I reserve the right to edit comments for correct spelling and grammar
I love that I can post to my blog from on the train, or anywhere I might happen to be with my phone and half decent reception.
When you throw alcohol into the mix however, it may not be such a good idea to give an idiot like me unfettered access to the realms of online publishing. You just never know who you’re going to defame.
Actually… I better check you tube… no idea what I may have put up there
I get the Belair line train into the city most mornings. I met a work colleague at the station this morning and we got in the train together and were having a nice chat about work stuff; boring but interesting.
The Adelaide public transport system, the rail network in particular, has a bit of a reputation. Most of the rail cars are getting old, they run on diesel, the windows are made of some dual-layer Perspex material that ranges from translucent at best to almost opaque at worst, the trains NEVER run on time (at least not on the Belair line but I gather most other lines are the same).
I don’t know what the problem was this morning but we noticed that as we pulled out of the station and got up a bit of speed, the engines cut out and we rolled into the next station before the brakes went on, passengers got on, the engines were started again, we got up some speed and they cut out again. The fortunate thing is that the Belair line, being the only train line into the hills, runs downhill going into the city, so saving power for whatever reason is pretty easy when gravity can do most of the work.
Even when things levelled out after Mitcham, the driver was still turning off the engines after getting up to full speed and we rolled into pretty much every station. It certainly made chatting easier, as the lack of engine noise made for a very quiet ride. My colleague and I were having to keep it down a bit at times because there was just so little noise and we didn’t want to seem loud.
The funny thing, and perhaps the point of this post, was that after we rolled into Goodwood, and just before the driver fired up the engines again, he made the same announcement that every driver makes just before leaving Goodwood on this particular train.
“Express to Adelaide”
It was one of those occasions where the unwritten rule of keeping to yourself could be disregarded. For some reason, the train was only half-full and that remark brought guffaws of laughter from me and a few other passengers. A guy sitting near me pulled out his earphones and asked “What did he say?” and he laughed when I told him.
Oh, we pulled into an unusual platform too (not that platform 4 is different in any way but this train usually comes into platform 1) and, such is the opacity of the windows, that people lined up to get out the doors on the wrong side of the carriage.
I was walking across town last night after work to meet my SO for a ride home.
I was carrying my Holga, in case anything of photographic significance should have made itself apparent to me, and was trying to put my headphones on (or in) at the same time.
My headphones are the in-ear type, comprising the hard, plastic bit that houses the speaker and, surrounding that, the soft, silicone rubber bit that conforms to the shape of the ear canal, creating a seal and shutting out much of the outside noise.
The cord had become all twisted and I was trying to fasten the little clip near the microphone (it’s part of my phone/mp3 player setup) onto my shirt… while I was holding my camera… while looking for anything cool to photograph. I had my bag half open. The other end of the headphones, not yet attached to the phone, was dangling around my knees.
So I got the clip sorted, finally. Then I got the other end and plugged it into the phone. I changed the position of the camera in my hand. Then I went to put my headphones in and realised one of the silicone bits had fallen off.
I hate losing these things. It makes the earpiece not fit in your ear, rendering the headphones pretty much useless. While they give you extras with the phone, I won’t be flippant about losing them because it would suck to have to buy new ones and I just know it would cost about $20 for four grams of silicone, which I wouldn’t want to pay on principle. I lost one walking to work down Memorial Drive once. I retraced my steps for five minutes or so and found it.
So I started to do this, in 5pm foot traffic, walking slowly, gazing downwards, looking for a grey bit of rubber on a grey footpath covered in shadow. I went back to where I thought I still would have had it, then walked back again and gave up.
Luckily, because I had a phone stolen a while ago, I have two pairs of headphones. The other pair went a bit spaz so I stopped using them but still have them in my bag. I plundered them for a silicone earpiece and spent the rest of my walk to Dequetteville Tce happily strolling with Regina Spektor.
This morning, C dropped my on Pulteney St and I walked up Grenfell towards work. I crossed King William and realised I was in the spot and thought ‘It can’t hurt to have a look’ so I slowed, only slightly, and went over the same bit of footpath again.
Nothing.
But 10 m further down, there it was, protruding like a nipple on an otherwise flat-chested footpath. It hadn’t even fallen into a crack or been kicked into the gutter or anything. It was just there and had been all night.
I’ll stick it in a cup of near-boiling water to sterilise it and put it back in circulation.
It seems so odd when fortunate things happen. In a good way though.
For any readers outside South Australia, there’s been a recent crisis in this state’s hospital industry, with doctors and other specialists arguing over wage increases. Related story here.
The issue has come to a head and many emergency doctors and staff have not just gone on strike but resigned their positions altogether.
Take that!
