Lift and Separation

As self-funded (semi-) retirees, outside what we own in the way of real estate, the MX5 is probably our best investment, given what the GFC is dong to our shares and Super.

It is important, therefore, to keep it as pristine as possible.

It seems highly susceptible to stone chips. Maybe the paintwork is at fault, or perhaps the exposed paintwork on the front of the car is lower than the average, and simply closer to where the flying stones are generated. The recent on-and-off heavy rain doesn't help. It softens the road foundations, and the B-doubles do the rest. What used to be a stretches of solid bitumen is now pock-marked with potholes and loose stones. This is particularly the case along the Warrego.

With this in mind, I've bought a starnge and wonderful device called a Carbra. Made of heavy grade vinyl, and tailored to the NB version of the MX5, it attaches to the front of the car with velcro and little metal hooks. It is a tight fit, and the instructions demanded that I put it in direct sunshine for an hour or two so that the vinyl might soften. Sunny days have been conspicuous by their absence recently, so I had to tussle with unsoft vinyl. All this did was increase the frequency and intensity of profanity, and it did fit (eventually).

It does the job, and doesn't flap or flutter, but takes a bit of time to fit. It's also not a good idea (if you have the choice) to use it in wet weather, as it would take a lot of drying out, I imagine.

Getting hold of one of these is part of our preparation for the great trek North in July. We must be crazy - having two other vehicles much more suited to long road journeys than an open-topped roadster, but I've always yearned to do such a journey in minimalist fashion.

I guess I'll just have to get it out of my system.

By the way - in connection with bras, I always thought "lift" and "separation" were aerodynamic terms. My wife has set me straight - it's never too late to learn.

Fools and Fuels

My trip this week was St George, Thallon and Dirranbandi, so there was plenty of time to think, particularly on the 380km return journey.

I was driving a diesel, so after putting up with the stink of distillate after filling up from a high-flow bowser, I began to consider the relative merits of various fuels.

Starting with Diesel, it’s a lot cheaper than it used to be, and I understand is ultimately much more efficient than petrol. Modern diesel vehicles are pretty much on a par with petrol driven machinery when it comes to noise and smoothness. They also have heaps of torque, and are pleasant to drive, especially on long journeys. Fuel is usually easily sourced, even if you need to have a good cleanup after refuelling (especially in the bush) and are best dressed in overalls during the exercise.

Our fleet manager doesn’t like diesels but only for the somewhat bizarre reason that she’s sick of dozy drivers filling them with unleaded and driving away….very expensive.

I’d consider diesel on current prices, but they won’t last long. Once distillate begins to cost 15% above unleaded the benefits of improved efficiency disappear.

Most of us are familiar with cars running on unleaded, so I won’t go into any detail, except to say that modern small cars can be very efficient, and unleaded (particularly the ethanol blends) can be very cheap if you shop around.

Marburg Loop

Our most recent MX5 run was to a winery at Marburg via Cunningham’s Gap, Rosevale and Rosewood.

It was a brilliant day, just before a massive change of weather which saw the South-East receive a record May rainfall. We assembled at Toowoomba, and headed down the New England towards Allora.





There were six cars in the convoy, which grew to ten as we got together with non Darling Downs members (Mexicans).The run across from the Warwick turnoff to morning tea at Cunningham’s gap was scenically spectacular.

The country looked green and lush, and the sight of Glengallon homestead off to the left reminded us of the history of the area – just as spectacular.Morning tea was taken to the background of the characteristic calls of Whipbirds (Psophodes olivaceus) in a well-hidden little park. These noisy, but shy birds were in abundance, even though they remained well out of sight.

We then headed north to Rosevale, Maryvale and Rosewood along secondary and very enjoyable roads. This reminded most of us why we do this – nothing beats the sounds, sights and smells of travelling in a convoy of MX5s through the beautiful countryside – truly a tonic for the soul.
Lunch was at Warrego Winery. There was a great choice of tipple, even though the drivers had to abstain.

Just up the road was Woodlands, a venue used for a local festival which featured a display of veteran cars. We were enjoyed lunch in the shade of the Jacarandas, whilst watching a procession of these vehicles trundling past. A few of us visited the festival, to find a few displays and cars still in situ. The opportunity to photograph both the older machinery presented itself, and there were some interesting results.

Thanks are due to the organisers, both local and Mexicans. I’m looking forward to the next one.

Heat and Kitchen

Bolta's blog has been great fun lately.

The behaviour of most of the regular posters is entirely predictable. Generally if you disagree with Bolta you cop abuse, are accused of a range of unspeakable acts, but debating points made are rarely challenged. Because this follows a pattern, it becomes boring.

If you take the time, however to identify Bolta's spin, and actually have the temerity to point it out, his moderators get very twitchy. The best example most recently of this phenomenon happened on Sunday 24th May when he had (another) go at Quentin Bryce for lavish spending.

Trouble was, when you read the link to the original story, it became clear that the spending took place in Jeffries' (previous GGs) term. Bolta obviously hadn't read beyond the first few lines of the story he quoted.

I pointed this out, and the original post was altered slightly shortly afterwards by putting a strike-through over Bryce's name, and including Jeffries' name in that part of the story (at the end of it).

The by-line

Grand Dame too Grand Even for Rudd

wasn't altered, nor was the rest of the story, despite the fact that the proverbial rug had been pulled from under the entire rationale of the post.

I drew attention to that in a further post and used the word "spin" in my reply.
I got away with that, but an innocuous comment about spin on Bolta's Monday May 25th comment about the proposed extension of the retirement age was snipped on the grounds that it was off-topic and abusive, and could I (please) be "less bitter". My highlighting of his oversight had been noted.

The only conclusion possible is that Bolta is extremely sensitive to being shown up as careless and slipshod - although he often is.

Surely a polemicist of his ilk should be able to stand the kitchen heat.

More Transitions

As the kids have moved out, they’ve left their gear behind.

There are four of them, so that’s a lot of gear. The funny thing is, they don’t seem at all interested in making decisions about what should become of these abandoned symbols of childhood.

We could be mean, and simply disappear the stuff – Vinnie’s, the Sallies, etc beckon. But that would be a bit harsh. I’m sure that guerrilla tactics in the end will win out. For example, I simply load one or two bulky items each time I visit, and make the announcement “I thought you might be missing this”, upon arrival.

This works with most things, and so far I have not been told to backload anything. There are some things that fail this method, however. You can’t use it when trying to get rid of a model dinosaur collection when it belongs to a twenty-four year old male. Even suggesting that it might be useful for when he has children cuts no ice at all.

We have a canoe, which is probably owned collectively by all my children, given that they had most use of it. I bought it back in 1982 from a manufacturer in Townsville, where we were living at the time. Back then we had no kids.

It was bought, I guess, as therapy, to help my wife and I recover from the loss of our firstborn in March of that year. She would have been 27 this year. Canoeing and wine-tasting were both great therapy.

Nothing concentrates the mind more thoroughly than navigating rapids with the threat of wet gear and scrapes and bruises if something goes awry – even on the relatively placid Burdekin. We did a number of three day trips, always downstream, which meant easy paddling. Canoeing, besides being good therapy, is a great test of a relationship. If you’re stoushing with your partner in a two-person canoe you go round in circles. In later years, I used canoeing as a method of encouraging cooperative behaviour in delinquent kids. It worked.

So this 18 foot* Canadian has been taking up space for many years. Last week I was working at a school so far west that the next school out was in the Northern Territory. I noticed a brace of canoes behind the school, and discovered through chatting with the principal that they were borrowed. I explained that if he had a way of getting my old Canadian out there, it was the school’s property.

One of the parents runs a carrying business, and she offered to freight it out the 700kms next time they had a job along the Warrego. So I cleaned the Redbacks out of it today, and it’s waiting to be collected. Seeing it go will be a bit of a wrench, as it symbolises a significant chapter in our family history, but my wife and offspring don’t mind, and the bush kids will put it to good use.

Ironically enough there’s good canoeing country out there on the desert’s edge.

* Canoes aren't metric.

The Bleeding Obvious

Today the local media excels itself in the statement of the bleeding obvious.

