Oldest message in a bottle found in WA

The world's oldest known message in a bottle has been found half-buried at a West Australian beach nearly 132 years after it was tossed overboard into the Indian Ocean.

The dark inexperienced glass bottle, that measured but 9 inches long and 3 inches wide, was found by Tonya Illman close to Wedge Island, one hundred eighty kilometres north of state capital, in January.

It had been flung from the German sailing sailing ship Paula in 1886 as a part of a 69-year official experiment to raised perceive world ocean currents and realize quicker, a lot of economical shipping routes.

A report free by the Australian state depository details however the bottle was found and what its healthy message reveals concerning science and history.

According to a museum press release on Tuesday, Ms Illman and a friend were walking along the dunes when she saw it near where her son's car had become bogged in soft sand.

"It just looked like a lovely old bottle so I picked it up thinking it might look good in my bookcase," she said.

"My son's girlfriend was the one who discovered the note when she went to tip the sand out. The note was damp, rolled tightly and wrapped with string. We took it home and dried it out, and when we opened it we saw it was a printed form, in German, with very faint German handwriting on it."

Mia Dyson lets go and enjoys the ride

Some musicians think they need to torch the certainties in their life to reach the creative depths they seek, but on If I Said Only So Far I Take It Back, the new album from Los Angeles-based Australian singer and guitarist Mia Dyson, the key to deepening her songwriting lay in self-acceptance.

Catharsis, it turns out, doesn't hold a candle simply to seeing circumstances as they truly are.

"As a younger person i assumed i used to be dictating however my life went, then i might get very aggravated once it did not go my manner. it has been a method of discovering that i am not au fait which i am on associate journey while not an impression panel," Dyson says. "You will either fight it or associate with it, and whereas that does not mean i do not have any say in my life I will positively get pleasure from myself plenty a lot of with the latter."

The 36-year-old, UN agency grew informed Victoria's Surf Coast with a craftsman father UN agency place guitars in her hand associated sounds in her head from an early age, was in Melbourne recently for some of shows (Dyson maintains separate moving bands in America and Australia) and to push If I Said…

Her sixth album, free on weekday, continues her evolution from the blues-rock firebrand UN agency declared herself with the 2003 debut Cold Water.

"It looks like a number of the foremost honest and vulnerable writing that I've done and been willing to place out. It's positively a mirrored image of however my life has gone within the previous few years," Dyson says.

"I haven't had the success I unreal of, or maybe assumed, was coming back after I was twenty or maybe twenty five years previous, nonetheless I've unbroken creating music for a living that isn't any little deed."

Dyson rapt to America in 2009, beginning come in Bean Town and shedding her initial move companions over ensuing 2 years before relocating to la.

A lyricist who'd always written about transient lives and the arcs of outsiders, she found herself alone and had to build up a new support structure and define her strengths and capabilities.

The process hasn't hardened her outlook, but instead made her receptive. In 2014 Dyson married, and during the writing of the new album she started to adapt the poetry written by her husband Karl, discovering that the meter of his verse inspired unexpected melodies.

Dyson would work alone in the morning, then the couple would collaborate in the afternoon, with Karl returning to the guitar and piano he'd first learnt to play as the son of missionaries.

When Dyson decamped for Muscle Shoals in Alabama to record, she then found keen collaborators in co-producers John Paul White (formerly in Americana duo The Civil Wars) and Ben Tanner (keyboardist in blues-rock quartet Alabama Shakes).

After three weeks of fruitful recording the pair, each with Grammy Awards to their name, wanted to release If I Said… on their label, Single Lock Records. After 15 years of self-funded independent releases, Dyson found herself with a record deal.

"There were times previously when I was looking and couldn't get one, and that was hard and painful," Dyson says. "But when it came up this time I felt that the time was right."

The finished record is Dyson's most eclectic yet. The R&B ballad Nothing, which is defined by fuzzy chords and a spectral refrain, gives way to the urgent 1980s pop licks of Fool, and across the 10 tracks not only genres but emotional states intermingle. Defiance and vulnerability prove to be as complementary as haunted blues and sparse folk.

