Have we reach peak "wokeness" yet?

Is there anything which could be more ridiculous than the news that Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow has removed the mummies and the parts of mummies on display because...wait for it... the mummies did not give their permission to be displayed?

Yes, apparently now there is a need to ask the long dead for their permission to be displayed. How this could be done is something I do not understand but someone, somewhere must know this...or perhaps not. It is so obviously ridiculous that surely someone needs to speak up and say just that?

People who make these decisions are no more than attention seekers. They crave publicity. Issues like this are not about permission that could not possibly be granted they are about feeling a sense of self importance and power over others. I cannot see any other reason for it. 

I am not someone who believes passionately in "returning" artifacts to their places of origin.  It is all too likely if they had not been removed they would no longer exist. Yes, some might have been buried but the vast majority would have been destroyed. They would no longer exist. Museums may be filled with "stolen" objects but they are objects which have generally been carefully studied and preserved. They have taught us a great deal about the past. 

Of course history is not really about the past at all. It is about the future. If we pack the mummies away in a box and forget about them then we might not get that vital clue about a future problem. How many children have been to a museum, seen something like one of the mummies and decided on a career in medicine or chemistry or some other science as a result. There might not seem to be any relationship between the mummies and such things but taking away that opportunity leaves us just that bit poorer. 

Prowling around the British Museum last year I was struck over and over again by the thought, "these were made by people who lived at "X" or "Y" time...they had families and friends and had to eat and drink..."  It was the very "ordinariness" of some of what I saw that made me feel that way. It was also the out of the ordinary. That first known wood wheel clock must have hung in a home somewhere. It was there because someone needed to tell the time. They had gone from looking at the sky to candles to an attempt to build something. Now we have units of measurement which are far more precise but they came about because of that early need to know when darkness was going to fall. 

Mummies have led to develops in preservation, in medicine, in our understanding of diet and much more. The idea that we simply put them away because someone thousands of years in the past cannot give permission is extraordinary. Should we stop performing autopsies now if the dead do not give their permission? 

  

What happened to Helen Haines

is appalling and, like most people, I am very upset by it. I am also upset that something like that should happen in this country. We are supposed to be a "safe" country but I am growing increasingly concerned that we are becoming the opposite.

Whatever happens however this incident must not be used by the government as a means of demanding their "digital duty of care" act is passed by parliament. It will not make things "better" or "safer". It will do more harm.

It is not social media which is the primary problem. I know we like to think it is but it is the government itself when it has a "dirt sheet" about her sent out into the community. Don't try and tell me it was not deliberate. Of course it was. This sort of thing happens inside politics all the time but it has become much worse recently. The current federal government knows it is in trouble. It still has "an election winning lead" with around 25% of the first preferences but that is a long way down from the last election. Dishing out the dirt on anyone and everyone outside their own party has become the name of the game. 

They also see it as more important than ever to pass that "digital duty of care" bill. Indeed we are being told that what happened to Helen Haines would not have happened if the bill had been passed. That this is absolute nonsense is not something they are even prepared to discuss. All we apparently need to know is that this sort of thing could not happen because we would not know...anything. 

I wonder where all this is taking us. Will they succeed in turning us into the "communist" state some think. 

 The other major culprit here is the main stream media. The present government pays them a good deal. In return they are, despite attempts to deny it, shall we say "careful" about how they portray the government. There has been some criticism recently and the story of the "dirt sheet" on Helen Haines has come to be more widely known but it took an horrific act for it to happen. This is not "social media" at work. It is not ordinary, everyday citizens. Has the media finally started to wake up to the fact that the government wants more control in order to control everything we can know as well as say? Is it too late?  

Tone down the rhetoric?

Our Prime Minister is telling us we have to tone down the rhetoric... that the social problems besetting this country are our fault. Really?

Apparently the problems have nothing to do with not listening. It is apparently fine for him to say whatever he likes. He might try to camouflage it with words he believes are carefully chosen but he is still able to say what he wants us to hear. He does not want us to respond. There is no room or time for listening. 

"Look, it is what we have decided to do. If the electorate doesn't like it too bad. Give some of the biggest whingers a lolly to suck and ignore the rest. We can blame it all on that red headed woman," is how it apparently goes in our nation's capital.

Communication is a two way street. What is happening is not communication. It is dictation. Argument is not being tolerated. Dissent is not being tolerated "People have to learn..." 

Two days ago we had an incident of the most appalling violence. One of the members of parliament was deliberately hit by a vehicle driven by someone who is obviously not normal. It was not normal behaviour. I have not heard one person express anything but shock and concern over this. "If we want to change things then this is not how you go about it," has been the general view. 

The politician in question is an "independent". I may not share all her views but it seems to me she was doing a better job than some I actually know. Her life will never be the same again. Our Prime Minister said what was expected of him but he went on to use the incident for his own purposes. Now we are being told that "social media" is to blame for what happened, that this is why the government's "misinformation/disinformation" or "digital duty of care" bill needs to be passed. It needs to be passed "as soon as possible" to "prevent anything like this happening again". 

What absolute nonsense! This will make martyrs of people whose views differ from his own, that the government does not want expressed and most certainly not debated. It is an attempt to prevent healthy debate not stop those with extremist views making their voices heard. 

Social media gets inflamed by main stream media. "Protests" continue in part because main stream media encourages them with constant reporting of the events. The "climate change" message is constantly slipped into news reports. We are given the impression that bullies and murderers should be allowed to succeed in their efforts "for the sake of peace". All this is what we first learn through main stream news but it gets expanded and twisted in social media, often with encouragement from "leaders". Politicians use main stream media to "get the message across". It is a very powerful tool. Abuse it and you can do a great deal of harm. Try to stifle it and you can do a great deal of harm.  

