Dubai photos online

This is an extremely quick post to let everyone know that I've started putting our holiday photographs up at http://snapper.cvsdude.com/gallery/linsb/v/UKDubaiChristmas2006/. I've also started a bit of commentary on the Dubai photos but that's not finished yet. I started writing a very informative post on our shenanigans in Dubai whilst I was there but after four days of rewriting I gave up. There just hasn't been the time. We really enjoyed Dubai though and I'll give an update just as soon as I have time to scratch my feet. London has also been great although hectic. We've had lots of fun catching up with old friends and every evening has been filled up with something. Unfortunately I caught cold when we first got here and wasn't quite on form for the first few days but now I'm just a bit sniffly and ready to party.

We're leaving London now and heading back out to the airport to pick up a car (crazy I know but it's cheaper that way as that's where we want to leave it and every pound saved is $2.40 saved) and swap it for a couple of arms. We only need our drinking arms whilst we're here anyway. Then we're off to Cambridge for an evening before heading north and catching up with my family.

The first travel hiccup

We haven't even left yet and already things aren't exactly going according to plan.

We leave tomorrow and I'm in the midst of a packing frenzy. Why is it so hard to pack light? I really don't want to take much but at the same time I keep thinking that I want to look good whilst I'm away. Not that I will anyway as most of my warm winter clothes are donkeys old. So I really should just take the bare minimum and buy stuff when we're away, but I can't really afford to do that so it's tempting to take what I already have. But then what I already have isn't that great and I can't decide whether the brown jumper is better than the pink jumper. The brown jumper is smaller to pack but the pink jumper is so snuggly and warm and it's my favourite winter jumper so I think I'll take both. But I'll have to buy something when I get there anyway because neither of them are really that smart and I need something to wear when I go out. Am I going around in circles here?

And then of course I need t-shirts to wear under the jumpers because it's going to be REALLY cold. I think I've gone overboard with the t-shirts. So far I've packed three plus a thermal and that's not including the stuff I'm taking to wear in Dubai. I mean, no one is even going to see them. Or will they? See I really can't remember what winter in UK is like. I vaguely remember some of the clothes I wore to go out on various birthdays and, apart from the big winter overcoat, they really weren't that warm, snuggly and wintery at all. I think I'd freeze if I wore them now.

Anyway, amidst all this deliberation the first potential major hiccup has just occurred. On Monday I finally decided to transfer funds from my savings account over here to my UK bank account. I filled the form in online and then sat back waiting for the bank to call and confirm. Trouble is they said they'd get round to doing that within three working days. Last year when I did this they were so quick to get back to me that they took me by surprise. But it wasn't long before I realised that I'd given them my mobile number and I'd left my mobile at home. I quickly sent them an online message with my other phone numbers and the times they could contact me. I heard nothing so I logged on again the following day to check my messages. Nothing. On Wednesday I logged on and checked my messages. Again nothing. On Thursday, the third business day I checked again. Nothing. I thought I'd better wait until today to chase it up as I wasn't sure which time zone they were operating in. So today I logged in and lo and behold there was a message saying they'd tried to contact me and couldn't get through so they'd cancelled my request. AAAAAAAAaaaaarrrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhh.

What I don't understand is that they tried to call yesterday. I had my phone at work with me yesterday and there was no sign of someone having tried to call so I'm not sure how many times they tried or what went wrong but there you have it.

I've submitted another request and in a panic called them up and warned them that they mightn't be able to contact me after today to confirm the transaction. Not knowing what went wrong with my mobile last time I've given them my home number to call. They said they'd contact me within the day, whatever that means. So now I'm house-ridden until they call, which is a real bummer as I'd been hoping to go for Christmas/birthday/goodbye drinks with some friends and colleagues this afternoon. Why they couldn't have just said to me, whilst I was already on the phone to them, "So, Ms Buckle, I understand you wish to transfer some money to the UK. Can you just confirm that amount to me please? Aha, yes, now you do understand there's a charge for this transaction, don't you?" I don't know. Probably some weird security reason but given that I called them and gave them a different number to the one I entered on my online form I don't really see what difference it makes whether I call them or they call me. So I'm very confused, house-bound, potentially skint whilst I'm in the UK and to top it all off I now can't see my cursor which is making typing this post a bit tricky. So I'm going to get back to the packing now and wait for the bank to call. Ho-hum.

The Great Netherlands Horse Rescue

I first saw this video on Google but it isn't very good quality so I'd recommend viewing the YouTube one. It's an amazing story which brought tears to my eyes and a shiver down my spine. A must-see for horse lovers.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4584913278289860160

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n9wd7P5Apw

The time is nigh...

As the UK trip approaches, I'm beginning to feel that perhaps I've left a few too many things until the last minute but at least we've still had time for the fun stuff like snorkeling.

I don't have too much to say but I thought I'd check-in anyway and let you all know how incredibly disorganised I am feeling regarding our upcoming UK trip.

We leave in 8 days, on my birthday. Thankfully, it's an overnight flight which is good for two reasons:

1. You don't waste a day of your holiday on an aeroplane. This is only good, of course, if you actually manage to sleep whilst on the plane, otherwise you just arrive at your destination cranky, tired and jet-lagged.
2. It means I actually get to enjoy some of my birthday instead of just spending it on an aeroplane. Of course, this only applies if I have actually managed to get entirely and confidently packed by the day we leave otherwise I will spend my entire birthday running around in a flap, unpacking to make sure I've packed everything, then packing it again when I realise I have, then wondering if I'd packed a different particular something which I didn't check during the first unpack and so unpacking it all again.

I am of course hoping to be thoroughly spoiled by the air hostesses on our Emirates flight and to be offered lots of champagne and birthday cake.

As for being thoroughly disorganised, I haven't started packing yet, nor have I even managed to construct a list so I'm not entirely sure what I need to go out and buy. All guests have been banned from our house for the next week, unless they want to sleep on the lounge room floor, as the spare bedroom is about to be thrust into a chaotic world of suitcases and backpacks of varying sizes, piles of jeans and jumpers, snorkeling gear and camera equipment, so that Toby and I can go "AAAAaaarrrrrrggggghhhhh, we don't have enough room for everything! What do we do?" and then sort things into numerous piles of varying sizes of "must-haves", "would-likes" and "who-put-that-in-heres".

Aside from all that there's the house to put in order so that people can stay in it whilst we're away. And I figure it might be a good idea to have some accommodation booked in Dubai and some idea of what we'd like to do when we get there. We really wanted to dive in a region called Musandam but most of the tours are already booked up so we're now trying to decide whether to head over to Dibba in Oman anyway and see whether anything comes up. Oman is apparently a beautiful country but I haven't heard much about Dibba itself which suggests to me there isn't much to tell. Dibba isn't too far from Dubai and has snorkelling and diving locally which is why it might be a good choice. However, they don't expect to be too busy in December and I'm wondering why....

Anyway, enough of all that. You lot really don't need to stress about these things on my behalf (but if anyone does have any advice on visiting Dibba in December I'd love to hear it). How about a quick update on what has been going on in my world.

Well, two weekends ago we had a great snorkel off the boat ramp near Kings Beach in Caloundra. About six of us went and we were really lucky with the visibility which was probably around 10-15 metres. It was a windy day but we were in a really sheltered spot. There is a lot of fish life there. We saw the usual shoals of black and yellow stripeys, a few moon wrasse and similar as-yet-unidentified (by me anyway) fish, dusky butterflies, some shoals of larger fish, a ray, hard and soft coral, and lots more unidentified critters. We also saw two cute little eels, possibly morays, playing in a rock pool on the shore. Here are some movies and photos we took:

The ray:


The eels:


Dan's compilation:


Those of you reading this over email or RSS will probably need to visit my website to view these embedded movies. By the way, I think Dan is working on a better quality version of his movie so you might want to check back in a few days to see if this has been updated. You'll be able to tell because this text won't be here anymore.

School of stripeys - can anyone tell me who the imposter is to the bottom of the picture?




Sea star.



I didn't expect to see one of these whilst snorkelling.




Dusky butterflyfish - now that's more like it.



Underwater garden.

