At last! A full night’s sleep. I don’t know what I did to enable it, but I was able to sleep the whole night (except for three piss breaks) last night. For some reason, I had no restless legs – that’s the reason. I wish I knew what the magic potion is but boy, it feels good to wake up refreshed.

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Hey hey, 29 October, Dad’s birthday. He would have been 101 today. Best father I could ever have wished for. Happy Birthday Dad.

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The title refers to my feelings after the rejection of the referendum. What a shameful act. What a low down, racist, stupid act by the blackfella hater population of this country, and there are many, many.

If I were an Indigenous person, I would be feeling rejected, incredibly hurt, and above all, vengeful. After all the decades and centuries of genocide, it still goes on. To be treated like this must feel utterly terrible.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, people who voted No are the most stupid, lower intelligence of us:

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Well, I’ve finished watching Succession, all four series, about 60 episodes. What a show. I feel different, having watched it. It’s interesting to see that the main writer is British. He should take a bow, because he’s done an amazing job.

It’s so good that I’ll have a break, probably a month or two, then I’ll watch it again from the beginning.

The trees and leaves are green all year round in Paradise, aka Australia. Warm 23degC today, mostly dead still, a bit cloudy but fine. It’s steadily warming up from winter.

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The title is from one of mmy favourite old-time songs:

In the summertime, when all the trees and leaves are green
And the redbird sings, I’ll be blue
‘Cause you don’t want my love.

And so on. Very applicable to me. Written by Roger Miller, he of the King of the Road fame (g-r-eat song).

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Speaking of songs, I heard an especially catchy tune on the radio a few days ago, and wondered why I haven’t heard it before, it’s so nice.

Hey there mister, build a fence around your sister
It’s the boys night out.

That’s so catchy that I can’t get it out of my head, and I can’t help improving on the lyrics.

Hey there brother there’s no need to ask our mother
It’s the boys night out.

Hey there cousin, the whole town’s a’buzzin‘
It’s the boys night out.

And so on. Frank Sinatra sang it. Never heard it before.

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I’ve just come back from doing some grocery shopping and can’t help noticing that shopping rhymes with shocking. Savage price increases. More pricing errors on my till docket. Deceptive pricing. Where? Woolies, of course. Robbers. Lazy managers, not keeping the computers up to date. If Coles can get things right 98% of the time, why can’t Woolies?

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Oh, Succession, you have me spellbound! I’ve just watched episode seven of the final season four, so only three episodes to go. My goodness, I am hooked. What magnificent (if vulgar) script writing. You’d better have a big tolerance to swearing. Every second word is f**k or f**king, or f**ken. The women as well. No-one is spared. No scene is too solemn.

Spoiler alert — Logan dies. Early. I wonder why they didn’t leave his death until later. To let the “kids” develop on their own, I suppose.

Anyway, this is definitely one of the best TV series I have ever watched. Not the best, but near the top. Crikey, how the rich live! They don’t drive, they are driven by drivers. They don’t get stuck in traffic, they are simply driven to sleek helicopters. When they need to go to some part of the high finance world, like Italy or Switzerland or Norway, then the corporate jet is summoned. It’s a Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 or similar, luxuriously fitted out.

After logan’s death, and not long after, a few days, his widow Marsha says she doesn’t want to stay in the big house in New York. Son Connor is immediately interested.

Marsha: “These places go for $60-70 million.

Connor: “Oh, OK. So do I just start bidding? Soooo, how about 63?” He means millions, of course.

Marsha: “OK”.

Connor: “Well, it’s a deal, then.” And he spits on his right palm and holds it out for a handshake onthe deal. Just like that. An outlay of $63 million done in 30 seconds. No need to line up a bank loan.

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I mentioned that I bought some hi-fi equipment on Facebook Marketplace a couple of weeks ago, a stack of seven items for …… $50. That’s $50 for the lot, not each. I am very pleased. They were advertised as not all working, but that doesn’t worry me. I’m looking forward to tackling any faults. Here’s a better look.

