Showing all posts about Australia
Do mullets make for great Australian Football League teams?
1 October 2024
I’m not very sporty as regular readers will have gathered. Of the approximate sixteen-hundred posts here at present, less than half a dozen are sport related. Of these, the majority relate to the Matildas, the Australian women’s football/soccer team, which I wrote during last year’s World Cup tournament. To think it’s been over a year now since that happened.
Last weekend though, was the grand final of the 2024 Men’s AFL (sometimes called Aussie rules) competition. The Sydney Swans, who I would regard as my local team — since geographically speaking they are the nearest club to me, and one of only two AFL teams in NSW — faced off against a team called the Brisbane Lions. Long story short, it didn’t end well for the Swans.
Then yesterday, I spot this infographic at FlowingData, illustrating how many players in each of the competition’s teams sport mullets. Interestingly, just four Swans players style their hair accordingly, one of the lowest counts in the league. On the other hand, nine Brisbane Lions players are mullet-ed.
My question: did this mullet imbalance have anything to do with the result of the grand final?
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Add new Australian volcanic activity to the list of worries…
6 September 2024
As if climate change, and the increasingly unstable weather it will bring, isn’t enough to worry about, parts of Australia may see an increase in volcanic activity. Not in the immediate future, thankfully, but at some point nonetheless:
It is much less likely that a volcano that has already erupted will start again. It is a lot more likely a new volcano will form somewhere else. That is almost a given. It is going to happen. The follow-up question is when is this going to happen? It may be in 100 years, or 5,000 years. We don’t know. We need to have more information to answer that question.
I’m unsettled by this lack of certainty here… one-hundred years isn’t really much. Nor, for that matter, is five-thousand years, speaking in geological terms. Let’s hope these new volcanoes appear later rather than sooner, or ideally, not at all.
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Coffee happy hour, discount prices for early bird customers
31 July 2024
Coffee happy hours at cafes? This is the first I’ve heard of the idea, but I like it. A growing number of Australian cafes are offering coffees priced at about three dollars a cup, for a couple of hours daily. This compared to the current average cost of about five dollars.
Cafe owners concede happy-hour prices are not making them a whole lot of money, but are hoping the deal will bring in a few new customers.
It’s a smart move, given coffee shop owners are not only competing with numerous other operators, but cheaply priced machine brewed coffee, priced at about two dollars a cup. Coffee making machines are common at service/petrol stations, and convenience stores, and the resulting brew is sometimes not bad. All the more so when there are no cafes to be found.
Their coffee and donut combination deals can also be hard to look passed as well…
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Should right to disconnect laws be scrapped because of lazy workers?
15 July 2024
Melbourne based Workplace Relations lawyer Paul O’Halloran, writing for the Sydney Morning Herald, on Australian “right to disconnect” workplace laws that come into effect on Monday 26 August 2024:
Well, laziness is an increasing trend in the cases I defend for employers. Putting aside pandemic lockdowns where all sorts of things other than work were going on in people’s homes during virtual business hours, more recently I have been involved in matters where employees were surreptitiously sleeping on the job; forging time sheets with fabricated work hours; using fake medical certificates to take sickies; or watching Netflix while claiming to be working from home.
There’s still this perception that people working from home are bludging. Doing stuff-all. Watching Netflix all day (or some of the day). No doubt “all sorts of things other than work” take place in a work from home environment, child care duties among them. But is productivity not measured by, you know, productivity? If the required work is being turned in, why begrudge a busy parent for doing a load of washing in the gaps in-between workplace duties? It’s called work-life balance for a reason.
The solution though to this apparent reluctance to work at home, is to get everyone back into the workplace, where an eye can kept on them to ensure they do their “full eight-hour” day. The problem with the full eight-hour day though, is that it doesn’t exist. An American study found workers putting in an eight-hour day, actually did closer to three hours actual work a day.
Three hours? Say what? Much of the eight hour day is lost to web browsing and social media, making food and snacks, calling family, cigarette/vape breaks, and, last but by no means least: looking for another job. All under the watchful eye of workplace handlers. It seems to me then, if you’re putting in a minimum of three hours work, you’re doing well. Bonus points if it’s so-called deep work.
Certainly, there are lazy workers. Those being paid to do eight (would-be) hours work, but sitting in the break-room all day. Or “meetings”. But they’re in the minority, and are eventually weeded out. But leave the work-from-home people alone. Leave them to get on with their work. If it’s at least three hours per day, then there’s nothing to complain about.
If you’ve noticed posting here as slowed down at tad lately, it’s because work (from home) has been flat out. No Netflix and chill here (during work hours). I’m freelance, so the disconnect laws may not quite apply to me (but I do have do-not-disturb). Nonetheless, I am looking forward to some disconnect, and doing a little bit more here soon.
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Six dead in knife attack at Westfield Bondi Junction
13 April 2024
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC):
A shopping centre in Sydney’s east has been evacuated amid reports of multiple stabbings and potentially a number of deaths. An eyewitnesses told the ABC shots were fired. NSW Police said emergency services were called to Westfield Bondi Junction just before 4pm after reports of multiple people being stabbed.
This is shocking. The centre would have been packed with weekend shoppers and young families.
I hotdesk there during the week when in Sydney. I’m trying to find out if the people I know who work there are OK, but ping me if you see this.
Update: sadly several people have died, and others were injured, as a result of the attack. The alleged perpetrator meanwhile was shot by a police officer, who was at the scene.
Update II: police are certain the attack was not terror related, nor motivated by any political or religious ideology.
