If the Prime Minister believes

he can legislate to somehow control the "big tech" companies and tell them how to run their businesses then he is an even bigger fool than he makes himself out to be. It won't work.

There are around twenty-seven million people in this country. There are around thirty-nine million in California, the place where so many of the big tech companies began business. The reach of big tech is international. It is only regimes like those of the Kim family in North Korea which try to prevent people from accessing the services provided by big tech. It is only when governments have something to hide they attempt to limit access.

Our Prime Minister is saying that the proposed legislation to limit access by under sixteen year old students is intended to hold big tech responsible for everything that goes on there. It is apparently not intended to hold those who (ab)use the internet responsible. No, big tech can do much more to prevent it. 

Yes, perhaps big tech can and should do more but it is clear that the Prime Minister's proposed legislation has very little to do with this. He is taking on big tech because he believes he can. He believes he can actually prevent access to information he decides is "misinformation" or "disinformation". The proposed legislation is actually written in such a way that shows it is intended to prevent access to information with which the government does not agree. Despite claims to the contrary it will have the capacity to wipe out discussion about climate change, sexuality and gender, racism, nuclear power, migration and any other issue where is a strong view which opposes government policy. 

As it is currently written the proposed legislation has the potential to influence the conduct of elections in this country. That is of particular concern when attendance at the ballot box is compulsory.  Does he also propose to ban the use of VPNs? 

It is all very well to make claims about what legislation is or is not intended to do or what it will mean we can or cannot do but the reality may be very different. When it has been passed and there is a challenge to it, perhaps in the High Court, then unintended consequences might arise. The case "Commonwealth v Tasmania" (or the "Tasmanian Dam" case as it is popularly called) showed just how the Commonwealth government was able to manipulate the law in order to suit their own agenda. We might applaud that outcome on environmental grounds but the power given to the government as a consequence has had far reaching consequences. 

The idea that the government of a country with a very small population like ours can hope to control big tech is nonsense. However they may attempt to dress it up this is not about being able to control those companies. It is about being able to control us.  

Packing to move house

is proving more and more difficult.

I am being "helped" by Middle Cat and my BIL. If I did not need their actual physical assistance it would be much, much easier to do it by myself.

I mentioned this to someone I know. She also had to "downsize" recently. Her husband died very suddenly and, sensible woman she is, she had already given thought to what might happen if he went first.

"It was much easier for me Cat," she said, "I had the finances and the ability to drive."

I sighed. Yes, this is true. My finances are even more limited because of the Black Cat's behaviour. Not being able to drive has meant that I cannot simply load items into a car and take them to the nearest charity shop or to the metal recycling place. 

Middle Cat keeps insisting that she will "sell" something on a FB page and that is, despite her intentions, not working well. It is not because these are things people will not be interested in. They will be interested in some unused Bundt cake tins our mother collected. There are still people out there who make those sort of cakes. They will be interested in some "quirky" glassware and other little oddities she collected. Middle Cat showed me the site and it is clear that there are strange people who collect this sort of thing. It might not bring in much but it might bring in something for Middle Cat if she can actually get around to doing what needs to be done. Therein lies one problem. She procrastinates. She means to do things. She really does have good intentions but she reminds me of a great aunt we had. In so many ways she is just like R...  People loved R... but they knew she was more than a little eccentric...and not to be relied on if something else caught her attention. None of this sort of thing in Middle Cat's makeup is helping me right now. It is an outright hindrance.

But then there is my BIL. He is an engineer. In many ways he is the exact opposite of Middle Cat. He is very tidy and very, very organised. He has lists for everything. He does not keep things he considers he does not "need". He doesn't read so he has no understanding of the need for books. He has a workshop but he sees it as a place where practical and necessary things are done and the  go-karts are given their tender loving care. The idea that I might like to knit or indulge in any other sort of hobby which requires "stuff" is something he genuinely does not understand. 

"Just buy stuff when you need it Cat. You don't need all this," he tells me, "What do you want two packs of paper for? You probably don't even need one...and what's this for? Where are you going to put this stuff?"

I love him dearly but he has no idea at all. He went through a box yesterday at lightning speed and I had to stop him. We argued and I suppose we will argue some more.  I love them both but they are not helping in a helpful way.

He tried to come out on top in the end by saying, "Without engineers the rest of you would get nowhere."

And I told him, "Without language you engineers could not even function."

He didn't understand that at all.

