Tell it like is Tuesday - Animal rights and wrongs

There has been a recent outcry from parts of the community regarding animal testing in scientific research and a serious push to have it banned on any living creature.

People found secret footage of animal testing very disturbing and confronting as it does indeed show animals experiencing pain and discomfort, plus many are killed for the sake of the testing.

I get it, that is horrendous to witness and awful to consider when these are living things.
No one wants to see monkeys being tortured or animals killed for testing, but surely the reasons why this is happening is not going unnoticed.

I refuse to believe scientists are cruel and violent people with a disregard for human or animal life. On the contrary, it takes many years of education and experience to reach this level of ability to suppress the emotional attachment in order to conduct the research required.

It is not a nice thing, but it is science and it is integral to human development and survival.

I don't want to see it and I don't want to do it, I wish it wasn't necessary - but it is.

Please read the Nature article below and learn about the reason why we do animal testing and the enormous gains that come from it.

I know many people will find it too difficult to see past the animals happiness being compromised, but without it we would not have the medicines and cures we currently have.
If it is stopped, then we have gone as far as we can in medical research.

Scientists are not monsters.

Nature Journal

Entertainment's 90s Club Update

With approximately 50 people in the Entertainment's 90s Club, we have one member only in the Centurion club - Norman Lloyd.

Norman Nathan Lloyd (born November 8, 1914) is an American actor, producer, and director with a career in entertainment spanning roughly eight decades. Lloyd has appeared in over sixty films and television shows. His prominent film roles include Fry in Saboteur, Bodalink in Limelight, Mr Nolan in Dead Poets Society and Mr Letterblair in The Age of Innocence. In the 1980s, he gained a new generation of fans for playing Dr. Daniel Auschlander, one of the starring roles on the ground-breaking medical drama St. Elsewhere.

Full Wikipedia page here - Norman Lloyd

Top 5 Entertainers in the 90s Club below

1	100	Norman Lloyd	FILM	Dead Poets Society
2	99	Olivia de Havilland	FILM	Gone With the Wind
3	98	Kirk Douglas	FILM	Spartacus
4	98	Zsa Zsa Gabor	FILM	Lovely to Look at
5	98	R.G. Armstrong	FILM	Dick Tracy

 TV Exclusively 90's Club also below

1	97	Marjorie Lord	TV	Make Rom for Danny
2	96	Al Molinaro	TV	Happy Days
3	95	Alan Young	TV	Mr Ed
4	94	Noel Neill	TV	The Adventures of Superman
5	94	Abe Vigoda	TV	Barney Miller

 Only 3 Musicians make the top 50 at the moment

97	Vera Lynn	MUSIC	We'll Meet Again
92	Kay Starr	MUSIC	You were Only Foolin
90	Roger Williams	MUSIC	Autumn Leaves

FRIDAY - FUN STUFF

Welcome to Fantasy Family Feud.

Today we have the Windsor family from Edinburgh playing for $10,000 in the Fast Money round.

First up is Elizabeth who joins me now as Philip awaits on the head phones. 

 

Elizabeth I will ask you 5 questions and you have 15 seconds to respond. You can pass and we will come back if there is time. 15 seconds on the clock, good luck.

Name something useful in the home

"Slaves"

 

Name a place where you will find a lot of primates

"

"Australia"

What food do people eat when they are low on money"

 

 

"...pass"

 

 

 

Name a person found on the notes of Australian currency

"Me!"

 

 

Name a popular Australian Prime Minister

 

And we are out of time.

Lets see how well you did

1. Slaves           0

2. Australia       5

3. Pass               0

4.  Me (QEII)   56

5. Pass               0

TOTAL           61

 

Let's wipe the board clean and get Phillip out here now.

 

Philip, I will ask you 5 questions and you have 20 seconds to respond. You can pass and we will come back if there is time. 20 seconds on the clock, good luck.

