Motorcycle Diaries

Will Coyle move to Bolton?

2010-01-05T11:06:29Z

There are some amazing things happening at the bottom of the Premier League, of which the most recent is that Owen Coyle, who managed Burnley into the PL from the Championship and now has them sitting at 14th (though only two points clear of the relegation zone), has been talking to Bolton Wanderers who sacked their manager last week. I can only imagine it's some kind of negotiation strategy in which Coyle tries to get more resources from the club, because Bolton are 18th and firmly in the relegation zone. Does he have a plan to work miracles on the BW and get himself a job with Liverpool next year? Benitez is clearly on the ropes and the speed at which managers change is accelerating lately. Who knows, Fergie might have to retire before long (and what a bloody whinger he is too!).

The rule seems to be that if you come up from the Championship, you can stay up for two years and then you go back down again. Or you can just go down again.

The FA cup draw is unfair. Arsenal now have to go to Stoke for the next round. The only one of the top teams that has to play another PL club, twice in a row. I have no faith in my team (even with Fabregas and Arshavin back in action).

I'm so pleased that Man U got knocked out by Leeds United. The Leeds manager is now genius of the month, probably until they lose to Spurs.

Learn something new every day

2010-01-05T09:36:13Z

I'm reading a book about Sicily - subtitled "through writers' eyes". The first part is pretty confusing - stuff about Cyclops who was either a complete monster or a sad, disfigured unrequited lover and the Punic Wars, in which, for a novice, the different campaigns are unintelligible. Then all of a sudden the prose or poetry starts to become comprehensible. I knew, from high school maths, that Archimedes was a Greek, but I didn't know that he was a Sicilian Greek who lived his entire life in Syracuse when it was the centre of Greek culture and power (before it fell to the Romans). I've always imagined the centre of those old empires being in their country of origin, so I'd assumed Archimedes was from Athens or at least somewhere in Greece. Would it have made any difference (to his daily life) that he lived in a Greek city in Sicily rather than a Greek city in Greece? Probably not - it seems that he was able to live a pretty otherworldly life, being related to the local king and all. The legend is that when the Roman soldier entered his room and demanded that he come away, Archimedes told him to just wait until he'd solved his mathematical problem, so the Roman killed him on the spot. However, Plutarch's description (a century later) of the machines Archimedes had built to defeat the Romans in battle is wonderful.

ETA: I didn't know Cyclops was a Sicilian either.

Harbour circle, stage 13: along the western side of White Bay

2010-01-01T08:50:52Z

Today's walk was short - even so I got too hot. It was 28 when I set out at about 4pm and, despite the breeze, incredibly humid. I basically finished the Balmain loop - had planned to go a bit further to where it links up with the Rozelle/Blackwattle Bay loop, but gave up that plan by the time I reached the White Bay power station. Construction of this power station was begun in 1912 and it was only closed in 1983. Ever since then it has been standing there, looking like this. It is heritage listed, but nobody has yet come up with something to do with it. The White Bay hotel at the back on Victoria Road, burned to the ground last year.

The building on the right used to belong to the industrial waterfront of White Bay too, but now is full of things like film studios and self-storage barns.

At the corner by the power station I turned up hill (this is where the sun came out and I started to get hot!) and then right into Mansfield St. I've driven past this place hundreds of times and always liked it.

Candy-coloured house.

The Bald Rock pub dates from 1876. One of the few in Balmain that hasn't yet become trendy.

The view of the wheat loader, or it could be a cement or sugar loader at Glebe Island (not an island, though once was almost) and city skyline from near the pub. The ship is called Pioneer, so despite what my map says, I'd guess cement rather than wheat or sugar.

And a view of Pyrmont (middle ground) the city and The Rocks to the left.

The next part is through an ugly new apartment complex built in the last 15 years on former industrial land. Back opposite the park that I came through on the first part of the walk is a house called The Winery which, according to Spindler, was "built by engineer and mathematical instrument maker, William Barraclough, in 1885. There is uncertainty that it ever actually was a winery." Balmain has a lot of these cantilevered balconies which are fairly uncommon elsewhere in the city.

I haven't decided yet whether to continue around the harbour or double back across the bottom of the Balmain peninsula on the main harbour circle track. That would take me through Callan Park again, which is nice, and then back up Victoria Road, which is quite interesting. Whichever it is, I'll need to choose a cooler day than this one!

Happy New Year to my diminishing cohort of LJ readers!

2009-12-31T13:29:51Z

We had recession fireworks this year - disappointingly sparse. But the thing on the bridge turned into a yin and yang symbol, so all of the very sober people in the park across the road said Nihao New Year to each other (the Chinese guy standing next to me was singing Auld Lang Syne though).

The party had been ramping up since 3 this afternoon, but they do bag searches now, so you can't bring alcohol in and I was probably the most pissed person at the Midnight Mass Gathering. There was absolutely no breeze, so you could barely see the fireworks through the smoke.

What will 2010 be like?

2009-12-31T12:40:43Z

1. The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan will get worse.
2. Labor will win again in Oz.
3. Gordon Brown will get smacked in the face by a souvenir model of the Tower of London.
4. Palestinians will continue to lose homes, land and human rights in their 63rd year of colonisation.
5. Wen Jiabao will not get smacked in the face by a souvenir model of the Great Wall...
6. ... but China will continue to finance the US debt and pave the way for the next great burst of the bubble.
7. It will be hotter than ever before and we won't have done anything about it.
8. Arsenal will win the Premier League (in your dreams!)
9. The First Dog will have puppies so that the Democrats can win the mid-terms.
10. Somali pirates will get richer.

football

2009-12-31T11:53:39Z

The Premier League is exciting. At halfway through the season there are only 10 points between the top 6 and 4 points between the top 3 (and Arsenal have a game in hand). While Ancelotti is not saying much about winning (and he's losing Drogba, Essien and Kalou for the African Cup of Nations in January), Ferguson, Wenger, Redknapp and Mancini are. Mancini, though, hasn't had any tough games yet - it will be interesting to see if he can pull off what Hughes couldn't. The relegation battle is also intriguing.

