Be polite to the shop assistant

please. The person ahead of me in the supermarket was on her phone. The call was obviously to a friend. They were discussing a wedding both had been to and dissecting the clothing of some of those who had attended. 

I could ignore that at any time but I found it much more difficult to ignore two other things. The first was that her precious child was making very rude faces at the shop assistant and the second was that she was also ignoring the shop assistant completely. She dumped her items and her bags and simply went on talking. The shop assistant scanned them, packed the bags and returned everything to the trolley. The woman tapped her watch to pay the amount and simply walked off without even looking at the shop assistant. Her child simply ran ahead almost knocking over an elderly man.

It is one of the worst examples of how not to behave in a supermarket and it is not the first time I have come across something like that. It worries me.

I usually shop in the same supermarket. It is owned by a family, not a chain. If I shop there on Thursdays I get a small "senior's discount" which means the prices are about the same as elsewhere. It has the added advantage of being particularly well laid out and well lit, the green grocery section is good (but not as good as my favoured green grocery) and they stock local products where they can. It also has one other enormous advantage. The staff in there tend to be helpful and friendly. 

I know quite a lot of them by name. Some of them are part of the student cohort who only work a few hours a week but others are full time employees. If they see me outside the supermarket they know me well enough to acknowledge me. It is nice, especially when I have had to go in still feeling wet, cold and miserable because of the trauma Middle Cat, Brother Cat and I endured last week.

"You okay Cat?" the girl who had just been ignored asked me. I managed to smile and nod but I had to blink hard. Here was someone who had just been ignored in the rudest possible way asking me if I was okay. I swallowed hard and asked her how her father was instead. He has been in hospital. Her face lit up and said, "He came home yesterday and he's already driving Mum crazy."

That made me feel so much better but I pedalled off a little later thinking that it is a tough job to stand there scanning groceries for people who cannot even be bothered to look at you. Is it really that hard to do? Wouldn't it be polite to say "thank you"?

Is social media responsible or

should the users of it be held to more account?

There is currently a government inquiry in this country into social media. It is covering a wide variety of issues but there seems to be a common theme among those who use it - that the tech giants like Meta are to blame for all that is wrong with it.

Really? Is alcohol to blame for all the negatives surrounding it? Is tobacco to blame for all the harm it causes? Is vile pornography in itself to blame? Or is it perhaps the people who use it and abuse it. 

I have a Facebook page. It is a pretty tame sort of page. I have some good friends there and they have been very supportive. During Covid lock downs it was a social lifeline of sorts. I suspect other people I know also felt like that. If I lost access to that communication I would lose a great deal. 

The people I know use Facebook and Instagram and other such sites in a responsible way, in the way those who set them up intended. The problem lies elsewhere but it lies with the people who use them every bit as much as the people who created those sites.  Just as alcohol in itself is not to blame for the car crash which kills someone Meta is not responsible for the suicide of the person who has been bullied. Meta may have a responsibility to do what they can to limit the behaviour but to try and make the claim they are responsible for the consequences of the behaviour of others is surely a step too far? We should have made it much harder for children and young people to access the platforms involved. 

Not so long ago I suggested that the technology was surely there to prevent children and young people accessing a great deal of social media. The suggestion was met with silence in places where something might have been done. Nobody said it was impossible to do just that. They simply ignored what I suggested. 

I suspect this had more to do with a severe reluctance to actually stop children and young people from using so much social media and the sort of social media they use. I also suspect that the reluctance to do this might relate to two issues. One is of course the revenue people get on the back of the likes of Meta but the other is the issue of power. If you have an audience you can influence them. You have power.

If you doubt that then why did I get a text message on my mobile phone this morning. It claimed to come from a Senator for this state and it was asking me to respond to a survey so as to "serve you better". I do not know which Senator it came from. I wiped the message without responding.

I suggest the current parliamentary inquiry is trying to avoid taking responsibility every bit as much as the "tech giants" are. Those involved will, for all they say otherwise, be more concerned about power than people.  

Who remembers David Hicks?

 Yes, some people will recognise his name. He has almost certainly faded from the memory of most people. They will have nothing more than the vague memory of him as "some guy who got banged up in Gitmo".  

That was the way he was described to me just a moment ago. Hicks was the mercenary who went to fight with the Taliban in Afghanistan. He had been a mercenary elsewhere as well. When he finally decided that he was tired of the life he was found at a "bus stop" and taken into custody. He spent time in the prison in Guantanamo Bay and he spent time in prison here. He eventually had a terrorism conviction against him quashed.

It still has to be said that Hicks brought his problems onto himself. I don't know what he is doing now but I doubt he is a happy man.

Assange is not going to be a happy man either. The euphoria he currently feels at his "release" is not going to last. It is all very well for his partner to suggest that he wants privacy right now. That will not last either. He has been in the public eye for years now. He has been too aware of crowds of supporters, people who believe that what he did was right. They will expect him to do more of the same.

We need to be absolutely certain of something. Hicks was no "hero". He was not simply a "mixed up kid". He made a decision to go to war as a mercenary.  He made other decisions. They were bad decisions. I have no idea whether he killed anyone but he fought with a group which is widely condemned.

The one thing he did not do was publish thousands upon thousands of documents and put the lives of many others at risk, the lives of sometimes innocent people. After Assange published the Wikileaks documents I became aware of several things. One was that nobody in a team I had been working with had heard from someone they knew. It is only in the last few days we have become aware that he was taken into custody and has since been executed. The other is that other people I knew of through my own work left their posts or were moved by their own organisations. They were not people I worked with as such but they were key to some of the work which was being done. 

It would be easy to dismiss their departure as "just one of those things" but the reality is that they were named in Wikileaks documents. What is more at least some of them would have been completely innocent of any "wrongdoing" in the eyes of whatever authority was watching over them. Others may not have been but the leaks put the lives of all of them in danger. 

The idea that Assange has done no harm, that he is somehow a "reporter" who has "uncovered war crimes" does not align with reality. I have no doubt some illegal behaviour was uncovered but was that all? There were many more people who were "uncovered" who were simply out there doing their job - and their job was helping others. 

Assange has been convicted of a crime. There should be no pardon. I for one will not be "donating" to pay his legal fees.

More spam from

a supermarket I do not shop at came up on my mobile phone. It also asks you to "unsubscribe" if you do not wish to receive their oh so important messages. 

Come on Cat! Why haven't you spent your (non-existent) "loyalty" points? You are in danger of losing them!

I think I can remember the last time I went into that particular supermarket chain. It was just after the Senior Cat's death. Middle Cat and I had been out and about dealing with things that needed to be dealt with. I am fairly certain the only thing I bought was milk - and I know, for reasons I need not mention, I paid cash. 

So this message is nothing more than an attempt to make sure I "unsubscribe" and thus actually do the opposite. It will simply ensure that I am permanently on a marketing list for something I do not use.

I had occasion to use Middle Cat's computer last night. We had come back from seeing the barrister who will be assisting us in court today and I needed to check my work email for a message.  Her own email stream came up first. There were hundreds of messages there - almost all of them marketing spam of one sort or another. Apparently this does not worry her. "I just ignore it", she told me.

I report such things as "spam" and the server does not allow it to reach me. My inbox contains a lot of mail but it contains almost nothing of that nature. It would irritate me no end to have to scroll past all those "marketing" messages. I am paying for a service but it is not an advertising service. 

The phone provider is apparently unable to do the same. Requesting a "stop" just seems to encourage the advertiser. 

I really do wonder though just what they get from it. While I do not believe I am immune to advertising because nobody really is I do believe I am perhaps less likely to succumb than many people. Why? There is a simple answer to that. I do not have the money to spend anyway!

