rjdj.blogspot.com

I'm moving my blog back to:

rjdj.blogspot.com

This is so I can use all the new bells and wistles of blogger.

Renee

Next time you sip a latte, look beyond the feel-good choice

Coffee is my thing. If I can't have my daily coffee by about 10am I am just stroppy and the day doesn't seem to go well. I've never been big into this whole Fair Trade coffee thing, and today's Age had an interesting opinion piece about it, which basically says its an idealistic marketina campaign that doesn't work:

Go here to see the whole thing

Fair trade may be hindering not helping growers in developing countries.

JUST how fair is fair trade? Mass market retailers from Safeway to Starbucks now sell us coffee that is supposed to quench our thirst and appease our conscience, but there is more to fair trade than feel-good marketing and social justice.

Individual farms are unable to achieve certification by themselves — the fair trade organisation will only approve co-operatives that can contain hundreds of farms. This practice reduces entrepreneurship and competition between producers, eliminating the benefits of innovative farming techniques. And in some regions, the fair trade system encourages farmers to grow in less climatically favourable areas, depressing the quality of the coffee beans.

Nevertheless, the fair trade marketing machine is extraordinarily powerful, and the brand has revealed an eager base of socially aware consumers.

The fair trade system is more than our preferences in the supermarket. At best, fair trade has an ambiguous effect on the economic wellbeing of coffee growers in the developing world; at worst, it may actually be holding them back.

Phillip Island

For three nights before Pyramid Mon and I went camping at Phillip Island. We just lounged around, went down to Cowes and op shopped and went for long romantic walks on the beach.

The best pizza combination we have seen: The Red Wolf. Tandoori chicken, potato wedges, tzaki, mango chutney.

San Remo harbour.

The Nobbies on Phillip Island. The signs promised that I would see seals frollicking. I looked everywhere but couldn't see any seals frollicking or even swimming around!

Pyramid Rock Festival 2007/2008

Sunrise on the 30th over the massive campsite!

The main stage.

The Audreys set.

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Random people. Monica ran after them to get a photo

Christmas Lunch

I couldn't let Mum and Dad go off to Bali without an early Christmas lunch! Yummy yummy lamb racks, ham, and pavlova to follow. Then we had to have a nap to sleep it off in good Christmas tradition.

Work Christmas Party

So every year my work tries to out do the Christmas party from last year. This year we flew to King Island for a decandant and very long lunch (we were supposed to do some other stuff too, but due to the extreme storms in the arvo we had to fly home early afternoon). It was pretty cool!

Our plane to King Island....

I've never been on a plane with this much room!

The view flying over Melbourne out to King Island.

My super successful and decandant pavlova: A pav (my first one was an absolute disaster...the crust was only about 1mm thick and when I put the topping on there was a landslide) topped with chocolate cream and balsamic cherries.

More Christmas baking...semi successful spiral shortbreads.

Christmas present

Putting my jam present to shame today we received our Christmas gift at work. I was completely overwhelmed:


See if you can spot:

• Large chocolate hamper
• 2kg box cherries
• Cake stand
• Salad bowl
• Wine decanter
• 2L water jug
• 4 dessert bowls
• Glass lazy susan
• cheese platter
  

Wow! The cake stand is going to be perfect for trying out the pavlova with balsamic cherries and dark chocolate cream that I saw on Better Homes and Gardens (while I was procrastinating from study okay!).

The Adventures of Making Jam

So you've had a big year and finally that last exam is out of the way. You could get drunk, or make jam. I chose getting a little bit drunk, and then making a lot of jam...

Step 1: Cut up everything and weight everything.

2. Cook the jam. Don't be impatient, or your jam will be tasty, but runny (this was learnt with the test batch of strawberry jam earlier in the week).


3. Do the wrinkle test. If you ARE going to be impatient you can use the freezer instead of the fridge.


4. Put it in the jars you sterilized earlier. Use the kitchen floor if you kitchen benches are too poky and/or there is too much mess from aforementioned preparation.


5. Fill it right to the rim so it seals properly and keeps for ages.


My jam varieties so far: peach, nectarine, apricot and cherry.


All wrapped up and pretty for the people at work.

PS- Other jam making tip: try not to 'try' too much jam while making four seperate batches in a row, unless you want a sugar high followed by a sugar low.

Kevin 07

We were partying with Kevin 07 before he was famous (taken at my spa and pizza night early birthday party in Radelaide on Melbourne Cup weekend). Better late than never Hayley!

Eight sleeps til freedom

Well it has been a nice week living under the new regime of Kevin 07 (that one's for you Uncle Corey- if you are not boycotting my Labor loving blog now).

Anyhow, there is nothing I hate more that this little period of trying to be a super-studier, while all the time being distracted by all the things I can finally do once I am free of study. As all exam-sitter's know it is a vicious cycle: don't spend any time dreaming and you have no incentive to study...spend too much time dreaming and you'll spend the two months after the exam (waiting for the marks to come out) stressing that you didn't pass.

I like to think I've found the fine and perfect balance (although onto my third straight day of studying full time I may now be slipping a little), and here is what I have coming up so far (as those who know me know I like to plan ahead):

• BBQ to celebrate no more study (thanks to those who replied and said they can come...I'm going to email out a proper invite later today)
• Work Christmas functions: not only do we have an all-day event magical mystery tour to goodness knows where, we also have a pre-work BBQ. I better prepare all my small-talk topics in advance.
• Moonlight cinema: I want to go to 'The Darjeeling Limited' on opening night...any takers?
• Mum and Dad and Moni coming for pre-Christmas Christmas dinner before flying out to Bali (Moni is staying...so we can go to....)
• Camping on Phillip Island, and then...
• Pyramid Rock Festival
• Visiting Cassie in Elliston

Also on a random note, I am going to make peach or nectarine jam after my exam, so if you have any tips let me know!

23

7 years ago I turned 16...I'd just finished my Maths 2 exam. The next day I sat the test for my L's. Six weeks later I got my P's in time to share the drive to Darwin with Mum and Dad, where we flew to Bali from for our first trip.

6 years ago I turned 17...I'd just finished my last grade 12 exams and was working at BP The Gap, waiting to get my Uni offers and dreaming about moving away from Alice Springs.

5 years ago I turned 18...I'd just gotten through what I still think of as my toughest year: moving to the big smoke (aka Adelaide) and starting Uni. Celebrated with Cassie (going away party for her move to Germany) at the Polish Club in Adelaide. Fun times.

4 years ago I turned 19...There was a party at Esmond street to honour the grand final of my new favourite sport's World Cup- Rugby.

3 years ago I turned 20...I'd just had my final Uni exams and was working at Origin and trying to find a decent AISEC traineeship.

2 years ago I turned 21...I was in Holland waiting for Monica to arrive for her European adventure, after I'd had my three month traineeship in Croatia and six months of backpacking around Europe.

1 year ago I turned 22...I'd been living in Melbourne for a bit more than 6 months, had just moved jobs and was about to have my first CA exam.

Today... I turn 23. This year is still too big in my mind to summarise in one line!! Thanks to everyone who has listened to me whinge, wax lyrical about whatever, made me laugh or been there for me when I've cried.

Australia has lost its moral compass under Howard's rule

My favourite Prime Minister wrote an opinion piece for The Age today. There is a lot of talk about economic management and so forth going around at the moment, but the reason I really hate John Howard is put much more eloquently my Paul Keating.

This is the final in a three-part series by former prime ministers.

THE principal reason the public should take the opportunity to kill off the Howard Government has less to do with broken promises on interest rates — or even its draconian WorkChoices industrial laws — and everything to do with restoring a moral basis to our public life.

Without this, the nation has no standard to rely upon, no claim that can be believed, not even when the grave step of going to war is being considered. When truth is up for grabs, everything is up for grabs.

Cynicism and deceitfulness have been the defining characteristics of John Howard and his Government. They were brazen enough to oversee the corruption of a UN welfare program. And when they were found out, not one of them accepted ministerial responsibility. Not Downer, not Vaile and certainly not Howard. What they were doing was letting the cockies get their wheat sold through the AWB while turning a blind eye to the AWB's unscrupulous behaviour — illegally funding a regime Howard was arguing was so bad it had to be changed by force.

John Howard took us into the disastrous Gulf war on the back of two lies. One, that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, capable of threatening the Middle East and Western Europe; the other, that Howard was judiciously weighing whether to commit Australian forces against an evolving situation. We now know he had committed our forces to the Americans all along.

If the Prime Minister cannot be believed, who in the system is to be believed?

When opposition leader in 1995, Howard told us he would restore trust in government, when at that time trust in government was not in question. He also told us he would make us more "relaxed and comfortable". Well, some relaxation and some comfort. These days, there are many parts of the world where Australians dare not go, something new for all of us.

But bad as all this is, how much worse was it for John Howard to begin the fracturing of his own community?

