Catching up

I'm not averse to new technology nor am I resistant to change but when it comes to the former I sometimes I hold back a while before dipping my toe in the water. So it has taken me until this morning to have my first go at getting digital photographs printed from one those commercial photo centres. Up till now I've had no need for any professional prints, relying on sending my photos by email to friends and downloading photos to my electronic photo frame (last year's birthday gift) for any that I wanted to display at home.

I needed some prints this time because I wanted to send some to a friend who does not have an email account. Yesterday I visited a nearby centre to observe others ordering their prints from those photo machines. I found that it was not easy to observe unobtrusively and I imagine the customers assumed I was sneaking a peek at their photographs. Actually the machinery was such a blur to me that checking out the photographs of others was the last thing on my mind but I ascertained what I wanted to know and returned this morning with my tiny USB thingy to make my order. As with most computerised things nowadays the process was so straightforward I wondered afterwards why it had taken me so long to make the attempt.

Anyway I had a thirty minutes wait for my prints to be ready and spent most of that time wandering around the rest of the store. By coincidence, earlier this morning, I read James' post about the purchase of a digital radio. Now that is another item I have been thinking about for some time but have not yet indulged myself by purchasing.

In truth it would be an indulgence. I'm not aware of much that is on offer on the digital stations that isn't a duplicate of what is provided on the main frequencies. The only real benefit for me is the promised quality of the broadcast. I have noticed a deterioration in the quality of the radio reception I have received over the past twenty years which I put down to increasing interference from building works and new high rise developments in my vicinity.

The cost of the digital receivers is offputting but even more so is the size and, to my taste, clunky look of most of them. Why are they so big? And why do most of them look like they were designed in the 1950s? And another thing, why are so many of them brand types completely unknown to me? At least today, I finally saw some Grundigs and Yamahas; names that are familiar.

I'm tempted to investigate the radios further but where will I place one if I do buy? None of my logical furniture pieces has sufficient surface space available for the size of most of the units on display. It would be just a tad ridiculous to purchase new furniture to accommodate a digital radio.

The way we were

We gathered this afternoon at Hn's home in Palm Beach (today's view from the lounge) for a barbecue lunch and leisurely rememberance of years past. Hn's old schoolmate Sn's son, Mk, has returned to live in Australia with his Japanese bride, so it was a reunion of sorts. I last saw Mk when he was about 5 years old. Now Mk is in his late 20s and participates in triathlons and so is a picture of health and fitness. He also is a gentle soul. A pity he is wasted in the straight world but what can you do?

Mk and his bride must have been bemused as conversation (all of us near to, or already in, our 60s) sank deeper into what we considered hilarious reminiscences of group escapades at their ages. Undoubtedly there was a fair bit of embellishment in our increasingly hazy memories. Sometimes I think we get more childish the older we become.

Anyway, it was a fun afternoon and the barbecue food was delicious.

Not so great railway journeys...but still OK...

Inspired by Andrew's Great railway journeys and with no ideas about what to do today other than use my Seniors Card to travel around the state all day for the princely sum of $2.50 I made an impromptu journey to Gosford and back. Gosford is approximately 80 kilometres north of Sydney on the Central Coast of New South Wales. It is a region that is a mix of low key resorts and homes of the retired. In the late 1990s, quite a number of organisations moved their operations to the region to take advantage of cheaper rents and services. The rail journey takes 80 minutes each way. The expected main attraction of the journey for me was to be that part of the rail line that runs along the edge of the Hawkesbury River.

It was another grey morning and not ideal for photographing the scenery. Indeed capturing any photos from the train was a hit and miss matter given the speed at which the train travelled and that all photos had to be taken through scratched and dirty carriage windows. The following are the best of a poor lot and do scant justice to a vista that is more splendid to the naked eye.

The first good sighting of the river as the train made its way down the escarpment north of Sydney.

Looking down river as the train raced along it's edge.

Hawkesbury River Marina seen from the train as we arrived at the nearby station.

The township of Woy Woy, just south of Gosford.

Brisbane Waters, the inlet on the southern edge of Gosford.

Gosford is obviously experiencing difficult times. Although it was a Friday morning, albeit grey and wet, there were few people in the business precinct when I arrived. Numbers did increase during the day but there was still the feel of a small country town. I went into the Gosford Town Centre, a shopping mall and found it virtually deserted.

A very modern looking food court with more than twenty outlets that obviously were previously operational sat closed. A large Coles supermarket can just be seen to the rear left in the photograph. It was late morning on a Friday but not a single customer was passing through its numerous checkout lanes.

