Cafe Grendel

Viewing the Transit Safely

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:54:00 +0000

I'm keen to observe the Transit of Venus and I am even more keen for the Junior Grendel's to also be able to do this, but I do not have access to the solar film I need for my telescope. Instead I have decided to make a pinhole viewing device that will project the sun onto a piece of paper so that they can view it safely.

I found great advice here http://www.exploratorium.edu/eclipse/how.html by Ron Hipschman as well as this site at Stanford Solar Centre that recommend a variety of ways to observe the transit: http://solar-center.stanford.edu/observe/

Based on what I have learned I have decided to make each of my boys a viewing tube to take to school. To keep it simple I will use PVC pipe that I can cut to a good length but that will project a reasonable sized image. At one end of the tube to place a piece of alfoil, and as close as you can to the centre you create the smallest, smoothest pinhole that you can - the smaller the aperture the sharper the image of the sun that is projected will be.

I am using rubber bands to attach the foil so that if it gets torn or crumpled I can replace it quickly.

At the other end I will attach four wire braced to hold a piece of white card to project the image on to - and to prevent small heads from looking through the tube directly at the sun - always a terrible idea.

The length and diameter of the tube are important as the longer the tube, the larger the projected image will be - but, if you make the tube too long the image will be wider than the diameter of the tube and you will not see the edges.

The formula to calculate the size of the image was one I found here and is fairly simple 0.0093 x Length of the tube. A tube that is 1000mm long will provide an image that is 9.3mm in diameter, so using PCV pipe for water rather than electrical cabling will likely ensure your image does not touch the sides and will also be less likely to flex.

I'm going to use 80mm PVC pipe for this task and probably try to make my projecter 2000mm long to provide a viewing image of about 2cm in diameter.

Construction day is tomorrow so I will provide instructions and pictures based on what I learn.

Transit of Venus

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:29:00 +0000

Transit of Venus: a must-see for everyone ... no seriously

By Duncan Steel, University of New South Wales

When Australia II won the America’s Cup yacht race in 1983, then-prime-minister Bob Hawke famously exclaimed: “Any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum.”

Taking inspiration from this rather strong suggestion that some notable events justify the interruption of “work as usual”, I’ll take the liberty of suggesting that any Minister of Education who does not instruct school principals and teachers to interrupt normal curriculum next Wednesday is also a bum. Indeed, they might just be unfit for office.

The event that will occur on June 6 is far more significant than the mere winning of a yacht race and in educational terms it’s hugely more valuable.

An article on The Conversation by Helen Maynard-Casely has already given some information about its background and significance, but there’s far more to be said and learned. I am talking about the transit of Venus across the face of the sun.

Rather conveniently, the transit will be visible throughout Australia and New Zealand, and it occurs right across the time of day when kids are at school. From the east of Australia the entire transit can be seen, lasting for more than six hours.

(In Western Australia the transit will already have begun at sunrise, but that matters little.)

I am not suggesting that anyone should watch the whole thing. What I am suggesting is that everyone should take a peek for a minute or two, and reflect on the transit’s special significance. If such infrequent events did not take place, we probably wouldn’t speak English, nor play cricket.

This should not be regarded as a distraction from the rigid school curriculum, but rather as a multifaceted opportunity to boost the education of our children. It should also be seen as an opportunity for all Australians and New Zealanders to reflect on how their countries became members of the eventual British Commonwealth.

Let me make a few pertinent points, and I’ll let you, dear reader, ponder which of them have significance with regard to many different academic and practical subjects:

James Cook mapped New Zealand and the east coast of Australia, and claimed them for the Crown, as part of his first Pacific expedition in 1768-1771. The primary aim of the expedition was the observation of the transit of Venus from Tahiti in June 1769.

Subjects: history, astronomy, legal studies – was Australia really terra nullius (no-man’s land)?
Cook and colleagues were sent to observe the transit because English astronomer Edmond Halley had suggested, decades before, that it would lead to a better evaluation of the distance to the sun (the Astronomical Unit, or AU).

From that, astronomers and mathematicians would be able to calculate better tables of future positions of the moon, from which seafarers would be able to tell the time and their longitude.

Subjects: mathematics, physics, geography, navigation and mapping.

Captain James Cook was sent to observe the transit of Venus ... mapping (what we now know as) Australia and New Zealand was a bonus.

Although it is often said that Cook needed to travel to the far side of the globe because the transit could not be seen from Europe, that’s incorrect. The transit was shortly before the northern summer solstice, meaning it could be witnessed in its entirety above the Arctic Circle.

The British also sent expeditions to Norway and Canada. King George III saw part of the transit from Richmond, west of London. The French went to Baja California, in the face of Spanish opposition in the Philippines, and also to their Indian Ocean territories.

Cook was sent south, so as to get the parallax for an extreme chord (a straight line joining the ends of an arc) across the face of the sun.

Subjects: geometry, mapping, surveying, seasons and climate.
In 1761 the many transit of Venus expeditions had failed to render useful data with regard to the late Edmond Halley’s concept.

Lesson: don’t be discouraged by your failures – keep trying!
The observations from Cook’s 1769 expedition weren’t accurate enough to fulfil Halley’s requirements either.

Lesson: huge positive returns can be derived from scientific and other high-cost projects even if the original aim fails.
It was three years before Cook returned to England. Many of his men died on the voyage, others were away for longer. The French aristocrat Guillaume Le Gentil was absent from his home country for 11 years, was declared deceased in his absence, and failed to get useful observations in both 1761 and 1769.

