And today's word is ...

... hot.

Hottest Australia Day in 20 years apparently.
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Does a job offer count?

A different Brutus probably

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

(Brutus, Act 4, Scene 3; The Life And Death Of Julius Caesar)

Not liking Monday is no excuse

My first day in the office after a full month's break.  I can't remember the last time I had such a long period of leave.  The world of work was mercifully gentle with me though ... if you discount the half-hour phone call from a man who told me I had treated him unfairly, had acted unprofessionally, had humiliated him and led-him-on at personal cost to him.  That kind of call could happen any Monday so there's no need to go 'Boomtown Rats' simply because a slightly eccentric character is disappointed that he didn't get an invitation to an interview with us.

It helps, perhaps, to remember that I'm paid quite well to think, listen and talk sense.  I don't dig ditches, slaughter cattle in an abattoir, leap out of planes to parachute into enemy territory then kill people or clean public lavatories after a football match.  So what if I'd rather not have ended my holiday break? It's Monday.  Tomorrow there will be work to do.  So shut the fuck up with your complaining and get to bed.

We do not serve if we but stand and wait

Bring on night's soft embrace, its gentle touch
Which like the unrequited lover's kiss
Caresses not to fire the flames of bliss
But to arrest the soul excited overmuch
By dreams ambition's fingers fail to clutch;
By hopes our feckless schemes must miss;
By all the ways we yearn for more than this,
For lives of something more than such and such
Or this and that, here and there, now and again:
That great cacophony of nothing untoward
Muttered over dinner plates in dismal rooms;
That silent scream of "if not now then when?"
Drowning out the sound of youth's lost chord;
Resounding for eternity in old men's tombs.

Except that it would have been an almost wholly empty day if I had left it there at "get to bed".  Fortunately I heard the words "Bring on night's soft embrace" inside my tired head.  So I said to myself, write a poem; a sonnet, formal, following the rules (of the Italian rhyming scheme as it turns out).  It may not be up to Milton's standards but there it is, half an hour later, in iambic pentameters (give or take) and rhyming abbaabbacdecde.

Now go to bed.
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Night Owl ( full version) - Gerry Rafferty

"I know that he went to meet his maker sober and unafraid, and fiercely curious and with enormous bravery." (John Byrne)
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My brave new, hi-tech world

The home-office of a genius

My first photo with my new and first 'smart phone' (an HTC Desire HD).  I didn't know that I'd taken the picture or that I had saved it.  At least it's in focus.  Smart phone.  Dense user.

It IS a mightily impressive piece of technology.  Fabby.  I'm a convert.

Anorak or what?

Spent a large part of the day adding labels to blog entries as far back as 2003 and creating an MP3 library.  Anorak!!

Habits Driven Deep

This still night, as birds of prey
circle (some might say at will) 

in a cold darkness we learned
to fear earlier, in the light of days 

we thought could never end,

a tiny rodent scurries home

along a path well-worn by hunger

and by habits driven deep 

into the flesh and bones 

of such a frail adventurer.

And if good fortune smiles on him

the furtive forager may yet traverse

a patch of moonlit-laden lawn

to reach the place where safety 

beckons.  But if the fates decide

this night is not the night to risk 

a reckless dash across the smooth 

expanse of turf from garden shed

to half-wild, unkempt undergrowth,

young owls will sleep well-fed. 

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Sometimes there are days like this

We drove to the Blue Mountains to show Tommy to the Three Sisters (or vice versa).  Was that wise on my part or my usual dogmatic insistence that I know more than the real world?

Yesterday, driving home along Johnston Street, Annandale with Tommy Geddes and Spike in the van, the electrical system failed, the engine cut out and I was unable to steer or brake because I lost power to the wheel and the servo-assistance (whatever that may be) to the brakes.  I tried repeatedly to re-start the engine without success.  Fortunately it was New Year’s Day.  The roads were quiet.  There was little traffic.  We slowed to a halt more or less in the lane we had been travelling along but only after running through a red light at what I call Marion Street (although that’s not it’s name).  Safely on the other side of the lights (no doubt surprising the drivers waiting to turn onto Johnston Street at what is, fortunately, a t-junction rather a crossroads) we stopped moving.  I waited then tried the engine again.  The van re-started at the second time of asking.  I drove home carefully but puzzled.  There was little conversation.

