About "A"

I spotted this super yacht in Auckland yesterday - it was hard to miss - and went down today to look more closely at it. Google  tells me its name is  "A",  it is here for its third repaint in its 5 year life, and is owned by a russian billionaire described as a maths genius on wikipaedia but I couldn't find out why.  He apparently sued the last company that tried to  repaint it, for $100m, because he wasn't happy with the final finish. He and his wife also sued an artist that had been commissioned to make a 7 foot high sculpture for them that was less than 4 feet high on delivery. They paid 423,000 pounds for it and were suing for $2.9m!

Apparently stored inside A are three high speed launches that are longer than Sapphire.This monstrous vessel cost $300 million to build and $20 million a year to run. The diesel tank holds 757,000 litres.

The billionaires story, like most of the stories surrounding the new wave of post-communist mega-rich, is distinctly vague. However theres nothing vague about the descriptions of their yacht and their penthouses and private jets and collection of Monet paintings, or their variously estimated nett worth of somewhere round 10 or 15 billion, which leaves the poor fellow languishing down near 80th in the list of the richest people in the world.

I can barely find words to describe what I feel about people who live on the same planet as everyone else, and when they are trying to find something to do with their fabulous wealth, no matter how ethically it was acquired, the only thing that seems to occur to them is to spend it on themselves. 

What a pity these ghastly self centered people can't follow the lead of Bill Gates who has given away $28billion by the latest estimate, and yet remarkably is STILL the richest man on the planet! Clearly he could afford to give away a hell of a lot more but when you read about what is being done by his foundation - everything from health education to Malaria research and to funding the search for a better toilet (2.5 BILLION people do not have access to a toilet) - you are saved from the despair that looking at something like A tempts you to sink into.

Snaps of Tasmania

Ann Bay, NW Tasmania

Yes, Tasmania has a dark past, but having now seen quite a bit more of it, I have to tell you it is a wonderfully beautiful place. 

I took a tourist day cruise 14km up the Arthur River on the west coast, and looked at trees that are hundreds of years old in bush that has never been logged. We were told, and it was easy to believe that if the Tasmanian Tiger had survived, this is where it would be found. It was wonderful to imagine that maybe some were still there, hiding and watching. We were also told that if the locals ever saw one they would keep quiet about it because once the news got out, the "greenies" would see to it that plans presently being developed to expand logging in that area would be stopped. The "greenies"  were hated by lots of people out there, the fishermen and loggers whose livelihoods depended on being able to carry on chopping down the trees and catch whatever they could along the wild and desolate coast. 

Arthur River

I had planned to continue down that west coast along a back road through the forest, but there had been a slip, the road was blocked and I was turned back. I decided instead to go to the far southeast of the island, passing through Hobart to the Huon Valley, and the Kermandie Motel.

In the northwest the land is rather flat and the coasts wild and the beaches long and sweeping. By contrast, in the southeast, the coast is highly indented and tortuous with hundred of little bays and headlands, islands and small harbours. The land is hilly, even mountainous in places, with dense forest descending down to the long valleys of farms and cottage industries that sell raw wool and fresh home grown  vegetables, apples, cherries, jam, wild honey, and vegetables. The coffee shops are great, there are art and craft galleries everywhere, and you can stay in upmarket Hotels, B&Bs, cheap motels or set up tents in numerous campsites on secluded bays and bush sites. 

Across the road from my motel was a small marina. Fortunately the security gate was ajar when I went down at 6.30 on my first morning there, and it was such a pleasure to wander about in the still quiet morning air and admire the many beautiful yachts there. Later I took the car ferry to Bruny Island and then went for a wild ride in a high powered commercial speedboat. We went  out into a rough ocean with 30 knot southerly blowing onto the cliffs and saw seals and blowholes and a few albatross, as well as massive dolomite cliffs .

A bay in the far SE of Tasmania

Lastly I visited the extraordinary Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart. It was built and paid for from the gambling winnings of a maths genius who worked a system to beat the odds at race tracks and casinos round the world! Its set on a low headland jutting out into the harbour, and has a nice restaurant, open grassy area in front of a stage, and lots of space.Inside, the art is mostly New art - but there are Egyptian Mummies there! -  all housed in a modern maze-like building thats mostly underground, dark and cool. Its a place that should really be visited  numerous times - theres much too much to see and take in at a single visit.

The Entrance to MONA with a real tennis court beside it

And then I came back to work. The Road Trip had been a great success.

