Monday, January 1

It's been a fairly typical year with our Christmas food.  The crayfish was gone by Christmas, the last of the prawns were eaten on Boxing Day and the ham lasted until New Year's Eve.  The Christmas pudding has a long use-by date so we're going to see that for some time to come.  We still have lots of cherries and grapes and enough chocolate to start a shop.  For a welcome change of diet, we went out yesterday for fish and chips on the beach at Devonport.

We're watching a show on TV called APB about an eccentric billionaire who takes over a police precinct in Chicago and re-equips it with high-tech gadgetry.  In last night's episode, I heard a couple of phrases that sounded like Donald Trump (e.g. my speech will be wonderful!) so I googled it to see whether anyone else felt the same.  To my surprise, I found an article criticising this program, and a couple of others, for promoting Donald Trump's agenda.

This is the point: the show says crime is out of control, there is carnage on US streets, and only a billionaire fixer can sort it out, even though he has no background in the area.  The 'solution' is un-nuanced and follows the tough-on-crime mantra without trying to deal with the underlying causes.  The article points out that the show is made by Fox and that network is notoriously supportive of Trump.  

Another of the culprit shows, 24:Legacy, about Islamist terrorism, is also made by Fox.

It's not fair!  I only watch evening TV for entertainment; I don't want my mind manipulated in the process.

Saturday, December 30

I sometimes forget how big Australia is.  Marilyn is reading a book where one of the characters is travelling by train between London and Vienna.  It's set in the mid-1900s, so it's taking days and Marilyn asks, How far is it?  Off the top of my head, I suggest it's about the same distance as from Launceston to Brisbane, because it's no use quoting a number.  Marilyn prefers a more concrete explanation than an abstract number.  In any case, I had no idea but when I checked it was more like the distance from here to Canberra.  Hardly any distance at all in our vast continent but, in the Old World, you would have crossed several international borders in that time.

It was nice to read the review of Jamie's latest album:

... after 10 months in the making, JJ.Christie releases his full length release for the year after sitting on it whilst other projects were being finished and released. After the success of "The Big Melt", including the runner-up for the Echosynthetic Synthy Awards, Collaboration of the Year, JJ takes us on another journey of exploration into the parallel universe of progressive synthwave with the incomparable "Synaesthesia: Cognitive Perception". This album brings into the frame, the perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. 

Its an album full of hooks, laid down grooves, and downright great songs. Its sure to delight for listen after listen as the layers peel away to reveal surprise after surprise.

 

Tuesday, December 26

So, that's Christmas for another year.  Thank goodness, we've evolved from the old rituals: early-morning wake up to open our presents, the house filled with heat from the turkey cooking in the oven, piles of roast vegetables and everyone crashed out in the afternoon.  It's a shame you don't see kids riding their new bikes around the streets any more but that was probably a short-lived phenomenon, anyway.

This year, the Christmas feast was ham, prawns and salad, and lots of fruit.  Jamie and Nera managed to get hold of a crayfish which was a rare treat and we still had hot Christmas pudding, but that was only by accident.  Marilyn had promised to provide Christmas pudding for the Probus Christmas party, and bought enough for thirty people at the Craft Fair (at great expense).  Then the plans were changed so we have enough pudding to last us for months.

Christmas traditions are interesting,built, as they are, on very flimsy foundations.  I read an article which says all our traditions are based on just two books and a poem: the bible and A Christmas Carol, and 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. There is nothing in the bible about an Inn or a stable, and there is no mention of sheep and cows standing around the baby.  But the PR and Marketing people have turned the bones of a story into the behemoth it is today.

We finished the day by watching the Royal Command Performance.  How English it is!  Every year, they trot out heroes of past glories.  This year it was Torvil and Dean, and Shirley Bassey.  They farewelled a couple more cheesy comedians, including Bruce Forsyth, which gave everyone a chance to enjoy his particularly cheesy catchphrase, 'It's nice to see you, to see you nice.'  And the Royal guests had to sit there and look amused at being teased and mocked.  

It was a great day.

Sunday, December 24

Marilyn and I each have a new mobile phone for Christmas.  Mine is a hand-me-down from Jamie but it's an iPhone 6+ so I'm not complaining.  Marilyn likes a smaller phone so she has a sparkling new iPhone 5S.  When I started to transfer my contacts and so on from the old phone to my new one, I was surprised to see that I had around 20000 saved messages, although it's probably more accurate to call them accumulated rather than saved because no conscious decision was made to hold on to them.

For some reason, Gmail downloads my messages in three areas: Primary, Social and Promotions.  It's in the Promotions area that most of the trouble is caused.  Every time I click on a website, some robot snatches my email address and starts the process of sending me unsolicited messages which end up in my Promotions folder.  Because I don't find the idea of Promotional Messages interesting, I seldom look there and the pile builds up.  

I also discovered a cache of old messages in a folder entitled Personal.  They are mostly dated 2010 and it seems I went through a stage of putting aside messages I thought worth keeping, but that resolution didn't last long. There was a similar folder for Travel with old itineraries and flight information. Some of the messages even went back to 2005 but because I had forgotten them and never looked at them again, they have gone forever.

So, my old phone has been set aside to be passed on to someone who likes Samsungs.  My only issue is that my iPhone has been operational since Wednesday and I haven't had any calls yet.  I reassure myself that people are too busy at this time of year to make calls but I suspect that is just rationalisation.

Tuesday, December 19

We were at a 6 year-old's birthday party on Sunday (poor child, having a birthday so close to Christmas!) and one of the guests was telling us about the doggie day care where she drops off her pet on days she is working.  It's open from 7 and there is blackboard at the entrance outlining the activities for the day.  It might be a walk in the park, or playing with vegetables, or dress-up.  One day recently, they had a super-hero day when all the poor creatures were forced to wear outfits representing Superman et al. I suppose some were embarrassed by having to wear their underpants outside their trousers.

One area is set aside where elderly dogs, or grumpy ones, can lie around, not taking part in the festivities.  The centre has rules: they won't accommodate dogs who are aggressive or 'have unpleasant habits'.  That last one's a beauty.  Can you imagine saying to a devoted owner, 'I'm sorry, Mrs Weinstein, we can't take Harvey any more.  His unpleasant habits are becoming too much of a problem."

Another Christmas 'do' today: a picnic at a local dam.  The weather is threatening rain but we'll chance it anyway.

Sunday, December 17

Marilyn and I watched the Australian movie, Lion, last night.  Apart from the fact that it took out a swag of awards at the Australian Film Awards, we were interested in a Tasmanian connection.  It's the story of a young Indian boy who was scooped up from the streets of Kolkata and adopted by a couple from Hobart.  The Couple, John and Sue Brierley, run a business supplying hydraulic hoses and fittings so are quite well known in the state.

It's an extraordinary story.  Saroo was born in the west of India but, through a series of misfortunes, he found himself on a train which ended up at Howrah Railway Station in Kolkata, in the south-east of the country.  He was only 6 so was lucky to be rescued.  By an extraordinary coincidence, he found himself enrolled in Howrah Primary School in Hobart.  Twenty years later, he decided to try to find his old home.  Using Google Earth, he worked back along the railway lines until he recognised some landmarks.  You would think it was fiction if you didn't know better.

I also downloaded the book Saroo wrote of his experiences, Long Way Home, and the film certainly does it justice.