"I always wondered if these songs could sit on the same record," Dyson says, "and now I know that they can.

Mia Dyson plays 48 Watt Street, Newcastle on March 24 and Leadbelly, Newtown, on March 25.

Yukinori Yanagi's eerie vision

In Cockatoo Island's cavernous power generation room, banks of switches and electrical dials line the walls, vast generators are bolted to the tessellated floor and dusty tools lie on benches, apparently undisturbed for decades.

It takes only a modest flight of fancy to imagine a manic Victor Frankenstein running up and down the gantry in a lightning storm, throwing levers to awaken his creation from slumber.And it could not be a a lot of good setting for a brand new installation from Yukinori Yanagi, a number one Japanese up to date creator whose work typically references the technological "monsters" created by humanity.

Suspended from the ceiling of the area is what seems to be a personality's eyeball, 2.5 metres in diameter.

Projected onto the attention, because it flicks disconcertingly round the area, ar pictures of nuclear tests within the Pacific. All the whereas, it's among massively amplified rumbling sounds recorded from the explosions.

The result of the work, Landscape With a watch, that is an element of the Sydney Biennale, is each eerie and compelling.

In distinction to the violent imaging he employs, 59-year-old Yanagi, WHO lives in urban center, could be a mild, quietly spoken man.

Speaking through associate degree interpreter, he's unwilling to elucidate his work too closely, preferring the viewer to succeed in their own conclusions.

"You could think of it like the eye of the god watching humans repeatedly doing nuclear weapons experiments," he says. "Repeating this violent activity."

Then he adds: "Nuclear fusion is like a man-made sun. Our technology is too close to god's creation."

Yanagi was born in Fukuoka in 1959 and went on to study in the US. The turbulence of world politics and, in particular, the vast changes in postwar Japan have had a great effect on his art.

He is perhaps best known for his work World Flag Ant Farm, which was recognised in the 1993 Venice Biennale. In the work, 49 Perspex boxes each contain national flags created from sand. A colony of ants travels between the boxes via clear tubes, gradually breaking down and mixing the flags.

"What is nation, what is a state, what is a border?" Yanagi asks.

Landscape With An Eye is one of three works Yanagi is installing on Cockatoo Island, all touching on the same, broad themes.

In the Rectifier Room, Absolute Dud is a steel replica of the Hiroshima bomb hung from the ceiling, providing "an ominous, physical reminder of the consequences of the misuse of power".

Meanwhile, Icarus Container, in the Turbine Hall, is a complex tunnel of shipping containers that represents "capitalism and global networks of distribution".

In the face of all this, does Yanagi find room for optimism?

"For myself I am optimistic, but for the world I think there is no hope," he says. "So people have to do something."

When music moves mountains

The word mountain takes on manifold metaphorical roles with singer-songwriter Sam Amidon’s latest release, The Following Mountain (Nonesuch records). Like wild peaks, the melodies meander in spurts of intensity, a beautifully balanced soundscape of jazz-tinged folk. 

Like mountains fixed in time, legendary musical giants Milford Graves, Sam Gendel and Shahzad Ismaily guided Amidon towards higher visions in song and composition, and like a mountain digs its roots into ancestral soil, the album is deeply grounded in American tradition.

Michelle Davis: Tell us about your new record. Was it challenging to write and record original material and was that the “mountain” you had to climb to reach new creative heights?

Sam Amidon: Each album I have made has been a new adventure in some way. This one started with a great day of improvisation in Brooklyn with Shahzad Ismaily, Milford Graves, Sam Gendel, and later in the evening Juma Sultan came by. These are all inspiring musicians to work with. They also brought with them their memories of playing with some of my musical heroes: Milford from playing with Albert Ayler and Sonny Sharrock, and Juma from playing with Jimi Hendrix. It was a new challenge to start an album from scratch and to build it up through writing, instead of using the folk songs as I have in the past. It was good to go back to that state of fear where you simply don’t know where it is headed and allow it all to grow. Leo Abrahams was crucial in giving me the context for this all to happen.

