Saturday, July 1

We're watching a TV show at the moment called Outlander.  It's about an English nurse who goes back in time and finds herself in 18th century Scotland and involved in fighting between the Scots and the English.  It turns out that the show is based on a series of books by Diana Gabaldon which were described by one critic as 'wildly popular'.

As is often the case, the back story is more interesting than the show.  Diana Gabaldon was a university professor in Arizona and thought she would like to try her hand at writing a novel.  She had no idea what she might write about but happened to be watching a re-run of an old Dr Who on TV.  Dr Who's companion at the time was a young Scots boy from 1753 called Jamie Fraser.  And that became the elements of the story.  

I've always said that Dr Who has had more influence on the history of the world that we realise. Ms Gabaldon, after her second book, chucked in the Uni. job and became a full-time writer.

It's the Rotary Changeover dinner tonight when the new President takes over.  It's being held at one of the local pubs and we've been asked to wear something green or something orange.  I suspect an Irish theme.  

Wednesday, June 28(2)

So Scott Morrison has come to the realisation that people are switching off politicians, turning down the political noise and losing trust that politicians are on their side. Wow! Did he wake up to that realisation, or did he come to it gradually? Intelligent commentators have been saying much the same thing for a decade or more, ever since the end-days of the Howard government's cynical tax cuts tried to buy one more election victory, and exacerbated by the shenanigans of the Rudd-Gillard years.

So, it must be true, then. But what is the solution? Scomo says politicians have to convince voters they are on their side. And? Simplistic solutions are never the answer to a complex problem. We need better brains and better ethics to address this problem, and not somebody who has a vested interest in the outcome, and a history of opportunism.

It makes me think of an essay I read last year, written by Barry Jones (of Pick-a-Box fame), talking about some ideas being developed by Malcolm Fraser before his death. Malcolm thought that 'both the Coalition and Labor Party had become corrupted and timid, looking for immediate advantage and a narrow focus on economics'.

He noted that membership of the two major parties had become 'small and sclerotic. Public funding and compulsory voting are bomb shelters that protect the existing hegemonic parties and make reform virtually impossible.'

The article mourned the withdrawal of political engagement by people with high levels of education or professional skills. 'The politics of reason are being displaced by the politics of frustration and anger'.

Fraser looked for a new political force, not wedded to the old ideas of left or right. 'It's policies would be evidence-based and it would emphasise finding solutions to what sociologists call "wicked problems": refugees, a new taxation system, a post-carbon economy, biota sustainability, needs-based funding for education, ending toxic political culture.'

Unfortunately, we seem to be going down the track of what Fraser described as 'the Left Behind Party. Its common elements are identifying victims and denouncing enemies; resentment about rapid change; nostalgia about the past; apprehension about the future and many aspects of modernity; responsiveness to fear about the unfamiliar, especially mixing with other races and cultures, particularly Muslims; finding simple explanations for complex problems. (The) party has these characteristics: rejection of evidence, low levels of formal education, resentment of elites and “political correctness”, and a belief the 1960s was a “Golden Age of full employment”. Many of these voters used to be with the Labor Party but now are often, but not always accurately, identified with a nativist populism.'

As a politician, Malcolm Fraser was conservative but he became more progressive as he grew older, and resigned from the Liberal Party in 2009.  He comes to this debate with little baggage and his ideas deserve consideration.

Wednesday, June 28

I came across a reference in one of the Anne Perry books I'm reading. It was to a poem called Sohrab and Rustum written by Matthew Arnold in 1853. And my mind flew back to English class at Wollongong High School where we dreaded another lesson on the poem we called So Drab and Rusty.

It's a poem of its time when young men were taught that qualities like honour, duty, courage, loyalty, and self-sacrifice for Queen and country were valued. It was the time of the Charge of the Light Brigade where hundreds of young cavalrymen charged into the Russian guns knowing they would not survive. Those values are out of fashion now, but they played their part in building the society we enjoy.

I remember hearing family stories of the Great Depression, how there was always a meal in the bush for the swaggie down on his luck. My grandfather, with 8 children to look after, shared his 'piece' at lunchtime with his workmates and collected wild elderberries to make wine to give to those who couldn't afford a drink. Marilyn's grandmother kept a cow so the local kids could get regular milk.

