Predicting the weather

I grew up in a world where there was a definite set of things you knew - and one of them was not what would happen with the weather.

The other day I was talking to someone who must have grown up in the same period. We were chatting casually about the weather and she made a comment  - quite seriously - that weather forecasts were usually wrong.

Talking about the weather - snap frozen

Unfortunately she was thirty years out of date. What amazes me is that the weather forecasts are usually so right. It is even possible to have a reasonable stab at guessing what the weather will look like at different times of the same day. How can this be possible in such a short time? It’s just constant work improving data collection, improving models – it must be a science.

Floating world - a compromise between warring states

Floating world by an artificial lake

Australia’s national capital is a strange floating world by a mountain lake. Reflecting the dream-like nature of the city, the lake is not a real one and the city is a compromise between warring states.

Happily ever after - the bethrothal of royalty and popular culture

Republicans can gnash their teeth but the reality is that royalty has managed to do the swift manoeuvering required to move it from antique and declining relic to funky pop culture icon. The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee confirms this.

At the tail end of royalty we can finally pretend they were harmless and charming all along, not founded on the basis of beheadings and torture chambers, murders and arranged marriages, at the end almost a benign presence – like a pandemic that has run its course.

It’s true that fear of the guillotine certainly played an important role in inducing self reform – that’s not something to forget, survival is a strong instinct. But royalty has gone further than just tidying up a not so pleasant side of itself and reluctantly accepting the people as rulers. It has embraced them, even if a bit uncomfortably at times, and in doing so it has become part of the everyday.

Happily ever after

Last year I saw the Grace Kelly exhibition in Bendigo, which was a good example of how royalty adopted the movies to lift itself out of modern irrelevance and to make itself part of mass culture by becoming popular entertainment.