The Trigg house, 1987, the year after I bought it. “Beautifully landscaped native gardens”, the ad said. I spent probably $10k getting all the massive trees out of that block. My choice, of course, and it was an excellent investment, increasing ten-fold in value by 2013.

In the 1980s I used to have a gardener come once a month or so at my house in Trigg. I had a small tree that I’d planted myself but it looked dead and I asked him to pull it out.

No, he said he had a policy, “Never, ever give up”, and he kept watering and coddling it, and eventually it did burst back into life.

_____________________

Although I loved living in that Trigg area, the house was a bodge job. No lintels over the doors and windows! Thin-wall copper water piping that ruptured. Five septic tanks in the back yard, five! All had to be decommissioned and a couple of them broken up and removed when the deep sewerage came through.

Water from the roof valley running down the inside walls. Bright yellow painted walls with turquoise door frames. A parquetry floor that had never been sanded and varnished. No architraves on some of the doors. Jungle green paint on some walls, bamboo pattern wallpaper, navy blue paint with mirror tiles on one wall. The washbasin in the bathroom sitting suspended from the drain-pipe, with no cabinet. Missing kitchen cabinets. A new bedroom added on that was too narrow, because the previous owner had not wanted to shift a window as was needed.

My back yard, 1987. That was hard work! Peter Partridge dwarfed by the massive trees.

Slowly I got it cleared. All the tree branches had to be pulled up the side of the house to the street verge. Months of hard work.  Broken septic tank under the corrugated iron sheet. That timber paling fence fell down.

Ugh! Ugh! I was very naiive when I bought it. It took me three months to make the decision.

The amount of work I put in to get that house into some kind of shape …! Luckily I was pretty fit in the 1980s and 1990s, until sleep apnea got me and it all slowed down and stopped. It was hard to find a buyer, but it was a classic case of “worst house in the best street” for value. I got all the value increase though, ten-fold in 25 years. The buyers in 2013 will have seen very little gain since. Sorry, luck of the game.

___________________

Holy cow, I saw a near crash yesterday in the shopping street near me. I was behind a small car travelling at about 30km/h, when a car started to pull out of a parking bay in front of it.

I could hardly believe my eyes, both cars continued to move and the car on the road in front of me didn’t brake, not until the last second. He stopped no more than a few inches from the car that was pulling out, and that car continued to move out as if it had some right to do so. It did not. No indicator either. Amazing. No accident, but it was close.

_______________________

What did I say a couple of weeks ago? We should build a gas pipeline across the country to supply our abundant reserves of LNG to the east coast.

That’s the proposal that’s being put forward at the moment. Told ya. But what we should do is apply a resource tax on the gas we supply to make up for the GST that’s being ripped out of WA. Obviously this would be delicate, but where there’s a will ….

________________________

I’ve been awake all night again, completely unable to get to sleep. I was tired when I went to bed at about 10pm, took two valerians, read for half an hour or so, felt really sleepy and turned the light off, but I just lay there for what seemed ages. Eventually I looked at my watch – midnight. Grrr. I never got to sleep at all, despite some more reading, and got up at 4.30am. I’ll have another try soon at about 8.30am.

It’s annoying because there’s a concert on at the Concert Hall at 10am. I was thinking of going, but I’m too woozy to make it. Sibelius Symphony no. 2, one of my favourites.

Damn, this insomnia is a huge problem. I was getting good sleep by using small doses of Phenergan last week, but the effect stopped working so I’ve had to stop it for a week or more until it starts working again.

Busselton lightning 1993.   © PJ Croft 2017

What a rotten night. I got to sleep at about 11pm but was woken by a power failure at 12.52am. Most people would sleep through such a thing, but my CPAP blower goes off and suddenly I can’t breathe properly. That wakes me quick smart.

It stayed off until 3.30am! No light to read by, a bit of restless leg syndrome, a too warm-too cool feeling, diabetic pain in my feet, it was bad. Luckily my battery radio worked.  And I was able to read the Economist on my tablet.

But my house alarm was driving me nuts with a beeping sound from the keypad. I must admit I’ve been lax in not getting around to changing a faulty sealed lead-acid battery for “keep alive” power, and that meant one of the keypad panels had gone haywire and was beeping incessantly.

Finally, the power came back on at 3.30am, but that meant one of my hi-fi amps came on with FM noise at high volume. I had to get up to turn it off. But I couldn’t make the alarm panel shut up. It was only a beeper, not the house screamer. At that stage.

