WTC Wharf

After our initial visit to South Wharf and the new DFO shopping centre, a few days later I returned to the area for a slower look around the World Trade Centre Wharf. It was Oaks Day. Flinders Street was abuzz with people going off to the horse races but there was decent number flowing into So Cross Station too. A very good train service was being provided, with a train every couple of minutes and people being marshalled via PA to stand at an end of the platform and get into certain carriages.

Opinions are now being expressed on South Wharf and the new DFO store. Take a look here and here and our own visit here. While it is not far from the nearest tram line, there certainly doesn't seem to feel like there is any effort by DFO to attract anyone from the tram lines. No obvious connection at all. I will go out on a limb and suggest that if there is not a quick increase in activity in that area, DFO will fail at this location. From the tram, you must cross a wide and busy road, wind around a couple of buildings, cross the river on this bridge, then walk along the river bank.


Plenty of work is happening on the World Trade Centre Wharf. It might be quite good when it is done. The eateries inside the WTC were quite busy.

Just for Jahteh, I took this closeup photo of the fish. The ever so clever Altissima guessed that they are old Commonwealth Games river fish and that makes sense to me. I found a few more along a short lane.


I am really not sure, but I think this barge might have something to do with putting a new sewerage trunk line under the river.


Back on my way into the city I stood on a corner and looked at this new apartment building and how close it is to the railway line. A few metres from the balconies, a train passes by. Trains are not quiet beasts. Even with double glazing, the occupants would have to hear the trains, or feel the vibration surely. As for the balconies, well, would they really be usable?

An Outing and I'm Not Racsist But

It was my ABI brother's fiftieth birthday last week. In case you have forgotten, ABI is Acquired Brain Injury. I no longer refer to him as brain damaged brother. He hired a venue last night for a party and we attended, as did most of our family, along with his friends. It was an ok night, although very late for Little Jo to stay up. R looked after her today while Sister and Bone Doctor went to some hockey match in Parkville and they both fell asleep together on the bed. Once again I was working.

Mother looked very nice in her $10 Savers dress. Step Mother came down from Echuca way by train for the occasion. Tradie Brother got quite drunk. Par for the course. Sis in Law and Tradie Brother's girl friend did not speak but nor did they come to blows. Mother and Step Mother are long past that point. Caught up with Dreaded Nephew for the first time since his return. We brought him back into town to catch up with friends at Riverland Bar. Nice chat in the car on the way back. Good kid and much more mature since his return from old Blighty. His two sisters worship him.

Remember, well I can hardly, but when ABI brother was on tv show earlier this year. Something about a gang of interstate girls meeting up with some local Pakenham guys. The guy who was with my brother when the show was screened was there. He was the same one ABI brother did the Ashes cricket tour with. I met him and his girlfriend.

Now she was interesting, if a bit challenging. Via ABI brother, they both knew rather a lot about me. She invaded my personal space just slightly. Not too badly, but enough for me to note a slightly visible moustache. Maybe she had a wrong impression of me from what my brother had said and she spoke a little too frankly.

"I am not a suburb snob, but truly coming out here to Pakenham is the pits." The obvious response was "Ah, so where do you live?" "Yarraville". I refrained from making a remark about what Eastern Suburbs folk might have thought of Yarraville twenty or thirty years ago. I think I made positive comments about Yarraville and Williamstown. Bah, she probably lives in Spotswood. (can a young person tell me if meh is an appropriate alternative to bah?)

She did seem like she would be good fun though, but as nominated driver, I wasn't there to have fun. She had not finished there. Slight paraphrasing follows.

"You know your work, well, how do you deal with all your co-workers? I am not racist, but......". I lack the energy to fight the good fight on much more than a non emptied rubbish bin these days. I just replied along the lines, "Well, they are rather like us actually, except a bit different".

She still hadn't finished. Sheesh, I only spoke to her for five minutes. She was surprised that I did not give her the obvious answer about the biggest problem I have in my work place. My reply was my workmates and their work performance, rather than very obvious things that most people, and she, suspect.

Thinking back on it now, I guess she had had a decent drink.

ABI used to drink heavily but no longer does since his accident some ten years or more ago. But last night, he drank a lot of beer. Tradie Brother and his girlfriend were staying the night at ABI brother's place. None of them had cars there, but I was very insistent about them getting a cab home and not walking and crossing Princes Highway in a less than sober state.

Families, who'd have 'em. Well I would really. You know who you are and your simple remark made me appreciate my brothers and sister more. I am fortunate indeed.

