The House(s) of Fran_mart

 When the project was announced it was said that access would be needed to balconies, over 2 days, to remove the cladding there (and to install the replacement material).  I was slightly bemused by this as I could see none of the white panels on our balcony. Once work started this was mentioned again and I sent a message to the Strata Managers asking when (roughly) this would happen.  The answer was that they would need access twice as we are a corner block and they would do the North and West faces of the building on different periods.  I wanted some further details on this and, cutting to the chase, invited the Project Manager to explain this to me.   While it is still to be confirmed his initial view was that there is no flammable material on our balcony and thus access will not be be needed.  This is different to some of the other areas of the building where the cladding comes on to the balconies.  The images below show a view of the building ...

 Last year the race was very wet.  This year was dry.  Here are a few images from the TV screen. First up is a long shot of the leaders. I did mention the dust! Cobbles with helicopter in the background, Mohoric was in the lead at this point, I think with Devrient. The crowd! Dylan van Baarle went on to win by a lap of the velodrome.  We had intended to do our usual speeding through the taped program so get a 4 hour telecast in about 30 minutes.  This was so interesting that we took close to 2 hours!

 No, Christo is not returning from the grave to wrap Metropolis.  Our apartment building is called Manhattan on the Park and it has been found that it, along with several (at least) other buildings in Canberra have been clad with material that is somewhat like that on Grenfell Towers . As a consequence it has become very difficult to get insurance for the building and it has been found necessary to get the old cladding removed and for replacement material to be installed.  The process for arranging this has been somewhat fraught as some of the owners of apartments don't want to spend any money (or else have difficulty with logic).  However after some 18 months of bickering a contract has been let and work has commenced.  This is post is likely to be the first of several following the prcoess through its life. The highest priority area to be fixed is the entrance as:  there is a lot of cladding there (eg all the white stuff in the image above); it is a high-...

 Frances went for a walk in Commonwealth Park on our first morning here.  (I had a bout of gastro or something so didn't accompany her.)  She reported that it looked as though the marathon was finishing there as there were lots of portaloos evident.  I remembered that a Midnight Oil concert was scheduled for sometime in April and thought that a more likely cause. Indeed so it was.  The concert was due that evening but became controversial as there was a huge storm and the concert was abandoned just before the Oils fired up.  Some punters had been waiting in the rain for 3 hours and then spent more hours in a traffic jam getting out.  Not happy. Two days later the pull down was happening.  Here is a section of the portaloos!  (The fundi is exploring the turf rather than wishing he'd been able to get into the portaloos.) The back of the stage.  I have no provable idea why such a big area is needed.  Perhaps to accommodate the egos of ...