on the road again

Air Vice Marshall Angus Houston declares mission accomplished, fortunately without the use of props as the idea of sailing an aircraft carrier into one of the committee rooms in Parliament House seems excessive when all you're doing is fronting an Estimates Committee.

ABC TV, rather unkindly I thought, made reference to "cut and run" - Aussies don't do that, you know - and then showed the curly-headed dumb-as-a-post Rupert Bear former Foreign Minister warning everyone of the awful things that would happen if we did.

Very unkind, but worth all of the 8 cents I paid for it. Actually, what do we pay per capita per diem for our ABC now? Surely someone's updated the figure?

The unit is full of little sandflies and I've just sprayed them, with the result that there is a snowstorm of dying flies. I've given up vacuuming and sweeping over the last few weeks as there are always more on the floor than I sweep up the night before. But this is the first mass extermination, I'm not all that sure it was a good idea.

I had something flit (not a sandfly) into my brain earlier today that seemed blogworthy, but buggered if I can remember it now. It was all I could manage to retain the Iraq story from 7.30 through to when I stopped working and started blogging.

Tomorrow, off to Emerald again for a day and then on Friday I have to get back from Emerald in time to catch a flight to Brisbane. May have to walk out on a meeting halfway to ensure I leave enough time for unforeseen factors - water, mainly - and then check in.

What was that thought?

Speaking of aircraft carriers, which of course we were, I was in a conversation with a bloke earlier this week which prompted me to recall one of the highlights of my working life to date, namely flying onto the deck of the HMAS Melbourne, Australia's last aircraft carrier. It was a real buzz to look down from about 12000 feet to a very small dot on the ocean and realise you were going down to land on it.

Certainly a buzz to be on final and then get waved away, the pilot slamming the throttles forward and banking away sharply.

Kind of a buzz to be told, on suiting up and being briefed, that the seat I would occupy was the one that, statistically, I had least chance of escaping from alive if we had to ditch.

Anyway, time to pack and do a little more work before bed.

Outside, the mighty Fitzroy continues to rise slowly, but its waters are flowing faster and faster, eddying and creating whirlpools around the bridge supports.