Penelope Keith added a phrase to

our family's repertoire of insider jokes. She does not say it herself but her expression as it is said tells us so much. As the snobby Margot in "The Good Life" she is trying to clean up after her neighbour Barbara (Felicity Kendal). She has put down newspapers and brought out the vacuum cleaner in an effort to keep things immaculate and Barbara says, "You missed a bit."  Now, if anyone leaves something behind when clearing up we are likely to say "You missed a bit." We understand the joke but it has to be explained to other people. It is just one of those little oddities that occur in our family that have come from the outside.

Her death has left me wondering how many other families have been influenced by her superb acting.  Anyone can say the lines but saying them with meaning and that all important ability to do it at precisely the right moment is rare.  She was exactly right for that "snobbishness" but apparently not in the least bit snobbish herself. Her marriage to a policeman lasted, something of a rarity in the world of acting. That surely says a great deal about her as a person.

I have never had any desire to be on stage. The thought of having to so thoroughly immerse myself in being someone else is one I actually find genuinely frightening. I hope I could still learn the lines but I very much doubt I could say them. How do they do it? It is something I would like to have asked her, would like to ask someone like Dame Judi Dench, would like to have asked Dame Maggie Smith.  To my mind they are and were people who could really act. It is a rare gift, but one which would have to be worked at all the time. I am absolutely certain it would not be easy. 

I suspect I would have liked Dame Penelope if I had ever met her. It leaves just Dame Judi Dench, another apparently gracious lady, of the four "great dames". It has been a great privilege to "know" them. 

 

 

Please do not tax education

or the books which help to do it.

There is apparently a robust discussion going on in Upover at present. Their government introduced VAT or "value added tax" into their fee paying schools. The discussion revolves around whether they were right to do this, whether it has brought in any money, what the effect is on the overall school system and more. Those who oppose any form of "private" education - oddly known as "public" by some - think this has been desirable. Others do not.

We have the same sort of discussion here. It comes on every time there is any tax payer money spent on the fee paying system. There are people who strongly oppose spending any money on the "private" school system, so much so there have been serious attempts to ban it altogether.

I went to both public and fee paying schools. My parents worked in the public system and it was natural that this was where I and my siblings should go. Then, in my last year, it was no longer possible to do that. The school I was attending, the one the Senior Cat was principal of, could no longer cater for me. It could no longer cater for anyone who wanted to complete their secondary education. This was just the way things worked in rural areas. Students who wanted to go on had to move on. 

There was a choice of course. You could head to the nearest school which taught what you needed or you could go further afield to the capital city. Going to the nearest school might be two or more hours away so your parents might find someone willing to take in a "weekly" boarder, often a relative. The school would almost certainly still have a limited range of subjects and facilities simply because it would be a "country" school.  Or you could head off to the capital city. Boarding with a family might still be an option but it was much more difficult to find. Boarding school was the answer for many families. It still is.  We could do away with all this I suppose and have state run boarding houses for students from outlying areas like they do in Shetland but is that really the answer? 

The real issue however is should those who are already being taxed pay additional tax because of the choice they make to educate their young?  Most people would see that as wrong. I see it as wrong. I see it as wrong because I do not believe you should tax education. It is education which leads to employment which leads to paying taxes and a better standard of living for everyone. Education provides the services we need. 

I know not everyone will agree. There will still be people who say adding VAT to school fees is the right thing to do. 

Will they also argue that adding VAT to books is the right thing to do? Is it right to tax people who want to read? That is what happens here. There is our equivalent of VAT, the GST (goods and services tax), on books. It is something which should never have happened. Those who do not buy books do not see this as a problem of course. They do not see it as taxing knowledge. They simply shrug and say, "If you want to read..." 

I do not see reading in the same way as I see going to a football match. If I buy a book for myself then I potentially have that book for as long as I need it. The football match is over in a few hours and most of it, if not all, is forgotten a few months later. Information inside a book, or just the story itself, can remain with you forever. 

Education, including all means of accessing it, should surely not be subject to additional forms of tax? No doubt the topic will be back under robust debate when the next budget is being handed down.  

  

No, parents must be responsible

and be held responsible. You are not going to get children under sixteen off social media by trying to make "big tech" responsible. It will not work...or rather, it might work but not in the way the government intends.

I am fed up with the "ban". It is not working. You only have to walk through the shopping centre after school is out or watch the gang waiting to catch the train. You only need to be anywhere under sixteens are gathered and more than one of them will have a phone out and they will be looking at video clips and more. Of course they will. They have the technology in their hands.

The answer to banning under sixteens from social media is complex of course, even answering the question of whether they should be banned is not a simple "yes" or "no". The problem is that the government brought in legislation which has a secondary purpose. This is not about getting under sixteens off social media. It is about controlling social media. 

If they had simply wanted to prevent under sixteens from using social media then most use could have been wiped out instantly by making it illegal for an under sixteen to have a phone. That would have been the most radical solution. Parents would not have accepted that. They would have cited all sorts of "safety" reasons. 

There is an obvious answer then isn't there? Under sixteens can only have phones with a limited number of functions. They "need" phones that can make and receive calls, make and receive text messages. What else do they need for "safety"? Nothing. Such phones exist. They are not expensive. They are far cheaper than the phones which can access social media. They work on much cheaper plans. 

There could be a government scheme for all of this. You want your child to have a phone? We will allow your child to have one from this range. It will not be able to do more than we allow. Here kids, you can choose from bright yellow, lime green, hot pink, punk purple. We will be able to see if you are using something else. If we catch you using anything else then your parents will be held to account. 

It is not the role of "big tech" to deal with this. So, why is the government doing it? The answer to that is almost certainly a desire to try and control the use of social media or, at very least, the desire to be able to monitor everything which is said and done there. When the ban on social media doesn't work they are hoping for two things. The first is that the "big tech" owners will bring in measures that drastically reduce our ability to access information. A great deal of the information out there is inaccurate but so is the information passed on to us from "official" sources. The latter however is what the government of the day wants us to know, even if it is not true.  The second is that, when the information flow has been reduced and directed in ways the government finds more acceptable they will be able to still further control the growth of AI and the forms of information which are available. 

