ianbee: this is instead of getting a dog

The Bamboos

Last friday I went to see the Bamboos, as recommended by Kenny. It was a risk, because there is always the possibility his musical radar has slipped from living all the way down in Cornwall, but I decided to pursue the lead and check them out. I was presented with a band of guys in brown suits fronted by a wonderful singer called Kylie Auldist (she's not in the photo, and wasn't in a suit). Check out the chairs.

They were very very slick, and extremely tight. Good driving soul and funk played with straight faces from the band throughout. You don't want to look like you're enjoying it now do you guys? My friend swore she saw one of them smile but it could have been the lighting. Kylie was amazing, a great presence on stage and she was definitely smiling! If they are ever near you, pay them a visit, and stand near the front.

Thing was, they were just the support act. I wasn't prepared for, nor expecting anything in particular from the main event; Roy Ayres. Jazz vibraphone anyone? Um, not my thing, if you'd asked me earlier. But what a treat! The skinny white guys left the stage and the big black guys took over and showed them how it was done. I was exposed to extended bass, drum and vibraphone solos that left me open mouthed and wide eyed. The bass player hit the strings with his cap, and finished the riff lying flat on his back on the floor witht he rest of the band fanning him down. The drummer (Troy Miller) put his sticks away and played with his hands. Then his elbows. Then he left the kit behind and coaxed a rythmn from the monitor speakers. And Roy waved his mallets in the air like he just didn't care. Great night!

Bruny Island Lighthouse

 

Bruny Island is a short drive south of Hobart. It's really two rocky islands joined by a low sandy bit that will be the first to go with global warming. Much of the island reminded me of Scotland, except for the penguins.

 

The lighthouse keeper showed me round his lighthouse. Lots of salty stories, and a genuine nice guy.

 

Apparently, if the walls fall down, the stairs are strong enough to remain standing on their own. This was clearly not true, but I nodded all the same.

 

The phone still works. It rang while I was there! Brrrring brrrrrrrrring!

How hard can it be to pack?

I have just finished a wonderful book called The Lost Men. It tells the story of the Ross Sea Party, who attempted to lay a line of food and fuel depots across Antarctica in the early 1900s in order to facilitate the first crossing of the continent. The expedition was a disaster. The ship ended up slipping anchor and marooning ten men ashore where they lived for eighteen months on a diet of seals and penguins and the mouldy left over food from a previous excursion.

One of the criticisms leveled at the expedition was that the planning fell short of what was required for that sort of epic adventure. In the Edwardian manner, crew were selected on the basis of good handwriting rather than polar knowledge. The long sail South was spent learning how to set printing type so a journal could be published, rather than training the sledge dogs. Navigation on the boat was hindered by the fact that no-one could remember where the chronometer had been packed. They must have been very pleased when it turned up almost a year into the voyage, no doubt jammed between boxes of biscuits.

When I read this I was pretty scornful. I mean, how hard can it be to pack a boat? Put the important things on top, etc. Well this week I have learnt my lesson. I have moved house.

The transition unfolded whilst working a week of night shifts (which can't have helped). I alternated sleeps between the new home and the old home until it was all sorted. Unfortunately living in two places at the same time has logistical implications.

Due to general forgetfulness and ideas of redundancy I have come to own three toothbrushes. They all ended up at the end of town opposite to the one I was living in. So now I own a fourth. At one point I had an electric toothbrush charger, but no tooth brush. I also had a mobile phone but no mobile phone charger. You cannot charge a mobile phone with a toothbrush charger.

On monday it was ten degrees outside and raining. I only had shorts. The kettle was always one step behind me. I had everything I needed to bake biscuits, but couldn't shave. It was a nightmare. Based on my experience this week I am amazed the Antarctic explorers ever left port, nevermind had trouble finding their clever clock.

Penguins, etc

Hobart is one of the Antarctic "gateway cities", the others being Christchurch, New Zealand, and somewhere in Chile I can't remember. So that is why, as you wonder around Hobart, the big white continent keeps leaping up from over the horizon and grabbing your attention. Everyone is constantly reminded that it is there, it exists, in a way that was exciting to me as a Northern-hemisphere visitor. It's not just the big icebreakers outside your window; the city museum has an Antarctic gallery, the book shops have an Antarctic 'shelf' and a collection of bronze penguins on the marina are looked upon hungrily by bronze explorers. I went into a cheese shop and got talking to a man who had just got back from Antarctica yesterday. Yesterday! He still had snow on his boots (metaphorically). Nice that he rushed straight into the cheese shop; "have you got any out-of-date cheese?" You'd have thought that out-of-date cheese was an Antarctic specialty and he would be hunting out really fresh cheese on his return. Maybe out-of-date cheese is banned on Antarctica under some international treaty?

