Afternoons
The mornings seem fine, mostly.
But there are moments when I am not entirely sure how it is I am still putting one foot in front of another.
Still, sometimes there aren't many options.
Wednesday, May 21, 2003
Look at me! I’m normal! Normal!
Invader Zim ranting aside, I have been certified medically normal, pending chest x-ray results.
I have to have a medical report done for the scholarship. Apparently, like most things, this is the fault of lawyers – as I’m going to the UK on their money, they owe me a duty of care. So they have to check I’m right to travel, or certified to have the correct number of organs to withstand an English winter, or something.
And yes, there are still doctors who in the course of a comprehensive external examination will place one hand firmly inside your underpants and ask you to cough.
It’s also a little disconcerting to have your armpits and the small of your back probed while someone is talking about their last Canberra holiday with the kiddies. Still, I suppose it helps to preserve some dignity while they are in a suit and you are in your underwear and socks.
I think I would have felt more dignified without the socks, but not having been instructed to remove them, I didn’t.
Still, my liver and spleen are apparently not enlarged, I have a degree of flexion within the ordinary range, my blood pressure is good and the little sample I had to provide in a screw-top container for “dip-stick testing” was, apparently, A-OK. All my results came in within the range of “normally healthy”.
I am, however, underweight for height. Like that’s news. I was actually excited to get on a scale and see I’d broken the fifty-four kilo barrier, but at 179.5 centimetres this gives me a height-weight ratio of 16.7 when normal is 20 – 25.
I think the scientific term is “really thin”.
So this morning was the chest X-ray. If I have lungs and a heart it looks like I should be right to go. The X-ray centre looked like it was built in the 50s: lino, fluorescent lights, old carpet and I swear some of the fittings were Bakelite. I had a peek at the control panel on the camera while the radiologist was out looking at the first set of snaps: huge, chunky, twiddly dials that looked as though they came from the first nuclear power plant. Two were helpfully labelled with masking tape: “decimal” and “buckies”. Not sure I want to know. Also not reassuring that while operating the machine he stands behind a shield marked “danger radiation” (as opposed to all that “safety radiation”). The radiation symbol was old-fashioned too, it had a little “R” in the centre like it was restricted film.
The skinny thing counted against me again, though. The back-to-camera shot had to be taken twice. Just not enough of me for a clear result first time, it seems.
Invader Zim ranting aside, I have been certified medically normal, pending chest x-ray results.
I have to have a medical report done for the scholarship. Apparently, like most things, this is the fault of lawyers – as I’m going to the UK on their money, they owe me a duty of care. So they have to check I’m right to travel, or certified to have the correct number of organs to withstand an English winter, or something.
And yes, there are still doctors who in the course of a comprehensive external examination will place one hand firmly inside your underpants and ask you to cough.
It’s also a little disconcerting to have your armpits and the small of your back probed while someone is talking about their last Canberra holiday with the kiddies. Still, I suppose it helps to preserve some dignity while they are in a suit and you are in your underwear and socks.
I think I would have felt more dignified without the socks, but not having been instructed to remove them, I didn’t.
Still, my liver and spleen are apparently not enlarged, I have a degree of flexion within the ordinary range, my blood pressure is good and the little sample I had to provide in a screw-top container for “dip-stick testing” was, apparently, A-OK. All my results came in within the range of “normally healthy”.
I am, however, underweight for height. Like that’s news. I was actually excited to get on a scale and see I’d broken the fifty-four kilo barrier, but at 179.5 centimetres this gives me a height-weight ratio of 16.7 when normal is 20 – 25.
I think the scientific term is “really thin”.
So this morning was the chest X-ray. If I have lungs and a heart it looks like I should be right to go. The X-ray centre looked like it was built in the 50s: lino, fluorescent lights, old carpet and I swear some of the fittings were Bakelite. I had a peek at the control panel on the camera while the radiologist was out looking at the first set of snaps: huge, chunky, twiddly dials that looked as though they came from the first nuclear power plant. Two were helpfully labelled with masking tape: “decimal” and “buckies”. Not sure I want to know. Also not reassuring that while operating the machine he stands behind a shield marked “danger radiation” (as opposed to all that “safety radiation”). The radiation symbol was old-fashioned too, it had a little “R” in the centre like it was restricted film.
The skinny thing counted against me again, though. The back-to-camera shot had to be taken twice. Just not enough of me for a clear result first time, it seems.
Monday, May 19, 2003
Thursday, May 15, 2003
Life’s turning points
I got news yesterday that is simply life-changing.
I’m going to Cambridge.
Come October, I will be studying for a Masters of International Law at the University of Cambridge, England.
I am still feeling rather overwhelmed. I have never lived overseas on my own for an extended period. I haven’t been in the UK since I was five.
For the last fortnight I’ve been pretty stressed, in a way I have had trouble communicating to anyone, about “the future”. You know. The Future. What I want to do with my life if I don’t want to go back to a giant firm in Sydney. A ten-year school reunion will do that to you. As will a one-year contract in Melbourne that runs out around mid-October. I had begun to look for jobs that would keep me in Melbourne, the only other option being to trudge back to the Sydney firm at the end of my eighteen-month “leave of absence”.
I had started applying for scholarships to the UK pretty much from the moment I landed in Melbourne. The academic calendar starts in October, my term down here finished in October, I’m still only 27 – if I was going to do it, now was the time to apply. There are three major scholarships for study in the UK from Australia that I knew about, the everything-paid kind: The Chevening (British Foreign office sponsored), the Menzies Foundation, and the Commonwealth Scholarships. The Menzies and the Commonwealth did not interview me, the Chevening did in Feburary – but declined me.
The nice folks at the Chevening, however, referred my application to the Scots Australia Council, because I had an interest in the University of Edinburgh. Monday was my interview with the SAC, held at the British Consulate in Melbourne.
Yesterday, I had a call from the Canberra British High Commission. I thought it was a follow-up about the SAC. Instead, I discover someone ahead of me has been unable to take up his or her Chevening Scholarship and I was top of the reserve list.
I was stunned.
No ifs, no buts, no questions – they’re sending me to Cambridge for the nine-month Masters program.
While this solves the question of what I’m doing next year, in some ways the timing is, at best, bittersweet. I was just getting to love Melbourne, and will now have to leave it in less than a year. And for just on two months, I’ve been seeing a truly wonderful woman. The fact that what is, basically, the biggest news of my life will inevitably be upsetting to someone I care about deeply certainly affects how I feel about all this. But that is as much as I am going to say about that here.
What does this all mean, practically? In one sense, everything. The law I am most interested in working in is public international law and international human rights law. The professional “field” for this work boils down to academia, UN agencies, non-government organisations like the Red Cross, and some specialised government departments like the Attorney General’s Office of International Law. Getting into the field is next to impossible without a higher degree, preferably obtained during study abroad. All that may be open to me after this.
Everything is too vivid, too intense right now. I still haven’t really assimilated what’s happening and what it means. And there is just so much I have to get done between now and October. But this is the biggest turning point in my life since 1997 and I have to seize it.