Eventually I could stand it no longer so at 4am I got the ladder and climbed up into the closet to open the alarm cabinet and reset it. I turned the mains power off but when I tried to open the cabinet, it triggered the full bore house alarm! It is LOUD! I couldn’t stop it.

I couldn’t get one of the screws holding the door out. Damn. Eventually I got it, but my house alarm was going off for more than 5 mins at 4am. Sorry, neighbours. Mind you, I wasn’t the only one – each time the power fails or is restored around here, several house alarms go off. Everyone has an alarm, they were part of the estate houses when they were built in 2004, along with good reticulation watering systems, which is great. Unfortunately, alarms going off are such a common thing that no-one takes any notice of them. Thieves could just ignore them, really.

Anyway, eventually I got the alarm cabinet door open and unplugged the battery. Still the alarm was going! It finally stopped when I unplugged the mains power again.

Sleep was out of the question now, so I made coffee and settled down to look at the computer. Damn! The power went off again at 4.20am! It stayed off, so I tried to get back to the bedroom and literally walked into a wall and door, it was so dark. No damage, luckily, and the power came back on just as I was feeling my way into the bedroom.

So now at 5am I’m wide awake and internet browsing, which means I’ll have to daytime sleep again. I’m trying not to do that, but …

_______________________

A couple of years ago I remember thinking that the world was going to hell, that we were witnessing the end of this civilisation.  Little did I imagine then how bad things would become in just two years.

• The Middle East, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Iran all either in full blown war or threatening it.
• Turkey voting to have an absolute dictator in charge, with unlimited power, in place until at least 2029. What are they thinking?!
• North Korea making credible threats of a nuclear strike, and no way to stop them except a pre-emptive military strike.
• Britain and Brexit causing a massive problem for Europe, with Russia rubbing its hands with glee and sizing up the opportunities for trouble it presents.
• This will mean a further decline of Britain as a world power. Their armed forces used to be a serious factor in keeping the peace, but they’ve been decimated by budget cuts for years. They’re building two new aircraft carriers, but they have no aircraft for them! Their navy is a shadow of what it used to be. Tragedy.
• China militarising the South China Sea and threatening anyone who dares to challenge its land grab.
• The US rejecting all the scientific evidence for greenhouse gas emissions and undoing all the good work of the Obama presidency.
• An absolute idiot, uneducated, unintelligent, untrained in history and diplomacy now in charge as US President.
• The decline of quality journalism and the seeds of distrust deliberately sown by the US president.

and the list goes on and on. I was pessimistic before, but I’m downright scared now. This will not end well.

____________________

By the way, I’m dealing with a dietician at the moment, not a dietitian. I was unsure of the spelling so I looked it up. Dietician with a c is the UK English spelling and dietitian with a t is the US spelling. I’ll stick with UK English, thanks.

________________________

After all that, I had an hour’s sleep then went to Joondalup for brunch. I wanted to use my birthday present from friends, which was a Dymocks voucher card. Nice.

I bought “Paul Keating, The Biography” with the card. It’s a massive book, 650 odd pages and will take me months to read, but I’ll read it. In my opinion, Paul Keating is the greatest prime minister Australia has ever had. Unfortunately he had a foul mouth and an acid tongue in the 1980s, which put most people off, but underneath that unlikeable exterior, he was and still is one of Australia’s great thinkers and doers. I wish he was still in politics now.

I also bought a couple of books on science, “50 Ideas of Einstein”, and one called, “You Probably Thought This Was Simple, But It’s More Complicated Than That.” Great title. It’s about skewering some of the more silly and outrageous scientific misconceptions in the popular press and media.

____________________

Then I visited Woolworths supermarket. I did this only because I know they have a made to order Japanese food kiosk. I saw a TV program a couple of weeks ago about a hugely overweight Aussie guy who goes to Japan for two weeks to learn about the Japanese diet. He spends his two weeks eating nothing but their food and learning how to prepare his own, does a lot of walking in the process in Tokyo, of course, then comes back to Australia (Brisbane) and does another month on his own Japanese cooking.

Result? He loses 24kg weight and all his blood tests, lipids etc head back towards normal.

My blood tests and lipids are brilliant, no problems there, but I have a bad weight problem. It’s occurred to me that if I went to Joondalup every three days or so and bought my Japanese food at this kiosk, ready made, and stocked my fridge with it, I might be able to replicate this. I like Jap food and I reckon I could live on it, especially if I cooked my own okonomiyaki, vegetable omelettes. I regard cooking as a waste of valuable time, so I don’t want to go that far. Just a thought. I chatted to the two oriental-looking staff and they sounded encouraging. Which they would, of course.

