The run-up to the new year

The lead up to the new year in my life was very good in a number of ways. On Wednesday 28th I drove out to Zoe's place at Redbank Plains. She had told me of a big OpShop out her way -- in Jacaranda St Booval -- and we had arranged to have lunch together and then visit it.

I arrived as agreed at 12 noon and found that Zoe's gorgeous friend Ana was there already. All 3 of us were to have lunch and visit the shop together. Zoe took about an hour to get the lunch ready but all 3 of us had lots of jolly chats while that was happening. And I enjoyed the lunch.

After lunch tradition was observed when the ladies cleaned up and washed up in the kitchen while I sat and merely observed. During that process, the ladies talked in Serbian so I felt as if I had temporarily been transported to Serbia. I was pleased that they got the chance to speak their native language -- something Zoe greatly values.

The OpShop was as described -- an enormous iron shed filled with an incredible quantity of merchandise. I noted that there was a large number of attractive dining tables. Zoe bought a 2 seater sofa, Ana bought some socks and I bought a wooden footstool which I had a good use for. Jenny says it is actually an egg-rack but I am sticking to my theory about it



I drove home at about 3pm. Zoe and I normally spend about 3 hours together on our visits to one-another

Then on Thursday morning the 29th, Jenny and I had one of our usual enjoyable outings, breakfasting at the Phams followed by some wide-ranging visits to Opshops. I bought Jenny a cooking pot and a bangle she liked and I did well in finding an as-new pair of denim shorts that fitted me well -- for $5

Then that afternoon at about 4pm Anne visited. She had just had a long lunch with one of her sons and called in on me on her way home. So we had a very pleasant time until she left at about 5pm

Friday 30th was a bit quiet. I went over to Jenny's place for lunch and had party leftovers from Christmas. I spent the rest of the day productively catching up with blogging tasks

Then on 31st Anne and I as usual had Saturday breakfast together -- a good one at The Clove & Honey. I had my usual toastie and Anne enjoyed the pea and Haloumi fritters. After that we visited the nearby Lifeline where Anne bought George a quality leather belt for a good price.

As usual we lay down and listened to music when we got back to my place. We listened to a range of old favourites -- starting with the young Leonid Kharitinov singing Volga Boatmen, then Dmitry and Netrebko singing Moscow Nights in Red Square , then Walter Berry singing Mache dich mein Herze rein, then Monteverdi's Zefiro Torna then Peter Dawson singing Floral Dance -- and so on. We finished with Beethoven's 6th from the Wiener Philharmoniker

Again as usual, Jenny came over that night to cook me a dinner. It was one of my favourites: Wiener Schnitzel. She did very good potatoes, cabbage etc to go with it. We had a bottle of German "champagne" (Henkel Trocken) to wash it down. Afterwards we rewatched one of my favourite operettas: Wiener Blut. She stayed overnight so we could see the new year in together.

Boxing day

Being a firm monarchist, I started the day looking at the videos and pictures of the Royal Christmas at Sandringham. I noted a number of things:

Charles wore brown, which is regarded as fit for the country only, but Sandringham is in the country.

Camilla looked very wrinkly. As a lady in her mid-70s some wrinkles were to be expected but hers are extreme. She must be a smoker.

All the ladies wore hats to church, as they should. It's commanded in the New Testament.

Lady Louise Windsor once again wore an interesting hat (below)



Kate was rather sombre in dark green and also wore an impressive hat

Princess Beatrice came with her stepson. Good to see acceptance of step-chidren. Her husband was previously married to a lady of Chinese ancestry and the boy does look Eurasian

There was a throng of patriotic well-wishers to see the family. They have huge popularity.

Security was heavy but successfully unobtrusive



Zoe came over for lunch today. We don't normally meet on a Monday but Boxing day is not a normal day. She arrived at 2pm and we went to Nando's, where we both had a Mediterranean salad. Zora does not like extravagance so was pleased that the bill came to only $20. We then went back to my place where we mainly had a post-prandial nap together.

At 4:30 I took Zoe up to the Mater to meet Irene. Irene (Irina) is Russian and understands Serbian so Zora was pleased to have a chat in Serbian. She apparently told Irene that she woud not have needed a knee replacement if she had lived on raw food (!). Irene and I mainly talked about her daughter's work as a psychologist. I am of course myself a retired academic psychologist so could relate to that

Then at 6pm I drove to Jenny's place for a dinner of food left over from Christmas. It was of course good, with me being particularly pleased to get the last of the trifle. Jenny's old friend Kym was there too. She had her dog with her and talked to it a lot during dinner. But it seems to be a rather dumb dog. I have known Kym as long as I have known Jenny. So the chats were lively and old times were much discussed. I left at about 9pm

So I had another good day, with four ladies helping to entertain me

Christmas Day

I had a very good day. Jenny wanted Joe and me over at 10:30am for present opening followed by the dining setup downstairs at her place. A good friend of Jenny was expected with her husband at noon.

Opening, examining and discussing the presents did take some time. Jenny gave me a hamper full of wonderful foods and I gave her an Edwardian gold sovereign. Old sovereigns have some rarity value in addition to their gold content. Joe helped Jenny to set up the dining arrangements

Jenny's good friend was Jillan and her husband is Raymond. Raymond has just had a knee replacement so is getting around with some difficulty. He is an engineer by trade and has occasionally done small fixup jobs for Jenny.

A sixth memnber of the party was a bitch named Marley (after the Reggae eminence) that Jenny is minding for Kym, a friend. Marley was in a room adjoining our dining room but could see us through a screen door. She did a fair bit of barking but both Jenny and I were able to pacify her at times. She is only a medium-size dog but has a loud bark. I managed to make friends with her.

The food was as varied and as delicious as you can always expect when Jenny does the catering. Roast chicken and ham were the staples but there was much to go with those. I was very pleased that Jenny got in Parbakes for the occasion. Jenny was in a good mood and everyone else was too. So it was a jolly occasion. I left at about 2:30 after having eaten too much and went home for a nap.


Joe waiting for things to happen, with Raymond in the background. The men spent most of the time sitting around while the women did all the work in the kitchen. A very traditional arrangement that is often deplored these days but which all parties were comfortable with at our Christmas. It means that the women run the show


The table set for dessert. Jenny's excellent trifle towards the far end of the table. Trifle and Pavlova are my favourite desserts and Jenny always gives me one of those at Christmas



Zoe was due over at my place at 4pm but discussed a later arrival with me via email.

So at about 4:30 I went up to the Mater and spent a bit of time with Irene. Her new knee seems to be making progress. I gave her a small nougat bar which she liked. We discussed how long we have known known one-another and it appears that we met in late 2016 via Vera Kahlert.

Zoe finally arrived at my place a bit before 7pm dressed in her bathing suit. She came directly from a swimming pool. She looks quite fetching in her swimming gear but she has never allowed me to take a picture of her in it.

We just lay in bed talking for most of the time with her doing most of the talking, as usual. She spent some time talking about Trajan, which is a pretty intellectual topic. I am myself interested in Roman history so I knew what she was talking about. She has a lot of intellectual interests -- principally in ancient history, European literature and clinical psychology, so, as I have noted previously, it is very pleasing to her that I am very familiar with those subject areas. She recently said, "I used to go for good-looking men but they are all stupid".

She left just after 9 in a happy and affectionate mood. I was glad I saw her on Christmas day. The day would have been lacking otherwise. She is a difficult woman in some ways but I love her.

Methuselah

I have only a nodding familiarity with textual criticism of the Bible. One needs a strong familiarity with Hebrew to take part in the debates concerned. But there are some bits that are reasonably accessible to anyone and I find some of those to be a real lulu. The fact that both the widely-known account of creation (Genesis 1) and the usually-cited copy of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20) are clumsy and late priestly interpolations is surely ironical. Details of that here. I personally like the version of the Commandments in Exodus 34 a lot better. I am definitely against seething a kid

But studying Bible difficulties can turn up some useful bits. There are a lot of "crazy bits" in the Bible that turn out to be not so crazy after all in the light of advances in archaeology and historical studies. The 1955 book Und die Bibel hat doch recht (later translated into English as The Bible as history) seems to have been the first to bring together a lot of reasonable explanations for those crazy bits. I believe it was even made into a film.

