Thursday. Could be renamed "Thighsday", as in "aching thighs day". As soon as I hit the first hill, it feels like I've had lactic acid injected into the meat of both legs with a big bore needle. Bam, instant burn. It feels like half the muscle strands in each thigh have turned into biltong. This is typical for this end of the week. Friday will be worse. Riding 10 times per week, albeit relatively short rides, the body just doesn't get a chance to recover between workouts.
In a perfect world, I'd ride Mon-Wed, catch the bus on Thursday and ride again on Friday. However, don't ask me to catch the bus when I am still capable of movement. I'll take 45 minutes of muscle pain over being stuck in a sardine can with fat wobblers any day.
I decide to fire up a bit on Hickson Road, knowing that I may regret it later. The lights go green, I have a gentle downhill slope under me, so I power up to 40km/h as quickly as possible and hold it. That is as fast as the cars along this stretch can do. I know I can go faster, but it's a long stretch of road, and I want to be able to get right to the end, rather than burning out early. I enjoy myself by pacing the drivers that are searching for a parking spot.
Some get irritated at the thought of a bike going as fast as they are, so they speed up and blat past spots that they could have taken if they were going more slowly. I see the odd curse and thumped steering wheel, and watch for cars suddenly braking and yanking hard left in front of me. I am pumping like mad, yet my fingers are shadowing the brake levers, ready to switch from go to whoa in an instant.
I only hold 40km/h for a short period. I am desperately glancing at the speedo as the tempo starts to wear off - 39.6km/h, 38.8, 36.7 and so on. The leg burn is really kicking in at this point. I am not breathing hard by any means, but the thighs are cooking. I'm happy to do this, knowing that with every little episode like this, I will be fitter and faster next time. I just have to keep on pushing it, getting out of my comfort zone and into the world of pain.
I lie down on the couch with 'Heaven + Earth' after dinner. I read half a chapter before passing out. It is nothing to do with Ian Plimer's writing, and everything to do with a week of riding catching up with me.
Tomorrow is Fryday, as in the day my leg muscles fry after a week of abuse. I dread the thought of ever becoming a soft cock.
Thursday, 13 August 2009
Longest suicide note in history
Senate rejects "carbon pollution" legislation. The longest suicide note in Australian history.
Good. The whole thing is a crock.
I hope I am the first person to use that term in this context. Must remember to Google myself tomorrow.
Good. The whole thing is a crock.
I hope I am the first person to use that term in this context. Must remember to Google myself tomorrow.
Like clockwork
I've gone past the two old guys here on the left every day for the last few weeks. They must leave at exactly the same time each morning, because if I leave on time, I meet them at the same spot on the Bay. If I am running late, I pass them much further down the road.
I can pretty much set my watch by where I meet them on the way to work.
I can pretty much set my watch by where I meet them on the way to work.
Genetically modified.... what?
If he said afterwards that he'd had a long lunch with the boys, and had consumed 7 bottles of wine, I could understand it. But by the look of it, he's stone cold sober.
John Wood MP. Representing God-knows what.
John Wood MP. Representing God-knows what.
Wednesday, 12 August 2009
Why we aren't driving jet cars
From here:
The thirstiest Rover car ever built must be the original JET 1 gas turbine car, without regenerative heat exchangers, which could consume kerosene at the rate of 1 or 2mpg! The final T4 turbine car could achieve between 10 and 20mpg.Cool photos of Jet 1 here and here. I could see myself driving one of these. I had a look at this car in the British Science Museum about 20 years ago. I love this sort of styling.
What a difference half an hour makes
At this time of year, 0730 is a good time to hit the road. 0800 is just too late - by that time, the traffic has built up quite considerably, and a couple of intersections that I have to cross start to become a bit hairy. This photo shows what happens to the traffic - when I leave at 0800, by the time I get to this spot about 0808, the traffic is banked up 500-600 metres from the traffic lights that lead onto the City West Link (the red arrow). If I get here at 0740-ish, there are only 5 or 6 cars waiting at the lights. It's like the roads a quiet, then BOOM. Cars descend from everywhere.
So do the bikes. I counted 11 bikes in front of me (some are masking others in this photo) and more behind me. We were like a Mongol Horde when the lights went green.
One thing that struck me yesterday is that the sex balance was all our of kilter - for once, I was in the minority. I don't know where all the women came from - maybe they read my post about the lack of chicks on bikes, and thought, "We'll show this guy".
Thanks to the sudden blip in the temperature, everyone in this photo was sweating profusely. Note the steam on my camera lens from being in my back pocket!
So do the bikes. I counted 11 bikes in front of me (some are masking others in this photo) and more behind me. We were like a Mongol Horde when the lights went green.
One thing that struck me yesterday is that the sex balance was all our of kilter - for once, I was in the minority. I don't know where all the women came from - maybe they read my post about the lack of chicks on bikes, and thought, "We'll show this guy". Thanks to the sudden blip in the temperature, everyone in this photo was sweating profusely. Note the steam on my camera lens from being in my back pocket!
Wednesday
Wednesday. A day of disorganisation. I try my best to have my shit together every morning, and still I fail on a regular basis to have everything squared away as it should. This morning, I left the house without my vest. I was halfway down the next block when I realised the wind chill on my chest was slightly stronger than normal, even though it was 11 degrees rather than the usual 8 (cloud cover to thank for that). I'd left my vest in the cupboard.
Not that it mattered. I was sweating by the time I reached Lilyfield Rd. I waited at the lights with a couple of blokes in thick showerproof jackets, and they were sweating profusely. Everyone dressed too heavily this morning.
