If the spit doesn’t fit.

You must acquit.

I’ll try and be phlegmatic about expectoration and the criminal law.

But linguistic matters first…

Since when did bus drivers become bus operators? I’m old enough to remember the now-gone occupation of the lift operator/driver on visits to the dentist as a schoolboy in Sydney and, indeed, some of the department stores in the CBD then still had their lifts operated by one man. A reserved occupation for wounded ex-servicemen Mum told me…a bit like council parking inspectors. Did he fix the lift as well as operate it? Is the difference between an operator and a driver the ability to fix the machinery? Now I know a bus driver does a bit more than drive the bus i.e he takes fares. If the bus breaks down, though, and he hops out, tinkers with the engine and gets the bus going again then all I can say is…

HE’S A SMOOTH OPERATOR 🙂  (to quote the singer Sade from her debut album Diamond Life which was popular among us schoolboys at the time).

I hope the bus driver’s union has got them some extra money for this new duty they have to perform with the kit. “Tainted crime scene, your Honour” I’d argue. “The sample was not collected by a qualified CSI investigator!”

NOTE

“If the (noun) doesn’t (verb 1)…you must (verb 2 rhymes with verb 1)” Quote courtesy the late Johnnie Cochran (California Bar Association).

Johnnie Cochran: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnnie_Cochran

Big Wet.

International news organisations have no doubt reported the Queensland floods of the past two weeks or so. Inundated towns were well away from the south-east corner containing the major population centres (from south to north) of the Gold Coast, Brisbane, and the Sunshine Coast. Plenty of rain down here but cricket matches have continued.

Photo: Sister’s family’s house Runaway Bay with raised water levels on the canal.

Photo: Uncle’s house Robina

It all appeared to be clearing up until, in the last 36 hours…

Looking at the satellite map, a big rain front moved in off the ocean and hit the Sunshine Coast and in a great inland sweep down to northern New South Wales threatened the south-east corner.

What happened in Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley (3 hours to the west of Brisbane in the mountains) yesterday has been the worst. The ‘inland tsunami’, as they’re calling it, essentially a flash flood of Toowoomba’s creeks caused by intense rain in a short time period and then a water rush down the valley. Most property destruction and most feared casualties are from this incident (likely unpreventable).

I’m no hydrologist. Making political points at a time of State Emergency, terrible…but I will anyway 🙂

1) The big dam with artificial lake 2 hours upstream on the Min River. Did Fuzhou get flooded in summer 2010 as inland cities like Nanping and towns in the Fujian countryside near the Min did? I don’t think so. That’s why Mao built it.

2) Wivenhoe Dam, 80 km upstream from Brisbane City on the Brisbane River. Now the dam is under a huge stress test as I write: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/11/3110758.htm 

and the next 48 hours when the river in the city is predicted by some to peak above the 1974 flood levels may prove me wrong. But I’m still right 😉 How bad would it have been on the Brisbane River without Wivenhoe?!

Built in the late 70s, early 80s by Sir Joh Bjelke Petersen’s Country Party Government. For all his love of rural Queensland (so much so that he gerrymandered in its favour cf Queensland cities) not even Sir Joh, as with Mao, was going to let the main city of the State go under. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wivenhoe_Dam

3) Hinze Dam on the Gold Coast’s very own Nerang River. Built by the above mentioned government (Sir Joh’s not Mao’s!) and named for good old Russ, Minister for Everything, and founding member of the Coomera Cricket Club. Now holding back any floodwaters on the Gold Coast. Thanks Russ!

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinze_Dam

“Act of God, Jerry. Force Majeure.” (Steve Buscemi in Fargo by the Coen Brothers). As I said with the Sichuan Earthquake, the State reserves for itself the very best protection of its vital infrastructure (Government buildings still standing in Sichuan as the schools collapsed) and locations (Fuzhou, Brisbane City and the Gold Coast).

The towering cynicism…those in the boondocks can take their own chances.

From Fuzhou With Love

The School Principal was down in Xiamen on the day of my departure but returned late that afternoon so as to give me a lift to Fuzhou Changle airport (to make sure I was on the plane out…no, just kidding) 🙂

I was presented with a bouquet of flowers at the departure gate (a gift I’d received before at school functions). It’s a nice gesture and it’s the thought that counts but…giving me flowers is like ordering General McChrystal to dine in a candlelit Paris restaurant with a French politician. The recipient is mismatched to the gift/request.