Wenger's confidence in the team is sweet, but not wholly warranted. They are all brilliant, but have an amazing ability to fuck up on crucial matches.

#30 and the full list

2009-12-31T10:57:54Z

#30 P.D. James, The Private Patient
P.D James is surely an outstanding figure of the murder mystery genre. She has been doing it for 46 years and, at the age of 87 is still going. Or is she? Towards the end of this book her detective, Adam Dalgliesh, hints at impending retirement and also gets married. I haven't read the first story, Uncover her face (1962), but poor Dalgleish has, surprisingly, only had 14 noteworthy cases since then (according to Wikipedia). James dabbled for a while with a female detective, Cordelia Gray, but then returned to Dalgliesh. Since he was already a Chief Inspector in 1962, he must be well into his 70s by the time of this story and his marriage. I do find this irritating about James. On the one hand, her characters seem to be fixed, in their manners and class atttitudes, in the 1950s, yet they all have laptops and mobile phones and James makes no attempt to set the stories in an earlier period - this one is explicitly post-2005. Her characters use the phones, but rarely the computers. The police, in her later stories, never use the internet or even the internal networks of Scotland Yard (I concede there is one exchange of emails, for private purposes, in this latest book). Dalgliesh, doesn't send his secretary an email or a text message, he drives two hours to London and leaves a note on her desk. He doesn't use his computer to send and receive documents, he delivers and picks up hard copy in person.

Anachronisms aside, James does write a good yarn. I liked that the story ended without complete resolution of the case - you have a pretty good idea what happened, but without the kind of evidence that would stand up in court. Her red herrings are perhaps a bit obvious and I guessed correctly at the identity of the culprit early on, but it was kind of satisfying to watch it unravel. (I never liked Agatha Christie because she always has a card up her sleeve that she doesn't let anybody see until the end - I think that's cheating.) I like the way the witnesses are complicit in covering things up for the sake of relationships or out of guilt for long ago mishaps in their lives. In short, I enjoyed this book much more than the last one I read. Not bad for an 87 year old. I'd like to be that sharp at her age!

Now here's my complete list of 2009 reads. It is, I'm slightly ashamed to say, very heavy on 'quick reads', i.e. detective fiction. Seems I had a lot more energy, or time, for 'serious' things last year. This year I started reading several books that I haven't finished (e.g. Toni Morrison's Beloved of which, after one chapter, I realized I'd have to be in a different mood entirely to appreciate). But it was especially fun to re-read all of Sjöwall and Wahlöö and recall the the 1960s. I wish Stieg Larsson hadn't died (or maybe it's a good thing that he did and he didn't have to stretch the Pippi Longstocking metaphor too far). Jungstedt's Unseen was a great start, but I didn't like her second book at all. Bryson was a good laugh and, although I'd like to read his book about Australia, I probably won't read much more than that. As for the rest, I'd have a hard time choosing between Saviano, Said and Joppke for the best book. For the worst, I think Cox's Servant Problem.

2009 reads, the complete list
Detective stories
The Girl who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson
Murder at the Savoy, Sjöwall and Wahlöö
The Terrorists, Sjöwall and Wahlöö.
Roseanna, Sjöwall and Wahlöö
The Man who Went up in Smoke, Sjöwall and Wahlöö.
The Man on the Balcony, Sjöwall and Wahlöö.
About Face, Donna Leon
The Laughing Policeman, Sjöwall and Wahlöö
The Fire Engine that Disappeared, Sjöwall and Wahlöö.
The Abominable Man, Sjöwall and Wahlöö.
The Locked Room, Sjöwall and Wahlöö.
Cop Killer, Sjöwall and Wahlöö
Unseen, Mari Jungstedt.
Stiff, Shane Maloney
The Girl who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, Stieg Larsson
Unspoken, Mari Jungstedt
Hypothermia, Arnaldur Indridason
The Brush-Off, Shane Maloney
The Private Patient, P.D. James

Other fiction
Bartleby the Scrivener, Herman Melville

Travel Writing
Songlines, Bruce Chatwin
Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson

Political economy
Gomorrah, Roberto Saviano
An anonymous book manuscript
The Clean Industrial Revolution, Ben McNeil
Water Politics in the Murray-Darling Basin, Daniel Connell
The Servant Problem, Rosie Cox

History & Politics
The Question of Palestine, Edward W. Said
Istanbul: Memories and the City, Orhan Pamuk
Veil: Mirror of Identity, Christian Joppke

#29 Veil: Mirror of Identity

2009-12-30T10:49:37Z

Not much more to add to my previous posts on this book. The British solution is typically instrumental: you cannot talk to a CCTV camera (meaning you can't relate to someone who can see you, but you can't see them). In the end, the decision to allow the niqab in school is a local (private) one, in which the government does not intervene - and individual schools have the right to ban it (in each case that has been brought there have been alternative schools that accept it). Nobody at all objects to the hijab (and many schools have incorporated it into the school uniform). The only jarring note is that British Muslims remain dissatisfied (compared to their French counterparts).

