It’s the end of the year, and time for a new blogsite. I’m running out of media storage capacity on this site. So head over here for future posts. It’s still with WordPress, although I’ve had to familiarise myself with a number of changes since I last commenced a blog. So there might be a few rough edges while I get up-to-speed with the latest innovations.
We were impressed by the museum at Yarra Junction. Not only is it housed in and around an impressive restored building (the former station), but the displays were interesting and instructive. There’s lots of memorabilia and old equipment and several restored buildings. It’s all logically arranged with most of the material dating from the first part of the 20th century, covering the whole range of rural life with machinery, household items, a school room as well as a lot of railway material.
The former station master’s house was particularly interesting. With 2 bedrooms, a formal living room, a kitchen and a bathroom, it’s all set up as if the family had just stepped out before we arrived.
C got me out and about for a walk. We headed to Yarra Junction to walk a stretch of the Warburton rail trail.
The trail is in great condition, and was being very well used – particularly by cyclists – on the lovely warm day that we were there.
I’d done a little pre-planning, so knew that if we parked at Yarra Junction we could catch the regular bus a few kms up the road to Milgrove. In fact, the timing was perfect. 5 minutes after we parked, we were on the bus.
The distance from Milgrove back to Yarra Junction turned out to be just right, too. The trail in this section is mostly flat, past diverse farmlands with views across the valley to the mountains. Shortly before reaching Yarra Junction, it crosses the Little Yarra river.
We still had some time and energy at Yarra Junction, so we did the local “walking loop” along the banks of the Little Yarra, then spent some time in the interesting historical museum in and around the old station building (more to come on this). Then a coffee and homewards. On the way home, we discussed which other sections of the trail we could do.
One of the gifts at Christmas was a new Ikea chair (in line with a “suggestion” that we’d made). But, of course, being Ikea, it had to be assembled.
The vital thing when assembling Ikea products (as I’ve found out from experience) is to follow every detail the instructions! Catch? Ikea’s instructions are totally diagrammatic – no writing at all.
Initially, they looked somewhat “challenging” to follow, but in fact. when taken together with the various components, the assembly process was relatively straight-forward.
We had a lovely Christmas Eve/Christmas Day, catching up with family/extended family. And eating much too much great food!
Christmas greetings to all!
Chora Museum, The Birth of Christ (detail)
I read with interest the “ratings” of commercial law firms that appeared in The Australian. It’s supposed to rank firms according to their expertise. Essentially, it’s all about how many lawyers a firm has in various “bands”- the more the better, of course.
Having observed the process from the “other side”, that is, from within a legal firm (albeit a few years ago now), these exercises seem to me to have a few flaws. Perhaps the compilers don’t claim to be perfect, merely that they’re the best that can be done. Certainly, if the interest is in “expertise” these measures give more of an insight than (for example) ranking firms by the value of deals done .
That said, in the case of the recent rankings, obviously the larger the firm, the more likely it is that they will have people who qualify as top-rated lawyers. In other words, partly it’s a numbers game.
Additionally, the larger firms have the capacity to devote staff to the task of promoting the firm in the best light. Given that the survey is supposed to be based on “market sources” (presumably, mainly clients, but perhaps also counter-parties to transactions), some amount of promotion would obviously do no harm!
For what it’s worth, my experience of these rankings suggests that they tend to “lag”. I certainly came across instances where highly-rated individuals still had a good reputation, but were definitely past their prime.
André Gerolymatos’ book is not for the squeamish or faint-hearted. On the cover, it’s described as “Conquest, revolution and retribution from the Ottoman era to the twentieth century and beyond”.
The Balkan Wars describes the conflicts and violence of the region, often in gruesome detail. It has detailed descriptions of the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the battle of Kosovo in 1389, the Greek war of independence, the First and Second Balkans Wars (with all their complex military moves) and the assassination of the Archduke in Sarajevo in 1914. He also addresses at some length the problem of banditry, in that for centuries outlaw bands operated throughout the region. Yet, despite having plundered the countryside for centuries, the Greek klephts became romantic symbols during the Greek War of independence. Along the way, he describes the diplomatic machinations that frequently occurred, and the involvement of other countries, including the “Great Powers”, the “Triple Entente” and the “Triple Alliance”.
The author’s objective, apart from giving us a lot of detail about these events, is to place them into context, and to show the linkages over the centuries, particularly in the context of the Ottoman rise and subsequent decline. Over the centuries, there’s been so much going on in the Balkans that any attempted description of events must deal with things often occurring events simultaneously. So this book approaches matters mainly from a military perspective.
No wonder the Balkans often appears to those of us who like to read about it to be an enigma! The reality is that there is so much history, so many differ interests and so much complexity!
There’s a theme that ancient events have engendered a collective consciousness which has been reflected in more recent events. The last chapter, reflecting on events in the late 1990s, was written in 2002, and expressed pessimism about the conflicts that he saw as pent-up in Kosovo and Bosnia. True, in the 20 years since then neither of these situations has been resolved, and there certainly have been “skirmishes”, but there haven’t been all-in “conflicts. Maybe there is indeed hope, as expressed in the last paragraph of the book, that “security and material wealth” will indeed form the antidote to war?
I knew that Windows 11 was “coming”, but I hadn’t given much thought to it. But it was taken out of my hands. The first screen I saw after a routine Windows 10 upgrade was a screen to the general effect that Microsoft was going to download Windows 11 on to my computer. If I didn’t want it, there was a small button at the bottom of the screen allowing me to “decline upgrade”. I paused for thought, but decided that I probably would have to take the plunge sooner or later, so I allowed Microsoft to have its way.
I assume that Microsoft had checked my computer to see that it could handle Windows 11. Such is the price of using Windows!
Actually, the experience was relatively painless. Seemingly, Windows 11 was downloaded in the background as I continued to use the computer. Only when I shut down was I informed that the upgrade would be installed as part of the process. When I next booted up, there was a short delay until the new Windows 11 desktop appeared.
So, there it is, Windows 11 is up and running. Of course, Microsoft has made some changes to the appearance of the desktop just so that you know that things are “different”. Why this is necessary, I don’t know. It just annoys me when things are changed just for the sake of being “different”. Apart from that, the changes are pretty small and I’ll get used to them I suppose. EDIT – One thing that seems to have come with Windows 11 is an estimate of the time that any subsequent updates might take to install. I think this is a useful addition.
Although it’s traditional to attach posters to fences on building sit
es, many regard it as being almost graffiti. The expression “Bill posters will be prosecuted” comes to mind.
Not far from us, there’s a fence covered with posters. And on closer examination, one of them promotes an event being put on by the Council!
Musings and Mutterings 