as drawn by the armball

In football image is everything

MaradonaSuit

An image transformation may have seen Argentina's fortune change in the World Cup. Their coach Diego Maradona has changed from a trainers tracksuit to a fine suit. He now looks the part and they won their first match! The beard he sports also lends an air of knowledgeable sophistication.
The best hair that I've seen this tournement so far goes to Cameroon defender Assou Ekotto with what look like bundled up dreadlocks. I suspect looking at his many bald teammates that not all of the hair is his. 

England Keeper's Howler

EngKeeper

England's first match in the FIFA World Cup provided great amusement as they drew with the USA. Their Keeper, Green, glumly acknowledged his mistake during the match after letting through the equaliser. Hopefully for the next match the selectors pick a keeper who does not have a large hole in his middle.

Concrete acrobatics

Sk8GirlSml

On the holidays I took my daughter to the local skate park. She rode on her scooter up and down the ramps and grew in confidence. I was inspired by an older kid doing somersaults on his scooter to draw this sketch.
These skate parks look a bit daunting, with lots of concrete and the chance of losing plenty of skin. Despite this my daughter had a go. I had to admire her bravery.
Things were different in my day! Back in the 1980s the council didn't provide such wonderful recreation facilities. We as teens had to go out to some disused land with our picks and shovels and make our own dirt BMX track. We were pretty proud of our efforts but we lacked the stunt skills of todays riders. If we hadn't exhausted ourselves digging maybe we could have perfected the stunt artform more. One day a pro BMX rider was driving past and saw our track. He stopped, got out with his bike and rode on it. He was good, plenty of power in his legs, lots of elevation on the jumps, and all this in his socks! We were honored to have him ride on our track. A few years later the road authorities in their wisdom bulldozed the track and put a picnic table there.

Longing for the Windies return

AmbrosePencil

I grew up watching an unforgettable era of Test Cricket where the West Indies never lost a series. When they toured Australia even the fans were filled with dread. This team of athletic power hitters intimidating bowlers and acrobatic fieldsmen were awe inspiring to watch. They were giants in the game.
Now nearly twenty years on, where have they gone? The current West Indies team have begun a Test Match in Brisbane and look like a junior touring team. Where is the menace, the power, and the awe? They all (with the exception of Benn) look a lot shorter and slower. They are not on the path to repeat former glories.
How I long for another Ambrose and the 'hip to heart' peppering of our batsmen. Another Viv Richards who just oozed power and intimidation. Another dynamic opening duo like Haynes and Greenidge. I feel that I will be waiting a long time for cricket to regain its Glamour XI.

What is the bat for?

MikeHussey

The Ashes may be slipping away again. Edgbaston, and Hussey leaves another delivery only to be bowled for a duck! Luckily he batted well in the second innings to save the Test. Come on Mike that is the third time this year you have left a ball and gone out, what is the bat for? Your bat sponsor pays you to have the logo in the correct orientation and waving at the ball, not upside down in mid air. I remember Gatting used to often get out not offering a shot. So much so that my Dad referred to such a dismissal as 'out Gatting.' If Hussey continues to leave the ball and get bowled then we have to start referring to it as being ' out Husseyed.'
For newcomers to Test cricket, listen carefully, 1. in England the ball swings, and 2. it doesn't bounce over the stumps. If you leave anything close to the stumps you are gone!
For Australia, 1 down in the series, it is a long way back from here. England's bowling is good, good enough to win the Ashes. C'mon Aussies, frappe fort (my old College motto fight hard).

North Korea Qualifies for FIFA diplomacy

North Korea Qualifies

A rogue state, nuclear weapons, chest-beating diplomacy, and international condemnation may all evaporate as FIFA's World Cup takes over. North Korea's qualification for the Finals in 2010 has elevated them into World headlines for a good reason for once. Maybe now the hand of friendship will enter US relations with North Korea as sport leads the way in bringing nations together. US lead brinkmanship within the UN has failed to deliver. A case of bringing the wrong ball to the game. As the World now looks at North Korea in a different light, the universal code of Football will momentarily bring nations together. It did so in 1998 in a match between the USA and Iran, and it did it in 1966 when North Korea last made the finals. Chest-Beating Diplomacy then dictated that there would be no flag or National Anthem ceremonies for North Korea, but their exuberant football won the hearts of the crowds. My dad went to some of the 1966 matches and told me of how North Korea were crowd favourites and many were disappointed that Eusabio's run of goals stopped them in a Quarter Final.
This time I would expect them to get a more friendly reception from the hosts South Africa given its Government's socialist leanings, but I wouldn't expect them to get past the first stage of competition. Just for fun it would be good to see North Korea drawn in a group with USA, or England, just to rub their politicians face in it.

