The title carries on from the last post, Another bad Liberal. They’re going down like nine-pins. It’s all “alleged” of course, we can’t be specific, but I’ll say it: Liberal Party politicians are more likely than not to be involved in dodgy dealing, unethical conduct, sham deals or outright corruption.

Why? Because the Liberal philosophy is: laws are for little people, they don’t apply to me, they are just a speed bump on my road to make myself and my friends and family rich. NB: my family and friends. Liberals see themselves and their immediate circle as far more important than society. They believe that anyone who has trouble “making it” in society is just not trying, not worth thinking about.

In case it’s not clear, I despise Liberals.

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Brrrr! Brrrrr!! It’s too cool. This is the second month of Spring, yet it’s still too cool and wet. The seasons really have shifted, haven’t they? Oh well, the summer is longer to compensate.

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I was supposed to be going out to meet a lady right now, but she asked to be excused due to a tummy bug.

The story is that I was in the city in February last year for a Perth Fringe Festival event, a high class strip show meant for women, especially women who like women (wink). I was dressed appropriately, shall we say. I went in on the train and arrived early on a very warm evening, so I walked up William St to a bar and had a pre-show drink. As I was walking back toward the venue (Yagan Square), a woman was walking toward me. She was alone, very attractive and also dressed in a very zany style. Our eyes met, she stopped to talk and we had a very, very nice brief encounter. She was at pains to tell me her name and asked me to friend her on Facebook, which I did immediately. We’ve been following each other ever since, for 20 months. I learnt a bit about her but would never have taken it further. Well, maybe not “never”. I had been toying with asking her to meet for coffee, just in the interests of building a bigger circle of friends.

She got in first. On Saturday I got a comment from her on one of my posts that she’d like to meet up. I moved our conversation to Private Messaging and we had a very nice chat, she being very complimentary about me. Nice! So we were supposed to meet for a date tonight, but she’s called in sick. Anyway, it’s too bloody cold.

So, wow! I’ve been asked out on a date by a very glamorous woman. That’s a first for me, although I’ve missed many signs and opportunities before. I am hugely flattered. She knows I dress as a woman and she said, “So do I.” Ha ha ha ha, GSOH. Looks like it will have to wait a week or two, but we will meet. She’s mature, with a 35yo son, but that’s good.

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Speaking of dressing female, I had lunch with six other guys I used to work with at Ch.7 last Friday and I went as Peta, dressed female. This is the first time any of them knew about it or have seen me as a woman, so I was a little nervous, but I needn’t have worried, of course. A couple of the guys didn’t even realise who I was. Who was this woman sitting down at our table?

The irony is that way back in the 1990s, it was a topic of conversation at our Ch7 lunch table in the cafeteria about a guy at Channel 10, a technician, who used to go to work dressed as a woman. This was a quite ribald topic, of course, but I stayed silent, thinking, “Good on you mate – I wish I had your courage.” I never met him/her, don’t even know her name, but I hope it all worked out for her.

On that topic, I have an appointment with a urological surgeon on Wednesday morning. Nothing drastic, nothing major.

Well, the Bureau of Meteorology is not doing too well in forecasting at the moment. Yesterday and today were supposed to be wet, wet, wet, yet Wednesday was pretty dry and nice all day. It rained early yesterday morning, yet since about 8am it’s become sunnier and nicer.

Today’s forecast is for 100% chance of rain, 15-25mm. I have a lunch scheduled and was hoping for a fine Spring day. Which will it be, rain or shine? It seems to be a flip of the coin. (Hint: it rained.)

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Yet another court case involving a former Liberal Party politician – today a former Liberal Treasurer of WA has been charged with a potential criminal offence and is in custody (meaning he’s in a cell). This guy was once seriously put forward as the potential “next” premier of WA. This is the guy who made sexual innuendo into an art form. He quit politics under the smell of scandal. The charge relates to domestic abuse. What a nice guy.

A famous Liberal son is also in the news now for allegedly being associated with alleged dodgy property schemes.

The damning laptop which threatens to expose even more of the scandals surrounding at least one other ex Liberal politician is still being sought by the Corruption and Crime Commission.

Week after week, month after month, more and more comes out about the criminality of the Liberal Party of WA. They do not deserve to exist as a political party.

It is vital that we have a strong newspaper and journalism tradition to expose these things. I’m not much impressed by The West Australian and its Channel 7 ownership and bias, but at least there are some good journalists still trying to fight the good fight.

PS: Hah! Prophetic headlines. I wrote the above paragraph yesterday, and today yet another Liberal politician has bitten the dust. Although she hasn’t been charged with any crime, and is presumed innocent, Gladys Berejiklian, premier of NSW, has resigned. She was very, very foolish in her choice of “boyfriend”, another Liberal MP in the NSW parliament and is alleged to have “looked the other way” while he did dodgy deals.

As I said, when the mud is flying, it sticks to Liberal Party people. We need a federal ICAC!

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Speaking of fighting the good fight, I’ve long admired the US TV series, The Good Fight, shown on SBS and Netflix. It concerns a law firm in Chicago which is owned almost exclusively by Black lawyers. Except one of the principals is a white woman. I suppose it’s to hang some of the story lines on, but she does a fantastic job. This firm is left wing Democrat aligned and anti-Trump to the eyeballs. Hilary Clinton features a bit. It’s right up to the minute – the present episodes are about the storming of the Capitol and so on.

They’re into series five now. The first few series were magnificent – crackling scriptwriting, engaging stories, likeable characters. I enjoyed it immensely and I’ve got it all recorded. It’s good enough that I’ll go back and start from series 1, ep. 1 one day.

But I’m sad to say that the current episodes have descended into silliness. Several of the major characters have departed and the law firm is being rebuilt, with power struggles for who is in control.

I’ll stick with it, but it’s clear that there have been changes in scriptwriters, too. Crazy characters, weird stories. I still highly recommend watching from the start, if you haven’t seen it.

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I’ve just got home after a lunch with six other guys I used to work with at Channel 7 for so many years. Of course, I went dressed as Peta and this was the first time any of them knew, or have seen me in my new persona. A couple of the guys didn’t recognise me until I spoke up. Everyone was very polite at first and didn’t say anything, so I had to fill the gap at one point and explain myself, to much polite laughter, but it was fine and we all had a good time. It’s a pity it was raining so much; when I booked it several weeks ago, I was hoping for a nice warm, sunny Spring day. No such luck. Would you believe, I forgot all about a group photo. There we were, all techo people and none of us thought of a photo. Duh!

