Howard set for next election

Better stick to real issues next time: ALP ad from the 2004 election campaign

Remembering that Labor spent almost all their TV ad time during the last election on dire warnings along the lines of "A vote for John Howard is a vote for Peter Costello", I wonder if they'll see Howard's decision to stay on for the next election as an opportunity to save some money by recycling the ads?

Really, how come I could see this coming before the last election and yet Labor's own paid political strategists couldn't? John Howard is unlikely to quit as long as he feels he's ahead. After all, if he quits he won't be getting to touch the Queen on a semi-regular basis, and his chances of keeping his tongue lodged tightly inside George W. Bush's rectum as it is now are near zero.

Howard will only leave the Prime Ministership if he senses an impending ignominious exit; he wants to go out cleanly, he knows there is no chance of Peter Costello mounting an effective challenge, and he obviously thinks he has something up his sleeve that can win him at least one more election, even if it's only the fact that he'll be up against Kim Beazley.

What's even funnier is that Kim Beazley thinks he can beat Howard. If anyone wins the next election for Labor it's going to be the unions, not Beazley.

Religious bigotry in US education system.

Two people on a straight path to hell?

Meanwhile, in small-town USA:

We have a way of doing things here, and it’s not going to change to accommodate a very small minority,’’ said Kenneth R. Stevens, 41, a businessman sitting in the Georgetown Diner. “If they feel singled out, they should find another school or excuse themselves from those functions. It’s our way of life"

Mrs. Dobrich, who is Orthodox, said that when she was a girl, Christians here had treated her faith with respectful interest. Now, she said, her son was ridiculed in school for wearing his yarmulke. She described a classmate of his drawing a picture of a pathway to heaven for everyone except “Alex the Jew.”

A homemaker active in her children's schools, Mrs. Dobrich said she had asked the board to develop policies that would leave no one feeling excluded because of faith. People booed and rattled signs that read "Jesus Saves," she recalled. Her son had written a short statement, but he felt so intimidated that his sister read it for him. In his statement, Alex, who was 11 then, said: "I feel bad when kids in my class call me 'Jew boy.' I do not want to move away from the house I have lived in forever."

Later, another speaker turned to Mrs. Dobrich and said, according to several witnesses, "If you want people to stop calling him 'Jew boy,' you tell him to give his heart to Jesus."

"Bigotry is our way of life"(TM)


Via Pharyngula and the NYTimes.

Non NYTimes link to article here.

Update: arthur_vandelay posted on this a while back.

Qana: mass murder mark II

One of 54 victims, 37 of them children, of Israel's strike on Qana.
Photo: Nasser Nasser, AP, via SMH.

Now Condoleeza Rice is talking ceasefire.

Lesson learned? It's ok for Israel to kill as many civilians as it likes, it just needs to, you know, spread the deaths out a bit. Don't murder too many people in one go.

'No' stupidity in Toowoomba

This was too good to let slide. From a report in the SMH:

After abandoning claims that drinking recycled water would shrink men's genitals, the anti-recycling campaigners, including the property millionaire Clive Berghofer, said property prices would fall and businesses fail if treated sewage was introduced.

Classic.

Chinese justice strikes again

Fu Xian Cai in hospital
(photo from La Gran Epoca)

Fu Xian Cai deliberately broke his own neck. Yep. He was called into the police station for a little chat over an 'unauthorised' interview he gave to a German TV station on the plight of villagers who'd been evicted from their homes and land without compensation in order to make way for the Three Gorges dam.

As Fu tells it, after his interview he was attacked in the street by at least one unidentified assailant. As the 'investigation' tells it, Fu's injuries were not caused by someone else. As far as I'm aware the report doesn't go so far as to directly say Fu broke his neck in a blatant attempt to make the authorities who were harrassing him look bad, but hell, it wouldn't be that much more of a stretch of the imagination than for what the report already contains, so why not add that too?

FTA research 'anti-american'

I bet the government wishes it could put out a 'conclusive certificate' on academic research that reveals the government to have been full of shit on the supposed benefits to Australia of the Free Trade Agreement is against the national interest.

For now it'll have to rely on plain old bullying.

