VALE - Colin Hughes

This is a blog about our holidays, but something happened on the weekend that I wanted to make note of as I won’t be in Australia again till the 6th of October so will not be there to support and mourn with my friends and colleagues.

On Saturday morning the Royal Australian Navy Band lost one of it’s members in a tragic, senseless, incident when Leading Seaman Musician Colin Hughes was hit by an out of control car whilst standing at the passenger crossing in Cairns outside the living-in accommodation. He was there as part of a contingent from the Band to support the Far North Queensland Navy Week celebrations. I can’t give you exactly how long it has been, but I’m fairly confident that he is the first Navy Musician to be killed whilst on duty in a very long time.

Others will comment on the senseless, soul-destroying nature of this incident. That is something to be done in private, not on this forum. What I wanted to do though, as I will most likely miss the funeral, is say a few words for posterity about Colin.

Colin joined us in the RAN band about 5 years ago after transferring from the British Royal Marines. He was one of a collection of British changeovers at the time, moving his family to the warmer climes of Australia. As he came in as a Leading Seaman I shared a changeroom with him along with the other senior ABs and LS. Whilst we were not close friends, we never socialised outside of work or anything like that, we were work colleagues  for 4 years and spent a great deal of time working in close proximity.

I’ll remember a lot of things about Col. I’ll remember bagging him out when we would beat England in the cricket. I’ll remember talking about football in the mornings. I’ll remember giving him shit for all the lycra he’d wear to and from work on his bike, along with the weird looking mirror on a pole he’d have strapped to his head. I’ll remember how for someone who rode a lot, he seemed to have A LOT of falls. Most of all, I’ll remember, as will everyone else in the changeroom, the countdown of 3...2...1... That preceded the disrobing of underwear at the end of the day prior to re-lycraing for the ride home. The funny thing about a countdown is that it doesn’t really work as a means to make people NOT look at you. I saw a lot of Col’s stuff throughout the last few years...

We who serve in the military are part of a family, bonded through shared trials and tribulations. Col served two countries for his entire adult life, a feat few achieve. He did it, like the rest of us, in the best way he knew how: through music. His legacy will be memories and friendships and bonds across two nations. A fun loving man who enjoyed a drink with friends, and a laugh with work-mates. His loss will be keenly felt by all those who served with him.

Our thoughts are with his wife and two daughters, and his extended family. They are with his closest friends, particularly Brian and Martin who served with him both here and in the Royal Marines. They are with those members of the band who were in Cairns and bravely tried to revive him, and those that comforted each other through their shared loss. They are with my Navy brothers and sisters back home who are going through this painful period. They are with his brothers and sisters in the Royal Marines, particularly those that will not be able to make the journey to Australia. And they are with anyone else who had their lives touched by a good man.

The ripples of the stones of our lives as they touch the waters of the world are far reaching, and they never truly dissipate, merely join with others to form that which we call our shared community.

Thanks Col. We will remember you.

3... 2...1...

Lest We Forget.

RaC

Cruising the Autobahn...

(I pulled this the other night but I think it's fine to put it up now.)

We dropped the car off in Munich a few days ago, but this is the first chance I've really had to reflect on the actual driving experience of the 6 days we spent traversing Germany.

We travelled almost 2000km in 6 days in a little Ford Cmax. Once we worked out the best way to make things work it was an absolute breeze. This method involved Justine driving, and me navigating. This is mainly because: a) I'm better with technology and it took a little bit to realise when we put in a district on the car's inbuilt GPS it wiped out the street so kept taking us random places so I handled the iPad with maps, b) Justine is completely incapable of shutting up whilst I drive and finds it necessary to tell me EVERYTHING that is happening on the road as if it is a giant truck about to hit us (This happens in Sydney as well so was not surprising and made the decision of giving up driving rights a lot easier) and c) I'm much better at reading maps. In fact, the only times that Jus has tried to guide us anywhere this trip we went 1km in the opposite direction.

So Jus drove and I sat in the passenger seat. I had no problem with this. She probably didn't either...

