Category Archives: Adelaide

Upcoming Adelaide Events IV: Adelaide Fringe

If the Adelaide Fringe seems to have come around pretty quick this time that’s because it used to be every two years, but now they’ve changed it to an annual event. The program is out and I have to say that after a quick skim I’m a little underwhelmed. Now partly this can be put down to my narrow interests – I really didn’t look much beyond the music listings, but even there while there was plenty that sounded OK there was nothing that really grabbed me. There is one notable exception which I found hiding in the Writing section, Erosophy, billed as free jazz and spoken word. It’s on Sunday March 18 at 4pm at Club 199 on Nth Terrace, tickets are $15/$10.

I should also throw in a plug for the guys from Unstoppable Huxtable who are putting on a show called [Interrobang]. I didn’t see their last production, but have thoroughly enjoyed their fundraising quiz nights (especially the time we won loads of ice tea).
Also I see that Neo, a nice bunch of chaps from Darwin who I’ve crossed paths with a few times before, are heading back to town (trivia: I used to play in a band with someone who used to play with them. Hint – he’s in the blogroll). They are Fringe regulars with their “Funk’n’roots” as it is descibed in the guide. They play at the Crown & Sceptre, the Festival Centre Piano Bar and the Wheatsheaf on March 23 (9pm), 25 (9pm) and 27 (3:30pm) respectively.

I’d provide links to those events but they seem to have forgotten to put the Fringe Guide on the website. At least they do have info on the opening night party which is usually a great event, though it doesn’t seem to have a parade as usual, and it is on a Thursday rather than Friday in another break with tradition.

Apart from that I’d like to throw it open – tell me what I missed, from the music section or elsewhere. What’s worth going to at the fringe? Recommendations in comments please.

(Note You may have noticed an edit here. I may some flippant comments about a show based on the ad in the guide. One of the artists has stopped by on another thread and very generously offered free tickets to the show so I can reconsider my opinion after actually seeing it. I’m not able to take up that offer (you may have noticed that I haven’t had time to write about anything lately), so I thought that if I’m not going to give an informed opinion it’s only fair to edit out the comments, especially since it turns out that this page was appearing very prominently in google searches for the show – I certainly didn’t intend for off the cuff comments on something rather outside the scope of this blog to end up as a defacto review.)
Update: I’ve a had a tip on something from the Visual Arts section:
Intent INTENT is an exciting exhibition extravaganza. Tents and interior spaces creating hybrid works and new collaborations with light, projections, photography, painting, sculpture, writing and sound installations.
The featured arists are Brigid Noone, Annika Evans, Mary-Jean Richardson, Mark Niehus, Lachlan Pierce, Zoe Marr, Kahl Hopper, Debra Vranek, Dirk Vroemen and Henry. The opening is on March 16 5pm-9pm, and then it is open until March 31 with opening times 1pm-5pm on March 17-18 and 24-5, and 3pm-7pm the other days. It’s free and is at the Queens Theatre, Playhouse Lane (cnr Gilles Arcade)

Coast to Coast

Adelaide cyclists might be interested in the Coast to Coast ride from Glenelg to Victor Harbor which is coming up in a couple of weeks. I’m considering it but I don’t know that I’m sufficiently prepared – after being sick last week, and then with hot weather this weekend, I haven’t been out riding much, and I haven’t done a ride of that length before, and haven’t done riding in the hills … but I should start on that this week at least. So anyway, Coast to Coast is looking unlikely for me but I’ll report back when I’ve conquered Mt Lofty by bike!

Update: The forecast is for 40 degrees! I’m glad I decided not to go. Good luck to my almost-teammates: The Don, Beetroot & Scares.

Update II: Sensibly the event has been cancelled due to the extreme weather.

Upcoming Adelaide Events III: Adelaide Film Festival

The full program is out for the Adelaide Film Festival, as usual there is lots of interesting stuff. I had some admittedly unrealistic hopes for My Name is Albert Ayler in the music docs section, and for something new from Eric Rohmer in the World Cinema selection, but neither of those was ever really likely. If you have the time I suggest a 5 or 10 film pass (which come with 1 or daytime tickets respectively), though individual session tickets are also available.

Here’s some of the films that have caught my attention:

Bamako puts the World Bank and IMF on trial

The Bothersome Man “Not far beneath the clever surface of this film, you will find a cry of despair that will be familiar to anyone who has ever spent more than an hour in an Ikea showroom.”

