The NBN is supposed to be "fast"

and no, you don't have a choice about whether you connect to it or not. 
There is absolutely nothing wrong with what lovely B.... did either. External to the house there appears to be a serious problem. The system works at snail's pace - or perhaps even slower than that. It keeps "dropping out" and then coming up again. Pages take forever to load. 
The old system worked well. I didn't need or want anything which was "super fast". I don't watch movies on the 'net. I don't play games or do videos or any of those things. I download documents. I upload documents. I do the occasional photograph or diagram. The Blissymbol program works like a word document. 
I should not be having problems.
The Senior Cat is having similar problems with his i-pad. He does watch the occasional gardening or magic or carpentry video. He likes to know how things are done. He couldn't connect and then he could. He is frustrated. 
I am frustrated and furious. This should not be an issue, particularly for people who work from home. This was supposed to be the answer to the 21stC connection to the world. It clearly isn't. I couldn't risk being without a connection at all - and that could have happened if I had left it to the last minute. 
It will be interesting to see if the connection improves when, as I  suspect, less people are using it in the early morning. If that is the case then it is as well that this will be when I need to connect to people in other parts of the world. 
But, I am very frustrated Cat...and if you are waiting for a response and don't get one please understand it is probably the connection and not me!

The NBN (National Broadband Network)

man turned up yesterday. That was a surprise. 
Oh yes they said he would be here but I really didn't expect it as they had not, as requested, confirmed it or told us what time. He just arrived. 
Of course I wasn't around was I? At least it was only a quick trip to the post office - or it should have been. Some idiot left an A-frame advertising the local gym just where nobody could get past. I had to get off the tricycle, find pen and paper and scrawl a note which said in no uncertain terms that disabled access, gophers, pushers etc. were being blocked. Someone helped me shift the thing out of the way and we both went off growling. I suspect it will be back in the same position today - and if it is I will make the effort to access the gym and tell them again in less polite terms.
So, I was later home than I expected. The Senior Cat told me Mr NBN had been and would be back, I wasn't holding my breath.
But he did come back and obligingly undid two screws on a lock for the Senior Cat before doing the job. He even plugged the new modem in for me - something he isn't strictly supposed to do although it took him less than a minute. And then off he went.
I sat there and read the instructions on how to restart the computer by putting the new wifi thingy in placde.  I pressed buttons and typed things in. 
Nothing happened. 
I went through it all again and again. Nothing happened. GRRRRRRRRR
I couldn't get the Senior Cat's i-pad to work either - but he had somehow locked himself out of that.
I gave up and went to see a neighbour who is taking up my pyjama legs so that I won't trip over. "Come and use our system with your lap top and I'll send B.... over when he comes to pick up the girls."
There was a grateful purr from me.
I had already rung Computer-S who knows more about computers than most people but he couldn't get there until late and said he wasn't sure he knew as the NBN was new to him too,
But B turned up and said, "Ah hah! You need a wireless card in the computer. I can get the laptop going for you and I'll deal with the wireless card tomorrow. It shouldn't be a problem."
So, here I am on the laptop which is much less easy to use but at least I can use it and, bless him, B will sort it today I am sure. He even talked Computer S through the problem so that he would know too.
We have brilliant neighbours and friends. I want to make sure I return the favour...hats for the girls perhaps?