And one of the craziest bits is the story of Methuselah, the grandfather of Noah, who lived for 969 years (Genesis 5:21–27). So how come? Such an age is way outside of what we know to be biologically possible.

The explanation is reasonably straightforward. The decimal system (base 10 numbering) was always common (due to our ten fingers) but has never been universal. Computer programmers are well aware that other systems are possible and can be useful. Binary is the best-known alternative but there is also hexadecimal and octal. I find octal to be particularly confusing -- because it looks so much like decimal.

And the number systems in ancient times were many and various. We still have some remnants of them among us. Talking in terms of dozens is still common and we measure time in base 60.

And the original document that became the Methuselah story is long lost. Originally, it may even have been transmitted orally. So what base numbers was the Methuselah author using? We cannot know. When it was included in the text that later became the Torah, the priestly compilers interpreted the numbers they saw there in terms of their own numbering system and that system is comprehensible to us today. Had the priests concerned been more sophisticated, they might have been suspicious that they were out by a factor of ten. That would have made Methuselah 96 years and some months old, which is much more believable and is probably right.

"Love" in the Bible

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal."

That is the first verse of that famous Bible passage. It centers around one word - "agape" (ἀγάπη) in the original Greek. It is translated in the KJV (above) as "charity" but is more usually translated as "love". But it does not mean man/woman (sexual) love. Greek has another word for that

It is an odd word, used throughout the New Testament but not much used elsewhere. In Classical Greek it means something like "liking"

So why did the apostle Paul devote a whole chapter to it? It seems to be because Christ used it a lot. He used that word in his commandment to love your God and love your neighbour, for instance. So Paul is in fact clarifying its meaning and how it is incumbent on Christians. Verses 4-7 are in fact a definition of ἀγάπη

"Charity (ἀγάπη) suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."

So that is a pretty tough set of requirements. But Christians have always aspired to live up to them. And it is pretty clear that a person who did live up to it would be a pretty likable person. Nobody does live up to it of course but even an attempt at it would be good for the social relationships of the person involved. So it is undoubtedly an important element in the success of Christianity as a religion.

So do I aspire to love in that way? No. I am not that good and know it. I do however have considerable capacity for love. I am usually in love with Zoe, for instance. But that is not the love that the Holy apostle was talking about. His standards are far too high for me. I do try to live up to bits of it, however. I try to be kind, I don't envy and I hope I am not too egotistical.

Internet dating is big on disappointment

I recently put up on one of my other blogs some notes in response to a long article (see link below) on internet dating. I reproduce here some of those comments

The article discusses "scientific" dating. A scientific approach ought to be helpful but the prevalence of sad stories about failures of internet dating casts doubt on that. The existing matching strategies seem not up to expectations. Why?

I don't have a magic answer to that but since I have been using dating advertisements of one sort or another for around 60 years, maybe my experience could have some lessons. Before the internet there were of course newspapers and they have always carried advertisements seeking relationships. I started using such advertisements when I was around 20 and I am now just months away from 80.

I must add that I have not used advertisements exclusively. I have been married 4 times and I met the first 3 ladies concerned the "old fashioned" way -- through personal social contacts. Sadly, none of the marriages proved permanent so I have had plenty of use for advertisements before, after and in between the marriages.

I like women and often manage to get on well with them so I hope to have one in my life at all times. And I have managed that with not much in the way of gaps. I have had long relationships of seven years, ten years and 14 years but in between those long arrangements there have been many shorter relationships. And advertisements have given me both long and short relationships.

And I have in fact found that looking for matching characteristics between myself and a woman has always been a good way to start a relationship. The approach outlined in the article below is correct in my experience. I have met many fine women that way. Matching ideas, ideals, values, opinions and experiences with a woman works as a preliminary to meeting.

But appearance also comes into it. I have only ever had average looks so I have had to have other advantageous qualities. Fortunately many women have liked some of my other qualities. I had to have looks good enough to get a pass and after that other factors came into play

And that worked very well up to and during my 60s. But it has been more difficult in my 70s. I had a significant breakup around 3 years ago and that was not easily remedied. Through internet advertisements I did meet up with about a dozen women but most of them did not wish to continue seeing me. There were also a couple of "near misses" -- women with whom I had a short friendship that did not last.

But finally, almost a year ago, I met Zoe, my present partner -- via Match.com. And it's a good relationship which looks hopeful for the long term. She looks good too! So advertisements offer hope even to old guys like me. I have met women the old way and the modern way and think both are worthwhile.

So what do I have to say to people who have undergone an inferno of disappointment from internet dating? Mainly some very old-fashioned advice: Persistance pays and it also pays to keep a positive attitude. Don't rush to judgment about another person. Don't go by first impressions. Good qualities can take a while to become evident.

Some less usual advice could help too. As Oscar Wilde may have said: "Life is too important to be taken seriously". And the Hagakure had that idea too: "Matters of great concern should be treated lightly". So relax! Approaching a prospective partner in a cheerful, relaxed way is usually best.

There is a recent picture of me below. If someone as rough-looking as I am these days can get a girl, there is hope for everyone





But I think I am stating the obvious by saying that what works for me will not work for everyone. I am blessed to have a high IQ -- and intelligence is good for solving ALL problems, even helping me to get on well with a small but significant number of women. In particular it helps me to relate well to intelligent women.Intelligent women thirst after an intelligent man. No woman wants a man less bright than she is. So intelligent women give me a lot of leeway.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/12/helen-fisher-science-online-dating-apps-tinder/672419/

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A pretty girl

The main reason why I put up this blog is as a substitute memory. I forget about 99% of my life so I have to write things down at the time I have them in my mind -- which enables me to revist my past at will to some extent. And putting my memoirs in blog form is a discipline to ensure I put things up in a reasonably well set-out form

So I do in the occasional idle moment look back at what I have written here. In doing so, I am often surprised at the many good times I have had.

I was looking well back in my posts when I noted what I had written about one of the fine women who have put up with me for a while. Judith Middleton and I were together for 4 years starting in 2001. So that is looking a fair way back.

What struck me in looking back was that she was such a classically pretty girl. Most of the ladies in my life have been good in the looks department and she is an example of that. I repost the photo of her that accompanies the old post. It was taken in 2002



She was aged 52 at the time so would be 72 now. Zoe still looks good at 74 so Judy is probably still in good shape too. I am sorry to say that I have not set eyes on her since we parted 20 years ago. She now lives "down the coast"

My adventures with Adventism

I am inclined to think that I am a naturally religious person. Billy Graham once said tha there is a God-shaped hole in everyone's mind and I think there is some truth in that. My parents were not religious but religion has always fascinated me. I was sent to Presbyterian Sunday School as a kid and I was very fundamentalist in my teens. But it is now around 60 years since I was a regular churchgoer.

I no longer believe in much but am fairly convinced of the existence of the Devil. Whether you conceive of him as a gent with horns and tail, as Freud's Thanatos or as a force of evil in the world, something like him clearly exists. He is a not-unreasonable explanation for the insane Ukraine war.

And I do still find much wisdom in the Bible. Its life lessons have stood me in good stead. I am still a Christian in that I try to live a Christian life. And it is amazing how well that works. When I do the Christian thing, I always get a reward -- sometimes pretty immediately and sometimes after years. Many would see the hand of God in it. Jews judge you as a Jew not according to your beliefs but according to whether you keep Halacha -- Jewish law. And I think I have some claim on being a Christian by that sort of criterion

And I have often over the years gone to church on the High Holy Days of Christmas and Easter -- either to the Cathedral or to my old Ann Street Presbyterian church. Both Christmas and Easter are co-opted pagan celebrations but I enjoy the church versions of them anyway.