I took a short drive to the headquarters of the Australian Antarctic program, a collection of modern bridge-linked cabins that looks like a moon base relocated to the suburbs. They had a great collection of posters from their bases including one detailing how close you were allowed to get to penguins in snowmobiles. Unfortunately it was the humans who were in the snowmobiles, but the idea of joy-riding penguins made me smile. They did have a weigh-bridge designed for penguins that was designed to be walked over on the way to the sea (picture left). Later in the week I stood at dusk on a beach on an island south of the city. As I watched, a solitary baby penguin left the safety of the dunes to stand on the sand and await his parents. As the sun set penguins came out of the sea in groups of three or four to find their hungry young. Everything you've heard about how funny penguins look when walking is true.

Before I left the Australian Antarctic headquarters I had a cup of tea in their Antarctic Cafe (a sadly wasted martketing opportunity. It was just a cafe with snowy photos on the walls. They didn't even sell Penguin biscuits). I settled into a seat where I could just overhear the pre-departure briefing being given to a group of very excited scientists. There was a palpable air of delight, I guess this was a journey that for many of them was the pinnacle of their careers. As they filed past me out of the seminar room, clean shaven faces showing great beard-potential (even the ladies), one woman came up to be and asked if I would be willing to sign the consent form for the "Vitamin D levels in Antarctic personnel" study. I said I was just having a cup of tea and she moved off. If I had said "yes", would I have been on the trip? I'll never know.

Went on holiday, stayed in a jam factory

Hello, sorry it's been a while. I've been to Tasmania! Most Sydneysiders, when asked about it say "I've never been there, but I'd like to go". Well I went, and it was great. Really beautiful, like Wellington only with sturdier buildings, or like Edinburgh, if Leith was nearer the station and the muffins were bigger.

 

I was visiting my friend from Scotland who is working at the college of art in Hobart. I actually got to stay inside the college! In the "artist in residence" flat! I had my own key to get in, a car park pass and I went for a meal with the principal! I can finally say that I went to art college. Even more impressive, the college was in an old jam factory!

What is more, my room looked out over a shipyard, and one night an icebreaker docked, on it's way to Antarctica.

Pretty good holiday eh? More stories to come ...

Rugby Fan

It's getting really hot over here. Not every day, but it hit 35 degrees one day last week and that's the hottest I've been since I can remember. At least since I left London for Edinburgh. I had a fan when I lived in London, I took it up to Scotland with me and never switched it on again!

So saturday I went out to buy a new fan. I found I had a choice; for the same amount of money I could buy a single huge fan, three smaller ones, or seven little ones. Dilemma. Without knowing anything about the wattage or speed of each I went for diameter and brought the big fan. Would you have done the same?

I think I'll need to bolt it to the floor as it keeps trying to walk backwards. I might try and fix it to a car and see if I can turn it into a hovercraft.

After the fan shopping I went to watch a bit of the Rugby League final (Manly vs Melbourne). Do you remember the awesome Olympic opening ceremony? When they had hundreds of Chinese drummers playing in sequence? Well the Australians preceded their rugby match with another display of syncronised drumming. Only they were drumming on barbecues. They would raise the lid of the barbecue and bash it down, and every now and again run their barbecue tongs along the grill. To music. Whilst standing in front of a pick-up truck. This truely is a land of culture.

It actually made me more worried about the opening ceremony for the British Olympics, because I'm sure we'll come up with something worse than drumming on barbecues.

Cookie Man

A story

This is very cool, if you like London, Edinburgh, John Buchan and Google Maps. You'll need half-an-hour and a good internet connection.

Some more Kangaroo Island pics

Top left - beautiful cave, but very smelly because of the seals (look carefully!)
Top right - the wind was blowing the spray over the cliffs
Bottom left - cool beach, great dog
Bottom right - a very comfortable home
Below - a very dangerous rock

Port Macquarie

I've just been in Port Macquarie attending a resuscitation course. PM is a lovely little town on the coast about four hours drive north of Sydney. It was very clean and very tidy and very quiet. We wondered if all young people are rounded up and locked up (or worse) at the weekends to keep them off the streets. I got up early each day so I could sit on my apartment balcony and watch the sea. The accessible bathroom was cool - it had a little plastic chair so you could sit down in the shower.

The course was basically the same as the courses I have attended in Britain. The main difference was that we sat outside to drink our coffee and the instructors went surfing before each day's classes.

I do like these courses; you get to meet a diverse range of interesting people, you get a smart looking certificate and you gain the authority to comment on poor resuscitation technique in films and on telly ... "There's no way that would work, her elbows aren't straight", "The correct ratio is thirty compressions to two breaths for a solo rescuer - duh", "That patient is clearly in asystole, so why are they using a defibrillator?" Fools.