The Baliska Bounty Re-enactment Voyage leader, Tasmanian Don McIntyre, visited Solitary Island, midway between Sydney and Coff's Harboour, where a lonely bearded hermi named David Gooden lives.
No doubt David told him the sad story of an earlier settler, Selina Lydia Violet Lottborn.
Lydia was born on March 15.1895, and died on November 17, 1912.
Her father, Arther David Robert William Gow, was the island's principal lighthouse keeper..
Lydi never went to school, as the death certificate states "Home Duties",which back then,was the term for domestic duties/cleaner etc.
Wikipedia has a comprehensive story of the Bligh mutiny: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutiny_on_the_Bounty
NEWSFLASH TEENAGE SAILOR ABBY SUUNDERLAND IN STRIFE
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/airbus-nears-search-zone-for-teen-sailor-abby-sunderland/story-e6frg6nf-1225878482522
She became very ill, so a message was sent via the signal station to Coffs Harbour, for a doctor to come immediately. A heavy southerly was blowing but Dr W.H. Wood went across in a small launch. It was impossible to land from the jetty and crane, so Dr.Wood landed on the northern side of the island, first throwing his bag on to the island and then jumping on himself. In doing so, he slipped and by holding on to the slippery rocks tore a number of his finger nails off. The doctor diagnosed the case as very serious, returned to Coffs Harbour, where he sent urgent messages to Sydney for assistance.
The Captain Cook, with a doctor and nurse, was immediately despatched to the island. but a terrific cyclone was raging.and it was three days before the boat reached the island. Lydia died from typhoid/enteric fever and haemorrhage perforation. Dr. Wood last saw her three days before she died.
Lydia was buried at Sandgate Cemetery (Brisbane) on November 25,1912. Cemetery workers put a probe down into the grave to verify that concrete had been used.
NEWSFLASH YRRNAGE SAILOR ABBY SUNDERLAND IN STRFE:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/airbus-nears-search-zone-for-teen-sailor-abby-sunderland/story-e6frg6nf-1225878482522
Tags: abbby sunerlabd,sailingm.teeabge saailOrsmbounty,jessica watson
Showing posts with label australia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label australia. Show all posts
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Bounty Boat Ready to Set Sail from Tonga
Last-minute new crew mambers have boarded the Bounty Boat which is due to sail from Tonga on April 28 to re-enact Lieutenant William Bligh's 3700-mile voyage from Tonga to Timor - the grestest open-boat navigation achievement in maritime history. Bligh had commanded HMS Bounty until most of the crew mutinied and set him adrift, with sailors who had refused to mutiny.
Australian adventurer Don McIntyre plans to set sail on April 28, in a replica of Bligh’s 25-foot-long, 5-foot-wide. boat built by Tongan craftsmen, following the journey across the Pacific from Ha’apai in the Kingdom of Tonga to Timor. He hopes to begin his trip on the same day, at the same time and in the same place 221 years after Bligh's original voyage.
Two days ago I sent this email to the expedition:
I received this reply from another crew member, Stuart Keane:
The expedition has attracted great interest from the world's media, including the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/04/20/world/AP-AS-Tonga-Bounty-Voyage.html?_r=1
McIntyre has already given countless TV, radio and press interviews, and is sure to be asked for many more in the course of the voyage.
After making a donation to the Sheffield Instiuter Foundation in the UK, Jonathon, a keen suppoter of the re-enactment, , commented, "You are delightfully mad and a divine inspiration to us all! May your God go with you on this adventure."
The original Bligh of the Bounty later became governor of the Australian convict colony New South Wales,
which at that time included Queensland. He was a
bad-tempered, hard-swearing man who antagonised many of the citizenry, mostly military officers and wealthy settlers.
Eventually he was arrested. It was popularly believed that he had hidden under a bed in Government House to avoid arrest, but that story may be apocryphal.
He died in London on December 6,1817.
o You can follow the Bounty voyage by visiting the expedition's blog http://www.bountyboat.blogspot.com/. You can send them a message by adding a comment .
o Charles Laughton starred in a memorable film, Mutiny on the Bounty, in1937. A brief video is posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtmV2tpbnjA
o For more details about Bligh, see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bligh
P.S. I've just received another message from Stuart Keane. It reads:
Australian adventurer Don McIntyre plans to set sail on April 28, in a replica of Bligh’s 25-foot-long, 5-foot-wide. boat built by Tongan craftsmen, following the journey across the Pacific from Ha’apai in the Kingdom of Tonga to Timor. He hopes to begin his trip on the same day, at the same time and in the same place 221 years after Bligh's original voyage.
A few days ago, McIntyre wrote in his blog:"Just to let you know how organised we are...it was in 1990 that I last had to use a sextant for real..that was when I sailed solo from Sydney to Tonga as my 2000 mile qualifying voyage before the BOC Challenge single handed around the world yacht race...I can still remember packing my sextant away when I dropped anchor just a few miles from here ..I have never used a sextant in earnest since..anyway I now have to learn how to do it again...I will be using an Octant.. Bligh had a head start but hey..I like achallenge!"
Two days ago I sent this email to the expedition:
Hi Don. I've posted a story about your epic voyage in my blog http://lifebeginsat80.blogspot.com/
It has been published in the Pitcairn and Norfolk Island newspapers.
Do you know that the premier of Queensland, Anna Bligh, is a great-great-great-great-great-grand-daughte of Bligh of the Bounty?
Good luck! Best wishes to you and your crew.
I received this reply from another crew member, Stuart Keane:
On behalf of the Sheffield Institute Foundation Patrons, thank you for posting the Talisker Bounty Boat Story so far. Pleases inform as many people as you can through your journalist skills and outlets,The more people who know about TBB and The SIF the more chance we have to get donations and help eradicate this most horrible of diseases.
Thanks a lot for your help.
Kindest regards
Stuart
Stuart Keane,
Patron,
To the Sheffield Institute Foundation,
for Research into Motor Neurone Disease,
& Other Neurological Disorders.
M 07737534918
www.sifoundation.com
www.taliskerbountyboat.com
The expedition has attracted great interest from the world's media, including the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/04/20/world/AP-AS-Tonga-Bounty-Voyage.html?_r=1
McIntyre has already given countless TV, radio and press interviews, and is sure to be asked for many more in the course of the voyage.
After making a donation to the Sheffield Instiuter Foundation in the UK, Jonathon, a keen suppoter of the re-enactment, , commented, "You are delightfully mad and a divine inspiration to us all! May your God go with you on this adventure."
The original Bligh of the Bounty later became governor of the Australian convict colony New South Wales,
which at that time included Queensland. He was a
bad-tempered, hard-swearing man who antagonised many of the citizenry, mostly military officers and wealthy settlers.
Eventually he was arrested. It was popularly believed that he had hidden under a bed in Government House to avoid arrest, but that story may be apocryphal.
He died in London on December 6,1817.
o You can follow the Bounty voyage by visiting the expedition's blog http://www.bountyboat.blogspot.com/. You can send them a message by adding a comment .
o Charles Laughton starred in a memorable film, Mutiny on the Bounty, in1937. A brief video is posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtmV2tpbnjA
o For more details about Bligh, see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bligh
P.S. I've just received another message from Stuart Keane. It reads:
The Crew are Don,McIntyre Skipper,
David Wilkinson,
David Pryce,(nick named Quilter)
and 18year old Chris Wylde
If you go on the Talisker Bounty Boat website and look under The Crew heading you can view the profile of each one.
Talsiker is the name of the main sponsor of the TBB expedition 2010,
It is the name of a single mallt whisky distilled on the Isle of Skye in Scotland since 1830.
Cheers for now Stuart
Monday, July 27, 2009
Is he really a centenarian, or *only* 94?
Will Britain's "Oldest Marathoner", Pierre Jean "Buster" Martin, who claims he will be 103 years old on September 1, compete against Australian centenarian Ruth Frith in the 2009 World Masters Games, to be held in Sydney from October 10 to 18?
Ruth, a Brisbane great-grandmother who'll celebrate her 100th birthday on August 23, hopes someone will compete against her in the Games' first-ever "100 and over" class.
"You know how it is," she says. "You want to try to compete with those younger folk in their 90s."
She has registered for the hammer, discus, javelin and shot events.
The Sydney 2009 Masters Games will be the world's largest multi-sport event, with up to three times as many competitors as the Olympic Games. About 25,000 competitors from more than 100 countries will take part in 28 sports at more than 70 venues.
Anyone can take part in the WMG if they meet the minimum age requirement for their particular sport. The Games are where ordinary people, from former champions to recreational sport rookies, can have extraordinary experiences, with grades catering for competitive, recreational amd social players.
