Make Mine a Gold One

The good news from Australia is that the two Tasmanian miners have been rescued after two weeks trapped in a tiny cage under several thousand tonnes of rock.
(I work in that lot somewhere)

They were dragged out early in the morning live on breakfast TV and the breathless wait for them to emerge from the lift reminded me of waiting for the Marie Rose to rise from the Solent. In fact, I reckon the miners were deeper than the Marie Rose.

The rescue of Todd and Brant was almost certainly the most interesting event to happen in Beaconsfield for many a long year and the locals weren’t going to wait all day to start the party. By the time the two dishevelled heroes emerged everyone else had already settled in to a long day in the pub.

This was 7.00am, but most people looked very comfortable with a beer for breakfast, reinforcing the general feeling throughout Australia that there is not much to do in Beaconsfield if you are not looking for gold. Until 1878, the town was known as Brandy Creek but the vicar of the time renamed it in the hope of creating a more desirable image. Judging by the TV pictures, it really doesn’t matter what name you give a rose.

While this news was greeted with delight across the country and with yet another beer in Beaconsfield, everyone remembered their mate who was not so lucky when the mine collapsed and four hours after seeing their first daylight for a fortnight, the (by now ex) miners were at the funeral.

Meanwhile, the TV companies have not been quite so dignified. The day before the rescue and shortly after interviewing the manager of the mine, the best known reporter in Australia died suddenly from a heart attack. He was a household name and seemingly quite a journalist who had seen the rough end of many conflicts over the last 30 years.

By the next day, the tributes were already being overshadowed by the inevitable but still unseemly bidding war for the story. The chief executive of one channel had even flown over to buy a drink for everyone in the local pub, with cameras everywhere of course. All this overshadows the probability that the mine will close in the near future. The cost of the rescue has put an already marginal mine beyond any measure of viability and there is no guarantee of work further than the end of June.

With one drama in Tazzie nearly resolved and another bubbling away, Adelaide has been getting over it’s own little excitement of the exploding café with nobody any the wiser as to the reasons behind it. A colleague and I have picked up the job of trying to work out what the city council can do for the businesses affected by the blast. It’s all PR of course but it still needs doing and short of helping with some plastering there’s not a lot we can offer.

Fortunately, most of the owners are philosophical about not having a shop anymore. The building was a dump and they are all insured so we pat them on the back, wish them luck and wander off for a quiet coffee to discuss our next mission.

So while Adelaide returns to it’s happy and sleepy equilibrium, winter’s grip is getting tighter and the lazy evenings of drinks after work on sun drenched boulevards seem so long ago. The conversation is less about where to go tonight and more about what is on TV. And in this house, that means only one thing.

Bloody Home and Away!

Just in case any of you do watch Home and Away, you will NEVER guess who killed Josh West. While it’s a big surprise, it was a big disappointment too. There were at least four people I would rather have seen written out of the programme. I don’t know how far behind you are, so I do hope I haven’t ruined anything by telling you Josh gets bumped off.

It has seemed like a slow couple of weeks for us since getting back from holiday, I think we are still stuck on Kangaroo Island time which means pretty slow. Back to work blues are an international thing which are usually only solved by one thing….time to look for the next break. How does diving on the barrier reef sound?

Hope all is well
M&W