But then I made the mistake of buying some general groceries. I say ‘mistake’, because it’s my experience that Woolies will try to rob you any chance they get.

Sure enough, when I checked my till receipt as I left the store, as I always do with Woolies, immediately I found two major pricing errors, in Woolies’ favour of course.

Two tins of soup which I’d taken from a corner shelf and marked at $1.68, scanned at $3.59 each! And two packets of hard crackers from a basket, marked as 2 for $6, scanned at $6 each! I had specifically asked a staff member as the price tag was vague, and I was assured that 2 for $6 was right. It bloody well was not!

So that was pricing/scanning errors totalling $19.18. This is not trivial and I am fed up with Woolies. Don’t shop at Woolies supermarkets unless you enjoy being ripped off! It happens every time for me. I won’t shop there these days. This has been going on for years! I will have to write a letter of protest to the management. Or put it up on Facebook. Hmmm. Coles, on the other hand, are exemplary. I don’t usually bother to check my receipts because they almost never make an error. If they can do it, why can’t Woolies, and why does Woolies never improve?

Yow, love hurts. I’m trying my hardest to recover the situation, but “heart of stone”. No forgiveness. A lifetime of hurt blocks any attempts. The fault is not all one way, for sure, but … I get so frustrated that I write angry words. I’m slowly breaking the habit, but I sometimes slip.

Feelin’ pretty low. One of my down periods. I know what to do, it’s all in hand.

I’ll be chirpier soon, I hope.    © PJ Croft 1987, 2017

_______________________

A bit of a schedule has built up.

• 1 May – medical appointment, just routine.  Probable follow-ups.
• 15 May – appointment at the SCGH eye clinic re cataracts and glaucoma.
• ??? May – cataract operation, I hope.
• 30 May – arrival of my Balinese mate to stay with me. We’ve been talking about this for years (since January 2011) and I’ve always said, just say the word when you want to come. He finally has.  I don’t know how long he’ll stay. Heh heh, he owns a hotel and restaurant in Sanur.
• ???  soon –  another attempt at the Very Low Calorie Diet. Gotta lose this front bump! It’s dangerous.

No Bali visits planned, but “ya never know yer luck in the big city.”

Look at that black sand. The smell of the clean sea breeze was fabulous. That’s the Bali Beach hotel in the distance, the only major multi storey hotel in Bali, built during the Sukarno era.

__________________________

Meanwhile, I have to get moving on doing another Photobook or two, or I’ll lose my vouchers. I have until July. I managed to sell one copy of the Croft History vol.1 and four copies of volume 2 recently. Lucky, because I ordered them last year (even 2015?) on spec and the buyers melted away. I was a bit optomistic then, but it’s all worked out. I still have one copy of vol. 2 on the shelf.

_________________________

I changed my dripping tap washers today, a pair made by Doust, an Aussie company, and touted on the packet as “Drip Proof.”  Ha! Ha hah! They lasted three weeks. I can’t see how they wouldn’t leak. They are hard plastic with just a soft neoprene rubber insert. It got flattened in short order.

They only cost $3.50 so there’s no point making a fuss, but I’ve put simple ones in their place. Crumbs I’ve had trouble with these bathroom fittings! Almost unending. Simple problems, but annoying. Nothing serious, thank goodness.

One of my friends lives in a house which was built in 1926. He’s had no flushing toilet for a while due to rusted galvanised steel pipes. He’s got a good plumber mate who made short work (45 mins) of putting copper replacement pipe in and now he’s revelling in a good dunny!  Funny, ‘cos he’s from Dunny, Dunedin that is. 🙂

A Bali tour boat. Note the white radome for radar. Modern.   © P)J Croft 2016, 2017

Murchison River, WA. Someone wrote in to the newspaper and said “Why is Australia called the “wide brown land?” Dumb question.   © PJ Croft 1987, 2017

It’s just over a year (12 March 2016) since the great Bali romance kicked off, and a year today (13 April 2016) that she came to visit me in this house.

What a year! Probably the most exciting of my life. But not all in the right way, and now it looks as if it’s all over. I tried my hardest to keep it going and thought I’d succeeded a couple of times, but long built-in prejudices against men were too much for me.

Among other problems was, many times, not understanding my jokes and when something I said was a joke. I had to adopt the practice of explicitly stating when I was joking. Even that didn’t work sometimes.

