The Prospector of Granite Creek - part 4

The morning after Wally’s humiliating retreat from Boomerang, Silas was back at Granite Creek, dipping his pan with the weary motions of a man who knew futility well. He had barely found enough colour to dust a flea. Meanwhile, Kevin, perched high on a dead snow gum, was performing a particularly energetic and mocking laugh-a-thon, his head thrown back with theatrical glee, all pointed directly toward Wally’s hidden burrow entrance.

Silas, after months of bad luck, finally saw the pattern. Kevin was not laughing at the creek or the sky; he was laughing at something near the base of that tree—the same place where Silas had lost his nugget collection months ago. The old prospector’s eyes narrowed. He looked at the sturdy, unmarked ground, then back at the hysterically cackling bird. Silas did not believe in fairies, but he did believe in stubborn, clever animals.

He hiked back to Boomerang, not to pan, but to visit the General Store. Silas, operating on a hunch bordering on madness, purchased the gold sovereign coin from the display case—the very coin Wally had coveted. It cost him half his savings, but he had a theory to test.

Silas returned to Wally’s patch of creek. He waited until the sun dipped low, painting the granite pink. Kevin was already settled in the gum tree, silent now, but watching with intense, beady eyes. Silas approached the burrow entrance, knelt slowly, and held the gleaming coin out on his open palm, catching the last of the light.

“Alright, you stubborn little dust-eater,” Silas murmured to the earth. “I know you are in there. You have been panning my claims and stealing my finds, and you are better at it than I am. But I need a break. I want a tip. I want to know where to pan next. And you want this.”

Wally, already tense after his night out, slowly pushed the compacted clay from his escape tunnel. He peered out, his eyes fixing instantly on the magnificent, polished sovereign. It was perfect. It was everything he had dreamed of. He looked from the coin to Silas’s earnest, tired face, then up at Kevin, who, for the first time, was absolutely silent, watching the transaction unfold with uncanny focus.

The wombat gave a low grunt—a sound of supreme calculation. He cautiously shuffled forward, took the coin with a swift paw, and tucked it into his cheek pouch. He then turned and, using his nose, nudged a small, insignificant seam of milky quartz that ran down toward a shallow, overlooked bend in Granite Creek, far from his own chamber.

The tip was not the monster nugget, but it was honest.

pexels.com; free and unattributable

Silas smiled, a genuine, weary smile. He had paid his fee and gotten his tip from the world's most unlikely prospector. He stood up, gave a slight nod to the wombat, and walked away. Kevin, still perched above, finally let out a single, sharp, satisfied chuckle—a laugh of acceptance, perhaps, rather than mockery. From that day on, an unlikely, silent agreement settled over Granite Creek: Silas had his small, steady claim thanks to the wombat, Wally had his perfect coin, and Kevin was the silent, cackling keeper of the secret, ensuring the new, peculiar gold rush of the High Country remained strictly a three-party affair.

-The end-

An ABC Radio interview with Silas is linked

The book dust cover is linked

Reviews are linked.

Shalom,

Ozhamada

The Prospector of Granite Creek - part 3

Wally, for all his burrow-based arrogance, was not immune to temptation. His treasure chamber, already rich with purloined nuggets, felt somehow incomplete. The missing piece, he decided, was not a nugget, but a coin—a perfect, historical gold sovereign that he had seen glinting through the dusty window of the Boomerang General Store. It was secured in a display case of local relics, placed right next to a moth-eaten photograph of the original gold rush days. Wally viewed it as an insult: true High Country gold deserved a better guardian than dusty glass.

The decision to travel was fraught with risk. The journey down Granite Creek was long, requiring him to cross open sheep paddocks and patches of unforgiving, exposed asphalt—terrain utterly hostile to a creature built for defence in tight, rocky tunnels. Wally waited until the moon was just a sliver of white and the air was chilled with the night’s first frost. He marched, low and fast, his heart a nervous drum against his thick ribs, his senses overwhelmed by the smells of diesel and old timber.

He arrived in Boomerang shortly before midnight. The town was silent save for the rhythmic rattling of the wind against the corrugated iron roofs. Wally skirted the back of Silas’s cottage, pausing to listen to the slow, deep snoring within, before leveraging his massive shoulders under the low, rotting floorboards of the General Store porch. He pushed upward, creating a slight, grating scrape that sounded like thunder to his ears.

pexels.com; free and unattributable

He spotted the display case easily. It was tucked against the wall beneath the old post office window, bathed in the pale, eerie glow of a distant streetlamp. The coin was beautiful, stamped with the head of an ancient, human monarch and radiating an unnatural, polished shine—far superior to the rough surface of his own monster nugget.

Wally extended a muddy paw, calculating the leverage needed to topple the heavy wooden display stand. He began to grunt, pushing with the full might of his subterranean strength. The display creaked, the glass vibrating ominously. Success was inches away when the massive, rusty clock tower of the abandoned bank in the town centre suddenly began to stir.

