The photo above is in response to a Facebook post today with a cartoon in favour of reading. You don’t need to persuade me. I’ve read all those books in the past eight months or so, and more. There are still quite a few piled on my bed, next to my bed and back in the bookshelves. Yes, I like reading. But I keep buying books before I’ve got around to reading the ones I’ve got. Hah.

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Oooh, what a gloomy day. Clouded over, little breeze, no rain, humid, 32deg. Warm last night – I nearly put the aircon on, but resisted. I got my latest power bill a couple of weeks ago and despite the solar power, it still cost me about $170, although I can’t be sure due to the arcane way the billing is shown. However, due to the Labor government’s $600 power credit, it didn’t cost me any payout so I’m happy.

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Only two days to election day and Labor looks like doing well, to put it mildly. They deserve to win. That’s the point, the Liberal government of Colin Barnett 2013-17 was a disaster, leaving the state around $35 billion in debt (when they had been left a balanced budget by the previous Carpenter Labor government!). Labor replaced them in 2017 in a landslide because people were fed up with the Liberals’ incompetence, financial mismanagement and broken promises, aka lies.

Labor has delivered on their promises, of good government and competence. They got the state budget back into surplus in this, their first term and are reducing that massive debt. This, despite the shock of the pandemic. They are widely praised for their competence and leadership in keeping WA virtually free of the COVID19 virus. We had a couple of lockdowns, one at the beginning, last March, and a week-long one about a month ago, but WA is free of restrictions and people appreciate it.

I’m looking forward to Saturday evening to see just how much Labor wins by.

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Pet peeves time. One of the most common words being said and written during this pandemic is pre-existing. Pre-existing? Please tell me, how can something existing be pre-existing? If it exists, how can it be pre-existing?

Next one: pre-prepared. Airline meals, soup kitchen meals, school meals are all called pre-prepared. Of course they are! That’s why they’re called prepared in the first place. Why add pre in front?

Next: an Americanism that’s being picked up and adopted here – acclimated. Why not the word we already have, acclimatised?

Next: the word shown seems to have been forgotten. People have showed good behaviour. He has showed how to do it. Show, showed, shown – the correct word is shown.

And the usual ABC rubbish: sink, sank, sunk. The ABC nearly always says “The market sunk today.” No it didn’t, it sank! Just like your standards have sunk, ABC. This also applies to drink, drank, drunk.

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In this brouhaha (Etymology Dictionary: 1890, from French brouhaha (15c.), said by Gamillscheg to have been, in medieval theatre, “the cry of the devil disguised as clergy.”) about Meghan and Harry, the royals are worried about her colour?? What colour? To me, she’s just got the kind of suntan and skin-tone we all wish we had. I don’t see any “colour”, in the racist sense. She’s beautiful, gorgeous, lovely. What more do you want? Many of the world’s most beautiful women are darker than her. So what? If she was criticised for that, then what a rotten family to marry in to.

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Damn, my lovely Mitsubishi Verada has let me down. I bought it as a cheap second-hand car in November 2018 for $1,250. I knew it had been in an accident but it had been fixed up, looked OK and ran well and I’ve had almost no trouble. I’ve replaced the brakes and exhaust and had the roof lining replaced. Plus a new rear tail-light assembly.

But ever since I’ve had it, about once a month or less it would give a big mis-fire, just once, for less than a second, then carry on as if nothing’s wrong. But it was so intermittent, like once a month, even once in two months, that I knew it would be impossible to reproduce to be able to fix it. The “Check Wallet” (Check Engine) light had been coming on intermittently for months, but I assumed it was the power steering fluid being low, and it didn’t affect the driving, so, like Penny in Big Bang Theory, I ignored it. Ha!

Until yesterday. It died at the lights just near here, but luckily started again straight away, but then did it half a dozen times more while I got it home. Even backing into my garage, it died four times.

So yesterday I called the RAC. The guy brought out his fancy OBD analyser but no luck – “Cannot communicate.” He tried a much smaller, cheaper OBD reader – same thing. The engine ran fine for him, of course. It stopped once while we were doing something else, but it started again OK and continued running. He said there was nothing he could do until the fault showed but suggested I get it transported (ie trucked) to the Joondalup workshops and they can do a full test, looking for diagnostic problems.

He emphasised that with my membership level, it would all be at no cost. The trucking, the diagnosis, all “free”. I said to him that along with HBF, I am extremely pleased with the service I get from my membership. (It’s 55 years this year. I deserve a medal, I reckon, or at least an elephant stamp.)

