Dash for cash in stiletto sprint
A world-record field of 265 women risked life and ankle in Sydney today to contest the Stiletto Sprint.
Blonde 400-metre hurdler Brittney McGlone, 18, was first to cover the 80-metre distance and collected $5000.
A few girls suffered scratches apparently, and not just from other competitors.
I fall over just thinking about trying to walk in high heels, let alone sprinting any distance. I guess it’s an acquired skill and one I’m destined never to learn.
An Australian male equivalent might be to run 400 metres in gumboots while carrying a slab of beer.
Kangaroos and goannas
According to this report a kangaroo inflicted extensive injuries on a man in Melbourne’s north-west.
The victim, aged in his 50s, suffered a large gash to the head and other wounds to the chest and hands.
Ambulance officers treated him at the scene. He was transferred to the Royal Melbourne Hospital in a stable condition.
“He was jogging near his home when he was attacked by a male kangaroo. He managed to fight the kangaroo off and made his way to a neighbour’s house who called 000,” an ambulance spokesman said.
Kangaroos are large animals and I wouldn’t like to tangle with one.
I can’t say I’ve every felt threatened by a kangaroo though. They normally hop away when they see a human. Read more
Australian Olympic trivia
I read or heard once that Australia, Great Britain and Greece are the only countries that have competed at every modern Olympics.
A couple of websites claim Switzerland has achieved the same feat.
Wikipedia sheds some light on that: “Switzerland boycotted the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, but the equestrian events for those Games were held in Stockholm, Sweden earlier that year, where the Swiss dressage team won a bronze medal.”
Strictly speaking, it’s not true that Australia has been to every Games. In 1896 the Colony of Victoria was represented by Edwin Flack, who was living in London at the time. Read more
Budgie smuggler protest
I’ve never been a fan of the “budgie smuggler”. I won’t enter discussion about whether that’s because I have a big gut or a small appendage; that’s for others to judge, and a small number regarding the latter. Read more
Share market volatility
I’m glad I don’t currently own shares. We sold them all to buy our house in Mount Gambier. The sale price was between 10 and 20 percent off the peak but still yielded a profit.
I checked the prices today after hearing the Dow dropped 358 points overnight.
Westpac is down to $20.69, WA Newspapers to $8.48 and Cortona Resources to 18 cents. Most people won’t have heard of Cortona.
They have some prospective gold tenements near Kalgoorlie and in New South Wales. The price climbed above 50 cents at one stage. I sold them in the low 40s and mid 30s.
If I hadn’t sold them we wouldn’t have been able to afford the house deposit.
As far as I know there is no reason for the price decline other than sentiment and people wanting cash.
Marsupial lion
Listening to ABC regional radio in the car today I heard about the discovery of marsupial lion bones near Burra in South Australia earlier this year.
The marsupial lion is regarded as part of Australia’s “megafauna” which became extinct about 45,000 years ago.
These were giant versions of wombats and kangaroos, and in this case a carnivorous predator.
The lion’s disappearance is unexplained, although it’s generally linked to climate change or the arrival of humans.
I reckon these beasts would have eaten any blackfellas who came after them, but one theory is the humans introduced fire which changed the lion’s habitat.
It’s a fascinating story and fun to ponder what happened.
Former Premier exhumed
We arrived in South Australia to hear and read the extraordinary story about Charles Kingston, a colonial Premier and founder of Australia, being exhumed for a paternity test at the request of an Adelaide businessman.
Sounds like something out of Monty Python doesn’t it?
“The Attorney-General, Michael Atkinson, approved an application to exhume the body of Charles Cameron Kingston, one of the Fathers of Federation, as part of a paternity case,” the Adelaide Advertiser reports.
The bodies of two other people suspected of being Kingston’s illegitimate offspring also were exhumed. They are Genevieve Grey and AA “Bert” Edwards. Read more
Crossing the Nullarbor
We successfully crossed the Nullarbor in two cars with four kids and arrived safely today in Moonta Bay on Yorke Peninsula in South Australia.
We’re resting here a couple of days while waiting for our furniture to catch up. We’ll head to Mount Gambier on Thursday and unpack on Friday.
We bought a house in Moonta Bay last year and will inspect it on Wednesday.
The trip across the Nullarbor was my second. Here are some observations and impressions: Read more
Respect the baggy green
Australian cricketers wore VB promotional caps on their opening match of the West Indies tour overnight, causing a furore among die-hard fans and former players.
“Money talks, you’re selling your pride, selling the baggy green, what price is it? It just cheapens things,” former Test player Greg Matthews said.
“Personally I would have worn my baggy green, I wouldn’t have given a razoo what they told me. If someone said to me I had to wear a VB hat, I’d tell them to piss off.”
Cricket Australia’s public affairs manager Philip Pope said the decision was not made for commercial reasons, but because team management wanted uniformity. Read more
ANZAC or Anzac?
The language is constantly evolving with a trend towards brevity. Waggon has become wagon and to-day has become today.
Some Australians cling to what they believe is English spelling for words like “programme” and anything that potentially ends in -our like “colour”.
I think they are mistaken. Researching newspapers from the 1890s for my family history a few years ago the consistent style was to spell “color” etc. Read more
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