So in my 80th year I have come to feel that sitting in a church service is something I would like to do again. There are umpteen churches in my neighbourhood. Woolloongabba would rival the city as the church centre of Brisbane. There are Russian, Serbian and Ukrainian Orthodox churches, a Ukrainian Catholic chuch, a Lutheran church and an Anglican church. And the Seventh Day Adventist church is only a 5-minute drive from where I live. So which should I go to?

The Orthodox churches were a write-off of couse. Too much standing up and I don't understand their languages. And I didn't consider the Anglicans. They are only pseudo Christians in my view. Their secularism annoys me. I went to the Lutherans once but there were things about the service that I didn't like. They sing hymns sitting down!

So it came down to the Seventh Day Adventist church -- Acts chapter 15 and Romans chapter 14 not withstanding. And I like it that they keep the real Sabbath. I do keep a Saturday Sabbath in my own life. Celebrating the pagan day of the Sun as your holy day is very dubious to my mind. It's the ultimate adoption of paganism.

So a couple of weeks ago, Anne and I attended the service at the O'Keefe St. church.



Anne is an old Presbo like me and enjoys a service. She likes a good sermon. I liked the service in general though I could have done without the testimonials and the lack of Bible readings surprised me. I was also surprised by the lack of socializing afterwards. You can normally rely on a cup of tea and a biscuit after a Presbyteran service. Anyway, in the best church tradition, Anne and I discussed the sermon afterwards. We found it good.

My experience there did encourage me to explore further so I decided to attend the Bible study as well. I enjoy exegesis. I went last night. It was a disappointment. I had hoped for a dicussion but what I got was basically a lecture. I will not go to that again but I may go to another service, time permitting.

A very social day

In our usual custom, I breakfasted with Joe on Sunday. I drove out to his place and he cooked bacon & eggs for us. We talked mainly about American politics, as we often do. Joe is of the view that the abortion issue was the killer one for Republicans in the recent mid-terms.

A few years ago, I started putting on simple dinners for some male friends of mine, partly to welcome my good friend Graham, who lives in Victoria but who occasionally comes up to Brisbane to see me. The pandemic put the kybosh on that for a couple of years but we are now back to normal. On Sunday past we had the second such dinner for this year. The first was on July 18.

Graham arived at around 3pm so we sat on my verandah and had a cup of tea together. Then at her usual hour of 4pm, a whirlwind in the form of Zoe arrived. She was very active and chatty, which I enjoyed, as I always do. She brought some salad to add to our dinner but could not stay long as she was on her way to a dance which started at 5pm.

And our dinner started at 6pm. Present were myself, Graham, JPH and Joe. Christopher could not come to the dinner as he had to run his wife out to the airport at that time. He called in at about 8pm to take part in the postprandial chat. And chatter we did. Graham and JPH were in particularly good voice. We of course discussed the mid-terms but another thing we explored was why Jews are still to this day regarded askance in much of Europe.

We cameto the quite orthodox conclusion that Jews are disliked out of envy over their outstanding success in most fields of intellectual endeavour. And we attributed that to high Ashkenazi IQ and drive. We looked very briefly at the idea that Jews in some ways provoke hostility but did not explore it at length. I have written on that previously

Graham has spent much of his working life in the welfare industry so he had a lot to say about that. He told many stories of the bad outcomes from Leftist thinking in that field.

Joe talked about his job in computers and about the mid-terms.

UPDATE: Zoe said the dance just gave her blisters on her feet. She is not going again and no longer wants me to go, which is a blessing

The Problem of Patriarchy Finally SOLVED

Is feminism a Catch 22? Can you win if you do what feminists ask?

There is eerie logic in the reasoning of the article I excerpt below. And I think I have seen the process he describes in my own life. I am a naturally confident and dominant personality and for 60 years I have found that to go down well with women. It may be some evidence of that that I have been married 4 times and have a chic chick in my life right now in my 80th year. I live a life that incels only dream of.

And I have never been good-looking. But the pic at the head of this blog does, I believe, convey my confident attitude.

So how did I get to be very confident, and can it be learned? I am confident for a number of reasons: My mother was very confident, my parents treated me with great support, respect and permissiveness and my high IQ has meant that I succeed at most things I attempt. And my teachers at school often praised me. I don't think there is any way of substituting for all that. But mainly, I think it is genetic. I know of two very confident women who had very difficult early environments

So what the feminists idealize is NOT what most women really want. Feminists are screwed-up personalities who are good at shooting themselves in the foot. Most women in fact LIKE patriarchy in moderation. So I find the reasoning below confirmed in my own life


I finally have it figured out for all of us, fellas. I have finally figured out the problem of patriarchy and toxic masculinity. And the solution is remarkable simple. Read below to find out.

Women have greater sexual value than men, which gives women sexual power over men, and thus more bargaining power in the game of dating, mating, and procreating. This greater bargaining power creates a sexual selection pressure that women then exert on men. In response to this sexual selection pressure, men seek to embody what women want men to be in order to earn sexual access to them. So, to put it quite simply: women created patriarchy.

Patriarchy is the peacock’s tail, the lion’s roar, and the stag’s antlers. Women used their great sexual selection pressure to compel men to make themselves, or become, more dominant, ambitious, confident, independent, self-reliant, and wealthy relative to women. Modern feminists call this biological reality of intersexual dynamics “patriarchy” and “male privilege”. Feminists claim that we have categorized these personality traits as “masculine” or “manly” because the patriarchy rewards men, and not women, for embodying those traits. This argument is actually correct because only women have the social-sexual power to compel men to meet these expectations.

https://medium.com/@revolutionarymale/the-problem-of-patriarchy-finally-solved-17063f4a8d99

Another machine!

My chic chick was pleased with her new food processing machine but took it home to use at her place. So she wanted me to have one too so she could shred fruit and veg while making us dinner at my place.

So I shelled out for one. She also brought over a spare coffee grinder she had -- which she uses to grind up nuts. Ecce!

And she was pleased with the dinner she made for me with it. She liked her colour composition. Ecce!

So I in short order I went from having only a citrus juicer to adding a juicer, a food processor and a coffee grinder. But I personally use none of them. Zoe does it all so I guess I am a spoilt man. Zoe thinks I am

A great grate

Zoe has very strict food ideas, which we follow whenever we are at home together. She believes in eating only uncooked fruit and vegetables. There is some evidence that such a diet is good for you so I don't mind having that for a few of my meals

But Zoe does have her own food preparation ideas. She does not cook but likes to grate most of her food. That certainly helps a big lot of fruit and veg to go down. So she is a dab hand at rapidly grating lots of food. She is however getting a bit tired of all the grating so has just bought herself an electric grating machine. It's a bit like a juicer where you eat the pulp instead of throwing it away. Greenies would approve! (The National Socialist German Workers Party would too)

She brought the machine over to my place as she got it from the shop and proceeded to set it up for the first time. She recently did that with another machine she bought. She must feel that I can give her at least moral support if she has trouble putting a machine together. She does however have a degree in mechanical engineering from the university of Belgrade so does not seek my help initially. As it happens, the new machine was a bit of a puzzle to set up so I did make a suggestion that she found helpful.

Anyway, below is the recent dinner she put in front of me with output from her new machine. It features grated parsnip. grated beetroot, grated carrot, chopped onion, chopped spinach, and chopped avocado. She chopped the onion in her machine too. It has a variety of cutters

The machine

A small trick to help absent-minded people

As we all now know, the Greenies somehow bullied governments into abolishing the disposable plastic carry bags that supermarkets used to give out free to help people to take their purchases home. Instead we are offered more robust carry bags for 15c which we are meant to keep handy and bring with us every time we shop. They are "reusable".

The new system is a lot more inconvenient. We often pop into a supermarket without having had the foresight to bring a "reusable" bag with us. So we have to buy another such bag for 15c. The cost is trivial but we soon end up having a large stash of such bags and nothing obvious to do with them.

I am one of the sufferers from that. Being chronically absent-minded, I often forget to bring a bag and so usually have to buy one -- meaning that I have a rather large number of 15c bags cluttering up the boot of my car.