In the conclusion he explains that American commentators have got it wrong - that the source of The Problem is socio-economic disadvantage rather than inability to 'integrate' or 'tolerate' Islam. Europe is not a 'closed Christian club'. The Germans will have to change though [and probably accepting citizenship was a first step on the road]. I liked what he said about 'identity': "collective identities cannot be modelled on individual identities; they may spring from an internal dialogue that needs no excluded other." (actualy he was citing a Canadian scholar called Abizadeh). This internal dialogue seems the best hope for the future.

Mud brick houses in Gaza

2009-12-30T00:08:14Z

UNRWA has been building mudbrick houses for Gazans displaced by the Israeli attack. They look beautiful, and mud brick is cheap ($18,000) for a two bedroom house - to house 11 people in the case of the one shown below - and mud brick is an excellent insulator. Certainly better than living in a tent in Gaza's climate.

The main problem is that Gaza is overcrowded and mud brick is not suited to high-rise. According to EI, only 41 trucks of building supplies have been allowed in to Gaza during the entire past year.

Western liberalism and its problem with Islam

2009-12-29T10:46:53Z

Although it hasn't many pages, I'm still reading Veil in snatches. I have to keep putting it down to have a good think. It's probably decades since I've read a book about western politics and political philosophy and it's clear that the story of the headscarf controversies has ramifications beyond the mere propensity of Muslims to cover their women. Joppke looks at the French controversies in terms of a contradiction between two aspects of liberalism, that of equity, or 'ethical liberalism', and that of liberty. The two cannot be reconciled except insofar as the broad majority of French Muslims are supportive of republican secularism which, fortunately, they are.

In Germany, the controversy was (is?) between liberalism and an essentially illiberal notion of Germany as a 'Christian-occidental' state. According to Joppke the history of this paradox lies in the fact that, unlike France, Germany had no revolutionary separation of Church and state, but its secularism emerged on the basis of a continuing 'Christian-occidental' tradition. While the French derive their cultural identity from the revolution, the Germans derive theirs from their Christian tradition. Germany's 3 million Muslims therefore present the German state with a real quandary. Thus while the constitution prescribes freedom of religion, the courts have also determined that the constitution does not prevent the Lander, which control the schools, from legislating in a way that discriminates against Muslim women teachers, but not Christian nuns, wearing the headscarf in school. Most of the Lander have legislated in this way, except Berlin which banned both. 'Christian-occidentalism' in Germany has also resulted in the fact that most people of Turkish origin - even though 3rd or 4th generation and having acquired German citizenship (in a relatively recent reform), still regard themselves as 'Turks'. German Jews, apparently, while not Christian are 'occidental', but the poor Muslims are neither - even if they adhere to all the German secular values. I wonder if this will change if Turkey joins Europe (or if this is a reason it cannot). I also wondered to what extent German Jewish emigrants to Israel have influenced the nature of the state there - identifying itself as 'Jewish-occidental' in contrast to the Oriental neighbours.

The British case provides yet another contrast. I'm on this chapter at the moment, so my responses are still unformed, but at the moment things are looking bad. British liberalism is of the liberty variety. The British, according to Joppke, therefore have no real cultural identity, but a patchwork of different ones. Essentially the state has followed a path of multiculturalism, even though this is not explicit. It leads people to live in fairly separate communities in which there can be no integration because there's nothing to integrate into (the idea of integration implies something that transcends the different cultures). In the British school system, large amounts of state funding are provided to religiously based schools. Joppke, fairly persuasively I must say, clearly favours the French version in which everyone can share the values of the republic and be integrated. He doesn't seem to be arguing that it would be possible for the Germans or British to adopt the French view, considering their very different historical developments. He is just saying that the British tradition of liberalism has presented the state with a dilemma, first manifested in Northern Ireland where two illiberal Christian cultures found living together intolerable - now they live side-by-side rather than being integrated - and now in the clash between English liberalism and Muslim illiberalism. Islam, he argues, doesn't recognise the separation of the private and public spheres and while the state wants them to be liberal, the majority of the community actually want "to insulate their offspring from the virus of reflection that is implanted by a secular curriculum" (p. 87). They reject the idea of a 'westernized' or 'European' Islam that seems to be more commonly accepted in other parts of Europe. The liberal state has only begun to respond in cases of what he calls the 'extreme veil'; i.e., niqab and jilbab.

This is as far as I've got. Before Howard we had official multi-culturalism here. Then Howard tried to proclaim our 'Christian-occidental' identity and, inter alia, we got a race riot for a reward. The legacy of this shift has not yet disappeared (viz, the recent attacks on Indian students, even though on a smaller scale than the Cronulla event). Neither has the earlier legacy disappeared: when Sheik Hillaly said that an uncovered woman was like 'putting meat before the cat' - he was howled down by Muslims from all over, especially women. I'm hopeful that we have some kind of identity that transcends the varied religious/ethnic ones and we won't end up down the British or German roads. But I'm not sure.

On a tangent, since I was thinking about it today in light of the Chinese execution of a mentally ill Briton for drug smuggling and the British reaction to it ('intolerable', 'unacceptable', etc), it occurred to me that western liberalism is beginning to be an endangered species. Not only is it fraught with contradictions (tolerant of apartheid, etc.), but it seems unable to cope with the challenge of illiberalism in the form of Islam, China, etc., except by undermining itself.