I had fish tacos. Bloody hell, I could have made a better dish than that. The tacos were just three soft circles of flatbread. The fish was three small cubes (one on each flatbread), about a 20mm cube, of some tough fish that hardly tasted of anything. On a bed of chopped up red cabbage! No other vegetables. Drizzled with a dressing from a bottle. I could have done a better job!! $22.

One of the conversation points was: Who’s doing the book? Who wants to write a book about our Channel 7 days? Me, me me me, pick me. I’ve been writing it in my head for years and here is someone else thinking about it too. I’d better make a quick start because I don’t want someone else to jump in first. I say this because I know I can write interesting, lucid, entertaining prose, my memory is fantastic and I have hundreds of photos. In addition, I can lay it out, attractively, ready for publication.

I will call for contributions but I’ll have to very diplomatically say that I reserve the right to edit, in order to correct spelling and grammar and preserve the style.

I mentioned to someone (a young lady in a shop who I talk to regularly) that I need voice to text software so I can dictate. Being young and “phone savvy”, she said, hey, you’ve got it on your phone, and showed me how to use Google Docs voice to text on the phone. Shazzam! This means I could lie in bed and dictate at any time. This could work!

Aaarrrgh, I’ve just knocked a glass jar of mustard off the shelf and smashed it on the tiled floor. I suppose it’s good that the gooey mustard contained the glass and stopped it from spreading everywhere. And I was wearing sandals so my feet were not endangered. Smells quite nice, too. It was truffle mustard, but I’m damned if I could ever taste any truffles.

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I can hardly believe it but I’ve got the TV on and switched to the AFL Grand Final at Perth Stadium. That’s Australian Football League football, for those who don’t know.

I’m not usually a footy fan or watcher and since these are two Melbourne teams playing, I don’t really care either. But this is historic – the first time an AFL Grand Final has ever been played in Perth, so I thought I should at least have a glance as the game progresses. The teams are Melbourne (I think they’re nicknamed the Demons?) versus the Western Bulldogs (nickname? The Dogs, I think.) Both have red and blue colours, just different shades and patterns.

I don’t care which team wins. I have a slight preference for the team with Western in their name, but …

Ho hum. Perfect day for it, cloudless blue sky, no wind, 23deg.

PS: Melbourne won, and by a big margin. They doubled the Western Bulldogs score. That qualifies as a thrashing. Ho hum, do I care? No.

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Peripheral neuropathy, i.e. nerve pain in the extremities. Mine’s due to diabetes, but I gather it has other causes.

Nonetheless, mine is bloody bad, and has got worse in the last year or so. Head jerking, eye watering, cry-out-loud ice-pick jabs for 10 secs or so, every few minutes, often much more frequent. Constant stinging, burning, aching pain.

The treatment is duloxetine, an anti-depressant, and it works for me, but it also causes me insomnia so I can’t tolerate it. Tramadol, same. Ordinary paracetemol, not strong enough.

My latest med is Panadeine Forte, paracetemol + codeine. It works very effectively, but again, insomnia! What’s wrong with me that all these things interfere with my sleep? I took it on a day last week at about 0830 and within half an hour, I could feel it working, the pain subsiding. But I tried to have an afternoon nap and it was hopeless, I just lay there. It took about 12 hours for the “hyped” feeling to fade away.

I would definitely qualify for CBD oil, cannabidiol, which is available here now, but the cost is very high – about $200 for a month’s supply, I believe. I guess I’d better try it once to see if it’s effective enough.

Btw, I found a sufferer’s group on Facebook and joined up, but it turns out to be US based and is full of bullshit. People on there are linking it to COVID vaccination. I haven’t found anything useful so far and I’ll be bailing out.

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I mentioned that I’ve been watching a bit of commercial TV lately, such as this Grand Final coverage on Seven and the Aussie Salvage Crew, Outback Truckers, SAS Australia and so on. But good grief! The commercial breaks are so long as to be utterly intrusive. Many times I think the breaks are longer than the program segments.

When I used to do the program switching, breaks were simple, just four commercials and back to the program. Only four were allowed, and a maximum of two minutes per break, eight minutes per hour in prime time, 11 mins per hour outside prime time.

But the TV stations applied massive pressure, the Australian Broadcasting Control Board was abolished and morphed into ACMA, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, the powers were limited and commercial stations became “self-regulated”. The result is that ACMA is toothless and there is almost no regulation.

Therefore we have a promo going into a break, then at least five commercials, many times six or seven, then another promo, and another, then a “teaser” showing a sponsor’s name going back into the program. Many breaks are five minutes or more.

It’s bad enough that I don’t watch live. I record anything I want to watch on my digital HDD recorder, then replay it later to watch, pressing the >> button when the break starts. This is not FF, it’s a button that finds the next “chapter break”. This means I skip directly from the end of one segment to the start of the next. Aaaahhh.

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Interesting times indeed. But first, the weather report: brrrrr. My tiny fingers are frozen. It’s a fine sunny day, but Spring sprang, then has sprung back a bit. Lots of rain yesterday and last night.

Yet although it was only 15deg yesterday and 18deg today, it’s forecast to be 29deg next Wednesday. Wow, that’s a range.

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I’m sure that deal to drop the French submarine project in favour of the US/UK has been months in the planning, but what a convenient time to announce it, hoping to distract and cover up the Christian Porter scandal.

For my foreign readers, Christian Porter is my local member of the federal parliament. He’s a man of huge ego, ambition and arrogance and entered federal parliament with his eye on becoming prime minister one day, I’m sure.

But, while he was Attorney General, a huge scandal came out involving his past. It was reported on, and he chose to sue the reporter (personally) for defamation. However, for various reasons he had to withdraw the action, but not before incurring huge legal costs for himself, of the order of a million dollars or so. This was his own personal law suit so he is liable for his own costs.

Last week he told the parliament that someone, he says he doesn’t know who, has donated a sum of money, he doesn’t know how much, into a “blind trust” to help him pay these fees. He says he doesn’t know who did this.

What a crock of shit. He is a top lawyer, a former attorney-general and someone who puts himself up as a man of honour, yet he can’t see the blatant double standard. Even Malcolm Turnbull, another top lawyer and former prime minister, is shouting from the rooftops that this stinks. As he says, it’s the equivalent of some guy coming to his office with a mask on and handing over a bag of money and saying he expects nothing in return. Pull the other one!

