One of our state

politicians has just made himself the focus of attention by taking on a three day a week job with a major law firm. 
This politician is "retiring" at the next election and is clearly looking to the future. He has been a Minister in the past. I have had dealings with his office. It is one of the few occasions on which I have welcomed union interference. (The representative told him the situation of which I had complained was dangerous - it was - and that the union would go out on strike unless the simple, cost free solution proposed by me was put in place immediately.) He was not too happy about it - or pleased with me.
If someone is not able to cope with something as simple as that I wonder how on earth the same person believes they can cope with being a full time politician and a part time lawyer. Are they 1.6 people to begin with? I doubt it.
Being a politician should be a full time job. If you are not talking with and working for your electorate you should be. There should be no time for a three day a week job elsewhere. If there is then you are simply not doing your job properly.  
I am not suggesting that politicians should be prevented from taking on occasional outside work. Sometimes that must be a very good thing. An unpaid directorship of an organisation or business can be very useful. It can keep you in touch with what is going on. If it is on the register of political interests and you remove yourself from the decision making process should something come up then it must be a very good thing indeed. 
It rarely works like that of course. Just "endorsing the product" (in this case the company or organisation) can be a problem. There will always be the suggestion that you are being "paid" in some way or other. Politicians are expected to give up the lot - even long term investments. Apart from their own homes a politician should own nothing of any substantial value - or so the fickle public would have them believe.
That is ridiculous of course. Some of our politicians are very wealthy people. They have wealthy spouses too. Many of them do have share portfolios - although they will claim to have them at a distance and managed by others. They own "family run" farms and businesses. It is of course often how they get into politics in the first place.
But taking on a three day a week job twelve months out from "retirement" as a politician is something else. It is thumbing your nose at your electorate. It is telling them, "You don't matter to me any more. It's a safe seat. You will vote the same way again. You will have representation again after next year's election. I am looking after my own interests."
I wonder though at the ethics of the law firm which has employed him.

There was a note on the

kitchen table when I returned home yesterday. "Please ring...."
The Senior Cat had taken the message while I was out. He had not taken any other message. The person who wanted me to return the call needed to speak to me as well. 
I went and reported my return to the Senior Cat and said I would return the call. 
The number was engaged. I tried an alternate number. Nobody was answering that. I went on trying throughout the day. It was fairly clear by then that the phone had been taken off the hook. I had no idea whether it was deliberate or accidental. 
It was much too warm to pedal over to the home in question. It would have taken about twenty-five minutes to get there. If something was seriously wrong then I thought I would hear soon enough.
At five-thirty in the afternoon the phone rang. Yes their phone had been off the hook and no it was not urgent although she did need some advice. I gave her the name of the person she needed to see but it was clear that there was something else wrong. Why had the phone been off the hook? 
There have been occasions when the Senior Cat has accidentally failed to put the receiver back properly after answering or making a call. The result has been no incoming calls - until I have checked and rectified the matter. He hates it when he does something like that. 
For my caller however it was a different matter. Her sister had deliberately taken the phone off the hook at the extension in her bedroom. She "did not want to be disturbed". 
Her sister is a not well controlled diabetic who believes she can handle her diabetes and who refuses to listen to medical advice. The result is that, much more frequently than she should, she has had episodes of low blood sugar. When these occur she becomes irritable, moody and even violent. It is impossible to reason with her. She refuses to take in any food or drink to alleviate the symptoms. On two occasions in the last three months she has been taken to hospital in a semi-conscious state. 
Taking the phone off the hook yesterday was all part of this. Even if we point out to her yet again that this is dangerous it will make no difference. She will merely point out that her sister dealt with the situation, that there was "nothing to worry about" and that "these things happen occasionally".
I think there is something to worry about because her behaviour is causing problems for other people as well. The last time it happened the Whirlwind, who also knows them both, said, "But she's not being fair - like people who smoke or people who get drunk and end up hurting someone else."
How do you explain this sort of behaviour to a child with a very strong ideas about what is right and what is wrong? 

