Yes, you should stop for a minute

when the bugle sounds.

I had to be out and about yesterday. It was an opportunity to observe people observing Remembrance Day.

There were a few people wearing poppies. I had spoken to a woman as we were waiting for a train. We exchanged patterns for knitted poppies and thoughts about the importance of the day. 

I went into one of our biggest shopping centres. It still has a bank there, one where there are actually ATMs and you can get actual money. I needed some actual money, not a card, for another purpose. 

I was about to go into the bank when the warning for the minute's silence came on. As is my custom I stopped instantly. A man coming towards me asked, "Is it eleven?" 

"Just on," I told him and he joined me. Around us many people kept moving. One or two more had stopped. A girl asked, "What's going on?" 

"Remembrance Day observance," I told her. She looked startled but stayed where she was. Opposite her a mother with two children of around nine or ten stopped and told her children to "stand still. I'll explain in a moment."

The Last Post sounded and then the Ode. I looked at the people around me. Yes, some of them had stopped but others were moving on as if nothing was happening at all.

Those who had stopped were quiet, even the children. One of them was looking uncertainly at his mother. The other seemed to know something important but not alarming was going on.

It was all over very quickly, just that moment to pause and reflect. 

The man who had asked if it was eleven o'clock gave me a nod and went on. I heard the mother explaining to her two children what had just happened. I wondered why they had not been taught about this in school but at least their mother knew and cared enough to stop.

I wondered about so many other people there who just continued shopping or were sitting drinking coffee as if nothing was happening at all. Yes, there were some people from different ethnic groups there but there were also many people who almost certainly would have had ancestors who had actually fought in that war, in other wars. 

Is it really too much to stop for a few minutes and think you might not be there at all and thank those who made it possible?

Free coffee?

No. We are paying for the "free coffee" being hand out at the COP conference in Turkiye. The reported cost is $32,000 for the coffee being handed out to the delegates.

It is not even coffee we have grown ourselves. We grow around just one per cent of the coffee consumed in this country. 

Those long lines of people lining up for their free coffee would be amusing if it was not for the cost to them and to us. The conference goers are paying to be there, either out of their own pockets or out of someone else's pocket. The climate is paying too. If the conference goers had all stayed home it would have saved quite a lot of fossil fuel.

The real concern however is that it has cost the taxpayers of this country millions to co-host the conference. The cost of the coffee is just small change. What are we paying for then?

People do not know who "that person" is, the one with the supposedly powerful position at the conference. Downunder's "climate minister"? Who is he? What has he managed to achieve? No idea. Is Downunder doing a good job? No idea. What are they doing? No idea. Some sort of "renewables" push? Must be I suppose because that's what it is supposed to be about but don't they export coal and gas...?

There can be few things more ridiculous than Downunder lecturing the rest of the world on fossil fuels and climate change, renewables and solar panels or wind turbines. We export fossil fuel and import the solar panels and wind turbines made with the fossil fuel. We export uranium and yet refuse to have nuclear power. (It is "too expensive" as well as "dangerous".) 

Over there, in another country, we are being told we are reaching our renewable target. We are being told it is "more than fifty percent", that "power prices are coming down". It is not true but it sounds good and, if you avoid the awkward questions, it could even sound true I suppose. 

According to some economists, the sort who do get to sit on the boards of banks, power prices are set to double within five years if we continue with the only renewables strategy. If that really does happen then we will be in even more dire financial straits. We will not be able to manufacture anything but that will only be part of the problem. We will not be eating because we will not have the energy needed to grow the food we need in order to do the manufacturing. We will not be able to move ourselves or anything else around. Life will come to a standstill perhaps? 

It was a relief when Downunder's bid to host the COP conference here failed. That would have cost us even more. It would have been for no benefit at all. 

Taking care of the environment cannot be done by pursuing the current strategy.  It is seen as an easy solution, easy to sell and implement. That it will not work is not a concern. There will be excuses and then the Digital Duty of Care Bill will allow them to suppress any criticism of what is going on. It will all be our fault of course.

Could someone please capture "that man" and make sure he and his boss do not get on a plane back here? The rest of us might need to rethink renewables.  

 

 

The Salvation Army is leaving

"aged care".  The announcement did not surprise me. They were small players in the field anyway. There were only around one thousand five hundred residents in nursing homes and two thousand getting "in-home" care. It is these two groups who will be most affected by any changes. There are others living in "independent" accommodation in units who will need to make, or have others make, arrangements. 

The Salvation Army's excuse for leaving aged care behind has been the cost and the increasing rules, regulations and other red tape around running such facilities. Given what I know about all this it is quite extraordinary that anyone would be involved in such places and even more extraordinary that anyone would believe they can make a profit out of such places. 

There are alarming stories coming out of aged care and into the media at all times. There are places which now allegedly charge for any sort of entertainment including having your own television set in your own room. They will charge to have your mail delivered to your room, for your medication to be administered and more. 

Looking back I know we were fortunate the Senior Cat was alert and articulate. Perhaps he was also fortunate we were very regular visitors. He had other visitors too. I was all too well aware that some residents never left their rooms, that nobody visited. The level of care they received was barely adequate. There was no attempt to provide any sort of stimulation for them.  Good care is expensive. It is very expensive. You cannot provide good care and make a profit. You cannot provide good care and even cover all the costs. 

