* take nothing for granted    
  • Sydney Harbour from Mosman

  • Uluru (Ayres Rock) - Central Australia

  • The Kalyan Minaret Bukhara Uzbekistan

  • Dubrovnik Croatia

  • Dushanbe Tajikistan

  • Bucharest Romania - from Palace of Parliament

  • Great Wall Shuiguan China

  • Shanghai China

  • Terracotta Warriors Xian China

  • Giza Pyramids and Sphinx Cairo

  • Jemaa el-Fnaa Marrakesh Morocco

  • Damascus Syria - (Oct 2010 pre destabilisation)

  • Istanbul Turkey

  • Cappadocia Turkey

  • Saltzburg Austria

  • Cezky Krumlov Czech Republic

  • Prague Czech Republic

  • Champs Elysees Paris France

  • Oberbaum Bridge (over the Spree) Berlin Germany

  • Budapest Hungary

  • Rome Italy

  • Florence Italy

  • Venice Italy

  • Valletta Malta

  • Lisbon Portugal

  • Ha'penny Bridge over the River Liffey Dublin Ireland

  • Seville Spain

  • Alhambra Granada Spain

  • Mosque–Cathedral Córdoba Spain

  • Moscow Russia (from Moscow State University)

  • Trafalgar Square London England

  • Mumbai India

  • Udaipur India

  • Taj Mahal - Agra India

  • Varanasi (Benares) India

  • Madurai India (the cow insisted I move out of its way)

  • Kathmandu Nepal

  • Lake Iskanderkul Tajikistan

  • Pyramid of the Sun Teotihuacán Mexico

  • Zócalo Mexico City

  • Buenos Aires Argentina

  • Ipanema Rio De Janeiro Brazil

  • Iguazu Falls Argentina-Brazil

  • Machu Picchu Peru

  • Lake Titicaca Peru-Bolivia

  • Grand Canyon National Park Arizona USA

  • Boston USA (across the stern of USS Constitution)

  • Washington DC USA (from Arlington House)

  • San Francisco USA (from Alcatraz Island)

  • Los Angeles USA (from the Getty Museum)

  • Flame towers Baku Azerbaijan

  • Havana Mummers Cuba

  • Bucharest Romania from Palace of Parliament

  • Registan Square Samarkand Uzbekistan

  • Bratislava Slovakia

  • Lake Bled Slovenia

  • Mount Ararat behind ancient Zvartnots Cathedral Yerevan Armenia

  • Kiriwina Island Papua New Guinea Dancers

  • Lake Sevan Armenia

  • Peace Bridge Tbilisi Georgia

Unless otherwise indicated all photos © Richard McKie 2005 - 2021

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Travel

2023 feels like a different world. Covid? What Covid?  Yet, it wasn't until 2022 that normality had began to return.

Our first overseas trip of 2023, a package tour to Sri Lanka, was booked, somewhat optimistically, over a year previously.

>  Sri Lanka 2023

Sri Lanka tour map
Travel

Beginning in the capital Colombo, on the west coast, our bus travelled anticlockwise, in a loop, initially along the coast; then up into the highlands; then north, as far as Sigiriya; before returning southwest to Colombo.

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In July 2022 we were able to travel to Europe, after a break of several years. 

>  Europe 2022 - Part 2

Wendy in Paris
Travel

In July and August 2022, in our first European trip since the Covid-19 pandemic, Wendy and I travelled to Europe and to the United Kingdom.

Part 1 of this report (below) touched on places in Germany then on a Baltic Cruise, landing in: Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Sweden and the Netherlands.

Now, Part 2 takes place in northern France.

Part 3, yet to come, takes place in England and Scotland.

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>  Europe 2022 - Part 1

Apex at sea
Travel

In July and August 2022, in our first European trip since the Covid-19 pandemic, Wendy and I travelled to Europe and to the United Kingdom.
 

Part 1 of this report touches on places in Germany; then on a Baltic Cruise, landing in: Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Sweden and the Netherlands.
It begins in Berlin to visit my daughter Emily, her Partner Guido, and their children, Leander and Tilda, our grandchildren there.

 

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In 2021 we'd counted ourselves fortunate to get in a trip into Central Australia before the inevitable quarantine breach (a driver transporting air-crew) and consequent travel restrictions.

These ended in 2022 when almost everyone had received at least two vaccinations (we have had five to date); and/or contracted the virus; and a new varient made futher attempts at quarantine futile.

Like measles, and influenza, we now rely on 'herd immunity'.

>  Road Trip to Melbourne

Muddy Yarra
Travel

In February 2022 we were, at last, able to travel interstate to Victoria without and COVID-19 restrictions.
The virus is still active but less deadly and one by one the States are accepting that we now need to live with it.
So, it was off to Melbourne for a 'Luxury Escape'.