Eat dust, suckers

"Maaate there's no bloody way I'm gunna drink me own shit, what kind of idiots d'they reckon we are?"

Toowoomba residents now no longer need to live in fear of being labelled with the name 'Poo-woomba' (a name perhaps somewhat ironically thought up and publicised by the 'No' camp). Instead they can rest happily in the knowledge that over 60% of them are indeed the stupid hicks I predicted they were.

I bet those same 'No' voters whinge like little bitches when their rates are raised by whatever it costs to fund an alternative water supply.

Anti-smoking ad makes mock-up mouth cancer

Faked: the new antismoking campaign

I think instead of paying actors fitted with prosthetics and fancy makeup on anti-smoking commercials to try and get a point across, the government ought to involve real sufferers of cancer and other diseases caused by smoking. Many of them are keen to help other people avoid the mistake they made in not quitting, and their stories are much more poignant. Another good idea might be to feature the families of people who've died from smoking-related illnesses in the same way that families of road accident victims were involved in a road safety ad campaign a few years ago. I don't think there's any one thing that's going to get people to quit, and rather than just featuring one negative aspect of smoking per advertising campaign it might well have more impact if smokers are made to realise just how many things can go wrong as a result of their habit.

Israel deliberately targeted UN for bombing

From the BBC:

Israel troops 'ignored' UN plea

UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon contacted Israel 10 times before an Israeli bomb killed four UN personnel, sources familiar with a UN report say.

The post was hit by a precision-guided missile after six hours of shelling nearby, diplomats familiar with the initial probe into the deaths say.

The news comes during crisis talks in Rome seeking to end the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel.

The UN secretary general has called for a ceasefire, as fighting continues.

Good news for child brides in Afghanistan: wedding's still on

Faiz Mohammed, 40, with bride-to-be Ghulam Haider, 11.

Here's another dreadful example of The Media ignoring the Good News from Afghanistan. Instead of telling us that Ghulam Haider, aged 11, has been forced to quit school to marry a 40 year old man, why don't they focus on the fact that she got to go to school at all? Afghanistan is now a great place to live if you're a woman!

Smoking around kids is child abuse.

Despite the enormous quantity of evidence surrounding the severe negative impacts of passive smoking on the health of children, it's still seen as a parent's right to decide whether or not to smoke around their kids. Or anyone's right to smoke around anyone's kids in public open spaces.

Personally, I think it's a form of child abuse. If people were feeding their 5 year old alcoholic drinks on a regular basis they'd probably be arrested and the child taken away. Feeding cigarette smoke into their lungs is just a-okay!

Here is yet more evidence of smoking's impact on childrens' health.

Japan kills pregnant whales: Report

"We're collecting foetus samples"

Humane Society International says around 60% of the female whales killed by Japan in the Antarctic last summer were pregnant, according to a report in the SMH. A further three females were lactating when they were killed, their deaths presumably resulting in their calves starving to death.

Seeing as the Australian government is too afraid to engage in anything but a lot of shouting and fist-waving over this issue, no doubt for fear of real action jeopardising our important trade links with Japan, I think perhaps some sort of gory internet advertising campaign would be a good way of drawing attention to Australia's perspective there. Perhaps juxtaposing pictures whale watching tours in Australian waters with footage of Japan's bloody slaughter of whales. Pay for advertising space on popular, mainstream Japanese websites and it will probably make the news over there.

The government could claim to be protecting Australia's whale-watching industry. Any pro-whaling counter-campaign by the Japanese would surely fall flat in Australia. Their efforts at propaganda have so far been laughable: just think of the footage of Japanese whales sawing enormous chunks of flesh from a slaughtered whale on the bloody deck of a whaling ship, with another worker displaying a large sign, proclaiming "We're collecting tissue samples". You couldn't spoof that if you tried.

The reality of the situation is that it's only a relatively small band of hardcore nutbags in Japan who are fervently pro whale-slaughter, but they get a relatively large share of government attention and action, somewhat like the anti stem cell research brigade here. Moves to dissolve public apathy are more likely to result in action by the Japanese government than are periodic splutterings by our environment minister that aren't backed up by anything substantial.

