42 days to go Friday Night

joe6pack Uncategorized

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42 days to go until the election and I think week 2 was a clear winner for the ALP.

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Shorten clearly won the debate last Friday Night 

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And despite a few hiccups ( Feeny you idiot ) are clearly beating the libs on policy.

The polls though close are in labor’s favour

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The coalition train seems to have come of the tracks.

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They are running around putting out spot fires like changes to super,the medicare rebate freeze and Mr potato head Dutton. 

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So I an pretty optomistic and happy this Friday. I know there is still a long way to go but i,m going to enjoy it while I can. 

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Who wants to join me?

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882 thoughts on “42 days to go Friday Night”

  1. I see Di Natali is cruising for a bruisin’ around arid Oz…I was thinking that if the older generations there who are Nat’ supporters are dropping off the twig, maybe a deal for prefs’ with the Libs’ could bring a new generation of regional voters more sympathetic to “Green Politics” into the mix that could make The Greens a more viable option IN THE FUTURE to be a coalition partner than the fading National Party…hence the “Royal Tour”.

    After all one must plan for the future!

    • …and if one reflects on the issue of regional politics, the Nats’ have delivered seats to the Libs’ giving them govt’ without having THAT MUCH given in return over the years…a handy “silent partner”.

    • Dr Dick – hypocritical as always.

      He must have a very short memory. Standing there looking at the empty Menindee Lakes must have twigged something in his devious brain, surely …… like the part the Greens played in destroying the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

      Liberal senator Anne Rushton, September, last year –

      THE hypocrisy of the Australian Greens when it comes to water reform in the Murray-Darling Basin is absolutely breathtaking, especially when they claim to support a Basin Plan they voted against in 2012 and are now trying to undermine.

      Their opposition to a fair and balanced approach to water reform continues apace.

      This week they voted against the Coalition government’s amendment to the Water Act 2007 capping water buybacks at 1500 gigalitres per year.

      The Greens’ claim this is a “retreat” from the 2750GL/year target is baseless scaremongering.

      The buyback cap doesn’t absolve or relieve the government from the requirement to ‘bridge the gap’ to the Plan’s Sustainable Diversion Limits (SDLs).

      The Water Act has not changed in this respect and it never will under a Coalition Government.

      The legislation enjoys bipartisan support from the Labor Party and is strongly supported by irrigator groups and river communities.

      I chaired the Senate inquiry into the Bill

      http://www.theland.com.au/story/3376400/greens-mdbp-claims-unbalanced/

  2. I have to go out now, but I’m just putting this here to remind me to write something about a post I saw re Q&A last night. A Greens type in the audience asked Albanese why anyone should vote for either the Coalition or Labor. I have no idea what Albo’s answer was, but I’ve got something to say about it. I’ll do it this afternoon when I’m back home.

  3. From the oddball dept . A “must have’ for the Battle of Jutland.

    A Maori grass skirt worn by a British naval captain during World War I’s largest sea battle has gone on display.

    ..Now, in the centenary year of the famous World War I naval battle, the piupiu has been loaned to The National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN)……………..The piupiu was gifted to Captain Lionel Halsey Royal Navy Commanding Officer of the battleship HMS New Zealand – paid for by the people of New Zealand – during the ship’s visit Downunder in 1913..

    ……………………………..The chief requested that Halsey wear the piupiu in battle to protect the ship and crew.
    In May 1915, Halsey was promoted and appointed to another ship. He passed the piupiu over to his successor on HMS New Zealand, Captain J.F.E. Green.

    “Captain Green was told of the Maori chief’s request and agreed to wear the piupiu into action, which he did during the Battle of Jutland on May 31, 1916,” the museum spokeswoman said.

    “Again, the ship came under heavy fire but was hit only once, sustaining minor damage and no casualties.”

    The piupiu remained on board the battlecruiser until the surrender of the German fleet in 1918.

    The piupiu was then returned to Halsey who later lent it to the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy to be displayed in the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition in Wellington in 1940.