However, he did complete invaluable natural history studies in Mauritius and Madagascar.

Subjects: botany, zoology, geology and anthropology.

Vermeer/Wikimedia Commons

As a result of Cook’s arrival in Australia, many places here have linked names: Botany Bay with Cape Solander at its entrance, Cooktown and Green Island in Far North Queensland, and many places both in between and further north and south.

The expedition led to kangaroos getting the name they did, and to the naming of the Banksia plant genus.

Subjects: botany, zoology, geography, geology and history.
Cook lost only a few men to scurvy in 1768-71, his methods of tackling it leading to great improvements in the understanding of the causes of that disease and others.

Subjects: medicine, nutrition and physiology.
There were orders from Cook’s superiors at the Admiralty in London, in a sealed envelope not to be opened until after the transit had passed, instructing him to search for “Terra Australis Incognita”, the great unknown southern land that was believed to exist.

We all know what happened as a result.

Lesson: the stated objective of any human quest may not be the only intent, any more than the Apollo program had a sole aim of letting a few astronauts stroll across the lunar surface.
Two other British transit observers were Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon. In the mid-1760s, between transits, they surveyed the eponymous Mason-Dixon Line which divides the United States into north and south.

Subject: history of the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery.

The next transits of Venus occurred in 1874 and 1882, and were also closely observed. In 1874 Russia alone sent out 26 expeditions, Britain a dozen, the United States eight, France and Germany six each, Italy three and the Netherlands just one.

Good geographical coverage was needed, but since the transit was in December there was a better chance of getting clear skies in the southern hemisphere. As a result, the British sent expeditions to Christchurch in New Zealand, a variety of locations in south-eastern Australia – including the newly-built Sydney Observatory – and several other locations.

The Americans sent expeditions to Beijing (then called Peking), Vladivostok and Nagasaki in the northern hemisphere, to Bluff, Queenstown, the Chatham Islands and several other locations in New Zealand, to Hobart in Tasmania, and even to the windswept Kerguelen Island in the Indian Ocean.

French expeditions went to places such as New Caledonia and Campbell Island and a German expedition went to the Auckland Islands.

Using the data gathered from these observations, the Canadian-American astronomer Simon Newcomb calculated a value for the distance to the sun of 149.59 ± 0.31 million kilometres, a precision of one part in 480.

This was more or less in line with what Edmond Halley had expected almost two centuries before: that a determination of the solar distance to one part in 500 would be feasible.

It took nearly two centuries for Edmond Halley's predictions about the solar distance to be confirmed.

By that time, however, there was no longer any need for the lunar tables that had been Halley’s main motivation.

The development of the marine chronometer by John Harrison (as described in Dava Sobel’s book Longitude) had solved the problem of longitude determination and navigation at sea.

Indeed on his second and third voyages to the Pacific, James Cook had used marine chronometers and sworn by them as the best way to navigate.

In view of the fact I have written above about various spin-offs from the transit of Venus expeditions, there is one final point I might mention.

One big difference from the 18th century observations of Cook and others and those of the 19th century was the advent of photography. Jules Janssen, a Frenchman who observed both the 1874 and 1882 transits, invented a circular glass photographic plate with which, during a transit, he could take up to 60 pictures of the sun – one every second – using a small clockwork mechanism to drive the plate around.

Later, the famous inventor Thomas Edison met Janssen and viewed this apparatus, and it inspired him in the development of the movie camera.

The whole history of the movies was changed by the fact Edison saw how to make a movie camera using a technique developed in order to make measurements of a transit of Venus.

In modern times Venus has been used in a totally different way to get a very precise value for the Astronomical Unit. By bouncing radar pulses off the planet, astronomers have been able to measure its distance from Earth, and then determine the distance from Earth to the sun. By this and other high-tech methods, the modern-day value for the AU has been determined: 149,597,870,700 ± 3 metres.

When Venus slowly edges its way across the face of the sun on Wednesday June 6, I believe everyone should take a peek. Not directly, and certainly not through a telescope or binoculars, but rather using one of the many safe ways of viewing the sun, including eclipse glasses if you have them or projecting an image with a telescope on to a screen.

The simplest way is with a mirror: tape cardboard over all of the mirror except for a square about five or six millimetres wide. Reflect an image of the sun on to a suitable screen several metres away (such as a white ceiling or a piece of paper). The round solar image will be several centimetres across.

That will show you the black blob of Venus in transit, about 4% of the diameter of the sun. It’s your last chance: the next transit of Venus won’t occur until 2117.

So, why not watch it on the evening news, or the internet? I’ll tell you: compare the experiences of watching a football game at home on TV, and at the stadium. The former is more comfortable, and you get a better view. The latter is an entirely different experience, and far more memorable.

Most people only remember ten or 20 distinct days from their schooling, the rest being merged together into a fuzzy whole. The transit of Venus on June 6 should be one day that students never forget.

Further reading:

An upcoming transit – Helen Maynard-Casely

Duncan Steel does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published at The Conversation.
Read the original article.

Gabriel Chocolate, Margaret River

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 13:58:00 +0000

Any foodie travelling south from Perth to Margaret River is likely to have stopped at a variety of places seeking elusive amazing new tastynoms. My recent trip south included several discoveries worth a mention.