Anyway, this was turning into a huge scandal for the government, so what better way to drown it out than to make this big announcement of a deal with the US and UK that we’re going to dump our French submarines and build our own, with US or UK supplied nuclear reactors as power plants.

Sure, it’s a big deal, but the Porter deal won’t go away. As one journalist wrote today, Memo Government, we can think of more than one thing at once, you know.

Yet another feckup by this terrible, awful, corrupt Liberal government.

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Even though I’m a total Labor man, with sympathy for the Greens, I’m not totally anti-nuclear. I’m a science guy and I know that technology exists to make small reactors that are some of the safest things on the planet, due to all the science and engineering that has been developed over many decades.

The US and UK have been running nuclear powered subs for a long time and there has never, repeat never, been an accident on a sub. Holy moley, there are hundreds of submariners and scores of nuclear subs which occupy berths in ports in the USA and UK. Do you think they’d risk this if there was any chance of a nuclear event or accident?

As for Adam Bandt (leader of the Greens) saying that we’ll have floating Chernobyls in our harbours, well Adam, I think you made a wild exaggeration there.

My comment on all this is (a) there is not a snowball’s chance in hell of these subs being combat ready for at least 15 years, until 2035 at the earliest. To think they will be ready for us to use when we need them is wishful thinking.

And (b), we can’t even get enough seamen to man our existing subs now. How are we going to get the submariners to run these things?

And (c), here we have yet another Defence Department stuff-up costing us $billions of wasted money, down the drain, on yet another failed project. The huge amounts of money going to waste on military projects in the past few decades are mind boggling. The Department of Defence has a lot to answer for. In my opinion, they are just flat-out incompetent.

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Phew, enough of venting for now. A bit of praise for a change. I hate to admit it, but I’ve been watching 7Mate (the TV channel) lately and I’m enjoying it. Ugh, this is a channel that’s aimed at the bloke down at the pub, singlet and shorts and work boots, high-vis vest, with, shall we say, limited interests.

Yet I’ve been watching SAS Australia, Outback Truckers, Heavy Haulers (whatever it’s called), and Aussie Salvage Squad.

I shouldn’t be attracted to any of them, being the kind of guy who likes concerts by the Berlin Philharmonic and intellectual dramas like Silent Witness.

But SAS Australia grabs me. Why? I confess to admiration for Ant Middleton, the main ex-SAS guy. He has charisma to burn and seems to me like the kind of guy you’d want to be around in an emergency.

Second, I like seeing the people who have put themselves up for the challenge of doing this gruelling course. Many of them come across as very interesting people, and by jingo, they must have courage to do this. One of them is a former tennis star, a woman, and it turns out she’s a doctor too. I’m impressed. In fact, many of the women are the most interesting.

Outback Truckers – heavy haulage trucking through some of the most interesting country. Seeing what goes wrong and how they fix their trucks and tyres. The shocking quality of our roads! Most of the remote townships in the north depend on big trucks getting through with supplies, once a month or so, yet the trucks have to battle corrugations, narrow roads, dust, sand, and mud! As soon as it rains up there, the roads turn into mud slides. These communities shouldn’t have to put up with this. There’s got to be a better way.

Heavy Haulers – I’m fascinated by watching how they load these enormous loads, usually much wider than the truck that’s carrying them. The skill at negotiating narrow roads and tight corners, low bridges, and the crappy road surfaces too.

The new show, Aussie Salvage Squad, is based in Busselton, WA. It’s set around another charismatic guy who with his wife, owns an enormous ex-army truck, which stupidly, they call Christopher. It has an 800hp diesel engine which drives all eight giant wheels, so its pulling power is enormous. It has a huge winch on the back which deploys steel cable about 30mm in diameter. They also have a big Mercedes Uni-mog, also with winches front and back and tyres the size of ship bumpers.

These guys will go anywhere in Australia so we see rescue operations such as earth moving machinery that’s become bogged in seas of mud, partially or fully sunk boats, beach rescues of sunken or wallowing boats, derelict cars in national parks that have to be removed from deep gullies and so on. I confess, I find it fascinating, especially when it shows places in WA.

The main conclusions I see are first, the very bad road conditions once you get out of the big cities and the costs this causes to the trucks and the people in the remote areas. Second, the damage being done to the existing roads all the time by these heavy trucks and loads. More ports so that the big loads can be transported by sea, then relatively short roads from the ports? If I ruled the world …

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My favourite photography blogger (Mike Johnston The On-line Photographer) said today that he doesn’t find sample galleries in equipment testing of much use or interest any more.

I’ve commented on his blog that I don’t find them as much use as when DPReview was based in London, before it was bought by Amazon and moved to Seattle. I loved the sample shots they got by walking around the streets of London, so much that I downloaded many of them and I go back and look, from time to time. For example:

I wish I could show more – this folder for this camera alone contains 158 images and I have many more folders for other brands of cameras.

These three images were taken with the Fujifilm S100fs camera, which I bought in 2008 and took on my Europe trip. Even though it’s 13 years old and way out of date, I won’t part with it. I still marvel at the sharpness of my photos from that trip, and with a fixed lens of 28mm to 400mm, with image stabilisation, I never found myself short. The fs in the name is short for “film simulation”, meaning it has a built in capability to adjust the output images to mimic Fuji’s film looks, like Velvia, Astia, Provia and so on. I always liked Velvia slide film, with its extra saturation and vivid colour.

A few more samples from different cameras:

I have hundreds and hundreds of marvellous images – I wish I could show you more.

By the way, over the past few months I’ve been posting many, many of my own images on my Facebook page and I invite you to look. These are just samples, selections of, say, 16 images out of a folder of 150 or more. I have thousands upon thousands – I wish I could show more. I should set up a web site …

September 11, 2001. The 20th anniversary of that terrible day in history.

In terms of number of deaths, it doesn’t rank with other calamities and atrocities. More Jews would have died in the gas chambers and civilians in the fire bombings in WW2 Germany than the number of Americans who died in the towers.

