If it's September, it must be footy finals

I am sitting here at my desk with my finger on the redial button of the phone, trying to get through to the hotline to register for tickets to the AFL grand final, on behalf of His Dagginess, who is at work. So I thought a bit of a miscellanaea of football blogging was called for to pass the time.
The medal at left belongs to the Dude, for his contribution to the Newtown Swans Under 11s this season. Since it was presented to him on Sunday, he now gets up in the morning and comes in to my room to wake me with all five medals jingling around his neck (one for each junior year, plus two extras for playing in grand finals) and his five trophies (from his Auskick years -- that's under eights for those not in the know) are currently on temporary display in the living room. He has signed up to play again next year already: I love that about him, that although he's by no means a star of the team he gets in there and does his best every week. How inspiring! (I also love it that he is defying his orthopedic surgeon's prediction that he would be left too far behind his peers to compete in physical sports by this age. Imagine how good he would be if he wasn't handicapped by his talipes!)
Yesterday I was discussing the footy with a colleague I have known for many years in many different capacities and publishing companies. He always has unique insights into the game because he is a real "footy fan" rather than a follower of any particular team. Anyway, we came up with the theory that having an alternate strip is the secret of success on the football field. I have always thought that the Swans play better in their stripey socks, and this year they have been wearing them all season (and doesn't Ted Richards make them look good?). Fremantle, too, have a striking clash jersey and look how well they are doing this year! This is not just a frivolous theory, though: my colleague and I think it is because the white jersey/striped socks give the team greater visibility on the field, thereby making it easier to spot a teammate for more accurate kicking or handballing. I mean, when Freo were wearing their purple strip and Melbourne their navy blue on Saturday night, you could hardly tell the teams apart!
And here's another footy rant, about the grand final ticket registration. Today we had to call a hotline to register for the waiting list to purchase a grand final ticket, before we even know if our team is in the grand final. For this, we had to pay a registration fee of $7 per ticket, non-refundable, of course. There are four clubs still in the running; if 20,000 members of each club register to be on the waiting list for tickets at $7 per ticket, Ticketmaster have just made $560,000 clear profit (they didn't even have to employ staff as the whole process is automated). Come in, spinner!
Last, but not least, here are some jokes for His Dagginess' dad:
Q: Why were Richmond fans happy that round 22 was so late this year?
A: Because they finally got to see their team play in September!

Q: Why does the AFL have a final eight?
A: So Richmond can come ninth.

His Dagginess

New pseudonym for the Fun Policeman (formerly known as the Voice of Reason):
Henceforth he will be known as "His Dagginess".

This arises from a conversation we had yesterday, discussing the fact that His Dagginess has just laid out good money to immortalise our family names in football fandom by buying a bit of inscribed concrete. I wouldn't mind if he'd just had his own surname inscribed for posterity, but no, he had to include mine as well! My response was, "In future, can you please exclude me from your acts of dagginess?"

Later that day, I received a sulky email telling me how shattered he was by my insult. So? It's not like it's written in stone! Ugh!

In which it is discovered that jet skis may have a useful purpose after all, and that having 11 dimensions is much better than four

I've signed up for another lecture series at Sydney University Continuing Education: this one is called Topics in Modern Astronomy. Each week a guest speaker will discuss their particular area of expertise. The first was a talk by Joss Hawthorn, of the Anglo-Australian Observatory, on Dark Matter. Here's what I learned:
How jet skis can be used to explain Special Relativity
Imagine a jet skier travelling north at 100km/h, and another one travelling east at 100km/h, and draw a graph of their paths over a period of time (such as a second). Now imagine another jet skier travelling north-east and draw his (we will assume it's a male) path on the graph: the plots of all three are the same length but if you read the graph back to the axes, the third jet skier is not travelling at 100km/h, but appears to be going slightly slower than the two that are travelling along the axes. Now change north to Time and East to Space and there you have special relativity: the faster you travel through space, the slower you travel through time.

