Brisbane, Christchurch, Japan

So, Queensland has survived flooding, been battered by Cyclone Yasi, & is flooding again now up in North Qld. This Wet has been overabundant & superfluous! We don't need this much.

Christchurch has been shaken & battered by the September earthquake, started the recovery process so well, but now has been shaken, rattled & rolled by the 6.9 quake of 22/2, & then there's liquefaction. This one has done so much more damage & killed so many. Enough already!

Japan now has to cope with the aftermath of the 8.9 Rmag earthquake they have just gone through, & the resulting tsunamis which have killed so many people & shattered so many towns. On top of that, there's the v real danger from their nuclear power station with the disastrous release of radiation from several possibly failing reactors, an excellent advertisement for the dangers & stupidity of building nuclear power plants anywhere in this world. Disasters do happen - no country is immune!

Disasters - Brisbane, Christchurch, Japan

I'm starting to think we've had a full year in just 3 months. Enough already! We are just lurching from one disaster to another. Now Japan's copping it even worse than Christchurch. Who was it who asked for a good year this year 'cause last year was not? Andrew or Connor, I can't remember which. That was obviously a dangerous ask! At the same time, there have been so many instances of kindness & thoughtfulness, of people helping people, of bravery & sheer determination to rise above. Brisbane's volunteer army so fantastic & hardworking after the floods, ChCh's student volunteers who are still doing such a marvellous job there, & so many individuals simply helping & encouraging & commiserating & listening. Listening!

I was amazed & amused the other day to read that ChCh had emptied the world's supply of chemical toilets & I suggested that the world had better make lots more. Now Japan will have such a huge need of them, I hope someone was listening.

Anyway, I have spent these first 3 months, it seems, constantly contacting my family & friends to reassure them that me & mine are fine & unflooded, then to make sure they're still there, still functioning, still unbroken, no matter what condition their houses, streets, suburbs, & city. People, my people, are what matter. It's the same for all of us. We check that our people are fine, then we can handle the house, street, suburb, & city.

Queensland, Brisbane floods

The floods, I can only talk about them from my perspective & I was v fortunate. At one stage I heard 63% of Queensland was under water, that's an enormous amount of land. Homes, business', farms, schools, even whole towns went under.

A friend lives near the Lockyer area & I kept in touch with her by email & texts that night. She & her husband hoped they would be okay, they had been out & checked the nearby rivers & the dam on their property. They did have their car all packed & their animals ready just in case. My friend said the worst for them was after dark when they couldn't see what was happening. They were v relieved to be able to unpack the car the next day. They hadn't even lost their power! If only the rest of the area had been able to unpack too. So many kids, women & men were lost, so many homes & livelihoods destroyed.

In Brisbane, my two GU workplaces, QCA & the Con, are beside the Brisbane River & my other workplace, QSA, is three blocks away towards Westend. QCA library is on the 2nd floor, no problem, but the power was cut of course. It reopened on Thursday, yay. The Con is on the ground floor & the day of the expected high tide we spent a frantic two hours clearing out the lower shelves of the library. The priority was the printed musical scores, some of which is well over 100 years old. The entire Conservatorium had to be moved up a floor, so to speak, & I am glad grand pianos are on castors. I saw them being wheeled around, into the lifts & up to safety & later counted twenty in one massive room. All the upright pianos went up on castors too. Musical & orchestral instruments of all descriptions, computers, printers, photocopiers, the crew who came in to move the Con were marvellous & they seemed to have endless energy, unlike us. Anyway, the Con was flooded through the basement areas & through the orchestra pit, but not the ground floor. The library was due for a rearrangement of the various collections later this year & now, because we have moved so much already, the rest has been removed also & the ranges/shelves all moved into their new configurations. So now we are sorting & rearranging the entire library!

My QSA workplace, I have seen on one of the flood pictures that it was totally surrounded by brown water. I think the basement, carparks & lift shafts were flooded. The library is on the 7th floor, thank God, I didn't have to worry about that. The building reopens next week, so there will have been some v dedicated cleaners at work there to do it so quickly. I think this was the most flood affected of my workplaces.

Me & mine were v fortunate at our homes also. Nearby suburbs were flooded but our houses were safe. I did get worried about the creek behind my house. It was creeping up through the park, enough that I packed a bag just in case. The weird thing was I packed a couple of outfits of clothes, toiletries, even some books, couldn't be without a book, & totally forgot my passport, papers & photos. By that night though the rain stopped & the creek gradually crept back to lower levels. Phew! Unpack again & kick myself for forgetting.

So that was my experience of the floods. A whole heap of worry about friends & family. A whole heap of empathy & sympathy for those so badly affected, both now & for the future. I know there will be a lot of traumatised people with ongoing mental issues.

I've seen & heard it from the people I know living through the Christchurch earthquake & the seemingly endless aftershocks. The trauma continues because the aftershocks continue. There was a 5.1Rmag yesterday along with another cluster of shocks. I'll be there in a few weeks & I know I'll be eyeing any sturdy looking tables around. I don't really trust doorways as much as I should! I'll let you know what it's like to shake, rattle & roll in ChCh.

Getting it together at last!

It's been a long time since I've written anything here, I hope to improve this year. Last August my year got rather sad & I haven't had much interest in my various endeavours. I will do better!

