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Afternoon exploration, South into unexplored territory. Over North road and down along the fortified boundary of the golf course, a quick detour in along the driveway to see if we could see the clubhouse — supposedly a wonderful example of a pre-suburbia building preserved in the club — all we could see was the carpark and the watchful eye of the security cameras watching us...

Keep going south along the fence, Magnolias and fruit blossom everywhere, finally the golf course ended and we could turn left, but twists and turns of the roads conspired to send us still further south. Where are we going to end up we wondered? Somewhere in South Oakleigh, nearly at Centre road, derelict site of an old school, only the basketball courts and concrete cricket pitch remain, poking through the grass on the vacant block. Around a corner and a fascinating house confronted us, such a suprise after the uniform suburbia and endless 1960s brick housing, striking panels of colour, and odd angles sticking out — something interesting!

One or two more streets and we found ourselves at the bottom of Huntingdale road, finally at least we knew where we were! Simply head North — a very long way — and we would be home. Still a few surprises, a huge pit beside the road that seems to be an abandoned quarry in the middle of the suburb, then a well kept park and athletics track, nameless, but with signs warning you to control your dog.

Spring weather again; albeit with a strong northerly wind. Off for a lazy ride around and around, exploring a few places I haven't visited for a while. Up along the bike trail to Carnegie, lost through the back streets to Caulfield, head north up Glennferrie road, zig-zag through Toorak, down to Richmond, nosiness sends me up the street where I lived for five years. Westwards into the city, sit at Federation Square for a while and watch the world go past, then off down St Kilda road to St Kilda and Elwood, before turning left back towards Oakleigh.

Glen Huntly road heading home, an idiot in a bright yellow Porsche decides to throw the car door fully open in front of me. I see it in time and merely yell “DOOR!” he screams abuse back and threatens "I bloody run-a you down". Shake my head as I continue on, its amazing the beliefs held by some of the people on our roads.... A suburb or so later I'm passing a stationary line of cars, queued up all the way back from the rail crossing at Ormond, as I draw level with one car the driver pulls out of the traffic, turning left straight across my path into the carpark. The indicator has just been flicked on but there's no hope of me stopping in time, he hasn't looked before he turned. I yell, brake, and crunch hard into the side of the car. The windows are open and the driver almost has a heart attack. Luckily the only damage to me is a friction burn on my elbow where I slid along the car. Seems that dozens of passers by want to know if I'm alright — I'm just annoyed. Annoyed that I didn't see him in time, annoyed that I didn't guess that he would turn straight across me without looking. The driver is very shaken and apologetic, he claims he saw me, claims he indicated, just claims he didn't realise I was so close. Maybe he'll check a little more carefully next time. “Cyclists in mirror are closer than they appear.”

RRR is nearly at the end of their annual radiothon, three days left to go and I've been meaning to get around to resubsribing, but was leaving it until the weekend.... This morning the Breakfasters had a guest from the long past — James Young — half of the old Fast Fictions team. I couldn't resist, I had to give it a try. Rang up, re-subscribed, made a donation, then offered to double the donation if Hound Dog can find me a replacement Fast Fictions CD to replace the one that I took to South Africa and left there sometime back in 2001! Ok, waiting on you, Mr Young....

?huh?

Too many times I spend my lunch break sitting at my desk, especially in the winter. A few weeks ago I decided to get out and go for a walk more often, today I headed off east through a nearby part of Clayton — I ride through here every evening, but in the nine years I've worked here, I don't think I've once walked down some of the streets!

Fairly typical mix of old weatherboad houses, some well kept, some run down, some with magnificent well-established gardens, some with bare expanses of weeds, mud and student cars — typical for any suburb right next door to a university! Magnolias, wattles and fruit trees are all in blossom at the moment, with the sun out I managed to get one good photo to brighten up the day.

With much fanfare Jo declared it is time. Time to take her new bicycle out for a ride — one week old and it hasn't been ridden yet! The weather doesn't look promising and we decide we're both getting old and lazy — its far too easy to just sit at home and wait for a perfect day... Off down Warrigal road, a brief stop in a carpark to adjust the seat, then head for the bay along North road. Down towards Mordialloc and we're thinking that the new bike is magic — the two of us are sitting there, cruising along at 35km/hr, chatting away and barely pedaling.... Ah, the faces of the riders heading in the other direction reveals the awful truth — there's quite a northerly blowing, and its square at out backs! Once we'd turned around it became one long slog home into the face of the wind, approaching South road we were struggling to maintain 14km/hr!