Today we drove to Katoomba, regional centre of the Blue Mountains.  It’s a 90 kilometre drive climbing to 3,326 feet above sea level along a winding mountain road with lots of day-tripper traffic, slowed at times to a snail’s pace by the extensive road works that will result in the route becoming dual carriageway entirely.   The temperature rose to above 30 degrees (there was a massive thunder and lightening storm by mid-afternoon).  In short those were the worst conditions for my ageing, fuel-injected, automatic transmission Transit van: hot, climbing a steep incline over a distance of probably 15 kilometres often in a low gear in a slowly moving line of traffic.

Driving through the Luera Mall underpass near the summit (maybe three kilometres from our destination) the electrical system failed again.  The engine cut out, I lost control again but fortunately was able to come gently to a halt because we were climbing the hill, we had slowed quickly and most of the traffic had sped on along the dual lanes after the road work.  We were lucky.  The engine re-started with the first turn of my ignition key and we drove on to Katoomba.

We crossed the railway bridge into the town and at the roundabout took the second exit (missing out the queue waiting at Main Street) to climb Park Street, go round the town centre on what I expected to be a quieter route then drive to Echo Point to gaze in wonder at the view across the valley to the Three Sisters and beyond.  Barely away from the roundabout, though, the engine failed again.  None of my many attempts to re-start it succeeded and after some time we reluctantly called the NRMA for assistance.   

Fortunately (in as much as one can use that word in those circumstances) I had been in the middle of the road when we stopped, to give a wide berth as I passed to a car that was parked where it ought not to have been.  That car then moved off which meant (I’m very glad to say) the line of traffic behind me (snaking round the roundabout and back over the railway bridge) could squeeze past me between the van and the pavement.  Buses, of which there were several in the following hour, had to cross over to the other side of the road.  Tommy and Spike directed traffic as we waited for the tow truck to arrive and pull the van off the steep incline to a safe location.  Several passers-by (drivers, pedestrians, even some fire-fighters from the adjacent fire station) asked if we needed assistance, a tow, a push.  I declined them all either because the tow truck would make its way to us or, when it came to the push suggestion, because on that slope, barely clear of the roundabout we would only have made matters worse and, if holding or pushing the tonne and a half that is the van proved too much on that slope on a mountain road, the chances are we could have seriously injured a volunteer pusher.

After an hour or so the truck arrived, I got out of the van and the driver towed it away to a better, safer location to await the arrival of the road side assistance mechanic from the NRMA.  He arrived shortly after the storm broke.  We described our problem.  He had a look under the bonnet, asked Tommy to turn the ignition then waited, watched and listened as the engine failed to start.  He shook some connections (as Tommy had done maybe 90 minutes earlier) lifted then replaced the cap of what may have been the distributor or another part and asked Tommy to turn the ignition key again.  The engine started and ran more or less as normal.  Was that re-assuring or frustrating or what?

We discussed what it was probably best to do next.  The NRMA guy expressed his opinion that it was probably not safe to drive the van back to Ashfield because he had not been able to identify the fault and it could recur.  An intermittent electrical fault needed to be properly investigated, he said.  Its source could be one of a number of options, any one of which might have a problem on the drive back down the mountain.  Reluctantly we agreed that it would be prudent and safest to leave the van where it was safely parked.  It would be towed for free to a local auto electrician by the same tow truck once its driver returned from the more urgent job he’d left to attend to.  The NRMA guy gave us the name and number of the repair shop.  He left in the rain, we gathered together our belongings then headed off to the railway station to buy tickets down the mountain before heading off for lunch and a walk through the humid post-thunder air to Echo Point.

