I am going to be political

today. If you are not interested in the shenanigans of Australian politics please stop reading now.
However, at the request of three regular overseas readers of this blog, I am going to say a word or two - or perhaps a few more.
Yes, we had some political tremors over the weekend. It was not, as some hoped, the forerunner to a political earthquake - or, not yet. Australia is not due for a federal election until 2013. The question is whether the government can hang on that long.
The Prime Minister returned from an overseas trip at the weekend and finally took some action that, even in her own party, was regarded as long overdue. That action however does not change the political landscape.
The Speaker stepped aside before that. By doing so he deprived her of his casting vote should it be needed and a vote on the floor of the house because the Deputy Speaker is a member of the government. (The Speaker was not.)  What the PM did say to the Speaker however was that he should not return to the position until all the allegations against him have been resolved.
And then, after months of distraction, the PM moved against another of her MPs - or appeared to do so.
Mr Thomson, member for Dobell, has been the subject of lengthy investigations. He denies any wrong doing but there are many unanswered questions. The union he once led is also the subject of investigations. It has taken Fair Work Australia a very long time to produce a report - a report which still has not been made public. The PM claims she told Mr Thomson he had to go and that he has gone.
That is not quite the case. There can be little doubt that something else has happened behind the scenes. Party strategists have been trying to work out how to handle the situation without losing any votes on the floor of the house. Their solution was to ask Mr Thomson, through the Prime Minister, to "suspend" his membership with the ALP.  Mr Thomson agreed. He will now sit on the cross benches as "an independent" - and continue to vote with the government.
So nothing has changed but the PM is claiming she has shown "strong leadership". In reality she is bowing to public pressure to do something - but not actually doing anything at all.
Some say that the Speaker, if he has any sense, will resign - thus keeping all the entitlements of his office in his pension package - rather than risk being kicked out. That would not make any difference to the government if they decided to go the by-election route. They would still, just, have the numbers with the support of the "independent" MPs. They are likely to cling to their positions as long as they can because they know they are not likely to be re-elected.
The government is on the nose because of a string of broken promises and wasteful programmes designed to buy political support. There are increasingly vociferous demands for an election - now coming from the media as well as the community.
How long can the government hang on? I do not know.
Should there be an election? It is probably the only way this mess will be resolved.

"You know there aren't many

here," one of the knitters told me.
We were looking for something on the shelves in the library yesterday. It was the day the knitting group meets there and she was looking for help. I was looking for an illustration to show her.
She was right.  All but three of them were out on loan.
There are not a lot of knitting books in the library. Those that are there tend to come in as donations. Anything else is likely to be of the "remainder" nature, bought cheaply by those who do the central buying.  Knitting, unlike patchwork or embroidery, is not considered to be a "serious" craft - and even they do not get the consideration of some other areas of non-fiction. The cookery section takes up multiple shelves. Oh yes, food is important. There are often cheap remainder books available. It is a problem with libraries. How do you cater for all tastes?
Our library has had very little in the way of new material for the last few years. The previous Chief Librarian was very good at getting money out of the local council. The new one has to work under a different system. This makes it very difficult for everyone.
When I first started using the library - a very long time ago - there were just books and a few magazines and two newspapers. The catalogue was a card catalogue. The checkout system was manual.  Now there are books, CDs, DVDs, videos, magazines, eight different newspapers and other items which can be borrowed. There are eight computer terminals for public use (you need to show your library card or other ID and book a slot). The catalogue is now on computer. The checkout system is computerised.
It is all very nice - but people still need reading material. It is, after all, still the primary function of the library. There are now moves afoot to change this. Our library is going to be one of the first involved. You will be able to have just one library card for all the libraries in the state. The catalogue will be statewide.  At the conclusion of the changeover we should have access to a much bigger data base and be able to borrow from anywhere in the state. That is the theory.
A staff member and I were discussing this later. We both know that there will be some initial problems. And what if the computer system crashes?

There was a book on the shelves of

the local charity shop last week. It was a book I remembered as having enjoyed when I was about six or seven. I could even vaguely remember the plot. It was by Enid Blyton. Out of curiosity I paid twenty cents for it and brought it home to look at it.
I could not read it. I squirmed. The plot was impossible - two children run away from a bad tempered aun and a work shy uncle. They go and live in a hollow tree in the middle of a forest.  Eventually they end up living with the poor-little-rich-girl who has befriended them.
The language is stilted. The characters are flat and lifeless. The ending is sugar-sweet-happily-ever-after.
Mmm...that is probably a clue as to why I liked it as a child. There was a happy ending. I know I needed happy endings in books around then.
I passed it over to the Whirlwind to read and asked her what she thought of it. She is much too old for it now but I thought she might be interested. She was but she did not finish reading it. She summed it up in one word - "Boring".
       "Why?"
There was the usual exaggerated sigh that comes when I ask her to explain something like that. Then she said,
       "It's not real. It has to sound real and that doesn't."
      "What do you mean?"
      "Well she tells you what they look like but she doesn't. On the first page she tells you that they have blue eyes and black hair but she does not tell you what they are really like. You don't know what any of them really look like. She just makes the aunt all horrible and the uncle all lazy and the other girl all nice and her parents sort of all nice too."
       "And?"
       "Well people aren't like that. You know that. You did it with Michael and Chantal. You know what Pauline looks like - inside as well as outside. I'd know her if I saw her."  I understand she is referring to Margaret Storey's heroine, "Pauline". The Whirlwind has just re-read the book again. "If you want people to be real you have to know about them inside as well as outside. You know what Bruno is like and that is all short bits. (She was referring to Colin Thiele's Sun on the Stubble.) You don't even really have to know what they look like outside. It is the inside bit that really matters. I like it when the book tells you about the inside of the people."
So do I.