If you are thinking of doing a big Europe drive I highly recommend something like an iPad with a local 3g sim in it. Of course, I'm fairly sure I got raped by O2 in Berlin and may have been put €50 a month contract of some kind as I can't read the documents they gave me. Also, I'm not sure about the rest of the carriers but O2 doesn't get much 3g outside of the cities so it pays to cache up your maps whilst you can as sometimes you are stuck on REALLY SLOW internet. That being said, the luxury of the map you can move around and see everything on was great and I'd highly recommend it.

There's three things particular I noticed whilst driving around Germany.

1. - Autobahns

Everyone has heard of the Autobahns, the German freeways with no speed limit. The country is very proud of this massive network of road, and they should be. They are EXTREMELY effective. Imagine being able to get from Sydney to Canberra in 1.5 hours doing 150-60 kmph! Or even better, imagine being somewhere that you actually want to be! This system of over 12,000kms of roadway is simply amazing. Crisscrossing the country to join everything to everything else, it has taken the infamous German efficiency to the extreme. Sure, there's more deaths per year than in Australia but there's also a hell of a lot more cars. Throughout the whole time we drove we didn't see a single accident. In addition, there is a level of responsibility to the driving that you don't experience in a lot of Australia. People actually kept to the inner lanes when not overtaking. Every driver has to be in control, because at those speeds you know when you aren't. A great way to get around.

For an interesting comparison, check out this article I found.

2. - Windfarms

From the moment we left Berlin, there were wind farms EVERYWHERE. Apparently, Germany is now receiving 25% of it's power from renewables, of which 40% is from wind. Compare this to Australia where renewable energy still produces less than 9% of our energy needs (yes, I know there are other factors such as distance and density etc.) Germany proudly states it's environmental claims, declaring itself the first major "renewable energy economy," and you can see it in the masses of wind turbines that are scattered amongst the corn fields (probably producing ethanol) and pastures from Berlin to Bavaria.

3. - Cyclists

This is not something that is refined to Germany, as we saw them all throughout Vienna, Prague and now Innsbruck as well. European cities are all about bikes these days. One of the things that makes it innately easier for anyone to ride in these cities is that there are no helmet laws. You wanna ride a bike, it's fine. Just hire one and off you go. The bike lines are usually well laid out, separated from cars and pedestrians, and as the cities are mostly flat it looks like the best way to get around (apart from the public transport systems which I'll talk about another time.) I imagine it is anyway, as I of course don't do anything like physical exercise... When you see these cities, with few cars and lots of people riding around on bikes, you actually start to understand Clover's vision for Sydney. I think the personal responsibility aspect of removing mandatory helmets is an important aspect of this. It allows for communal bike sharing schemes that allow tourists to easily get around.

Of course, we also saw some segue tours which looked great.

Overall, the driving experience was fantastic and I'd highly recommend it. This is not to discount train travel though. I'll talk about that when we get back to London.

Sorry about the rambling nature of this blog. I wanted to get it out tonight as I want to write something a bit more serious tomorrow. Until then, salu.

RaC

Old stuff is kinda cool...

We left Berlin 5 days ago in a little Ford Cmax and have been driving through Germany ever since. From Berlin we drove to Bremen, then down to Kassel, Heidelberg, Colmberg and now we are in Füssen. We've travelled the Fairy Tale Road, the Castle Road, and the Romantic Road. We've seen old squares, fallen down castles, regal palaces, Franconian holdfasts, 500 year old town halls (an amazingly large amount of these...) and today we finished at a Bavarian king's extravagant castle, high in the German Alps, built so that he could withdraw from the world yet never got to see completed.

Throughout, something has struck me as potent. Old stuff is really cool. Australia has two kinds of old things. We have ancient old things, from our indigenous heritage, that is holy and older than most other things in the world. And we have the some areas like The Rocks in Sydney that are over 200 years old and still have some old buildings. But Germany has OLD shit. And most importantly, they don't get rid of any of it. Even after some of these towns saw large parts destroyed in WWII. Every little hamlet seems to have a Rathaus (Town Hall) that dates back to the 18th century at the latest. They've been reworked, but the design and structure remains the same. The lines, and cobbles of the old towns remain, perhaps polished and a bit more touristy, but in the end just as you may have found them from medieval times until now. I'll never complain when I drive down King William Road in Adelaide again (Apparently the longest single stretch of paved road in the Southern Hemisphere. Or something like that.)

