Today was fairly busy for me. I had five news bulletins to do for Australian Independent Radio News from midday to 5pm, which is two more than usual, as the news bulletins need to be on the FTP server about 20-30 minutes before they are due to air (to allow for the stations to download them) I have to start preperations for the first bulletin and the day at about 10:30. By doing this I am able to peruse the news of the day and see what audio is available and then decide what stories to run. Naturally I already have an overview of the news from my morning radio listening, but I still need to check what I can do for the day.
Anyway, I got out of bed a little bit later than I was expecting and had to delay Nattie’s first walk until after the first news bulletin. I then made myself a cup of coffee and continued with working on the 1pm bulletin. I did that and then decided that it might be a good idea to run an AFL Grand Final as the lead story in the 2PM bulletin. After checking with the news director I went ahead with this and also pre-recorded the 3pm bulletin so that I could take a lunch break.
The pre-recorded 3PM bulletin was a carefully worked out idea as I had to have the 3PM bulletin on the server just after the start of the AFL Grand Final, there would have been no chance of getting a score check in anyway, so it was logical to pre-record that bulletin and then run the other bulletins as per usual.
After lunch I went to work on the 4PM bulletin, and noticed that one of the stories had just developed further, so I re-wrote the story, and then recorded the bulletin leaving space for the quarter time score. As soon as the quarter time score was available I added it in and finalised the bulletin. It then became time for the 5PM bulletin, this was interesting as I wasn’t expecting the three-quarter time score to come through in time for the bulletin, so I recorded the bulletin with the half time score and then, just before I was going to upload it, three-quarter time arrived, so I wrote down the score and quickly came up with an extra line to describe the thrid quarter that would fit in with the existing story and recorded it, dropped it into the bulletin and rushed it onto the server.
After this I decided that it woul be a good idea for somebody to get hold of the post-match interviews and perhaps put together a report, which I did. I recorded the 3AW football stream and the channel 10 coverage. Personally I think that 3AW’s coverage of AFL has been better than Channel Ten’s coverage all year. With all these things being recorded I was free to take Nattie for her afternoon walk and then check in on the cat I am looking after temporarily.
At 7PM, with all of the audio recorded and ready for editing I had the fun of finding the interviews and the last few seconds of the match from the 3AW coverage. I also had dinner and was watching the NRL semi-final on TV whilst partially listening to the 2GB coverage (I can’t stand the TV commentators)…this was also something for which interviews were needed, so I recorded them as well (after the game). After this I wrote my AFL report and recorded it, dropped in the relevant audio clips and made it available for tommorows newsreaders. By this time it was close to 11PM…I had a long day…but an enjoyable one.
EDIT: It turns out that some of this may have been a waste of time as some things were simply not usable for legal reasons…
According to the Linux.Conf.Au 2006 organisers, there has been a massive number of submissions for LCA, so they have had to delay speaker notifications and attendee registrations.
The new dates are as follows:
September 28: Speaker Notifications Start
October 3: Speakers Announced
October 6: Program Announced
October 7: Early Bird (cheaper) Registrations Open
November 18: Early Bird Registrations Close (Prices Rise)
Naturally, registrations will close when places run out.
Congratulations, for some reason you have just landed on a website which, over the last week or so has turned into an absolute insane-o-thon…not that I mind…I have publicly declared myself insane on numerous occasions (with tongue in cheek of course) and as the tagline for the site does say “It’s just not normal”.
I thought I might release another one of my dreams. This one happened a few years ago and I recently developed it into a short story called The Fridge. It is probably filled with factual inaccuracies and strange events, but it is interesting none the less. So I now present for your reading pleasure…The Fridge…enjoy!
The Fridge
In the year 2197, people had discovered the joys of living in household appliances; families often lived in larger appliances such as ovens and washing machines. Two families lived in a dual-occupancy upside-down fridge/freezer in a suburb designed specifically for kitchen appliances, needless to say, the suburb was called Kitchen.
It was a hot summer day in Kitchen, but in the fridge, where Perry, Sylvia & Samuel lived, it was a very nice temperature, in fact, people had adapted to the normal temperatures of their appliances so well, that even ovens seemed just right to their occupants. It was breakfast time so Samuel walked in to the dining room of the fridge and sat down at the table.
“I had a strange dream last night.” Said Samuel as he reached for his cup of tea.
