Murali is last hope for Wallaby wannabe.

Mike Ticher
Friday October 26, 2007

Guardian

Don Bradman was a total bastard, a grumpy, greedy tight-arse, who could not even score one run the last time he played.

This is not my view but that of a satirical TV programme that recently made headlines here in Australia with those lyrics in a song suggesting various dead celebrities were not quite the "top blokes" portrayed in their eulogies.

Bradman is the ultimate sporting hero of our prime minister, John Howard, who identifies as much with the buttoned-up style of the hypochondriac Adelaide stockbroker as with his cricketing achievements. In the middle of an election campaign, which Howard seems certain to lose, he has found time to announce funding of A$6.5m (£2.9m) for the museum dedicated to Bradman in his home town of Bowral - which is not even in a marginal seat.

So he took great offence at the description of Bradman, calling it "distasteful and despicable". Perhaps it was not just the part about being a grumpy, greedy tight-arse Howard hated so much but the reference to Bradman's duck in his last Test innings, since more than one commentator has suggested Howard's own career may be about to end in a similar deflating way.

If it does, international sport will lose one of its all-time great coat-tail grabbers and shameless opportunists, not to mention the worst bowler in the history of photo opportunities. Howard unwisely put his cricketing abilities on display when visiting Kashmir in 2005. As readers of the Clip joint on this page yesterday will know, his first ball, delivered with an unconvincing off-spinner's action, failed to reach - let alone trouble - the unimpressed local batsman. Worse, after he lets go, it trickles towards an onlooker at silly mid-off. From about a metre away he chucks back the ball, which Howard drops.

Undaunted by his incompetence, the PM has appeared at every possible sporting occasion in his 11 years in office, easily surpassing Tony Blair as a statesman capable of surfing on any national triumph and souring any setback. When England won the Rugby World Cup in Sydney four years ago, Howard stomped down the victors' line all but throwing the medals at them, in a performance that led armies of compatriots to write to the papers complaining of his "lemon-sucking grimace", "worthy of any discontented five-year-old at a birthday party".

Not that such ringing endorsements have prevented him donning national sporting garb at all times, above all the Wallabies tracksuits that adorn his daily pre-breakfast power walk. So iconic has the Howard style become that it recently forced a startling change of policy on the Chinese government through what can best be described as tracksuit diplomacy. When the premier, Wen Jiabao, went walking with Howard in Canberra last year he was humiliated by the contrast between his plain outfit and Howard's sparkling Melbourne Commonwealth Games get-up. Wen's advisers have since kitted him out in Beijing Olympics gear for his jogging commitments on a tour of Europe.

Howard's application of clunky cricket analogies to politics is as elegant as his bowling action. In the last election he claimed at one point his Liberal Party was "three for about 268 [in the campaign] but the right-hand opener is still there." This time it needs several hundred to avoid the follow-on, and is wishing it had dropped the right-hand opener before the series started.

Howard is struggling to turn round ominous opinion polls, secure a fifth straight election victory and, most importantly, make sure he will still have the use of his personal RAAF plane to take him to and from the Boxing Day Test at the MCG (cost to the taxpayer last year a mere £5,700). He needs a distraction, a circuit-breaker such as the Tampa refugee crisis he exploited so successfully in the 2001 election. And at this desperate late stage there can be only one contender for the sports-mad PM: Muttiah Muralitharan.

Murali has two Tests before the election in which to snare the nine wickets he needs to overhaul Shane Warne as the leading Test wicket-taker. Howard has form. The last time Sri Lanka visited, in 2004, he was instrumental in Murali's refusal to tour, when he branded the spinner a chucker with the words: "They proved it in Perth too, with that thing." That thing, to be more technical, was the biomechanics test that showed Murali straightened his arm to an extent that was then illegal when bowling the doosra.

Howard might have to bend the truth by only about, say, 14 degrees, to whip up a wave of anti-Murali sentiment. It is an edgy time. The visitors have already had anxious meetings about likely crowd reactions, and plain-clothes police are to be deployed inconspicuously (presumably dressed in body paint and watermelon helmets) to weed out the kind of troublemakers who have targeted Murali in the past.

