"On page 24,"

I tell him.
        "Page 24?"
        "Yes."
The Senior Cat missed the news segment about the landing of the Curiosity on Mars. He was trying to catch up by reading about it in the paper this morning.
I knew he would want to know so I searched for it before he was up - and eventually found a small piece at the end of the international news section of the paper. Obviously our local people did not think it was important.
It was important. It was important for any number of reasons but the front page today has a picture of a man on a small yacht. He apparently won a gold medal at the Olympics. Fine. People do want to know about that right now. I will allow that is probably front page news.
The rest of the front page however is taken up with some controversy about a football team, a coach leaving, a former Treasurer of the state wanting to be involved and... well I gave up reading because it simply was not important. It bored me. It does not matter.
I am no scientist. Science was not something I found particularly interesting or exciting at school. Much of that would have been to do with the fact that it was very badly taught. I was never allowed anywhere near actually doing any of the experiments - which might have been fun - and the curriculum was scarcely challenging. (I managed to pass with a minimum of effort.)
But, I do think science is important. I am aware of the enormous challenge that the Curiosity project presented - all the maths, physics, engineering, design, logic and planning that went into it were well beyond my abilities. I know someone who was peripherally involved. He works at the Deep Space Communication Centre in Canberra, the "ears" of the Curiosity project. I have no idea what it is he actually does. He is an astro-physicist and I have only a vague idea what that means. I understand basic mathematics. I managed to do statistics at university simply because I had to produce some. I have little faith in them with respect to the social sciences because they are so easy to manipulate. In other areas of science they have a different value and different application - or so the astro-physicist explained. All that is beyond my abilities too. The retired Reader in Mathematics around the corner despairs of my lack of interest in her passion for numbers - and I in her lack of passion for words.
But there is one part of the Curiosity project which is not beyond my abilities - or the ability of anyone else either. The project really began thousands of years ago with people staring at the stars and wondering "what?" and "what if?" and then "how?" They imagined doing it. We have to be able to imagine things in order to turn them into reality.
That really should be front page news.

"Did you ever truant

from school?" the Whirlwind asked me.
        "No," I told her and wondered what was behind the question. There is no chance of her truanting because she boards during the week. I never had the opportunity to truant either. My parents would have noticed immediately if I was missing. They went to work in the same place for most of my school life.
        "B....." she told me, naming a girl in her class, "Is going to truant a whole term. Her parents are taking her back to India. Are the others back yet?"
She indicated the neighbour's house. I told her the father was. The mother and the two children will be in Hungary for another two months yet. The elder boy is missing an entire term of school here.
        "He will have to do heaps of work to catch up," the Whirlwind said. Missing school bothers her. She is worried she might miss out on learning something vital.
It does not seem to bother many other students nearly as much. In the last two years of secondary school here the local state high school students are not required to be on school premises unless they have lessons to attend. Rather than get on with their work as is intended many of them head off to the closest shopping centre. There they "hang out" and spend apparently endless pocket money on chips, sushi, icecream and soft drinks. Some of them drive their cars the short distance - cars packed with other teens.
They do not see themselves as truanting and technically they are not - but they are in another way. They are supposed to be working, not playing.
I pointed out to the Whirlwind that B.... will not really be truanting. Her parents, both doctors, are going back for a purpose. I know because I have had some input into the project they are working on. They will see to it that B.... has work from her school here and that she and her three brothers will also see as much of Indian life and culture as they can. It will be a marvellous experience for them - and they will undoubtedly come back appreciating life with a reliable electricity supply and clean running water.
The older child from next door will also come back speaking passable Hungarian. He has spent time there before and his father says he quickly picked up what he had known before and has added to it. If his mother has her way he will probably go on with at least the spoken language here. He is a very bright child and any other work will, at his age, be quickly made up. He is also learning many other things while he is away.
It seems to me there is a vast difference between absence from school and truancy. Absence from school, unless one is too ill to learn, can be educational. Truancy is not.

