Eating at the table

is apparently a thing from the past for some families. 

There is a very witty but also rather sad article about this by one of the regular columnists in today's paper. It is also something I was thinking about several days ago.

I was thinking about it because someone called in and remarked, "Oh, you kept the good table and chairs."

The "good" table and chairs happen to be those that we kept in what we called the dining room. This was the space immediately adjacent to the kitchen on one side and the "living area" on the other. We also had a kitchen table and chairs. Yes, we had the space and we used both. The kitchen table and chairs were for every day use. The dining table and chairs were for the times we had visitors or we needed to spread something out. The dining room table could be extended from seating for four to seating for six or even eight. I have not yet extended it here but I might because I also used it to set out other projects. Mum used it as a cutting table for her sewing and the Senior Cat would put her machine up there because the natural light was much better.

Now I eat at the "good" table. I do not eat watching television or a phone screen. I read books. It is something both the Senior Cat and I did at times. For years he read the paper as he ate his muesli and drank his instant coffee. He could read rapidly which was probably just as well because breakfast was always a rushed affair when he was still working and not much better when he "retired" to do other things. 

At the evening meal though we ate as a family. To do anything else would have seemed strange. If one of us was unavoidably absent Mum did not like it at all. A hot main course might be kept in the oven but that was the only thing she allowed. We were expected to be there and be on time. 

Our meals were not silent. Events of the day were discussed. We kittens knew that school matters were never ever discussed outside the house. Quite often there would be a young teacher at the table with us and we would remain silent as some teaching issue was discussed. There was never anything said about individual students but I could often guess there was much more to an issue. It was all good training for my later working life when I have signed more confidential documents than I care to think about.  

But eating together was more than that. Mum could watch over what we ate of course but lessons could be discussed and the homework we were required to do. Mum would test our spelling and our "times tables". If there was a school test coming up she would make sure we were prepared. The Senior Cat would help with a project but he would also try to steer the talk away into thinking about other things. 

I had no idea what other families talked about. I assumed every family was like ours and was amazed when I eventually found out their conversations were about sport (something never discussed in our house) and the latest popular songs (my parents would never have heard them) or some other local event. Local events were only discussed if we were involved in them.

When Mum died things did change. I kept meal times regular because of the Senior Cat's medical issues but we discussed books and politics, current affairs and philosophical questions, religion and more.  Mealtimes were something we enjoyed as a chance to talk to each other. 

I think it is one of the things I miss most. It might be why I read as I eat - and do both rather slowly. 

Losing your job

is devastating for anyone even if you have advance warning that it might happen. Even if you do not like the work you do to suddenly find yourself with no income at all is frightening.

It gets worse than that for some people. A much younger friend completed a university degree last year. It was in an area where there are employment opportunities and she was optimistic about her chances of finding work.

For the past seven months she has been "volunteering" in a work place. It has supposedly been to "get experience". She has worked as hard, if not harder, than the people actually employed there. For this she was being paid the equivalent of the unemployment benefit under a government training scheme. When I met one of her workmates, the person delegated to "train" her, she was enthusiastic about this girl's ability to do the work, fit in and take initiative when necessary. She would, I was told, "be a great addition and we'd like to have her". 

That was the feeling of everyone except the person in charge. As everyone else was leaving last week he called her into his office. He then told her she need not bother to come back on Monday. The job application she put in has not succeeded. She was to take her things with her immediately and was not to return. He did not thank her for the work she had done or for the extra hours she had put in. There is a major report coming out shortly, one which this girl has done most of the research for and much of the writing. She will not be there when it all comes out.

The person who had been responsible for her training was the one who told me what had happened. She wanted to know if there was any way to help her. "I have seen the draft report. Her name is not even acknowledged."

I wanted to know why the boss was behaving like this. She shrugged. "I don't know. He isn't interested in women so it isn't that. If I rock the boat then I don't know what he'll do next. Word has it that he has appointed the person I thought was the least suitable to the position. I'll be expected to train him up of course."

Yesterday I had another call, made outside the office on her personal phone.  The new appointee is somehow related to the boss. Yes, he has the paper qualifications for the role. He has no experience. He is apparently not even particularly enthusiastic about the work but "it's a job".  I wonder how well he will do. 

It is another example of "who you know" I suppose. I just hope someone I know will raise some questions about this.  

Banning beehives in

"residential areas" is the latest proposal from a council in the hills behind me. It has come about because some of the "city slicker" residents have complained about bees, roosters, pigeons and livestock kept by their neighbours.

Sorry, you have moved to "the country". It was your choice to move out of the urban areas into what you thought was the idyllic countryside. You expected it to be all clean and fresh and quiet. You expected it all to just be that way without any work on your part too. 

Many years ago a very close friend of the Senior Cat moved his family on to a twenty acre block in the hills. We thought it was a crazy idea at the time but they were English migrants who had fallen in love with the idea of living in a rural location. They had done their homework. They knew it was going to be very hard work. 

Even with the amount of research K... and his partner had done they still found it much harder than they had anticipated. They worked very hard at teaching full time during the day, preparing lessons at night and then spending snatched hours during the week and all of the weekend in developing the land. It was made possible only because they allowed someone else to keep bees at the far end of their property and they had no other livestock to care for.  The bee keeper was a professional apiarist. 

Their decision to move there was made at a time when they had no immediate neighbours. The services available were limited. They needed two cars to get to work and to get the children to school some distance away. 

There is still no public transport but the nearby "town" has grown to the point where there is now a medical centre, another school, a shopping precinct, a nursing home for the aged and more. It is becoming more like a suburb of the city in the plains below it. 

Therein lies the problem. People have romantic ideas about "living in the country" but they want all the amenities associated with living in the city. They really have no idea what actual country living is like. They do not have the skills they need to live there. They do not want to put the time in to caring for the property they have so gleefully bought. Many of them start with the best of intentions perhaps but they simply do not know.  

There is also a tendency to forget the lack of public transport and the time it takes to get to work if they still work in the city. Yes, there are now some buses although some of them are just express services from a larger area along the "freeway".  Many people do not want to use those. They are not as "convenient" so they use cars and complain about the traffic, the speed limits and more.

Once back at home they want to "relax". Someone else will come in and mow the lawn they have planted and prune the "natives" they have planted in their "easy care" garden.  They have no desire to care for a hive of bees - the very wonders who pollinate the plants which provide their food... and how dare a rooster crow in the morning!

I wonder if it would help if these "we want to live in the country" dwellers had to pass a stiff exam before they actually moved in. "Living in the country" is not romantic. It is smelly, dirty, noisy and very hard work.   

A "Minister for Loneliness"?

Apparently one in six of us feels "lonely" and, each year, around 900,000 people around the world die from loneliness. That is according to a WHO report. 

I suspect the figure is far higher than that. In a world which is "more connected" than ever before we actually interact less. There are people who "work from home" and live alone. They do their grocery shopping on line and pay for it on line. They pay their bills on line. If they do travel they go in a car alone or swipe a card on public transport. They may go to the gym but once there they exercise alone. If they go to the library on their way home they can use the self-serve check out and then, having forgotten to add milk to their home-delivery from the supermarket, they can pick up a carton and use the self-serve checkout without speaking to anyone.  Of course if the self-serve checkout is not available and they go through a staffed checkout they can keep watching the screen of their phone so there is no need to talk to anyone. 

Who wants to talk to people? Why on earth would we bother to talk to anyone we do not know? We all know the world is full of dangerous and evil people don't we? It isn't safe to talk to strangers is it?

We isolate ourselves by our own behaviour and then isolate everyone around us in the same way. If you talk to strangers, even just casual comments in passing, some people think you are "weird", "a bit odd", "bonkers" and more. No, you are not "crazy" but there is definitely something a little different about you. You are not supposed to behave this way. It makes other people feel uncomfortable. They are not sure how to respond. 

You're lonely? "Go and join a group," they tell you. Find a common interest group. Get involved. 

No, it is not as easy as that. The "time" issue is likely no more than an excuse because the real issues are having the courage to go along to a group. If you do get that far do other people make you welcome? Are you willing to participate, really participate? Do you actually know how to interact with other people any more? It is easier just to look at a screen isn't it?