If Howard could only harness that sentiment, then hold up Warne as the iconic national figure who represents everything good about Australia . . . no, you're right, he's a goner.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007

God Save Our Gracious Queen

"God Save Our Gracious Queen"

Today I sung the above words at Islington Town Hall as part of my UK Citizenship Ceremony.

All very formal, with an address from Col. Kay, the Council's Deputy Lieutenant, an oath of allegiance to the Queen, acceptance of certificates and passport wallet, followed by a rousing rendition of The National Anthem.

Well, there you go, I'm now a dual citizen. Unlike Rupert Murdoch. Hah! Oh, and an avowed republican. Sorry, Queen.

Oh yeah, and a big shout to my Grandfather, Henry Plimpton...born 140 years ago in Hackney. Without him, I wouldn't be over here today!

There's some top pix by Katie here.

"Bobbing the Beer"

A fascinating piece of beer history from the initimable Stonch:

Hitz on the web.

The group I'm involved with over here, ALP Abroad, has been getting a fair bit of press over the last week or so, as the election mill starts to get up to speed. Here's a few articles where we have gained a mention:

• Ex-pats urged to enrol
  

• Expats hide, so Labor seeks
  

• The view from London

• Campaigning with the kidz on the interwebs

"Klondike-like saloons."

Yet again, Paul Keating uses his fine grasp of the English Language to further a worthy cause:

PAUL KEATING has backed the campaign to allow cheap liquor licences for small bars, saying the NSW Government should ignore the "hotel warlords" trying to stymie reform.

"The pub culture in Sydney is stultifyingly bad. It's raucous and it's noisy in their Klondike-like saloons. All that's missing is Lola Montez," Mr Keating said yesterday. "The idea that you have to go into these swills to get a drink, and not in some more beguiling place, is a shame."

Click here for the full story.

The Monopoly Pub Crawl

"London's Toughest Drinking Challenge"

Over to Stonch!

Sympathy for the (Tasmanian) Devil

The desperate battle to save the Tassie devil. They look cute, but don't sound it. (link to smh.com.au)


Here's an album of shots Katie and I took at the Tasmanian Devil Park in January '08

Brunels' tunnel vision lives on

Brunels' tunnel vision lives on

By Trevor Timpson BBC News

The Thames Tunnel built by Sir Marc Brunel between 1825 and 1843 is to form part of the new £1bn East London Railway Line.

More than 160 years after it was completed, it will connect up the transport network the capital is building to prepare for the 2012 Olympics.

Running between Rotherhithe and Wapping, its quality fills modern engineers with admiration.

Brunel employed his son Isambard - aged just 19 - as resident engineer. It was their first job together, the first tunnel anywhere through soft ground under water, and the oldest tunnel on the present London Underground.

"Victorian brickwork - particularly the early brickwork - was of a tremendous standard," explains Barrie Noble, construction manager for Transport for London, who is working on the building of the new railway.

It's such an important iconic piece of engineering Robert Hulse, Brunel museum

The tunnel was relined in the mid-1990s as part of a compromise after a fierce disagreement between London Underground and English Heritage. Some campaigners opposed the relining. But Mr Noble says it gave the tunnel a new lease of life.

"We don't intend to do anything to interfere with the fabric of the tunnel," he says. "Brunel and his team and his workmen were excellent."

The elder Brunel invented a tunnelling shield as a way of dealing with the waterlogged soft ground beneath the Thames - a cast iron structure that moved forward as the ground was cut, with bricklayers constructing the double tunnel behind.

It was, as Mr Noble says, "a long way before its time". With no giant cutting tools, it meant 36 miners, each in his own cell in the shield, removed oak planks one at a time and cut the soil behind to a depth of four inches.

Seven men drowned during the digging - workers had to deal with sudden ignitions of marsh gas and constant inflows of water, including five major floods, in the worst of which Isambard Brunel nearly died.

"Here - almost by accident - Brunel stumbled on how you build mass urban transport," says Robert Hulse, curator of the Brunel Museum in the old pump engine house at Rotherhithe, which attracts 11,500 visitors a year.

That was not Brunel's intention. Conceived in the pre-railway age, the tunnel was meant to provide a route under the river for cargoes which had been landed on the wrong bank.

Two enormous shafts 250 feet across were to be constructed at either end and horses were somehow to be persuaded to pull carts up and down spiral ramps.

