Red Rock On....

It was right at the beginning of the evening that John suggested we all enter the Red Rock Triathlon, giving us exactly two weeks to prepare. I'd barely taken a sip from a bottle of beer and the others were stone cold sober so there was no excuse for saying yes.

So John's delicatessen wholesale business, Coast and Plateau, is sponsoring two teams - Me, John and Carl, and Sara, Anne and Liz - for the 800m/22k/5k event. We each do one leg, so it's not too demanding. Well, it would be if I had to do the swim, but I haven't. And Will is doing the whole thing as an individual. But he's onyl 21.

The commitment is frightening. The next morning, everyone was out in Sandy Beach doing their thing, Anne even getting bitten by bluebottles (jellyfish). It hasn't stopped and we've even done a recce of the course, Will heroically swimming in the creek at low tide, so it was rather brown. There's a fine air of "she'll be right, mate" about the whole enterprise but I suspect everyone is harbouring their own little fears, not the least of which will be letting the others down. I'll keep you posted.

Australian Values

The Opposition Leader here, Kim Beazley, is taking a bit of pasting over his suggestion that all visitors to Australia should have to express their commitment to Australian values. It's all to do with concerns that many Muslims who settle here allegedly see their allegiance as first and foremost to Islam (and we all know what that means).

Quite what these values are isn't clear. Are they reflected, perhaps, in the fact that a number of dead sting rays have been found on the Queensland coast with their stings cut off, prompting speculation that this is a bizarre form of revenge for the death of Steve Irwin? Even if this is just speculation, it says much that it's regarded as perfectly feasible.

For a historic perspective, and in reference to the continuing controversy about the treament of the Aboriginal population, you might turn to The Australian's front page cartoon on the topic showing a bearded gentleman in a robe facing an immigration offical and swearing: "I plan to steal your land, trash your culture, and never apologise."

Meanwhile, I'm left wondering how many Australian visitors to, say, France or Thailand, would be happy to sign up to French or Thai values? Not many, I'd guess.

Jaws of Death….2

Admit it, you love all this shark stuff. So….last week a Coffs Harbour surfer was out for his usual early morning session, caught a wave, surfed into a two-metre (allegedly) bronze whaler and got soundly nipped for his temerity. He struggled and the shark let go. And it was only in waist-deep water, too. This is a bronze whaler.

Jaws of Death…..1

A death in the family always brings out the divisions that normally lie just below the surface and, on a national level, that’s just what the death of Steve Irwin did.

His demise led news bulletins here for several days, coverage starting with a clearly upset Prime Minister, crowds gathering outside Irwin’s Australia Zoo, first hand accounts of his death and then his family’s gracious rejection of the offer of a state funeral.

One of the words often used to describe him was “larrikin”. I think what Australians usually mean by this is that he was a cheeky chap, a bit of a rascal, and a generally loveable bloke who did no real harm to anyone. And those tight shorts are very popular.

Just to make sure, I turned to the Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary (yes, there is one) and found a number of definitions, including “a person who acts with apparent disregard for social and political conventions.” This leads rather nicely into the second phase of press coverage.

Enter Germaine Greer in the pages of The Guardian, suggesting that her fellow countryman was a bit of an embarrassment for most Australians, and questioned his attitude to animals in general, and recalled his exploit with his baby son in his crocodile enclosure. Irwin, she said, insisted he was in control, “displaying the sort of self-delusion it takes to be a real Australian larrikin.”

I can’t help feel she was right on that score and that it was another example of the potentially disastrous “she’ll be right, mate” attitude I’ve mentioned before. But I digress.

If there’s one thing Australian popular opinion hates, it’s an intellectual, worse one who has made a name abroad and not returned, and worse still, one who’s a woman. Irwin was the antithesis of an intellectual and he got the public vote. Ms Greer was vilified as a “feral hag” and “childless” (now doesn’t that say a lot?) and readers of the Daily Telegraph were encouraged to email “the vicious old cow” to tell them what they thought of her. I bet they did, too.

If there’s a lesson from all this, it’s that Australia is a young nation, still to settle on a national identity.

Belly Up

You probably haven’t heard of the orange-bellied parrot but then there are only 50 breeding pairs in the world and they’re only to be found in Tasmania in the summer and then across the other side of the Bass Strait in Victoria and South Australia in the winter. Despite not really having much orange on their bellies, these parrots have come into the money, $3.2m to be precise, or $32,000 per parrot.


They're deemed to be an endangered species on a par with the Siberian Tiger and the Giant Panda. So the Federal Government has stepped in.

This is clearly a parrot with punch. Recently a plan to build a $220m wind farm on the Victoria coast was scrapped because it lay on the migration route. Even though it was calculated that approximately one parrot in several decades would be minced by the blades, that was clearly one parrot too many for the Government.

So now the parrots will be not only be relieved from having to negotiate whirling turbine blades but they’ll also have millions spent on improving their habitat and, because this is Australia, the country where cats are kept in at night and encouraged to wear bells so they can’t creep silently up on their prey, there will also be slaughter of feral cats.

I’m comforted by the fact that while Siberia has a huge, ravening carnivore in need of care, Australia has a small, but well-travelled, parrot with a bit of orange on its tummy. It makes up for all the poisonous stuff, I suppose

A Sobering Surf

After a week of heavy showers and grey skies, the weekend was back to normal with blue skies, warm sunshine and a crystal clear sea. It’s very easy to be lulled into a false sense of security by all this.

Carl and I were surfing at the point at Arrawarra on Sunday morning. Unusually, there were few others out but Leroi, a gnomic figure who has apparently not missed a day’s surfing since fibreglass was invented, and possibly before that, was there. He is even older than Carl and me. We noticed a large number of boats further out and, ominously, several helicopters, sweeping the ocean.

Leroi told us that they were looking for two fishermen who went overboard from their boat during the night. Suddenly, I felt less blasé about bobbing up and down on my board so near the rocks of the point and so far from a safe shore. Later we found out that there had been four in the boat. One, wearing a life jacket, had swum ashore and another was found clinging to an empty oil can. It appears the boat had struck a whale.

Watching the humpbacks as they migrate north every year at this time is a stirring experience, whether from the shore, or from one of the whale-watch boats but, having seen a whale beating the water, apparently in irritation, with its tail, I have wondered whether I’d want to be anywhere near them in a small boat, whether they felt malicious or were just going about their business and you happened to get in the way.

Those fishermen were not doing any wrong or particularly stupid, with the exception, possibly, of not wearing lifejackets. They probably had not thought they were taking a risk by going out in their boat. Perhaps their mistake was taking nature for granted.

Planting Thyme...

This is what all that lurching around the Pacific Highway in an overloaded ute was about (see She'll Be Right, Mate below). Now we've done the planting and we have lavender, coriander, chives, parsley, rocket, thyme, chillies, oregano turmeric and basil. At least we will have if the slugs don't get them. It is raining frequently and Australian slugs are voracious.

Latest Visitors

Llywelyn has just arrived with his university mates John (centre) and Dean. After a morning's surfing at Arrawarra, during which all three of them managed to stand up on the boards, we walked over Mutton Bird Island in the hope of seeing some whales, which Sara, Dean and I did but, sadly, John and Llywelyn were just out of sight. Fickle, those humpbacks. We'll be out in the whale boat on Thursday.

She’ll Be Right, Mate

You frequently hear Australians using the phrase “she’ll be right, mate” in the context of some risky or dodgy activity or a repair job that isn’t perhaps quite all it should be. It’s indicative of a laid-back attitude and, I think, a sunny optimism. It appears to be catching.

Saturday morning saw Carl and I at the England’s Road tip, home of a vast compost producing enterprise and vast mountains of compost. Unfortunately, the man who operates the JCB to load the compost into your hired ute, or whatever, was nowhere to be found. Not to be deterred, we started shoveling after I’d wandered off to the recycling depot and negotiated the loan of a $2 dollar shovel.

After a while, Carl decided to turn the ute round to make it easier to fill and I distinctly remember saying “she’s looking a bit low.” To his credit, Carl distinctly remembers me saying this as well. He also remembers ignoring it. Some shoveling later, it was obviously full. Also obviously, it wasn’t going anywhere as the back mud flaps were bent back whereas the front wheels had only a tenuous relationship with the ground.

We looked at each other and started shoveling out, until some sanity had been restored. It was at this point that the phrase was uttered and buoyed up by this, we crept over the entrance speed bump and wobbled off the nearest garage to get the back tyres pumped up.

It was an interesting drive back to Sandy Beach. We were remarkably slow pulling away from traffic lights, much to the amusement of a lorry driver. Corners were a challenge and only to be taken slowly. In Coffs, we spotted a police car outside the Plantation Hotel so took a detour which unfortunately involved four 90-degree turns. We were sweating at this point. A fine queue built up behind us on the hill by the Big Banana. Various responsible citizens glared at us when they eventually overtook.

