It's certainly been a busy day. Apart from viewing the sinking of the Titanic, I presided over the raising of the Armidale Bridge Club's playing skills with a 3 hour masterclass on squeeze play this morning. Come to think of it, the two events are related. One concerned the crushing and sinking of opponents, while the latter did the same for the White Star line!
We considered the simple squeeze, simultaneous and non-simultaneous double squeezes, the triple squeeze and the trump squeeze. The attentive audience numbered about 25 and I received a standing ovation at the end. One car-load even came from Glen Innes 100 km away.
AS
Sunday, 25 May 2008
A Sinking Feeling
Dot and I have just returned from attending a resounding performance of 'Titanic': the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts one week, UNE's Lazenby Hall the next. It was very well done by a totally amateur group. The orchestra comprised local musicians conducted by one of my doctors, the cast was enormous - c. 50 strong, and the set was good. OK, the stage didn't sink beneath the waves, and our version lacked an iceberg. But, the set tilted appropriately to suggest a sinking ship and the lighting was excellent. The audience was enthusiastic, but the performers wouldn't give an encore - perhaps because they would have had to raise the titanic. The performance was certainly loud enough to raise the dead, so vigorous were the singers. And the director was George Torbay, brother of our local member and speaker of the house representatives.
AS
AS
Saturday, 24 May 2008
Still Rushing
I once attended a conference in Amsterdam for 2-3 days and the lapsed time for the entire trip from Armidale and back was less than 6 days. Now I'm retired, I'm still at it and I should know better. On Thursday evening I addressed a small crowd at RMIT Hamilton for about 45 minutes and the return trip took a shade over two days.
Nothing remarkable about that? Well, it's a long way to Hamilton - about as far as going to Cairns in the opposite direction. This is a big continent and flying there took about 6 hours and three separate legs in various aircraft, including the last one from Melbourne's Tullamarine airport to Hamilton in the famous flying pencil. This aircraft has only two seats abreast one on either side. The return journey was even longer because it took well over four hours sitting in two buses just to get from Hamilton back to Tullamarine for the flight home. That was my fault as I'd specifically asked to look at western Victoria's countryside from the ground. I saw the southern end of the Grampian Mountains (the name seems familiar), Dunkeld (ditto) and the old gold-mining city of Ballarat with its grand 19th century Victorian buildings - a bit like Manchester and other large English cities.
Fortunately, the trip was a success - and not just for my presentation. My host, Paul Collits - who is one of my doctoral graduates, and I discussed a mass of stuff. We're writing a book together, co-edit a journal, and I'm an advisor to a program that he has developed in a successful tender to deliver regional development practitioner education for Economic Development Australia (EDA). Paul and his wife Melissa gave up a life in suburban Sydney six months ago to move to Hamilton as part of what we call tree-change and sea-change. The former is a move to a rural setting and the latter is the same but coast hugging. So they swapped a back garden for 10 hectares and much more space. Both are happy - so much so that Melissa is now doing a law degree through my own university!
AS
PS You could all do programs through UNE if you want a happy productive retirement or a career change. Emily, for example, is doing our Master of Applied Linguistics through UNE while in Baltimore.
Nothing remarkable about that? Well, it's a long way to Hamilton - about as far as going to Cairns in the opposite direction. This is a big continent and flying there took about 6 hours and three separate legs in various aircraft, including the last one from Melbourne's Tullamarine airport to Hamilton in the famous flying pencil. This aircraft has only two seats abreast one on either side. The return journey was even longer because it took well over four hours sitting in two buses just to get from Hamilton back to Tullamarine for the flight home. That was my fault as I'd specifically asked to look at western Victoria's countryside from the ground. I saw the southern end of the Grampian Mountains (the name seems familiar), Dunkeld (ditto) and the old gold-mining city of Ballarat with its grand 19th century Victorian buildings - a bit like Manchester and other large English cities.
Fortunately, the trip was a success - and not just for my presentation. My host, Paul Collits - who is one of my doctoral graduates, and I discussed a mass of stuff. We're writing a book together, co-edit a journal, and I'm an advisor to a program that he has developed in a successful tender to deliver regional development practitioner education for Economic Development Australia (EDA). Paul and his wife Melissa gave up a life in suburban Sydney six months ago to move to Hamilton as part of what we call tree-change and sea-change. The former is a move to a rural setting and the latter is the same but coast hugging. So they swapped a back garden for 10 hectares and much more space. Both are happy - so much so that Melissa is now doing a law degree through my own university!
AS
PS You could all do programs through UNE if you want a happy productive retirement or a career change. Emily, for example, is doing our Master of Applied Linguistics through UNE while in Baltimore.
