Wall bad. Don't forget it.

Time to reminisce on two related thingies; the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the 4.1 year anniversary of our variety-packed trip to Germany.

Casting my mind back to 1989, I do vaguely recall nonchalantly trudging past the TV while Mum and Dad excitedly exclaimed "Look, the Berlin wall is coming down! I never thought we'd see the day!". I (probably) responded with a grunt and wheelspun noisily away in the Datsun 1600, more interested in what my equally fashion-challenged mates' thought of my new happy pants.

I'm thankful that 16 years later, my nerd-ish curiosity forced me to bone up on my cold-war history in order to make the 2005 trip a little more interesting. And boy, did it...



Yet the world seems to have gone in the reverse direction to me. I'm (still) discovering the sheer weight, scope and relevance of "The Fall of The Wall". Others seem to think it almost a tragedy. We've been numbed to the significance of it. With articles like this in the UK's Guardian it's no wonder. It's called "creeping socialism", prevalent throughout our mainstream politics and media.



I'm bemused to see some influential members of the modern intelligentsia reflecting on the euphoria of the Berlin Wall's destruction, yet elsewhere champion the very things which put it up in the first place. It's one thing to have Ostalgie- morbid fascination for the quirky things of the former east. Sharon and I sure did; the time-capsule chic, serial blandness, happy traffic light icons, and the wonderfully awful Trabant.


Happy little communist girl says WALK...or we'll lock you up in a small, steel cell and deprive you of sleep for ten days...



But it's another thing to willfully ignore the arrests, tortures, imprisonments, and murders of those who simply had an opinion, the surveilance, the corruption, the gulags, the deprivation, the control.

Let's break it down into two often-quoted expressions of socialist romanticism, which were said to me first hand, by some of my dearest German friends from the former east:

There was no poverty in the GDR.

There was no crime in the GDR (former East Germany).

Indeed. Poverty is relative. There was no poverty in the GDR because everyone was poor. And of course there was no crime in the GDR- amongst the citizens. All the crime was being committed by the government.



I was also told this: Secret State Police? Everyone has them! Australia has ASIO, no?

Sure, except here our "secret" police protect us from terrorism. In the GDR, they protected the regime from criticism. Using whatever brutal means necessary.

If you're like me and let the actual event pass you by, it's not too late to learn what it meant. And, let me spell it out for you, why it was a fantastic day. The wall didn't "fall". It was pushed. By very, very brave people. I hope that spirit doesn't remain in the past.


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Aussie F1 ace Webber slams vertically challenged people

Yes this is petty but very effective example of why I hate most newsmedia.

Here's a headline from the Sydney Morning Herald: Casey Stoner quick to criticise circuit after slick effort , with an opening claim that Stoner took a "swipe at the condition of the track".

Those not sophisticated enough to read past the sound-byte will think that this great Aussie World Champion comes to his home event and does nothing but whinge that the circuit is rubbish, the corners all go the wrong way, it's too far from anything, the flag marshalls are all ugly and the toilets aren't clean.

Note to SMH journalist Martin Boulton: Either you learn your subject, such as how racing drivers or riders always criticise a racetracks' early lack of grip, and this is perfectly normal... or stick to something that you're good at, like busting a footy player getting drunk, or something.


And the stones in the sandtraps are too big and cause ouchies..

So, congratulations to Casey Stoner and Mark Webber for breaking an Aussie drought in world motorsport, all in one weekend.

Although I do hope the Sydney Morning Herald don't catch wind of Webber's post-race press comments, when asked about his fuel strategy; "I knew that Barrichello ...was a bit shorter than me..."

Please, Mark. We know you're a lanky guy but go easy on the dwarfist comments. Rubens is shorter than just about everybody.


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Birthday!!

Happy Birthday to our beautiful daughter Omi. She's now a teenager. Although, unofficially, she has been for some time.

Archive footage. In fact I think the horse is dead now...

To herald this milestone she now has an iPod.

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Cliches accidentally merged creatively with other cliches #1

"We'll burn that bridge when we come to it"
-somebody or other

I had to share that. In other news, the bride and I traveled to sunny Whyalla recently to investigate our "Spec home". For the uninitiated, we purchased a reddish coloured block of land in mining-boomtown Whyalla to build a new house, and rake in all the profits of capital gain, negative gearing and carbon trading* before the Gum-mint changes it all and steals our hard-earned money.

Unfortunately most of the builders who set up in blossoming Whyalla forgot to bring some semi-vital services, such as bricklayers, carpenters, roofing people, plumbers, electricians and telephone sanitisers. You know, the kind of people who come in handy when you want to build a house and can't do it yourself because you live too far away.

So we headed up north to see if being in the same town as the builder for a few days might spur them into action. It kinda worked. We feared the boomtown had become a ghost town on the Monday, before remembering that rural South Aussies do take their time getting to work at the beginning of the week.

Despite the house not being finished, beloved bride saw positives. Whilst hanging curtains she noted that the rudimentary state of the interior helped us become more detatched to the newness of the place, knowing that we would never live in it.

She was right. It would have been even better if that state of detatchment could have produced an extra 5K to pay the massive mortgage whilst vacant. We still await the builder to finish, some public services to be connected, property management appraisals, and all the rest.

But I guess we'll burn those bridges we we come to them.


*I wish

Before



...and after (spreading 400 sqm of mulch bark with nothing but a shovel. Never again. Ever.)





The reserve over the back fence is currently around 150,000 acres


A heavy roller would have been better, but less likely to get us home afterwards


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