Hoist by my own pet project

The Antarctic Wildlife Colouring Book turns out to be a lot more fun than its snide origins led me to expect. 
I’m on notice to expect output from several other quarters as children, children at heart, and grand children of listeners apply themselves to adding chromatic splendour to my drawings. 
On that note, I can’t draw well. I used digital photographs of the animals and a data projector to trace the outlines onto the A3 stock. I envy people who can draw images like these and better than these without such camera-lucida trickery, but not enough to actually do anything to improve my own skill set, like taking classes or practicing. 
The hourglass dolphin image and the storm petrel pic were deemed sufficiently cool to warrant curation into the McArthur archives. The punkguin received space on the refrigerator. 

The Antarctic Wildlife Colouring Book

Do you know annoying people who use words like “beige” and “mauve” as though those are more than just noises the human vocal apparatus can conjure?
Has anyone ever laughed at your art, telling you that trees shouldn’t have green bark or that the sky shouldn’t be purple?
Do you find cultural representations of rainbows featuring more than two colours nonsensical?
If you answered “Yes, these people meandering about describing the world around us in terms of light frequencies are missing the more important information conveyed in shape, position, and orientation, and I want to kick their shins every time they send me on an errand with a colour descriptor among their terms,” then do I have the colouring book for you? 
And “Yes,” is the answer to that final question, I do.

Share, print, colour in as you see fit, frame, mount, cut stencils and go full Banksy. It’s now yours to do with as you will.

154_Macquarie_Island_catch_up

Several years of Macquarie Island winters receive attention as I chill out under a Casuarina after several fraught months.
Pull up some buffalo grass and relax in the shade with me or go listen to me after the fact by clicking on the thing with the thing.

ANARE facilities at Macquarie Island in 1953 during the visit of HMS Austel Bay. 

My go-to Casuarina, whispering the zephyrs and blocking the UV. 
Camp in a Casuarina stand at your earliest opportunity. Their fallen branchlets make a soft and insulating ground cover and their soughing, sighing whispers will white noise out any snoring bastard you married, according to someone I know. And they don’t drop camper killing branches in the manner of those passive pyromaniacs, the eucalypts.
Mi casuarina su casuarina.

153_A_Furtive_Summiting_and_The_Frontier_Below

I give voice to another almost but not quite lost snippet from “Big Dead Place” and I give the microphone to Adam Fitzgerald who voices the introduction to Jeff Maynard’s new book, “The Frontier Below.”
I put very little thought and effort into scripting episode 154 but I’m still pretty happy with it. 

The moon above Mount Erebus, thirteen years after and forty nautical miles away from where Douglas Moeson saw it, as recounted in his tale. 


Jeff Maynard’s website, and Youtube channel.

Jeff’s new book sitting atop his previous books. Getting his own shelf in the “Ice Coffee” library when the next project hits the presses. 

Seals to the fore

I’m working up an episode about Macquarie Island occupation up to 1954 and lots of seals feature in the ANARE anecdotes.
Here’s what the pinnipeds get up to when they think I’ve stopped capturing audio.

Heard FM Bio

Recent episodes about Heard Island reminded me that Heard FM approached me requesting a bio and head shot as “Ice Coffee” was selected to form part of their first tranche of curated podcasts linked to by their service. Never heard back from them, but I do like the bio I wrote, so here it is, saved from digital abyss by a happenstance mnemonic.
Off, now, to fill out all the forms alerting me to my selection as a consumer of taste and distinction for pre-approval of a new and exciting credit service.

After colour vision deficiency precluded Matt McArthur from a career fighting fires in cool flying boats and helicopters he decided marine ecology might afford him similar levels of job satisfaction and equivalent opportunities to die in interesting ways in interesting places, one such place being Antarctica.  Australia’s proximity to and determination to be associated with Antarctica saw Matt’s childhood mind awash with thoughts of the far south.  If he couldn’t get there flying choppers he figured he might swing a trip there as a marine biologist. 
Ten years into a career studying benthic invertebrate biology and ecosystem services he leapt at an opportunity to head to Antarctica as part of a team diving under the sea ice to study the effects of UV light on echinoderm larvae.  Two austral summers at New Zealand’s Scott Base didn’t so much scratch an itch as induce a rash and he pined for the ice as subsequent jobs carried him north. 
Matt started “Ice Coffee” as a way to feel a connection to Antarctica while his work took him in directions unlikely to see him return there.
The series initially couched his recounting of a chronological Antarctic history narrative in a soundscape matching the dive hut from which he formerly worked on the shores of Ross Island.  As interest among Antarctic veterans and the latitudinally ambitious grew he received invitations south in Antarctic tourism.  While working as a history lecturer and Zodiac driver around the Antarctic Peninsula the fictional dive hut soundscape gave way to recordings made in Antarctica with all the aural penguins, whales, seals, and crunching ice that region affords a microphone. 
Matt lives in Melbourne with his wife from Detroit and their two children from planet Teenager.
He works in any marine science lab or maritime industry that will have him and turns his hand to trauma cleaning when the opportunities to work at sea or in science dry up.
Matt’s appended bio picture is the NZ$2:00 stamp from the 2006 Ross Dependency issue, which featured him surfacing from a dive beneath the sea ice.  In a life characterized by weirdness, turning up in postal form stands as the single weirdest thing that ever happened to him.  He bought a sheet of the stamps and mailed himself all over the planet.  While working at GeoScience Australia Matt delighted in pointing out to his many geologist colleagues that the marine biologist stamp cost NZ$0.65 more than the one representing them. 
Turning fifty in July 2023 caught Matt by surprise, in part because he forgot his birth date and in part because he fully expected his innate clumsiness to combine with his career in high risk industries to see him fall off the twig long before now. 
Matt writes, records, and edits “Ice Coffee” on his own because he can’t afford to pay anyone to help out and is too ornery to attract volunteer labour. 
Matt loves surfing, playing guitar, and building model aircraft.
He hates bullies, transphobes, and writing about himself in the third person. 