Social media may be a "scourge" but trying to control it now is something which might be working in North Korea and might work for short periods of time in places like Iran. Is that what we want? 

Delivering a parcel should not be

difficult but it seems it is.  The group of units in which I now live have letter boxes of course but these are some distance away out by the footpath. They are not secure. We are not permitted to put any sort of lock on the box which belongs to us. 

As most people get very little paper mail this is probably of no great concern. The local "postie" tells me it never takes her long to deal with the mail for all twelve units. 

I get most of my mail, such as it is, delivered to a post office box at the local post office. It makes sense. I can access it any time. It is the "street" address we had to have when we set up the micro aid group forty something years ago. It is secure.

The problem is not with letters it is with parcels. There are some places which will not deliver to a post office box. They use "courier" services rather than post mail. That can be a problem. A parcel went missing some weeks back. I have not received compensation for that even though the courier service was well aware they were at fault.  This parcel, again something to be shared out to a craft group, was "unable to be delivered to a safe location". It is still "on board" for delivery. 

In this instance I can only assume that the person doing the deliveries is not a regular post office person. It will be one of the many people who deliver parcels outside regular hours. They have other jobs. The parcel delivery job is extra, a job to be done at nights or weekends. It might be they could not find their way down the path in the dark. Yes, the parcel might get there in the end...when they can find time. 

Someone in another unit did have a parcel delivered yesterday. The parcel delivery person was going to leave it with me. He asked if I was L... and I shook my head and pointed to the unit in question. I was talking to someone in Venezuela at the time and it was difficult enough or I might have asked if he had the parcel being delivered to me.

Getting parcels in the post is not the huge excitement it was when I was a mere kitten. Parcels were rare. They came right to the front door, delivered by someone wearing a post office uniform and a cap. Now, unless a signature is required, they get dumped wherever the delivery person decides is convenient. 

The parcel should have been here three or four days ago. I am now wondering if it will take another three or four weeks to be returned to the post office which might let me know it is available. If they do then the "it cannot go to a post office" message will make even less sense than it does now.  

Is it "free speech" or is it

something else? 

I do not watch "breakfast" television or listen to early morning radio. I do not know the person at the centre of a "row" of some sort. The person in question apparently interviewed someone whose views are unacceptable. I know very little about that someone too. From what little I do know I do not think I would care for his views either.

That said, does he have the right to be heard? It is a question which should be debated at the highest levels and it should be debated seriously. It is no good simply saying "his views are abhorrent and he must be banned".  All that is going to do is make his views even more attractive to people who are already leaning in his direction. There will be others who have not even thought in his terms who will also find his ideas attractive simply because he has been banned. They will seek him out.

His removal from breakfast television (whatever that is) has reminded me of Giggle v Tickle again. One of the people behind that, the one who is attempting to retain as "girls only" space, tried to get our ABC (the Downunder version of the BBC) to publish her side of the arguments being put forward. They have published, interviewed, discussed and more the other side of the arguments. The bias they are displaying is clear. It matters not that the ABC is the publicly funded broadcaster whose charter demands they not take sides. They are not going to allow her side to be heard...at least yet. I cannot help wondering if this will change should the matter go her way in the High Court. 

If the High Court comes down on the other side then there is no hope for us as a country. I wonder if they will even be able to do what it is clear must be done. The government certainly intends to do nothing.  Why should it? It will just upset the very vocal minority group who will be able to manipulate the media into presenting the story so that they appear to be the victims.

It is that "victimhood" approach which is so successful. Behind the scenes of some of the major media stories there is a very different story being played out. One of the few aid workers left in a war zone told me recently that a "foreign" news crew came in. They filmed a "distraught" father holding a "dead" child. When the filming was finished the child went back to what he was doing. The crew apparently did not see this as a problem "because it is the sort of thing which is happening". Is it? Quite possibly it is but is it happening in the way which the media is telling us? One side of the story will have it that there was no "real" violence surrounding the kidnappings in Israel and that no children have been abducted by Russians in Ukraine. The protests in Iran are apparently all against America and the ebola outbreak has been contained and...I could go on. 

The reality is that "free speech" is intent on selling us the story others want us to hear. Sometimes it is a reasonable representation of what is actually happening but the reality can also be very different. The people on that maritime flotilla heading to Gaza want us to believe the worst about those who perhaps prevented them from likely being, at best, taken hostage. They have succeeded in meeting the Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister. The media is telling their story - and many people believe it. Is the reality different? It might be. We are only being told one side.

It would be good to have other views sometimes, even views we find abhorrent. We need to teach children to think about what is actually being said and encourage them to search for alternative views. 

 But...speaking up has consequences.

Has the Prime Minister benefitted from

what might be called "insider trading"? 

There can be no doubt he would have had to pay another $200,000 in tax under the new regime he has just pushed through parliament. It has been pushed through in coalition with the watermelon crew. That the new regulations not only break election promises that were said to be "cast iron" they are, if economists are to be believed, going to harm the economy. 

Of course they are being sold to us as the opposite. They are supposedly going to allow "young people" to "get their foot in the door" and "allow them to climb the housing ladder". I believe none of that. 

I do not know much about economics on that scale. I have, as far as I can, to trust those who know more than I do. They know much more than I do too. I hear people who have been running successful enterprises which are making a profit and employing a growing number of people tell me "this won't work". No, explained to me I can see it won't work the way the government says it intends things to work. Their moves are going to do more harm than good.

What has really convinced me however is the behaviour of our Prime Minister. He knew what the government intended to bring in last year. He sold three properties at that time. He sold them under the "old" rules. Doing that saved him paying another $200,000 in tax. That is a lot of money. He knew it would. Was it deliberate? 

He was asked this question in parliament - and refused to answer it. The Speaker ruled it out as well. It is a simple question. He could have said it was not deliberate. He could have said he was given advice to sell for other reasons. He did not. He refused to answer the question and treated the female member of the opposition who asked it with what I will politely call "disdain"...it was rather worse than that. He got away with that too.