The first, and in many ways the most significant is Gabriel Chocolate. All we knew of it was a mark on a map, a splash page we found online and that they had chocolate. When entering the building I glanced through a glass panel and saw sacks. Of cocoa beans. Unroasted.

No one, to the best of my knowledge, roasts cocoa beans in Western Australia. Except me, just once for LOLs.

Gabriel roasts the cocoa, hand sorts, grinds, conchs, tempers and pours. That is, they actually make chocolate, not just blend courveture or enrobe things to make truffles.

Better yet they use single origin cocoa beans of great quality that have characteristic flavours.

It has been open just a matter of weeks and quite obviously they are still just working up the premises which is still requiring finishing touches, but the chocolate...

Yeah, there were maybe a few particles larger than 20 microns that I noticed, and their sample trays had obvious tempering fails but regardless of any minor teething flaws, Western Australia now has a genuine chocolate producer using high quality ingredients and rare bean stocks.

Beside me right now is slightly less than 85g of a bar of Chuao (missing only the little I took for a tiny taste! I could resist no longer), from a remote microclimate region in Venezuala where the beans fetch up to four times market price for their uniform quality. Only 20 tonnes are produced annually and Gabriel in Margaret River managed to acquire one tonne, remarkable for a new company competing for a bean that has been the battleground of Valrhona and Amedei.

This is bean to bar chocolate, superbly prepared and a new chocolate experience. If you are going to Margaret River I think you really need to add a visit to this tiny producer of amazing things.

As a bonus, if you drive out of Gabriel's driveway and into the driveway immediately opposite you will drive into our next discovery - Windows Estate.

Gabriel are located on the corner of Caves Road and Quininup Road in Margaret River and can be contacted on:

Email: heaven@gabrielchocolate.com.au
Phone: 08 9756 6689
Web: http://www.gabrielchocolate.com.au/

Are you reading The Conversation yet?

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 00:12:00 +0000

If not, you really should be - a great selection of well written, logically framed discussions. The following is an article by Aaron Gove, a Research Associate within the Environment and Agriculture department at Curtain University. Published in full under the Creative Commons licensing agreement in place at The Conversation. I highly recommend it as a daily read.

Not just a few beans: the true cost of coffee

Coffee prices are rising again, and you might be wondering how much more you’ll soon pay for your morning coffee.

Although coffee prices are fickle the fluctuations affect most of us very little compared with growers in developing countries, at the end of the supply chain.

You might also be wondering about the prospect of “peak coffee”. Peak coffee (like peak oil) is the point at which the world begins to run out of its global commodity.

But is the supply of coffee really going to run dry?

The good news for coffee consumers is that, empirically, there is little to suggest we’re in the midst of peak coffee.

Coffee production has consistently increased over the past 20 years, and there’s been no significant recent dip in global production.

There’s no evidence to suggest a peak in coffee production (AAP)

This is true for robusta beans (Coffea canephora) and, to a lesser extent, the higher quality Coffea arabica.

But several coffee-growing regions have experienced a run of poor seasons, which is attributed to drought and unpredictable rainfall.

This has occurred across Central and South America, Africa and Asia.

Poor coffee seasons, coupled with the continual rise in coffee consumption, have led to demand exceeding supply and an increase in prices.

It is not yet clear whether these occurrences of drought and unpredictable rainfall are associated with climate change.

But several studies predict that the extent of cool, moist coffee-growing regions will indeed diminish due to climate change.

In the pursuit of favourable climate, plantations will also be forced further up mountainsides, which obviously has its limitations in terms of both land availability and the ability of farmers to migrate.

Like most of the globe’s resources, pressure is put on coffee supply when populations and demand expand. But with increasing demand and higher prices comes new suppliers to the market.

It’s relatively easy to get into the coffee production game. But at what cost? (AAP)

Coffee is a relatively easy market to enter. China, for instance is expanding coffee cultivation at a dramatic rate.

Nepal is also expected to significantly increase coffee cultivation over the next few years – not surprising, given the prospect of climate change and coffee’s need for increasing elevations.

It is difficult to predict the net effect of the two forces of poor seasons and the emergence of new coffee regions.

While some commentators talk of peak coffee, others talk of the next great coffee glut.

The last great coffee glut occurred 10 years ago, and led to a collapse in coffee prices. The situation was widely attributed to the financially-aided increase in coffee production in Vietnam, which almost overnight went from being a minor player to the world’s second largest coffee exporter.

In 2002, Oxfam described the consequences of low coffee prices as “a crisis destroying the livelihoods of 25 million coffee producers around the world."

So, when the price of our cappuccino is low, it comes at a significant cost to the small-scale producers that depend on coffee as a major source of income.

We love a cheap coffee, but the cost to producers is high. (AAP)

Fluctuating coffee prices also have environmental impacts.

For example, rises in local coffee prices (which are basically global coffee prices transformed by currency exchange rates) have been shown to increase illegal deforestation in Sumatra.

In many parts of the world, including Ethiopia (the plant’s indigenous home), coffee is grown beneath a semblance of the original forest canopy, often with a variety of trees and shrubs.

While not as good as the intact forest, shaded coffee serves as habitat for a broad range of species and may help to connect otherwise isolated patches of intact forest.

But when coffee cultivation is intensified, forest trees and all competing shrubs are removed, and pesticides and fertilisers are more frequently applied – and the habitat value is greatly diminished.