It’s true, the German sense of humour is much different. I found an article from The Economist magazine on it, and I have to agree. Germans take what you say literally, even though the Aussie dry wit is not meant to be taken seriously. I found this out to my cost.

I admit I made mistakes, but even though I apologised sincerely and profusely when it was pointed out, there was no forgiveness. I’m a male, you see, and males are oppressors of women. No allowances, no forgiveness, no understanding.

So endeth the lesson. I’m bruised, battered, depressed and sad. I really thought I’d cracked it at 69/70. I gave it my best shot, but it was never going to be good enough. I was up against a lifetime of prejudice. I didn’t stand a chance. Thinking back (my memory is fantastic) the signs were there from the very beginning, from within the first week and month, but I didn’t realise. I do now.

I’m back to being alone, and it ain’t easy!

How I’m feeling?  Shot-hole Canyon, Cape Range, nr Exmouth, WA  © PJ Croft 1987, 2017

__________________________

However, as they say, when one door closes, another opens. I’ve been contacted a couple of days ago by my old Bali friend Yudhi,  from the villa days. He’s coming to Perth on 30 May. We’ve often talked about him coming and I’ve offered to pick him up and accommodate him, so that’s what I’ll be doing. This will be his first visit, although he travels widely. He’s recently been to Japan, for example.

I mention this because he has a wide range of friends in Bali, and owns a large (but cheap and simple) hotel and restaurant, so it’s possible I might be able to go up and meet people through him. Maybe Balinese ladies? 😉 🙂

This gives me the kick in the backside I need to finally attend to the jobs around this house. Such as replacing fly-screens and cleaning windows.

______________________

What’s the big deal about gall bladders? I’m not noticing any difference now mine’s gone. I was told to look out for diahorrea or a general feeling of stomach upset. I’ve been testing things by eating the same as I always did, but I’m not having any problems. Let’s hope it continues that way.

__________________________

However, the surgeon’s dietician wants me to go onto a severe diet, the Very Low Calorie Diet for a month or two, lose a heap of weight, then go onto the 5:2 diet to maintain the loss.

I did this before in 2007/08 and lost 28kg then, so I know I can do it, but at the moment I’m feeling the Bali loss too heavily. I will do it, but the will-power is not there right now. Soon.

________________________

Every time I go out driving on the roads, I see at least one car or vehicle with at least one dud tail or brake light. Every time! People don’t check their tail and brake lights. Negligence! It’s so easy to do – just park reversed in to a shop window and put your foot on the brake. So easy, but people don’t do it. Negligent!

__________________________

Next door’s dog is still barking in full voice. It is driving me nuts! I hate to do it, but I’m going to have to complain. The barks come every five seconds from dawn until 10.30pm or later. It’s not every day, I don’t know why some days are quiet, but I never hear the owners trying to quieten the dog.

I won’t involve the council, but I’ll have to put it in writing or something.

________________________

I’ve just been out to buy some new tap washers. A couple of months ago I bought two packets (of two) made by Doust in WA. Revolutionary, they said. Never have a drip again, they said.

So a month ago I put a pair in. They lasted three weeks before the drip was back, worse than ever. Very disappointed. A friend said he talks to plumbers and they say to use just the simplest, most basic washers. Don’t bother with anything fancy.

So that’s what I’ve bought this time, still Australian made, but pretty ordinary. I’ll put ’em in tomorrow.

Kuala Trengganu, Malaysia  (C) PJ Croft 2017

Wow, if this is autumn, let it last all year. Perfect fine weather, 30-31C days, low humidity and cool nights. ‘Course, a bit of rain would be nice … oh, yeah, Easter is weekend after next, and it ALWAYS rains at Easter.

__________________

I watched Stargazing on the ABC last night and I must say I was quite impressed. It could have been boring, but they kept it moving with a range of different stories and scenes. I’ll watch ep. 2 tonight.

But it was very noticeable that nearly all the panel, except Julia Zemiro, are Poms! Don’t we have any Australian astronomers of note? Of course we do! It wasn’t until the end and the BBC logo on the end credits that I realised this is a UK production, based on a UK format. Huh. Not all that impressed.

___________________

I was browsing DVDs in a shop today and saw Arrival, that new movie about extra-terrestrials. I thought about buying it. Dang, I realised I’d bought it about three weeks ago, laid it down on the pile and forgot all about it. OK, now I have something new to enjoy.