While he was here, I bought a new battery from him for the Honda. It cost $204. That will teach me to be more careful about ensuring there’s nothing draining the battery when I’m not using the vehicle much, and to keep it on the charger. He took the old battery away for me as well, saving me a trip to the dump (recycling centre, I should say).

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The shocking story from federal Parliament House just shows how what goes around, comes around. The bad things you do come back to bite you, sooner or later. The man in question, the Attorney General Christian Porter, made a big show of his macho swagger when he was younger and in law school at the University of WA. He wrote things in the law school’s magazine about how he was going to “smut his way” through uni, and wrote derogatory things about women, even then. Drew a stick figure of himself with a huge dick and balls. Was alleged to be a member of a male parliamentary group calling themselves the Big Swinging Dicks.

A talented woman has accused him of rape when they were 17 and 16 and she has died since by her own hand. That alleged act, if it happened, ruined her life to the point where she ended it. We can’t directly blame him and he denies it ever happened, but since she is gone and never submitted to a police interview, then he can maintain his denials to eternity because there were no witnesses and no evidence.

In these circumstances, and given his track record, who do I believe? One guess. He’s getting what was coming to him. He’s got two failed marriages and two children as well. Nice guy. Not.

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Speaking of Penny, would you believe I’ve started watching The Big Bang Theory again? I find I never tire of the jokes, which are very, very good, and it just gives me a comfortable feeling after seeing and hearing all the bad news all day. I remember watching this show at least ten years ago and it’s been shown on Nine, then repeated on Seven (even while still being shown on Nine, remarkable), and now it’s being shown on Ten too. Not surprising – it’s a ratings winner, I would say.

I just finished watching all twelve seasons on Netflix, around 240 episodes, and now I’m starting again at series 1, episode 1. I’m a tragic.

The seasons they are a’changin’.

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When I first moved out here, to the “Deep North” in 2013, I was plagued by very weak digital radio reception with lots of fading. I bought auxiliary antennas with some success, but not much.

Then about three years ago, it improved greatly, to the point where I thought, “No problems.” The fading was gone. Great.

But about three weeks ago, something changed and now the fading is back. I can hardly get DAB+ reception on my bedside radio any more. It’s not the radio, the reception has deteriorated on my car DAB+ receiver as well, whereas a few months ago I was remarking how good it was.

At first I thought it might be some quirk of the change of season, with the sun angle interfering, but I’d expect that to vary with the time of day and to have gone away by now. I believe there’s a repeater for these northern suburbs up here somewhere. I wonder if there’s some problem with it. This is just VHF reception at about 206MHz, so it’s not exotic or difficult.

I think I’ll have to do some Googling and try to contact someone. It’s quite possible that there may be a fault in the repeater, but like me, everyone assumes it will come good and doesn’t speak up.

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Damn, I’ve discovered another drug that I need, but causes me insomnia. I’ve got some Prodeine, a mix of paracetemol and codeine, that was prescribed for me around 2017. I need it for the chronic pain in my feet from diabetic neuropathy, and also an ongoing ache in my left foot from the pronation. It works! It’s very slow to act, taking around three hours before I suddenly realise it ain’t hurting any more.

But I’m sure now that it causes me insomnia. I hardly slept at all last night, same as the night before, when I’d taken the Prodeine both nights. Normally I can sleep quite well.

So that’s another drug that causes insomnia for me (the other is Tramadol). Damn. I need this pain relief. I take Panadol Extra but it has almost no effect.

I’d be interested to try cannabidiol oil, which in theory we can buy over the counter now, but the cost! I believe it costs more than $200 for a month’s supply. I can’t see myself paying that. Oh well.

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The rotten scandals in Canberra parliament house are amazing and depressing. These guys are supposed to be getting on with the job of government, but mostly they are either rootin’, tootin’ or shootin’. They cannot be putting their full attention to their portfolios and departments.

The man in question at the moment condemned himself by his own writings and words when he was in law school at UWA in the 1980s. He wrote things in the yearbooks that he should have been ashamed of at the time and was known for his arrogance and misogyny then. Now it’s come back to bite him. He’s also been through two failed marriages, with the devastating consequences on his children. He was accused of another lot of bad behaviour last year, and now this. Yet he’s the Federal Attorney-General! How can anyone deal with him with any sense of decorum or respect?

Never forget, this guy was responsible for most of the unlawful Robodebt scheme that wrecked the lives of tens of thousands of the weakest and most vulnerable, and led directly or indirectly to hundreds of suicides! For my overseas readers, this Liberal (Conservative, right wing) government is wedded to the idea that if people are poor, it’s their own fault and if they are getting social security, they are probably cheating the system by understating their income.

