A nuclear (atomic) bomb explosion in 1953, 1 millisecond after the detonation. Those fingers at the bottom are the support steel cables vapourising. Amazing.

Saw the doc this morning. The problem is the C6 vertebra in my neck, it’s not my shoulder. The pain in my shoulder and arm is just from the pinched nerve in my neck.

So, oxycontin for the moment, and a referral to the orthopedic surgeon I saw last year. Luckily I have the MRI he did at the time, so we can see what the problem is.

BUT — I phoned for an appointment – 11 June. A month to wait. They know I’m in severe pain but I just have to join the queue and wait. This is not satisfactory. The oxycontin is helping, but not enough. It’s still hurting and it makes me drowsy. I may have to ask for another specialist who can see me sooner. It’s wrong that the number of specialists is artificially limited by the medical mafia so that they all have long waiting lists.

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More on Maurice Newman’s crazy conspiracy ideas.

“Maurice Newman, writing in the Australian newspaper yesterday [Friday]maintains it’s all a United Nations conspiracy, a power grab of massive proportions.

” ‘This is not about facts or logic’, he wrote, ‘It’s about a new world order under the control of the UN.

” ‘It is opposed to capitalism and freedom and has made environmental catastrophism a household topic to achieve its objective.’ ”

“Newman claims that 95% of the climate models that we’re told prove the link between human emissions and global warming have been found to be in error.” In his article he targets Christiana Figuerres, executive secretary of the UN’s Framework on Climate Change.

“Newman says there is a real chance Figuerres and those share her centralised power ambitions will succeed.”

He raves on about Australia having to accept emissions targets that are futile and are job destroying, etc etc.

This is sheer lunacy. The warning signs told to us by reputable scientists are the result of decades of careful scientific research. They are peer reviewed, looking for errors and only published when found to be accurate and credible. The researchers are PhD level scientists with decades of learning and research experience behind them to back their papers up.

Newman has no scientific credentials at all. Yet he feels qualified to pronounce that 95% of the research predictions are wrong. How can he say this? Where’s his research? What are his credentials.

Yet he was appointed by our climate change denier PM to write a report on climate change for the government. Words nearly fail me. This is lunacy.

To cap it off, that fine, ultra right wing conservative Senator Cory Bernardi has written in Saturday’s Australian that Newman is right and should be applauded. This is the same guy who said homosexuality leads to bestiality.

How do these idiots get elected?

I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again. I believe the science about global climate change and the need to cut our CO2 emissions to zero if possible. To do so, we may have to spend a great deal of money.

If the climate change deniers like Newman and Abbott and Bernardi are right and global warming is not a problem, we will have spent a great deal of money but not for nothing. A huge amount of new technology will have been created (it’s happening right now) and many many jobs will have been created to build all the new equipment to generate zero emissions power. If I’m wrong, the money we spend will not be wasted, by any stretch. Australia is very good at producing high tech solutions and making clever stuff. Look at the Carnegie wave power generators at Cockburn Sound that I mentioned a few weeks ago as one example.

But if the climate change deniers like Newman and Abbott and Bernardi are wrong, and we stop development of clean power technology and rely on the old stuff like coal fired powered generation and oil and gas burning to pump out all those megatons of CO2, the dmage will be very obvious, but importantly, irreversible.

There will be no, “Oops, sorry, got it wrong, let’s fix it.” The damage will not be fixable. The earth’s temperature will continue to rise beyond 2degC and people will start dying, either from heat stress (it happens now) or flooding. Maybe not around Newman’s North Shore mansion or Abbott’s little places in Canberra and Kirribilli, orat Bernardi’s mansion in Perth. but in places like Bangladesh and the Philippines and Vanu Atu and Fiji which will be drowning under sea levels rises of 2m, 4m or more. People will die as a direct result of these idiots putting spurious obstacles in the way of decent people.

I despair, I really do. This will happen around 2040 onwards. I probably won’t be around to see it, but I’d like to take thsese guys by the neck and say, “Look! See what you’ve done? Now fix it.”

I’m going to start writing letters to Abbott and Bernardi – it’s all I can do. Apart from writing this stuff here, which no-one reads.

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Meanwhile, I’m going to continue to buy cameras. Why? Because I can, because I enjoy it, because the cameras being produced these days are just abso-bloody-lutely marvellous.

I bought another one last week:

Why? Big sensor (1 inch diagonal); beautiful Leica 25mm – 400mm zoom lens; shoots 20Mpixel images (my highest resolution so far of all my cameras); shoots video, not just Full HD video but 4K video.

It’s the perfect travel camera. Top quality images, far better than yer little point and shoot happy snapper toy cameras, and absolutely top quality video as well. No need to fiddle with anything, just press the red button.

The one on the left is the Sony RX10 and I’ve got that too, just like in this shot. Why both? Because I want both and I can, so there.

But with all the medical problems I’m having (neck nerve pinching, diabetes, leg ulceration, and more) I’m afraid travel is off the agenda at the moment. I was thinking of Bali at the end of this month, but it’s lucky I didn’t book as there’s no way I can travel at the moment.

