Resting state

The pain I am getting from cancer is getting steadily worse. It is now painful to breathe. I think I will soon put in for Vountarily Assisted Dying, which, fortunately, is now legal in Queensland

Liniment

I have been full of cancer for over a year now but have been suffering no pain from it. That happy state came to an end on August 5 this year when a stabbing pain in my chest emerged. Since then, pains in my hip, knee and shoulder have emerged. I am falling apart in my old age.

I can as a result no longer walk unaided. I use crutches and thus avoid the pain associated with walking. That makes me a complete invalid as Jenny and Joe are needed to help me do many things. Joe has moved back into the apartment adjoining mine to give quick help with falls etc. I had radiotherapy to help with the pain and I take various medications but the shoulder pain in particular is persistent and bothers me a lot. Anti-inflammatories and analgesics don't help much.

I was therefore much surprised when Jenny rubbed a liniment into my sore shoulder and it worked. I became pain free for the rest of the day

Liniment is of course an old idea and there many fomulations of it. The one Jenny uses is called "Pain Away" and contains a blizzard of plant oils etc. No prescription needed.

A lady I like

Fortunately, she likes me too

A breakfast development

Anne has for some time been uncomfortable driving so has driven only to my place at breakfast time to see me. George normally drives her anywhere else she wants to go. He likes driving her cars. But that has now come to something of a head. She has decided to keep up her usual visits but will come to my place by bus. That does entail a fair bit of walking at either end of the journey so I am very appreciative of that effort

Today she came by bus but arranged for George to pick her up at the end of the visit. He ended up running rather late but I enjoyed the extra time with her

In bed with a long-haired blonde

Every man's dream, I think. And when it is preceded by a bottle of Grange it is even better

During her big trip around Australia, Anne did not cut her hair. And when she came away from the hairdresser after she got back from her trip she arrived at my place with hair that was long and straight and blonde, which pleased me. It is quite rare for ladies in their latter years to wear their hair long but Anne knows I greatly like it that way. And when we are together our custom is to lie down in bed together and listen to classical music. Our relationsip is only Platonic these days but we find it most comfortable to listen to music abed.

And last night was very special. I got in a bottle of Grange to celebrate her returning safe and sound from her trip. She did go through some rather hairy places during the trip. I sent the demon shopper (Jenny) to Sedimentary wines a few days ago to pick up the Grange and, true to form, she did buy well. She got the 2010 vintage for $999 -- a vintage that has got 100 points out of 100 from many of the critics

So we had a dinner at my place last night with Jenny cooking Scotch fillet for us and a crystal goblet of Grange for each of the 3 of us to wash it down. We also had 8 very fresh Sydney rock oysters each as an appetizer -- and they were exceptionally tasty too.



And there is nothing quite like the taste of Grange. It is a smooth taste all of its own and very pleasing.



For dessert we each had some roulade -- a sort of Pavlova. Unlike the original Pavlova, the meringue is spread out on a tray, baked, then layered with cream and berries, rolled up and served as a roulade



Anne helped Jenny clean up after the dinner and then came into my room for us to spend the rest of the evening in bed together. She stayed until 10pm and after that spent the rest of the night in my guest room. She sleeps very easily but I am very restless in bed so that arrangement suits us. Jenny slept in Joe's bed in his adjoining apartment. Joe slept on his futon.

Jenny was in an exceptionally good mood all night. She got to drink a lot of Grange on special occasions when we were married so she was delighted by a return to that custom

A day in the life of an invalid

Since early this month I have had to walk around using crutches. The pain in my hip if I try to walk around unaided makes that imperative. But Joe has moved in to the adjoining apartment here to be around to help me. Having a son is definitely recommendable

But crutches make it difficult to get down a flight of stairs. This evening I tried to get down the back stairs with Joe's help. The stairs were easy enough but what came next was the problem. I was faced with a longish walk to the car or being wheeled there. The terrain made the wheelchair incapable, though we did eventually manage it with much stress on me

We had good meals at a Korean restaurant at Stones Corner. Getting in and out of the car was pretty easy there. And on coming home I got up the front stair with comparative ease.