The government has such a large majority in the lower house that he will almost certainly get away with it - at least for now. That he may be guilty of the worst form of insider training is not something even the media seems prepared to take up seriously. There have been hints of improper behaviour, nothing more and nothing less. 

This morning's paper also carries a news story about a journalist who was required to remove an interview with a far right personality. I have no time for the person he interviewed but  does it mean this person should be silenced? It seems the media is now doing the government's bidding. Is it also doing the bidding of the government here and keeping quiet an act which, if proven, would see a business person sent to prison? 

I might be quite wrong about all this but other people are asking the same questions. Is this simply some sort of conspiracy theory that needs to be dealt with or is it a serious issue? Is it time for some answers? 

There were just eleven people at the funeral

I attended yesterday. It was by invitation only. There were just eleven of us. 

Would I have gone without an invitation, if it had been an open to all event? 

If I am honest then the answer is "no". The person being farewelled was a difficult, cantankerous, downright rude at times sort of person. I did not avoid him but I did not actively seek him out. He was simply there as one of the old people on my regular bike route. When he had to move into a nursing home I saw him only as one of the other residents when I went to visit people I thought of as friends. 

His children had long since moved to other parts of the world. They did not come back. I dealt with a few things for him but only at the request of his eldest son. His eldest son was polite about it, very polite. He was the one who gave me the invitation to attend.

"Dad wanted you there. He had no time for us. He called us "useless" when we moved away. He never forgave Mum for dying so early."

The eleven of us stood around the coffin. It was a cheap coffin, the cheapest there is. He had chosen it himself. He had chosen who would be there.  He had left the instructions to be given to his eldest son and his son had carried them out. His daughter and other son were there but no other family. There was the priest, a representative from the nursing home, three people from the funeral home, me and two former neighbours. 

I thought of the other funeral I had attended on the previous Friday. The church it was held in was full. Good things were said.

This time the priest did not seem sure what to say. Nobody else was asked to say anything. I wondered what I would have said. I think I would have said "lonely by choice". It is a hard thing to say about anyone but in this case it would be true. He chose to be lonely. 

There was no standing around and chatting afterwards but as I was about to go his daughter suddenly hugged me tightly.  He did not need to be lonely and I suspect they tried harder than he ever admitted. 

 

 

  

Being a monocultural society

is not possible is it?  The redheaded politician has been accused of calling for that. 

Dig a little deeper into what she is actually saying and it is not that but it might easily be taken that way. There are apparently a good number of people who want it too. 

I do not believe any society is "mono-cultural". There have been attempts of course but have they really succeeded? I suspect that even in the last outposts of ultra-communist countries there are differences. There will be regional history, a regional custom, a regional word in use and so on. People who live along a border will share commonalities with people who live on the other side of the border.  The idea that you can simply stop sharply at a border and have a completely different culture just does not work for me. People have been taking on language, food and all sorts of cultural practices from those around them for as long as we have existed. Trying to stop that does not work even in China or Cuba or North Korea. A tiny country like Bhutan is not immune to change any more than a large one.

Of course change was once much slower. Perhaps it was so slow we did not really believe it was taking place - but it was. 

When I was a mere kitten a trip to Europe was a major undertaking. It was the sort of thing for which people saved for many years and almost certainly only did once. Many people never did it.  They never moved off the massive island on which we live. There were a great many people who never went to another state. There were people with whom I went to school who had never been to the capital city. Some had not even been into the big fishing port at the base of the peninsula. 

An outsider might have looked at that and said "mono-cultural". They would have been wrong. There were subtle differences in language and pronunciation even there. People who lived inland did not eat fish unless they happened to be visiting that port or the other major town on the coast. People who lived along the coastline did but transporting fish inland was not done for lack of refrigeration. Now you can buy frozen fish in the nearest township which has a "supermarket". You can add a packet of frozen chips too along with and the "Chinese" or "Greek" or "Italian" ready meals. Nothing is going to change that. Our food choices are not mono-cultural. It is unlikely they have ever been that. 

As a child I ate quan dong pies because the quan dongs grew where we lived. It was "free" food and people were not wealthy. Eating kangaroo or wallaby meat was common for many people. It was food you did not need to buy. (I have tasted it and cannot handle the strong flavour of it.) Now it is an expensive "healthy" alternative you buy at a specialist butcher in the city.

More than one area in this state was settled by German migrants very far back. Go into those areas now and it is not just the names which are different but the food often is as well. There are cook books based on it. Even when I was at school there were children who came from families where German was spoken at home and they had to learn English at school. Sundays, whether you were Catholic or Lutheran, were spent at church and in communal gatherings. That has changed now but it still influences life there. 

We were never mono-cultural. We could not become mono-cultural. I can see where there is need for change however. There have been calls for "sharia law" and that concerns me. A country needs just one legal system and ours is, rightly, regarded as a good one. There are schools which have been set up for minority groups but these can be a means of isolating children from the mainstream of society. There are government funded programs designed to retain other languages and other cultures. Those things can do harm if they are used to isolate people. We need to be aware of the potential harm which can be done even when we are told to "celebrate diversity", 

Getting the balance right and doing it in the way that does the most good is what matters. We are never going to be mono-cultural.  

"You could catch the bus"

someone told me when I politely informed them I would not be going to an event they were enthusiastic about attending.

No, I could not catch the bus. Catching a bus means getting to the bus stop, getting on the bus and bouncing along for almost an hour surrounded by people who have all the usual ills of winter. It means attempting to cross two very busy roads on foot....and then doing it all in reverse to come back again. 

"Or get a taxi...you have vouchers..." they added. I wonder if they had any idea what that would cost? No, I thought not.

I said again, "Thanks but I don't want to go. I really am not interested. I have a lot of things I need to get done right now."

There was a huffy silence and then a sigh, "You really are very unsociable Cat. The rest of us do our best and you just don't want to do things."

