The house is watching.....

Aeroplane Bar Letka - Tupolev 104 - Olomouc

The “aeroplane bar” in Olomouc is quite a landmark. Situated near the Billa supermarket and the swimming pool it used to be a popular hangout for the local communist elite during the 1970's, and is still pretty much the same as it was then, just a little tattier, with warm canned beer, music so bad it puts a smile on your face, a dance floor in what used to be the cockpit (apparently also a bed up there somewhere), and not many communists (often no customers at all). It's open from 9pm until 7am, and you need to ring a buzzer and wait for somebody to come and let you in.


The bloke in the blue polyester suit doesn't seem to work there any more but it's still oozing with it's own unique character. The seats are from the original plane, just oriented around the tables.



The aeroplane itself has an interesting history. It's a Soviet made Tupolev 104, one of the worlds earliest jet airliners. Around 200 were built from 1956 until production ceased in 1960. Most of them saw service with Aeroflot and the Soviet Air force, but as this one is parked up in the Czech Republic it is presumably one of the six 104A's which were operated by Czechoslovak Airlines beginning in 1957, flying routes from Czechoslovakia to Paris, Brussels and Moscow. Being one of only six it may perhaps be the only one left in the Czech and Slovak Republics. From 1956 until 1958 the Tupolev 104 was the only jet airliner in service in the world. The large jet engines were mounted where the wing connected with the fuselage. The plane's interior was interesting in that it was fitted out in a pseudo Victorian manner using copper, lace and mahogany.
A couple of interesting variants were produced, including the 104AK, which was used for cosmonaut training, and the 104LL which was used for heavy air to air missile tests. It was used by Aeroflot until 1979, and the Soviet air force until 1981, when it was deemed to be unsafe.

Olomouc Aviation Museum

On the outskirts of Olomouc in a delapidated old aircraft hangar near the airport is a little known museum dedicated to military aviation. Actually it is an odd collection of Soviet and Czechoslovak made equipment, from a complete MIG21, various partly dismantled planes, rockets, jet engines, ejection seats and the like. It's not really organised in any way, although there is some descriptive text in Czech. For fans of military aviation history it would be fascinating. To get there take tram 7 all the way to the end of the line at the crematorium, then follow the same road away from the town for about 500 metres, the gate is on the left. From october the museum is only open on weekends from 9:00am until 5:00pm.

Květná zahrada - Baroque Pleasure Garden, Kroměříž

Cycling Trip to Veltice and Lednice

At the ice hockey

Olomouc Stadium, September 30 2009

Znojmo 2
Olomouc 0

Olomouc Astronomical Clock

One of the greatest things I have ever seen.

A detailed description of the clock can be found on Captain Oddsocks blog.

Back in Olomouc

So, I am finally back in Olomouc, and being eager to have a local meal I joined Doogie the Texan for lunch and a beer at a local restaraunt. Czech food is famous for being heavy on the meat and rye bread and light on vegetables other than potato and pickled cabbage, but we both bit off more than we could chew when we ordered these pig knuckles. Thankfully Francie showed up just as we were really struggling and saved us both from embarrasment.

Sydney - Taipei

On the morning of wednesday 23rd (having flown in from Christchurch on the 22nd) I and millions of others in Sydney and eastern Australia awoke to the biggest dust storm in around 70 years, the whole sky was an ochre red colour, and dust was settling on everything and getting into the lungs of anyone who ventured outdoors. Supposedly 75000 tonnes of red dust was being blown into the tasman sea every hour, although one wonders who such a figure was arrived at. I had a flight to Vienna booked for thursday, or so I thought until I recieved a called from my panicked travel agent who told me my flihjt had been resceduled and was due to leave in two hours. I had booked my ticket in Australia, but had left to spend two weeks in New Zealand, and poor old travel agent was unable to reach me! It was then a mad rush to grab my bags, hail a taxi and get to the airport, which I managed to do just in time. Although many flights were delayed due to the storm, my flight departed only half an hour late, not due to the storm, but to the pricks you often have to wait for to board the plane. Do you know I have actually met people who will only board thier flights when they have their names called out on the public address system? Makes them feel good to have people waiting for them, and to not have to queue. Wankers. The plane took off. We got some really good lift on take off, and at least three people near me threw up. The plane stunk of vomit, and the air stewards couldn't clean it up until the plane had levelled off. The flight went through quite a lot turbulence actually, especially over Irian Jaya and the Phillipines.

