Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race

(Click to enlarge)

The annual Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race gets underway today on Sydney Harbour. The starting gun is fired at 1pm on Boxing Day.

Photograph taken from my balcony several minutes after the gun with the fleet sailing up the harbour (away from the camera) towards Sydney Heads (to the right of the photo) where the yachts enter the Pacific Ocean for the trip down the east coast of mainland Australia, across Bass Strait, down the east coast of Tasmania, into the Derwent River and on to Hobart (Capital city, State of Tasmania).

Yes, it is gloomy and rainy this Boxing Day in Sydney.

G#$gle!

I tried out Google Chrome for several weeks and was happy with it initially. Sure there were some irritations; mainly layout differences from 'standard' Google which seemed cosmetic differences to me rather than user improvements but I quickly became used to them. After a while though I tired of the extra steps needed to scroll through long lists of favourite sites.

So, on Christmas Eve I uninstalled Chrome. Now it might be a coincidence but since that 'uninstallation' - is there such a word? - I have new problems.

For one thing I am having formatting difficulties creating new Blogger posts. Line alignment, font style and size have all gone awry at different stages.

Secondly, I can't get to my Hotmail email from the Windows Live Messenger box. Currently I have to Google my mail box.

Life was so simple before computers.

And on Christmas Eve, Santa revealed himself

Tiny squares in rectangles

Tiny squares in rectangles. That's mostly what I find now when I try to retrieve the videos I have downloaded from my new Sony Handycam.

Not very handy, I must say.

It is most disappointing. When the videos are first downloaded I can play them and despite my poor camera skills the quality of the High Definition images is fantastic. But try to retrieve the videos after they have been saved (in something called m2ts format) and all I get most of the time is a %#@*%^& tiny square inside a rectangle. I tried to copy one for this post but the only thing that survived the paste was the rectangle.

I'll try the handbook again but if any reader can explain what needs to be done in simple language I will be very grateful.

Bah humbug and a Merry Christmas for those who are celebrants.

Christmas Eve at the beach

I tried out my new video camera whilst waiting at Bondi Beach for the Icebergs Club to open. I was there to my renew my membership for next year.

It was just after 10am and the temperature was already at 30c (86f). Hordes of British backpackers were arriving for their ritual down under beach Christmas activities and I imagine many would have been as red as beetroots by the afternoon.

I'm very much a novice with the video and need more work steadying the camera and on the zoom facility. Unfortunately the high definition quality of the video was lost in transferring the video to You Tube but this is the only way I could find to download the video to my blog.

The building that I zoom in on at the end of the video is the Icebergs Club. The name of the club is clearly visible in the HD quality video but not so here.

Chocolate overdose

One of the nice things about volunteering is the generosity of employers, workmates and others who show appreciation for our efforts with end of year gifts.

This year at both the hospital and the nursing home I have received an embarrassing amount of gifts. I've even received a gift from an inpatient simply because she felt I put her at ease on her admission; that is, just for doing my job. The gifts include several hampers of goodies and far too many chocolates, the latter testing my sweet tooth addiction to the limit.

I'm sharing the chocolates around and trying not to get too big a head in awareness (to paraphrase Sally Field) that 'they appreciate me, the really appreciate me'.

The Damned United

(Derby County v West Ham United 12 April 1975)

When I lived in London in 1974/75 I took to following the Derby County Football Club. It was a fortuitous selection as they won the English Championship whilst I lived there, yet Chelsea, whose home ground was around the corner from my flat, were relegated. I can't recall the reasons why I chose to support Derby County although my interest in a sporting team often arose from how good its players looked so that was probably a big influence on me at the time. I tend to be very loyal in my sporting allegiance and still take an interest in Derby County to this day.

At the time one of the most famous football managers and media personalities was Brian Clough, an opinionated and egocentric individual whose glittering playing career had been cut short by injury and who had managed my now favourite club from the doldrums of lower divisions to a Championship a few years earlier.

In 1974, Brian Clough was appointed manager of Leeds United, then the powerhouse of English football much as Manchester United is today. It proved to be a disastrous appointment. Clough was sacked after just forty-four days in the position. It is this story and the lead up that are depicted in The Damned United.