The Japanese government isn't accountable to the Australian public, it's accountable to the Japanese public, so the most effective course of action would be to stimulate the Japanese public into holding its government accountable over its killing of whales for so-called 'research'.

The science of tasty things

Mead

After switching degrees and wading my way through all the dead-boring compulsory first-year subjects for Food Science & Nutrition, uni just keeps getting better and better: the classes are smaller, the people are nicer and have similar interests and we get to make cool stuff in the laboratory that we can eat/drink afterwards!

Today, for example, we did the setup for a semester-long mead brewing prac. If we don't screw it up, we not only get to try the mead we make but we get to compare it with commercial brands too. Beats the pants off any other kind of laboratory work I've ever had to engage in.

The only downside was when I went near the area where people were making up sodium metabisulphite solution to sterilise the containers and it started to give me an athsma attack. The only other thing that gives me athsma is eating too much dried fruit (containing sodium bisulphite, a common food preservative). Made a very strong mental note to stay away from sodium metabisulphite in the future.

Our other pracs for this semester include sugar crystallisation, gum characteristics, stability of emulsions, 'quality of egg', butter & margarine, properties of starches, seafood (sensory evaluation, chilling and surimi) plus a whole-day field trip prac on 'bread and sausages' (presumably the making of). I sure hope my other subjects are this interesting!

Traditional Reality TV Marriage

Criteria for marriage: a Y chromosome and a penis

This is why John Howard had to ban gay marriage. To protect the sanctity of traditional marriages such as the one between 'Yasmin' and some random guy who's been past Channel 10's audition process.

That kinda shit is just sacred, y'know?

Malted Wheat Pudding

This isn't going to be the sort of dish that appeals to everyone, but people who enjoy rice pudding or porridge will probably like it. It's actually healthier than rice pudding, unless the pudding is made with brown rice, because it uses whole wheat grains, so the pudding contains some fibre and probably some B vitamins as well as some trace minerals.

This link describes how to make the malt, using barley instead of wheat. The method is the same.

You can make the malt and store it to be used as needed.

I use a 50ºC oven until the sprouted grains have dried out, then bake it at around 100-120ºC for about an hour; the wheat grains should smell malty, like malted milk powder. In hot weather you can do the drying with just the fan in the oven on.

The recipe does need a bit of sugar, as the wheat doesn't really make enough malt to make it sweet enough on its own, so I add brown sugar along with some cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla (mainly because I always have them in the cupboard).

You'll also need to grind the malted wheat; I tried making a pudding with the grains left intact once, and while they cooked it didn't produce anything like the desirable texture for a pudding. Our food processor/blender has a small container that fits over the blender blades, presumably for grinding small quantities of things like nuts (at least that's what we use it for). It does a fine job on the malted wheat grains.

I prefer to grind the wheat until it looks like a mixture of coarse flour and grain pieces slightly larger than couscous grains; you could probably keep going until it all looked like flour, but then then the resulting pudding would be a lot mushier, I think.

After you have made the ground wheat, place it in a saucepan on the stove and stir in a small amount of milk. Keep stirring in milk until you have a fairly thick mixture, then add spices and sugar (add it a small amount at a time and taste the mixture to ensure you don't make it too sweet). Stir in some more milk before placing a lid on the saucepan and leaving it to cook for 10-15 minutes. After this time, stir the mixture thoroughly before adding more milk if needed, and then leave to cook until the pieces of grain are swollen and translucent. If in doubt as to whether it has been cooked enough, just taste a little bit to find out: you don't want a 'raw dough' flavour.

It will 'gel' in the fridge, and return to its normal pudding-y texture when reheated.

FOI: Freedom of Ignorance

"Embarrassing the government helps hurts you a lot more than it hurts me" -Peter Costello

I think that there is very little in the way of information that should not be made available to the Australian public under the Freedom of Information (FOI) laws, particularly when they pertain to the financial circumstances of Australians (bracket creep) and the way in which taxpayers' money is spent (First Home Buyers Scheme). As we all know, Peter Costello thinks otherwise, and the government conveniently has a lackey in the job of deciding which documents are out of the reach of the public.