Name something useful in the home

"Slaves "

Try again
 

"Female Slaves"

Name a place where you will find lots of primates

"Australia"

Try again

"Texas"

What food do people eat when they are low on money?

 

" Pass  " 

Name a person found on the notes of Australian currency

"Rolf Harris"

Name a popular Australian Prime Minister
 

"Harold Bishop"

What food do people eat when they are low on money?

"Small pheasants"

 

Okay let's see how well you did and whether you have reached 200 points to win the $10,000.
 

1. Female Slaves       3 - the top answer was shoe horn

2. Texas                     0 - the top answer was Canberra

3. Smaller Pheasants  0 - the top answer was McDonalds

4. Rolf Harris             22 - that was the top answer

5. Harold Bishop         0 - the top answer was Harold Holt

Total                            79

 

Sorry Windsor family we didn't reach the 200 point marks but you get to take home the board game version of the show.

 

Until next week, keep smiling and bye for now.

 

Thursday Things - Sydney Trains

                                                               SYDNEY TRAINS

Every working day I, like thousands of other Sydney siders travel aboard the Sydney Trains network.
 My train crosses over the Sydney Harbour Bridge and I have to admit that I have stopped looking out the window when I cross like I used to. But how well do we know the history of Sydney Trains and how it all operates? Most of us don't have the time, so I am going to devote a few Thursdays to examining the network - its past- its present and its future.

Sydney Trains is statutory authority, owned and operated by the New South Wales Government for all passenger rail services in the metropolitan Sydney area. The network is a hybrid metro-suburban railway with a central underground core that serves 182 stations over 815km of track and operates 20 hours a day operation with train frequencies of every three minutes or better in the underground core, 5-10 minutes at most major stations all day, 15 minutes at most minor stations all day. (on a good day) On weekends, service is less frequent with headways of upwards of a half hour on outer stations. (when there is no track work) Sydney Trains operates seven suburban lines, plus a late night NightRide bus network across metropolitan Sydney.

On 1 July 2013 a restructure of RailCorp resulted in all suburban services in the Sydney Metropolitan area bounded by Berowra, Emu Plains, Macarthur and Waterfall transferring from CityRail to Sydney Trains. The Sydney Trains logo, nicknamed The Hop, replaced the L7 logo introduced  in the 1970s and the Waratah logo introduced in 2009. At this time, Howard Collins OBE the former Chief Operating Officer from London Underground was appointed as Chief Executive of Sydney Trains.
We will look at Cityrail's history next time.

The main hub of the Sydney Trains system is Central station, where most lines start and end. Trains coming from the T2 Airport Line and T3 Bankstown Line, after travelling anti-clockwise on the City Circle, sometimes terminate upon arrival at Central and proceed to the Macdonaldtown Turnback. However, most trains continue on and become respective outward bound T2 Inner West and South Line trains. The reverse applies for trains coming from the Inner West and South Lines, which, if not terminating, become outward bound trains on the T2 Airport and T3 Bankstown Lines respectively. In the same manner, most trains on the T1 Western Line and T1 Northern Line become the T1 North Shore and Northern Line once they reach Central. Services on T4 Illawarra line convert to a T4 Eastern Suburbs Line service.

 

 

 

 

Stay tuned for more information about Sydney Trains.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Garden Palace - Book update

Garden Palace

 

For the last five years I have been writing my first novel as a side project /hobby.

It began whilst working at a major Sydney icon where I was an usher and a tour guide and between shifts or during boring performances, my mind would wander and imagine setting a story within the walls of the building.

My first attempt at making this idea into a real book was met with many challenges and many threats as I was still an employee of the place that I had set the story in and like my main character, I seemed to attract a fair bit of controversy for my actions and inability to keep my views hidden. The main concern of the organisation however was the use of what they considered to be trademarks such as the shape of their building in the artwork and even the name of it had a trademark. Facing legal action if I kept the book on the market, I decided to pull it from amazon.com and do a complete rewrite of the story to relocate it to a building that won't sue - thus, the Garden Palace was born.

