A LATIN WORD MEANING 'IN NEED OF CORRECTION'
Willow, who knows a thing or two about boats, has drawn my attention to my misuse of the word 'sporting',which is short for 'disport' and means 'to show'.
No...the super-maxis DO NOT have up to 4.5 square kilometers of sail set to wind. What I meant to say was that this is the total area of sails stored or in use aboard the yacht.
Sorry...and I will correct the posting sometime today.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
NEW YEAR'S GREETINGS
THANK YOU, GLENN, for New Year's wishes to us all. How charming to think of the last posting embellishing someone's Christmas Morning.I decided to try sunset photos. This one is taken looking West across St. Vincent's Gulf towards York Peninsula, from a lookout point just half a mile from my sister's home. Here is how it looks at 8:29 PM. If you watch enough sunsets here a bouts, you could get lucky as follows. The sunsets during a period of fine weather can get very red (red sky in the night is a shepherd's delight, as the saying goes), due to the fine dust particles caught in the high pressure system. Here, the sun's rays are reaching across hundreds of miles of land can cause an occasional copper coloured flash, or so I am told. You have to be lucky but I have met at least one person who claims to have seen it often. But then, he lives right on the sea front and spends a lot of time watching the sunsets with a beer in his hand.
All Australia is in sack cloth and bedaubed with ashes. The Poms have thrashed us at cricket and retain The Ashes. Having lost the Fourth Test in Melbourne, the best the Aussies can hope for is to win the final test match in Sydney to draw the series. Win or loose, the Sacred Urn remains at Lords Cricket Ground in London. I know many of you will be truly saddened by this news. I jest, as important as cricket may be, it can't be all that serious. For those of you accustomed to baseball and basketball and the vigorous arguments that umpires at these games must sometimes endure, consider this. In this last match, the Aussie captain talked too long with the umpire about a decision and got fined 40% of his match fee. Such ungentlemanly behaviour is just 'not cricket'!
As I write, most of the yachts in the International Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race as still completing the course. The super-maxis have either finished or are about to. The boats set out on Boxing Day and were soon into the teeth of the infamous 'Southerly Buster', with its 30 foot waves and 50 knot gales. Quite a few yachts have had to retire due to extensive damage. One had two men overboard in wild seas, crossing Bass Strait. The race was won by the 99 footer, Wild Oats. Sporting sails that total 4.5 square kilometres and costing almost a quarter of a million dollars, this three year old boat can really go. In strong seas, the ride can be tough and even seasoned sailors can suffer sea sickness. The photo at left gives an idea how sailing conditions can look.I have an affection for this race as, a quarter of a century ago, when I was young and foolish, I helped crew a 33 foot boat that attempted this race, taking it around from Adelaide to Sydney (ten and a half days at sea). I got a bit sea sick on the way down St. Vincents Gulf (about where this sunset photo was taken) and did not eat much for a day or so. Mainly, it was a quiet ride until we rounded Gabo Island and had a Southerly Buster at our backs most of the way up the eastern coast almost to Sydney. On the way, we broached the boat, tore our storm jib and had to heave to in very impressive swells to make repairs. I do recall some very uneasy moments but the terror I felt then has long since faded.
Safe sailing for 2011, me hearties!
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
LIFE IN ADELAIDE IV
Looks like I am getting another posting in before Christmas! A chance to repeat my well-wishing for your enjoyment and safety over the holiday season.
Is Australia an island or a continent? Being surrounded on all sides by the sea, one could argue that it really just a very big island. Most of it is quite arid, giving rise to the description that it is the driest continent. Just at the moment, it could the wettest; a good bit of the country is under floods. Even in the high country, at this beginning of Summer, there have been blizzards and heavy falls of snow. Nothing to compare with what is happening in the Northern Hemisphere but, hey, this is Summer! My daughter and her family are off on a camping holiday after Christmas (actually, the day after the day after Christmas Day; here, as in the UK, the day after is know as Boxing Day). Just now they are busily searching on the Internet for a non-flooded area.
In the New Year, the big event here in South Australia is the Tour Down Under. Lance Armstrong and some other cycling greats will be participating as this cycling event centres on Adelaide from 16 to 23 January. One stage is alongside the River Murray and is threatened by possible flooding of the river. This is the first of the races on the world professional bike racing circuit. It is a big tourist attraction and it may be possible, in the US, to watch it on Versus, should you not be coming down to follow it.