    Upon his death in 1949, Halsey, then Admiral Sir Halsey, left the piupiu to his youngest daughter Ruth Halsey

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/maori/news/article.cfm?c_id=252&objectid=11643417

    A piupiu

  4. I’d like to thank my about-to-be MP, Pruneface, for alerting me to this –

    Stand by for a lot of misquoting on education funding. Pruneface kicked off with a little video in the Coffs Harbour paper, claiming the government’s education funding ‘plan’ was approved by David Gonski.

    He read this out –
    “I said further funding was required but I didn’t say how much and I didn’t say who should pay for it,
    Needs-based funding is what I pushed for, and we have that.”

    However, in typical Nats fashion, Pruneface left out the next part –
    “The amount required is a matter for the politicians and the people of Australia.’’
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/federal-election-2016/federal-election-2016-setting-funding-targets-wasnt-for-me-to-do-gonski/news-story/8a2a1eea96e81dca603057aed05fe13c

    He didn’t mention the key fact either – Gonski was speaking about the NSW government’s needs-based funding plans.

    So – if Pruneface is reading these lines in little ‘what do the candidates think about ….’ spots for his local paper, it’s pretty obvious this is the latest Coalition lie on education. ‘Gonski is happy with our funding’.

  5. One can see the LNP. are using 2013 tactics of “lying to get you over the line”…it worked once and in a Aussie voter corporate memory envious of a goldfish they think they can use it again.

  6. Good morning folks. At last I am back on the internet – no thanks to Telstra. I went to the shed and found my old modem and connected it to DSL et voila!
    So the Dawn Patrol should be back in business tomorrow morning.

  8. http://www.essentialvision.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/essential_report_160524.pdf free to read

    http://www.crikey.com.au/2016/05/24/essential-labor-leads-51-49-and-health-education-labor-wins/ Bernard’s analysis, paywalled

    http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/may/24/climate-groups-join-forces-for-election-campaign-blitz

  9. From wiki –

    Digital subscriber line (DSL; originally digital subscriber loop) is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines.

  11. The warped, bitter egoist Mark Latham was mouthing on about Bill Shorten today.

    Once upon a time I stood for days at pre-poll, one of the days in pouring rain, handing out how-to-vote leaflets with Latham’s face on them. I, and Australians all, were fortunate that was not successful.

    • Both suffer from severe cases of Attention Deficit Disorder. Feather dusters who just can’t admit they are no longer roosters.

  12. Caught up with the 4 Corners program on donations this am. It was very good, albeit if I was a bit more paranoid I might have been annoyed by the inclusion of the TURC attempt to smear Bill, and the unsubstantiated accusations about the CFMEU currption and criminal activities. All in the name of ‘balance’ I guess, because they didn’t spare the Liberals on their money laundering.

    Yabsley was pretty good both in his admissions and what he suggested. It gave exposure to Transfield and other insider donors who had been major beneficiaries of outsourcing and privatising of government services. The ugliest was Manildra, which was both transparent about what it wanted and what was delivered from both major parties.

  13. This poll looks only one step above the self selected polls newspapers run beneath their articles to get clicks. Sure, looks good for our side, but I don’t put any faith in it. Its floating around twitter so here it is.

    http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/news/federal-election-poll-of-sydney-voters-shows-turnbull-in-danger-in-western-sydney/news-story/e9cdb32eb505134bdeb7094e357b1268 free to read

    I draw your attention to this….

    “The online poll of 900 voters in Sydney was conducted this week via a digital survey of NewsLocal readers, social media, websites and an internal reader panel.”
    Yeah, nah.

    • I wonder if Turnbull now regrets abandoning his meet and greet in Penrith. Maybe it wold not have made a difference, or maybe it would have turned more voters off him. Or just maybe enough voters would have been swayed by his alleged ‘charm’ and decided he had their vote. (Unlikely) He’ll never know, because he let his bully-boy temper get the better of him, and stomped off back to Point Piper instead of talking to the plebs.

