Automotive Authenticity

In the Old Dart you can buy a "new" MGB off the showroom floor.

The question is, of course, why would you?

I’ve driven MGBs, and they’re characterized by heavy steering, leaks, and dodgy mechanical reliability.

The Mazda MX5 offers everything the MGB did, but it’s watertight and reliable.

This may be the solution. These things come with MX5 engines and trannies. The whole body shell is beefed up, and they’re trimmed with state of the art materials.

The question remains, however – why would you buy one?

You can get a new MX5 for less than half the ask in the UK.

If you really want an MG, just buy an MX5 and some octagon badges, and substitute them for the Mazda logos. A good panel beater would do this for a couple of hundred dollars.

The MG Rover trademark is owned by the Chinese these days, so authenticity is relative in 2011.

Small Dog

Sunny Dog

This is my daughter’s small dog.

Her name is classified.

She was a birthday gift when our second daughter was eight. Daughter is now 19, so in dog years, the pup is now 77.

She doesn’t show it, still demonstrating as much energy and general feistiness as she did when she was younger.

She lives in solitary splendour now, as her long time companion (a Red Heeler) died of Lymphoma five years ago. They had a comfortable relationship. Occasionally, this one would make a nuisance of herself by prancing around the older dog in a play posture. He’d put up with this for a few minutes, and then would bark once, very loudly in her ear.

Mostly, she’d get the message and wander off to find a comfortable gonking spot.

As daughter is studying and working in the Big Smoke, my bride and I are now managed by the dog. She is very little trouble, although she has a strange habit of barking at the wind.

She has her uses. She found the rat in the car the other day, and takes me on a walk daily when I’m not out west working.

She is as dumb as a bag of hammers, but has shown us recently that she is still capable of learning new tricks.

My sister has a Blue Heeler, and we look after her when he and her hubby are holidaying. Last Month sister and hubby headed off to Paris for 60^th Birthday celebrations (sister’s), so we looked after the Heeler.

The Heeler has a habit of rolling over to have her belly scratched. After watching this a few times, small dog took it up as a behaviour. It works every time.

She's trained us well.

Caloundra Memorial Walkway

One of the many plaques - WW1 digger

Wandering around Caloundra a few weeks ago was a pleasant exercise in nostalgia, but it also revealed a fitting way of honouring war service.

There is a picturesque walk running along the Caloundra Esplanade. From a point about halfway along this path, the Golden Beach RSL have instituted a memorial walkway.

Brass plaques describing the service of hundreds of soldiers, sailors and airmen are embedded in the pavement. I’ve seen something similar in the streets of Roma.

It’s an interesting way to commemorate service, in the sense that each plaque is separate and distinct. Traditional memorials provide a list, which to me is a little impersonal, although it’s obviously the most practical way of doing it.

My dad, like many other young Aussies of the time, enlisted in the RAAF shortly after the bombing of Darwin. He wanted to be posted to aircrew, but ended up as a radio fitter after it was discovered that he had sinuses completely unsuited to flying in unpressurised aircraft.

My parents had been married only a few years at the time, and they must have found the long separation (1942 – 1945) pretty difficult. Dad was posted to squadrons in Port Moresby and Lae and spent his war fitting and repairing radios in Kittyhawks and Beauforts.

Dad's Medals

Mum ran his small school whilst he was away, and as a married woman could only be a temporary employee. She was obliged to resign when dad came back.

Dad loved Caloundra enough to buy a house there in the sixties, and we spent some great times as a family using it as a weekender.

It struck me as fitting to have a plaque installed on the walkway, as the only other place at which Dad’s service is recognised is on his grave. He died in 1991.

My five siblings also think it’s a good idea.

Rank Amateurs

There are lots of good reasons to blog, I suppose.

Shedding some light on the operation of the "professional" media has to be one of them.

Reporting of the recent tragic events in Norway provides a very good example.

The image above of the front page of The Sun says it all.

About the only part that resembles the truth are the advertisements, although they're probably pretty dodgy. This nonsense went out on the streets of the UK where the punters were led to believe that Al Qaeda was behind the shootings and bombings.