The Salvation Army had a facility here. It went by the name "Sunset Lodge" which in itself says a lot. The SA divested itself of the place years ago. It has been replaced by another organisation and given a different name. I have been in and out to visit over the years. It is perhaps marginally better now than it was under the SA. For them it seemed to be a business to be run as efficiently and at as low a cost as possible. I was also aware of subtle, and sometimes not quite so subtle, pressure placed on residents and their relatives to leave substantial gifts and even an entire estate to the SA. 

One very elderly and still very alert resident told me how she was "advised" about what was "expected".  Her response to me was, "The young staff are mostly nice but I don't really like the management dear. They all expect to receive as well as give."  It was by no means an exaggeration and no doubt happens elsewhere as well.

My mother's parents died relatively young but my father's parents lived to a great age. Too frail to care for themselves even with help they eventually lived in a small hospital that had a half a dozen beds for the aged. Although he lived more than an hour and a half away from the city by car my father went to see his parents every weekend. Had we lived in the city he likely would have gone more often. I was away on the other side of the world by then but my mother told me my father never saw it as a burden to visit. It was simply the right thing to do. All I could do was write letters for him to read to them.    

Good aged care will always be expensive. It is the price we should be willing to pay. We are living longer and often working longer. It is too easy to see the frail elderly as a financial "burden" but they too had their elderly to care for, often at even greater expense. Aged care should not be about cost or benefit to others. It should be about caring for those who cared for us when we could not care for ourselves.

 

School uniform is under

discussion elsewhere at present. Apparently someone objected to buying the right sort of socks for their child to wear. 

The article does not say what sort of socks are required or what sort of socks the child was wearing but I suspect the child was wearing something that stood out. That is not the point of a uniform.

I have no problems with the idea of a school uniform. I have never yet heard a parent or guardian complain that they are not a good idea. Most people I have discussed the idea with over the years have greeted the idea of a uniform with relief. It saves discussion, arguments and much more. There is much less in the way of competition. Going to and from school it tells you where the more senior little darlings attend school. If they start to misbehave then it is much easier to find them. Ask anyone who works in the local shopping centre or on the rail service and they  will tell you that students in uniform are more likely to behave. They know that serious misbehaviour will lead to a report to the school.

I remember an occasion some years ago when a couple of likely lads from the local high school were foolish enough to do something silly and dangerous at the local railway station. Unbeknown to them they were seen. The damage they caused was recorded. Their uniforms told the police where to look. Come Monday morning the police were at the school and the two boys found themselves in serious trouble. They were no longer heroes to their mates. Yes, uniform has uses.

There was a uniform in every school I attended. As "the head's kids" we had to wear it and wear it well. I went through the usual range of box pleated tunics and at least five different colours of blazer. There were cotton dresses and then cotton/polyester dresses in summer. The smallest school I attended had a uniform. It did not get worn all the time because of remoteness and the impossibility of obtaining one but everyone wore the same style of "school jumper" (sweater/pullover) on an excursion. We wanted people to see where we came from.

Much later I was involved with a school for children with physical disabilities. It always interested me that it was the students of that school who asked if they could have a uniform. They were, rightly, very proud of their school. They wanted a uniform to show the world where they attended school. There was no sense of shame or isolation about attending a "special" school. They wanted people to know how good their school was and they saw a uniform as a way of saying it.

Uniform does not have to be complicated or expensive. In many places it just consists of clothing the chosen colour and a t-shirt or sweatshirt with a logo. When a parent argues with that then I suspect they argue with other things as well. Are they doing their child any favours?  

The art of letter writing is not

lost - or is it? 

In one of those odd little coincidences there is a piece in the paper this morning about letter writing - just as I was about to write an actual letter to someone.

My mother was an excellent letter writing. She found the physical act of writing easy. Her handwriting was very clear and easy to read. It was probably just as well. There was a time in her life when she wrote seven letters a week to family alone. 

She would write once to her mother on Sunday evenings. It would be a "long" letter, several pages. It was what her mother expected of her, anything less would have been met with sulks and "you don't love me". It was easier to give in and keep the uneasy truce between them. 

Mum also wrote to us. Three of us were away at school and university by then. Those letters were short, usually not more than a page. They were intended to inform us about anything we needed to know. There would be snippets of other information in there. If I saw my siblings I was expected to share that information with them. 

Mum also wrote other letters at Christmas and then more letters to people like her closest friend who as also my godmother. I do not know how often some of those letters were written but I know they were written because I sometimes saw the responses come. They were of the generation for whom writing letters was the normal way of corresponding.

One of my tasks in the last week was to write two short pieces for someone at the local church. She is apparently responsible for their "people of the parish" project. She asked me if I would contribute a piece about my parents and another about someone else I knew quite well. My mother had kept in touch by letter with M,... when, in old age, M... left to be close to family. After Mum died I continued to write to her about once a month. M... liked to know what some of her then very elderly friends were doing. Unlike Mum I typed my letters. I will type the one I write to L... too. But... it will still be an actual letter with a stamp. 

I think there is a difference. Of course I could email L... but a letter is different. It is tangible. That matters. L... can keep them if she wants to do so. They will not get lost in the endless bills, reminders, demands and other not-so-important mail which appears on a screen.  If L... wants to keep them they will be there for her children and even grandchildren.