Wednesday, December 13

Today is the day I normally drive the bus to Swimming but, to celebrate another successful year, the group decided to go out for lunch instead. We went to the Country Club Casino for their buffet; I was handed an envelope with $30 to thank me for driving. Lunch was only $22.50 so I'm in front.

There were probably 200 in the dining room: 95% over 75 and 85% female. It's the same wherever you go now; there's a mature female-led recovery going on in the catering industry.

The buffet was pretty good but the only hot meat was Roast Turkey and the prawns had spent their recent life in plastic bags packed in Vietnam. Still, there was plenty to enjoy and a good range of desserts.

I've watched two movies this week about Winston Churchill, both made in 2017. I don't know why the interest in Churchill all of a sudden but both movies were worth watching. After reluctantly enjoying John Lithgow playing the great man in The Crown, I was resigned to a couple more caricatures in the latest offerings, but my fears were unfounded. Gary Oldman was a bit shouty in Darkest Hour, and he didn't quite capture Churchill's dour exterior, but Brian Cox really lived the part in Churchill. The only jarring note was the way his Scottish accent slipped through from time to time. Although, when I think of it, Churchill represented the constituency of Dundee for fourteen years so maybe he picked up scraps of the Doric?

Saturday, December 9

It's good to see the Pope continues to deal with the pressing concerns of the world.  The papers this afternoon report that the Holy Father wants to make a change to the wording of the Lord's Prayer.  He wants to change the line 'lead us not into temptation' because it implies that God is encouraging people to give in to temptation. 

Of, course, there are those who resist the change.

The Rev Ian Paul, an Anglican theologian, said the pope’s comments would make traditionalists nervous.

“The word in question is peirasmos [from New Testament Greek] which means both to tempt and to be tested. So on one level the pope has a point. But he’s also stepping into a theological debate about the nature of evil.

“In terms of church culture, people learn this prayer by heart as children. If you tweak the translation, you risk disrupting the pattern of communal prayer. You fiddle with it at your peril.”

The Lord’s Prayer, which is memorised by millions of Christians across the world, appears in the Bible.

I won't be able to stop worrying about this now.

Wednesday, December 6

The threat of rain last week had local farmers scurrying to harvest the last of their hay while it was still dry.  Their business plans depend on feeding their stock with grass produced on their own property rather than buying in feed, especially in the winter. So, the paddocks are now covered in hundreds of round bales, most wrapped in plastic.

For many years the ubiquitous colour of the plastic wrap has been light green but, more and more, pink bales are appearing.  It seems the supplier of the plastic wrap makes a donation to Breast Cancer Research for every pink cover sold.  Very commendable and it's good to see that some enlightened farmers are now displaying bales covered in purple plastic with a black stripe.  I'm told that these bales have  attracted a donation for Prostate Cancer Research.  It's only fair and right; prostate cancer kills more men in Australia than women brought down by breast cancer. ( that sentence didn't come out right)

Tuesday, December 5

I have to add this postscript to yesterday's post about The Two Ronnies.  I've just seen episode 3 and in the opening monologue (although, I suppose it's a duologue as they're both involved), there was a joke about midgets (at the Midgets' Ball, the president's wife jumped out of an iced donut), one about mental illness (the police are looking for four men or two schizophrenics), and one about elections in Africa with Mr Obingo Odingo getting two nuts and the Cannibal Party getting the Reverend Peter Smedley.

Oh, the good old days before political correctness went mad!

Monday, December 4

Scratching around for something to watch, I came across the first three series of The Two Ronnies.  Remembering how much I enjoyed it the first time around, I thought it might be worth another look. What were we thinking?  I watched episode 1 of series 1 and couldn't believe how trite and unfunny it was, even though the writers included Eric Idle, Michael Palin and Terry Jones, who went on to be involved in Monty Python.  The Two Ronnies depended on sketches with elaborate costumes, funny voices and predictable dialogue.  Pretty girls provided opportunities for smutty innuendo and double entendres.

Early on, a pattern was established to have a monologue from Ronnie Corbett sitting in a chair, and the show always finished with the line, "It's Goodnight from me'" "And, it's Goodnight from him."  I think the British find catchphrases reassuring; they don't have to exert any real effort to understand what's going on, and it's handy to have a signal when it's time to laugh.

The 'guests' were another feature of the show.  I remember in a later series, one of the regular guests was Barbara Dickson who was outstanding, but the first series features Tina Charles, a 16-year who moves awkwardly and believes that belting out a song is an improvement on singing.  New World was a group of anodyne young men with guitars and suede jackets who sang folky ballads, but the highlight for me was a strange fellow called Alberto whose act consisted of making funny faces, running around in circles with a glass of water on his head, and shooting ping pong balls out of his mouth, bouncing them off a lectern and catching them again in his mouth: takes years of practice but clear evidence of a misspent youth.

I can't wait until episode 2.

Tuesday, November 21

I feel for the kids doing the exams this week.  The temperatures are hovering around 8-10 degrees above normal for this time of year, and we're just not used to 28 degrees for five days in a row.  The other thing is the classroom set-up.  We're using ten rooms and they're not designed for this purpose.  Today, we have 23 students doing Physics in a double classroom. I suppose there's enough space, but the desks are only standard school issue, about 60 x 45cm, and at least two different heights. It's a lottery which desk you get.  The names are placed in alphabetical order before the students enter the rooms so it's the luck of the draw.  One fellow is writing, hunched over a too-low desk with his too-long hair flapping in his eyes, and a young Asian woman's feet hardly touch the floor.

With five booklets, information sheet, pens, pencils, calculators, dictionary, and a bottle of water, the desk is inadequate.  They're forced to use the floor for the overflow.

And what's the deal with water?  People today won't leave home without enough water for a week.  I read that, across the world, we use 5 million bottles of water a minute!  Some of today's students have 2litre bottles; are they expecting a siege?

I've been trying to fill my time without breaking rules, and still exercising my brain.  On Friday, I listed all the words I could think of which ended in -ism.  I was surprised to find there are over 700 in the English language; I found 116 which I thought was pretty good.  Another day, I tried to list all the countries in the world.  There are dozens and I discovered that I have a woeful lack of knowledge of Africa and the Caribbean. This afternoon, during a Geography exam, I'm making notes for a blog post about what I do during the supervision shifts.

Not everyone is as stringent as I am about obeying the rules about no reading, no knitting, no sleeping, etc.  My partner this afternoon does crocheting (it's not knitting), others do Word Search or Sudoku (they're not crosswords) and it's not unknown to browse magazines found lying around the various classrooms.  Yesterday, a door opened as I walked past, and I spied one of the supervisors with a napkin spread across her lap, covered with a selection of open sandwiches.  All she needed was a glass of bubbly.

Monday, November 20

I'm like many of my generation, despairing of the fact that 'young people today' can't do mental arithmetic and, faced with the challenge of $1.50 + $1.75, they reach for a calculator.  Of course, like all good bigots, I simplify and over-state the situation.  Nowadays, the average teenager carries three calculators on his/her person: iPad, iPhone and smart watch.Why wouldn't they use them?  In any case, the average student's understanding of Maths concepts today, far exceeds my generation's.

In the General Maths exam the other day, there were five papers and not one was Arithmetic.  Instead, there was Interpreting Graphical Information, Finance, Trigonometry and two others I can't remember.

There have been one or two other changes since I sat the Leaving Certificate in 1959.  Realising that ten minutes on Google will give you all you need to know about dates and lengths of rivers, exams test for how students can evaluate and use information.  Some exams even come with Information Sheets with formulae, diagrams and tables.  Once upon a time, we went into exams with just a pencil, and a head stuffed with irrelevant 'facts' but now we need so much more.

