Flying Friday

(Oops. There was a scheduling problem, but it must still be Friday somewhere) 

You can zip line across Melbourne's Yarra River. At less than thirty seconds it is quicker than I remember the orgasms of my youth. Strapping in safely takes some time I suppose, as does unstrapping. The zip line with thirty seconds of pleasure at $60 is very popular with people lined up. Children can zip for just $50. 

You probably don't remember that we zip lined in South Africa a few years ago. At one zip line, R missed his footing at a platform and he came backwards to the middle of the zip line, to much amusement among our fellow travellers. There goes R, and here comes R back again. 

I iz not paying $60 to zip line, but it does look like fun.

Britain is just like the US

I don't think this is right. What do you Brits think? 

The United Kingdom = The United States, the whole country, 50 States plus DC. Or in our case, 4 countries.

The UK is four countries, the US one country.

Great Britain = The 48 contiguous states. In our case, 3 contiguous countries, England, Scotland and Wales.

The states of one country are surely different to three countries.

England = Texas, the biggest of those contiguous states/countries. Actually Texas and DC combined, because we are not only the biggest, we also have the Government and the Capital City.

That can't be. England is a country. Texas is a US state. To note, England and Texas are as different as South Africa is to Sweden.

Transport Tursday

Forgive the headline. I can't resist alliteration

After London, Sydney had the largest tram system in the world. Melbourne now has that world title as we didn't get rid of trams as so many cities mistakenly did. By the end of 1961 Sydney's system had closed, taken over by diesel buses and electric trolley buses. The replacement bus service was inadequate, in spite of the government propaganda at the time, and turned even more people to the private motor car.

Maybe I have put some of these photos up before. In spite of what looks like was chaos, the Sydney tram service was very fast and efficient. 

Taylor Square, a busy tram intersection on what became became Sydney's gay mile on Oxford Street.

Trams lined up to clear crowds from I guess the Sydney Cricket Ground.

Another photo of Taylor Square.

The last time we were in Sydney and at this location, I tried to visualise Railway Square as it once was but I failed.

Meanwhile back at Taylor Square.

And for this one, I think we are back at Railway Square. It would be described I guess as highly organised chaos. The trams loaded crowds very quickly and moved along very quickly. Thousands of people would arrive and depart from Railway Square. Trams can be so efficient at moving large numbers of people quickly, as can be seen now at the Australian Open tennis two week competition in my own city. Trams are rerouted, trams parked waiting and a huge effort goes in to provide a maximum number of large trams and adequate staffing to provide a good service when crowds travel to the venue and depart. Should a match finish at 2am, hey its happened, there will be a tram to get you to the city at least. (a 4am finish mid competition and five trams with drivers and auxiliary staff were still there waiting to clear what was probably non existent crowds to the city).

The paper one, if you please

Gattina has written a post called Going back to the Future and it is worth a read.

In Australia light flimsy retail plastic bags were banned, substituted by more durable and reusable plastic bags which had to be paid for, meaning instead of using the lightweight bags for our rubbish, we now have to buy them. Slowly we have become savvy with making sure we take reusable plastic bags to the supermarket. 

Supermarkets and many places charge 15 cents for a reusable plastic bag. Recently similarly sized brown heavy paper bags with handles have appeared to but too. That is great, but they cost twenty cents. Paper can be recycled a number of times. Soft plastics not so much. So why not make paper carry bags 15 cents and plastic bags 20 cents? Of course it is not about the cost, but the number of reusable plastic you manage to acquire, and have to store. 

Then there are rolls of plastic bags in supermarkets to put fresh vegetables into that are extremely light weight and must be terribly polluting if set free. I asked Household Management why he buys freezer bags when the supermarket fresh produce bags could be used. He explained that the interior of vegetable of used vegetable bags could be contaminated and therefore not safe. I must add that this was at the height of Covid fear here.