I went in search of

"leather thonging" yesterday. The Senior Cat needed some for the small items he is making for someone else. He makes these on a fairly regular basis and they are used for charitable purposes so the thonging is important if not urgent.
The last time I bought some I obtained it from the Untidiest Shop - the one I have mentioned before. It was there on reels. You took it to the counter. They measured it, cut it and passed it over .
I pedalled off confidently and searched the shop. (It is very large.) Nothing. I asked. The girl on the other side of the counter did not even know what I was talking about. Another assistant frowned and said doubtfully, "There might be some with the beads."
I went and had another look. There were tiny plastic packets of much thinner, artificial material. You could get 1.2m for the princely sum of $3.99. I left it there.
There is a quilting and theatre fabric shop some distance away. I pedalled to that. The woman there was much more helpful in that she at least knew what I was talking about. "Try the internet?" she suggested after she had made a 'phone call to the only other likely source. I thanked her and we both agreed that, much as I would prefer to shop locally and keep the shops open, this would be the solution.
I pedalled home, searched and found what was needed. I sent a message to the person my father makes the items for. Did he want a reel?  He sent a message back to say that he would order a reel himself.
I was reminded though of the haberdashery store not far from the home of my paternal grandparents. It sold all manner of useful things not just the sewing things, fabric and yarn which were the real reason for its existence. I am quite sure that I can remember seeing reels of leather thonging in the far northern corner of the shop. I can remember buying some with my father for the small leather purses every child made at school. You were given two small pieces of leather. You marked the edges with holes measured at "absolutely equal" intervals and then you threaded the thonging through to hold the pieces together. I think the teacher put the fasteners on. 
There was no nonsense about 1.2m of skinny, artificial "stuff" in a tiny plastic bag. It was good, solid stuff you bought by the yard. It can still be bought but you have to go hunting for it and yes, it comes in yards rather than metres. I wonder why.

Shetland is not a

"remote" place. Kate Davies talked about this on her blog "Needled" this week and I have to agree with her. 
I do not have an i-pad so I cannot download the offending e-magazine (available on ly on Apple) and read the article for myself but she, rightly, criticises an article in that magazine for referring to Shetland as remote, "sheep infested", windswept and the like. The author of the original article apparently gets his geography wrong too. It would cause me to question not just the article but the entire magazine.
My ancestors came from Caithness. Some of them were sailors. Shetland was just a short hop away for them. There was nothing remote about it. It might take a little more travelling for some people than others but, as Kate points out, it is easier for her to go to Shetland than it is for her to go to the Isle of Man or Guernsey - and nobody calls them "remote".
We lived on an island once. It was isolated but it was not remote. Very few places are remote. To my mind "remote" means not being able to get satellite communication - and most places in the world can get that. You can be isolated but it is not quite the same thing. People can be isolated in big cities. Island communities are often very close-knit. They once had to be in order to survive. That is not a myth but it would be equally wrong to suggest that there are not rivalries and tensions at times. Of course there are.
Kate also complains gently, but again rightly, of people perpetuating such myths about places, people and things. It is a common habit of writers and, as readers, it is confronting if our expectations are not met.
I can remember being asked by young Canadian children if Australian children rode kangaroos to school. They were terribly disappointed to discover they did not. Their romantic view of Australia was disrupted.
It is good to be reminded of myths and good to be reminded that they are myths.

There was a particularly lovely

jacket being worn by a shopper in the supermarket yesterday. It was obviously hand made but not the sort of hand made which looks home made. (Knitters will understand this perfectly. The rest of you must just imagine.)
It was made from many different colours, yarns and textures brought together with a charcoal grey. The sleeves were exactly the right length. The mandarin collar sat perfectly. There were pockets.
I admired it first from afar, not even realising it was a handknit. It disappeared from view.
A crowded supermarket is not the best place to observe such things or prowl after them for a better look so I went on filling the trolley with the heavy shopping I do once a month. I turned into the aisle that has biscuits, tea, coffee, sugar and related items. There was the jacket again. The wearer was frowning at a label on a tin. I edged closer. Could I get a better look?
As I did so the wearer put the tin of cocoa back on the shelf and turned her trolley around. Our trolleys banged together.
          "Sorry," she muttered in the sort of way that you do to be socially polite but when you actually feel irritated. She really did not look in the least bit happy.
          "I was admiring your jacket," I told her.
She looked startled.
          "Did you make it?"
She nodded.
          "You really like it?" she asked. She seemed almost bewildered. Her eyes filled with tears, "My husband hates it. I made it from all the left overs and he says it looks as if I can't afford to buy clothes. I can only wear it when he's away. I even thought I should just give it away."
I really liked it. I was looking at a work of art, several hundred dollars worth of art.
We were blocking the aisle but I wanted a better look, I really wanted a better look.
           "Yes, I really like it. I would really like to have a closer look at it."
We moved our trolleys. She undid the jacket so I could see how she had lined it (a remnant of fabric from her quilting shop) and how she had put in darts to accommodate her very ample figure.
Someone else I know stopped to look. She also knits and was equally appreciative. Two quilters stopped to admire it as well. One of them said, "Tell your husband it is a patchwork quilt! It's marvellous."
At last we all had to move on but, as we left, she was smiling.