 

Read More...

 

>  Uluru - Alice Springs - Kings Canyon

On the road
Travel

In June 2021 Wendy and I, with our frequent travel companions, Craig and Sonia (see: India; Taiwan; Japan; China; and several countries in South America), flew to Ayer's Rock where we hired a car for a tour to: Uluru - Alice Springs - Kings Canyon - then back to Uluru to fly back.

 

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More Travel:  Click Here

 


Energy and the Environment

With world media attention no longer on the Covid Pandemic, except in China, the spotlight has moved on to the war in the Ukraine, and at least in Australia and the UK, to the rocketing cost of electricity.

 

>  Electricity Woes

Nacells
Energy

The new Federal Government, that came to power on a promise to substantially cut power bills, has had to concede, that instead, there will be substantial price increases.

During the election campaign the Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy repeatedly asserted that the solution lay in increased wind and solar generated electricity, that he asserted were now cheaper than fossil-fuel generated electricity.

Meanwhile, last July (2022) Wendy and I had occasion to visit the town of Rønne on the small Danish island of Bornholm. There on the quayside were a dozen huge wind-turbine nacelles.

As I had some spare time on my hands, I looked on-line and discovered that they were Vestas V174-9.5 MW units for installation off the coast of Germany, for either the Baltic Eagle or Arcadis Ost 1 project. I compared the published project cost with other large energy projects around the world.

Suffice it to say, that wind-generated electricity is not price-competitive with modern fossil-generated electricity - it's just a lot cleaner.

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>  Electric Cars again-and-again

Green Car
Environment

Electric vehicles like: trams; trains; and electric: cars; vans; and busses; all assist in achieving better air quality in our cities. Yet, to the extent that the energy they consume is derived from our oldest energy source, fire: the potential toxic emissions and greenhouse gasses simply enter the atmosphere somewhere else.

So are they actually more environmentally friendly than conventional, petroleum-fuelled, vehicles?

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>  Climate Change - a Myth?

Ice core data
Environment

Several friends and acquaintances of my generation continue to assert that the climate is beyond our control or that 'Climate Change' is a myth.
A friend who is sceptical about sea level rise, recently asserted that I was wrong when I claimed, that as a result of flooding during king tides, I had observed sea level change of six inches to a foot during a lifetime of ferry trips on Sydney Harbour. 
So I checked.
Between 1914 and 2007 sea levels at Fort Dension in Sydney Harbour rose by between 0.73 - 1.13 mm/yr. That means that during my lifetime the average sea level in Sydney Harbour has risen by 51 - 79mm (2 to 3 inches).
So my friend was both right and wrong.
He's right in that it's not possible that I have correctly remembered water levels well enough to distinguish a median rise of 65mm in a tidal range of 2.1 m.  Yet he is wrong in suggesting that there has been no sea level rise in Sydney Harbour AAP FactCheck.

Might I be mistaken in other ways?

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Biology - we can't escape it

 

>  The Prospect of Eternal Life

Eternally Damned
Philosophy

When I first began to write about this subject, the idea that Hamlet’s apprehension concerning 'that undiscover'd country from whose bourn no traveller returns' was still current in today’s day and age seemed to me as bizarre as the fear of falling off the Earth should you sail too far to the west.

Yet it has become apparent to me that some intelligent, educated, people still identify the prospect of eternal life, in either heaven or hell, as an important consideration when contemplating their own life and death.

Read More...

 

>  Gaia

Gaia
Science?

During our recent trip to Central Australia, I found myself wondering if there is more or less 'life' out here than there is in the more obviously verdant countryside to the north south east or west. 

Perhaps the entirety of the Earth's biota - James Lovelock's Gaia - is optimised by 'survival of the fittest' to fully exploit the prevailing conditions, so that, at any one time, the total mass of living cells the planet can support has been maximised?

Then, maybe, given the present planetary environment, the total biological cake can't get any bigger - it can only  swap one: individual; species; order; phylum; etc; for another?

This is, of course, pure, unsubstantiated, speculation - born of my 'peripatetic musings'. What do you think?

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>  The Chemistry of Life

Egg and sperm race
Science

This article - that begins with 'What everyone should know' was written back in 2013 as an appendix to The Meaning of Life, my wide-ranging essay for my children about understanding: what we can know and what we think we do know.
Since I began The Meaning of Life in 1997 my children have, to my pride and delight, each surpassed my knowledge in these areas of medicine and science. But now I have grandchildren to inform.
I recently updated the brief chapter on viruses to include an image of a cell infected with Covid-19
Some readers might find it interesting.