It was my first outing for a couple of weeks so I greatly enjoyed it. I was getting stir crazy. We left about 6pm and got back home about 8pm -- whereupon I promptly fell asleep until about 10pm. The outing was hectic for me so I enjoyed the sleep too

Requiem for a blog

I have always put up a number of blogs, mostly hosted on Blogspot, which is a free blog hosting service offered by Google. One blog that I was rather attached to was initally called "A Western Heart" and later renamed as "The Psychologist".

I did however put up on it a number of things that Google greatly disliked, so they abolished it. It no longer exists. I have however put up a partial substitute for it on a non Google plaform, find that here:

http://jonjayray.com/select.html

On the substitute blog I avoid mentioning the sort of thing that Google disliked so I hope they will index it.

People may however be curious about what appeared on the deleted blog so I have grabbed a random couple of months of it from the Wayback Machine and posted it here:

http://jonjayray.com/awe.html

It is a large file so may take a minute to load

Milestone

With much help from the incomparable Jenny, I have just completed my third session of radiation oncology. There were 5 exposures over 5 consecutive days. The first two episodes a few years back were completely successful so I have good hopes of the latest treatment.

So far, however neither main effects nor side effects of the therapy have emerged. I am told that it will take a couple of weeks for the final effects to be known. I do still have some pain but Ibuprofen and Paracetamol are keeping it down to a tolerable level. I need a 4-point walking stick to get around however

So I am at the moment pretty geriatric. Whether I will be bouncing around like Fred Astaire in a couple of weeks seems doubtful however,

Cancer treatment chronology

I have been battling cancer for about the last 5 years -- both metastasized SCCs (skin cancer) and prostate cancer. Each time it flared up, modern medicine has pulled me back from death and left me in no pain and in perfect comfort.

The latest flareup occurred when I noticed a pain in my chest a that would not go away. So I saw the excellent GP Dr Deep for advice. He ordered a couple of scans which revealed that I am full of cancer, with a tumour evident at the pain site in my chest. He recommended radiotherapy to fix it.

So I went to my oncologist to consult further about it. He compared the latest scans with a scan taken about a year ago. He advised that most of the cancers had been there under control for some time and that the latest localized flareup could be eliminated with radiotherapy. So I have now been set to begin 5 days of treatment starting from 26th.

Chronology:

Saw Dr Deep 6th August
Saw Oncologist 8th August
Saw Radiologist 12th
Setup process for radiotherapy 19th

There will be some time for me to get over the radiotherapy but I have gone under radiology twice before so I think I know what to expect. I expect to be well again around 6th September

I tried a number of pain medications while waiting for treatment, starting with Paracetamol. When that became ineffective, I moved on to the opiates, Targin, Tramadol, straight Oxycontin and Codeine. I paired them on all occasions with Ibuprofen as an anti-inflammatory. All were reasonably effective but the opiates all led to excesive sleep. Something -- probably the Ibprofen -- has however eased the pain to nuisance level only so I am not at the moment taking any pain-killers. So I am back pretty close to normal

My early life

I have just completed the first draft of a project to put up a chronological record of my childhood and early life. It was mainly aimed at supplementing my dire memory of my past but I have put it online for anybody else to scan who may be interested. See: http://jonjayray.com/earlier.html

My second wife, Joy

I have put up on this blog quite a bit about the ladies in my life so it has occured to me that I have said nothing about my second wife, Joy. There is much that I could say but I think the following short notes do have a place here

I met her at a Mensa meeting quite soon after splitting with my first wife but nothing much came of it for a while. Joy then put an invitation in the Mensa newsletter for people to join her in an evening run along Bondi beach (she was living right by Bondi beach at the time). I was one of those who responded and we got to know one another in that context. We started dining together after our run on the beach and one thing soon led to another.

She was a medical detailer (salesperson for a drug company) when I met her and already owned a few investment properties. She was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and grew up there

After travelling around a lot in Britain and overseas during her days as a nurse, Joy emigrated with her brother Stephen to Australia when she was in her early 30s. Her mother and stepfather (a retired Glasgow Police Inspector) followed soon after.