Australians are sport-mad but, whether you follow tennis (the Australian Open Tennis begins January 11), soccer, rugby, Aussie rules football, or any other sport, just now the Fourth Test Cricket Match between England and Australia commencing Boxing Day (recall? The day after Christmas Day) dominates the papers. This is BIG because, having miraculously defeated England after they seemed doomed, the Aussies have leveled the series. Whoever wins in Melbourne takes out the series and either retains The Ashes (if the Poms win) or wins back the Sacred Urn (if the Aussies win).
Despite having in common things like bat and ball, cricket is as unlike baseball as it is possible to imagine. Bear with me as I attempt to tell you why the condition of the pitch is so important to the outcome of the series.
Cricket is played on a cricket pitch in the centre of a cricket ground or oval. The oval is marked by a boundary. Weeks (even years in the long term) of preparation go into getting the pitch ready for an important match to ensure it remains playable the five days of the match. The batting side has two batsmen in play at any one time. If the batsman taking strike scores an uneven number of runs from one delivery by the bowler, the batsmen will have changed ends so that the second now has the strike. These must be actual runs (i.e., each batsman will have to run the length of the pitch. A ball hit all the way to the boundary scores four runs but the batsmen do not have actually to run; if hit over the boundary without bouncing, it scores six runs. There is much, possibly boring detail that one might add, but I desist.
Coming now to the bowler: the bowlers selected by the captain can each bowl six balls before swapping directions or 'ends' (causing the fielding side to adjust their positions accordingly). With the exception of one ‘full toss’ allowed within each six deliveries, the ball must bounce once before arriving within reach of the defending batsman. (What is he defending? Well might you ask. Of course, his wicket...therein lies another story). That is, the ball must hit the pitch.
The pitch began as rather special grass, cut very sort, growing in rather special earth. The cricket groundsman or curator goes to a great deal of trouble (watering, rolling, protecting from the elements, and the like) to make the pitch as smooth and level as possible ensuring the ball will bounce reliably. Bowlers come in several varieties; fast, medium, slow, swingers, and spinners. As a stiff, straight arm is required, the action of bowling can be quite awkward and needs considerable skill, especially if one is a spin bowler.
One way or another, all bowlers attempt to disguise from the batsman the exact sort of delivery they intend to make. Their main purpose is to get the batsman out by hitting and knocking down the wicket (there are, of course, other ways by which the batsman may be dismissed but, once more, I desist). Now I will get to the point.
The condition of the pitch favours certain styles of bowling, usually fast bowling in the early stages of the match and slower, spinning delivery in the last couple of days, as the pitch begins to crumble slightly. Right now, the English cricket writers are up in arms because they think the curator at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) is preparing that pitch to favour the Aussie fast bowlers. How evil can these Aussies get…how low can they go?
A fast ball can travel at over 90 mph and cover the 20 yards or so to the batsman in about half a second. There is no way the batsman can decide, by sighting the ball, which of the many strokes in his repertory he will play for a particular delivery. Yet batsmen contrive to score many runs. The world’s greatest current batsman is an Indian, Sachin Tendulkar, has made 15 centuries in 40 test matches. Research has shown that a practiced batsman subconsciously ‘knows’ from the motion of the bowler what to expect before the ball leaves the bowler’s hand. Once ‘in the zone’, a good batsman can dominate the bowlers of the other side and prove impossible to dismiss. Equally, certain bowlers are either so terrifying (really fast bowlers) or so skillful (great spinners) as to ‘destroy’ a batting side.
Be safe and happy over the holidays.
Is Australia an island or a continent? Being surrounded on all sides by the sea, one could argue that it really just a very big island. Most of it is quite arid, giving rise to the description that it is the driest continent. Just at the moment, it could the wettest; a good bit of the country is under floods. Even in the high country, at this beginning of Summer, there have been blizzards and heavy falls of snow. Nothing to compare with what is happening in the Northern Hemisphere but, hey, this is Summer! My daughter and her family are off on a camping holiday after Christmas (actually, the day after the day after Christmas Day; here, as in the UK, the day after is know as Boxing Day). Just now they are busily searching on the Internet for a non-flooded area.
