In the background
You’d always hope that if your kid was in the background on the news, he’d behave himself… and preferably didn’t pick his nose and then eat it.
(Channel 10 news, 17/9/2011)
The gamble of fixed interest rates
In October 2007 I switched to a fixed interest rate of 7.85% for five years.
It turned out to be a terrible punt. The Global Financial Crisis hit the following year, with interest rates dipping to record lows. I shudder to think how much money I might have saved if at that point I’d locked in a low fixed rate. Maybe there’s an alternative universe version of me who held off in 2007, and took advantage of that.
Even now, my bank’s variable rate is 7.80%.
D’oh.
Tags: banking, home loans, interest rates, money
6 comments
Who’s meant to give way?
The law says that motorists turning into a street must give way to pedestrians crossing that street.
The law also says that motorists turning in or out of a private property (such as a carpark) must give way to pedestrians.
So why does the signage always imply it’s the pedestrian that should be the one to give way?
OK, obviously it’s good for pedestrians to be aware of cars coming through, in case they don’t give way, but perhaps signage should also remind the motorists of their legal obligations (since a few appear to be unaware)?
And I wonder if there would ever come a point where building codes reflect what the law says, and preclude building high walls/fences/hedges which cause blind corners?… or ensure that mirrors or some other precaution must be undertaken so that motorists can see those they’re meant to be giving way to?
Tags: pedestrians, road laws
9 comments
Victorian Labor: Still advertising almost a year after the election
This billboard is still on display up high above Flinders Street, opposite the station, roughly across from the centre entrance*.
It seems to refer to the 20% emissions reduction by 2020 pledged last year by Labor, and matched by the Coalition, though some say there are indications the Coalition will drop the target.
Perhaps it’s just too difficult for the advertising company to remove it, and/or they haven’t got another client who wants the space. Despite the size of the sign, it’s not really very noticeable.
Google Streetview shows a different advert up there.
(Tip-off: Mike Alexander.)
*At least, it was still there a few days ago. I haven’t checked this week.
Tags: advertising, emissions, Labor
2 comments
Street names: Why was Synagogue Lane renamed?
Church Street doesn’t have a church in it any more.
Nearby Synagogue Lane doesn’t have a synagogue in it anymore.
I got curious: How come only one of them got to keep its name?
Despite what appears to be a sign that is not particularly ancient, evidently the name change was some time ago — it’s shown as Little Queen Street in the second edition Melway from 1968.
Historian and author Robyn Annear’s web site says that in fact it was renamed Bourke Lane in as part of a “civic cleansing” ahead of the 1880 International Exhibition, and then later renamed again as Little Queen Street. She quotes an 1869 Colonial Monthly, which describes the area:
The blackest sheep of all the flock make their home here. It is dangerous to pass through
the place in daylight, unattended, and open robberies have been committed at noonday.
Annear’s book “A City Lost and Found: Whelan the Wrecker’s Melbourne” notes a Synagogue was on the NE corner of Bourke Street and Synagogue Lane from 1847 to 1929. (More notes here.)
The Melbourne Synagogue history page notes that the original small 1847 building was rebuilt as a larger structure in 1855. PictureAustralia turned up this picture of it — certainly a grand looking building. Following its demolition in 1929, the New Melbourne Synagogue in Toorak Road opened in 1930.
Getting back to the lane name change, backing up the 1880ish date is this record of correspondence with the Public Works Committee in June 1878, requesting the name change.
This street names history poster puts an interesting light on it, saying “the new name reduced ‘annoyances’ directed at those attending Little Bourke Street synagogue.”
So perhaps it wasn’t an anti-Semitic move as might perhaps seem at first glance, but one designed to stop problems for the local Jewish population?
A report in Australian Jewish News last year appears to agree:
Alongside the shul ran a small road named Synagogue Lane. Today, it is known as Little Queen Street, with [Melbourne Hebrew Congregation life governor] Cohen suggesting the name may have been changed due to vandalism. However, the street sign displayed today pays tribute to the lane’s heritage.
It’s a little hard to tell for certain, as details are sketchy. Anybody got any further information on it?
(If I had the time, contacting Robyn Annear or the Synagogue might be options — but I think I’ve done enough digging for now.)
Some thoughts on 9/11 ten years on
9/11. Is there any other one-off event that is known throughout the western world by its date?
Of course, if it had happened anywhere else, it would have been called 11/9.
But it didn’t happen anywhere else. Only the USA is big, brave, brash, bold and independent enough that it would buck the trend and stick with its own measurements and date format — perhaps the same qualities that have also made it such a symbol of freedom, democracy, enterprise and globalisation (and imperialism?) that in turn made it such a target for the terrorists.
Other places, other cities and countries have been attacked since by terrorists, but none with such force. Nor has any other single attack any incurred such a response.