The Games encourage people from all walks of life to become involved in physical activity by participating in sport.
But there's a fly in the ointment. Buster Martin cannot - or will not - produce evidence of his age, so he may not be eligible for Sydney 2009. Many Brits think he's a younger publicity-seeking hoaxer. Sceptics say many of his stories are just too good to be true.
Employed three days a week as a van cleaner for Pimlico Plumbers, a publicity-conscious company in southeast London, he claims to be Britain's oldest worker, who refused to take a day off on September 1, 2006, which he claimed was his 100th birthday.
As a Marathoner, Buster's a walker rather than a runner, but even that is a great achievement for an old man, whatever his age may be.
The London media reported that he took a minute less than 10 hours to complete the 26-mile course of the 2008 London Marathon. The official timekeepers had gone home hours before he stumbled over the finish line.
The day after the Marathon, The Times published a story headlined Marathon Man, 'Buster' Martin, may be up to some old tricks. Patrick Foster wrote:
Patrick Barkham, a features writer of The Guardian newspaper, also investigated Buster's colorful life in an entertaining story. Here's an extract:
Buster says he married a girl named Iriana in 1920. She was 13, and he was 14. They had 17 children -"twins, triplets, singletons, all sorts" - born between 1921 and 1934, including triplets Georgina, Georgia and Giselle.
He has 70 grand and great-grandchildren, according to an apparently well-informed PR-minded blogger called
The article says "A confessed 'rogue' who drinks ale with a slice of orange and smokes like a chimney, Buster married Iriana, a girl from Tonbridge, Kent, aged 14 and fought in the Second World War in the Grenadier Guards. He switched to the Royal Navy and had a 35-year Service career but remained in London."
Buster accepts countless invitations to take part in fun runs and to appear at other functions, devoting the proceeds to his favourite charity, The Rhys Daniels Trust, http://original.justgiving.com/bustermartin1/ which provides "Home from Home" style accommodation close to specialist children's hospitals throughout the UK.
Other intriguing details about Buster Martin can be found in Wikipedia. http://bustermartin.blogspot.com/2008/01/buster-taking-time-out-while-training.html
And there's a YouTube interview as well.
But what of Australia's centenarian Ruth Frith? She's the mother of Helen Searle (68) who won a bronze medal in the high jump at the 1958 Cardiff Commonwealth Games and silver medals in the high jump and long jump at the 1962 Perth Commonwealth Games.
"She [Ruth] is literally in a league of her own in the women's 95-99 age category in which her best throws for the discus (9.85m), hammer (11.37m) and shot put (4.72m) are all world bests," Brisbane sports reporter Jim Tucker wrote last year in The Sunday Mail:
You can read a transcript of the ABC-TV's Brisbane reporter John Taylor interviewing Ruth on The 7.30 Report.
A final thought: Even if Buster Martin proves to be telling the truth, he still won't be the world's oldest all-time Marathoner. That title belongs to Philip "Flying Phil" Rabinowitz. Phil, who was born in Lithuania and lived mostly in South Africa, often visited relatives in Sydney. When he turned 100, he became the fastest centenarian ever to run in a 100 metres sprint. He covered the distance in 30.86 seconds.
Then, every year until he reached 104, he took part in the first few kilometres of the Philip Rabinowitz Memorial Marathon in Capetown. He died on February 28, 2008.
Will Britain's "Oldest Marathoner", Pierre Jean "Buster" Martin, who claims he will be 103 years old on September 1, compete against Australian centenarian Ruth Frith in the 2009 World Masters Games, to be held in Sydney from October 10 to 18?
Ruth, a Brisbane great-grandmother who'll celebrate her 100th birthday on August 23, hopes someone will compete against her in the Games' first-ever "100 and over" class.
"You know how it is," she says. "You want to try to compete with those younger folk in their 90s."
She has registered for the hammer, discus, javelin and shot events.
The Sydney 2009 Masters Games will be the world's largest multi-sport event, with up to three times as many competitors as the Olympic Games. About 25,000 competitors from more than 100 countries will take part in 28 sports at more than 70 venues.
Anyone can take part in the WMG if they meet the minimum age requirement for their particular sport. The Games are where ordinary people, from former champions to recreational sport rookies, can have extraordinary experiences, with grades catering for competitive, recreational amd social players.
The Games encourage people from all walks of life to become involved in physical activity by participating in sport.
But there's a fly in the ointment. Buster Martin cannot - or will not - produce evidence of his age, so he may not be eligible for Sydney 2009. Many Brits think he's a younger publicity-seeking hoaxer. Sceptics say many of his stories are just too good to be true.
Employed three days a week as a van cleaner for Pimlico Plumbers, a publicity-conscious company in southeast London, he claims to be Britain's oldest worker, who refused to take a day off on September 1, 2006, which he claimed was his 100th birthday.
As a Marathoner, Buster's a walker rather than a runner, but even that is a great achievement for an old man, whatever his age may be.
The London media reported that he took a minute less than 10 hours to complete the 26-mile course of the 2008 London Marathon. The official timekeepers had gone home hours before he stumbled over the finish line.
The day after the Marathon, The Times published a story headlined Marathon Man, 'Buster' Martin, may be up to some old tricks. Patrick Foster wrote:
With "Buster" Martin's straggly beard, dry wit, and advanced years, his attempt to run the London Marathon was always going to present the PR people with an irresistable feel-good tale. At 101 years old, he would be the oldest man to complete the 26-mile course. But as he hobbled his way through the London drizzle yesterday, his story was beginning to unravel.
On Saturday The Times disclosed that Guinness World Records had refused to verify his claim to be the oldest marathon runner.
Now it has emerged why the record guardians will not be featuring Mr Martin in its celebrated publication. Internal correspondence between senior officials at the organisation, obtained by The Times, shows that Guinness has evidence that Mr Martin is a mere spring chicken of just 94.
Guinness received information that Mr Martin, whose real name is Jean Pierre Martin, told NHS [National Health Service] staff that he was born on September 12, 1913, not 1906, as he now claims. A senior adviser to the world record company warned Guinness officials that Mr Martin "appears to be a fake, and more so, one being exploited by his company, which is using him to promote their services."
Patrick Barkham, a features writer of The Guardian newspaper, also investigated Buster's colorful life in an entertaining story. Here's an extract:
His life, as he tells it, is extraordinary. He was born Pierre Jean Martin "up in the hills" of the Basque Country. "I don't speak French because I don't like them," he says.
He claims his mother fell pregnant to a member of the affluent family she served, and mother and baby were smuggled to Britain to avoid the disgrace. His mother was put in a convent and baby Buster placed in an orphanage near Bodmin, Cornwall.
After coming to London, Buster worked, joined the army and got married in France (hence no marriage certificate). "How did I get to France to get married? No passport. I learned how to get there and avoid the authorities, and I could still go and do it now if I wanted to," he boasts.
Can he explain how? "No, because otherwise they would be watching the route for Christ's sake! Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what's the matter with you?!" Buster lurches forwards with a stare. "You won't get secrets out of me," he growls.
Buster says he married a girl named Iriana in 1920. She was 13, and he was 14. They had 17 children -"twins, triplets, singletons, all sorts" - born between 1921 and 1934, including triplets Georgina, Georgia and Giselle.
He has 70 grand and great-grandchildren, according to an apparently well-informed PR-minded blogger called
The article says "A confessed 'rogue' who drinks ale with a slice of orange and smokes like a chimney, Buster married Iriana, a girl from Tonbridge, Kent, aged 14 and fought in the Second World War in the Grenadier Guards. He switched to the Royal Navy and had a 35-year Service career but remained in London."
Buster accepts countless invitations to take part in fun runs and to appear at other functions, devoting the proceeds to his favourite charity, The Rhys Daniels Trust, http://original.justgiving.com/bustermartin1/ which provides "Home from Home" style accommodation close to specialist children's hospitals throughout the UK.
Other intriguing details about Buster Martin can be found in Wikipedia. http://bustermartin.blogspot.com/2008/01/buster-taking-time-out-while-training.html
And there's a YouTube interview as well.
But what of Australia's centenarian Ruth Frith? She's the mother of Helen Searle (68) who won a bronze medal in the high jump at the 1958 Cardiff Commonwealth Games and silver medals in the high jump and long jump at the 1962 Perth Commonwealth Games.
"She [Ruth] is literally in a league of her own in the women's 95-99 age category in which her best throws for the discus (9.85m), hammer (11.37m) and shot put (4.72m) are all world bests," Brisbane sports reporter Jim Tucker wrote last year in The Sunday Mail:
"I hold five world records but, let's be honest, I'm the only competitor in my age group," she says with a smile. "I'm the oldest competing in the world."You have to aim high ... I look at what those in their 80s are throwing and try to beat them.
