Pica Pica

Hot and sticky yesterday. Only the cat really got it right.

Tango lessons are usually Thursday night at the Spanish Club, but we couldn’t make it this week, so went for our Level 1 Lesson 6 to a different venue, Bondi Pavilion, this afternoon. The clip shows Pedro and Maria doing the steps from “Level 1″, although with more decoration – not to mention more elegance and panache – than we beginners can.

You can read about them at the Patio de Tango website.

Revisiting March 10:

Loud chanting of battle cries, lots of cameras – when people have suffered, it’s hardly surprising that younger demonstrators can get carried away by the urge to somehow, anyhow do something!

Woke up before the 4:00 a.m. alarm to catch the bus down to Central Station for 5:00. The Sydney contingent was two full coaches plus a minibus. Dozing on the 4-hour trip to Canberra was slightly successful. Arrived late.

There were speeches outside Parliament House, a march to the Chinese Embassy, a touch of rabble-rousing chant, just enough to get some young ones to try to rush the police line, which makes for more dramatic footage. Chants like “Shame, Shame – China Shame”, “Stop Killing – In Tibet”, “Stop Torture – In Tibet”, some silence, some songs.

And that was it really. What’s the point? I think just being there to be counted usually has a point, though it’s obviously very indirect.

New shoes – suitable for a tanguero! We must be getting serious about tango!

The problem is now for me to dance well enough to justify having such amazing objects of style on my feet!

This March 10 is the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule – the Chinese had invaded in the early 1950s, of course.

Repression has been particularly savage all year, hence the general cancellation of the more joyful celebrations usually associated with the new year; that in turn, has brought more repression, with one monk setting fire to himself just last week in protest. He was shot before the flames were put out, and is presumed dead, but as far as I know nobody knows what happened to the body – “taken to an undisclosed location”, as they say.

So this year I plan to join the coach going to Canberra for the speeches-and-prayers do, provided I can manage to get up at shortly after 4:00 a.m.!

I will report back!

Yesterday we went to the christening of Zachary, who is Sarah’s father Les’ late wife Cherie’s brother Bob’s son Matthew’s son. Pictures include angelic participants:

key moment:

and keepsake boat with good-luck almonds:

Like most of the pictures here, you can click for a closer look.

Thanks to a series of coincidences we got invited to a free lunch on the Arcadia. (I suppose P&O are still trying to improve their image after the sorry Dianne Brimble story). A tour of the ship followed. I was a barnacle in tow with Sarah who was there as the daughter of her father, Les, who had very fond memories of a trip many years ago with some of the other friends at our table.

The name of the ship was historically important to Australia – I think quite a number of the Ten Pound Poms, for instance, came on an earlier bearer of the name. To be sure there are a lot of people with better reasons to have been there, but that was the luck of the draw. Note the cameras and media presence in the slide show!

Facit: food not at all bad, service excellent. What would those Victorian gentlemen who amused themselves dreaming up plurals call a large assembly of waiters? A canteen?

I’ve been translating a lot about steam and gas turbines over the last few weeks. They are big.

This might compensate for the lack of a picture in yesterday’s karma-rant. There’s little to compare with a view of some rotor blades to perk things up a bit, is there?

Here is a good reason for keeping the containers you got your rice in from the Thai takeaway:

Use them for hunting Huntsmen! I am told that Huntsmen are beneficial, and that their prey is things that you’d be quite glad not to have around – though you might prefer just not to know. They are also not really aggressive, but their bite is said to be fairly painful, and they are quite agile, running freely around the walls and ceilings. That really distracts you when you’re trying to watch telly. Catch and relocate, that’s the motto!