Where the Newcastle Knights play league this afternoon. Steady rain is a pain.

Pacific Maru in Newcastle Harbour.  A big coal carrier.

Lyric theatre, Newcastle. Only both ends remain and must be for preservation. Challenging.

Classic British pictures could be seen there on Friday nights on their release. J Arthur Rank and the male striking a blow in black and white.

The Strand, Lyric, Victoria, Tatler, Civic and Royal Cinemas were in the city.

The past is simultaneous with the present 

 Citroen deux chevaux and Picasso and surrealism. Or is it cubism? 

Service NSW dept has superceeded the old motor registry office demolished recently in Parry street. Difficult to place the original office.

Earlier on traffic arrangments were made at a small old miners cottage style police station on corner of Scott and Pacific near where the new light rail terminates. 

A police person took a nervous applicant on a driving test round the inner city. Driver hand signals (not indecent) were de regueur along with trafficator use. 

The budding motor cyclist was simply asked to ride a short way down the street and back again under observation. So licence fees are life long till a person gets 'really old' when the fees cease.

The dept advisors will tell the elderly to use the safe and quiet routes. Really? Bluff.  Choose that advice and lose more driving skills. The elderly can to be accepted on the roads like everyone else. 

But still everything in moderation it pays to be cautious. So irksome. True the elderly get 'wiped out' and there are age related shortcomings - maybe like everyone else. A safe return from every journey is not lost on me.  The age statistics would be interesting and very scary. 

Masks sewn in a shop in Hanbury Street.

 a cynical streak

Seen.. latest 'iso' rule: 'please wait to be omitted'

Sea spray or waves reached close to homes on Stockton foreshore during rough seas that rose over a nature strip onto the road.

Newcastle Baths were swept by large waves, some reaching the upper deck. The water was way deeper than usual.

While only on the edge of an East Coast Low  rough seas resulted and at high tide Wednesday afternoon the water was threatening and eating away at the edges of the suburb of Stockton. In the second photo the sandy beach reappears in between the big waves. 

the Newcastle scene

Port of Newcastle.... near restful waters he leads me. ...the plague has been calmed locally......the lull before the storm?

Newcastle, mid winter and mid virus.

Does education narrow the mind?  The cost of an Arts degree has risen maybe making it more of a sort of luxury. 

 How could a scholar confine themselves to one discipline? Engineering..science..business or the like. It is dismaying. Narrow.

Very often one would really like to hear again 

whats behind the latest world movements, ethical questions,  histories and much more from some obscure unfathomable thinkers likely found in arts.  It is just a pipe dream.

Some years ago, 'lived experience' and related theories sounded very interesting. Not widely liked  -  i bet. But there is gradual change and 'lived experience' is bandied all around. 

The virus is moving in with 134 cases that are of serious concern in Melbourne and the whole city is locked down.

coronavirus testing.  In the last two weeks, infections have occured in Melbourne and some suburbs and high rise are in lockdown. Today 127 cases from record breaking testing rates with 2660 total active infections.

The border will close tomorrow between NSW and Victoria. 

Social distance, hand washing, isolation while ill are uppermost responsibilities as well as mask wearing and heeding regulations about gathering. 

wind turbine....this blade has an edge. A bird expert has spoken about huge loss of bird life caused by the blades. It is understood that birds in flight look down and to the sides more  than ahead.

Wind turbine blades then bolts that hold things together.

Nationally, the incidence of Canovirus is minimal except for 288 active infections in Melbourne which is under vigorous investigation.

An innovation is making it easier to test in the community. An alternative saliva virus test has been introduced in a small number of cases. The test developed in Melbourne at Doherty Institute and validated by overseas researchers processes a small amount of saliva by the same method as the existing throat PCR test according to a local principal  researcher today. Comparison to the throat swab test is in process.

  The throat test itself is not totally effective yet best there is while the saliva test is 87% effective due to fewer virus in saliva but is easier and useful in those who have objections to testing or have other difficulties. The processing is done within three hours of collection.

wind generators. Shipment to Port of Newcastle. Ultimately a whole field of towering alternative power generators destined for, believe it or not, Collector in  southern NSW.  

do we live in the garden of Eden?

SBS TV showed the film The Sacrament about a cult that ended in mass tragedy. 

The leader was adept at manipulation .  In that way Trump is very reminiscent of him even down to the thousands who fail to survive the pandemic due largely to mis management.

Unlike criticism of China for spreading false info, the USA escapes criticism for being way out of line. 

from the urban scene....

Pompeo announces that attention will be given to the wronged international journalists.

Will he really try when journalists get a bad rap from the white house? 

Good reporting is all there is against the orchestration of news by the sly and sinister manipulator president Trump.

solar energy is a winner.....

BLM is a very important issue. It demands support.  Better to protest in the future, not during a pandemic. 

 Australians have died in custody, it is a horror which will continue to be addressed and justice will develope. Although urgency is due we are not forced to conflate the two situations right now.  We are not Americans.

Seems disappointing that we  toed the line at the heigth of the lock down but now act without prudence. Objections around freedom to protest dont hold water somehow the reasoning does not work.

  If more of the efforts to hold a protest, no matter what, were put into sustained constructive work to overcome injustices for the Aborigines then all would be better off and safer.