I got news yesterday that is simply life-changing.
I’m going to Cambridge.
Come October, I will be studying for a Masters of International Law at the University of Cambridge, England.
I am still feeling rather overwhelmed. I have never lived overseas on my own for an extended period. I haven’t been in the UK since I was five.
For the last fortnight I’ve been pretty stressed, in a way I have had trouble communicating to anyone, about “the future”. You know. The Future. What I want to do with my life if I don’t want to go back to a giant firm in Sydney. A ten-year school reunion will do that to you. As will a one-year contract in Melbourne that runs out around mid-October. I had begun to look for jobs that would keep me in Melbourne, the only other option being to trudge back to the Sydney firm at the end of my eighteen-month “leave of absence”.
I had started applying for scholarships to the UK pretty much from the moment I landed in Melbourne. The academic calendar starts in October, my term down here finished in October, I’m still only 27 – if I was going to do it, now was the time to apply. There are three major scholarships for study in the UK from Australia that I knew about, the everything-paid kind: The Chevening (British Foreign office sponsored), the Menzies Foundation, and the Commonwealth Scholarships. The Menzies and the Commonwealth did not interview me, the Chevening did in Feburary – but declined me.
The nice folks at the Chevening, however, referred my application to the Scots Australia Council, because I had an interest in the University of Edinburgh. Monday was my interview with the SAC, held at the British Consulate in Melbourne.
Yesterday, I had a call from the Canberra British High Commission. I thought it was a follow-up about the SAC. Instead, I discover someone ahead of me has been unable to take up his or her Chevening Scholarship and I was top of the reserve list.
I was stunned.
No ifs, no buts, no questions – they’re sending me to Cambridge for the nine-month Masters program.
While this solves the question of what I’m doing next year, in some ways the timing is, at best, bittersweet. I was just getting to love Melbourne, and will now have to leave it in less than a year. And for just on two months, I’ve been seeing a truly wonderful woman. The fact that what is, basically, the biggest news of my life will inevitably be upsetting to someone I care about deeply certainly affects how I feel about all this. But that is as much as I am going to say about that here.
What does this all mean, practically? In one sense, everything. The law I am most interested in working in is public international law and international human rights law. The professional “field” for this work boils down to academia, UN agencies, non-government organisations like the Red Cross, and some specialised government departments like the Attorney General’s Office of International Law. Getting into the field is next to impossible without a higher degree, preferably obtained during study abroad. All that may be open to me after this.
Everything is too vivid, too intense right now. I still haven’t really assimilated what’s happening and what it means. And there is just so much I have to get done between now and October. But this is the biggest turning point in my life since 1997 and I have to seize it.
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
A galaxy far, far away – with no tortious liability
I got bored yesterday, and I started thinking, what would a lawyer in the “Star Wars” sequence do? Then I realised, it’s obvious from the films that we’re dealing with a universe containing no lawyers at all. Here are my reasons.
The Empire was very poorly advised
1. Any competent lawyer would have told the Emperor his universe-domination strategy was all wrong. Rather than rule by force he should have franchised The Dark Side™, and shielded himself from personal liability through franchisee agreements, independent contractors and a corporate structure. Let’s see the Rebellion touch his wrinkly butt now!
2. However, the non-existence of lawyers in the Empire was proved by the arbitrary destruction of an entire planet (Alderaan) by the first Death Star. No way that coulda happened in a lawyer-infested universe without the Empire being tied up in wrongful death suits for a millennium.
3. With competent counsel, Darth Vader would never have bother with cybernetic reconstruction and going on to a highly prestigious 2IC position to the Emperor before finalising his workers comp claim and/or his action against Obi Wan for his horrifying lava injuries. His ability to sue for lost earning capacity and physical impairment is now right out the window.
Two general points
4. In a world with lawyers, when Leia was captured, someone woulda read her her rights. And I hope the mind probe that floated in after Vader was recording the interview, coz I dunno how it was meant to be admissible evidence otherwise.
5. In a world with lawyers, the Senate would never have been dissolved. It would be calling for a judicial inquiry into the disappearance of Alderaan, and appointing an independent prosecutor to examine the Emperor’s involvement.
Product liability issues
6. In “The Attack of the Clones” there are flying cars in big cities. What happens when these things run outta gas? I’ll tell you what, they plummet several hundred metres to a fiery impact collecting plaintiffs – sorry, injuring people – on the way. The ensuing class action would shut down the manufacturer and ensure a product recall. In a future with lawyers, there will be no flying cars.
7. Ultra-fast-shutting automatic doors in the first trilogy, the ones people step through all the time. Is there any need for them to shut so fast? How come one never clipped the arm off a storm-trooper? Again, it’s a product liability case waiting to happen. Each door should be labelled in three-foot red letters: “Move quickly or this will rip your arm off.” Speaking of warning signs …
8. In a world with lawyers, there is no way anyone could slide down a random chute into a monster-inhabited lake within a garbage compactor. Some idiot would have done it before and sued, resulting in a big sign on the chute reading: “Warning! This chute leads to a monster-inhabited lake within a garbage compactor! Sliding down may result in DEATH!”
9. Light sabres would not exist. In the new films, they train kids with those things! The first baby-Jedi to get his foot cut off would have resulted in a government ban and buy-back scheme and probably an inquiry into the Jedi Order. Yup, lawyers would’ve shut those Jedi down. So why did Palpatine bother sending them off to die in the Clone Wars? Unrealistically elaborate way to get rid of them, it seems to me.
In conclusion, if you really want to see “Attack of the Clones” just go piss off a company represented by a top tier law firm. They’ll only be armed with prestige-brand fountain pens, but man, they can still be scary.
PS Naylor has been delayed due to persistent ill-health. Late today or tomorrow, I promise.
I got bored yesterday, and I started thinking, what would a lawyer in the “Star Wars” sequence do? Then I realised, it’s obvious from the films that we’re dealing with a universe containing no lawyers at all. Here are my reasons.
The Empire was very poorly advised
1. Any competent lawyer would have told the Emperor his universe-domination strategy was all wrong. Rather than rule by force he should have franchised The Dark Side™, and shielded himself from personal liability through franchisee agreements, independent contractors and a corporate structure. Let’s see the Rebellion touch his wrinkly butt now!
2. However, the non-existence of lawyers in the Empire was proved by the arbitrary destruction of an entire planet (Alderaan) by the first Death Star. No way that coulda happened in a lawyer-infested universe without the Empire being tied up in wrongful death suits for a millennium.
3. With competent counsel, Darth Vader would never have bother with cybernetic reconstruction and going on to a highly prestigious 2IC position to the Emperor before finalising his workers comp claim and/or his action against Obi Wan for his horrifying lava injuries. His ability to sue for lost earning capacity and physical impairment is now right out the window.
Two general points
4. In a world with lawyers, when Leia was captured, someone woulda read her her rights. And I hope the mind probe that floated in after Vader was recording the interview, coz I dunno how it was meant to be admissible evidence otherwise.
