The Drug Dogs Don't Work

Funny old weekend. Started off by recovering from the drugs the dental surgeon administered so he could take a tooth out through the side of my gum (don't ask). If anyone offers you "twilight sedation", take it. It's great at the time. Then we made our way to the garden centre to start our project to soften the stark outlines of 15 Ti-Tree Road. Now I can look out my study window and see a Lady Palm, two Sago Palms and a Milky Way. Looks good.

Sunday has so far seen a short but somewhat volatile surfing session. No one told me there were so many different kinds of waves. And as I'm flying off to Canberra (not jetting off, you'll note; the plane has propellors) I read with interest about the airport sniffer dogs who have to be retrained because the cocaine they were given by the police to practise on turned out to be talcum powder. I wonder how many old woman and babies they arrested before they sorted that one out.

Corridors of Power

Been working in Canberra this week. Don’t ask me what the city is like because although I was there all week, all I saw was the road from the apartments where we stayed and Parliament House. On a rare daylight trip, I did notice that the leaves had turned brown, a welcome reminder of autumn back in the UK - we don’t really get seasons in Coffs.

Parliament House is a fine building, though suffering at the moment from work to install concrete barriers against car bombers. It was built in the eighties and fine wood and Australian art are much in evidence. Stand in central, enclosed courtyard and look up and you’ll see the vast Australian flag flying against a perfect blue sky through the glass roof.

It’s confusing, though, as most of the corridors look exactly the same and much of the prowling the corridors of power is because the prowler is lost, at least in my case and I gather that’s common. But I have the route between our office and Aussie’s Coffee Bar pretty well mapped. I even know the short cut that runs through one of the many open courtyards, still warm enough to sit in with a sandwich and a book in a rare break.

I guess most Westminster MPs would die for offices like these. Two large working rooms, an anteroom, bathroom and kitchen. You’ve probably gathered from anything you may have seen about proceedings in the House of Representatives that things are somewhat less formal. Electorate Officers like me are the lowest form of life but that didn’t stop the Deputy Speaker joining three of us for breakfast.

G'day, Minister...

Spent Friday roaming around Coffs Harbour with a visiting Government Minister. It was very different from what used to happen in my Welsh Office days. For one thing, I can't recall any British Minister greeting people with a cheery "hi, guys". Also, I never worked for a Minister who used to be a shearers' cook, even in Wales, or who held a pilot's licence. It was rather refreshing.

One thing was familiar. Her staff seemed to be just as firmly glued to their mobiles and just as harassed as I remember being so I must have made some progress. On the other hand, later this evening I will carefully pack five shirts, five pairs of pants and five pairs of socks (and a few other things of course)in preparation to spend next week in Canberra, a process that does seems horribly familiar even after all this time. It's Budget Day on Tuesday, against the background of a leadership dispute between the Treasurer and the Prime Minister. Funny, but that's ringing bells, too...

Still, I don't have to go every week and I consoled myself this afternoon by registering the domain for the forthcoming podcast. Watch this space.

Here, There and Everywhere

I'm not sure what to make of this.

I'm working on a podcast in Sandy Beach, NSW, that will emanate from a server in Pontypool, Gwent.

I hope the site will be designed by a Dutchman, also in NSW, who employs someone in India to market his work and a Ukrainian to write his code.

A record company in New York contacts me about a track I played on a radio programme only broadcast in Coffs Harbour.

I listen to a podcast by an American, recorded in Guildford, praising Peter Day, a BBC broadcaster I used to listen to in the UK.

Two people have lunch in London and a blog prepared again in Sandy Beach is mentioned in a blog prepared in the UK. People from all over the place then log on to the Sandy Beach blog.

I don't know what it means but it's a shame we never see each other.