Promise
The Kid had a special day today because she said her promise at Girl Guides. It’s a big occasion.
I promise that I will do my best to do my duty to God, to serve the Queen and my country; to help other people; and to keep the Guide law.
Afterward she was given a sash and scarf and a whole lot of badges and patches that Lisa has to sew on. There’s one for being part of the guide movement; one for being an Australian guide; one for being a Victorian guide; one for being part of the Bluebell patrol, and a few others that I can’t remember. Lots.
There’s a gallery on SmugMug with a few shots in it; check your gallery list.
I’ll get her to write a blog entry tomorrow with her own words.
Third virtue
The Kid got her third virtue award at school this week. Last week’s virtue was “assertiveness”, and for some reason she won the award for her class. Can’t imagine why. Photo on SmugMug.
Oh, there’s also a slightly creepy halloween-esque photo up there too.
2008 F1 World Champion
Lewis Hamilton has won the 2008 F1 world championship after this year’s final race in Brazil.
Going into the race weekend only 2 people could win the championship: Hamilton and Ferrari’s Felipe Massa. Hamilton had a 7 point lead, and Hamilton only had to finish 5th or better to guarantee he was champion regardless of where Massa finished.
Massa, a Brazilian, was always odds-on for winning his home grand prix. He’s always very strong at the Interlagos circuit in São Paulo, having qualified in pole position for the last 3 years and winning in 2006.
Because of Massa’s obvious advantage at this track, most commentators felt that Hamilton would play it safe by aiming for a top 5 finish rather than a victory.
The race was delayed by a brief shower just before the scheduled start, but remained dry for most of the day. As predicted, Hamilton ran a conservative race, content to sit in 4th or 5th for most of the time while Massa lead from the start and never looked troubled.
Five laps from the end of the race, however, the rain hit again, so most of the cars came in to change from dry tyres back onto wets.
Once everyone was back on the track and the positions became clear, Hamilton was 5th, just in front of Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel. Vettel is known for his wet weather driving and slithered past Hamilton with 3 laps to go, putting him down to 6th and out of championship contention.
On the last corner of the last lap both cars passed Timo Glock in the Toyota, putting Hamilton back up to 5th and giving him the championship. Glock hadn’t stopped for wets when the rain hit, and had lost 17 seconds on his last lap.
After 18 races all over the world the championship had came down to the last corner of the last lap of the last race. What a finish.
Hamilton is the youngest driver ever to have won the championship, eclipsing the record held by Renault’s Fernando Alonso.
Weather
Quite a storm coming through tonight. Lots of thunder, lightning and scared dogs. Not as much rain as we’d like, but at least there’s some.
Fatal accident
There was a fatal accident just out of town yesterday. It was a single vehicle accident. A car left the road and collided with a tree.
I was in the first of the two SES trucks that responded. As we left the depot the latest information we had was that one person was trapped. En route we got a second pager message indicating that the casualty was out of the vehicle but had passed away at the scene.
When we arrived at the accident we found that it was the son of a senior member of our SES unit. It’s distressing enough having to attend a fatal accident but when it’s one of your own extended SES family it’s just awful.
The SES quickly activated a group they call ‘peer support’ which is an internal counseling service that help members get over tragedies like this. It was a fairly subdued afternoon and evening, but it did help having all the members who attended get together and discuss what happened, what we were thinking about, etc.
Although they’re unlikely to read my meaningless little blog, my sincere sympathies go out to the family. The SES member involved has done an enormous amount of work for the SES (and therefore the community) over the years, and is someone I have an tremendous amount of respect for. That this has happened to them is just terrible.
America on its knees
Interesting times.
The political philosopher John Gray, who recently retired as a professor at the London School of Economics, wrote in the London paper The Observer: “Here is a historic geopolitical shift, in which the balance of power in the world is being altered irrevocably.
“The era of American global leadership, reaching back to the Second World War, is over… The American free-market creed has self-destructed while countries that retained overall control of markets have been vindicated.”
“In a change as far-reaching in its implications as the fall of the Soviet Union, an entire model of government and the economy has collapsed.
“How symbolic that Chinese astronauts take a spacewalk while the US Treasury Secretary is on his knees.”
More here.