Last weekend we had Christmas with the Aussie side of the family which was really nice. Lots of seafood and salad. We also sort of celebrated four birthdays which are happening over the next month: Zoe is 3 on Wednesday, then it's my birthday on Saturday, on 28th December Toby's dad, Jeff celebrates his 60th and the day after that little Kielana turns one.

Now we're gearing up for a month of curries, christmas pudding, roast turkey, sherry, mulled wine, cheese and port, christmas cake, mince pies and more curry. Can't wait. But first, Dubai, and so far I've read about lots of nice restaurants and bars so I'm expecting to come back a few kilos heavier than I am now.

iRobot and iPod win CHOICE Shonky award

You may remember that some time ago I wrote about what I consider to be an excellent invention, a robotic vacuum cleaner, the Roomba iRobot. Well, I'm quite pleased I didn't rush out to purchase one because it has now won the CHOICE (Australian consumer watchdog) Shonky for Best Dirt Redistribution. According to CHOICE,

It’s about time they invented a robot that vacuums the house for us — it’s just that the iROBOT has a few minor shortcomings. Like, it’s almost useless on carpet. It’s OK on hard floors, though extremely slow, taking minutes to cover what you’d take seconds to do. And it’s noisy. Oh, and ours didn’t automatically return to its base for recharging, as it’s supposed to.

But what really made us doubt was its dirt redistribution function: when the small dirt container starts filling up, every time the iROBOT bumps into a wall or obstacle, a little heap of collected dirt falls out again. iROBOT? iDon’tthinkso.

See www.choice.com.au - robot vacuum cleaners for CHOICE's review of two robotic vacuum cleaners.

The Apple iPod also won a Shonky award: the iSHONK for dual shonkyness:

An iPod is a significant investment, so you don’t want your APPLE to be a lemon. And if there is something wrong with it, you’d expect an easy repair and warranty service. Podluck.

Level 1. Several readers complained about cracked screens, faulty batteries and problems with sound reproduction.

Level 2. APPLE doesn’t allow retailers to handle complaints under warranty (which is their obligation under Fair Trading laws) — you have to send your faulty iPod to APPLE yourself via Australia Post. And if they decide the fault isn’t covered by the warranty, you’ll have to foot the entire bill.

So, all you iPodettes out there, be very careful not to crack your screen. Speaking of faulty goods, I'm now off to find a replacement battery charger for my digital camera after over-heating the original by leaving it plugged in too long. I only hope I can find one before we leave for the UK in a few weeks.

We like tha moon

A bit of fun for Friday afternoon.

Thanks to my colleague Linda for introducing me to "We like tha moon" and The Spongmonkeys on her birthday a year ago when she came in wearing the t-shirt. I played this at a party once (not my own) because no one would believe me when I tried to describe it to them. It went down rather well, I think. Happy Birthday again, Linda. This one is just for you.

U2 Vertigo tour 2006, Brisbane

Bono gives it his all. From The Courier Mail

U2 were bloody brilliant.

Wow! I have found it very difficult to describe this gig without using an expletive closely followed by an adjective meaning "dead good". Bloody brilliant. F***ing awesome. Damn fantastic. The best gig I have EVER been to. I managed to run my phone batteries flat by taking photographs (most of which came out all black with a bright white light in the middle) and videos (which look a bit like the photos but sound as though someone is banging loudly on pots and pans whilst swinging the cat around the room) but as soon as it's charged and I've downloaded the pics I'll get one or two up here, so for those of you checking the site by email or RSS, check back.

The long and winding road to the stadium

I read a couple of reviews today and noted some folk were commenting on how badly organised the public transport was. To be honest, I didn't have a bad experience at all really. It took us a lot longer to get there than I'd expected. I've no idea where the stadium (ANZ Queensland Sports and Athletics Centre) was located but it seemed to take an age to get there from James and Melissa's place, where I was staying. Imagine my surprise when, after over an hour on trains and buses we drove past a sign for the Sunshine Coast. Given that James and Melissa live right next to the main road up to the Sunshine Coast this was a tad concerning. So, it is very likely that the duration of the journey was solely down to how shockingly bad Brisbane public transport is but, as most of the time I had no idea where I was and was just following James, I can't really comment. It was a wee bit stressful though as Jill got there at 6.15pm and had queued up and got our tickets and was standing outside listening to the support band, unable to go in because they wouldn't let her leave my ticket outside for me to pick up, whilst we were still waiting for a train in the city chatting up drunken Melbourne Cup tarts and trying on their hats. Other complaints I read included the fact that the gig was at such an out of the way stadium when there's a perfectly good one right in the city which is far more accessible by public transport. That seems like a fair comment to me.

Then when we finally got to the stadium at about 7.45pm (having missed the support act, Kanye West) we struggled to find Jill amongst the 45,000 plus other people meandering around. Eventually we did meet up and it was a pretty smooth ride from there really. James and Melissa went off to do their thing in the general admission mosh-pit area, which I think was a bit more stressful due to the vast numbers of people trying to get in through one gate. I heard they even ran out of beer.

VVV is for Vertigo

Jill and I, on the other hand, queued for about five minutes and made it in to the stadium in time to visit the loo, buy water, queue for booze tickets and then queue for booze. And then began the mission to find exactly where row VVV was. Yes, as imagined it was three alphabets (minus the X, Ys and Zs) up some steps . In fact we ended up pretty much as far away as we could get. Right at the back at the top of the stadium, slightly to the left but not much. Despite the fact that U2 very closely resembled ants from our viewpoint I think we had the best seats in the house. We could see the entire stadium and I got a good idea of what a 45,000-strong crowd looks like, we had a beautiful breeze (it being an open air stadium) and were way up in the stars. Generally I noticed that, other than the mexican waves undulating around the stadium prior to the band's entrance, the majority of people in the stands sat. It is ironic that the seated area is referred to as the stand and I really can't comprehend how anyone could go to such an electifying show and not get up and dance. We were fortunate that those around us were very enthusiastic and danced, sang, jumped up and down, stamped their feet, yelled and rammed on the corrugated iron at the back of the stand for the entire performance. There was an incredible atmosphere.

Lights, big screens, elevation and an electrifying performance

U2 didn't neglect us either. Not only did they delay the show by thirty minutes to ensure we'd got in and settled, they were also kind enough to have erected a 30 metre or so screen made up of goodness-knows-how-many lights right behind the stage, and two large screens either side of that which showed live images of each of the band members. The light show was incredible. From pretty patterns, to clips from their videos, to shots of the gig, we saw it all thanks to that big screen. They even dedicated two of their first songs to us. They didn't specifically state they were dedicated to us but... Vertigo... Elevation... it's fairly obvious, isn't it? There was also a circular walk-way which came right out into the crowd but we were so far away we could only tell there was someone on it when the spotlight shone down.

The performance was energetic and full of classic U2 anthems. I was expecting to mainly hear tracks from their latest album, "How to dismantle an atomic bomb" and maybe a couple from one or two albums before that but I was pleasantly surprised to receive something of a greatest hits performance with as many golden oldies as new tunes. I've included a track list below for those interested.

Yes it's f***ing political

Bono did go a bit political on us but I didn't mind. It's to be expected really and he's not aggressive or angry about it, he's passionate and informative and I happened to agree with a lot of what he was saying. He spoke mainly about ending poverty in Africa but he also mentioned Amnesty International and human rights abuses. He specifically mentioned David Hicks, the Australian man the same age as me who has been held in Guantanamo Bay for about five years now without trial. He called for David Hicks to be brought back to Australia. No more, no less but I was interested to note a division in the crowd. The people in front of us specifically weren't particularly impressed and Jill heard one of them comment that Bono "has no idea about Australians and Australian culture" or words to that effect. I was then interested to read this comment on The Courier Mail newspaper's website:

well Bono you overindulgent prat , Who the heck do you think you are? fact is most Aussies despise David Hicks He would have if he hadn't already shot at Aussie troops so the general consensus is stay out of our politics, sing your pretty little songs and go interfere in some other countries politics. Davis Hicks can rot over there and you can join him if you like,

I'm not sure that this person is the best example of Australian intelligence, I do hope not as his grammar and puntuation are appalling, but it certainly gave me an insight into the Australian psyche with regards to this matter. A little while ago I read Enemy Combatant by Moazzam Begg, a British Muslim who was arrested and detained by American forces for three years without charge or trial before being released by the British government. He mentions Hicks in his book and talks about how he was a very quiet chap and didn't seem to fit in. Being white and western he struggled to converse with the other detainees, most of whom spoke some Arabic. He had also ceased practising his faith and was harshly criticised by some of the other prisoners for this. I have often wondered why the Australian government hasn't sought to bring Hicks back to Australia. Now I'm wondering if perhaps it is because the Australian people don't want him back. Personally I believe it is inhuman and immoral to detain anyone without trial, let alone subject them to some of the horrors reported by Begg.