Next purchase? A new 4K computer monitor by LG, so that I can look at and edit my 4K video in all its glory. I’ve shot a little bit so far and it sparkles.

Aaaaaarrrrrrgh! I’m in pain. Constant, unrelenting, groaning pain. My left shoulder and forearm. I think I’ve got a pinched nerve. For the past couple of years I’ve been getting brieft dislocations with sharp pain at times, and I have to flex my shoulder to make it go away.

But this time it came on and stayed on last Friday, ironically just after I’d been to the doctor for something else. The odd thing is, it’s not positional. I don’t have any restriction of movement and I can’t find any position that makes it stop or lessen.

I’m taking Tramadol and Panadol Osteo and it makes virtually no difference. Lying on the bed helps. I’ll have to ask for an urgent appointment tomorrow morning. X-rays, MRI? More medical stuff. It never seems to stop.

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The British election! What a terrible result. The Tories are repressive, regressive, hard right wingers who are making life harder for the poor and making it easy for the rich to get richer. Inequality is increasing dramatically in Britain. It looks to me as if Labour lost the election, the Tories didn’t win on merit. People felt Labour was no good, and I’d have to agree, going on what that idiot Miliband was saying and doing.

In my opinion, only civil unrest and violence will be the result. (As shown by the riots in London yesterday. I have to say I agree with the protesters.) There were three episodes on this subject on SBS in the past three weeks and I agree, the rich are not just getting richer, they are raking it in, at the expense of people like us. The top 1% of the population own 85% of the wealth! That’s obscene. This shift of wealth to the rich is of massive proportions, unprecedented in history. Something has to happen.

The really depressing thing is that fully one third of Britons didn’t bother to vote! Only 66.1% voted. That means that if the ones who didn’t vote had done, the result could have been quite different. It’s not a true reflection of the vote.

And first past the post – if there are five candidates in a seat and one gets 21% of the vote, even though 79% voted against him, he still wins the seat. How is that fair?

Britain is a stupid country.

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In the West Australian yesterday Michelle Grattan wrote that Tony “Climate Change is Crap” Abbott’s choice as head of the federal government’s Climate Change Commission, Maurice Newman, himself a virulent climate change denier, has accused the UN Commission on Climate Change of telling lies and trying to mount a world takeover!

Let me state that again:

• Our prime minister is a climate change denier
• He appoints a known climate change denier to head a government commission on climate change
• This guy brings out a report earlier this year heavily biased in favour of coal and against renewable energy industries
• This guy now accuses the UN of telling lies
• He believes the UN is out to take over the world in the guise of mandating CO2 reduction targets
• He says 95% of the scientific predictions are wrong, have been proven wrong.
• This guy Maurice Newman is a former head of the Business Council of Australia and is well known for his pro business views, anti green and anti labour.

Are we in the looney bin? Is black really white? Does the sun really rise in the west?

This guy has no scientific qualifications, yet he says 95% of the world’s scientific theories and predictions on climate change are wrong!

I despair. I hope you have a boat because Dr James Hansen, the highly respected NASA scientist, says that the 2 degree global temperature rise to be aimed fore at the Paris conference later this year is far too high and it should be no more than 1 degree rise. He also says we can expect sea level rise of between 4 and 7 metres by 2040. The melting of the polar ice caps is accelerating and unstoppable. When this guy speaks, he is to be believed – he’s done the research, he’s done the hard yards, he knows what he’s talking about.

That means the Swan river in Perth will be lapping up to St George’s terrace in about 30 years. The massive Elizabeth Quay development will be largely under water from the river.

We are being governed by idiots. Conservative government idiots, both in WA, in Canberra and in Britain. Unfortunately, people are going to die due to their idiocy.

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I continue work on Photo Books and I’m half way through a book of photos of — me! I’m a very good subject, I can tell you. I have many, many, many photos, each with a story. Very enjoyable. Pity no-one else will see it.

This morning I took advantage of another Photo Book offer of a 8.5″ x 11″ (portrait format) hardcover of 40 pages for $10. At that price, I bought four vouchers. Valid until 22 August. I’m not sure what I’ll fill them with at the moment, but I’ll fill ’em.

Mercedes CLK 2003 model, around $25,000 second hand. I’ve revised my ideas about what to choose, but I think I’ll wait until next year.

Sometimes I amaze myself. I mentioned in the last post that I reckoned the Navman Mivue GPS/Traffic camera device I bought seemed to be faulty – the camera wouldn’t work because it constantly told me the SD card wasn’t formatted. I tried different cards, inserting and reinserting, nothing helped. It didn’t seem to recognise that there was a card inserted.

So, yesterday I took it back to JB HiFi where I bought it and told them of my troubles. The guy looked at it and didn’t even know how to turn it on. I had to show him. Good start. But then he earned his wage by popping the microSD card out. But he popped the card out from the top edge of the unit! Holy smoke, I hadn’t noticed that there was a slot on the top edge as well as on the side where all the connections are. I’d been using the side slot, naturally, and because I’d seen that slot, I didn’t see any further. There’s no instruction book, just a Quick Start leaflet which doesn’t say much.