So this nasty government came up with a scheme of using the department’s computer records to make welfare recipients prove their incomes, from all sources, going back seven years. They had to try to come up with pay slips and tax records, by contacting multiple previous employers if they could. If they couldn’t prove their incomes (could you?), then the government used an averaging method, based on assumptions, and hit the weakest, poorest in society with massive, multi-thousand dollar bills, payable on demand.

But slowly, over a period of years, a Melbourne law firm gathered evidence and led a class action law suit that finally proved this scheme to be UNLAWFUL! Yes, the attorney general, the chief law officer of the land, was running an unlawful scheme that led to hundreds of deaths. The commonwealth government is having to pay back over $1.2bn of debts to these poor people. It’s a bit late for the people who killed themselves.

This caused huge distress throughout the community and as I said, led hundreds of people to commit suicide! The head of the department at the time and the main instigator of this scheme is the man who is now pleading for us to believe him and to give him the benefit of the doubt! The gall! The sheer hypocrisy.

This is the most corrupt government in the history of this country. If you need any evidence, see https://www.mdavis.xyz/govlist/ It’s shocking, absolutely shocking! How can you vote for this slimy, stinking, criminal mob?

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Phew, quite humid today, but very pleasant. No rain.

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I voted today. Yes, eight days early. I had been thinking that it’s walking distance to Butler Primary School, which is the usual polling place, but I wasn’t looking forward to the walk, then shuffling along in a long line, then walking back again.

But when I checked the places where I could vote early, I found that there’s one right across the car park in the main street, right here. Easy walk. And when I went there, there was no queue at all, straight to a clerk’s position and bingo, it was all done in five minutes.

Even the voting is easy – this time Labor has the donkey vote in the bag. They have the number one spot (for John Quigley, the A-G) and they want us to number 1-2-3-4-5-6 straight down the form. That puts the Liberal candidate at number 3 but that’s better than an anti-vaxxer or a WAXIT (secessionist) or some other looney. So that’s good.

For my overseas readers, we have compulsory voting in Australia, and I’m all for it. Compulsory voting is not quite correct – it’s simply compulsory to attend, have your name ticked off the list and take your voting slips. What you do after that is up to you. If you want to leave them blank, or scribble all over them, or write some angry obscene words on them, you can. As long as you attend, get marked as such, and put your slips in the box, that’s compulsory voting. It’s not hard.

Anyway, even if that’s too much for you and you don’t attend, the fine is only $20.

Compulsory voting is important! Just look at the USA and the UK. In the USA, only about 46% of people bother to vote (I think that’s right). That means a government or president can be voted in by only 24% of the population and candidates or parties with big budgets can use their financial resources to effectively buy votes Also, and I find this incredible, almost unbelievable, state governments can pass “voter suppression” laws. These are laws that require people to have certain documents or fit certain legal requirements in order to vote. Guess who these laws are aimed at – yes, black people and unemployed or low income, low intelligence people. What a rotten country.

In the UK, they have “first past the post” voting, meaning the candidate with a simple majority of the votes wins. That means that if there are only five candidates, for example, the candidate who gets 20.1% of the votes wins, even though 79.9% of the voters didn’t want him or her. This is ridiculous. Britain is supposed to be one of the leading countries in the world, yet the iniquities and inequalities in the UK boggle my mind. Not to mention the blundering and bungling in this time of COVID19. Thousands of people have died because of Boris and the Tories’ ineptitude.

No, “compulsory” voting is the best system, least open to corruption. Long live.

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After I voted I went next door and booked myself an appointment for Saturday 17 April. What appointment? That’s the day of our high school reunion and since I’m going all dressed up, I’m having a complete makeup job. Yeah, knock ’em dead.

I also said I think I’d better do a trial, so I’m going to make another appointment for a week or two from now. The cost is $85, about what I expected. But when you think it only lasts one day before you wash it all off, phew…

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I’m certainly not going out much. Look at the lack of activity in the second part of the month. Saving money on fuel.

What a change. Most of today was a normal summer day, warm 30deg, calm, light wispy clouds. Then 60-90mins ago, the clouds came in from the N-E, and lightning and thunder started and rain started, too. Yesterday we had 23mm in the 24hrs, which is above the 19mm average for the whole of March. This was the rainfall radar map at 6pm.

I love this weather. I like things changeable, not boring old sunshine all day.

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Very interesting that the federal government cabinet minister is going to front up to a press conference tomorrow and deny the accusations levelled against him by the woman who killed herself last year, after she alleged he raped her in 1988.

