And in Breaking NonNews

So true.

"Governer Palin spotted in town buying milk" and the like.

Thanks Tom Tomorrow

Photo Hunt: Wild

Wild Animals

Wild Animals

Tame Wild Animal

Wild West Yee Ha with Wild Animal

Wild Outfits

photohunt

Man Uses Hedgehog as Weapon Faces Jail

I am always interested how Zemanta, which is add on blogging software throws out suggestions for links when you write posts.

I liked this one from my last post on my name, presumably because I mentioned New Zealand.

"It hit the victim in the leg, causing a large, red welt and several puncture marks," said Senior Sgt Bruce Jenkins, in the North Island town of Whakatane.

It was unclear whether the hedgehog was still alive when it was thrown, though it was dead when collected as evidence.

The police spokesman said the suspect was arrested "for assault with a weapon, namely the hedgehog."

Important stuff. Don't throw Hedgehogs in New Zealand.

I wonder how you pick up a hedgehog and throw it.

And for Jayne, here's the recipe.

Popular in the Antipodes

There are more Campbell's per head of population in Australia and New Zealand than the UK, joining many other Scots escaping Haggisland for more prosperous pastures. Here in South Australia, the density is lowest of all Australian states (no convicts were sent here).

This interesting tool shows how popular your surname is around the world and likely where your ancestors decided to set up shop.

Thanks Alex (Biarritz?) Massie

Spanning My Lifetime

Queen Elizabeth II's reign has spanned my lifetime. I was born in the late 1950s and the article spotted by Wolfie covers that time period and the dramatic change in life in the UK. I have lived out of the UK for almost 25 years and every now and then get a little nostalgic. I was watching the Black and White Minstrels on You Tube recently and was sad that the BBC will not release the archives for politically correct reasons. My grandparents used to watch that show every week although we thought it a bit naff and always asked to change the channel when we were staying over for the weekend.

The article along with the weather reports from this summer ensure that I continue to live outside the UK. Every now and again I entertain thoughts of going back for a while. My skills are very transferrable, but I am happy here in South Australia with my life.

The photograph of the Queen reminds me of the respect that my grandparents felt for her. We had to stop eating Christmas Lunch and listen if her Christmas Message came on the television. She is still there a very tangible sign of stability in an otherwise changing society.

Carry on Your Majesty.

Here endeth my 2000th post. May my blog reign on in the rapidly changing blog kingdom.

Home Security System

Yesterday was a Pupil Free Day at the school. I felt very secure with my Sumo Ninja Security Guards on duty. They have another one today and I am sure they will look after Elizabeth too.

Scottish Sports Roundup Que Sera Sera Version

Ecstasy



Agony (Macedonia Version)

You definitely have to be Scottish to appreciate this.

From the Guardian.

World Cup 2010 qualifier

Macedonia v Scotland - as it happened

• Guardian report
• Observer report
• Min-by-min
• Match facts

World Cup Euro Qual Gp 9

Macedonia 1	Naumoski 5
Scotland 0

• Scott Murray
• guardian.co.uk,
• Saturday September 06 2008 12:00 BST
• Article history

This is more than a graph than an o-meter, but I didn't have time to change it, sorry

Kick off: 2pm. Scott will be here from 1.30pm. Although he just texted in to say his train was delayed, so make that 1.47pm.

1.47pm: Tom Lutz wasn't wrong. How queer.

Oh how I love you, Lisa Gray, PA Sport Chief Scottish Football Writer, Skopje: "There were no real surprises in George Burley's team selection for Scotland's World Cup qualifying opener against Macedonia.
Kenny Miller and James McFadden both started and were given the task of getting the goals despite a less than inspiring partnership in last month's friendly against Northern Ireland at Hampden. With West Brom's James Morrison injured, Barry Robson was given the nod in midfield alongside Celtic team-mates Paul Hartley and Scott Brown, as well as Darren Fletcher. As expected, stand-in skipper Stephen McManus was able to shake of a knock he picked up in last week's Old Firm derby to take his place in the heart of defence with Gary Caldwell. Kirk Broadfoot was named among the substitutes after his surprise call-up earlier in the week.

