Frightening children into believing in

the worst case scenario of climate change is apparently considered acceptable by our Federal Education Minister. He has been reported as saying that what is being taught in schools is "age appropriate". Research suggests otherwise? He still believes it is "age appropriate".

The "Institute for Public Affairs" research will be "wrong" of course because it is a "right wing think tank". Children need to be informed of the "very real problems" facing us. Five year old children need to know about climate change, about the dangers and more. They need to go home, distressed, and inform their parents they should not be eating meat or using their cars, that they should have solar panels and the battery to go with them, and that they should only be planting natives in the garden. In school every lesson should be related somehow to climate change and the danger it poses to humankind. Teachers should use every opportunity to get the young to understand how serious this is.

No, I am not exaggerating. It may not be put into those words but the reality is that this is what is happening. Perhaps most of it will be more subtle than that but some of it will be blatant scaremongering. This is the national curriculum. It must be taught. 

Teachers who do not believe in climate change may as well resign. The vast majority do care about the environment and the do believe the climate is changing. Do they agree with what the national curriculum requires them to teach? It would be interesting to know just what they think but there is no research of which I am aware. My guess is that many of them are concerned by it.

I thought back to my own school days. In rural areas we had a close association with the environment and the landscape around us. We knew it had to be cared for because the livelihood of farmers depended on it. We knew where our food came from in the way that country children do, that cows had to be fed and milked.  In school we were taught about the process by which a loaf of bread came to be. In the tiny "town" I first lived in we saw the sheep in the paddock (field) next door to our house that became the chops and stews our mothers cooked. I don't think anything was hidden from us apart from the actual slaughter of the sheep but most adults did not see that either. 

It was much less obvious in the city but there we still had lessons about wheat and sheep and loaves of bread. We had lessons about the "market gardens" the post-war Italian community worked to provide our vegetables and how potatoes grew in the best soil in the south-east of the state.  We were taught about the Goyder line, the "dog fence" and the problem of "rust" in wheat.

We also had the annual "Arbour Day" at school. There would be lessons about the importance of trees and caring for them. We would go to the "big oval" and other locations and each class would plant a tree. We knew about their root systems and the rings which showed what the "weather" had been like. School would finish earlier than usual in the afternoon and we felt good about "our tree". We were being taught to care for "the world around us". The word "environment" would have meant nothing to most of us and "climate change" was not mentioned. It did not exist even in the minds of most adults.

I think we were lucky. We grew up knowing we had to care for the world around us but without fear of it or for it. The idea that even very young children need to know about CO2 emissions and "net zero" and the many dangers related to climate change seems wrong to me. Surely teaching them to care for the environment in a positive way would have a greater impact?  

Dumping rubbish

outside charity shops is illegal...but people do it anyway. We all know what happens. Boxes filled with broken toys, dog-eared paperbacks, stained clothes, chipped crockery and much more appears as if by magic overnight. In the morning the charity has to deal with all this. It has to take in things that have been ruined by soaking rain or further damaged by being kicked along the street. It all has to be sorted and the things that are completely useless need to be collected by the council rubbish vehicles. 

There are people who dump their rubbish in at such places deliberately. There are others who believe that "oh it might be good enough for someone" and many other thoughts in between. I have seen all this, heard all this and more at one of our local charity shops. That they have a team of volunteers working during the day who are willing to take things which can be sold makes no difference. People will still dump rubbish. Making the charities responsible for it has been the "easy" way to deal with the problem. It costs charities in this state many thousands of dollars every year.

We took a lot to this shop in the process of clearing the house and moving me into this much smaller place. Right through the process I tried to make sure that everything was clean and of a standard that someone else might actually want it. I did not try to pass on anything I thought they could not sell. There were several items I was unsure about so I asked. One thing was turned down but the manager said cheerfully to me, "I know who will take it." She actually called them and someone came to pick it up.

"You give us such nice things," I was told as I handed over the shirts the Senior Cat had worn. They had been washed and ironed and were on cheap dry-cleaning hangers. A friend had done this for me when I told her where they would go. It was one of those simple gestures which can mean so much.

But today there were reports of a neighbouring council which was going to prosecute the workers in a charity shop for clearing up the rubbish left around their premises. Yes, that is correct. They were going to prosecute the workers, the volunteers, in the charity shop for clearing up the rubbish. The council argument was, "Once you touch it then it becomes yours." This was how they had decided to interpret the law. 

It took the state newspaper to make the matter public and make the council see sense. Here were people doing the responsible thing at their own expense. They were clearing away rubbish other people had dumped and paying council rates to have it collected and they were going to be prosecuted for doing this?

The council has apparently "seen sense" and will not be prosecuting those who were attempting to make sure the footpath was clear but it all makes no sense to me. People need to be much better educated about what can go up for a sale. They need to ask, "If I need an item like this and I have a limited income would I buy this one? Is it good enough for that?" Perhaps it is time to teach that in school. It might be of more use than some of the politically correct matters which ar taught.

Dumping rubbish at charities is illegal.Dumping rubbish on charities should be illegal too. 

Buying a mobile phone

should be a simple matter - yes?

Of course it is not. It becomes even more complicated when the would be user has issues with manual dexterity and would much prefer something she could actually use with ease.

I have a mobile phone but it needs to be replaced. It is no longer reliable. There is no auditory alert of an incoming call so I need to be alert to a little green icon popping up. This usually means returning the call with apologies. This is more than a little irritating to both of us. Nobody has been able to solve the problem. 

Yes, it is an old flip-top but it does have 4G capacity. It should be okay to make and receive calls. I can also receive a text message but sending one is a different story. There is no internet access on the plan I am on but the cost of this would outweigh the benefit because there is a limited amount of data which can be stored. I could go on. 

It has been fine until now. I am not wedded to the phone. I avoid giving out my number if possible. I do not want to be contacted in the wee small hours unless it is an emergency. My family and the police have my number for that reason and anyone else who dares to call at that time may no longer be a friend. I dislike phones and making phone calls is something I find stressful.

But, Middle Cat and I are planning the Big Trip. This phone will no longer do. I need a reliable phone that can do some things we used to do on paper. I will need flights and accommodation. In order to enter the UK I need a photograph and relevant information. I will need to be able to find things, make inquiries, do things....it is all done on a phone - or so they tell me. Even more importantly I will need access to my email and a bank account. Sigh....

I spent almost the entire day yesterday looking at various sorts of phones. I read reviews. I visited websites. I compared prices. At the end of it I was no wiser. I think I understand why touch screens are more popular - but they are also more difficult for me to use. My current phone has "big" buttons - not that they are actually that big or as big as some phones but they are bigger than some. Apparently you can get a sort of delay on a touch screen and that might help but it is not available on all phones. I found a tough looking phone with a keyboard but it is heavy and it is made in China which may pose a security risk for me. Sigh again....

It seemed to me there were phones available which would do anything you asked of it...even start the dishwasher or turn the oven on. Yes, I suppose those things could be useful for some people. I just suspect that most people do not need to do anything more than make and receive calls. It might actually be good if they could only make and receive calls...unless of course they are planning the Big Trip.   

Our power bills are going up again

and it seems that almost nobody is even daring to complain about this for fear of being thought a "climate change denier".

Alexander Downer, former Foreign Minister and High Commissioner in the UK, has a regular column in the state newspaper. This morning he has pointed out that the residents of this state pay the most for power anywhere in the country. 

We also have the most reliance on "renewables", the most frequent fluctuations and the greatest need to import power from another state.  This is not something which is mentioned in the media and most certainly not something mentioned by those responsible for supplying our energy needs. 

Companies with high energy needs go elsewhere for the most part. Those who do stay here stay because they get propped up by tax payers. Our local council has taxed us in order to provide "free" solar panels to those who do not already have them. The cost benefit of doing this has been negative, not the positive the Mayor would have us believe.

All this is being done without a plan of any sort. There are "bits" being done here and there and "pieces" being done there and here. Nobody seems to be absolutely certain what the solution is or who is doing what or even when some of it will be done. There is no national solution. We just keep hearing "renewables, renewables" and "infrastructure" and "it will take more...".