"Honestly, I don't know what is so magical about being 99. It's just two numbers on a piece of paper and I'm still the same freckle-faced redhead I was at 98."
She is talking about the interest that has grown among a curious media over the past 12 months...Calls have come from Germany and photos have been taken by a French news agency.
You can read a transcript of the ABC-TV's Brisbane reporter John Taylor interviewing Ruth on The 7.30 Report.
A final thought: Even if Buster Martin proves to be telling the truth, he still won't be the world's oldest all-time Marathoner. That title belongs to Philip "Flying Phil" Rabinowitz. Phil, who was born in Lithuania and lived mostly in South Africa, often visited relatives in Sydney. When he turned 100, he became the fastest centenarian ever to run in a 100 metres sprint. He covered the distance in 30.86 seconds.
Then, every year until he reached 104, he took part in the first few kilometres of the Philip Rabinowitz Memorial Marathon in Capetown. He died on February 28, 2008.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Australia's Funniest Ghost Writer
This story was first published by OhmyNewsInternational. To read their version, with interesting illustrations and live links, please cut and paste this address: http://tinyurl.com/ct5z7s
Oscar Brittle stirred and disturbed his readers
Animal lovers, rejoice! Oscar Brittle has been gagged at last. He would have upset you had you read this letter to the Sydney Morning Herald:
That letter was just one of hundreds Oscar sent to the editors of Sydney's four daily newspapers in an 18-month writimg frenzy. Like many other letterwriters, talkback radio callers and bloggers, Oscar was an opinionated blowhard who wrote stacks of provocative nonsense and misquoted facts.
Here are extracts from a few of his letters, which often drew heated replies, mostly as email comments to the newspapers that had published his rants:
o Dear editor, I turned on the television on Saturday morning and saw a video clip for the first time in years. I have discovered that 68 per cent of Federal MPs are obese, showing off the tops of their bottoms with apparent impunity.
o Tomorrow, I and I suspect many of my ilk, will once again firmly stamp my ecological feet and take the car to town. Climate change is one thing, but passenger comfort is not to be undervalued.
o Whatever happened to manners on the road? At present, there seem to be more road rages than ever.
o Recent research shows that young people are having sex younger and younger. … Dear, oh dear!
o Video clips have come a long way in 25 years. For three horrible hours, I watched in disgust and denial as young women gallivanted about the place in tiny swimsuits, braziers, underpants and other garments that a man should only see in the boudoir.
o Does anyone have any information about shutting the internet down for good, or is it too late?
But Oscar wrote too many letters for his own good. Eventually, Amanda Meade, aptly-named media diarist in The Australian newspaper, became suspicious. She wrote:
Meade was right. It turned out that Brittle was a ghost, the brainchild of three young Canberra writers, Glenn Fowler , Christopher Smyth and Gareth Malone
Interviewed in Australia's ABC-TV Stateline program, http://www.abc.net.au/stateline/act/content/2006/s2535731.htm author Fowler described Oscar Brittle:
Dear Editor... The Collected Letters of Oscar Brittle have now been published as a highly entertaining book.
http://www.unswpress.com.au/isbn/9781742230115.htm
The publisher's blurb says:
There really was a man who devoted much of his life to tasting as many different animal species as he could find. Dr William Buckland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Buckland (1784-1856), Dean of Westminster and a professor at Oxford University (UK) tried to eat specimens of every living thing.
He was a frequent visitor to London Zoo, as he lived nearby. When an exotic animal died, he took the opportunity to taste its flesh. On one occasion, a leopard died and was buried while he was away on holiday. Returning to London, he dug it up, to taste leopard steak in the name of science.
The dean pronounced moles and bluebottles (flies) to have the worst flavors.
He taught his son, Francis Trevelyan
Buckland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Trevelyan_Buckland (1826-1880) to enjoy the flesh of exotic animals by participating in banquets of ostrich, crocodile, hedgehog and mice on toast.
Frank inherited his father's interests. While studying at Oxford, he complained of the “horribly bitter” taste of earwigs. Frank became a popular scientific author and lecturer.
END
Oscar Brittle stirred and disturbed his readers
Animal lovers, rejoice! Oscar Brittle has been gagged at last. He would have upset you had you read this letter to the Sydney Morning Herald:
I believe that I have eaten more types of animal than anybody else on the planet. I have eaten (not necessarily in this order): cow, sheep, pig, shark, goat, camel, horse, kangaroo, wallaby, wallaroo, potoroo, bandicoot, duck, chicken, pigeon, whale, wild dog, wild cat, cat, fish, catfish, dormouse, python, toad, turtle, monkey, impala, sea urchin, slug, jellyfish, fox, grouse, alligator, llama, vulture, mole, lobster, mongoose, daddy-long-legs, salamander …"
That letter was just one of hundreds Oscar sent to the editors of Sydney's four daily newspapers in an 18-month writimg frenzy. Like many other letterwriters, talkback radio callers and bloggers, Oscar was an opinionated blowhard who wrote stacks of provocative nonsense and misquoted facts.
Here are extracts from a few of his letters, which often drew heated replies, mostly as email comments to the newspapers that had published his rants:
o Dear editor, I turned on the television on Saturday morning and saw a video clip for the first time in years. I have discovered that 68 per cent of Federal MPs are obese, showing off the tops of their bottoms with apparent impunity.
o Tomorrow, I and I suspect many of my ilk, will once again firmly stamp my ecological feet and take the car to town. Climate change is one thing, but passenger comfort is not to be undervalued.
o Whatever happened to manners on the road? At present, there seem to be more road rages than ever.
o Recent research shows that young people are having sex younger and younger. … Dear, oh dear!
o Video clips have come a long way in 25 years. For three horrible hours, I watched in disgust and denial as young women gallivanted about the place in tiny swimsuits, braziers, underpants and other garments that a man should only see in the boudoir.
o Does anyone have any information about shutting the internet down for good, or is it too late?
But Oscar wrote too many letters for his own good. Eventually, Amanda Meade, aptly-named media diarist in The Australian newspaper, became suspicious. She wrote:
An Oscar for Best Actor.
DIARY calls on prolific letter writer "Oscar Brittle of Killara" to identify himself. After a series of curious letters were published in The Daily Telegraph, we tried to verify that Brittle was a real person. Here is Brittle on public transport: "The morning trip was pleasant enough, as I sat next to a handsome, lightly perfumed young woman, read the paper and even attempted a Sudoku puzzle" ...The opinionated Brittle is not listed in the White Pages and he does not exist on the electoral roll. But he has popped up in Column 8 in The Sydney Morning Herald and on the letters pages of The Australian. So beware, letters editors everywhere, there may be another phantom on the loose.
Meade was right. It turned out that Brittle was a ghost, the brainchild of three young Canberra writers, Glenn Fowler , Christopher Smyth and Gareth Malone
Interviewed in Australia's ABC-TV Stateline program, http://www.abc.net.au/stateline/act/content/2006/s2535731.htm author Fowler described Oscar Brittle:
He is generally a fairly conservative, indignant older chap from the leafy, neat, established northern Sydney suburb of Killara. Very opinionated.
What we tried to do was create somebody who has that combination of ignorance and outspokenness. He's got an opinion on anything. He's got ideas about anything and he's quite prepared to share them. He doesn't check things very often. He gets things wrong.
We tried to create maximum confusion and maximum offence with many of the letters, and we wanted the readers of the letters to be shocked. Obviously, first of all, that would be the editors doing the reading, and if they then got published and other people read them, we wanted to provoke responses, we wanted people to write letters back. And, fortunately, that happened in a lot of cases. So, Oscar offends virtually everybody on the planet in his letters, unless they're exactly like him.
Dear Editor... The Collected Letters of Oscar Brittle have now been published as a highly entertaining book.
http://www.unswpress.com.au/isbn/9781742230115.htm
The publisher's blurb says:
In an eighteen month campaign to wrest control of the debates in the nation’s newspapers and magazines from the wishy-washies and the weaklings, Oscar Brittle became (arguably) the most significant and powerful contributor to public debate in contemporary Australia.
This book is a collection of published letters and their originals, published replies from various correspondents, email exchanges between Oscar and editors, as well as the rejected letters, all interspersed with gorgeous illustrations throughout.
There really was a man who devoted much of his life to tasting as many different animal species as he could find. Dr William Buckland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Buckland (1784-1856), Dean of Westminster and a professor at Oxford University (UK) tried to eat specimens of every living thing.
