I’ve just upgraded the WordPress software that runs this blog and I’m about to fiddle with the layout, so expect a few glitches for the next couple of days.
Then again, maybe it IS chicken-counting time for Rudd
A week ago I suggested it was premature to predict a landslide victory for the ALP’s Kevin Rudd in the forthcoming federal election. But this graph from The OzPolitics Blog today is certainly suggesting otherwise.
Does anyone have a parachute?
The Three Ages of Slavery
Thanks, as always, to Gaping Void for the insight.
From the mouths of children
Yesterday, while walking the Sydney Harbour Bridge and afterwards (photos to come), we heard a couple of magnificent comments from children.
From a girl about 10 years old, objecting to being told what to do by her father: “If you love me, you’ll stop being arrogant.” (I’m impressed that she knew “arrogant” at her age!)
And two girls, also about 10yo, chanting together:
We don’t do the dishes
Because we’re so delicious!
That’s a damn fine excuse for not doing the housework if ever I heard one. And they were as cute as buttons. I’d even have taken a quick photo except that in the 21st Century any attention given to someone else’s children brands you a paedophile. Bloody paranoia.
Dawn Chorus, 18 March 2007
Here’s what dawn sounded like this morning (1.3MB MP3), or at least a minute and a half of it. There’s quite a few different kinds of birds. Unfortunately there’s a slight whine in the right channel — a bad microphone cable, that’ll have to be replaced! And the thumping sounds toward the end are one of the cats walking across the wooden deck, too close to the mic stands. But it’s a suitable test of my recording set-up, which hasn’t been used in ages.
My new long-distance love
Thanks to UK comedian Dave Gorman and the BBC Magazine’s Alternative tourist map of Britain, I’ve fallen in love with the Greenwich foot tunnel (pictured).
Look further! It has a dome at each end, almost infinite length and endless fascinating perspectives.
Opened in 1902, the tunnel runs 370m under the River Thames and is lined with white tiles — though the section in the photo has a thick steel and concrete inner lining to repair World War II bomb damage. You can see that more clearly in the Dave Gorman’s larger photo.
Perhaps it’s unpatriotic to lust after a very English tunnel on the 75th birthday of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, but somehow this tunnel intrigues me. I suspect that once I see it “in the flesh” I’ll love it as much as ’Pong loves the Newtown railway underpass.