Million visits

In the event, there was never nearly enough money to build the giant shafts, and the smaller shafts that still exist today remained the only way in and out of the tunnel for more than 25 years.

On its first day of opening 15,000 people walked through the tunnel, which was hailed as one of the new wonders of the world, and a million visits were chalked up in the first 15 weeks.

But the novelty wore off, and after 20 years of precarious existence as an underwater shopping arcade and a venue for tightrope walkers and sword swallowers, it was finally sold in 1869 and became a railway tunnel.

The skill of the workforce and the genius of the Brunels had achieved their aim at last - the tunnel carried cargo. It became part of the Underground in 1933.

Further north on the new East London railway, Mr Noble points to more examples of the amazing quality of Victorian builders' work.

From Wapping the line will continue to Whitechapel - as the present East London line does - and then join the viaduct which formerly carried the line north from Broad Street station.

Disused since 1986, the 170-arch viaduct defied engineers' fears about its condition, says Mr Noble.

The arches - built in 1862 - have joins to the new brickwork which was added when they were widened in 1872.

"All of those joints were totally watertight. We never found any that leaked. The standard of workmanship's incredible," says Mr Noble.

He explains how in one set of arches, an attempt was made to inject grout into the brickwork to fill voids which the engineers thought must have developed.

"There was very little flow - and we were astounded because these are so old we thought they'd be falling apart. We just couldn't understand so we did intrusive investigations: we took out bricks and we actually did radar surveys."

What they found was that of five levels of brickwork only the first, which had been exposed to the elements, had deteriorated to any extent.

Expansion plans

The existing East London line, including Brunel's tunnel, closes on 23 December, to reopen as part of the new East London Railway from Dalston to West Croydon and Crystal Palace.

"I'm delighted and of course it immediately increases our catchment area. When we have the overground people will find it much easier to get here," says Robert Hulse of the Brunel Museum.

He takes parties of visitors through the tunnel by courtesy of the East London line managers - who turn on the lights - and drivers, who slow down the trains.

For him the relining of the 1990s has been a good thing. "I know the purists got upset about them rendering over Brunel's original brickwork - but in rendering it over they have made it visible and accessible," he says.

News that London Underground was going to spray-concrete Brunel's brickwork led to angry protests, and the listing of the tunnel on the afternoon before work was due to start in March 1995.

In the end reinforced concrete was moulded to imitate Brunel's original rendering on the tunnel and the 60 arched openings between the two tracks.

As the London overground is built, the Brunel Museum is preparing for an expansion of its own, taking in Brunel's existing shaft, which at present stands empty above the entrance to the tunnel.

How the space in the shaft will be used is yet to be worked out. It seems likely to include some kind of viewing platform to watch the trains using the 160-year-old tunnel.

"It's such an important, iconic piece of engineering... I'm sure there'll be lots of very clever engineering solutions to the problem of how we best display what we have here," says Robert Hulse.

It is a good place for clever engineering ideas.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk/6996161.stm

Published: 2007/09/19 04:50:32 GMT

© BBC MMVII

Howard under pressure after poll setback

By Kathy Marks in Sydney

Published: 18 September 2007

John Howard, the embattled Australian Prime Minister, was under intense pressure to consider his future last night as opinion polls predicted a crushing defeat for his conservative coalition in the forthcoming election. Mr Howard is the country's second-longest-serving premier, with four election victories under his belt over the past 11 years. But the polls and the public mood indicate that Australians have had enough of him.

For the full story, click here.

Lotsa Lancias in London

Was speaking to Becher the other day down in Hobart, and he was putting the finishing touches to the Italian Car Club Magazine he edits. I mentioned that I had been meaning to grab some photos of the more exotic Italian motors that were to be seen around the streets of London.

Later that day, I was in Lina Stores grabbing lunch, when I saw a flyer on the counter for a Lancia Concours at Covent Garden today (Sunday). The concours was run by the Lancia Motor Club, and was held to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first Lancia being sold in the UK, and also the sixtieth anniversary of the club.

I rode down there, armed with the trusty Canon, and took a few shots. It was a glorious day. There must have been over 200 vehicles down there. Even the Lord Mayor (of the City of London, not Ken Livingstone) was down there checking out the many and varied examples on show in the Piazza.

