Akaroa - a final New Zealand post

During the recent holiday to New Zealand, our last night was spent at Akaroa, a small town on a pretty harbour just outside of Christchurch. Here's a stitched together panorama shot I've made, which would look much better if you click on it:


Neither my wife nor I had heard of this place before, but as it was close to Christchurch, and boasts a French influence, we thought it would be interesting.

Indeed it was. As Wikipedia explains, the French and British both turned up here in 1840 within days of each other. Germans were in the area as well, with Wikipedia noting that they set up "dairy, sheep and cocksfoot farms", which leads in turn to the question "what the hell is 'cocksfoot'?" Turns out it's grass.

Anyhow, the town has retained a French influence in both its buildings and food. Here's one of the houses, used as a Bed & Breakfast, although how old it is I have no idea:

(I'm no expert, so maybe this bears no resemblance to a French style at all, but you have to admit it's cute anyway.) We stayed at the Akaroa Village Inn, which is on the waterfront and has a good range of apartments and rooms from which to choose. The view from the one stayed in was pleasing:


We didn't have time to do much other than look around the waterfront, where "swim with the dolphin" tours seem to be the popular thing to do, and have a quick lunch at the local winery:

Ok, so it's a not-so-old imitation French style building, but it's still set up with roses and grapes vines everywhere, and is a nice place to see.





I didn't partake of the wine, because the road in and out of this area, which is formed from old volcanoes, is car-sick inducing windy. You can see the volcanic looking origins of the local geography from the Google map:



As I checked out of the accommodation, and in one of the shops, I commented that I had never heard of this charming location before. They were both surprised, and said that Australians make up more than half of the tourists staying there in the peak summer season. I guess I must have missed that episode of Getaway.

In any event, it looks like an ideal spot for an extended, relaxed stay. I think it's time Australia simply annexed the NZ and granted all Australian born citizens the right to commandeer any house we like there for 3 weeks holiday a year. I mean, the owners are probably going to be living in Australia anyway, and what other country is going to stop us?

Not strictly necessary

MYER Head Office

Myers have a new head office, and seem to have spent an inordinate amount of money to make the walls, well, different.

I'm not convinced it's worth the effort.

Tights

Great moment in British TV

This turned up on the New York Times humour section, and it amused me more that it deserves:

Blogging notes

Well here's one reason to be cheerful: Bryan Appleyard has started blogging again, after disappearing (without explanation) for a couple of months. I've fixed the link to his new site over in the blogroll.

It seems to me that blogging has passed its peak of popularity and now in decline. More and and more blogs that I previously read seem to have moved permanently into cyberspace doldrums in the last year or so, and it certainly seems hard to find new blogs (especially sole author ones) that are active and engaging to replace those which have slowly died.

For people of a certain age, a move into social networking is almost certainly to blame. But a lot of adult bloggers presumably haven't become obsessed by the ephemeral Twitter.

Part of the reason for the blogging decline, I think, is that the Bush and Howard administrations were periods of considerable political and social controversy, and the whole question of the appropriate response to a terrorist threat is something about which it is "easy" to have a strong opinion. This encouraged people to voice their opinions in any forum, including their own blogs. Current world events, being dominated by economic crises, are so complicated in the details it is hard for your average person-in-the-street blogger to contribute very much about them.

So blogging is not what it used to be, but it might be something that is a bit cyclical. We'll see.

Pro soccer

Prostitutes flock to South Africa ahead of World Cup 2010

I didn't realise the World Cup and prostitution were so much entwined:

The event is no stranger to the sex trade. The 2006 World Cup in Germany, where brothels and prostitution is legalized, brought on an additional influx of an estimated 40,000 sex workers – plus a lot of criticism from rights groups. South Africa's Central Drug Central Authority has also estimated that 40,000 sex workers will come to Johannesburg for the 2010 World Cup, though the agency gives no reasoning for this figure.

Great. A further feather to my bow in arguing against the "sport is good for character" meme. Repent, you sports fans!

Shake it up

Zap testes with ultrasound for temporary 'vasectomy'- New Scientist

Apparently, it works on rats. They don't know how exactly. I wonder it any man has yet volunteered for the process:

Armed with their new funding, the researchers now intend to find out the mechanism by which sperm are destroyed - thought to be a combination of heating and shaking. "We also need to know the minimum effective dose and track how long the effect persists," says Tsuruta.

