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After watching so much of the media reports about Australia’s floods. I decided that last night, another movie on the ABC channel [with no commercials] was called for. The ABC’s current program of Australian movies continued with a 2008 film called ‘The Black Balloon. – an Australian/British AFI award-winning drama and comedy feature film

Quite a pleasant little film, though at times a bit disturbing, it dealt with the semi-autobiographical story by Elissa Down, and starring Rhys Wakefield, Luke Ford, Toni Collette and Gemma Ward.. Story of a young man’s coming of age [Rhys Wakefield as Thomas Mollison] and the examination of his relationship with his older autistic brother [Luke Ford, as Charlie]. Thomas wants the life of a normal teenager but it appears to him that his severely autistic brother means that dream is nigh impossible.

As I watched this film, it became obvious just how difficult a family situation would be, not just for the parents concerned but any siblings of the autistic child. Whilst in the main, the family was able to maintain a calmness about their responses to most of the antics of Charlie, occasionally frustrations would boil over when communication with Charlie became extra difficult in trying to persuade him to a particular course of action. The gist of the story was based in particular on the affect of such frustrations on Thomas. I came across various previews of the movie, some far less flattering than others. A good description was the Black Balloon courses with a first hand feel for languorous Aussie summers [most of it seems to take place during a period of warm days], the shifting scales of love and hate in sibling relationships, and the earned wit that helps families cope with difficult situations.

In summary form, Thomas and his family move to a new home where he starts at a new school. All he wants to do is to fit in, but when his pregnant mother has to take things easy, he is put in charge of his autistic older brother, Charlie. Thomas, with the help of his new girlfriend, Jackie, then faces his biggest challenge yet. Charlie’s unusual antics take Thomas on an emotional journey that causes pent-up frustrations towards his brother to pour out. A deeply personal film for writer/director Elissa Down [who had two austistic siblings herself] The Black Balloon is a gentle yet unflinching look at a family strained by the pressures of caring for an autistic teenager. At his new school, Thomas meets Jackie Masters (Gemma Ward). When Thomas and Charlie’s pregnant mother Maggie (Toni Collette) is confined to bed rest, Thomas must take additional responsibility for his brother, at the likely cost of his developing relationship with Jackie. One had to admire Luke Ford’s part in the film. As indicated, the storyline is focused on the ways in which Thomas [who has an ongoing role in the Channel 7 soapie ‘Home and Away’] is affected by his brother, but as another writer commented, the performance that stands out is Ford in the role of Charlie, who  maintains the many physical and behavioural traits common to autism throughout every scene and is entirely convincing in his role.

I found the following to be a useful précis and review of the film , which may attract other viewers to have a look at the movie – a look at the themes and preoccupations of the movie

‘Many teenagers are embarrassed by their parents and family, but Thomas has the additional embarrassment of having an older brother that behaves like a toddler, complete with star reward chart and a monkey ears cap which acts as his security blanket. An early scene has Charlie, dressed in his monkey ears cap, underpants and sports shoes, escaping through the front door, which has been left carelessly unlocked. Viewers will both laugh and cringe with embarrassment as Thomas, barefoot and dressed in his pyjama boxer shorts, chases Charlie through the streets near their home. The complex nature of relationships within a family where one member has a severe disability is highlighted brilliantly as Thomas tries to reconcile his affection for his brother with the frustration his behaviour causes, the hurt of constantly being overlooked as Charlie’s needs come first and the guilt of hating his brother at times and wishing that he was normal. Thomas’ father, Simon (Erik Thomson), plays a less significant role than his mother Maggie (Toni Collette) whose strength, love and commitment holds the family together. As the movie reaches its climax, viewers will find themselves sharing Thomas’ anguish, feeling sympathy for Maggie as she tries to balance the demands of providing for the physical and emotional needs of both of her sons, and feeling compassion for Charlie, whose problems and issues are not of his own choosing. The lack of compassion shown by some of the neighbours and the mocking attitude of Thomas’ classmates will leave modern audiences frustrated. It can only be hoped that modern society would have a less critical and more supportive and informed attitude’. After watching the movie, I wandered in fact whether today’s society would be any more compassionate – there is a scene at a check out supermarket counter, where Charlie throws a tantrum, and his father ‘loses it’ in attempting to restrain his son. Most of the other customers just stood around, said nothing, though probably in a state of shock at what was happening.  I’m thinking that today, someone might just step in, and object to the manner in which Charlie was virtually dragged from the store by his father.

Overall, a film worth having a look at, if only to bring an awareness of the extreme difficulties, and sacrifices that members of some families make in caring for or accepting an autistic child as one of the family.

The Australian Open Tennis Championships began today in Melbourne, and for a change, hopes are high for at least a couple of Australian good performances, but I think I will wait a day or two before making any predictions.  Sat down briefly tonight to watch Australia’s Jamila Groth play her 1^st round game against the tall Belgium girl Wickmayer. A tough 3 set match, which didn’t quite go the way of our girl in the end. The Belgian won the match 6/3, 2/6, 6/4. Our girl was brave in defeat, but the tears of disappointment were not far away. Earlier, the little Aussie hero of 2 years ago, Jelena Dokic had won her way through to the second round – I think from memory, she had to qualify to get into the tournament.  The Australian results for Day One  saw only one  win from just four competitors, and were as follows:

Womens’ Singles:  E Rodina [Russia]defeated Olivia Rogowska [Australia] 6/3,6/1;  Yanina Wickmayer [Belgium] defeated Jamila Groth {Australia] 6/3,2/6,6/4; Jelena Dokic [Australia] defeated Z Ondraskova [Czech] 6/3,6/2.   Mens Singles: Ivan Ljubcic [Croatia] defeated Peter Luczak [Australia] 6/3,6/3,7/6.

A number of Victorian towns were expecting to be hit by flood peaks tonight. One of those areas was Horsham, in the wheat belt of the state’s west. One of my recent regular family history contacts comes from Horsham, and in response to my enquiry earlier this morning as to have she was faring with the advancing floodwaters, her response came back headed ‘High and Dry’.  Ann wrote:\ re flood. I’m okay as I live about 3kms from the river, on the other side of the railway line. This is often referred to, by those who think they’re better, as the wrong side of the tracks. Believe me, the wrong side happens to be the right side at the moment. The water is really rising, just like the good old days that I remember well. Quite spectacular, if your property is safe. I think the highway is cut through Horsham as the water has come up, blocks from the river, in a water course. The aquatic centre is surrounded, and the end on the main street blocked off. At the weir it’s an amazing sight, the water is the same height on the river side and down side of the weir and there’s usually about a 10ft drop there. I have friends who have sand bagged their houses and one friend has brought the contents of his deep freeze to me in case the power goes off there  with the water, and I have another friend’s car parked in my yard. The river hasn’t peaked yet, so who knows what will happen. I can’t understand why some people built where they did, as why believe what you’re told that there’ll never be another flood. Of course when the waters pass through Horsham, it’s Dimboola and Jeparit’s turn. There is talk that the bridge will be closed, which will cut Horsham in two. Up to 500 homes could be affected.