Well, he would deny it, wouldn’t he? I’m afraid I’ll believe the woman and all her friends who knew the story and the details she told. Why would she commit suicide if there was nothing in it?

As to who the guy is, they were at school or uni in Adelaide in the early ’80s. All you need to do is search on “cabinet minister+Adelaide+1985” or similar, and in my mind only one name comes up. However, I’ll be very interested to see who it is tomorrow. I’m probably wrong, but that just illustrates why the real culprit must out himself, so that his colleagues are not unjustly accused. What a shocking, sad, awful story.

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Oh, Windows! So much variety. It works properly one week, then the next week something changes and you have to work out what it is. I’m plagued for the last few months with long delays accessing the disk drives, i.e. i click on a drive, or right click, and I have to wait 20-30secs before it will show the contents. I didn’t do anything to make this change!! It’s obviously the disk powering down to conserve power but I don’t want that.

The latest new thing is that whenever I move the mouse pointer near the edge of the screen, or move it quickly, it moves sluggishly for a second or two and goes bing-bong, the sound. Why?? I don’t know what I’ve done or how to fix it. Grrrr.

Wow, what a change. Right on cue, 1 March, the season has switched from summer to autumn, almost winter in fact. The sky is clouded over, it’s quite cool enough to be wearing a pullover and it’s been raining, a lot.

About an hour ago there was a flash of lightning and less than a second later came the thunderclap. That was close. But apart from another weak flash five minutes later, no more. Odd. Anyway, what a change. I slept all night on top of the bedclothes with the fan running, but I wouldn’t do that now. Too chilly. And my washing’s on the line too, getting a good rainwater rinse.

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I’m feeling a bit depressed at the number of posts I’m seeing on F/B and in all the news reports of people I know or knew who have been struck down with Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia. It seems to be much more prominent these days, although it’s probably because it’s out in the open now, whereas it used to be hidden by relatives.

This is a serious disease. I’m sure there are many researchers working as hard as they can and as funds permit to find a cure. Let’s hope one day we’ll be able to vaccinate against it as easily as we can for measles, pneumonia or shingles, not to mention COVID.

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“It’s one thing to sit in cabinet, the ministry, or the party room with colleagues who have no apparent compunction about using public money for partisan gain. It is quite another to sit next to a man who is accused of raping a schoolgirl but won’t stand up and face up.”

These words are written by Michael Bradley in Crikey.com. He’s their legal affairs writer and is a lawyer himself. He’s referring to the allegations against a sitting cabinet minister in this damnable federal Liberal government. One of the sixteen men sitting at the cabinet table has been accused of anally raping a sixteen year old girl in 1988, before he became an MP. She suffered the consequences so badly that she killed herself last year, but not before making a written complaint to police.

Unfortunately, her death means the likelihood of a prosecution succeeding died with her. However, the charge still stands and means that one of the most prominent men in the Liberal government committed that rape and is responsible for the death of this woman last year. Yet he stays silent! And so does the prime minister, who must know who he is. From the article, the crime was committed in Adelaide when they were in education together, so that narrows it down. Some journalist will out this guy sooner or later.

What will happen then? The government lost the vaccination-sceptic and climate science denier Craig Kelly to the cross benches last week, and so lost their one seat majority. If this rapist is forced to resign – and he should leave parliament – they will lose the balance of power. Therefore there is a strong incentive for the PM to hush things up, but how long can that last? What a crap mob.

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This is a head strap for the CPAP mask I wear to bed. In Australia, it costs me $65 for a replacement. Daylight robbery! But from Wish.com I can buy it for A$4.55 + $1.38 postage. Guess which one I choose. They’re identical as far as I can see. That means ResMed in Sydney has been ripping me off for the last 20 years. I need to replace it about once a year, so that’s 20x($65-$5.93) = $1,181 I’ve been overcharged. Bloody robbers, ResMed.

Likewise the mask itself. From ResMed I paid around $250 for an Ultra Mirage mask in 2008. But —

From Wish.com, A$38.54 + $15.62 post = A$54.16, roughly one fifth of ResMed’s price. I have actually bought one of these. ResMed, no wonder you’re doing so well on the stock market, ripping off your customers like this. And I haven’t got on to the blowers – average price in Australia, $1500, but on Wish.com from China, around $450 + $6 postage. Another saving of $1,000. I bought one locally last year. I felt I had to buy the genuine article as I was nervous about quality and warranty, but I still think we’re being badly ripped off.

