Building submarines

is undoubtedly a very complicated business. I know someone who is involved. He lives just around the corner. 
I have no idea what he does. He never talks about it. His wife has no idea. His two boys have no idea. He is the sort of person who makes a Trappist monk seem talkative. 
He's not supposed to talk about his work.
My maternal uncle worked for another defence related industry. He spent most of his working life travelling to Woomera and back. Once there he, presumably, spent his days helping in rocket launches. I don't know. He never talked about it either. We didn't even know when he was going to be there or back in the city. 
That's the way it ought to be.
Currently Downunder is negotiating new submarine contracts. The question is, apparently, whether Japan, France or Germany will get the main task and how much of the work will be done here. This morning there is the not unexpected news that Chinese and Russian interests have been endeavouring to "hack" into information about the new submarines.
There is also immense pressure from within and without the government for the Japanese to have a role. It is a mistake the government will almost certainly make - for business and political reasons. It is one of those "part of the Asian region" strategies successive governments are intent on pursuing.
The problem is that Downunder is not "part of the Asian region". It is a neighbour, not "part of the family". We can be good neighbours, indeed we should make sure we are good neighbours.
We need to build our own fences without letting our neighbours have the knowledge to undermine the foundations or provide weak fence posts to knock over in the future. Submarines are fences at sea. Good fences help to make good neighbours.
 

Oh yesterday was interesting

oh yes - and frustrating.
It was my day on duty at the Quilt and Craft Fair. I normally work there every day but the friend I work for was not there this year. (She is off visiting the wilds of Peru and I am just a little jealous.) So, the knitting guild claimed me instead. I could give them a day.
I could stand there on my rear paws and knit with my fore paws and I could talk nicely to people. I could answer all those questions. 
"What are you making?"
"How do you do that?"
"I can't knit. Is it hard?"
"I can't knit but I can crochet. Do you teach people to crochet?"
"I can crochet but I can't knit. Do you teach people to knit?"
"Where do you meet?"
"Do you want some yarn?"
"Where's the yarn for sale?"
It was the last question which caused the most problems. There was no yarn for sale. 
The fair was smaller this year. There had been another one earlier in the year - with some yarn for sale. My friend was there then. There was another stall holder with a rather different variety of yarn as well. Yarn addicts swooped to enhance their stashes. 
This time there was nothing. At previous fairs there have been four or more stands that might not be solely yarn but there has been yarn for sale. People have bought it. 
But having a stand is expensive. Even the guilds pay to be there. Admittedly the guilds do not pay what the businesses pay but the guilds are not permitted to sell anything so they should pay less. I know what it cost my friend to be there. It's money for jam if you organise the event but not if you sell at it.
One new exhibitor was charged a ridiculous amount for a tiny area  you could barely move around in. She was the only person there. I "minded the shop" for a short time so she could go to the rest room and get herself a drink. 
I know some of the other regular stall holders. I "sold" something for one of them - in that I took the money from the customer and handed it on when she had finished with another customer.
"Thanks Cat. Can you stay for a moment so I can go...?"
So much for me having a short break to wander off to look at the quilts!
And there were all those people who said, "Hello Cat..." "Oh, look here's Cat. I  knew she would be here somewhere." "What are you doing here Cat? Where's P....?" "Why aren't you helping P... Cat?...What do you mean she's in Peru?"
And so it went on. My fellow helpers on the guild stand were amused. I was less amused. These people were nice. They meant well. Most of them were regular customers at my friend's stall.
They know me but I don't know them. They forget that they know my name because, like everyone else working there, I am wearing a name tag. They are not wearing name tags.
But, in my brief wanderings, I stopped to pick up something which had fallen from a stand. I passed it back to the owner. In doing so my eye alighted on a length of ribbon. It is white. It has some tiny modern arty crafty cats on it. My paw went out. It  was not expensive. There was enough there to put around the sun hat I have been making - just for the fun of it. I bought it. I could say to the owner of the stand, "Thanks T..." and he could say, "You're welcome Cat."
It helps when we are both wearing name tags - even though we both know each other.

