Monday, February 26

How dopey are Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, faced with the wrong card at the Oscars, and not able to work out how to deal with the situation. Beatty, in particular, says he realised he had the wrong card but his script didn't have the words he needed, so he simply handed the card to Ms Dunaway who blurted out the wrong announcement.

I wonder how many times in history a man, faced with a difficult situation, has handed over the problem to a woman and smiled while she fixed it.

It's hard not to see the parallels with our current Parliament, depicted this morning on the cover of the Daily Telegraph as clowns. The chief clown, Malcolm, always looks like a deer in the headlights as he desperately looks for someone to pass the ball to. But all he can see are Morrison, Dutton and Brandis. Come home, Julie, your country needs you.

Sunday, February 26

We all love a little bit of schadenfreude, especially when a pundit the likes of Shane Warne is exposed for the know-nothing that he is. At the beginning of the Cricket test in India, Shane wrote off spinner Steve O'Keefe as not up to the job. Three days later, O'Keefe finishes the test with 12 for 70, easily beating Warne's best figures.

Once upon a time, I would have been enthralled by the test, even sitting up late at night to watch bits of it on TV, but now it takes something like Shane Warne's embarrassment to tweak my attention. I like to blame the change in the way cricket is played for my growing lack of interest, but maybe I'm no longer able to drag up the energy to get involved. Getting old is a bugger.

Saturday, February 24

Another cool day in Tassie: certainly the place to be when the sun is baking the rest of Australia. We were at a birthday this afternoon for the 4 year old daughter of one of our Filipino friends. It was a Shopkins Party which seems to be a scam aimed at the under-fives, encouraging them to collect the myriad mini dolls and accessories in the range. I suppose it started with bubble gum cards, then on to Pokemon, Barbie and so on.

The room was decorated with Shopkin posters and even the birthday cake
was on-theme. The kids seem to have a good time and all the parents were exhausted.

Nera was staying on to take part in some kind of Make-up Party so we dropped Jamie off at Dilston and I took the chance to pick some blackberries.

Friday, February 24

The other day, there was a letter in the mailbox telling me I was booked in for an echo-cardio gram at the Launceston General Hospital on Thursday. This was a surprise because I had no idea who had requested it. Marilyn rang the hospital who confirmed the appointment but had no other information. It has been 6 months since my stroke and I've had no suggestion that there should be some follow-up, so what's going on?

Maybe I've been chosen at random or have I won the procedure in some raffle? If I'm going to win something I would like it to be a new iPhone or a world cruise, but, of course, you never look a gift horse in the mouth so I turned up at the designated time.

Yes, it was a follow-up, requested by the cardiologist I had met all those months ago. Clearly he didn't wipe his hands of me when I was discharged. I'll get the results in due course but it certainly reinforces my confidence in our public health system.

Sunday, February 19

We seem to have been on a nostalgia trip over the last few days. It started at Choir Practice on Thursday where I noticed the price tickets on our music said 5d and 9d. It's been over 50 years since decimal currency came to Australia, but the music lingers on.

On Friday, it was the music of the 50s and 60s at the Dance Championships and, on Saturday, the Chudleigh Show which probably hasn't changed much since World War 1. The cockies still wear Akubras and the Axemen still wear white singlets.

Today, the town is heaving with classic cars, all built before 1988. It's probably no wonder that people say that Tasmania is a bit olde worlde.

Madeleine and Josh arrived as we were having breakfast so I popped down to the shop to get some more bacon to go with the pancakes. The Main Street has been closed off and every petrol-head in Tasmania, and his wife, have come to town for the day. There's not a parking spot within coo-ee and 'popping down to the shop' became just a little more difficult.

Anyway, breakfast became brunch: eggs and bacon, pancakes, freshly picked blackberries and maple syrup. Life is good.

Saturday, February 18

We have visitors the weekend. Jamie's ex-wife, Melanie, has popped off to Townsville for a few days, leaving her two sons with Madeleine. To give. Madi a break, we've got them for a couple of days. They're no trouble but it knocks us out of our comfortable rut.

Today, we took them to the Chudleigh Show. If they were expecting something like the Royal Easter or the Ecca, I'm sure they were disappointed, but they did see some wood-chopping and a bloke who stood on the back of his horse while he cracked a whip. Part of the show was a display of elderly cars. We felt elderly too, when we realised that we used to own examples of three of the cars on display: a Morris Minor, a Mini and a Vauxhall. Our Vauxhall was a Velox and the one on display was a Cresta but the point still stands.