Except for when I hit town and motored down Hickson Road towards The Rocks. The city is always a few degrees colder than the surrounding 'burbs - all those canyons of shadows cast by mighty office blocks. I decided to crank the pace up a bit to see whether my Wednesday legs could make 40km/h for the entire length of the road.
Nope, 36 was all they could do. However, the wind chill was something else. You'd think that the faster you go, the harder you exercise, so the more heat you produce, so the hotter you get.
Hmm, nice in theory, fail in practice.
My back was pretty toasty from the quick pace, but the rest of me was a lump of ice. The heart just couldn't pump heat to my extremities fast enough to keep up with the wind chill. Slower is warmer.
Well, bugger that. I just kept my feet on the throttles and put up with the cold. I half expected to be dug out of a glacier in 3000 years time like a frozen mammoth.
I detected a reasonable level of fatigue on the way home. On the way home on Monday, I hot foot it up the approach to the ANZAC bridge in 3rd or 4th gear. I know I am doing well if I come out the top of the chicanes in 3rd - it means the legs are not tiring, even with a high power output.
(For the uninitiated, getting onto the bike path on the bridge requires the negotiation of a steep set of U bends. I compared the rise in elevation to the nearby office blocks, and guessed that the climb is the equivalent of running up six flights of fire stairs. Try that at lunchtime).
I can generally do the same on Tuesday, but by Wednesday, I am taking the U bends in 2nd. On Friday, I am grunting up them in 1st. The legs have nothing more to give. I could plot my fatigue on a graph, but all you'd see is a straight line drop off through the week. No real surprises there. However, I am sometimes happily surprised when I'm cranking home and the legs get that "I could go forever" feeling. When that happens, I usually either take a detour and lengthen the ride, or I do a full power burn around the Bay, seeing if I can take it up to 50km/h on the long straight flats and holding that speed for as long as possible.
Of course that also means I am generally utterly shattered the next day, so I try and only do those things on a Friday when I have the weekend to sleep and recover.
Now, I must go and get organised for tomorrow. I have to change my nightly routines so that I set things up before going to bed, rather than trying to get it together when I've just crawled out of the farter.
Not that it mattered. I was sweating by the time I reached Lilyfield Rd. I waited at the lights with a couple of blokes in thick showerproof jackets, and they were sweating profusely. Everyone dressed too heavily this morning.
Except for when I hit town and motored down Hickson Road towards The Rocks. The city is always a few degrees colder than the surrounding 'burbs - all those canyons of shadows cast by mighty office blocks. I decided to crank the pace up a bit to see whether my Wednesday legs could make 40km/h for the entire length of the road.
Nope, 36 was all they could do. However, the wind chill was something else. You'd think that the faster you go, the harder you exercise, so the more heat you produce, so the hotter you get.
Hmm, nice in theory, fail in practice.
My back was pretty toasty from the quick pace, but the rest of me was a lump of ice. The heart just couldn't pump heat to my extremities fast enough to keep up with the wind chill. Slower is warmer.
Well, bugger that. I just kept my feet on the throttles and put up with the cold. I half expected to be dug out of a glacier in 3000 years time like a frozen mammoth.
I detected a reasonable level of fatigue on the way home. On the way home on Monday, I hot foot it up the approach to the ANZAC bridge in 3rd or 4th gear. I know I am doing well if I come out the top of the chicanes in 3rd - it means the legs are not tiring, even with a high power output.
(For the uninitiated, getting onto the bike path on the bridge requires the negotiation of a steep set of U bends. I compared the rise in elevation to the nearby office blocks, and guessed that the climb is the equivalent of running up six flights of fire stairs. Try that at lunchtime).
I can generally do the same on Tuesday, but by Wednesday, I am taking the U bends in 2nd. On Friday, I am grunting up them in 1st. The legs have nothing more to give. I could plot my fatigue on a graph, but all you'd see is a straight line drop off through the week. No real surprises there. However, I am sometimes happily surprised when I'm cranking home and the legs get that "I could go forever" feeling. When that happens, I usually either take a detour and lengthen the ride, or I do a full power burn around the Bay, seeing if I can take it up to 50km/h on the long straight flats and holding that speed for as long as possible.
Of course that also means I am generally utterly shattered the next day, so I try and only do those things on a Friday when I have the weekend to sleep and recover.
Now, I must go and get organised for tomorrow. I have to change my nightly routines so that I set things up before going to bed, rather than trying to get it together when I've just crawled out of the farter.
Tuesday, 11 August 2009
An lesson in early fuel economy measures
Stuck at the traffic lights this morning I spied two cars of interest - a Prius (a car I have zero interest in) and a Rover P4. That's the immaculate black car in front of the Pious.
Dad owned one of these back before I was born. He used to tell me that his favourite feature was the freewheel, which allowed you to coast down hills, saving on fuel.
People make such a big deal out of driving supposedly economical cars these days, no matter how expensive and impractical they are. Yet here we have a car that went into production in 1949 that featured a simple feature for improving fuel economy (even if it did have its downsides). Furthermore, that freewheel feature was incorporated on earlier models, dating back to the 1930s.
We tend to forget that in the early days of motoring, fuel was amazingly expensive compared to now (and the quality was crap), meaning that driving was limited to the very rich. Even when the Model T drove down the cost of buying a car, fuel was still expensive due to the government taxing the hell out of it and inefficient refining methods. Post WWII was the motoring Golden Age due to the happy coincidence of improved highways, cheaper and more reliable (and comfortable) cars, along with relatively cheap fuel (compared to earlier eras).