 

So Assange is "free"

 or has he really just committed the ultimate crime?

I believe the entire Assange saga has been very badly handled from the start. He is not the "press freedom" saint that he is claimed to be by any means. He did endanger lives. His actions could well have led to major global conflict. They almost certainly assisted the Taliban in their takeover in Afghanistan. They almost certainly led to deaths elsewhere. You simply do not publish the sort of information he published and get no consequences. He is responsible for those consequences.

Not everyone is going to agree with me. That's fine. Most journalists I know (and I know a few) do agree. They do not consider him to be a professional journalist. 

That said there is a belief that the whole thing was badly handled. He should never have been able to seek "asylum" in an embassy. He should not have been isolated for so long in prison. The authorities in the United States should have been more careful and more flexible in what they charged him with and how they did it. 

It is easy to say all of that in hindsight. All of it pales into insignificance now that this supposedly such principled man has been willing to plead guilty to something in order to win his freedom. If he really had the principles he claims to have he would not have pleaded guilty. He would have stayed in prison. 

I am reminded of a criminal case here. A man was, wrongly, convicted of murder. He spent many years in prison. He could have been granted parole - if he had agreed he had committed murder. He refused to do that. It took many years, most of his adult life, before he was eventually shown to be innocent. He was then granted an unconditional pardon. Asked why he had not simply agreed to say he had committed the crime and left prison years before he just said, "Because I did not do it. I could not agree to lie about it."

Of the two men I can admire the second, not the first.

I hope there are some strict conditions on Assange's release. I hope there is a "no interviews", "no memoirs", "no internet" condition being placed on his release...and that if any of those conditions are breached he will be returned to prison. He is no hero.

Arrested wearing a stolen jumper?

One of the alleged offenders in the "incident" I wrote about yesterday was apparently arrested while wearing the item he allegedly stole. He was also alleged to have been carrying a machete.

Another was already supposedly in the care of the Department of Child Protection. 

One was on a "suspended sentence" for an unrelated matter and another had just finished time on a "good behaviour bond".  That apparently related, among other things, to attacking his then girlfriend.

A solicitor was trying to get bail for one who, along with his mother, is "homeless".

I could go on listing things but all I can think is that the police must be in despair over all this. They, almost certainly correctly, will see these boys back in court over and over again. They may get custodial sentences this time but what good will that do?

Sending these boys off to join the army is not the answer. The army has enough problems without dealing with miscreants like those here. 

But "boot camps" of a certain type might help. I am all for "Operation Flinders" - taking troublemakers out into the wild and putting them into situations where they must act in order to have food and shelter without all the conveniences of every day living.

Long before Operation Flinders started I went into a court where two "boys", actually young men in their late teens, were given a last chance. The magistrate in question had asked me to attend as he knew I knew someone who was willing to help. These two boys were told they could go to a reformatory or they could go to another country where they would help to build a hospital and a school. They would be taught building skills while they did it. It would not be easy but it would be an opportunity to turn their lives around. The magistrate was taking an enormous risk. I felt I was as well. The magistrate is long gone. He died many years ago. 

The boys are now men, still living in the other country. They came back some years ago but only for a brief holiday. They looked me up and showed me some of the work they were doing - teaching young trouble makers building skills. Their lives had not been easy but they were anxious to get back and get on with their work. 

It was an exceptional situation. That magistrate must have been in possession of more information than I was when he proposed that solution. It still leads me to believe that, for some, hard physical effort combined with learning a useful skill and being given an opportunity to feel a positive achievement can work. 

Now I am wondering what would happen if we sent the offenders from Sunday's event out into the wild? Would they use a last chance to turn their lives around?  

There was an "incident" in a

major shopping centre yesterday. It is a centre not too far from here and I happened to be at the computer when my news feed pinged in a "major incident".

Major? Was this going to involve some work? I looked. There it was, a shopping centre in lock down and reports of "someone with a weapon". 

A little later I read a report from one of the local journalists, now at the scene. Yes, there were people leaving the centre. Others apparently locked into shops. There were photographs of police dealing with "crowds" and more. It was Sunday afternoon and there were plenty of people there.

I did not go back to it until I checked my news feed at the same time I do every evening. The situation was still at the top of the local news. The reporting was sensational but there were still no reports of death or injury. Later reporting suggests two people were injured in the rush to leave.

It turned out to be a fight between two groups of youths. The police are apparently still trying to catch the offenders.  I hope they do and that they haul them into court and give them something more than a slap on the wrist. I also know it is unlikely to happen.

The overall cost of the incident is going to be very high. This is not just about the cost incurred by the need for the police response. There will be the financial cost to those who trade there. People left shopping trolleys of goods in the supermarket as they fled in panic. I also wonder how many people took advantage of the chaos to shoplift? There will always be some.

"The sort of excitement I could do without," a dog walker told me this morning as I was putting the bin out. He had been there and expressed his disgust at the way people had crowded around the entrance he had used and made it difficult for him to leave.

I know, had I been there, I would have wanted to leave promptly. I would have pedalled off and left the chaos behind me because the police were there. It was their unenviable role to handle it all. I would only have been in the way. I am the sort of individual who will pedal the long way around an accident rather than attempt to pass it. I do not want to be involved unless it is absolutely necessary. I do not want to be part of an "incident" of any sort.

There are, inevitably I suppose, more reports in this morning's paper. I glanced at them but I could not help thinking. "Nobody died and the two injuries were caused by panic. How would all those shoppers have coped if it had really been a major incident with death and destruction?" It would have brought back horrendous memories for a tiny number but most of those shoppers have no idea what the word "war" really means.  I hope they never know but perhaps it is time to teach the young what to do in an "incident" situation?

 

"Her name is Goodness"

I was told. This was a newcomer to our knitting group at the library. 

There were already three other people there when I arrived yesterday afternoon. The others were early and they had already made her welcome. 

She had come along, as so many do, just to get a little bit of help. One of the others was already helping her so I smiled and said "hello" and all the other things we try to say to make people feel welcome.

"I can only stay a very little while," she told us but we assured her that this was fine. It was what happened sometimes. 

As she left we expressed regret and encouraged her to come back next time. She looked relieved and genuinely pleased. 

Yes, she was almost certainly a refugee from somewhere in Africa. She did not volunteer any information. We did not ask. We just wanted to make sure she felt welcome. 

After she had gone one of those remaining commented on her name. I agreed it was unusual in this country but it was possibly quite common where she likely came from. I told them how, when I was at university on the other side of the world, I had come across a girl called "Love". She came from Zambia and she had sisters called Faith, Hope, Charity, Mercy and Peace. The two brothers I met were simply Matthew and John. Their father was a Methodist minister and the church was putting all of them through further education in order for them to return to serve their country in various ways. 

Love's plan was to go teaching. (She eventually became the head of a school.)  London was an almost overwhelming experience for her. One afternoon early on she came into a meeting I was running and asked, "How is it that so many of the bus conductors know my name?" (They had conductors then.)

The rest of us were startled for a moment and then realised that when she asked for her ticket the conductor was probably saying something like "Here you are love."

We explained and she looked very disappointed for a moment. Then she laughed and said, "I knew I could never be that important!" We all laughed of course.

But later I thought, "No, you are important - as important as anyone else and perhaps more so because you will be educating the young."

I wonder what Goodness plans to do. Is she a student of some sort too? Will she educate the young? The very fact that she wants to learn to knit and came looking for help suggests to me that she is already setting an example to her peers - and to the rest of us. I hope she comes back.  

Riding on the footpath

is a privilege as well as a legal right in this state. 

When I first returned here it was not legal. I dutifully pedalled along the roads. I kept as close to the gutters as I could but I was still conscious that I was risking my life each time I left home. 

