Sanur dawn.  (C) PJ Croft 2016

Aaah, back at the nooooooood  resort, and what a pleasure it is. Cool pools, nice people, lush gardens, coconut palms, butterflies, dragonflies. They remembered us from August when we were here last, which is nice, but I suppose my odd bod is pretty memorable!

There are a few more guests this time, and we have the middle room of the upper group of three. We have an American guy from New Jersey via Bogor where he teaches English, and the other guy seems to be an Aussie but we haven’t met yet. Only one other woman here, and we’ve said good morning but that’s all. V has gone snorkelling off the beach with the US guy. I’ve just been for a swim in this upper, semi-private pool, and I’m sitting here starkers drying off slowly, no towel, no nothing. Aaaah.

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The US guy is only 27 but has a degree in English Literature and an advanced certificate in English teaching from Cambridge University. Impressive. He says he’s the only “white” face for miles around in Bogor, Java, and feels as if everyone is staring at him. He’s just not used to it yet, I think. It’s a very Muslim area, of course. Bali is so much more tolerant and cosmopolitan. With so many tourists, English is widely spoken and is taught to children at school from the beginning.

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Unfortunately V was forced to evade a truck the other day and damaged the left rear tyre. We took it to a repair place (bengkel) on the way here and he tried to plug the hole, but it was too big. The tyre is a write off, I’m afraid, but the car’s insurance covers anything that happens, seemingly, so it should be covered.*

In the process at the bengkel, at first he was going to fit a tube and did all the preparation, using a pneumatic press to push the tyre off the rim. But we decided to stop there until we sort the insurance out, so I paid him for his work. Can you believe, Rp20,000?  That’s A$2! I gave him another Rp5,000 and I wish I’d given more now. They are so friendly and nice.

But it means we’re driving without a spare tyre at the moment. Uh uh.

*Update:  insurance won’t pay, unfortunately, but the cost of a new tyre was A$40, I think. Pretty good.

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The car is a Daihatsu Ayla, a very small four door with a liftback, big enough for the two of us but too small for four, which we’ll be from Saturday. V is renting this one from a friend, but we’re going to exchange it for another Daihatsu, a Xenia, a much bigger people mover. Still small enough to be manouverable, but big enough for four. Hope it’s an automatic.

This bigger car has become available because it belongs to a guy who has lost his job, and the rent from this vehicle will give him at least some income for him, his wife and two small children. No dole here.

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Slept like a log the last few nights, thank goodness. My insomnia is improved here, but I still need the mild sedative otherwise it takes an hour or more to get to sleep. I suppose I’ll develop a tolerance for these tablets, but I need them. I stay asleep, that’s the point. Phenergan 10mg, available without prescription, an anti-histamine, but listed as a sedative on the box.

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I have a massage booked at 2pm (it’s 1pm as I write) and I’m a bit nervous. I hope it’s not the same guy who “did me” last visit. Hoooboy, he was brutal. I was yelling with the pain. I asked him to tone it down but he seemed deaf, or he was taking delight in torturing this strange body. He’s built like a weight lifter and can climb a coconut palm with bare hands and feet, and bring down coconuts.

Update: I had the massage yesterday and although it was a different guy, younger, and he asked at the beginning, “Strong, medium or smooth” and I chose smooth, he was still determined to make every stroke count. I was yelling with pain a fair bit. Incredibly strong thumbs. I kept asking him to tone it down and it worked for a minute or so, but it was soon back to full strength.

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V loves the milk and the soft flesh of young coconut, kelapa muda. I’m not so keen. I prefer the hard flesh of older nuts, the type we buy at home, all brown and hairy, that you crack with a hammer.

I have a possible UTI, (yooow when I pee), and sirsac fruit is recommended. We bought some yesterday and I had one this morning. Quite nice. I like it.

Rambutan fruit ripening. In the background the guys are sawing the base off the new wardrobe so as to fit it through the doors of the house.

Sawing the base off the wardrobe. Luckily Superman was there to help.

Taking a break. They are always ready for a photo.

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It’s been a beautiful cloudless blue-sky morning, the first I’ve had since I’ve been here, but the sky is getting dark with rain clouds from the south over the mountains. Let’s hope it rains; I love tropical rain, warm, wet and cooling.

There was a beautiful soft sea breeze off the ocean as we ate breakfast, lulled by the soothing sounds of the angle grinder from the property next door. And the chain saw. Wonderful.

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Wednesday morning: it’s been raining overnight and is beautifully cool and damp now. The bloody angle grinder! It never seems to stop.

Do I need a raincoat or umbrella? I do not. I’m naked. Getting wet is half the fun.

Golden fisherman, Kuta     (C) PJ Croft 2016

Aaah, Christmas Day in Bali. Happy Christmas everyone.

The past few days are blurring into each other. This is the most international Xmas I have ever spent. As I wrote this on Xmas Eve, I was listening to two Russian women friends of V’s in the kitchen. V is Austrian, so speaks Viennese dialect, and of course English is the common language in this country of Bahasa (formal) Indonesian with the Balinese dialect. I’m so fortunate that English is so widely spoken. I’ve spent an hour or so at other friends’ place with a different German friend where the husband is German. I was hearing a three sided German conversation, but I was able to follow the threads. I don’t mind that. Much of the talk was about how cheap it is to live in Bali, especially when you’re on a pension.

