Love and hate

Having recently got back to Sydney for another six month stint, it is a good time to report on what I love about Australia, but also what I find annoying. I feel well qualified to make these judgements having just spent the previous half year in England. These are my personal views and inevitably are comparisons with England.

What I love about Australia (it makes me keep coming back) is the fantastic weather combined with the natural beauty of the country. Even in the city (Sydney) it is a great place to live with impressive harbour views and always that cooling breeze coming off that large stretch of water that is Port Jackson. The beaches, harbour, ferries and an iconic Sydney city are a perfect combination.

It was a sudden break in the spring weather that made me stop and concentrate on some of the negative aspects of the Australian way of life. Apparently yesterday was the coldest October day in Sydney for seven years. It was a dull and damp day with frequent showers where the temperatures struggled to rise to 17C from a start of 15C. Time to write a post for my blog.

So here is my list of hates in no particular order (as they say on some uk tv shows) :-

The Australian TV is truly dreadful. Why pay for Foxtel and then be bombarded every few minutes with adverts where the sound volume is increased by design. The Australian broadcasters are so under the thumb of big company advertising that it is almost impossible to enjoy watching anything on tv. Even with cricket there are adverts between overs. If you are diligent with the remote control and can record the program, then you can replay the program and fast forward through the ad breaks. Even the ABC (the Australian equivalent of the BBC has frequent breaks within programs). The Australian version of the Tivo has been made useless by Australian advertisers.
As an electronics engineer by training, I am designing a device that automatically detects the advert breaks and mutes the volume while they are running. It is almost complete. Does anybody want one ?

Whilst talking about the overwhelming influence of large businesses, it is worth mentioning Australian politicians. The lobbying groups here seem to have so much power that most politicians just seem to be their mouthpieces. Yesterday, Tony Abbot was saying at a venue arranged by the gambling industry and with a large audience of gambling industry participants, that his party did not support the idea of problem gamblers having a limit set of the maximum amount that they could lose. He even went on to say that if a law was put into place to provide this limit on losses, that his party would rescind the law if they became the ruling party. His comments (not actual promises) were greeted with loud applause by the audience. What a surprise.
How did Australians ever choose Julia Gillard as their prime minister. She is awful. Maybe the public were hardly involved and this was organised by powerful lobbyists.
Julia Gillard is currently lecturing the European countries and demanding that they sort out their debt problems. Her oratory style really grates and her body movements are as if she has the limbs of a puppet being jerked on strings. I am not her biggest fan.
It does seem hard to get any change in policy into place in Australia where there is both a parliamentary system and a senate.

Incidentally, vested interests have won the right to start building a monstrously large and ugly financial centre at Barangaroo. This is just 500 metres from the centre of Sydney and the tall buildings seem likely to destroy the character of Sydney. It is akin to building Canary Wharf just a quarter of a mile away from Big Ben. It is not going to work is it ?.

I wanted a broadband connection in my rented apartment (to upload pictures taken out of my window to www.sydneyview.com ) and thought that I could avoid delays by ordering it whilst in England. I had the choice of ringing my chosen ISP (Internode) or completing an on-line form. With the then nine hour time difference and the high cost of the call, I decided to use the on-line application. Big mistake. Although I filled in my new address correctly on the application form it subsequently turned out that Internode’s software jumbled the address and used an incomplete address for the application. This started a nightmare scenario, where it proved almost impossible to recover from their initial error. Everything went wrong and I spent lots of time and expensive phone calls trying to sort it out. The net result was that the broadband went live about 10 days after I arrived in Australia. My website is now live at last.
Currently I am house and pet sitting for a relative who is on a well earned holiday. Guess what, the internet went down yesterday. After speaking to tech support and getting the account holder to speak to Telstra, they then promised that an engineer would investigate and get back to me within 48 hours. I am still waiting for that call but have managed to re-establish the connection myself.

Why is the cost of everything in Sydney twice the price of anywhere else in the world ?. This not only covers white goods, gadgets, etc. but food too. Somebody is making a lot of money here. There seems to be genuine surprise by retailers that people are using the internet to purchase items from abroad. Even paying the shipping costs, it is far cheaper to do this than buy in a store. Retailers seem hurt that this is happening and are lobbying the politicians to introduce levies.
Why is it that I can buy an Australian brand bottle of Shiraz red wine at an English supermarket for much less than I have to pay for the same wine in its country of origin ?
With food there is no choice but to suffer the high cost. I guess it is the price that you have to pay for living in one of the most desirable places in the world.