Yes, it is a mess. It is a mess which is going to get worse if people are not a great deal more realistic and do not start working together. What is happening right now is not, as many would have us believe, about "climate change" and "net zero". This is about power games in politics and the money to be made from pursuing policies that have not been properly thought through.

Many of us will try to take care of the environment around us but it will not succeed if politics, policies and financial power take precedence.  

A doctorate in political science does not

mean you are an economist. It also seems it does not mean you are intelligent or able to listen to advice from people who do understand economics. The Treasurer in Downunder's national parliament is one such man.

The government has a big problem. The country is in debt, far too much debt. We are not in the happy financial situation many people believe. There is a debt which will have to be paid. If it is not paid by current generations then it will need to be paid by future generations.  It has another big problem. It has to pay for the day-to-day running of the country. There is a third problem and that is that they need to at least look as if they are carrying out the costly election promises they made.

There are other economic problems of course, many of them. Not the least of these is one of the most clumsy and complex tax systems in the world. It is extraordinarily difficult and expensive to run our taxation system. It is also highly inefficient.

So why on earth would you add to the complexity of the system? This is just what our Treasurer is planning to do. It is a plan of such extraordinary stupidity that it is difficult to believe he can even consider it. 

What it amounts to is a system of double taxation on what he claims will be a "very small" number of people, those with superannuation balances over $3m. That may seem a great deal to those whose superannuation balances are well under the million mark. Mine is so far below even that I am, short of someone else buying me a winning lottery ticket, never going to see a million dollars anywhere. It would be nice but it is not going to happen. 

For some other people however it is going to be different, very different. Superannuation contributions are compulsory for both employee and employer. They are taxed. There is, rightly, an expectation that once you have paid tax you should not need to pay tax again. If your assets increase in value but you have not divested yourself of them then why should you suddenly be required to pay tax on that increased value?

Apparently the government, or at least the Treasurer and Cabinet, believe this is perfectly fair and reasonable. It does not affect them in anyway. Our Constitution does not allow them to be taxed in this way. Yes, this is correct. The rest of us are subject to different rules. 

The legislation to do this has not yet passed parliament. It will get through. The government has the numbers in the lower house and they will have the support of the very socialist Greens in the Senate. Once it has been passed it is going to be very difficult, perhaps impossible, to dismantle.  They are not even proposing to "index" it so more and more people are going to get caught up in this. 

Yes, it is a "wealth" tax and many people will, as they believe it will never affect them, see it as fair and reasonable. They will see it as "make the rich pay". I am no economist but I suspect that this is not going to work. It will create a great deal of work, especially for those who have the task of auditing the value of our assets, but it may not bring in the riches the government believes even if it is not indexed. People will find other ways, even legal ways, of hiding their assets. Having already paid tax on them once perhaps they cannot be blamed? 

Sales of Tesla cars are

are apparently going down here.

It is not something I know much about. My SIL, a very environmentally conscious person, bought a new EV last year. She did it with money inherited from her mother and believes she has made an environmentally responsible choice. As she lives in another state I have not seen this vehicle. 

Brother Cat is less enthusiastic about it but has supported her. They have so far been able to charge it using their solar panels but the long term cost is, according to his reckoning, "not that cheap". I have not inquired too closely for fear of upsetting my SIL. My brother is aware that, should the battery need to be replaced, the cost of such a replacement could be very big. It is just one of his concerns.

Here in this state a  NIMBY sort of protest has just erupted over plans for TESLA to build a battery factory on a piece of contaminated land in an adjacent suburb. People do not want it there. They want the land, closed to the public for the past eight years, to be recovered as a green space. Those opposing it  apparently see themselves as environmental warriors of some sort. Perhaps they are. They are also opposed to Elon Musk and anything related to him. 

The two things do not seem to go together but this is their thinking and they are making their thoughts heard. I doubt it will stop the plans going ahead. If their council decides to oppose it then there is little doubt that the government will step in and overrule the council.

Recovering the land as a green space would be very difficult to do. It is contaminated with a particularly nasty chemical. A great deal of soil would need to be removed. Other soil would need to be brought in. Suitable vegetation would need to be planted in an area which had been "landscaped" and more. The whole process could take years. All that also makes it unlikely to happen.

I thought of all this as I read through the comments being made this morning. At some point I may be asked for my opinion as to whether the project should go ahead.

I think my response will be something along the lines, "The factory needs to go somewhere. I would like all factories to be contained elsewhere but that is not going to happen. What I would like to see is the requirement to plant three or four times the number of trees that an area the size of the proposed site can hold." 

That way some good might come out of the proposal.  

"What is really going on in Gaza?"

Talking with friends yesterday this was a question that came up. I did not comment even when asked for my opinion. 

It is very likely I do know a little more than any of them because they rely solely on local news services for their information. I do not see the "commercial" television stations here. I see almost no television and seventeen minutes an hour devoted to seeing and hearing advertisements is more than I can handle. 

The news I do see on the international news service is perhaps best described as "lop-sided". Yes, bias also comes into it but the footage shown is lop-sided. We are constantly told that "some viewers may find the content in this story distressing".  I wonder however whether a more accurate description might be "many viewers do not see any of this as real". It has simply become alarmingly commonplace.

All the footage of ruined buildings is hard enough but the sight of people living there, especially men carrying tiny bodies wrapped in shrouds, leaves me shaking. It should not be happening...but it is happening.

An aid worker who has been in and out a number of times occasionally gives me small pieces of information. I trust this man as much as I trust anyone in that sort of situation. He is telling me things which rarely get told by those responsible for news broadcasts. Those things matter.

We are not hearing about the protests in Gaza, protests against Hamas. They are apparently growing louder but to protest is dangerous, very dangerous. Hamas does not allow protest unless it is in support of them. Hamas needs to be seen in control.

The control Hamas has is not as secure as we are often led to believe. Hamas is not an army. It is a terrorist organisation with one aim in mind and that is to wipe out the state of Israel. Nothing less than that will satisfy them. They are fanatics. They are radicals. They will stop at nothing to try and get what they want. 

Hamas has no qualms about embedding themselves in among the civilian population. They use homes and schools and hospitals for their own appalling activities. That they might be causing the deaths of innocent civilians by doing this does not concern them. It is a very effective way of working. It makes it so much harder for those they see as the enemy to fight them. 

And yes, they are also using food as a weapon of war.  The problem is not all on the Israeli side. Hamas is also hijacking efforts to distribute aid where it is needed most. They do this in their efforts to keep the civilian population under their control. Hunger and the promise of food are very effective weapons. You provide just enough food to keep people alive but not so much they have the energy and the will to disobey you. Yes, the footage of the bakery with all the bread might look good but the reality is there will be just enough bread to keep people alive. They will not be properly fed and not everyone will get some bread.

Can the UN organise the distribution of food? They say they can. They say they have the means to do it and that they have done it many times before.  Again the reality is rather different. Neither the UN or the Israelis have the means to do it in a safe, fair and equitable way. It requires the cooperation of Hamas as well and that is something which is not likely to happen at present.

The idea that "people can just return the hostages and stop fighting" as one of the group suggested is so far from a solution that I wonder if there will ever be an end to the conflict. 

 

 

The "peppercorn" rents paid by

local interest groups are under review in a neighbouring council area. This is hardly surprising and not really even news.  Word had it that this was going to happen. The council is, like all other councils, looking for more money. 

These local interest groups cover seventeen sports clubs, four kindergartens and fourteen community organisations. Yes, sports clubs take up almost as many places in the review as the rest combined. I do not know whether they share any facilities. The four kindergartens are presumably providing a service the government considers "essential". The fourteen community organisations include things like a CFS base - for firefighting.

Yes. someone has to pay for these and pay for their upkeep. Some facilities can be shared but others cannot. The CFS base is a one purpose facility. You cannot have a gardening club meeting there. The bowling club does not want football boots on their green. The library on the other hand provides not just book related talks and groups but a craft group, a "tech" group and other interest groups. They are live streaming events from an interstate festival too. 

All these things are important, very important. Most people expect to pay something for the use of these facilities. They expect this just as they expect to pay something for membership of an organisation.

