Author Archives: Pete

Looking on the bright side

We’re just near that little Rottnest Island in the middle.
I read an American (he’s in Wisconsin) photography blog every day and the author put up a quite personal item a few days ago about houses, mortgages, credit and living in the USA. I found it fascinating and started to respond by email, then had second thoughts when I realised I wasn’t really talking about the same topics.
But I think it’s worth posting what I wrote:
I’m in Oz and many Australians use the term “the Lucky Country” here in a self-congratulatory way, but it was actually coined (by Donald Horne) as irony, meaning things just fell in our laps. It’s not all luck, but this dry, dessicated, mineral rich, harsh country treats us well, provided we treat it well. For most of us here, it is pretty easy to do well.
I’m 65 and retired now, and I have been since I took a voluntary redundancy payout from my job as an electronics technician at age 52. Yes, I have not had to work since late 1999, and I’ve lived well: it’s been easy. Why? Because I had a secure, fairly well paid job* (electronics technician*). I bought my first house in 1982 with a fairly small saved deposit, sold it after renovating it for three years and bought my present house later in 1986 in a sort of distressed sale but in a top area.  “Worst house in the best street.” Boy, it paid off.
I cleared my mortgage in 11 years by paying a bit more each month than I had to (ie by paying 26 fortnightly payments rather than 12 monthly ones), plus making extra payments very occasionally. I’ve seen its value increase x11 fold since 1986! 
When I was made redundant in 1999, I had zero debt, because I was always careful not to go into deep debt. My payout plus my savings saw me through to age 65 and now I get the Age Pension which will see me through to my grave. It’s not quite enough to live on with my beer tastes, but my father lived on it. It can be done. I have other money to supplement it, but the pension is good.
Australia is nowhere near as wealthy as America, as you know, but it’s easy to do OK here, especially now. I have some US friends of (a bit younger age) but they are not doing nearly as well, and I don’t quite understand why. I think it’s because they never got a solid qualification in some vocation, instead, working at a variety of less skilled jobs.
Especially at this time of massive global wealth disruption, Australia is cruising. We never had a recession in 2008/9. Our housing market didn’t crash. Unemployment is less than 6% and falling. We had GDP growth of about 3.5% last year and my state, Western Australia, is booming. Unemployment is less than 3.5%, growth is about 6% and employers are in despair at being unable to get workers – in fact labour shortages are stopping our growth.
Yes, it’s not all good: cost of living is high, accommodation is scarce, youth crime is bad, drugs are just as much a problem as anywhere else, etc etc. But generally, we are doing OK.
Sorry to crow, but we have universal top quality free health care (by an income levy, of course), excellent pharmaceutical benefits (my prescriptions cost $5.80 each), and no-one need fear falling ill or being out of work for a prolonged period. The dole doesn’t stop (provided you play by the rules, keep looking for work and take jobs when they’re offered.) If you’re sick or disabled, you’ll be OK. You will get the care you need. We generally don’t have beggars on the streets, unlike America.
We have reasonable tax rates (tax-free threshold is $18,200, then 19% for each dollar over that to $37,000 etc etc.) The average wage is about $1400 pw (approx. $70,000pa). The housing loan interest rate is 6.8% and falling. Banks have money to lend and there’s no such thing as, what’s it called, “lock up and leave”? — mailing the keys back to the bank and losing your equity if you can’t keep your payments up? If you have to sell up, which can happen, you don’t lose your equity.
We don’t allow guns, nor do we worship them. You can own guns, but you have to jump through hoops and prove to the police that you have a good reason to own one. No-one can carry a gun except the police and armoured car guards.  We don’t need bank guards.
We also don’t kill people. We banned capital punishment decades ago and we don’t kill people just because we don’t like them or their government, or because we want revenge.
We don’t attack other countries. We don’t feel we have the right to invade other countries.  Yes, we’re in Afghanistan and were in Iraq and Vietnam and Korea with the US, but that’s because we were supporting America. Other countries don’t hate Australia as they do America, except for our association with America.
And shock, horror, voting is compulsory in Australia. You don’t have to actually vote – no-one sees whether you do or not, but you do have to attend the polling booth and be counted off or cop a $20 fine, that’s all. It’s not hard.
*All I had to do was get  a good qualification (by putting in the hours at tech college and getting my Diploma)  when I was young, and do my job well. I was lucky to be bright and have generally good health, but the rest fell into place. A few years ago I could call myself a millionaire in assets and savings (in fact, I even have a share of a luxury villa in Bali), but I’m just an ordinary tech! It wasn’t that hard.
So with all America’s wealth, all America’s population, all America’s skills, talent, resources, why is life so tough in America for so many people? Australia is not as wealthy, but the wealth we have is spread so much more evenly. Yes, there are poor people here, but nowhere near as dirt poor as in the USA, that hugely wealthy country. I don’t understand America.