I've uploaded a swag of photos of the event here.

Don & Christine's wedding

Well, we thought nuthin could beat the Chav Wedding engagement party back in November 2005, but Don & Christine sure pulled one out of the hat for their big day. A mini festival on a farmers field in Cambridgeshire, complete with big top, a pub housed in an ex-air raid shelter, beautiful camping beneath the acorn trees, hog and lamb and ducks roasted on the spit, two barrels of realale, a couple of bands, numerous DJ's, and friends and family from pretty well every continent on this planet (and maybe one or two from neighbouring stratospheres as well, just quietly), and a PORK PIE WEDDING CAKE.

Topped off by a low-level buzz compliments of a couple of WWII fighters from the airshow next door just as the rings were exchanged, it was definitely the Madras road party to end all Madras road parties. Big time congrats to the radiant bride and dashing groom...we can't wait for the Oz instalment.

There's some pix of the party here (we didn't manage to take that many before getting carried away with proceedings), and there are some posted on Don's Facebook page....if anybody has any more, I will gladly upload and/or link them...drop me a line.

The Real Ale Twats III

In which the merrie band attempt to decamp to the new Wetherspoon's.

Over to Stonch.

Edition 2

Edition 1

The Real Ale Twats II

Thanks Stonch.

You goin down, Johnny

I just remembered that I had an account with Centrebet. Logged on, and with the AUD 4.74 I had available to play with I bet that Maxine McKew will win Bennelong. With odds currently of 7/5, I stand to collect $11.37 on election day.

The Rodent has still got the edge with the bookies. He'd pay$7.11 for the same stake.

Scary but true.

Ha! Genius from the back editions of Viz, reprinted on Stonch's beer blog.

PS Here's what real life CAMRA members look like.

Michael Jackson dead

From The Morning Advertiser

Top beer expert Michael Jackson died this morning.

Jackson dedicated more than three decades to the pursuit and documentation of the world’s finest beers, and wrote many books on the subject.

He became known as the most widely-published and influential author on beer. He developed a cult television series known as “The Beer Hunter”, and contributed articles to countless magazines and newspapers.

Jackson was especially well-known for his particular passion for the specialty brews of Belgium, and his bestseller The Great Beers of Belgium.

Morning Advertiser beer writer Roger Protz said: “I’m in Germany at a beer conference and when I announced he was dead people were totally shocked - he was just so well-known.

“He was the best - and always will be the best. His knowledge of beer is unsurpassable. His genius was to to be able to write simply and beautifully about beer.

“He was a very private person but I enjoyed his company - he always had a really amusing story to tell about his travels.”

Hoodoo Gurus - A rave review from The Guardian

The first live band I ever saw, The Hoodoo Gurus (the gig was at Wrest Point, 1987, supported by The Cockroaches, compliments of Pat Townshend's 92FM DJ freebie) are back on the road, and played what sounds like a storming gig in Manchester a couple of nights back. Looks like they won't be hitting London, but I'm sure they'd fill a hall if they did (hint)!

Anyway, here's the review:

Pop

Hoodoo Gurus

4 stars Academy 3, Manchester

Dave Simpson
Friday August 31, 2007

Guardian

"The last time we were in this area was 13 years ago - but the urge was too strong," quips Dave Faulkner, addressing the Australian band's unexpected comeback. In the decade since they split up, pop has moved a long way from their style of paisley shirts and fast-paced pop-rock, laden with more hooks than a fisherman's weekend and laced with plenty of punk-rock edge. However, the Hoodoo Gurus' songs - and shirts - have remained the same.

Initially, they sound like an anachronism. After a couple of creaky openers, however, they hit their stride, and the thrills they once generated seem to have survived the difficult journey in the time machine. In fact, the Gurus' earliest - and spikiest - material sounds the best. From their debut, Stoneage Romeos, the wonderful Arthur cheekily remodels David Bowie's Jean Genie riff. Turbocharged by Mark Kingsmill's powerhouse drumming, songs such as 1987's What's My Scene are strong enough to retain timeless appeal.

When the audience start shouting requests (mainly in Australian accents), Faulkner responds that playing the same favourites every night would drive them "crazy." He almost shreds his larynx tearing through Where Nowhere Is, a head-rushing blend of MC5 and Buzzcocks. However, they give in to an enormous clamour for 1984's classic single I Want You Back, which sums up the audience's sentiments in four deliciously honeyed, high-octane minutes.

