Post #203 21 February 2020

Gentlefolk,

This post covers the period 1 - 21 February 2020.

On 22 February we will fly from Sydney to Delhi for the start of our tour of India.  That tour will be the subject of my next post.

Some of the events which dominated the news during this period:

The Wuhan coronavirus (now called Covid-19) continues to grow rapidly, although some commentators think it may be peaking.  On 11 February 40,000 people in China had the virus, with 1,000 deaths; on 17 February the numbers were 66,000 infected and 1,600 deaths; by 21 February 75,000 and 2,118. Dr Li Wen Liang who tried to raise a warning flag in December was a victim. The virus has been detected in 27 countries, but fortunately there have only been eleven deaths outside China so far.

A new 1,000-bed hospital was built in Wuhan in 10 days; another hospital is under construction but will take 2 weeks to complete. Remarkable - only in China!

On 7 February the US Senate acquitted President Trump of impeachment charges; Senator Mitt Romney was the only Republican to find him guilty. This was always going to be the result and I just hope the Democrats haven't shot themselves in the foot by trying to (rightly) impeach President Trump.

It's Primaries time in US politics - veteran left-wing Senator Bernie Sanders is leading a large field of Democratic Party hopefuls.  They look hopelessly divided at this stage.

On 10 February the President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, addressed a joint sitting of the Australian Parliament in Canberra; a new bilateral trade agreement, the Indonesia Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, came into force.

On 17 February General Motors announced the cessation of the iconic Holden brand this year. Holden has been an important player in the Aussie car market since the 1940s, producing 7.7 million Holden vehicles. GM stopped manufacturing Holdens in 2017, but continued to sell imported Holden-badged cars. Even that will now cease. Sad.

In mid-February it finally started to rain on the East Coast, breaking the long drought and extinguishing the many bushfires burning along the East Coast from Queensland down to Tasmania. But in some areas the rain was so heavy that flooding occurred.

What a crazy country: first drought, then fires, finally floods.

From July 2019 to February 2020 fires burnt almost 16 million hectares (equivalent to the entire area of England!!); resulting in an estimated one billion animal deaths; some 3,500 homes were destroyed; and 33 people died.

According to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) 2019 was the hottest year on record, and also the year with the lowest rainfall.  A recipe for disaster, and that's exactly what happened. Tragic!

Here are photos of some of the activities in which we were engaged during this period.

On 1 February the Canberra Capitals beat Adelaide 73 - 71 to finish the WNBL season in second place. On 16 February Canberra beat Melbourne in the "best of three" games. Let's back the Capitals to win the Championship again this year.  

The Australia China Friendship Society held its annual Lantern-making workshop on 2 February.  But the Lantern Festival itself had to be postponed from 8 February to 14 March 2020. Chinese community groups have stopped performing in crowded places because of fears related to the coronavirus.  Chinese restaurants are also reporting significant falls in patronage. Let's hope things are back to normal by mid-March and the Lantern Festival can go ahead.

My cousin from Germany, Oda and her daughter Marion, visited us in Canberra. Their Aussie holiday started with a week in Sydney, then 3 days in Canberra, and finally nine days in Melbourne. Welcome dinner from left: Michael, Adrienne, Britt, Touey, Novie, me, Aniko, Oda, Angie, Marion, and Vera.

The following day we drove out to the Carey's farm at Wee Jasper, about 90 minutes drive from Canberra.  The countryside was dry, dry, dry from the drought, everything was brown. Sheep were being 'hand-fed' (ie the farmer provided feed manually).  A week later the rains came to the East Coast of Australia - even floods in some areas - they put out the bushfires and quickly the landscape took on a green tinge. A crazy country: drought, fires, and floods!

An interesting rock formation on the road to Wee Jasper - this would be a geologist's mecca.

Some of the sheep at Peter's farm (he has about 5,500). Difficult to see, but this flock of sheep actually have coats on to protect their wool.  Peter said his brother started this program about 4 years ago. About 700 sheep with the finest wool have been "coated". Curious - I'd never seen that before.

Angie and Oda trying out a 4-wheel bike.

Vera in front of the shearing shed.

It was crutching time for the lambs, when wool is trimmed around their eyes and bum. These two young shearers were fast.

Peter showing Marion some fine merino wool.

We had a picnic on the banks of the Goodradigbee River (or at least what was left of it) which borders the property.

Tiny, cute, Wee Jasper Primary School, founded in 1899, where Peter and his siblings went to school.  

