Prepositions

There is one "rule" of the English language which I think has definitely passed it's use-by date:

Never end a sentence with a preposition.

It's weird. It's awkward. It never really worked in the first place.

Take, for example, a question I attempted to frame in an email today:

"Is there a gift to chip in for?"

For some reason, I decided to re-write that sentence so that it would not end on a preposition.

My first attempt, "Is there a gift for which to chip in?", wasn't too ugly - until I noticed that the sentence still ended in "in".

Now,technically, the word "in" isn't actually a preposition in this context. It's part of the compound verb "chip in". However, it's still vaguely prepositional, so I decided to rewrite the sentence again to make sure there was nothing even resembling a preposition at the end of the sentence:

"Is there a gift for which in to chip?"

It's really ugly, but it was the best I could come up with, given the vocabulary choice.

I could, of course, completely rewrite the sentence using words that don't present me with such difficulties ("Could I contribute towards a gift?"), and some would argue that such a course of action would be the best. Better vocabulary selection in the first place, negating the choice between ugly and incorrect.

All right, now I'm just feeling conflicted. Should I be arguing that prepositions can be at the end of sentences if people want to put them there, or should I be arguing for better vocabulary decisions?

I mean, "Could I contribute towards a gift?" does sound better than "Is there a gift to chip in for?" It's shorter, cleaner, more direct. It uses words that sound like I have an education...

It is a stupid rule, but then again, maybe I should be making more of an effort and rising to the challenge.

Wuzzles

I think I can sum up everything wrong with my universe by pointing out one little fact:

I have the Wuzzle's theme song stuck in my head.

You remember The Wuzzles, don't you? Shortlived Disney television show from the 80s made by the same people behind Adventuresof the Gummi Bears?

No? Well that could be because it only lasted 13 episodes and is one of the shortest lived Disney cartoons ever.

I found the theme tune online some time back and was a little put out to notice I didn't actually need the reminder - I still remembered every word.

I also remember the theme for the Gummi Bears. And the Paw Paw Bears, when it comes to that.

God only knows why I have the theme to the Paw Paw Bears taking up space in my brain. This is valuable synaptic real-estate I could be using to remember people's names, or something vaguely relevant like that.

Then again, some kid recently survived a moose attack using skills he picked up from a video game, so maybe I will one day come to appreciate the fact that I can remember "when you get in trouble - and this goes double - you call the Paw Paw Bears"...

Good day

And really, when you think about it, any day when you don't actually cut off your own toe is a good day.

Playschool has a lot to answer for

Um yeah.

So for some reason, when I came across the word "sein" (wall) this morning, I felt compelled to translate the Play School classic "Here's a house with a wall" into Estonian.

The original lyrics are sadly (and strangely) missing from the Play School website (Play School is all about the songs, people - the songs should be on the site), but you can find some of the Play School songs here, for the time being.

The original lyrics are:

Here's a house with a wall
with a wall
with a wall
Here's a house with a floor
with a floor
with a floor
Here's a house with a roof
with a roof
with a roof...
(Here's a house falling down...)
There's no house anymore
anymore
there's no house anymore!

And, here's my attempt, cobbled together from my own limited knowledge, a handy online dictionary and Google's translate feature - and now with corrections offered by actual speakers of Estonian!:

Siin on maja seinaga
seinaga
seinaga
Siin on maja põrandaga
põrandaga
põrandaga
Siin on maja katusega
katusega
katusega...
(See siin on maja, mis on kokku kukkumas)
Maja ei ole enam
ei enam
Maja ei ole enam!

For comparisons, when you run the lyrics straight through Google you get this:

siin on maja seina
vastu seina
vastu seina
siin majas korrus
mille põranda
mille põranda
siin on maja katus
koos katuse
koos katuse...
(Siin on maja alla kukkumine ...)
Ei ole maja enam
enam
Ei ole maja enam!

But, Google's version changes depending on where you put the line breaks. Sometimes it has "siin majas" rather than "siin on maja".

I don't know if Google is more on the money than I am, but my version fits in better with the music. Well, except for that põrandaga line, but there wasn't much I could do about that - all of the Eesti words for "floor" had too many syllables.