MD: Speaking of peaks, it appears that mountains have always piqued your interest. Your fifth album’s first single Lily-O was titled Blue Mountains and I See the Sign included Climbing High Mountains among its tracks. Even this record’s first single is called Juma Mountain.

SA: There’s a small mountain near the town in Vermont where I grew up. It’s called Mount Wantastiquet, which is a Native American name meaning “rattlesnake mountain”. When I was a teenager I would walk up to the top of this mountain every few days. I always wished I could bring it with me when I travelled. I imagined that I could someday have a “following mountain”, which would follow me everywhere I went, so that I could walk up it if need be!

MD: The album’s gestation involved moving across the pond, as it was recorded between Brooklyn and London. How did this affect the turnout? You’ve actually relocated with your family to the British capital. Are you enjoying your new homebase?

SA: Yes, the first couple of days, working with Shahzad and Milford, were at Brooklyn’s Figure 8 Studios, and then the rest of the time I was in London recording the rest of the album at Leo Abrahams’ home studio. I would drop my children off at school, take the train out to where Leo lives and make crazy music all day long, and then go pick the kids up from school. It was very satisfying, like a day job. I do like London and I love being able to travel all over Europe to play music.

MD: The word jazz seems to have consolidated itself into the Amidon lexicon. Tell us about how your style has changed and if you are leaning towards the idea of tackling other genres in the future.

SA: I love jazz, but I am definitely not a jazz musician. It is more that I love improvisation and I am interested in improvisation as part of music. But I am open to whether that improvisation is coming from the perspective of a jazz musician, or free improvisation, or even the improvisation in the phrasing of a great folk fiddle player, or the improvisation that you hear in somebody like Nico Muhly’s orchestral arrangements, where his composition has such a playful and open quality that you can hear it is resulting from his own listening in the same way that an improvising musician would work.

MD: Coming from a musical tradition that mostly lived on thanks to oral transmission, becoming live material that changed and warped through time and interpretation, how do you think changes in technology and fruition have affected the development and spread of folk music?

SA: I think the advent of recording was a huge change in the early 20th century, as soon as you could record a folk musician singing and playing instead of just transcribing the notes onto paper which wouldn’t really capture what they were doing. In a way, it’s a great thing that happened then because it gave us the chance to document so much incredible music before it disappeared. But what’s great about a lot of folk music is that much of it is still going strong.

MD: Are you looking forward to mixing your Cali-Appalachian folk roots with the Italo-Western vibes of the Po Valley marauders Guano Padano this February? How did this unique collaboration come into being?

SA: I can’t wait to meet and play with Guano Padano. The musicians from this group wrote to me a while back, and as soon as I was living in London again I wrote to them about putting something together. It will be interesting and fun to combine our music. There is a lot of overlap between our repertoire and sound, but there are also some interesting differences. In their music I hear the amazing tradition of Westerns, including the great Italian elements of that tradition, whereas my music has more Eastern elements in terms of British folk and New England where I’m from. So yeah, it’s gonna be great!

Savouring the Swiss secrets of Pontremoli

Lunigiana is about as far north as you can go in Tuscany and still be in Tuscany. And Pontremoli is its northernmost comune. 

At this time of year, the high Apennines in the distance are covered in snow and the austere walls of the castle of Piagnaro above the town remind us of more troubled times. But a visit to Pontremoli is well worthwhile not just to ponder past civilisations, nor simply to saunter through the narrow streets and pleasant piazzas of the old town, but also to discover a delicious Swiss secret more than a century old.

When we visited in mid-November, a bitter winter wind tugged at our coat-tails as we crossed the pedestrian-only hump-backed bridge across the Magra river to the gatehouse arch. But inside, the narrow streets protect you from the wind and the small town welcomes you to its heart. 