The Saturday morning ritual. Jo heads across to the bakery to grab a fresh loaf of bread while I make bacon and eggs and coffee. We prefer the loaves from the Vietnamese-run bakery in Chester street, but they're often not ready until 9:30, so the earlier mornings' bread comes from the market bakery. A split-vienna loaf, often still warm from the oven. At least half the loaf vanishes with breakfast and lunch on Saturday, Sunday morning is usually toast made from the rest...

As I grabbed my slices of toast and put them on the bench, Jo burst out laughing, pointing out that they looked like the silhouette of a basset hound. Far more interesting then the assorted images of Jesus and Mary that are seen in donuts or tree stumps, in our bread slices we have seen completely non-denominational penguins, octopus and the odd basset!

Dentist appointment at 9 o'clock this morning, just up the road from where — err, from where I lived until last October. Forty-five minute bike ride from home to Richmond now, so I had to get up early — or what passes for early for me! I could have got it down to thirty-five minutes by taking the car and being stuck in the crawling hordes on the freeway, by bike in the sunshine was far more appealing. Pink and white blossom is out on all the trees along the way, as are all the wattles in various shades of yellow — I do miss that ride to work!

Somehow I managed to find every piece of roadworks between Oakleigh and Richmond; a council digging up Poath road, contractors repairing the bike track where it is splitting and sliding into Gardiners creek (finally, its only taken then five years to start that!), other road-works mysteries on Yarra boulevard and in Malvern. The leaking sewer and assorted lumps and bumps are all still where I remember them on the track, some houses have gone, bulldozed in the night, building sites have finally been finished. Its amazing how quickly some parts of the route change.

Anyone care to confirm the following bizarre question and answer that appeared in a discussion on Daleks?

  Q: Whats the Welsh for EXTERMINATE?
  A: since you asked, it's DIFODIWCH

I really ought to write something here, it was a very busy day! Food, friends, freezing wind, three hours walking around the NGV. Exhausting!

Dutch Masters from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. an impressive collection of paintings, and a few miscellaneous pieces of silverware and pottery. One of the glasses had me thinking, the sign on it said it was one of under five left in the world... I could swear I'd seen another! Oh yeah, in the glass museum in Venice! A magnificent painting of a 17th century warship reminded me of what might happen today if the artist tried the same thing “I'm sorry sir, you can't paint that ship — security — I'm afraid we'll have to confiscate your studio...”

“No photography” and “Please turn off your mobile phones” say the signs at the entrance announces. Bleep, bloop, ring-ring. The attitude of the public replies straight back — every couple of minutes a different ring tone blares out “Uh yeah, Hi! Um, I'm in the gallery...” Guess what — we all know you're in the gallery.

Interesting subjects, fascinating techniques. Some incredibly lifelike hair and cloth and lights playing on metallic jewelry. I hadn't realised until now that Harlem in the US was named after Haarlem in Holland. One painting caught my eye because the subjects looked to be slightly squashed, something we see on TV often enough when normal 4x3 pictures are shown on widescreen TV with the wrong picture setting — no TV then, so the artist must have intended it... was Adriaen van Ostade's Peasants intended to be seen slightly from the side, as you were walking along a hallway towards it?

Mark had suggested that there would be time to visit the National Museum in Carlton after we'd finished with the paintings — not a chance, after three hours of Dutch masters we were exausted and desperate for lunch! Big bowls of soup in Degraves street, perfect for the cold weather and the icy wind.

Four degrees overnight and we've learnt that the walls of the old weatherboard house has a lot less insulation than the bricks and concrete of Richmond! The only heating in the house is the wood fire, light it at 6:30pm and by 10:00pm the place is just starting to feel warm — just in time to go to bed.

Bund is back, amusingly, a heat-related problem. One of its fans had expired and the machine overheated. My suggestion that they move the machine outside and let ambient air cool it was received — coolly.

