Historic Baltimore

Despite the heat - it was as high as 92 degrees (F) today or about 33 (C) - we have been walking around some the city's older districts. These include Fells Point and Federal Hill. Both have lots of small 2-3 three storey row houses, often with highly decorated eaves, and small shops, bars or cafes with a lot of what is called 'character'. They're socially upwardly mobile with a lot of restoration work in progress and many younger inhabitants. Also, there are some pleasant waterfront views, little squares, cobbled streets, shady trees, and a few museums like the one with Baltimore's oldest residence. So, it's all rather nice.

One place we visited twice for a drink is called the 'Daily Grind' - rather apt for a coffee shop. It has a separate entrance for customers with pets, It is also a lesson in economics and sociology as its young clientele sits one to rather ordinary table, most sporting an open lap-top. I canonly guess at what they are doing - perhaps writing their next novel or designing a winter wardrobe.

Look at a few a few pictures.

AS

Repulsing the POMS

Baltimore played a stirring role in the war of 1812-14 between the UK and the US. I bet most of you weren't even aware of this event! Well, the the former was incensed at American attacks on its shipping by local privateers and sent in the navy to teach them a lesson. Most of the action centred on Chesapeake Bay and the first casualty was Washington which was partly burned to the ground. Then the Brits took to Baltimore, then the 3rd largest US city with c. 40,000 inhabitants.

However, there was a strong point between the attacking forces and the city which needed softening up and it's only 3km from where we're staying. Fort McHenry lies at the entrance to the inner harbour region and it was pounded for about 26 hours by naval vessals standing offshore. It's a popular tourist attraction because much of the fort is still intact ... and for some historic reasons. First, the fort with-stood the onslaught well, to the extent that the Brits had to pack up their bat and ball and retreat to Nova Scotia. This 'victory' obviously helped the reputation of both the defenders and the young nation. And finally it created the US national anthem. A bloke named Key was so surprised to see the flag still flying in the morning that he penned the poem later known as the star spangled banner whose original is now in the Smithsonian. Admittedly, it took 117 years for the song to be adopted by Congress during the 1930s depression.

We took the water taxi to the Fort and attended a great AV presentation in the facility's visitor centre. It was a period re-enactement in which one of the participants, a local doctor, described the events. It finished with the theatre's cutains being drawn back to reveal a view over the fort and the broad river leading into Chesapeake Bay and, in the background, a slow crescendo of the 'Star Spangled Banner. It was rather moving as the audience rose and turned to look out over the water.

We clambered in and over the fort, stopping for an interesting presentation by one of the park rangers on the origins and evolution of the US flag. The site is a national historic monument. At the end, he produced a replica of the flag flown at the time - the original is also in the Smithsonian and a team of a dozen or more of us unfurled it to reveal a monster flag with 15 stars in the corner rather than the current 50. We were only allowed to roll it up again after giving correct answers to a series of questions about the event!

AS

Long Journey

Dot and I have just spent our first full day in Baltimore visiting Emily and Greg. It was a fairly gentle experience, mostly shopping and looking at a civil war museum. This is hardly surprising because we are very tired after a marathon journey. We left home in Armidale at 6 am on Friday 20th June and finally arrived in Baltimore at 11.30 pm also on the 20th June.

So that trip might look like 17 hours or so. In practice, it was a lot longer because we crossed the international date line. Moreover, Baltimore is actually 10 hours 'ahead' of Armidale, so the trip was 17.5 hours plus 10 = 27.5 hours. It certainly felt this long!

The museum was interesting because Maryland (and Baltimore) were on or close to the front line for much of the fighting and local sentiments were split in favour of both camps. Lincoln also visited the building where the museum was was housed down on the water-front. However, he was 'in disguise' because of the local troubles.

I'll regale you with some of experiences over coming days.

AS

Awesome Trip

We've just returned from four hectic days on the road. On Thursday we drove to Sydney (about 550 km) and this was very pleasant. The next day, I left where we were staying - Dot's brother's apartment (Dick), for a quick trip to see my stockbroker in the city. We concluded that our self managed superannuation fund is in good shape, but he did persuade me to part with $10,000 for an investment in a company (IMDEX) providing services to oil drilling ventures. Since our investment in Oilsearch is doing so well, it didn't take much persuading! Then it was a quick trip to consult my St Vincent's specialist (Dr Abdullah Omari - a good catholic name) about my thrombosis. He was very happy with my progress and doesn't want to see me again. Then it was a second quick dash across town, this time by taxi to the Domestic terminal to intercept Max, Beck and Rob as they had just flown in from their 3 week trip to Disneyland, Baltimore, Washington and New York ... and places in between. Max was in great form and glad to see us for 90 minutes before flying on to Canberra.

Then there was some shopping, though I was wary of having just spent $10K (about 5K GPB). The next day was also exciting as we went to the 60th wedding anniversary of Dot's Aunt Hazel and Uncle Max. Hazel is Dot's mother's sister and both she and Max are well into their 80s. This little dash - for a 12.30 luncheon - was just 400 km through the Blue Mountains (which are spectacular) and the Central Tablelands through Bathurst and Orange, two largish cities dating back to the mid 19th century gold rushes. After a short stay in Orange, we headed off down the western slopes of the Dividing Range to the little village of Cudal, where Hazel and Max live on the farm they developed over many years - one of Australia's premier mohair goat studs. It's now operated by Doug and Rosie Stapleton (Doug is one of Hazel and Max's sons). I knew Doug while he was doing a doctorate at UNE and Rosie did an honours degree in my department. It was a great occasion and we eventually retired to a classy motel in Orange for the night. Today, Sunday, Dot and I shared the driving back to Armidale via Bathurst, Sofala (an historic gold mining village), Ilford (!), Mudgee (a premier wine-producing area), Ulan (with its enormous open-cut coal mines), Coolah (one of my research haunts), and the Liverpool Plains (one of Australia's richest agricultural areas). The whole trip was scenically brilliant, but tiring as we continually stopped to track down geocaches en route.

The round trip was all up about 1450 km (900 miles)! It's just as well that I back driving (albeit too fast).

AS

Bridge Masterclass

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

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

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.

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

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