In The Days Of The Comet

Another overcast night in Melbourne and again I miss out on seeing the brightest comet in thirty years. Comet McNaught seems intent on eluding me. When I actually remember to go outside after sunset and have a look it’s inevitably overcast and I am thwarted in my attempt to be amazed at the celestial event of the decade.

I’ll try again tomorrow.

Melbourne’s Tennis Shame

Yesterday saw violence flare at the tennis during the Australian Open here in Melbourne between Serb and Croat supporters. As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, I’m not into sport much myself, but we are all used to riots at the football, in fact it’s expected but, this is tennis, not the sort of game that engenders the pack mentality that male dominated football does, I mean old grannies might have spilled their strawberries and cream.. Is there nothing sports fans won’t come to blows over?

Today temperatures hit the forties again around Victoria; bushfires near Benalla took out a transformer which supplies electricity to the state from NSW resulting in major loss of load and subsequent power blackouts. Trains and trams are badly effected, many traffic lights are out and more than 100,000 homes are without power (luckily I’m not effected at this time so I can still blog). Major thunder storms and flash flooding episodes are forecast for tonight and the public are being told to stay indoors to avoid possible death by lighting and or hail stones…

You know, some days it just feels like the end of the world is nigh.

Zen And The Art Of Wireless Network Maintenance

OK – time for what seems to have turned into a monthly post on this blog. It may appear to be an easy to answer question (the answer being because they are not lazy like me) but where do people find the time to blog every day, or even every few days? Maybe I need to learn some self discipline.

Well the bush fires continue and we are still getting some days where the city is choked with wood smoke. Still, the damage to property and loss of life has been relatively minor to what it might been – but there are still months of fire season to go yet.

My main concern at the moment though is trying to get my home wireless network happening. All the literature, both supplied by the manufacturer of my new Netgear DG834G wireless router and that written by independent sources (who I guess to be nerds), claims the network is simple and easy to set up. I disagree - in the strongest possible terms. After nearly a week (on and off) of desperate fiddling with proxy settings and permissions it is still not working. Sure I can get the thing connected (eventually - and I am still not sure how exactly) to the net via the Ethernet cable, but getting it to run without the cable (surely the point of the purchase) is a different story.

The conclusion I must draw after all this time wasting and frustration is this; I am either stupid, or the thing has been designed by the type of nerd who’s idea of logic and ease of installation is not the same as those of us with even the slightest amount of common sense (which must cover most of ‘em in my experience). I tend to favour the latter theory, but that may just be vanity talking.

Apologies to Robert M. Pirsig for the title of this post.

Bushfire season is here

The worst bush fire threat in seventy years the authorities are saying tonight. More than ten major fires are burning in the east of the state of Victoria currently and the fear is they will merge over the weekend making a fire front more than one hundred kilometres long. Living in Melbourne I’m a fair distance from the danger, but everywhere over the city lingers a thin veil of light grey smoke. The smell is both sweet and acrid, and you can’t escape it. The sunset was surreal tonight, there was a diffused bright orange glow everywhere caused by the smoke. Even though we are not in immediate danger here in the city, it is worrying. The towns near the fires have been to told to evacuate or prepare to fight the inevitable firestorm. Not a nice choice to make – abandon your home to the possibility of being burnt to the ground, or stay and defend it with whatever means you can find, and possible die in the process. So far the fires have destroyed over 150,000 hectares of bushland and the temperatures are set to rise up into the high 30s centigrade tomorrow.

Melbourne Cup Monday

The Melbourne Cup is Australia’s equivalent to the UK’s Grand National when it comes to horse racing. I am not into horse racing, but nobody in Melbourne can escape from it. The city becomes horse racing mad and odd looking hats are to be seen everywhere. The race is actually held on the first Tuesday of November every year and the best bit about it, especially if you are not necessarily into horse racing, is the fact that because of the cup all of Metropolitan Melbourne gets a public holiday, ostensibly to allow them to attend the race. Yes the city stops for a race. Unfortunately that leaves today, the Monday before the race as a normal working day standing in the way of a four day long weekend. Obviously you can take an annual day on the Monday if you want to do this, but usually you have to book it months in advance otherwise you’ll find lots of people have already secretly arranged it without anyone but the boss knowing, so they get in first and those that leave it too late have to come in to work so someone will be in to run the department. I have been working today, there are two reasons for this: the first being I forgot to organise it in time, and the second is that I don’t have enough annual leave to take it anyway after my recent trip to London, and I have to save what little I do have for Christmas.