On  another sporting front. The Australian equivalent of the Tour de France commences in South Australia [SA] tomorrow – in view of the water conditions of the eastern states, the organisers of the Tour Down Under [TDU] are probably very thankful that the bike race is over in South Australia – the cyclists might have a bit of trouble getting around the course anywhere else at present. Many of the top  cyclists [including Lance Armstrong in what is supposedly his last professional ride] are competing this year.  My cycling brother, Robert from Sydney, will be over in SA also, as he has been in France on a number of occasions while the Tour de France was in progress. And as on those occasions, Robert is taking part in an 8 day ride with the TREK cycling organisation that coincides with the TDU. I haven’t ask him for any reports, but I do hope to hear from him at some stage during the rides. He expects it to be ‘good fun’ and a ‘little hard work’. On Sunday night, he attended a function with his TREK organisation, and managed to get some a couple of photos taken with Australian cyclists Robbie McEwan and Stuart O’Grady.

A strange weekend here in Australia, with floods continuing to dominate most aspects of the media, but more crucially, the lives of thousands of Australian families, and businesses. No state on the eastern side of the continent has estate the consequences of extreme rainfall, and the floods that have followed it. Reports such as the following, which appeared in the Washington post of all places, paints a grim picture as the weekend comes to an end.

‘Australia’s flooding crisis headed south Monday into Victoria state, where record floods were predicted for several rural communities facing rivers swollen from heavy upstream rains.  Officials expected floodwaters to drown out highways and isolate dozens of towns in the north eastern part of the state in some of the worst flooding there in a century’. [Meanwhile] ‘Flooding has also spread from Queensland into New South Wales, where nearly 7,000 people are reliant on airdrops of food and other supplies after being isolated by floodwaters’.

 Up in Queensland, and Brisbane, where I guess you could say it all  started,  we had the amazing sight over the weekend of thousands of people queuing up for buses, etc, to be taken to the main flood affected areas of the city, where they became volunteers – helping in most cases, people they had never met before, to clear their homes of damaged furniture and other possessions, clearing out gardens, back yards, driveways, etc, of the tons of debris, mud and other material, that had been left behind by last week’s flood waters, After a bit of confusion on Saturday, things became much more organised by Sunday – huge piles of rubbish been placed on streets to be picked up by as convoy of dump trucks, or any vehicle that could transfer the ‘flood’ rubbish to makeshift rubbish  dumps, which were in turn eventually cleared and removed to official landfill sites.  It was all a brilliant example of  a massive community effort  –  I guess in the smaller towns and communities that had been affected by the Queensland floods, you would expect this kind of community people response to the needs of others affected by such a disaster. But in Australia’s third largest city  –  well it came as more of a surprise, a kind of mass response where people of all ages came from every direction of the compass simply to ‘help’ those who had suffered from the week’s events.   Some of the individual situations depicted by the media had quite an affect on this viewer.

The death toll, in the meatime,  from the Queensland floods is now 18 dead, with the discovery of a woman’s body in the rubble of a home near Grantham, and the body of a middle-aged man found in a pile of flood debris near Lockyer and Gatton Creeks, between Helidon and Withcott. 14 people are still officially missing. The search for more dead bodies in the stinking mud and debris in the Lockyer Valley [to the west of Brisbane] has now been extended and will continue for several more days. Many soldiers are searching on both banks of the deep and dangerous Gatton Creek, where waters are still flowing fast after the flood tsunami last week.

At the same time, it was disturbing to realise the extent of damage that had been inflicted on such a large part of inner suburban and the CBD area of Brisbane. While homes and businesses are likely to be a much longer repair issue, it was noted the determination of the government authorities to get the streets and roads cleaned up and cleared of the metres of mud and debris as quickly as possible – the aim being to open the streets, get the traffic flows moving again, and generally where at all possible, allow citizens the opportunity to get back to work as soon as possible. 

Down here in Victoria however, over this weekend, and extending through from Friday, ‘Victoria’s flood devastation was reaching a peak, with by tonight [Sunday] some 45 towns throughout the state having being affected by some degree of flooding. In some of our country towns such as Horsham, Charlton [my ancestral town], Rochester, etc, the floods or potential flooding was being described in terms of  one in a 200 year flood event, or the worst recorded in modern history for parts of the state, and as I write this, there are a number of towns in the north and the west of the state still to potentially face the worst of it. Most of the major rivers in those parts of the State, are overflowing in capacity, and continually threatening towns downstream.  In many ways, the affects overall, have not been as severe as what happened up in Brisbane, but I think that as far as any resident down here whose home or business has been flooded this weekend, that would be small comfort, Meanwhile, it is anticipated that many more towns could be affected in the days ahead by the extreme rainfall that has battered the state, and many of those towns have already endured two other floods over the past five months.  No drought at all that the drought of the past decade has broken, but for many farmers who were close to breaking point before the rains started to come, the ruination of crops through these floods  –  the prevention of sowing, and of the planting of a new season crop – one shudders to think where such people can turn to now!

A couple of reports from the Age newspaper give some indication of the seriousness of the current situation:-

Echuca and Horsham are set to be hit by their worst floods in 100 years as Victoria deals with unprecedented conditions.  The swollen Campaspe River could flood up to 100 Echuca properties when it peaks tonight Hundreds of businesses and homes could be flooded in Horsham on Monday and Tuesday when the Wimmera River near the town peaks at midday on Monday. New emergency alerts were issued to two other north-west towns today, with Culgoa residents given an evacuation order, while a flood warning was issued for Quambatook.  Around Victoria, more than 3500 people have fled their homes, 43 towns have been affected and more than 1400 properties have been flooded. From the air, parts of north-central Victoria resembled massive inland lakes today.

State Emergency Service (SES) operations director Trevor White said the flood event was one of Victoria’s biggest since records began.  “In some of our river systems, we are seeing unprecedented stream rises, the bureau hydrologists are working in close liaison with catchment management authorities at the local level,” he told reporters. “The situation is quite dynamic … as the modelling continues and we continue to monitor stream rises as it moves downstream of the current peak flows some of those figures will be adjusted.”  On Sunday Premier Ted Baillieu visited Echuca and flood-ravaged Carisbrook, where he said essential services must be fixed in the town, including its sewerage system.  “Clearly these floods are causing significant grief around Victoria and arguably this flood event is one of the biggest in Victoria’s history,” he told reporters.

Ironically, for most of this weekend, the sun has been shining, and it has become quite warm, but obviously the waters that have built up over recent days, are still on the move, hence the fear of further towns ‘down river’ still in the line of danger.  The weather allowed me to get out into my garden for a few hours on both days, though I would be disappointed on both occasions that I didn’t get a fraction of what I had intended, completed. The heat of the day, in both instances,  and the undeniable truth, that I simply can’t spend a full day in the garden, as in past years [certainly not with the nature of maintenance work I currently have on hand] is proving to be a bit of a hindrance.  I would be surprised if we get the same degree of rainfall over the next 6 weeks or so as the first half of summer has brought us – one must anticipate a few weeks of typically hot Summer weather from this point onwards!  Certainly, the Bureau of Meteorology is predicting drier weather in the affected flood regions this week.

Moving away from the flood concerns, I finally caught up with my travelling son – he returned from London on Monday night, but I’d not had the opportunity to catch up with him since then.  He was back at work now [as a baker] and called in to see me briefly on Saturday morning, before he travelled down the highway for a game of cricket with the local team –while his visit to England, Scotland and Paris had been relatively brief, and limited in where he was able to go. I was pleased to hear that he was keen to return at some future time. The cricketing mate he went over to Europe with, was in fact still on the continent somewhere –he obviously had more funding behind him [and perhaps time available] to be able to extend his trip.