At last, they bother to send the teams through, though I can hardly bang on about other folk being tardy this afternoon. Anyway, FYR Macedonia: Milosevski, Noveski, Petrov, Sedloski, Mitreski, Lazarevski, Georgievski, Shumulikoski, Maznov, Pandev, Naumoski.
Subs: Pacovski, Polozani, Tasevski, Demiri, Trajanov, Grncarov, Ristic.

Scotland: Gordon, Alexander, Naysmith, McManus, Caldwell, Hartley, Fletcher, Brown, Miller, McFadden, Robson.
Subs: McGregor, Boyd, Broadfoot, Maloney, Commons, Stewart, Berra.

Referee: Pavel Kralovec (Czech Republic)

The way I look at it is this: One of the Official Rules Of All Football is that Scotland are only ever any good when there is absolutely no expectation whatsoever. In fact, that's rule one. So I think it's only fair to note that the couple of wins against France in the Euro qualifiers - while wholly hilarious, mainly due to the petulant reaction of Tinyears Thierry - represented a couple of blips, rather than an upward trend that can be extrapolated to World Cup glory (see graph). Scotland have since been terrible, pretty much, so. There, if that doesn't guarantee a 6-0 win for the Scots, nothing will.

The Macedonian national anthem: Is quite an amazing piece of music. It sounds like a haunting Norwegian folk anthem, the sort of thing a young girl sings when she finds out her father isn't coming back, there's been a disaster on the whaling boat. Fantastic stuff, a genuinely moving solo turn. There's quite an atmosphere in the stadium. The atmosphere of a hospital chapel, admittedly, but an atmosphere nonetheless.

And we're off! Not much happening so far, though Gary Caldwell has already put in one reducer on Pandev. "Sometime in the 17 minutes between when you were first expected and when you actually started," begins Gavin Speirs, setting the tone, though he really wants to have a pop at First Capital Connect, not me, "bored of Jim Traynor's opinions and not interested in Craig Burley's, I noticed the qualifying table on the left of the page showing Macedonia top and Scotland bottom. Is this to set realistic expectations ahead of our dismal 2-0 defeat? Is it to give us the chance to say Kenny Miller's 53rd minute tap-in saw us beat the top team? Or has the alphabet been updated recently?" You got it right first time, Gavin. The only way is up. That's the way we like it round here.

4 min: Scotland have started steadily enough, Hartley, Brown and Fletcher seeing plenty of the ball. Ah hold on, McManus has just taken Maznov down five yards from the area. Damn. "Thanks for trying with the Official Rules, Scott," writes Billy Clark. "All was going well with that comment until you went and predicted a 6-0 win at the end of it. We're doomed. Doomed, I tell ye!"

5 min: DOOMED! Macedonia 1-0 Scotland. Well Billy Clark called that one damn straight. Sedloski hammers a low shot towards the bottom left corner which Gordon does wonderfully well to fingertip onto the post. The luck's not with him, though, the ball bouncing straight back, allowing Ilco Naumoski to sidefoot home from three or four yards. Whoosh! There goes that World Cup!

8 min: Five minutes, that campaign lasted.

9 min: Right, the comeback is on! Scotland win a free kick 25 yards out, just to the right! Robson tries to replicate Sedloski's daisycutter... but you couldn't slice through melted butter with the weak effort he dispatches into Milosevski's arms. The comeback is not on.

Luckily there is hope in place with a trip to Iceland on Wednesday for the proverbial must win game. Hope springs eternal for the Tartan Army. From 90 degrees to 0 degrees.

Connex Beware

Melbourne commuters are watching with interest public disgust with public transport in another part of the world.

"We understand that people get angry when the service is delayed or canceled, but they absolutely can't attack a public service in this way," Gustavo Gago, a spokesman for rail company TBA, told local television.

Many passengers said the delays, caused by a broken down train, had cost them a day's work.

Argentina's dilapidated rail services are plagued by delays and travelers' anger sometimes erupts into violence.

What would it take?

