The Ridou Report

School Starting

2012-02-02T16:09:00.000+11:00

I just found I'm exempted from the pending jury duty -

meaning I can start my full time art studies on Monday!!!!

Beach Acrobatics

2012-01-30T08:12:00.002+11:00

Humbling

2012-01-29T15:29:00.000+11:00

I was congratulating myself for my stamina for managing to walk from Palm

Beach over the headland to Whale Beach during my photo session of the big

Palmie to Whale Ocean Swim (that is, from the start at Palm Beach, to the finish

at Whale Beach - a full post coming up, after I've gone through about a thousand

images that I took today!). However, ignoring the fact that 1700 people actually

swam the longer marathon distance (2.5 kilometers, just under 2 miles) in the

rough conditions out there on the ocean, I was totally humbled at Whale seeing a

man with one leg appearing from the surf. Just before I had seen a young girl

carrying a pair of crutches through the crowd, in the back of my mind I found it a

bit puzzling, but I got the explanation very quickly: she handed them over to her

dad (or granddad?), who used them to make a dash to the finishing line.

The last photo here is an example of another kind of hero, an elderly gentleman

being greeted by his granddaughter (great granddaughter?) at the finish, for
them to finish the marathon together. I heard them interviewing another elder
later on (could have been the same person) who was all but 83 years old, having
just finished the demanding swim!

Babewatch Charity

2012-01-28T14:16:00.000+11:00

From Babewatch organisation website (www.babewatch.org.au):

“Because Melanoma’s a Beach”

Babewatch is a charity ocean swimming team straight out of a David Hasselhoff

dream.

Over summer we hit the Sydney ocean swimming circuit and raise awareness for

Australian issues, while strutting our stuff on the beach and letting it all hang out.

In 2012 we’re supporting the Melanoma Institute Australia and aiming to raise

$10,000 for their Genome project.

My prior Pittwater Ocean Swim Series posts:

Mona Vale (22 Jan 2012)

http://theridoureport.blogspot.com/2012/01/pittwater-ocean-swims-no-4-mona-vale.html

Avalon (15 Jan 2012)

http://theridoureport.blogspot.com/2012/01/avalon-big-swim-and-one-impressive-lady.html

Newport (2 Jan 2012)

http://theridoureport.blogspot.com/2012/01/pittwater-ocean-swims-no-2-newport-2.html

Bilgola (9 Dec 2011)

The Lead-up: http://theridoureport.blogspot.com/2011/12/bilgola-big-swim-i-pre-race.html

The Swim: http://theridoureport.blogspot.com/2011/12/bilgola-big-swim-part-2-action.html

These photos of mine are from the Avalon and Mona Vale events:

An update, one more photo from the Big Swim -

Palm Beach to Whale Beach Big Swim yesterday:

Speed Demons (courtesy of sciencefriday.com)

2012-01-28T06:47:00.000+11:00

I just listened a podcast episode of Science Friday, as their video of the week on

their website they described the video below. After just having watched it I

thought I might share it with you (it is about four minutes long):

Mini Speed Demons

From mantis shrimp to trap-jaw ants, some of the fastest organisms on the

planet are ones you may never have heard of. Biologist Sheila Patek, of the

University of Massachusetts Amherst, says the creatures she studies move at

speeds that are hard for us to imagine, let alone perceive. Patek shared some of

her high-speed video and explained how these organisms pull off their top

speeds. footage and images courtesy of sheila patek, patrick green, roy caldwell.

music by philip lynch, freemusicarchive. produced by flora lichtman

Dual Citizen - Dual Duties

2012-01-27T19:18:00.000+11:00

Having a dual citizenship (Australian and Finnish) affected some dual action over

the last few days: Yesterday was the Australia Day, and I went to Newport Beach

Australia Day Ceremonies for my never-ending photo-opportunities (see the

resulting subdued photo set here), and I'm just back from the Finnish Consulate

in Sydney, where I exercised my right to vote in Finnish elections. It's the second

round of the Presidential Elections, with two candidates left, since nobody

received a simple majority of more than 50 % of the votes on the first round.

The contest now is between the candidates from the Kokoomus Party

(conservatives) and the Greens Party, Sauli Niinistö and Pekka Haavisto

respectively. My vote went to Haavisto, the green underdog, who also happens to

be openly gay. It was remarkable that on the first round more than a third of the

voters in the capital Helsinki gave their vote to him.

