Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
39 Responses to “Lazy Sunday!”
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Offending and distressing the largest amount of people in the shortest amount of time, completely inadvertantly.
Business as usual in other words.
Also enjoying the almost-spring weather, and pondering whether I risk watching the cricket, or will it be too upsetting?
Looking for sponge cake recipes, because I got suckered into making a birthday cake by a friend for one of her workmates. Cleaned out a cupboard and hope to do some more painting for entry in the local show in October.
Bought two T-shirts — one of which says the following:
An item to help you live more beautifully. It’s right not to resist trends:
A car with a raison d’etre.
Total satisfaction.
The drama will be concluded with this car
“If you will…”
Driving with dreams.
Hear a new pulse.
From “It’s not bad” to satisfaction.
I want to spend more time driving with you.
I can show who I am with this
Just finished watching Gamera the Giant Flying Turtle save Tokyo from destruction by a giant radioactive lobster/squid thing.
Listened to the TMS on the internet this morning.
Will probably listen to the same tonight. Australia’s 0 for 80 or so, and need to make nearly 500 runs off 180 balls if they’re to win.
Decided to get fit again.
Rode 8km.
Had to lie down.
It wasn’t that bad, Deslivres!
I’ve just been digging a couple of holes in the back yard. One was through sandy fill and was the easiest dig I’ve had in years. The second was through the native stony clay, and was a hideous, blister-inducing swear-a-thon. Wrong order. Very dry here at the moment, so they didn’t fill with water…
That’s a relief. I don’t like to cause distress.
Inspired by Jane, I shambled outside and did a bit of deadheading and pruning. Am still pondering the cricket; oh, God….
I’ve just spent two hours wrestling with a Centrelink book for assessing my mother’s assets (one small house) to see if she has to pay extra for the nursing home she’s now in. I don’t know whether it has been the stress of the last two weeks but I couldn’t understand a word of any of the booklets, pamphlets or phone calls I’ve had to make.
The good thing is, she loves where she is. It’s a four bed ward but she has a bed next to a floor to ceiling window/sliding door with a fantastic garden view and I haven’t yet seen a nurse that wasn’t smiling.
Spent the day at my Dad’s. Highlight was reading his collection of photocopies from work from about 40 years ago… including the once where NASA says that it’s changed the Apollo 11 schedule and can Parkes handle the TV signal, because if they can the astronauts won’t have to put up an antenna on the moon and will do other experiments instead. Also liked the letter where Taffy Bowen thanked the police for their discretion and organisation when they looked after security at the Parkes dish. I hasten to say that none of these documents were confidential — Dad reckons they were “just lying around”, so he took copies (hmm). And he can’t believe it’s been 40 years!
Chookie,
Is this what Taffy Bowen was thanking them for…
“Is that a gun?”
“Yeah! It’s NASA regulations!”
“Does Mum know?”
“No, and you’re not to tell her!!!”
The Dish
listened to Gavin Byars – ‘a man in a room gambling’ – ..cleaned the house, watched the bbc’s “Messiah” series, managed to put off cleaning out the guttering. maybe next weekend
Jane #2,
Duck eggs, as distinct from chook eggs make the softest sponge!
It is bitterly cold here in WA’s south, but we’ve developed our own coping strategies: I have a goodly lasagne using beef sourced from a neighbuoring farm cooking in the wood-fired stove. A bottle of local red and some bread I baked earlier will round out the evening.
Reading. I’m still enjoying my discovery that Gutenberg has a large number of PG Wodehouse books available.
Also reading a rather excellent Australian small press released urban fantasy.
I cannot add to human enlightenment for activities this weekend.My state of being,right now, isn’t one I would share!
Chin up philip.
balmy sunday catching up with a friend, must have been 18 or 19 today and discussed plans for the revolution
A politics lecturer has just informed me there isn’t a dominant approach to the media in pols science which comes a small surprise to me. Actually the idea that politics is a science worries me much more but maybe I’m just old fashioned.
Politics is humans. It’s an art, a science, a collaboration and a shitfight.
“it’s an art, a science…”
Strictly speaking, ‘politics’ understood as the method of utilizing political structures to get what you want, is both an art and a science.
As for being wise and correct about what you want, we do not yet have a name for this, as it has never yet happened to anyone to date.
Rachel at #11, this story may be apocryphal but it’s said that there is or was a woman in the Ballarat region who used to win the sponge cake section at all the country shows every year. Her secret? Swans’ eggs from round Lake Wendouree.
