Favourite painting: The swing (1767)

This painting by Jean-Honoré Fragonard is a favourite for two reasons: its richness and the window it opens on the society and culture of France in the dying years of the Ancien Régime. The three participants are carefree, but for different reasons. The girl is central to the relationship-triangle here and to the composition (excepting the girl, in her cloud of pink silk and lace, the rest of the artist's palate is quite dark) and although on the swing she is in complete control of the situation.

To see the painting in more detail click on the image to enlarge it. The painting is in the Wallace Collection in London. A short article on the painting is at Wikipedia, where you will also find an article about the artist, Fragonard. To me Fragonard seems to be very much a trail-maker for artists such as Renior. In a future post I may write about another of his works which I like, A young girl reading.

Image: © The Wallace Collection, London.

Changes in the heavens, or new craters on the planet Mars

In recent years the planet Mars has been saturated with visiting spacecraft and a consequence of all this attention is that change in the martian landscape is becoming easier to spot. Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) was one of those machines; MGS was a NASA spacecraft operating in orbit about Mars from September 1997 to November 2006.

During early 2006 members of the MGS science team decided to look for signs of change:

"A year ago [2004/2005], it had not occurred to us, the MGS MOC science operations team, that we could find places on Mars where meteorites had impacted the surface during the course of the MGS mission. Such craters, if they were forming at all, would be a few meters to a few tens of meters across; much to small to notice (or so we thought) in our MOC wide angle camera coverage. But, on 9 January 2006, we began to realize that not only could we find such craters, we might also be able to characterize the present-day impact cratering rate on Mars. Surveying for fresh craters formed during the MGS mission would provide the first direct observation—for any body in the Solar System, including Earth and its Moon—of the present-day cratering rate, which in turn can help test models used all the time by members of the scientific community to estimate the age of features on planetary surfaces." (How we found the first of the fresh impact sites that formed during the Mars Global Surveyor Mission, MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-1611, 6 December 2006)

For me, aside from the excitement I feel about the science done and the thril of discovery, it shows that change occurs on places other than the Earth at time scales much less than the millions and billions of years we routinely hear of. In this case in a matter of months.

The image above (MOC2-1614-a) is of another fresh crater found by the MOC team on the slopes of the volcano Ulysses Patera in northern hemisphere of Mars, investigations determined that the impact occurred between 18 April 2003 and 7 February 2004. For further details follow this link.

A note on the sources used in this post: the image and information came from two sources, the database of Mars Orbiter Camera images at Malin Space Science Systems (the American corporation that built the camera that flew on the MGS) and from NASA's Planetary Photojournal. For convenience I given here a link to a number of pages at the Malin Space Sciences Systems web site, Present-Day Impact Cratering and Gully Activity on Mars MGS MOC Releases MOC2-1611 through MOC2-1622, 6 December 2006.

For those who want to read the actual science done here is the citation to the article from the journal Science (unfortunately the Science website only provides the abstract, i.e. summary, so check with your favourite library):

Present-day impact cratering rate and contemporary gully activity on Mars Michael C. Malin, Kenneth S. Edgett, Liliya V. Posiolova, Shawn M. McColley, Eldar Z. Noe Dobrea, Science 8 December, 2006, 314 (5085), p. 1573-1577.

Astronomical friends of mine will remember a less detailed version of this discussion and the image from an email of mine in December 2006, so this is old news for them.

Images: © NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems, 2006

Good and bad news from the Archives nationales, Paris

In my post for 18 March I mentioned that the records for the United Nations International Refugee Organisation (IRO) have been transferred to the French national archives, the Archives nationales in Paris (see The UNHCR Archives and Records Section responds). The Archives nationales in Paris has confirmed that there are records, however, the news is a mixed blessing as neither the records or the finding aids are available online.

This is the text of the reply from the Archives nationales, Paris - Service de la Recherche a écrit :

Dear Mr. N ... ,
In response to your e-mail of April 12th, I inform you that the Archives nationales-site de Paris [does] keep in AJ 43 (O.I.R.) records concerning camps for refugees in Italy (Bari and Bagnoli).
-AJ/43/140 : in particular, a study by J. Barth, historian, about Bagnoli's camp, and refugees in Trieste and Veneto region ;
-AJ/43/1036 : in particular, people arrested by [the] Italian police displaced to the transit camp in Bari, January 1948 ;
-AJ/43/1040 : competitive sport in Bagnoli's camp, September 1950.