One big win this evening — I discovered that my X-Drive external hard-disk/memory-card-reader thing can handle the SD cards from the IXUS700. I was worried that it could only handle the cards from the other camera. I then ran around the freezing cold house cooking dinner, reading the newspaper, trying to light the fire, listening to early '80s punk on RRR and taking photos of things all at the same time! Somehow I managed to not drop the camera in the bolognaise, and got the house warm!

Bah! One of my colleagues from work spent the night in hospital and will spend the rest of the week off work. Motorist “failed to give way” and ran into him. I've seen him riding — lit up like a christmas tree, lights, reflectors, shiny vest, and always on the lookout for the idiot in the tin box. It only takes one lapse in concentration and the idiot will get you...

Uh oh... I'm off the air. So of course, nobody can read this. Something bad has happened and my friends at bund.com.au have been down since Sunday. Best wishes in exorcising the devils within the machinery guys....

?huh?

The civil liberties of some Australians will have to be curtailed in the fight against terrorism, Treasurer Peter Costello says.

Thanks Mr Costello. More and more it seems that the terrorists win. Security becomes the justification for anything and everything.

Our Man of Steel, the Honorable John W. Howards wants thousands more cameras to monitor us every step of the way, meanwhile it seems that carrying a camera is now a suspicious activity. More and more ordinary photographers and tourists seem to be finding themselves harassed or forbidden from taking photos of sights that tens of thousands of people before them have! Shopping centres, cinemas, airports, government offices, train stations — the famous clocks of Flinders street station could now be out of bounds — Of course, any attempt to photograph a camera that's photographing you is automatically a subversive act.

Of course you aren't automatically a terrorist if you're carrying a camera — be so foolish as to take a photo in a public place that shows anyone under the age of 18 and the other option is that you're a pedophile!

An interesting thought that occurred to me yesterday though, along with all these places banning cameras as well as banning photography. Approximately 35% of the mobile phones on the market contain a digital camera, and Australia has an 85% penetration rate of mobile phones — so presumably 35% of 85% — eg 29.7% — of the Australian public is forbidden from taking their mobile phones into many of these places...

More monitoring

Italian river 'full of cocaine'

The results suggested cocaine was in regular use in the areas tested Scientists have found large quantities of cocaine residue in a river in northern Italy - suggesting consumption is much higher than previously thought.

They've analysed the river and found that people upstream metabolise cocaine. How long until they start moving upstream to individual drains, streets, or house sewer outlets to track it down and use it as evidence in prosecuting people for consumption?

2005-Feb-18 2005 RTA NSW Big Ride: Charlotte Pass — Kiama
2005-Mar-25 Easter Deadly Treadly Tour: Avoca — Melbourne

Just about to leave this morning to ride to work when the rain started hammering down on the tin roof, definitely time to sit for a quarter of an hour and tidy the kitchen!

Oddest motorist this morning — the lady stopped at the lights on North road. She drove up, stopped, her hands and eyes dropped into her lap and she started fiddling about. “Another idiot on the phone,” I thought. Wrong! She had picked up her knitting! The lights went green and she drove off, still looking in her lap, still doing her knitting!

Strangely, at the Clayton road lights I pulled up alongside the same garbage truck that yesterday tried to run me off the road, not sure if it has a different driver today or whether they're just in a better mood, there was no abuse, no laughter, nothing.

Once at Monash I detoured around to the semi-regular monthly cyclist breakfast, a chance to stand around and chat and discuss what routes people use to get to and from the campus. My hat goes off to the girl from Upwey who rides in most days — riding home up Mount Dandenong each evening must be hard work!

This morning I'm on my way to work when I meet, SKM-659, the garbage truck driven by idiots. First they're stopped at the corner hanging out the window and yelling sexist abuse at a female pedestrian, then they came up behind me on North road, pulled into the bike lane as they passed, then just ahead of me kept on coming left until the truck almost met the railing, pulling back out the two passengers were leaning out the window looking back at me and laughing.

Mere coincidence that the newspapers and commercial TV news are doing a big beat-up on anti-cyclist sentiment and what a "threat" unregulated cyclists pose to "normal law-abiding folk"? I'm sure that those three in their ten ton garbage truck felt completely threatened....