The show comes to town/station!

Saturday night dinner

Saturday evening began with nibbles and a drink in the LQ lounge, as the scene was set for a night of fine dining and entertainment. Rocket (Rodney C), our chef extraordinaire laid down the gauntlet by serving up rib eye fillet steak (500g) with a medley of roast potatoes, pumpkin and mizuna, a man sized eating challenge that much to his surprise saw the shelving of a specially prepared desert for another night. Rocket continually comes up with the goods as he does battle with the Doc on the monthly station weigh ins, the competition only seeing a kilo each way in total station weight since conception. Mothers out there can be assured that Rocket is taking care of their boy’s appetites.

Spicks & Wiz

After dinner saw our master of ceremonies Gavin (alias Adam Ant from music legends of the past “Adam and the Ants” — took the door prize for best dressed come as your favourite rock star) host an Antarctic first of “Spicks & Wiz”. The contest here at Davis was based loosely on the popular TV shows “Spicks & Specks” and “Rock Wiz”, whereby teams of four aside battle it out on their musical knowledge. Two rounds were played with the resulting winning teams playing off to claim the title of Spicks & Wiz champions.

Music knowledge was put to the test, verbal questions along the lines of who am I, true and false, musical Pictionary and identify the rift on violin and guitar (credit to Paul & Nick for instrumental prowess) challenged all as was the skill to use the buzzer (calling out your teams captain’s name, not the opposing teams captain’s name) with some cliff-hanging moments having to be adjudicated by Gavin/Adam as teams jockeyed to get in first or embellish answers as they went along. A thoroughly enjoyable show!

Many thanks to Gavin for organising and hosting the evening, maybe a future awaits outside the realms of the Bureau.

Antarctic idol

Following on from questions on music to playing of music, our team of musically minded/gifted expeditioners (the original summer band members Bob, Nick, Paul, Dr Mal, and Gavin) set about entertaining us the rest of the night playing covers from their summer playlist with DJ Dr Love doing a few solo vocal/guitar originals from his upcoming album. This drew from the crowd more talent (Antarctica Idol?) who came up to front the band on vocals, bass guitar, bongo drums, drums and harmonica.

There was comment from a would-be judge that the quality of the singing later in the night was strangely consistent with that earlier in the night, as he eyed the performing idol individuals. Great night had by all, albeit some waking a little croaky the next day.

On the airwaves- Radio iceman

On another note, our resident electrical engineer Bob Sheehy has been patiently monitoring the air waves with his amateur (HAM) radio that he brought down with him. Although he can pick up radio chatter, he needs other operators to direct their antennae in our direction (Deep South) to reply.

If you are out there in radio land and are interested in making contact with Bob, his call sign is Victor Kilo Zero Delta Bravo (VK0DB — but will also answer to Bob@Davis) and has set a opportunistic/irregular radio time of 2–5 pm EST on Saturdays when his hectic work schedule allows.

Fine craftmanship in Antarctica

Being distinguished gentlemen of the south, three of us — Aaron, an unnamed man of mystery and I — in our spare time have whittled ourselves up wooden smoking pipes.

As our forefathers would say, “There is no better way to enjoy the crisp cool air of Antarctica but through a pipe”.

Simon B

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