Some people will be disappointed

that columnist Andrew Bolt did not resign this week. He apparently came close to doing it when the Prime Minister allegedly interfered in the publication of a story which could have had (and may still have) negative consequences for her.
Our Federal Government is hanging on by a few threads - the threads of "independent" MPs who threw their lot in with the government. They are widely seen as having done so in contravention to the wishes of their own electorates and the overall vote. Losing the support of any of them or losing an MP could bring down the government.
Currently there are also MPs and Senators under scrutiny on both sides of politics. One of them is a government MP. If he goes then the government may well go with him. Naturally the government is doing everything it can to prevent this.
Dirt is being dug up and raked over by the media. Naturally the government does not like this either. In any other circumstances the MP in question would at least be answering more questions than is currently the case.
I do not know enough about the rights and wrongs of the stories in the media to be able to comment but I do know the government has been well treated by the media. Fiercely left wing individuals would undoubtedly disagree but most moderate, sensible individuals are aware that the Gillard government has had an unusual level of support from the media.
That may be what made the Prime Minister believe she could attempt to interfere in the independence of the press by 'phoning the CEO/Chairman of News Limited. I do not know. I do know that it was, at best, a tactical blunder of massive proportions. The last PM to try something like that was Gough Whitlam. Pre-internet days he might have succeeded. It is much more difficult now.
The odd thing is that the Prime Minister should even believe it might work. Had she let the story run the usual course she could then have asked for, and would have received, apologies for any inaccuracies in it. She could have used the situation to her advantage. Now the story, pulled from some websites, has sprung up in other places. It is being pulled apart. Bolt has written a column in which he discusses attempts to muzzle the media (and allegedly muzzle it with threats).
As it is readers and listeners are left wondering, "What do you have to hide?"

I am now in possession of a

portrait of my cat-self. I am catnapping on a calico background. I look comfortable and, may I say, cute?
The little picture is a piece of machine embroidery made by someone I know. She has one of those very fancy and expensive sewing machines that do complex embroidery. I have seen a good deal of her work. She made me a knitting bag. It has a picture of a cat asleep in a basket which also contains balls of wool and the needles.
Such things can be well made or badly made of course but hers are well made as are her cushions, her place mats, her wall hangings and other creations. She once made an entire jacket out of machine made motifs on lace. It is not something I would even contemplate putting on, let alone wearing, but it is a work of art. It is extremely well made.
I do not wear florals, frills or lace and the person who gave me the bag knows this. Her clothing goes to the other extreme. She buys plain garments and then embellishes them with embroidery, lace, beads, frills. She buys floral printed knitteds and embellishes them with beads.
It is all part of her personality. It suits her. It would not suit me.
But, she has given me the portrait of my cat-self catnapping and I like it. It is, unlike all the other things she has done, very simple. It is simply black stitching on a calico background. The design is composed of a minimum number of lines.
It is a haiku picture.

"We will be out

your way tomorrow and we wondered if you would be free for lunch," the person on the other end of the 'phone asked me.
"That would be nice but I'll have to ask the Senior Cat when he gets back," I say cautiously, "I don't know what he has planned. Could I call you back?"
I really do not have the time to go out to lunch but I will make time. Well, I have made time. I got up earlier. I have done what I would have done later in the morning and I do not need to prepare a midday meal. As we eat a main meal in the middle of the day this also saves time.
Like most other "working" people we knew we always had a main meal in the evening until I went to boarding school.
Australian schools generally do not provide cooked lunches for their students. My boarding school did and I assume most boarding schools do provide such meals for the boarders. Naturally staffing considerations mean they provide that meal in the middle of the day.
I never had a school cooked lunch. The girls' boarding house was deemed too far for me to walk to and from - and it would have taken me the entire lunch period - so I was provided with sandwiches.
The odd part about this was that nobody ever suggested I had lunch with the boys, who lived in a boarding house much closer to the classrooms, or thought that a meal could be put aside and reheated in the evenings. The sandwiches were usually filled with tinned baked beans for some reason. They were horrible and only hunger drove me to eat them. All too often the evening meal was something like baked beans on toast as well. I could scarcely wait for Friday evenings and the haven of my paternal grandparents' home where there was what I considered to be "real food".
Under my grandmother's guidance I would do most of the cooking there but Fridays were always a fish night. It was not that my grandparents were Catholics but that most people in the area ate fish on Fridays. They would often eat it at other times during the week as well but the local fish and chip shops (there were several) did a particularly roaring trade on Fridays.
My grandfather did not trust the fish from the fish and chip shop however so he would bring home something he had chosen himself. He would gut it and clean it and it would be cooked while he went the short distance down Jetty Road to the fish shop and picked up the regular order of chips. Other people did the same thing.
After a week of school food those fish and chips were wonderful. So was every other meal I consumed each weekend but the hot, greasy, salty chips and the moist fish enclosed in my grandmother's light, almost non-existent, batter were particularly welcome.
We rarely eat out. There are places where I am still reminded of the awfulness of school food. I will eat baked beans but they have to be hot.
And fish and chips have never been quite the same as they were on those Friday evenings - but I still like them.