5. In a world with lawyers, the Senate would never have been dissolved. It would be calling for a judicial inquiry into the disappearance of Alderaan, and appointing an independent prosecutor to examine the Emperor’s involvement.
Product liability issues
6. In “The Attack of the Clones” there are flying cars in big cities. What happens when these things run outta gas? I’ll tell you what, they plummet several hundred metres to a fiery impact collecting plaintiffs – sorry, injuring people – on the way. The ensuing class action would shut down the manufacturer and ensure a product recall. In a future with lawyers, there will be no flying cars.
7. Ultra-fast-shutting automatic doors in the first trilogy, the ones people step through all the time. Is there any need for them to shut so fast? How come one never clipped the arm off a storm-trooper? Again, it’s a product liability case waiting to happen. Each door should be labelled in three-foot red letters: “Move quickly or this will rip your arm off.” Speaking of warning signs …
8. In a world with lawyers, there is no way anyone could slide down a random chute into a monster-inhabited lake within a garbage compactor. Some idiot would have done it before and sued, resulting in a big sign on the chute reading: “Warning! This chute leads to a monster-inhabited lake within a garbage compactor! Sliding down may result in DEATH!”
9. Light sabres would not exist. In the new films, they train kids with those things! The first baby-Jedi to get his foot cut off would have resulted in a government ban and buy-back scheme and probably an inquiry into the Jedi Order. Yup, lawyers would’ve shut those Jedi down. So why did Palpatine bother sending them off to die in the Clone Wars? Unrealistically elaborate way to get rid of them, it seems to me.
In conclusion, if you really want to see “Attack of the Clones” just go piss off a company represented by a top tier law firm. They’ll only be armed with prestige-brand fountain pens, but man, they can still be scary.
PS Naylor has been delayed due to persistent ill-health. Late today or tomorrow, I promise.
Giant robots
I’m back at work today, I’m not sure if I should be, but I am.
Yesterday, in my ramblings down childhood nostalgia way, I took a byway into discarded hobby obsessions. Transformers, how cool were they? I use the past tense, coz I stopped in at the K-Mart heaters sale to pick up a new oil heater since the electrics in the one owned by my landlord melted down. I cannot heat my uninsulated box of a room through winter with only a bar-heater.
Anyway, I dropped by the toys aisle, as is my wont. Transformers these days are like the weird result of my childhood memories dropped in a blender, a strong dash of anime and all-plastic components added. Dammit, they still used to have die-cast metal when I was a lad. And they didn’t turn into quite such blatantly ridiculous animals (other than the dinobots … and the predacons … and Scorponok … but anyway.) And they’re recycling names – Grimlock is now a construction vehicle, not a metal tyrannosaurus. The indignity.
What I loved about Transformers, other than the whole cool transformation thing, was their little “Tech Specs” card with name, vital stats and a little paragraph about their background. These included some fabulous sci-fi inanities such as the Decepticon spy Ravage’s “electromagnetic emission shield”. As a nine year-old I asked my Dad, an engineer, what this would mean. Basically, he said things like heat, light and radio were forms of electromagnetic radiation, so such a shield could make the robot invisible to radar, infra-red cameras and even, perhaps, ordinary sight. I often wondered how many kids didn’t get these details.
Also, certain words entered my vocab as Transformer names: dirge, prowl, ravage, frenzy, sea-spray and ratchet. I also thought “Starscream” always had a certain violent poetry too.
The coolest thing about resurgent interest in Transfromers by 20-something geeks is the availability of giant de-cals for the rear window of your car – so your vehicle looks just like a real Autobot or Decepticon – stand back, it’s transforming!
I’m back at work today, I’m not sure if I should be, but I am.
Yesterday, in my ramblings down childhood nostalgia way, I took a byway into discarded hobby obsessions. Transformers, how cool were they? I use the past tense, coz I stopped in at the K-Mart heaters sale to pick up a new oil heater since the electrics in the one owned by my landlord melted down. I cannot heat my uninsulated box of a room through winter with only a bar-heater.
Anyway, I dropped by the toys aisle, as is my wont. Transformers these days are like the weird result of my childhood memories dropped in a blender, a strong dash of anime and all-plastic components added. Dammit, they still used to have die-cast metal when I was a lad. And they didn’t turn into quite such blatantly ridiculous animals (other than the dinobots … and the predacons … and Scorponok … but anyway.) And they’re recycling names – Grimlock is now a construction vehicle, not a metal tyrannosaurus. The indignity.
What I loved about Transformers, other than the whole cool transformation thing, was their little “Tech Specs” card with name, vital stats and a little paragraph about their background. These included some fabulous sci-fi inanities such as the Decepticon spy Ravage’s “electromagnetic emission shield”. As a nine year-old I asked my Dad, an engineer, what this would mean. Basically, he said things like heat, light and radio were forms of electromagnetic radiation, so such a shield could make the robot invisible to radar, infra-red cameras and even, perhaps, ordinary sight. I often wondered how many kids didn’t get these details.
Also, certain words entered my vocab as Transformer names: dirge, prowl, ravage, frenzy, sea-spray and ratchet. I also thought “Starscream” always had a certain violent poetry too.
The coolest thing about resurgent interest in Transfromers by 20-something geeks is the availability of giant de-cals for the rear window of your car – so your vehicle looks just like a real Autobot or Decepticon – stand back, it’s transforming!
Tuesday, May 13, 2003
Nope, SARS it ain't
Sometimes, being sick enough to stay home is like getting back a little slice of childhood.
I went into work yesterday to drop off documents and bits and pieces others might need after Canberra, then went home again and put myself to bed. (If only it were that fast. My train was cancelled and getting home took about an hour, not 30 minutes ... ) In the afternoon, I found a GP in the yellow pages, got slotted in between appointments, and said: "Doc, I need to know - am I sick, or just malingering?"
I have a sensation of an elevated temperature and a dry cough. I clearly have a virus. I was in Canberra last week. So, did I come into contact with anyone who'd been travelling overseas? asked the Doc.
"Hell yeah," says I "at my ten-year school reunion there was a guy at my table who lives in Malaysia. He was sitting right across from me."
I blink.
"He seemed healthy at the time."
I still don't know how my cheerful admission didn't get me confined to quarantine, but it probably had a lot to do with my absence of any real temperature - 37.1 centigrade, merely the high end of normal. A dose of SARS will put you at 39 and over it seems.
But I was told that unless I was absolutely essential at work, I should take a day off, sleep in and rest. So that's what I've been doing, slowly and through a brain-fog of low-energy, poor-quality concentration, but it's been fun.
So far I have:
gotten up late (well, for me 8 am is late);
drank coffee and read the paper;
washed my sheets and done a load of laundry;
rang the girlf at work so she could snaffle up the internet deal on accomodation for our Sydney jaunt (5 stars, Darlinghurst, boutique apartment with spa ... mmmm ...);
tortured girlf with news of my morning of shallow self-indulgence;
showered;
lay on bed, read a little of "Fight Club", dozed;
made lunch and came to local library to blog a little.