I was reminded of watching the 1980s movie The Abyss with Ed Harris a few nights ago. Well, Ed Harris wasn’t with me, he was in the fillum, but, y’know … I’ve watched that movie at least three times now and I still think it’s one of the better movies of this type. The space/ocean ship at the end is quite ridiculous, though.

(C) PJ Croft 2017

I’ve taken to waiting until about 3pm at Clarkson shops to buy $5 containers of Chinese food from the food hall stall when they sell the leftovers to close down. Today I bought two, carefully placed ’em in the bottom of my trolley, then visited another shop. I grabbed my two bags from the top of the trolley, but forgot about the Chinese food. Of course, someone had walked off with my trolley when I came out. Yes, I bought another two later, but at least she threw in a free fried rice this time.

_____________________

Bangkok   © PJ Croft 2017

I’m home again, officially sans gall bladder. It’s a bit galling (sorry) that I’ve spent $750 (after all rebates) to pay for an operation when I didn’t feel I had a problem, and when I feel no different afterwards. It would have been nice to feel some improvement.

I get a few jabs of pain in my gut from the five incisions, but it’s not enough to make me take pain relief. I might take some paracetemol tonight before bed.

I have to go to a school reunion (it’s our 70th birthday year) tomorrow, involving a long 1-hour drive each way. I’d better be careful, and I might have to leave the function early.

_______________

I was fed with a pain killer called tepantadol in the hospital. It seems to be a new one. I was having weird visual hallucinatory effects. Patterns on the curtains were constantly moving downwards. A pair of slippers on the floor were moving toward the wheel of the bed, even though it was impossible. The pattern in the floor was moving away from me. The hinges between the door and its frame were slowly moving downwards. Crazy. I wasn’t bothered, but … At one stage I was sitting in a chair and falling asleep and dreaming, and speaking to a person next to me, then suddenly waking up, aware of what had happened.

____________________

Women complain of sexist language used by males. In the hospital, I was repeatedly called “darling” and “love” and “luvvie” by the nurses. One very bossy nurse even ordered me around, calling me “buddy”, “mate” and “matey”.

For 30 years or more, my mother used to invariably call me “sweetie” and “snooks”. I hated it. I’m always being called these types of names in shops. I don’t mind it. What’s the problem? But if I called women “cutie” or “darls” or “babe”, I’d be condemned. I don’t say these things, and I don’t appreciate being criticised for sexist talk. Fair’s fair – it happens both ways! Women don’t realise they’re doing it and neither do most men.

Fifteen years ago, July 2002, fixing a mate’s computer.  © PJ Croft 2017

Sorry, I’m a bit quiet because there’s not much happening at the moment. But next week will be busier – I go into hospital for the “gall-bladder-ectomy” on Tuesday, staying for two nights. Out on Thursday and I’m staying with my good friends in Scarborough for one night just to be sure, to be sure.

Then, next Saturday it’s our Northam Senior High School Reunion, number six (I think) for our 70th Birthday Year. We should have about 35 visitors, we hope. It’s just at a Fremantle hotel, on the terrace, just drinks, nothing formal, so let’s hope we have nice weather.

________________

I’ve just been organising some pictures of my sister’s kids from many years ago, the 1970s mainly. I have many, many historic photos. I have around 10,000 of my own shots over 50 years, and around another 30,000 on the drive of various images that i keep for interest.

I’m doing my best to get these images of mine into books and backed up for use after I’ve gone. Many of my shots of Perth are already historic and will be even more so in 50 years time. I don’t know who’s going to take them.

Perth 29 December 1990, already 27 years ago! That’s Central Park unfinished. Some of those foreground buildings are probably gone.  © PJ Croft 2017

Another thing is video – I’m shooting quite a lot, but is any of it going to be used? We have to get used to editing it down. Easier said than done. I’ve got more skills than most but I have a lot of trouble doing it. Sigh.

___________________

I bought two more vouchers for 11″ x 14″ Photobooks, 40 pages in layflat binding for $33 each last week. I’ve just made a start on my 14th book, a second attempt at Japan, I think, but maybe something closer to home?

I’m always in the habit of ordering two copies at a time so that I can lend one and not die of fright if it doesn’t come back. But maybe this time it might be two separate books.

________________

My sister has had cataract surgery and is ecstatic at the result. She’s been able to dispense with her contact lenses. Wow.

I, too, have cataracts and hope to have mine done at the end of May. I’m hoping for improvement because I’m starting to notice things: I have trouble finding the keys on this keyboard, I have trouble with bright daylight and glare, and dark shade, and I have the feeling there’s an eyelash always at the left edge of my vision. Here’s hoping.

