April/May 2008 - winter is here

25/05/08
Well, it’s been a while so I thought that I should write something, but I don’t really have much to report.

The seasons have certainly switched over and it has now become quite chilly in the mornings and the days have some rain in them. That’s ok by me, though I am hoping that the rain stays off as I am walking home from work each day but I won’t do that if it is raining.

Some people at work are on a challenge to walk 10,000 steps a day – that is about 6km (or 3.75 miles). That seems like a lot, but I think that my walk home is 4km, so that is a large part of it covered.

I suppose a big change in my life is that I now am a few weeks into my new job. It is a change of pace that is taking a while to get used to. Other than a six month break from it, I have been contracting since 1991 and being a contractor, I tend to be employed for specific jobs with specific goals and aims. My current job is different to that as it is the on-going support of a system that the bank uses – I manage the relationship between the business areas that use the system and the vendors who wrote and maintain it. So there isn’t a particular goal to the job at this time – it is just day-to-day managing – there isn’t a position that I am aiming for other than to have everything working well. So now I am not worrying about whether I will be kept on or whether I need to be looking for a new contract – I suppose it is unusually settled compared to what I am used to.

A disappointing event that occurred was the demise of my football team. Having grown up in Leicester, Leicester City were the team that I have always supported - I used to go and see them a lot and one year, I even bought a season ticket. I have seen them lose more games than I have seen them win. I have seen them both win and lose at Wembley. They have been around for the last 124 years and this year they were relegated for the first time, from the top two divisions – we’ve drifted between the top two divisions for all these years and now that is over. I watched their final game of the season where a victory would have kept them up and they were a sorry outfit indeed – it was sad to see and also embarrassing. And now they are out there in the tough world of second-class teams where it is a dogfight – we may never make it back. Very sad.

The disappointment in Leicester is being soothed thanks to the performance of my Aussie Rules team. Hawthorn are the only unbeaten club in the league after the first nine games and as I am a member of the club, I can enjoy their performances and be proud of them.

Oh well, what else is there to report on?

I have been to some good gigs including a couple that Vika Bull has done in Brunswick – it is strange seeing her perform without Linda but the band are great, Vika’s voice is great and the songs are my sort of songs – happy days.

I also went to see the Soweto Gospel Choir a couple of weeks ago – that was a superb show – what voices and arrangements and dancing – a top night.

On Friday I went to a gig that was put on to raise funds to support the Sacred Heart Mission. To quote from their website:
“Sacred Heart Mission helps people who find themselves on the fringes of mainstream society. In all our programs - meals, crisis support, health and personal care, employment training, sport, recreation, home care, housing, hostel care and support for women working in street prostitution - staff and volunteers endeavour to create and maintain a sense of community - the opportunity for people to 'belong'. We aim to bring dignity and respect into the lives of people of all ages who live in poverty, to assist them to develop independence and to advocate on their behalf.”
They do wonderful work and have done ever since it was founded by Father Ernie Smith in 1982.

The gig itself was a mixture of music and comedy (sort of) and was solidly compared by Brian Nankervis.

The music was from Archie Roach, Renee Geyer, Kev Carmody, Dan Sultan, The Models, Deborah Conway and Willy Zygier, Tex Perkins, Kate Cebrano, Paul Kelly, The Stove Tops and the Choir of Hard Knocks. A great collection of acts and some damn fine music was performed.

The comedy aspect was an interesting thing indeed – I always thought that when putting on comedy, then it is usually good to put some funny bits in there – alas, this isn’t how Tracey Harvey, Lawrence Mooney, Peter Rowsthorn or Colin Lane see it. To watch comedians fail is very uncomfortable. Doing better were Dave Hughes and Julia Zamiro who generated laughter that would have been the envy of the others.

Anyway, it was a great cause and a good night.

Talking of the Choir of Hard Knocks, I’d like to put it on the record that I think that they are a great thing to have. Formed in 2006 by Jonathan Welch after he saw a similar idea happening in Montreal, it is made up of a group of 50 diverse and eclectic individuals who responded to a call to form a community street choir. The members are homeless and disadvantaged people who now have a voice and recognition – and hopefully some self-worth that will help them in their day to day lives too. It has also brought the plight of disadvantaged people into the public sphere.

So having them around is a good thing, but that doesn’t mean that it’s good music – that isn’t what it is about and it certainly doesn’t deliver that. I am happy to applaud them as they deserve it. What annoys me though is how the public treat them. On Friday night, after any individual would do a solo, the crowd would cheer and clap and I found that to be a very patronising attitude to have. Applaud the end of a song by all means – show them your support. But the singing was bad and to applaud it seemed false to me. If it was another choir and they had sung like that, they would probably have been booed off the stage, but this is a collection of people with much less than we have – but the applause seemed to be more from pity than anything and that made me feel uncomfortable with it. Maybe I am being too cynical – but there you go.

Anyway, not much else to report so I’ll leave it there.

Until we meet again

Au revoir