Feel-goodness

Core competencies: Good at feeding dog.

Ah, summer programming. Today, a nice little interview with an anti-smoking advocate, advising smokers on how to make their New Year's resolution to give up smoking stick. The trick (and the cliche'd journalistic hook) is NOT to try giving up right now, whilst attending Christmas and New Years parties.

["Wait. He's telling me NOT to give up smoking? What an ironic twist! I had better listen closely to this interesting story!"]

Here's the real hook. Research tells us that it takes smokers on average 13 attempts to give up smoking. So the trick, according to the advocate, is not to think of each failed attempt as a failure. Because there are no 'failures', only learning experiences.

At the risk of coming over all Ayn Rand, isn't there some point to acknowledging something as a failure? It's not just about learning, it's about trying harder not to cock it up the next time.

Perhaps, instead of interviewing breathy, new-age, self-help wombles on the nature of failure, the ABC might instead get one of the Challenger engineers on the blower. Or a quick chat with the endlessly patient people at Three Mile Island.

Last week the ABC featured another 'feel-good' magazine story about a rural program that gives troubled young people experience with dog-trials. It's not about training them in dog-trialing specifically, mostly it's showing them how to look after and communicate with dogs.

Troubled young man; "Yeah, it's good. Shows us how to feed dogs and stuff"

Well, there's no crime in being challenged.

Seriously though, teaching 'troubled youth' that challenges are frightening and undesirable, and that failure doesn't exist is lame.

Now, I am running a community based course shortly called; Brushing for beginners (next week; Combing!). Takers??

Fadding

I'm not prone to attacks of "mommy-blogging", but today I make an exception. Because in the last few days I've met a number of people who have asked if I breastfeed my baby 'on demand'.

I'd never heard the term used before, but apparently it's just one of several feeding options. Which makes me wonder about the others.

What are the other answers to that question? Perhaps when my baby demands a feed I hand her a copy of French Vogue and tell her that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels? That she's already looking bulky in that nappy? That she thinks she wants milk, but really she wants a long black and a Gitane?

I suddenly realised that in the overfed, wealthy west there are many hungry babies, babies who can demand all they like.

For all the endless 'educated' agonising over baby-care, there seems to be little recognition of the fact that babies are relatively simple animals as long as you meet their needs. When they are hungry, feed them. When they are tired, let them sleep.

These are the inconvenient truths of motherhood; Babies want their mothers. Babies want to be breastfed. Babies do not care if you are attaining fulfilment in your field of work. Babies demand.

You might be a feminist, but no-one's let your baby in on the joke.

Ho ho ho!

Wrapping paper! Yess!

"What's that noise?"

"It's me, I'm singing 'Six White Boomers to the Possum. It's Rolf Harris"

"Well, he did work in an asbestos mine, I guess..."

"No no no! That's me on the imaginary wobble-board! Do try to keep up..."

Australia baffled the early British explorers, with its bizarre marsupials and opposite seasons. Christmas in the summer? Weird. The Brits got the hang of it, but the New Zealanders remain vexed. Because today in Australia, Christmas brought rain.

Christmas in Wellington involves an army of tiddly Aunties, negotiating their way around a collection of new bikes, forgotten toys and cheap tents, all pitched on a 45 degree angle into a roaring southerly. Imagine Everest base camp run by the CWA.

In Australia, it's a different story. This year, bushfires raging to the south of us were quenched by a galloping southerly deluge. According to the ABC this morning, your position in the Biblical axiom of fire or flood depended on your relationship to Cann River (which is widely acknowledged as pestilence).

By lunchtime today, Christmas celebrations stumbled to a halt as everyone stared out at the sheets of rain, sighing with blissful glee. Hushed utterances of "It's a Christmas miracle" and "Look at that, I mean LOOK at it!" floated around the living room. Someone got the weather radar up, and the greenish rain-lump was tracked by every eye in the house.

