 Tu, Oct 30, 2007 |
Fish, elections, blasts from the past
How a fish feels
Went camping on the Yorke Peninsula coast last week, pitching our many
square metres of frame tent and tarp in the dunes overlooking some
spectacular coast. Where it got windy enough on the first night to put
a bend in one of the 25mm double guy-roped poles. Oh well, better than
being nice and calm but surrounded by vans in the local caravan park. I
am definitely no fisherman, but it's apparently a good fishing spot, so
took the kids and the hand reels onto a rocky bit of shoreline.
Ideally, the kids would catch no fish, as they are invariably too small
to eat, and de-hooking them is a butcherous process more often than not
ending in the death of the poor fish.
With a stiff wind coming
in off-shore, the hand reels - designed for dangling off a jetty -
needed some hefty casting. Having successfully launched a couple of
lines for the kids, I swung the lead weight and sent a line sailing out
at speed, the line snaking behind it, until it was stopped dead in the
air by one of the bait lines, which had stuck a hook through the end of
my middle finger. This stung somewhat, and with the barbed hook
embedded pretty much up to the eye-hole wasn't going to slide right on
out either. After conferring with some proper fishermen ("You want to
get yourself a rod, mate" - yes well thanks for that) we decided that a
pair of pliers, in the absence of any anaesthetic except a slab of
beer, were not the way to go.
Incredibly and fortunately,
despite being many miles from any largish town and it being a public
holiday, the local health centre at Minlaton had a nurse on duty. And
being fishing country, she knew the techniques for getting a hook out.
Anaesthetic to the finger was not recommended, being even more painful,
which was difficult to believe but she was the boss. A thread tied
around the entry point and a swift and hefty tug was the thing to do
apparently. Which she tried twice, unsuccessfully, bringing a few tears
to my eyes. One final heave-ho on the thread, more tears to the eyes,
and the hook was not out, but good news! It had hauled the hook through
my finger enough that the barb was poking out. A snip of the medical
pliers and it slid out.
Thanks, Nurse, I could not have done that for myself. Back for a beer and no more fishing.
How to win an election
The general election is on 24th November, so we've got the joy of nearly a month more campaigning to look forward to (after several weeks already). Here's how Australian
electioneering works.
What
the (incumbent) Liberals stand for: Labor are run by the unions and
will destroy the economy. Vote for us because it's been alright the
past 5 years.
What Labor stands for: Liberal industrial laws are unfair. We're against unfair industrial laws that harm working families.
And
that's it. I read Blair, Brown and Cameron speeches and nomatter the
politics or competence, at least there is some sort of vision for the
future there.
Campaigning involves slagging the others off to
the extent that yesterday the Libs TV ad rebutted a negative Labor ad
that was itself rebutting a previous Liberal negative ad. Gah!
Oh,
and naked pork barrel politics involves both sides travelling to
marginal constituencies promising spending that so far totals about
$42bn from the Libs and $39bn from Labor, after 3 years of us scrimping a million here, a million there, on services.
The government going aren't we great, look at the economy, when the whole thing has been driven by China buying coal, iron and copper. The opposition with a 'me too' on every single policy for fear of doing something wrong. Bastards all of them.
You'll never guess who
Adelaide United (top of the table on goal difference after beating Wellington 4-1) lost its keeper to a long term injury on the weekend. Was interested to notice who the media (via his agent I would guess) were touting, and who the Adelaide coach was flatly denying they'd sign as cover: our old friend Mark Bosnich, who has lost 20kg apparently. Didn't see any of his English Championship run, so couldn't comment on his form.
Pomeroos
Yeah, haven't kept the blog up to date (always seems down when I log in, admittedly usually out of hours). We stormed out of our relegation battle to win 6 in a row and finish fourth, including beating the top 4 in successive weeks.
We're now in season 2 of 2007. Might get some match reports up, but tonight we beat long term rivals, nice guys too, Dirty Harries. Season progress at the new Pomeroos web site.
Posted on 30/10/07; 9:58:31 PM from the Breaking Even dept.
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