One of my regrets is that I have no friendships outside family forged in childhood. We moved too many times for that to happen. My mother did not want other people's children in the house. She saw children all day in school.  There is nobody with whom I can share the memories of playing games of imagination outside. 

For some people that is different. I knew two women, both now deceased, who met on the first day of school and remained friends for the rest of their lives. They had over ninety years of shared memories. I wonder if that could happen now. 

It will take more than a Minister for Loneliness and some sort of government policy to combat loneliness. We need to change the way we live.   

Is it true or is it

a skewed view of the author or is it fiction made out to be true or is it something else?

I have just read an article about a book called "The Salt Path". It is one of those "true" stories which are about "overcoming a situation". The only problem is that the book is not true - and the author of the book knew it. Somehow she managed to get it past Penguin and they published it. 

It is not the first time this sort of thing has happened - and it will not be the last. In 1995 the Miles Franklin Award was won by someone who called herself Helen Demidenko for a book she called "The hand that signed the paper". It was supposed to be fact but it turned out to be fiction. 

I do not care how well either book was written I object, and I object strongly, to them being published as "true" accounts. They are not even skewed views of something which actually happened. They are fiction. Those of us who buy the book believing it to be, if not completely true, at least something which actually happened are being defrauded. 

Should the author be required to repay the money? Is the publisher in any way liable? In all likelihood the author has already spent any money they have received. Can a publisher really be held liable for the lies of the author? Does the issue of "due diligence" really apply? What about those who, simply because of their family, are the subject of some fascination? Should "Spare" have been written at all? I think it should not have been but others would strongly disagree. 

A journalist's unease is what eventually exposed the author of "The Salt Path" - but not before a film was made as well. Will Penguin need to bear the losses of recalling and pulping the books still available for sale? I would assume they will.  

There is a book I did enjoy which is probably not as accurate as the author would have us believe. It was written by a Winifred Stegar. The book, "Always Bells" or "Life with Ali" is about her life and her marriage to an Afghan cameleer in our "outback". She made a trip to Mecca with him in the early half of last century and that can be shown to be the case. The book is no literary masterpiece but it is interesting. Yes, there may be some "embellishments" along the way but she spent the latter part of her life in a small country town where the Senior Cat met her and talked to her about people they knew in common and stories about her that he had heard from them. Yes, the evidence for her story is there. In the hands of an expert story teller it probably would have had a much greater impact. Nobody pretends it is some sort of accurate history. 

There are any number of "life stories", biographies and autobiographies out there which may be rooted in fact but still almost fictionalised accounts of lives of the rich and famous. The market for such things exist because those people fascinate at least some of us. There are also many well known people about whom very little is known. When people wonder why "So and So" has not appeared on "Who do you think you are?" it might be because there is very little which is dramatic or interesting enough for a television program to be made about that person. Writing a book about them would be equally difficult.

This is an issue I have had to face. I could have kept all the correspondence I amassed over the years I spent working on what became International Literacy Year. It was tempting, very temping. There were thousands of letters, some of them from people who could only have been described as "very important". It would have been easy to use them and make a name for myself - perhaps. Would it have been the right thing to do though? In the end I had to be honest with myself and say "no".  Do I regret destroying them? Yes but it would have been selfish to do that. I really only had a very small part in the whole thing. It was not my story to tell.The real story came from the people who worked so hard on projects which made a difference. 

There are some stories we do not have the right to tell, 

   

I am wondering how a murderer

feels when a jury returns from deliberations and announces a guilty verdict. 

My reasons for wondering of course are to do with the guilty verdicts handed down in the "Mushroom" case. This is the case where a woman named Erin Patterson cooked a meal of "beef Wellingtons" and three of her four guests died after eating death cap mushrooms in the meal put before them. She claimed it was a "terrible accident" but the jury decided otherwise.

It took a week for the jury to come to their conclusion on all four counts - three of murder and one of attempted murder. I am trying to imagine what it would be like to be waiting...and waiting for the verdict. 

"They can't have been too certain," someone said in a line in the supermarket.

"It has to be a unanimous decision," someone else said, "There might have been someone trying to hold out against that."

We will never know because jury members are not allowed to talk to the media and share their views. I said nothing but I suspect that the jury was being careful. A good jury will go through the "evidence" put before them very carefully. Their decision will have a very big impact on everyone involved. It does not matter which was they go in deciding guilt or innocence there are going to be losers. In a murder trial everyone loses. There are no winners.

I think we forget that. I wonder how her family was feeling, particularly her two children. Unless she wins an appeal she will spend at least the next twenty years of her life in prison, quite possibly longer than that. She will get very little sympathy or support there. She is not like a woman who has killed to protect her young. She did not lash out in anger and then admit and regret it. The jury has concluded she planned to kill people who had done her no harm and carried out that plan.

I wonder what she thought as she waited for the verdict. Does she still know or believe she has not deliberately harmed anyone?  Does she wish she had done things differently? If she had been found "not guilty" would she have been thankful or would she be gloating? It is impossible to know.

The view in the line in the supermarket seemed to be that Erin Patterson is guilty and that she deserves to be locked away for life. Nobody seemed to be wondering how she might feel. Although one person expressed sympathy for her children the general view was "they are better off without her".  

I said nothing at all and prowled off as quickly as I could. There are no winners when murder is committed.  

"Multi-culturalism" does not work

as some sort of panacea for all our prejudices and ignorance.  I am more than ever convinced of that.

Another synagogue was damaged over the weekend. This time there were people in it who should have been enjoying a Shabbat meal. Instead of that they had to leave hastily out of a rear entrance. There were children present.

They have caught someone they believe to be the perpetrator but what sort of punishment will he get? An acquaintance here suggested, "A slap on the wrist. He will come up with some sort of story about a relative in Gaza."  It is likely both the perpetrator and the acquaintance share some prejudices even if they do not appear to do so.

In another instance a business owned by a Jewish family was damaged in the belief they are somehow involved in providing weapons to the Israeli Defence Force. Apparently the perpetrators believe they have some sort of right to harm a business here because of a war on the other side of the world. They believe they have some sort of right to do that even though they had no actual proof for their claims. Even if they had proof this was no way to go about it. There are other (much more effective) ways to protest.

For months there have been "protests" here about the war in Gaza. They have had a great deal of media attention. Yes, there have been protests against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, about the attempt to obliterate the nuclear facilities in Iran and more. We do not however hear too much about those or the much smaller protests and concerns about human rights abuses in China. We get told about the appalling conditions in Sudan and Somalia and Yemen and there are references to "rebels" when the media mentions these conditions. Protests about these things may not even reach the news or, at best, they are a thirty second clip of a small number waving placards outside an embassy.

But the other protests are apparently part of our "multi-cultural right to protest". Really? Is there such a right? Are such "protests" really a right conferred by our "multi-cultural" society.  Many, I suspect most, of those who attend such protests do so out of a desire to protest. It is "exciting". It gives them an adrenalin hit. If they were actually offered a free trip to Gaza to fight they would not want to go. It is easy to protest from a distance, especially when full possession of knowledge of the actual situation would harm their firm belief in what is "right".  We believe there is some sort of democratic right to voice our opinion in this way. Perhaps there is but it should be informed by facts. It is not a "multi-cultural" right to divide and harm.  

   

"Farmers feed us"

I told a woman who was complaining about the price of beans in our local supermarket.

She looked at me in disgust and said, "That doesn't justify the price."

I moved on and left her discontentedly picking over the beans. At $35 a kilo I was not going to buy them but that was because I cannot afford fresh beans at that price. I also know that the grower would not be getting very much at all. Someone else will be making the money. 

If I wanted beans I would be going to get a packet from the frozen food section. The farmer gets about the same amount there for the effort of growing them if you buy the "local" brands.

Perhaps I am a bit more conscious of the sources of our food. I spent most of my childhood living in rural and remote areas. My parents always made sure we knew that the field of wheat we were passing was where our next loaf of bread came from. (In my case this was literally true at one time because there was a mill just outside the town in one place.) 