Why the universe is easier to understand the more complicated it gets
Joss Hawthorn is very excited about the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, which Dr Brian Cox talked about in the Science Week lecture that the Dude and I attended. The problem with dark matter is that it is dark (duh!), not just to our eyes, but across the entire electromagnetic spectrum: it just doesn't show up on any detector we've been able to build so far because it doesn't interact with baryons (the stuff that stars -- and people -- are made of). So how do we know that dark matter is there? Because we need it to be there, to explain why the universe is shaped the way it is.
One theory about why we can't see it is because it exists in one of the seven other dimensions that are predicted by string theory. So the great minds of our time are busy trying to work out how to see into those other dimensions: Joss Hawthorn reverently refers to the work of Ed Witten, who he claims is the greatest thinker since Einstein, and Stephen Hawking should eat his heart out.
This is why they are building the Large Hadron Collider, where -- when they turn it on in 2008 -- they will smash gold atoms together and make pretty pictures of the results. Here's my drawing of the picture Joss drew on the blackboard of what the results might look like:










So that's all clear then? Good.

Oh. Well, just in case, here is a link to the Millenium Simulation at the Max Planck Institute, showing what the universe would look like if you could see the dark matter. Very pretty.

Stay tuned for next week's lecture on wide-field astronomy.

Gawd, I love this city!

For non-Herald readers, the title of this post is a frequent quotation from Peter Fitzsimon in his newspaper columns, The Fitz Files. And it pretty well sums up how the Fun Policeman (okay, okay, I'm thinking about another pseudonym) and I felt last night.
It was a balmy spring evening in Sydney, the sky was clear of clouds for the first time in a week and we were strolling across the forecourt of the Opera House, having enjoyed a production of The Tempest by the Bell Shakespeare Company. The waves of the harbour were lapping gently against the quay, as many as six or seven stars were visible through the light pollution of the city (okay, it's not a perfect city), and all seemed right with the world.

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep
Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.

The play? It was a lovely, simple production. John Bell was brilliant as Prospero, naturally. Miranda and Ferdinand were suitably gormless, and Ariel sang beautiful, melancholy songs with a remarkable voice. I remember debating, many years ago, whether Ariel was meant to be played as a male or a female, and I suspect Shakespeare himself intended the gender of his airy spirit to be indeterminate. This Ariel was unequivocally played as a female, and Bell has added an undercurrent of hints that she might be half in love with Prospero to the master/servant relationship. Caliban was one of the best on stage, I thought; he was played by a tall, lanky and remarkably good-looking young man, so the ugliness of the character had to come from the actor's skill rather than costume or make-up. He did, however, sport an impressive mohawk, which the Dude was jealous he didn't get to see.

The Tempest must be on the HSC curriculum this year, as a large contingent of teenagers trooped into the theatre just before the lights went down (there was no curtain to go up) and immediately raised the noise level by about 300 per cent. The FP has decided that the collective noun for a group of teenagers should be a "spectacle", because -- in his opinion -- they are constantly trying to draw attention to themselves by talking or laughing louder than necessary, or making a fuss about things that aren't worth making a fuss about. As we have lived with teenagers (and occasionally their friends/boyfriends, thus experiencing the phenomenon of a spectacle of teenagers in our own home) for the past seven years, we know what they're like.

Hip hop hooray

Have I mentioned how much I like the Hilltop Hoods? I'm not normally a fan of hip hop, but they got my attention when the Dude and I first saw the video clip of "Clown Prince" (click on the link to their website above, go to the video tab and you can see the clip and hear the song). Then I bought the album to listen to on the 24-hour plane trip to New York. Now I'm hooked on "Conversations from a Speakeasy", while the Fun Policeman (who keeps begging me for a new pseudonym, by the way) loves the eponymous single from the CD, "The Hard Road". Okay, there's a bit of a language issue, but they have a kind of funk feel to some of their tracks that I really like. Top it off with the really refreshing sound of the Aussie accents and it's quite cool (or fully sick, or whatever I am supposed to say to sound young).

It's your round (if you're hangin' at the back of the bar)
So just bounce (like you're bangin' in the back of your car)...

Cafe wisdom

Printed on my take-away cappuccino cup, from Bitton Gourmet in Erko:

take away coffee
and what other pleasures are left?

Clever clogs

This ad has been appearing for a few weeks now on the puzzle pages of the Sydney Morning Herald (and perhaps, I assume, in other major dailies). It's just a photograph of a life-size pen, of the kind that you might choose to use to complete the crosswords, sudoku and other puzzles on the page. How effective is it? Well, twice now I have been sitting at the table doing the crosswords, put down my coffee cup and absent-mindedly tried to pick up the photograph of the pen to write in a word.
Not only that, but yesterday I caught the Dude doing it too. (So it's not just my 40-year-old senility kicking in, or my 40-year-old eyes going.)
Here are my excuses:
1. Haven't finished morning coffee yet so brain is still fuzzy.
2. Same brand of pen I have in my home office, so obvious mistake.
3. Clever advertising campaign.

