Bull tins August 2008 to February 2009

August 2008
Hello from The Capital (…of The Shire, of course),
It’s been some time since I was in touch wif youse all. I’ve been busy. Doing stuff. No, not stuff all. Stuff. Lots of it.

In mid May, my former manager asked me if I would deliver some training on job seeking to some long term unemployed people in her new office – yes, there’s an untold story there, but it will have to remain untold. I slogged away at the preparation for about six weeks. You’d think that I should be able to just walk into any training room without any preparation after delivering such training for three years. But no. You can’t just transfer material from one organisation to another. So I had to invent the wheel – which is why it took so long. I kept getting punctures and blowing spokes. But it was all good in the end.

About a week into this preparation someone else asked me if I would like to assist her in delivering a workshop on happiness to people living with HIV. Sure, I said, I’m happy. But I wouldn’t be able to do any preparation until after the other job. A date was set for two weeks after that job. I was sure that would give me time to burn. A week before the workshop I went to another one in Brisbane run by The Happiness Institute. I needn’t have bothered. All the info I got there was available free on the Institute’s website. But it was a good experience all the same.

In the midst of all of this, my singing teacher gave me a song he’d written for me, to be performed at our concert in September (13th and 14th). I’m to be the Archbishop of Canterbury, murdered in my Cathedral, after commanding a bunch of cowering priests to UN! BAR! THE! DOORS!! That’s the name of the song – well, it doesn’t actually have all those exclamation marks in the title, but they’re there in the music. I am accompanied by a piano and a quartet of voices, viz. the priests trying to bar the doors, who later become the soldiers who do the abominable deed. One of them is a soprano, and another an alto. Women priests! Women soldiers! The things we imagine in entertainment!

It may not sound much, but I am mentally tired and not really up to writing an informative Bull tin, which is a pity, because so much has happened in the last little while. The job with the LTU went well – well, probably well enough. at least one of the got a job. Four others did too, but they ahd been arranged before the course started. The happiness workshop gave me much insight. I can’t say that the clients did so well. I had done a monumental amount of preparation, but, come the day, I wasn’t able to see the wood for the trees, and I think it went down like a led balloon. The music is very demanding. It is written in a whole note scale – unlike most music that we hear – which means that you have to think about every note you sing. In other words, it's not fun but serious work.

That’s it for now. I don’t know when I will have the energy and mental space to do the next Bull tin. I’ll probably not do one next month with the concert so close.

So, go jollily,
J&P

PS Townsvillins who know Anne Reynolds will be interested to know that she was in Australia recently and came to visit. It was really good to see her, with two of her siblings, Jean and Peter. Unfortunately, her time was at a premium and she wasn’t able to look around The Shire or beyond. The Hobbits were disappointed and the faeries nonplussed; but the dolphins are still performing their daily Liturgy of the Most Easterly Point. Hopefully, we will be able to make a return visit to the US, but we’re not holding our breath.

PPS Here's a quote for you: !BEING FOLLOWS IMAGINATION!

PPPS This Auspicious Day occurs only once in every 100 years. A year, a month and a day from today there'll be a similar day, but only one such day in a century has the Auspicious Number 8.

Not that I'm into numerology, mind you.....

PPPPS .... oh, never mind......

September 2008
Daze of purple – wintergone-notsummeryet; long mornings to read and ease into the day, before its light is saved for the afternoon. It’s my favourite time of the year. The Spring equinox is some days in the past and the Jacarandas are purpling the streets. Which, of course, means that the brown snakes are mating, and four metre carpet snakes are looking for cats to eat. But hey, you take the good with the bad, and one day realise you can’t tell the difference. Enough poetry!

John’s big news!! He has applied for a place in a degree course at Southern Cross University in Lismore. How exciting is that!! He’s just finished a major assignment for his Advanced Diploma in Ceramics ay TAFE. He was feeling a bit wobbly about it and told me what he thought the problem was and asked me to read it. So I read it looking in particular for what he had mentioned and was able to reassure him that he’s not only done a fine job: he’d blitzed it. He experienced what everyone who writes comes up against: information overload and the inability to see the forest when so much attention is paid to the trees. I was able to tell him that he’d nurtured a mighty fine forest.