It occurs to me however that there are two things we are not talking about. The first is that not everyone can afford to pay. Some of those who might need the companionship or a group the most cannot afford to pay or cannot easily access a venue. Just getting somewhere if you are elderly or do not own a car can be an issue. Someone I know accesses two buses and a train to go to a meeting once a month. She intends to do it as long as she can but it is becoming increasingly difficult and nobody else lives in her area. The second issue is that the venue has to continue to be available. One group recently had to cancel a meeting because another group wanted the space and was given priority because the public had been invited to attend. No alternative space was available at short notice.

People need spaces to meet. Yes, we can pay a reasonable amount to meet in them but they need to be available. Ways need to be found for everyone to afford and be encouraged to meet for their special interests. This is not a luxury but an issue of physical and mental health. Peppercorn rents may be a thing of the past but we still need to ensure that everyone who wants to have access has access to groups they need as much as want.   

The supposed economic benefits of "tarriffs"

are something I will not pretend to understand. I am not an economist. I am a simple minded "cat" with respect to economics. I work on the principle of, "Do I have enough money to pay for the essentials?" Then it is, "If I have paid for all the essentials have I managed to save something for the future essentials?" At the end it is, "If I have done the first two is it wise to spend money on something I would like or want to do but is not essential?"

Okay, it is more complex than that but I suspect most of us work like that. The vast majority of us "splash out" sometimes. We all buy something non-essential or do something we did not plan to do. This is in addition to unexpected bills and the like. Our accounting is often of the sort which asks, "Is there money in my account which can pay for this?" We juggle things. Credit card users will regret purchases, particularly for non-essentials.

The recent election results have shown all too clearly however that we need to be a great deal more economically literate. The government which was returned has made all sorts of promises it cannot possibly keep. The money simply is not there. In order to pay for at least some of what they have said they will do they will need more money. This is the usual situation of course. It is why we pay taxes.  

In this instance however the government is planning to tax some people on money they have yet to earn. This is not the "provisional tax" for the earnings in the following year, money which will be returned if they have earned less than the amount due on the projected income.  This is a tax on money being saved for retirement, on which tax has already been paid.  What is more it is a tax which cannot be applied to some of those earning the most because the Constitution, not the law but the Constitution, does not allow it. 

The government is cheerfully telling us that the proposed provisions will only apply to a tiny number of people. That may be true at the moment but the proposal is not being "indexed" and that means a good many more people will be caught up in this net in the future. This is an issue which has been raised but, so far, the government is not listening except to keep saying that it will affect only a very few. 

It will never affect me. I will never, short of someone else buying me a winning lottery ticket, have enough money to be concerned about the amount of tax I am paying. It does however concern me because , while we need to pay taxes, this seems wrong. Just on fifty years ago one state ditched "death duties". Far from doing the state's coffers any harm it actually increased revenue as people moved in. Eventually the other states had to do the same thing. What is more people were encouraged to save for their future. People knew that if they were to die suddenly then the government was not going to get a share at the expense of a partner or children. Yes, there are other issues with this but it can have a positive influence as well. It might have seemed counter-intuitive at the time but it worked.

I think it was the late Maggie Thatcher who said something along the lines of "the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money". It seems that our government is trying desperately hard to get money that has not yet even been earned. It is doing this in addition to demanding ever increasing amounts of money in other ways.  As I said at the start I am not an economist. I fail to see how this works for the good of all and into the future. Could someone please explain in words of one syllable?

 

The breakup of the "Coalition" looks

like an electoral disaster at present.  I am referring here to Downunder's "Coalition" of two political parties - the "Liberal" and the "National" parties.

For those of you in Elsewhere the Liberal party is I suppose a bit like the "Conservatives" in the UK. The Nationals are more rural focussed and more concerned with rural issues. Each party has its own policies but they are generally closely aligned.

Most of the time they have managed to rub along and share power in government. They have often done this very successfully, indeed kept a Trump like state Premier who had successfully remained in power for far too many years from becoming Prime Minister. (The said Premier relied on an extraordinary "gerrymander".) Ministries have been shared out between them and much more.

This week the Nationals announced a "divorce". The election results were seen as a disaster. Yes, they were disastrous but there were other factors at play. Our electoral system saw to that. For the "winner" none of this matters of course.

But...there are four areas the Nationals wanted the Liberals to come to grips with. The first of these was the vexed issue of nuclear power and the whole "green" energy debate. The Nationals policy is pro-nuclear. Whatever we may feel about nuclear power and how safe or dangerous it is and how much it might or might not cost we need to explore that issue much more thoroughly. It may not be popular but it may be necessary. We cannot ignore it. The scaremongering in the media has not helped. Labor's "green and nothing but whatever the cost" has been successfully sold to a gullible nation with the help of "experts" and a sales pitch which makes a used car salesman look like an amateur. 

The  Nationals also wanted the big supermarket chains to be forced to sell off parts of their business if they were found to be in breach of competition laws. Why the Liberals could not come at this is beyond me.  Coles and Woolworth's and their sidekick Aldi have more than their fair share of the market. It might not sound much to city people but it could have made a difference to what the big chains charged in rural areas. What would it have cost to enforce? Almost nothing. Why did they not make it policy?

They also wanted to require the telecommunications companies to improve the coverage in rural areas. To me this seems perfectly reasonable, indeed more than reasonable. We are more and more dependent on telecommunications but there are areas where mobile (cell) phone coverage still is not possible. Add this problem to banks and other businesses closing in rural areas and people are left struggling to do ordinary and everyday tasks that urban dwellers take for granted.  So what was wrong with adding that to Coalition policy? Yes, expensive to start with but vital to the future of this country.

And they wanted a $20bn future fund for rural areas. Yes, that is a lot of money but it is not as much as it seems for a country with a land mass this size. If we want people to move to and live in "regional" areas then they are going to need many of the same services as their city counterparts. You are not going to get people to live outside cities if there are no medical services, no hospitals, less education options and the roads are in poor repair - and that is just a start. 

These things may not have won the Coalition the election. The anti-nuclear brigade, many of whom have heavy financial investments in "renewable" energy schemes, had the support of the media - indeed owned a good deal of it. 

The split between the two parties cannot be allowed to turn into divorce. If this happens then the present government will have too much power far into the future and not just for the next three years. 

 

  

"Cash not accepted"

the door sign said. As I had no intention of going in or buying anything it was not of immediate concern to me. It just saddened me that yet another local business has gone "cashless". 

There was a time when there were four banks inside or within the immediate vicinity of our local shopping centre. There were also five ATMs. Now there are no banks and one ATM that can be accessed out of hours. There is a second ATM that is "privately owned" inside - and you pay extra to use it.

We have a great many very elderly people in the area and a number of "group houses" for people with a range of intellectual and mental disabilities. Most of them still use cash. This is particularly so when cheques are almost a thing of the past.

The local post office (which is not open on Saturdays as it is an "official" one, not privately run) does a limited amount of banking. It is not a full banking service.  

Yes, the government is determined to see us go "cashless". They keep saying this is the way of the future and that it is "safer" this way. We are being told that "people no longer want to use cash" and that "most people do internet banking now". 

I know. I have been here before on this blog. It concerns me. I have good reason to be concerned. I have a friend whose daughter has Down Syndrome. With an enormous amount of time and effort her daughter is becoming independent in many ways. She has her own bank account. She "works" at a sheltered workshop and her parents have insisted she have some financial literacy. Yes, she is capable of all that. In many ways she is capable but using a debit card will probably always be beyond her. She needs cash in her hand so she can understand how much money she has, how much she needs and how much she will have left. To do this she needs to go into a bank and get cash. Using the ATM is not a safe option.

I also know several people who live in group houses. Only one of them can use an ATM with any degree of safety. It takes him much longer to do this than most people. That alone is not particularly safe but he manages. I have helped him at times. He knows he must not give me "the four important numbers" but he is more than happy for me to help him check the balance and then take money out. Of all those I know he is the most competent. The rest rely on cash which is handed out to them by whichever "carer" is running their residence at the time. 