When my brother moved interstate with his family Mum continued to write each week. He tells me he has kept the letters. I hope he has. I moved too many times to keep the letters written to me. I tried but it did not happen. Mum actually threw out the boxes I brought home with me. She thought I would not need them. They might have been useful

I have no doubt at all that one reason for the close family connections in the Senior Cat's family was due to the way his paternal grandmother wrote so many letters. If they had been kept they would have been a treasure trove of information. We have a few though. They are in a clear, determined hand. I have no doubt her children wrote back. It would have been expected of them.

Email is not the same. I may need to type my letters but, if I could, I would want to write them in the same clear copperplate script of my paternal great-grandmother.    

Under the digital duty of care law

I will not be able to say this so I will say it now. Our current Federal Treasurer is totally incompetent and should not hold the position. He has absolutely no idea what he is doing. He is not listening.

Our taxation system has always been a mess but it is an even worse mess now. We have one of the most unnecessarily complex systems in the world - possibly the most complex.

We are taxed at local level. These are the "council rates". These taxes are supposed to provide us with the basic necessities like rubbish collection. 

We are taxed at state level. These taxes are supposed to provide us with services which are our state responsibilities.

We are taxed at national level. These taxes are supposed to provide us with everything else. 

There is a "GST" or "goods and services tax" and personal income tax and a tax on this and that and something else that will apply here but not there and...  

Yes, you get the picture. The "Tax Act" is the most ridiculously complex piece of legislation. The "powers that be" keep adding little bits here and there as loop holes are found or new ways to get revenue need to be found.

I am not sure how the system has not imploded but it has managed to limp along - or is that barely crawl? 

Now our incompetent Treasurer, in need of more money for policies and programmes and grandiose ideas, has asked his staff to think up some ideas for "more productivity".  He has told them they cannot touch the taxes he has put in place to cover the cost blow out of the government keeping those who are keeping the government in power happy. Of course he cannot do that. He will just tax them some more. This is not about tackling the hard issues or making the hard decisions.  It is about a man in panic mode, a man who needs to be sacked. 

A doctorate in the work of "the world's greatest treasurer" - the former Prime Minister who was responsible for some of the worst interest rates on record - is not a qualification for the job of Treasurer. 

Why is he even bothering to ask for ideas. He won't listen to what he does not want to hear. He will still be beholden to his union bosses. They still believe "the rich can pay", that we can influence the world's climate and get the rest of the world to pay for overpriced goods because our standard of living needs to go up and not down. 

The 188yr old department store

which has just "gone bust" is not just the victim of "online" shopping. It is the victim of much more than that.

As children the Christmas school holidays (summer here in Downunder) meant, among other things, a trip to "town". In other words we went into the CBD and the street with the department stores.  It is where our school uniforms and school shoes were bought. It is where Mum looked at "pattern books" and bought a dress pattern and fabric for whatever she decided I would wear to church that year and another to make my brother's shirts. (Grandpa made his suits and school trousers.) Wool would be bought from a neighbouring area on the same floor to make another round of cardigans and pullovers. 

My grandmothers bought their "corsets" which were individually fitted in the underwear section on another floor.  All along the street the footpath was crowded, so crowded you could barely move. There were window displays with Christmas themes. One store had "the Magic Cave" where children could get a "lucky dip" package after enduring being photographed with Father Christmas for "Nana". (I was not going to school when I stopped believing in Father Christmas or "Santa". My brother was not much better.)

In the store owned by the company which has now ceased trading there was a man who played the piano on the ground floor. The lifts were operated by several ex-servicemen, one of whom had only one arm. 

Books and toys were sold in large quantities. There was a "food hall" in the basement and a cafeteria at the highest level. 

My brother and I would have preferred to be reading books at the library but we endured these trips largely without complaint. We did not expect anything extra. These trips were about necessities. We knew we were fortunate to be getting hard wearing and long lasting items we needed. 

The big suburban shopping centres changed that. The first time I saw one was in another state. We were on a camping trip and we children were taken to see the very latest in shopping areas. It would be considered small now but it had about a dozen specialist shops all under one roof. I remember Mum commenting, "Having everything in one place will save a lot of time I suppose."  

But things are not in one place, not really. They are in small stores, brand name stores. They are often expensive too. You can trudge from one place to the next looking for the "right" item. It will be expensive. It will be made in Asia with what amounts to slave labour.

I am as guilty as the next person. I have bought cheap t-shirts from on line places. My preferred jeans have come from a similar on line "shop". I know it is a warehouse somewhere but they call it another name. I know the jeans I see in the shop opposite the supermarket cost about $5 to make and sell for twenty times that price. The women who work in there tell me to "wait until the sale comes up" because they also think the prices are too high.  

Of course they are high. There is rent and power to be paid and then all the expense of employing staff but they have a little more space here than they would renting a space in a "department" store. All this has been sold to us "better" and "easier" and sometimes "more personal" but I doubt it. I only happen to know the women who work in one place because of something which once happened to an elderly customer I knew. Most customers will go in and out without ever knowing the names of the staff. For them it is much the same as shopping in the supermarket.

It is all soulless. I need to get some buttons for something I have just finished knitting. It would be so good to be able to go into an old-fashioned drapery store and buy them from someone who knows the stock and what might be good to use. Instead I will need to catch two trains and look at buttons on a wall in a store which sells manchester and "home wares" and art materials as well as cheap Asian sewing materials and acrylic yarn which comes from China. When I cannot reach to the top row someone else will have to help but it will be another customer because there are minimal staff - and the staff know almost nothing. 

 

Tsunamis can do a lot

of damage. They can wreck everything in their path.