I showed Oda and Marion around Old Parliament House - Marion couldn't resist donning the Speaker's wig and gown and sitting in the (replica) Speaker's Chair. Thank god they don't wear wigs these days.

We also looked around new Parliament House.  Actually it was opened in 1988, 32 years ago so not really 'new' today.  A large, impressive building.  But interestingly, both our visitors prefered Old Parliament House - "more cosy/mehr gemutlich"!!

Marion and Oda loved seeing the wild kangaroos in Weston Park.

All too quickly it was time to say goodbye to Oda and Marion.  We had a farewell dinner at Sammy's Chinese Kitchen at the Kingston Foreshore.  From left: Aniko, Marion, Angie, Britt, Lelani, Vera with Nouvie, Oda, Touey, and me. 

Marion chatting with Lelani.

Saying goodbye at Canberra Airport. Oda and Marion were amazed that here everyone can go right through to the departure gates. They flew to Melbourne where they spent nine enjoyable days. Marion's son, Moritz, lives and works in Melbourne so he was able to show them around.  They were so worried about coming to Australia because of all the fires, but fortunately everything went well and they loved their time here.

The Breast Cancer organisation, Bosom Buddies, arranged for Nutrition ACT to conduct a cooking class. The demonstrators were Ellen and Bridget. Partners were invited, so I accompanied Vera.

They made three dishes: Corn fritters (recipe above), Thai Chicken Salad with rice paper noodles, and Chia Berry cup dessert.

With old friends Kaye and Patrick O'Hara we went to the opening night of Canberra Repertory's play "The Grapes of Wrath", based on John Steinbeck's 1939 powerful best seller.

The Super Rugby season is underway and I watched the Brumbies v Highlanders game on 15 February. The Brumbies had wins against the Queensland Reds and the Melbourne Rebels and we were hoping for another win today.  But it was not to be: they lost 23 - 22, when the Highlanders scored a converted try after the final whistle. Heart-break!

We took the train from Canberra to Sydney.  The countryside around Goulburn was brown and dry with hardly a blade of grass - look what a difference two weeks of rain has made! And the farm dams are full again!

In Sydney for a couple of days before our India adventure. Here are Andrew and Caroline walking the kids to school.  Eddie is now in Kindergarten at Burke Street Public Primary School, while Jay-Jay is still at Surry Hills Day Care. We stopped at this little cafe for a quick cappuccino coffee.

Eddie in his school uniform. The first school building here was completed in 1884; with major renovations in 1910 and of course many more since then. Andrew and Caroline are impressed by the excellent staff at BSPS.

The playground of Bourke Street Public School (BSPS).  About 450 kids attend this primary school, from kindergarten to 6th Grade.

Assembly at Bourke Street Public School.  Eddie is really enjoying "big school".

Well known and popular "Bourke Street Bakery" is close to the school.

The new tram in operation which runs from Circular Quay to Randwick, along Devonshire Street, Surry Hills (adjacent to Eddie's school).

One of the many lovely, giant, old "London Plane" trees along Burke Street, Surry Hills.


We visited Peter and Karen Murphy near Emu Plains. Peter and I worked together in the Trade Office of the Australian High Commission in Singapore 25 years ago. It was great to see them again.


Peter Murphy - one of the nicest blokes you could ever meet.

We had lunch with another former Trade colleague, Lloyd Downey, on 21 February. Lloyd and I joined the Trade Commissioner Service as Trainees in the 1971 intake, almost half-a-century ago!

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That's it for this post.  Tomorrow we leave for India.

Best wishes, stay healthy and keep smiling.

Vera and Alex Olah

Canberra, Australia

Friday 21 February 2020.

Post #202 31 January 2020

Gentlefolk,

This post covers the period 5 - 31 January 2020. After our exciting / traumatic experience with the fires at the coast (see last post) our life seemed quite tame in comparison.

But it certainly hasn't been a quiet time internationally.

On 3 January 2020 President Trump directed a US drone which assassinated Qasim Soleimani, Iran's top general who was visiting Iraq. Iran responded by firing missiles at American military bases in Iraq. In the aftermath a Ukrainian airliner was mistakenly shot down by Iran - with the loss of 176 lives. Tragic!

The US House of Representatives decided that President Trump had abused his position and referred the case to the US Senate; the Senate started his impeachment trial on 17 January. That President Trump will be found "not guilty" by the Senate seems a foregone conclusion.

