lucky me

Today included passing Lake Wendouree in Ballarat and of course I had to say hello to these swan babies gliding around in the winter sun. Swans are monogamous, vegetarian, and very good parents. What's not to love?

(images copyright Annie O'Dyne)

revolution in the air

As I walked away from capturing this moment as they gathered in outrage, trams were unloading hundreds more.
I would have joined them if I hadn't another revolution to view a block away where the Bolsheviks would not have been amused at their story playing Her Majestys' Theatre.

(image by Ann O'Dyne)

It was wonderful (especially from the third row) - design, costume and performances. Recommended. Thank you to That's So Pants for making my day.

do or diet

Dawn French

Now and Before.

Peter Jackson, Before

and After.

I'm on a weight-loss diet.

Update: after 27 highly disciplined days without any edible fun, I am one kilo lighter. one.

dawn in frosty paddock

(image copyright Ann O'Dyne May 2011. Newborn calves at Navigators, Vic. 3352)

Thank you , thank you dear PM Gillard.

Update 5 days after:
Errol Simper writes in The Australian Business Section:

Four Corners' report on animal cruelty is what journalism is all about ...

'Tony Jones interviewed Meat And Livestock Australia's export manager, Michael Finucan, last Wednesday and must have felt rather as you might after smashing your head against a brick wall for hours. The way Finucan had it, all would be well with a bit more training of Indonesian abattoir people, a bit more community patience and a massive belief in the MLA's honourable intentions.

Jones: "You're talking about sending in trainers to train (Indonesian abattoir) people, yet again. But as we know, Australian trainers from MLA had recently visited two of the worst abattoirs Four Corners filmed at. The worst of them all, the Gudrun abattoir, had six visits by Australian experts like yourself in the previous 14 months. This whole process seems not to have worked at all."

Finucan: "Well, what we've learned is that we need more intense training."

To be fair, Finucan gave viewers no reason to suspect he was anything other than a decent, well-meaning bloke. For all that, you had some empathy with Jones' next interviewee, Bob Katter. Jones: "You've just heard what the industry specialist (Finucan) on the ground is saying. What do you say in response?"

Katter: "Almost every single aspect of that interview filled me with anger, almost every single aspect of it . This person admitted they knew what was going on, that they'd sent people in to have look at this. They've known for years and years about it, and they've done absolutely nothing . . . They've been paid a fortune to carry out things in a toweringly incompetent manner."

Meantime, some will be grateful for small mercies. White, the RSPCA and the Four Corners reporter who somehow did the abattoir story without having a nervous breakdown, Sarah Ferguson (with nudges of help from Xenophon and independent MP Andrew Wilkie), have at least managed to get the grisly trade in live cattle suspended."

Thank you Errol! and Go Sarah! - dry your eyes, take the sleeping pills, and find a gown for accepting your Walkley Award.

Now the sheep exports ... ?

leafing through my past

Image copyright Ann O'Dyne June 2011

This is the entry area of the university of Ballarat. The only thing about the place that this ex-student can recommend is the autumn landscaping. There is only one road from the centre of Ballarat for the 10 kilometres out to the site. It has two lanes and there are seven schools on it. Buses buses buses, 40 kms limit = Total Gridlock, and that is before the city of Ballarat allowed a huge State Revenue Office to be built next to it, joining the huge premises of IBM. Total gridlock at 8am when they schedule lectures at 8:30am. One road.

That link at 'Buses' leads to a Coalition policy to fix it and I have no faith in it since their plandescribes a right turn that cannot be made by 95% of the traffic problem.
In their laughable School Of Business, they have lecturers in marketing who have never heard of Calvin Klein, or Tiffany stores, or Homer and the rest of The Simpsons. I know you don't believe me but it is true.
John Guyas said he got the job via the internet and wanted to work here because he liked the TV soap Neighbours. Never heard of The Simpsons.

When I expressed astonishment at this failing of a Marketing Lecturer, since TIME magazine voted it the TV show of the century, a third-year Business Degree student said to me "nobody watches that anymore anyhow".
I observed while there that the 'university' is merely a front for their truly profitable business - photocopying and the retailing of crisps and fizzy drinks.

Tooting and coming

As you all know, SoCross Station is my natural habitat, and as I passed through last week I just had to record seven regional trains but thankfully not the noise level of the seven engines roaring.
But wait, that's not all, I also bring you Tutankhamun whose HUGE effigy stars there at the moment.

(images copyright Ann O'Dyne 2011)

I wish the ancient civilisations had invented trains. They might have evolved sufficiently by now to be bearable.