On beachcombing

Don't for a minute think that I have finally started on my longed for quest to visit every secret harbour beach in Sydney. No, this pleasure is a lot more er, armchair inclined.

With a midweek evening timeslot ABC1 are never wrong and my new love this week is Monty Halls and his Beachcomber Cottage. In a sentence...man leaves city (man is a marine biologist, yes a real one George Costanza fans!) moves to rugged Scottish coast and takes over a derelict crofter so essentially tries to adapt, ruralise and live off the land...buys boat, tries to fish...has spirited and playful dog...man builds his own composting toilet...looks lonely as the weather changes (think howling wind and flickering candlelight), man runs up hills to keep fit, takes shirt off occasionally. Are you with me now?

This BBC series is well worth a dip into and a perfect follow up after my River Cottage phase. Guilty pleasures abound. Oh dear, a press release I just found online for the series says he is a 'former Royal Marine'. Now that was something missing from the ABC teasers adverts!

...and so we beat on

Gasp!....2010.

I will not attempt to write a 'best of 2009' post followed by a heady list of resolutions too soon forgotten and neatly summed up with a thoughtful and poignant remark about my hopes for 2010. Nor will I rant about the all those things we were suppose to have by this oddly futuristic date...aka where's my flying car Marty McFly? Nor will I do a best of the decade-type post as I'm sure 2003 and bits of 2006 slipped out of my brain at some stage. Instead I'm going to steal a quote from my favourite heroine Elizabeth Bennet and say that this year

'I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me...'

So there 19th century nirvana, pure and simple. Happy New Year!

The best Festivus ever...

What makes a good Festivus you ask?

Well...Frank Costanza would have us believe that all it requires is to tell your family and friends all the ways they disappointed you over the year. But I'll let you in on a little secret, all the ways my friends have disappointed me this year is the exact reason I love them. So with a delayed plan to visit Harbour Islands as the brief, with one friend finally taking a day off work (she's promised for a while) and the other reining in her need to always argue...(loving her very George-like moment of realisation!)....a most awesome day was had yesterday out on Sydney Harbour.

There's a ferry that runs from Wharf 6 at Circular Quay (and Darling Harbour) that drops off at places like Fort Denison and Shark Island in Sydney Harbour. Lesson for yesterday was if you get the first ferry of the day and it's a quiet-ish weekday no one will be on Shark Island except you until the next ferry arrives 1 and 1/2 hours later!

Imagine a whole harbour island with stunning views back towards the city and Harbour Bridge/Opera House all to yourself. We also had some Sydney to Hobart yachts out in the harbour sailing past doing last minute training. Add a gourmet picnic and best of the best friends a girl could ever have = the best Festivus ever!

Happy Festivus.

No clean feed

Internet filtering...censorship gone mad perhaps? What ever happened to old fashion taking responsibility for your actions (and if you are a parent instilling that in your children) and making your own choices?

A nice response here from Google and links to other commentators. A world gone mad me thinks.

Future trends and pearls of widsom

Jim Richardson is at it again and what a splendid reading material it makes.

First up...Google Earthquake hits Museum marketing

So...a lesson for today, what is said about you any where is just as important as what you say.

A how-to guide for creating social media plans

Easy to read and very relevant...how does your social media strategy compare?

#bbfuture or Realising Our Broadband Future

Hmmmm not so sure about the logo design above, but the wrap up is beginning on the two day Federal Government forum hosted by UNSW (and supported by numerous twitter and wiki inputs) to gather thoughts and strategies for (drum roll) 'Realising Our Broadband Future' (said with an eerie space is the final frontier type voice over...well at least in my head it was).

Again here is another example of what happens when even big brother is not sure of how to move forward digitally. But is anyone else seeing the pattern? All this online contribution to source a way forward is actually paving the path? Webcasts, twitter streams, wiki use...

Conroy: #bbfuture has more than 60,000 people on the wikis, generated over 3,300 Tweets & over 25,000 hits to the video live stream

Perhaps joram10 says it best...

@joram10 #bbfuture What a top experience - sitting in my office on the Sunshine Coast but participating as if I were there - sign of things to come.

See the Government site here where you can watch webcasts or listen on demand or perhaps browse the compiled wiki here or if you are on twitter search for #bbfuture

Geek in Residence

Are you an arts organisation looking for a digital helper? OzCo under the Arts Digital Era program is running a 'Geek in Residence' scheme during 2010.

Geek in Residence | artsdigitalera

The Geek in Residence pilot program connects ‘geeks’ (by which we mean technically confident artists and creatively confident technicians) with arts organisations through a temporary subsidised secondment scheme.

The purpose of this fund is for the Australia Council to enable digital artists and technicians to share their skills and experiences with arts workers. Geeks will be able to share their passion for solving unknown technological problems in creative situations, and arts workers will feel better equipped to work in digital spaces.

Are you a Geek? Are you working at an arts organisation in need of a digital innovation (ohhh look at all the hands!) Yes? Well sign up...NOW! The deadline is now 18th December...tick tock.

Zen and the Art of Chucking…

The last few weeks of my life, post holiday hiatus in the sun, have consisted of catching up on precious sleep (well trying to get back into a normal sleep pattern) and my new found calling…Zen and the Art of Chucking. Well don’t be under any illusions I have found nirvana…but I did find all my Nirvana albums if that will suffice?

Really, the last few weeks have been a time of sorting things into ‘recycle’, ‘donate’, ‘re-gift’, ‘chuck’, and er, ‘return to rightful owner’ and I should apologise in advance to Nicole for keeping her brother’s Ricky Martin album since 1996, though I’m not sure he’d want it back.

Anyhow, amid the dust I have been having a rather cathartic experience. It’s almost like the art of sorting and ordering ones’ external life assists with getting the internal one back on track. As if the ‘chucking’ out of bits of your past literally purges the emotions and cares invested in all this stuff.

Now I should say I’m not really a pack rat. It’s the sorting out of the last of my grandfather’s things that are still in the old terrace house and turning the spare room into a proper study/guest room. Oh and getting rid of the accumulation of about 5 years of bits of paper from my Masters. The secret of higher education I have learned is how many bits of paper you have in your house. I have so many bits of paper we would be putting them out for paper recycling for months so tomorrow we are off to the Visy Recycling Depot with a car load. And that’s not the only place getting my custom. I’m making friends with the local Salvation Army depot, and tomorrow’s car load marks my second trip. Trust me, there will be more.

For me as I sort out all these photocopied articles on everything from multiple regression through to how to construct statements of significance and piles of reading on art and life in the Italian states from 1200 – 1600 (yep, those exiting years!) I have realised just how much I have forgotten…most of the time I can barely remember studying or reading on these topics. So what remains? Ask me again when I’m not this tired. Hot bath and a good lie down here I come.

And Zen you ask? ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

...and the winner is?

Moi. My unit of study results are in and for my last subject with a score of 93% (that's another High Distinction) officially comes the end my friend, of the Masters forever.

New V&A Galleries

Accompanying recent Guardian articles about the opening of the new V&A gallery spaces is a great time lapse video containing interviews with key gallery staff. A great idea and such a easy way to invite visitors into the space and let them explore it...even if they are thousands of miles away...anyone up for a V&A trip?