Then came the glorious day when I was pulled over by a couple of policemen. Yes, interested in my tricycle and why wasn't I on the footpath. It would be a lot safer. I did not growl at them I simply gave a polite miaou of protest and pointed out that it was not legal.

"Well we would rather you broke the law," I was told. We negotiated this and I actually got permission - or rather, the tricycle would be considered a "mobility" device. It was such a relief to no longer have to travel along a major road with heavy vehicles going past me.  Since then I have had the police move their radar gear out of the way for me with a cheerful, "Look out, tricycle coming through" and more than one lot of workmen lift my tricycle over obstacles they have created - and, on one memorable occasion, lift me as well!

I am watchful of driveways, of pedestrians (particularly the very elderly and the very young) and of obstacles ahead. On quiet back streets I will still use the roads if the footpaths are in poor condition. I do not speed. It is simply not possible to speed. On a footpath I go at walking pace. I never pass someone unless I am certain they are actually aware I am there - and usually they will have moved over to let me go by. I even do this for the young loping along with their ear-buds in place or for those looking at their phone screens rather than where they are going.

It therefore irritates me a great deal that the government plans to bring in legislation that will allow people who ride "e-scooters" to use the footpaths. These riders will not go at walking speed. The plan is to allow them to go at 15kmh. Like most such plans it will mean that most will go at least that fast, "because we can".  Safety will not be an issue for them. It will be for those who cannot get out of the way fast enough. 

There is something wrong with all this. Why are so many people in such a hurry to get somewhere? What is so important? What do they do when they get there? Please, can someone tell me? 

Defacing Stonehenge is not

an act of "environmental activism". It is an act of vandalism and it needs to be treated as such. 

I do not care in the least if the damage is only "temporary" and "no harm has occurred". Stonehenge is not "just some stones stuck in the ground". It is something far more important than that. 

Those who did it are no better than the Taliban destroying the Buddha statues at Bamiyan or Rio Tinto destroying the acknowledged site at Juukan Gorge. Indeed they are, if anything, more at fault. They are more at fault because they have done so fully intending to do harm in order to get publicity. 

The problem is that the cause they claim to support has already been given a great deal of publicity. It is already supported by a majority and there are other ways of taking action which will harm nothing and still have an impact.  

I would very much like to see those responsible incarcerated for a lengthy period. They won't be. The court will give them a slap on the wrist and tell them not to do it again.

The first time I went to university in England I was taken to Stonehenge by a Cambridge academic and his wife. They both knew a great deal about the site.  We were able to go right in, almost up to the stones themselves. This was long before it had become the tourist site it is now. This was a site in a landscape. It was not surrounded by fences and walkways and notices.

The wonderful couple who took me explained it all to me. I have forgotten the details of course. I don't think that really matters because they gave me a sense of the knowledge those who built it had. They gave me a sense of the planning that must have gone in and the enormous amount of work it must have taken to bring it all together. 

They left me alone for a bit so that I could take it all in alone. There was nobody else around at the time. I could stand there in the middle of it all and just try to understand a little of what it represented. It is difficult to put into words how difficult that was. I was standing there in the middle of something built almost five thousand years before I was born. It was still there. It was, despite the motorway in the distance, quiet and peaceful. It had been of huge significance to those who built it.

It should still be of huge significance today. I cannot help wondering how many people, people who think at all, have gone past it and thought, "If they could do it then - then I can I do it now."  Stonehenge is not just an ancient site. It should be a reminder of what we can do now and in the future. Defacing it to "protest" is not only an act of vandalism. It is an attempt to destroy rather than look after our future.  

There is something wrong

when a child comes home from school (a state school) and asks, "Why do we have to keep doing that acknowledgment stuff?"

He apparently meant the "acknowledgment to country" which they are now required to recite in the classroom each morning. His parent explained what the acknowledgment was and his next question was, "But I have always lived here right from the very first day I was born so why is it any different for me?"

That is a much harder question to answer. Should it be different? When are we going to stop saying it is? When are we going to stop saying that land was "stolen" and that some people have more rights than others because (some of) their ancestors were here earlier? 

All this has been argued and discussed until most people are heartily sick of it all. It came up again yesterday. There is a new development on this street. There were concreting vehicles here yesterday - to pour concrete for what we think is going to be a rather large swimming pool. There were multiple other vehicles and a great many "workers" (most of whom did not appear to be doing too much) watching grey sludge slide down pipes and into the ground.

They were, as is often the case, a rough lot and their language was liberally sprinkled with words I do not use. At one point I heard one of them say, "It's a f.... bone what his dog had. Don't go finding any more or we might have one of those f....sacred sites on our hands."

Apparently one of the men had his dog with him and the dog had a bone. The worker who told me this then went on at length about the problems there are in the building industry because of sacred sites. 

I believe genuine sites should be respected but they are now well documented around here. What is extraordinary is the number of undocumented "sacred sites" that seem to appear when a planning application is made. Like the daily "acknowledgment" it seems they have become almost obligatory.  When are they going to stop? 

Does it really take ten years to build

a nuclear power plant? This is what we are being told. It is one of the reasons given for not going down the nuclear route. "It will take too long and it will be too expensive" is what we are being told but is this really true?

There was an interesting letter in this morning's paper. It was from someone I have met. He is a bit of an eccentric but he rarely has his facts wrong. He will have checked. In this case his father was involved in what he was saying as well.  

His letter was about the Calder Hall nuclear plant in Scotland. It was apparently started in 1953 and finished in 1956. The intended life-span was twenty years. It apparently lasted forty-four years. 

That sounds good but it also needs to be recognised that the plant was there primarily to produce weapons grade plutonium. Supplying power to the local community was "just a useful consequence".  It was a small plant and it did not produce anything like the amount of power produced by the large modern plants of today.

All that said however one of the suggestions here has been that small plants could be of some value. One of the reasons for this has to be a small plant could serve to provide power to a region without the expense of trying to set up much larger plants to serve perhaps an entire state. Downunder is a very, very big country. It is the world's largest island or smallest continent. Vast amounts of it are sparsely populated - and likely to remain so. 

So now surely we have some questions. Does it really take ten years to build a small nuclear reactor? Do they really only last twenty years? Is there really nowhere safe to store the waste? Is nobody working on the problem of how to reduce the waste? Do they really cost the amount we are being told they cost? How many people have lost their lives to nuclear accidents compared with accidents caused by other means of power production? What are the other environmental risks?

I could go on but the man who wrote the letter is not a fool. Yes, there is more to the story than there is in his letter but it should surely be making us think. Is our anti-nuclear stance really about the things we are being told about - or is it because more money is to be made elsewhere?  

No more donations

in any form? 

Many years ago a former Prime Minister of this country stood up in our Federal Parliament and informed the members that a decision had been made to "deregister" what was then the Builders Labourers Federation (BLF).  That Prime Minister had previously been head of the entire trade union movement. It was an unprecedented move and a brave one.  It was also one which needed to be taken.

Unfortunately the BLF has now sprung up in another form, that of the CFMEU. The "C" is for "construction" and it is there the real problems lie. The CFMEU controls the building industry. Members of the CFMEU get paid extraordinary wages. Many of them, unskilled and lacking in training, get more than professionals who have spent years training and take on far more responsibility. Members of the CFMEU enjoy shorter hours and longer holidays as well. 

In a neighbouring state they have just achieved an eye-watering increase in their annual income - twenty-one percent. They intend to do the same in this state. They intend to do it in an industry which is already struggling to do something about the lack of housing and other infrastructure. Their members apparently "deserve" it and politicians know any attempt to stop such outrageous demands will have a very negative effect on the entire economy.  It is union behaviour at its very worst and it is likely to continue while those who could do something about the situation refuse to act for fear of losing their own jobs.

