FEAST OR FAMINE

Spring is the start of magpie swooping season as they instinctively fend off intruders to their territory to protect their nests during breeding time. Magpies are medium-sized black and white birds with golden brown eyes. Juveniles (up to about three years of age) have lighter grey feathers, rather than distinctive black and white. Adults are about 37 centimetres (15 inches) in length. They can live up to 25 years of age and usually begin breeding between the ages of three and five years. Most magpies will swoop within 30-50 metres of their nest if they perceive the pedestrian to be a threat. They spend quite a lot of time on the ground and because they have long legs they walk or hop about. Most of the year, the bird is a popular and curious friend that visits back gardens, parks, and shopping centres. However, when they breed, they often become quite aggressive (especially males). Often they will swoop to warn intruders to stay away – and therefore they don’t strike becaus...

For years males have been dominant in the Australian boardroom. Out of 200 public companies, only 13% of women are on their boards. The government now has a target of 40% of women in board positions by 2015 to ensure gender diversity. A 2010 McKinsey & Co survey found that the majority of executives believed that gender diversity will improve their company’s financial performance. They believe that more women in senior positions can start a positive loop for productivity and financial decision making. Already companies are increasingly appointing women as board members, with 26% being appointed in the previous 12 months. The upsurge in appointments is believed to be a result of companies using search consultants, instead of professional networks. In America only 15% of board members in large firms are on their boards and only 10% in Europe. This represents a squandered opportunity. Emerging is evidence that mixed boards make better decisions than monolithically male...

It is now springtime in Australia. But two hours from the spring flower festival, Floriade, in Australia’s capital, Canberra, snow is still falling in the Snowy Mountains. The ski season is from early July to mid-September, but in most years there is still good skiing until mid-November on the Kosciuszko main mountain range. The world’s longest continuously running ski club is in Australia. Three Norwegian miners introduced skiing to Australia in 1861 during the Gold Rush period in New South Wales. They constructed skis from natural wood and established the Kiandra Snow Shoe Club. In 1908 the town of Kiandra hosted the world’s first international Alpine Ski Carnival in which Denver skier, Charles Menger, from America, won the main event. Kiandra nowadays is not a ski resort, having died out after the Gold Rush. However, the Kiandra Snow Shoe Club was re-named the Kiandra Pioneer Ski Club and is based in a town called Perisher, two hours from Kiandra. Perisher, in the state of N...

Each year Floriade, Canberra's premier flower festival, has a specific theme: this year it is "a feast for the senses." Floriade will be held from September 17 to October 16 at Commonwealth Park. The "From the Pantry" marquee is a new stall in which well-known chefs demonstrate a range of recipes. The Lindeman's Open Garden will also showcase celebrity chefs cooking seasonal light recipes while advising people what vegetables to grow during spring. There will also be horticultural programs, floral designs, jazz musicians, an Australian National University concert, Japanese music, show rides, a circus troupe, food and drink stalls, a farm of baby animals, and a reptile exhibition. In the evening, Nightfest will feature spectacular lighting with a dramatic musical soundtrack, as well as cocktails, live entertainment, night markets, food, wine and an outdoor cinema.

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass...

The Strangest Man (2009) by Graham Farmelo is a detailed account of one of the discoverers of quantum mechanics, and the youngest Nobel Prize winner in 1933 at the age of 30 which he shared with Erwin Shrodinger for theoretical physics and the discovery of new and productive forms of atomic theory. Born in Switzerland in 1902, Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac moved to Bristol, England, with his schoolmaster father, Charles, mother Florence, his brother Felix, and sister Betty, where he became a British citizen in 1919 and studied at Cambridge University. Paul Dirac said he never had a childhood, was not interested in sport, and had little time for literature and theatre. He worked six days a week, only taking Sundays off to go for long walks. His brother Felix, two years older than Paul, was prevented from studying medicine by their authoritarian father, when he suddenly ‘snapped,’ left the factory where he worked and committed suicide at the age of 25. Paul subsequently paid f...

Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Agency is proud to announce the sale of two books, The Sudan Curse and Kashmir on a Knife-Edge, in ebook form, to the major library and mobile phone suppliers in Taiwan, including two public companies. Strategic's CEO, Robert Fletcher, said he did not know of a single other publisher that has landed a deal like this for their authors. The Taiwan sales group is a major coup incorporating 8 companies. My books, in electronic version, will now be readied for sale to Taiwanese libraries, schools, mobile phone companies, and online retailers.

