Project Boring Update (3)

Update Here.

A View from Afar

Mission Beach - taken a few years ago on our way to the Tablelands

One of my 5 Platoon mates emailed this. (H/T Dave).

I thought it was worth sharing.


There's a lot to admire about Australia, if you're a visiting American, says David Mason.

More often than you might expect, Australian friends
patiently listening to me enthuse about their country
have said,''We need outsiders like you to remind us
what we have.'' So here it is - a small presumptuous
list of what one foreigner admires in Oz.
1. Health care.
I know the controversies, but basic national health
care is a gift. In America , medical expenses are a
leading cause of bankruptcy. The drug companies
dominate politics and advertising. Obama is being
crucified for taking halting baby steps towards sanity.
You can't turn on the telly without hours of drug
advertisements - something I have never yet seen here.
And your emphasis on prevention - making cigarettes
less accessible, for one - is a model.
2. Food.
Yes, we have great food in America too, especially
in the big cities. But your bread is less sweet, your
lamb is cheaper, and your supermarket vegetables
and fruits are fresher than ours. Too often in my country
America , an apple is a ball of pulp as big as your face.
The dainty Pink Lady apples of Oz are the juiciest I've had.
And don't get me started on coffee. In American small
towns it tastes like water flavoured with burnt dirt,
but the smallest shop in the smallest town in Oz can
make a first-rate latte. I love your ubiquitous bakeries,
and your hot-cross buns. Shall I go on?
3. Language.
How do you do it?
The rhyming slang and Aboriginal place names are
like magic spells. Words that seem vaguely English
yet also resemble an argot from another planet.
I love the way institutional names get turned
into diminutives - Vinnie's and Salvos - and
absolutely nothing's sacred. Everything is an
opportunity for word games and everyone has
a nickname. Lingo makes the world go round.
It's the spontaneous wit of the people that tickles
me most. Late one night at a barbie my new mate
Suds remarked: ''Nothing's the same since 24-7.''
Amen to that.

4. Free-to-air TV.
In Oz, you buy a TV, plug it in and watch some
of the best programming I've ever seen - uncensored.
In America , you can't get diddly-squat without
paying a cable or satellite company heavy fees.
In Oz a few channels make it hard to choose.
In America , you've got 400 channels
and nothing to watch.
5. Small shops.
Outside the big cities in America corporations
have nearly erased them. Identical malls with
identical restaurants serving inferior food.
Except for geography, it's hard to tell one American
town from another. The ''take-away'' culture here
in Australia is wonderful. The human encounters
are real - people love to stir, and stories get told.
The curries here are to die for. And you don't
have to tip!

6. Free camping.
We used to have this too, and I guess it's still free
when you backpack miles away from the roads.
But I love the fact that in Oz everyone owns the
shoreline and in many places you can pull up a
camper van and stare at the sea for weeks. I love
the ''primitive'' and independent camp-grounds,
the life out-of-doors. The few idiots who leave
their stubbies and rubbish behind in these
pristine places ought to be transported in chains
to the penal colonies.

7. Religion.
In America , it's everywhere - especially where it's not
supposed to be, like politics. I imagine you have your
Pharisees too, making a big public show of devotion,
but I have yet to meet one here.

8. Roads.
Peak hour aside, I've found travel on your roads pure
heaven. My country's ''Freeways'' are crowded,
crumbling, insanely knotted with looping overpasses - it's
like racing homicidal maniacs on fraying spaghetti! I've
driven the Hume Highway without stress, and I love
the Princes Highway when it's two lanes. Ninety minutes
south of Bateman's Bay I was sorry to see one billboard
for a McDonald's. It's blocking a lovely paddock view
Someone should remove the MacDonald's Billboard.

9. Real multiculturalism.
I know there are tensions, just like anywhere else,
but I love the distinctiveness of your communities
and the way you publicly acknowledge the Aboriginal
past. Recently, too, I spent quality time with the
Melbourne Greeks, and was gratified both by their
devotion to their own great language and culture and
their openness to an Afghan lunch.

10. Fewer guns.
You had Port Arthur in 1996 and got real in response.
America replicates such massacres several times a year
and nothing changes. Why? Our religion of individual
rights makes the good of the community an impossible
dream. Instead of mateship we have ''It's mine and
nobody else's''. We talk a great game about freedom,
but too often live in fear. There's more to say - your
kaleidoscopic birds, your perfumed bush in springtime,
your vast beaches. These are just a few of the blessings
that make Australia a rarity. Of course, it's not paradise -
nowhere is - but I love it here. No need to wave flags like
the Americans, and add to the world's windiness.
Just value in Australia what you have here
and don't give it away.

Project Boring (2)

Go here for the latest update.

Ducks

No commentary necessary.
I think it's Cambodia.
Lotsa ducks in Cambodia, and they hit the streets en masse on Sundays.

N.B. - the vehicle of choice is a Camry............

H/T Paul

Nous sommes tous Charlie Hebdo

A Charlie Hebdo cartoon.  Translation - 100 lashes if you are not dying of laughter

And another.

This is, after all, the only way a humble blogger can respond.................

Update.
I've remembered encountering this magazine back in the seventies when I was studying French at IML. The tutor used to give us copies. It was a weekly.