It amazing to see how townships can grow organically over 600 years. As you wander the streets you can see where the walls are/were. Surrounding the markets, and town hall, and cathedral. And the houses just tuck into each other. They are built simply where they work. Even the modern buildings are made to look old, because the style is the most important thing. London could learn a bit from this.

Some towns have castles or palaces looking down on them, protecting them. In the smaller ones these are mere holdfasts, such as the Burg Colmberg that we stayed at last night. The larger towns have larger castles, that have grown and developed to give more protection to the township. You can imagine, on the occasions when it was necessary, the townsfolk fleeing to the relative safety of the keep when they feared for their lives. There is a synthesis between town and keep, a congruent relationship where each exists to support the other.

Amongst this you have the traditions, such as the Fairy Tales of the Brother's Grimm, who travelled the road from Hanau to Bremen collecting folklore and then scaring the living shit of children with it well after their deaths. After travelling in their footsteps, I begin to understand their inspirations.

But I'm not good at writing stories. I'll just say again: old shit is cool.

RaC

Reflections on European Cities - Vienna, Prague and Berlin

Been off this for a bit due to travel, lack of internet, and having to get the last assignment due whilst on holidays done, so this is a bit of a reflection on the 3 cities we travelled to after leaving London just over a week ago.

Wien / Vienna

Having left the metropolis that is London (I'll write more on that when we go back,) we arrived in Vienna via plane a week ago. We had decided before we left that we'd only do short stays in our first few cities as we wanted to do the driving thing so Vienna was merely a jumping off point. Historically, the three cities we visited displayed very different characteristics. Vienna manages to make you feel like you've travelled back in time to the 18th century. They seem proud of their Hapsburg heritage, and even prouder of their music. I enjoyed the irony of being annoyed on street corners not by people trying to sell you a fake Rolex, but by people dressed in Classical attire trying to flog off cheap classical music concert tickets. "You come, pay €39, and see this wonderful concert of classical music. All our members are in the Vienna Philharmonic, here is the program. It is the same as the New Years program. for you, because it is Sunday/Monday/AnyDayOfTheWeek you get A tickets for €49 not €59...etc..." I would have liked to have gone to one, just to say I had, but after we'd done a hop-on-hop-off bus for a whole day on the second day in town the thought of listening to more Strauss (played non-stop between the audio commentary) made me want to puke. Still, the city is striking for how they've rebuilt since WWII, when 20% of the buildings were destroyed by Allied bombing. They rebuilt, rather than replaced, and the new buildings match the older facades. This is my favourite part about these areas of Europe.

Praha / Prague

There's a lot of old history in Prague as well, as you look at the castle and Charles bridge, and walk the cobblestones through the squares to see the cathedrals, and I enjoyed this. However, it is the modern side of Prague that intrigued me. In a weird little suite of rooms above a Maccas and next to a Casino is Prague's "Museum of Communism,"a collection of replicas and real items from the period of Soviet control of the old Czechoslovakia. It's less of a museum, and more of a teaching suite, telling the story of Prague and the Czech people under the Soviet rule. From the end of WWII, through the uprisings  of the Prague spring and subsequent Soviet invasion to stamp out dissent, it was illuminating to read and watch the stories of a people fighting for their freedom. The fall of communism in Czechoslovakia is called the "Velvet Revolution," due to the speed in which the system failed, and the lack of blood spilt. It took a mere 10 days of mass demonstrations in 1989 for the people of Prague to fell an entire government. As we walked back to the hotel through Wenceles Square, the site where thousands peacefully protested, it is hard to imagine the feelings they must have experienced as they looked at the military and police opposite them, waiting for them to get the order to attack and squash the protesters. Those orders never came...