It was the shock of how easily these religious terrorists were able to bring America to its knees that hurt so much. And the way it was so visible, and so front and centre, in your face in the news that made us take notice. There have been worse mass killings recently, but they are not covered by the news media in the same way and are not so spectacular, so we note them and lament, but then we move on. I’m thinking of the atrocities in Burma involving the Rohingyha and the Uyghyurs in western China and the religious purges of Muslims in India and the list goes on and on. These are also terrible crimes involving mass deaths, but they don’t involve America, so Americans largely don’t care.

That’s the thing, Americans only care about the things they know about, and for a country so profoundly ignorant of anything outside their borders, well, it doesn’t get covered.

If President George “Shrub” Bush hadn’t been in power, we would be so much better off today. His decision to punish the terrorists by invading Iraq, not Afghanistan, was one of the most monumental mistakes in history. The cost was more than 100,000 Iraqi civilian lives and over 5,000 US soldiers’ lives. US soldiers are still dying today, at the rate of eight suicides a day, due to that mass murderer’s decision, along with the other mass murderer, Donald Rumsfeld. He’s now burning in hell, but Bush is still to face the music.

Our little man, little Johnny Howard, Bush’s boot licker-in-chief, committed us to the war in Iraq without any consultation with parliament, and so we’re still bearing the consequences today. We lost brave men in that futile war too and like the US, we’re seeing former soldiers take their own lives at an alarming rate now.

So typically for the USA, they think 9/11 is all about them, but they have thought they have the God-given right to invade and kill in other countries for the past century. They only have themselves to blame when they get some blow-back.

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The twin-towers happened on a Monday evening our time in Perth. New York is 12 hours different, so 9am in New York is 9pm previous day here.

I must have been watching a VHS movie on that Monday evening, I think, because I didn’t see anything on TV and went to bed in blissful ignorance. It was only when I awoke and heard the ABC news next morning, Tuesday 12th, that I realised what had happened. I was hearing something about the World Trade Centre collapsing. Whaaaht? So from then on, I was glued to the TV.

Dad had died only a few weeks beforehand, at the beginning of August, so I was still feeling pretty fragile from that, but for the rest of that Tuesday I remember feeling very depressed about this spectacular tragedy. I went out to the shops just to get out of the house and among some people. It helped a bit. The feeling didn’t last and the next day I felt better, but I will agree I felt great sympathy for Americans that day. Tempered by, as I’ve said, feelings that they must have expected some kind of revenge for all the things America has done.

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I’ve had a long phone chat with one of my favourite cousins in Brisbane today. We’re both electronics men, he nine years younger than me at 64, and still working. As he says, he feels no pressure to retire because he’s still on top of his game and I don’t think there are many young Turks looking to take his job. As I said, if you’re still enjoying the work, then just keep going.

We were talking about how great phone cameras are these days and I should have mentioned a little gadget I’ve just bought –

It’s called a CapGripImpact, and it’s a grip for your phone. I’ve found I don’t use my phone for photos much because I can’t hold it easily and reach the photo button on the screen at the same time.

This acts as a handle for your phone. It has spring loaded grippers, like a car mount, which hold the phone and gives you a “grip” shaped like a camera grip, with a BlueTooth button for the shutter. You just pair it with your phone and then use the button as a shutter button. As you can see, the button slides out and you can use it as a remote shutter release. It works for video as well, of course.

It cost about $35. Mine arrived yesterday and it works as advertised. I plan to leave it on permanently as I’ve always had a bit of trouble gripping and holding my slippery phone. I might even consider some glue or double sided sticky tape to ensure it stays on. https://capgripimpact.com/

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I am the original “Man who has everything.” I’ve been watching mechanical stuff on YouTube recently and thought a power screwdriver looks like a real handy thing. I must get one of those, I thought.

So I was rummaging in my closet just now and found a box on the shelf, containing, you guessed it, a battery operated power screwdriver. Hah. I’d forgotten I had it. It’s only an Aldi WorkZone cheapie but I’ve found their tools to be very good quality. And cheap!

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I think I need to get out more. I’ve developed a caveman habit this winter, staying at home and not going anywhere.

As well, lately I’ve started driving the Honda MDX a bit too, and I’m realising what a pleasure it is to drive. So, combined with hearing on the radio how great the wildflowers are at the moment, due to the wet weather we’ve been having, I think a trip must be in order. Nothing planned as yet, and this coming week is still forecast to be wet, but it has to be soon.

I used to drive quite a bit and it’s a long time since I felt that open road feeling.

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Another car has just gone past and blown its horn! What is it with people around here? I hear horns being blown many times a day, every day. It’s against the law. The law says you can only blow the horn if in imminent danger of a collision. I saw this car – I can see the roundabout from where I’m sitting as I type, and there was no danger of a collision in this case. It was just a driver blowing the horn to say, “Hi.” Not good enough, not allowed.

Aaah, I can open the front door and feel a warm breeze for the first time in months. 30degC today, lovely. Yet it’s only a few days since we had rain showers, and a couple of days to the next lot, but sure enough, my neighbour was out with the hose, watering his garden this morning. What is it with these garden watering zealots?

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Spring, sprang, sprung – I will spring, I sprang, I have sprung. For goodness sake, stop saying the economy sprung! It sprang, dammit.

It’s the same with drink, drank, drunk – I will drink, I drank and I have drunk.

Sink, sank, sunk – the ship may sink, it sank, it has sunk. Not “The ship sunk.”!

Sink, sank, sunk,
Who woulda thunk,
That the media,
Would write such garbage junk?

The standard of English is in decline. The millennials working with words these days should demand their money back from the schools and colleges, because their teachers have failed them. They have failed to learn proper English. It’s a disgrace.

Why does it matter? Because we stumble over their coarse grammar and spelling, needing to go back and re-read their words to be sure we understand their tortured prose. When I say we, I mean we who take pride in being correct.

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Speaking of colleges, on listening to ABC radio this morning, we were told of yet another case of a teacher at various Catholic schools in WA and later, South Australia, who was a paedophile, a sadist and a sexual predator on young boys.

This man was a teacher at religious schools and colleges, including the most prestigious, such as Aquinas in Perth, who was later accepted into the Catholic priesthood, who taught hundreds of boys, and who daily wielded a leather strap to the point of sadism. He occupied positions up to principal of these Catholic schools and colleges.

The speaker this morning was Dave Kelly MHR, a current minister in the state government, who said he was one of the many boys who suffered this abuse and feels he has to speak out. The teacher he named has died, but the point of speaking out is that he, the state government minister, has tried to get the colleges and the Catholic hierarchy in WA to “open up”, to own the problem and to tell what they know and make contact with all the former students, but they refuse.

