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!
33 Responses to “Lazy Sunday!”
Leave a Reply
Please read the comments policy. If you would like an icon beside your comment, please register a Gravatar.
There is a Comments Preview function below the typing box which activates when you start typing.
I have spent the day writing, dipping into blogs, and wondering why I do it.
Is it to allay the loneliness of writing, and to satisfy the wish for a response, or is it merely a distraction from the hard work of writing something worthwhile and meaningful that others might want to read?
I spent most of yesyerday writing and finishing the first section of chapter 3 of my book, and a bit oif the secpnd section. Pleasant Saturday night’s Tv. Like the new ABC 1 Saturday night line up.(Looks like, if I stay up late I might catch up on some of the Friday night Crime I miss by watching Torchwood (which I really like.
Stopped torturing my brain and gave up for the afternnon. Instead I watched a DVD of Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Liked it better on a second viewing.
Sunday, read a bit of John Brewer’s Sinews of Power; took some notes from Ezra Stiles’ Literary Diary, volume one. Fiddled around on blogs, fiddled around seeing if I had any minor revisions to make on what I’d written already of the chapter I’m writing on Lexington Concord. (I didn’t but over the past two days I’ve been getting a little obsessed about how many officers were in the 52nd. Light Infantry on 19 April, 1775 on the Lexington Concord road. You can’t really find out, it seems, because of the unreliability of British army records in Boston for that day.)(also got over concerned about powder imports, or more precisely the lack of them into North America from 4 December, 1774. Did you know that in the late 18C, saltpetre for making gun powder was imported into Europe from Bengal. The tjings that pre-occupy a historian’s mind.
Started thinking of DVDs I’d like to buy. But I won’t get into that.
Looking forward to seeing “our Kim” in the US Open final! : )
Because I’ve been working too much overtime lately, I was forced to take Sunday off instead of spending it bringing a train back from Toowoomba (the Chiryu of the south).
So Sunday was spent pursuing my favorite hobby: prevaricating.
I had a free double to the animated feature $9.99, I liked it more than I thought I would, quite funny and melancholy. Geoffrey Rush was great and actually so was Samuel Johnson, who usually irritates me beyond belief..but he suited the character in this one. It was an Australian/Israeli co-production…go figure.
We went to Yum Cha at Kowloon after that and it was great as usual…though I need to get better at my timing with the Yum Cha….I always have a freak out and take my favs when they are offered, and then I regret try it.
^^^ and then I regret it when something new is offered later and I’m too full to try it.
[I really haven't mastered the new laptops touchpad very well, it seems to select sentences, when I only want to select a word...very touchy..I might need to tweek the settings...sorry 'bout that.^^]
Still stewing after hearing Geraldine Doogue, ABC Radio National, describing some worthy expatriate as being currently ‘based’ in whatever foreign city it was. Surely they are living in that city like the rest of us mortals, living day to day wherever. This terminology is a hangover from when ‘real’ people ‘jetted’ about the world, as in ‘jetsetter’. As if there were any other way to get about in 2009. Doogue is a serial offender but there are plenty of others on the people’s broadcaster that ruin my day.
Since there isn’t much going on here, I’ve got a rather impertinent question to ask (my tongue is firmly in my cheek…).
Last Sunday, 60 Minutes had a story on the dangers of using mobile phones while driving (this was a serious story and I don’t intend undermining that message). Normally I don’t watch 60 Minutes, but I just happened to be near a TV when this story was on. The story covered several incidents involving male and female drivers. Unfortunately people did die as a result of these incidents.
But it dawned on me that the story couldn’t be right. I mean, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been told that females are much better at multi-tasking than males. Surely if this was true the statistics relating to motor vehicle accidents resulting from use of a phone while driving would confirm this claim, and females would be rightly pointing this out when issued with tickets by the police for such an offence.
Maybe someone could enlighten me, because I’m inclined to think that those females who claim such feats are as full of bluff and bravado as your typical 20 year-old male. In which case, I’ll have to start claiming that I can multi-task too (I can touch-type and have a conversation with someone at the same time). On second thoughts, I think I might not. If I read something like that on a resume I’d be thinking: “tool”…(but not saying it out loud).
Note: I have a phone that has a mode that effectively turns it off when it is placed face down. I have this mode enabled and always place the phone face down when I sit in the drivers seat. I also don’t drive that often, which is another great way of avoiding motor vehicle accidents.
I washed two guinea pigs today. One of them is suffering from Summer Itch and I’m hoping that medicated soap (for humans) will fix it. They have retired to their ‘houses’ in high dudgeon. Ever been given the no-speaks by a guinea pig?!
I spent today climbing the North Buttress of Booroomba Rocks. I think I will sleep well tonight.
Looked at wild flowers in Kings Park.
Pablo @ 7:
A few years ago (about 10, actually), I decided to avoid Geraldine Doogue on the wireless.
Maybe it’s just my opinion, but she strikes me as being the sort of broadcaster/interviewer that regards themselves to be more important and more worth listening to than their interviewee is.
As a result, to me at least, her interviews are utterly useless when it comes to gaining information about the wide and wonderful world.
Saturday, began re-reading The Brothers Karamazov.
Sunday, went for a train ride to Rosewood, the first time I’d been out there since Ben Lee featured the town in his video for “I Love Pop Music”. Had lunch at the Royal George Hotel (not the one that figures in the video) then cam home.
Nice work Peter.
David C, no idea on your hypothesis.
For me, finally picked some prizemoney in a bike race when I came fourth in the handicap race on Saturday. Worked bloody hard for it though…I think my heart rate barely dropped below 160 for two solid hours…
Shall take your advice Terangeree, no more Doogue. I actually stopped listening to Phillip Adams for the reasons you offer. One of the worst in that light is Margaret Throsby on ABC FM. Her ‘interviews’ while well researched suffer from the constant interruptus mode. Now I have to wade through her own musical selections on CD that simply clutter the limited shelf space at my local library. Librarians have a beef with these musical voyeurisms through not knowing how to catalogue them. Most seem to have given up. Perhaps under ‘V’.
More on how I wasted my Sunday (sort of.)
http://beingahistoryheadandotherthings.blogspot.com/2009/09/history-minutiae-lexington-and-concord.html#comments
Hope youse don’t mind.
Robert,
A couple of years ago I was being interviewed for a job and the young woman interviewing me was telling me that she was very good at multi-tasking and that multi-tasking was an important skill for the job. IIRC, she was an arts graduate and talking about teaching English.
I felt like asking her if she could explain to me the differences between non-preemtive and preemtive multi-tasking. And in the context of a situation in which you might be considered to be multi-tasking (such as listening to two conversations at once), could you describe the process going on in your mind WRT single processor task switching or true multi-processor tasking (and please describe how your mind might handle a word that you were completely unfamiliar with, or if the conversations were conducted with heavy accents). I have a feeling she would have given me a blank stare or probably started babbling nonsense.
I know the mind is a lot more complex than a computer, but when people become overnight experts in terms dragged in from a different field, it just pisses-me-off. I’ve seen similar things in managerial culture. And I have a very low threshold for arrogant managers.
I decided to leave her in her ignorance and was kind of gland that I didn’t get the job. Language is definitely not my forte.
I guess my point is that in an egalitarian society, where women are given more opportunities we should be prepared to call them on their BS in the same way that we call males on theirs. In the future, when anybody (male or female) makes a claim about being able to multi-task, I’m going to ask them some tough questions. And the first one will be related to whether they use their phone while driving. No pussy-footing around.
gland -> glad… and anything else I missed.
Comment #13 warms my heart. (Someone had lunch in a pub)
Robert,
Have you read “The Rider” by Tim Krabbe, or am I crazy to think that any racing cyclist has not read it?
Please answer one, or both,
cheers,
No, I haven’t read it yet. It’s on my “buy me this book” list
Jeez, SATP – has it gotten that bad in Qld? Weekend pubs are stuffed to the rafters with lunchers in Melbs.
OK, we get it “Smiley”, you have a thing about women. WTF is the matter with someone using the term “multi-tasking” in the colloquial sense? there is no requirement that someone using the term in that sense needs to know about “preemtive” (sic) versus “non-preemptive” (sic) multitasking. Furthermore, if she’s talking about English teaching and you’re sitting there stewing about “I bet she doesn’t understand this term in the specialised InfoTech sense!!1!1! How reprehensible!!”, then you have issewes with relevance as well as puffed-up pride in your own mastery of jargon and it’s no wonder if you didn’t get the job.
But I’m sure your esprit won’t fail you second time around. The next English teacher to interview you will cop a lecture on non-pre-emptive multitasking that she won’t forget in a hurry!
A data point: A friend of mine continually talks and texts on his work phone while driving, behaviour I find unforgivable and which lowers him considerably in my estimation. He’s a he.
steve – as fdb said – you have to be aggressive to get a seat at pub meal in melb at the weekend. Unless you are serving crappy tough slab of chewy old chopper and calling it steak served with greasey chips and a slab of tinned beetroot. But you wouldn’t b e would you?
“I decided to leave her in her ignorance and was kind of gland that I didn’t get the job. Language is definitely not my forte.”
Oh I don’t know. “was kind of gland” was a marvelously Joycean interjection into an otherwise predictable narrative.
“I guess my point is that in an egalitarian society, where women are given more opportunities…”
Then it wouldn’t be an egalitarian society would it? In a truly egalitarian society, the operative word here would be not “more” but “enough”.
“…we should be prepared to call them on their BS in the same way that we call males on theirs.”
Absolfuckinglutely. Unfortunately the target selection workwise is rather limited here at the moment. Perhaps if we had as many incompetent women in responsible positions as we do incompetent men?
“you have to be aggressive to get a seat at pub meal in melb at the weekend.”
Cue STAP strenuously denouncing Melbourne counter meal steaks as not a patch on the authentic QLD 18 ouncer. “And we catch and kill our own potatoes unlike you effete inner city mob.”
Helen,
You’re right, I was acting like a jerk. When I come to think of it the young woman was probably under a lot more pressure than what I realised at the time. And ultimately she made a mighty fine choice as far as I’m concerned. And that really is all that counts.
Cheers.
Cheers David.
Here in Brunswick you gotta watch or the spuds’ll shiv you in the dunnies.
On my last Lazy Sunday I had the best chips I’d ever eaten cooked by Bro at his Gippsland country seat – Gippsland King Edward(?) spuds which had only that afternoon been dragged kicking and screaming from the earth. Took some more home and steamed them.
Paul@16 – hardly a wasted Sunday by my indolent standards! I was very intrigued by the history of Francis Grose and particularly of his wife Elizabeth. My Georgette Heyer alter ego leapt into life as I read that she married him just one month before he died in May 1814. Was it possible they had met in 1794 when her then husband William Paterson took over from Grose as Lt. Gov. of NSW? Was his death in 1814 sudden and unexpected or was he fulfilling a long unmet desire to marry his now widowed and one true love even on his deathbed?
I did try a comment at your site but was unable to meet any of the profile requirements.
Patricia WA,
Grose undoubtedly died of the effects of the war wounds he received in the taking of Fort Montgomery and the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse During the American War of Independence. As to the nature of the wounds I can’t be specific as I haven’t reseached his part in those later American campaigns as yet.
He was barely twenty at Lexington Concord and the Battle of Bunker Hill. Both those battles were, for the English, among the most horrendous of the war and his later conduct in New South Wales, including his inability to effectively accept responsibility and his tendency to shy away from personal conflict with his fellow officers seem to indicate that he may have suffered severely from post traumatic stress syndrome as a consequence of his excperiences in the American war.(Apart from the fact that he was totally imbued with the Army officer culture in, for example, his tolerance of drunkenness, and to a lesser extent his lack of sympathy for civilians. His distaste for the lash and the death penalty may also be a consequence of his experiences in America. The Army’s Adjutant=general there, whose name I can’t recall off the top of my head had quite a lenient policy in regard to this.His granting of land to fellow officers was normal conduct in the colonies, and he simply adopted it here. The difference with Grose and Paterson re land grants compared to Phillip and his successors up to and including Bligh probably comes down to the fact that Grose and Paterson were Army and the others were Navy. (Re America, and this holds true for WW2 as well, they might as well have been fighting different wars.)
Similarly his difficulties with the Methodistical Richard Johnson almost certainly arose from his experiences with American clergy. 90% of New England clergymen supported the rebels. As yet I don’t have the figures for the Middle and Southern colonies. I have to do more work on this so these latter conclusions are tentative at the moment.
He specifically resigned his post as Lieutenant Governor here because of the effect of those war wounds. [HRNSW, Vol. 2, pp.215-16 and note give details.) When his regiment left America he was left behind because his wounds made it impossible for him to travel. He was invalided out of the army on his eventual return to England after the war.
I suspect the command of the NSW Corps and the Lieutenant Governorship was possibly givewn to him in recognition of his bravery in America. (Unlike some of the NSW Corps (Macarthur in particuliar he did not want a posting to NSW to avoid service in the French Revolutionary Wars.)
I am tentatively forming the conclusion he has got a bad press from Australian historians, though I wouldn’t say this for manyof the others in the NSW Corps.
Hope this answers your query. (That blog of mine can be a bugger for commenting. Best to register with Google.)
Correction: looming French revolutionary wars. Macarthur was supposed to go to Gibraltar but there weren’t any business opportunitie there.