Category Archives: Uncategorized

In Arsene we trust – End of an era

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Arsene Wenger (Source: Goal.com)

 

“To all the Arsenal lovers take care of the values of the club.

My love and support forever.”

-Arsene Wenger

Sitting on the other side of the world last Friday night as The Adelaide Crows, my AFL team, won a thrilling encounter against the odds, my favourite person called out that Arsene had announced his retirement. I felt numb.

I have followed Arsenal since the early 70s where the only way to get news of how they were going was via the classified results on the radio on a Sunday morning and then perhaps seeing some highlights on Match of the Day on a Wednesday night. With the

advent of PayTV, I have been able to watch Arsenal play. The timezone means games are on at all hours of the night and with my only company the cat, I perfected the silent cheer so as not to wake the house when Henry, Adebayor, Giroud and now Ramsay, Lacasette and Aubameyang score.

For nearly half those years Arsene Wenger has been ever present on the boundary. His clenched fist cheer at a goal, sideline arguments with other managers and the fourth official, as well as his struggles with his puffer jacket are my memories of Arsene.

Like all Arsenal supporters and perhaps all football supporters, I marveled at The Invincibles Continue reading →

The Diary of a Slow Traveller – The Southern Fleurieu, South Australia

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Sunset at Second Valley

Recently South Australia has been getting some attantion as a hidden gem. AS a local I can only say to those who are thinking of visiting SA – come on down.

We have just had a couple of days on the glorious Fleurieu Peninsula, where we are lucky enough to have a beach house. I love it because our beach house is in a quiet little town, Second Valley where we can hide away  and with the start of winter relax by the fire.

I also love the opportunity to ride up over the range and toward SA’s major tourist town of Victor Harbour about 60 kms away, across to Cape Jervis where the Ferry terminal is for the short trip across to Kangaroo Island or to ride a loop that takes in the range, Torrens Valley and then the stunning coastline at Lady Bay.

I thought for this post I’d let some pictures I took tell the story…

Continue reading →

What streaming service to listen too

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If you were a regular coffee buddy of mine you’d already know that my life runs on music. You’d also know that I am in the first year of a PhD program that follows on from completing Honours last year. My study has been fueled on coffee and a lot of music. I estimated that I listened to more than 20,000 songs during my Honours!

So as we catch up on coffee I’d ask you what are you listening to and how are you listening to it? I’d get into the specifics and quickly I’d get to my current dilemma – Apple Music or Spotify supported by a Pandora. You of course were expecting the topic of conversation over coffee to be on the US elections and its impact on us in Australia!

Before you had a chance to change the topic I’d continue with my topic telling you pandora-thumbprint-862x647that I like all three. I’d quickly explain that I see Pandora as a great companion to my mainstays of Spotify and Apple Music. Pandora is easy as the music is selected for me and with the best part of a thousand Thumbprints Pandora makes listening easy.

However if I want to listen to something specific Pandora’s greatest asset, that it does it all for you becomes a problem, so its off to either Spotify or Apple Music.

I’d explain to you the history of how a couple of years ago I moved from iTunes to Spotify. As I transitioned away from CDs I’d found iTunes an easy way to carry all my own music with me.  This was because I had downloaded my hundreds of CDs to my iTunes Library via iTunes Match. That way my CDs were available everywhere on my iPod, particularly with the work travel timetable I was on at the time. About the same time as my iPod froze for the last time I also  decided that buying CDs from the almost nonexistent CD Stores in Adelaide was no longer satisfying as they didn’t have the range and with that I moved to Spotify.spotify

It was initially a bit  of a hassle finding what I liked but I got used to it and at the same  time Spotify got better. As a Premium user, that is I pay for it, I was able to download music so I could listen offline solving a dilemma of listening while traveling which I was still doing. Continue reading →

Diary of a Slow Traveller – The Food, Siracusa, Sicily

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2015-12-17 17.43.59

 

Sitting at our favourite local coffee shop on a lovely Adelaide Autumn day, my favourite person and I quickly returned to our usual conversation – Sicily and when we can get back there.

There are so many things to talk about when it comes to Sicily but it’s the food that becomes the centre piece of pretty much all of our coffee conversations. Is it the freshness, the fish caught that morning, the local vegetables (seasonal produce only) or  the sweet temptations?

Oranges and Grapes a t the market

Oranges and Grapes a t the market

I guess it depends on what takes your fancy and across our nearly 2 months in Siracusa it all took its turn in delighting us. Staying so close to the Ortigia food market all food thoughts started at this truly special local market, just over the bridge on the island of Ortigia and next to the ancient Temple of Apollo. The choices grapes, pears, carrots, brocolli romanescue, bread, meats, fish and cheeses.

Fresh fish - Ortigia Market

Fresh fish – Ortigia Market

Even on days when we didn’t plan to cook in our apartment,  we still seemed to find things to buy at this delightful local market. Continue reading →

Naples, Italy – Pizza

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We were sitting in our hotel in Venice thinking about the last part of our trip, at that stage still a couple of months away, when I found a  post on pizza in Naples. That sealed our decision to go to Naples!

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We planned to stay 4 nights and stayed 6. It could easily have been more but that’s for another post.

Naples is a big city with attitude and that’s evident as you venture into the domain of the best pizza you’ll ever eat. Continue reading →