Friday, November 17

I haven't been interested in the Australian cricket team for years, but the selection of Tim Paine for the Ashes squad this morning has caused a little frisson of excitement in Tasmania.  ABC Local Radio fielded calls, most of which were negative; after all, he couldn't even get picked as the Tasmanian wicket-keeper in the Sheffield Shield.  However, there is an explanation, as outlined by one of the guests on morning radio.

Josh Bean is, I think, a Sports Psychologist.  He's been working with Tim Paine for years, ever since Tim lost his place in the Australian team with sore fingers (!).  I snigger, but it's a serious issue for a wicket-keeper.

The fingers healed but the road back into the team was much more problematic.  Josh suggested visualisation as a technique.  I've heard that divers and high-jumpers visualise themselves performing their art perfectly, and this is claimed to have a positive effect, but how do you visualise yourself getting back into the Australian cricket team?

I might have missed some of the detail but, essentially,  Tim was given cards with pictures of his wife, his daughter, a cricket bat, a baggy green cap, a freshly-mowed lawn and a newly-washed car.  He started playing his cricket on the NW Coast of Tasmania where the standard isn't so high, and had regular counselling.

I may be misunderstanding, or simplifying, but I gather Tim was expected to put the cards in order of importance.  When the baggy green cap came in just after his wife, Tim was ready.

It's all too spooky for me.  One of the other guests on the radio show asked, "Josh, when did you change from being a Glenorchy-based bogan to a spiritual zen-finder?

Wednesday, November 15 (2)

A very long afternoon, supervising one student who had special permission to use a word processor and was allowed an extra half-hour.  With the reading time, that made the whole session 3 hours and 45 minutes, a long time to sit with nothing to do.  Not being allowed to sleep, or knit, or listen to Meatloaf, I fell back on writing a poem.  Textual analysis would say that is rough, unpolished, naive and trivial!; for that reason, I don't intend to do any more than record it here.

There's a lot of funny people in the town of Deloraine,

Who live in harmony from day to day.

If there's not a lot of contact

Among the sundry groups,

It's probably 'cause they've learnt to stay away.

First, there are the farmers, nobility of the land

Who feel their occupation gives them class.

They're quick to point the finger

At the hippies and their ilk,

And say they need to get up off their arse.

The hippies, to their credit, tread lightly on the earth,

And spend their lives on pastimes chaste and pure.

They value peace and brotherhood

And send their words of hope

Convinced the age-old wisdom will endure.

The movers and the shakers are Rotary and Lions

Self-satisfied and sure they've done their bit

To make this little country town

In Tassie's northern parts

Renowned across the globe - and quite a hit.

Artists and musicians find comfort in this place

The 'vibe' encourages cre-a-tiv-i-ty.

You see them in the Main Street

With clothes that need a wash

And beards that cover nearly all their face.

The tourists migrate here in summer months

They come and then they vanish just as quick.

I wonder if they understand

How special is this town,

Or is it just another box to tick.

Rich blow-ins are the latest group to come

They've sold their house and come here, all cashed-up

They think they'll share their knowledge

Of how things should be done

And wonder why the locals say, "Shut up!"

Much can be said about this unique town

And it may not be each person's cup of tea

But there's something in the water

Which makes it stand alone

And I'm pleased to emphasise it's right for me.

Wednesday, November 15

Years go, if I wanted a haircut, I went to a Barber Shop.  If I wanted something special, I might go to Tony's Barber Shop, hoping for a touch of Continental elegance.  But those days are gone.  Now, the barber shop has to have a clever name, like Chop Shop, or Jack the Clipper.  Some go all macho and call themselves Hair Force One or British Hairways ( do they break copyright?).  Others try to be upmarket, opting for Headonism or Sideburns.  I saw one in Melbourne called Moustachios.  The place I used to visit in Launceston is called Ali's Barber Shop, which is quite clever - the barber's name is Alison, known as Ali.

But, it's women's hairdressers who have really pushed the boat out.  When our friend, Dot, was opening a hairdresser's in Gosford in, I think 1974, we came up with Tresses, Headmasters and Cut Above, but we certainly lacked imagination.  The hairdresser who keeps me looking kempt in Deloraine is called Rock, Paper , ... inviting clever clogs to imagine the final hair-oriented word.  For the less clever, there's an image of a large pair of scissors.

I found there's a Pinterest site on the subject of imaginative salon names.  The simpler ones include Bangs, Tease and Honeycomb, and there's  Do or Dye and Cut and Dried.  I especially like  Shear Madness and Southern Roots.  It seems like the days of Val's Hair Salon are also long gone.

Tuesday, November 14

I've signed up to get involved in supervision of Higher School Certificate exams at Launceston College.  The exams run for 2 weeks and I've been rostered for 11 sessions.  It's tedious work and we're not allowed to read, do crosswords, use an iPad, listen to music or knit while we're on duty.  The guidelines also state that we are not allowed to sleep, which I thought might be self-evident.  In Tasmania, students sit the HSC exams in both Years 11 and 12, so some groups are quite large.  

On the first day,  my partner and I were allocated just one student, but she didn't turn up so we looked after a spill-over of 2 students from another group.  Their subject was Drama which I thought was mostly about performance, but they had to write at length for two hours.  Today, we had 32 for English, a three-hour paper.

Each student gets little booklets for the answers.  Some people write on both sides of the paper; others only write on one side.  We'd get smacked with s ruler if we wasted paper like that.  It did make me remember the pleasure of getting a pristine new exercise book at school.  I always resolved that this one would be the best ever.  Opening the first page, I would rule the margin very carefully, and write the words with great attention to detail.  And then I would turn the page and be faced with the impressions of the writing on the other side, and lose heart.  Of course, this was in the days when we wrote with pen and ink, and the ink was liable to seep through the page, marring the other side of the paper.

The pens we used were government issue, coarse wood with a cheap metal ferrule into which a cheap government nib was inserted.  I'm not sure how often we were given a new nib, but I bet it wasn't often enough.  The ink was manufactured on-site.  The ink monitors would tear open a paper packet of blue powder and mix up with a couple of gallons of water in a galvanised bucket, stirring with a wooden ruler.  The chances of making a mess, or have a calamitous accident were high.

The students are all different.  One young man is writing furiously and fluently, another is scratching his head, writing on the back of his hand and staring into space.  Some students write efficiently, others have lots of crossings-out and corrections. Even though things have changed, students are still expected to write their answers long-hand on paper, a system which hasn't changed for centuries. Sadly, I'm sure excellent students are slipping through the net because the challenges of the process do not play to their strengths.

Monday, November 13

I had to go in to the bank today to pick up a replacement credit card.  It was early so the place was quiet and, when the cashier asked me to wait while she checked out the back, I was just about the only person in the place.  Then my eye fell on three plastic bags full of cash, just lying on the floor.  Clearly someone was planning to feed it through the change-counting machine but had been distracted by something (or someone, maybe me).  I don't suppose there was a fortune in the bags, certainly not enough to risk a spell in gaol, but I hope they are looking after my money better than they are looking after this lot.

It reminds me of a time we were in Nepal and I had to go into a bank in Jomsom, high in the mountains near Dhaulagiri.  They made me leave my hiking stick at the door in case I had mayhem in mind but what really caught me by surprise were the piles of banknotes, literally stacked on the floor.  Nepal has notes for relatively small amounts of money but there were dozens of the piles, spread across the floor and separated from the customers by a simple counter.