The concert went well. My solo role was not as good as it could have been. In both performances I was a little sharp in places, but people who spoke to me about it didn’t seem to notice – even a music teacher assured me that if I’d been sharp she would have noticed. Maybe one of the advantages of singing in a whole note scale is that it is so unfamiliar, even to trained ears, that it is hard to tell if someone strays a bit. That is, it would be easy to assume that if someone goes sharp or flat they were meant to, because in the music we normally hear we expect to hear semitones.

The problem, I suspect, was that the conductor wanted to make a silk purse but only had a pig’s ear to work with. From the outset, I had to think about the notes because the piece is written in an unfamiliar scale. Nevertheless, I learned the tune and got it right in all the initial practices. But when you’re learning to sing with this bloke, it’s not enough that you know the tune and can sing it – it’s how you sing it that matters. So you have to have the right vowels, you have to sustain them through the entire length of a note AND get the consonants in there somewhere. And you have to shape you mouth when you are singing the vowels so that they resonate (ever wondered why opera singers don’t use microphones? They don’t need them.) I was getting on top of all of that, but just as the preparation for the show was approaching critical mass, I got sick. I mean really sick. When I was back on my feet I had a week to get it all back on track. But the first obstacle was that I had lost three semitones from the top of my range. The top note I had to sing was still within reach, but it was now just one semitone from my last reliable note; and there was a phrase in the song which required me to jump two whole tones to that note without putting too much energy into it. So not only did I have to remember all the instructions about how to produce the vowel sounds, I also had to fight with this phrase that was now near the top of my range. And there’s more. In addition to all of that, the conductor wanted me to ACT!! You know, walk, gesture with arms and face, keep my body and head still when movement would not contribute to the desired effect. This hadn’t been mentioned previously. So now as well as thinking about the notes, and how to make them resonate, I also had to think about how I would walk and gesture, which mightn’t have been all that difficult if the conductor didn’t keep changing his mind about what he wanted me to do. And it wasn’t just me who was having a problem. Four others were involved in my piece. They were the priests who were insisting on baring the doors while I badgered them about unbarring them; and later they were the soldiers who put me to the sword. Their part in the piece was infinitely more difficult than mine. They had a really huge amount of action to act out and the parts they sang were rhythmically excruciating. Wait, there’s more yet. The piano accompaniment to the piece wasn’t just a piano accompaniment – you know, something played on a musical instrument to help the singer stay on key and in rhythm. Oh no. This piano accompaniment was one of the protagonists!! In other words, if it could have spoken, it would have said, “Don’t expect any help from me. I’m here to do battle with you!” The pianist, with whom I had not practiced the piece until that last week, told me that she not only found the piece difficult to play, she couldn’t understand how the five of us could get our heads around the piece. So it wasn’t just me that found it daunting. Nevertheless, we pulled it off, albeit a little less accurately on my part than I would have hoped.

There was a bit of excitement in the second performance. I had only a few seconds to get out of the clerical drag and get to the farthest point of the chorus line up. So I threw the cloak off with some vigour and it landed on a stage light, which no one noticed until they smelt it burning. It caused those nearest it to lose concentration and one group missed their cue.

The concert was in the restored Mullumbimby Civic Hall. What a job they did! It’s really magnificent. Not the Sydney Opera House, mind you, but very “best practice” if I can put it that way – including a shiny commercial kitchen, which we had the rights to for the performances. So the conductor’s partner, which probably makes her Mrs Maestro, asked for contributions to supper. This was well before I got sick, and I rushed in with the promise of a variety of nice things – which I am perfectly capable of producing. But come the week in which they had to be produced, I had other things on my mind, as already outlined. So I picked the easiest of the four things I was going to make and cranked it out in volume. There were about four boxes of them in all, and most of them got eaten. It didn’t matter that I produced only one item. The variety of other contributions was very yummy.

There’s probably a great deal more that has been happening since Our last Bull tin, but there’s no time to tell the story as we are going away for a week, and I am pumping this out early in the morning of our departure. There’s washing up to do and stuff to gather to take with us.
So until next time,
Go jollily.
J&P

October 2008
Oh hullo there…
Pottsville! Who would have thought? It’s where we went with the some of the usual suspects for a week’s holiday recently. Our expectations weren’t high – mine, anyway, having always thought of it as a place that deserved its name, since the very first time we saw it, almost exactly ten years ago, as we sauntered around the country on our long holiday. “Pottsville!” I jeered when we saw the Welcome to… sign – partly for the same reason that some people go “Townsville!!??” The other reason for scornful mirth was that the region in which Pottsville is located is well known for its cultivation and use of Pot. And this is Pottsville, I asked incredulously. I don’t think so. After all, it’s our town that’s famous the world over for something called Mullumbimby Madness. There are people in places like… well, you know… New York and Los Angeles, who can tell you exactly where Byron Bay is but haven’t heard of Mullumbimby, and will confide without blinking, “I’ve heard that that’s where they grow Mullumbimby Madness?” Yeah right. Hullooooooow. Not that it’s of any practical interest to us, mind you.