So, once he formatted the card in the top slot, while there was no card in the side slot, it all sprang to life. Damn. By amazing myself, I mean my stupidity sometimes. Yes folks, I can be dumb. I admit it. A man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest.

A few years ago I bought a $35 laser printer – yes, $35! A new toner cartridge was listed as $65, so I figured it was going to be a throwaway item, but I found a Hong Kong place that sells toner for it at $9 per cartridge so I ordered three. I figure I’ve got at least five years’ worth there. Good deal after all.

Anyway, when I got the printer home, it wouldn’t turn on. There’s a big button on the top with a LED so I figured that was the power button. No go. Nothing. I reseated and swapped the power cable, tried everything. No luck. No go.

So I took it back to Office Works. They took it out the back and came back with it and agreed with me, they would swap it for a new one. But then I noticed – the power switch on the left side!! Surely not? Did I just miss this power switch? I think I did. I was so embarrassed (privately) that I just shut up and took the replacement home and it all worked. But how come Office Works agreed that the original was faulty? Did they miss this switch as well? Were they just following “the customer is always right” rule? I’ll never know. Privately, my face was red. I just didn’t see that switch. Dumb bum.

As I said, it’s very economical to use this monochrome laser printer instead of using the super expensive Canon inkjet inks if I’m only printing text. The first toner cartridge lasted about 18 months and I’ve got a new Hong Kong one in and two spares, so there’s about 3x 18 = 54 months worth of life before I need another $9 cartridge. And it’s so quick. At $35 for a laser printer (!) it was a good buy. Fuji Xerox, by the way.

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I keep harping on the need for unions, but Four Corners on Monday night proved the case again – there are absolute bastard employers who will exploit workers if they can get away with it, and they do get away with it. The workers are HK or Taiwanese Chinese, many with little English, here on 417 visas, permitted to work but with no bargaining power and no knowledge of the rules. The labour hire firms are treating them as virtual slaves, because they can. Setting 18 – 22 hour work days, withholding wages, screwing these workers down with threats and intimidation. Who looks out for the workers unless it’s a union?

We’re always told that we don’t want unions getting between employees and the managers. Oh yeah? How many employees have the self confidence to stand up for their rights, or even know what their rights are? How many know how to negotiate?

There has to be a union to look after employees, bargaining and negotiating for them. I’ve never advocated compulsory union membership but unions have a very big place in workforces. Look at Japan, South Korea, Germany – they all have unions and they are the best places in the world to work and with the highest productivity. If unions are so bad, as Abetz and Abbott and Howard always say, then how come these countries do so well? Better management, that’s why. It’s not unions that hold this country back, it’s bloody atrocious managers. I speak from bitter experience.

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I continue to love If You Are The One on SBS, the Chinese dating show. There’s something about it that grips me. Gorgeous girls, for one thing.

But they are too picky! So many guys are totally rejected for no good reason. A lot of the guys look like really good guys, but the girls are much too ready to say, “Too skinny”, “too tall”, “too short”, “his clothes look funny”, “he’s going bald”, and silly things like that. Some of the girls are no great shakes either. Some of them are so aggressive and tough that I’d reject them too.

Unfortunately SBS plays the episodes totally out of order. One night they’ll play a very recent episode (as shown by the new looking girls and set changes), then the next they’ll show an episode at least two years old. very frustrating.

In the recent episodes, I want number 16. She’s very, very forthright and can be quite tough and cutting, but the sparkling intelligence just shines through. Yum. Beautiful smile. Gorgeous looking. But you’d need to be tough to handle her.

I was very surprised last night. There was a good looking guy, 27, with a PhD in physics, doing research on a particle accelerator. But he was a very pleasant guy, good looking, big smile, good sense of humour, but he was rejected completely. Were all the girls put off by worry that he was too brainy? Well, that can’t be, because one of the most attractive girls, whose caption shows her to be a restaurant manager, revealed that she has a degree in physics! My jaw dropped. She’s been on for weeks, but this was the first time she’d revealed how smart she is. But the guy wasn’t good enough for her, even so. There’s no understanding women.

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I put my faulty treadmill (that I was given, free, by a friend a few months ago) out on the verge late yesterday, hoping someone will take it away. I’ll check in a minute to see if it’s gone. UPDATE 0930: yes, it’s gone. Good. I should have put it out months ago.

I tried to fix it (it’s an electronic control unit fault) but I can’t. It uses a special large scale integrated circuit that you can only buy from the treadmill makers, not from an electronic parts place. My friend said he’d had it fixed once already at a cost of $215, and it went faulty again. Not worth fixing. Out, out, out.

I think I’ll have to buy a treadmill – either new or second hand. I really, really need to be using one. It’s easier than walking outside because you can watch TV or listen to music while you do it. That makes the time go fast.

That’ll mean I’ll need to clear the space that I placed the small tables for my model railway.

