AFL: The Victorian Passion, whether you like it or not.

Aussie Rules football (AFL) is the major sport in Victoria, thats the state at the bottom with Melbourne in. Its given a religious like status, its players gods, its major stadia churches.

Its a strange sport, played on cricket ovals (someone's got to use them in the winter) with similar rules to Gaelic Football (there's an International Rules game, a hybrid of the two played every few years).  It has two sets of posts, so that if you don't score then at least you get a point for trying. Its a high scoring game and draws are rare, though they do happen, as it did in the Grand Final last year. It happens so rarely that they haven't really considered a protocol for what happens when it does, instead having an entire replay for the final match of the season. Again, this is no bad thing, the first Grand Final had just 25,000 tickets for fans of the two teams in a 100,000 seater stadium.  Talk about corporate hospitality. Not even UEFA are that bad.

AFL commentators claim that a draw is the worst result for the players. In some ways thats ridiculous, surely losing is worse.  But they have a point.  The players look so confused when it happens, like they don't know what to do.  They only know winning or losing (as such its a bit of an American sport) and any other outcome is just confusing.  And bless them, its not as if they have many brain cells to try and figure it out.  AFL is a bit of a brutal game, and the number of injuries took up about five minutes of the sports news on Sunday night.

But the thing about the AFL is that they're real assholes. They feel as if they're sport is under attack, that it must be protected at all costs, and damn anyone else, and any other sport. There will be no compromise, the AFL rules over all.  When Australia were bidding for the 2022 Football World Cup, there were huge arguements over whether it would be possible to hold any matches in Victoria, as all the major stadia (such as the iconic MCG) would be being used by the AFL season.  Would they consider altering their schedule, or rearranging games such that at least the MCG could be used.  Not bloody likely.

This year the attendance for the Australian Grand Prix hit a new low, around 280,000 people, down from well over 400,000 in its first year.  Blame this year lay firmly at the feet of AFL, who scheduled their opening weekend at the same time, taking 215,000 fans in five games played in Melbourne.  That's over half a million sports fans attending events in Melbourne over the weekend (1/8th of the population were there no external fans). The organiser of the Grand Prix blamed the AFL and wondered if it might be possible to change the opening weekend of the AFL in future years since the grand prix's place on the calendar is fairly fixed. Asked if he thought this was likely, he laughed.  This point was put to an AFL spokesman, his response "This is Melbourne mate". Arrogance?

The AFL holds sway down south, whether you like it or not.

Scientific Communication

I attended a workshop this week in scientific communication. It was fascinating and involved pieces on talking to the public, talking to peers, and talking to the media. Its amazing how much scientists expect the general public to take an interest in their work and expect them to do the legwork to get to even a basic understanding of what we as scientists believe should be obvious knowledge (what causes the seasons for example).  In fact, this is exactly the arrogant point of view that the public finds turns them off science.  It is up to the scientists to communicate their work in an effective manner.

And its not that difficult to do.  Its not about dumbing down, we shouldn't dilute the concepts.  The public can handle challenging ideas.  Its about how its put across. Short sentences, no jargon, and as few a words with three syllables or more (whats known as a low fog index).  And this needs to be done by the scientists, who know their work better than anyone else, and are more enthusiastic about their work than anyone else.  If they can transfer just some of this to the public in an effective manner then this is how the public will become better informed.

I couldn't find the video clip but take a look at this transcript: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/enoughrope/transcripts/s1453920.htm
Towards the top there is a fantastic explanation (it works better visually with props) of the Transplantational Molecules work that won Professor Peter Doherty the Nobel Prize. Complex science I'm sure you agree, easy as anything once its been explaned by an ethusiastic man with a bowl of fruit. Its a good explanantion, even without the visuals.

Later on during the week, I've been asked to think about writing a press release for my first paper which will be out in a couple of months (Its now In Press, which is exciting!).  I thought the timing was excellent, and I definitely now have the skills to give it a really good go.