A milky-way of mobile phones supporting a worthy cause

But back to the gig. One of the highlights was when Bono asked the crowd to create a milky way with their mobile phones. It was amazing, beautiful in fact to see all these tiny screens sparkling in the vast stadium. He then asked everyone to SMS their name to a number to show their support of the Make Poverty History campaign. And this morning everyone who did so received a text message from "Bono" thanking them for their support and directing them the Make Poverty History online campaign.

The last song of the encore was Kite, which made me think of Toby, and they finished by releasing a kite into the sky which was a beautiful and touching end to an extraordinary evening.

The home stretch

Except then there was the journey home and there have been a few complaints about this too. Buses back to the city, or Banoon station - the one that appears to be in the middle of nowhere by virtue of the lengthy train journey from the city to get there but is actually close to the road going to the Sunshine Coast - were provided but it was mayhem trying to get on one. There seemed to be no order, and you know how we Brits like our queueing. We attempted to get a bus to the city but it was just crazy. An impossible crowd pushing and heaving and who knows how long we would have waited. So we got a bus back to Banoon and really didn't wait that long, although it was a teensy bit hairy for a short time when the crowd discovered a middle doorway on the bus right close to where we were standing and practically pushed us onto it. We managed to get straight onto a train which took us all the way home and were were in bed by 2am.

Then I was up at 6.30am to begin the long journey back to the Coast. I'm now incredibly tired and I'm off to bed. Good night.

Track List

Would you believe I remembered all of the songs, only there was one I didn't know and I got another mixed up with something else. So, for the sake of giving them in the right order I borrowed this list from a website but I'll be jigged if I can remember which one:

1- City of Blinding Lights
2- Vertigo
3- Elevation
4- Until The End Of The World
5- New Years Day
6- Beautiful Day
7- Yahweh
8- Walk On
9- Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
10- Love And Peace Or Else
11- Sunday Bloody Sunday
12- Bullet The Blue Sky
13- Miss Sarajevo
14- Pride
15- Where The Streets Have No Name
16- One
Encore:
17- Zoostation
18- The Fly
18- With Or Without You
19- The Saints Are Coming
20- Angel Of Harlem
21- Kite


(By the way, this afternoon's so called dangerous storm was a bit of a disappointed. After a couple of lightening strikes and moments after my last post, it changed its course and headed north, leaving us with darkness, immense amounts of rain, a bit of giddiness which soon passed and not much else, although plenty of nearby areas suffered hail and lightening strikes.)

Severe thunderstorm on the Sunshine Coast

I will tell you about U2. I've been talking about nothing else all day. But first I wanted to share with you the amazing storm(s) I am surrounded by right now. Check out this Severe Thunderstorm Warning map from the Bureau of Meterology (BOM). I have placed a green dot at my approximate location (at uni) on the map. This is from about 30 minutes ago so we're pretty much in the thick of it by now. Note, I did not add the info boxes stating "This thunderstorm is very dangerous"; that's courtesy of the BOM.


It has gone from being as black as night outside to being very dark with an ominous green tinge. Usually that's an indication of hail. There is a lot of impressive thunder and lightening going on and the lights keep flickering. Sippy Downs, where the uni is, is notorious for losing power during electrical storms. Fingers crossed that doesn't happen whilst I'm writing this.

I'm starting to feel a bit queasy from all the charge in the atmosphere and my boss has just told me that his wife called to say a tree on their property has been struck by lightening and has fallen across their driveway. I'm more than a little concerned for all our pot plants at home but hopefully it'll lose a bit of severity when it hits the coast. Goodness knows when I'm going to actually get home judging by the number of storms on the map. I'll leave you with a BOM radar image of precipitation from about 30 minutes ago. Black is really bad - very heavy rain. As you can see, we're pretty much right under the black spot.

The weird and the wonderful

The weird

Yesterday lunchtime I saw a car in a tree! It was the most bizarre thing and I didn't note too many details as I was driving around a small roundabout with emergency vehicles parked at the side at the time. Before you ask, I have no idea what kind of car it was but it was red. It was definitely in the tree as opposed to wrapped around it, or pushed up it. Yes, IN the tree, up the tree! A few feet up the tree! The road just before the tree sloped and there was a roundabout so the only thing I can imagine that happened is that the car came too fast down the road and couldn't manage the roundabout and somehow flipped up into the tree. I can't remember if the car was pointing upwards or downwards. There were a lot of emergency folk mulling around rubbing their chins. There was no one in the car. But there must have been someone in it when it first got into the tree so I'm intrigued to know how they managed to get the person out without the car falling out of the tree. So far I have not managed to find any reference to it on our local paper's website. All in all it was very surreal.


The wonderful

I'm going to see U2 tonight. I can hardly believe it. My friend Jill, God bless her, asked me at the weekend if I'd like to purchase her spare ticket for the gig in Brisbane. I told myself that if it was less than $100 then I'd go - an early birthday present to myself. It was! I am so excited. I'm leaving work in about 5 minutes to get the train down to Brisbane and staying overnight with friends before heading straight back to work in the morning. I have copied all my U2 albums onto my new MP3 player and I'll spend the 2 hour journey listening to them. What with that and the Melbourne Cup (I didn't win!) it's such an exciting day that I don't quite know what to do with myself and can hardly concentrate on any work. I'd better be off then... I'll report back later and let you know how rad the gig was.

Biometrics prevent pub fights

This is kind of old news now as I read it a week ago but forgot to pass it on. Apparently, a pilot biometrics scheme, in Yeovil of all places, is being used to cut down on pub brawls by scanning drinkers' thumbprints and preventing entry to anyone who has already been barred from any of the other pubs in the scheme. According to silicon.com, there are seven pubs taking part in the scheme and South Somerset District Council reports a 23% decrease in alcohol related crimes since the start of the pilot.

The latest news from silicon.com on this topic is that 40% of respondents to an online poll they conducted said they would be prepared to participate in such a scheme. On the other side of the fence are the 29% who said they would consider moving if their town introduced such a scheme, and sitting on the fence were the 31% who really couldn't be bothered just for the sake of having a pint - lightweights!

Me suspects the poll gave a basic three choices:
a) Yes I would participate in such a scheme;
b) Probably isn't worth it just for a pint;
c) No way, I'd rather move;
which probably wouldn't give an altogether accurate impression of people's opinions. But I merely speculate.

For more on biometrics see silicon's A-Z of biometrics and biometrics on wikipedia.

The only things certain in this world...

... are death and taxes. Or are they? They certainly happen, that's for sure. I've been learning the ins and outs of the "interesting" Australian tax system and felt like having a good old long-overdue whinge about the Inland Revenue.

"In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes," so said oh-wise-one Benjamin Franklin. Well, the former I can't much speak of being, as I am, still very much alive and most of the people I know are also still alive, thankfully. Who knows what the future of technology will do to the inevitability of death. Certainly, the chances of dying have diminished significantly since the onset of modern medicine, which is why there are so many old people around these days. Don't get me wrong, I love old people. I wish there were more of them. It's just they cost money and who has to pay? Yes, that's right. You, the tax-payer which is all well and good so long as there are more tax-payers than old people.

Certainly taxes have seemed very certain in my world of late. Take 2003, for example. Having never submitted a tax return in my life I was suddenly required to submit two; one for the Inland Revenue, who somehow managed to track me down by hassling my parents, and the other for the Australian Tax Office, which was bizarre as I had earned approximately $5 that year! It appears that everyone has to submit a tax return in Australia and an interesting process it is. The tax return for the Inland Revenue was less interesting and more what you might call Painful (notice the capital P).