There’s more, I just haven’t collected all the images yet. There’s no problem getting all the service manuals and circuit diagrams off the internet. Very pleased, quite excited. But wow, I have so much hi-fi equipment that when I die, you can put it all in a canvas bag and tie it to my ankle and bury me at sea with it. 😉

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Grrrr, some dirty thief in Nicosia, Cyprus, got hold of my Visa card details and has been making realtively small purchases with it. Not big – usually around $40 so that you don’t notice. But steady, several times a week. Crikey, just imagine if you had a hundred credit card numbers scammed – you’d never have to work again.

Visa alerted me to this and they cancelled my card and issued a new one, which I’ve received now. But I’ve still noticed at least two scam transactions from last week being debited to my account. I’ll have to phone them and sort this asap.

Crikey, 36degC yesterday, 30degC today, and we’re still six weeks away from official summer. It’s been a quick transition, from needing a jacket two weeks ago to almost needing air-con today. UPDATE: I did run the air-con for a few hours yesterday. Good sleeping weather.

My sleeping is crazy. I can drop off quickly around 11pm to midnight, but I wake after only 30 – 60mins and can’t get back to sleep. Restless legs!! Squirming around, can’t keep still. Horrible feeling.

So I get up and sit at the computer until 3.30 – 4.30am or so, watching YouTube clips. But mainly, watching episodes of Succession. Usually two x hour long episodes. Wow, it’s addictive. I’ve nearly finished series three, and I’m definitely going to need more series. I’m hooked.

Anyway, my sleep has become divided into a short bit at midnight, a longer bit between 4am and 10am, and an afternoon nap between 3.30 – 5pm. But tired all the time. Not good.

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Bloody YouTube, throwing up a screen saying Ad Blockers are not allowed on YouTube. Well, get f–ked! I’m not going to be told what I can’t do like that. Get lost!

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Well, it’s not too much of a surprise, but it’s been reinforced again, you can fool some of the people all of the time. The referendum was defeated by a solid majority of all six states and 60% of the population voting No.

To be clear, 60% of Australians voted that they do not want Indigenous First Nations people to be recognised in the Constitution or to have input to Parliament on matters that affect them.

I find that astounding and shameful.

It sems that the majority of Australians regard themselves as superior to the original inhabitants and owners of this land. They are not willing to let Aborigines have any access to our parliament if it wants to pass laws affecting them. Bloody hell! The arrogance! The apartheid attitude!

One Indigenous commenter said she fears it will take two or three generations before there’s another chance of a new referendum or another attempt at reconciliation. That’s 40 – 60 years! They are hurting, and I don’t blame them.

David Marr, lawyer and well known journalist and commentator, has done extensive research and written a book telling that there was a systematic, official policy of extermination of the Aboriginal race in the 18th and early 19th centuries. There were squads of horse mounted riflemen whose job it was to hunt down blacks and shoot them, murder them, men, women and children. Official, government sanctioned murder squads. Shooting them in the back.

And yet, this year, the Indigenous people held out the hand of love and friendship and asked that they be recognised as the original people of Australia, which is factual, and that they be listened to on matters affecting them.

And Australia said NO.

It is shameful.

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I’ve finally finished volume three of the WA Croft Family History, 1955 – 2001, and it’s off at the printers. It took a lot of hassle to get Photobook to recognise my pre-paid vouchers and I had to pay an extra $41.50 per book, so a total of $76.45 per volume! Very annoying. I’m thinking I may have to start using another company – there’s no shortage of them.

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Next book? I have never done a proper book of my Japan trip, 1992. The photos are timeless, and I’ve found my little spiral bound notebook of every cent I spent on that trip, plus my daily little notes as I went. So I have all the information I need.

Aaah, nice warm weather, 27C today, lovely. It still gets a bit cool at night and I might start out on top of the bed sheets, but I wake up under the doona.