Later on I plan to read in a canvas chair in the back yard in the sun, trying not to bring a lung up. And to continue my childish daydreaming and unhurried pottering about the house. I may watch some cartoons if I feel the urge. I have a lot of "Invader Zim" on tape. I may re-read some comics. And there will be an afternoon nap, oh yes.
Feel free to hate me now.
Sometimes, being sick enough to stay home is like getting back a little slice of childhood.
I went into work yesterday to drop off documents and bits and pieces others might need after Canberra, then went home again and put myself to bed. (If only it were that fast. My train was cancelled and getting home took about an hour, not 30 minutes ... ) In the afternoon, I found a GP in the yellow pages, got slotted in between appointments, and said: "Doc, I need to know - am I sick, or just malingering?"
I have a sensation of an elevated temperature and a dry cough. I clearly have a virus. I was in Canberra last week. So, did I come into contact with anyone who'd been travelling overseas? asked the Doc.
"Hell yeah," says I "at my ten-year school reunion there was a guy at my table who lives in Malaysia. He was sitting right across from me."
I blink.
"He seemed healthy at the time."
I still don't know how my cheerful admission didn't get me confined to quarantine, but it probably had a lot to do with my absence of any real temperature - 37.1 centigrade, merely the high end of normal. A dose of SARS will put you at 39 and over it seems.
But I was told that unless I was absolutely essential at work, I should take a day off, sleep in and rest. So that's what I've been doing, slowly and through a brain-fog of low-energy, poor-quality concentration, but it's been fun.
So far I have:
gotten up late (well, for me 8 am is late);
drank coffee and read the paper;
washed my sheets and done a load of laundry;
rang the girlf at work so she could snaffle up the internet deal on accomodation for our Sydney jaunt (5 stars, Darlinghurst, boutique apartment with spa ... mmmm ...);
tortured girlf with news of my morning of shallow self-indulgence;
showered;
lay on bed, read a little of "Fight Club", dozed;
made lunch and came to local library to blog a little.
Later on I plan to read in a canvas chair in the back yard in the sun, trying not to bring a lung up. And to continue my childish daydreaming and unhurried pottering about the house. I may watch some cartoons if I feel the urge. I have a lot of "Invader Zim" on tape. I may re-read some comics. And there will be an afternoon nap, oh yes.
Feel free to hate me now.
Friday, May 9, 2003
Unexpectedly cool moment at court
I saw the niftiest thing in Canberra yesterday afternoon.
Surprisingly, it had to do with filing documents in court. You see, when you run a court case you generally need to serve on the other side “sealed” copies of documents. So you take an original and some copies into the court registry and file it, and the court clerk puts the original on the case file, and stamps the copies you have brought with you. This is why litigators do things in triplicate: one for us, one for them, one for the court. With me so far?
Now, all law firms have people in their own “registry”, or “filing clerks”, and their job is, several times a day, to make a run down to the court and file documents. This works well for routine things that are just ticking over according to schedule. Now, to rely on a document in court, again generally speaking, it has to have been filed with the court and a sealed copy “served” on the other side with three clear days before the next time you’re due in court. It’s a rule designed to stop nasty surprises being sprung. When things are running late (ie most of the time) this can lead to interesting situations.
Most court registries close at 4.30 pm, so when documents are ready only at the last minute it’s often too late to send them through the firm registry to the court. This means the most junior solicitor available is sent to file the document. While working in Sydney my firm was only four blocks or so from the court, and most of the time it was faster to walk (or run) down to court than catch a taxi. However, at several court registries big metal roll-a-door shutter things would start to descend at 4.30, but the rule was, if you made it in before the shutter came down, then they had to accept the document. Many times I’d arrive suit-sweaty, muscles burning, and would be only just early enough to avoid having to do an Indiana Jones commando roll under the descending metal shutter.
Man: “Hello, let me in, please, I -”
Court clerk (yelling): “You can’t come in, it’s after 4.30.”
Man: “No you don’t understand, I – ”
Court clerk (still yelling): “No you really can’t come in, it’s the rule.”
Man: “I’m the solicitor-general for the Commonwealth! This is where I collect my mail!”
And that kiddies, is why you should not forget your security pass.
So, yesterday I happened to be in the Supreme Court in Canberra and saw a girl in casual pants and hooded jumper roller-blading across the forecourt. She then trotted up the first set of steps. I realised she was carrying documents in her arms. She rolled through the doors and onto the foyer carpet, and then began sideways jogging up the two flights of stairs to the registry. Another guy in a suit with a bundle of documents met her on the stairs.
“Are you allowed to wear those in here?” he asked.
“No one’s stopped me yet,” she replied and glided off towards the document filing counter.
It was one of the most practical things I’ve ever seen from a law firm. Barristers should really get into that. They’d look great zooming along, robes fluttering behind them …
I saw the niftiest thing in Canberra yesterday afternoon.
Surprisingly, it had to do with filing documents in court. You see, when you run a court case you generally need to serve on the other side “sealed” copies of documents. So you take an original and some copies into the court registry and file it, and the court clerk puts the original on the case file, and stamps the copies you have brought with you. This is why litigators do things in triplicate: one for us, one for them, one for the court. With me so far?
Now, all law firms have people in their own “registry”, or “filing clerks”, and their job is, several times a day, to make a run down to the court and file documents. This works well for routine things that are just ticking over according to schedule. Now, to rely on a document in court, again generally speaking, it has to have been filed with the court and a sealed copy “served” on the other side with three clear days before the next time you’re due in court. It’s a rule designed to stop nasty surprises being sprung. When things are running late (ie most of the time) this can lead to interesting situations.
Most court registries close at 4.30 pm, so when documents are ready only at the last minute it’s often too late to send them through the firm registry to the court. This means the most junior solicitor available is sent to file the document. While working in Sydney my firm was only four blocks or so from the court, and most of the time it was faster to walk (or run) down to court than catch a taxi. However, at several court registries big metal roll-a-door shutter things would start to descend at 4.30, but the rule was, if you made it in before the shutter came down, then they had to accept the document. Many times I’d arrive suit-sweaty, muscles burning, and would be only just early enough to avoid having to do an Indiana Jones commando roll under the descending metal shutter.
Man: “Hello, let me in, please, I -”
Court clerk (yelling): “You can’t come in, it’s after 4.30.”
Man: “No you don’t understand, I – ”
Court clerk (still yelling): “No you really can’t come in, it’s the rule.”
Man: “I’m the solicitor-general for the Commonwealth! This is where I collect my mail!”
And that kiddies, is why you should not forget your security pass.
So, yesterday I happened to be in the Supreme Court in Canberra and saw a girl in casual pants and hooded jumper roller-blading across the forecourt. She then trotted up the first set of steps. I realised she was carrying documents in her arms. She rolled through the doors and onto the foyer carpet, and then began sideways jogging up the two flights of stairs to the registry. Another guy in a suit with a bundle of documents met her on the stairs.
“Are you allowed to wear those in here?” he asked.