Yes, it is time something was done. Nothing will be done. What is more it seems we are hell bent on training the youngest generation of children to actually think the way the union is behaving is right and proper. The "Early Years Learning Framework" endorsed by the federal government is demanding that preschool children be taught about "social justice" and "diversity, inclusion and equity". These things are mentioned over and over again in the manifesto accepted by the government. They want an "acknowledgment of country" and gender, sexuality, race and culture discussed with three and four year old children. 

In the entire document "mother", "father" and "parent" are not mentioned once. There is no mention of learning to play together, explore the physical world, art, music, number recognition or learning to recognise some survival words. Apparently all these things are secondary to indoctrination into woke ideas, the sort of ideas which will lead children into believing that the tactics of unions like the CFMEU are right.

It is time to stop all this. We need a Prime Minister who can stand up to the CFMEU, who can stand up to those who believe that there is only one way of thinking. This is not Communist China or North Korea or Afghanistan.   

Pencils for "colouring in" were

bought yesterday. I had absolutely no intention of buying them at all. It just so happened that I needed to be out and about and came across a "garage" sale ( a "yard sale" or "boot sale" or some other sort of sale in other places. 

In this case the owners of the property had things lined up in their driveway. There were books at the front. Inevitably I stopped. Books? Books! I looked. No. There is a list of books I would like to have but I am trying to be good and not buy more unless they are on that list. (This is all about eventually having to move.)

But there was a box of coloured pencils there. It was a big box. It was new. I looked at them. I looked at the price. I know how much these sets cost. They are very expensive. I saw the prices when I was buying Middle Cat's birthday present a couple of years ago. (Brother Cat and I put together some art materials for her into a box the Senior Cat had made some years before.) I had also bought a much smaller set for a person I know who loves to "colour in". 

This set was still expensive, more than I could really afford but.... I asked how they happened to have such a set for sale.

"Oh we accidentally bought two. Our children love to colour in and we thought it would be cheaper this way than always buying small sets." 

"Accidentally bought two"? I could not imagine that. They had bought them for their own children too. Maybe it was more economical that way but even so... I stood there and thought about it. If I went on bread and water for the rest of the month... I did some calculations. The woman looked at me and asked, "Do you want them? Do you do a lot of colouring in?"

"Oh they wouldn't be for me!" I told her. It is years since I picked up a pencil to do some colouring in. "No, I think I can do this. They might be able to go as they are to a school for refugees or the school can break the set up and make smaller sets for individual children."

The woman looked at me as if I was just a little crazy. Yes, perhaps I am. I was not sure I liked her or wanted to contribute to her coffers. It would have been nice if she had given them to me for that purpose. She didn't of course. 

I took a deep breath and paid for them. She did put them on the back of the trike for me. I brought them home and put a message up on the relevant FB page. Oh yes, they would be pleased to have them and yes someone will come and get them.

Of course it won't really be "bread and water" for the rest of the month but I will need to be even more careful for a little while. It is worth it though. There are five hundred and twenty pencils there. The claim is that there are that many colours as well. I looked. Some of them are so close it seems an exaggeration but never mind.  I know the brand. The reviews are good. They are good pencils for schools and there are a lot of them. It should help an entire school for more than a year...and I might lose a kilo if I stop eating so much. That would be a win all round...but what sort of family accidentally buys two such big sets for their own children?  

Paying rent or board and

rent is something I have done from the time I left school. It was also something my mother demanded of me.

"If you want to go to teacher training college then you will have to support yourself to do it," she told me. I know she thought it would not be possible, that I would never be able to do it. Who employs untrained, unskilled and hopelessly naive young cats who know nothing about the world? Who employs them in a way which also allows them to study?

I was lucky. I landed a position as a "junior housemistress" in a boarding school. What it meant was that, for a certain number of hours of supervision of the girls (not much younger than myself), I had somewhere to live and my meals. The headmistress who employed just happened to know the Senior Cat and heard about me. She offered me the job and even organised my hours there so that I could go on doing what I loved - working in the residential nursery school for the deaf about two kilometres from the school. 

I worked - and I worked hard. The Senior Cat provided me with "pocket money" because he thought I should be given some encouragement. It wasn't a lot but it was enough for absolute essentials. 

When I began earning I lived at home again for a while - because my parents were back in the city by that time and the other role was only for students of course.  I gave my mother the "board" she asked for. My brother was also paying board out of his student scholarship. When Middle Cat began to earn something she also paid board. The Black Cat was the only one who never paid board. Our mother's excuse was that "she is not earning enough". Well no, she was not earning a lot but she was earning something at the time.

The interesting thing about all this is that, in line with the article suggesting that children should pay board - even just a small amount, there is the suggestion that this is one of the things that actually helps them to appreciate the need to budget and save.  Of the four of us it is now the Black Cat who is apparently unable to budget or save. 

I do not know of course if paying even a token amount of board might have helped her but I think it did help the rest of us. There are people I know who thought our mother was "too hard" but we had no choice except to accept what she demanded from us if we were going to do what we wanted to do. If we were determined enough we would get there. Yes, I was "lucky" over my position as a junior housemistress but I still had to do the work involved. I was "lucky" when I could live at home again but I paid a good deal of my income to be there. 

Even when I came back home (out of necessity to care for my parents) I paid my way.  I am paying now while the situation the Black Cat has created is being resolved. It may not be the "market rate rent" she believes I should be paying but it is a sum others believe is fair. I hope it is. I would like to think I have been as independent as possible. 

Academic research is not

doing well. It seems there is still funding for some things but not for others. 

I know that has always been the way but it seems to be more marked lately. It is worrying me.

My nephew was involved in a piece of medical research which was showing promising results and then the funding was cut. He went on to other things because the team involved could no longer afford to do the work. They had no space in which to work either.

Today there is a piece in the paper about some very promising cancer treatment trials facing the same problem. There will be people hoping against hope that their treatment won't be cut fatally short because the laboratory involved is not seen as a "good fit" in the building it is housed in. We have lost some other major research opportunities for similar sorts of reasons over the last few years. 

I know more than one scientist who is thinking of moving elsewhere because of the general lack of support here. There are other academics I know who are simply wondering how to do any work at all. In the arts field there is almost no funding at all. If you want to do research into something like "transgender issues in chess at international level" you might get some funding but funding for any work in communication in complex humanitarian emergencies (my area) is not available. 

I was asked recently about the possibility of co-supervising another doctoral thesis. I said no. I said no for several reasons but one was because there was no funding in the proposal. I would be expected to provide supervision without payment. I did that once in very special circumstances but I won't do it again. It is not simply about the money. It is also about the value being placed on the research.

The proposal is a good one. It is not outstanding but it is well worth considering. With a little work it could be outstanding. I doubt it will happen. The student needs guidance from within the university in question and nobody there appears to have the time or inclination.

And there will not be any funding available. It is not a politically correct or woke idea that will eat up the small amount of funding that might be available. 

Potentially we might all benefit from research, particularly medical research. We need to stop thinking of research as being solely for the commercial benefit of those who fund it. If our ancestors had done that we would not be where we are now.   

Is it discrimination or is it

something else? I wonder what those administering the law really think?

There is another story in this morning's paper about a family who are going to be deported because they have a child with a disability. The family have been living here for some years. Their child, the older of two, was born here but has been living in another country. They now feel they are sufficiently well established that they can support him physically and financially. The father apparently works in an area where there are severe shortages of workers.  He is said to be a "professional". 

They want to bring their child back here but they will be deported instead. They will be deported because their child is seen as a potential financial burden on the state. I don't know the child of course but it seems to me there are other ways of handling this situation.