My father has made

some more buttons from scraps of rare native timbers. He will not buy rare timber unless it has fallen naturally so only a little of it comes his way. It is expensive and often very difficult to work. Native timbers can be very, very hard.
He uses the rest of the timber to make small wooden boxes and pens. What is left however is too precious to waste and so he makes buttons.
My father does not claim to be an artist. He claims not to be able to draw a straight line. When my mother was alive he would consult her on design. Now he will consult me or, if one of my more artistically inclined friends is there, he will consult one of them.
The buttons are a joint design effort. He had made round buttons but he wanted to try other shapes. What, he asked, might be useful? Squares? Rectangles? Triangles?
I pointed out that sharp angles on buttons are not generally considered to be a good idea. He agreed.
He sat by my side as I jiggled the shapes that can be drawn on the computer. When we had something that looked as if it might be the right size and shape I repeated the design and he went off to play with his various machines and tools and the precious scraps of timber.
It was not easy, indeed it was very difficult. It has taken him a long time. Of course these have been made in between doing other things, mending another chair and making twenty of something else for someone else.
Last night however he came in with some buttons. There are squares. There are hexagons. There are ovals. They are made from Desert Oak, from Robina and from Bull Banksia.
As they are made by hand they are not all absolutely even. Far from detracting from their beauty this adds to it. He has oiled them with a special oil which will not affect clothing but, apart from that, they are natural. You can see the grain of the timber. The Bull Banksia has tiny silvery flecks, the Robina has small streaks of deeper brown and the grain of the Desert Oak is almost too fine to see but gives the surface an unique appearance.
"I think I might just go back to round buttons," he tells me, "They are much easier to make."
I am sure they are but these are, in their own way, small works of art. They will be given only to those who are able to appreciate such art - the art in timber as well as workmanship.

The infamous "Publish America"

has been news in writer circles again. As usual it has been in the news for all the wrong reasons.
I was startled to see a couple of "tweets" suggesting that they have not yet been required to make a statement with respect to their use of JK Rowling's name.
Normally I would ignore any Publish America advertising. I know they are vanity "publisher". The problem is that not everyone else does. It is an even bigger problem when it becomes necessary to explain this to a child.
Yesterday the Whirlwind tore into the house as soon as she could get here from school. I have not seen her for a fortnight but I barely got the usual bear hug. She dumped a piece of paper on top of the tomatoes I was cutting up and excitedly told me to read it. I took one quick look and knew exactly what it was.
Yes, a print out of the page saying Publish America would, for a fee, put my work in front of JK Rowling. A friend of the Whirlwind, a child who has far too much access to a computer, had found it on the internet when doing a trawl for Harry Potter related material.
Of course the two girls thought they were doing me an immense favour. They have read and re-read the Whirlwind's copy of the novel I wrote for the Whirlwind. They would like to see me as a published author. It would be something they could boast about.
The Whirlwind was jigging up and down with impatience.
"You will do it won't you?"
"No because it is not going to happen."
"But it says..."
I explained in detail. I gave her a lesson in reading comprehension and suggested she ask her father, an expert in legal drafting, if he agreed with me.
At first she was sure I was wrong. She was, to put it mildly, annoyed with me. Her friend had gone to all that bother and I was not going to cooperate!
Before she could storm out of the house and go home in a huff I managed to calm her down enough to suggest we went to the computer and look at some of the material about Publish America. Reluctantly she agreed. The Whirlwind, like most people (including myself), does not like to be wrong.
We looked. She sat there, arms folded, glaring at the screen.
"Okay, so you are right. They're lying and they are stealing your money too," she finally told me. "So why don't people stop them from doing it?"
Why indeed? The language they use is as carefully crafted as a piece of legislation. They have obviously had expert legal advice for many years.
I just hope that JKRowling's legal team will prove even more expert. It would save more young Whirlwinds from being disappointed. It might even save some would-be authors from themselves.