The desire to control social media is understandable. It would make us much easier to govern. Is it possible? I think not. Communication is a two way street - and trying to stop the traffic flow will cause "accidents". Some people will aways try to find a way around it to do even more harm.  We need to keep the communication lanes open. 

"Suicidal empathy" might be

one way to describe what is going on in France and now, it seems, spreading across Europe.

There is certainly much more to it than our media is suggesting. This is not about school buildings or resources. It is not about class sizes or teacher training. It has very little to do with education at all.

"Oh but France has always had student problems," someone told me today, "I remember when we were in teachers' college they were rioting then."

There were some problems then. It was a long time ago. They were nothing like the current problems, problems which fuelled by social media and much darker forces which use it.

There is a young woman I have met. She works in the local supermarket. She is "converting to Islam". She now wears the hijab, long sleeves and a long dress. She was "a Christian" but her current boyfriend is apparently a Muslim. She is doing everything he asks of her and seems to be completely under his control. She praises the pro-Palestinian protest movement and more. 

I wonder what she thinks of the way in which Christian and Jewish people, groups and businesses are being attacked while Muslims are being left unharmed not just in France but elsewhere. Is she happy with the way our federal government has given millions of dollars to Muslim groups, including to the mosque where the preacher has been telling his congregation it is acceptable for men to beat their wives? I have no way of knowing this and I most certainly do not think it would be right for me to ask but I do find it of interest. I would be concerned for anyone who was doing just as their partner was demanding they do.

Is this part of a wider problem though? Are we really aware of how much we are all being told what to think, what to say, what to do. How many of us have blindly accepted "climate change" and "renewable energy" or that Ukraine should give up land forcibly taken by Russia in order to end that war? How many of those on the pro-Palestinian "protests" believe that Israel alone is to blame for what is happening there? We are being told "multiculturalism is good" and opposing bringing in more migrants and refugees makes us racist. What if we do want more migrants but only those we see as fitting in with our beliefs? What if we believe refugees should go home when the situation in their country changes? Do we or do we not allow more than one legal system into our country so as to accommodate different beliefs about how people should be treated?

One of my neighbours was asking these questions yesterday. He had seen the video clip of the shop keeper who was bewildered at the way some of the rioters had looted her shop. She was telling them "but I said I wanted you here..." His reaction was, "They should be grateful they were allowed to go there or that they can come here."

No, they will not always be grateful. There will always be people who are angry and will go on being angry. They will go on believing they have lost everything and they have a right to take anything they want from others. Any attempt to prevent that is likely to make them even more resentful. 

We are told we should be empathetic, kind, tolerant, understanding and much more. If we are then do we also need to understand that such empathy might not be appreciated? Do we need to tolerate that even at risk to ourselves? 

I have no answers to that but perhaps we do need to think about the harm "suicidal empathy" could do if we allow it. 

Barb is going

and some will miss her. 

Who is "Barb" you ask? Oh the owner of "that wool shop down near the beach".

Barb has been an institution for more years than most people would care to think about. According to the piece in the paper yesterday she is "pushing eighty". I suspect she is rather older than that. 

Barb had a wool and haberdashery shop in one to the little side streets off the "main street" where I once lived. I knew of it because I had been there. I frequently had to point it out to visitors, especially overseas visitors who wanted something to knit in the summer. I often wonder what they made of her. She was feisty! 

Barb sold wool in balls and skeins and on cones. She sold cheap yarn and expensive yarn. It came in all sorts of colours and weights. Ask her, as I did, for some lace weight yarn and she would argue with you about what lace weight meant and actually was. (She found some under a pile of other things. It was old and too "fragile" to use. She tried to sell it to me anyway - at a reduced price.)

Barb sold buttons, hooks and eyes, snap fasteners, elastic, the knitting needles and needles to sew the knitting up. There were patterns untidily arranged. Barb knew what was there. Some had been there so long they were getting dog eared.  She kept a knitting machine near them and tried to get me to take up machine knitting. I could not get her to understand that, for me, hand knitting was and is therapeutic. I tried to explain that hand knitting is a sort of portable mental health kit but she never understood that.  Barb preferred the machine. I wonder if she will go on with that now she is "retired".

Retiring was not the plan. She tried to sell the business but nobody wanted to buy an old-fashioned business that really kept going because Barb took in the dry cleaning when "that place around the corner" closed. She did repairs too. All the clothing shops along the main street relied on Barb for the sewing on of buttons and the altering of hems or the mending of a badly sewn seam.  

I went in there a number of times but not that frequently. It made no difference. Barb knew me, knew me well. I went on to help my friend P... at craft fairs. Barb did not like craft fairs. She claimed they took away from local business. Perhaps they did but what P... sold would never have appeared in Barb's shop. There I was though helping P or rather one of P...'s customers. Barb stood there and glared at me,

"Come and see me in the shop."

I lived on the other side of the city by then. I never did go back. Perhaps I should have but Barb's shop was untidy, very untidy. I would not have found what I needed there. I am more likely to find an interesting mill end, or bring in something from a remote corner of the world. Now I am not the student teacher looking for something I could afford to use.

Still, I rather like Barb. She is fierce. She definitely does not "suffer fools gladly" but she is one of those "characters" it will be hard to forget. I wonder what that area will do without her. Will people point the shop out and tell their visitors looking for yarn, "Well, there used to be a shop there.."?   

Why should the elderly "downsize"

just to suit the government's housing policy?

According to those responsible for housing us, too many "old people" are living in dwellings with one or more bedrooms which are not being used.  There are complaints about this. Apparently we oldies need to "downsize".  Apparently we are being "selfish".

My paternal grandparents lived in the same house for almost all their married lives. It was my home for a short time in early childhood. It went on to be the place where I felt safe as a teenager...and not simply because there happened to be a police station a little further along on the other side of the road. 