He was a frequent visitor to London Zoo, as he lived nearby. When an exotic animal died, he took the opportunity to taste its flesh. On one occasion, a leopard died and was buried while he was away on holiday. Returning to London, he dug it up, to taste leopard steak in the name of science.
The dean pronounced moles and bluebottles (flies) to have the worst flavors.
He taught his son, Francis Trevelyan
Buckland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Trevelyan_Buckland (1826-1880) to enjoy the flesh of exotic animals by participating in banquets of ostrich, crocodile, hedgehog and mice on toast.
Frank inherited his father's interests. While studying at Oxford, he complained of the “horribly bitter” taste of earwigs. Frank became a popular scientific author and lecturer.
END
Monday, March 30, 2009
Public Pianos Strike Right Note
This story was first published by OhmyNewsInternational. To read their version, with interesting illustrations and live links, please cut and paste this address: http://tinyurl.com/cexwr9
Novel scheme delights young and old
Toque-me, Sou teu say signs stuck on free-to-use public pianos in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Play Me, I’m Yours, say similar signs in Birmingham, UK and Sydney, Australia.
Dozens of pianos placd in public areas in those cities tempt passers-by of all ages to sit down and play their favorite pieces, for the benefit of anyone who stops to listen. Delighted audiences soon gather, often dancing to the music, or chanting the songs.
Public pianos were the brilliant idea of Luke Jerram, a British inventor, installation artist and science communicator. He designs and builds science exhibits whilst creating multimedia installation artworks in his home country and overseas.
In March 2008, 15 pianos which had been professionally tuned were installed, unguarded, in Birmingham, Britain's second city.
"There is one in the Rag Market, and one outside Cadbury World," Maev Kennedy reported in The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/mar/14/art "There is another at Colmore junior school, where a teacher was persuaded into an impromptu recital dressed in white gown with veil fluttering in the icy wind. She had been on her way to her wedding."
Six months later, Jerram installed 13 pianos in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The music-loving South Americans responded enthusiastically.
"At £1,000 each (a year's wage for some people) many people had never seen a real piano before, let alone been given permission to play one," Jerram said later. "The project made national news there"
Two clips from Sao Paulo TV: http://www.pianosderua.com.br/index.php/materias-na-tv/ (speech in Portuguese).
Jerram invited online Sao Paulinos to tell him what they thought of the pianos and to post messages and videos on his website One commenter, Auro Augusto, wrote that he had heard a piano being played on a Sunday morning at the Lux station ... Bach, Tchaikovsky. Then (as translated by Google)
The most incredible, something that would never think that, (never seen in my 10 years of musical studies) a beggar (tattered and dirty, exhaled a smell that instigated people to come out of that person close) sat at the piano and incredibly started playing the first notes of the Moonlight Sonata (Beethoven) ..
In January 2009, Jerram visited Australia for the Sydney Festival. He arranged for 30 pianos to be bought, tuned, and installed in parks, public squares, on Harbor ferries and even in a tattoo parlor, for anyone to play.
The novel idea drew raptures from the press, radio and TV, and proved to be one of the most popular features of the festival. Thousands of pianists - ranging from accomplished musicians to complete mugs - happily tickled (or thumped) the ivory (or plastic) keys.
"Whether it's Chopsticks or Chopin, chances are you'll hear it on the streets of Sydney this summer", said Rebecca Baillie in an ABC-TV 7.30 Report. http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2008/s2472506.htm
A youthful-looking Jerram told her, "I'm hoping these pianos will act as a catalyst to get people talking to one another, to kind of connect people."
Sydneysiders' comments, videos and photos are posted on this website www.streetpianos.com.au
Jerram is so enthusiastic about the project that he has set up a special fund so that public pianos can be installed in "less wealthy" cities, including San Paulo.
He sees public pianos as an important way to promote community harmony. "The pianos act as sculptural, musical, blank canvases that become a reflection of the communities they are embedded into," he says. "Who will play them and how long they remain is up to each community.
"Questioning the rules and ownership of public space, 'Play Me I'm yours' is a provocation, inviting the public to engage with, activate and take ownership of their urban environment."
Jerram lives in Bristol, UK with his partner Shelina Nanji and children Maya and Nico.
He has been described as "a colour blind installation artist, who fuses his artistic sculptural practice with his scientific and perceptual studies." He has an impressive academic career fully described in his biography. http://lukejerram.com/showpage.php?page=biography/gtwp_section_leader.htm
Back in 2005, an article by Lewis Smith in The Times (London) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article554336.ece was headed "With this talking ring, inventor wins his girl." It reported:
It seems that Luke Jerram is both a gifted and a gift-giving performance artist.
END
Novel scheme delights young and old
Toque-me, Sou teu say signs stuck on free-to-use public pianos in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Play Me, I’m Yours, say similar signs in Birmingham, UK and Sydney, Australia.
Dozens of pianos placd in public areas in those cities tempt passers-by of all ages to sit down and play their favorite pieces, for the benefit of anyone who stops to listen. Delighted audiences soon gather, often dancing to the music, or chanting the songs.
Public pianos were the brilliant idea of Luke Jerram, a British inventor, installation artist and science communicator. He designs and builds science exhibits whilst creating multimedia installation artworks in his home country and overseas.
In March 2008, 15 pianos which had been professionally tuned were installed, unguarded, in Birmingham, Britain's second city.
"There is one in the Rag Market, and one outside Cadbury World," Maev Kennedy reported in The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/mar/14/art "There is another at Colmore junior school, where a teacher was persuaded into an impromptu recital dressed in white gown with veil fluttering in the icy wind. She had been on her way to her wedding."
Six months later, Jerram installed 13 pianos in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The music-loving South Americans responded enthusiastically.
"At £1,000 each (a year's wage for some people) many people had never seen a real piano before, let alone been given permission to play one," Jerram said later. "The project made national news there"
Two clips from Sao Paulo TV: http://www.pianosderua.com.br/index.php/materias-na-tv/ (speech in Portuguese).
Jerram invited online Sao Paulinos to tell him what they thought of the pianos and to post messages and videos on his website One commenter, Auro Augusto, wrote that he had heard a piano being played on a Sunday morning at the Lux station ... Bach, Tchaikovsky. Then (as translated by Google)
The most incredible, something that would never think that, (never seen in my 10 years of musical studies) a beggar (tattered and dirty, exhaled a smell that instigated people to come out of that person close) sat at the piano and incredibly started playing the first notes of the Moonlight Sonata (Beethoven) ..
In January 2009, Jerram visited Australia for the Sydney Festival. He arranged for 30 pianos to be bought, tuned, and installed in parks, public squares, on Harbor ferries and even in a tattoo parlor, for anyone to play.
The novel idea drew raptures from the press, radio and TV, and proved to be one of the most popular features of the festival. Thousands of pianists - ranging from accomplished musicians to complete mugs - happily tickled (or thumped) the ivory (or plastic) keys.
"Whether it's Chopsticks or Chopin, chances are you'll hear it on the streets of Sydney this summer", said Rebecca Baillie in an ABC-TV 7.30 Report. http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2008/s2472506.htm
A youthful-looking Jerram told her, "I'm hoping these pianos will act as a catalyst to get people talking to one another, to kind of connect people."
Sydneysiders' comments, videos and photos are posted on this website www.streetpianos.com.au
Jerram is so enthusiastic about the project that he has set up a special fund so that public pianos can be installed in "less wealthy" cities, including San Paulo.
He sees public pianos as an important way to promote community harmony. "The pianos act as sculptural, musical, blank canvases that become a reflection of the communities they are embedded into," he says. "Who will play them and how long they remain is up to each community.
"Questioning the rules and ownership of public space, 'Play Me I'm yours' is a provocation, inviting the public to engage with, activate and take ownership of their urban environment."
Jerram lives in Bristol, UK with his partner Shelina Nanji and children Maya and Nico.
He has been described as "a colour blind installation artist, who fuses his artistic sculptural practice with his scientific and perceptual studies." He has an impressive academic career fully described in his biography. http://lukejerram.com/showpage.php?page=biography/gtwp_section_leader.htm
Back in 2005, an article by Lewis Smith in The Times (London) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article554336.ece was headed "With this talking ring, inventor wins his girl." It reported:
Luke Jerram wanted to avoid a traditional proposal, so spent three months developing a ring that would play: "I love you for ever. Marry me."
Once it was ready, complete with a miniature record player, he took Shelina Nanji up in a hot air balloon and, while the pilot discreetly looked away, asked for her hand. She is now his fiancee.
It seems that Luke Jerram is both a gifted and a gift-giving performance artist.