Painful, and some might argue unnecessary, Inland Revenue tax return process.

Firstly, I had very little warning of having to submit the return. I wasn't expecting it and when they first contacted me I thought, "oh well, I'll just fill in a form telling them I'm not currently residing in the UK, that'll throw them off". But no! Only now they had my address in Australia! So they kept sending me forms and reminder letters and by this time there was no way I was going to get it done and sent off in time, as they like you to do these things by the end of December which everyone knows is a crazy time of year.

I decided that I'd do it all online because then I'd have until the end of January. When I logged on, however, I soon discovered that nothing is that simple as I had to apply for a password, which they then had to take 7-10 days to get around to sending out, ironically by post, and then add on time for postage to Australia. Eventually I got it and logged on. It asked for my National Insurance number which I was organised enough to have at the ready. Then it asked for some other piece of information which I did not have. No worries, I thought, I'll just fill in what I can, email all the stuff I need to my Dad who can check my papers and get back to me. But no! They wouldn't let me move on until I'd given them that specific piece of information. A few days later, after Dad had rummmaged through the loft to find my papers and emailed me back I completed that page only to find that I couldn't answer the question on the next page without further info from my files at home. And I couldn't move past this page either. And so it went on and finally after a few weeks I got the thing submitted.

That didn't satisfy the good old In Rev though who continued to pester me for tax returns for the next two years, despite me having earned nothing in the UK, until eventually I wrote to them and said "Please stop asking me to fill in tax returns. I don't have any reason to. I earn no money and I don't live there any more. Please, leave me in peace" and thankfully they agreed.

Interesting Australian tax system with smarty-pants eTax software.

The Australian tax system is a bit different. Basically, from what I can see, everyone rorts it. They don't bother to tell you that you're supposed to fill a return in, you just have to know these things. It has to be submitted four months after the start of the new tax year, pretty quickly compared with the Inland Rev's eight months, nine if you're submitting online. One great thing about the Australian Tax Office is their electronic tax return system, eTax, which is basically like an accountant on your computer. It works like an interview process and does all your calculations for you. It's really easy to use... it's just that tax is quite hard to understand. A lot of Australians pay between eighty and two hundred dollars for an accountant to do their tax return for them. This is because accountants know all these nifty little tricks to get you more money and some people manage to double or triple the amount they can get back. A lot of this is telling little "white" lies about how much money you earned or spent or whatever throughout the year in order to get the tax office to give you money back.

Now, I don't condone this. I consider it "cheating a bit". Others call it "working the system" and I have to admit those crazy little rules that all the accountants know about must be there for a reason. Whatever, I quickly realised the benefit of knowing these things when I discovered that our combined house-hold income took us just over the threshold beyond which we would have to start paying a Medicare Levy Surcharge.

Emergency-treatment-only Reciprocal-medical-care-my-bottom Medicare Levy Surcharge Rip-off

The Medicare Levy Surcharge is a strange and mysterious creature. Let me try to explain. Medicare is Australia's version of the NHS, only some argue not as good and, as my tax return is evidence of, not as free. Whereas in the UK we pay a pittance of National Insurance towards NHS, in Australia you get charged a Medicare Levy. I would expect this to come out of my PAYE tax but it didn't seem to happen this year. Now, if you earn over a certain amount and don't have a private health fund then you also have to pay a Medicare Levy Surcharge. Confused? Me too. Even if you do have a private health fund you still have to pay the Medicare Levy, I guess because emergency healthcare is operated by Medicare and you never know when you might need it. However, if you are a temporary resident, as I was for 4 months of the last tax year, then you are not entitled to Medicare, unless you're from a country with reciprocal healthcare, such as UK, in which case you're entitled to emergency treatment but not doctors bills or anything like that. But you still have to pay the levy (because you are entitled to emergency treatment) and, if you earn over a certain amount, the surcharge. Sound fair? I didn't think so.

I don't actually earn over that amount, or at least I didn't last tax year. And I really couldn't understand why I was being charged the levy surcharge as Toby's income plus mine didn't push us over the threshold. I was very annoyed as it meant I was going to have to pay $400 extra to the tax office, which I hadn't planned on doing. All for a service I'd hardly used and wasn't entitled to full use of all year anyway, and I couldn't understand it as my tax return last year had a very different outcome.

Reducing taxable income, sometimes known as rorting understanding the tax system

After spending hours looking at it and tweaking some figures I finally figured out what it was. The interest I had earned on my savings account, plus my salary, plus Toby's took us a few dollars over the threshold. What to do? The interest was less than the amount I was going to have to pay the tax office. It didn't seem fair but I really wasn't sure about not claiming it. I went back and looked over my deductions. This is the interesting thing about Australian tax. You can actually reduce your taxable income by claiming deductions and if your "other work-related expenses" are less than $300 then you don't have to produce receipts, which just seemed crazy to me. You can also claim donations to charities. I had already depreciated my laptop and claimed for some PC magazines that were sitting on my shelf. I then remembered I'd bought software to run on my laptop and figured I could probably add that in, and what if I'd bought magazines earlier in the year but had since chucked them out? I made a quick calculation as to how many there may have been and before I knew it had worked out that I had $298 worth of work-related expenses. And what do you know? It brought us back down to below the threshold and all of a sudden the tax office owed me $77!! Now I know why it's worth investing in an accountant. Goodness knows what else they would have thought of.

So the craziness is that just over $300 of interest was going to cost me almost $400 in tax, but less than $100 extra of expenses saved me about $500 in total. Tax sure is a crazy and complicated affair.

And just before I go I'd like to get back to the original statement, "in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes". On the ATO eTax interview there's a question as to whether you will have to submit a tax return next year. This raises some interesting points, not least of which is, does that mean that tax is not a certainty? Also, are there many Australians who can actually see into the future? And, if I say "no" does that mean it will become the case? Maybe I should have tried it.

Subscribe to receive my blog updates via email

I sent an email out to a few folk when I wrote my review of An Inconvenient Truth a few weeks ago and I noticed a significant spike in the number of visits to this website. So it seems that you lot like to be reminded that there's something interesting going on, rather than having to remember to come and check it out yourself. And the whole RSS thing doesn't seem to have caught on with the majority of readers, so as an alternative I am now offering you the ability to receive an email every time I update the site.

All you have to do is type your email address into the form on the left-hand side of this web page (underneath the very egotistical "About me" section which I'm thinking of removing). A pop-up window will appear asking you to enter some text (to prevent spammers) so make sure you have pop-ups enabled in your browser. You will then be sent an email which will provide you with a link you have to click on to verify your email address and that's it. You don't have to register any other details.

Of course, RSS is still an option for those who have a number of websites they like to keep up with. Here's a reminder of what it's all about. If you want to leave comments you'll have to visit the site, but I'd encourage you to pop by from time to time anyway to see if anything new is happening - or if you just want to link to my photo albums. Speaking of comments, I'd love to hear what you have to say about the website and give me any tips for making it better. I'm thinking of a new design pretty soon too so I can make use of this whole tagging thing, oops I mean labels (gotta get the Google terminology right).

Love is in the mail (so long as you're not a Pom)

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Living in the Ice-box

How come I'm living in a gorgeously warm climate yet I feel like taking finger-less gloves and a fleece to work every day?

You know what it is? I was sitting in a meeting this morning with a Scottish lady, two English blokes and an Aussie and we were all having a good old whinge about how bloody freezing it is in the wonderful cheese-grater building in which I sit at a 'puter all day pretending to work. And I thought, this is bloody crazy. I'm sure we didn't move to the other side of the world to develop Raynaud's disease and a penchant for herbal teas and hot chocolate. I envisaged coming to work every day in floaty summer dresses and flip-flops, not packing a bag full of jumpers.