      When the inevitable polling for marginal seats on the NSW central coast appears, with the inevitable swing away from the government, will Turnbull regret cancelling yet another meet-and-greet to have lunch with Alan Jones? Probably not. He seems to believe he is invincible and infallible.

    • I’d agree with that, Leroy, that’s hardly worth any more than those online media polls.

      A bit soon to know where if anywhere it’s leading. What is interesting, at least as far as reporters can be trusted, is the stuff coming out of the party camps. Liberals seem seriously gloomy about where it’s all going, which is not what the polls are telling us. Labor still sees itself as some ground to make up before it has a real chance. Who to believe? Maybe there’s enough evenness to justify both views.

      This part of the campaign I always find hardest. It’s almost like a cycling duel at the velodrome. They just seem to be crawling along and positioning themselves before making a play at the final lap. Then if one steals a break there’s a mad sprint to the final line.

      The good news is that the trend is our friend. Malcolm’s personal one has continued downwards and there’s no sign that it has bottomed out. Bill’s has continued to grow. I’d always regarded the personal popularity of the leaders as a secondary factor. In this case, Mal’s succession led to a huge boost from terrible polls. Then from a comfortable 2pp lead it has slipped back to 50-50 and now probably 49-51. The fall has been less dramatic in 2pp than it has been in leadership, but it has been in the same direction, suggesting it may continue.

  15. Nova Peris will not recontest her senate seat.

    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/election-2016-labor-senator-nova-peris-quits-politics-20160524-gp2bk6.html

    Despite what the MSM say, the Labor campaign was not ‘blindsided’ by this. Bill Shorten used very careful words when asked about Ms Peris. It’s no secret she is in the running for a position with the AFL.
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-23/shorten-won't-rule-out-nova-peris-move-to-afl/7439258

  16. There will be another leaders debate on Sunday night, and it’s not looking like good news for Shorten.

    No open forum this time. The ABC is doing it, Chris Uhlmann will moderate, maybe ask some questions, and three so far un-named journalists will ask the questions.

    Stand by for bias and rigged questions galore.

    Malcolm Turnbull, Bill Shorten to face off in Sunday debate
    http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/malcolm-turnbull-bill-shorten-to-face-off-in-sunday-debate-20160524-gp2cik.html#ixzz49XPqQU2C

    Any guesses on who the ;’journalists’ will be? Recruits from the Insiders pool perhaps? Or maybe that Greg Jennet fool?

    • He should be able to deal with it easily, but the format, with Uhlmann in charge, a panel asking the questions rather than audience members, and Their ABC running the whole thing makes me think it will be very biased.

      The questions will not be ones that voters want answered, they will be chosen by journalists, designed to get easy headlines. I’d expect all sorts of ‘Labor has a funding black hole, where’s the money going to come from’, ‘how will you wreck the wonderful ‘stop the boats’ policy, that sort of rubbish. I could be wrong, I hope I am.

    • If it’s left to ABC management: probably Oakes, Savva and Chris Kenny. If they try to do ‘balance’ maybe Laura, Pinstripe and Fran.

      If they were the pinkos that Chris Kenny or Hendo claim, then The Kouk, Gabriel Chan and Bongo.

    • Gerard Henderson, Fran Kelly, Michelle Grattan, Nikki Savva – u n w a t c h a b l e

    • Questions that won’t be asked by the journalists

      1. what are you plans to mitigate climate change
      2. what are your plans for NBN and security of internet connections
      3. what are you plans for affordable housing
      4. what are your plans to safeguard Australia’s food security
      5. what are your plans for Australian population growth and infrastructure?
      6. what are your plans for jobs for ordinary Australians
      7. what are your plans for education
      8. what are your plans for universal health care/ aged care

      The slack arsed journos wont go beyond the latest foot-in-mouth du jour and Nove Peiris looking for a job at the AFL (which she won’t get) and B U D G E T D E F I C I T

    • I suppose, as Aguirre has often opined, that the Liberals are struggling to put up a credible narrative and vision after the train wreck in government of the last few years.