_________________

The roadworks have made a mess of the formerly beautiful “Line of Pines” (as I called it) in Marmion Avenue near here. As well, the incessant beeping of the reversing warnings on the machinery drives me nuts. Add in the endless barking from the dog next door, and the incredible number of sirens day and night around here – what’s going on?? I feel like closing all the doors and windows.

______________

This WordPress software has bugs and they are never fixed! I always have the feeling that we’re being penalised by WordPress for using the free version. You don’t pay, we don’t fix the bugs.

At the moment, if I type such that the text goes to the next line below the edge of the screen, it doesn’t automatically scroll up so that you can’t see your typing. This seems like a new bug in the past week or two.

That reminds me. I’ve been enthusiastically using Drop Box cloud storage for a few years, but with two desktop PCs, two laptops and a tablet, Drop Box has sent me a tut-tut email. It seems we’re only allowed two clients now, and if we want more, we have to upgrade to “Pro” at some expensive amount, like $45 a quarter or something. (Now my typing has dropped below the bottom of thee screen and doesn’t scroll up. Even using the arrow keys doesn’t make the screen scroll up. You have to use the mouse scroll wheel. This is wrong. Grrr!)

Anyway, too greedy Drop Box, so I’m dropping you. I’ve deleted or moved virtually all my storage. They even had the nerve to send me an email, “We’ve noticed you’ve deleted a large number of files recently. Is there a reason? Would you like to upgrade?” etc etc. No, go away. Greedy.

West of Cairns Qld.   © PJ Croft 2017

Oh, this is insane. Coincidences! A few days ago I remarked on the coincidence of the town of Moama in NSW cropping up in two unrelated connections in one week. It was followed soon after by a reference elsewhere to a video game character called Joseph Momoa.

Now, today, I read this:  “Considering the gush-fest that was [Disney movie] Moana’s critical reception …  ”

______________________

The NBN fiasco continues. A brief recap: ten years ago the Rudd Labor government in Canberra announced a nation-building program to lay fibre-optic cable to almost every house and building in Australia, to provide internet speeds of up to 100Mbits/sec. The only exceptions were for remote areas and places where it’s impossible.

Malcolm Turnbull, then in opposition as communications spokesman, immediately started rubbishing it, simply to provide a point of opposition. In the next year or two, he said it was all too expensive and slow to implement, and said he had a plan to lay fibre only as far as cabinets in the street, and to use the existing copper phone lines from there to your house or building. This was supposed to save $10bn of the initial $40bn estimated cost and save years in construction time.

The Libs got into power (mostly due to Rudd’s stupidity and bitterness, but that’s another story) and Turnbull got his hands on the levers.

Guess what? The costs blew out to as much as the original pure fibre plan cost, the delays started, the NBN Co had to buy Telstra’s copper cable network (what a massive bonus for Telstra!!) and it was discovered that the copper cables are in poor condition. Instead of a uniform 100Mb/s, with the prospect of technology allowing 1Gb/s not far off, the best that was promised was 25Mb/s. (Because copper wires are being used, there’s absolutely no chance of speeds above 100Mb/s). That’s all you need, says Turnbull. That ranks alongside IBM’s CEO Mr Watson saying in the 1960s that the world will only need 5 or 10 computers.

Here we are 10 years later, installation is still years away for many if not most households, speeds are intermittently slow, complaints are rising, and the cost has blown out so much that NBN Co has had to borrow another $20bn! Turnbull’s weak-minded plan is going to cost just as much and take just as long. Pathetic.

Here are excerpts from an article from the past few days written by Ann Hurley, executive chair of Internet Australia:

We have always maintained a policy of providing well-founded technical advice and encouragement for the Government to change its strategy, rather than attacking the people who work at NBN. However, when I recently became Internet Australia’s executive chair I was subjected to an unprovoked Twitter assault by one of NBN Co’s corporate affairs executives. This was followed by a bizarre attack by NBN Co boss, Bill Morrow, who made false and defamatory comments about me and others at Internet Australia under Parliamentary Privilege.

…

Old, slow and fundamentally flawed

Like so many, I’ve watched the second iteration of our broadband policy based on fibre to the node (FTTN) and reliant on old copper wires with increasing dismay. Highly regarded technical experts are speaking out and saying that this major infrastructure project is fundamentally flawed — for many reasons, but mainly because of the Government’s dogged commitment to persisting with already-obsolete copper-based technology.