Sunday, 18 May 2008
Winter's Arrival
Strictly speaking it's still Autumn, a bit like mid-November in the northern hemisphere. But the chill of winter has arrived and temperatures might get to 9 degrees (C) if we're lucky. There's a howling southwest gale blowing, scudding grey clouds, and, so Dot claims, the residue of overnight snowfalls. All in all, it's unpleasant after the rather nice 18 degree and sunny weather we've had for the last few days. How I envy Max and Beck in Baltimore!
If I cannot travel insurance for the US and we have to put the trip in limbo, Dot and I will head for some warmth down under. We'll go to Darwin and Kakadu (one of the world's great national parks), where the temperatures are a cool 28 degrees at this time of year - down from the 33 degrees of summer!
AS
If I cannot travel insurance for the US and we have to put the trip in limbo, Dot and I will head for some warmth down under. We'll go to Darwin and Kakadu (one of the world's great national parks), where the temperatures are a cool 28 degrees at this time of year - down from the 33 degrees of summer!
AS
Saturday, 10 May 2008
Bach Festival
I've remarked from time to time that Armidale has a rich cultural life. This week we have Wool Expo, an extravaganza of anything to do with sheep. There are professional fashion parades of the latest wool creations; sheep dog trials; lots of trade exhibits including sheep drenches and other chemicals for pasture improvement; sheep shearing exhibits; and so on. I go most years, but not this one, because by some remarkable coincidence the Expo coincides with the New England Bach festival, which has some marvellous events.
I can't recall any Bach festivals in the UK or elsewhere in Australia, yet a little town of about 22,000 people manages one! It involves some interesting Bach specialist performers like the Musica Antiqua Cologne, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music Baroque Ensemble, and the Australian Baroque Brass. They perform a variety of organ music, cantatas, Brandenburg Concertos, and so on.One of the most interesting events was this morning and it was free. Some local musicians - and Armidale has some excellent performers - staged a single work, Bach's Coffee Cantata, on the steps of a beautiful vaulted shopping arcade outside a coffee shop. The performance was excellent, partly because of the arcade's wonderful acoustics, and the performers wore 18th century dress, as the attached picture shows. I imagine that few places in the world could stage such an inspirational event.
What added to the colour was continual passing traffic of often young shoppers who didn't quite know what to make of bewigged singers and a chamber ensemble cheered on by a large audience including Dot and I aloft on the balcony. At one stage, the lead male singer came around and tapped eligible men on the shoulder to ask if they'd like to marry his daughter, and I rehearsed my best German to explain that I'm a bit on the old side. Alas, he never reached me to make an offer. I must have looked over the hill.
AS
Interesting Experience
I had an interesting experience this week - though not a first for me. The Commonwealth is having an inquiry into housing unaffordability. Australia has a similar problem to the UK in that housing prices have had a very strong run, and a Senate Select Committee (SSC) was looking at ways in which housing might be made more affordable. I made a submission a month ago, one of about 65 received by the committee. On the basis of that, I was asked to testify before the committee and have my words of wisdom incorporated in Hansard!
The interview took place on Wednesday by teleconference and I summarised my submission and fielded questions from the committee. By the way, I felt qualified to make the submission as I taught property development for 30 years and had prepared a paper on housing affordability for a major conference (The State of Australian Cities) held one week after my cardiac arrest in November last year. Needless to say, I didn't get to Adelaide to present it! But I did revise it for the SSC. The committee was looking for quick fixes, but I couldn't give them one, except to say that every property boom in Australia's history has self corrected in the longer term - often 5 to 10 years. This one looks no different. I did say that the recent boom, which is now cooling was caused by an extraordinary conflation of events, including a rapid rise in immigration levels, large scale interregional migration in Australia, changing household composition, a wealth boom lasting now 12 years in succession, globalisation, and so on. All those events raised demand against a background in which supply responded very slowly and at great expense because of government taxes and charges. I sketched how to restrain housing prices in the longer term with good public policies, but I guess I'll get ignored.
AS
The interview took place on Wednesday by teleconference and I summarised my submission and fielded questions from the committee. By the way, I felt qualified to make the submission as I taught property development for 30 years and had prepared a paper on housing affordability for a major conference (The State of Australian Cities) held one week after my cardiac arrest in November last year. Needless to say, I didn't get to Adelaide to present it! But I did revise it for the SSC. The committee was looking for quick fixes, but I couldn't give them one, except to say that every property boom in Australia's history has self corrected in the longer term - often 5 to 10 years. This one looks no different. I did say that the recent boom, which is now cooling was caused by an extraordinary conflation of events, including a rapid rise in immigration levels, large scale interregional migration in Australia, changing household composition, a wealth boom lasting now 12 years in succession, globalisation, and so on. All those events raised demand against a background in which supply responded very slowly and at great expense because of government taxes and charges. I sketched how to restrain housing prices in the longer term with good public policies, but I guess I'll get ignored.