She had had various relationships before she met me but had never married or had children. That really is a bit strange as she was in my experience of her a very loving person. I remember I used to give her a lot of bear-hugs.

She has an almost obsessive interest in anything medical. No wonder she started out as a nurse. Our dinner conversations would sometimes be about the latest academic journal articles on matters of interest to her.

A curious thing about Joy is that she was a smoker when I met her but I never knew it. She knew my dislike of it so just did not smoke in my presence and then just gave it up altogether. She must not have been heavily addicted. It paid off, however. Some years later she did a spirometry test and was found to have early emphysema (of which her mother later died). The specialist who ran the spirometry told her that by giving up smoking when she met me she had added ten years to her life!

Around 1975 I moved in with her and married her about a year later -- on 15.5.1976. She was 43 at the time and I was 32 but that did not worry me as I had been told that I was infertile and could not have kids anyway.

The wedding was a "Scottish" one (at the Waverley Presbyterian church!) with many of the male guests (and myself) wearing the kilt. I also made up a tape of all the best Scottish sentimental songs and played it for a large part of our wedding reception.

You should have seen the funny faces as all the Scots tried to restrain the tears! I hadn't quite foreseen that but perhaps I should have. Anyway, it certainly did a lot of Scottish hearts good to see a Scots lass wed so far from home but amid such devotion to all things Scottish. Just writing that sentence brought tears to my eyes so I must be a pretty solid sentimentalist too.


On honeymoon at Peregian beach

Joy and I were together for about 8 years and she suited me very well. During the day I would usually be busy at University with my research and writing but I still kept good working class hours and would arrive home at about 5 p.m. -- like my father before me. Our usual routine of an evening was for us to sit around and chat between 5 and 6 p.m., go out to an ethnic restaurant at 6 and take a bottle of wine.

In 1977 I went to London on my Sabbatical year. Joy came with me but stayed only 2 or 3 months. While she was there she wanted a job. As she was still an SRN from her Glasgow days, so she first looked into becoming a "temp" nurse. She found it offered one pound an hour. She thought that was a bit derisory so looked for a job as a "temp" secretary. She also had those skills. She found that she could get TWO pounds an hour as a secretary so did the obvious. But something seems wrong there. British socialism?

She also noted that some of the hospitals she knew had new buildings attached. She was excited to see the new wards. Alas, they were office buildings: British bureaucracy. Puzzle solved. All that health bureaucracy required a lot of staff. So the big demand for secretaries bid up the wages of secretaries to double the wages of nurses. No doubt all those extra clerks cured a lot of people of their illnesses!

When I got back to Sydney I resumed my interest in Real Estate. I bought a block of flats at 13 Wallis Pde., Bondi in conjunction with Joy. I put in 25% and she put in 75% of the cost. They were the first places I "did up" -- prior to strata titling them. We later bought other properties but most of our business activities for some years afterwards consisted of managing what we had -- cleaning up after tenants, getting new tenants etc. We seemed to be doing a re-letting almost every second weekend as we had over 20 properties between us.

We lived for a couple of years in a rented unit at Randwick and then also for a time at 6 Norton St, Kingsford -- a house which Joy bought. It was next to her mother's house at 4 Norton St. 6 Norton St was just outside the Uni of NSW fence so for a couple of the 12 years I was a university lecturer I used to walk to work. When we eventually let 6 Norton St out it was to a Chinese man who liked the property because he thought it looked "very crean" (sic).

Leaving Sydney

When I began to get near 40 years of age I began (as many men do) to feel that I was in a rut (the mid-life crisis) and resolved to retire to Queensland. Joy and I had a great life together with everything more or less as I wanted it but I still felt that I wanted to make an entirely new start for the second half of my life -- including a new female or females in my life.