Location wise it was excellent. There were "the shops" just around the corner, an entire row of everything you needed from a post office and bank to the butcher, the greengrocer, bakery, barber and more. The doctor was on the corner. There was the strange shaped "A" church too. There was a "general store" next door and the big "haberdashery" place a bit further one. Grandma only went into "town" - the CBD where the "big" (department) stores were when she absolutely had to go. Her life was in the local area. She walked everywhere. She never learned to drive. She did not need to learn. There were the buses and the train service. 

It would be impossible to find something like that now but the reason my grandparents resisted moving anywhere else was because all that was there. They knew people. People knew them.

It is not quite the same now but it still matters. When Middle Cat and I realised I would need to move out of the family home we also knew that, if possible, finding something in the same area was important. It was not simply because being close to her was important. It was just as important for me to be close to the library I use so often, the shops I know and, most of all, the people I know. 

Yes, we looked far and wide. I was prepared to move to an entirely different area and try to start all over again. I know I would not have been able to retain many friendships because I am simply not mobile enough. If you do not drive a car then relationships are different.You do not simply "hop in the car" and go somewhere. I did not want to do it but I had faced the fact I might need to move. That I have not needed to move outside my familiar area is something I still find hard to believe. I know I have been incredibly fortunate.

I also know it is why many people do not want to move. My aunt lives not far from here. She wanted to move into something much smaller in this area but the Covid lockdown put an end to her plans. She now stays where she is as one person in a four bedroom house. She would like to move to a much smaller place in this area but it won't happen. It is beyond her physical abilities now and trying to find somewhere would be almost impossible. In just the short time I have been here the situation has changed dramatically. 

Older people do not want to move from what is familiar. Even when the garden is becoming "too much" they know the local shops. They still know people around them even if the new young neighbours have not even found time to say hello. They use the local services. Moving out of "the house" is not easy. Moving out of "home" is harder still.  

No, the Plymouth Brethren are not

a "cult" group. The "Exclusive" branch may be but even that is debatable. It is the "exclusive" branch under scrutiny at present.

Let it be said here I do not have a lot of time for any group that demands women wear skirts, head scarves, no make up and say they cannot have a cup of tea in my home. I have had some disturbing contact with them. The Senior Cat had problems with some of them in his last school. They try to socially isolate themselves and that cannot be good for anyone.

The "Brethren" are back in the news at present. There is a "joint committee into electoral affairs" (parliamentary) inquiry about their activities at the last election.  They are not required to vote. (They can claim that nobody but God has authority over them.) Some of them do vote, others do not.

It has not stopped others trying to suggest they attempted to interfere in the electoral process or that the church was behind some "stunts" which aimed to embarrass the Prime Minister. There is more than that.

I have also been quizzed by the same committee. It is a long time ago now and they did not much like what I had to say but thanked me and a small change was made as a result. I went in with actual evidence. There was no publicity. It is only when matters become controversial they make the news - or when what is being said might impact on the next election in the case of the electoral affairs committee.  This is what is happening here. Media reports suggest the group is "far right", that they are MAGA like. There have been suggestions that their leader is "like the Pope". 

The reality is that they are a very, very small group of people, around fifteen to sixteen thousand. Their influence on any political party would be minute - if there was any at all. Their leader may exert considerable influence but it is influence over the members of the group, not the wider community.

There have been attempts to claim that the behaviour of some members of the Brethren behaved in an intimidating fashion at some polling booths. That has been likened to the Spanish inquisition and religious persecution. The media loves this sort of thing of course. Their presence was evident at no more than a handful of polling booths and their behaviour was, according to other reports, no more or less intimidating than any other group. It suggests there might be other reasons for concern among those who hold very different but equally extreme views.

 

Do Michelin stars really mean

anything? Yes, I know that getting one or, preferably, more than one is what some chefs aim for but is the food really any better?

There has been some discussion about Michelin stars in our state media. Apparently the "guide" now includes some places in this state.  There has been outrage and amusement at the list.

I looked at the list. I am never likely to eat at any of these places. Even if I had the financial resources to go to one of them I do not believe I would want to do it. 

I am not interested in a "gastronomic experience" or the "creativity" of a chef with pretensions. At the same time I hope I can appreciate good food which has been well cooked. I do not want to "experience" an unusual combination of flavours simply because a chef has decided to put them together. I do not want a plate decorated with a swirl of something I cannot recognise and garnished with a single leaf of a rare variety of lettuce.  

I happen to like things like lettuce and cucumber. Tomatoes, celery and capsicum are welcome too. I do not want them smothered in some sort of "dressing". They can arrive "naked" and it is not simply because of my allergic reaction to vinegar. I am more interested in whether the "salad" is actually made from fresh ingredients. 

I had a potato yesterday. I had it with a dab of butter and some parmesan cheese and a vegetable salad. It was what happened to be in the fridge and it was quick to prepare when I was sorting out a work problem. It also so happens it tasted good, very good.  

Would a Michelin star chef approve of what I made or the way I put it on the plate? I doubt it. Does it matter? Of course not. I had still made it look attractive to me.

The Senior Cat was fond of saying "We also eat with our eyes." He was right in that what he meant was our food should appear attractive to eat. He did not mean it had to look "fancy". The swirl of something did not interest him as much as, "How did you get it....?" 

There is a tiny cafe in our local shopping centre. It sits between the supermarket I normally shop in and the newsagent. There are people who go there on a regular basis. The food is not fancy. It is not presented with any sort of "style". They take a genuine interest in people. Their food is fresh, well cooked, plain with just a bare hint of their own Middle Eastern origins.  You do get the marshmallow with hot chocolate or the little chocolate with your coffee but there is no fancy pattern on the surface of your drink. What you will get instead is a smile and an actual well made hot drink at a reasonable price.

I am not a regular there but they know my name. They know Middle Cat's name and the names of many other people. I know theirs. I have shared recipes with P... and jokes with A... If I needed a meal I would be happier sitting there than I would be in a Michelin star restaurant faced with one lettuce leaf and a swirl of something I do not recognise.  