There is a row of mice sitting on

a sofa. They are behaving perfectly and nobody is running away from them. There are a few squeals but they are squeals of delight.
"Come and look at these!" someone calls out.
We all duly admire "The Mouse Family". They are knitted. There are all sorts of little details - from the laces on the teen mouse's sneakers to the hearts on the back of the blue sofa. It is one of the best "soft-toys" the show staff have ever seen. It is lined up on the trestle tables ready for judging.
Other items arrive over the next hour. They are put out on the tables. Some are good, others are not so good. There are some which stand out immediately. I silently note these.
There are also quiet moments between the arrival of the entries and I am able to look at some of the sections which have already been judged and put on display in glass cabinets. The knitting is adjacent to the woodwork section.
I know a little about woodwork, not a lot but enough to appreciate the work involved. This year there is another extraordinary piece by someone my father knows from his days in a woodworking group. This man makes replicas of buildings in timber. Said like that they do not sound extraordinary but these are made to scale. He has made our local St Peter's Cathedral, the Houses of Parliament in London, Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and other exquisitely detailed works. Everything matches. The mitred joints are almost invisible.
My father has explained to me the process of making the internal cuts. It is a very slow and painstaking business.
While I am looking at it someone else joins me. We laugh about the horrors of dusting it. (It is easier to use a hair dryer to blow the dust away.) Nevertheless I know her admiration for the skill involved is as great as mine.
More knitting arrives. There are two exquisitely knitted Estonian lace shawls. They are characterised by their "nupps" - small beadlike bobbles made by increasing and decreasing stitches five or seven at a time. The black shawl is made from particularly fine yarn and knitting the nupps would have taken great skill, patience and probably more than a few moments of anxiety. The cream shawl is made from slightly heavier yarn but it is still well done. There is a very fine white mohair shawl in a Shetland pattern. I would not knit complex lace in such fine mohair yarn. The pattern tends to get lost but it is nevertheless executed with great skill.
There is a full length coat which has an intricate many coloured design. I happen to know the knitter is 83. There are several other entries by the same knitter. Every entry displays a different skill. Her standard is high.
Then someone brings over the items that arrived by post earlier in the week. There are seven entries from one person. Every item is made with a skill most knitters can only ever dream of.
This knitter has sent entries before. They have always won prizes. We do not know who she is but there is a rumour that she is an elderly woman living in a nursing home. If that is true then it is even more remarkable as most of this work is made with very, very fine yarn.
One of the last items to arrive is something else I am expecting. The woman who has made it told me of her intentions last year. It is also a remarkably fine piece of work - the more so as the knitter in question has quite severe Parkinson's disease. I keep silent about this. I do not want to unduly influence anyone.
The judging begins. We have a chief judge but she never does it alone. We are all involved in the process because we have various skills.
I am pleased when the steward who has been keeping the names from us says that one prize has gone to the woman I mentioned several days ago. It is not a first but, against the exceptional competition, she will be pleased.
When it is done there is a decision to make. Which one will win best in show? The knitter we believe to be the elderly woman in a nursing home has won first prizes for all seven of her entries. Someone suggests displaying her work all in one place and giving her a special certificate. The overall convenor is consulted and agrees.
It means we can give the woman with Parkinson's disease the "best in show". She richly deserves this. Her garment is an original design. She has included a small explanation of what she has made and the history behind that type of knitting. The exceptional skill with which it has been knitted would have been sufficient but the extra effort she has taken has really lifted it above the other items we have considered.
The decision is made. I can then tell everyone what I know about the knitter. We know it has been the right decision.

"Do you think you could mend this?"

my father asks me. He holds up one of his "gardening/shed" pullovers or jumpers. This one has another hole in it. He has caught it on something again. He claims tree branches and bushes grab him and that workshop machinery sneaks out and gives his garments a tug just for the fun of it.

There are a number of these garments. They were knitted by my mother, made from whatever happened to be left over from other projects and from odd-balls picked up cheaply in Spotlight (a haberdashery etc shop) and at the charity shop. The one he is currently wearing started out with grey cuffs. I re-knitted the cuffs once so they are now brown. There is a large patch in the front and a couple of darns. The blues/brown/red/yellow and grey one he is holding wil have to be patched not darned. The hole is too big to just darn - and the cuffs need re-knitting on that too.

He even has one that has a considerably large pink stripe in it, followed by a small green one and a larger yellow one. The colours clash horribly. My mother would just pick up the next ball of wool and go on knitting. The garments were never planned. The stripes do not match. The yarn does match - up to a point - but the colours do not.

Every one of these garments is now darned, patched, re-knitted in one place or another. They are worn and yet not worn out. The glue and paint and garden stains will not come out. They are a disgrace. I have offered to knit a new one or two, "No, no. These are all right for a while yet."
My father sees these garments as indestructible.

I know why he wants to keep them of course. My mother made them - and that is why I will patch them and re-knit the cuffs. He does not want to give up the part of her he can still hold.

I do wonder however what the people I will be working with today would make of these things. I am about to go to the Showgrounds where the judging for the knitting section will take place today. I wonder what the knitters who are entering would make of these garments my mother made. Quite possibly, like many knitters I know, they would quietly reach for their needles and repair the garments. They would do it because they value something handmade far more than the finest and most elegant of machine made garments.