I decided to leave the job as well as I wasn't a cat and 9 lives had I not.

Well we have all moved on since and after two years of research and totally rewriting the damn thing, I have just recently completed the final edits - which is a personal triumph given all the other non-related struggles along the way.

So what has changed apart from the setting?

* Period - original book's building opened in 1973, Garden Palace opens in 1979
* Building status - original book's building is still operational - Garden Palace is fictitious (phew!)
* New Chapter - Prologue split into three parts - The original Garden Palace, The NEW Garden Palace, and The re-opening of the new Garden Palace.
* New artworks - Nana Sakata has created 15 brand new designs that will be incorporated into the book including title pages for each of the 13 chapters, a book title page, and a brand new cover. (the picture on this blog is chapter 11)
* New characters and development - whilst the main characters are unchanged and the general synopsis is the same, I have created new characters and used the rewrite to develop the existing characters further.

Whilst the Garden Palace in my book is a fictitious building, it is based on a real Garden Palace that was built in 19th Century Sydney neighbouring the Royal Botanical Gardens, which sadly no longer exists. I will share with you some research on the original building over the coming weeks.

I am not expecting to have great monetary success with this book and it would be a dream for it to be good enough to be picked up by a publisher, but at the very least I will be able to submit it very soon for publication and purchase as an eBook on amazon.com - hopefully over time it can find an audience to warrant the creation of the next two books that I have mapped out for the series.

The book series titled is Garden Palace and book one has it own title 'Devil in Disguise' It's a very easy read and is just over 200 pages long.

Stay tuned for more details coming soon.

Tell it like it is Tuesday - Bronwyn Bishop

                         Speaker of the House - Liberal mouthpiece and a half

Bronwyn Bishop has taken this 'everyone has to have less money except us' government to a new low this week. But there are still a handful of people who think this ill-defined probation that she is apparently on is appropriate given her responses.

Whether you believe the words uttered out of those overly red lips that even Miss Piggy would be proud of, it is important to understand what the role of Speaker of the House should be and what standards that are supposed to uphold.

Wikipedia describes the role as follows -

The Speaker's principal duty is to preside over the House and maintain order in the House, uphold Standing Orders (rules of procedure), rule on points of order, and protect the rights of backbench members. The Speaker may summarily order a Member to excuse him or herself from the House for one hour. For more serious offences, the Speaker may "name" a Member, saying "I name the Honourable Member for X," following the House's convention that Members are always referred to by their electorate. The House then votes on a motion to suspend the Member for 24 hours. The House no longer has the power to expel a member from membership of the House under Section 8 of the Parliamentary Privileges Act 1987) While impartial, the Speaker does not usually quit the membership of his, or her, party - as is traditional Westminster convention. He or she does not take part in debates in the House, does not vote in the House except in the (rare) event of a tied vote, and does not speak in public on party-political issues (except at election time in his or her own constituency). He or she is expected to conduct the business of the House in an impartial manner, and generally does so.

Bronwyn Bishop has made absolutely no attempt to be impartial since her reign began on 12th November 2013. Her record of expulsion just topped 400 members - 393 Labor and 7 Liberal.
she continually holds Liberal functions in her chambers and she public speaks in support of the government such as her appearance on Q and A when she defended the governments policies.
The recent misuse of public funds is criminal and she should not only resign but she should be charged and tried by law.

But Liberal politicians always feel they are above everything - they are above the negative impact of their mean policies, they are above the rules, and they are above the law.

But they are not - and we need to push for action if we are to remain a fair and decent country, or has that ship already sailed?

Our weak-as-piss PM is entirely out of touch with everything - but we always knew that - that's nothing new - but he has the gall to be in complete opposition to his stance on misuse of public money (fraud) when it was an independent speaker when Labor was in government - for a much much less amount of funds - i.e. Peter Slipper. He demanded Mr Slipper resign back then but his home grown queen only deserves probation... which is basically nothing as he expects it to all die down and go away.