Even then, motoring only percolated down to the middle classes - the poor still took the bus.
How will our roads look when the High Priests of Gore have driven the poor from the roads with high priced petrol? Will social-justice compassion junkies be happy when the "disadvantaged" can no longer afford to drive?
Hell, if it reduces road congestion, I say "bring it on". I'll still be able to drive a 4WD when fuel hits five bucks a gallon. It might actually be pleasant to be on the road again in a motor car when the proles are removed from the equation.
Dad owned one of these back before I was born. He used to tell me that his favourite feature was the freewheel, which allowed you to coast down hills, saving on fuel.
From Autoweb:
It wasn’t a surprise when Rover began to fit a driver-controlled freewheel mechanism on their cars for the 1933 season, as such devices had been quite fashionable since the late 1920s. A freewheel, when ‘unlocked’ by the driver, allowed easy, quiet clutchless gear changing, and made it easy to save fuel by coasting. But it made great demands on the car’s engine refinement, braking and handling capabilities. The unusual thing is that Rover continued to fit freewheels successfully as standard right up until the 1956-59 period, only phasing them out as the various models were fitted with vacuum servo brakes. This was in case an engine stopped while freewheeling, thus losing manifold vacuum.
People make such a big deal out of driving supposedly economical cars these days, no matter how expensive and impractical they are. Yet here we have a car that went into production in 1949 that featured a simple feature for improving fuel economy (even if it did have its downsides). Furthermore, that freewheel feature was incorporated on earlier models, dating back to the 1930s.
We tend to forget that in the early days of motoring, fuel was amazingly expensive compared to now (and the quality was crap), meaning that driving was limited to the very rich. Even when the Model T drove down the cost of buying a car, fuel was still expensive due to the government taxing the hell out of it and inefficient refining methods. Post WWII was the motoring Golden Age due to the happy coincidence of improved highways, cheaper and more reliable (and comfortable) cars, along with relatively cheap fuel (compared to earlier eras).
Even then, motoring only percolated down to the middle classes - the poor still took the bus.
How will our roads look when the High Priests of Gore have driven the poor from the roads with high priced petrol? Will social-justice compassion junkies be happy when the "disadvantaged" can no longer afford to drive?
Hell, if it reduces road congestion, I say "bring it on". I'll still be able to drive a 4WD when fuel hits five bucks a gallon. It might actually be pleasant to be on the road again in a motor car when the proles are removed from the equation.
Tuesday
The ride today reinforced my perception that couriers are mainly mindless wankers. Men in vans are arrogant fuckfaces. Couriers in vans.... well, you get the drift.
I was cruising down a section of road when I noticed a dirty great big crane parked in the middle of my lane up ahead. It was one of those road transportable cranes that can lift umpteen tonnes onto the fifth floor of a building - that sort of thing. Since it was blocking half the road, there was a traffic control bloke standing there with the usual 'stop/slow' sign.
The courier in the van in front of me was in no mood to either slow down or stop. He completely ignored the traffic bloke and crossed the double white line to go around him. The traffic bloke ran to his left, waving his sign at the van. In the end, the only way he got the van to stop was to stick the sign out horizontally at windscreen level, threatening the van with some expensive damage if it didn't halt immediately.
The traffic bloke then proceeded to give the courier a mouthful, and pointed at the driver to get his van back onto the correct side of the road - because just ahead of us was a blind corner, and a big truck was coming our way around the corner. If the courier had continued on his merry way, he would have had a choice of smashing head first into the much bigger truck, or continuing straight on into the display window of the shop on the corner. It was a close run thing, and it gave me a chuckle.
Personally, if a courier or two went up in a fireball once a day, I would not weep.
The legs held up well today with only a few minor aches, although I noticed that whereas I could cruise along Hickson St at 40km/h yesterday, I was hard pressed to do 32km/h this morning. The recuperative effects of a weekend layoff are quite considerable.
I was also briefly stuck behind a late 1980s Corolla. Boy, the exhaust from that thing stank. I spend a lot of time breathing deeply in traffic, and I never notice the exhaust from modern cars - all those catalytic converters and electronic gee-whizzery have really cleaned then up. It's only when you get stuck behind a 1970s or 1980s stinkpot that you realise how far engineering R&D has brought us. When I hear the Climate Change Monkeys of Doom shouting about how we are all going to hell in a handbasket, I am reminded that nerdy men in white coats with unfashionable glasses will come up with a solution that does not involve carbon taxes, lentils and wind farms.
We must place our trust in the nerds.
I was cruising down a section of road when I noticed a dirty great big crane parked in the middle of my lane up ahead. It was one of those road transportable cranes that can lift umpteen tonnes onto the fifth floor of a building - that sort of thing. Since it was blocking half the road, there was a traffic control bloke standing there with the usual 'stop/slow' sign.
The courier in the van in front of me was in no mood to either slow down or stop. He completely ignored the traffic bloke and crossed the double white line to go around him. The traffic bloke ran to his left, waving his sign at the van. In the end, the only way he got the van to stop was to stick the sign out horizontally at windscreen level, threatening the van with some expensive damage if it didn't halt immediately.
The traffic bloke then proceeded to give the courier a mouthful, and pointed at the driver to get his van back onto the correct side of the road - because just ahead of us was a blind corner, and a big truck was coming our way around the corner. If the courier had continued on his merry way, he would have had a choice of smashing head first into the much bigger truck, or continuing straight on into the display window of the shop on the corner. It was a close run thing, and it gave me a chuckle.
Personally, if a courier or two went up in a fireball once a day, I would not weep.
The legs held up well today with only a few minor aches, although I noticed that whereas I could cruise along Hickson St at 40km/h yesterday, I was hard pressed to do 32km/h this morning. The recuperative effects of a weekend layoff are quite considerable.
I was also briefly stuck behind a late 1980s Corolla. Boy, the exhaust from that thing stank. I spend a lot of time breathing deeply in traffic, and I never notice the exhaust from modern cars - all those catalytic converters and electronic gee-whizzery have really cleaned then up. It's only when you get stuck behind a 1970s or 1980s stinkpot that you realise how far engineering R&D has brought us. When I hear the Climate Change Monkeys of Doom shouting about how we are all going to hell in a handbasket, I am reminded that nerdy men in white coats with unfashionable glasses will come up with a solution that does not involve carbon taxes, lentils and wind farms.
We must place our trust in the nerds.
Monday, 10 August 2009
Monday
Terribly late start this morning - didn't get rolling until 0800. Junior was laid out with something nasty over the weekend, and I woke up feeling dodgy. I didn't want to get on the bike and find out halfway into town that I was in fact too sick to be going to work. I hung around for an hour, doing this and that with Monkey, until I was sure all I had was Monday-itis, and not the flu.
I should have gone early, when it was 7 degrees. All that it took to cure me was 15 seconds in the freezing morning air. It was like going to the snow, and emerging from a nice warm house first thing in the morning - that fresh burst of coldness blows the cobwebs away.
I have parked my heavy jacket and am currently riding triple layered - a short sleeved microfibre T-shirt made from some amazing material, a short sleeved jersey and a vest. That leaves my arms bare, and the cold last week was hard to take on my naked forearms. I seem to have adapted - I hardly notice it now. I'm also back in fingerless gloves, and my fingertips are no longer complaining about the cold each morning. However, the skin on my fingers has turned rough as guts, and I'm getting splits in the skin next to my nails. I started applying hand lotion last night to reduce the sand paper feel.
The ride in and back was good. After a weekend layoff, my legs were in great form. There was not a single ache or complaint from any muscle group, and everything lit up and went when I asked for a bit of power. This was a nice change from Friday. After a week of bashing the legs twice a day, by Friday night, I was unable to squat down in front of the fridge to get a beer from the back of the bottom shelf. I thought I was getting old and crippled - it turns out it was just the result of watching the tarmac slide by for 150km.
I have started on a new route, which adds a few kilometres each way. That's been enough to raise the weekly total to 150km, and I know I can add a few more by taking an additional deviation if I feel like it. I've said for a long time that I want to crank through the old ton per week - 160km. I feel that is a reasonable effort, and one that will pay dividends. Well, I'm not far off it, so I just have to wangle things to ensure that I have the time to do a few more deviations each week.
I should have gone early, when it was 7 degrees. All that it took to cure me was 15 seconds in the freezing morning air. It was like going to the snow, and emerging from a nice warm house first thing in the morning - that fresh burst of coldness blows the cobwebs away.
I have parked my heavy jacket and am currently riding triple layered - a short sleeved microfibre T-shirt made from some amazing material, a short sleeved jersey and a vest. That leaves my arms bare, and the cold last week was hard to take on my naked forearms. I seem to have adapted - I hardly notice it now. I'm also back in fingerless gloves, and my fingertips are no longer complaining about the cold each morning. However, the skin on my fingers has turned rough as guts, and I'm getting splits in the skin next to my nails. I started applying hand lotion last night to reduce the sand paper feel.
The ride in and back was good. After a weekend layoff, my legs were in great form. There was not a single ache or complaint from any muscle group, and everything lit up and went when I asked for a bit of power. This was a nice change from Friday. After a week of bashing the legs twice a day, by Friday night, I was unable to squat down in front of the fridge to get a beer from the back of the bottom shelf. I thought I was getting old and crippled - it turns out it was just the result of watching the tarmac slide by for 150km.
I have started on a new route, which adds a few kilometres each way. That's been enough to raise the weekly total to 150km, and I know I can add a few more by taking an additional deviation if I feel like it. I've said for a long time that I want to crank through the old ton per week - 160km. I feel that is a reasonable effort, and one that will pay dividends. Well, I'm not far off it, so I just have to wangle things to ensure that I have the time to do a few more deviations each week.
Sunday, 9 August 2009
Keeping track of the rent, part 4
Week four of me tracking the high end of the rental market in Drummoyne, post code 2046.
This my original sample, taken 4 weeks ago. Here's progress:
This lot came on the market two weeks and are still available:
This my original sample, taken 4 weeks ago. Here's progress:
- 434 Great North Road ABBOTSFORD $700 - deposit taken last week, but still on the market - appears to have finally moved off the market.
- 85 Renwick Street DRUMMOYNE $750 - still available after 3 weeks
- 9a Wrights Road DRUMMOYNE $780 - still available after 3 weeks
- 30 Preston Avenue FIVE DOCK $800 - still available after 2 weeks, dropped to $780 - that appears to have done the trick, it is no longer listed
- 20 Thornley Street DRUMMOYNE $900 - still available after 3 weeks
- 6 Shackel Avenue CONCORD $950 - still available, and according to Google cache, it has been around since 26 May. That's now two whole months on the market, meaning the owner has lost $7,600 in rent. You have to wonder how long they'll hold out at this price.