It also seems wrong when convicted criminals who have migrated here, some convicted of very serious offences indeed, are given a second chance to stay here if they are deemed to have "close ties". We have even taken in people who have been convicted of serious offences in other countries if they are likely to face the death penalty in their own country. 

I had been thinking about this situation before I read this story because a friend of mine was in another situation where she has been seriously discriminated against. She came here with her husband. He was posted out here for work. They were supposed to be here for three years. I believe it is a very strong marriage and a remarkable one as well because M.... is profoundly deaf and her husband is hearing. They use Canadian Sign Language to communicate. M...'s second language is French and her third is English. Her linguistic skills are remarkable for someone with her degree of hearing loss. 

I met M... through the common interest of knitting and crochet. In an attempt to help her meet people with a common interest someone else I know suggested she join a group that claims to be there to promote these things. It was explained that her husband would need, at least initially, to help her communicate. The response shocked them and it shocked me. No, she was not welcome. No reason was given but it was obvious that they thought the communication barrier was too great. 

I do not belong to that group. I did once but returning to it was not possible or I would have done so and insisted that M... be allowed to go as well. I would also have done everything I could to see she fitted in. As it was M... and I did get together on quite a number of occasions. She would send me a message to say she had baked something and I would know it was a "I need to be with someone today." It was often if her husband had to be away overnight. She found that very hard indeed.

I always made her welcome. Our capacity to communicate with each other was limited by my problems in writing messages, my lack of manual dexterity with sign language, sign language not being as universal as people believe, her problems lip reading people who speak differently, English as a third language and more. For all that we managed. We even managed some laughs. Sometimes just being with someone else was enough. We knitted in companionable silence. 

Their time here was going to be limited and there were no difficulties made about her coming but she went home early. She went home with her husband's blessing because she was so lonely here. It could have been so different if there had been a group which had welcomed her, a group she could have looked forward to being with however hard communication was. Yes, it was discrimination and it was wrong. We have a lot to learn in this country about caring for each other. 

"Unions should stay out of politics"

is something we have all heard. "Big business should not be allowed to donate to political parties" is another thing we have all heard.

It will therefore be interesting to see how the present state government plans to deal with their proposed legislation to prevent donations to political parties. Will it work? They are planning some "tough penalties" for anyone who breaks their proposed rules...$50,000 or up to ten years in prison.

Labor, the party proposing this legislation, gets vast sums of money from the union movement. They get it even now when union membership has declined dramatically. Union membership in this country is now around 12.5% of the workforce, down from 14% just four years ago. Of course once a Labor government is in power they recoup that money for things like "training programs" and "occupational health and safety inspections". 

Big business is no better. They will support whatever they deem necessary to support in order to get what they want. Planning permissions can hinge on making sure the right politician's palm is greased. 

Banning political donations sounds like a good thing for these reasons but will it work?  My very first thought was "but what will stop the union movement campaigning?" Unions campaign now. They used funds in the last state election to claim that the present government would "fix the ramping crisis at the hospitals" in a big way. I remember seeing claim after claim come in to our letter box. (You cannot bar political advertising from your letter box.) The sort of campaigning they were doing costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. The money had to be coming from somewhere.

From memory there was just one in the entire campaign from what we would call "big business". It was a rather thoughtful one outlining policies, not people. If people read it then it might have been useful.

In the last couple of days we have had the head of the CFMEU saying that his members will sabotage the work they are doing, some of it major, for football facilities in this state unless someone is sacked.  The man in question was once on the tribunal which fined the CFMEU hundreds of thousands of dollars for wrong doing. All this union boss is doing is using his position to get back at a man who was doing his job. My guess, although I would like to believe I am wrong, is that the union boss will win. It will be wrong if he does but it will show that the union has power. It is still, despite declining union membership, a powerful union.

I can imagine that the CFMEU will still manage to find ways of donating money to those they want in power. It may not be obvious. It may not be direct. It will still happen. Other unions will do the same thing. Labor governments will donate to them in return. Big business will think about this and find some other way of shoring up support. Nothing much will change.

It would be nice if it stopped the flow into the letter box - but I doubt it will.  

"Supplies are limited"

are dread words.

Right now they apply to eggs in one supermarket chain because we have an outbreak of avian flu in a neighbouring state but it made me think again about other supplies here. This time I have been thinking not just about food but other things.

My thoughts have been not only "supplies are limited" but "supplies are not available". I resorted to buying a book on line the other day. It came from a small supplier in another country. There was no other way to get the book. Yes, I inquired at our local indie. No, I did not resort to Amazon.  Yes, it was expensive - and yes, I did need it. It arrived yesterday and had, remarkably, taken less time to get here than a similar size book would from another state. 

There is something wrong with all this. If I order a book from the local indie the process goes something like this. I go in on a Monday or Tuesday perhaps and ask about a book. They look it up on line. Available? Perhaps.  The price is likely to be....  I wince but agree because I need the book.

"We'll put the order in on Friday," they tell me. The order goes to a local supplier on that day. The local supplier informs the supplier in another state. They inform the very big international supplier who supply it to them who supply it to the local supplier who supply it to the indie who supply it to me. 

Now you can see why I do not do this for books I actually need quickly. I look on line and it can even be cheaper to pay postage while ensuring the author actually gets a few pence or cents as well. 

There are also books I have which cannot even be ordered by indies here, or even by the remaining big names. I have a Welsh "O level" grammar book (don't ask but I did need it at the time) that nobody here could supply. One of my knitting reference books comes from a Norwegian museum and nobody here could work out how to get it. I have three books from a small press in the United States that the local people said did not even exist. Once on the trail of something I need or really want I am a cat on the prowl of my prey and I do not give up easily. 

The latest book actually came from a university in the United States. It is a big university and their maths department is, I imagine, very large. The material I needed was not available on line. I resorted to the physical version of the book. The person I dealt with at the other end was very nice indeed. She even let me pay the required money into her Paypal account and then paid it to her workplace. (We had "met" on line some time ago. I had to trust her.) All this was rather fortunate.

I know I live in a rather "remote" part of the world but this is the 21stC and the isolation should be less rather than more. Yesterday someone was saying how limited yarn supplies are here in this state. It was good to be able to tell her that two brave men are going to try and sell yarn and garments made from it - and they are going to do it up in the hills behind me. I hope they can make it work. I have met them on several occasions and like them. What the rest of us need to do is support the venture to keep it going...or I will be on the prowl again.

 

Net zero! Net zero!

Net zero! We need to reach 43% by 2030! 

The politicians were back at it again over the weekend. There was a holiday (King's Birthday) yesterday and it must have been a slow news day elsewhere because the story came up again.  The Prime Minister was criticising the Leader of the Opposition because - shock and horror - the question of nuclear power was raised yet again. 

We are still being told that nuclear power is "dangerous" and "wrong" and "too expensive" and "will take too long to build" ...and more.  I may be wrong but I suspect the real problem is that there are too many people with a financial interest in "renewables".

What really puzzles me though is that nowhere in this ongoing argument and attempt to convince people that we need to "do something" is that anyone seems to be saying what is blindingly obvious to me. We need to plant more greenery. If we want to "save the planet" then we need to replant the vegetation. We need to replant the right things in the right places. We need to plant the right sort of food for us and for the planet. 

Is it really that difficult? Apparently it is. People "don't have time" to garden - but they have time to go to the pub, go to a footy match, watch television (probably more sport) and more. Gardening is hard work. Getting out and clearing the waterways and planting more of the right sort of vegetation is even harder. 