Wikipedia gamely describes New Zealand's climate as temperate, or "maritime", which is a euphemism for "underwater". And so, as I sit here in a jersey, so full I can barely make a fist, with rain dripping off the gutters, it feels a bit like a kiwi Christmas after all.

Comedy of the commons.

Fluffly and lightweight, the danish pastry is the perfect accompaniment.

Thank you, thank you, if I could just have your attention....The future of the world's climate is very very important, which is why we have completely booked out this disused aircraft hanger for you. We've got it for the whole week. There's a tea urn up the front if anyone is feeling the cold. It's very important for us to reach an agreement on climate change, because if we don't make some kind of show in the face of the global capitalist juggernaut, people might fear the obsolescence of the nation state as we know it. ahhh....just quickly, I've just been told that Brian at the door now has a new felt-tip for those of you who missed out on your name badges...and if I could please ask you to write clearly, we don't want any more mix-ups.

Now, where was I?

Mr Rudd says we need to take decisive action, going forward, with a whole of government approach, in order to address and tackle the issues at hand. Mr Obama, feels we need to make climate change more science-y. He told us it's about America boldly going forward to deal with a common threat, in a way they haven't done before, and about America's sense of Enterprise as a new civilisation. Mr Wen couldn't be reached for comment but sources have confirmed that he has not been executed.

Poorer nations are watching their air-conditioned apartments and designer handbags slip through their grasp, really poor nations are facing the prospect of even more catastrophic warfare, the science is too damn science-y (there's no clear and definitive prediction on exactly what the climate will do) and the Americans still want to know what 3 degrees celsius is in hogsheads.

And it's important to keep in mind that we're not entirely certain that there will even be an agreement, because the world has never done this sort of thing before, except for all those times when we've done this sort of thing before.

Thanks to the ladies out the back for the spead.

Summer garden goodness....

Yum...

As readers may be aware, I struggle with cooking. Mostly, it's due to lack of attention. I put something on to cook and then go off in search of something to eat NOW. Therefore, my cuisine normally ranges all the way from from "well done" to "de-natured".

I like food you can eat raw. Luckily we have a garden. One can dig things up, wash them under the tap, and eat them. I've had a shower or two in my life so this level of preparation doesn't phase me one bit.

This week we got strawberries. Strawberries have suffered most heinously under the yoke of commercial farming. Most of today's berries are bland, bloated freaks, the Kerry Packer of fruit. Incidentally, It's a sad state of affairs when naturally grown (organic or biodynamic) fruit and vegetables have become boutique. When did a vegetable that tastes like a vegetable become such an outrageously gourmet item?

I digress...

Good strawberries are small and pungent. Their fragrance should steep in the back of your nose and throat like fresh garlic or truffle oil.

I bought four plants at the beginning of last summer, planted them and then treated them with abject disdain for months. They did surprisingly well, producing a few tasty little nuggets, but within a few short weeks they'd lost their sense of direction, running off all over the garden. The fruit dried up, and my interests wandered.

But, the runners were spreading and before long we had about 20 plants. 20 plants showing every chance of doing nothing at all. Until about three weeks ago, when they started to flower. And now we have heaps of fruit just beginning to ripen. The picture at the top is this morning's pick. Mmmmnomnom nom...

Very cool things

You might be thinking...what IS that? Well it's a bracelet, but more than that, it's a physical representation of one year of Canberra's weather data. The peaks and troughs come from highs and lows and the holes from rainfall. The technical explanation of this data representation is, at times, a little baffling for those of us who might represent one year of Canberra's weather as a seriously cracked dashboard and an eye-watering mound of very sweaty singlets.

Mitchell says; "3D print of a dataform based on 365 days of Canberra weather data (July 08 - June 09). Daily minimum and maximum temperature generate the profile of the outer edge; the holes show rainfall per week. Model generated with Processing, boolean operation in Blender, cleaned in Meshlab, printed by Shapeways."