I'm sorry for the quality of the picture; my hand must have been shaking.

Friday, November 10

It's insidious, but we're being bombarded every day with 'gentle' encouragement about how we should spend our money and, to an extent, I can cope with that, but now we're being pressured in how we should think.  Browsing the Internet the other day, I found my attention drifting to a little article about the ethics of buying shoes.  I didn't know that ethics was part of this mundane activity.

Oh, yes, there's more to buying shoes than picking the right size and negotiating a reasonable price.  If you buy a name-brand sneaker, you have to be aware of the toxic chemicals that go into their manufacture, and the fact that even the most expensive ones are made by exploited child labour in China or some other third-world country.  So, maybe it's better to stick to old-fashioned, tried and true leather.  However, there's another whole can of worms associated with that decision.

The article showed pictures of the appalling leather tanneries in India and talked about the early deaths resulting from the chrome used in the process, as well as more child labourers who work in slave-like conditions.  

Not wanting to go through life bare footed, I had a dig around for sustainable, ethical alternatives, and stumbled across a new product called pinatex (the n should have a ~ accent but I haven't got a Spanish keyboard). For generations, weavers in the Philippines have been hand-weaving the fibre from pineapple leaves into a beautiful shiny fabric which is used for high-quality garments like the Barong that men wear on formal occasions.

Now, a new process can turn pineapple leaves into a leather substitute which makes great shoes.  The material is like a suede and is manufactured in a city called Labo and sold to hand-picked designers.  Marilyn and I know Labo well as it's the nearest big city to our friend Kit's resort on San Miguel Bay.  In fact, we were involved in a project to help build a new school for a farming village on the outskirts of the city, where they grow pineapples.  Serendipity!

I pushed on to see where I could buy the shoes in Australia and was directed to a Vegan web-site.  Vegan?  I don't want to eat them.  Not content with trying to change our diet - pushing nut cutlets and soy marshmallows - they've moved on to infiltrating such diverse causes as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Same Sex Marriage, and now they want to tell us what to wear on our feet.  Is there no end to it?

Saturday, November 4

It's Craft Fair weekend again in Deloraine and the locals' quiet life is once more disrupted by the influx of thousands of visitors cluttering up the streets and emptying out the ATMs.  Marilyn and I are playing a low-key role this year, helping out on the gates but keeping away from the nitty-gritty of the organisation.  Marilyn does a shift each day in the hospitality area and she enjoys the interaction with the judges and other volunteers.

Tonight was the Awards Presentation.  This was always a bit of a bun-fight with lots of drinks and free finger-food but the current Director has aimed for a bit of class and has put on a nice meal and the expectation that people will dress up a bit.  Marilyn and I hadn't planned to go but, at the last minute, found ourselves putting on the glad rags.  It was a pleasant night.  We sat with the judges which is always interesting and had a great meal.

For each table of eight, the caterers brought out platters of pork belly, poached salmon and pork and veal rissoles.  A three-tiered cake stand had salad, potatoes and vegetables.  It looked terrific but I'm not always a fan of self-service at a crowded table, when the food is covered with sauce and everyone is in their best clothes.  The chance of a messy accident is high.

However, the food was delicious and we came through unscathed.

This year, we have a researcher from, I think, Flinders University, working on a study on why events like the Craft Fair are so successful.  Despite the fact we live in a low-population area, we depend on volunteer labour, and we are seriously affected by rising costs, we have managed to survive and grow over 30-odd years.  During this period, highly-subsidised capital-city events have withered and died, but we haven't depended on government funding or council support.  As Michael Veitch used to say on Fast Forward, 'There's something in this for all of us.'

Friday, November 3

I've complained before about finding myself on the roundabout of medical appointments, checking my diary every Sunday night to see what's on so I can plan my week.  And I've come to realise that the Government is complicit in this, inventing new programs to keep us oldies going back to the doctor over and over: bowel scan kits come through the mail, the doctor's surgery is full of signs for free 'flu shots and free shots for shingles, and the list goes on.

Marilyn had a letter the other week from a crowd called Australian Hearing, inviting her to ring for an appointment for a hearing test.  Marilyn controls the volume button on the TV remote and I had been complaining that it was getting a bit loud for my comfort, so she made the appointment.  LSS, she had some hearing loss and now has a nice little box with a pair of government-provided hearing aids.

Of course, there's always more to the story.  At her first visit she was given a card; if she recommended someone else to join up, she would get a Coles voucher.  Fantastic!  I had my test last week and, surprise, surprise, I have a slight hearing loss too.  To their credit, Australian Hearing said that I could go on as I am without aids but I would certainly get some benefit from wearing them. Not being one to refuse a free gift, I put in my order.

No money has changed hands, so where's the profit?  As eligible pensioners, we simply sign a form to signify we have been treated and Australian Hearing receives a handsome cheque from the Treasury.  For our involvement, Marilyn and I each have a pair of steam-powered Medicare hearing aids in a handsome presentation box.  I'm being cynical, influenced by too many 1950's British comedies making jokes about NHS glasses and teeth; the hearing aids we have are high-tech, not at all intrusive and very effective. Oh, and we have a Coles voucher as well.

Thursday, November 2

I've mentioned Quora before - the website where people ask naive questions on trivial matters.  It's a site just begging to be sent up and I sometimes wonder whether the contributors, in fact, first send in the questions and then write a clever answer.  The following was spotted by Jamie.  I hope the hapless US citizens reading it understand the irony and don't take it too seriously.

Is Australia a horrible place?

Donald Ferguson

Donald Ferguson, lived in Australia

Updated Oct 7

Definitely.

There is no internet in Australia. This message was written on paper and sent via carrier pigeon to a waiting Russian trawler where it was uploaded.

Australia is ruled by an evil king named Colin and his queen Cheryl. They live in a triple fronted brick veneer house in western Sydney. Colin has banned slavery and made free healthcare mandatory despite our vigorous protests. He even forces our kids to go to one of our thousands of free world class schools. Worst of all Colin makes us vote once every few years. Voting sometimes interrupts our saturday grocery shopping for 10 minutes or so. The only upside to this ordeal is a sausage sizzle at the polling booth.

The climate is terrible. There is nothing more boring than months and months of warm sunny days. We envy all those countries that have regular blizzards and deadly hurricanes.

Australia is incredibly backward. We are forced to use plastic cards to electronically transfer money instead of paper cheques. Our plastic banknotes make it impossible for counterfeiters to make a decent living.

Life is very hard. Our unfortunate minimum wage workers have to survive on as little as $20/hr and four weeks paid annual holidays. They only get another 10-15 paid public holidays each year. The cops won’t take bribes and expect you to obey the traffic rules. It is an absolute disgrace.

Friday, October 27

Marilyn and I found ourselves at the movies this afternoon, watching The Sapphires, part of a series of Australian films organised by the local U3A.  The acting hadn't improved since the last time we saw it but it was worth watching again just for the music.  When the credits started rolling, there was the name which is appearing everywhere you look - Harvey Weinstein. I hope he didn't have a hands-on role in the making of the movie.  'Hands-on' has a worrying meaning when you think of Mr Weinstein.

I hadn't looked at whether the local University of the Third Age has anything to offer me in my current interest in study, so I checked out their website.  Offerings for Term 4 are limited: Felt for Fun looked interesting but I suppose it depends on whether Felt is a verb or a noun.  Sadly, it's a noun and I don't really want to learn how to make felt.