END
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Tough Times in The Floating Brothel
This story was first published by OhmyNewsInternational. To read their version, with interesting illustrations and live links, please cut and paste this address:
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=384621&rel_no=1
Mary Wade was only 11 years old, but on January 14, 1789 an English judge sentenced her to death for assaulting an eight-year-old girl and stealing her clothes, which she pawned for 18 pence . Two months later the sentence was commuted to seven years' jail and transportation to Britain's new colony of New South Wales, in far-off Australia.
The First Fleet http://home.vicnet.net.au/~firstff/story.htm of six transport ships and three store ships, carrying about 1530 people - officials, families, soldiers, marines and male convicts - had left England on May 13, 1787. Of these, about 1483 had safely reached Sydney Cove on January 26, 1788.
The settlers were already facing disaster. They were short of food, knew little about farming, and nearly all the men lacked female companions.
So the British government took prompt action, sending a Second Fleet http://members.pcug.org.au/~pdownes/dps/2ndflt.htm with urgently needed supplies.
"About 225 female thieves, prostitutes and con artists were rounded up from prisons in London and the British countryside to the failing Sydney Cove colony aboard the Lady Juliana," wrote one historian. "The females were to serve two purposes - to prevent the starving and isolated male colonists from engaging in 'gross irregularities', and to act as a breeding stock for the troubled settlement."
The Lady Juliana's action-packed 10-month voyage from Plymouth to Sydney has been recorded in a lively novel by a British author, Sian Rees. Her book,
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/courtesans-voyage/sian-rees
published in 2001, is titled The Floating Brothel: The Extraordinary True Story Of An Eighteenth-Century Ship And Its Cargo Of Female Convicts.
“It just caught my imagination,” Rees said in an interview. “The idea of this enclosed world of 230 women and a few chaps bouncing around across the ocean for a year."
The Lady Juliana's steward John Nicol's memoirs, The Life and Adventures of John Nicol, Mariner, first published in 1822 and recently reprinted in Australia, recalled the ship's journey:
Nicol describes life onboard the ship and the ways in which the women were pressured to use sex to improve their situation and status. He details the difficult conditions the women were forced to endure during the long journey and the extreme seasickness that overtook the female passengers as they left England's shores.
But Nicol also notes that some luxuries were afforded to the women, even if they were primarily little more than efforts to safeguard the ship's human cargo. The women were provided with clothes, the services of a doctor, and guaranteed food and drink.
Nicol also writes of how many sailors and officers took a "wife" on the journey and records the birth of seven babies aboard the Lady Juliana, including one to him and his own "wife," Sarah Whitelam.
A story about the Lady Juliana on a PBS website http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/courtesans-voyage/the-lady-juliana-and-the-new-world says:
Some women, like Elizabeth Barnsley — a wealthy and successful shoplifter convicted of theft — used their money and influence to procure better lodging and even to create business opportunities on the ship. Prostitution was not unusual in Georgian England or within the shipping industry, and the Lady Juliana soon became something of a “floating brothel.” Crew members and, possibly, some of the ship’s female cargo profited from the sex trade in various ports of call, and money earned from prostitution could in turn be used to gain influence on the ship or upon arrival at Sydney Cove.
After ten months at sea, the Lady Juliana arrived at the desperate, starving Sydney Cove colony. They did not receive a warm reception. The colonists had expected food and supplies — not a cargo of over 200 women and as many as seven newborn infants — and they made their disappointment clear to the women of the Lady Juliana. However, the colonists’ ire eased after the supply ships Justinian, Surprize, Neptune, and Scarborough arrived in Sydney Cove just three weeks after the Lady Juliana.
For their part, many of the women convicts experienced a newfound sense of freedom at Sydney Cove. Freed from the strictures of traditional society and class, these women saw their new home as a chance to create a new life for themselves — a life filled with unprecedented opportunities.
Mary Wade spent the rest of her life Down Under, first in the brutal penal colony of Norfolk Island, and later on the NSW South Coast. According to a well researched biography http://www.perryfamilyhistory.net/wade/biography.shtml she had two children on Norfolk Island - Sarah in 1793 (when Mary was 15) and William in 1795 (believed to be Jonathan Brooker's son).
When they came back to Australia, Mary lived with Teague Harrigan and they had a son, Edward, in their tent on the banks of the Tank Stream in Sydney in 1803. Teague left to go on a whaling expedition in 1806 and never returned.
Mary later lived with Jonathan Brooker, having more children. They were given their Certificates of Emancipation in 1811 and 1812 and eventually settled in Airds with their family. Life on the land was difficult and their property and crops were lost in 1823 in a bushfire.
The family became destitute and pleaded to Governor Brisbane for aid. They eventually resettled in the Corrimal area of Illawarra. Jonathan died in 1833. Mary lived in the Illawarra area for another 26 years.
When she died at 87, at the home of one of her sons, the Illawarra Mercury reported that she had one of the largest families in the world. Her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren numbered more than 300. Today her descendants number many thousands, and include Australia's Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd: http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/with-family-like-this-some-rudds-going-to-stick/2008/01/19/1200620280779.htmlMany present-day Australians first learned of this little-known chapter of their country's colonial heritage when they watched a soul-stirring 54-minute dramatized documentary film http://www.abc.net.au/abccontentsales/s1580197.htm on ABC national television last week. A detailed synopsis is available on the internet: http://209.85.175.132/search?q=cache:YISg8ed1-v8J:www.filmaust.com.au/programs/teachers_notes/8857floatingbrothnotes.pdf+lady+juliana+film+synopsis&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1
Photos from the film http://www.filmaust.com.au/programs/teachers_notes/8857floatingbrothnotes.pdf
Writer-director Mark Lewis, 40, "an Englishman who specialises in historical documentaries in a semi-dramatised form", found this subject particularly satisfying.
"I've always been interested in good storytelling, and I've found that the best way to communicate a bigger story to an audience is to find the personal tales and the emotional stories that people can genuinely engage with," he says.
"In this film we had even more of an opportunity to do that. Not only did we have incredible personal stories of the convict women and little girls who end up becoming great matriarchs, prostitutes who end up as pub owners and landowners in Hobart - but we also had the opportunity to match them up with descendants who could effectively empathise with them from a much more heartfelt position as family members."
END
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=384621&rel_no=1
Mary Wade was only 11 years old, but on January 14, 1789 an English judge sentenced her to death for assaulting an eight-year-old girl and stealing her clothes, which she pawned for 18 pence . Two months later the sentence was commuted to seven years' jail and transportation to Britain's new colony of New South Wales, in far-off Australia.
The First Fleet http://home.vicnet.net.au/~firstff/story.htm of six transport ships and three store ships, carrying about 1530 people - officials, families, soldiers, marines and male convicts - had left England on May 13, 1787. Of these, about 1483 had safely reached Sydney Cove on January 26, 1788.
The settlers were already facing disaster. They were short of food, knew little about farming, and nearly all the men lacked female companions.
So the British government took prompt action, sending a Second Fleet http://members.pcug.org.au/~pdownes/dps/2ndflt.htm with urgently needed supplies.
"About 225 female thieves, prostitutes and con artists were rounded up from prisons in London and the British countryside to the failing Sydney Cove colony aboard the Lady Juliana," wrote one historian. "The females were to serve two purposes - to prevent the starving and isolated male colonists from engaging in 'gross irregularities', and to act as a breeding stock for the troubled settlement."
The Lady Juliana's action-packed 10-month voyage from Plymouth to Sydney has been recorded in a lively novel by a British author, Sian Rees. Her book,
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/courtesans-voyage/sian-rees
published in 2001, is titled The Floating Brothel: The Extraordinary True Story Of An Eighteenth-Century Ship And Its Cargo Of Female Convicts.
“It just caught my imagination,” Rees said in an interview. “The idea of this enclosed world of 230 women and a few chaps bouncing around across the ocean for a year."
The Lady Juliana's steward John Nicol's memoirs, The Life and Adventures of John Nicol, Mariner, first published in 1822 and recently reprinted in Australia, recalled the ship's journey:
Nicol describes life onboard the ship and the ways in which the women were pressured to use sex to improve their situation and status. He details the difficult conditions the women were forced to endure during the long journey and the extreme seasickness that overtook the female passengers as they left England's shores.
But Nicol also notes that some luxuries were afforded to the women, even if they were primarily little more than efforts to safeguard the ship's human cargo. The women were provided with clothes, the services of a doctor, and guaranteed food and drink.
Nicol also writes of how many sailors and officers took a "wife" on the journey and records the birth of seven babies aboard the Lady Juliana, including one to him and his own "wife," Sarah Whitelam.
