Rosalie Update

Thursday, July 13, Courier Mail page 4. "Final bell tolls for embattled school"
This is the story about the decision to close. Catholic Education Council Chair Sister Mary McDonald says "it would be unfair to [the students] and the staff to continue to run the College with such a low number of children."

Old Boys' president Joe Nowak describes the decision as a 'disgrace' and the Our Rosa Committee people get a few paragraphs.

Friday, July 14, Courier Mail page 4. "School vows to fight"
"Angry parents of Marist College Rosalie boys have accused the Catholic Church of closing the school to sell the land — prime Brisbane real estate worth tens of millions of dollars."

"[The Catholic Education Council] cited a steady decline in student enrolments during the past five years for the closure.

"But incensed parents say the Catholic Church is compromising their children's education for money."

"The school site at Rosalie, in Brisbane's west, is estimated to be worth $35 million."

**both the above stories had several colour photos.**

Saturday, July 15, Courier Mail page 10. "Parents say they are losing options"
"The days of affordable Catholic secondary education near home were over for many families, parents of Marist Brothers Rosalie students said yesterday."

Small article about how parents would have to send their kids to — shock, horror — State School or pay double the fees to send 'em to a posher Catholic school, and for some of them "schools like Terrace are out of our reach".

Monday, July 17, Courier Mail page 9. "Tears run as Rosa closes"
Poor old Harry Mitchell, 11, won't get to go to Rosalie "in the footsteps" of his two older brothers.

"[Executive director of Brisbane Catholic Education, David] Hutton, a former old boy of the school himself, has denied parents' accusations the school is being sold for the land worth tens of millions of dollars."

Monday, July 17, Courier Mail letters to the editor. "Closure just doesn't add up"
There are four letters in the block on the right-hand page under the cartoon. All are negative, but it wouldn't be hard to find four negative letters on any issue if that's the angle they wanted to play. One of the letters points out that "land in the Pine Rivers area is being made available for a primary to Year 12 Catholic school at North Lakes. One wonders where the money for this will come from."

La Valla
There were also a couple of nights' worth of stories on the local news. The first night both of these had a bit about some old boy ex-international football player whose ashes are scattered at La Valla and they mentioned it would be sold as well (hence the tearful widow.) But the newspaper didn't mention it anywhere.

I took a drive out there a couple of months ago — yes, along part of the walk-a-thon route — and it's a little more developed now out in that part of Fig Tree Pocket. Most notably, the side of the road directly across from the fields has massive houses on it. It's not hard to see that development expanding very quickly. And remember, the fields go on forever: I'm not sure where the property line is but if you've ever been forced to run the cross-country (and I think we all have) you'll know it's a big big piece of land.

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This month's Air Show Disaster

Air show jet crashes in Hillsboro neighborhood

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Weekend Football Update

The Queensland Roar lost 2-1 to Sydney in a pre-season cup match at Carrara. We didn't see the winning goal because we were walking back to our car to avoid the rush that would come 5 minutes later. Still, as Boycat's Mum said, at least we didn't stay to watch Queensland lose the match and then get trapped in the carpark for half an hour. You don't really see the perpetual drizzle in the photo above, but we don't complain about rain here in South-East Queensland.

Taringa Rovers beat Brisbane City 3-0 to go back up to fourth in the Brisbane Premier League.

The Souths-Logan Magpies lost a close one to Easts, 20-16, putting them in seventh place in the Qld Cup but they're two-and-a-half wins (5 points) out of the five. This is about the best they've ever done, though.

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Bye Bye Rosa

Rosalie is closing at the end of 2008.

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World Cup Wrap

The Guardian has printed an article where about 10 people gave their opinions on some topics (best this, worst that, Jericho this, crucify that, etc.)

Here - after a bit of mathematical manipulation - are their findings:

(They're British/English, so that explains some of the results in the 'worst' categories.)

Best Player: Cannavaro by a landslide.

Worst Player: 1. Frank Lampard, 2. Ronaldinho - obviously most of them took this to mean 'biggest let down', although Zeljko Kalac got a nomination.

Biggest Joy: 1. Cambiasso's Goal, 2. Ghana.

Best Match: 1. Portugal - Holland, 2. Australia - Croatia, 3. Argentina - Mexico, 4. Italy - Germany

Worst Match: 1. Switzerland - Ukraine, 2. Anything with England playing

Team of the Cup (4-4-2):
Starting Eleven:

Buffon (GC)
Zambrotta
Lahm
Cannavaro (Capt.)
Marquez
Pirlo
Rodriguez
Riquelme
Zidane
Klose
Torres

Substitutes:
Lehmann (GC)
Edwards
Grosso
Ferdinand
Miguel
Kaka
Ribery
C Ronaldo
Ronaldo
Henry
Crespo
Ricardo (GC)

I had to make some choices here about who to use as a substitute. There were so many votes for the run on full-backs that I had to use players who had only received one vote for the subs. So Rio Ferdinand gets the gig by virtue of playing for Man U. If I didn't have to stick to people nominated by the writers, I'd pick Lucas Neill.

It was the same with the strikers: Klose, Torres and Henry got most of the votes, leaving a few single votes.