Back in New Zealand

First day back in New Zealand and what do I do? Buy an ancient air raid siren, perhaps more correctly called a civil defence siren. It took three people to lift it onto the back of the truck. The casing is solid brass, once it's cleaned up it should look pretty good. Don't know what it sounds like yet, it needs a bit of work. It will be very loud though!

Goodbye Goodnight

Two and a half months living on the bank of the Murray river has come to an end. We've picked the last bin of oranges and pruined the last grapevine. The stonefruit trees are blossoming and some of the vines in the district are stirring from their winter sleep. Now it's time for a break. Next week Jen flies to Taiwan to spend time with her family, and I'll be doing a little travelling, to New Zealand, Taiwan, Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland. It's perhaps a good time to leave, the weather is getting warmer, and in this part of the world a hot day can nudge 50 C or 122 F. The mosquitos are becoming braver and the barley grass is drying and will soon be embedded in socks and trousers.

Chinglish Part Twenty - Do It Yourself

It's been some time since my last Chinglish post, in fact any posting has been intermittent of late, we've been busy picking navel oranges and pruining wine grapevines. Jenny has been more diligent with our G&J blog, but it's for the most part all in Chinese for the benefit of our friends in Taiwan, and if your computer isn't set up for Chinese characters then all you'll see is a screen of oblongs, question marks or absolute jibberish, and if your computer is able to display Chinese characters, unless you are able to read them they might as well be oblongs or otherwise....... Just for a laugh I put part of her last post into one of the free online computer translators which are available,you just copy and paste the Chinese (or other language) text in one box, clickety click, and some english appears in the box below. Translating written Chinese into English is difficult at the best of times (believe me I know, although it's very good at improving your skills with a Chinese-English (as opposed to an English-Chinese) dictionary), hence the proliferation of Chinglish. Automated translation programs have obviously a long long way to go in their development. At present they seem to only make direct translations of the words or characters, and are unable to make allowances for differences in sentence structure.Below is the result of my experiment, which you may find amusing. It also explains a little of what we've been getting up to here in Goodnight. Actually the more I read it the more I like it - it fits into my Mandarin "mind" or "way of thinking", which sometimes can be quite poetic and beautiful, but at other times vexing, like bashing my head against bricks, and sometimes makes me wish I had taken on a second language as a child, but if I had I would not be where I am now,and where I am now is where I want to be, so it's all grand. Language is an amazing thing, but it can also be a kind of prison, especially when you posess only one, and one which is very localised and full of local colloqualisms loaded with meaning only for you and your contemporaries (this is tolerable for conversation, but can inhibit thought). Not only that - if I could speak Chinglish, this is very much what I would like to say........

Enters and is stationed in to this beautiful Goodnight small town already more than two months, with the outside exchange tool, (does not have signal nearby) besides side handset, (most time only receives Chinese and Indian Broadcasting station) with a 70's two short wave receiver, standard portable computer, although is unable to make something a matter of political line, but should also be enables us slightly with on the time footsteps! Few days ago, the orange recovery completed, starts to prune the vineyard the vine; This near 25 hectare farm, probably some 90% area is plants the Australian Big Brewery fermentation red and white liquor the grape. Compares, puts together the physical strength to pick the fruit work, comes with the trim grape vine compared to, the latter compares has the technical nature relatively, the step also relaxes many.Afternoon 4 o'clock put down work, strolls to turn back nearby the river valley farmhouse hut, detours sedulously to the big river bank nearby; Is willful walks in this piece of cover green forest footpath, the idle few person mark footpath disperses the intimidated Paris green grass, between the lawn is emitting many orange florets; In woods colorful parrot, unique melody of an aria magpie and mischievous willy wag-tail (All is the Australian primary birds), really many too numerous to cite individually….A small crowd of emerald lawn parrot. Really was fine spring day Ye ~ spring already does not have the sound to meet!Right front a veteran, some 2 huge kookaburra bird, the calm and steady seat on the treetop, leisurely and carefree the Mo stranger who sizes up my this outside areas to come…The kookaburra cry is extremely distant brightly, sounds apes and monkeys on likely the wooded mountain between! The native 暱 is called rain bird (rain bird), the fable kookaburra cry gets up, after three days can under the rain come! (Did not know in network meteorological observatory whether by chance refers to this ancient fable) nearly to lose quietly in this piece by the human put behind in the life plentiful woods, this rare experience, as if lets me be humbler at present to the life experience and the respect.Was pondering the body for modern people's we, wants individual image, to open anxiously in public's platform, longed for seeks does with the world big stage shares and links ~ is the experience share? Satisfies the desire which the human nature performance or steals peeps? Has the demarcation line? Demarcation line in where? Let us for the time being these no matter is real, perhaps or the hypothesized image, returns to primitively, lays down the final protective line, so only then is possible truely to be frank the comfortable life.

