Coffee cups on a little table with a drawer used, as I understand, during coffee making Ethiopian style.

Turk Kahvesi. Turkish coffee. The coffee is prepared in a small, long-handled (?metal) pot tapering in at the top into a pouring lip, and called a jezve. The purist (and they all are in Turkety when it comes to making coffee) would grind the beans to a fine powder just before brewing using a brass coffee mill.
When offered a cup, you will be asked if you like it sade (unsweetened), orta (moderately sweetened) or sekerli (very sweet).
Turkish coffee, ideally is made one cup at a time, or three at the most.  Mesure one dimitasse cup cold mater into jezve and add 1 heaped teaspoon powdered Turkish coffee and sugar if desired - a level teaspoon for orta, a heaped teaspoon or more for sekerli. Stir and put on medium-low heat.
When coffee rises in pot remove from heat immediately, and spoon froth into cup.
Return pot to heat and cook until coffee rises again.  Remove, fill cup.
Some prefer to heat coffee 3 times in all, though twice is sufficient, particularly if only making 1 cup.
With the repeated heating method, a little froth is spooned into each cup each time it is removed from the heat, as a good cup of kahve must have a creamy foam floating on top.
Decorated ceramic Ethiopian coffee pot.

It takes Youtube to do justice to the experience of these dapper all stars namely Andrew Nolte and His Orchestra and their authentic flapper dance music with hot tunes from the twenties and playing in Newcastle.  Almost nil amplification - which is almost unheard of.

   

Elektra Crema Cafe

modern but in sixties style machine, in Leura, NSW at the Wayzgoose cafe, back when. Formerly a printing

works and home of The Mountaineer newspaper, wayzgoose has a particular meaning

which is spelled out in the last image.

...tea ranks with abdug, a yoghurt drink, as Persia's [Iran's] principal beverages. The samovar is an essential item in every Persian household.  Tea is taken in small, slender glasses and served with lumps of sugar.

To drink it in the Persian way one must hold the lump of sugar between the teeth and sip the tea through it. 

The sugar can be conventional cube sugar or small 'cushions' of clear white toffee....

Arrive in Newcastle and on leaving the airport either feel right at home or somewhat jaded on seeing a brand new Maccas outlet. However, Lamb [ham]burgers have arrived.  Now, would they be a local phenomenon?
And the idea for the McCafe service originated in Australia, I understand.  The car park is equipped with free air to pump up the car tyres again on the traffic returning from Stockton beach and the sand dunes just down the end of the road.  Is this in competition with the service station on the other corner?  No stone unturned.

This last coffee pot is in the style that I have seen local Italians use in the past - as do many other people.

.... One aspect of Arabic life is their hospitality, and the single food with which this is expressed is coffee. 
There are certain rules to observe.  First, do not refuse a cup: to do so is an insult to the host.  
Your cup will be replenished a second time and a third, and more if you do not indicate to the host that you are satisfied.
A simple little jiggle of your empty cup from side to side indicates that you have had sufficient.
Only a small portion of coffee is served - a third of a cup is poured each time and the handle-less cups are very small.
It is always served unsweetened and flavoured with cardamom. 
Taking three cups of coffee is expected of you rather than just one...

I have no idea if this info is up to date.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

                                                                      Returning to teapots and bizarre tea cosies.

One for the road before farewells! 

...Despite the permanent smell of burned bacon grease and the likelihood that Ruth or Lillie would get the orders confused, Clary's had a loyal breakfast and lunch clientele.  People sauntered in...greeted one another from table to table, or from table to soda fountain, and every word was overheard and passed along later...Patrons...might include a housewife, a real estate broker, a lawyer, an art student, and perhpas a pair of carpenters doing work in a townhouse down the street.  One might be heard to say, "All we got to do today is seal up that doorway between her bedroom and his," and news that a marital Ice Age had

decended...would be common coin by the end of the day.
The man....always ordered the same breakfast: eggs, bacon, a Bayer aspirin, and a glass of spirits of ammonia and Coca-Cola.  But he didn't always consume it.  Sometimes he just looked at it...Then he would either begin to eat or get up without a word and walk out the door. The next day, Ruth would serve him the same breakfast and go back to her perch at the end of the soda fountain to take a drag on her cigarette and see what he would do. I, too, began to watch.