Treasury Secretary Ken Henry thinks that the public's right to information comes second to the Howard government's 'right' not to be embarrassed, and he's keen to spread the word on how to use 'conclusive certificates' to keep the Australian public in the dark.

I hope they get screwed on this. Lesser democracies might allow this sort of thing, but Australia shouldn't.

Male Smokers: Once were wankers

Smokers aren't just killing themselves and poisoning other people through passive smoking: according to a study in the Journal of Urology male smokers are also poisoning their sex lives by vastly increasing the risk of erectile dysfunction. Physical inactivity and overweight have been shown in the same study as producing the greatest combined risk, but no mention was made of the factors of obesity and smoking combined.

The report's authors concluded that

Reducing the risk of erectile dysfunction may be a useful and to this point unexploited motivation for men to engage in health promoting behaviors.

I think the reason that erectile dysfunction is unexploited as a motivation for men to stop smoking and start exercising is that there is still a large amount of prudishness in our society and media when it comes to talking about penises. We see all sorts of euphemistic images such as the one above, but nothing potentially tasteless and/or offensive that would really grab the attention of the media and the group of males at risk.

Non NYTimes link to article here.

Lottery of Death for Lebanese Civilians

Yesterday's strike rate was 63 civilians to one Hezbollah militant dead by Israel's hand in Lebanon. How can anyone fail to be convinced by Israel's assertion that it is doing everything it can to minimise civilian deaths?

At this rate they'll have to start on Jordan or Syria or some other nearby country in order to kill as many civilians as they need to finish off Hezbollah... there'll be no-one left in Lebanon.

Enough Said

Adelaide 5aa radio 'personality' Bob Francis

You could ask yourself the question of this lowlife or any one of the other 'shock jocks' or moronic tabloid editors in Australia:

How on earth does this kind of scumbag get any job, let alone one where people pay them above average wages to spout the divisive, hateful, abusive crap they continually come up with?

Presumably because there are enough spiteful, hate-filled little people to keep these guys in business, I suppose. How sad.

Barley Legal

Not quite what you were looking for? I should hope so...

I once posted on some funny stuff that came up when my Firefox add-on autocompleted my attempt at a search for tips on making a boring presentation interesting. This add-on self-censors: for example, type in 'anal' and the autocomplete won't work, not even for potential results discussing 'analysis' of anything. 'Sex' and 'porn' are similarly censored, as probably are numerous other words that encourage sexual corruption and vice in anyone who gazes upon them.

Today I used google to search for some information relating to barley. As you might expect, 'Barley' was the number 1 result for the autocomplete. The number 2 result was 'barley legal'.

I tested the autocomplete's capacity for censorship on the words 'barely legal' and came up with nothing (although after typing in 'barely', the autocomplete suggestions included 'barely 18' and 'barely leagal', meaning they haven't covered all their bases when it comes to stemming the tide of internet filth).

What I'm hoping for is that one day the image I've used for this post will become the number one Google image result for 'barley legal' and give a nasty surprise for the suckers trawling for images who are so preoccupied they don't realise they've made a typo. Muahahaha! I predict that it would be the visual equivalent of Harrangueman's 'stroke killers'. Indeed, if it were not, I would worry for the sanity of the person viewing it. And the security of barley silos everywhere.

Australians fleeing Lebanon facing lethal dilemma.

Australian Samer Mourad, due to be evacuated yesterday in an operation that never eventuated.
Image from the SMH by Kate Geraghty.

On the 7:30 Report tonight Foreign Minister Alexander Downer implied that Australian citizens stranded in Lebanon will be safe as long as they "don't go near Hezbollah infrastructure". Given that Israel has been blowing up cars, houses, roads, ports and airports it seems that Alexander Downer is keen to write Israel a blank cheque for Australian lives, as the implication is that any Australians who are killed by Israel will by definition have gone near Hezbollah infrastructure, or failed to remove themselves from proximity to Hezbollah infrastructure. How are they supposed to determine what is Hezbollah infrastructure when Israel has such a broad range of targets, many obviously being civilian infrastructure? How are they supposed to flee an area when they face the possibility of being killed in the act of doing so?