Half-way home, at Moonee, another police car lurked and there was no escape. We stared straight ahead, striving to be nonchalant, and all was well. As Carl remarked: “If he’d had his radar set for stupidity instead of speed….”

Anyway, we got home, slightly frazzled (“I was cacking myself there, mate”), and did another three, smaller, loads that day with the ute on an even keel to top up all our vegetable beds and lay the foundations for a three household veggie cooperative. There’s nothing like optimism when it proves to be justified. And the man with the JCB turned up as well.

Sunday Stroll

Iwan and Steph are visiting and took a Sunday afternoon stroll over Look At Me Now headland, where they saw many kangaroos and two surfers fighting their way out through big waves accompanied by some some large marine life, which thankfully turned out to be dolphins.

'Roos Go Out

Sad to say the Socceroos were booted out of the World Cup by Italy who won with a 92nd minute disputed penalty. I'm glad to say that some round here did point out that if they'd taken their chances and put the ball in the net earlier, then the penalty wouldn't have mattered.

We were at the Jetty Theatre in Coffs last night for the Melbourne Comedy Festival Roadshow, a good place to test the mood following this sporting disaster. The female Kiwi compere reported that her Aussie friends were on the edge of their seats until the final whistle then sank back with sighs of "oh well, there you go." And now it's forgotten. It takes a foreigner to deliver the best insights, I think, and her theme was that Aussies are pretty laid back, if not more laid back than Kiwis, in fact. She pointed out that New Zealand has no dangerous wildlife at all. In Australia, by way of contrast, we have a world-beating array of deadly creatures and insects and even something as apparently cuddly as a duck-billed platapus can poison you. And yet we don't seem to worry.

It's true. Our shortest route to the beach is known to harbour red-bellied black snakes and brown snakes, both potentially lethal, but it's still the route we all use, even barefoot, in some cases. A schoolgirl was even attacked by a kangaroo in Coffs last week.

The other significant contribution came from an American who had been living here since 1992. He confessed that he hadn't applied for citizenship yet. "I've had the forms for two years but I just can't be arsed to fill them out. See...I reckon that means I'm a citizen already."

'Roos Go Through

Well, they did it. The nation had a definite spring in its step this morning despite getting up at 5am to see Australia play Croatia with qualification for the knock-out stage at stake for both sides (this is the World Cup, it's football, played with a round ball, for those non-sporting readers).

A late goal from Harry Kewell, or King Harry, as the Prime Minister calls him, was enough to draw the game, which was all they needed to finish second in their group. Travellers stranded at Canberra airport this morning because of fog were still fondly watching the replays many hours later. This was just as well as many were there for some hours (I know, I was one of those travellers).

Here's an irony. I've mentioned before that football here is very much the preserve of immigrant communities, though that may now change, and the list of player's names has a distinct European/Balkan flavour. The Socceroos' captain is a guy called Mark Viduka and he's of Croatian descent and started his professional career there. I reckon he passes Norman Tebbit's infamous cricket test, if that's not too confusing.

Now For The Manacle Marks

I’ve just been told that I am now a Permanent Resident in Australia. The letter came from the Department of Immigration this week. I’ve been on probation, as it were, for the last 18 months or so. I can’t pretend that it’s been a worry for us, though the consequences of a rejection would have been pretty horrendous. So now I can, in due course apply for citizenship and have the hereditary manacle marks put on my legs. (Sorry, that comes from a joke that New Zealanders tell – how can you tell an Aussie from a Kiwi?)

As I’ve noted before, it’s easy to forget that we’re living in a foreign country. This week reminded me that, until now, I could have been asked to leave at any time. Curiously, for the first time, I’ve also been racially abused. At the end of a long and, from both sides, fruitless phone call about the Government selling its stake in the Snowy Mountain hydro scheme, I was told I was a Pommie bastard and could piss off.

Now I don’t for a minute this ranks high in terms of racial abuse (though I am having counselling, obviously) but it does make you think. I didn’t get a chance to tell him I wasn’t a Pom because he put the phone down, but the point was I was being abused because of something over which I had no control, over something he thought I was. What must it be like to put up with that every day because of the colour of your skin? To add insult to injury, the Government pulled out of the sale the next day, citing strong public sentiment. I’ll say.

And for the record, I will be supporting Australia against England in the first rugby union test this Sunday, though what that proves in this context, I’m not sure, given that I am, of course, Welsh.

Codes for Kiwis

I read in The Australian this week that New Zealand is introducing a full national system of post codes. It was only a short article, but the four paragraphs managed to be pretty superior about the fact that our neighbours across the water were only just attaining this level of sophistication. This is very much in keeping with Australian attitudes to New Zealand generally, despite recent rugby results.

Personally, I find it rather encouraging that they’ve managed without codes until now. What it says to me is that, by and large, their communities are of a manageable, humane size and they’ve presumably been able to provide a decent service without reducing every neighbourhood to a sequence of digits or digits and letters.

Even now, they only need a four-digit code, as opposed to the six or seven letters and digits you have in the UK. And Australia is still getting by with only four digits for the whole continent.

Anyone for Wogball?

To a cavernous pub in Canberra last night with a few colleagues for a sporting occasion, the first of the State of Origin games. It’s Rugby League we’re talking about, which is more popular here than Rugby Union. Anyway, every year New South Wales and Queensland each put up a team of professionals and they play three matches. The attraction is not necessarily the rugby – because they’re virtually scratch sides, they’re not used to playing together – but the tribalism.

A newcomer could easily feel that the two states were separate countries, which they virtually were until federation, and not just when it comes to rugby. A newcomer might also ask “what about the other states?” Well, to use the vernacular, they don’t give a rat’s arse about Rugby League. They go for Australian Rules Football, which few understand and no other country plays.

It’s not to be confused with soccer, which is becoming a mainstream sport, helped by Australia qualifying for the World Cup for the first timen since 1974. Tonight the Socceroos play European champions Greece in a friendly in Melbourne, which has a large Greek community. For many years, soccer was played only by European immigrants and I’m grateful to this morning’s Sydney Morning Herald for telling me it was once (and possibly still is) known as “wogball.”

By the way, Canberra has seasons, unlike the Coffs Coast, and now it’s winter. The trees are bare, it’s freezing, and I need a coat, scarf and gloves to walk to Parliament House from our lodgings. It’s quite a change.

Another Rescue

While the story of the rescue of the two men trapped underground in a Tasmanian gold mine for 15 days unfolded, relatively little attention was paid to the fate of three men lost in a small boat off the coast at the other end of the country.

The three had set off to collect some members of the local rugby league team for a game, which gives you the first cultural pointer - we’re talking about seventy kilometres in an open boat as opposed to getting picked up in the team mini-bus. They got into trouble and drifted out of range of their mobile phones and waited until they were back in range to send a text asking for help. It took 22 days before they were able to send the message and survived by eating raw squid, drinking rain water and fashioning some sun shades from bits of metal.

There are immediately obvious reasons why the story attracted very little attention. The area is remote and no one knew where the men were. But in Australian terms, there are other reasons.

Large numbers of Australians take to the water in boats every weekend and it’s not unheard of for some of them to disappear and it’s far easier to disappear in the Pacific Ocean than it is in say, the Bristol Channel. Add to that the occasional disappearance of rock fishermen, usually swept into the ocean by waves, and such events are far from unusual.

It’s easy to get lost on land, as well. Even in relatively populous New South Wales, you don’t need to go far to find mile upon mile of bush, mostly unmarked by tracks. Australia is a vast and mostly empty land and Australians believe in making the most of it. They’re also realistic about their prospects if things go wrong, don’t expect to be rescued as a matter of course, and prove to be pretty resourceful, as did the trio in the boat.

Perhaps it’s something of that attitude that sustained the two miners, in their very different circumstances.

To The Falls...

On Easter Sunday, we all went to the Sherwood Forest and set off through the bush...


...to the waterfall....


...where you could have a natural massage in the freezing water...


....and then warm up in the autumn sun.

Coffs Harbour Live

You might like to see what the place looks like live, as it were. If you go to Swellnet and click on "surf cams" and then "Coffs Harbour" you'll see how the day's shaping up. Unless you get the time difference wrong, of course, and you log on during our night when you'll see nothing. We're nine hours ahead.

The three views, all from the Jetty area of Coffs, are, in rotation, of Gallows Beach (so-called because of the rocks, I think), the huge beach to the south of Gallows and, bizzarely, the car park at the top of the boat ramp, which is not very interesting. The camera is on top of the Deep Sea Fishing Club, which is good for fish and chips and you can sometimes see whales from the verandah.