  

No Ukraine and Iran are not to blame for

the record number of small businesses going out of business here. The government, particularly our Prime Minister, might keep trying to tell us that the wars in those places are to blame but are they really? Is the greatly increased price of fuel solely because there are wars in other parts of the world?

The figures tell us the Prime Minister is lying but he still insists it is not true. He is ignoring what is obvious even to a twelve year old trying to save enough money to buy a surfboard. 

"At the rate things are going we won't even get to Glenelg this year," his mother told me. I am not sure failing to visit that overrated beach would be any loss but I understood what she meant. The family has usually rented accommodation much further down the coast for a couple of weeks in the summer. It has been a cheap holiday but even that is looking to be too expensive this year. The small business they run is struggling. There is plenty of work and they can still pay their staff but they are taking home less than their staff. They should be doing well but all the additional expenses are strangling them. They have enough work to employ at least another two people but they simply cannot afford to do it under current conditions.  

It is not just the cost of fuel or power or even the cost of insurance but the costs of employing other people that are not related to the wages they provide. It is all the "occupational health and safety" requirements and the "training" requirements. It is a tax on any number of things that do not relate to the actual business and the increased council rates. The "paper work" is done at night after they have both the children in bed. 

On the surface these people appear to be doing well but a closer look shows the strain. Both parents are working in the business. They do far more than the hours their employees are required to do. They are also very conscious that their employees are doing unpaid overtime simply in order to keep their jobs. They do not like this. It worries them especially when one of their employees has Down Syndrome. They say they could not manage without him but they are very conscious they may be taking advantage of his willingness to "help a bit more". They do not see it as right or proper.

Our Prime Minister has never employed anyone. He has never run a business. He clearly has no concept of what it means to worry every day as to whether the bills can be paid. He is not concerned about the increasing price of power or raw materials and the cost of employing people or dealing with all the rules and regulations. He is not concerned about the effect tax increases and changes to trusts will have on a business because those things will never affect him. 

Perhaps all this can be said about any politician. Perhaps it is why so many people really enter politics. Stay there long enough and you get that pension for life. It does not matter how much harm you do because you can blame it on wars elsewhere. Taking responsibility for your own actions, your own failures, is not something you do in politics. 

I wonder if the twelve year old will get his surfboard or whether the increased expenses for other people elsewhere will always put it just out of reach. 

 

  

There are times when it is right to smack a child

before that horrifies you let me explain. Apparently about two thirds of adults in this country think it is reasonable to smack a child with a wooden spoon. An even higher percentage, ninety-two percent, seem to think it is reasonable to hold a child tightly by the wrist. This is apparently the finding in some research done by a university in this country. There were some other findings as well. I will not bother to list them as I have not read the paper itself.

What I will say here is that yes, it is perfectly reasonable to smack a child in circumstances where not to do so would potentially lead to greater harm.  Imagine the scenario where you are all at breakfast. Someone has put another slice of bread in the toaster. The bread gets stuck for some reason. It starts to burn and, in order to release it, someone sticks a knife into the while it is still turned on and plugged into the outlet. Dangerous? Possibly fatal? Yes, almost certainly. 

If the person with the knife is a young child with no concept at all of the danger do you try and "reason" with them or do you swoop and give their hand a sharp slap away from the danger? I know I would swoop and slap. I just hope I could do it quickly enough. There would be no time to try and reason with the child, no time to explain. The idea that you could be prosecuted for "smacking" a child in those circumstances is surely outrageous?

I would say it is equally true of a sharp slap on the leg of a child who started to run out into traffic. There is surely no time to reason in those circumstances. I just hope I would grab in time. The day I put a very young child in my tricycle basket I know I was almost certainly holding on firmly enough to hurt but it was for the child's safety. He had wandered off from his mother and was about to cross a road. 

There will be people who disagree with me. There will be people who read this and think, "Cat's wrong about that. What an awful person." I can handle that because I know very young children do not have the language needed for reasoning with them. Without the vocabulary and the experiences they cannot comprehend the danger. It takes years to develop the necessary concepts.

The idea we can always "reason" with a child no matter how young they are and that it is always wrong to "smack" is something with which I cannot agree. Even adults can do the stupid dangerous thing with a toaster and many often take risks crossing the road but responsible adults do not do those things. They do not allow children to do it. There are simply occasions when safety has to come first.  

Something called "Rocketreach"

appeared in my email this morning. 

I had never heard of it but I am alarmed by it. Apparently I was put on their "database" - without my consent. I researched and hope I have now been removed from it.

It seems that being on "Linked In" or "Facebook" or some other platform was sufficient for them to "harvest" the limited information about someone and use it without their consent. Whatever has happened to privacy?

There is a very strict policy among those I work with that their photographs never appear on the internet. There is a very good reason for this. It is a security issue. We also try to keep as much as possible off any public sites. This is also a security issue. I am intensely conscious if we let identifying information appear it might be the time that someone with a grudge will harm someone who has gone to help. Yes, it can happen. Not everyone has good intentions towards those going in to help. Recently, someone I was briefly acquainted with was shot. When people are risking their own lives then everyone else involved has a responsibility to do everything we can to keep them safe. 

So, I have done something about my "data" being "harvested". I do not know how long the material was available but they tell me it is no longer publicly available. Do I believe them? I have to hope that what they are saying is actually correct but I am still left with doubts. 

I have a presence on "social" media. A little of it is "social". I like to think what I do there is simply make contact with friends and, less often, acquaintances. I also have a presence on some other sites which are, supposedly, not accessible to anyone not involved. Would they be easy to "hack"? Some would, some would not. The only reason anyone would wish to do so however would be because they could potentially do harm. 