This is the best time of year on The Sunshine Coast. The weather is warm and sunny and we're all just starting to hang up our winter coats and dust off our bikinis and sandals and yet here I am rubbing my hands and my arms, cursing the fact that I forgot my cardigan today. Don't get me wrong, in the dead of summer I'm very grateful for a little air-conditioning as sometimes it gets a little like a Turkish steam room outside but the fact of the matter is that after sweating like a Biggest Loser contestant on the way to work I then have to pull out a scarf, fleece and blanket to be remotely comfortable once I get here. We're told it's because of the books. Part of the library is on the second floor of this building and one year all the books went mouldy due to the humidity. But really, there has to be some kind of air-con setting between "mouldy books" and "frost-bitten employees".

So, here we are at the start of summer in Australia.... I'd better dig out my gloves and woolly socks.

Peter Andre and Jordan duet - really badly

Peter Andre and Katie Price's duet has to be heard to be believed.

Image from www.news.com.au

Recently I've been introducing you to some up and coming bands with some great music that I whole-heartedly recommend you check out (see previous posts Chemists hit 18 and Chemists in unearthed competition).

Well, today is a little different. I'm coming atcha with some altogether awful music. Peter Andre and his wife Katie Price, A.K.A Jordan have recorded their own cute lil' version of A Whole New World, which apparently they sang together at their wedding. This is so bad it's good. It's highly entertaining, although perhaps not in the manner with which Peter and Katie had hoped: it's bloody hilarious. I had tears running down my cheeks listening to it and it's certainly brightened up my morning.

Check it out at News.com Whole new world of warbling and be warned, they're threatening to release a Christmas album. What are they thinking? They say love is blind but clearly in this case it is as deaf as a post.

(Apologies to The Chemists for mentioning them and this aural assault in the same post.)

Update (23/10/06): Looks like the Andre-Price legal team have had the link to the MP3 removed from the news.com website. Never fear, YouTube (all $1.65 billion-worth of it) is here:



Update (31/10/06): Wow! These legal eagles are good! The YouTube video has gone now too. I did just find an MP3 on my desktop which I obviously downloaded whilst doing my research but for the sake of avoiding unwanted attention from the lawyers I might just leave this post as is. The fact that all of these videos and recordings have been removed speaks volumes by itself. Thankfully, less painful volumes than the actual recording.

Sunrise solar panel petition update

Australian Channel Seven's Sunrise show reaches 55,000 signatures on their online petition against the government's decision to phase out solar panel rebates in 2007.

I am still amazed at the effect the morning TV show, Sunrise (and others) can have on the collective consciousness of the nation. When I signed their solar panel rebate petition two weeks ago (see http://linsdownunder.blogspot.com/2006/10/sign-solar-panel-rebate-petition.html) approximately 3000 people had signed up. Since then Sunrise have relentlessly promoted their Cool the Globe campaign which, incidentally is a crazy name for a climate change awareness campaign. If people think we can actually cool the globe then they're going to be a little disappointed. All we can really hope to do is prevent it from over-heating as much as we can.

This morning they excitedly announced that they had hit the 49,000 mark. We were discussing this in the office when my colleague, Linda decided to sign the petition. After submission of the form she was redirected to the last page of the petition to view her name upon it. Between the form being submitted and the page displaying in her browser approximately 10 others had also signed the petition so her name actually appeared towards the top of the page rather than last on the list. Not only that but, following the hype on TV this morning, they now had over 55,000 signatures. That's 6,000 signatures in three or four hours!! A few minutes later, Linda's signature was about 5 pages from the end of the petition. In the time it has taken me to write this post, which is about an hour and a half as I've been doing it at work whilst waiting for things to load on my computer, another 1,000 signatures have been collected and they are now not far off the 57,000 mark.

Imagine the difference that could be made if these 57,000 people began making small changes to their lives, such as replacing tungsten light globes with fluroescent bulbs, turning the hot water tap down in the shower rather than the cold water tap up, switching lights off when leaving the room, participating in clean energy programs, walking or cycling short distances instead of always taking the car, participating in carbon neutralisation schemes and so much more.

I really feel a change is about to happen and it's a great feeling.

The Chemists hit 18 on Triple J indie chart

Further to my previous post regarding The Chemists entering the Triple J Unearthed competition, I have since received news that they have entered the Unearthed indie chart at number 18, which is fantastic. Pete passed on a big thanks:

Thanks heaps everyone so far who has checked out our tunes on the Triple J unearthed competition at www.triplejunearthed.com/thechemists

We have made it to number 18 on the indie charts already, which means you guys have played our tunes heaps and downloaded them too! Huge pats on the back are in order. But you can't stop now! Remember, the more times we're played, the more likely we are to get unearthed, so if you can, click the link above and keep playing our tunes as often as possible. We could win with your help!

Don't be afraid to register (enter email and username) to rate and review our tunes. All the reviews so far are really positive and it's very humbling to read them. It means a lot to us that you guys are taking the time out to support us.

So, on Pete's behalf I would like to thank any LinsDownUnder readers that checked out The Chemists offerings and helped elevate them to this position. Hopefully they'll make it into the overall chart soon. They've uploaded a new song since my last post so check it out.

Pete has also entered as a solo act under the name of Thingo (A.K.A musicalencounters) and I have to say this is definitely worth giving a listen to. I'm struggling to describe the music but it's really different to The Chemists. It's less grungy and more dancey. Even if you didn't like The Chemists I'd recommend giving this a listen. There are great beats, awesome bass and some fiddly finger work on the guitar. Go Pete!

Coolum Kite Festival 2006 and windsurfing

The Gist: Nice weather, minging weather, confused cat, juggling, Coolum Kite Festival - very impressive and well organised. Went windsurfing again for the first time in ages - yay!! Spent a week writing this post. The gist is fast becoming more like a list of tags than an executive summary really, isn't it? I've decided to place the entire gist in bold, rather than just the title - what do you think?

This post is so out of date it's not funny. Well, actually it is quite funny as it's completely incorrect so I'm going to have to rewrite it. I was talking about how minging the weather is after a perfect weekend. Well, we've had another perfect weekend but I wouldn't say the weather is minging today and the building isn't whistling like it was last Monday.


The main point of the post now is to say that I've put a few random photos of the Coolum Kite Festival from last weekend online: Coolum Kite Festival Photos

Last Saturday evening I headed up to Coolum with Scott and Lucie to check out the kite festival and had a fantastic time. I was really impressed with the level of organisation and the quality of the entertainment. From shuttle buses from the main car-park a couple of kilometres away, through a multitude of food options, down to spectacular air displays and great music, I take my hat off to the organisers and sponsors. Highlights were:

• once again seeing local band Oka perform, although they were on a bit early and we were wandering around exploring and watching kites at that stage;
  
• a RAAF Roulette fly-over doing crazy upside-down stunts and vertical falls;
  
• night-time sky-divers who looked like shooting stars when they jumped from the plane and then let off bright pink flares when their 'chutes opened. They looked like magical pink fairies floating to the ground although I can't imagine the parachutists would be too thrilled to hear themselves described as such;
  
• fantastic salsa band, Hot Mambo, accompanied by fireworks which had us all boogie-ing away in the sand, which is quite a challenge.
  

Check out some of the photos from last year at http://www.coolumkitefestival.com/framesets/frame17.html

In other news, I actually got to go windsurfing again this weekend, for the first time in months and Lucie took some fab photos. Here's one:


I challenged myself by attempting a bit of small open ocean swell but I didn't really like it that much. Bit bumpy, you see.

And that's about that really. I did have a lot more written but it's kind of irrelevant now.

OK! Hands up who's wondering about the confused cat and juggling mentioned in the gist.

The Chemists in Triple J's Unearthed competition

A friend of mine, Pete (on the left in the above photo), is in a band called The Chemists. I've heard some of their stuff and they're pretty good. Well now they've been entered into the Triple J Unearthed competition. Triple J is Australia's top non-commercial youth radio station. It's a healthy mix of alternative pop, if there is such a thing.

According to Pete,

If you would like to listen to some of our featured songs please go to www.triplejunearthed.com/thechemists and click on our tunes to have a listen. Each time songs are listened to or downloaded we go higher in the charts. So if ya wanna, play the tunes to your hearts content, or even more! We are late entrants so we need your support to get us up those already incredibly stacked charts. Guaranteed good listening to other Aussie talent. I'm really surprised at the standard and quantity.