Michael Sheen portrays Clough in an interesting study of genius, ambition, envy and revenge. The film does not require any knowledge of soccer; in fact the game itself only features occasionally. Sheen certainly is a versatile actor having recently played Tony Blair in The Queen and a vampire (I believe) in New Moon.

The film is also a fascinating reminder of the extent to which big time sport has changed in the intervening years.

Ironically, nowadays Derby County has dropped back into the second tier of English football whilst Leeds United is competing in an even lower division, albeit currently it's leader.

Now boarding at Gate Z279

(The New Yorker)

I'm glad that for the first time in three years I'm not travelling this Christmas.

Please sir, I want no more...

This is a bad time of year for moderate eating and my last three days have been particularly over the top.

The Day Care Centre held its seasonal lunch on Wednesday; a buffet groaning under the weight of mainly seafood dishes. It was only the need for we able bodied volunteers to help serve the respite care guests that prevented a full scale assault on the table. It is extraordinary how some older people can turn into raiding marauders when offered a buffet of goodies.

The next day it was the Hospital's turn to provide a seasonal lunch for the volunteers. Once again a mainly seafood offering except this time the food was delivered to the table groups on platters, thus avoiding a Normandy landing type assault on the food. The service was loving if a bit haphazard. The Caesar Salad dressing arrived after the dessert whilst Ham and Turkey appeared well after the main course offerings. It would be churlish, though, to criticise such a generous offering and we had a fun time with our fellow volunteers.

Then last night I completed the week at dinner with a group of former work colleagues who selected a modest looking Thai restaurant at Newtown, Maggie's On Enmore, which served a delicious series of dishes. Thankfully, in light of the previous days, there was little seafood in the selection this time. By coincidence another, even larger, group of former colleagues was dining at the adjoining table so the reunion proved to be a much bigger night than expected.

I need to show some moderation this weekend.

And so say all of us

Avatar 3D

In the year 2154, Earth has nearly been destroyed and some remnants of the population are attempting to displace the natives of the planet Pandora so as to get access to a valuable resource. This is the premise of the two hours and forty-five minutes long extravaganza Avatar which I saw today in Imax and 3D formats.

Actually, the plot details, it's consistency and logic, are of little importance. This is a large screen computer game where effects and imagination are the driving forces. On that score this is a very impressive film. It is the first time I have seen a feature film in 3D and it is certainly an involving experience. I felt myself dodging flying debris and other elements that appeared to shoot out from the screen and as no doubt countless others know you feel you can almost touch things that appear in the foreground of the action. The special effects truly are 'special'; not a single clunky one to be seen. The High Definition quality of the screening is excellent.

Australia's Sam Worthington is the hero, an injured Marine, who with others provides his 'genomes' and brain power to drive 'Avatars' to replicate and mix amongst Pandora's natives. The storyline of powerful forces attempting to take possession of the resources of others, as fanciful as this one seems on the surface, is an eerie coincidence given the film's release at the very time of the international climate discussions taking place in Copenhagen.

As wonderful as the movie is to view, it gave me a headache; a product of an at times noisy soundtrack, the 3D glasses that felt heavier on my face as the minutes passed and some slight motion sickness from the 3D effects.

An unbearable loss

An acquaintance of mine has lost her only child, a son aged 22. He was holidaying in England and in circumstances not fully known to me he walked across a railway line not aware of the electrified third rail system operating there. He was electrocuted.

I feel for the grieving parents but am unable to conjure any words of comfort for them in those circumstances.

Hark! the carols ring out loud...

(Stock image)

I had imagined that at 3.30pm two Tuesdays out from Christmas I would not find the monster mall up the road from me at Bondi Junction too crowded with seasonal shoppers. I was wrong.

The warning signs were there with the queue of cars into the car park; itself renowned as one of the most frustrating mazes in Sydney. As it was a parking space magically fell vacant for me only ten minutes into my search for one. Then followed an interminable wait for the lift to the shopping levels. Thankfully the one that eventually arrived was not packed with mothers and their triplet size prams nor with families steering shopping trollies overloaded with a month's supply of food that would feed the entire US army in Afghanistan.