Extract, a non-profit review from Berendt: John Midnight in the garden of good and evil Vintage 1995

This afternoon, protestors blocked the access of coal seam gas workers onto land on the estuary of the Hunter river, up towards Newcastle Airport etc.
Several women were taking direct action by chaining themselves to a tractor in another non-violent 'riot' where the police had began issuing fines. Was it hooliganism? (hooliganism as irony remembering events in Moscow recently)
Will this stop the drilling from going ahead?
Return to Newcastle via Stockton Bridge, over not under it.

A night cap. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

...A Sichuan teahouse is a unique place.  It usually sits in the embace of a bamboo grove or under the canopy of a large tree.  Around the low, square wooden tables are bamboo armchairs which give out a faint aroma even after years of use....a lid is sunk loosely onto the cup, allowing the steam to seep through the  gap, bringing out the fragrance of the jasmine or other blossoms.  Sichuan has many kinds of tea, Jasmine alone has five grades....Older men spend a lot of time there...The waiter has a kettle of hot water which he pours from a couple of feet away with pinpoint accuracy.  A skillful waiter makes the water level higher than the edge of the cup without it spilling over.
Customers go there to read, to meet and chat. There is often entertainment - storytelling punctuated with wooden clappers.
Perpaps because they had an aura of leisure, and if people were sitting in one they were not out making revolution, teahouses had to be closed...Pack up!  Pack up! Don't linger in this bourgeois place! No more chess playing! Don't you know it is a bourgeois habit?

Another cup. 

....in Naples - they had a curious encounter.  A stranger hearing them speak in English asked whether he might join them over their coffee....there was something familiar....he kept them charmed by his wit for more than an hour before he said goodbye.  They didn't exchange names even at parting and he left them to pay for his drink which was certainly not coffee....they realized...the stranger was Oscar Wilde, who not very long before had been  released from prison..."'How lonely he must have been to have expended so much time and wit on a couple of schoolmasters on holiday." It never occurred to him that Wilde was paying for his drink in the only currency he had.

 Scotties, Newcastle East. Splendid on Sunday, following a 'force 10' gale the day before.
Another lame post - what have I got to lose?
The prissy coffee culture is widely enjoyed while charitable organizations report how they cannot cope with the increse in requests for food for the poor and the working poor and for those down on their luck in this 'lucky country'.  Responsibilities are shifted to charities.  The two speed economy is a problem. We can do much better than this.
 

Coffee

A building in a country town somewhere in the south of the state.

 Out of touch with reality I've seen my spiritual home - Tomsk in Siberia - but I wouldn't last five minutes there. And prosecution as a hooligan is a risk.  Will the Orthodox church ask for leniency instead of two years for Pussy Riot?

Talk about justice.  Australia's treatment of refugees is oppressive and unlawful.
Right, I'm a 'bleeding heart', and have noticed the tactics of some who seek refuge; dodgy practices by Indonesians who turn a blind eye to people's movements;  all the many troubles, yet I am still very ashamed of the lastest policies on refugees that send people to gulags on the Pacific Islands.
How would the USA rate on that score?  I have found out a little more about that country these past few years and there is much more to it than I thought which is a bit of an understatement. Sterotypes left the wrong impressions.  Not only does it have Giant hickory horned devil caterpillars but outstanding characters like Rachael Carson and Andy Warhol among many others.  The scale would be impressive with very large established centres with people, education, culture and arts throughout the land as a true novelty to a visitor from here. And miles of natural beauty. Sigh.
Very bleak places also hold some appeal.

