Aaaah, Spring at last. Temps in the mid to high twenties, even into the thirties. Doona off at night. Doors left open. That’s more like it.

I’ll also be getting more sun on my body. Two doctors have told me recently that my vitamin D is too low and I’ve been told to take three supplementary Vitamin D pills each morning. What goes around – I developed Ricketts when I was very young. That’s a disease of developing countries, from malnutrition and lack of sunlight. It causes bone deformities if it’s bad enough and it caused my legs to be out of proportion to my body, that is, they’re too short. They didn’t grow properly. I could never fit a bike, being too short for the pedals, and I always had to get trousers shortened. Heh heh, that’s no longer a problem. Why, have my legs grown? No, I never wear long ‘uns any more.

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Which reminds me of the shortness of our lives. A good mate I used to work with at Channel 7 died a few days ago from an aggressive brain tumour. He was a few years younger than me. Very intelligent guy and widely liked. R.I.P. Andy. It’s hard to believe you’re gone.

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This is incredible. I’m reading a book, The Silent Wind (ooopsie) The Wild Silence by Raynor Winn (about whom more in a minute). She writes very movingly of her dying mother who had a stroke in the hospital after a bout of pneumonia. As a result she couldn’t swallow and became distressed. The doctor decided she should be given hyoscine, a drug which relieves gastric problems.

I’d never heard of hyoscine before. So what should crop up the very next day but an article on the ABC News web site about hyoscine! I nearly choked and could hardly swallow. This is crazy – so soon and so relevant.

Then the name Olof Palme popped into my head a couple of weeks ago. He was the Swedish prime minister who was assassinated by a mentally ill guy about 25 years ago. You guessed it, SBS is running a documentary about the Olof Palme assassination. I suppose I probably heard an SBS promo without being aware I’d heard it. It made me shiver, though.

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I said I’d say more about Raynor Winn. Last year I wrote about a book she’d written called The Salt Path. It’s the true story of how this elderly couple lost everything in a failed business, which was nothing to do with them. They had been persuaded to invest their small savings and became directors without their knowledge. Unfortunately, when the business failed, they became liable for its debts. Their lifelong friend, who had persuaded them to invest, disappeared overseas.

As a result, they lost everything, and I mean everything. They owned a small farm in the foothills in Wales and let a small outbuilding for B&B and a small income. It all went to the bank. They fought it in the courts, but the bank won. All they had left was what they could carry in rucksacks, bought with the proceeds of the sale of their old van.

As well, Moth, the husband, was diagnosed at the same time with a degenerative brain disease with no cure. Can you imagine it?

They hit on the idea that they would just walk the coastal path along the Cornish peninsula and kind of see what turned up. The story builds around the idea that Moth’s brain disease goes into remission. They don’t know why or how, but the strong message is that exercise was the cure. Moth had been staggering and falling, but regained his strength and when they had completed the 670 mile walk, and found a room at a friend’s place, he was well enough to go back to university (in his late 50s).

It was a brilliant book. You wouldn’t think a description of a 670 mile walk could fill a book and hold your interest, but she’s a gifted writer. I enjoyed that book more than any I’ve read in recent years and I’ll probably read it again.

Now she’s back with a new book, The Silent Wind (ooops), The Wild Silence by Raynor Winn. I wondered what she’d find to write about and the first part of the book tells of how she and Moth met and got married. They were always walkers, campers and climbers, so walking the Salt Path was somewhat natural. They had two kids, by the way, but they were away at uni when the catastrophe happened and were in no position to provide any financial help for their parents.

Then she spends several long chapters describing her mother and their relationship, and her mother’s illness and eventual death in the hospital. It’s very moving, but beautifully written. This woman is a born writer.

They’re living in a room at the back of a church in Fowey, Cornwall, subsisting on Moth’s student allowance at the university. Dinner consists of pea risotto, frozen peas and rice.

Raynor notices that Moth is becoming weaker again, although he tries to gloss over it. She also knows that he got better when they were walking. Why? Raynor has been studying all she can find on-line (they can afford internet and a mobile phone). At the point I’m at, she finds a reference in a medical article that speaks of the vapours and oils that plants produce wafting invisibly into the air. Could it be that the plant vapours, which we never normally notice, are producing beneficial effects as we absorb them in the outdoors? Stay tuned for the continuation. Or buy the book.

I would nominate these books for a prize and as I said, they are worth re-reading. Highly recommended. Amazon.

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I’ve bought another camera. Hah! As if I didn’t have about a dozen good digital cameras already. No, always room for one more.

It’s a 20Mp Sony mirrorless camera with interchangeable lenses in the Sony E-mount. It came with the kit lens, an 18 – 50mm AF zoom. It does all the usual things, hi-def video included. It’s near new. I bought it from an advertiser on Facebook Marketplace. She said she wanted to go back to Canon and she seemed to know her cameras, because she has bought a Canon R. Wow.

This is a 30Mp high end full frame mirrorless with Canon’s new R mount. This is serious money, about A$2,250 for the body alone. She had to buy an adapter to make her existing EOS lenses fit, another couple of hundred dollars. She must be an enthusiast.

Why did I buy her Sony? For many years I’ve had two Contax G cameras, the G1 and G2, and three Zeiss lenses for them.

I have the lens shown above, the 28mm Biogon, plus the 35mm Planar and 90mm Sonnar. These lenses are legendary for their sharpness, contrast and rendering. All the metal of the bodies and lenses is titanium. Beautiful cameras.