But I have found a solution to that. Supermarkets DO still provide disposable bags -- ones used to gather together fruit and vegetable purchases. They look small at first but are actually surprisingly large when opened out. And there is no reason why you have to use them for fuit and veg only. If you are in the shop only to buy a few things, you can often fit ALL your purchases into them. So that is what I now do. I use the "fruit" bags for everything and get my purchases home quite well that way. See a pic of one of my recent purchase in such a bag below.

The authorities knew the vaccine risks all along

At the bottom of my comments below is a link to one of the many accounts about the bad effects of Covid vaccinations. My comments below were in response to it. I wrote them for one of my political blogs and also posted them on Facebook but the comments do contain a substantial personal element so I think they have a place here too.

I had two vaccinations with the British Astra-Zeneca vaccine. I had them under duress. I needed them to be permitted to go to certain places. On both occasions I had zero noticeable effects from the vaccination and I have also not apparently had Covid. So I would appear to be a "success" of the program

I personally don't think I am. I have a very good immune system and I think that was what defeated the harms from both the vaccine and the virus. Everybody I know who had the vaccine reported side effects from their shot: Side effects akin to the flu. And they got Covid anyway. I occasionally get flu symptoms but they vanish within 24 hours.

But in any case, I have no personal reason to be critical of the Covid vaccination programs. I look on with horror at what others have suffered but I have no personal beef

So the major point that I want to make is that the official response to vaccination side-effects was WILDLY out of keeping with the normal official response to medication side-effects. When a drug appears to have only a few reports of serious side effects, it usually gets banned in short order.

A case in point is Vioxx -- a very good nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug that had been used by millions with no problems. There were however a handful of very serious cases attributed to the drug and publicity about that put the manufacturer under great pressure, causing them to "voluntarily" withdraw the drug from the market. By vuoluntarily withdrawing it, they left the way open to re-marketing it if vindication of the drug emerged.

I was at the time critical of the furore surrounding Vioxx. If millions have used the drug with no ill-effects and only a handful of adverse cases have surfaced, how do we know that the adverse effects were due to the drug? Which body of evidence is persuasive about what the drug does: the millions who have used the drug beneficially or the handful who SAY that their illness was caused by the drug? Is it not by far most likely that the adverse cases were mere coincidence? Yet the drug was effectively banned on the basis of those possibly coincidental cases.

And that has long been typical: Only a few cases of adverse effects from a medication are usually sufficient to ban it. If aspirin had been subject to modern approval scrutiny, we would never have had it.

But with Covid vacines the pendulum swung WILDLY in the opposite direction. Far from bad side-effects getting maximum scrutiny, they were actually COVERED UP. Why?

I think it was the Chinese example that ruled the day. When stories emerged about the Chinese authorities actually welding people's doors shut to enforce quarantine, our Left-leaning elites salivated. They saw a golden opportunity to go Fascist. They saw a way of getting the sort of control over other people that they had previously only dreamed of. They NEEEDED the vaccines to be effective and problem-free in order to justify their dreamy descent into authoritarianism. In fact, as it is now clear, the vaccines were NEITHER effective nor safe. So they had to cover that up as long as they could.

As I said from the beginning, the only public health measures that might have been justified emerge from the fact that only a tiny number of deaths were among people aged under 65. So it would have been justifiable to give maximum support to the over 65s to enable them to isolate themselves voluntarily

See:

https://theblacksphere.net/2022/11/attny-tom-renz-exposes-dod-data/

Student shenanigans

Some readers of this blog liked my story below about Rhodesia, a prank that I got up to in my student days in the famous '60s. In the cirumstances I thought I might redirect readers to something else I did of that kind at around the same time. I rather risked my safety in provoking Leftists this time, Story here

Rhodesia

I do not appear so far to have put online one of the more amusing episodes from my student days in the '60s. So:

The former British colony of Rhodesia was at that time a well-managed self-governing entity democratically run by the white minority of its population. It was effectively a very prosperous independent country but Britain retained some sort of suzerainty over it.

Britain's Labour Party government had however become concerned that the black majority mostly did not have a vote in the running of the country so various moves were afoot to unseat the white minority government. That became a major international cause for a while.

I saw in the Leftist outrage about Rhodesia at the time an opportunity for some fun. I joined with some other conservative students to found "The Australia-Rhodesia Society".

The student Leftists rolled up in force to our inaugural meeting and tried to disrupt it with shouting and leaping about. They ensured that no meeting was possible. Later they also managed to get us banned from using any further university facilities (rooms etc) for any subsequent meetings

And they claim to believe in free speech! They don't. I know. "By their fruits shall ye know them". Anyway we had our fun with them. We knew them for what they were. Stalin's remark that there was complete freedom of speech in Russia for anyone who agreed with him just about sums up what all Leftists aspire to.

The "Australia-Rhodesia Society" was of course never meant seriously. It was just a bait that the Leftists swallowed hook, line and sinker. It is rather frightening how easily Stalinism emerges. The fascism of student "anti-Fascists" has to be seen to be believed.

White rule over Rhodesia was eventually overturned. It is now "Zimbabwe"

Gradual progression to majority rule in Rhodesia was already well underway before any outside intervention but that did not comport with the Leftist need for instant gratification

"Down the coast"

Going "down the coast" is a frequent activity among Brisbane people. It refers to the drive of over an hour to get to the surf beaches to the South of Brisbane -- Surfer's Paradise etc.

I used to make that trip in my early 20s with some frequency but it is now around 50 years since I visited Surfer's Paradise. I am not an outdoorsy type.

But today was Z's birthday and she wanted to go "down the coast" for it. So we went. She lived down there a few years ago so knows the area to some extent. She particularly wanted to go to the Q1 building, the tallest one there. She luckily got a parking spot just outside the building and I paid the $58 to get us to the observation deck on the 77th floor of it. Views don't come cheap.



But the views were indeed striking and the coffee and Tiramisu we had while we were there went down well.


The birthday girl on top of the world



Myself in a serious moment. I had just told her NOT to take a photo of me


Some scenery. Ignore the spotty guy in the corner

Some very good scenery

Z has very strict Vegan dietary views so the cake was a concession for her. Rather than doing any more dining at the restaurant she provided a picnic lunch for us, which we had in a shelter overlooking the water. It was very good and tasty, based on fruit and vegetables. She makes an exceptional apple crumble, which has long been a favourite dessert for me.

I paid over $100 to fill the petrol tank for the trip "down the coast" so that was rather striking to me too. It inspired the thought that people who go on motoring trips, particularly with mobile homes, have to have considerable funds for it. It is not a cheap holiday now.

On the drive home Z gave me an extended lecture in moral philosophy. She likes Erich Fromm's rejection of relativism. I said nothing in response but I was familiar with her topic. I have had a few academic articles on the topic published. See here

Z adheres to the idea of moral absolutes, which is perhaps the most frequently held view of the matter. Analytical philosophers normally regard such views as naive and I once did too. I have had second thoughts on it in more recent years however and conclude that there is indeed an objective referent that people have in mind when they use such language. See here

While I am talking of going "down the coast", I thought I might take the liberty of recounting an episode from my youth (approx, 1975) when I made such a trip. I was driving my little sky-blue VW at the time. And a VW beetle at the time did not have a fuel gauge. It had a "spare tank". And to access that "tank" you bent down and moved a lever to a different position. So I was driving along with a friend beside me (Jimmy Johnson) when the motor began to splutter as it usually does when the fuel runs out. I therefore bent down to move the lever to reserve -- only to find that I had already done that. My lifelong absent-mindedness had betrayed me.

I was sailing along at a fair clip however and I saw a petrol station not far ahead of me. So I simply coasted into it and pulled up at a pump in the usual way. No inconvenience at all. "That was arsie" said Jimmy. "Arsie" in Australian slang refers to undeserved good luck. It tends to be admired.