At last!

That guy who pushed a man through a window at the Ocean Beach Hotel in Cottesloe, resulting in the man dying a horrible death, has been found guilty of murder.
At last a jury in WA has done justice. I’ve been wanting to comment on this for the past week but didn’t dare because of sub judice rules.
Now I can. If you’ve seen the pictures of the scene, it was the upper window that was smashed! To me, that shows that the thug, the murderer as we can call him now, pushed Andrew Marshall so hard that he lifted him off the floor and propelled him through the upper pane of a window, where he fell to the street below and died of the fall and glass cuts.

He pleaded not guilty and said he didn’t plan to kill him. Bit late, mate. For once, for once, our court system has returned justice.  I’ve long felt that in this state, you can get away with murder, but if you’re innocent, you’ll be found guilty. Proven in five separate, terrible cases. Shame, WA, shame!

Rain, beautiful rain

Misty rain
That misty look is rain! Compare that with the previous golden afternoon light views. When it rains here, we love it. Bloody cold, though. I’ve just had to put the heating on in the middle of the day, first time I’ve done that in years.  Of course, I could put my cardigan on … hadn’t thought of that.
Poor Minnie is huddling near me right now, panting with fear from the thunder outside. She tried to pull the gate open just now. There’s nowhere to run, she just has to get away from the thunder.
Here’s what it looked like about 10 mins ago:
W-I-D-E angle thunder clouds
Those are thunder clouds. It was rumbling.  But notice how wide the view is? I’ve just this morning received my Sigma 10-20mm super wide zoom lens. I’ve owned this lens before in Canon mount but sold it last year. Now I’ve got a Pentax version at about 40% less than I paid in 2008. One of those on-line bargains, not eBay, not from HK or China, from Brisbane. Happy to support local businesses.
Having said that, I was surprised to see a ResMed CPAP machine in the window of a chemist’s shop at Innaloo yesterday. They were never sold at retail level in the past – doctors only, at high prices (my machine cost $1600. Even the plastic mask alone costs over $200). If you wanted spares, even as recently as last year, I had to make an appointment for a week ahead for them to access my records and assess whether they might deign to supply me. After all, it might need fitting …
I went in and enquired about getting a replacement tube for mine. I don’t actually need it yet, but I was just asking.
They don’t keep stocks, of course. Not a tube, anyway. The woman got out a ring file and started to look up the part and price.
Five minutes of this and she still hadn’t found it in the list. I was just about ready to say forget it and walk away. I explained that I bought one last year from the hospital and it cost $22 but I had to make an appointment a week ahead and collect it at Northcourt, Karrinyup. I’d subsequently found that I could order it from a US web site, supplying the same ResMed product, for US$10!
Oh yes, she said, we hear that these days, and continued searching her lists with no result. Eventually I said I’ll come back another day. Oh, just let me ring the distributors. OK, she did and after much questioning (for Dog’s sake, I’m using one of the most common machines, a ResMed S8 Autoset) she finally got the price: $35. And when she mentioned my US$10 price they said, no, we can’t do anything.
So I carefully explained that I’m not necessarily going to buy from the US, but how can the same part, from the same maker, ResMed, an Australian company, cost $10 there and $35 here?
If they’d been able to produce the item in the shop, on the spot, or even given me a price without such hassle, I would have paid the $35. But probably not now. What a pity.
The same applies to software. I got an email this morning offering me something I want for $49.99. I thought, YES, I’ll have that so I followed the link. It took me to the US website, but that’s OK, I can download it. But no, it has to be supplied in a box. But they won’t ship to Australia.
OK, sigh, I’ll buy it from the Sydney web site. But the price is DOUBLE! $99.99 if bought here. No way. I’m not putting up with that. I’m trying to find a way to express my displeasure but they don’t make it easy.

