Come back little black cat

 Eeek.  When I looked at the blogs I was following, I discovered that my little reading cat had turned into a black opaque square.  How did this happen?  It looked fine in my settings.  I have spent ages trying to solve this riddle.  I have checked every available link, removed and added the picture numerous times, even went online and downloaded the picture again.  Nothing.  It was still a black square.  I tried changing settings to use my own profile.  That worked except my little cat was beheaded and I had no idea how to move the box to fix the part of my profile picture I want shown.  In the end I tried using another picture.  That has worked.  I have no idea why my little black cat decided to take its letter and go home, but I wish it would come back.  At least I can still see my little cat on my profile.  Meet my new follower icon below.

Australia Day 2010

I had a great Australia Day.  I spent it in the company of husband and friends. Our host had a swimming pool and this helped make the 40 degree day seem both pleasant and mild.  I am not exactly waterlogged but it was not for the want of trying.

I think Australia Day is a great day and should be a time to give thanks for this wonderful country of ours and I think most people would agree. However, I am getting a little tired of the press trying to turn this day into one of disharmony and conflict.  Hoons draped in Australian flags terrorising people should wake up to themselves. Aborigines who owe more of their DNA to their European "invaders" than they do to their Koori tribesmen should research the difference between invasion and settlement.  Everyone who lives in Australia arrived here from somewhere else, or their ancestors did.  Only the time frames are different.  Some arrived 40,000 years ago, some 200 years ago and some arrived yesterday.  I like to think that we can all live together in harmony as Australians.

Another Australia Day tradition seems to be calls to change our Australian Flag. Now I love my flag.  I think it is pretty and distinctive.  It means something to me because I have lived all my life under its familiar design.  However, I know that somewhere, sometime, those wanting to remove all traces of our British heritage will get their way and the flag will be changed.  I pray that sense prevails and the new design is something I like and can become fond of.  I hope the Union Jack is not replaced by the Aboriginal Flag or a kangaroo.  I like the Aboriginal flag and think it is a great design but it would look horrible stuck on our flag in its current design and its incorporation in the national flag would, in my opinion, diminish it as a great symbol of our indigenous people.  Kangaroos seem a little too kitch for my liking and it would be hard to make it look like something other than a Qantas logo.  The Southern Cross would have to be kept though.  I love it too much.

Perhaps the flag could be divided into two triangles like the striking Papua/New Guinea flag, with the Southern Cross in one triangle and something equally important in the other.  Perhaps it could be divided into three panels with the Southern Cross in one panel - something similar to the Torres Strait Island flag or the Canadian Flag.  Perhaps have a flag design something like the Northern Territory Flag with a side panel and motif.  Or maybe something completely different. Perhaps a really nice example of Aboriginal art could be incorporated into the design to acknowledge the original inhabitants. I just hope that whatever design is chosen is something I can live with and be proud of.

Waltzing Matilda as our National Anthem?  I shudder to think. Yes it was once our best known song but how many people know the words to all four verses and their meaning?  Besides I don't think the song about a swagman who stole a sheep and committed suicide is exactly the right image we want to convey to the world.  I know European Settlement started as a convict settlement but....  Besides "I still call Australia home", "We are Australian" and "Tie me kangaroo down sport" are also well known.  The thing is an anthem is something more than a popular song.  If popular songs could be anthems then there are hundreds of possibilities on the hit parades many of which would be more suitable than Waltzing Matilda.

However, all things aside I say thank you for my great country and the great people who have made it what it is. Long may we live in peace and harmony, continue to take the best of all cultures and continue to evolve into something wonderful.

Day of the Roses - The Granville Train Disaster Remembered

Thirty three years ago today a train filled with peak hour commuters crashed into a pylon on the Bold Street Bridge at Granville, derailing the first and second carriages and causing the bridge to collapse on the third and forth carriages. Massive concrete blocks tend to make a mess when they collide with flimsy metal and even flimsier humans so it is no surprise that this dreadful event left 83 people dead and 213 people injured – many seriously and life altering. It also made a deep impression on anyone who was on that train, involved in the rescue of the dead and injured, witnessed the event or its aftermath, reported it or simply watched the horror unfold on television screens across the country and around the world.

Thirty three years ago I was living at Homebush West and working at Parramatta Library. I drove to work that day completely oblivious to the tragic event that had happened approximately half an hour before. I was slightly curious as to why Parramatta Road was closed and why there appeared to be an inordinate amount of buses and police cars on the other side of the closure, but had no idea what it all meant until I arrived at work.

A colleague working at the Depot arrived at work that morning to find that all the men had left to go and help at the disaster site. They stayed there until the Rescue Units were established and it was agreed that there was little more they could do. I didn’t know that. Good on Parramatta Council Depot and Engineering staff. Their commitment should have been better known, but this was before the Internet, Intranet and Celebrating Success and most of us had little knowledge of what the rest of Council was doing.