Thinking of cricket, I noticed that the Australian and English Women’s cricket teams were currently engaged in a 20/20 cricket series here in Australia at present. The ABC actually telecast the third of those games [best of five] today, and while I’m not really a fan of the 20/20form of cricket, a had a look at part of the match – it’s not often that our women cricketers get much media coverage, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to watch a bit of it, in-between periods out in the back garden.   It seems that the English are also quite dominant at present on the women’s side of the game, having already won the first two games of the series, albeit narrowly. Today was no exception, with the same outcome, although our girls had a bit of a chance near the finish.  That result meant England won the series!  Better news with the Men’s team –  after a disastrous Summer so far, in all games against England [losing both the Ashes series, and the recent two match 20/20 competition [which I took little note of], today in Melbourne, saw the first of the One Day international games between the two countries, and in a high scoring match, Australia for a change, on recent performances, came out on top!!  A world-class score of 161 runs by Shane Watson, helped Australia to a 6 wicket victory over the English  –  my internet cricket loving friend over in the UK has been ‘very noisy’ of late, with her ‘advice’ about the poor performing Australian team – I wonder if I will hear from her tonight!! Final scores – England: 294. Australia: 4 for 297

Meanwhile, the Australian men’s soccer team, competing in the Asian Cup finals, played their second game over the weekend, and achieved a 1-1 draw with South Korea. A better result might have been hoped for, as they now have to avoid losing to Bahrain later this week, if they wish to progress further in this competition!

While the crisis up in Queensland continues, and in many areas, the big longterm clean up commences, and the economical and personal costs are assessed, for us down here in Victoria, our attention has been directed to our own State. Heavy rain throughout the state, from yesterday and overnight, and continuing throughout today, has generated Victoria’s own flood crisis.

In central and western Victoria, small towns are being evacuated as flood waters approach, rivers and dams are overflowing, country roads [and city roads here in Melbourne] are being closed, and  evacuation relief centres are being set up in various locations near the major areas of concern.  I have a personal concern today – my daughter, Susan, had to drive north today, to Bendigo, in order to enrol, etc, for her new university program, and her younger sister, Jodie went alongforthe ride, for which I was grateful. So far, the highway they need to return on, is one of the few highways or roads in that direction which has not yet been cut off.  However, monitoring the radio reports, I’ve heard advice from the police that people should avoid using the Calder Highway between Bendigo and Sunbury, or at least drive with extreme caution  – huge potholes are developing in parts of the road, making driving rather hazardous, where vehicles generally travel at between 110-120 kilometres per hour!@  I’ve warned the girls of that danger, but certainly won’t advise Susie to try a different route in view of the number of roads that are cut off, and/or under water.  So I guess I am watching the time pass, and waiting to hear from Susie when she gets back to Sunbury. Not a good day to have to do a trip of that nature! A recent report indicated that more than 350 people have been evacuated from their homes as torrential rain falls over western Victoria. The State Emergency Service (SES) has issued evacuation warnings for Halls Gap, Beaufort, Great Western, Charlton and Glenorchy.  Meanwhile, the Loddon, Campaspe, Avoca and Wimmera rivers are on major flood warnings. An SES spokeswoman said about 365 people had been evacuated from their homes and taken to relief centres across the state, with more evacuations likely. Around 100 of those were evacuated in Halls Gap and moved to shelter in Stawell as 85mm of rain hit the region overnight.  In Charlton, about 2000 phone and text messages have been sent to residents advising them to go to the relief centre at the local sports stadium. Much of Victoria has experienced heavy rain in recent days. Over the next two to three hours, 20-30mm of rain was expected to fall on the Campaspe River, affecting townships along it.  About 20mm of rain was also expected to fall in the areas of Kerang and Charlton, the spokeswoman said.   Meanwhile the city of Ballarat has been hit hard with flash floods, etc, and I’m certainly glad I am not out in any of those areas at present. I still need to get back to Sunbury from my workplace – there are no major reports roads between here and there, but I’m expecting the traffic to be chaotic!! Not looking forward to that drive!

 This scribe will not be here for a few days – computer is out of action at home, and I don’t expect to have access to it for the next few days. Hopefully, by then, the weather everywhere will be much improved 🙂

The following represent some of the headlines and lead stories from the worsening flood situation in Queensland. Meanwhile, similar problems exist in parts of north east New South Wales, while in Victoria, flash flooding occurred overnight due to heavy downpours in places such as Kyneton [in central Victoria], just 45 minutes north of here. However, Queensland represents that part of our nation where the most heart break and desperation is taking place

• Last night, it was warned that Brisbane is headed for its worst flood since 1893, with up to 40,000 properties at risk of being affected. A disaster has been declared and an evacuation centre set up at the RNA Showgrounds at Bowen Hills, and other locations. Queensland Premier Anna Bligh warned that river levels would rise above the heights experienced in the catastrophic
• This morning, BRISBANE woke up to a mighty river peaking lower than 1974 levels, but nevertheless devastating for dozens of suburbs and tens of thousands of homes

• Whole blocks of the CBD of Ipswich, west of Brisbane, are under floodwaters metres deep this morning with a peak expected at 11am.
  • Meanwhile, the towns of Helidon and Grantham in the Lockyer Valley lay in ruins following the flash flood that struck on Monday.   Disaster is unfolding in eastern Australia with flooding affecting vast areas of Queensland. SPECIALISTS sift through muddy waters under a bridge in a grim search for the missing THE death toll from the Queensland floods now stands at 13 after confirmation of the death of a man, 50, in Ipswich.

• Just one of the individual ‘life’ tragedies of this week  –  ‘It began as a frantic phone call for help – but ended in minutes as a heartbreaking goodbye. When Brenda Ross called her sister Beth Fraser on Monday afternoon, she was waist-deep in surging floodwater as her Grantham home collapsed around her. Ms Ross, 58, pleaded with her sister for help, saying she was trapped with her son Josh, 25, and partner Chris Face, 60, by the unrelenting torrent that was tearing her house apart. Although Ms Fraser lives only streets away in the small village of just 300 people, she knew it was too late to help. “[My sister] told me the water was up to her waist,” Ms Fraser said yesterday. “I come from an emergency services background, so I knew what that meant.” As she listened to her sister fighting for her life, Ms Fraser took a deep breath and said her goodbyes. “I said to her ‘I love you darling, I love you very much’,” Ms Fraser said yesterday. Neither Ms Ross nor her only child Josh were strong swimmers. Their bodies, along with that of Mr Face, were found by specialist disaster identification experts amid the mangled rubble of their home. “They are all gone, it’s as simple and heart-wrenching as that. I’ve lost them all,” Mrs Fraser said. She recalled how, after speaking to her sister, she spoke to her nephew Josh in a desperate bid to see if there was anything more he could do to save himself, his mother and stepfather. “I told him to get his valuables together and put them up high, but he told me they were in the loungeroom,” Mrs Fraser said. “So I calmly asked him: ‘Can’t you go into the loungeroom and grab them?’ but he said: ‘Bessy, the loungeroom has broken away from the house’.”

• Around 127,000 flood-affected Queensland residents in Queensland are without power, and it’s unlikely many will be reconnected before the weekend.  Energex began cutting power yesterday morning to homes and businesses in the Brisbane CBD, and that continued throughout the night. A number of buildings in the city’s inner-city suburbs are also currently without power, as are residents in nearby Ipswich. Homes in the Lockyer Valley, which was inundated by floodwaters earlier in the week, are also still without electricity.  Energex spokesman Bill Lyon said it was highly unlikely that most buildings would be reconnected before the weekend. “We’re not expecting to have power back on to the vast majority of the people until at least the 12 to 14 hours after the flood water goes down, so that’s probably another two to three days,” he told Sky News this afternoon.