If you're lucky, you might see dolphins on the surf cam, jumping out of the waves, as I did one day.

A-Hunting We Will Go

Sara spotted an ad in the local paper announcing that "conservation hunting" had started in a state forest not far from here. Licensed hunters could apply to shoot introduced species of feral animals, including pigs, goats, foxes, rabbits, cats, hares and deer.

Now given that these species were introduced in the late 18th or early 19th centuries, you might thing that, like Europeans, they'd earned the right to be regarded as residents, but apparently not. They take a very strict view of what's indigenous and seem to forget that recent history has been nothing more than remorseless Europeanisation since the first landings. Still, I can't quite see why a few pigs truffling around in the woods should be lined up for slaughter. No doubt they have some fearful environmental consequences associated with them. Just like the Europeans, really.

Anyway what really caught my eye, after the bit about hunters being required to wear some blaze orange clothing so they could be indentified at all times, was this: "These areas will not be closed to the public while conservation hunting takes place."

I don't quite know whether this is another example of the "she'll be right, mate" mentality or a subtle attempt at culling another introduced and damaging species.

Some Retreat...

Took to the hills behind Coffs this weekend to celebrate our first wedding anniversary at a place called Friday Creek, which consists of a few comfortable chalets and a vineyard. It's described as a retreat and, as we were the only ones there and the weather started rather murky, it certainly was quiet and secluded.

However, only I could book a country retreat in earshot of an all-night rave. The pounding bass started at 6pm on Saturday and was still going when we left at 10am on Sunday. Bill Munoz, the Chilean immigrant owner, was shaking his head as we paid the bill. "I've called the police," he said. "I'm half deaf so I'm OK but my wife didn't sleep all night." The volume was remarkable as all the action was taking place in the next valley, over the ridge in the picture below. Doesn't seem possible, does it? Do you still have raves in the UK or are they out of fashion? Luckily, Friday night had been as quiet as the grave.

Teen Spirit

Running along the moonlit beach this morning (it's quite dark at 6am now), I was surprised by a number of luminous, long, oval shapes on the steep dune leading over the neck of the headland to Fiddaman's Beach. When I got closer, they turned out to be surf boards, carried by a group of teenage boys and girls, some wearing hoodies over the usual boardies and bikinis - there was a slight coolness in the air - which made them look even more spectral. Of course, they may have been up all night, but I can't help being impressed that they were up at all, and, while surfing under a full moon may be romantic, it's still not light enough to see anything that might be sharing the water with you. It needs a certain nerve.

What the Bloody Hell?

Yes, OK, I know you're probably all sick of this but I though it might be interesting to hear how the episode played out here. (Explanatory note: Aussie tourism ads. Used "bloody" in catch line. Banned from UK television. Poms all pompous prats. Get the picture?) I particularly liked this comment from the Tourism Minister, Fran Bailey:

"The regulators have clearly misplaced their sense of humour - and this from the country that brought us Benny Hill, The Two Ronnies and Little Britain."

I have to say, it seems a far cry from the studied seediness and open lust of Benny Hill and the sublime conceit of Daffydd, the Only Gay in The Village, to the use of the word "bloody" in a catch-line for an ad, but there we are, I've always had trouble seeing advertising as a higher form of art. What seems to have been lost is that not everyone here thought that this campaign was the best thing since sliced bread simply because "where the bloody hell are you", with the unspoken addition of the word "mate" is very much what one Australian bloke might say to another, so it does resonate...but the campaign isn't aimed at Australians so why the bloody hell are they using the phrase? And didn't anyone think to check with the regulator beforehand?

Anyway, the Government line is that it is a "cheeky" campaign, and, if nothing else, it's given them the chance to stand up for Australian culture and values, which always goes down well. The Queen's out here next week so no doubt they've lined someone up to give her another pat on the bum, just to bring home the point.

The final word on the matter comes from the queue in the Woolworth's bottle shop in Coffs Harbour: "They've banned the ads because it's illegal to swear in public in the UK." It's good to know the global village is breaking down all those barriers to communication.

A Change in The Weather...

I go away for a week and the weather goes to hell. This is what dangerous surf looks like at Sandy Beach and, yes, that's official - "dangerous surf" is a standard phrase in the weather forecasts. It's been raining hard all week, blowing a gale and we've had big tides as well. The rivers are in flood, a couple of towns are cut off and the farmers to the south of Coffs have had to move their cattle to high ground. My flight home yesterday included the biggest, stomach-curdling plunge I've ever experienced but, although flights are often diverted from Coffs because of wind or low cloud, we made it in. Several passengers, though, discovered they wouldn't be able to get home because of the floods. I'm sure it'll all be back to normal soon.

Another Day, Another Dollar....

Just in case you think life is all about lolling around in crystal clear water under a clear blue sky (see post below), I'm writing this in Parliament House in Canberra after a morning writing a speech about a new national cancer agency.

However, just outside the office window in one of the many courtyards, a splendid blue and red parrot is bouncing up and down on the branch of a shady tree. Across the small ornamental pond, three members of the ground staff are diligently pruning some bushes, all clad in the regulation elastic-sided work boots and baggy blue shorts and shirts. All wear broad-brimmed hats against the sun, though one has forsaken the usual canvas version for a rather racey patterned straw hat of his own.

Phone calls permitting, I'll shortly wander off across the Members' Hall to Aussie's coffee bar and sit outside under a sun shade with an espresso, surrounded by scrounging magpies. They're very vocal and melodious here though, as long-time readers of this blog will know, turn into arial assassins in the nesting season. There are two sides to everything.

Sunday Outing

This afternoon, John and Liz took us to their secret swimming hole, reached by a walk over the headland and then much scrambling over boulders. That's Carl on the right, with daughter Darius; John on the left, and Liz with Darius' firend, Lauren. Sara was in the entrance gully, trying to coax Took the Terrier into the water.

Ferry, Ferry Unhappy

I expect many of you who commute in UK cities would relish the chance to use one of these ferries in Sydney harbour for your journey to work and you’d be right to do so. The trip into Circular Quay in the business district is spectacular, taking you past the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, usually under a faultless blue sky.

But all is not well and there’s a growing feeling that this city with its gem of a waterfront is a city in crisis. Those ferries, and the faster catamarans, keep breaking down; the trains don’t run on time and there’s problems with the track and the axles; just don’t ask about the roads; and they’re not sure where the next drop of drinking water is coming from.

Property prices have soared in recent years and, as you know, there are the sort of tensions that resulted in the recent Cronulla riots. Meanwhile, the New South Wales State Government (you could be forgiven for thinking that it runs only the city, and not the whole of this sprawling and varied state) lurches from leadership changes to reshuffles via a major budget crisis.

In the middle of this comes a poll which comes to the startling conclusion that those of us living in places like Sandy Beach are happier than those living in Sydney. You can imagine that we all fell off our surf boards in shock up here and no doubt many Sydney-siders similarly fell to decks of those ferries in amazement that their country cousins might actually be living a more sublime existence, beyond spitting distance of the nearest Starbucks (we don’t have one at all - imagine that).

Is there a serious point here, other than the supreme pointlessness of that poll, which someone was presumably paid to conduct? If there is, I really can’t be bothered to think of one but the following will probably do.

Last Sunday, neighbour Carl suggested going for coffee at a beach-side café in the village to the south. It was lunch-time so just having coffee was bit problematic and there were five of us and tables were needed for people eating so we ended up being forced to have sour dough bread with hummus and olives, as well as coffee. “Oh well,” said Carl, tucking in. “Serves me right for trying to be a bit urban.”

PM Gets Bladdered

Regular readers will know that I try to offer some cultural pointers in this blog. After all, this is a foreign country. Sometimes, you come across something that speaks volumes, usually becuase it's written by an Australian, as is the following piece. A few words of explanation: When the good folk of the Sydney suburbs were hitting the living daylights out of each other on the basis of whether they were of Middle Eastern extraction or not, the Prime Minister John Howard remarked that this was not a racist country. More recently, international cricketers from the Indian sub-continent and, ironically, South African, have been subject to racist abuse from the crowd. Right, you're all set. Off you go to The Bladder

Sharks Again

I'm sure you've all been hearing about the latest spate of shark attacks which I noticed made several bits of the UK media. I suppose it's not surprising given that the fatal attack on a young woman in waist-deep water off Hamilton Island on the east coast was quickly followed by the nibbling of a diver off the west coast.

They certainly generated a lot of coverage here, though despite the volume, certain aspects remained remarkably murky. Was the woman killed by one shark or three? Was she at a popular swimming spot or one that the locals studiously avoid? The latter is particularly important because avoiding certain places is reckoned to be a good way of avoiding sharks. Most attacks happen in the waters off the southern and western coasts. You should avoid anywhere where there are seals, lots of bait fish, murky water, and bathing or surfing at dusk or dawn.