So Melbourne Cup Mondays are always the same. The usually busy Monday morning commute is quiet – with maybe only half the usual number of people on the trains, the city is almost like it is on a Sunday afternoon instead of the usual weekday throng and everyone has a laid back attitude – knowing that they have a day off tomorrow. The strange thing about this holiday though is the way it only extends to those in the ‘metro area’ meaning people beyond the confines of the city limits have to watch on jealously as the city folk spend the day in the sun, having barbies and drinking too much Victoria Bitter and maybe even going to the races...

Should have done some research...

Just a quick addendum to my recent post (‘Open a window’ 30 September) regarding the underground’s lack of air-conditioning. I have done a little more research and discovered the reason why this is.

‘Air-conditioning has been ruled out on the deep lines because of the lack of space for equipment on trains and the problems of dispersing the waste heat these would generate.’

Thanks to the ever informative Wikipedia for the information.

The London Stone

Observation No. 4. I miss the history of an ancient city like London. That’s a major difference between the two cities for me. Melbourne was only founded in 1835, and although a fair amount of original architecture still remains, it isn't what you'd really call old. London on the other hand exudes history - you just can't get away from it. One of the things I wanted to see on this visit was the London Stone. An odd lump of rock situated in between two glass panes in the wall of a sports shop on Cannon Street. Nobody really knows what it is, but many believe it is a Roman piece, perhaps even the original mileage marker from the centre of the city from which the distance to Rome was measured, or perhaps it was just part of the many Roman buildings from this area of old Londinium. Legend has it that if the London Stone is destroyed or lost then London will fall / be destroyed / fall into ruin / loose it’s reputation as a cool destination for international tourists etc. As the old proverb goes,

"So long as the stone of Brutus is safe, so long shall London flourish,"

Anyway, I knew what to look for whilst walking down Cannon Street, but still went straight past it. It really isn't that obvious. Apparently the building in which it currently sits half in and half out of will soon be redeveloped, so there is a chance it may be relocated to a museum. I am glad I got to see it in situ.

What has Melbourne got to match a piece of history like this? Well there is the err… Give me a minute – I’ll think of something…

-The London Stone from inside the sports shop-

Open a window...

Observation No. 3. Continuing the London public transport theme. I was lucky in that the time I spent in London earlier this month was hot and sunny (high twenties most of the time), I guess I take good air-conditioning for granted here in Australia (as everyone does, it would be a tough place to live without it). But why has the London Transport system not heard of it? OK, so some of the many and varied types of train carriage may posses something that masquerades as air con but in reality puts out about as much cold air as old lady with one of those old folding fans and an arthritic wrist.

Now I know I sound like I am bagging London, but surely an air-conditioning upgrade would be for the city’s own good. It just wasn’t pleasant sitting in a fetid, stifling atmosphere deep beneath the streets – both on the platforms and on the carriages. Ok, so cold, fresh(ish) air would only be of benefit for a small part of the year and the installation costs would, no doubt, be prohibitive, but really think of all the deliriously happy commuters London Transport would have on it’s hands. I bet their heaters are good though…

Travel broadens the mind, and posterior...

My trip to the UK now seems very distant. I have started my second week back at work and I have to wonder – how do people do this? The trip itself, apart from reminding me how good it is to actually do something constructive, entertaining, and mentally refreshing ,rather than sit behind a desk at work and tick off the hours of my life, wishing for 5.00pm to arrive, has afforded my the opportunity to make some comparisons between Melbourne and London life. Here are a couple:

Observation No.1 – London tube travellers stand on the right of the escalators allowing those who want to walk, run, or trip headlong down the escalators to do so without impediment. Conversely in Melbourne the escalator users stand on the left, allowing faster upward or downward movement on the right. Why is this? Who decides what side of the escalator is for standing and which for moving under your power? Actually, I should just add to this observation that that the London tube users are quite well disciplined in this regard, and it is very rare, in my experience, to come up behind someone who doesn’t understand the accepted etiquette. In Melbourne though, the whole idea of one side for standing and one for walking/running is much less rigidly adhered to. I think there are a couple of reasons why this happens, either the Australian attitude toward such things is so laid back that such a highly structured method of doing things like this is just not seen as Aussie by some, or maybe there are just more 'unobservant' people about in Melbourne who cannot quite comprehend what is going on around them through the simple act of looking. As you may be able to tell, I am one of those people who prefer to walk on an escalator rather than cease all movement as if my legs don’t work when being propelled by mechanical means, and do not warm to those who decide to block my way.