"The carport will need to be

cleared out," the Senior Cat informed me with a groan of massive proportions.
"Good," I told him. 
He glared at me.
We need to get the carport door and the mechanism which raises and lowers it replaced. Attempts to repair both failed. Brother Cat removed the mechanism when he was here. I have been waiting for the Senior Cat to do something about it ever since. It is not the sort of thing I interfere in. 
A friend of his turned up on Saturday morning to have a look at the problem. He has just had a new one installed at his place. They talked about it.
Yesterday the Senior Cat called the same firm - after getting a couple of outrageously expensive quotes from elsewhere. There was a man there when I arrived back from visiting the nursing home. His quote came in at around half the previous estimates and he took into account a couple of things they had not been interested enough to consider. The Senior Cat signed on the dotted line.
BUT....the carport now needs to be cleared of all the timber and the "spare drawers" and the other detritus the Senior Cat has collected "because it might be useful one day".
How this clearing away is going to be done is another story. The council's "hard rubbish" allows for two square metres in a financial year. The list of things they will not take is long. It has to be put out by 7am on the day of collection. All of those things mean it is not an option. What is more most of it is genuinely useful - to any sort of handyman or woodworker. 
The problem is that most of the handymen and woodworkers the Senior Cat knows have the same problem. They have too much. They have collected it over the years. All those useful things in the carport have been given to the Senior Cat - or he has "rescued" them. He didn't buy them. He doesn't want to give them away. They "might still be useful". 
It is his problem, not mine. I was given bags of cheap acrylic yarn at one stage. I could have kept it on the grounds it "might be useful" or that I "might use it one day". I knew the reality was that I wouldn't ever use it. I gave it to the local charity shop. It has been turned into useful things by other people. I still have too much yarn but it doesn't clutter the place up the way those drawers and pieces of timber and so on do.
I would like to suggest a small "skip" - one of those industrial bins - and just get rid of it. There are always people scouring the dump for "useful" things. I am sure those drawers would find a good home - in a carport belonging to someone else. 

Bonfire Night

no longer happens in this part of Downunder. The government decided it was not safe. It is the beginning of the fire season. There were too many accidents. There were....The list of excuses for not having it went on and on.
As I write this Bonfire Night is occurring in the UK and responsible people will be trying to keep their pets inside and as calm as possible.  No doubt there will be some accidents. Humans and fireworks are not a good combination.
We had Bonfire Night when I was a kitten. We were told about Mr Fawkes in school. I doubt it was a very accurate version. It all sounded exciting rather than serious. 
For several weeks beforehand - probably the entire month of October - children could buy fireworks. They would be set off at all sorts of times and in all sorts of places. We were not permitted to buy fireworks. We had no pocket money to buy them.
We knew we would get a few. Our paternal grandfather would buy some. There would be a bonfire of all the rubbish our father had been collecting and our grandfather would set the fireworks alight for us. We liked the Catherine wheels and the fountains but not the ones that went off with a big bang although we didn't mind the squibs too much. 
We had "sparklers" - even I was allowed to have a sparkler despite the possible dangers of doing accidental harm to myself. I remember the thrill of actually being allowed to hold the stick as it went "fizz". 
And remember those potatoes we insisted on cooking in the bonfire? They were black on the outside and raw on the inside.
I remember the last, sad, sleepy sizzle of the fire too. My grandfather would hose it down and it would be trodden on and then hosed down again. He never took risks with fire.
I was always concerned about the animals. My mother would stay inside with my baby sister and our cat, Blackie. We thought it was very noble of her to miss out on the fun. Looking back I suspect she was only too happy not to be there - although my grandmother seemed to genuinely enjoy being with  us. It was a little longer before the concept of burning money started to bother me.
I also remember my father carefully pulling one of the fireworks apart. He showed us what "made it work". He told us about gunpowder - and how dangerous it could be. I remember him lighting the match and making the tiny, tiny pile of gunpowder "explode" in the driveway. My mother was not keen on that lesson but my brother and I were greatly impressed by it. We did not play with fireworks. We never played with matches either. 
Children growing up in our part of Downunder don't know about Bonfire Night now. I am glad they aren't burning money and even happier that animals are not being terrified. But, there is a tiny part of me which knows the children are missing out on something.
 

So Hizb-ut-Tahrir

is telling followers "not to assimilate", not to cooperate with ASIO, and not to support the democratic values in the citizenship oath? They are claiming that Muslims are being "forced" to assimilate?
Yes, it's also an organisation which also supports Sharia law. Yes, it has been banned in some countries. Yes, it is radical.
Recently children were removed from a school assembly because the national anthem was about to be sung. They were removed because the children were not supposed to sing during a period of mourning for a Muslim leader. Now Hizb-ut-Tahrir is saying that being required to sing the national anthem is "forced assimilation".
There has been nothing more than the mildest of rebukes from other Muslim leaders. "They're just looking for publicity."
They got publicity. They had an extended segment on the SBS news service. Listening to well dressed, well groomed, well spoken young men speak was alarming. I have no doubt at all that they would have great influence over impressionable young people and the less well educated. Their influence may even go further than that. 
Their intention is to isolate people from society. The greater the degree of isolation then the greater control they will have over others. This is the way cults operate. It should be ringing alarm bells. Surely more moderate Muslims should be condemning this? If not, why not?
With respect to the school assembly perhaps it would have been more appropriate to simply say, "Those children not able to sing at present just stand quietly." This would both have respected their beliefs (or the beliefs of their elders) and asked them to respect those of others.
Segregating them was not the answer. It marks them out. By doing that it tells others "they're different" and "it's okay for them to isolate themselves and not be part of our society". It gives everyone the wrong message.  
So why did the media give this group so much attention? Why didn't others condemn their extremism?
 