Consumers are being lumbered with a network delivering internet speeds that doom them to lag behind the rest of the world and are subjected to installation procedures that seemingly have little or no ‘customer service’ component in them. Both of these issues have the NBN at the top of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman’s complaints table.

Two key external indicators confirm that Australia is not advancing up the global rankings scales as we need to. A recent OECD report has Australia fourth last on the table of 32 nations for broadband speed and penetration. The OECD observed that our future innovation and productivity gains are stifled by an “ineffective broadband policy based on high prices for mediocre speeds”.

The industry-standard Akamai State of the Internet quarterly report on average Internet connection speeds has Australia falling in its global rankings from 50 to 51, at a time when we need to be heading up the chart. Interestingly, the report noted that for broadband adoption, quarterly changes were positive in the Asia Pacific region “except for Australia, which posted a 1.9 per cent decline in adoption”.

…

Malcolm Turnbull should go down in history, among his many other flaws, as the Man Who Crippled Australia’s Fibre-Optic Network, single-handedly. He’s done this purely to give himself a point of difference from the ALP opposition and to cement himself in position as PM. Shocking! He puts his own position as PM ahead of doing the right thing, the technologically correct thing. Amazing.

__________________

Solar power has been on my mind recently and I read an article about it today, showing how to do the calculations about payback period. It inspired me to find my invoices and work out my costs.

My electricity is costing me very close to $1100 per year (varying from $133 to $347 each two months, highest last winter when I was using reverse cycle heating so much). I haven’t done the full calculation yet, but I don’t think it would pay me to spend around $4,000 on a set of panels yet, let alone the big extra cost of battery storage. I think I’ll be better to wait a few years yet. Prices are falling all the time and technology is rapidly improving. I’ll wait.

For interest, my gas is costing me $23 per month or $375 per year, almost constant. Water costs me $82-$98 per two months or $529 per year.

If I ever do look at battery storage, I’ll definitely be looking at Redflow, the Queensland company http://redflow.com/  and their product for home battery storage Z-Cell https://www.zcell.com/  They’ve developed a zinc-bromine battery that’s completely recyclable, uses a liquid electrolyte and can be drained and refilled. And it’s made in Australia. Tell Tesla, no thanks, we can do it here.

__________________

More aerial photos from my collection:

Wickham and Pt Samson  © PJ Croft 2017

Somewhere in the Wheat Belt, WA   © PJ Croft 2017

Somewhere in the rugged North West   © PJ Croft 2017

Perth City January 2011. Bumping along at low altitude coming in to land, hand held, yet it’s very sharp. Pentax K-5. Good camera!  © PJ Croft 2011, 2017

North Western Australia   © PJ Croft 2017

I’m a bit quiet these days, I agree. Insomnia is a big problem. It’s reached the stage of sometimes not sleeping at all at night, making me feel awful by mid morning. Then I might sleep a couple of hours and feel better, but that’s not good enough. Yesterday was like that, and I resisted sleeping during the day, but by 7:00pm I was swaying, hardly able to stand. I watched TV until 9.30pm, not wanting to break routine, then took a sedative and crashed.

The sedatives work, but there’s a marked hangover the next morning, such as now. At 12:40pm I’m bleary eyed,struggling to type this and considering going back for more sleep, even though I supposedly slept right through last night. I was woken at 8.30am by a phone call from a friend wanting a phone number, and I could hardly read the computer screen.

Problem!

________________

Coincidences again. You’ve probably heard the news in the past few days with the tragic case of the woman in the NSW town of Moama who drowned her son. Then yesterday, Moama cropped up again, this time as the home town of our Eurovision entrant.

Then today, this headline:   Jason Momoa Goes From Superhero To Video Game Hero. I know it’s not the same, but to have Moama and Momoa occur purely by coincidence in the same week …

_________________

You’ve probably noticed the news reports showing that the wages of ordinary workers are barely rising over a long period, and are mostly decreasing by being below the rate of inflation, small though it is.

Yet the salaries of managers are doing the opposite, increasing by leaps and bounds, far higher than inflation. How is this so? Because they set their own salaries, adding very large bonuses, simply for doing their jobs.

Ordinary workers have no such control. Their wages have long been set by an independent tribunal, with the cases being argued by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). As well, trade unions covering categories of workers bargain collectively for their members with individual companies.

But trade union memberships have been falling for decades, such that only about 20% of employees are prepared to support unions.