The only other thing on the menu was 'Ukulele for Beginners'.  Not for me!

I have signed up for another course, over the next eight weeks.  It's through a University in Barcelona and called the European Discovery of China.  

Wednesday, October 25

I've been reading the book 'What Happened' which Hilary Clinton has been touting around the world.  I won't finish it because it is the shallowest explanation of a political campaign I have ever encountered.  We hear lots about the appalling creature who became president but, in my eyes, the alternative candidate seems to have little more to offer.

Many commentators have said that Hilary Clinton tends to be whiny.  That certainly comes through in the book; she whinges, about how she was treated and how her speeches were interpreted, and how the Head of the FBI was unfair to her.  I was looking for evidence that Ms Clinton would have been a competent president, but I was disappointed.  She showed that she is motivated by pride, and the desire to prove that a woman can do anything a man can do - all very laudable but hardly the basis for throwing your hat in the ring for the top job in the US.  I soon got fed-up with her pithy inspirational slogans, and her heart-warming anecdotes about people she met on the campaign trail.  There was a whole chapter on the food they ate between rallies and how they fought over a jar of jalapeños with a yellow label.  When she was loading her masses of luggage into her car on the way to another rally, husband Bill cleverly asked 'Are you leaving home?'  I'm sure that little bon mot could have been left out.

Her whole outlook appears to be banal.  She claims to be intelligent but she wallows in sentimentality and trite statements made by folk-philosophers and populist poets.

  But, it's what the book reveals about the US political system which is the most damning.  Her campaign had 3 million donors with an average donation of $100.  $300 million spent on the losing campaign and, no doubt, a similar amount spent to put Trump in the White House.  Money well-spent? I don't think so.

Hilary underlined she was pro-choice, pro-faith and pro-something else I have forgotten.  It's sad that a political philosophy can be boiled down to a handful of binary choices.  And the greatest of these is pro-faith.  It is harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a non-believer to be president of the US.  Although, you only have to say you have faith; you don't have to prove it.

There must be others out there who have the capacity to be another Lincoln of Roosevelt.  If only the US system will allow them to rise to the top.  Somehow, I don't think so.

  

Tuesday, October 24

Marilyn is getting fed-up with me moping around the house so suggested I take on some study.  It seems like a good idea and there is so much on-line nowadays, I don't have to leave the comfort of my lounge-room.  I certainly don't have the energy to travel into the University in Launceston every day but the computer gives me instant access to universities right around the world.

Open2study, run by Open Universities Australia, was my first port of call and there happened to be a number of courses starting immediately so I've enrolled in an Anthropolpgy course called Becoming Human.  It's run through Macquarie University and runs over four weeks.  It seems there are 503 students around the world doing this course.  I'm into my second week and it's fascinating. 

I've also found a cluster called FutureLearn which has even more choices: the sky seems to be limit.

I'm amazed at the process the University goes through in an attempt to keep their students motivated. No sooner had I enrolled than I started receiving 'badges' - a Bronze Quill of Knowledge badge for participating in a forum, a Slingshot' for asking for a hint, a Camper Van for completing my profile, and so on.  I even got a Papyrus Map for earning the other Bronze badges!  It beggars belief.

I'm 74 years old and the lure of badges doesn't work for me. They're not even real badges so I can't even stick them on my old scout shirt.

Anyway, there's years of work ahead of me.  The University of Wollongong has a course on Homo Floriensis starting in a fortnight, the University of Glasgow can tell me all I want to know about Robert Burns and the University of Groningen can help me understand the Scientific Revolution. 

Tuesday, September 12

One Easter, around 1980, we were camping on Bruny Island and came across groups of people harvesting mutton-birds.  We knew this went on because we had seen the salted and dried birds in butcher shops and and heard the old-timers describe the fishy taste of this so-called delicacy.  But, nothing prepared us for the reality of the business of bringing these creatures to market.

The Short-Tailed Shearwater makes an annual migration from the Arctic Ocean, down the coast of California and across the Pacific Ocean to breed in Australian waters in our Autumn, laying their eggs in burrows.  For many generations, Aboriginal people exploited this food source.  Of course, late-comers have got into the act and the government has had to put on some limitations.  But, in 1980, it seemed there were no rules.  

The mutton-birder camps we saw on the island were appalling.  It's dirty work, killing birds, and the feathers get into everything.  The smell takes your breath away and the debris left behind makes your heart sink - particularly discarded blankets and clothing which no amount of washing could bring back to life.  

Watching a TV show today about islands in the North Sea, there was a story about a 600 year-old cultural tradition of harvesting gannet chicks from a rock called Sula Sgeir, in the middle of the ocean.  Only inhabitants of the town of Ness on the island of Lewis are allowed to take part and no more than 2000 chicks can be taken.  And, of course, a harvest of 2000 is more than enough.  The taste of the baby gannets is so awful, no one wants to buy them.

After 600 years of harvesting, the gannet is still thriving in the North Sea and, after several thousand years of harvesting on Tasmanian islands, the Short-Tailed Shearwater is the most abundant species in our water.

Dragging baby chicks from their burrows with a hooked stick is clearly a terrible thing to do, but it doesn't seem to be having any effect on the mutton-bird population.  But, it might just be time for two more out-dated cultural traditions to fade into obscurity.

Monday, September 11

Spring is certainly upon us and we've become more aware of little birds hanging around the garden.  A couple of blackbirds have established their territory here and have been going through a courting ritual.  They run around each other with heads down and then fly up into the air for about ten feet.  No doubt, we'll see them nesting soon and eventually will feel the crunch of the discarded bluey-green eggshell underfoot.  Blackbirds are a mixed blessing as they scratch around in the bark of the gardens looking for grubs and making a terrible mess on the concrete.  They have a very unfortunate Latin name: turdus.

We also have a Superb Fairy Wren most days, accompanied by two or three drab brown females.  Generally, one sits on the fence or a twig, watching, while the others scavenge for seeds.  They say the Superb Fairy Wren is the prettiest bird in the Tasmanian bush.

The latest little collection is a group of goldfinches.  The European goldfinch was introduced to Tasmania in the 1880s and has adapted very well. The little flock which came down this afternoon had nine individuals, all pecking for grass seeds outside our lounge room window.

Sunday, September 10

I've just finished reading a book by a woman called Rabia Siddique.  She was brought up in Perth, the daughter of an Australian mother and an Indian-born Muslim.  The book talks about her early life, how she trained as a lawyer and, like many other young Australians, headed off to London to experience the wider world.

She was clearly looking for adventure and, after taking part in an expedition to South America, she decided to join the British Army, as a lawyer.  It wasn't long before she was posted to Iraq.  Her job was to liaise with the relatively new Iraqi Government, helping sort out the relationship between the UK troops and the Iraqis and how international law applied in that volatile country.

One day, two British soldiers were arrested by the Iraqis and thrown into prison.  The rules at the time set out that they should be handed over immediately to the British authorities but the Iraqis were reluctant and Rabia was told to go in and get it sorted.

It was a pretty sticky situation and she had no training as a negotiator.  However, the two prisoners, Rabia and another soldier were finally released.  Sounds like a happy ending, but that's when things started to go wrong.  As Rabia explained, instead of a debriefing, she was shepherded off to rest.  She was kept in the dark about what was happening with the other soldiers involved, but she found out later that they had all been debriefed.  She got the impression that she was being sidelined and treated differently because she was female.