“Did you, what was it about?” Asked Sylvia
“Oh, it had a person named Todd who kept storming out saying that he couldn’t tolerate it anymore!” Explained Samuel
“Tolerate what?” Sylvia enquired
“I don’t know, he just kept storming out saying that, it was very strange.” Replied Samuel
“You’re not wrong about that.” Said Perry with a chuckle as he walked in to the dining room from the kitchen.
Just then, the power went out.
“I expect it will turn on again shortly.” Said Perry.
But by midday, the power hadn’t turned on again, and it was starting to get a bit hot in the fridge, so Perry, Sylvia & Samuel decided to visit their downstairs neighbours in the freezer.
The downstairs neighbours, Bob & Sally, were sitting on their ice lounge as a method of keeping cool.
“It will melt eventually you know.” Said Sally to Bob
“I know, but it is easy to rebuild, it’s just ice after all.” Explained Bob
“Ding Dong” The doorbell rang
“So that’s where those batteries went!” Exclaimed Bob as he got up to open the door.
Bob went to the door and greeted Perry, Sylvia & Samuel
“What brings you here?” He asked
“The heat.” Replied Perry
“Ah, fair enough.” Said Bob, waving them into the freezer frantically, “You better come in quickly, before all the cold air escapes from here too.” He continued.
Sally got out a pack of cards and everyone sat around the table for a while playing spades. However, the heat was starting to take over the freezer, and it was making everyone quite uncomfortable.
“That’s it!” Exclaimed Samuel “We’ll go through the electric system and find the fault.” he said.
“Good idea!” everyone replied.
“We’ll need to find the freezer plans then.” Sally explained.
Everyone started searching for the freezer plans, 20 minutes later Bob found them and Sylvia examined them for a few minutes and then went to get a pencil.
“Bob, get your chainsaw, Perry, get a mallet.” Sylvia said quickly before hurrying out of the room. When she returned she drew a large circle on the wall, which Bob then cut out with his chainsaw and Perry knocked out with a rubber mallet. Through the hole in the wall was a large dark tunnel.
“There, that is the power cord.” Said Sylvia pointing to the rather large hole.
“We’ll need torches.” Replied Sally
They all went to get torches and five minutes later were ready to go through.
The tunnel was long, dark and bendy with what looked like lights on the ceiling. The group walked along the tunnel as it wound its way around. After about 10 minutes, they reached the first power point, a man was sitting in a booth under a large switch, the group could see that the switch was turned on, but no power seemed to be reaching it.
“The power is out.” Said the booth attendant.
“We know.” Replied Perry, “Any idea what’s wrong?” he asked
“Apparently, the new generator at the snowy mountains hydro electric system has stopped, nobody around to fix it, seeing as it is a public holiday.” Was the reply from the booth attendant.
“I see, we’ll have to fix it then.” Said Samuel
“Good idea” replied Sylvia
The group continued walking through the tunnel.
“Thankyou.” They called out to the booth attendant.
“You’re welcome.” he called back.
The group continued to walk for a while; it was about 2 pm when they decided to stop for lunch. During this time the power came back on, the tunnel was filled with a bright white illumination and a humming noise. Suddenly, a huge blue shape came flying down one side of the tunnel.
“What’s that?” Sally asked.
“That is the electric train.” explained Samuel, “You simply jump on the track and you get swept to your destination in a few moments.”
All of a sudden, the power went out again, the tunnel was as dark as before, the humming stopped, and the trains stopped coming.
“Of course, it only works when the power is on.” Samuel continued.
After lunch they kept walking and at about 4 pm they reached the snowy mountains, they looked around for a little while.
“The turbine is stuck, I’ll go and unclog it.” Said Bob
“The main breaker has tripped as well, I’ll get ready to turn it back on.” Said Perry
Sally followed Bob, whilst Samuel and Sylvia followed Perry.
Bob and Sally unclogged the turbine, climbed back up to ground level, and called out to Perry. Perry was just starting to turn the switch on when Bob slipped. Bob, screaming, was falling into the turbine, Sally screamed out for help and everyone rushed over to help bob out, but before they could reach him, the switch slipped and turned on. The water came rushing through, ready to sweep Bob away. Bob was on the turbine as it started to spin, when it came around to the top Perry managed to grad Bob’s arm, but the water was to strong.
“I’ll go and turn the power off.” Shouted Samuel, although nobody quite heard him properly over the noise of the water.