Trouble is, they’re film cameras and film is too expensive to buy, process and scan. For me, it’s not practical any more, so these two bodies and three lenses have been sitting in a camera bag, not gathering dust but unused.

As well, they are autofocus lenses but the focus area is only a small patch in the centre of the frame. There are no focus rings, so you can’t adjust focus, and they’re rangefinder lenses and viewfinders, so you can’t see whether you’re in focus or not. You do get a distance scale in the finder, but it’s guesswork about whether the distance indicated is what you want. The viewfinder is always in focus. The result was that I don’t think I ever got a decently focused picture in all the time I used them.

I have bought an adapter to Micro 4/3 so I can use them on my Olympus OM-D E-M1, but focusing involves operating a little metal wheel in the base of the lens. It’s very clunky, so I haven’t used it much.

Anyway, this is a long winded way of introducing a new adapter, the Shoten GTE AF adapter for Contax/Zeiss G lenses to Sony E-mount. Voila!

This gives full electronic coupling (via the usual gold pins) for aperture control and most importantly, auto-focus. Hooray!

So I needed a Sony E-mount camera to use the lenses with, hence buying a relatively inexpensive Sony Alpha camera ($350, including the 18 – 50mm) lens. The adapter is bloody expensive A$650 on eBay, but I’ll sell some other stuff to pay for it. If this works out, I’ll possibly buy a better body such as the one shown below, except I’ll buy an A6600, not the A7C.

Anyway, I didn’t buy that Ford Probe that I showed in the last post, so I’ve saved a few thousand there. 😉 The adapter’s on order from China and having received a confirmation e-mail, I hope to get it in the next couple of weeks.

I’d like to post a sample image from the Zeiss/Contax G cameras to show the lens quality, but in all the years I’ve had them, I can’t think of a single image worth posting. Very disappointing cameras. Let’s hope I can get something out of the lenses at last.

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I had to drive down to Baldivis to collect the Sony camera and what a boring, uncomfortable drive on a warm to hot 33deg day. It reminded me that the aircon on the Peugeot 407 isn’t working (I was told about it when I bought it) and I should get it fixed. And bloody road works on the freeway. From around Joondalup almost all the way to Osborne Park, they’re widening it, so there are only two lanes open, there are barriers all the way and the speed limit is 80Kmh. Frustrating, slow-down, speed-up travel. It will be this way for the next year, I reckon. They work very slowly.

That’s the first really long drive that I’ve made in that car, 82.7Km. It was comfortable enough except for the drumming if I have the driver’s side window down part way. I have to lower the passenger side a bit too, to minimise the resonance. Thank goodness for power windows.

Then I came back via the Rockingham Road coastal route, past Fremantle and through Cottesloe. I prefer that drive to the freeway, but the traffic lights drive me mad. There’s no synchronisation at all, so you can set off from being stopped at a red, and 150 – 300m later there’s another red light. Traffic lights after traffic lights! Infuriating.

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Are we going to have a Spring this year, or what? On Monday morning, we had 40mm of rain, taking us to a new record November rainfall since the 1800s. And more than 100,000 lightning strikes over the southern half of the state. Great photo in the West Australian today, unfortunately I can’t find it.

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Damn, my ability to summon coincidences shows itself again (see Venn diagram below :-))

A few days ago, in my last posting in fact, I was talking about genetic diseases and mentioned Huntington’s Chorea.

You guessed it. In Sunday night’s episode of Call the Midwife on ABC-TV, a woman was shown suffering an illness and it was diagnosed as — Huntington’s Chorea. It’s uncanny.

No it’s not. There are many diseases and some of them achieve prominence by repetition in the media. It’s not surprising that it appeared in a TV show, not that I thought of it either. The name is memorable. It’s just a coincidence, nothing more.

Oh well, back to my night classes, How To Be A Psychic.

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Which reminds me, I found this on the web some years ago and it remains a brilliant favourite:

I HIGHLY recommend following the link http://www.crispian-jago.blogspot.com … he’s brilliant.

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Uh oh, here I go again. I’ve found another car that I want, badly.

It’s a 1997 Ford Probe SV model, the final and best that was produced. It’s an automatic, so not so great; when I had the Mazda MX6 automatic, many times I wished it was manual. The auto is good for slow traffic, but it’s an old style 4-speed with no semi manual. I used to put it into third around town so as to stop it getting to 4th. (I’ve just noticed, the picture above is not the same car, or the wheels aren’t anyway. Different spokes. Generic picture from somewhere, I assume.)

By the way, this and the Mazda MX6 are basically the same car. Ford and Mazda were tied up back in the 90s and they each made a body on top of the same mechanicals.

I love this colour. It’s green, by the way. The lady seller says it’s been recently repainted in the original colour, which is good. The list of recent mechanical improvements is really impressive and includes a new timing belt, vitally important. Only 160,000Km, by the way.

Price? Asking $11,000. The lady owner in Morwell Vic obviously wants $10,000. It’s not licenced and as I wouldn’t even try to go to Victoria, I would have to pay the $1300 to get it trucked across here and it would have to go over the pits and be licenced here. No problem.

That price: two or three years ago they were an average of $4,000. I remember writing at the time that this was credit card territory, not too expensive in other words. Now, $10,000. I’d say this is partly because they’re becoming more scarce and desirable, and also because of the general rise in second hand car prices due to COVID and shortage of new cars. It’s possible that the car could continue to appreciate in line with scarcity.

