Category: personal

Change the Regal Regime

Prince Charles, Australia’s next King is coming to lord over part of his future realm this week. Meanwhile former Australian, Princess Mary and her new husband Price Frederik of Denmark are in Sydney (Princess Mary on Sydney Harbour). Royalty seems to be a major event for Australia, but the Danish royal couple are scooping the newspaper column centimetres and grabs on TV.

Why don’t we trade in the old, rusted Battenburg-Windsor hegemony for the young Danes? Being an Anglo-saxon country, many of our ancestors came from Danish soil in the 5th and 6th centuries. Surely we get a vote in this? Oh, that’s right – our feudal overlords are not chosen in a democratic way. Shame.

Groundhog Day in New Zealand

Literal Groundhog Day in New Zealand.

Fly to Auckland on 6.30pm flight Monday evening. Arrive at hotel at 12:45am. Up and awake at 6:00am for a 12 hour day of Acrobat 7.0 Roadshow. Mid-afternoon, the Skycity Convention Centre is evacuated after our room starts to fill with water and the fire alarms sound.

To the airport, and attempt to be smart by catching a 6:00pm flight to Wellington. Take off OK, and almost arrive on Wellington airport. About 50m from the ground, landing is aborted due to weather and we’re off back to Auckland.

Arrive Auckland 8:15pm, and placed on a rescheduled flight to Wellington. Within 10 minutes, this flight is cancelled too. We’re grounded in Auckland until the morning.

After some scrambling, we find a hotel (of sorts) and check in at 10:30pm. After 2.5 hours of email and reports, sleep for 4 hours and awake at 5:30am for an 8:00am flight to Wellington.

At the airport, and the 7:00am flight to Wellington is still waiting for weather clearance in Wellington. By 8:00am, we find out Wellington airport is closed until at least 4:00pm. Wellington this New Zealand trip is cancelled.

Three days, about 9 hours sleep.

Oh the glamorous life in the Jet-set.