I knew about vegetables from a very young age too. I knew because the Senior Cat grew them in the back garden. Without his efforts we would not have eaten nearly as well as we did. Even when he was teaching and studying for his degree part time he was growing some of our food. Mum would remind us of the "market gardeners" to the north of the city too. 

Out in rural areas we were also made aware of the problems farmers and market gardeners faced. We knew about "good weather" and "bad weather" about the "wool cheque" and the "wheat cheque" - the payments made to farmers for their efforts.  When some young fool who was speeding crashed into a stand of full milk churns waiting to be collected our concern was not just for the young fool but for the dairy farmer who had lost the milk. (There was no refrigerated vehicle back then. The churns were simply loaded on to a lorry and taken to the nearby dairy for processing.) We understood the need to get the harvest in before an impending storm, something which could drastically reduce the value of the crop.  If the older boys were not at school for a week then that just had to be accepted. The rest of us knew it was about feeding us.

As I grew older I became more and more aware of the stresses of being a farmer. It is far from being any idyllic life and it was even worse in my childhood. There were no air conditioned cabins on tractors and other farm vehicles. Shearing was still being done with old fashioned shears in some places. There were arguments about the use of wider combs and more.

The woman who complained about the price of the beans and how much she believed farmers were getting will almost certainly never read this. I hope though that I never prowl through the supermarket and forget that the food in there is the result of hard work by someone somewhere.   

We had a referendum to decide

on something called a "Voice to Parliament" - a body for indigenous people to have a say over their own affairs. At least that is what the original idea was. 

It ballooned into other demands. There were demands for a "treaty" and for "truth telling" and "reparations" and seats in parliament. During the campaign leading up to the referendum there were wild claims made on all sides. Communities and even individual families were divided over what the intentions were and the outcomes would be.

We have tried this in other ways in the past. It has always failed. This time it was supposed to be different because, eventually, the outcome would have a constitutional base. It would have had to return to yet another referendum to change the constitution. If there was ever a demand to remove it then there would need to be another referendum.

Constitutional change does not come easily in this country. It needs a majority of votes in a majority of the states and a majority overall. Our "founding fathers" knew what they were doing. There has to be a very, very good reason to change our constitution. 

Which is why moves by the states to bring in their own "voices" to state parliaments should be of grave concern. This state has a "voice" to parliament. Only "indigenous" people could vote for the members on it. Voting for them was not compulsory and some of those eventually "elected" did not even reach the quota. Put simply I suppose it can be said many of the indigenous people in this state were not interested enough to vote even though they were given every opportunity to do so. 

My friend M..., an indigenous man, was asked but refused to be involved in the process. He was, and remains, opposed to the idea.

There are multiple reasons for his opposition but, having talked at length to him and some other elders, I can understand their opposition.  These are people with a strong indigenous heritage. Their views are not what I first expected. I thought they would strongly support any such moves but they do not support them. They see such moves as divisive, very divisive. M... has a very strong work ethic. He never received any form of unemployment benefit. He has always worked. His wife worked. His children are still working. His father always worked and ended his working life in a position of some authority. His mother was a remarkable woman who commanded immense respect. Yes, they were unusual perhaps but they worked hard and being "indigenous" was sometimes difficult but it did not prevent them from succeeding. 

This is part of what bothers M...  "They all seem to want something for nothing," he has said more than once. "They seem to think they have some sort of right to it even when some of their own ancestors were the perpetrators of the injustices they are claiming."

I listened to some of the demands being made by a member of the "commission" in a neighbouring state. They want a "voice" there and there were financial demands with it, far more than that state can possibly afford even if it was justified. While any person identifying as "indigenous" could have nominated to be a member of the commission the reality is that the people who were on it were the more outspoken people. They see "injustices" everywhere. Their view of history is very different from the accepted view of my school days. The latter view was skewed but it does not make the former view the "correct" one either. 

I wonder, as does my friend M..., what would happen if people were told there would be no chance at all of any financial compensation and, in order to be considered indigenous, you had to be able to actually show you had (at very least) a great-grandparent who was recognised as "full blood" at the time. The demands being made might be very different.  

"My wife died."

The words were quiet and resigned but the emotion behind them was obviously still raw.

I had not seen this man since before Christmas last year. Prior to that I would see him and his wife in the shopping centre most Thursday mornings. It was just one of those casual relationships where recognised each other - or so I thought. We might exchange a few words about the weather or some major event. They seemed to me to be one of those many pleasant couples with a very good relationship with each other. Yes, a happy marriage.

I always noticed how well cared for their clothes were. The clothes themselves were nothing out of the ordinary but always spotlessly clean and well pressed. I know I joked once about how M... managed to keep him so clean and tidy. She laughed and said something like, "You should see him in the garden." 

I suppose that was what alerted me to something being wrong. He was still spotless but the ironing was amateur.  He had obviously tried but it looked wrong. 

"I haven't seen you for a while," I said after he had greeted me. It was then he told me his news. 

"I wanted to tell you," he said, "But I had no idea where you lived. I haven't seen you going backwards and forwards."

I explained I had moved. I had not moved but it was too far. There was no reason for me to have informed him. They were a couple who were perfectly able to care for themselves.  They did not even live on my actual pedalling route at the time but a little further up one of the streets. Obviously I could be seen from there. My movements had been observed.

His news gave me one of those small, unexpected jolts. M... was younger than I am, about ten years younger. She had seemed perfectly fit and healthy. They did a lot of walking together. Yes, it was very sudden. "She was gone - just like that. I didn't expect it at all. I thought she would be home the next day."

I listened. I tried to understand his obvious grief but how can I? I was not married to her for over forty years. 

Eventually we both knew it was time to move on and it was then he surprised me by saying, "You know M... and I always hoped we would see you. She was so pleased when you sorted out that knitting thing for her."

The "knitting thing" was a pattern. I remember it well. It was one of those patterns where the instructions did not appear to match the photograph. M...and I sorted it out between us. He has a wonderful Aran style pullover as a result.

"I don't like to wear it.  If it needed to be washed I might ruin it."

"Wear it," I told him. "If it needs to be washed take it to the dry cleaner and tell them it is pure wool. Think of it as a hug from M..."

"A hug from M...." he said. His voice sounded rough as he hurried off.  I hope he has many hugs from M... She would want him to wear it. 

The horrific child abuse

case currently in the headlines has thrown up something which has long puzzled and worried me.

The present case involves a young man currently charged with more than seventy offences. There is also a need for over one thousand two hundred young children to be tested for STDs. 

Yes, this man worked in "child care". He had passed a "working with children check".  These things raise questions which need to be answered.

Many years ago my mother was the headmistress of what was known as an "infants"  - now "junior primary" - school. She was posted to several such schools in her career and at one of these she was told by the Education Department they would be appointing a young man to the staff. (The Education Departments decides such things here rather than the school.) 

Up until that time only women were on the staff in the infants school. Now, or so they were told, men had to come in too. Children needed "male" figures. My mother and many others were prepared to cooperate, indeed had no real choice, but they were concerned. The parents were informed of the arrival of the new teacher in the school newsletter in the usual way.  That was on a Friday.

On the Monday my mother had a small "delegation" of parents who informed her that they knew the new teacher. He had been the "leader" of a church based youth group and been asked to leave. No action had ever been taken because there was no "proof" but there were good reasons to believe his behaviour was, at best, "questionable". He had disappeared from the church and they had lost sight of him. They were unaware he had chosen to train as a teacher of very young children. 

My mother had the unenviable job of reporting this to the head office. There were no "working with children checks" back then but even one of those would not have thrown up any issues. There would not have been any police records to suggest there might be a problem. The concerns had never been reported to the police. The church people thought they had solved the problem when he left. There was no "mandatory" reporting that might have led to an inquiry. 

I thought about this some time ago when I had to get a working with children certificate. All the volunteers at our state's main agricultural show had to get one even if we had no actual contact with children. It seemed a bit "over the top" but my first thought was, "Well at least anyone who knows they have a record won't try to come back." My second thought was, "But if they are that way inclined and they don't have a record then nothing is going to show up. They will still get a certificate."