Much of the media furore that followed the Queensland attack was due to the fact that we're in the silly season here in the height of summer and news is short. Not that I want to diminish what happened, which was clearly horrific, but the way the story was taken on was pure silly season stuff. The Shark Attack File maintained by the Taronga Zoo in Sydney has a more sober view of the subject.

I also read that box jelly fish have been responsible for something like 70 deaths in the last century but we don't hear so much about those. Equally horrible but not so box office. What would you call the film? Jelly? Tentacles? Doesn't have the same ring, does it?

Start As You Mean To Go On....

You’ll be glad to hear that I started the New Year as I mean to go on. At seven am on New Year’s Day, I was bobbing up and down on the Pacific Ocean, on my surf board, in the company of neighbours John and Liz. They’d called round for “a quick glass of wine” at seven on New Year’s Eve and left just after one am, when John said: “Liz, we’re all talking crap. It’s time to go to bed.” I really can’t remember what we are talking about myself, but I remember thinking he was right.

And that’s been the tone of the whole holiday period, really. The previous day, I’d been on the beach and bumped into Carl, another neighbour who is married to Ann, who is English but grew up in Bethesda (though she seems remarkably unscathed by the experience). Carl had bagged the pandanus palm, which offers unrivalled shade, and we were able to chat happily for a good hour while his daughter, Darius, and dog, Took, played in the waves.

On Monday, I’d just got back from a rather unsatisfactory surfing session (too windy, tide turning) and was rinsing off the salt under the garden shower, when John stuck his head over the fence and suggested a trip to Arrawarra, a fine surf beach to the north (sheltered from the southerly wind, see) and off we went. As I was paddling out, I recognised Ken, a California surfer-cum-steel erector and the partner of one of Sara’s colleagues, so paused for a while to talk.

The reason I mention all this is not to rub in the fact that most of our spare time is now spent on the beach, under glorious blue skies, swimming in, or surfing on, a clear blue sea. No, really, it’s not. It’s just that it struck me that even six months ago none of this wandering about and bumping into people we know would have happened and yet I have no idea when the turning point came, if there was one at all. You settle into a new life imperceptibly, I think.

Oh yes, and on Christmas Eve a pod of ten dolphins glided past me as I waited for a wave. An early present.

33 Degrees and Rising

Yes, you’re right, that is a bit warm. In spite of that, everyone's been preparing for Christmas in their own way. Down in Sydney, of course, they've been fighting on the beaches, which confirms a number of widely-held views - that the cities are smelly, dirty and over-crowded and to be avoided (widely held in the country areas); that if you think it's violent in the cities, you should try living in the country (widely held in the cities); that there is underlying racism in Australian society (widely held in liberal circles); that immigration poses a threat to the Australian way of life (widely-held in il-liberal circles); that kids are just not brought up properly these days and should just behave themselves; that this sort of thing has been going on for years, since the surfer-biker clashes of I can't remember when. So there's something in it for everyone, which is exactly what Christmas is about.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has spent a small fortune (it only has a small fortune) on BBC programmes, though I'm glad to say that, in a highly unusual move (because nothing good comes out of New Zealand, apparently) it has also bought a stunningly un-PC school comedy from New Zealand called Seven Periods With Mr Gormsby. Those of you accustomed to all the pussy-footing around the Welsh language will instantly identify with the depiction of the Maori language but it gets worse (or better), I promise you.

I have been discussing the surf forecast with Dave the Park Ranger over the vegetables in Woolworths (that's a supermarket here) It wasn't something I'd have seen myself doing a couple of years ago. To see how seriously it's taken just visit Swellnet I'm afraid the forecast is not good. I've also bought some Roquefort.

Sara has been worrying about whether the rest of the food has been bought, which is far more constructive, of course, and made this splendid Christmas tree from a stray stick. It's a good job one of us is practical.

Tasmania

We've spent a few days in Tasmania and, of course, visited the former penal settlement at Port Arthur. This is one of the walls of the ruined penitentiary, where the common criminals were kept in the later days of the settlement. We also saw the rather more luxurious accommodation afforded to political dissidents, including the Welsh Chartist, John Frost. After a couple of bush fires and systematic looting by locals trying to expunge the convict stain, it's nowhere as grim a place as you'd expect, except perhaps for the rather more recent memorial to the 37 visitors and staff killed by a lone gunman in 1995. We also went to the Freycinet National Park and walked to Wineglass Bay...More photos here

Shouldering On

I feel as though I'm being inducted into a small,informal society (I also feel as though I need a physiotherapist for my shoulders). John and I were joined on the waves by two other surfers this morning. At a conservative estimate, our joint ages couldn't have been less than 200, so there was nothing flashy going on, certainly not on my part. They knew John, of course, but paddled over to shake hands with me. We did the being patient thing and then the paddling frantically to catch a wave thing (I was the only one who had to paddle frantically; the others do it effortlessly) and, I'm glad to say, I also did the catching the wave thing, which was very satisfying. Need more strength in my shoulders, though. Oh yes, and I learnt the rugby results and where to find good cheese in Tasmania, where we're heading tomorrow for a few days.

Master Class

Today started with a surprising role reversal when Sara leapt out of bed at 6am and brought me a mug of tea. I thought I was dreaming at first but a poke in the ribs persuaded me that I was in fact awake. Apparently, the deal was that I went surfing - it's sunny and there's no wind, I was informed - and Sara went back to sleep.

Down on the beach, I met our neighbour, Liz, who told me that partner John had finally decided the water was sufficient warm for him and was out there somewhere on his board. We located him, at what seemed to me an alarming way out to sea, and I paddled out to join him for a lesson on catching big, green waves (John, like many Australians, has apparently been surfing since he got out of nappies. Though not when the water's cold).

"It's important to be patient," he told me. That sounded good to me, as I felt as though I'd paddled a fair way to New Zealand, and we practised being patient for a while. It dawned on me that surfers actually spend a lot of time doing that, bobbing up and down sufficiently far out so that a wall of water doesn't fall on your head, and having a friendly chat. "It's great out here," he mused. "You can be out here some days and a dolphin will pop up next to you." He paused. "It's only happened once. Scared the living daylights out of me."

I found being patient came quite naturally. Catching the green waves, not so naturally. The easiest way to catch a wave is at right angles, which is fine on white water, but try that on green face and you find yourself rocketing downhill until the nose of your board digs in and then everything becomes very confused and very much like drowning. So you have to take it on an angle but, to do that, you need much more momentum of your own and the kind of shoulder strength that comes from starting when you were four years old. So I practised not catching the waves for a while until one caught me at precisely the wrong stage of wave development (from my point of view), allowing me to stand up until it whipped the board from under my feet. John, of course, caught anything he chose, with no apparent effort.

It really is the kind of skill that you need company to acquire, if you've got any sense, that is, so this morning was very welcome. It also confirmed my suspicion that it's far better to be on top of a big wave than under it. A useful session and I shall persist.

PS: I've had a couple of emails from Garrett Goulash. Not sure who or where you are, Garrett, but thanks for the compliments (they weren't on my surfing) and no, I really don't mind who reads the blog. The more the merrier.

Summertime

Summer seems to have arrived. No sooner did the spring storms abate, than the temperature went up and stayed up. The thin duvet has been banished to the linen cupboard and there's now just a sheet on the bed. It was 31C today.

I've not worked through a summer before and feel rather glad than I don't have an outside window so I can't see the sky. Also, it's cooler. At least it is when the air-conditioning is on, Luke and Karleaha freeze. When it's off, I roast. Greg, wisely, has his own fan. When I go out for a coffee, I wear sunglasses and stick to the shade. The barrista in the deli is usually melting by lunchtime. I don't know how Margo, the owner, manages to prepare cooked breakfasts. After 9am, I don't know how anyone eats them.

Leaving work, it's still hot. So when we got home, we went for a swim off Sandy Beach. Then ate supper in the garden and sat out until it got dark and, apparently from nowhere, a gale got up which is now lashing all the trees. It may be a precursor to a late spring storm so the sooner I finish this and disconnect the computer to prevent the modem being cooked by lightning - it happens often - the better. Either that, or the power will fail again.

Here Today....

Why do blogs just stop? Just as you get interested in them and build them into your life as essential reading, they just stop. Sacred Facts has done it. Fifty Quid Bloke has done it and now, thankfully restarted. I suspect it's a whole range of things, from running out of things to say to running out of time, with death and divorce and such like in between, though not in those two cases.

Of course, if you live in regional Australia, and that's most of Australia, the answer is probably "no power." We are in the season of spring storms. The morning starts sunny but hot. The heat and humidity builds during the day, as do towering clouds, and then by tea-time, the heavens are ready for a grand electrical display which lasts most of the night. At some stage, you can bank on the power going down, probably for many hours. Blogs are, I think, supposed to be spontaneous and nothing kills spontaneity like a blank screen.

Neither is it helpful when it comes to the ironing. Confronted with a pile of shirts the height of Uluru the other night, I managed precisely one sleeve before we were plunged into darkness. There are compensations, of course. The lightning is spectacular, the trees in the reserve silhouetted against the sky and the light sufficient to pick out blades of grass on the lawn. We get sheet lightning and forked lightning, in case you get bored, and the thunder is bowel-loosening.

At some stage, there is usually a downpour, hammering on our metal roof. Why a metal roof? Well, we also get hail stones the size of golf balls which can turn slate or tiles into slivers in a few seconds. They also make pretty patterns on your car, if you were foolish enough to leave it outside.

Whale Watch

Forget kangaroo-shooting heterosexuality officers (see Straight Up below) - this is what it's all about. From the beach this morning we watched whales spouting and breaching and this afternoon, Sara went up on the headland and saw five of them frolicking, about 400m off-shore. Even in the vast expanse of sea, they manage to make an impact.

Straight Up

Sometimes you come across a new item that is so culturally rich, you just have to share it. So I bring you the news that the students' union of University of New England in Armidale, a country town some hours' drive from here, now has a Heterosexuality Officer.

He's a trainee lawyer, who lives at home with his mother but, he swiftly points out, does have a girlfriend. As a trainee lawyer, he's also swift to point out that he's got nothing against gays. It's just that it's unfair that gays should get all the attention and resources (I'm not clear what these resources are, but never mind, there's more). Straight people should have someone to look after their interests, too (I bet no one's ever been insulted or thumped on the streets of Armidale for being straight so this puzzles me as well). He gets paid a small sum for his efforts but, at the time of being interviewed, hadn't actually done anything yet.

It was quickly pointed out in the national press that he wasn't much of a model for red-blooded Aussie hetero males as he lived with his mum and, far worse, he still had the "P" plate that probationer drivers have to display on his ute. Then again, he was photographed as he was preparing for an evening's kangaroo shooting.

Finally, this appointment comes at a strange time as students across the land are up in arms at the Government's proposals to end compulsory student union membership, along with the compulsory fee that keeps student unions going. Part of the Government's argument is that the money gets spent on frivolous things like, errr, well, I can't think of any examples just now because I've just been reminded forcibly that Australia really is a foreign country.

Buskers, Buskers Everywhere

It's the International Buskers' Festival and for days the streets of Coffs and nearby Sawtell, where this bendy lady was performing, have been full of brazen individuals gratuitously abusing passers-by, flinging fiery brands into the air, and generally working their socks off in the spring sunshine. Today we also saw the New Zealand duo Motley Two (there's a rock joke in there, folks). Quote, from the top of towering unicycle: "Want to know how I get off? Come and see me after I come down off this bike." And there was Mario, Queen of the Circus, who does a juggling tribute to Freddie Mercury. You had to be there, really.

Ashes to Ashes

There's a bitter taste down here this morning as the nation comes to terms with yet another sporting failure. On these occasions, the media takes it upon itself to cushion the blow. ABC's Radio National (the loose equivalent of Radio 4) ran a sports bulletin that mentioned that the final Test had been drawn but omitted the fact that England had won the Ashes. (This is quite normal. If any Aussie wins a bronze medal in a major sporting event, we never hear who won gold, as it is clearly immaterial).

The Sydney Morning Herald was a little more generous, pointing out that the triumph was almost entirely due to a South African-born batsman. My colleague, Greg, agreed wholeheartedly, adding that there were also two Welshman in the side. And this from a nation of immigrants. The Australian remarked that it was a South African who broke Australian hearts, though he is best mates with Warney, so that makes it a bit better.

A senior member of the House of Representatives congratulated me as we entered Parliament House this morning and noted that England played the better cricket. I though this was magnamimous and relayed his comments to Greg, who promptly remarked: "No, we played worse." The real tragedy is that this opportunity for glee is mostly lost on me. I did try watching it on Sunday night but nothing seemed to be happening and then I became confused by the issue of "the light" (a revelation, perhaps?) and went to bed.

For guidance in all Australian sporting matters, I usually turn to the writings of Scratcher Gillespie at The Bladder I suggest you do too.

Some Success

I feel I should report that the Australian women's rowing eight (see Down Under and Out below) did bounce back from adversity to win a gold medal at the World Championships, all eight finishing sitting up and holding their oars. The Wallabies, however, did go down to the All Blacks. Coach Eddie Jones said the players just weren't good enough. This is good news for the northern hemisphere where the Wallabies will be touring shortly and bad news in this neck of the woods, representing a shocking blow to the national psyche. A lot rests on the Ashes.

Down Under and Out

We’re having a national crisis of confidence at the moment. Of course, it’s all about sport.

The Wallabies (that’s rugby union) have lost their last four matches which hasn’t happened since dinosaurs roamed the earth and there are calls for heads to roll (it’s very Welsh, really). They face a rampant All Blacks on Saturday. One luminary said that no one feared the side’s tight five because “they couldn’t pull a boy scout off your sister.”

Aussie tennis players are leaving tennis tournaments even quicker than Tim Henman. And as for the cricket - well, as you probably know, with one test to go and all to play for, when the team isn’t attacking the opposition, they’re attacking each other. So with the Ashes and the Tri-Nations to be decided at the weekend, and the rugby a foregone conclusion (we're going to lose), they can at least look to rowing for some meagre consolation.

You’ll remember the outrage at the last Olympics when the women’s eight was going strong for a medal and one of team, Sally Robbins, stopped for a rest, sorry, collapsed with exhaustion. Here’s a picture....


Un-Australian activity

The team are now back in business and have been competing in the World Championships in Japan, minus poor Sally and most of the rest of the Olympic competitors, apparently consumed by bitterness. Well, back in business, apart from a broken oar that lost them their heat and put them out of the competition. But, just to show it’s not all gloom and doom, I offer you this quote from their high-peformance director, Neil Donaldson: “At least they all finished sitting up.”

Yes Minister or Yes Mate?

Two telling pieces from the this week's news. First to the Parliament House in Canberra, where I spent much of last week, the flagpole of which you can see here. I've noted before that it's a very informal place, where Ministers expect to be called by their first names when they drop into the staff canteen, so it came as a surprise when security staff were told in a memo that they should no longer use the word "mate" as a form of address. Even a newcomer like me was shocked. The word is ubiquitous, a form of male bonding and the last thing that anyone would take offence to.

Predictably, the media denounced it as "un-Australian", which is the most damning indictment you could possibly use here; the Prime Minister, no less, said it was absurd and looked disgusted; and mate-ship was resumed at the security desks within 24 hours.

The other item has a less happy ending. Further north, in Queensland, the state that is home to all things crawly and poisonous and vicious, a husband and wife were fishing from a boat in one of their favourite water-holes when he was taken by a crocodile. She made it to the shore and raised the alarm but there was no sign of her husband. That's horrific, but what was interesting was the reaction.

It's been illegal to shot wild crocodiles since 1972 and there were calls for culling to be restarted. I thought this was ridiculous. There are parts of this wonderful country where very wild animals live and humans really shouldn't venture, unless, to put it bluntly, they want to become part of the food chain. If you do venture into that territory, then I reckon you go at your own risk.

And that is exactly what the man's widow said. She objected to the shooting of the crocodile thought to have taken her husband and said no others should be killed. That was not what her husband would have wanted, she said. Clearly a woman of some character.

Neighbours

Been a weekend for meeting more neighbours, or at least finding out more about the people you wave at when you see them on the street. This came about about because Carmen, next door on one side, had a small party on Friday, and because my new two-stroke whipper-snipper wouldn't start on Saturday.

Carmen is the owner of Stolly, the large Russian Blue cat who spends some time sleeping at our place and her house has many large fish tanks, housing local fish she and her parents have caught while diving nearby. They're quite intrepid, I think. Not sure fish tanks go with having a large, confident tom-cat but apparently they live in harmony.

Greg and Linda, on the other side have two children, two cats and a husky. Greg does a lot of fishing when he gets the chance. He has a ferocious four-stroke whipper-snipper but he wasn't around yesterday. Phil and Tracy live across the street with their children - Phil used to drive a wrecking truck in Sydney but prefers it here. We first met Phil when the people who sold us this house failed to provide us with any means of getting in. At least, we had remotes for the garage but they'd locked the interior door. He was very helpful and calm.

Liz and John live behind us. She's a lawyer working from home and John runs his own smallgoods supply business and he's surfed since he was five, but not in the winter. He dreams of buying some land and living off it, which seems to be a recurring theme here. Having met them once, it'll be shame if they move.