The first chime of midnight was a deafening, metallic gong that echoed through the empty street, freezing Wally in place. Before the sound could fully die away, the noise was answered by a truly horrible, familiar sound: Kevin, the kookaburra. Kevin, who had been sleeping in the old gum tree by the Hotel, was startled by the clock and, spotting Wally silhouetted perfectly against the faint lamplight, let loose the most tremendous, mocking, screeching laugh of his life.

The sound shattered Wally’s nerves. He abandoned the coin, the display case, and all pretence of stealth. Forgetting the path he had come, he simply turned and bolted, scrambling over the asphalt road and into the nearest, darkest scrub. He did not stop until he was deep beneath his own patch of snow gum, safe, panting, and empty-pawed. He had learned a hard, cold lesson: the treasures of the High Country were best acquired beneath the ground, where the darkness was a comfortable blanket and the only judge was the patient earth, not a cackling bird with a cruel sense of timing.

Part 3 of the story is linked

An ABC Radio interview with Silas is linked

The book dust cover is linked

Reviews are linked.

Shalom,

Ozhamada

The Prospector of Granite Creek - part 2

Further down Granite Creek, where the flow broadened and the icy water finally had room to slow its pace, sat the township of Boomerang. It was less a town now and more an enduring collection of iron, timber, and stubborn hope, all etched into the harsh landscape of the NSW High Country.

Boomerang had earned its name not from the returning flight of the Aboriginal hunting tool, but from the fickle nature of the gold itself. Early prospectors, convinced the mother lode was just over the next ridge, would leave for weeks, only to find themselves circling back, drawn by the creek’s siren call and the occasional, glittering promise of a forgotten seam. The town, like the gold, always brought them back.

In its roaring prime, from 1860 to 1890, Boomerang was a chaotic hub. There were fifteen hotels, each with a reputation worse than the last, two banks that seemed to change hands monthly, and a single, perpetually overcrowded Post Office. The creek banks were scarred by sluices and tailings, and the air was thick with the scent of wet wool, cheap whiskey, and woodsmoke. Stories from that era, still faintly painted on the walls of the old general store, spoke of nuggets the size of walnuts, of claims staked by moonlight, and of fortunes lost in a single, drunken afternoon.

Now, only the solid bones of the old town remained. The main street, now paved with cracked asphalt, hosted just four active businesses: the Granite Creek Hotel (which mostly sold cold beer to tourists in summer), a tiny repair garage, the Post Office (which doubled as the local library), and the Boomerang General Store.

pexels.com; free and unattributable

Silas, the bearded man whose pan Wally had pilfered, lived in a small, corrugated iron cottage just outside the town’s main cluster. He was one of the ‘Keepers of the Hope’—a handful of old-timers who still carried a folding pan in their truck and could differentiate the sound of glacial quartz from promising slate with a single hammer tap. Silas represented the spirit of Boomerang’s past, a man perpetually searching for the wealth that had seemingly dried up generations ago, utterly unaware that the richest vein currently lay buried not in the creek bed, but in a hidden chamber under the root system of a nearby snow gum, guarded by a very wide, very grumpy wombat.

Boomerang was a ghost of its former self, yet it maintained a stoic dignity. The old mining dredge, abandoned on the river flats, rusted beautifully under the clear, high-altitude sun, a monument to a time when men, like the wombat Wally, were driven by the sheer, magnificent glitter of gold.

 

 

Part 3 of the story is linked

An ABC Radio interview with Silas is linked

The book dust cover is linked

Reviews are linked.

Shalom,

Ozhamada

The Prospector of Granite Creek - part 1

Wally was, by all accounts, a perfectly normal Wombat of the New South Wales High Country. He was built like a furry, four-legged safe, had a penchant for soft root vegetables, and slept roughly twenty-two hours a day. Yet, deep beneath the granite and thick-trunked snow gums of the Monaro Plains, Wally harboured a magnificent, secret obsession: gold.

Not just any gold, mind you. Wally was a connoisseur of nuggets—heavy, lumpy, river-polished chunks of pure ochre shine. He’d first stumbled upon his prize collection when expanding his burrow system near Granite Creek, where the icy waters flowed, and old prospectors occasionally set up camp, drawn by the same glittering promise.

Wally was not interested in the prospectors' tools or supplies; only their finds.

His mischief was subtle, yet infuriatingly effective. One day, a hopeful bearded man named Silas had spent six back-breaking hours panning a gravel bar. He finally spotted a bean-sized piece of gold shimmering in his tray. He left the pan on a stump to fetch a flask of tea. In that momentary lapse, Wally, utilizing his incredibly low profile and surprising speed, zipped out of a hidden side-tunnel. He deftly nudged the pan, sending Silas’s hard-won nugget—and three others—rolling into a waiting, dirt-crusted paw. He replaced them with four dull, river-smoothed pebbles before melting back into the undergrowth.

Silas returned, stared at the pathetic pebbles, and decided the high-country light must be playing tricks on his eyes, never suspecting the culprit was a creature who subsisted primarily on grass roots.