From the SMH:

Judging by the list of actual targets hit so far, what Israeli security experts term "the target bank" includes, in practice, civilian homes, minibuses and cars, as terrified families try to run away.

No one in south Lebanon feels safe. Streets and roads are almost deserted, and the few cars still daring to flee north out of Tyre career towards Beirut at breakneck speed, filled with frightened women and children waving white rags at the sky.

What a horrible situation to be stuck in.

Kempsey Trip: Back to Brisbane

There was only one thing of real note on the trip home, and that was a rest stop somewhere near Ballina that had a whole heap of roosters living there. They were hopeful of getting some food when I approached with the camera, and I felt a bit bad that we didn't have any (other than the remnants of a bag of chips in the car, which I figured would do them more harm than good). Mental note for next time: bring a loaf of bread.

I suppose the roosters were put there because they were unwanted, as roosters often are. It sure beats killing them, and they looked very happy and comfortable.

Kempsey Trip: Day 11

Day 11: Uncle James, Auntie Anne, Rach, Natalie & David went back to Walcha on Sunday except for Chris, who was driving to the Gold Coast for a week with some old schoolmates. A while after Chris left, Uncle James wanted to take some family photos, so I took my camera out to hijack the pictures and get some of my own. David took some for me too. Mum was worried because she was wearing 'daggy' clothes or something. We all were, really. Uncle James positioned us in such a way that shadows made blotches all over Richard and Priscilla's faces and a big bandage-like band over Dad's forehead. Let's hope I don't have to wait another two and a half years to get some more!

David, Rach & Grandma

Later that afternoon Richard and Priscilla took us out for a drive in the Willawarrin area, where Priscilla's grandmother has a farm. I think the original intention was for Gam and Richard to go fishing, but for some reason it never eventuated. Instead we stopped for a walk, then drove around looking at the farms with Richard periodically sticking his head out the window and eliciting bemused looks from the cows with his attempts at mooing. By the time we started seeing kangaroos and wallabies it was too dark for the camera to be of much use at any distance, so we all went home for a dinner of Eagle Boys pizza and leftover black forest cake. I hadn't had takeaway pizza in years, mainly because Gam has spoiled my taste for takeaway with his homemade pizza. I would say the Kempsey EB is very good by franchise pizza standards, but not a patch on Gam's.

Monarch butterfly caterpillar?

Somehow this crippled-looking tree has survived the floods that roar down the little river...

It's probably a weed, but the seeds are pretty.

The car is in that direction...

Dead trees, probably from a flood.

You or I might be eating this cow someday...

The last flood dumped so much rock & gravel that the council had to clear it away to allow the 'river' to keep flowing.

Gam on a log...

A calf on the road. Not exactly a rare sighting.

More young cows, destined for the plate.

Kempsey Trip: Day 10

Birthday girl Grandma, 90 years old!

Day 10: Grandma's 90th birthday party. I'd been forewarned by Mum that I should have something 'nice' for the party, not just jeans. I had brought a skirt with me, but as it was a summer skirt (I'm not mad enough to wear a skirt in Winter, even in Brisbane, therefore I never thought of buying a suitable skirt), Mum suggested I wear a skirt she'd got from the op-shop, thinking I might like it. It was black, a hue that I usually avoid, but it was rather pretty, and when I tried it on with the top I'd got the day before it was a perfect match. Not that it mattered because I wound up wearing a jacket over it the entire time, but I hope I looked ladylike enough for Grandma.

Grandma certainly looked the epitome of a sweet little old lady, with a maroon dress and a pink corsage. As you might expect at a 90th birthday party, the average age of the guests was pretty high. Among the attendees was Grandma's younger sister Muriel (Auntie Mew) from Sydney, who came to say hello and said she recognised me instantly because I look so much like Mum (or presumably so much like Mum used to look before she had so much grey hair... I hope). Last time I met her I must have been six or seven years old, I guess. She didn't look a whole lot different, but I certainly must have! Her daughter Sue, Mum's cousin, also came, as did my first piano teacher Mrs Freer, and possibly the cutest little old lady in the world, one of the 'Sisters of the Church', tiny Sister Fiona, who always seems so incredibly happy and sunny and sweet. She told me all about the donkey sanctuary in Maitland where the Sisters had to send their three donkeys when they moved into town (because they are now so old and so few they could no longer manage a rural property). It definitely sounds like somewhere I'd like to visit. I love donkeys!