Last week I emailed the local office of A. H. Beard, the mattress makers, telling them once again how dissatisfied I am with the mattress I bought. No reply. I filled out their on-line survey, giving them very low marks. No response. I emailed their Sydney office. Again, no reply. They’re just ignoring me.

A. H. Beard. This is the worst mattress I’ve ever slept on, and being a traveller, I’ve slept on an awful lot of mattresses apart from my own – in hotels, I mean. Yet the best I’ve ever slept on was in a Bali hotel in 2016, in other words a mattress made in Indonesia, or even Bali. It was remarkable for its comfort, so much that my partner and I both commented on it. If only I could have that one. Mattress, I mean. I’m afraid my partner has departed. A great pity.

I think I’ll just have to sell this mattress, take a big loss and buy another one. Meanwhile, don’t buy an AH Beard mattress!

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The title refers to the referendum on Saturday. Voting is compulsory, by the way, how about that my USA friends? All it means is that attendance at a polling station and being crossed off the roll is compulsory. Once you’ve got your ballot paper, you can leave it blank or deface it, no-one will know.

Anyway, the referendum is to add a section to the Constitution to recognise Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders as original inhabitants of Australia (a proven fact) and to set up a committee (called a Voice) to advise the federal parliament on matters affecting Indigenous people. Nothing more.

The wording: The vote will decide whether we recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in our Constitution, and whether we consult with First Nations people on matters that affect them, through a Voice to Parliament. That’s it.

The Voice (committee) advice would not be compulsory and any advice would still be voted on by the parliament. If they decided it was unacceptable, then it wouldn’t pass. That’s all.

But the dirty racist NO campaigners have built up a mass of lies about this, saying it would divide the country along race lines and that it would amount to apartheid. What evil bastards No voters will be.

The slow learners believe these lies. Too many people say, “Oh, I don’t understand it, so I’ll just vote NO.” Cretins. Slow learners. Brain deficient. But above all, LAZY. Can’t be bothered making any effort to find out and understand.

I’m afraid the NO campaign is going to prevail on Saturday. For months, they’ve been spreading lies, fear, misleading claims and race hatred. I find this very depressing. It’s typical of this country – full of low intelligence, timid people with a fear of change. The contrast with the USA, the UK, Japan, Germany, France is glaring. Those countries are leaders in breaking ground, getting things done. Australia will always be laggards, too afraid to take to the front. Not everyone, obviously, but there are too few doers and too many naysayers.

It wasn’t always that way, but things have changed since early last century. There are a valiant few, fighting against the odds, trying to make breakthroughs, but they can’t overcome the great slothfull mass of dullards. Yes, if you vote No, I’m calling you a dullard, a no-hoper.

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The NBN (National Broadband Network) is a prime example. This was proposed by Labor (the progressive party in Australia) nearly 20 years ago as a nationwide fibre optic network, to carry data at 1 Gigabits per second (Gb/s) or more. It was visionary and exciting. We knew that new ideas would grow from it.

But what happened? A new Liberal-National Party government was elected and they just had to oppose it. A new minister for communications was in office (Malcolm Turnbull) and he just had to make big changes, purely to have a point of difference to Labor, who had proposed the system. It’s a long story but we ended up having a dog’s breakfast of a hybrid system, incapable of the 1Gb/s and ranking around 17th in the world internet speed rankings. Using old copper wiring instead of the glass fibre. Costing just as much as the original system would have, even more.

So I call Malcolm Turnbull the man who single handedly wrecked Australia’s fibre optic network. The wrecker.

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I’ve just been on the phone to Epson Customer Support (and I nearly started swearing at the guy, thinking it was a scam call – luckily I stopped before uttering any nasty words).