Bob was slipping, he was only holding on by one hand, and was still slipping, four fingers, three, two. Just then, Samuel reached the switch and started to push it to the off position, but Bob was quickly running out of time, one finger, then, he lost contact all together, Perry managed to grab Bob’s shirt, but time was running out, the shirt was slipping, Bob fell. Just then, Samuel got the switch in to the off position, the water stopped, bob kept falling, the turbine kept spinning, but Bob fell through the turbine and landed safely on the ground beneath. He then climbed up the ladder on the wall and was greeted by everyone else. Everyone was relieved that Bob was OK and walked over to the switch and turned it back on.
They then caught the next electric train to the dual occupancy upside-down fridge/freezer where the temperature had returned to normal, and enjoyed a cup of coffee and a slice of well-deserved cake.
It has often been said (usually to me) that 2CC has too many Mikes and Johns and that it must be an employment condition…to these people I am now able to inform you that 2CC have added a new employment condition. 2CC are now filled with “Classic Aussies” who go on tour with the Kingswood which 2CC are giving away to celebrate their 30th birthday.
Mike Frame is commonly regarded as both a Mike and a Classic Aussie, but today a new Classic Aussie emerged, Kevin Wolf, Kevin is not a Mike or a John, but does talk about sport an awful lot, which seems to make him a Classic Aussie. I am reliably informed that there may be more on the way (more Classic Aussies that is, not more Kevins…not that it would be a bad thing)…we will just have to wait and see.
In the last couple of days, I have found Uncyclopedia, and encyclopedia filled with utter nonsense, mostly humourous. It is strangely entertaining and has some interesting insights. Just like Wikipedia, it is editable by anyone.
Anyway, regular readers would probably have worked out by now that my tastes in music are mostly planted in the not very recent (with one major crocodile exception). Uncyclopedia has a rather interesting definition of a Pop Star, which for modern music, I would find myself in agreement:
A person who makes a lot of noise that they call singing in the hope of making money which can then be wasted on useless things, so they are back where they started (only older). Sometimes pop stars join together in a group, so they can have fun making up gossip about each other and selling it to the tabloid press.
In “the good old days” pop singers actually made songs that had tunes and were memorable: now they just make a cacaphony.
I had a rather unusual dream the other night, so I thought I might share it with you.
For one reason or another, my family had started growing oranges on a playground that, in reality, no longer exists. All these other people, who I have never seen before, were helping with the orange growing. Dad never appeared in the dream (I think he was at work), but Mum did, she had to go down the street, so she did. While she was down the street, myself and the group of people growing oranges decided that they tasted more like pineapples, so we decided to sell them as tinned pineapple. For some reason the tinning (putting the oranges into tins) was done on a nearby roof. Mum came back and then had to go down the street again. I decided to check the letter box, on my way to the letter box I met one of my friend’s mothers, who told me she needed to get a post office box and the post office in Ainslie had run out (actually, I don’t think Ainslie has a post office, but this was a dream after all), I told her that I thought the small post office in Civic may have run our as well, but the Big post office should have a few spare, so she left and the dream ended.
Recently I’ve found myself using Google Earth to see what various things look like from space. This can be quite intriguing, it is often interesting to see what certain walking paths look like from space, and things that are quite big from my grounded perspective often look much more insignificant from space.
For example, here is a picture of Telstra Tower taken from a Hot Air Balloon:
And here it is from space:
This is all quite fascinating, but it also has problems, I personally find it a bit disturbing that I am able to get a picture of a New York intersection like this:
That is about as far as I can zoom in before the picture becomes pixelated, and it is much closer than I can zoom in on cities outside of the US, in fact, here in Canberra, this picture of Dickson College is about as close as I can get without pixelation:
These pictures can be quite useful and interesting, but I think that, for the general public, satellite photos that can zoom in on an intersection with pretty good clarity are a bit over the top.
Today is the first day of notifications for LCA 2006 speakers, this means that some time in the next week or so I will be informed whether or not one of my submissions has been accepted.
The emails that were sent out as confirmation of submission said that this would be a ten day process, whereas the LCA website says that the list of speakers will be published on the 25th of this month. I’ll keep you informed.
On a mildly related note, if you are after a laugh, have a look at the guidelines for passport photos. Why is this related? Well, if one of my submissions is accepted I’m going to need a passport. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with them, they are just entertaining.
