July 11 in history

On July 11:

1274 Robert the Bruce King of Scotland was born.

 

1776 Captain James Cook  began his third, and final, voyage.

James Cook, portrait by Nathaniel Dance, c. 1775, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

1877 Kate Edgar became the first woman in New Zealand to graduate from university and the first woman in the British Commonwealth to gain a BA.

Solo coches, no personas

Traffic on the motorway slowed, the cars in front of us stopped, so did we.

The car behind us didn’t, or at least not soon enough.

There was a screech of brakes then a bump.

We pulled over as close to the side of the road as we could and a moment later the driver of the other car came up to see if we were okay. We were and so was she, her husband and their baby who were travelling with her.

The cars weren’t quite so lucky. Our bumper was torn and scratched but the car was still drivable. Their front bumper and wheel rim were mangled and a tyre had blown.

We filled in the accident report form which is mandatory in Spain and while we were doing it the driver kept saying, Lo siento, lo siento.” (I’m sorry, I’m sorry).

I replied, “Son solo coches, no personas.” (They’re only cars, not people).

Winter

It’s a little difficult to comprehend cold when it’s at least 30 degrees outside, but in sympathy with those of you at home, this Friday’s poem is Robert Burns’ dirge on Winter.

                           Winter

The wintry west extends his blast,
  And hail and rain does blaw;
Or the stormy north sends driving forth
  The blinding sleet and snaw:
While, tumbling brown, the burn comes down,
  And roars frae bank to brae;
And bird and beast in covert rest,
  And pass the heartless day.

“The sweeping blast, the sky o’ercast,”
  The joyless winter day
Let others fear, to me more dear
  Than all the pride of May:
The tempest’s howl, it soothes my soul,
  My griefs it seems to join;
The leafless trees my fancy please,
  Their fate resembles mine!

Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty scheme
  These woes of mine fulfil,
Here firm I rest; they must be best,
  Because they are Thy will!
Then all I want—O do Thou grant
  This one request of mine!—
Since to enjoy Thou dost deny,
  Assist me to resign.

    - Robert Burns -

Young Farmer of the Year underway

When my farmer came second in the Young Farmer of the Year contest he won a motorbike.

Some 30 years later the prize pool is worth more but the seriousness with which the contestants take the contest hasn’t changed.

And with good reason because the contest tests their intellectual and physical skills, public speaking, farming and general knowledge, personality and sense of humour.

One of the strengths of the contest is the way it moves around the country and involves the community which hosts it. Another is that it gives a taste of the physical and intellectual skills which modern farmign requires.

The grand final started in Palmerston North yesterday and finishes tomorrow . Kate Taylor is there   but she’s not happy with TVNZ. Farmgirl has also posted on the contest.

No bull

July 10 in history

On July 10:

1553 Lady Jane Grey took the throne of England.

The Streatham Portrait, discovered at the beginning of 21st century, is believed by many to be among the first posthumous portraits of Lady Jane Grey.[1]

1930 Canadian writer Alice Munro was born.

1967 New Zealand adpoted decimal currency.

1985 The Rainbow Warrior was sunk in Auckland Harbour.

Did you see the one about . . .

The science news cycle at Anti-Dismal

Office of devil’s advocacy 2 at Stephen Franks

Risky Behaviour at Frenemy

Weight Watchers and the historical astrocities argument  at M&M

The Office  at No Minister

Careful with the paradox of thrift at The Visible Hand in Economics

Apostrophe errors undermine credibility  at Bill Bennettnz (hat tip rivettingKate Taylor)

And a new (to me) blog: This New Zealand Life

Cordero pequeño

New Zealand lambs are usually killed at three to six months.

In Spain they’re only a few weeks old, so small it takes a leg to make a meal for one.

This one was cooked over a fire at our favourite cafe in Vejer de la Frontera, La Brasa de Sancho,  served simply with rice and baked potato and it was delicious.

Tanning our hides

Among the signs advertising beauty treatments in Singapore was one promising to lighten skins.

That struck me as strange, but perhaps people from there regard our desire to gain a tan as just as peculiar.

In spite of years of warning and repeated exhortations to slip, slop and slap, a tanned skin is stil regarded as more attractive than a pale and pasty one.

My generation spent most of its childhood outdoors. Summer Sundays at the river always finished with the application of Q-tol, that pink, sharp smelling liquid which I don’t think is available any more, which took the sting out of sun burn.

When I was a student I spent two summers as a pool attendant in Taupo, wandering round with as little on as was decent and only after my nose blistered did I start applying sun screen.

I’ve paid for it since with a couple of  skin cancers. They were basal cell carcinomas, which don’t usually spread and were spotted by my GP and removed and in the wake of that I am much more careful about limiting sun exposure.

The need to do this doesn’t just apply to Pakeha, there’s been a 90% increase in the incidence of melanoma in Maori.

Macdoctor has a theory as to why.

Should the taxpayer fund political parties?

David Farrar has given his usual intelligent and considered response to Labour’s submission on electoral finance at Kiwiblog.

The only thing I want to add is a very loud no to Labour’s self-serving and unprincipled suggestion that the taxpayer should fund poltical parties.