History Tour

The Windfarm at Woolnorth. NE Tasmania
(The white things in the distance are huge rolls of Hay, not sheep)

I am having a week off for a road trip around Tasmania, an island which according to our Guide on the Arthur River Cruise ( more later ), was originally one big Prison - colonisation of Tasmania began with the establishment of a convict settlement at Port Arthur not long after the first one was established in Sydney, in 1788. Yesterday, overlooking a huge lake in the centre of the island I saw a single grave, a monument to an explorer Pioneer described on his tomb as the "first person" to set eyes on the lake.

Except that there was an Indigenous population here for millennia, ignored by the people who thought they would use the island as "one big prison" and by the Explorer who stupidly believed he was the first "Person" to see the lake.

On the first day of my trip I went to the extreme north western tip of the Island where there is a huge wind farm that I wanted to see. Unfortunately, it can only be visited by Tour groups, and none was running the two days I was in the area, but I drove out there anyway and saw from a distance about 50 of them lined along the cliff tops facing into the roaring 40"s. A notice at the locked gate gave the history of the property they were on, called "Woolnorth", founded in 1829

"Its the kind of place that would defeat most people and yet its here, at Woolnorth Station that one of Australia's oldest companies continues to work the land, turning the grey sands into milk and beef"

The West Coast looking north to the Wind Farm

They make it sound quite magnificent, as all colonial history is meant to sound in Australia, but one clue to another truth is in its name - the property was initially intended to be a sheep station - wool!  It didnt get off to a good start so two things were done to try and keep it afloat - displace the indigenous people from their ancestral homelands, and get rid of the animal that they thought was attacking the sheep, the Tasmanian Tiger.  

What a Beautiful creature 

An extraordinary animal, correctly known as a Thylacine, they disappeared from the mainland of Australia 3000 years ago. They are not a tiger or a wolf but a marsupial, like the kangaroo  the koala and the possum, animals which are almost unique to Australia, and are distinguished by the fact that they give birth to their young at a very early stage of development and then keep them in a pouch, attached to a nipple until they are big enough to live independently. 

But in spite of these measures the business venture was a failure and eventually Woolnorth gave up on sheep. 

And the Tigers?  A bounty was paid for their hides, and inevitably they were hunted to extinction, the last lonely one dying in the Hobart Zoo in 1936. Click here  to see a sad You Tube video of the only known film of a live one. 

And the indigenous people? They were all "deported" to an offshore island (Flinders) and most died of European diseases there.

What a horrible but all too typical story of how indigenous culture and the environment so often are ruined by Capitalist Exploitation. And in a few days its Australia Day, also called Invasion Day by Indigenous activists, but they will get little if any coverage of their feelings about the arrival of Captain Cook in 1770 and of Captain Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet of Convicts on 26th January 1788. Instead it will be wall to wall Flag waving, boozing and a a day off to celebrate.

Eight Thousand Seven Hundred

A Japanese Twister

When I came back from Ethiopia the first time I was 8 kg lighter than when I went three months before.   I was quite pleased to have lost that weight but was amazed at how quickly I regained it all.  I lost a couple when I was in South Sudan last year but again, quickly regained that when I got back - and then some!  My cholesterol and my Blood pressure were borderline when checked, so I have been taking a bit of notice of my weight and my diet over recent months, stimulated also by the attention in the Press to the "Obesity Epidemic" that is overwhelming the west.

I am sure the main cause  of this epidemic is not our sedentary lifestyles, though they are part of the problem,  but the sheer volume of food we eat. Simply put, we eat much more than we need to, and our bodies store the excess kilojoules of energy as fat. We are encouraged to do this by a constant barrage of advertisements for food and drink,  the endless parade of cooking shows and competitions on TV, the Takeaway food industry and the proliferation of "Convenience" foods. Even take-away coffee is served in a huge cup unless you ask for a "small" one - which used to be the standard size. And why is it that people cant watch a movie unless they have a massive bucket full of buttercoated popCorn, a litre of Coke and an ice-cream?

All I actually wanted to write about this time was an advertisement seen dozens of time by anyone watching the test Cricket on TV last week, for a KFC product called a "Twister". Its promoted as a fun tasty snack. I wondered how much of an adults daily recommended energy intake would be supplied by one of these things - so I looked it up.

Now, you need to know one thing, and this is your fact for the week - the average daily energy intake for an adult, is 8700kj (kilojoules) - if you only ate at three meal times that would be 2900kj per meal.
But remember, as we have an obesity epidemic on our hands this average is probably too high. And its much much too high for kids, the ones who are eating this stuff.

I predict that if you ask any one who has seen the Twister ad to guess how significant a contribution one of those would make to their daily energy requirement, they would answer "not much" and generally regard it as a minor food item you consume  to get through to the next proper meal if you're feeling a bit peckish. I haven't asked anyone so I might be wrong but thats my guess.