The bombshell came when the other soldier was awarded the Military Cross.  Rabia didn't even get a mention.  By this stage of the book, I was becoming suspicious that Rabia's re-telling of the story was a little biased, with more than a touch of sour grapes, but I read on.

She finally took the British Army to court, accusing them of sexism.  Unfortunately, the Army decided to settle so we didn't hear the other point of view.  Rabia is now back living in Western Australia.  I wish I was able to accept her story without qualification, but I found it a little glib and I couldn't bring myself to believe the British Army could be so prehistoric.

Saturday, September 2

I've never been a fan of personalised number plates although I can appreciate people might want to celebrate the acquisition of a individual car by having some special identification.  I know companies might look for plates which will relate to their company (MACCAS01 or RAYWHTE11) but pink plates with DEBBI07 leave me cold.  A car is just a tool to help people deal with their busy lives.  To tag them with a personal name seems a bit over the top.  My iPad is just as important to me as my car but I don't feel the need to name it.

Too many people think adding 007 to their initials on a number plate make them seem special.  But you need more than that to be James Bond.  Apparently, there's quite a market for some plates and people snap them up as an investment.  I could pay $400 and buy a Victorian plate saying SUDOKU but why would I want to?  If I couldn't live without WSSSUP, I'd have to fork out $750, but you'd have to have deep pockets to buy WOG - $14000 to carry around a racial slur!

Next door has a visitor today, in a little red Honda with the number plate TITI.  I can't begin to think what message she is trying to convey.  

Thursday, August 31

I'd missed the development but it seems that an important icon of my wardrobe is under threat.  My treasured white polo shirts have suddenly become the garment of choice for white supremacists.  How do I know?  Because, more than you would expect of the torch-bearing marchers at Charlottesville sported pristine white shirts with neat collars and two buttons at the neck.  Apparently, someone decided that white polo shirts would give an air of respectability.  As if!

What's the world coming to?  Nobody really knows whether polo shirts grew out of British polo players in Argentina or India, but they soon became associated with sports like polo, yachting and golf, games which necessitated access to a horse, an ocean-going vessel or a dozen or more hand-tooled clubs. The polo shirts soon became an aspirational garment.  I know, when I wear one of mine I'm treated with more respect.  People don't know whether I have a yacht tied up in the Meander River so go out of their way to be deferential.

Coloured polo shirts don't have the same cachet as white ones and the bizarre invention of long-sleeved polos will soon be confined to the dustbins of history.  .Ralph Lauren seems to be the brand of choice, with the famous man on a horse logo.  David Jones is selling them this week for $139.  I have a couple of similar shirts I bought in Manila - called Santa Barbara Polo and Racquet Club with a similar man on a similar horse.  I think I paid about $39 for them.  

The question is: do white supremacists buy genuine Ralph Lauren, made in China by sweat shop labour, or do they buy cheap knock-offs, also made in China by sweat shop labour?  It's a tricky ethical question.

Sunday, August 27

I had a teacher at school called Fred Smith who was a bit eccentric.  He drove an old car (something like a Model A Ford) and was ostensibly in charge of the Wednesday afternoon Tennis program.  His involvement took the form of identifying where tennis could be played and allocating budding Rosewalls and Hoads to appropriate venues.  After the last lesson on Wednesday morning, we would grab our Bluebird racquets, catch a bus and head to our court of the week.

In all the time I went to tennis, Fred only came once to check that we were there.  No doubt, he had lots of venues to patrol, and maybe Brian and I had shown early signs of becoming responsible adults and didn't need close supervision. Whatever the reason, our Summer Wednesday afternoons were treasured.  In the winter, of course, it was Soccer and that was regarded as a real sport and teachers made sure we turned up and had our names ticked off.

I thought of that today when I came across a Richard Fidler conversation podcast with someone called Fred Smith: the Musical Diplomat.  His real name is Ian Campbell,Smith and he works for the Department of Foreign Affairs.  His work is interesting but his hobby is more so.

He plays guitar, sings and writes songs.  The first song he wrote was called The Ballad of Jose and Charmaine.  He envisaged them as a waiter and waitress in a small restaurant in Wollongong.  Even if you move to Tasmania you can't escape your past!

Friday, August 25

I was half-watching a TV program last night about tourism in Scotland.  I suppose I was hoping to get a glimpse of places I knew but, apparently, the most scenic parts of Scotland have passed me by.  Then a comment by the presenter made me prick up my ears.  Talking about mountain climbing he made the extraordinary statement that, after the First World War, working-class men from Glasgow and Edinburgh started to get involved in climbing on their free weekends.  My first thought was, why does the fact that they are working-class matter?

But, of course, in that era, sport was very much the bailiwick of the idle upper classes (I've always wanted to use that word).  Who can forget the great film Chariots of Fire with the talented amateurs, who were not obliged to make a living, putting their energies into Olympic participation.  My favourite scene is the one where Lord Andrew Lindsay, played by Nigel Havers, puts a full champagne glass on each of his hurdles while training, to make sure he didn't bump them.

When I was young, I used to read stories about a working class athlete called Alf Tupper, the Tough of the Track.  'Tough' had a particular meaning: it wasn't necessarily derogatory but differentiated the working class men from the 'toffs'.  I revelled in the fact that Alf used to win his races despite the efforts of various upper class twits putting obstacles in his way.

Of course, with the appalling loss of upper class twits during the First World War, organisations like the Alpine Club had to look further afield for new members, even if they had to accept people who wore flat hats and drank beer.  The older members might have had to change their attitude a bit.  One of their journals of the time gave some advice to prospective mountaineers:

1. Make your travel arrangements through Thomas Cook. 2. Keep your ice axe firmly in front of you. 3. Follow the guides because they know the way.

The new working class mountaineers were more likely to travel on their bicycle (if they were lucky) and the idea of paying for a guide would have been laughable.

Anyway, the new egalitarian approach to mountaineering paid dividends right across Europe with the conquering of faces like the Eiger, and eventually Everest itself.

Finally, I love this contemporary photograph from 1937 highlighting the gulf between the toffs and the toughs.  It was taken the Eton-Harrow cricket match.  The two boys from Harrow are waiting to be collected to go home for  the weekend; the 'toughs' have wagged school to try and make a bob or two at the match opening taxi doors and carrying luggage and so on.

Thursday, August 24

A couple of times a week, soon after finishing my dinner, I am wracked by a sneezing fit - between a dozen and fifteen explosive sneezes with teary eyes and massive amounts of phlegm in my throat.  Not a very pleasant subject I agree but it's been happening for years and I've never been able to identify the trigger.  I suspect it might be food-related, but we've thought about links with afternoon sun coming from the wrong angle, a cold breeze coming from opening the freezer, or some unidentified pollen infiltrating the room.  But none of these fit.

The human body is certainly affected by triggers.  Things we see on TV send our minds back to our childhood, a person's mannerisms can remind us of someone we met years ago, and thought we had forgotten.  Hearing particular songs can be evocative of experiences we had previously.  I heard Daryll Braihwaite singing Horses the other day and I thought of a particular party I had gone to.  Neil Diamond songs always trigger memories of our flat in Homebush in the early 1970s.  The Beatles' song I Wanna Hold Your Hand reminds me of a camp at Bundeena.

Smells are particularly powerful triggers - the smell of cooking, or a particular perfume can unlock recollections of childhood.  The smell of boot polish always takes me back to polishing my new winkle-picker shoes ready for the first time I wore a dinner suit.