“No one’s stopped me yet,” she replied and glided off towards the document filing counter.
It was one of the most practical things I’ve ever seen from a law firm. Barristers should really get into that. They’d look great zooming along, robes fluttering behind them …
Thursday, May 8, 2003
Death by acute hypochondria
I am not well suited to travel.
Anyone who doubts me on this would only need to have seen me at 7.15 this morning, mewling pitifully to an empty room that I must have had bad sushi last night and was dying, dying, dying. Behaving in such a way is pretty juvenile and, when there’s no-one around, frankly useless. I think I’m just cumulatively under-slept and dehydrated.
Awakened again by 4.30 am garbage collection, lay awake fantasising about writing an angry e-mail to ACT Minister of Tourism. It’s the back of a hotel for god’s sake (alright, and a bunch of restaurants) and they have a glass collection every frikken morning.
Crash! Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle! Crash. Beep-beep-beep. Rumble.
Anyway, lay awake in a fit of insomnia, convinced my brow was feverish while my hands and feet were freezing off. Reconfigured bedding endlessly: too hot with the blanket, too cold with just a sheet. I think I’d just overheated the room when I went out for dinner and should have aired it when I got back. And drunk a lot more water.
I am so staying at my parent’s country retreat tonight, dammit.
So this is why I have not done the globe-trotting backpacker thing yet: I am a fragile sleeper, and a complete hypochondriac when under-slept. Every time I travel for work it just turns into a whinge-fest and/or I get genuinely ill.
Just commit me to the nursing home now …
Anyway, met the lads for dinner last night, and it was good. We went to Shogun for dinner, rather good Japanese. Afterwards we went to the new bar missjenjen and I had wanted to check out – Mortis. (Latin, third declension noun, genitive case, meaning: “of death”. Six years of Latin was good for something.) It has a kind of mortuary theme, other than the window seats: white suede couches and a starlit effect of dangling fibre-optic cable. Everything else, though, has a stainless steel mortician’s slab chic. There are some illuminated ultrasounds and MRIs on light boxes and the toilets continue the functional steel-finish theme.
Not without charm.
Okay, it’s Naylor Day – and my offering sucks. Goddamn computer I’m sharing here won’t transmit more than a few hundred words at a time to blogger, and Explorer often crashes while formatting. It’s awful. So I only got 647 of 1200 words up, and the 12 point spacing between paragraphs is missing at the end of what I could upload. It’s there, but I beg you, look not until later this evening when hopefully I’ll have been able to fix it from my parent’s place.
Even dial-up has to be better than these conditions …
I am not well suited to travel.
Anyone who doubts me on this would only need to have seen me at 7.15 this morning, mewling pitifully to an empty room that I must have had bad sushi last night and was dying, dying, dying. Behaving in such a way is pretty juvenile and, when there’s no-one around, frankly useless. I think I’m just cumulatively under-slept and dehydrated.
Awakened again by 4.30 am garbage collection, lay awake fantasising about writing an angry e-mail to ACT Minister of Tourism. It’s the back of a hotel for god’s sake (alright, and a bunch of restaurants) and they have a glass collection every frikken morning.
Crash! Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle! Crash. Beep-beep-beep. Rumble.
Anyway, lay awake in a fit of insomnia, convinced my brow was feverish while my hands and feet were freezing off. Reconfigured bedding endlessly: too hot with the blanket, too cold with just a sheet. I think I’d just overheated the room when I went out for dinner and should have aired it when I got back. And drunk a lot more water.
I am so staying at my parent’s country retreat tonight, dammit.
So this is why I have not done the globe-trotting backpacker thing yet: I am a fragile sleeper, and a complete hypochondriac when under-slept. Every time I travel for work it just turns into a whinge-fest and/or I get genuinely ill.
Just commit me to the nursing home now …
Anyway, met the lads for dinner last night, and it was good. We went to Shogun for dinner, rather good Japanese. Afterwards we went to the new bar missjenjen and I had wanted to check out – Mortis. (Latin, third declension noun, genitive case, meaning: “of death”. Six years of Latin was good for something.) It has a kind of mortuary theme, other than the window seats: white suede couches and a starlit effect of dangling fibre-optic cable. Everything else, though, has a stainless steel mortician’s slab chic. There are some illuminated ultrasounds and MRIs on light boxes and the toilets continue the functional steel-finish theme.
Not without charm.
Okay, it’s Naylor Day – and my offering sucks. Goddamn computer I’m sharing here won’t transmit more than a few hundred words at a time to blogger, and Explorer often crashes while formatting. It’s awful. So I only got 647 of 1200 words up, and the 12 point spacing between paragraphs is missing at the end of what I could upload. It’s there, but I beg you, look not until later this evening when hopefully I’ll have been able to fix it from my parent’s place.
Even dial-up has to be better than these conditions …
Wednesday, May 7, 2003
A life lived in narrow compass
This is weird. Globe-roaming-Ben dropped me off at my serviced apartment in the heart of Canberra City (yes, that does mean something more specific than general Canberra) on Sunday night. He had to return on Monday morning to drop off my shaving gear, but that is another story entirely.
Since Sunday I have lived in a radius of, I believe, less than a kilometre. I have gone no further North than the tip of Garema Place, no further South than the Court buildings, no further West that the Wig & Pen pub and micro-brewery and no further East than the new Canberra Centre extension (it’s a shopping mall). This is a tiny, tiny area.
I don’t think I’ve ever commuted so little for work, and roamed so little afterwards. I’ve still managed to eat somewhere that is entirely new to me each night, so that’s good. Monday I had dinner with my sister and a lawyer friend at Flavours of India in Civic, which was good – and last night with Marissa I checked out a new Thai place in the Sydney building, also very good. (Marissa’s recent trip photos will be marvellous once blogger choses to display them.) Tonight I dine with Jason of the essay-length comments and Globe-roaming-Ben. Tomorrow the parents return from Queensland (Noosa, half their luck) so family commitments from then through to my Saturday departure I expect.
So once the parents are back, I imagine my sister will drive me out to the property and that’ll break my little one kilometre bubble by quite a bit.
It’s funny, I increasingly feel I’m living in some terribly sophisticated village, well-stocked with dining options and beer. I am getting the travel-allowance-bloated feeling, though. There’s only so long you can continually dine out without your body begging for a meal that’s just a plain salad.
Right, time to work. I’ve no idea how I’m going to get some Naylor posted tomorrow.
This is weird. Globe-roaming-Ben dropped me off at my serviced apartment in the heart of Canberra City (yes, that does mean something more specific than general Canberra) on Sunday night. He had to return on Monday morning to drop off my shaving gear, but that is another story entirely.
Since Sunday I have lived in a radius of, I believe, less than a kilometre. I have gone no further North than the tip of Garema Place, no further South than the Court buildings, no further West that the Wig & Pen pub and micro-brewery and no further East than the new Canberra Centre extension (it’s a shopping mall). This is a tiny, tiny area.