It is the potential to do harm which concerns me most. Give someone a hand held weapon and ask him to commit murder with it and very few people could do it. Ask that same person to push a button to cause harm in some faraway place and they are much more likely to do it. Distance matters in such situations. Data harvesting works in just the same way. It is also wrong.

 

There were children at the 90th birthday party

and they were all very well behaved.

I did not know them at all. They are the great-grandchildren and, until then, I had only come across grandchildren. 

I have since written a letter to one of the great-grandchildren. She is the one who is currently being home-schooled for medical reasons. She is also the one who loves to read and is reading well above her age group.

I had thought no more about the other, slightly younger, child. At the party I was told he was learning Auslan at school. His entire school is learning Auslan as their "other" language. When he came up to his great-aunt to ask something she told him that I knew some Auslan too. I signed a simple greeting to him and he looked surprised, very surprised. There was definitely more than a little disbelief there. With a nudge from his great-aunt he responded by showing me how he can sign the alphabet but the conversation did not get much further. What child wants to talk to a strange adult in a language he still knows very little about?

What I found of real interest however was something else. His great-grandmother was here for lunch as she usually is on that day each month. This time she said to me, "O... told his mother and then his grandmother about you and how you signed something to him. He thought it was very interesting you could do it."

"Interesting?" I have been thinking about that. I would find it very interesting to know why he was thinking like that. Does he believe that no hearing adult can sign - apart from his teacher? Is the idea of signing rather than speaking so different he does not see it as an actual language? 

I have known any number of non-disabled children who can sign or use an alternate or augmentative form of communication. They have done this because they have relatives or friends who use something. This child has no relatives or friends who use sign language and has quite possibly not seen it used outside the classroom or, at very least, the school. So, what was he thinking? Has he suddenly realised that signing really is a language and he can learn to use it?   

Sorting through the belongings of a deceased person

is not something I would do by choice. I have done it for my parents and helped to do it with my grandparents. Unexpected things have been found of course. 

I was always grateful my mother only had three days of "compassionate" leave when her mother died. I think it is fair to say there was only relief there. It was my great-aunt, her sister-in-law, who removed the most personal things from the house. Mum wanted nothing at all. 

"Not even her wedding rings?" my great-aunt inquired. Mum's response was "Throw them out. I don't want a thing."

My parents had no choice but to move into the house my grandmother had inherited from her husband but I know Mum loathed the place. It must have had some truly dreadful memories for her. When my parents finally managed to move into their own home Mum put her mark on it. The Senior Cat left it entirely up to her. I know there were things he would have changed but he wanted her to have her own space for the first time in her life.

I have thought of all that frequently in the last few weeks. For months I have been surrounded by boxes of goods belonging to someone else. I was not even really aware of what was in them. They were left with me when K... moved interstate with her husband. They were moving to be closer, much closer, to their daughter. K... was ill and had been told she had, at most, a year to live. The intention had always been to move back. The business she ran from home was closed. The stock had been run down over more than two years.

Her husband appeared at my door with box loads of what was left. He thought I already knew what was intended. I knew nothing. If I had been asked I would have said I could not do it, that I had no way of doing it.

I called K...to ask what she was doing. 

"Cat... I am giving you what is left. Sell what you can and use the funds for the children." She gave me no choice.

It has been sitting there for months. I went away and came back. S... was not well enough to help. More than one thing got in the way. S..., bless her, came and we made a start. It has been a lot of work. I spent most of yesterday working on sorting out a messy box of bits and pieces. Most of that cannot be sold on line. It can go to the local charity shop. People often go in for things like buttons. I think K... would approve of that.  

The funds are building up. Those most in need will be able to continue their education. Her husband left me a message late on Friday to say that "K...has left me - just went to sleep and didn't wake up." We both think K... would be happy. I don't mind the work involved. It just feels odd to do it.  

Someone still has to pay for it

if you shift a charge from one point to another. This is not taking a charge away. 

Our Prime Minister proudly announced that "your coffee" was going to be cheaper. He told us that prices would go down, that the price which was advertised was the price we would pay. 

There was more of the same. It sounded good. It is not true. Someone, somewhere had to absorb the cost of the card use fees and it was not going to be the person selling the goods but the customer. Of course it was going to be the customer.

The migrant couple who run the delightful little coffee place in our local shopping centre can only keep it going because their entire family is involved. They all work shifts. The young ones do it in addition to other work and the parents, who are both well over retiring age do the rest. It is hard work, very hard work. 

They did not want to raise their prices. They have a loyal customer base. They have people who see their little place as a sort of social service. It does not mean they can absorb the increased cost to them of the fees being charged. 

Their prices will rise by the bare minimum. Elsewhere in the shopping centre prices have also gone up. Adding fifty cents to the price of a coffee seems a lot but the way the change was implemented means that the price of everything else has also gone up as well. The grocery bill is going to be higher and so is everything else. 

Someone did not think about this. They did not think about the implications. If they did then they either did not care or they must believe it will be extra income for the government through the GST. I doubt the government cares very much at present. There will be reduced revenue for them in the future but they will put it down to other things.

And nobody has considered that anyone who pays cash is also going to be paying more for their coffee...and everything else. The card surcharge is going to affect everyone. No, you won't be paying less however you pay - you will be paying more.  

 

 

   

Performance cues and underscores

of the musical kind are part of a magician's repertoire. The music is as much a part of the entertainment as the illusion. Even in the earliest times a performer would have someone using music to help distract the audience at essential moments. 

The Senior Cat was very aware of the importance of music in the magician's repertoire. He was also aware of how difficult some magicians find it to build that sort of backing material for their performances. It was with that in mind he talked to someone who had an interest in theatre organs. He was then put in touch with someone else who performed regularly on both the organ in that theatre and on radio. 

Would this person be interested in developing some "music for magicians"? Could they work together on this? It was how the Senior Cat came to know someone else who died recently. 

