Locked Out of Central Sydney

For the best part of a week, Central Sydney is off-limits to the locals because of the APEC meeting. For the uninitiated, APEC stands for Asia - Pacific Economic Cooperation, and it's the second biggest group in the world after the United Nations! Members include all countries in East and Southeast Asia (except North Korea); Russia; Australia, NZ and PNG; and the North American Free Trade Area. This is home to roughly half of humanity. It's the group trying to stitch up the Pacific Century, and it's well on its way to that goal.

Well, this meeting is BIG, mainly because the talking is not left to ministers and bureaucrats, but heads of state. So, we have Presidents Hu, Bush, Putin, Yudhoyono, Calderon etc, (China, US, Russia, Indonesia, Mexico), and Prime Minister galore including Abe, Lee, Harper, Badawi, and Clark (Japan, Singapore, Canada, Malaysia, and NZ). Bush alone arrived with an entourage of 700 and a fleet of cadillacs - including Cadillac 1, which met Airforce 1. At the moment, this meeting looks a bit like a love-in. For example, Hu has crossed the country signing huge resources deal that make China our biggest trading partner and the leader of the opposition, Kevin Rudd (and very likely next prime minister) addressed Hu in Mandarin Chinese, much to the amazement of the Chinese delegation. Meanwhile, George had a very friendly set of of meetings with John Howard, now his main friend in an increasingly friendless world. Putin is also rumoured to have set up lots of trade deals, greatly increasing Australia - Russia cooperation. This event is making the EU look rather provincial!

Anyway, most of central Sydney is cordoned off for security reasons and tomorrow the citizens have been given a day off. The event has also had its lighter moments. There is a popular satirical TV show called the Chasers War on Everything run by a group of under-30s. The team stages all sorts of stunts to send up powerful interests. For example, it booked two plane tickets for a Mr Al Kyder and Mr Terry Wrist (get it?) booked them in for a flight and they didn't show up. So, the airline paged Mr Al Qaeda and Mr Terrorist to join the flight, which sent the terminal into paroxisms of laughter - and even the announcer got the message that the airline had been set up. Well, today they hired some flash limos, decorated them with some official signs and ran a motorcade past two check points right up to Bush's hotel. And one of the characters who stepped out was no less than Osama bin Laden - well an actor playing the role. They were all arrested, but the stunt will probably be hushed up. Anyway, they showed up lax security!

Elipse

Last Tuesday night (28 August) we were entertained by one of the world's great experiences. It was a full eclipse of the moon by the earth and a beautiful cloudless night and the whole display lasted getting on for two hours. I was playing bridge at the time, but our venue had a wonderful viewing area just outside the emergency exit. Needless to say, the entire 12 playing tables decamped to the viewing platform at the end of each deal and the game was on the slow side.



At the peak of the eclipse, the moon turned a brown-red colour with a thin lighter halo around the edge. It was easy to make out the earth's shadow lying across the moon and the disappearance of its surface crater. In a way, it beat the total eclipse of the sun viewed from Dartmoor a few years ago. That event was spoiled by heavy cloud.

AS

Farewell Lunch

I was given a great send-off by 30 colleagues at lunch on Friday, except that I morph from a salaried academic to an adjunct position and continue as usual on Monday with more disposable income than I had on Friday.

My colleagues included professors of Geography, Sociology, Psychology and Archaeology who heaped praise on my career - so much so that I wondered if I were at my own funeral!

I received some useful presents, including a badly needed new watch (not gold), an outdoor weather station, and a large voucher for books.

To cap Friday off, I submitted a revised (post-referee) article to a leading journal. There are four more in the pipeline and I've just published an edited book!

AS

Celestial Display

Last Tuesday (28 August) we were treated to a brilliant celestial display: a full eclipse of the moon by the earth. It last almost 2 hours and, at the apogee at 8.30 pm, the full moon (in a cloudless sky) turned red-brown surrounded by a feint lighter circumference where the earth's shadow was incomplete. Surface features, such as craters, disappeared and it was almost creepy to see the earth's shadow edging across the moonscape.

It sure beat the last full eclipse of the earth by the moon I saw from the top of Dartmoor. That event was spoiled by heavy cloud.