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Australia, Bondi Junction, current affairs, Sydney
Third best coffee on Earth? Sydney. Tenth best? Melbourne…
11 April 2024
Espresso, brewed by Crepe & Coffee Co, photo by John Lampard.
Sydney has been adjudged the third best city in the world for coffee, this according to American magazine, Food & Wine. Copenhagen, perhaps unsurprisingly, comes in at number one, followed by Tokyo in second place. But here’s where things may get contentious: Melbourne — perhaps surprisingly — ranks at number ten on the list.
Number ten? How can that be? Did not Melbourne birth McCafe, the McDonald’s hamburger restaurant coffee-shop off-shoot? Isn’t Melbourne where the rest of Australia supposedly draws all ideas and inspiration coffee related from? Not that I’m trying to stoke up any Melbourne versus Sydney antagonism, or rivalry, here.
Not me. After all, I’m officially based almost two-hours drive north of Sydney. But when it comes to coffee consumption elsewhere, I’ve had more Sydney coffee than I have Melbourne. And besides, I like both cities. But they’re different places, they’re not cookie-cutter replicas of each other.
Objectively, how then could one possibly be better than the other? Let me illustrate, while keeping the theme victual. Years ago, a chef (whose name escapes me), described the differences between the two cities, thusly. When you go out for dinner in Sydney, it’s for a quick bite, because you’re on the way somewhere else.
That’s true. Sydney never stands still.
On the other hand, when you go out for dinner in Melbourne, it’s an occasion. People dress up, and stay seated at the table for hours. And sometimes we like doing both. But let’s avoid any further Melbourne versus Sydney discord, and take solace in the fact Australia is a country that embraces independent coffee brewers, and has little time for multinational coffeehouse chains.
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Australia, coffee, Melbourne, Sydney, trends
An alternative to a Voice: an Indigenous Australian state?
26 September 2023
In a few weeks Australians will vote in a referendum to decide whether the Australian constitution should be amended to include a Voice, an advisory body, for the nation’s Indigenous people. It’s an idea some people are not in favour of though, including a number of First Nations Australians.
Some Indigenous Australians are concerned a Voice may be tantamount to ceding sovereignty. Some would prefer a treaty. Others, the idea of a set number of Indigenous seats in the Australian parliament, along, for instance, the lines of the Māori electorates in New Zealand.
Misha Saul however suggests the interests of Aboriginal people would be better served by the formation of an Indigenous state, rather than ideas such as a Voice, treaties, and even Native title.
Isn’t this the most ambitious and satisfying of objectives? Indigenous Australians could have a state of their own, far larger than the miraculous successes of the twentieth century like Israel of Singapore of South Korea.
This is the first time I’ve heard of such a proposal.
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Australia, Indigenous culture, politics
El Nino weather event formally declared for Australia
21 September 2023
Australia is officially in the grip of an El Niño weather event. This means affected areas can expect higher than normal temperatures, and reduced rainfall. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology announcement on Tuesday confirmed what many people had suspected for some time.
The Bureau of Meteorology has formally declared an El Niño weather event, meaning one is underway for the first time in eight years. The major climate event impacts the weather patterns of 60 per cent of the globe, with Australia particularly vulnerable to its impacts.
That the declaration was made during the midst of a spring/pre spring equinox heatwave is all the more concerning. After parts of the northern hemisphere experienced a horror summer this year, with record high temperatures, and massive bushfires, some people will be dreading summer in the southern hemisphere.
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Australia, climate, environment, weather
Parts of Australia may see heatwaves before the spring equinox
11 September 2023
The ten-day weather forecast for some parts of NSW are currently predicting several days with maximum temperatures in the vicinity of thirty degrees centigrade. This, at the moment, for Saturday and Sunday, 16 and 17 September, and Tuesday 19 September. These temperature ranges come close to the official definition of a heatwave:
A heatwave occurs when the maximum and the minimum temperatures are unusually hot over a three-day period in a specific location. This is considered in relation to the local climate and past weather at that place.
Such a forecast may not be entirely surprising if not for the fact Australia is only into the first few weeks of spring. Technically though, were the spring equinox — which falls on Saturday 23 September this year — to be observed as the beginning of spring (as is the case in parts of the world), then it would still be winter in Australia. A heatwave in winter, fancy that.
Long range forecasts are not always accurate though, and conditions may change between now and the weekend. Still, such warm temperatures in the middle of September are alarming to say the least.
And for anyone wondering, each season in Australia commence on the first days of March, June, September, and December, because Australia adheres to the meteorological seasonal system. Many northern hemisphere nations however observe the astronomical season convention, meaning seasons change on about the beginning of the third week in March, June, September, and December.
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Australia, climate, environment, weather
Four hundred Australian authors back Voice to Parliament
23 August 2023
Four hundred Australian authors have thrown their support behind the campaign that seeks to amend the Australian constitution to include an Indigenous Voice to parliament.
Katherine Brabon, Shankari Chandran (winner of the 2023 Miles Franklin literary award), Mick Cummins, Sophie Cunningham, Peter FitzSimons, Robert Lukins, Andrew Pippos, Christos Tsiolkas, Pip Williams, Tim Winton, and Charlotte Wood, are among authors who have put their name to the Writers for the Voice website:
We, Writers for the Voice, accept the generous, modest invitation of First Nations Peoples in the Uluru Statement from the Heart to walk with them towards a better Australia.
We support their call for recognition via a constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament because we believe passionately that this major reform, the product of broad grassroots consultation and supported by the great majority of First Nations Peoples, will lead to better outcomes for First Nations Peoples. It’s only fair.
What a simple, straightforward, to the point, statement. Contrast that with the scare campaign that some people who are opposed to the idea of the voice, are orchestrating.
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