A Day at the Beach

Dot and I met up with Emily and Greg and Rebecca and Max three days ago at Broulee on the NSW South Coast. It is a beautiful spot with glorious beaches, quaint villages, impressive headlands, and nearby mountainous scenery as backdrop to rolling green hills. This, and the next few posts, deal with these dimensions and the things we did together for the few days after Christmas.
On the first morning we all headed for the beach which, like all in the locality, was clean and sandy. It was also crowded by Australian standards as the first picture shows. That's me in the middle -suitably attired.

The first thing we did was to erect the beach house we bought with us. The picture shows Emily, Greg and Beck trying to fathom out the construction process, while Max looks on wishing someone would take him to the water with his body-board. I joined them to supervise the process and install some order as the third picture shows.

When we first arrived, by the way, we were pleasantly surprised that the beach was pristine. The day before, the high water mark was strewn with the corpses of bluebottles of the kind shown in the fourth photo. These jelly-fish come with a long poisonous tentacle attached and pop like a gun when one treads on them. The previous night's storm must have swept them away to our great relief.

Max, who is now a good swimmer, had lots of fun with Greg's body-board and caught several good waves which propel the rider fast towards the shore. Beck and I also used this piece of equipment to advantage. In fact, I spent a wonderful 90 minutes in the moderate surf trying to stay upright as the waves crashed towards shore. I had to duck under several of the bigger ones to avoid being tumbled about by the conditions. In between the breaking waves I was able to float on the surface or swim outwards a little.

After this, Max decided to dig himself a pit in the sand in which he could sit and cool off. Alas, he didn't factor in the rising tide and a large wave swamped his pit and virtually cemented him in place amidst much mirth. It was quite a struggle to free him, but much easier to clean him up. All he had to do was go back into the surf and the sea did the rest.

Later in the day we went for a long walk along one of the local beaches, posing occasionally for photos and to jump up and down on expired, but still deadly, jelly-fish. The animals themselves may be barely alive, but their sting can still pack a punch. So footwear was needed for this task.

The final picture shows the stream separating Broulee from Mossy Point, which had some fine beach houses. This was the farthest park of our joutney in the evening sunlight - the end to a perfect day.

AS

A Lovely Exhibition

We're in Sydney for Xmas and having a day to spare headed off by train and taxi to an exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW. And, wow, it was a great exhibition called The First Emperor. The gentleman concerned was Qin Shihuang who became king of a very small state at the age of 13 and spent the next 25 years uniting China into more or less its current configuration less the western one-third (including Tibet). He was born in 259 BCE. Qin is pronounced Chin, so guess what:  Chin became China. Much of the exhibit contains pottery, bronze and gold (or other precious items) of the 200 years or so preceding Qin's rise and on to his rein as the 1st Emperor.

Interest - indeed spectacular - as that was, the centre-point of the exhibition was the collection of terracotta warriors created to defend him in the afterlife. Their existence was discovered in a field near X'ian in 1974 and subsequently archaeologists worked until today - the work is continuing - to unearth thousands of items of which we saw just a few.

They're magnificent, and Dot and I are now planning to visit X'ian and also Beijing where we'll walk on the wall. Watch this space for further details. If you have a chance, please go. The exhibition runs until 13th March. I now have a replica of the general leading the parade which will stand in my office for inspiration.

AS

Wild Weather

We've been intrigued by the awful pictures of snow-bound Europe and people holidaying in exciting airport terminals. Yet we're having our own wild weather. A few parts of NSW had a frost last night and even Armidale got down to 3 degrees C. It was distinctly chilly pedalling to work on the bike this morning even though things had warmed up nicely by mid-day. Over the last few weeks we've had endless dull and wet days and temperatures well below normal. This culminated 3 days ago with a massive storm that brought wintry temperatures - only +15C during the day - and huge winds up to about 100 kmh. So, we've accompanied the northern hemisphere in its weather travails. Today, however, became lovely after that cold start, with cloudless skies and low humidity, so envy us going into Christmas. Sydney and the south coast should be 25-30C and the water will be about 21C.

AS

A Sojourn in Melbourne

We are nearly home after a 4-day trip to Melbourne. Like most things these days, the 3,000 km round trip (by air) was a rushed affair, with me being in conference most of the time and Dot, who accompanied me, seeing the sights of the city. Dot, for one had a good time and the highlight was a trip to Philip Island to see the fairy penguin parade just after dusk. The penguins, which are protected, nest in burrows on the island and come ashore in the twilight to rush across the beach and up to feed their young. They fish during the day and cannot be seen. Otherwise, Dot's time was a parade of shops, art galleries, parks, museums and lovely old buildings. She also enjoyed riding the trams. Melbourne has an extensive network of tram lines, much like most European cities.