11.36am: In Grantham there are reports that divers have been finding bodies under the bridge in the town. Photographs from yesterday showed the bridge piled up with cars and flood debris.

Today’s Daily Telegraph reports:

Bobbing in the murky, debris-strewn water below the Grantham bridge are up to 30 crumpled cars, violently wedged against the pylons after being washed downstream in the ferocious flash flood that hit the country town on Monday.

But it is the likely contents of those mangled vehicles that has police and emergency workers filled with dread.

“You’d have to think with 30-odd cars here, we’re about to find some pretty unpleasant things,” a police officer at the scene said yesterday.

At around 1.20pm today, there were still 67 people unaccounted for in the Queensland floods. The official death toll was now twelve. That figure was likely to rise considerably over the next day or so, as the search and rescue teams begin to move into the areas that were utterly devastated by the tsunami style flood surge that went a number of towns on Monday afternoon – only able to do so once the water started to recede. Already, cars which hasd been caught up in the flood surge, were being found two kilometres, some up in the trees, houses, which were swept off their stumps, if still intact, as much as 500 metres from where they started. What hope would people have in those conditions if caught in the waters!

It’s ironical, that today in Brisbane, as the 3rd largest city in Australia, slowly went under water, that the sun was shining – down here in Victoria, we were having periods of sudden rain storms, and in fact, in some parfts of this state today, floods also became a concern, though nothing to compare with what is happening in southeast Queensland. I read somewhere today, that the area in Queensland affected by these floods, was equivalent to the size of Germany and France in land mass!! I guess that gives non-Australian readers, some idea of the size of the Australian continent, as we are only talking about a third of one of the Australian states. Meanwhile, as the Queensland Premier, Anna Blyth  [who inadvertently is probably, by accident, not doing her re-election chances any harm by her confident performance as the ‘one’ in charge over recent days] noted, the search and rescue teams are expected to face a “gruesome day”, as they move out into the worst hit flood zones today,  and  many families were expected to face heartbreak as more bodies were expected to be discovered. She said that “The one good news is the rain has cleared, so we’ve now got a number of search and rescue teams all ready to deploy into that valley to really start what might be a very gruesome search this morning for bodies and our police and emergency workers there are going to have a very tough day today.”

When I got home this afternoon, I grabbed a brief window of opportunity inbetween rain showers, to go for a walk. Ground which two weeks ago, was finally starting to dry out after the December rains down here,  was once again soggy and muddy under foot, but I was certainly glad that we were not getting the same levels of rain that Queensland has been facing. I returned home to see the full horror on the TV of what was happening up north. This morning’s paper had warned us that ‘The nation confronts it’s worst flood disaster in living memory, with 30 people believed dead and 78 missing in southeast Queensland, as the wall of water bearing down on Brisbane threatens to engulf thousands of homes [and businesses] and put more people at risk’. Well the TV pictures tonight, showed very clearly that Brisbane had become a disaster zone – the Central Business District of Brisbane [where I was wandering around a few weeks ago] was basically underwater, as were up to 20,000 homes already  – with the flood peak expected at 4am tomorrow morning. I must admit that I found it hard to comprehend the volume of water that was required to turn such a large portion of Queensland’s capital city into a huge lake – with skyscrapers and other large buildings surrounded by water, and in many cases commercial buildings and homes almost submerged in many areas –  how could this happen, in a country where drought has been such a dramatic concern for so many years, and now  there is just so much water – a city in an ocean. In Brisbane, the  CBD tonight is closed, it should be deserted but there are obviouisly still people who have remained [unwisely] in high rise buildings, despite being advised to get out. Many of the surrounding inner suburbs are under water, power has been turned off in most of those areas, so I would imagine that there will be a very worrying night ahead for thousands of the city’s residents. My Uncle Merv and his wife, who I visited whilst in Brisbane last October, live in one of the inner suburban areas – I contacted him today, but they were quite safe, on higher ground –  couldn’t really go very far, but as Merv noted, they were far better off than thousands of others.

Ironically, there are also floods happening in northern New South Wales [much of it a flow on of the Queensland waters] where heavy rains have also occurred, and even here in Victoria, there have been some areas in the west of the state that have been affected by floods today. I guess you could say that the weather is going crazy in Australia at the moment – even flood warnings have been issued in central Australia near Alice Springs where storms and flash floods have caused some concern. Off the north west coast of Western Australia, cyclones are suddenly a threat, while down in the south west of the continent, near Perth, we had losses from bush fires!!!

 Had a couple of conversations with, initially, my brother-in-law up in Brisbane earlier this evening, and later in the night, with my sister, Jill [the couple I spent a week with in October last]. They confirmed that their part of the city, as I’d expected, was quite safe and secure, high enough ground not to be worried byfloods,but obviously, access to the city andother areas was limited.  Our conversastion wasn’t limited to just the floods however – some concern over the current whereabouts of younger brother, Ian, who seems to have ‘disappeared’ from contact with the family. That matter to be followed up over the next few days. Meanwhile, more study ahead for two of my ‘children’  – Susie, who has just completed her Science degree has decided to do an extra year in order to gain a teaching qualification at the socondary school level, while eldest son James has decided [somewhat unwisely in many ways] to leave his fulltime job, and undertakes two years of university study in order to gain a teaching qualification also, this time at the primary school level. One thing about James, in that respect, he has always been very good at interacting with younger children, so in some ways, his decision is not so surprising.  Susan’s decision suggests that she will be with me for at least another year!

I didn’t  take much note of the late news last night, or even this morning, whilst driving into the city [was simply in the mood for listening to some music, after a slow start], so it was with some shock upon switching the radio on at the office, to discover the magnitude of the disastrous flood situation up in Queensland. Late yesterday and overnight, tragedy had hit that part of Australia with a tsunami type fury, and left death and destruction in it’s path. While the actual recorded situation at around 11 am this morning, was confirming 8 deaths, and up to 72 people missing in flood waters, the situation was anticipated to worsen further.  The following news reports describe the overnight reports and outcome, and I must confess to been left feeling a little depressed at the news that kept coming through – sitting here at the office desk seemed such an insignificant unnecessary use of time when considering the massive needs up north.

“Floods in Queensland  A major search and rescue effort is underway with dozens of people waiting for help after flash flooding hit communities west of Brisbane, killing at least eight. Parts of the city of Toowoomba were devastated by tsunami-like flash flooding, which has also left a trail of destruction in the Lockyer Valley at the foot of the Toowoomba range. Atrocious weather forced authorities to suspend efforts to reach dozens of people stranded on rooftops and at other locations in the valley on Monday night.  The focus of concern is the valley communities of Grantham, where about 40 people were trapped on Monday night, and Withcott, where people spent the night on rooftops.  Nine Network reporter Cameron Price is at Grantham and told the ABC the town had been devastated.  “The town is like a cyclone has gone through it,” he said.  “There are houses that are completely collapsed, cars that are halfway up trees, homes a kilometre away from where they were. “The terrible news from here is that they took the bodies of two small children from the waters, they are the fifth and sixth victims here so far.” The Premier Anna Bligh said  on Tuesday morning that eight people had died in the Toowoomba area and another 11 were missing. She said wet weather was hampering the rescue efforts and the search for the 11 missing people. Earlier, police said the dead included a woman and a boy, whose bodies were found in the Toowoomba CBD. A man and a boy were also dead after being washed away in, or from a house, at the valley community of Murphys Creek. 