These are the sorts of plantations that led to the coffee glut in Vietnam, and are currently expanding in China.

In Ethiopia, many farmers could be driven to convert to intensive coffee cultivation, abandoning shaded coffee, and even abandoning cultivation of staple crops such as corn, if the rewards are high enough.

Shaded coffee plantations are being crowded out of the market. (AAP)

The challenge is to address a balance between maintenance of livelihoods and preservation of natural environments.

Certification programs such as Rainforest Alliance and Fairtrade attempt to address this balance, but they cover less than 20 per cent of global coffee production.

Economist and author Tim Hartford believes that it will take far deeper changes in the globe’s financial divide before coffee farmers ever make a good living.

It’s worth remembering that the consequences of the price of our cup of coffee reach further than the change we give our barista.

This article was originally published at The Conversation. Read the original article.

This is how I make coffee in my office

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 23:26:00 +0000

I have a number of coffee making items in my coffee cupboard. My favourite is the Bodum pourover but the Clever Coffee Dripper runs a close second when I just need a small serve.

Perth Good Food and Wine Show - the Winners

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 01:20:00 +0000

Below is a sample of the best entries to the Perth Good Food and Wine Show Competition - I will contact the winners by email and arrange to get your tickets to you.

The Winners (First name or initials only) are:

Laura
Kelly
Simone
Raymond

Congratulations!

The winning facts were:

"Coffee, after roasting, continues to release carbon dioxide for several days"

"Natural enzyme processes during digestion in the human body produce a normal blood level of formaldehyde of around 2.5 parts per million"

"There are five known tastes: sweetness, bitterness, sourness, saltiness, and umami. The fifth is the most recently recognized basic taste of glutamates and nucleotides."

"Diacetyl, which is produced by fermentation bacteria during coffee processing, gives a rich, buttery aroma!"

The other wonderful new bits of knowledge obtained included:

"Consumed coffee on a daily or almost daily basis had a lower risk of the most common type of liver cancer.."

"It's hard to believe, but Decaffeinated coffee contains caffeine. Although Decaffeinated coffee is five times weaker than regular instant coffee, and three times weaker than Coke, it still contains some caffeine"

"Did you know that coffee was discovered by goats? According to an African legend, coffee was first discovered and brewed in Africa in approximately 800 A.D. According to this legend, an Ethiopian goat-herder, named Kaldi, was frustrated because his goats kept him awake at night. He decided to find out what made them so lively, and discovered that they were eating red berries from a tree which grew in the area. He collected a number of these berries and took them to a local abbot who was reputed to be very wise. The abbot and his monks first roasted and then boiled the berries. They had unwittingly brewed the first coffee! They drank it, enjoyed the taste, and found when they drank it at night that they could pray all night long."

"According to a study conducted in Switzerland by the Nestle Research Centre (recently published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry), coffee has four times the antioxidant content of green tea. Coffee also contains more antioxidants than cocoa, herb teas and red wine. Robusta beans have twice the antioxidants of Arabica beans (although the difference is reduced once they pass through the roasting process)."

"A Polish study has found that the five-minute drinking of 15.0 g of cappuccino coffee increased the amount of saliva, decreased xerostomia, and improved the ability of speech! No more dry mouth!"

"Bananas were noted by Arab traders as small, about the size of a man’s finger, and so called them banan, which means “fingertips” in Arabic. The banana plant is the world’s largest herb and is often mistaken for a tree, but it does not have a woody trunk or boughs."

"There are about 400 species of oak, though only about 20 are used in making oak barrels. Of the trees that are used, only 5% is suitable for making high grade wine barrels. The average age of a French oak tree harvested for use in wine barrels is 170 years!"

"If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee."

And my personal favourite (but didn't make it out of the hat when I wanted it too!)

"Sphenopalatine Ganglioneuralgia - Brain freeze, was invented in 1994 by 7-Eleven to explain the pain one feels when drinking a Slurpee too fast."

Hiding downunder

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:26:00 +0000

At Pranzo this morning Pete was showing me his new pride and joy, which I must confess, was a pretty fine innovation for it's simplicity and the reduction in movement it generates around the espresso machine.

It is a jug washer, plumbed beneath the espresso machine and appears to have improved the functionality of a tight workspace.

I have no idea how many of these are out there in Perth, and I have seen a few fitted in sinks, but this is the first one I have seen mounted under the machine. I suspect it won't be the last such unit.

Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

ClockGoth!

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 00:54:00 +0000

A new term was coined today by Andrew Sharp who appears to be arriving at the realisation that we may be seeing a transition from SteamPunk into something new - Keep an eye out for the term ClockGoth!

We understand the tem came about with the realisation that there is little steam in SteamPunk and even less punk, but amazing quantities of clockwork and goth elements.

Little White Lies

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Tue, 31 May 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Hopscotch films are distributing a new French Cinema hit this month - Little White Lies. A film about fun, fine wine, great food and deception.

I have 5 free double passes to Give away for the Weekend of 10 June - if you would like to win a double ticket to see the film at Cinema Paradiso or Luna simply email the name of one classic French dish or wine to Cafe(dot)Grendel(at)gmail(dot)com.

Competition Closes on Thursday afternoon 2 June to allow time to get the tickets to the Winners.