Actually I've always wondered about this song. Is it one of those silly little kid's songs that are just about sounds and patterns, like Hickory Dickory Dock, or is it trying to teach a valuable lesson in architecture: houses with only one wall cannot be expected to remain standing?

Bloodless Coup

So, I got home last night and realised the use of the term "bloodless coup" in a news article was actually accurate, and not some journalist sensationalising the events.

Australia actually had a bloodless coup yesterday.

We've never had a coup before - of any kind. We've also never had a female prime minister. This is also the first time since 1975 an elected prime minister hasn't finished his first term in office without, you know, dying.

This is is probably going to be up there with the most interesting things to happen in Australian politics - right along with Holt's disappearance and Whitlam's dismissal.

Strange days indeed

2-1 and Nobody Wins

There was a point, during the last three minutes of the game, when I wanted my team to concede a goal.

Yes, I know that would mean not winning a game at all during this round, but...

But without Germany giving a decent thrashing to Ghana there was no way we could make up the goal difference. In those last three minutes, even if we won, we would still really lose.

BUT...

But if we had given one more goal to Serbia and allowed a draw - if we had let them have that one point - then Serbia would have gone through to the next round.

Winning the match won us nothing. Losing it lost them everything.

Maybe it's not in the spirit of international competition. I don't know. But I thought Serbia deserved to go through. Much more so than Ghana, who have survived so far with luck more than skill.

It was good to end on a win, but I would have felt better about it all if we had given the point to the other team. Then maybe Germany wouldn't have been the only team to win anything during the last two games of Group Four.

By the way, seeing as it really is all Germany's fault we didn't go through to the next round (they should have either scored fewer goals against us or more against Ghana), I think it behoves every Australia to find a German and tell them they suck.

Ihre Mannschaft ist doofe.

Hole in the Ground

The shape of it's wrong, it's much too long - and you can't put a hole where a hole don't belong

For future reference, the incident known as "the ditch" was a Zen activity. It was not a failed attempt at creating a garden.

Sure, it may have looked, on the surface, as if I plotted a vegetable garden in the back yard, dug half of it out one day, then left a gaping hole in the ground for several weeks before eventually giving up and filling it back it, but that's not what happened.

I did not dig half a hole, which looked suspiciously like a ditch, then get rained out, then get sick, and then get lazy. I did not decide, after going to all the effort of digging half the intended garden bed, that I really didn't have time for such shenanigans after all and abandon the thing. I also did not wait several weeks after deciding to pack it all in before finally getting around to putting the dirt back in the hole. I certainly did not leave said dirt sitting in the back corner of the yard long enough to have new plants establish themselves in that dirt, or for an earthworm colony to develop a nest in there.

Mind you, those worms were pretty interesting. As were the other grubs, centipedes and legless lizards I found digging around in that stuff. If I was a badger I would have had a field day.

But I was only digging around in that dirt for the sake of a Zen exercise. You know: "dig a hole and fill it back in". The whole thing was completely deliberate. The length of time between digging the whole and filling it back in was to make sure I truly appreciated the circle of life. Or something like that.

So, not a failed gardening attempt. And, no, that thing in my backyard is not a grave. At least, not literally.

During the Day

I've been at home during the working day a fair bit lately while working on my thesis. For some reason, especially when it's nice and sunny outside, being in this house in the middle of the day on my own has got me thinking about my grandmother. I guess I'm just feeling her a little bit. I don't know.

When I was in pre-school, my grandmother used to take care of me in the afternoons while my mother was at work. Then, during school, I'd often spend large chunks of the school holidays here. When I was at university, and later when I was working part-time as a teacher, I would occasionally come over for lunch with Nana. When my mother sold the house I ostensibly grew up in to move in with my grandmother, I didn't really feel as if the family home had been sold, because this had really always been the family home. Even though this was never my house, exactly, while growing up, it was always one of my homes - and my grandmother was a permanent fixture. It's really only been the last two years that you could be in this house during the day without her being here.

I should be used to having the place to myself now. After all, I moved in four years ago (to save rent and help take care of the old duck), and grandmother moved out about two years ago. And yet, still, when I'm here during a 'working' day and it's sunny outside, it seems weird that she isn't around.