When Fishing Policy Becomes Social Policy

Harry Haddock picks up on the nutty EU Fishing Policy where dead fish have to be jettisoned in a world without enough food. This policy reminded me of this courtesy of fellow EU Lover Big Rab.

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE
40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s !!
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.
Then after that trauma, our cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention, the risks some of us took hitchhiking.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds, KFC, or Subway
Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn’t open on the weekends, somehow we didn’t starve to death!
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy Basookas, mojos and blackjacks and some fireworks to blow up frogs and lizards with.
We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in it, but we weren’t overweight because……
WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and dens and played in muddy fields with matchbox cars.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape or DVD movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms……….WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no Lawsuits from these accidents.
Only girls had pierced ears!
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross buns at Easter time…….no really!
We were given air guns and catapults for our 10th birthdays,
We drank milk laced with Strontium 90 from cows that had eaten grass covered in nuclear fallout from the atomic testing.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!
Mum didn’t have to go to work to help dad make ends meet!
Footy had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
Our teachers used to belt us with big sticks and leather straps and bullies always ruled the playground at school.
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
Our parents got married before they had children and didn’t invent stupid names for their kids like ‘Kiora’ and ‘Blade’…..
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
The past 60 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.
And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it?!

I could add to that list. One of the things that I notice when I take Hannah to visit her friends is how few books are around. Lots of electronic gizmos, but no books. I can remember a friends essay about the future where he made the case for humans evolving without legs. It seems that we will be evolving without parts of our brains. Dumb and dumber will be the wave of the future. The part that deals with making our own decisions and charting our own course. Everything that could be a worry or concern will be illegal or heavily regulated.

Imagine a generation of kids who imagined that fish is fish fingers and chicken is what you get in McNuggets. We are not so far away already. I wonder how many of this generation have seen a bird being plucked or a fish being gutted and prepared in their own home. Ready to Eat Meal Packs here we come. Why not just intravenous feeding from birth and an internet implant for education. That would save a lot of time and money on school and university.

More thoughtful analysis here.

And what would Harry Haddock say? Something like this I think.

And on the EU, it seems like it is an institution that needs to blown up and disinvented, rather like the White Elephant in France.

Photo Hunt: String(s)

Strings of Pearls?

Our kids love to dress up and do imaginitive games. Not sure what this one was about, but it is certainly glamorous.

photohunt

Healthy Food Atonement

Blog Cleansing Ingredients after my last post.

Hannah's New Breakfast Menu

As part of a new healthy eating campaign at the kids school, breakfast is going to be served before class to get the kids energised for learning.

Thanks to Food Conceptualist and Stylist, CCaviness.

Actually her class is having a breakfast barbie this morning, which got me on to this. I can't decide whether to be intrigued or revolted. It looks like a life times supply of sugar, fat, grease and red meat in one bite.

Ryan Woggles On

Ryan got his scarf and woggle for his Joey Scout Group last night. He was a very happy camper. He and Hannah will both be in Cubs next term. Hannah has been coming along to watch every week and she has decided to join in.

Breaking News from Wasilla

Image by sloomis08 via Flickr

Major Pig Theft Averted. and local girl gets big break in politics. Finally the US Election gets interesting.

All you need to know about Wasilla is available three times a week from the Mat-Su Frontiersman.

I have actually been to Wasilla when we visited my former relatives in Alaska. They liked to drive out that way to go hiking and cross country skiing. I only drove through it on the way to and from Fairbanks. Very scenic most of the way.

Australia reminds me of Alaska without the snow, mountains and moose. We have warm weather, desert and kangaroos. Both places are enormous and desolate and almost totally unpopulated outside the coastal areas.

I wonder if Moose Stew is on the menu in the Bistros of St Paul this week.

Joseph Needham - Obituary Writers Delight

One of the best sections of the UK papers, especially snootier ones like the Telegraph is the Obituary Section. I used to read it every day, marvelling at the lives of some of the noteables that made it into this section.

Tom Paine profiles Joseph Needham, who must have been an interesting one to write.