Free Tickets - Perth Good Food and Wine Show

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Sun, 22 May 2011 23:05:00 +0000

I have four free tickets to the Perth good food and wine show to give away

To enter email to cafe(dot)grendel(at)gmail(dot)com (Replace dot and at words with . and @ symbols...)

In the Subject line of the email please include: Perth Good Food and Wine.

In the email include one interesting food, wine or coffee science fact that you think might be fun to share.

For full program details and dates for the show visit: http://www.goodfoodshow.com.au/perth.asp

A big catchup

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Wed, 18 May 2011 06:49:00 +0000

It has been a busy year so far, but fun in many ways.

One of the highlights of March was being a part of a panel for the Eat.Drink.Fad? Panel Discussion Series hosted by Sophie Sunderland of European Foods and included Hospitality Consultant Wendy Roach, Cafe Citrine owner-operator Tracee Butts, Braziliano coffee coordinator Yvonne Nielsen and Oxford 130/Greens & Co founder Stuart Lofthouse.

Given the make up of the panel it was encouraging to see that there is a common core of desire to ensure that Perth's cafes remain a strong sector, and more importantly provide a space for people to meet and enjoy the social aspects of coffee.

At some point of the discussion I'm pretty sure I staggered into a dull repetition of my "cafe as the Third Place" theme, but my mind was trying to run in too many directions so I hope the audience coped.

John from European Foods took me on a walk through of their new roastery which shifts the balance heavily in moving the coffee out once it is roasted. I snagged a fresh bag of the Silvana Gran Caffe in the gift pack's the panelists received and it was spectacular and really brought home how easy it is to forget that while European Foods might be big, they do know their business. The changes to the roastery have certainly been worth it from a coffee drinker's perspective.

My sister mailed me a bag of coffee from Turkey for my birthday. A light traditional turkish roast, the beans ground to a dry powder, and although stale the taste was highly evocative - the first coffee I ever drank was of that roast and style (and staleness) in Armenia. I enjoyed it regardless for the memories it brought.

June is GiveAway month on Cafe Grendel - I have 4 Tickets to the Perth Food and Wine show to give away, and a special prize that I will announce when I have the prize (cart-horse etc, or is that chickens-hatch... I won't tempt fate either way)

Details of the competition will be announced shortly! It will be simple, I promise.

Why medical research matters - a personal story

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 23:07:00 +0000

We have two sons Junior Grendel Number One - aged 9, and Junior Grendel Number Two, aged 7. They are great boys, full of life, loud, funny, active, farty boys.

Junior Grendel Number One has autism which gives us a few extra things to deal with but he is an amazing child. His brother can insist on attention like no one I have ever seen.

They are amazing and we love them.

On a dark day in 2004 we nearly lost them both to Pneumococcal septicaemia.

The youngest had been ill for a few days and my partner took him to the after hours clinic at Joondalup from where he was admitted directly to the pediatric ward at Joondalup hospital. I left our older son with neighbours and took some clothes and personal items in to the hospital. On my return my older son looked unwell and walking back to our front door he collapsed and started having convulsions. His blue lips triggered a phone call to the ambulance and I could feel he was hot so I stripped him off as far as I could and tried to cool him with a wet cloth.

My partner recieved a frantic call from me telling her, as she sat by the bed of our 10-month old baby, that our two-year old was arriving at the emergency entrance in an ambulance.

The staff wanted a sample of urine from our eldest but he was so unwell that after an hour's debate they decided on a massive dose of antibiotics. Within two hours he had responded and was moved to the wards. Our youngest was a difficult case and it took a week for him to recover to the point where we could take him home.

Their lives were saved by the medical knowledge developed through decades of medical research and the applied research that followed. Doctors only know how to treat these diseases effectively because research has made the discoveries that point the way.

Streptococcus pneumoniae, the bacteria that cause Pneumococcal septicaemia, pneumonia and meningitis are found commonly in the respiritory tract. There is a vaccine available to prevent illness from occuring from the most common strains. The program to commence the vaccination of children was rolled out nationally in 2005. This program will save the lives of children like my boys. It will save parent the trauma we underwent and it will prevent costly hospital intervention and emergency events.

The medical research that leads to vaccines like these is funded through the National Health and Medical Research Council and carried out by organisations and researchers at organisations like Perth's very own Telethon Institute for Child Health Research.

I'm angry by any decision to reduce research funding because as a parent this place me, my partner and our children at risk. As a citizen I know that cuts in research place fellow citizens at risk. As a human I know that the reduction of funding will cost lives, not just here in Australia, but in the developing world where our research has even more significant value, since many countries cannot afford the research infrastructure that we have established.

We can't afford to reduce funding - not from a health outcomes perspective and not from an economic perspective.

Protect Research.

Make your voice heard - Go here - Get Involved and email those who may be about to place your life at risk.

Can they be that stupid? Protect Research!

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 04:24:00 +0000

There are rumours – not denied by the Department for Health and Ageing, that the national budget for biomedical research will be cut when the new Federal Budget is brought down on 10 May 2011.

The estimates are that the cuts will represent 19% of the total budget over three years.

Usually, when a government wants to save a little they just fail to provide any funding growth – not even the small amount of growth to meet the cost of inflation – known as indexation. This forces agencies to operate on a tighter budget – to provide their existing level of service on the same money as the year before. Treasury likes to call this an ‘efficiency dividend’.