Traversing Pontremoli’s historic centre takes no more than about four minutes. More, of course, if you want to gaze in the windows of the Christmas shops; less if you are in a hurry to savour the Swiss secret.

We fit the latter category. Our destination is in the corner of piazza della Repubblica: the Caffè degli Svizzeri, or ‘Swiss Café’, and its associated pasticceria. 

Step inside and you step back 100 years, for here is a perfectly preserved café interior dating from the beginning of the 20th century, in Liberty style (or Art Nouveau), every detail from floors to ceiling, walls and lighting, bar front, tables and chairs, exactly as it was in the early decades of the 1900s.

It may seem strange to have a Swiss café in the depths of rural Tuscany, but the one in Pontremoli is by no means unique. Nearby Fivizzano has a Caffé Elvetico (and even a Swiss cemetery) and other towns in northern Tuscany have Swiss grocery stores and café-bars. The scattered Swiss influences date back to the mid-19th century when, following the upheavals of the Napoleonic wars, many impoverished Swiss left their mountain homes to seek their fortune in the more prosperous Tuscany, settling in the market towns along the trading routes. Among them, arriving here in the early 1840s, were the Aichta brothers, from the Canton of Grisons, who first established a grocery store which also sold pastries and liquors and who were later joined by another Swiss, Meinrad Steckli. The business expanded to embrace a café next door and to enjoy the Art Nouveau, Liberty style make-over in the 1920s. Today, Elisabetta Mauri Steckli, representing the family’s seventh generation, runs the business and jealously guards the secret recipes of its two most famous products: amor and spongata.

First we tried amor, a Chantilly cream confection held between two chewy wafers, delicious with your morning cappuccino. And then the capolavoro of the Swiss café, spongata, a flat round cake of thin pastry dough filled with honey, almonds, raisins and spices. Although traditionally a Christmas treat, it’s eaten year-round now, and all round the world: even as I write hundreds of expatriate Pontremolese families from Milwaukee to Melbourne, London to Los Angeles, are keenly awaiting shipment of this year’s spongata. And my British expatriate family in Florence will be savouring Pontemoli’s Swiss secret, too.

Rotten (food) rights in Italy

In general, when the buyer is a “consumer” (a person who acts for purposes unrelated to his trade, 

business or profession) and the seller is a “professional” (any individual or business that sells goods as his trade, business or profession), contracts of sale relating to food may be considered as “consumer contracts”. In these cases, the contract of sale is subject not only to the general rules of the Italian Civil Code but also to the special regulations of the Consumer Code (Italian legislative decree September 6, 2005, no. 205).

The European Union has enacted detailed regulations that ensure a high level of consumer protection. Among these, the European Regulation (EC) no. 178/2002 lays down the general principles and requirements of food law, establishing the European Food Safety Authority and instituting procedures to guarantee that consumers are able to make informed choices about the food they consume and to prevent any practices that may prove misleading.

As part of the European Union, Italy has implemented these regulations and enacted specific legislation to protect consumers. Article 130 of the Italian legislative decree 206/2005 (known as “Codice del consumo”) states that the seller of any commercial good and/or service is liable to the consumer for any lack of conformity existing at the time of delivery of the goods. The consumer’s rights include the possibility to request, at no extra cost, a conforming good by repair or replacement (unless these solutions are impossible or disproportionate) or a suitable reduction in the price or resolution of the contract. The consumer has the right to request a discount or have the contract cancelled—and the money returned—if: a) repair or replacement is neither impossible nor disproportionate; b) the seller has not completed the solution within a reasonable timescale or replaced the goods within a suitable timescale; c) the replacement or repair carried out previously caused significant inconvenience to the consumer.

The principle of lack of conformity can be applied for all goods that a consumer purchases. In the case of food, the consumer is always entitled to take back the product, accompanied by the receipt (to prove the date of purchase), and to request a refund or (more frequently) a different product of the same quality and quantity.