The Senior Cat liked music but he was not musical. Does that make sense? He could, with difficulty, read the treble line and blow into a recorder. Mum would cover her ears. She was musical. Dad could not sing in tune. (I cannot sing in tune either but I know I cannot and there is a good reason for my not being able to do it.) At school dances Mum would warn the wife of the chairman of the School Committee (the chairman was always male back then) that the Senior Cat had "two left feet". Yes, he was that bad. It was a rather rotten family joke.

So how on earth did he manage to work with anyone on this? I came home on more than one occasion and there would be music issuing from the piano and "that car" would be parked outside. I knew B... was there and the two of them would be working on something. I would hear them discussing it. I would hear something be played faster or slower or with "more twiddly bits". I would hear it played up an octave or in a different key. 

"Got it!" "Yes that's it!" "What about this?" "How about we try this sort of..." and so it would go on. 

I would hear the Senior Cat saying, "Right...the patter goes like this and this is what I am doing....can you speed it up just a little...you're right that's even better..."

They worked well together. B... would give me a nod as I came in but he would not stop working until it was time to put the kettle on. I would make tea and leave them still talking. B...would take what he had recorded there away with him and make another recording in a studio somewhere. The result would be a tape for the Senior Cat and his fellow magicians to use.

It would all be done very differently now. Modern technology would make it much easier to use music from a wide variety of sources. It would not simply be a piano or theatre organ backing. There would be no tapes, not even a CD. 

I also suspect there would be many breaches of copyright. B... and the Senior Cat had permission for everything they used...and they worked for it.   

Do you remember when we had "department"

stores? You know the sort of thing I mean, one of those big shops which seemed to sell almost "everything". They were the sort of places where you could buy "bargains" in the basement and school uniforms on the third floor which you went to by passing the cosmetics and handbags on the first floor and the underwear and whatever on the second floor.

Our CBD had an entire street of them in the centre of the city itself. Women, dressed in a "good" dress, stockings, hat and gloves would spend "a day in town" and visit several at a time. It was where you bought what ready made clothing there was. It was where men who could not afford a tailor would go for their "Sundays and funerals" clothes. 

My maternal grandmother was among the first to get a "card" for one of the biggest of them. It was not a credit card as such but an "account" card. She would make purchases on it, often small purchases in the "habby" (haberdashery) area. She would have a fitting for her "corset" in the area which sold bras - always fitted bras - and other nightwear. Her Christmas shopping, such as it was, would be done there or in one of the neighbouring stores. At Christmas itself the footpaths would be crowded. Santa Claus was to be found in a "Magic Cave" - and elsewhere. Cars and buses could barely move along. It was our version of Oxford Street.

Then someone had the bright idea of turning the street into a pedestrian mall. Cars and buses were removed. The street was levelled and paved. Art work was put in.

And people went away. They went off to the "shopping centres" which were being built in the suburbs. The big stores tried to follow people there but they had to compete against the "chain" stores imported from America and Asia. 

Our CBD is dying. Whether it can be revived is anyone's guess. The mall might have seemed like a good thing but habits have changed. A very elderly friend who was here yesterday went into the city recently. She was wearing jeans and a casual jacket. She had no hat, indeed does not own one. She was wearing gloves but only because it was a cold day and she has issues with circulation.  We commented on how things had changed. She asked me when had I last been in to "the Mall". The answer was about three years before the Senior Cat died. I had to get him a pair of trousers and, after looking on line, I found a pair in one of those "department" stores...but it was no longer that sort of department store. It was one of many small stores within a big building. 

My previous visit had been many years before that and I felt lost. It was not a friendly place. It would have been so much easier to go to the place where he had bought all such things after his father was no longer working. They kept a record of every customer and their measurements. If you went in they would update the record. Their fabric and workmanship lasted for years. I had contacted them but it had all gone and that was their suggested alternative. Yes, good trousers but not as good as theirs.

It all seems to be like that. I know things change. I am not sure I would like it if things did not change from time to time but there are things I wish were still there. I have a voucher to spend in a little store in an arcade off that mall.  I am told it is a very nice place to visit. Yes, it probably is but I am not sure when I am going to get there...or even if I want to do it. Shopping is not the same now. 

Just when you thought it could not get any sillier

 or any worse a former Greens politician has come up with the idea that the government should run the supermarkets. 

Yes, you read that correctly he thinks it would be a good idea if the government took over the supermarkets and ran them. According to him it would bring prices down and make them more accessible and efficient.

If you have now stopped laughing...

We have Coles and Woolworths, Aldi and the IGA (Independent Grocers) as the main players in the supermarket game. Our local shopping area has three of those. They vary in what they have to offer. The clientele varies too.

I choose to do most of my shopping at the independent one. The prices are much the same. They offer a discount of 5% for anyone with a Senior's or pension card. They deliver locally at a much cheaper rate. The staff are generally very good indeed. I have the boys trained to reach to the top shelf for me if they happen to see me. If they are collecting trolleys and I am parking my trike they will hand one to me as they are going inside. They long ago told me to leave the trolley where I park the trike. "It's easy to pick it up on the way in Cat."

Now can you imagine having that sort of relationship with a government owned entity? No, neither can I. The idea that we would all have a greatly reduced choice hedged around with increasing regulations and the inevitable shortages and delays is something nobody in their right mind would want to contemplate. This was tried back in the early part of last century in Queensland. It failed. It is the sort of thing which has been tried in Communist states. It has failed every time.

And imagine now if the government also decided that they needed to do something about our diet and could do it through controlling what was available on a supermarket shelf. What if we were told "no more meat" or "some people are allergic to X so we won't be stocking it any more." For many people food is one of the pleasures of life. They may eat sensibly and frugally most of the time but they want to break out sometimes! 

I suppose it might do something for a black market and then the lawyers and the courts when people got caught...but if we were trying not to break the law but wanted to eat? Just how silly can things get?