The night before, Friday evening, we were at a Balinese woman’s place who is the widow of a German, and one of the Russians was there, with other Bali friends dropping by. Wow, it was a whirlwind of switching languages. It was great.

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Another thing about the Christmas/New Year period here is fireworks. Any excuse for a rocket or two! BANG! zing, fizz! in groups of a dozen or so. You can’t always see the display, but you can hear it.

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It’s a beautiful cool morning at 9am, hardly any wind, the pool looking very inviting. Breakfast is fresh papaya (labelled as from Thailand, huh?) with pieces of fresh coconut flesh, not as tasty as I’d prefer. Then sourdough toast and cheese. The papaya keeps me reg-oo-lar.

V’s gone off for a special massage she’s been told about, with a friend. Too expensive for me. The pool is my massage.

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Yesterday I got to see Yupi, the Great Dane which belongs to the owners of this house. She’s very friendly, with beautiful grey and brown toning shading to black. But she has to stay with the other dogs as we’re off on the road again tomorrow.

(C) PJ Croft 2016

Ooops, sorry for the break. No problems, just being kept busy. Stayed seven nights at the Sun Hotel in Legian, a hotel with two wings, one each side of the long pool. A bit too much noise from the splashing, balls being bounced and yelling kids, but OK. Also a lot of noise from the two-piece band in the restaurant, but they stopped at 10.30pm so it was OK. The staff were very good, very friendly and attentive. I give the hotel 5/10 for a small room, smaller bathroom, noise and poor check-in when I arrived, but at A$43 per night, I won’t push it.

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I can’t remember if I mentioned it, but I did find insulin in Legian, at Kimia Farma. They seem to be the source for anything complicated in Bali. I had to wait 15 mins while they got it in, but no problems, it’s the same Lantus I use. The only problem was the cost – for five pens, A$125. Ouch. That’ll teach me.

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I also nearly forgot to mention, I’ve had an email from one of the staff at the Director of Security Services of Transperth, in response to my letter of complaint about a parking fine at Butler train station.

I’d said I tried to pay but the machine gave a silly indication, the fine was excessive at $50 for a $2 missed fee, and I’m a Seniors Card holder and pensioner. And I’d paid the fine anyway. I asked for the fine to be waived and my money refunded.

The reply was in bureaucratese and there was no apology, but they’ve done as I asked and refunded my money. It cost me a $1 stamp, but it worked. Bagus.

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My friend has had a big lot of furniture custom made and we went to inspect it at north Sanur. Crumbs, the price for what she got is a bargain. It’s locally made and has a few defects, but it’s all solid teak.

It had to be trucked up over the mountain to Lovina on Wednesday morning and was supposed to arrive at midday. But at 07.50am we were woken when my friend got a phone call: the trucks are outside the gates! They were worried about rain so had set off early. Gee, they must have left Sanur at 3am, two small trucks and six guys. (Pics coming.) It meant a mad scramble to clear rooms and make space for the new bed, wardrobes, tables, chairs and so on. It’s all in now and looks great, although smelling of new varnish.

It was somewhat funny, though: the main wardrobe was too big to fit through the villa doors. It had to be upended and a layer of legs sawn off the base. Likewise, the four-poster bed was too high and we had to ask for 15cm to be sawn off the turned legs. It looks great now, though. Unless I told you, you wouldn’t know.

Unfortunately I’ve got a fairly bad cold and I spend half the night coughing, so I’m temporarily in another bedroom. My suggestion. Getting better.

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My friend uses a laptop bag and had a padlock on the main zip closure, but she couldn’t find the key! It’s still missing, despite being at home and upending her voluminous shoulder bag.

So this morning she asked me to do the trick you see on YouTube of using a Biro to break through the zip. I’ve never done this before, but after about five seconds of probing, POP! and I was through. It was just so simple and easy. So, never think that your bag is secure if it has a zip. It ain’t.

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We just ate the lovely cooked food delivered daily by a local kitchen/restaurant. It comes in a three level stainless steel steamer vessel and is unbelievably cheap – a  week’s worth of lunches for about ten dollars. Enough for two. Wish I had that at home. It’s good food value too – lots of veges and fibre.

I think I might start using the Lite’n’Easy food delivery service when I get home. It’s been reviewed by CHOICE and seems recommended. Start and stop any time, no contract. I shall report.

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Clouds are building over the mountains out the window and it’s getting darker at 3pm. There should be rain. There’s a small stream constantly rushing just over the wall of the villa, producing a soothing sound. Cows are mooing, dogs are barking, pigs are rooting and there’s a blessed absence of traffic noise. Wunderbar!

Ah, the rain has just started, heavy drenching rain. The pool is almost full to the rim.

I’m back on the Island of the Gods, for my 5th trip this year and my 14th since 1980.