Unfortunately, neither the finding aid for AJ 43, nor the records are available on line.

Yours sincerely.
Thierry Pin

In French the IRO is known as the Organisation Internationale pour les Rėfugiės (OIR).

So, in fact, to make any headway on this path I will have to go to Paris in person! I can't say I am much surprised. And I am uncertain from Mr. Pin's reply that they have the records I need. The question is not going, that's easy, but the issue is to make the visit worthwhile from the point of view of research - if I forget something later it's not as if I can just drop in casually again the week after I come home. In conclusion, Constant Reader, I am quickly finding out that there is only so much one can do through the Internet from the other side of the world.

Schola Pietatis Antonio Vivaldi (Vivaldi's Women)

This morning, quite by accident, I found the Schola Pietatis Antonio Vivaldi (SPAV or Vivaldi's Women), a U.K. based, all female choir and orchestra. This morning I was wanting to play some music, however, being at my parent's house for Easter I have to use the DVD and TV as they don't have a separate sound system; turning on the same a performance of the Schola Pietatis Antonio Vivaldi was airing on ABC 1 in Sydney (for non-Australians, the equivalent of the BBC or PBS). Much intrigued I checked the TV guide and then Googling the group's name I found their Internet site.

The documentary on the TV was painfully short, a real teaser - 30 minutes. The music and the setting were rich, a performance of Vivaldi's Gloria, filmed in 2005 on location at the Santa Maria della Pieta in Venice. A great discovery, and if you like Baroque music its well worth a listen and a look!

The next step, of course, is to see if I can get any of their music or see the full documentary. I'll try the BBC, the ABC here, and my favourite record shop, and the SPAV - they of course will know where their music has been published. For information about the SPAV go to their site. There you will find excerpts from a performance, and from the documentary Vivaldi's women. If you are in the U.K. or Europe keep your eyes and ears for any concerts the SPAV may give.

If you want to know more about Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741), Wikipedia has a good non-specialist article.

Image: © SPAV (used without permission), 2009.

Star trails over Linda Rock, Blue Mountains, N.S.W.

Last night during Earth Hour, Ted Dobosz, a good friend, took this lovely image of star trails circling the south celestial pole. In an email to his various astronomical-minded friends, Ted remarked that he took images of the Sydney sky glow during and after Earth Hour (local time: 8:30-9:30 pm) and found that there was no noticeable reduction in Sydney's light pollution. In asking for Ted's permission to use this image to liven up my blog, he supplied some additional information: "Hi Pete, ... It was taken from the rock looking south. It was taken with a Canon 40D at 400ASA for 30 mins at F4.5. The lens was a Tamron 17-55mm and it was taken at 17mm. ... Conditions last night ordinary with a brown haze and 30% reduction on brightness of all objects. ... Ted."

The rock is Linda Rock in the Blue Mountains to the west of Sydney, Australia; Sydney is about 100 kms (62 miles) distant. In the image the star trails have obvious colour, and the two pieces of 'fog' at two and five o'clock are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, satellite galaxies of the Milky Way.

If you enlarge the image the star colours show more clearly, as does the pale blue of the LMC; the colours are real and indicate the temperature of the star making the trail (red through orange 3-5,000 deg C.; white: 8-11,000; blue: 16-50,000). For the LMC the pale blue indicates that the majority of its stars are young and have temperatures above 16,000 degrees centigrade. As a comparison our sun is yellow indicating that the disk we see has a temperature of 5,900 degrees centigrade. The yellow glow at the bottom left (south-east) is from the Sydney metropolitan area, the fainter glow at bottom (south) originates in the suburbs making up the Campbelltown area.

Unlike the north celestial pole there is no bright pole star. To see an untrailed image at similar scale look at this August 2006 image from Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Image (used with permission): © Ted Doboz, 2009.

Photographs of the Department of Immigration Reception and Training Centre, Bathurst in the National Archives of Australia (Part 2)

A continuation of my earlier post of the camp and its residents in 1950 and 1951. In the first post you will find the images I have labeled as 1-6. A brief discussion is found in the first post.