In the New Year, the big event here in South Australia is the Tour Down Under. Lance Armstrong and some other cycling greats will be participating as this cycling event centres on Adelaide from 16 to 23 January. One stage is alongside the River Murray and is threatened by possible flooding of the river. This is the first of the races on the world professional bike racing circuit. It is a big tourist attraction and it may be possible, in the US, to watch it on Versus, should you not be coming down to follow it.
Australians are sport-mad but, whether you follow tennis (the Australian Open Tennis begins January 11), soccer, rugby, Aussie rules football, or any other sport, just now the Fourth Test Cricket Match between England and Australia commencing Boxing Day (recall? The day after Christmas Day) dominates the papers. This is BIG because, having miraculously defeated England after they seemed doomed, the Aussies have leveled the series. Whoever wins in Melbourne takes out the series and either retains The Ashes (if the Poms win) or wins back the Sacred Urn (if the Aussies win).
Despite having in common things like bat and ball, cricket is as unlike baseball as it is possible to imagine. Bear with me as I attempt to tell you why the condition of the pitch is so important to the outcome of the series.
Cricket is played on a cricket pitch in the centre of a cricket ground or oval. The oval is marked by a boundary. Weeks (even years in the long term) of preparation go into getting the pitch ready for an important match to ensure it remains playable the five days of the match. The batting side has two batsmen in play at any one time. If the batsman taking strike scores an uneven number of runs from one delivery by the bowler, the batsmen will have changed ends so that the second now has the strike. These must be actual runs (i.e., each batsman will have to run the length of the pitch. A ball hit all the way to the boundary scores four runs but the batsmen do not have actually to run; if hit over the boundary without bouncing, it scores six runs. There is much, possibly boring detail that one might add, but I desist.
Coming now to the bowler: the bowlers selected by the captain can each bowl six balls before swapping directions or 'ends' (causing the fielding side to adjust their positions accordingly). With the exception of one ‘full toss’ allowed within each six deliveries, the ball must bounce once before arriving within reach of the defending batsman. (What is he defending? Well might you ask. Of course, his wicket...therein lies another story). That is, the ball must hit the pitch.
The pitch began as rather special grass, cut very sort, growing in rather special earth. The cricket groundsman or curator goes to a great deal of trouble (watering, rolling, protecting from the elements, and the like) to make the pitch as smooth and level as possible ensuring the ball will bounce reliably. Bowlers come in several varieties; fast, medium, slow, swingers, and spinners. As a stiff, straight arm is required, the action of bowling can be quite awkward and needs considerable skill, especially if one is a spin bowler.
One way or another, all bowlers attempt to disguise from the batsman the exact sort of delivery they intend to make. Their main purpose is to get the batsman out by hitting and knocking down the wicket (there are, of course, other ways by which the batsman may be dismissed but, once more, I desist). Now I will get to the point.
The condition of the pitch favours certain styles of bowling, usually fast bowling in the early stages of the match and slower, spinning delivery in the last couple of days, as the pitch begins to crumble slightly. Right now, the English cricket writers are up in arms because they think the curator at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) is preparing that pitch to favour the Aussie fast bowlers. How evil can these Aussies get…how low can they go?
A fast ball can travel at over 90 mph and cover the 20 yards or so to the batsman in about half a second. There is no way the batsman can decide, by sighting the ball, which of the many strokes in his repertory he will play for a particular delivery. Yet batsmen contrive to score many runs. The world’s greatest current batsman is an Indian, Sachin Tendulkar, has made 15 centuries in 40 test matches. Research has shown that a practiced batsman subconsciously ‘knows’ from the motion of the bowler what to expect before the ball leaves the bowler’s hand. Once ‘in the zone’, a good batsman can dominate the bowlers of the other side and prove impossible to dismiss. Equally, certain bowlers are either so terrifying (really fast bowlers) or so skillful (great spinners) as to ‘destroy’ a batting side.