I highly recommend checking out some of the tracks they have on there. I'm listening to Man From Japan at the moment and it rocks!

Pete also suggests listening to the following bands:
www.triplejunearthed.com/theaprilmaze
www.triplejunearthed.com/stereowoo

Ride to work... walk to work

Apparently Wednesday was Ride to Work Day and today is Walk to Work Day, a fact that seems to have gone unnoticed by the University of the Sunshine Coast where I work. This is surprising considering they have a research centre for Healthy Activities and Sports Exercise (CHASE), which runs a Healthy Lifestyle Program for students and staff, providing a small number of activities and facilities, such as a walking group, yoga, pilates, weights, karate.

I wondered whether this oversight was to do with the layout, and therefore attitude of the Sunshine Coast, which is very much a car society. The Sunshine Coast is like a city that is growing from the outside in. There is no one CBD as such, and many of the residential areas are semi-rural or just miles away from the urban business districts. The large employers are the councils and the university. The university itself is "out in the sticks" although a small commercial district is beginning to grow not too far away. Public transport is better than nothing - I catch the bus to work most days but I live in a fairly developed and central area. Some colleagues of mine have to leave the office by 5pm in order to catch the last bus home, which isn't much of an incentive to use public transport, and cycling and walking are almost out of the question to all but the exceptionally fit (and crazy) due to the distances involved.

Map of the Sunshine Coast and its many urban centres from www.qldtravel.com.au

With this in mind I emailed CHASE to find out why they weren't doing more to promote these campaigns, and to suggest that next year they follow the lead of Noosa Council, whose Travel Smart initiative provided a free breakfast for those employees taking part. Apparently CHASE weren't even aware of these campaigns.

I have to admit that I didn't ride or walk on either of these days but I cycle every Tuesday anyway and this morning I got off the bus a stop early. However, Toby cycled 45km (28 miles) from our house in Buddina to his office in Tewantin yesterday, proving that it can be done if you really want to. He also car-pools quite regularly, which just shows that we can change our habits to travel more efficiently if we put our minds to it. It just requires a bit of thought, preparation and cooperation.

Speaking of commerative days, my colleague Linda declared today to be Chiton Day. Chitons are intertidal zone molluscs. This is the kind of stuff you inadvertantly learn when you work at a university.

A chiton in its natural intertidal habitat from www.wikipedia.com

Sign the solar panel rebate petition

Wow! This Al Gore movie is really ramping things up in the climate change arena. Sunrise (Australian Channel 7's morning TV show) have stuck their teeth in with regular reports on climate change and practical advice on what we can all do to help combat it. And now, in response to the government's plan to phase out the already reduced solar panel rebate, they have set up an online petition to keep the rebate. If you're interested in signing the petition (please do) then head to http://sunrisefamily.com.au/current/petition/index.php. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any useful information relating to climate change here or on the rest of the Sunrise website... but sign the petition anyway.

Get on the climate change map

This is one for the Aussies. Nirvana has just sent through this link to a petition to the Australian government to make some positive changes towards climate change. They will use the basic information they get from campaigners to create a map of those concerned. Let's get as many people on that map as possible:
Put me on the Get Up map

And don't you Brits think you're getting out of it that easily either. There's an international climate change march happening on Saturday 4th November. For details on where the marches are happening and how to get involved, and of other climate change related campaigns check out www.campaigncc.org.

Aussies can check out www.walkagainstwarming.org for details of marches being organised in the major cities.

Another cool gadget: Roll-up laptop screen

This is so cool. It's a laptop screen that you can roll up and stick in your bag. Then you can take it out of your bag and unroll it and it stays flat. It uses "morphing materials" which basically means that the metal can retain up to three different structures. Wow! That's some freaky physics. Check it out at silicon.com

Please see An Inconvenient Truth

We went to see Al Gore's film An Inconvient Truth last night and it was excellent. I fully recommend it to anyone and will be pestering everyone I know to see it.

For those that aren't aware, it's basically Al Gore presenting a slide show on climate change. This is something he studied at college and has spent most of his political life trying to raise awareness of. When he lost the presidential elections back in 2000 he decided to travel the world presenting his slide show and educating people on the causes, consequences and prevention of climate change as well as a bit of the science and history behind it. The movie is his way of reaching even more people (and hopefully cutting down on his international air travel).

For those that don't know that much about climate change, the movie is very informative. There wasn't a lot in it that I didn't already know from reading books and websites but the movie is much more engaging than a book. The fact that everything he talks about is accompanied by photographs, cartoons, graphs or charts makes it more interesting, more visual and easier to take in. And just so that you're not sitting there with your eyes glazing over thinking "what's he talking about again?", there are personal moments of tragedy and revelation which contributed to Gore's passion for the subject. The movie is aimed at the American public but is very relevant to everyone else too.

The thing is, whether we like it or not, climate change IS happening. I know I've said before that I don't want to use this blog to preach, mainly because I don't want to put people off coming here and reading it, but at the end of the day it's vitally important that everyone understands as much as they can about this subject. Throughout history change has occurred because the people, the general population, have wanted it, have fought for it and have put pressure on those organisations that can actually do something about it. Politicians won't make the changes unless we want them to. Energy companies, airlines, car manufacturers won't make the changes unless we pressure them to. Every purchasing decision we make has a direct influence on climate change in some way. It is up to every single one of us to make all the small changes we can, which will ultimately contribute to a big change, and which will hopefully lessen the consequences of climate change and give us the ability to deal with it when it does happen.

When you do see the film, be sure to stay right to the end as some interesting and useful snippets of advice come up during the credits. This is the important bit as this is what empowers you to actually help the situation. Here is a youtube.com trailer of the movie:



For an alternative (and funny) trailer see: A Terrifying Message from Al Gore

And for an amusing review see: Keep it Green! Cliff Notes Version of An Inconvenient Truth

Interestingly, whilst I was writing this post Toby's brother called to say that the environment minister was being interviewed on Sunrise, Australia's top morning TV show. He was talking about the film and about the issue of climate change. I missed the interview but tuned in in time to hear the presenter give a couple of shocking statistics and to promise to revisit the topic over the next few months. This is brilliant and this means the issue is being brought to the masses. Bring it on!

Tip for the top: Get involved in your energy company's green energy scheme. This is a very easy thing to do but can have a massive overall effect. Toby and I purchase 1000kw of renewable energy per quarter from Energex, which is about how much electricity we use. In effect, this means that all of our energy comes from renewable resources, hardly any of it comes from dirty polluting coal. Most of our renewable energy comes from bio-mass which is a controversial source of renewable energy as some say it isn't actually renewable. Basically, rubbish in landfill gives off methane, which is 20 times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2. Instead of letting this energy into the atmosphere, the energy companies convert it into electricity, thus helping the climate in two ways; firstly by preventing the release of that methane, and secondly by replacing (or, more accurately, reducing) the need to burn CO2 producing coal. The energy companies generally get their renewable energy from a number of sources and each scheme will place more emphasis on different types of resources. We pay a little bit extra each bill for the privelege of placing the renewable energy onto the grid, which I personally think is a bit ridiculous: it's like we're being taxed for using clean energy instead of the other way round. But, it's really not a lot of money when you consider the total cost of your bill and I think it's worth it for peace of mind.

Attention all teachers! My second tip for the top today is a request for all teachers to do everything they can to either get their students to see this movie if they're old enough or, for the younger ones, to find some alternative way of educating them on climate change and the small things they can do to help. I know that children can have a massive influence on their parents and can help to educate them, and the principles they learn at school will stay with them for life. I will always remember "Waste not, want not" and to this day can't leave food on my plate. My Grandpa gave up smoking after my Dad came home and told him about the photographs of a tar-filled lung he'd seen at school that day. I remember pestering my parents to choose free-range eggs and showing them pictures of chickens crammed into tiny cages. Children make a difference and they're the next generation, the generation that's really going to have to deal with this crisis, so let's do everything we can to prepare and educate them.