Some good shopping

Nobody is as keen an OpShopper as Jenny but I do rather a lot of it too, often after breakfast with her. With her driving, we range far and wide around the Southside. And I usually take Anne Opshopping after my breakfasts with her.

Zoe is also a keen viewer of secondhand goods but she usually goes to markets and garage sales, though she and I did go OpShopping together on one occasion recently. Anyway, I thought I might put up some pics of our recent successes.

The first is a bracelet I bought for Zoe when she was not present with me. I have a fair idea of her taste and I had a hit with that one. She really likes it and does wear it



And below is one of her purchases, which she got from Ipswich market. It is a mini Aladdin's lamp. Very cute. It lacked its glass chimney when she bought it but I was able to give her one out of my collection. I also had lamp oil to put in it. So I got it fully operational for her.



And below is something I bought for myself. It is a lemon squeezer. Zoe puts lemon juice on some of the food she prepares for us so I had that in mind when I bought it. But I thought it was cute anyway. As you can see, it has even got a lid -- so you can use it as a storage container for the juice once you have extracted it. It is branded underneath as "Preparo", which is a word in Brazilian Portuguese. I have never seen such a thing in local shops so it probably comes all the way from Brazil. That makes it a good example of something I like about OpShops: You see stuff there that you never see anywhere alse

In the picture I put it beside my orange juicer for scale. Also one of the lemons we have been using. Lemons come in a range of sizes but small ones are common.



My favourite among the recent purchases I have bought for myself is a carved Chinese camphorwood chest, normally used to store woollen blankets. The camphor smell repels insects. Below is a picture of it at the foot of the bed in my guest room



I normally buy things for Jenny only when I am with her as I am not sure I understand her taste. I have known her for 40 years so that is a bit strange. She recently was looking for a necklace to go with something and showed several possibilities to me when we were down at an OpShop at Capalaba. I did not like the first two she showed me but we did finally agree on the third. She is wearing it below



I also recently bought Anne a mini HiFi, which, despite its size, puts out excellent sound. Anne uses it to play her CDs. See below.

A Japanese lunch

Anne and I do not have a regular lunch date but when we do lunch together it is on a Thursday at Southgate Avenue in Cannon Hill, which has a really good strip of shops.

We normally eat there at their Coffee Club, which has excellent service -- unlike some other Coffee Clubs -- and I like the flat grills I get there.

But for a change we went today a few doors down the shopping strip to the Japanese restaurant.  Anne had the tempura prawns, which were very good.  Anne is very fond of tempura.  I had the Chicken Katsu Don but it was not a good version of that dish.  I also found the chairs uncomfortable so will be unlikely to go there again

For coffee we went a few doors further down the strip to an Italian place.  To my surprise, the place was furnished with Bentwood chairs. Ir's a long time since I have seen those.  They were in fashion about a century ago. So the art of wood bending must still be alive somewhere. See below

Undaunted

If somebody has a bad experience with a place, they tend not to go there again. It's normal and can be wise. Being a bit autistic, however, my feelings tend to be low key and that includes fear. I am not easily bothered. So yesterday I took Z to lunch at the small Spanish cafe at Stones Corner called "Buenismo"

Mr Stone's little shop is long gone from his corner but he has left his name to a rather humble strip of shops nearby that include a lot of places to eat, none of which are very fancy but some of which serve very good food.

And going to "Buenismo" is the point of this post. It is where I fell on my back last April and broke my sternum, which took 4 months to heal. But suddenly I was going back to that place. Z was actually with me when I fell so it was a return visit for both of us.

But neither of us were mindful of our past there. We went because they offered a most unusual dish that Z likes. She has very particular food preferences but that one passes muster. It is called a vegetable salad. And that is what it is: Vegetables served together with salad and nothing else, all on one plate. Mothers always seem to be messianic about getting their kids to eat their greens so they should perhaps take their kids there.

Anyway we both ordered it amid some hilarity. In her usual assertive way, Z kept cutting in with instructions when I was trying to order -- which was lot of fun. I am myself assertive so cope with Z's ways without difficulty or resentment. For instance, when asked what milk she wanted in her coffee, she said, "Skim, and for him too". She ordered skim milk in MY coffee too! Very assertive but I admire her spirit so I just laughed.

Anyway, we ate our salad and visited the nearby OpShops later, where I bought her a plate that she liked. She was a bit peeved that it cost only $1. I also played a little prank on her there but I had better not go into that. It was a bit evil of me. It cracked me up, though. She forgave me.

Serb girls

The picture above is one I uploaded around 20 years ago and tineye.com tells me that it has been uploaded hundreds of times over the years. Nobody seems to know the origin of the picture but I am obviously not alone in finding it very attractive

So it is a pleasant coincidence that I now find myself with a Srb girl as my partner. She is in her 70s so calling her a girl might seem to be a big stretch but older ladies often refer to one-another as "girls" so I am not alone in that either.

Below is a picture that I like of my Srb girl. Her name is not really "Zoe". That is just a pseudonym for privacy purposes. Her real name is very Srbian and rather pretty





UPDATE: My own Serb girl sent me some more pictures of Serbian girls, this time in folk dress. See below.

A fall

A lot of the personal news I post here is positive. But, as the Inkspots once sang, Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall -- and some rains in my life recently have been rather pesky. My rains have been falls. No old people should fall over but sometimes I do.

Last March I had a fall which broke my ankle and last April I fell and cracked my sternum. That second one took 4 months to heal fully. Thanks to support from those close to me, neither break dislocated my life very much so I remained in reasonable cheer. But I was glad to get past it all.

There is a religious song that says "You will never walk alone". It is a great comfort in adversity to many people. But I am humbled to say that I have that support in real life. When it comes to religious songs, I cannot go past Regula Mühlemann singing "Exsultate Jubilate" by W. A. Mozart



Now just past midnight on Wednesday, I had another fall. I was coming out of the shower when I slipped over on the cork floor in my kitchen. Cork is very forgiving so I broke nothing this time but it left me feeling stiff and sore. It was painful for me to walk on Thursday but by the afternoon today, I can walk with only minor pain. So my good old immune system would again seem to have come up trumps.

Incidentally, did you get the reference to the Inkspots? They were a black American group of singers in the 1930s and 1940s. They did marvellous harmony. My father thought highly of them. They are on CD.



Sunday 23 update:

I am now fully recovered from the effects of my fall and in very good spirits. My usual breakfast with Joe went well, as did dinner with my Serb girl

I am now "with it" (but only in one way)

When digital music in the form of CDs first came out, many people complained that they didn't give quite the sound quality of the old black vinyl 12" LPs. I was inclined to agree. Analog sound was somehow more life-like. But LPs are a bit fiddly so CDs and later DVDs soon took over. Shops simply stopped selling LPs.

I went with the flow and duplicated my vinyl collection with a comprehensive collection of CDs and a few DVds.

But LPs never quite disappeared. Disk Jockeys continued to prefer them, as did a few audiophiles. And music publishers did eventually restart their LP presses in a small way.

And in recent years there has been a distinct revival of the old music formats: Open-reel tape recorders, audio cassettes and LPs. The opinion that analog formats give more lifelike sound now has quite a few devotees -- to the point where old analog recordings have become a collectors' item. So I am glad that I still have my collections of them. My old collections have made me "with it" today

As I mentioned recently I have decided to get my old music machines going again -- even including a VHS VCR! So my audio cassettes and my record player are up and running again. My CDs and audio cassettes are hooked up to quite good sound systems, ones including woofers.

My record player was however hooked up to a sound system that was pretty basic, with no woofer capability. I might seem a bit fanatical to be worried about woofers but I do have a special reason for that preoccupation: I like the music of Philip Glass and I like wind-organ music. Organ music is of course famous for good bass notes, particularly if the organ includes 16' pipes.

In contrast, Philip Glass mostly produces electronic music, using symthesizers. And synthesizers are VERY good at producing the deepest of bass notes. So to enjoy such music to the full, you need good woofers in your sound system.