Unions, don’t ya hate ’em?

Watch out, union members about!
[This post came about because I read a Canadian website which talked about the way the Hormel company in Canada, which used to be a fantastic place to work, was taken over and became a hellish, anti-union, anti-employee, ‘if you don’t like it we can get someone to replace you’ smoking ash pile. Just try working at Foxconn in China where they make Apple products – workers do 60-70 hr weeks and get fired if they complain. They are driven to suicide. Terrible stories.] 

I don’t get it. I must be dumb*. More on that in a minute.

I spent 25 years as the union delegate (union rep, shop steward, whatever) at my work, a TV station. My experience was that everyone wanted the benefits the union gained, but no-one wanted to pay. Everyone wanted me to explain the award (workplace contract) but no-one wanted to get involved in the union. Not “no-one” – we did have members, about 20% of employees joined and I have eternal respect for them. For the freeloaders, you get my eternal contempt.

Everyone wanted help from the union when difficulties arose or they got laid off. They ALL wanted me to explain their work conditions or interpret the award for them, even if they weren’t union members.

Many of the younger employees who asked me for advice didn’t even know what award they were employed under, what an award was, what rights they had or even their own pay grading! Yet according to the employer, they were supposed to be able to negotiate one to one for their own work contract with no outside help (ie union interference).

All the anti-union people wanted their own contracts, but the contracts they wanted  included all the conditions our union had won. They couldn’t see the contradiction. I used to say, OK fine, negotiate your own deal, but start from scratch! Start from NO conditions and work it out for yourself. They looked at me in bemusement. What do you mean? OK, I mean start from working any number of hours the employer wants, 176 hours a week maybe. Then negotiate your hours. Er, um, gee, haven’t we always had 37.5 hrs? NO, the union got that. What about 40 hours a week? No, in the 1950s, 48hrs a week was normal, until unions won the 40hr week. Gee, I didn’t know that. Haven’t we always had 4 weeks annual leave? No, the union got that. Even in my own working life, it was only 3 weeks in the 1970s and 80s. Leave loading. No! The unions won that in the 1980s. Gee.

All the conditions you take for granted, 38hr week, 4 weeks annual leave, leave loading, long service leave, sick leave, maternity leave, bereavement leave, overtime rates, shift rates, transport allowances, meal breaks, public holidays — ALL were won by union actions paid for by members with courage, going back decades. Freeloaders, bystanders, cowards, contributed nothing but still want the benefits.

Before One-Tel collapsed in about 2002, all the staff were proudly proclaimed to be on individual contracts. But when the firm closed its doors and the staff found themselves literally on the street in Sydney, who did they turn to? Greg Combet was there to help the very few members, but all the other staff gathered around and said, “Help!” And he did.

In the James Hardy asbestos scandal, who did all the work in getting justice for all the victims of mesothelioma? Unions.

The other thing all the TVW non-members said was, “But Harry Bluck called that strike in 1969 and they all had to go on strike!”
a) it was 1969
b) it was a different union (though affiliated)
c) so? Sometimes it takes a bit of courage.