Here are some useful resources to start with:
Energex's climate change for schools site
Climate change education
Global Gateway climate change resources

Whale Watching and Turtle Lovin'

I really did discover the meaning of the phrase "having a whale of a time" when I was out on a Hervey Bay whale watching cruise this weekend. It was Praj and Tracy's engagement party celebration (very unique) and after a few weeks of rain I think the whales are as pleased as we are to see the sun. Praj and Tracy live in Melbourne now so we hadn't seen them since we were down there in April, although they're moving to Rockhampton in a couple of weeks and will be staying with us on their looooong drive up from Victoria. They're bringing their cat, about which I am very excited, having been without feline company since I saw my own estranged (or should that be strange?) cats last July.


Toby and I stayed with friends from the university (where I work and where Praj used to work), Ben and Mark, on Friday night and we drove up to Hervey Bay together early on Saturday morning where we met up with Karl, also from the university, and eventually Tracy and Praj, their parents, and a whole bunch of friends they went to uni with in Toowoomba.

Without putting too fine a point on it the weather was bloody perfect. We boarded at 10am for a 6 hour cruise and by about midday had seen the best of what the day had to offer. Toby and I had a fantastic whale-watching experience a couple of years ago with my mam and dad and were quite prepared to be disappointed but we were far from it. Off in the distance we could see lots of splashing around and as we approached we found that it was a group of three whales: a mother and her calf with an escort to help them defend themselves whilst feeding. The calf was only a couple of months old and was playing around slapping its tail on the water over and over again. In adult whales this is often interpreted as a threat signal but with the baby I think it was just having fun. We stopped the obligatory 300 metres from the group and the calf became curious and began lunging its head out of the water to have a peak at us, not the graceful spy-hop of an older whale positioning itself vertically with its eye peaking out to have a good look, but an energetic jumping around and splashing back down. When the people on the boat cheered and clapped the baby became even more enthused and just kept doing it over and over again, giving us a couple of attempts at breaches too. It went on for quite some time and is one of the most spectacular sights I have ever seen.

Eventually the mother tried to take the calf away to calm it down and as they left it continued jumping around and lunging its head out of the water until soon they were back with us. They eventually left when another boat turned up and they decided to go over to say hello to them.


We didn't see much for a while after that but that didn't matter as we were being well fed and watered on the boat. They even provided champagne for the party. During lunch someone pointed out a turtle bobbing around on the surface of the water but when I looked at it, it seemed a little deformed and in fact, didn't look much like a turtle at all, except for the whole bobbing-around-on-the-surface-of-the-water thing. A closer look revealed that we were, in fact, witnessing some turtle loving. It's a beautiful thing. Later on we saw another group or two of whales and a couple of solo males, who greeted us in various ways, from a pectoral slap or wave, to a tail slap, a graceful dive and a magnificent breach. They really are beautiful, graceful, curious, friendly creatures. We saw a few dolphins too but, as much as I love dolphins, they seem to fade into the background when whales are around. I think possibly because they are used to humans.

On the way back to the marina we had a couple of bow-riding dolphins which is just beautiful to see. However, the captain slowed down for everyone to have a look and take some pictures and the dolphins got bored and went on their way. By this time, Praj and Tracy's young friends had been drinking for almost 6 hours and were providing us with more than enough entertainment.

After a swim and a rest we went out for a lovely meal at The Boat Club, provided by Praj and Tracy's parents. We stayed that night at The Outrigger which was brilliant because they gave us a free bottle of red wine!

From all the many photos of sea and white water I managed to find some worth putting on my photo blog. Check them out at: http://snapper.cvsdude.com/gallery/linsb/v/prajTracyWhaleWatch/

Here's a short no-frills movie clip straight from the camera - I haven't had any time for that fancy-pants video editing thing:

Weird and wonderful gadgets

The Gist: Completely distracted, three interesting gadgets: the vacuum cleaning Roomba, the USB rechargable battery and the titchy teeny "where on earth did I put it?" iPod Shuffle.

I'm having one of those dreadful days at work where you really do begin to wonder why you're there and what was it you were supposed to be doing again? I know you've all had them so don't come the innocent with me. And no, I wasn't drinking last night. Well, actually I was but not excessively and by that I do not wish to imply that I'm an alcoholic for whom a few drinks every night is an essential but I do enjoy a glass of wine now and then. In fact I'd had that particular bottle of wine since my birthday (2nd December for those of you that need a reminder and yes, it's coming up again soon).

From that first paragraph you should all now be gathering just how distracted and fragmented my mind is at the moment. Must perform a de-frag this afternoon. It could be to do with all the crazy brain games Toby's had me playing all week, such as seeing how many sequences of numbers you can remember, forwards and backwards (I reached 10 sets of 3 digits before I got bored but perhaps I wasn't playing properly), and spelling words forwards and backwards.

So, I thought I'd share with you all some weird and wonderful gadgets I have stumbled upon this week.

The Roomba
Firstly, I bring you the Roomba, a fantastic labour-saving device for all you working peeps out there with busy social lives and very little time (or desire) for housework. This little device will vacuum your floor for you. How brilliant is that? It's flat so it can get under furniture that you would usually struggle to reach (or just not bother) and it will even find its way back to base when it needs recharging. I really want one of these. How wonderful it would be to arrive home from work and find the vacuuming has already been done. You can get similar gadgets to mop your floor too. Now all I need are dusting and toilet-cleaning gadgets.

USBCell
Brilliant! I love this. It's an absolute stroke of genius. The USBCell is basically a AA battery which you can recharge by plugging it into the USB port on your computer. Oh what a wonderful world we live in. Apparently greenies think it's pretty good as you can recharge it whilst you're using your 'puter anyway. It only has 40% capacity of a regular battery due to the space taken up by the USB connector but who cares when it's so damn easy to charge anyway? These cost £12.99 for two and I shall be purchasing a few when I'm in the UK at the end of the year for use with my wireless keyboard and mouse.

iPod Shuffle

This is more amusing than anything else. The iPod Shuffle claims to be the world's smallest digital music player and let's hope it is as anything smaller would be difficult to see, let alone operate. I was led to this titchy tiny gadget via Silicon.com's Weekly Round-up which makes mention of an episode of Saturday Night Live from a few years back which poked fun at Apple for releasing ever-diminishing iPods. Well, now they've gone and done it and as Round-up points out you need double-jointed fingers to use it (see image). Remember Zoolander's mobile phone? I'm amazed at the technology behind this, really I am. I mean it's just incredible that they can make something like this so small. But I mean really, does it have to be? No matter how many times I go to the website and look at the photographs I can't help wondering if this is a joke.

Climate change tip for the top: Well, it's got to be to replace some of your AA batteries with USBCells really, doesn't it? And that's about it from me really, although I would like to point you in the direction of some interesting articles I saw on the BBC website this week and also to encourage you to go and see Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth (brilliant title), which I'm planning on seeing next week. I'll try and get round to letting you know what it's like.

State of California sues auto companies for damaging environment:
State sues car firms on climate

Should we spend money on climate change? The arguments for and against:
Wasteful efforts to curb global warming (Against)
Climate change remains top priority (For)

Bridesmaid refuses to fly

If you think I'm a bit crazy with my whole "cars are evil and aeroplanes kill the planet, let's all plant trees instead" approach, then check out this blog I stumbled across earlier in the week.

Babs2Brisbane is the travel log of a young woman who lives in a caravan in Wales (with no electricity and no computer! Crazy!!) whose good friend invited her to be bridesmaid in Brisbane. It's clear Babs is a bit of a greenie and she was horrified at the thought of having to fly to Australia so, after toying with the idea of not going, she decided to travel overland instead. See, because Babs is a greenie, she doesn't really spend a lot of money so she doesn't really need a full time job. She will take 6 weeks to get to Brisbane travelling by boat, bus and Trans-Siberian rail. What an adventure!

Whilst I do find Babs' way of life a little extreme I also find it entirely admirable. She has completely opted out of the rat-race (if she ever even joined it) and lives life according to principles she believes in.

See, no matter how passionate I think I might be about the environment, I will not travel to UK overland, even though I feel a bit bad about flying. Why? Well, because if I take 6 weeks off work, I want to spend that time with my family, not sitting on my bum looking out of a bus or train window. Why can't I take more than 6 weeks off work? Well, I can't really afford it. Why not? Because I want a sizeable house by the beach, a laptop and other gadgets, running shoes, a gym membership, a social life, the odd dive holiday. In short, my desire to have stuff and do stuff stops me from living in a particular way. (I think it's been termed Affluenza although I have a very mild strain).

