites, and the first night was a short hop from Tunnel Creek at Windjana Gorge, where it was suggested that we don't go wandering, as we might encounter crocodiles. The gorge is an amazing place - like several of the spots we visited, I would like to have spent more time there. Then on to Bell Gorge (in what became something of a theme - I think, on the original plan, we'd have seen at least one gorge per day!) This is one of the most well-known gorges in the Kimberley, and it was quite busy (relatively) - there were 4 or 5 other people there when we turned up. More swimming and jumping ensued. Then quite a bit more driving, till we got to ...
Manning River and Gorge, which was a lovely place. It was full of woollybutts, a beautiful flowering gum tree whose name I am unable to type correctly at first attempt, and boabs or bottle trees, which look like someone's attached a pump to a normal tree and left it to inflate for an hour. I was head chef for our first barbie (my first time in charge at an Aussie barbie!), and this was the site of our introduction to the Clinker game.
This needs some digression. The only Aussies on the trip were a 50-something couple who'd not grown up past about 25 - they were great! About 20 years ago, when their children were very young, they invented the Clinker game. Clinkers are an Australian sweet, which don't have a UK equivalent sweet I can say they're like - it's got a centre like a Malteser, but somewhat harder, is shaped like a rugby ball, and is coated in chocolate. The key to the game is that the centre comes in one of three colours, pink, green or yellow. So everyone sits in a circle and is given a Clinker, and takes it in turn to guess the colour of the centre, before biting it in half and revealing the centre to the adjudicator. Those who succeed in "becoming the Clinker" and getting the colour right advance to the next round, which repeats until either a draw (everyone in a round gets their colour wrong ... or the bag of Clinkers runs out!) or an outright victory (only one person in a round gets theirs right). At this point, they are crowned the Undisputed Clinker Master. At least until the next game starts.
Greg and Sue swear they're going to patent this game at some point!
The third day was my favourite of the whole trip. Firstly, we walked down to the river itself at the bottom end of the campsite. And then swam across it, towing our valuables in the conveniently-provided polystyrene boxes! Then an hour or so's slog across rocky outcrops and sandy soil, surrounded by ghost gums, till we reached Manning Gorge and its wonderful waterfall and swimming pool. (And jump-off point...) I found its rainbow, although couldn't get the camera there as it would have drowned, and spent a bit of time chatting to someone from Queensland who'd got there on a motorbike trip with his 2 mates, a third of the way round a 10-week tour of the northern coast of Oz. After we headed off from here, we stopped for lunch by Galvan's Gorge, the best place of the trip - plenty of swimming, rope-swinging (with the obligatory big splash in the water at the end) and waterfall massages. Plus Steve, the insane guide, jumped off the top of the waterfall - a jump of about 15m.
Then several hours of driving, till we reached our camp in the middle of the bush - weren't sure we'd be getting back out of it after Steve drove down to it off the road on a 30-odd degree gravel slope. Here we had al fresco toilet facilities, damper (aka bush bread) cooked by the fair hand of Steve, and honey and soy beef stir fry, cooked by the fair hand of me (I ended up in charge of food quite a few times!) - this almost ended in disaster, as we found out just in time that Anna was allergic to nuts. 100 miles from anywhere is not where you want someone to go into anaphylactic shock. We were surrounded by dingoes that night too, and we could hear them howling through the night.
At this point, I should mention the American. Richard. He was very definitely an American. Complaining about everything (including, as far as I could work out, the fact that there weren't many facilities at the campsites we were staying at - we were in the bloody Outback, you fool!) His wife, Jenny, was Scottish, and, to quote Steve, "not the brightest cookie in the jar." She's one of those people that need to be told everything about everything on a trip (the morning she spent in the driver's cab with Steve nearly ended with him killing her until he asked Anne Marie to swap with her). They insisted on placing their tent as far away from everyone else's as they could, and that really set the tone for them for the whole trip. He started to get on my nerves when I overheard him talking about me to some of the other people that night when I wasn't supposed to be able to hear - nothing bad in itself, but that sort of thing annoys me (and brought back memories of PV=nRT in Venezuela...) So he was off my Christmas card list from then on - and much of the subsequent days he moved himself further and further off it!
And so to day 4, and El Questro station. This is a former cattle station that's turned itself into a bit of a Wild West dude ranch, and gets so many visitors that I had a bit of a Beach moment at the bar that evening and had to go off back to the forest where we were camped out. It has some amazing things to see though - Zebedee Springs (yes, they have both the Magic Roundabout and a sense of humour here!) which are rock pools fed by hot springs, far too many gorges to count (of which we visited Amalia and had it to ourselves for over an hour) and the slowest taps in the world - Steve asked me to go fill our 50 litre water barrel. It took 40 minutes. And cold ginger beer too! Plenty of wildlife around, and it was here that I saw my first kookaburra.
Day 5, and the end of the Gibb River Road, and back to tarmac. A brief detour to Wyndham (spelt correctly, unlike the Gibb River signmakers) and the Five Rivers Lookout (Durack, King, Ord, Pentecost and ... another one), and a snack stop at Doon Doon roadhouse where I had the bittersweet experience of eating a Mrs Mac's Chilli and Cheese pie in 38C temperatures, then a long drive down to the Bungle Bungles. The national park in which they live is reached via a 50km dirt road that was in a lot worse state than the Gibb River Road. We stopped to have lunch by one of the fords across the various creeks the track crosses. Rangers station about 3.30 (having left the tarmac at about 12, with an hour or so for lunch).
The Bungles were, unfortunately, a washout. In 16 years, Steve claims never to have seen rain in May at the Bungles (this part of the world has two seasons, the Wet from Nov to mid-Apr, and the Dry from mid-Apr to Oct). 2 hours or so after we arrived (fortunately after we'd pitched the tents and got the fire going) it began to rain a little. Then a bit more. Then more. Then it started pissing it down. Then a bit more. Then... well, you get the idea. Most of the tents were about an inch deep in rainwater inside the tents the following morning, as the rain covers had bowed under the pressure of the rain, touched the inner tent, and leaked through. As the creeks were now at risk of flash floods, and the dirt track was in a bit of a state, the park was closed to both entrants and departees - we were stuck in there. At one point, there was even talk that it could be 4 or 5 days before we'd be permitted to leave! Still, it wasn't a complete write-off as far as the holiday went. With the exception of the American, we actually saw it as a bit of a bonding experience. The first night, we told ghost stories and played Shithead (an apparently universal card game, which I have now played on 4 different continents) on the bus.
On day 6, during a relatively long rain break, we played cricket with one of the groups in the neighbouring camps, set up a tarpaulin big enough for us all to be miserable together under, and played "Strand the Ants" (where you put a small rock covered in ants into the centre of a puddle, and see whether any of them can swim). There was also Blindfold Karaoke (which wasn't fun), Charades (which was) and Celebrity Heads (I was Victoria Beckham - "Am I an entertainer?" "Well, you'd like to think you are." gave me the answer!) by the campfire.
Day 7 dawned, and we got the go-ahead to leave, in convoy with everyone else staying in the park. A somewhat tense 3 hours later, and Steve pulled onto the tarmac to a round of applause. From there, we intended to make a 250km slog all the way to our campsite at Kununurra. However, a happy circumstance arose. As we stopped for lunch at a service station, we noticed helicopter flights over the Bungles were being run from just down the road. Enquiries were made. Affirmatives were received. We were going to see the Bungles! (And from a helicopter, my first time in one.) A fairly amazing (and stifling too - we'd asked for the doors to be left off, for better photos and more "realistic" experience, but the pilot obviously thought I would be cold in my T-shirt and shorts (temperatures were a frigid 24C - it was nearly the middle of winter, after all), so he put the heaters on! I was sweating like anything when we got out!) 45 minutes later, we landed again, happy to have seen the Bungles in some way. The night at Kununurra was punctuated by our trip to their carnival, at which we saw quite a good local band, and Anne Marie was asked if she knew Lily, who was also from Ireland.