This comes from Mitchell Whitelaw's blog; the teeming void.

Moko the not so friendly dolphin

Here's Moko the dolphin who is becoming quite famous for menacing Gisborne (NZ) swimmers and surfers. Moko is especially interested in women, harrasing female swimmers and perhaps, according to media-friendly soundbites, lining up in an attempt to mate with them. A bemused television reporter repeated the Department of Conservation's expert; "You mean, he might try to have sex with a female swimmer?"

What I want to know is, where the fuck is John Safran when you really need him??

Seriously though, I've always been amused at people's complete confidence in well behaved dolphins. Somehow we assume that every single one of them will be 200 kilos of good-natured plaything, instead of a heirarchically attuned wild animal. Putting something on a velour bedspread does not render the entire species 'cuddly'.

Although, that pic of Moko with the boogie board is CLASSIC. Those people were laughing their arses off, right up until they got nosed to death...

Surfers for Cetaceans!

I'm sitting on my board quietly avoiding likely-looking waves in the vain hope that i can avoid putting my not-so-insignificant teeth through my lip again. The striding morning sun is gathering heat, and the water is gloriously cool.

I took the thin-lipped Protestant approach to surfing; broke it down into tasks and worked on each in turn. An unusual approach in the relaxed, free-wheeling world of surfing, my paddling compatriots are often surprised as I easily duck-dive under menacing waves, only to be completely unseated at the meerest prospect of standing up on one. I did, however, live in a van and collect a fine set of dreadlocks in support of the project, so I've met at least a few of the KPI's.

For me though, surfing is more about being in the sea than justifying my Billabong sponsorship.

One of the most incredible things about surfing, kiting and generally being in the ocean in Australia is that you could well find yourself in the company of whales. I'm not even going to attempt to describe it; their sheer size is utterly unmooring, but it's not just their size that gives them such presence. In the water, their medium, they are aware of you, of your form and disposition, in a way that you might not be aware of yourself. It's rather grand.

At the beginning of spring we got an excited text message from a friend telling us to get down to the headland. A group of Orcas were hanging out just off the rocks, trying to look innocent as the Humpbacks surfaced and splashed in the background. Our little stretch of coastline boasts a humpback whale nursery. And where there's baby humpbacks, there are their unscrupulous daycare providers; Orcas.

It's common to see whales up and down this bit of coastline, making their way north to have babies in the warm tropical waters, or back south again for a massive feed. The thing is, it wasn't always like this. Australia didn't cease whaling until 1978 and locals around here will attest to the absence of whales until the last 15 years or so.

However, whales are still being hunted, tortured and killed all over the world. A couple of weeks ago we were visited upon by Howie Cooke, from Surfers for Cetaceans. He'd just finished a voyage with surfer Dave Rastovich, tracking down the eastern seaboard in trimarans, ending up in Sydney Harbour to deliver a stern message to the Australian government to better protect whales (please sign the petition here!).

Howie left us with an enormous whale mural and half a jar of stuffed olives. Both have endured well.

Mummy, are there hippies living next door?

Surfers for Cetaceans is a very active ocean advocacy project. These chaps round out the hemp-trousers quota of the International Whaling Commission meetings and basically remind the participants that their clinical, sanitised talk of 'culls' and scientific research is actually about torturing and killing whales.

They are aligned with the Sea Shepherd as well, and today, a day that the Japanese government has reminded whaling activists to be, well, inactive in the Antarctic this summer, and Norway has released its new quota for whale killings, I think it's fitting to spruik these nice people and their plight to get Australia to honour its commitment to protect whales.

In short; Whales are nice. Stop poking holes in them!

More of the same

How's my flick?

I feel like I should write something about the ever changing state of leadership in Australian politics. For those playing at home, the Liberal party (federal) and state parliament (Labour) both have new leaders following scruffy backroom dealings.