Using a debit card safely and responsibly would be beyond the capabilities of any of these people. They will be confused when told that "money" is no longer accepted at a local business.

It is of course much more convenient for the owner of the business. There is no longer any need to go to the bank. They will do all their banking "online" and do most of the work once done by a teller. All this is supposed to be much more "convenient". It is supposed to save "time" and even "money" itself. 

Cash is still legal of course. I have sometimes had to wait for Middle Cat near an outlet which sells lottery tickets. It is interesting to see how many people pay for their lottery tickets with cash. Cash is anonymous, usefully anonymous at times. Most of those buying a lottery ticket would never think cash might also be useful for a domestic violence victim. 

 

Is teaching really such a "great job"

any more?

The Senior Cat loved teaching. His greatest pleasure was being with children and helping them learn. He turned down multiple requests to be a "school inspector" and to take up senior administrative roles in the central office of the state's Education Department.  

"But you could easily have been the Director-General!" more than one person told him, including Ministers of Education on opposite sides of the political fence.

No, he did not want that. He was ambitious but not in any way which would have led him away from contact with children. Even when he was the school principal children would gravitate towards him, not away from him. They were, unless a miscreant, happy to talk to him and with him. 

There was more than one student who went on to a career in teaching because of his influence. Some of them have done well. Almost all of them are now retired but several ended their own careers as school principals. 

I was talking to one of these people yesterday. He retired at the end of the last school year and is about to set off on the "adventure of a life time", a trip around the coastline of the country. Does he miss school?

"I miss the kids," he told me. "I do not miss anything else. Teaching is not the same now."

I keep hearing that over and over again from other people in the teaching profession. I also hear it from people who have left the teaching profession. What started out as a "great job" has become a quagmire of forms, rules, regulations, diversity training, equity issues, behavioural issues, special needs, autism, social awareness and more. Teaching is apparently now a secondary issue for many, especially in low income areas. There you are the social worker and much more before you are the teacher. 

Both the person I was chatting with and I had been reading the newspaper articles recently being about teaching and teachers, about what makes a good teacher and how they might influence their students.

I must confess here to not caring very much for school. Most of the time I was bored. I doubt I recognised that at the time but my teachers did not inspire me. I went to school because I had to go to school. There are a few occasions which stand out but that is all.

I liked my last English teacher. We stayed in touch until she died. Her lessons were good but not outstanding. What was outstanding was, having discovered how much I loved reading, she provided me with a great deal of reading outside the curriculum. She encouraged me to think about further education even while accepting I was not very interested in school based learning. 

My last history teacher was the man who came in one morning and told us. "Close your books. I am going to tell you what is going to happen. You are living in history." Rhodesia was about to become Zimbabwe and he explained all this to us. Looking back I know the other students thought this was dull stuff. I was much more interested. 

I remember one other occasion when, during a Religious Knowledge (compulsory) class the teacher said something which suddenly made sense to me. It had nothing to do with religion as such but with language. I remember challenging him and he found something for me to read. It is unlikely anyone else even knew the word Aramaic but it was one of the little things that kept my interest in language and languages alive.  I met him again years later and he remembered my interest.  "Yes, I remember you well. You are the only student who ever questioned anything I said." Really? That was surely poor teaching?

I wonder now how my teachers would cope. I doubt they would do that well. The best of them, the history teacher, would probably maintain some discipline but they would not excite or encourage their students. 

With all that they were mostly nice people and they almost certainly had a belief they could teach the young. They may even have genuinely liked teaching. 

Did they inspire any student to go on and do great things? I do not know of any who taught me. I went to school with someone who became a politician but her father was a politician before her. I went to school with someone who became a world renowned neonatal cardiac surgeon but his parents were heavily involved in his educational ambitions. Almost everyone else I went to school with has been a good citizen and perhaps had a positive impact on those around them. Perhaps that has been something to do with the influence of our teachers on them. Perhaps that is also enough? 

I do not know. I was lucky enough to have parents, particularly a father, who believed in the importance of reading - and books ended up being the most important teacher of all.

 

 

Yet another politician has resigned

from the party on whose platform they were elected. 

This time the resignation is on a very personal issue indeed. The politician in question has failed to get pre-selection at the next election. 

In this instance the election is four years away. The politician is half-way through an eight year term in the Upper House. The party in question is a very minor one and likely to remain that way. 

All this however is beside the point. There are some issues here. Not least of those issues is that the politician was elected as a member of that party and not as an individual. Their presence in parliament is a result of enough people having made a decision to vote for or preference that person to represent them as a member of that party. There is also the issue of the stability of government. Immediately post election we were told "this is the result" and "this is how the parliament will look". That is, or should be, democracy at work. If that does not happen then we could have very serious problems. And of course there is the issue of "who paid to get the politician elected?"

Some years ago the then elected member went "independent" almost as soon as the results were announced at the new election. He claimed to do this in the interests of the "stability" of government but almost immediately took up a ministry with the opposite party.  He had been the leader of the party, a man touted as the next Premier. Whatever he might have claimed his move was made out of self-interest. At the next election he received less than ten percent of the vote he had previously obtained. That is as it should have been. It would have been better still if he had been required to resign immediately and face the electorate again.

This seems to be an increasing problem. The last election saw a Senator resign from the government benches over her personal views on Gaza. Another fiery Senator resigned from the party which helped to get her elected over her personal issues on the "Voice". A lower house MP quit the party she represented at the election and joined another. It was almost certainly done so with a leadership position in mind - but it might also have prevented that same thing from happening. 

We need to change this. Those who stand for election must recognise that they are not there to represent themselves but to represent the people who elected them even if they disagree with the majority decisions.  

 

Advertising "fast food" will no longer

be allowed on our buses? Oh wait a minute that also includes any food which might be considered potentially bad for you? 

I am quite happy with the idea of removing soft drinks, flavoured milks and sweets or chips (crisps) from strategic points in supermarkets. It bothers me that they are there and clearly intended to tempt you or, more likely, the young, while you wait to check out the healthy things. The psychology of all that is exquisite.

But is banning the advertising of everything considered "unhealthy" really healthy? Is it really going to make people eat less of these things? Might it actually have the reverse effect?  

I cannot claim to be entirely immune to advertising because nobody is. I can claim to be "aware" of it and know something about it and how it works. I can admire a "clever" advertisement but know I will never buy the product. I am also well aware that if I happen to prowl down the aisle which sells ice cream and ice cream happens to be "on special" then I will be tempted. I rather like ice cream.  This has nothing to do with "advertising" as such  because I will also be "tempted" by a "two for one deal" on something I use on a regular basis.  

As far as the advertising on buses is concerned though I doubt I could tell you anything which is being advertised on a bus. I am too busy watching where the bus is going and trying to judge the speed. Is that what it is like for the driver of a car? I have to assume it is. So, who is the advertising for? I suppose it is for the driver stuck behind a bus in traffic and the passengers waiting or the pedestrians walking. Advertising on buses must pay because I know it is expensive but is it really that efficient? Perhaps it is more efficient and cheaper than that slick fifteen second clip on television or the noisy jingle on radio? Other people know about these things.

What I believe though is that banning the advertising of the things listed is not going to do much for lowering the level of their consumption. The supermarket I generally shop in has an entire aisle devoted to biscuits (both savory and sweet) and "lollies" of various types. It has another entire aisle devoted to soft drinks, "water" of various types and salty "snacks". Away from those aisles there are cakes and cakes mixes, breads of little food value, fruit juice and half an aisle of ice cream and desserts. This supermarket also has less than many others. At one end there is a "deli" with the cured meats and other things that buses can no longer advertise. 

In between all that is a fruit and vegetable section where the produce is usually fresh and good quality. In a way it is the most expensive area in the supermarket.  Items bought here have a short "shelf life". They are much more labour intensive both for the shop and the buyer. People are buying these things, of course they are. It is just that their trolleys will not be overflowing with them. The cost is seen as too high.

It is not the advertising on buses we need to be concerned about but the availability and the cost of the "good food". Even then how many of us have the strength to resist the equivalent of ice cream on special?

There is an article about Terry Tao

in this morning's paper but it also appeared in my news feed last night. I went to bed thinking about him and about someone else I know. 