There are many odd things

to be seen and heard in shopping centres and their associated car parks. Ours is no exception. Yesterday though was one of the most amusing I have ever seen.
There was an elderly car with the bonnet up. There was an RAA (Royal Automobile Association) van next to it. There was the RAA man, a man in his forties or early fifties. Most of these men are very competent. They do a good job at getting cars moving again.
There was also an elderly lady. My guess is she was in her late eighties. She was standing there looking sternly at the RAA man.
He was trying to explain something to her. She waited for him to finish but the look on her face said,
       "I am not impressed with what I am hearing."
I had to wait to pedal across the traffic coming up and down the ramp so I could hear what was being said by the RAA man. He sounded like a parent trying to explain something to a two year old child.
The elderly lady waited until he drew breath and then said,
        "Young man I probably know more about the workings of the internal combustion engine than you will learn in a life time. I was doing my own repairs before you were born. I know precisely what is wrong. I asked for your assistance, not your advice."
I managed to get across the traffic flow at that point. The railing I lock my tricycle to is above the car park so I could see what was going on as I pulled out the lock and secured my transport.
The RAA man was meekly following her orders.

The "Slipper Affair" appears

to have caught the interest of a couple of regular non-Australian readers of this blog. They have asked if I can explain.
I am not sure that I can but the very fact that they have asked rather puts a lie to the comments by Bob Carr, our Foreign Minister, that people outside Australia are not interested. I imagine that anyone with an interest in who is in power in Australia will be watching.  Australians are watching too.
The (fairly) simple explanation is that Australians elected a government that cannot govern in its own right. The government did not get enough seats to do this. It depends on the votes of a number of "independents". Naturally they formed government by offering some of these "independents" certain deals.  With those votes they can (just) cling to power.
One of those deals was over reform to the legislation surrounding "poker" machines - the gambling machines used in hotels and clubs. This deal was made with a Tasmanian MP, Andrew Wilkie. The government had no intention of actually keeping the deal but they agreed in principle because it gave them a crucial vote. They had no intention of keeping it because government revenue from such gambling is high, hotels and clubs desperately want to keep their machines too. It also provides employment for many people - and misery for a great many others.  It is however cheaper and easier to keep the machines that try to develop other means of occupying and employing people.
The government delayed doing anything about the matter and then brought in a proposal that they claimed would allow them to see if the proposed legislation would work. It was a delaying tactic. Mr Wilkie recognised it as such and withdrew his support for the government. The loss of his vote was almost, but not quite, enough to cause the fall of the government.
They moved. They bought the vote of an Opposition member who had just lost (with good cause) pre-selection for his seat in Queensland. They offered him the role of Speaker. He resigned from his party and accepted the position. It was, some would say, a brilliant tactical move. They got the previous Speaker back on the floor of the house (no doubt with inducements of other sorts) and deprived the Opposition of a vote.  Numbers were once again wafer thin but workable. They have pushed through a number of pieces of highly unpopular legislation since then.
The problem now is that the Speaker has had to stand aside. The government was aware there were allegations surrounding him, allegations of sexual harrassment being dealt with as civil proceedings and allegations of misuse of public funds (relating to travel expenses) which are being dealt with as potential criminal matters. The Speaker cannot currently participate in parliament. He cannot vote even as an MP on the cross benches. The Deputy Speaker is a government member. The government needs the matter to be resolved urgently in order to shore up their wafer thin majority.
What will happen? I do not know.It may be that nothing much will happen at all.

The ANZAC Day Dawn Service

for our district is held in the little memorial park about six blocks from our house.  It is not something I attend but, since my teens, I have made a habit of being up at dawn on ANZAC Day. Whatever else I am doing that day I make time to give some thought to the meaning of the day.
For the past few years I have been able to stand on our small front lawn and listen to the faint sounds of the hymns.
Last year I was joined by a man walking a dog. He stopped and opened his mouth and then shut it again and just stood there. The dog sat quietly at his side. When the Last Post had been played he went silently on.
Once in a while he passes when I am picking up the papers. This morning he was there. He stopped. The dog stopped. As we heard the faint sound of the last hymn two more front doors opposite us opened and the owners came out.
I know one of them goes jogging about that time. The other goes to work. This morning they came across the road and just stood there. When the Last Post had been played the jogger left silently. The worker went back into the house. The man with the dog smiled at me as if to say, "I knew you would be here" and walked on.
Nobody said anything - and yet we had probably said everything there was to say.

I can now hear people asking

"Well what did you get for your tea at school?"
It was not any better - or worse - than the other meals. There were sandwiches - always cheap white bread filled with more fritz or the strange, soft, pale yellow slices of Kraft "cheese" and dry sultana cake or biscuits. I suspect the cake and biscuits were bought cheaply as well. Sometimes the bread would just be put on the table with the margarine, the Vegemite and the stiff, over sweet concotion that passed for "jam".
Occasionally there would be spaghetti or more baked beans on limp toast - or even without the toast and the bread just passed out with it.
In winter there would be soup, always tinned soup. There would be bread or toast with this. Whether we got toast or not I think depended on who was on duty in the kitchen and how organised they were.  The soup would be served out at the table. How much you got depended on how good the prefect in charge was at dealing it out equally. Most of the time they were fair and did a good job, occasionally natural girl-bitchiness would surface and someone would get very little or a favourite would get more. I was always given a fair share - they were too conscious of what I given for lunch. 
We ate because we were hungry.
I went on to work in another boarding school - in order to pay my way through teacher training college. The food there was quite different. It was still institutional but it was good food. It was plentiful. It was hot and attractively served. The staff ate the same food as the students. I can even remember the headmistress having a second helping of a dessert the girls called "The Cook's toenails" - apricot crumble.