I am not the fittest or most able of cats but I spent yesterday afternoon prowling around the garden sweeping up leaves from the street trees and putting them in the "green" bin because it gets emptied today. I drew the line at sweeping up what was in the street because I do not feel safe doing that. I did it while keeping an eye on the kittens. They were doing their usual racing up and down the street.  The four balloons they had taken outside did not last long. I looked pointedly at the other bin and the dead remains of balloon were neatly deposited in my "blue" bin (general waste). 

"What do they do with the leaves?" the youngest kitten asked me. I explained.  She sighed and then said, "I like trees." 

I like trees too but it seems there are far too many politicians who like solar panels more than trees.  

"Service to the community"

comes in to the list of "King's Birthday Honours" quite a number of times today. It is usually the case. There will be people who will be recognised for their very real contributions to the community - and rightly so. There will also be a few who slip in who do not really deserve such an honour at all.

I know of one person who quietly informed the committee which oversees the awards that she did not want any such recognition. She had already been given recognition by the late Queen herself. There was no need to add to that but thank you. That woman was well worthy of an award. She had volunteered for many, many years and gradually taken on more and more responsibility. When she retired from her paid day job she quietly moved into another full time and unpaid job. She negotiated large sums of money for those most in need. At her funeral people asked why she had "never been recognised". I could have told them but I kept my mouth shut because that is what she would have wanted. There were perhaps two other people who knew and they did as well.

That woman was a real volunteer. She never expected anything in return. She had never married and any family had long gone. I worked with her for a long time and found her demanding but fair. She had a capacity to listen, really listen. If someone came up with a good idea that could be implemented then she would pull the core group together and involve them from the start...and that was leadership as well.

I have known other people to win awards. Some have deserved the "gongs" bestowed on them but others have done little to deserve them. They have accepted roles as "president" and done very little. Other people have done the hard work while they stand around and chat to the "VIPs". You were more likely to find the other woman in the kitchen doing the washing up after providing the afternoon tea. 

I have just glanced through today's list but I do not recognise any of the names in the lower orders. Hopefully they are people who do genuinely deserve acknowledgment and they will not, having obtained such an award, simply give up their roles. There is one person in this district who did just that. On learning that she had finally achieved her goal of an award she simply stopped working for the charity in question. It was a paid position and she had not reached retiring age. People were shocked when she did but I was more shocked when I overheard her telling someone that was all she had ever wanted. 

In my experience the best and most hardworking volunteers are very often the people who rarely get acknowledged and don't look for it. My thanks to all of them. 

There is an elderly vehicle which lives

in the driveway of a house not far from here. At the moment it is away on holiday again but I often see it sitting contentedly there. Sometimes it is being given a careful wash and polish or the owner will be seen giving it a bit of extra "TLC"(tender, loving care). 

It is one of those "VW Kombi" vans from the early 1970's. I have been told it has "done about 660,000 miles" so it is a hard worker. 

And it is not ready to retire yet. It has taken off on what is apparently the annual trip to a northern state. There it will spend the winter in a slightly warmer climate. 

I am writing about this because one of our newspaper columnists owns another old van. It is not quite as old as the VW and it is another make. His hails from the 1980's.

Both these vehicles are worth a surprising amount of money - yes, actually worth quite a bit. This may come as a shock to many who dream of owning "one of those new, environmentally friendly EVs". The journalist was asking the question about whether these fancy new electric vehicles were as good as they were made out to be. Are they?

I know that EVs are supposed to be environmentally friendly. We are told this over and over again. They don't give out those nasty "emissions" that we are told are so dangerous.  Perhaps they don't but emissions are required to build them (and transport them here because we do not manufacture them) and they apparently have a life expectancy of about ten years - because of the battery. If nothing else goes wrong then the battery will apparently last no more than ten years. 

Yes, I know they are trying to improve issues with the batteries for EVs but is that enough? Those batteries are still a problem and are likely to be for some time yet. A fully charged battery still won't get you to the other side of the country without having to stop for a long, slow recharge. Filling the tank with fuel can be done in minutes and you are on your way.  Yes, any car can go up in flames too but it is much less likely if you are using a petrol model.

And that old VW Kombi is around seventy years old. The emissions cost to build it has long since been paid for in the environmental sense. If we think about it overall then that vehicle, which the government tells us should be retired, is still working and may actually be more fuel efficient and environmentally friendly than buying seven electric vehicles and recharging them to do 660,000 miles.  

It's a thought - but I suppose I will still be told that an EV is "better for the environment".  

"How much do you spend on food?"

I was asked this two days ago. It was one of a list of questions which apparently "need" to be answered in respect to another issue facing three of the four siblings.

I had to think about that of course. I am careful of what I spend and I am grateful when a very kind friend occasionally gives me half a dozen eggs from the hens her family keeps. That can make a real difference to the weekly spend on food. Protein in any form tends to be expensive.

There are good reasons for me, like anyone else, to be careful of what I spend but there are also good reasons for me to make sure I eat "sensibly".  It is possible to do both things together.  I make sure I have some protein each day, some carbohydrate too. I like most vegetables and I tend to buy them in season so they are cheaper. I like fruit and do the same. 

"You could buy much cheaper bread," someone once told me. Perhaps but good wholemeal or whole grain bread is actually cheaper than the cheapest white sliced. It is cheaper because one slice is more satisfying than two of the white and the food value is much higher. The cheap white is loaded with sugar and preservatives and the bread I buy has a bare minimum of both. 

I thought of this and I thought of the food the Senior Cat was given in the nursing home where he ended his days. It was, as such places go, reasonably good food but he was used to meals cooked for two, not sixty-two. We took in the bread he liked a few slices at a time and the staff were kind enough to see he had that for breakfast toast instead of the tasteless white sliced. If I end up in one of those places there will be nobody to do that for me but I am thankful we could do it for him.

But what else did I buy? What was I eating? How much did it cost? I tried to work it out and came up with a figure I thought might be reasonable. I hoped it would not be considered "excessive" but it seems not. "Is that all?" I was asked, "Are you sure that's right?"

I thought again.Yes, it probably is about right. I tried to explain, "Last week the broccoli was on special so I bought extra and made more soup with that and a few other things. I made eight lots and I have had two. The other six are in the freezer. The week before that I made something else and there are three more meals in the freezer. It's cheaper that way even when I consider the cost of running the freezer."

The person I was talking to seemed confused. I tried to explain that feeding myself is not simply about the cost of the food. It is how I deal with the food I buy. Making multiple meals at a time and freezing them makes sense. That way I can save in more ways than one. It is actually very useful to be able to take a pack out of the freezer and heat it up when I need to do other things - or simply want to do something more interesting than washing saucepans.  

There is a question we need to address

but it is one nobody appears to be willing to address at the level where it actually might make a difference. That question is the difficult and definitely "racist" question of just who is "aboriginal".

It has come up in the news again because the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has found that there have been instances of people claiming to be aboriginal who are not. There are benefits to being aboriginal in some circumstances. You might get preferential treatment in many ways and, in some settings, you must be aboriginal in order to get any benefit at all. 

This can be the case in relation to some areas of business and the awarding of contracts. Some contracts actually require "aboriginality" - this may be at the level of participation or at both participation and ownership. It is more likely a contract will be awarded if someone says they are aboriginal or they are employing aboriginals.

Given the very high levels of unemployment among aboriginal people this may seem like a good thing. The problem is that "identifying as aboriginal" is something you can do on a personal basis. Form after form now asks for that information. "Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander" goes the question and you can tick the box. It doesn't matter if you are blue eyed and fair haired you have said you are "aboriginal" and preferential treatment will kick in. It doesn't matter if you do have an aboriginal ancestor but it is just the one great-great-great-grandparent and everyone else is Afghan, Chinese and Irish. And acquaintance of mine identifies as aboriginal even though his ancestry is just that. He has, to the best of my knowledge, not actually used it to his advantage but he admitted it is "tempting at times". 