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Aaaaarrrrgh, I am fed up with noisy, rasping, thundering motorbikes and cars. One has just gone by and it drowned out the music for 10 seconds or more. Yet to do anything about it I would have to have number plates and dates and times. Not feasible. Grrrr.

Wow, I can sense the weather changing. Nice day, but windy and clouds coming over, with the forecast of rain on Tuesday – Thursday. Bye bye summer. Still warm, though, with highs in the 30s. I’m not complaining.

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Think you’re going to get vaccinated? I had not one, but two vaccinations yesterday. Not for COVID19, unfortunately, but one for pneumonia and the other for shingles or herpes zoster. I didn’t know you could be inoculated against that, but I’m happy with it. They told me I might feel a bit “off” after that one, but I didn’t notice any effects.

I asked about the COVID vaccination and they said they (the Brighton Beach Medical Centre) don’t know much so far, but they’ll let me know when they get any information. Being over 70, with diabetes and CLL I’m in the top risk category so I should be well up in the queue. Not that I want to be pushy. I’m not worried and I can happily wait my turn.

I saw the cardiologist on Thursday, too, and found that I should have been on aspirin since my stent operation on 25 January, but since it wasn’t explained, I haven’t been. He looked a bit shocked and told me he wants me on it today! Sounds important. OK, no problem.

Apart from that he measured my blood pressure – 130/54. No problems there. I asked what the low diastolic number means. Apparently it signifies very flexible blood vessels, that is, not stiff and calcified. That’s great. I mentioned that I’ve seen it drop below 50 many times when I’m in hospitals. Likewise my cholesterol is always low to normal. No problems there either. I’m lucky.

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I finished The Time Machine by H. G. Wells. It’s lucky it’s not a long book because I don’t rate it too highly. He time-zooms on to a trillion years into the future where the sun is turning into a red giant and almost all life on Earth is extinct, except for a slimy sea anemone creature. The problem with this is that the Sun is forecast to die down in the tens of billions of years in the future, nowhere near a trillion. However, given that these ideas hadn’t been properly formed in 1890, he was quite prescient.

He zooms back through time to his house and finds that little time has passed. His friends are there for a dinner party (all males, hey hey) and the book is his exposition of his travels through time to them. It’s written in the typical flowery prose of the period, but it’s quite pleasant reading and I added a couple of words to my vocabulary thereby.

But the conclusion is that a few days later, he sets off on another time journey and three years later, he’s still missing and is not heard from again. The end. I’m glad I read it, but I sorely wished for more science and a better story.

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There’s increasing chatter about international travel being opened up earlier than previously expected, perhaps in October this year. The problem is that the destinations I would like to visit are virus hotspots. I mean Bali and the UK. Even if I’m vaccinated, it’s not guaranteed immunity. We’ll be getting the Oxford-Astra Zeneca vaccine, I think, which is only 72-75% effective. I’ll be happy to have that, but I won’t take any risks. I don’t want to have to spend 14 days in hotel quarantine at my own expense, either.

So I can’t see myself travelling until 2022, at least.

Beautiful day, 39deg and the same tomorrow. I can hardly believe this is the last week of summer. Noooooo!! I don’t want it to end. The sun is rising later, 6.00am, and setting earlier, 6.59pm. It’s noticeable. Still the temps this week are (Mon-Sun) 39, 39, 32, 36, 36, 36, 36. I shouldn’t complain.

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The headline is because I’ve been reading the news about the rape that happened in Parliament House in Canberra in 2019 and the lies being told now in trying to cover up who knew what, and when. Three more women have now come forward and told new stories about the guy, and how they felt pressured to keep quiet, and there seems to be a pattern of lies being told about who was told, who was not told and so on. Luckily journalists are right onto the story, digging, digging the facts and showing the prime minister to be a liar. We knew he was anyway.

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On top of that, there’s a new story today, that the Liberal government of Malcolm Turnbull lied about the cost saving of dumbing down our NBN, the National Broadband Network, by around $10 billion! It was always obvious to me anyway, but I’m glad to see it being exposed.

In case you didn’t know, the original Labor government plan in 2004 (I think) was for a fibre-optic network for high speed data connections (up to 1Gb/s) to almost every house and business premise in the country, within reason. (Satellite and fixed wireless for areas where it’s impractical to run cables.)

When the Libs took power and Malcolm Turnbull became PM, he had to have a different plan, and so he ordered that the whole network be redesigned to take the fibre-optic cables only to junction boxes in the streets, connecting from there to existing copper wires previously used for phones. He touted this as saving 10 to 20 $billion and taking five years less to do.