Day 8, and dawn was, happily, spent by the side of Lake Kununurra, one of several artificial lakes resulting from damming projects in the area. First to Mirima National Park, which is similar to, but on a much smaller scale than, the Bungle Bungles. Then to a rum distillery (or hoochery - officially, as the guy who owns the place has patented that as a name for his outfit) where I did have a shot, and also an extremely nice slice of chocolate rum cake. Thence to Lake Argyle, a much bigger artificial lake, which is used for ... well, not much really. It was intended partly as a hydro power station and partly for agriculture, but neither have really taken off, so it's just a lake that contains 17 times as much water as Sydney Harbour sat in the middle of nowhere. (They're actually considering building a pipeline from it to Perth to help shore up the city's almost non-existent reservoirs - Perth's only about 2000 miles away.) Many semi-tame birds around, including these two who sat still and posed for us for a while. The rest of the day involved a fairly long drive to our final campsite, punctuated only by our entry into the Northern Territory, the only mainland state I hadn't visited before.
For our final night, we had another barbie, and I was head chef again. Some friendly rivalry ensued in the subsequent clinker game, with Steve having to cheat to keep up with me. In the end, I was crowned Undisputed Clinker Master (the only one of the trip, no less), so I did a lap of victory. Around Steve.
Our last day was not terribly exciting - we were about 600km from Darwin, where we needed to end up at, so it was mostly driving. We did stop for lunch and a swim at Edith Falls which was quite a nice place, but unremarkable by comparison to some of the other places we'd been. It did have a little river-rapids section though, and a blowhole where Steve scared Greg quite a bit! Darwin itself seemed a reasonably nice little town, but it's a lot smaller than York and you can walk around it in about 20 minutes - filled with backpackers, for some reason. This, actually, was a good thing, as it meant Michael and I (who were flying out of Darwin that night) could have showers ... once I asked the Scouse lady serving behind the desk in my best Netherton accent if it would be OK for us to use their showers, even if we weren't staying there. After a "night out on the town" with everyone else to say goodbye, Michael and I headed off to the airport. Once there, I tried to smuggle a penknife through the airport security scanners. Unwittingly - I could have sworn I'd put it in my main bag! This being Australia, they were relaxed about it, and gave me it back and suggested I go and check it in (in my rucksack) as hold baggage.
And that's where the holiday really came to an end. A 2am flight that was delayed till 3am, arriving at 7am in Melbourne, and I was in work by 9.30! (In body, at least - I was decidedly not there mentally for most of the day!)
All in all, an excellent holiday, marred only by the weather in the Bungles, and by that bloody American.
Spoken Highlights
"Poor little fucker."
"This is Qantas flight QF429."
"I thought your fingernails looked spotless."
"Pink."
"The family that squats together stays together."
"Do you know Lily?"
"Thunderbirds do the Beegees."
"Night Fever, Night Feeeeeeveeeeer."
"Jen, can you hop out? The trailer door's opened up again."
"I think I was up to about 46 by the time you jumped!"
"Did you move my tent?"
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Newsround
This from my brother - this guy was not someone I ever liked at school.
This from the looney-tunes news archive.
We came joint 4th in the company quiz last night, out of 12 teams. One reason for our downfall : "A smack or smock is the collective noun for which group of water-dwelling animals?" Our answer - hippopotamus. Really.
Other questions, for which we were glad the team was half-local, included "Name 5 of the 7 golf courses in Melbourne that begin with the letter K?", "In the children's story The Magic Pudding, which two animals stole the pudding : possum and koala, koala and wombat or wombat and possum?" and "Who won 4 of the first 5 Iron Man championships, and for a bonus point, what type of vegetable did he farm?"
This from the looney-tunes news archive.
We came joint 4th in the company quiz last night, out of 12 teams. One reason for our downfall : "A smack or smock is the collective noun for which group of water-dwelling animals?" Our answer - hippopotamus. Really.
Other questions, for which we were glad the team was half-local, included "Name 5 of the 7 golf courses in Melbourne that begin with the letter K?", "In the children's story The Magic Pudding, which two animals stole the pudding : possum and koala, koala and wombat or wombat and possum?" and "Who won 4 of the first 5 Iron Man championships, and for a bonus point, what type of vegetable did he farm?"
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Laughter Tracks
It's Melbourne's Comedy Festival this month, and I think this morning's tram driver was trying to drum up support for himself to be part of it. This came on the speaker as we were going past the hospital this morning :
"As you're exiting the tram, please watch out for all the crazy drivers who are in a mad rush to get to work. In the event that you fail to avoid a crazy driver, you may win a free stay at the lovely hotel you'll see to your left. Alternatively, you might win a trip to the coroner's office in a black zip-up bag."
Subtle difference #1749 - my local supermarket has 2 ways into the shopping area.
"As you're exiting the tram, please watch out for all the crazy drivers who are in a mad rush to get to work. In the event that you fail to avoid a crazy driver, you may win a free stay at the lovely hotel you'll see to your left. Alternatively, you might win a trip to the coroner's office in a black zip-up bag."
Subtle difference #1749 - my local supermarket has 2 ways into the shopping area.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Two Englishmen Abroad
Yes, it's true. I was joined for my weekend by another Englishman, who goes by the name of Psycho Hamster when he's not in real life.
We have had an absolutely excellent weekend. The weather's been perfect for all 4 days (including not a single cloud all day Saturday, and just one very small one that followed us for most of Sunday), and it's been in the late twenties the whole time. Great weather for walking in the windy Grampians. This is the autumn everyone's been promising me for months.
First and foremost, I should definitely give special mention to the car. I got a staff discount on the car rental, so went for a slightly higher-end car than I would normally have done, and we ended up with a Mitsubishi 380. Aka the sun mobile, the brightest car in the sky, or the monstrosity. It was a vivid metallic yellow. Not gold, yellow. We think one of the wild wallabies we saw was so confused at seeing the sun come round the corner towards it and brake sharply that it froze to stare.
That wasn't all, though. An insistent beeping was to be heard once we reached the freeway and I could put my foot down. I thought it was my phone saying no signal, but after turning that off, the beeping still occurred, and at somewhat irregular intervals. I finally noticed that it was a speed alarm, on the car! Going over 120 kmh (which has nothing to do with any Australian speed limits - they're all 110 or lower) set off the beeping, and a little indicator on the dashboard. An urgent flick through the manual, and we had that turned off. Back to breaking the law in relative silence.
But there was still more to come from the car. We'd been going about 2 hours, and I was starting to get a little tired, and we'd suggested swapping over shortly when there was a scenic route off through the hills. As if it had heard, the car told me to have a cup of coffee. Seriously. It had a warning alarm to stop you from driving for too long without a break. As I didn't really believe it, I took a photo :
We followed this up a bit later by inventing a tongue twister based on an Australian road sign - "Due to disdaining his doze, Dave the drowsy driver died a dreadful death." It's not very easy to say...
Friday and Saturday were spent walking in the Grampians. There are dozens of walks in the area, of varying degrees of difficulty and length, but a large number are closed at the moment because of recent bushfires. Still, all of the ones in the north of the park are open, so we visited Mackenzie Falls, Mount Stapylton, Silent Street and the Pinnacle. Good Friday came to a particularly good end with an accidental viewing of the Princess Bride and then to a Mexican restaurant in Horsham where they allowed me to pick the hotness of my chilli on a scale of 1 to 10. That was a good restaurant...