I will not be cheering for the "tsunami" in the midterm elections in America. I would have been much happier with a more balanced result, one which made both their Democrats and Republicans work more closely together. I would have liked the sort of result where those in power were given the sort of jolt which said, "People do not like what we are doing. We need to do better. We need to find out what they do not like and why they do not like it."

This will not happen of course. When their election for President comes around in two years there will likely be other changes. Their current vice-president is not likely to become their president...unless they have a very inadequate opposition candidate.

It is something which should and does concern us here. The election results were made up of a representation of the same sort of mishmash of ideas and views and demands as we have here. How they will be handled is something we can only guess at because they are vary so greatly.

Here we have a government which appears not to be taking any responsibility at all for the latest rise in interest rates. Every minister and every member questioned has tried to tell us the problem lies with external factors. The "price of oil" and "war" and "trade" are all blamed. Government expenditure never seems to be an issue.

I have no doubt there will be some cuts to government spending in the next budget round. There will then be complaints from people affected by those cuts. I also have no doubt there will be a "sweetener" from somewhere. It will be designed to make people think they are still getting something.  Yes, I know this is the way politics works here...and elsewhere. 

Our opinion polls are still suggesting there will be no tsunami here. At present "the Opposition" is seen as weak. The redhead's party is still just in front but they do not yet even have a strong presence in parliament. If they were to gain power there would be people with no experience in representing their electorates also trying to govern the country. 

That would not be a good thing. My state electorate is currently represented by a first timer. She was catapulted straight into a ministry as well. It would be more than reasonable to suggest she is struggling. There have been calls for her sacking as a minister and I would have to agree. If this happened at federal level we could see serious harm done. 

Being in power is not everything. It can make problems worse. Good government cannot occur without equally good opposition.   

An old school photograph

came up in my search for something completely unrelated. It was one of those odd coincidences that can come about doing an internet search.

This photograph was of the Senior Cat and "grades four to seven" in the two teacher school he and my mother taught at in a remote rural area of this state. Mum had "grades one to three", the Black Cat (who was only three when we first went there) and a very slow learning boy with muscular dystrophy. It was the sort of thing that was considered quite normal in rural areas at the time. 

Our school was actually considered "big". There was a school in one direction which had just sixteen students and one teacher and another in yet another direction which had just eight students and one teacher. There were none of the resources that the really big city schools had. We had a "library" of books on a shelf and a box which held "the reading scheme". The library books came in a box from the children's lending service in the city. The Senior Cat had organised that before we even left the city. He did it knowing my brother and I would need books to read. He had also organised our individual membership to be transferred to the service for country children. 

The Senior Cat had talked to the school committee about raising the money to buy the reading scheme materials. (It was considered the latest thing at the time, indeed had been around for only a few years. There were cards in various colours to represent the level you had achieved. It consisted of reading comprehension and other exercises which you could mark yourself. One advantage was that older children could work on it alone. You can still buy the (updated) sets.) Apart from that I remember just the very basic things like a map of the state, another of the country and one of the world. If you wanted teaching aids you made them yourself.

There were almost no art and craft materials. Looking back I suspect my parents bought what limited materials we had from their own pay packets. The people in the surrounding area were generally poor. 

I looked at the photograph which had come up though. Someone had named everyone in the picture. The names came back to me. I would have recognised some of them if they had appeared in front of me still at that age. Would I recognise them now? It is unlikely. More than one of them is deceased. I doubt many of those who are still alive are actually to be found on the social pages of the internet.

They were a large part my life as a child but for the most part they were isolated on farms outside school hours.  By the time they were old enough to legally drive on the roads we had long gone. (We will ignore the fact that driving without a licence on rural roads was sometimes seen as a necessity.)

So yes, like the person who had put the photograph there, I wonder where those who are still alive are to be found now. What did they do with their lives?  

"People of the parish..."

I still get the weekly church "bulletin" - or "pew sheet". It comes via email early on Sunday mornings. 

It gives me an idea of what is going on. There are notices about funerals, weddings and the occasional baptism. The usual notice about the weekly barbecue held outside the big hardware and gardening centre is there. There are messages about other events like a film morning or an afternoon tea. Requests for donations for the homeless, for the Christmas hampers and so on appear too.

This week there was also a request for people to write about "people of the parish". It is one of those things that has apparently been decided on for their 175 year celebrations. The request was for two hundred and fifty word contributions about people and their contribution to the life of the church. I knew, I just knew, what was going to happen.

"Cat..." and then, "You can write things..." and "Do you think you could write something..." and "I have to write something but I don't know what to say..." and.... 

Writing just two hundred and fifty words about someone's contribution to a complex place like that is not easy. I will do it because I will write about my own parents and someone who went to teacher-training college with my mother. 

Looking up that other person's details to remind myself was an odd experience. It was a jolt to be reminded of just how different the world is now.  M.... was born at the end of WWI. She grew up in a tiny rural community and travelled the seven kilometres to school in a horse drawn cart. She did a year as a "junior teacher" (an untrained teacher) before going to teacher training college. Her early career was tiny one teacher schools in remote places where the children taught her as much as she taught them.  Farm life and those experiences made her into a very practical and able person. M... ended her career as the head of a big junior school. She had worked for the same employer, the state's education department, all her working life. 

It is nothing like that now. There are no junior teachers or teacher training colleges. The tiny schools have been closed and children go longer distances to "area" schools. There is no continuity of employment. You go from one "contract" to another. The work of the head of any school is vastly different.  