The ambulance service is

something for which I have a great deal of respect - at least at the face to face level. I am less sure about the administration of it.

My first encounter with the ambulance service that I am aware of was as a very small child. Along with another child I was taken away in one with a kangaroo on the side. It was dim inside and I remember the officer trying to keep me calm. Why I was there is a mystery because there had not been an accident and I was not critically ill. It was alarming for a small child but I remember kindness.

I have gone on to seeing children under my care in a special school being taken away in an ambulance on more than one occasion. As staff we never knew whether we would see them again. The ambulance staff were kind and caring and competent.

I have been in an ambulance tearing down the wrong side of the road in peak hour traffic with the siren going. It was terrifying but the driver kept telling me, "It will be all right."  Much, much later the one dealing with the Senior Cat stopped me in the local shopping centre and asked how he was doing. (He recovered.)

I have had the ambulance service pick me up on their way through to a hospital when I was needed there to act as "communication assist" for someone who was not able to speak.  I have always been treated with courtesy. 

There was only one I felt was not professional. Many of them were volunteers because that is the way the system works. 

Management apparently does not like this. There is word currently going around that one of the volunteers has been stripped of his duties not because he had done anything professionally wrong but because he failed to call the ambulance service by that name rather than the district it works out of and failed to provide a vegan meal for an officer from another district. There were complaints he failed to find cover for all the rosters he was responsible for too. That those who do it are a small team of volunteers apparently was not taken into account. 

If the complaints are true then they are administrative rather than ability complaints. The local people would refer to the service by the name of the town or the district. It is what happens out there. How on earth was he supposed to know about a vegan coming in? He might well not know what "vegan" means - many people do not. If there are not enough staff to cover a volunteer roster is that his fault? 

I suspect those higher up the ladder, those paid to do their jobs, are unhappy with his criticism of their roles. He might be outspoken but I suspect it might well be with good cause.

What has happened however is alarming. You do not bar a volunteer who is doing a good job and who is respected and supported in the community simply because he criticises the management - a management which should be supporting you. We need volunteers. This country would not run without them, particularly in rural areas.  

  

So we are "nutcases" in a country filled with

"white supremacist institutions" which are driven by "hypocrisy and cowardice"?  If this is what you believe then why would you accept an invitation to speak at Writers' Week...unless you plan on using the occasion to say more along those lines?

I still believe this state's Writers' Week should be about writing. It was about writing once. I looked forward to that biennial event, to meeting friends, listening to writers talking about writing, publishers talking about publishing, people asking questions, discussions about the development of plot or character and any number of other issues related to the art and craft of writing. I was fortunate and I know it. I managed to learn a great deal about writing. My failure to apply it all is entirely my own fault. I still have the bad habit of simply diving in and then paddling like crazy until I hit the end. The result is often a mess but I still do it.

What I no longer do is go to Writers' Week. I have occasionally slipped in to the live-stream of a session at the local library but I have not been to the many open air events. They may be free to attend but, if I am to spend time there, they must be potentially worth my time.

The problem? These events are almost always not about writing. The week has gone from being about writing to being about "issues". The sessions are about social issues, woke issues, political issues. Some of those who appear as "writers" have not actually written the books themselves. The hard work has been done by others. The writing may be grammatically correct but it often lacks style or life. There are not many "issues" writers or politicians who can write in such a way I will remember their words.

I try to read a diverse range of material but when someone is being deliberately provocative and holds views that are potentially harmful then why should I use my limited time to read that writing? This is how I feel about the person who has apparently said we are "nutcases" and that the country is filled with "white supremacist institutions". Even the editorial in this morning's paper is calling for her removal from next year's program. Her inclusion in this year's program caused the week to be cancelled altogether. It says something about the line up that so many "writers" withdrew in support of her. The first to do so were likely those who had not written the books they were there to promote. 

A little controversy is a good thing. It can stimulate ideas and add to the discussion. I see no harm in that at all. I would, and still will, encourage it. I will not encourage someone who uses an event like a week supposedly about writing as an event to call for harm to others. I will not encourage someone who deliberately repeats propaganda designed to do that harm. 

How is it that someone who apparently holds these views is able to retain a Research Council grant and a position as a "Fellow" and "Researcher" at a university? There are people who have lost their positions for holding far less controversial views. There are people who have not been able to obtain research funding because they have not supported the "correct" thinking on unrelated woke issues. How can this happen and yet someone who holds views many find offensive and distressing is able to obtain not only research funds but be invited to speak?

Research funding comes with responsibilities. Freedom of speech comes with responsibilities too. Failure to acknowledge those things will cause harm. We all need to take responsibility for that.    

Driving without a licence

is something you expect young fools and drunken idiots to do. You do not expect people in their eighties who have been told they are unfit to drive to do.

I know someone who recently lost her licence to drive. It was not unexpected and should have come much earlier than it did. She is not willing to accept the decision and is currently attempting to demand the return of it "at least for the local area". She tells me, "I know I can do it. I know I am safe." 

She tells me this although the last "accident" she had was backing out of her own driveway into the car of the neighbour across the street. I have seen her back into a tree. She is not safe on the road.

Yesterday she phoned me ostensibly about something else. I listened, heard the undertone and wondered what she had done.

"Oh and I needed a couple of things from the supermarket so I got the car out and went. I needed to prove I can still do it. It was perfectly safe."

I tried reasoning with her. I pointed out all the potential consequences. She disagreed. She was "safe" and, if anything had happened, "It would not have been my fault. I was being very careful."

To say that I was appalled would be an understatement. To say I am worried would be an understatement too. What really alarms me is that she has a gopher she will not use. It would be the answer to her local appointments. She has reduced taxi fares for those further away appointments. It would all be cheaper. Yes. it is not as convenient but she has nothing else to do with her time. Other people do her cleaning and essential gardening. She spends her days watching television and doing jigsaw puzzles.