But above all, the question was, What does it cost to join? It always boiled down to that: I want it but I don’t want to pay for it. Why pay when I get it for free (via the fees and effort of the union members)? Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? It’s the mantra of this age: Why pay for it when you can steal (download) it?

Why is it that in every form of human endeavour (except literature and art, surprisingly), teamwork is prized above individualism? But when it comes to dealing with bosses, teamwork bad, isolated negotiations good. Funny that.

The answer? Employers hate dealing with union officials or employees who know their onions and can’t be bamboozled. The employer wants to have the upper hand and doesn’t want to have to deal with anyone who knows the law and knows how to negotiate.

Now, why did I say it paid off? When I and other employees in my nationwide network were offered redundancy payouts in 1999, the union got us double what the employer was offering and I walked away with enough money to not have to work again. My union fees were repaid a hundred times over.

But most of the the anti-union employes, surprisingly, got the same payout and took it!!! Hypocrisy ruled. I was and remain disgusted.

*I said I must be dumb because I can’t understand why employees want to stand alone in their workplace dealings. You employ a solicitor to do complex law things, an accountant to do your tax, a doctor to do your health, a plumber to do your pipes. Why do you reject employing a professional (at very cheap rates) to do your workplace negotiations?

Answer: because people know the union will do it for free when they negotiate for members. Same old story – people don’t want to pay if they see they can steal from others.

The other thing I really noticed in my working life was the lack of courage of my work colleagues. Any hint of possible union action and they faded away into the background. Didn’t want to get involved. One guy asked the union rep, “Why is it that so many union reps are Poms?”  In my opinion, it’s because Poms, British people, have more courage than Aussies. YES, I truly believe that. UK people have a long history of standing up for themselves and others. I never saw that from Aussies in my workplace life here.

New morning, new energy

Just on the item about being unable to get up the ladder yesterday, when I arose this morning, I felt more energy as I usually do, so I had another go before my shower. No problem. After a night’s sleep, I had enough muscle strength to get up the ladder.  Battery replaced, sensor tested and working. Hmmm. Just shows how important sleep is.
I should add that “before my shower” is true. The power was off when I awoke at 7:20am, so no radio and no CPAP machine, so no breathing, and no shower either, because the gas hot water heater needs AC mains to run. No hot water.
The power’s back on now at 09:45am, so I can have a shower.