Infamous the same story as Capote, which I thought was excellent. I’m curious to see a different account of the same events.

Lunacy, it’s years since I’ve heard anything about surrealist animator Jan Svankmajer. I really loved his versions of Alice and Faust, though this one doesn’t sound quite so appealing to me.

Modern Love, gothic Australiana. Could be worthwhile.

One Fine Day offbeat French comedy. I need to get to a at least a couple of French ones to help with my efforts to learn French.

Private Fears in Public Places new film by Alain Resnais, the Nouvelle Vague director who was responsible for the brilliant Last Year at Marienbad and Hiroshima Mon Amour

Special “A very select group of people in life are truly gifted. Special is a movie about everyone else.”

West drama set in the “suburban badlands west of Sydney”. I come from the western suburbs of Sydney … don’t know about “badlands” though! Might check this out.

Dr Strangelove or How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb truly one of the greatet movies of all time. I’ve probably seen it enough times that I’ll not see it here, but anyone who hasn’t seen it should!

First on the Moon I’m quite curious about this unusual sounding film about the Soviet Union and the space race.

What the Future Sounded Like documentary about pioneers of British electronic music, sounds great.

Black Gold a look at the global coffee trade that should have you buying fair trade from now on.

A Sunday in Hell one for the cyclists.

I do have one gripe about the festival – all of their advertising is a huge rip-off of The Residents who, while not exactly a household name, have been around for over 30 years, and have been using the eyeball masks for around 25 years.

Desalination Plant for Adelaide

This week the South Australian opposition leader proposed a desalination plant for Adelaide, more detail here as well.

The model for the proposal is the recently constructed desalination plant in Perth. This plant has some excellent features, it uses reverses osmosis which is the most energy efficient method that we currently have for desalination, and it is powered by renewable energy (a wind farm). So why don’t I agree with the proposal?

The motivation seems to largely be political point scoring – trying to be populist by saying that they can get rid of the water restrictions. The overall goal has to be sustainability in our use of water resources. Our supply of fresh water is limited, so it is very tempting to make some more from the vast expanse of salt water nearby, but we have to realise that there is an energy cost involved in this. Often evaluations of whether a desalination plant is worthwhile compare the monetary cost of water from different options, but this fails to take into account that the cost of the energy used in desalination may increase. Really it is a matter of shifting from one resource (water) to another (energy), and while there may be instances where this is a sensible move (perhaps in Perth, but I don’t know enough about the situation there. The small scale plant at Rottnest Island certainly sounds reasonable). The opposition’s motivation here ignores the need for sustainability, rather they want everyone to continue with our current water usage – in particular they mention keeping our gardens green – but we have to think about whether sustaining gardens consisting of plants unsuitable for our environment is a sensible use of our energy resources.

If a desal plant was to be powered by renewable energy then why would this be a problem? We have to consider our overall energy usage. To deal with global warming we need to greatly restrict our CO2 emissions, and realistic models on how to do this involve a combination of the use of renewable energy, and a decrease in energy use via increased efficiency. Is it efficient using desalination to provide water? At the moment we are very wasteful in our use of water resources – and this is exactly a problem that water restrictions address. Rather than desalinating seawater to water our gardens we should reconsider what sort of gardens we should have. We should use rainwater tanks, and recycling of grey water, recycling of stormwater using wetlands (as is done by the City of Salisbury) and so on. We should make the most of the water that comes naturally first. Essentially I think that the task ahead of us in dealing with our energy usage is difficult enough as it is, without compounding it by using it to solve our water problems.
It may appear that some water recycling methods / tanks etc are more expensive, but these are long term solutions for achieving sustainability, rather than the band-aid solutions of desal which relies on our uncertain energy future, and if used to enable continued inneficient usage of water will eventually lead us back to the same point anyway – so why not look at reducing usage now, rather than getting more water. As we are forced to cut emissions energy will be more expensive, and any economic advantages of desal may be eroded. We can’t just keep getting more water by using more energy – this is not sustainable!
I should point out that in the News Ltd article linked above, it is mentioned that the Liberals’ policy also includes recycling of grey water and rain water tanks – this is commendable.