I trust the electorate will not stand for this and will do their walking and talking at the next election - because we have taken nearly 230 years to get away from being a modern country built on convicts.

NRL 2015 - Round 19

After growing up in and around Belmore Sports Ground for most of my life, I have watched rugby league in this city evolve over many years and believe this gives me good reason to air my views on the game every now and then.

I watch NRL 360 on Fox Sports every Tuesday-Thursday without fail and also tune in to Sterlo on Thursdays - I no longer bother with Channel Nine's NRL shows and immediately change the Channel whenever Matthew Johns and his idiot brigade pop up after the Monday night game. Like the new TV show Open Slather, I put that in the 'just for bogans' category. There's a few issues within the NRL that I would like to raise for discussion and improvement and give an overview of the weekend of games.

This weeks issue - THE VIDEO REFEREE - WTF?

There's been a lot of discussion about the system of how try's are sent to the video referee. The current system is that if a referee is not certain if the team has absolutely scored, they refer it to the video referee for investigation. However, the referee must make a call whether he thinks if its most probably a try or most probably not a try - it's based on what they saw or didn't see, a gut feeling or a down right guess. they do not have the ability to say that they have no idea. The impact of this is that the video referee must have conclusive evidence to overturn their decision and if they don't and cannot prove otherwise, then the referees probable viewpoint is awarded as the official decision - even if it was a guess, yes. This has caused great annoyance of late by coaches and it is suggested that we should move to a captain's call model. Whereby the referee makes a ruling and the captains of the teams can choose to challenge the decision or let it stand. I do like this idea as it works well in other sports and in the Holden Cup, however an incident this weekend just goes to show that even a captain's call situation will not get us any closer to justice.

This weekend during a very exciting game in Canberra, the Raiders were trailing the Sharks 16-18 during the latter stages of the game. Interestingly enough, they managed to get 2 penalties in succession that were within very good striking range of the posts and kicked two goals to lead 20-18 - was that just luck, terrible discipline, a bit of both or bit a dodgy? Well that's another story anyway.
So the referee on the field saw this try as probably a genuine try but sent it up to the video referee to check and they looked at the same video evidence you can see here on the highlights reel and they found "conclusive evidence" to overturn the referee's decision. Can you? No neither can anyone else. In this day of high gambling on NRL games, you really can't help question whether this was a justifiable decision or a mistake or perhaps just plain corruption.

See for yourself : Sharks Try

ROUND 19

My Team : BULLDOGS - played well to beat the EELS but too many errors still which bombed at least 3 more tries. Hasler has coached them to stand and defend and this allows the opposition to get at least 5 metres every time and the faster backs easily scoot around the heavy footed forwards. They need to be more hungry in defence and get up in the face of the opposition. Eastwood needs to learn he is a forward and has no right to kick the ball, Tolman needs to learn how to do something when in possession and Kasiano has to keep his fat gut out of the way so he doesn't drop the ball so much.
BEST PLAYERS - Pritchard - B.Morris - C. Rona

STORM washed PANTHERS away for 2015 52-10
SHARKS overcame stupidity to edge out ref assisted RAIDERS 21-20
KNIGHTS who cares over TITANS 30-2
RABBITS lucky to beat a sterile DRAGONS 24-8
ROOSTERS rooted the WARRIORS 24-0
BRONCOS beat the buck out of TIGERS 52-16

SEA EAGLES and COWBOYS to round it off tonight.

LADDER
32 BRONCOS
*28 COWBOYS
26 ROOSTERS
24 RABBITS
22 STORM
22 BULLDOGS
22WARRIORS
22 SHARKS
20 Dragons
18 Raiders
18 Eels
*16 Sea Eagles

Gone
16 Knights
16 Titans
14 Tigers

I'm Back

Hello world - I am back to blogging again after a couple of years absence and looking forward to discussing all things important to me and city I live in - Sydney.