I did want to do something the other day. I was invited to afternoon tea for a friend's birthday. It clashed with another friend coming for lunch. I could not "splinch" myself Harry Potter style to do both...and my friends understood that - completely. I thought about this as I thought about being "unsociable". 

I don't mean to be "unsociable". It is just much easier if people come and visit me than I go to visit them. This doesn't mean I won't pedal off and see people if necessary but very often it is just easier for them to visit me. I can "put the kettle on" (now an electric jug) and give them the appropriate mug or cup and saucer. They do not have to do an extra trip to get me there and back to wherever they live. 

"Haven't seen you in a while," D... said to me when I appeared at the funeral last week. If he had thought about it he would have realised two things. The first would have been that I am not officially one of his parishioners. My name is on the church contacts list simply because so many elderly members of his congregation find it necessary to contact me about one thing or another. The other is that the pedal up the hill is almost beyond me. It's a steep hill and the trike does not like it any more than I do. I doubt he has ever thought of the practicalities. He just gets in his car and goes where he needs to go. He is not being thoughtless. It is just the way it happens...for him and a lot of other people. 

The person who wanted me to go to the event could have gone a little out of her way and picked me up but she never picks anyone up. It is something she refuses to do. There is always an excuse of some sort. She is well and widely known for it. For me that works well. She would have my life "organised" if she could. 

Not having a car is a nuisance at times but it can also be a blessing. In this instance I am not going to have to endure a concert of the sort of music I really loathe as a fundraiser for a political group I do not support. A friend is coming in to pick something up instead. We might even have a cuppa. 

   

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I went to the "party" after the funeral

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

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

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

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

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

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

Working from home

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The abortion bill

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

I was told of two deaths

yesterday. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is the point of travelling

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The four Palestinian Activists

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

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

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

There are also better ways of getting things changed.

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

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

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

So someone donates $200m towards

housing returned servicemen, men too old and frail to work...and people are complaining. 

The same person has just donated another plane to the Royal Flying Doctor Service. That makes two now...and people are complaining. 

That comes on top of around $800m in tax last year...which does not take into account all the other expenses of employing the people who also work for the companies which raised the money to pay the taxes.

Apparently it is wrong to be "rich", the "billionaire" sort of rich. No, I am not talking about the world's first "trillionaire". There is a funny little red line under that one. I am not sure that sort of money is the sort anyone understands, not even the person who is apparently "that person". 

No, the person in question is a fairly ordinary sort of billionaire. They had a great start having inherited from "daddy's company" but most of it since then has come from hard work. It has come from the hard work of themselves and other people.  This does not make them popular. 

I have often wondered what I would do with a great deal of money. A "millionaire" was a rarity when I was a childhood. I most certainly did not know anyone who was a millionaire. Inflation has changed that. I sometimes wonder what the millionaires of my childhood did with their wealth but I do not remember people talking about it much. I suspect that any generosity on their part was done more quietly. There was no social media for others to talk about it.

It is the comments by others that have irritated me in the past few days. Someone said the donor of the $200m "probably spends more on lunch" and that it was "probably tax deductible". The returned servicemen's organisation saw that donation very differently. They were grateful for it. The donor will have seen that it goes where it needs to go too. That is how they have become as wealthy as they are.

No, I do not envy that ultra-wealthy person. I suspect life if actually very difficult for them. They would be working many hours a week. They know the decisions they make affect the employment of the thousands of people they employ and ripple outwards into the community. The plane they donated to the flying doctor service might well be used by one of their employees in an emergency. There are other programs they fund for the same sorts of reasons. In part these are business decisions. They have taken on huge responsibilities. I would not want to take on those responsibilities.

I wonder whether those criticising the donations being made think the life of a billionaire is simply long "business" lunches and dinners?  

School assemblies

as I knew them are a thing of the past.

For me it meant the entire school lining up in rows - under the watchful eyes of our teachers. We did this outside of course. Our schools did not have "gyms" or "halls". Most schools did not even have any sort of sound equipment beyond a microphone.

School assemblies were held on Fridays unless there was something special to be announced or some sort of special event. On Fridays however we lined up, "stood up straight" and we went ahead with the words about being "proud" and "saluting the flag" and honouring the monarch of the day. We sang the old national anthem and a song about our country. 

It never made me feel proud or pleased. I found the whole ritual rather dull. I thought of other things even as I mouthed the words. I suspect many other children felt the same way. It was just something we did. Yes, I have mentioned this elsewhere.

The topic came up in the paper this week. We had a young columnist asking about the new national anthem. Apparently it is not sung in some schools because of "cultural sensitivities".  These are not just indigenous sensitivities either. These are the sensitivities of newer immigrants to this country. 

S.... called in yesterday and we were talking about it. Her two grandchildren have assemblies but they are not assemblies as we knew them. Her grandchildren have been required to walk around a ceremonial fire of some sort. They have been required to put their hands on the ground and chant "always was, always will be aboriginal land". They have been required to write "sorry" letters to aboriginal people following assemblies in which they are told they are living on "stolen" land.

From talking with other parents and grandparents in many schools this sort of thing is apparently not unusual. It follows on what is being taught in classrooms...and that is what the curriculum requires.

"So, how are they supposed to learn to be proud of their country?" S... asked me. It's an interesting question.

The national anthem changed while I was living outside the country. I never had a chance to have my say. If I had been here I would have campaigned against the present anthem. As I have said more than once it sounds like a "dirge". There were alternatives but I suspect the vote was rigged in favour of what the Prime Minister of the day decided.  

I wonder if a more singable alternative would have made any difference. Would more people know it, would they sing it? 

The reality is that almost everyone I know only know the first few words of the current national anthem. We have long since lost any interest in reciting words about being "proud". The country we knew is very different from the current we know now. 

Change can be good but I wonder what the very young would think if they had to do what we did...and how do they feel about what they are required to do.    

Unfit to ever work again?

There is more than one story about someone who has been declared "unfit" to work and, once compensation has been granted, returned to work. There is actually a name for this - "compensation neurosis". It has been the subject of some research too. 