Saturday evening involved a spotlighting tour, not something I've ever done before. You go out into the bush with a torch and 10 of your closest (and hopefully quietest) friends, and hope desperately that you see some animal's eyes reflecting back at you out of the dark. It was, somewhat bemusingly, preceded by a Powerpoint presentation showing various animals and the sounds they make, in order to assist with our future recognition of said animals. However, it was not a good night - firstly, we discovered that Orion is called the Saucepan here. Secondly, our tally of animals spotted was :
1 ring-tailed possum
2 bats
5 golden orb spiders
1 wolf spider
I would have preferred to see none at all than the last one! Golden orb spiders are tiny. Wolf spiders are not.
Amazing view of the Milky Way on the way home, though.
Sunday started with us being undercharged for the hotel - $130 (about £55) for two nights. (This made it approximately 1/4 the price of Sunday's motel!) Then a good drive south to the coast via several one- and, in some cases, even no-horse towns. This is what driving in Australia is supposed to be like - perfectly straight roads that take you from where you are to where you want to go without anything else to worry about, like turning your wheel, or other cars.
We arrived at Warrnambool about lunchtime, stopped for a quick pizza, and then headed on to the road again. The rest of the afternoon, driving along the Great Ocean Road on what turned out to be the 75th anniversary of its opening, was a little strange. I've been there before, and 2 years ago, I would never have seriously expected that one day it'd be a 2 hour drive away, rather than a 24-hour flight. I also kept getting reminders of the previous trip, including seeing the same drivers of the bus company I went with 2 years ago, and accidentally eating tea in the same place I'd had lunch in last time. It was as good as I remember it, if an awful lot more busy in places (12 Apostles being a case in point). I'm going to put together a Flickr "Before and After" photo gallery, as the two days are quite a contrast in terms of sea and lighting conditions.
On the way back yesterday, we stopped at Kennet River, a place I'd seen koalas here in 2005. Sure enough, they were still here - 10 or 12 of them that we saw. Then to Erskine Falls ("best after rain" - they weren't wrong. Since it hasn't really rained here for about 3 months ... well, "Falls" was probably false advertising.) Aireys Inlet was a random stop, which became much more rewarding when we found out the lighthouse we'd decided to visit there was where they filmed Round the Twist. We also tried to go and see the surfing championships at Bells Beach, but as it was such a calm day, there was nothing happening.
And then back home, for about 5 pm, leaving Psycho Hamster to drive the monstrosity back to the airport and thence catch his plane home to Sydney.
We have had an absolutely excellent weekend. The weather's been perfect for all 4 days (including not a single cloud all day Saturday, and just one very small one that followed us for most of Sunday), and it's been in the late twenties the whole time. Great weather for walking in the windy Grampians. This is the autumn everyone's been promising me for months.
First and foremost, I should definitely give special mention to the car. I got a staff discount on the car rental, so went for a slightly higher-end car than I would normally have done, and we ended up with a Mitsubishi 380. Aka the sun mobile, the brightest car in the sky, or the monstrosity. It was a vivid metallic yellow. Not gold, yellow. We think one of the wild wallabies we saw was so confused at seeing the sun come round the corner towards it and brake sharply that it froze to stare.
That wasn't all, though. An insistent beeping was to be heard once we reached the freeway and I could put my foot down. I thought it was my phone saying no signal, but after turning that off, the beeping still occurred, and at somewhat irregular intervals. I finally noticed that it was a speed alarm, on the car! Going over 120 kmh (which has nothing to do with any Australian speed limits - they're all 110 or lower) set off the beeping, and a little indicator on the dashboard. An urgent flick through the manual, and we had that turned off. Back to breaking the law in relative silence.
But there was still more to come from the car. We'd been going about 2 hours, and I was starting to get a little tired, and we'd suggested swapping over shortly when there was a scenic route off through the hills. As if it had heard, the car told me to have a cup of coffee. Seriously. It had a warning alarm to stop you from driving for too long without a break. As I didn't really believe it, I took a photo :
We followed this up a bit later by inventing a tongue twister based on an Australian road sign - "Due to disdaining his doze, Dave the drowsy driver died a dreadful death." It's not very easy to say...
Friday and Saturday were spent walking in the Grampians. There are dozens of walks in the area, of varying degrees of difficulty and length, but a large number are closed at the moment because of recent bushfires. Still, all of the ones in the north of the park are open, so we visited Mackenzie Falls, Mount Stapylton, Silent Street and the Pinnacle. Good Friday came to a particularly good end with an accidental viewing of the Princess Bride and then to a Mexican restaurant in Horsham where they allowed me to pick the hotness of my chilli on a scale of 1 to 10. That was a good restaurant...
Saturday evening involved a spotlighting tour, not something I've ever done before. You go out into the bush with a torch and 10 of your closest (and hopefully quietest) friends, and hope desperately that you see some animal's eyes reflecting back at you out of the dark. It was, somewhat bemusingly, preceded by a Powerpoint presentation showing various animals and the sounds they make, in order to assist with our future recognition of said animals. However, it was not a good night - firstly, we discovered that Orion is called the Saucepan here. Secondly, our tally of animals spotted was :
I would have preferred to see none at all than the last one! Golden orb spiders are tiny. Wolf spiders are not.
Amazing view of the Milky Way on the way home, though.
Sunday started with us being undercharged for the hotel - $130 (about £55) for two nights. (This made it approximately 1/4 the price of Sunday's motel!) Then a good drive south to the coast via several one- and, in some cases, even no-horse towns. This is what driving in Australia is supposed to be like - perfectly straight roads that take you from where you are to where you want to go without anything else to worry about, like turning your wheel, or other cars.
We arrived at Warrnambool about lunchtime, stopped for a quick pizza, and then headed on to the road again. The rest of the afternoon, driving along the Great Ocean Road on what turned out to be the 75th anniversary of its opening, was a little strange. I've been there before, and 2 years ago, I would never have seriously expected that one day it'd be a 2 hour drive away, rather than a 24-hour flight. I also kept getting reminders of the previous trip, including seeing the same drivers of the bus company I went with 2 years ago, and accidentally eating tea in the same place I'd had lunch in last time. It was as good as I remember it, if an awful lot more busy in places (12 Apostles being a case in point). I'm going to put together a Flickr "Before and After" photo gallery, as the two days are quite a contrast in terms of sea and lighting conditions.
On the way back yesterday, we stopped at Kennet River, a place I'd seen koalas here in 2005. Sure enough, they were still here - 10 or 12 of them that we saw. Then to Erskine Falls ("best after rain" - they weren't wrong. Since it hasn't really rained here for about 3 months ... well, "Falls" was probably false advertising.) Aireys Inlet was a random stop, which became much more rewarding when we found out the lighthouse we'd decided to visit there was where they filmed Round the Twist. We also tried to go and see the surfing championships at Bells Beach, but as it was such a calm day, there was nothing happening.
And then back home, for about 5 pm, leaving Psycho Hamster to drive the monstrosity back to the airport and thence catch his plane home to Sydney.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
The Art of Conversation Lives On
Mark "Hello, Western Exposure, this is Mark speaking."
Chris "Hello, I'm calling about a booking I made at the weekend for one of your Broome-Darwin tours. I mistyped the e-mail address, so I'm ringing to find out what's going on with the booking."
Mark "Oh, hi, it's Chris isn't it? Yeah, I've booked that for you already."
