Last day of winter

It's officially the last day of winter today, and Brisbane looks to be gearing up to a ripper summer. There's still a nip in the air at night, but daytime temperatures are reaching 25 degrees and the sun is starting to bite. The familiar tropical haze is returning when you look over the city - this view from our balcony.

This is a perfect time of year in Brisbane. It's hard to remember how hot & unpleasant it can get later on in the year, but it did remind me of this email that was doing the rounds a few years ago...
August 31st Just got transferred with work into our new home in Brisbane!! Now this is a city that knows how to live!! Beautiful sunny days and warm balmy evenings. What a place! I watched the sunset from a deck chair on the verandah. It was beautiful. I've finally found my home. I love it here.
September 13th Really heating up. Got to 35 today. Not a problem. Live in an air-conditioned home, drive an air-conditioned car. What a pleasure to see the sun everyday like this. I'm turning into asun worshiper.
September 30th Had the backyard landscaped with tropical plants today. Lots of palms and rocks. What a breeze to maintain. No more mowing lawn for me. Another scorcher today, but I love it here.

October 10th The temperature hasn't been below 30 all week. How do people get used to this kind of heat? At least today it's kind of windy though. But getting used to the heat and humidity is taking longer that I expected.

October 15th Fell asleep by the pool. Got 3rd degree burns over 60% of my body. Missed 3days of work. What a dumb thing to do. I learned my lesson though. Got to respect the ol' sun in a climate like this.
October 20th I missed Kitty (our cat) sneaking into the car when I left this morning. By the time I got to the hot car for lunch, Kitty had died and swollen up to the size of a shopping bag and stank up the $3,000 leather upholstery. I told the kids that she ran away. The car now smells like Wiskettes and cat poo. I learned my lesson though. No more pets in this heat.

October 25th The wind sucks. It feels like a giant bloody blow dryer!! And it's hot as hell. The home air-conditioner is on the blink and the AC repairman charged $200 just to drive over and tell me he needed to order parts.

October 30th Been sleeping outside by the pool for 3 nights now. Bloody $450,000 house and we can't even go inside. Why did I ever come here?

November 4th It's 35 degrees. Finally got the ol' air-conditioner fixed today. It cost $500 and gets the temperature down to 25, but this bloody humidity makes the house feel like it's about 30. Stupid repairman. I hate this stupid place.

November 8th If another wise arse cracks, "Hot enough for you today?" I'm going to strangle him. Bloody heat. By the time I get to work the car's radiator was boiling over, my clothes are soaking wet, and I smell like baked cat!!

November 9th Tried to run some messages after work. Wore shorts, and sat on the black leather seats in the ol' car. I thought my arse was on fire. I lost 2 layers of flesh and all the hair on the back of my legs and my arse. Now my car smells like burnt hair, fried arse, and baked cat.
November 10th The weather report might as well be a bloody recording. Hot and sunny. Hot and sunny. Hot and sunny. It's been too hot to do anything for 2 damn months and the weatherman says it might really warm up next week. Doesn't it ever rain in this damn place? Water rationing will be next, so my $2,000 worth of palms just might dry up and blow into the bloody pool. Even the palms can't live in this heat.

November 14th Welcome to HELL!!! Temperature got to 38 today. Now the air-conditioner's gone in my car. The repairman came to fix it and said, "Hot enough for you today?" My wife had to spend the $2,500 house payment to bail my arse out of jail for assulting the repairman. Bloody Brisbane. What kind of a sick demented idiot would want to live here?

December 1st WHAT????? This is the first day of Summer???? You are f**king kidding

Election Update

On Friday all votes were finally counted, and the end result was 72 seats to Labor, 73 to the Coalition (but with one candidate declaring themselves more independent that coalesced), 1 seat for the Greens and 4 independent seats. 76 seats are needed to form a government so there are no doubt some very earnest discussions going on as we speak. The independents are a combination of greens & representatives of rural electorates so that should lead to some interesting conversations.

The incumbent party (Labor) gets the first attempt to persuade the independents to side with them. If they think they have the numbers then they will call a vote of confidence in Parliament. If this fails to return a majority vote, or if they feel unable to make this call, then after a couple of weeks it will be the turn of the coalition. If that falls through then the Governor-General will declare the election void and we're back off to the polls again...