Those values continued for another hundred years, through two world wars, and our teachers were still inculcating them to their students when I was at school. Did they colour my value system? I think they did; and I despair of the modern value system which puts enriching self and immediate family above everyone else, which divides society into 'them' and 'us', and begrudges government assistance to the needy.

Yes, we are certainly living in different times, and I can't believe that they are better ones.

Saturday, June 24

On Netflix, we've found a series called Crossing Lines.  It's about a group of investigators attached to the International Criminal Court. I'm not sure how close to reality it is because I had assumed their purview would be areas liked genocide and war crimes; instead they seem to be focused more on international crime which I thought was more the business of Interpol.

Still, it's a television show and it's not expected to be real life.  What I like is the international cast.  Well, it's essentially European, with characters from France, Germany, Italy, Northern Ireland, and so on.  The only jarring note is that they also have a New York detective.  Why would one of NY's finest be in Europe, working for the International Criminal Court, when the US is not even a member of the court?

America has always opposed the court and is one of only a handful of countries who were not a signatory to the agreement setting  it up.  Other non-signatories include Libya, Iraq, Qatar, Israel, Yemen and China.  Strange bed-fellows, indeed!

I've got to stop taking the world so seriously.  This show is just typical escapist rubbish and only a pedant like me would try to read too much into it.

Friday, June 23

A Kiwi friend recommended an author, Anne Perry, to Marilyn and commented that she 'had a past'.  Anne Perry has written over 70 best-selling books but it turns out that, as a 15 year old girl she was found guilty of murder and spent years in gaol.  A quick look at Google and the whole story unfolds.  Better still, it a appears there is a movie about the whole incident, called Heavenly Creatures and directed by Peter Jackson.

The movie is certainly worth watching.  It tells the story of Juliet Hulme, a teenage girl from England who arrives in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1952 and is enrolled at the local Girls' high School.  Juliet is played by Kate Winslet in her debut role.  Juliet befriends Pauline, a local girl and together they plot to kill Pauline's mother.

The girls are found guilty and thrown in gaol.  Five years later, Juliet is released and moves to South Africa to live with family.  Eventually, she changes her name, moves to a small fishing village in Scotland becomes a Mormon and begins writing books.  

When the movie is released in 1994, a New Zealand journalist spills the beans and Ms Perry's secret is revealed.  Wikipedia says she was 'very upset'.  Notwithstanding all of the above, Marilyn and I are enjoying the books.  Marilyn is reading a series based on a Victorian policeman called Thomas Pitt, and my series is about another Victorian policeman called William Monk.  Between them, there are 56 books so we could be reading them for some time.

Wednesday, June 21

Today is the Winter Solstice and we woke to a heavy frost.  However, the good news is that the sun is shining and it hasn't taken long for the frost to disperse.  A couple of hours before we opened our eyes, over 1000 hardy souls gathered on a bleak beach in Hobart for the annual Dark Mofo nude swim.  What possesses otherwise sane people to take part in such a bizarre event.  Of course, there are the exhibitionists, and the 'anything for a dare' mob.  There may be some doing it to upset their mum, and there are probably one or two who believe it will give tham a spiritual re-awakening.  But, even the Lord Mayor of Hobart has taken part for the last five years, although he may see it as his contribution to tourism.

Well, for whatever reason 1020 people took the plunge this morning.  So many turned up, the organisers ran out of towels.  Experience in previous years shows that a good percentage of those registered don't turn up.  The general excuse is that they 'get cold feet'.  This year, more people than expected didn't get cold feet, but turned up to get other parts of their body cold instead and there weren't enough towels to go around.

This event is part of the Dark Mofo Festival, a very strange off-shoot of the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) which has single-handedly turned around the fortunes of Hobart Tourism.  Established by a private individual who made his money as a professional poker player, MONA is now on the must see list of international art lovers.