      All the same, I’m amazed that they’ve settled for the slogan of Strong Leadership shown in that billboard. When I first saw it on Twitter, the Darth Varder pic of Dutton had been photoshopped onto it. I assumed they’d also fiddled with the slogan because no sane person would try the same slogan that fell so flat for Campbell Newman not so long ago.

      But no, it’s real. As are those shadow effects.

  19. Well goodness –

    Federal election 2016: Malcolm Turnbull’s campaign looks flat-footed

    The way Turnbull is going, he will not be elected in his own right, which will at least put his legacy in line with his skill set: he was the Prime Minister who rose to power in the manner of a cobra – biding his time, and waiting for the perfect moment to strike – only to find that the public does not like a snake

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/federal-election-2016/opinion/federal-election-2016-malcolm-turnbulls-campaign-looks-flatfooted/news-story/df37652419dcb4675b8bb07aa310de87

  20. Election 2016: Pauline Hanson a realistic chance of returning to Canberra, Antony Green says

    Mr Green said the elimination of group voting tickets under changes brought through Parliament shortly before the election was called are strengthening Ms Hanson’s chances.

    “Where previously preference deals were done which kept Pauline Hanson out of the Parliament, under the new electoral system, parties no longer have control over preferences,” Mr Green said.

    I suspected that these “reforms” were a damp squib that wouldn’t solve anything, but to make it easier for her to win…. Thanks for nothing Dodgy Dick.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-24/pauline-hanson-a-realistic-chance-of-returning-to-canberra/7440944

    • I’m sure Canberra’s bars and clubs will be happy to have Hanson back. Her only achievement in Canberra during her brief time as an MP was increasing their revenue.

  23. An interesting perspective on the state of the Western Roman Empire in it’s last years. ..:

    http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320hist&civ/chapters/08romfal.htm

    “These newly adopted resident aliens were assigned to work farms or were conscripted into the Roman army in numbers so large that the late Latin word for “soldier” came to be barbarus (“barbarian”). And where these barbarians met resistance, they sneaked or pushed their way inside the Empire, and in such a profusion that Rome was fast turning into a nation of immigrants.

    Not that that was much of a change. Things had actually been that way for centuries, only by late antiquity it was undeniable that, in spite of being called “Roman,” the Empire was, in fact, a multicultural enterprise. The pretense of a “Roman” Rome had worn so thin it was impossible to maintain the illusion, for instance, that everyone in the Empire could speak—or even wanted to speak—Latin, the Romans’ native tongue. Furthermore, it had been ages since any emperor had even bothered to pretend his lineage could be traced back to some ancestor who had arrived with Aeneas in Italy, an invented history which was beginning to look rather silly when Spaniards and North Africans had been steering the Empire for centuries.

    The stark truth was that by the fifth century CE—and indeed for many years before that—a succession of dynamic and capable foreigners coming from all ends of the Empire had kept Rome on its feet and these men were as “Roman” as anyone born or bred in the capital. Barbarians were, and had been for a long time, guarding and feeding the Empire, which made it all the more difficult to claim they shouldn’t also be running it. While three centuries earlier the Roman satirist Juvenal had lamented, “I can’t stand a Greek Rome,” now Rome wasn’t merely Greek. It was Dacian and Egyptian and Syrian and, most of all, ever more German by the day.

    Thus, the sort of change which Rome had undergone—and was at the time still undergoing which implies a certain trajectory into the future—was all too clear: from a local stronghold in Italy, to a multinational power, to the only superpower in the known world, to a globalized conglomerate of many different peoples. Even if the Romans of Rome still held the title to the Empire and affected superiority over the barbarians managing their domain, Roman possession of the lands around the Mediterranean Sea was, for the most part, only on paper. The reality was that the state was jointly owned, a participatory experiment which was by then maintained with the sweat and blood of many races—and there were even more who would have liked to sign up as “Roman” but they couldn’t get in.”

