Usain Bolt stuns Matthew Hayden
Jamaican sprint champion Usain Bolt surprised international journalists when he said Australian cricketer Matthew Hayden was his sporting hero.
“I am a huge fan of Matty Hayden and he’s a cool customer out in the middle and I like his style,” Bolt said.
Most of the international media listening to Bolt’s interview didn’t know who Hayden was and were intrigued to know what role he played in cricket.
Hayden was humbled.
“It’s pretty humbling isn’t it for an old fisherman and surfer in Queensland who now and then plays a bit of cricket,” he said.
“It’s an amazing achievement and to be mentioned is something I’m very proud about and I can’t believe he even said that.”
The story illustrates the power of cricket in the West Indies, which does appear to have waned in recent years based on test performances. It’s great the sport still ranks highly in public consciousness there.
Tags: cricket, Sport0 comments
24 August 2008
Walkers wed in Walkerville
This is a cute story from The Australian:
Where else would a pair of walkers get married but in Walkerville? Australia’s walking hero Jared Tallent desperately wanted the silver medal in yesterday’s 50km walk to go with his bronze from the 20km to make it a full set. He gets his “gold” when he marries fiancee and fellow walker Claire Woods next Saturday.
The two walkers will get married in the Adelaide suburb of Walkerville.
Tags: life, news, Sport0 comments
10 August 2008
Stephanie Rice wins first gold medal
Stephanie Rice won Australia’s first gold medal at the Beijing Olympics in the 400 metre individual medley.
She defeated Zimbabwe’s Kirsty Coventry. I’m delighted for Stephanie, but admit that I have a soft spot for Kirsty.
She has achieved so much against the odds. Kirsty was Zimbabwe’s first individual Olympic gold medal winner. I think their women’s hockey team won gold at Moscow when nobody else turned up.
Kirsty was born after that, in 1983. She’s a good chance in the 200 metre backstroke event.
Meanwhile, it’s good that Australia has made it onto the tally board. I can remember back to Montreal when we didn’t win a single gold.
Tags: Sport3 comments
10 August 2008
Looking back with street view
I’m becoming strangely addicted to Google Street View. This picture is from outside our house in Ceduna, where we lived in 1992-93. Kathleen was conceived there 
Read more »
1 comment
24 July 2008
Shoppers resist rising dairy prices
I went to a dairyfarmers meeting in Mount Gambier today. It was like being home again, back in Gippsland when I was a reporter for “Stock and Land”.
There are 70 or so dairy farms in the South East of South Australia, so it’s not a dominant industry, but one that is certainly significant. Read more »
Tags: consumer0 comments
13 July 2008
Royal jammies go missing
There’s a nice teaser on the front page of the Herald-Sun today. Beside a picture of the Queen is text: “Victoria’s royal request: Hand back our PJs, Ma’am.”
Intrigued, I turned to page seven and found it was somewhat misleading, but in a non-offensive way. The story was a beat-up but funny.
The City of Ballarat presented embroidered silk pyjamas to the Prince of Wales (late Edward VIII) in 1920.
Five female hundred employees of a local garment factory each put a stitch into the royal present.
Edward, who was something of a ladies man, might well have claimed to have slept with 500 sheilas in Ballarat.
A group of the city’s historians want the jammies back to put on public display. They wrote to Buckingham Palace humbly petitioning Her Majesty in that regard.
The bemused Royal Archivist wrote back saying they couldn’t find the sleepwear. She thought Edward might have taken them with him when he abdicated and shot through to France.
“They are no longer in royal custody,” Pamela Clark advised.
Tags: news, offbeat0 comments
29 June 2008
rssHugger worth a look
I’m taking a look at rssHugger.
It claims to be a unique website that aims to bring bloggers and readers together.
“rssHugger aims to provide blog owners with a unique easy-to-use way to promote their blogs by sending them traffic, building backlinks for search engine optimisation, as well as attracting new rss subscribers if the content is interesting to the reader.
“rssHugger aims to help visitors be able to easily find blogs that write about subjects they are interested in.
“If the visitors find a blog that they had not previously heard about, they can easily add it to their RSS readers or bookmark it.”
It sounds good in theory. By writing about the service here I become entitled to a free listing for this site. That offer is available to anyone.
As with other such tools I’ll monitor its impact on site traffic with interest.
Tags: internet, Technology0 comments
25 June 2008
South Australia’s top 10 destinations
I was talking to a tourism industry leader last week and asked him what was South Australia’s top tourism attraction for interstate and international visitors outside Adelaide.
He surprised me by saying it was Kangaroo Island. I thought it should have been Mount Gambier’s Blue Lake, but imagined it was probably the Barossa Valley.
He said there were studies to confirm Kangaroo Island’s status. I’ve been there (admittedly for work) but didn’t think it was anything special. Read more »
Tags: south australia, travel3 comments
24 June 2008
Tributes to Peter Gorey
Dad’s funeral was held today in Traralgon. Although he had been a very private person for the past 10 years there was quite a big attendance.
Dad believed in God, but not in organised religion, so there was a civil celebrant. I thought it was a tasteful, moving service and others told me afterwards they thought the same.
The coffin was draped in the Australian flag under new rules to recognise National Servicemen. Dad completed his training in the 1950s and rose to the rank of sergeant. Read more »
Tags: family, life2 comments
27 May 2008
Cost of living
It’s very expensive to live in remote towns such as Kalgoorlie. It’s worse in the Pilbara, from what I can tell, but Kalgoorlie certainly isn’t cheap.
We had subsidised housing there, which made it reasonably affordable.
When considering a move to Mount Gambier we calculated the impact of losing the housing assistance against lower costs for education, food and services. We figured it would be a balanced equation. Read more »
Tags: Kalgoorlie, south australia, Western-Australia0 comments
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