Witty knitter

I survived! (Feeble edition)

I have submitted my PhD.

This momentous event occured on 17 April. As I walked back across campus, I felt tired unto death. I was having trouble putting one foot in front of the other. Yes, I was getting sick.

I have been sick, sicker, sickish and sick again since. A virus turned to asthma and a bacterial infection, followed by more asthma.

But I am improving. And the monkey of the thesis is off my back.

Now I just have to wait until the examiners have pronounced.

Hong Kong Part 2

Many cities we are visiting on this trip are water cities. Of course, Hong Kong is one of these: its harbour has determined much of its history and its shape. We were lucky to have two trips on the harbour during our short visit.

The first trip was an evening cruise, down the harbour and back.

Not on this boat.. 

or this one...

       

but this somewhat less atmospheric craft served us well.

 

 

 

 

It was a balmy evening, and the lights of Hong Kong made the trip magical.

      

We returned to the land for a road trip to Aberdeen village and a meal on the Jumbo floating restaurant. Floating restaurants have a long history in Hong Kong, but this huge 2000-seat structure may be one of the last. As we were on a tour, we had a 'special' set menu, so I can't comment on the standard of the food normally served - we found it pretty ordinary. There were certainly a lot of local families there, so I guess they enjoy it. One of the oddest things was the walk between the holding tanks (called the aquarium) before the meal; they were filled with the fish to be served at the tables. I suppose this is to assure diners that their meal is freshly caught, but it did feel a bit strange.

Our second harbour trip was to Lan Tau Island. This was a really amazing day, spoiled only by the rain which made it impossible for us to go up in the cable car. Despite being very close to the airport, Lan Tau is almost completely a nature reserve, and the few local residents fight hard to keep it that way. We drove all over the island in a few hours, including a trip to the huge statue of the Buddha and Lan Tau Monastery.

 

 

 

 

We finished our time on Lan Tau with a visit to a small fishing village in the south. It was a memorable day, despite the monsoonal storm that bucketed down late in the afternoon.

           
                               

Part 1: Hong Kong

We'd visited Hong Kong briefly before, but this was our first chance to spend a few days looking around. We stayed at a new hotel Sandra found on Trip Advisor: Hotel Icon in Kowloon. It's only been open a year and is very impressive: reasonably priced but very luxurious and carefully designed. Turns out, it is the hotel training school of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University so there are armies of beautifully presented young people, carefully supervised by staff, ready to assist at every turn. We had personal in-room service for the wifi and the TV (which turned out to be a case of remote control confusion, but we won't mention that again). The cleaning was meticulous - and checked up on carefully - and the stationery included sticky tape, a stapler and glue. The design details are impressive, and the decor modern and interesting.

We've featured a photo of the huge living green wall in the foyer, and a sample of the artworks scattered throughout. The staff uniforms are all designed specifically their tasks by famous graduates of the school - the concierges wear smart knit tops, cotton pants and sneakers, the reception staff suits, with the women's jackets being a beautiful woven silk fabric that references the hotel's logo. The hotel cafe food is Western, but just over the road is both a huge designer shopping mall and an impressive range of cheap local eateries. The Hong Kong History and the Science Museums are a few minutes walk away, and it's near an MTR station.

Although it's built above the exit from the tunnel to Hong Kong Island, probably the busiest highway in Hong Kong, It is double-glazed and quiet. The views from the 26th floor are spectacular.

         

Part 2 when we find somewhere to charge this computer! (Presently on a ferry to Estonia!)

 

 

Running away from home!

After months of plotting and not a little planning, we left Sydney on Saturday 22 September for a marathon overseas trip to Northen Europe. There are many special things about this trip, not the least of which is we have cut our airtravel to the minimum, and what we are doing is mostly in business class. No, we haven't come into a fortune, but we did engage a brilliant travel manager: Robin Wood of Travel Managers, who helped in all kinds of unexpected ways (thanks Naomi for the recommendation). The "Grand Plan" involves, planes, trains, ferries and a car with time in Hong Kong, Helsinki, Stockholm, Berlin, Amsterdam, several places in the UK and of course London! We are planning to keep traveller posts coming regularly until we return to Sydney in late November.

So far our experience of Business Class is two flights, one to Hong Kong with Qantas and a second from Hong Kong to Helsinki with FinnAir. FInnAir being an overnight flight, we really appreciated being able to raise our legs and pretty much lie down, but the food and fittings were very ordinary - shabby even. Interestingly, all the cabin crew were women, unlike Qantas where at least half the attendants on any flight seem to be men these days. The service and food on Qantas (A380) were both exemplary, and the seats and cabin were, amazingly, spacious. (We never thought we would use that adjective to describe an airplane!) There is a real sense of Aussie knocking in the stream of public commentary on Qantas these days, but we can honestly say that we have always found their service and the airplanes themselves to be excellent. This includes M-H's six-week trip in 2000 with Narelle, her late partner, who was in poor health and required a lot of extra attention - all of these flights were in cattle class - and the Qantas service shone above all the other carriers she encountered.