For those of you who don't know I must explain that TerryTao is a mathematician, a winner of the Fields Medal - the "mathematical Nobel".   He has lived in California for many years but he was born here. He went to school at his local primary school and lasted a couple of years before he went off to the local high school.  There were articles about him. At the age of seven he was doing year eleven maths in the high school - and coming top of the class.

I know people who went to school with him. He was earnest, serious and hardworking even then. He also had an engaging smile, an air of absent mindedness about him at times.  A friend of mine was in the same maths class and said he was "super smart but still just a kid in some ways".  Of course he would be. At seven he might know a great deal more than other seven year old children but he did not have the life experiences of the sixteen and seventeen year old students around him. I wonder how lonely he was at times.

I have a friend who is also highly intelligent. Like Dr Tao she does not consider her "IQ" anything more than a score on a test on a particular day. Nevertheless other people would consider it to be something out of the ordinary because it is so far above the "average".  A... did not go to school until she was thirteen. This was not by choice but by circumstance. 

By the time she went to school she had qualified for entry to any prestigious university but she spent two years at school. A... knew she was simply far too young and lacking in life experience to go. She did not want to study maths. Her passion is for language and languages. After two years of school, which she admits to having loathed, she spent a year in another country. There she immersed herself in another language and helped students there to learn English.  She went off to university still younger than most but at a time she felt ready for it.

At university she did outstandingly well and she has done outstandingly well ever since but has admitted to often feeling lonely. We met when I was doing some work with children who have severe and profound communication issues. She was sitting quietly with a group at university when these were being discussed and asked me if she could come and observe one day. I was surprised but she seemed absolutely genuine so I agreed. 

Her encounter that day seemed to give her another purpose in life. She has pursued a career in other fields but her limited spare time is often given to working with children who have such limited communication skills. I have watched her at work with them and the interaction between them is extraordinary. She has seen many of them grow into adults and moved on to helping others as they leave. 

Although we live on opposite sides of the world we have remained friends, good friends.  This is so even when her intellectual capacities sometimes make me feel stupid. She never intends for that to happen. It is just that she seems to understand so much so quickly.

Some time ago someone asked her if she regretted her career choice. They felt she should have considered maths as a career but she just smiled and said that it would not have been right.

"I didn't have that little bit extra you need, the passion for it. Yes, maths was interesting. It was a challenge but language felt so much more important for me."

I wonder what sort of mathematician she would have been if she had chosen that route. She would have been very, very good but she would not have had Terry's skills.  As A... has said, you need a passion for the subject. Being "interested" is not enough to do as well as either of them have done.  I admit to feeling passionate about providing people with the skills to communicate with each other. It is not quite the same as it is when combined with their level of ability. Both intelligence and passion are necessary for outstanding success.

I wonder though what would happen if we could inject all children with a "passion" drug? 

Buying clothes is not something

I find any pleasure in. I avoid it if I can. 

I tend to wait until the item which needs to be replaced is no longer fit for purpose. There will be a hole in a strategic place or the elastic cannot be replaced and the shopping expedition can no longer be delayed. It will not be possible to do the same thing "online". 

Yesterday was one such day. Middle Cat had already muttered something about why didn't I go into the CBD's shopping mall to get what I wanted. I shuddered inwardly. 

I pedalled off and caught a train instead. I could have caught two trains to do this but of course I had missed the first one and what is an extra twenty-five minutes of pedalling? It delays the evil moment. This involved a considerable distance but most of it is a gentle slope downhill. I thought about other things while avoiding the worst of the traffic by going along a back route.

At the big suburban shopping mall I parked and firmly locked the trusty trike to the bike rack. A passing stranger handed over the trolley they had been using so I could use it as a walker. Of course the three places I had in mind were scattered over a long distance. Sigh!

I wonder at people who seem to spend all day in these places. It was  "mid-week" I suppose but it still seemed to be crowded...and surely all those teenagers should have been at school?  I prowled past them. I looked cautiously at the other shops which "might" also have something in them but I did not enter. They would be a last resort. They are "brand names" and even more expensive. I do not believe in paying to advertise a brand. It is possible to get the identical, or almost identical, article for less than half the price. "Sale" signs are no longer "sales". They occur all year round.

One shop had nothing even though the sales assistant (when I found one) agreed that there "should be" something there. It was still showing up on their stock lists. 

The second shop was even less helpful. There was another customer in there who was also struggling. She was using a long handled cane for the visually impaired and clearly struggling to see anything. It was common sense to ask her if she wanted me to read the label. She accepted the offer and we agreed that clothes shopping was not a pleasure.

"I research before I come," she told me, "But it does not always help that much." I knew exactly what she meant. There was nothing there in my size or hers.

We went to the next shop together and I left her talking to a very helpful shop assistant. There was nothing there for me.

I stood there feeling cross and scratchy. Give up and catch two trains? I started down the other side of the mall and came across a rack outside a shop. I looked but there was nothing in my size.

"What size are you looking for?" another customer asked me, "They have some more there - same price." 

I gave her a grateful smile and put my paw out on something which will do. It is not perfect and I will have to ask Middle Cat or S.... to adjust the length...but it will do. The price was reasonable.

I went past the rather nice greengrocer on the way out and bought myself half a dozen mandarins.... I think I deserved those. 

Whose responsibility is it

to teach very young children about sex, gender, identity and diversity?

The question came up in an article in the state newspaper yesterday. I was bailed up outside the library and asked for my thoughts on the article and the issues. 

It came up because a day-care/preschool centre was running a "rainbow" day and had not consulted the parents about their wishes in this matter.  The "statement" made was in the sort of language which is now common wherever there are people who are passionately in favour of these issues. Was this right or not I was asked? Who should be teaching children and what should they be teaching them?

I thought back to my own childhood. I spent the first four years of my life in a very small country town - a "village" in English terms. It was larger than a hamlet but it was still small. Right around the town there was "mixed" farming, mostly sheep and wheat. There were some cows and hens too.

We children, in the way inquisitive and intelligent children do, knew a lot about all this. We knew how young lambs and calves appeared and watched them being born. The precise nature of the process before that was a bit hazy but we knew that a "mummy sheep" and a "daddy" had to get together in order for this to happen. I have a rather vague memory of watching a ram and a ewe together and a local farmer telling me and the other fascinated youngsters what was happening. The whole process was completely open to us.

Several years later our cat had kittens in a spot where she could actually be seen.  Again Mum encouraged us to watch the process. Grandma, a farm girl, came out and sat with us while Mum went off to feed our infant sister. We talked about it, about how the kittens had come to be and how our mother had given birth to us.

How many children had such an open education I have no idea. I think it is highly likely that almost every child in the small country town and surrounding areas was well informed. It would not have been the same in the city because the same opportunities were not there. 

We were of course taught there were boys and there were girls. We knew whether we were boys or girls. It did not stop us playing with each toys belonging to both our brothers and our sisters. It did not stop me turning the doll house into a railway station. It did not prevent me from wanting and being given that clockwork train.  By the time I was eight I knew about homosexuality. It was illegal then of course but the two men who "shared" a house next door to us in the city were undoubtedly a couple. Mum tried to keep us away from them but they were a gentle, harmless couple with no interest in us except in a friendly and neighbourly way.  The Senior Cat was much more open about this and explained quite calmly to me that "some men prefer to be with other men but it is not polite to talk about that". It all sounded quite reasonable to me.

But would I have been ready for this at age two? I would have known there were "boys" and "girls" because my brother had arrived and I knew there were "mummy" and "daddy" sheep and that the "mummy" sheep was the one which fed the lambs.  I do not think I was confused by that. It was my good fortune to have spent the first four years of my life in a place where these things were simply considered normal. This all happened with parental consent too.

Now it seems that this can no longer be taught.  I would  be taught a bewildering range of ideas that do not allow for a distinction between male and female or their roles. It might also be done without parental consent. 

My response to the person who bailed me up was eventually, "Perhaps I was better educated." I do not know if that is right or not.  

Are we building a hospital or

or a monument to the folly of politicians?