Harbour circle 12 (cont.): Further explorations of Balmain

2009-12-29T02:16:14Z

I wouldn't have seen this bird if a man hadn't told me "there's an ibis over there". Now ibis are almost in plague proportions around Sydney parks, so I just took a polite look and saw that it wasn't an ibis at all, but a less common white-faced heron. I crept forward. Usually when I do this they take off, especially when they see the camera, and I'm quite sure this one would've done so if I'd taken one more step. So this is a lucky shot!

A little park has been created around this old incinerator where a friendly woman was walking her two very friendly terriers. The door on the incinerator says it was made by Macdonald Incinerator Co., but there's no other information.

The lanes in this part are very narrow - just the width of a car - and steep down to the water's edge. The narrowness is apparently due to land speculation circa 1840 when most of the land here was subdivided. The blocks were tiny too, 6 metres wide, to pack in as many as possible. Most of the speculators went bust when the bubble burst that year. According to my notes, the original landholder - of the entire peninsula apart from a small section at Birchgrove, was William Balmain, a surgeon on the first fleet. He sold it to his partner in rum smuggling, Gilchrist, for 5 shillings - which can't have been what it was worth, even in 1804. One suspects indebtedness on the part of Balmain. Gilchrist subdivided it and sold it off during the land bubble of 1840.

Walking down this lane, but for the low background drone of the city, you could think yourself in a rural village.

At the bottom of the hill is the Water Police HQ and another little park around a small cove. Facing the cove and the cop shop is this strange mansion, called Ewenton. It was built in several stages in different architectural styles, mainly by Ewen Cameron, a business partner of Thomas Mort.

Up the hill from here, the street is fenced off from the White Bay Container Wharf below (they were closed in 2004). There was one ship moored there with a huge yellow contraption jutting from its bow. Somebody has planted a series of little vegie gardens in the street alongside the fence.

Further up the hill is Hampton Villa, where Henry Parkes lived while he was Premier of NSW (1888-92). Parkes was a driving force in Federation and held a Federal Convention in Sydney in 1891. The house later became a knitting factory! But now it's a private residence again. It has views across to the city.

View of the White Bay container wharves, constructed in the 1960s, at the expense of many houses. Spindler (the writer of the notes I'm using) says that by 2002 there was an average of 900 cargo movements every night. In 2003, a new government policy declared that all container and car carriers would move and the whole thing closed in 2004. Cars are still unloaded there though.

From this poiint I turned back up to Darling St in order to loop back towards where I'd parked the car. Mr Spindler's notes have also deserted me for now, as he continues along the next stage of the walk. Note the place with the reindeers, next to the ex-bakery.

I followed a sign from Darling St pointing to Clontarf Cottage. Built in 1844, it has been rather boringly restored and is apparently now used as a community theatre, opened by Lord Mayoress Ruby Wyner (who is presumably related to Issy from last week's walk). Just across the road was a more interesting stone cottage. It has great chimney pots and a beautiful brass door knocker (but I'd have had to march up to the front door to photograph it!). But it's another one of these strangely narrow Balmain buildings.

Next to it was this place. I don't recognize the flag, but clearly the householders are very committed to those colours!

Back in Darling St, there was another brightly coloured house...

... and next to that a semi-ruin.

Almost back to the car I found this contrast in styles in two halves of the same building.

I'd like to go again today, but need to get some work done! Also it's threatening to get hot again.

Harbour circle, stage 12: Mort Bay to White Bay via Darling St Wharf

2009-12-28T11:08:28Z

On the way to the start of my walk, I stopped off to photograph Thames St as it is now. The final photo posted last weekend was of the same view about 40 years ago.

I left the car in Colgate Avenue and set off along the waterfront past the ferries and tugs that still moor there, in front of the old Colgate-Palmolive works. I found out that Palmolive started manufacturing soap here in 1923, then toothpaste and all the other stuff. It became Colgate-Palmolive in 1953, finally closing up shop and moving elsewhere in the early 1990s.

I walked along a tiny beach and clambered up the sea wall to get to the park which had old ship propellors dotted about it. By doing this I avoided several hundred metres of detour around through the streets.

But the park ran out and the waterfront became private once again, so I climbed up steeply into the residential area. This part of Balmain is such a treat to look at. There are grand old mansions, tiny cottages, genuine wrecks (houses that is), old industrial works, wonderful views, loads of vegetation, horrid postmodern architecture and twee renovations, still functioning docks and so on. I took a lot of photos, so will just post a few at a time.

The Public Instruction Act was passed in 1880, so this school is one of the earliest ones. According to some notes I found, it was designed "in a secular free classical design thought to be more suited to secular public education". Neville Wran (who was Premier for a long period in the 1970s and '80s) went to this school, but it now only has about 130 students.

The Waterview Wharf Workshops, which belonged to the now defunct Adelaide Steamship Company, are the last remaining original maritime industrial buildings on Morts Bay.

The path that runs down to the waterfront next to the workshops is called the Zig Zag. Apparently workers used to gather in the mornings on the zigs or zags according to their trade in the hope of getting picked up for day work. The notes I found on this area give an absolutely massive catalogue of industries that used to cover the waterfront of Balmain, many of them still going in the 1970s. Hard to believe it now.

Why do architects choose attractive old buildings to work in, but design ugly things for other people?

First time I've seen one of these outside Southeast Asia. It is just by the Zig Zag.

On one of the points I was close to Goat Island, which despite its industrial trappings, is now part of SH national park. I read once that the Aboriginal name for it means 'the eye' and it is also mooted that Goat Island was part of Bennelong's country. How it became 'Goat' Island is a mystery to me. It has been used by white people for various things, including as a "bacteriological station" during the 1900 outbreak of bubonic plague in Sydney.

I liked this tree.

The back of a row of houses near Darling St Wharf.

