On our first full day of sight seeing in NYC, one of the things we did was take the ferry to and from Staten Island for the views of the Statue of Liberty. (If you've never tried it, the ferry is free and goes right by the statue--it's a great way to see lady liberty and the famous skyline).

However, I was a bit taken aback to see that, for our entire return trip, the ferry was escorted by a Coast Guard gun boat, complete with a sailor at the ready on a machine gun on the forward deck:







The gunboat spend the entire 25 minute trip whizzing alongside the ferry, sometimes making big circles and generally showing off for the tourist cameras. Frankly, I can't for the life of me figure out what "security" they offered. Had a terrorist smuggled a rocket launcher on board the ferry, would they really have opened fire on 500 or so innocent tourists and commuters to save the statue? A frightening thought is that they might have.

Back on shore, I found this article about security in New York harbour in general and the gunboats in particular: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/18/nyregion/a-nation-challenged-the-harbor-coast-guard-s-gunboats-on-watch-against-attack.html

Sorry to my US friends, but if you want to know why you have a gazillion trillion dollar deficit, look at stunts like this. A gunboat and a big machine gun may impress the locals and give a superficial feeling of security--but it does nothing--nothing at all--to actually fight terrorism.

We're off to NYC tomorrow for a few days, then into Canada.

I'm looking forward to showing Caer my old stomping grounds from when I used to visit New York every month or so--but I just had the shock realisation that it's 11 years since I've been there so I bet things have changed a lot.

After that, Canada and a hired car in the depths of winter--just call me foolhardy! Between now and mid December we'll be moving every day or two so I don't know what our net access will be like but I'll pop in when I can.

Let me preface this by saying, I'm an old, bald, tubby git who, at home rarely wears anything other than baggy shorts and faded T-shirts so my fashion credentials are impeccable.

Anyway, I don't know whether this is a UK phenomenon or a global one, but...I've noticed since arriving in Britain that the "in" look for young women is to wear boots, tights or leggings and a short skirt, shirt or T-shirt.

On the right person, this can be an attractive (and even sexy) look.

Alas, since arriving in the UK six weeks ago, I've seen maybe 4 "right people" and around 21.3 million wrong people.

Who the hell decreed this to be "fashion"?

Driving into Glencoe under glowering skies, the sun burst through for a few seconds like a nuclear blast and lit up some clouds around a mountain top:




















A favourite A favourite mountain of mine, "Stac Pollaidh" which as be described as a "perfect miniature" because, despite the appearance, it's only just over 2000 feet high.




Finally, the famous Loch Ness but from the sound (less touristy) side.  The effects of the wind and currents on the inky water make it easy to see why the monster myths persist:

 

 

 As i am currently enjoying Hectormac's hospitality, this may be a bit like "telling tales out of school", but....

Yesterday afternoon Hectormac put a teabag in his disgustingly-crusty mug, poured on the boiling water, and promptly forgot it was there, lured into his first single malt of the day.

Anyway, said mug sat there all evening.  It sat through the night.  It was still there this morning.

So Hectormac put it in the microwave, nuked it for a minute and fifteen seconds, added a drop of stale milk...and drank deep.

Having seen the result, all I can say is that it's a good thing Saddam stuck to baby milk factories and Scuds.  Had he turned his attention to tea like this, he would now rule the world.

 I've been very bad about updating my LJ lately--I plead a mixture of too much travel, intermittent Internet connections and, frankly, the fact that I've been enjoying real life too much to worry about posting.

However, I do feel moved to mention the last few days which we spent in the far Northwest of the Highlands.  Those of you who have met me already know that I've spent a fair bit of time in Scotland over the years--but somehow I've never managed to be here in the late autumn.  Mid-summer, early autumn and the depths of winter, yes, but never in late October.

This turns out to have been a major oversight.  The scenery is at its very best right now--a riot of colour to rival the famous Canadian "fall" and the scudding clouds and spectacular lighting showed this off to best effect.  Beyond the scenery though, the roads were almost empty (as the hoards of tourists from the continent have gone home) and the locals, having breathed a collective sigh of relief at the end of "the season" were in good form.

Scotland in late October is to be commended.  Or, maybe not.   Let's keep the secret to ourselves.

(There are some pics up on my Facebook but I'm on ligras'/hectormac's computer right now so posting them here will have to come later.)

I started my day today with a breakfast of stuffed paratha, a very hot, spicy relish and some fresh yoghurt to tame the spice.  I know my food tastes are strange but I found it started the day perfectly.

As an aside, when Simon was still living at home, if we had a curry take away for dinner we'd usually order extra stuffed paratha so we could have leftovers for breakfast the next day--it just seemed to work well that way.  I was chuffed, therefore, to find that here in Mumbai paratha is actually treated as a breakfast food.

Oh, and besides tea, my breakfast drink was a juice of blended fresh tomatoes and mint--refreshing and delicious.  I think I'll be recreating that one at home on hot summer days and may also experiment with an alcoholic version.

Because of the cyclone weather, we've eaten rather more meals in the nice-but-western hotel restaurants than I wanted to.  However, for our last dinner in Hong Kong, I really wanted to go to a proper "local" eating place.  In her travels, Caer had managed to scope out a fairly plain cafe full of locals so that decided things for us.  

Good call, Caer!  I won't try to name the dishes we had and my keyboard is short of Mandarin characters but my spicy chicken dish was lovely....Caer said the same about hers and Zach's rice "pancakes" full of minced meat and green veg were delicious.

Even better, the bill was HK$102....about $15 Australian/£7 British.

Yup.  Yum.

The local "chips" we just tried turn out to have a texture like a soggy corn flake and are flavoured with a mixture of fish, honey and chilli.

While, believe it or not, they're not as disgusting as my description sounds, I don't classify it as a win either.

....to plan our six days in Hong Kong to coincide with the arrival of Tropical Cyclone Koppu.  It's not a particularly bad one...but enough for the weather office to post warnings to stay indoors and for many businesses to close early.  This sort of ruins plans for outdoor tourist things like the harbour ferry ride I had planned!  Ah well, the view of the storm from the hotel room is good.

The other thing is that, the combination of the cyclonic overcast, the tinted hotel windows and the gathering dusk makes the skyline look like a tribute to Fritz Lang:



I promise...no Photoshop at all was involved!

Well, the first leg of our trip went fine except for a couple of blisters on Caer's feet.  Lot's of people like Changi Airport in Singapore but my abiding memory is endless walking.  I'm sure that we covered half the distance to Hong Kong just walking from our arrival gate to the departure gate for our connecting flight--and we used the shuttles and travelators where we could.  You know you're in trouble when the maps show average walking times between points--and our change was listed as 20 minutes (lugging baggage) even after the shuttle train.

The humongous koi carp in the fountains were lovely and impressed the lad though.

Otherwise the trip was uneventful and on time...albeit a long day.   We're going to be lazy today and get into the swing of things tomorrow so more then!

Yesterday, over on Facebook, I posted a status message about health care (one of those "if you believe in X, post this in your status report" messages that I usually ignore) .  Calla asked:  "since you have experience in multiple countries .... what do you expect from healthcare and how is it paid for? And how are people expected to interact with it?" and, rather than try to cram an answer into a couple of sentences in Face Book, I thought I'd post here.

First and foremost, I expect that health care is a basic human right rather than a privilege.  Your financial or employment circumstances should not dictate your access to essential medical care.  That's a fundamental belief that colours my opinion of how health care is handled in various countries.

How is health care paid for in the countries I've lived in?  Well, I can comment mainly on Canada, the UK and Australia and all three have on thing in common.  Health care provision is universal and paid for out of general taxation.  I think the word "universal" is important here--in order to be cost effective, any scheme needs to include young, healthy high-earners as well as those who "need" medicare.  Beyond this generalisation though, there are differences between the three countries in exactly how things are administered.  The UK puts more emphasis on treatment being "free at the point of delivery" while Canada and Australia are more likely to require you to pay some or all of a bill at the time of treatment then claim it back later.  On the other hand, there tends to be a bit more bureaucracy in the UK system:  for example, you're expected to choose and register with a single doctor in your area and stick to that one practice while, in Australia, you can pretty much wander in and see and doctor convenient.

I don't think any of the three systems is perfect and, in an ideal world, would pick and choose the best bits from each.  However,all of them work pretty well despite the differences and I've received great care in all three countries.  I'm perhaps sensitive to this because, in American terms, I have a couple of "pre-existing conditions" and would never be considered for private health insurance off my own back.  I would have been tied to job to keep my insurance rather than enjoying early retirement in the Queensland sun!.

The final part of Calla's question was about how people interact with the various government health care systems.  Well, in truth you don't spend much time at all "interacting with the system".  For the most part all the interaction is with medical professionals--if you need treatment you just go to your doctor...and if you need more than a GP he refers you to a hospital or a specialist as required.  For all the talk of "death panels" and faceless bureaucrats determining your care, that just doesn't happen in my experience.  Doctors take the medical decisions and, the only difference to what you may be used to in the States is that you don't have to worry if your "plan" covers the treatment.  If the doctor decides on a course of treatment, it's paid for.  I hear far more horror stories about bureaucratic interference from HMOs and Insurance coverage than I ever did in with any form of government funded health care.

Dunno if the above answers your questions Calla...but hope it at least makes a start.

Well, we're not giving Phineas Fogg a run for his money but we're finally booked for our long-planned round-the-world holiday.  We leave at 0930 on Friday September 11th with our first stop Hong Kong via Singapore.  After that, we'll be visiting:

Mumbai
Istanbul
England (with excursions to Wales, Scotland and Paris)
New York City
Ottawa
Edmonton (with a risky winter drive around Alberta and BC to Vancouver and Victoria)
Seattle
Las Vegas
Honolulu

.....and home again!

Now I can't wait to get going.

Hey Hectormac...

Shall we put on our best "old man" voices and join together in a chorus of "It wouldn't have happenend in the old days!"?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/6111577/Missing-Andrew-Marr-sparks-Sunday-scare-at-the-BBC.html

First, a bit of background:  down here in Australia the "Burger King" chain is known by the name "Hungry Jack's".  The catchphrase they use at the end of their adverts is "The Burgers Are Better".

Having said that, their most recent advertising campaign is for a rather disgusting thing called a "breakfast wrap".  This appears to be an instant heart attack, comprised of a fried egg, has brown potatoes, a sausage and some bacon, all wrapped up in a tortilla.  Not my thing but...

Whether or not the breakfast wrap appeals to you, they rather undo their expensive ad at the end by superimposing the caption "The Burgers Are Better" over a picture of their new creation!

For the last month or two, I've been letting Zach choose his own carton of fruit juice when we go to the supermarket.  There's a brand we tend to like and they tend to illustrate their cartons with pictures of the fruit inside, letting Zach decide on "Apple & Mango" or whatever based on the pictures.

The last time we shopped, he chose a drink that, from the picture, was a typical tropical fruit drink--the picture showed oranges, passion fruit, pineapple and banana.

Now, the other part of this story is that Zach is trying to be very independent these days and insists on pouring his own drinks.  This generally works well--and for the first couple of glasses from the new carton, he got the sort of drink he expected.

However, when he went to pour the third glass, instead of what he was expecting, he got a thick green slimy goop.  This was somewhat disconcerting as you might imagine and we debated what could have gone wrong.  in any case, we decided to take the carton back.

Luckily, while waiting for tea to brew yesterday evening, I read the offending carton in detail.  A small circle on the front of the carton proclaimed "contains wheat and barley grasses".  Elsewhere was an exhortation to "shake well before use as grass products have a tendency to separate".  Well, separate they obviously did.

From now on we'll read the label rather than just looking at the pictures....

Conan's version of the Tonight Show doesn't always work for me, but....

Getting William Shatner in to read Sarah Palin's farewell speech as a piece of poetry was a master stroke!

www.youtube.com/watch

(Edited to change link since original version disappeared from Youtube.)

Zach just found a tiny baby lizard (about 1 inch/2.5 cm long) on one of the tiles in our lounge area. Very cute find!

I managed to pick him up before the dog got to him (looked like something had already had a nibble of his tail):




To put the size in perspective, that "edge" you see is the thin cardboard of the old birthday card I used to scoop him up.

He's now been moved to under a bush in our garden--hope he survives though there are a lot of hungry birds out there.

I must admit that, when cooking, I can be a bit schizophrenic. Sometimes I insist on total authenticity in terms of ethnic ingredients and combinations. Other times, I'll combine things that sound good together even if their origins are thousands of miles apart.

Tonight's menu was of the latter variety: poached Tasmanian salmon with a salsa that was vaguely Mexican in style (avocado and mango with red chilli, corriander and a few other bits and pieces) and new potatoes. However the real killer was some fried halloumi. Completely the wrong part of the world but the salsa and the Cypriot cheese were perfect together.

I'll go back to being fussy about authenticity tomorrow.