Bunnies

My parents are still back in the UK and live in a tranquil valley fold on the English / Welsh border about 30 miles south of Shrewsbury. It's a beautiful place surrounded by fields, pastures and a collection of wildlife which seem to be becoming increasingly relaxed with my parents presence. Along with the squirrels, rooks, pigeons & hedgerow birds they are also visited by rabbits - Dad took these pictures from the back door
Rabbits are not popular in Australia. They were introduced into Victoria (in the south of Australia) in the 1850's as a handy snack-sized food source, promptly escaped and have wrought devastation on the continenent ever since - Eg "Since their introduction from Europe in 1859, the effect of rabbits on the ecology of Australia has been devastating. Rabbits are suspected of being the most significant known factor in species loss in Australia." (from Wikipedia)

It's actually illegal to own a pet rabbit in Queenland and if you're caught with one you could be liable for a $30,000 fine. There are some exceptions, and one such loophole is
Ref: Land Protection (Pest and Stock Route Management) Regulation 2003 Division 2 section 8D (Magic Act) "A declared pest mentioned in schedule 3, part 2, may be kept by any entity for performing a magic act for members of the public on payment of a fee."
Schedule 3 Part 2 Magic act 2. European rabbit (domestic breeds only)(Oryctolagus cuniculus).
I've always fancied a house rabbit and as luck would have it we actually know a professional magician & childrens entertainer. I wondered about the possibility of cutting a deal with her - she gets to use it in her acts whilst we look after it - but it would void our tenancy agreement as well so it wasn't an option. However I do love the idea of a bunch of serious lawmakers sitting around in a room trying to formally legislate on the use of rabbits in hats.

So - no rabbits in the apartment but the balcony garden is coming on well. Just two weeks after planting the spring onions have sprung, the mint is getting very comfortable in its pot, the radishes are going gang busters and the courgettes are looking hemmed in already.

I need to seperate out the courgettes (or zuchinis as the locals know them) as I get the feeling those pots aren't big enough for one of them, never mind four.

Drift skates

There's a relatively new form of skate out on the market now, variously known as the drift skate, freeline skate or split skate. It basically consists of a two platforms, each with two wheels underneath

The idea is that you stand on the skates (one skate for each foot) with the wheels pointing sideways, and the ride is supposed to be like a surfing / snowboarding sensation. Fortunately the instructions & warnings are clearly laid out
I've got no idea how you're supposed to start them rolling without having something solid to push off from
But it didn't take long before my natural poise & grace took over

It's a wierd sensation and although hard at first I could feel my body starting to adjust and get used to the movement. I even managed a 10' wobbly roll down a gentle hill by the end of my second session! However they're hard work - you're constantly trying to both balance and to stop your feet from disappearing out sideways so it's hard on both the deep core muscles and the muscles on the inside of your thighs. The biggest fear isn't so much falling off but the back skate stopping whilst the front skate continues on, leading to an inevitable yet still painful conclusion.

Homebrew

Three pictures to bring a smile to any homebrewers face

I've picked up an old interest in homebrew so there is now a gallon of ginger & honey beer bubbling away merrily in the kitchen. Not sure how it will taste - the addition of cloves & cinammon will make it interesting, or as a friend said 'it sounds like a chai beer'.

My homebrew has always been a bit experimental. I do have 4 gallons of kit wheat beer bubbling away in the garage but my real interest is in making beer out of more local ingredients. 'Beer' is actually a bit of a misnomer, I generally don't use malt or hops, so I think of it more as a 'country beer'. This is how beer was brewed for most of history - hops were only introduced in the 15th century and there are various theories that they were encouraged by the clergy as they have a soporific & calming effect on the drinker. Earlier beers used various herbs such as wormwood for bittering agents and those herbs had other properties that the authorities frowned upon such as aphrodisiac effects, stimulation & euphoria. The 'classic' medieval beer was known as 'Gruit' and I'm trying to hunto down the herbs required to brew up a batch. The problem is that bog myrtle, mugwort & wild rosemary is hard to come by in Australia.

Back in the UK I produced such wonders as dandelion beer, potato & carrot beer, nettle beer and (as a joke one christmas) brussel sprout beer. They met with a varied degree of appreciation, although people who were trying them anticipating something like Stella or Tetleys were generally disappointed. My favourite was nettle beer, which produced a light almost wine-like flavour and a slight nettle astringency on the tongue. Sometimes I used nettles harvested from around stone circles such as the Rollright stones

or neolithic burial chambers such as Waylands Smithy.