Ricardo only got one vote, too, but you have three keepers in your squad of 23. I'm not sure of the proportions of the other players you'd have in a squad, though.

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The Last Rights of Syd Barrett*

Syd's Dead.

*title of a Slaughterhouse Joe song, circa 1988.

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Tips for Time Lords' assistants.

Sophie Aldred has written a piece for the Guardian

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Rosalie

The fight to save Rosalie has hit the papers.

Actually, there was a small story a week or so ago - I think they've found someone to do P.R. - that I didn't mention because I didn't think it would be online, but this one is fairly big and on a right-hand page.

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Bring on the Asian Cup!

We didn't really ever look like we would win, but for a time there it looked like we wouldn't lose.

Still, the Asian Cup finals are on next year, and we've already beaten the Asian Champion Japan, so we've got a pretty got shot at that.

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Misc 060625

• Boycat's Mum has a theory about something that causes cancer. Let's just say it involves the phrase "eating away at you".
  
• The Schonell Theatre has closed. It lost its subsidy from the University Union. The Union claims it couldn't afford to fund the Schonell since the voluntary student union legislation cut the amount of funding they received.
• Story on Al Jazeera - "Football on the up Down Under", about how soccer is gaining in profile because of the world cup. It describes the fact that here, football is "largely drawn up along state lines" - NRL in Qld and NSW, "while in the rest of the land" it's the "bizarre code" of AFL. Good to have an outsider's perspective.
• Can Australia only play really well when they're behind? Apart from the last few minutes against Japan, they haven't been ahead.
  
• The Souths-Logan Magpies won over Ipswich 44 - 34 in the Queensland Cup rugby league.
• Who ate all the Bratwurst lists Neill and Viduka as subs in their 'team of the first round', with Guus as coach.
  

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They think it's all over... It is now!

What a scrappy game, and we were so outplayed in the second half, I don't know what went on at half-time because we finished the first half like we would score four.

But we're through. And as a poster to the New York Times' blog points out, Bruce Arena, coach of the just-eliminated U.S. team called us 'easybeats'.

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Misc 060615

The Atlantic hurricane season began on June 1. I meant to say something about it at the time, because if there's two things I like, they're journalists getting pummelled reporting from the storms' paths, and American cities being destroyed. Anyway, the first storm of the season, Alberto, hit Florida yesterday, and if the winds were 8km/h greater, it would have been the first hurricane of the season.

In other news, Woodduck wants to get the Triplets back together. Looks like I'm going to have to re-learn how to play the guitar.

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I'm not the only one who thinks the camera is too far away from the game

The BBC agrees with me.

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Ahhh, doesn't matter.

All's well that ends well.

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What a bunch of bullshit

All my years playing and watching football, I didn't know you could charge the 'keeper out of the way.

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Oh, the things I've seen

You aren't the only one with those things, you know

Buck and Dirt

Construction next door

The one with the waggly tail

Dinner

After Dinner

Artificial fur, keep away from fire

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Here we go, here we go, here we go...

World Cup thoughts.

Cranberry sauce. (I'm very tired.)

I've watched all the games so far, apart from this morning's 5am game, most of them the next day. Some of them on x2 speed, because Boycat's Mum isn't that big a football fan. I've explained to her that there's only about a week and a half of three games a day and then it will settle down a little.

Other thoughts:

• I don't like the main camera angle... well, it's more the framing I don't like. The angle is the standard camera-on-halfway angle, but the framing shows too much of the field - sideline to sideline - and it makes me feel a little disconnected from the action, it needs to be zoomed about 10%.
• The second half of the England game was terrible. I'm so glad I stayed up until 1am for that.
• Go Trinidad and Tobago! We'll forgive you for playing for the wrong team, Dwight.
  
• The fourth German goal is the goal of the tournament so far, but I agree: the ball does move around a bit too much. No keeper should be able to hit the videoscreens like the England keeper did.

But what can I say? Nine hours to go until something I've waited my whole life to see. (I was alive, but too young in 1974.)

Photo by Skywalker1403, stolen from flickr.

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Al-Zarqawi

The Americans have announced* that they've killed Al-Zarqawi. Are they sure they didn't get Fedele Crisci by mistake?

*A. It was the Iraqis, but there isn't much difference. B. Keep in mind the veracity of the source.

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King Pest update

An anonymous commenter informs me and anyone who reads my comments (i.e., still just me, I think) that the King Pest free gig on Saturday (referred to below) has moved to the Kauri Hotel, Glebe.

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Misc 06.06.06

• FREE GIG: For those of you in Syd-en-ee, there is a free King Pest gig this Saturday (10.06.06) at the St Petersburg Nightclub, 21 May St, St Peters. King Pest contains Carl from Slaughterhouse Joe and Gary from the Sanity Assassins. The Password is "nyet". (BYO Stollies)
  
• Peeboo gets a camera credit in the new Dirt Petty DVD.
• The Souths-Logan Magpies haven't been winning to often recently, leaving them in about 6th place.
• In the Brisbane Premier League football, my old team, Taringa Rovers, is in 3rd place after a draw at Taringa on Saturday.

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