Posted in Rick's Posts on Aug 24th, 2011
With much relief at the completion of a marathon journey across the globe, albeit tinged with sadness at not being able to spend more time with more people, we’re safely back in Adelaide. Interestingly, the contrast between the Aussie Immigration team and the UK one was stark. I got a friendly greeting with a free [...]
Posted in Rick's Posts on Aug 16th, 2011
We’ve been pretty busy over the past week or so. The Zafira has been clocking up the miles and we’ve been abroad … if Scotland classifies as another nation. I’m sure Sean Connery, Alex Salmond and others would like nothing else. If the climate is anything to go by, they’re welcome to it. As we [...]
Posted in Rick's Posts on Aug 8th, 2011
We’ve hardly been back for 5 minutes and already feel at home again. While we’re effectively visitors here, the familiarity is strong and memories clearly still fresh. The nation seems to have changed little and, while getting about, the car has been finding its way without much intervention. Albeit hampered by the interminable road works [...]
Posted in Rick's Posts on Aug 4th, 2011
Well we’ve made it. Back onto English soil but rather unceremoniously. No smile and greeting of “Welcome home brother citizen”. Instead a bored glance from the immigration official. And the welcome from the car hire place was not much better either. You might have thought that these places would be used to dealing with the [...]
Posted in Rick's Posts on Aug 3rd, 2011
Singapore wasn’t quite so oppressively oppressive I’d happily live here. When I say that, I’m not in any way objecting against the form of government that operates here. If anything I’m a big fan of benign dictatorial oligarchy. The streets are spotless, public infrastructure efficient and development rapid. The average citizen seems to enjoy an [...]
Posted in Rick's Posts on Aug 1st, 2011
Just a quick update to say we’ve embarked on the first leg of our long-awaited return to the motherland to see, amongst others, my mother. Coming from the dry moderate winter of Adelaide, flying into mid-30s with near 100% humidity in Singapore has come as somewhat of a shock. However we’re acclimatising well by adopting [...]
Posted in Rick's Posts on Jul 14th, 2011
Sorry all this is going to be somewhat boring but necessary. Just to clarify our very rough itinerary for August, this should allow some of you to make plans in advance in case you’d like to catch up. 2nd – 3rd – in Singapore 3rd – land into LHR (and kiss ground etc) 4th – [...]
Posted in Rick's Posts on Jul 10th, 2011
All together now …. “Monorail!”. Well actually it’s “The Carbon Tax”, the Labor government’s latest white elephant. It seems that they haven’t found enough ways to tax every aspect of our lives so now we are being taxed for producing, as Jezza would put it, see-oh-twos. I have a number of major objections to and [...]
Posted in Rick's Posts on Jun 23rd, 2011
Last year, when my folks were here, Iceland decided to explode and the subsequent ash cloud grounded all flights in and out of Europe. Now, with our return journey almost here, it’s our turn to have pyroclastic material floating about the upper trophosphere over our heads. So, just in case anyone was wondering whether we’ll [...]
Posted in Rick's Posts on Jun 16th, 2011
It’s been a long time coming, only held once a year and delayed through procrastination on my part. The implied reference is to getting the official nod from our college that one has “made it”. That is, the transition to fully fledged member and recognition of becoming a peer. I really should have “graduated” last [...]
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