At that time Parramatta Hospital was the main city hospital. Westmead Hospital wouldn’t open until the following year. All day long I could hear the ambulances screaming up Church Street to the hospital in an almost endless stream. Borrowers would come into the Library and provide us with news – either true or imagined but it wasn’t until I got home that I could see for myself exactly what had happened. I was appalled.

I remember Marie, the Granville Branch Librarian, telling me that as she passed the bridge on her way to the Library for her evening shift, there were hundreds of people ghoulishly watching the proceedings. She saw parents lift children onto their shoulders to get a better look at the dead and injured being removed from the carnage. Somehow a rumour circulated that the Blood Bank was going to send a mobile unit to Granville Library and she was bombarded by people who were not at all pleased when she said she knew nothing about it. Phone calls to the Blood Bank were equally unproductive as the Blood Bank never intended sending a unit to Granville.

For days the news coverage was at saturation point. We lived with the tales of miraculous rescues, sad deaths, unbelievable courage and the nobility of the human spirit. We also had to live with the dark side of humanity, especially the ba****ds who stole equipment and possessions belonging to the rescuers.

For weeks afterwards people would come into the Library with their own survival tales. As Parramatta was the last stop before the crash, such tales had a definite poignancy about them. There were people who normally travelled in the first, third or forth carriages who for some reason or another didn’t do so on that day. They overslept and missed the train, missed the bus, met a friend and decided to sit with them in another carriage, decided to catch an earlier or later train. The stories were varied but all lead to someone being saved. Then there were the tragic stories of people who were in one of those carriages who would not normally have been there. I have always tended to believe in fate – that we have an appointed time to live and an appointed time to die. Listening to those tales cemented the belief into my psyche.

After the last body had been retrieved and the rubble and steel removed, the Army constructed a temporary Bailey’s bridge over the railway line, re-connecting both sides of Granville and opening this busy road to traffic once more. The Bailey’s bridge served until a new bridge could be built.

On the first anniversary of the disaster, survivors and their families threw 83 roses onto the track in memory of the dead and injured. This has become an annual tradition and has lead to the event being called “The Day of the Roses."

Today we remember that horrific event 33 years ago. There have been and will continue to be other disasters, other lives lost, but I will never forget the day a concrete bridge fell on a train.

Definition of an expert?

An ex is a has been and a spurt is a drip under pressure.  Groan!!!!

Happy 2010 or 2014 or 2017 or ….

A quiz question once asked “If you were digging in the garden and found a coin dated 4 B.C. would it be genuine?” Of course the answer was no. One could not have B.C. before A.D. so beware the forgery. Everyone knows B.C. stands for Before [the birth of] Christ and A.D. stands for Anno Domini, or, the Year of Our Lord but when did B.C. and A.D. become accepted usage for dating the years?

It didn’t happen immediately. In fact it wasn’t until over 500 years after Christ’s birth that Dionysius Exiguus decided to count back the years to find Christ’s possible birthdate. His first problem was deciding exactly when Christ was born. Luke’s Gospel stated that Christ was born at the time of the Great Census conducted on behalf of the Roman Emperor, Augustus. That date was known. So Dionysius counted the number of Consuls and Emperors that had reigned since that day and the number of years they had reigned and he came up with the date 532 A.D. In the Roman Calendar, years were identified by naming the Consuls or Emperors who held office so you would have years listed as the 3rd year of the reign of Tiberuis, the second year of the reign of Claudius etc. Now the Romans liked to fiddle with their calendar and both Consuls and Emperors would add or subtract days and even months to please their own egos, which was why Julius Caesar tried to fix things with his Julian Calendar. It didn’t really stop the fiddling completely though. As a result there was a mistake of between four and ten years made in the calculations of Christ’s birth (Depending on the expert you believe). By the time the mistake was realised it was much easier to change Christ’s birth and death dates than all other dates, so Christ is listed as living in 4 B.C – 29 A.D or variations of same in the more astute biographical dictionaries. Various countries at various times adopted Dionysius’ dating system but it was not generally used until centuries later. In England, The Council of Chelsea ordered that it be used in 816 A.D. Gradually, with the rapid spread of trade and communications which have occurred since the Industrial Revolution most countries have adopted this numbering system and either use it exclusively or in conjunction with their own calendar systems.

Nowadays, the politically correct brigade have taken hold and I am seeing the old B.C./A.D. being replaced more and more with B.C.E (Before the Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era), but I don’t agree and will resist until I shuffle off to that big Library in the sky.

So what other years are we living in? Well if you are Jewish it is 5769-5770, Buddhist it is 2553 and Muslim it is 1430. The Hindu’s have a variety of years depending on where they live in India, all used in conjunction with the Gregorian Calendar.

So Happy 2010, 2014, 5770, 2553 and 1430. I hope it is a good one for us all.