The shops and taxi driver are saying, “It’s so quiet. There are no tourists.” Where is everyone? My taxi driver had been at the airport since 7am and my hire at 12.30pm was his first of the day. I bought some DVDs just now and the poor woman said I was her first customer all day. She remarked on how boring it is to sit there with no customers. I feel sorry for them. It’s good for me, of course, not crowded, shops wanting to do any bargaining to get a sale.

So what’s wrong? Is it fear of terr–ism? Bermbs? I feel safe enough, as long as I avoid the flashy nightclubs, but I wouldn’t go there anyway. Assuming they’d let this portly, balding, 70 yo gentleman in. 😉

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I flew Garuda and the spacing between seats is much nicer than Air Asia Cattle Class. I can easily get the tray table down, no trouble. A full breakfast is served, with wine if wanted. I wanted. Full movie entertainment in the seat screen. A 30kg luggage allowance (I used it all). Lots to like.

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The movie I watched was marvellous! It was called Genius, the story of a book editor called Max Perkins at a Baltimore publisher in 1929 and on. He edited Thomas Wolfe, as the subject of the movie, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Ernest Hemingway even made a scene.

The star was Colin Firth, and what a great actor he is. Wolfe was played by Jude Law, and Fitzgerald was played by our Perth hometown boy, Guy Pearce. Wolfe’s wife lover was Nicole Kidman, in another great performance. All in all, it was a good Aussie showing.

I highly recommend this movie. Firth plays an understated role and (almost) never removes his hat, even at the dinner table at home.

I’m confused though: is this the Thomas Wolfe who wrote The Bonfire of the Vanities? I thought that was set in the 1960s and 70s, whereas this Wolfe died in 1950 aged 31. I must look it up.

PS: I looked it up. There’s also a living author called Tom Wolfe, born 1931. He wrote The Right Stuff, about US test pilots who become astronauts.

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And here was another of my amazing coincidences. At the airport I was talking about the author Ken Follett with my friend Geoff, who drove me out there. I recommended he reads The Pillars of the Earth by that author, which I found to be a great story.

One of the characters in that book is a woman named Alene, and she shines as being very intelligent and resourceful, becoming a leader of that medieval community called Kingsbridge, which happens to be the name of a street where I live, Kingsbridge Boulevard, Butler. But that’s not the coincidence.

Here’s the amazing coincidence: who is Thomas Wolfe’s wife in this movie, Genius? Her name is Aline, played by Nicole Kidman.

Dang blast it, Alene and Aline, just a few hours apart! It’s a cosmic force, I tell you.

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Denpasar airport Customs were much more interested in me than usual. I had nothing to declare, but I had a suitcase, a big cardboard box weighing 7.5kg, my CPAP, all bubble wrapped as checked baggage, my camera bag, my insulin bag and my duty free bag, quite a load.

They pulled me aside after I’d gone through the Nothing to Declare line, and asked about each item. I had to open the insulin cold bag, my camera bag, and they asked about the CPAP, what it was. Then they pulled my suitcase off and X-rayed it again. They didn’t ask me to open it, which I would have happily done. The one thing they didn’t ask about was the big box, and that one I was a little nervous about because it had some food things in it, Xmas pudding, biscuits etc. But they seemed oblivious to it. Lucky, because opening it would have been a major hassle, being all taped up and tied with twine.

So it was all for nothing. I don’t know why they chose me today.

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My cosmic good luck has let me down. I unpacked this afternoon and went to get another insulin cartridge out of the box in the fridge. I brought four boxes, each with five cartridges, enough for four weeks.

But the top box was empty! It was still taped to the other three, but contained no cartridges. Fool!

It means I’ll have to ration my supply, and I’ll look to see if I can buy insulin here. The big pharmacies (Apoteks) are big on diabetes supplies these days, so it’s quite possible I’ll be able to get it.

But here’s another blow: I just went to take my evening tablets and found that I’ve left this morning’s Webster pack (a week’s worth of tablets) on the bathroom counter at home. I’ve only brought three of the four I prepared.

I’ve got spare tablets, and I think it’ll be enough to make this pack up again, but I might have to ration things. I’ll sleep on it – too tired to think about it now. G’night.

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That’s if I can sleep with the noise of the live band playing in the restaurant one floor below. Grrrr. And the light on the balcony that can’t be switched off, it’s on a timer and goes off at midnight. Double grrrrr!. Luckily there are full curtains to black it out.

But when I arrived at 1pm this afternoon, tired from lack of sleep, I had to stand at the entrance for 10 minutes trying to attract the attention of the reception people to bring my things in off the forecourt. I was getting annoyed. I asked them to bring the trolley, but to no avail.

Then they told me check-in time is 2pm and the room was still being cleaned. Please wait, they’ll be as quick as possible. But they weren’t. I had to wait in the foyer until 2pm before they took me to the room! I was tired and falling asleep! I’m not happy about this because I told them at booking more than a month ago that I’d be arriving at 1pm. Anyway, if things are so quiet, is this the only room? Couldn’t they have given me a vacant room? I think a written complaint might be needed. Very poor check-in, pokey bathroom, light on the balcony that can’t be switched off, excessive noise from the restaurant. What next?

