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