Well that’s it. Moan over. The weather is improving and the sun is coming back out. Time to spend my days exploring beaches and countryside in a perfect climate. Having spent idyllic days in beautiful surroundings, Sydney is one of the best places in the world to go out for a well prepared and enjoyable meal. The standard of catering is consistently high, just as long as you can afford to pay the bill at the end of the evening.

Peewit

Some salt info

Hi

With my SRP starting next month here are a couple of photos of the food labelling on some Stilton purchased from Morrisons in Woking, England. Morrisons is a supermarket chain that tends to appeal to those on a tight food budget.

 

 

Note the easy to read labelling on the front of the product that gives the amount of certain significant constituents per typical 30 gram serving, as well as the percentage of your daily guidline amount. You can see a bigger version of the photo by clicking on it.

Sorry, some of the cheese has been consumed. I can testify to it's creamy texture and smooth taste.

Here is a link to an interesting article about salt reduction in Australian food.

Peewit

My SRP starts soon

I will be starting on my SRP as soon as I get back to Sydney. I will also get my webcam at www.sydneyview.com running again.

Yes, having just spent almost six months in the British summer, I will be heading back to Sydney soon. The summer in England was a disappointment with very few sunny days and an awful lot of cloudy, dull days. I remember wearing shorts and a T shirt for a week or two back in April soon after I had arrived in the UK. Since then I have only dug out my shorts on one occasion. Trips to the coast or cricket matches have mainly been on cold and windy days. I feel more than ready for a bit of Sydney sunshine.

Maybe I should say what SRP stands for. Well it is Sausage Research Project although Salt Reduction Project would also be appropriate.
I love a lot of things about Australia but it seems impossible to get a decent British style banger. All the sausages I have tried on my previous visits have not been good. It hardly matters what type of sausage you buy because when you come to eat it, all you can taste is salt. I also noticed that when buying Stilton cheese from a Mosman deli that again the cheese was very salty and this masked the expected creamy Stilton flavour. I can only assume that all this salt is to improve preservation in warm temperatures. Yet there are plenty of refrigerators here and beer is always served cold, so it is hard to see the problem. Maybe the Australian health authorities are out of touch with the sort of salt reduction programmes taking place in Europe. It is known that high salt consumption can contribute to problems of heart disease and stroke.

Anyway in my SRP I plan to visit lots of butchers and deli’s around Sydney and the inner suburbs. I intend to tell the proprietor that I am looking for an English style pork sausage that is not too salty and that I can actually taste. I will then purchase their recommended sausage. Once I have cooked it and tasted it, I will keep a note of my results. I will tell the shopkeeper that I intend to publish my results.

If anyone is interested in where to get a low salt, tasty sausage in Sydney then let me know and I will publish my findings in this blog. In fact if you can suggest a suitable purveyor then please let me know.

While I am at it, it would be also good to know where you can get a decent pork pie. The ones from David Jones seem salty and on one occasion, I walked the entire length of Mosman High Street and going into all the shops selling food asked for a pork pie. Most of the shopkeepers looked at me as if I was mad and nobody had any.

If I can find a satisfactory Sydney sausage then my Sydney sojourn will be perfect. (Hard to say that).

Peewit

Malvern Hills,etc.

I thought that I would like to have a go at doing a watercolour painting of Guildford High Street. It was a question of waiting for a sunny day so that I could go and take a photo to use as the basis for my picture. Eventually a sunny day arrived and off I went.
This is the photo that I will use. The lighting is not ideal but being an "artist" I can change it around to suit.

 

I also popped across from the High Street, through the Tunsgate to the castle and took this photo of the grounds. Soon after a coffee and Danish pastry were consumed.
I discovered just prior to this trip to Guildford that my Samsung compact camera had failed. The lens would not open properly when I switched it on. Luckily I discovered this before I set off and I was also lucky that there was still about 10 days left on the warranty. I sent the camera off to Samsung for repair.

 

I wanted to watch some more cricket and I looked on-line for upcoming matches. It turned out that there was a two day T20 tournament for southern county teams taking place at Normandy Cricket Club. These were womens matches and I knew that about 60% of the England world beating International team would be playing for their various counties. I was able to attend on the 2nd day of the tounament. I had not been to the Normandy ground before but it was only a 20 minute drive away. The weather was good and the ground is surrounded by trees. Here is the scene.