My record player is pretty good aside from the speakers. The turntable is a Sony and the amp is a high-quality Onkyo from Japan. So I looked around for a better set of speakers. And I acquired one -- a set of high quality Sony speakers, each of which contained TWO woofers. So, with Jenny's assistance, I got them hooked up to my record player and suddenly had a sound system that did full justice to synth music. It is a great leap forward. I have been playing my LP of "The Photographer" by Philip Glass, which has a lot of profound bass notes.

I am now on the lookout for an open reel tape recorder that still works. I have some good tapes for one


My new Sony setup

Closeup of speaker

A VERY sociable day

My days are not usually very sociable. One social activity per day is my norm. But today was a distinct exception. I had my usual Saturday breakfast with my friend Anne plus a trip to the Annerley Vinnies afterward. The food was good (calamari for me; smoked salmon and big mushrooms for Anne) and Vinnies was even better. Anne had remarked to me quite recently that she rather regretted giving her Kenwood Chef mixer away so it was a pleasant surprise to discover a Junior Kenwood for sale at Vinnies for the very modest sum of $15. So we bought it. It looked new so that should work out well. Neither of us had been aware that there was such a thing as a Junior Kenwood.

When we got home we mainly listened to a recording of "The Photographer" by Philip Glass. The bass in that comes over well on my HiFi speakers. Anne was dressed in her favourite colours -- shades of brown. See below






My girlfriend Zoe in the same setting

Then I had another social occasion for lunch. Two old male friends from years back -- Henningham and Croucher -- joined me at the excellent "Sunny Doll" Japanese restaurant at Buranda. Croucher spent many years teaching in China and is going back soon to sell his properties there. He needs the money and they should reap a goodly sum. We mainly discussed the situation in China and citizenship issues there and in Hong Kong.

For our lunches, both my visitors ordered the traditional Japanese raw tuna. Both have visited Japan. I shouted. I ordered chicken Katsu, which is always good there


Croucher and Henningham opposite my stooped self at the "Sunny Doll"

Then that evening Jenny came over, as she often does. Like me, she had eaten well during the day so didn't feel like eating at dinner time. So I just had a mug of Sustagen for my dinner and we had a cup of tea afterward. Jenny is a very practical lady so we spent some time discussing new speakers for my recently revived record player

Memorable

This is just a call-out to Allsports Physiotherapy and Sports Medicine Clinic at Toowong. The shockwave therapy that they gave me worked a treat. A particular thank-you to Adrian. I am not quite a new man but definitely a renovated one. So my good news continues.

Another good thing is that I have regained a bit of my old energy from years back. I have been collecting recorded music for over 60 years. I started with 78 rpm records and a wind-up gramophone when I was about 13.


A fondly remembered 78

And it went on from there: LPs, Open-reel tape recorders, audio cassettes, CDs, DVDs and now I mostly watch YouTube. And in each era of recording I accumulated many recordings in the medium of the day.

Recently, however I decided to rehabilitate the old recordings. I got my record player, a cassette player and my CD player fully set up to play all my recordings in those media. Getting the old machines working took quite a bit of effort but I can now access music in obsolete formats. I have some audio rarites in the old formats so I am pleased I found the energy to revisit the old machines Some of the old machines were not working but there were enough that did

I even have one of my old VHS VCR players working. I have a lot of tapes for it. It is set up in my garage, together with setups of 3 old computers, an Amiga 500, an Atari ST and an IBM DOS machine

A geriatric lunch

Last Tuesday I put on a simple lunch on my verandah for two old friends from my army days. Those days were back in the 60s, but friendships made in the army tend to endure. And because it is all so long ago, all three of us are pretty geriatric these days, I am on the brink of 80 and Rod H is too. Peter H is already over 80.

I gave the lunch to celebrate two happy recent events in my life: A PET scan and the surprising popularity of my academic writings these days. Papers I wrote way back in the '70s are still getting frequent attention -- which is pretty surprising. Of all academics worldwide I seem to be in the top 5% for citation frequency. I am very glad I lived to see that. My writings were not popular in the day but it seems that I did not labour in vain in researching and writing them.

And the PET scan revealed something else surprising: A total absence of cancer anywhere in my body -- including my prostate. Earlier scans showed me as having metastasized prostate cancer. Prostate cancer does not usually disappear so the recent news was most remarkable. The immunotherapy that eliminated my stomach cancer seems to have had unexpectedly wide reach. So most of the conversation at lunch revolved around prostates and other medical matters. Peter H in particular has had a lot of prostate problems

The meal was savoury mince with pasta and we finished with apple pie

More Amazement

I really am much read by my fellow academics. ResearchGate reports that my papers had 159 reads last week, including frequent mention of two that I regard as among my more significant papers. I am glad I have lived long enough to see it.

The two articles referred to are:

An "attitude to authority" scale

and

Half of All Racists Are Left Wing

It should be noted that almost all my papers are research reports rather than theoretical articles. And research reports stand as facts. You can disagree about the implications of the facts reported -- theoretical articles do that -- but you cannot disagree with the facts as such. The findings stand but what a reader does with the findings will be variable.

How much influence a reading of my papers will have is unknown. Since my findings were often uncongenial to a Leftist viewpoint they will no doubt often be read and then ignored. Leftists are good at ignoring reality

The funeral

I very rarely watch TV but I had a bit of idle time between 10 and 11pm last night so watched the funeral procession of HM the Queen through London. I was glad to be watching from the comfort of my living room rather than being out there standing up at the actual event. I got a better view that way anyhow.

I was a little surprised that the Orb and sceptre accompanied the Imperial State Crowm on the bier. They are symbols of rule and she could hardly be ruling while she was dead


The Orb and sceptre are visible above

The procession was of course a huge and magificent show -- principally because many units of the British armed forces have striking dress uniforms -- from the bearskin hats of the Coldstream Guards, to the plumed helmets of the Household cavalry to the Tudor splendour of the Yeoman Warders. Even the military police in their red caps looked good. There were in fact several uniforms that I had not seen before, often featuring plumes. See below for the flat green hat with plume. No idea where they are from



Detachments of any unit worth looking at must have been present.

I had expected a significant detachment from the Royal Regiment of Scotland. They would have to be the most magnificently dressed soldiers in the world. But I saw only a couple of Scottish troops. Strange. Some might have been deployed abroad but hardly all of them

I might have missed them, though. I read that the Queen's own piper played a lament during the procession.

And all the marchers were paid for out of the military budget, not paid for as part of the Royal Family. All the troops present were in fact working members of the armed forces who often see active duty in the field. They are real soldiers

It may have seemed odd that the Navy got the honour of drawing the gun carriage. Why? Simple. In Britain the navy is the senior service and is proudly referred to as that. They trace back to Alfred the Great, long before any army unit. The earliest army unit goes back only to the civil war and Cromwell's New Model Army. Traditions matter in armed formations.

I was pleased to see the King looking Kingly as he marched behind the bier


The king looking Kingly

But it was sad to see the red hair of Prince Harry. He actually has spent more time in the army than other any other member of the family so was well entitled to wear military uniform. But his downgrading was on his own head. He seems to be a bit dim -- like his mother -- and that American bitch he married has filled his head with nonsense and caused him to alienate his family beyond all reason. She has a lot to answer for



UPDATE: The headgear I wondered about would seem to be Scottish. It strongly resembles the headgear adopted for a meeting of the Clan Buchanan. See below

I am a lucky man

A lady in my life often tells me that I am a lucky man. She is right. For a single man in his 80th year to have three ladies calling on him regularly is indeed lucky. And I appreciate all three.

I particularly appreciate my intimate companion Zoe. As I have pointed out previously, there are some big incompatibilities between us but, countering that, there is much else:

She is just about as good-looking and as fit as a lady of her age can get, she is very bright, well educated, has a broad awareness of high culture and even is strongly moved by the music of J.S. Bach. That latter would mean nothing to most people but it is huge to me as I feel the same way about Bach. We also have lots of laughs and she fits very nicely into my cuddle

So that is pretty lucky. Just a high IQ and a liking for Bach would probably have tied me to her but there is much more besides

A wedding

Yesterday (Saturday) I accompanied Zoe to a wedding. It was in the Srbian Orthodox church at Wacol. It was the first Orthodox service I had attended and many details were different from the Presbyterian services I am used to.

