Just Warming Up.....

Gather the UK's having a spot of good weather. I know because most nights we watch the news on what we call the immigrants' channel or, to give it its proper title, the Special Broadcasting Service, which always ends with a global weather report, so you can see what the weather's doing where you used to live and decide whether it was a good idea to move or not.

It always starts in Australia, of course, then the globe swings east to New Zealand, and moves across Asia, Europe, Africa, and South America and finishes in North America. It also makes you realise how far away you are from home. The news reader, often Lee Lin Chin, with a staggeringly funky line in specs and hairdo's, picks out a few cities (somehow Asuncion always gets a mention, whoever's presenting). On the night that the outline of the UK was almost covered (it is very small) by the figure 32, Lee Lin dismissively intoned: "London - warm." If only she knew.

Anyway, I've also seem all the dire warnings about skin cancer, so remember what the kids are taught here: "slip, slop, slap - slip on your sunglasses, slop on the suncream, slap on a hat." Take care out there.

PS ...and just to show how different things are here...just watched the SBS evening news and the coverage of the elections in the Northern Territory. The Country Liberal Party did very badly and part of the blame is falling on their plan to hook the territory's electricity supply up to the national grid, a policy described by SBS's sound and sober political correspondent as "wacky."