Having once been ferociously monstered by a pissed-off territorial swan myself, I think she must be a very brave woman. Bad, but brave.
Dali “Desire” show at National (!!) Gallery of Victoria. Good draughtsman, sometimes lyrical, more often obscure. They showed “Destino” [animation made with Walt Disney, 1948; finally completed posthumously circa 2003] in a small theatrette. Noice. Different, unusual, but noice.
Dali said Disney was a surrealist; will think on that.
Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi may well have been a factor in the Lockerbie aircraft bombing. He was duly convicted and I know of no evidence that casts reasonable doubt on the verdict, though I’ve paid no attention, so that is not surprising. If he is indeed guilty, then one can’t be troubled at his confinement in Scotland. He claims he is innocent of course, which is an odd thing for a terrorist to do. The whole point of terrorism is to challenge the existing power, by putting a cost on policy in the lives of innocents. If you’re going to be a martyr to the cause, you have to put your hand up.
It seems to me that there are two good bases for locking someone up.
1. They are a danger to the legitimate interests of others that cannot be foreclosed except by detention
2. (Related) Failure to lock them up will encourage copycat/fail to discourage copycat conduct. Because the person is guilty of a crime, it is fair and reasonable to saddle them with the burden of imprisonment necessary to deter others.
Does Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi meet these two tests?
IMO, he doesn’t. Firstly, he is now in no condition, even were he so minded, to participate in any terrorist attacks. He probably has only months to live. He will be very closely watched by the Libyans who are no respecters of privacy and will need daily medical treatment.
Secondly, as he is denying participation and repudiating the conduct, his release cannot be seen as encouraging copycat conduct, so contrary to the suggestions of many, this cannot be seen as a victory for terrorism or making a mockery of the law. On the contrary, it affirms that the law in civilised countries is just even with those believed to have committed grave crimes. We who favour the rule of law can declare that unlike those who don’t — we are not barbarians. That claim undermines those who favour Islamist rule or who argue that we are driven purely by animus towards Muslims.
Ironically, the principal benefit to terrorism, if there is one, is found in the repeated assertions of people such as Robert Mueller of the US FBI who assert that this is indeed a victory for terrorism. Mueller and people like him are acting as unwitting PR agents of the people they claim to despise, even though reason and self-interest cry out against such conduct.
While it is probably too much to ask for reason in their responses, they ought to consider keeping their big traps shut, particularly when there is ample scope to do so.
Fran
Fran — while I’m not really sure what I think of the Lockerbie affair on the whole, the blunt fact is that the dude was met with a hero’s welcome and is being used in Libya to make political hay, which invalidates much or most of your claim #2. Also, with this:
“We who favor the rule of law can declare… we are not barbarians.”
You show yourself to be very naïve. This sort of thing may (may!) impress secularists and quietists throughout the liberal and Muslim worlds, but to the “radical” (I dislike the word but it will have to do) Muslims, your assertion is meaningless. You favor the rule of “human” law, not “Allah’s” law, which renders your assertions invalid on their face to those inclined to such belief. You and your law are neither “barbarian” nor “non-barbarian”, but rather kuffr, an infidel, with the inherent disabilities which this implies.
Not everyone’s a Marxist, I hate to tell ya.
Went up the corner shop early Saturday morning to buy some cigarettes and chocolate biscuits and discovered they’re getting a batch of new release DVDs in every month available for hire. This is good news as the walk up and back to and from to the local Video-Ezy from my place takes me a long time and is very tiring, even though its only four blocks away (though one of those blocks is a very long block past TAS School.) Got out Baz Lurhman’s Australia.Watched it Saturday morning. As noted on Saturday Salon, I wasn’t that impressed. On LP. Spent the afternoon doing research into the battles of Lexington/Concord. Usual Saturday night TV, though I was tempted to watch The 7% Solution, but didn’t. More research.
Sunday – Watched Insiders. Why, oh why, do they bother to have Andrew Bolt on?
On-line. Wrote another paragraph of chapter three of my book, this time Ensign Francis Grose (later Lt. Governor here)at the battle of Lexington/Concord – a character sketch. Won’t be able to do anymore on this chapter till I’ve finished the research for it, which should be in a few weeks. More note-taking.
Sunday night TV – wonderful – Stephen Fry’s America, Midsomer Murders, then watched the movie about Sadam Hussein and the movie about the failed coup in equatorial Africa on ABC2. Best night’s TV viewing for a while.