There is of course no absolute answer to this problem. It means that the rest of us need to be constantly vigilant, especially when we are around vulnerable people.  And, for all we might want to believe in "equality" or the need for "male role models" there might be places where males should not work except under extremely close supervision. There will be people who will argue with me over this but I think of that young man who claimed to "love children". Some years later he was fronting court because of that "love". 

  

Car parking spaces are

supposed to be for the residents. This is what I was led to believe when I moved in here. It seems that this is not the case with respect to me.

I do not own a car. I have never owned a car. I cannot drive a car. There is a space labelled with the number of the unit I live in but it seems I do not own that space.

This is not what I was told when I moved in. I was told that the space labelled with my number was my space. I was even told there was council approval to put a roof over the space - at my expense. No, I have not bothered to find the very large sum to do that. I park my trike on the tiny front "porch" instead.

Now it seems that the space can be used by everyone else except me. Even if I wanted to park my trike there I would be expected to move it to make way for any number of "commercial" vehicles doing "maintenance" and for other residents who have overnight visitors or just people coming in to visit.  

A friend came to visit recently. She has difficulty walking more than ten metres. I wanted what I thought was my space to be vacant for her to use. No. It wasn't. There was a van there. Two men were sitting in it eating their lunch. I explained the situation.  No, they would not move.  They had to "carry stuff" and "you can only use it if it is your car". Really? 

Someone else parks there on a regular basis. The car is often there when I have left to do something in the morning. I have tried leaving polite notes saying someone is coming and that the space is needed. They are ignored. 

Yesterday the man who "mows" the lawns used it - and blocked in the girl next door as well. Fortunately he had gone before she went off to her shift at the hospital.  I only know this because she came several days ago and apologised for using "my" space when someone else had parked in hers. After the lawn mower man had gone another van turned up and used the space. The van was there until lunch time and then it left. Another van moved into the space.

I heard the argument when the first van driver returned and found the second van there. They were "working" there! 

This morning I looked out and yes, someone is parked there yet again. 

"Get used to it. You haven't got a car. That means anyone else can use it," the car owner told me as he climbed in and drove off - presumably he was going to work. 

I have a very elderly friend coming to lunch. I hope she arrives and finds the space vacant and that she can park there. I hope the "maintenance" vans arrive and find they cannot park there.

Would I say "yes" if they came and asked? I probably would if they did it nicely and I was not expecting someone with a mobility issue to visit. Is it my car parking space though? I am beginning to wonder if I have given up the right because I do not have a car.  

LGBTQ people have rights

to be themselves. They should not be discriminated against because of who they are. I will repeat that. LGBTQ people have rights to be themselves. They should not be discriminated against because of who they are. 

That does not give them the right to flaunt their sexuality or demand that they be given additional rights because of it. Notice please I have said "additional" rights.  

My only first cousin is "gay" and married to his partner. They have been together since university days. His partner is one of the nicest people I know and he is very definitely part of our family. I know other people in same sex relationships and consider them to be good friends. None of them expect "special" treatment. They do not attend "gay pride" marches or fly "pride flags". They feel no need to do these things. 

Other people obviously do feel that need. I do not know why. Perhaps they do not feel as secure as my cousin, his partner or my other friends. 

What does bother me however is the radical cohort who dress and behave in a much more extreme way and expect not just acceptance but to have the right to indoctrinate others, particularly the young.  I don't know if I am wrong, perhaps I am, but it seems at very least to be unnecessary.  This is a very small minority of people who are demanding a great deal of time and attention and "acceptance". How genuine are they? It's a question I cannot answer but it causes me concern. I do not believe that further confusing very young children about sexuality is right any more than I believe that, apart from very very rare instances, prescribing "puberty blockers" is right.

Someone in England has just been sentenced to thirty years in prison for sexual abuse of minors.  Prior to being charged he was a leader in "gay pride rights" and he advocated for puberty blockers to be readily available. Now questions are being asked about how many other sexual deviants are hiding in among the "rights" movement.  They are questions which need to be asked. 

I have always thought of sexuality as a private thing, or at least one which should not be flaunted but quietly accepted. It surely should not be about which bathroom you can use or how you dress or which prison you should go to if you break the law. Those things should not define you as a person. 

I know there are people who will read this and disagree strongly but when I see "pride" marches with the participants carrying not just "pride" flags but Palestinian and Iranian flags and demanding "freedom" for Palestinians and Iranians as well then I wonder. Do they realise that if they did these things in Palestine or Iran they would be condemned for their sexuality?   

Adults can be bullied too

and there is more of it now. 

There is an article in this morning's paper from the Chairman of something called the "anti-defamation commission". In it he is suggesting that access to social media is a major factor in bullying. This is the justification for denying those under the age of fourteen to access to all manner of social media. Take it away, or so the argument goes, and bullying will decrease. It will go back to manageable levels and do less harm. 

The jury is out on that one. I am wondering however if the problem goes back further than the advent of social media. 

Most people would look on radio as a wonderful thing. It brought entertainment into the homes of ordinary people. At first you needed to purchase a licence but technology overcame the possibility of controlling that.  "Trannies" were the big thing of my youth. It meant we could take a radio with us anywhere there was a strong enough signal and listen to all manner of things. There were households where the radio would be on all day and well into the night. The number of broadcasting stations increased. The variety increased. Commercial radio came into being with all the advertising jingles and more. 

And there was no longer any need to go outside your own home in order to be "entertained". You could simply sit and listen in comfort (or otherwise) "at home".  This did not happen immediately of course. It happened over time. Access to radio had to become widespread. The variety had to be there. "Talk back" radio was still a while away so there was no interaction with other people. Here most people still went to church on Sunday mornings and often went visiting on Sunday afternoons. There was sport and there were other clubs and interest groups. Young people had Scouts, Guides, church "youth groups" and the like. They went to the pictures on Saturday nights in groups. 

Television came in and there was a decline in these activities too. There was even more reason, or so people thought, to stay at home and be entertained. Social interactions were still there but not quite as common as the pre-television days. It happened without people even being aware of it. You might not be talking and interacting with the radio or the television set but you were being entertained. 

Bring in the widespread use of the internet and then social media and you suddenly had a way of "communicating" with each other without actually having to mix with them at all. There was no need to leave your own home to have "social contact" with other people. 

We have been led to believe that this is good. Some people have hundreds of friends on Facebook. They spend hours on Snapchat and more hours looking at video clips on Tik Tok. They "research" issues on Wikipedia and more. Social life is centred around the mobile phone, the big television screen and similar items. You can do the "self-serve" thing in the supermarket or keep your eyes on your phone screen so you do not need to chat to the checkout person. 

And people do just that. Some of them "work from home" and have almost no interaction with other people at all. Is it any wonder we have a rise in mental health issues? When we do see other people we no longer know how to act easily and naturally. We worry that we might have said the politically incorrect thing. Things are said "in fun" because we are nervous and anxious. It develops from there and the "teasing" turns into "bullying" instead.

There is more to it than that of course but the adults demanding an end to social media access for young people perhaps first need to look at what might just be a bigger problem - we no longer communicate with each other as easily as we once did. 

Taxi vouchers only help if

you can afford to pay the fare and the taxi turns up in time to get you to your destination. This may explain why I have only used my own "taxi card" three times in two years.

Let me explain. Taxi vouchers are available for people with a range of disabilities who have sufficiently serious mobility issues and cannot use all forms of public transport. 

I had no intentions of getting a card. I can, with some difficulty, still get the trike on a train. I can go anywhere the trains go and then pedal still further.  I cannot use a bus because trikes are not allowed on buses. Buses go to many more destinations than trains of course but... 

Of course it was Middle Cat and our doctor who put their heads together and decided that I was eligible for taxi vouchers. These days the "vouchers" are actually a card you present to the driver but the cards still tend to be referred to as "vouchers". If you have one then you are eligible for one or other of two things. There are half-price fares for people who can use regular taxis and ten per cent fares for people who are dependent on "access" cabs - the vehicles which take the person still in their wheelchair.  Both these things still cost more than going by public transport. As a "senior" the train costs me nothing as long as I can get the trike on and off the train without the wheelchair ramp. (I have yet to challenge that.)