It has also been suggested that this plan would help the Murray River, however the impact of taking 45 GL per year from seawater, while a large amount compared with the 119 GL per year we take from the Murray, is very small compared with the 12903 GL taken in total from the Murray-Darling system (source, pdf). This is not to say that reducing our usage from the river is not a good thing, but I don’t think that Adelaide has a large enough impact to use it as justification for a desal plant, rather we should efficiently use the rain that falls in the Mount Lofty ranges and Adelaide plains.

There is one other aspect that I would like to consider briefly – is there a significant detrimental environmental impact from a desal plant? At least one Adelaide marine biologist thinks so. It is easy to think that the sea is so huge that we can’t do that much damage, but I imagine that when people started building smokestacks they didn’t imagine that we would have a significant impact on the atmosphere. The problem here is that there could be some rather large local effects. As anyone who has been to an Adelaide beach would know, the Gulf St Vincent isn’t exactly the open ocean, so the salt removed might stay in the area. This could affect local ecosystems and the long term operation of the plant if its intake was increasingly saline. These problems aren’t necessarily insurmountable but could present some extra hurdles.

What are you doing for Australia Day?

Or so the TV ads ask. I guess the government have changed agencies or it would have been “what the bloody hell are you doing?”. I’m really not too sure why they feel the need to advertise it anyway, so people don’t accidentally go to work tomorrow? I think everyone will notice a public holiday, and will probably work out what it’s for. If they need to advertise a public holiday I think it’s the October long weekend, no-one ever seems to know what that’s about. I suppose it might be Labour Day, which would mean the coalition wouldn’t be so keen on advertising it.

Anyway, since the ads have posed the question I’ll answer it, ANTaR SA are holding a community picnic on the lawns beside Tandanya, here is their flyer for the event. It starts from 5pm and will include food, music and guest speakers from the new Aboriginal Alliance Coalition Movement.

Afterwards I’ll be going to Melvofest as previously mentioned.

Almost forgot – throughout the day and into the evening remember that 3d radio will have their top 100+1 for 2006

Tour Down Under: Stage 5

Today it all comes to what should be an exciting conclusion with Elmiger just 1 second ahead of Menzies, and a number of other riders within seconds of the lead as well.

There is more wind & rain in Adelaide today, and I left my bike on the other side of town, so it looks like I’ll be reporting back from in front of the TV rather than from the race. Well done to 10 for showing the final stage live, next time a nightly highlights package would be great as well though.

UPDATE 13:45 CST – The race is underway, looks like plenty of people weren’t put off by the weather and have gone out to see it. On the TV coverage Phil Liggett was commenting on the uncharacteristic Adelaide weather and suggested, as the riders went alongside the Torrens, that in normal conditions here everyone would be wanting to jump in for a swim! He obviously hasn’t seen it up close then.

UPDATE 14:12 CST – Getting close to the first sprint, just over a lap. The UniSA team are all up front and aren’t letting anyone get away, so they can get their man Karl Menzies a time bonus to put him back in front of the GC. Current GC leader Elmiger isn’t far off the front.

14:23 CST – Elmiger won the sprint! His AG2R team attacked the UniSA riders on Montifiore hill and from there Elmiger sat on Menzies’ back wheel down to the sprint, while there was a bit of confusion at the UniSA riders tried to ensure that Menzies would get the points, Elmiger made a move up the outside around McEwen who was also in there. Unfortunately for Menzies his teammate Allan Davis looks to have crossed second (despite a desperate last minute attempt to pull his bike back), so Elmiger should have extended his lead by a couple of seconds. The next sprint will be on lap 12, the UniSA boys are going to need a big effort to keep Menzies in it.

14:46 CST – Brochard won the second sprint to give him a good lead in the points classification (which appears to be a blue, rather than green, jersey). He was part of a 12 man breakaway which didn’t include anyone from the head of the GC. There was also a KOM but it wasn’t really contested and didn’t involve anyone who could threaten current KOM leader Dumoulin .

Now the field are all back together.

15:22 CST – McEwen won the final sprint but there is a chance of a protest, so it’s not official yet. There is no doubt, however, that Martin Elmiger is the overall winner with a lead of 3 seconds over Karl Menzies, thanks to his fantastic sprint on the eighth lap, and also his third place finish yesterday.

FINAL RESULTS (almost) – it’s official, Robbie McEwen is the stage 5 winner. Laurent Brochard was the best sprinter, Simon Clarke the best you rider, and SouthAustralia.com/AIS were the best team. I’m not sure whether Serge Pauwels or Samuel Dumoulin is the King of the Mountains – it is all a bit confusing because there was a sprint for it on the wrong lap.