I, meantime, was holed up in the suite of conference rooms we hired at a hotel near Melbourne University. I presented the ANZ Regional Science Association's accounts for 09-10, resigned as treasurer, took over as the journal's editor with another colleague, chaired a conference session, presented an award, gave a paper (on quantum mechanics and uncertainty), drafted an article with a colleague and designed a research project. All this was intellectually exciting, but tiring as discussions sometimes went into the late evening and I met several good colleagues from all over Australia, and the US and New Zealand. Moreover my US visit in July will now take a detour via Missouri!

I'm typing this while delayed in the Qantas Club at Sydney airport. It looks like my home district had some wild weather today!

AS

If Music be the Food of Love

i have just returned from a highly unusual concert performed by the Armidale Symphony Orchestra for its last concert of the year. It contained three works, all twentieth century English, connected with Shakespeare's plays and had two actors reciting large slab's of the Bard's works. So it bought together music and drama and a beautiful way and all participants performed well - all 100 of them! Yes, there was a 60 piece orchestra and a choir of 40 who also supplied the various soloists required. One of the two actors was actually dressed in battle fatigues for reasons that will be apparent shortly.

The first piece was Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music, first performed in October 1938. The words of this rather beautiful work are from Act V of The Merchant of Venice and it pieces together various lines penned by Shakespeare on the subject of music including, for example:
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!

Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Williams selective used the text, picking, choosing and re-arranging the lines that appealed to him.

The second work was William Walton's film score for Henry V starring Brian's some-time neighbour, Olivier. This was completed in 1944 and apparently the motivation for the film was a morale booster given that Henry defeated the French at Agincourt on Friday 25 October 1415 and it was hoped that the same was about to happen to the Nazis. The orchestra performed most of the film score including: the Prologue, at the Boar's Head (a pub), the Interlude after Falstaff's death, Harfleur, the Night Watch (not Rembrandt's painting of the same name), and Agincourt. All of these required orchestra, soloists and/or choir. Just before the last item there was a large orchestral interlude depicting the battle, which was well orchestrated and quite vivid. The actor in fatigues was, of course, King Henry preparing for battle and his orations included the well known "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more"; and "This day is called the feast of Crispian"; and "The day is ours!". This performance brought thunderous applause and it was very well done. By the way, one of my doctor's - Bruce Menzies (correctly pr Mingies) - was the conductor.

Bruce came out for the final work wearing a pair of wings, as did quite a few of the cast! It was part of Benjamin Britten's opera "A Midsummer Night's Dream". I last saw the play in spectacular surroundings - in the open air on the banks of the St Lawrence in Montreal. The finale we heard this afternoon feature two school-boys singing the roles of Cobweb and Mustardseed. I don't know if they were embarrassed being dressed as fairies! They were joined by Puck, Oberon and Titania. Britten's score was not as striking for me as Williams' and William's.

It's great that we Armidalians have some many opportunities of this kind. And the local orchestra is always willing to do the unusual, this time the mix of opera, film score and concert piece, together with exciting and dramatic recitations of key passages from Henry V. The package was a great success.

AS

Awash

We have heard about heavy snowfalls in Britain and sympathise with those affected. But spare a thought for Australia's farmers. Some places have had a decade of dry conditions and even the worst on record. But 2010 was shaping up as one of the best years in last 35 with ample rainfall in the growing season. Now that is turning to disaster in some cropping regions as 2010 is now shaping as Australia's wettest year on record. In our part, we have to go back to 1917 to find a wetter season.

It's great news for Armidale because this district has little cropping and livestock are not in danger of drowning in flood-waters because of the hilly nature of the terrain. On the plains 200 km west of here, however, the water ponds up disastrously after very heavy rain and the land is so flat that flood events may take 3-4 months to reach the sea through the Murray-Darling system.

It might be surprising to those in Britain to find that our part of the driest continent makes much of your country look a bit like Saudi Arabia. Just south of here had about 120 mm of rain yesterday - that's nearly 5 inches. Armidale had getting on 50 mm over the same period and lots more is forecast today.  Over the month of November parts of the Northern Tablelands had over 200 mm, or c. 8 inches. The downside of all this is lack of warmth. My British readers would probably rejoice at temperatures in the low 20s, but that is something like 6 degrees below normal for the start of summer (officially the 1st December).

I guess we should head out to the gorge country and have a look at the massive waterfalls out there. For overseas readers, this region is about 50 x 50 km of dramatic scenery as water tumbles over the edge of the Tablelands into steep-sided valleys up to 300-400 mm deep.

AS

South America

Emily and Greg returned nearly a week ago from 6 weeks in South America. From all accounts the trip went brilliantly and the pictures they've brought back make me want to get on a plane immediately to visit the same spots. What are we doing sitting our boring homes leading humdrum lives when we could be out there enjoying spectcular experiences!!?

Don't believe me? Well go to the following web-site and see what I mean!

http://flickr.com/gp/93675103@N00/oW872p

Life's too short to sit around familiar cultural and visula landscapes. Let me know if you disagree.