The Dark Mofo Festival, like MONA, sets out to shock.  This year, one of the events took participants on a ferry to Bruny Island where, on a dark hillside, they watched dozens of elderly men and women in striped pyjamas and dressing gowns making clicking noises, for no apparent reason.  Another involved a slaughtered bull, it's entrails and 500 litres of blood.  

It's probably not on my list of things to do but who am I to argue with something which brings so much to this state.

Tuesday, June 20

Third Tuesday of the month is Probus.  We're only a smallish group and about a quarter of our members sent apologies this morning, most of them because they are elsewhere in the world, trying to avoid the Tasmanian winter.  One couple are on a world cruise, in the fourth week of 102 nights, in Santorini in the Mediterranean.  Another couple are also on a cruise, sailing from Barcelona.

Meanwhile, the rest of us put on a jumper and thicker socks and get about our daily routines.

The guest speaker this morning was Cindy Watkins, a local artist and gallery owner.  She chose to talk about her work with quilts.  She specialises in 'art quilts' and had a number to show us.  A typical quilt takes around 300 hours to produce and sells for about $2000.  Yes, she works for less than $7 per hour.  Every quilt has a personal story; for example, the Seven Deadly Sins quilt shown below has a baby blanket and pieces of Cindy's  wedding dress incorporated in it.

And, she sells quite a lot, both through her local gallery and on-line.  She also enters many international competitions and has a strong presence in these markets.  Her most successful enterprise, though, is producing screen prints of her designs for others to complete.  

Monday, June 19

The QANTAS publicity machine seems to be ratcheting up to sell the benefits of the new direct flight from Perth to London and they're already talking about the possibility of flights from Sydney and Melbourne flying to London and not touching down for up to 20 hours.

The article I read this morning questioned how people would cope being in the same seat for 20 hours.    I know you can get up and stretch your legs but hostess don't like that because it clutters up the alleyways and disturbs the orderly serving of meals and the frequent shots of alcohol some passengers need to deaden the stresses of the flight.  There was an incident on a flight recently where a passenger complained that her personal space was being encroached upon by a passenger waiting to use the toilet.  Which asks the question, 'How much space around you can you claim as your own?'  And the answer is, not a lot.

Having rather long legs which don't bend very easily, I tend to book a bulkhead seat on longish flights knowing that the downside of that is I'll have to put up with sundry passengers loitering nearby for various purposes.  Could I put up with that for twenty hours?  I don't think so, but it may be that our days of long flights might be over, anyway and it's an academic question.

The final two paragraphs off this morning's article are worth recording:

When Singapore Airlines operated its earlier Singapore-Newark flights the airline had special lockers installed on the aircraft to store the corpses of any passengers who died en route. That was an 18-hour flight.

On a 20-hour marathon from east coast Australia to London, in an economy seat, death might be the smart choice.

Friday, June 16

This is Day 168 of 2017, and already there have been 27988 gun-related incidents in the USA.  There have been 154 mass shootings (that's nearly 1 every day!) and 6913 deaths.  The only time these 'incidents' get reported now is if some sub-editor can identify a link with terrorism.

What sort of society is it which promotes that the solution to gun violence is encouraging more people to carry guns?  What sort of society elects a president who can't think of a better way to comment on  a terrorist incident in London than to show relief that the terrorists didn't use guns because it didn't give an excuse for 'liberals' to push for better gun control? 

If a South American or an emerging African nation produced figure like this, we'd be saying it was to do with the drug culture, or they just needed a bit more civilisation.  But the USA has pretensions to be a role model for the rest of us.  Donald Trump has often said the first responsibility of a president is to protect his people.  He's got a funny way of doing that - facilitating them to shoot each other and at the same time, denying them decent health care so they die younger than they should.

I was encouraged that Australia is sticking to its sensible gun policy by having another push to get illegal guns out of circulation.  Another gun amnesty and buy-back will remove more unnecessary guns from our communities and that has proven to be the best way forward.  Take note, Mr Trump.

Thursday, June 15

I thought of starting this post by saying, 'I'm not mean but ...', but that's not really true. Then I thought, 'I don't like to whinge but ...., and that's not really true either, so I'll just jump straight in.