But getting back to Pottsville, it’s more likely to be where people potter around and go potty, I thought. And besides, we’d been to exotic Wooli the last few years and had not only been bewitched by its old world charm of well preserved pre-war houses scattered almost carelessly along a sand dune separating river from ocean, but acquired a taste for really beautiful holiday houses – I mean beautiful as distinct from lavish or pretentious – and had not been encouraged by preliminary reports about the place we’d be staying in at Pottsville. Well, as it turned out, the house was OK – especially the art work! NOT. And it was located less than fifty metres from the Ocean’s Edge. Well maybe 150 – depending on whether the tide was in or out – but it was right there!! I say Ocean’s Edge, of course, because it’s so much more evocative a phrase than the word beach, don’t you think? No? Well never mind. I don’t either, but I DO like to affect the patter of the lifestyle magazine journalist – if that’s not a contradiction in terms, or even an oxymoron. Oh, and the house was a healthy five minutes walk to the shops. And there were actually shops! Shops that sold coffee and cakes; coffee and magazines; coffee and ice cream; even coffee and tea!! You get the picture. In Wooli, we had to take our own coffee machine. Well, we took it to Pottsville too, but more out of a sense of environmental responsibility – all those throw away coffee cups, you know. I jest, of course.

Actually, even though the house at Pottsville was OK as distinct from … you know … engaging, it did have a really outstanding (better than OK) feature – literally: a marvellous deck on which most of us spent most of our time – when we weren’t fishing or walking the dogs, or going to the shops to buy coffee. Yes, we did buy coffee – once, on our first morning there. We’d been for a walk on the beach and, because we did not want to wake people up by using the coffee machine, we went to the shops. It was 6:30 and they didn’t open until 7:30, but a very generous shopkeeper asked us why we were looking so desperate and said she’d make coffee for us, even though she wasn’t yet open. Thought I should tell you that. It’s the shop at the very end next to the newsagent if you happen to be there anytime soon. Tell her we sent you.

Talking of the beach …oops, I mean the Ocean’s Edge … I spent a bit of time there myself (which is SO! not me). There was a long stretch (about 3 km) north to Hastings Point, and a short one south to en estuary, beyond which was more of the same for as far as the eye could see. There were life guards with flags supervising people who wanted to be supervised and a small number of fishermen with very tall fishing rods casting out to sea, and a few other people with small white boards playing in the waves close to the … you know … Land’s Edge – once you’re in the water the nature of the Edge changes, eh? There were also a few people walking or running along the wet and firm sand. One of them was practising singing exercises. You can probably work out who that would have been. The walk to Hastings Point and back took an hour and a quarter. It was very interesting to see the Land’s Edge at various stages of the tide’s ebb and flow. I think I like low tide best. There’s so much more to see in the uncovered sand, and the patterns of interaction between incoming waves and receding water are more detailed and prolonged. At one moment I caught myself thinking that it was just like history: wave after wave, in one sense endless repetition, yet each one different in shape size speed and how it reacted as its predecessor flowed back to meet it. I have a movie camera but didn’t think to take it. Pity, because what I saw was extraordinary, especially on the last afternoon when it was fairly windy and the dryer sand was whipping along in distinct flows, stripping away the surface, exposing tiny shards of dense sand in nearly regular arcs that resembled miniature hills in a desolate landscape.

