Australia Day on Monday: the 221st anniversary of the arrival of a British naval fleet to dump its nation's surplus prisoners in a distant misunderstood continent. There's way too much going on in Sydney on any given January 26 to take in within the scope of one day, but I make a point of spending at least some time each year joining the indigenous community's Survival Day carnival.

Wishing everyone a happy and prosperous New Year 2009!

And to get the year rolling, the first and probably worst Youtube video that I will present in 2009, mainly because it was shot by me with a small digital camera profoundly unsuited to the task at hand.

Yep, it's the view from my window several kilometres away of Sydney's great annual ostentatious emission of lots of carbon. It does get better towards the end, and yes, it did look better from the naked eye.

...the team bus sideswipes a parked car as it was leaving the hotel. It happened to the Indian team as they left Sydney for Canberra, 48 hours behind schedule, this morning.

Macquarie National News has video. You don't actually see the prang, just the sound of a bang and the crowd going "ooh" as the bus pulled out of the kerb outside the Radisson Hotel, Sydney.

Barely two months after Sydney was turned into Fortress APEC, comes the revelation in today's Sun-Herald that thieves scaled a two-metre security fence last Sunday and roamed unchecked through State Parliament before making off with six security guard shirts.

The Sun Herald continues the story.