Bip, Bip, Hooray

It’s been golden light this afternoon.
This shot was taken early in the sun setting process.
Notice how it’s burnt out in the whites.
It’s the JPG file from the camera, and is not what I was seeing.
This shot is no masterpiece but notice how the whites are all there? This isn’t exactly what I was seeing either, but now I have the choice to adjust it as I want.
That’s because it’s the RAW file, recorded alongside the above image in the camera at exactly the same time (simultaneously), but not processed (turned into a JPG file) by the camera for me.
That allows me to make the decisions about exposure adjustments later, saving the highlights and lightening the dark areas as I choose.
Provided I set the menu, I get a RAW file for every shot, alongside the JPG file. Double indemnity. A bet each way. The RAW file adds 15MB or more for every shot, but with SD card prices so low, … ?
So endeth the lesson. I’m a bit peeved because I set the camera up on the tripod and set the intervalometer to take a shot every two minutes to capture the changing light. When it got dark I went out to look, and found it hadn’t even started the sequence! I hadn’t realised you have to confirm the menu setting and press OK before the sequence will start. Duh. I’ll try again tomorrow night.
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I’m being driven mad at the moment (well, I was mad already, really) by a BIP! every 10 seconds from a smoke alarm in my spare bedroom. It means “replace the battery”. It started a couple of nights ago but stopped after about an hour. Just reminding me.
But this time it isn’t stopping, so a few hours ago I got the ladder and set about changing the battery.   (7:30pm Ah! It’s stopped. Battery’s flat. Good. I’ll sleep tonight.)
Gloom. I can get up the first step of the ladder, but my just legs will not lift me to the next step. I tried every way to get up high enough, but it was getting dangerous, so I’ve had to close all the doors between the alarm and me and put up with it so far. The battery will conk out eventually, but if it continues to bed time, I may have to get a rake and just pull it down off the ceiling! It’s only a $15 double-sided tape stick-on, so it’s no loss, and I have a proper mains powered unit in the passage nearby so it doesn’t matter. But … sign of the times. I’ll have a couple of young guys here next week and they’ll do the job (battery or new one) in 2 minutes.
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I read last night (Sunday) that it was Bloomsday, the anniversary of James Joyce yesterday. I haven’t read any of his works, but I’m aware of them (Ulysses, Finnegan’s Wake etc.) Notoriously difficult to read, but if people still worship them a century later, he must have got something right!) What I wasn’t aware of is that copyright on his works finally expired on that day, yesterday, 108 years after his death in 1904.
Aha, good news, it seemed. What I didn’t know is that his grandson, Stephen Joyce, living in America, is the world’s worst copyright enforcer and rights litigator. see http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/01/james-joyce-public-domain.html  Even now, more than 100 years after his grandfather’s death, he stomps on anyone, even academics, who tries to quote from his grandfather’s works.
It even extends to denying James Joyce admirers permission to read from his books at celebrations in Dublin, at the shops and pubs Joyce wrote about. It even extended to a man who had memorised whole sections of the books so that he could recite them at meetings from memory. This grandson got a court order and the Dublin organisers had to cancel the celebration events! Obviously, the guy is a nutter.
Even so, it’s not over. Even though the copyright has expired, courts routinely grant extensions and may well do so again in this case. Pshaw!
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Phew! Greece pulls back from the edge of the cliff. They have a long way to go, but at least the hatred party, the neo-nazis, the anti-immigrant party, have failed in their quest to gain power.
Note I said anti-immigrants? Hatred of “illegals”, immigrants, people they think have no right to be there. Hatred of foreigners. Queue jumpers. Boat people. Why don’t they join the queue, go through the proper processes, stand in line outside the embassies where the Taliban can pick them off.
I’ve been told, seriously, by someone I once respected, that Northam army camp has been turned into a luxury hotel for illegals while our army soldiers have to live in sub-standard accommodation. No need to check his facts; a mate told him this and he believes it. Sick.

Losing the business

Storm clouds gather  © PJ Croft 2012
ABC radio 720 is talking at this moment about about all the businesses that are disappearing from the suburbs. They are talking mainly about the western suburbs and saying that the last independent hardware shop is closing down today. Not quite true, because someone phoned in and said there’s still one in Subi or somewhere, and I know the Scarborough Hardware shop is still open, but when I go there, I’m usually the only customer!
I wrote four years ago (2009) about all the businesses around here that have gone, vanished, since I moved into the area. I’ve lived at my address in Trigg for nearly 26 years now and I’ve seen a lot of changes. When I think about it, they’re virtually all for the worse.

I needed to buy some light globes today, 60W reflector types or similar, nothing special. In 1986, when I arrived here, I would have had the choice of a walk to a supermarket and a hardware store just 500m up the street from my place, a supermarket at North Beach 1.2Km away, or a choice of two other supermarkets, a hardware store and two department stores at Karrinyup Shopping Centre 1.6Km away.

Today, I would have to go to Karrinyup for a choice of one supermarket (Woolies) and one department store (BigW), stocking hardware items, and that’s it.

Today’s radio talk set me thinking about what we’ve lost around here (within 2Km radius) in the last 25 years or so. These are the things we’ve lost:

Three service stations, Caltex Trigg, Ampol North Beach and Mobil Karrinyup;
Two taverns (Karrinyup Tavern and the Flora Terrace hotel);
Two supermarkets – Macs at Karrinyup and Macs/Foodland in Trigg (independently owned);
A doctor’s surgery (North Beach);
Two delicatessens (Trigg and North Beach)
Two video libraries (North Beach and Karrinyup)
One bank (Westpac North Beach);
One newsagent (Trigg);
Two greengrocers (Trigg and Karrinyup);
One bookshop (Karrinyup);
One CD/DVD shop (Karrinyup);
Three hardware shops (Trigg, + two at Karrinyup);

They’re all gone. All that’s left is Karrinyup Shopping Ctr with one supermarket and one greengrocer and North Beach Plaza with the same, except that the supermarket at N. Beach is so hopeless that we have to drive elsewhere to do our grocery shopping.