Tomorrow, there's a parade of street cars down the main street of Deloraine so I imagine we'll end up there in an attempt to amuse the boys.

Saturday, February 18

We found ourselves, last night, at the Tasmanian Rock 'n' Roll Championships which was held just across the road from our unit. The main competition is held today but last night was eliminations, and so on. What a hoot! Most of the performers were of my vintage with the hairstyles and dress sense of the 1950s. Black and white dancing shoes are de rigeur.

There were some young people there as well; two teenage sisters from Toowoomba were spectacular dancers and we had a chat with a young local girl who was one of the judges. It seems that some people travel from over all Australia to take part in the various championships.

One older couple had all the moves and clearly spent a lot of time practising. I tried to get a photo of them but they were moving too fast. Luckily, I found an image of them on the Internet. Note the daggy shoes.

We knew we would be busier when we came to Deloraine but rock 'n' roll was never in our thinking.

Thursday, February 16

The media love a good conspiracy and, if it involves the suspicious death of around 200 individuals, that makes if all the more interesting. Our local ABC radio station received a tip-off earlier this week that there had been a dramatic reduction in the number of ducks at a local reserve. A reporter was sent out to investigate and breathlessly noted that she had only been able to count three individuals in an area known to be 'infested' by ducks.

Someone else rang in to add the information that council workers dressed 'like spacemen' had been seen throwing dead ducks into the backs of trucks. The breakfast announcer couldn't believe his luck, being confronted with such a juicy story, and rang a local bird expert for his take on the situation.

The professor was in his car at the time, with a dodgy Bluetooth connection, and a strong New York accent, so he wasn't easy to understand, but I did make out the words 'botulism event'. What's going on? Is the government keeping a terrorist attack from the public?

Sadly, it's a storm in a teacup. Rotting vegetation, in very hot weather, can produce avian botulism spores which can become toxic. It happens rarely in Tasmania ( I wonder why) but is common in hotter climates. It's not good for ducks but not a problem for humans. Of course, botulism can grow in human food but that's another story.

I confess that the above story might contain some exaggeration and alternative facts.

Tuesday, February 14

After I had seen a couple of recent TV appearances which had cast Jacqui Lambie in a more positive light, I had come to think that she was just a loveable eccentric who was no worse than some of the other time-wasters in the Senate. But her performance on Q & A last night soon put me right. There, again, was the blustering, small-minded, ignorant bigot who gives Tasmanians a bad name. The scales have fallen from my eyes; leopards don't change their spots.

We're watching a Canadian TV series at the moment called Orphan Black which features an actress named Tatiana Masleny. She plays the parts of several clones and her performance is extraordinary. Each clone looks the same but there are subtle differences in the way they walk and talk, and in their general demeanour. It's spooky how this actress can inhabit several different characters so well. I found myself imagining myself being friends with one of the characters but not the others.

I wasn't surprised to find that Tatiana Masleny won an Emmy award for her performance, but I've never heard of her. Maybe it's because she's Canadian and their TV shows rarely appear on the Australian radar.

Breaking news: The Age, commenting on the stoush last night on Q&A, says that Jacqui 'gives two-bob watches a bad name'. Love it!

Saturday, February 11

It was my birthday yesterday; not a particularly important event in the general scheme of things but it's nice to hear from people who might only contact me once a year.

In years gone by people kept little books in which they noted everybody's birthday and a week or so before the anticipated date they would buy a card from the newsagent and send it off. It must have been hard to keep track. If you had a big family or a reasonable number of friends, you would have to check the book every day. Marilyn has a book like the one I describe but she relies on memory. She still buys cards and, in fact, has a loyalty card from the card shop. But the days of mass card-buying are on the wane. No doubt the value of shares in Hallmark is dropping as people look to other ways of sending their best wishes.

Nowadays, Facebook takes the worry out of remembering special days. I got dozens of messages on Facebook yesterday, from several countries over three continents. Many were from genuine relatives and friends but, it is fair to say that others were from people I have never met. No matter - it's the thought that counts and it is reassuring to know that people respond positively to the Facebook reminder that it's my birthday.

Of course, in my more rational moments, I wonder how many of my well-wishers, in a Facebook-free world, would have taken the trouble to go to the card shop, spend $8, address the envelope and pay for a stamp, just to say Happy Birthday.