Jeeez, this is tempting, but there’s one small problem, where would I put it??! I do plan to sell the Verada, real soon now, so if I can get that done, I can park it in the laneway. I don’t want to sell the other two cars, the MDX and the Peugeot. Hmmmm.

Also, since I started parking in the laneway, another couple of residents have started doing it too. I hope the council doesn’t get heavy with us.

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The language is changing. Words which normally begin sentences are being left off.

For example, “(I’m) Sick of people saying the young don’t want to work.”; “(I) Went to the shops today.”; “(It’s a) Pretty big difference.”; “(I) Found a wonderful portfolio …”;

I’ll carry this on asap.

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While I’m in rant mode …

It seems the entire world has lost the ability to distinguish between singular and plural in writing. Here are two examples in successive paragraphs in the same article:

“… the MacBook Pro has almost everything a photographer could find themselves looking for.” A photographer, singular, themselves plural.

” … few if any current camera supports …” camera, singular, supports, plural.

######### Sorry, I’ll continue this another time.

I’m back! “Every couple has their issues.” ABC News 11/11/21 Every is singular, their is plural. I find reading this junk uncomfortable. (It should read “All couples have their issues.”)

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I saw the GP this morning about feeling generally unwell – tired, weak, low energy. It seems to have coincided with the change in my diabetes medication a few weeks ago. But the change is working. Morning readings have halved and evening readings are down 25%. So we don’t want to try stopping any medication. So I’ll just have to hope that time will help.

While I was there, he measured my blood pressure – 101/60. Brilliant! This is bordering on hypotension, low BP. He’s asked me to take readings at home and report back. He might halve the BP drug I take. At least something about my health is working.

Good news in two ways, and one bad note.

The Honda’s battery is OK! I measured it yesterday and it was 3.0V open circuit. That’s too low for a lead acid battery and I thought it was a lost cause.

But I put it on the charger (or rather, I put the charger on it) and it was slightly encouraging in that it showed a steady BULK charging LED, instead of the flashing it usually does if the plates are totally sulfated. So I left it on charge for the past 24hrs and lo and behold, it’s fully charged and working OK. Hallelujah! This is weird because there was no warning that it was going to die. I guess the answer is that I have to be more disciplined in using the charger more often. I only drive this car once or twice a week.

The second bit of good news is that there’s a three years RAC battery warranty. Wow. That’s a big chunk of peace of mind. If I’d realised that with the last battery failure early this year I might have been able to get it replace under warranty. Must keep that in mind.

The bit of bad news is that I went to charge the tyre pump battery in my Aldi jump starter/pump/torch and it showed … nothing. No charging taking place. Gaaaah!

It’s a little plug pack (wall wart) rated at 15V DC 0,5A. I put the meter on it – zero. No output. Kaput. What a pain. OK, I’ve got a box of these things but 15V is unusual. Not sure I’ve got one of those. Anyway, that’s easy fixed.

Now to drive the Honda and start paying more attention to what I think is a power steering low fluid noise. A whine which varies with steering wheel angle effort. My usual method is to ignore it until it bites me, i.e. it fails in some way. Must get off my backside and attend to it.

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Speaking of electronic thingies, a design appeared in Silicon Chip magazine January 2020 issue for a model railway DCC control station. Aha, just what I wanted as commercial units cost $800 – $1,100. As the article says, you can build this unit for far less than that, in the region of $200 (assuming you interface it to your laptop PC).

But I was massively disappointed in the article. It assumes a higher level of knowledge of Arduino microcomputers than I have. Part of the article says, “It is assumed that you are familiar with the Arduino IDE [Integrated Design Environment] to proceed.” Huh? No, I use computers a lot, but I never learnt embedded micros or the C++ language and so on.

As well, the design is just bare printed circuit boards. No box, so control panel, no knobs or switches. Very disappointing! OK for someone of a much younger age, I suppose, but no use to me. So for nearly two years I’ve let it lie and considered spending the $800 or so to buy a commercial one (but I haven’t).

However, one of my former work colleagues came around last weekend and showed me what it all means, how to deal with it. He’s always been red hot on microcomputers, ever since they came into being in the 1980s. He’s a whiz kid. I say kid deliberately, because he looks perpetually young. He’s 10 years younger than me and I remember when he first started at Ch7 at age 18, he looked like a Boy Scout, which he was. He still does, forever young. But he had a massive heart attack a few years ago, and was lucky to survive. Looking young didn’t help him. But he’s OK now, touch wood.

Anyway, his tutelage has inspired me to look at this train controller with new eyes and give it a go. I’ve realised it’s not as difficult as I thought (as is the case with many things). I just need to build up two small printed circuit boards and buy the ready made Arduino micro PC

This is a complete computer on a small board, about 50mm square. That’s the USB connection to your laptop at left, DC power socket at right, all the computer and memory in the long integrated circuit and all the inputs and outputs in those long pin sockets along the edges. Price? $29.95 from Jaycar. Why “Arduino”? It was developed by an Italian guy about 15 years ago and it’s become a very well known and supported system.

I’ve bought two kits of the PCBs and “hard to get bits” from Silicon Chip (total cost $82) so I’ll be building two of these.

Unfortunately, it all has to be controlled from a laptop and there’s a simple software program to do this (free download), but I don’t like that much. I want knobs and buttons and lamps and switches! So my friend is planning to put his mind to designing something. He’s got some model trains himself and so he’s interested. He’s very capable of doing this, he’s very bright. And as I said to him, I reckon there must be others who would want a design like this.

