Heavy here!

(Huntingwood Drive, Huntingwood)

UPDATE: Well, the fog was heavy enough to screw up Sydney Airport.

Not getting any better as I head out west.

(Reservoir Road, Blacktown - approaching the Great Western Highway)

(Intersection of City Road and Cleveland Street, Chippendale)

(Prince Alfred Park, Surry Hills)

It's no pea-souper, but it's impressive all the same.

(Cleveland St, Surry Hills)

Stopped at a McCafe on the way to work this morning to pick up a coffee. I looked across to the restaurant counter and was struck by the conspicuous absence of uniforms. Wandered over to take a discrete photo.

Very unusual for Maccas staff to get away with non-standard clothing while on duty. I wonder if the manager is missing in action today?

(McDonald's, Parramatta Rd, Stanmore)

Stuck in traffic going home. People are starting to get out of their car and chat by the roadside.

====UPDATE=====

SOURCE: Sydney Morning Herald, 13May08
AUTHOR: Jordan Baker and Daniel Emerson

Almost 30 police vehicles roared along Parramatta Road in pursuit of a stolen car last night, causing gridlock on two westbound arterial roads at peak hour.

Parramatta Road was closed in both directions and the turn-off from the M4 motorway was blocked after the pursuit, in which a stolen four-wheel-drive crashed and its occupants tried to escape on foot. Officers sealed off the intersection as a crime scene at about 5.30pm.

Redfern police had spotted a stolen Toyota Kluger four-wheel-drive while on patrol in Waterloo just after 5pm, a police spokeswoman said.

The car had allegedly been used in a series of robberies.

A shot was fired at the start of the chase. The origin of the shot was not immediately clear.

Police chased the vehicle onto Parramatta Road, and then west through Lewisham and Leichhardt until it collided with a stationary car near the junction with the motorway at the intersection of Mosely Street at Strathfield.

Police cars from several commands joined the pursuit.

Witnesses said there were at least 26 police cars involved. A police helicopter was also part of the chase, police said.

One man was arrested, and two others fled. A second man was arrested a short time later. The helicopter was also involved in the search for the third. Onlookers reported police had their guns drawn.

The manhunt involving heavily armed members of the tactical operations unit, the dog squad, local police and detectives continued until a third man was arrested at the intersection of Franklyn and Ada Streets in Strathfield.

He joined the other two arrested men at Burwood Police Station for interview by police.

Two men, aged 24 and 27, have since been charged with being carried in the Kluger without the consent of its owner.

Both are scheduled to appear at Burwood Local Court on June 12.

A third man, aged 27, remains in police custody and is expected to be charged later today.

One witness told Macquarie Radio: "The whole incident happened right in front of me. He smashed into a vehicle. Police detained the gentleman. He was being really rude in the back of a paddy wagon."

The Roads and Traffic Authority said Parramatta Road was closed in both directions near the eastern end of the M4 and at Wentworth Road, about five blocks east. Access to and from the M4 was also closed.

Motorists were advised to use diversions through Homebush and Silverwater. A police spokeswoman said they were "anticipating extreme delays for westbound traffic along Parramatta Road".

Parramatta Road and the M4 were reopened shortly before 8pm.

Police later thanked the public in a statement "for their patience" in dealing with the closure of two major roads during a peak traffic period.

My semi-regular coffee haunt is using a different cup design. Much nicer than the old, dark brown ones, IMHO.

Haven't made spag-bol for a lonnnnnng time.

....it might have an "error in throat".

(Surry Hills Shopping Village)

$3.50 for 500ml of coloured "vitamin water".

(Coles @ Surry Hills)

Mmmm... two new flavours of chocolate in Cadbury's Desserts range. So tempted.

Seems our suburb, Zetland, is where the "first aerial flight in Australasia by a motor-propelled machine" too place. Sure it was only for five seconds, but still....

=====

Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Date: 10 May 2008
Author: Max Prisk

When Ehrich Weiss - aka Harry Houdini - left Australia in 1910 he had awed audiences with his escape acts, including surviving a dunking in Melbourne's Yarra River. But his grandest feat - and the one he had sacrificed the down-time of the long sea voyages for - was to go into the record books as the first man to fly a powered aircraft in Australia.

