Going Back to Bed as a Happy Bunny
It’s now approaching 4:30 and I’ve just watched an interesting ninety minutes of cricket as Australia decided to give England a lot of catching practice and became all out for just 98 runs.
So I’ve just made myself a LemSip and after I’ve drunk that and listened to the news, I’ll go back to bed and see if I can get back to sleep again. I suppose though I did get about six hours sleep overnight.
The LemSip is an odd flavour; Wild Berry and Hot Orange. If I need to buy some more, I’ll buy the traditional.
Hopefully, it will be alright when I get up in the morning, but England did look a bit collapsible in the last Test and I’ve got Ipswich today, tubes permitting. Town will have to try to play as well as they did in the snow eight days ago.
Waking up to Good News
There’s nothing that a good Pom likes more than to wake up to the news that the Australian cricket team is in trouble.
I turned television on just in time, to see the fifth Australian wicket go down for just 69 runs.
In some ways it all seems rather surreal with a troop of English fast bowlers bearing down on the batsmen. Never in my lifetime have we had so many good ones. Why? In the past we might have had a pair like Fred Trueman and Brian Statham, but usually it was a good one like John Snow or Bob Willis working with whatever could be found in County Cricket.
Why have things changed so much?
Perhaps other sports and business should find out and follow a similar path.
Shane Warne has Better Things to Do!
Shane Warne will not be trying to do the difficult job of helping out the Aussies in the next Test Match, as he seems to have found something better to do.
Up With the Morning Star
Venus has very bright these last few days, as I hope this picture shows.
Venus, The Morning Star
The planet is just above the tree in the middle.
I’ve pointed Venus out to several people lately and they haven’t realised what they are seeing. Knowledge of the stars and planets is something that should be properly taught. At my school, Minchenden, there was an observatory that contained a beautiful telescope in both artistic and scientific terms, that had once belonged to Prince Albert. One night, someone broke in, smashed it all and stole the lens. It was no act of wanton vandalism, but a cold calculated crime. I at least hope that the thief dropped the lens, so got no pleasure from his act.
I always look up when I’m in unfamiliar lattitudes. I remember when C and myself were in a hotel in Alice Springs, a kid of about sixteen had set up his telescope and was showing the guests the night sky from an Australian perspective. We had perhaps an hour of his charming and informed company. I hope that somewhere in the world, he is still following his hobby. Perhaps as a career!
Sadly, we were the only people, who that night took advantage of his company. But how many read their horoscopes every day and act on them?
No wonder the world is in the state it is today, if that is the general view of science.
So what am I doing up at this hour?
I slept well as I usually do, but last night, I spent several hours clearing my loffice loft of my past life. So most of it was old magazines, books and software I no longer need, but the only way to clear it, was to drop everything into a wheelie bin and then transfer it to boxes, which I then threw in the skip.
Clearing the Office Loft
It may have been a long-wnded process, but my shoulders aren’t strong enough to carry the boxes down the rather rickety loft ladder.
So perhaps the adrenaline is flowing through my body. I certainly feel pretty well today, although my left arm is tired.
Eleanor Oldroyd Solves the Aussies Problems
Eleanor Oldroyd is the First Lady of Fighting Talk and on today’s show she gave her learned opinion on how to improve the dreadful performance of the Australian’s so-called cricket team. She actually made two suggestions.
- We persuade the ICC to let the Aussies have a third innings.
- The English team play French cricket, which would mean they had to face the bowler directly.
The latter is a really serious suggestion, as it would probably mean that the likes of Strauss, Pietersen, Bell and Collingwood would rise to the challenge with superb stroke-play.
If you’ve never listened to Fighting Talk, it is one of the best programs on Radio 5 and is also available as a podcast.
Today’s was a particularly good edition, with the program finishing with Eleanor explaining how athletes fail drug tests for too much testosterone and/or Viagra.
Will The Aussies Turn to Shane Warne?
It is being rumoured that the Australians might turn to Shane Warne to help them get even with England in The Ashes.
In a way, I wonder whether some think this might be a good idea for England too, as some of their batsmen would just love to get at him and pay him back for all the damage he’s done in the past! Remember many of the England batsmen have had a good look at Warne lately in 20/20 cricket, so perhaps he’s not as feared as he once was!