Observation No.2 – The seats on London’s tube system are quite comfy. I was continually amazed by the fact they had such things as adequate padding and, on many carriages, armrests! Again, this makes Melbourne’s ‘state of the art’ railed public transport seem like it has been designed by some form of masochist who derives pleasure from knowing he has inflicted a world of pain of the bottoms of it’s users though the use of 3mm of cheap foam over the rock hard plastic seats.

A London Underground train pulling up at Stamford Brook station. It had very comfy seats...

An unplanned trip to London...

Well, nearly two months since my last entry. Some people just shouldn’t be allowed to own a blog. However I do have an excuse this time. I needed to make a unplanned visit home to England where I was kept a bit busy, therefore unable to attend to my blogging duties. OK, so the time I spent in England does not quite cover the time I have been away from the keyboard, but it’s the only reason I am putting forward for my lax posting.

Unfortunately though the holiday is over and the evil spectre of work is looming before me tomorrow morning. Now I am happy, still basking in the fading, but still visible light of my time away, knowing the spell will be rudely broken tomorrow morning by the alarm, and I know it will be just like waking from a good dream and knowing reality never quite matches up.

More details of this unplanned British trip coming soon...

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 watch 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.

Ahem!

All the way into work on the train today about five people in my immediate vicinity of the carriage cough and spluttered continuously for the whole journey. Normally I don’t notice the odd cough here or there on the train but this morning was different. First one person coughed loudly, then the next, then another as if they were all taking it in turns. Maybe it was similar to the yawn catching syndrome that exists – when one person yawns those nearby tend to ‘catch' the yawn. Anyway these coughing antics reduced my mood to one of annoyance. I know, these people probably couldn’t help it, but nor could I help being annoyed.

Then I arrived at work and saw the quote on the bottom of today’s calendar page:

“A cough is something that you yourself can’t help, but everybody else does on purpose just to torment you.”

- Ogden Nash

‘Cops called to quell Krispy queue chaos’

The above quote and picture are taken from the MX free newspaper, 22 June.

Krispy Kreme opened up in Victoria last Thursday, just over three and a half months after the 10,000 free doughnuts it gave away in a promotion as reported in my post of March 3^rd. Although I couldn’t be there for the event (for which I am most thankful) I can quote further from the report of this event found in the esteemed MX free commuter paper:

‘Mounted police were called in to manage sugar-craving crowds…’

‘Thousands swamped the much-anticipated Narre Warren (the suburb it’s in - Ed) fast food outlet at Fountain Gate shopping centre, forcing police on foot to manage queues around the hot jam traffic jam, and mounted police to manage the more general mayhem.’

‘Fast food fans camped in single-digit temperatures for up to 23 hours to be among the first to munch the holey snack.’

‘Lard lovers emerged with a typical bounty of between two and 10 boxes of the roly –poly confection, each holding a dozen doughnuts…’

But my favourite is this one:

‘A war of the waistline waged at the store when a heavy hitter of the salad world arrived, chanting, slogans like “Don’t get fatter, give up the batter”.'

Now even if you remove the tabloid hyperbole this really is a sad indictment of western values, is it not?

Is Krispy Kreme really that good? Or are all the sad people merely jumping on the Krispy Kreme band wagon thinking some of the ‘kudos’ (and I say that with some reservation) might rub off on them through association? Is this public showing of insanity for dough and sugar a world wide phenomenon or just peculiar to Australia?

It's fixed! No wait, it's broken again...