On Friday, March 18, 1910, with a band of reputable citizens including a couple of journalists, he motored out to Diggers Rest, 30 kilometres from Melbourne, fiddled and tested and consulted his mechanic, and then trundled off in his Voisin biplane.

As a showman Houdini knew the value of testimonials, so 15 spectators signed a declaration on what they had seen. Stopwatches were used - longest flight was 3 minutes, greatest altitude 100 feet (30 metres) - there were photographs, and he had it filmed.

"She's like a swan. She's a dandy. I can fly now," Houdini declared in the Herald's report next day. By the time he arrived in Sydney and made the flight at Rosehill shown in today's photograph, he seemed to have pulled off his mission. Even the Herald said he had "fully established his claim to be the first successful aviator in Australia".

Pity poor Fred Custance and Colin Defries. On the day of the Houdini flight at Diggers Rest, the Herald carried a report of a flight made by Custance in a Bleriot monoplane at Bolivar, outside Adelaide, the day before, March 17. He was up for five minutes and 25 seconds, said the report, flying at between 12 and 15 feet, and Custance reported the experience "exhilarating but not disconcerting". But it was about dawn, to catch the still air, and there were no witnesses with stopwatches and cameras, just a few locals who had wandered over to see what was up.

Colin Defries and his Sydney flight - on Thursday, December 9, the year before - is not so easy to dismiss. It was watched by a paying crowd and two journalists, one of them from The Sydney Morning Herald.

Defries, piloting a Wilbur Wright biplane, was the main attraction at a "Flying Fortnight" at the now gone Victoria Park Racecourse at Zetland in inner Sydney. After six days of motor-revving and flightless circuits of the track he finally took to the air. "As he left the ground there was an involuntary cry from about 150 spectators, 'He's up!' and he was up," wrote the Herald reporter. "As the machine rushed forward it kept in the air, and rose quickly from 3 foot to fully 15ft or 20ft, and then tapered down again to earth, after covering about 115 yards [103.5 metres]." There it was in black and white, "the first aerial flight in Australasia by a motor-propelled machine". Duration of the flight: 5 seconds.

Defries, who had previously been a racing car driver in Britain, has a small but dedicated band of supporters, mostly in NSW, and an airworthy replica of his Wright biplane has been on display at air shows. Between now and next year his supporters will decide if they will celebrate the centenary of his flight by making Houdini disappear from the record books.

A note on the picture: the Herald's George Bell was probably the photographer. He had taken aerial shots over Sydney from a balloon some years before and flew in a Bristol biplane piloted by a 21-year-old Englishman, Leslie McDonald, at Ascot Racecourse - now part of Mascot Airport - on May 8, 1911.

It was cold and misty, but Bell got his photographs, although there was a little tension during landing as a fence loomed. "I heard the spectators below laughing at something, and they told me afterwards it was because they saw me trying to hold the aeroplane back."

This engine is a delight to command.

Linda and I are taking the Volkswagen Golf GT Sport 1.4TSI DSG for a test run. Weeeeeeeeeeee! What a fun little car to drive.

Even made short work of a newish Holden Commodore SV6 which tried to pull away from us at the lights.

What a little beast! I think we've found our new wheels.

Geena was left home alone all day yesterday while we were in Newcastle. She seems to have the shits with us today ;-)

Received this nice tray of mixed fudges at work on Friday. About 1.2kg in all - fresh from the manufacturer. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Traffic gridlock on the Pacific Highway (Lindfield) due to a five vehicle accident.

12mins to get in and find a park.

But it's already been 23minutes and I'm only 250m from where I parked. So much for "my quick trip down to Gardo". What a shitfight they've created in terms of traffic flow.

(Well-spotted, Marty. Yep - Northcott Drive, Kotara)

I'm speechless.

To think that, just 80 years ago, my late grandfather used to wander around the swamp that is buried under that building. During the Great Depression he and a mate used to ride their pushbikes some 40kms from Maitland to Kotara to catch snakes in the swamp, which they sold to butchers for a few pennies each.