I am not sure we are better off, indeed certain we are not. M... contributed a lot to the education system. And, she contributed a lot to her church. She was the sort of person who was there and involved, a person to be found in the kitchen or behind the fundraising stall. That stall would contain something she had baked or made and it would be baked or made well.

She eventually moved back to her rural roots so as to be closer to her extended family. I kept up contact with her after my mother died.  When she could no longer correspond due to a stroke her niece wrote to me and asked if I would go on writing to her. She wanted to know what was going on at "her" church, about the people who had been her "family". I did it because I thought she needed to know.

I doubt that sort of thing happens much now. I will help people write things and perhaps one day one of their grandchildren or great grandchildren will read about it and wonder at how different things were "back then".  

There will likely be an interest rate

rise tomorrow. It seems everyone is forecasting a "twenty-five basis point" rise...or a quarter of one percent or around another twenty-five to thirty dollars a week on the "average" home loan. Rent will rise too.

I am told there will be people who "go under" or "default" or "go to just paying the interest" on the loan. This includes "first home buyers" who have a "package". 

House values have also dropped. There are now people who owe more than their house would fetch on the open market. That is likely to send even more spiralling downwards.

It is a complex mess and it has largely been created by a demand for something we have never been able to afford. Not everyone will agree with me over that but I still feel it is likely.

There is a "satellite city" north of this one. It was "planned" and it was thought it would be a success. The late and much missed Queen Elizabeth allowed it to be named after her, opened some of it when she was here and almost certainly watched in despair at what happened. 

A great many people were moved into cheap housing all at the same time. Many of them were "working class". They worked at the sort of jobs which have now largely disappeared. Qualifications for alternative employment are low. The unemployment rate in that area is high, very high. There are high numbers of single mothers. Many of them were very young when they had their first child. The majority of them now rent. Social welfare housing is high. It always was.

As an experiment in social engineering it was a failure. Now it seems the government is attempting to repeat the experiment but add in "home ownership". People are being told their dream of a solid construction home with a minimum of three bedrooms on an individual block is still possible.  They are being told that this is not just what they should aspire to but what they should expect, what they have some sort of "right" to own.

It is unrealistic. In the twenty-five or more years before a mortgage is paid off many of these people will be unemployed. Their jobs will no longer exist. 

Many of these same people will be living in social isolation, isolation brought on by working conditions and "work from home" policies. It will be isolation increased by the "entertainment" available at the price of a television set and a remote control. Yes, some of them will have played sport when young but will those team friendships last? Like it or not "sport" friendships are not the same as those developed over active participation in other common interests.

That likely interest rate hike is going to isolate many people even more. We do not seem to be learning from past mistakes.  

 

 

"I have found a photograph

of E... and I wondered if you would like it?" came the text message. It was one of those messages that are unexpected. It was not simply the information in it but the contact from the person sending it. P... is in her nineties and I would not have been sure she would know how to send a text message of that length. I think she is rather better at it than I am.

I called her back, had a short chat and agreed it would be good to have the photograph. It was always E... behind the camera and I have never had one of her. 

Perhaps it was just one of those weeks where that sort of thing happens. Two days later I saw someone who had been to school with E...  O... was a "junior" when E... was a "senior" but they had known one another. They sang together in the choir.

O...still sings in choirs. We have known one another since Guide camp days. I went to the university choral society with her. I cannot sing but their director had other uses for me.  E... was a member of that in her university days too. 

O... and I reminisced about that. When I left her to go on her way in the supermarket I thought about connections, connections with the past. There are not a lot of those connections in my life. I moved around too often. I have no connections with my school days. I was much the youngest in my first year at university and that was on the other side of the world. It does not make for the sort of long-term relationships which can arise from spending your childhood and adolescence in one place.

And it made me think of the woman who has just lost her appeal against her conviction for the murder of three people and the attempted murder of a fourth. She still denies any wrong doing. She will almost certainly go on doing that. She will almost certainly die in prison. She will have no long term connections with anyone. Her fellow inmates will come and go. The guards will come and go. Her children, if they visit, will come less often as the years go by. It just seems such an immense waste of a life. 

Perhaps that too is why photographs are so important. They are a reminder of and a connection with the past.  

Youth suicide is not

"because of social media" or "bullying". Those things may contribute immensely to it but the problems associated with suicide are much deeper and more complex than that. 

I cannot claim any sort of expertise on the subject. I have read articles, books, papers and more. I will almost certainly read more. They will no doubt make me feel the same sort of sick despair that anyone should feel so worthless and such a burden that taking their own life is seen as the solution.

What I can claim is a belief that we are more aware of the issues. I also believe that some of the things that might help are not being recognised. 

As a child and a teenager the late Senior Cat's social life revolved around school and church. The same was true of many of his friends. Their mothers were, for the most part, "stay at home". Their fathers were in steady employment. The vast majority of people were not wealthy but they had housing and food. They made their own entertainment because there was no television, limited radio (for which you needed a licence and could only hear inside a building) and no "social media". If your father read a newspaper you might see it. He might tell you something about politics and you would hear about major events. 

It was not that different for me or my brother. Our social life was Guides and Scouts, Rural Youth and the church youth club. We did not "party" or "go out clubbing". I do not know of anyone who did. There was no money for that. 

There was "sport" of course. There were plenty of people our age who played football, cricket, netball and tennis. Involvement in those activities for my brother would have meant my parents being able to transport him to matches. He was not interested. They did not have time. 