Image 7: Portrait in progress, 1951 (NAA A12111, 1/1951/22/33; barcode: 7427682)

Image 8: Paintings & art work (NAA A12111, 1/1951/22/25; barcode: 7427674)

Image 9: Crèche storytelling with Aboriginal mural, 1951 (NAA A12111, 1/1951/22/27; barcode: 7427676)

Image 10: Ukraine woman displays clothing at New Australian's Handicrafts exhibition at Bathurst - CU1247-5, 1950 (NAA A8139, Volume 8, CU1247-5; barcode: 8286606)

Image 11: New Australians stage Tosca at Bathurst migrant centre - CU1250-1, 1950 (NAA A8139, Volume 8, CU1250-1; barcode: 8286616)

Image 12: Bathurst Camp Post Office, 1951 (NAA C4076, C4076/1, HN6013 part B; Barcode: 3037290)

Image 13: Bathurst Camp Post Office, 1951 (NAA C4076, C4076/1, HN6013 part A; barcode: 3037289)

For details of NAA series A12111 (see, part 1 of this post). The originals photographs for images 10 and 11 are from NAA series A8139, Photograph albums of prints in 'L' series and 'CU' series [produced by the Australian News and Information Bureau, Canberra]. The originals for images 12 and 13 are in NAA series C4076, Photographic negatives, single number series with HN (Historical, New South Wales) prefix [produced by the Postmaster-General's Department, State Administration, New South Wales].

Images: © Commonwealth of Australia, 1950 and 1951.

Photographs of the Department of Immigration Reception and Training Centre, Bathurst in the National Archives of Australia (Part 1)

Constant Reader, I am attempting, as I have said several times, to locate evidence of my dad through the trail of records; to that end I have been interrogating the records database at the National Archives of Australia (NAA). I am looking for any and all records of the Department of Immigration Reception and Training Centre, Bathurst and I have found a series of photographs (part of NAA series A8139, A12111 & C4076) of the camp and its residents from 1950 and 1951.

The photographs, which are quite formal, were most likely taken for publicity purposes and give some indication of the spartan nature of the place (the site and all the buildings were ex-Army and so were light on creature comforts) and of the life there for the "New Australians" as they were often called at the time. Its also useful to remember that a person's stay here was always intended to be short - long enough to learn basic Australian English, some basic skills, and to acclimatise to the new country and its people.

Image 1: Children at gate, 1951 (NAA A12111, 1/1951/22/26; barcode: 7427675).

Image 2: Family room, 1951 (NAA A12111, 1/1951/22/29; barcode: 7427678).

Image 3: English class, 1951 (NAA A12111, 1/1951/22/34; barcode: 7427683)

Image 4: Carpenters at work, 1951 (NAA A12111, 1/1951/22/32; barcode: 7427681)

Image 5: Children at play in front of Centre, 1951 (NAA A12111, 1/1951/22/31; barcode: 7427680)

Image 6: Family walk, accommodation in back, 1951 (NAA A12111, 1/1951/22/30; barcode: 7427679)

These image and associated information are viewable through the NAA database,see the link at the top of this post. The image captions are taken from the NAA record for the photograph. The originals are part of NAA series A12111, Immigration Photographic Archive 1946 - Today.

Images: © Commonwealth of Australia, 1950 and 1951.

The remains of the Department of Immigration Reception and Training Centre, Bathurst

This afternoon I drove out to the the site of the Department of Immigration Reception and Training Centre, Bathurst. This was my father's first place of residence in Australia in late 1949 and for some of 1950. The Australian army also had a camp at the same location from 1940 to 1947. The migrant camp as I mentioned in an earlier post is long gone (it closed in 1952) and the place is now occupied by the Bathurst Sheep and Cattle Drome (i.e. aerodrome) and other than a memorial by the entry road there was nothing above ground I could see. The above photo shows a general view of the Drome from the entry road (click on the image to enlarge).

The site is surrounded by farming land in all directions, with the town of Bathurst 8 kms to the north west, and in that regard the basic look is not much different from the time the camps (Immigration and Army) were here.

In a future post I will have more to say, once I finish, my reading and current research, that is!