 

On the previous day both the Kent Spitfires and the Sussex Sharks had won their matches and were now playing each other. When I arrived at the ground just after 10am the Kent Spitfires were batting and Charlotte Edwards was striking the ball all around the ground. Here is Holly Colvin chasing one of the balls.

 

The Kent Spitfires won the match but this was just the prelude to the final match in the afternoon between the same two teams. It seemed that Sussex had been playing tactically in the morning by not using Sarah Taylor as opening bat or using Holly Colvin to bowl. In the final this all changed and as a result Kent did not manage to post a very high score during their innings. When Sussex came in to bat the runs soon mounted but eventually the game started to look in the balance. Holly Colvin came on to bat and even though she is a spin bowler, she put on an impressive batting display to take Sussex through this round. Here she is making a stroke.

 

Last weekend I went to visit my daughter who lives in Great Malvern. On the Saturday we went for a walk on the Malvern Hills. You could see and just about hear the nearby Big Chill music festival.

 

Here am I enjoying the fresh air and scenery.

 

We had this view whilst eating our packed lunch. The sun was out and we were sheltered from the wind. It was a very quiet and peaceful scene.

 

I eventually got my compact camera back from Samsung. They had fitted a new lens. I thought that I would take it out for a test run when walking the dog.
Here are a couple of houses that have both been recently fitted with solar panels. It is interesting to see how they compare in appearance. I wonder if the actual supply and installation cost will ever be recovered.

 

A bit further along on my walk I took this photo of a bridge over the canal. I waited for a couple of minutes for the GPS on the camera to work out where we were but in the end I just took the photo. The camera often takes several minutes before the GPS gets a position fix. This is not a great aspect of the Samsung camera.

 

When I got home I went into the garden and switched the camera on and it eventually got a fix.

Peewit

Seaside special

I thought that it would be nice to visit the seaside for a day so I booked a trip to Weymouth on a steam train from Woking Station. The date was 12th July 2011 and the weather was not looking too good for the time of year. We seemed to be in for a day of grey cloud and possible rain.

The departure from Woking was at 10:06am and here is Tangmere pulling alongside the platform.

 

After Basingstoke there is a stretch of track that is slightly downhill which gives the engine the chance to 'stretch it's legs'. We touch 80mph but as you can see wee were only doing 77 when I took this photo.

 

We stopped at Bournemouth to let some passengers off. The station is quite attractive with its brick construction and curved girders.

 

As the train was pulling into Poole we crossed over the main street.


Further along our route it was time for Tangmere to take on water. We stopped at Wareham and a fire tender filled us up.

 

Even though Wareham is a main line station it does have a traditional look to it.

 

We arrived at Weymouth at 13:45

 

Passengers were taking the opportunity to look at the engine that had done all the work on our outbound journey.

 

The beach at Weymouth.

 

I had met up with an old college friend of mine. We went for a pleasant lunch at a seaside cafe overlooking the bay.
After lunch we found it rather breezy on the sea front and walked until we could get some shelter from the wind at the Customs House Quay.

 

We then headed back along St.Marys Street towards the station.

 

My friend who lives in Weymouth walked back with me to the station as he wanted to see the new engine being coupled onto the front of the train. We were due to have Britannia at the front and Tangmere at the rear pushing. This double banked arrangement was to get the train up the steep embankment at Upwey that has a 1 in 50 incline.

 

The picture above and below is Britannia but my colleague never did get to see it as it arrived an hour late. Apparently it was consuming excessive volumes of water and nobody was sure why.

 

It seemed possible that the train may not make it to the planned water stop at Eastleigh. Eventually an extra water stop was arranged and we all set off about 80 minutes behind schedule, and hoping that we would get home tonight.
Having helped us get up the steep hill, Tangmere was de-coupled at Dorchester South and then the train continued passing by Poole harbour.

 

The next stop was at Bournemouth with another opportunity to see the station design.

 

We then pressed on with two water stops. One just before Southampton Central where the fire tender had stopped on a road beside the track, and a final fill at Eastleigh.
After that the train was able to build up some speed and we were back in the 70mph region on some sections. At 9:25pm we reached Woking where I left the train to catch a bus home. Many of the passengers were heading back to Waterloo albeit 90 minutes behind schedule.

 

I had enjoyed my trip to the seaside despite the delays on the return journey. Nobody seemed really concerned by the unexpected delays as we were all in holiday mode.