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I pumped the Peugeot tyres up yesterday as well, and although it’s hard to be sure, I think it was the left front again, just down a fraction. Gee, these are very sensitive. So I’ve pumped ’em all up to 2,4Bar this time to allow for a bit of leeway. A bit of over inflation won’t hurt with my small amount of driving.

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A few posts ago I started to talk about my current book, and because I’d forgotten the name I didn’t continue. Well, it’s A Crack in Creation by Dr Jennifer Doudna and Dr Samuel Sternberg. These are the researchers who discovered CRISPR, the gene editing DNA technique.

CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. It’s all about a sequence of DNA that can be used to precisely cut and rejoin the twisted DNA chain that’s become so familiar as the basis of life. This means that any changes or insertions can be done precisely and easily, whether the DNA is in plant cells, animals and yes, humans.

The implications are tremendous but also frightening. It could be used to cure many human genetic diseases, the best known being Huntington’s Chorea as one example as the DNA location and sequence of the hereditary problem is well known.

But the section I’m reading at the moment is talking about the potential to wipe out entire species or populations of insects or animals by a technique called gene drive. For example, the entire mosquito population of the Earth could be made to die out by changing the genome (DNA) of just one mosquito and letting it loose in the wild. Since mosquitoes are the cause of enormous human suffering (malaria, Ross River virus, chikangunya, and so on, all the mosquito-born viruses) the temptation is there to wipe ’em all out. But we don’t know what the effects would be on the environment as a whole.

Anyway, I’m finding that I’m having to skip forward through the book because although it’s well written and interesting, it’s so technical and jargon-filled that you need to be a biochemist to follow it. I guess if I re-read it, it might make more sense, especially as it has good diagrams to help, but I can’t follow it at the moment. I’ll skip forward and hope it improves, and I’m sure someone with a more biochemistry background would find it fascinating, but I’m finding it heavy going.

Three cars, two of them dead.

Aaaaaarrrrrrgh!! Another dead battery in the Honda! Completely flat. Bereft of life, it’s nailed to the perch. That’s the third time in a year. At around $200 a time, this is too expensive.

What have I done wrong? Left the lights on? No, I checked the switches. Did I leave a door ajar? No, not that I can see. The horrible thought is that there’s an intermittent battery drain fault, and tracking that down would be almost impossible.

I’ll put it on the charger, but I fear the worst.

The other dead car is the Verada. Yeah, still. It’s got the fault that it will start OK for about two seconds, but then stops. Try again, same. I found the “martybugs” article today and I’m pretty sure it describes my problem, so at least I know where to look. But it talks about a connector deep under the dash. I can’t get down there, not a hope. I’ll call the RAC and get them to take it to their workshops. Even if it costs me, it’ll be worth it.

So both problems are fixable, but I’m a bit tired of having these hassles.

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I’ve talked about the sensitive tyre pressure monitoring system in the Peugeot, where it seems to only take a drop of 0,1Bar to trigger the alarm. (32psi = 2,2Bar). It’s gone off twice so far, once on the left front, the second on the right rear.

Well, Wunderbar, it’s triggered again. What wheel will it be this time? I guess it’s a good thing that it warns me, but I’m getting a bit “tyred” of this. Pardon the pun-cture. Hissssss.

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I’ve had a car cigarette lighter socket to USB adapter for a year or two which is constantly losing its connection, so that my GPS navigator dies until I wiggle the adapter. OK, they’re cheap, I’ll just buy another one, which I did from the Chinese Wish web site. About $4.

Aaaarrrrrrgh, would you believe I can’t even get it to hold the connection for more than a second or two. What do I have to do???

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Batteries again. I have a Sony Clié Personal Digital Assistant from 15 years ago. I never use it, but it’s a very neat device and I think people would buy it on eBay, so I want to get it ready for sale. But it uses a unique battery. Mine died years ago (there’s a story there!)

So for the past few years I’ve been trying to buy a new battery. What I’ve found is that many advertise, but few are able. To supply, that is. They’ll all take your order, and sometimes your money, but in every case so far, they refund my money with either a curt “No stock” or no words at all.

But the latest one has taken my money (A$35.84 back in April) and despite confirming my order with an order number and telling me it’s been despatched (with no result), my emails just bounce. I have two email addresses but neither works. So it looks like I’ve done my dosh. I do have web addresses, so I guess I’ll just try again. Sigh. At least $35 is not too big a loss.

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On the other hand, a few months ago, I paid for a digital telecine (a Super 8 movie film to digital converter). This was A$79. Again, nothing has arrived so I’ll have to find my order and chase it up.

I’ve realised that both these were bought using PayPal, so I stand a chance of getting my money back, especially if I threaten them with a bad review. Hmmm.

October 29th, Dad’s 99th birthday and the 22nd anniversary of my retirement. Next year will be Dad’s big one, the 100th. (He died in 2001 at age 78, but I will always remember his birthday.)

Also, my bone scan day. Someone thinks I should have bone density scans every couple of years. I don’t know why – I’ve never broken a bone and I’ve had a few heavy falls in past years (but nothing recently). Oh well, it costs me nothing and only takes about ten minutes, so what the hell?

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Busy day. A friend arranged to come here after his medical appointment at Joondalup. He’s got serious cancer, but the good news is that his treatment with chemo and radiation seems to have reduced the tumour by 70%. Wow. He’s quite pleased, obviously, and the treatment doesn’t seem to be affecting him adversely. He’s still got his hair and is not excessively tired and hasn’t lost weight. Things have come a long way.

