Western Australia is a democracy in which elected representatives carry out the will of the majority … or is it? The issue of daylight saving raises questions about whose will the politicians are carrying out.

I took a photo of this unusual sign on a trip to Tasmania. Even in the context of its surroundings, its meaning was far from obvious. A sign warning of low-flying winged people, or abduction by UFO?  Or is that what Tasmanians look like? What do you think?

The general concensus amongst those I spoke to was that the sign warns of …

(Continued)

A chance discovery on a Sydney bus has sent shockwaves around the world of children’s television - Humphrey B Bear is gay.

This revelation surfaced in a humble wallet, left on a suburban bus last night and found by its driver. A quick search revealed the owner’s ID … and a membership card for a gay organisation. Also found were some photos of Humphrey with another male television character, in a pose clearly unsuitable for broadcast to Humphrey’s young fans.

Humphrey’s refusal to wear pants has been of concern to many parents for some time; this revelation of his habits can only add to those concerns. Investigations are now under way into Humphrey’s relationship with Donald Duck, who also fails to wear pants.

I wrote this fictional newspaper story as part of an exercise on a writing course, and thought I’d share it. Surely I’m not the only one who finds it oddly amusing that so many children’s TV characters are depicted with clothes on their upper bodies, but naked from the waist down?

The other day I walked around Lake Monger, just a few km from the middle of Perth, and captured this unusual photo of a black swan and her chicks on their nest, sitting on an egg (click on it for a larger version).

Its unusual because breeding season is September to March (spring and summer), and the black swans usually have babies in spring … whereas this photo is early June, the beginning of winter here.

Maybe the weather has upset their timing. Last winter and spring were unusually wet, followed by a very mild summer, and so far the driest start to winter ever recorded in Perth. I really don’t know. It was just a delightful serendipity to come across these wild creatures going about their business close to a busy pathway in the middle of an urban sprawl.

Ever wondered what the world’s population is? Not last year or the year before, but right now? You can see an up-to-date estimate at the World Population web page.

The interesting thing about this counter is that it updates each second. I knew the world population was over six billion, but to see a number increasing before my eyes (at a net rate of about three per second after subtracting deaths from births) emphasised the reality and urgency of population growth.

With a finite supply of fossil fuels, sea level rises expected to flood vast areas of currently populated land, and climate change capable of upsetting food production, it makes you wonder … where will it end? The population surely can’t increase at this rate forever.

Am currently at home with a virus, one symptom of which is alternating hot sweats and shivering caused by a fever. I’ve had fevers before, but this time I’ve noticed a remarkably regular cycle to it.

At one extreme, I’ll be shivering uncontrollably while in bed wearing warm clothes and covered by all available blankets. Two hours later, I’ll be hot and sweating profusely while laying on top of the bed and wearing little. Two hours later I’ll be back to shivering. So far this cycle has been almost as regular as clockwork, which sparked my interest in the physiology behind it.

In a temperate part of the cycle I browsed the net and found this good explanation of fevers. I won’t attempt to summarise it, but it does explain the cycling back and forth between shivering and sweating. This cycle is normal - I just hadn’t noticed it being so regular and predictable before.

Yesterday a story on the Today Tonight current affairs TV show (on Australia’s Channel Seven) annoyed me. Like countless other stories before it, this one featured an expert going on about how inaccurate police radars can be, if not operated correctly. It isn’t online, but this story from Channel Nine’s A Current Affair is in a similar vein.

The message of these endlessly recycled TV stories is that speed cameras and police radar traps are inaccurate and unfair revenue raisers, and that anyone driving lawfully will probably be hit with undeserved speeding fines. To these experts I pose a simple question:

If speed cameras are as inaccurate and unfair as you make out, then why, in 24 years of driving at the speed limit, have I never received even one speeding fine from an incorrect camera?

I’ve probably driven past between 2000 and 3000 speed cameras or hand-held radars in my driving years, within a couple of km/h of the speed limit. If all the TV reports were to be believed, I should have had many undeserved speeding fines by now … but I’ve had no fines at all, undeserved or otherwise.

I’m not saying that mistakes don’t happen. Some do, and that isn’t fair. However my experience suggests that mistakes and unfair speeding fines are nowhere near as common as current affairs TV shows portray. Its a human tendency to try to transfer blame for one’s own shortcomings, and giving people excuses to blame speed cameras is obviously popular with TV viewers.

Recently I read the phrase “get the short end of the stick”, and wondered where this expression came from. It means to suffer the bad effects of a situation, or to get a raw deal, or the worst outcome … but how this relates to sticks didn’t appear at all obvious.

At first I thought about it literally. How is the end of a stick defined? How far up the stick does the “end” extend? If the ends of a stick are its furthest extremeties, then that would make them points, which have no size and therefore can’t be short or long. If not, then what would make the short end worse than the long end? Some Googling was required.

Thankfully I came across The Phrase Finder website and the light dawned. This post contained an explanation:

I am quite confident that the phrase “short end of the stick” refers to an old fashioned method for carrying heavy objects (this can be visualized using a bale of hay). A long stick is inserted through ropes or cords wrapped around the object and two (or more) people carry the object together. If the load is off-center a disproportionate burden is placed on the person(s) on the “short end of the stick”

So now I know, and can once again sleep at night!

In the last week of March 2006 I shaved off the beard I had been growing for the last year and eight months. Taking the whole lot off at once would have been too conventional, so I shaved it off in stages.

Details of the beard and its removal can be found in my updated Beard Collection page, towards the bottom. A photo of all stages in the deforestation process can be seen by clicking on the thumbnail below:

When it seemed as if almost every Tom, Dick and Harry was starting up a blog, or online diary, I felt no compulsion to follow suit. Following the crowd is something I avoid, often as a matter of principle. But a recent examination of some other people’s blogs suggested I may have been too hasty in dismissing the idea … perhaps it could be worthwhile after all.

I enjoy writing, and usually find it theraputic. However I’ll often think of things I’d like to share on the internet, but which go unexpressed because they don’t warrant a web page of their own. A blog is a quick and easy way of expressing something online without having to be concerned with page formatting, and should nicely complement other more structured or long term writing projects such as the rest of this website, or the novel I’ve been working on for many years.

Time will tell if I have anything much to say in the context of this blog. But if I have, my website traffic of 8000 visitors per month (long term average) means there is a potential audience that makes it worthwhile to at least have a go. Thats why I started a blog.