See any connection here? When union membership was strong, in the 1970s and ’80s, wages were good and rises were frequent. But when union membership fell out of favour, such as now, wage growth slowed and has gone backwards.

There was a good article in The Guardian a few days ago:

There’s an odd form of double-think in political and business circles when it comes to productivity. Each and every year, our corporate leaders explain the wonderful benefits of the bonus system. If they perform well, they often earn several times their salaries via the magic of incentive schemes.

Higher pay equals better performance in the executive suite.

But the opposite apparently applies at the other end of the scale. Our business leaders often argue, mistakenly, that lower pay will result in better labour productivity.

But if you cut someone’s wages, you can guarantee with absolute certainly that you won’t get a lift in productivity. In fact, there’s a good chance you’ll achieve the exact opposite.

Productivity, and the forces that drive it, are complex and not well understood. Partly, improvements are driven by better work structures or organisation. Mostly though, it is better technology.

I have experience of this. First, as union delegate at my workplace, I only had about 40% of my work colleagues as members. The rest weren’t prepared to join, the usual reason being they just didn’t want to pay the fees, which were about $120 a year I think (long time ago).

I couldn’t convince them that just one pay rise achieved by the union would repay their membership tenfold or more!

The other reasons were pure selfishness, seeing they got the pay increase whether they were a member or not; and some vague ideology, that they didn’t like unions. Yet they’d pay to belong to a health fund or the RAC.

It was also notable that around 2000 and 2001, when the Sydney management became aggressive about making people redundant (after I’d taken mine voluntarily, glad to get out), being a union member suddenly looked like being a form of protection. Most of the union members were left untouched – only non-members got forced out.

Boring, boring – my message is, why won’t people join the union when the union works for YOU?

_________________

I had my appointment with Gastro-boy last week, and the result is that I’m set to have my gall bladder removed on Tuesday 28 March. Scans have shown “large stones” and although I’ve said I’m not having any problems, the message is I’ve been lucky, and leaving them in place is not a good idea. If a stone moves and blocks the bile duct you can be in emergency trouble, the pain is like stabbing knives and you wouldn’t want it to happen in Bali. So be it.

I was able to mention that I’ve noticed a good thing recently. I used to get a moderate pain, enough to have me squirming, in my lower left abdomen, just below my rib cage after eating. But since having my gastric band removed, I haven’t noticed it recently. As we agreed, it’s harder to notice an absence of pain than its presence. Good doogs.

_______________

I made the trip into the city by train and bus as usual, and on the way back I thought to wonder how much credit I have left on my Smart Rider card. I remember putting $20 in a few years ago – how much is left? So I asked.

Sorry about the horizontal format, but turn your head and you’ll see the balance left is $27.46. As you can see, each trip costs me $zero. That’s because I travel after 10am and before 3pm.

But just as noticeable is that TransPerth has a complete record of all my recent trips, with destinations, dates and times. Big brother knows!

__________________

Next job is to get a refund of my postage on a parcel back to Amazon in the USA. I bought one of these recently:

Not expensive, about A$87. But when it arrived it was very noticeable that the analogue and digital sections didn’t agree. The analogue hands were about 30mins out in three hours. They don’t have to be the same, of course, but they have to run at the same rate.

So I posted it back yesterday, at a cost to me of $15.85 in postage. Having used PayPal, I should be able to reclaim that. I’ve done it once before and it was OK.

_________________

My phone call this morning was from a friend in the USA (Denver, Colorado), a former Northam High School and Hut Lad, still in touch after 55 years! He’s retired, of course, and he said the temp at 5.40pm his end was 52degF but clear, with a cold wind bringing it down to 19 degF wind chill factor. Ugh! He’s off on a cruise from Dubai, through the Med to Italy this month, to beat the cold. As well, he’s thinking of moving back to Australia to beat The Trump. He loathes the guy, just as we do.

My friend’s 27yo son works for Amazon in a suburb of Seattle. He works a 12 hour shift each day, 6am to 6pm, four days a week, and as he’s filling boxes, walks tens of miles each day. That’s a 48 hour week as routine! There are no penalty rates, it’s a flat hourly rate, and if things get busy such as Xmas, he can be required to work five days. No unions are allowed.

But he’s making around $100,000 a year for those 48 hr weeks, with three day weekends, and being allocated Amazon shares (“stock”), currently worth around $90 each. He’s a lower level manager, and has the prospect of rising to a $200,000 salary.  Hmmm.

________________

Phew, my mind is fuzzy. I think it’s the sleep. I’ll go back now for an hour and hope it helps.