Ban White Vans!

The good thing about working in the city is that I have infinite opportunity to take photos. I tend to snap everyday scenes of life and events for posterity and even try and attempt to create images with some artistic merit (this last part I achieve on a fairly infrequent basis). Today was a good day to wander around the streets during my lunch break, plenty of late winter misty, low angle light. I found myself heading towards Melbourne’s China Town area and fired off a few digital shots (digital has made my photography hobby about a million times cheaper than my 35mm days). Anyway, after a few minutes I realised that virtually every photo I had taken contained a white delivery van in it somewhere. Whether it was parked on the side of the road, nosing into the shot from the edge, or more often, flying into the viewfinder out of nowhere just as I am about to press the shutter.

I took one picture I was absolutely positive was white van free. The picture was of an old vacant and almost derelict jewelers shop that looked like it had closed as usual one day in 1956 but the owner had forgotten to come back and open up ever again. Then, when I reviewed the shot in detail a little later, there in the reflection of the shop window was the white van. From this experience I am now tending to think it is becoming less and less likely that a photo taken in the city (or anywhere in the vicinity of a road) can be taken without inadvertently capturing a white van somewhere in the frame.

For the second time on Australian TV

WARNING: SOME SUBJECTIVE OPINION AHEAD...

Well tonight saw the welcome return of the BBCs Top Gear. Yes the 2005 season is at long last being shown here on Australian screens - eventually I get my much needed dose of British motoring magazine TV. Tonight saw a the flash new Mercedes four door sports something or other (cool), a particularly ugly little Toyota ‘city car’, and a particularly ugly little Honda sport 4X4 type vehicle, designed apparently, for American males aged 22 without jobs but who can buy toy ‘SUV’ vehicles and demand a specific cubby hole in which to stow their iPod’s when driving. The interior was interesting, the upholstery was made from outdoor waterproof material and the floor was covered in rubber that you could hose down. I can only assume this was so due the possibility of people loosing their lunch when anywhere near it due to it’s abhorrent ugliness levels (whoops, a little bit of scathing subjectivity escaped there, it won’t happen again I promise). Jeremy Clarkson also pitted The Range Rover Sport against a Challenger II tank. Excellent stuff and what we have come to expect from the unbeatable, but often irrelevant, Top Gear. I will be glued to this for the next few weeks!

Anyway I have to go now and wath the last of the shuttle Discovery’s landing live on NASA TV.

Well OK, it does get cold sometimes...

I have power over the weather. That’s a fairly big statement to make, but none the less I stand by it. I always knew I had some latent command over precipitation when I realised that I could make it rain virtually every time by the simple act of washing my car. Sometimes just getting the hose pipe out would bring it on. Even simply by announcing my intention to wash the car I could open the skies. Anyway in my blog post of April 25^th this year I stated that it doesn’t get that cold here in Melbourne. This was very rash, and now I have to eat my words. Last month Victoria experienced its coldest night in twenty seven years. I can’t remember just how cold it got, but it was at least a couple of degrees below zero because I had to de ice the car almost to the extent that I used to have to de ice it in England (at least there wasn’t ice on the inside of the windscreen this time. So there you go, my mutant powers of meteorological control have increased to encompass the power over temperature as well rainfall… All I have to do to invoke these powers is make a statement that tempts the weather gods to make a fool of me, and I’ll get my wish. Simple. Just watch out for my character in the next X-Men movie.