And so to my little rant for the day.  I'm all for scientific terminology being used in common parlance.  Everyone (well, some people, lets not be an arrogant scientists here) understands what some scientific phrases mean when applied to non-scientific situations. But when that phrase is used in the common usage in the situation where it could also happen in the scientific sense then it becomes annoying and a bit stupid.  Two examples from the Australian press this week when talking about the Japanese earthquake and the consequences thereof.

The first from the Sydney Morning Herald: "Aftershocks to be felt around the world" - Erm no.  They won't be, the aftershocks will be felt in Japan.  I understand that using aftershocks to imply that an event will set off a chain of further events that may have  far-reaching consequences is common, and it makes some sense.  But you can't use this word when there will actually be aftershocks.

*Just been watching the very good George Neegus, one of Australia's best journalists, he just mentioned aftershocks in relationship to the financial markets, but used the phrase "aftershocks of a different kind".  Well done to him.

The second was referring to fallout from the quake. Again, a phrase which is relatively easy to understand in the context in which it was put. However, when there is a genuine risk of fallout from a nuclear disaster, this reference is misleading, wrong and frankly stupid.

*ugh, Channel Ten news just did it again.

Two of my geologist cohort went on to further degrees in the world of writing, one as a journalist and one as a publisher. And good luck to them. But overall, when the journalism profession is mostly composed and run by people with arts degrees such mistakes are likely to go un-noticed. The world needs more journalists with science degrees. And more scientists to communicate their work efficiently and well to the public. And the responsibility for this lies not with the journalism profession but with science in general and scientists. We must make ourselves and our work more well-known, not expect the general public to do the leg-work to understand us.

Tassie Trip: Cradle Mountain

In the wild west of Tasmania lies the real wilderness. While we didn't reach the far west, battered year-round by the roaring forties, we did visit Cradle Mountain (kind of on the east of the west!) for a day walk up one of Tasmania's most iconic mountains.  Its the start of the Overland Track, Australia's best multi-day walk, taking anywhere from three to nine days depending on which mountains you want to climb on the way, all self-sufficient so its pretty tough.  Two of my friends did it a few weeks before.  We considered it but really when you only have a week in Tasmania theres lots else to do.  Maybe one for the future. Anyway, we had an excellent day's hiking.

Crater lake. I assume its a crater lake, i didn't actually check, but that's it's name.

The approach to Cradle Mountain. Its 1,545m high.  But the plateau it rises from is about 1,100m and the carpark is at 900m so its a 600m climb or so.

However, the top is very rocky.  And involves a good thirty minutes of scrambling (which is a lot).  I love scrambling, its like being in an adventure playground for adults, you get to clamber and use your hands and its great fun.

Perfect weather for climbing mountains. Clear, warm.

Its a great fun mountain to climb.  I love it!

The view from the top is not half bad at all.

Barn Bluff, the next destination on the Overland track.  Probably in reach of a day's walk if you get up early enough!

Like a jaggedy Suilven.

Some pretty awesome skies on the way back down.

Veni Vidi Vrisbee

My other new sport is Ultimate Frisbee.  Having played a few social games with people in my department, we caved in to pressure from a frisbee loving friend* EL and formed a team for the six week Canberra Summer League. Veni Vidi Vrisbee, is our team name.  We came, we saw, we played frisbee! (but not necessarily conquered).

Being a team of novices we were pretty bad to begin, with, but over the course of six weeks we've got a lot better.  We can actually play Ultimate now, rather than running around like headless chickens.

Our record during the first five games: LDLLL.  Not so good, especially when really we should have won two of the games but we weren't quite good enough to cut out the mistakes when it mattered.  And so we found ourselves in the last place play-off for 15th place and to avoid the wooden spoon.  And we won!  Hooray!

The Autumn league begins in three or four weeks time.  Can't wait!

* he really does.  His eyes light up whenever you give him a frisbee and he looks like an excited child.