Stitching update

I thought it was time I showed some of my recent handiwork. Here is the block I embellished for Sue in the Round Robin I recently participated in. It will be on its way home today or tomorrow, I hope. Sue's blocks are all crazy-patch christmas trees, so on this one I added some gold star charms and coloured "tinsel". The star at the top of the tree (it wouldn't quite all fit in the scanner) was made of gold threads using soluble fabric stabiliser (which was the theme of the Round Robin). I hope Sue likes it!

Weirdos

We've just had Science Week here in Sydney and the weekend was packed with fun and exciting stuff to do at the Ultimo Science Festival. The Dude and I, along with his friend Titania and her brother Boris and parents, headed down to some of the displays, events and talks. Who knew that you could turn an ordinary drinking straw into a maddeningly annoying noisemaker with just a pair of scissors? Thanks to the Young Scientists Australia, NOW we know....
Yesterday the Dude and I went to listen to a lecture by Brian Cox -- former new wave pretty boy musician and current plotter of the paths of electrons -- about what the universe is made of. Maybe it was partly the adorable Mancunian accent and the floppy Beatles-style fringe, but this guy really lived up to his claim of being a science communicator. The Dude, who had threatened to fall asleep as he did in the front row of the Darwin Day lecture, stayed awake for the whole thing. I copied down a really cool little table that explains all about quarks and leptons and bosons (such as the relationship between up quarks and charm quarks, for example, which I have never been able to understand before).
But I am not going to give you a precis of the whole lecture here. What I wanted to blog about was the weirdos. We sat through an hour-long talk, with lots of pictures and graphics and even quotes about poetry, and heaps of stuff about the subatomic structure universe made sense even to a layperson like me (and the Dude). But when question time came around, the first person to stand up said, "Everything you have just said is wrong because..." [produces a small bottle] "... I have gravity right here in a jar." Or something like that. (I swear the bottle bit is true, I just don't remember his exact words.) Much rolling of eyes around the audience ensued, but super-smooth Dr Cox just smiled and said, "I promise to talk to you later, but now we'll move on to a question that will interest everyone in the room." How I could have hugged him! (Mmmmmm....)
Second question comes from the other side of the lecture theatre, from a bespectacled middle-aged man in suit who claims to be a physicist: "How can you do experiments on quarks and stuff if you can't see them?" I would have said, "Well, der, weren't you listening for the last half hour?" but super-patient Dr Cox took the trouble to explain AGAIN how his experiments work. Then he cracked a joke at the suit guy's expense, in the nicest possible way, so that even the suit guy had to laugh when Dr Cox asked what branch of physics he was in, "because those kind of questions usually come from people who are after my grant money."
After that, a few sensible questions were asked and answered. But it made me realise that science communicators must get to see more than their fair share of weirdos. My admiration for those who do it (Bad Astronomer, Pharyngula, etc, please take a bow) has just doubled.

Hysteria Alert!

I received an email the other day with pictures of a plant that had apparently been killed by being watered with microwaved water. Normally I delete these emails after a cursory glance but the hysterical language of this one caught my attention. I Googled it and found this website. The website admits what the email does not: that the experiment may have been flawed, that the results were not statistically significant, and that the photographs had been doctored.

But what I enjoyed most about the email was the additional conclusions added by one of the forwarders somewhere in the chain. I reproduce it below, with my own thoughts in square brackets.

The problem with microwaved anything is not the radiation people used to worry about; it is how it corrupts the DNA in the food [but water doesn't have DNA, so how does this experiment prove anything about radiation and DNA?] so the body can not recognize it. So, the body wraps it in fat cells [oooh, a present. For me?] to protect itself from the dead food or it eliminates it fast. [Dead food? Isn't all food dead when you eat it? I mean, maybe my parsley is still photosynthesising when I pick it out of the pot... and I think I ate a live pippi at the beach once.... It will definitely be dead once you microwave it, in any case.]