Joy always had more property (Real Estate) than I did and she would have been worth a couple of million at that stage (during the Sydney property boom of the late 80s). A lot of men aspire to marry a millionairess. I actually divorced one! Also to her credit was that she eventually got her Masters degree in Psychology

Her constant pleasantness, good cheer, enthusiasm and intelligence did make her a quite remarkable person and I do regard myself as lucky to have had so much time with such a fine woman.

I have not heard from her for some time but she would now be 92 so may be deceased. My pleasant little world seems likely to come to an end soon too

A reprieve

Earlier this week I had a pain in my chest, so went to see a GP about it -- the excellent Dr Deep. He immediatey ordered both an X-ray and a CT scan of my chest.

The reports that came back from the radiographers were dire. They showed me as riddled with cancer. Dr Deep took that onboard and sent me off for urgent radiotherapy. I left with the impression that I was a dead man walking. It was very upsetting but at age 81 that seemed reasonable.

I thought however that I should consult my oncologist before further action. Jenny and I saw him at 2.30pm yesterday afternoon. He had some useful scans of me from my past and concluded that most of my cancers were regressing or stable and already being successfully treated. There were just a few breakouts that could be successfully treated with radiotherapy

So once again my horizons were extended. I will not die of my present conditions

Jenny and I celebrated at 4pm with salty biscuits, Tarama and some good cheese; Jenny had some leftover wine and I had Sarsaparilla

And at 6.30pm I had Scotch steak & salad with bin 555 Shiraz followed by Pavlova and fancy icecream -- via Jenny

The treatment has not yet begun so I am still in pain, but my customary positive mood has returned

A good dinner

Last night was the last dinner I will have with Anne for the foreseeable futurre. We normally meet over Saturday breakfast only. So I was pleased that it worked out well. We ordered a couple of pork dishes from Ben's resturant nearby, which we ordered via Doordash. No need to go out in the cold.

I had pork with plum sauce and I was surpised that they did it so well. Many moons ago I used to get it from the Old Taiping Chinese resturant in Haymarket, Sydney. But subsequent restaurants have not been able to measure up to that. But Ben's Vietnamese in Annerley Rd was at last another place that did that dish well. They were big servings too

Anne and I waited for it to be delivered with the help of Tyrrell's Verdelho and a Mozart concert via Youtube from an orchestra in Iceland. So the combination of good wine, good food, good music and good company was hard to beat. More fun than an 81 year old had a right to expect. I went to bed with a smile on my face

And this morning we went to our old stamping ground, the cafe at Buranda, for breakfast. I had my usual calamari and Anne had a dish with a lot of good smoked salmon. She will go back to her place soon preparatory to flying back to Mt Isa tomorrow morning

Bon voyage dinner for Paul and family

Morning with Matthew

6pm at Jenny's, very good dinner, Pork sausages! Ken subdued, left early; Christopher talked a lot; Anne looked good in black and long hair; I talked with Susan; I gave a Filipino Bible for Mattthew;

Having both Anne and family together at a home dinner was really special to me. An assembly of my favorite people. I enjoyed it greatly. The family brunch on Tues 23 was good but this was better. The family were due to fly out next morning

A family brunch

To greet Anne, I arranged a brunch for all the family at my usual breakfast haunt in Buranda -- so that Anne and the family could see one another while both were in town. Paul and family have been in Brisbane since the beginning of the month and fly back to Scotland on 26th.

The Brunch was a great success with Anne getting to talk at some length with Susan, Jenny and Paul. It was a great pleasure to have Matthew, Elise and Primrose with us as well



Then that night, Anne and I Doordashed, getting in some excellent Korean fried chicken and talking until late.

Anne is back in town

But only for a week. She had got to Mt Isa in her caravan trip around Australia so was not due back in Brisbane for a while. But she had various things to do in Brisbane, including us having a dinner together in celebration of my b*rthday. She arrived this afternoon and I had the oysters and French cutlets ready for our traditional celebration dinner that night.