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That’s on hold. I’m too busy doing books. I’ve finished the Croft History volume 2 as I said, and I’m working now on a book of my photos of — Me! Tentative title – Bull’s I. I’m putting much more text in this one, explaining the circumstances of each photo, and background on the time and place. very enjoyable. I’ve done about eight pages out of 40 so far. I’ve got pre-paid vouchers with 40 pages allowed, but I suspect I might need to go above that 40.

Very enjoyable.

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I’m in pain. My left shoulder is hurting like hell, so badly that I’m groaning. It’s the C6 vertebra problem that I had in 2013. It had been fine for over 12 months but the pain is back, quite badly. Enough to be taking Tramadol and Panadol Osteo three times a day. Ther’s no fix for it except risky surgery, so I just have to wait it out. It will come good. It’s making it a bit hard to sleep, though, because I have to find a position in bed where it lessens the pain. That’s mostly lying on my back, which is not ideal.

Watch out, they’re out to capture you. Copyright © PJ Croft 2015

Caveat emptor – buyer beware. Yes folks, the robbers have been at it again. Constant vigilance, that’s what we have to practise.

First, after a good review in Silicon Chip magazine, I decided to buy a Navman Mivue Drive. It’s a combined GPS and recording camera to record your path in the car, in case of accidents or just traffic stupidities and near misses.

I checked the web, of course, and found JB HiFi had it in stock at Clarkson for $249. Shazzam, I went there to buy it. But when I got there, the box was labelled $299!. One price was shown on their web ad, but another $50 extra when you get there. Nice. So I Googled the unit in the shop and lo and behold, Dick Smith were listed as $199 ! Dick Smith are not known for their low prices, so I was pretty agitated about this. I asked the JB guy if they could match that price. “Only for shops where you can walk in and buy”, he said. But Dick Smith is just down the mall! Of course I can walk in. “Oh, yeah, let me check.” So he goes away and comes back a few minutes later and says, “OK, we can do that”, as if he’s doing me a big favour. I bought it at $199. But if I hadn’t checked, I would have paid $249, and the poor sods who don’t check pay $299! Bloody robbers

Sunday: holy crap, another faulty product! This is a camera device which records to a MicroSD card. But it won’t work. Every card I try says the same thing, “Card not formatted.” I format the card, it say Complete, but it still won’t record and gives the same error message. I’ve tried three different cards. It gives the same error even if there’s no card inserted. Huh. So now I have to go through this tedious process of reporting it and following instructions. I’m tired of these faulty goods!

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Then I made the mistake of doing some grocery shopping at Woolies. Yes, they got it wrong again. An item prominently shown on the shelf at $5 scanned at $6.49! Always check your bill and your wallet after going through Woolies! They’re out to get you too. I went to the counter and complained and had to wait about three minutes while the woman went to the back of the shop to check. She came back with the shelf label and said it was two days out of date and should have been removed. Yeah, right. But she refunded the entire $6.49 so for once I got the benefit of the scanning code. But Woolies are robbers too! Check your docket, or better still don’t go there. I estimate 9 times out of 10 I’m overcharged by them. It’s notorious, it’s atrocious.

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In the news today: A Darwin employer has been prosecuted and convicted and fined for employing a group of 457 visa holders as cheap labour. He worked them for 60 hours a week without penalties or overtime, withheld their passports, extorted $200 from them as a “fee” and so on. He continued to do this despite two warnings. So there’s the good employer for you, who always has his employees’ interests at heart. We don’t need unions, do we? Like hell. This story is repeated all over the country every week and every month.

Then another item: there are 55 millionaires in this country who paid no tax last year. Zero. There are 55,000 with taxable incomes over $1 million who paid minimal tax, lower than the bottom rate.

And there are 5.3 million taxpayers on incomes of less than $36,000 a year. That’s barely enough to live on for a family.

I know at least one tax avoider. He proudly told me he paid no tax in 2010. He puts it all through his family trust. Yes, it’s legal, but it’s fucking immoral! He’s a heavy user of schools, airports, roads, immigration services, air traffic control, weather services and Medicare. Where is your shame?!

Ah, another job ticked off the list. I finished volume 2 of my Croft History this afternoon and sent the order off for two copies.

By coincidence, an email arrived this afternoon offering vouchers for $26.95 each. I decided to order two and the cost reduced to $49.95 for the two. I only ordered two vouchers, but I think I’ll order up to 10 more as I suspect relatives will want copies.

Hmmmm, no, hang on, I’ve been there before, thinking people will think the way I do, only to be left holding the bag. I’ll just order two more. These offers come along fairly often.

Anyway, it’s a relief to have got it finished. I get a bit tense when there’s a deadline and things aren’t going well, but it was OK.

Next is volume 3, 1957 – 1964, covering Cunderdin, Werribee (Wundowie) and Beverley/Northam.