Yes, it costs something but it is still a much better scheme than no scheme at all. This is perhaps why, at our library knitting group yesterday, someone queried why J... was not there again.

J... has not been there for the past three meetings. I am not sure if she will come again. She should not be driving but I suspect she still is and that the doctor has, as they often do, given in to her demand to keep her licence - if she has renewed it. Does she have taxi vouchers? "Somewhere". She does not want to use them. Recently she had to attend a clinic at a hospital. She is perfectly capable of ringing the taxi company and ordering a cab but the nearby aged care home organised it instead. When the taxi did not turn up someone rushed around and took her to the appointment. Yes, sometimes taxis do not appear when requested. It is a constant problem here. The other problem is that drivers resent doing "short" trips. They only want to do extended journeys. The access cab drivers are better at short trips but that is perhaps the nature of their work. Regular drivers do not like doing short trips or half-price journeys. (It does not cost them in the end but it does at the time and they know the tips will not be as high.) 

That J... was not there did not surprise me. If it was simply a matter of getting in the car and driving there she might have come but there are multiple issues with doing that now.

As we discussed this I could not help yet again thinking that transport issues do cause isolation.  Not everyone can rely on others to pick them up and transport them where they need to go. Taxis may not always arrive and the cost is often too much. It can leave people with no social life at all. This is especially so when people no longer even know their neighbours. 

I do not know what the answer is - apart from taxis and access cabs for the same price as public transport. That is very unlikely. 

I need to ring J... and at least be sure she has someone to talk to for a short time.     

Teaching the "5Cs" is now

more important than teaching the "3Rs". These are more important than giving students the skills they need to pass the examinations which will give them university entry. This is what we are being led to believe if reports about teaching "critical and creative thinking, character, citizenship, communication and collaboration" are correct. No, you don't teach these things from the time your child is born or from when they enter the education system. This is a special course which is taught over two fifty minute periods each week. Along with something called THRIVE it is intended to turn students into better citizens. It is also intended to make them better students.

I doubt it works. The students at the school where the value of this has been questioned think the course is a joke, rubbish, a waste of time and more. The teachers resent time spent on it. They do not like having to grade students on these skills, sometimes grade students they have never actually taught. All class interaction is supposed to be considered in assessing these things.

It is a long time since I went into a classroom with students in their final year of school. I see enough of the students outside the classroom. I see them in the library. I see them supporting each other there. Sometimes I will exchange a few words or read an essay or give them a little help in the form of asking them a question so they can try and see another way of seeing a problem. It is always a bit of a balancing act.

If you don't have the "5Cs" under control by the time you reach the last year of your schooling then you never will have them. Two fifty minute lessons a week is not going to help. It is more likely to hinder your progress still further. The idea that you can in any way quantify these skills is also ridiculous. Not all students are creative geniuses who participate in class at every opportunity. Some students will work well in groups. Others will be better working alone. Still others will be happier following directions. It does not mean they lack character. What of the very quiet student who simply gets on with the work involved and then, even more quietly, helps another student? Such students do exist. Are they to be penalised for not speaking up? 

It seems to me that this is not about "balance" or "character building" or "turning out good citizens". No, I suspect it is about something else altogether. The program came out of a university which has a compulsory "indigenous studies" course for all students. You are required to do this course no matter what you are studying.  It is a course considered by many to be not about education but about indoctrination. The information and the ideas there cannot be questioned.  The same apparently applies to the 5Cs. 

Learning to be a good citizen should start at home. It can be reinforced at school as and when necessary. It is not something we should be "teaching" students in their final year...because we can't. We should also be allowing them to question...because they will.  

Who has the "right" to public housing?

In one of those odd coincidences there is an article in this morning's paper about someone in public housing. He is an older blind man with a prosthetic leg whose "best friend" is his guide dog. Despite his eyesight and mobility issues he gets around and cares for himself.

The small unit of accommodation next door is currently vacant. The resident is currently the probably unwilling resident in other accommodation. That unit was firebombed and his neighbour only just managed to get out in time before extreme harm was done to him and his dog. It was almost certainly related to drug dealing on the premises - the reason for the absence of the usual resident. 

The purpose of the article was of course to question why, when we have a housing crisis, was the accommodation being held vacant for someone who had broken the law. The answer was along the lines of "well he needs to go somewhere when he gets out". That a person who is homeless through no fault of their own might need accommodation too is apparently not of interest to those responsible for public housing. There is a long list. Put your name on the list. In ten or more years from now you might be lucky.

All this is something I have been thinking about recently as those of us who shop on a regular basis in our local shopping centre are being harassed by a woman who keeps begging for money. Yes, she is in public housing too but should she be there? This woman is painfully thin and unkempt. The staff in one of the local supermarkets know her well. She buys cigarettes there and tries to steal the cheap day old bread. There seems to be a policy to let her get away with that because she can turn violent. It is apparently for the same reason that when she destroys the furniture in her accommodation more appears and someone from the council clears away the accumulated rubbish.

She frequently tries to get money from me. I have never given her any. Most people I know have never given her any but several days ago she had a very elderly and very frail woman bailed up. The older woman looked frightened and tried to move around her but her trolley was grabbed and more demands were made. She tried giving her a little and was apparently told it was not enough. People were simply walking past. They did not want to get involved. I admit I was thankful I was in the middle of a complex transaction in the Post Office and was not in a position to get involved. I am not sure what I would have done anyway. I am a coward I suppose.

The situation sorted itself out when someone who must have known the older woman came along and the younger one moved off shouting. By the time I was out of the Post Office they had all gone. 

I wonder though what should be done about this woman. She is obviously mentally unstable but not so far "out of it" that she does not know what she is doing is wrong. I have seen the police reprimand her but that is all they seem able to do. One of them walked off after she had let out a stream of abuse at him one day. 

And yes, this woman has what should be comfortable accommodation. It is public housing accommodation. It is not simply a single room but an entire "unit" of accommodation. She is not caring for it. Others seem to come and deal with it when the situation gets too bad. So should she be there when there is a "housing crisis" and mothers with young children are sleeping in cars to escape domestic violence? Who is the "more worthy" - if such an idea is even possible?

I know there are no easy answers to any of this but we added to the problem when we closed residential institutions. It might help to have this woman under closer supervision in other accommodation and have a mother and children in the unit perhaps.  

 

 

Daycare, daycare, out of school hours care,

pre-school and grandparent care. By the time most children are five they have seen more of other adults than the people who are supposed to be their parents. 

Yesterday I had a brief conversation with a young mother who is about to go back to work. She has been one of the "lucky" ones whose employer had given her six months maternity leave and held her job open for her. 

"I know I'm lucky," she told me, "So many mums don't get the same opportunity I've had...but I still wish I did not have to go back to work." 

She is going back to work "because we need the money". They are buying a house and run two cars. The new baby is her first "and probably the only one". She thinks they "probably won't be able to afford another". At the same time she "loves motherhood". 

There is something wrong here. Her six month old child is about to enter the "care" system. All the love and attention her little one has been given is now going to be replaced by expensive group care and this will likely continue until the child is considered old enough to be trusted to care for itself.

I bit my tongue and said nothing about how little this person will actually be earning. By the time she has paid out for the sort of day care required I suspect that "going back to work" will not actually increase their income by any significant amount - if at all. Even if she was presented with the actual figures I doubt very much it would convince this person that it might be better to stay at home. Her own "career" depends on returning to work and she has been told, and told often, that her own career is too important to stop work and be a full time parent and partner.

Of course I grew up in a generation when many mothers did not "go to work". They worked as unpaid carers, as child minders, as parent minders, as canteen ladies at the school, as volunteers in other places. They cooked and cleaned, washed and ironed, gardened, made their clothes and ours, heard our "reading" and read to us - and much more. They did all this but they did not "work". Those were just things that mothers did. 

Were they really that "bored" and "unfulfilled"? I am not sure where that came from but I rather doubt it. My memory is of women who worked. They worked hard.