At the pre-polling station, the Finnish Consulate, I was predictably not allowed to

take photos, but before asking I managed to steal this photo of the voting

officials' desk, with the current President of Finland Ms. Tarja Halonen in the

black-and-white photo on the wall in the background. I embedded the images of

Haavisto and Niinistö to the left and right respectively:

By the way, my other civic duty, the pending jury service here in Sydney, is still

up in the air. I haven't yet received a reply to my exemption application! And I'm

now officially enrolled to start my full time ceramics studies at the same time as

the trial (which is estimated to last 12 weeks) I'm booked for my jury duty starts.

Australia Day 2012 Event at Newport Beach

2012-01-26T15:01:00.004+11:00

Pittwater Council Awards, and Australian Citizenship Ceremonies

at Newport Beach on Australia Day 26th of January, 2012.

A plant for every new Australian Citizen.

Maria Venuti.

Pittwater Citizen of the Year (Senior) Betty Snelling.

Pittwater Citizen of the Year, Lorrie Morgan.

Pittwater Mayor, Harvey Rose.

Thong Throwing.

Some of State Emergency Services (SAS) staff.

From Rural Fire Services.

Pittwater Ocean Swims No 4: Mona Vale (Warriewood)

2012-01-26T12:56:00.000+11:00

My prior Pittwater Ocean Swim Series posts:

Avalon (15 Jan 2012)

http://theridoureport.blogspot.com/2012/01/avalon-big-swim-and-one-impressive-lady.html

Newport (2 Jan 2012)

http://theridoureport.blogspot.com/2012/01/pittwater-ocean-swims-no-2-newport-2.html

Bilgola (9 Dec 2011)

The Lead-up: http://theridoureport.blogspot.com/2011/12/bilgola-big-swim-i-pre-race.html

The Swim: http://theridoureport.blogspot.com/2011/12/bilgola-big-swim-part-2-action.html

And the Babewathers: http://theridoureport.blogspot.com/2012/01/babewatch-charity.html

A Juvenile Noisy Miner

2012-01-25T13:24:00.000+11:00

Noisy Miner, Manorina melanocephala

When Helga Wanted to Hug Joona

2012-01-21T15:16:00.000+11:00

It's this time of the year again: when I wish I were living in Finland, and being

able to book tickets to the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival

(http://www.kuhmofestival.fi/inenglish.htm). We were lucky to spend two glorious

weeks there at the 2010 festival, attending to some fifty memorable concerts.

2012 program has just been released (and, thus this post):

Kuhmo Chamber Music this year presents not

only favourite items from the chamber-music

repertoire but also large-scale works: two

symphonies, two operas, Mozart’s Requiem

and Haydn’s Creation. There are 70 concerts

in all, given by such stars as the Kronos Quartet,

the Eric Ericson Chamber Choir and Soile Isokoski.

The two-week festival will run from July 15 to July 28.

The programme this year is so wide and varied

that Artistic Director Vladimir Mendelssohn refuses

to single out any particular theme. “It could be God,

visions, beauty, the limitations of man and

the limitlessness of the universe,” he says.

“Or it could be myths, memories, nature, wisdom

or courage.”

Some 170 top artists from Finland and abroad will

be appearing at Kuhmo this summer. Among

the familiar faces are pianists Paavali Jumppanen,

Valeria Resjan, Roope Gröndahl and Henri Sigfridsson,

violinists Hagai Shaham, Ilja Gringolts and Elina Vähälä,

cellists David Cohen, Martti Rousi and Marko Ylönen,

flutist Janne Thomsen and clarinettist Michel Lethiec.

One of the most highly-acclaimed musicians of her

generation, Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang, will be

making her Kuhmo debut.

Along with ten others, the list of international singers

includes Soile Isokoski, Martin Alvarado, Jaakko

Kortekangas and Mari Palo. The Kuhmo ensembles are

the Kronos, Danel, Enesco and Meta4 Quartets and

the Storioni Trio. This summer, visitors to Kuhmo can

also hear a host of rising stars chosen on the basis

of auditions.

And here was my diary of the 2010 festival:

http://theridoureport.blogspot.com/2010/10/days-all-kuhmo-international-chamber.html

Elina Vähälä

My notes in 2010...
(Joona being Joona Pulkkinen, a young Finnish Cellist)

Kuhmo Arts Centre at night.

Driving back to our accommodation, a log cabin by the lake Saunalahti.

Kronos Quartet, just one of some 170 performers.