Wally’s primary method of acquisition, however, was geological. His deep-digging ability, combined with a wombat’s natural inclination to excavate rock and soil, made him the most efficient prospector the High Country had ever seen. While digging a new escape route from a particularly annoying patch of stinging nettle, his nose bumped against something impossibly dense. It was not a root.

pexels.com; free and unattributable

He dug around it with frenzied purpose, using his powerful shoulders to lever the dirt away. The object was the size of his own head, pocked and heavy, with a crystalline seam of quartz running through the brilliant yellow metal. A monster nugget.

Wally spent the rest of the week consolidating his assets. He dragged the monstrous nugget, along with his smaller, purloined treasures, into a newly hollowed chamber, lined with soft, dry grass and sealed off with a false ceiling of compacted clay.

Wally’s only worry was not human prospectors, but the sky-high menace of Kevin, a particularly loud and observant kookaburra. Kevin, Wally suspected, knew too much. Every time Wally emerged with a dusty paw or scooted back underground with unusual haste, Kevin would swoop down onto the nearest snow gum branch and let out an enormous, mocking, cackling laugh. It was a sound that seemed to hold both amusement and accusation, always pointed directly at the mouth of Wally’s burrow. Wally would glare up, his thick neck muscles twitching with annoyance, certain that Kevin was plotting to expose the location of his shiny, secret hoard.

Resting on his mountain of wealth, Wally did not think of the high market value or the history of his collection. He simply enjoyed the weight of it, the cold, smooth feel of the metal against his rough fur, and the deep satisfaction of knowing that, here, far beneath the chilly peaks and starry skies of the NSW High Country, he was the richest, and most mischievous, wombat in the world.

 

 

Part 2 of the story is linked

An ABC Radio interview with Silas is linked

The book dust cover is linked

Reviews are linked.

 

Shalom,

Ozhamada

The Prospector of Granite Creek - Early Reviews

Review 1: The Australian Bookworm

"A Sparkling Gem of a Bushland Caper!"

This short novel is an absolute delight. Wally the wombat is the most charmingly determined anti-hero I've encountered in years. The author perfectly captures the quiet, gritty beauty of the NSW High Country, making the town of Boomerang feel like a faded photograph come to life. The slow-burn rivalry between the gold-hoarding wombat, the weary prospector Silas, and the infuriatingly astute kookaburra Kevin is pure comedy gold. The climax, involving a perfect gold sovereign and a grudging exchange, is surprisingly moving. A witty, warm tale that proves the best treasures aren't always found with a pan, but sometimes with a paw and a bit of wildlife espionage. Perfect for all ages. Highly recommended!

pexels.com; free and unattributable

Review 2: Nature's Narratives Magazine

"The Ultimate Territorial Dispute"

The Prospector of Granite Creek is a surprisingly sophisticated study of resource allocation in the Australian bush. The book masterfully uses the natural traits of its animal characters—Wally’s incredible digging power, Kevin’s aerial vantage point, and Silas’s stubborn human persistence—to drive the narrative. The writing elevates the humble wombat from a simple grazer to a subterranean geological expert. More than just a whimsical story, this is a beautiful homage to the Monaro Plains, illustrating that even in the vast quiet of the high country, the pursuit of riches leads to extraordinary drama.

Review 3: A Reflection by King Charles IV

"A Delightful Nostalgic Echo from the Bush"

One rarely expects to find one’s own youthful memories stirred by the plight of a determined wombat, yet here we are. Having spent time in the Australian bush—which, I assure you, is an education unto itself—I can attest to the sheer, magnificent cheek of its wildlife. The descriptions of the granite, the snow gums, and the biting cold of the High Country brought me right back to my school days in Victoria.

The story of Wally, the gold-obsessed wombat, and his feud with Kevin, the kookaburra, is truly splendid. That signature, mocking cackle is a sound one never forgets. One can’t help but root for the tenacious Silas, whose weary dignity perfectly encapsulates the enduring spirit of the original prospectors. This book is a wonderful reminder that beneath the quiet surface of the Australian landscape, the most thrilling, and sometimes the most profitable, mischief is constantly afoot. A lovely, utterly Australian read.

The Prospector of Granite Creek - Book dust cover

The Prospector of Granite Creek

Wally is not your average wombat. Built like a furry tank, he should be content with a diet of roots and an impressive twenty-two hours of sleep. Instead, Wally harbors a magnificent, dirty secret: he is the richest, most mischievous gold-hoarder in the entire New South Wales High Country. Beneath the snow gums, his burrow hides a fortune of purloined nuggets, including one chunk the size of his own head.

Wally's subterranean empire is threatened by two rivals:

First, there is Silas, a persistent, weary prospector from the faded gold-rush town of Boomerang, whose dwindling pan Wally occasionally pilfers.