It seems Apple is developing an electric car. Oh goody. If it’s anything like their computers, this may be the product description:

Apple’s new electric car will be out soon, but will have only one door. The batteries will last about two years and will not be replaceable, you’ll have to buy a new car. The in-dash display will only have one button and will be operated by hand gestures. There will only be one pedal, and forward or reverse speed will be set by two finger gestures. The car’s brain will talk to you periodically, at any time, so you’d better be listening.

The car’s O/S will automatically update itself, possibly while you’re driving. It will be offered at first with four wheels, but they plan to reduce the number of wheels in future models. Steering wheel is an extra cost option, as are lights, seats, engine, windscreen and brakes. Any service not conducted by an Apple registered mechanic will render the car permanently inoperable. No service will be available after the life of the vehicle. The service life is at our discretion. No communication will be entered into. You will enjoy your car. You will.

PS: it will be called the Jonathan and will come in only one colour, brushed aluminium.

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I watched a TV program over the last two nights, called The Impossible, on SBS. It runs two hours. The title doesn’t tell you much, but it’s a telemovie about a family caught at a resort at Kao Lak in Thailand when the earthquake and tidal wave occurred on Boxing Day in 2004.

What a movie! It was brilliant. It’s a Spanish/French cooperation, but starring Naomi Watts and Ewan MacGregor, in English.

What I can’t understand is how they did the effects. The shots of the tidal wave crashing over the resort and the devastation over a wide area are totally realistic, and totally matched to the look of the film. I mean, it definitely does not look like 2004 vision cut into this modern production, yet the effects look incredibly real. How did they do it?

If it’s computer generated, then it’s the best CGI I’ve ever seen. The camera widens out to show areas of many square kilometres of devastation, and the wave demolishing the beachfront hotel looked totally massive.

PS: one of my readers has very kindly pointed to a Wikipedia article on how this movie was made. It is done with models and computer effects. Of course, it must have been, but what a great job. It fooled me.

When they do the close ups of the people being swept underwater and tumbled, you find yourself holding your breath. Then after the wave recedes and they’re trudging through mud and broken trees, it’s real mud and real trees, over wide areas in shot. How did they do it?

The performances are understated and superb. I found myself gripping the seat cushions, it was so realistic. Naomi collects some severe wounds and they look very gory. At one stage in the hospital she opens her eyes and they’re convincingly bloodshot. The acting of the four young boys is fantastic. The eldest son looks really frightened.

I’ve edited out the commercials and I’ll save this for another viewing, it’s so good.

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I’m about to write a letter to the Director, Security Services, Public Transport Authority after I got a parking ticket last Friday.

I’m going to say, “Unfair! A $50 fine when my Seniors Card tap-and-go didn’t work and the usual parking fee is $2 is excessive!”

I parked at Butler train station and tapped my pre-paid card on the parking “robot”. The first attempt produced a string of beeps and an error message on the LCD. I tried a second time and there were three beeps, the LCD message went blank and that was it. I thought I’d done the deal.

So to find a $50 fine when I got back is too much. First, if their machine produces errors, that’s not my fault. I thought I’d logged on. Anyway, as a Senior, my parking is free!  Second, why would I try to avoid paying such a small amount. It was plainly a mistake or error. They should be able to examine their electronic log to see that I did use my card.

So $50! It’s cruel. It’s unnecessary. This is a remote parking area, and it’s never 100% full. To pay the wages of a parking inspector to raise these fines is over the top.

Wish me luck.

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I’ve been attracting a few followers to this blog in the past few months and I thank you very much. But some of them, when I click on About, take me to an advertising login screen for some kind of web service. Sorry, but no thanks. If you show me who you are, instead of just showing some business name, I’ll welcome you, but otherwise, no.

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Off to that island paradise again next week, the fifth trip this year. It makes a big difference to have someone there to greet me and I’m looking forward to a Xmas and New Year’s Eve with my partner. It’s been a long time coming!

Another of my amazing coincidences. I was browsing in a shop yesterday (JB HiFi) and picked up a novelty greeting card that showed a picture of an old calculator with the number 5318008 on the display. Upside down. So it reads BOOBIES, as above. Ha ha.

OK. Then on an episode of The Big Bang last night, Sheldon asks what’s the best number. Howard immediately says, you guessed it, five million, three hundred and eighteen thousand and eight, 5318008. Bazinga! Twice in the same day!

Sheldon’s best number? 73, which is 1001001 in binary, which is palindromic. 73 is also a prime, and the mirror of 21, which is 7×3. Huh huh. Exciting, eh?

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Another: My mobile just rang but I missed the call. I phoned the number back and asked who it was. Graham. Graham who? It turned out to be a guy called Graham Baptie, who I got to know at my old house at Trigg in the 2000s. He used to have a beautiful Retriever called Hugo, who he was devoted to, and Hugo and Minnie used to get along well.

Graham Baptie and his lovely Retriever Hugo.