Cutting funding to medical research does not deliver an efficiency dividend, it creates a liability. The real cost of health comes when health problems become chronic. Research helps us prevent conditions from becoming chronic, and in some cases provides a cure.

As an example, Kevin Murphy and Robert Topel from the University of Chicago (1999) determined that a 1% reduction in cancer mortality as a result of research would add $500 billion to the US economy.

If we consider the implications of some Australian research efforts we can see similar effects. Understanding that H. pylori is a key cause of stomach ulcers has led to a massive reduction in the cost of health care for a great many people – and increased their economic contribution. It is not just the reduced treatment costs that are the efficiency gain – but the way in which medical research contributes to the return of people with chronic illness to the workforce.

Medical research punches above its weight in contributing to the economy. It is not a budget cost but a budget boost.

But the boost is delayed – and this is where the politics kicks in. The electoral cycle means that governments quite often think short term. They are unlikely to be still in power when the big breakthrough they funded is made and the Nobel prize the enabled may come decades later when the political decision to fund the research is long forgotten.

Governments think short term gain in Australia. We have lost the vision to fund the future and it is a risk to both our health and our wealth.

We will lose talent to Singapore and China, and in the USA where there is still funding but not enough scientists there is a growing need for Australian talent – and we are already experiencing the cost of that.

We are losing researchers from comparatively low-paid but high value research projects to the private sector where the research they do will be of value to the corporation rather than the population.

If the government cuts the budget for research in Australia it will be a clear sign that short term political gain is all they seek from this budget.

That is it for the short version – read on if you dare…

Budgets for agencies are based on maintaining current levels of services, but research budgets are different. Research organisations have some ongoing research projects, but a large proportion of the money is allocated each year by a grants committee that assesses and prioritises research applications – and does so in a way that shapes the future health and wellbeing of the whole community. This happens in an environment of rationing. There are many more research proposals than there are grant dollars available and so the process of allocation of the limited resources always means that promising avenues of research are delayed or abandoned.

Why does that matter? Well, it could be the avenue of research that might have saved you life or the life of your child at some future point – that is speculative certainly, but the point is that increasing funding for research improves our quality of live and our life expectancy in the long term.

Decreasing research funding is unlikely to reduce life expectancy at a general level, but it does mean that some people will die sooner than they would have if research was better funded. Research leads to efficiency – properly funded and supervised research leads to better health outcomes that reduce long-term health costs. The health budget for 2010/11 was $56.88 billion dollars. Just over $700 million was allocated by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NH & MRC) for research in 2009/10 and while the annual report for 2010/11 is not yet available the rate of funding growth to the NH & MRC in the budget was not high, so the figure of just over $700 million is probably still reasonably accurate.

$700 million sounds like a lot, but this represents around 1.2% of the total health budget, tiny, when you consider that some countries allocate a substantially higher proportion to research. As a proportion of the total budget, the funds allocated for biomedical research represent less than 0.2% a tiny cost for massive future economic and health outcomes.

Of that $700 million, there was $383 million for 683 project grants – on average $560,000 per grant. The next largest allocation was $102 million for 10 program grants supporting cutting edge research – at on average $10 million per program. That represented the main allocations and the rest was allocated to support ongoing projects, research fellowships and the development of promising research and researchers. Research funding in allocated in a roughly 50/50 split between biomedical and applied research.

Research is a low political priority, funds can be cut because the government thinks there will be no backlash from the electorate. Utter stupidity. The lack of outcry does not mean a lack of consequences and I suspect that if we raise awareness of these consequences that most Australians would be outraged that this government is potentially going to betray the health of the current youngest generations of Australian’s in order to score cheap – very cheap budget points on 10 May.

The budget process in the Australian Government is a cycle moved apparently more by political whim than by an evidence-based approach that seeks to deliver best value for money for Australian taxpayers. We are quite used to seeing odd little projects funded in discrete electoral areas – the traditional “pork barrel” so beloved by many political sorts.

What tends to get noticed less is where the money comes from in order to allow reallocation of dollars to one project or another. Tax increases are unpopular so generally money is shifted within the budget framework. Reading through each year’s federal budget is a chore, but one that I undertake from budget night each year and the array of small projects quietly funded or de-funded comes with only a cursory explanation. The key word to look for is “efficiency” as this is code for the cessation of funding or a decrease in funding.

It is an odd use of the term. Efficiency should represent a measurable improvement in the use of resources – that is, you should be able to clearly demonstrate how the action outlined will contribute to increased efficiency – this is rarely if ever done in the Federal Budget papers.

This government is not delivering efficiency but stupidity.

For more information go here and read it from the people who's research has been saving Australian lives, and the lives of millions around the world since 1915 - the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research campaign website, Discoveries Need Dollars

For those interested in the economic value of research there is a fair bit out there – one easily accessible estimate model can be found at:
http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/kevin.murphy/research/murphy&topel.pdf

Pumpkin

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:58:00 +0000

I have so many posts in edit that I need to finish and get up, but work has been heavy!

Mostly I want to cover a bit of eatdrinkPerth and a great coffee I had recently that originated in Bolivia.

In the meantime - here is my pumpkin.

It took nearly 12 weeks to grow and after two days there is 1/3 left.

Dinner tonight was roast pumpkin with fried egg.

Nicest damn pumpkin I've ever met. I'll miss it. But after one or two more meals...