152 Vodka in a Vegemite Jar – interview with Trevor Hamley

In 1983 Australian glaciologist Trevor Hamley joined a Soviet traverse from the Russian coastal station, Mirny, to Dome Charlie, high atop the Antarctic plateau. Bouncing about in the back of a T-55 tank converted into a living quarters/galley/dining space/lab, recording locations on audio cassette tape, wielding a hammer, and ignoring the ideological and political drivers of the cold war in the name of survival, camaraderie, and science, Trevor experienced Antarctica in a unique context at a unique point in history.
His book, “Vodka in a Vegemite Jar” recounts his experiences during the preparation for and during the traverse in compelling prose that keeps one eye on the immediacy of the narrative and another on the forty year perspective 2023 affords on his time in the back of a Kharkovchanka.
Introduced to Trevor by Jeff Wilson, who recounts his own Antarctic tale in episode 151, I spent an afternoon with the Hamleys after reading a galley proof copy of the manuscript. I listened intently as Trevor mapped the overall arc of the story he recounted in his text as well as the story of bringing that text together. Fortunately I remembered to press record on the Zoom H4N, so you get to listen intently, too, if you click the things leading you to episode 152.

I am proud to bring “Vodka in a Vegemite Jar” to the attention of “Ice Coffee” listeners and I encourage them to head to https://www.trevorhamley.com/ to see what’s on offer for $30 plus postage.
My copy arrived in the mail today and I’m over the moon to see the finished product in its colour illustrated glory. That’s going straight to the pool room.

The driver’s cab of the early model Kharkovchanka with driver included for scale. It’s like Gerry and Sylvia Anderson started an engineering concern instead of a TV production company. Thunderbirdskis are идти!

Hard copy is hard to beat but e-book is also available. Order here.
If you don’t know what Vegemite is I advise you to remain ignorant.

Highly recommended viewing: Calum produces excellent short documentaries about machinery and engineering for publication on Youtube and gave attention to the Kharkovchanka in 2020. Go have a look and thank me when you’ve rehydrated following the two day long watchfest any attempt to watch just one his videos initiates.

Alas, poor taste… Using a marinade, in future.

151_Interview_with_Jeff_Wilson

Australian Antarctic Division alumnus, Jeff Wilson, recounts his experiences at Australian stations and in the Ross Sea.
Road trip with our eldest.
Good company at Anglesea.
Good food.
Good audio.
Awesome dog.
One of the best days 2023 offered up.

Jeff at age 17, heading to join his ship and face the perils of the Southern Ocean and HSC exams at the same time.
I love every aspect of this image and find new historical threads every time I look at it anew.
The ship in the background is the Lake Macquarie, a coal/coke/iron ore bulk carrier launched from the shipyard in Whyalla in 1958 and went to the scrapper in 1982.

The Basics Bandcamp page and the video accompanying a full version of the song “With this ship.”


Don’t let the name fool you.
This isn’t an interview with Geoff Wilson, who already receives plenty of media attention for his Antarctic adventures. This is Jeff Wilson, who is spelt and built differently. One is a glaciologist and one is a veterinarian, and those are also spelt differently for the very good reason that they are different careers requiring different skill sets. Similar, or the same, spelling might cause confusion.
Names: important.

150_Shepherds_of_Heard_Island

The ANARE presence at Heard Island runs to 1955 and switches focus to continental Antarctica. 
The Island taught Australians to work on glaciers and to run dog teams, saw John Bechervaise cut his Antarctic teeth and lead the first ascent of Big Ben, and claimed the lives of two winterers. 
“Ice Coffee” leaves Heard Island alone for a bit having documented its reputation as a very difficult place to operate boats, keep sheep, and traverse safely.
Don’t think Heard Island counts as proper Antarctic?
Head to 53 deg S and say that. 
That place kicked their sheep.
I’m sure it could as readily kick your ass.

You can heard this one by clicked on the linker hereing.

The Heard Island huts in 1954, in an image by Graham Budd. Cosy lookin’.

Hoseason Beach and the Baudassin Glacier terminus, 1953. Image by John Bechervaise. Desolate lookin’.

Ascending Big Ben, 1953. Image by John Bechervaise. Uphill lookin’.

Satellite image of vortices shedding off Big Ben as the westerly winds of the furious fifties bump into one of the few interruptions in their world circling circulation. Turbulent lookin’.



Antje Duvekot’s Youtube presence, Wikipedia page, and website, featuring gig calendar. Go see her perform and tell her “hi” from me.

This is what her song, “Open Water” looks like in the episode 150 Audacity file. Pretty cool, even in visual form, hey?