- 32 Polding Street DRUMMOYNE $1,000- still available after 3 weeks
- 32 Barton Avenue HABERFIELD $1,000 - still available, but interesting to note that back on 18 June, it was listed at $670 per week. Something odd going on here.
This lot came on the market two weeks and are still available:
- 3 Norman St FIVE DOCK - $1,000, still there
- 18 Fitzroy CROYDON - $900, but dropped to $800 on 9 August. A $100 drop. Things aren't looking pretty when the price drops after one week by that much.
- 51 Macnamara Ave CONCORD - $750, no drop in price. The real estate agent says to "be quick". Ha ha.
- 31 KINGS ROAD FIVE DOCK - $750 - seems to have been rented
- 2 Budd St DRUMMOYNE - starting off at $900
- 688 Parramatta Road CROYDON - $770
Cart before horse
I have blogged a bit over recent months on the completely shite state of Aboriginal housing in some areas. I think I can sum up what I have discovered in this phrase:
Solving the Aboriginal housing "crisis" will not solve the problems of a single blackfella. Rather, solving the underlying problems of the blackfellas will in turn solve the housing "crisis".
There appears to be a train of thought whereby if we throw a billion or so at Aboriginal housing, all ills will be cured. No more kiddie fiddling, rape, murder, mayhem, assault, drunkeness, unemployment, poor school attendance, petrol sniffing and so on. A house is the magic pill to cure all ills!
Yeah, right.
If you take an educated Aboriginal with a job and put him or her in a nice house, I can pretty much guarantee that five years later, they will still be living in a nice house.
If you take a school drop out who has never worked and who drinks a carton a day and smoke dope on the side and has been in and out of prison for assault, burglary and drunken tomfoolery and give them a nice house, odds are it will be a complete wreck within six months.
It matters not if the tenants are black or white - I knew a bunch of dope smoking wasters when I was at uni, and they lived in a run down shack in a nice suburb. It was run down, but neat and clean when they moved in. Six months later, the front yard was full of broken down cars, motorbikes and weeds, the place had never been cleaned, and the backyard was a mass of beer cans, used bongs and dog turds. Useless wasters are useless wasters, whether they are white, black, yellow, male, female, gay or otherwise.
Hell, most of my friends were like that at uni. You should have seen what Trendyman and Tractorhead did to a very nice Art Deco house in Perth's most expensive suburb. In all the time they lived there, it was the only house in the street never to be burgled - and they never locked, let alone closed the front door. No self respecting burglar would set foot in the place.
I just wish the government would say, "Come back and see us when you have your shit together. At that point, we can talk about your housing options. We have some nice people over there who will help you if you are willing to help yourself. Until then, go find a nice tree to sleep under."
Solving the Aboriginal housing "crisis" will not solve the problems of a single blackfella. Rather, solving the underlying problems of the blackfellas will in turn solve the housing "crisis".
There appears to be a train of thought whereby if we throw a billion or so at Aboriginal housing, all ills will be cured. No more kiddie fiddling, rape, murder, mayhem, assault, drunkeness, unemployment, poor school attendance, petrol sniffing and so on. A house is the magic pill to cure all ills!
Yeah, right.
If you take an educated Aboriginal with a job and put him or her in a nice house, I can pretty much guarantee that five years later, they will still be living in a nice house.
If you take a school drop out who has never worked and who drinks a carton a day and smoke dope on the side and has been in and out of prison for assault, burglary and drunken tomfoolery and give them a nice house, odds are it will be a complete wreck within six months.
It matters not if the tenants are black or white - I knew a bunch of dope smoking wasters when I was at uni, and they lived in a run down shack in a nice suburb. It was run down, but neat and clean when they moved in. Six months later, the front yard was full of broken down cars, motorbikes and weeds, the place had never been cleaned, and the backyard was a mass of beer cans, used bongs and dog turds. Useless wasters are useless wasters, whether they are white, black, yellow, male, female, gay or otherwise.
Hell, most of my friends were like that at uni. You should have seen what Trendyman and Tractorhead did to a very nice Art Deco house in Perth's most expensive suburb. In all the time they lived there, it was the only house in the street never to be burgled - and they never locked, let alone closed the front door. No self respecting burglar would set foot in the place.
I just wish the government would say, "Come back and see us when you have your shit together. At that point, we can talk about your housing options. We have some nice people over there who will help you if you are willing to help yourself. Until then, go find a nice tree to sleep under."
Germaine Greer cracks me up
We have a long-ish article in the Grauniad from Australia's favourite haridan - Germaine Greer (long may she refuse to return to us). It's two years old, but worth a gander.
I don't think there is anyone in the media that understands the multiplicity of cultures. The luvvies understand that when they go to Europe, many languages are spoken across the continent and that housing, dress, religion, food and so on varies from region to region. Just look at France as an example of distinct regional differences. Hell, go to England and listen to the accents that you get from county to county. However, bring the luvvies home, and they can't seem to grasp that the blackfellas living in FNQ (Far North Queensland) have quite a different culture to those in southern WA, say around Albany - umpteen thousand miles away.
As for the groups being unable to get away from each other, I view this as a property rights problem. Give a blackfella proper property rights to a bit of bush and let him build his own place where he wants, rather than putting up with what the government gives him in a location of the government's choice. I would never allow the government to tell me where to live - and I guess you wouldn't put up with it either. Why though do we expect blackfellas to do that? Where is their freedom to build the house of their dreams? Communal land rights, which is socialism with a pretty name, has produced the most miserable bunch of buggers you could ever point a stick at.
