Ricks Rambles

The passing of a memorable teacher

2012-05-30T15:33:00.001+09:30

Not long ago I learned that Robert O. Iverson had died. Bob Iverson was the head of Art Department at Garfield High School in Seattle when I was there in 1971-1973, and all up he taught at Garfield for 30 years or more.

Certain teachers leave life-long impressions on their students. It must be why they enter such an underpaid and unappreciated profession; knowing that they change lives.

Most of the teachers I remember made positive impressions on me and I'd be honoured to be their friends today. One or two other teachers I remember less fondly for their lack of any interest in their students development, instead inching day-by-day closer to their retirement, stifling any interest or passion their students might have brought into their classroom. Killing any joy in their subject.

Garfield is in Seattle's 'Central District' and white student faces at the school in the 1970s were not many. I was one of them. My two years at Garfield were important to me for different reasons.

I'd never been a minority before, but at Garfield I certainly was. The school student body was mainly black then Asian, and finally white. On the soccer team there were two 'white boys', Kowalski and me. Not many of our black team mates could tell us apart and when I corrected one guy who shouted at me, 'Kowalski, kick the ball!' he said, 'You white boys all look the same to me.' He might have been smiling when he said it. Two years as a minority gave me the only slightest experience of being one of the underdog. But it only lasted during those hours at school. I didn't have to live it. I was never a real minority.

Different schools in the Seattle Public Schools district had received large amounts of what I think was Federal money through the 'Magnet Program' to build centres of excellence and keep kids off the streets and in school. Some schools developed excellent mathematics or science areas. Garfield built a legendary fine arts facility and program using Magnet Program funding. Garfield's art facilities would have rivaled those of a large university at the time. The objective might have been misguided as not many of the art students were black or Asian; it was mainly a group of crazy white kids studying art.

By lucky coincidence beyond that of just living in the Garfield High catchment area, I also loved fine art, especially sculpture. Going to Garfield was like being in heaven, but one where you had to watch-out for potentially being beaten-up by some of the other angels. For the most part Garfield was wonderful for me as a student, and I lasted my two years there physically unscathed.

Having such a unique arts facility drew excellent teachers to the school. And not just in the fine arts area - I remember my wonderful English teacher who put-up with my pompous, tortured essays and stories and even encouraged more writing. I guess it hasn't got much better, has it?

Mr Iverson was one of those excellent teachers who changed lives for the better. But he was more than a teacher. He lived well and showed us that we could too.

While I was at Garfield I had a part-time job as the dishwasher at the Brasserie Pittbourg in Pioneer Square. The Brasserie was a wonderfully popular French restaurant owned and run by François and Julia Kissell, dear friends of my father and step-mother. It was while working there that my love of food broadened beyond hamburgers and french fries and I gained confidence making food and learned to cook. As the dishwasher at the Brasserie I had to deal with partially full bottles of wine cleared from tables. And no one seemed to notice that I re-corked and took a few of them home rather than just draining and throwing-out the bottles. François and Julia certainly wouldn't have allowed it, and I well off 21, so it was done on the sly. Kids, that was the '70s. It could have been ugly. Remember that.

In the large courtyard surrounded by the art studios and classrooms were the kilns and outdoor arts machinery owned by the school. Matthew Patton, another inspirational art teacher at Garfield and currently practising ceramicist in Seattle, got the core group of us rat-bag art students to assist him in building a huge walk-in gas kiln. When I was there that kiln was never actually loaded and fired, and I don't know if it ever was, but the space inside was impressive and we declared it to be the lunchroom for the art students. A table was set-up in it, chairs brought in, and we'd share different foods we'd brought from home. And I sometimes brought the wine. Of course the teachers never knew about it.

One day I was called into Mr Iverson's office who gave me a long and stern lecture about the evils of bringing alcohol to school. Being suspended or expelled from Garfield as a consequence for my bad judgement was a very real possibility. I knew the admin office hated me as I lived by myself (in a studio apartment on Capitol Hill in the shadow of St Marks, overlooking Lake Union, paid for by my Dad and step-mum who lived in a larger apartment above mine) and would flick excuse notes to the office when I was late to school saying, 'Please excuse Rick's tardiness today as he was lost in the ozone.' Signed by me. They couldn't do anything because I lived 'independently' and I had a straight-A GPA.

But Mr Iverson ended the lecture about how wrong it was for me to bring bottles of wine to school by saying that what disappointed him the most was that I hadn't shared any of that wine with him! And he smiled. He knew a good French wine bottle when he saw one, and silly me leaving empty bottles in the art department garbage bin. He did enjoy a good red, I'm told...

Robert O. Iverson had studied ceramics in Japan under the ceramics master Hamada.He knew a thing or two about clay.

Vale Bob Iverson. Robert O. Iverson obituary

Piano lessons on a Yamaha upright for a mature age student

2012-02-25T06:33:00.001+10:30

When the potential buyer emailed me back with a ridiculous offer of $500 I knew we were going to keep the piano. She quoted some website that claimed the serial number inside our 12 year old Yamaha upright proved that it was actually 38 years old and that the salesman from whom we bought it couldn't be trusted! We bought it new here in Adelaide, 'for the kids'. I said at the time that it would be a mistake - the kids would soon get bored and it would sit in a corner unloved and mute. But when my wife has some notion about 'what a piano brings to a home' a smart man knows not to argue with that. Despite not understanding it.

Just by looking at the piano a reasonable person would know that it wasn't 38 years old. She claimed that the pedals had 'rust' on them as well. Silly me for not getting some Brasso and a cloth to polish them before she arrived to inspect it. At least I did make an effort to polish it and dust the spider webs off before she arrived. As I expected, a brief polish with Brasso removed the 12 year old tarnish from the pedals. Good as bloody new!

Concerned by the woman's claim, I called the store where we bought the piano, quoted the invoice number from our original purchase, and explained what the woman said about it being older than I thought it was. The proprietor had been through this before and explained that Yamaha had two sets of serial numbers that overlapped, and that if our piano had been a Yamaha grand piano then it would have been manufactured in Japan about 38 years ago. But Yamaha made all the small uprights like ours in Indonesia and our serial number was for one made about 12 years ago. He invited me to contact Yamaha Australia's piano product manager for verification if I wanted.

So I did. A very helpful gentleman in Sydney copied the details of our piano and said that he would check with Yamaha in Japan for verification then get back to me. Just as the owner of the local piano store told me, Yamaha confirmed the age of our piano as being new when we bought it. I could have forwarded the email to the potential buyer but I felt too insulted to have anything further to do with her.

Then the question was what to do with the piano if we weren't going to sell it. eBay offered a re-listing to me but as the only people who responded to my ad was a guy who offered to tune and move it should it sell, and the woman who trusted dodgy websites for her info and made the insulting offer, there didn't seem any point in doing so.
A year or two ago we won a nice acoustic guitar (Yamaha also, coincidentally), yet no one in the household plays the guitar. My mother and grandmother both played Spanish guitar beautifully and as a teenager I plucked on one for a short while before giving up in frustration when I couldn't immediately play 'Stairway to Heaven' on it. Actually, I did ask for and receive for a teenaged birthday an inexpensive electric guitar and amp but the sounds that came from it even scared me.

In junior high school in boring Bellevue I badly played the double bass in the school orchestra, probably contributing noise more like an elephant with indigestion than anything resembling music. But the Hyak Junior High School orchestra didn't seem to mind. I can still feel a small dent or two in my skull from unintended collisions between the metal tuning pegs and my tender young mind holder.

It was while I was a junior high school student that I told myself I needed to make a choice - whether to continue with music, or visual arts. At the time the latter option won 'because you don't have to practice'. So my contribution to the music world saw me become an excellent hummer, however that is a claim completely disputed by my wife.

Back to last year and I'd been reading that learning a language or learning to play an instrument was a great way to keep the brain plastic and could potentially reduce the chances of suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. I eyed our piano, patiently silent until the potential buyer through eBay visited to inspect it (somehow not seeing the pristene 12 year old condition of it, except for the unpolished pedals) and filled our house with her beautiful playing on our quite out-of-tune Yamaha. I thought if I really wanted to challenge myself that I might learn to play the piano instead of the guitar. The family collectively snorted when I floated this idea.

Where does a mature age person start learning to play the piano? We had a new WEA catalogue and they did offer a 'Learn to Play the Piano' course but I read in the fine print that there was only one piano for the entire class. This option didn't inspire me as I wanted to learn to play the the piano, not pay to watch other people watching a teacher play the piano in a classroom. In school our youngest daughter studied percussion for several years and became a decent drummer before getting bored with it and giving-up. At least we could sell the drum kit - no crazy claims about it being 38 years old. I called the head of music at her school and he passed-on two names of teachers, one who lives and works only a fast walk away from where we live. And this teacher studied Jazz at the Adelaide Conservatory.

It's late February now and I've been banging away on our piano for about 3 months. We did get it tuned so that the cat doesn't run out of the room each time I start 'playing' it. The local Jazz master teacher agreed to take me on as as new student late last year but I had to pay weekly at first, probably in case he decided that I was a lost cause and wouldn't require additional and pointless lessons wasting his time and hurting his ears.

Because the girls had learned for a while we still had a few introductory piano music books in the seat, and I pretend that I'm a 'Young Piano Student' when I play from them.

When you start learning the music only has 5 notes and they correspond to where your fingers sit when starting at middle C. So what are the other 83 keys for? Then a finger or two on the left hand get called into action alternating with notes played with the right hand, and before you know it you have use both hands at the same time! And then you have to move your hands from that safe, friendly middle C position. As the kids would say, 'OMG!'

And they keep adding more and more complexity to the game. When we lived in Melbourne around 1994 I discovered the music of Philip Glass late one night, being played on ABC FM. His opera Satyagraha hypnotised me and I loved it. When another of his operas, 'Einstein on the Beach' was performed in Melbourne I sat through the entire 4+ hour long performance without squirming or leaving my seat. Fantastic! Glass' music features lots of very repetitive piano/keyboard play. And for years I've loved the brilliant, improvisational piano playing of Keith Jarrett.

Wonderful coincidence that before I discovered the music of Philip Glass the huge portrait of Glass by his friend the hyper-realist American painter Chuck Close was one of my favorites. Visual art and music intersection... for me.

I don't feel too frustrated that I can't play anything yet by either Glass or Jarrett, and am somewhat reasurred to learn that Jarrett has been playing since he was 5 years old, or something impressive like that. But I did find a beginner's arrangement of Ravel's Bolero and have been banging away with that. I mean, working away on that.

So far I'm enjoying learning to play the piano. There's a systematic approach to it - work-out the right hand, then work-out the left hand, and then try like hell to put both together at the same time. My family says I'm progressing, and my teacher continues to be happy to take my money although I'm not convinced the latter is any reliable indicator of my current achievement or future potential in playing the piano.

Reading music is a challenge - getting this old brain to learn what the notes are on the page is taking a while but I'm slowly winning. It didn't take me too long to learn what notes the piano keys play, but I found a secret - they repeat every 8 notes!

I'll let you know how I'm going.

25 February 2012 - Adelaide

Update - 23 Movember 2011

2011-11-24T18:51:00.000+10:30

Commonwealth Bank of Australia Travel Money Card

2011-02-21T09:12:00.001+10:30

Before we left for Europe I organised a CBA Travel Money Card, which is a pre-paid ‘MasterCard'. It allows you to store money in several different currencies, can be used in ATM machines, and is widely accepted as a MasterCard credit card in shops. A big selling point is that it’s easily replaced if lost or stolen, and that if it is lost or stolen then your normal bank accounts can’t be cleaned-out by the thieves.

It was the first time we’ve used a card like this. On previous overseas trips we just used credit cards and our eftpos card.

Late last year the Australian Financial Review provided a useful review of many travel money card products including the American Express one, and the Travelex cashpassport. These two, and the CBA Travel Money Card made-up our short-list. From memory, the AMEX product was rated the best for our particular needs but I had concerns about whether the AMEX product would be as widely accepted as the CBA Travel Money Card product which is used as a MasterCard.

So we chose the CBA product for our trip.

Overall, the card worked as expected. There were a couple of stores in Italy where their card reader wouldn’t accept it so we had to revert to using a credit card for payment.

‘Recharging’ the card is straight-forward if you have a secure Internet access method as you have to log-on to your CBA Netbank account then do a bPay payment to the card. Or you can do it by telephone banking. Caution though: bPay can take up to 3 days for the funds to reach the Travel Money Card from your transaction account. Ah, the bank float: using your money for their profit!

At one point we worried that a bogus transaction might have been made on the card so I called the bank’s 24/7 international Customer Service Centre number back in Australia, using a pre-paid international calling card to do so.

You can also call the Customer Service Centre to check your balance, or go to the CBA website to check on-line what your card balance is. But you want to be careful that you are using a secure Internet connection in doing the latter as your user name, password and card number are required to check the balance.

It surprised me to find out that the pre-paid phone calling card starts charging for the international call as soon as the number starts ringing, not, as I’d expect, when the call is answered. This wouldn’t normally be a problem but when the ‘24/7’ customer service centre number isn’t answered for minutes, ringing, ringing, ringing, your pre-paid calling card balance quickly gets eroded.

This was quite frustrating that my call wasn’t answered within what I thought was a reasonable amount of time. I had to hang-up and call again after minutes waiting while the service centre number rang and rang and rang and rang-out. The costs incurred while listening to the phone ring and ring grew so much that I actually had to hang-up and recharge my calling card because of the length of time waiting for the Travel Money Card people to answer the phone.

Once my call was answered the service was fine. But I imagined how terrible it would have been if my card had been stolen and I didn’t have a way of enduring the unacceptably long delay in having my call answered as the phone card would probably also have been lost in my wallet.

It happened each time I called the service centre so it wasn’t just bad luck of calling at an exceptionally busy time.

The pre-paid international calling card I used was one from eKit, provided in the document pouch for escorted tours like the ones we did with Insight Tours in central Europe, then the Trafalgar tour in Italy. It’s easy to use, easy to recharge using a credit card, but probably not the least expensive option. My advice with the calling cards is to check the contract fine print to find when the charging starts – when you call is answered, or when your call starts to ring.

Paris, December 2010, long...