What have we gained?

An expanded and much improved post office (North Beach, franchised);
An ATM, but it’s a Redicard type which attracts charges;
Two nice, but expensive, beachfront cafes;
An improved walkway along West Coast Drive.

I can’t think of anything else. I’ll be happy to be corrected.

This is very disheartening. There is no hotel or tavern anywhere on the coast between Scarborough and Sorrento Quays, 8Km apart. No full service hardware stores apart from the all-pervasive Bunnings are left except one in Scarborough Beach Road, which I deliberately patronise whenever possible, but it’s a 5Km drive. I have to drive everywhere now.

Until three years ago, there was a small shopping centre 500m up the road with a service station, supermarket, good deli, greengrocer, fish & chip shop, hairdresser, chemist, hardware shop, newsagent, dress shop and St Vinnies. It was bulldozed and turned into a mass of identical townhouses. The fish & chips, chemist and hairdresser are housed in the complex, but that’s it.

This is a clear trend. The Coles/Woolworths duopoly is now dominant except for IGA. Twenty years ago there were at least four other grocery chains; full service petrol stations; full service delis; hotels where you could have a quiet drink and a reasonable meal; local banks; local video libraries…

This is a beachside suburb with a median price of around $1m, but we have to drive to other suburbs to get anything. What’s going on? It seems to be a chicken and egg situation – people go elsewhere because there’s nothing here, so no-one can afford to risk setting up here because people shop elsewhere. Is that it? I’m not sure.

Comments, please. PC 

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The above was written four years ago, 2009. Now in 2012 it’s still true and NO-ONE had any comment.

Haters

I am well known among my few friends for being sympathetic to refugees.

To my ‘friends’, they are illegals. I get comments such as “Where do they get the money for their fares?”, “Why don’t they join the queue?”, “Why can’t they go through the proper channels like other [implying white European] immigrants?” Don’t I, Normie and Garry and Pete?

Those who defend them are “blood sucking lawyers” who are paid from the taxpayer.  Aren’t they, Norm?

Northam is to become a luxury hotel for refugees while our army troops have to put up with sub-standard accommodation. Isn’t it, Pete?

“Will we be allowed to shoot ’em if they come over the fence?” was one Northam resident’s question.

I am sickened by the xenophobia, the racism, the hatred, the “boongs and abos and coons”, aren’t I Garry?

Just now, I’ve been re-reading the story of Kim Phuc, the 9yo girl who was napalmed during the Vietnam war and was caught in abject fear and pain and terror in that famous photo by Nick Ut.

Thanks to some good people (non-haters) she got medical treatment and married a Vietnamese guy. For complicated reasons they went to Moscow and:

On the return trip to Havana the plane made a fuel stop in Gander, Newfoundland. On the spur of the moment they found a Customs officer and decided to defect. They managed to resettle in Canada, near Toronto. 

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And she recovered her life and is still around and beautiful.

The point is, she defected on the spur of the moment to a sympathetic country. There is no difference between Afghan and Iraqi refugees needing to defect and this woman’s case.

Stop your racism!

Apologies for all the italics below the line – Blogger will not let me go back to normal case after I pasted the quote.

