But this is a bit too much. Hot, that is. We’re in the process of setting a new record – a row of seven days above 37ºC. Never happened in November before, since records started in WA that is. Luckily my aircon and fans keep me comfortable. I consider myself to be very fortunate. Not lucky, because it’s not luck that got me here, it was work and money management.

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I got the news a couple of days ago that a guy I used to work with has died, and it looks as if it was suicide. The Beyond Blue logo is pasted onto the Facebook notices.

Ours was only a nodding acquaitance at TVW7. He was a manager and our paths didn’t cross very much. But I believe he was a nice guy. Probably about the same age. R.I.P. Brendon.

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I’m reading my favourite photo blog at the moment ( The Online Photographer https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/blog_index.html ) and he’s written about healthy eating, as he often does:

“So what’s the solution? Pretty simple, actually…at least to say, although maybe not to do: walk for an hour a day or partake of some sensible equivalent, and get 80% of your calories from plants, keeping meat, oil, and sugar to a minimum (and cutting out alcohol and all dairy, including eggs, altogether. There isn’t even a single good reason humans need to eat dairy foods).”

I’ll disagree with his last point – for me, a single good reason is that I like it! In fact, what’s the point of living longer if you’re going to be miserable doing it? For me, I don’t really care if I die young(er) as long as I can have what I want. In the hospital recently I was asked a few times about my alcohol habits, and when I said two cans of beer a night, with possibly a glass of wine as well, all the doctors nodded and said that’s OK. So that’s that, then. Case closed.

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Crumbs, Crikey-mo! The costs of owning three cars. I’m a fool. What am I? A FOOL!

The Honda needs a service (oil change, filter change, coolant change). I looked up quotes on-line – $2,038 and $2,450 ! What?! How can it cost that much? I suppose they don’t care whether they get the job or not.

Having watched so many Youtube clips showing how it’s done, I reckon I could easily do it myself, if only I had a lift or big trolley jack. But realistically, the chances of me getting down on my back and under the car are nil.

I’ll have to check further on-line for a mobile mechanic.

Then there’s the Peugeot battery: it’s dead. Won’t take a charge. Ouch, because it’s a BIG battery and the replacement of the same brand (Yuasa) is $375. Uurrrgh.

There’s an Aussie made Exide at a much more reasonable $230 so I guess I’ll buy that.

I’ve ordered two battery chargers from Ali Express; one is a de-sulphator which delivers high power pulses of charge every couple of seconds. The idea is that it shakes the sodium sulphate off the plates. It was only $27 including delivery from China, so I figure it’s not much to lose if it doesn’t work.

The second is a much bigger charger with a “Repair” button, again from Ali Express at about the same price, including delivery. Gee, the value is fantastic. So again, if it doesn’t work, no great loss. It even has a warranty and a return guarantee.

FInally, I have to buy tyres for the Verada. It looks like I’ll need to replace all four, so there’s a minimum of $600, plus $70 for a wheel alignment.

I’ve GOT to sell two of the three, and it will have to be the Verada and the Peugeot, keeping the Honda MDX.

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There are big bushfires in the northern Perth suburbs (kinda where I am) at the moment, Wanneroo Shire, but they are not near enough to me to be a worry. I’m looking out of the window and I can’t even see any smoke. I can hear the fire-tanker helicopters hovering over the lakes near me, refilling their tanks with the water, though. Go for it, guys.

I’ve got to hand it to the volunteer firefighters. It’s 38º out there, and they’re all rugged up in their safety gear. Ugh.

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One of my friends, the same age as me 76, made his first trip to Bali recently and I’m very pleased to hear he loved it. I was worried that he would criticise it too much as dirty, crowded, noisy and so on, which it is or can be.

But he’s seen a lot of my pictures over the past forty years and he said everywhere he went, he was seeing my photos in his mind. It was very flattering of him to say that. I’m very pleased.

He and his wife stayed on the Sanur side, which I would have recommended, and found the hotel to be very nice. They hired a car and driver every day and really got out into the mountains. Bagus!