Paul, I’m disappointed with the Stephen Fry series. Maybe I was expecting too much, maybe he’s trying to cover too much in too short a space of time, but it seems to suffer from a common affliction where the presenter becomes the story, and the actual country is almost incidental to the fascinating travails of the presenter.
Now I know Mr Fry is an interesting character, but I found myself wanting more of America and less of Fry amusing the bemused locals.
Still, at least the cricket was on for the times when Fry got boring and vice versa.
Sunday was way too hot for winter, but visited the city for some shopping where we bumped into an old friend I hadn’t seen for 10 years, twice. Small world and all that.
adrian@23,
I don’t mind Fry’s personal intrusions into the story too much. But he is rushing around a bit, isn’t he? I would very much have liked to see much more on each state, and a longer series. Budget constraints, perhaps? Still, its fun.
JPz@
That’s certainly how it was presented here, but AIUI this was based on him being the victim of a miscarriage of justice — a kind of Libyan David Hicks only more so.
Given that the incident was widely presented as a response to the shooting down by the US or an Iranian Airbus, you might have expected more positive news on his release in Iran, but if there was such, I missed it.
As to your second observation, I regard it as hopeless to try impressing fundamentalists. All you can realistically hope to do is to subvert their claims to others and spoil their recruitment programs. In any event, given that the US had no control over the release, one might have, to borrow the Japanese term used in that other topic done a bit of mokasatsu.
Went swimming with the kids which was more challenging than it sounds because we had to keep water out of Miss 3’s ear due to an earlier ear infection. Still she made it through the night without fuss, so I think we did okay. Then onto our new favourite lunch haunt in Dickson for a quick lunch then home to tackle some long overdue gardening. Part 2 awaits next weekend.
Watched some cricket…. some beautiful stuff in amongst some dodgy decisions but England played very well.
I hereby call on us all to lift our chins and get behind Ricky Ponting in one voice as he did score some decent runs. Yes, he also failed at times when we needed him most but the point is we should be relishing the challenge that a previously much maligned English team has provided for the future of the great game that we all love.
We may have lost but I really enjoyed the cricket and who can forget SBS showing it all live: “SUPER STUFF THAT!” “ABSOLUTELY M-A-R-V-E-L-L-O-UOS!!!”
It is also true, I am more than sure, that many many young talents have been blooded in the fires of this tour! Not only Hilfenhaus and Siddle for Australia but who saw the century in his debut test by that English bloke??? I applauded: I also conveniently forgot his name but I did applaud at the time…
Oh, well,
“Love ya Ricky. Better luck next time bloke: she’ll be ‘right!”
Trott scored his century on debut …
And what was Ponting thinking with the short single? Hmmm …
To be fair, not many sides get knocked over for 160 and win, and fewer still after giving the other side 170 on the first innings … Still, with England at 3-58, Australia had a chance to stay in the game, but the Aussies just weren’t good enough.
Frankly, despite the fact that England were marginally the better side in this series on the whole, I’d like to see the umpiring make a lot more use of technology. The process should be as robust as the result, then let the chips fall where they may.
I’ve never liked Ponting as a captain. His conduct in 2005 after being run out by Pratt was inappropriate and his tactical nous is doubtful. I hope he is moved on.
That was Hussey who initiated the run, Ponting had no choice but to run at that point. The selectors, having finally picked Stu Clark stuffed up by not dropping him for Hauritz.
Australia saved its best batting for when it was too late and feasted on England’s middle order only to be thwarted time and again by Broad, Swann and co. At critical points in the series (Cardiff last day, Lords 1st session, Oval middle session) we fell short either through poor captaincy, inexperience and plain old fragility (respectively).
Ponting has been resolute, graceful and refreshingly modest throughout and can’t be blamed for Stu Clark’s non-selection, Hughes and Johnson’s form drops or the unbalanced tour squad. He hasn’t had a great series with the bat by his lofty standards but he showed great determination in the 2nd innings and was rightly applauded by the English crowd. He has made his share of tactical mistakes but there is no one for the forseeable who can match his talent and experience.
Nonsense. The running instruction — pun intended — should have been no short singles. Unless it beats the inner ring every call is wait. If he give up five probable runs per session, then we don’t care. They need to bowl us all out and if we last through 6 sessions we win, even without those 30 runs.
