Overdoing the dencorub

I think I might have applied a bit too much extra-strong Dencorub recently - I'm losing skin.

 Just glad I spotted it when I did, who knows how far it could have gone?

  

He doesn't sleep - he waits.

Some interesting advertising going on at the minute. The incumbent 'Labor' (sic) party has released an ad where their leader (and current Premier) Anna Bligh says that 'the polls show that the opposition (the LNP) are going to win, and it's up to you to make sure they don't win by too large a margin'. She suggests that that would lead to excessive power being held by the LNP and invokes the ghost of Joh Bjelke-Peterson and the ultra-conservative & corrupt semi-police state that was Queensland in the 80's. It's an interesting tactic. Have they really thrown in the towel and are trying to limit the damage? Or is it one more political game to un-nerve any uncertain voters and push them Labor's way?

At least there's still some humour to be found amongst politicians

Going Postal

The Australian Electoral system is broadly similar to that in the UK, but there are a few differences. For instance there are three sets of elections - local, state and federal - instead of the two that the UK have (local and national). This coming weekend is the Queensland state election, and it's a campaign that's coming down to the wire.

Another significant difference is that voting is mandatory over here. If you don't vote you get a fine of around $40 and presumably a sternly worded letter from the Australian Electoral Commission. And you're not excused if you're out of the country - you need to submit a postal vote, find an overseas voting or nominate someone to vote in proxy. I was actually looking forward to my first ever Australian vote (and it's accompanying sausage in bread) but unfortunately I'm flying to Thailand that day, so I'm having to submit a postal vote instead. This isn't so bad as it gives me time to have a look at the ballot paper and figure it all out.

If you look closely you can see another difference - I'm able to either just select one candidate or alternatively rank them all in order. The second option comes into play if there is no clear majority - the candidate with the least votes is discarded and the second choice of all votes for that candidate are added to the main poll numbers. And so on until a clear winner is decided. Cunning, although of course not cunning enough to prevent a hung parliament at the Federal elections a couple of years ago! Federal ballot papers do not give you the option of a single nomination - you are supposed to rank all candidates - although I heard on the radio today that you are legally allowed to select only one candidate and that it still counts as a valid vote , it's just illegal to tell people that that is an option. That makes no sense at all, which almost certainly means that it's true*.

It's interesting voting in a new place. Back in the UK I would never have voted for the Tories, even if they promised free beer and mountain bikes to all, because of the devastation wrought on the country by Thatcher and her evil toadying cronies. Conversely my parents would never vote Labour because their socialist policies take money from the dedicated earners to scatter wastefully amongst the bludgers, and have almost bought the country to it's knees many times. Over here all of the old opinions and prejudices are gone (I sometimes still struggle to figure out who is in which party) so you get to look at it with an unbiased eye. The mandatory vote changes the tone of the campaigns too. There's less of an attempt to inspire the population into getting off their butt and taking positive action, instead they know you will be at the polling station anyway so there's a lot of nasty negative campaigning designed to make you not want to vote for the other side.

Of course it doesn't really make any difference at the end of the day - big business & mining interests are bankrolling all of the major parties to a greater or a lesser degree and will continue to get what they want at the expense of the nation. But that's not going to stop me making my mark!

*Allegedly

Not that I should be complaining

http://vimeo.com/33584769

Knee news

I've spent the week limping around and struggling with the heavy clutch in the Landy. It's not been lots of fun but I can feel it getting better day by day and hopefully it will be stable and secure when I'm carting backpacks in & out of long-tail boats or hiking over slippy rough trails. Not sure how I'll go with the climbing, will make a call mid-week about whether to insure myself for it.

Yesterday I managed a 5km walk to the shops & back so that was a good sign. I also picked up some extra strength Decorub (Deep Heat for any UK readers)

This stuff is viscious. It's like when you're at a sushi bar and accidentally swallow a huge glob of wasabi lurking in the soy sauce. You know it will pass and you know it won't kill you, but my god it hurts until it dies down. Handy hint - don't put it behind your knee, because if you do then when you bend your knee you get a double-dose...

Spitfire Saison

I brewed what will hopefully be a biscuity, malty and slightly hoppy saison today. To keep things simple I just did an extract brew with no mashing, just some steeping of speciality grains. The recipe was

3kg pale malt extract
1/2 kg maltodextrin
700g light crystal malt
20g Fuggles hops
38g Hallertau hops
14g Goldings hops
(yes, the hop was based mainly on what was in the fridge)
Saison yeast from a previous brew

Steep the crystal in water at 70 degrees C for 30 minutes (put the malt in a hop bag or a straining bag and use an esky to keep the water temperature constant)
Boil up some filtered water in a stockpot and add the malt extract & maltodextrin
Bring back to the boil and add the crystal-steeped water from the esky
Bring back to the boil and add the Fuggles and 20g of the Hallertau (watch it doesn't boil over)
After 40 minutes add the remaining 8g of Hallertau
After another 15 minutes add the Goldings
After 5 minutes take off the heat and cool (easiest to do it in the sink, just surround it with cold water and keep replacing the water as it warms up)
Once it's cool strain out the hops and pour the wort into a sterile fermentor.

At this point it's just like a kit beer. Top it up with water, add yeast and leave for a couple of weeks. Then rack off into secondaries and leave for a week or so. Finally prime bottles with sugar and syphon the beer into the bottles. After another couple of weeks, enjoy. Carefully, as I probably overdid the fermentables - the beer will be around 6.5% alcohol by volume.......

I know at this point I normally post a picture of me looking hot &sweaty over a steaming pot and holding a homebrew. So to mix it up a bit.

That's a fine Yarra Valley Pinot Noir. And no I'm not constipated, that's my 'posh' look.

Skeeter Defeater

I'm off to Thailand next weekend and although I won't be spending time in the mosquito-ridden interior, I'm still expecting to be having to fend off the little blighters overnight. The mosquito nets in some of the accomodations we've booked may not be up to scratch so I've invested in a 'Skeeter Defeater'. This is basically a freestanding tent made out of mosquito netting that can be set up over your bed - or even used as a lightweight tent if you're roughing it outside with no chance of rain.

This has been recommended to me by a couple of mates, one of whom has a habit of taking pictures of his pets inside it. We don't have any pets rat the minute, so here's an alternative. No leopardskin accessories were available - sorry Mark. I'll need to leave it to your imagination to do the rest.

 The major problem I can see with it is that there are no doors - instead you need to duck out under the edge. This is fine except I can be a disturbed sleeper. I often sit bolt upright in bed and swear randomly, once when I was training for Wildside I woke up pedalling in my sleep and I've been known to wander randomly around the flat with my eyes open but no idea of what I'm doing. This gets worse when I'm away from home, in fact I will wedge hotel doors closed with a chair to stop me ending up in the corridor.

So picture the scene - I wake up by myself in pitch darkness in an unfamiliar bed, surrounded by whining insects and with a bursting bladder from too many Singhas earlier that night.