Above, a relic, possibly a wool dray (used to transport bales of raw wool until the 1930's) with an iron/steel plow? dumped on top.

Kate Bush's Aerial (2005)

I have been an on again, off again fan of the music of Kate Bush since the mid 1980's. I have always loved her original and often quirky lyrics. Aerial has become a much played favourite, although I do ration myself so as to not loose my taste for it, and also not drive family and friends crazy. It's that old saying: everything in moderation.

Back to Kate and Aerial (and Constant Reader, I am quite deliberately not looking at any reviews of it so I can write honestly of my impressions), I think it does what I think all music should do, that is, Kate's music transports you; it raises positive emotions in you; the lyrics and the music paint pictures in your mind. So please give me license, for here I am operating at the level of my emotions and not acting as a very amateur music critic. In Aerial, Kate Bush, turns the commonplace: housekeeping into music (Mrs. Bartolozzi); Pi (the mathematical ratio) into music, however, I am sure most mathematicians would say emphatically that maths is music; she sings of passion (Joanni and An architect's dream); of love for her son (Bertie); and of nature, and of the passage of time (Sunset and Aerial).

Now go and listen to it! If you don't want to take my word and need a professional review go to allMusic, look up Kate Bush or Aerial, read the review (which I have just read to conclude this post) and listen. Her official website is to be found here: http://www.katebush.com/

Details: Bush, Kate Aerial. [London] : EMI, 2005 (2 CDs, runtime: 80 minutes); released in Australia as EMI 0946 3 43960 2 8

The UNHCR Archives and Records Section responds

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has responded to my latest email regarding the location, and access to the records of United Nations International Refugee Organisation (IRO). In the latest attempt I directed my inquiry to the Archives section of the UNHCR, rather than to the organisation in general, and the Archives section replied within 12 hours! The answer:

Dear Peter N ...,

The records of the International Refugee Organization (IRO) were placed in the Archives Nationales de France in Paris when the agency closed in 1951 (Fonds AJ 43). More information may be found by addressing a request to the Archives Nationales, 60 rue des Francs-Bourgeois, 75141 Paris, FRANCE http://www.archivesnationales.culture.gouv.fr/chan/

Kind regards

Montserrat Canela,

Senior Archivist

UNHCR Records and Archives Section

94, rue de Montbrilland

1202 Geneva, Switzerland"

The answer shows that logic does not always apply when dealing with organisations, I had the thought that my previous emails would be sent on to the appropriate officer in UNHCR; I was wrong. My general inquiries to the UNHCR resulted in no replies, whereas, my question sent specifically to their archives people merited an answer; fit your question to a particular part of the target organisation and you are more likely to get an answer! The other piece of logic that did not work was the idea that the UNHCR would inherit and retain the files of its predecessor organisation, the IRO.

Now for a short (Internet) trip to Paris.

Lost in the records labyrinth

For the last two weeks, during the spare hour here and there I have been continuing my search for my dad by following the paper trail. Being a librarian and priding myself on my search and re-search skills I had thought that the road would be tough but that I would find some breadcrumbs of information. Well Constant Reader, pride goeth before a fall; other than my initial finds l have located nothing new. Two paths have been followed, the National Archives of Australia and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and I have found many records at the NAA and have had nothing from the UNHCR (in fact the UNHCR does not reply to my emails even to tell me that they can't help me).

At the NAA there is a bewildering number of records of current and former Commonwealth agencies that could have or would have assisted my father, at last count I found four major bodies (e.g Department of Immigration, Central Office) and fifteen minor bodies on the virtual paths, tracks and secondary roads as represented by the NAA database. In truth I don't what I am doing and don't know enough about how a displaced person like my father progressed through the system, or anything about the agencies or their records. He may well appear in the records, however, it is likely as a name within a record and not as the subject of the record, in this manner he appears in the nominal roll of the ship Goya (see Voyage of the Goya, September-October, 1949 in this blog). As such he will not appear in the record indexes. Knowing the administrative process would help as it would lead me to some of the right doors to knock on (in a virtual sense).