Another month passed and no posts from me. I feel ashamed. No excuses, so I will make none. Here is the latest on the hot water debacle in the kitchen at work:

Nothing happened for a long time and my issues with EKS continued. Then a technician arrived – who proceeded to replace the COLD drinking water filter and dispenser. The new tap for this has been placed next to the tap for the (broken) hot water dispenser. Now why would a perfectly good existing water filter be taken away and replaced with a new one when in fact the problem facing the collective staff is the lack of hot water? This is of course standard logic for the organization within which I work – completely unfathomable. OK, I admit that perhaps the old water filter was not filtering properly and had to be replaced for safety reasons (tasted fine to me). In addition, the water from the new filtered drinking water system tastes like warm metal, and is undrinkable.

Eventually a hot water service technician turned up and fixed the hot water dispenser, which continued to work well - for about three days. In those three days I had of course become complacent and stupidly assumed the tap would work without any problems from then on. So it was with great disbelief that I came to fill my coffee mug three days later to find nothing coming out of the tap but a couple of gurgles and a drop or two of tepid water. Great. A couple of days later it began working again, then stopped again. Of course nothing has been done to fix the ongoing problems, so I guess I’ll just have to accept that this state of affairs is within the ‘accepted tolerance levels’ of the staff.

Perhaps I am being harsh on my employer. In all probability it isn’t the company’s fault, but fault of the equally inefficient and lumbering building management and the relationship between them and my employer. No wonder my company gets cheap office space…

The Empty Kettle Syndrome (otherwise known as EKS)

I hate it when the person who uses the last of the hot water in the kettle does not fill it up again, in the kitchen at work. Normally I use the under sink hot water service for making my coffee, but this has been broken for about a month now, with no sign of repair in sight, which is about normal for what I would call probably the most poorly ran inefficient excuse for a company this side of a government department. Luckily the company has a seemingly inexhaustible supply of band-aids with which to ‘permanently’ fix the situation, if I am correct in assuming that it will instigate the standard company procedures for resolving the problem, so I envisage a resolution will be forthcoming soon. However, in the mean time I am forced to use the kettle to make my instant coffee. Now whether the hot water service is used or the kettle, I find there is usually little difference in the mediocre quality of my beverage, the problem lies in the introduction of ‘people’ to the equation. Obviously a full kettle can only make a finite number of hot drinks, so like it or not, at least one of my colleagues will find themselves in the position of having finished the last of the water in the said kettle. So what would be the right thing to do here? As I see it there are two options:

Option 1: Fill the kettle with water, and if you feel particularly charitable switch it on to boil for the next thirsty worker, considering there is usually steady flow of employees requiring boiling water.

Or

Option 2: After smugly filling you mug with the remnants of the hot water, pretend you haven’t noticed that the kettle is now completely empty and, whilst stirring your coffee or tea with the supplied tongue depressor/lollypop stick masquerading as a stirrer, leave the kitchen and go back to your desk knowing full well that the kettle will probably be full and have just boiled when you return next time.

Would you agree that your answer to the above dilemma could be seen a direct measure of your morality?

Considering I have come across an empty kettle on so many occasions in the month since the break down of the hot water system, I cannot help but draw a rather depressing conclusion regarding the morality of my co-workers. It can be argued that an office is a microcosm of broader society. So would it be that unrealistic to extrapolate these observations to the broader population?

Then again I guess I am not really breaking any new ground by expounding the theory of a me, me, me, ethos in the greater part of the population today.

So my point is, please fill up the kettle if you find it empty when you are finished with it.

It doesn't get that cold...