Think of all the Mothers heating up milk in these "Safe" appliances. [Uh-oh. Hysteria Alert! Using Capital Letters in the Middle of Sentences is always a bad sign.] What about the Canadian nurse that warmed up blood for a transfusion patient and accidentally killed them when the blood went in dead. [Those damned Canadians, eh? They're always doing stupid stuff that no-one in the good ole USA would do, eh?] But the manufacturers say microwaves are safe and to keep using them. Ask your Doctor. I am sure they will say it's safe too. [And you would rather me believe a 6th grader than my GP?] Proof is in the pictures of living plants dying. [That have been doctored, by the admission of the website owner.] Try it yourself. [This is about the only sensible sentence in the whole article.] Remember You are also Living. [So don't microwave your own head.] Take Care.

My reponse to this drivel is this:
The problem with alarmist anything is not that the original experiment was necessarily faulty, it's how it corrupts normally sensible people's brains so they cannot recognise rubbish when they read it. So the brain wraps it in hysteria to protect itself from actually having to process dead wrong information.

Think of all the Scientists trying to teach Sense to your children. And don't blame Canadians (or, in Australia, New Zealanders) when you are trying to make a far-fetched fictional anecdote sound scientific. Doctors say your brain is safe and you should keep using it. Ask your teacher. I am sure they will say it's safe too. Proof is obtainable with only a little effort, so try it yourself. Remember, you also have a brain. Use It.

The Big Four-Oh

Okay, now I am 40 years old in both Australia and the US. To celebrate my birthday, we drove (well, some of us drove and some rode their Harleys) down through Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia to North Carolina for the 2006 Smokeout and, coincidentally, to visit Farmer Pete's sister and her family. Just to whet your appetite for more, here I am celebrating my age by defying death on the back of a Fat Boy (that's the bike, not Farmer Pete). You can see more photos over at my Flickr album (click on the link in the sidebar to get there), including two of the cutest boys in North Carolina.

Niagara Falls

Note: I'm having intermittent difficulties uploading pics to Blogger from my sister's computer, and today is one of those days. So I apologise for having to give you links to Flickr instead of photos right here in the blog.

Although the day started out wet and windy, by the time my sister and I got to Niagara Falls it was clearing (although still windy -- but the falls are always windy due to the huge updraft created by the massive amounts of water dropping over the edge). Those who have seen my photos of my last visit to Niagara will recall that we crossed over into Canada to see the falls from that side two years ago, so this year we decided to visit the American Falls. Goat Island is the tract of land that separates the Canadian Falls (Horseshoe Falls) from the Bridal Veil and American Falls. We parked on the Island, then walked out to the Three Sister Islands, a rather appropriate destination although only two of the three sisters were actually present. Wonder if we'll ever manage to get all three of us there at the same time?
After checking out the Horseshoe Falls from the south side and eating lunch in the Top of the Falls restaurant -- I had a local beer called the Dawn Patrol that was quite tasty -- we ventured over to the American Falls. The Cave of the Winds tour involved a 175-foot descent in a lift (or an elevator, as Farmer Pete insists) to a boardwalk that takes you right under the foot of the falls -- hence the yellow condom and strange sandals. Naturally, this didn't stop me from getting my jeans soaking wet when we went up onto the Hurricane Deck.
I am always amazed by the sheer quantity of water that goes over Niagara every second. Especially in the light of our drought-stricken continent downunder, it just seems impossible that there is enough water in the entire world to keep the Falls pumping millions of litres a second, 24/7, 365 days a year. Mind-blowing!

Animals upstate

Here's Farmer Pete mowing the lawn. It only takes him about five hours, and that's just the bit around the house. The field at the back is waist-deep in grass ready for hay-making.
Here's the supreme terror of the house in pensive mode: Sprocket the Not-So-Brave Beagle (he's quite scared of Puss when Puss is in a mood).
Puss is much more my style: he just lazes around in the sun all day and stalks the halls at night, occasionally taking a swipe at Sprocket if he gets too annoying.

Here's some upstate wildlife. The deer come down most days at dusk: on this day there were five or six in the hayfield. One spotted me with the camera and went bounding off into the trees, leaping high over the grass and showing the white underside of his tail with each bounce.


I've been trying to get close enough to a bumble bee to get a photograph for years, but they just won't hold still. These lumbering guys are about five times the size of Australian bees and make a much lower droning sound. I grasped the chance to finally get a photograph when we arrived in Colden to find a veritable graveyard of bumble bees in the side porch. Don't know why they all come to Colden to die!