2011-02-17T14:03:00.001+10:30

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Stayed at the Minerve Hotel in the Latin Quarter. Small room but everything else excellent.
Returned to Paris CDG airport to retrieve Ms16's purse lost on our Melbourne-Hong Kong Cathay Pacific flight - impressive bureaucracy to overcome!
Lunch at Restaurant le Jules Verne on the Eiffel Tower despite 'the monument is on strike'?
Excellent Henry Moore retrospective at the Musée Rodin.
Very disappointing show at The Lido.
Exciting (for an artist) fine arts supply store in Paris called 'Adam'.
Killing a few hours at Musée du Louvre while Beth shops.
TGV train to Frankfurt breaks down, return to Paris...

THE GORY DETAILS

Paris was the second stop in our 7 week long European holiday after depositing youngest daughter ('Ms16') with her French host family from Macon, where she attended school for the duration.

We've been there a few times before and love the city despite small annoyances like unwanted attention from pick-pockets on the RER trains and the Métro. In past visits we stayed at the Familia Hotel in the Latin Quarter. It's a clean, friendly family-run 2 star hotel in a great location but our rooms have always been tiny, which isn't unusual for an old Parisian 2 star hotel.

This time we thought we'd splurge a bit and try their sister hotel next door, the Minerve Hotel, a 3 star hotel, and booked on-line. It too is a clean, friendly, family-run hotel and despite everything else being excellent, the room too was very small. It was advertised as a 'double classic' room on the Internet booking form, and it turned-out to be one of the two smallest rooms on our floor. As the hotel wasn't very busy, and rooms were available, having a larger room would have been nice. We'd stay there again, but would ask for a room large enough to open two suitcases.

Paris - Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle - with snow

Paris was cold. It snowed but not enough to disrupt our plans. But cold, cold, cold! We walked fast!

There's a wife in here somewhere...

In an earlier post I explained how Ms16 lost her purse on one of our flights to France. The Cathay Pacific ground staff found the purse and forwarded it to Paris CDG airport for us to collect later. I'll spare you the gory details but have to say that although I almost never get angry when dealing with a challenge, this was an exception. Usually it's my good wife who can turn-on indignation when required, usually resulting in resolution of the problem in her favour. This time she was consoling me!

It had nothing to do with the Cathay Pacific staff as they were great once they came on duty in the airport (if there are no flights in or out of the airport by a specific carrier then their staff aren't there until a few hours before travellers would normally be expected.) But trying to get assistance from an airport information desk woman was very frustrating as we walked here there and everywhere at her instruction trying to find a certain something. We could have been on an orienteering exercise! The Paris airport should acknowledge the perseverance that we had to demonstrate by awarding us merit badges, something like, 'I got my lost luggage back from Paris CDG!!!'

Continuing the tradition that we started in Lyon of eating well we had lunch 123m above the ground at restaurant Le Jules Verne in/on? the Eiffel Tower. I booked and paid a deposit via the Internet before leaving Adelaide. The deposit would be forfeited if we didn't show-up at our appointed time. The Métro got us close to the Tower, and as we walked the short distance to it, past all the Africans selling small metal Eiffel Towers, umbrellas, and tea towels, we saw signs outside the ticket windows saying the 'monument was on strike'.

The Eiffel Tower 'on strike'? Hunh?

I thought, 'great, our one day that we can do this and the darned thing is on strike. But how does a building or structure 'go on strike'? But it wasn't a problem as the restaurant has its own private lift which was running fine. As you'd expect, the dining experience was lovely, and quite memorable. Excellent food and wine, and Beth was very impressed with the place-holding plates set on the table then elegantly removed as our lunch-laden plates were delivered.

Lunch at Le Jules Verne, Eiffel Tower. With lapel pin..

After the meal we had to inspect our respective genders' toilets, on strong recommendation from friends who had been to the Jules Verne before us. Beth found them more impressive than I did, perhaps as there's only so much that an establishment can do in dressing-up the functional aspects of a loo. What impressed me, but not Beth, was seeing the structure of the Tower up close, including the pulleys and mechanisms of the lifts. Boys's stuff.

As we left the Eiffel Tower the French mounted police made a token raid on the Africans, sending the running everywhere, until two police cornered one of them and led him away to face the charge of selling really tacky crap in Paris. I expect the others were back at their spreads selling the little towers, umbrellas and other junk within 15 minutes of the police leaving.

Before we left Adelaide I bought a small lapel pin that showed both the French and Australian flags on it. Whenever I've been to France previously my American accent was immediately noticeable and sometimes resulted in others automatically assuming I possessed the worst characteristics of American tourists. I thought by wearing this lapel pin it would indicate that I was from Australia and positively predisposed to things French. Hah! That backfired! I first wore it when we had lunch at the restaurant Paul Bocuse in Lyon and later into the meal Monsieur Bocuse walked through the restaurant stopping at each table to meet and greet the guests. Except for our table where he looked at us then walked-onto the next table. Was it because we didn't down our utensils and rise to our feet to greet him quickly enough, or was it because his 86 year old eyesight misread my lapel pin as being British! Which could be worse than being American in France!

We don't know, and after politely requesting a chance to meet the great chef he did come to our table for a Kodak moment and handshaking. But that was back in Lyon.

I'm strongly leaning to the first explanation: that the lapel pin looks British rather than Australian, because of a separate experience at our next big lunch, at Le Jules Verne, where I also wore the pin as seen in the photo above. Once seated at our table a very proper English waiter in the restaurant came to our table and greeted us, saying something like 'Ah, very good to one wearing the colours!' apparently also mistaking the wee Aussie flag for the Union Jack. After all, it largely is the Union Jack. I think the now recurring public discussion in Australia about adopting a new flag is timely. And I have forever retired my misleading lapel pin.

One day in Paris we walked to some sights that we hadn't seen before like L'Hôtel national des Invalides where Napoleon's tomb is located. I'll certainly say that the French delight in 'monumenting' their heroes. But life goes-on despite famous tombs, and cold weather. It didn't stop these gentlemen from their regular boules meeting:

Outside Les Invalides - boules

The tombs inside are amazing.

Tomb within Les Invalides

Napoleon Bonaparte's tomb - Les Invalides

We weren't allowed to take photos of the Henry Moore retrospective at the Musée Rodin but it was a good visit. The Rodin bronzes in the gardens are great to walk through but we'd done that on a previous visit. The Moore retrospective included a recreation of his studio, showing works in progress. I'd never seen some of his very large plaster works from which the bronzes were taken. How he made the sculpts for the large, lovely bronzes never occurred to me. But having made 6 small cast bronze sculptures last year for an exhibition I've now got a better appreciation for the process.

Since our last Paris visit Beth really wanted to see one of the big dancing shows like The Lido, or The Moulin Rouge. So we booked a drinks/show package one night for The Lido on recommendations from Adelaide friends. They obviously saw a different performance than we did as ours was a major disappointment. I think it was their revue called 'Bonheur' that tried to show the best of all previous revues. Sadly, it was a 100 Euro per person flop, and we were sitting in the nose-bleed area seated perpendicular to the stage, sharing our table with (a lovely) couple from Vienna or Berlin.

The Lido show designer succeeded in creating a 'kitchen sink' production that just threw everything they had at the audience: 23 sets that included a 5 metre Indian temple, an 80,000 litre water pool, and even an ice skating rink! Add to that 600 costumes. The ice skater fell down, one of the female leads couldn't sing in tune, the dancers were out of step, and there was a guy who's speciality was juggling large bobbins on a string between two sticks - a little of that goes a long way!

As we sat side-on to the show our legs started cramping, and the two middle eastern guys sitting in the booth next to us wouldn't shut-up despite multiple glares from us. The only time they did stop talking was when the topless dancers came on stage. But, we can tick 'The Lido' off our bucket list. But there was a funny comedian who added some value to the experience.

Since making the small bronzes I developed an appreciation for using nice wax-working tools, which I haven't been able to find to buy in Adelaide. Maybe the larger cities sell them, but I wasn't able to find them on the web either in Australia. So while in Paris we visited a fine arts supply store and I asked about wax-working tools, which that store didn't handle. But the first store directed me to a wonderful store called 'Adam' near the Métro Jules Joffrin station, on rue Damremont. I was like a kid in a candy store - so many beautiful tools.

Loved it! 'I saved us so much money!' (I'm learning...)

I returned to Adelaide with some fine, stainless steel tools that I hope to use once the cooler weather returns and working with wax is practical in an un-air conditioned studio/workshop.

One cold and wet day Beth determined that she had to visit certain shoe stores in Paris near the Louvre, so while she exercised shop assistants I visited a part of the Museum I hadn't been to before. The last time we were there we did the tourist thing of running-in the see the Mona Lisa, took a quick piccy, then ran-out, having 'done' the Louvre. Well, not really 'doing' the Louvre but we did see one of their most famous paintings, elbowing away the mainly Japanese visitors there that day.

So I wandered through the Cour Marly off the Louvre's Richelieu entrance where so much monumental statuary is placed. Oh wow! Wonderful carved marble works from the 16th century. I loved the spaciousness of the setting - nothing was crowded. But the French seem to do that very well - majestic use of space in public monuments.

Cour Marly in The Louvre

While in the Louvre I had to visit the men's room and just before entering it a woman walked confidently out of it, smiled at me and responded to what must have been my questioning look by indicating that yes, it is a men's room, and that I should proceed. Then another woman walked-out as well and joined her friend. Again smiling at me as she shook the water off her hands. Okay, I didn't really wonder if they both spit while at the urinal, but it did remind me that Europeans are less hung-up on normal bodily things than Aussies, and certainly much more relaxed about it all than are Americans. It wasn't uncommon for a cleaner woman to walk into the men's while guys were writing their names in the urinals. No big deal. Not there.

And despite exhausting a shoe store assistant Beth didn't add to her luggage this time.

Our last task was to wake-up early enough to leave the hotel by taxi to get to the Paris Gare de l'Est, one of the 6 big SCNF train stations in Paris, to catch our TGV train to Frankfurt then a sleeper train from Frankfurt to Vienna. It had been snowing in Paris and I worried that the taxi would have difficulties getting to the station in time, but it wasn't an issue and we arrived about an hour before we had to. When travelling Beth is very tolerant of my oft repeated 'I'd rather be early than have all the stress from a late arrival,' comment. And I think that's one of the few things I can say to her that reliably generates a 'Yes dear' response. But only while travelling.

Can Australia's population really not support a high-speed rail link between the larger capital cities? It is a great way to travel - the stations are often in the city or closer to it than the airports are; you don't have big delays in security processing; and populations are increasing, fossil fuels are decreasing, people don't indicate that they want to travel less, and trains are not as affected by adverse weather as are airplanes and airports. High speed train travel is so practical and easy. I 'loved' it when compared with commuter air travel.

Before leaving for Europe we bought Eurail passes and made some reservations for the TGV trains and sleeper trains that we knew we'd take. The passes save a lot of money, and can be very flexible in terms of when and where you travel, within some constraints.

But somehow we ended-up on a TGV train that had a fault. Our trip from Paris to Frankfurt via Karlsruhe developed a 'technical problem' that made it stop several times on the track. At first I thought it was weather related as it was snowing hard outside, but that wasn't the cause. After a few of these unexpected stops the conductor announced that due to a 'serious technical fault' (said in French - the English and German announcements didn't mention that it was a 'serious' fault, possibly because the conductor was concerned that the English and German speakers might have a heart attack on learning of the seriousness, or leap from the train in case it was to explode) our train was diverting to Reims from where we would return to Paris Gare de l'Est, leave this train, board a replacement TGV and continue our journey towards Germany.

Our sick TGV in Reims, sulking before returning to Paris.

It was on the TGV from Paris that we sat behind 'Sarah and Thomas' from Australia who had lost their luggage somewhere in the bowels of Heathrow and had packed everything in their suitcases including their Nokia phone charger. They were trying to get to Austria for a friend's birthday but the snow really disrupted their flights. So they resorted to taking the train. But I covered that in my post about Lyon. I'm over it now, I no longer need to feel smug for taking the most important things in my carry-on bag. Including my Nokia phone charger...

It took us three hours to reach Reims but only about 35 minutes to return to Paris. For some reason the train worked fine going in reverse but didn't like going forward. And sure enough, we got off our broken TGV, walked across platform 3 and boarded an exact replacement TGV train, sitting in the same seats on the new train that we had on the original. As compensation for the delay we were given bright red lunch boxes filled with, um, interesting long-life products some of which were tasty. We also received a form to complete to claim financial compensation from SCNF for the delay.

Mystery food parcel on replacement TGV from Paris.

Our replacement TGV didn't go to Karlsruhe then Frankfurt. Instead it dropped us off in Strasbourg where we had to run to catch a commuter train to Offenburg, then jump onto the German ICE (InterCity Express) to Frankfurt. We made it, but arrived very late afternoon in Frankfurt missing our city tour that we booked as we would have several hours to kill before boarding our sleeper train from Frankfurt to Vienna to join our first escorted tour, through central Europe for a week with Insight Tours.

More later, on to Vienna!

Lyon, France - December 2010, long...

2011-02-16T22:45:00.019+10:30

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Lyon was the first stop on our holiday, where we 'delivered' our youngest daughter to her French host family for a 7 week school exchange in Macon.
Learned our daughter's luggage was delayed at Paris airport on our arrival in Lyon.
Enjoyed a lovely lunch with the host family at Brasserie Georges in Lyon - a gastronomic institution specializing in offal.
Three Aussies dead tired after 36 hours of travel, but so impressed by such a lovely family hosting our daughter's visit.
Food impressions from Brasserie Georges and lunch the next day at 3 star Michelin restaurant Paul Bocuse. Yum, and Yum!
Hotel in Lyon - Grand Hotel des Terreaux in the Presqu'île, or 'peninsula' area - very comfortable; a nice stay. Later we stayed overnight at the NH Lyon Airport hotel, a modern, comfortable hotel, adjacent to the airport and the Lyon TGV train station.
A trap for newbies - check which train station you are leaving from.
How to get from one of Lyon's train stations to the other using the excellent Rhônexpress shuttle train - it has replaced the 'Navette' bus service between the two.
Two major churches visited in Lyon; one took 300 years to build, the other took 4 years to build. Spot the differences.
Beth locks herself in a restaurant toilet after sating herself on a Kebap, thrilled with her new boots Bought At A Sale!
Unexpected delight! Stumbling across the Roman museum in Lyon. Wonderful!
The Festival of Lights - oops, we missed it!
Next stop Paris...

