I can't believe ...

... that someone planned the apocalypse and forgot to send me a memo!

Sydney this morning: 


(Shamelessly lifted from a Flickr gallery, go here to see the whole set, especially the Bondi one!)

When I put out the green waste bin this morning at ungodly o'clock, I looked up and saw a red glow in the sky. Being well used to this Australian business by now, I sniffed, but there was no tang of burning eucalypt in the air. Nor did it turn out to be the lightspeople at the Sportsground playing silly buggers. By the time I had been to bed and woken up again, the full horror had rolled in and the city was under a thick, gritty cloud.

That, my friends, is the desiccated remains of the topsoil New South Welsh farmers once used to grow things in back in the days when it rained in the bush.

After yesterday's brief coastal rain – the first in months, mind – nature clearly decided to remind we city folk that the drought is going quite well, thanks (I believe we've had a grand total of six months of non-drought in the last 13 years, dam levels are reported on the news of an evening) and so picked up thousands of tonnes of dust and dumped it on the coast.

I have been out walking about in it all day. The last time I was this filthy, I had just been swimming in a mud puddle!

People have been amusing, though. Two girls on the train behind me were chatting:

Girl one: It's just diabolical, cataclysmic, end of days stuff!
Girl two: Did you hear there was an earthquake in Melbourne yesterday?
Girl one: I have a theory that the planet's had enough and wants us to bugger off ...

People in Australia become eco-conscious from a sheer sense of oppression. When your environment constantly wants to burn, flood or boil you, you eventually throw your hands in the air and shriek 'All right! I will recycle!'

Of course, having said that, the green waste collectors did not pick mine up, bastards.

As to the laptop, wholly dead, I am afraid. They think they can retrieve the data, I have bought a new one for $300 more than the price of the replacement part. Let us not speak of it.

I can't believe ...

... that someone planned the apocalypse and forgot to send me a memo!

Sydney this morning: 


(Shamelessly lifted from a Flickr gallery, go here to see the whole set, especially the Bondi one!)

When I put out the green waste bin this morning at ungodly o'clock, I looked up and saw a red glow in the sky. Being well used to this Australian business by now, I sniffed, but there was no tang of burning eucalypt in the air. Nor did it turn out to be the lightspeople at the Sportsground playing silly buggers. By the time I had been to bed and woken up again, the full horror had rolled in and the city was under a thick, gritty cloud.

That, my friends, is the desiccated remains of the topsoil New South Welsh farmers once used to grow things in back in the days when it rained in the bush.

After yesterday's brief coastal rain – the first in months, mind – nature clearly decided to remind we city folk that the drought is going quite well, thanks (I believe we've had a grand total of six months of non-drought in the last 13 years, dam levels are reported on the news of an evening) and so picked up thousands of tonnes of dust and dumped it on the coast.

I have been out walking about in it all day. The last time I was this filthy, I had just been swimming in a mud puddle!

People have been amusing, though. Two girls on the train behind me were chatting:

Girl one: It's just diabolical, cataclysmic, end of days stuff!
Girl two: Did you hear there was an earthquake in Melbourne yesterday?
Girl one: I have a theory that the planet's had enough and wants us to bugger off ...

People in Australia become eco-conscious from a sheer sense of oppression. When your environment constantly wants to burn, flood or boil you, you eventually throw your hands in the air and shriek 'All right! I will recycle!'

Of course, having said that, the green waste collectors did not pick mine up, bastards.

As to the laptop, wholly dead, I am afraid. They think they can retrieve the data, I have bought a new one for $300 more than the price of the replacement part. Let us not speak of it.