A number of news outlets are reporting that an Australian professor has just rewritten the laws of trigonometry. Rather than using tools designed for circles, he uses squares and “spread”. Apparently the current system of trigonomtry is error prone, which doesn’t suprise me, but I’ve always been fascinated about what we (as a society and schools) would do if there was a major change in the way we carry out mathematical procedures. I’ve always felt that there was a time when we were very open to change in Science, Maths and English, but lately I feel we have become stubborn and these rules which may or may not be correct are bound into some kind of inflicted concrete. Perhaps it is just that there haven’t really been any major theoretical changes in my lifetime, sure computers have entered mainstream use, but it never seemed like a difficult thing to implement into classrooms, it happened gradually, helped in some ways by computer companies like Apple giving computers to schools for their own purposes, and in effect helping to bring a new generation into a new world.
Allow me to deviate slightly. Apple were very generous, particularly in parts of Australia where they gave schools a bunch of Apple Macintosh computers. Apple believed that students growing up with, and learning to use, Macintosh computers would grow up and continue to use Apple Macintosh. Although this wasn’t entirely unreasonable thinking, it wasn’t exactly correct. Microsoft, who Apple contracted to help write the first version of Macintosh (incredibly buggy by the way), then went and wrote Windows based on similar code for a different architecture. IBM and Microsoft had a bit of a partnership going with Windows and OS/2, however Microsoft did some evil things to IBM and released Windows 95, based quite firmly on OS/2 code, whilst retaining backward compatibility with older versions of Windows. Windows 3.11 (and previous) applications were able to run on OS/2, but Microsoft weasled out of their obligations with IBM and manged to give them a solid push into a downward spiral. By locking OS/2 out of running Windows 95 applications, they effectively drove nails into the coffin of a very good Operating System. Windows 95 was also the first Windows to look like Macintosh, and with the combination of code from Mac and OS/2, Microsoft obviously thought they had won the war, unfortunately (or fortunately I suppose) they were in such a rush that they botched the OS and left it filled with bugs and security issues that they have never been able to fix. The current incarnation of Windows continues the line of work that started with these rushed combinations, and it has become quite apparent that the people at Microsoft really don’t know how to write a decent Kernel or Operating System. It may be dominant, but it is far from perfect, and fixing it would break all the existing Windows applications, so they can’t do that…catch 22.
Anyway, back to Trigonometry and educational change. It seems that teachers and textbooks all rely on the existing rules, and even simplifactions and clarifications to these rules take time to be implemented. Apparently the new rules of trigonometry will make calculations easier and more accurate, so I do hope that they are understood and implemented soon. Due to the inherently simpler nature of the newer rules, I wouldn’t expect much retraining will be required for people who use and teach the existing rules, the thing that will take time, however, will be the implementation of the new rules in people’s heads.
After a while, the notion of how to utilise trigonometry becomes second nature, and that is the tricky bit. Whilst you can learn a new way to do something, it is not always easy to actually do it the new way when it comes to the time that you need to do it. In fact, that takes a lot longer, and that is what will slow down the implementation of the new rules.
The same thing happened with the conversion from imperial meaurements to metric measurements. People still talk in yards, pounds and inches because those are the measurements that are second nature to them. Mind you, I think there would be greater resistance to a measurement system change now than there was when we changed from imperial to metric, mainly due to that stubborness I mentioned earlier.
The mathematical study of triangles has just got a whole lot simpler, according to a researcher who says his new theory of trigonometry is easier to use and more accurate.
Associate Professor Norman Wildberger, of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, says his theory of “rational trigonometry” is more like algebra as you can plug numbers into an equation and get an accurate result.
“We’re going to look at trigonometry in a new way,” says Wildberger.
“We’re going to leave sines and cosines to the circular motion part of mathematics and not force it on triangles.”
Wildberger says the trigonometry we know and love (or hate) today has its historical roots in the work of ancient astronomers, like Ptolemy, who studied the motion of planets.
In this case, the angle between two points in the sky, as seen from Earth, was a reasonable way of calculating the distance between them, he says.
But, says Wildberger, the problem came when others applied these theories, developed for spherical geometry, to the study of flat triangles.
“It’s all very well to do if you’re working on a sphere or a circle but when we actually study triangles there aren’t any circles there,” he says.
New concepts
The key purpose of trigonometry is to understand the relationships between the corners and sides of triangles.
It is used in areas like surveying, engineering and construction today.
Classical trigonometry calls the separation between two lines an “angle”, which is the length of a circular arc between two lines.