THE GORY DETAIL

Our first stop in Europe during our 7 week holiday in December 2010 and January 2011 was in Lyon, while youngest daughter ('Ms16') participated in a French school exchange program for the 7 weeks in Macon, which is about 40 minutes away by train from Lyon.

Lyon, in the Rhône valley, is one of the gastronomic centres of France, with Macon is smack-dab in the middle of one of the country's major wine areas. That knowledge pleased me greatly! Beth and I were to stay in Lyon for three nights before traveling to Paris.

Lyon from Fouviére

We left Adelaide on 11 December, first stopping in Melbourne for additional passengers, then flying to Hong Kong where we changed Cathay Pacific planes for our flight to Paris. In Paris we collected our luggage, made our way to the Air France terminal and caught our one-hour ten-minute long flight to Lyon.

During our 36 hour long journey our daughter misplaced her purse containing all her important cards and cash that was to sustain her for the 7 weeks, but that's a separate story. Happily, it ended well. The Story of the Misplaced Purse.

In the days prior to us leaving Australia many parts of Europe were inundated by heavy snowfalls, which closed major airports for days. This resulted in a huge backlog of air travellers within Europe and people trying to get to Europe from overseas. We were lucky that the worst weather had moved-on before our arrival into Paris, so we faced no cancellations or flight delays along the way.

But there's always a challenge, isn't there? On arriving in Lyon we collected two of our three suitcases, but that of Ms16 didn't arrive. Have you had that sickening feeling caused by seeing the luggage carousel stop moving, you being the last person in that baggage claim area, and your suitcase has not appeared? Oh yeah.

We had some urgency in actually leaving the Lyon arrival hall as it's a sealed area that can't be seen into by people waiting to meet travellers. Ms16's host family was waiting for us outside the baggage claim area, so we worried that with no one else emerging from the closed baggage claim area they might think we missed the flight and leave the airport, with no easy way of us contacting them.

So Beth and Ms16 would leave the baggage area with the two bags that did arrive, and I would deal with the formalities of lodging a misplaced bag claim with Air France. Of the three of us traveling my French was probably marginally better than Ms16's at the time, but far short of Beth's linguistic skills. Seven weeks later Ms16 would leave me for dead with conversational French, as one would hope after spending that much time in a French school, where they speak French! My dear wife had studied French (and German) in university and for a while had considered a career as a translator. Don't you hate that? I do. As our French host family doesn't speak much English it made sense for Beth to meet with the host family and explain what was happening while I struggled by using my high school French that was modestly refined by working as a dishwasher in a French restaurant in Seattle. Go on, ask me to say 'cornichon'!

Being an over-prepared traveller I always, always, ALWAYS have a change of shirt, undies and socks in my carry-on bag just in case my luggage goes astray. This really annoys everyone else in the family. But I feel someone in the family has to think about what might go wrong and prepare for it. If I'd been on that plane in 'Lost' the series would have ended a lot quicker. Despite a very strong urge to say something to the effect of 'I told you so!' I had to bite my tongue and not gloat in this situation. Did Ms16 have a similar emergency change of clothes in her carry-on? In fact, did my wife? NOT!

The patient, multi-lingual Air France baggage manager explained that due to the huge backlog of air travellers, generated by the recent winter storms, many suitcases had not been sent with their owners and over time these bags were being on-shipped to their final destinations. Our flight from Paris to Lyon was supposed to carry 36 back-logged suitcases but only took 10. I wondered when I heard that how did we get lucky to own the only suitcase on the flight that didn't come with the passengers on that plane?

SIDE NOTE: We came across another example of the impact of being separated from your luggage while traveling later when Beth and I were on the TGV train from Paris to Vienna via Frankfurt. A young Aussie couple sitting in front of us, 'Sarah and Thomas,' asked to borrow a Nokia mobile phone charger as all of their luggage had been delayed in Heathrow and they were several days late for a friend's birthday in Austria. They didn't have a phone calling card and the battery on their mobile had long since died. Their Austrian friends who they were supposed to be meeting didn't know where they were or what was happening to them as they were out of contact.

You'd be proud of me; I was so good. Although I was tempted to say loudly, 'What, you packed your charger in your suitcase!? Are you serious!?' I did no such thing. They had probably heard if before, and yet another smug over-preparer saying it could have pushed them over the edge. I probably said something like, 'well, these things happen, don't they. But yes, we just happen to have a Nokia phone charger that you may borrow' [the one I always have in my CARRY-ON bag]. I TOLD YOU SO!

Once the formalities with the Air France baggage manager were done, and I left forwarding details of where my daughter would be for the next 7 weeks, I walked from the baggage area and met our daughter's host family. What absolutely lovely people; mum, two of their three daughters in-tow, dad, plus a very young daughter of a friend of theirs. Lots of very well educated French, but no English. Language. Even when I'm in perfect control of my faculties, rather than jet-lagged, brain dead and smelly from 36 hours of travelling, combined with the stress of dealing with a lost purse then a misplaced suitcase, I would have been proud in 2010 to say in French, 'This is a cat. I call myself Rick. I live in Adelaide.' Sadly, it doesn't get one very far in a foreign country with a vocabulary like that.

Before we left Adelaide we emailed our host family asking if they would be able to join us for a lunch in Lyon before we handed-over Ms16 to them. They booked lunch at the famous 'Brasserie Georges', a large, legendary restaurant in Lyon operating since 1836. Because of our delay caused by the misplaced suitcase we missed our 12:30 lunch reservation (the French would write 12H30, which I think is a very logical way of writing a time - it indicates unmistakably a time - half past noon in this case.) The maitre d' was proudly, supremely, busy and we were but mere diners come to bask in the culinary glow of this famous establishment; and the restaurant was full but turning-over quickly. So a beer at the bar killed some time until a table became free. I think maybe our French friends pleaded with him and might have said something like we were visiting Australian travel writers doing a piece on the best places to visit in Lyon, but as my French is not that good I can only guess.

There are certain dishes that Lyon is famous for and one of these is the tripe sausage, called the 'Andouillette'. It's a very big sausage, about the thickness of a cucumber or small watermelon, served at this restaurant covered with an aged mustard sauce. (This dish is serious business: read the Wikipedia entry - there is a committed club of French people who rate restaurants based entirely on the quality of their andouillette.)

Andouillette in mustard sauce - I dare you to eat it!

One of our group ordered the andouillette and politely offered small tastes to the Aussies who might not be familiar with Lyon specialty dishes. I tried it. I survived. Another of our group had what looked like a thick cut of a roast and again offered a taste to the Aussies, which I tried. I survived. I don't think I've ever had veal liver before. Probably won't again, despite it being the most tender meat that I've ever eaten. Go on, just call me boring and unadventurous when it comes to food. I will admit here for the record that I am not a keen offal eater. I've heard it before and I'll deal with it, I just don't care what I'm missing. So that's that. But I appreciated the offer to taste these Lyonnaise specialities

Lyon has a beautiful old part of the city, 'Vieux Lyon' where we stayed after fare-welling our dear jet-lagged but fed daughter. The old part is on a peninsula flanked by the Rhone river on one side, and the Saône river on the other. Both were running high from winter weather. And they very looked very cold.

Churches
Across the Saône river from the Presqu'île is the very old church, La Cathédrale Saint-Jean.

La Cathédrale Saint-Jean, built from 1165-1480

This Catholic church was built between 1165-1480. Can you imagine doing a ROI calculation today for a project like that? I'm guessing you'd almost need an act of God to get that past the investors. Sorry.

After visiting La Cathédrale Saint-Jean Beth found a boot shop With A Sale On! Stand-back.

Because our bodies were still on Adelaide time our stomachs weren't synchronized to the French dining hours, meaning that we missed the lunch hour (well, actually, 'we' shopped through the lunch hour ONLY OUT OF NECESSITY because Beth's old boots were hurting her feet. And There Was A Sale On!)

The only place in Vieux Lyon that was still serving food was a Kebap shop on Rue St Jean and that was good enough for me. The meal was inexpensive, filling, and tasty. Nothing special to report there. But my dear wife did succeed in locking herself into the toilet while I was paying the bill. I could hear a banging on a door and initially didn't think I had any personal investment in it. But it persisted, and my wife still hadn't returned. So Monsieur grudgingly went-off to rescue her. Apparently she made the mistake of turning the lock too far, or so she was told. And the French phrase book was useless - you'd think there would be an entry for 'Excuse me, sir, but my wife has locked herself in the toilet!' But no such luck.

Later we compared notes and wondered if it might be how they trap women before drugging them and selling them to an eastern European sex shop. But we moved-on quickly from that idea. Maybe there is a market for captured wives of middle-aged men. I don't know.

Atop the hill overlooking Vieux Lyon is the 'new' church, the Basilique Notre Dame de Fouviére. One wouldn't guess by looking at the two different interiors that the Basilique was built much later than the Cathédrale Saint-Jean. I'd like to joke that you can do wonderful jobs with enough paint and gold leaf, but that would be detracting from the wonderful workmanship in making the Basilique.

Basilique Notre Dame de Fouviére, built from 1872 to 1876

This 'modern' Catholic church has a lot of similarities to Sacré-Coeur in Paris. It is very impressive inside, but you'll have to go see for yourself.

Better ROI on this one.

When we came out of the Basilique Notre Dame de Fouviére it started snowing, and got very cold, which we weren't used to. A short walk 'down the hill' from the Basilique is the most amazing Museum of Roman artifacts, the Museé Gallo-Romain de Lyon-Fourvière. Quite a name, but what a treasure it was finding this place. I'll admit that we entered it mainly to escape the cold and snow, as neither one of us is especially interested in Roman ruins, but didn't this place delight us! Firstly the building architecture is stunningly powerful.


Entrance of Museé Gallo-Romain de Lyon-Fourvière

And what's inside the museum is impressive. We spent a couple hours there, more than enough time to thaw out. But a real treat was seeing the restored Roman amplitheatres outside the museum. Beth was easily talked into singing a powerful rendition of 'The Hills Are Alive' from the Sound of Music. You had to be there.

Sing girl, sing!

She sang to a most appreciative virtual audience! I thought, perhaps she just needs the right opportunity like this, after all, look what happened to fellow Scot Susan Boyle. This could be the break.

Hotels
Friends recommended staying in the Presqu'île, or 'peninsula' area, between the Saône and Rhône rivers. It provides easy walking distance to Vieux Lyon (old Lyon), which is a must-see. We consulted several resources including our Rough Guide book, TripAdvisor on the web, and travel books borrowed from our local library and stolen from friends. We were very happy staying at the three star Grand Hotel des Terreaux in the Presqu'île. It's not far from the Hôtel de Ville (which was occupied. That's a joke...) We booked a larger room, a 'Corbeille', thinking that we might appreciate the extra space after a long trip from Australia. The hotel advertises sound-proofed rooms and they certainly were - because our room was so quiet I thought for sure that no one else was in the hotel yet it was actually quite busy. The only sound I heard was from our strange bathroom sink that insisted on gurgling loudly whenever water ran through it. It was a strange drain. The hotel's website calls the facility a 'hostel' but I think that's a typo in their English translation because it certainly is a 'hotel'. Three nights at this hotel was most enjoyable. Highly recommended.

Later in our trip we had a need to stay overnight near the Lyon-Saint Exupéry TGV station (adjacent to the LYS airport) after arriving late in the evening from Milan, and the NH Lyon Airport was highly recommended. It's very new, the room we were in was very modern and comfortable and we were very happy there. The room rate was good value but I wish I'd asked how much the full breakfast cost before we ate it - it was fine but at 24 Euros each the breakfast for two cost about half of what one night's accommodation there did. There are lots of less expensive places for breakfast in the LYS airport located just across the road. But the hotel was great.

Food
We treated ourselves to lunch at the 3 star Michelin restaurant Paul Bocuse. Very expensive, very nice. Monsieur Bocuse greeted all the diners during the meal, stopping at each table to shake hands and have his photograph taken with the guests.

Planes and Trains
A trap for new train users in France is to be aware that in many French cities there are at least two train stations, the local station that is generally located very close to the heart of the city, and the TGV station that is some distance from the city. We were nearly caught-out by this while staying later in Aix-en-Provence when we arrived at the city train station for our travel to Nice, and only then read on the ticket the we were actually leaving from the TGV Aix-en-Provence station, some 17 km and 25 minutes away by taxi. And we had 45 minutes until our train left. We made it, but only just.

Another bit of advice, your TGV carriage is identified not by the number painted on the side of the car, but by the generally obscured small LED screen by the door. Check the train layout display on the TGV voie (platform) to save yourself a mad rush to the correct carriage.

In Lyon there are two main train stations, Lyon Part Dieu in the city, and Lyon-Saint Exupéry TGV station quite a way out of Lyon. Travel books like the Rough Guide say you can get between the two by taking a bus shuttle, a 'navette', between the two stations but the bus has been recently replaced with a great rail shuttle service called the Rhônexpress.

The Rhônexpress is a smart-looking red two-carriage train/tram departing every 15 minutes or so and taking a guaranteed 30 minutes or less to make the trip from the Lyon airport/Lyon-Saint Exupéry TGV station to Lyon Part Dieu, or vice versa. Before boarding you buy the tickets from a dedicated vending machine near where the Rhônexpress stops either at the airport TGV station or near the exit of the Lyon Part Dieu rail station. It cost about 13 Euros one way in January 2011. Students pay less (we found-out after buying all our tickets...)

Festival of lights
Sorry - we missed it by a day but did have a lovely view over Lyon from the illuminated ferris wheel. Maybe next year.

We both agreed that Lyon was as attractive, if not more so, than Paris. Maybe because we've been to Paris a few times before and it was our first visit to Lyon. But Lyon is well worth a visit, and allow yourself at least a few days, if you can, to get a feel for the place.

Onward to Paris...

Kudos to Cathay Pacific!

2011-02-07T17:08:00.000+10:30

Sometimes a business pleasantly surprises me by providing more than excellent service. It's easy to complain when someone doesn't provide a good service, so I think it's just as important to say something when something really good happens. Cathay Pacific certainly surprised us with exceptionally good service during our recent travels to France.