When she went to hospital the last time, we knew she probably wasn't coming back - but we kept everything ready for her just in case she did. Then, when she was accepted into a nursing home, we still kept everything ready for her for a couple of months (just in case she got kicked out), before 'relaxing' into the new 'normal' and starting to treat the house as if it was ours, rather than hers. One of the first things that happened was we got rid of her terrible old bed (we'd been trying to get her to replace it for years) and then I moved into her room. It made sense - after all, she was never going to use it again, and my bedroom was hot and stuffy. All the same, we never mentioned this to her.

Everything was moved, shifted around, altered slightly. A few things were replaced. The chairlift was taken out so someone else could have it... And I stole my grandmother's bedroom. I used to have a recurring nightmare that they had managed to “fix” her, and we were expected to pick her up and take her home the next day. It wasn't a nightmare because my grandmother was coming home, but rather because of the “Oh, crap, we've completely stuffed up her house!” element. For a few months after she died, I kept having the same dream. Only this time it was slightly augmented by the “Hey, we started chucking out all of your clothes and things after the funeral because we thought you were dead” aspect.

For some reason, today I was thinking about how she would have preferred to die. Not like she did, I can tell you. I'm reasonably sure she would have preferred to die a good six or seven years ago. She would have gotten up from her old, favourite chair (a little shaky in the knees, but still mobile), walked into her kitchen (where she spent a lot of her life, cooking for her family), and rinsed out her cup and things at the sink while looking out through the kitchen window at her backyard. Then she would have walked down the hallway (without needing any help), used her own toilet (without any accessories), washed her hands in her own bathroom and then gone to her own bed for an afternoon nap. There, surrounded by the things that have been a part of her life for the last thirty to fifty years - the things she once shared with her husband, and were as familiar to her as breathing - she would have gone to sleep and simply never woken up. That's how her husband died, and that's how she wanted to go.

I wish we could have given that to her. The trouble with nursing homes is that, no matter how nice or comfortable they are, they always feel like a cross between a hotel and a hospital. My grandmother “lived” at hers for almost a year, and never felt “at home”. I'm almost entirely convinced that's why she slept so darn much (well, that and the painkillers) - because her dreams would take her home. She'd wake up and tell us to take the washing off the line, or remember to get something from the kitchen on our way home... I hope that's where she slipped to, in the end. Dreaming herself back into her kitchen, looking out at her backyard - just as I'd seen her so many times over the years. It would be nice to think that, in some small way, she managed to die at home after all.

Autokobold

Ich habe [eine] kleine Kobold wer im [meine] Auto wohnen. Er ist sehr ärgerlich. Er speilt mit der Türlicht und es [flackern] macht.

Yeah, still a bit shaky on the accusative indefinite articles (and possessive pronouns) and the correct verb endings for persons. I'll come back and correct later.

Mul on väike paharet et elab mu autos. Ta on väga tüütu. Ta mängib ukse valgusega ja põhjustab virvendamine.

I think my grammar's a bit off - especially with the attempt at "door light". Also, I cheated with my original intention on "makes it flicker". I'll come back and correct later

4-0

4-0 is not a good score line. Especially when your team is the 0.

I think I got about 30 minutes into that game before I started to wish Geelong could substitute the Socceroos. Yes, I know they play a different game, but they're such a polished act. Geelong are such brilliant team players, and they take command of the field. The Socceroos? At the moment, not so much.

*sigh*

Live by the Code

There has been a lot of hullabaloo in the news lately regarding a couple of Rugby League players who are (shock! horror!) “defecting” to AFL. This is, apparently, so important that the commercial news programmes must dedicate serious air-time to the story every single night for several weeks running. The story also makes a noticeable appearance in the vast majority of newspapers. Just to put things into perspective, the fact that a major mining company has been accused of knowingly allowing its workers to be exposed to dangerous levels of radiation only warranted a one-sentence throw-away mention as part of the stock-market overview (to explain why the stocks have dropped so much).

That's Australia for you.

Now, for those of you who aren't familiar with antipodean sporting codes, AFL stands for “Australian Football League”, the highest level of competition in the game known as Australian Rules Football. The letter combination “AFL” is also used synonymously with the game itself, so that it is not uncommon for someone to say “I play AFL”, or “We have an AFL field” when what they really mean to say is “I play Australian Rules Football” or “We have a field for playing Australian Rules Football” - and neither the player nor the field will ever get close to the actual national league.