The mental health facility at

Oakden should have been closed long ago. It was a disgrace. Those of us who knew about what was going on there had been trying to do something about it for years.
Government didn't listen. They needed somewhere. It was being run "on the cheap". It was understaffed. The staff that were there were working too many hours. They were largely untrained and underpaid.
My nephew did a stint there when he was doing locum work - the money which helped to fund the research he was doing. He had signed on for a shift in the emergency department of the related hospital when they told him that they were sending him over to Oakden.  He knew nothing about Oakden. He had no training in psychiatry. The very fact that they needed to fill an emergency shift like that rang alarm bells. He did the shift but he didn't want to do another one. He felt he simply didn't know enough - although they would have been more than happy to have him back.
I didn't know he was going there or I might have told him a thing or two. It isn't hard to guess the sort of thing I could have told him. Some of what occurred there is no better than what happened in the Victorian era "insane asylums".  I visited once - and once was enough. It was a cold day, too cold for someone to be wandering around barefoot and in nothing more than a t-shirt in the courtyard.
The staff member I spoke to just shrugged and said, "Yeah well you know what they say, 'no sense, no feeling'. I'll go get him in a minute."
"In a minute" was not good enough for me. The minutes in that place tended to be very long.
I did what I went to do - and made sure the patient was back where it was warm - and left. I reported the incident but I doubt it was sent any further up the chain of command. 
For five months one year I went in and out of another mental health facility sorting out the life of a friend who was not mentally ill but needed to be in hospital. The mental health unit was the only place that "had a bed". It nearly made a mental health patient out of my friend. We were both appalled by what was or, more correctly, what was not happening there.  I remember spending almost two hours there one morning. The woman in the next room was weeping all that time. My friend told me softly, "She was like that all day yesterday too and nobody came. The staff just told her to be quiet."
Was that treating her? 
Last year I had occasion to visit the same place again.  Nothing seemed to have changed except the faces - of both the staff and the patients. The patient was a "voluntary" one. The harassed young doctor, who might easily have been my niece if I had a doctor-niece, told me, "Let's get her out of here. She won't harm herself and it isn't doing her any good. Will her family bring her for  counselling? Will they be involved?"
I suspect that helps - helps a lot. They were in this case and she is a much happier person, happier than she has been for many years. It isn't often that sort of thing happens.
I admire the people who work in that area because they care. Mental health is a tough, tough area.
 

So Macron's partner is

24 years older than he is? 
I suppose in French politics that will matter less than it would elsewhere but it is something he has kept very quiet up until now.  It seems the French media has kept it very quiet too so I wonder just how little it really matters? 
Muslims in France are, understandably, being told to vote for Macron. In any other political race however he would be condemned for his relationship with his former teacher. Your "private" life is no longer private in politics or public life. Everything you do or say or read or watch or eat becomes of interest.
I remember there were reports here when a previous Prime Minister reportedly passed an ice cream in a cone on to one of his daughters. Then it was reported he had eaten a raw onion. Really? Is that so interesting it has to be reported? Of course it was all part of the media push which helped to oust him.
Politics is rough on marriage. I know our former federal politician reasonably well. I knew him before he went into politics, before he married, and well before he had children. It was hard on him and even harder on his wife who had to do a lot of lone parenting while he was away in the nation's capital. Is it any wonder that he eventually decided to get out? 
I don't know how the women who have children while they are in politics cope. It's all very well saying "equal opportunity" and "women must be allowed to pursue a career" and all the other things that are said about mothers and employment - but how do they do it?
At least Macron's partner is apparently no longer of child bearing age. Her children from a previous relationship are "grown up" - whatever that means when referring to your own children. She can concentrate on being the President's partner.
And that makes me wonder who is really running the race for the presidency....is it Macron or is it his partner?

The "welcome to country" was

apparently politicised at the major ANZAC Day event. That appalls me.
The "welcome to country" is a relatively recent thing. It is in itself political. It takes the form of a person who identifies as being a member of a local indigenous tribe welcoming people on to their land or the performance of a song or other ceremony.  It isn't "traditional" in that it didn't always occur in the past and it was by no means universal in its occurrence or format. That said,  in the proper place at the proper time and done with thought and care it can be a very positive experience for everyone.  
The problem is that, like too many other ideas, it has become "politically correct" to have such a "ceremony". The frequency with which it occurs has made it less meaningful than it might be. Instead of reserving it for special occasions, as it was in the past, it has now become almost commonplace. There are demands, not always from the indigenous community, that it should occur.
I was talking to an indigenous friend about this. Like his mother before him he has a robust view of the world. He has very little time for the politics surrounding indigenous affairs. He doesn't like the way the welcome ceremony is being used. It is his belief it should be used only on rare and appropriate occasions. Yes, an ANZAC service may be such an occasion. No, it should not have been given any sort of political significance then. It should not, according to him, ever be given any sort of political significance. 
I know other indigenous people who agree. They feel their traditions have been taken over by articulate "activists" who don't represent them but have the ear of the media.  "It's our business," I've been told. "They are using it all wrong."
I didn't hear the speech which was made - and for which the speaker apparently had to offer an apology.  I'm glad I wasn't there. I would have felt very uncomfortable. 
I know there are many people who won't agree with me. They welcome such things. But, to me, this political correctness isn't about genuine respect. Those who use the occasion for political purposes are showing disrespect not just to the occasion but to the people they claim to represent.