During what turned-out to be a 36 hour long journey from Adelaide to meet her French host family from Macon, our sixteen year old daughter lost her purse somewhere on our 11 December 2010 flights from Adelaide to Melbourne then Melbourne to Hong Kong. After Hong Kong we flew to Paris then Lyon, where the host family met us. Ms16 was to be their guest for seven weeks while attending a French school in Macon as part of a international school exchange program. We were escorting her through the challenges of international travel to Lyon.

Losing her purse was heart-breaking as it had her cash in Euros for her stay in France, Australian cash, her travel money card, EFTPOS card, school ids and many other treasures. All but the older school IDs were replaceable but not without a hassle. Luckily, her passport was not with the lost purse.

We were at the Hong Kong International Airport when she saw that her purse was missing, while the three of us were waiting to board our next flight from Hong Kong to Paris. We thought the purse might have been lost at Melbourne Airport's international transit lounge so tried to report the loss to the Victoria Police, who turned-out to be uncontactable from an international phone at about midnight on a weekend. How does one dial '000' from Hong Kong to reach Victoria Police from an international call? It wasn't a life-threatening event so we didn't try calling 000, but neither did we have any luck contacting a 'real' Victoria Police phone number that we could call from an international phone, as it was only attended between 7:00 am and 7:00 pm. The lesson here is to plan any future losses or non-life threatening emergencies so that they fall within that 12 hour window.

Melbourne Airport had closed-down for the night and the phone number we found through Google for them was answered by their automatic call directory service but frustratingly passed repeatedly back to the initial message. I did hear, '... to speak with an assistant press 9...' so I pressed 9 and heard again after a short delay, 'Welcome to Melbourne International Airport. For xxx press 1, for yyy press 2, to speak with an assistant press 9.' It seemed that I was caught in endless loop pressing 9! No luck there.

I was able to telephone an actual person at the Australian Federal Police but she referred me back to Victoria Police because lost property wasn't within the AFP's jurisdiction.

And we weren't sure where the purse was last seen, whether it was in Melbourne Airport, or on the Cathay flight. I thought our chances were better if the purse had been lost on the plane rather than in the airport.

So Beth and our daughter reported the lost purse to the Cathay Pacific people in the First Class Lounge, which was the first official Cathay Pacific station that they could find in the huge HKIA. The Cathay person noted the details and said they would give us an update when we reached Paris. Which we thought would be that they didn't have any luck locating the purse.

We had 13 hours to worry about the lost purse as we flew from Hong Kong to Paris. Difficult to sleep under the circumstances.

At the Paris airport arrival gate the ground staff paged us and said that the purse had been found but that we had to see someone else for further information. This was unexpectedly good news! But we still didn't know if there was anything still in the purse.

After completing immigration formalities at Paris airport we found the correct baggage services counter and we were given an inventory of the contents of her purse. Amazingly, all the contents were still inside her purse. But while we were now in Paris, the purse wasn't - it would arrive on a later flight so we would have to come back to the airport to collect it. It wasn't expected until the next day. It would have been very helpful if the purse could have been forwarded to Lyon, but that wasn't possible. It would have to be collected from the Paris airport.

The baggage services people contracted by Cathay Pacific gave us a printed sheet with reference numbers to quote when we came to collect the purse. I was to learn later how important that specific piece of paper, not simply the reference number, was to be in reclaiming the purse.

When we told the baggage services people how surprised we were that first of all the purse had been found, and then that all the contents including the cash was still there, they said that it was very unusual for them not to return lost items completely intact to their owners. The airline obviously takes a lot of pride in being able to claim that, and with good reason.

So, much relieved, we collected our baggage from the Cathay Pacific arrivals hall to make our way to a different terminal where Air France would fly us to Lyon from Paris.

So, well done Cathay Pacific! Very impressive service! Thank you!

Rick Clise

P.S. TRAVEL ESSENTIALS: a phone card to make international calls from a payphone.

P.P.S. I will write separately about the ordeal to actually retrieve the purse later, requiring us to deal with and overcome formidable French obstacles put-up by different Paris CDG airport personnel! Having dental fillings without anesthetic would have been more pleasant.

Great phone for travellers - Nokia C-100

2011-02-04T17:57:00.000+10:30

We recently traveled to Europe from Australia for 7 weeks and I didn't want to take my normal Aussie 'smart phone' in case I inadvertently ran-up enormous data charges by using my carrier's very convenient, but not cheap, Global Roaming service. Global Roaming allows you to make and receive calls and texts while using your normal phone account in a different country. Except for some reason, and dispite our carrier claiming that you could, we couldn't use Global Roaming with our Aussie phones while in New Zealand early last year. And yes, we had 'turned-on' the Global Roaming service through our carrier's website.

I had heard horror stories from friends who took an iPhone or equivalent smart phone that uses data services with them and they returned to Australia to be greeted by phone bills costing thousands of dollars.

I guess like most families we've outgrown several mobile phones and as I'm somewhat of a hoarder I don't usually throw them out - um, recycle them, I mean. Every couple of years we seem to update our phones as our mobile plan changes over. So we had a few phones lying around in different states of usability. But they were locked to our Australian carrier. It wasn't difficult to unlock most of them and it didn't cost anything to do so because they were out-of-plan. So our kids each got one of the recently superseded phones, unlocked so they could use overseas SIMs in them while they were traveling (separate to us), and I needed another phone that I could use for Beth and me while we were traveling.

I was in Officeworks for another reason and saw that they carried a few unlocked, 'purchase outright' phones for sale. Officeworks was selling this cute little unlocked Nokia phone for something like $59.

What made me buy this Nokia C-100 instead of less expensive phones was mainly because the C-100 supports two SIM cards in the phone at the same time. There are two different SIM carriers within the phone. You can't use both of the SIMs at the same time, you have to switch between them. Having two SIMs in the one phone let me keep my Aussie post-paid SIM card and use a pre-paid 'Mobicarte' from French carrier Orange for most of the calls and texts, and switch between the two through a couple of easy button clicks to 'Activate' the other SIM.

Why would I want to do this? Well, I was able to daily check for any messages sent to my Australian phone then respond using the French account as that was cheaper to do, and it became very handy when we were traveling in Italy and my Orange pre-paid Mobicarte was out of credit, but we couldn't purchase a recharge until we got back to France. (Don't get me started about trying to purchase a recharge on-line...) Using my Aussie SIM I was able send texts or make calls from that account to let the kids know we were still around. Sending texts using the Global Roaming did add significantly to my Aussie phone bill when we got home. But it was like a communications safety blanket.

Here's my very informal review of the C-100.

Likes:

It has an extremely easy-to-use calculator in the phone, lots easier than any other phone I've used. Handy when my wife couldn't remember what the AUD/EUR exchange rate meant when considering buying those wonderful shoes/bags/purses/coats/jumpers...
It has a built-in flashlight (torch) that was handy in preventing broken toes caused by crashing into furniture at night while searching for the toilet in a different hotel room every second day or so. Night time in some of those rooms was very dark!
It is very easy to switch between the two installed SIMS - there's no need to turn the phone off to activate the different SIM.
All my contacts were on the Aussie SIM, yet I could access them while using the French SIM. But I had to have the Aussie SIM activated in order to edit the contacts (like when I needed to add the international prefixes onto phone numbers that I needed to call or send texts to.)
It's very small and easy to carry around.
The battery life was excellent! Probably because I was mainly using it simply to receive and send text messages.
And come-on, looking like that, who's going to steal it? Pickpockets ran away when I flashed it at them.

Dislikes:

My major complaint about the C-100 is that the keypad is very loud, giving a substantial 'click' sound each time a key was pressed. Not a problem for me, but potentially annoying for people close by while I was texting. Or a wife trying to sleep while I'm wide awake and checking my messages (I was told it wasn't just 'potentially' annoying in this case.)
The screen is quite basic and small.
It's not a very 'fast' phone; more expensive phones operate faster but for the price I paid for this phone it is a very minor gripe.
The central 'button' inside the navigation buttons doesn't actually do anything, unlike my 'smart' Nokia. This just took some getting used to.

Well there you go, the number of 'Likes' outnumbers the 'Dislikes', so it must be a good phone.

Now I think I'm kind of hooked on a dual SIM phone when travelling. And I'd certainly recommend this little Nokia if your needs are similar to mine.

Enjoy!

Rick Clise

Great opportunity, or cynical marketing move? Closes 14 Nov!

2010-11-10T22:27:00.000+10:30

I've got my cynical hat on right now about a competition run by Boost Juice and Austereo with what I think are unachievable conditions of entry.

I love Boost Juice. My favorite would be the All Berry Bang. I don't buy one very often because they are expensive and I try, half-heartedly, to keep my middle-aged waist from expanding more than it wants to.

The last time I bought Boost Juices I was given two entry cards for the 'Boost Your Life Competition' that is being run by Boost Juice and Austereo Pty Ltd. On first glance it's a pretty cool prize for the winner: travel to Los Angeles, 6 weeks hotel accommodation in LA, keys to a 'hot convertible', participation in red carpet events and parties, cash for a new wardrobe, and seeing one of the 'world's hottest acts LIVE in New York and more'.

Wow! Sign me up! But when I read the conditions of entry and went to their website I started wondering if it was more of a cynical ploy by Austereo and Boost Juice to build their database for marketing purposes. Why would I say that? Because I can't think of many people who could actually meet all the conditions of entry. Let's look at them:

1) Entrants must be 21 years or over - okay no problem there, in most US states you can get married, enter legal contracts, die in the military defending the country all at age 18, but you can't drink until you are 21.
2) The winner must have a full Australian or International Drivers License for the car hire - that's reasonable. But as I didn't see it mentioned to the contrary in the T&Cs then I assume that the winner has to pay for petrol used in the car during the month long hire.
3) The winners must have valid Australian passports valid for 6 months beyond the proposed dates of travel - humh, what if I have Australian permanent residency but on a different country's passport, guess that rules me out.
4) Entrants have to complete the electronic visa system for entry to the United States - no problem there but a later condition does say you can't have a criminal record (not that I do!) but some entrants, well, might find this a challenge. However that's a US government condition of entry that one probably can't have a criminal record and enter the US legally.
5) The winners have to fund their own pocket money and living expenses in the US and their pay for their airport transfers - so does 'living expenses' include little things like, eating, during the 6 weeks in the US? Feeding oneself for 6 weeks in Los Angeles while staying in hotels is going to cost heaps unless the winner develops a persistent appetite for Taco Bell.
6) The winners are responsible for any tax payable on the prize, which includes airport departure and government taxes - is this like, 'the airline ticket costs nothing but taxes and charges add $653.47?
7) You need to sign-up to accept 'further information from Boost Juice Bars' - I guess I could put-up with that if I won the prize.
8) And you have to do the trip between January and March 2011 - ooh. but I might be busy then.

I was going to enter the competition but won't as I can't meet the entry requirements. You'll have to guess which one(s) though.

Actually, I'm not sure that anyone can meet the requirements. Let's look at it:

First of all, you have to be over 21 years old, so you are probably working or studying at Uni. If the former then getting 6 weeks off from your job may be a challenge. If the latter then I guess you've got the flexibility to go.

And probably more importantly, how are you going to fund the taxes, your out-of-pocket expenses, and living expenses like food, for 6 weeks while in LA? Have you been saving for just an opportunity like this? If you can take 6 weeks off to enjoy this prize because you are a student then how are you going to afford the expenses that aren't covered by the prize?

I don't know, am I being cynical thinking that this is really just a game to build a database, rather than providing a prize that can actually be accepted. Maybe the Terms and Conditions were written in a hurry without appropriate care. Maybe there were genuine good intentions used in developing the prize. If so, the execution is lacking. Maybe in looking critically at this I'm being unfair.

But I'm hoping that I'm wrong and that someone does have a great time. Promise me that you'll write if you do!

And if you hurry I'll give you the Unique Codes for the two cards. Just ask me!

'Have a nice day!'

P.S. Ooh, I just thought of something! Perhaps the promoters of this competition are really after the names and addresses for their marketing databases of Boost Juice loving, 2DAY FM listening, retirees. Because who else would have the time free and money available to do this?

Hey Big Guy, feeling invisible? Put-on some funky clothes!

2010-09-28T17:12:00.000+09:30

I was in Sydney last week for the quarterly NAVA board meeting. On Thursday, the day before the meeting, I walked to my hotel following my typical museum-hopping path starting at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Circular Quay then to the Art Gallery of New South Wales in The Domain.

Like most major Australia cities Sydney has an impressive collection of larger-than-life bronze statues commemorating war heros, kings and queens and other notables. But these pieces have been there so long that they have basically become invisible to Sydneysiders. They are largely un-noticed except by the pigeons who use them as some of the only non-spiky landing places in town.

Last year a Japanese artist called Tatzu Nishi, as part of Kaldor Public Art Projects, installed an 'intervention' using the two huge bronze equestrian statues flanking the main entrance of AGNSW. It was a wonderfully enjoyable temporary work of art and I had a great laugh while enjoying it. You can read about this work, called 'War and peace and in between' at the Kaldor website: Kaldor Art Projects - Tatzu Nishi

The article on Kaldor's website says Nishi's work focuses on 'making the everyday strange' and in doing so many people noticed and 'saw' the AGNSW's bronzes for the first time. It was a wonderful introduction to them.

So while walking to the AGNSW I saw another large bronze sculpture that had been changed:

King Edward VII - Dressed for Success!

The good King was wearing a natty hat and his horse was sporting striped fabric socks! As the upcoming weekend was the Grand Final match for several Australian football competitions and codes I wondered if pranksters had dressed the statue in football attire, but quickly determined that wasn't the case as today's teams, no matter what city or suburb they represent, don't wear big feather-capped hats in play.

This is off-topic a bit but it's a good place to diverge; did you know that the orientation of a statue horse's legs is sometimes thought to indicate how its rider died? Supposedly, and Snopes.com may disagree with this, 'both legs raised mean that the rider was KILLED IN BATTLE, one leg raised means the rider died LATER of wounds caused in battle, and all four legs on the ground means the rider died of NATURAL CAUSES,' says answers.com.

King Edward VII - close up. Nice hat, dude!

