La Niña

Australia has come under the influence of the little girl, the La Niña event that affects the Pacific every so often. And I must say that it's not a moment too soon. La Niña almost always brings with her above average rainfall and Australia could certainly use as much as it could given the dryness of the last 15 years. Lately, though, there has been a period of prolonged wet weather which has elevated the levels of the all-important reservoirs and changed the red interior a healthy shade of green. However, this chica loca is a wild girl.

Let's take today as an example. A large and powerful low pressure system has moved over southeastern Australia bringing several centimeters worth of rain to Adelaide and Canberra with additional appreciable amounts to most other capital cities. In Adelaide the rain was accompanied by wind gusts up to 100km/hr while Canberra will tomorrow face a slightly drier day but gusts approaching 75 km/hr, although it's howling outside right now. Unfortunately as it is the playoff season for the local Australian rules football league, I have to umpire in these conditions tomorrow. Actually I dodged a bullet as I was originally scheduled for today but was made to switch with someone when their unavailability unexpectedly changed. Today's rain was fierce and persistent but it is supposed to ease up tomorrow so these clouds do have silver linings.

I also had the opportunity to participate in an interesting exercise in evidence class --- a trivia contest dealing with hearsay. The game was spread out over the two days we would have had lectures and was designed to familiarize us with relevant provisions of the Evidence Act relating to hearsay evidence. I was with a team of some old friends and some new ones. For those who aren't familiar with the intricacies of evidence, hearsay is (roughly) non-first-hand evidence and there are rules about when you can and can't use it. I, and others including the lecturer, think this is the hardest concepts in evidence law. The problem I find is that while I can usually recognize admissible and inadmissible hearsay evidence the Evidence Act is not a well-drafted bit of legislation which makes hearsay rather tricky. One of my dad's stories from law school was that he, rather unexpectedly, received a very good mark for evidence. I'm hoping that history repeats itself.

I'll close by saying that recently I've rediscovered one of my favourite Canadian singers --- Amanda Marshall. She was very active in the blues/adult contemporary genre from the mid-90s until about 2001, when she suddenly went quiet. Apparently she has continued to sing at concerts and the like and has an album planned for this year, which will be her 4th (excluding "best of" compilations) and her first since 2001. She had some of the most memorable songs in that period and I'm sorry she sequestered herself. The thing about her is that while she might not have the vocal range of some singers, her voice has more power behind it. In my opinion, one of the most underrated and overlooked singers of the period even though she was quite well-known and successful during her time. Let's hope she receives the recognition she deserves.