EatDrinkFad

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 00:46:00 +0000

Eat.Drink.Fad? Panel Discussion Series

Why is there a Burger Bar on almost every street corner? How important are small bars for Perth’s cultural development? Where will we go for coffee in the year 2020? Join us on Fridays in March to get the answers from the experts!

European Foods are hosting a series of panel discussions throughout March to generate dynamic discussion about trends in Perth’s culinary landscape. Panels of industry and media experts will identify which trends are here to stay, and which ones are passing fads. Members of the public are invited to attend.

So far in the series we have had a discussion on Burger Bars and why they are suddenly proliferating - that discussion included experts such as food writer and critic Marg Johnson, Abstract Gourmet blogger Matt O’Donohue, Flipside’s Hamish Fleming and Missy Moo’s Emily Mansbridge.

The was the session on small bars that included the Small Bar Association’s Paul Fowler, the Australian Hospitality Association’s Paul Brockechlager, local food editor, writer and critic Jane Cornes, Helvetica’s David Gillman and Gary Beadle of Bar 399 and Five Bar in a dynamic discussion about how small bars are redefining nights out in Perth.

Finally, this Friday will see Cafe 2020 where panellists such as West Coast Institute of Training Lecturer Wendy Roach, Cafe Grendel coffee blogger Michael Carroll, and Greens & Co and Oxford 130’s Stuart Lofthouse forecast what we’ll do for coffee in 2020. If the 1980s was the decade of the frothy, Monto Bianco style cappuccino, and the 1990s was about the domination of the latte, the twenty-first century turned to alternative brewing methods such as the siphon. What will 2020 bring?

When: This Friday, 25th March, 3-4pm.

Where: European Foods is located at 95 Aberdeen St, Northbridge. Phone 9227 2296.

Online: Stream the sessions live at: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/eat-drink-fad

Koko Black Claremont

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 12:19:00 +0000

Today I was a guest of Shane Hills and the team at Koko Black. It was a revealing and extraordinarily delicious window into Koko Black's bold move across the Nullabour. The Claremont store is located in the New Claremont shopping centre, an upmarket venue but one in which the stylish design of the store will fit in nicely.

Although I had tried samples, I was not sure just how the experience at the new store would live up to what I hoped to find. Certainly I had an open mind, but I was very pleased to find that the product and the approach exceeded my expectations.

Actually, for the pre-opening visit today the decor was hard to imagine, the store was in its final fit-out stages with a horde of frantic tradies edging their way between us and the staff. Apparently though, it will all be completed tonight in time for the opening tomorrow. Between the tradies and their tools and the boxes of furnishings, the final look of the store was not even possible to imagine.

Most people though will go for the chocolate over the decor - and so they should. We were treated first to the two specialty truffles that will be made in the store using Western Australian ingredients. First the stout truffle using stout malt and then the Truffle (a capital T truffle!) using WA truffles as a subtle ingredient.

Both of these were stunning and followed by tastes of the milk and dark single origin chocolates.

The highlight however, and what is sure to be a great attraction, was the Queen of Hearts High Tea, a selection of sweet and savoury treats that was genuinely first class and served with a Belgian hot chocolate that was probably the best I have had in Australia.

It was a far cry from the chocolate experience that most of us have and I think Koko Black will be a fin addition to the WA food scene. It is good to find a company who respect the freshness of their ingredients and use the advantage of that in their products. These are not chocolates you can put away for a long periods of time, they are a fresh food and need to be used within a week or so of purchase, but they are delectable.

I predict that this winter, the experience of the high tea - especially with friends, will be something that many people will come to enjoy.

I enjoyed it so much that we are going back next week - and I think we need a Perth Food Blogger's meetup at Koko Black ASAP!

Koko Black Claremont opens 22 March. I'd head down in the afternoon to be sure they have had time to get the full display of treats into the cases

It is in the Lane, in Claremont Quarter on St Quentin Avenue
www.kokoblack.com

Hours of operation (seriously impressive! late not choc treat anyone?):

Monday – Thursday (8:00am – 10:00pm)
Friday (8:00am – 11:00pm)
Saturday (9:00am – 11:00pm)
Sunday (10:30am – 10:00pm)

I think we need a Perth Blogger's meetup at Koko Black ASAP

One Month? You can't be serious!

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 00:35:00 +0000

Prepare for chocolate posts! One month before easter and the inevitable consumption of the delectable results of roasted and conched beans from the Theobroma cacao plant.

Today I am off to Koko Black for a first pre-opening glimpse into a world, that for once, comes to Perth before Sydney. The slight frisson of parachial glee notwithstanding it will be interesting to see how Koko Black fare over the Easter season.

Perth's overly sweet tooth has been needing some exposure to the less-sweet side of chocolate and hopefully Koko Black will offer some of that.

The Koko Black publicity team sent me some teaser photos of their Easter goodies, I have reproduced a bunny below for your salivating pleasure:

As always, I am interested in the origin and the provenance of specialty products. This fascination started with coffee and has continued with chocolate. I asked Koko Black about the origins of their beans and they acknowledge that as a small, and relatively new company they are still at several steps removed from the cocoa buying process. They have certainly built relationships with suppliers that have a reputation for ethical practices in cocoa buying. They also have a plan to move more closely into the production chain and shorten the links between their company and the producers. This is encouraging news and certainly reflects the ideal of ensuring both quality and ethical standards.

As for the product itself - that will have to wait for this afternoon!