It all tasted the same but it gave me an excuse to revisit some beautiful places.

Flow

One of the holy grails of mountain biking is 'The Flow'. This is a state of mind, a state of being or maybe a moment in time where everything comes together. The bike knows which way to go so all you need to do is relax, let it do it's thing and occasionally add a bit of extra input to make it all go faster.

My flow has very definitely not been flowing for the last few months. When I'm on a trail I ping from rock to root in a gripped state of semi-terror, waiting all the while for the wheels to wash out and the ground to reach up for me. The concept of 'look where you want to go' has been subverted into 'stare fixedly at what you want to miss', with inevitable results. I nana-brake into and out of every corner, feathering the levers and upsetting the balance of the bike. And worst of all my friends disappear down the trail ahead of me, leaving me to chase forlornly and hope to catch them on the uphills (which is cheating in anything but cross-country racing).

I went for help at the weekend. Roadie Rob is the go-to guy if you want to up your riding game - be it mountain bike, jump bike, BMX or (god forbid) road bikes. Rob reminded me of a few things & showed me a few more, and within half an hour I was feeling a lot faster and more comfortable. I still have a lot of work to do but I could start to feel the Flow flirting with my mind. It's a strange sensation - it almost feels like you're cheating, cutting the corners or flattening out the climbs.

On Sunday a bunch of us headed out to Daisy Hill. It was a beautiful Queensland winter day - 23 degrees, sunny with a clear cloudless blue sky and a slight bite to the wind.

OK maybe the odd cloud, but nothing to grumble about

I'm still not fast and I'm still getting left behind on the descents, but at least I'm keeping the backs in view now. Luckily in my riding group we wait at the end of each trail for everyone to catch up, and have a laugh whilst we're doing it.

Good mates, flash bikes, great trails, belly laughs and a cold beer at the end of it. How good can a Sunday get?
Incidentally the picture above was taken by Miff, who we bumped into on the trails. Her blog Singletrack Minds sums up the feeling of singletrack better than anything else I've read. Give it a look - just be aware that you might have an unbeatable urge to stop what you're doing and go and ride your bike.

Election Factoid

Any guesses where the busiest polling station on Saturday was? Sydney? Melbourne? Adelaide? Nope - London.

Like I always say - if you want to meet Australians don't backpack down the East Coast of Australia - all you'll meet are Brits, Irish, Dutch, Canadians & Scandinavians. Just go drinking in London instead.

Enough politics - will talk about bikes & beer next.

Hanging politicians

Nope, not natural justice, but we woke up to what looks to be a hung parliament in Australia. This seems to be the 'in' thing in politics with the same situation in the UK and in Canada. It may be a coincidence but I think it's probably due to evolution of politics. The left has slowly moved towards the centre as the power of the unions has been lost and the idealists of socialism are slowly facing the realities of everyday existence. And the right has slowly moved towards the centre as society has become more accepting of difference and people are becoming more aware of their rights. Idealism has been replaced with the rise of the individual, and the concept of mass political movements has been replaced with a grab-bag of policies.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Instead of resorting to grandstanding and bombast today's leaders will need to learn to communicate and to collaborate. Will this lead to policy by committee and a lack of vision? Maybe. The interesting thing is I think we will soon find out who wants to govern for themselves and who wants to govern for the good of their country.

The TV coverage of the election last night was interesting as well. Because of the close race & the preferential system there were fewer hard & fast victories. The various TV channels interpreted the close electorates in different ways which betrayed their political leanings. At one point one channel was declaring 72 seats for Labor (sic) and 68 for the coalition, another the same figures but with the parties reversed. And the number of 'definite' seats regularly fell as the counts continued. There are apparently some seats which will take another week before they can confidently be declared.

So now we just wait & see which way the independents will go. The major thing Australia is dreading is another election, so let's hope that the requirement for strong & representative governance overcomes the parochialism shown by the major parties over the last few weeks.

Election Day

It's election day in Australia and election fever has swept the nation. Unfortunately it's the kind of fever that leaves you heavy, lethargic and hanging for it to end - in reality it's more of a pandemic. I can't vote in this election as I wasn't enrolled in time but it's interesting to watch the proceedings as a semi-involved citizen.