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Miscellaneous

>  The McKie Family

McKie Ginger Beer
History

This is the story of the McKie family down a path through the gardens of the past that led to where I'm standing now.  Other paths converged and merged as the McKies met and wed and bred.
Where possible I've glimpsed backwards up those paths as far as records would allow.
In six generations, I, like most people, have 126 ancestors.  Around half have become obscure to me. But I know the majority had one thing in common: they lived in or around Newcastle-upon-Tyne in England.

During that time Newcastle grew from a small port town into one of the World's most important and innovative cities.  Thus, they contributed to the prosperity, fertility and skill of that blossoming town during the century and a half when the garden there was at its most fecund.

So it's also a tale of one city.

Read More...

 

>  Luther - Father of the Modern World?

Luther and the witches2
History

Continuing the religious theme, 2017 also marked 500 years since Martin Luther nailed his '95 theses' to a church door in Wittenberg and set in motion the Protestant Revolution.
It's caused me to recall an exhibition in Germany in 2016 - Luther and the Witches - and to wonder how much impact this superstitious man might still have on my descendants, two of whom are German.
My research and speculations made this article quite long enough. So if you're interested in the witch hunts Luther contributed to click on the linked album within and see the exhibition for yourself.

 

Read More...

 

>  Alternative Facts and other Untrue Tales

Parvati - Jodhpur
Fiction

Most fiction has its roots in real events.  Yet the flights of fancy (untruths) these inspire can be more fun.

Some of these tales can be read in a few minutes others like: The Cloud and The Craft, require a good bit longer.

 

 

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Travel

Burma (Myanmar)

 

 

This is a fascinating country in all sorts of ways and seems to be most popular with European and Japanese tourists, some Australians of course, but they are everywhere.

Since childhood Burma has been a romantic and exotic place for me.  It was impossible to grow up in the Australia of the 1950’s and not be familiar with that great Australian bass-baritone Peter Dawson’s rendition of Rudyard Kipling’s 'On the Road to Mandalay' recorded two decades or so earlier:  

Come you back to Mandalay
Where the old flotilla lay
Can't you hear their paddles chunking
From Rangoon to Mandalay

On the road to Mandalay
Where the flying fishes play
And the Dawn comes up like thunder
out of China 'cross the bay

The song went Worldwide in 1958 when Frank Sinatra covered it with a jazz orchestration, and ‘a Burma girl’ got changed to ‘a Burma broad’; ‘a man’ to ‘a cat’; and ‘temple bells’ to ‘crazy bells’.  

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Fiction, Recollections & News

Lost Magic

 

 

I recently had another look at a short story I'd written a couple of years ago about a man who claimed to be a Time Lord.

I noticed a typo.  Before I knew it I had added a new section and a new character and given him an experience I actually had as a child. 

It happened one sports afternoon - primary school cricket on Thornleigh oval. 

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Opinions and Philosophy

Climate Emergency

 

 

 

emergency
/uh'merrjuhnsee, ee-/.
noun, plural emergencies.
1. an unforeseen occurrence; a sudden and urgent occasion for action.

 

 

Recent calls for action on climate change have taken to declaring that we are facing a 'Climate Emergency'.

This concerns me on a couple of levels.

The first seems obvious. There's nothing unforseen or sudden about our present predicament. 

My second concern is that 'emergency' implies something short lived.  It gives the impression that by 'fire fighting against carbon dioxide' or revolutionary action against governments, or commuters, activists can resolve the climate crisis and go back to 'normal' - whatever that is. Would it not be better to press for considered, incremental changes that might avoid the catastrophic collapse of civilisation and our collective 'human project' or at least give it a few more years sometime in the future?

Back in 1990, concluding my paper: Issues Arising from the Greenhouse Hypothesis I wrote:

We need to focus on the possible.

An appropriate response is to ensure that resource and transport efficiency is optimised and energy waste is reduced. Another is to explore less polluting energy sources. This needs to be explored more critically. Each so-called green power option should be carefully analysed for whole of life energy and greenhouse gas production, against the benchmark of present technology, before going beyond the demonstration or experimental stage.

Much more important are the cultural and technological changes needed to minimise World overpopulation. We desperately need to remove the socio-economic drivers to larger families, young motherhood and excessive personal consumption (from resource inefficiencies to long journeys to work).

Climate change may be inevitable. We should be working to climate “harden” the production of food, ensure that public infrastructure (roads, bridges, dams, hospitals, utilities and so) on are designed to accommodate change and that the places people live are not excessively vulnerable to drought, flood or storm. [I didn't mention fire]

Only by solving these problems will we have any hope of finding solutions to the other pressures human expansion is imposing on the planet. It is time to start looking for creative answers for NSW and Australia  now.

 

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