Peewit

England win

I’ve been back in the UK for three months now. The British summer has been somewhat underwhelming so far.
Last week I went on a watercolour painting course at Boscombe near Bournemouth. There was a lot cloudy skies for us to paint but it was quite cool and windy most of the time.
Bournemouth Pier

 

Christchurch

 

A highlight for me has been to watch the England Womens Cricket team playing in the Quadrangular Tournament. This was a series of T20 matches where England were playing sides from Australia, New Zealand and India. Basically the top four cricketing nations in womens cricket. All four matches were televised on Sky and as I was not able to attend the matches in person, watching on tv kind of made up for it.
So after playing each team in turn and winning them all, England were playing Australia in the final of the T20 competition. The girls did well and won the final making four games played and four games won. That it is why it is so enjoyable to watch the womens cricket. The team led by Charlotte Edwards have excellent skills and are the best in the world. Attending games is good too as you can move around the ground and try different stands during the match without the claustrophobic effect that you get at a mens game.

This week I had the free time to be able to go some of the games in the followup 50 overs One Day Internationals (ODI’s). Having already beaten India and New Zealand, England were playing Australia at Lords on Tuesday 5th July.

Warming up

 

England won the toss and chose to bat first however they got off to a poor start losing the first four wickets cheaply to a very focused Australian side. England were all out for 168 without managing to bat for the entire 50 overs. Australia came in and put on an impressive display of batting to win fairly comprehensively.

 

 

 

Oh dear, I had gone through the usual procedure of being forced to stand up on my train journeys in sardine like fashion (especially on the tube) only to witness a demoralising defeat. So that was now a setback resulting in only six wins out of seven games.
Time for the England girls to take stock and prepare for the final ODI against Australia again, with the match taking place at Wormsley.

The weather was not looking good as I drove along the M40 towards the Paul Getty estate and the picturesque Wormsley ground. The rain was falling fast and the forecast was for showers and cool temperatures.
I had never been to Wormsley before and found it to be a lovely setting. Shame about the constant strong and cold wind. However the rain stopped and the sun even shined on a few occasions.

Wormsley Pavilion

 

 

This time Jodie Fields the Australian skipper won the toss and put England in to bat.

 

Charlotte Edwards leads the way

 

Charlotte Edwards and Danni Wyatt came out bat. Danni is fairly new to the team and is obviously skilled with both the bat and ball. England seem to use her as a bit of a wild card to upset the expected batting lineup or throw up some surprises in the bowling.
As you can see from the scorecard, the team members that batted managed to put together a score of 230 from fifty overs of what would seem to be a bowlers wicket. There were standout performances from Charlotte Edwards, Claire Taylor, Lydia Greenway, Sarah Taylor and Arran Brindle.

 

 

Spectators

 

I bet the skipper Charlotte Edwards was happy with getting 230 on the board.

After lunch it was time for England to be in the field and the Aussie girls to try to chase the 231 score.

England take to the field

 

It was tense as the innings progressed. The rain held off and Brunt got England off to a great start with Australia being 1 run for 2 wickets within the first over.

Nitschke and Blackwell began to pile on the runs for Australia until Nitschke was bowled for 15 by an impressive Brunt. Soon the new batsman Cameron and Blackwell were building up the runs again and they were gaining momentum when Isa Guha broke the trend at a crucial point by clean bowling Blackwell. Cameron had various partners at the other end while she went on to get the highest individual score of the match at 75 when she was out caught in the deep by Guha after a special delivery from Brunt.
Later when Fields came on to bat it still looked the match could go either way. Persistance, strong team spirit and good fielding paid off for the English girls resulting in the Australians being bowled out for 196 after 47.2 overs.

 

 

 

Final score

 

It was a great result for the England team and they won the NatWest trophy for the ODI’s to add to their T20 trophy.

The Australian batting scorecard is

 

The presentations took place, the champagne was sprayed and the tournament was over.

 

 

After the match two players announced their retirement from international cricket. So after major contributions over the years to their national teams both Shelly Nitschke of Australia and Claire Taylor of England will no longer be representing their countries in cricket.

I had enjoyed the match despite the cool weather. I had managed to stave off the worst of the wind by wearing a replica team shirt, covered by a sweatshirt, covered by a fleece jacket, covered by a waterproof anorak with a hood. This combined with a cap and a golf umbrella blocking out the gale meant that I did not get too cold. Oh to get back to watching cricket at the North Sydney oval or SCG in sunny, warm conditions.

Peewit