Heavy rain across the whole of southeast Queensland on Tuesday will worsen the flood disaster and hamper search and rescue efforts for dozens of people missing or stranded. The weather bureau says heavy rain will continue across the whole of southeast Queensland on Tuesday, and this could lead to more flash flooding. The rain will last for most of the day, a Bureau of Meteorology forecaster told AAP. “We expect the system to weaken late today or tomorrow,” he said. A severe weather warning was issued early on Tuesday, saying heavy falls may lead to localised flash flooding and/or worsen existing river flooding.  Heavy rain and thunderstorms are expected to continue through the Southeast Coast, Darling Downs and Granite Belt, the far southern parts of the Wide Bay and Burnett and eastern parts of the Maranoa and Warrego districts. Road closures will also hamper rescue and recovery efforts. The Warrego Highway, the main east-west road across the Darling Downs is closed in several places. On the Toowoomba Range, north of Toowoomba, police say it will be closed indefinitely. At the Gatton bypass, the highway will be closed until at least 2pm (AEST) on Tuesday. Motorists have been urged not to travel to Queensland’s southeast corner unless absolutely necessary. Queensland’s Main Roads Minister Craig Wallace has pleaded with motorists to avoid all non-essential travel around Toowoomba, Lockyer and Ipswich. Lockyer Valley Mayor Steve Jones said everything possible was being done to help people caught up in the disaster, which has sparked mass evacuations across the valley. “We’ve got an evacuation centre at the Gatton shire hall, it’s almost full at the moment,” he told the ABC. “We’ve got people at the community hall at Heildon and we’ve also got them at the state school at Withcott.  “And we’ve got people at Grantham actually still here on higher ground near the school.”  the star as the Socceroos kicked off their Asian Cup campaign with 4-0 win over India.

Authorities hold grave fears the death toll could rise much higher with an unknown number of people missing and some unconfirmed reports already counting seven dead – including three more fatalities at Grantham Premier Anna Bligh told reporters on Monday night there were a large number of people clinging to rooftops in the Lockyer Valley, east of Toowoomba, but heavy fog had grounded the state’s helicopters. “We do believe we have a large number of people stranded on those rooftops,” Ms Bligh said. “We do have very grave concerns. There are many Queenslanders tonight in critical and dire circumstances.” Ms Bligh said 43 successful rooftop rescues had been made in the Withcott area.  Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson told reporters in Brisbane authorities would do all they could to rescue people overnight but he said he was not hopeful many rescues could be completed safely in the dark.  “It’s just impossible to complete this tonight,” he said.  A major aerial search will be launched at first light and extra helicopters have been brought in from NSW. Six people are confirmed missing in the Lockyer Valley – three young pedestrians and another three people who were washed away in two cars.  Another 30 people have sought refuge at a primary school in Grantham, also in the valley, but authorities say contact with them is virtually non-existent.  The flood will move through the valley on Tuesday morning and will head further east into the Brisbane River and into Ipswich and Brisbane within 36 hours. The Bureau of Meteorology modelling on how that will affect Brisbane was due to be completed before sunrise. The flood peaks are dropping as quickly as they came, but they’re leaving a trail of destruction.

During the morning, I sent messages to my three siblings – two who live in the Brisbane area, and a brother, who with his wife just 4 weeks ago, moved up to Rockhampton, one of the Queensland towns which has been hard hit by the floods. Colin rang me later in the morning –  they are living about 10 kms out of Rockhampton itself, but are completely cut off from the town, so are unable to get in for supplies – food, fuel [beer of course!!] – there are some local stores in their area, but they are fast running out of supplies, etc. Meanwhile, Colin, as a train driver is unable to work, as far as driving is concerned – many lines underwater, trains and stock damaged by floodwaters, and that situation is unlikely to be remedied, perhaps for some weeks. I’m assuming that Angela, who is a nurse, is also possibly restricted from getting to her employment, although I’ve not confirmed as yet as to whether she had actually commenced a new job since moving north.

I must say that it was nice to receive an email of concern from a friend [former penfriend of the kind I was referring to yesterday – people I’m still in touch with after many years]  – Dee, who has often in the past relayed to me details of the annual  storms and hurricanes that hit Florida, was confused about her ‘geography’, so was wondering whether I was living in the flood areas. I was able to assure her, that we were many thousands of kilometres to the south of the crisis area.

Ironically, while all this flood disaster is occurring, over on the west side of the continent, we have reports  of  bushfires causing havoc  – with the following being the recent situation there.

‘More homes could come under threat as a bushfire continues to burn out of control south of Perth.  Four homes have been destroyed and more than 2,000 hectares of land burnt. The fire, which started near Lake Clifton south of Mandurah yesterday afternoon, could affect homes in Tuart Grove. Emergency services are keeping a close eye on an expected wind change that could cause flare-ups. A bushfire alert remains in place for people living between Old Coast Road, Old Bunbury Road and Southern Estuary Road in Lake Clifton to the intersection of Old Coast Road and Southern Estuary Road in Herron. Hundreds of residents, forced to leave their homes as the fire bore down, have spent the night with family and friends or in one of the evacuation centres set up in the area. Authorities are treating the fire as arson after seven ignition points were discovered’………………..thankfully, here in  Victoria, because of the relatively  cool and wet summer we have experienced so far, bush fires have not being a concern, although we do still have the usual hottest two months of the summer ahead of us.

As the day and night progressed, the news on the flood scene grew grimmer, the death toll rose, and numbers of people missing continued to increase. I managed to escape to the relative sanctity of the radio studio this evening for a couple of hours, and during one 25 segment, played a series of lovely songs from Australia’s Jane Clifton [well born overseas actually but came to Australia – Perth initially- as a young girl with her family and has proved to be a very versatile performer over many years – in acting, singing, work in TV, stage and movies, public speaking engagements, in fact a bio that reads like a novel almost. And an album, released back in 2003 called ‘A Marriage of Style’ on which she recorded some wonderfully relaxing songs with the support of a varied team of experienced professional musicians. I enjoyed in particular the title song, and also the very popular ‘Music To Watch Girls Go Buy’. My oasis in a night of disturbing news reports and flood coverage.

Also admittedly, a little bit of concern for my two daughters who had spent the day down at one of our regional beaches on the south coast west of Geelong, a popular resort named Torquay. They had driven down there, and when I spoke to Susie around 5.30pm, had not yet left for the return trip. By 8pm, the weather up this way was beginning to close in, foggy conditions with storm and rain clouds bringing an early darkness to the night. I was worried about their trip home on the roads. I guess Susie my way of thinking – rang me about 9pm, to say she was back in Sunbury, and was spendinga little time at a friend’s house nearby where she has been looking after their pets while they were away. Needless to say, I was much more relaxed from that point onwards!!

Switched away from the progressive news coverage of the Queensland floods, to have a look at the SBS second program in ‘The Late Session – Chat Show’ – another interesting panel tonight, under the cordination of presenter Waheed Aly, with the topic of discussion around the area ‘happiness’  – how we achieve a level of happiness, and the various associated aspects of the topic.  One of the panelists or guests [the program takes the format of a casual dinner party] was singer/songwriter Clare Bowditch whose music I have featured on the radio from time to time – during the course of the show, she sang a couple of songs for us, made a very pleasant mix in the ‘chat’ format. Other guests were Maggie Beer [TV chef and food writer, extroadinaire], Debra Mailman [ Australian Aboriginal television and film actress], Gerry Harvey [self made business millionaire] and Nigel Marsh [Best-selling author, renowned CEO and performance coach].  As the host described one of the guests “Gerry Harvey was very interesting to have on. We did a show on happiness and being one of the richest men in Australia it was very interesting to talk to him about that. You really want diversity so that you get a range of perspectives on [the theme].”   All in all, with the variety of guests, a pleasant interlude to the night’s news!!