Oh, I should acknowledge the best comment received, from Nera's sister Jezelin and husband, Felix. 'Happy, happy birthday to the Sean Connery of our family...' .

Tuesday, February 7

A listener to ABC Breakfast this morning sent in a clever limerick, which went something like this:

There was a young lib. called Bernardi
Who was angry when he found he could hardly
Get his own way
So he took his toys away
And left to form his own party.

The worry now for the Coalition is who else will jump ship to join him. George Christensen and Eric Abetz have been mentioned and some even suggest Tony Abbott might think it's in his interests to take the plunge. Malcolm Turnbull might be wondering what he did in a past life to deserve this karma.

As I write this, Jacqui Lambie's face pops up on the TV screen and I am reminded that, when she was interviewed by Annabel Crabbe, she described Cory Bernardi as an a***hole. Love her or hate her, Jacqui is a good judge of character.

It takes a special kind of arrogance to think it's acceptable to accept a party's endorsement, and access to all their resources, long enough to get elected and then resign to follow your own agenda. There have been one or two LNP members in Queensland who have defected to One Nation and now Bernardi. Integrity is in very short supply in Australian politics at the moment.

Saturday, February 4

Marilyn's been pulling weeds out of the garden and piling them up for me to get rid of, so I decided I would stick them in the boot of the car and deliver them to Giant Steps' industrial bin. When I opened the lid of the bin, I noticed an old, shabby raincoat with the label turned towards me. It read, John Christie (002) 349842.

I scratched my head and remembered that I had bought the jacket (state of the art Goretex) in about 1973 and had left it at Giant Steps as a spare during my tenure. By its shabbiness, it had clearly been well-used in my absence so I think the bin was the right place for it. The telephone number? Probably our unit in Homebush where we lived before we moved to Hobart.

We've been watching a series from the UK called Five Days: a really powerful piece of work but only three series. Series 1 had five episodes, followed by a 2-part story, then a third series a couple of years later, with a whole new cast. Brilliant stuff but I would have been happy to see more. I looked up Wikipedia to read a review of Series 2 and thought I had stumbled on an article from Trainspotters' Weekly. There was nothing about the story, just breathless details of the stretch of railway line used in the filming, the model of rail car used and the name of the signal-box which appeared, briefly, in one scene. There was even a comment on which railway platform had been used for a couple of shots. As an afterthought, the author suggested that we might be interested in the fact that someone had committed suicide by jumping from a bridge in front of the afore-mentioned rail car. A classic case of too much (of the wrong) information.

Friday, February 3

Every morning. I get a message in my Inbox from a website called Quora Digest. I'm always suspicious of unsolicited messages, especially when they adopt a pseudo-intellectual name like Quora, which I assume is supposed to be the plural form of quorum. Most intelligent people now accept 'quorums' as the preferred usage.

However, Quora claims to be the website where you can share where you live, work and study, and where you can confront great questions and answers. You can see their target audience: lonely individuals with under-developed social skills and a need to make contact with like-minded people.

The questions and answers, which appear every day are interesting. This morning, the selection included: how do snipers calculate the range of a target over a mile away? Who is the most foolish person who ever lived? What does it feel like to own an American Express Black Card? And, Did Dumbeledore's soul split when he (accidentally) killed Ariana? The answer to the last question is Yes, but you will need to connect to the website to get all the fascinating details.

I must confess that I rarely open the regular Quora messages but now that I have seen the quality of the discussion, I might become a fan.

Thursday, February 2

This whole argument about Malcolm Turnbull's generous donation to the Liberal Party which has blown up today is disgraceful. It's the politics of envy and does the ALP no credit. On the other hand, the response from the Libs is no more worthy.

Malcolm boasts about how generous he is in making donations to various organisations. And maybe he is, but it's a bit rich to attack Bill Shorten who had a career in the union movement, hardly the career choice if you want to be a millionaire. Malcolm also makes snide remarks about donations to the ALP by the CFMEU. Why should that be an issue? The ALP was started by the union movement to look after the rights of workers and unions continue to support it on that same proviso. Is it any worse than donations to the Liberal party from companies hoping for a government contract?

The Libs get most of their donations from big business and you would have to be naive to think they don't expect something in return. Malcolm says that Bill is 'owned' by the CFMEU; how many of his government are 'owned' by Gina Rinehart?

I'm disappointed this kerfuffle has arisen. Trust in politics is at an all-time low and this latest nonsense can only add to that disenchantment. Grow up, people, and try to be the leaders we deserve.