Up In The Air

George Clooney spends a lot of his time Up In The Air along with Vera Farmiga, fellow traveller and lover of loyalty and priority schemes. They are joined above the clouds by Anna Kendrick the new 'up and comer' on the block.

This is a bitter sweet tale of interpersonal, familial, workplace and business relationships set in today's world of technology and a 'whatever it takes' attitude.

The movie has a clever script in which self absorbed characters robotically trot out pat statements to sell an unpalatable product. I was reminded of my own long years in Government service where many senior management careers were built entirely on a gift for words and deceptively impressive empty phrases. Anyone who has spent time as a mere functionary in a large bureaucracy will empathise.

Four queens and a lunch

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The view from our table as four retired queens spent lunch and the rest of the afternoon gossiping on the balcony at Icebergs Club yesterday. It is amazing how much dirt we remembered (or made up) about our friends. I bet a few pairs of ears were burning yesterday...and not just from the summer heat.

For the record I had Chicken Schnitzel (yet again) whilst the others chose Atlantic Salmon (x2) and a Risotto.

Phillip's vision

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Establishing a convict colony at Sydney Cove in January 1788, Governor Arthur Phillip found "one of the finest harbours in the world, in which a thousand sail on the line might ride in the most perfect security."

Yesterday, almost exactly 232 years after Phillip's pronouncement, I stood at North Head (the northern point at the entrance to the harbour) and admired the vista for myself.

To the left is the Pacific Ocean. Straight ahead in the middle distance is South Head (the southern point at the harbour entrance) and to the right in the distance you can just make out the high rise buildings in the Central Business District.

Even on a day of grey cloud and some mirkiness such as yesterday, the harbour is a spectacular sight.

For those not familiar with Sydney, the photograph above is the reverse view from the land mass on the other side of the yachts that appear in the right hand edge of this photograph.

Blogiversary

Today I am two.

It's Complicated

Well, it isn't really...but it is very funny...for old farts like me.

Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin are a divorced couple who start an affair whilst attending their son's graduation. Steve Martin is an architect who is drawn into a menage a trois of sorts.

It's Complicated is life seen through Hollywood eyes. Everyone is impossibly good looking, or at least fashionably interesting looking, except for the unfortunate Martin who has every appearance of being Botoxed to the point where his face has lost all it's flexibility and he displays a permanent look of mild bewilderment.

The Hollywood perspective extends to the lifestyles. Why Streep would require a new kitchen when the one we see is the size of the Palace at Versailles and sufficiently well appointed to feed the hordes at Buckingham Palace for the remainder of the century is a mystery. But it all looks very pretty.

But as I said the movie is very funny, although targetted for older viewers. In what I am sure must be a first for her, Streep has a line about...ahem...semen which is hilarious. (You have to see/hear it in context to get the joke.)

Damn you, Billy!

He's done it to me again.

Last night, Billy Elliot was screened on television...once more...and I switched on for the last twenty minutes.

Although I have seen the film numerous times, although I know exactly what happens, although I was only watching for the final twenty minutes, I was in tears at the end.

This film does it to me every time. There is something about the story, something about the way it is portrayed, something about the effectiveness of the performances that makes me highly emotional.

Every single time.

It is as though I am seeing the film for the first time...every time. Does any film do this to you?

By the harbour

Here are some photos taken at Circular Quay today when I went to the movies. I know that photographs in this precinct are so plentiful that displaying them here is not terribly original but I never tire of wandering around the area and soaking in the atmosphere. The cloudier looking images were taken late morning before the movie and the sunnier photos in mid afternoon following the movie when the weather (obviously) had improved.

(Click images to enlarge)

Old Customs House which now houses the City of Sydney Library and a number of food and drink outlets. The forecourt is often crowded with people but magically they absented themselves when I snapped this photograph.

The Opera House seen from the lower concourse with James' favoured Opera Bar (not yet set up for the day's business) in the foreground.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge as seen from the lower concourse of the Opera House.

Looking back to Circular Quay from the western concourse of the Opera House with cruise ship Rhapsodies of the Sea berthed at the Overseas Passenger Terminal.

The cruise ship seen from the lower concourse at the Opera House.

American tourists (probably from the cruise ship, which can be seen in the distance) waiting for their tour of the Opera House to commence.

Cruise ship seen from the ferry wharves at Circular Quay with the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background.