I have to be careful when I smell a cup of coffee because it triggers me to reach for a biscuit and my diet doesn't allow that any more, but the oddest trigger which I have to deal with is when I clean my teeth.  When the first tang of peppermint meets my tongue or gums I have an uncontrollable urge to go to the toilet - even if I have just been.  Like the dog marking his territory, I have to squeeze out just a couple of drops, just so the urge is satisfied.

Wednesday, August 23

Marilyn has gone out tonight, leaving me to watch a documentary I downloaded, called 'Growing Up in Scotland'.  The first part concentrated on Education which was interesting enough but Part 2, which looked more at the social history, was very confronting, particularly of the period following World War 2.  That, of course, is when I lived in Scotland.

My memories are narrowly focused and I'm sure we were always warm, well-dressed and well fed, but it seems most of the population at that time lived in the most appalling conditions.  The tenements of Glasgow were so bad they were featured in illustrated magazines all over the civilised world.  The Gorbals became a byword for the very worst of slums.  The images of children in the late-1940s and 1950s were often heart-breaking but two women who were interviewed talked about a happy memory of an artist who visited often, drawing the children in pastels.  Joan Eardley became famous and her child subjects remember her with warmth, especially because she usually rewarded them with a 'treacle piece' and a threepenny bit.

The images are easily found on the Internet but here are a couple of examples:

Tuesday, August 22

It's nearly a fortnight since I wrote my last blog.  I haven't been particularly busy, so I can't use that as an excuse, and there's certainly been a lot happening in the mad world of Australian politics which is deserving of comment.  No, I think it is the weather.  There's a lot written about how bad weather can slow you down, like a mild form of hibernation.  But, whatever the cause, I've enjoyed the past couple of weeks, allowing the world to pass me by and avoiding anything which suggests work.

While I've been vegetating, the local farmers have been busy.  There are lots of lambs around and the word is it has been a great season with a huge number of births and few deaths.  Carrots are also on the go.  The harvest is in and there have been huge trucks up and down the highway, taking the crop to wherever carrots go to be washed, graded, processed, weighed, packed, stored, etc.  For all I know, they might also to be DNA-tested, de-sexed, made halal and injected with hormones, but why would you bother.

Some farmers have not done as well as others.  There's a 2-acre field just outside town which was planted with carrots this year but something has gone wrong and, the other week, the ground was turned over and the whole crop has been left to rot.  I don't know whether there was a growing problem, or the farmer lost his contract, but it has turned out to be a bad year in that family's life.

We usually buy our carrots at Woolies or Coles at $1 a bag, small, insipid and bland, but today we were given a bag of the biggest carrots I have ever seen - freshly picked and coated with red Deloraine soil.  Nera was given them by one of her workmates and she shared them with us. They remind me of the carrots that Bugs Bunny used to eat: large, wedge-shaped and bright orange.  Looks like Curried Carrot Soup is on the menu (or Carrot and Ginger, or Cream of Carrot ....).

Wednesday, August 9

Our Rotary meeting last night was held at Ashgrove Cheese.  There's a big expansion program going on there and we wanted to look at it before production started and visitors would be banned.  Cheese making started at Ashgrove around 1989 when the Bennett family took the plunge to extend the scope of their dairy farm.  One of the daughters, Jane, was sent off to England to learn how to make cheddar, and her father and uncle approached the bank in Deloraine for a big loan.

The company has been a real success, gaining an international reputation.  The new extensions will enable them to make 6 tonnes of cheese per day.  That's only working one shift.  If demand increased, they would be able to double or triple that output.  The basis of the new production line is a pair of 7000 litre stainless steel tanks from New Zealand.  Other bits of equipment were sourced from Canada and Italy, apart from the pieces that were available in Australia.

Like many Tasmanian enterprises, Ashgrove blossomed without any Government support.  At the time, one of the brothers was on some high-powered industry body and he used his influence to bring the top people in the field to Deloraine to advise on the project.  Last night, we were served a beautiful meal with smoked salmon, ham, various salads, many cheeses, followed by home-made slices and ice-cream.  Drinks included wine, cider and fruit drinks.  Everything was produced within a ten kilometre radius of Ashgrove.

We are certainly fortunate to be living in such a productive part of Australia where the famous can-do spirit of the old-timers still flourishes.

Thursday, August 3

The conversations which occur on the bus I drive to Swimming on Wednesdays are amazing.  My passengers are all long-term residents of Deloraine and have a farming background, so they can talk with equal authority on the town gossip and things agricultural.  Yesterday, there was a comment on dung beetles and my ears pricked up.  I didn't even know we had dung beetles in Tasmania.  I thought they only lived in Africa, living their miserable lives shoving around great lumps of elephant manure.

But, yes, there are a couple of native species, and they have been supplemented in recent years by the introduction of other species from Africa and Europe.  Checking the Internet, I found a company called Dung Beetle Solutions (am I the only person who finds this hilarious?), and a 1950s Government initiative called The Dung Beetle Project.  Apart from being a great film title, this is a good example of the 1950's thinking that all our perceived problems could be solved by introducing another species - think cane toads.

It began with arrival in Australia of Dr George Bornemissza from Hungary who noticed that our paddocks were covered with ugly brown cowpats.  This was unlike Europe where the local dung beetles did a sterling job keeping the fields green and disease-free.  It turned out that our Aussie beetles would only deal with marsupial poo.  So was born The Dung Beetle Project and, after Sixty years, these industrious little creatures have worked tirelessly to clear our paddocks.

Everybody is happy, except my ladies who can't get a decent cowpat for their roses.

Wednesday, August 2

Our Probus club celebrated Christman in July yesterday - a day late and fewer people than we expected.  It's well known that it's impossible to organise a function in Deloraine and expect to predict numbers.  I asked several times who was coming, who wasn't coming and who hoped to come but, as the day approached, I was no wiser.  I crossed my fingers and told the pub 18.  In fact 14 turned up, including two I thought were overseas.  The pub proprietors just shrugged their shoulders; they've seen it all before.

Our meal was nice, three meats on a bed of mash, and a Bain Marie filled with various vegetables.  The meats were turkey, pork and a slice of ham: not my favourite meats but Christmassy enough for the occasion.

I've never been a fan of roast pork.  I think it goes back to my childhood and the books I read, Drums of Mer, The Coral Island, etc which talked about cannibals.  Humans were called long pig because the story was that they tasted just like pig.  In my fevered imagination the corollary must also be true: pork must taste like human flesh.  No thank-you, I'll stick to lamb.

There's also the tale of the Edinburgh barber, Sweeney Todd who slashed the throats of his customers, tipped their bodies into the cellar where his accomplice baked them into pork pies.  

And, it's no coincidence that the criminal classes call policemen 'pigs', and I believe surgeons can transplant pig valves into a human heart.  Are pigs and humans interchangeable?

As you can imagine, I also have an aversion to pork sausages, but that's another story entirely.

Sunday, July 30

With all the hoo-hah about dual-citizenship I've been considering my own case.  I lived on Scotland for almost 8 years before coming to Australia, which is roughly 9% of my life.  So, on that measure, I'm 91% Australian.  But am I?

There's not a single Australian flag in my house, nor any Vegemite, and I don't drink beer.  I couldn't care less whether the Australian cricketers go on their tour to Bangladesh.  If a pampered, over-promoted, heavily-subsidised Australian Olympian wins a gold medal, I don't feel a surge of national pride.  I cringe if someone calls out 'Aussie, Aussie, Aussie' and, as Bob Ellis suggests, I feel a bit of a dickhead when singing the national anthem.