 

  

"There is no need to go to lectures"

 or so it would seem, "because you can do it on line from home. You can do it at a time which suits you too."

Ooh...sounds so good if you are a young university student who would prefer to use the morning for sleeping in or the student juggling a full time job and a part time degree.  This is so good if you simply do not want to crawl out of a cosy bed in winter or go out in the hot summer sun. 

Is it really so good though? The universities here are now playing with "remote teaching and learning". Where possible lectures will go on line. They can then be accessed at a time convenient to the student and it will free up staff to do whatever it is they do when they are not facing the students.

I can see problems with this. At teacher training college we actually had to sign in to each lecture. An attendance sheet would be passed around and we had to put our initials next to our names. Missing a lecture had consequences too. Medical certificates were much more difficult to come by back then and some students found themselves in real strife. Unlike me, dutifully working my way through as a (very) junior housemistress in a boarding school for girls, they were state bonded and attendance was compulsory. Of course people got around it. It was expected other people would forge your signature, that students would take it in turn to attend and more.

I had no such chances there. I was there under sufferance. I made sure I turned up to lectures and that I handed in my assignments on time. The one occasion on which I did not was in my final year. Mum's mother had died. She came over to the city. I went over to the island we were living on at the time. I taught her class in her absence (unpaid) and still managed to write the assignment but not type a clean copy. I managed to get an overnight extension to do that but was told I would only get a "P" for it. (P was for pass.) That was the ruling of the college principal, a man who made it quite clear he thought I had no right to be there. 

Life might have been much easier if I had not needed to go to lectures but would I have wanted that? I doubt it. Our lectures there ranged from very formal to informal. You knew which lecturers you could ask questions of in class and which lecturers you did not interrupt.

A couple of years later I headed off to London. I went to university there and discovered that you could ask questions. Questions were encouraged. Suddenly learning really began to mean something again. We could come out of a lecture all "fired up". We talked about what had been said, about the assignment we had been given, about a teaching point and much more. This seemed to me to be what a university should be about. For the first time in my life I felt as if my capacity to learn was being stretched.

Much later I went back to being a student for a while. I needed to know some law, rather a lot of law. I enrolled in a law faculty and kept myself together by tutoring in psychology and teaching the finer points of the English language to students from other backgrounds. The contrast was often interesting. In the first year of law school it was all very different. My reading speed dropped dramatically. I mentioned this to my first year tutor. She laughed when I told her what it had dropped to and said something like, "I think you might find that is about three times faster than those straight out of school." It still seemed slow to me and my good friend C..., much smarter than I am, agreed.

We got away with a lot though because we could ask questions in class. Lecture styles varied and some lecturers were more able than others. On more than one occasion one of the older students doing law as a post-graduate would ask a very pertinent question and there would often be a "thank you for asking that" and a new case example might be given or the Latin explained. 

Jurisprudence was no longer a compulsory subject but one I knew I needed to do. It was not a popular subject. There were just sixteen of us in the class. The lecturer would engage us from the start. How? What? Why? Who developed this? I would happily have done an entire degree in jurisprudence. We were treated like intelligent adults. 

I discovered gaps in the knowledge of my lecturers. On one occasion I found myself explaining a statistical procedure to one of my tutors. She stopped me and went to find another staff member so I could explain it to both of them. On another occasion I had to explain what language planning was - and that led to yet another thesis. It was as new an idea to the staff as law was to me but we respected each other and communicated.

I doubt any of this would have happened without face to fact contact. The "give and take" would simply not be there. I would not have mixed with my fellow students. I would not have had the thrill of one of my English language students rushing in to me and flinging her arms around me and saying, "I passed! I passed!"

University is not simply about listening to a lecture at a time which is convenient. Time spent there should be about challenging our ideas, about exchanging ideas, about searching for information and responding to questions which are set. It should be about new ideas, new arguments and discussions which stimulate these things.

"Going to lectures on line" is not going to do that. The standard here is already far too low...and about to get lower still. 

Expelled for burning

an item of clothing?

There surely has to be more to the story than we are being told but it seems that a boy in his final year has been expelled from his Catholic school for doing just that. 

If the story in the press is to be believed then he was one in a group of over twenty who took a jacket from someone in an opposing school's team and set it alight. This was not just any jacket either. It was a second hand jacket that had come from a charity shop. 