"The idea in people is that the testes would be in a little cup of water, or another liquid that ultrasound can be transmitted through," Tsuruta says.

Land of the setting sun

Number of suicides stays above 30,000 for 12th straight year

It's something to their credit, I suppose, that the Japanese government does seem to worry about the suicide rate now. Their rate is very economy sensitive:

The number of suicides in Japan grew sharply in October 2008—a month after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc collapsed, throwing the global economy into a prolonged recession.

The comment by Bobbafett following the article is interesting too.

Pricks aren't to be trusted

Doubt Is Cast on Many Reports of Food Allergies - NYTimes.com

“Everyone has a different definition” of a food allergy, said Dr. Jennifer J. Schneider Chafen of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Palo Alto Health Care System in California and Stanford’s Center for Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research, who was the lead author of the new report. People who receive a diagnosis after one of the two tests most often used — pricking the skin and injecting a tiny amount of the suspect food and looking in blood for IgE antibodies, the type associated with allergies — have less than a 50 percent chance of actually having a food allergy, the investigators found. ...

But for now, Dr. Fenton said, doctors should not use either the skin-prick test or the antibody test as the sole reason for thinking their patients have a food allergy.

“By themselves they are not sufficient,” Dr. Fenton said.

Crichton and the pirates

I've just finished Michael Crichton's posthumously published novel "Pirate Latitudes".

It's said to have found as a complete manuscript on his computer, and no one seems quite certain when it was written, or finished. Around 2006 seems to be the speculation.

I don't know if this has been said before, but I think it is perfectly clear why he did not publish it: it is very, very similar in many of its elements to the Pirates of the Caribbean movies; [spoiler warning] even so far as featuring a Kraken attack. (More about that below.) I wouldn't mind betting that this one of those unfortunate cases of creative coincidences; Crichton had probably been researching and thinking about it for years, finally got around to getting it down on paper, only to find before he could get it to his publishers that Disney studios have well and truly gazumped the market for far-fetched pirate events.

So, did I enjoy it? Well, I have said here before that Crichton only seemed really good at the rate of about every second book. This is not a "second book", but it was not his worst. (I recall Sphere as being particularly awful in a new age-y sort of way.)

One of the reasons for reading him was always to get a bit of an education on a topic. In this respect, the novel does provide interesting insights into the 17th Century world of pirates, and that was its best feature.

It is, however, a particularly violent book for Crichton. But by far its worst aspect is the credibility breaking appearance of a real life Kraken. Yes, the attack on the ship is just like the one in Pirates of the Caribbean II. It's not a giant squid being mistaken for a Kraken; it's a gigantic thing the likes of which has never been seen.

Why would Crichton include this? As far as I know (and as the Wikipedia entry appears to confirm) no cryptozoologist in modern times has ever suggested more than that the Kraken legend perhaps derives from the rarely seen giant squid that roam the deep. (Possibly a giant octopus had something to do with it too.) As I say, I found Crichton's other watery novel (Sphere) pretty unconvincing too; he liked sea monsters, but as far as I know there is no one out there seriously suggesting that a massive, novel, tentacled Kraken-like creature is still waiting to be discovered.

Ah well. I see that Spielberg is said to be actively developing a film of the book. This seems pretty surprising, given the fact that there is another POTC movie already on the way.

I guess a realistic, gritty, semi-educational pirate movie could still have an audience, but my key advice to Spielberg would be: dump the Kraken!

Right back at ya

Sex, religion, and Kagan's right to privacy. - By William Saletan - Slate Magazine

Andrew Sullivan, amongst others, thinks it should be clarified whether or not Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan should is lesbian.

William Saletan quotes Sullivan right back at him, and argues strongly why it should be left alone.

Funnily enough, one would have thought that Sullivan could see the silly games that could be played with such enquiries: he's the (now) married gay man who was (according to his 2001 sex seeking ad) nonetheless "into bi scenes."

Very strange

BBC News - China children 'hacked to death' in new school attack

It appears that there have now been six cases in China of a crazy person going to a school and attacking children randomly (and killing a great many) in the space of a few months.

This is not the sort of thing that I would normally expect to be the subject of copycat behaviour. Suicides: yes, we know they go up the more they are publicised. But going out to kill kids you don't know? Very odd, I reckon.