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Some pictures that I’ve been trying to remember to incorporate into this blog for ages:

That’ll do for now. Cheers.

This image was featured on the WA Today news website a few days ago, and well deserved it is. She should be proud. The cyclist is just right. She’s obviously a keen photographer, owning such advanced equipment and more to the point, carrying it with her while out on a walk. Well done.

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Aaah, beautiful weather lately – about 29deg day after day after day. And cool at night, around 12-16deg.

I’m not sure yet, but maybe Sifrol is working to stop my restless legs after all. It will take a fair while to assess whether it works all the time, but I’m having some good nights so far. I forgot to take it until bed time a few nights ago and had to give up and get up about midnight, so maybe that’s the sign of it working or not. Time will tell.

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But I’m still having mattress problems. This AH Beard mattress is atrocious! I almost don’t like going to bed on it. The edges are not supportive and it feels as if there’s a telephone pole down the area I lie on, which means I feel as if I’m rolling off. There’s a constant feeling of slipping to the edge – very disconcerting.

A couple of days ago I phoned the Salvos and asked if they want to take it. “Yes please.” They’ll send a truck and a couple of guys.

I had to say, hold on, I haven’t organised a replacement yet. CHOICE has run an article on what to buy and one of their top winners (it came third) only costs about $350 + $80 transport. Unfortunately I can’t test it in a shop, so I’m running a risk again, but CHOICE rates it as Firm and 100% shape retention. Recommended. I think it’s worth a risk.

So how do I arrange this? Get it delivered, stand it up on edge, call the Salvos and get the existing one taken away, then flop the new one down. Hmmm.

While I’m at it, I think I’ll get them to take my single bed away, bed, mattress, sheets, duvet and all. It’s around 50 years old now, but quite usable and very comfortable, but I don’t need it any more. I had visions of having visitors here, but it hasn’t happened. I’ve still got the king single in the other bedroom anyway.

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I watched the first episode of Bill Bailey’s travel doco on WA on ABC-TV last night, and very enjoyable it was. But strangely low key. Bill is a very funny guy, but there wasn’t a lot of his humour in it. He didn’t seem to have much to say at times. I guess he was just letting the subject speak for itself.

He spent this whole first episode on the south coast, around Albany and Esperance. Boy, I’ve only been to Esperance once, on the way back from a driving trip east in 1978. It just seemed like a nice country town in my memory then, but it’s quite a big place now. Especially the port. It’s a giant grain, iron ore and nickel ore export and ship loading port. Beautiful harbour. Bill went out on a new tug boat and was allowed to do wheelies in the harbour, the two engines independently in opposition so that the boat spun round and round. Good stuff.

I didn’t think they did Albany justice at all. A large part of the segment was of the Shantymen singing in the pub. Where was the vision of the town, and especially from Mt Clarence? They hardly explored the harbour, except for the whaling station. Crumbs, they left so much out.

And for me, Denmark is just as nice as Albany, but they didn’t venture there. Maybe they’ll do it later?

I really liked the program and I’ve kept a recording of it. Crikey, when you think about it, WA is such a vast and spectacular place to cover. Hundreds of places that should feature. Even though I’m a resident native, I’ve only seen the bottom half.

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I finally got the RAC guy out to look at the battery in the Peugeot yesterday. It was dead flat, so that it wouldn’t take a charge from my relatively low powered charger. I was dreading the cost of a new battery, because it’s a big on! About $350 for a new one, I think.

But he said no, it’s just that if they get discharged below about 7V, the charger won’t attempt it. So he jump started the engine (it started first time, easily!) and we left it running, I mean I left it for about an hour. (Phew, diesel fumes!)

I turned it off then and after a few minutes, tried to start it again. Uh oh! “Airbag or seat belt warning fault” message, then flickering displays and complete deadness. Oh oh!

I think the problem was that even though I’d been running the engine, the battery was still very low, so I’ve had it on charge for around 24hrs so far and it appears to be taking the charge. I’ll let it charge for another 24hrs, as I often do with my other cars. Let’s hope.