Dropping Hughes was almost certainly a mistake. Leaving out Hauritz could not have occurred if Ponting had insisted, though to be fair it wasn’t a lay down misere selection — England only picked Swann.
I’d have Katich captain.
Short singles were vital to rotate the strike and preventing England from choking up batsmen. With the pitch deteriorating and the ball swinging Australia had to force England on the defensive as they couldn’t confidently hope to hold out under sustained pressure. That particular run wasn’t on but the principle was fine.
Hughes was shoved way in the deep end, the Poms figured him out, he had to go as we were already carrying too many players. You know exactly as much as I do about the dynamics of the selection panel when they made that decision: bugger all, consequently there are no grounds for assuming that the decision to omit Hauritz was within Ponting’s power to override.
Fran and Dr Phibes, yes and no. Don’t like Ponting, 160 on the first dig and the match was over. They should have won in Cardiff which let the poms in at Lords. Crap selections, questionable captaincy and by and large pretty ordinary bowling. If Strauss hadn’t gifted us the game at Leeds we might have gone 0-3. Fran if they drop punter (which I doubt) do they give the job to the pup?
Pup is the anointed.
Hard to think who else would get it. Katich could do a caretaker job for a couple of years but CA would like a longer term prospect.
Rotating the strike is important in ‘normal’ situations — especially when you have left + right handers but here Asutarlai was chasing down what would have been a record first class score. If Australia wasn’t bowlwed out first, they win — and after 120 overs the bowling is going to fall away badly. With the ring up anything that beats the field gets at least 3 and often four so the singles don’t matter. Switching ends breaks the concentration of the batsmen too you know.
Watson was mainly there in case Johnson failed and because he could bat a bit but his feet don’t move well enough to keep out the LBW soi he was a target on those wickets.
I wouldn’t like to see ‘Pup’ as captain either. If not Katich then Haddin or possible even North.
So punter survives…for now!
I’d be interested in the series averages, if anyone knows where they are. Apart from Strauss, Broad and Swann the Australians are likely to figure more prominently.
The English concentrated much of their rotten cricket in two matches, the first, where they took 6 wickets and we took 19, and the fourth, where we ran all over them. If it had rained an hour or two less in the first we would have won.
At Lords every time the English batted, it was fine and warm and when we batted it was cloudy and the ball swung. Pommy commenters said that if we’d won the toss in the last test we probably would have won.
In the Lords test we had a world record 500 plus to make in the last innings and ended up making over 400. That was after having 3 of our top 6 sawn off at low scores by bad umpiring.
So the rub of the green went the home team’s way, but they were certainly better than I expected and if they play to potential they should worry the better teams.
By the way, I don’t know what Watson was doing there. He can’t be the next best batsman and he certainly can’t bowl at present.
Their keeper, Prior, was good.
On the radio I heard a comparison between Broad’s record and Flintoff’s at the same stage of his career. Broad has taken twice as many wickets at a better average and his batting average is more than 50% better than Flintoff’s was.
I wonder if anyone knows enough about the science of cleaning up oil
spills to comment on how the clean up of the West Atlas off the
Pilbara coast disaster is being handled?
Since oil floats on water, it seemed to me that one alternative to
using dispersing chemicals might be to have floating booms with some
sort of vacuum pump capable of skimming oil from the top of the ocean
and transferring it to a ship’s hold nearby might be one way on
minimising the impact of the spill.
Presumably you could filter the oil and return seawater to the sea in
something like real time.
Are there no such devices, and if not why not? Would it not be
technically feasible, even in calm seas?
Just wondering.
Rachel @11, I’ve used duck eggs for cakes and stuff at times when I’ve had them donated by a farmer friend and they work a treat. Unfortunately, he has cancer and is knocking on, so the supply has dried up. However, he seems to be feeling better lately, so fingers crossed. Feedback on the sponge was they had to tie it down, so honour is satisfied and I sincerely hope there are no more requests.
PC @18, I’ve never had my hands on a swan egg, but my husband and his scaly mates apparently used to go swan-egging when they were kids, rain was plentiful and they used to row a dinghy around a local farm. He says they are particularly good scrambled. I have no desire to tangle with an enraged swan, apart from the moral considerations.
Fran Barlow @38, I recall hearing or reading some time ago (a few years after the Exon Valdez spill if memory serves me correctly), that research was being done on a biological method to clean up oil spills. Someone claimed to have discovered an oil-eating bacteria, but it probably came to nothing, because I’ve heard no more.