A story about the Lady Juliana on a PBS website http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/courtesans-voyage/the-lady-juliana-and-the-new-world says:
Some women, like Elizabeth Barnsley — a wealthy and successful shoplifter convicted of theft — used their money and influence to procure better lodging and even to create business opportunities on the ship. Prostitution was not unusual in Georgian England or within the shipping industry, and the Lady Juliana soon became something of a “floating brothel.” Crew members and, possibly, some of the ship’s female cargo profited from the sex trade in various ports of call, and money earned from prostitution could in turn be used to gain influence on the ship or upon arrival at Sydney Cove.
After ten months at sea, the Lady Juliana arrived at the desperate, starving Sydney Cove colony. They did not receive a warm reception. The colonists had expected food and supplies — not a cargo of over 200 women and as many as seven newborn infants — and they made their disappointment clear to the women of the Lady Juliana. However, the colonists’ ire eased after the supply ships Justinian, Surprize, Neptune, and Scarborough arrived in Sydney Cove just three weeks after the Lady Juliana.
For their part, many of the women convicts experienced a newfound sense of freedom at Sydney Cove. Freed from the strictures of traditional society and class, these women saw their new home as a chance to create a new life for themselves — a life filled with unprecedented opportunities.
Mary Wade spent the rest of her life Down Under, first in the brutal penal colony of Norfolk Island, and later on the NSW South Coast. According to a well researched biography http://www.perryfamilyhistory.net/wade/biography.shtml she had two children on Norfolk Island - Sarah in 1793 (when Mary was 15) and William in 1795 (believed to be Jonathan Brooker's son).
When they came back to Australia, Mary lived with Teague Harrigan and they had a son, Edward, in their tent on the banks of the Tank Stream in Sydney in 1803. Teague left to go on a whaling expedition in 1806 and never returned.
Mary later lived with Jonathan Brooker, having more children. They were given their Certificates of Emancipation in 1811 and 1812 and eventually settled in Airds with their family. Life on the land was difficult and their property and crops were lost in 1823 in a bushfire.
The family became destitute and pleaded to Governor Brisbane for aid. They eventually resettled in the Corrimal area of Illawarra. Jonathan died in 1833. Mary lived in the Illawarra area for another 26 years.
When she died at 87, at the home of one of her sons, the Illawarra Mercury reported that she had one of the largest families in the world. Her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren numbered more than 300. Today her descendants number many thousands, and include Australia's Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd: http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/with-family-like-this-some-rudds-going-to-stick/2008/01/19/1200620280779.htmlMany present-day Australians first learned of this little-known chapter of their country's colonial heritage when they watched a soul-stirring 54-minute dramatized documentary film http://www.abc.net.au/abccontentsales/s1580197.htm on ABC national television last week. A detailed synopsis is available on the internet: http://209.85.175.132/search?q=cache:YISg8ed1-v8J:www.filmaust.com.au/programs/teachers_notes/8857floatingbrothnotes.pdf+lady+juliana+film+synopsis&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1
Photos from the film http://www.filmaust.com.au/programs/teachers_notes/8857floatingbrothnotes.pdf
Writer-director Mark Lewis, 40, "an Englishman who specialises in historical documentaries in a semi-dramatised form", found this subject particularly satisfying.
"I've always been interested in good storytelling, and I've found that the best way to communicate a bigger story to an audience is to find the personal tales and the emotional stories that people can genuinely engage with," he says.
"In this film we had even more of an opportunity to do that. Not only did we have incredible personal stories of the convict women and little girls who end up becoming great matriarchs, prostitutes who end up as pub owners and landowners in Hobart - but we also had the opportunity to match them up with descendants who could effectively empathise with them from a much more heartfelt position as family members."
END
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Is Ken (97) world's oldest columnist?
London's famous journalist Henry Jackson (95) is probably Britain's oldest columnist, but Australia's Ken Sillcock has trumped him by two years for the world title.
"Hey, we have a bonzer 97-year-old columnist," (Bonzer is an Australian slang word meaning excellent) Alan Wheatley, editor of Melbourne's Bonzer! webzine ("The Online Monthly Magazine by, for and about Wise Elders") exclaimed when he read our story about Henry Jackson. http://www.openwriting.com/archives/2008/03/worlds_oldest_c_2.php
During World War II, Ken (born 8 Oct., 1910) was a wireless (radio) operator in the Royal Australian Air Force. He served in the UK in Bomber Command, in Lancaster aircraft making perilous destructive raids over Europe.
Checking some of Ken's recent stories in the Bonzer! archives reveals much about his varied and eventful life.
He has written a biographical book called "Three Lifetimes of Dairy Farming in Victoria" about his grandfather and father and his own work as a dairy herd tester before he became Deputy Chief of Agriculture for the state of Victoria.
"Science for me seemed to end in 1930, two years into a four-year degree course, when the Great Financial Depression intervened," he recalled last November.
"Through life, skills which seem unrelated can combine to change one's destiny. For me, this happened in music. Until the end of 1924 my mother taught me to play the piano tolerably well. Ten years later I joined the local brass band as a learner and bought a cornet, just as a hobby, until I joined the AIF [Australian Army] in 1940 as a bandsman/stretcher bearer. This, together with my background in science, led to me being chosen for anti-malaria training.
"My elementary training in entomology was put to use in 1940 when the AIF sent me to a school on malaria control conducted in the Jordan Valley, where the disease was endemic and control work was in place. We applied our new skill in Lebanon and, later, in Sri Lanka.
"That ceased, for me, with our return to Australia, but in 1943 my previous studies of Physics and Mathematics were most helpful when I transferred to the RAAF and studied Radio Theory as a major subject in the Wireless Operator course. Science became a dominant interest again when, in 1945, I had the opportunity to complete my degree course, and in my subsequent career."
Ken attracts young as well as old readers to his writing. Here's a tribute written by Sarah, a 24-year-old Brisbane blogger http://todaysapatheticyouth.blogspot.com/2005/11/remember-this.html
"We still have old guys like Ken Sillcock alive at the moment, who are trying their best to pass on to us the lessons they took away from their painful experience of war. But we're not even listening, and soon, there'll be nothing to remember."
Here's a sample of Ken's lucid writing, from his latest column in the April edition of Bonzer! http://home.vicnet.net.au/~bonzer/p-o-v.html
Ken has a word of advice for his readers. He says old people who remain active and interested in their community tend, as a group, to remain more healthy than those who think they are ''too old, over the hill, or finished."
Last December, he sent this email to his friends and admirers:
With the approach of Anzac Day (April 25) Australians (and others) may like to read Ken's moving poem, The Jinx Kite http://www.wordandnumberpuzzles.com/bonzer/B/contributions.html
"Hey, we have a bonzer 97-year-old columnist," (Bonzer is an Australian slang word meaning excellent) Alan Wheatley, editor of Melbourne's Bonzer! webzine ("The Online Monthly Magazine by, for and about Wise Elders") exclaimed when he read our story about Henry Jackson. http://www.openwriting.com/archives/2008/03/worlds_oldest_c_2.php
During World War II, Ken (born 8 Oct., 1910) was a wireless (radio) operator in the Royal Australian Air Force. He served in the UK in Bomber Command, in Lancaster aircraft making perilous destructive raids over Europe.
Checking some of Ken's recent stories in the Bonzer! archives reveals much about his varied and eventful life.
He has written a biographical book called "Three Lifetimes of Dairy Farming in Victoria" about his grandfather and father and his own work as a dairy herd tester before he became Deputy Chief of Agriculture for the state of Victoria.
"Science for me seemed to end in 1930, two years into a four-year degree course, when the Great Financial Depression intervened," he recalled last November.
"Through life, skills which seem unrelated can combine to change one's destiny. For me, this happened in music. Until the end of 1924 my mother taught me to play the piano tolerably well. Ten years later I joined the local brass band as a learner and bought a cornet, just as a hobby, until I joined the AIF [Australian Army] in 1940 as a bandsman/stretcher bearer. This, together with my background in science, led to me being chosen for anti-malaria training.
"My elementary training in entomology was put to use in 1940 when the AIF sent me to a school on malaria control conducted in the Jordan Valley, where the disease was endemic and control work was in place. We applied our new skill in Lebanon and, later, in Sri Lanka.
"That ceased, for me, with our return to Australia, but in 1943 my previous studies of Physics and Mathematics were most helpful when I transferred to the RAAF and studied Radio Theory as a major subject in the Wireless Operator course. Science became a dominant interest again when, in 1945, I had the opportunity to complete my degree course, and in my subsequent career."
Ken attracts young as well as old readers to his writing. Here's a tribute written by Sarah, a 24-year-old Brisbane blogger http://todaysapatheticyouth.blogspot.com/2005/11/remember-this.html
"We still have old guys like Ken Sillcock alive at the moment, who are trying their best to pass on to us the lessons they took away from their painful experience of war. But we're not even listening, and soon, there'll be nothing to remember."
Here's a sample of Ken's lucid writing, from his latest column in the April edition of Bonzer! http://home.vicnet.net.au/~bonzer/p-o-v.html
Our money was fairly reliable when it consisted of alloys of gold, silver and copper, which only a metallurgist could fake, and genuine coins were minted only by the legal government of the nation. In my grandfather's lifetime he carried sufficient money for his daily needs in a spring-loaded case in a waistcoat pocket at the end of a chain.
On one side it held five sovereigns (pounds) and on the other five half-sovereigns. Banks with secure vaults were set up so that people could have their money stored safely when not needed. A fee had to be charged to pay the people who provided this service.
Things started to go wrong when banks started to make the rules. At first they were required to hold in their vaults gold to the value of five-sixths of the gold they held on behalf of their clients. Then note-printing was introduced when the Bank of England was given a licence to print them, and lend them out at interest.
Ken has a word of advice for his readers. He says old people who remain active and interested in their community tend, as a group, to remain more healthy than those who think they are ''too old, over the hill, or finished."
Last December, he sent this email to his friends and admirers:
I havIe an important message for the world, and I ask that you pass it on, especially to those who do not have email. It is: Don't be in too much hurry to help those who are disabled.
That sounds a bit at odds with the Christian spirit and with the beliefs of other codes of life, until I add: First, find out what help they need which will not cause them further damage.
Our bodies were designed long before the wheel and the hydraulic lift were invented. They work on a system of levers well understood by those who studied Physics or Mechanics to Year 10.
Every lever has to move through part of a circle around its pivot. It cannot, for instance, go immediately from the horizontal to the vertical position, but must arrive at it in two stages.
In a chair with arms my technique was to push myself halfway up, then change my grip to include a forward thrust and then steady myself on a firm object or with a walking stick.
So there I was, in my 97th. year, the oldest at our annual Air Force Europe lunch. The chairs didn't have arms, so I sat down through the toasts etc. At the end, when I had to get up, without warning, the two young and fit blokes, barely in their eighties, grabbed me under the armpits and, with the kindest of intentions, hauled me straight up, in defiance of the Law of the Lever.
In the days following I learned that a "crook back" is not just a dull sort of pain. It is that much of the time but. if you make a wrong move, it hits you with an uncontrolled spasm which really hurts. The only way to avoid that is to stand up or sit down in a slow spiral, not straight up or down.
I have just moved out of hospital into my own home, a separate house on my son's block. Indoors I use a wheeled walking frame and have a few grab bars installed, and have help calling to check on me, but I am not yet allowed to go outdoors unaccompanied. Time will heal a cracked vertebra and an apparently strained muscle on my left side.
On the positive side, I have gained this knowledge to pass on, extra compassion for those worse off than I am, and especially for those who have similar injuries much earlier in life.
I can still enjoy some independent living, still in touch with the whole world through Internet.
My family have been most supportive, even sacrificing time they should have given to their work, and the Department of Veterans' Affairs has sometimes anticipated my needs.
Ken moved into a 24-hour serviced aged care facility just before Christmas. He told one of his friends: "As I have to be here I aim to contribute something to the life of the place. I guess that’s what we should aim to do, whatever life deals up to us."
With the approach of Anzac Day (April 25) Australians (and others) may like to read Ken's moving poem, The Jinx Kite http://www.wordandnumberpuzzles.com/bonzer/B/contributions.html
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Australia foams at the mouth
Amazing photographs of "Crazy ocean foam ... near Sydney" are so weird that many web surfers (and some real ones) think they must be fakes.
They're real all right, but they were not taken anywhere near Sydney. They show masses of foam four meters (13 feet) deep, washed up at Yamba, a small beach and fishing resort 677km (421 miles) north of Sydney, Australia's largest city, but only 287km (178 miles) south of Brisbane, our third city.
Last week (on January 23) a similar phenomenon occurred further north, at Point Cartwright, on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, just north of Brisbane.
It may be significant that Yamba lies at the mouth of the mighty Clarence River, while Point Cartwright is at the mouth of the Mooloolaba River.
A quick check shows that the Yamba photos were the work of a commercial photographer, Bill Counsell, who is more used to recording outdoor weddings. His dramatic pictures of the foam have circled the world, copied on hundreds of websites and blogs, usually without a credit line.
Counsell sold his photos to the Sydney Daily Telegraph and the London Daily Mail, and then they took off in a media frenzy, being copied globally in the press, on TV and the internet, usually without permission.
A website in Ukraine displayed the photos with captions in Cyrillic script.
"I've had an amazing response from all corners of the world, from men's girly magazines to German science magazines and everything in between," Counsell told me,
What caused the foam to form? Counsell, who lives within walking distance of the clubhouse, said he learned of the foam starting to build the day before he took his sensational photos.
"I think the foam was created by a combination of events: no rain at all for two or three months and then a lot of rain over a couple of days at the same time as the sea was in a semi-cyclonic condition -- large swell, strong winds, heavy rain and big tides," he said.
"In lay terms I think the sea was the Mixmaster, the beach was the bowl and the stormwater run-off (full of modern day chemicals and detergents etc) were the ingredients, so with the combination of these factors coming together, the surf was literally whipped up."
Commenting on the story in the US, One Man's Blog said: "This is definitely one of the strangest natural phenomenon I've ever read about. Just imagine dumping enough dish-washing liquid into the ocean to turn all the waves into light and fluffy soap bubbles that are soft enough to blow out of your hand into the air!
"Well, that's basically what happened off the coast of Yamba in New South Wales!
"Here we see kids frolicking and playing in the wonderful ocean foam, oblivious to the fact that it is comprised of dead plants, decomposed fish, and seaweed excretions!"
The London Daily Mail's Sydney correspondent, Richard Shears wrote:
"Scientists explain that the foam is created by impurities in the ocean, such as salts, chemicals, dead plants, decomposed fish and excretions from seaweed. All are churned up together by powerful currents which cause the water to form bubbles. These bubbles stick to each other as they are carried below the surface by the current towards the shore.
"As a wave starts to form on the surface, the motion of the water causes the bubbles to swirl upwards and, massed together, they become foam. The foam 'surfs' towards shore until the wave 'crashes', tossing the foam into the air.
"'It's the same effect you get when you whip up a milk shake in a blender,' explains a marine expert. 'The more powerful the swirl, the more foam you create on the surface and the lighter it becomes.'
"In this case, storms off the New South Wales Coast and further north off Queensland had created a huge disturbance in the ocean, hitting a stretch of water where there was a particularly high amount of the substances which form into bubbles."
In Australia, a surfer calling himself Barnacle wrote in a message to the RealSurf forum:
"John Dengate of the NSW Department for the Environment and Conservation was on ABC Radio yesterday and said it was due to small sea organisms that are literally pulverised by the large swell resulting in a very fine protein suspension in the sea.
"The protein mix coats the air-bubbles created by the waves to create a stiff froth, just the same way as egg protein coats air bubbles to make meringue, and beer protein coats air bubbles to produce a head of foam in a beer glass."
Finally, Ian Scott-Parker, from a town called Hurricane in Utah, USA, wrote: "The explanations for the creation of the foam seem too varied to be reliable. Various natural products are foaming agents (extract of horse chestnuts was used in early fire extinguishers) but saline solutions are usually considered to be anti-foaming agents.
"On balance I like the crushed plankton providing protein foaming agent hypothesis, when the high level of fresh water coming in from the Clarence River provides a suitable non-saline environment for the foam to be generated.
"Australia Foaming at the Mouth would be a good headline." [Thanks, Ian.]
He added: "There is already a range of cosmetic products named Aussie on sale in the USA, so I feel sure there is room in the woo-woo sector for All Natural Yamba Plankton Body Wash -- Harness the Power of Cyclonic Weather Systems To Beautify Your Skin. A version for men would be a possibility -- Enriched With Guinness Head for a Whiff of the Pub and the Ocean All in One Lotion."
LINKS
Cappuccino Coast http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=478041&in_page_id=1811
Sludge oozes at Point Cartwright
http://www.thedaily.com.au/news/2008/jan/24/monster-deep-emerge-sea-foam/
Bill Counsell, photographer http://www.billcounsell.com/
Ukraine website (Cyrillic script) http://www.4post.com.ua/travel/13689.html?photo=5
Pacific Ocean near Sydney turns to foam
http://onemansblog.com/2007/09/28/pacific-ocean-near-sydney-turns-to-foam/
This story was first published by OhmyNewsInternational, http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?menu=A11100&no=381567&rel_no=1&back_url
They're real all right, but they were not taken anywhere near Sydney. They show masses of foam four meters (13 feet) deep, washed up at Yamba, a small beach and fishing resort 677km (421 miles) north of Sydney, Australia's largest city, but only 287km (178 miles) south of Brisbane, our third city.
Last week (on January 23) a similar phenomenon occurred further north, at Point Cartwright, on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, just north of Brisbane.
It may be significant that Yamba lies at the mouth of the mighty Clarence River, while Point Cartwright is at the mouth of the Mooloolaba River.
A quick check shows that the Yamba photos were the work of a commercial photographer, Bill Counsell, who is more used to recording outdoor weddings. His dramatic pictures of the foam have circled the world, copied on hundreds of websites and blogs, usually without a credit line.
Counsell sold his photos to the Sydney Daily Telegraph and the London Daily Mail, and then they took off in a media frenzy, being copied globally in the press, on TV and the internet, usually without permission.
A website in Ukraine displayed the photos with captions in Cyrillic script.
"I've had an amazing response from all corners of the world, from men's girly magazines to German science magazines and everything in between," Counsell told me,
What caused the foam to form? Counsell, who lives within walking distance of the clubhouse, said he learned of the foam starting to build the day before he took his sensational photos.
"I think the foam was created by a combination of events: no rain at all for two or three months and then a lot of rain over a couple of days at the same time as the sea was in a semi-cyclonic condition -- large swell, strong winds, heavy rain and big tides," he said.
"In lay terms I think the sea was the Mixmaster, the beach was the bowl and the stormwater run-off (full of modern day chemicals and detergents etc) were the ingredients, so with the combination of these factors coming together, the surf was literally whipped up."
Commenting on the story in the US, One Man's Blog said: "This is definitely one of the strangest natural phenomenon I've ever read about. Just imagine dumping enough dish-washing liquid into the ocean to turn all the waves into light and fluffy soap bubbles that are soft enough to blow out of your hand into the air!
"Well, that's basically what happened off the coast of Yamba in New South Wales!
"Here we see kids frolicking and playing in the wonderful ocean foam, oblivious to the fact that it is comprised of dead plants, decomposed fish, and seaweed excretions!"
The London Daily Mail's Sydney correspondent, Richard Shears wrote:
"Scientists explain that the foam is created by impurities in the ocean, such as salts, chemicals, dead plants, decomposed fish and excretions from seaweed. All are churned up together by powerful currents which cause the water to form bubbles. These bubbles stick to each other as they are carried below the surface by the current towards the shore.
"As a wave starts to form on the surface, the motion of the water causes the bubbles to swirl upwards and, massed together, they become foam. The foam 'surfs' towards shore until the wave 'crashes', tossing the foam into the air.
"'It's the same effect you get when you whip up a milk shake in a blender,' explains a marine expert. 'The more powerful the swirl, the more foam you create on the surface and the lighter it becomes.'
"In this case, storms off the New South Wales Coast and further north off Queensland had created a huge disturbance in the ocean, hitting a stretch of water where there was a particularly high amount of the substances which form into bubbles."
In Australia, a surfer calling himself Barnacle wrote in a message to the RealSurf forum:
"John Dengate of the NSW Department for the Environment and Conservation was on ABC Radio yesterday and said it was due to small sea organisms that are literally pulverised by the large swell resulting in a very fine protein suspension in the sea.
"The protein mix coats the air-bubbles created by the waves to create a stiff froth, just the same way as egg protein coats air bubbles to make meringue, and beer protein coats air bubbles to produce a head of foam in a beer glass."
Finally, Ian Scott-Parker, from a town called Hurricane in Utah, USA, wrote: "The explanations for the creation of the foam seem too varied to be reliable. Various natural products are foaming agents (extract of horse chestnuts was used in early fire extinguishers) but saline solutions are usually considered to be anti-foaming agents.
"On balance I like the crushed plankton providing protein foaming agent hypothesis, when the high level of fresh water coming in from the Clarence River provides a suitable non-saline environment for the foam to be generated.
"Australia Foaming at the Mouth would be a good headline." [Thanks, Ian.]
He added: "There is already a range of cosmetic products named Aussie on sale in the USA, so I feel sure there is room in the woo-woo sector for All Natural Yamba Plankton Body Wash -- Harness the Power of Cyclonic Weather Systems To Beautify Your Skin. A version for men would be a possibility -- Enriched With Guinness Head for a Whiff of the Pub and the Ocean All in One Lotion."
LINKS
Cappuccino Coast http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=478041&in_page_id=1811
Sludge oozes at Point Cartwright
http://www.thedaily.com.au/news/2008/jan/24/monster-deep-emerge-sea-foam/
Bill Counsell, photographer http://www.billcounsell.com/
Ukraine website (Cyrillic script) http://www.4post.com.ua/travel/13689.html?photo=5
Pacific Ocean near Sydney turns to foam
http://onemansblog.com/2007/09/28/pacific-ocean-near-sydney-turns-to-foam/
This story was first published by OhmyNewsInternational, http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?menu=A11100&no=381567&rel_no=1&back_url
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Still Blogging At 96
Spain's oldest blogger, María Amelia, seemed pensive when she began making a brief video of her 96th birthday celebrations on December 23. Then she tried to blow out two candles on her decorated cake. With her first and second puffs,only one light went out She blew harder. The remaining flame flickered, but stayed alight. Several more puffs, but the candle stubbornly refused to be extinguished.
Maria Amelia's face lit up like the candle. "Dios me dió 1 año más!" ("God has given me one more year!") she exclaimed, waving her arms excitedly. You can share her spontaneous joy even if you can't understand Spanish, by viewing her latest video http://amis95.blogspot.com/
Emilio Pérez Touriño, president of Spain's autonomous community of Galicia, sent a congratulatory birthday message to Amelia.
Amelia's 96th birthday marked the completion of her first year's blog, which was the previous year's gift from her grandson Daniel, who helpfully types the posts that she dictates to him.
When I interviewed her for OhmyNewsInternational a year ago, http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?menu=A11100&no=341010&rel_no=1&back_url= she said her name was María Amelia. Last month she revealed for the first time that her full name is María Amelia López Soliño Abente Barros. (The automated translater says it's María Amelia López Soliño Abente Mud, because the Spanish word barros means mud in English).
One year ago, Amelia was hailed as the world's oldest blogger, but since then she has been dethroned by Australia's 108-year-old Olive Riley. http://www.allaboutolive.com.au/
Both these wonderful oldtimers have thousands of supporters reading every word they dictate, but sadly all Amelia's observations are recorded only in Galician (galego) and Olive's only in English.
Let's hope that someone fluent in both languages will offer to translate their posts for the benefit of their monolingual admirers.
* This story was first published by the British daily literary webzine "Open Writing": http://www.openwriting.com/archives/2008/01/still_blogging.php
** For 500 more stories, on many different subjects, please read my free e-book: http://bdb.co.za/
Maria Amelia's face lit up like the candle. "Dios me dió 1 año más!" ("God has given me one more year!") she exclaimed, waving her arms excitedly. You can share her spontaneous joy even if you can't understand Spanish, by viewing her latest video http://amis95.blogspot.com/
Emilio Pérez Touriño, president of Spain's autonomous community of Galicia, sent a congratulatory birthday message to Amelia.
Amelia's 96th birthday marked the completion of her first year's blog, which was the previous year's gift from her grandson Daniel, who helpfully types the posts that she dictates to him.
When I interviewed her for OhmyNewsInternational a year ago, http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?menu=A11100&no=341010&rel_no=1&back_url= she said her name was María Amelia. Last month she revealed for the first time that her full name is María Amelia López Soliño Abente Barros. (The automated translater says it's María Amelia López Soliño Abente Mud, because the Spanish word barros means mud in English).
One year ago, Amelia was hailed as the world's oldest blogger, but since then she has been dethroned by Australia's 108-year-old Olive Riley. http://www.allaboutolive.com.au/
Both these wonderful oldtimers have thousands of supporters reading every word they dictate, but sadly all Amelia's observations are recorded only in Galician (galego) and Olive's only in English.
Let's hope that someone fluent in both languages will offer to translate their posts for the benefit of their monolingual admirers.
* This story was first published by the British daily literary webzine "Open Writing": http://www.openwriting.com/archives/2008/01/still_blogging.php
** For 500 more stories, on many different subjects, please read my free e-book: http://bdb.co.za/
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