My printer ran out of ink and it's only been a few weeks since I bought the last cartridge. I noticed the new one has ~190 written on the packet and assume that's how many copies I can expect to get before I have to buy a new one. I'm not naive enough to accept that figure as accurate but using it as a base, each print from my $30 cartridge will cost me at least 16c. That seems a lot.

Conventional wisdom tells me that a laser printer will be cheaper in the long run, so I set out to do some research to see whether I should bite the bullet. I don't print much but I'm fed up with handing over $30 to Woolworths or Officeworks, every few weeks.

Officeworks has a little mono laser printer for $79, so I identify the replacement cartridge number and check the price and anticipated number of copies: $104 and 1000, around 10c per copy. So, in rough terms, it would take me 1300 copies before I recouped the cost of the new printer.

It's hardly worth the bother.

Wednesday, June 14

I've been reading an article in Psychology Today which is entitled How Do We Pick a President?  The explanation is a little worrying.  The author starts by looking at the human  brain and what he calls the 'old' brain and the 'new' brain.  The new brain, the cortex, is what differentiates us from the apes.  It's the part of the brain that makes judgements after rational thought; the old brain, the limbus lobe, responds more intuitively to external stimuli.

Of course, the burning question is 'why would people vote for Donald Trump?  Maybe this quote from the article starts to answer that.

"Our old brain looks much like a chimpanzee's. The rapid rise of Donald Trump is not too difficult to understand if you think of the 10 candidates on the stage for the first Republican debate as chimpanzees struggling for alpha male status. The day after the debate, newspaper columnists almost unanimously declared Trump dead, unsuited for office—a blowhard bully with no grasp of the issues.    Viewers, however, saw the proceedings through their limbic lobe; there was Trump, hooting, beating his chest, throwing dirt at his opponents—bigger, louder, prouder, more aggressive and energized. They thought he won."

One important point made in the article is that what we want in a political leader and what we need in a political leader may be two different things.  The most important attribute of the right kind of leadership is judgement, and that is centred in the cortex.  If we choose the alpha male, who depends on the primitive aspects of his chimpanzee brain, we're not likely to get that.

So, to try and answer the riddle of why 30% or more of Americans still support Mr Trump, they're not looking at his intelligence or diplomacy, they're impressed by his overt displays of his alpha male status.  God help us all.

Sunday June 11 (2)

The acrostics puzzles I am doing are interesting in more than one way.   I enjoy the clues, first of all, because they come from various angles: general knowledge, anagrams, and even cryptic.  Typically, I don't answer them all, so I am forced to look at the grid to see whether there any word patterns which will help me predict another letter or two, which might be enough to suggest the answer to the clue.

When the final quotation is revealed, this is interesting, too.  American Presidents appear frequently, as does Nelson Mandela and Albert Einstein.  The one I've just finished is very apt, on a day when the news is full of the U.K. Election, information that Donald Trump's approval rating is still over 30% and Schapelle Corby has been signed to appear on Celebrity Big Brother.

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not yet completely sure about the universe."

Sunday, June 11

So, another election has come and gone, this time in the UK. No longer, though, do we accept the result with equanimity and move on. No, we'll now endure several weeks of recriminations, head-shaking, detailed analysis and hand-wringing, until the last drop of interest has been squeezed out of the corpse.

Of the elections held recently, only the French one seems to have been conducted with any dignity. Maybe, that's an illusion and our local media doesn't give us all the detail, but Macron seems to be a reasonable fellow and has, at least, saved the French from the excesses of Marine Le Pen.

Having banked everything on the result and lost, Theresa May, to save her government, has rushed into a coalition with a right-wing Irish party founded by the loud-mouthed hate-filled Reverend Ian Paisley, who came to prominence during 'the troubles'. Just when you think things were improving, some unthinking politician has given them another microphone to spout their particular brand of venom. It's a funny kind of Christianity these people espouse.

One saving aspect of the U.K. Election is the resurgence of young people voting. Here in Australia, we're used to compulsory voting and voting on a Saturday, so neglecting to or refusing to vote is not such an issue here but it's a growing problem in the UK and the US. Only 66% of eligible voters bothered to turn out in the UK in 2015, down from a high of 83.9% in 1950, with similar numbers in the US.