One thing that's been evident is the lack of diversity between the major parties. Pretty much the only point of difference between the two major parties (Labor (sic) and the Liberals / Coaltion) has been their broadband policy - Labor favouring a country wide fibre optic network and the Liberals a combination of ADSL, satellite & wireless connectivity. It's funny to watch politicians trying to distinguish themselves by explaining something that they blatantly don't understand.

There's also lots of emphasis on 'stopping the boats' - the refugee boats that try to land on Australian shores. The impact of the boats seems to be pretty small in reality but looms large in the Australian psyche. Both parties are keen to show themselves as 'able to stop the boats', implying that government policy over here will somehow dissuade destitute, downtrodden and desperate people from trying to navigate small leaky overcrowded boats across large tracts of dangerous storm-whipped shark-ridden oceans in an attempt to get a better life for their families. 'Abbot's in - bugger that. I'm heading back to Indonesia to live in abject poverty for the rest of my life. If I end up in Australia I might be forced to do a triathalon'.

This lack of difference has lead to some very negative advertising. The only party that had any positive statements about their policies was the Greens, whilst the big two spent almost all of their election budget badmouthing the opposition. Ask not what we can do for you, but what names we can call the other guys. One TV advert had vintage black and white footage of two steam trains running into each other with the tagline 'their policies are a train wreck' - and that was it. Is it any wonder that Australians have little faith in their politicians?

The voting system is a little different here too. One big difference to the UK is that voting is mandatory, enforcable by small fines. Elections are also always held on a Saturday and there's a more community feel to the process with schools, churches & community groups running sausage sizzles or selling cakes to soften the blow of having to stand in line.

Australia also uses a 'preferential' voting system. This means that when voting for the House of Representatives (the equivalent of the House of Commons) you need to rank all candidates in your electoral region in order of preference. If one candidate gets more than 50% of the No 1 votes then they're in. If not then the candidate with the least number of No 1 votes is excluded and the second preferences for all ballot papers that had him as No 1 preference are added to the remaining candidates votes. If this leads to a candidate getting more than 50% of the votes then they're in, if not the next lowest candidate is excluded and the process continues. Each party has representatives outside the polling booths giving suggested voting preferences based on the political policies so it's interesting to see who the parties suggest as second & third choices.

Confused? It gets worse. Over here you also vote in Senators - the equivalent of the House of Lords. There can be 50 or 60 candidates for the 6 Senator positions that each State has and you need to rank these candidates in order of preference. You can do this in two ways, generally known as 'above the line' or 'below the line'. If you vote above the line you select a single political party - by doing this you are then agreeing to accept the ranking of the senators as laid out by that political party. If you have more time on your hands you can vote below the line, which means that you have to manually rank each candidate in order of preference from 1 to the no of candidates. I know a few people who've tried to do this and apparently you almost always end up getting to the end and finding your numbers don't match up, meaning you've missed somebody or put down the same ranking twice. This invalidates your ballot paper and means you have to start all over again.

Once the rankings have been established for the Senate there is a very complicated mathematical process to see who gets in. I won't attempt to summarise it as I don't fully understand it but it looks like a quota is set based on a calculation of no of possible votes & no of positions. If a candidate recieves more votes than that quota he is in. Once a candidate is elected a proportion of the second choice votes on his ballot papers are transferred - the number is pro-rata'd, based on the proportion of no 1 ranking votes that candidate received and calculated to 8 decimal places (without rounding).

My favourite part of the Australian Electoral Commission information sheet detailing all this is the bit that says 'It is some weeks before all Senators are declared elected'. No kidding!

4ZZZ Community Radio

There's a local community radio station in Brisbane called 4ZZZ - it can be found at 102.1FM if you're within about 50 km of the city or on-line via http://www.4zzzfm.org.au/ . Ever since I found it it's become my regular radio station of choice. All music is chosen by the presenters, not by any media-driven playlist, and because of the demographic of the presenters that leads to a lot of what I would consider 'my music'. It's not uncommon to hear Joy Division, the Happy Mondays or the Stone Roses and I've even heard such long forgotten gems as Ride, the Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance & Slowdive. Classic British bands are in a minority though - there's a lot more local music and up & coming bands that catch the presenters ear.

