Shane Watson is an immensely talented cricketer; there is no doubt about that – he can bat, bowl and field. He should be in the team when fit; absolutely, no sane person would argue against that, the question then is, where should he bat?

A look at his statistics tells us that in his 54 test matches so far played, he has scored 4 centuries and 22 half centuries for an average of 35.51; not so great for a batsman coming in at number 3. His 22 half centuries are a good return; that’s why I feel he is better suited batting in the middle order at number 5 or 6.

To keep everything in perspective; stand in captain Steve Smith now bats at number 4, promoted up the order from 5 where skipper Michael Clarke normally bats. In 2014 alone, Smith has scored 4 centuries and over 1000 runs at an average of 84.33; he is having a break-out year, Watson is not having a break-out year. Both Clarke and Smith go on and make big scores; Watson does not and must bat down a couple of positions to the middle order.

Will Twenty/20 cricket change test match cricket batting? Watching some strokes in the current Boxing Day test between Australia and India, I watched stand-in Australian captain Steve Smith attempting to push the run rate along playing strokes more accustomed to the short form of the game. This also brought on his demise at the crease at 192, a pretty handy score attempting to play a shot on the stumps normally reserved for the the last over in the shortest form of the game instead of a test match on day 2.

At the other end of the spectrum, Indian batsmen Virat Kohli (162) and Ajinkya Rahane (147) played with a more traditional batting style. As a matter of course, the Indian batsmen generally have solid batting techniques. Rahane came to the crease with Kohli holding a 26 run head start, playing aggressively, Rahane overtook Kohli in the 80s to beat him to triple figures and ended the day with a strike rate of nearly 86 – pretty good stuff.

What an interesting turn of events, while Comanche was clearly the faster yacht out of Sydney heads, it would appear the race dominated by tacticians and navigators has entered a new phase – raw boat speed isn’t everything. The Sydney to Hobart is a bluewater event, there is plenty of opportunities for a yacht to run down an opposition given favourable conditions – Wild Oats XI did just that. 

Both Wild Oats XI and Comanche have headed out to sea far off the rhumline searching for wind, it appears the faster Comanche may have sailed into light airs and Wild Oats XI has powered on stronger breeze. Comanche is not far off catching winds and given the superior boat speed of the new maxi, a tacking dual up the Derwent River is a real possibility – this could be a real cracker of a finish.

Boxing day is recovery day, the opportunity to view the start of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race from the comfort of lounge room is a long standing annual event. I see a little of the Boxing Day test at the MCG before flicking the television over for the start of the Sydney to Hobart race.

The inaugural race held in 1945 took 6 days, 14 hours and 22 minutes; at the other end of the spectrum, the 2012 race record of 1 day, 18 hours, 23 minutes and 12 seconds is currently held by Wild Oats IX beating their 2005 race record of 1 day, 18 hours, 40 minutes and 10 seconds.

This year, the brand new American carbon fibre super maxi, Comanche was setting the early pace, this yacht was simply awesome. Since 2005, Wild Oats XI has dominated line honours and is certainly the yacht to beat – is their dominance under threat this year?

Comanche set the early pace with a super fast run to the rounding mark outside of Sydney heads, onboard Wild Oats XI, they could be heard on the camera stating they were slow and seeking to change settings and sail trim. They weren’t slow, Comanche was just so fast; however, the majority of the race will be spent punching into strong southerly winds, that may change the dynamics of the race.

What is Bureau 121? North Korea’s cyberwarriors, a shadow organisation unknown by most individuals even in information technology only came to light after the defection of a North Korean dissident to the south.

North Korea, led by a young man of the internet age is particularly ambivalent to criticism, none more so when Sony Entertainment prepares to release a satirical movie of Kim Jong Un. A cyberattacker hacks into an administrator’s account undetected, downloads a large volume of information then proceeds to release damaging emails embarrassing the corporation including pay rates and remuneration. Is this the North Korean version of Wikileaks? Then Sony folds and the release of the movie is cancelled – NK 1/Sony 0.

Terrorists are cowards, this isn’t anything new, this is sadly and unfortunately a documented fact. Terrorist targeting school kids is about as low as you can go, pathetic losers, they are the scum of the earth.

However, the Pakistani school massacre is a new low for the most cowardly elements of the human race. I am loathe to use the term humanity, they show none of that. But what do you expect from a bunch of pedophiles, taking pre-puberty girls for wives, sex slaves or sold into human trafficking? Australia and Pakistan share a common interest in sport, we both share a love of cricket and play test series nation against nation. We come from different cultures – granted. However, our common interest in cricket ties the nations together in a bond that may transcend sport.

There was an explosion of Internet cafe businesses in the late 90s right through to the mid 2000s, now you are stretched to find one but they are still around. Well, that is developed countries, developing countries still had a need for internet cafes, there is a genuine requirement.

With everyone carrying either a smartphone, tablet or phablet in their pocket or briefcase, they already have sufficient computing power to browse the web, purchase goods online, create documents, spreadsheets, a database or presentation, they just need to hook onto a WiFi connection. With 3G and 4G technology, you carry a mobile connection around with you. You might even see a laptop computer being used. With restaurants, shopping malls and just about every business now offering free WiFi, one has to ask, why would anyone pay to use a computer?