Back in 2013 the state government announced a big new project, a new children's hospital. It was a very big project. It was to be completed by 2023.  

The cost was huge of course. Building any hospital will never be cheap. They get built because we need them. This project was going to be "state of the art". 

We already have another "state of the art" hospital in this state. It is still the most expensive building in the southern hemisphere. It is too small and there are multiple other problems with it. I have been in and out of it to visit patients. Somehow I have, with the help of "volunteers", managed to find my way to various "wards". They are actually not wards in the old fashioned sense of a hospital ward. Every room is a single room with ensuite facilities. There are clusters of rooms together so that cardiac patients might be found in one place and mental health patients in another...and so on.  

There is also the enormous (and it is genuinely enormous) cathedral like space which is the reception area if you are unfortunate enough to have to visit someone there. That alone must have cost millions to build. It is not welcoming. It is a waste of space. The staff working there always look harassed and anxious. I can understand their concerns so I always try to be especially nice to them.

Doctor Nephew worked there for a while during his final year at university. It was not a happy experience. The Emergency Department is far too small. There is a need for at least twice as many beds. There is nowhere for staff to store their personal belongings, sit down to write a report or get a much needed tea or coffee let alone something to eat.

Outside there is a fancy plaque telling people the hospital was opened by the state's Premier of the day. I think if I was that person I would want to tear it down. I would not want my name on the building.

The first sod for the new children's hospital was just turned over last month - two years after the proposed completion date. It is already going to be the most expensive building in the country. I keep being told by people who "know" that it is going to be "wonderful" and "state of the art". I am also being told by others, those who might still be working there when it is finally built, that it is going to be "too small" and that it "lacks some of the facilities we need" and "we should be learning from the mistakes made and the other place".

So, what is going on here? I suspect the answer is that this might be a too small hospital with problems about which people are already aware. It has been designed by architects who need a monument to politicians - and themselves.

Many years ago I worked in a school for profoundly disabled children. We worked in a building which was not merely unfit for purpose but dangerous. There were plans to build something new and the architects produced plans without consulting the teaching staff. After all, what do teachers know about architecture. We were asked to comment. 

At the end of the consultation period the plans were thrown out and they had to start again. What the architects and others had proposed would never have worked. I don't know what was built in the end because I left not long after. It probably made little difference because the school was closed not long after the building was opened. Millions were wasted on that project.

Millions are being wasted on this new project as well. Those who will need to work there are not being asked - but there will be a plaque on the building when someone opens it.   

Skipping school is

not something you can do if you are "the teacher's kid" or you need to catch the big yellow school bus driven by a teacher.

Truanting was actually very rare in the rural schools I attended. If you were not there then everyone knew about it. You could not get lost in a crowd of a thousand or more students at secondary level. There were simply not that many students. At primary level it was even more difficult because you were under the eye of one teacher for almost the entire day. If you disappeared then search parties went out. Your parents would be told. If you tried it on then you would likely be given a "good wallop" by your father.

Yes, of course there were children and teenagers who truanted back then but it did not occur to most of us to do it. School was somewhere you simply had to go. You had to work when you got there. Some of it was okay, some of it was boring. There were parts which were sometimes quite interesting. No, I did not like school much but I would never have considered not being there by choice.

There is yet another article about truanting in the paper. Apparently there are 1.4m children who are absent from school for at least 10% of the time. The attendance rate pre-Covid was 73% and it has dropped to 59.8%. Among students in indigenous schools it is even lower having gone from 46.9% to 35.2%. The writer of the article has attempted to put it in context by saying that almost half of all students in years seven to ten lost a month of schooling last year. As at least some students were there all the time then there are students losing much more time than that. 

It is apparently much more difficult to "skive off" if you attend a private (fee paying) or Catholic school. There are several around here and their pupils are rarely seen in the shopping centre during school hours.  If they are there then it is because of things like dental appointments or other medical reasons. They almost always have parents or grandparents or another adult with them. 

For the two big secondary schools it is a different story. Their students can be seen at almost any time. Ask them what they are doing and they will claim they have "free periods". There seem to be a lot of those. We did not know what they were. Homework was heaped upon us. There was no "hanging around" the shopping centre or the fast food places across the road. (There were no fast food places!) 

So many of the students tell me school is "boring". It was often not very interesting when I was at school but we did not expect it to be interesting all the time.  I suspect what has changed is the expectation school will be like their surfing on the internet. It will be slick and fast. Above all it will be "entertaining". These students expect to be entertained non-stop. 

School is not like that of course. It should not be like that. Perhaps if we want to change this then we need to change the way we treat learning at the pre-school level.  As we now seem to think it is necessary to teach pre-school children to learn to "code" this is unlikely to happen.

My own belief, and that of the late Senior Cat, is that schools need to change. For at least a good part of each day there needs to be a return to actual teaching - the sort where you face a teacher and are required to listen and answer questions asked of you. There would be no "screen" based learning during those times.  What is more there would be a requirement to use pen and paper at those times. I know it sounds very "old-fashioned" but research suggests those things may actually work.  

I also want to see a return to learning of practical skills for those students who do not see "university" in their futures. Why on earth do we think that these things are no longer important enough to be taught in schools here? Are these things really less important than teaching children about "gender", "racism" and "sexism"? Do they matter less than knowing about Eid Mubarak and Divali but not about Christianity?

I am wondering if we will end up with a society where half the population is "educated" and the other half is not. We voted back in a government that is going to continue the policies which ensure that too many students want to skive off school - and I am not sure the alternative government would have been much better.   

Parents are complaining about

a "transgender thirteen year old child" winning the running, high jump, javelin and discus events at a school sports day. They are saying it was "not fair".  The issue has been reported in our state newspaper and it will no doubt bring about a lot of discussion. Nothing has been said about how the other students competing against this one feel. Nothing has been said about how the student feels either. 

I am wondering how the student relates to the other students in the school. What sort of relationship do they have? Do they have friends? Is there some good medical reason for a thirteen year old to be "transgender"? How do they cope with what must be a very, very challenging situation? 

I have no idea of course. I do not know the student, their family, their friends or anything else about them. 

At thirteen I was not an "easy" child. There were multiple reasons for that but some of them were simply to do with what all children go through as they transition from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. It is a difficult time. 

My brother, not in the least a "sporty" child was being made to feel a failure because he simply did not want to throw a cricket ball or kick a footy. We lived in an area where these things were considered an essential part of life. It is what you did. He now feigns an interest for the sake of his grandchildren but that is all. When he was forced to participate he was playing with boys. The idea that a girl might be part of the team did not occur to them. The word "transgender" would have meant nothing.

Middle Cat played every sport she could find. She was on the state teams for two of them. She has coached teams and trained teams. She knows the rules and regulations and more. She grew up in a time when girls played sport with girls and boys played with boys apart from a brief time on the school football team in a remote area.  There were not enough boys to make up the minimum requirement for a team and she insisted she could do it. Yes, she could do it but only because almost all the boys were younger and smaller than she was. She was not competing on an "equal" basis and nobody pretended that she was.

There will be students at the school mentioned who are feeling disappointed, very disappointed. Whatever they might be told and whatever they might say they will feel disappointed. The students who came second will "know" they might have come first if the transgender child who could run faster, throw further and jump higher had not gone in front of them. They will wonder what they are being taught about not just gender issues but about so much as well.

I do not know what the answer is. I suppose it depends on how people feel about the "transgender" issue. It would be interesting to hear the honest opinions of all the students concerned.

  

The "hard rubbish collection" is

a thing of the past. For the uninitiated this was a once a year event run by each local council area. It allowed you to put out things you wanted to get rid of and leave them on the verge or the area between the footpaths and the road. 

For a week the area would be littered with all sorts of "rubbish". It was amazing how much of it would disappear. People would put out everything from old fridges and  microwaves to boxes of newspapers, from broken toys to bits of timber, from boxes filled with games to old golf clubs and much, much more. These things would disappear.  People would lay claim to things that other people no longer wanted or needed.