It's one of the many things about the Australian sporting culture I don't understand. The sport is also colloquially known as “Aussie Rules”, which makes more sense, is more accurate and takes exactly the same amount of syllables to say. Plus, it has the added bonus of nice continuant consonants between the syllables, so it's much easier to slur while drunk. Surely a necessity for any Australian sport?

Aussie Rules was developed in the state of Victoria over a hundred years ago as a way to keep cricket players fit during the off season. To this day, many people honestly believe Australia only has two seasons. Forget that whole Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn malarky, here we have Cricket (when it's hot and sunny) and Football (when it's cold and rainy)*. What exactly is meant by “Football” is a regional thing, as south of the Murray River “football” usually means Aussie Rules, while anywhere north of the Murrumbidgee River** is Rugby League*** country. Oh, yeah, there are a few AFL teams in New South Wales, and we're about to get a second one in Queensland, but quite frankly the north belongs to League. Well, except for the Northern Territory, which produces a heck of a lot of AFL players... Oh, whatever.

It has been said that Aussie Rules is a mixture between Soccer and Rubgy, but if you watch the game in action it looks a lot more like Team Handball with kicking. It is, quite frankly, an almost perfect sport. I will admit that I spent the majority of my life completely bamboozled by the thing, but then I read the rules (I bought a book full of rules for various games, and I'll be darned if it isn't surprisingly interesting), and suddenly it started to make sense. Once you understand why everyone stopped chasing the ball as soon as that guy caught it and started walking backwards, it's a corker of a thing to watch.

Certainly beats the pants off Rugby (League or Union). I can see why two NRL players at the top of their game and looking for a new challenge would want to switch codes to AFL. I'm sure the millions and millions of dollars they're being paid to switch don't hurt, either.

The only real problem with Aussie Rules is that it's too long. It's probably one of the few things the game still shares with cricket - along with the oval pitch. I love watching the second half of the game. It's a nice length of time, the players are already “broken in” and there's a whole “underdog” thing happening. It's absolutely brilliant watching what happens to a score-line that starts at 53-30 over the course of the last two quarters.

What they really need to do is drop the game by half an hour and replace the four quarters with two halves, like a Soccer match. I've often thought it might be fun to rejig the game to run for the same time and on the same pitch as a Soccer match and then try to take it to Europe. The fact that it's closer to Handball than Rugby should make it attractive enough. I'm not sure if it would really work on a rectangular pitch, though. A diamond, maybe...

Then again, maybe with the right sales-pitch people in Europe will just decide to take up both Aussie Rules and cricket, and create fields that work for both. After all, it's happening in China. I'm not entirely sure how or why, but apparently the Chinese folk just “get” it. We've got a couple of franchises in Hong Kong and other places.

If you wanted the proper rules of the game, you could always look it up on Wikipedia, although I found my Rules of the Game book is much more readable. The Wikipedia entry is a bit tough to get through.

To give you an idea, though:

• The game is played on an oval pitch with an oval ball (a different shape to rugby or grid-iron balls, and a bit bouncier).
  
• Games last for four quarters of 25 minutes each - there is a longish half time break dividing the game into two halves. (Personally, I think they should change to two 35 minute halves, but that's just me)
  
• The goal areas consist of four posts at each end of the field. If you get the ball through the middle posts without touching them, it's a “goal” and you score six points, if you get it through the outside posts, or the ball touches the middle posts on the way through, it's a “behind” and you score one point.
  
• Tackling is allowed, but with conditions on what parts of the body or clothes can be held.
  
• There is no off-side rule and no goal keeper, and players can wonder around the field as they see fit (although they tend to stick to the areas where they can do most good).
  
• If you are running with the ball you have to bounce it or touch it to the ground at least once every ten meters.
  
• You can't pass or throw the ball, but must either handball it (punch it with the side of your fist) or kick it to other players
  
• If tackled, you have to get rid of the ball as soon as possible - preferably by handballing or kicking it. If you don't, various things may happen depending on why you still have the ball (look up the proper rules). Most commonly, the referee will take it and bounce it as high off the ground as he/she can (balls up)
  
• If you catch the ball and successfully hold onto it after it has travelled ten or more meters without touching the ground or another player, it's called a “Mark”. The “marked man” can take an unhindered kick from anywhere behind where he took the mark (which is why you see players catch the ball and start walking backwards - and why no one tries to stop them).
  
