Becoming immune

I have becoming very annoyed with the proliferation of phishers of my blogs. Leave my blogs alone. I have been severely inconvenieced and cannot access my blogs. It is like having my limbs cut off. I am not happy Google.

2011, a new year of Disasters

I am writing this post today in retrospective of the horrific disasters, both the Christschurch earthquakes causing trauma to Australia's closest neighbour. It is important to talk about this disaster first as prelude to the worst disaster in Japan's history. It as been pointed out to me that Japan sent all its well-trained, disaster rescue personnel to Christschurch and it took some valuable time for them to come home and take care of its own troubles and trauma. It loooks to me that any survivors in the worst affected areas would have to be extremely lucky. This is very significant and I hope that nations will learn a lesson from this. I am not saying that countries should be stingy and not assist others but it will be crucial to leave the bulk of one's facilities at home, after all, charity begins at home, doesn't it?

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2011

JVC Gibbs copyright 2010

JVC Gibbs copyright2010

Let me ask you nicely to  look forward to this new year in anticipation with the same wonder, enthusiasm and openness of a child. Given of course that this child, for the sake of conversation, led a safe, happy and secure life.

In retrospect, I also found it (looking at the prospect of a new year through a child's eyes) fascinating if I look back at the dying days of December 2010. Remember how miserable, gloomy and wet those days have been?

I think it reflected faithfully how sad and somber I felt for the year that has been. It has been a year full of promises, of luck, love & prosperity but none has been forthcoming.

Every year, I hoped that it will be different, each one starting with bright optimism  but then by June the year never fails to get rather shabby  and doldrums flood. Then for some reason, as soon as the month has a 'ber' at the end of the name, we all seem to have collective amnesia and hope springs out of the barren and frigid July  and August. Why ever not?

The answer is very simple. Summer will come again and the sun cheers up Australians like the 'Go Aussie Go' jingle. Nothing dark and evil ever happens under the blue, sweltering southern sky, or does it? The deaths and  devastations of bushfires says it all.

To make this sweet short story even shorter, let me recall for you how quickly we forgot the gloom and we hear no more of the sad litany of rain on a galvanised iron roof. Instead we hear of sunburn, mozzie bites,  hats, cricket,  vomit on trains, seagulls (How come we never see seagulls when it is cold and dreary?), cicadas in the afternoon, barbies, crook tummy from the food left out too long out of the fridge,  salads with fetta, cucumbers & tomato but called all sorts of continental names instead to sound posh (and pretentious), sunburn flaking off, full cafes and people waiting for tables in vain, people wearing skimpy clothing that should not have seen the light of day, sickies and other stuff you only hear about downunder but you get the drift mat'. I am now drifting into a sad parody of  the written equivalent of the Aussie twang or that rising intonation, turning every statement into a question. 

So, I would better stop here while I am ahead. Oh well, I was looking at this new year through a child's eyes but the one which was once inside me is rolling his eyes at me right now.

ANMM volunteers Christmas party, 2010

Summer berries with vanilla mascarpone

Have you ever been to a function and the food is attractive and appetising, you feel that you would rather look at it than eat it? I did! I went to the Australian National Maritime museum volunteers christmas party 2010 at the Bayside gallery, Darling Harbour. The view was absolutely stunning, the people I sat with, Mr & Mrs Flavin, were charming and interesting, (who also happened to win one of the door prizes, courtesy of Captain Cook cruises), and that memorably and finally, the food was divine. I think that when it comes to the aesthetics of food presentation, it is the plating in regards to colour and plate that appeals to the eye and the nose is the key. It certainly was not disappointing to the tongue as well.