Chris [surprised pause] "Yes, that's me. That's good news, but I haven't actually had an e-mail about it yet, though."
Mark "Oh, have you not? Hmmm. I thought I'd sent you one - I remember doing something with it on Sunday morning, but I had had a few beers the night before. Or maybe it was Monday. I'd had a few beers that night too."
Chris [suppressing giggles] "Oh, OK. I'll have another look for it.... No, I've had nothing."
Mark "Ah well, I remember sending the e-mail off to your wrong address, then opening the next one in our inbox and that was from you with the right address - you'd swapped a G for an E, hadn't you? Maybe I didn't send the second one - sorry about that."
Chris "You have a pretty good memory considering you'd had a few beers!"
Mark "Ah cheers mate. I also charged your credit card a bit early - we're only supposed to do that 4 weeks before. I probably shouldn't have done that."
Chris "Well, that's all right - it's only a week or so early."
Mark "The PC that stuff all lives on has been put to sleep for the night so I'll get on to sending you another e-mail out first thing tomorrow."
Chris "Excellent, thanks - hope tonight's beers are great for you."
Mark "Sure they will be, mate!"
That's not quite verbatim, but it isn't too far off! I put the phone down and collapsed in fits of laughter.
The aforementioned trip is this one, and I'm going in the middle of May, when I'm not likely to get myself either roasted alive or drowned in a flash flood. As far as I'm concerned, the two main highlights are visiting the Bungle Bungles, something I can remember wanting to do since Helen Daniels went there in Neighbours, and driving through a town called Humpty Doo. After this, I'll only have one state left that I haven't yet visited - Tasmania. That one I need to save for next summer, though, as it has a decidedly British climate for most of the rest of the year.
On a holiday theme with this post, Colm and I are going to do a bit of a grand tour of Victoria over the Easter weekend. We're off to the Grampians, to do plenty of walking and animal-spotting (although I've just discovered that due to bushfires in the area last year, many of the walks I'd most wanted to do are closed - can't go here or here (main photo) for example). Then we'll drive back to Melbourne along the coast, taking in the Great Ocean Road and a couple of state parks along the way. Likely exhausting (it'll be somewhere around 1000 km of driving) but fun!
Chris "Hello, I'm calling about a booking I made at the weekend for one of your Broome-Darwin tours. I mistyped the e-mail address, so I'm ringing to find out what's going on with the booking."
Mark "Oh, hi, it's Chris isn't it? Yeah, I've booked that for you already."
Chris [surprised pause] "Yes, that's me. That's good news, but I haven't actually had an e-mail about it yet, though."
Mark "Oh, have you not? Hmmm. I thought I'd sent you one - I remember doing something with it on Sunday morning, but I had had a few beers the night before. Or maybe it was Monday. I'd had a few beers that night too."
Chris [suppressing giggles] "Oh, OK. I'll have another look for it.... No, I've had nothing."
Mark "Ah well, I remember sending the e-mail off to your wrong address, then opening the next one in our inbox and that was from you with the right address - you'd swapped a G for an E, hadn't you? Maybe I didn't send the second one - sorry about that."
Chris "You have a pretty good memory considering you'd had a few beers!"
Mark "Ah cheers mate. I also charged your credit card a bit early - we're only supposed to do that 4 weeks before. I probably shouldn't have done that."
Chris "Well, that's all right - it's only a week or so early."
Mark "The PC that stuff all lives on has been put to sleep for the night so I'll get on to sending you another e-mail out first thing tomorrow."
Chris "Excellent, thanks - hope tonight's beers are great for you."
Mark "Sure they will be, mate!"
That's not quite verbatim, but it isn't too far off! I put the phone down and collapsed in fits of laughter.
The aforementioned trip is this one, and I'm going in the middle of May, when I'm not likely to get myself either roasted alive or drowned in a flash flood. As far as I'm concerned, the two main highlights are visiting the Bungle Bungles, something I can remember wanting to do since Helen Daniels went there in Neighbours, and driving through a town called Humpty Doo. After this, I'll only have one state left that I haven't yet visited - Tasmania. That one I need to save for next summer, though, as it has a decidedly British climate for most of the rest of the year.
On a holiday theme with this post, Colm and I are going to do a bit of a grand tour of Victoria over the Easter weekend. We're off to the Grampians, to do plenty of walking and animal-spotting (although I've just discovered that due to bushfires in the area last year, many of the walks I'd most wanted to do are closed - can't go here or here (main photo) for example). Then we'll drive back to Melbourne along the coast, taking in the Great Ocean Road and a couple of state parks along the way. Likely exhausting (it'll be somewhere around 1000 km of driving) but fun!
Monday, March 19, 2007
If You Can't Beat 'Em
Australian - English "Business Speak" Dictionary
(with Australian on the left)
"All over" (syn. "all across") (adj) = "Up to speed on"
"Catch up with" (v) = "Have a meeting with"
"Present" (v) = "Tell", "Say", "Discuss", "Communicate" (NB - "present" is frequently used as an intransitive verb ... e.g. "Richard's not here for next month's meeting, so I'll have to present instead.")
"would quite like" (v) = "must not fail to provide, upon pain of sacking" (NB - for added emphasis, "would really like" can be used)
"war story" (n) = "past example to illustrate discussion point"
"extrenuous" (adj) = "extraneous" (this might be just one particular person saying this one - it's starting to be on a par with "Where are the model points?" for me)
"objective criteria" (n) = "whoever shouts loudest / has most influence / asks most politely"
"solved problem" (n) = "problem which has been looked at in a cursory manner and a possible solution has been suggested, but which will take many months to actually implement and requires significant further work before a complete answer can be given" (Personal gripe here. A quote from Friday : "Chris has solved problem X." Chris's version : "Chris has identified a problem exists, and has been able to find one thing which explains around 25% of the error, but has many disagreeing sources of data to reconcile (5 - all different but purporting to be the same!) before he can progress any further towards deciding which one, if any, is actually right." Fine if this means I get credit for doing a fraction of the work needed, but there's an obvious catch to that if the problem occurs again.)
Some other things I've found odd or difficult to get to grips with.
It's dark when I get up in the morning now! (I know this happens in England too, but because of when I came here, and the fact I used to get up later in the UK, it's been about a year since it last happened to me.)
The heat. It's not nearly as bad as it was in Jan and Feb, but now it's more the way it builds throughout the day. Many times I've noticed that it's hotter when I'm leaving the office in the early evening than it was at lunchtime, and once or twice, it's been hotter still at sunset.
Personal space. Hadn't really noticed this one till the last few weeks, but Australians, while their "default" personal space is of a similar size to that in Britain, they're relatively uncaring if that does get invaded. Several times people have brushed against my hand in a way that would probably have led to a criminal investigation if I'd initiated it. One guy appeared not to even see me until he banged his head on my chin when the tram braked sharply. And tonight's jam-packed tram, where the driver had to ask some people to get off and take the next tram because he couldn't close the doors, was quite unbelievable.
Spiders. Saw my first significantly-sized one in the house on Saturday, and was surprisingly unmoved by it. Would have been a different story if it had been this one however! (Jumping?!)
And finally...I think I'm safe from being evicted if the landlord sells the house, as is his current intention. He showed some people round today (which gave me a good incentive to finally unpack everything and give the place a good tidy!) and gave me the impression there are several others on the way. According to my reading of the tenancy agreement and of the stuff I was given when I moved in, I don't think the agreement can be ended before its official end date unless I'm a bad tenant.
