lifeasdaddy

The hotel bathroom deconstructed.

In my former life I oversaw the cleaning and care of around 400 hotel bathrooms daily.  And countless more lavatories around the complex.

[ Photo by VancityAllie on Flickr here ]

One of the things you find out when you are running a hotel is that there are problems inserted into hotels at the design and building stage for which you spend many years apologising.  Because there are some things which cannot be fixed without knocking the building down and starting again.

My friend David McMillan has done a great job of dissecting the problem that is the hotel bathroom here.

The bathroom pictured above is from the Hôtel Place D’Armes, and may well have avoided the design faults David McMillan has enumerated . Allie gives it and the rest of the hotel a pretty good review here.

"I hold out no hope of mercy for you on earth!"

So said the Chief Justice Darley about this woman, Louisa Collins:

Image from the State Records of New South Wales:

Name: Louisa Collins
Born: 1849
Native Place: Scone, New South Wales
Gaol: Darlinghurst
Photo: No. 4335 Page 84; Jul 1888
Series: NRS2138 [3/6050]
Microfilm: 5103

Search the index to the gaol photographs here, see the image on Flickr here.

 

Dubbed "The Lucretia Borgia of Botany", she poisoned both of her husbands for the insurance money.  She was hanged by the neck until dead.

It took four trials to convict her, though.

 

ADDED (12August, 2009): And here is a macabre report from the Brisbane Courier newspaper of Wednesday 9 January 1889 of the previous day's execution of Collins.

And more historic newspaper articles about the case via this search term.

One Australian boy's contribution to the space race. Update added at end.

1957 was a big year.

The Cold War was nearing its height and on October 4 fear of the Soviet Bear was pushed along when the first artificial satellite Sputnik-1  was launched.

One night in October 1957 Denis Cox and Brian Ball were on their way to their local band hall in Mordialloc, Victoria.  They gazed up trying to spot Earth's only artifical satellite,  imagining what it meant for them and their nation.   Then Denis and Brian got on with what they set out to do that night, and joined the Mordialloc Brass Band.

Sputnik, and the threat the Soviet space program imposed on Australia was not lost on the Denis Cox, then a student at Mordialloc High School.  He put his ideas for a  rocket ship design down on paper and forwarded it to Australia's premier space weapons research facility, the Woomera Weapons Research Establishment, directed to the attention of the top scientist.

Denis' letter was carefully filed, and was brought to light recently by the National Archives of Australia in their Find Of The Month feature.

 

[ NAA: D250, 56/486 Part 1 ]

 

Denis supplied an elaborate design finely sketched in blue ball point ink, including important featrues such as four Rolls-Royce jet engines and guided missile armament.  An obvious patriot, and in accordance with the rules of war, his design included Australian markings on the rocket ship.  Realising that at such a tender age he did not yet have a definitive design, he invited the Top Scientist at Woomera to " ... put in other details.".

  

[ NAA: D 250, 56/486 Part 1 ]

[ NAA: D250, 56/486 Part 1 ]

Denis requested a letter in return, but he tells me he is still waiting.  The wait for a response has not embittered him, and here is a photograph of Denis at last year's office Christmas party.  He's the one not wearing a red suit:

Although the images of the Denis's letter have been downloaded from the National Archives of Australia website, the NAA has not asserted copyright over use of the images, and instead advised me that copyright of the letter from Denis Cox to Woomera's Top Scientist rests with Mr. Cox. 

Denis Cox has generously granted me permission to reprint his letter here, and kindly supplied the recent photograph of him.

As a boy, I too was fascinated by space, rockets and astronauts.  I'll write more on that when the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing nears.

 

UPDATE ADDED September 28, 2009:  Last week the Australian nationally broadcast radio current affiars program ABC PM did a brief feel-good piece about this, including an interview with Denis Cox.

Transcript is here.  MP3 audio is here.

Looks like Denis is going to get his letter - 52 years after the fact.

UPDATE ADDED December, 2009: Denis Cox gets his replay from a top rocket scientist.

What wouldhealth care be like if Doctors had more time to listen?

Here's a picture of that world from the New York Times.