Yes, it was the wrong thing to do. The kid in question has admitted it. He is not the one who took the jacket. He was the one who, after attempts by others, managed to set fire to it. It all sounds very much like the sort of thing that can happen when a bunch of boys get together, get excited, egg one another on and then find themselves in strife. 

It doesn't make them "bad" boys. It doesn't even mean they will ever do anything like that again. That's unlikely given what has happened. But was an offence which should have resulted in expulsion? The media thinks not. 

What is particularly interesting here is that the kid in question has admitted he was wrong. He has apologised. His parents are not saying he is a little angel. The school has admitted to only two instances where he has received detention - one for throwing paper from an upper floor and the other for throwing an egg outside the school grounds. If that is the worst he has done then he doesn't sound too bad to me. He could of course be a bully, a liar, a thief or something equally awful but there is absolutely no suggestion he is any of these things. His expulsion means he cannot finish his final year at school and it means that his entire future is now in question. It is a punishment which seems to be far in excess of the crime committed.

Why the school has taken this stance is a mystery. It is the subject of a column in the paper and half the editorial. I wonder what will happen next and I am very glad I am not the school principal dealing with the situation. If he is not regretting his actions then I would wonder why he is the principal.

I can remember some misbehaviour at schools I attended. I was no saint but there was no suggestion that I be expelled for sending a paper dart from one side of the room to the other. I got detention for that - and the same number of lines to write as everyone else. (It was a far worse punishment for me as it took me a lot, lot longer to write them.) Looking back we considered the day we all threw a paper dart at the same time as "fun".

There was the occasion on which one of the most senior boys put sugar in the petrol tank of a teacher who, he felt, had humiliated him. That was dealt with by the Senior Cat quietly but firmly. The boy did not put a foot out of line again for the rest of the year. He did not come back the following year but that was his choice. He simply wanted to leave school and work on the farm. He's a grandfather now and a responsible citizen. 

Graffiti was dealt with by having to remove it - in full view of everyone else during lunch time. Fist fights were dealt with by apologies and, depending on the severity, some sort of activity which required cooperation between the warring parties. Littering meant you spent lunch time clearing rubbish. 

Had someone managed to burn an item of clothing I suspect the Senior Cat would have informed the parents of the kid involved and made the kid pay for it after the usual apologies. The parents would have backed the Senior Cat and I cannot think of any parent who, back then, would have paid for the damage themselves. It would have come out of pocket money.

So, what's going on here? This seems to have been blown out of all proportion. Unless there is something we are not being told then this is not punishment to fit a crime. It is something else altogether.    

So this is "baby food"?

I was startled to see a short article in this morning's paper about the lack of nutrition in some food which is intended to be for babies. The article complained about the high sugar content, the lack of protein and vegetables and more. It mentioned something called a "yoghurt pouch". What on earth is a yoghurt pouch?

No such things existed when I was a kitten. I was breast fed out of necessity (formula was unobtainable) and, according to what I have been told, I went on to mashed potato and mashed pumpkin. When I started teething I was given homemade "rusks". As soon as I could chew I was given the same sort of food as my parents. 

My observations and my memory suggest this was the same for all four of us. Our mother did not have the time or the inclination to make special meals for us. We really did eat what was put in front of us. I remember one occasion when I was not feeling at all well. Mum put a plate of what we called "white stew" in front of me that evening. I could not eat it. I did not want anything to eat. Of course I was not "sick". We were never allowed to be "sick". 

I sat there staring at it...and staring at it. It grew cold and the fat congealed. Eventually I was sent to bed - as a punishment for not eating. In the morning the stew was put in front of me for breakfast. I still did not eat it and was sent off to school without breakfast. This was Mum's way of handling the situation. My paternal grandmother must have been told what had happened (probably by the Senior Cat) and she turned up at school with food for me. She checked my temperature and it must have been elevated as I was, quite happily, kept quietly in the classroom during the recess and lunch break. I could read in there. What was not to like? The stew did not appear again. 

I wonder what my mother would have done now. What would she have fed us on? Would she have chosen some of those "convenience" foods on the baby shelves in the supermarket? Would she have used formula for our bottles? Was there any way she would have sent me to school without breakfast because I refused to eat that stew? 

I see young children sucking on these delightfully named yoghurt pouches. They are brightly coloured and look attractive but the contents look anything but attractive. Middle Cat's boys were given yoghurt from a very young age but it was plain yoghurt with no flavouring at all. They had Greek style "rusks" made by their Cypriot yia-yia (grandmother). Middle Cat was back at work but she still found time to feed them and her MIL made sure Middle Cat knew how to cook Cypriot style. (She made sure I knew something about it too - for which I am duly grateful.)