This post is being written at 6.15 am in Helsinki, aided by mild jet-lag. In the next post we'll write about our Hong Kong adventures - with photos.

More on cloudsourcing

Yesterday ASIC moved to clarify the rules about comercial ventures that are crowdsourced. It makes interesting reading, and I think is quite clear that certain types of crowdsourcing can be considered a 'pre-purchase arrangement', and can thus be covered by consumer law. The whole statement is here.

Ms Gusset has advised that all prepaid orders for her Ton of Wool crowdsourcing venture have (finally!)  been dispatched, excpeting several people who have not supplied addresses. I'm glad to read this, although I'm still not clear why it has taken a year to complete this work, as 50 were apparently sent out this last week. It's left a bad taste.

Women who get shit done - eventually

Last weekend we went to Ikea and bought kits for four dining chairs. We did intend to assemble them right away, honest. But somehow, we were too tired...

But on Friday evening we made two and yesterday we made the other two, so now we have four lovely new chairs that look like this. And they are comfy! I brought our old chairs from New Zealand - they must be about 20 years old, and had never been that comfortable.

 

I'm not a lawyer but...

The internet is a strange place. Intelligent, aware people like me quite easily approve extraction of money from their bank accounts by invisible means, and its almost simultaneous crediting to other people's bank accounts. And then, after a time of anxiety or confidence, depending on your personal level of paranoia, you receive a product or service that you consider roughtly equivalent in value to what you paid. It's not called internet shopping for nothing.

Then there's crowdsourcing. Many people using crowdsourcing to raise money offer small inducements, often worth much less than the donation. It might only be that your name and generosity will recorded for posterity. In that sense it's a bit like raising money for charity, except that the charity doesn't have to be registered and the money raised is usually supposed to fund a very specific thing. Sometimes people using crowdsourcing to raise funds will be offering a product that will only be available if the full amount is received so the project can go ahead. I suppose I'd assume if it doesn't go ahead I'd get the money I'd pledged back. I'd certainly assume that if it did go ahead I would get the goods that I'd paid for (usually paid more than they were worth because I believed in the cause) in my pledge.

And (you know where this is going, don't you?) there is trust involved. When the person who is running the scheme is very well-known, both personally and digitally to the pledgers, there is a high level of trust. And the companies who handle the pedges and access the bank accounts of pledgers also have a high level of trust in the community. One of these companies is Pozible. If you're not familiar with the idea of crowdsourcing their home page will give you an idea of how it works. If you're supporting the launch of an EP and you pledge over a certain amount you'll get a copy. If you're supporting a play at a fringe festival and you pledge over a certain amount you get a ticket. Makes lots of sense, and I see that the Queensland Literary Awards, replacing those that were axed by the new premier, have raised $142% of their goal at Pozible (Yay crowdsourcing!).

A successful Pozible project in 2011 was Ton of Wool. In the words of the organiser, Kylie Gusset:

Processing wool in Australia is fast becoming a dying art, and wool needs to stay in Australia for creation from sheep to skein in order to support small farmers and micro business.

The successful project will ensure that your money will be put into directly paying the farmer, scour, fibre processor, mill and transport companies. The whole project occurs within the 03 area code - grown in Tasmania, processed and milled in Victoria.

1 Ton Of Wool - Why so much?
1 ton of wool is being processed because that's the smallest amount we can get through a commercial scour. We're a grain of sand in their usual beach of processing, so we're rather lucky to get a foot in their door.

I was happy to subscribe, and I promoted the project to friends and through the NSW Knitters' Guild. I was very happy with the three skeins of undyed wool I received back in April: soft, smooth, buttery. But I've recently realised that a lot of people who ordered dyed skeins haven't received anything. It was very galling for these pledgers (shall we call them customers?) when the wool was offered for sale at the Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show in July, but they couldn't get any response to pleas for a delivery date for something they paid for more than twelve months ago. This week Kylie responded to some questions on her Ravelry page:

” You’ve taken peoples money in return for goods. That falls under “business transaction”. ”

i’m wondering if that is what is the whole problem here. see, i used pozible. a crowdsource funding site. i took pledges in return for rewards. it doesn’t fall under business transaction. for example, as far as i know, consumer affairs in this instance is unable to do anything if someone who pledged wanted to make a complaint.

As I say, I'm not a lawyer, but this seems very disingenuous to me. Taking money in return for a promise of goods sounds like business to me. She has said that she still has to process 60 of the 400 orders - that's nearly 1 in 7. This woman is in business as a dyer, has been for years and she was trusted. More from the Ravelry site:

“We thought we were dealing with a reputable business with a track record.”
i have no track record with crowdsource funding on pozible, cormo, or dealing with wool brokers, farmers, scours, or wool processors. spinning mill? sort of, but TON OF WOOL is a different beast entirely. i used to dye sock yarn (and i’m looking forward to getting those days back)
now, together, we’re making history.