Her decision has sparked some lively debate as to the virtues of air travel versus overland travel and there are some interesting comments on her website. I think she'll have an amazing time and I wouldn't mind giving it a go myself some day - obviously not every time I come home though, otherwise I'd spend the rest of my life travelling between England and Australia.

And to close this very green post, here's a very green picture of a dew drop which I spotted the other morning whilst doing yoga in the garden and which I suffered 4 mosquito bites for because I stayed still for too long whilst taking it.


Related: I also stumbled across this article in The Telegraph which discusses how flying is becoming an anti-social activity: Travel without leaving a trail

An “eeeeeeeeee hello” to you all and a sad farewell to The Crocodile Hunter.

I haven’t blogged in quite some time. I’ve started a few posts but then not quite got around to finishing them and getting them up here. But after hearing the sad news regarding Steve Irwin this week I was reminded of the important things in life and the fleeting fragility of our mortality.



I’ve just been to the zoo (i.e. Steve Irwin’s Australia Zoo) and was overwhelmed by the number of tributes laid there and the scores of people still rolling in five days after Steve’s death with messages and flowers and donations for Wildlife Warriors, the charity Steve and his wife Terri founded. Surprisingly, it surpassed the tributes I witnessed at King’s Cross last year, two weeks after the London Transport terrorist attacks. The only thing I can liken it to was the aftermath of the death of Princess Di, although it hasn’t quite reached those same levels of hysteria.


Whilst we were there Toby ran into a girl he used to know at university. Turns out she played softball for Australia in Athens in 2004 and won a silver medal. But that’s another story (although it is the first time I’ve met an Olympic athlete). She works for the zoo so was able to give us an interesting insight into the goings-on there. It’s clear that everyone who works at the zoo loved Steve very much and that he had a big impact on their lives. His loss has affected them all deeply. She also told me that apparently today (Friday) was International Khaki Day… wonder if that will become an annual thing. I had no idea of this but quite independently organised for my team to come in today wearing the closest they could get to khakis. Not everyone took part – some insisted that they had nothing remotely khaki – but for those that did it was a nice gesture.

At the zoo I made a donation to Wildlife Warriors and wrote a message on a khaki shirt. There were dozens of these hanging around the place covered in the messages people wrote for Steve and his family. Whilst I was doing this about seven zoo employees, some of which I recognised as having presented crocodile and tiger demonstrations, approached carrying a covered frame. They spent a few moments attaching it to a fence and then said a few quiet words to one another before turning around and having their photograph taken with it. At one point they all raised their thumbs and cried “Crikey”. After they left I moved in for a closer look. It was a framed photograph of Steve in action, feeding a crocodile. At the bottom were two crocodile teeth. I don’t know if they were in any way significant, maybe they were from a particular croc whom Steve was fond of but that’s just speculation. Around the photograph they’d written their own very personal and moving tributes.


Steve Irwin is an intrinsic part of the Sunshine Coast where I live and it's only now that he's gone that I've really noticed it. The day after his death I was cycling home from work and a bus passed by me. There he was, larger than life as always, covering the back of a bus. Anywhere you drive there are huge Australia Zoo billboards with Steve's picture on them. I wonder what will happen to those billboards... whether over time Steve's photograph will slowly be replaced by his daughter Bindi, or one of the other crocodile handlers.

It’s clear that Steve Irwin was a man who touched the hearts of many people all across the world for many different reasons. Some loved the entertainer, the man who could see the beauty in any animal and who educated the world about the characters and complexities of so-called dangerous animals. Others loved the conservationist, the selfless man who worked so hard to help and protect animals, putting all the money he made back into the zoo and similar projects. And yet others, those close to him, would have been more familiar with the family man, the ordinary bloke. Although after watching a re-run of a 2003 Andrew Denton interview with Steve, who insisted his TV persona was the real thing all the time, and others who knew him have confirmed this, I fail to see anything ordinary about him. On the contrary, I believe he was an extraordinary man, albeit down to earth. (By the way, Andrew Denton is like a younger, Australian Parkie.) An example of his ability to be both down to earth and extraordinary can be found in the weekly column written by the VC of the uni I work for (University of the Sunshine Coast): when Steve was granted an honorary senior fellowship at the uni in 2000 he turned up for graduation wearing, as always, his khakis.

I never actually met Steve Irwin but I did see him in the flesh once. On one visit to the zoo I spotted him running towards me with a group of zoo workers. I was trying to figure out what on earth could be such an emergency that they had to run - had a croc escaped? But maybe that's just how someone as energetic as Steve Irwin gets around. A girl I was with shouted, "Hey look, it's Steve. Hi Steve!" and as he ran passed he waved and smiled at us. Other people I know have said that he rode around the zoo on a scooter saying hello to people. And others have said that seeing him do the croc presentations made their visit. Everyone who visits the zoo hopes they'll be lucky enough to see Steve Irwin in action. It's so strange to think that will never happen now.

Germaine Greer's scathing, and possibly inaccurate comments earlier this week (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,,1865124,00.html, calling Irwin "self-delusional" and "dominating" of animals, claiming that the zoo's crocs are depressed and that Steve's tragic death is a case of "the animal world finally taking revenge" on him are nothing less than disgusting, not least because of her insanely insensitive timing. But, whilst she claims John Stainton's job is "to keep Irwin pumped larger than life, shouting "Crikey!" and punching the air", it's clear that Greer's job is to disagree with general opinion and to wind everyone up in the most appauling way she can imagine, and, I suppose, everyone is entitled to their opinion. Greer states that, "the one lesson any conservationist must labour to drive home is that habitat loss is the principal cause of species loss", implying that Steve Irwin failed to do this and instead barged into fragile habitats, manhandling and distressing animals. But I think he did do this and this is how I hope the world remembers him, as a compassionate (and passionate) caring conservationist, as opposed to an "entertainer". Yes, he was entertaining but this was simply a by-product of his passion.

So, with this in mind, I have racked my brains trying to think of an Irwin-esque Tip for the Top. I thought of the fact that he bought vast swathes of land so that they could be conserved and kept away from greedy developers, something the Sunshine Coast sees a lot of as one of the fastest growing regions in Australia. And whilst it may be possible to put that into place on a smaller scale by buying land to live on and not developing or sub-dividing, or by refusing to buy on one of the new massive development estates and instead going for a traditional Queenslander (wooden home, raised for air-flow with a big deck or verander around the outside), that's really beyond the capabilities of most people and applies more to Australians than Brits, where most of the land has already been developed anyway.

So then I thought of the little things you could do, like encourage birds into your garden and put two bells rather than one on your cat's collar so it can't catch the birds. Rather strangely, as I was writing this post travelling in the car on Friday evening to Toby's parents' place, not too long after leaving the zoo, we hit a small animal. I remembered having heard somewhere what to do in these situations, particularly if it's a koala. We found the animal and it was definitely dead. But then we had the distressing task of moving it into the light and checking to see if it had a pouch. If it did we would have had to check inside the pouch for a joey and call the Australia Zoo Hospital (the number of which I have in my phone) to come and take it away. The animal was some kind of small marsupial by the way, possibly a bandicoot. Now, again this applies more to Australia as UK doesn't have animals with pouches but it can teach us to be more aware of animals crossing the roads and to take some care to check them out if we do hit them. I wasn't driving by the way. Oh no sirree! Blogging and driving definitely do not mix. Don't do it.

My struggle to think of some practical advice to offer has perhaps highlighted to me that this is an area I'm quite ignorant in. Or maybe conservation has been so ingrained since I was a school child that it's now second nature (leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but photographs, that kind of thing) but I do think I have a lot to learn, especially in this less familiar environment of Australia.

I will be making a donation to the Wildlife Warriors and for those of you who wish to do the same I will say be wary of bogus sites. I haven't seen any myself but I've heard they do exist. It's www.wildlifewarriors.org.au and you can get there from the Australia Zoo website.