After that, I’m going to do a volume just on me! I’ve got more than 100 self images dating from birth right through childhood, teens, young adulthood right through to now. I’ve almost got an image for each year of my life. If I add an informative caption to each one with as much text as I can fit, it’ll give me hours of bedtime reading 😉

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My car is 14 years old now and although it still drives beautifully, I really do need to find a replacement. I’ve been giving it a lot of pleasurable thought.

In the last 20 years I had dogs and so I had to have a station wagon. There was no alternative. But now I can indulge myself and I want something a bit classy and luxe. I don’t have to consider dogs (sob!) or carrying long loads any more.

I’m looking for a high quality timeless styling coupe or convertible, and I think I might finally be able to afford a used Mercedes. I was thinking of the 500SL (still like it) but it has a lift-off hardtop which I think is too hard to handle. There’s no way you could decide to have the top down while you’re away from home! About $25K for a 1996/97 model.

So the next candidate is the SL350 or SL500:

Mercedes SL350. I’ve had this image for several years.

Ain’t that beautiful? By going up to ~$45K I could get one of these, a 2003-2005 model. It has a motorised metal folding roof. They were ~$210,000 plus when new. They’ve lost most of their value, so you can hope that they won’t fall much further, i.e. you could probably get much the same as you paid for it in 10 years’ time. Yeaaah.

I’ve been through all the alternatives but I want a car of restrained, tasteful styling that won’t date. Believe it or not, you can actually get a Porsche Boxster for the same money, but the list of potential serious engine faults is totally offputting. No thanks. Anyway, no hard top. Why do I want a hard top? Security, not only around here but in case I ever want to go travelling. I may actually buy one in the eastern states and drive it around over there before coming back.

Just pipe dreaming.

Yet another faulty product that’s going to cost me a packet to return it. See how there’s a gap between the lens flange and the camera body above? There shouldn’t be.

The gold coloured thing is an adapter to fit my Contax lenses onto an Olympus body. I bought two at about $200 each. They’re made in Hong Kong. They’ll fit on bodies without the overhanging “prism” housing, but they foul the prism housing on the E-M1.

So I emailed them on Monday evening and to their credit a guy called Alex replied next morning saying they’d tested and modified them to fit the E-M1. He can’t understand why mine won’t fit. Can I please return mine to him in Hong Kong.

Yeah, OK, but this is going to cost me another $50 shipping fee, or more, because these are metal and quite heavy.

This is just the latest in my line of faulty products that I have to pay to return. Not to mention the three coffee capsule machines that have failed within a few months of use. Bloody hell!

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So what do I think of the executions of the Bali pair?

First, they were going to bring heroin into Australia and they knew how risky it was, but they were greedy and didn’t care. Well, they got it badly wrong.

Second, Indonesia has the right to conduct its affairs as it wants to. If we don’t like it, don’t go there or protest from here if we wish.

Third, here’s where it gets grubby. The Australian Federal Police were told that the pair were going on this drug run by an Australian lawyer in Melbourne before they boarded the plane to go to Bali. But the AFP chose to let them go on the drug run. They also chose to let the Bali police arrest them instead of asking that they be allowed to board the plane back to Melbourne, knowing that they’d be subject to the death penalty in Indonesia. Pretty sick in my opinion. The AFP just says “no comment”.

Fourth, there are strong stories of corrupt judges in the trials process in the past 10 years they were in jail. What a surprise.

Fifth, what hypocrisy by Indonesia! They go to great lengths to protest and protect their own citizens when they are sentenced to death in places like Saudi Arabia, but resist calls for mercy in their own country. That’s impossible to understand.

So now, despite so many calls for mercy and despite knowing the damage it will cause to Indonesia, they’ve gone and killed these two guys. I’m very sorry for them and I think Indonesia looks very bad as a result. It’s been a messy, dirty business all round.

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Despite all that, I have a reason to go back to Bali near the end of May, so I’m planning a trip. It’s not the Balinese fault and punishing them by staying away would be utterly futile.

Hotel prices are a bargain compared to a few years ago – quite good hotels for $50 a night or less. I must have been crazy to stay at the Besakih Beach Resort last November at $110 a night. I didn’t do my research properly. I was suffering from a chest infection and the beginnings of a kidney stone at the time.

This time I’m going to fly Garuda. I’m tired of being cramped up in those tightly packed Air Asia seats. Garuda’s fare is $440 return for a full service flight on an A330 twin aisle with meal, movie and 30Kg of luggage in two checked bags included. No extra charges. When you consider Air Asia starts low but inevitably adds up to more than $200 one way, they’re no cheaper really.

I notice Air Asia have started an offer of 30% off from May to July. I wonder if they are anticipating fallout from the executions?

The one thing I regret is that I’ll be going in the dry season. I like the wet season! I love the thunderstorms and lightning and the cooler temps between November to March.

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I feel a bit happier today. I think it’s because I’m free of the worry of a big problem in my left foot.

I see a podiatrist regularly and he’s been talking about the possibility of Charcot foot. Yeah, I’d never heard of it either. It’s where the arch collapses and a bone starts rubbing through leading to possible ulceration on the sole of your foot. Hard to fix, apparently.