Auntie Mew, Grandma & Auntie Anne: Grandma was giving her thankyou speech.

Grandma with my first piano teacher, Mrs Freer.

The food served at the party was pretty bland fare, as you might expect for a 90 year old anglo-Australian woman: roast turkey, roast beef, gravox, carrot, peas, pumpkin, potato and a 'cauliflower bake'. I left all the meat on my plate and Gam left all his veges. Dessert was better: there was a choice between sticky date pudding and caramel tart. Seeing that the catering lady looked a bit cross when someone requested something she wasn't about to put in front of them anyway, Gam and I accepted our caramel tart and sticky date pudding, respectively, and quickly decided that the only one worth eating was the pudding, so we shared. Luckily it was a pretty massive serve. Given that Grandma is still getting used to the idea of Gam and I being a couple I briefly wondered if she would have something to say (not to us, of course) about us sharing dessert. I decided I didn't really care.

Colour-coordinated table settings matching Grandma's birthday dress. Intentional?

Both Grandma's sister and her daughter (and her daughter's husband) came over to our place after the party. All seemed quite normal, which is unusual for my family. Grandma is most definitely not normal, but she never has been, and I really hope I'm in the shape, both mentally and physically, she is in when I get to 90. Mum and Auntie Anne had to keep rousing on her while I was there because she would sprint down the ramp and path to the clothesline. I'm not kidding. All I would see was a grey blur rush past the kitchen window. I suggested to Grandma that maybe she should train up and enter the veterans' Olympics, but I think she thought I was joking.

The birthday cake.

Impressive sugar-flowers and leaves.

Surprisingly, the fruit cake at Grandma's party was a fairly nice one. I'd still choose almost any kind of cake in the world over fruit cake, but as far as fruit cakes go it was a good one. I picked a corner piece and ate it all, including the icing, and had another piece later, for which I ate a good part of the icing. Mum expressed her revulsion at the very thought of eating so much sugar, but I told her I have an iron stomach. Which I pretty much do when it comes to rich food.

When Grandma's sister Auntie Mew said goodbye to me she made a point of saying that she thought I had "a very lovely boyfriend". I happen to think so too, and told her so, but it made me wonder if she had picked up on Grandma's unease (overt or covert, I'm not sure) about our relationship and was trying to reassure me. Muriel gives the impression that she is much more a part of the real world than Grandma, not a difficult achievement.

Still, I don't want to give the impression that Grandma's faults are any more numerous than anyone else's, quite the opposite. It's just that they are, for the most part, different to most peoples'. Some of her faults make me feel protective of her. Some, namely her attitude towards interracial couples and marriage in general, make me feel rather defensive. Grandma has never been anything less than a very loving Grandma and sweet old lady who has done an enormous amount for her family.

Priscilla, Richard, Grandma & I

Kempsey Trip: Day 9

Day 9: Gam and Grandma both shared a birthday on Friday July 7th. Grandma was born in 1916, but even my imagination doesn't stretch that far back. It's a heck of a long time ago, to be sure. Grandma's party was scheduled for the next day, Saturday the 8th, and we went with Mum and Auntie Anne and Nat to pick up the cake- one of those fancy fruit cakes with hard white icing and marzipan. It would bloody well want to be good for $135, too. I can't imagine paying that much for any cake, let alone fruit cake. Ugh. The lady who made it liked to talk, and obviously had caught Mum by the ear inside the house. After about five minutes making disparaging remarks about her awful collection of lawn ornaments and another ten minutes staring out the window hoping to see a movement of the front door, Gam and I had got to the point where we were discussing easing off the handbrake and letting the car roll down the hill until it was out of sight of the house, when Mum and Auntie Anne emerged, spoiling our plans.