The 'short' walk was longer than I remembered ... and steeper and hot and sticky in the humid air of the mountains after the storm.  Steam rose from the roads.  We photographed the Three Sisters and ourselves in front of the Three Sisters.  More rain fell.  I called for a wheelchair taxi to take us back to the railway station only to be told that ... this being five-thirty on a Sunday ... the WAT driver had finished for the day.  Before I could question the removal of the only WAT vehicle in Katoomba from service the radio dispatcher told me he'd see what he could arrange.  Half an hour later a taxi arrived.  I think it was driven by the radio dispatcher himself.  He was accompanied by a young woman who may have been his grand daughter who reminded him how the restraints worked.  They forgot to switch on the meter or chose not to.  He suggested ten bucks as a fare, although he didn't seem interested in money.  Tommy gave him twenty, which was nearer the mark.

The 6:25 p.m. train from Katoomba was full to over-flowing.  As we boarded Spike heard the Guard say, we had an 8-carriage set yesterday and no one got on.  Today there were four and every inch of floor space was taken in addition to the seats.  I was wedged in the tiny vestibule between the outer door and the seating area.  Spike sat on the door mat, knitting.  Tommy lay on the floor, half in the compartment and half in the vestibule, trying to sleep.  It was an all-stops train as far as Penrith so he had to move several times.  As we left Katoomba the Guard spoke over the PA system.  Welcome to the 6:25 service from Katoomba to the City, she said.  We apologise for the over-crowding, she continued, we weren't expecting you all.  Frank.  Her way of describing the problem did make me wonder if City Rail would have preferred to issue selected passengers only with personal invitations to travel.

At Penrith we were told the train was terminating because of a small technical problem and so we could transfer to a larger train on platform one.  We weren't told (until we were off our train) that we wouldn't depart for another twenty minutes nor that the alternate train would now stop at all stations rather than continue as an express as originally scheduled.  I don't think I was the only former passenger of our first train, with its technical problem, to be surprised to hear it be announced as the next train back up the mountain.

Some time later, almost three hours after we left Katoomba on what's usually a two-hour trip a new Guard on our second train announced that its schedule was being altered back from all-stops to express.  Some passengers who had boarded at Penrith had to make some quick decisions to get off.  The rest of us were grateful.  We changed trains again at Strathfield and just caught the local service to Ashfield.  For the second time on that journey a platform attendant incorrectly told us we should have knocked on their platform manager's office to announce my presence ... even though their colleagues had just taken me off different trains.  I knew it would be unhelpful and disheartening to tell either of them the several ways in which they misunderstood and wrongly applied their employer's policy.  By that point of the day, I must confess, I certainly felt like saying something to somebody.  

Twenty minutes later, we were home.  Tommy sank a couple of beers, Spike sipped some wine.  I enjoyed tea and cheese on toast.

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Happy New Year

Tommy woke early and set off at six thirty to explore Sydney Harbour by ferry.  By the time we spoke on the phone he'd reached Watson's Bay (setting for a poem I wrote last year or was it the year before).  It has been a hot New Year's Day so I was content to be indoors, reading the early chapters of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.

Front door, Andrew Stewart Hall:
made an arse of myself here once;
drunk, 19 years old.  Apologised next day
but I don't think the recipient was over-impressed.

After some telephone tag we made a plan to meet up with friends in Jubilee Park for an afternoon picnic.  By four-thirty-ish we'd gathered: Tommy back from his wanderings; Ian, Becky and Amy King over from England; Becky's father George; Jon Simpson, Rosie Birch, me and Spike.  I first met Ian and Becky in my first year at the University of Stirling in 1975.  Becky had the role of warden or maybe sub-warden of Andrew Stewart Hall of Residence where I lived during my first year (room 3/13 if I remember it correctly).  Ian, I later discovered, was Chair of the NUS Conference Steering Committee (before Hilary Scott took on the role), a body with which I became familiar a few years later.  We've been friends ever since those Stirling days, although not seen one another often.  Ian's visiting Australia on what he calls his "trip of a lifetime" on Facebook.  I know he's been seriously ill over the last few years so I'm hoping he doesn't mean it literally.  But banish that morose thought.  It's been a lovely start to 2011.
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