lifeasdaddy

lifeasdaddy - HMAS Shropshire. Part 4: The Ship's company

Mac Gregory has sent me a picture of the HMAS Shropshire ship's company taken in January 1945.

It's a fine photograph, and Mac appears in the second row, seated in the chair at right.

Here's the story of the making of the photograph.

lifeasdaddy - How do you teach a child to be polite?

And what is polite?

Is it some sort of middle-class construct?

Well, I think it makes for a  better world if we don't needlessly offend other people, or are oblivious to their sensibilities.

{I don't want to offend your sensibilities - if they're easily offended, then don't click on the following link]

Here's an interesting conversation that was overheard in NYC.

[pointer from Gulfstream ]

lifeasdaddy - Tea hotties, er, I mean hot tea!

I may have stumbled upon some kinda weird new fetish.  You can find lots of unusual things on the internet.

Here's a blog which is about good looking women who drink tea.

[ tip from Kottke ]

lifeasdaddy - There's a blog about fascinating maps

There's a great blog about maps.  Strange maps it's called.  Each blog talks about an unusual map, gives a picture of the map, and serendipitously flows into various nooks of history, geography, anthropology, economic history and biography.

[tip from Lance Knobel ]

lifeasdaddy - A Theory of Ice: go read it.

e writes a fine blog about Ice Hockey A Theory of Ice.  I stop by now and again to read it , and today I was struck by some of what she had to say about losing in sports.

Losing is not sad, or even infuriating, so much as it is itchy. A loss is uncomfortable, awkward, a disturbance in the force, and it doesn’t matter how many times it happens, it always feels that way

and

A team wins by doing the few clear but immensely difficult things that all its members have known, for their entire careers, that they must do

and

... there is a great deal of nuance to losses. There are games lost on unfortunate bounces, on injuries, on fatigue, on bad calls. There are close, down-to-the-wire losses and losses so one-sided that it’s as if only one team was even there. A game can be lost on one bad play or twenty, and sometimes even on none at all. Each of these losses is different, they feel different and they are, in fact, structurally different.

and

It is true, then, that a game can be lost easily on individual failings. But it can only be won as a team.

e, I don't know if you aspire to a job as a sportswriter.  If you do, I hope someone spots you soon and gives you a job.  I like what you say and how you say it. You go, girl.

As it happens, I root for the Sharks myself.   

lifeasdaddy - The Australian War Memorial's blog about the George Lambert exhibition

I mentioned here my pleasure at discovering part of the trove of George Lambert's works in the Australian War Memorial collection.

Now I see that there's even more to enjoy.  Some of the Australian War Memorial's   curators and conservators    have been blogging about the upcoming exhibition George Lambert: Galipoli and Palestine Landscapes.

Here's the blog.

From a link within that blog, I see that the National Gallery of Australia also has an upcoming exhibition about George Lambert's works.

lifeasdaddy - Great hotel marketing website.

Terry Teachout mentioned recently that he was going to San Francisco and staying in a boutique hotel.

His hotel was the Hotel Adagio, part of the Joie de Vivre Hospitality group.  JDV hsa got a great looking website, and is distinguished by a gimmick of matching your personality to a hotel in their group via their Hotel Matchmaker, Yvette.

It also has a section where "locals talk about this neighborhood" - in this case Donald Graves.

I like it.  It seems to give you a good insiders view about good places to go, see and eat at.  Helps in getting restaurant reservations before you hit town.

lifeasdaddy - UNICEF's press releases need more oomph.

UNICEF's recently released Report Card 7: Child Poverty in Perspective: An overview of child well-being in rich countries has been creating a stir in some places, particularly New Zealand.

I was looking around the UNICEF website for more information about it and came across the official press release about the report.

The press release is distinguished by its lack of clarity and soporific effect.

Here are some quotes:

The landmark report shows that among all of the 21 OECD countries there are improvements to be made and that no single OECD country leads in all six of the areas

and

“No single dimension of well-being stands as a reliable proxy for child well-being as a whole and several OECD countries find themselves with widely differing rankings for different dimensions of children’s lives.”

and

Child wellbeing needs to be addressed by public policies across a broad spectrum of aspects. Given levels of child well-being are not inevitable and show what is possible to do to improve the lives of children

I know, I know, something must have suffered in the translation, or the use of English by a person who is not a native speker or writer.

Lest you think I am quoting selectively or out of context, here is the original release.

It's an important report, and UNICEF should give it a decent chance of being publicised, and understood.

And In Australia?  It hasn't been a big news story.  Here's one from the Melbourne Age.

lifeasdaddy - Edward the gardener

Last weekend Gabrielle bought some gardening equipment at the hardware store, and we decided to buy some for Ed too.  We got a couple of tools with bright yellow handles.

This afternoon he told me he wanted to practice gardening with his new tools.  So we got out the hand spade and he set to work in a shaded part of the garden.  After a couple of minutes he went intothe house to locate his gum boots; he thought them essential equipment too.

He spent some time shifting little spadefuls of dirt around the garden bed and then decided to dig up some river pebbles.

This garden bed and those pebbles have  had a pretty good workout on a nother occasion, as you may recall if you read about Ed's Easter Egg Hunt last November. 

And a note for my American readers:  The red coloured top Edward is wearing is called a singlet here.  It has a proud yet humble place in Australian culture.  Edward's singlet worn here was made by the famous Australian clothing company, Bonds.

Here, it doesn't have the socio-economic and criminal stigma like the US wifebeater .

lifeasdaddy - Bluejake's photo blog

Jake Dobkin has got a fine photo blog here, which has been one of  the inspirations for my own photo blog here.   

Jake Dobkin posts a new photo on his blog nearly every day, and a few days ago he talked about the blue light at dusk.

Which reminded me of what I wrote here.

His photo of a double-stacking car parking garage in New York reminded me a bit of my photo in North Sydney here. 

So, I better put some more photos up on my StreetsOfSydney photo blog.