Tannic Teeth

So, I was hit by a car today.

One and a half tonnes of metal verses sixty three kilogram me on a ten kilo bike. And I walked away from it.

In my effort to “find thirty” and do my bit for the environment I ride the ten kilometres to work. It’s a puffy little hike, most of which is uphill and usually in the smug face of a strong headwind. Home, it’s a gradual decline, so I can pick up some speed, but it’s dark.

Today, as I was exiting the round-a-bout on Hepburn Ave, I was struck by a car. I had right of way – like any vehicle on the road would. But then again I’m not surrounded by one and a half tonnes of metal.

I ‘m used to the angle of headlights of cars on the road – it’s a safe buffer zone when I see the angle shrink. That way I know they are bypassing me.

But there isn’t much you can do when you see a set of headlights directly behind and hear the rumble of an engine. You kind of cringe and brace yourself. And hope for the best.

Of course I didn’t think about all these things when I was struck.

I saw lights behind me.

There was an impact.

My field of view went tumbling around and you see snippets of things:

My bike twisting free.

Seeing a spinning black tyre that fills your eyeball.

The sparkly texture bitumen has at night.

The ‘under car view’ mechanics dream about, but are the nightmares of cyclists.

I rolled and skidded to a halt on the side of the road leaving a deal of skin on the bitumen. Silence. I was panting. No pain yet. My elbows are numb.

She stops the car and my bike is ten meters down the road. Her little boy jumps out first yelling “I can fix your bike mister” I cannot process this thought. She follows him starting what will be a fifteen minute manta of “I’m so sorry”. Yeah. Sorry could have killed me.

I get up. “Didn’t you see me?” I’m trying to process my feelings of anger but I can’t. I’m not sure what to feel – I’m probably in shock.

“Are you OK?”  [Well no I’m not you just fucking hit me.]

“Yeah I’m fine, I’m just grazed but everything is OK. No broken bones or anything.”

I look at my elbows. It’s funny sometimes how a visual indicator of injury spurs the body to complete the pain realisation. Ouch FARK. They’re nicely grazed and dripping with blood.

I see cars stop – I tell her to move her car to clear traffic.

“I’ll pay for everything – here is my mobile number, my name is __________”

Trying to enter a new contact in Windows Mobile 6.0 after being stuck by a car is like having someone pull a card trick on you – when you were sure of the answer. It’s a vanishing, frustrating affair. And try holding a stylus to enter it all. Needless to say, she just called me and I saved the number.

She says she was distracted by her screaming/crying kids in the car. I don’t really care. I could have been seriously injured or killed.

She’s just happy I’m OK. And I am too. I’m not broken. Just bruised, grazed and sore. She offers to pay for everything and so she should – I had right of way.

She leaves and I’m there standing on the side of the road processing this all. I call my Dad and tell him what happened – my Mum will be there in a minute.

Upon hanging up a police car appears. Apparently someone reported a cyclist struck by a car. They are here for me. I tell them what happened. They go over a few legalities of my options. The police woman maintains sharp eye contact possibly to asses a state of shock. I’m more lucid now. They offer me a lift.

On the way home, I’m filled with the kind of thanks when you realise how close you come to serious injury or death – my bike ended up under one and a half tonnes of metal and I didn’t. I grin like an idiot. I just cheated death. And now I’m in the back of a paddy wagon.

Clover Hill [Pipers River – Tasmania] 2003 13%

Of all the places in Australia, Adelaide hills, Yarra Valley and Tasmania are the best places to produce sparkling. Where would I buy my sparkling from? Probably Tasmania. It’s just blessed with the best climate. End of story.

Clover Hill is a Pipers River sparkling producer who also dabbles in some red table wines. Or it could be the other way around. They dabble in sparkling wine producer because for the price, this sparkling was a little lacklustre.

I guess I was expecting a Janz-esque quality and style. This is made from the age old traditional blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. Apparently it’s had partial barrel fermentation but I couldn’t really detect anything pass the lifted red apple and biscuit base nose. It’s fresh, wirey with a reasonable amount of zing. Probably not zingy enough for my liking. I want to taste ZING dammit!

Oh yeah, and the ending was a little alcoholic for something at 13%.

Overall, a pricy foray of a Tasmanian sparkling, given the second chance I’ll stick with their table wines.

I had recently purchased a new camera. The Canon 5D Mark II and I have made it a habit to shoot in RAW format. RAW are files which are not compressed by the camera thus they contain all the colour information that other programs like Photoshop and Lightroom use to manipulate the images. RAW files also take up lots of space because they are, well, larger files. And I mean BIG. 22 mega bytes per photo, times that by, say, 200 per photo shoot and you have a few GB of material. So it was only a matter of time before my current 250GB harddrive became digitally obese.

Thus I bought a nice new 1 TB external.

I had just successfully transferred all my files over to the 1 TB. <Transfer Complete> it read on my monitor – after the 7hrs that it took, and me hoping the storm raging around me didn’t cut the power. Kind of like one of those bastard power surges that fuck up all your electronics. There was one. I did it myself.

See. Laptop cables and this particular make of external harddrive both share identical cables. Well they look identical when they’re just hooked on the top of the table as you busying yourself with ‘room cleanup-to-make-way-for-the-new-harddrive duties’. And there you have it. It put the wrong chord in and in less than a second all my photos of were gone. To add insult to injury, I had just deleted the previous copy from the old 250GB harddive saying to myself “why on earth would I need two separate copies?”

I now know why.

Average Wintery Night, above average red.

The Eighth Makers is Saltram’s flagship red. Saltram is in the Barossa and Barossa makes exceptional Shiraz. So really this is a cut of the best of the best and retailing at $200 a pop, not a drop to take lightly.

Inspired by Saltram’s eighth winemaker Nigel Dolan, it’s an impressive array of dense jammy fruit, bitter chocolate (but only little bits of it) and a smokey leather. Perhaps I waited too long for this wine to be enjoyed. I’m not a huge fan of cracked leather more than I am of anything too smokey. As this wine exhibits both characters in fair quantity – though not something bad, it’s just not my total cup of tea.

OK. It has remarkable length, and intensity. It also has berries and leather. The berries I’m sad to report are somewhat short lived (I noticed this when decanted this wine). But it’s lacking something. Not to mention the alcohol comes off on this as something disjointed and not streamlined with the rest of the tasting package. It’s an enigma for the price. But overall, it’s a wine that is a pleasure to drink.

I don’t often ‘do’ music reviews because:

1) music is not my speciality, and

2) there are enough people out there doing music reviews.

However in a way I thought I would share this relatively new artist from Sydney.

His name is Jehan Gonsalkorale but for simplicity calls his band ‘Jehan’.

If you like the sounds of Damien Rice, Josh Pyke and Micheal Nyman then you’re bound to like this guy.

His music is is lyrical and pure. His voice is hauntingly simple and honest.

It’s not the overtly confected pop folk that we’re used to. You can hear his talent on the guitar on the track ‘Upon eyes closed’ backed by the brown earthy resonance of solo cello and understated drums. Almost like Sigur Ros meets Firekites. It’s resonating and pensive.

Overall there is a trusting, progressive almost ‘faith’ about this EP.

Stand out tracks: Self Portrait, Better than Two, At the Gate, Nine Lives, Upon Eyes Closed. But really they are all superb.

Just what some of us need to feel good about the lives we live, about the frailty of being, well, human.

You can hear all the tracks on this myspace and download two of them for free from triple J unearthed.

http://www.myspace.com/jehangonsalkorale

http://www.triplejunearthed.com/Artists/View.aspx?artistid=16325