UPDATE: I can confirm that Pauwels did win KOM.

Tour Down Under – Stage 4

I abandoned my plans to go and watch stage 4 down at Willunga due to the wet (and sometimes rather wild) weather today. So that means I can’t report back in person unfortunately, but as usual there is live coverage online.

The riders are just heading for the big KOM climb, with all of the GC leaders in the peloton. Sounds like there’s a storm on the way, we’ve had some pretty strong winds here in Adelaide, hopefully they all make it safely down to the finish line.

Hans Dekkers (Agritubel) won the first sprint today with Laurent Brochard (Bouygues Telecom) second. The two then swapped positions for the second sprint. This gives Brochard a nice lead in the points classification.

UPDATE 15:03 CST – It’s pouring down here but apparently not at Willunga where they didn’t get the storm that was threatening. The top 3 were Pieter Ghyllebert (Chocolade Jacques – Topsport Vlaanderen), Sergey Lagutin (Navigators Insurance Cycling Team), Martin Elmiger (AG2r Prevoyance).

Karl Menzies was in the lead group, but Elmiger’s 2 second time bonus puts him in the Ochre jersey with a lead of 1 second! Looks like there’ll be some action tomorrow around the North Adelaide circuit.

Also the top KOM points for today’s stage went to Julian Dean (Credit Agricole).

Upcoming Adelaide Events II: Melvofest

Some people may have wondered what the hell Melvofest was when I mentioned it in this post, since it is not quite as well known as the other events in the list but I never miss it and consider it to be a major event on the Adelaide calendar.

This year it will be held at the Prince Albert on January 26 and the lineup is

9-9.30 WOMEN MOVING FURNITURE
9.30-10 HOLOGRAPHIC COLTS
10-10.30 HOME FOR THE DEF
10.30-11 SWEET RAXXX
11-11.45 BATRIDER
11.45-12.15 TERRANCE DICKS
You can read more about Melvo and his various activities here

Tour Down Under: Stage 3

It sounds like all sorts of things have been going on today, the commentary is rather funny so just go and read the whole lot yourself. The results are

– Both sprints were won by Viktor Rapinski (Navigators Insurance Cycling Team)

– KOM was won by Gianpaolo Cheula (Barloworld)

– The overall winner was Baden Cooke (Unibet.com)

Looks like all of the lead group were well back in the general classification so not too much should change there. If all the GC leaders are together in the peloton then Karl Menzies will hold the Ochre jersey by a margin of just 1 second from Martin Elmiger with the top 10 all within about 1 minute.

Tomorrow’s climb in Willunga could be the big deciding moment. If the wet weather keeps up I might not make it down there to watch though, since I’m not particularly keen on riding around in the rain. I’ll brave the weather for Sunday’s final stage if necessary though.

Upcoming Adelaide Events I: WOMADelaide

Around Jan-March is usually a busy and interesting time in Adelaide with things like the Adelaide Festival (not this year though), the Fringe Festival, the Tour Down Under, Melvofest, The Adelaide International Film Festival, WOMADelaide, Big Day Out, state elections (yes, I find elections interesting, but we already had that last year so not until 2010 for the next one) …. so I intend to blog about a few of this which are happening this year. As you can see I’ve already started on theTDU, I won’t bother with the BDO since I find the lineup to be quite lacklustre (a shame, I was looking forward to it after last year’s was so good), don’t know much about the Fringe yet – which has just changed to every year instead of every two years.

So I’ll start with WOMAD. I’ve only been to that once because it is pretty pricey – but that isn’t to say it’s a rip-off. The one time I did go was very enjoyable. This year I definitely plan to go , quite possibly for all three days. The lineup is here.

A few highlights for me:

– I’d love to see the Kronos Quartet, they are playing with Bollywood star Asha Bhosle and Wu Man (jeez, it’s a shame Brett Lee will be in the West Indies for the World Cup or he could have joined in)

– I’ve heard lots of good things about Gotan Project

– Femi Kuti, son of Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti.

– Sambasunda: an Indonesian gamelan orchestra, that is something I have to see

– Shivkumar and Rahul Sharma in a father and son santoor showdown, the santoor being a 100 string instrument apparently.

There are more announcements to come (some reggae would be good!).