Arcticterntalk.org

The blog of a travelling psychiatrist and football lover. Who happens to be a halfway decent photographer. Takes a cynical view of the world

Archive for the month “July, 2016”

18 Jul 2016

Pokemon Go. Best Places to find Pokemon. There was a Zubat on my shoulder in Painshill Park 


Although this all sounds like nonsense in fact Pokemon Go is enticing teenagers outdoors to exercise like nothing else.

Painshill park is a large park in Cobham in Surrey 20 miles south of central London. It seems that within the game you are told places to go and catch both Pokemon but also win the tools you need to do this. Painshill is a great example of a large park that requires you to walk miles and all the places where the Pokemon activity is focuses are spread out widely. Seems that just maybe the less popular places in the park attract the most Pokemon? Maybe. Try the Sabine statue is my recommendation or the Ice House.


Any game that gets teenagers out and about is much to be commended. It’s good to see the return of Pokemon once again. Always has been one of the better games. Walking along I was somewhat surprised to be demanded to stand still as there was a Zubat on my shoulder. So who knows what might be living on your shoulder? 


Painshill park is a great place for walking and I have blogged many times on this wondrous place. It even has its own vineyard . Just google Arcticterntalk and Painshill to find all you need to know. 


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17 Jul 2016
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My Favourite Australian Street Art. Take a look


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17 Jul 2016
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Waking up with Cairns. A photographic memory. Reasons to Walk in the morning at sunrise.


Cairns looked at its most beautiful in the early morning light. A long esplanade gave beautiful sea views. The light gave fascinating patterns as the early morning sun rose. A variety of folks in size,shape and fitness were all happily exercising. To see the clouds drift apart in the early morning was gorgeous. This was the time to capture the images, by mid-morning all the mystique had vanished.

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17 Jul 2016

Australia is not an average place by far. Things are good here


From the moment your plane lands at 5 am and you are in a taxi at 5.20 am having been through immigration you know this is a kind of special and unique country. Maybe I was slow picking this up as obtaining an online business visitor visa was free and took maybe 30 seconds. The rules here are both sensible and enforced. A few unique ones such as a maximum speed of 10 kph for pedestrians . Australia is not cheap . Paying 4.5 Australian dollars for actually an awful mug of coffee by Darling harbour surprised me. Both that it was awful and expensive , on both counts. 




Things are sensible here. Hotel rooms are not ridiculously large and have things you actually want like a free minbar not for the alcohol , though there is that, but the water and Coke Zero etc. 

Wherever you look there are curious things. Parakeets sqwarking at people and plump one legged seagulls. The seagulls seem not frightened by the walking tourists and seem in competition to sqwark louder than the parakeets. 


Australian people are normal but a little more blunt than UK counterparts. With a dry humour that I find infectious. Service in bars and restaurants is just that , service. Far better than UK and on a par with Belgium and Slovenia where the best customer service is found. 


A curious number seem to wear no shoes although this couple seemed to be arguing after a night out . Strange things are also  seen like a gate with no clear purpose or function. 


Everywhere you look there are views that somehow differ from any other country. A lot of people run and exercise and driving through cities and towns it is striking how many sports facilities there are . Even the public toilets at Darling harbour are colourful and quirky. 


The roads are generally well designed and with clear variable speed limits that often  reflect school terms and school times. Plenty of speed cameras ensure that limits are adhered to. Do be prepared though for many tolls and the costs can be large . 

The views generally are impressive and street art adorns many walls and garages with some being special. Some of the simple things in life like waking early and capturing sunrise may be some of the most beautiful things you do in Australia. 

Australia is a long way from Europe and involves around 24 hours of flying but a place well worth visiting. 

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17 Jul 2016

Good Morning Australia . A photographic record of early mornings.


Whilst being in Australia travelling for a week on business waking up each morning in a different city provided very different experiences . 

In this short set of photographs I have tried to capture what one may see early in the morning especially when venturing out only a few yards from the hotel. 

  1. Sydney Darling Harbour 
  2.  2 . Prahran district of Melbourne 
  3. 3 . Perth 
  4. 4.Cairns
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13 Jul 2016

Prahran. Street art and art in Melbourne. The Cullen boutique hotel


Prahran is a fairly inauspicious suburb in Melbourne . It is however home to The Cullen hotel one of the worlds top 100 boutique hotels. The Cullen is an artistic hotel with fairly bright prints on every wall and rooms decorated in unusual styles that include donkeys and mules staring down at the bed as you sleep.