The Oldest Mosque in Australia
In Adelaide, C and I visited the mosque and the associated museum to the Afghan camel drivers, who opened up the middle of the country in the nineteenth century. I have talked to Australians about this part of their history and few actually know of the story. It’s here in an article in the Guardian, which offers advice to those visiting for the cricket.
Australia’s oldest mosque (1888) was built in a back street for Afghan camel drivers employed in the South Australian desert. A simple stone affair with whitewashed brick minarets, it now serves city workers and a new wave of Afghani refugees. You can enter (avoid prayer times) but the wood-lined interior makeover now bears unfortunate resemblance to a Swedish sauna. The camels’ descendants have gone feral but their pure bloodline means they are in demand back in the Middle East. Those not exported can end up as camel pastrami at Wild Oz in the Central Market (wildoz.com.au), which also deals in wild goat, wild boar and, of course, Skippy.
In fact the Afghans, were a mix of people from all over those places where camels are a beast of burden, and as soon as they had done their work, they left, leaving behind the camels, wich quickly went feral. At least the Australians have seen fit to call the train that links Adelaide to Alice Springs and Darwin, The Ghan.
One of my regrets is that when I flew round Australia with C, we only allowed four weeks for the trip. We should have allowed a lot more time. But then C was a typical barrister, who believed that if you were away too long, your colleagues would nick your best cases. We did fly along the southern part of the route of The Ghan from Adelaide to Alice Springs, with stops at Coober Pedy and Yulara. One day I’ll put all of the Australian photos on the web, but sadly, many are missing and I don’t have the negatives any more.
It’s Raining in Adelaide
C and I liked Adelaide, when we went there in the 1980s. But it didn’t rain. In fact in the whole three weeks we were in Australia we never saw any rain at all. This was unusual, as we usually had rain on holiday, just like Queen Liz does!
Adelaide is a unique Australian city in that it was planned by Colonel William Light to be a city with wide streets and lots of green spaces. It is also surrounded by a large area of parkland and has proved to be one of the best laid-out cities in the whole world. There is a statue to his memory called Light’s Vision overlooking the city with this inscription.
The reasons that led me to fix Adelaide where it is I do not expect to be generally understood or calmly judged of at present. My enemies however, by disputing their validity in every particular, have done me the good service of fixing the whole of the responsibility upon me. I am perfectly willing to bear it, and I leave it to posterity and not to them, to decide whether I am entitled to praise or to blame.
Light and his father, Francis, are two of those characters in history, to whom I am drawn. C and I came across the father first in Penang and realised that the founder of the settlement, had been born in Dallinghoo, which was the next village to Debach, where we lived at the time. So the father of the designer of Adelaide was a Suffolk man. In fact, he was the illegimate son of a woman in the village, who was taken under the wing of the local landowner. He certainly was a well-educated and successful man as this extract from Wikipedia shows.
From 1765, he worked as a private country trader. For about ten years he had his headquarters in Salang, Thailand, near Phuket, reviving a failed French trading post. While living there he learned to speak and write several languages, including Malay and Siamese. In 1785, he warned the Thais on Phuket Island of an imminent Burmese attack. Light’s warning enabled the islanders to prepare for Phuket’s defence and subsequently repel the Burmese invasion. For the British East India Company, he leased the island of Penang from the Sultan of Kedah, where many others had failed, and was supposedly given the Princess of Kedah as a reward (other sources state that the Princess was sent to covet Light’s aid on behalf of the Sultan). The multicultural colony of Penang became extraordinarily successful from its inception and Light served as the Superintendent of the colony until his death.
They were an amazing father and son, who from humble beginning made a real positive contribution to the world. We get massive tomes written about obscure and useless politicians, but where is the dual biography of Francis and William Light? A book was written in 1901 and it’s here in PDF.
Let’s hope the rain eases up enough for the Aussies to take their deserved beating!
The First Welsh-Born Prime Minister Since Lloyd George
Julia Gillard has just become Australian Prime Minister, as Kevin Rudd has stood down. She was born in Barry in South Wales, so becomes the first Welsh-born Prime Minister since Lloyd George.
When will we have a foreign-born Prime Minister? We already have! He was Bonar Law, who was born in the crown colony of New Brunswick, which is now part of Canada.
The Anonymous Widower 