Grapevine Pruining

We are now grapevine pruiners! After the oranges finished the farm manager asked us if we would like to stay on and do some pruining. Great! Free digs by the river, and a change of pace work wise. We don't know how long it will last, but it's much better than picking small oranges!

I've also found a way to get online here without having to go to Swan Hill. If I park outside the Tooleybuc Motel I can sit in the car and recieve their wireless internet signal on my laptop.

Orange Picking in Goodnight

A Goodnight Story

Goodnight is a very quiet place. When you walk about the only things you hear are your own footsteps,your own breath, the rustling of your clothing, and birds. There are a lot of birds, parrots of varying shades of green, red, white and grey. Willy wag tails, kookaburras, currawong, apostles, cockatoos, ducks, kites, eagleshawks, wrens, ravens and more. We are staying on the banks of the Murray river, which has water from one bank to the other, but which flows in such a slow,lazy fashion that it makes no sound. Goodnight cannot be described as a town. It is more of a settlement, a loose gathering of homesteads. There is one shop, although it keeps short hours, which have yet to coincide with our passing. The main business of the area is cropping, wine grapes and oranges.

Goodnight Shopping

There are a dozen or so houses in the village, at least two of which are for sale. We looked in one, the front door was wide open. It's that kind of place. I haven't yet telephoned the agent to assertain the price, but I am curious.

House for sale in Goodnight

The nearest town is called Tooleybuc, around 10 kilometres to the south. The sign proclaims the population to be 275 souls. We need to drive there if we want to use our mobile telephones, as Goodnight is without coverage.Tooleybuc has a post office, a grocery and takeaway shop, a pub, a caravan park, a garage, a sports club, a school and a cemetary.
The navel oranges this year are plentiful but small. Plentiful is good, small is bad. They cannot be picked until they are completely dry, otherwise within a day or so from picking they develop brown marks where they have been touched by the fingers. As it is winter mornings are often dewey, if not foggy, so usually we don't begin work until around 10:30am, and work until whenever we please. As we are paid by the bin,this is usually close to dusk. Although the oranges are small, they are sweet and juicy. It's a fine thing to make good money picking inedible fruit such as unripe pears, but when you are making not such good money picking small fruit on limited hours,it is some small consolation that the fruit tastes good. You can't eat too much of it though. Well, you can, but you pay at the porcelain. During the first few days of a cherry picking season (november-december in the southern hemisphere) many pickers fall victim to "cherry belly"
Accommodation is provided here rent free by the farmer, which as I have said, is on the banks of the Murray. There are only a few other pickers, couples Ray and Raylene, Ron and Sharon, kiwi Jeff and Aussie Jim, Jim being a reformed heavy drinker who is constantly popping a fresh wad of nicotine gum into his mouth and claims to be able to speak passable Hindi. I am unable to verify this, so I take him at his word. There are a few other pickers who do not stay on the farm, and who work for contractors. A contractor is a middle man. A one man labour hire company. I don't work for a contractor, I work for the farmer, I am paid by the farmer. A group (always a group) of pickers working for a conractor have their arrangement with the contractor,the contractor has the arrangement with the farmer. This can be to the farmers advantage as he only needs to write one cheque to pay for many workers and doesn't need to worry about tax declarations or superannuation and work cover payments.He also doesn't need to bother himself as to whether the workers have the appropriate immigration status. Thus many contractors employ foreigners with dubious immigration status. Contractor gets the cheque, takes his cut then pays the pickers. I may have stated previously my opinion is that most contractors in the fruit industry are parasites. Here is an illustration. For the first couple of days of the season there was a group of Indian pickers here. They were working for an Afghani contractor. We are paid $25 for each bin of oranges we pick, plus 9% compulsary superannuation which is paid into a fund that can win or lose the money gambling on the sharemarket, and which the worker cannot access until retirement. The farmer was paying the contractor, for each bin, the $25, plus the 9%, plus a few cents for work cover,a form of insurance which pays a wage to an injured worker unable to work. This contractor was paying the Indians $15 per bin cash, and keeping the rest for himself. They were needless to say very upset. They asked the farmer if they could work directly for him. The farmer was sympathetic but could not help them because it meant breaking his agreement with the contractor. To be honest this is the most ruthless behaviour I have seen from a contractor. Many of them just employ illegal workers, and pocket the superannuation and work cover money. They make a tidy living doing little. Parasites. There are some honest contractors, but I haven't met many of them myself.
We don't have a television, however we do have a radio we purchased at a Shepparton garage sale for $1. It is a mighty fine 1970's SHARP 3 band radio cassette with auto stop. It has a tape counter, a REC/BATT meter,and a condenser microphone.