Shoal Bay shores. White ant's nest.
The first crop of cherries is always celebrated round Christmas time but, darn it, imported cherries were on the shelves recently.  And think of the food miles. I sampled one and they were rather good. 

I want to see more...some...examples of streets, avenues, drives, bridges, landmarks named after women. Just another dangerous idea of mine. It's a man's world.

Spring is in the air despite the expectation of a touch of snow to other parts of the state.  It is probably rare to see blossoming fruit trees in our city but these are going strong and were humming with bees 

Billions of Novocastrians make up the bigger picture and become incorporated into branding a hotel.

Fundraiser on September 15 with a terrific line up of African talent.
An opportunity to donate without risk of confronting problems or of threatening our comfortable existence.
Buy a ticket and placate any feelings before leaving on that next African safari.  Oh, I'm forgetting, safaris support the survival of wild animals.

The funds go to rebuilding an African orphanage.
Hugh numbers of orphan children exist in Africa. A generation of young adults, parents, the able bodied, have died.
Orphans are not a high tech problem  and high tech gets the attention says an expert.
How well will these kids develope those neural pathways before they turn four, escape problems of stunted growth, how will they thrive and flourish without emotional attachments? 

Coffee making ceremony.

Ethiopian dance, from this exponent, is all about shoulder movements that agitate and spread at a terrific pace and show us a unique action packed tradition.  Migrants are keeping their culture alive.

We know we can't live in the past
But the past lives on in us.
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Power to киска Riot.  Defy the standover tactics.

Celebrating Ethiopia. Green yellow red, hats cakes and eats.
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Power to  бунт киски.  Real tough love - das Putin 

Hummers in camouflage will take you on a desert fantasy in the Stockton sand dunes.  Mad Max and the War on Terror mythologisers will take you there.

 

Taming the Dunes.  There is no getting away from the law.
The breathalizer squad tested me today - no worries. 

The 'road' to the Stockton sandhills is high wide and handsome and improvements are under construction. A subtle building will be situated at the turn off the main road. I believe the Worimi people are custodians of the ocean park. It took them a long time to get this role and is in keeping with their long term use of the area before European settlement. 

The 'fatal shore'.  Stockton Beach is quite long and virtually uninhabited and the beach almost disappears into the distance. This is looking south ultimately to the entrance of the Port of Newcastle. Along its length, the high sandhills or dunes are similar to a desert landscape and the dunes menace the hinterlands.
Exploration of the dunes is popular.  Once our family overnighted there in the warm sands and naturally the night grew cool and the breezes became sea ladened along with a few fears of sleeping in the path of a 4x4 but all that was the challenge.     

An open the sunroof kind of day.  A pretend to need TomTom kind of day.

Who could forget the way to Nelson Bay on an idyllic kind of day.

A mobile calls.

In the middle of winter these trees make a very welcome appearance.

Splendid record breaking competitors are winning at the games.
So go Aussies -go for Silver!
http://thisuntidycity.wordpress.com/2012/07/29/stop-honeysuckling-and-think-big/  where a local blogger is promoting Pittsburgh as a source of ideas to help change a city like ours.

A backup crew of 7 mechanics travel in this as part of the West End Outback Odyssey.

What with entrants in the odyssey 

in vehicles built prior to 1985 the mechanics would be kept busy.

The ralley from Adelaide to Noosa over thousands of kilometres via remote locations is a fundraiser for a childhood charity.

 Real men drive The Mongrel.

The destination of Noosa is not far from Maroochydore in recent photo where the old Bedford bus would be at home. 

How do prominent busy people; the gurus; writers or entertainers find enough time to 'look after' the elderly in their families. Do the decision makers become personally involved at the workface of services for the older generation?
The interface between state and federal services is a hurdle. 
One after another we have seen our relatives through change to their lifestyle and it is challenging.  A 'lottery'.
The younger generation spend time with their oldies but unless they are quite observant some may not get to know much about the little likes and dislikes and the way the oldies like to live their life.  Next thing it is too late and a relative stranger sits before you. Take care!