The local public library, in its local history collection has some general information about the Department of Immigration Reception and Training Centre, Bathurst which will help me visualise the place my father lived in when I visit the site. The file told me that other than a memorial not much is left. My fear is that not much is left of my father in the records of the various government agencies (national and international) and he may be impossible to track. Dear Constant Reader you are no doubt thinking I should have talked to him while he was with us, but he often didn't want to talk about the past or simply said he did not remember, and I didn't want to press or pester him, and that, I suspect is a common problem in researching family history. And there is my mother, as a source of information about my father. None the less I will solider on, hopeful that if I keep at this I will eventually find information about him.


Images: Dad by the sea in Italy, and with a group (fellow displaced persons/immigrants?), dated 23/26 June, 1949.

A favourite painting: Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting by Artemisia Gentileschi

When I first saw a photograph of this work of art several years back it made an immediate impact with its intensity, and I was inspired to find out more about the artist, Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1653?). Unusually, for a women of the time, but not unheard of, Artemisia, became a professional painter in early 17th century Rome. Her father, Orazio (1563-1639), was a history painter there in the late 16th century through to the 1630's, and at some point around 1610 he taught his daughter to paint. Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting was produced in the late 1630's. A 2001 exhibition catalogue I own, Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi, give me an overview of their work and from that I think that Artemisia was the more original of the two.

What I love about this painting (click on the image to enlarge) is the intensity of expression of Artemisia's face and the usual pose of the artist (unusual to me that is!); the viewer is looking down from slightly above, and she has placed us not far removed from the action. All-in-all its quite intimate and minimalist. From my reading of the catalogue and from other readings in art history I think she may have done this for herself, or as a uncommissioned piece to show prospective clients as part of a portfolio (in the catalogue there is a portrait of a man by Artemisia and that is much more formal and polished).

In the last half century or so since she was rediscovered much has been written about Artemisia, including a 1947 novel, however, if you want to read a little more about this very interesting artist a number of books have been written; for those who can't get to their library or bookshop there is a Wikipedia article about her.

The painting is in the collection of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II at Hampton Court Palace, to whom the copyright belongs. And the exhibition catalogue for those of you who may want to find it: Christiansen, Keith & Judith W. Mann (2001). Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 1 58839 006 3/1 58839 007 1.

Image: © Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II.

Comet Lulin (C/2007/N3)

This post is for my astronomical friends, although I sent out an email, I'll post here so you can all see it. After some preparation and a short search with 7 x 50 binoculars, I found Comet Lulin, more formally C/2007/N3, early today at 1:00 AM, AEST (14:00 UT, 21 February). My email sent out just before 2:00 AM to some observing mates, bragging as I say of my sighting:

"Hi all,

I've just seen it, although Comet Lulin is not awe inspiring. Work required me to spend the weekend in Bathurst and tonight I gave it a go: it has been clear except for a few fast moving clouds around 11:50 pm. So using Dave's directions and Astronomy '09 I looked for it and found after a few minutes (at 1 am DST) from my balcony - in the eastern sky. It looks like a small and lumpy globular star cluster; it could be slightly oval; hard for me to say if it has a tail, maybe a darker site other than the mega-polis of Bathurst would help in seeing any tail. Size, possibly 10 to 15 arc min. (very uncertain about that); mag: around 6 to 6.5. I spent 30 minutes examining it in 7 x 50's and found that I could not extract any more detail other than what my brain can manufacture. Sky although clear was not very stable with lots of twinkle, air was nice and cool.

Now I'll stop bragging and go to bed, actually Guys, I was determined to start my observing year off after a month of bad weather and this didn't seem too hard if the clouds stayed away. Cheers, Peter"

Unfortunately, no drawing and no photo to share. A drawing through the binoculars wouldn't show much - a small, round, fuzzy blob in a star field, so I didn't sketch it. "Lumpy" in my email is a metaphor for irregularly bright. For a nice suite of images and some more observational history go to Garry Kronk's Cometography site; this is his Comet Lulin page. Astronomy Picture of the Day has an image as well. Anyway, the observing drought is hopefully broken.

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher

What do male, 40 something librarians do when they can’t sleep? They read and write book reviews for their blog (first post since 19 January).