In a Potter's Studio

2012-01-21T12:22:00.000+11:00

Potter: Malcolm Greenwood, Mosman, Sydney (www.malcolmgreenwood.com)

Today's Photoshoot - a Potter

2012-01-20T18:18:00.000+11:00

These three photos are my current favourites of today's photo shoot

(of a well known Australian potter):

Pittwater Ocean Swims No 3: Avalon Big Swim - And One Impressive Lady!

2012-01-20T12:21:00.000+11:00

Earlier Pittwater Ocean Swim Series instalments:

Newport (2 Jan 2012)

http://theridoureport.blogspot.com/2012/01/pittwater-ocean-swims-no-2-newport-2.html

Bilgola (9 Dec 2011)

The Lead-up: http://theridoureport.blogspot.com/2011/12/bilgola-big-swim-i-pre-race.html

The Swim: http://theridoureport.blogspot.com/2011/12/bilgola-big-swim-part-2-action.html

I have now also posted the Warriewood to Mona Vale Swim at:

http://theridoureport.blogspot.com/2012/01/pittwater-ocean-swims-no-4-mona-vale.html

Avalon

15th of January, 2012, Avalon Big Swim - Avalon Beach SLSC in action

(wow, especially the team of SR644N):

Anxiously Awaiting for the Jury Service Decision...

2012-01-18T20:58:00.000+11:00

Opened by Australia Post!

2012-01-18T20:12:00.000+11:00

This Christmas Card arrived only today! I guess the Quarantine office have a

system with which to automatically x-ray/scan bulk items. This card may have got

the bells ringing for the little round 'pills' they had detected:

Thanks for the card, Pirjo and Seppo!

Godparenting

2012-01-17T14:54:00.001+11:00

In Finland there's a tradition of a newborn's godparents giving a silver spoon to

the their godchild at his/her Christening. Yesterday when we had a group of

people over for lunch, somebody made a comment about her dessert spoon.

Andrew had served Donna's tiramisu to two of the guests with spoons with

inscriptions on them. For some reason I took these particular spoons along with

me when I left Finland almost exactly 26 years ago. During the discussion it

suddenly dawned to us that the one dated 24th of August, 1955, was actually not

of silver, but sterling, but the one given to me a year later was the 'real thing'.

I'm not sure why I got these spoons so much later after my Christening, and on

my birthday. I can only speculate that maybe my godparents couldn't afford a

silver one initially, and to compensate, gave me yet another one on my following

birthday. However, I doubt this, since they were highly paid professionals (he was

a Mikkeli town engineer, and she a headmaster of a nursing college).

The non-silver one.

Three Lovely Ladies

2012-01-17T11:31:00.001+11:00

Friend visiting for lunch yesterday (I was practicing photo portraiture - I'm going

to do a photo shoot of a Sydney potter on Friday). For this post I selected the

more serious images of the ladies.

Maybe - A Postcard Home Almost Forty Years Ago

2012-01-14T20:14:00.002+11:00

"Roma 28.6. (1973)

I'll stay here till tomorrow (30.6)

after which I'll leave on the 10.05

train for Copenhagen,

from where, at night (having spent some six hours in C.)

I'll get the train to Stockholm,

from where I'll catch the ferry to Turku.

(Maybe)

Esa"

(we didn't have e-mail/internet/etc. then)

Watching "Zéro de conduite"

2012-01-14T16:04:00.000+11:00

A couple of impressions of Jean Vigo's 1933 "Zero for Conduct" that I just

finished watching. My post related to the other important Vigo film, the 1934

"L'Atalante" can be found here. And my post on Jean Pierre Leaud in "Les Quatre

Cents Coups" ("400 Blows") here (Truffaut was very much influenced by this Vigo

film in the scene of the pupils running amok in Paris).

Can't Believe This!

2012-01-13T16:10:00.001+11:00

As my regular readers know I'll soon be starting a full time one year ceramics

course. So I thought. I'm sure it'll still happen, but today I received a summons

to jury duty - to start a day after my course is supposed to commence. And the

estimated duration of the trial is 12 weeks:

Of course I'll apply for exemption, but it may prove difficult, since I can't enrol to

the course until two weeks before the court case, so currently I can't even prove

that I'll actually start the college. And anyway, it looks like generally being a

student is not enough to get an exemption; you'll have to have some important

exams to attend to gain it. However, I hope they'll listen to my reasoning, since

practically if I have to do it, I simply won't be able to do my course; a three

months off at the start of a 12 months hands-on course - I don't think so!