For a start, people stood for the whole service. In Presbyterian services we stand up only to sing hymns. There were no hymns at the Srbian church. There were some seats down the side for the frail elderly such as myself. I was glad of that. Another difference was that all the men stood on one side of the church with the women on the other. Muslims and Haredi Jews would approve

The whole congregation of the bride's church must have turned out for the wedding. There were large throngs of both men and women in attendance. One thing I noticed was that lots of the young women were amazingly thin. Srbians could maybe teach other women a few things there. There were a lot of young men in formal dresss who also looked good. I did wear my sole and only suit with a white shirt and tie but some of the young Srbs wore shirts with studs. It'a long time since I did that.

The ceremony was also different from my experience. There were long speeches from the priest in Srbian which I understood not at all but I had a fair idea of what was being said. I conjecture that it would have similar content to a Tridentine mass. There were lots of opportunities for responses from the congregation and most of the congregation responded well.

An amusing thing to me was that the bride and groom were both given small crowns to wear at one stage. I had not seen that one anywhere before

The bride looked gorgeous. Being tall and slim was a good start on that but she had a great appearance generally. Her dress was fine but rather practical: No great billowing train etc. It was white with golden trims so was in perfect taste.

Both the bride and groom had been to my place for lunch a little while ago so it was good to see them tie the knot. A wedding is a very happy thing.

It was good of Zoe to get me invited to such a special occasion

The church was ornate internally but only with paintings. No statuary or carvings.

Below are two views of the couple during the ceremony






Exiting the church

More on my academic status

I have just received another interesting email from ResearchGate.

They report that last week I had 6 citations. That means that someone somewhere is citing one of my papers at the rate of nearly one a day. I am rather stunned by that. And half of my reads were from academics in the USA, followed by India.

Several of my papers did refer to India so the interest from India is not too surprising

What is surprising is that my most-read article is one that appeared way back in 1971. So maybe there will be someone reading my papers long after I have gone. I like that thought

Clarification:

ResearchGate has a comprehensive database of academic publications. They are a sort of academic Google. If a paper is cited by someone already in their database they will try to add that paper also to their database. So they would appear to have just about all the academic papers on the internet. And if a paper they see cited is not already on the net they will ask for a copy of it and put it on the net

The list of "reads" is different. They refer only to reads from the ResearchGate database. Many people will of course have read the paper in its initial appearance elsewhere. So it would probaly be safe to say that the total number of reads of any paper is at least twice what ResearchGate records. But the reads that they record could be seen as a useful estimate of total reads

Fathers' Day

Fathers' day in Australia is on a Sunday and my son Joe and I normally breakfast together on a Sunday anyway. And it was a good breakfast today -- running from about 9:30 to 11:30. So we talked a lot.

We mainly discussed our relationships but also American politics and electric cars. We noted that Mr Trump still seems to get more publicity than anyone else in American politics. Joe was more positive than I am about electric cars but we didn't disagree after we had discussed it.

The breakfast was as usual at the local pie shop where they do a very good bacon & egg burger with lashings of bacon. We also bought some delicacies to take away. They do unusually good jam donuts there so that is what I had. I like a jam donut to have lots of jam in it and the one I got certainly did. We took our delicacies home to have on my open verandah, which is always a pleasant setting. Joe shouted the breakfast

Joe told me rather a lot about his personal life that sounded very positive so I was pleased to hear that. It made a very good fathers' day for me.

Zoe arrived later in the day at her usual hour of 4pm so we then had an early dinner prepared by her. She and I will be attending a wedding next week so she brought over a big range of dresses for me to look at. She said she trusts my taste so wanted my opinion on which dress looked best on her for a wedding. After much deliberation we decided on one.

Zoe left to drive back to her place in Western parts at about 7pm. We spent most of our time together lying in bed. To look down on a pretty face smiling up at you is one of the better experiences for a man in his 80th year

Monday Update: I was pleased to get a nice newsy Fathers' day greeting by email from my stepdaughter Yvonne in New Zealand

My diet

I am a normal human omnivore with no allergies or other restrictions on what I can eat. Zoe however has very strong "alternative" ideas She believes that we are healthiest if we eat a diet consisting wholly of raw food -- uncooked fruit and vegetables. And she urges me to adopt that diet

I grew up on the same diet that generations before me of my ancestors did: Meat and three veg. And my diet is still of that general type. Lots of my relatives lived into their '90s so I think my diet is healthy enough.

But whenever Zoe comes over, I bow to her wishes. She makes me a collation of raw foods -- mostly grated -- and I eat it for my dinner. I am inclined to think that such a diet has some benefit and I note that my blood pressure has gone down over the course of this year. So that could well be a benefit of what Zoe feeds me. There is no other change to explain it

I have rather bad skin. It grows a regrettable number of cancers -- due to the fact that as a kid I was fed cough mixtures that contained arsenic. Such was the medical wisdom of the day.

Zoe has endeavoured to help with my skin problems by spraying me regularly with a solution of a chlorine compound -- similar to swimming pool water. Some skin eruptions have gone away under that regime so I appear to have got some benefit from an "alternative" medicine treatment

One rather welcome change is that my hair and beard have got blacker as a result of the spraying. I am getting a marginally more youthful look

I thank her for what she has done for the benefit of my health and welfare

I'm astounded

According to ResearchGate, a publication which tracks such matters, my academic publications are getting a lot of attention from other academics. They say that "Your Research Interest Score is higher than 95% of ResearchGate members". The score is mainly made up of citations.

Why is that surprising? Because I last published something in the academic journals back in the '90s. The general view of adcademic publications is that if it is more than 10 years old it no longer exists. But the advent of the internet means that someone researching a topic will usually do an internet search at some point and that will turn up something relevant regardless of date. So as long as your writings are online they are readily accessible. Most of my publications were written before the intrernet existed but I have made sure to put them online retrospectively. ResearchGate has them all. Being really old means that I can look a long way back.

And the fact that I have had so many papers published (250+) of course increases the likelihood that I will hit on something of interest to others.

But I mustn't get a big head about it all. I have kept some track of my citations and they mostly come from places like Pakistan and Poland -- not great sources of cutting edge academic endeavour

Another reason for humility is that my papers that other people cite are rarely the ones which I think are most significant or important. Instead people cite papers that are more technical or utilitarian. Still, it is nice to be still ahead of the pack even after 30 years. I did after all devote 20 years of my life -- from 1970 to 1990 -- doing all that research and writing.

I have also now spent 20 years blogging -- from 2002 to 2022.

In all my writing I have aimed to say things that are informative or helpful to others and I think I have achieved that to a small degree. I do get "thank you" messages occasionally, which I appreciate.

So now that I am pushing 80, have I spent my time well? I am not at all sure about that. I have had 4 marriages but also 4 divorces. Disappointing 4 fine women is not something to be proud of. So I think I should have given more attention to my personal life. Still, I have rarely gone long without a partner and my present partner and I please one-another greatly.

ALL CLEAR

I have just got the results from my latest PET scan. And there was NO cancer found anywhere in my body. Even my prostate cancer is gone -- which is very rare

So the combination of immunotherapy last year and my naturally good immune system has wiped out not only my stomach cancer but all other cancers as well. And an old guy like me should have had Covid by now but I have had no trace of it. The immunotherapy was three infusions of Keytruda

It's the second PET scan to show no prostate cancer so it is a firm, if amazing result. Prostate cancer usually kills men sooner or later. And my prostate cancer had aready started to metastasize when first detected

So am only months off 80 and all my tests show no negatives. I already knew from previous tests that I have strong bones plus normal heart, liver and kidney function. And my last BP reading was a safe 130/60. So today's results really put the icing on the cake

And the latest results combined a CT scan with the PET scan so showed something else of interest -- that the recent fracture in my chest -- now completely healed -- was in my sternum (breastbone). I had thought the crack was there but the emergency doctors thought it was in my ribs. Sternum fractures are slow to heal and mine did take around 4 months to heal. Fortunately, I was not badly affected by that problem either. And my broken ankle healed in about the minimum time. And my arthritis is minimal.