Girls can do anything

on the race track thank you very much. 
I have no time for horse racing. I don't think it is a "sport". I think it amounts to animal cruelty. I would have it banned if I could - along with a number of other things labelled "sport".
But, that said, yesterday was a moment for a certain amount of amusement. A female jockey won the Melbourne Cup. What is more a female jockey won the Melbourne Cup on a rank outsider.
I suspect that there are still some male jockeys smarting at the dressing down they will have been given by trainers and owners. "You let a woman beat you?!!!!"
Too bad. It just showed a woman could do the job every bit as well as, and in this case better, than a male. It also showed that gambling, especially betting on the horses, is about losing money. 
As a teenager I used to go to a summer camp organised by the Guides. It was held on the grounds of a race track in the hills behind the city. We would take children with a wide range of physical disabilities off to camp for a week.
In the very early mornings those children who could get out of their "beds" alone would often be found sitting next to the actual track watching the horses being exercised. The horses would be going around and around and around.
I remember one of the boys, about nine or ten, asking me, "Don't they get bored?"
My careful answer was, "The horses know it's their job."
He seemed to be satisfied with that. I don't think I was lying to him. I don't know what or how horses think. They probably think in images. They must "know" in a certain way. Some people claim horses "like" racing. I doubt that but perhaps they have some sense of what is expected of them?
I was with the child though. It must be boring. Human runners must get bored too. I went to university with a boy who had ditched training as a swimmer. He had been told he had Olympic potential but the hours "spent staring at the bottom of the pool" were not for him. It takes a different sort of individual to handle it.
But women can handle it all just as well as men. The girl who did it yesterday didn't mind saying so either. You could see some of the men itching to ignore her and concentrate on the horse and the trainer and the owners. The post-race speeches sounded like that. It took the Governor-General to eventually bring her to the front and say something aside from his prepared speech. Perhaps it did hit home then. The media started to make a fuss.
But we shouldn't need to make a fuss. It should be considered a normal achievement. Being male or female shouldn't come into it.
I was far more impressed by the jockey's brother. He is a strapper in the stable she was riding for. He had no doubts at all. He knew his sister could do it. He has probably never given much, if any, thought to whether there are any differences in what males and females can achieve. 
We can learn a lot from someone with Down's syndrome. Thanks Stevie Payne. Your sister is right too. Girls can do anything.

Lowering the voting age

has been suggested yet again. This time it has come from the Leader of the Opposition. Mr Shorten is not doing too well in the polls and this is an all too obvious attempt to divert attention from his leadership and gain support from those too young to vote - yet.
Shorten's arguments run along the lines of, "You're old enough to go to work and pay taxes" and "You are old enough to drive a car" and "You are old enough to serve in the armed forces (at 17)" so "you should be able to vote at 16".
He has also said that "young people were allowed to vote in the Scottish Independence referendum" and that there is a tendency in Europe towards lowering the age at which people can vote.
Hold it right there.
Very few 16yr old adolescents pay tax. If they do pay tax they pay very little tax. They have, by and large, chosen to be in the workforce. The vast majority of them are still in school.
The law says a 16yr old can get a licence to learn to drive. That does not mean that a a 16yr old is old enough to drive - and they can't get a full licence then. Most young people are not old enough to drive for some years - and research shows that many young males in particular are not mature until around age 25. Learning to drive is a choice. It is not a requirement. 
Entering the armed forces is also a choice - and a 17yr old wouldn't be sent to fight unless Australia went to war. (It may not happen even then.)
Allowing young people to vote in the Scottish independence referendum is not an argument for allowing young people to vote here either. There is no compulsion to attend the ballot box in Scotland and it was a vote about one issue - not many. 
There is no compulsion to attend the ballot box in most European countries - Cyprus, Lichentstein, and Luxembourg try to enforce it but Belgium doesn't. Most countries have an age requirement of 18.
The idea of lowering the age has very little support in the community - even among those who would be eligible to vote if the measure was successful.  Yes, it is a diversionary tactic from a man who is desperate to change his standing in the polls.
But there is more to it than that. I genuinely believe 16 is too young to vote.. At that age I am sure I made many choices on impulse. I didn't know party policies or how they might affect me or the groups I cared about. It's possible most people still don't know. Some young people take an intelligent interest in politics. It is easier to do it now with so much information so readily available. But because some do and because information is readily available it still doesn't mean that informed choices will be made.
If we are to have compulsory attendance at the ballot box then I would be inclined to say "raise the age" or "allow voluntary attendance at least to the age of 25". It's about that age our brains finally mature. That's when we should start to vote.