Graham looks a bit tough but once I got to know him through walking our dogs on the ovals, I realised he was a good guy. For a while I wondered about his ethnicity, but he’s Scottish, just one of these guys who has found life a bit hard. He’s skinny and lean, because he walks everywhere. He’d think nothing of walking 10km. He used to do small jobs for me and I’d look after Hugo any chance I got. Which was not many times, because they were inseparable. But I’m afraid Graham said Hugo died a year ago, in the same way Minnie did, his back legs gave way and he couldn’t get up any more. Graham had to get the vet to put him to sleep and he’s still very sad about it.

So how about that? An accidentally dialled number, and we talked for nearly ten minutes.

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The “Reset” title refers to me having to suddenly reset my plans for the next few months.

As I’ve said, I’ve had the dreaded band removed ten days ago, and I thought it was prior to having the gastric sleeve operation. I had the followup appointment with Gastroboy, the surgeon today, and I was all fired up, despite being quite fearful, to set a date for the big Op.

But no, now he’s counselling me against it. He says at my age, with my coronary condition (lotsa stents) and with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL), the risks are a bit high. Mainly the risk of leakage of the seal, which would be dangerous and quite hard to fix, given my age. Much easier for a younger person.

Well, that’s produced quite a mix of feelings: relief, obviously, because I was quite scared of such a major operation; but disappointment, because I was looking forward to getting back to a normal size; frustration, because now I won’t have the diabetes fix and I won’t know what’s causing my tiredness, the diabetes or the CLL; some elation, because now I can plan for the next six months with some certainty; but frustration, again, because I’d like to do some long distance travelling and I’d hoped to be smaller and lighter and more easily able to fit an aircraft seat.

This changes everything. It will take me some days to adjust. One thing I’m noticing in the past few months is that I’m slowly getting my blood sugar under better and better control, which is very noticeable in the absence of ulcers and skin breaks on my legs. There’s quite a direct correlation there – blood sugars above, say 12, and dry, scaly skin that breaks easily. Below, as it is now, and almost no trouble. My average b/s levels are now down around 8.5, compared to 11 a year ago. Brilliant.

I suppose if I made a really serious effort at weight control using the Very Low Calorie Diet approach, coupled with my much reduced appetite for alcohol these days, followed by the Lite’n’Easy delivered meals (well reviewed by CHOICE), I might be able to fit those ‘plane seats again without resorting to dangerous surgery.

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Another awful night of insomnia last night and despite a couple of hours when I got home from the city, I still feel weary. I felt as if I was drunk today, swaying with fatigue. This is bad.

New Vangelis CD – see below.

Goodness gwacious, I think I’ve finished. Finished scanning CDs, that is. I can’t find any that I haven’t scanned. I feel withdrawal symptoms. I’ve become addicted.

It’s a great feeling of achievement. Silly, I know, but I’ve created a massive archive of around 900 high quality music files that I can take with me anywhere, unlike the discs themselves which, although portable in theory, really weren’t. Now I can take a couple of USB thumb drives and pick any CD at any time, anywhere, in the car, on a plane, in bed.

Have a look (Music CDs means non-classical):

and so on, another five pages of these. And then the classical ones:

Again, another five pages. This is fantastic, because for once I can see at a glance what I’ve got and select it instantly. The next step is to connect a USB drive to my TV (so I can see the folders and labels) and play it through my hi-fi system. I can have more than one copy, of course, so I can have one in the car, too. Good stuff.

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I wish I could listen again to ABC radio from yesterday afternoon (Tues 29th) where a journalist, Brett Christian, mentioned a talk he’d heard from Dr Brendon Nelson about this post-Trump election period. (That’s a long, contorted sentence, sorry.)

Dr Nelson is a medical doctor, former MP and leader of the Liberal Party, former ambassador to the European Union and a few other high level posts. He was talking about what’s likely to happen under President Trump, and as Brett Christian put it, there was a gasp from his audience at the predictions he made. They were dark.

Dr Nelson says we should realise that, along with Brexit Britain, where the ultra right-wingers are gaining power, and the huge right wing anti-immigrant movement in Europe, the move by Hungary and Poland back to hard right politics, and many other bad signs (which I will list), we are in a new geo-political era of change such as we haven’t seen since the end of the 19th century. And it’s not a good era. He sees very dark times ahead, and so do I. If Marine Le Pen should become president of France, that would square the circle. Strangely, Germany seems to be the one remaining bastion of fair minded policies. How ironic.

The Guardian published a piece by Oxford academic George Monbiot called The 13 Impossible Crises That Mankind Now Faces. Yes, it’s an apocalyptic title, but I think it’s appropriate. Here’s his list:

1. Donald Trump: The next occupant of the White House will be a man who appears to possess no capacity for restraint, balance or empathy, but a bottomless capacity for revenge and vindictiveness. He has been granted a clean sweep of power,
2. His National Security Adviser: His national security adviser, Michael T Flynn, is a dangerous extremist.
3. The Rest Of His Team: … partly composed of professional lobbyists hired by fossil fuel, tobacco, chemical and finance companies and assorted billionaires. Their primary political effort is to avoid regulation and taxation.
4. The Transatlantic Backdrop: … Britain’s attempts to disentangle itself from the European Union are confronted with a level of complexity that may be insuperable.
5. Eurozone Risks: The Italian banking crisis looks big.  [A report today says that the economist who predicted the 2008 crisis in 2005 now says that the risks for a new crisis are higher than they were then. One mistake and the world crashes again. Add in the Italian banking crisis and it’s midnight.]
6. The Global Risks: … If such a thing were to occur, governments would not be able to mount a rescue plan of the kind they used in 2007-8. The coffers are empty.
7. Job Eating Automation: Automation will destroy jobs on an unprecedented scale, and because the penetration of information technology into every part of the economy is not a passing phase but an escalating trend, it is hard to see how this employment will be replaced.
8. If Marine Le Pen wins: [Coupled with several potential Eastern European crises] it could catalyse a chain reaction. I believe that when this begins, it will happen with a speed that will take almost everyone by surprise. From one month to the next, the EU could cease to exist.
9. The UN Security Council Would Become: Trump [hard right]; Putin [Communist dictator]; Xi Jin Ping [Communist dictator]; Theresa May [hard right]; Marine Le Pen [hard right].  Are we scared yet?
10. The Paris Climate Agreement Abrogated: Targets were set but even if these programmes are fully implemented (they won’t be), they set us on a climate-change trajectory way beyond that envisaged by the agreement.
11. Migration: One of the many impacts of climate breakdown … will be the mass movement of people, to an extent that dwarfs current migration. The humanitarian, political and military implications are off the scale.
12. We Have Just 60 Harvests Left: According to the UN food and agriculture organisation, at current rates of soil loss we have 60 years of harvests left.
13. An Accelerating Extinction Crisis: Species are going extinct at a scale never before seen except at times of previous mass extinctions caused by asteroid impacts.

This is George Monbiot’s list, with my edits and one or two notations. A couple of the later ones seem Malthusian to me; we’ve heard these predictions before and they have not come true.

I would add some that Mr Monbiot hasn’t included:

1. No less than David Attenborough is now warning that the world will be transformed in coming years if climate change is not just stopped but reversed. This is very, very unlikely, so strap yourself in.
2. The Middle East is a gunpowder magazine waiting for a spark. The Economist today points out that although the Arab world contains only 5% of the world’s population, it accounts for 45% of the world’s terrorism, 68% of its battle related deaths, 47% of its internally displaced populations and 58% of the world’s refugees.
   I predict large scale war once Trump takes power. Putin will goad him and he will not be able to resist or outwit. He is a complete novice and a fool. There will be large scale conflict, leading to war.
3. Climate related large scale events will get much worse. In this country, heat waves and bushfires will get much worse, with floods on the east coast and more intense cyclones on both sides.
   In other countries, especially around the Pacific Rim, earthquakes will increase in scale and frequency due to the reduced mass of polar ice causing the Earth’s crust to lift and change.
4. Melting of ice caps, especially on the North Pole and Greenland, is happening much faster than even the worst case predictions. This means sea level rise that will make Elisabeth Quay into Perth’s Underwater World. The Perth Underground Railway will become a Sea World viewing tube. Recommendation: buy high ground.
5. PS! I forgot to add: Antibiotic resistance and the danger of pandemics. The warnings are growing louder and more urgent. A new strain of bird flu (H5 virus) has been discovered in the north of China this week and mass poultry killings are underway to try to stop it.

That will do for now. I don’t want to alarm you, heh heh. I’ve become very pessimistic and I’m more frightened now than I was during the Cold War in the 1960s and 70s. I feel very sorry for young people. They’ve been handed a basket of burning coals.

One lesson for me is – don’t bother planning for the future.

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Therefore I lashed out today – I bought a full priced CD, which was in fact $19.99. It’s a new Vangelis called Rosetta. I didn’t know he was still recording. It’s dated 2016 and refers to the European Rosetta mission to the comet. Haven’t listened to it yet. Too busy listening to the latest doom and gloom on the radio. 🙂

Home again, after two days and nights in the hospital. The accursed gastric band is gone. It was supposed to be a one night stay, but I developed a bit of a temperature and my blood sugar was dropping too low. I was happy to stay – the food was better than I get at home!

Considering they put me on a continuous I/V drip of dextrose and insulin, no wonder my b/s went low. One reading was 3.9 (normal range for a non-diabetic is 4-6). That’s the lowest reading I’ve ever had in 22 years. No hypo symptoms, though, strangely. Why they had to do that, rather than just letting me use my insulin pen is a mystery. One of the nurses commented that maybe they shouldn’t have done it. Yeah.

So the dreaded band is out. Seven years, $3,000 wasted. If I’d been more dedicated and learnt how to use it, I might have succeeded but 18 months of regurgitation and oesophageal reflux and burning was too much to take. It’s been loosened off for the past four years.

I asked for the band to be returned to me as I want to see it and show it around (people always ask questions about it) but they wouldn’t give it to me. “Against hospital policy. It’s not sterile.” But I own it. I paid $3,000 for it. No luck, they wouldn’t give it to me. Duh.

I wasn’t even conscious of it for the past few years, but the port in the centre of my stomach (like a big plastic button under the skin) was getting painful. It was right at table edge height, so I’m very glad that’s gone.

It was keyhole surgery, of course, so I’ve got four plastic sealing bandages over the cuts. These dissolve off in a few days.

