Baby Charles – hot retro-funk

These guys are terrific. I’ve only just started listening to them — I downloaded their album “Baby Charles” from emusic.com a few days ago and it’s high on the playlist. They’re an eight-piece band, fronted by singer Dionne Charles. I guess they are a bit like Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings, but with a much rougher sound. There aren’t many decent videos available on YouTube — mostly just parts of songs from live performances, but this item from RECmag.com is a pretty good intro to them (French subtitles).

Actually, there’s a better quality version of this video on the RECmag.com site.

I saw Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings at WOMAD last year. It was a really hot live show — better than the records. I might post the photos.

How to tell if your cat is plotting to kill you

Some humour for the ladies

My wife found these amusing. I can’t see the joke, myself. Don’t we all do this? 🙂

Orcas in the Bay

There was a great deal of excitement in Pukerua Bay this afternoon as a pod of orca swam through. We hosted the pre-Christmas family barbeque at our place this year, and after we’d eaten all the food, decided to go for a swim as it was such a hot day. We were lying around at the beach – the kids were in the water and there were a couple of dingies and kayaks in the bay. I was looking towards some rocks at the southern end, when I saw a large dorsal fin come into view from behind a rock. We don’t really get sharks around here – not that I know of, anyway — so I guessed it was an orca. In fact there were three of them — two large ones and smaller one (probably a juvenile). They would have been after food. Stingrays are one of their favourite prey, and there are plenty around at the moment (my sister-in-law almost stood on one when she was in the water).

They swam around about 50 meters off shore, and at one point one of them swam towards a swimmer who was swimming very quickly back to shore! They breached several times, and I tried to get some photos of them when they were doing it, although I was probably too far away for get good shots.

In fact, there were more than three. My father-in-law and his partner turned up just after we got back from the beach and told us they had seen at least four, and maybe six, orcas a few hundred metres up the coast as they drove to our place. All very exciting.

Apparently there are fewer than 200 orcas in New Zealand waters. A New Zealand scientist, Dr Ingrid Visser, has been following them for several years, and she has managed to identify more than 160 individuals. Her site Orca Research.org has lots of interesting info about them. Te Ara Encyclopedia of NZ also has some good NZ info about them.

The orcas first appear around the point

The first one breaches

Then it turns back for the calf

The calf catches up with the adult (its mother?)

Synchronised breaching

The calf is staying close to the adult

Some boaties go out to talk to the guy who was sitting on the raft as the orcas swam past

They are now close to where many people swim. Just out of shot is someone frantically swimming for shore! When the orcas arrived, the swimmer was further from the shore than the orcas are in this photo (about 50 metres from shore)

Blog Action Day 2008

This looks worth supporting. The theme of this year’s Blog Action Day is “Poverty”.

One of the campaigns this is supporting is the Kiva programme. I hadn’t heard of Kiva until a couple of weeks ago when Kate told me about it after hearing an interview on the radio (Radio NZ National – excellent public radio station I used to work at). However, I have heard of something like it. I did an interview in the early 1990s with a person who was working with the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in association with women’s groups there. They would organise “microloans” from the bank for women to allow them to purchase materials or supplies for their own businesses. It might be a machine of some sort – say, a sewing machine for making garments – or seeds to plant a crop. The loans were normally very small, e.g. US$5 (worth a lot more 25 years ago), and would be repaid without interest at the end.

Kiva is very similar to this. While US$20 might buy a couple of us a nice meal in a cafe, in many countries it will be a significant investment in a small business. Crucially, it allows people to borrow without the usurious interests rates normally charged on small loans.

Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

Not wanting to rush into things

Let’s see; I joined My Opera in 2004 but did nothing on the site until now. I’m obviously not a person to make a sudden commitment. Actually, I’ve been a little disappointed with other on-line activities, although I realise that’s my fault. My intermittently-active ‘political’ blog has been having a very long rest, Facebook is good for keeping in touch (just lightly) with those friends you don’t seen very often, and I only joined Bebo so I could spy on the kids.

So, let’s see I can make this a genuine ‘personal’ blog. One can only try.

I’ll start by loading a few photos in a photo album.