Things I Once Enjoyed

Ageing is by definition both insidious and relentless.

Whilst you hold on, in desperation, to those memories of experiences dear to you, the influx of new information crowds, distorts and hides them.

Occasionally, the dam of irrelevant trivia will burst, allowing memories to flood your sensorium. The trigger might be a smell, a sight, a sound or some other prompt.

I recently had the opportunity to lay on the beach, in the sun, undisturbed.

How I loved doing this years ago. The warmth on my skin. A faint cooling breeze. The silence.

Other things I liked, but never do now...

Sleeping in till 12 noon.

Walking to the City and back for no particular reason.

Talking to someone I don't know  in public.

Reading at the park.

Photographing stuff.

Playing music REALLY loud.

Walking around at home in my jocks.

Eating raw carrots.

Rockwiz Star

You might have seen a delightful performance by Kate Miller-Heidke on Rockwiz last Saturday night.

I'm not familiar with this Australian singer-songwriter, but her solo at the start of the show was excellent.

She followed up with an interesting duet with Paul Dempsey, singing a Wham! classic from the Eighties.

What a great new talent. There are some free music downloads on her website.

Demand and Supply.

A Meo245 cd available on eBay at $65.

Is that good value?

Right Wing Art?

 

I came across a short article recently where the author lamented children not being exposed to right-wing poetry at school. Our scribe opined that such is the prevalence of left-wing writing, the young of today may not even be aware of the existence of such verse.

I was gob-smacked.

Like today’s neglected youth, I too am ignorant of this great body of work.

The odes of Andrew Bolt, verse of Franco and the limericks of Ronald Reagan have all escaped me.

To give them their due, they must be some wordsmiths these conservative poets. It’s no easy task finding words to rhyme with 'detention centre', 'xenophobia' and 'axis of evil'.

Hmmmmm.

There is no shortage of topics though…….. environmental scare-mongering, dangerous refugees, single mothers, university drop-outs, abortion, sedition and those pesky indigenous races…..all grist for the mill for an eloquent bourgeois lyricist.

 

Could be a dollar in it……..

 

Newscorp and Fox need content…….

 

Let’s try…..

 

There was a young lad from SA,

Captured in Kabul one day,

Alas Mister Hicks,

For your terrorist tricks,

In Cuba you’re going to stay.

 

 

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Monday Movie Review

It was a busy day at the Nova Cinema in Carlton today. 

The lovely weather and discount price attracted plenty of punters.

However, "Breaking and Entering" was a major let-down. Certainly, the most daft film I've seen for some time.

Photographically beautiful and with a strong cast, this piece of fluff was let down by woeful story-telling.

Major plot twists, seemingly at odds with the prevailing circumstances, were largely left unexplained.

One sideline ended inexplicably and might have finished on the editing-room floor had it not provided the only good humour in a gloomy two hours.

While I wasn't too sure of the message here,  it appeared to be either that a good hug will fix anything or that, if you are rich and stylish enough, it is okay to exploit those less privileged than yourself.

Mind your P's and Q's

Mathew Dunkley reports in the Financial Review (Saturday 10 Feb) that there appears to be an increase in plaintiffs claiming damages, due to defamation, against authors of web-sites and blogs.

The conventional 'retraction' is also being tested in the courts in a case involving the Managing Director of the Housing Industry Association.

Bloggers may be well advised to keep to establisherd facts when expressing their opinions online.

Further, comments from readers should be reviewed and, if necessary,  edited as soon as possible.

Happiness

I was speaking to a psychiatrist today, not as a patient but as a colleague, when the topic of happiness came up.

I told her of a study I had seen which suggested that one's general level of happiness is fixed and will tend return to "normal" despite the occurance of either very joyous or very devastating events.

She told me that indeed, a person's cheerfulness is relatively fixed, but that there were some factors ( borne out by a longitudinal study of MDs in the USA) which were more highly associated with long-term happiness.

These factors were strong personal relationship(s), good health, not overexercising and sufficient funds to live comfortably.

Sounds plausible.

I am surprised that overexercising is in the mix though! I'd better be careful.

PS The tennis team played its first game. I was unavailable. We lost.

Executions in Australia

It's now forty years since the execution of Ronald Ryan in Victoria.

It was  Australia's last execution.

Last week I heard former journalist Brian Morley, a witness to the execution, describe the event on the Jon Faine radio program on 774 ABC.

I have heard Morley's description before. It has changed very little.

His description is of a ritualised killing, that so disturbed those present that some were physically ill and others, including Morley himself, remained profoundly affected for the rest of their lives.

Morley's story is harrowing. The horror of institutionalised killing is thrust into the listener's consciousness as Morley struggles to force words between sobs, such is his emotion.

By contrast, the Prime Minister John Howard coolly remarked on 3AW on August 8, 2003, "I am not supporting the reintroduction (of capital punishment) , I mean my position, let me repeat, is for reasons of pragmatic concern that the law from time to time will make mistakes".

A Four Corners report from 2002, contains some quotes from Brian Morley.

Amnesty International

PDF Reader

Those who regularly download, read and save PDF files will, like me, have found considerable frustration when using Acrobat Reader.

At best, the Acrobat product is a large download, is slow to load and somewhat flaky in its rendering of files.