An angle can be calculated using an equation that relates the corners of a triangle (using the concepts of sine, cosine or tangent) to the length (distance) of the side opposite it.
But Wildberger says that distance is not the best way to measure the separation of two points and angle is not the best way to measure the separation of two lines.
“It’s not the concept that leads to a mathematics that is the most pleasant and the most useful and the most accurate,” he says.
Instead of distance, Wildberger’s trigonometry uses a concept called “quandrance”, the square of distance.
Instead of angle, he uses the concept of “spread”, calculated by dividing one quadrance by another.
The spread between two lines is a number between 0 (representing parallel lines) and 1 (representing lines at right angles).
Wildberger says it would be possible to make a new protractor that measures spread instead of angle.
You would then plug the values for the quadrance and spread into his set of equations.
More accurate
What’s better about the system, says Wildberger, is that all the terms in the equations can be calculated exactly, or are “rational”, hence the term for his new theory, “rational trigonometry”.
But sine, cosine and tangent, are usually only approximated, he says, making them “transcendental functions”.
This means that any complex calculation using classical trigonometry could result in a significant accumulation of errors.
Wildberger says he hopes that “rational trigonometry” will provide high school students with a simpler way of thinking about triangles that is both more accurate and easier to carry out.
And he says the improved accuracy will be important elsewhere such as in GPS surveying or when engineers design devices.
Wildberger says he developed the new theory while studying more complex maths.
“It wasn’t that I set out to do this. It was just a fluke, in a way, that I realised ‘Hey these ideas can change elementary trigonometry’.”
Wildberger’s book, Divine Proportions: Rational Trigonometry to Universal Geometry, published by Wild Egg books, is launched this week.
Regular readers might remember from the comments on this post, that I’m not a huge fan of John Mangos. I must say however, that in the last few days I have begun to like him. It does usually take me a few days to get to like him again, either that or it takes him a few days to settle in. In the last few days I think his presentation has changed slighty, possibly more towards the comments I made in that post about how I would run an afternoon show. Maybe TinMan passed on the message?
Anyway, you may also recall from that post that John Stanley had a caller make a bet with him. If John Stanley could avoid saying “good on you” for an entire show, the caller would dress up in a chicken suit and wave a Dragons flag by the side of a busy road near the St. George Leagues Club. John Stanley only just managed to survive that bet, and the caller followed through on his part of the deal, as can be seen in these photos from the 2UE website.
I’ve been noticing a few things over the last few days. 2UE are definetly still settling in to their new studios, and the presenters/panel operators have had a lot of fun. There have been plenty of incorrect sounds playing, callers that seem to invoke strange noises, and the best mistake of all last night.
2CC’s ads weren’t playing last night, which meant that John Kerr’s little accident was quite audible, he managed to leave his or one of his guests microphone on during an ad break. Normally this would be difficult to hear as the ads would have drowned out the noises in the studio, but because there were no ads, the minimal bits of noise prevented the emergency tape from kicking in, and we were able to hear John Kerr talking to his regular guests Simon & Dale (who review movies and other related things every 2nd Monday at 1am) about their thoughts of the new studios, he was also informing them of the details of a movie screening that he had invited them to. This was just before the 2am news and it was quite entertaining hearing the people moving around the studio as you could quite clearly hear them moving closer to, and further away from, the microphone. Eventually we heard the producer in the distance saying something, followed by running noises and then the microphone turned was turned off, leaving us with silence and then the emergency tape.
I have also noticed over the last few days that the pulse which starts the ad breaks is arriving before the audio, sometimes by as much as two seconds, which leads to ads talking over the top of the presenters. Also the 2UE promos are often audible in the background as they return from the ad breaks.
Interestingly John Laws went to take a call this morning and somehow set off the 2UE news theme, which not only confused and entertained John, it probably sparked mass confusion amongst relay station staff who would have looked at the clock to double check the time. I certainly checked the clock on the computer I was using at the time.
George Gibson was plagued with computer issues the other night, 2CC had their pre-news intros, followed by the time beeps and then no news theme, 2UE’s news started and then mysteriously switched to 3AW news, they didn’t send a pulse at the end of the news so there was 15 seconds of dead air and 15 seconds of backup tape, followed by something rather odd, a pulse and the 2CC news theme, with George Gibson talking because his intro didn’t play and his computer wasn’t behaving, which seemed to prevent him from taking phone calls. He took an ad break (which suprisingly played an ad break and not the missing weather on 2CC) and then at the end of the ad break George played his intro and was able to take phone calls again.