AS
Monday, 5 May 2008
On the Stage Again
I've just confirmed my next stage appearance! On 22 May - Brian, recognise that date? - I'm going to Hamilton in Western Victoria which is about 1500km from here. I can't drive that far in less than a week - there and back, so once again I'll take to the air. Unfortunately, Hamilton is a difficult place to get to by air. First, there's the trip to Sydney on a small turboprop (50-seater). There, I have to transfer from terminal 2 to terminal 3 for the flight to Melbourne's Tullamarine airport. On arrival in Melbourne I then have to make my way to Essendon airport for the final leg to Hamilton
The trip is to deliver a speech to a regional development forum in western Victoria on the evening of the 23rd and I'll travel back the following day. One of my former doctoral graduates heads up a regional development program at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology's (RMIT's) Hamilton campus and we're supposed to be writing a book together. My presentation will be on the importance of visioning the future in regional strategy.
AS
The trip is to deliver a speech to a regional development forum in western Victoria on the evening of the 23rd and I'll travel back the following day. One of my former doctoral graduates heads up a regional development program at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology's (RMIT's) Hamilton campus and we're supposed to be writing a book together. My presentation will be on the importance of visioning the future in regional strategy.
AS
Bridge Intermediate Class
I've become a Bridge teacher. Yesterday, Sunday, I ran my first intermediate class for players with some experience in the game, but wishing to hone their skills. I was expecting 20-25 people in the Armidale Bridge Club (ABC) rooms on Rockvale Road. Instead, we got 34! Moreover, they were very enthuiastic and I had a wonderful reception. So, the whole morning went very well.
To prove how much I've recovered, I talked standing up for 3 hours and felt no ill-effects. Indeed, I went for a walk afterwards and covered 7 km in 53 minutes at a faster speed than before I had my cardiac arrest! This was a speed of about 5 mph. If this appears fast, I'll concede that I ran part of it!
For the cognoscenti, my lesson covered both bidding and play. Topics included: accuarate hand valuation; disruptive bidding; and trump management.
Just three weeks from now, I'm giving my first master-class on the subject of squeeze play. It will focus on simple, double and repeating squeezes. For those who do not play bridge I have to correct a possible misapprehension. Bridge is not a violent game and executing a squeeze does no long-term harm to the opponents - except to deflate their egos.
AS
To prove how much I've recovered, I talked standing up for 3 hours and felt no ill-effects. Indeed, I went for a walk afterwards and covered 7 km in 53 minutes at a faster speed than before I had my cardiac arrest! This was a speed of about 5 mph. If this appears fast, I'll concede that I ran part of it!
For the cognoscenti, my lesson covered both bidding and play. Topics included: accuarate hand valuation; disruptive bidding; and trump management.
Just three weeks from now, I'm giving my first master-class on the subject of squeeze play. It will focus on simple, double and repeating squeezes. For those who do not play bridge I have to correct a possible misapprehension. Bridge is not a violent game and executing a squeeze does no long-term harm to the opponents - except to deflate their egos.
AS
Another Trip to Newcastle
Dot and I were swinging from the rafters on Friday. I had an appointment with my cardiac specialist, James Leitch, in Newcastle and we decided to drive there and back in the day. That amounted to 9 hours on the road, with me taking the wheel for a few hours during the trip. So, I have had extensive driving experiences on some of the most scenic roads in the state. We went down via Gloucester and back via the New England Highway through Scone and Tamworth. Have you heard those names somewhere before!
It's a long way to go for a 15 minute consultation with a doctor, but it was useful. The scan of my defibrillator turned up nothing - it hadn't been triggered during the preceding three months or so. I received a copy of my psychometric test, which was interesting reading but showed nothing adverse, and we discussed medication. James wants me to keep taking the pills for now, which is OK by me. And we agreed to meet again in December, a long way down the track.
Alas, he couldn't help with nominating a travel insurance company that might help me and so, today, I'm taking concerted action to find one through unusual channels. I still intend to go to see Em in the US, but Dot is reluctant to travel without it. She's terrified that (a) I might end up in a US hospital and (b) suffer a large currency transfusion from my wallet. If I were alone I'd be off!
AS
It's a long way to go for a 15 minute consultation with a doctor, but it was useful. The scan of my defibrillator turned up nothing - it hadn't been triggered during the preceding three months or so. I received a copy of my psychometric test, which was interesting reading but showed nothing adverse, and we discussed medication. James wants me to keep taking the pills for now, which is OK by me. And we agreed to meet again in December, a long way down the track.
Alas, he couldn't help with nominating a travel insurance company that might help me and so, today, I'm taking concerted action to find one through unusual channels. I still intend to go to see Em in the US, but Dot is reluctant to travel without it. She's terrified that (a) I might end up in a US hospital and (b) suffer a large currency transfusion from my wallet. If I were alone I'd be off!
AS
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