They deal with the situation differently in other parts of the world. It can be a simple matter of one parent being born in another country or a more complex one of at least two great-grandparents being born somewhere else. There are people with no recognised "nationality" at all and that makes it particularly hard for them. 

My BIL's parents were Cypriot migrants. Middle Cat and my BIL went to Cyprus on their "grand tour" of Europe. (In order to afford it all they camped and often slept in their hire care.) Before they went my BIL had to get a special exemption so as not to be liable for military service there. He was liable because, even though he had not been born there, his parents had been. His nationality extended that far but it does not apply to his children. 

I know many other people in similar situations and people with "dual citizenship". There are people I know who will not visit the country of their birth because of rules that apply to them even though they were babies when they came here. They don't speak the language there or have any ties to the country at all.

It's a complex situation but does "aboriginal" mean something different? Why are we allowing, even encouraging, that sometimes very remote connection to give others privileges denied to the rest of us? Why can't we ask for proof of one grandparent at the very least?  Would it stop some of the corrupt behaviour of those who see it simply as an opportunity to gain a benefit to which they are not entitled? Or would it might actually benefit those who need it most?  

Yet more "acknowledgment of country"

are being gabbled at unwilling listeners.

Late yesterday I attended two meetings. Fortunately both of them were via Zoom so I did not need to leave the house. Unfortunately both of them were preceded by a gabbled " 'I would like to begin by acknowledging the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the land on which we meet today, the (people) of the (nation), and pay my respects to their Elders past and present, as well as to emerging leaders. I extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples here today. '

Now that may seem fine to some people but there were no "traditional owners and custodians" present and, even if they were present, why are we paying "respects" to them and not others? Why do the words have to be gabbled at each and every meeting?

The first meeting concerned the needs of a child who is struggling at school. The parents asked for me to be included and the school was willing, more than willing. What did it have to do with "acknowledgment"? Apparently "all meetings have to start like that". It certainly is not what anyone was there for. They were there to try and help a child who is in need of help. They were not there to think about who might once, many years ago, have walked across the land leading what is now seen as a rather primitive lifestyle.

The second meeting was held to organise an event in which I am participating in a minor way. It too had absolutely nothing to do with any "traditional owners and custodians". The whole event will be held via video links. The person running the meeting actually said, "I have to say this first". Why?

Our local council has recently been providing lessons in "Kaurna" - a language which was once spoken on the plains. That sounds like a good thing does it? 

Perhaps it was well meant too but there are problems with this. The first is that it is not a matter council should be dabbling in at all. It is not their role. (We just happen to have a very left wing mayor who likes to be seen to support such things.) They had to back down on giving a hefty donation to the failed "Yes" campaign at the last referendum and were warned not to take it further. Apparently however this was "already planned and a contract is in place" so they went ahead.

There are other problems with it however. Attendance at classes is voluntary. You went along if you were "interested". Well people won't go unless they are interested of course but those who were really interested had other ways of learning. If they wanted to learn the language which was spoken by the original inhabitants of the area however they were going to be disappointed. That language was not Kaurna. They spoke a different language - different enough to make it difficult to communicate with Kaurna speakers. We know very little about it but we do know that much. Nobody has tried to revive it. It would be impossible to do so.

The real problem however is that what is being taught is not "Kaurna" at all. It is a "white man's version" of the language. What is more it is not a language spoken out in the community, indeed it is unlikely it is even spoken all the time in anyone's home. It has never evolved enough to meet all twenty-first century needs. Word meanings differ, spellings differ - and arguments abound. There is no literature. Resources for teaching are severely limited. It is an experiment doomed to failure. It is of academic interest to just a few. Anyone claiming they can teach it to casual learners through the local council is simply not going to succeed. 

None of this is helping to "bridge divides", "combat racism", "bring about greater understanding"or any of the other things it is claimed it will do. It would make better sense to stop it and the gabbled "acknowledgment" and actually start a real conversation.  

"If you can afford tattoos

 you can afford food." 

The owner of a local supermarket chain is saying this as shoplifting is apparently increasing. He has been vocal, rightly so, about people coming in and simply helping themselves.

I have recently had to go through the exercise of working out more exactly just how much money I need to spend on food in order to eat sensibly but without luxuries.

"You could spend less on bread," I was told. No, I buy good bread because good wholegrain bread is more satisfying than cheap sliced white. I buy two litre containers of milk because two one litre containers would cost more. (It would also add to the environmental impact.) It is actually less expensive overall. I know these things and shop accordingly. 

I think I know how to shop. I simply do not know what is in the packaged meals section of the freezer department. I am fortunate in that I can still make my own meals from scratch. Middle Cat's late MIL taught me some Cypriot tricks to add to what my paternal grandmother taught me. I am grateful. I do not need to shop lift in order to eat.

But are people really that short of money that they need to steal? I suspect the really desperate people go to Foodbank and hope they might get something to feed their children. They don't resort to shop lifting. 

The supermarket owner was saying that what is being stolen are not so much the smaller, everyday essentials but the more expensive cuts of meat. I suspect that meals from the freezer department are going too. After all it is easier to "heat something up" than it is to steal a packet of pasta and a bottle of pasta sauce and do something with that. 

And I also suspect the supermarket owner is right when he says that at least some of these people have chosen to have a tattoo - or perhaps a packet of cigarettes, a six pack of beer or a lottery ticket - before feeding their families. Some of them will also be selling what they have taken - selling it so they can get some of the better protected "luxuries". 

Yesterday one of the people on my bicycling route stopped me and asked if I would like some pumpkin. She lives alone and a very large pumpkin has accidentally grown in her garden. Rather than pull it out she has left it there and was now offering me some of the result of doing so.

I said, "Yes please." What she gave me is more than I can use alone and I am not that fond of litres of pumpkin soup. I still accepted it because I then rang Middle Cat and told her not to cut the one in her garden as she was planning this coming weekend. I will pass some of it on to her tomorrow and give the friend coming to lunch today some more. We will all benefit. We know how to make food from raw ingredients and we won't need to steal in order to eat...and none of us have tattoos instead of bread. 

"I am not being paid for the work

I have done so why should I do any more?" 

There is yet another piece in today's paper about the government's failure to pay the "tradies" or tradesmen for the work they are doing on social housing sites. Apparently some of them are owed as much as $70,000 and have been owed this for as much as twelve months.

The government got rid of a lot of the social housing some years back. They gave the people who had lived in the small houses for many years the opportunity to buy them at very reasonable prices. Many of those who could afford it did just that. One of the reasons they did it is that these were the tenants who had come in under an old scheme where the rent was fixed. They had lived in the same place for many, many years. They were doing their own maintenance because they knew the government was never "going to get around to it".

We once lived next door to a woman who was one of those responsible for setting this scheme up. Mum's brother benefitted from the scheme when he was working for the government. He was eligible because he spent a good deal of time elsewhere working on a space research project. The government had decided that such workers were in need of a permanent base in the city. My uncle could have had a house but, not being married at the time, he opted for a small flat not far from where his parents lived. It was in a big block of such flats. The block is still there but the last of the tenants on the old scheme died some years ago. When she did the government undertook some "maintenance" of the entire block. It was painted, doors were fixed and some plumbing issues sorted. Now the government can charge hundreds of dollars a week in rent instead of twenty dollars...and it does.

One of the locals who does maintenance as a sideline from his other job told me yesterday that the government still has not paid the people who worked on this. He thinks the job could have been "better done" but he also said, "of course it had to be done at a certain price".