It no longer happens. Councils stopped doing it. It is said they stopped doing it for reasons of safety. Yes, there were some safety issues involved. The council told us they would allow a collection we could book. It can be done once a year. The amount you are permitted to put out is small. In our area it is a cubic metre.  The weight has to be such that it can be lifted by one man.

When we packing up the last house we took the risk and did put good quality things out for collection. Fortunately the council inspectors did not find out. People took away good timber we could not use. They took away some very large plastic boxes with lids. Those were in excellent condition but they were too big for this place. We put out the refrigerator that was too big to go here that we had not been able to give away on Facebook. (I have a smaller one now, courtesy my BIL's employer who no longer needed it.) It disappeared in the space of an hour even though it would not have even been picked up by the council.

There were people who depended on these collection times. They would come looking for furniture, for firewood, for things they could repair and sell. They searched for toys they could use for their own children and a bike they could ride to their place of work. 

All that has gone apart from those who, like us, occasionally sneak things out for others to use. The arguments about safety may seem valid. Who was responsible if things went wrong, if an item harmed someone? There was never any mention in the media of this occurring. There were positive stories.

I met two boys who "rescued" a mattress. They wanted to take it on a train back to where they were squatting in a house several train stops away. The first train would not take them but the driver was sympathetic. "Wait," he told them, "I'll arrange something." He did and a later and much less used train took them and, although  it was an "express" not supposed to stop at their station it made a special stop. There was the mattress to sleep on. It was one of the things that eventually led those two boys to now run their own business in another state. I wonder what the councillors would make of that now. 

For all the issues involved I think those collections should be reconsidered. They encouraged recycling, reusing, repairing and more. That might do more for the environment than we think.   

Our postal service needs to

return to its core business - actually delivering the mail. 

Yes, it could also be said that people need to write more letters. This is not going to happen if the mail is not being delivered in a timely fashion at a reasonable price. It is also not going to happen if business insists on using email and text messages. 

Yesterday I had a text message and an email both telling me the same thing. I needed to respond. I tried looking up the relevant website. There was the big headquarters address but not the address I was looking for so I had to send an email. They need to send me a physical object, a piece of paper. They will need to use the postal service.

As a child I remember, while we lived in the city, the mail was delivered eleven times a week. It came twice a day Monday to Friday and once on Saturday mornings. The postmen (to the best of my knowledge there were no women) rode bicycles and blew a whistle if there was anything dropped into the letterbox all suburban houses were required to have on their front fence.

My paternal grandfather also had mail delivered to his place of business in this way. If there were parcels they were delivered by red vans that went around every working day.

People wrote letters to one another, often by hand. Even some business correspondence  was written by hand. It had to be legible! My paternal great-grandmother wrote to all her eleven surviving children on a regular basis unless she actually saw them at least once a week. My mother wrote to each of us children on a regular basis all the time we were away from home - and we were expected to be equally regular correspondents in return. Brother Cat has kept many of her letters. I tried to but came home to discover she had thrown most of them out. 

Brother Cat also worked as a postman one Christmas period. It was considered an excellent short term job for male university students.

I was offered a job as a "postal delivery person" but it came with the proviso that you had to be able "maintain and repair" the delivery vehicle and you had to be physically able to do the job.  It was not a serious offer, just one being made to everyone looking for work.

Now postmen get around in little electric buggies rather like golf-carts. They deliver the mail once on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays one week and Tuesdays and Thursdays on the other week. There are no Saturday deliveries at all. Parcels still get delivered in vans but sometimes have to be collected from a Post Office. The Post Offices are less in number and most do not open on Saturdays.

Mail takes much longer to reach us now. Those alternate day deliveries are part of the problem but, even taking that into account, there seem to be other delays. It can take more than a week for a letter to go from one side of the city to the other even if you pay for "express" post. Why? Sorting is largely done by machine.

It is one of those things which makes me wonder if we really are "better off" under the recent changes...and I do wish people would read and respond to emails the way they used to read and respond to letters.  

How many new clothes do you buy

in a year? Apparently Downunderites buy an average of fifty-five. In the UK the number is apparently around thirty-three. 

That is what I have been told but I find it hard to believe. Who has the money to buy that many clothes? Is it why some people claim to be poor? Why do three hundred thousand tonnes of clothing end up in landfill in this country every year?

Yes, I threw out some clothing last year. I threw out some underwear that was, in anyone's book, no longer within its use by date. I also passed on a t-shirt. My BIL now uses it as "rag" in his workshop. That was it. One pair of jeans went into a rag recycle bin because they had worn through at the knees and had paint splashes. I am too old a cat for that "worn" look when it reaches that point.

I tend to wear my clothes until they can no longer be worn with any honour or decency. I do not have a wardrobe full of unworn clothing. Even my BIL muttered something about this when we were moving things from one place to another.

Of course I did not need a wardrobe of "work clothes". Working from home meant I just had to look clean most of the time. I do not own a dress. I did not need one. 

We finally gave away the Senior Cat's tweed jacket. It was almost seventy years old. Someone else is actually using it now. I think he would be pleased by that.

So what on earth are other people doing? Why are they "dumping" so much? What are they buying?

The clothes must be cheap I suppose. They will come from chain stores or on-line places and are made in China or Vietnam or India or some other country with cheap labour. The materials they are made from are often artificial and do not wear well. We know all that but people continue to buy them. They are "fashionable".

A friend who likes to make her own clothes was bemoaning how hard it was to get "good cotton fabric" recently. The really good fabric can be very, very expensive. Even I know that. Expensive it might be but she still wears classic clothing she made many years ago. It has not proved to be that expensive over all and it looks good.

Of course it is likely that most of us, including me, cannot do anything like that but a lucky few can.

And sometimes we can be lucky. I was passing a "factory outlet" store one day when a shirt caught my eye. It was a "sample" that had apparently gone no further into production. Perhaps it was just a bit too "classic"? I do not know. I will never know. It was my size and, if I was even more careful for the next few weeks, I could just afford it and the second sample in the different colour. I bought both of them.

They were, dear reader, made from Liberty fabric. That was thirty-seven years ago. I can still wear them and I see no reason to send them to land fill because they are little faded.

The Conclave to appoint a new Pope

is underway. Many of us will wonder what is going on behind those locked doors. I do not envy the men concerned.

Yes, they are simply men. They are simply ordinary human beings like the rest of us, perhaps a little more able or intelligent than some but still people who need to eat and sleep like the rest of us.

It is said that Pope Francis stood in the breakfast queue the morning after his election and asked, "What have you done to me?" It is said he had already sent the two Swiss guards outside his door off to have their own breakfast.  

Those two things marked a change from the start. He could have had his own staff, including his own chef. It is said he continued to try and keep his life, and that of those around him, as simple as possible. We will probably never know how much of it is true. 

I do know the stories of him going out into Rome at night and just mixing with "ordinary" people are likely to be true. A friend of mine saw him out on the streets one night. The local Romans were not mobbing him. He was simply talking with some young people. They were all laughing. Had he told a joke? It is possible.

There is no question that the person chosen to be the next Pope will have a position of influence. That ability to influence may be less than many people believe. There are all the politics of any big organisation involved and, in the Vatican, these are undoubtedly something which prevents change as much as causes it.

I have been thinking of all things of course. There was the election of a President in another country, America, which had caused a tsunami of shock waves around the world. The election in this country was heavily influenced by that result. It means we are now likely to have not just another three years but six or more of the same inept policies. Whether the Opposition would have been much better is something we will never know. Most of us are simply trying to be grateful that we do not live in America and wondering how we are going to get ourselves out of the mess which their President is causing us. Their President will be gone at their next Presidential election.

The new Pope will, unless he chooses to resign as Pope Benedict did, be there for life. Pope Francis must have longed to resign but he apparently believed he had a duty to remain on duty. Perhaps that is the best way to have it if someone is still mentally competent. Those who do not want the power bestowed on them may be those who best required to wield it. 

 

We make films in this country

and although I am not someone who sees many films I do know the industry is an important one. As a family we have been involved in them in various ways.  The Senior Cat appears very briefly in one as does Middle Cat.  I once appeared in a documentary which is probably buried in the bowels of the state's film archives. (I hope it remains buried.)

Middle Cat's sons however appear in earnest in serious films which ended up in theatres. They both did well and managed to learn a lot from their experiences but did not want to pursue careers in theatre. They had time out of school but had to not merely keep their schoolwork up but show they were maintaining their positions at or near the top of the class. They had lines to learn - not merely memorise. They lived in remote locations and put up with all the adults around them getting short tempered. They had to repeat their scenes more than once and often because adults did not get something right. Being a child actor can be much more difficult but how many of us recognise that when we see a child on screen?

I know something about how films are produced and the truly enormous work than can go into making them. There are things I have picked up from the experiences of my nephews, from hearing the Senior Cat talk with people in the industry, from my brief acquaintance with people at National Playwright's Conferences and more. I have been instrumental in finding items to be used on sets. Finding the right locations and dealing with weather related issues are just part of the work involved but very important parts. (These two things are big considerations which make this country popular with the film industry.)

Filming can disrupt a local community for days or even weeks. Some time ago we found this out here when a very small scene for something was filmed in a location not far from where I live. It took several days to film something that will probably be less than a minute on screen. The preparation for it was obviously immense and involved all sorts of permissions.

Just as the publishing industry has been hit by the ease with which books can be copied and put up for everyone to read the film industry is the same. Trying to stop this completely is rather like trying to stop a road train travelling downhill without brakes. 

It is a wonder then that anyone would try to sabotage the brakes but this is what it seems the President of the United States has done. Imposing a 100 % tariff on them is going to hurt Hollywood more than it hurts us.  

Can you remember what you ate

 as a child?

I was asked that question yesterday. The person who asked it is Italian by birth. She has been here for many years but still tends to cook the sort of food she would perhaps have cooked in Italy fifty or more years ago.

I thought about it and told her that I could. I am a bit hazy about my very early childhood but I do remember porridge and vegetables from the garden. I remember the currant buns the baker made especially for the small children of the place we lived in. They seemed big to us but they were actually about a quarter the size of those he sold to older children and adults. If you did not go to school then you knew that on one morning a week you could go pedalling on your "dinky" down to the bakery and he would hand out buns to the seven or so of us who lived in the town.  We were considered spoilt. Perhaps we were but we certainly knew to say "thank you".

When we moved to the city the Senior Cat built up another garden. He had to. We depended on it for food. Grandpa had one too. How they found time to garden is a mystery given one was studying for his university degree and the other was running his tailoring business.

There was a lot of pumpkin in our diet. They were easy to grow and kept well. In summer we had a lot of tomatoes. Mum would bottle them in a "Vacola" outfit and we would have them right through winter. We ate quite a lot of fish. Grandpa knew the fishermen and would get it directly from them. Meat appeared on Sundays and, with any luck, the rest of the roast joint would appear in our sandwiches on Mondays. Eggs came from the hens Grandpa kept or that Nana would bring if they had any to spare. We had whatever fruit was in the garden or, occasionally, oranges Grandpa would bring back from his customers in the hills behind us. Bananas were an occasional "treat" too. They had to be bought.

Very occasionally we would have ice cream as a very special treat. There was only one flavour available - vanilla. There were also "ice blocks". They came in red, orange, green and a virulent blue. On the rare occasions we were permitted to have them Mum used to insist on us having the orange or green sort.

When we moved to the remote bush we had more meat and no fish. There was a forequarter of mutton one week and a hind quarter the next. Like everyone else in the town we depended on a local farmer to kill a couple of sheep and deliver the meat. It was usually tough and the whole process would have a food inspector panicking.  The farmer killed a steer once and everyone had tough beef for a couple of weeks. With it we would have a lot of pumpkin, potatoes and peas that came in packets and had to be reconstituted. Occasionally Mum would make pastry and we would have pasties but that rarely happened. She would mince the meat herself - or my brother would do it under her supervision. I would be set to do something like scrubbing the potatoes. Fruit came in tins unless we went to the shop in the "big" town some thirty-five miles away. You could buy apples there - and very expensive bananas and oranges. Apples were a treat.

It was not until we moved to the then tiny dairying town that we had real milk again. Until then we had gone back to powdered milk which had to be reconstituted each morning using a whisk. It tasted awful but that was the water. Rainwater was only used for drinking and we dared not waste a drop.

 The milk in the dairying town came straight from the cow. Mum would heat it on the stove top because it was not pasteurised. We drank a lot of milk. It was my brother's job to get a gallon can of it each morning from the dairy.  He would ladle it out himself and leave the money on the shelf.

When we moved again we had to go back to the limitations of tinned fruit and of course mutton and pumpkin.

Somehow we survived all this and were actually pretty healthy even if we did spend our pocket money on tubes of Life Saver peppermints and "conversation" squares. 

I knew about "spaghetti" and "baked beans" from tins. I did not know about pasta or curry or stir-fry. Broccoli was unknown to me. Rice came as either rice pudding baked in the oven or steamed rice served up with "mince and tatties". I suspect the rice was intended to fill us up. Grandma just gave us mince and tatties. 

But unlike many other children we had a Yugoslav neighbour for a while. She liked to cook and we children would sometimes get strange sweet cakes or biscuits. Mum never seemed to mind this. It helped to feed us and she could always give another English lesson in return. It gave me an interest in the food of other cultures.

Now I cook quite differently but I still eat a lot of vegetables.  Middle Cat cooks a great deal of food inspired by her Greek-Cypriot MIL. I suspect Brother Cat does a considerable amount of stir-fry. It is fast and save on the number of utensils used. (His partner prefers to clean the car.)

But yes, I remember when chicken was a Christmas Day treat. I remember the cake on Sunday and the weet-bix with Vegemite after school. I remember seemingly endless "stews" made from whatever Mum could find to put together.  We ate it all.

And, at the annual School Fete day we had toffee apples and marshmallow in ice-cream cones and peanut brittle. It was all pretty good stuff. 

 

 

Buttons and

buttonholes or something else?

Any knitter will know the "button and buttonhole" dilemma. Many an otherwise well knit garment has failed at that point. The buttonhole will be too small or too large or will not look as neat as desired even when the instructions have been followed exactly.

It is why some people never add buttons to anything and many more do so only reluctantly. 

Then there are buttons for other things. There are endless variations on what constitutes a button. They can be so small you can barely see them or so large that just one will suffice for an entire garment. They can be made from more materials than we think possible.

The Senior Cat made some buttons for me. Doing so was a slow, fiddly sort of process. He was not good at designing things - or so he said. He certainly could not design buttons. I told him how I wanted them. They were never very big because he would make them from "pen blanks" - pieces of timber intended for turning wooden cases for fountain pens, biros (ballpoint pens) and pencils. But, they were made from lovely timbers. One lot was Huon pine, another was "blackwood" and yet another was olive of special provenance. I added them to things I knitted and kept one set for myself - and used them all.

There were times when buttons came off things, particularly off our school shirts and blouses. Mum would sew them back on fiercely and crossly. As we grew old enough we were expected to do this ourselves. Even the Senior Cat would attempt to sew his own buttons on. Mum thought he should be able to do this because, after all, his father was a tailor.

I remember watching both Grandma and Grandpa sew buttons on. Grandma would do it quickly and neatly. She taught me how to do it and did not expect me to waste endless minutes trying to thread the needle.  Grandpa could do it too and do it skilfully but the reality was that the buttons on the garments he made would often be sewn there by one of the "girls" or women he employed. Why sew them on yourself when you have nearly forty women who could do it for you? 

As very small children we loved the "button box" belonging to Grandma. We were allowed to tip the buttons out and sort them. "Find me the small blue buttons," she would tell us, "I need one for this." We would look for those small blue buttons. She would even discuss the choice of button with us and then it would be sewn on a shirt or some other item. 

It was never quite the same with Mum's mother, "Nana". Yes, she had a button box and we were sometimes allowed to look in it but only under her supervision because, "You might swallow one." Oddly enough none of us ever swallowed a button at Grandma's house.

I thought of all this as I searched for the button box yesterday. When I finally found it there was nothing suitable in it. Today I will call into the charity shop. There are buttons there. I might be lucky. Looking there always reminds me of Grandma.