Be safe and happy over the holidays.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
LIFE IN ADELAIDE III
MY LOCAL AREA: I sense you all like to have a photo now and again so I am including two more, taken whilst on a walk along the cliffs about a half mile from my sister’s home. My family purchased a small house here, 30 kilometres south of Adelaide downtown some fifty years back. It was a kind of middle class beach house within a very short walk of the beach but set high up on a bluff. In those days there were just a few other houses, a constructed camp for a youth organization and a small store. The environs were really quite wild and natural. I hunted rabbits (of which there were very many) along these cliff tops. Down below, a rocky section of the coast which is otherwise given to sandy beaches.Access to this natural area was cut off when Mobil built an oil refinery there. With the wind in the North strange odours would waft in our direction while the night was constantly lit by the flare of burning waste gases. Thankfully, the refinery no longer operates although the structures remain. Now the State Government is financing the construction of a huge desalination plant in this area. If you ignore the disfigurement of these structures, the area is still quite beautiful and subject to wonderful sunsets. The family later sold the beach house and moved to a small home of better construction in a nearby street in which my sister now lives and which I am repainting.
In those early days, this small settlement was surrounded by wheat or barley crops; occasionally a crop duster would operate from a nearby field. The littoral bush area below the cliffs was also the site of a surprising, if macabre, discovery when a couple walking along the beach were drawn to the excited barking of their dog ahead of them in the small scrub. Sticking out of the sand was a human foot. Later, as a prison psychologist, I met the perpetrator of this murder and I assure you that he could tell a most interesting tale. Now it is a reserve to allow regeneration of the natural bush.OPRAH HAS ARRIVED! In her private jet and accompanied by a Qantas Jumbo Jet filled with some 300 of her fans as guests on a trip to the Land Down-Under, Oprah has been in Australia for a week or so. The huge party split into not a few small groups to travel to various tourist destinations. Yesterday, they all came back together for the filming of two live shows near to the Sydney Opera House. These will be shown as part of Oprah’s final year of her current shows. The Australian Tourist Commission funded a good part of this trip and expects good returns on this investment as the show goes to air in 149 countries around the globe. Russell Crowe was one of her guests. He lives in nearby Woolloomooloo (try saying that three times quickly) and decided to walk around to the Opera House. A zealous security man initially barred him from entry. Eventually a message got to Oprah, “There’s a bloke out here who says he is Russel Crowe…” They allowed him to enter in time for his moment with Oprah.
Oprah did something I would like to do. Along with other intrepid members of her party, she trekked across the high arch of the Sydney Harbour Bridge…no mean feat. Good on you Oprah (Aussie translation: ‘On yer, Oprah mate!’). All this was such big news, with pages being devoted each day in the Aussie press. I did a Google News search and was astounded that the rest of the world has hardly noticed this watershed event.
On the other hand, the world press continues to take notice of the Aussie I mentioned in my previous posting: Julian Assange. Here, in Australia, the balance of opinion seems to be shifting to support him. President Obama is not quite at this end of the support continuum, not to put too fine a point to it. For an interesting comment on the 'balance of probabilities' in relation to the possible political motivations underlying the current charges against Mr. Assange, follow this link. Hopefully, the Assange affair may lead to a return of the press, the so-called 'Fourth Estate', to its role of ensuring balance between the interest of the government and that of the governed.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
AUSTRALIANS IN THE NEWS
OCCASIONALLY, Aussies get in the news. The ex-Prime Minister and now Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd, who has been hobnobbing with Hilary Clinton quite a bit lately, has been making some headlines, demonstrating that he has a tough side. This aspect of him was revealed through recent Wikileaks disclosures some of which have been published in the Australian media, showing a certain hawkishness. Today, he is reported as commenting. "Franky, I don't give a damn...". Bravo, Mr. Rudd or, in Aussie speak, Good on Yer, Mate!
Amongst the leaked cables, Australia is acknowledged to be a good friend to the US but, due to economic size, is pretty much small beer and not likely to have much influence on American foreign policy, so it does not matter how loudly we might beat the drum. Other information leaked indicates an opinion held by senior Australian public servants that the ex-PM is somewhat of a 'control freak', overly concerned with details.
The perpetrator of these leaks is another Aussie, Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks. He seems too be unpopular with just about everybody, some calling for his arrest for espionage or even treason, others saying we should just cut the whole nasty business short and have him assassinated. No wonder, then, that Mr. Assange has been lying very low, given haven by influential friends and getting money via PayPal.