I was watching a programme on SBS2 the other night on the World Trade Center: the building of it, the Frenchman who walked between the towers on a rope, its effect on the city, and its eventual destruction. The footage of the day replayed now is as horrific as it was when it happened.
A friend of a friend, who I don’t know, lost a sister in the WTC. I hope all those directly touched by this anniversary, and its aftermath, are doing okay this week.
Cluster headaches – back for spring
Oh joy. My cluster headaches are back for spring. In fact they returned on the 1st of September, which Australians consider to be the first day of spring. Boom, just like that.
(Previous posts. Doesn’t everybody use blog posts to track their personal health history? I know I do.)
To recap
Cluster headaches are, as Wikipedia describes them: excruciating unilateral headaches of extreme intensity.
“Cluster headache is probably the worst pain that humans experience.
…
Women with cluster headache will tell you that an attack is worse than giving birth. So you can imagine that these people give birth without anesthetic once or twice a day, for six, eight, or ten weeks at a time, and then have a break. It’s just awful.” — Dr Peter Goadsby
They occur in clusters during active periods (hence the name), and many people get them seasonally, though others have them permanently.
They affect about 0.1% of the population. They cause a sharp pain across one side of the head, from around the temple, down to the jaw, typically lasting between 15 minutes and 3 hours.
This is important: no conventional painkillers are effective against them. Not paracetomol, not aspirin, not Nurofen. Nothing works. It is not the same as migraine.
Mine
The more I read, the more it’s clear that I don’t get them as badly as some people (thank goodness).
But they’re still bloody painful. On this pain scale (which is not specific to Cluster headaches) mine probably peak at about a 4 or 5 out of 10. (“5 – Very Distressing – Strong, deep, piercing pain, such as a sprained ankle when you stand on it wrong, or mild back pain.”)
I get them seasonally, usually for a couple of weeks, and typically 3-4 times per day, starting around 6am (and yes, they are painful enough to wake me up) until around lunchtime or early afternoon. Mine last about 20-30 minutes.
I thought that I’d first suffered from these around 2007, but in fact when I saw the doctor on Tuesday, he said he had notes indicating that I’d had them (undiagnosed) going back to 2002 — though my recollection is they didn’t get really bad until 2006 or 07.
The doctor seems quite interested in it — I gather they’re rare enough for a local GP that he doesn’t see many cases.
The pain is intense, from the temple and behind the eyeball down to my mouth.
At its worst, all I can do is try and apply some pressure with my hand, or push my head into the pillow if still in bed, which may or may not help. Really at best the force of the pressure merely distracts me from the pain.
It’s said that oxygen helps: many people respond to inhalation of 100% oxygen (12-15 litres per minute in a non-re-breathing mask). While I haven’t tried this (I suppose it could be organised at home, with some effort/cost) it does seem to be that exposure to a chill wind, eg stepping outside in the morning air, does helps soothe the pain.
Caffeine seems to help as well — tea or Coke. Perhaps the latter helps more than the former.
The pain is so intense that when it just fades away and you’re back to normal, for a while there’s a huge feeling of relief that it’s gone… until it returns.
And the medication? In previous years I wrote that I thought the Veracaps SR the doctor prescribed helped. But I’ve got to say that now I’m not totally convinced it does. Perhaps it’s not really been doing anything, and the headaches have naturally faded after a week or two. Certainly this time around, I’ve been taking it since day one, and while it’s possible it’s taken the edge off it, so far they’re still hitting me every morning. (Though this morning’s first was later than previous days’, and not quite as strong.)
Maybe it just needs a few days to kick in. Hopefully in the next week or so mine will disappear again until next autumn.
Support
Every time they come around again, I end up doing a little more research.
This time around I’ve discovered that there is an Organisation for the Understanding of Cluster Headaches (“OUCH”). The US arm had a conference in Nashville in July — they have a bunch of videos with Peter Goadsby which I intend on watching soon.
A recent Triple J Hack story on chronic pain, which opens with a guy from Darwin describing his cluster headaches. Well worth a listen.
I’ve just discovered a Facebook group, which has some posts from fellow-sufferers which, I can tell you, are inspiring to read. Because people are sympathetic, but I’m not totally sure anybody can really fully understand it unless they’ve experienced repeating bouts of extreme pain themselves.
And there’s now an Australian support site as well.
I might lurk a bit in some of the forums. The more I read, the more it’s clear to me that while mine are very painful, I’m not getting them anywhere near as badly as some other people. But it’s nice that know that other people understand what it’s like.
“Oh no! Maybe the Genius Bar can fix it.”
Picture from Channel 7′s Sunday Night story about the Suruwaha tribe of Brazil.
Anybody got any better caption ideas?
Tags: Apple, Brazil
7 comments