Ferry leaving Darling St Wharf, East Balmain. Looking towards Goat Island and North Sydney. The original Supply was in the First Fleet.

I've never seen this view of The Rocks and Observatory Hill before - mainly because the area in front used to be Patricks Wharf and was full of cranes and sheds. Now they're debating what to do with it - one plan being to create a financial centre - so the view will no doubt eventually disappear again! On the other hand, that would go against the current trend to reclaim foreshore land that becomes vacant for public use. I hope the latter wins out.

From the Darling St Wharf it's only a couple of hundred metres across to the Rocks area, but I've still got a long way to go before I get there by foot! This is the easternmost point of the Balmain peninsula and I've got to get around White Bay, Rozelle Bay, Blackwattle Bay and Darling Harbour before I get over there.

Garden critters and the battle of the chair

2009-12-27T09:21:55Z

Since my father is being awful, I abandoned work and went to sit out in the garden with a glass of wine. Here is the first orb weaver of the season - even if she has lost two of her legs, she's still pretty. She is an Argiope keyserlingi, aka St Andrew's Cross. Her web is a bit messy and I wondered if that has to do with having lost a couple of legs.

Later. Even so she caught her dinner. I sat watching her munching and turning it around. She'll take forever to eat this lot.

I'm rather pleased with this picture of a fly on a nasturtium leaf.

Everytime I leave the room Bella occupies my chair. Technically, it's her chair. She sleeps on it so much that she has worn out the upholstery - hence the sarong. But I've taken to working at this table lately and we have an ongoing battle for the chair. Note the left ear, cocked in case I try to sit on her.

When I'm on the chair she snoozes on the table in front of me. She particularly likes the map of South Australia. She's not really sleeping though. As soon as I get up she'll be back on the chair.

Virtual walking

2009-12-23T23:42:44Z

I have neglected this a bit, having lost my pedometer and taken a week to replace it. But I've now made it past Taree, a jewel of the north coast! In this link you can see the Big Oyster. I've been passing this kind of thing. I'm now 320 km from Sydney at the end of week 13 (including the week off). I blame the heat for my slow progress :(

Encouraging news about religion in Australia

2009-12-21T10:28:36Z

Only 68% of Australians subscribe to some form of religion according to a new Nielsen poll. This is down from 100% at Federation (1901). Of these, 50% are Christian, 6% from other major religions, 6% various cults including Jedi, and the rest believe in some kind of universal spirit.

30% are non-believers, of which 24% are atheist and 6% agnostic. Most encouragingly this includes 42% of those under 25.

I presume the other 2% don't know whether they believe in something or not. Or maybe they just said 'it's none of your bloody business'.

14% of the believers, given the choice between Genesis, Design and Darwin, chose Darwin. The rest are split between creationists (23%) and those who believe the earth is old (32%).

I think I'd like to live in Sweden, where believers are now a minority of 46%.

Believers are likely to believe in miracles at roughly twice the rate they did in the 1990s. I suspect this has to do with patriotic fervour for Mary McKillop who has now officially performed two miracles since she died, which is apparently sufficient to be promoted to Saint. She will be "Our" first Saint. Cardinal Pell says that this proves that women can flourish in the Catholic Church. The increased popularity of Saints is also attributed to JP2, who is himself being fast-tracked to promotion. Although Ms McKillop was a school teacher, she has turned to performing medical miracles in the afterlife - this is something that Australians are very keen on - though one would've thought she'd be personally more interested in something like getting kids from disadvantaged suburbs into university. Or maybe getting indigenous kids to go to school at all? How about stopping some child abuse or domestic violence (that should appeal to a female saint surely?).

Harbour circle, stage 11 (cont): Wharf Rd, Mort Bay, Balmain

2009-12-20T12:33:21Z

Wharf Road is quite attractive - especially towards the Balmain end (a large house that I stayed in once, some 35 years ago, sold last year for $11.5 million, but then it was up the other end and was rented out to several people at the time). On the water side the houses tend to be large and posh. On the land side, they're smaller and posh.

The cars tend to be German rather than Japanese. Even so, they mostly have to park on the street.

At the eastern end is the former Caltex depot. As you can see it's quite new, having been run by the Texas Company from 1928 and then Caltex (1941) until 2002.

Some bits and pieces have been incorporated into a wall made of rubble and tied together with wire. I wonder how that will age.

From here there's a view of Mort Bay, where Thomas Mort set up his shipyard in 1855. Many of the Sydney ferries were built here. Apparently Mort was also a pioneer of refrigeration as he was President of the NSW Horticultural Society.

Fishing from part of Mort's shipyard - Thames St ferry wharf in the background.

This really surprised me. After my walk through the park I came to Colgate St and down by the waterfront what I'd thought was one of those ugly new apartment blocks turned out to be a converted factory. Still ugly though - a very poor conversion.

Just up the hill from Colgate is Darling St, the main thoroughfare of Balmain, and close by all these old industrial works is the lock-up, originally constructed in 1854. The National Trust, which now owns it, describes Balmain at the time of its construction as one of Sydney's "roughest neighbourhoods".

Further along is the London, another one of Balmain's famous pubs. This one used to be a favourite watering hole of The Push, a group of dissident intellectuals known for their sexual freedom (in the 1950s) and anarchist/libertarian philosophy. Some of the people who hung about their fringes included Germaine Greer and Clive James. It dates from 1870, starting life as the Golden Eagle and then, for some reason, it was called the Circular Saw before it became the London.