Second, and far more annoying, is Kevin, an impossibly observant kookaburra whose mocking, screeching laughter seems to know exactly where the gold is hidden.

pexels.com; free and unattributable

The rivalry comes to a head when Wally attempts a daring raid on a perfect gold sovereign coin displayed in Boomerang, only to be exposed by Kevin’s cruel sense of timing. But when Silas finally deduces the bizarre truth—that a wombat is a better prospector than he is—a fragile, silent agreement is struck.

Can an old prospector, a territorial wombat, and a cackling bird find a way to work together?

Dive into this charming Australian caper about greed, paranoia, and the unexpected alliance forged over a single, polished coin.

The Prospector of Granite Creek - ABC Radio interview

ABC High Country: "The Prospector and the Wombat"

Program: ABC Rural Hour Host: Eliza Byrne (EB) Guest: Silas, Prospector from Boomerang

(Sound of gentle stream running, distant kookaburra chuckle)

EB: Welcome back to Rural Hour. For generations, prospectors have searched the goldfields of the Monaro Plains. But our next guest, Silas from the almost-ghost town of Boomerang, recently made a discovery unlike any other—one involving a very stubborn, four-legged rival. Silas, welcome.

Silas: Good day, Eliza.

EB: Silas, you have been panning Granite Creek for decades. Can you describe the moment you realised your bad luck was not due to poor geology, but to a wombat?

Silas: (Chuckles, a dry sound) Well, it started with the missing nuggets. Just tiny ones, you know. You would leave your pan for a minute, and when you came back, all the colour was gone, replaced by little river pebbles. I thought I was losing my mind, or perhaps it was the light. But then, there was Kevin.

EB: The kookaburra. Wally’s aerial nemesis, as we have learned.

Silas: Exactly. Kevin sits in the same old snow gum, and every time I came near a certain burrow entrance, that bird would just laugh—not a happy laugh, mind you, but a mocking, judgmental sound. And the burrow? It was immaculate. No dirt kicked out, no tracks. But after that bird exposed my failure in Boomerang, it clicked: that wombat, Wally, was a master thief and, more importantly, a master digger.

EB: So, you went to the General Store and bought a gold sovereign—a coin Wally had failed to steal the night before—as a kind of ransom?

Silas: (Sighs) A ridiculous notion, isn’t it? But I was desperate. I felt he was holding the key to the creek. I held that coin out, right in front of his door, and I said, "You've been panning my claims and you're better at it. You want this? Give me a tip."

EB: And he responded?

Silas: He did. Slowly, he pushed out the dirt plug. He looked at me, looked at the coin, and then, while Kevin was watching like a beak-driven accountant, he shuffled forward, took the sovereign, and tucked it into his cheek—just like a little money bag! Then, he used his nose to nudge a tiny seam of milky quartz running towards a bend I’d always ignored.

pexels.com; free and unattributable

EB: And did you find gold there?

Silas: Enough. Not the monster nugget Wally’s sitting on, mind you, but enough to make the effort worthwhile. Enough to keep the heart in Boomerang for another year.

EB: So now you have a symbiotic relationship: The prospector and the wombat.

Silas: We have a truce. He has his perfect coin, I have a decent claim, and Kevin has a fascinating, lifelong secret to keep. We don’t chat much, but every now and then, I leave a particularly good pumpkin near the entrance. It's a professional courtesy, you might say.

EB: That truly is remarkable, Silas. Now, before we let you go, you mentioned Boomerang. For our listeners who might not be familiar with that part of the Monaro, can you tell us a bit about the town's past? It sounds like it’s certainly seen better days.

Silas: It has. Boomerang—well, she's an old girl. The name comes from how the gold was: fickle. Men would leave, convinced the lode was over the next ridge, but they’d always loop back. Our prime was between 1860 and 1890, when it was absolute chaos. Fifteen hotels, two banks! Now, it's quiet, but the bones are still there. The granite and the iron just won't let it fade completely.

EB: And speaking of the bones of the town, what about the General Store? That must be a relic in itself if it still has the display case with the sovereign. How long has that store been operating?

Silas: The store is a survivor, that’s for sure. It’s been standing since the mid-1870s, I reckon. It’s changed hands so many times, but it’s always been the heart of the place. It used to sell shovels and dynamite; now it sells milk and postage stamps. It even doubles as our library now. It’s one of the few things, aside from the Granite Creek Hotel, that has always kept the door open. You could say the store is just as stubborn as Wally, really.

EB: A town held together by stubbornness and a shared secret about a gold-hoarding wombat. What a picture. Silas, thank you for sharing this remarkable story from the High Country.

(Sound of gentle stream running fades)

 

Book Review: Leading on the Edge by Rachel Robertson

Rachel Robertson’s "Leading on the Edge" is far more than a memoir of managing a team through a long Antarctic winter; it is a clinical yet deeply human study in risk management under conditions of absolute isolation. While the book expertly covers the complexities of leadership and team dynamics, its most profound takeaway is the stark, inescapable reality of the single pre-Winter season shipment. This annual, make-or-break logistical moment encapsulates every conceivable organisational risk, transforming the Antarctic base into a pressurised crucible for months to come.