Now it seems they are still expected to do much of that and go to work as well. They have more "labour saving" devices and pre-prepared food, clothes can be flung in a washing machine and do not need to be ironed, the "garden" is "easy care" and some of them will make time to "hear reading" but the bedtime story might well be a DVD or a YouTube video.  Their pre-schooler will know about the "correct pronouns" and "global warming" from their day at pre-school even if they do not know about Peter Rabbit eating too much and Christopher Robin jumping in puddles. 

Something has gone wrong somewhere. The supposed "social-emotional benefits" and the "economic benefits" for the full time return to work might be there but I doubt it. Passing over the care of your child allows for politically correct indoctrination to take place of course. We still seem to believe that even when the problems raised by Soviet or Communist or even some of the kibbutz style child care have become obvious. 

But "mothering" is not important is it? It is some sort of old-fashioned gender based fallacy isn't it? 

Watching that young mother interacting with her young baby I must be too old. I have this odd idea that mothering is important - more important than "going to work".  It just seems wrong that people can no longer afford to work at mothering.  

So YouTube will need to go down

the tube as well will it?

Downunder is supposed to be getting some of the most stringent rules with respect to those under sixteen accessing "social media" and the internet. How this will work and whether it will work are questions which are yet to be answered. 

Now our so-called "e-safety Commissioner" wants to include YouTube in the list of things which under sixteens are banned from accessing. The Commissioner is trying to tell us that teachers, the vast majority of whom apparently use that video streaming site, will still be able to use it in the classroom. It is simply that, outside that, students will not be able to use it. 

This is bordering on the ridiculous. 

I am not a parent but I hope I am as concerned as any parent about what this means. That huge resource which has been used as the means of obtaining information about all sorts of things will no longer be available. Yes, a few young ones might go out and kick a football instead of searching the internet but I doubt the ban is going to have much of an effect on the physical health of the young. 

Will it have a positive effect on their mental health? It might seem like that for a short while. There will be a novelty period where it is claimed it is working but smart "kids" are going to find their way around any ban. If they can break into supposedly secure sites now then breaking into sites which have an age ban is going to be just another challenge. Banning something will simply make it more desirable.

I am guilty of using YouTube myself. I used it to find out how to replace a battery in something yesterday. I then passed the offending item back to a woman who is in her nineties and not confident using a computer. In future am I going to have to log in using a passport type photograph and my birth certificate to prove that I am more than sixteen? 

I have had children tell me that some of their homework has consisted of trying to find information about a topic and doing that research on the internet. Is that going to stop? I have been concerned, and remain concerned, about the quality of some of the information available. There are many things on the internet which are quite frankly wrong. They misinform rather than inform. Banning the young from finding those things might seem like a good idea but is it going to teach them to discriminate? Will they actually be more likely to believe everything they read because they think all the "harmful" material has been filtered out?

The idea that this will stop the other very harmful social behaviours which extend far beyond teasing is another nonsense. It may reduce such behaviours for a while. Those responsible for the ban will tell us it is a success but, having discovered the power of it, students will find a way around it or invent even more harmful ways of hurting.

I doubt banning YouTube or other forms of social media is going to solve the problems that have been created by another generation of over-protective parents who want their children to be "top" of everything and Olympic athletes with it while also not allowing them the freedoms we had in childhood.  Children who are constantly supervised and entertained are never going to learn the social skills necessary to negotiate and compromise and care for each other. We need children who can entertain themselves. We need children who can create their own play and their own games.  I think we should start with that and start early. That way YouTube and social media will return to being a tool for sometimes and not a way of life. 

Imagine putting six dictators on an

island in the middle of an ocean. They would be given the basic materials to build a shelter and food, any medication they need - and nothing more. There would be no means of communicating with the outside world. Once a month a plane could fly over and drop more food. They would remain there until they agreed to cooperate - or killed each other.

What would they do?

Is this a "Lord of the Flies" scenario or something more? Surely it has to be something more than that. Imagine the likes of Putin, Xi, Kim, Khameni, Lukashenko, Hun Sen, Assad, Mnangagwa and others having to try and even live in close proximity to one another. Who would win?  Would one of them end up dictating to the rest of them or would they be killed off one by one? Who would have the skills and the willingness to do that?

I could list even more but you can probably think of some others for yourself. It is also evident to me that others would probably take the place of these men. (I tried to think of some women - if you can think of some let me know. They must be alive today.)

I tried to imagine who might be the first to die. If they were to be killed who would do the deed? If Trump was sent there would he try to "negotiate"? What would Pope Leo do if he was sent to try and sort things out? How would Gutteres handle the situation? What about the aging Dalai Lama?  Is there anyone who could actually sort the situation out?  

Notice I have yet to list a woman in all this. Is there one? 

Would doing this make the United Nations Security Council see sense? I doubt it. The Security Council has to be one of the most ineffective bodies there is. 

I will leave you with those thoughts. Let me know, if you wish, who will blink first - if you can.  

 

 

Do domestic politics matter more than foreign policy?

I will repeat that, do domestic politics matter more than foreign policy? It would seem they do to our Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs. They are fence sitting.

They are fence sitting and making fools of themselves, and us, to the rest of the world.  I suppose I am not really surprised but I am alarmed by their "calm down and negotiate" stance on every issue. Oh yes, it sounds good and it sounds even better if look as if you are not taking sides. 

Let it be said now that I am also alarmed by the escalation of the situation in what we call the Middle East. The situation in Gaza should never have been allowed to reach the level it did.  It reached that level partly because "diplomacy" and "negotiations" failed. There was no real desire for these things to succeed. Backed by Iran the Hamas terrorists believed they could wipe out the "cancer" as the leadership of Iran likes to consider Israel. It has proven to be more difficult than that, much more difficult.

The idea that the politically insignificant country I live in can influence a major conflict by fence sitting is ridiculous. It is also dangerous. If we were invaded in a hostile way from the north then why would anyone come to our aid? It was already doubtful but now it is almost a certainty that the rest of the world would simply let the invaders move in. 

We need friends but we are treating those who should be friends as casual acquaintances and fair weather friends. The question is why of course. At the risk of grossly over simplifying the situation I would say it has more to do with domestic politics than foreign policy.  We have just had an election and the government was returned with what seems like a huge majority. Yes, they have more than twice the number of seats as their main opposition. Their grip on power is being touted as "secure" and it is being said they will be in government for at least another term after this - and perhaps another. 

But is that really the case? Labor had around thirty-four percent of first preferences. The Coalition had around thirty-two percent of first preferences. Labor is relying on those preferences. It is relying on preferences to get them through next time too. Without them there are seats where more radical candidates will win, much more radical candidates. We might want to deny it but Muslims make up the second largest religious grouping in this country. Christianity still comes first but Islam comes next. 

According to the last census 3.2% of the population identified as Muslim. It may not seem much, indeed too small to worry about, but their influence is far greater than it would seem. The present government is very aware of that. It knows it needs their vote to remain in power. Fence sitting is as much, perhaps more, about domestic politics as it is about foreign policy. 

So their President and our PM have not "met" yet?

There is an extraordinary discussion going on here. People are complaining, worrying, dissecting and expressing alarm. The President of the United States went home early from a meeting and, horror of horrors, he did not stay to meet our Prime Minister as planned. It was a scheduled, twenty minute meeting! It was important!

No, it wasn't. Meetings like that are rarely important. They are made out to be but the real work gets done behind the scenes by others. Work is still being done in that way. It is very unlikely anything would have been "negotiated" in twenty minutes. This is particularly so given the two men who would have been meeting.

The President likes to keep people guessing. He likes to keep them on edge. He will pretend he has not made up his mind even after he has. It is how he works. Possibly he believes people will be more ready to accept his decisions if he works that way. I do not know. I have not met the man. It is highly unlikely I ever will. He is hard to follow the way he thinks.

I have not met our Prime Minister either. It is also unlikely I will ever meet him but it is easier to read the way he thinks. He likes to believe he is a very important person, not just here but on the world stage. That is a view held by many people, even some of his closest and strongest supporters. 