Perhaps worse of all, I can't bring myself to watch Australian drama on TV, although that probably says more about the poor quality of the programs rather than my lack of patriotism.  I just don't like, or can't relate to the characters.  I can't stand Janet King, Rake won't be invited to my next dinner party, and the whole cast of Newton's Law are an embarrassment.

Jamie says the problem is that Australian producers try to be too inclusive.  It's not enough that a character has to be a successful female lawyer, she has to be a lesbian as well.  Every show needs a loveable rogue, somebody ethnic, maybe someone with Down Syndrome and a cheeky smile.  And Ernie Dingo has said he built his career on being the token black.  Producers try too hard to sort out the characters and the story is secondary.

Jamie also sent me an article about a US scriptwriter called Vince Gilligan who has worked on shows like Breaking Bad. 

'Gilligan said a small group of writers plotted every episode intensely before a writer subsequently penned the script itself.

“It’s a sequestered jury that never ends. We’re sitting around all day talking ad nauseam, talking about minute detail,” he explained.

“The breaking of the episodes is the hardest part and takes the most elbow grease. It probably takes on average 3 weeks to break each episode. Sometimes we’ve gone as many as 5 or 6 weeks."'

In Australlia, that process is only allocated two days at the most.  It seems the Australian audience is content to accept second-rate but I wonder how large the potential audience would be if the programs offered were up to scratch.

In the meantime, the 9% of my persona which is British still demands a diet of UK drama.  I'd be hopeless in parliament; clearly 91% is not enough to be truly Aussie.

Friday, July 28

Is it OK to blame your Mum when something goes wrong?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/27/it-is-infuriating-and-exhausting-to-be-this-angry-i-blame-my-mum?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Thursday, July 27

Only in Tasmania!

Our Probus Club is organising a lunch on August 1st and I'm collecting numbers.  One of our couples will be celebrating their anniversary on that day and the wife sent me the following message:

If it is wet on Tuesday 1st August, we would like to come to the Bush Inn for the Christmas in July lunch. However if it is a nice sunny day George would like to take me to Paradise and Lower  Crackpot!!

I should explain that Paradise is an area in North-west Tasmania  and Lower Crackpot is a tourist attraction of weird miniature buildings and a hedge maze based on the Hampton Court Maze n England.  The village has been developed by an eccentric Scotsman who is always adding more buildings and enhancements.

Currently, he is building a Wall and is advertising that Donald Trump will be flying in to open the attraction on November 25th.  I think we might take the drive down to see the fun on that day.

It's worth noting that the area around Lower Crackpot is call The Promised Land.  I suspect the early European settlers might have been a bit religious. 

Wednesday, July 26

A friend has just come back from a study tour of farms in the UK.  He had another one recently in Canada and he comes back with great stories to tell.  One farm he visited in the UK had 300 acres of poly tunnels, where the farmer grew berries and cherries.  300 acres sounds a lot but the margins are tight and volume counts.  This particular farmer has 300 employees, all Polish. His rationale is that the locals won't do the hard work.  

Our farmers here in Tasmania say the same: it's hard to find farm hands who are prepared to deal with the early mornings, if they're milking, or the all-weather expectations, or the hard physical labour, for not very much money.  The answer in the UK is immigrants and, in the US, it's Mexicans and Filipinos who are the pool boys and the hotel maids.  

Another report in this morning's news is that a recent study is showing a dramatic drop in the sperm count of males from developed Western countries, including The US, Australia and New Zealand.  Is this natural selection at work?  Has Western civilisation evolved to the point of steady decline leading to extinction?  Will we go the way of the dinosaurs, unable or unwilling to work, and unable to reproduce more of our species?

19th century Europeans and 20th century Americans thought they were masters of the universe.  Who will take over that mantle in the 21st century?  It seems a change is on the way.

Sunday, July 23

We were invited out for lunch yesterday, with Jamie and Nera, and several of their Filipino friends and their kids.  We went to Pedro's Restaurant at Ulverstone where we took Brian and Margaret when thy visited from Canada.  The big attraction for the others was Pedro's famous seafood platter, but Marilyn and I no longer measure the attraction of food by the size of the serve.

Although, the platter was spectacular, and every morsel looked scrumptious.  The big attraction was the half crayfish, but there were oysters and mussels, various kinds of fish, huge prawns, smoked salmon, and so on.

My curried scallops looked insignificant in comparison, but there was too much food on the platter, even for Jamie and Nera, so we were invited to share.

At $135 a pop, they weren't cheap but they gave a lot of pleasure to a number of people.  Pedro must have been delighted to serve three of his signature dishes to the one table; probably went a long way to paying the kitchen-hand's wages for the day and, of course, he's not getting penalty rates anymore so that'll help pay the lease on the new BMW.

Saturday, July 22

Marilyn and I went to the funeral, yesterday, of the old fellow who died earlier this week.  He lived a long time in this area so the church was packed; he'd outlived most of his contemporaries but he had touched the lives of many people who came to pay their respects.  Listening to the eulogy from his daughter, I realised he had been born exactly two weeks before my father.  And I realised that Dad has been dead for thirty years!

How unfair is life?  We all come into the world with so much promise but it is a lottery and we can't ever know what cards we will be dealt.  Dad was 68 when he died, his father was just 51 and his grandfather was 61 when their lives came to an end.  Doctors raise their eyebrows when I give them that information but I can't let that worry me.  I have to focus on making the most of the time allotted to me.

When I look back on my life, I find myself focusing more on what has happened in the past twenty years than the first fifty.  That's not to denigrate that first half century, but it's a time when we were so busy getting ahead, we didn't take the time to smell the roses.  What if I had drawn the short straw like my grandfather, John Christie, who dropped dead at 51, walking home from work?

Marilyn and I had our first overseas trip when I was 55, we had our first cruise when I was 63.  I started working at Giant Steps when I was 57 and had our first introduction to the Philippines at 61.  I joined Rotary when I was 58 and directed the Tasmanian Craft Fair four times in my sixties.

At funerals, you often hear the phrase 'a long life, lived well'.  I'm not so sure about the need for a long life, but it needs to be long enough to do some of things which are only possible when your major attention is not just on making a living and feeding your family.  When I go, I hope someone says 'a life lived well.'

Thursday, July 20

One of our Probus members has passed away this week.  We have a number of members in their late-eighties or nineties so it has to be expected but it's sad, nevertheless.  This old gentleman was born on the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918 and was named Charles William Victory Crowden.  The midwife took credit for the 'Victory' part.

I find myself using the phrase 'passed away' when I talk about people who have died, although I'm not a great fan of euphemisms.  The modern trend of saying someone has 'passed' is mealy-mouthed and  I hope it dies a natural death itself.  When I hear it, I always think of a yacht that was moored at Gravelly Beach when we lived there.  It was called Passing Wind.  Wonderful!

A couple of friends have just come back from a cruise in the Mediterranean.  One of their fellow-passengers was Clive Palmer, accompanied by his lawyer and his minder. I've always accused Marilyn of taking extra things on our trips 'just in case', but she's never reached the heights of taking a lawyer, just in case.

Our friends said that the other Australian passengers avoided poor old Clive.  I wonder why?  Surely he would have some interesting stories to tell.  Maybe, people think there is too much similarity between Clive and Donald Trump.