Little Jo went off when Mama Mia came on the Juke Box. Her eyes even went weird.

Missed a bit

When I painted the roof of our house in Balaclava and I ran out of paint, I thought does not matter. No one can see this bit from any angle. I did not foresee Google satellite or the even better nearmap.com

Cricket

Not too often I write about cricket. The cricket on the radio in the background can be ok provided the commentators don't start yelling or get overexcited. I find it quite soporific.

My mind switches from a hot Aussie day with everyone trying to find shade while the match is played, to a game on an English village green, with polite clapping and dozing off in the sunshine.

Then there are memories of childhood cricket games in the back yard with so much energy expended and biffing my brother on his scone with a stump.

I had interesting responses when I wrote about my brother going to the Ashes in England earlier this year and various cricket grounds, and in another about Henry Blofeld.

I have recently read that the marvellous Bellerive Oval in Hobart, Tasmania has had night lighting installed, possibly the last of the major cricket grounds to do so. As I noted in a post, it must be in one of the best settings in Australia.

I listened a bit to the cricket in Adelaide yesterday. There was, guessing here, a West Indian commentator. He was amusing, clear speaking and knowledgeable. I did not catch his name. Who was he?

And to throw in a bit of depravity, I think Shane Warne is hot.

This is where I may get things wrong. A month or so ago Sheffield Shield cricket was being played. It is an interstate competition and very few people were going to see it, in spite of tickets costing less than $10. I believe one game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground with its capacity for 100,000 spectators, had less than two thousand.

Full of knowledge about cricket, I have the answer. Forget about charging. Throw open the gates to all and sundry and play these games at friendly local cricket grounds. A Sheffield Shield match played at the glorious Junction Oval might even have me sitting in the Blackie Ironmonger stand. Just give me a nudge if I snore.

Tiger Teeth

I am not convinced that it was a good idea for Victoria to pay $3.5 million to Tiger Woods for him to visit here to play in a competition. Y'know, it is a competition. Prize money and all that. It no doubt amused a few, but caused endless headaches for people trying to go about their business in the area when Tiger was playing. In spite of the money he was paid, the he would not even visit the burnt out town of Marysville for a charity golf match. Was that to be an extra $500k?

I will ignore the elephant in the room and just talk about teeth. I like a nice set of teeth. I like white teeth. Some black people and some Asian people seem to have natural extra white teeth. But there is such a thing as teeth being too white.

American tv shows often have people with teeth that are too white. I not like.

On one side of the Atlantic you have England and their teeth are just teeth, and just very natural on the whole (Queen in waiting excepted. I respect her her for not having them fixed). On the other side of the Atlantic you have the US, and from what I see in tv shows, many have scarily white teeth. Was it Farah Fawcett Majors who started this?

So aren't Tiger's teeth just that too bit white, especially considering where they might have been. Funny, I like black guys and I like Asian guys, but Tiger just does not do it for me at all.

Indiana Hoosier

Well, I know where Indiana is but I have no idea what a hoosier is. I could look it up, but that is no fun, so tell me. I am sure a hoosier doesn't make hosiery. Here is clue. My US spell checker wants me to give it a capital H.

It comes from the title of a book our friend in Japan sent me for my birthday in October. I am such a slack reader these days, it took me nearly a month to read it and it is not large. The full title is, An Indiana Hoosier in Lord Tsugaru's Court.

The book is a US citizen's views on Japan as a resident for twenty odd years. He lives in the same village in northern Japan as our friend. It was a good read and for anyone who is thinking of visiting Japan, highly recommended.

Naturally it is written from an American perspective and so some is a little foreign to us down under.

Here a just a few of the many chapter subjects. Most chapters are only a couple of pages, making it an easy read.

Public Transport
Toilets (of course)
Postal and Parcel Services
Gift Giving
Divorce in Japan
Valentine's Day
Net Cafe Refugees
Student Suicides
Harvest Time
Recycling
and many travel hints.

One of the saddest chapters was one about adoption. Essentially, Japanese couples do not adopt children, meaning there are many children brought up in orphanages. I am sure the question of gay couples adopting children would be very alien. Our federal opposition leader Abbott would thoroughly approve. He would much prefer a child to be brought up in an orphanage than with gay couple.

Poisoned Chalice

Once again a woman has been appointed as Premier of a state, in this case NSW, when the present government cannot possibly be re-elected. Denials that she won't be a puppet of the right wing of the NSW Labor Party don't convince me and probably no-one else either. How should we say it? Premier Keneally has been Kirnered? Or Lawarenced?