Funny and instructive

Strange to say, but Colbert Report seems to be taking more care this season to have some guests to actually explain international situations. Tonight's segment on Greece was both pretty funny in parts, and instructive:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Greece Wither Soon - Scheherazade Rehman
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News

Famous friends

H G Wells: Another Kind of Life by Michael Sherborne: review - Telegraph

In this review of a new biography of HG Wells, there is much mention of his sex life, but the most fascinating snippet is this:

....for many years he was at the heart of Britain’s artistic and political life, with an address book like a global Who’s Who. There can't be many writers who criticised Stalin to his face and survived, counted Charlie Chaplin among his friends, and persuaded G B Shaw and G K Chesterton to dress up as cowboys and roll down a hill in a beer barrel for a home movie.

Chesterton was shaped like a beer barrel, from what I recall. I can't imagine him fitting in one with Shaw.

What were they up to?

gulfnews : Bahrain arrests 14 Chinese with fake Japanese passports

Lower the jury duty age

Psychologists say babies know right from wrong even at six months

How do you tell that a baby knows right from wrong? It's pretty entertaining research:

In one experiment babies between six and ten months old were repeatedly shown a puppet show featuring wooden shapes with eyes. A red ball attempts to climb a hill and is aided at times by a yellow triangle that helps it up the hill by getting behind it and pushing. At other times the red ball is forced back down the hill by a blue square. After watching the puppet show at least six times the babies were asked to choose a character. An overwhelming majority (over 80%) chose the helpful figure. Prof. Bloom said it was not a subtle statistical trend as “just about all the babies reached for the good guy.”

In another experiment the babies were shown a toy dog puppet attempting to open a box, with a friendly teddy bear helping the dog, and an unfriendly teddy thwarting his efforts by sitting on him. After watching at least half a dozen times the babies were given the opportunity to choose one of the teddy bears. The majority chose the helpful teddy.

And at 21 months, most will even "punish" the bad toy:

A third experiment used a puppet cat playing with a ball with a helpful rabbit puppet on one side and an unhelpful rabbit on the other. The helpful rabbit returned the ball if the cat lost it, while the unhelpful rabbit stole the ball and ran off with it. In this test five-month-old babies were allowed to choose one of the rabbits, and most chose the helpful one. When the test was repeated with 21-month-old babies they were asked to take a treat from one of the rabbits. Most took the treat from the unhelpful rabbit, and one even gave the rabbit a smack on the head as well.

Maybe I should have been a psychologist. A day at the office could be quite fun.

Severe danger avoided

gulfnews : Joggers furious as Sharjah shuts parks in the morning

I am not quite sure where the municipality of Sharjah is in the Gulf region, but you can't accuse them of not taking action on serious matters:

Sharjah Municipality has just passed a law that keeps all parks closed to the public until 4pm.

They will stay open until 10pm.

The law includes free-entrance neighbourhood parks and those which have an entrance fee.

A Sharjah Municipality official told Gulf News the new rule aimed to prevent gardeners from staring at female visitors.

"The municipality cannot accept the responsibility of having its employees staring at women and making them feel uncomfortable," said Sharjah Municipality Agricultural Department head Yaseen Mohammad.

What a mad place.

Still singing (sort of)

Julie Andrews: She's climbed every mountain - Profiles, People - The Independent

Julie Andrews surely doesn't need the money, but is starting a (sort of) singing tour in England again. (She's warning that her voice is not what it was. Maybe Whitney Houston could have considered the same tactic!)

Anyhow, this potted history of her life, which I have read about elsewhere, claims as follows:

Like her fellow musical star Judy Garland, Andrews became both a gay icon and a family favourite.

Really? I thought her screen and private lives both lacked the strange melodramatic style which seems to be the key characteristic that marks actresses as gay icons.

In any event, she seems to enjoy a broad reputation as a very decent person.

That time of year again

It's more likely to be rats in the belfry, possums

The Age reports on how the onset of winter means rats start moving into the roofs of Melbourne houses.

It's exactly the same in Brisbane. Sitting at the computer the other night, I heard what sounded like slight roof tile scrapping. I suspect it was my first visitor of the season squeezing its way in between tiles.

Time to bait the ceiling space again. Pity this causes them to die and decompose there too...

Could be interesting

The LA Times gives top marks to Laura Bush's memoir. The New York Times quite liked it too. It must be pretty good.