Australians do not choose

their Prime Minister. We go into an election with all parties having a party leader. The assumption is that the party which wins the election will choose their party leader as Prime Minister. There is no requirement for them to do this.
It is a simple enough fact although many Australians seem to be unaware of it. It is also one which the media conveniently ignores. How else could they have fun with those endless public polls about the "preferred Prime Minister"? 
Those public polls are designed to stir things up. There are other public polls that appear from time to time too. They are also designed to stir things up and remind people of the existence of an issue - or a non-issue. 
There are favourite topics like "should Australia become a republic" and "should we reinstate the death penalty". These get aired from time to time. Polling companies will get paid to do the public poll. If the poll goes the way those asking want then much will be made of the results. If the poll does not go the way those asking want then little or even nothing will be made of it. 
The questions in public polls are carefully designed too. If those asking for the poll to be undertaken want a certain outcome then it is possible to ask the question in a way which will encourage people to give the answer the pollster has been asked to get.
I have no doubt that someone like Roy Morgan, a man I once met briefly, would deny all this. So would his fellow pollsters. They are the public face of public polling. They claim it is possible to do a "random" sample of 1400 people and extrapolate it to the wider population.  They claim the questions are carefully designed to ensure that the answers are "not suggestive". Perhaps.
Just asking people to answer the question put to them and then announcing the results is designed to influence. For months now there have been polls asking about the preferred Prime Minister. Those asking were not too concerned while the government was on top and the Prime Minister had a sometimes double-digit lead over the Leader of the Opposition. When the situation was suddenly reversed there was a flurry of new polling. Phew! All would be well as long as the Government reinstates the previous Prime Minister. Much could be made of that. Or can it?
These polls make trouble. If we do not vote for the party leaders - and we don't - then this is a distraction from the government conducting the business of government and the opposition keeping an eye on the government. 
Perhaps we need a new poll. Should the leader of a political party be chosen by the elected members or by the electorate as a whole? How many people would think the elected members need to have someone they can work with? And how naughty of me to ask that last question.

The vexed issue of public

transport came under discussion at the meeting I attended yesterday. Our public transport system has never been particularly good or user friendly.
There are a number of reasons for this. One is the size of the population, especially relative to the area the system needs to cover. Another is the state's reliance on the car industry and the perceived need to support it by owning a car. Another is the belief (in some places) that we do not really need public transport and it will not get used "because most people own cars". 
In the course of the conversation I mentioned how someone had recently said to me that there needed to be a rail line between a fast growing area and the city. Much of the line is already there. The government owns the land and it would be a cost and time effective alternative to the buses and private cars now used to get people into the city. It would be cleaner and greener.
It won't be done. Politics will prevent it. No political party is going to risk upsetting so many unions and interest groups.
I mentioned we also need to have a line going much further south to cater for other commuters. There needs to be a short spur line going to a hospital - something which would solve many problems. The line going north also needs to be reopened, along with a loop into a tourist area with a fast growing population. We had these things once. They were closed. The argument was that it was too costly to keep them running. The reality was, and still is, the government wanted people to use cars - and people have become used to using cars. It is convenient to walk out the door, get in the car and go somewhere without worrying about timetables and whether the train or bus or tram will get you there on time.
Oh yes, all this was discussed yesterday. Most people at the meeting use their cars all the time. Some people have not used public transport in years. They would not know how to use it. Some of them have not used it since conductors were taken from buses and there were still guards on the trains willing to sell you a ticket. 
I have never had a licence to drive a vehicle and neither has someone else who was also present. We looked at one another and smiled. There was no need to say anything. We both know that, when public transport is running as it should, we both get knitting and reading done.
Just imagine how much more people would read if they had to use public transport - or even just wanted to.

Now they want to collect

the rubbish once a fortnight rather than once a week. "They" of course being local government - the organisation responsible for such things. 
According to "them" the idea behind it is to "encourage people to recycle" and (this was announced as if it was an afterthought) "it will save money as well". I think we could reverse those.
Our local council, like every other council, is always looking for ways to save money. The rates continue to go up. Nobody is too sure where the money goes. I could tell them but I would not be too popular. Yes, a lot of it does get wasted.
But, back to rubbish collection. These days everyone has three rubbish bins. There is a bin for household waste, a bin for "green" waste, and a bin for "recycling".  Most people are pretty good at not mixing things up and making sure that things that can be recycled do get recycled.  The "green" waste and "recycle" bins get collected on alternate weeks.  The household one is collected weekly.
Our bins are usually filled to capacity. This is not because we generate very much rubbish ourselves (we don't) but because other people tend to add their excess to our bins. There is no way to stop this. Once the bin is on the curbside for collection they believe they have the right to fill it to capacity. 
I have little doubt they will overflow if once a fortnight collection is introduced.
And then there is the other waste. Our council has stopped having what they once called "hard rubbish" collections. This was one week in the year when people could put out things that should not go in the bins. People put out old sofas, old chairs, tables, television sets, computers, other electrical goods, bicycles that could no longer be ridden, plastic children's toys, branches too big for the bins etc. 
Oh yes it looked untidy - for a week. A lot of that was also recycled. The Senior Cat picked up a half a dozen wooden chairs one year. He has since used the sturdy timber in them to make toys for a local toy library. The previous owner of the chairs was only too happy to help transport them around the corner to the shed of a woodworker. He just had not known of anyone who might be able to use them  before the Senior Cat saw them lying there. Other people collected things they could use. The workers who picked the rubbish up used to complain that there was not much left for them to salvage. 
I suspect that this is why they stopped that collection. The council was not really interested in people being able to remove such things from their property unless the council workers could make something out of it. Now, if you want to remove such things, you can phone and ask (beg) the council to remove it. You can do this once a year - for a fee. If  you are fit enough and own a trailer you are expected to take it to the closest landfill and pay a fee to leave it there.
I do not doubt that, as a society, we generate far too much waste.  It is difficult to know what to do with something like an old toaster. Once someone would have replaced an element and it would have gone on working for a few more years. Now it is "not worth repairing" - or rather, it costs more to repair than to replace.  I don't like that even while I recognise that this is how some people are employed.
But the idea of a fortnightly rubbish collection disturbs me. Even if the bins are not overflowing (and I think they would be) there are health issues.  "Wrap it up" or "seal it" is not always going to be the answer - even if everyone did the right thing. If, as we did this summer, have days on end of high temperatures then the bins are going to smell even more than they do know. They will be a breeding ground for disease and vermin even more than they are now because not everyone is going to do the right thing. 
But I doubt the council will care. The money is needed - to waste on other things.

An introduction to Alison Morton

As I have explained in my own blog post for today, I admire Alison for having the courage to self-publish a book but she is doing it only after she sought professional help. She almost makes it sound easy but of course it has not been easy and it has been a lot of work.
My first brush with "alternative history" was through Joan Aiken and her series of books for children (beginning with "The Wolves of Willoughby Chase") based on the idea that the Hanoverian succession never took place.  I have come across the idea in other places since then and Alison's idea is particularly interesting because she is saying "what if women and not men...". That subtly changes many things.
Here is what Alison has to say about it....  

Thank you very much for welcoming me to your blog, Cat.

My debut novel, INCEPTIO, is published today, the end of three years of slog – researching, writing, and polishing. It’s a thriller, so it’s doubly exciting. Now, I’d like to tell you about it! But too much telling’s frowned on by Those Who Know, so let me show you…

An eleven year old fascinated by the mosaics in Ampurias (huge Roman site in Spain), I asked my father, “What would it be like if Roman women were in charge, instead of the men?” Maybe it was the fierce sun boiling my brain, maybe it was just a precocious kid asking a smartarse question. But clever man and senior ‘Roman nut’, my father replied, “What do you think it would be like?” Real life intervened (school, uni, career, military, marriage, motherhood, business ownership), but the idea bubbled away in my mind and INCEPTIO slowly took shape.

Of course, I made the classic mistake of submitting too soon, but had some encouraging replies. Several rewrites later and I’d made some full submissions, even to a US agent! I had replies like ‘If it was a straight thriller, I’d take it on’ and ‘Your writing is excellent, but it wouldn’t fit our list.’  I was (am!) passionate about my stories so I decided to self publish with bought-in publishing services. Using high quality professional backing (editing, advice, registrations, typesetting, design, book jacket, proofing, etc.), I’ve found it a fantastic way for a new writer to enter the market.

You describe your novel as an “alternate history thriller” – how is that different from a normal thriller? 

Alternate history is based on the idea of “what if”? What if King Harold had won the Battle of Hastings in 1066? Or if Julius Caesar had taken notice of the warning that assassins wanted to murder him on the Ides of March? Sometimes, it could be little things such as in the film Sliding Doors, when the train door shuts and Gwyneth Paltrow’s character splits into two; one rides away on the train, the other is left standing on the platform.

The rest of the story or history of a country, from that point on develops differently from the one we know. In my book, Roma Nova battled its way from a small colony somewhere north of Italy in the late fourth century into a high tech, financial mini-state which retained and developed Roman Republican values, but with a twist. It’s really fun working this out! The thriller story then takes place against this background. The nearest comparison would be J D Robb’s Eve Dallas Death series.

Stories with Romans are usually about famous emperors, epic battles, depravity, intrigue, wicked empresses and a lot of sandals, tunics and swords. But imagine the Roman theme projected sixteen hundred years further forward into the 21^st century. How different would that world be?

So what’s INCEPTIO about?

New York – present day, alternate reality. Karen Brown, angry and frightened after surviving a kidnap attempt, has a harsh choice – being eliminated by government enforcer Jeffery Renschman or fleeing to the mysterious Roma Nova, her dead mother’s homeland in Europe. Founded sixteen centuries ago by Roman exiles and ruled by women, Roma Nova gives Karen safety, a ready-made family and a new career. But a shocking discovery about her new lover, the fascinating but arrogant special forces officer Conrad Tellus who rescued her in America, isolates her.

Renschman reaches into her new home and nearly kills her. Recovering, she is desperate to find out why he is hunting her so viciously. Unable to rely on anybody else, she undergoes intensive training, develops fighting skills and becomes an undercover cop. But crazy with bitterness at his past failures, Renschman sets a trap for her, knowing she has no choice but to spring it...

And next? I’m working on PERFIDITAS (Betrayal), the second book in the Roma Nova series.

You can find INCEPTIO on Amazon UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/Inceptio-Roma-Nova-Alison-Morton/dp/1781320624 and Amazon US  http://www.amazon.com/Inceptio-Roma-Nova-Alison-Morton/dp/1781320624

You can read more about Alison, Romans, alternate history and writing here:

Blog: www.alison-morton.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/AlisonMortonAuthor

Twitter: @alison_morton

There will be an additional

post on this blog today. Alison Morton is looking in shortly. Today is the official publication day of her novel "Inceptio". It is a self published novel. 
Self published? Yes. More and more novels are, I suspect, being self   published. It is becoming easier to self publish, especially in electronic format.  An author can put out pretty well anything they like without going to the printer. You don't need an agent - if you can get one - to hike your work around to publishers. They don't sit on it for months - and then decide they don't, after all, want to publish it. Self publishing can be instant gratification instead.
It was not quite like that for Alison. She worked on it. She had her work evaluated and rewrote. She had it professionally edited and she sought advice about format and appearance. I am happy to give her a little extra publicity for that reason.
Looking at all of that it also seems to me that self-publishing, if done properly, is both hard work and expensive.  I have had occasion to look at some other self-published work and I doubt that everyone is aware of this. They think it is enough to write something, use a self-publishing programme or site and put their work out there - sometimes in the belief that it is going to be an instant bestseller. 
And yes, there is always the possibility that an agent and a publisher is going to miss something that will resonate so strongly with the public that it will be a best seller. It is unlikely but it is possible. 
There is also the possibility that, having self-published, a publishing house will approach the author with a view to acquiring their work. That is also unlikely but it can happen. I can imagine it happening to someone who did a very professional job of self-publishing (including marketing it), who sold an average print run and received some excellent reviews and commentaries from people known to agents and publishers. It is all rather unlikely but it has happened and it can happen again.
But, you need to be able to write in the first place. You need to put in the time. You need to seek professional help, especially with the editing - and you need to be willing to genuinely listen and learn at that point. That will cost money. Editing is not cheap, the best editing is very expensive indeed. Most of us do not have that sort of  money. 
Then you need to put in more time. You need to know the market and the stalls where you can stock your book. You need to be able to get the cover face out and in a prominent position and be prepared to spruik it - loudly.
I can never see myself doing those things. I admire Alison for doing it, just as I admire Nick Green - who did self-publish and then get taken up by a regular publisher. They have worked on what they have done.
But self publishing also bothers me. Fifty plus years ago some self-published work would have been taken up by a regular publisher. No doubt they missed some books and some very good books have never been published. They also published books which barely sold but at least these were - generally speaking - edited, typeset, proofread and marketed according to the standards of the publisher.  
I look at all the work that has gone into those books and know I do not know enough. I cannot afford the professional help I would need. It is going to be difficult enough to take on the role of selling the book - something which now seems to be the responsibility of the new author rather than the publisher. 
If someone bought me a winning lottery ticket would I self-publish?
It is an interesting question. I wonder how many writers would say "yes"?