Back to the blogosphere -- in New York

After several months of hiatus, I'm back! And I'm in New York!
I arrived in New York city on Friday evening, in pretty good shape thanks to a surprise upgrade to business class on my flight. The Upstaters (my sister and her husband) flew down to meet me at the airport and we dragged our luggage out to Uncle's place in New Jersey, which would be our base camp for daily forays into the Big Apple: just an hour on the bus each way.
I had a short list of four things I wanted to see or do in NY city: one of the big art galleries, Central Park, Greenwich Village and a Broadway show. We easily did all that and more, but there's still plenty to see next visit! All the photos are here, in my Flickr account.

Day 1
We headed straight for Times Square where we sipped coffee and watched the world go by. From Times Square we took a stroll uptown to the Rockefeller Centre. The Museum of Modern Art turned out to be the gallery of choice, rather than the Met, and it was all I thought it would be. Seeing first-hand original artworks that I've studied and written essays about was awe-inspiring. It's such a great collection of iconic works. When the security guards threw us out at closing time, we headed downtown to Chinatown for dinner. Much to my delight, I found several stores and street vendors who were selling the delicious hot coconut milk tea that the Dude and I fell in love with in Shanghai. I bought a cup for the Upstaters, who declared it delicious (although Pierre said it would be better without the "gloppy shit" in the bottom).

Day 2
On this fine sunny Sunday we elected to visit Central Park, only to find that half the park was closed to the public because of a Puerto Rican parade. Still, we walked through Strawberry Fields (and saw the Dakota apartment block where John Lennon was shot), strolled around the Lake to the Bethesda fountain and visited the Belvedere Castle for a great view of the Turtle Pond and the city skyline over the park. Shakespeare's garden was lovely, with lots of flowers in bloom. From Central Park we dropped in at the Waldorf ("where folks sit around all day") for high tea. Heading back downtown we went to Battery Park and visited the World Trade Centre site before going to Little Italy for dinner al fresco.

Day 3
Greenwich Village was ticked off the list today: Washington Square, NYU, the Stonewall Bar and various other sites. We ate lunch in a bar that was showing the World Cup, but just missed the Australia vs Japan game (that Australia won 3-1, and apparently John Aloisi made a hero of himself again). In the afternoon, we took the ferry to Liberty Island and Ellis Island to get an education in local history and some photographs of an iconic landmark. For dinner we found a little cajun cafe called Great Jones, so I got my first taste of gumbo and cornbread.

Day 4
Now with thoroughly sore feet, we had tickets for a show on Broadway this evening and everything else on my list done, so our first stop was NY Choppers, a custom bike shop famous among bikers like the Upstaters. Just down the road we ate lunch at the Hello Deli, which is apparently famous because it is a regular segment on Letterman. The owner was happy to pose for photographs with the customers, all day. And the sandwiches were good. Next stop was the South Street Sea Port, where there was an exhibition of plastinated human bodies similar to the one I saw in Sydney with the Aforementioned Engineer. The Upstaters were keen, so we checked it out. Afterwards we went to Union Square to meet my fellow blogger, Kevin, and get the lowdown on what we had missed from a true New Yorker! Last stop was Times Square (again) for a piece of New York pizza and some cheesecake to complete our sampling of NY cuisine. Spamalot was our Broadway show of choice (due to a long-term Monty Python indoctrination) and we were not disappointed, apart from the fact that the big-name stars (Tim Curry, David Hyde Pierce and Hank Azaria) had been replaced by lesser-known performers. We finally made it back to New Jersey and fell into bed, knowing that the next day was just for travelling.

Now we're upstate, in sunny Colden where the temperature is (uncharacteristically) supposed to hit 90 degrees in the next day or so. (That's about 35 degrees for those who think in Celsius.) The Upstaters have family visiting for the Father's Day weekend so tomorrow looks like a grocery shopping day.