The topic came under "discussion" again yesterday when it was announced that someone who received a very large sum in compensation, then became bankrupt, is back at work in a role where bankruptcy should disqualify them.

Downunderites will probably know who I am talking about. It raises all sorts of questions, not least questions about the original sum paid out. Not one person I know believes this situation should ever have arisen.

When large sums of compensation have been awarded to people then arrangements are often made for its use. There will be a trust fund set up. The money awarded can only be used for certain purposes. It is not there to provide additional luxuries but to compensate the person for what they have lost. 

It is of course what should have happened to the more than two million dollars given to the person who was under discussion. Other advice should have been given too - and there should have been ways of ensuring it was adhered to so as to prevent the subsequent issues arising.

The rules around bankruptcy are clear too. That the "employer" in question believes it can bypass those rules is a clear indication they are using the appointment for political purposes. The original compensation was paid for the same purpose. This is no way suggests that the alleged incident did not occur. It is not something that has ever been decided in a court of law. The payment was made without such a decision ever being made. It was a sum of money most people in that situation will never see, indeed most will see no money at all.

There are questions which need to be asked here. I can understand why so many people were questioning and criticising events around the issue yesterday. There will be more people doing it today. 

It could have been avoided if someone had taken charge and ensured the compensation had been invested and used as intended.   

 

"No space in special education units"

and no "specialist classes" available so your child is going to have to go into a "mainstream" class. He might be twelve and not able to count to twenty or have difficulty in going to the toilet alone but he will be just fine in the mainstream classroom.

This is not an NDIS issue. It is an education issue for all students. The article in this morning's paper is saying what most people have known all along. Some children need to be educated in a setting outside the "mainstream". What is more some of them will do well there.

I had a long and very happy association with a school for cerebral palsied children. It was a very good school. For years after it closed the students got back together for an annual reunion and invited me to come along as well. No, I was not a student there but I was part of "the gang". I had helped to run the Guide group and that was enough. I went in and out and I still have friends I made there.

I remember writing a letter to the national newspaper talking about the academic successes of the students and their ability to mix with the rest of the community. The abilities of individual students varied widely of course but overall they were encouraged, indeed required, to make the best they could of themselves. The school had given them an excellent education and the ability to mix with the rest of the community. 

Some years ago I had to go to a funeral for one of the students. There were two well known politicians and several other public figures at it. M... had made his mark on the community. He had held down a job in the "morgue" of a newspaper and been very active in community affairs. 

Later I spoke at another gathering to farewell another student. He had obtained a doctorate in mathematics. He worked at a university and published research papers. We had corresponded over the years, came together at another university and spent hours in discussions about a wide range of topics. He was proud of his old school and how it had encouraged him to move on when he was ready. His body let him down in the end but he always said he would not have achieved his academic successes without the early years at his "special" school.

That school produced more than one severely physically disabled student who went on to higher education and obtained a degree. It had a class for students with a hearing loss. 

I am so tired of having to argue that "special" schools are just that - special. The school I knew so well provided physiotherapy, speech therapy, occupation therapy on the same grounds as the classrooms. The  teachers were specialist teachers. 

Asking a general trained teacher with a class of twenty four or more other students to know and understand the learning difficulties of even a "bright" child with cerebral palsy is not the best thing for the child or the teacher. All the arguments about "socialisation" and "integration" can sound good but in reality they do not hold up. They might appear to hold up. It is no doubt "nice" for the parents to believe their child is going to an ordinary everyday school "like everyone else" but a really good special school can be even better if it makes demands of the child in a supportive environment.

We did no favours when this state did away with the "special" schools and the less able children now in the mainstream are not always doing as well as they might - far from it. Those who advocated for "inclusion" and "mainstreaming" did the authorities a favour of course. It is cheaper, much cheaper, to have a child in the mainstream with some "assistance". That it might mean they do not reach their full potential is seen as a problem for their family, not the rest of us.  

 

Can you "revive" a language

which has no current speakers and no written past?

There is a short article in this morning's paper about someone who is claiming to be doing that. She claims to speak two of the fifty or so indigenous languages which were spoken here before white settlement and to speak them "fluently".  There are four of those languages she claims are "strong" and another eight are "fragile" - meaning they are spoken only by the old. There are eleven more she claims are being revived through "historical resources".

I have written elsewhere about this. I want to know what it is this woman believes she is saving. That she is well meaning and determined I have absolutely no doubt. I also have no doubt she is mistaken if she believes what she is reviving is a language which was once spoken.  

There are a number of reasons for my doubts about her claim. These languages were spoken by very small groups of people. The population prior to white settlement was tiny. The speakers of these languages had no means of transport. They travelled by foot They did not go far. There was no written language. Nothing has been left behind in the form of manuscripts. Their vocabulary was limited to the world around them. It did not take long for these languages to become so corrupted that what was "saved" even at the time was essentially a different language. The information gathered at the time was not done for the purpose of "saving" a language or a culture. It was often done with the purpose of converting "heathens" to Christianity. Some information was never shared. 

What are we actually saving? What are we "reviving"? Is it really possible to teach young indigenous people these languages of the past and expect them to use them and pass them on to the next generation? What is the value of doing that in this context? Who benefits?

When we lose a language we lose a unique way of thinking, of seeing the world around us and understanding it. That's important to acknowledge but we also need to acknowledge that this has already happened in some places. Nothing is going to change that.  

 

 

The rise of "One Nation" is

hardly surprising but it seems the present government and opposition is surprised by it. Surely they could see it coming?

I can never see myself voting for One Nation but I can see why the popularity of that particular political party is rising. It is almost inevitable it will. Their "policies" are just what many people want to hear, what thirty percent of the population want to hear. 

One Nation now has a seat in the lower house of our federal parliament. It may have many more come election time unless the government and opposition manage to inform voters about what is actually possible. If One Nation managed to get enough seats to form government... well that is a nightmare scenario. 

They could not actually govern using their policies - go and look at them. They would not work.