Then we had lunch at the Dome, very pleasant, and talked for a couple of hours. We go back a long, long way.

Finally I had a podiatrist appointment at 4pm. No problems there. He rubbed my legs with a very nice oil.

Then I filled Evie with diesel at 162.7 c/l ! Ouch. But that’s the first time I’ve had to refill since about June. It’s a six cylinder but quite frugal, around 8 l/100km average, and I don’t drive much so fuel doesn’t cost me a lot.

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It won’t mean anything to anyone who doesn’t live in Perth but Russel Woolf, the ABC radio announcer, died suddenly during Monday evening/Tuesday morning. He was the 5.30am breakfast radio announcer and when I turned the radio on around that time on Tuesday, I was surprised to hear the other morning announcer, Nadia Mitsopolous talking in his place. She didn’t say why initially, but they announced the death at about 8.45am. I have to admire her, she held herself together and did a superb job on that morning. As far as I know, there was no warning, he just died in his sleep.

I didn’t know Russel but everyone in Perth held him in high regard and the tributes absolutely poured in all day and the next. I felt quite sad. I’d been listening to him for 15 years or more. I miss him.

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I’ve been posting a lot of my pictures on Facebook in the past few months and people seem to like them. I get a lot of feedback.

So I’ve been emphasising that I’ve done 13 books of the images, and the CD/DVDs above, adding that they are available for purchase.

I have not had one single enquiry about buying something. Not a whiff of interest. Pretty disappointing. No-one wants to pay for anything! Everyone wants everything for free. Every day I read The Guardian, WA Today, The Atlantic and Crikey and I subscribe! I pay for what I take.

Occasionally I get an appeal from Mozilla, the people who make the Firefox browser and the Thunderbird email client. You don’t have to pay for these, but occasionally (once or twice a year) they appeal for help and I donate $10 or $20. They say only 2% of their appeals result in a donation. Pathetic. Same for Wikipedia – since I use it regularly, when they make an appeal, I make a donation. They say the same, that very, very few, 1 – 2% of people, respond the the appeal with a donation.

As I said a couple of days ago, I also pay monthly for the photography blog I consume, and a Balinese website, and the ALP, and GetUp and other things that deserve support. Very, very few people pay for what they use. Pathetic.

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My diabetic medication was changed completely this past week and the good news is that my blood sugar readings have come down markedly. I mean halved. Still too high but it’s only been a few days so far.

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Brrr, another cool and cloudy day. It was nice yesterday but it didn’t last and we’re back to winter, 19C today but only 17C tomorrow! Fair go, that’s too cold.

The bladder infection is much improved but I’m not 100% yet. Very tired and still in a fair bit of pain from other sources. So many jobs waiting, so little energy or drive.

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It’s not everyday you find an article about model railways in the newspaper, but this has appeared in today’s Guardian:

Highly unusual. Look at the cost – a quarter million GB pounds! That’s nearly half a million dollars. The layout is 60m long and is in O gauge, the most expensive size. Most O gauge locos cost around GBP500, or around $900. For one loco!

This guy sold a business that clearly made him a lot of money and while in lockdown in Britain, he decided to build a dream layout. He’d never built anything before, but what the hey … That reminds me, I must get onto building mine. Ha ha ha.

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My current book is

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I’ve been a daily reader and big fan of The Online Photographer blog written by a guy called Mike Johnston in upper New York State, USA. He started the blog in about 2003 and that’s when I found it. He’s a gifted writer and has been a magazine editor and contributor for many years. Highly intelligent. I don’t much care for his photography, but he probably doesn’t think much of mine, either.

Over the years we’ve actually corresponded a bit, as he takes emails sometimes, and I feel I’ve got to know him. He makes no secret of the fact that he has scraped the barrel at times in trying to make a living from doing the daily blog.

Therefore I decided a couple of years ago to pay for what I take by contributing to his Patreon page, to the tune of US$8 a month or about A$129 a year. I believe in paying for what I use.

But lately his postings were becoming more erratic, with days going by with no writings. He’s open about the reasons – ill health sometimes, the need to take breaks and so on.

But a few weeks ago he announced that he would from now on only be posting on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. That’s how it’s been, mostly, with a few extras thrown in. The reason is that he wants to concentrate on writing a book, a novel he’s been working on for some time.

I’m in a bit of a quandary, because I’m finding the blog much less interesting as a result. He’s writing about American sporting heroes, pool, American cars and so on, things that don’t interest me.

Therefore, I’m feeling less inclined to support him. So, do I continue the Patreon donation at the same level? I haven’t decided yet. I’ll give it a few more weeks and see how it goes.

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I’ve just had a knock at the door and it was an Asian guy who was very pushy, holding some literature about the MacCallum Institute. He had a lanyard with an ID card but he didn’t show it to me.

He led off by making some comment on my stomach shape (yeah, thanks a lot, mate), then pointing to the carpet, visible in my ‘computer’ room. He was asking if it’s carpet or just a rug. Huh? Huh??

Then he launched into asking me if I know about different types of cancer and if I know anyone who has cancer. Huh??!!

By this stage he was annoying me and I said, “Mate, what’s all this about? Are you going to ask me for donations?” He said “Yes”, so I said No, goodbye.

What an idiot. He came on far too strong, and the questions about my carpet? What was that about? I have the impression he was checking me out and trying to be invited inside. No mate, go away.

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Pffft! Bloody AMP, the Australian Mutual Provident Company. Once a great Aussie life and general insurance company, now a burnt out shell.

