Tarnagulla Primary School excels

The much-hyped www.myschool.edu.au website says the 41 students at Tarnagulla PS are young geniuses.

Is it the teachers? Fresh air? The rusty old tractor to play on? The fact that everyone knows everyone? Who knows?

Even more interesting is poshness measure, ie. the ICSEA. Can this be true? See below:

Bottom quarter: 0%
Middle quarters: 3% and 18%
Top quarter: 79%

The copy/pasted table doesn't show up properly in my browser:

Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA)

School ICSEA value: 1102

Bottom quarter Middle quarters Top quarter 0% 3% 18% 79%

Lanolin grease

For some years now I have been rubbing lanolin grease onto the surface of most rusty things I value. For a while, maybe a few weeks, every bit of dust sticks to the grease, but after a while the surface turns a dull very dark brown colour and the rusting process appears to stop. Apparently lanolin has been used since ancient times as a rust inhibitor. It can be bought at various hardware outlets, or maybe in bulk from wool processors.

Newsletter for Tarnagulla?

Has anyone seen the neat little Chewton Chat? A neat little newspaper. Available around Chewton as a few A3 pages or as a pdf file at www.chewton.net

How about something like this for Tarnagulla?

Tarnagulla in the news

$535k for Tarnagulla

09 Jan, 2010 04:00 AM

THE State Government has announced hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding for Loddon Shire projects for the second time this week.

But Member for Bendigo West Bob Cameron denied the grants were part of a pre-election ploy to win votes.

Tarnagulla will receive a new hall, main street and park under the latest round of funding.

Mr Cameron yesterday announced $225,000 for the Tarnagulla Community Hall and $235,000 for the streetscape project. The Federal Government has provided $75,000 for the hall.

read the rest here:

http://www.bendigoadvertiser.com.au/news/local/news/general/535k-for-tarnagulla/1721187.aspx?storypage=0

Ikea home delivery

I have only just become aware that Ikea in Adelaide and Perth (apparently the same business) will take orders over the phone and then send the goods via courier. Some of their prices are a bit higher than Melbourne, but it might beat a long trip for some things...

Car rego rip-off

Can anyone tell me why car registration in Australia is a flat fee? We are forever told user-pays is the economically rational and efficient way for things to be done. So why not fund the compulsory car registration/insurance via fuel taxes? Say the average car travels 15,000km p.a., using say 1500 litres of fuel, then 50c a litre would collect $600. People would pay according to how much they drive, instead of the existing system whereby low-km drivers subsidise high km drivers.

RECS rorting

I know for a fact that people are knocking on doors, giving away compact fluorescent bulbs, then asking the occupant to sign something that says the bulbs have been installed to replace incandescent bulbs. Whoever is behind this then earns a Renewable Energy Certificate (or part of one), even though the home may already have compact fluorescent bulbs. If anyone knows anything more about this, I'd be interested to know.

Two books I like

One of my favourite books is The Bicycle and the Bush by Jim Fitzpatrick. It has a lot of detail about early bicycles in rural Australia, they don't look a lot different from pre-1995 mountain bikes: diamond frame, fat tyres.

Another very good book is The Life and Adventures of Edward Snell: the illustrated diary of an artist, engineer, and adventurer in the Australian Colonies (1849-1859), , really good reading. He never made it to Tarnagulla, but did work on the goldfields around Bendigo.

things I like

I like old bicycles. Around Tarnagulla are almost endless tracks through state forests, good places to ride mountain bikes. My favourite is a 1987 Apollo Everest, CrMo frame, alloy parts. I like the full bone-shaking experience without any suspension. I like the look of tapered forks with a curve toward the end, also a horizontal top-tube.