• If the ball goes out of bounds one of the umpires has to throw it back towards the centre of the pitch by throwing it backwards over his head.

There are other rules as well, governing things like who gets a free kick for what and when players are sent off or substituted, but you can look them up if you really care. The above list is enough of a guide to help the game make sense if you watch it for the first time. It's quite a good game to watch. I'm not a huge fan of sport, but I like this one. It's just just so well designed for spectators.


* Except in the Tropics, when the Cricket Season is hot and stormy and the Football Season is cold and sunny.

** It's a long standing tradition in Australia to orient yourself according to rivers - especially in the rural areas, where most of the Shires were named after the rivers that ran through them.

*** Yes, Australians call Rugby “football”. I don't know why. I also don't know why we don't call Football “football”. I think we're a little bit daft, quite frankly.

My Story

I am still writing van Havien's story, but it's hit a slight snag in that I've been procrastinating with practically everything physically possible at present. However, I've just posted the first part of "My Story" over on the Siege Works blog, if you wanted to read it.

It may be a story, or it may be true. You never really know.

Castle Hill Stuff

For future reference, page six of this document:

http://www.townsville.qld.gov.au/resources/4391.pdf

shows exactly what trails on Castle Hill are currently maintained by the Townsville City Council, and where they start and end.

So far, this is the only place where you can find such information. Yes, it's a proposal for putting solar lighting on some of the major tracks. No, I have no idea why they don't have this information on a more likely website.

So, if you have ever walked up the road to Castle Hill, or the infamous Goat Track, and wondered to yourself "Where does the Ironbark/Maidenhair/Dianella/Eythrina/Cudtheringa Track go, anyway?" then this page will have your answer.

Apart from the Goat Track and Castle Hill Road, there's very little about the tracks on the Hill available online at the moment. So, for the sake of getting a bit more information out there (especially for visitors):

The Cudtheringa Track is nowhere near the Cudtheringa Bowls Club. It is on the Strand side of the Hill, and starts partway up Castle Hill Road, cutting under the face of the Hill to join the Goat Track. You can then take the Goat Track to either the summit of the Hill or down to the foothills.

The Goat Track begins at the top of Hillside Cresent (off Stanton Terrace, North Ward), and connects with Castle Hill Road just before the summit. Be prepared to face a lot of stairs.

The Maidenhair Track starts at the top of Church Street (West End), near the West End Cemetery, and runs across the foothills of the Hill, connecting with the lower end of the Goat Track. There are a number of short, unnamed tracks connecting with the Maidenhair Track so that shorter routes can be planned. These include a track at the top of Wilson Street (up behind the Townsville State School) and the western end of Walker Street (the route to the water tower).

The Dianella Track (used to be known as the Cemetery Track), starts at the top of Church Street (West End), near the West End Cemetery, and runs up the side of the Hill to connect with Castle Hill Road shortly before the summit.

It is possible to undertake a loop combining the Dianella Track, Castle Hill Road, the Goat Track and the Maidenhair Track.

The Iron Bark Track (formerly known as the West End track)begins at the top of James Street (West End) and runs up the side of the Hill, connecting with Castle Hill Road approximately two thirds of the way along.

The Erythrina Track (formerly known as the Yarrawonga track) connects from the top of Balmoral Place (off Yarrawonga Drive) to Castle Hill Road (just short of the halfway point), then shortcuts between the northern and southern sections of Castle Hill Road, eliminating the western loop of the road.

There are, at present, no other officially maintained trails on Castle Hill, although there are other "wild tracks" known to some of the locals.

Workmen

There are people. They are hovering above my head, on ladders, and doing strange and bizarre things to the ceiling. For some reason, it involves a very long cable and a lot of weird noise. Plus opening and shutting many doors and removing panels at random intervals.

It's all a bit noisy for a library, really.

Also, they're hovering directly over a book display, and they just dropped some of their tubey things on it. Not the best thing to do.

Käse

Ich möchte den ganzen Käse haufen. Bitte.