Given that Brough had custody of our money - your money and my money - I don't blame him for wanting to see a bit of value from it before spraying it around with the usual fire hose. My reaction would be the same - you want our help, clean up your shit first. I didn't make that mess - you lot did. You clean it up.
This bit really did it for me. One of the most ardent feminists of our age arguing that men and women should be segregated! We can't have men-only clubs in the city, but Greer is arguing that we should have men only camps in the outback.
I will have to leave it there. Monkey is driving me nuts.
The suffering of Aboriginal women and children at the hands of their deranged menfolk has been going on all Howard's life.I always like to contrast statements like this with lamentations that "too many Aboriginals are in prison". You can have it one way or the other - you can lock up the maniacs who beat their women senseless and molest every kid within reach, who burn and steal anything they can and wreak havoc on the lives of all around them, or you can let them out to commit more assaults, rapes, robberies and murders. Which is it to be?
Boundaries are important to Aboriginal peoples, who have always respected each other's space and have suffered acutely whenever disparate groups have been forced to occupy the same space.And how is that to any other group of people? The Russians will tell you that it is no fun to live anywhere near the Germans, and the Poles will complain that living between those two groups is the rough end of the pineapple. What makes Aboriginals so special? I like my neighbours; but I also like the fence that separates us.
Officialdom has never made any attempt to cope with the multiplicity and complexity of Aboriginal culture. For groups who have jealously guarded their distinctness and carefully managed their intercommunal negotiations for 40,000 years, enforced togetherness brings intense psychological stress. For six months of the year the disparate clans of Wadeye cannot get out of each other's way, as they are hemmed in by the wet, with neither roads nor runways usable.
I don't think there is anyone in the media that understands the multiplicity of cultures. The luvvies understand that when they go to Europe, many languages are spoken across the continent and that housing, dress, religion, food and so on varies from region to region. Just look at France as an example of distinct regional differences. Hell, go to England and listen to the accents that you get from county to county. However, bring the luvvies home, and they can't seem to grasp that the blackfellas living in FNQ (Far North Queensland) have quite a different culture to those in southern WA, say around Albany - umpteen thousand miles away.
As for the groups being unable to get away from each other, I view this as a property rights problem. Give a blackfella proper property rights to a bit of bush and let him build his own place where he wants, rather than putting up with what the government gives him in a location of the government's choice. I would never allow the government to tell me where to live - and I guess you wouldn't put up with it either. Why though do we expect blackfellas to do that? Where is their freedom to build the house of their dreams? Communal land rights, which is socialism with a pretty name, has produced the most miserable bunch of buggers you could ever point a stick at.
In the immediate aftermath of the mayhem, Mal Brough, minister for families, communities and indigenous affairs, came to town. Instead of being appalled at the evidence of criminal neglect on the part of the authorities whom he represented, he laid into the inhabitants, ordering them to clean the graffiti off their walls, collect the rubbish littering the streets, and get their kids to the school that wasn't big enough to hold them, on pain of having their funding frozen. The people responded badly, saying they were not "going to bloody fall down in a heap just because some clown like Brough comes along and wants to bounce us". As one citizen told a reporter, "I won't do it, because of him asking me."
Given that Brough had custody of our money - your money and my money - I don't blame him for wanting to see a bit of value from it before spraying it around with the usual fire hose. My reaction would be the same - you want our help, clean up your shit first. I didn't make that mess - you lot did. You clean it up.
Likewise, when white administrators have offered Aboriginal people "decent housing" they have seen it wrecked and even burned down, yet it does not occur to them that the three-bedroom brick veneer is not what Aboriginal people can use. Many live in segregated camps, or would if they could. Indeed, the problem of child abuse would be mitigated if they went back to the tradition of men's camps and camps for women and children.
This bit really did it for me. One of the most ardent feminists of our age arguing that men and women should be segregated! We can't have men-only clubs in the city, but Greer is arguing that we should have men only camps in the outback.
I will have to leave it there. Monkey is driving me nuts.
Saturday, 8 August 2009
The government gives you a free house - then what?
Three bedrooms, 12 occupants, 10 years of waiting - that is the title of a story from The Australian earlier this week. I read it over breakfast on Thursday, and unfortunately, the online version of the story is not accompanied by the photo that was used in the paper edition.
On Friday, a letter appeared in the paper about this story, and I just noticed that it has attracted some comments.
The photo was quite stunning - stunning for what was not in it. The photo appeared to show the lounge or living room of the house in question - I'm not sure of that exactly, as the caption was not that explicit.
Apart from some scribblings on the wall, the room was empty, bar a sleeping mat in one corner.
No table. No chairs. No book cases. No sideboard. No carpets. No paintings. No books. Nothing.
And this family have lived there for 10 years.
One might ask, "Where are your chairs?"
The usual answer would be along the lines of, "Chairs are not culturally appropriate for Aboriginals. They prefer sitting on the ground."
Right.
To start with, Aboriginal culture is not some monolithic, homogeneous thing. Whilst there may in fact be an Aboriginal clan that has developed a cultural rule against chairs, I am sure that there are plenty of other clans that have different rules.
I say it has fuck all to do with culture and everything to do with poverty.
If you walked into a house owned by one of the "big men", I'm sure it would be full of chairs. Dining chairs, sofas, arm chairs, office chairs, chaise lounges and so on. The rich have furniture, the poor squat in the dirt. The rich fellas, whether they be blackfellas or whitefellas, who have grown fat from the spoils system that is Aboriginal affairs, fob off questions from stupid white southern journalists by use of the word "culture". I'm over it.
