Food of the Day - Part Two

And now for something completely different: Jelly. I absolutely love Jelly! It is so easy to prepare, so easy to eat, so tasty and yet probably so bad for health. But as any of my favourite foods, as long as you do not eat it excessively (as I did tonight) you should be fine. Since I am in Australia I was made to purchase the Aeroplane brand. Orange is my favourite. Yummy! The time when TV ads were lasting for two minutes is well over but you should have a look at this TV classic!

ANZAC

Today is a National Public Holiday in Australia and in New Zealand. And it is also a Saturday so it does not make a big difference for lots of people. But Anzac Day marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War. The main and notable event for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) was the famous fight at Gallipoli in Turkey during World War I and this day is also a commemoration for the soldiers who fought in France and Belgium.

Burnett House

Here is the external view of the Burnett House I was mentioning yesterday. Beni Burnett was quite an interesting character. He actually grew up in Asia; his parents were Scottish missionaries and he spent time in Mongolia and Malaysia. You actually do see the influence of his early years in his architecture. He subsequently became the Australian Government's Principal architect in the Northern Territory, and was commissioned to design quite a few houses in Darwin for senior public servants. Only a couple survive on the left and right of this building.

Tea Time

Every Sunday from 3.30pm to 6pm the National Trust hosts a High Tea in the verdant tropical gardens of Burnett House. Burnett House is a rare example of Darwin’s early tropical architecture, having survived both the Japanese bombings in 1942 and Cyclone Tracy in 1974. Today is not Sunday unfortunately but I promised myself I woul go there for that occasion one day. In the meantime I visited the place under a nice tropical day and could easily imagine the life in the area a century ago...

Darwin, the man

Even though I am in a place called Darwin I had not realised I knew so few about the man who gave his name to the city. I was delighted to watch a documentary today that made me feel like learning much more. The doco I watched was interesting but a bit superficial I reckon concentrating on the first quarter of the Beagle voyage only. You almost feel that there should have been 4 additional parts. But it corrected several misconceptions I had about the man. I always heard he joined the Beagle even though he was not particularly brilliant. There I learnt the real story behind his joining and understood how serious and dedicated he was to his job. It also enlightened me a lot on his theory of evolution itself. I was still with the image (often seen on posters) of the man evolving from the ape but his tree of life theory is nothing like that! To make a long story short, there is no doubt that one of my next readings will be his autobiography to try and know more. I also feel his theory should be taught much more thoroughly at school.