I don’t think I’ve ever commuted so little for work, and roamed so little afterwards. I’ve still managed to eat somewhere that is entirely new to me each night, so that’s good. Monday I had dinner with my sister and a lawyer friend at Flavours of India in Civic, which was good – and last night with Marissa I checked out a new Thai place in the Sydney building, also very good. (Marissa’s recent trip photos will be marvellous once blogger choses to display them.) Tonight I dine with Jason of the essay-length comments and Globe-roaming-Ben. Tomorrow the parents return from Queensland (Noosa, half their luck) so family commitments from then through to my Saturday departure I expect.
So once the parents are back, I imagine my sister will drive me out to the property and that’ll break my little one kilometre bubble by quite a bit.
It’s funny, I increasingly feel I’m living in some terribly sophisticated village, well-stocked with dining options and beer. I am getting the travel-allowance-bloated feeling, though. There’s only so long you can continually dine out without your body begging for a meal that’s just a plain salad.
Right, time to work. I’ve no idea how I’m going to get some Naylor posted tomorrow.
Tuesday, May 6, 2003
The quality of Autumn is never strained
Ah, season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. John Keats really knew his stuff when writing his “Ode to Canberra”, a city many since have seen as synonymous with Autumn.
Canberra is, as the Big K well-knew, the perfect Autumn city. Sure, Melbourne may rate, but this place has it sewn up. The cool, dry climate is well adapted to wine making and having a mother-load of decorative, deciduous European trees. Liquid Ambers back-lit against the sky turn the colour of, well, liquid amber. Trees that for all I know may or may not be maples drop their big, brown, flat three-fingered-hand leaves all over the place. You can’t walk anywhere without sounding like a primary school librarian having conniptions:
Shoosh, shoosh, shoosh, shoosh, shoosh.
I’d forgotten how still and dry the air can be here in the colder months. It adds to a certain silent, slow-paced feel to the early morning or evening – like you don’t want to move because you’ll disturb something. It creates a really intense temperature disjunction between light and shadow. Building shadows become deep, cold dark sea-bed depths, and the shock of ultra-rapid depressurisation into strong, cloudless sunlight can just leave you going, Ahhhhh. I’m surprised more people don’t just fall over in Garema Place purring like cats.
(Well, I guess people do fall over in Garema Place, but usually late at night and for reasons that have little to do with being abuzz for Autumn and more to do with having just taken a hit in a public lavatory.)
Ah, season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. John Keats really knew his stuff when writing his “Ode to Canberra”, a city many since have seen as synonymous with Autumn.
Canberra is, as the Big K well-knew, the perfect Autumn city. Sure, Melbourne may rate, but this place has it sewn up. The cool, dry climate is well adapted to wine making and having a mother-load of decorative, deciduous European trees. Liquid Ambers back-lit against the sky turn the colour of, well, liquid amber. Trees that for all I know may or may not be maples drop their big, brown, flat three-fingered-hand leaves all over the place. You can’t walk anywhere without sounding like a primary school librarian having conniptions:
Shoosh, shoosh, shoosh, shoosh, shoosh.
I’d forgotten how still and dry the air can be here in the colder months. It adds to a certain silent, slow-paced feel to the early morning or evening – like you don’t want to move because you’ll disturb something. It creates a really intense temperature disjunction between light and shadow. Building shadows become deep, cold dark sea-bed depths, and the shock of ultra-rapid depressurisation into strong, cloudless sunlight can just leave you going, Ahhhhh. I’m surprised more people don’t just fall over in Garema Place purring like cats.
(Well, I guess people do fall over in Garema Place, but usually late at night and for reasons that have little to do with being abuzz for Autumn and more to do with having just taken a hit in a public lavatory.)
The quality of Autumn, part II
I’d forgotten the quality of the light here. Sure, you can get a smog haze – not from traffic but from everyone turning on their wood-fired stoves and fireplaces at the same time, which in a valley can result in a nifty “atmospheric inversion”, but generally the air really is clearer than most other big cities. Strict planning laws enforcing a lower man-made skyline also starkly bring that Australian “big sky” right into the heart of the city. The result is that concrete can have a dazzlingly high albedo here, shadows stand out stark on a blazing field of white. Lunch is definitely a time for sunglasses.
And I’ve written about the balloons before.
That said, being back in Canberra (and staying on my own) after living in Melbourne and Sydney feels bizarrely, well, agoraphobic. There’s too much space for too few people. It’s a town where change occurs, but certainly not fast. I get bewildered by little things: the Canberra Centre shopping mall extension, the new crop of eateries and bars, the fact that one of my favourite Vietnamese restaurants, Little Saigon, has moved across the road from where it used to be and its corner-store shopfront is now a Lebanese takeaway. Seeing faces from my own past occasionally only adds to the surrealism of my impressions.
Like standing up too fast and getting head-spins, it feels pleasant in a weird small way.
I’d forgotten the quality of the light here. Sure, you can get a smog haze – not from traffic but from everyone turning on their wood-fired stoves and fireplaces at the same time, which in a valley can result in a nifty “atmospheric inversion”, but generally the air really is clearer than most other big cities. Strict planning laws enforcing a lower man-made skyline also starkly bring that Australian “big sky” right into the heart of the city. The result is that concrete can have a dazzlingly high albedo here, shadows stand out stark on a blazing field of white. Lunch is definitely a time for sunglasses.
And I’ve written about the balloons before.
That said, being back in Canberra (and staying on my own) after living in Melbourne and Sydney feels bizarrely, well, agoraphobic. There’s too much space for too few people. It’s a town where change occurs, but certainly not fast. I get bewildered by little things: the Canberra Centre shopping mall extension, the new crop of eateries and bars, the fact that one of my favourite Vietnamese restaurants, Little Saigon, has moved across the road from where it used to be and its corner-store shopfront is now a Lebanese takeaway. Seeing faces from my own past occasionally only adds to the surrealism of my impressions.
Like standing up too fast and getting head-spins, it feels pleasant in a weird small way.
Monday, May 5, 2003
Having trouble with blogger today
For reasons surpassing human understanding (but I suspect having more to do with the crap computer I have to share in Canberra than Blogger), today's entry has had to be posted in four parts to get it published at all. I apologise for the break in the flow and will attempt to consolidate them later.
For reasons surpassing human understanding (but I suspect having more to do with the crap computer I have to share in Canberra than Blogger), today's entry has had to be posted in four parts to get it published at all. I apologise for the break in the flow and will attempt to consolidate them later.
In Canberra once again
Here I am, back in the homeland.
Well, the area I went to school at least. So, I attended my school reunion Saturday night, I had fun, but it illustrated one point admirably: I've kept in touch with a select group of people for a reason. It was very interesting to see how people were doing, but there were no surprise recognitions of people I should really have kept up with and haven't. Also interesting to note that almost everyone had a generic corporate job. Ah, the benefits of middle-class, private education.
We all wound up afterwards at Filthy McFadden's, a pub that could almost be a metaphor for how little Canberra seems to change while you are away.