Someone on my regular bike route is in her late 80's now. Her granddaughter had a medical emergency recently and reluctantly left her two young children with great-grandma for a few hours. It was not something she wanted to do. They arrived with "food" and toys. They ended up in the kitchen making their own lunch after a morning spent "working" in the garden. Neither child wanted to go home. It was "fun" and every last crumb of their home-made "pizza" (slices of bread with grated cheese and tomato slices and olives toasted in the oven) was eaten. 

"I had time," their exhausted great-grandmother told me, "Do me a favour Cat and take that rubbish out while I put the kettle on."

I dropped two sugar-laden packs of something into her compost bin. The little boys did not want it. The "pizza" was "awesome". 

"So how are you going to stop them?"

The proposed "ban" on social media for those under sixteen was being discussed yesterday and that was the question being asked.

I was doing my last day for this year as a steward at our annual show - mentioned elsewhere in this blog. There were people coming in to pick up their exhibits and there was some chatter around me about the proposed ban. Most people seemed to think it would be a good idea and then, someone asked the question. It is the big question, "So how are you going to stop them?"

Yes, how do you stop under sixteens from using social media? You can try of course but how effective is "age verification"? 

I thought back to the time when I set up my "social media" account. I simply typed in the relevant information. Nobody checked. I could have lied. Presumably the government is relying on people to tell the truth about their date of birth. Quite how they plan to check I am not sure. Nobody else talking about this could work it out either - except in ways which would be highly intrusive. Even then it seems likely that any computer savvy child could bypass all this...and how do you get around the VPN issue? 

The government proposal seems to suggest that those who own things like Tik-Tok and Snapchat are going to be held responsible for ensuring that those under sixteen do not have accounts. There was general agreement yesterday that this was not the right approach. It was generally held that parents had to be responsible for this, not the service providers. This is like asking the person who grows the grapes to be responsible for the consumption of alcohol in those under sixteen. 

"It's just going to make kids want to use it even more," someone said and she may be right.

Perhaps what we need to do is look at providing substitutes for social media use among the young. I looked around at the needlework, the knitting, the crochet, the paper craft, the woodwork and more which was still awaiting collection. Perhaps we could start by involving more young people in that sort of thing?

Deep fake footage

or real?

There is a story in the paper this morning of some "footage" which appears to show the former leader of one of our political parties using an illegal substance. He denies it and says it is "deep fake". An "expert" disagrees.

Who is right? It is impossible to tell. There will be plenty of people who want to believe this is real, particularly if they vote for an opposing party. Even if someone else now came out and said, "No, I made that footage to show you it can be done" there will be people who still believe it is real.

This sort of thing is incredibly dangerous. It is has the potential to seriously damage every one of us. We need never to have done anything wrong but it will still seem as if we have done something wrong and people will believe it. 

Smear campaigns are very, very nasty. I was the victim of one. It could have been stopped immediately by a simple statement in a meeting. All it would have taken was a statement, "I was wrong and I apologise" by someone else.  The person who should have taken the responsibility to do that did nothing. Who wants to admit they are wrong and have the humiliation of saying so publicly? It is apparently easier to allow others to think badly of someone who has done no wrong. Even when a story comes out in the open and is shown to be false or wrong there are people who will believe it because they want to believe it. It suits their own agenda to believe it.

Now it is easier than ever before to harm others. How old are you before you understand what "AI" is and how to use it? Put the means in front of a child who has grown up with computers, coding, social media and anything else you care to throw in and they can almost certainly produce something like that. They may get caught out on the finer details and it may not hold up to finer examination but they may well produce something good enough to fool most of us. We will get examples of AI being used to try and sway us at the next election and it won't be pretty.

Where are we going with all this? Will every part of our lives end up being controlled by this? It's possible. That frightens me.  

"P.... has died"

the clan chief informs me in a phone call yesterday.

P... was the Senior Cat's cousin - my first cousin once removed. There is just one member of that generation now living, a cousin in his late 80's. P...was 93.

I liked P...  He was a very likeable man, a man people describe as a "gentleman". He was the MC for the second clan reunion and had everyone aware of the importance of such events and the rather extraordinary relationship between us all. 