I can imagine this. The government would want the work done as cheaply as possible. They would not want the best quality materials used and, as long as it looked good, they would not be too concerned about the quality of the work. Add the piles of paperwork involved for anyone participating in doing the repairs and maintenance and I doubt that tradespeople would be making money out of it. 

If the work has been done however and the paperwork has been put in and someone has been to inspect the site then the government should pay. The money is apparently there. It is no doubt earning interest but why pay people if you can get them to work, at least for a while, for nothing? 

I can imagine what the paperwork is like. There would be pages of it. There would be multiple forms. They would ask for at least some of the same information twice or three or even four times. There would be photographs to take and reports to write. There would be delays while waiting for permission to be granted to do something differently. It would not be a simple matter of "getting on with the job" or simply contacting the person in charge of the site and explaining a problem. 

There is unused social housing which should be available but needs repair. Perhaps it is time to rethink the way the repairs can be done - and one way might be to pay people who do the repairs.   

"Haven't you got a credit card?"

someone asked me a couple of days ago. I was paying for something small with a ten dollar note.

The ten dollar note had been given to me as payment for something else - and I had even given that person a fifty cent coin in "change". 

I thought the question was rather rude, especially from a shop assistant who obviously disliked dealing with "real money". My response to them was, "That is none of your business and this is legal tender."

The response to that was nothing more than a very put out sort of look. As I went off I heard her saying to the next person, "You'd think people would know better these days."

Really? Is there something wrong with actual legal tender? There are places which will no longer accept it of course - but they don't get my business. 

I do have a card. I have two cards in fact. It is almost impossible to operate without such things now. I have a debit card issued by the bank. It never has a lot of money available on it. I top it up at intervals. I use it to buy food and other such essentials. It paid for a new bike tube recently and for a birthday present. I also have a similar card issued by the Post Office. That has even less money available on it. I use that to pay for internet and phone access and if I want to buy something via the internet. I put the required amount of money in at the Post Office and pay the bills that way. 

As an old cat I am still wary of doing "internet banking" so I keep all these things to a minimum. I have been "hacked" once. There were no financial consequences but there could have been perhaps and my funds are - shall we say, limited?

And I still think that "cash" has a place in the world. When I pay cash for something there is no record of whether I bought that "lottery" ticket (except I don't) or a loaf of bread (almost as expensive). There is a record that those things have been bought of course - but not of who bought them.

I have a "loyalty card" at the supermarket. I had no intention of getting one because I had no desire for a record to be kept of what I was buying. When it happened I told the girl who served me of this. She laughed and said, "Do what I do...put it in another name." I thought about it before I did that but it works - if I am careful. They can have the information they say makes for a more efficient service. Someone is buying all those litres of milk...but it isn't me. 

But a credit card is something different. I don't want to be in the situation where I suddenly find myself accidentally in debt and having to pay more to a bank because I failed to pay the bill on time. It is cheaper this way. Cash would be cheaper still...but of course it would not be as convenient for the shop assistant. They, help me, have to work out how to give me the change if I hand over "real money".   

I have been asked to comment

on the jury decision in the case of a certain Donald Trump - and what the likely outcome will be.

The first part is easy. The jury is in possession of all the evidence presented to them. I only have what the news media is telling me and my own observations of the behaviour of this individual as seen on the news media.  I suspect that, had I been on the jury, I may also have found him guilty. His behaviour after the last election he participated in, his manner towards the court, his statements outside the court and his failure to take the stand in his own defence all lead to a willingness to believe in his guilt.

There was also an evident sense of relief among people (some of them important enough for me to take careful note of their views) who matter. But - in their relief there was also clearly alarm.

The reason for their alarm is that the result may have the unintended effect of making this man more rather than less popular.  This alarms me too.  Donations to his "campaign" apparently surged on hearing of his conviction. 

This is the conviction of a man who once again wants to be one of the most powerful people in the world. If he had been a much less well known person his trial would probably have rated a little coverage. Some people would have known about it. It is unlikely we would have heard much, if anything, about it here. But this is a man who was already known. He likes to be known. He likes to be the centre of media attention. He likes to be known as "that guy from that television show - the nasty one". People seem to admire him for that. He tells people he is going to make their country great again. Really? 

I am concerned by all this because it does affect us as well. If he does do some of the things he claims he wants to do then we could well have another world wide conflict. The balance of power would alter. Right now we are too close to the tipping point as it is, far too close for comfort. 

It is also why I will go on supporting our present system of government here. It may seem a weird and outdated system that does not allow a "democratic" choice but it does not depend on presidential style campaigning with all the costs that go with it. Those costs are not just monetary of course but anything that depends on being able to raise millions of dollars because you are convicted of an offence seems wrong to me.  

They are having a 60's day

in the house of a friend of mine in Upover.  Instead of living in 2024 they have gone back to the 1960's - just for the day.

As I was about to have a much delayed meal when I read A...'s post about this I asked what they were having to eat. Up to that there had been "hot chocolate" (cooked in a saucepan on the stove and not in the microwave) and "toast and jam". Sounds pretty good if you are a child.

I went off and thought about this. What did we eat? The answer to that was that we had cereal for breakfast. Most of the time we had those large compressed wheat flake biscuits. Mum did not approve of cornflakes or any form of sugary cereal. I was allowed to have two of those biscuits with milk, a slice of toast with "Vegemite" (the Downunder version of Marmite) and more milk to drink. The milk could be hot in winter. It was cold in summer.

I had the same breakfast for years. My siblings had the same breakfast. We only had porridge in the school holidays (because it took time to make) or when we stayed with my paternal grandparents. Grandpa made the porridge. We were allowed, as a great concession, to have milk on our porridge. Grandpa ate it Scots style - with salt. I still eat porridge with milk and no sugar. It seems wrong to have sugar.

Our school lunches were mixed but only because we then lived next to the school and went home and helped ourselves to what Mum had left out for us. We could turn the bread (made by Mum) into toast if we wanted to do that. In winter we could heat soup (left in a saucepan and don't dare forget to wash it afterwards) and in summer we often had cheese or left over Sunday roast meat in a sandwich with a tomato. My siblings would rush in and often rush off with their "sandwich" in their hand. I was usually left to clear up the mess. There was almost never any variation on these things. I don't remember we thought of it as "boring". It was food. We were hungry. We ate it.

At night it would almost always be "meat and veg". We ate a lot of "mince" with potato and pumpkin or carrot and peas or beans. That was quick to make - and cheap. If we had a second course it would almost always be some sort of stewed fruit which Mum had bottled over the summer. We ate that with custard or "creamed rice". Once in a very long while Mum might make a "steamed sponge pudding" and put a little bit of jam on it before adding more custard.

 Even though both my parents were working full time we were still short of money. Teachers were not well paid and, in the early sixties, the Senior Cat was finishing his degree. There were fees and books for that as well. Looking back on that I suppose we were very well fed in the circumstances.

Now I think of all the things we have that we had not even heard of like pizza, risotto, "stir fry" and lasagne. We didn't know what broccoli or aubergine or courgettes/zucchini were at all. 

Once in a very long while we would have the thrill of fish and chips at home. It was a messy business and only ever occurred in the school holidays if someone had given us fish.  The only other way we had fish and chips was as a holiday treat with my paternal grandfather. He would give my grandmother a "rest" from feeding all of us and take me and my brother to the fish and chip shop at the start of the jetty. There he would be invited to inspect the fish he had ordered (and they knew he knew his fish) and it would be cooked in golden batter along with chips. It would be wrapped first in "butcher paper" and then in newspaper.  We would eat it straight out of that with our fingers. 

Modern "take-away" is not a patch on what those old fashioned fish and chips were - and not nearly as exciting.  There was something to be said for the food of the sixties after all.