But - and this is surely important - the reason for the party's dramatic rise in popularity is because they are saying what many people want to hear. It is this other parties need to be listening to and working on so voters understand what is possible. 

Someone who apparently reads this blog recently left a comment which criticised me for my apparent support for a cut in numbers of people coming into this country. As she, rightly, pointed out her mother received good care from people coming in and showing willing to do that work. I can say the same for the Senior Cat and many others I know. Too many people born here see it as demeaning. They won't do it. 

I know that attitude all too well. I also understand why it might be seen that way. The conditions are often very poor. The pay is atrocious. Those who do the work are often treated with extreme disrespect. At the same time nobody wants to do the work. 

We need people who are willing to do the work. We also need to provide good working conditions and pay them well. We fall down at that point. It does not mean we can accept anyone as a migrant into this country just because they will do the work. 

There is a letter in this morning's paper where someone has finally been able to question "multiculturalism" and whether it is even what migrants want. Yes, some of them come here hoping to live a better version of the lives they have left behind. They do not want to integrate or change. They want life here to be like life at "home" just rather better. They want the rest of us to change to accommodate them rather than change themselves.  When they are told they do not need to change or adapt or integrate then we have a divided society which leads to the rise of the likes of "One Nation"...and that will divide us still further.  

   

"Fix the edubabble" - the curriculum?

I mentioned the "national curriculum" recently didn't I?  It appears again in this morning's paper. It appears alongside those who have been given "honours" for the King's Birthday - which we, oddly, celebrate today with a public holiday.

One of those so honoured is Terry Tao, mathematician. Terry went to school with cousins of mine. They thought he was "odd but nice". He was much younger than them of course, about seven years younger by my reckoning...and in the same year level for maths.

I did not like maths at school. I am no mathematician. I managed to get through "statistics" at university. I had to look up the formula for something recently because it is years since I used it - but at least I knew where to look and, once I had found it, what to do. Perhaps I am one of the lucky ones. Still, I prefer languages to sciences. 

This morning's report is more than a "we need to get back to basics" sort of report. There is a strong element of "we need to be rid of some of the garbage" in it. 

School was not "exciting" and it was often not very "interesting" for me. I expect it was the same for most children. We went to school because we had to go to school. Once there we worked because we were expected to work. We were taught to read, to write, to do arithmetic. We were taught about plants, about animals, about explorers and other countries.  We painted and cut paper and threw balls to one another. At the end of it we were not considered to be "educated" but to have the foundation on which to get an education. There was no mention of politics or sex education or "feelings" or "race" or other religions. Those things were taught at home, if they were taught at all. 

We had no television, let alone the internet or videos on phones. I read as many books as I could find. There must have been other children like me and we all grew up. Many of us went on to get better "educated" as apprentices or as students at colleges and universities. We survived without bars on the campus or the demand to do extra "politically correct" units as compulsory parts of the course we had chosen to do. 

Our knowledge of the world has expanded since then. It has sizzled and bubbled and risen over the top and then down the sides at a rate with which nobody can manage to keep up.

Looking at it that way I would have thought that knowing the basics really well would be essential. It is surely like me knowing my basic maths so well I can look up the formula I needed and then use it. Yes, I have to know about the formula and how to use it but I cannot do that until I know the basics. I need to know that two and two make four here and know it instantly.  I need to know my basic number facts before I learn how to "code" to use a computer.  I need to be able to read well to do this. I need to know how to find and understand the meaning of words which are new to me. 

Is this about more than "the basics"? I think it is. It is about knowing them so well they are the deep foundations on which the rest of our knowledge is built. Learning these may not be fun and it may not be interesting but it is essential. It is about learning to work, not about being entertained at school.  I suspect those who have written the most recent report are correct - and that they will be ignored. 

  

Reaching 112yrs of age

is not something most of us will achieve. The woman who was celebrating that extraordinary milestone was the subject of an article in yesterday's paper. 

Her advice on how to do it was "take an interest" - in life. 

I thought about people I have met who have reached, or almost reached, the century.  How did they manage it? Was it taking an interest in life?

Our much loved, indeed adored, Senior Cat was close to the century. He might have made it but felt he'd "had enough". He told us this. He didn't want the fuss that might have come with waiting a few more months for that marker. Up until then though he certainly took an interest in life, in other people and the world around him.

My godfather did reach that far. He was also keenly interested in other people. "Tell me..." he would say and then listen carefully despite his hearing loss. It was always an extra effort for him.

I knew someone who was a hundred and three. She only moved into aged care for a short time - and was not impressed. Her children had insisted. It might have been kinder to leave her where she was. With a little help from the neighbours she was doing very well on her own. One of the boys next door is doing his final year at university courtesy of her tuition in mathematics. Interested in life? Interested in young people? Yes, very much so.

Occasionally I have reason to go into one of the local nursing homes. The residents who are intellectually able soon seem to become less able. There is little, if anything, to challenge them. They do not want "bingo", "community singing", "concerts", old films or simplified church services.  The books on the shelves of the "library" are "romance" or "westerns" and I am told to "get me a good crime yarn Cat" or "can you get that new biography?" 

I will be dropping in to one such place today with the order of knitting wool which arrived yesterday. The boy who delivered it knew what it was as I had asked him to look out for it. He was fascinated by the idea that someone who is five times his age is still taking an interest in life. 

"Would she knit me a football beanie?" His team apparently has no commercial merchandise available.

"She will teach you to knit one for yourself," I told him. He did not look at all sure about that idea. He is much more interested in computer games. I do not see those as the same sort of "taking an interest". Perhaps that is the problem.  

Taxes do not always work

the way they are seemingly intended to work. 

The UK government has apparently added VAT (our GST) to their "public" (private) school woes. What has happened is possibly the reverse of what has been intended - or apparently intended. Pupils are leaving those schools and going to state schools. Every time they do I am told the taxpayer has to fork out another £8,600 for another student. They would not be getting that back in VAT.

So, why did they do it? 

The same issue comes up regularly in Downunder. There are complaints about "funding private education", about the way it gives "wealthy" families "advantages". 