He lived in another state, about as far away as is possible and I only saw him twice after that. The first time his wife came too. N was the one who showed me the easy way to dice a mango but N... was diagnosed with Alzheimer's not long after that. P.... visited her every day in the nursing home when he could no longer care for her at home. He was that sort of person.

He came back here once after that but it was a "farewell" sort of visit. P... would phone me occasionally to inquire after the Senior Cat and it was always a pleasure to talk to him, to find out what his family was doing. I was never sure how he had grown up to be so normal when his mother was one of the strangest and most scatty people I have ever known. Perhaps it was because she was, in her own way, also a lovely person? 

Later in the afternoon I was clearing a file of the Senior Cat's papers and I came across a photograph. There was P... and N... and the Senior Cat  - and me. We are standing on the docks and smiling. It was the last trip they made here. It was possibly my uncle who took the photo because my mother was not alive. I looked at it. Three of them gone. Photos are such strange things. They bring back memories but they are static in themselves.

I put it to one side. It is the sort of thing I don't think we can throw away.  

It is the responsibility of parents

to ensure their children are safe. It is not the responsibility of "social media".

Now let me say here that I do think social media is a problem, a very real problem, where children and young people are concerned. There is far too much time spent on it and much of what is there is harmful. That said the idea that the owners of social media should be held responsible for the harm done is rather like saying those who sell tobacco or alcohol are directly responsible for the harm done.

Tobacco and alcohol are legal and so is social media.Yes, there are age limits and penalties for supply to those underage but we are dealing with the actual physical exchange here. A shop or bar can refuse to supply those goods to anyone not in possession of a "proof of age" document. 

"Social media" is not like that. One of the big problems is that transactions on it are conducted at arm's length. There is simply no way of knowing who you are really dealing with at the other end. How on earth are you going to stop an adult obtaining a social media account and simply handing it over to a child - complete with password? 

Looking back I see how easy it would have been to do this for the Whirlwind - and do it without her father's knowledge. We were fortunate in that she simply did not want any such thing. She always used the same personal email account her father used. Even that was not often used. "I haven't got anything to hide," she would say.

I don't know how much longer that would have lasted but she appeared to be genuinely lacking in interest. The computer at home was there for homework, for finding out how to cook something, or because she had a problem in the garden. Once in a while something else would capture her attention and she would look it up but social media was not the way she wanted to operate.  "I can talk to my friends at school."

That school does have a very strict social media policy and it seems to work. It may also work because it has the very strong support of the parents. The head of the senior school once told me, "It has not been easy but it has been very worthwhile." 

Perhaps that is the problem. It is not easy to enforce such things. Does that simply mean that others should take on what should be our responsibility? 

Prohibition of something like tobacco or alcohol is a powerful way of making the demand for it even stronger. I still see younger teens smoking while in school uniform. They are clearly not of an age to have bought the cigarettes legally. My good friend M... knows that the teenagers he still keeps an eye on have sources of not just illegal drugs but alcohol as well. The same will be true of trying to ban social media or restrict it to only approved sites.

We could try the route of everyone having to prove their identity and their age to use social media but I doubt it would work. There are too many very clever people out there, often those we are trying to protect, who would find a way around it.

The best protection has to be careful parenting. Careful parenting is time consuming and asking for a degree of responsibility for one's own young. I suspect that the time and the willingness to do that is lacking.  

Walking to school

seems to be a thing of the past around here.

One of my favourite dogs was being rushed away from all the delightful smells this morning because his human had to take the grandchildren to school.

"They could walk there but my daughter won't let them. She says it is not safe. I suppose she's right but I walked to school and so did she."

I thought about this as he walked briskly off tugging at the lead of the reluctant dog.

I went to school on my own from  a very early age. I rode my little red "dinky" tricycle with my school case on the tray on the back. In my first year I went with the Senior Cat for the first few weeks and then I was on my own. We lived in a small country community and everyone knew everyone. 

I was joined by other small children walking or riding their "dinky" trikes as well. In the afternoons we reversed the journey. It was just expected we would get to and from school safely and alone. 

The following year we moved to the city. There was a lot more traffic and further to go. I could have gone to a closer school but I went to the one where the Senior Cat was teaching in the "big" school (the Primary School) and I was in the "Infants". Again he went with me for a few weeks and then I was on my own. I knew the way. I knew the road rules. It was expected I would I get there and back safely. 

Now remember this was the child who had problems standing up and who was continually falling over. The idea that I might be allowed travel alone was probably not accepted by everyone. So why was I allowed to do it?

