Norwegians Have All the Fun

Oh to be  a young fit Norwegian.  What fun! 

 

The Tough One for the Big Country

Toyota have just released a version of the the legendary Land Cruiser just for Australia.  The Big Country is harsh and unforgiving.  Only the strongest survive.  Range Rovers, Discoverys and Mercedes Benz G-Wagens wilt and die as the Outback pounds them into submission, breaking their suspensions and ruining their power trains.  90% of 4WDs in the Outback are Toyota Land Cruisers!  And for good reason….they are just about the toughest thing this side of an Abrams MBT.

The Land Cruiser GX is specially built for Oz.  This is not the Land Cruiser of Surrey and Bridge of Allan providing Young Mothers with the idiotic notion that their darling kiddies will be safer in a big vehicle on their half mile trip to school.

No this is a real Land Cruiser with vinyl mats, vertically hinged rear doors and a snorkel designed to go where none can go.  This is a tough mutha for a tough country

The Sound and the Fury

Driving along Henderson Street in Bridge of Allan….if only, dream on!

Ozy Ozy Oi Oi

Forget the ill-fated and rather pathetic Wallabies.  There are other great Australians in sport this weekend.

Casey Stoner won the Moto GP World Championship:

Mark Webber shared the limelight in winning the F1 Constructor’s Championship with fellow Red Bull team member Sebastion Vettell:

And the Kangaroos demolished the Kiwis – how sweet that must have been!

Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport

Well if the Wallabies couldn’t the Kangaroos could.

That’s the other game with a Rugby ball in case you’re wondering.  A game beloved by down to earth northern men. 

None of your Rugby Union public school  Nancy boys here.  These are real men!

Tuscany 2011

Just back from our annual trip to Tuscany for a week.  This year we had the pleasure of catching up with some old friends from Melbourne – Phoebe and Santo – who by happenstance were staying in Creti, Val di Chiana no more than 30 miles away.  So we were able to spend some time with them at their villa:

We had a wonderful day in Pienza for lunch and later in Bagno Vignoni, the Medici spa town:

All in all a great week!

Exciting New Blog

 

 

I have started a blog to chronicle a new Rotary project.

You can read it here

Successor to the LR Defender

LR (TATA actually) are showcasing a potential successor to the the macho mil inspired all-purpose Defender.

Should appeal to those who want to minimise “blue on blue” friendly fire incidents.

C’mon On Aussie C’mon

 

Just now after suffering a huge and uncharacteristic lull in sport, Australian athletes are enjoying a bit of a return to international pre-eminence.

In tennis Sam Stosur won the  US Open in fine style beating the legendary Serena Williams and so becoming only the second Australian after Margaret Court to win the title.

In Cycling Cadel Evans surprised the the world by winning the Tour de France; the only Australian ever to do so.

In motor cycling Casey Stoner is dominating the Moto GP title race and looks like becoming champion.

In Rugby Union the Wallabies stung the All Blacks by taking the Tri Nations Crown for the first time in 10 years and are hot faves to take the World Cup as well.

And Australia’s cricketers are showing a resurgence in Sri Lanka.

Now for the Olympics and the next Ashes series!

Hail the New Champ

There is a new champ on the block with full bragging rights having set the fastest production car time round the Nordschliefe circuit at the Nurburgring.  A Lexus LFA has bettered the record, previously held by a Porsche 911 GT2 RS, by 4 seconds; a whopping margin at the Nordschliefe.  So that’s another one in the eye for Herr Uberwurst.  BTW Toyota also set the fastest time in an EV earlier this week, nearly as fast as the Lexus!

Vulnerable?

Siemens is launching an iPad  controlled gizmo for managing your home appliances.  Let’s hope that it is not vulnerable to Stuxnet, being a Siemens product!

Melbourne

This is why Melbourne is the World’s Most Liveable City…

And You Thought Monty Python Made it Up

Well they didn’t…the Queen’s Own McKamikaze Highlanders, QOMH, 23 Bn Royal Regiment of Scotland really do exist:

All things Must Pass

Time for a change.  Black is boring.  And for you Holden lovers this is what an FJ (my first car in Melbourne, the World’s Most Liveable City) would look like if it were built today.  Please GM, pretty please….

A New Primate

Rejoice! Another new primate has been discovered, this time in an unexplored part of Brazil.

It is described as a type of the exquisitely named titi monkey.  What other new species lurk in darkest Brazil?

DC has Fun in the Desert

David Coulthard shows that an F1  car plus an American dirt road equals the ultimate fun

Welcome Back RCAF and RCN

 

Canada has just announced that it will restore the names Royal Canadian Navy, Royal Canadian Air force and Canadian Army.