Tanya Chilcott displays a blissful ignorance of human psychology in the opening statement of her vacuous piece about the tabling of information already available on the website of every Queensland school.

She points out that -

NOT one Brisbane school had all students above the national benchmark for every category in state-based numeracy and literacy tests for 2007.

The capital letters are hers.

Now when I studied child development at Kedron Park Teachers’ College in 1966, I learned about the curve of normal distribution. Unless basic human psychology has changed radically in the last fifty years, this curve still holds.

Put simply, the graph of distribution of Intelligence Quotient shows that there are very many average people, few very dull people, and few very bright people. The inverted U-shaped curve is the graphical representation of this mathematical truth. This is quite clearly reflected in the data distribution as displayed in the comparative tables in the Courier. It shows that in every Brisbane school, there are some students who fall on the left side of the continuum.

What a surprise!

This simple phenomenon of human performance is obviously lost on Tanya. I doubt that it is lost on her readers, who for years have managed to make school choices without the assistance of the Courier Mail.

Without delving too deeply into these out-of-date statistics (they’re 2007 figures), it is clear that what they do show is the strong correlation between Socio-economic status and school performance.

If the Courier devoted more column space to the pressure applied to teachers by the politically-driven testing regime (NAPLAN) distracting them away from the business of teaching and helping kids to learn, they would indeed be providing a public service.

As it is, they’re simply selling newsprint.

Not on the Test

Today Queensland teachers go on strike for the first time in more than ten years.

I remember the last one. I was a Principal at the time, and a member of the Queensland Teachers’ Union. After retirement, I’m no longer a principal, but am still a teacher and have maintained my union membership.

I don’t always agree with the QTU, but support this action. It has been taken as the result of a secret ballot, so the rank and file are behind it. It’s probably not going to be effective, as the money simply isn’t in the state treasury, but teachers in this state are being shafted.

I’m pretty sure that if you polled teachers in Queensland, they wouldn’t rate salaries as their major concern. They’d talk about the politicisation of education, the lack of support from parents and community, and the onslaught of the plaintiff lawyers. This trinity of factors has made the profession so much less attractive than it used to be.

The retention figures bear this out. We’re losing teachers (especially young ones) at a rapid rate. Industrial action gets the issue into the public eye, but that’s about it. If the Union and the government got together and started talking about the quality of the lives of teachers and the necessity to support them to do what they do best, more would be accomplished in terms of getting the best results for kids.

Improvements in training, resourcing, and critically, the mentoring of beginning teachers would make a difference. There also needs to be some serious tackling of the lack of gender balance in the profession. There is a role for affirmative action to improve both the quantity and quality of male teachers. Like it or not, there’s a strong link between the misbehaviour of young males in schools and the dearth of male teachers.

The introduction of standardised testing is not the answer. In fact it is one of the main factors increasing malaise in the profession. NAPLAN* (or Napalm as most teachers call it), has had the effect of creating lots of hype, bureaucracy and stress. Teachers are “teaching to the test” (surprise/surprise). No doubt the next set of results will show an improvement, simply because the kids are learning how to complete the test – but that’s all that will improve.

Little or nothing will change in terms of improving the literacy and numeracy of individuals. It will, however, keep the pollies (and some sections of the manic media) happy.

One of the aspects of the principalship that I don’t miss is the management of industrial action itself. Principals are usually monstered by the regional and district administration to keep the schools open and report on the number of teachers striking.

These same principals are members of the union, so are also bound through basic ethics to support the action of their teachers if the strike is supported by the majority. My action during the last strike was to refuse to cooperate with providing information of teacher intention to the District Director. I asked my teachers to send individual emails to District Office advising them of their intention. They all did so.

I turned up on the day itself, but donated the day’s pay to a charity, and wore a sticker staying “I am on strike”. It was necessary to be at the school physically in the interests of keeping everyone safe and helping parents who were in a jam. It didn’t make me popular with the District Director, but was the only way I could maintain personal and professional integrity.

Integrity and professionalism are slowly being squeezed out of teaching by our governments (both federal and state) following the worst aspects of the American system.

Hence the American video. (Just click the word "video" - thanks to my music teacher sister).

*National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy