"And your favourite swear word is...."

I can almost hear the AI interviewer asking a question like that.

One of the more outrageous columnists has a piece about swearing in the paper this morning. He looks at it as history and how attitudes towards it have changed.

I grew up in a family where swearing was unacceptable. Nobody I knew swore the more serious swear words. I am not sure I even knew they existed.

I remember a lesson the Senior Cat taught us when I was in the last year of primary school. He was my teacher as well as my father. My mother was the only other teacher in the school. One of the little ones had rushed up to my mother in the playground because another child had fallen and was bleeding. "He's got a bloody nose!" 

We had the lesson explaining how, in that context, "bloody" was correct. It was not swearing. The Senior Cat had some bemused parents asking for an explanation after church on the following Sunday morning. That most of the men would undoubtedly have sworn frequently did not stop the need for an explanation. 

Words like "damn" and "blast" were considered unacceptable in my childhood. There were more words my brother and I had heard around the docks of course but we did not understand them. We did not use them. Mum would have washed our mouths out with soap and given us a belting with the strap. 

I was in my mid teens when I heard my grandfather swear. Grandma and I were hanging out the washing. Grandpa was some distance from us chopping wood. The head of the axe suddenly flew off and landed near Grandma's feet. It gave her a start and it was much too close for Grandpa. He made a sound I had never heard before. Grandma had never heard it either. She had grown up on a farm and I am certain her father and brothers swore. I remember we looked at each other as Grandpa picked up the axe head and began to apologise over and over again. I remember Grandma saying, "It's all right Ben. It didn't touch me." 

That was not the reason for his distress. He had apparently used a swear word. That the word was in Gaelic. We did not understand it but it still distressed him. His parents had spoken Gaelic. His father was a sailor, ship's pilot and marine cartographer. No doubt he had been surrounded by swearing in more than one language. Grandpa though did not swear. My great grandmother would apparently have had something to say about it if her children had said anything unacceptable.

I thought of this again years later. I was working in a school for children who were physically and intellectually disabled. There was one child who was verbal and often uncontrollable. Her family background was German. One day she swore at me in German after having been told off for swearing in English. I told her I understood and did not like it. She then went on to swear at me in Italian and what I suspect was Maltese. I told her each time I understood. Finally she looked at me in a puzzled sort of way and said, "I not swear then." She never swore at me again but I sometimes wondered whether I should have allowed her to go on swearing to ease her frustrations.

Still later I came across a very frustrated profoundly deaf boy. I was crossing his schoolyard when he came out of a doorway backwards. He was using some very graphic signs at his teacher when he bumped into me. The transformation from absolute fury at his teacher to his horror at having been seen swearing in front of a woman was startling. He signed "sorry" and fled. His teacher let him go. "He will come back and apologise to me too. I would rather he did that than lashed out."

And perhaps that is the important thing. I don't feel a need to swear but if saying something like that helps someone not commit violence then it matters.

It was years later that the Senior Cat was putting up a bookshelf when it fell over close to where my then very young nephews were playing on the floor. He said "Blast". I remember the older nephew looking at the younger one in a slightly bewildered way and then saying "Papa swore." Their own father swears but they knew the Senior Cat did not...unless the bookcase fell over and might have hit them.  

I went to the "party" after the funeral

yesterday. It was C...'s funeral. She was in her nineties and in a great deal of pain. Yes, it was an occasion of sadness but it was also something for which to be thankful. 

Middle Cat and I had not planned to stay. Unlike me Middle Cat does not know most people at the Senior Cat's old church. She sees some of them in the shopping centre and they say "hello" of course but she will say, "Who is the person with the white hair down to her shoulders?" or "Who's the man with the very slow way of speaking?"  I can usually work out who she means and supply a name.

For me it is different, very different. These are people my parents knew well. Many of them came in and out of the house for one reason or another. I put the kettle on more times than I would ever be able to remember. Plans were made for occasions there. Things were bought to repair. I have talked to the Mothers' Union on more than one occasion. I looked after the book stalls at their fetes.

And I have been to more funerals than I care to think about. The current priest, D..., has been there for thirteen years now. I have been in and out of there three times longer than that...if not more. I have seen people who were much younger than I am now grow old. One person there yesterday was ninety-eight. I remember going to her husband's funeral twenty something years ago. I looked around and noted the absence of more than one husband. They are in nursing homes and I know there will be more funerals in the future. I know it is "life" and we would not appreciate life if death did not come with it. I still wonder what it must be like for D... to see his congregation, one he does care deeply about, growing older like that. There are a few younger people but not enough to sustain it far into the future unless things change now. 

The church was full yesterday. I knew it would be. For once there were enough people who could actually sing that the two hymns did not sound like dirges. Middle Cat's last visit to the church was for the Senior Cat's funeral. She does not pretend to know any hymns now but she is musical and said, "A decent choir can carry everyone along." 

Perhaps it was that. I do not know if it was planned. I suspect it was because I saw who began it. A member of the official church choir started to clap as the recessional progress began and suddenly it was a "celebration". The atmosphere afterwards was more party like than usual. It is just what C... would have wanted.    

Working from home

should not be a "right". It may be something some people can be fortunate enough to negotiate but it should not be a right enshrined in law. 

It would be patently unfair to do this...and so it is what the government in a neighbouring state is trying to do. That news has been in the media over the past few days. It is there this morning in an article by one of the columnists. 

The columnist has raised the issue by saying one of his mates owns a furniture business. When attempting to employ new people apparently questions are being asked about whether they can "work from home". How can you work from home if you are supposed to be selling a sofa or a kitchen table and chairs in a showroom? 

Teachers, members of the medical professions, emergency service personnel, carers in nursing homes, cleaners, transport workers and shop assistants are just some of the people who obviously cannot work from home. Why then should anyone else have the "right" to work from home? What makes them so special?

Yes, I know the arguments about it allowing some people to care for their families as well. I know the arguments about dropping the kids off at school and picking them up later. I know the arguments about "saving money" and not needing to spend time travelling to and from work.

I also know from actual observation that some people abuse the privilege. They meet someone for "coffee" in the shopping centre. Oh they have their laptop out. They pretend to be "working" but in reality it is a nice little social interlude. 

"I suppose I had better go and do some work," one such WFH person told me yesterday. He had wandered in to the shopping centre in search of coffee and a bun after dropping the kids off at school and going to the gym. It was well after ten in the morning. My morning had begun late too - the meeting didn't start until 5:30am - and I had done almost two more hours on top of that. I had been to the library as well. I am supposedly "retired" so perhaps I am allowed to be a little lazy...or maybe not. I grabbed the things I needed and left again because I need to get something done before I go to a funeral this afternoon. As I pedalled off I saw him walking slowly across the car park. His car was probably parked there. 

There are people who really do work when they WFH of course. They are the rare and disciplined people who have strict routines. They do not get distracted. Their roles allow it but they will still go into their workplace at regular times. They are available when needed. They are not picking the kids up from school or having coffee with a friend or doing their weekly shop on work time. 

Yesterday a friend called me and asked, "Cat can the kids come to you for an hour or so after school? It's my day off but I have been called in to a meeting and I need to see what is going on. I should be back a bit after four."

Yes, they could. They go to the local primary school. The older one will walk the younger one safely here. They will do any homework at the table. I will give them a snack and drink if they need it. They will read or draw until their mother picks them up. Attending a meeting on her day off is not unusual. She is a busy hospital doctor. I am happy to help because she cannot WFH. Her patients are in a hospital bed. It was also her day off and she was working.

"If you can work from home like that someone else can do your job from an even more remote location," she told me of the gym goer when she came to get her two. She had one of those "one of my patients has just died" looks I know all too well. It is inevitable in her area. You can't do her sort of work by staying at home. She hugged me and went off making plans with her two boys to make a favourite meal for their father. He will eat it when he gets home from his long shift at a different hospital. WFH is something they will never do but they will be catching up on the "paperwork" after the boys are in bed tonight.   

The abortion bill

failed in the Lower House last night. It had been presented in the upper house of our state parliament by one of those members of parliament I call "single issue" members.  

Let me try and explain that. They are people who go into parliament with one issue that is of extreme importance to them. Getting elected in order to deal with that issue has been the most important thing to them. They recognise that other things will need to be dealt with but they will do everything they can to get their issue dealt with before anything else.

These people do not usually make the best members of parliament. They inevitably forget they are there to represent the people who elected them. Those who elected them may have elected them for other reasons entirely, often because they are members of a political party the elector "always" and unthinkingly supports.

In this instance the member has not even stayed with the party she stood for at election time. She has moved to another party, one which supported her bill.

I have never had to face the abortion issue at a personal level. I do know people who have and I know it is an issue surrounded by intense debate. My personal feeling, as far as I believe I can have one, is that it is an issue that is best left for the woman who is pregnant to discuss with those she chooses. The decision should be hers. The idea that parliament can legislate a blanket decision in one way or the other is something I find disturbing.

It will be interesting to see what is said in the media over the next few days. Will the outcome be largely ignored? Will those who voted for the bill be interviewed? Will they be criticised? Will the activists make another attempt? 

It is likely the supporters of the bill will not go away quietly. They have stirred up public opinion. They will be expressing forms of righteous anger at the outcome. That there are many other issues to be dealt with in parliament will be of little importance to them. Failure is not an option for people with such strongly held beliefs. For them this is not democracy at work. They will see it as a failure of democracy. 

This is an issue which stirs up public debate but for many people there is no "right" or "wrong" here. There is no room for debate. The view they hold is the only possible one.  There can be no possibility of "agreeing to disagree". 

It all reminds me of too many other issues right now...or perhaps I am just wrong about everything.  

 

I was told of two deaths

yesterday. 

The first was of one of the regular dog walkers. I had actually known of her much longer than that. Her mother was a teacher in a school with which I was associated. It was obvious this woman was the cause of some anxiety even as a teenager.  She was "scatty", forever "getting into strife". I heard many tales about her. 

Somehow she married and had a child. The marriage did not last. The child, now an adult, mothered her own mother. She checked every day.  

She ended up living in the house her mother had lived in. It was on my regular bike route at the time. I knew, and still know, the people who live opposite that house. The husband had to sort out more than one issue with water, with electricity, with something falling down and more. Her three barking dogs were an irritation to the entire neighbourhood.  She would spend hours walking them. In summer she would put them all in her battered little car and they would head off to the beach.  Eventually there were two dogs and then just one.

I sorted out some minor legal issues for her more than once. "Because you know about these things Cat. I don't. Things confuse me." They did too. She was not trying to be helpless. She really was incompetent. You could tell her to do something and then watch her struggle to do it in the way she had been told. Left and right confused her of course but up and down did too. 

I saw her last week. She was tying her dog up next to the place I park my trike. We spoke to each other. I thought she seemed even vaguer than usual, a little slower too. She was several years younger than I am but, as someone else my age remarked that day, "She looks so much older but she is so accident prone."

I was told she had walked the dog one last time in the rain. Then she went home and lay down on the bed and did not get up again. It was a shock for her daughter but I suspect it might also be a relief. She was a responsibility for all of us but, somehow, we will miss her.

The other death was of a woman much closer in age to the Senior Cat, ten years younger perhaps at the time. I met her once when I was about eight. She was the daughter of Brother Cat's second grade teacher. For some reason we were visiting the teacher at home and she happened to be there. 

Even then she was an organised person. Her parents had a wonderful garden and she had another such garden. How she found time to do it is a mystery to most people. She had a career in nursing. She married and had three children. One of the children is profoundly deaf. Her husband was badly injured in an accident and it left him with a brain injury and unable to work. She carried on and became involved in several arboreal projects as well. 

When my mother died she kept up contact with the Senior Cat. She would appear occasionally with something from her garden. He would respond in kind. We had invitations to her home. She was there at his funeral and talked positively of his garden. 

It was only her own ill health in the last few years which meant she moved out of her home reluctantly. Several months back someone else brought her to see me. We had a wonderful morning tea full of silly and amusing stories and reminisces. 

I was quite literally about to finish sending an email to organise a visit to her when the email appeared telling me of her death. I scrapped the email and sent another off to someone else. Did they need food for the refreshments after the funeral? The response came back later in the day. No, they don't. She had already organised for caterers to deal with it. Only the tea and coffee need to be dealt with and that would be enough.  It was typical of her thoughtfulness and her ability to organise. The church will be full.

They were two such different people. I went to bed last night wondering how the first person would have turned out if the second person had been her mother. 

What is the point of travelling

if you only want the sort of food you could get at home?

In the hope of some useful hints I have been following a "travel" page. On that page this morning there was someone asking if it was okay to bring her "snacks" with her. Her argument was that it would be good to have some "familiar" food. This was particularly so if she was feeling tired or concerned about the food around her. The list of things she wanted to take sounded enough to feed her while she was there.

I could understand this if you were going to a country where the culture and food were very different. My parents went to China with a couple who took food for the entire trip because they did not trust the available cuisine. (This was almost forty years ago. I trust things are different now.) My parents tried the local cuisine.They liked some of it but not all of it. They took the advice of the tour guide though and saw it as part of the experience.

I have not travelled to any place with a wildly different cuisine but I ate Chinese style in Singapore because that is what my friend cooks. (In the supermarket where we bought a little food for breakfast we might have been shopping at the local supermarket here. The brands and packaging were identical.) I have eaten Korean food with Korean friends. I have eaten Japanese sushi with caution because of the vinegar (and had, sadly, to curtail the experience). I have eaten Indonesian and Malaysian food cooked by students I was tutoring. I have tried all sorts of cheeses and sausages and breads in Europe. I have tried (and rejected) haggis. I am not fond of meat. I would be cautious in some places but only because I do have a couple of genuine allergies.  I like to explore within those boundaries if cleanliness is part of the experience.

Food exploration should be one of the pleasures of life if we are fortunate enough to go on the journey,  

Last year Middle Cat and I travelled with one "emergency" food item each. That was on the advice of the travel agent who booked our tickets. There was a chance we would be delayed for several hours between planes. Yes, there would be food at the airport but it would be expensive and not what either of us would want to eat when flying.  In the end we did not need it but it was 50gms each of security I suppose. I ate very little on the plane. The lovely hostess was a bit concerned but I did not need it - just give me enough liquid please, preferably water or juice.

Of course I was thoroughly familiar with British food. Put me in a supermarket there and most things are familiar even now. They are often the same brand. The names of most things are the same. If I want something "different" or "local" I know I am going to have to look for it. There is plenty to be found. 

I came home with two packets of what my BIL called "birdseed biscuits" (seeded crackers to those of you in the USA) and that was simply because there is nothing quite like that here. 

The four Palestinian Activists

just sent to prison in England were not sentenced as "terrorists". They were sentenced based on the damage they had done to both people and property. In sentencing the judge took into account the reason for their offending and "terrorism" was perhaps mentioned but it was not how a finding of guilt came about.

There were a great many comments in my Twitter feed about the situation. Some were in sympathy with those who have gone to prison. Others felt they had received a fair sentence. Still more would have liked the sentences handed down to be far longer. Almost all of them failed to understand how the sentences were decided. Perhaps the media could have done a better job of explaining - but that would involve using words the protestors and their supporters would find offensive. 

My view? If you want to protest then do not break the law. There is no point in breaking the law. It is not going to gain you any sympathy. There are better ways of protesting. 

There are also better ways of getting things changed.

I have no sympathy with those who head off in a "flotilla" to challenge a naval blockade. It might be a feel good exercise that gets a lot of publicity but not all of that has been positive. The "protestors" were putting their lives at risk. (No, it was not from the navy which blocked them.) Yes, their views might get some air time but in reality they are not going to change the situation by doing that. 

Do you want to change something you see as wrong? Mobilise a lot of people to write to your members of parliament or send letters to the media. Do not buy the products of a company you think is breaking the law. Ask others to do the same.  Get public figures on side. Ask them for an interview if you know they sympathise. 

It is hard work. The "feel good" adrenaline fix is not there. It is just hard slog. It probably will not achieve rapid results. It may not achieve the desired result at all - but protesting in a way that breaks the law is even less likely to achieve results. People believe it will of course. It may even seem that it has but the reality is that behind those protests are a lot of ordinary people who have protested in a law abiding way.  Those with the ultimate power to do something will listen to them first.