This is yet another example of the cover-up being waged by the Catholic church over the hundreds, thousands of examples of sexual and physical abuse of children by priests over many decades.

On the ABC News website this morning is a long story about the almost incredible crimes of the Catholic church in Canada, where mass graves are being uncovered, unmarked, but containing thousands of buried children. Again, it’s a horrific story of child abuse and torture by the church. The upper levels of the church hierarchy knew, yet they kept silent and condoned it.

When I grew up, we were in a very religious family where we were taught about Heaven and Hell and Jesus and Satan. The message was that Satan was ever present and if you did wrong, you might go to this Hell, somewhere underground, and Satan, although invisible, was ever watchful and waiting to ensnare youngsters like us.

Well, I lost religion many decades ago and my view now is that we don’t need to look underground for Hell, or through the mist for Satan. They are right here, right now, in organised religion. These churches are evil personified, hell on earth. They are paedophile training organisations. If a man grows up wanting sex with boys, well, he knows, just join the church and become a priest. It’s not just men, women became nuns and abused girls too.

What gets into people? And when is the church going to be fully held to account, especially the Catholic church?

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Planned obsolescence department, or, did you think your product would last beyond next month?

Have you noticed Nespresso’s ads for their coffee pod machines lately? You know the shape, like a cutoff cone at the bottom.

Well, notice the shape of the pods in the ads. They are a different shape. Now they’re shaped like a hemisphere, a half dome.

Which means they probably won’t fit in your existing machine. Neat, eh? You’ll just have to buy a new machine.

Which is why I’ve never bought a Nespresso machine or bought their pods.

PS: I’ve since realised that the new shape pods are for a new machine they’ve just introduced. OK, so they don’t break the old models, but you can see the strategy.

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Unfortunately my multi-pod machine is still busted (because I haven’t fixed it), so I’m forced to use coffee tubes. I quite like Moccona Extra Strong. Unfortunately they some have sugar in them, but are not too sweet.

Which leads on to – Nestle 98% Sugar Free Latte coffee tubes. I bought a packet of these yesterday, 10 tubes for $3.50, but sugar free? They have <2% sugar, but only when you think, “This is too bloody sweet!” and read the fine print do you find that they add artificial sweetener! To me, they taste sweeter than coffee with sugar.

I can’t tolerate them so today I wrote to Nestle.com.au and told them to stick their tubes. I’ve had an acknowledgement but I await a further reply.

PS: Wednesday – Nestle have replied saying they’re sorry I don’t “love” their product, but nothing about changing anything. Instead, I have to send them my full street address and home phone number and they’ll send me a voucher, which has to be activated by me generating a PIN code on their web site, and so on. NO NO NO, forget it. I’ve tipped their “lovable” but sickly sweet coffee into the bin and vowed never to buy it again.

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Which reminds me – I bought a software program a couple of weeks ago, Topaz Sharpen AI. The AI stands for Artificial Intelligence, of course.

Well, apart from being pretty damn slow, how about this?

As well, it tells me there’s an upgrade available, would I like to download and install it? Unfortunately, the process throws up an error message and won’t go any further. I’m pretty fed up.

I’ve emailed them and their answer is to go back to an earlier version, and await further communication. I’m not happy. US$49.

Bloody cold, wet and windy on Sept 1, cool and grey Sept 2, sunny but cold 16deg Sept 3 and now sunny and clear but cold enough that I’ve got the heating on in the daytime.

Yet it will be 25 on Monday and 28deg on Wednesday, I think. Wow. Changeable.

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For the past 4-6 weeks I’ve been posting many samples of my thousands of images on my Facebook page, especially the ones I’ve put into book form. I’ve done 13 books total and five CDs and DVDs.

I’ve deliberately included the words about the books, “Available for purchase, A3 size, 40pp, hard cover” and similar for the CD/DVDs. I don’t specify a price but it’s about $40 for an A3 book.

I’m getting a lot of love from my F/B friends and readers, lots of likes and some praise.

But NOT ONE person has made any enquiry about purchasing. Not an iota of interest. I’m dumbfounded. Especially after I bought two copies of a book one of my former work colleagues had made earlier this year. Does he return the favour? Nope.

For years, people have said, “Gee, you ought to try and sell these.” Well, I bloody am trying, but I have never been able to sell anything except a few copies of the Croft Histories to family members.

I can’t even give them away! Some years ago (2001, actually), I offered a framed print of any of my photos to two people, as a gift. They just said, “No thanks.”

I was and still am fucking insulted. What a nasty attitude. Even if you don’t like my images or style, you don’t refuse an offered gift!!! They could have taken their gift and put it in a cupboard if they found it too horrible to look at, but not these two fucking idiots. I am hurt and upset.

And speaking of refusing gifts, about five years ago I made copies of two of my best DVDs and gave them as gifts to five friends at a coffee morning one day. I’d gone to a lot of trouble, recording them as BluRay HD discs and printing sleeves for the DVD cases.

When I handed them out, hardly anyone commented or thanked me, except in a brief manner, and no-one has ever said they played the discs or made any comment. And one woman handed them back to me at our next meeting, saying she hasn’t got a BluRay player and so can’t watch them, so, no thanks, here are your discs back. Fuck me dead!!! How bloody rude! She didn’t have to say anything.

I despair. Yes, I am very sensitive, but …

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Books. I did tire of World War 3 books somewhat and picked another one about a future cyber war, initiated by China, of course. The author is John Birmingham, a Brisbane journalist. I’ve read three of his earlier books and found them so good that I re-read them a few years later. I liked his writing, in other words.

But this one —– sorry John, I’ve had to bail out. The story line is good, but while I’m reading I’m thinking “Get to the bloody point!!!” His narrative is so dense, so clogged up with byways and characters that I’m thinking, “What the hell is this? Why is this person in this story? I don’t care what brand of hair shampoo she uses or what alcohol he drinks.” It just rambles on and on, in flowery prose, lively, to be sure, but I’ve got bored, I’m afraid. Sorry John.

Now I’ve started an actual paper book again, by Robert Goddard, The Gentle Art of Silent Detective Work. Strange title.

Goddard is a prolific British author who writes roughly a book a year, and has been doing so for about 30 years, meaning about 30 books and I’ve read them all. That’s how much I like him. His early books are better, in my opinion, but the latter ones are still good. I’ll automatically buy and read anything he writes.