Anyway, it's been fabulous to see earth-roaming-Ben again, and pass Sunday with him. Am now safely ensconsced in the apartment booked by work, where I did not sleep as well as the seemingly comfortable surrounds might indicate.
I loathe 5 am garbage collections. Particularly when it's recycling day and there are giant skips filled with glass bottles from the nearby restaurants. Argh. Still, the apartment is very centrally located, and the parents are back Thursday - at which point my old room may start looking good.
Nonetheless, we're busy, I'm sharing a computer (don't ask) and blogging on stolen time.
More from nostalgia lane later.
Here I am, back in the homeland.
Well, the area I went to school at least. So, I attended my school reunion Saturday night, I had fun, but it illustrated one point admirably: I've kept in touch with a select group of people for a reason. It was very interesting to see how people were doing, but there were no surprise recognitions of people I should really have kept up with and haven't. Also interesting to note that almost everyone had a generic corporate job. Ah, the benefits of middle-class, private education.
We all wound up afterwards at Filthy McFadden's, a pub that could almost be a metaphor for how little Canberra seems to change while you are away.
Anyway, it's been fabulous to see earth-roaming-Ben again, and pass Sunday with him. Am now safely ensconsced in the apartment booked by work, where I did not sleep as well as the seemingly comfortable surrounds might indicate.
I loathe 5 am garbage collections. Particularly when it's recycling day and there are giant skips filled with glass bottles from the nearby restaurants. Argh. Still, the apartment is very centrally located, and the parents are back Thursday - at which point my old room may start looking good.
Nonetheless, we're busy, I'm sharing a computer (don't ask) and blogging on stolen time.
More from nostalgia lane later.
Friday, May 2, 2003
Meredith's Friday writing class
I've taken the challenge, writing a paragraph where every word contains the letter 'e'. Not as tricky as it sounded, though my result is pompous, Romanticised and riddlingly obscure.
Life’s course
Every achievement I’ve ever made came unexpectedly. Well, perhaps I’ve misphrased. The issue, the key, I’ve discovered lies outside some settled project. Travel, therein the necessity: objectives seldom are themselves achieved, yet opportunities come when we move purposefully. Other wonders then result, perhaps unintentionally. The place, the time - these are essential, however, mere chance doesn’t present opportunities alone. Active travel between life’s new stages creates new openings, new chances. Teleology? Redundant concept. We are choice-made, usage-shaped. Destiny comes of desire lived, flexibility, chances seized.
I've taken the challenge, writing a paragraph where every word contains the letter 'e'. Not as tricky as it sounded, though my result is pompous, Romanticised and riddlingly obscure.
Life’s course
Every achievement I’ve ever made came unexpectedly. Well, perhaps I’ve misphrased. The issue, the key, I’ve discovered lies outside some settled project. Travel, therein the necessity: objectives seldom are themselves achieved, yet opportunities come when we move purposefully. Other wonders then result, perhaps unintentionally. The place, the time - these are essential, however, mere chance doesn’t present opportunities alone. Active travel between life’s new stages creates new openings, new chances. Teleology? Redundant concept. We are choice-made, usage-shaped. Destiny comes of desire lived, flexibility, chances seized.
Recent viewing: “Buffy”, “Get Carter”
Watched Buffy with missjenjen last night. Some of the old form: backs to the wall, Giles in the fold, protecting the innocent, some of that old White Magic from Willow, a villain with a bad name (“The First”) and a bad-ass hench-vampire. Almost enough to make a regular watcher of me again, even if SMG still couldn’t carry off a St Crispin’s Day rallying the troops moment if her life depended on it.
I stopped watching (boo! heretic!) during the early University years. Four words: Riley, The Initiative, Adam. Some of the dumbest urban fantasy concepts ever. Redeeming features, the Josh written/directed episodes: Hush (so spooky!), the extended dream sequence (“I do not wear the cheese, the cheese wears me” and the Anthony Head rock-opera number), and the sublimely funny “Once More With Feeling”. Otherwise, largely a waste of time. The progressively emasculated Spike pissed me off, as did retro-stripping Xander of his soldier-boy powers to give Riley (farken Riley!) something to do.
The demise of Xander as a character is the unsung tragedy of the series. As a paragon of geeky, witty, bumbling masculinity he rocked in the early series, but then became a progressively whiney, sexually jealous (of Buffy), habitual naysayer. Yawn.
Even the new evil Willow was nowhere near as sexily compelling as the old Evil Vampire Willow. Alison Hannigan has rocked my world from her first bad jumper and fuzzy backpack. No, honestly.
It’s heyday was clearly the Evil Angel/The Mayor period. Hands-down. It’s just never really got back there. And early Spike (“It’s a really big rock. I wish I had a rock this big. I can’t wait to tell all my friends.”) and Dru! Those were the days when villains were villains, swordplay was swordplay and Giles wore tweed. Sigh.
The series is as dead on its feet as the average vamp. Its final demise will be a relief as much as anything. Doesn’t mean I won’t be watching next week.
Also watched “Get Carter” on the weekend with missjenjen: Michael Caine in a British gangster piece shot in 1971. He looks young and damn fine in a classic three piece blue suit and black trenchcoat, just riding that tsunami of bad 70s cinema fashion without being crushed (unlike most of the villains). It was atmospherically bleak, but lacked variation. The sound recording quality just also wasn’t that sharp (damn this digital age) so I’m sure it took me longer to pick up on the plot pieces than it should. Still, impressive to see the usually exuberant Caine turning in such a restrained, cynical, nasty performance. Blonde hair, trenchcoat, cynical manipulator of old friends and a history of trouble in Liverpool, only living relative he cares for a niece – the prototype for John Constantine anyone?
Watched Buffy with missjenjen last night. Some of the old form: backs to the wall, Giles in the fold, protecting the innocent, some of that old White Magic from Willow, a villain with a bad name (“The First”) and a bad-ass hench-vampire. Almost enough to make a regular watcher of me again, even if SMG still couldn’t carry off a St Crispin’s Day rallying the troops moment if her life depended on it.
I stopped watching (boo! heretic!) during the early University years. Four words: Riley, The Initiative, Adam. Some of the dumbest urban fantasy concepts ever. Redeeming features, the Josh written/directed episodes: Hush (so spooky!), the extended dream sequence (“I do not wear the cheese, the cheese wears me” and the Anthony Head rock-opera number), and the sublimely funny “Once More With Feeling”. Otherwise, largely a waste of time. The progressively emasculated Spike pissed me off, as did retro-stripping Xander of his soldier-boy powers to give Riley (farken Riley!) something to do.
The demise of Xander as a character is the unsung tragedy of the series. As a paragon of geeky, witty, bumbling masculinity he rocked in the early series, but then became a progressively whiney, sexually jealous (of Buffy), habitual naysayer. Yawn.
Even the new evil Willow was nowhere near as sexily compelling as the old Evil Vampire Willow. Alison Hannigan has rocked my world from her first bad jumper and fuzzy backpack. No, honestly.