The successful arrival of that single ship—the last touchpoint with the outside world before the ice solidifies—determines the inherent risk for the entire overwintering period. If a critical piece of equipment fails to arrive, the team doesn’t simply wait for a replacement; they must engineer a solution with what they have, or the mission, and potentially lives, are jeopardised. This creates a cascade of financial, operational, and safety risks that are locked in the moment the ship departs. There is no “residual risk” to manage here, only the inability to mitigate.

The book forces the reader to confront the psychological toll of this non-negotiable isolation. If a team member develops a severe medical condition or suffers a mental health crisis, the infrastructure for rescue is simply gone. The medical risk shifts from treatable to potentially catastrophic, placing an immense burden on the station doctor, whose consequence rating on any given incident instantly jumps to 'Critical.' This absolute lack of a safety net means that minor interpersonal conflicts, which would be an annoyance elsewhere, morph into high-consequence Reputation and Operational risks, capable of undermining morale and mission success for the remaining ten months.

Robertson shines a light on how this logistics risk elevates the importance of every single control. Inventory management stops being a clerical task and becomes a survival imperative; every gasket, every spare part, and every food ration must be accounted for, as there is no opportunity for correction. "Leading on the Edge" is a compelling reminder that the true nature of risk is defined not just by what might go wrong, but by the options—or lack thereof—available when it does. It is essential reading not only for adventurers but for any leader who understands that effective management is fundamentally about anticipating and controlling the worst-case scenario.

Shalom,

Ozhamada

Note: this page links from my Goodreads account.

Urgent Penalty Notice

Someone close to me has slowly read a library book.

On the occasion of the third renewal of the borrowing period I arranged for them to get a surprise. This was delivered to them on library letterhead. 

There was shock and then laughter.

= = = = = =  

 

Subject: Urgent Penalty Notice: Mandatory Public Address - Re-borrowing of The Hiding Place

Dear [insert name]

This letter serves as a formal notification regarding your persistent and excessive re-borrowing of the book, The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom (940.53482.TEN).

While we appreciate your dedication to this inspiring work, your repeated renewals have prevented numerous other patrons from accessing it, disrupting the fundamental principle of shared community resources at the Randwick Library.

Therefore, as per the little-known but strictly enforced "Three-Strike Renewal Rule" (effective only for books on the Holocaust/WWII and books about cats), you are required to serve a mandatory penalty.

---

The Penalty: Mandatory Book Review and Public Talk

You are hereby required to attend, prepare, and conduct a public talk reviewing The Hiding Place.

• Date and Time: Wednesday, November 20^th 2025 at 9:30 AM sharp.
• Location: Randwick Library
• Address: 35 Anzac Pde, Maroubra, NSW 2033.
• Reporting: Upon arrival, you must report immediately to the Head Librarian, Mrs. Gertrude Reader, at the Information Desk. She will escort you to the auditorium.

---

Talk Requirements and Analysis

The talk is scheduled to be one hour in duration (inclusive of a 15-minute question and answer period) to an anticipated audience of 100 local high school students and members of the Senior Book Club.

You must rigorously analyse the text, addressing at least the following key thematic areas in your discussion:

1. The Resilience of Faith: Examine how Corrie's deep Calvinist faith sustained her, her family, and her fellow prisoners in the face of absolute evil. Discuss specific scriptural references used as coping mechanisms.
2. The Power of Forgiveness: Detail the famous post-war encounter between Corrie and one of her former prison guards, and analyse the theological and psychological complexity of her act of forgiveness.
3. Hiding in Plain Sight: Discuss the logistical brilliance and inevitable folly of hiding Jewish people in the Ten Boom home ("the Beje"). You must diagram the "secret room" from memory.
4. The Smallest Acts of Resistance: Go beyond the major acts and discuss the importance of tiny, morale-boosting gestures—like sharing a single vitamin or a smuggled deck of playing cards—within the concentration camp environment.
5. The Role of the Blue Sweater: Provide an in-depth literary analysis of Betsie Ten Boom's blue sweater as a symbol of hope, practicality, and ultimate surrender to the divine will. (Note: A poorly managed sweater discussion will be considered an immediate failure.)

Resources for Diagramming: To assist with the "secret room" diagram (Requirement #3), a large easel and a single, well-chewed piece of purple chalk will be provided. The Head Librarian insists on a vintage aesthetic.

 

Failure to attend or conduct a sufficiently engaging and scholarly presentation will result in a permanent, system-wide ban on all future book renewals and a mandatory assignment to re-catalogue all gardening books.

Be advised that the Senior Book Club is not for the faint of heart. Their members are voracious readers who meet weekly, not monthly, and approach every book with a forensic level of scrutiny. They have collectively read the entire Western Canon multiple times and will not tolerate superficial analysis, misplaced semicolons, or weak arguments about the function of secondary characters. They come prepared with indexed notes and are the primary reason the Q&A segment is usually extended.