I’ve hardly started this latest one but it’s set in Japan at the moment. I shall report.

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Music: in 50 years of hi-fi and music listening, I’ve collected about 1,100 CDs, about evenly split between classical and the rest, including electronics (Vangelis, Mike Oldfield), modern jazz (Pat Metheny, Mark Isham – very underrated), quality rock (Pink Floyd, Kid Loco), nostalgia (Beatles, Stones), MOR (Carpenters, Irish) etc etc.

Including ABBA!

I love ABBA, always have. I love the harmonies, the catchy tunes, the rhythms, everything. They got old and retired, but now they’re back! I’ll buy this new album I think, although I can just listen to it on Amazon Prime Music without having to pay any more. Anyway, welcome back ABBA.

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Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

Shakespeare Sonnet 64.

Sonnet 64 is a great example of why people always say “You should never let your past interfere with your present”. Barret argues that sonnet 64 “provides an example of past-oriented natural habitats that might interfere with the productive considerations of the future”. In other words, because the speaker is letting the past overwhelm his thoughts, he therefore cannot think positively about the future due to past habits or tendencies.

Ring true?

Spring is sprung
Da grass is riz
I wonder where da boidies is
Da little boids is on da wing
Ain’t that absoid?
Da wings is on da little boid

If you’re old enough to remember, Jimmy Durante.

Aah, first day of Spring, after August, always the hardest month in my opinion. Unfortunately, although it seemed wet, we didn’t make the average rainfall. Never fear, there’s plenty of time for more rain yet. It’s grey and threatening now and tomorrow is supposed to bring a real winter blast, with the possibility of snow down south.

Remember that expression? When women wore petticoats and they slipped down to below their skirt, showing the lace edge, we used to say, “It’s snowing down south.” But women don’t wear petticoats any more, I don’t think. I never see the lace edge any more. Pity.

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I’ve just been listening to two WA state Liberal officials, Peter Collier, one of the two Liberal members of parliament, and David Honey, the state director, trying to weasel their way out of answering questions about the disgusting report into the Liberal Party’s monumental loss that came out last week. The report that described The Clan, a group of four male powerbrokers who seem to enjoy wielding power by branch stacking to get their way.

They described women in the movement as the “Sandwich Makers”.

These two guys ducked and weaved and prevaricated and basically said, We’re not gonna talk. They used pathetic excuses like rules preventing them from talking. They wouldn’t talk about anything.

As the radio announcer said, OK, if that’s your attitude, how about we don’t take anything you say seriously, until you will talk about this? What a nasty, pathetic mob. How anyone can support the Liberal Party is beyond me.

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Then there was the radio interview with Senator Michaelia Cash, Liberal, who is the federal attorney-general, the top law officer in the country. Appointed after my local member, Christian Porter, formerly attorney-general and would-be PM, was forced out after those scandalous revelations.

She was talking about Clive Palmer’s latest legal challenge to WA’s hard border closure due to the pandemic. She says, we had better get used to the idea that this time, it might succeed. That the High Court might rule that WA’s closure is unconstitutional.

But she sounded very definitely as if she wants the challenge to succeed. She’s talking as if the federal government will be backing Clive Palmer, even though they wouldn’t dare.

What is it with these incredibly stupid Liberals? They seem to be doing everything they can to be electoral poison in WA.

Well, I think WA will vote to tell them to stay on their side of the border in the next election. WA stands a good chance of voting for a federal Liberal wipeout, just as we did in March in the state election. Hooray. I think there’s a good chance WA will swing the entire election to Labor next time. Yaah!

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I’ve done a big Facebook post today of images from my trips to Malaysia years ago. Starting in about 1990 I made several trips, often starting or finishing in Singapore. I have hundreds of images as a result:

I used to think a lot about choosing to retire to Penang, as property prices there were quite attractive in the 1990s. Medical care is very good there due to the many doctors and nurses who have trained in Australia and take huge pride in their skills and qualifications.

Malaysia has always been an Islamic nation, but in those days it was low key and very tolerant. Alcohol was freely sold, much like here. I never felt any religious intrusion.

But how things change. Islam has now become much more prominent in Malaysia and I wouldn’t consider moving there now. What a pity. Maybe I’m misjudging; I admit I haven’t been there for all these years, relying on news reports.

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My Honda MDX has not had much use this year, basically gathering dust and costing me money in the licence fee and batteries. But in the last few days I decided to give it a drive and as you expect from a Honda, it started first go. No coughing and spluttering, it just up and ran smoothly. Pumped the tyres up, backed it out and drove it around the block to ensure it kept going.

Then yesterday I put it through the car wash. When I was stopped, and the machine started, it was uncanny. I had my foot on the brake, but the movement of the carwash machine made it seem as if the car was moving forward. I jammed my foot harder on the brake as I was sure I was going to break out forward. Of course, it was just an illusion. Phew.

It costs me about $900 a year to keep it licenced, so why do I keep it if I hardly use it? I dunno but I just love that car. It drives so nicely, even around town, and feels so solid and roomy. I’d be confident on taking it on a long trip, even though it’s a 2006 model, 15 years old. Yet it’s a Honda and it has a 3.5L V6, twin overhead cam, fuel injected, four wheel disc brakes, on-demand 4WD, air-con, power everything including sunroof, and all leather. It feels GREAT. I love it and I don’t want to sell it.

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I’d love to buy this. It’s a laser engraver, but it will cut thin materials including thin plywood. I’d love to use it to cut parts for model buildings for model railways. But 219 Euros means A$370 approx, expensive for something that would probably only get minimal use.

And how about this?

It’s an image sensor, about 20 million pixels but capable of frame rates of around 160 frames/sec. I just show it here to show the beauty of the layout. This is electronics, folks! Beautiful.

Nice day, a little cool at 18deg but no wind so, “cool”. Sun’s come out after a cloudy morning.

Boy, I’m sleeping so well these days after my years of insomnia. It was all caused by medications. It took me years to realise this. I used to go entire nights lying there unable to “drop off the cliff” into real sleep. It reached the stage of anxiety about going to bed.

But Tramadol, the pain relief drug (for my foot pain) and duloxetine, and recently citalopram, all caused me insomnia. Now that I’ve stopped them all, I drop off in seconds after lights out.