More than a month since my last entry… Not too impressive, and fairly indicative of my lack of commitment to a lot of things. I guess it’s all about priorities. It’s too easy to spend too much time online I think, at the expense of your real life, therefore I try to limit my time tapping the keys – however a month between posts is pushing things so, I’m back. What’s been happening then? Well after all the ‘excitement’ of the commonwealth games a couple of weeks on and it’s as if it never happened – so much for my previous intentions of posting observations detailing the changes around town precipitated by the ‘great event’. In fact since then Melbourne has hosted the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix too. Now the city will disappear from the international map for a while and return to it’s more normal position of relatively quiet backwater on the southern tip of the great southern continent with only the (relatively) small island state of Tasmania between it and Antarctica. In fact since the Commonwealth games autumn has really set in. The clocks have gone back to standard GMT (plus ten) time and the temperature has dropped to the mid to high teens of a Melbourne autumn. Strangely enough the rain and wind put me in mind of England, and it’s this time of year I think I begin to miss the old country more. The smell of chimney smoke and darkness falling before you get home from work all remind me of the UK. In fact this is one of the reasons I like living in Melbourne – it is really as close to Britain in meteorological conditions as you can get (apart from Tasmania, but work is a little harder to get down there, and I think I’d miss the conveniences of Melbourne too much). Some people move to Australia for the constant sun and heat, but I’d miss the cycle of the seasons myself. It’s nice to walk in a bracing wind now and again, pulling your collar up against the drizzle – however it’s also nice to know that it never really gets that cold here (unless you listen to the whinge of the locals who have never lived through a British wind complete with it’s ice and snow – the nearest most Melburnians get to cold is when they visit to the alpine region ski fields of north East Victoria in their shiny Toyota Land Cruisers). The picture at the top of this post was taken recently looking east down Collins Street into the low morning sun, most autumn days here are sunny at least, and even in the depths of winter temperatures rarely reach freezing point - many winter days are no worse than a bad English summer’s day in my experience.

No, I don’t miss scraping the ice off the windscreen before I drive somewhere in the dark on black ice, or losing feeling in my extremities when putting the bins out…

And so it begins…

There is a buzz in Melbourne this morning. The city pavements are awash with volunteer officials in blue and green and blue and orange jackets. Passing by the MCG on the train on my way into the city I saw truck after truck of outdoor broadcasting units lined up with all kinds of TV channel insignias on their sides ready for the big event. Even the Queen is here; yes today the Commonwealth Games brings Melbourne under the international spotlight (well for the few countries that actually care I guess). Obviously security in the city is tight, the news has warned us all not to be alarmed if we see fighter planes flying low over the city. But despite all the excitement and hyperbole, the biggest thing on the minds of most of us Melbournites is whether or not the extra games related rail users are going to delay our journey home from work tonight…

Another item of international interest is the news that Australian tourism minister, Fran Bailey, has managed to persuade the UK to review it’s TV ban on the new ‘Where the bloody hell are you?’ tourism campaign (see my previous post). Apparently Ms. bailey managed to make the British powers that be realise the original decision wasn’t all that clever, it was pointed out to them, amongst other things, that the word ‘bloody’ (being the main sticking point due to the fact it is on the UK’s banned word list in relation to advertising broadcasts) had been used at least twice before in British TV advertising. Although there appears to be no guarantee, the fact that due to her request the decision will be reviewed, has prompted Ms. Bailey to describe this turn of events as “a bloody good result”.

You can't say that!

According to some in the UK, the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games are not getting a lot of press… Well perhaps British eyes will be turned on Australia now that the new Aussie tourism campaign slogan “Where the bloody hell are you?” has been banned from being spoken on British TV. Now let me say that I personally don’t think that the vast majority of British TV viewers would be offended by this, especially if the ads were shown after younger viewers (and some older viewers) were in bed. I seriously question whether the review board (the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre) knows that this is now the 21st century. This decision by the BACC has boldly underlined the general consensus of many Australians that the British are a bit prudish and reserved. The Australians seem to be quietly sniggering behind their hands at the way the Brits have reacted to what is deemed here as a non-offensive colloquialism; indeed the main concern the Australians had prior to the adverse reaction, was that the new campaign may make Australia look coarse and uncultured. Some Aussies seem to be under the misapprehension that foreigners see their country as a Mecca of sophistication, art and culture, which I am afraid to say is (like the BACC) way out of step with reality. The strongest and most recognizable face the country can promote in the way of an cultural identity for the tourist dollar, in my opinion, is the true and tested (albeit clichéd) rough, yet friendly, land of the ‘fair go’ and stoic understatement, with of course lots of iconic pictures of kangaroos , Sydney Harbour Bridge / Opera House and Uluru / Ayers Rock, all drenched in brilliant sunshine. That’s what the vast majority of tourists want when they come to Australia, and if they unexpectedly find culture and sophistication in the galleries, theatres and museums, then great.

The upshot is that the Aussies are in no way disappointed about the British decision to limit the broadcasting of the tourist campaign, in fact they are awaiting the influx of extra visitors who have now taken far more notice of the ad campaign than if it had been left alone by the censors; if you want something to be really popular - ban it!