From a Blog that Compares what they advertise with what you get!

Well, if we are to believe the KFC website, a BLT Twister on its own supplies just over a quarter of your daily energy requirement (2273kj)  It costs $6.95 in Melbourne, but for three more dollars you can get a BLT Twister Combo ( chips and pepsi Max)  and 1000 more kilojoules : 37% of your daily requirement. The Large Combo ( just more chips and more Pepsi ) for two more dollars is 4453kj, just over HALF your daily energy needs! I noticed they also have an enormous amount of salt.

Who would  have guessed these numbers were so high?

Animals are wonderful

As you can see Angora rabbits are very cute fluffy little animals that apparently make good pets :

"People keep angora rabbits for breeding, showing and for their wool. Either way, they are quite docile creatures, very intelligent and make good pets as long as you are prepared to spend some time grooming them. As a result of all this grooming, angoras are used to human contact and react well to being around us."

Ive just followed a link from the NZ Herald website to a video that shows how their long fluffy wool is removed , so it can be made into beautiful soft garments that most of us can't afford.  I probably should have  included the link to the video because it is something many of us probably need to see :  horrifying and distressing cruelty, a naked demonstration of the bastardry and viciousness of human beings towards innocent and defenceless animals.  I couldn't watch all of it.  It is sickening and revolting and utterly appalling : the animal is tied to a board, and the wool ripped off in handfuls, like you would pluck a dead chook, revealing the angry red soft skin underneath, while the rabbit shrieks and cries out pitifully, struggling . And this is repeated every few months. The wool can be cut off but it is worth twice as much if "plucked" because the fibre is longer. 

Apalling cruelty - an image from the video 

And for the sake of what? Personal gain for the grower, luxury and pampering and prestige for the buyer. Is there no limit to the extent we are prepared to go in our need for comfort and status and glamour? How could anyone argue this is not abhorrent?

This video was made in China where 90% of Angora wool comes from. The article reported that several stores in the UK have now refused to sell Angora products, and one has even offered a full refund for any that are returned. I hope more shops follow their lead, but such is the nature of human greed that I doubt this monstrous practice will disappear until its outlawed. 

A Fact for you

Each year human activity currently adds over 30 BILLION TONS of CO2 to the atmosphere.

Thats a staggering amount of anything to be loading into the skies - 30 billion tons!  And as the graph suggests the amount is increasing rapidly. I cannot understand how anyone could assert that 30 billion tons of CO2 couldn't possibly  affect anything, let alone the climate.

What we are struggling to realise in the west is that the Planet is not so vast, or human activity so insignificant that we couldnt destroy it.

Just something to think about.

Things to Look At

Sculpture by the Sea in Sydney

I am not sure if I should be apologizing for the lack of Posts over recent weeks. If I thought that what I was doing would be interesting for others to read about then I would write something, but mostly what I am doing is not, so I don’t. 

But I know what its like to have a few favourite web sites that you click on for updates every so often, and to be disappointed when nothings changed. I don’t like to disappoint visitors to this Blog too often so Ive decided to accept my responsibility as a Blogger to the loyal readers and post something a little more often – maybe once a week?

At present I am in Burnie, a small  city on the northern coast of Tasmania, and I will be here for a couple of months. The hospital is up a steep hill from the coast road and many of the rooms have a sea view, out across the notorious Bass Strait that separates this Island state from the Mainland, 125 miles to the north. Today theres a strong Northwesterly, probably 20 to 25 knots by the look of the whitecaps and the big seas out there.

Later in the week, further east, a fleet of maxis will be racing across the strait in the famous annual Sydney to Hobart yacht race. They leave Sydney Harbor on Boxing day and if the wind stays like this they could do it in record time.

I am doing my usual thing, Obstetrics and Gynaecology , in a modern fully equipped up to date hospital with every modern convenience and no expense spared. It gets boring at times because my role here is to supervise and advise the trainees who are desperate to do just about everything, so I get relegated to being the assistant. One consolation is that late at night, once the tricky part of emergency surgery has been done I can go home and leave them to finish off, and I don’t have to bother with any of the paperwork. 

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Before coming here, I was in my favourite place once again, Darwin. It’s a four and a half hour flight from Sydney, and a 2 hour time difference. One thing I look forward to, on the journey there or back is having a window seat and looking down at the extraordinary patterns and colours of the vast Australian outback. At first glance it looks bleak and orange and empty but if you look much more carefully at it, you see wonderfully intricate patterns and subtle color changes and almost everywhere, remarkably, but far far apart, thin mostly straight lines of tracks roads and fences, a very occasional outstation with an airstrip, and the odd  dam with radiating spidery cattle tracks. Its hypnotizing beauty.