I had an interesting fantasy on my second foray onto the beach. Some of you know that I once planned a thirty chapter book, three and a half of which got written. What very few probably know is that, as a side issue of what I was writing, I did a lot of thinking about the migration of humanity out of the rift valley into every habitable nook and cranny of the planet. I thought about how at one stage in our history, we were utterly unimpeded in our wandering. Except for previously un-encountered predators, nothing stood in our way. It was No-One’s-Land. We simply moved on as we pleased. I have often entered in my imagination into that experience, and when I took kids on four day walks through the bush, I would start by inviting them to join in their imaginations with all of those who walked into previously unseen landscapes for the first time in human history, and swooned at their beauty. In their case, they would be seeing what lay ahead of them, not for the first time in human history, but for the first time in their lives, and therefore could experience the encounter with the landscape in a similar, if not the same way as our ancestors in deepest human history. As I walked on the beach at Pottsville, with barely another human being in sight, I thought about the fact that just to the north and a little further to the south there were beaches on which one could hardly find a place to sit down, let alone enjoy the illusion of solitude. What a privilege, I thought, to have this three kilometre stretch of uncluttered landscape to wander in complete safety, pausing to examine tiny obscure details as though they were as significant as subduction zones and remnant mountain ranges, formed then worn away by a much larger history than our own. Join with all, I invited myself, who walked into previously unseen landscapes and swooned at their beauty… I truly felt I had a glimpsed what those who first set foot on that beach saw – however long ago it was. If I wasn’t looking backwards in time, it might even have been a glimpse of eternity. Come to think of it, maybe that’s what it was. Who’s to say that our portal to eternity is the future?

While we were at Pottsville I had to go to Lismore to meet with a bloke from the Vietnam Veterans Federation. He helped me apply for a disability pension. It’s not something I would have done unprompted. But, he said, he didn’t know a single VV who didn’t have something wrong with him. I was prepared to suspend disbelief and think that maybe I was no exception. So we began talking and digging. Had I seen anybody killed? Had I seen any dead bodies? You know the kind of thing. I hadn’t. Almost as though frustrated by the possibility that I might turn out to be an exception he asked me, Did anything significant happen while you were there? I couldn’t think of anything. Certainly nothing remotely like the context that had been set. So we looked at second order things that there’s no need to mention in detail, and eventually I signed the application and returned to the beach. Next morning at about 2:00 am I woke with half a dozen things on my mind. Yes, there’d been the claymore mine that wiped out a large number of people in a Saigon restaurant (No one is safe anywhere); the Australian soldier who was shot as he entered his own base for not showing his ID (No regulations or procedures can safeguard you against human stupidity – not the victim’s but the gunner’s); the round that I discharged when making a machine gun “safe” in my first week in country, and would have killed anyone standing in the line of fire (No one is safe from my stupidity – actually there’s more to the story, but it would sound like I was making excuses if I told you); the two murder trials whose witnesses were billeted in my unit (as a result of which I became aware of the contempt in which some of our own people were held – “He had it coming.”); the bashing of the CO of the MPs who was abandoned by people he went to the aid of (“He got what was coming too.”); the near universal contempt for the people we were supposed to be saving (“They’re just gooks, of course we can f--- underage girls.”); not to mention the deaths of people I had trained with; and something I have only recently discovered a name for – Survivor Guilt. Yes, I’m the guy who didn’t wait to be called up, who volunteered for National Service to do my bit to save the world for democracy; who volunteered to join the SAS and failed the very first test when they put us through our paces to see who could measure up; who stuffed up big time in his first week in-country and was sent from the operational area to the “safe area” after a month; and who shrivelled in shame when people he’d trained with came to his unit for short respite from the real thing. Towards the end of my tour of duty two events a week apart in the US began undermining my certainty that the war was a good thing. On 4 May 1970 thirteen students protesting the war at Kent State University were shot by the national Guard, four of them died. A week later a student at the University of California, San Diego, self-immolated as a protest against the war. The things you remember while you’re asleep and wake up to. That was the picture on which I dwelt for another couple of hours as I tried to go back to sleep. When I finally got up I went for a very vigorous walk on the beach and then drove to Brunswick Heads to do a little bit of official business. I had been feeling like I wanted to throw up since finishing the walk, and by the time I got back from BH I was feeling really crook. I lay on a couch wrapped in a doona trembling as though I was in the Antarctic. Later on I did throw up. Shock symptoms anyone? I was OK the next day, but since returning home my mood has been a indigo tending to black.