Slide scanning shapes up

CathedralNight

I just purchased an Epson V300 photo scanner that can scan up to four 35mm slides at a time. Beats the old Canon that I had, 1 slide at a time and the resolution wasn't great. It also ran in the Classic environment on my Mac and was slow. The Epson is quicker to set up then just let it take a few minutes to scan the slides unsupervised, and take a tea break. When you come back they're done. I have had a few goes at various image types and there is a trap for young players. The scratch and dust removal feature looks a great idea until you try something tricky like the slide at right. Because this was a night shot with tiny star images, the dust removal software can't seem to tell the difference and tried to remove many of the stars. I simply repeated the process without the dust removal and then manually painted over the dust specs in procreate painter classic with a graphics tablet and pen. The image at right is the Cathedral rock feature of Mount Buffalo in Victoria, Australia, taken on Ektachrome 400, 30 seconds F2.8, March 1997. It was almost a full moon at the time.
I have a large slide collection and am now in the process of scanning the best to show on the web and to archive some ancient slides from my childhood to serve as a safeguard. This mountainous task looks a bit easier now.
For web publishing I've been playing with Jalbum, which  isn't to difficult to use and you can publish up to 30MB on their server. Flickr allows you more space but is slower to organise and you are limited in the number of albums.

DeWith

I've just been to a couple of Historic Racing meetings at Phillip Island

DewithWeb

Good weather for the bikes but wet for the cars. Ginger Molloy is still racing Bultacos. He looks old and doddery as he strolls around but he is as tightly tucked and effortlessly streamlined on the bike. His flowing lines are majestic, even artistic, and he is still at the front!
Adam Treasure and Chrissie Clancy weren't able to display artistic lines after they're Honda DeWith stopped at turn 1. These photos need a caption like 'I thought you had the keys,' or 'I've dropped my sunglasses into the carby." Despite this, the sidecars still put on a great show. Many of us in the crowd just go silent in admiration of the swingers placing their heads millimetres from the ground.
The international challenge saw another batch of Poms venture down south to be crushed like flies. The Aussie and Kiwi camps have too many ex pros in their ranks. Next year I'll just have drape a St Georges Cross or two over the fence to lend them some support.
The historic car racing took place in tricky conditions and when it was deemed too slippery out came a safety car. Not exactly in keeping with history to see 1930s skinny tyred open wheelers forming up behind a 2008 Mustang with flashing lights. Still, the drivers and crowd had a lot of fun. This might just inspire us to venture to Historic Winton at the end of May.

L'Inferno, The Horror.

The Horror

Saturday Feb 7, 2009 l'inferno. A ferocious wind, a record high temperature of 46 degrees for Melbourne, a tinder dry state, and a sudden tornado of fire brought a hellish death to nearly 200 Victorians trapped in the inferno's path. Unfortunately this isn't the first time and it won't be the last.  We have just past an anniversary of Ash Wednesday, 1983's firestorm fury, and in January we passed the 70th anniversary of the legendary Black Friday. News of the recent fires prompted me to read about Black Friday 1939 . These fires are the stuff of legend, burning almost a quarter of the state of Victoria. Fires that had been burning for some time, took hold on a scorching day and ripped through vast tracks of bushland. There are tales of sawmillers caught and killed in the open, charred unidentifiable bodies, scorched remains near cars on forest roads, people just lucky enough to make it inside a dugout or river to survive. Interestingly 1939, 1983, and 2009 were all preceded by dry Springs and a succession of 40 degree days, and on the day in question all had severe hot Northerly winds. In excess of 70 people died in each firestorm. Royal Commissions followed each (yet another has been called for this year) with countless recommendations. Despite all our knowledge and documented experience, the death toll still rises. I suppose they'll come up with a name for the day like Roasted Saturday. We are running out of apocalyptic days, we've already had a Black Friday, a Black Sunday, an Ash Wednesday, a Red Tuesday. History does repeat!
Dr Tim Flannery (the Future Eaters) wrote of the role fires played in shaping the Australian bush. Plant species best equipped to regenerate or germinate after fire will dominate and in the case of eucalypts, whose high flammability promotes fires, are winning this evolutionary arms race. In fact I'd say that on this continent the order of species goes, eucalyptus first, and us hominids a distant second.

The picture is one of mine, prepared in the chemical darkroom days of 1989, to capture mans fear of and fascination for fire. It is simply called 'the Horror.'

Curly Gilera

Simoncelli

Marco Simoncelli wins the Phillip Island 250cc GP. A victory for big hair and Gilera. This win extends his championship lead and revives memories of another Gilera mounted champion, Umberto Massetti in 1957. So the Italians are back in a big moto way.
I saw Massetti ride his 1957 Gilera at Phillip Island 8 years ago at the Historic races, glorious sound. With talk of changing  250cc to four-stroke 600, maybe those great Gilera sounds will return.