(with Australian on the left)
"All over" (syn. "all across") (adj) = "Up to speed on"
"Catch up with" (v) = "Have a meeting with"
"Present" (v) = "Tell", "Say", "Discuss", "Communicate" (NB - "present" is frequently used as an intransitive verb ... e.g. "Richard's not here for next month's meeting, so I'll have to present instead.")
"would quite like" (v) = "must not fail to provide, upon pain of sacking" (NB - for added emphasis, "would really like" can be used)
"war story" (n) = "past example to illustrate discussion point"
"extrenuous" (adj) = "extraneous" (this might be just one particular person saying this one - it's starting to be on a par with "Where are the model points?" for me)
"objective criteria" (n) = "whoever shouts loudest / has most influence / asks most politely"
"solved problem" (n) = "problem which has been looked at in a cursory manner and a possible solution has been suggested, but which will take many months to actually implement and requires significant further work before a complete answer can be given" (Personal gripe here. A quote from Friday : "Chris has solved problem X." Chris's version : "Chris has identified a problem exists, and has been able to find one thing which explains around 25% of the error, but has many disagreeing sources of data to reconcile (5 - all different but purporting to be the same!) before he can progress any further towards deciding which one, if any, is actually right." Fine if this means I get credit for doing a fraction of the work needed, but there's an obvious catch to that if the problem occurs again.)
Some other things I've found odd or difficult to get to grips with.
And finally...I think I'm safe from being evicted if the landlord sells the house, as is his current intention. He showed some people round today (which gave me a good incentive to finally unpack everything and give the place a good tidy!) and gave me the impression there are several others on the way. According to my reading of the tenancy agreement and of the stuff I was given when I moved in, I don't think the agreement can be ended before its official end date unless I'm a bad tenant.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Post Script
People in Australia say nice things about you when you've had a haircut. They don't point and say "Haircut! Haircut!" like they do in the UK.
They also do odd things like knock on your door on a Sunday morning, and ask if you'd like to sub-let your garage to a friend.
Long weekend again this weekend, only this time it's a freebie - Monday is a public holiday, Labour Day. (For some reason, despite the fact that Australians spell all the -out words correctly, you also see Labor as a valid spelling a lot - one of the two main political parties (currently in opposition) is the Labor Party, who have somehow lost their U.) Each of the states has one or more unique public holidays - this one is technically an Australia-wide one, but it's on different days in different states. Tassie and Victoria have it next week (although Tassie calls it, somewhat inaccurately, Eight Hours Day), Western Australia had it this week, Queensland and Northern Territory have it in May, and it's in October for the other three states, NSW, ACT and South Australia.
Educational!
They also do odd things like knock on your door on a Sunday morning, and ask if you'd like to sub-let your garage to a friend.
Long weekend again this weekend, only this time it's a freebie - Monday is a public holiday, Labour Day. (For some reason, despite the fact that Australians spell all the -out words correctly, you also see Labor as a valid spelling a lot - one of the two main political parties (currently in opposition) is the Labor Party, who have somehow lost their U.) Each of the states has one or more unique public holidays - this one is technically an Australia-wide one, but it's on different days in different states. Tassie and Victoria have it next week (although Tassie calls it, somewhat inaccurately, Eight Hours Day), Western Australia had it this week, Queensland and Northern Territory have it in May, and it's in October for the other three states, NSW, ACT and South Australia.
Educational!
Monday, March 05, 2007
Break of Day
A brief celebratory post - I have just watched the final episode of the excellent, well-written and involving mini-series Day Break. This confirms one of the reasons I don't bother to have a TV - this, one of the few series I really enjoy watching, gets cancelled halfway through its run. Thank goodness they'd filmed the whole thing before it was canned, and for once an American media company thought it was a good idea to release a program on the Web.
Watch it as soon as you can.
Watch it as soon as you can.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
A Load Off My Mind
My first ever haircut abroad. As has now become usual over the last 4 months, it's the little differences that stand out.
I've only ever had my hair cut in four different places (no, not fringe, top, back and sides, the other kind of places) - a barber in Burscough, one in Ormskirk and two in York. Even when I was at Uni, I used to go back to the same place in Burscough to get it done - always easier when you don't have to describe what you want doing, and can just say "The usual, please."
Firstly, the barber (and, I assume, his wife, who was also cutting hair in the place) was foreign. And not just foreign like me, really foreign (I'd guess Polish or Czech from the language and how they looked). This reminded me vaguely of the first of the two places I went to in York, namely the Mediterranean Barber's on Goodramgate. Given this guy had a beard, I didn't expect to be offered a blowtorch-based shave like I was in York.
The conversation on sitting down in the chair began as normal. Didn't follow quite its usual path though :
"How do you want it?"
{describes desired haircut}
"You want it cut with scissors?"
{pause} "Yes please."
At this point, he pulled a few sheets off the toilet roll that was sat at the back of the chair, and wrapped them round my neck, then covered me with the usual tent-like thing to protect me from my own hair.
A significant plus point in his favour was that he didn't attempt to engage me in conversation. I'd prepared myself for the expected gregarious Aussie, with enough innocuous and inoffensive chatter to see me through 20 minutes or so of haircutting. Not needed for this dour Eastern European - he spoke only to clarify a few things in terms of how I wanted my hair doing.
Looking around, needing something to do with my eyes, I spotted the ultraviolet steriliser and the macassar hair oil. Yes, I had been transported back to the 1950s!
After I'd said I was happy with the cut, two odd things then ensued.
Firstly, he got a metal comb/brush contraption out and started to rub it quite hard through my hair while pointind a hairdryer at it. This was somewhat painful - he was pressing quite hard, and it was quite sharp - but I think it worked quite well. Very few bits of hair left over when I walked out - usually I'm still finding bits of hair around my clothes the following day.
The other piece of weirdness, something I still don't understand, was he put some powder onto a brush (shaped like a giant shaving brush attached to a milk bottle) and proceeded to rub it quite hard into the back and sides of my neck. Any ideas?
The prices were also somewhat 1950s - I think it's about 10 years since I paid that little for a haircut. $17! (That's less than £7.)
And last but not least - as a result of my haircut, temperatures have now fallen around Victoria to a pleasant (but not haircut-inducing) 22C. Autumn is nearly here.
I've only ever had my hair cut in four different places (no, not fringe, top, back and sides, the other kind of places) - a barber in Burscough, one in Ormskirk and two in York. Even when I was at Uni, I used to go back to the same place in Burscough to get it done - always easier when you don't have to describe what you want doing, and can just say "The usual, please."
Firstly, the barber (and, I assume, his wife, who was also cutting hair in the place) was foreign. And not just foreign like me, really foreign (I'd guess Polish or Czech from the language and how they looked). This reminded me vaguely of the first of the two places I went to in York, namely the Mediterranean Barber's on Goodramgate. Given this guy had a beard, I didn't expect to be offered a blowtorch-based shave like I was in York.
The conversation on sitting down in the chair began as normal. Didn't follow quite its usual path though :
"How do you want it?"
{describes desired haircut}
"You want it cut with scissors?"
{pause} "Yes please."
At this point, he pulled a few sheets off the toilet roll that was sat at the back of the chair, and wrapped them round my neck, then covered me with the usual tent-like thing to protect me from my own hair.
A significant plus point in his favour was that he didn't attempt to engage me in conversation. I'd prepared myself for the expected gregarious Aussie, with enough innocuous and inoffensive chatter to see me through 20 minutes or so of haircutting. Not needed for this dour Eastern European - he spoke only to clarify a few things in terms of how I wanted my hair doing.
Looking around, needing something to do with my eyes, I spotted the ultraviolet steriliser and the macassar hair oil. Yes, I had been transported back to the 1950s!