I suppose you all want to know, Did John catch any fish? Yes, one. Did he beat Helen at Backgammon? Yes, several times, but she won as many games as he did, so they parted even. Did he write any assignments while he was there? Yes, of course. He’s getting really good at them. Even likes doing them. Looks forward to the next one. Well, I might be making it up a bit there. Did he go to bed early each night and rise early like a good athlete and do the beach walk? Wild horses wouldn’t have stopped him. Did he get a suntan? Brown as a berry – on his face and neck. Never went near the water, but. Eh? Except to fish. Did he build a sandcastle this year? Sadly, no. Did he enjoy himself? Foreshore. Everyone had a good time. Ian was a day late getting there – he’d been sick, but caught the holiday bug almost instantly. Helen read more novels in six days than I would read in a couple of years, but still managed to play Backgammon and wind up her toy dog. Hang on, it was the dog winding her up – I think. Andy did a bit of reading and a lot of walking her dog. Denis rested his wounded knee. And the girls, Caza and Umza, had the whole of the downstairs area to themselves to entertain boys. Yeah, sure. Well, one boy called Jack did actually ask permission to visit and brought dessert with him!! We all agreed that no one that thoughtful could possibly have unedifying motives. Oh yes, and the girls educated Helen who was immensely relieved to find that most young girls in the latest generation, like all generations before them, are grossly misrepresented by the few about whom tales are told in “books for young adults”.

Well, there’s probably a great deal more that I could say about our week in Pottsville, but that’s going to have to do for now. Hope ewes are all chewin the cud and sendin clouds of methane into the atmosphere and contemplatin your metamorphosis into good clean livin kangaroos, in the interests of which I urge you all to…

Go jollily
Kangarucci
(my new name – after all, if I’m going to become a marsupial, it’s got to be the designer model!)

PS If you haven’t yet heard of The Spooky Men’s Chorale be advised that if you are in need of a good belly laugh you could hardly do better than to buy one or more of their discs and listen. Torque about Aussie Self-Deprecating Humour!! And quality singing 2 bute. Find them at http://www.spookymen.com.au/home.htm


November 2008
Hello everyone,

The latest Flickr Collection http://www.flickr.com/photos/twogreytoes/collections/
This link will take you to a collection about our house in Townsville. It’s called A House Re-Created. Click on the Collection icon and it will open to icons for11 Sets of photos, such as What we bought, On the job, What we re-created, Details, More details, etc, etc, etc. Click on each Set icon to view the photos in that set. One of the Sets is called Album. It contains more or less everything in the collection arranged in pages as they might be in an album. There’s also a Set called Juxtapositions which does the before and after thing.


How to obtain a copy of Amatori’s September 2008 concert
As I don’t have the amount of disposable income I had last year, I am not making copies of this year’s main concert and posting them to everyone as I did last year. If you liked what you heard last year and you’d like to hear this year’s concert, it’s going to cost you. Not very much, but that not very mush is going to save me a lot. It is on two CDs, so if you would like copies, send me two CDs in one of those CD posters. I will copy the concert a la carte, so to speak, and post them back to you. Depending on how many people respond, it may take some time to get it done. In other words, it may not happen overnight, but it will happen. There’s also a DVD, but I am having trouble copying it, so if you want to see it, you’re going to have to visit.

Our latest news
John has an interview with Southern Cross University next week about getting into the Bachelor of Fine Arts course starting 2009. He’s been accepted into a show in Sydney in January, as a result of which, people in the know around here are genuflecting in his presence. I can’t remember the name of the gallery, but it’s prestigious, if you know what I mean. He is packing in the hours to finish a raft of assignments for his Advanced Diploma in Ceramics.

As of yesterday, I am officially a pen shunner.

Hope youse are all good.

Go jollily,
J&P

December 2008
Two funerals and a wedding

Well, two funerals, anyway, and a change to the law removing discrimination against same sex relationships. There is at least one negative consequence, but enough said already.

The father of a good friend died recently. He was an ex-serviceman and therefore the RSL had a role in the funeral. You know, the Last Post played by a bugler, and a few words by the President of the local RSL about Les’ war service. John said it was very moving. I would have thought so too if I had not felt so embarrassed about not realising that there would be an RSL presence. I should have worn my medals and known about placing a poppy on the coffin. The President very pointedly asked me why I didn’t do either. Can’t remember what I said, but it probably wasn’t, Oh, they didn’t match my outfit. The rest of the funeral service was remarkable for its lack of over-the-top religiosity; and the highlight was the contribution of the family’s musicians. A brother and sister team played/sang a very appealing jazz piece, and a recording of their father’s (absent overseas) guitar playing closed the ceremony. After a gathering at the front of the church to see Les off to the crematorium, everyone adjourned to the hall for sandwiches and tea – and cakes, and more cakes and more sandwiches and … the food went on forever, provided gratis by the ladies of the church community – which got one or two of us thinking … but I won’t go there. Later in the day John and I joined the family with a large tray of sandwiches that John had made. Much food was eaten with much reminiscing and interesting discussion. Elaine, Les’ wife, now has the task common to all who survive the death of their spouse – embracing life anew. And at the going down of the sun and in the morning … … …