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The other problem is the tyres on Vera, the Verada. The rears are a definite, have to be replaced. But I’m not sure about the fronts – are they shot? I have trouble getting down low and my eyesight ain’t so good now.

I was going to get the RAC to come out and do the job, but their cheapest tyre is around $154. Ouch! PLUS wheel alignment $70. Hmm, thinkin’ about it.

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Urrrgh, batteries. The Peugeot’s battery seemed to be charging OK yesterday, but it’s stopped with a fault light at 7.5V. Looks like I’m going to have to fork out for a new one.

I needed to go out just now, so I jumped into the trusty Honda. Click. Click. Nothing. Long story short, again a flat battery at 7.5V. Crikey! I must admit I only drive it around once a week. Looks like I’ll have to leave it on charge more often.

So car number three: the Verada. Power steering very sticky. Exercised it many times, driveable. Drove it around the block about six times to test it. Driveable, but I’ve got a stuck brake caliper, so one disc is making noise. tried to free it but no luck. I can still drive it, which I did, but it’ll have to be looked at.

And to cap it all, the battery in the Verada’s key fob remote is dead, so no remote locking/unlocking of the doors.

Crikey, batteries!

Wow, rain last night. I was awake between 3 and 4am and it rained heavily. That’s handy, because I was noticing how dry my verge lawn was looking and realised I haven’t turned my reticulation (watering system) on for the summer yet. This rain has given the ground a good soaking and a good start.

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I say I was awake, but it was the need for a piss that woke me. At last, at last, have I got a fix for the restless legs at last? I’ve been taking a drug called Sifrol. It’s for Parkinson’s Disease patients, to increase dopamine levels and reduce limb twitching. It’s hard to say whether this is the actual cure for my restless legs, because sometimes it goes away for a period anyway. All I can say is that I’ve had four or five nights free of the awful problem so far. Time will tell.

Crumbs, it gets added to the dozen or so medications I’m taking. I think I might try to eliminate a couple that I wonder if are necessary.

In addition, I have seven small pills in the morning that are all, except one, round, white and about the same size. I can hardly tell one from another. I could be doubling up on one or two and not realise it. I have to be careful.

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One of the coats of arms
I’ve discovered in researching
our family tree.

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I’ve been dragging my feet on buying two new tyres for the Verada. My “friend” who borrowed the car for 16 months returned it with the rear tyres in illegal condition! I’ve been planning to get the RAC tyre guy out to fit new ones, but balking at the estimated cost. I was thinking it would be at least $100 per tyre.

However, I did a bit of googling yesterday and I find a local shop (just up the road) sells a basic tyre for $54 each, plus fitting. I don’t need fancy tyres, I only drive this car locally at 60-70km/h. So on Tuesday I’ll investigate this.

I say Tuesday because tomorrow, Monday, I’m having an ultrasound examination to investigate the ache in my left side. I thought a possible kidney stone – not all stones give the extreme pain. Sometimes it’s just an ache. We’ll see. But I have to fast for four hours, i.e. from 10am, and drink a litre of water before the exam. Hmmm.

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Also on the topic of cars, I’ve been dragging my feet on getting a new number plate for the Peugeot (I lost the front one, remember?) I didn’t like the idea of driving to the licensing office in Joondalup, finding parking, walking to an office and possibly waiting hours in a line.

But wunderbar, I’ve discovered that they’ve moved the office to a new one just near me (2km away) in Butler Boulevard. I don’t know what the queues will be like, but maybe people haven’t discovered it yet and it will be light traffic. So that’s on the list.

It means I’ll lose the “Evie” number (1EVI 891), because they issue new plates. Pity, I liked that one. But it gives me the opportunity to get a half height plate for the front, so it won’t scrape again.

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And I’ve been shuffling car radios between the Verada and the Honda. I’ve got two Pioneer touch-screen radio/CD units, but only one is a DAB+ digital radio and I can’t make up my mind which car to put it in.

Well, whacky doo, I moved some bits in a cupboard the other day and realised that I’ve got another DAB+ radio! It’s a Kenwood that I bought about 15 years ago. Wow, I’m a two-digital-radio man! So I can solve my problem in the Honda of having a faulty AM/FM antenna by installing the DAB+ radio. They use a different antenna, you see, one that sticks on the windscreen with a lead dropping down behind the dash. Now, if I wasn’t wasting so much time writing blogs I could get onto it. Hah!

I’m only driving the Honda these days (Verada has two crook tyres and the Peugeot has a dead battery and is missing a number plate). I was thinking yesterday (as I frequently do!) how much I like the Honda. It’s a big car, an “on-demand” 4WD and it drives very pleasantly. It doesn’t drive like a truck, as some critics say about four wheel drive SUVs. I enjoy driving it very much, so much that after I’ve been shopping at the Butler shops, instead of going straight home, I always take a long way home, along the freeway or similar, just for the enjoyment of it.

But the cost of groceries! I set new record yesterday for the total bill. The price increases are savage, frightening. Everything is over $4 per item now, so the bill just mounts up at a staggering rate. I have to question whether I need things. That’s not a bad thing, but it takes the enjoyment out of shopping. I used to go past the book store and usually buy a book, but I can’t do that any more. Same for JB Hifi – no more DVDs or CDs for me. Not that that’s a bad thing – I have far too many already.

Damn YouTube has wrecked me. It dominates my screen time now, to the detriment of my reading.

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<sub>Sir Richard Croft, 1427-1509
Governor of Ludlow Castle and MP
Treasurer to King Henry VII
Knight of the Bath
Knight Baronet
Sheriff of Herefordshire

I’m a direct descendant.
Makes me feel kind of inadequate.</sub>

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Hmmm, I have washing to hang out on the line, but it’s looking very grey, possibly rainy. What should I do? Oh well, if I hang it out, that will bring rain and we need it.

Hey, 2pm and it rained. It’s looking very grey and gloomy outside. Not cold, it’s 25degC, extremely pleasant. A bit of thunder just then.

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I watched the movie Nyad on Netflix last night. Strange title, but it’s a woman’s first name. It means water nymph or something like that.

It stars Annette Benning as Nyad and Jodie Foster as her (gay) partner. She’s gay in real life, of course. Wow, women lose their looks as they age. Both of them are looking a bit haggard and wrinkly. Men, on the other hand, get better looking as they age. True!

The story is that Nyad has the urge, at age 60, to make another attempt to do something she attempted in her twenties, and failed then, to swim from Cuba to Florida, a distance of 103 miles. Wow. Non stop. Jodie Foster is her support person.

It’s a typical American movie of course, full of drama and emotion. Sharks. Box jellyfish mainly. I agree that’s pretty dramatic. She gets stung a couple of times.

And sharks, so it’s good to see an Aussie along for the attempt, with his invention, an electric field generator that repels the sharks. It works well. I think he’s a West Aussie guy in real life.

At the risk of being a spoiler, she finally succeeds on the fifth attempt – well what else, you knew she would. It’s not a bad movie, it held my attention right to the end, but as I said, it’s typical American overblown drama.

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As if I don’t have enough hi-fi already! I’ve been very pleased with the Edifier computer speakers I bought a couple of years ago (a couple? More like a few years. Phew! Time flies) and these grabbed my attention yesterday. Buit-in 130W per channel amps, 8″ bass drivers and those cabinets look pretty solid and dead. And they connect to your source by Bluetooth, so they sit on the desk or a stand with no cables except a power cable. As if by magic. $599.

Wow, this is Chinese manufacturing. They’re not known for high end audio, but they’ve caught up fast.

Dog, I don’t need more equipment!

Ah, lovely day today, 25degC, gentle breeze. A week of mid-20s coming.

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Well, I had another ride in the ambulance last Tuesday evening. I got up from the couch at around 10pm, with a big effort needed, and felt a kind of thump in the middle of my chest, with a burning pain. I went to the sink to take my tablets and felt W³ — weak, wobbly and woozy.