The reality is different. If every student who now attends a fee paying school went to a state school the actual tax burden would be higher on everyone.  It is cheaper for the government to provide some of the education funds to the fee paying school system. It does not stop the complaints but the government is trying to find a balance between getting students where they want them and keeping taxpayers happy. 

Governments like to have students under their control. It is why we have things like "the national curriculum". It is why there are demands to teach certain topics and how they must be taught. Fee paying schools cannot ignore the national curriculum but they can teach it in other ways and with other emphases. The same applies to "home schooling". In this state your "homeschool" family is monitored for that very reason. Is your child being taught what the state demands? 

  The same ideas also apply to the recent tax changes. They are not designed to make it easier for young people to own their first home. The changes to items like the "capital gains tax" are not aimed at young people at all. They are being applied to houses bought before 1985. Economists, who generally know something about the consequences of these things, are saying there will now be many more people who find they owe more than the "asset" they are paying off is actually worth - what is known as "negative equity". 

Why has the government made the changes? It is not actually going to solve their revenue problem but it will give them greater control over the revenue they are getting. People will move into the forms of investment the government prefers.

All this has been carefully explained to me. I do not pretend to understand "big" economics. I do know that the cost of everything has gone up so quickly that what I am being told about "intergenerational equity" is wrong. Perhaps someone can explain if it is supposed to work differently?   

A diagnosis of cancer

has come as no surprise to me. No, not for me so far but for a more distant cousin.

He has been a smoker, a heavy smoker until recent years. He "cut back" to twelve a day and then six a day but could never quite give the habit up. Now he is paying the price.

The first warning came a couple of years ago. He had a cancer growing under a finger nail. They removed it and part of his finger as well. 

Then, late last year, it was "prostate cancer". Oh it was not aggressive and it was "treatable".  Well yes, perhaps it is or was. I know other men with similar problems. One was diagnosed about eight years ago, had surgery and is "just fine". 

More recently other problems have developed for my cousin. His wife phoned me early last evening and said, "He's been diagnosed with an aggressive bladder cancer. They did a scan and it is in his hip and thigh bones as well."

He is currently enduring a month of radiotherapy. How much good this will do they have no idea. He is considered to be "too old" for surgery to remove his bladder. As the cancer has already apparently metastasized  I wonder about this.

It has come at a time when there is a government advertisement I see between the two parts of the news service I watch. It is an advertisement designed to encourage people to give up smoking. It tells people that smoking can cause "eleven different types of cancer". Bladder cancer is mentioned in it. 

I wonder if the advertising has any effect. I wonder if my cousin has seen it and, if he has, what his thoughts are about it. I wonder if he wishes he had never begun to smoke.

The Senior Cat, like the vast majority of men his age, smoked. It was a habit they took up during the war. The Senior Cat was never a heavy smoker. It would be the occasional cigarette here or there but he quit entirely when I was kitten in early primary school. He saw something on the desk of one of his lecturers at university. The lecturer concerned had been diagnosed with lung cancer. That was enough for the Senior Cat. He went over to eating peppermints instead. Never a fat man the little weight he put on was probably a good thing.  

I have never even tried to smoke a cigarette but it has not made me immune from the consequences of smoking. In my lifetime I have had to endure the second hand smoke of other people's addiction. While I genuinely believed the school library should always be open at lunch time I was also relieved I did not have to endure the smoke laden atmosphere. When there were staff meetings at university I would sit as close as I could to the always open window. My good friend A... would insist on it being open. We did not smoke. No female member of staff did. It was the men. 

"You don't think it is going to happen to you," one of the professors told us when he had to tell us that another one had been diagnosed with cancer. These were intelligent people but tobacco addiction is hard to kick, very hard.

Middle Cat and Brother Cat do not smoke. Their children do not smoke and their grandchildren had better not even think about it or their parents will have more than something to say. Most people I know do not smoke now. Some did but they have stopped. It has been hard but they have done it. Anyone who does smoke knows to stay well away from me. I will cough and sneeze and I feel as if I am choking on their smoke. Where is the pleasure in that?

I am so grateful I never felt the temptation to try. It may not stop me getting a cancer diagnosis at some point but at least I will know that it has not been directly caused by a decision I made to smoke. I just wish my cousin had made the same decision. 

We have a new member of the judiciary

and she has moved straight from being a member of parliament across to that position. She retired from politics at the state election.  She is now an associate judge in the Supreme Court on a salary of over $400,000 a year.

This alarms me. We are supposed to have a system of "separation of powers" in this country. 

You know what I mean don't you? The system which separates the government from the administration of law. It has not happened here. I am absolutely certain this woman would have known that she was going to be appointed to the judiciary before she "retired". The government had almost certainly worked out she would be considered "surplus to requirements" in parliament so they found a way of moving her to a position where she will be sympathetic to whatever else they have planned.

It might work I suppose. 

It has been tried before in this country and it will be tried again. There have been appointments to the High Court which have very definitely been political appointments. To the credit of the judiciary they have often produced results the appointees (or those appointing them) did not want. 

A member of the High Court also went on to be one of the best Governors-General this country has ever had. He worked successfully with two strikingly different governments. More than once he informed a government something could not be done. As a law student I, like many other students at the time, met him and liked him. He was a known thorn in the side of some senior public servants. It is what he should have been too. 

I wonder how this woman will work. How will she feel if the law informs her she needs to go against the wishes of her former colleagues? 

The courts are there for us to test the law. They are there to apply it.  They are not there to do the bidding of the government.  

School buses are an essential

part of the life of many rural students here. They also serve other purposes.

I tried explaining this to someone yesterday. He apparently comes from a very wealthy enclave in a large American city. Students there apparently get taken to school by their parents in much the same way that students get taken by their parents and grandparents here. It was not something he knew much about.

He had asked me because one of the big yellow school buses had appeared outside one of our local shopping centres. He wanted to know about it. There was a well behaved group heading into the local cinema complex and they had obviously come on the bus.