Unfortunately I always wake at about 1.30 to 2.30am, after an hour or two of sleep for some reason. Bladder, probably. But now I can drop off again very easily.

Lots of dreams, not nightmares, but usually stressful situations, very complex and not easily remembered. However, I’d describe my sleep as “Good”.

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Unfortunately, my mattress seems to have developed a ridge down the middle lately, such that I feel as if I’m on a slight downward slope on my side. I must admit, I’ve had this mattress and base for around 20 years now. I probably should replace it.

Which reminds me: I have a weight problem and I desperately need to lose weight. I like the idea of Lite’n’Easy meal delivery. I don’t have time to cook, can’t be bothered.

I like the idea of having prepared meals provided to me, and it would probably be as cheap or cheaper than my profligate supermarket weekly (plus plus) buys. I’ll make a confession – I like airline meals. Anything where someone else has cooked tasty and tempting food.

Anyway, back to the point – I’ve been thinking about Lite’n’Easy for a few years but always thought, “How would I fit all that stuff in my fridge and freezer?” It’s always chokka now. Which leads me to another point – I think there are things in the bottom of my bottom-mount freezer compartment that have been there since the last Ice Age. If there’s stuff on top, I don’t see the stuff at the bottom. I’ve changed my mind about bottom-mount freezers. Bad idea.

So, this is a roundabout way of saying, I’ve had an idea. I’ve had this fridge since I moved here, April 2013, and I’ve been thinking of changing it for some time. I want a French door fridge, this one probably:

I want the ability to open the smaller RH doors, given the fridge is on the left in my kitchen, and not having to bend down so much to reach the freezer, and having chilled water and ice always available. However, the cost of that water/ice gizmo in the door is very high, more than $500 for the privilege. It would be a much more sensible decision to simply keep bottles of water in the fridge. Not supermarket “spring/mineral” water!! We do NOT need that.

Get back to the point Pete! If I changed my fridge, I would completely clear my existing fridge so as to move it out onto the patio, and buy the new one. Then I could have the Lite’n’Easy delivered and fit it all in.

What would I do with my existing fridge? I’d try to sell it – it’s in perfect condition, clean, no scratches, no faults, no kids to damage it, quiet and cooool. I’d advertise it on F/B Marketplace. Funny, a woman put a notice up on NextDoor a couple of days ago asking if anyone had a fridge to sell, as she wanted one to put in the shed. But before I could react, someone in the neighbourhood offered her one, free. Good for her, but mine’s too good to give away.

Anyway, that’s the pipe dream, change my fridge and start the diet food deliveries at the same time. Hmmmm.

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One thing about it is that I’m severely constrained by the width. I only have 840mm available and this one’s 835mm. Tight! Similarly, the height of this fridge is 1793mm and I only have 1800mm at the most due to a built-in shelf above. I might even have to take a saw to the shelf.

I’m not like one of my neighbours – when she bought a new stove (I think it was) a few years ago, she got the builder in and had remodelling done of her kitchen.

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Which reminds me, she’s also having her shoulder “remodelled” on Monday. She had a fall yesterday, broke a couple of ribs and damaged her shoulder. Ouch.

I worry about myself as well in that regard. I’m not as steady on my feet as I was, and I sway a bit. Have I told you this before? The state government works with the health department at keeping we Seniors in our homes and out of hospitals. Obviously I’m in their records because earlier in the year I got a phone call from a young woman (heh heh, they’re all young to me now, aren’t they?) asking if I’d like a hand rail in my shower and toilet, and could she come out and assess me. That was nice, so she did and about two months later a guy came out and fitted a bar/hand rail in my shower, and another smaller one in my main en-suite toilet. Free! No charge.

Then a couple of months later she phoned again and asked how it was going. I said I wished I’d chosen another location for the shower one. No worries, we’ll come out and have a look again. So she visited again and a few weeks later the guy turned up and fitted another one for me. Again, no charge. Nice.

I still wonder if it’s in the right position, but I don’t think I can ask for a third one.

The point is, if I fall in the shower, these are naturally placed for my flailing hand to grab onto. I hope.

And yet, I was thinking the other day, if I fell in the shower and broke a hip or leg such that I couldn’t move, I’d be in trouble. My only hope would be that my bathroom window is open to call out to next door, Barbara. I would have to do that, and hope she was home, although at 8am when I’m in the shower, she probably would be. We’re a similar age.

The answer is, it’s time I got a distress alarm, the type you wear on a lanyard around your neck. I’ve looked at them before but they’re quite expensive. But if I have to, I’d better do it.

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I’m still enjoying the Peugeot 407 Coupe, but I must admit there are several things that are annoying me. I feel that Peugeot must have taken a “she’ll be right” attitude when they made the RH drive version of this car.

• For example, the driver’s door key lock works the opposite way – you turn the key clockwise to unlock, anticlockwise to lock. That’s the mirror image of a LH drive car, as if they just transferred it across and didn’t notice the inconsistency.

• And there’s no key lock at all on the passenger side. I suppose if I had a key with a working remote lock/unlock, it wouldn’t matter, but my one and only key is broken in that regard.

• Then the steering column key slot: there’s no ACC (accessory) position. It’s either OFF or ignition ON/START. When you stop and turn the engine off, you can’t have the radio on without turning the key to ignition-on. This is weird.

• Then there’s the small and very poorly laid out LCD display for vehicle info and radio station display. I can never work out how to get the radio station I want. It’s there, but I have to take my eyes off the road and look at the display, and the buttons about 150mm below it. You can’t do it by feel. Not good.

• In the Verada and the Honda, I have a good display of the fuel economy at all times and in the Verada I can easily switch between instantaneous and average. But in the Pug it seems to be instantaneous display only, meaning it changes very rapidly depending on the throttle. It’s very hard to know what your average is. Maybe there’s a way, but this is my point, I don’t know how to make it display the average. The interface design is very poor, in other words.

• The characteristic of the Japanese cars I’ve owned (the Verada is Mitsubishi Japanese, even though made in Adelaide) is how smooth everything is, including inching along on minimum throttle. But the Pug is lumpy. It’s not smooth at low rpm. It vibrates and sometimes needs a kick to the accelerator (not really) to get it to move. Once the revs kick up, it’s good, but it just doesn’t have the velvety smoothness of Japanese cars.

• The doors seem to have only two positions, open and SLAM. The door springs are very strong, in other words, much stronger than I’m used to in my Japanese cars.

