Floods, Whales and Naked Woman, Aussies, Hotels and Sex, Parking, Parking Houses, State of Origin, Political Stupidity.

Spare a thought for people in NSW, Hubei and Hunan in Australia and China respectively where there has been extensive flooding.  More than a million people have been evacuated in China.

The most bizarre news this week – a naked Russian woman swimming with whales near the Arctic Circle (click on Naked Russian Diver) to read the story.  It wasn’t a sperm whale by the way.  

Something surprising – Aussies prefer to watch TV in hotels rather than have sex in hotels.  Why not watch TV and not have sex at home I wondered.  Here’s the link. http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/between-the-sheets-secrets-of-aussie-hotel-guests-revealed/story-e6frfq80-1226076436740

Something from the Patrick K this week: “They don’t have to shit themselves to be objectionable” and “some of the people there think that hygiene refers to a woman (as in “Hi Jean”), the latter referring to our visit to the organic markets.

Parking - take a look at this.

Loyal readers will recall parking woes.  I was embarrassed this week when I saw just how good some people are at this parking game - try parking a cement truck in a driveway about 4 inches wider than the truck!  Sometimes 4 inches is enough it appears, well for Aussie truck drivers anyway.  Personally, I think 6 inches is probably better and 9 inches is ideal.

Not satisfied with just a truck, the Aussies sometimes just re-park their houses.   Take a look at these photos. 

Amelia and Brandon are staying with us while they re-park their house on their block.  The move in case you’re wondering was largely completed in a day, about twice as long as it takes me to park Freddie in our garage. When we spoke to the owner of the business, John Hoyes, he explained that they jack up the house, slip in the steel beams, rub them with soap (the beams, not the houses) and then use ropes and pulleys to drag the thing to its new position, in this case as you can see 2 meters away (a meter higher and a meter nearer the road).   Many houses here (read most) sit fairly lightly on the ground compared to the UK (no bricks) and Hong Kong (no concrete), are raised up for a variety of reasons (floods, coolness, and car parking).    

You can actually go to a house parking lot and walk round the stock, old houses which has been moved to make way for newer houses, or if you can’t be bothered driving there, find one on the ‘Net and have it delivered and erected on the block of your choice.  As my nephew Jon told us, he had his first erection a while back (a shed in the garden in case you were wondering, not in a shed in the garden).  For a video (very tongue in cheek and worth a watch) of how all this is done, go to: http://www.drakehomes.com.au/Page/house-moving-video-gallery .  Note – you want Jester Fry, not the Mega Moves from Canada and US.

This week saw the second Game of Origin, (Rugby League) between NSW and Queensland. I was lucky enough to be invited to Tattersals (http://www.tattersallsclub.com/) to sip some fine Aussie wines, enjoy a good Aussie steak while watching the game with 13 blokes.  Does it get better than this?  As far as I can tell, Rugby League is a contest to see who can run into a wall of blokes the most times without losing any appendages like arms and fingers.  Somewhere in all of this, they try to score tries, then they all go off the field where they get covered in money, tattoos and silly young women in that order.  It turned out that Queensland lost this match, one of three but has won the series for the last 5 years running. Some cynics suggested that giving NSW the middle game increases the take for the final.  Never.  

One of the current controversies here in Aus has been the ban of the export live cattle to Indonesia after horrendous videos were aired on ABC (the Aussie BBC) of extreme cruelty in some Indonesian abattoirs.   No one condones such bizarre behavior, but the interesting thing has been the knee jerk reaction of the political system – a complete ban on all livestock exports to the Indonesia; such is the power of TV and the urban voter.  The Indonesians are apparently unmoved saying that 70% of their beef needs are being met by internal stock.  There are reports that they have slaughtered most of their breeding stock, so I suspect hamburgers in Jakarta may be a bit scarce.  Try this link if you’re interested in the ban. Or chuck another prawn on the barbie (for Hong Kongers this reads “get the maid to chuck a ..”) – no reports of cruelty to crustaceans yet.  http://newmatilda.com

Keep Well, Stay Safe

Spikey and Mrs K

Aussie humour, car swop day, political stupidity, flood affairs, shares

Rumours of my demise are untrue – despite three blog free months. Aussie humour, car swop day, political stupidity, flood affairs, shares and all that.

Our little band of neighbours has had a hard time of late.  We wish you well and good health.

We’ve recently ventured into the world of property development and in the course of doing so, have met Patrick K who has named us Mr. and Mrs. Echidna, or “Spikey” for short.  If you want to know about echidnas (echidnas are small mammals covered with coarse hair and spines), click here.

Some other little Aussie gems from PK include “sheep count him to go to sleep”, “he’s so tall, he’s only half way down when he’s lying down” and “he’s a bit 1,3,5”. A couple from one of my friends who shall remain nameless – “she bangs like a dunny door in a cyclone” and (in reference to country dances) the dating (spelled “mating”) strategy was “go ugly early”.

The dyslexic sign writer strikes again

Can you work out the logic behind the slogans on this car? Please let me know.  I am not kidding – I took this from the car last week. “training taint gives you more flxebility than ewre before!”  Here’s the web site if yuo’re intrested http://www.workskills.com.au/

A bit of Aussie subtlety.

Sticker

Why?

 

 

  On Sunday May 15^th, thanks to the eagle-eyed Mrs. K, we went to Green Plains to a car swop meet.  Green Plains is bandit country – the local tribes sport beards, tattoos and fierce hats, but they are pussy cats.  Browse the machinery at your leisure – unlike the British Car Day (blog) this was HOT ROD day.  I have never seen so much engine in a Ford Falcon, and this thing comes out the factory.  My personal favourite was the very elderly Dodge (I think) complete with two old hippie surfers, rust and muck all over the thing. They put them in the far corner in case the mud and attitude were contagious.

Way to go!

Tow Car

Look at the last line

 

Disasters have been a theme these past few months. The flood enquiry drags on – I suspect we’re about to find out that having a handbook and all sorts of people with their fingers in the decision pie simply doesn’t work.

When I wrote a draft of this blog back in March, I tipped a downturn in the share market.  Well, it happened. If building mega towers heralds the point at which a company or a country reaches the pinnacle of stupidity and self-importance, the Saudis are said to be to building a kilometer high mega tower in Jeddah. Think Sears Tower (Chicago), Petronas Towers (Malaysia) and Burj Khalifa (Dubai) and look what happened to the companies or countries in question.