Check-in at the Dragonair counter went smoothly (or so I thought, more on which later). I re-gifted the flowers to a bemused granny there with her family, and proceeded through the security checks. The Fuzhou Customs man wanted to see my carry-on bag. “Could you open this please?” “Yep” (contact lens fluid container). “And this please.” A rectangular box about a foot long. He was quite apologetic when he saw that the box merely contained a gift pair of Chinese dolls for my niece Lisi. Fuzhou Customs dudes…I’ve struck worse! 

In the Departure Lounge for the flight to Hong Kong was a European or South American fellow in tee-shirt and jeans talking loudly into his mobile phone giving a convincing impression of fluent Chinese language skills until…he said, ‘Hong Kong’…”Mate you just blew it. Even I know that the word for ‘Hong Kong’ in Putonghua is not  ‘Hong Kong’.” What it is in Min-Dong, Min-Bei, Min-Nan, or Fuzhouhua, let me get back to you! Unless…he was speaking Guangdonghua and the word for ‘Hong Kong’ is ‘Hong Kong’? 🙂

Also in the Departure Lounge was a young Chinese woman with a Country Road (Australian clothing brand) bag. Eventually the boarding call goes out and we all shuffle onto the plane. “Mind the bag”, I tell the young Chinese woman who it turns out is seated next to me, warning her not to trip on my oversized carry-on stashed under the seat in front.

Weird s**t happens to me at international airports like being detained and questioned for explosives possession at Kingsford Smith/Mascot/Sydney. Deplaning at Chek Lap Kok/ Hong Kong, I’m greeted by a Cathay Pacific airport staffer holding a sign with my name on it. “Mr Jones?” “Yes”. “Could you please go to Cathay Pacific check-in. There was a mistake uploading your passport details at Fuzhou.”

Haven’t heard of this one before! My fellow passenger Rosie, who’s going to Australia to finish off a uni course in tourism decides to accompany me to straighten things out. She then makes the eminently sensible suggestion to get airport trolleys for her Country Road bag (actually purchased in Fuzhou, not Australia…authenticity, well…!) and my laptop computer and carry-on bag. I have a learned reflex not to use airport trolleys simply because Sydney International and Domestic were (not sure the situation now) the only airports in the world as far as I know that charged $2 for trolleys.

Eventually finding the Cathay Pacific check-in it turns out that the correct details have now come through from Fuzhou 🙂 Rosie confirms this in Chinese with the counter-staff and I’m free to proceed.

Wheeling our trolleys through HKIA’s concourses and chatting together, I then begin to notice, or more rather sense…”DEAD-EYED STARES FROM MIDDLE-AGED BLONDES” :-(( …”What an odious man.”… “She must be half his age.”…”He’s as bad as Ronnie Wood.” (1). Oh well, I can see how the mistake would arise!

We board Cathay Pacific’s overnight flight to Brisbane, Rosie seated in the aisle across from me (wonder if it’s airline practice to seat people next to each other if they’re travelling on unusual routes eg Fuzhou to Brisbane? A buddy system at work?). I get stuck into Cathay’s entertainment system, watching 2 eps of the sitcom ‘Curb your Enthusiasm’ (2) listening to the debut album by Them Crooked Vultures (3), and watching the first hour of the Robert Harris/Roman Polansky/Pierce Brosnan/Ewan McGregor/Kim Cattrall/Tony Blair film.

Arrival in Brisbane mid-morning (I’m sure I’ve had faster trips HK-Sydney 4 0r so years back with an early morning arrival…do they use a slower plane HK-Brisbane?!). At least Brisbane Airport is not as crowded as that great swamp of humanity at Sydney Arrivals. I’m through Passport Inspection pretty quick, run into Rosie at the baggage carousel, thank her for her help in Hong Kong and wish her luck in her studies, move to quarantine inspection half-expecting to get ordered to open my bags seeing I’ve just arrived back from almost 2 years in China…but no…they believe my “Nothing to Declare” Quarantine Card. Being quite sleepy by this time, I veer my luggage trolley (which is free) towards the little beagle drug sniffer dogs and probably alarmed that I’m going to run them over with my 2 suitcases/laptop/carry-on, a woman Quarantine officer urgently redirects, “Please this way, straight ahead.”

And with that, I was home.

NOTES

1) Ronnie Wood: Rolling Stones guitarist. Left his 50 year old wife Jo, 2 years back and has been dating 20 year old Russian cocktail waitresses in London since.

2) ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’. Sitcom by Larry David, co-creator of Seinfeld. Cringe-inducing humour.

3) ‘Them Crooked Vultures’. New hard-rock supergroup comprising John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, Dave Grohl of Nirvana/The Foo Fighters, and some well-regarded current singer. Album ok…but not particularly heavy at first listen.