I went to bed but felt sick. I got up and took a full aspririn and a full beta blocker. Sat at the computer for a while but at midnight felt I had to call 000.

The guys were here within 10 minutes. I have a small shopping bag packed these days with the things I need, so it was off to Joondalup. Unfortunately I forgot to put some shorts on and pick up my phone, but too bad. You literally go to the head of the queue in the emergency dept, so it wasn’t long before I was on a bed in a bay. That started the l-o-o-ong waits to be seen. It was probably 2am before a doctor came andfrom then on I had to lie there on a hard bed with no food allowed and only a small amount of water. My restless legs were in full force. It was torture! Also, although I had brought my CPAP machine, I didn’t set it up because I didn’t think I’d be there that long. Big mistake. I wanted to sleep, but kept choking without the CPAP. If I’d known …

I lay there all day Wednesday, writhing around, bored witless, nothing to do, nothing to read, no-one to talk to. They finally let me have a couple of sandwiches. They want you fasting and dry in case they need to operate. I was nearly ready to discharge myself and walk out. Nice people, and busy, but …

The blood tests finally came back and showed troponin readings of 30 and 61, which indicates a mild heart attack, but not severe. Mainly tachycardia, I think.

They got onto my cardiologist and he wanted me in the Mount Hospital, which is fine with me, so at 7pm they took me in an ambulance for the 45 min drive. Good trip, talking to an ex-army guy about nashos and so on.

I’ve been to The Mount several times before, and it’s like a 5 star hotel. I like it. Great bed, incredibly adjustable. TV, good food. I was so tired that I slept pretty well that night (Wednesday).

So it was Thursday and more waiting, waiting. Again, good food. As I told them, when you live alone, airline food and hospital food are great! But that night, restless legs and bloody alarms going off all night! I couldn’t move without an ecg alarm going off. One nurse came into the room around 2am with an attitude that said, “What’s yer problem, mate?” When I complained about the alarms going off all the time, she said, “It’s monitoring your heart. It’s hospital, love.” Bloody poor attitude. She was the only one though – all the other nurses were great.

(Btw, the nurse’s name was Kendall, and the label on the soap dispenser in the bathroom was Gojo – if you’ve watched Succession, these are two major names.)

So finally the cardiologist saw me Friday morning, doubled my beta blocker dose and said I could go home. No need for another angiogram. Hooray. I stayed for lunch, then went to the lobby and called an Uber. Six minutes away, it said on the app. So I waited, and waited and waited. Two bloody hours later about 4pm, my ride finally showed up. Not happy! But we had a good chat on the way home and I got here about 5pm. $59.35.

BUT! about 1.10am Saturday morning, I was awoken by another bout of brrrrrrrrr fast heart rate and a bit of chest pain. Again, aspirin and beta blocker, but it slowly subsided. Couldn’t face going back to Joondalup and that hard bed again. Felt OK after that. Tired yesterday but OK.

So, excitement? Not too much of that, thanks. Cost? All covered by Medicare and HBF. The Uber fare home at $59 was a bit steep, but … It’s certainly better than USA costs.

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One good thing about the hospital – their pharmacy had stock of Ozempic, so I was able to restart it. The benefit is immediate. My blood sugar immediately started going down and I lost a kilo of weight. Of course, not having any beer to drink might have had a bit to do with it.

One pen is a month’s worth, so that covers November, but I still have to wait through December before it becomes available again. I asked for another pen, but they wouldn’t play ball. I used a full 1mg dose and wow, it gave me quite an upset stomach. I might reduce the next week’s injection.

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Restless legs! It’s driving me up the wall! Can’t get to sleep at night. My sleep is shifting from night-time to day-time because of this. Combined with severe diabetic neuropathic foot pain, I’m in despair at times. Yelling out! It’s so bad that at times, if I were offered a heavy drug (a narcotic), I’d be tempted to take the offer. When you’re desperate.

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.