Sunday, May 8

 Happy Mothers Day to anyone who qualifies.

Marilyn and I voted yesterday in the Tasmanian Upper House poll.  It was easy; nothing like the rigmarole which goes on in Federal elections.  There were no long queues and no short tempers, straight in, write down a couple of numbers and then out to find a coffee shop.

The key is pre-organisation.  Each of us received a bar code in the mail, we handed that in and the young woman on the desk handed us our voting slips.  Easy!  There was no searching through pages and pages of names to see whether we were listed; after we had taken our voting slips, the young woman scanned in the info to her computer and we were electronically ticked off.

For years, Tasmania has had its electoral roll on computer.  Each person on the desk has a laptop; when somebody fronts up, they are asked their name, the official types in the first four letter and then selects the right person from the names that appear.  No rulers and pencils to cross out the voter.  

At the last Federal election, I was in charge of a supposedly small booth in Launceston.  I only had two electoral roll books so only two people could tick off names at the one time.  We were inundated by customers, with lines stretching for hundreds of metres.  And nothing could be done because we were hampered by 18th century technology.

It will be the same when we vote in a couple of weeks time.  Long queues, short tempers and lack of patience,  It's not surprising that people might decide not to bother and it doesn't have to be like that.

Saturday, May 7

Election season gets under way from today when Marilyn and I vote in the Tasmanian Legislative Council poll.  It's hard to take it seriously: there are just fifteen members and their only function seems to be to rubber-stamp the decisions of the lower house, the Legislative Assembly.  I think many Tasmanians see it as a place where older public figures go to keep themselves busy in retirement.  It certainly doesn't get much publicity and that probably suits the incumbents.

I had thought I would be just a bystander to this year's Federal Election but I had a call yesterday asking me if I would get involved in the count.  I said yes and put down the phone; within seconds, Marilyn's phone rang and she was asked the same question.  I start my work at  9 pm on the Saturday night while Marilyn is still at her polling station, and we will then both be involved from the Sunday until everything has been double-checked.

We quite enjoyed it last time and it was quite lucrative.  Maybe we'll be able to spend it on a holiday.

Friday, May 6

I've been very good and visited the gym every morning this week.  I'm getting to recognise some of the faces now: the regulars who, like me, are trying to allay the ravages of time when it's probably too late to make a difference.  There are usually a couple of the staff around, even if I get there early.  If I catch their eye, they'll nod to me or say Good Morning but, otherwise, they don't acknowledge me.  I suspect they've been told not to be too pushy, especially with the older clientele.  

If someone took too much interest in what I was doing I might be tempted to give it up.  I'm quite happy to  go about my routine anonymously and I don't want well-meaning busybodies nagging me to report on my progress.

Some mornings are better than others.  It all depends on whether the early birds have turned on the music videos on the big-screenTV.  It's high energy stuff, with a lot of heavy rock and aggressive lyrics.  This morning one of the female coaches switched programs because she was fed up with the dreadful language in the video that was playing.  I didn't note much difference but it's all just noise to me.

Thursday, May 5

You can’t open a newspaper at the moment or turn on the TV without someone telling you how you should vote at the election in a couple of weeks’ time and it’s no wonder that voters are turning off in droves.  I was reading an article this morning which bemoaned the fact that the two major parties will be lucky to bring in around 40% of the vote each. In the 1950s, the two main parties received over 95% of the vote; today it will be more like 70%.  On those figures about 30% of the electorate is turning its back on the traditional parties and that is an understated figure because I suspect that a much larger chunk of the electorate only vote because they have to and putting a tick somewhere on the paper fulfils their obligation and they won’t be fined.  Name recognition comes into play here and the party they’ve seen more often on TV will likely get the tick.

 

I wouldn’t be surprised if the two-party system is broken beyond repair. A very nice man called Brian Mitchell is the MP for my electorate and, next door in Bass, there is a very competent young woman called Bridget Archer.  But they’re only foot soldiers in a system which places all power in the hands of the two people who have played the political game well enough to grab the top jobs.  I’ve said often that, in an open election, neither Mr Morrison or Mr Albanese would get my tick but, no matter who I prefer, it’s the party which chooses the leader.

 

The other concern is that Australian politics may be going down the same path as the US and the UK where complete fools make their way into the top jobs and chaos rules.  Heaven help us if that’s the case.

Wednesday, May 4

 May 4th be with you!

What a tacky thing to say!  It looks as if I'm trying to be cool by pretending to be a 'Trekky' or something when all it does is point out how 'square' I remain, after all these years.

Being square, I took our bins out last night and lined them up squarely on the kerb.  A couple of people from our units had beaten me to it which is always irritating, as they don't follow the rules.  There's a stretch of kerb between two driveways which will take eight bins comfortably. We put out two bins each fortnight, there are five units, which equals 10 bins The fellow next door is rarely here so we don't have to worry about making room for him but, if he is, there's a bit of room in front of the house next door.  However, as you can see, space is at a premium and there's no room for alternative set-ups.

Somebody, who hasn't bothered to mark her bins with her Unit number, likes to get them out early; she puts one somewhere in the middle of the space and the second one about 2 feet away from it.  The system doesn't work when there's 2 feet between bins.  To get our eight bins into the available space, someone has to move the delinquent bins closer together to make room.  Usually, it's me. You'll notice that I used the pronoun 'she' for the culprit.  I'm confident it is a woman who is causing the problem because, when the FIFO man next door is away, I'm the only man in the units and we all know that women lack spatial awareness.

I can understand why, sometimes, neighbours fall out. 

Tuesday, May 3

It's another overcast day here in Longford and we've had a bit of rain overnight.  I'm always up earlier than Marilyn and this morning I wanted to finish off my story for the Writing Group on Friday.  I hate leaving it to the last minute and I suspect I will make several changes to it before I have to read it to the class.

The topic is Caught in the Act and I've written about an inept robber of a farm shed.  I try to avoid humour in my stories because I know it can backfire if the audience don't get it or think you're trying to be too smart but this story just went in that direction and I didn't try to rein it in. I think I've said before that my stories often seem to unfold without my intervention and this is one of those.

Still, it's only Tuesday and who knows what will happen to the story in the next three or four days.

Jamie and Nera are in Hobart so we're looking after Archie ... no hardship there!

Monday, May 2

 Every now and again, I like to get my teeth into a book that’s a bit more ‘meaty’ than the usual thrillers I enjoy: a book like ‘Sapiens’, which I’ve read twice now – once on a cruise when I had plenty of time to fill, and again more recently when the pandemic confined us to barracks.

 

Sapiens looked at the rise of Homo Sapiens and how this species became pre-eminent in the world often at the expense of other species and bio-systems.  It’s a book to make you think.

 

This week, I became aware of another book which seems to put a toe into the same subject matter; in fact, some of the reviews tout it as the ‘New Sapiens’.  It’s called The Dawn of Everything – a New History of Humanity.  It’s written by a couple of scientists, one of whom is an archaeologist, the other an anthropologist.  It’s started well and I suspect I’ll enjoy it.