The direct resolution of disputes between buyer and retailer is often the best “strategy” as it saves time and allows consumers to recover the money that has been spent. This is a “shortcut”, however, which does not always solve the root of a problem. The “legal” procedure is to report any anomalies to the authorities, so that they can intervene directly in the store and retrace the entire production chain of that foodstuff. Reporting the matter to the police is extremely useful, for instance, if the fault has already been reported by other persons as this enables a more detailed investigation to be mounted; it is one way for the authorities to establish if the incident was a random case or if it was part of a more widespread problem that could affect the entire distribution chain.

The authorities most frequently contacted for food irregularities are the local health authority (ASL), which includes the prevention services (SIAN and Veterinary Services), the Carabinieri - NAS (Nucleo Antisofisticazione e Sanità), the Inspectorate “Repressioni Frodi”, the state forestry corps, the port authorities (Capitaneria di Porto, for fish products) and the local police (Polizia Municipale).

What to do if you find a fault in the food you have purchased

1/ Keep the product, even if it has been opened, in its original packaging and in the conditions in which it was purchased (freezer, refrigerator, or cool/dry place).

2/ Keep the receipt that states the date of sale and the place where it was purchased.

3/ Contact the authority that is considered to have primary competence. For example, if there is a problem with the weight, call the Polizia Municipale; if the issue is health-related, contact SIAN of the local health authority.

4/ Give the food and the receipt to the chosen authority. The authorities will carry out inspections and, on the basis of what they ascertain, they will take steps to activate the necessary measures to prevent repetition of the incident and will provide for any sanctions to be issued.

Orecchiette con Broccoli Ripassati

I came relatively late to cooking, in my early twenties. After a lifetime of taking the food my Italo-Australian family grew, sourced and cooked with love and pride for granted,  I suddenly found myself teaching English in a small town in France's northwest, living alone and, having to cook for myself. 

Many of the young adults living in the residence I was renting my tiny studio flat in seemed perfectly happy to microwave frozen ready meals and pizzas and subsist on that. Despite my relative lack of experience in the kitchen, I just couldn't bring myself to do the same. One grey autumn morning, I chanced upon the local farmers' market held in the cobblestoned town square. I was told by a local shopper that it was held every Tuesday and Saturday morning. From then on, I made a point of setting aside an hour for food shopping on these days.

Being late autumn, turnips, pumpkins and leeks were in season and graced the stands of the local producers. These were all vegetables my family back home rarely cooked with. Too shy about my French language skills at the time to ask what I could do with them, I opted to buy vegetables that were more familiar to what I'd grown up eating, such as fennel bulbs, cauliflower and my favourite of them all, the verdant, tree-like broccoli.

Over the next few months, on my tiny, two-burner stove top, I learned to replicate, through much trial and error, some of the flavours of the southern Italian dishes from my childhood.  Lentil and bean soups featured strongly, as did fennel salads. When my modest budget permitted, I fashioned meatballs from minced meat and leftover bread I'd accumulated. These were then cooked in sauce made from a soffritto of finely chopped onion and tinned tomatoes.

Like this recipe? Than we recommend "Orecchiette: The Signature Pasta from Puglia." 

Mastering pasta with broccoli, something my mother made for me regularly in the cooler months of the year back in Australia, gave me the most satisfaction though. Initially, I made it by simply boiling the roughly chopped trunks, leaves and florets together alongside whatever short variety of pasta I had on hand. It was then drained in a colander and coated with the best Italian olive oil I could buy at the time. On the advice of my mother during phone calls back home, I occasionally reserved some of the cooking water to make my plateful of pasta soupier. 

It was my then boyfriend's mother, a Sicilian, who introduced me to the act of ripassando or 'twice-cooking' my broccoli. The penny literally dropped as I witnessed her technique with an impossibly beautiful and purple cast specimen at work one evening after Christmas. She boiled her tufts of broccoli for several minutes, scooped them out with a slotted spoon, drained them of excess cooking water in a pasta colander and then added them to a frying pan containing gently-heated olive oil and a clove of garlic swimming in it.  As the penne cooked in the leftover green-tinged cooking water, the florets' buds softened and collapsed into the oil and became a sort of sauce. The stalks, though tender enough to be pierced with a fork, remained intact. When the pasta was perfectly al dente, it was drained and added to that frying pan of rendered, almost creamy broccoli.