This was preparatory to having the gastric sleeve operation, the Roux-en-Y procedure (viz. Wikipedia). To be honest, this terrifies me. But I can’t go on the way I am, morbidly obese, liable to die prematurely, diabetic, lacking energy and muscle strength, lacking testosterone, unable to wear nice clothes. I’m fed up with it.

It’s up to me to say the word for the next op, but I have to wait two months and I think I’ll wait until after my 70th birthday on 12 February. I’d like to give a small party and I’d like to eat and drink, however little, without worrying about an adverse event.

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One thing I found very noticeable at the hospital – it was hard to find an Aussie voice. They all seemed to be foreign nurses and doctors. My surgeon has a Hungarian accent, I think. The anaesthetist was Indian, and most of the theatre staff seemed the same. There was one Irish nurse (mmm, lovely) but a lot of Africans and Indians.

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The anaesthetic was awful. For a start, on the way to the theatre and in the ante room, I developed leg cramps in my left calf, mainly, but some in the right as well. I was sliding across onto the table but groaning and wailing with the pain at the same time. I asked the gas man if he had a muscle relaxant. He said yes, but that’s the last thing I remember.

But when I awoke back in the ward, I was scrunched up in the bed, legs pushed up against my stomach, head raised too high. I felt awful, sick, short of breath, imprisoned. I had to ask to sit on the edge of the bed and that helped, but it took half an hour, at least to feel normal again. Ugh. Not nice. I’ll have to question that for next time.

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So here I am writing this at 3.30am! I slept well in the hospital – no insomnia problems. Apart from being woken every hour of two for blood pressure and blood sugar readings. But I always dropped off again very easily. This insomnia at home must be psychological, then? I dunno.

I was dog tired when I got home today and figured I’d sleep well. But again, it eludes me. I tried from 10pm to midnight, listened to the radio news, then tried from midnight to 2am with no luck. Although, I must have dropped off because I was driving a beaut Mercedes CLK or CL down a sloping dirt road and young girls were chasing after me. So I was dreaming, so I must have been asleep, but it didn’t feel like it. So up for a bit of CD ripping (I’m addicted!) and I think it’s time for another go. Nighty night.

That psychopath Peter Dutton, our dishonourable minister for immigration, has excelled himself.

Today he’s said that he thinks Malcolm Fraser made an error by allowing immigrants from Lebanon to come here in the 1980s, as there is a high prevalence of Lebanese Muslims figuring in terrorist incidents in Australia.

This is the very definition of racism: the automatic ascribing of racial characteristics to every member of a population based on a fixed view of a few examples.

He has automatically classed all Lebanese as either terrorist sympathisers or potential terrorists based on his ideas of some Lebanese immigrants. This is outrageous. Obviously, I don’t know the exact figures for terrorism suspects, but the web tells me that there were around 70,000 Lebanese-born people here in 1996 and the population now, including Australian-born descendants, is around 250,000.

But get this: 55% of them are Christians!

There’s no doubt that Lebanese men figure disproportionately in crime statistics, but to ascribe lawlessness and terrorism to all Lebanese Australians based on the actions of a minority is pure racism.

If you check Wikipedia, there’s a long list of distinguished Australians in all walks of Australian life, including one of our finest writers, David Malouf; the CEO of Australia Post; the Governor of New South Wales and many others.

How about this, Minister: many examples of organised crime executions, violent events, standover crimes, extortion, drug importation and manufacture, kidnappings, blackmail, Mafia cells and so on are carried out by Italians. You only have to look at the names. Are you going to brand the entire Italian community as deplorables, Minister? Why not?

This man Dutton is a deplorable example himself, of a racist, cruel, simple minded bastard who deserves to be in some internment camp himself. It would be interesting to dig into his background.

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In a similar vein, the proprietor of Silicon Chip magazine, Australia’s only remaining electronics hobbyist magazine, writes an editorial every month. He’s well versed in electronics and electrical power, having been in the business since the 1960s.

But I emphasise business. He’s not actually qualified in electronics or electrical engineering. However, that doesn’t stop him from spouting forth, and he likes to point out all the flaws in renewable power technology, verging on outright climate change denial. He’s a supporter of Professor Ian Plimer of Adelaide University, who’s one of the very, very few scientists in Australia who argues against man made climate change.

In this month’s edition of Silicon Chip, the editor has let his prejudice run away with his pen. Editorialising on the storms in South Australia last month that caused a complete loss of power for some hours, he launches in a sneering sarcastic tone, saying it was caused by SA’s many wind power generators which, he says, on sensing strong, hurricane force winds, “feathered” their blades and shut themselves down, thus causing the loss of a large part of SA’s power supplies. In his view, the wind power generators were the cause of the power failures.

Unfortunately, the official report after the event quite categorically says that the wind generators shut down (disconnected themselves from the grid) as a result of a series of voltage and current surges caused mainly by the toppling of many of the high voltage line towers, as we all saw on the news. The wind farms didn’t cause the problems, the problems came from other causes. He was wrong, factually wrong.