The Stal behind the mask

Next stage in the journey of my stalagmites is photographing them.  Having finished the polishing to make them look shiny we now get to the stage of photographing them.  This is useful for working out where things have to be done, where things have been done, to check where things were before we drilled or milled them away and to correlate between different records using different machines on parallel tracks up the centre of the stalagmite. But before we get to the photography we need to dress our stals up!  By giving them masks.

To produce good photographs in really good detail the stal needs to take centre stage. So we photograph them on a black card background.  We photograph the stals in two ways.  The first is obvious, reflected light, by shining bright lights onto the top surface of the stalagmite.  The second is a bit more cunning.  These slabs of stalgmite are typically about 2cm thick, so they let light through them. If we place them on a light table and shine light from underneath then you get a whole new perspective on whats inside.  You really get to see the inside structure.  But obviously light doesn't travel through black card and if we photographed them on the light table then the light from the table would drown out the light through the stal.

So I have to trace round each stalagmite piece, and then cut round a few millimetres inside the trace to create a mask that the stal sits ontop of.  Very crafty! The light comes through the stal and it all looks rather pretty.  Photos soon.

Tassie Trip: The A5

We were told this was the scenic route through the heart of Tasmania, and it was.  But this was no minor road, it wasn't even a B-road, it was an A-road, the A5!  And when it got the Great Lake, the tarmac dived off down the B-road and it was several tens of kilometers of dirt gravel track, with very isolated communities overlooking a large expansive lake with grey moody clouds gathering overhead.  An unexpected but quite cool adventure.

Tassie Trip: Wildlife

Tasmania has wildlife, and more wildlife and then some more wildlife.  It is a) oddly named b) fearless. Depressingly this means it also has a lot of roadkill.

Lizards, lots of them.  And snakes too.  All three of Tasmania's snakes are venomous (though as the National Parks authority in Tasmania points out, no-one has died for decades and frankly peanuts and spouses are far more dangerous). We caught glimpses of a couple.  Then on our final day we came across a huge black snake sitting in the middle of the path, normally you just see a tail end disappearing off.  It was probably a Tiger Snake. It slithered off reasonably quickly but it was still quite scary.

On another occasion we were walking down a small track towards some interesting geology/geography (very much a GEM stop for those who are initiated into such things) viewpoint.  The people just in front of us caught a glimpse of a Tassie Devil scurrying off into the bush as they rounded a corner.  We didn't quite see it, but it would have been cool to do so.

 In Freycinet National Park the wildlife is reasonably used to humans and is really not that scared, with wallabies hanging around the campsites, minding their own business, being photographed, nibbling on some vegetation.  They realise that clumsy humans like us occasionally spill pieces of pasta when cooking camp food.  Not being fussy about the lack of sauce, they quite quickly eat this up, like this little fellow above.  But they get far more fearless than that.  Accidentally, a bag of trail mix fell out of my bag as we were moving stuff into the tent for a while.  The first we realised this was when we heard the sound of three possums fighting each over over the bag, and then noisily munching away just outside our tent.  And they weren't afraid of anything, making noises, getting out the tent, torchlight.  They were temporarily abated by clapping but returned within twenty seconds.  Then after this they went snuffling round for more, reaching little paws underneath the fly sheet and poking their heads under for a closer look. One got too close to the side of the inner-tent for my liking, so a swung my fist, pushing out the tent material and making contact with the possum on the other side of the fabric.  It yelped, ran off and we weren't disturbed again that night.

In the morning this wallaby was even braver, coming over to investigate MC's water bottle and remains of breakfast.  He got really close, I had to forcibly nudge him a few times in order to persuade him to move along.  The Tasmanian wildlife seems to only respond to physical violence.

On Cradle Mountain a few days later we saw an Echidna which was awesome.  They're furry, spikey little egg-laying mammals with long pointy snouts. Here is a photo of the Echida escaping into the undergrowth faster than I can get my camera, the cheeky little snouty thing.