    • On that scale we have a couple of hundred years left here but things are quickening up.

      By the way of which, have you read One Hundred years of Solitude?

    • I beg to differ.in that technology has speeded things up a mite and I can envisage a complicated situation in a very few years unless Aust’ faces up to it’s own reality with it’s already multicultural / Indigenous population that a vastly over-estimated capability of Anglo-Euro can or will continue to dominate policy debates and directions into the near future.

      I might write up a piece on this issue later…Watch this space!

  24. You’ve got to admire the chutzpah of the Turnbull team. “Let’s pretend none of the disasters of the past couple of weeks even happened, and have another go at these smear campaigns we’ve tried and failed at. Maybe they’ll work this time.” I’ve noticed:

    – “Billion Dollar Bill’. From Turnbull? Seriously?
    – making up more stories about rent increases with negative gearing changes
    – claiming a “blowout” of figures on foreign aid funding – and fudging it

    They’ve tried and tried and tried the “reckless spending” angle previously this term, and it hasn’t worked. As I keep saying, if they can’t find a positive story of their own to sell to the Australian public, they’re screwed. Part of the reason they got up in 2013 was because amongst all the scaremongering, they could pretend that they were going to do a competent job running the economy. It had no substance, but they could sell it because they were an unknown quantity at the time. This time they’re not. Everyone knows about the broken promises and the stalling economy and the budget blowouts – and the budgets they couldn’t even get past a sympathetic Senate. They can’t just wish the experience away from the public, and they can’t do the smear without something positive to stack up against it. Won’t work.

    Today’s been just about the most depressing day of all. It shows the Liberal Party truly think they can get away with another three years of frigging about, rorting merrily, demonising anyone they don’t personally like, wasting everyone’s time and running the country into the ground. And that all they have to do is go, “Ooh, Labor, booga booga booga” and we’ll go all quivery and vote Coalition. Such a pack of fraudsters.

  25. And it’s becoming clearer and clearer that the attitude last September was ‘Turnbull will make it all better’. And he hasn’t, and the inevitable disenchantment happened.

    That’s the entire story. They were terrible. We rejected them. They offered us Turnbull as an improvement. They were still terrible. We rejected them again.

  26. JC

    I’ve just finished watching the second series of HBO’s “Rome”.

    It’s worth the money.

    • I can (series 1 as well). You need ‘BlueRay’ for it to work.

      And I’ll need real name and proper Address.

      (6Pack, If you could oblige?)

    • I have both series on dvd if you would like to borrow mine.

      If someone could pass on to each other then I am happy to lend.

  27. I didn,t find a job today so I just bludged around. Seriously contemplating going to enzed next week. No real reason its, just that Emirates flies one of thier A380’s from Brisbane to Auckland and return and I think it would be nice to have a ride on one of them just to see how they are.I’ll have to wait and see how much my centrelink cheque is on Thursday.

  29. Ok, that thing I was talking about this morning:

    Now, I’ve got no issue with anyone who wants to vote Green. If they truly think the Greens best represent their own attitudes and thinking, well, fair enough. But if one of them stands up in a public forum and asks the question, “Why should I vote for either of you major parties?” they are a prize chump and an ignorant person with no understanding of how our political system works.

    If you are a Greens voter, you need to look at the two major parties and make a decision as to which of them you are going to support. For one thing, your preference (in the majority of cases) is going to go to one of them whether you like it or not. And for another, ONE OF THEM IS GOING TO RUN THE COUNTRY SO TAKE SOME BLOODY INTEREST IN IT. That’s the way things work, and you can’t change it.

    And again, any Greens voter who claims that there’s no difference between the two major parties is a moron. They’ve been sucking too long at the Di Natale/Bob Brown teat and they need to grow up and take some responsibility for this country themselves. Just because neither party measures up to the glorious ideals of the Greens doesn’t mean there aren’t major differences between them. But that’s exactly the message the Greens Party are trying to put about; that there’s substantially no difference between Labor and Liberal.

