Where from hare?

.. plumbing and television, but maybe this New Year it’s time for a revision
of my list. As I was driving back to Curtin from Fyshwick last Thursday evening,
having successfully bought some deck oil as instructed from the Fyshwick Bunnings,
I was thinking about how much easier it is to get around Canberra these days
with the aid of Google Maps, which was when I thought I should perhaps add GPS
to my list of outstanding modern inventions.
If you know Canberra at all you’ll know what I mean. Maria knows it very
well, having been brought up there, but being reared on traditional grid layouts
I find it quite hard to get a grip on the damned circularity of the place and
I’ve often got lost trying to get somewhere only minutes away as the crow
flies.
It’s not helped by the semi-rural uniformity of the streetscapes. The
roads, circuits and crescents wind through the suburbs where trees abound to
the point that you feel you’re trapped in some endless suburban forest.
Every now and then you catch a tantalising glimpse of the city of Oz, but after
zooming hopefully down the third or fourth parallel circuit you find yourself
feeling immeasurably tired and you lose the will to stay awake.
It was about then that I noticed my Google girl was taking me a slightly different
way to Curtin. ‘Oh well, this could save me a few minutes in future’
I thought.
‘OK, down Adelaide Ave, past Yarralumla, I know this way’.
‘Take the Cotter Road exit’ my spirit guide told me unexpectedly
and I had to make a late lunge to the left, alarming the guy in the red car
behind me who was taking a sensible inside line for the exit.
‘This is different’ I thought. ‘I wonder where this is taking
me?’
Just then a savage willy-willy gusted dead leaves and dust at the windscreen
and the biscuit tin wobbled over the road and I actually thought of the twister
in the Wizard of Oz.
‘In four hundred metres turn left at the McCullough St exit’ the
manicured English accent insisted. (I don’t know why I didn’t get
the Aussie girl). I thought I remembered that street name so did what I was
told, but I was becoming a little suspicious.
The wind was gaining in ferocity, presaging a change from the oppressive afternoon
heat and debris was blowing in all directions, adding to the confusion.
‘Turn right at Reynolds Street’ I was instructed, which I did although
I was almost certain I was being misled.
‘Turn right at Propsting Street’ followed quickly by ‘do a
U-turn’ and ‘turn right’ ‘turn left’ confirmed
my suspicions and once I rediscovered McCullough Street I stuck with it, despite
coaxing to the contrary from my clearly addled assistant, until I finally came
across a roundabout (another Canberra favourite) that I recognised and found
my way home in a matter of minutes.
I’m not sure what it was. In this case perhaps the local weather conditions
played a part in the failure of the guidance system, but I’m sure we’re
all familiar with the odd inexplicable Google fuck-up. Not enough to totally
abandon it, of course – the Melways or giant road maps are too cumbersome to
return to now – but we all have learned to treat Google Maps with a healthy
scepticism by now.

Perhaps it wasn’t an Irish girl. Insert the un-PC race/gender slur of
your choice. Anyway, he, she or it was asked what they thought was the greatest
invention of our times.
After a moment or two’s consideration came the reply. ‘I think the
thermos is the greatest invention’.
‘Why?’
‘Well, it keeps things hot and it keeps things cold.’
‘So…?’
‘Well, how does it know?’

* The
rather beautiful Cyrillic alphabet has stifado as
something that can’t be reproduced here unfortunately