Looking up through the atrium in the foyer to the Dendy Cinemas at Circular Quay. The apartment building irreverently known as The Toaster is in the background.

A photographer setting up his shot of the Opera House with the Harbour Bridge to his left. If you enlarge this photograph you can see groups of people climbing the arch of the Bridge. The Bridgeclimb costs hundreds of dollars.

A group doing the Bridgeclimb this morning.

Activity on the harbour in the glistening sunshine.

Grey morning...

...in the Emerald City.

Did You Hear About The Morgans?

Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker are an estranged New York couple who are placed in witness protection after they witness a murder in Did You Hear About The Morgans? They are relocated from Manhattan to a remote town in Wyoming in predictable fish out water, romantic comedy style.

Grant is from the John Wayne/Cary Grant school of acting. He basically appears in films as himself, a curious combination of debonair bumbling indecision. Initially this was fun but in later films the novelty of this behaviour has worn thin. Parker is a clotheshorse whose acting at times has been better than she has been given credit for but who has the misfortune of a whiney manner. The pair display their familiar characteristics in this film of stereotypes.

Grant looks particularly stiff and uncomfortable in early scenes before relaxing as the film progresses. In this it is possible that he is working to the Director's instructions but it doesn't make his character any more attractive early on.

Actually the film is not as bad as I was expecting. The first quarter doesn't really fire but it does have it's occasional humorous moments thereafter.

Twelfth Night

It is Twelfth Night and it looks like one of my neighbours is taking it seriously placing their Christmas Tree amongst the garbage bins.

Wisdom in the movies

Circuses down under

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Last night Mt and I saw Circus Oz. Although I had seen documentaries about this group on television it was the first time I have seen them perform live. It was very enjoyable watching this extraordinarily talented group of acrobats and musicians. I took the above photo from our seats just before they announced no photography would be permitted during the performance itself.

Before the Circus, we went to the Sydney Aquarium, another first for us both. Being a city boy, animals and nature are not really my scene and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this. We spent nearly three hours wandering through the various rooms and tanks partly because of the grand final football like crowds present but mainly because there was so much to take in and enjoy.

The following is a selection of the photos I took there but they don't do justice to much of the displays.

Happy New Year

Tonights fireworks over Sydney Harbour; the best I can do with my digital camera.

Wowsers at Manly

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Mt and I took the ferry to Manly today. The crowds travelling were immense and the crowd control, intrinsically Australian in nature with some frank and direct language, must have come as a shock to the many overseas tourists. I snapped the above pic of a sailing boat steering to the Heads and the Pacific Ocean through a dirty window of the ferry; hence the splotches visible in the enlarged photo.

This is the Freshwater, identical to the Collaroy on which we travelled, docking at Manly Wharf. I snapped this photo as we ate our lunches.

Disembarking from our ferry at Manly along with the holiday crowds. We walked along the Corso to the oceanside where we picked up lunch; sushi for Mt and chicken kebab for myself which we took bacl to the harbourside of Manly to eat on the foreshore.

After lunch we looked in at the Manly Art Gallery. They had an interesting Robert McFarlane retrospective. There was also an exhibition on holiday homes across the years in the area which included the following photograph of 'The Wowsers'.

I'm not sure in what way this group saw itself as wowsers but they look a likely group to me.

Faulty Towers?

(The New Yorker)

I think I have stayed here...

Rain

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Looking out from my kitchen window a few minutes ago. It is pouring with rain. And showers are forecast for the next five days through to New Years Day. This could ruin Sydney's NYE fireworks display.

This is the worst Christmas weather I can remember in Sydney for years. Pity all those overseas backpackers expecting to regale their relatives back home in the freezing Northern Hemisphere about their hot Christmas spent on Sydney beaches only to find the weather cool, grey, gloomy and wet.

Mt is flying in from Ballina this evening to stay until Saturday and when she gets here will probably wish she had stayed at home. I've warned her to pack her umbrella.

The French Kissers (Les Beaux Gosses)

I can be slow sometimes. Although this film has been advertised for weeks it was only queueing for tickets today that the double entendre of the title occurred to me.

A group of fourteen year olds is discovering relationships, love and (imagined) sex in and out of school. Viewing this film it seems that teenage schooling is little different in France from what we see portrayed in American movies. It wasn't what I remember from my mid-teenage days, around forty five years ago, no less, but then I went to an all boys school and at that age was already well and truly a gay boy.

Notwithstanding scenes of shared - but not mutual - masturbation, the characters in this film remain steadfastly hetero.