So I had a closer look at fancy-pants King Edward VII and saw that this was part of Sydney's 'Art & About' program and that several statues had been dressed-up by local artists.

The Bard and his audience hadn't escaped the treatment:

Too fun, William Shakespeare ready to party!

Well done Sydney, and Sydney artists! I hope locals and visitors to Sydney will enjoy these fun works, and perhaps notice what might have been invisible until now.

Do you think we could get-up something like this in Adelaide?

NAVA - The National Association for the Visual Arts - Australia's Peak Visual Arts body

No longer a Roller Derby virgin, but not yet a whore

2010-09-28T16:10:00.001+09:30

Sunday! Adelaide! The Royal Adelaide Showgrounds! Roller derby grand final bout!

Warm-up on the track

My good wife humors my sometimes strange, odd-ball interests. I think you gotta try different things. My wife isn't so sure.

A few years ago the whole family bundled off to the Adelaide Entertainment Centre to fulfill my Fathers' Day request to see Monster Truck Madness. I'd never been to one and thought it would be fun. It was fun for about the first 20 minutes at the most, but after that we all thought for how long can we put-up with motorcycles going around and around and around a dirt track, jumping high into the air again, and again and again and again. And the attraction of utes, pickups and station wagons sporting huge tyres and bodies jacked way off the ground with absolutely no mufflers or sound reduction was just lost on us. Regulars to Monster Truck Madness brought their own ear muffs. Smart people. We made do with the free foam ear plugs that the AEC provided, provided possibly to pre-emptively nip in the bud any potential ear damage law suits.

I can't remember whether it was one of the kids, or my wife, or both, who too soon after the show started asked, repeatedly, 'can we go now?! Please?' It dawned on me that it might have been a good parenting strategy keeping the kids there - it might provide a mental inoculation for them against any future relationships with young men whose life interests are limited to cubic inches and octane ratings. Time will tell whether that's correct or not.

Now just saying, 'Monster Truck Madness', in our household has become verbal shorthand representing a tirade of concentrated abuse commenting on Dad's absurd choices of entertainment that are inflicted on the family. Saying it is always accompanied with eyebrow raising, sighs and head shakes. But hey, we did it. Never again, but we did it.

So this past weekend in Adelaide there was an event of major significance for an elite bunch of amateur female athletes - the Adelaide Roller Derby Grand Final. And yes, it was the result of yet another Fathers' Day request that attend. It was a double-header event, the first event was to determine 3rd and 4th places, and the second bout was for 1st and 2nd place in the league.

Our kids aren't dumb though. Certainly too darned smart these days. I didn't have any success in convincing them to join us for another cultural exploration this time at the Roller Derby. Although the Monster Truck Madness event happened several years ago that memory seems to have been burnt-into in their brains, so any new and out-of-the-ordinary event that Dad proposes is immediately viewed by them with suspicion and caution.

Back in the Dark Ages when I was growing-up in Seattle I sometimes saw on our black and white TV a crazy, fast-paced 'sport' where men skated around and around an oval, banked track, really crashing into each other. Sometimes skaters would be bumped off the track and over the rail. The pace of the sport, the 'rock'em - sock'em' action, the graininess of the black and white TV, it was strangely irresistable, and it was called 'Roller Derby'.

Instead of our loving kids joining us for the Roller Derby our friends, who I'll call Ron and Katherine, came meeting us at the Showgrounds. The doors were to open at 2pm and I had already bought tickets on-line, so we agreed to meet for what I expected would be a quick and efficient trip into the venue. As we walked from the carpark we did wonder if people ahead of us knew something that we didn't, as lots of them carried deckchairs with them. But I kept saying that more people were without chairs than with them so we'd be okay.

Patient crowd waiting to get in.

We turned the corner to see a long, snaking line of Roller Derby fans queuing to get into the hall. Quite a long line in fact, but they were very well-behaved and patient fans. At different points along the queue there were Derby girls on skates and in uniform - I'm not sure if 'girls' the correct term; are they called Derby 'players'? Help me out here - answering questions and guiding people to the entrance.

A Wild Hearses' skater

Kudos to all the players and how well they organised everything. They did a great job.

But in the queue there were lots more people carrying deck chairs. Humh. More about that later.

It took about 20 minutes to get inside the venue through the snaking queue. Bags were being inspected at the door to prevent booze and other prohibited items from being brought into the hall and that slowed-up the process somewhat. But it was a lovely Adelaide spring afternoon and the sun was shining so it was not unpleasant queuing outside to get into to hall.

For those not familiar with the roller derby competition in Adelaide, it isn't played on a banked track as it was on TV, but on an oval marked-out by tape on the floor.

The rules seem pretty simple and the MC explained things well: two teams compete at a time on the rink; each team has 4 skaters who are the 'blockers' and together the 8 skaters form the 'pack'. Positioned a little way behind the pack is another skater from each team, wearing a lycra cap with a white star on it over their helmet. These two are the 'jammers' and their objective is to skate through the pack and lap all the other skaters. Each skater that the jammer passes counts as a point for the jammer's team. The game consists of two 30 minutes halves but there's another clock for the the 'jam' period, which was 90 seconds long per jam for this bout. The 'jam' is when teams are able to score points. The 'Lead Jammer' can call-off the jam at any time to prevent the other team from scoring points.

While the rules seem pretty simple, they are actually very detailed. I didn't understand how the penalties worked but that didn't distract from the watching. I don't know if the Adelaide competition uses them but you can see the rules of the Womens Flat Track Derby Association at http://wftda.com. The amount of official whistles being blown during a jam seemed to rival that of netball, which is another sport that I don't fully appreciate the subtleties of. The number of times the referees blew their whistles is significant, but I don't want to spoil your experience by telling you what they mean - you'll have to see for yourself.

The chairs that lots of people were carrying... All those chairs. Once inside the hall we saw why Derby veterans were bringing their chairs. 'Cuz the hall didn't have much in the way of formal seating, that's why! There were maybe 4 small grandstands inside that seated about one tenth of the whole audience. The rest had to stand or sit on the chairs that they had brought with them.

Lots of people, notice all the brought seats...

The event was sold-out and people who didn't already have tickets were being turned away, and if you were late getting-in, as we were, it was basically standing-room only. But considering that the tickets only cost $13 then I don't think there's much room to complain about the facilities.

Inside the hall was a most wonderful collection of humans. Yes, I'll say it now and be done with it, there was a large and visible lesbian representation, there was an impressive collection of tattoo art on lots of people, but it was also quite the family event. Lots of young kids were there with their parents, no matter what orientation their family consisted of. Everyone was having a good time just being themselves. The event had broad audience appeal.

Everyone except my dear wife and Katherine. They hated it! In fact, they bailed-out before the first bout finished, heading home while Ron and I stayed-on. When asked how much she enjoyed it on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best and 1 being the worst, Katherine said it rated a '2'. But for comparison, a '1' for her was having been in a hurricane! Oh dear. Better cancel some of those season tickets.

But Ron and I thought it was great fun. You had to let the experience wash over you and just go with it. We did and we enjoyed it. We got into the spirit and were cheering loudly and shouting encouragement to the teams, and groaning at crashes and heavy body checks.

I actually 'know' one skater from the Road Town Rollers, one of the teams who were in the grand final match; I tweeted @TrickseyBeltem before going that we'd be at the match. It was a buzz to see someone I 'knew' competing in the bout and Ron and I said a quick hello to her before they started the championship match. Probably the last thing she needed while trying to concentrate on the imminent match! But I know a star!

The Road Train Rollers from their pits

But congratulations to TrickseyBeltem and the Road Town Rollers for winning against a tough Wild Hearses team for the championship. Tricksey is an impressive jammer! She blasted through the packs. (I've probably just made every Derby player ROFL at my so inappropriate words. Sorry y'all, please forgive me for I'm just a out of shape old white guy but who had a good time on Sunday.) And for the record the Mile Die Club beat the Salty Dolls for 3rd place.

Fearsome Rollers buzzing with an-tici-Pation!

What did I enjoy about the Roller Derby? Lots! The skaters took their match seriously but seemed to have a lot fun as well. When Ron and I were standing by the RTR's team area after wishing TrickseyBeltem good luck, trying not to look too much like a couple of creepy old-guy stalkers, the skaters coming off the track were sweating heavily from giving it all out there. Their 'uniforms' were imaginative and just a wee bit slutty. There was lots of torn fishnet stockings worn, and over-the-top make-up. The skater names were humorous plays on words and all innuendo but representing the toughness of the sport. It is a very physical sport and we saw some impressive crashes on the track. Except for one time everyone quickly got back to their feet following the collisions and tumbles. One skater had to be escorted off the track after a fall and might have hurt an ankle or knee so we hope she recovers quickly.

I forgot to mention that there was an excellent rock and roll band playing before, between, and after the bouts. When the track was clear of skaters a group of quite talented rock and rollers danced for us all. At the back of the exhibition hall were a number of lovingly restored hot rods on display, with polite signs requesting people not to touch or climb on the cars.

The wonderful band

The whole day was somewhat of a blast from the past and evoked nostalgic memories for me. It should have all been in black and white.

Ron and I agreed that the Roller Derby had the formula right for growing in popularity. A week ago there was an article in the Adelaide Advertiser's weekend magazine about roller derby, with several skaters in uniform on the front cover.

Would I go back to see another bout? Absolutely! It was good entertainment. But I think I would take a folding chair with me. And I do think one of my kids would actually be very good at it, but I dare not say that, do I. #kissofdeath!

Where are the books explaining Climate Change?

2010-08-15T21:36:00.000+09:30

Another ABC Radio National podcast on August 14th, The Philosopher's Zone, had guest Guy Rundle from Crikey on the show talking about 'Philosophy on the Campaign Trail.'

It was an entertaining and informative show and I did appreciate the question posed during the show asking why the scientific community had not published easy-to-read books supporting their claims of human-induced climate change.

After all, climate change skeptics like Adelaide University's Ian Plimer and UK 'eccentric climate skeptic'(1) Lord Monckton loudly promote their views that climate change is naturally occurring and not the result of human activity, despite the overwhelming consensus in the scientific community to the contrary. And Plimer and Monckton are probably making a good living from their efforts.

Either Rundle, or Philosopher's Zone host Alan Saunders, raised a point in the radio show that the lack of books explaining the causes of climate change could be as a result of many scientists not feeling a need to waste time debating people like Plimer or Monckton because to the scientists the facts are clear and support their observations. What's the old advice, 'never argue with an idiot' for fear of being mistaken for one?

But it is important to promote the fact-based evidence despite the mud-fight that it will start. (For an example, see the comments on the ABC RN The Science Show website following the 3 July 2010 interview with now deceased eminent climate scientist Stephen Schneider. The skeptics were quick and loud in their attack on Schneider's summary of 'Scientists respond to climate change'. Just as Schneider said they would!)

Some skeptics are making good money from their books, so why aren't the scientists also doing so? I'd certainly buy a clearly written, fact-based book written by someone representing the consensus of what the climate scientists have discovered.

(1) Sydney Morning Herald, 'Lord Monckton is on the fringe: Barnaby Joyce'
January 20, 2010

Do arts funding bodies reinforce elitism?

2010-08-15T20:58:00.000+09:30

On the 14 August ABC Radio National 'The Music Show' podcast 'Arts Policy and the 2010 election: Who Cares?' the musicians participating in the show explained that they wanted their music to be accessible to a broad audience.

This got me thinking about being a visual artist and being knocked-back a few times for arts grants. There's a learning curve to writing these grant applications and I've done a few now but never with success. My most recently rejected grant application effectively said that my artwork wasn't 'conceptual enough.' A fellow artist and friend who is an absolutely gifted portrait sculptor had his grant application rejected because 'the artwork is too dated' and not in demand.

There's often criticism of the visual arts for being too obtuse, too cryptic, too hard to understand, too elitist. And I wonder if that's partly to blame on the arts funding bodies who seem to reward artists working like this.

Of course the funding bodies have to manage the difficult situation of receiving more applications than can be funded, but why do they pick the artists and artworks that they do? If their objective was to make the arts more accessible rather than appealing to a small, elite audience, then couldn't they take a different approach to funding decisions?

And no, I haven't given-up hope yet of winning a grant! Have I told you about the new cryptic, obtuse, elitist series of works that I'm developing...

When the 'long tail' gets it wrong

2010-08-15T20:45:00.000+09:30

One of the benefits of having friends who are more technically literate than I am is that I can learn exciting new phrases like 'short head' and 'long tail.' But I'm a bit of a skeptic when it comes to believing that everything shiny and new will redefine how we do things.

For example, not long ago I was chatting with good friend Fang about social media contributions from the 'long tail', which is basically 'the great unwashed' of a population, while the 'short head' is the term used to define the small number of leaders in a population. That's a pretty woofy description so see Wikipedia for a more accurate description of 'short head' and 'long tail.' My use of 'long tail' in this context relates to social networking communications like blogging.

I wondered how we as consumers and users of information from a broad source of authors who blog, tweet and upload videos can be comfortable that the information is correct. The answer was that the long tail is self-policing and that inaccuracies are quickly found-out and corrected.

As I do, I was listening to a podcast while in my workshop progressing my current art project and an interesting segment came-up from the July 28th National Public Radio (NPR) 'Technology Podcast'. One of the segments on this podcast related to an African-American woman in Georgia named Shirley Sherrod who had been fired from her job as a State Director for the United States Department of Agriculture.

Sherrod was fired from her job because of complaints about a speech she made that appeared to include racist comments. However, what actually happened was a conservative blogger called Andrew Breitbart uploaded to YouTube an edited version of Shirley Sherrod's March 2010 speech which made her appear to be a racist when recalling her conversation with a white farmer in 1986 who faced losing his farm.

Conservative Fox News picked-up the story from Brietbart's post, and in very short time the outraged mob was calling for her resignation. The people demanding her resignation included the NAACP, and her then employer the USDA. She did resign due to the harassment she was subjected to. Once a topical or controversial issue gets promoted on the Internet, whether it is true or not, it can spread far and wide with incredible speed. A video clip of a government employee making what seems to be racist comments would have attracted a lot of attention.

When the 43 minute long unedited version of her speech was seen it was apparent that Breitbart's 2'38" version uploaded to YouTube was edited to change the context of Sherrod's speech and make her appear to be a racist. After the unedited version of the speech was made available Sherrod was cleared of the racism charges, apologies were made to her, her old job was offered back to her, and even President Obama called her about the issue.

The white farmer she spoke of from that 1986 conversation credited Sherrod for helping save his farm. At the time she worked for a public advocacy firm and gave him valuable assistance. The farmer stated that at no time did he feel Sherrod was a racist.

For more detail about this sad saga see Wikipedia.

To me this is a cautionary tale about accepting anything from the Internet at face value without applying critical review of it. Of course people who blog don't always represent the truth in their posts, and YouTube is not immune from manipulation. But recognising the truth isn't always easy.

Simply because a post, tweet or video doesn't originate from a biased, manipulative old media organisation doesn't make it pure and accurate. We can be manipulated and taken just as easily in the web 2.0 and social media worlds as we can with the old media model. The facts did emerge that Sherrod wasn't a racist but not before she faced harassment and organisational pressure that forced her to leave her job.

The importance to check facts before jumping to a conclusion still exists even today. I'm reminded of my Dad saying, 'you can't always trust what you read in the newspaper' and if he would certainly say that about information found on the Internet.

My little corner of the Great Big Internet

2010-07-25T22:56:00.000+09:30

After my initial scorn of friends who were early converts to Twitter I started using it, and wouldn't you know it, I actually enjoy doing so. In an earlier blog post I've written about my Twitter awakening so I won't repeat it here.

In my early days of using Twitter I was very precious about who I was following, but I've relaxed a bit now, and as a result I read tweets written by a variety of people. And poor souls, they suffer through mine!

Last month I watched more than my normal dose of soccer while the World Cup was being played in South Africa. An added dimension to it was keeping an eye on the Twitter #wc2010 stream while watching the game. As the game was broadcast live it was in sync with the Twitter feed. A disadvantage of living in Adelaide when most of Australia's television shows come out of Sydney or Melbourne is that we are normally on a 30 minute delay here from the east coast. So when popularly Tweeted shows like ABC TV's 'Lateline', or 'Q and A' are showing in Adelaide on the tv the related tweets are half an hour ahead of what we are seeing. It can be a great way to spoil a surprise, or it can also be a great way to look like one has ESP and impress the kids by forecasting what is about to occur on the telly.

Sometimes despite the 30 minute head start I'll throw-in a tweet or two about something I find interesting on one of those shows, knowing that someone in the eastern states might think we are a bit slow in the head here and can't process information very quickly. But we're not as slow as those folks in Western Australia! They are WAY behind us! (Haha and love to all my WA friends.)

While watching the World Cup and following the Twitter stream of #wc2010 I saw lots of different Twitter users from around the world, tweeting in their native languages. It was like being in a global village as so many different nationalities were simultaneously tweeting about the same action occurring on the soccer field.

But last week I realised that the people I normally interact with through Twitter are very much like me, (with some exceptions) generally white, middle-aged, middle-class, and mainly living in Adelaide. The Internet is global, but my world is local.

Then this week I was watching a TEDTalks video by Ethan Zuckerman 'Listening to global voices' where he discusses that very same situation: a global internet but how our involvement is generally on a local basis. It was interesting to hear him say that Nicholas Negroponte's 'Bits vs Atoms' concept may not be correct. He used the example of being able to easily buy bottles of Fiji Water (atoms) in the United States, but not being able to easily find news about Fiji (bits.)

It seems that despite the promise of the global internet and all that it brings, maybe we very much live in our own neighborhood. In real life, and in the virtual world.

I'm going to watch Zuckerman's TEDTalk again and may write more later.

Geoengineering? Don't tell anyone...

2010-06-27T21:58:00.000+09:30

ABC TV has had an interactive program/game (aka 'Alternative Reality' show) running on its website called 'Bluebird'. I tried to get into it but couldn't struggle past the first few minutes of it. It's an interactive experience that you can watch, or join and 'play' in the game.

But I was intrigued hearing about it from Natasha Mitchell, host of ABC Radio National's excellent 'All In the Mind' program, and Robyn Williams, host of another excellent ABC RN show, 'The Science Show', spoke about 'Bluebird' and Geoengineering in his May 15th show.

The concept of geoengineering is to control global warming and the results of human-induced climate change by injecting certain chemicals or compounds into the earth's atmosphere, which would shield some of the heating effects of the sun.

In light of the failure by governments around the world to come to any agreement on anything that addresses climate change then actions by individual countries, or even corporations, could become the next line of defense; one or more could take unilateral climate change remediation actions 'in the best interests...'

In the recent Science Show the scary observation was made that if geoengineering takes place it will almost certainly be done without the knowledge of us, the citizens who will experience its results. Because if geoengineering efforts were announced before enacting them, and afterwards somewhere in the world something went wrong like crop failures, floods, storms or other devastating events, then people would want to sue the pants off the people or governments who did the geoengineering.

Some scientists say that geoengineering could be done with few risks. It could be catastrophic if it was done and there was just a tiny, itty bitty, little miscalculation that made it all go wrong. I love scientists and I love science. But who goofed on something like the introduction of cane toads into Australia to cure a beetle problem. That little project didn't turn-out very well, did it?

Isn't it a bloody shame that our developed societies are so ham-strung by self-interest that any coordinated action by nations in addressing climate change seems doomed.

Small business mentality running Australia?

2010-06-06T14:38:00.000+09:30

The more I think about it the more it appears that our beloved Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has brought a small-business management style to running Australia, and it doesn't seem to be working very well.

He's broadly accused of being a micro-manager, and doesn't canvas his own ministers and cabinet on items of importance (like deciding to cancel the Emissions Trading Scheme). His delegation skills to others in his cabinet don't seem too effective, and his availability for his own ministers is reported to be pretty woeful (Minister Conroy of the ill-fated Mandatory Internet Filter policy supposedly could only grab time with the PM to share some significantly bad news for the government by getting on an airplane with Mr Rudd.)

While I admire many Labor objectives and ideals, their execution of policy seems to be very hamstrung. Perhaps some of the upcoming Labor stars could be seconded to big-business management roles where accountability, efficiency and profitability are important... Nah, dumb idea... Forget I said that.

Australia needs more than a small business manager as its elected leader.

Are our Australian major political parties trying to 'out stupid' each other?

2010-06-02T00:14:00.001+09:30

What's going on? Would somebody please tell me? 'Cuz it's not making a lot of sense to me right now.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and the Labor Party that he leads, appear to be hell-bent on self-destruction. They came into power replacing a tired Liberal government that was badly out of touch with the electorate and have squandered the trust and support of the Australian people in very short time. PM Rudd seems to be demonstrating the emotional immaturity and incapacity for task completion of a primary school student. The Labor party lurches from one disaster to another: the rushed home insulation scheme that had fatal consequences; upgrades to school without logical financial safeguards in the system; introducing a big tax on mining 'super profits' AND then declaring an 'emergency' to allow $38m of tax payer funds to be used for an advertising campaign promoting this new tax. Regular flip-flops on policy including significant ones like the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme - from the government's own CPRS White Paper Executive Summary document: 'The Australian Government believes that acting on climate change is essential' - well, maybe not really, truly essential? Breaking election commitments, and squandering the little good-will left for the Labor Party. What the heck?!

(Remind me to say something later about this 'emergency' and the Federal Minister for Communications Stephen Conroy's stupid mandatory Internet Filter plans.)

Then on the other hand we've got 'the Mad Monk' Tony Abbott as leader of the opposition. Promising to reintroduce draconian policies from the bad old days should the Liberals win the election. Threatening to cut some of the actually potentially useful Labor policies like the National Broadband Network. But wanting to introduce paid parental leave by increasing taxes on business. (Increase taxes on business? The Liberal Party?)

Kevin Rudd, leader of the party that represents Australia's 'Working Families' and whose party members rise to public service 'greatness' through the union movement factory, has a personal wealth of $56 million. While Tony Abbott, leader of the pro-business, pro-capitalism, pro-small government Liberal Party has a personal wealth of just $1.1 million. Forgive me for another what the heck?!'

It doesn't surprise me that recent voter sentiment polls show primary vote support for both the Labor and Liberal parties is diving, with the Greens being the beneficiary of the two major parties imploding on themselves. A once crazy thought, 'Vote Greens' in the lower house, is not looking that crazy anymore. Greens leader Bob Brown was wise in correcting a reporter who said 'undecided voters might vote for the Greens' when he said something to the effect that it was 'thinking voters', not undecided voters who would be voting Greens.

Liberal MP Chris Pyne and Labor Minister for Human Services Chris Bowen were actually shouting at each other during Fran Kelly's ABC Radio National Breakfast show last week. If all they are going to do is shout at each other then political debate between the two major parties is completely useless to the public. There's nothing constructive coming from these point-scoring demonstrations. Question Time in federal parliament has often been unruly and embarrassing to listen to, but unfortunately these current political 'debates' outside Parliament lack the scolding voice of the Speaker of the House who pulls in line unruly politicians with growled 'Aw-dahs!' Now our elected representatives can, and do, just shout at each other!

And we pay the salaries of these people?

Someone I follow on Twitter said that if Malcolm Turnbull returned as the leader of a Liberal Democrat party he would absolutely sweep to victory at the upcoming election. Labor appears to be incompetent in running the country, and the thought of the current Liberal party running the country scares the crap out of a lot of people. Turnbull would probably have a lot of support.

Back to 'emergencies' and the Mandatory Internet Filter: I join a lot of other people who are absolutely against Child Pornography, AND who are absolutely against the government's planned Mandatory Internet Filter, for reasons that I've written in an earlier blog post. Being against the filter does not mean that one is for the bad things that it is supposed to, but won't, stop.

Now what's got me even more steamed-up about this Internet Filter plan is how easily it will be for this government, or any future one, to declare something on the internet to be potentially damaging or dangerous to Australians and therefore move to censor it without public scrutiny or debate. And I'm not talking about how to make bombs, child pornography, or other items that are currently labeled as 'Refused Classification' material and are therefore unlawful to sell or distribute within Australia. But despite the official banning of these kinds of items they are still available and accessible. I'm worried about living with a government that feels threatened by what its citizenry writes or says, and then acts to control it by censorship.

Following the terrible 9/11 attacks many countries including the US, the UK and Australia implemented powerful anti-terrorism laws that reduced personal freedoms in the name of national security. In Australia someone could be arrested and detained for a long time without trial or charge if they were thought to be a terrorist or contemplating a terrorist action. This person arrested and locked-up would not be able to tell their family or friends what happened to them, and anyone who divulged information about the detainee would be violating this new law and would face serious penalties. Australia still has most of these anti-terrorism laws.

A country's citizens seem to be happy to quickly give-up hard won civil liberties and civil rights when they are in fear. And our government did a pretty good job scaring people enough that we allowed these laws to be passed.

So the current Labor government declares an 'emergency' because the minerals industry has the temerity to mount a concerted and well-funded advertising campaign against the Resources Super Profits Tax, so the government can spend $38 million of our funds for an advertising campaign selling us why the RSPT is a good thing for Australia and how the minerals industry is telling lots of lies.

This is an emergency? This is justification for the government to break its own guidelines about advertising? I hardly see trying to sell the proposed benefits of the RSPT to us to be as big an emergency to Australians as, say, Swine Flu was when emergency advertising expenditure was previously used. But maybe I'm just not seeing the big picture or something. Or just maybe the Labor government simply failed again in trying to sell us another policy (the RSPT this time) to the public and is in an absolute panic as it tries to post-sell another badly explained policy.

I see this government's action as another strong reason why the proposed Mandatory Internet Filter must not be implemented. They just can't be trusted to do the right thing.

And someone please tell me what are we going to do with our two major political parties in Australia as they seem to be trying to 'out stupid' each other.

Rick Clise

Mandatory Internet Filter correspondence - update 23 May

2010-05-23T17:00:00.001+09:30

On April 19th this year I wrote to every federal government Senator and Member of Parliament who represents South Australia, registering my protest about the government's proposed Internet Filter.

I also wrote to non-South Australians Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy who is responsible for this planned legislation, and Arts Minister Peter Garrett due to concern of the impact on freedom of expression that the filter creates.

This 'Cyber Safety' policy would require Australian Internet Service Providers to filter all traffic for Refused Classification material.

The noble idea behind this flawed plan is to reduce distribution of, and access to, child pornography (as one example of RC material). Sadly, it will be money wasted if the legislation goes ahead.

Feedback from the Internet community including both the organisations that provide the infrastructure and services enabling the Internet to exist, and from users who understand how the Internet works, is damning about the proposed Internet Filter. It explains why the government's proposed filter will fail and only give a false sense of security to well-intentioned people who are ignorant of how the Internet works. Even the United States government, through the voice of the current US Ambassador to Australia, Jeff Bleich, expressed reservations about the Australian government's Cyber Safety plan during his appearance on ABC TV's 'Q and A' program.

Here is an update after one month since I posted those letters to the Senators and Members of Parliament.

In general, the Labor Senators and MPs are toeing the government line to justify the Internet Filter, and that policy statement was quoted verbatim from in some of their responses to me.

Several of the Liberal Senators and MPs did the same but quoted the Liberal policy document about the issue explaining why the Coalition is '...yet to be convinced that mandatory filtering will be effective' and that '[t]he Coalition would like an independent audit of the trial results.'

SCORECARD /Including more recent updates from original post date/

Senator Cory Bernardi (Liberal)- responded 29 April, quoting the Liberal Party policy.

Senator Simon Birmingham (Liberal) - responded 30 April, short letter with well thought-out comments against the planned policy.

Senator Don Farrell (Labor) - responded 13 May, short letter stating the government's commitment to the policy; basically a polite 'suck it up and deal with it!' letter.

Senator Alan Ferguson - no response yet.

Senator Mary Jo Fisher - / Replied 25 June in a one-page personal response letter stating that '[T]he Coalition isn't convinced mandatory filtering can be effective or achieve what Minister Conroy says it will.' /

Senator Sarah Hanson-Young (Greens) - responded 10 May, has referred my letter to Greens Senator Scott Ludlum (spokesperson for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.)

Senator Annette Hurley (Labor) - responded 30 April, has forwarded my letter to Minister Conroy (quoting portfolio responsibilities) asking that he inform her of his response to me.

Senator Anne McEwen (Labor) - responded 7 May, quoting the Federal government's policy document but with closing paragraphs saying that 174 submissions were received by the Government during the consultation period, and that my letter is being forwarded to Minister Conroy's office.

Senator Nick Minchin - no response yet.

Senator Penny Wong (Labor)- Senator Wong's office responded in an undated letter saying that my correspondence has been referred to Minister Conroy's office due to portfolio responsibilities.

Senator Dana Wortley - no response yet.

Senator Nick Xenophon /Replied mid June in a one-page letter saying he shares my concerns about the Internet Filter, and wrote 'This is why I will be opposing such legislation at a federal level.' Onya Nick! /

Mr Jamie Briggs, MP - no direct response. His office forwarded my letter to Christoper Pyne's office (as I live him Mr Pyne's electorate).

Mr Mark Butler, MP - no response yet.

Mr Nick Champion, MP - (Labor) - Mr Champion was the first to respond to my letter (27 April) but just restated the Government's policy document.

Ms Kate Ellis, MP - no response yet.

Mr Steve Georganas, MP - no response yet.

Mr Christopher Pyne, MP - (Liberal) Responded in an undated letter quoting the Liberal policy document, and acknowledging receipt of my similar letter to Mr Jamie Briggs, MP.

Mr Rowan Ramsey, MP - no response yet.

Ms Amanda Rishworth, MP - no response yet.

Mr Patrick Secker, MP - no response yet.

Dr Andrew Southcott, MP - no response yet.

Mr Tony Zappia, MP - (Labor) responded 27 April with a short personalised letter acknowledging my concern and adding that there may still be an opportunity for the Minister to take into account community views like mine as the legislation has not yet been presented to Parliament. And he is passing-on my concerns to the Minister.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, MP - no response yet. Should I have signed my letter, 'from a working family'?

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy The Minister! /Posted to me in late June a 4 page long document titled 'Cybersafety and internet service provider filtering' signed at the end but without a cover letter. One tiny excerpt from the document: 'Unfortunately, the internet can also be used inappropriately. It has provided a powerful new medium which can be used to distribute material that is not acceptable to most Australians, particularly children.' I apologise in advance to any children who may not find this blog post acceptable!

Keep up the good work concerned citizens. The Government won't change this policy unless we tell them collectively how much against it we are.

On Twitter: #nocleanfeed . The Mandatory Internet Filter is also a GetUp! active issue: http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/SaveTheNet/442

And whether you love or hate the Greens, Greens Senator Ludlum's recent Senate speech explaining their response to the Government's proposed legislation is well worth watching (see http://scott-ludlam.greensmps.org.au/ and search on 'Mandatory Internet Filter'. It is a very thorough, well thought-out response against the planned filter.)

Rick Clise

Aussie Internet Filter - South Australian protest letter

2010-04-29T20:39:00.000+09:30

My good friend Fang asked me to post a blog containing the letter that I recently wrote to all South Australian senators and members of parliament regarding the federal government's proposed Internet Filter.

I do not disagree that there are terrible things on the Internet (as there are elsewhere in the world) but our government's plan to 'protect' its citizens is just wrong from both a technically achievable perspective, and from a freedom of expression and freedom of access perspective.

I can't believe that the Australian government is actually considering implementing a system of censorship on Internet access that would make our country act as repressive as countries like China and Iran! If you too share concerns about this brain dead plan then do something and make your voice heard. After all, the politicians that we elected are supposed to be representing their constituents like you and me. Tell them what you think.

Feel free to copy the letter below for your own use.

There are three parts to my letter to the senators and members of parliament:

1) The master letter that I used as the merge master in Word.

2) The database of MPs, senators and ministers.

3) A copy of the blog post written by Simon Hackett, Internode's Managing Director. Simon's post was in response to Minister Stephen Conroy's sales pitch about why Australia needs this kind of censorship and how it will protect Australian children from the worst imaginable evils to be found in the cesspool called the Internet.

In response to Fang's request here is the letter minus formatting:

LETTER LETTER LETTER LETTER LETTER LETTER LETTER

Dear ____,

Re: ‘Cyber Safety’ policy and why it won’t work

I am very concerned about the Australian Federal government’s proposed Internet Filter for two reasons: firstly that it won’t work; and secondly because it will censor freedom of expression and access to material via the Internet that is legal to own and possess in Australia.

Minister Conroy is very much mistaken in believing that implementing the proposed Internet Filter is going to stop the distribution of child pornography and other illegal materials. I definitely support the elimination of child pornography but the Internet Filter is not going to do it.

Attached is a copy of a recent article by Simon Hackett, Managing Director of Internode, explaining why the Internet Filter won’t work. Internode is one of South Australia’s premier Internet Service Provider and Mr Hackett writes convincingly about the folly of this plan from a technical and organisational perspective. I urge you to read the article if you haven’t already. Many others from the industry have also written about the mistake of the proposed Internet Filter.

I am also very worried about the censorship impact of this planned Internet Filter on Freedom of Expression within Australia. We don’t live in a totalitarian society like China or Iran where the government censors what its citizens can see on the Internet. This is not how I understand a democracy to function.

According to the March 2010 Arts Law publication, ‘Art + law’, a Senate Committee hearing in May 2009 found that of all the Internet sites on the Australia Communications and Media Authority’s blacklist about 32% were ‘illegal R[efused] C[lassification] child abuse material or pornography,’ but 49% of the rest of material on the blacklist related to X18+, R18+ or MA15+, which is all legal to own or possess in Australia. The majority of ACMA’s blacklisted material should not have been prohibited. The content of the blacklist is confidential and can’t be accessed by FOI laws and as a result there is no check and balance of what is censored.

For these reasons I strongly urge you to bring common sense to this debate and quash the proposed Internet Filter plans. The government makes it sound good but when it’s explored it’s actually a dangerous failure.

Yours faithfully,

[concerned citizen]

Enc.

END_LETTER END_LETTER END_LETTER END_LETTER END_LETTER END_LETTER

Here is the database of contact details:

DATABASE DATABASE DATABASE DATABASE DATABASE DATABASE

Below are the postal details for all South Australian federal Members of Parliament, Senators, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and Minister Stephen Conroy (the minister responsible for the Internet Filter proposal.) Including their postal contact and appropriate letter opening as per Parliamentary etiquette):

start
___

Senator Cory Bernardi
Level 13, 100 King William Street
Adelaide, SA 5000

Dear Senator,
____

Senator Simon Birmingham
61 Henley Beach Road
Mile End, SA 5031

Dear Senator,
____

Senator Don Farrell
Deputy Government Whip in the Senate
PO Box 6338, Halifax Street
Adelaide, SA 5000

Dear Senator,
___

Senator the Hon Alan Ferguson
Deputy President and Chairman of Committees
100 King William Street
Adelaide, SA 5000

Dear Senator,
____

Senator Mary Jo Fisher
Ground Floor, 75 Hindmarsh Square
Adelaide, SA 5000

Dear Senator,
____

Senator Sarah Hanson-Young
30 Pirie Street
Adelaide SA 500

Dear Senator,
___

Senator Annette Hurley
PO Box 2068
Kent Town DC, SA 5071

Dear Senator,
___

Senator Anne McEwen
Deputy Government Whip in the Senate
PO Box 55
Torrensville Plaza, SA 5031

Dear Senator,
___

Senator the Hon Nick Minchin
Leader of the Opposition in the Senate
PO Box 2141
Kent Town, SA 5071

Dear Senator,
___

Senator the Hon Penny Wong
Minister for Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Water
PO Box 6237, Halifax Street
Adelaide, SA 5000

Dear Minister,
___

Senator Dana Wortley
PO Box 613
Walkerville, SA 5081

Dear Senator,
___

Senator Nick Xenophon
Level 2, 31 Ebenezer Place
Adelaide, SA 5000

Dear Senator,
___

Mr Jamie Briggs, MP
PO Box 1601
Mount Barker, SA 5251

Dear Sir,
___

The Hon Mark Butler, MP
Parliamentary Secretary for Health
PO Box 2038
Port Adelaide, SA 5015

Dear Mr Butler,
___

Mr Nick Champion, MP
PO Box 288
Smithfield SA 5114

Dear Sir,
___

The Hon Kate Ellis, MP
Minister for Early Childhood Education, Childcare and Youth Minister for Sport
161a Main North Road
Nailsworth, SA 5083

Dear Minister,
___

Mr Steve Georganas, MP
Shop 2, 670 ANZAC Highway
Glenelg, SA 5045

Dear Sir,
___

The Hon Christopher Pyne, MP
Manager of Opposition Business
429 Magill Road
St Morris, SA 5068

Dear Sir,
___

Mr Rowan Ramsey, MP
PO Box 296
Port Pirie, SA 5540

Dear Sir,
___

Ms Amanda Rishworth, MP
232 Main South Road
Morphett Vale, SA 5162

Dear Ms Rishworth,
___

Mr Patrick Secker, MP
Opposition Whip
37 Adelaide Road
Murray Bridge, SA 5253

Dear Sir,
___

Dr Andrew Southcott, MP
760 Marion Road
Marion, SA 5043

Dear Dr Southcott,
___

Mr Tony Zappia, MP
PO Box 775
Modbury, SA 5092

Dear Sir,
___

The Hon Kevin Rudd, MP
Prime Minister
P.O. Box 6022
Canberra, ACT 2600

Dear Prime Minister,
___

Senator the Hon Stephen Conroy
Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy
P.O. Box 1067
Epping MDC, VIC 3076

Dear Minister,

___
end

END_DATABASE END_DATABASE END_DATABASE END_DATABASE END_DATABASE

Finally, here is a copy of Simon Hackett's blog post that was originally posted at http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Conroys-wrong-on-net-filtering-pd20100408-4B8U7?OpenDocument&src=is&is=IT&blog=Tech%20Central

BLOG_POST BLOG_POST BLOG_POST BLOG_POST BLOG_POST BLOG_POST

TECH CENTRAL – April 9, 2010

By Simon Hackett

Conroy's wrong on net filtering

Senator Conroy took on his critics yesterday in a blog titled ''the truth about net filtering" that defended the government's mandatory censorship policy.
I think it's important to set the record straight and look at the "truth" behind each of his assertions.

1) "We have never said ISP-level filtering alone would help fight child pornography or keep children safe online."

Unfortunately, ISP-level filtering will not help fight child pornography and it will not keep children safe online. It will have absolutely zero effect upon either aim.

The reason it will not help fight child pornography is that the online dissemination of such material occurs between adults (who will also trivially circumvent the filter using alternative protocols, proxy servers, and VPN servers).

In addition, the policy is that filtering is only to be applied when there is a complaint made. Those trading in this material are hardly likely to file a complaint about it!

Hence the presence of this filter does nothing, whatsoever, toward diminishing the abhorrent trade in illegal content.

The reason it will not keep children safe online is that children do not seek such material (hence the filter is irrelevant to them), that it does not simply 'leap out at them' by accident, and that adults who seek to interact in illegal ways with children will use vectors outside of the realm of the web page filter (such as chat rooms, social media sites, and BitTorrent file exchanges).

Fact: ISP-level mandatory filtering will do nothing, at all, toward the stated aims of fighting child pornography or keeping children safe online. It simply will not work.

2) (Regarding Restricted Classification material) "you cannot watch it on a DVD."

Alas, you can indeed watch it on a DVD. The DVD is a content carrier that can be sent via the national or international postal service from any street address in the world, without limitation.

There is also a clear irony here, given that Canberra (the source of this filtering policy) is also the primary vector for the sale and posting (on DVD) of video material that is illegal to sell in other states. Despite this fact, the postal service is not expected to open (and view) every DVD that is mailed around the country. Nor should it be.

Fact: DVD's and books containing RC material do actually exist on DVD (and similar media) in Australia today, despite existing policy banning them, and ISP-level mandatory filtering will be of zero impact in this regard.

3) "Refused Classification material is not available on Australian hosted websites."

Yes, it *is* available on Australian hosted websites. The current regime relies on public complaint and 'take down' notices to cause the removal of content from Australian hosted websites. If there is no compliant, then there is no take-down notice.

The bad people Senator Conroy believes the mandatory filtering policy will protect us from are not going to lodge a complaint about the material they disseminate. Nor is it likely that the general public will ever accidentally come across it.

Contrary to popular contention, content does not magically leap out of consumers' computers unbidden.

More importantly, the filter proposed will only apply to un-encrypted conventional web pages, despite most video content (RC or otherwise) in Australia being transported across the internet through other means – means that are not proposed to be filtered at all.

Fact: Bad stuff is out there now, and this policy won't make any difference to that situation, whatsoever.

4) "The Refused Classification Content list cannot be made public because if it was, it would simply be a catalogue to direct people to specific URLs that are Refused Classification. "

Publishing the titles of banned books and DVD's is legal and a fair and reasonable part of transparency in the operation of government. The government have argued that publishing banned URL's is different, because consumers can use the URL to look up the content itself.

But it is impossible to avoid the logical fallacy here. If the ISP filter worked, then the list of filtered URLs would be safe to publish in public – because if the filter worked, nobody could access them.

Fact: The government doesn't even believe that its own policy can work (or they'd be happy to publish the banned URL list).

5) "High traffic sites like YouTube and Facebook are not included in the policy, however, it should be noted that these sites have their own policies "

"High Traffic Sites" are precisely the places where consumers are the most likely to come across 'bad' content or 'bad' people. And yet – the more popular a site is, the less likely it is that the government will attempt to mandate filtering for that site.

Fact: The government is prepared to ignore its own stated policy goals (of mandatory filtering) anywhere that it's 'just too hard' to do so. And the places where it's 'too hard' are the very places where consumers are at the greatest risk of 'nasty things' happening.

6) "The government understands there is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to cyber safety and that’s why we have a comprehensive policy covering education, law enforcement, research and technical-based solutions."

Technical filtering simply does not achieve the stated policy goals behind its intended reasons for being mandated.

There is no escaping this. This isn't a matter of rubbishing technical experts and claiming they're just not smart enough programmers. You can't make a computer program modify social behaviour and you can't stop consumers using a VPN server or a proxy server to trivially bypass filtering. The government doesn't argue against the 'trivial circumvention' argument because there is no argument against it.