In one day, on August 21, Lagodekhi (a city in eastern Georgia in the Kakheti region) received rainfall 2.5 times the average monthly precipitation for August. Farmlands, mostly vegetable gardens were damaged by the heavy rains. The overflows also damaged bridges, village roads, and residences. One family lost 8,000 pepper plants. Nearly 900 hectares of maize, 300 hectares of vegetable crops, and 100 hectares of melons were swamped by the floods. Water also carried away 50 bee hives. Kakheti is a famous wine region in Georgia, and fortunately September’s vintage will not be affected. Nearly 5,900 tons of grape hybrid harvest is expected this year – up from last year’s 4,335 tons of hybrid grapes.

Guy de Fontgalland, international investment banker and President of the Eurasia Management House in Tbilisi, Georgia, raises the issue of collateral damage to some 80% of the world’s population if the globalization trend continues to enable “free foxes to roam amongst free chickens” – i.e. where some 5% of the world owns 95% of the wealth. Fontgalland states that while globalization has supported manufacturing and trade across nations; transferred production technologies to less developed countries; and helped more nations to establish enterprises in other countries it took a “wrong turn” along the way. He claims globalization helped “totalitarian regimes in the developing world to amass billions of dollars of ill-gotten wealth, spread their power-base across businesses, and armed forces, and snuff out the essential economic freedom globalization intended to bring to millions across the world.” In other words, globalization has led to a log-sided wealth accumulation process am...

The number of tourists visiting the Georgian wine district of Kakheti, known as “The Motherland of Wine,” increased 24 times in 2011, compared with the same period last year. Archaeological sites have discovered wine presses and cellars, with clay, bronze, silver and gold wine glasses among the monasteries and churches in the region, which are now tourist attractions. Almost every family has its own home-made wine. Kakh wines come from various areas within the region, such as Kvareli, Manavi, Tsinandali, and Mukuzani, mainly growing Rkatsiteli and Saparavi grapes. Kvareli, the main administrative city centre of the Kakheti region, is famous for its Wine Tunnel. Five kilometres east of Kvareli (or a 40 minute walk) turn right at Vina Gruzie. The second entrance is the main entry into the tunnel or cave. The legendary tunnel is a chilled (to about 14C) wine storage space of 7.5 kilometers long, in the mountain-side, with 13 paths and a small ethnological museum. In each path ...

Not only is Georgia abuzz over the opening of the renovated National Museum, but the latest discoveries in Dmanisi which may change scientists’ theories on the transitional nature of human evolution are creating a great deal of excitement. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of the United States of America published a paper on June 6 purporting to present new archaeological and geological evidence that may shift the date and geography of the beginning of human evolution. The oldest hominid may be from Eurasia (and the Southern Caucasus region in particular), not Africa, and may be an ancestor of all earlier Homo erectus. The bones unearthed in Dmanisi are similar to the oldest forms of Homo erectus, not as one would expect, an ancestor of Homo sapiens. The previous theory of human evolution is that hominids in the form of Homo erectus emerged from Africa and migrated to Eurasia, where they then migrated back to Africa where they evolved as Homo sapiens. But if...

The Goodwill supermarket in Tbilisi is the first outlet to introduce online grocery shopping deliveries in Georgia. Launched last month, in July 2011, sales have already exceeded expectations, despite it being the summer vacation period when Georgians typically leave the country. Already Goodwill has more than 500 daily website users. Currently shoppers can purchase, for delivery, over 1,500 grocery products. This is expected to rise to 5,000 by the end of the year. The leading purchases at present, in the first month of sales, are meat and dairy products, and natural juices. The delivery service is particularly popular with people living in the outlying city districts who find distance an issue in getting to one of Goodwill’s two stores. The reasons for the popularity in the delivery service include: convenience; can purchase any time; it avoids crowds and queues; and it saves time and money. It is also popular with country-wide and international shoppers for traditional...

The Georgian National Museum (GNM), located near Freedom Square (Tavisuplebis Moedani) on Rustaveli Avenue in Tbilisi, was established on December 30, 2004, by a Presidential decree. Its origins, however, date back to the founding of the Museum of the Caucasian Department of the Russian Royal Geographic Society in 1852. The GNM is actually a network of museums and art galleries from around the country, such as the Museum of Fine Art; the Open Air Museum of Ethnography, regional history museums, the National Gallery, and the Museum of the Soviet Occupation 1921-1991. The establishment of the Georgian National Museum is considered to be the beginning of structural, institutional, and legal reforms in the field of cultural heritage. The reform envisages introducing modern management schemes and establishing a homogeneous administration system. This initiative aims at elaborating a coherent museum policy, improving the safety conditions for preserved collections, strengthening the ...