There was no way Mum wanted to take me to and from school. She had two more under the age of five and no desire to see me to school if I could do it myself.  The Senior Cat had other responsibilities. It was considered perfectly reasonable by Mum that, rain or shine, heat or cold, I went alone. 

It never even occurred to me to make a fuss. I was just doing what children right around me were doing. Yes, some of those in the Infants were delivered by their mothers but we rarely saw a father in the school grounds. We dinky riders simply parked with the "Big School bikes" (and there were a lot of those) and went into school. 

There must have been accidents and incidents but we were largely unaware of those. The vehicular traffic was much less - and slower - than it is now. There was a great deal more foot traffic. We knew which houses we could go to for help if we needed it. Sometimes they were pointed out to us, "Mrs.... lives there. If she is home she will help" and Mrs.... would almost always be home. 

Now Mrs... would be at work or, if older, getting her own grandchildren from school in a car.  The children are being taken to "out of school" activities - if they are not waiting at school in "out of school hours care". Very few of them have the pleasure of talking to the dogs, observing the men at work, playing games with their friends on their way to and from school. My brother, who joined me the following year, and I knew a lot of people along our route. The other children were the same. We lacked a Pied Piper perhaps but there was always a trail of children which gradually grew more or less as we went to and from school.

As far as I know I was never late. I was not allowed to be "sick" because Mum, a Christian Scientist, did not believe in illness. It did not matter how I felt I simply pedalled to and from school until I was in my penultimate primary year. We moved and the school house we moved into was next to the school. All we had to do was walk over to the school. It was not the same. Getting taken to and from school in a car must be even worse.

  

"They might have to sell the house"

 the Reserve Bank Governor has warned.

As someone who is still hunting for accommodation within my budget I am, yet again, wondering what sort of stress people with families must be under.

"It's all about interest rates," someone told me a few months back. Really?

I think it is about much more than that. There is still a widespread belief in this country that you should be able to buy your own home. Within that belief there are many people who believe you should be able to buy a free standing dwelling on a fair sized block of land. That dwelling should also have at least three bedrooms, a family room, a lounge, a bathroom, an ensuite for the parents as well as a kitchen and laundry. There should be a "patio" for outdoor entertaining and the garden should already be landscaped to be as "easy care" as possible. That dwelling should also have parking for at least two cars. 

Phew! That is going to cost a bit. 

People are complaining it is harder to do this now even though both parents are working. Where people once managed on one income and one, almost always the wife and mother, stayed at home this is no longer considered possible. Why?

I know there is no easy answer to this but I do believe that part of the problem is people now believe they "have to have" and this causes them to over-extend themselves financially. They want a house which has everything they think they need and they want it now. It is not the basic structure their parents and grandparents were prepared to accept and then work on. 

A young man I know is severely dyslexic. He really struggles with reading and writing but he has always had a job. He has been prepared to do anything to earn money. While at school he had the usual sort of jobs students get but he was happy to do the less attractive jobs. When he left school he went to work for a company which unfortunately failed. Was he out of a job? He was unemployed for three days before being interviewed for another low level job. When could he start? This afternoon if they needed him. He now has a responsible position in the same firm because he was prepared to travel to work and make early starts. 

Through all this he saved. He saved all he could. He found out about what sort of home loans he might be able to get and how he might be able to pay them back. When he went to the bank he was able to show them exactly how much he thought he needed and how he could pay it back. He got the loan because he had done two things. He had, with his grandmother's help, worked out what he would do if the interest rates rose and he had shown them plans for a very modest dwelling but a dwelling he can add to later if he so wishes. All this has also been done with his relationship with a very lovely girl in mind. They will marry late next year when she has finished her course and can work full time. Like him she is prepared to wait for some of the things that others consider essential. They are prepared to put the work in. 

One of his more distant relatives commented to me, "It's terribly old fashioned of them. They could just go ahead and get it all now and save themselves all that hassle." Yes, they could but they would be in much more debt. They would be struggling to pay their debts off. This way they are managing. 

I can't help admiring them. They are resisting the pressure to have "everything" now and it seems to be working for them. I think of them when I look at yet another place...and another. I know I won't get everything I want either - even though I believe it would be nice to have it and have it now.

I skived off yesterday

and took Middle Cat off to the state's agricultural show. We ignored the horrendous packing mess for a few hours. 