From the London I turned back across the peninsula to where I'd left the car. This route took me past all the former working class residential areas, now gentrified, back to the more up-market Birchgrove. I passed two more pubs, the Dry Dock and the William Wallace (aka the Willie). I was tempted to drop in, but that wouldn't have been in keeping with my efforts to get fit!

One of the stranger buildings I passed.

One row of houses with their front doors opening directly on to the street had planted gardens on the footpath outside.

This house seemed to be growing out of its garden!

This one, well...

While I was in Mort Park where Mort's old industrial works have now been gentrified I came across a plaque sponsored by, of all things, Rotary honouring Nick Origlass who must've been the only Trotskyist Lord Mayor in Australia or possibly the world. He was, of course, an ironworker at Mort's shipyard before becoming Mayor of Leichhardt. Also on the plaque is Origlass' comrade Issy Wyner.

I also found this amazing photo of a photo, looking down Thames St. It was taken only 40 years ago.

I walked up Thames St and just around the corner in Trouton St I passed a woman polishing her Saab. What an irony.

Harbour circle, stage 11: Birchgrove to Mort Bay and Balmain

2009-12-20T09:03:48Z

Today was a good day for walking at last. This stage covers the northeastern part of the Balmain Peninsula, a roughly rectangular peninsula that runs northeast-southwest. The first part is along Louisa Road to Yurulbin (formerly Long Nose) Point - a half-kilometre neck of land just wide enough for a road down the middle and a row of big houses going down to the water on either side. Near the end there is an old, pink house called Louisa, so I guess that's how the road got its name. Here are some of the Louisa Road houses (and their flowers).

You can see the water (though it came out a bit glary) that this house overlooks.

Some architect went mad on this one!

The ferry wharf at Yurulbin Pt. Just off here is a hole that forms the deepest part of the entire harbour.

There's a small park at the end of the point where you can look across Snails Bay towards the former Caltex storage depot at Ballast Pt.

And directly across the harbour is the still-used Shell refinery at Gore Cove (where I was way back in September).

The Veil

2009-12-19T10:44:10Z

Yesterday I heard a story about a guy who ripped the niqab off the face of a woman in the street in Leicester. She was talking about it. She has a quite posh accent (in other words she belongs to the professional classes) and she was on her way to the office with her briefcase when a man walked towards her and removed the bit of cloth that covers her face. She explained that the niqab, which she began wearing a few years ago, is part of her identity and having it ripped off made her feel naked. People at the office advised her to report the incident to the cops. The cops were very sympathetic and are searching for the offender, but don't have a lot to go on.

I happen to be reading, in dribs and drabs, a book called The Veil: a mirror of identity by a political scientist, Christian Joppke. It is about the West (specifically Europe), where Islam presents a problem for the liberalism that prevails there. Joppke says

the Islamic headscarf is a provocation which cannot be suppressed unless the West denies its own values, such as tolerance and religious freedoms. This is the central paradox of all headscarf controversies: the headscarf is an affront to liberal values, but its suppression is illiberal also and as such a denial of these same values....

However, the rub is that pure Islam, at least in the form it has been retrieved by the revival, underwrites patriarchy. As Mahmood [2005] concedes, 'piety' (which is the ethos of the female mosque movement) 'and male superiority are ineluctibly intertwined' (p.175). And the most pertinent sign of male superiority is the headscarf itself. The famous headscarf verse of the Koran prescribes: "Enjoin believing women to turn their eyes away from temptation and to preserve their chastity; not to display their adornments.... to draw their veils over their bosoms and not to display their finery except to their husbands ..." This entails the reduction of women to their sexuality, which represents a 'danger [...] to the sanctity of the Muslim community' (Mahmood 2005: 111). The function of the headscarf is to limit and confine this sexuality to its rightful owner, the husband.... To the degree that women 'choose' a pious life... they choose subordination.

Mahmood is an academic anthropologist and the the above omits (via the ... device) much of her argument and direct quotations from the Koran. There is more theoretical stuff along these lines, but what Joppke aims to do in the book is contrast the French headscarf controversies with the British and German ones.

Having got some way into the French chapter so far, I have to say I'm quite sympathetic. I'm inclined that way anyway as I agree with his argument about the liberal paradox. Liberalism encompasses both freedom (of religion, for example) and equality and, whichever way you look at it, the headscarf is an affront to the latter. The French republican version of liberalism has declared the separation of church and state in a way that means the state (or the public sphere) transcends the private (including the religious) sphere. In the schools, for example, children are supposed to be educated in a manner unencumbered by the private sphere so that they will be integrated into the republic. This is an ideology that says children are not innately religious and they do not automatically belong to any religion. If they are allowed to bring their religious symbols to school, they will not learn the transcendental republican ideology and they will not be integrated. Instead France will become a patchwork of private ideologies. Until now, the plan has worked, and the vast majority of French Muslims feel integrated - moreover, they adhere to a fairly secular version of their religious practice (no veils, rarely going to Friday prayers, etc.). They declare themselves French first, Muslim second (or third or whatever). The controversies have arisen because of the Islamic revival and the adherence by a minority of Muslims disaffected with republicanism. As Joppke points out, Islam does not accept the separation of the public and private spheres. Neither did the Catholic Church before it was defeated by republicanism many decades ago.

The English, and the Anglo-Saxons generally (by which he means Americans and Canadians) have gone down a different path of multiculturaliism, which emphasises freedom of the private sphere. Parents of little girls are allowed to dress them up in veils because they are 'Muslim' before they are British. But even the multiculturalists balk at some of the extreme versions. Genital mutilation, for example, is not accepted - possibly it has no Koranic text to bless it anyway - and the intrusion of the niqab into the public sphere generates controversy, unlike the ordinary headscarf. The German case is different again - in Germany the Christians do not accept that Islam is a legitimate German phenomenon.

