Micks' Musings

Have you seen the latest anti-magpie gear? The echidna or porcupine or hedgehog bicycle helmet!! An enterprising lady cyclist in Canberra has used cable ties to transform her bicycle helmet so it has plastic spines pointing in all directions. I cannot vouch for its effectiveness as the Magpies have always left me alone (or never flown close enough for me to notice).

Yesterday I brought two aerosol can fire extinguishers, one for the kitchen and one for the hallway cupboard, next to the laundry. On Saturday night I was sitting in the lounge room watching the end of "New Tricks" when there was a smashing sound from the other end of the house. Down in the bathroom one of the heat globes in the light unit had failed, overheated and set fire to the plastic surround. The globe had then fallen to the bathroom tiles and shattered. When I walked in molten plastic was dripping on to the floor and flames were flickering inside the heater / light unit. I watched the fire go out. I had not replaced the old fire extinguisher after we had the house extended (it was one of the things that was thrown out). I considered using a wet towel to smother the fire, getting a bucket of water, using a dry towel but decided to wait and see. It went out without ever becoming a danger leaving behind splashes of plastic and broken glass.

The Twenty20 world cup just finished, the Rugby World Cup is nearing the quarter final stage (at last, the group stage seems to have gone on for ever) and the Womens' World Cup Football final is this weekend. On top of all this there are several Cricket Tours starting next week (England in Sri Lanka and Australia in India), the English Premier League (and even many other leagues in England) is in full swing, the AFL and NRL Grand Finals are this weekend and then there is Golf and American Football... It is a good think I don't watch Golf, Basketball, Baseball, Motor Sports or American Football because I would never get to bed!

England against India is on Foxtel tonight and it started being shown at about 10.45pm. However the match started several hours earlier. This is one of the things that annoys me about live sport. Why delay the telecast when what was on was prerecorded and old sports shows? And if they must delay the telecast then why not just show a quick highlights package of about five minutes and then go to live coverage? I would rather get to watch two or three hours of live coverage than the full match if it is delayed. Live sport is what I want!

We have all finished the Deathly Hallows. When will we ever see anything like Harry Potter again? Will people ever queue up again for a book like they did for the final Harry Potter book several saturdays ago? I am reading the Philosophers Stone with Christopher. It really is a magical (pun intended) book. We are all better off that it was published and we got to travel with Harry and his friends on their journey. It made children read, what can be more magical than that?

I queued up for an hour to pick up the last Harry Potter book this morning. Some people were actually upset at the length of the queue and asked how to complain. If the queue had bothered me I would have waited until the afternoon however as I had pre-ordered and wanted the Hedwig toy I was prepared to queue. An hour wasn't very long and most people were happy to wait even those with little muggles in their arms! We won't see Ellen for a while!

Actually a few things have happened in the last week. Mum and Dad returned from their jaunt around Europe, I have had a weeks holiday and it has rained for most of the week. People are starting to complain about the rain! Canberra is still on level 3 water restrictions and the dams have only crept back up to about forty percent of capacity but after about a month of rain (not all the time or we would be having floods like they have had in other parts of Australia) it would be nice to see some sunshine for more than half an hour at a time. It is also cold so that adds to the misery!! The bad news about my parents Europe trip is that my Dads new digital SLR (camera) was stolen two days before they were due to return. Unfortunately he had a single large capacity memory card so he also lost all the pictures that he had taken. This has made me rethink getting a really large memory card and to stick with smaller cards for when (Louise would say "if" at this point) we go on holiday....