I’d like to put out a message to directors of TV and radio outlets now, as it’s timely. I’m mostly a humble guy and don’t like to blow my own trumpet, as it were. I don’t think I’m arrogant or self-righteous and I don’t often judge or condemn people. However, there are times when I believe a base level of competence should go along with certain jobs. So my message is this.
If you’re running a Radio or TV newsroom, please get in touch with me and offer me a job. Why? Well, for starters, I can correctly pronounce the word anaesthetist.
Seriously, I should put this on my résumé.
It’s been an interesting week of watching and listening to various media, hearing them say that word and completely fuck it up in about 90 % of cases.
Another word a lot of journos have trouble with is vulnerable. People, the first l is NOT SILENT.
If you hear a newsreader or reporter this week saying “South Australia’s health industry is in a vulnerable position following the recent mass-resignation of emergency doctors and hospital anaesthetists,” listen for the gurgling sounds that follow as their throats go into spasm and they invariably choke on their tongues.
I once met a med student studying to become an anaesthetist and she couldn’t pronounce it. While I hope she, and other anaesthetists, can successfully pronounce the drugs they’re administering, I’m not going to judge, as long as the right drug goes in the right patient and everyone who’s supposed to be alive, stays alive at the end of the day.
But journalists? They’re supposed to be guardians of the language. They’re the one group of people who are supposed to get this right. Still, when most people on TV news are either ex-footballers (read: trained monkeys (and even then, I’m not that sure how well trained)) and sexy young uni grads with zero life experience, what hope is there?
We all went to the Markets tonight and were buying meat from the butcher.
Little Miss M saw the chevapchichis (I have no idea how to spell that) and said “Look at the salami fish fingers!”
They’re so cute when they’re three.
So where was I? Yeah, that’s right, I went to Melbourne then came home and sort of just fell asleep.
Melbourne was great. Good to be back in my home state. I don’t know what to make of myself sometimes because I don’t often feel very Australian and despite, or probably because of, my football-filled youth, I can no longer stand the sport, or the constant news coverage it gets, or the nugget fans (nugget fans being a majority sub-species of fans in general; I know there are some quite normal, respectable, educated people who are not nuggets but are, paradoxically, football fans) who can talk about nothing else. Yet I still feel some kind of connection with Victoria. I’m not sure if it’s the landscape, the people, the weather, or the fact that, unlike South Australia, it doesn’t have it’s head stuck up its own arse (just my crude way of saying that South Australia is way too parochial, introspective, isolated (not only geographically) hostile to external influence (especially from Victoria) and has an inflated, ‘we’re as good as the other states’ complex that the other states don’t have because they’re not secretly worried that they aren’t).
So yeah, there’s that.
And I seem to have realised just how deeply entrenched I am in my current rut. Not enjoying the job and have had a sick kiddie, which means waking up at all hours of the night and being generally very tired, which kind of sucks. I’ve never had the SADs (the lack of light thing) but am wondering if there might not be something to it this winter.
And I’ve been shocked to notice how vague I have been of late. Only last night, after a day of staring blankly at a screen, I put in my headphones, stepped outside, and while crossing the road, forgot to look and stepped out in front of a motorbike. Then, as I was getting on the train, I put my ticket in the validator… and forgot to take it out again.
Where the fuck was my brain?
Why can’t I post from my phone?
It’s funny how travel helps you mark time in your life. Being at the airport reminded me of the last time I was at the airport, then I got to thinking of all the variations on ‘The last time I…’
The possibilities are endless.
But I must say that having spent a good deal of my 20-somethingityness coming and going from all sorts of airports, rail stations and bus termini, I’m not half bad at it by now. I had everything timed to perfection. The J1 passes right outside my work building. I was there waiting for it five minutes early. It dropped us at the airport and I was straight into the check-in line. I had no luggage to check in, so that was a breeze. I got through the X-rays and had 20 minutes to kill before I had to be at the departure gate and I thought “Shit, I’m good at this.”
Cos, I am.
I love the train ride home: that brief period of being able to sit and just be. That time between the busy-ness of work and the seagull persistence of young kids. Time to slow down (which, let’s face it, is something the Adelaide rail network has perfected).
Things are hectic but in a good way, and it’s possible that the change I was hoping would come this year may be imminent. (Yes, that’s right… I’m switching to decaf.)
Fucking heatwave has warped the neck of my guitar.
That’s it, I’m checking the insurance policy.
Posted by mobile phone:
I got up an hour ago. Not just because of the heat either.
Too much rubbish floating around in my head; there needs to be some kind of vacuum attachment that goes right up your nose to suck all those festering thoughts out.
Oh, there goes the alarm… And of course now I feel sleepy.