The UK will leave the European Union on 31 January 2020 (today); Brexit has finally arrived.  Personally, I would prefer to see a united Europe, after the turmoil of the last 100+ years. What I could not understand is why there wasn't a second referendum. The first was 52% leave to 48% remain - hardly decisive - particularly when only about 70% of eligible voters actually voted. Some say the general election on 12 December 2019, which the Conservative Party won easily, was a defacto referendum, but there were many other factors at play then. A sad day.

On 30 January the WHO declared the new Wuhan coronavirus an international health emergency. The virus is spreading rapidly: from 282 reported cases (and 6 deaths) in China on 22 January to 7,800 cases (and 212 deaths) just ten days later. Several countries have reported cases of the virus, but no deaths so far.

The USA and China signed the Phase 1 Trade Deal (everything is a 'deal' these days!) on 15 January 2020, calling a truce in the trade war initiated by President Trump in 2018; China promised to buy additional $200 billion of American goods over the next 2 years, while the US will reduce some of the high tariffs it has imposed on imports from China.

The re-drafted North America Free Trade Agreement, now called the US Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA), came into force.

The Dow Jones Index passed 29,000; Australia's ASX200 passed 7,000 (it was around 3,000 twenty years ago).

Boeing reported a net loss of $636 million in 2019 - its first loss in 22 years.

France deferred the introduction of a 'digital services tax' of 3% on the earnings in France of companies such as Facebook and Google after the USA threatened punitive tariffs on a range of French goods.

Tesla opened a new factory near Shanghai which will produce 3,000 cars per week.  China now has over 200 million private cars, of which 3.8 million are 'new energy' cars; 435 million Chinese have drivers licences (29 million new licences were issued in 2019).

American basketball legend Kobe Bryant (41) died when his helicopter crashed near Los Angeles on 27 January. His daughter Gianna (13) and seven others also died.


Herewith photos of some of our activities in the last 3 weeks:

I was intrigued by the title, so read this book. The author Monica Tan is an Australian-born Chinese who felt that understanding Aboriginal culture would help her define her own identity. She drove around Australia for 6 months; the resulting book is a commentary on the state of Aboriginals in remote Australia.
I'm not sure the journey helped her "find herself", but it certainly gave her a much better understanding of Aboriginal culture than most Australians have, and enabled her to get a position as a lecturer at the University of Western Sydney.
I must admit to being conflicted by the debate which has gone on for decades about our First Nations people. This issue has been high on the Government's agenda - many policy initiatives and mountains of money - but with little result.  I don't know what the answer is, do you? 

The route taken by Monica Tan around Australia. She packed camping gear into her Toyota RAV4 and off she went on a 30,000 km journey.  A gutsy lady!

We visited the National Gallery of Australia.  This 'sculpture' by Urs Fischer (Swiss) is in the foyer. He is called 'Francesco', made of wax, and will finally melt away.

We spent most time in the exhibition of paintings by an Australian painter Hugh Ramsay (1877 - 1906).

Painting (1903) of Nellie Patterson, niece of famous singer Nellie Melba.

Hugh Ramsay self-portrait. His early work showed difficulty with hands (hands are not easy to paint), but he became better later.

We saw this powerful movie.  Story of a working-class family in the north of England, who try so very hard but just can't get ahead - the shortcomings of the "Gig Economy" exposed. Wonderful acting.  I became more and more frustrated and emotional at their futile struggles, and had to leave the theatre 15 minutes from the end.

Lunch to celebrate Britt's birthday. From left: Lany, Nouvie, Vera, me, Aniko, Britt, and Touey.

Dinner with Laurie Laffan and Alex Shumack. Mutual friends, Bernie & Jen Ryan, lost their house in the fires at the coast; so sad!  

Lunch to celebrate John Holmes' 95th birthday.From left: Betty Hill; John Holmes; Lucy & Nicholas (they flew over from Perth); me, Jan and Gerry Lynch; Dal Hyde; Brian Hill, and Vera. We didn't realise that window behind us was so bright. John was my boss in the Bangkok Embassy in 1973-4; a wonderful man.

Bangkok, 1974. Prime Minister Gough Whitlam visited Bangkok. John Holmes was the Senior Trade Commissioner, and Bill Barry and I were his assistants.  We organised a lunch for the PM with the Australian Business Community. I met Mr Whitlam a few years later and asked him to autograph this photo, which he did (you can just see his signature on my suit).