These days, I like to add a few anchovy fillets and a sprinkling of chilli flakes to that  that sublime condiment of creamy broccoli, oil and garlic. I've also found that of all the dizzying variety of short, durum wheat pastas produced in southern Italy, orecchiette (meaning 'little ears') are by far my favourite to pair with this brassica. As Oretta Zanini de Vita and Maureen B. Fant, authors of Sauces and Shapes state, their rough-surfaced, bowl-like shapes lend themselves perfectly to trapping those tiny green buds and other tasty bits. That technique of ripassando or twice cooking, learned that relevatory evening over thirteen years ago, remains the same however.

With the following recipe, feel free to omit the anchovies and chilli if they're not to your liking. Also, I recently discovered that making orecchiette is incredibly easy,  with no special equipment, except for a wooden board and a rounded knife, necessary. So, you'll find instructions for making these too. If you don't have an extra hour or so to spare before twice-cooking your broccoli though, you can replace these with packaged dried orecchiette instead. If proceeding this way, be sure to adjust the pasta cooking time indicated.

Ingredients (serves 4 as a starter)

Ingredients

durum wheat flour

320 g durum wheat flour, plus extra for dusting

salt

a pinch

tepid water

160 mL

broccoli

800g

garlic cloves

1

anchovy fillets

4 anchovy fillets, drained of preserving oil (optional)

dried chilli

dried chilli flakes (optional)

extra virgin olive oil

salt

to taste

grated pecorino cheese

to serve

Preparation

To make the orecchiette, place the sifted durum wheat flour and salt in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre. Gradually add the tepid water while working in the flour with a fork or your fingers. When the flour and water have come together, transfer to a lightly dusted work surface. Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, at least 10 to 15 minutes. Roll the dough into a ball, cover with plastic wrap or better yet, the mixing bowl and leave to rest for half an hour.

Remove a large fistful of dough from the ball. Cover the remaining dough and roll out the fistful into a long log, about 1 cm thick. Cut the log into pieces about 1 to 1.5 cm in length.  Use a rounded, unserrated knife to drag the pieces of dough until they curl up. Reverse the curls so their rough surfaces are facing upwards. Place your fingertip underneath pushing slightly to form the charcteristic cupole or domes (For an excellent visual representation of this process, here is my friend and fellow food writer Carmen Pricone's Instagram video).  Place the orecchiette onto a floured tray or teatowel and continue forming the orecchiette with the procedure detailed above until you have used all your dough.

In the meantime, wash, dry and chop your broccoli's florets, stalks and leaves. Bring a large saucepan of salted water to boil, add the broccoli and cook until it can easily be pierced with a fork (about 7 minutes). Use a slotted spoon to remove the broccoli from the boiling water and allow to drain in a bowl lined with a colander. Turn down heat.

Peel garlic. Leave whole for milder flavour. For a stronger aroma, dice finely. Heat olive oil on low to medium heat in a large frying pan. Allow garlic and anchovy fillets (if using) to simmer very gently, bringing down the heat if necessary. Raise heat and add the drained broccoli to the frying pan and leave it to stew for a few minutes. It, along with the anchovy fillets, will render and break up as it cooks.

Bring the broccoli cooking water back to boil, add the orecchiette and cook for 7 to 8 minutes or until the pasta is perfectly al dente. Use the slotted spoon to transfer the orecchiette into the frying pan and combine over a low heat for half a minute.  Sprinkle some dried chilli flakes and drizzle some olive oil on top. Turn off heat and toss gently.  Serve in warmed bowls or a large serving dish, with some freshly grated pecorino cheese.