Fish's stomach or stomach bug?

Sydney has had enough shark attack stories recently to make it seem like Perth. Apparently there are a lot of fish around, a lot of sharks eating the fish, and in the dawn or dusk they might go after a surfer or diver.

This morning the state Primary Industries Minister was on the radio responding to claims the government has neglected protection of swimmers from sharks. He said the way to be "100% safe" when swimming was to go to a swimming pool or something like that. This is a few days after news stories about cryptosporidium in public pools. If you want 100% safety while swimming, perhaps you'd better not swim. I'm not sure what "100% safe" activities you could take up instead, but summer's over now anyway.

Summer games

After the warmest May on record throughout much of Australia's east coast, it is now winter there. Despite some almost wintry weather here in London for the long weekend last week, it seemed like summer had finally come this weekend. The view on long train trips is that much cheerier after the spring growth, and the greenery combined with some warm sunny weather made it a great time to go walking, cycling or playing cricket.

The cricket was even more enjoyable because we won by 297 runs, despite starting late after waiting for the other team and reducing the match to 30 overs a side. It would have been nice if the opposition had had more than eight players, but when you need a net run rate of more than +3.3 from one game, you don't complain too much about a lopsided contest. The only thing that might have made it better would have been the short mid off holding on to the two near catches from my bowling!

Bouncing through the year

The year is marching on, and while there was no leaping, spring has sprung upon us. I still need my jumper, though.

St David is said to have died 1018 years ago today. I wonder if that's why the daffodil became a symbol of Wales.

1 December

It's now December, meaning that it's summer in Australia. In the northern hemisphere, there doesn't seem to be a uniform idea of when the seasons start. In the United Kingdom, the start of winter seems to be as often thought of as the winter solstice (the astronomical definition) or 1 November as the beginning of December. However, the meteorological definition of the seasons is the same as that used in Australia, and so it was announced today that the just completed autumn was the warmest since some time in the 70s. It has been fairly nice. In fact, I only got my scarves and gloves out yesterday.

When this report was mentioned on the radio this morning, it was tied in with several other stories related to today's date. It is five years since museums of galleries here were opened to the public for free, with entry fees only applying to special exhibitions. Given the number of such institutions in London, we really could make more use of that! It is also World AIDS Day. I think the red ribbon was the first of the now numerous coloured ribbons for various causes, in this case the plight of those suffering from a disease that looks likely to be more of a killer than the Black Death. Speaking of ribbons, the ABC reports that this weekend New South Wales Cricket Umpires and Scorers Association umpires in Sydney Grade Cricket will be wearing black ribbons for a cause of signficantly less importance. Once a member of this association, I agree with their point, whatever it's place in the scheme of things. However, the wearing ribbons of any colour, no matter how worthy the cause, pales into insignificance when I think of the work of the Christ Church Christian Care Centre and many others round the world actually working with the victims of AIDS and other problems.