I’m sure these issues will be worked out eventually, but for now they produce quite a bit of entertainment for people like me.
Broadband Over Powerline (BPL) is an exciting new technology that utilises the existing powerlines to bring broadband Internet access to every home with a connection to the elctricity grid. BPL is really just a new adaption of existing Power Line Communication technology used in such things as home automation.
The alternating current that currently uses the power lines operates at 50-60 Hz depending on your location, whilst the newer BPL signals operate at around 1-30 MHz and can bring speeds of up to 2.7Mbit to homes. Whilst this is certainly a clever technology, it has certain issues.
Some people may have already worked this out simply from reading the above, but I’ll explain it anyway. Powerlines tend to be unshielded and untwisted, making them perfect antennas, and this also means that they are very good at creating radio frequency interference.
The main problem with BPL is the enourmous amount of interference that it does create, in some cases blocking out AM radio frequencies, as well as some amateur, government and defence frequencies. There have been reports of interference to the FM frequencies as well, although I find that slightly harder to believe.
Considering that virtually every suburban power line would be acting as a radio transmitter, the concerns of people in the radio industry (especially amatuer radio entusiasts) are quite understandable.
It’s not all bad news though, as the FCC and the ACMA (formerly known as the ABA) have released rules requiring “notching” of the frequencies used by BPL to avoid the interference. The majority of the BPL systems that are capable of notching frequencies operate at mainly higher frequencies and are therefore capable of higher speeds, it is expected that they will be able to provide speeds in excess of the 24Mbit potentially provided by ADSL2+
The important thing for now is making sure that the regulators are kept up to date on what interference is occuring, and to make sure that the electricity companies know that they can’t take shortcuts and create unacceptable interference.
BPL will be the way of the future, potentially providing much more than just Internet access, but it is important that it is setup in the correct manner, and the only way to ensure that is to keep a close eye on the regulators and the companies involved. I for one don’t want to lose AM radio, FM may be technologically superior, but I find AM has many benefits, including it’s incredible ability to “bounce” for incredibly long distances at night. People don’t seem to realise that AM radio is capable of stereo transmissions, or that digital radio will probably use frequencies currently used by AM radio. Certainly FM is better at reproducing music, but it is more suceptible to frequency drift.
I’m sure John B1_B5 understands the theory behind AM and FM better than I do and will hopefully be able to explain things a bit more clearly and correct any mistakes I may have made. I’ll admit that I don’t really understand the theory behind AM and FM radio very well, but I’ve done my best…
Anyway, I’m all for BPL, as long as it is implemented in a correct and cautious manner.
The little crocodile has bitten back, climbing to ninth spot on the ARIA singles chart after getting down to twelve. This is the 11th week in the charts for Schnappi.
This week the award goes to David Gordon Kirkpatrick AO, better known as Slim Dusty. There are tow songs that always spring to mind for me when I think of Slim Dusty, When The Rain Tumbles Down In July and A Pub With No Beer. I have chosen the latter as the feature song:
Well it’s lonesome away from your kindred and all
By the camp fire at night, Where the wild dingos call
But there’s nothin’ so lonesome dull or so drear
Than to stand in the bar of a pub with no beer
Now the publican’s anxious for the quota to come
There’s a far away look on the face of the bum
The maids got all cranky and and the cooks acting queer
What a terrible place, is a pub with no beer
Then the stockman rides up with his dry dusty throat
He presses up to the bar and pulls a wad from his coat
But the smile on his face quickly turns to a snear
As the barman says sadly, “The pubs got no beer”
Now there’s a dog on the veranda for his master he waits
But the boss is inside drinkin’ wine with his mates
He hurries for cover and he cringes with fear
It’s no place for a dog, round a pub with no beer
And old Billie the Blacksmith, the first time in his life
Why he’s gone home cold sober to his darling wife
He walks in the kitchen she says your early Bill dear
But then he breaks down and he tells her “The pub’s got no beer”
So it’s lonesome away from your kindred and all
By the camp fire at night, Where the wild dingos call
But there’s nothin’ so lonesome dull or so drear
Than to stand in the bar of that pub with no beer
Incidentally, when Slim Dusty recorded that song in 1957, it was the first Australian single to ever go gold.