If it wasn’t for the sneering tone of this guy’s editorial, I wouldn’t mention it, but he nailed his colours to the mast as a climate change sceptic extraordinaire.

I’ve emailed him calling his editorial a disgrace and saying I hold him in contempt. If he were just a man in the street, his views wouldn’t matter, but he’s in a position to influence uninformed minds. This can cause serious difficulties. It’s akin to the anti-vaccination movement: it doesn’t just affect the individual, it can affect an entire population, and the damage it causes is irreversible.

If my views on climate change prevail, it will cause the expenditure of large sums of money, but the effects, even if not fully successful, will have major benefits in cleaner air and new industries and employment opportunities. No harm will be done, indeed the results will be very beneficial.

But if the climate change denialists have their way and we don’t make the efforts, don’t spend the money, the damage will be catastrophic and irreversible. What will the denialists do? Apologise and try to fix it in 50 years’ time? Can’t be done.

Aaaah, summer. Jindalee Beach.  © PJ Croft 2016

It won’t be the deepest, but I’m having the first cut on Tuesday. Yes, I’m finally, after years of procrastination, booked in on Tuesday to have my gastric band removed. This is preparatory to having the gastric sleeve operation done next year.

I’ve decided I have to do it. I’m suffering more from the effects of diabetes and I hate this feeling of being so overweight, so it has to be done. I’m not happy about it, but if I can just focus my mind on being able to wear normal clothes, feel better looking, get the tray table down on planes, walk easily and enjoy feeling light on my feet again (I do remember it), I calm down.

I only need to be at the hospital at 10.30am this time, instead of the 7.00am last time, so I won’t need to book at the hotel next door. That was a debacle last time in 2014. I was warned of possible complications by the anaesthetist, had a bad night worrying about the whole thing and next morning at 7.00am, fronted at the desk and said “No thanks, changed my mind.” There were lots of reasons, and I was on my own then, so it all made sense. (I wish I hadn’t cancelled, in hindsight. I’ve wasted over two years. Should’ve gone ahead then.)

But now I have a new life, so I need to be healthier. The sleeve operation fixes diabetes, that’s its main claim, and that’s super important to me. Strangely, I’m having good success at keeping my blood sugars under control at the moment, but it’s not always that way. To be able to dispense with the needles and tablets will be fantastic.

More news as it happens. I have to wait two months after the band’s removed, to let the stomach resume its normal shape, so that puts the big cut into February sometime.

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Meanwhile, I head back to Bali in a few weeks’ time for Xmas and New Year. I’m being offered kangaroo in red wine for Xmas lunch in Bali, how about that? I didn’t know you could buy roo meat there. Please don’t ask me to bring some up, honey. 🙂

I’ll be on the north coast, in Lovina area. With a Great Dane for company, along with my Great Austrian.

There was an earthquake on the south coast of Bali last Thursday, she said, also felt in Lovina. I didn’t see any mention of it here.

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Aaaah, a good night’s sleep last night. I’ve been having so much insomnia that I’m nervous about going to bed now. It’s very boring lying there for hours, with eyes closed, trying all the tricks to fall asleep without success. I feel OK until about 5 or 6am, then the weariness closes in and I feel awful until I can go back to the bed after some food. Strangely, then I can fall asleep. Maybe if I ate some carbohydrate type food an hour or so before bed?

Coincidence. A fellow sufferer.

On Friday I had to go to the Mount Medical Centre for my appointment at 11.30am. I’d slept badly and felt woozy and wobbly when I finally got up. My b/s was 4.9 – that’s low for me. After breakfast I felt better (carbs) but didn’t have any time to go back to bed. Train into the city, and I would normally have walked from Elizabeth Quay to the Mount, but had to bus it. Got there feeling OK, if a bit thick headed.

Then after the appointment, I decided to walk back to the station as I need the exercise. Boy, that was hard going. Low energy, right hip hurting. But I got there.

While at the specialist’s office, I had to fill out the admission forms for the hospital. Blurry hell, six pages of questions and things to be filled in. Complete medical history. It took me more than 20 minutes. At the end I commented and said, “I’ve been a patient there before, they should have all this in their files.” The receptionist said, no, it has to be done for every admission. She had a patient who needed to go in every week for about 6 weeks, and he had to fill out the forms anew every time. It’s enough to make you sick.

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The ABC is running a repeat of The Politician’s Husband, a three episode political thriller they showed a few years ago. I’ve had a second chance to see the end credits.

See anything odd? I saw this first time around but didn’t grab it. Now I have. MMXXIII is not 2013, it’s 2023! Some script assistant at the production company has got this wrong. It’s on all three episodes and it was never corrected.

Maybe they should have called it The Time Traveller’s Wife. Oh, someone got there first, probably a time traveller.

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I succumbed. I finished scanning (ripping) all my CDs a few days ago, and said I wouldn’t go back and redo the early ones where I wasn’t using the dBpoweramp software. Therefore I didn’t get all the track names and the image of the CD cover.

Well, I couldn’t resist. I’m addicted to this ripping, so I’ve re-scanned two boxes of the six early ones so far. It’s not hard and is just a background task while I do more important things, like writing this. 🙂