AS

Third Re-Birthday

Today marks the third anniversary of my cardiac arrest and the beginning of my amazing recovery back to more or less complete normalcy. Two kind friends remembered this event in advance, for which I thank them - and Emily who is good a remembering this kind of thing has no doubt sent me a card from Quito, which has yet to arrive. Yes, Quito in Ecuador! She and Greg are off shortly to the upper Amazon jungle and I wish them good luck.

Meanwhile, back here we're going to celebrate this evening with a night out. It looks like being a nice day in another way. The sun is beating down after yet another day of rain - getting on for another 25mm (or inch) or so. Dumaresq Creek flooded again. So, I might get out of the car and take to by bike to work at UNE. Yes, work. Well, I'm now interim Director of the Centre for Applied Research in Social Science (CARSS) and I've circulated a 5 page discussion paper on CARRS's future. And then I'm working on a grant application which, if successful, would keep me employed until 2015 - when I turn 70! And a owe an article to a colleague by Monday. Oh well, it's sort of fun and keeps me off the streets where I might get up to mischief.

AS

Under Water

We have just had several days of rain, and the next four will also be wet. We probably had about 60mm all up, or about 2.5 inches in imperial measures. After several months of above average rain, virtually nothing sank into the saturated ground and it ran off into Dumaresq Creek, which runs through the middle of town. This is a perpetual creek and always has water in it, but constrained to a narrow channel maybe 2 m wide.

Well, the latest rain generated an immediate flood and the accompanying pictures were taken about 4 hours after the last lot of torrential rain stopped and just as the grey cloud was lifting. Several streets cross the creek at right angles via causeway and the photos are of the Faulkner St crossing, which was closed to traffic. As you can see, the creek is now about 5 to 10 times its normal width. The first photo looks south down Faulkner St towards the CBD; the second looks east towards the coast - 100+km away; and the last, west towards the Great Divide, just 10km away. Such events usually occur once every two years or so, but the long dry period of the noughties reduced this somewhat.

AS

A Complicated Life

It's a while since I made a new posting here, but that is not through lack of anything to say!. Things are just becoming more frenetic and complicated. Last weekend, for example, I attended the Armidale Chamber of Commerce awards night because someone tipped me off that I might be getting an award, and I did after a fashion because a business school colleague, who is participating in a major study on small business innovation with me, one a lovely trophy and the citation included our work!

And then, last week, I was put back on the University payroll for a few months as interim director of the Centre for Applied Research in Social Science, with a remit to reform it in line with School (of Behavioural Cognitive and Social Science - BCSS) needs and emerging UNE Centres policy. There's a large number of meetings scheduled here.

On Thursday I gave an hour long staff seminar on the subject of "The relevance of Quantum Mechanics to Regional Science (i.e. economics)". The was a lunch-time presentation, not that I had time to eat anything. It went down well and I'm fortified to deliver versions of the paper in Melbourne in December and Monterey in California in February.

Also on Thursday, the Faculty held is annual celebration of research at a late afternoon function in Booloominbah, the grand old house at the centre of campus. Since (a) BCSS published the most articles in 2010, (b) I was newly appointed to that payroll, and (c) I was one of the more prolific staff, it was politic to turn up, even though the speeches were predictable.

I rose early (6 am) on Saturday morning to put the finishing touches on the full draft of the conference paper I delivered on Thursday, which I finished at 8.00am. It was then emailed to my colleagues at the University of Arizona at Tucson for inclusion in the Monterey program. I'm a member of the Western (US) Regional Science Association which has perhaps 150 members world-wide, including two here in Armidale.

Then it was off to a bridge tournament being held here this weekend, which means sitting at a card table for 16 hours over two days! I'm off for the Sunday sessions shortly. We didn't do well yesterday, but today should be a lot better and yesterday's poor results are history since today's event is completely separate.

Immediately after the closure of yesterday's event, I headed off to an Indian Cultural Festival in the Town Hall organised by by one of my work colleagues, Kiran Shinde, who comes from Pune (or Poona for the plebs). It was fantastic. There was a 90 minute show of Indian classic dance from various parts of the country, some Bollywood numbers, and some very lively dances by Sikhs from the Woolgoolga community down on the coast from us. After the dancing came a nice Indian meal enjoyed by the c. 200 guests. I didn't know that Armidale had so many people of Indian background - although I know well Kiran and another colleague, Raja Rajaratnam. Sounds Indian, eh! There I also met my new Head of School, who started his job on Friday. He's from the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, but believe it or not was born in Hastings in Sussex, the same English County as me. Even more interesting was his living for a while near Brighton Station - presumably a few yards from where I was born!

Oh well. It's off to bridge in a few minutes, so I'll draw the curtain on this post!

[PostScript]  We did really well in the bridge today and ended up a close second out of 27 teams contesting the event. Meanwhile, I attach a lousy picture of the Indian festival taken with my mobile phone!

AS