Ronnie Burns

This is a commission from Tasmania for a Birthday gift for former Aussie 60's Pop star Ronnie Burns. I wasn't familiar him having grown up in the UK in the 60's where we had serious pop star overload and I think the only downunder stars to get a look in were The Easybeats and of course the BeeGees - hang on they were Poms !!

Ronnie has had a varied, but very successful career Pop star, TV host and then a builder. He settled in Tasmania and now runs Appin Hall which is a children's foundation, home and hostel for kids that have been neglected and suffer trauma.

He was a recent recipient of Tasmania's Australian of the Year.

Wayne Swan dressed down ..........

We've just had an election and the incumbent Labor government may, or may not hang on, it's that close. We have a strange system of preferential voting that may allow a party that get almost half a million less votes stay in power on blocks of second hand votes from a minor party ........ but I love this.

Wayne Swan, the treasurer, who has been proudly telling us for months he has saved us from the GFC, getting a well deserved bollocking ........... 'save and Labor treasurer' in the same sentence is an oxymoron.

Found this on Jason Chatfield's blog.

Whoops .......... !!

Had one of those days - the day before Friday the 13th - my wife driving to work when all the alarms went off in the car, overheated. A leak in the radiator - $515 later and a new radiator - all's OK !

Settled down to catch up on the work I hadn't done running around organising cars - over goes my coffee all over the Wacom and the keyboard ( I know no drinks near them - just like you don't !) The Wacom light flickered and then went out, opened the, case hair dryer etc - no good it won't resurrect. I thought the keyboard was OK until the Finder started getting a mind of its own - I mean opening 100 web pages at once, refusing to reboot and then also gave up the ghost.

That'll be expensive tomorrow - I'll have a quiet red to end a bad day. Opened a Shiraz, it fizzed when I poured it, smelt strange, a quick taste confirmed - yuk !! Down the sink.

Went to bed.

Sitting here wondering what today will bring after the small ceremony for the keyboard and Wacom .........................

ADDENDUM : Intuos 4 and new keyboard in place - an expensive couple of days !!

ADDENDUM 2 : put the Intuos 3 back together - one last try - it works !!

Now I'm being accused of a deliberate ploy to get a new tablet

Anyone want a pre loved Intuos 3 - smells a little of coffee ?

Case of good Shiraz will cover it.

News Ltd - who writes these headlines !!

Next month I'm off to the UK in one of the new Qantas A380's - looking forward to it.

Imagine my concern when I read the headline above online in WA Now - " shit an A380 has crashed !! "

The story is, en route from LA, it had to land in Noumea to take on extra fuel because of bad weather on the Australian Eastern seaboard. A normal precautionary procedure that caused a flight delay - not news at all really.

That is 'landed' not 'down' - strewth I'm glad I no longer buy newspapers - the old adage ' never let the truth get in the way of a good story '

I will point out News Ltd has had a long term anti Qantas vendetta - I don't really know which airline Mr Murdoch wants us all to fly but it's certainly not Qantas !

Matt Preston caricature

I had the misfortune to watch a couple of episodes of Masterchef during the last season - the first time to see what the fuss was about, the second because I was out of my comfort zone - ie didn't have control of the remote !!

Truly awful crass melodramatic commercial crap, the fact that it's the top rating show in the country makes me a little concerned about my fellow Australians and to make it worse both of my kids are victims too - ' ssshhh Dad - the souffle is a winner !!' - strewth.

This bloke, Matt Preston is one of the judges, they're all pompous bastards who really deserve to 'wear' a dish or two. Anyway here's my rendition of the said Mr Preston - I don't know why but my first view of him reminded me of Mr Creosote.

............ did I mention I wasn't really keen on the show !!!

For those that don't know Mr Creosote here's a clip - he's a food expert too.