Lack of involvement in sport did not really matter too much. We were still patrol leaders in Guides and Scouts and on the working parties in Rural Youth. We played our parts in youth club events and argued about whether it was right to "mow hay on Sundays". There were debates and school "socials" where we had folk dancing because the Seventh Day Adventists could not come if it was a "two step" or a "waltz". 

At home at night and when not studying for an exam or doing farm work we read books and more books. We drew and painted, knitted and sewed, made models from balsa and "crystal sets" from kits. We had to find our own entertainment. Communicating with a friend outside of school meant you made the arrangement before leaving school for the day. There might be a phone call but that was about it. Our parents usually knew where we were because arrangements had to be made in advance. It was very, very unusual for anyone still at school to have a car. If you lived in the city you took the bus or the train or rode your push bike.

Yes, it was different. We knew who the real isolates were. They could not hide it the way it can now be hidden. Guides and Scouts are no longer as popular. They have had to deal with other issues, some of them very nasty issues indeed. Rural youth group membership has dropped too, as has the rural population.  The number of people who attend church has also dropped. Even if you want a weekly church service you can "attend" via a zoom link. Is that the same as actually dressing in your best, going there and standing around chatting afterward? I doubt it.  Clubs of all sorts have a dropping membership. People do not want to take on the responsibility for running them, especially when the rules and regulations for such events seem to increase each time you meet.

And perhaps that is where things have really started to go wrong. It is not social media as such but the expectation that all we need to do to be entertained is push a button on a remote control and sit there. We do not need to make an effort to be entertained any more.  

If we do that as adults then the next generations will expect to do the same. They will not have the inner resources to entertain themselves. Young and healthy? You are expected to go and play sport for entertainment and friendship but it really is not the answer. There is much more to life and social life than that. We must, absolutely must, teach the generations below us the skills which will allow them to entertain themselves. It won't stop all suicides but it will surely help some of them be more aware.    

Did you have birthday parties

as a child? You must know what I mean a party on or near your birthday with a special cake, your friends running madly around after you had opened the presents they had given you, that special "party dress" or new t-shirt with the racing car on the front. There would be raspberry cordial, tiny pies and pasties, jelly and ice cream. Games would be organised by the adults when you would rather just have been racing around with the new football or giggling over the toy "make up". 

I never actually went to a party like that but I did hear about them, a lot of them. We did not have them in our family but I know other people did. As children I don't think we really missed them. Very little fuss was made about birthdays. It would be fair to say none was made about mine. It is on a day of the year when most people are getting ready to party. It was always in the middle of the school holidays. Two of my three siblings faced the same problem as did my parents. Birthday parties were not a thing in our family.

But they are in some families. It seems some people are going to extreme lengths even when money is short. There is a story in this morning's paper about a couple who have just spent ten thousand dollars on a birthday party for their one year old daughter, a party they acknowledge she will not even remember. Another mother has admitted to lesser expenditure, around a thousand dollars for a nine year old.

Perhaps there is something wrong with me but I found the first one ridiculous and the second one not much less so. How can you justify spending that sort of money on that sort of event? 

The one year old will not remember. When she turns two it will not matter if her parents finally see sense and don't even bother with a party. At two years of age she will not remember either.

It is different for the nine year old. She will remember. What will she expect at ten, at eleven, at twelve and on into her teens? Will she expect bigger and better every year? What else will she expect? 

The Senior Cat was sometimes asked to a child's birthday party as "the magician". The occasions he enjoyed the most were the smaller events. There would be just a few children. The event would be held in the birthday child's home. On one occasion there were just four young guests and he spent time teaching them how to do a simple trick. The mother later told him it had been voted "the best party ever". Her children played at being magicians for months afterwards.

I am not a "party" sort of person but I know some people enjoy them. Am I wrong to suggest that children do not need expensive parties, do not really appreciate them? I still think it would be better to put the money aside so they can do or have something they really need later in life and just have a simple celebration.   

There is a "musical dice" game

that can be played on the internet. It consists of a sixteen by twelve grid. You use two dice, roll them together and then add the numbers. You can then click on the relevant box in the grid and repeat the process until another eleven times. When that is done you can "play" the "music" you have "composed". 

If the person who introduced me to this rather fascinating little page is correct (and he has a reputation for that and the quirky) then it is based on a game invented by Mozart. It is quite likely. Mozart would likely have had fun getting others to roll the dice. He would then likely have played something within the parameters that had been set. He would also have had the capacity to turn almost anything into something that could be played with many variations. (If you doubt me then find his variations on what most of us know as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.) 

I tried another way of "playing" the game without the dice. The result is, as I thought it would be, much the same. The sound is pleasant enough to the ear but it all sounds very similar. It is a bit of fun - and that is all it is. I am not "composing music".  I have absolutely no idea how to set about that. I can, up to a point, read music but that is all. 

The idea that those "training artificial intelligence" should be permitted to use, without payment, the work of actual musicians or writers or artists or anyone else who creates something is surely on this level. It is not "composing" or "writing" or "making" anything at all. It may seem that way to someone who does not have those skills but it does not have depth. It does not have those tiny little things which we, often unconsciously, recognise as "human". 

