Welcome to the December Newsletter. Another year completed and it has been an interesting one. But we are here to talk about the excitement that was December.
Sport
Well it has been a massive month in sport. Here is a short summary of the month in date order.
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Bathurst 1000
So it started well with the Bathurst 1000. Which was a great week. I didn’t go this year but enjoyed the full coverage on the tele. 2 of my favourite drivers won the race Chaz Mostert and Lee Holdsworth. Very exciting. The most Australian Safety Car ever happened. An Echidna decided to cross the track. Yes an Echidna stopped the race, check out the footage here.
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Big Bash Cricket
After a brilliant Woman’s Big Bash in October and November (in which my favourite teams came last and second last) the Men’s Big Bash has started. Every night until the end of January sees my screen covered in cricket. Such a wonderful time of year.
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The Men’s Ashes
After a bit of controversy at the beginning of the series the Aussies have come out and crushed the English. It was awesome to see Scott Boland take 6/7 in his debut in the 3rd test such a humble guy. Check out the wickets here. So far the Aussies are 3-0 with two matches to go. Once the men have finished the Women’s Ashes start to keep the cricket coming.
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F2
Ok so everyone was probably more excited by the Hamilton verses Verstappen title battle in F1. I don’t like either Hamilton or Verstappen so didn’t really care that Verstappen won. I was captured by the battle for the F2 Championship which saw the Australian Oscar Piastri win the title. Having won the F3 title in 2020. As is the way of things we don’t get to see him race next year. He will be the F1 test driver for Alpine. (hoping that Alonso retires really soon).
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Extreme E
Molly Taylor and Johan Kristoffersson won the championship (on count back) at the last round. They beat Cristina Gutiérrez and Sébastien Loeb. In third was Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky and Kevin Hansen. I just love this series it is full of my favourite drivers from lots of different motorsports. I love to format of electric cars racing in extreme conditions with a female and male driver for each team. It also does things for the communities and environments that it visits. For more info head to Extreme E’s website
Space
There has been one of the most exciting things happening in space discovery. The James Webb space telescope has been launched and is now travelling and assembling itself has it travels through space to where it will hopefully see infrared signals from close to the start of the universe. It has been a massive 25 year project and seen the collaboration from space agency from around the world. To follow it’s journey to it’s place in space visit the NASA website. If you want a great technical description of the telescope check it Real Engineering’s Video or for a more basic run down check out SciShow’s Video. It is very exciting.
Anyone can be batman
I really enjoy this concept that Austin Kleon posted about. When he is bored, hung over etc he draws batman cowls on pictures. I love this quote
If you’re depressed, draw a picture of Batman. You’re still depressed, but now you have a picture of Batman.
Check out the post to see some of the artwork he has done with it
Books
I reached by book reading target for the year this month. I aimed for the realistic target of 26 books in the year. You can check them all out on goodreads. This month I read 5 books (ok so I had to squeeze some in to make the target).
I continued to read the Adventures of Verity Kent and Lady Darby both by Anna Lee Huber. I’m still loving them. In the Verity Kent series I read Treacherous is the Night (book 2) which takes a trip through Europe just after World War 1 to solve a mystery. I read 2 Lady Darby books A Grave Matter (book 3) and A Study in Death (book 4).
I started a new series Wexford and Sloane by Andrea Penrose. The first in the series is Murder on Black Swan Lane. It stars the Scientist Earl Wrexford and caricature artist A.J. Quinn. The story swaps between the two characters perspectives. A.J. Quinn is famous for their intimate knowledge of what is going on in the upper classes and publishing it. A.J. Quinn is the pen name of Mrs Sloane who’s husband has died and she has taken over his art. Her path crosses with Earl Wexford when a public tiff between him and a priest becomes deadly. Between the two of them and some very cool sidekicks they solve who the baddie is.
So the other book I read was surprisingly not a historical murder mystery but a science book. Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli. It is a the uniting of 7 articles that he wrote to explain current physics for a Sunday Paper in Italy. The writing is lovely and the concepts are explained by there is no maths or anything scary. Just a book talking about the art of physics. If you want to borrow my copy I recommend it to everyone. It will probably blow your mind a bit while explaining beauty.
Christmas
This year Christmas almost happened without a disaster except we had a “tornado” hit the northern beaches. In 35 mins so much damage was done that we didn’t get power back for 2 days and internet for 3. Fortunately my place survived the storm without damage but I was lucky. I did end up with 9 wet guinea pigs with 3 very wet and yucky cages. So due to the heat and the no electricity I was slow at the Christmas spirit. We did manage to get the tree up before Christmas though. I spent Christmas at my cousins place enjoying some down time and lots of food, fun and presents.
The LEGO was a bit slower I only finished the town yesterday after constructing 2 new buildings since I came home. The gingerbread house from 2020 and the new Santa’s Visit. I’ve attached some photos of the full Christmas Village.
For those of you who need some help calculating how many Christmas decorations you need for your tree next year check out this.
Television
Yes I have managed to watch some television shows while not watching sport. hehehe
Annika
This is a murder mystery series that is available ABC iview. (it’s probably cheating but I watched it in November just forgot to share) It’s based with the Glasgow water police detective department. Annika is the lead detective and for each episode she talks about a classic piece of literature to camera while she does the investigation. I know it might sound weird but I really enjoyed it.
Hinterland
Also available on ABC iview. This is also a murder mystery series. It is based in Wales and is just darker in every sense of the word. Still not sure what I feel about it.
Books That Made Us
A documentary series hosted by Claudia Karvan looking at the books that have made Australia. It’s also available on ABC iView. I haven’t actually read any of the books. It was a interesting look at Australia and what it means to be Australian through Australian books.
Framed
This documentary series looks at the stealing of a Picasso from the NGV in 1986, what happened at the time and the mystery that still remains. It was a event that I don’t remember too busy looking for Hayley’s comet I guess or worrying about the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior. I enjoyed the story and insights into some of the players. It’s available on SBS ondemand.
YouTube
What would the month be without some more John Cleese meetings specials
- If you have nothing to talk about, why do you have the meeting?
- Wife doesn’t see John Cleese any more because he’s in meetings all the time!
- That one aggressive person that hijacks the meeting … and John Cleese tells him to shut up! – This one is a bit raw. I wonder if I can invite John Cleese to my meetings.
Other great video was a new/old knitting club I would like to join.
Also check out this amazing video of Teddy Brown from 1930 playing Xylophone.
Music
Silk Sonic have released their album ‘An Evening With Silk Sonic’. If you don’t know who they are, Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak have come together to make a disco funk band. It is awesome. Here it is on Youtube. The film clips they have up are very cool. You can also listen to it below on Spotify(hopefully) or follow this link
Welcome to the New Year. I look forward to bringing you more newsletters throughout the year. I’m hoping for another year of books, guinea pigs, cute cars, teddy bears, sport and great friends.
Big hugs
