The authorities are really getting tough in Henan Province as they try to clamp down on dangerous working conditions in local coal mines. This report today from the Hong Kong-based China Labor Bulletin:

Mine managers in Henan be suspended if nine people die in one accident

With Portugal's loss to the referee in yesterday's Euro 2006 semi-final, my interest in the tournament has drawn to a close.

My prediction for the big game on Sunday morning: Portugal 2 Germany 1. And on Monday, France 3 Italy 0 with riot police throwing a cordon around Michel's Patisserie in Norton Plaza for the rest of the day.

Another domain name I bought a while back and never got around to using.

I've put worldcup-champions.com up for auction on eBay. The auction closes in three days time, on Thursday about twelve hours after the Portugal-France semi-final. The domain name is currently registered until 24 February 2007.

If anyone is interested, the auction is on eBay here.

Chris Masters' long-awaited unauthorised biography of infamous Sydney squawkmeister Belford Parrott has been shelved. The book, tentatively titled "Jonestown", was intended as a follow-up to Masters' Four Corners report on Mr Parrott in 2002.

The ABC issued a press release this afternoon, possibly the first press release I can ever recall announcing the non-publication of a book. The decision, according to ABC Enterprises director Robyn Watts, was made for "purely commercial reasons".

Andrew Johns is, arguably, the greatest rugby league player of the last decade. As a kid he would, like all sportsminded schoolboys in Australia, have played a bit of cricket at school and over the summer. None of this, however, explains today's revelation that Johns has been signed up to make two appearances in the New South Wales Twenty20 side for next season.

Not much for me to say except let the great minds speak for themselves:

The Nationals support efforts to reduce Australia's greenhouse emissions but do not support international rules which disadvantage Australian industry and interests.

- from the National Party of Australia's environment and conservation policy

On the other side of the house:

I haven't been this excited about a game of soccer since... well, no, I haven't.

Australia 2 Croatia 2. What a nailbiter. We're in the final sixteen.

Italy? Doddle.

It's been about eighteen years of waiting for a decent opportunity, but at long last I have made it this year to the Sydney Film Festival.

So far I have seen nine films, ranging from the earnestly good to the bloody brilliant, and I'm booked in for two more before the Festival closes next Sunday.

Here are some brief reviews of the first three films that I saw, with more to follow in future posts:

A Hero's Welcome - Documentary about, and narrated by, Timor-Leste president Xanana Gusmao, shot before the current problems flared up. The film is something of a hagiography of Xanana, but by all reports he's that kinda guy. Directed by Grace Phan, the former CNBC Asia presenter who answered questions following the screening (which was in fact the world premiere). The aerial photography of the Timorese countryside is quite beautiful.

This just in from Cricket Australia:

Fifth 3 mobile Ashes Test (SCG) SOLD OUT

The general public ticket allocation to the Fifth 3 mobile Ashes Test match at the SCG has sold out within 40 minutes this morning.

Tickets all matches in Sydney, including days 1 - 4 of the Test match, went on sale from 9am today through Ticketek (via web, over the phone and through outlets).

A small amount of tickets still remain to the other international matches scheduled for the SCG this summer including:

• Aus v Eng, Twenty20, 9 Jan 2007
• Aus v NZ, ODI, 21 Jan 2007
• Aus v Eng, ODI, 2 Feb
• Second ODI Final

For additional ticketing information, please visit www.cricket.com.au.

As you may have seen, this site was down last Thursday for about 18 hours.

I need to reduce the load on the MySQL server, and as a consequence, I have had to switch off the cron jobs that ran the RSS aggregators every half-hour (which generate the news and blog feeds which are the heart of this site these days).

Currently I am running the aggregator scripts manually twice a day until I develop a less sql-intensive process.

Thanks for your patience.