A simple response to my son on Face book the other night generated a whole range of issues and replies from a variety of friends, and ranging over cricket, overseas travel, and my apparent attributes [completely undeserved] as a ‘gentleman’!!  It all began in this fashion:-  said Adam –  “Loving Scotland” to which I responded   “Wish I was with you Adam, got so many unanswered ‘ancestral’ questions from that country!@!!  Hope you guys have a good camera with you”. The only other bit of input by Adam  to this conversation was in response to an enquiry from one of his friends as to whether he was enjoying the cold, when he noted that he was getting used to the weather!  The rest of this little conversation piece was taken over by some of my friends –  I’ve used initials only, in relating the various comments made, and this is an outline of how it went.

MN. have you been up the  castle in edinburgh?its lovely this time of year x        Bill: Yes M, they have been to ‘the’ castle, and I’m still envious,lol.      MN:  should have gone with them bill lol but i forgot you dont like flying xx       MN:  i see we are doing well at cricket bill ?thought you had gone quite on me lol xx       BW:  Has a cousin that lives near Castle in Edinburgh! Oh and daughters friend is visiting his dad in Adelaide! strange but small world! Eh Bill? 🙂      BW:   believes we won the ashes, haven’t we? lol     Bill:  Hello BW,  yes small world, just a pity that it was not me over there, would have been a nice chance to catch up with all my English friends – although, in view of the cricket results [yes you won the Ashes 😦                 MN:  we are the champssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss lol bill                 MN:  i see all the england team are getting knighted lol whats your team getting lol                     Bill:   We don’t need titles, players just respected for their abilities and contributions, when things go wrong, we look forward, try and fix the problem with existing or new members. Though disappointing, can also be an exciting time in Australian cricket, chance [and reason] to rebuild and look to the future, as England have done. These things go in cycles, we’re just at the bottom of ours at the moment, lol. Life goes on, we still like you ‘English’ [some of you, anyway :-)]

BG:   LIKE the english Bill? Don’t think so!~!!!!!    JM:  does that include me ? and yorkshire is much better than scotland and for cricket too lol               Bill:  Ahhh, but your Irish BG, completely biased :-)…………………and JM, my dear you are one of the ‘good’ ones haha. Actually all English are great – have to say that, my niece is ‘teamed’ up with of you!!!     MN:  hey bw, i am a lancashire lass and we won the war of the roses lol i think xx     JM:  no you didnt deary lol , as if     BW:  Is also from Yorkshire and agrees with Jane! We are the best! : ) lol \    MN:  huh lol x     BG:   and what would your Scottish ancestors think of your sentiments young Bill??         JM:   Hi BW,  we are the best lol there is nothing better than a Yorkshire lass.The difference Mr BG,  is Mr Kirk is a gent and knows when a yorkshire lass is joking. He is brave heart x x          MN:   no you dont need titles just good players lol     BG:  well, one thing we agree on …..that MISTER Kirk is a gent….!!     BW:   He sure is a gent! and Hi JM and MN, as JM said….theres nothing like a Yorkshire lass! I lived near you JM before I moved to Staffs, I lived in little village between Goole and Scunny! even smaller world : ) x       JM:  thats amazing, nice to meet you BW, yes it is a small world . I live near to Hull outskirts called Hedon. Take care of yourselves x                       Bill:   Well to all my good friends from Yorkshire, Lancashire and wherever, Adam is at this moment [9.50 am eastern Australian summer time] somewhere over the Indian sub-continent, on his way home [and Dad will be pleased to see him back on mother Earth again, lol] – and apparently, he wants to go back!!! Your homeland impressed him – not sure if it was just the pubs, haha, but he enjoyed London and whatever else he managed to see of the UK in his brief visit. Half his luck!! Love to get there 🙂           JN: wrote “well you would not have to pay lodgings with all your friends would be wonderful x”

The ‘interesting outcome of this carry-on, was that the three respondents from England [BG, is an Irishman who has been out here in Aussie for years – I believe I was a groomsman at his wedding back in the 1970’s!!]  were friends I have also known on the internet for many years, all people that I’m proud and pleased to be able to say, friendships that have been maintained through a decade or more of interest [and penfriend] communications  – many others have disappeared into the blackness of cyber space, by BW, MN and JN are all still there [as I am] – doubtful if I will ever get to meet any of them in person, .though the idea has been raised from time to time.  What is so interesting, is that this little conversation I have reported upon  – well, I seem to have inadvertently introduced the three of them to each other!!!  My goodness, I hope there is nothing in my past connections with one or other of them, that can be used as blackmail, haha, against this gent!!!  Seriously though, they have all been lovely friends, and while the internet can so often be used in unfortunate and sad ways, it has also proved to be a wonderful avenue of friendship, often at times when friends were ‘light on the ground’ so to speak.

I somehow doubt that any of these friends read my blogs these days, but they will know who they are if they do. Sadly, not all contacts have the past have stayed around. When I used the old Yahoo360,  there were a number of users of that system, that one had good communications with at different times. One was a guy, also from England, ,named Michael, who from memory. was a loyal  Manchester United supporter, and over the course of time, I got him interested in the weekly progress of my football team here in Australia [Carlton – even posted him a DVD of  our last premiership, won in 1995].   He disappeared completely after Yahoo360 closed down, as did a number of other ‘friends’ on there. That was a fairly interesting time in my blog entries, and on the Yahoo site, there was considerable interaction between ‘us’ bloggers. That degree of contact doesn’t seem to be so obvious on subsequent sites –  I think people are more into the ‘short response/retort’ type comments that are typical of places like Face Book and Myspace, and I suppose also, that much of what I write is probably considered ‘boring’ by anyone else. So be it.  Such is life.

Adam arrived back in Sunbury this evening –  his mother picked him up from the airport, where his plane from London arrived a few hours earlier than we had originally anticipated. I would have met him myself, but as his siblings had planned to do so, I was left trying to find out just when he was arriving!! The earlier landing took us all by surprise. I didn’t see Adam tonight – I imagine he was rather jet lagged, as according to Susan, who called by the Goonaswarra house after he got back home, noted that he was not very talkative!  I will see him on Tuesday or Wednesday evening, which might be early enough!

Meanwhile, on the sub-continent, the Asian Cup [Soccer] is underway, in which Australia is a competitor, and the Aussies first game was tonight. I was a little disappointed to discover that there was no live TV coverage on the free to air television – presumably it was on pay tv somewhere, but I don’t have access to that. Another example, of the performances of an Australian sporting team being basically ignored by most of the media! I would have to wait until the morning for the following report:-

‘Socceroos star Tim Cahill put in a brilliant showing as Australia kicked off their Asian Cup campaign as expected, with a comfortable 4-0 win over lowly India on Monday.  While the avalanche of goals some had predicted didn’t eventuate, the performance left new coach Holger Osieck with plenty of positives to take into Saturday’s (AEDT) crucial clash with fellow heavyweights South Korea. Reaffirming his status as Australia’s go-to man, Cahill scored twice having started up front with Harry Kewell and could have had even more goals if not for some great saves and an unlucky offside call. The Everton midfielder made a signal resembling a telephone with his hand after both goals, a gesture he said was to encourage people to supports victims of the floods that have devastated Queensland.  Kewell and Brett Holman also got on the scoresheet to put Australia 3-0 up at the break and, while Cahill’s second was the only addition in the second half, Osieck was upbeat after the match despite some players conceding Australia should have been more ruthless.  “From my point of view it was a good start. In particular in the first half we played tactically very well,” Osieck said.