It’s heyday was clearly the Evil Angel/The Mayor period. Hands-down. It’s just never really got back there. And early Spike (“It’s a really big rock. I wish I had a rock this big. I can’t wait to tell all my friends.”) and Dru! Those were the days when villains were villains, swordplay was swordplay and Giles wore tweed. Sigh.
The series is as dead on its feet as the average vamp. Its final demise will be a relief as much as anything. Doesn’t mean I won’t be watching next week.
Also watched “Get Carter” on the weekend with missjenjen: Michael Caine in a British gangster piece shot in 1971. He looks young and damn fine in a classic three piece blue suit and black trenchcoat, just riding that tsunami of bad 70s cinema fashion without being crushed (unlike most of the villains). It was atmospherically bleak, but lacked variation. The sound recording quality just also wasn’t that sharp (damn this digital age) so I’m sure it took me longer to pick up on the plot pieces than it should. Still, impressive to see the usually exuberant Caine turning in such a restrained, cynical, nasty performance. Blonde hair, trenchcoat, cynical manipulator of old friends and a history of trouble in Liverpool, only living relative he cares for a niece – the prototype for John Constantine anyone?
Thursday, May 1, 2003
Water, water … where?
Access to water is a fundamental human rights issue. Iraq has highlighted the importance of water infrastructure to communities, and how much can go wrong when it is damaged – as it was always going to.
Beyond Iraq, drought, civil war, the collapse of central government or just plain poverty endanger the lives of many and prevent access to a basic right.
The OECD estimates one out of every five people (ie 1.2 billion people), lack access to safe drinking water, and that twice that number lack basic sanitation.
So who is to provide this critical infrastructure to developing nations, the public or private sector? Background Briefing had an excellent documentary on this issue recently and my potted summary follows.
Cochabamba, Bolivia, is the worst-case privatisation scenario. In the words of Maude Barlowe, activist:
“Basically the World Bank convinced the government of Cochabamba to replace its corrupt … water company with a private sector company … and Bechtel, the big engineering company from the US, set up a water subsidiary, Aguas del Tunari, and … immediately raised the price of water [around 300%] … , and so there was a revolt and the army was brought in and people were killed.”
Bechtel had been given a 40 year contract.
Through the 90s supplying water to the developing world was promoted to big business by the World Bank, which saw the private sector as the means to bring water to the poor. Now, the water companies want out of the developing world, claiming, in what must come as a shock economists everywhere, that without subsidies selling water to the poor just isn’t profitable.
That said, the private sector has gone into some slums the pubic utilities wouldn’t touch because the local water-selling mafia was too strong, so there have been some innovative approaches and successes with public-private partnerships.
A big problem though, is local currency devaluation. Foreign companies don’t like being paid in internationally worthless local money. Imagine tis: you are a US water company operating in Argentina, the crash comes, the value of your revenue plummets. You try and put up prices, but people can’t pay anyway.
The French-based multinational, Suez, the world’s largest water supplier, lost a lot of money on its Manilla operation this way. The response? Corporations have demanded that governments accept the risk of currency devaluation, insuring their profit at public expense.
Remind me why we do this stuff through the private sector and not aid agencies?
Did the Third World Water Forum in Kyoto come up with an innovative new strategy? Well, it at least highlighted the need for one, and drew attention to the issue.
But the Forum wasn’t all altruism. Michel Camdessus, former head of the IMF, presented a report of the World Panel on Financing Water Infrastructure. That report provided in an annexe for a suggested “refinancing package” for the water corporations that would amount to foreign-currency devaluation insurance paid for with aid dollars.
Yes, the scarcity of water and rising demands for its use in agriculture worldwide mean that there are difficult economic issues involved.
But the best quote on the issue comes from Background Briefing.
Stephen Turner, Thames Water (a big corporate but also a key supporter of Water Aid): “I think when you go back and try to be rational about whether the international private sector was ever going to be the salvation, the panacea for the world’s poorest, we must have been blind to even consider this as an option. The basic premise that the international companies will be providing water for the world’s poorest is just off the wall.”
Access to water is a fundamental human rights issue. Iraq has highlighted the importance of water infrastructure to communities, and how much can go wrong when it is damaged – as it was always going to.
Beyond Iraq, drought, civil war, the collapse of central government or just plain poverty endanger the lives of many and prevent access to a basic right.
The OECD estimates one out of every five people (ie 1.2 billion people), lack access to safe drinking water, and that twice that number lack basic sanitation.
So who is to provide this critical infrastructure to developing nations, the public or private sector? Background Briefing had an excellent documentary on this issue recently and my potted summary follows.
Cochabamba, Bolivia, is the worst-case privatisation scenario. In the words of Maude Barlowe, activist:
“Basically the World Bank convinced the government of Cochabamba to replace its corrupt … water company with a private sector company … and Bechtel, the big engineering company from the US, set up a water subsidiary, Aguas del Tunari, and … immediately raised the price of water [around 300%] … , and so there was a revolt and the army was brought in and people were killed.”
Bechtel had been given a 40 year contract.
Through the 90s supplying water to the developing world was promoted to big business by the World Bank, which saw the private sector as the means to bring water to the poor. Now, the water companies want out of the developing world, claiming, in what must come as a shock economists everywhere, that without subsidies selling water to the poor just isn’t profitable.
That said, the private sector has gone into some slums the pubic utilities wouldn’t touch because the local water-selling mafia was too strong, so there have been some innovative approaches and successes with public-private partnerships.
A big problem though, is local currency devaluation. Foreign companies don’t like being paid in internationally worthless local money. Imagine tis: you are a US water company operating in Argentina, the crash comes, the value of your revenue plummets. You try and put up prices, but people can’t pay anyway.
The French-based multinational, Suez, the world’s largest water supplier, lost a lot of money on its Manilla operation this way. The response? Corporations have demanded that governments accept the risk of currency devaluation, insuring their profit at public expense.
Remind me why we do this stuff through the private sector and not aid agencies?
Did the Third World Water Forum in Kyoto come up with an innovative new strategy? Well, it at least highlighted the need for one, and drew attention to the issue.
But the Forum wasn’t all altruism. Michel Camdessus, former head of the IMF, presented a report of the World Panel on Financing Water Infrastructure. That report provided in an annexe for a suggested “refinancing package” for the water corporations that would amount to foreign-currency devaluation insurance paid for with aid dollars.
Yes, the scarcity of water and rising demands for its use in agriculture worldwide mean that there are difficult economic issues involved.
But the best quote on the issue comes from Background Briefing.
Stephen Turner, Thames Water (a big corporate but also a key supporter of Water Aid): “I think when you go back and try to be rational about whether the international private sector was ever going to be the salvation, the panacea for the world’s poorest, we must have been blind to even consider this as an option. The basic premise that the international companies will be providing water for the world’s poorest is just off the wall.”
Naylor Day
"She grinned the kind of broad, even white smile that parents require money, or excellent genes, to bestow."
Pssst ... it's over here.
"She grinned the kind of broad, even white smile that parents require money, or excellent genes, to bestow."
Pssst ... it's over here.
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