Mice: You win some, you lose some

My computer mouse was playing up so I stopped in at Officeworks to buy a new one.  As expected, they had a large display of them, of many different types and at a large range of prices

BUT they were all cordless mice. Cordless mice are an old idea and I had one way back.  But you have to keep putting batteries in them so I always use wired mice these days.  So I was losing on that score.

I did however find a solitary wired mouse half hidden away among the cordless mice so grabbed it and took it to the counter.  It cost me?  Just $4. So it was virtually being given away.  Suits me!  It works very well. So I won in the end.

Wired mice became unpopular because the cord sometimes ran out.  But there's an easy solution to that.  Use a longer cord!  The cord on my new mouse is plenty long enough and you can get extra usable length by plugging it into one of the USB ports on the front of your computer.  Most computers seem to have those these days

Flickr censorship

As I am a conservative writer it was sort of inevitable that I would be censored on social media.  And I am.  Facebook bans all mention of my Greenie Watch blog and Imgur has erased quite a few of my pictures that have conservative relevance,

But now Flickr.com have joined the party.  I put the picture below up on my Flickr site (  https://www.flickr.com/photos/67016676@N04/ ) recently.  They have removed it.  I wonder why?

Hmmm ... I see it is back up

Another Army dinner

Once again a few of us got together to remember our time in the CMF unit 21 Psych.  Present were Rod, two Peters, myself and significant others with the two Peters.

There were two minor glitches.  The restaurant we were going to was closed!  They are now not open at night until Wednesdays.  That took me by surprise as I have been there on Sundays in the past.

The odd thing is that one of our previous dinners had suffered a similar fate.  On that occasion, however, I had a bit of advance warning so was able to redirect people to the nearby Zambreros.  In Brisbane, Zambreros is mostly a takeaway joint but they do have plenty of tables.  So we were able to get some of their good Mexican food and take it to a table to eat.  So we did exactly the same again tonight.

A wrinkle this time however is that Zambreros no longer has any drinking glasses -- not even for water. As a few of us had brought along wine, that was a bit embarrassing.  As Von Clausewitz tells us, however, army men are supposed to be good at improvising and Rod, our former Sergeant Major, rose to the task.  He went out into the kitchen and found some small but deep dessert bowls that we could at a pinch use in lieu of wine glasses. So we had refreshment after all.

Church affiliations are common among us so quite a lot of the conversation was about church matters past and present.

So the food was good and so was the evening generally

Denis Ryan

In the early 70s, I shared a Glebe terrace house in Wentworth Pk Rd with JPH and AWC, both clever young men a little younger than me

We had quite a few parties at Wentworth Pk Rd. If ever we got sick of our guests, however, we would put on Janacek's Sinfonietta. We all liked classical music but not very many other people do and Janacek is a bit much for even some classical music lovers. The Sinfonietta would clear the house within minutes. They would even leave their beer behind!

It didn't work for Denis Ryan, however. I think he introduced us to Janacek in the first place. He would say "This is good" and settle in. Not that we minded. Denis was always good fun. He had that Irish roguishness and was a great raconteur. He had been a shearer for most of his life and later moved to Sydney to manufacture shearer's clothing.

For quite a while he used to drop in at our place after work for a few beers with us: The real Australian male thing (except for the classical music in the background). We enjoyed it greatly. He liked Resch's D.A. but we drank Flag. We used to buy D.A. especially for him. We called it Denis's Ale, though D.A. really means Dinner Ale.

All four of us were quite Right-wing. Denis had been a Communist in his youth (not uncommon among shearers, I believe) and knew an awful lot about politics. He had not had much education but was quite intellectual and cultured for all that. Apparently you do sometimes find that among shearers, according to Denis.

He was in his late 30's at the time.

Another venue where I saw Denis was at the Baroque Music Club. I founded the club shortly after I moved to Sydney. It was a very informal thing that consisted of Sunday afternoon meetings at somebody's place where we would drink cheap flagon wine and listen to recorded Baroque (pre 1750) music.

Denis was our most frequent host and his wife, Fay, used to put on a whopper afternoon tea to aid the deliberations. It was a good way to meet musically-inclined single women and I did meet a few there.

Denis is now deceased.  He lived in Abergeldie St, Dulwich Hill.

Janet

It has occurred to me that I have never put up here any mention of my first real girlfriend.  So here is a bowdlerized version



I was about 20 when I first really began to take out girls. The puritanical influence of my religious teenage years made me a bit of a late starter in that respect but I soon caught up.

My first real girlfriend was Janet, 5'2", quite bright, with red hair (flaming red) and a talented classical pianist. We both liked Bach. Her eyes were blue-green. She was a clerk with National Mutual Insurance at the time. I met her at the Folk Centre in Ann St., where she sang regularly. She had just turned 16 when we started a relationship

We used to see one-another often even though she continued living at home. We had a lot of fun of all sorts together and I still think of her as a first class person. She and I had similar personalities and similar attitudes to a quite unusual degree.

Janet's father was an accountant who had done well enough to retire at age 40. He seemed to own most of Brisbane's jukeboxes. Apparently they give a good return. He did not like me because I had a beard. Part of the reason why Janet did like me however was because I had a beard!

Her mother was very nice to me, however. The thing that Janet liked best about me appeared to be my very confident personality. No woman likes a wimp. Janet and I became very close in the year or so we were together so it was in fact many years before we got to the point of no longer seeing one-another at all. Even after we had split up we would still sneak in the occasional meeting.

Our parting was at the behest of her father. He forbad her from seeing me any more and my clumsy attempt to change his mind simply enraged him. Neither Janet nor I us felt in a position to support her leaving home so we had to accept a break. We did however continue to see one another outside her father's ken when we could. Janet and I never in fact had a breakup. An enforced separation is not a breakup. The affection between us simply contiued -- albeit with less practical effect when we both eventually found new partners

I was rather lucky in having her as my first girlfriend as we got on well in all sorts of ways. I guess we really were "soul-mates". A year or two after we split up I remember sending her a telegram to mark either her or my birthday. It was in Italian and read: "Ogn' anno divengono piu chiaro le fiamme inestinguibile di amore per te". Something that romantic needs to be said in Italian.

I remember sending the telegram from Glebe Post Office in Sydney. The postal clerk who took it looked very dubious about the whole thing.

A busy weekend -- not always in a good way

As I do most Fridays, I attended my usual skin clinic to get one of my skin cancers zapped.  This time there was one on my forehead that was feeling pesky so I requested a shave biopsy.  Because it looked ungood my obliging surgeon went a bit deep with the cut, which gave a greater bleeding problem.  She sizzled the wound well with diathermy, however so I went home just with a big dressing on my forehead

That night the wound bled. Fortunately the dressing contained most of the blood but I did get enough leakage to give me a gory forehead.  I looked a fright.  So I had to find a doctor to at least refresh the dressings and clean up dried blood.

Finding a doctor who works on Saturday morning is not easy but luckily the nearest practice from me did have a doctor working. I got an appointment for 8:45am. She had a very Greek surname so I expected someone who looked Greek.  She did not.  She was actually a dream walking: A trim figure including bosom, looked good in jeans and had a nice dusting of freckles on her fair skin. She assured me however that she is in fact Greek. I have come across fair Greeks before but it is unusual.

Anyway, she cleaned me up a bit and put a big new dressing on so I felt able to carry on. I was down to host a men's dinner the next evening so that was important.

So next morning Joe and I had our usual Sunday breakfast with me still looking rather bad.  Later that day, however, the dressing fell off, leaving just a little patch right over the wound. So later that morning I went to my usual medical practice -- which actually had two doctors working on a Sunday.  I was seen by a very brown Indian who was friendly and very obliging.  He allowed me to wash my face in a sink and stood by for the last of the dressings to come off.  He then put on a new and rather small dressing.  From that point on  I had a clean face and a civilized looking dressing on so I was confident of carrying out my hostly duties.

I cooked up one of my standbys, a chili con carne, using a whole kilo of mince plus a couple of tins of beans.  It worked well as usual -- assisted by certain sachets. We had it in my verandah, which always gets  breezes. We had tinned fruit and icecream for dessert.  JPH was rather amazed at our custom of cutting icecream.

There were five of us at the dinner -- our usual four plus JPH, a learned man but one with a lively sense of humor.  We all had good things to say about Mr Trump and deplored the antics of his critics.  We all know that Mr Trump has some rough edges but he probably needs that, considering the vast reforms he is tackling. He has virtually the whole of the Washington establishment criticizing and abusing him so you have to be very certain of yourself to remain undaunted by that.



Graham always brings something up from Victoria to add to the dinner and one of the things he brought this time was a box of of Coles assorted cracker biscuits.  It was a really good selection. Recommendable.  He also brought some "Timboon" craft whisky from near where he lives.  And that was really good too. It is actually a single malt



For show and tell, Graham brought a long a nightlatch cylinder which he had partially disassembled to show us how it works.  He is a qualified locksmith amid a myriad of other accomplishments so was also able to use it to show us how to pick a lock.  Joe took a considerable interest in that.  I have been doing amateur locksmithing since I was a kid so it's probably another example of like father, like son.

The conversation was wide ranging and vigorous. Graham and Chris had a lot to say and JPH had plenty of humorous interjections.  Joe and I were the quiet ones, relatively speaking.  I retired from the fray at about 9pm but Chris, Graham and JPH kicked on for about another hour.

Some recent pix

A sweet little soul patiently waiting


First day at a new school


Happiness with new presents


A good looking gal with a fat guy


The cook

The great sock chuckout

I am not quite sure how it happened but over the years I had accumulated 4 drawers full of sox.  People used to give me sox for birthdays and Christmases so that is part of the explanation but I guess I must have bought the rest of them myself for various now-forgotten reasons. I don't wear sox at all these days

Anyway, there were about 100 of them cluttering up my drawers so I resolved to get them down to one drawer,  So I spread them out on a table and picked out about a dozen to keep.  So what to do with the rest?

I tried to interest Joe in them but he walked right past them.  But Aristides came to the rescue, as he often does.  He is a regular sock wearer so picked out about half of them for HIS sock drawer.  The remainder are on the coffee table downstairs for any passer-by to take

Soapbox Orator

An old friend reminded me recently that I had never put anything up about my time as a soapbox orator.  It was only ever an amusing pastime but here goes anyway:

In both Brisbane and Sydney I was during my student days a "soapbox orator". Soap is rather heavy stuff so boxes in which soap was once sold must have been sturdy wooden ones -- solid enough for people to stand on.

The term "soapbox orator" means a public speaker on eccentric subjects holding forth at a place set aside for that purpose to whatever audience he can attract -- generally on a Sunday afternoon. Centennial park used to be such a place in Brisbane and the Domain in Sydney has long been such a place. cf. Hyde Park Corner in London.

I started to go to Centennial Park on Sunday afternoons in Brisbane to listen, heckle and argue as there was so little else to do in Brisbane at that time in those days.


Doing some heckling on my way home from Army parade

As I had a loud voice and was verbally fluent I decided eventually to do a bit of speaking myself from time to time and I generally had a lot of fun with it for a couple of years. I spoke on a variety of subjects -- not usually seriously.


Speaking at Centennial prk

Webster was the soapbox star in those days but older Brisbane people might remember soapbox orator Ted Wixted (1927-2001) and his arguments against  the Virgin Birth. Ted had a good day job as a museum curator -- mainly concerned with Early aviators -- but did admit that angels appeared to him. He used to call me "Jeremy".


Wixted

When I moved to Sydney I also spoke a few times at the Domain but that was only in my first year in Sydney and was mostly in the company of Martyn Harper

Just online: Ingeborg Hallstein goes to the dentist

With assistance of that natural born comic Ivan Rebroff



An hilarious operatic pastiche with quite a medley of favorite operatic arias.  Hallstein is as usual the ultimate female.

New year's day

After all the excitement of the Christmas season, today reverted to routine

Anne and I went to the Gold Leaf for brekky about 8:30.  Anne had the vegan  brekky and I had my usual cheese burger

There was however a little drama when I went to the Buranda chemist to pick up some Firmagon.  I use it to control my prostate cancer.  The shop assistant was a pleasant little Chinese girl named Grace.  She spent about 20 minutes looking high and low for the product.  Eventually it was found exactly where it should have been -- among the dispensed prescriptions waiting to be collected.  Much embarrassment! I was in no hurry so I was merely amused

Anne went home about 10am bearing lots of leftovers from our various meals

New Year's eve

The day started out well with a trip to the Gold Leaf.  I had  one of their excellent chunky steak pies plus an egg and lettuce sandwich.

Next stop was at Annerley Vinnies for a look-around.  I found in their costume jewellery cabinet a necklace of the sort that Anne likes so I bought it for her.  It was mostly red and very crafty-looking.  I seem to be able to pick what she likes and she was rather taken with that one.  I used to buy costume jewellery for another lady around 30 years ago too and she would wear it so I think I got her taste as well.

Paul and family flew out for Scotland that evening but I had said my goodbyes the night before so did not go out to see him off.

Anne and I had canapes at around 6pm -- consisting of Liptauer on Sesame wheat biscuits.

Most people do something special for the night and our version of that arond 7pm was a roast dinner featuring meatloaf.  I am something of a meatloaf tragic so always stock up when Woolworths or Aldi release one. There is usually one or two in my freezer.  I cooked the meatloaf and Anne did the vegies.  It went down well. We had Rosemount Traminer Riesling to wash it all down, a slightly sweet wine.

Later that night we had a Christmas pudding which I had got from Aldi. It was pre-cooked so took only one minute in the microwave to prepare it!  Modern times! It claimed to be a prize-winning Australian pudding and it was excellent, very rich.  We washed it down with brandied custard.  A perfect dessert. Odd that the pudding didn't have a brand name.  It was made in the Hunter Valley if that helps.

Anne flaked out and went to bed at 10pm.  I intended to stay up for midnight but I too flaked out early, at about 11pm.  The fireworks woke me up at midnight but not for long.  It was another rainy day but cleared in time for the fireworks.  No worries about bushfires in Brisbane.