Just to start things off on the right note, I saw a Helmut Lotti concert on TV a couple of weeks ago, he was reasonably good. What made it so much more interesting was his special guest, you guessed it, Sir Cliff Richard!!!!! Fantastic. The two dueted on Danny Boy v nicely & then Cliff was gone, so sad. But I have a query, why is everyone & their dogs singing all the old songs? Yes, they're nice, even extremely enjoyable & some are v powerful, but where are all the new songs, different songs, unique songs? I like new, new tunes, new lyrics, new sounds.

I also had an enjoyable evening on New Year's Day watching the New Year's Eve Concert from Vienna. Lovely music with some fabulous ballet sequences, well worth watching. The Concert has been performed every New Year's Eve in Vienna for about 60 years, a genuine tradition. Showcasing the Vienna Philharmonic & the music of the Strauss family & including excerpts from the Vienna State Opera Ballet & others, these are must-see events. I have dvd's of the 2004 & 2006 concerts & will probably acquire more over time.

Okay, that's me improving nicely. I will write more often this year.

Salute.

Dragonriders of Pern

Dragonscliff: another reason for my blog name is the series 'The Dragonriders of Pern' by Anne McCaffrey. I was hooked from the first Pern book & have endeavoured to find each & every one of around 18 novels. This is a link to the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonriders_of_Pern Todd McCaffrey, Anne's son, now co-writes with Anne on some novels & sole authors others, playing within & expanding on the world of Pern with which he must have grown up. The series is ongoing with future novels in the pipeline. Also Anne McCaffrey's best-selling and long-running sci-fi/fantasy series "The Dragonriders of Pern" is getting the big-screen treatment via Canadian production company Copperheart Entertainment". This was announced in 2006, what has happened since then I don't know.

Anne McCaffery "lives in a house of her own design, Dragonhold-Underhill (because she had to dig out a hill on her farm to build it) in Wicklow County, Ireland." The name 'Dragonhold' sparked my imagination & I combined it with my 'fanship' for Cliff Richard. The weyrs of Pern are built on, around & inside cliffs to facilitate living with flying dragons. So 'Dragonscliff' became a name I could relate to on several levels.

Sir Cliff Richard again! & other singers

Cliff has finally done it, or will in October anyway - a swing album! 'Bold As Brass' to be released in October. Fantastic! I've heard him say he admires the music singers like the 'Rat Pack' produced. A while ago I was commenting to a certain daughter that a lot of singers were getting on the swing/early Broadway bandwagon especially the last 3-4 years. Now it's Cliff. (She's laughing.) I'm going to get that CD, it should be good. I've listened to a couple of tracks & it sounds promising, especially in his unique style.

I do have a couple of Dean Martin's cd's which I enjoy greatly. I think I watched every episode of his tv show/series back when, he was so good. UK singer Russell Watson, great voice, can do a good Dean Martin song, sounds just like. One day I might do a list of the singers & bands I follow & the vmany I like. It would be a long list! Bryn Terfel & Josh Groban would have to be near the top.

I am enjoying a number of the 'metal' bands, though the ones I like should have a genre of 'power metal' or something similar. I have followed Scorpions, with that sting, for a long time now, such a pity they are going to retire, even if their last tour is going to last several years. They have never toured over this side of the world, for all they announce 'World Tours', Japan is as far as they ever go. I actually posted that comment on their website but I guess Aust & NZ don't exist as I got no response at all. Disappointing. But a great band & music.

Within Temptation are another 'power metal' band I enjoy, & Nightwish & Dark Sanctuary are up & comings I'm watching. I'm amazed at how professional these 'new' bands are, a number of their members have come through the various 'Conservatorium''s around the world. Vprofessional & have learnt their craft from the ground up so to speak.

It's been announced that Robin Gibb of BeeGee's fame is touring with Bonnie Tyler as 'special guest'. I enjoy Bonnie's music hugely, have several cd's & dvd's of hers, but may not be able to see that concert as I'm going to holiday in Melbourne just before then & may not be able to swing the ticket. But I'm going to try!

I'm still walking, about 30-35k's per week, just slowed down over winter. I'll do more when summer rolls round again.

Sir Cliff Richard
The second part of my blog name is, of course, a reference to Sir Cliff Richard. I have just been to his latest concert reunited with the Shadows. As always, Cliff was fantastic, a consummate showman, & the Shadows were great, those guitars especially. I'm hoping Cliff will make at least one more tour on his own though before he decides to quit.
I have been listening to Cliff & the Shadows since they started in the '50's. I can remember, at the end of my last year of primary school, a group of us wandering round the playground singing 'We're all going on a summer holiday' which of course we thought was a clever reference to our imminent move to secondary school. When Cliff & the Shadows split, I continued to 'follow' Cliff as I am v'into' the human voice, guitar riffs notwithstanding. I have been to one concert on nearly every one of Cliff's tours since 1974. I think I only missed one due to moving from Auckland to Chch after a certain child was born.
Later on, that certain child & I became joint members of the Sir Cliff Richard Fan Club in Chch & enjoyed the socialising there. When we moved to Australia & I joined the fanclub in Brisbane, I was informed that children were not allowed. Needless to say, I never went to one meeting & let my membership lapse. Strange people, Australians! Jan has been to Cliff concerts since she was 7 & was certainly there for this latest one. She even put it on her FB page despite the teasing from her friends.
Anyway, I'm a 'dyed-in-the-wool' Sir Cliff Richard fan & will continue so.