After I'd said I was happy with the cut, two odd things then ensued.
Firstly, he got a metal comb/brush contraption out and started to rub it quite hard through my hair while pointind a hairdryer at it. This was somewhat painful - he was pressing quite hard, and it was quite sharp - but I think it worked quite well. Very few bits of hair left over when I walked out - usually I'm still finding bits of hair around my clothes the following day.
The other piece of weirdness, something I still don't understand, was he put some powder onto a brush (shaped like a giant shaving brush attached to a milk bottle) and proceeded to rub it quite hard into the back and sides of my neck. Any ideas?
The prices were also somewhat 1950s - I think it's about 10 years since I paid that little for a haircut. $17! (That's less than £7.)
And last but not least - as a result of my haircut, temperatures have now fallen around Victoria to a pleasant (but not haircut-inducing) 22C. Autumn is nearly here.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
The Red Rag
An e-mail I received today :
Over the years, Allied Pickfords has built a reputation for quality by listening and responding to the needs and expectations of our customers. We understand that the days and weeks following an international move are busy for our customers as they settle into their new homes, but we ask that you take a few minutes out of your busy day to provide us with feedback following your move.
The drivers, packers, sales, and office staffs that planned, packed, transported, and delivered your move are proud of the work they do and are interested to hear your comments. We will pass on praise and investigate criticism in order to help us continue to make enhancements to the overall quality of our international moving services.
Thank you in advance for your comments and thanks again for using Allied Pickfords for your international move.
I might spread the reply to this one over a few days - don't want to have too much fun all at once.
Over the years, Allied Pickfords has built a reputation for quality by listening and responding to the needs and expectations of our customers. We understand that the days and weeks following an international move are busy for our customers as they settle into their new homes, but we ask that you take a few minutes out of your busy day to provide us with feedback following your move.
The drivers, packers, sales, and office staffs that planned, packed, transported, and delivered your move are proud of the work they do and are interested to hear your comments. We will pass on praise and investigate criticism in order to help us continue to make enhancements to the overall quality of our international moving services.
Thank you in advance for your comments and thanks again for using Allied Pickfords for your international move.
I might spread the reply to this one over a few days - don't want to have too much fun all at once.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Out and About
400 kilometres I've driven today! I'm a little bit sleepy now. It's been a really good day, despite the usual few near-fiascos. Weather was perfect - very sunny, but with a strong cool wind, so it's only been early twenties all day, which is far better for being outdoors than the last few weekends. Of course, it does mean all the Aussies wear heavy coats, which is still quite funny to see (although I'm sure I look like someone from Newcastle out on the town to them!)
First fiasco was not getting to Hanging Rock yesterday (which, as I shall soon relate, actually turned into a separate fiasco of its own). The computer desk I bought in Ikea on Friday was just a little too big to fit into the car, no matter how many ways I tried to angle it. So I had to get it delivered. I wasn't too fussed about that, as I'd managed to get into the 8-12 time slot. At 2.20, they turned up unapologetically and dropped my stuff off. I could probably have gone out at that point, but I was feeling tired from having been woken up by the leafblowing man across the street at 7.45.
So, today began more successfully, and after a couple of wrong turns in Melbourne itself and parking up to look at the Melways, first real stop was Hanging Rock. This appears to be turning into a new Top Gun for me (was 2003 before I finally saw the film, despite having tried several times in the 15 or so intervening years since its release). I hope it's not going to be as much of a let-down as that was! Today was the day The Age, the Melbourne newspaper, had decided to hold its annual Picnic at Hanging Rock celebratory picnic, it being almost (but not quite!) the nearest Sunday to the date on which the schoolgirls purportedly disappeared. That meant about somewhere between 5 and 10 thousand other people converging on the same spot, and them charging $18 just to get in (normally $5) and the cafe was closed so I wouldn't even have been able to eat anything. Back to the car...
So then to the Organ Pipes National Park. An unfortunate position barely half a kilometre from the freeway, and less than a kilometre from a drag-racing track, means the park isn't quite the idyll of peace and tranquillity you get from the average UK national park, but it's still very pretty - kind of a dry-land Giant's Causeway, with the same underlying geological cause. Here's my take on the pipes themselves :
And finally, Portsea. Unfortunately, I didn't get to Point Nepean, overlooking the Rip, as it was closed by the time I arrived. However, there are two strongly contrasting beaches to enjoy - Back Beach and Bay Beach. The Bay Beach is utterly calm, barely a ripple, and the 100m jetty out into Port Phillip Bay allows you to see how clear the water is - you can see right to the bottom. Back Beach is a little different. Facing out onto Bass Strait, it's filled with powerful currents, big rollers and spray everywhere (mmmm, salty beard) - not a place to go swimming (and it was only a mile or so away that Harold Holt, whom I mentioned the other day, lost his life). Pretty exclusive place (as the Wikipedia shows, average house prices are around £400K, and it's the most affluent postcode in the whole country). There were 5 houses just along the main street with tennis courts in the gardens, and one house that's one of the most fascinating I've ever seen - it was laid out rising up a gently-sloping hill, and all glass, with a staircase running inside along the whole length of the house - being glass, you could see the whole staircase. Looked like a fairly novelly-designed house.
Aussieisms I've picked up today. Provincial doesn't have any negative connotations here - it's a commonly-used food adjective, and means something similar to the way we'd use "country," like "country vegetable soup". Then there's the marketing-spin-inspired sale justification "carbon-damaged" - i.e. fire damage. Also saw a sign warning me that tiredness can kill, so I should stop and have a 15-minute powernap.
So now I'm going to finish off my road trip by having 30 or so consecutive powernaps.
First fiasco was not getting to Hanging Rock yesterday (which, as I shall soon relate, actually turned into a separate fiasco of its own). The computer desk I bought in Ikea on Friday was just a little too big to fit into the car, no matter how many ways I tried to angle it. So I had to get it delivered. I wasn't too fussed about that, as I'd managed to get into the 8-12 time slot. At 2.20, they turned up unapologetically and dropped my stuff off. I could probably have gone out at that point, but I was feeling tired from having been woken up by the leafblowing man across the street at 7.45.
So, today began more successfully, and after a couple of wrong turns in Melbourne itself and parking up to look at the Melways, first real stop was Hanging Rock. This appears to be turning into a new Top Gun for me (was 2003 before I finally saw the film, despite having tried several times in the 15 or so intervening years since its release). I hope it's not going to be as much of a let-down as that was! Today was the day The Age, the Melbourne newspaper, had decided to hold its annual Picnic at Hanging Rock celebratory picnic, it being almost (but not quite!) the nearest Sunday to the date on which the schoolgirls purportedly disappeared. That meant about somewhere between 5 and 10 thousand other people converging on the same spot, and them charging $18 just to get in (normally $5) and the cafe was closed so I wouldn't even have been able to eat anything. Back to the car...
So then to the Organ Pipes National Park. An unfortunate position barely half a kilometre from the freeway, and less than a kilometre from a drag-racing track, means the park isn't quite the idyll of peace and tranquillity you get from the average UK national park, but it's still very pretty - kind of a dry-land Giant's Causeway, with the same underlying geological cause. Here's my take on the pipes themselves :
And finally, Portsea. Unfortunately, I didn't get to Point Nepean, overlooking the Rip, as it was closed by the time I arrived. However, there are two strongly contrasting beaches to enjoy - Back Beach and Bay Beach. The Bay Beach is utterly calm, barely a ripple, and the 100m jetty out into Port Phillip Bay allows you to see how clear the water is - you can see right to the bottom. Back Beach is a little different. Facing out onto Bass Strait, it's filled with powerful currents, big rollers and spray everywhere (mmmm, salty beard) - not a place to go swimming (and it was only a mile or so away that Harold Holt, whom I mentioned the other day, lost his life). Pretty exclusive place (as the Wikipedia shows, average house prices are around £400K, and it's the most affluent postcode in the whole country). There were 5 houses just along the main street with tennis courts in the gardens, and one house that's one of the most fascinating I've ever seen - it was laid out rising up a gently-sloping hill, and all glass, with a staircase running inside along the whole length of the house - being glass, you could see the whole staircase. Looked like a fairly novelly-designed house.