The humour was very French.......very whimsical - very crude. Much of it went right over my head.
They took great delight in offending religious sensibilities. Back then it was very Left wing, and they targeted the Catholic church.

Even in the seventies they were obviously afraid of nothing.

Project Boring

From this distance it looks OK. Not so much closer - and you can't smell a pic.

 Foolishly, perhaps, I’m embarking on Project Boring.

Foolishly, because under current work arrangements I'm only home every second week to do stuff, so this may be a lengthy project.

Why the title? Toyota Camrys are boring. That’s indisputable. But they are built like brick outhouses and examples of this one (1996 CS 2.2 litre) will go on forever.

How do I know this? I’ve restored one before, and my No 2 son who believes that all you need to do to maintain a car is drive it, put fuel in it, and occasionally remove accumulated junk from the boot and interior, hasn’t killed it yet.

That particular example has done about 200000km commuting around Adelaide after I drove it down a few years ago.

Hence I’ve bought (for $750 – down from the ask of $1000) another example that used to be white.

It has only three unmolested panels (bonnet, roof and boot lid) and three different brands of tyres (mysteriously mud and snow specified) of obscure origin. The mud and snow capacity will be useful next time it snows in Toowoomba.

The tyres are branded “Sonar SA 603”. Anyone out there heard of them?

The interior is well loved, and the headlining sagging. The window tinting has gone motley, so that looking through the rear window in low light conditions gives everything a mellow blotchy sepia tone. The windscreen has a litany of cracks, mostly in front of the driver, which renders it unroadworthy.

New tyres and windscreen (all up about $600) will bring it past the magic $1000, but that’s cheap motoring. These things have been known to go 300000km before getting expensive.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that it’s covered only 112000Kms in the hands of an elderly lady who can no longer drive, so her son (who runs a motel) sat the car outside reception with a “buy me” sign on it.

After driving past numerous times, curiosity got the better of me, and the rest is history. I’ve driven it around a little bit, and very carefully, and found that it’s quiet, tight as a drum, and comfortable.

I wouldn’t want to be seen behind the wheel – its appearance is embarrassing – so a cosmetic restore is a priority. At the moment it has wheel trims, but of two different styles. Ensuring that the same style is on one side gets around that. You can’t see both sides at once.

Blogging the restoration will keep me motivated. After this post, all reference to the Camry will be posted here on my lapsed MX5 blog..

The MX5 blog has been left to fade away since I disposed of the car, and it needs rejuvenation. 

The goal is to improve the car's appearance by straightening the panels, and cleaning up the interior. I'm not expecting any major mechanical work - but all projects are unpredictable.

What to do with it when finished? I'm not sure. If I make a reasonable fist of it I may be able to sell if for say $3000. That's the market for examples with higher kms. A spare car is always handy in a family of drivers, and the Adelaide Camry won't go on forever.

It's a pity they don't have Banger racing in Toowoomba.

And by the way, did I tell you I have a shed?

If you have a shed, you must have a project.

Growing Up in North Queensland

The wickerwork pram - note reversible hood to cater for all sun conditions.

Visiting a local community museum a few weeks ago triggered memories.

What really took me back was a wickerwork pram (see pic) which was exactly the same as one owned by my family in the fifties.

My brother (18 months younger than me) remembers it, but the remaining four siblings don't. That's unsurprising, because it was wrecked by the time they came along, and my eldest sister (whom my brother and I pushed around in it) was too young to be aware of what was going down.

I can recall my mother painting it, so it must have been treasured and used for a while.

After it finally fell to bits, I'm pretty sure my brother and I tried unsuccessfully to turn what was left of it it into a billy cart. It had coil springs, which complicated fixing its wheeled chassis on to a wooden frame.

The coil springs gave it a very smooth ride, but its cornering ability (when pushed by big brothers at foolish velocity) left much to be desired.

Other household items were displayed, most of which I'd completely forgotten.

They included a petrol powered washing machine, many kerosene refrigerators, and all manner of kitchen appliances, many of which looked familiar, but which I could not name or label.

My first ten years of life were bereft of electricity, hence appliances were powered by other means. The petrol powered washing machine was not a success. It was a beast to start (always my dad's job) and I remember him calling it all sorts of unprintable names after many fruitless attempts. I guess the moist environment in the laundry didn't sit well with its rudimentary electrical system. It took a lot to make my dad swear.

The wringer on the top had a quick release which you hit with the hand not caught at the time.

I don't remember mum ever having to use this crude but effective safety system.

Other memories were triggered by the displays. They made me recall rotting mangoes as a consequence of the four trees in the backyard. I was usually tasked with cleaning up the mess, which probably explains why I can't abide mangoes.

We kept chooks, and I developed a very effective way of catching any that escaped the rudimentary henhouse.  It was a simple method. I would lay out a piece of old linoleum, and chase the chook on to it. Said chook would lose its footing on the slippery lino, and was easy pickings.

Initially we had a clothesline made of fencing wire on sticks set at head height before graduating to a Hills hoist. That same hoist came to an inglorious end when a willy willy went through as mum had a load of bedsheets pegged out.

The bedsheets ended up completely tangled in the Hills hoist when it did the Macarena. Mum was not pleased.......