Sanatorium Lake

Sanatorium Lake July 2006 | Filed under Photos, Water | Comments (1)

I spent June up at my folks' place in Mount Macedon, reminiscing about the days I used to go to school in conditions like this. It makes me cold just thinking about it: mist and sleet from April to September, itchy woollen stockings, donut jam on my school tie... There's a better, bigger version of this on Flickr, as well as a couple of others from the same afternoon.

Views from the Floor

Stitzy says:

This is a beautiful pic Virg. I also love it up there. I can also thoroughly recommend the hike around the top of Mt Macedon too - 15kms of awe-inspiring green. Just don't do it when it's too cold or snowing. New York is sticky and hot. I'm currently seeking air con respite in the Mac store in SoHo - it is heaven! Just thought you'd like to know. Stitzy x.

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This sentence is not modelled on a luxury yacht

11 January 2008
Filed under Language, Text, The Media

People paid up to $US100,000 ($A115,000) for the inaugural Singapore Airlines A380 flight last year, in which first class suites with real beds were modelled on luxury yachts, after wiring glitches caused the plane’s delivery to be delayed by two years, causing EADS billions of dollars in losses.

This sentence was already too long when they decided to add the bit about the beds. Why on earth is it relevant, when reporting on an airport mishap, to note that the beds on the plane involved were modelled on luxury yachts?*

It’s a really common construction in stories coming straight off the wires and into the paper: you have the story, which is usually two or three short paragraphs, followed by a gargantuan sentence into which somebody has packed the entire history of the subject, with no regard to whether the clauses in the sentence relate to each other or to the story at large.

* Update: I can’t read.

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