So for someone of my age I am now in remarkable health. I am however extremely unfit and see no end to that. 15 minutes is about the maximum time I can walk and I take stairs slowly.

And a big thanks to Jenny, Anne and Zoe for standing by me during my difficult days. Jenny takes a keen interest in medical matters so she was with me when the specialist gave me the latest results.

UPDATE: One of my readers had a witty comment on this post. He wrote: "May your health continue to be jolly good. My health is generally splendid, but have started to have some aching joints and muscles. I hope I will not suffer from irony deficiency, that and other medical puns can be hard to stomach"

Early days with John Henningham and Denis Ryan

Most of the memoirs I put up here are of very recent events but notes about the more distant past also have a place in memoirs. I have quite recently put up a record of one of the men's dinners that I occasionally put on. In it John Henningham got an honourable mention, as he has often done in these notes over the years. He and I have been friendly for for over 50 years and have kept in sporadic touch over all that time. So I thought it might be appropriate to put up here a brief note about how we originally met.

I think it must have been in 1969 that I rented a terrace house in Wentworth Pk. Rd., Glebe, in Sydney (WPR). It had 3 bedrooms so I asked among friends to find people who might move in and share the cost with me.

I was referred to two young men with a love of cars, Henningham and Croucher by surname. I became quite good friends with both (Henningham and Croucher were already old friends -- school friends) in a bantering sort of way. We address one another by surname only. I address the other two as Croucher and Henningham and they address me as Ray, so how you define that sort of friendhip I have no idea. You just have to be part of such a friendship to understand it, I think. It is an unusually strong friendship. People who have been to school together or in the Army together often address one-another that way. It is sometimes referred to as a "muscular" friendship, associated with constant but not serious abuse of one-another. For many years, my usual greeting when I rang Henningham up was: "Christ you're a shambles, Henningham!".


Henningham when he still had hair

We greatly enjoyed our times at "WPR", in part because we shared attitudes that were at least not incompatible, including a liking for the music of Leos Janacek and "The wonderful world of Barry McKenzie" by Barry Humphries -- a comic book, no less.

In fact, when I was first introduced to Henningham and Croucher at a small party, they gave me the McKenzie book to look at as a sort of test of cultural compatibility. They regarded it then (and I think still do) as the apogee of Australian humour. After I had been chuckling over it for ten minutes or more somebody said wonderingly: "He's still on the first page". So my credentials were firmly established.



All three of us became great devotees of McKenzie. All of us still use some McKenzie slang, particularly in one-another's company -- including an unusual meaning for the word "feature". Henningham was real fun back then but has become a bit more restrained since he married.

One interest we did NOT share was an interest in sporty cars so my purchase of a humble Mazda 1300 was greatly derided. When a car-lovers' "Bible" (called "Wheels", I think) came out and named the Mazda 1300 as "car of the year", there was therefore great embarrassment. That issue was hidden from me and no mention was made of it until many years later.

An incident I remember at that house was when Henningham, Croucher and I were about to take out some insurance. The salesman, George Serhan, was of Lebanese origin and a real bull-artist. We rather liked that side of him. We thought it an art-form and quite amusing (He even had a chauffeur!)

My girlfriend Nola was there, however, and also detected the insincerity. Did she get up him! She really gave poor old George a tongue-lashing. We almost had to pull her off him. It is lucky I am so exceptionally blunt and straightforward or else I would never have got on with Nola.

What I eventually learned about insurance at that time is chronicled elsewhere


The three amigos lunching at Southbank a few years back, with two wives. Croucher is sitting beside his Chinese wife

Denis Ryan, Henningham, Croucher and I 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 tended libertarian, which is sometimes seen as 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. Sadly, he is now deceased


Denis at home in Abergeldie St. with his Japanese girlfriend

Nola and I drifted apart, though we still kept in touch, and I took up with the the red-headed Dawn. So after about a year at the terrace house, I left to marry Dawn, which rather broke things up

With the arrival of the internet, however, Henningham, Croucher and I were able to create a "virtual" WPR, with frequent emails exchanged: almost entirely of a jocular or even nonsensical nature. We even have a sort of strange inflated language that we use only between one-another.

Henningham was later to become Professor of Journalism at the Uni of Qld but is now retired, and Alf Croucher was to spend much of his life in China as an academic.


Henningham as he was just a few years ago, at lunch at the Sunnybank Mosburger cafe with his wife Helen and my then-girlfriend Anne



ADDENDUM: I am putting up this addendum pending advice on whether I should put it up at all. With unusual concern from my autistic self, I fear that what I am about to write might in different ways reflect badly on all three people concerned.

In the early days of our joint residency at WPR, there was a certain tall lady in our social circle. It's not an overriding consideration for me but I do rather like tall ladies. And I was myself of above average height so such women were accessible to me. I did not long ago marry a lady who was just a fraction short of 6' tall. A happy memory.

So I paid some attention to the tall lady in the WPR social environment. It was however a complication that Croucher was interested in her too. So what to do about that? I withdrew. I felt that I had a much better chance of finding another lady than he did so I ceased all approaches to her. I actually abandoned potential romance for the sake of a male friend. Whatever else that says, I think it firmly establishes my credentials as an Australian

My time as a High School teacher

After I did my M.A. at the University of Sydney in 1968, I went to the School of Behavioural Sciences at Macquarie University to do my Ph.D. I supported myself initially by part-time tutoring in Social Psychology at Macquarie. Later I had the idea of doing High School teaching to support myself. I had no Diploma of Education so the New South Wales Department of Education gave me the heave-ho but a small regional Catholic school (at Merrylands) gave me a job teaching economics and geography. The school was Cerdon College run by the Marist sisters.

Australia was so short of teachers in those "baby boom" years that my one year of Economics at the University of N.S.W. counted as sufficient qualification for teaching the subject at High School level. I in fact taught upper level economics, which was not far short of university level.

For geography I just kept a chapter ahead in the textbook. In my own schooling I had only ever done Junior geography. But my students all did well enough at exam time

Merrylands was a working class area but all my students eventually did well in their H.S.C. economics examinations. As I recollect, all my students passed their HSC and four got on to the statewide order of merit list. The Higher School Certificate serves as the university entrance examination.

Sister Aquinas, the Head of the school, was a very smart lady. I liked her. I wonder if her vocation endured. I see that she was still in the Marist Sisters order in 1980 so perhaps it did. I believe her birth name was Joan McBride. Her choice of her religious name suggested an intellectual orientation and I believe I saw evidence of that

In the photo below, I am the guy in the back row with the black glasses. I had more hair then. The photo was taken in 1970. The photo is of all the school staff. In those days Catholic schools still had religious staff, at least in part.





Later, in my early years as a lecturer at Uni. N.S.W. I got permission to do outside work part-time and was thus able to return to Secondary School teaching.

I again taught Higher School Certificate Economics -- this time at a now defunct "progressive" ("non-directive") school at Birchgrove called "Chiron College". "Progressive" meant little or no school discipline. A.S. Neill's "Summerhill" school was very fashionable at the time so was part of the inspiration for Chiron College. The school has since ceased to exist. It was associated in some way with artist Charles Blackman, who I think supported it. A number of students came from artistic homes and most came from generally wealthy famiies

The students did not all adapt well to the low discipline. About half of them skipped many classes but greatly improved their skills at playing cards. The other half however did quite well because they came from homes where educational achievement was expected. In other words the parents had to provide the motivation that the school did not. So they turned up for my classes. So the HSC results were very mixed. Around half did well and half failed. In summary: For a certain bourgeois minority, "progressive" education can work. For mass education it would be a disaster