I've used Foxit Reader for a couple of years and found it very reliable.

Having been recently upgraded to Foxit Reader 2, it is better than ever and I recommend it highly.

Download Foxit Reader 2 here.

Here's a Gig for You

Feb 3 2007
Lomond Hotel Nicholson St Brunswick  (Melbourne).

Guitar, rock and folk legend Dave Steel with the Welcome Wagon and Tony Hargreaves 9-30pm.

See you there.

New Year Look

A new look for a New Year. Still the garish colours but with new bio and "South Park"style pic. New font, too.
Oh , new year saw me working all day till 9.30pm then up early for a short work session from 8.30.
Note to self: Resolution - Work less this year.

Iraq Death Toll

The US military losses have reached 3000. There were no weapons of mass destruction. There were no terrorist links. Iran sponsors much of the ongoing violence and, probably, will finally conquer Iraq. Iraq is now a haven for terrorist groups. No end is in sight for the occupying forces. 

Saddam is strung up. A ritual killing performed to entertain and satisfy his enemies. The end of a brute whose rule showed no respect for human life. A demonstration that his successors have none either.

Sad.

New Year Resolution

I've had success with this year's resolutions. They were achievable (important) and I've been largely able to stick to them.

I started playing regular sport, I've read more books and I've been going to bed earlier.

The reading has dropped off a bit lately as I've been bogged down in the literary equivalent of treacle. However, I'll be picking up the pace after I bought three novels on eBay for $10 delivered!

Tennis lessons didn't start till September, but I've made the effort, picked up some skills and have a team organised to start full-scale competition in February. I even bought some tennis shoes today so I'll be fitted out just right.

What of this years resolutions?  The usual ones like drink less, be more patient, get out of bed earlier, can be trotted out, doomed to fail, but that's not what works.

I need some more a tangible goals.

My Dark Sports Secret

I realise that as a blogger- just learning the ropes - I should have an aversion to sport and to celebrity sports people - but... this...

Warne over and out

No, No, No, No, No, No, No.......

Podcasts

Of all the Web 2.0 technologies, I really love the podcast.

The freedom to choose the program that I want, when I want is very liberating. 

How I despise being trapped in the car in peak hour gridlock with some FM bozo yelling at me between endless commercials for mobile-phone plans or some ' new ABC' presenter droning on about their lame topic of the day (yep Richard Stubbs and Lindy Burns, I mean you). Podcasts set me free.

My favouites at the minute are

Boxcutters

Film Buffs Forecast

Footy Heads (between seasons at the minute)

Also, as a one-off, John Doyle giving the Andrew Olle Lecture 2005.

Citizenship Test Leak

Painfree has been given some drafts from the question bank for the Howard's new citizenship exam, the You're Oright, Bloody Beauty Ocker (YOBBO) test.

Two examples are:

Q22 You are informed by your navy that some asylum seekers drifting in to Australian waters are throwing their children overboard to avoid being turned away. Do you:

a) Ask for verification  of the story.

b) Instruct the border protection agencies to expedite the transfer of the asylum seekers to the Australian mainland because they are clearly under duress and have taken leave of their senses.

c) Immediately feed the story to the media in order to score some cheap political points.

 

Q99

Your country has an indigenous population that has a twenty-year shorter life expectancy, four fold increased infant mortality as well as alcohol, violence and unemployment problems.

Do you:

a) Remove their peak body of representation.

b) Legislate to deprive them of reclaiming their tribal land.

c) Remove reconciliation from the national agenda.

d) All of the above.

Colin Hay

Mark your diaries now. Colin Hay at the Corner in Melbourne on 12 January 2007.

iPod use now legal

The Financial Review (2/12) reports that the Senate passed the Federal Government's new copyright laws after backing down on the 'single copy' stipulation of the legislation.

In draft form, the laws allowed for only one permanent copy of any copyrighted material to be kept by consumers. The Apple iPod however, creates a copy on both the user's personal computer as well as the iPod itself.

Justice Minister Chris Ellison conceded that the laws were excessively restrictive. "The amendment will...render legitimate the ordinary use of digital music players", he said.

Comment, Opinion, Thought

Blogs enable everyone to publish their opinions. Some are researched and referenced, some is just opinion.

Unfortunately, the value of opinion is reduced as more unsubstantiated opinion is expressed. In the future, one will need to ground their opinion in some sort of fact or idea.

Sources of facts and ideas include news and commentaries published in any of the various media. They vary in quality.

One source of ideas I have been impressed with this year has been the series of commentaries from Mirko Bagaric in The Age.

Most recently he wrote of ethics in business, with particular reference to AWB. Whilst I don't necessarily agree with all he has to say, he makes elegant and convincing arguments. This intelligent approach to opinion is uplifting compared to some more popular columnists such as Bolt and Neil Mitchell.

Check out some of his publications, they are worth the mental gymnastics.

Mirko Bagaric is a professor at Deakin Law School.

More Cable Problems

My iPod stopped syncing.

It charged OK but the computer could not detect it.

I did the usual reinstalls, etc... Screaming. Pulling hair.

I replaced the iPod firewire cable - everything fine!

This follows a week of downtime, multiple reinstalls, new motherboard and hard drive last month due to a faulty IDE (hard drive) cable. AAAAgh..