Yesterday I was very proud to receive recognition by my union for my thirty year membership, yet I say without hesitation, ex NSW Premier Rees only came across as union thug in a suit.

The last Premier of NSW, Iemma, was rolled by the left wing of the party because of his plans for privatisation of electricity generation in the state. The only ever elected female premier in Australia, Anna Bligh of Queensland, has lost much of her popularity for similar reasons.

From our Victorian experience of privatisation of power generation and delivery in Victoria, you will get a much worse service and now the companies want us to pay them to not pollute the air!

People do not want basic services privatised. What they want is good management of utilities by answerable governments. Good managers work with unions and good unions work with management. At times it might be necessary to make stands, but generally workers via their unions and management get along much better than they ever have in Australia's history.

So Ms Keneally is the sacrificial lamb and I would suspect one of her orders before the government falls is to privatise power and maybe more.

The Last Tram from Clapham

The kind of intact Kingsway tram tunnel can still be seen in London. It was much celebrated by The Goons with their comedy radio piece, The Last London Tram. I have it as MP3 file. Can't recall where I found it but I am sure it is not hard.

The essence of the story was that two and a half years after London's tram system was closed down and the office was being wound up, a pin was discovered on a board indicating there was a tram still in the Kingsway tunnel around two years after the tram system closed. Sure enough, there was, complete with driver and conductor. They also had a passenger who refused to disembark because he had paid his fare to a place but the tram was to run to the depot as the last London tram. The driver and conductor refused to move the tram without a guarantee of a ceremony. Very amusing.

I am not sure about all of London's trams, but certainly the tram that ran through the tunnel was powered via a conduit between the rails and not by overhead wiring.

The tunnel ran from Southampton Row near Holborn Station along the length of Kingsway to emerge under Waterloo Bridge on the north bank of the Thames River. Some of the tunnel has been used for a motor car tunnel, but much is still intact.

What a marvellous thing to still be in situ in London, but London was not alone with having trams running in tunnels. Sydney trams after crossing the Harbour Bridge ran in tunnels to terminate at Wynyard Station. The Sydney tunnels are still there. One is used for carparking. I surprise myself. I have written about the Sydney tram tunnels before.

You can read of an exploration of the Kingsway tunnel here.

I believe this tram is descending into the Kingsway tunnel. How can you tell? Originally single deck trams ran in the tunnel but later curves on the roof were removed to allow double deck trams to use the tunnel.


It is locked off now, but this is the tunnel entrance
You can see it here with Google's Street View.


View Larger Map

Bank Statement

How long have I been saving those receipts I receive when using my credit or eftpos cards? Ever since plastic cards have been around, so a good while.

My first card was a BankCard, a bank credit card, with only a five hundred dollar limit. Now I think one of a few I have has a $26,000 limit. The less credit I use, the more the banks increase my limits. Pity they didn't when I needed them to.

Each month when the credit card or savings account statement arrives, I check the slips of paper off against the statement and also check my payslips off against the statements.

I have just stopped this month. I have never found an error in the bank's favour and perhaps two errors in my favour. Retailer loss there I think.

So when I am using an auto teller, I no longer request a receipt and I throw the slips from retailers away.

I will keep some as proof of purchase. I will keep them when I travel overseas. I will keep some to remove petrol vouchers. I will still carefully peruse my banks statements, but otherwise life will be just that tiny bit easier.

So am I the last person ever to save the little slips of paper and check them off against my bank statements?

Never mind a week

It would seem that a day is a long time in polictics. The leader of Her Majesty's Opposition Party in Australia is the the Mad Monk, Tony Abbott.

It must be nearly ten years ago that our friend in western Victoria reckoned Abbott was hot and that he would like to tie him up and do unspeakable things to him. Perhaps he could have started with some wax strips.

Should Abbott ever become Prime Minister, I will be off to New Zealand.

Hawkie summed up rather well when asked what he thought of Abbott as opposition leader. Temporary. We can only hope.

Pic from New Matilda.

The hair Blanche. Do something

Wot you sayin? I looked gay even when I was young? No-one took photos of me in overalls. Note AWA Deep Image black and white tv, Wonderheat slow combustion heater, deer hide lounge suite, and Ktel record changer sitting on the HG Palmer Hi Fi record player and radio. The Bone Doctor has been busy scanning some of Mother's old photos.

We had a big lounge room which we never used. Instead we used the dinette where we never dined and it looks very like a lounge room.