We still need to work on getting more of our young people to register and to vote. While ever we leave the power to decide in the hands of older white men and their compliant spouses, nothing will change. The young people in the UK didn't bother to vote in the Brexit Referendum and have seen the future being taken out of their hands. Unfortunately, the same is happening here. If the only young people voting are products of the Young Liberals or Young Labor, then heaven help us.

Saturday, June 10

Is Scottish humour becoming fashionable?  First we had the three year old wee girl from Glagow talking about the Easter Bunny.  The she pops up again on TV this week commenting on the UK Elections.  This morning, Facebook recycled the hilarious video about the Voice Recognition lift which didn't understand the Scottish accent.  Here's a link to YouTube if you missed it.

https://youtu.be/5FFRoYhTJQQ

When Billy Connolly was asked to explain the Scottish sense of humour, he offered the following joke.

A miner died down the pit and the foreman was sent to give his wife the bad news.  He knocked on the door and, when a woman opened it, he said, "Are you the widow MacGregor?"

"Ma name's MacGregor, but ah'm no' a widow," she replied.

"Oh, aye," said the foreman. "Huv Ah got news fur you."

Finally, here's a little photo which captures the self-deprecating element which permeates so much of the humour of Scotland.

Friday, June 9

I'm sitting in the Launceston Library enjoying the sun through the window. Things have come a long way, because I'm surrounded by chatting people and the smell of coffee. No more the tutting librarians demanding silence nor the smell of dusty books. Going to the library is now a social outing and I'm grateful for the change.

I've come up to town with Jamie to have their new car's lights looked at. Nera is at work and the local auto electrician in Deloraine seemed to have no idea. He rambled on about HID lights and problems with ballast and googling a solution. We know the car doesn't have HID lights and we suspect he really didn't want the job, so we've come up to visit the Mazda dealer. His best guess is it's a problem with the switch.

Anyway, I've taken the chance to spend an hour or two at the library and, later, we'll pick up some shopping from Coles. Deloraine has a Woolworths but there are some items that we can only get from the opposition.

i'm reading a review in The Age of the new film, Churchill, which covers the few days leading up to the Normandy landings in WW2. Brian Cox, who plays Churchill, was born in Dundee and I didn't know that Churchill was the Member for Dundee for many years. He wasn't well-liked in Dundee, nor Scotland more generally(I can still hear my mother's voice saying "old war-monger!"). Brian Cox tells the story of Churchill going to a meeting in Dundee when he was ill. Apparently he paid a couple of locals to carry him up the steps. Another fellow asked the labourers how much they had been paid to carry him. "A pound," they said. "Well, I'll pay you 2 pounds if you drop him," was the reply.

The movie hasn't received very good reviews as yet, but I suspect we'll still make an effort to see it.

Thursday, June 8

We find ourselves, without any effort on our part, connected to Netflix. If I had been asked last week where Netflix appeared on our list of priorities, it would have been so far down it would have been out of sight. However, notwithstanding my lack of interest, it's now part of our consciousness.

Jamie and Nera recently bought a new TV. It's bigger and has a curved screen. No doubt, there's a good scientific reason to have a warped screen, but I'm unaware of what that is. My own assessment is that it is just another marketing ploy. Electronics companies have to keep inventing new products or they'd go broke. Last year it was Fit watches, now it's curved TVs.

Anyway, as part of the new arrangement, they signed up for Netflix - only $8 per month, and for an extra $3 they can add another 'screen' at a different address. So that's our designation - a second screen at a different address. And, with the increasingly appalling offerings on free-to-air TV, Netflix is an attractive option.

The world has certainly moved on. I think we had to pay around $45 per month for Austar 15 years ago, then I spent innumerable hours scratching through torrent sites looking for interesting series and now, for the cost of a cup of coffee, we have access to more TV than we could ever watch. Add the delights of SBS on Demand, and we may never have to leave the house again.

Sunday, June 4

A regular part of my Sunday morning routine is to watch Insiders on ABC. I enjoy hearing the various guests give their point of view, especially as they seem to represent both sides of politics. This morning, of course, the news is full of the idiocy of Donald Trump pulling out of the climate change accord, and the events unfolding in London.