 

We look forward to your illuminating presentation. Please confirm your receipt of this letter and your understanding of the penalty requirements by the end of this week.

Sincerely,

Collette Paige

Senior Circulation and Sanctions Officer

Randwick Library

 

Access and egress congestion

I keep a close eye on instances where a significant number of people are inconvenienced. Last Saturday, the public's attendance at a ticketed event in Sydney, NSW, was soured by poor transport planning. 

On Saturday attendees to the RAAF Richmond Airshow 2025 | Air Force found themselves on long traffic queues or stuck on trains. The organisers of the event possibly failed to consider the transport implications of bringing 40,000 people to a site that rarely handles such capacity.

 

Here is a summary of how the organisers may have thought through risk considerations:

The primary risk realised at the RAAF Richmond Airshow was Severe Access and Egress Congestion, leading to significant reputational damage and a degraded patron experience. This materialised as extensive traffic bottlenecks on approach roads (like Hawkesbury Valley Way) and critical failure of the public transport strategy. The specific hazards were inadequate road infrastructure capacity for the expected high volume of attendees, compounded by overwhelmed train services at Clarendon and ineffective on-site car park management, where patrons reported hour-long queues just to exit. Shuttle buses, intended as a key mitigation, also became stuck in the general gridlock.

Future mitigation must prioritise a holistic Transport Management Plan (TMP), developed in partnership with Transport for NSW. Key strategies include:

1. Integrated Capacity: Mandating integrated ticketing for free, high-frequency public transport (trains and dedicated express shuttles) to drastically reduce private vehicle dependency.
2. Infrastructure Coordination: Implementing temporary road closures and counter-flow systems on key arterial routes before 7:00 am and during the 4:00 pm egress peak.
3. Operational Control: Deploying dynamic traffic control with trained marshals to actively manage the car park exit flow and separating shuttle bus routes from private vehicle congestion.
4. Real-Time Communication: Utilising Live Traffic NSW and social media for immediate updates, guiding drivers toward less congested routes or advising them to use designated park-and-ride options.

Shalom,

Ozhamada

Type 2 productivity

Type 2 productivity is what Australia needs. Sadly, there is too much effort direct at type 1 productivity.

Type 2 productivity are innovations in business practice that are designed to give rise to a productivity gain to both the designer; which is typically an organisation, and the party that is transacting with that organisation. Type 2 productivity makes processes easier for all parties in the process. An example of Type 2 productivity is eBay that comprehensively simplifies both the purchaser and seller experience, allowing, for instance, a seller to print a prepaid mailing label.

Type 1 productivity are innovations in business practice that are designed to give rise to a productivity gain to the designer without any significant productivity gain to the party that is transacting with that designer organisation. Type 1 is seen where users are required to input data into poorly designed online forms. Such forms may be capturing data for the organisation, and making their own processes efficient, but poor design of the form has a cost upon the user.

Type 1 productivity is what I recently experienced in receiving an email from a water authority with an attachment. The attachment had an unreasonable size. The story of that email's attachment continues here in a post I put up on, and later updated on, a community Facebook page:

While I appreciate that this is a first world problem, can anyone please advise if the size in megabyte of XXXXX Council's water bill reached a mammoth size in the most recent mailing. Here I show a graph of the size of the most recent four bills (with 4 being the most recent). 11 Megabyte for an attachment is huge! Council seems to want to consume all my email provider's data capacity."

---

Update: I have had a response from Council:

 

“Hi Ozhamada,

 

Our mail house has identified the cause of the issue which had resulted in emailed account having such a large file size.

 

The file size issue was to do with the newsletter which they have now corrected.

 

Thank you for your enquiry which has helped identify and correct this issue.

 

Regards

 

 

Shalom,

Ozhamada

A tragedy of pride

Women preachers have featured in this blog; the scorecard is marked F. The one with the stray hermeneutics, the one who prepared a sermon in a shower the day before preaching in it, and the one who had four questions when there was to be one.

Then there was the recent sermon of Bishop Bonnie Perry.

The Bishop preached at a Dublin Pride Service as linked. A tragedy of “pride”.

 

I have summarised the sermon below. The summary – of a sermon which is absent of any direct exposition of Biblical text - concludes with: “The core message is that if it was right for Jesus's apostles to speak their truth with pride, it is equally right and necessary for the LGBTQIA+ community to do the same.”

And, it is in that summary that we see the failure of the sermon, that the apostle’s (Peter and John, [Acts 3]) were not speaking in pride, but in humility - indeed, the apostles were at threat of imprisonment [Acts 4]. They spoke filled with the Holy Spirit [Acts 2]. The apostles were not speaking in pride but instead in boldness and unapologetic first-person witness. They were humble men who had the un-measurable support and strength of Christ.

And speaking in boldness and unapologetic first-person witness, in the Spirit, and as representatives of Christ, is completely different from the LGBTQIA+ community's tendency to speak in pride. For that community's pride is regularly evidenced as arrogance, self-exaltation, and hubris.