Coincidentally, as the agitation at his outrageously indiscreet behaviour in leaking information was reaching a peak, charges against him for sexual assault have been raised in Sweden. There is a view amongst legal authorities, on the side of democratic principles and the right of the public to know more about what governments are up to than the latter would like to be known, that if Mr. Assange were to be guilty of the sexual assault allegations, these would be the only crimes he has committed in the recent past. WikiLeaks is a funnel for whistle blowing on the grand scale, some public servants seeming to agree that the governed need to know more about the actions of those who govern. Some doubt that there is any coincidence at work.
As if in a great game of chess, a serious attack on Mr. Assange's position came when PayPal (owned by eBay) shut down the stream of donations, forcing him to come out into the open to face the sex-related charges. He is currently locked up, presumably safely, in a London gaol (jail, that is, for North American readers). In Sweden, apparently, they take a very dim view of sexual abuse. One might hope, if he is innocent (as we must believe, until proven guilty), that Mr. Assange makes it through the the legal hazards ahead of him and does not get assassinated along the way.
One reason for wishing him well is that he has threatened to take on the Big Banks next and bring them down, revealing their true nature. That would be the ultimate 'treason' at a level not so far attempted by anyone. Ironically, it now falls to Mr. Rudd, as Foreign Minister, to ensure that Mr. Assange gets full consular support.
Falling now, like lightening from heaven, to much more mundane matters, I regret to report that another bunch of Aussies, our glorious Test Cricket Team, have been in the news, disgracing themselves by falling prey to the fiendish Pommy Team (Aussies like to call the English 'Poms', or 'Pommies', these terms being based on their well-known love of potatoes...from the French "pomme de terre"). Having drawn the first Test, played in Brisbane, the Poms well and truly dished the Aussies here in Adelaide, winning in record breaking style. Ahh...the humiliation of it!
Amongst the leaked cables, Australia is acknowledged to be a good friend to the US but, due to economic size, is pretty much small beer and not likely to have much influence on American foreign policy, so it does not matter how loudly we might beat the drum. Other information leaked indicates an opinion held by senior Australian public servants that the ex-PM is somewhat of a 'control freak', overly concerned with details.
The perpetrator of these leaks is another Aussie, Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks. He seems too be unpopular with just about everybody, some calling for his arrest for espionage or even treason, others saying we should just cut the whole nasty business short and have him assassinated. No wonder, then, that Mr. Assange has been lying very low, given haven by influential friends and getting money via PayPal.
Coincidentally, as the agitation at his outrageously indiscreet behaviour in leaking information was reaching a peak, charges against him for sexual assault have been raised in Sweden. There is a view amongst legal authorities, on the side of democratic principles and the right of the public to know more about what governments are up to than the latter would like to be known, that if Mr. Assange were to be guilty of the sexual assault allegations, these would be the only crimes he has committed in the recent past. WikiLeaks is a funnel for whistle blowing on the grand scale, some public servants seeming to agree that the governed need to know more about the actions of those who govern. Some doubt that there is any coincidence at work.
As if in a great game of chess, a serious attack on Mr. Assange's position came when PayPal (owned by eBay) shut down the stream of donations, forcing him to come out into the open to face the sex-related charges. He is currently locked up, presumably safely, in a London gaol (jail, that is, for North American readers). In Sweden, apparently, they take a very dim view of sexual abuse. One might hope, if he is innocent (as we must believe, until proven guilty), that Mr. Assange makes it through the the legal hazards ahead of him and does not get assassinated along the way.
One reason for wishing him well is that he has threatened to take on the Big Banks next and bring them down, revealing their true nature. That would be the ultimate 'treason' at a level not so far attempted by anyone. Ironically, it now falls to Mr. Rudd, as Foreign Minister, to ensure that Mr. Assange gets full consular support.
Falling now, like lightening from heaven, to much more mundane matters, I regret to report that another bunch of Aussies, our glorious Test Cricket Team, have been in the news, disgracing themselves by falling prey to the fiendish Pommy Team (Aussies like to call the English 'Poms', or 'Pommies', these terms being based on their well-known love of potatoes...from the French "pomme de terre"). Having drawn the first Test, played in Brisbane, the Poms well and truly dished the Aussies here in Adelaide, winning in record breaking style. Ahh...the humiliation of it!
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