The 200th post - We're engaged!

Hi all,

Katie and I went to New York last week as cohabiting partners. Upon our return, we're cohabiting FIANCEES! Yes that's right, I popped the question up on the eighty sixth floor of the Empire State Building. Luckily she said yes, as I'm sure I wouldn't have looked too pretty on the pavement had the answer been the other way. Obviously we're both wrapt, and looking forward to the next big day, whenever that may be. Watch this space!!

In other (not insubstantial) news, we're packing our bags and heading back to Hobart in early November. It's gonna be a big change in life, but obviously Australia and Tasmania offer things that you just can't get in London. Anyway, change is in the air in the great south land, and it seems that one of my major reasons for leaving in the fist place (John Howard and his flunkies) will be swept away for history to judge in the not so distant future. Anyway, big party at Pyrland Road on Oct 27. Mark it down now!

Anyway, there's some news, eh?

Lots of pix of our trip to the Big Apple can be found here.

'Mateship' and the Australian way of life

'Mateship' and the Australian way of life Patrick Barkham
Tuesday August 28, 2007

Guardian

Poor old Poms. Record numbers of us are desperate to emigrate to Australia but now John Howard, the prime minister, has slammed the door shut on a tantalising life of beach barbecues and cold beer. The country's new citizenship test requires that migrants hoping to move Down Under must understand "mateship".

We may have a hazy idea that being a "mate" is sharing a slab of stubbies (bottled beers to you) with burly Australians as they throw another prawn on the barbie but, in reality, almost none of the 71,000 Britons who emigrated there in 2004 and 2005 has the foggiest idea about this scary, manly-sounding concept.

Two days after I moved to Sydney for a couple of years, the telecoms engineer came to fix my phone. He soon realised I was new in town. "Do you like clubbing?" he asked. "Here's my mobile number - come out with me and my mates." Er, thanks, I replied, my mind spinning. Was this a date? Was he a drug dealer? What was his ulterior motive?

The next day, I went jogging. My neighbour, a bloke about 10 years older than me, was going on a run too. "G'day mate. I'll take you on a route to the park," he said. During our 30-minute run, I mainly pondered the question: what's his agenda?

A week later I called a photographer I'd never met to ask if he could take a portrait for a story. Halfway through our professional exchange he asked: "How old are you, mate?" He was a year older. "How about we go for a picnic next Sunday?" Baffled, I accepted his invitation and Adam became my best friend in Australia.

Mateship can be ridiculed as a cliquey, stereotypical tradition of Australianness only available to white men. But it's exactly the opposite: it is rooted in ordinary Australians' still strong sense of fair play and warm welcoming of newcomers, whatever their background.

Poms who don't whinge, don't take themselves too seriously and don't seek out the comfort of other Poms can master mateship in Australia. But mostly, it's about discarding distrust and accepting that while its government may not like most immigrants, Australia's citizens are usually far more welcoming.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007

How would you like your Zebu cooked sir?

21/08/2007 09:55

Written by: Tamara Sender of M&C Report

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Several British pubs have been found to be serving poor quality zebu meat, instead of British beef in their steaks.

A programme to be aired on ITV tonight revealed that JD Wetherspoons pubs and Greene King’s Hungry Horse chain were selling steaks with DNA from a zebu, which is a humped oxon-like animal living in Africa and Brazil that is often cross-bred with European cattle.

As part of “Undercover Mum”, a former undercover policewoman visited 15 pubs belonging to the two pub groups, which were randomly selected, and sent samples of the meat she orders for laboratory analysis.

The results revealed that steaks ordered at four out of six JD Wetherspoons pubs and at three out of nine Hungry Horse outlets all contained zebu meat, despite staff saying that the meat was either British or they did not know its origin.

While eating zebu is legal, the meat from the animal and its cross-breeds was removed from a British quality scheme and the meat is described by the English Beef and Lamb Executive as of overall poorer eating quality and variability than meat from British or European breeds.

JD Wetherspoons responded to the accusations saying that “zebu is taxonomically identical to any other breed such as Charolais, Limosin or Hereford”, while Greene King denied the claims.