Instead of looking at the big picture, I've been musing on something closer to home. When I was in hospital last year, Marilyn decided my pyjamas needed an update. I've never regarded pyjamas as a fashion item and was generally content with a 3-pack of shorts from Kmart for $10. I'd given up matching tops and bottoms many years ago and, now that our home is warmer, I rarely need a top.

However, what you wear in a hospital is something else entirely so I wasn't surprised to be presented with a couple of pairs of sleeping shorts and appropriate shirts. They were pretty impressive. The shorts are a bit longer than I was used to, in an attractive pseudo-tartan material with a generous cord for adjusting the waist. They also have pockets.

I would have thought pockets in pyjamas were like ashtrays on a motor bike. What on earth would you need to put in them for use while you're asleep? Mobile phone? Car keys? Surely, the best place to leave things overnight is on the bedside cabinet or, if you're worried about burglars, under the pillow.

Then I realised that what I was wearing were lounging pyjamas - the kind of pyjamas you can wear around the house during the day and still retain your modesty. Pyjamas designed for the retired gentleman who wishes to lounge around on balmy Sunday mornings while watching Insiders. Fashionable, at last!

Saturday, June 3

I find that, as I get older, I am getting more intolerant of people who demand attention, and I'm fed up with a media which feeds their unnatural narcissism. So this week, I'm over Donald Trump (still), I'm over Schapelle Corby (again) and I'm over Margaret Court.

Like many others, when Donald Trump was elected, I tipped that he would be assassinated before too long. My jaundiced view of American society encouraged me to think that some madman would exercise his Second Amendment right to blow away someone he disagreed with. But it hasn't happened, so the only conclusion I can draw is that all the gun-toting nuts in America must be Trump supporters.

So, the torture of reading the increasingly desperate Facebook posts calling for his impeachment goes on.

Can it be true? Do I really agree with Karl Stefanovic? Apparently so, as he and I are both of a mind that Schapelle must be denied the oxygen of publicity in the hope that she will go away and let us get back our equilibrium. Fat chance! Happily, the ABC has resisted the temptation to get involved in the feeding frenzy so it remains a beacon of good sense in a .... I think I'll let that sentence find its own way home.

And, what can one say about Margaret Court? One of our greatest ever sportspeople has been bitten by the religion bug and now believes that gives her the right to attack other people, criticising them for how her God made them. Doesn't she see the contradiction in her argument? If God made BillieJean King like that, who are we to criticise? Or is Margaret one of those blinkered individuals who believes that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice? Probably, but I wish that Christians like Margaret Court would focus on the message of Jesus, Love thy Neighbour, and leave the Old Testament beliefs where they belong - in the past.

I don't think they should rename Margaret Court Arena, and I think it would be childish for players to boycott it. Margaret was outstanding in her sport and that should be applauded, but her current attempts to destroy her reputation are sad.

Friday, June 2

It's hard to believe that Macie had her first birthday yesterday. Tempus fugit.

David Astle produces the cryptic crossword for the Sydney Morning Herald and, for many years, was the wordsmith on the SBS show Letters and Numbers. He also occasionally appears on the ABC, talking about how the English language is changing. I'm reading one of his books at the moment.

He is certainly a ratbag and the book introduces the reader to other ratbags with very specific interests. Roger Caillous, for example, made it his life's work to categorise games into four groups. crosswords belong in the Agon box, where games of competition go. Charades is a game of Mimicry. Alea takes in games of chance, and Ilinx encompasses games of giddiness, like rolling down a hill.

Several new words there but I don't have room in my brain to remember them.

Every year, new words come into our language. Technology throws up a lot and people like Donald Trump even invent them - covfefe? Others just seem to catch on. It seems that I am a blogan, a person who write a blog. I used to think of myself as a blogmeister but that is a bit pretentious.

I don't like blogan. Maybe it raises too many echoes of another very Australian word with unpleasant connotations. But, when I take a closer look, there's an 'l' of a difference between blogan and bogan. Boom boom!