So he sent me off for X-rays last Friday and I had a thorough check at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital yesterday. Result – no sign of any Charcot problem. No problems at all, really, apart from a very low arch and odoema. So that was a relief. Better to be safe than sorry, and I feel quite relieved about it.

I do have a small bone spur on my right heel, though, but it’s not causing me any great problem. No worries.

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My first model train set. Me at Grandma’s house approx. 1952

Nearly finished volume 2 of the Croft history in WA. Has to be sent off by next Tuesday. But I’m having trouble getting back to it. I added material in the early pages after I’d filled about 30 pages, and the new material has thrown everything out of order. I’m having to rearrange all the photos, inserting temporary blank pages as place holders. I’m finding it hard to get motivated as a result. No worries, I’ll get there.

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Back in 2009, I think, I wrote about Blue Gen, a ceramic fuel cell powered from natural (town) gas. It’s a power generator about the size of a washing machine, designed to be used in individual houses like solar power. Well, I was wondering what happened to it:

The technologies change, but the economic opportunities remain the same, and so does the narrative of yet another Australia technology export and the myopia of Australian governments and its energy industry. Ceramic Fuel Cells has all but abandoned hopes of a rapid deployment of its ground breaking technology in Australia, and has instead shaved down its workforce, ended local production, cut commercial ties and will focus all its efforts on Europe instead.

Yes folks, couldn’t get any interest in Australia, so they’ve moved to Germany where there is huge interest. That means jobs are lost here and the technology moves overseas. Where have we heard that before?

Channel 7 1959-2009 Reunion – 50 Years of Perth TV. Can you see me? Hint: blue

First – Anzac Day 2015 – I started work at TVW Channel 7 Perth 49 years ago today. Yes, I started on Anzac Day, a public holiday, in 1966 as a 19 year old nervous nellie. I’d had my interview a week or so beforehand and the Chief Engineer asked me when I wanted to start. “How about next Monday?”, I said. Neither of us remembered that it was a public holiday.

When I remembered, I was far too nervous to ring up and change the day. There were no yuppie phones in those days. I would have had to walk down the street to a phone box. I was too naiive and nervous, so I turned up at my new job on the Monday public holiday. There was hardly anyone around, of course, certainly no-one to show me the ropes, so I just nervously stood in doorways and watched.

We had to fill in time sheets, and there wasn’t one for me. Next day, a normal working day, I filled in my new time sheet and filled in the times for the previous day, which would have been double time for the p/h. To this day, I have no idea whether I was ever paid for that double time day.

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© PJ Croft 2015

“People are saying informally that Australia and Canada are emerging as public enemy number one for the Paris talks on climate,” [Nobel Prize winner Prof. Peter] Doherty said.

“No other names are being mentioned. Australia is seen as very much out of touch and out of sync with what’s happening globally.”

Sir The Lord Abbott QC AO OA SD AM/FM DAB+ AC/DC E&OE KCMG – “Climate change is crap.” Our prime minister is a climate change non-believer so he puts us all in peril for his private beliefs.

Academics at the University of Western Australia have asked the university to break its agreement with the Abbott government to establish a $13m “consensus centre” with Danish climate change contrarian Bjørn Lomborg. [The Guardian]

Fairfax Media has reported the push for the centre came from within the prime minister’s office. Tony Abbott is a known fan of Lomborg’s work, having praised it in his 2009 memoir Battlelines. Lomborg is best known for his 2002 book The Skeptical Environmentalist, which was the subject of complaints to the Danish Committee of Scientific Dishonesty. In 2009 he was named one of Business Insider’s top 10 most respected global warming sceptics.

At a time when we are being told what a perilous state the federal budget is in, the prime minister has allocated $40 million to set up a post at the University of Western Australia to be run by a Danish climate change denier, who, as above, is accused of scientific dishonesty! And UWA has accepted the money and is going ahead with it!

How are we supposed to be proud of this country when our government is so awful???!!!  There is even talk that Abbott could be called to face charges at the International Court of Justice in The Hague on the basis that Australia is breaching international law for its treatment of asylum seekers.

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Even the nasty racist UKIP leader in the UK says he couldn’t go as far as Abbott and co in their harsh treatment of refugees!

What about the machinery? Is he endorsing immigration detention, detention of children, forced pushbacks? Farage made it clear he was not. “Some of the ways that Australia acts on these things,” he said, “are tougher than we in Britain can perhaps stomach.”

I am disgusted.

A few weeks ago someone I know told me our views are “diametrically opposed”. How utterly disappointing. That means he:

• Accepts the jailing of children and pregnant women.
• Accepts such deliberately harsh treatment of refugees that they develop mental illnesses and try to commit suicide.
• Thinks climate change is crap, in line with our esteemed PM.
• Thinks it’s acceptable for the federal (I nearly wrote feral) budget cuts to fall mainly on the poorest and lowest paid.
• Thinks it’s fine that ultra high income earners pay no tax, because the government is not interested in fixing loopholes that allow rich people to avoid tax.
• Thinks it’s fine to cut $30 billion from hospitals and schools and telling the states that they’ll just have to find the money.
• Thinks it’s fine for Australia to enter wars without any UN authority (Howard/Iraq/Afghanistan, Abbott/Iraq) or any reference to parliament or even his own cabinet.
• Likes Australian knighthoods, and them being awarded to a foreigner.
• Wants Australia to remain a British colony with a British head of state, with no Australian able to be our own head of state.

