We took our 5-year-old grand-daughter to the local zoo a couple of days ago, and it rained.  
Any zoo is a wonderful mine of information, source of knowledge and entertainer of children.
During two hours of scattered 5-minute downpours we saw birds a-plenty, mongooses (mongeese?), lots of apes, a black bear, tiger and a couple of sea lions. It was good that we saw kangaroos, wallabies, emus and a wombat - all of which prove that even the animals are a bit different in Oz.
It's good that the zoo people in Adelaide have been able to provide roomy "real life-like" settings for most of their bigger exhibits, and the general setting there is vastly better than when I visited as child.
But the bear, while we were there, trod a constant, well-worn path into his den and back to one point a few metres out. Not much fun for him.
The tiger, in a spacious setting of realistic "jungle", paced steadfastly up and back along the back fence.
Then there were the two sea lions, swimming interminable circuits of a circular pool that looked about half a metre deep and about 10 metres across - This for animals built to range widely, designed for speed and agility.
Now, I might have the wrong idea. It could be that these big animals were not stressed, or bored, or at all unhappy. It could have been near feeding time, with them demonstrating the stress we all tend to show when we "just can't wait" for a good feed.
I know that good zoos (and ours is one) are considered vital for the preservation of many species, as well as good at entertaining and educating we humans. I know that great efforts are made to keep the animals fit and happy.
But I can't help wondering how we'd feel if kidnapped by an interplanetary visitor and exhibited in his zoo.

Australian bosses, so it seems, will soon have the right (and responsibility) to check their workers’ emails. The new scheme is all part of improving national security, according to our Government.
I can’t help thinking that, in the realm of stupid propositions, this has to be right up near the top.
Firstly, assuming that the checks will be on emails sent to and from the workplace, how’s the “boss” going to find time for his own work if he has to spy on his workers? I can’t see how he could be permitted to appoint a staff member to spy on his or her mates.
I suppose, though, that someone will soon invent software that searches incoming and outgoing mail for mention of sedition, or a range of other crimes such as industrial spying, or pornography, or even illicit romances.
But, surely, our civilisation has reached a pitiful level if government feels the need to instruct employers to spy on their workforce!
Anyway, why don’t they install whopping great computers and spies to vet all of the nation’s emails and phone calls, as is said to be done in the U.S?
What a pity it is that we can’t all grow up!

Did you know that nine out of the ten most venomous snakes in the World are peculiar to Australia? It’s true, as I was reminded by a recent TV show.

The show, another of those “How doctors save lives” series, informed me that the Aussie Brown snake does the most damage overall, because it tends to slither into back yards more often than the rest. Now the funny thing is that I’ve only ever seen one snake “in the wild” as it were, despite having spent much of my childhood on a well grassed sheep-raising property, and most of the rest of it in a rural town that was blessed with the normal quantity and variety of serpent for the district.

Legendry Australian author/poet Henry Lawson made his mark with stories about the hard life in the “bush”, mostly during the “great depression”. He (and the generally more cheery “Banjo Patterson”) used gallons of ink to describe battling settlers, dogged drovers and brave, mostly lonely, bush wives. The wives – apart from raising kids, tending the cows – inevitably had to kill snakes every now and then, and they used shovels or guns for the job. Lawson and Patterson, by the way, described in graphic detail the mountain of tragedy and travail that was the Australian inland in the “bad old days”, but didn’t neglect the well of comedy and irony that came with it.

Sadly, I believe their work is seldom read, these days. My “personal” snake was big (two meters or so as my memory suggests) wandered out of a bit of long grass onto a pathway at our home of 30 years or so ago. Was I brave and determined? Of course!

In fact, not having a big shovel, a crowbar, or a gun, and believing that all living things have a purpose (and all that) I stood well clear. Friend snake went off without delay, and I wonder if he realised how lucky he’d been.

Ladders, by the way, probably cause more trouble and than snakes! I learned last night (on one of those ever-popping-up gardening shows) that ladders are more dangerous to home handymen than are chain saws or even nail guns. I used to be quite OK with ladders, but I treat them with increasing respect as the years continue to race by. But I’m fairly safe , as I’m no handyman at all – just ask my wife!

We watched another “Miss Marples” show tonight. Don’t worry though, my wife’s in no danger!

If you could keep your eyes perfectly still, looking at a perfectly still object, you wouldn’t see a thing! That’s the message from a recent issue of ”New Scientist,” which has more surprising news about these bits of us without which we wouldn’t be able to see at all.

It appears that the bits that react to light are toward the back of our eyes – behind all the blood vessels and nerve tissues, and we see by looking through the “bits and pieces” (It’s a bit like looking through a fly-screen I suppose).

The article suggests that we test the proposition with a look through a pinhole in a piece of cardboard held close to the eye, whereby we’ll see the neurons and blood vessels plainly against a cloudy background. Further, it seems that we can only see things when they (or we) are in motion.

Strangely, squids and their close cousins have their eyes the “right way around”, with the sensitive bits to the front.

NB. I tried the card test and it worked like they said.

People say funny things when under pressure - like the Melbourne Cup TV commentator, t'other day, talking about a jockey due to ride in the big race, having had a disappointing first try, years ago. . . . ."He fell off last time he tried this race  - But he bounced right back up again!".

Of course, we all knew what he meant.

Then there was the man who wrote about the Melbourne Cup race that almost didn't happen, because od a downpour that flooded the bookmakers' enclosure, about half an hour from the start. . . . "It was alright though. The bookies and the stewards had a very intense conference and then the rain stopped!" he wrote.

In fact, this year's was a great Melbourne Cup - horse 'flu notwithstanding. The field was good, the weatther was terriffic, none of the riders fell off, and it was a great finish. Not just that, but the ladies, in the current fashion, looked smarter than they have for years (in my humble opinion, that is)

I picked up three paperback novels  from the local library last week, and was tremendlously impressed. All three books (murder mysteries and thrillers if you really must know) were "International Best Sellers" and I reckon that must be great for the authors and the publishers.

I took those three back the next day and found, without looking for them, three more paperbacks bearing the same  back-cover boast.

What's disappointing is that I couldn't be bothered reading past the first chapter of any of those books.

Now you might think I'm being over critical of the publishers and authors, but I'm not. I know I should take more care in my book selection.

After all, people have been saying, for generations, that - "You Can't Judge a Book by it's Cover!"

Television station executives tell us that they don't run the commercials louder than the programs want to enjoy. They place hand over heart (metaphoricaly) and say they don't want to annoy us, and that "our support is valuale to them", and that they think there's a rule about over-loud commercials on telly anyway.

So we have to believe them, don't we?  Of course we do!

I've puzzled over this problem for ages and I think I've come up with a solution. I'm going to write to every station - or perhaps send a non-stop run of brochures - suggesting that they turn up the sound level of the actual programs a bit, so they and the commercials will seem as though they're coming out at the same level of loudness.

I wonder why the telly people haven't thought of that?