The traditional names were originally dropped by Trudeau in a petulant display of anti royalty.  All true Canadians will rejoice at common sense breaking out.  No longer will the Canadian military create collective sniggering from others.

Modern militaries are now all joint services and as the Brits, Aussies, Kiwis and Yanks have shown traditional names in no way hamper this and indeed provide a source of inspiration and pride to veterans and serving members alike.

Welcome back Canada, we’ve missed you.

The Next Innovation is Here

And you thought the technology of Minority Report was way in the future.  Well you were wrong.  It’s here now and looks incredible:

Astonish Me

From WWF.  Cute.

Here Come the Cops

Sick of getting pulled over in your Evo VIII with a boring whoop whoop then you need to emigrate to the good ‘ol US of A where the cops beat box:

Ken Block’s Maximum Hoon Machine

I’ve blogged about the legendary Ken Block before.  Now he’s conjured up the ultimate hoon machine

Don’t try any of this at home!

Toyota’s Window to the World

Is there no end to the ingenuity of Japanese engineers

Amur Leopards

 

This wonderful footage of the terribly endangered Amur Leopard was shot in the Kedrovaya Pad nature reserve in Eastern Russia using a remote HD camera.

The Amur leopard is on the brink of extinction and footage like this can do a great deal to expose the fact and help its survival

Your New Boots Sir

It has been revealed that the MoD spent £714.18 getting a pair of non-urgent boots to a soldier in Northern Ireland. 

See http://news.uk.msn.com/uk/%C2%A3700-bill-to-deliver-soldier-boots

A bit steep really.  Surely it would have been cheaper to fly a civil servant to Ulster and deliver them by hand!  At least the MoD can account for them unlike the £6Billion of unaccounted for kit!

I wonder what other gems of procurement are waiting to be exposed?

I WANT ONE!

The first real turbine powered Batmobile in the World (not on the planet!)

 

That is so cool!

Rainbow Toad Rediscovered

The Rainbow Toad of Borneo has been rediscovered after 90 years.

Who knows what else may be lurking believed lost.

Who Owns the Countryside?

 

OR                                                           ??

            

The BBC is carrying an item on complaints by salmon fishermen about commercial rafting companies on the Tay disrupting their fishing.

This raises the interesting question as to who owns the countryside.  Not who has legal title but which of the many stakeholders has the most say in what happens to the the countryside and how it should be utilised.  Traditionally game interests, particularly in Scotland, and farmers have been the most powerful voices in this debate.  But as new ways of commercial exploitation have evolved, such as tourism and recreation, many of which are becoming more economically important, so the old assumptions about primacy give way to today’s debate about who can benefit the most.

Although I don’t know the figures it is conceivable that commercial rafting does or could generate more economic benefit on the Tay than fishing.  In which case, given that the two activities appear to be mutually incompatible who should hold sway?  And if it be the rafters should they tell the fishermen to bugger off which is what the fishermen seem to be saying at present to the rafters!

Truly a knotty issue. I don’t envy the local authority rule makers!

Help Save the World

Have you noticed that, of late, the literati and public celebrity know alls have starting using the expression “on the planet” rather than the much loved and traditional term “in the World”.

E.g..  The Blue Whale is the largest animal on the planet.

As a by-line this is probably logically incorrect as the only Blue Whale on the planet is a dead one, a deceased one and so not one at all.

Mass movements like this are usually driven by fashion and initiated by, yes you guessed it, political correctness.  But I am puzzled as to why “in the World” would be politically incorrect.

Our Earth is but one of the planets in the Solar System so to say “on the planet”  is not only imprecise but suggests that the matter relates to the Earth as a planet where it is at best primus inter pares in relation to the rest of the Solar System.  Using the term suggests we are but one amongst many and so not really all that important (maybe that’s the political incorrectness; thinking that we are important).

When I last looked I don’t recall that there was actually proper evidence that life exists anywhere else in the entire Universe.  Admittedly there is much speculation and wishing and hoping it might be true by many, and solemn declarations by people who should know better that life must exist elsewhere because there are billions of bits of elsewhere.  But no evidence.

Only Earth is “the World” so we should celebrate its, and our, uniqueness by getting rid of the vacuous phrase “on the planet” by summarily executing all television presents who mouth it without thought (pour encourager les autres).

And by doing so restore the Blue Whale to its rightful place as the biggest animal in the World.

So if you want to save the World tell everyone you know, including politicians and media types that up with this we shall not put.

Filming a shock Wave

The amazing thing about this is how it        makes       Hammond            talk                really               s   l   o   w   l   y.

What Monster Saw

Monster Tajima is the first person to do Pikes Peak in under 10 minutes.  This is what he saw…a really scary hill climb.  Forget the ‘Ring this is absolutely the outer edge of reason for road cars: