(Image Credit: Wikipedia)
Sorry I’m late. It’s been a busy week.
Monday – doing some much-overdue house-cleaning and tidying up, then collected a friend from the airport.
Tuesday – going to the glorious Hermitage exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, preceded and followed by lots of talk (friend and I haven’t met for two years), then the final class for one of my subjects (friend played quietly in the lab), then dinner.
Wednesday – going to the totally amazing Orry Kelly exhibition at Federation Square, followed by a quick lunch, a consultation hour with students (to my surprise about forty turned up), then off to the airport through peak-hour traffic and a birthday dinner for OH at the airport opposite the terminals. Then goodbye to my friend, and back home.
Thursday – two amazing women from an organisation called Moving Angels arrived to pack the china, glassware etc. because my shoulder is playing up again. While they wrapped and packed with exemplary efficiency and good humour, I culled more of my mother’s books. Because they were finished way earlier than they had expected, they very kindly took the cartons across the road to my house. Afternoon – delivering seven bags of books to the Brotherhood.
Today – marking assignments (to be done by Tuesday). Then OH decided he wanted to move the little refrigerator out of the flat down to the carport. I supervised. Somehow we continued doing flatty things: more book sorting, gathering up all the pictures and remaining ornaments and taking them home, doing the final clearance of the kitchen and discarding things that we don’t need and that are not good enough to be given to other people. Then, the latest cull of books went to the Brotherhood. Finally, visited me mum and now I’m home.
The wonderful PJF has put me in touch with one of his friends who does voluntary work with refugees. Here’s a little bit of his (the friend’s) email:
We would be very happy to accept the goods mentioned. They would be welcome for our refugee house in East Hawthorn. Present occupants (Eritreans) are about to move out and we invite them to take what they need for their move to public housing. The next family (Kurds from Iran) will need the type of goods your friend has to offer. I would be able to collect from her at any time.
So I now have exactly the home I wanted for an everyday dinner service (Royal Crown), glasses, mugs, some cooking equipment, a dozen very good SB sheets, a dozen pillowslips, a dozen towels, mostly new or near new, three doonas, four blankets (all drycleaned) – and maybe some handmade patchwork quilts . . .
Thank you, PJF!
Moi shall now sit back and relax, while you, my friends, ply me with liquids and viands . . .
(Image Credit: We Heart It)
THE PUB 
Scorps…you old trouper , you!
On the subject of wine, yesterday brought a first bottle of Kangaroo Island Sauv’ blanc….gonna give it a go…years ago, I built a small boutique winery for this chap and one of the lessees took off to kangaroo Is’ to start a winery…I always wondered how he went…this wine isn’t his , i believe, but it will give me a clue..
In those days, going to Kanga’ is’ to make wine was akin to going to the moon to make cheese!..or a some Parisian painter said of Gaugan ; “Why go so far away when the painting is so good here at home?”
stupid typos!
that old “Wheeze” ; Morris was busy on RN. this morning pumping the myth of “Tony the Triumphant”…talk about a lost cause…I said to Jason yesterday; if ever I am in Canberra and anyway near those PM. porteaits, I will make sure I have a texta with me and the skill to place a “Adolph moe'” on the upper lip of a certain PM.
Anyway, gravel..what’s with all the salt?..did your doctor tell you that you’re a “soft touch” and you gotta harden up a little…starting with your heart!
I tell you what. pubsters…shows how there has been a generational shift..; was at the central market yesterday, waiting for the OH. picking the lemon-grass and the pepperonis at the Asian grocer..and this quad of blokes walked past (in the 40’s age bracket) and heard one telling the punchline of an old “little Johnny” joke that I first heard when I was in school…and having finished, the others laughed and laughed…Christ!! it wasn’t a really good joke then!!…But hey…there you go…the circle goes round…everything out of fashion comes back in!
2gravel
Sorry about the salt tablets.
Have you tried Himalayan Pink Salt? You could slather that on your vegies and in your cooking or whatever. I don’t know if it will make much difference, but it contains lots of minerals that our bodies need and it is nicer than ordinary table salt.
Turnbull has sold more than his principles, he has gone further than Abbott and really has sold his arse to become PM. Sold out on climate change, sold out on asylum seekers, sold out on $100,000 uni degrees, sold out on penalty rates, and the sellouts and backflips will keep on coming.
It looks like the honeymoon is over – such as it was.
The MSM are catching on to his farce of a ‘plan’ to tackle domestic violence. They have noticed that the amount he has promised does not restore the funding Abbott took away, does nothing about increasing the number of refuges and throws money at weird stuff like surveillance cameras in homes.
There’s lots of ‘thanks, but what about…’ reporting now, thank goodness. Like this –
Malcolm Turnbull’s $100 million domestic violence announcement seems to be missing one vital thing
http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/turnbulls-100-million-domestic-violence-announcement-seems-to-be-missing-one-vital-thing-20150924-gju169.html
And there is this, overlooked by just about every journalist – the money was set aside in the budget, the things Turnbull announced have been planned for a while, none of it was due to his work or his arrival as PM. He just claimed all the credit.
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/sep/24/malcolm-turnbull-announces-new-strategies-to-tackle-domestic-violence?CMP=soc_567
The online comments have not been as flattering.
This is an excellent run-down on the faults in Turnbull’s plan.
Only a re-packaged $100 million for addressing domestic violence Prime Minister- seriously?
http://enpassant.com.au/2015/09/24/only-a-repackaged-100-million-for-addressing-domestic-violence-prime-minister-seriously/
From Ad Astra at TPS Extra.
Saying everything we, and especially BB, have said for years, plus more.
How has Federal politics come to this?
http://www.tpsextra.com.au/post/2015/09/25/how-has-federal-politics-come-to-this
David Rowe goes with the wrecking ball idea.
And a grim take on Syria.
For those tragics interested in the Ray Hadley Fish & Chip Shop Lady case, the Daily Telegraph yesterday triumphantly announced that Hadley had appealed the finding in favour of the F&C Lady and had won.
Sorta correct, but the Devil’s in the detail. He only half won, and the Court noted this in not awarding costs of the appeal to Hadley.
The appeal court found that Hadley broadcasting that the Fish & Chip shop Lady was:
(a) a low, contemptible person;
(b) brought a false, vexatious and frivolous application for an AVO against the father of the young girl who was supposed to have been sexually harassed;
did not attract damages if it was based in fact… in other words if it was an opinion expressed that had a factual backup. They found that the jury at the defamation trial hadn’t been properly asked to determine whether Hadley had facts to hand to demonstrate that his comments were true. Hey, she might have been a low contemptible person who went around imagining she was being stalked and took out a frivolous AVO to protect herself.
I mean, just look at her husband. The Daily Tele said he’d been convicted of “rape” (he actually received a bond, the offence – which he continues to deny – was of a lower order range of sexual assault). Nevertheless, anyone associated with him must be a bad person. Certainly any wife who sticks by him “for better or worse” deserves to be drummed out of business, have her lease cancelled and generally be shunned by the public at large, as Hadley suggested helpfully.
So it’s back to the lower court to get another jury to see if what Hadley said was based in fact. And to re-examine the damages awarded ($280,000 damages in total, plus costs).
Defamation law is an arcane and convoluted branch of the legal industry. Usually only real specialists practice in the area, because what often seems outrageous, damaging and patently false, sometimes turns out to be perfectly OK, once the legal eagles have finished with it.
What’s really at stake here, in a little case run by a suburban mum who’s trying to keep her marriage, her family and her reputation together under the Hadley artillery barrage, is just how far these morons and cowards in the Shock Jock game can go before someone puts a stop to it.
There’s a big difference between you or I saying something defamatory about someone else and being pulled up for it, and a monstering, opinionated, arrogant mouth like Hadley broadcasting his bile to hundreds of thousands of people in an attempt to whip them up into sending a little person broke. Dead. Buried. Cremated… that’s the Hadley style, and if you cross him, it only gets worse.
I have it on good authority that the Fish & Chip Shop Lady intends to go back to court to have those questions answered: the Big Question and the pissy little ones that the appeal court’s justices thought worth another look. They’ll get another jury to examine Hadley’s outrageous manner and style, and his cowardly, bullying ways.
Hadley leads a mob. They’re not in any one place at any one time, but they’re out there, glued to their radios, pursing their lips, revelling in how much “better” they are than others, chronically outraged, perpetually persecuted, continually judging their fellow community members by the standards Hadley lays down for them to decide such matters.
Hadley fans are, in short, The World’s Biggest Losers. Their pathetic lives are kept ticking over by the sheer hatred he spoons into their ears, day after day, week after week, year after year. For money. Millions of dollars of money.
Someone has to take him down. Scott Morrison (who Hadley pathetically thought was his “mate”) made a good fist of it the other day, but that was only round one. Hadley’s wife had a good go at it, too, leaving him to wallow in his own cesspool of anger and inferiority complex.
Now, a simple fish & chip shop lady is having her turn. We can only hope she succeeds in establishing the bleedin’ obvious: that Ray Hadley is a blight on our society, a reflection of all that is ugly about it, a generator of hate and community discontent, a self-absorbed monster in human form who deserves all the lawful retribution that can be aimed at him.
” Now, a simple fish & chip shop lady is having her turn. We can only hope she succeeds in establishing the bleedin’ obvious: that Ray Hadley is a blight on our society, a reflection of all that is ugly about it, a generator of hate and community discontent, a self-absorbed monster in human form who deserves all the lawful retribution that can be aimed at him.”
Step forward ; “Amelia di Cielo”.
The Ray Hadley’s are everywhere in this world…in the local council, the local dump controller , even a person authorised to issue marriage licences somewhere / nowhere in America…even in you and me!….BUT..but for that civilising influence that brings us all back from the brink of hate-crazy…Hadley has gone over…as have many of his now irrational followers…
Ad Astra is correct in pointing the finger to Abbott and his backers..Murdoch and co. even the gormless Press Gallery who assisted and facilitated the crazed juggernaut of spite and bile…Turnbull is only seen as a better option as a result of the relief of “dumping” that crazed bogan ; Abbott.
In the end they are all just bluff…a will o the wisp waiting for the slightest puff of fateful air to blow them into the rubbish-bin of history.
jaycee
My short explanation is at the bottom of the previous page, and although my doctor is a Liberal, from things we picked up in conversations, I don’t think she wants me to be too hard hearted.
Leone
Trouble with putting salt in too much cooking. I cook for both myself and Razz and I don’t want her over-salted. 🙂 It has to be stuff that I can use as a snack, Razz has enough medical problems to deal with.
reviews Antony Loewenstein’s latest book, ‘Disaster Capitalism, Making a Killing out of Catastrophe’ which takes us into the shocking world of multinational corporations who exploit human catastrophe for profit.
https://independentaustralia.net/article-display/disaster-capitalism-outsourcing-violence-and-exploitation,8197
I was stuck at the hospital for 9 hours getting stabbed with needles, having blood forcibly taken from my arm twice, 5 hours apart, having pictures taken of my insides and being prodded & probed by numerous people. (I think even the wardsmen had a go too!) 😉
After all that, I was given a letter for my GP and told that they thought I had an uncommon condition called Costochondritis and prescribed Nurofen Plus for the next 5 days.
Not quite sure what to do about treatment after that as apparently this condition can take up to 12 months to resolve itself.
Maybe all my recent medical problems could be due to saying bad things about the Coalition on the interweb! 😉
I’d probably consider it all well worthwhile if we can get rid of the mongrels at the next election.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costochondritis
scorpio
I think you have hit on the reason. A severe allergic reaction to this mongrel government. There might well be a national epidemic of it.
i was enjoying excellent health until early last year, when some interesting medical conditions were diagnosed. My blood pressure had also gone up, for no reason the doc could work out. I blame the government.
Well, scorps’ at least they didn’t paint your gums with gentian violet solution and send you away!
Still confident about getting on the UNHCR, Bananas?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-26/un-human-rights-investigator-australia-visit-border-force-act/6807146
Ducky.
Interesting.
Looks like the UN doors that Fairfax says are opening for Australia now that Waffles is PM are not opening after all. Why would the UN have changed their view of Australia when Waffles is just Abbott Mark II?
Doors open under new PM as Julie Bishop attends UN General Assembly
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/doors-open-under-new-pm-as-julie-bishop-attends-un-general-assembly-20150926-gjvgfc.html
Fairfax seems to be promoting Bananas quite a lot. Like this – and look who was dining with her. I suppose we paid for her boyfriend to travel to New York, mugs that we are.
Julie Bishop hosts star-studded charity dinner at Robert De Niro’s restaurant
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/julie-bishop-hosts-starstudded-charity-dinner-at-robert-de-niros-restaurant-20150926-gjvh7d.html
Can’t imagine Julia Gillard doing Star Studded when she was in government.
Julia’s achievements didn’t rely on celebrities, but on her skills and intelligence.
Bishop:
gigilene
Oh la la. You are being a bit cheeky.
Here you are, gravel, a nice Victorian Edwardian high neck collar:
Detention centre operator Transfield Services to be renamed ‘Broadspectrum’
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/sep/25/detention-centre-operator-transfield-services-to-be-renamed-broadspectrum
I wouldn’t like to be one of their shareholders.
I just put up that little love story over on The Pub Lounge Bar….
Hope you like it…don’t say so if you don’t!
I seem to remember the good ole US arming and training another group of rebels some years back, I wonder how that turned out????
]US-trained Syria rebels gave ammo, equipment to Al Qaeda group, Pentagon confirms[
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-26/us-trained-syria-rebels-gave-ammo-equipment-to-qaeda-group/6807274
C K Watt
Virtually from the start of the US sending “aid” it was widely reported how Al Qaeda groups like Al Nusra and what became ISIS were regularly turning up and either buying it or just “make an offer they couldn’t refuse” to the much weaker “moderate” side. That or just kill them and take the stuff anyway .
What a shame the Seppos did not listen to Russkiy Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Very early on he warned taking sides in a civil war is a mistake and it will only prolong the conflict and make it worse. No doubt knowledge gained from trying it a few times themselves.
Looks like some sort of wink and nudge deal has been done to let the Russians sort a few things out. I wouldn’t think Australia would do this without the US being on board.
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/sep/26/australia-set-to-abandon-opposition-to-assad-as-part-of-syria-settlement
kk
When I think of Afghanistan I’m reminded of the saying about the definition of idiocy is to keep doing the same thing and expect a different result.
C K Watt
Since 2000 the US went to “liberate” Afghanistan, Libya ,Iraq and Syria. Hmmm seems to be a pattern forming.
Afghanistan became a problem in 1839.
kk
Since 1945 the Yanks have got a draw in Korea and a wipe against Grenada but other than that not much success.
Kaffeeklatscher & CTar,
In my somewhat dewy-eyed opinion, the only war that gave the Yanks any success was WWII, and that mostly because of the Marshall Plan and its equivalent in Asia – especially Japan.
Helping with rebuilding is so much more effective than bombing people and places into oblivion.
Foreign aid budget cuts one day, $35,000 dinners with Hugh Jackman in New York the next.
Julie Bishop to oversee largest ever cuts in Australian aid: report
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/julie-bishop-to-oversee-largest-ever-cuts-in-australian-aid-report-20150923-gjtb1l.html
I know the dinner was donated as a fundraiser for the Mid-winter Ball, but it’s not a good look. Flying to New York for dinner, taking the latest boyfriend along for the ride, hob-nobbing with ‘celebrities’ while denying even the most basic help to the most needy and desperate.
Leone,
That’s the high life for bogan princesses.
The woman is a national embarrassment.
The ultimate radicalisation case study.
Standards have really slipped at the ABC.
Find the mistake here –
I bet Billy Gordon did not say exactly that. What a difference an ‘i’ makes.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-25/woman-charged-with-extorting-queensland-mp-billy-gordon/6803682
They are giving Christianity a good belting. As is only right and proper.
Well, maybe they were viscous.
CTar1
Yes, the scoreboard does look a bit grim. No wonder their self declared “War on Drugs” and “War on Poverty” were so successful.
Fiona
“the Marshall Plan and its equivalent in Asia – especially Japan.”
+ A gazillion on that. Our Dawn Patrol god BK’s avatar was one of the things the Americans gave Japan. Another own goal in that Japanese industry listened to the brash young chappie whilst they themselves were “Meh”.
Well, Ducky. History made tonight with an all Queensland Grand Final in the offering. The refs worked hard but could not engineer an out-side Qld team making the GF to maximise NSW patron attendance at the Sydney Football Stadium.
I bet the Qld power stations will have to crank up extra generation capacity to cover for all the TV’s that will be switched on in Qld broadcasting the game.
It looked as though there were Semi-final BBQ’s & parties going on everywhere here tonight. Pizza delivery drivers were running hot (there were 2 right behind each other heading for what was probably a rather large gathering up my way) and there were cars banked up parked along a usually empty residential arterial road near where I live. (parties aplenty)
The only cars on the roads here next weekend when the GF is on will be pizza delivery vehicles and they might be in short supply as a good whack of their drivers might take sickies to watch the Qld derby at home, or Club/Pub wide-screen TV’s.