But that's not all that the 400 people who supported her were paying for. Sure, we 'got' that this was an important moral and environmental issue. Air miles, supporting local growers and businesses, yada yada yada. But we were also after the wool that we paid for. I'm not sure why that's such a complex concept.

OMG it's August already!

Updating: we sold the house that used to be Sandra's three days after the failed auction, and we got a very good price for it. This has made quite a difference to our finances, including allowing us to book a trip to Europe later in the year, which will end in London for the graduation of my son, aged 36, from the University of London with a first class degree in Law. Yes, we are a family of late-finishers and over-achievers.

The Thesis grinds on.

And I knit.

That is all.

 

::peeks around the corner::

...is there anyone still there?

I'm still here, just brain-dead. I don't know why it seems like such a difficult thing to blog these days, but somehow I can always find something else to do. That may of course be because there always is something else to do.

First, The Thesis is nearing completion. But that means that it's kind of taken over my brain. I keep thinking about it. And when you have a job that also demands a fairly active brain engagement, there's not much room for other coherent thought. Most evenings it's all I can do to knit on a plain garment.

Second, I've been away in New Zealand for a week. There were two graduations to attend, my daughter's BAHons and my son-in-law's PhD. And there were, of course, granddaughters to spend time with, and kittens to avoid standing on. Sandra, at the same time, was at a conference in Banff.

Third, we are selling the house that used to be Sandra's - those who've been reading along here for more than three years will be familiar with it. The tenants left, and we decided that it was time. If you're in the market for a house in the Inner West of Sydney you'll have to be quick: it's being auctioned on Saturday 26 May. It's undergone a transformation - what's known in the trade as a 'mini-makeover' - which doesn't mean it came at a mini price - and it is full of hotel-style hired furniture. Which is, apparently, what buyers want in this area, this price bracket, this month... . So we are hoping that it will be sold at auction or soon after. Wish us luck, please.

Fourth, Sandra's mum is having a bad time with health things and that is taking a lot of energy. She will be 91 this year, and still is still living on her own in a retirement village. However, she's fallen twice (both times because of undiagnosed or mistreated issues with her heart), slashing her leg and cracking a bone the first time, and is presently nursing a broken arm from the second event. Sadly, although she is quite safe and capable of looking after her own daily needs, she has lost her ability to problem-solve and thus externalises every tiny thing, usually in a dramatic phone call.

That's enough for now. I may be back soon. It's not that I want to give up blogging, but it just seems all a bit much at the moment.

 

Unmarried mothers, married unmothers

The Australian Senate is presently holding an enquiry into the forced removal of babies from unmarried mothers in Australia. ABC's Four Corners program last Monday night was harrowing: you read more here, and there's a link to the program on iview if you're in Australia. Some dreadful stories have come to light, with a common theme: although it was an illegal practice, mothers were coerced and pressured, even forced and lied to, to give up their babies for adoption because they were not married. No women have come forward saying that they were not subject to this pressure; only one that I have seen successfully resisted it. One analysis I haven't seen here in Australia is that of New Zealand feminist Anne Else - who, incidentally, was awarded her PhD at the age of 61 in 2006. (Anne's wonderful blog is presently telling the story of her grief and slow recovery from the death of her husband Harvery McQueen.) Anne's 1991 book A question of adoption: closed stranger adoption in New Zealand, 1944–1974 postulated that New Zealand society in the middle decades of the twentieth century had identified two socially abherrent groups: the unmarried mothers and the married unmothers. A device (closed stranger adoption) was invented to take care of both of these social problems: the childless married woman and the unfortunately unchildless woman who had no husband. It is a measure of the control that was exerted on women, and by the social order and notions of 'right and proper' more generally (society was believed to be held up by three pillars: religion, medicine and law), that this regime stayed in place so long. Nurses of my acquaintance who did their 'middy' (midwifery training) in the 60s and 70s still talk about the horror of having to remove  babies from unmarried mothers, and of the bullying and cruelty of older nurses who enforced this practice on behalf of society. (Did I mention it was illegal?)

When I worked as a proofreader at a legal publishers in the 1980s I read a lot of very boring stuff (as you can imagine). But one case has stuck in my brain: a young woman who had been coerced and bullied into signing papers to give her baby up for adoption when she was still in hospital, and now wanted her baby back two years later. Under New Zealand law you couldn't sign any legal papers until you were seven days post-partum. The case hinged on the legal definition of day - was it a 24-hour period from an event, or the hospital definition, in which the 'day' started at midday (which is why most people were discharged in the morning, lest they be a cost on the system for another day). It was decided that she had signed those papers less than seven legal days after the baby's birth, and her child, which had been legally adopted by another family some two years before, was given back to her. The terrible emotions involved in that whole case have haunted me since.

Eight years ago I told the story of my own adoption here. Please go and read it now; I'll still be here when you get back. I posted more details about Pat and Nan here. There is a small final chapter to that story: Nan died peacefully, in a motel room one afternoon in Wanaka in 2008. She was 92, and was visiting the area with a group of friends. The day before she died she had enjoyed an outing on the river - jetboating. She was one of a kind.