Nephew Cat was actually free and took us there which made it a cheap day out. (I get two free tickets as a reward for being a steward in Handicrafts.) I packed sandwiches and some chunky pieces of tomato, cucumber and lettuce for sustenance, added some of the small apples Middle Cat has fallen in love with and plenty to drink. Food and drink is available of course but it is very expensive and not the sort of food I  want to eat.

We parted inside the gate and I headed off to Handicrafts while Middle Cat went to talk to the dogs, the cats and the goats. I could have gone with her for a short while but I dislike seeing animals penned in. (Middle Cat somehow manages to persuade owners that she is the one who can best de-stress them - and she does.) 

Handicrafts was busy. I took a seat at the information desk, answered questions, showed people where to find their items on display or where to find the items of friends and relatives. I explained how some things were made, why certain things they liked had not won a prize when other things they liked less had and was greeted by quite a few people I know in the craft world. I knew Middle Cat would turn up when she was ready to eat something and that it would be later rather than earlier.

Yes, she appeared with that dreamy "I have been talking to animals" look on her face. Yes, she liked some of the quilts on display and thought the cake decorating was "amazing" but she had not looked at the knitting, the crochet or the embroidery. We went out of the hall and found places to eat our sandwiches. Middle Cat chatted to two people here from the country who were finishing their lunch. When they left we were joined by three people. They were a bit hesitant and asked if the seats were taken. No, please join us. I could tell why instantly. The boy, about eighteen, was autistic. He was non-verbal but I sensed the noise, the people, the constant movement and bright colours were beginning to overwhelm him. Middle Cat involved his parents in conversation and left me to try and make contact with him.

Suddenly he pulled out a white cardboard box and undid it carefully. Then he showed me. It was a new mug, clearly intended for hot chocolate. Yes, he told me with gestures, it was his. He had bought it. He was obviously thrilled with his purchase. I asked him about whether he liked hot chocolate, whether he liked the colour of the mug and whether the lid was to stop the drink spilling out. He answered all this in his own way. 

Out of the corner of my eye I could see his parents, still talking to Middle Cat, watching us. Then the person they were waiting for arrived. Middle Cat and I rose to leave.  As I was turning his mother put her hand on mine and squeezed it very gently and I heard his father say, "Thanks." The boy was carefully returning his purchase into the box but he looked up and there was a proper smile on his face. It was absolutely the best part of the day.  Skiving off can pay off sometimes!

Native Title?

I had heard rumours about this but thought that at least they would be able to remain until the end of the lease. No. It seems that "native title" is more important than education and encouraging young people take part in a range of physical activities while also caring for the environment. There will be people who say that "an elite private school" should never have had access to the area anyway but they did have a lease and they used it wisely.

What this supposedly "elite private school" had access to was a small island off the coast. It was leased from the government, not the native title holders. They have come later. 

It is the native title holders who demanded an early end to the lease. They want their land back. They want it back to "reconnect spiritually" with it and "explore new cultural tourism opportunities".

The school tried to negotiate. It was not successful. 

This does not surprise me at all. It is the way anything like this is being handled. There is an immense fear of "insulting" anyone or anything which claims to be indigenous. It is easier and cheaper to give in to such demands than fight it in the courts. 

As regular readers of this blog know I am hunting for somewhere to live. It is proving very, very difficult. I discovered that one of the places I looked, a place which might just have been possible, has a tenant and that tenant has a lease until well into next year. Under the law it is not possible to remove the tenant or raise the rent (which does not cover the expense of having the tenant there). Why then is it possible for anyone to demand a lease be terminated before time simply because a "native title" claim now exists? Native title to any land did not even exist when the lease was granted.

I know someone who went to this school, her husband went to this school when it was boys only, her children went to this school, her grandchildren are going through the school and a great-grandchild will start there in the new year. They have all worked on helping to develop and care for the environment on the island. There are many other people in the same position. Nobody is saying much for fear of upsetting those claiming title over the land. They do not want to be seen as "racist" but they do wonder just how all this could happen. 

I also wonder how well the proposed plans will work. Will people really want to travel there for "spiritual re-connection" and "cultural purposes" or will we have lost another chance to teach young people that the environment matters? 

Meeting a new neighbour

as I am slowly clearing this house was yet another reason to regret having to move out.

The new "over the road" neighbour moved in the weekend before the one just gone. My mother would probably have been over there on the day with the offer of tea and freshly baked cheese scones - the latter being her specialty. I stayed out of the way being all too aware of the likely chaos when it is enhanced by a dog with a madly waving tail.