Please stay fine for the ANZAC Day march

I think to myself. It rained at a crucial moment early this morning - just before the dawn services were due to begin.  At the moment it is fine but cloudy and the forecast is for more rain later. Please, make it later.
The last thing I want to do is glorify war. There is nothing glorious about war. Most of the people we label as "heroes" were terrified young men doing as they were told, terrified in a way that the rest of us will never know about.
The men of WWI have gone. The men of WWII are getting older and fewer.  Each year I remember the time we spent living in a "soldier settlement" area - one of the farming communities set up by the government after WWII to try and give returning servicemen some form of gainful employment. The ANZAC Day dawn service was one of the most important events on the community calendar. Everything else stopped for it. The wildest teens in the community - and there were a few - didn't put a foot out of line. Every school child turned up to the service. We had gone through all the usual hymns at school the week before - no nonsense about religious sensitivities as the Methodist minister and the Catholic priest and the Anglican priest and my father as headmaster organised the service with the head of the Returned Serviceman's League. Men wept. 
It was strangely quiet in the early morning.
Later there would be "the march" and we children would stand in our Guide and Scout uniforms or our school uniforms on either side of the road they came down. When it was over the men would disappear. They would go and drink beer, play "two-up", and perhaps reminisce. I say "perhaps" because most of them didn't want to remember and their dreams were often full of their war experiences. 
The youngest member of the library knitting group is in the state's school choir and they were singing at the main dawn service in the city. It meant getting up at 4:30am to get in there on time.  I wonder what sort of impact it will have on her. She is about the age I was when I first really became aware of ANZAC Day.  She is a creative, thoughtful child. 
It is something MsW has done in the past - and the experience made her a fierce pacifist. It is as well her father was there to support her afterwards. It caused a leap forward in her emotional maturity.
I rather suspect there will be some "bored" children today, children for whom the events of today will have little or no meaning. But, for those who do understand something of the emotions behind the events it will perhaps be a good thing. They may help to at least reduce the conflicts of the future. 

French politics has apparently

seen a seismic shift away from the major parties. 
At this hour in the morning Downunder it looks as if the French will be heading to a run off vote between Macron and Le Pen. It won't matter who wins out of those two. They will  need to work with a hostile government and they will leave the country divided. I don't envy the French.
What puzzles me though is the number of people outside France who can vote in the election. I don't mean those people who live in the French territories like Noumea but those who live in places like Downunder.
Last week a friend here flew to Canberra. He timed an important meeting so he could also vote - and yes he timed the meeting so he could go and vote. He hasn't set foot on French soil for the last how many years and has no intention of ever going back - but he voted in the French election. He will vote in the next one too. He sees it as his right. 
Perhaps it is. I know he isn't the only one to feel that way. I know other people who vote in elections for their home countries, people who have no intention of ever returning. They still want to shape the future of the country they left.  
The French Embassy has apparently said they are expecting at least 15,000 French to vote in Downunder. In a tight race even that many could make a difference. I wonder if it has made a difference in other elections, whether people who don't live in a country and ultimately won't be affected by the outcome will make a decision that affects others. 
The electoral boundaries here have just been redrawn. We are now in a "new" electorate. I missed an opportunity to meet one of the candidates recently. I hope I meet her soon. I knew my old Federal candidate well and I have met the new one. I need to meet the person who is likely to represent me at state level. To me this is important as I want to know not just what policies they will supposedly support but what sort of person they are in themselves.
It seems most people never bother. There is research to suggest they vote the same way all their lives. Do people who vote from outside their country of birth for elections in their country of birth do the same? Or, are they people who take a genuine interest in politics?
It is difficult enough to vote here. The responsibility weighs heavily on me. I look at the policies. I look at the candidates. How on earth do people do it from outside the country?