Lee, directly across the road I'd met with her Jack Russell on one of my morning runs. She was trying to take a photo of the moon just as the sun was coming up over the ocean. Partner Peter I met when I was about to dislocate my shoulder trying to start our new whipper-snipper. He's originally from Germany and they actually do have a small farm, inland from here. He kindly confirmed that the failure to start was not due to my incompetence (that must be a first)and then kindly dealt with the offending grass with his own four-stroke. Oh yes, and as I mentioned previously, Anne from Bethesda lives round the corner. That's all for the moment.

Meeting and Sleeping

The beach is a great meeting place, I suppose for no other reason that people spend so much time there. Marcus, the estate agent who sold us this house, told me he often did deals "out the back" ie bobbing up and down beyond the wave-break on his surf board. And Luke, the MP for whom I work, often gets harangued about everything from the Pacific Highway to industrial relations when he dons his boardies and wanders down to Diggers, where we used to live.

My own meetings are simpler, I'm glad to say. Among the regulars on the dawn shift at Sandy Beach is Ann, a colleague of Sara's whose terrier sometimes licks the salt off my legs when I've been running. Actually, it's not quite so simple, because Ann comes from Bethesda, so there's an element of coincidence. But it's very simple for the dog.

On Saturday, I was wandering along, sizing up the surf, when I saw a familiar figure in T-shirt and boardies, board under his arm, clearly making his way back into the village. I see him often but don't know his name. Had he been in, I asked? No, he replied. "I came down early but then I fell asleep and now the wind's come up. Tomorrow morning about 7.30 to eight. I'll give it another go then." I went home, changed and surfed despite the wind.

Come 8.30 on Sunday, I was in the water and noticed the same bloke - same T-shirt, boardies and board - and watched him make his way down to the end of the beach, put down his board on the little dunes, lie face down in the sand, and evidently fall fast asleep. He was still there when I left, desperate for breakfast, some time later.

I suppose there's simplicity in the fact that, if you don't feel like doing anything, you can just lie down on the beach in the middle of winter and fall asleep, but I can't help feeling there are one or two questions hanging in the air as well.

Round Trip

We’re both on leave this week and so decided to go for a drive, just to remind ourselves how big this place this. We went north up the highway to Grafton, turned inland across the hills to Glen Innes, home of a Celtic festival and some faux standing stones, along the New England Highway to the small university town of Armidale, and then completed the circle by returning through Ebor, Dorrigo, Bellingen and Coffs. It was about 600km, I guess.

It was a day of broken cloud, and we’d had some rain, so the light was spectacular, navy blue clouds lurking over the still-parched inland fields. For the most part, the countryside looked empty, with just post-boxes hinting of a farm or homestead down the end of a dirt track. It reminded us of Mid Wales, only much more lonely. Although the road signs are in English, of course, it still feels foreign.


Caution - Quoll

You wouldn’t see “CAUTION - QUOLLS” in the UK, would you? And here, CATTLE AHEAD doesn’t mean that, occasionally, some cows will cross the road, it means that there’s a herd apparently living beside and on the road.

Every watercourse is named - Bullock Creek, Boggy Creek, Boundary Creek and Skeleton Creek - I guess because water’s so important but also to try to confer some ownership, some sense of security or continuity. Then it strikes you that for centuries before the Europeans appeared, all these places had other names, all foreign to us and with their own stories. At the end of the day, it’s just the kind of countryside to see ghosts.

I Agree....

Required reading for all podcasters......

Last Plane to Jakarta: Memo

Red Hot Chilli Peppers

To the Sawtell Chilli Festival this weekend. I have to say that the only chilli-based activity was a capsicum juggling competition, several stalls selling fiery chutneys and mustards, and one selling pepper plants, but the atmosphere was good. We bought these, and then went for a coffee and listened to a rather good Latin Jazz band. I never thought I'd have a garden with chillies growing in it.

Pirates to Pods...

There are many people, not least "the enigmatic RS" (see Real Reviews for his lighter work), who spend a lot of time pondering what's going on with blogs and podcasts and what it all means for the traditional media. There are also a lot of people pondering whether it's ever going to be possible to make a good living out of it.

One person who should know is Adam Curry, long-time broadcaster and podcast pioneer, and he's just devoted one of his Daily Source Code programmes (23 June) to a personal survey of how we got where we are and where we're likely to be going. It's a good listen, a fresh, largely unedited stream of consciousness by someone who's actually got something to say, taking you from the days of pirate radio, through do-it-yourself modems, to the current explosion in podcasts. I'll give you just one detail - you really should hear it for yourselves - but, bearing in mind he's probably one of the most successful podcasters, with 100,000 downloads per programme, it still costs him $350 an edition.

What he doesn't say is whether he's made any great efforts to commercialise it, either through advertising or subscription. I guess we're all used to having radio for free so any thought of subscription services probably won't get very far.

But then, that's not the point. The point is that, as long as you've got the patience of a saint to grapple with the technology, you can do it yourself and hopefully produce some content that's entertaining or useful to someone somewhere. It's a form of play (and, oh yes, I nearly forgot, and of communication) and not a means of making money. All of which tends to get lost in the debate, I think.

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."

Wrecks and Roos

It's a public holiday, so this morning we set out for a walk along Sandy Beach, over Bare Bluff, along Sandy Back Beach, Fiddeman's Beach, Emerald Beach and up on to Look At Me Now Point. The scenery becomes increasingly like Pembrokeshire, apart from the plaques commemorating shipwrecks, with considerable loss of life, and the colony of kangaroos on the point. It's the depths of winter, so shorts and t-shirt are fine.

Somehow, the thought of the trip to Canberra doesn't appeal after that. Although the clamour about Schapelle Corby (see below) seems to have died down, Parliament House seem to have almost daily deliveries of white powder, causing secuity alerts, presumably as some kind of reaction to the package that was sent to the Indonesian embassy. You'll be glad to hear that the loading bay staff who discover this stuff are offered counselling. It's not quite the image I had of Australians, I must admit.

Beauty and The Beast

I expect it’s hardly raised a ripple in the UK but down here, the country’s been convulsed by the case of Schapelle Corby. You don’t know who she is, do you? Well, she’s a young, beautiful (by common consent) beauty student who has just started a 20-year jail sentence in Bali after being found guilty of trying to smuggle 4.1kg of cannabis in her body-board bag.


Schapelle Corby

So much is fact. Nothing else is. The reaction to the sentence was in some cases hysterical and there have calls for a boycott of Bali as a holiday destination (Bali is to Australia what Majorca is to the UK), attempts to claw back donations to the tsunami relief fund, and suspicious white powder was sent to the Indonesian Embassy in Canberra, setting off a major security alert.

Why so much fuss? Well, the pictures have been riveting. The attractive Aussie girl next door in a scrum of Indonesian policemen, or weeping in the courtroom, pressing her hand to her forehead in her shock and grief etc etc. It’s hard to see anyone making such a meal of it if the defendant had been a middle aged man and, indeed, no one is making the slightest fuss about the 40-odd other Australians facing drugs charges elsewhere in South East Asia.

There’s also (and this is an opinion frequently expressed by Australians) latent racism. Turn a place into a holiday destination and it loses some of its foreign-ness, it’s colonised, and you can forget that you're abroad where different attitudes and customs apply. Until something like this happens. Then it’s foreign again and corrupt and contemptible.

There’s been much confusion about how the Australians could react so generously to the tsunami appeal and then react so extremely to this trial and verdict. The easy answer is that the people who donated their money to the Boxing Day victims are not the same people who calling for boycotts etc now. Well, the ones who want their money back clearly are the same, but you know what I mean. The fact is that many have clearly decided that she’s innocent and a victim of a corrupt and inadequate judicial system.

Anyway, whatever the rights and wrongs of it, it’s rare that one sees the Prime Minister, John Howard, looking rattled but he certainly did last night when the Indonesian Embassy was being evacuated. And his line of not interfering in the judicial system of another country clearly doesn’t stand up for many weighed against the weeping beauty student in the hands of foreign devils.

And I’m sure it’s not the same people castigating John Howard for not doing enough that are currently on holiday in Bali and taking photographs of the jail where she is held or writing the spoof adverts mentioned in the Daily Telegraph, one of her main supporters, for the Schapelle Lawn Mower (holds 4.1kg of grass) or the Schapelle Beauty Treatment (takes twenty years off your life).

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.

B and B....and P

Just back from a weekend away in the area around a small "heritage" town called Bangalow, about two-and-a-half hours' drive to the north. Bangalow, while pretty, seems in danger of stifling under the weight of its own pretentions, a strange mixture of designer capitalism to cater for the well-to-do Sydneysiders who holiday there and equally well-organised hippy capitalism. Actually, now I think about it, there's no real difference between the two but, somehow, you'd hope there would be. Anyway, we were lucky to get out without having our chakras realigned and our wallets emptied.