It brought back memories of those buses. The Senior Cat was once the head of the school with the most bus runs in the state. They were also the longest bus runs. One started at seven in the morning and finished at around five at night. Two more of the destinations were not much shorter. 

The buses travelled across unsealed roads. They stopped at the rural mail boxes where the farm started. The farm house would often be another three or four miles away. More than one of the children would then need to walk home or, if they were lucky, there would be a vehicle of some sort sitting there and they would ride home. One boy began to drive an adapted "Mini" at seven. The distance to the house was simply too far and nobody could come to get him. 

The buses were never the Senior Cat's direct responsibility. His eyesight issues meant he could not have the "commercial" or "heavy goods" licence to drive a school bus. The buses were the responsibility of his deputy.  The buses were driven by the teachers. It was a very long day for them and for the children at the end of the runs.

There were no mobile phones then. Even the "land lines" were patchy. You could be miles away from one too. If the bus broke down or had a flat tyre you had to hope that someone might come along the same road or that the nearest farm house was not too far away.  If there were very senior boys on the bus then you might be able to fix something with their help. There was one "spare" bus at the school and the deputy might be able to drive out and collect the children and bring them into school. It was a constant worry. It is probably still a constant worry. 

At the previous school I had travelled on those buses once a week. We had to go to another school for "woodwork" and "domestic science". These subjects were a compulsory part of the curriculum but these were mostly farm students who knew more about woodwork, metalwork, cooking and sewing than their teachers. We endured the journey down the twenty-two tight bends in the hill and hoped the bus would not break down. I always felt ill. 

I never envied the students who needed to travel on those buses every day. The older students would try to do their homework because there would be farm chores waiting when they arrived home. The younger students would often fall asleep and be carried off the bus by older siblings or a waiting parent.

The service was, rightly, free. It is still free. The buses were not supposed to carry other passengers or parcels but in reality they did. It was sometimes essential. When the mail van needed a part that had to come from the city the school buses left the mail at the same places the students were left. Other people would collect theirs from the box at the gate. They would have been alerted by the family whose box it was. 

There was no internet. The phone service worked on a "party" line and the whole system only worked because people knew one another and worked together.

The stranger who had asked me the question looked disbelieving when I told him all of this.

"Did you get a bus like that when you started school?" he wanted to know. 

I shook my head. "I rode my tricycle. It was only a mile and half."

"But someone went with you?"

"Not after the first week."

He looked shocked. "They wouldn't let you do that now."

No, they would not - but I am glad they did then.  

 

"We should just get rid of them"

I was told yesterday. 

In between the heavy showers someone was out there "clearing up the mess the trees leave". He was not a happy man at all. 

There are some lovely street trees around here. There are not nearly enough in my view. This man thought there were too many. 

I know this man by sight, not name. I know his wife in the same way. She is one of those meek women who does as she is told. He's a bully. No, he has never hit her but I suspect he abuses her in ways neither of them recognise. 

He likes everything to be absolutely neat and orderly. Their "garden" is mostly paving with a patch of lawn and some rose bushes pruned to within an inch of their lives. I have never seen the back garden but I would guess it is more paving and a little lawn. He has complained to the neighbours about their trees.

The trees he was complaining about though are two street trees. They are both London plane trees and they are genuinely lovely trees. So what if they drop their leaves for winter? In summer they are home to a lot of bird life. As I pedal past on a hot day it is noticeably cooler under those trees. More than once I have seen older people just stopping for a moment or two beneath them. Young children race around them. One of the local boys climbed one last summer. It was not done out of mischief but to rescue a small kite belonging to a much younger child. A mother and child were picking up leaves and counting a couple of days ago. A friend who "scrapbooks" searched among the leaves for "that perfect leaf". 

Most people probably go past without noticing anything in particular but they would notice if the trees were not there. The idea of simply "getting rid of them" is not something I ever want to contemplate. 

I have been advocating for more trees for almost as long as I can remember. They make a vast difference to the urban landscape. We could cease all the "global warming" discussions if we planted enough trees and other greenery. Yes, it has to be right sort of tree, the right sort of greenery but once it is there it makes a difference. It can make ten or more degrees of difference on a hot day. We use less power to cool ourselves when there are trees there. 

We need more trees. The power demands of the AI centres mean we will need even more trees than before. The idea of getting rid of perfectly healthy and very useful trees just because they drop some leaves frightens me.  I pedalled on without comment.   

There is transport chaos this morning

and the weather is very damp with it. 

The news is telling us that two of our train lines have been closed because someone has been hit at a junction. There are no "substitute" buses available. People have been told to catch the regular buses. 

I am concerned for the person who has been hit. I am concerned for the person who hit them too. I will always be concerned because, years ago now, I had a conversation with a train driver who had hit a child. The child did not survive. There was no fault on the train driver's part. You simply cannot stop a train when a child, fooling around, falls off the platform in front of you as you are pulling in. The driver was completely exonerated and still felt responsible. He almost gave up driving at the time and, years later, the incident still caused him deep anguish. He had gone back to work but never drove that route again.

I wonder what will happen this time. It is not the sort of thing most people will think about I suppose. They will, for the most part, be annoyed their morning commute has been disrupted.

I used that line recently. I actually caught the return train at the station where the incident occurred. There is a major road leading to and from the city to the port area no more than two hundred metres away. Buses travel along that road but there would need to be additional buses. Those buses already on the route do not travel half empty in peak hour. They are already carrying maximum loads. The "advice" to use them is not going to be a great deal of help to most people.  

Not even all the buses are running. There are two routes that come in this direction. One does a loop around the city. The other goes to a seaside suburb and then loops further around.  They cannot go where they need to go either. 

Add in the road works and another "incident" and the chaos has increased to a level rarely seen. People in this city and surrounding suburbs are not used to this. The long commutes of people who live in some other cities are something some people simply are not used to and not prepared to tolerate.    

That said the disruption could have been minimised. There should be a plan in place to deal with such a contingency. We do not have a big rail network. 

I am fortunate, very fortunate. There was a message this morning informing me "Meeting cancelled". I am very glad not to be going out into all the chaos.