In Poland, these days, we have also the controversy of the Cross. Public schools have put up crosses in the classroom to symbolise the end of communism and the role of the Polish Pope in getting rid of it. The Polish courts have said this is OK, because Poland is a 'Catholic country', but in Wroclaw some students have objected to having crosses in their classrooms.

Breeze in, breeze out

2009-12-19T00:47:31Z

Here's the story I get from listening to Obama's press conference (given exclusively to the US media):

I came here this morning and I had a chat to President M from Ethiopia ("representing Africa") and the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa (presumably not representing Africa) and we agreed that we couldn't agree to do anything in concert so we agreed to tell each other what we're going to do and be transparent about it and in the meantime we'll work on trying to agree what to do and how to do it. And now I'll take a couple of questions but there's some weather coming in Washington so I have to get back.

So I'm sitting here thinking wow! this is almost as much contempt for the process (not to mention the problem) as a "global leader" could possibly muster. I'm thinking "the Europeans are going to be hopping mad". Then I heard a bit later that Sarkozy gave an almost identical press conference to the French media (without the pathetic excuse about the weather) and I realized that all the leaks that have been coming out that said that everything was stitched up before the gabfest even started were true. African and Islander delegations must be sitting open-mouthed wondering why they bothered to spend any money going there.

For Obama, Copenhagen was a photo-opportunity, reminiscent of Bush's aircraft carrier visit.

He says it's better to have no agreement as long as people go home and try to do something, than to have an agreement like Kyoto which had "legally binding" commitments that nobody kept. But that's wrong, because the "commitments" that people have allegedly made to be transparent about how well they're managing to cut carbon emissions are no less likely to be ignored than the Kyoto ones. So effectively what we've got 15 years after Kyoto is nothing at all and once again it has been the US that sabotaged the whole thing. I supposed you could credit Obama insofar as he didn't agree to anything he can't get through Congress, whereas the Clinton Administration did agree to something they couldn't get through Congress. Apparently only 45% of Americans believe that AGW is happening, and half of those probably don't want to stop it because it'll bring on the Rapture (or whatever it's called that Christians hope for at the end of the world).

If Copenhagen demonstrates anything at all, it is that the worse the problem gets, the further our leaders are going to stick their heads in the sand (while a substantial minority will also try to enhance our growing conviction that scientists are the new communist conspiracy). I fully expect that the US will soon declare a War on Warming, which will be designed specifically to aid the US armaments industry - and, like all its other Wars (on Drugs, Poverty, Terror, etc), will be at best unrelated to solving the problem identified in the name or at worst designed to perpetuate it.

While I'm on my theme of the US as a militarized society, I find it funny that in press conferences American journalists call the President "sir" - like they're in the army too and he's their commander in chief instead of their elected servant.

Accusations of scientific fraud

2009-12-16T09:24:42Z

I enjoyed listening to a debate between George Monbiot and Ian Plimer as part of the Copenhagen Fest. I haven't read Plimer's book and probably never will now because it is clear that what he is on about is not science, but politics. His opening gambit was that all these summit talks are just a ploy by governments to increase our taxes [a rather over-complicated way to do it, I'd have thought]. He then accused Jones and Wigley, the East Anglian scientists at the centre of the email row, of the "greatest scientific fraud ever". Monbiot replied that "while we're talking about scientific fraud" Plimer's book is full of mistakes and distortions and, even after they've been pointed out to him, he keeps on repeating them. If Plimer wants to sue he'll have to do it in a state other than South Australia, where he lives, because in SA truth is a defence against libel. In short, he's an embarrassment.

It seems, however, that Jones and Wigley are quite possibly guilty of scientific fraud. The excerpt I heard from the emails was pretty bad. Anyway they definitely crossed the line from being scientists to being true believers. Religion in science is not a good look. Among Plimer's charges is that the whole IPCC argument is founded on their work - the rest is apparently just window dressing. Well, what can one say but that "some mothers do 'ave 'em".

Last night was tough...

2009-12-14T10:50:25Z

First I had to wait till 3 am for the match to start. Second I had to survive the first (sleepless) half of Liverpool dominance. Then, having given up, I fell asleep and woke up to find Arsenal in front and the match almost over. After that I stayed awake. I still had to get through 20 minutes and I had to keep checking that it wasn't a dream.

Meanwhile, the night before, arch enemies Chelsea (at home) could only draw against Everton and ManU (also at home) went down to Villa. Which just goes to show that anything is possible, even if you have spent 100 million on a bunch of athletic dickheads.

So we are third and we could be ahead of United by the end of the week if everything holds together. Big IF. We have to play Burnley away and Hull at home. Could easily lose both, but especially the first one! The return of Diaby from injury is hopeful.

I see that on Wednesday, while Arsenal are in Burnley, Spurs are hosting Man City. I used to like City - mainly because it was the underdog in Manchester. But now they've joined the group that expects to win matches by hiring millionaires. I feel a bit sorry for Adebayor - price 15 million pounds or was it 25?, who started the season with 5 goals in 5 matches, but was overcome by emotion in the 5th match and has never been the same since (he now has 6 goals in 14 matches). Last year he was a beautiful hero (at Highbury), but now he belongs to the Silvio Berlusconi League of Really Pathetic Men. Redknapp, on the other hand, is the epitome of the Ugly Englishman (who, unlike the Ugly American, always stayed at home - possibly as a result of being legless). Maths tell me to support City. Heart tells me Spurs. In addition, it would be really nice if Wolves/Sunderland could beat or draw with United/Villa. </dreams>

Instead of going out walking on the weekend, I did a lot of work on a paper that I have to present on 6 January. Also it was pretty hot outdoors. Today, of course, it was cool again.