In an attempt to get "data centres" built and running in this country the Prime Minister wants to change the law. It would mean anyone who creates anything will need to "opt out" rather than "opt in". It will allow those "training" AI to take the work of actual human beings and use it without paying for it. If that happens it will not allow theft but we will be inundated with music, books and more which will all lack that "something" which genuinely satisfies us.    

I have not met my local/state member

of parliament. She is new. 

I did not vote for her. Voting for her would have been to vote for more than just inexperience. The alternative was not a lot better but I felt it was likely to have proved better. 

I have not changed my mind about that. It has been reinforced in recent days. Although she lacked any experience as a local member she was catapulted straight into a ministry, one of the most difficult ministries of all. She is also responsible for representing the members of her electorate. It is what she was elected to do.

There is a major construction underway in this state. There are road works and tunnels. When finished it will get some drivers to their destinations about ten minutes faster at the cost of billions of dollars. Someone, somewhere, thought this was a good idea.

Like any other major project the cost has blown out. It was always going to blow out. One of the major contractors, previously delighted to have obtained the work, is now wishing he had never heard of the project. He has been subjected to threats and violence. His family home was shot at while his elderly mother and his young daughter were there. A business he owned was burnt to the ground. He was refusing to pay the "fees" demanded by those who try to control any major project.

I do not know what his own business practices or habits are like. I have never met him. I am not likely to meet him. It does not matter. He won a contract to perform a job and, providing he keeps to the terms of the contract and the law, he should be free to do that job. He should be free to do it without demands from the criminal fraternity.  Nobody should be demanding more from him, least of all those who are not prepared to work.

When he went to visit our local state member to inform her of what had happened it was not simply because of what was happening to him. It was to say, "You, the state government, have a problem here. The cost of this project will blow out even further than it has. It is organised crime which will benefit."

If someone came to me with a story like that I hope I would have informed my boss immediately. The reports in our state newspaper suggest the first her boss knew of it was when it appeared in the paper. She had said nothing to her boss about a very serious issue with a major project. One of her ministerial colleagues said nothing. They are trying to blame their staff and also say that it is not up to them to deal with issues the police should handle. 

If this was bullying in the playground would you leave it up to the students to sort it out themselves? Would you do it even if you thought it might lead to serious violence? What if you were aware that a student had already been injured? Would you talk to a colleague but decide the head of the school did not need to know? If you were new to not just the school but to teaching would you ignore the issue or would you seek advice?

I do not like asking for help. I am apparently "far too pig-headed and independent" but I really do believe I would have informed someone with the capacity to take action that threats and attempts to intimidate had been made. What was allegedly happening to one contractor will likely be happening to others. This was not about telling tales. It should have been about saving millions and getting the job done.      

"Would you let her in?"

My brother phoned me last night. He does so on a reasonably regular basis. Sometimes I phone him instead. There is also an occasional email between us. He does the same with Middle Cat.

None of us has any contact with the Black Cat. We can only assume she is still living at the same address but she does not respond. Her phone number has been changed. If I needed to contact her urgently I would need to check with the Electoral Commission that her address was the same. They might not be willing to tell me.

She would not know where I now live. The move took place after she cut contact with us. She has a phone number and an email address for me as well as my work post office box number. In addition to that she knows where Middle Cat lives, has a phone number and email for her. It is the same with my brother. 

The question from my brother came as no surprise. I know her apparent desire to have nothing to do with any of her siblings worries him. Both of us are older and spent a great deal more time away from our family home when she was growing up. We were not there when she was in her teens. 

I was on the other side of the world when she married for the first time. There was no suggestion made that I should be there for the wedding. I did not have the money for the fare. A year or so later I went just once to her then home. She had asked our parents to visit and I happened to be home. Mum had told her "and your sister too". There was reluctant agreement and it was clear the invitation had been made for the purpose of getting more financial assistance.

I thought of that and all the subsequent events, events that have caused so much harm. I remember the police giving us the information and the advice that led to me being the one to return home for the safety of our parents. The Black Cat has never accepted responsibility for any of her actions or the consequences of them. 

So, would I let her in to this small place? I do not feel it is "home" in the same way that my last place of residence was. I may never feel like that. It is more like living in student accommodation than that. It is somewhere I can eat and sleep and work. I feel I need to be quiet at all times, even when my neighbours are not quiet. I try to be polite but there is no sense of community here. I miss the occasional chat with the neighbours and the ability to put a load of washing on the line. If I tried to tell the Black Cat this I am certain she would just shrug and tell me that things are more difficult for her.

If she knocked on the door I would feel compelled to let her in. I would offer to put the kettle on. She is still "family". I know the conversation would be awkward, very awkward. I would almost certainly be very relieved to see her go again...but she is my sister.

So you want to "protest" on Remembrance Day?

Please do not try and tell me that the "student protest" planned for that day "just happens to be the date that was decided" and "has nothing to do with Remembrance Day". Please do not insult my intelligence by telling me such obvious lies.

Of course it was planned for then. This is not about "solidarity with students in France". It has nothing to do with students in France - or anywhere else. The problems being experienced in France (and elsewhere in Europe) have very little to do with students or education. Yes, they may have begun that way. They may have moved on to housing, the cost of living and much more but they are about power. There are people who have a great deal to lose and others who have a great deal to gain from those protests. Planning a protest for that time has been a deliberate and deliberately provocative act. 

This is the time of the year when year twelve students are doing their final exams. The examination timetable began on the thirteenth of October and finishes on the thirteenth of November. In that time those being called on to protest should be able to concentrate on the activity which will influence the rest of their life. They should not be distracted by the short term aims of the publicity seeking organisers.