We stayed outside the town in a bed and breakfast in hilly countryside that was strangely like mid and west Wales. Though the wildlife wasn't. A carpet python emerged to sun itself at breakfast each day; a slimy-looking tree frog watched us as we sat on our verandah in the evenings; and there was a possum fight in the palm tree opposite, after which one of the possums floundered on to the nearby roof and waddled off with its tail in the air.

We also found a picnic shelter and water tank in the middle of nowhere which was being decorated with coloured glass and mirrors. Don't know why but it restored my faith after Bangalow.....

Long Ago and Far Away

They say the internet has made the world a smaller place and, in many ways, that’s true. But, in many ways, we just haven’t caught up. Living here, for example, is quite deceptive. We have all the benefits and disbenefits of civilisation and you certainly don’t feel as though you’re out on a limb when you go about your everyday business. And, of course, we also have the internet which brings a cornucopia of goods and services from all over the world to our doorstep. Only slowly.

Seeing all that stuff on your screen that you can order at the touch of a button is deceptive. Order something from Amazon and, unless you pay shipping fees sufficient to deliver the contents of a small home, your order will take weeks to arrive. Try something nearer home, in a fit of Antipodean loyalty, thinking it must arrive more quickly, and you’re likely to be disappointed.

I ordered couple of books from Sydney more than two weeks ago. I’ve just received an email to say they’re finally on their way but it’ll take them a few days at least to struggle up the coast from the capital. I decided to try Smoke CDs for some music. It’s a perky New Zealand outfit with a fine range of cds but, again after far more time than I’m used to waiting, my order still hasn’t even left the Land of the Long White Cloud.

I think one reason may be that there’s not many of us down here. So there’s less money to be made, less money to pay people to do the work and less people to find to do the work. For instance, yesterday a Qantas flight from Sydney to Wellington had to be diverted when Wellington airport was closed because “an air controller was sick.” Now you can’t imagine Heathrow running short of an air controller or two and having to shut but I guess there’s not that many of them in Wellington. Possibly just two, taking it in turns.

So slowly it dawns on you that, despite appearances, you really are on the edge of things and that perhaps getting what you want, exactly when you want it, isn’t that important after all.

Rubbing It In

Been pondering the unemployed/employed interface a bit for obvious reasons, and the loss of most of my time. All I can say is the Australians certainly rub these things in.

We were on a constituency outreach visit the other day at a beautiful place on the coast to the south called South West Rocks. It was a splendid day and we'd parked the car outside the tourist information centre, a wooden cottage overlooking some dunes and a beach. Luke, my boss and MP, had gone to buy us some coffee after being berated by a passer-by about the Tampa and the "children overboard" fiasco (which was nothing to do with him but that's grass-roots politics for you) leaving me to watch the shop, which meant standing in the sun next to the sandwich board which we'd erected, announcing our presence.

I was gazing longingly down on the beach when a short-clad bloke marched purposefully into the garden of the information centre centre, went inside and then emerged in the garden with an Australian flag which he proceeded to run up a flag pole. I thought how splendid the blue and red and the stars looked in the sunshine. Nearly all flags do, I find.

"That your first job of the day?" I asked.

"Mate," he replied with relish, "it's my only job."

Off Air

I've given up my programme on CHYFM. I'd always wanted the chance to present some music but, when it came to it, I didn't enjoy it as much as thought I would. For one thing, it was rather lonely.

There was never anyone else at the station when I was on air and the frequent lack of light bulbs late on a Friday night, coupled with the slightly damaged sound-proofing on the walls, the teenage carvings on the desk-top, and the generally down-at-heel air had a lowering effect. So did the phone calls, always requesting Britney or Kylie. "Why don't you play some new stuff?" one asked. Well, I was playing new stuff. It just wasn't Britney or Kiley. I found that very depressing. I preferred the drunks, on the whole. Lack of any sense whatsoever is easier to handle then lack of appreciation. One of them did say: "I don't like any of the stuff you're playing. What about Midnight Oil?" I rest my case.

Then I realised that I didn't know one person who listened to the programme. A new colleague of Sara's tuned in one night by mistake, I think, and her verdict was something like this: "We heard one long, boring track, then Richard's voice. he's got a very good voice. Then we turned off." (If that was a Jim White track, I'm hurt, deeply hurt). So now that I'm working full-time, I can see no point in continuing to devote a minimum of three nights a week to it, including preparation time.

I'm thinking of turning to that vast, warm, welcoming home of all lost causes and personal enthusiasms - the web. What interest there was came from the playlists I posted each week. I even had a New York record company emailing me, offering me an album. That was some weeks ago and nothing's arrived yet but, hey, that's rock n roll and, in any case, you get my point. It's the thought, or the email, that counts. In due course, no doubt after a titanic battle with technology, something will emanate from Sandy Beach to the handful of faithful scattered across the world. And, yes, there will be no Kiley. Or Midnight Oil.

Wedding Day

On Saturday, March 26, Sara and I were married on Sandy Beach. We had a splendid day.

Trims and Tides

A week to go to our wedding. Iwan has just jetted in and was whisked straight from Coffs International Airport to Stuart and Glen's digital telly where we could watch the Wales-Ireland game. It would be unseemly to gloat here, so I'll do it elsewhere instead.

Yesterday, Sara went off to a rehearsal at the hairdresser's. The idea of a rehearsal for a haircut was new to me, I must admit. I've been banned from visiting my barber between now and the ceremony on the grounds that I might end up looking like a convict, as usual. I went surfing instead (nasty southerlies whipped up a viscous sweep. Very tricky). However, I did check the tides for next Saturday. As we're getting married on the beach, this seemed like a good move, though possibly I've left it a bit late. Nearly everyone can swim, or at least float, and we'll have a surf board on hand for signing the register, so I think we'll be fine. Could give new meaning to the phrase "the sea of matrimony." On the other hand, as they say here, "she'll be right, mate."

Surfing At Home

Heard a Canadian comedian talking about his surfing lessons. He wasn't impressed and reckoned he could easily recreate the experience at home by drinking a bucket of sea-water, cutting his arms and legs with a blunt knife, and hitting himself on the head with a wooden plank. Twice.

Goodbye To All That

It was good while it lasted. For those of you who don't know, I start work on Monday as the constituency officer of our local MP and, yes, it is a proper, full-time job with an office and ties and pay and everything, just like I used to have and many of you still do.

I think it will be fun, and interesting as well, but I will miss my carefree existence. Well, I won't miss cleaning the house every week which is just as boring even if you try doing it the other way round. And not, obviously, spraying the eaves and window frames with noxious chemicals to reduce the herds of spiders hanging around, some poisonous, we think. Dealing with the invading mice, on the other hand, wasn't too bad. I found that the Australian equivalent of the Little Nipper mousetrap (proudly made in Bedwas) was a big improvement: it doesn't decapitate its victims so clearing up after a night of slaughter was relatively easy.

Ironically, I've only just discovered what seems to be an old codgers' surfing session on Sandy Beach which takes place after breakfast, if it's nice. I joined them this morning and it was all very sedate in contrast to going down after school when the air (and I do mean "the air") above the waves is full of youths on impossibly short and pointy boards. Something about 8ft long and rounded is de rigeur for the morning sessions. Ideally, any design on the board should be almost invisible under ancient layers of wax or faded to a mere suggestion from decades in the sun. Oh well, there's always the weekends.

Gotcha!

Had some fun producing this week's paper, as you can see....


The Front Page

Last week, we, and a local fraud investigator, Bruce Dwyer, aka Minder, offered a reward for information leading to the whereabouts (as they say) of a bloke who who'd charged kids $125 for a soccer clinic, only to cancel the clinic and then disappear. We also revealed (how easy it is to slip back into the old phrases) that he had a conviction for supplying drugs. Within 24 hours, several former and vengeful girlfriends had called, one of whom dobbed him in, and he was promptly arrested for failing to comply with a weekend detention order.

Not only that, but a local businessman and soccer coach decided to organise a replacement clinic for the disappointed kids. So the front page was great fun. We also found out the con man was a drug addict. Now, if only I'd been working there next week...wait....it's coming....yes...SOCCER SCAM LOVE RAT IN COLD TURKEY CELL HELL...yes, that'll do nicely.

Sitting Pigeon

More from our bowls correspondent, Bill Lush (see post below ). After hearing about his shark-fishing exploits, I asked him, foolishly perhaps, if he'd been involved in any other sports. "Oh yes," he replied. "I was a very good shot."