Think about his tacit endorsement of Hanson's racism during his first government, his WASP-divined jihad against refugees — those wretched individuals who had enough faith in us to try to reach us in old tubs, while his wicked detention policy was presided over by that other psalm singer, Philip Ruddock. This is the John Howard the press gallery in Canberra went out of its way to sell to the public during 1995. The new-made person on immigration, not the old suburban, picket-fence racist of the 1980s, no, the enlightened unifier who now accepted Australia's ethnic diversity; the opposition leader who was going to maintain Keating Labor's social policies on industrial relations, on superannuation at 15%, on reconciliation, on native title, and on the unique labour market programs for the unemployed.

These solemn commitments by Howard, which helped him win the 1996 election, bit the dust under that breathtaking blanket of hypocrisy he labelled "non-core promises". Even on Medicare, contrary to his commitment, he forced each of us into private health or carry the consequences.

During the 1996 election campaign, a number of people I regard well said to me, "Oh, I think Howard will be all right"; meaning, while not progressive, he would not be reactionary or socially divisive, or opportunistically amoral. Well, Howard wasn't "all right". He has turned out to be the most divisive prime minister in Australia's history. Not simply a conservative maintaining the status quo, but a militant reactionary bent on turning the clock back against social inclusion, co-operation in the workplace, the alignment of our foreign policies towards Asia, providing a truthful and honourable basis for our reconciliation, accepting the notion that all prime ministers since Menzies had — Holt, Gorton, McMahon, Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke and me — that our ethnic diversity had made us better and stronger and that the nation's leitmotif was tolerance.

Howard has trodden those values into the ground. He also trod on the reasonable constitutional progression to an Australian republic, even when the proposal I championed had everything about it that the Liberal Party could accept: a president appointed by both houses of parliament (meaning by both major parties), while leaving the reserve powers with the new head of state.

The price of Howard conniving in its defeat will probably mean we will ultimately end up with an elected head of state, completely changing the representative nature of power, of the prime ministership and of the cabinet.

To compound Howard's transgressions, he has run dead on the continuing obligation of structural economic change, just as he did when he was treasurer in the 1970s. He and Costello have simply made hay while the sun has shone from the great structural reforms introduced by the Hawke and Keating governments. Those changes — open financial and product markets, and the new decentralised wages system of 1993 — were married up with $1 trillion in superannuation savings, to completely underwrite the country's prosperity and renew its economic base.

Howard's sole example of reform is his GST — the one he told us in 1996 he would not give us, a regressive tax on all spending regardless of income.

Nations get a chance to change course every now and then. When things become errant, a wise country adjusts its direction. It understands that it is being granted an appointment with history. On this coming Saturday, this country should take that opportunity by driving a stake through the dark heart of Howard's reactionary Government.

Paul Keating was prime minister of Australia from 1991 to 1996.

Mum's the word

Just had a great Melbourne weekend with Mum. Turns out I quite like Melbourne, provided I've done my homework and the sun is shining. What did we do:

• Marketeered, and bought my first box of Mangoes for the season. Its only Monday night and there are only 3 out of 8 left. We also brunched on Spicy Lamb Borek...Mmmm
  
• Went to the Saturday matinee performance of The Phantom of the Opera. It was my first time, and Mum's second. It was pretty amazing, and although I was initially dissapointed that Anthony Warlow wasn't playing the Phantom the guy who was filling in had an amazing voice. I must say though...its a bit of a whacked out story.
• Wondered around Melbourne town in the sunshine and stopped in for some Max Brenner (chocolate overload)
• Got Grill'd on Bridge Road (I had a Beef Satay Burger, and Mum had the Morrocan Lamb...can Grill'd do any wrong?)
• Breakfasted at St Alis. As I said in my previous post- perfect
• Wondered around St Kilda and checked out the Sunday craft market...Mum MADE me go shopping and buy two new dresses and a new pair of shorts. This is of course good timing, because I need something nice to wear Saturday night to usher in a new era of Labor government at the ELECTION BBQ

Yeah, so an action packed yet relaxing weekend.

Bleh

Its that time of year...close to Christmas break, but not close enough to relax. Some good weather but not enough to revel in Summer. I have 48 hours until my assignment is due, and still have the bulk of the work to do. I have six weeks until my exam, and ditto, still most of the work is to be done.

Its times like this that you have to celebrate the little things. Like going out for drinks on Friday night and FINALLY meeting some new people (even if you are in the office at 9am on Saturday morning to do your assignment). A beautiful sunny day. Good coffee in the morning. Mangos finally coming into season and their tropical smell being everywhere at the markets. There only being 7 sleeps until I get a four day holiday in Radelaide.

These are a few of my favourite things.

PS- For the next six weeks all of my posts are likely to be pretty crappy like this one :) After that I am going to go crazy crazy with my three month holiday from study and generate some good stories.