My own modest purchase of Belgian chocolates - a rather mundane seasonal present for a friend - was accomplished comparatively quickly followed by the completely unnecessary impromptu purchase of chocolate creams to assuage my sweet tooth.

I should have made a hasty retreat to my car at that point but I am easily seduced by those familiar Christmas Carols broadcast across the mall and they were sounding especially joyous this afternoon. So I hung around a while just listening to a few, humming along until the realisation that I was in danger of further impulse purchases not to mention losing complete track of where I had parked.

I then made as speedy a departure as queues, lifts, car park boom gates and exit traffic lights would allow.

I'm ready for my close up...

This is my latest spur of the moment purchase; a Sony video camera. Just call it a Christmas present to myself.

The salesman, with the New Zealand accent, assured me that it is an ideal, simple camera for a video novice. The fact that he was cute to look at and (unknown to him) gave me a tempting glimpse of skin and his underwear as he leaned over to retrieve something from under the counter, of course, played no part in my purchase.

As is customary with technology that I am assured is ideal, I struggled with the ostensibly plain language instructions but eventually got the camera and computer downloads to work. My test videos, which I intended to post in triumph on this blog, proved too jerky for me to publish although the quality of the picture - unsteadiness aside - is excellent. I will need to work on my steady hand.

Away We Go

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The Mysteries: Genesis

Eve (Sophie Ross) and Adam (Cameron Goodall)

The current Sydney Theatre Company production is The Mysteries: Genesis.

The program notes informed us that The Mystery Plays were religious dramas, consisting of a cycle of plays, that developed in Medieval Europe. They were performed on pageant wagons that travelled around the town to various stations, the audience travelling from station to station to view an entire cycle of plays.

This production contains three 'plays'; 'Adam, Eve'; 'Cain, Abel' and 'Noah's Ark' - spread over three hours. For the first and third plays the audience is seated on chairs or the floor or standing around the performance space according to its preference. For the middle play, the audience joins the actors on the performance space and mingles with them as they perform that play.

In 'Adam, Eve' God creates the Universe, Adam and Eve and we see them in the Garden of Eden. All the characters (God, Adam, Eve, Male Lucifer and Female Lucifer) are completely naked throughout this first play. Once expelled from the Garden of Eden, the characters, now dressed, perform the subsequent plays.

I'm not into religious works as a rule but this work, with it's sparse staging is told in an interesting way. Within minutes you scarcely notice the nudity of the first play which given the subject matter comes across as perfectly natural and relevant. The acting of the young cast is excellent.

The Company warned patrons that this is 'theatre for the adventurous' but to my observation last night's audience of all ages accepted the adventure with ease.

Flying by the seat of his pants...

Cabaret

The New Theatre is a small company of professional and eager amateur performers and theatrical artisans who struggle along on modest box office income and donations. Amazingly it has operated for 75 years.

They produce small scale productions of a range of works and for them to attempt a work such as the Broadway musical Cabaret is very ambitious indeed. Any production of this work inevitably risks comparison with the brilliant filmed version which left an indelible memory in the minds of all who have seen it.

Mk, Rs and I attended a performance yesterday with minimal expectations and were pleasantly impressed by the quality of the production and performances. Sure, it cannot match the gloss and detail of what would be expected from a fully professional staging but the reasonably sized audience in the intimate surrounds of the New Theatre clearly enjoyed what was on offer.

The Informant!

An executive, Matt Damon, is drawn into a FBI investigation after he reports an apparent attempt at corporate blackmail. As the investigation develops, the executive's role in the affair becomes increasingly uncertain. The film is an adapation of true events.

The trailers for The Informant! are humorous and suggest the film is a comedy or satire. The use of 1970s style whimsical screen captions and background music - odd, given that the story is mostly set in the 1990s - added to my impression that we are meant to find this film funny but all the humorous bits were in the trailers. The film itself is...well...unfunny.

It is all played out in a sort of monotone and only piqued my interest in the final twenty minutes. Some members of the audience walked out, presumably bored, before the film was half way through and yet I heard one couple comment at the end how clever it was. For mine, this film is a disappointment.

Road signs in Africa

OK, that one is one pretty clear but what about this one? Only those in wheel chairs face danger?