He was a nudist, a Morris Dancer, a pre-hippy proponent of free love and "open marriage" and an uncritical supporter of every left-wing cause. As Master of Gonville & Caius College, he once passed a note out of the window of his office to the '68ers "sitting-in" outside, in which he simply said that he agreed with all their aims. He was also a close friend of Zhou Enlai and an acquaintance and admirer of history's greatest mass-murderer, Mao Zedung. Politically, the man was a startling idiot - a total naif. Yet he was also an undoubted genius.

His impact on delaying global warming is well documented.

Needham told me a wonderful anecdote about Mao Tse-tung. Mao asked him round one time in Peking and said he wanted Needham's advice about something urgent. Mao said he could not decide whether he should allow "his people" to have cars or whether he should make them stay on bicycles. What did Joseph think: which should it be? Mao couldn't think of any other Westerner with experience of cars to ask.

Joseph, who at home cycled all round Cambridge like a proper don, innocently remarked that he used a bicycle himself and found it very satisfactory. "Fine," said Mao, "then we'll stick with bicycles." The greenhouse effect was probably delayed by decades.

And don't try this in bed.

Joseph was the only person I have met who had a genuinely photographic memory. The perfect illustration of this is an astonishing story told to me by Peter Mitchell, the Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, who knew the Needhams well in the 1950s: "Doffy {Needham's first wife, Dorothy} told me one day that Joseph had a new hobby. He used to lie in bed in the mornings correcting his proofs {of Science and Civilisation in China} in his head. But he got tired of that, so now he lies in bed translating them into French first and then correcting them."

They just don't make em like this any more.

Just so you know

24% Geek

Created by OnePlusYou - Online Dating

This does not really surprise me.

Thanks to the almost twice as geeky Rob from The Broadstreet Geek

At the third stroke it will be stormy and heavy rain

Star Date 08:18 am Monday Morning 1 September 2008, Planet Nawlins

Looking a bit wet in the French Quarter.

Thanks Hurricane Gustav and these wacky republicoreligiousites, who obviously picked the wrong parade to piss on when they prayed.

Sucked in big time. Don't they say, be careful what you pray for. You may well get what you ask for. Well not exactly what they wanted, but close enough.

Idea shamelessly stolen from the always entertaining Ben Lomond Free Press.

Highlight of the Soccer Season

Ryan waiting for his season defining moment of glory.

Ryan's under 9 soccer team has had a memorable season for many of the wrong reasons. The highlights of the season were the one goal they scored and the penalty Ryan saved during the last game of the soccer tournament to salvage a nil all draw, the best result of the season.

Throughout their 1 to 109 goal difference, they managed to maintain their enthusiasm, despite all the negative influences of being hammered every week. They had a fun presentation ceremony with the ironic award of the day being top goal scorer medal going to the coordinators son who scored that very precious only goal of the year. They did score two others, but they were scored by players borrowed from other teams, so they don't really count.

Thanks to all the parents and coaches for making it all possible. Without all the effort, those small moments of success would not be possible. There is always next year and the knowledge that the senior team won all their games convincingly and were top of their league as an incentive for the future.

The fun part of participation is alive and well, which is the part that we value.

Ryan told me afterwards that he was disappointed that there was not a medal for best goalkeeper. Perhaps we will have to make our own trophy.

Spring Arrives

Image via Wikipedia The first day of Spring is National Wattle Day here in Australia. Acacia Pycnantha, one of the native wattles is the Australian National Floral Emblem and the source of the green and gold.

They are present here in Adelaide, but many have been ripped out as land has been developed. Attempts are being made to reintroduce them in gardens and I have grown seedlings in my back garden for planting.

At the moment, they are in full bloom.

That and the cherry blossoms make for a nice change after the coldest August for many years. Ryan and I passed this one as we looked around our old neighbourhood on Saturday.


Happy Wattle Day Australia.

Photo Hunt: Beautiful

Granny's Birthday Flowers for Elizabeth earlier in the week and photos of the kids.

Some lillies unusual irises (thanks JMB) in a garden near where I was walking Spotty this morning.

We have so many beautiful things in our lives. These are just a few. Of course I would be remiss not to mention my lovely wife who had a birthday this week.

photohunt