Aussieisms I've picked up today. Provincial doesn't have any negative connotations here - it's a commonly-used food adjective, and means something similar to the way we'd use "country," like "country vegetable soup". Then there's the marketing-spin-inspired sale justification "carbon-damaged" - i.e. fire damage. Also saw a sign warning me that tiredness can kill, so I should stop and have a 15-minute powernap.
So now I'm going to finish off my road trip by having 30 or so consecutive powernaps.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Bright Ideas
The Blair UK government is well-known for its idiotic ideas. On-the-spot fines where you would be frogmarched to the nearest ATM. The A* grade in GCSEs. The Millennium Dome. Harriet Harman.
The Aussie government appears to be competing with them. From 2010, it will no longer be possible to buy the traditional incandescent light bulb. Only the fluorescent energy-saver bulbs will be on sale. This is expected to reduce the country's carbon emissions by, if I use the most optimistic estimate I could find, as much as 0.1%.
I'm somewhat torn over this one. While I do think we should be doing our best not to completely strip the planet of its resources before we've figured out where we can get refills, I would think that there are other things that could be encouraged to help with this. E.g. charging shops and offices high electricity rates after normal opening hours, so they're not encouraged to leave all their lights blazing because it might deter a burglar and it "doesn't cost much". The sooner economists come up with a sensible measure to replace GDP that factors in intangible costs the better.
(I also noticed this was in the news today, so it appears that they're also not averse to plagiarism.)
Plans for the long weekend - I'm using up one of my time-off-in-lieu days I got for working silly hours in January :
- Visit some gardening stores and buy a garden table and some local plants (local, hence drought-resistant ... I can only water my plants on Tuesday, Thursday and alternating Saturday nights, as I live in an even-numbered house. This is not a joke - see above re crazy Aussie ideas.)
- Visit furniture stores, to purchase a bed, a dining table and chairs and a sofa (which will largely complete my arrival, at least in a purely materialistic sense. Might think about getting a telly at some point in the future, but I'm really not missing having one)
- Visit Hanging Rock, something I failed to do a few weeks ago. (One of my colleagues told me a story which is probably only amusing if you've seen the film or are at least vaguely aware of the legend. She and some of her friends once went there dressed as Victorian schoolgirls, didn't realise the park closed at 5 so happily carried on walking, and the rangers found them after a major search 2 hours later. Well, I laughed!)
- Visit some other local tourist spot, which I haven't decided on yet. Might be The Rip - the entrance to Port Phillip Bay, on which Melbourne stands, one of the most dangerous stretches of coast in the country, and also where an Aussie prime minister named Harold vanished while swimming. (The disappearance of Harold Bishop was definitely a case of art imitating life, though, as the real Harold, Harold Holt, disappeared in 1967.)
My stuff did arrive on 7th Feb. Mostly, anyway. There were 3 mishaps. In increasing order of irritation - first, my stereo had been slightly dented on the top but remained perfectly functional, second, a corner about 2 inches long broke off my coffee table and third, they lost one of my packages altogether. Of the 24 packages they shipped, it was definitely the "best" one they could have lost - all it was was a sheet of plywood which formed the back of my flat-pack bookcase, and fortunately they sell wood over here, I've seen it advertised.
Stupid newspaper statistics misuse #1379845 - see the 22 Feb item here. Will people ever understand probability?
And to finish, a last memory of Venezuela - my tentmate Mark, a photographer and travel journalist by night (by day he works as tech support for a major insurance company), wrote this article on the trip. If you look carefully, you can see me swimming in one of the photos (if I'm honest, you really need to know that it's me there in the first place!) Note also the scary three-armed fruit-seller.
The Aussie government appears to be competing with them. From 2010, it will no longer be possible to buy the traditional incandescent light bulb. Only the fluorescent energy-saver bulbs will be on sale. This is expected to reduce the country's carbon emissions by, if I use the most optimistic estimate I could find, as much as 0.1%.
I'm somewhat torn over this one. While I do think we should be doing our best not to completely strip the planet of its resources before we've figured out where we can get refills, I would think that there are other things that could be encouraged to help with this. E.g. charging shops and offices high electricity rates after normal opening hours, so they're not encouraged to leave all their lights blazing because it might deter a burglar and it "doesn't cost much". The sooner economists come up with a sensible measure to replace GDP that factors in intangible costs the better.
(I also noticed this was in the news today, so it appears that they're also not averse to plagiarism.)
Plans for the long weekend - I'm using up one of my time-off-in-lieu days I got for working silly hours in January :
- Visit some gardening stores and buy a garden table and some local plants (local, hence drought-resistant ... I can only water my plants on Tuesday, Thursday and alternating Saturday nights, as I live in an even-numbered house. This is not a joke - see above re crazy Aussie ideas.)
- Visit furniture stores, to purchase a bed, a dining table and chairs and a sofa (which will largely complete my arrival, at least in a purely materialistic sense. Might think about getting a telly at some point in the future, but I'm really not missing having one)
- Visit Hanging Rock, something I failed to do a few weeks ago. (One of my colleagues told me a story which is probably only amusing if you've seen the film or are at least vaguely aware of the legend. She and some of her friends once went there dressed as Victorian schoolgirls, didn't realise the park closed at 5 so happily carried on walking, and the rangers found them after a major search 2 hours later. Well, I laughed!)
- Visit some other local tourist spot, which I haven't decided on yet. Might be The Rip - the entrance to Port Phillip Bay, on which Melbourne stands, one of the most dangerous stretches of coast in the country, and also where an Aussie prime minister named Harold vanished while swimming. (The disappearance of Harold Bishop was definitely a case of art imitating life, though, as the real Harold, Harold Holt, disappeared in 1967.)
My stuff did arrive on 7th Feb. Mostly, anyway. There were 3 mishaps. In increasing order of irritation - first, my stereo had been slightly dented on the top but remained perfectly functional, second, a corner about 2 inches long broke off my coffee table and third, they lost one of my packages altogether. Of the 24 packages they shipped, it was definitely the "best" one they could have lost - all it was was a sheet of plywood which formed the back of my flat-pack bookcase, and fortunately they sell wood over here, I've seen it advertised.
Stupid newspaper statistics misuse #1379845 - see the 22 Feb item here. Will people ever understand probability?
And to finish, a last memory of Venezuela - my tentmate Mark, a photographer and travel journalist by night (by day he works as tech support for a major insurance company), wrote this article on the trip. If you look carefully, you can see me swimming in one of the photos (if I'm honest, you really need to know that it's me there in the first place!) Note also the scary three-armed fruit-seller.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Four-figure Furniture
I hired a car at the weekend, and spent a 4-figure sum on furniture, food and other large not-easy-to-carry items. I was supposed to go to Hanging Rock which is about 100k north of Melbourne, but I was quite glad I spent over an hour on Skype talking about pie-shaped vegetables on Sunday morning (see picture below) - it gave the weather time to ramp up from a pleasant mid-20s to its peak of 38. It'd have been early 40s up at Hanging Rock if I'd gone when I'd been planning to!