Well, the fact is that the savings were never there, costs blew out to at least the original estimate and the network is still not finished in 2021. It was obvious five years ago that Turnbull’s plan was bullshit and now, I hope, the figures are coming into view.

Unbelievable! The only reason Turnbull (Malcolm Turncoat, so named because he abandoned his climate change principles) ordered these changes and cost cuts was so that he had a point of difference to Labor. Therefore I have no hesitation in branding him, The Man Who Crippled Australia’s Broadband Network. I revile him.

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A bit of good news: a friend has sent me a link to an article that says Telstra is implementing a software solution to scam calls. It’s trained to recognise the characteristics of a scam call and block it. They say they blocked more than a million calls last year and are now blocking up to half a million calls per day! Hooray! I have noticed a lessening of the number of spurious calls these days but I put it down to phases of the moon. Telstra stands up automated platform to block scam calls – Telco/ISP – iTnews

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I’ve had a visit this morning from two ladies from Silver Chain. Two? It looks as if my request for “someone to have a chat” has finally paid off. One of them was the Claire that I mentioned last week, who organises this sort of thing, and the other was a lady called Kim who lives five minutes up the road and will be my “chat lady” or chatterer. We talked for about an hour today, with both of them, but Kim will come next week, just to visit and talk. We’ll probably go across to the Dome, not sure yet. She’s from the UK, Kent, and I’m sure we have plenty to talk about. I’ve been to Kent a couple of times.

The other side to this is that Claire wants to recruit me as a volunteer for social contact as well. In our talks last week we got onto the subject of older people and using technology. I said often think about older people who never had to use computers before and how difficult it must be for many people. It’s really an essential skill these days. Banking in particular is mostly on-line now, with bill paying in particular being part of that. If you don’t feel comfortable using a PC, how do you cope paying bills?

So it’s occurred to me to try to pass on my knowledge about this. I have, in the past, thought of going to the aged care home near here and asking if they would like me to run classes. I’m thinking I would want a bit of payment, maybe $10 per hour per participant? I’d have to tell Centrelink, of course.

One thing that’s often occurred to me, though, is that teaching someone to use internet banking would almost inevitably involve revealing passwords, or at least showing how to write them down or use a password manager. This is a bit dangerous. If the person somehow made mistakes and perhaps “misplaced” some money, it could get messy for me and could generate accusations and ill will. It might need a disclaimer to be signed before starting.

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I was browsing a map of the Sanur area of Bali where I’ve stayed many times and know quite well. It’s very noticeable how cheap the hotels have become. My favourite, the Taksu, used to cost $65 to $85 per night. It’s now down to $30. How I wish I could take advantage – but I can’t. First, we’re not allowed to travel there, and second, I could not go there due to the COVID pandemic. Even if the locals declared it safe, I could never relax and enjoy the stay, because Indonesia tends to be a bit too relaxed about these kinds of things. No, I think it will be another three, four, five years before we can think of going there. Only once the vaccines are in wide use and are proven to work.

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Speaking of vaccinations, I got a text this morning asking me to come in to the GP for an annual pneumonia vaccination. I was surprised, I didn’t know it was being done. OK, fine with me.

Busy week this week: the visitors this morning; podiatrist tomorrow; Wally Lunch Wednesday (Wally’s our school mate who has MS – I’ll be going to this lunch fully dressed up and made up, and I’m expecting many ribald comments from these sports-fan old high-school mates); cardiologist at 12.15pm Thursday in Mt Lawley, followed by another GP appt at 2pm; and finally the pneumonia shot at 1.45pm Friday. Crumbs! Appointments every day. I might have to retire.

This is what I mean by the headline:

They do look pretty sick, don’t they? Fascutis? Busters? But after all, their native language is Chinese so they’re excused. Anyway, if I were a Gen Z or Millennial, being called sick is a compliment, isn’t it?

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However, I’m amazed and disgusted at the lazy, ignorant and incredibly low standard of written English in this country, right here. People don’t look at what they write, they don’t check it, they can’t write proper grammar, they can’t spell, they don’t understand syntax. They just don’t care!

I’m on this rampage after spending a few hours on Facebook and the Nextdoor website. I feel dirty when I’ve looked at the garbage people write; unclean, contaminated, stained by their sloppy, careless howlers. How can people care so little about how they’re seen?

I refuse to drop my standards. I learnt to read and write from good books and I’m proud of the way I write. I look down on misspellers, grammar fools, syntax idiots.

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Speaking of Chinese, would you like to try their latest tools?

Ingrown toenails? Time on your hands? High threshold of pain? Try these high tech solutions for your ingrown toenails. Just go to Wish.com. 🙂

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My last book finished is My Place, by the local writer Sally Morgan. I was a little disappointed because before I started it, I was under the impression that it was a biography of the woman who married Ernie Dingo. I’ve heard her talk on radio and it was a very, very interesting story.

But that’s not this book. Sally Morgan was born right here in Perth and lived in Manning (a suburb just south of Perth city) for most of her life as described in this story. She’s still with us, I don’t mean to imply that she’s died. But it’s the story of how she grew up not realising that she was Aboriginal, thinking that her slightly darker skin was Indian, from being from India. Only slowly did she learn of her heritage, despite denials and prevarications mainly from her grandmother but also her mother.

As she learnt more, and gained a degree in psychology from UWA along the way, she determined to find the complete story and write a book about it. It’s a story of how “natives” like her gran and mother were employed almost as slaves at the huge pastoral stations in the Pilbara and Kimberley. However, many of the relationships were close and kind, and many children were born of relationships between the white male station owners and the Aboriginal women.

It’s a thick book, 450 pages or more of small type and to be honest, I skipped ahead in a few places, but I’m glad I finished it. It’s a well regarded book and I can see why. It’s nothing to do with Ernie Dingo, though. I’ll have to dig a bit to find that one.

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My current book is The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, that classic of science fiction. It’s a slim book, less than 200 pages, I think. Despite knowing of it for most of my life, I’ve only now got around to reading it.

I’m only 2/3 of the way through and despite the flowery prose, it’s holding my attention, even if putting me to sleep as intended. It’s set in about 1890, I think, telling the tale of a London well-to-do gentleman (he must be, to be able to afford a big house, servants and a laboratory) who invents a machine that enables him to travel forward in time, to the future, the year 8021207 to be precise.

There he lands in a world of little people, small in stature that is, who live in a lush garden world and who seem to have no apparent work or means of production of their food or clothing. Except for the abundant fruits of the gardens.

But his time machine disappears and he is forced to search for it. In doing so he discovers an underground world inhabited by what seems to be a separate species, the Morlocks, dark adapted, with large eyes and who try to capture him. He escapes, but realises that these subterranean creatures do the work producing the clothing that the upper world people wear.

I’m at the point where he’s finding another group of people at the moment. It strongly reminds me of episodes of Dr Who. Stay tuned for the finale.

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Urrrgggh, I’m finding that sitting all day is producing pain in my left buttock, radiating down my left leg and into my foot. Luckily it’s not sharp pain, just an ache, but unless I take all the weight off that left side, it hurts. But try sitting with all your weight on the right side for a while. It’s too hard.

Therefore I’ve fallen for an ad of F/B for a kind of foam cushion:

It’s coming from the USA, home of big bums. It costs about US$50 so it better be good.

My distress is because it looks as if I’ve killed a $200 car battery again. I only replaced it about six months ago.

I haven’t used the Honda MDX for a few months while it’s had the DVD player hanging from the roof lining. I was gunna get onto it, honest Danny. But time slipped by and I must assume it was powered up in some way, draining the battery. I’ve had the battery on charge for 24 hours so far but it’s not showing any signs of life (showing only 1.4V). Damn, it was new last year and cost more than $200. There’s nothing for it but to buy another one. Damn, damn, damn. I’m a fool. What am I? A fool!

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I had an interesting experience today. I had a visit from a Silver Chain lady, who I was told was “social support”. I thought she was here to “have a chat” as they offer. But not exactly, she was just gathering information about my needs – this is the third time this has happened in the past six months or so.

Anyway, she had a fairly strong Scottish accent and in the course of talking, her name turned out to be Lawrie. She was born in the Shetlands but grew up in Edinburgh and has emigrated out here.

The thing is, Mum’s mother, my grandmother, came from a Lawrie family from Scotland via South Australia in the early 20th century. I’ve only become more aware of this since I’ve been doing the MyHeritage family tree. I kinda knew it earlier in my life, but not well.

The other thing is, as I looked at this woman, it was almost as if I was looking at my own face. She looked familiar and we seemed to have an awful lot of things in common; likes, dislikes, interests, eating and drinking habits, health issues (she’d recently had a heart attack and a stent inserted) and so on.

We talked for quite a while, nearly two hours and at the end, she said, “Is there anything you want to ask?” I said, “Yes, will you go out with me, could we get together?” Bit bold! I was attracted. But she said she already has a partner, so no. Oh well. But that was quite unusual for me.

So, no result, and she said it will probably be a few months before I see any visit from a “chatterer”. Crumbs, since I saw the offer in a Silver Chain ad more than a year ago, I’ve asked three times if I can have a visit from someone to chat to, with no result. I’ve lost confidence that anything will happen. It does depend on volunteers, I suppose, so I can’t complain.

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Yes, folks, step right up for this year’s bargain – the NSHS 2020 Reunion thrown in absolutely FREE
with the 2021 NSHS Class of ’64 Reunion!

Virus permitting, it’s on again

Saturday 17 April 2021

This is what I’m doing at the moment – sending out around 200 emails and collecting the replies. We usually get about 45 including partners and spouses. It’s very popular.

Why has the font changed? This WordPress is a heap of crap. So different from other word processor software. It’s not a word processor, of course, it’s blogging software, but word processing is a big part of it, the main part. Why can’t they follow the same conventions as real word processors?

OK, it seems to only be in compose mode that the font has changed. Weird.

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I turned 74 yesterday, another milestone, or should that be millstone? Mum died at 73 and Dad at 78. The 70s are ominous years, in other words. I feel the need to prepare for my death. I’ve remade my will recently, just to get it up to date. I contacted a funeral company a couple of months ago about buying a pre-paid funeral, but their price is too high and I haven’t tried any others yet. Must do so.

Also, the idea of an Advance Health Directive is in the news a few days ago. I was asked if I have one at the Mount Hospital recently, and although I have all the necessary paperwork (in the form of PDFs downloaded from the web), it’s so complex that I haven’t made a start. It will require answers to be supplied by my doctor and it would need a “long consultation” to do it, I think. I know, what about making a resolution to do it today! That would be revolutionary.

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That’s the thing: I’m suffering from a chronic, ongoing lack of get up and go. I had brekky with a couple of mates yesterday and they both agreed that they’re feeling the same, a loss of the energy to get things done that we used to have. Mind you, one is 83 and the other, although only 70, suffers from chronic pain and depression, so we’re not exactly set up to be bundles of energy.

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I saw him yesterday about the cyst on my right temple. The Aldara cream doesn’t seem to have done much good, as far as I can see, and he agreed. He’s referred me to a surgeon to cut it out, or he suggested that a laser might be used. It’s quite sore now.

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My endless search for the perfect car has me fixated on the Peugeot 407 coupe now. There’s a beautiful V6 twin-turbo diesel 2006 model in Ballarat, Victoria at the moment with distinctive maroon leather:

Boring silver paint. I don’t know why people choose such a dull colour when there are so many other excellent colours available.
But being in Victoria, with lockdowns and hard borders, it would be too difficult at the moment. I’m just daydreaming.
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I’ve just had an SMS from my neighbour. She’s a strong Liberal supporter and has a sign in her garden for the Liberal candidate for this location in the upcoming state election on 13 March. It’s a hopeless cause, of course. Labor are going to steamroll the Libs. But the local branch office phoned me a week ago asking if I’d hand out how-to-vote cards. I said I can’t, because I can’t stay standing for long periods, but when they asked me if I’ll have a sign in my garden for John Quigley, my ALP local member, I said yes, gladly.

So now we’re two neighbours with competing signs, cancelling each other out. 🙂 My neighbour says she realises they’re going to lose, but wants her candidate elected because she’s a woman. Sorry, that’s not a sufficient reason.

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I finished my second viewing of a program on Netflix the other night, The Bodyguard. WOW! What a great program. It’s a BBC drama production, six one hour episodes, about an ex-army, now London Metropolitan Police Protective Squad guy assigned to protect the Home Secretary. She’s a very attractive woman, of course, and after a couple of episodes, they fall in love. Strictly against the rules. But there are attempts on her life (ultimately successful) and it becomes clear there are sub-plots involving MI5 and other top politicians. It’s an absolutely excellent production, full of realism and tension as only the Poms know how to do. Highly recommended.

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We had a meeting of our school reunion committee last week and I went fully dressed as a woman for the first time. No problems. I’d told them last year that I would do it, but then the virus hit and I never actually followed through. Now I have. The women loved it and the guys were completely accepting. What a change in societal attitudes there’s been in the last couple of decades. I used to be knotted up with anxiety when I went out, but now it’s no trouble at all. I’m totally relaxed about it.

I talked briefly about my transformations with one of the guys yesterday, and he said how good I look when I’m made up. He said his wife had also commented (to him) on how good I look as a woman. Wow, that’s music to my ears. I have to visit him to fix his desktop PC, so I’ll be sure to show my style again. Strut my stuff!