I gave them very low marks last week because I just could not navigate and use their on-line purchase page on their web site. No matter what I did, it kept sending me around in a circle between two pages. Although I kept pressing the Go to Checkout button, it took me back to asking for more details, every time. Their solution, use a different browser. I didn’t have a different browser (I use Mozilla Firefox), and by the time I was able to use Chrome, someone else had jumped in and bought the item. Grrrr!

Anyway, he asked me a few questions whether I had any other problems and I said YES! Glad you asked. My Epson ET-7700 multi-function printer scanner misses lines and colours, and leaves black ink splotches on the page, every time! Very unhappy about it. It means I can’t make any colour prints – photos, I mean. This is a $750 printer! Unfortunately I didn’t make any warranty noises in the first year because I didn’t realise how big a problem it was going to be.

Anyway, I was able to say that I’ve done all the right things, all the cleaning, replaced the Maintenance Box, done the head alignment and so on. So he’s given me the name of the service agent in Perth. We didn’t talk about warranty so it’ll be interesting to see what happens.

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Anyway, the item I was going to buy from Epson at $599, down from $799, is this:

It’s the Fast Foto FF-680W scanner. What’s so good about it?

The idea is that we’ve all got boxes and packets of old photographic prints from the days of the 1-hour photo processing shop. They sit in our cupboards and drawers and we hardly ever look at them. As well, we have masses of documents of various kinds, bills, memos, letters, single photos up to A4 size and so on.

With this machine, you load them into the feeder as shown above, in any order, and press the Start button. It feeds them through, one by one, and scans them in high resolution at a rate of one per second! That means 60 photos or documents per minute! High 2400 dpi resolution or higher.

While it’s doing this, it automatically straightens them, colour corrects them, sharpens them, and puts them into a folder that you nominate.

I missed the $599 carton-damaged machine on Epson’s web site, but yesterday I saw it advertised on Amazon Prime Day for $649 so that was it – I had to buy. It will arrive on 25 October.

I don’t have all that many prints, since I nearly always shot slides, but I do have several dozen packets of prints and a hundred or more black and white prints of various sizes. That looks like being about an hour’s work! Then what?

I have the idea of offering a scanning service. But I would need people to (a) bring their material to me; (b) accept that I would have no idea of the information in the photos; and (c) collect the results. I would put the results onto a thumb drive. The cost would be some fee depending on the time required, plus the cost of the thumb drive.

But I may be too optomistic. People are notoriously reluctant to pay anything for a service. Maybe I’m too cynical. We’ll see.

Crumbs, from winter cold to summer heat in a week. It was 32C yesterday and it feels similar today. I need to open the window in this room as it’s very stuffy, but reaching the latch behind my monitor is hard. I can do it, just … in a while. (Later – done it.)

I’ve just had a cup of instant coffee, using the winner, number 1 in CHOICE’s latest test of instant coffee. Surprisingly, it’s Bushells powdered coffee in a big tin, 200g for $8.50.

But frankly, I don’t know how they could have chosen this. To me, it’s bland, boring, tasting just like the powdered “caterers’ blend” we used to be served at work. Sweepings off the factory floor. I don’t like it. They say if you like a richer coffee (which I definitely do), use two teaspoons. Well, I’ve used two, and in this cup I used three heaped teaspoons, but I still don’t like it. Fail. Wasted my money, I reckon.

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I haven’t got every one, but I’ve had at least one of every type over the years and I’ve probably still got a dozen or more of these. More. I’ve even got a few specialised electronics types that are not included in the photo, fine side cutters and finer needle nose pliers. Right angle needle nose. I’ve got a lotta tools! The last one, bottom right, is an oil filter wrench and I wouldn’t have included it in the list, but what the hell…

I had to buy yet another tool yesterday, a tap valve face reseating tool. I’ve had a leaking tap in the bathroom for some time and I was sure I had one of these tools. But the weeks slid by and I couldn’t find it.