So, tomorrow marks a few milestones for me.
7th Feb 2005 was "the longest day ever" - 41 hours for me, as I flew over the Date Line on my way from Sydney to Calgary (via an unwelcoming LA Customs department)
7th Feb 2002 was my first ever "real" job interview (I ended up having a pretty non-event interview for originally getting into the actuarial profession as I was the only applicant for the job who had a degree, let alone a relevant one!)
7th Feb 1992 was the day my best friend's mother died of cancer (and on the same day, the mother of some other friends, twin brothers, also died of cancer).
7th Feb 2007 was the day on which the stuff I had shipped to Oz finally came back to stay with me, after a detour via Brisbane (where I've never been - I'm jealous!) and a stay in Customs of suspicious duration - having arrived in Brissie on 28th December, they were finally released less than 2 hours after I shouted at someone at Pickfords about it.
I really hope I'm not jumping the gun on that last one!
6th Feb 2007 is also a little milestone of its own - I've been here 3 months today. And what a quarter of a year it's been.
It's reasonably indicative of how the three weeks following my last post have panned out that my blog's URL has disappeared from my browser's history. Must write more often. 2007 has definitely not been an enjoyable year so far. The first 19 days of it were solid work, and no time to do or even think about much else. Then my first day off was supposed to be spent at the tennis, but instead it rained, rained and then rained some more - the one day in 3 months that it rains for more than 15 minutes during the daytime (not exaggerating here either!) and it's the day I least want it to rain.
The following two weeks have spent with me getting ever more stressed out over the way things are done here, and feeling less and less able to do anything about it as I don't know enough about the business to know if things are being done that way because they need to be or whether it's just because. And several people are quite inimical (and that's the right word) to changing what they do.
I do need some positives to balance that all out, as it would be unfair to say I've not enjoyed some things here. My department contains mostly fun people, and I can have amusing, if inoffensive, conversations with most of them. The learning has been enjoyable - I didn't feel like I'd been getting much development out of my role the last year in York, whereas I think the last 3 months have covered off my CPD requirements till 2013 or thereabouts (and the next 21 months will probably set me up there for life). On the food front, accessible sushi and juice bars make up for a world of hurt (especially guava juice). Living in a big city is good - there's a shop somewhere that sells anything (e.g. this one! Shame they couldn't find a shop selling a web designer though...) I've skipped winter. I've played tennis on a rooftop court. My sense of humour translates well. The bushfire smoke days were amazing.
On the whole, though, the negatives have outweighed the positives.
It feels very materialistic to say that I hope things will turn around a little when my gear arrives tomorrow. I shouldn't really feel different as a result of "just stuff."
So, tomorrow marks a few milestones for me.
I really hope I'm not jumping the gun on that last one!
6th Feb 2007 is also a little milestone of its own - I've been here 3 months today. And what a quarter of a year it's been.
It's reasonably indicative of how the three weeks following my last post have panned out that my blog's URL has disappeared from my browser's history. Must write more often. 2007 has definitely not been an enjoyable year so far. The first 19 days of it were solid work, and no time to do or even think about much else. Then my first day off was supposed to be spent at the tennis, but instead it rained, rained and then rained some more - the one day in 3 months that it rains for more than 15 minutes during the daytime (not exaggerating here either!) and it's the day I least want it to rain.
The following two weeks have spent with me getting ever more stressed out over the way things are done here, and feeling less and less able to do anything about it as I don't know enough about the business to know if things are being done that way because they need to be or whether it's just because. And several people are quite inimical (and that's the right word) to changing what they do.
I do need some positives to balance that all out, as it would be unfair to say I've not enjoyed some things here. My department contains mostly fun people, and I can have amusing, if inoffensive, conversations with most of them. The learning has been enjoyable - I didn't feel like I'd been getting much development out of my role the last year in York, whereas I think the last 3 months have covered off my CPD requirements till 2013 or thereabouts (and the next 21 months will probably set me up there for life). On the food front, accessible sushi and juice bars make up for a world of hurt (especially guava juice). Living in a big city is good - there's a shop somewhere that sells anything (e.g. this one! Shame they couldn't find a shop selling a web designer though...) I've skipped winter. I've played tennis on a rooftop court. My sense of humour translates well. The bushfire smoke days were amazing.
On the whole, though, the negatives have outweighed the positives.
It feels very materialistic to say that I hope things will turn around a little when my gear arrives tomorrow. I shouldn't really feel different as a result of "just stuff."
Monday, January 15, 2007
Miss Understandings
The last 2 weeks have been pretty awful. I'm vying with Iasonas for who can work more hours - I've worked at least 4 hours on every single day of 2007 so far. As usual, I'll get through things somehow, I'm just not sure exactly how, or what state my head will be in at that point. So apologies to several people I've been largely ignoring the last couple of weeks - Sunday is the day, I promise.
One thing which has helped is, after a rubbish 12-hour day at work, tracking this down - that certainly cheered me up this evening. As did her dress - I wasn't paying full visual attention to the TV when it was on, and I hadn't noticed the bottom third of it!
The other little grins that have got me through the last few days include :
Which kind of mustard? We've got Dijon or French.
What type of cheese? There's swiss, cheddar or tasty cheese.
Oh, is that what the meeeeeeeemo meant?
There's that annoying American counterintuitive phrase too, "I could care less," that I've started to notice quite a bit this week.
And finally, just over the road from work is one of the Australian Open practice grounds - haven't seen anyone I recognised yet. As it's mostly been populated by women, all either identikit Russians or identikit Chinese, I haven't much of a hope. We're also only about 200m from Lleyton Hewitt's house in Melbourne - no sleep lost over not seeing him around, though.
One thing which has helped is, after a rubbish 12-hour day at work, tracking this down - that certainly cheered me up this evening. As did her dress - I wasn't paying full visual attention to the TV when it was on, and I hadn't noticed the bottom third of it!
The other little grins that have got me through the last few days include :
There's that annoying American counterintuitive phrase too, "I could care less," that I've started to notice quite a bit this week.
And finally, just over the road from work is one of the Australian Open practice grounds - haven't seen anyone I recognised yet. As it's mostly been populated by women, all either identikit Russians or identikit Chinese, I haven't much of a hope. We're also only about 200m from Lleyton Hewitt's house in Melbourne - no sleep lost over not seeing him around, though.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
As I Mean To Go On?
I hope not. I've been into the office every single day of 2007 so far.
Much as with last year, January's going to be a bit of a hideous month, although with the following three saving graces :
(a) we're due to finish a very big chunk of work on 19/01, rather than 27/01 like last year.
(b) I can have the Net scoreboard for the Australian Open on while I'm working this year.
(c) one of the lead accountants has tickets for the tennis on 20/01 (as do I!) so she's all for making sure we're finished on 19/01!
I reached my 2-month anniversary yesterday. In many ways, it's been quite a hard 2 months (not least understanding the jarringly different regulatory rules here in Oz), but I'm enjoying myself, even if not quite as much as I'd like to be.
Much as with last year, January's going to be a bit of a hideous month, although with the following three saving graces :
(a) we're due to finish a very big chunk of work on 19/01, rather than 27/01 like last year.
(b) I can have the Net scoreboard for the Australian Open on while I'm working this year.
(c) one of the lead accountants has tickets for the tennis on 20/01 (as do I!) so she's all for making sure we're finished on 19/01!
I reached my 2-month anniversary yesterday. In many ways, it's been quite a hard 2 months (not least understanding the jarringly different regulatory rules here in Oz), but I'm enjoying myself, even if not quite as much as I'd like to be.
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