Getting on

Jimbaran   © PJ Croft 2012
The other day I came across a web item which listed the things you might be noticing that mark you as ‘grown up’. Going by my memory, they were things like:
  • having a mortgage
  • owning your car
  • having a kid or kids
  • washing the dishes straight after dinner
  • mowing the lawn when it needs it
  • having a good credit rating
  • being in your job more than three years
  • cleaning your own gutters
  • planning your next overseas trip
and so on and on, more than 50 items. From this distance, yawn, bit juvenile, forgotten most of those.
Today I was thinking about what it means to be our age – um, greying, shall we say?
  • seeing a scene like the pic above and remembering it before it got ‘developed’
  • having a reverse mortgage – getting some of your investment back
  • SKI-ing (Spending the Kids’ Inheritance)
  • having a station wagon and a sports car
  • restoring a Harley Davidson or MGB
  • going to Paris for the girlfriends’ birthday party
  • knowing, without saying, ‘been there, done that’
  • having a store of stories and experiences for every occasion
  • paying a younger guy to mow your lawn
  • living in an apartment which doesn’t have gutters
  • feeling the satisfaction of knowing you screwed your company when they retired you
  • playing with your grandkids but not having to look after them
  • getting up in the morning when you feel like it
  • getting your taxes back from the government in welfare
  • flashing your Seniors’ card and getting free transport
  • seeing a Google reference to somewhere like Kitsap and thinking, Yeah, I’ve been there
  • being referred to as Sir or Ma’m
  • not caring if your clothes are out of date
  • flashing your Gold card for road service or discounts
  • having a young woman offer to carry your bag up the steps of the aircraft
  • having your suitcase carried down the big stairs by a young guy (both these have happened for me)
  • knowing you don’t need to save for a rainy day, you’ve already done it, this is the rainy day
  • building, or even completing, your collection of whatever it is
  • getting around to reading the great books or seeing the great films
  • understanding what classical music or jazz is really about
  • making that trip to a historic site
  • being able to afford to stay in a decent hotel
  • being out of the office politics
  • lashing out on a nice souvenir or just something nice for yourself
  • seeing a picture of some exotic place and knowing, yeah, I know that street or view
  • having a feeling of self confidence when ordering in a restaurant, having dined in Paris or London
  • not having to be somewhere, at some meeting, having worried all night about it.
This list can go on and on too. I’m just getting started.
In other words, getting older has its compensations, quite a lot.

Slip sliding away

Bet those lake flats are slippery. © PJ Croft 2011
I’ve never slipped over in the shower, but in recent weeks I’ve felt increasingly as if I will, and I didn’t know why. I wondered if the floor had become soap scummed, so I got out the brush and scrubbed it clean, but it didn’t help. Just standing there, I could feel my feet very slowly sliding down the slight slope toward the drain.
I bought a plastic shower mat but that didn’t seem to help much and was uncomfortable, so out it went.
This morning it dawned on me what’s happening. As my legs are becoming dryer and itchier, I’ve been using creams and lotions before bed to try to ease the pain. During the night the itching continues and I use the soles of my feet to scratch my legs.
Therefore when I get up in the morning, without realising it, my feet are a bit greasy with the creams and lotions. I get into the shower and slip, slide, I nearly go over!
The answer is to scrub my feet on the floor to get the creams off in the shower. Note to self: do it.
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Well, well, if you’ll pardon the pun on oil wells.
I was going to mention a story I heard on ABC radio yesterday about a very large British petroleum company and its successful attempt to subpoena scientists’ emails about the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster. It was a very significant story about the way big companies can stifle scientific research if it suits them.
But I thought I’d better check my facts first, so I went to the ABC’s site and did a search for the item I heard.
Nothing. Not a single reference can I find in yesterday’s news to Big – Petro or Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute or subpoena or emails related, nor on RN’s web page either.
This is weird. I’m sure I didn’t imagine it because I half heard it in the afternoon edition of PM, then heard it again, in full, on the 6pm edition. What is going on? Can it have been removed? Is this a conspiracy? Hmmm.

By the way, I read a great item about how important it is for journalists to check facts before publishing. No matter how plausible something seems, check and get another source.

The New York Times mantra is, Even if your mother rings to tell you she loves you, get another source!