Lucky

If this blog were a dog. It would be three legged, have one eye, a chip out of its ear and a missing tail.

Answers to the name "Lucky"



What I'm trying to say in a round-about-way is that Foxhow has not been in good shape for a while now and probably needs to be put out of its misery.

Trawling through my cliche folder, it was great while it lasted.

I'm not going completely. I'll continue my daily battles against Nailpolishblues in the JTH trivia and don't be too surprised to see the odd comment.

Cheers

Literary meme

Feeling a bit lazy and the usual lack of inspiration. Have taken up the following meme from Daniel Bowen

1. One book that changed your life
A Fortunate Life by A.B. Facey. Read this when I was about 14 and there was something about his life experiences and how he dealt with them, that left a strong impression on me.

2. One book you have read more than once.
Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island.
Papillon by Henri Charrière. Not only a great read but fantastic for dealing with solitude and for inspiration on how to escape.


4. One book that made you giddy?
The Violent Land by Jorge Amado. Read this whilst I was in Ilheus Bahia and made me feel like I had been transported back in time to the land war for cacao.


5. One book that you wish had been written
William Bligh's autobiography would certainly make fascinating reading about all that happened in his life from his perspective.


6. One book that wracked you with sobs?
"Blacktown" by Shane Weaver. Not so much sobbing but certainly felt a lot of sadness. That said, he had such a great way with language there were parts where I laughed.


7. One book you wish had never been written
There are a few John Grisham novels that I'm sure no-one would miss.


8. One book you’re currently reading
Yet to find a new book but just finished "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" by Arthur Conan Doyle.


9. One book you’ve been meaning to read.
Tobruk by Peter Fitzsimons. Have to first pay all my fines off at the local library.


10. Now tag five bloggers.
I won't name names. Purely voluntary.

Respect

I have been sitting here writing a post for the last ten minutes which was going nowhere but am determined to get a post out tonight

They say the sign of character is admitting when you are wrong.

I have particularly strong views on and am very sensitive when it comes to drink driving.

I was listening to ABC Radio the other morning when I heard the host Adam Spencer say in relation to Mel Gibson's drink driving offence, "started out as a simple DUI and has become much bigger"

The fact that Adam referred to it as a simple DUI pushed my buttons big time. So I sent him a text "Adam there is no such thing a "simple" DUI. My father was killed in a simple DUI"

Well less than two minutes later my mobile rings. It was Adam Spencer on the other end apologising for his poor use of language.

The fact that he rang me in person and admitted his error means that Mr. Spencer has my respect.

As a footnote it took my wife some convincing that the person I was just speaking to was in fact Adam Spencer.

The Schumacher

I know that Steph posted on the scourge of slow walkers a while back.

Well now it is my turn.

The only thing I can't stand more than slow walkers is the slow drifter or what I refer to as the Schumacher.

You must know the this type.

You get stuck behind them, patiently waiting for the right time to overtake, and just as you make your move they slowly drift into your overtaking lane effectively cutting you off or worse causing a collision.

Unfortunately this happens a little bit to often on the narrow footpaths in Sydney. What a joy it is to actually visit places like Melbourne and Adelaide where the much wider footpaths make avoiding the slow walker that much easier.

Schumacher comes from an incident at the Adelaide Grand Prix in 1994 which I'm sure most Brits still remember.

To quote The Age newspaper, "This was the German the Brits loved to hate against their homegrown hero. Schumacher was driving for Benetton in 1994, while Hill - the son of former formula one champion Graham - had been pitched into the No. 1 seat at Williams following Senna's death in the San Marino GP that year.

Schuey should have had the title wrapped up, but a disqualification and a two-race ban meant he was only one point ahead of Hill going into the season finale in Adelaide.

Schumacher was leading before he slid off the track, leaving a gap on the inside. (Damon) Hill tried to dive through it, but the German drove across his path. The Benetton and the Williams collided, both men were out of the race, and Schumacher won his first world championship."

Country Bumpkin meets City Slicker

I have lived they majority of my life in the city but my early childhood years were spent in the country.

And a major proportion of those years were spent at my grandfather's farm.



My grandfather certainly had the old Tom Sawyer trick down pat with my cousins and I arguing over who would let the dog off the chain, feed the chooks, hoe the thistles.... None of us ever saw it as work, just the fun of visiting the farm.

And course we didn't argue about stopping at the milk bar on the way home because it meant a 20 cent bag of lollies each.

(Now I am really showing my age, milk bars and bags of lollies!)

It probably seemed like fun to us because we weren't living on the farm permanently. The novelty would have worn off pretty quickly I guess.

Whilst I am a fairly entrenched city slicker these days I occasionally have bouts of nostalgia for the country life, shit I have even considered getting chooks at my inner city abode.

So I have made a compromise I still wear my RM William's for the bumpkin but in the colour black for the slicker.

Football Fever

It is very hard not to get caught up with World Cup fever in Australia at the moment. A pommy bloke was saying at work the other day, in his 20 plus years of living in Australia this is the first time he has heard people in a workplace discussing soccer.

As I write this Australia is due to play Italy in a few hours time.

One of the big games at the last World Cup was the quarterfinal match between Brasil and England. It was scheduled for Friday night Sydney time and like many fellow Sydneysiders I was planning on watching the game at a bar in town after work.

Friday morning started out as a normal day at work. But quickly became a rushed taxi ride to RPA Hospital and a full blown medical emergency with the end result being the birth of my daughter.

Whilst the survival rate for children born 13 weeks early is now over 90%, my daughter in the first few days was critically ill and there was the threat of potential short and long term complications too numerous too list.

Here she is chilling out in the humidicrib



Well my daughter turned four last week and "touch wood" she is free of any long term complications and is a happy thriving child.

So the world cup not only serves as a reminder every four years of the beautiful game. But also of how unpredictable the universe can be and my beautiful girls grand entrance.

Admiration and Happiness

Must say I have a lot of admiration for those (Steph, Man of Lettuce) who are able to update their blog on a regular basis.

In fact I find my morning routine is severely disrupted when I log-in and find they haven't updated. Just means I have to order a double shot at the cafe downstairs.

I can only blame procrastination for my sporadic attempts at blogging.

The SBS Program Insight has some great topics and back in April they looked at Happiness and one of the people in the audience was a man that I have a lot of admiration for Bill Crews and this is what he had to say about happiness;

"But for my thing, real happiness is when you don't realise you are happy, you just suddenly look back and you think, "Gee, I was happy."

Well, Bill, like a lot of things you were right on the money with this.

So all I have left to say is "Gee I am happy"