I didn't know what to make of Carrie Fisher's mini-autobiography, Wishful Drinking! Is it a serious autobiography or a collection of self-mocking anecdotes? How much is accurate and how much is tongue in cheek exaggeration? Do I see the real Carrie Fisher in these pages or the celebrity Carrie? After reading it three times, like forbidden fruit, the answer is both. For me, a closest Star Wars fan, this book was a leap into the unknown as I am not that much interested in the lives of Hollywood celebrities, and I don’t like to find that some of my idols, when I was young and impressionable (i.e. the actors I loved in Star Wars at age 13) are real people with very real problems.

This book is a companion piece to Carrie’s one woman show of the same title, and in it she struts her stuff as a raconteur, and presumably in the stage show too, delivering a wide range of anecdotes, many fun, some sad, lots of laughing at herself – a quote at random, from page 111, illustrates much of the book:

“I was probably rebounding from Paul [Paul Simon] when I met Bryan (a week later), but Bryan is really, really attractive. When I met him, he had hair. Actually, I do that, too – I make them bald, I turn them gay, my work is done!"

The book is short (163 pages) and snappy and easy to read; my first read was over in one night. All in all it’s the sort of thing you can read without getting a headache, have some laughs, and look through a window into that parallel universe of Hollywood, California. To tie this up: not high literature, not demanding (unless you have to live Carrie’s life), but fun.

Carrie, if you happen to read this can I have your phone number? No? Thought so! How about a signed photo? Very Hollywood of me! Good night all!

Bibliographic details: Fisher, Carrie Wishful drinking. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008. ISBN 13: 978 1 4391 0225 1; price $US 21.00.

Lives In the Shadow of the Moon

"I wana promise you I am human,
I'd pinch myself to find out if it was really happening;
I walked on the Moon for three days of my life;
And now I am here to tell you about it - that's science fiction."
--Eugene Cernan, Apollo 10 & 17.

In the Shadow of the Moon (Australian release DVD packaging shown left) is a documentary about the men who went to the moon between 1968 and 1972. The film was shown in a limited theatrical release in the U.S. and Canada in late 2007 and also had a limited release in Australia in 2008.

The film is a series of interviews with ten of the twenty-four Apollo program astronauts, the notable exception is Neil Armstrong, interspersed with archival footage. The only speaking roles in the documentary are the astronauts themselves, although Neil Armstrong does appear in archival footage. The interviews are intimate; the astronauts speak directly to the camera. The power of this documentary is that I felt they were speaking to me alone.

The majority of the archival footage I have never seen and I found it spectacular, however, when describing scenes from the film to a friend he mentioned seeing some of the material before. The closest I've come before to that sense of awe is the photographs of Apollo presented in Michael Light's book Full Moon (published in 1999).

The film's title is a metaphor for the astronaut's lives defined by the shadow of their involvement and achievements in Apollo. The men, now in their seventies, reflect on what Apollo was to them at the time and what is to them now. For the first time I had a sense of these men as human beings rather than remote, larger than life figures. In the interviews one sees hints of the behind the scenes drama, and of the personal cost of Apollo to the men and their families.

This film makes the experiences of the astronauts accessible to us and in their own words. What made it different for me was the focus on the men, as they were then and as they are now, rather than a cavalcade of hardware being shot into space. But there is enough hardware shown to keep ardent technocrats happy. The film engaged me (code for I loved it) and I recommend it to anyone.

Australian release: Madman Entertainment (MMA 2791), 2 DVDs, $AUD 39.95. Contents: Disc 1: In the Shadow of the Moon; Disc 2: Behind the shadow (additional interview material); scoring Apollo (the music); interview with David Sington (director); original theatrical trailer.

The hard life of the ship Goya

The Goya had a vital part in my dad's story as the ship he journeyed to Australia in. Since identifying her and her role in my family history I wanted to know more about the ship, and her fate, in particular I wanted to locate a photograph. I searched high and low on the Internet, hoping to find something quickly, I did find some scraps of information and gleaned a few facts (e.g. at the time of my father's voyage the Goya was Norwegian owned and flagged), however, no photograph anywhere. Goya has a Wikipedia article, but alas, no picture. Much frustration, no satisfaction. I refined my search and googled again, finding nothing of use I gave up for the night ... fade to black.