There is nothing I can do. I know she is not "my responsibility" but it does worry me when she tells me these things. Why does she do it?

I hope I can be sensible when I get to the "I cannot do this safely" point...but losing your independence is infuriating.   

Selling things on the internet

is not something I do. I am not one of those people who takes photographs, writes glowing descriptions of "almost new", "never been used", "no longer wanted", "only used once" items and places them none too gently on a website where people might find a "bargain".

As such I am more than grateful to my good friend S... who arrived fully equipped with the tools and the knowledge to do this. S...came yesterday afternoon and we began the task of, hopefully, moving the craft materials which have been left with me. Let me explain.

Last year I was left a large quantity of craft materials. The woman who left them with me no longer runs the business she once ran. She is dying and, with her husband, has moved interstate to be closer to their daughter. Rather than simply pass on the remainder of her materials to a local charity shop, places she does not care for, she told me, "I am giving these things to you. You can sell them for your Africans. I know what it is like there. Most people here don't really need it the way they do." 

It was typical of her attitude towards many things. K... told people rather than asked people. Indeed the first load arrived via her husband who asked me, "Do you know about this?" I did not. We looked at what he was delivering and decided not to upset her. I had vague ideas about parting with it all by delivering quietly to the local charity shop but of course she wants to know what I am actually doing with it.  

I put it off for months, went away, came back and let Christmas slide into Easter. S... offered to help as she is very experienced but she was also unwell. It was not until yesterday we started to deal with it. S... amazed me. I am in awe of her skills. She photographed. She wrote descriptions. She priced things. She was even kind enough to ask my opinion as she went ahead. 

After almost three hours we had made a start. S... went away with three boxes of things like metal bookmark findings, hair clip findings, wreath bases and beads. There are still things like unclothed dolls, paper patterns, acrylic blanks and bag making materials to go but we have started. I may once again be able to move safely around my little space. 

I hope people will want to buy these things, especially at those greatly reduced prices. K...will tell me we did not charge enough but people expect a "bargain" and it will simply be good to be rid of some of it at least. 

The best part for me will be seeing some money in the "school" account for the girls. An extra year or two of schooling can make a huge difference there. I am not sure I will ever understand how big the difference is but I will keep trying.  

Writing an essay without using AI

is apparently "difficult". I am not sure how else to put it but the two boys talking about it assured me this was actually true.

I was in the local "cheap" shop - the sort of place which sells the sort of things you can buy from companies like Temu or Shein but are there for you to actually see and feel before you buy. For me it is a useful source of things like glue and rubber bands and refills for the stapler. 

It is also full of "keen young people" who need part-time employment. This has been more so recently as the place changed hands. Currently it is a good deal tidier and, in some ways, useful than it was. As I was looking for what I needed I overheard the two boys stacking the shelf in the next aisle and talking. It was clear they were students.

"You know I could just have put some terms in and come up with an answer..."

"Same here..."

"And I reckon some of the others did. They all came up with the same sort of arguments."

"Same in my group..."

"Did you try asking..."

And so the conversation went on. I stopped trying to pretend I was not listening because these two boys really are very nice lads indeed. One of them told me to stay where I was and fetched me a trolley the other day. The other asked if I would like him to reach something from the top shelf. 

They saw me and guessed I had been listening. Then they told me they had both been in groups which had been set the same question. They had written answers without consulting AI and then by consulting AI. The differences were obvious. It is clear both boys are very intelligent and one of them in particular had tried testing AI to see how far he or it could go. 

"It looks like it's thinking but it isn't thinking. It sounded a bit weird ...if you know what I mean? one of them told me.

I think I do know what he means. I had to come up with a way of putting a counter-argument last week. In order to do it I had written notes and put them into a Venn like diagram. Then I wrote what needed to be written. It worked for me. Out of curiosity I then tried to see if I could get a similar result by putting the same terms into AI.  It might have been convincing if I had not known what I was doing but it did not come across in the same way.  As the boy put it, "it sounded a bit weird". It sounded artificial. It was artificial.

The problem is going to be training us to recognise the difference between the real and the artificial...and how we deal with it.  

"I  

The "Micawber rule " for financial

happiness or financial misery is one the current Prime Minister and Treasurer seem never to have come across.

For the few among you who did not study David Copperfield at school and have not come across the often quoted words here they are, 

 "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery."

Or perhaps they have come across the rule and refuse to believe it. They believe, again Micawber style, "something will turn up". I am not sure what that "something" could possibly be but perhaps they believe it.

I doubt anyone else believes either man is the little eccentric but kindly man that Micawber is portrayed as being. Both men are politicians and power is important to them. They want to stay in power. They both have a lot to lose. 

The way the Labor Party works it is now difficult to dislodge a Prime Minister they have chosen. It would not be impossible but it would be difficult. That he needs to be removed must be becoming increasingly obvious. We are not due to have an election before May 2028 but another interest rate rise has not helped the slump in popularity. If, although this now seems less likely, there was another rate rise before Christmas it would cause even more problems. Add in a long hot summer with high power and fuel prices and the problems for the government could get even more serious. The popularity of a certain fire brand red head would not help.

It was therefore interesting to see that the other minor and more far left party has just chosen someone who appears to be more moderate when facing the media. His manner is less controversial and less emotional than that of two colleagues who put their hands up in hope of taking on the role. Clearly there is a belief this might work in their favour. The party is saying the "right" things about "climate change" and "global warming". It is all some people want to hear. At very least it means they are likely to retain their voter base. 

Daylight saving starts this Sunday. Parliament will not be sitting over summer. If there is another rise in conflict or a natural disaster somewhere else in the world and blame for that sixpence extra in expenditure can be placed on that the government may yet get another term. We will get more financial misery.