Indeed you might ask, why would a business invest in expensive computer hardware when nearly every consumer supplies their own computing equipment? One of the great rubs was an Internet cafe never actually sold coffee. After all, what business owner would want to risk a user knocking over a full mug of coffee over a keyboard, game controller or printer? Geez, you might head into an actual cafe like Dome Cafe, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Gloria Jeans, Seattle’s Best Coffee or Starbucks and actually order a pretty decent espresso coffee and surf the web for the price of a coffee.

I am currently diving with a Suunto D6 dive computer as a back-up to my old but reliable VR3 computer. Now, one can imagine a significant size and weight difference occurs between the two units, that doesn’t concern me.

What really gets my blood pressure running on repetitive dives is the D6 is way too conservative for repetitive diving. Now firstly, you ask, why are you using a VR3 for standard recreational diving, why not I say, not every dive needs to be a mixed gas decompression stop dive with multiple gas switches. You have the computer for such dives but you complete plenty of standard dives too. If you are diving deep wrecks then that is what is required, if you are diving reefs on your holiday, why switch to another computer?

However, with the D6 as a back-up computer, you seem to have a hell of a lot of hang time while your specifically designed decompression computer is deco free. On one recent repetitive dive, it was the fourth dive of the day, the VR3 indicated 27 mins of no-decompression time remaining, your D6 is just going into deco but you keep going, you check your SPG and have ample gas remaining, hell, you are not even at your turn pressure yet.

The dive is well under 30 minutes duration, yet you are forced to ascend to a shallower depth, you are not seeing what you want on this expensive overseas dive trip and you are less than impressed. The D6 is hammering you, already you have 12 minutes of hang time and three quarters of a cylinder of gas remaining. Not that 12 minutes is an issue because you are really deco free and could ascend directly to the surface – not that you would. No one else on the dive has a pseudo decompression ceiling despite diving the exact same profiles, they are not diving Suunto.

You did two dives in the morning with an hour surface interval, back for lunch and a three hour surface interval with a one hour surface interval between dives three and four. That\’s a fair bit of bottom time in a day with multi-level dives, relatively conservative profiles and extended shallow water stops for added safety. It is not over doing it to any great degree. The gas is air, unfortunately in 2014, not every facility offers nitrox although with a Suunto dive computer, nitrox or not, you are still penalised.

So you had to ascend to 8 metres to complete your dive whilst everyone else stays at depth, you are above the 2:1 pressure gradient threshold and off-gassing whilst monitoring the VR3 on your left wrist. I don’t mount the two computers side by side anymore as the bulky aluminum bodied VR3 was scratching the bezel of the nice shiny D6, so that computer is mounted on the right wrist instead.

At 50 minutes, you glance to your right wrist to check how much you have reduced the deco time, it won’t be too much as a 3 metre stop is required and you are too deep to off-load too much time, maybe a minute or two. You can imagine my surprise when I realised that not only have I not reduced any deco, the time has now blown out to over twenty minutes.

Ascending to 3.5 metres, you know you have to maintain the shallowest depth for the greatest pressure gradient and to maintain that depth, that means no looking around and enjoying the shallow sections of the reef, there is to be no depth changes. Any one who has deco to do on a Suunto knows 20 minutes is not really 20 minutes; time remaining is drawn out and even though you are monitoring time with your other computer, in the Suunto world, time stands still.

Exiting the water at the 80 minute mark, I had performed a 30 minute stop at 3 metres, about 25 minutes at 8 metres and the rest at 20 metres depth. The next day, my D6 remained my back-up, it was however tucked away in my bag on the boat but no where near the water, it was now no longer an in-water redundancy. I was also careful not to wear it in the shower that evening just in case I ended back in deco from the water pressure of the shower head and having to stand in a trickling shower for another 30 minutes to reduce the water pressure while my computer cleared.

This was not a clever strategy by Australian Prime Minister Abbott claiming his Chief of Staff Peta Credlin is a victim of sexism. Firstly, the issues seem to be internal, not the opposition making any claims, secondly and most importantly, if she has an issue, she needs to come out and make a statement – she hasn’t. I certainly wouldn’t take Peta Credlin on, she knows how to look after herself, she doesn’t take a backward step.

What he is effectively doing is telling the electorate he is leading his government in a similar vein to Julia Gillard. Broken promises, gender issues, all he needs is leadership speculation and we head back to a time warp. He needs to differentiate his government – he is not doing that in an effective manner. This is an internal issue that has been catapulted into the public domain – get it sorted and do it quick.

I’m really liking this show of solidarity and support for Sydney’s Muslim population, this act of a lone and known instigator of trouble has the potential to cause a community backlash that may harm the Muslim community causing increased tensions in the future.

The show of support in the wider community has been outstanding, however, serious questions need to be asked in regards to Man Haron Monis, originally known to police for writing letters to the families of dead servicemen seven years ago. There is absolutely no criticism of the police, they investigate and prosecute crimes whilst the judiciary interprets and implements the law.

The tipping point apparently was Friday’s high court ruling that failed to overturn his conviction, he was required to perform community service and placed on a two year good behaviour bond. He is also implicated as an accessory to the murder of his wife who was stabbed and set alight. He has been charged with in excess of fifty counts of indecent and sexual assault and was currently on bail awaiting trial. Serious questions need to be raised regarding the judicial system in Australia, why is this guy running around the streets? What do you have to actually do to actually to be remanded in custody?