A few days later, and at a holiday-time loose end, I tried again, this time reworking my search strategy and using Google's advanced search (forgot to do that first time around): better result, fewer hits, and more to the point. This led to a maritime history site, Ahoy-Mac's web log, and that led to a quick email to the site's author; his reply directing me to Australian migrant ships 1946-1977 by Peter Plowman. This I have done and was rewarded with a picture of the Goya (see below) and some additional information (see Plowman, 2006, page 36 if you are interested).


And her fate? Reading through Peter Plowman's book shows me that the Goya was a typical merchant/passenger ship -- not much glamour and a hard, hard life. The vessel started life in 1938 as the German cargo ship Kamerun; performed war service with the German navy until taken as spoils of war and allocated to the Norwegians; six changes of name; several owners; a migrant ship for only part of her life. Finally, in 1969, named Melina she was sold for the last time and was broken up for scrap at Kaohsiung, Taiwan. It appears that Goya's most famous voyage was her March-May 1951 journey to New Zealand. The 50th anniversary of that event was marked, in September 2001, by a celebratory dinner (see the New Zealand Government Internet site, beehive.govt.nz for details).

A last note, the Goya I discuss here is not to be confused with another German ship named Goya, which was sank with great loss of life by the Soviet navy in 1945.

The book's details: Australian migrant ships 1946-1977 / by Peter Plowman. Dural, N.S.W. : Rosenberg, 2006; ISBN: 9781 8770 5840 0; price $AUD 29.95.

Photographs rediscovered: Olympic Games, Melbourne, 1956

In my post for last Saturday (10 January) I mentioned discovering, among a box of photographs, two pictures of the opening or closing ceremonies at the 16th Olympic Games in Melbourne (taken either on 22 November or 8 December, 1956). Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing for certain that my father was the photographer, however, as I mentioned in the earlier post I have a vague childhood memory of him telling me once that he did go to the games.

The first picture shows the South African team, while the second shows another team passing in front of a police or military marching band; in the second shot the clock on the stand opposite gives the time as 3:55 pm. The two shots partially overlap indicating that they were taken from the same position in the stadium.

The original black and white pictures are 3 x 5 inches (7.7 x 12.7 cm) in size and are un-inscribed; click on the images to see enlarged versions.

Photographs rediscovered

While attempting to find some photographs for my mother I found a small box containing around 200 photos (and two postcards) of my dad and others, taken between about 1947 and the mid 1960's. There were also a few photographs taken from the early 1900's through to the 1970's of people, who must be Serbian relatives; many of earliest prints in this group are badly damaged. All the photographs are interesting, the ones in Greece are the first definite visual evidence of his time in Greece and appear to show him in the Greek army. Most of these are inscribed in Serbian and have dates; several have hand stamps with Greek text in red or blue ink.

Other photographs in the box where taken in Italy, and in Australia (Cooma and Lithgow?, New South Wales; Adelaide, South Australia). Some may have been shot in the Department of Immigration Reception and Training Centre, Bathurst. One of the most amazing finds is two photos of what may be the opening or closing ceremonies of the 1956 summer Olympiad in Melbourne. One of these shows the march past of the South African team. I have a very faint memory of my dad telling me that he did go to the Olympics.

Constant Reader its great to have re-discovered the photographs. Over time its my intention to scan all of the photos and find someone to translate the inscriptions. The selection of two photographs presented here are typical of the pre-Australian images. The first illustrated is of dad between two colleagues in what may be Greek army uniform, the photo is inscribed in Serbian and dated 10-II-47 (i.e. 10 February, 1947); the second is again of dad and a friend posing with a studio prop (dad is at the controls of the "plane"), inscribed and dated 10-IV-47 (i.e. 10 April 47).

Buyer beware: truth in print (and online)

I read voraciously, mainly in print form, and increasingly online and like to think I am a critical reader of what I have in front of me and can tell truth from fiction; now I am not so certain of my abilities in this regard. The Australian and Sydney Morning Herald newspapers today have reported on a hoax perpetrated on Keith Windschuttle, editor of the journal Quadrant (see A., p. 1 & SMH, p. 3, or go to the online editions).