The disadvantage of such abundant wildlife is that it makes driving at night in rural areas both interesting and quite scary.  We were late getting into Cradle Mountain National Park the night before we did a walk there and had to drive the last hour in the dark, mainly though forest.  We saw so much wildlife, more than any night-safari I've been on! There was so much wildlife to see, from possums of different kinds to various bounding rat/kangaroo crosses (Pademelons).  The possums again were fearless, we had to stop for a couple sitting in the middle of the road.  We pulled up, revved the engine, flashed the lights and they just sat there, not caring.  The horn worked, eventually, but even then they had a think about it before letting us on our way.  We saw a few Wombats, which are oh so cute, but really quite slow, had to slam on the brakes for a couple of them.

Unfortunatly the night didn't end well for all the wildlife we saw.  We ended up hitting two creatures.  The first was small and dark coloured and very speedy, it just ran straight out under us.  There was a yelp, but we didn't find it when we stopped.  I hope it wasn't a Tassie Devil. The second time we hit what we think was a Bettong.  This time much more forcibly, enough, in fact to decapitate it.  Which wasn't nice at all and rather put a dampner on the entire evening to be fair. :(

So Tasmania has loads of wildlife, its everywhere.

Tassie Trip: Freycinet Peninsula

As part of our trip to Tasmania we went walking on the Freycinet Peninsula on the east coast of the island.  It was warm, sunny and beautiful.  Perfect for a three day, two night walk and a chance to test out my brand-new shiny super-awesome tent.

Hazard's beach looking towards Mt. Freycinet.  It was really windy that afternoon and the waves were big and pounding

Cook's Beach. Camp for the first night was at the far end.

It had a nice view.

And sunset (though you shouldn't always trust the sunset pics from my camera, they're suspiciously good, often better than reality! it really emphasises reds and such)

The view from Mt. Freycinet out towards the Hazards with Wineglass Bay in front, beautiful.

 More nice views from the top.

MC's boot died a death on the trip, it only just made it round thanks to the power of paracord, bandages and plaster tape.

Wineglass Bay, camp for the second night.  A beautiful place.  Voted/rated one of the top ten beaches in the world according to some American magazine, the obvious authority. It was very very nice. With a stunning backdrop of the Hazards behind it and waves that broke almost perfectly round the curve of the beach.  I think the beach was shaped in a pretty much a perfect spiral (or part thereof) with an ever decreasing/increasing radius of curvature.

Novel engineering approaches for getting through a three day hike when the rubber midsole of your boot decides to disintergrate on the first day.

Making people cry

In times of tragedy, like the second Christchurch quake this week, the Australian media delight in a sob story. Obviously they don't take glee in people's death, treating such things with the seriousness it deserves.  But when it comes to other losses, say of property, then the people become fair game for their emotional poking.

Whereas the Brits show stoicism and the Irish have a tendancy to laugh things off the Australian media like people to be really distraught at returning to their homes to find them damaged.  As an unwitting member of the public surveys the damage, grim-faced. Their possessions flood-damaged, their home probably to be destroyed. In comes the probing microphone, the annoying reporter.  Who instead of asking questions such as: "How does it feel?", "What have you lost" instead reals of leading statements, some of them not even questions. Such as "gosh this is terrible, tell us how terrible this is", "how on earth are you going to cope with such tragedy" "this must be the worst thing ever" "tell us exactly how upset you are". They are provoking emotion, trying to get people to cry on camera in order to get a news story.

I don't know whether the Australians view crying as a more responsive news story, especially from blokes, in the machismo aussie culture or whether its just journo hacks being very very low.

The worst example came this week with a reporter interviewing a woman who had returned to her home outside Christchurch having been away at the time of the quake, to find that a giant boulder, at least 5m cubed, had rolled through her house. Obviously she was a bit shocked and teary, so the journalist went in for the kill. "Imagine if your kids had been in the house at the time". You've just lost your house, you're on the verge of tears and the journalist asks you to imagine that your kids were dead. I mean, come on.

It just makes me angry.