I'm pleased that Abbott is now in charge of the Liberals. Turnbull was all straightforward and "I-believe-in-science'-y. This simply will not do. He was a man without a mandate. Abbott, on the other hand, is a staunch Catholic who doesn't believe in science unless its in the form of a DNA test. Rudd must be pleased.

I'm less impressed with the downfall of Nathan Rees. I kind of liked him. He was big and burly and brusque. I watched him give press releases. His lips spoke of policy and reform, but his demeanor said "You can't come in here in jandals".

And now he's been rolled in favour of, you guessed it, another Catholic. Kristina Keneally is state Labour's first female leader, and, more importantly, NSW's first female premier. But ever since she quoted scripture in her flattened American accent to an inquiry panel, I've found her more than a little frightening. Perhaps it's the power dressing. Or that boggle-eyed, freshly-smacked-in-the-back-of-the-head-expression that some women think passes for being earnestly demure. (Here I am annoying feminists with the oldest trick in the book; slagging off women for irrelevancies). So I'll slag her off for her record instead. She's been the minister for planning. Which is Australian for; 'making the Sicilians look good'.

Nathan Rees got up last week in front of his party and declared that the only contributions state Labour would accept from developers would be horses' heads. You could hear the death knell from here. State Labour, under Keneally, will be back to business as usual.

It's so predictable it's not even fun anymore. The whole state government is hopelessly corrupt, enmeshed in a confusing maelstrom of conflicting interests and dodgy deals. It's not even worth staying up to write about. Thank you and goodnight.

Food

The hardest part is getting them to swallow the pit

Today we gave our daughter her first solids. At 4 months she's young, but I'm thinking, hey, solids go in, solids come out. Incidentally, I never anticipated a time in my life where a a firm log would make my day (or at least not until I am over 90 and can shoot them at minimum wage aides like an arcade game).

Introducing solid food, like so many other aspects of parenthood, is fraught. Poor people have it easy, they just jam a Dorito in the front of their 2 month old and leave them to it, but middle class people have work to do. We must angst. We must consult. And lastly, we must Google.

The trouble of course, is that almost everyone has babies. And almost everyone has the internet. (Unless of course you are one of the 90% of the world who actually doesn't have the internet, but then you're not going to send me shitty emails, are you?). This democratisation of information has implications: all baby related advice must be tailored to adults who try to do up their shoes with their fists.

I ascertained that 6 months is the recommended age for starting babies on solids. But it hasn't always been that way. Back in my day, it was commonplace to start your children on a watered down mixture of dripping and asbestos at around 3 months of age.

In fact, there are few hard and fast rules about solid food. To wit: babies need to be able to hold their necks upright enough to let the food slide down their gullets. Food must be mushy. Food must not make baby swell up like a screaming hive. It's simple really.

After watching the Poss-Bomb eyeing and snatching at our dinners we decided that I'm not ready for fighting over food just yet so we capitulated. We chose avocado. More fool us. She ate it with a quizzical look that said;

"Hey! Hippies! Haven't you got something in that fridge with a face?!"

New Zealanders may find this amusing...

We are tentatively planning Possum's first trip to New Zealand. Here's Possum's Dad, who has never been to NZ;

"I've been looking at the ferry website. It's a hundred bucks to get all of us across the strait. Come on, it'll be cool! Go through the Milford sound or whatever. How big are those boats? they wouldn't get tossed around in the sea! I'd love to go on a ferry! It'd be like going on a cruise! Check it out, look at the size of the thing! It'd be awesome!"

Yeah, it's awesome alright.

Trademe treasure!

"No, this is not a misprint. This is a mossum, a cross between magpie and possum.
This shy creature is rarely seen and to find this roadkill was a rare find indeed.

Mossums are only active at night and feed on decaying carrion and return to their nests at dawn.

This is more than likely a one-off so don't miss this opportunity to buy this
magnificent beast."

I particularly like; "This is more than likely a one-off..."

Shame though.

From NZ's version of ebay, trademe

Thanks to my bro for for link