Japan

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 23:54:00 +0000

My condolences to the Japanese people and to all those who have lost family and friends. The magnitude of the disaster is terrible. They few people I know in Japan are not in the North East and are safe.

Japan is renowned for its ability to respond to disasters, but the sheer enormity of what has occurred and is occuring is making it difficult for them to respond in proportion to the events.

Japan is also home to many coffee enthusiasts and many Australian coffee lovers will be familiar with Hario glass products - based in North West Tokyo where the quake would have been felt strongly.

Like the quake in Christchurch, Twitter has been a valuable tool and google have once again created a people finder.

Hashtags to follow quake related events are #japan, #japanquake and #tsunami

Google's emergency response page is located at: http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html

The Future of Specialty Coffee

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 13:20:00 +0000

What is the future of specialty coffee?

And what will cafes be like in 9 years time in 2020? How about in 19 years from now in 2030?

Will espresso reign supreme or will we have some other way to extract coffee from the coffee bean?

Questions! I need ideas, answers if you have the gift of future sight!

More to follow on the 'why' during next week!

Off-the-shelf ciders

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 10:10:00 +0000

With still a dozen ciders still to taste, here is a cider map I have been working on from a tasting sessions I have had over the last few weeks. I have some local ciders to try, but the ones on the map are the ciders most commonly available in Perth:

Click to embiggen!

EatDrinkLowdown

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 13:04:00 +0000

Coffee education is important.

Education generally is right up there on my list of priorities and science educations probably highest of all, but coffee follows pretty high on my personal list.

People teaching me about coffee is something I enjoy, and I like to pass on the information - via this blog or other forums.

Last night at Lowdown was enjoyment and education rolled into one. Mark and Adam Lowes hosted the event presented by Kamran and Louise of Fiori Coffee. It was a great opportunity to learn more, and in one of Perth's best small cafes.

Lowdown have been innovative since their beginning and continue to bring a passion to coffee that is welcome in the CBD.

Lowdown, and Fiori Coffee are exemplars of why events like EatDrinkPerth will grow from year to year, quality, commitment and the willingness to share their love of all good things.

EatDrinkBlogPerth

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 08:55:00 +0000

I need to prepare for the caffeine of tonight's coffee tasting. Best not to try in on an empty stomach I think.

Yarraloch Viognier (2007)

Green olives

Spiced cashews and almonds

In an alley.

In Perth.

Three years ago this was almost unthinkable - except that Clare of TigerTiger was thinking it and advocating it. Because of her, and others of similar gumption we can celebrate EatDrinkPerth in proper style.

Location:TigerTiger

EatDrinkPerthCoffee

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 01:04:00 +0000

Perth’s evolution as a food and coffee haven has been rapid and supported by an existing network of lovers and creators of great food.

Recent changes permitting more activities on the street and in laneways have been timely and effective and Perth’s small but thriving café and small bar scene is showcasing the best regional offerings.

Coffee, locally roasted and prepared by skilled baristas is at artisan levels in Perth and we hold our own with the rest of the country in that regard.

The key to both the coffee and the food is innovation and the last decade has seen the daytime lunch shift from the staple ham and cheese toasted sandwich to innumerable options for those seeking something more creative than that venerable lunchtime standby.

For me, the one daily essential is coffee, and West Perth has some favourites that rival the great venues in the CDB and surrounds and I recommend a short CAT ride up the hill to try these cafes and enjoy the different experience you will have in each.

In fact I think this calls for a coffee crawl, starting at Pranzo on Colin Street for a coffee with an early morning muffin hot from their oven. They use Fiori Coffee – a special blend developed for the café.

Moving then to The Food Store on Hay Street to try their Rubra blend and whatever small sweet treat they have dreamed up for the day before heading over to Epic on Outram Street for a ristretto, or if it is a hot day, perhaps a cold filter iced coffee or a fabulous affogato using the 5 Senses single origin of the day.

You can complete the circle at Pony Expresso in Mayfair lane, feasting your eyes of the gleaming coffee god that is the Slayer espresso machine and enjoy the custom Crema blend that Garrett uses.

Each of these cafés has their own specialty and their own charms and I recommend trying all of them to help you decide where your own preferences lie. The coffee that the cafes serve is locally roasted to a different style that highlights the enjoyable aspects of the diversity within the coffee industry.

Given that this month is dedicated to a celebration of all things locally comestible – get out there and sample your way to caffeinated bliss!

Christchurch

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 02:38:00 +0000

My thoughts are with the people of Christchurch in New Zealand today. It is a great city with warm friendly people and a fantastic cafe scene. There have been deaths and injuries today as a result of the latest earthquakes to hit.

I know a few people over there - I hope they are ok but communications are not great at present and the government is asking people not to call on the phone as the phone system is required for emergencies.

ABC news24 has live streaming coverage of the quake and has lifted the usual geographic block of the ABC News24 service so that people can access information.

Once again twitter seems to be one of the more reliable ways to access information fast: http://canterburyearthquake.org.nz/

Hashtags to use are: #eqnz and #chch

Best wishes to all those who have friends and family and Christchurch.

Random Coffee Googlings

noreply@blogger.com ("Grendel") — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 00:02:00 +0000

I play with numbers quite a bit and this morning as a warm-up exercise for some serious number play I did a comparison of various search terms including the word coffee.

The world loves coffee far more than it hates coffee.

But we already knew that.

Click to embiggen!