We have a very low hurdle for registration as a political party – just 500 members. The idea that any other organisation with as few members as that and as little accountability as most poltical parties have would get taxpayer funding as of right would never be countenanced and there is no reason why political parties should be treated differently.

Democracy is supposed to be of the people, for the people by the people not of a party, by the taxpayer for a few political groupies.

The Orange Man puts it succinctly at No Minister.

A little learning . . .

 . . . isn’t nearly enough when it comes to a foreign language.

My first attempts at learning Spanish were by correspondence. I had no trouble understanding the lessons but instead of doing a little each day I tended to do a fortnight’s work at a single sitting and then forgot everything I’d taken in by the next time I went back to it.

Studying at Otago University was more successful but learning the theory gives you skills in the opposite way from which you acquire them by total immersion. If you learn a language by living it you learn as children do, to understand what you hear first, then to speak and later to read and write. Learning it formally, reading and writing  usually come first then speaking and finally listening comprehension follows.

Three months total immersion at language school in Spain did more for my language skills than three years at university could have, but that was four years ago. Teaching night classes has helped me retain the basics but I’m very rusty with anything more advanced.

 That’s one of the reasons we’re back in Vejer de la Frontera where I’m spending mornings at La Janda language school.

It attracts students from all over the world and while we learn the  language we also learn about the Spanish culture and a little about the countries and cultures of our fellow students.

Es una experiencia muy especial, y día por día, poco por poco,  estoy aprendiendo más.  (It’s a special experience and day by day, little by little I’m learning more).

July 9 in histroy

On July 9:

1816 Argentina declared its independence from Spain.

1937 English artist David Hockney  was born.

We Two Boys Together Clinging (1961)

1964 US singer Courtney Love was born.

Mid week music

Keeping with the Spanish theme, the mid week music spot is Joaquin Sabina singing Contigo.

Short sighted storm on netball court

A Palmerston North nteball team has been told players may have to swap from shorts to skirts.

They’ve been playing in shorts for six years. but that is now being questioned.

Ms Walden told the Standard “there is no story here”, as the team was still allowed to wear shorts.

Ms Walden said no decision had been made on what the team could wear next year, but she wouldn’t rule out a ban on shorts.

There shouldn’t be a story here, but there will be one if the local administration, which has the right to make its own rules, doesn’t make the sensible decision which will make the issue go away.

What is it about a little bit of power which blinds people in authority to common sense?

Riverstone on-line

Riverstone Kitchen, one of North Otago’s best restaruants has a new website.

Buy local, think seaonal, eat well is Riverstone’s motto and it practices what it preaches, serving delicious, fresh food which includes produce from its own garden.

The website includes some of chef Bevan Smith’s recipes.

He has been providing recipes for the ODT. I can recommned his hazelnut shortbread.

Why does gender matter?

The announcment that Marion van der Goes has been appointed  Otago’s new Department of Conservation conservator makes much of the fact that she’s the first woman to hold that role in the province and only the second in New Zealand.

She appears to be well qualified for the job and I wish her well in it.

But being female or male isn’t important in this role and it’s illegal to discriminate on the grounds of gender.

Does the fact a woman gets a particular job is newsworthy mean that legal equality hasn’t translated into real equality?

Or is it time to stop the fuss about women’s appointments because all it does is reinforce the idea there’s something out of the ordinary about ordinary appointments just because a woman gets it?

Customary title explained

The foreshore and seabed issue ought to have been a simple one of property rights but it was complicated by racism , politics and ignorance over customary title.

The ministry review panel has  recommended that the Act which took the right to go to court from Maori be overturned.

Racism and politics will try to complicate what happens next. But Sir Douglas Graham has done his best to remove some of the ignorance with his lay person’s guide to customary  title in today’s Herald.

Parking meters in the way of Speights’ spring

A tap delivering spring water outside Speights brewery is used by  hundreds of Dunedin people a day in search of  something superior to the city’s supply.

But now the city council has put pay and display parking metres in the street   and people are worried they’ll have to pay while they fill their containers with water.

The chances of getting a ticket in the few minutes it takes to fill a bottle or two aren’t great. But you’d think a council which knew its city would have had the wit to put a five minute free park beside the tap.

Sun farms

Are sun farms the next big thing in power generation?

This one between Vejer de la Frontera and Cadiz covers about 10 hectares.

The Scientific American asks is the sun setting on solar power in Spain ? 

It says that waning subsidies and other markets might entice developers to move elsewhere. 

Could it work in New Zealand and if so, would development on this scale attract the opposition wind power has through the resource consent process?

Wind power old and new

Vejer de la Frontera is on the Costa de la Luz, the Coast of Light, west of the straits of Gibraltar where the Atlantic meets the Mediterranean.

This coast is the windiest place in Europe which is why Tarifa, about half an hour’s drive from Vejer, is a mecca for surfers.

It’s also an obvious place to harness the power of the wind and one of the features of its sky line is windmills old . .

 

. . .  and new:

Wind generation has been controversial here, what interested us was there are no pylons leading from the windmills which presumably means power is transmitted underground.