I went off to bed tonight, not having heard any night news reports – kind of glad I overlooked that in retrospect, as the news from the Queensland floods was becoming quite tragic  – doubt I would have got as effective a sleep as I did, with that news on my mind!

9.50 pm tonight, that was the time that Adam took off from London, on his 24 hour return flight to Melbourne. And that that time, I knew that I was going to be apprehensive about the flight. He had gone over with Brent, and I guess I just assumed they would be returning at the same time! Anyway Brent left a couple of days ago, perhaps he was staying over there in Europe, not sure. All I can do now is hope and pray for a safe trip for my lad. He has a medical history of panic attacks  –  let’s hope nothing causes that problem to arise!

While Adam was leaving England, I was watching another great movie – on the ABC again, so no advertisements. As with last week, a movie I’d seen many years ago, but because of the vast development over the past decade or so in my love for music, I think I appreciated and enjoyed the film more on this occasion. It was 1996 film ‘Shine’ starring Australian actor, Geoffrey Rush, who won an Oscar for his role. The film, biographical in nature,  chronicled the turbulent life of David Helfgott, an eccentric and troubled Australian pianist who suffered a nervous breakdown, at the age of 23 years in London,  on the verge of his brilliant career. He would spend more than a decade in and out of a mental institution as a consequence.

An interesting review of the film appeared in last week’s television ‘Green Guide’, written by  Scott Murray, which noted the events that took pl.ace after he was finally free of the hospital treatment.   ‘David led a sheltered existence until a doctor hired him to play at a wine bar, where he was spotted by a divorced astrologer, Gillian Murray. They fell in love and were married. With Gillian’s persistence and the support of friends, David finally returned to his true destiny: playing the piano on the world stage. Showing similar single-mindedness, Adelaide filmmaker Scott Hicks encouraged Jan Sardi to write an intelligent screen play, and then spent seven years battling financiers who didn’t want the unknown Geoffrey Rush in the lead role……..Hicks never wavered, Gillian and David never lost their faith, and Rush gave what seemed the performance of his life……….Sine is a rapturous film full of respect and a rare fidelity to the known truth’………………………….the reviewer ends by saying that ‘it is impossible for me to write objectively about ‘Shine’ because Gillian is my mother and David my stepfather – and he is hugging me as I write this’.

I had two music shows on the radio – the usual Sunday morning 7am program of classical music, which, didn’t feel to go as well as normal, no doubt a consequence of being awake from 3am!! That was when the electricity went off in the neighbourhood, and ironically, just as I up and getting ready to go to the station, the power came back on, must have been a planned three hour maintenance job!! Anyway, I went away from the station feeling with a little dissatisfied with the way the program had gone, just a few little mistakes here and there, probably not noticeable by the listener, but nevertheless, I feel aware of any mishaps of that nature, very quickly myself.  Hopefully, I made up for that feeling later this afternoon, when I returned to do a program of mixed music and genres – in fact, with no meal commitment at home tonight [Susie was going out somewhere], and no other presenter scheduled to follow my show, I stayed on for an additional 40 minutes, such was my enjoyment of what I was doing. Included a range of songs from old and new recordings over a number of decades, and as hinted at yesterday, I did a little tribute to Elvis Presley, whose birth date was yesterday, the 8th January [1935], he would have been 76 were he still alive!

The music I played came from a recording of a live performance of a relatively young Elvis, politely spoken [when interviewed] and obviously at the height of his popularity, especially with the younger female sex judging by the background crowd noise.  The recording included a brief dressing room interview with Elvis – on today’s standards, a very amateurish sounding interview [from the interviewer’s point of view – some of our presenters here at the studio could do a far superior job!], but nevertheless, the recording captured some rare and exciting live tracks with Elvis interacting with the crowd and obviously enjoying the session. Born on the 8^th January, 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi, Elvis was the twin of a stillborn brother. He spent his teenage years I a poor white area of Memphis, Tennessee. He died on the 16^th August, 1977. I was in a motel room in a town up in the far north west of Victoria, having breakfast, when the news of his death came over the radio in the room, and immediately created a sense of shock and disbelief. Had a similar reaction when the announcement was made at a football match in 1997 of the death  of Princess Diana.

An interesting comment was made in the notes that came with this particular cd. James Hannaway wrote:- “It is a pity that his last performances in that suit [the unforgettable, fat, white rhinestone, junp-suit] and those [not-so-dark] glasses have become the most impersonated for would-be Elvis look-alikes. Sadly for the new musical generations – and Elvis – this enduring image is the only one they may ever have and one which pervades the karaoke bars and mawkish, look-alike competitions throughout the world. Perhaps there is nobody young, and pretty enough willing to impersonate his earliest days’.  A good point, and I got to wondering whether we do these days ever see an impersonation of the young Elvis. I imagine there would be plenty of impersonations up at Parkes today – wonder if any of them are a ‘young Elvis’?

I took my show through until about 6.40 pm tonight, was enjoying the music I was playing [much of it, a sharp contrast to the Elvis Presley style] so much, that was content to keep going, with no major immediate commitments. Was rather pleased I’d gone out for a brief walk [in a light shower of rain] this morning, rather than putting it off until tonight.

Went off to sleep tonight thinking of Adam, thousands of feet above eastern Europe, heading back towards Australia.

Now, in the past, I don’t generally recall this fact being referred to in the past, but apparrently, the truely fanatical fans of the late Elvis Presley make a point of commemorating this day  –  the anniversary of his birth, on the 8th January. It seems that amongst the places in Australia where this event is particularly celebrated, in Parkes up in Central New South Wales, where this weekend, thousands of Elvis fans have converged. Anyway, I decided that I would have my own little tribute – in tomorrow afternoon’s on air show, but more about that on Sunday!   In the second week of January every year, the town of Parkes in Central NSW comes alive to the sounds of hip-swivelling Elvis Impersonators and Tribute Artists. The 5 day Festival Program features a dazzling array of more than 140 individual events. Highlights of the 2011 Program will include the Dean Vegas Feature Concerts, the ever popular Elvis Gospel Church Service, the iconic Elvis Street Parade, the Crowning of Miss Priscilla, the Elvis Golf Day & Dinner, the Back to the Altar Wedding Ceremony and the Clubs NSW Elvis Poets Breakfast. In particular, the Elvis Gospel Church Service has become a much-loved feature on the festival program, and it was to return in 2011 to again pay tribute to Elvis’ first love – gospel music.

I decided that there would be no ‘trips’ in the car today – while a change in the weather was predicted,  the day began extremely hot, and promised to stay that way  as far as I could see. So your writer remained home all day, no urgent shopping required but plenty of jobs required attention on this front. However, after a ‘warmish’ mid morning walk, and a couple of hours ‘tidying’ up parts of the garden,  my ‘system’ decided that was it, and for the rest of the day, felt decidedly restless and not keen to settle down to anything specific [apart from putting on a pot roast that basically cooked itself through the afternoon]  – despite still attending to various matters that require attention, I always seem to feel guilty about having a lazy afternoon. I guess this is not unusual for someone so used to being active and always doing something, that he feels is beneficial and useful [even if it really isn’t important in the wider context or scheme of things].  Even took some ‘time out’ today to tackle a giant crossword puzzle! As usual with those things, I generally come across a few unsolvable obstacles!! Today was no exception.