Apparently, back in the good old, no-nonsense days when you didn't have to make do with clay pigeons and could shoot real ones instead, Bill was tieing for first place in a big cup competition. It all came down to the last shot but when the trap opened, the pigeon didn't fly out (well, who could blame it?). Bill explained that in those circumstances, you could either ask for another trap to be set or for the recalcitrant to be coaxed from its hiding place. Bill chose the latter.

"And d'you know," he said, "this little red pigeon came out of the trap and walked off along the ground." He paused, looking vaguely sentimental. "So I shot it and won the cup."

With that, he donned his smart straw hat, tapped his walking stick on the floor and was gone.

A Pointer or Two

Had a visit at my temporary desk at the Independent from the nonagenarian bowls correspondent, Bill Lush, delivering his column On The Jack. A former journalist and, apparently, many other things besides, it's always a pleasure to see him.

He sat down in the spare, grubby chair and asked me if I'd ever tried bowls. I said, no, and that I'd just taken up surfing. He looked very serious. "Mmmmm," he said, propping his chin on his walking stick. "Given any thought to White Pointers?" These, of course, are sharks and Bill then regaled me with his many shark experiences from when he lived in Tasmania.

In the game-fishing anecdotes, the sharks came off worse but he also told me about the scientist studying seals he took out to a colony in his boat. She ignored his warnings about local sharks and insisted on donning diving gear and going over the side. He brought the boat back alone. His thesis is that anyone, surfer or diver, who goes in the water looking remotely like a seal should expect to be eaten. "It's not the sharks' fault," he said. "And they always spit you out when they realise they've made a mistake. Anyway, if you change your mind about bowls, come down the club and have a roll sometime."

Settling In...

Beginning to get the hang of Sandy Beach. As we suspected, it's less flashy than Diggers and has more of the air of one of those small, slightly seedy and deliberately unpolished Normandy seaside towns, minus, unfortunately, the boulangerie. Perhaps there's an opening there.

Mornings still see the trek to the beach, but it's much less trendy, less an aggressive lifestyle choice to be flaunted, and more of simple pleasure. End of the afternoon, everyone, young, old and middling, goes down to the sea, to walk, swim, surf or body-board. But "everyone" doesn't equate to a great many people so there's acres of room.

Most people wander down in their cozzies with a towel over their shoulder. Small, black Speedos seem to be the garment of choice for gentlemen of a certain age and figure, which is a bit of drawback, but they seem to be past caring. I don't think they're trying to make a fashion statement. The surf is good for beginners and I'm looking forward to getting my own board to sample it. For the record, I've progressed to a hard board, as opposed to a learner's soft board, and I'm told I'm ready to go out the back. This is very exciting, though the estate agent who sold us our house did confess to me that he had to be rescued at Diggers after paddling out on the rip and, well, failing to get out of the rip and heading off for New Zealand until the lifeguards caught up with him. So excitement needs to be tempered with caution.

As for the house itself, we have a vigorous type of grass which is keeping the new motor-mower fully occupied, and the ceiling fan in the bedroom is a boon on hot nights. Unlike those I've lain under in India and Pakistan, it doesn't threaten to fall from the ceiling, carving chunks out of your sweating flash, thus keeping you wide awake despite its cooling effect. Shelves for books, LPs and CDs have been commissioned from surfer/carpenter Matt from San Diego who lives on another beach down the coast.

Unfortunately, in many ways, I have to go back to work on the Independent for two weeks. But the Pacific Ocean will still be there, glittering in the sun, when we drive over the rise at the end of our road every evening on our way home.

Shark News

I know some of you like news about the deadly wildlife so you'll be glad to hear that three bronze whaler sharks were sighted right in the harbour the other day. One was reported to be 12 foot long.

This is a bit alarming as there's lots of sailing and windsurfing in the harbour and, because it's relatively surf-free, Jetty Beach is popular for swimming. Niece-to-be Hannah and the rest of her Nippers life-saving group were among those to leave the water.

Moved....

Well, it all went very smoothly. Apart, that is, from being locked out on the day we took possession. Somehow, when the estate agent gave me two remote control fobs for the garage and no keys, I felt that it wasn't going to be plain sailing and, sure enough the connecting door to the house was locked.

Luckily, we didn't have three perspiring removal men and all our possessions waiting in the road while the locksmith was summoned (by the vendor who also paid the call-out bill) as we'd always planned to move in the following day. And boy, did they sweat. Hard work in this climate. The vendor also left us a goldfish, which is still alive.

Anyway, everything inside the house was fine, including the keys. There's been more perspiring, as various boxes are lugged around and lugged back again when they prove to be the wrong box, or the right box in the wrong place, obviously. It's not me who decides these things for the most part.

One of the first jobs was to cut the vast lawns, front and rear. We are now the possessers of a motor mower (four-stroke, 18" cut, for those obsessed with such things) and a whipper-snipper (a strimmer in this neck of the woods).

Since I started writing this, two people have wandered past with surf boards and one with a spear gun. I shall head to the beach myself shortly.

On The Move

Possibly the last posting for a while. We're packing ready for the move to Sandy Beach on Tuesday and the computer will soon be in its box. Once it comes out of the box, Telstra will have to squirt something down our new telephone line to make it work faster - I hope that's not too technical - and that took many days last time. Then there'll be a celebratory "we're in our new house" posting. Or one saying it's all been a nightmare.

Honest Dollar

Just earned my first honest dollar, standing in for the editor of the local Independent Weekly. Once my amazement at the fact that one could travel to the other side of the world and end up editing a paper after one had been out of that line of business for longer than I care to think had faded, I was amazed how little had changed.

Advertisers still treat requests for information with contempt and then complain about the final copy; terrifying proof readers still treat journalists like feckless schoolboys who have made a mistake in their English homework; and the people who make up the pages still pay little regard to the way you've laid them out.

In spite of that degree of familiarity, work was a serious shock to the system and a post-deadline day visit to the pool felt like a real luxury. Next week, we've lost a production day because Wednesday is Australia Day so I guess life will be even more fraught. Just like old times.

In a similar vein, I'm afraid we went to see Bridget Jones - The Edge of Reason (yes, it's only just reached us). Watching the scene where she parachutes into a pen full of pigs, the director says to the cameraman: "give me the porker's behind" and the camera panned straight to Bridget's bum, I thought: "How like every cameraman I've ever met." They would all have done exactly the same thing. Unhesitatingly.

Lesson No. 5

Got there at last, after delaying for a week after my toe suffered a painful encounter with a bed sheet and Sara said surfing probably wasn't a good idea. Today, however, we both left the beach in more or less the same state as we arrived. Most of the time in between was spent standing up. On the board, that is. There was another irritating child, gliding past us. Her father was particularly irritated, he told me, as he couldn't stand up at all. We also discovered that jockeys are natural surfers because they're light and used to spending time in a crouching position on something long and unstable with a mind of its own. The lessons have been a great Christmas present and we think we'll hire boards, while we build our confidence. Neither of us have been "out the back" (beyond the break) where the big boys play and I think we'll be staying in the wash (waves after they've broken) for a while. It's quite addictive.

Progress Report

Can now walk without a limp and Sara has skin on nearly all her knee. So we'll go down to Diggers for Lesson No. 5 tomorrow. We've been assuming that the battering and bruising stops as you get better but a colleague has told Sara that I goes on for a long time.

Meanwhile, I nearly sat on this on one of our patio chairs, which would have been memorable for both of us, I imagine....




...it really is a jungle out here.

Kind of Blue

That's actually the colour of my left foot, rather than a reference to Miles Davis. It also has a few shades of purple, following an unplanned and ungainly dismounting of the board during Lesson No 4. Didn't think I'd done any harm at the time but Lesson No 5 has been postponed until normal colouration is resumed and I can actually walk properly. It'll also give Sara's sand burn on her knee time to heal. Beginning to see why some people here look at you as though you're mad when you say you're having surfing lessons.

Lesson No. 4

Sara triumphs, and rises above the waves; I'm about the same as yesterday; Colin rests, which was not a bad idea as I could barely get on the board by the end. A ginger-haired boy too small to carry his own board or even paddle it, stands up straight away. We all get very jealous and spend the rest of the session trying to knock him off. In our group is Andrew, from Sydney, who works as a builder/carpenter, coaches football and bastketball, and is the nightwatchman at girls' boarding school. "Dream job, mate, but I still need a holiday."

Lesson No. 3

Vindicated. All that lunging in the lounge, the source of much hilarity on the part of my nearest and dearest, has paid off. Today, despite a falling tide, north-easterly winds and a nasty sweep, verticality was attained on the vast majority of waves caught. Sometimes wobbly verticality, but getting there was the whole point. Grace and style can come later, though probably not tomorrow. Sara is pleased to report that she got both feet on the board on one occasion and has no more injuries. Colin has been consolidating.