81% of the state is already drought-declared and a new El Nino is forming. My mother called yesterday to have a rant about her geriatric friends who told her the scientists are wrong and Senator Minchin knows what he's talking about. They have grandchildren too.

Lost

2009-12-11T09:49:24Z

I lost my pedometer yesterday. Somewhere between the office and Town Hall station.

I celebrated today by not walking anywhere!

Harbour circle, stage 10: Balmain loop (part 1)

2009-12-06T07:52:39Z

The Balmain loop is very large. Given that I have to double back to the car each time, it will probably take me 4 weeks to get around it. Today I walked from the Iron Cove Bridge northwards, more or less along the western foreshore of the Balmain peninsula to Birchgrove and back via Darling Street. Since much of the foreshore has been privatised, this involved a large amount of going up and down stairs and zig-zag paths on the relatively steep cliff. This necessity to zig-zag meant that I didn't cover a huge distance. The weather was quite windy, otherwise it would've been too hot.

The housing development known as Balmain Shore, located on the site of an old power station. I absolutely could not stand to live in a place like this.

Near the campus of the Sydney Secondary College, I found a couple of old containers full of graffiti. I wondered if they were something related to 'art class' ;)

The area, used to be very working class, but it has been gentrified and there is a quite amazing mixture of delapidated as well as renovated Victorian architecture.

When I could get down to the water's edge, this was the view.

This kind of thing kept preventing me from continuing along the waterfront. Then I'd have to climb a million stairs to get up to the road.

Before I got to the dead end at the slipyard I had been walking through a narrow park in front of what looked like a row of Housing Commission flats (I'm not sure about this, but I deduced it from the architecture and the fact that the Housing Commission used to have a policy of putting such buildings in great locations). Towards the end of the row, the people had taken a narrow slice of park for their vegetable garden.

I climbed up between the buildings to the road, where I found this decoration of the facade. "Laugh, dream, live, utopia" it said.

Following the road, I came to Elkington Park, full of giant old figs and back down by the water front, the Dawn Fraser pool.

In my youth, Dawn was my number one hero. She still is in fact. When I was 14 or thereabouts, she lived in Adelaide and had the same swimming coach that I did, Harry Gallagher. So I met her once or twice. She was working as a department store shop assistant and breaking world records in her free time. She had won gold at the Melbourne Olympics for the 100 metre freestyle, and then again in Rome. She did the same again in Tokyo and, either there or shortly before, became the first female sprinter to break the minute mark for the distance. In addition, in Tokyo she swam the moat of the imperial palace and stole a flag. The Australian swimming bureaucrats gave her a 10 year suspension which, given that she was already 29, was the end of her swimming career. Later she joined the Labor Party and became a state MP, but she fell out with the machine and spent some time as an independent, before eventually losing the seat. She's a native of Balmain and the above pool is where she did her early training.

In Elkington Park the path follows the waterfront for a bit and then I had another climb up to the street above. I don't know what the chimney is - possibly some relic of Balmain's industrial past. There were once coal mines in Balmain, but they were closed when coal was discovered closer to the surface at Newcastle and in the Illawarra.

The four faces look vaguely familiar, the other one not.

St John the Evangelist. It was near here that I turned back towards the car.

Birchgrove Public School

The Riverview. This is one of the most famous of Balmain's many pubs (its main competitor would be the London). Dawn Fraser ran it from 1978 to 1983. Naturally I had to go there when she was behind the bar back then, but I haven't been back since. I'd have gone in to have a look around today, but I didn't think that being over-heated late into my trek and sitting down for a chilled wine would go together.

Rozelle Public School, established in 1877. Where the Rozelle weekend market is just winding up for the day. This is at the southern end of my walk. From here it's just a short stroll back to the car.

Harbour circle, stage 9: Harbour Bridge and Circular Quay

2009-12-05T05:35:03Z

This was a shortened route, in the opposite direction from the one I've been going earlier, because I really wanted to visit the No Berlusconi Day gathering at Circular Quay in front of the Italian Consulate.

Here's a view eastwards from the Bridge, coincidentally including the same sailing ship as in last weekend's photo - this time under sail.

At the demo, this young man gave me a leaflet.

And this woman interviewed me for SBS.

She asked me why I was there so I said that I had lots of Italian friends (a bit of an exaggeration) and I felt sad for them because Berlusconi is such a pathetic old man (she burst into a wide grin). Moreover he symbolises a revival, that is spreading across Europe and the West generally, of officially sanctioned racism and sexism.

The prudish element ;)

Slogans. I asked why purple? One of the guys told me "viola per che viola" or "purple (violet) because no respect" and also it isn't the colour of any political party.

This guy bought a T-shirt and texta across the road and made his slogan on the spot. At one stage they were shouting something like "Viva Silvio la potenza" - I couldn't understand most of the other chants, but many of them seem to have been equally humorous.

Silvio joins in to poke fun at himself!

Sydney's "finest" were on hand.

The Kirribilli markets were starting to pack up by the time I got back, but these guys were still going strong.

No-Berslusconi Day tomorrow

2009-12-04T10:22:38Z

I'm planning to go. I don't know what will happen, but they say it's a non-political thing (how can that be so?).

The weather should be good, so I'll walk over the bridge to get there.