Fact: Education, law enforcement and research are great things, and they can help. Technical-based solutions are trivial to circumvent and they just don't work.

The bottom line is ISP's transport information. Like the postal service, their onus is to move that information without editing it or reading every packet that moves through their transport corridors. The postal service is protected by being deemed a 'common carrier'.

This is precisely the protection that the ISP industry deserves. The use of the ISP transport layer as a convenient 'soft target' in government content policy is as lazy as it is ultimately useless.

The greatest risk in the implementation of technical 'solutions' such as this one is that parents are at risk of believing that they actually work, and absolving themselves of the responsibility that they have (and need to have) to monitor the use their children make of digital media in general (and the internet in particular).

Finally, there is an obvious question here, given all of these facts:

How is the government going to 'sell' the outcome once it been forced upon Australian society? Will they make the false claim that it actually achieved anything?

Or will they make the true statement that they've just spent a lot of money to achieve nothing at all, and that anyone's kid can type 'VPN server' into Google and bypass the filter within ten minutes? That's including the five minutes it takes to go to the fridge for a juice.

Either way, given the facts I have noted here, it is clear that mandatory URL level web page filtering actually harms society (through a false sense of security) and has no positive impact.

Take the money allocated to the technical path and distribute it across the other goals of the overall cyber safety policy of the government, and we'll all be in a better place.

END_BLOG_POST END_BLOG_POST END_BLOG_POST END_BLOG_POST END_BLOG_POST

Okay fellow concerned citizens, go for it! Here's to Internet freedom and freedom of expression!

Rick Clise

My Artful Weekend in Melbourne

2010-04-25T19:35:00.017+09:30

This weekend I delivered my small painted stainless steel sculpture to the Toorak Village Sculpture Festival where it is being exhibited at Myka at 466 Toorak Road. It is pictured on the left. The Toorak Village Sculpture Festival runs from 1 - 31 May.

While in Melbourne I visited museums that were new to me and saw some excellent exhibitions. I was curious about the Bill Viola triple-screen video work called 'Ocean without a shore' that is being exhibited at the National Gallery of Victoria on St Kilda Road. I usually don't have much of the attention span needed to fully appreciate new media work, but I did find Viola's piece at the NGV fascinating for longer than normal for me.

An exception to my generally short attention span for new media work was recently seeing the French artist Sylvie Blocher's work 'What is Missing?' at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA). I surprised myself as I found most of her video interviews very engaging and sometimes quite funny. But her very short piece (about 9 minutes long) featuring herself and a Chinese village woman was particularly moving for me.

Viola's work at the NGV had a clever theme that seemed to repeat, staggered between the three video screens. But despite what the blurb said I don't believe that it was all done simply by the performers walking through a wall of water; I can't see how the water running off them could morph into sand without computer generated imagery assistance. But then I'm old school when it comes to special effects.

Also, I'd never been to the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) at the Federation Square until yesterday but was very impressed with what I found. It was an experience somewhat like going to the Disneyland 'Haunted Mansion' attraction where the majority of the attraction happens underground. Same with ACMI - the many galleries and theatres are below ground level. The particular thing that I wanted to see at ACMI was the Dennis Hopper exhibition. I wanted to see for myself what kind of an artist Dennis Hopper is in addition to being a brilliant actor and director. Well, I'm glad that I saw it as I still really appreciate Dennis Hopper as an actor and director! Say no more? But I do really like some of the artists that he has collected like Andy Warhol, Ed Ruscha, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein and Jenny Holzer. Some of them feature in my 'art heros' list from my high school days.

There's a great room at ACMI where you can lose yourself for hours, and apparently many people do: there are multiple cubicles where you can call-up and watch video work, tv shows, documentaries and all other kinds of moving image work. The very helpful attendant told me that it's particularly popular with backpackers when it's rainy outside!

Today I saw the Heide Museum of Modern Art in Bulleen, where Simryn Gill's work was featured as one of the exhibitions. Did her teachers not teach her to respect books! My Dad would be so disappointed if my art practice included tearing-up books. But Simryn does it beautifully.

The Heide Museum is a beautiful facility with a expansive sculpture garden walk. I love sculpture gardens! But what a sad story about the different artists who lived and worked at Heide under Sunday and John Reed's patronage and friendship. At the Heide I gallery, the original house and home of the Reeds, their story is spelled-out and I found it profoundly sad. Not that the Reeds were a sad story, but the artists who were there painted for me a very sad story. Maybe they lived, loved hard and died young. It nearly had me in tears.

After pulling myself together I drove to the TarraWarra Museum of Art in Healesville, about an hour's drive from Bulleen.

Somehow I got myself well and truly lost trying to get there despite having a 4 year old MelWays and a working GPS! Very bloody annoying. But I did get there and was glad that I persevered. At TWMA there's a featured exhibition called 'Bushfire Australia' which contains artworks relating to the many different significant bushfires that Australia has suffered. With the most recent one being the 2009 Black Saturday fires in Victoria on February 7th. Australia's history is inexorably tied with bushfire, but it still exacts a terrible toll. By coincidence, and probably because I was late to the TWMA due to my crap navigation today, I arrived as a talk was starting in the main gallery about sustainable plants in bushfire areas. It was most informative until a woman who was wearing far too much perfume parked her plumpness next to me and then began to asphyxiate me with volatile compounds. I had to give-up and leave the talk - her chemical weapon was too powerful and gave me a headache. For me that's a precursor to nausea and as I couldn't kill her during the talk I had to move. It was so strong that I wondered if I'd need an epi-pen...Sorry, that was way over the top; I got carried away.

But you never know, I might not have been the only one so affected; we might read in tomorrow's Melbourne Age about several visitors to TarraWarra Museum of Art being hospitalised due to fumes. What a dangerous woman!

So what an artful weekend it was for me. Lots seen and enjoyed. And good news - my sniffer is just about back to normal.

Upgrading a Wordpress blog

2010-03-31T00:18:00.000+10:30

I link to a Wordpress blog from my rickclise.com website to hold a tiny bit of info relevant to my arts practice listing exhibitions, competitions and so on. It's a pretty sparse blog compared to this one. Lots of unrealised potential.

My art blog was running on version 2.0 of the Wordpress application, which was quite out of date and apparently susceptable to security issues. I needed to update the application to the current release so my web developer could revise the template and make it visually consistent with my revised website. When looking at the blog logged on as the administrator I couldn't see any evidence of hacking. But as I investigated I came across a big surprise; the hackers had been having lots of fun inside my blog!

My website hoster has a great tech support guy but I learned that it is my responsibility to maintain any 'scripts' (applications) running on my website and keep them up to date. Upgrading a Wordpress blog was supposed to be easy, in fact, the more recent releases have a one button upgrade feature. But that wasn't the case for me in going from version 2.0 to the current version 2.9.2 - this upgrade was an industrial strength process!

The Wordpress.org website has very detailed references for just about anything to do with the software. So I sat down and started to read the sections on upgrading Wordpress. But it turned-out that a very low-level technical issue had to be dealt with before I could actually upgrade the application as the character set used in my Wordpress version was different than that used in the current release. To change the Wordpress character set you have to fuss around deep inside the guts by changing the contents of the MySQL database tables where the Wordpress blog info is stored. This is real nuts and bolts stuff.

The Wordpress.org codex says, 'Up to and including WordPress Version 2.1.3, most WordPress databases were created using the latin1 character set and the latin1_swedish_ci collation. Beginning with Version 2.2, WordPress allows the user to define both the database character set and the collation in their wp-config.php file.'

Apparently I needed to convert the character set from Latin1 to UTF8. Hunh?

You'd know from my earlier posts that while I used to be technical person in a previous life that now I'm just a technology user. And I'm certainly no longer a programmer in any language and I certainly was never a database guru.

But someone had to do something and upgrade the application.

My webhoster provides powerful tools for me to manage my website and its associated applications. A standard webhost tool for managing the MySQL databases is phpMyAdmin. This is a very powerful tool but assumes that the user knows what he/she is doing.

I carefully explored inside my Wordpress MySQL database tables using phoMyAdmin and gained some confidence in doing so, perhaps, on reflection, a bit too much confidence. I found that I could browse through the different tables that make-up my Wordpress blog.

It was while I was browsing through the different tables in the database that I found the warnings about security issues with older Wordpress blogs were justified. In one table that isn't displayed in the blog there was over 400k of hacker spam. It was about 48 A4 pages of printed crap containing URLs, comments, and all sorts of junk. Whoa! How did that get there? It seemed that I was forever getting notifications of comments to my Wordpress blog requiring moderation. I thought in marking them as 'SPAM' that it was deleting them from the blog. Apparently not. They were exploiting security issues in the old Wordpress application. Lesson learned: 'Keep your software up to date!' for good reasons. And just because you don't see anything don't assume that your security hasn't been compromised.

Before I upgraded the Wordpress app I manually deleted the rows of hacker spam in the compromised table. I imagined that I was a surgeon cutting-out a cancer. It felt good.

DON'T DROP THE TABLE!

How was I to know that 'dropping' a table means deleting the table, and there's no 'undo' when you realise that 'oh shit!' moment.

I 'dropped' the whole Wordpress MySQL database before I knew what I had done and had to be rescued by my website hoster restoring a back-up of the database. I guess there's one positive to not updating the blog very frequently. Nothing gets lost, just a restore away from getting back the good oil.

After I thought about it for a while I realised that the character set used in my original version of Wordpress shouldn't be a problem as my blog entries didn't contain any foreign characters which that wouldn't display correctly in the new character set used by the current Wordpress release.

For those feeling brave enough there are some MySQL code examples that would change the character set but being able to set them up and run them looked WAY above my pay grade.

So I backed-up everything and started the upgrade procedure, which actually went very smoothly. No incorrect characters, no apparent problems. I congratulate the Wordpress.org codex contributors for excellent documentation.

So if you are running an old Wordpress blog then upgrade it. And hopefully you'll get it done a lot quicker than I did.

'Inside Tiger's Sordid Life' Who magazine, 21Dec09

2010-03-30T22:12:00.001+10:30

Well, if you are going to have an addiction I reckon the one Tiger confessed to wouldn't be the worst...

MYOB strands Business Basic 1.0 users

2010-03-23T19:55:00.000+10:30

I'm quite dumbfounded that MYOB, maker of a range of good Australia PC accounting packages, doesn't provide a data migration path for users of its Business Basics ver 1.0 to Business Basics ver 1.1! If you run Business Basics 1.0 on Windows Vista or earlier you can't officially move your company files to ver 1.1 that runs on Windows 7. MYOB's tech support group says it can't be done. And ver 1.0 doesn't run on Windows 7.

Business Basics is the entry level Australian book-keeping software that allows me to create my quarterly Business Activity Statements for the Australian Taxation Office. As the income and expenditure in running my visual arts business are pretty minimal I don't need a very sophisticated accounting package. Business Basics costs $199 (RRP). Interestingly, you won't find Business Basics on the MYOB home page - it only appears if you click on the 'Test Drive MYOB' page.

MYOB technical support told me that I can export 'most' of my data from 1.0 and 'try' importing it into 1.1. But they couldn't tell me what wouldn't be brought across doing this. Humh, that kind of comment from a technical support group doesn't inspire me with a huge amount of confidence.

Oh, but wait, MYOB does have an upgrade option for people in this situation. Yep, for only $399 (RRP) I can buy a copy of MYOB Accounting that DOES import Business Basics company files. And it has lots of additional features that I have absolutely no need for!

So it seems to me that selling Business Basics is almost a 'bait and switch' deal - they get you using it and then abandon you when Microsoft upgrades the operating system and your initial version of MYOB Business Basics no longer runs. The only fix then, after you've invested time in building-up your company file data, is to upgrade to a more expensive, more featured product.

Even companies like Microsoft and AutoDesk let you move your data to the next release. What's with these guys at MYOB?

I think it stinks! So what am I doing about it?

1) Making a bit of a stink about the situation;
2) And I'm looking around for an older laptop running Windows XP or Vista that would allow me to continue running the Business Basics ver 1.0 that meets all my needs.

Argh!

Bloody annoying SGIC! I'm just a number to you...

2010-03-22T22:10:00.000+10:30

Looking for a new car insurance policy in Australia? I was recently, but had the most frustrating experience with one of the insurance providers.

The source of my frustration is South Australian insurance company SGIC, its New South Wales counterpart NRMA, and their parent Insurance Australia Group Limited(IAG).

Without going into completely boring detail,in January this year we shopped for and then signed-up for a new automobile insurance policy with SGIC.

Unfortunately, we paid the policy fee to the wrong account number due to SGIC's telesales rep giving us the bPAY number for NRMA, not SGIC. SGIC then cancelled our original policy because they never received our payment (despite it going to their sister company NRMA). When we received the notice of cancellation we called SGIC and a different consultant told me that a refund would be organised and that we needed to pay for a new policy.

That should have set warning bells going... Silly me for believing the phone consultant!

This month, March, we finally had our initial payment refunded after multiple, frustrating calls to different SGIC/NRMA consultants over the two month period.

While each consultant was very pleasant in speaking with me, they were quite ineffective in resolving the problem. One would have thought that it was a straight-forward situation with an easy solution. Apparently not so, or did they just not care because there was no urgency in returning our overpayment?

This whole saga was so annoying that I had to let someone in management know about it. If the company really couldn't refund a payment made incorrectly to its sister company then that's something that management needed to know about.

Early this month I wrote to Andy Cornish, Chief executive Officer - Direct Insurance, at the SGIC/NRMA parent company, Insurance Australia Group Limited. From my experience in business I know that inevitably things go wrong, but what the organisation does to address those problems determines how its customer service is measured.

My letter to Mr Cornish explained the problem; where I thought things had gone wrong; some suggestions for resolving them; and how this whole experience made me feel so disillusioned with SGIC. I closed my letter with a question asking Mr Cornish what he was going to do to repair the goodwill lost in this mess.

Guess they don't really care about a customer like me as I'm still waiting for any response from Mr Cornish. This lack of response hasn't done anything to change my current feeling that I wouldn't recommend SGIC/NRMA to anyone, and it's very unlikely that we will remain SGIC clients after this car insurance policy expires.

After all, if SGIC can't organise something simple like a refund for overpayment, how is it going to handle processing a claim? Hopefully we will never have to find-out.

Once bitten...