I could go on. He knows my views, yet he said “diametrically opposed”. I was very, very disappointed.

I was thinking of starting an appeal for disaster relief funds to help NSW after their giant storms and floods.

Bulldust am I! No bloody way. After all the vicious bile that’s been coming our way from NSW commenters on the Guardian and ABC websites, to the effect that WA does not deserve any relief from the crippling 70% GST ripoff, I say go fuck yourselves, people in NSW.

I’ve been extremely disappointed at the level of sneering prejudice, the belittling comments, the nasty snide remarks to the effect that WA can forget about any compromise on the GST ripoff. This comes mainly from Sydney, I think, and fits with the nasty attitudes from Sydney that I had to put up with for years in my working life.

Childish jokes about needing a passport to go across the border, about WA being two hours behind the rest of Australia, about not knowing there’s a time difference. I got a phone call at home at 6am one morning in the 90s from a company in Sydney. When I politely pointed out the time, the guy didn’t seem to know that there was a three hour time difference. Har har.

This GST has seen it all come out again – the sneering, the prejudice, the “masters of the universe” attitude from Sydney. Leo Schofield, the toffish Sydney art critic, was caught out making sneering comments about Tasmanians last week and had to apologise. That’s typical. It’s a form of racism – anyone who’s different is looked down upon.

Yes, it’s true that for 90 out of the past 104 years WA received subsidies from the other states. Considering that we comprise 1/3 of the country with less than 10% of the population, and if you believe we need to occupy the land or have evil eyes looking at occupying it for us, that seems not unfair. And considering the massive road network need for this huge state, we deserved help.

But I’d argue (without knowing the true facts) that in the past 15 years WA has repaid those subsidies in mining royalties flowing east, maybe more.

And considering that Australia’s defence bases are almost entirely concentrated on the east coast. WA only has two air bases, but with no aircraft! We’ve got the SAS and HMAS Stirling naval base, and that’s it. Defence bases are huge generators of local wealth and employment. WA gets very little of that wealth.

There’s also the pokies factor. All the eastern states get massive revenue from gambling on the pokie machines, with all the social ills and addictions and costs. WA has always stood alone – we forgo the revenue, but we don’t have the costs that gambling imposes on society.

Almost all of Australia’s cultural facilities are concentrated in the eastern capitals. Want to see the world’s great artworks? You’ll have to go to Sydney/Canberra/Melbourne. Rarely does anything come to WA.

So it works both ways, you arseholes. If you notice a certain chilly welcome when you come west for your holidays or whatever, look to your own attitudes. It feels to me as if there’s a new barrier on the SA/WA border. WA really is another country. My attitude has changed in the past few weeks.

So don’t expect any help from me in WA. Fock off.

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Coincidences again. There used to be a guy working at Channel 7 in the early 1970s called Frank Benedetto. He was an American, from New York. Just travelling the world at the time. He only stayed a year or two and went back to the US.

Then he came back to Perth for a visit about four years ago, got in touch and we all had a coffee morning at Kings Park. He’s been in my mind inthe past few days in connection with our 55th Reunion last Sunday.

Yesterday I was at the Soda Cafe at North Beach and in the parking area was a delivery van – Cafe Benedetto. Bloody hell. It’s not a common name and this was an uncommon coincidence. Creepy.

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The reunion? Not bad. We had nearly 100 turn up, which seems a lot but considering the past staff list numbers about 850, it seemed a bit sparse. I was one of only five from Engineering, which was disappointing but not unexpected. I’m not sure that the reunion was advertised very widely. I suspect many didn’t know it was on.

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I discovered that Boffins Bookshop has moved from Hay St to a new under-street shop in William St, opposite Wesley Arcade. I used to visit Boffins a lot, but gradually found I couldn’t climb their steep stairs to the meaty books upstairs. Now it’s all down a pair of escalators, on one level. Good! I bought one book on Sunday and saw a couple more I want. I might even go in today. Using the train makes it easy and my travel is free on the Seniors Card.

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My warranty replacement OCZ Solid State Disk hard drive came last week, complete with big red Quarantine stickers and tape on the box. It seems the Customs dog had sniffed something so they opened my parcel. No problem, of course.

That failed drive cost me two days’ severe stress and lost time, right at the critical time of the NSHS Reunion last year, and $52 in shipping cost to return it to Taiwan. I now have a brand new OCZ 240GB drive, but I won’t buy that brand again. I bought a Samsung to replace it at half the cost.

TVW 40th Anniversary 1999. Can you spot me? The funny costumes are because we were asked to come as our favourite TV character. I had bronchitis. I wanted to go as Cpl Klinger but I felt too sick.