Shalom,

Ozhamada 

-------------------------//----------------------- 

Summary of sermon

The speaker links the "pride" of Peter and John and the "pride" of the LGBTQIA+ community through the shared act of publicly speaking their truth and living authentically, even in the face of opposition from established authorities.

Here's how the link is made:

1.    Pride of Peter and John: The speaker describes Peter and John as being "too public in their preaching and healing in and around the temple," leading to a "movement fueled by love and filled with pride." When chastised by the religious authorities and told to "no longer speak their truth publicly," Peter and John refuse to be silenced. The speaker emphasizes, "But if you know who you are and how you are and you know that your life is changed that's not something you keep inside You have pride and you keep on telling your story." Their pride is their unwavering conviction and determination to share the Gospel despite threats.

 2.   Pride of the LGBTQIA+ Community: The speaker explicitly connects this to the experience of the queer community. They state that for decades, society and the church have told them "Stop speaking be silent Don't tell us Do not speak your truth." However, the speaker then directly counters this by urging, "I say to you speak your truth... as an out proud partnered lesbian I say to you speak your truth. We are made in God's image and likeness and fully embraced by Christ just as we are. We of the queer community are good enough. We are called to tell the stories of who and how we are and how God lives and moves and has God being in our lives."

The link is established by framing both instances as a courageous and divinely inspired refusal to be silent about a transformative truth. For Peter and John, it was the truth of Jesus's resurrection and love; for the LGBTQIA+ community, it is the truth of their God-given identity and the profound love they experience. Both are acts of defiant, faithful self-expression ("pride") against prevailing norms and oppressive religious or societal structures. 

The core message is that if it was right for Jesus's apostles to speak their truth with pride, it is equally right and necessary for the LGBTQIA+ community to do the same.

Transporting a bicycle on Mariyung 8 car set train - Hornsby to Newcastle Interchange

I was fortunate this to travel on one of NSW Transport's new Mariyung Fleet trains. I travelled as part of a couple and we both took bicycles. The following photographs illustrate the dedicated bicycle carrying space. Our journey was from Hornsby to Newcastle Interchange. 

On the eight car set train the bicycle carrying space is on cars 2 and 7. 

The experience was one of ease and convenience. 

The bicycle carriers will prove popular. 

There is no additional cost to take a bicycle on the train. Boarding at Hornsby, car 7 pulled up precisely at the elevator which is fantastic for anyone who has had to get their bicycle down on to the platform. At Newcastle Interchange, if required, you can immediately board the light rail and it too has a dedicated bicycle area.

Shalom,

Ozhamada

This clamp locks into position against the front bicycle wheel as the arm takes the weight of the bicycle.

The front wheel suspended on a padded pin and clamped

Two bicycles neatly fit next to each other. There is a quick release strap fitted to the rear wheel.

We sat in car 8 and had a clear view through to the bicycles in car 7. There is disabled seating opposite the bicycle carrying space. The transit door is accessible at all times during the journey. 

 

The in-car digital indicator switches between destination information and car information (see next photograph)

The cars that have bicycle carrying space are indicated. The indicator highlights that car 8 - the car that we sat in - is a quiet carriage. In a quiet carriage chatting is to be kept to a minimum and mobile telephone calls must be taken in another carriage.

Four questions when there is to be one

This blog has a run of reporting bad preaching. Even the Sydney Anglicans can sadly fail (as linked). I contemplated writing a post on the Budde sermon to the newly elected President Trump yet another captured my thoughts entirely (as linked).

St John’s Anglican Cathedral in Brisbane serves up many sermons. The Rev’d Dr Ann Solari on the 5th January 2025 preached a sermon titled: “Giving the Gifts away: The Epiphany of the Lord”. As is a feature of many sermons of that church, Solari concluded the sermon with a question to her audience. Let’s examine that question from the published sermon on the church’s website:

“This story of the wise ones does however raise an interesting question.

If Jesus was given these valuable gifts as a small child how come he did he end up with nothing?

Did Jesus do what he asked the rich young man to do?

Did Jesus give all that he had to the poor?

What does this say to us?

Amen”

Screenshot from St John's Anglican Cathedral website

On 5 January 2025 many may have still been recovering from Christmas and New Year hangover. Simple mathematic calculations are often difficult with a cloudy head. Yet, the “interesting question” was not one question but instead “interesting questions”. Where the count should be one, it is four. Very Monty Pythonesque!

Putting aside the grammar of the first question one’s head spins at the connection within the sermon between that first question and the wonderful words that were included in respect to the gift of myrrh. For the preacher correctly identified the myrrh as a pointer to Christ’s early death. So, counter to the question's notion that has the listener pondering why Jesus ended up with nothing, the gifts indicated that Jesus would end up with nothing.