The problem with this is that he is an important person in this country. He is important simply because of the position he holds. It is no more and no less than that. He likes to mention he was brought up by a single parent on a housing estate and that they were short of money. This may be true but money was found for him to be educated within the Catholic system. Were there connections there he does not wish to acknowledge? It seems likely because they would not fit with the narrative he likes to tell. That narrative is very important to him. 

As Prime Minister he does not seem to have the same force of personality as some of his predecessors - on both sides. I have met five previous Prime Ministers - three Labor and two Coalition. They all came across as leaders, as much stronger personalities. The present incumbent does not come across that way. I may be quite wrong about this of course but the view is shared by many other people.  It is felt by many that he goes overseas to meetings whenever he can because he is trying to be a big player on the world stage. As a country of around twenty-seven million people we simply are not seen as that important. Perhaps it is time for our PM to recognise that, stay at home more often and build a stronger country?   

When someone's freedom is at stake

then a comma in the wrong place can matter. Yes, legal language does need to be that precise. Writing legislation is quite possibly one of the most difficult things which needs to be done in law.

I have never actually had to do it. I doubt very much I could. My mind simply does not work that way. I have, in a very small way been involved in the process of trying to decide what the law should try to do. That was hard enough and I have no desire to repeat the experience. (It was the "equal opportunity" legislation for this state. I also sat on the tribunal for a while - another experience I did not enjoy.)

The need for precise language came up again after my blog post yesterday. "Really Cat! Does it matter that much?" I was asked. I said "Yes, it does."

We misunderstand things far too often. We have arguments with other people because we misunderstand intentions or directions or consequences. Much of that has to do with language.

Law students are required to do an enormous amount of reading, most of it is in the very legal language used by judges. It rarely makes for amusing reading.  

In my first week at law school I complained (hopefully in a nice sort of way) to my first year tutor that my reading speed had dropped by about half. I knew why of course. The language I was reading was different. Yes, it was supposedly English but it was legal English and it was very different from everyday English. 

My tutor, a lovely person, smiled. She asked me what my usual reading speed was. I told her. She smiled again and told me I was doing very well. The undergraduates were much slower. She also assured me that I would likely soon be a good deal faster but some of the undergraduates would always struggle. Again she was right. I did get fast, a lot faster but I never reached the level of someone like the Professor of Commonwealth Constitutional Law who seemed to merely glance at a page and understand it.  No, I did not expect to do that.

In my second year at Law School I took on the responsibility for a group of students for whom English was a second language. It was a challenge. It also taught me more than I suspect I taught them. They were students whose English was perfectly adequate for every day purposes but legal language was a struggle. Understanding it was difficult enough. Writing it was even more difficult. 

We were given examples of what happened when language was not used in a very precise way. It was not simply the words used but the way they were used. I write this blog straight off without revising it. There are undoubtedly "split infinitives" and other grammatical errors everywhere. I try to write it as if I was simply talking. Doing anything else would take too much time. It is a daily mental exercise for me. Nobody is likely to die because I put a comma in the wrong place but it mattered when we had the death penalty. A comma in the wrong place could still incarcerate an innocent person or let a guilty one go free. 

Such problems can begin with the reports written by police too. It is why it is important for police to have the skills to spell and write reports. Someone else's freedom may depend on it.   

Can't spell and can't do the maths

but we will give you a gun so you can be a member of the police force?

Our state has a serious shortage of police officers. It is apparently such a serious shortage they are lowering the standard required to pass the entry examinations in spelling and mathematics.

I do not know what the current entrance examinations are like but I suspect the standard is low. I know we are not getting a stream of university graduates into the police force. Nobody expects that. I do however see the police out and about and I have observed them. On rare occasions I have had dealings with them.

Last week I had occasion to go to a major shopping centre some distance away. When I arrived the entrance I had planned to use had three police cars, a fire truck and an ambulance there. There was no activity around these things. There were three police leaning against one of the cars just chatting. 

I would normally lock my bike to the rack next to the entrance. Did I just go to another entrance and then, with some difficulty, make my way to the other end? I decided to ask if the entrance was open.

"Yeah, just go on in." I was told. It was permission but it was hardly what I would have considered to be a "professional" sort of response. It was well meant enough but it almost certainly reflected the level of education of the officer I had asked.  

If we cannot find recruits who can read and write and do basic calculations to a good standard then we need to look at why this is so. We cannot have police relying on spell checkers and calculators or using AI to write reports. That might be even more dangerous than giving them a gun.  

"Bur I am only taking eleven supplements"

and she is taking four prescriptions as well. 

Yesterday someone asked me if I had given some thought to the way I would need to take the low dose of blood pressure medication with me if I do manage to get away in September.

I do not see this as a problem at all. It will simply go in the original packaging. It is very clearly doctor prescribed. My doctor was so unconcerned by all this she went ahead and doubled the number of pills I will be able to get next time around.

Not so this other woman. She was alarmed at the thought of me travelling at all if I had take any sort of medication. I know V.... as a  hypochondriac. She is often at her doctor for one thing or another. I know her doctor too. He once let his frustration with her and "all those supplements" show. It was a very brief, almost not there, look as she started to talk to him about something she had begun taking even before she entered his room in the clinic. His frustration was nevertheless obvious. 

Yes, she takes eleven different "supplements" and four prescription drugs. It apparently makes her annual holiday packing "very difficult because I have to take so much with me". 

I have tried querying all these so-called supplements and all the limitations she has put on her diet as well. It makes no difference. She looks pale and unwell to me. I know one of the prescriptions is for blood pressure because she showed me what she was taking and wanted to compare it with mine. I think she was disappointed to discover that we take the same thing but pleased to discover that she takes a marginally higher dose. She also showed me one for a thyroid condition which is commonly taken by many people and one for anxiety. The fourth one is one I looked up. It is of almost no value at all but sometimes given to people who want to believe they need to be taking something. 

And then there are the "supplements", the vitamins, the sleep aid and more. I cannot get my head around those. Apparently they are all "necessary" because "there are so many things I am allergic to I don't get proper nutrition". Really? Her husband, a long suffering man, tells me, "She is not allergic to anything if she wants to eat it." He has given up in disgust. 

All this of course is an addiction of a sort which is costing a great deal. I looked at all the pills and potions she had lined up one day and wondered how she could even be bothered. I would much prefer not to be bothered at all. I avoid taking things. It takes time as well as money. I have better things to do with my time and my money.  

Ooh how to lose weight easily!

Late last year I saw someone I had not seen for several months. He had lost a considerable amount of weight. I naturally wondered how he had done it.

I did not ask but I was told. "I was diagnosed as diabetic. The doctor put me on Ozempic."

Really? That was all he needed to do? Oh that would be so easy! I let him talk on and nodded and smiled and, I hope, said the "right" things. 

But, I wondered. I wondered even more this morning because apparently children as young as eleven and twelve are now being prescribed Ozempic and other semaglutide drugs like Wegovy to deal with their diabetes and their weight. The article in the paper mentioned the concern that these drugs are being prescribed more and more often. People want the easy way out.

It is human nature to want the easy way out. Is everyone as lazy as I am? Probably not - but there would be a lot of people who are. They may be even lazier. I don't know.

In the course of moving from one place to another I did lose some weight. There were at least two obvious reasons for this. I ate less because there was less time to eat and I was doing more than the usual amount of physical exercise. Neither thing did me any harm. I was actually rather pleased because I know I needed to lose the weight I put on during the Covid lock downs. Although I made an effort to get out and exercise at the time it was not the same sort of exercise I had done before that. 

But taking weight off apart from that is very hard work for me. I cannot get out for a brisk walk - the very thing that might help me lose weight if I was also "eating sensibly".   I do try to eat sensibly. On my recent visit to our GP she asked me something and I added something like, "I do try to think about whether  I have had enough protein, enough carbohydrate and enough of a good mix of fruit and vegetables and I try to do that each day." 

I think the response startled her - but I really do try to do that. It is something I doubt she does herself. Having the time to do it and deal with it is something she probably does not have.