The other funeral was for the friend in Rockhampton who I mentioned visiting about a year ago. There is a very large disparity between the accounts of the two funerals – due to the fact that I barely knew Les, but was a close friend of Graham – so I have chosen not to put the second one in this text, but rather to include it as an attachment.

Last time I said that John had applied for a place in Southern Cross University. Since then he’s had his interview and has been accepted.

I have been to several medical appointments in relation to my application for a war service disability pension. There’s one to go – the one that really matters – with a psychiatrist. You’ve all known for as long as you’ve known me that I’m nuts. Well it’s about to be official. (I’m not sure whether I am kidding about that or not. Maybe you can help me decide.)

The concert we (the Amatori Choir) were going to have on Sunday 14/12 is still on, but it’s no longer a concert as such but an open rehearsal. The conductor decided a couple of weeks ago that we will not be ready – well not well enough to charge money for. We are already doing a fine job of the music, so don’t be put off just because you won’t have to pay. The music is extraordinary and seriously worth hearing – even if we don’t do it to recording standard. It’s at 3:00 pm at St Martin’s in the Fields (Mullumbimby, not London).

Go jollily,
J&P

January 2009
Journey to Everywhere Preliminary Report
Hey Y’all,
The Journey to Everywhere (first leg) ended this morning at 11:00 am as Hal opened the pod bay doors and the Enterprise rolled, quietly resplendent, into its docking bay, a little grubby however, with the smeared remains of other craft, insect shaped and sized, which, having inferior navigation systems, failed to avoid collisions with my starship. She had done five and a half thousand mega parsecs (kilometres, if you prefer) since the order was given to set a course for the Blue Mountains cluster at subluminal speed, and to engage. Departure was at 5:00 am on Sunday 11th January. Arrival time at Blackheath was 6:30 pm. Next day was a relatively late start as I could not access the facility to which I was taking work for John until 10:00 am. The cargo transfer was accomplished more quickly than I expected, so by 10:15 am I was on my way to the Ballarat quasar in the Melbourne nebula. Arrival time 9:30 pm. There I stayed for three days undertaking numerous survey missions. Then at 6:00 am on 16th it was back to Blackheath – arrival at 8:30pm for an overnight before descending to Mulgoa for two days of Minto66 Revisited (an account of which will be forthcoming in due course.)
Already planning my next foray to collect John’s stuff and go to Ballarat and Melbourne again.
Go jollily
Paul

February 2009
You’ve heard of Jetlag. Well, I’ve discovered Spacelag.

Actually discovered is the wrong word because I have known about it ever since astronauts started returning from even just a few days in space, where their bodies adjust quickly to weightlessness without any felt ill effect, but became temporarily dysfunctional on returning to normal gravitational conditions, often experiencing both physical and mental pain.

Having travelled 10,000 megaparsecs (roughly the diameter of the universe – or from its outermost edge to the centre and back) in 32 earth days, there’s a good chance that what I am experiencing is Spacelag.

I said when I set out on the second trip that I was going to see if the first was as much fun as I thought. It was, and maybe I OD’d on fun. You know, being weightless – free of the weight of things-that-must-be-done, even if one is “retired” . I have been unable function normally since then.

I expected to have the account of the trip fully written up by now. But it’s no where near done – barely started, in fact. And things I told myself I would do this year remain just that – things I told myself I would do this year.

But the trip shall be written up, and all those other things will get done, even if it takes me more than one life time to get around to them. In the meantime I have attached three things that may amuse you – or not.

Attachment 1, Space flight calculations is a ditty that calculates the Warp speed of my Starship for the duration of the two journeys.

Attachment 2, How big is a light year? Is about… well, I guess you can work out what it is about.

Attachment 3, For those not into flights of fancy is the log summary of the journey – in kilometres.

Go jollily,
Paul


March 2009 There were no Bull tins for March or
April as I was busy writing up the J2E.
April 2009 See the link J2E for accounts of some
aspects of my two trips in Jan/Feb 09