Although all my clothes still fit me I know I’ve managed to gain a tiny bit of weight while on holidays in Italy (and who wouldn’t, with all that gorgeous pastry and pasta?), so I’ve been pondering whether I should go on a diet. Jokingly, I emailed one of my best friends Kate (who is seemingly effortlessly thin) and asked her for her weight loss advice. Her response? To get a tapeworm. Kate went on holidays to Cambodia, Thailand and Laos over Christmas and came back thin but contiuously hungry. The possibility that she might have caught a tapeworm infection whilst in South East Asia quickly became a bit of a running joke which even her mother was in on. Fortunately, I don’t think Kate really has such an infection, although I’m not sure she’d get rid of it if she did.

Anyway, Kate’s advice to find myself my own resident tapeworm jogged my memory. I was sure I’d heard somewhere that people had once taken tablets that contained tapeworm larvae which would result in an infection and sudden weightloss. Once upon a time it had been thought of as a legitimate weight loss technique, and there are apparently rumours that models like Claudia Schiffer may have relied upon the nasty little fiends to keep the weight off. I decided Google would give me the definitive answer, and I (sadly) stumbled across this page, on which a fellow googler has commented, “I want to know where to get the tapeworm. you may think I’m crazy, but I really want to try it. if any one knows please let me know.” Perhaps if she is so keen to experiment with worm infections, I should contact her with a link to the Guinea Worm page on wikipedia. Seeing as she has no problem with having her body overrun with worms, she won’t mind the small discomfort the Guinea Worms cause the next time she’s having a bath and they decide to break free from their bodily shackles and escape into the water she’s sitting in. But I digress. When faced with the choice between eating raw meat in the hope of getting a tapeworm infection, or cutting back on my favourite roast chicken crisps from Walkers, I think I know what option I’ll be choosing.

They might look cute and cuddly, and people may flock to Australian wildlife parks and zoos to see them, but did you know that the platypus can actually give you a poisonous sting?

The platypus is immortalized on the Australian twenty cent piece, has been a mascot for Australian cultural and sporting events (such as the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and the Brisbane Expo in 1988), and is drawn to look all cute and cuddly in cartoons such as Blinky Bill, but in actual fact, this little animal is quite nifty with it’s hind legs. This is where the poisonous spur is located, but only on the male platypus - I guess the females can ward of enemies with a simple glare of their beady eyes.

By the way, there is also no agreed upon plural for the word Platypus - some people call them ‘Platypi’, while others refer to them as ‘Platypusses’, but there isn’t any official term. A few years ago it was suggested a competition should be held Australia wide to come up with a plural for the animal, but the event never went ahead. Shame - ‘Platyplural’ would have been my entry.

Australia has been having some funny weather of late, with high temperatures in the south and massive rainfall in the north east. Queensland has been buffeted by huge downpours that have flooded large areas that include towns, national highways, and tourist locations. Yet despite all the devastation and heartbreak, many of us Queenslanders are trying to find the right balance between sympathy for those effected and joy that the rains have finally come, breaking the drought in some of the southern reaches of the state which has been worrying farmers and householders for a good few years. Such is the blessing (and curse) of La Niña.

You may recall being taught in highschool about El Niño (’little boy’ in Spanish) and La Niña (’little girl’), the two related weather patterns which effect the coasts of eastern Australia and western Chile. Both patterns are effected by the sea surface temperature in the Pacific Ocean - La Niña has a temperature variation lower than normal, El Niño higher. It’s amazing what a difference 0.5 of degree Celsius can make - in Australia, El Niño brings widespread drought, devastatingly high temperatures and long periods where bad air quality and bushfires are the norm. La Niña, meanwhile, brings large amounts of rain, humidity, and somewhat cooler temperatures. As you can imagine, in a country as big as Australia where droughts can extend for decades and farmers can be broken whilst waiting for rain, La Niña is generally a welcome visitor.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology is always a great source of information, and yet again they’ve come up with the goods. Below is a map of the average rainfall that falls across Australia. The north is prone to monsoonal downpours in the ‘wet’ season, and less rain in the corresponding ‘dry’ season. Further south, the usual seasons apply.

While looking at this map, bear in mind that Brisbane, my home, had been experiencing such significant water shortages (despite what the annual rainfall map may suggest) that our dams were dipping below 17% before the rain came a month or so ago. Thankfully we are now almost at 40%, all thanks to our friend Nina.

Above is the map of the 2007 rainfall across Australia. Notice that the area around Brisbane is marked as ‘Below Average’, as is most of south-eastern Queensland. Whilst looking through the maps on the Bureau’s website, I found that the few years preceding 2007 showed the same ‘Below Average’ or ‘Very Much Below Average’ rainfall indications around the Brisbane area. The 2007 map was actually quite mild in scope compared with some of the years before it.

Will La Niña continue to give us the pleasure of her company, or will we be swinging back to the El Niño patterns quicker than our dams can handle? I for one cordially extend an invitation to stay to our friend Nina, providing she rains in all the right places.