Some of the shows are 'themed', such as 'Thunderstorms & Neon Signs' which plays blues & alt country, 'Locked In' which broadcasts messages & requests for people in prison, 'The Anarchy Show' which presents alternative news & rants and 'Dykes on Mikes', which is a professor called Michael discussing Dutch flood prevention schemes. Others offer a more random mix of music & opinion, although the general style of both is humerous, independent, alternative and a little bit out there.

All presenters are volunteers, and although the 'umms' and silences can be a bit irritating at first they soon become more soothing than the endless jabber of the commercial stations. It's worth a listen so if you're local tune in, and if you're overseas try the streaming option. If you're in another time zone then beware, it could get a bit wierd late at night. If the station plays Cannibal Corpse at 11am then Christ knows what will be airing after dark.

The station is independently funded, relying a lot on donations & subscriptions. It's their annual fundraising week this week so if you subscribe you're also in the running for a variety of prizes. It's $50 for a waged subscription - a small price to pay to keep a section of the airwaves free from corporate domination. Go on - you know you want to...

Shplendid

Got my passport today - the final thing to do as part of my Australian-isation.

Feels a bit secret agent-ish having two passports. Hmmm - which nationality shall I travel under today?

Is it just me or do I look a little chubbier in my Aus passport? Too much of the good life :)

Back in the saddle

I've also picked up my riding again - partly because it's just plain fun, and partly because I've entered into the World Singlespeed Championships in October this year. The race is being held in Rotorua in New Zealand and about 15 of us are going over for a week to ride bikes, drink beer and have fun.

In line with the bikes, the Singlespeed Champs are a little different to 'regular' mountain bike racing. There are regular beer stops on the course (drink a beer and take a shortcut), costumes are encouraged, the mood is very definately relaxed and the winner has to get a commemorative tattoo. No tat - no podium. For more info go here - http://www.sswc10nz.com/ . If you're a mountain biker in the Southern hemisphere it will be the event of the year. Race entries are closed but come along anyway, ride bikes in the run-up to the race and party with us.

Unfortunately the time on the bike has triggered off an old back injury - one which regularly flairs up when I start upping my exercise regime. I damaged some soft tissue hiking too far with too heavy a pack on when i was in my early 20s and I've had nagging back pain ever since - once or twice a year I'm laid out for a day or two until the anti-inflamatory drugs take hold. I've been seeing an osteopath who really frees it up when it's sore (see John at Osteoworks if you're interested) but I'm looking at some other alternative therapies to prevent it happening in the first place. Asking around, opinions are mixed on which therapies are effective and which are hokum and I'll write up what seems to be effective. If you have any suggestions let me know.

Spring

Spring has sprung in Brisbane. We had a brief period of rain (100mm in a day!) and after that the skies cleared, the temperatures soared and all was lovely. It was perfect for a spot of afternoon mountain biking at Daisy Hill, and Gordy was fired up enough to style it up

(The second photo has had the colours boosted to warm it up - the first gives more of an idea of the sunlight over here)

There was a lot of rustling in the bush as we rode as the goannas were out and soaking up the sun

This means that the snakes are out & doing the same, but after a while you learn not to think about that.

Back in the suburbs the wildlife is stirring too. The magpies are nesting and starting to get aggressive, which means that schoolkids & cyclists are getting nervous. And even the bush turkeys are looking at reaching new heights

It's also planting time on our balcony. We're hoping for a bumper crop of radishes, spring onions, courgettes, mint and chillis

Citizenship

A couple of weeks ago I finally became an Australian

The ceremony took place in an auditorium at the Southbank convention centre, and it was a biggie. 995 new migrants plus a scrum of supporting friends & family.

The ceremony started with a traditional indigenous greeting ceremony

Then there were speeches by a variety of Brisbane politicians

and some tunes by the gents in tuxedos above, a local (and very good) male voice choir.
After that we pledged alleigance to Australia in two waves - those who wanted to use the phrase 'under god' (this is an oath) and those who skipped that particular phrase (this is a pledge). Finally it was time to open the envelopes containing the citizenship document - we were Australians.
The Lord Mayor lead us in a rousing chorus of 'Aussie Aussie Aussie - oi oi oi!' and that was it. It took just over an hour with some additional standing around at the start - in some ways nothing has changed, in other ways everything has changed...