    What they’re really saying is that, because they’re never realistically going to be anything more useful than a cross-bench factor in the Senate, the Greens don’t give a shit about who’s in power. But Greens voters aren’t the Greens Party, and as citizens of this country they should care very much about who’s in power, because in real terms it matters to them.

    If they had any spines, or the capacity to think for themselves, these Greens voters would learn to cast a critical eye over who’s running the party and whether or not their me-first ideology is doing Australia any good.

    No-one should ever be saying “reject the two major parties and just worry about putting Greens #1″. it’s irresponsible. In fact, if there are Greens supporters who have looked over the policies of the major parties and truly think the Coalition are the lesser of the two ‘evils” then they should be loud and proud about it. But at least take in interest and make an informed decision about this country’s future instead of sitting in the sandpit with your fingers in your ears saying “I don’t care”. Grow up, idiots.

  30. 6Pack

    [Emirates flies one of thier A380’s from Brisbane to Auckland ]

    One of my Nieces is often doing the cabin crewing on-board.Business Class, these days I think.

    Her parents live in Brisbane so the two nights at home bit (home, rest for 24 and the Auckland and back bit with a second 24 break before having to do 14hrs back to Dubai) works for her.

    • Soft lettuce, I’m pretty sure. At present they’re trying to take down Labor spending, but it didn’t get much traction after Penny got into them. i imagine they’re desperate for another attempt.

  36. 6Pack

    I can tell you the right name tag. She also has some friends who can facilitate a very comfortable flight.

    Watched the first part of your vid – Is the first pass-by a Harrier with its wheels down?

  37. He does cranky really wwell

    Tony Burke is still going. He is cranky and he is one of those pollies that get very focused when he gets fired up.

    What happened today in a media conference that started with so much arrogance and confidence and fell away into farce by the end, was simply an attempt by the government, by this Liberal government, to think they could get away with making up Labor policies, lying to the Australian people, and thought maybe, just maybe, nobody would notice.

    Well, message to Scott Morrison and Mathias Cormann: people do notice. And Scott Morrison’s got more interviews to go later tonight. He can explain how they turned $224m into $19bn. He can explain why they deliberately inflate numbers from the Labor party. He can explain why fully costed policies get ignored, and they just go out and play their own games. The Australian people may be subject in the next few weeks to more lies like we saw in that media conference today.

    But we will make sure that this government is held to account every step of the way, because there’s an alternative government doing the hard policy work and having an honest conversation with the Australian people.

  38. The crook from Cook and Chris Bowen at the NPC this coming Friday.

  40. People mightn’t need faster speeds but a agile, innovative and exciting economy does..

  41. I guess Alan Jones will be home now boning up for his interview with Turnbull Tommorow.The poor old dear probably won’t get much sleep tonight.

  42. 6Pack

    The Harrier was subsonic.

    Putting the wheels out was a way of slowing it that made the 111-O’s over shoot.

    So it could then be pointed up and a missile and both cannons could be put to work.

    It did the job on the day.

  44. 6Pack

    [The poms knew how to build Fighters but I guess the money ran out]

    Yes, they could.

    The current UK Govt made a very bad decision by selling the remaining 62 to the US Marines for peanuts.

    Building a very expensive A/CC with the very real possibility that the F-35B won’t happen is not smart.

    They should have dried and plastic packed the Harriers for now. Being sub-sonic means that the basic air-frame can be usable for a long while.

  45. Lovely trip to Dunn’s Swamp, but tragedy mixed with comedy.

    Good news:
    I got some sensational late afternoon shots of the lake yesterday, from my drone helipcopter.

    Bad News:
    Went to to the lake’s edge this morning at 6am to catch the mist over the water with dawn’s acute sunlight as illumination. Drone took off, went out over the water, failed to gain altitude when commanded, and ditched instead, about 20 metres out. Total flight time: 20 seconds.