"Are you in training for the Olympics

or something?" someone snarled at me as I pedalled past them yesterday.
I always go at walking speed on the footpaths but I was going very slowly indeed this time because, ahead of me, were two very small humans not on their leashes. This always worries me. I prefer very small humans to be properly under control when there is traffic around. They could dart out into the roadway at any moment.
Their mothers were chatting - one of those "And then he said to her... and she said to him..." type of conversations.
I reached the button controlled pedestrian crossing and pushed the button and waited. The two very small humans caught up and the smallest one jumped up, pushed the button again and then started to cross the road. I grabbed. Fortunately I grabbed clothing.  Car brakes squealed - and missed by more than enough but still alarmingly close. The very small human still screamed - and screamed.
And, suddenly, I was being screamed at. How dare I push the button? I should know better than to push the button with children around? I thought I was going to be physically attacked.
The car driver had pulled over by then. He walked back looking the colour of the sky (grey) and very shaken.
         "Kid okay?" he asked. I nodded because the mother was still ranting.
 He rapidly backed off. The traffic stopped for us to cross. I tried to get over and found my way blocked by the mother. She still seemed to think that it was all my fault.
Her friend was just standing there looking confused. By then both the children were crying.
Someone else crossed from the other side. He was big. He was wearing work boots, dirty work clothes, the obligatory tattoos and a "don't mess with me" sort of expression.
He just stood there. He did not say anything. The mother turned on him. The traffic had started to flow again.  Calmly, he pushed the button while he continued to stare at the mother. She stopped shouting. Her friend said nothing. The children sobbed. The traffic stopped again. I pedalled silently over and he walked beside me.
When we got to the other side ahead of them I said, "Thankyou."
He nodded and went towards the ladder he had come down. I pedalled on feeling distinctly shaky.
A little later, on my return from the post office, I saw the two women and the two children in the shopping centre. The two women were having coffee. The two children were running up and down nearby. They stopped when they saw me.
They probably went back to running after I left but I like to think they might have managed to learn something - despite their mothers.
        
       

Medals do not matter

but manners do.
I have not been too impressed by the manners being displayed by some of the athletes at the Olympics - or the manners of the television presenters. Some of the Australians have been making me squirm with embarrassment.
Crying because you "only" got a silver instead of a gold? Sorry, someone else was better than you. I know it is disappointing, terribly disappointing, but this is the highest level of sport. You are in the international arena and crying like a spoilt three year old is not part of the behaviour expected of you.
Yes, I know there are huge expectations of people at that level. I know they are under enormous pressure. I know that the media adds to that pressure and most athletes would do well to stay away from the actual reports.
The media however also expects to be able to interview the athletes after both wins and losses. Not responding, however you might feel, is seen as churlish - to say the least.
Then there was the wearing of the "aboriginal" flag on a boxer's t-shirt. The wearer knew perfectly well what he was doing when he wore it. He knew it was against the rules. He knew perfectly well what the reaction was going to be. He also knew it would get him the publicity he craved -and it did. The media should have refused to mention it because politics are not supposed to be part of sport but it suited the media to make much of it.
There have also been grumbles and rumbles here in Australia about the way that our athletes have "hundreds of thousands" of dollars spent on their training - at taxpayer expense. Because of that, it is said, they "should be performing better".  Our swimmers were said to have had a "disastrous" day in the pool.
Well, get over it. It was not a disaster. Disasters are earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, famines, fires, floods and wars. Failing to win a medal is not a disaster. Medals really do not matter. Manners - and they very much include how we care for other people - are much more important.