Channel Seven Reunion today – 55 years since they (we) went on air in 1959 and as the organiser says, we’re starting to lose people. One of the prime movers is Ken McKay, who I used to work alongside in videotapes in the late 60s. He’s retired but runs a web site called WA TV History ( http://watvhistory.com/ )

It’s fantastic to us veterans (uuurrrrgh) but it’s much more, as Ken is a single handed bulldozer campaigner in trying to preserve Perth’s history, not just TV. He finds an amazing range of historic photos and archival film. You don’t realise until you see the photos and read the articles just how much we’ve lost. Development has run rampant in Perth! It’s tragic. So much has been lost as a result of an almost complete dominance of developers over anyone who values the past. A favourite tactic has been to let old premises fall derelict to the point where they become eyesores, then say they have to be demolished. Or our old friend arson. Set fire to it, that’ll get rid of it. It happens time and time again, and they get away with it.

Anyway, read a few of Ken’s articles. You will be surprised.

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I went into the city yesterday by train and was hoping to take some photos to compare with old shots. But the trees have grown up, completely obscuring the views. I can’t show the malls now, compared to 20 or even 10 years ago because all I see is leaves. It’s nice to have the trees, but frustrating.

What ridiculous “sculptures” they are in Forrest Place. Lime green thingummabob, giant boot and sock. Utter rubbish.

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More pics – my Australia folder. All (except the map) are my shots.

Ice crystal circle around the sun, Carine, April 1981. © PJ Croft 1981, 2015

Urrrrgh. I made a mistake yesterday. I went shopping.

First, I had a haircut at the local barber. I waited nearly 20 minutes for the sole barber to finish the only guy in a chair. I was nearly ready to ask if it was going to be much longer. Then when I finally got my turn, she spent less than ten minutes on me, with none of the neck shaving or blow drying that they usually do. I was surprised when she whipped the sheet off, and she still charged me full price, $21, even though she knew I am a pensioner. I came away feeling I won’t go there again.

Then I drove to Joondalup and once again got a horn blast from a damned tray backed 4WD tradie at a roundabout. I was almost exiting and he was well clear of me, but he blasted me near the end of the merging process. They won’t merge! I’m sick of these louts.

Then I got to Joondalup and saw a bay in the Parents with Prams and Seniors section. But there were two women just standing in the bay with a pram. I indicated that I wanted to park there and got a bugger off, this is a parents with prams blast. I held up my ACROD sticker and said I’m entitled to use these bays, but they wouldn’t budge. I drove on and found a normal bay around the corner.

Next thing, after I’m out of the car, a big, grossly fat, ugly bloke comes up to me and says, “There’s a disabled bay there, mate.” I said I didn’t need to use it, I was OK here. But he repeated his statement and said, “Don’t you talk to my missus like that.” I told him again I was entitled to use the bay and he abused me again, don’t talk to his missus like that, and walked off. Bloody hell. Upsetting.

I had a great lunch at the Sidewalk Cafe in the centre mall there. I really feel good eating there – they give me what I ask for, it is a full serve, whatever it is, and I tell them I enjoyed the meal when I pay. Unusually good these days, an exception.

Then I made the mistake of doing grocery shopping at Woolies, the first time for a couple of months. Yes, another pricing error. Another case of a markdown price not registering, and going through at the full original price. Again! I pick this up because I always sit down and go through my docket when I leave, and I always find an error at Woolies.

I think this is so prevalent (it happens every time I shop at Woolies) that it’s time I wrote a letter of complaint, cc Consumer Affairs and ABC Checkout. I’ll need to collect more dockets, but that won’t take long. I’m sick of Woolies, Woolworths overcharges, Woolworths rips you off! By contrast, I virtually never find any errors at Coles.

Postscript: another strange incident. I shopped at Coles just now and as I often do, I held a quarter full plastic bag open and said, “Fill ’em up. There’s plenty of room for the small stuff in here.”

“I’ll continue with what I’m doing, thank you”, said the lady, avoiding my eyes. Woohoo. She has her way of doing it and she ain’t going to be told. She did relent a little later and asked if I wanted to add a few small items to another bag.

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And to cap it all off yesterday, after steadily losing weight at the rate of about 0,3Kg a day for some time, I regained 1,2Kg in one hit yesterday. Damn. I’ve lost about 5Kg in the past four months, slow and steady. Just eating less because my appetite ain’t what it used to be. In fact I would say I eat less than half the amount I used to eat 5 years or more ago. I used to eat a full container, maybe even two, of Chinese food or curry, but now I get two meals from one container. And that’s all I have.

The Byetta diabetes injections I use are supposed to be a weight loser, and I know why – it makes you feel nauseous for about two hours after each injection (breakfast and dinner). It’s quite effective at suppressing appetite.

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I always get pleasure from looking through my thousands of photos from my 40 years of photography. Some samples from my Perth Shots folder:

There are one or two pics from other sources but nearly all these are mine. There are some historic shots in here. What’s going to happen to all these when I die?