Berlin

Whilst Vienna is all about old history, and Prague is a mixture of the old and the hurt of communism, to me Berlin is a city that is all about the new. Of course, there are some beautiful old buildings in Berlin, and some important history surrounding the cities place in unification and the Kingdom of Prussia. However, so much of Berlin got destroyed by the Allied bombings in WWII, followed by the Soviet invasion, and the subsequent occupation by the 4 powers, that what is old in Berlin is mostly rebuilt in homage rather than still existing. It is a city under construction, but not like somewhere like Abu Dhabi, where the building is happening for the sake of it, rather it is attempting to recover the things that Nazism and Communism stole from it. Berlin is trying to pull itself up from 65 years of division and subjugation. As if the Nazis weren't bad enough, Berlin became the symbol of East vs West throughout the Cold War; literally a city at war with itself. I have a recollection of the Wall coming down, although I was only 10 at the time. But the concept has pervaded my adult life through my studies. Once again, it is difficult for someone like myself, with nothing more than hindsight, to imagine how it must have felt for a Berlin native to see the major landmarks of their city, like the Brandenburg Gate and Reichstag building, surrounded by a concrete monstrosity.

On the east side of the River Spree, in an area of East Berlin that seems to yearn for better days, is a 1.3km section of The Wall called the East Side Gallery. Here, in 1990, artists from all over the world traveled to Berlin to paint the East side of this part of the now broken wall. Their homage to freedom remains, and has been refurbished for renewal, and is a fitting reminder that the actions of people yearning for freedom can change the world.

Thoughts...

It's important to understand the history of these places, and the people that lived there. Without perspective of our past, we can never control our future. This is why I have part of my adult life studying History. What these 3 places have made me think is that perhaps, inherent and basic to all of us, is a need to be free. What that freedom means to each person is naturally different, but a people can not have their freedoms removed without eventually fighting back. I think we are seeing this happen in the Islamic world now. But it isn't easy, and those of us in the "cultured" West need to understand that the fight to be free almost always involves misunderstanding and bloodshed. And usually, it is when the yoke is lifted that people are at their most vulnerable. It's been over 20 years since the Wall came down, but the people of Berlin are still building their new city. However, freedom is never finished. We have to fight for it ever day, as individuals and a people. 

Musical Reviews - Matilda - When I Grow Up...

I know there's been a gap between posts, but I had to finish an assignment for Uni by last night so a lot of my time with a computer has been spent doing that. Suffice to say, don't EVER take study away on a holiday with you. Or if you do, make sure you'll have somewhere to do it easily. I didn't have much choice, as I need to finish these two subjects this semester, but trying to write a Business Law assignment after you've spent 5-6 hours walking around London/Vienna is pretty friggen difficult. I've got another one due on Friday but it's shorter and hopefully there'll be a bit of room on the train to do it tomorrow.

Oh wait, I said that about the plane...

But this post isn't to bitch about my many retarded life decisions. I want to share with you something that happened to me the other day in London.

Jus and I went out on Thursday night and saw Matilda the Musical on the West End at the Cambridge Theatre.

First, some backstory. I came to London once before, in 2000. I'd just spent 2 weeks touring Singapore, Germany and France with the Australian Youth Wind Orchestra. I was a poor little uni student, and I'd just spent a lot of my parents money on a soprano saxophone, but I managed to find the cash to see two shows on the West End. Those that know me know well my love of musical theatre. One of the shows I saw was Lés Miserables, as it was the first musical I remember really seeing (I actually think I saw Pinafore first, but that's besides the point.) The other was The Lion King. Seeing The Lion King is, to this day, one of the top five musical experiences I have ever had. I didn't realise a stage production could work like that, both familiar and still new, staged like Disney had mated with Picasso. The music to the film is relatively forgettable, but Robert Elhai, David Metzger, and Bruce Fowler managed to make it feel like Elton John had just had one of Paul Simon's African Awakenings. I believe it is coming back to Sydney next year, and if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend. Anyway, what does this have to do with Matilda I hear you ask?

Seeing The Lion King is probably the last truly amazing musical experience I had. Until Thursday night. Words can't really describe my reaction to Matilda. It touched me somewhere deep down, in a manner I didn't think music still could. Tim Minchin, the Australian singer/comedian, and Dennis Kelly have created a show that left me simply speechless by it's beauty. They've adapted Roald Dahl's 1988 Book about the girl from a damaged family who escapes through stories in the most imaginative manner possible, channeling Sondheim, Bernstein, and Schonberg. And both the children and the adults in the audience enjoyed the hell out of it, strange considering so much of it involves people singing and acting out abuse to children. It's very easy to see how it cleaned up at the Olivier awards this year, and I fully expect it to do the same next year at the Tonys after it runs on Broadway.