Adam mentioned the other day in a brief text message that ‘I saw the Mona Lisa’.  At the time he was obviously visiting the  Louvre, and Adam’s visit is probably as close as I will ever get to that famous painting. Some brief travel notes in the January edition of ‘Limelight’ magazine had this to say about the Louvre: –  “Art lovers are no more immune from botherment in the Louvre which, although it has more space, also has more tourists. The experience of visiting the Louvre can be quite overwhelming with so many rooms, artworks,  and a multitude of visitors who’ve had the same idea as you, it’s a serious challenge to navigate. Obviously, Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa  is the greatest drawcard in the building, but this doesn’t make it easy to get to. Those wishing for a close-up of the painting are often best served by standing in the crowd, raising a camera above the jostling heads, taking a photo and then looking at that photo”.  Well if that was all I was going to get out of such a visit, I simply wouldn’t bother, but would in preference, find a decent art book, and study a copy of the Mona Lisa from that source!!  Hopefully, Adam did get to see the real thing!

With an early start every Sunday morning, I never seem to be able to manage a decent sleep the night before. I was hoping this one might be different, but alas, was not to be!  Woke at 3am, visited the bathroom, and while I was there, the power in the house went off – in fact, it was the whole district, and obviously switched off at that time by design, most people should be asleep! Probably, had I woken ten minutes earlier [from the vivid but as usual, mixed up dream that I was participating in], I would have been back asleep by the time the power disappeared. But that is not what happened, and so three hours later, as I prepared to go to the radio station, I’d not been back to sleep. Heard the neighbour return home from a night out at 4am [obviously to a darkened house also], and then not long afterwards, my phone buzzes  – perhaps Adam imagines that I have my phone switched off at night, and will read his messages in the morning! Or he hasn’t quite adjusted to the time difference between here and London? Anyway, his message was simply a reminder of the time his plane returns to Melbourne on Monday night!! I didn’t respond but knew by then, that I would not be getting any more sleep tonight.

Another warm day with promise of more to come. Called in at the radio station this morning to provide a brief local sport report [not that there was much going on in the local area at present, with most competitions having a break.   I don’t how it managed it, but the presenter on air this morning, Ron, managed to tee up a telephone interview with Victoria’s new Premier, Ted Bailleau this morning [well, in view of Ron’s professional radio background, it probably wasn’t that difficult for him to organise], certainly a scoop for our local radio station anyway. Unfortunately, I didn’t hear the complete interview – as I arrived at work before it was finished, but apart from the usual interview format, Ron had even convinced Ted to reveal three of his favourite music tracks, and played them during the interview. Well done, Ron!!

A final word on the test cricket  –  [although my various friends over in England won’t allow me to forget about the outcome too easily!!] – it finished before lunch today, as anticipated, and  this press report followed soon afterward  Australia’s defeat  –  

“In the wake of Australia’s embarrassing defeat to England in the Ashes, Michael Clarke has quit as captain of the nation’s Twenty20 side.  Clarke reportedly made the decision due to his poor form in the series, and follows Ricky Ponting in ditching the short form of cricket to focus on his Test career.  As a result, he will no longer hold any full-time captaincy positions, with Ponting expected to return to the role in both the Test and one-day sides when he returns from injury.  Clarke came under fire after a poor Ashes showing where he has failed to score a decent amount of runs since his promotion from five to four in the batting order.  Clarke took over the Twenty20 captaincy from Ponting after Australia’s last Ashes defeat in August 2009.  Reports have [correctly]  suggested Victorian Cameron White will be Clarke’s replacement as captain.

Dominant England claimed their first Ashes series in Australia for 24 years with their third innings victory over the home team in the final Sydney Test.  England [today] wrapped up an innings and 83-run victory before lunch after victory was assured when they had Australia seven wickets down at the close of play last night.  It was England’s first series victory Down Under since Mike Gatting’s team beat Australia 2-1 in 1986-87. The tourists posted their highest-ever score in Australia on 644 and dismissed the hapless hosts for 280 and 281.  It was probably England’s most comprehensive performance of the series with Alastair Cook (189), Matt Prior (118) and Ian Bell (115) all claiming centuries in an overpowering first innings lasting 177.5 overs and 758 minutes. Their bowlers, led by leading series wicket-taker James Anderson, exposed the gulf between the two attacks by dismissing Australia cheaply again. England were a potent force during the series, overpowering Australia in huge wins in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney, with the Australians winning the third Perth Test. The opening Brisbane Test was drawn. Alastair Cook was the series top scorer with 766 at 127.66, second only to Wally Hammond’s 905 in 1928-29 for most runs for England in a series in Australia. Anderson finished the series with 24 wickets, the most by any England bowler since Frank Tyson took 28 in 1954-5 and wicketkeeper Matt Prior took 23 catches in the series. England were the last team to beat Australia at the SCG in 2003 when Andy Caddick claimed 7-94 after Michael Vaughan had amassed 183 in the second innings to pull off a massive 225-run triumph. England have now won 22 times in Sydney in 54 Tests.  The Ashes humiliation was Australia’s sixth defeat in their last eight Tests and comes at a time of major upheaval in all facets of the Australian game. Michael Clarke stood in for injured skipper Ricky Ponting for the Sydney Test and came away with a similar result.  Only Mike Hussey with 570 runs and two centuries at 63.33 emerged with his reputation intact as Ponting (113 runs at 16) and Clarke (193 at 21.44) failed miserably with the bat. Australia’s leading contemporary wicket-taker Mitchell Johnson also had an under-performing series — taking 15 wickets at an expensive 36.93.  Australia’s diabolical performance is expected to lead to an inquest with the administrators, selectors, coaches and players under scrutiny amid widespread public disenchantment”.

Actually there was the promise of a more interesting finish over in South Africa between the home team and India – to consolidate it’s current as the top test playing nation, India needed 340 runs, I think it was, on the final day the third and deciding test over night –  should have been a close exciting finish, and one could be forgiven for assuming that India would score those runs easily!  Not so apparently, in fact the match dwindled out to a disappointing draw when the captains apparently agreed that no result was possible late in the day, when India were just 3 for 166 runs. From a distance, it seemed like a pretty tame effort by the Indians to win that game!!

Despite the heat of the day, and this evening, I did manage to get out for a walk –  Susie was at work until 10pm, so upon returning home this evening, I cooked an evening meal for us both, and by the time that was ready, the temperature and harshness of the sun had eased a little, so before eating, I went for a late walk, and felt reasonably satisfied for having done so. Meanwhile, with my main computer still out of action, I have a little extra time at present for reading, and also a bit  of TV watching.  Apart from some sporting events, and the occasional documentary or political program, I try to avoid spending too much time in front of the TV, unless it’s something worthwhile on the ABC. Tonight, that medium had Part 1 of a mini-series called ‘Collision’ – I guess I started to watch it because it involved a car accident [involving multiple cars in fact], and those who have read my blogs over the last few years, will be aware that it is a subject that plays on my mind at regular intervals. This show dealt a situation a number of vehicles colliding in the one incident with multiple deaths and injuries resulting. The story follows a police officer with a troubled past who is brought in investigate the accident, and in so doing, he begins to untangle the secrets and lives of the various strangers who were involved in the accident.  It’s obviously a fact, that in most vehicle accidents, the people who are involved were complete strangers until they tragically come together in this fashion. The series presents the aftermath of such an accident from the point of view of the lives of the victims involved. I found it quite interesting – now all I need to do, is to remember to watch Part II next Friday night!!!