The second question is a puzzle in that rich young man is not previously mentioned in the sermon. Does the preacher assume her audience to be telepathic? If it is a reference to the story in Matthew 19:16-22 one wonders how Jesus is to follow himself :“If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”

The sermon is a failure. It is a failure in that the preacher has asked questions that are either dubious or which will lead to ambiguous or inconsistent application by the listeners. It offers questions at a moment in the sermon where applications are expected. It is a failure of oratory form - awkward questions left hanging in the air - that cannot be concluded successfully away from the pulpit. The questions are absent solid answers and sound applications; they do not keep to the pattern of sound teaching (Paul's instruction to Timothy).

The only appropriate response of the discerning pewsitter is to robustly indicate that they had been short-changed; that they expect well-rounded sermons starting from the very next week.

Shalom,

Ozhamada

Honeysuckle Creek – The story of Tom Reid, A little Dish and Neil Armstrong’s First Step - problem solved #2

This post solves a mathematic problem on Page 32 of the non-fiction book: “Honeysuckle Creek – The story of Tom Reid, A little Dish and Neil Armstrong’s First Step”, Andrew Tink, 2018

Problem: An object 2cm, high is held at a distance of 60cm from a convex lens of focal length of 20cm. Find the nature, position, and size of the image.

1. Given:

• Object height (h₁) = 2 cm
• Object distance (u) = -60 cm (negative sign convention)
• Focal length (f) = 20 cm

2. Find Image Distance (v):

• Use the lens formula: 1/f = 1/v - 1/u
• Substitute the given values: 1/20 = 1/v - 1/(-60)
• Simplify: 1/20 = 1/v + 1/60
• 1/v = 1/20 - 1/60
• 1/v = (3 - 1) / 60
• 1/v = 2/60
• v = 60/2
• v = 30 cm

3. Find Image Height (h₂):

• Use the magnification formula: h₂/h₁ = -v/u
• Substitute the values: h₂/2 = -30/(-60)
• h₂/2 = 1/2
• h₂ = 1 cm

4. Determine Nature of Image:

• Since the image distance (v) is positive, the image is real.
• The magnification (h₂/h₁) is positive and less than 1, so the image is inverted and diminished.

Therefore:

• The image is real, inverted, and diminished.
• The image is formed 30 cm from the lens on the opposite side of the object.
• The image height is 1 cm.

Shalom,

Ozhamada

Honeysuckle Creek – The story of Tom Reid, A little Dish and Neil Armstrong’s First Step - problem solved #1

This post solves a mathematic problem on Page 32 of the non-fiction book: “Honeysuckle Creek – The story of Tom Reid, A little Dish and Neil Armstrong’s First Step”, Andrew Tink, 2018

Problem: P and Q are points of tangents OP and OQ drawn to a circle whose centre is C; PC and OQ are produced to meet in L; QC and OP are produced to meet in M. Prove that LM is parallel to PQ.

1. Understand the problem:

• We have a circle with centre C.
• OP and OQ are tangents to the circle from an external point O.
• PC is extended to point L.
• QC is extended to point M.
• We need to prove that LM is parallel to PQ.

2. Visualize the problem:

circle with tangents OP and OQ, center C, and points L and M

3. Key concepts:

• Tangents to a circle: A tangent to a circle is a line that touches the circle at exactly one point.
• Radius and tangent: The radius drawn to the point of tangency is perpendicular to the tangent.
• Parallel lines: Two lines are parallel if their corresponding angles are equal.

4. Proof:

• Step 1: Since OP and OQ are tangents to the circle, we know that:
• ∠OPC = 90° (radius perpendicular to tangent)
• ∠OQC = 90° (radius perpendicular to tangent)
• Step 2: Consider triangles OPC and OQC:
• OP = OQ (tangents from an external point to a circle are equal)
• OC is common to both triangles
• ∠OPC = ∠OQC = 90° (proved in step 1)

Therefore, triangles OPC and OQC are congruent by the Hypotenuse-Leg (HL) congruence theorem.

• Step 3: Since triangles OPC and OQC are congruent:
• ∠PCO = ∠QCO (corresponding angles of congruent triangles)
• Step 4: Consider angles ∠PCO and ∠QCM:
• ∠PCO + ∠QCM = 180° (linear pair)

Therefore, ∠QCM = 180° - ∠PCO

• Step 5: Similarly, consider angles ∠QCO and ∠PCM:
• ∠QCO + ∠PCM = 180° (linear pair)

Therefore, ∠PCM = 180° - ∠QCO

• Step 6: Since ∠PCO = ∠QCO (proved in step 3):
• ∠QCM = ∠PCM
• Step 7: In triangles QCM and PCM:
• ∠QCM = ∠PCM (proved in step 6)
• CM is common to both triangles

Therefore, triangles QCM and PCM are congruent by the Angle-Side-Angle (ASA) congruence theorem.

• Step 8: Since triangles QCM and PCM are congruent:
• ∠QMC = ∠PMC (corresponding angles of congruent triangles)
• Step 9: Since ∠QMC = ∠PMC, we can conclude that LM is parallel to PQ (alternate interior angles are equal).

Therefore, we have proved that LM is parallel to PQ.

Shalom,

Ozhamada