Then last week, when the dishwasher guy was here, he had to turn the water off, so I asked to borrow his refacing tool. I used it and ground a bit away, but I couldn’t test it because I couldn’t turn the water on while he was working.

Well, finally, when the water went back on, it was still leaking, but he was finishing and going and I couldn’t redo the job. Hence yesterday I gave in and bought myself a new refacing tool. $15.70. It’ll last me a lifetime, but how many more years do I have? It hardly matters how long it’ll last, I’ll probably never have to use it again. What a waste.

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Oh, it’s so good to have a dishwasher again. Six months I’ve been without it. It’s so convenient to use some crockery or cutlery or a pan, and just throw it into the dishwasher immediately. Bliss. It allows me to really use all my stuff, instead of trying to minimise.

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I also bought series 2 and 3 of Succession, that HBO TV series I mentioned last week. Kerrumbs! I’d been hearing and reading about this series for a couple of years and didn’t think I wanted to get involved very much.

But WHAM! It is so good! So complex, so well scripted, so involving. The actors are so good. Especially Shiv (short for Shivonne). She’s the smiling assassin, the velvet fist, the scheming bitch, always planning to turn the family situation to suit her. Playing double games, in one case with a lover against her husband, in another case in a plot against her brothers to get control of the family company, and in another, a plot to join forces with a US senator and presidential candidate who is a sworn enemy of her father. She’s a hydra headed smiling Gorgon.

There are 12 episodes in each boxed set. You can pay to watch on-line, without buying the discs, but each episode is $2.99, so 12 episodes cost $36 approx. The boxed sets cost me $16 each, half that price, and I get to keep them.

By the way, “boxed sets”, not “box sets”. Lazy people say box set. Not me. The same way I say ass-fault (asphalt), not ashfelt; and licoriss (licorice), not lick-rish. How do you get lickrish from licorice? (Yeah, by licking it, ha ha ha)

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One week to go to the referendum and I’m ramping up my efforts persuade people to vote YES.

The Indigenous population have extended the hand of friendship to us, the people who stole their land, waged war against them, murdered them, imprisoned them, spread diseases to them, and ignored their pleas for a Voice in the things that affect them.

The people who are going to vote Yes are the best educated, the brightest, the leaders, the medical fraternity, the health clinics, the biggest and best of business and industry, the people who care.

If you’re planning to vote No, you’ll be slapping the hand away. You’ll be in the group of ultra right wingers, dullards, racists, Neo Nazis, slow learners, spreaders of false and misleading stories …

If you’re of the Liberal persuasion and feel it’s too Labour, there are plenty of Liberal leaders who are advocating Yes. It’s not a political question. You don’t need to feel you’d be too far left/liberal (small l).

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My current book is the Sony Story by Akio Morita, the main guy who started Sony. Although he wasn’t the only top dog in the startup company, it’s just that he’s written the book.

I can’t disguise my admiration for well run companies making top quality products. Most of the Japanese companies are brilliant case studies of how to run a company. The immaculate precision of Sony electronics (and mechanicals) is just a sight to behold. They’re not the only ones – similar companies are Toshiba, Hitachi, Mitsubishi and so on, well known names. But a company you’ve probably never heard of is Anritsu. They make admirably good electronic test equipment. Anyone who works in high end electronics will speak highly about Anritsu.

When Australia was trying to choose a supplier of submarines, Japan tried very hard to get into the race. They weren’t happy to be excluded. In my opinion, if we had chosen the Japanese design, we would have had our subs by now, they would have been incredibly well built and they would have been incredibly reliable. So reliable that we could have had 11 out of 12 at sea at any one time, with only one being in dry dock for maintenance instead of three or four being unavailable. Assuming that we ever get any subs! What a debacle! Every defence acquisition we attempt goes wrong. Utter incompetence in Defence.

Etymology Online: cheap skate, “miserly person,” 1896, from cheap (adj.), second element perhaps from American English slang skate “worn-out horse”

I’ve bought myself some new secondhand hi-fi. But cheap!