If we journeyed back 1000 years into my ancestry and visited the auld country, we'd find that the king and nobles had chairs - the king in fact had a throne - the bishops and clergy had chairs, the merchants and artisans had chairs, and the peasants sat in the dirt. The peasants sat in the dirt because they were too busted arse broke to own furniture.
And so it is today.
So I wonder, what is the point of giving a new house to someone who has not accumulated a single stick of furniture over the time that they have bred five children; children old enough to have produced three grandchildren. (By the way, the numbers in the story do not add up. It mentions the main protagonist and five children and three grandchildren, but says 12 people live there. Who are the missing three?)
By the way, the photo also showed scribblings on the wall behind the occupants. The letter writer picked that up, describing it as graffiti. I wouldn't call it that, but I did note one thing - it was all about five feet above the ground. One thing I know about young kids is that some of them write on the walls - ours don't, but I have seen others doing it. They tend to write about a foot or so off the ground, as that is as high as a 4 or 5 year old can reach. The scribblings in the house in question were clearly done by teenagers or grown ups - people who you would expect would know better. When adults are doing childish things, that's a worry.
On Friday, a letter appeared in the paper about this story, and I just noticed that it has attracted some comments.
The photo was quite stunning - stunning for what was not in it. The photo appeared to show the lounge or living room of the house in question - I'm not sure of that exactly, as the caption was not that explicit.
Apart from some scribblings on the wall, the room was empty, bar a sleeping mat in one corner.
No table. No chairs. No book cases. No sideboard. No carpets. No paintings. No books. Nothing.
And this family have lived there for 10 years.
One might ask, "Where are your chairs?"
The usual answer would be along the lines of, "Chairs are not culturally appropriate for Aboriginals. They prefer sitting on the ground."
Right.
To start with, Aboriginal culture is not some monolithic, homogeneous thing. Whilst there may in fact be an Aboriginal clan that has developed a cultural rule against chairs, I am sure that there are plenty of other clans that have different rules.
I say it has fuck all to do with culture and everything to do with poverty.
If you walked into a house owned by one of the "big men", I'm sure it would be full of chairs. Dining chairs, sofas, arm chairs, office chairs, chaise lounges and so on. The rich have furniture, the poor squat in the dirt. The rich fellas, whether they be blackfellas or whitefellas, who have grown fat from the spoils system that is Aboriginal affairs, fob off questions from stupid white southern journalists by use of the word "culture". I'm over it.
If we journeyed back 1000 years into my ancestry and visited the auld country, we'd find that the king and nobles had chairs - the king in fact had a throne - the bishops and clergy had chairs, the merchants and artisans had chairs, and the peasants sat in the dirt. The peasants sat in the dirt because they were too busted arse broke to own furniture.
And so it is today.
So I wonder, what is the point of giving a new house to someone who has not accumulated a single stick of furniture over the time that they have bred five children; children old enough to have produced three grandchildren. (By the way, the numbers in the story do not add up. It mentions the main protagonist and five children and three grandchildren, but says 12 people live there. Who are the missing three?)
By the way, the photo also showed scribblings on the wall behind the occupants. The letter writer picked that up, describing it as graffiti. I wouldn't call it that, but I did note one thing - it was all about five feet above the ground. One thing I know about young kids is that some of them write on the walls - ours don't, but I have seen others doing it. They tend to write about a foot or so off the ground, as that is as high as a 4 or 5 year old can reach. The scribblings in the house in question were clearly done by teenagers or grown ups - people who you would expect would know better. When adults are doing childish things, that's a worry.
We have become a nation of sooks
A police attempt to euthanase a wounded kangaroo went horribly wrong in front of a group of children.Police in Armidale were asked by the NSW Wildlife Information Rescue and Education Service (WIRES) to euthanase the animal, which appeared to have broken a leg.
If you read the full article, you'll see that the Police did everything they could to get it right. I've had to put a final bullet into more than a few roos, and I can tell you, it ain't easy unless they are so whacked, they are lying on the ground.
Back in the days when I had a 10 shot semi-auto .22 (I would have been 15 or so at the time), I fired off the whole magazine (minus my first shot that winged it) from close range as I tried to finish off a roo that I had shot in bushland. It kept jumping around, and as unbelievable as this may sound, most of those bullets missed from a range of only a few feet. I had to reload to give it one behind the ear.
It was a bloody horrible experience, I can tell you that. I gave up trying to hunt roos then and there with a .22, and became a firm believer in using the largest calibre possible to take them out. I'll happily use a .243 on them, but prefer a .303 or .308.
Anyway, my point is that this happened in Armidale, a country town. Since when have country kids become so wet and sooky that they act like a Balmain brat with a bad case of the vegans when a roo gets put down?
I've seen roos put down with a tyre iron to the skull after they've been hit by a car and badly injured. We're talking back in the days before everyone had a mobile phone, and before mobs like WIRES were setup. If you clobbered a roo (or an emu), it was your responsibility to take care of it in the most humane fashion possible, given the circumstances.
Someone must have hit the roo in this story with their car, and either they've been too useless to finish it off themselves, or they've driven off and left the poor thing there with a broken leg. How lucky to have the Police nearby, with pistols, to do your dirty work.
All I can say to the kids of Armidale is this: "Drink a nice warm cup of HARDEN THE FUCK UP".
Friday, 7 August 2009
What's this?
For once, this is not an unusual photo taken by Monkey.