In the 1990s they de-mutualised, meaning they went from being owned by policy holders to being a public company with shares, bought and sold on the stock exchange. When they did this, they were regarded as blue chip and valuable. Policy holders were allocated these shares according to what value policy/s they held. I didn’t hold a policy but a guy I worked with did and he wanted to sell his shares.

OK, I said, I’ll take them off your hands. We agreed I would buy them at the market value, hence I got 155 shares at $20.02 per share, i.e. a total of $3,103. That was around 1996.

Since then they have steadily fallen in value to today’s price of $1.16 each!! My initial $3,103 investment in “blue chip” shares is now worth $179.80. Shit!

It’s reached the stage where we are being asked to opt-in if we want to keep our shares, or they will be sold for us and the money sent to our bank account.

If this was due to some natural disaster it wouldn’t be so bad, but it’s due to utterly incompetent and dishonest management. This once proud company was shown during the 2017 banking Royal Commission to have lied, stolen and hoodwinked its customers and employees. It was shown to be a shonky, dodgy, dishonest company. As a result, it has cost me nearly my whole $3,000 investment. I am angry, but there’s bugger all I can do about it. I’m taking the only action I can, to let them sell my shares for me. At least that way I’ll avoid broker’s fees (I hope and assume).

What a rotten company. Just another in the long list of nasty, dishonest Australian companies and businesses. I used to think Australia was free of the corruption and bad management of foreign companies, but I no longer believe that. Australian business is rotten to the core. It’s being exposed more and more every day.

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Uuurrrgh, ten days since the last post, with eight days of a bladder infection laying me low. I had a very mild one a month ago, with no symptoms and only picked up by a routine test. This one started on Thursday 14th with a fever for several hours, with very painful ‘you know whats’. I wasn’t able to get a GP appointment until Saturday 16th and he prescribed an antibiotic. I’m still on it and it makes my stomach feel upset, so I’m staying at home, near the toilet and bed. I’m not doing much writing I’m afraid.

I’m very slowly getting better but I’ve had to beg off a couple of meet-ups, I’m very sorry. As well, the atrocious weather keeps me at home. I like going out, but not when it’s wet and windy and cold, sorry. As soon as it warms up …

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Huh! Word Press has changed the font and spacing again. I do not like this dense Times New Roman. I liked the font and open spacing as it was last time I composed a post. This Word Press blogging software is CRAP! You can’t complain directly, of course, only via a forum. I don’t like it!

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I am in a bad mood, hence the caps and italics. Sorry. The pain in my feet is very bad. It would qualify as chronic pain. There is a medication solution but it’s an anti-depressant and causes me insomnia and other side effects, so I had to stop it a few years ago. I suppose I’d better make an appointment to see the pain specialist again. I can’t remember his name.

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One thing I’ve been doing is posting many, many of my photos on Facebook. I’m not sure whether that’s a good idea or not. People seem to like them but I’m worried that I’m overdoing it.

I admit it’s a “look at me, look what I can do” attitude and that’s a bit childish. But if I don’t show them, if I always keep them hidden, then what’s the point? Will people only see them after I die? No, not at all. Actually, dying won’t guarantee anything. Someone would have to make an actual move to show them, and that’s very unlikely.

Speaking of dying, it’s very heavily on my mind these days. I’m quite anxious about it, how it will happen and the aftermath. The aftermath won’t affect me, but I worry about how the division of my possessions will occur. I am getting help.

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I think I’ve mentioned this already but I’ve watched all episodes of SAS Australia on Channel 7 and I admit I like it. It’s about Australian sportsmen and women and other ‘celebrities’ who submit themselves for an SAS/Special Forces selection process, run by four former UK SAS men. Yeah, you think it’s very blokey and rah rah, but it’s rather fascinating to watch how these people conduct themselves under the extreme training exercises.

I was extremely impressed by some of the women, and one in particular, Jana Pitman. She’s a former dual Olympic gold medallist in running, who then after retirement, did medicine and trained as a doctor. WOW! She’s a high achiever. She comes across as a very nice person and someone you’d want to have on your side. She is one of the last five but runs out of physical strength and stamina at the last exercise, so has to be eliminated. Even so, she’s the only woman finalist and is to be admired.

All through, the crew are emphasising how much psychology and mental attitude play in survival. How the body can keep going, keep taking punishment as long as the mind doesn’t quit. Remarkable. One remarkable woman was Kerry Stoddart, also an Olympian and gold medal winner, who entered and did most of the course at age 53! She finally had to quit only because of an injury, but she is a remarkable woman.

There are 14 episodes with some follow-ons and I’ve watched it all and enjoyed it. NB: I only ever record it, then play it later and fast forward through the commercial breaks. The barrage of ads and promos is more than I can bear.

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I’ve mentioned the tyre pressure monitoring system in the Peugeot 407 before. There’s a pressure sensor in each tyre valve and if the pressure drops below a certain value, a warning shows on the dash display, including, if you catch it at the right moment, which tyre it is.

A few weeks ago it showed the warning and I deduced it was the left front, but I was a little surprised that it seemed to be only 0,1 Bar down from the normal 2,2Bar. A quick pump up and all was good.

Last week it showed again and I checked both fronts, with no error. Then I checked right rear and there it was, again down by 0,1Bar. Pumping it up fixed the problem.

I’m quite impressed that it shows an error with quite a small loss of pressure, and I’m reassured that you can continue to drive without too much worry. I like it.

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I’ve just taken a couple of strong Panadol and I’m going back to bed.

Brrrr, it’s been grey and raining and blowing and cold again today. What’s going on? This is mid way through the second month of Spring! The seasons really have shifted; summer hangs on longer too.

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I had to go to a doctor’s appointment in Joondalup Hospital this morning. Normally this takes only 15 minutes, almost all on the freeway, but because they’d warned me that parking at the hospital is very restricted due to building works, I left home at 0630 for an 0815 appointment. I’d slept badly, so I was awake early, so I just decided to go early.

This put me in the thick of early peak hour traffic, and I was pretty annoyed at the attitude of the drivers. The aggression! The speeding! The lane hopping! Why? The traffic is not that heavy, yet drivers, probably the tradesmen in their big 4WD utes, seem to have to overtake and push their way through. At one stage I could see a kilometre ahead and nearly all were in the overtaking lane.

Thank goodness I don’t have to drive in that each day.

As it turned out, I got parking right in front of the hospital main entrance with no trouble.

The appointment was just a routine check of my leukemia, and he didn’t find any problems. He pointed out swellings on the back end of my jaw, which I hadn’t even noticed but seem to be lymph nodes, but he didn’t seem worried about them. My vitamin D is too low, so I need to take extra, but that was all. See him again in January. That’ll be $100 please.

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I’m a bit grumpy about some work I had carried out by a pair of electricians last week. I got them via the RAC tradesman service. All I needed was replacement of five kitchen downlight globes and five LED sparkle lights in the bathroom (I mean, miniature bi-pin lights over the mirror). I had to get these guys out because the lights are offset from where you can get the ladder, and I’m not confident of keeping my balance.

Anyway, one of the replacement lamps (LED G10 bi-pin) went off again just after they’d finished up and left. I managed to wave and whistle and attract their attention and got them back. It seemed to be a bad connection on the pins of this LED lamp over the pantry door. He wiggled it around and it seemed to come good, so they left again.

But it failed again just after they left, so I sent an SMS message to the phone they had used to tell me they were coming. No response. I emailed the RAC at the address they’d used – again, no response.

Now a second lamp has failed in the kitchen. It had been buzzing (the transformer in the ceiling had) and now it’s dead. I hope the transformer hasn’t failed.

What do I have to do to get their attention? Rhetorical question – try again. But my tiny hands are frozen 🙂

I supplied the bi-pin LED mini lights for the bathroom, sourced from Wish.com. In daylight, they looked fine, but I’ve found that at night, they are too dim. I’ve noticed on the packet that they’re only 1,5W. Looks like I’ll have to buy some more, locally, of higher wattage (power). Then I’ll have to install them myself, which will involve placing one foot on the bathroom bench. I’ll let you know. If you hear a scream …

Anyway, the sparkies said the lights are covered by warranty, so I have to try contacting them again.

PS: I’ve had a call from both the sparkies’ boss and the RAC saying they’ve had my complaint and are coming out to talk to me. 6.30pm: a guy (the sparkies’ boss) came and said the kitchen lamps are old and inferior and he recommends they all be replaced with new ones which have a transformer incorporated. He says they’re about the same price as the replacement LEDs that I paid for last week. So that means I’m up for a new set of complete lamps, and their fitting. Grrrr. As I said to the guy, I’ve been in this house for eight years and this is the first time those halogen lamps have failed. And I have those lights on most of the day and evening. I don’t want to have to spend money if I don’t have to.

Anyway, he’s going to do a quote for me. I wait with bated breath.

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I’ve been posting a lot on Facebook lately, sets of images from my files numbering 57,700. Many are not for public viewing but many hundreds or more are. People seem to be appreciating them.

Now they want video too. Can do, but I’ll have to get back into video editing. I have around 2,700 video clips from the 2008 Europe/UK trip alone which have remained unused, unseen. Here goes.

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I’ve got a new USB headset with microphone now, so I hope to start speech-to-text so as to aid my writing.

I’ve been trying to get started on my memoirs for years, but to no avail. Writer’s block, big time. I’ve had an idea – to imagine I’m telling my life story to a friend. As if I were speaking to her. I think that might work and I’m quite excited at the idea. Watch this space.

Turned out grey again. After a nice sunny morning, clouds have come over and my fingers are frozen. Ah well, can’t complain, sez he, complaining again. (Now I’m ready to post, it’s nice and sunny-blue sky again. Thank you.)

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Talking about the man who has everything, I’m in the bad habit of buying DVDs but never getting around to watching them. I’ve probably got a dozen sitting there waiting for me to look at them. Stupid.

The reason for mentioning this is that I saw a short review of Succession last week, calling it one of the best TV dramas ever. Hmm, I thought, I’d like to see that. But it’s on HBO pay-TV, so I resigned myself to waiting for some other time.

Last night I decided to have a quick shuffle through the stack on my little table. You guessed it, there was a boxed set of the whole first season of Succession. Crazy! I bought it, perhaps nearly a year ago, and it has sat there, forgotten. Now it will probably wait another six months for me to watch it.

Speaking of watching TV, Fires on the ABC. Good stuff, but hard to watch. So mournful last week.

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I must stop buying “stuff”!! I’m in the process of getting rid of as much of my junk as I can. When I moved here in 2013 it was cathartic, throwing out years and years of “stuff”, clutter. I actually filled most of a 3cu.m. dumper bin. Moving into this house felt like moving into a new, clean environment. “I will not clutter it up again”, I thought. So what’s happened? I’ve cluttered it up again. It’s the way we are, I suppose.

I’ve got a kitchen full of utensils that I never use. A potato masher – never used. Half a dozen carving knives. How many does a guy need? I only need one. Two manual tin openers. And so on. Out, out.

I’ve realised that I have a wardrobe full of male clothes that I almost never wear any more. These were favourite T-shirts, so much that I had two or three of a couple of designs. But now I never wear them. Out, out!

I got rid of a favourite suitcase last week. I have a newer one but occasionally, on trips to Bali, I used to use two suitcases. I doubt that would ever happen again.

Even in my women’s clothes, I have so much stuff that my wardrobe is almost bulging. Stuff I’ve bought but never actually worn. Several garments crammed onto one hanger. Out, out! I don’t spend big money, by the way – it’s all bargain bin stuff or from Wish or the op shops.

Last year, no, 2019, I discovered Wish.com and kinda went mad. I haven’t totalled up all I’ve bought and paid them, but it would be well over $1,000 worth. Just small purchases, $5, $10, but it all adds up.

Then I had to get plastic cases, drawers for it all, so the result is all these electronic components, small motors, small printed circuit units like voltage regulators, small gears, tools I thought I’ll need for my model railway.

But I don’t think I’ll ever get around to building it. Holy moley, I’ve got about $1,000 of track and rolling stock, another $1,000 of model bits like trees, shrubs, fences, overhead lights (miniature ones), traffic lights and so on. All waiting to be put to use. But no urge. Sigh. One o’ these days, Doris.

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I see the Catholic Church is at it again. That Training Academy for Paedophiles! A report has been published in France telling of around 3,000 French priests who, since about 1960, have molested around 300,000 young children! Most of them were boys, only about 10% girls.

What a shocking, disgusting, stomach churning thing. The Catholic Church, with all its gold robes and statues, all its money, all its power, all its magnificent buildings, churches, idols to God and Jesus. Commandment: Thou shalt build no false idols to me. So the Catholic Church (and others) builds massively expensive gold plated false idols. Yet they are filthy perverts who molest children.

People, stay away from these criminals! Keep your children away. Reject this church. In fact reject all religion. Religion is evil! “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” Yeah, right – the priests are wringing their hands at the thought of playing with little boys genitals. Evil! Suffering children? They don’t care.

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I’ve still got my 2005 Honda MDX and although I thought of selling it earlier in the year, I don’t think I will now. I love mine. Although I have the Peugeot, that sporty coupe, I tend to choose to drive the Honda when I go shopping because it’s just so pleasant to drive. Sure, it’s big and heavy, but it’s smooth and powerful and has loads and loads of room.

I can hardly believe I’ve got one of these. I remember when they came out, in the 1990s I think, and I boggled at a V6 cylinder, twin overhead cam, fuel injected, on-demand 4WD in this great body. All leather:

Phwoooaaar, I thought, but at $75,000 I would never be able to have one.

Well, 25 or so years later, I got one. And I love it. Very reliable. Mine had a few small faults but I’ve fixed most of them, so at $3,000, what a buy. I won’t sell now.

I read the reviews and they say it didn’t sell well in Australia mainly due to the awful styling. What??!! I love the styling, are you crazy?

The only thing I don’t like is the foot operated parking brake, US style. Kicking it off is not too bad, but lifting my left foot high enough to push it on is a pain, literally.

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I’ve finally finished the latest Robert Goddard novel, The Fine Art of Invisible Detection. Hmmm, I think he’s lost it. That’s the third recent novel of his where I’ve finished it and thought, “I’ve wasted too many hours reading this book.”

Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great novelist but I think he’s getting past his prime. This one lacked tension, lacked a good story line, was far too twisty in a plot that lacked credibility. Others may disagree but I haven’t enjoyed his last three books. Pity. But if you want some great reads, just start with Past Caring, his first novel from many years ago, and you’ll have many months of good books ahead of you.

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I’m almost embarrassed to admit it but I’ve been absorbed by SAS Australia on channel 7. It’s gung-ho, military style he-man stuff, but I am very impressed by the four UK guys, ex-SAS men themselves. I don’t know if the show is scripted or whether they generate their own dialogue and ideas, but their insights and psychological discoveries about the amateur soldiers impress me.

Most of all, in this series, I am impressed by Jana Pitman. She is a double gold medal Olympic athlete in the 400m running and 400m hurdles. Then when she retired from athletics, she entered medical school and is now qualified as a doctor. Wow, wow. I am so impressed.

Now she’s the only woman remaining out of five survivors so far of this SAS test on TV. She must be tough! And she’s 1.8m tall, too, so she could beat me up. I think she’s great.

At first I thought this series was set in South Africa, judging by the mountains and scenery, but I’m realising it’s here in Oz, somewhere in the Blue Mountains in NSW, I’d say. It looks great, massive mountains, rugged cliffs, fantastic views. It makes me want to go there and see it. One o’ these days, Doris.

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Speaking of Doris, which was my grandmother’s name on Dad’s side, even though I didn’t renew my subscription to the MyHeritage genealogy web site, they keep sending me emails about links they find.

But at A$330 for a year’s data, I’m not tempted. Especially when I get something like the latest, where they’ve found a new link to “Arthur Adolph Dubois, my Great-great-uncle’s father-in-law”. Um, no, I don’t think that adds greatly to my tree. I’ve gone sideways enough. If they could go further back than the 17th Century, I might be interested, but they’re too expensive. I’m surprised they haven’t phoned me and begged me to rejoin.