Mum had earlier taken us to 'her' op-shop, the local Anglican church one that she volunteers at. As usual it was full of middle-aged size 16 blouses and the like, but I did find a nice, deep red 3/4 sleeve top in a size 10, which I snapped up (and Mum once again paid for). We looked through the book section and Gam picked up 3 paperback airport-novel type things for the princely sum of $1. At that price who cares if they're crap? The op-shop was having a 'half price sale' for the school holidays, which I thought was kind of odd seeing as the prices were cheap even by op-shop standards. Mum told me once that there is a lady who drops by the op-shop every day and buys up the nicest clothes... Mum and the people who volunteer there had bought the story that this lady fed them about how she loves to buy clothes to give to all the people who live on her street. Yeah, and pigs can fly. She obviously owns or works for one of the more commercial 'pre-loved clothes' businesses in Kempsey, or runs a market stall or something. Not that they can (or would) tell this woman to bugger off, but if it's as ordinary a business transaction as it seems it is I don't think it's very nice to bother feeding falsehoods to a bunch of volunteers at a not-for-profit op-shop.

A day or two before Gam and Grandma's birthday (I think it was after the dreaded microwave-meatball dinner), Auntie Anne had mentioned something about cooking a cake for the occasion. I later took Mum aside and asked her to let Auntie Anne know that I was so much looking forward to cooking Gam a cake and to please leave it up to me, mainly because I didn't want Gam to be guilt-tripped into eating a microwave birthday cake that Auntie Anne had gone to the trouble of making.

I had always intended to make Gam a birthday cake, I was just afraid Auntie Anne would get in first. I wound up cooking a couple of black forest cakes, or rather I cooked the cakes and Gam did all the layering and decorating (the hard parts). For his own birthday. Shame on me... We almost had a disaster with getting the cakes out of the pans, too. Mum had run out of baking paper, and didn't have any of those nice cake tins where you can detatch the bottom from the sides (there is a special name for them that I can't remember), so we dutifully buttered & floured the cake tins, which the cakes duly stuck to like superglue, despite being thoroughly cooled to room temperature in the tin. Grrr. Somehow it worked, and I enjoyed myself 'cleaning up' the pieces of cake which were irretrievably stuck to the tin.

Forgot to take photos of the cakes. Bugger.

Kempsey Trip: Day 8

Day 8: Mum and Dad took us to Crescent Head, along with David. Rachelle, Chris and Uncle James had gone back to Walcha/Armidale for work at the beginning of the week, leaving Auntie Anne, Natalie and David staying with us.

Before we left I was fuming over Auntie Anne's assertion that 'no offence to science students' (including her own daughter, Rach, now a science graduate) but the body of scientific evidence showing no effect of vitamin C supplementation on cold prevention or duration meant absolutely nothing to her because she takes vitamin C and is convinced that it makes her colds shorter. The concept of a placebo effect is too much for her to grasp, apparently. Anyway, it was rather satisfying to see that despite her dire warnings that Gam and Richard and I would all catch a devastating version of the cold she was suffering because of our foolish refusal to take vitamin C tablets, Richard and I avoided the cold entirely, and Gam felt off-colour for 12 hours at most. I guess that's the sort of ignorance I'll be up against if I'm ever working in the field of public health. How frustrating.

It was a beautifully warm day for once, and we took a whole bunch of photos, mostly of interesting weathering patterns on the rocks.

I'm not even sure what this beach is called, but it's the main beach at Crescent Head, I think.

The direction we walked from the beach.

Limpets & Barnacles.

Looking behind to where we started our walk...

More limpets.

Rock...

Rock/s...

Pattern in part of the rock formation?

Another rock...

More rocks.

And another rock...

Last rock.

Always interested in seeing what brands the litterers consume...

Ooh they've got class...

No Rochefort? No Hefeweizen? Not even a Crownie? Who'd have thought?

Dad, taking a photo of something.

Gam, about to make the climb.

View from the top.

View from the bottom...

Dad & I, making our way down.

Richard and Priscilla came over for dinner and almost left as soon as they heard that Auntie Ann had cooked microwave meatballs for dinner, but I remembered the leftover pie, so they stayed after all. Thank god for Gam's cooking.