Anyway, simple brown paper bags could be used for fresh produce rather than plastic bags, as used to be the case. As for plastic meat trays  and plastic packed up fruit and vegetables, absurd. Vegetarians, don't feel smug. I've seen tofu in plastic trays. There must be a better way.

Deco Day

Hands up if you don't like Art Deco style buildings. Right, you as a minority can leave the room then.

We are losing too many Art Deco buildings to rapacious developers and negligent authorities

Modest but still quite deco at Heape Court and Little Lonsdale Street, soon to be redeveloped. Note the old ad with a six digit phone number. We now have eight digit phone numbers but well in the 1990s Myer department store had a five digit phone number. The first two numbers would have once been letters, such WB 4753. I've no idea why. As for Phillips Shirts, the good old days when we made shirts in Australia.

279 Little Collins Street

309 Little Collins Street

 306 Little Collins Street

212 King Street

Is the climate changing?

Mike: A bit dry mate.

Danny: Yeah mate, could do with a drop.

Mike: Dry now but we've had good rain. It's La Ninja.

Danny: Yeah. We've had a couple of La Ninja years. Still, could do with a drop now.

Mike: The greenie commos tell us it is climate change but the weather bureau tells us it is La Ninja.

Danny: Mate, I believe in the science from the weather bureau. It is La Ninja and nothing to do with climate change.

Mike: Remember when we used to have days of high 30s and then get into the 40s. We don't get those now.

Danny: We did in the late 2000s. That was bad, you know fires and that and all those people and animals dying. We don't get those days anymore. Is that because of La Ninja? 

Mike: I reckon so. The weather always changes. It's all to do with La Ninja. Nothing to do with climate change mate. 

Sunday Selections

I am joining in with Elephant's Child, River and others for Sunday Selections, this week just random photos, mostly mine. Note: I am over trying to place photos and text. They will appear where Blogger decides.

Rather a contrast isn't it.

No Andrew, Bond Store not Bondage Store. Don't get yourself excited. I think bond was something to do with wool or wheat export. Your Google is working? Look it up.

Milton House is in Flinders Lane in the city. Quite an unusual building, I thought and took this photo before I read the blue plaque below. 

It looked nice but the chocolate mousse was actually cake. I was disappointed but it didn't stop me eating it.

Honesty in advertising is a good thing. Nude up you lasses and note some tabs have been torn off by those who will become world famous models or actors. 

It was always terrific to catch a modern blue Harris train that were so much quieter and smoother than our red rattlers. Once done with they weren't salvaged for scrap but dumped in landfill as they were full of asbestos.  

I miss these old semaphore signals. It was good to see mechanical action. These are on the viaduct between Flinders Street and Spencer Street, now replaced by lamps.

I know the feeling.

I had planned to take photos of my cleaning of the central exhaust fan. The unit is under this flap in the main bathroom. It was such a difficult job I forgot all about taking subsequent photos.

It is so badly positioned and this is the third time I have cleaned it in twenty plus years. I cleaned soon after we moved here and then not for about eighteen years and the fins were completely blocked. I dug out the compressed dust and it went back to working well. About three years later, a few weeks ago I again cleaned it. Not by my doing but some screw holes have stripped thread and only about two screws hold the base plate in place. Once I put it back together, it rattled. I stuck in a bid of cardboard to stop that but it seemed nosier.

The large exhaust pipe is obvious but three smaller duct pipes come from the bathroom, the toilet and my ensuite. The large pipe along the way to exterior exhaust picks up the stove range hood, and used to also pick up the clothes dryer ventilation until we blocked it when it became redundant. 

R says it must be replaced, and we will get to that this year, after the kitchen tap replacement and the air con dripping issue.

While it is an interesting photo if you embiggen it, I am not sure why I saved it.

Nicely done and I was not crass enough to tug off a leaf to see if it was real or fake.

I have a feeling that The Record was a tramway union newsletter to members. 

Where was this building? It appears to be in the city but I have no memory of taking the photo.