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We have three Indian myna birds who like to lurk in our back yard. They are a very inquisitive bunch of sods.
I left the cover off the BBQ after cooking up some lamb chops. Later, I found these marks in the fat left on the plate. I had no clue what they were. A few hours after that, I was peering out the window and spied the birds skidding across the hot plate.
That is a myna bird foot print in congealed lamb fat.
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We have three Indian myna birds who like to lurk in our back yard. They are a very inquisitive bunch of sods.
I left the cover off the BBQ after cooking up some lamb chops. Later, I found these marks in the fat left on the plate. I had no clue what they were. A few hours after that, I was peering out the window and spied the birds skidding across the hot plate.
That is a myna bird foot print in congealed lamb fat.
Under the bridge
I took a detour on the way home, thinking that the road I was on would loop around and get me to where I wanted to go.
Um, no dice. Just goes to show how well I know my Sydney roads.
I ended up almost directly under the Harbour Bridge. It's a big bugger. Some years ago, I did the bridge climb - something every visitor to Sydney should try. Heights scare me silly, but I did it all the same. The worst bit for me was the very start, when you walk along the girder that I have pointed to with the red arrow. It might not seem very high, but standing down there in the shadows under the bridge is a person. Really, you say? I can't see them.
Yes, because they are very small compared with that very tall bridge. All that you have to walk on when going along that girder is two 6x1 planks laid side by side. Sure, you're tied in so securely that there is no hope of going over the side, but it still gave me the willies.
Very steampunkt. I think the old paint is being sandblasted off at the moment, which explains all the piping and shrouds. The people in this photo give you some idea of the scale.
That's a whole lot of rivets.
The tipping point
I have been thinking about many things (as usual), because a 40 minute ride each way gives one time to ponder life, the universe, and why some people are thick as two short planks.
Some might say that this has been my week to pick on the females of the cycling fraternity. Not so. I have simply pointed out some things that I have observed. You may disagree with my conclusions, but my observations remain the same. Just like "Charlie don't surf", chicks don't ride - at least not in the same numbers as men.
And then I'll got and post this photo to disprove that theory.
Actually, posting this photo of a female cyclist has nothing to do with pricking theoretical bubbles. I posted it because I realised today that cycling in Sydney has reached a certain tipping point - a very sizable proportion of my fellow commuters have taken to wearing reflective vests of some sort. Green is the most popular colour, with a good smattering of orange. The days of the Ninja (idiot cyclists dressed in black from head to foot) are numbered. Even I have crossed over to the dark side (so to speak).
If you ask me, we've reached a tipping point. Vest wearing has become the thing to do. When I started out, only weird people wore reflective vests - hippies mainly. Men with beards - and women too. Birkenstock wearers. Hairy legged soap avoiders. Lentil chewers. Tofu bandits. In the world of serious road cyclists, that is still the rule; but in commuting land, reflectos are now possibly in the majority.
Here is where I move into the world of conjecture.
I believe that the reflective vest is something that is helping convert some people to cycling. The vest leads them to believe that it lowers the risk of being on the road, and once their perceived risk is reduced to a manageable threshold, they start cycling. The more reflective cyclists there are on the road, the more they are noticed, and the more people start to think, "Hey, I could be doing that instead of sitting on this bus". There is something to be said for the idea of safety in numbers.
Now comes my next theory, and here I move into the world of the theory of the diffusion of innovations. Before I get into that, check out this page that covers systems dynamics - the animations are very cool.
The diffusion of innovations breaks consumers down into the following groups:
- Innovators
- Early Adopters
- Early Majority
- Late Majority
- Laggards
Adoption of a product or service follows on S-curve. I'll see if I can draw some later that will make sense.
Here in Sydney, cycling to work is still a rare activity - albeit a growing one. I think it is down around or under the 1% mark of all journeys to work. Many policy wonks have this grand vision of raising that to 5% or more, but if you ask me, most of them have no idea how that will actually be achieved.
At the moment, bike commuting is moving from the "innovators" phase to the "early adopters" - at least as far as males are concerned. This change is no different to say the adoption of the iPod - trendy innovators took it up first, then the early adopters and so on, until laggards like me finally got around to buying one.
The reflective vest has I think had a lot to do with getting the early adopters on board. The innovators are the risk takers - they'll ride naked at midnight with no lights and smeared in boot polish. Early adopters are not so accepting of risk - they need to see some sign that they can ride to and from work on a consistent basis without ending up as road kill, and the vest has probably tipped them over the edge.
I may be wrong here - we might in fact be moving into the "early majority" stage as far as men are concerned, but I doubt it. If you look say at the numbers of people riding in Holland, our numbers are so tiny, we have to be right at the start of the S-curve.
And then there are the women. I postulate that they are a stage behind men on the S-curve because of this risk-perception factor. Men are thicker than women - ie, more tolerant of risk (or just less aware of the consequences of their stupid actions). Women have a higher risk threshold to climb over before getting into the saddle. The big increase in the number of male cycling commuters of late has led innovative women to think, "I'm at much less risk if I cycle with that big pack of blokes - I won't be on my own in the traffic".
I reckon that in a few years time, women will move into the early adopter phase, and we'll see a big jump in women cycling to work. It won't be steady growth - it will be explosive. There'll be the odd one here and there one day, and packs of them roaming the bike paths the next.
So here's my curves - men in blue, and women in pink. That's my explanation for why men currently outnumber women about 20:1 on the bike commute into town.
It's either that, or too many women think lycra makes their bum look fat.
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