From the top:

• Technics tuner amplifier ST-X902L, probably worthless, I’ll clean it up and give it away free to someone. Lightweight. If I can’t fix it, I’ll just junk it.
• Technics AM/FM tuner. Reasonable quality.
• Technics RS-X502 Double casstte recorder + player, Dolby B, C, HX Pro (headroom extension).
• Technics SL-PJ38 CD player.
• Technics SU-X502 multi channel amplifier with digital/optical inputs.
• Sony STR-DH730 7.1 channel 85W/channel tuner amplifier.
• TEAC AG-D9260 7.1 channel tuner amplifier (gold one at bottom).

$7 each! Of course, that’s the good news. The bad news is that “some are working, some are not”. I don’t know any more than that at the moment, I haven’t tried them yet. I like fixing things, and even if they are duds, at $7 each I’m not worried.

So they join my other hi-fi stacks:

Am I crazy or what? 🙂 🙂

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I love Minidisc. I’ve written about it here before. I own four Minidisc decks and about 100 discs since the early 1990s.

The thing about the discs is that they never wear out. They are virtually indestructible. They’re enclosed in a caddy with a sliding cover and they need both a laser and a magnetic field to record – i.e. they are magneto-optical discs. So even though I bought all those many discs back in the early 1990s, they’ll last me forever. I can erase and reuse them over and over.

One of my Minidisc decks is incorporated in a Sharp AM/FM + CD amplifier, and the great benefit of it is that I can have a disc loaded in the transport semi-permanently, and if I hear anything on the radio that interests me and I want to keep, I can just hit Record and it instantly starts recording. It just starts at the next available space on the disc. I don’t have to fiddle around finding a blank section, just bang and it’s recording. Then when it’s finished, I can edit it, name it, add it to a list, whatever. You can’t do that with tape.

However, both this Sharp and the Sony Hi-fi deck in the gold stack above have gone faulty – they won’t eject. I’m almost certain they have broken rubber drive belts.

You can buy a bag of assorted drive belts from Jaycar, 25 belts for $23.95 (robbery!) But that’s the Sony hi-fi deck above – a work of art. Beautifully made.

Bored? What me? Never.

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Finally, finally! I have my replacement Miele dishwasher. This is the insurance claim after the ceiling collapse in March. It’s only taken six months!

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Wow, I’ve been hearing about the TV series Succession for the past year, and blow me down, I realised that I have the 10-episode three disc set of series 1 DVDs that I bought about three years ago. I’d forgotten I had them tucked away in a pile.

Anyway, I’m well and truly hooked. I’ve watched the first five episodes so far and it’s very good. It’s about a very (obscenely) wealthy and powerful New York family that has an uncanny resemblance to the Murdochs, and all their nasty power struggles. The reviews all mention the foul language and that’s for sure. They’re not only obscenely wealthy, they are obscene, full stop.

One of the main characters is having dinner at a hideously expensive NY restaurant and he makes the remark that when you are as rich as they are, you just don’t have to think about what anything costs. There are no prices on the menu, not even for the wines. Whatever it costs, however grossly expensive it is, you just order it or buy it. You don’t need to hesitate because you are rich.

This particular dish they order is a deep fried bird. That is, it’s a small deep fried song bird that you eat, head, feathers, feet, wings, bones, the lot, in one big bite. But not before you place a white cloth over your head first so that you don’t see it. Gross! And as I said, obscene.

I recommend it. The TV series, I mean, not the bird.

Some of the reviews are calling it the best TV series ever. Bulldust! Rubbish. Typical American exaggeration. I could name you at least a dozen better series, including made in Australia ABC series. Americans don’t know how to make great TV.

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Bloody ‘ell, the rain and wind have set in. What crazy weather. We had the September record maximum on Thursday, 34.4deg, and now it’s down to 20C, and 18C tomorrow. Weird.