This story was written by someone who presumably calls himself a "journalist".

You won't find any acknowledgement of the error on their website, by the way. Obviously, that would be embarrassing - best to simply ignore it.

The print media isn't alone when it comes to publishing nonsense. The following quote is from Blot's website -

Once the identity of the attackers becomes known, the consequences for Norway's immigration policies could be profound....

I guess this means that Norway will ban immigration of Freemasons, or perhaps Protestants.

It's beyond bizarre - yet these twits make a living out of writing it.

What we need is not an inquiry - but a college of journalism. When someone writes something so blatantly ridiculous, they could be struck off and have their licence to write copy revoked.

It works for doctors and lawyers.

But then, they're real professionals.

Supporting Bill Morris

Bishop Bill. The Vatican doesn't like ties.

There may be Micks (and others) out there following this.

I've added the website set up by his supporters in Toowoomba to my recommended sites.

Critters

On the way back from our break at the beach last week, we called in for a cuppa at my brother’s place.

He’s made an art form of buying homes and renovating them, and making lots of money in the process. He has the uncanny ability of sizing up a bargain with potential, and also the ability to actually do the bulk of the work.

He has obviously inherited all the renovation genes in our family of six. At last count he had renovated five houses, and the one in the mountains behind the Sunshine Coast is the sixth.

As we were about to leave, my daughter spied a furry creature under our car. It was a woozy looking rat. Brother had used Ratsak because he thought he’d heard them scuttling around underneath his project house. He was right – they were setting up residence.

Anyway, the rat simply disappeared, and what was stranger, my brother and his wife didn’t see it after we drove off.

We drove the 150kms home, and put the car in the garage.

I had to drive west the next day to do three days work in schools, so didn’t give it a second thought.

My bride phoned on Monday night. She was not pleased. There was a horrible smell emanating from the garage. Obviously the aforementioned rat had found a place to die somewhere in the bowels of the car. Fortunately you can’t smell it from inside the car, but it’s not much fun to be standing downwind.

What’s the solution?

Our pet canine is part terrier, and I used her nose to tell me that the critter is in a housing above and in front of the offside front wheel. It can’t be reached without some minor dismantling.

The car needs new tyres, so I’ll phone around until I can find a company that will throw in rodent removal with a good deal on 205/55 R1691V.

I’m not in the mood for it today.

Update:

I wasn't in the mood for it today, either, but I took Cav's advice.

That's the last bloody time I'll ever do that.

What he should have advised was -
1. Fetch someone with good eyesight unencumbered by graduated lenses (daughter).
2. Fetch something with excellent olfactory skills (small dog).
3. Then jack car up and take wheel off.

What actually happened was that I followed Cav's advice, and ended up with wheel arch liner and plastic undertray detached, but still no sign of rat. The smell was emphatic, so I fetched the dog who immediately became very interested in the n/s disc brake assembly.

Daughter spied what was left of the rat who had been well and truly mashed by the first brake application. It had perched on top of the calliper. It was well hidden on the inside (rear) of the calliper.

It took one minute to remove the smelly remains using a set of disposable gloves, and two hours and a lot of bad language (moderated somewhat by daughter's presence) to reassemble the car.

Thanks Cav....

Sheer Bloody Arrogance

One amongst hundreds

This is one flattened guide post.

One amongst literally hundreds lining the Warrego Highway between Roma and Chinchilla.

It was flattened by a wide load carried by a contractor on behalf of a mining company.

No big deal?

Well, perhaps not by itself, but when hundreds are bent to the point that they're beyond repair, that must cost TMR a fair whack. There's kilometres of destroyed posts along this road. I followed one of these rigs the other day and watched it happening..

Now TMR's funds are derived from the taxes that you and I pay.

I don't know how you feel about it, but I'm not happy with public property being vandalised by corporations that are heavily subsidised and making healthy profits.

I wonder how far I'd get if I went along the road and systematically destroyed hundreds of guide posts?

It's indicative of the contempt the mining companies show for the environment out here, both built and natural. No wonder the locals call them "locusts".