Watching my horse running fourth in The Cup last Tuesday I suddenly wondered… have we always known that putting small people on horses would help them win? Or did someone suddenly realise one day a few centuries ago? And did his competitors work it out? Maybe it was like Australia II’s winged keel? "Gee, Fred’s ... [More]
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Grand Final remainders
A few of weeks ago the AFL "Thump Those Sydneysiders Into The Ground" Grand Final was on, and we decided to have a few people over for the traditional viewing of the game accompanied by Roy & HG’s superlative and entirely piss-taking commentary. A slight over-estimate in the amount of food and drink did, however, ... [More]
Apparently in the last few weeks hundreds of people in the south eastern suburbs of Melbourne have been phoning authorities to tell them about UFOs flying overhead. The usual UFO flight path appears to be about the same as the night time flight path of an advertising blimp, which is illuminated at night. Actually for ... [More]
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Festivals galore
This weekend half of Melbourne seems to have been holding festivals of one kind or another, with varying success. The Lygon Street festa in Carlton is an annual event. The great thing about Lygon Street is its international flavour, which means you’re unlikely to run into Pauline Hanson there. If the Middle East crisis is ... [More]
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Daylight savings
So now we’re on "daylight savings" time for the coming summer(*), which of course is the time of year when we don’t really need daylight savings, because the days are longer. What about if we stayed on summer time all year so we could get a little more light in the winter evenings? Is that ... [More]
Around some school crossings you’ll now see the acronym "SLLT" painted on the footpath, a reminder to Stop, Look, Listen and… umm… do something else I can’t remember at the moment, before you cross the street. It’s probably backed up by a primary school education campaign of some kind. Wait a moment, "SLLT"?! I’m sure ... [More]
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Heading home
A few weeks ago we found ourselves heading home after dinner at a friend’s place, a few hours spent stuffing ourselves with food and wine. Not too many hours though; with a small child called Isaac in tow it’s not quite so easy to paint the town completely red, so we were heading back to ... [More]
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Wrong number
<RING RING> "Hello?" "Dean." "What?" "Dean." "I think you have a wrong number." Don’t you love the way people try to argue the point with you? Until it’s proven otherwise they refuse to admit that they’ve misdialled. No way, my fingers are very co-ordinated. This guy must be wrong. Dean must be there. I don’t ... [More]
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Away on business
Phew, it’s good to be home. Two days away on a business trip/getaway/team building exercise/workshop thingy, out in the sticks. Well, okay, out in Eltham, which used to be the sticks and is now the outer outer suburbs. So not quite a getaway from the city, but almost. I got a lift with a workmate, ... [More]
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Stupid neighbours
I’ve been trying to avoid this, but I don’t think there’s any way around this. I think we have stupid neighbours. It’s the garbage collection. Granted, it’s not the ideal set-up. For our block of six flats we have: A set of six small bins for bottle and can recycling. Paper recycling collected from the ... [More]
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Sandwich
Last Friday morning I was making my sandwich for lunch in the customary manner. I’d forgotten that I wouldn’t actually need one as we at work were all going out for lunch, but that’s another matter. I decided on my favourite recipe (if you can call it that) of ham, cheese and lettuce. Actually "decided" ... [More]
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My weekend
I think I got the travel bug during our US trip in April. It’s so refreshing to go somewhere different. But for small doses of that kind of experience, perhaps it’s not necessary to go flying off to different continents, and with it the risks of travelling – crashes, hijacks and the most dangerous, airline ... [More]