• The switches for the power windows are too far back. They don’t fall under your fingers when you reach for them. You have to reach further back and feel for the switch. Yes, it’s a coupe and the doors are longer than for a sedan, but they could have designed this better.

• I’ve previously mentioned the wind buffeting. I still can’t find a combination of amount of opening or combination with passenger opening to stop the vibration and drumming at speed. It will need the aircon working when the weather warms up. Did I mention? The aircon doesn’t work. I knew that when I bought it and intend to get it fixed. Must do it.

And more, but my fingers are tired.

Aaaah, beautiful day, 22deg, cloudless blue sky, hint of Spring in the air. Nearly through the worst of Winter.

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I was in the city last week, dressed as a woman as I usually am these days, walking on the footpath outside RPH. My hair is long enough now that I’ve stopped wearing a wig, opting instead for a small cap to cover my baldness. It’s like a skipper’s cap. Looks quite sassy.

A woman’s voice suddenly said, “Excuse me!” I looked around and saw a young woman sitting in the back seat of a parked car. She said it again, “Excuse me.” I said “Yes?” She said, “I love your cap. It’s so pretty.”

Wow! Wow! A guy never, ever gets a compliment like this. It’s happened to me several times, once at a hotel on New Year’s Eve, when I was wearing a shiny, sparkly top. A woman walked past and looked around, saying, “I like your top.” She must have known I was a guy. I pass easily, but women usually know.

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I was in the city for my second interview with a psychiatrist, to sign me off for some minor surgery that I want, to make me feel more female. The psychiatrist’s a woman and she’s fine with me, no problems at all. We got along very well. She can see I’m not a looney. That’s two visits with her, plus a sign-off from a psychologist, and an endocrinologist, and I’m good to go. She’s referred me to a surgeon on 6 October. Minor operation, nothing drastic.

I never intended to change gender, I must say, it’s just to be able to dress freely and feel less like a bloke, without bulging bits that I don’t want. But I must admit a certain momentum is building, to change gender, I mean. I’m weighing up the pros and cons, and at the moment the cons are winning. I don’t want to have to go through all the legalities and notifications when I really don’t have to do anything at all. Just continue living and dressing as a woman, as I please, but reverting to guy mode if I don’t want to. So what if I have surgery, it doesn’t change my gender. It’s only to help with the way I dress and feel.

She did say that I really should dress female every day, in order to get used to it and experience any down-sides, so I’ll do that, live as a woman, live the experience. I’m finding that the more I do it, the more it becomes a habit, of course. Whenever I go out now, it’s as my female self, nearly always. I’ve never had any problems at all. I pass so well that no-one pays me any attention, even women. I had a guy in the supermarket say to the checkout guy, “Just let this lady go first.” Meaning me.

However, my GP told me only yesterday, eight months after I started this process, that Medicare won’t pay for sex change operations after age 55. That’s a bugger, as I was hoping to save money.

Therefore, I’ll need to find out what this surgeon will charge, and whether HBF will pay for my hospital stay, since this is definitely elective surgery, optional treatment.

PS: I’ve spoken to HBF and they say if the surgeon provides a Medicare item number for the operation, then HBF will probably cover me. So I’ll know more after the appt with the surgeon in October.

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You must be thinking, this guy is mad! Go ahead, that’s OK. But I’ve always felt I’m half way there, half way across the seat. I’ve always known I’m male, but, approaching age 75, what the hell, I’ll just do what I want to do. Whatever makes you happy, as everyone says, and that’s the point, it does make me happy. I love getting dressed up and made up, so it’s my life and I’ll change if I want to. (Isn’t there a song about that?)

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Whenever I have thoughts about this blog, things come to mind that I think, “Oh yeah, I must write about that.” But now that I’m writing, I’m damned if I can think of what they were. They seemed important at the time …

Oh, I know: I terminated my subscription to the MyHeritage website a few weeks ago, as they want about $360 for another year’s subscription. No, all I wanted was the photo enhancement service and I’ve done that so I’m not paying this huge fee. I got sucked into building my family tree while I was there, but that’s done too, so I downloaded everything I could think of before my sub expired.

I learnt quite a lot, especially about Mum’s mother’s side, the Lawries. I’ve learnt that I have quite an extensive Scottish ancestry, which I like very much. The Lawries go back to the 1700s. I was vaguely aware of these Lawrie people and all the chatter about them among my relatives when I was growing up in Bruce Rock in the 1950s, but I didn’t really know who they were. Now I do.

Similarly, I can see Grandpa Arnold’s ancestors too, from the middle of England. He died before I was born so I never knew him, yet I’ve got a photo of him on my sideboard now.

I’m sure he’d be pleased. I very much doubt anyone will have a photo of me on their shelf when I’m gone, unfortunately.

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Recently, my competitive nature is asserting itself a bit (meaning that I see others’ pictures and think, I can do better than that), and I’ve been posting a lot of my images on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/peter.croft.754 My uploads started a few weeks ago, not just today’s lot, and even I’ve been surprised at how much material I’ve got. I’ve nowhere near finished yet. I’ve got much, much more to show.

In particular, I’ve uploaded samples of most of the books I’ve written and composed in the past 13 years, and in every case, I’ve included the words, “A4 40pp, available for purchase” (or similar). How many enquiries have I received? ZERO! Not one person has asked about cost, or anything else.

People have always said to me, “Gee, you ought to sell these books.” But I’ve tried, and no-one wants to buy. No-one! Maybe one day after I’m dead, someone might look at them, but no-one wants to now.

One person seemed to like my book on Bali very much, and asked if she could borrow it. She said she might be able to sell it to her friends. She kept it for nearly two years, with no sales, and I had to ask three times for its return, even suggesting I would call around to her place. She eventually posted it back to me from about 5Km away at a cost to her of $15 postage. Something very odd there, but as I said, I just can’t get any buyers.

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It’s my own fault, too much sitting, but over the past 12 months or more I’ve developed pain in my left buttock, going down my leg and into my left foot, from applying too much pressure on my bum. It’s not a sharp pain, just a dull ache, but it has me squirming around trying to find a position to minimise it. Not much luck, I’m afraid.

I bought one of these Facebook ad specials, a neoprene rubber cushion that promised to relieve exactly this kind of pain. Did it work. Naah! Hardly makes any difference. $54 down the drain.