Prahran is also home to a fair number of street art designs including one of the best I have seen worldwide . This excellent piece of work is down a dismal alley and one can only presume the artist chose this site for some very precise reason.


There are street art paintings on many walls and garage doors. Even brightening up some of the more miserable looking alleys where rubbish bins line the walls.

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12 Jul 2016

Darling Harbour in Sydney. A wonderful place on a Sunday morning in winter


One of the benefits of changing time zones is that early morning starts get easier. Walking around Darling harbour at 8 am is probably the best time to see the sleepy harbour wake. Later in the day it gets busy with hoardes of tourists flocking to the multiple bars and restaurants . Walking down Murray street and across Pyrmont bridge is the best way to view the totality of the harbour. The many boats and types make interesting viewing. Some are harbour cruise boats whilst others take passengers on whale watching cruises. 


Food and drink is not cheap and the best way to eat is to take advantage of the various early dinner offers that mostly get a 2-3 course meal for around 30 Australian dollars. Ice creams seem even more expensive than those purveyed by the evil ice cream salesmen in Madrid. Slightly away from the main harbour areas are quieter and more interesting walks . Coffee in the sun alone with only a submarine for company will cost 4.5 A$. Rather cheaper than a 72 A$ salted caramel cake from Lindt.




A number of presumably very expensive apartments and maybe holiday homes line parts of the harbour near the Pyrmont pier ferry stop. Any numbers of ferries take passengers to any numbers of places . 

There are multiple photo opportunities with various boats including warships and a lighthouse. That can look impressive in the early morning mists. There seems no escape from the sqwarking parakeets that keep themselves above the tourists wherever they can. Pyrmont bridge is also a fascinating place with hoardes of interesting people and cyclists. And curiously a 10 kph speed limit for pedestrians. The bridge also surprised me by opening! 


The water in the harbour seemed almost crystal clear with amazing reflections. Around the harbour various building works were in progress with the size of some of the new buildings obscuring more of the skyline. The Ferris wheel seemed to be attracting the clouds in the same way mountains often do. Darling harbour should be on the list for any Sydney tourist for sure. 

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09 Jul 2016
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What is it like to travel in First Class long haul? A First Class Cabaret 


Recently for some curious reason my company booked me into First Class for a long haul trip to Sydney as opposed to the business class norm. So began my first and potentially last First Class experience. Let’s be clear . To get on a plane first and be given copious amounts of free champagne and wine is not a devastatingly bad experience. What however was quite bizarre was the behaviours of some of the staff in their desire to provide good service. 

  1. The most absurd behaviour was the fake smile. Any response was met with a mechanical smile whatever the answer or question. The smiling faces however also descended towards you at a faster rate than a capsule re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. Most disconcerting. Then they stopped With their faces inches from you with me expecting a curious embrace. Close behind was the man who danced down the aisle and dropped to his knees as if to propose to me. He introduced himself as in charge of something or other that sounded highly important but today was working in the Business class cabin. Curiously he said to me “welcome back to first class”. I did not want to disillusion him in case some reward might arrive with this erroneous belief but he told me that if I needed anything in the flight to ask for him by name. Never has the temptation been greater to ask for a parachute . 

Service was fantastic. Food and drink were wonderful but one is left with the belief that there is no need for this nonsensical behaviour as normal politeness would be perfectly adequate. Dinner included food items that had not crossed my radar Such as Salmon Canneloni . But again the absurd behaviours presumably drained from a manual were there again. Upon being asked if one preferred sparkling or still water the bottle was thrust in front of you to prove they were serving the correct type. The only thing missing was a vintage . In the toilets curiously someone had left a 2 p coin on the side possibly as some type of gratuity . 


The service and the food were excellent as one might expect in first class. The menus have a variety of restaurant type choices. Pork belly and sea bass as examples. A nice touch in my simplistic world was to see a burger on the menu too. 

A small criticism but one nonetheless was that there was no explanation of how the various switches worked the seat nor the lighting. Trial and error succeeded but  a few minutes to explain how the many multiple positions of the seat might be reached would have been good. 