Philosophy 101: on happiness

Last night I attended my first philosophy class, which was a rapid-paced overview of the history of philosophy, touching briefly on each of the types of philosophy and the examples of philosophers that we will cover in future weeks. The class has about 30 people in it, ranging in age from about mid 20s to 70-odd, and ranging in style from hippy chic to business suits. There are only about six or seven men in the class. I am not sure what this says about philosophers!
The good news is, the lecturer stayed on topic. There were questions from the students, and almost all of them were related directly to the topic (one was about whether we could have the air-conditioner turned off, so we'll excuse that). This is such a nice change after my last course on string theory (which I have complained about at length in other blog entries).
During this class the teacher explained Aristotle's belief that happiness is the basic human need: everything we do can be boiled down to the pursuit of happiness.
This got me thinking about a conversation I had with my mother in January. Mrs B told me that she had made a new year's resolution to have no stress in her life (hence her unwillingness to visit me, as she and her partner find driving in the city stressful). I said, "Life is stress: you can't resolve not to have stress, you can only resolve to deal with stress better".
We talked about the fact that she doesn't feel happy when there is stress in her life. Happiness for Mrs B is a future prospect: she looks forward to a time of perfect felicity but doesn't experience it now. Any happiness she feels is tempered by the expectation that there is a better happiness just aeound the corner. I told her that I feel perfectly happy (when I am happy, which is by no means every moment of the day) now, and that I don't expect to feel any happier when I have paid off the mortgage/taken a holiday/eliminated stress.
Mrs B's response to my claim was to say, "Oh, but the worst thing that has ever happened to you is your father dying" (as if that's not bad enough).
I was a bit annoyed about this comment: it was as if she was trying to say that I could only think myself happy because nothing bad has ever happened to me. I admit I'm pretty lucky compared to some; but bad things have happened to me (I could have reminded her of an acrimonious divorce; my son's major surgery as a three-month-old baby and six months in a wheelchair as a three-year-old; losing two jobs because the companies went into liquidation, and so on) and bad things do happen to me and will continue happen to me. But good things also happen to me, and although I have never won the lottery or looked like a supermodel or been world-famous, I have (in the last few days):

• received a spontaneous kiss and cuddle from the Dude
• had a steamy kiss and cuddle with the Fun Policeman
• made at least two new acquaintances whose company I enjoyed
• giggled with the Dude's friend, the Princess, while looking at sperm under a microscope
• talked to a man who was wearing chain mail and a sword
• heard a Japanese choir singing in perfect harmony
  
• read part of a good book
• got butterflies in my stomach when Mr Darcy almost kissed Lizzie in the new Pride & Prejudice DVD
• eaten fresh sushi and drunk good coffee
• played my current favourite song on the car stereo (and sung along, loudly)
• walked in a park on a sunny day
  

... I could go on. The point I am trying to make is that all those things are moments of pure happiness, mixed in with the rest of life -- work, housekeeping, bill paying, etc. But those moments of happiness are what makes life worth living.
Aristotle was right.

Merry Christmas

Sorry for not blogging for a while -- I have been pretty busy and distracted. Here is the christmas tree I made using soluble fabric stabiliser for Joy's block in the Round Robin I'm participating in.

More Dude Sculpture came home this week -- I'll post a pic in a day or two.

Top 10, er... 1000

Gosh. If I didn't have to limit myself to a top 10 of must-read books, I could go on forever... oh, it looks like someone has. I want one!

FP at Mardi Gras: no comment

All love is equal

That was the theme of last night's Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras, which was the best parade in years. Better than last year, definitely better than the year before when my friend MJ and I cowered under a tree with rivers of raindrops running down inside our plastic ponchos.
This year the Fun Policeman finally managed to persude the Fire Brigade to join the police, ambulance and other emergency services by entering a float to show support of the GLBTQ community and the members of the service. He was absolutely hyped at the end -- they had a great time walking along and waving to the crowd, getting their pictures taken with various elaborately costumed parade participants (everyone wants a photo with a fireman!) Articles in the mardi gras press drew attention to the fireys' participation with the headline: What starts with F and ends with U C K in the Mardi Gras parade? Answer: A firetruck!
The FP said he saw Molly Meldrum and even got close to Toby Allen but he didn't get his picture taken with him -- dammit!
The following photo is especially to make MJ jealous: he couldn't make it this year due to a family wedding but sent me plaintive SMS messages all night asking how the parade was going. And the Sydney Convicts Rugby team in their jock straps was another sight to be seen!

Here's something close to home: the theme of the Lord [Lady] Mayor's entry was "you're not the only gay in the village", with signs representing each of the "villages" in the City of Sydney -- including my own little patch of turf.

More (and larger) photos in my Flickr set. Wait until you see the float sponsored by Lincraft!

Dude sculpture III

Looks like we have another Jackson Pollock on our hands. Anyone want to pay $5 million for these beauties?