Great music uplifts, and great musicals take you to a different place for the 2.5 hours you sit in an uncomfortable theatre chair, with the temperature just that little bit too hot so you sweat in places you don't like to sweat, and the person behind you coughs loudly or doesn't get all the jokes (although, at least in London you can take your booze in with you.) Great musicals draw you away, into another world where it seems completely natural for someone to sing about something as prosaic as walking down the street in the rain, or something as damaging as losing a child in 19th Century France. My favourite musicals do just this: Les Mis, Into the Woods, West Side Story, all do this in some way. So When I stood during the bows twice, once for the young girl who played the titular character (the large cast of children made the show even more special) and a second time for the whole cast, I meant every clap. The emotion within me was visceral, and I literally had tears coming down my cheeks. I'm not ashamed to say this. It also wasn't the first time during the show, as it got very dusty at the beginning of the 2nd Act when the children sing the song "When I Grow Up."

Matilda, at it's heart, is a story about how stories change our lives. For me, it may just have done that.

RaC

First few days in London town

Some of the iconic things in London....

The traditional view of London rooftops!

Riding on the railway system

Trafalgar Square

The Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace with the Queen in residence

Standing at the lake in St James's Park

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

 The view of Tower Bridge - with the Olympic symbol - over the River Thames

 The Tower of London

 M&M World :)

Ross outside the Harold Pinter Theatre - where we saw Spamalot

And the newest addition to the family - my little nephew Samuel...not exactly an iconic London thing though! :)

Unique Olfactory Creation

The last 36 hours has made me feel like I was born 60 years too late. The original Kangaroo route, first operated by Qantas in 1947 on a Lockheed Constellation, left Sydney and travelled through Darwin, Singapore, Calcutta, Karachi, Cairo, Tripoli and finally onto London. You would stay overnight in Singapore and Cairo. The flight was an experience in itself. Of course, it only carried 29 people plus the 11 crew (who, one can only assume, were mostly female apart from the pilots) and cost, according to our good friends at Wikipedia, £585, which at the time equated to 130 weeks of the average pay. So yeah, you probably weren't gonna end up with a family of 4 sitting behind you, and a 10 year old in front of you that JUST HAS to have her seat back the WHOLE FLIGHT. Cause, leg room and stuff, you know. Air travel used to be an adventure. Now, not so much.

This is mainly because no matter how much money you spend on creating ginormous aircraft, double decked and capable of seating entire failed olympic teams, you can't make the economy experience anything more than bearable...

The Qantas A380 Airbus is an intimidating airplane. It seats a LOT of people. But the economy flyer is always the bottom of the tree. You board last, through different doors to those wonderfully lucky people who made it to a higher class, and make your way slowly down the aisles to your seat. The whole time, you are imagining how it will be a better experience than all those other times you flew. It's got to be, right? The plane's NEW! There's definitely gonna be enough room to spread out your Uni books and get that assignment done! And you'll sit there and read your book and watch your laptop, and there'll be nobody next to you cause the airline is going broke and can't get people on it's international flights...

It is therefore an ultimately disappointing experience when you squeeze your way into the seat and discover it's just like all those other times you flew economy. Really uncomfortable.

That's not to say it's not better. The entertainment is great. The seat is slightly more comfortable. The food appears to be slightly more edible (there was even a small rasher of bacon.) The taps in the toilets are sensors now, and you can change the temperature (This was probably my favourite part of the flight. I really am that sad.) But at the end of the day, you're still gonna be sitting upright, with 380 other people, for close to 24 hours. And when you arrive at your destination, every one of you will smell like bottled arse sweat.

There's no adventure to air travel now. Just like internet porn, the romance has gone and it is now just a means to an end...

RaC

(So, we're in London. Plans are forthcoming, and tiredness is starting to massively set in, but I'm gonna try and push through for the next few hours and then get a decent sleep hopefully. Tomorrow, I'm thinking I might do a blog about Clapham and the "London" style of suburbs. Then there'll probably be some stuff about London history, a couple of West End show reviews, and who knows what else. Jus should have some photos up soon.)