Published The Advocate, April 16, 2005
FLYING to the mainland I was filled with nostalgia for the days when air travel was a rare treat and airports were welcoming places that did not immediately suspect you of being a terrorist. In Hobart airport, having passed okay through the metal detector, I was ordered by a uniform to stand aside to be checked for "ions". Sweeping me twice-over with a hand wand called an ``ion analyser’’ – once for explosives and once for narcotics – he gave me the all-clear on both counts. Just as well. Then, waiting to board the plane, my hand luggage started buzzing. It was the electric shaver, which evidently did not like being ionised. Knowing how security conscious airports had become, I thought about handing the shaver to the airport security service for safe-keeping. Except, that would be the last I saw of it and it had cost $350. Instead, I pulled off the top and jammed my thumb on the vibrating blades, hoping the extra pressure would run down the shaver battery quicker, and lacerated both thumbs. The shaver, still going strongly at the scheduled boarding time, was headed for the rubbish bin when the public address system announced the flight had been delayed because the pilot had called an engineer to the cockpit. The extra 10 minutes provided enough time for the shaver to die, and for me to worry why an engineer was needed? Finally called on board, I checked for oil leaks under the plane or to see if the engineer was returning to the terminal with tears streaming down his cheeks. I’ve had better flights. The pilot double-declutched on takeoff and then botched the landing. I say botched because the wheels had almost touched down in Melbourne when he gunned the engines and went around again. I could feel a stress headache developing behind my eyes. When are they going to invent squeezable Panadeine that can be sucked from a tube? Eventually we landed to a mixture of relief and bad language. Oddly, I detected the fetid smell of forest mulch being pumped through the plane’s air conditioning. Or it might have been me. The pilot blamed air traffic control for the go-around order, saying another plane had not properly cleared the runway the first time. He could say almost anything he liked to us in the back and we wouldn’t know any better. But I had my doubts. I had a window seat and the second approach passed over none of the landmarks we had flown over the first time. I believe the pilot tried to land on the wrong runway and then lied about it. On arrival in the terminal, the drug detection beagle sniffed me up and down longer than was strictly necessary. The dog handler, who had the startled look of someone who had been woken by a bomb blast, asked me to open my briefcase. Inside was my ionized shaver. In pieces. The handler looked even more startled. Forget the cheap fares, whoever can make travel less bothersome is going to make millions.
Monday, April 11, 2005
Published The Advocate, April 9, 2005
THE hill I live on now is not the same hill where I lived six months ago. I no longer can see The Log. From the old place, I could watch The Log, a stray felled tree, floating in the shipping basin opposite the woodchip wharf at Burnie. Who knows what it was doing there? Perhaps it had fallen overboard from a ship or had rolled from an overturned timber truck. Sometimes The Log seemed to float free; at other times it clung close to the wharf piles, depending on currents, tides and wind direction. Occasionally it disappeared entirely from view beneath the wharf. Yet it showed no interest whatever in escaping the basin. I was intrigued to see how long it took the Port of Burnie authorities to remove The Log. Not that I wanted it removed. It was doing no harm otherwise it would have been fished out of the water long ago. I checked twice daily on its location, first thing and at sunset. I admired its unsinkable qualities. Intending to start a Log Watch column in The Advocate, I organised for a reporter and a photographer to officially record The Log’s presence. Up the hill they went. I had grown fond of The Log, a tree spirit that defiantly had escaped its woodchip fate. As an environmental mascot, the eco-evangelists could do worse. The Log that could not be chipped, burned or sunk might represent the indomitable spirit of nature. Better to adopt The Log than to spray “GUNNS KILL” graffiti on the walls of Burnie. In giving their environmental concerns a spray, the vandals fail to see any conflict in defacing their own community. But the graffiti ruins their cause, no matter how worthy the motive. Or The Log could become a children’s fairytale character. Fairytales have been based on less likely characters: The Gingerbread Man, for example. Harry Potter and The Magical Log. Handled correctly, The Log also has the potential to become a tourist attraction. Generally speaking, forestry plantations are not places that tourists wish to visit. But a single defiant log, a real forestry survivor, could become an object of pilgrimage for the green faithful. It need not be beautiful to be a tourist drawcard. Think of the mighty Ulverstone Clock and the tens of thousands of photographs that have been taken of that oddity over the years. Or the Giant Spud. The Advocate’s Log Watch crew eventually returned to the office bemused and unable to look me in the eye with a straight face. There was no log, they said. Nor did the port authority know of any log. At a guess, the authority suggested it might be a floating pipeline used for fuelling ships. But no log. Worried by self-doubt, I drove up to the old place yesterday and there it was, The Log, just where I left it in the shipping basin and it still looked the same - a floating tree. Curiouser and curiouser.
THE hill I live on now is not the same hill where I lived six months ago. I no longer can see The Log. From the old place, I could watch The Log, a stray felled tree, floating in the shipping basin opposite the woodchip wharf at Burnie. Who knows what it was doing there? Perhaps it had fallen overboard from a ship or had rolled from an overturned timber truck. Sometimes The Log seemed to float free; at other times it clung close to the wharf piles, depending on currents, tides and wind direction. Occasionally it disappeared entirely from view beneath the wharf. Yet it showed no interest whatever in escaping the basin. I was intrigued to see how long it took the Port of Burnie authorities to remove The Log. Not that I wanted it removed. It was doing no harm otherwise it would have been fished out of the water long ago. I checked twice daily on its location, first thing and at sunset. I admired its unsinkable qualities. Intending to start a Log Watch column in The Advocate, I organised for a reporter and a photographer to officially record The Log’s presence. Up the hill they went. I had grown fond of The Log, a tree spirit that defiantly had escaped its woodchip fate. As an environmental mascot, the eco-evangelists could do worse. The Log that could not be chipped, burned or sunk might represent the indomitable spirit of nature. Better to adopt The Log than to spray “GUNNS KILL” graffiti on the walls of Burnie. In giving their environmental concerns a spray, the vandals fail to see any conflict in defacing their own community. But the graffiti ruins their cause, no matter how worthy the motive. Or The Log could become a children’s fairytale character. Fairytales have been based on less likely characters: The Gingerbread Man, for example. Harry Potter and The Magical Log. Handled correctly, The Log also has the potential to become a tourist attraction. Generally speaking, forestry plantations are not places that tourists wish to visit. But a single defiant log, a real forestry survivor, could become an object of pilgrimage for the green faithful. It need not be beautiful to be a tourist drawcard. Think of the mighty Ulverstone Clock and the tens of thousands of photographs that have been taken of that oddity over the years. Or the Giant Spud. The Advocate’s Log Watch crew eventually returned to the office bemused and unable to look me in the eye with a straight face. There was no log, they said. Nor did the port authority know of any log. At a guess, the authority suggested it might be a floating pipeline used for fuelling ships. But no log. Worried by self-doubt, I drove up to the old place yesterday and there it was, The Log, just where I left it in the shipping basin and it still looked the same - a floating tree. Curiouser and curiouser.