Remembrance Day in this country asks us to give up a short time to reflect on sacrifice, sometimes the ultimate sacrifice. It asks us to think about others rather than ourselves. It asks us to think about what others have contributed to our good fortune to live in what is still a largely stable, relatively safe place.  

I often wonder how many of those who go to protest have any idea what it would be like to live under a communist/socialist regime. I wonder what they would make of the Russian writer who told me, "We have not many candles and too many lemons in Russia". 

Stop blaming social media for

everything "wrong with society". 

Yesterday I wanted to tell one of our politicians this - and not for the first time. The politician in question was trying to place the blame for the attack on another politician on "social media". They were trying to suggest - not for the first time - that this is why we need their "Information-disinformation Bill" to be passed. 

No, we do not need that bill passed. It is not going to do anything but more harm. Social media is not to blame. People are to blame.

Let me put something to you if you are silly enough to read this blog. Imagine there is a poison which, taken in very small doses, actually does good. It is intended to stop you from feeling lonely and depressed and overweight and old and just about anything you can imagine. It is a miracle pill. The doctor prescribes it for you in the form of tiny pills. You are to take one pill each day along with the usual advice about diet and exercise. You start out taking the pill. It feels good but you don't like the diet or the exercise so you ask other people who are taking the pills. They tell you they take more than the recommended dose. It is making them feel so good. So you decide to take more pills as well but you do it without keeping to the diet or the exercise. Yes, you end up poisoning yourself. The doctor takes the pills away and you return to feeling the way you felt before you were taking the smallest dose. The poison is blamed and there are calls to withdraw it completely from the market. 

But wait! There is an antidote. It is a very, very expensive antidote and it won't actually reduce the harm that much but it is available - for a few and at a high cost to all. 

It seems to me social media is a bit like that. It is not the poison itself which is causing harm. It is actually good. It has many benefits. The problem is that some people misuse it and even abuse it. There are claims it is addictive and much more.  It has been legal...until now. The first move was to try and take the under sixteens off social media. They were told "no" and "go and play with a ball instead". 

But it does not work like that. Not everyone wants to play with a ball. Not everyone can play with a ball. 

We see our politicians using social media and the media. They behave in the same ways they are telling us not to behave. They try to tell us that it is somehow "different" for them. If we try to suggest they are addicted to publicity they are simply "doing what is expected" of them. They want access to ever larger doses of the poison and for no antidote to be available among the rest of us.  I am not sure it works like that but the government still wants to try.  

If it is possible to be shocked but not

surprised then that is how I felt when an email hit my desk last night. It was sent out to a group I am peripherally involved in. I just happen to be on the list of people who are informed about what is going on from time to time.

In this case however I also knew the person it was about. Perhaps in a way I also knew him better than most of those who get the information knew him. It was not intentional. It just happened.

He was a member of a caring profession. He was also "gay" but, when I knew him, he was not in a relationship. He saw it as inappropriate, not the sort of thing that those he cared for would condone. Those people were important to him, very important. He had chosen his role or, as he would have said, been chosen to do the work he did. It is not easy work. He saw his attraction to his own sex as a test. Could he put it to one side and concentrate on the needs of others?

I have no doubt he talked to his superiors. They must have talked to him. What they said to each other is something I of which I have no knowledge at all. I would not want to know. For me he was simply someone I saw occasionally and happened to like very much. I liked him because he was a gentle man as well as a gentleman. His first thought was always for the person he was speaking to. He genuinely wanted to know how you were feeling. 

I came across him because he was in training locally. He would sometimes call in to see the Senior Cat.  Their conversations would often take place out in the shed. He would seek advice from the Senior Cat. It was not about his caring role. They both understood that and the restraints it sometimes places on those who perform it. What he wanted to know was about teaching. At some point they would move from the shed into the kitchen and I would put the kettle on. 

The conversation would continue. Sometimes I would listen. At other times I would return to my own work. He would ask if I could talk about what I was doing that day and was one of those few people who really did understand when I would say, "Not really." 

The last time he came to see us was just before he was appointed to a new place. He was feeling very anxious and uncertain about it. It was obvious that he was trying to hide it from everyone he knew but the Senior Cat had made two things for him. He had asked for one but the other was something that meant infinitely more to him. He stood there holding it as if he would never let it go. The Senior Cat probably made well over a hundred of them in his life time but he made this, like several others, from a special piece of timber.

"Sit down," I told him, "I'll put the kettle on." He sat. He transferred the little thing from one hand to the other and continued to run his thumb slowly over it again and again. We talked about the thesis he proposed writing but I thought he would be too busy to write it. I knew it was unlikely we would ever meet again.

We did not. I was right about the thesis and I was right to be worried that he would find his new role very difficult. There were occasional reports that told me he was "liked", "good", "so kind", "a lovely man" and more but I heard that almost inaudible whisper of concern. 

It was all too much in the end. He did not see himself as worthy. Yes, I was shocked. It is always a shock but, sadly, I am not surprised. I am also selfish enough that I am glad my last sight of him was, as he was about to get into his car, the way he held up the small object in his hand and called out, "Thank you again. It means so much to me."

The Senior Cat saw religion in a very different light from that young man but he had given him a small "holding cross" made from olive wood from the Mount of Olives. He knew it would mean something to an uncertain young man. I hope it went on meaning something to him even if it was all too much in the end.