So if you want service with people kneeling on the floor in front of you and restaurant food and are prepared to pay then first class is for you. For me? Maybe not. 

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08 Jul 2016

Are Sussex County Cricket Club The New Aston Villa of Cricket?


As a member of Sussex for many years I am becoming increasingly despondent over the quality of the cricket that has been served up while at the same time seemingly an ever increasing commercialisation.Sussex County Cricket Club is the oldest of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales and won its first ever official County Championship title in 2003 after a wait of 164 years. Subsequently Sussex became the dominant team of the decade, winning the title again in 2006 and 2007, and also winning limited over tournaments up until 2009.

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Since 2009 things have been getting steadily worse culminating in relegation from Division 1 in 2015 and currently sitting low in Division 2 with little hope of promotion this season.

Why is this happening? I cannot pretend to have the answers however it seems that many poorly performing players have been signed and then eventually released having shown none of their potential. There seems little rational into the signing of some players and those that continue to produce poor form seem to retain their place.

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My personal belief as of July 2016 is that Sussex are the second worst county side in the UK.    They have won 1 game in the county championship from the 8 played, have the lowest number of batting points in the division and only a single team has a lower number of bowling points. Yet I see little evidence of a spark to improve and change things. Players performing woefully continue to be selected. On occasions an individual player has had a good performance but these are never sustained with the single exception of Ed Joyce who has been consistent this season opening the batting. When watching the team play there seems little enthusiasm and fielding at times has been poor.  The costs of membership have been increasing almost unnoticed with membership costing £200-250 dependent on whether there is desire to watch T20. And these are not the only costs. Car parking for members at Arundel was £5 and the cost of food has got absurd approaching double the cost of the same food at a football game. Sausage , chips and tea at Arundel £11.

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This season we have seen the potential resurgence of Leicester as a county. They addressed the issues that led them to not win a game for 2 years and currently sit 20 points higher than sussex.

Something needs to be done. We need to see evidence of players taking accountability and tolerate less poor performances. Sussex cricket is in decline and I see no evidence of a reversal at present.

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08 Jul 2016
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Australian State New South Wales Ban Greyhound Racing


The state is working towards a ban from july 2017 after uncovering what they describe as “horrific” cruelty.”We are left with no acceptable course of action except to close this industry down,” Premier Mike Baird said. This emerged following an investigation and reports that animals such as rabbits and possums were being chased and killed in training sessions.

Four Australian states – NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania – subsequently launched inquiries into greyhound racing. In 2015 the NSW greyhound racing board stepped down after this illegal baiting was exposed in a TV documentary. This however was only the start. Mr Baird’s ruling came in response to the findings of a Special Commission of Inquiry, which were handed to the state government last week. The Inquiry found that in the last 12 years in NSW, between 49,000 and 68,000 dogs were killed because they weren’t considered quick enough to win races.IMG_3082

In recent years, the sport has enjoyed a resurgence across Australia. Prize money has sky-rocketed and betting is more than £2bn ($2.6bn) a year . This raises the question as to what will happen to the 20,000 racing greyhounds in this state alone. In the UK the Wimbledon Greyhound Welfare Trust that rehomes and socialises retired racing greyhounds expressed concerns earlier this year over the closure of a single greyhound track at Wimbledon and the potential influx of new greyhounds. FullSizeRender-1

There is already huge debate over this banning with views expressed that jobs and livelihoods will be lost, however the australian RSPCA reported this as an immense day for animal welfare. Opinion is thus divided.

NSW has strong penalties for animal cruelty of five year jail sentences plus a $22,000 fine for individuals found guilty of animal cruelty.

However critics argue that there is little evidence of these penalties being enforced.

In the short term the learnings are:

  • Animal cruelty is a crime and cannot be acceptable. Violators should be punished
  • Greyhounds do make excellent pets and at least 75% can be socilaised to the extent of making re-homing possible. Education is further needed over how to adopt these beautiful dogs through trusts such as WGW in UK that do superb work.
  • Banning greyhound racing may be an extreme reaction but it may be needed temporarily to identify and prevent the problems reported. Whether it is needed longer term remains to be seenIMG_0177

 

 

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