But other people? I hear people saying how wonderful the new drug is. So many of them seem to believe it is an effortless way to lose weight, that all they need to do is "pop a pill" and they can eat whatever they like. A few know there are perhaps side effects and risks but they will take the risks because they have lost some weight and they "feel better" because they have dropped a size or two with no effort.

I wonder how long this will last before doctors stop succumbing to pressure to provide what appears to be the easy way out? When will we all realise that many of our weight problems are to do with eating too much and not exercising enough? 

I am as guilty as the next person in thinking it would be nice to be able to do. Someone please tell me that Ozempic is not a substitute for diet an exercise!  

I am not intending to travel unless

it is "safe" to do so.

All travel has risks. All forms of travel have risks. There are "acceptable" risks - the sort we take every day. If we did not take those risks then we would go nowhere and do nothing. We cannot live that way.

There are also unacceptable risks. These are the sort of risks we should not take. It is why government travel advice exists. 

Right now you do not travel to some very specific places. They are war zones. 

Apparently there are around three hundred and fifty people from here trying to leave Israel at present. There are another three hundred trying to leave Iran. Neither lot can leave because there are no planes flying in and out.

In our local shopping centre there is a tiny coffee shop run by Syrians. They are lovely people who tell me I am "family" because I have shared a single recipe with them. They made the shortbread and took it back to Syria with them when they went "home" for a month this year. Their home in Syria is in the quietest part of the country and they take the risk only after multiple checks. They are back here now and A... tells me he would not travel now, even if a family member was seriously ill. He does not expect the government to get him out if there is a major eruption of conflict.

I wonder how many other people think like that. How many of those in Israel or Iran went on holiday without thinking of the potential consequences? They might be fascinating places to visit but, even with family there, is it something which should be done?

Middle Cat and I have air fares booked and paid for. We have accommodation booked and paid for in Singapore. That is as far as we have got and the travel agent has not been inquiring about what else we might need to book. There might be a reason for this. It may be the same reason I am being cautious about making any more plans. If the situation between Israel and Iran escalates it may be that it will not be safe to travel.

If I was going to travel alone I might take the risk. It may not matter too much if I end up being blown up but Middle Cat has a partner and two boys to consider. If I was stuck in the UK it would matter far less than if we were both stuck there. We both have to consider that it would be our choice to travel. We should not expect our government to bail us out of trouble if we travel knowing it is not safe to do so.  I wonder if those who travel to trouble spots think about this sort of thing? 

So, we won't be travelling unless it is deemed "safe" to do so - safe in the sense that the risks we will be taking are the risks that sensible people think are acceptable. Will I be disappointed? Yes. Will I be sensible? I don't want to be but I am a nervous cat so I will do the right thing. 

Using a recording device without

obtaining permission from those about to be recorded is illegal. This is why some places (such as government departments) are supposed to ask before a conversation takes place over the phone if they are using conversations for "training purposes". 

"Training purposes" is a cover for other purposes of course, a supposedly neutral purpose but one used to cover themselves. No, I am not simply being cynical. It is all too likely that people will get upset and abusive and this is designed to keep them from that.

I usually say yes they can record because I am never doing anything more than something like making an appointment. Even now important matters go wherever they need to go in writing and I expect replies the same way. "Paper" trails are important - even email trails are important. "You said..." or "s/he said..." or.... something else and the information is there - or it should be. This is not perfect of course because nothing is foolproof.

But there is another good reason to have things in writing. People forget what they have said or done or they misremember. Anyone who has spent any time in court listening to a barrister pull a testimony to pieces will know that even the apparently most clear memory of an event can be torn to shreds. 

Keeping a record of everything we have said or done is impossible but keeping a record of the important things is necessary. How do we best do it?  Not in the way I saw recently. A friend was on Facebook and said, "Look! This is what I need! It would save heaps of work."

I was immediately suspicious. I looked. The same advertisement had come up for me. There it was a tiny recording device you could allegedly wear around your neck, It would record and then transcribe. Wonderful! No, perhaps not."

I pointed out two things. The first is that it would be illegal to use the device without the permission of everyone in the room if you were at a meeting - and that was the intention of the person who thought it would be wonderful. Yes, people might give their permission but just one objection would be enough to halt the use of it if the user was wise.

But the second objection I had was quite different. This device would not help you remember anything. It would have exactly the opposite effect for most people. If someone was no longer actively involved in the process of remembering they would forget more and much more quickly. The act of writing things down reinforces the memory that is to be preserved. It is why taking notes down by hand is so important. Even using a keyboard is preferable to taking no notes at all. Study after study has shown the importance of being actively involved in learning. The little recording device does not require active involvement. That matters.

Yes, memory can be trained. It is possible to use all sorts of tricks and techniques but even those do not make up for actually physically committing something to paper.  As someone who has real problems writing anything down I am perhaps more aware of this than many people. My own lecture notes tended to be sparse. I would write down single words and have to remember what went on around that word. My memory is still supposed to be very good but it has taken years of "training" to do it. Other people will sometimes ask, "Cat, can you remember..." Often I can but I do not always remember. Why should I? 

Remembering everything that ever happened to us would be an immense burden. Equally not being able to remember things we need to remember is a burden of a different sort. I would not use one of those little recording devices (or a similar idea on a fancy phone) because I know it is important to remember without such aids. We should be teaching children to do the same.  

  

"You will have to download the app first"

I was told yesterday.

No, I won't. I am not downloading any "apps" on my very basic mobile phone. Even if I had the capacity to do it I would not do it. Why should I have to download an "app" simply to buy something? All it really means is that I am going on to a data base so I can then be bombarded with their advertising. Their "free" whatever it is really is not free at all. It is built into the price and their "special" is not really a special at all.

"Thanks. If I need to do that then I won't be buying it here."

"You won't get it cheaper anywhere else," I was told.

"Perhaps not but I don't download apps on my phone."

"Why not? You can get some great bargains here that way. It's a free app."

"Nothing is free."

The young one in the shop just looked at me in disbelief. I did not bother to try and explain. I went out and considered my next option. I had researched "on line" for what I needed and this had been the best option - apart from the app. That had not been mentioned on the website, certainly not the necessity to first "buy" the app in order to get what I wanted.

I prowled off feeling decidedly put out. It would have been a simple matter to "download an app" on a fancy phone perhaps but I still do not have a fancy phone that connects to the internet and does all those whizz and bang and whistle things. 

I stopped at the booth which repairs mobile phones and the lovely pair who work there finally sorted out another problem. The boy had researched it on line and actually thanked me "because it was good to learn how to do that - never came across that problem before". No, I could not pay them because I had helped them too. (English is their second language and I had told them how to write something.)  They agreed about "apps". I was interested in that. Neither of them has the latest phone. The girl's phone is about the same age as mine and the boy's is not much better. No, their phones are fine and they do not need all those "apps". These are people who work all day with other people's phones. I wonder what they do at night but I am sure it is not play games on their phones.

Apparently there are also "apps" on computers but I have never knowingly downloaded one - unless the sort I have for the purposes of actual work are also "apps". There are no "business" apps but I still need to "unsubscribe" from all sorts of things. It irritates me. When did the idea of putting someone on a data base in order to force advertising on them become a right rather than a privilege? There are two places which, despite my efforts to "unsubscribe" have continued to send me information. One of them is a real estate firm from my house hunting days. I sent them a polite message saying I had a new place for my sleeping mat and please to take me off their list. It has been ignored. Why? I will never do business with them. The other company no longer does business in Downunder but they still send messages. I have tried explaining that they no longer send items here (and it was for my BIL anyway) but they have ignored that. I will never do business with them again.

But apparently there are "apps" for things like the weather and ordering pizza and playing games I have never heard of.  I look elsewhere for the weather (mostly the sky) and I last ate pizza more than a year ago but not by ordering it on line. I do not play games on the computer, let alone on the phone. 

"Oh, I have dozens of apps," someone told me as I grumbled some more. His partner raised her eyebrows at me. I did not inquire how many she has but it would not be many. 

Perhaps this is what is wrong. Perhaps it is not the phones themselves but all these "apps" that are causing the problems? Is this why people do not talk to each other as much as they once did? If that is the case then there is even less reason to download an "app".