Briefly, Quadrant (www.quadrant.org.au) under Windschuttle's editorship, published a hoax article, Scare campaigns and science reporting by Sharon Gould, in its January-February 2009 print and online issue. The newspapers report that Quadrant was the target of efforts designed to highlight the journal's right-leaning views. All was revealed by the online newsletter, Crikey (www.crikey.com.au/) yesterday. A blog by the anonymous hoaxer detailing the campaign to deceive Quadrant is to be found at the Cirkey blog site (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/crikey/files/2009/01/diary-of-a-hoax.html).

Windschuttle, in his rebuttal of the controversy, makes valid points:

"Any printed or online publication that accepts freelance contributions, as both Quadrant and Crikey do, is vulnerable to the same tactic. All such publications have an obligation to their readers to do a basic job of fact-checking, which Quadrant did in this case. The incidents, authors, publications and institutions in the article in question all checked out accurately. However, there is a point beyond which such sub-editing practices cannot go, especially when dealing with an author’s discussion of the detailed content of several books and their footnotes. There comes a point at which all publishers have to take their authors on trust." (Windschuttle, QED, 6/1/2009, http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/qed/2009/01/margaret-simons-and-an-apparent-hoax-on-quadrant).

That's reasonable, however, I would add that basic "fact-checking" should include the author's academic qualifications, and affiliations, referral by the editor to an appropriate expert for comment, particularly if the editor is not familiar with the content or the author. By doing this the editor reduces the risks of this sort of episode occurring. Much embarrassment to Mr. Windschuttle I think.

So, how does all of this effect me? The first thing is be honest: I have read the newspaper stories and then the offending article at Quadrant Online -- if I had read the article without forewarning I would not have picked it as fake. It mixes fact and fiction in a subject I have no expert knowledge in. I depend on a long chain of people being honest and doing their jobs. In spite of pretensions to be widely read I can't be expert in everything I read, yes, I can pick up obvious errors and distortions, and question what I read, however, I must rely on others to watch my back. When I agree with the arguments of the author of a piece I tend to be less critical and more forgiving of error, in short, when I trust I drop my guard. What I can do for myself is to be aware of my own biases and not be too bedazzled by something I like the look of on the page or screen.

The text of the hoax article, minus the footnotes, is available at Quadrant Online (www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2009/1-2/scare-campaigns-and-science-reporting).

Earth and Moon, part 2

On 16 December, 2008 I talked about the first picture of the Earth and Moon taken by Lunar Orbiter 1 during 1966. This morning while browsing the Astronomy Picture of the Day web site I found that APOD recently (18 November, 2008) featured a restored version of the same picture; its much better than the version I used to illustrate my earlier post. Go to APOD, this is the link http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap081118.html; click on the image to enlarge.

The original image was restored by the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project in November last year (www.nasa.gov/topics/moonmars/features/LOIRP/index.html). More information about the image, including a comparison of the original and restored versions, and historical documents are available there.

Image credit: © NASA/Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project, 2008.

Please donate blood!

This morning at a shopping centre near my parent's house I donated blood for the first time. The Paramatta mobile blood collection unit of the Australian Red Cross was there and donating blood was one of those things I always thought to do but had never quite found the time to do it, so I seized the moment.

A small crowd of people were patiently waiting outside the vehicle: some first timers like me, others experienced donors; all filling in the donor questionnaire. One fellow, a regular donor, usually donated as part of a group of 15 blokes and while he was waiting he had been trying to contact his "team" to get them to come in and give blood. After waiting for around 20 minutes I was called up and placed on a reclining couch and hooked up to the machinery. The nurse was pleasant and very expert - they go out of their way to make the process of donation as painless and comfortable as possible. Because I was new it took about an hour of my time. The 470 millilitres (20 for testing and 450 as the donation) I gave will help someone, somewhere, and now that I've taken the plunge I'll do it again.

Constant Reader, I hope, if you have the time and the inclination, you will donate blood too sometime; too many of us don't do it and it helps us all. I was fascinated by the process and the machinery (as usual), and by how painless it was. A small diary I was given at the mobile blood bank informed me that the Federal Government has declared 2009 "Year of the Blood Donor", additionally this year is the 80th anniversary of blood services in Australia.

If you want more information or want to make a booking to donate go to the Australian Red Cross' Donate Blood Service website (http://www.donateblood.com.au/).

Image: © Australian Red Cross, 2008.