    One drone gone, one Go-pro 4-Black gone. Probably a $3000 investment now in 25 feet of water.

    We went searching for it via kayak, but no luck. An hour’s looking and no show. Probably mixed up in the reeds on the bottom.

    NOT pilot error. Did ALL the pre-flight checks. Must have been a system failure, most likely the “Intelligent Battery”. It sends helpful, if complex messages to the drone’s CPU about battery status, but when they’re garbled (as they can be if the terminals are slightly weathered), the drone decides the best thing to do is land. Pity it “landed” in the water.

    Still can’t believe it. It’s every drone pilot’s nightmare, only this time it came true. Sank like a stone.

    • Jeesus, mate!…for 3000 smackeroos, I’d be out there with the goggles breathing through a garden hose whilst holding a besser-block for ballast to get a butchers at those reeds!

  46. BB

    Be a little bit consoled.

    I knew a guy lost a Mustang in Lake Constance. He managed to get his flying boots off and swim in the right direction.

    The ground crew were not happy with him.

    • I once lost my best Redfin lure in Happy Valley reservoir…flicked it out with the rod and snip!..off it went…best damn cast I’ve ever done!

  47. You had to be there, but this may explain why snorkeling wasn’t an option (though there WAs a snorkel, goggles and flippers available from one of the other guests)….

    1. I am not a strong swimmer.

    2. Water temperature was 11 degrees.

    3. An inch of water in the bottom of a bucket left outside the tent, froze overnight.

    4. In other words: it’s was a lovely sunny day, but bloody COLD.

    5. There was a volunteer, in fact two of them, to go snorkeling, but I couldn’t ask them to do something that I wouldn’t do. One was the redoubtable HI, who is too precious to me to risk. And the other was a young father of 2 little boys whose life I couldn’t have on my conscience if anything went wrong: tangled in the reeds, hypothermis… you name it. Imagine of someone had been drowned looking for a plastic toy. You’d never, ever forgive yourself.

    6. If we’d been able to spot it from the surface I’d have tried snorkeling myself – a quick 20 seconds in and out . But a search and rescue expedition… nope. In the absence of a definite sighting from the surface, it was a no go. Drowning accidents in near freezing water are the kinds of things you read about in the morning papers, and then turn over to the politics news. NO WAY was I going to risk a tragedy for a bauble like that.

    • Whaiy, twern’t nothin’ fo old man Fookes to have us out in ten foot o’ water by mouth o’ Murray River at the Goolwa wi’ shovel scratchin’ f’ cockles in the middle o’ winter..with nothin’ to breath save clear plastic bag ’round ‘ead, inflated by air froom hose he would blow down ev’ry minute or so…which wouldn’t be ‘alf bad save his ‘alitosis mixed wi’ th’ Dr. Pat ready-rubbed baccy smowk..
      Cold?..whaiy, it bin getin’ so cold tha’s shivver’d like distempr’d dog, which ol’ man Fokes liked cos’ he get ye t’ ‘old sieve to sep’rate pippies fro’ sand!
      T’ old man run a fishin’ camp over th’ Yorkes Peninsla’…Tough?..whaiy used to gut fish wi’ index finger, an’ scale wi’ teeth…used to harden new lads with a regular keel-haul evvry second day and onest on Sund’y jest fo’ the foon of i’.

      An’ yo’ complain…sofffft!

  48. jc

    [I once lost my best Redfin lure in Happy Valley reservoir]

    A friend lost not only the lure but also the end of the fishing rod.

    I remember thinking that there’s not much point in keeping the rest.

    • You can if you want to, but I don’t have the tech stuff needed to play that gear…and anyhow..while CTar may have the best of intentions, I harbour suspicions that his fiendish humour may get the better of him and he ends up posting me the entire series of “The flying Nun” or some such!

  50. BB sorry to hear about that. I guess once it hit the water no tracking signal was received?
    No vision when it crashed to give you a idea where to look?

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