Spooks emerging from the shadows.  An interesting little exhibition at the National Archives.

Every country (including Australia) has Security/Intelligence Agencies which try to get confidential information on domestic "trouble makers" and other countries. We are getting paranoid about Chinese influence here, but we have been doing similar things for years.

An exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery focussed on past Prime Ministers.

Read the story behind this famous photo, below.

A portrait of PM Julia Gillard (2010 - 13), Australia's first and till now only female Prime Minister. She was a red-head, single (with boyfriend), and a declared atheist. 

A violent hail-storm hit parts of Canberra at about 1pm on Monday 20 January 2020.  This is the view from the front steps of Old Parliament House - a winter wonderland (in the middle of summer)! The hail and rain only lasted for about 15 minutes, but did a lot of damage. I normally drive when I am "on duty" as a volunteer guide at the Museum of Australian Democracy at OPH, but we heard the forecast and Vera dropped me off.  The storm hit just as she was leaving home to pick me up, so she waited until it passed.  Hundreds of cars and many houses were damaged. We were lucky.

All the cars parked near Old Parliament House sustained damage - mostly smashed windows, but also indentations on the bodies of the cars from the hail - some as big as golf balls!

Windscreen with many cracks, and the sun-roof and back window smashed. 

Vera & I went to a professional Women's basketball game: the Canberra Capitals played the Perth Lynx. It was 47-all at half time, but then our girls dominated and had a good win, 89-75.

Some of the action, Perth in red, Canberra in black. These women are skillful. 

The Canberra Capitals team during a time-out.

Our Canberra favourite player is Olivia Epoupa (26, French of Cameroonian descent). She is probably the smallest on the team - 165 cm, 53 kg - but is super-skilled and very quick.

A picture of some of the crowd at the Capitals game.  They now play at the National Convention Centre, a great venue.

The Australia Indonesia Families Association (AIFA) had a get-together lunch to celebrate Australia Day.

Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks - brilliant!) is the host of a popular children's TV program called Mr Roger's Neighbourhood; Fred is goodness personified, a grandfatherly figure who helps kids deal with emotional issues. Lloyd (Matthew Rhys) is a journalist sent to interview Fred; Fred recognises a troubled man, with severe anger issues, and decides to take him under his wing. In true Hollywood style, Lloyd is 'cured' at the end, reconciled with his father and sister, and wife. A tear-jerker, but fun.

Charley Boorman is a British adventurer and TV star. This book describes his travel from Ireland to Australia in 2008. He (and his team) traversed 22 countries in 102 days, covering a distance of 20,473 miles. Charley used 112 forms of transport - ranging from elephants, buses, ferries, trucks, boats, and of course his first love motor bikes. What an adventure. 
In my next life I want to return as Charley Boorman!!!

We attended the funeral of Kerri Huston, wife of Brendan Dyson with whom I worked in Austrade. A lovely person, Kerri died after a tough battle with cancer. Taken too young. RIP. 

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Parts of eastern Australia have received rain in the last 2 weeks, which has ameliorated the bushfire situation (and smoke haze) somewhat. But we were reminded how quickly things can change when a  fire started south of Canberra 4 days ago. It has burnt 18.000 hectares of Namadgi National Park.  The fire is only about 10 km from the southern suburbs of Banks and Gordon, but the wind direction has been in our favour (luckily). 

In 2003 500 houses were destroyed in Canberra (and 4 people died), so Canberrans are rightly nervous about fires.

There is still one month of (official) summer to go, so the hot weather (and fire danger) will be with us for a while yet.

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The Australian Tennis Open finals will be played this weekend. There have been very hot conditions in Melbourne too.  It's crazy - shouldn't play these professional sports at this time of the year.

After beating Federer in straight sets last night Novak Djokovic is into the Men's Final; he will play the winner of Thiem (who beat Nadal in a great game in the Quarters) and Zverev (two very talented young guns). 

The Women's Final will be between Spaniard Garbine Muguruza and American Sofia Kenin (who beat Aussie favorite Ashleigh Barty in the Semis).

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Our grandson started primary school in Sydney today - happy Big School, Eddie!!!

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That's it for this post.  I'll try to do a short post before we head off to India in 3 weeks (virus permitting!).

Best wishes, stay healthy and keep smiling.

Vera Olah and Alex Olah

Canberra, Australia

Friday, 31 January 2020