We don't posess any cassettes, except for the one which the unit had in the deck upon purchase,which exhibits what I recall might be called extreme wow and flutter, and may indeed have been in close proximity with a strong magnet. This makes listening so unpleasant that I am unable to even tell you what was on the tape. A collection of classic vinyl will always be a better thing than a collection of classic magnetic tape, even if extra moneywas spent at the time on "position II" and chrome cassettes. I never could tell the difference and can't now, although I don't feel particularly badabout the fact that I can't call myself a cassette connosiuer. I do intend however, when I am settled, to purchase the finest thermionic valveamplifier I can afford, and if the "warm" sound is not satisfactory reason enough, then for the "warm" glow of the valves to accompany the soft glowof the playfield and backboard of the classic pinball machine which will be stationed nearby. The mind wanders in the silence of a Goodnight evening. Back the the SHARP 3 band. The radio produced glorious monophonic sound. At least it did until it stopped working.I took it to pieces. 1970's Japanese radios are very well engineered and constructed. To get at the faulty switch I had to remove about twenty screws. After fixing the switch and replacing about fourteen screws we now have a mighty fine 2 band radio cassette with auto stop. The 2 bands are short wave 1 and short wave 2. AM seems to have been lost in the six screws I deemed to not be essential, however I doubt re-insertion of the six screws will restore AM reception, not that it was much good in the first place. Anyway, some of the screws have already been redeployed elsewhere, hanging makeshift curtains and such. This makes for interesting listening. Of a morning we have clear signals of both ABC AliceSprings and ABC Darwin. Of an evening, interestingly, we are able to recieve clearly several signals from China, including Beijing's english language service. We also are able to tune into Radio New Zealand, Indonesian radio, and on occasion transmissions from Papua New Guinea in pidgeon english, which is remarkably understandable and amusing to listen to.

To the groves

Another week spent in New Zealand, not long enough, people I should have caught up with but
didn't, but at least we made it to Timaru, Oamaru, Hanmer Springs, Kaikoura.
Back in Australia again, Orange picking
is due to start next tuesday, so busy packing
up our Shepparton digs in readyness for the
move to Goodnight on sunday.
Last time we were there cellphone reception was
non existant, and internet access is about an hours drive, so I might be out of touch for a time.

Plans can come together quickly sometimes. We have arranged a job picking navel oranges in an out of the way place called Goodnight, New South Wales, on the banks of the Murray river up the road from Tooleybuc. It's pretty isolated, we picked there five years ago, there was no cellphone reception, dirt roads, bad water. The job starts in early june so we've decided to head over to New Zealand for a week before it starts. Trans-Tasman flights are a bargain at the moment, even when booked at short notice.

The apple season is OVER!

The last apple was picked yesterday. So what now? Jen and I plan to pack up the car and head northwest, following the Murray river downstream. It's lined with citrus orchards and vinyards, all pumping water from damaged and depleted Murray. We hope to find work there, either picking oranges or pruning grapevines. First I think we'll rest for a few days.
I'll let you know how we get on.....

Hail damage on "rosy glow" apples, Lemnos, Shepparton

Went out to the patch with Bundaberg Bill to see whether or not it would be worth select picking the undamaged fruit, but with 90% of the crop damaged, the whole lot is destined to become baby food.
This fellow took a double hit - sunburnt in the summer heatwave, peppered by hail in the autumn - poor bugger never stood a chance.....