During the week which followed we never seemed to both be outside at the same time. I just left things and hoped the new owner would not think I was being unfriendly. Her immediate neighbours are pleasant enough but the parents both work and their two children never play in the street. We rarely see them.

That all changed yesterday when I was struggling to put the over loaded bin out for rubbish collection this morning. I had just put it in position when the new neighbour's car came down the road and a face smiled at me. I waited and yes, sure enough, the car door slammed in her driveway and she looked out with a cheerful,"Hi, I'm S..." 

She came across the road and I said, "I'm Cat..." We smiled at each other and I said, "I haven't interrupted because I know what the chaos can be like." 

We had a conversation. Canadian? I asked and she said "Yes, but here for years." We talked about that and why and the fact I needed to move and why. She agreed about executor companies and offered me a couple of empty boxes. "Yes please!" 

Her daughter came back from walking the dog in her lunch hour. Her daughter was friendly too - and the dog even friendlier.

Later Middle Cat arrived to collect some things. I introduced S.... who was now putting their bin out. I had told Middle Cat where this woman had worked before retirement and, such is this city, they discovered that they knew people in common. 

Why do I have to leave when the new neighbours are so nice? 

Why are we counting these people

in the next census? 

The Prime Minister has just announced that "gay, lesbian and bi-sexual" people will be counted in the next census. Why?

There is not a lot of room for questions in any census. The number of questions and what they are about is something which needs to be very carefully considered. They need to be questions which allow governments, at least to some extent, to plan for the future. 

There are questions which are obviously very important. We need to know how many people were here on the night. We divide that into residents and non-residents. We find out how old people are. These things help provide education services to the young and aged care services to the old and health care for everyone. If we know where people live then we know something about the need for power and roads. It also helps in providing services to agriculture and fishing - things which feed us.

If you ask people which language they speak at home then you can provide essential language services if the policy is to be "multi-cultural".  If you ask people if they have a disability then you can plan services to support people with disabilities. If you ask if they have any form of religious belief then you can see which religious communities are growing and what impact that might have on future policies.

But if you are gay or lesbian or bisexual or asexual or transgender or something else does it really matter? Do you really need special government services - or have you simply been led to believe you need them? Have we really reached a point where this group is somehow so disabled and disadvantaged they need a place in the census? Are we really going to need planning for vast numbers of children and young people to need gender services? 

I am in no way trying to denigrate people who are happier in same sex relationships. Why would I? I think it is so very, very good that these can now occur in this country without fear of prosecution under the law. But do these people really need additional services? What sort of additional services might they need that are not already there in the community and included in the census? Surely suggesting they do need something more is to mark them out as somehow not simply different but somehow not normal?  

I may be completely wrong about this but I know at least four same sex couples who see no point in the question.  

Does the school you went to

really say anything about you?

I have just been smiling over one of those "human interest" sort of articles in the local press. Are you asked what school you went to? This is (supposedly) a common enough question here. 

I think it was more common once than it is now. Yes, sometimes it did matter. There is still an "old boys network". There is even a bit of an "old girls network" I suppose but it is not as pronounced. 

The article allows for comments on the website and most people appear to be a little uncertain about how much it matters...if it matters at all. Feeling a little like stirring the pot I have left a comment saying I went to five different secondary schools. I also said I went to school with someone who became a world renowned neonatal heart surgeon, a judge and several politicians. I like the heart surgeon - no longer operating but still teaching and consulting I believe. The judge is one I respect. The politicians? No, not acquaintances I would wish to renew. Brother Cat actually went to school with someone who went on to be Prime Minister - and tells me that the PM's sister was a much nicer person.

Some years ago the Senior Cat answered the phone and someone asked to speak to me. I did not recognise his name but he apparently went to school with me. He must have been in my year group because he was trying to organise a reunion. I declined to go to the reunion. If I could not remember his name how could I even recognise everyone, let alone remember their names.

"But everyone knows you," he told me. Perhaps they do but I doubt it. 

I prefer to know people as people, not by some artificial standard. The school you went to does not need to define you. I always liked the answer the Whirlwind would give if asked where she went to school. "Just the local school," she would say. It was true. It was a local school even if it was fee paying.

A former Governor of this state, a man I do admire and respect, went to one of the old "technical high schools". They were considered to be the schools for the non-academically inclined but he did brilliantly. To my way of thinking it just goes to show there is more to this than "what school did you go to?"