Celebrating Joe

Brek with Joe and me at 9.30am

Party to celebrate his birthday 6pm that night; family in attendance; much happy squealing from the girls. Joe wanted ice-cream and custard for his dessert so Jenny bought and decorated an ice-cream birthday cake for him. See him contemplating it below; The dinner was a Lasagne prepared by the wonderful Susan

Looking back

Given my recent 81st b*rthday, I have begun to think about how well I have used those 81 years. And I am rather amazed that all my original joints still work well most of the time, that I still have 10 each of fingers and toes and that I am usually in no pain or discomfort. I am full of two types of cancer but I am on medications that are slowly defeating both.

So is there any one occasion that was a highpoint in my life? I can think of many very pleasing occasions, not all of them fit for public mention, but I have chosen one that I do think was a highpoint in my life. It is already online here but the following is I think the essence of it. It was the occasion of my 53rd birthday:

"On the Monday itself I took JHM to The Clansmen restaurant. It has various Scottish features, a vaguely Scottish cuisine and is situated in a beautiful old colonial building at Annerley. It is a bit dear so I go there only on special occasions but when I do go I usually wear the kilt in honour of my shreds of Scottish ancestry (I have one ancestor with an Irish name [Joseph Kelly] who was born in Scotland and another ancestor with a Scottish name [Jane Burnside] who came from Ireland!).

On this occasion I wore full Highland formal dress: My red MacRae tartan kilt, white pleated dress shirt, black bow tie, black silk waistcoat, Prince Charlie jacket etc. JHM really loved it! I think "splendid" was her word for my attire on that occasion. JHM, of course dressed beautifully for the occasion too. She wore a shapely black classic suit she had bought from Harrods in London many years before and teamed it with a rather elaborate cream blouse that was also from Harrods. She has kept the same figure for many years and always buys classic styles so she can do that sort of thing. And since it was midwinter she put on her MINK jacket over it all to step outside the door. With her golden hair up in her usual chignon, with her fine white skin and her usual perfect grooming and poise she really looked as elegant a lady as any man has ever taken out.

I was equally aware that there was a brilliant brain behind the steady gaze of her pretty pale blue eyes so I felt a very fortunate man indeed at that dinner"

She and I are still in friendly contact but she too is now in her 80s and neither of us get out much these days

Recent events

I had a men's night for Paul but Christopher forgot; Matthew was in good voice; Paul used a big lot of Chili sauce on his dinner. Joe talked a lot

I had an 81st b*rthday party put on by Jenny at her place; egg-rolled park and TonKatsu; Pavlova birthday cake with candles; George P. especially welcome and took a big part in the conversation; Joe and I mostly listened

Good hats

Z is in Montenegro at the moment. She has sent me a number of pictures from her travels. I liked the one below. There are a lot of atttractive folk costumes in that part of the world

Real women

A real woman will find handsome men attractive and will be pleased and at least a bit excited to encounter one. He may be out of reach (as in being married to someone else) but they will still enjoy the experience.

But that might not always go anywhere even if opportunity knocks. Z once said to me: "I used to go for handsome men but they are all stupid". Z is exceptionally bright so the "all" in that utterance is probably true for her.

But the ultimate real woman is a wife. She enjoys being with one man so much that she acts on her feelings and makes a public committment to him. Real women like real men

And there are degrees of wifeliness. The ultimate wife is a Scottish wife. At a buffet or party in Scotland the men will sit around talking and the women will select a plate of food and bring it to him. Part of the reason for that is that he might select some food that he doesn't finish. But his wife knows what he "takes" and gives him just the right plate of food

So I was pleased yesterday at a family gathering when Jenny got me a plate of food and brought it to me while I was sitting down talking. And it included some of my favourite things

So the ultimate wife is a Scottish wife. Jenny is mostly Irish but we don't need to quibble about details

And we both have a "past". Jenny did once marry a handsome man and I did once marry an attractive Scotswoman

And Z did once go all the way to a place in Asia with hopes for a handsome man she knew

An amusing memory

Around the year 2000 I owned a 22 room boarding house in the poor Brisbane suburb of Ipswich. The demograhics were adverse, with a significant fraction of the tenants being fresh out of the "big house".

I reserved a front room for myself. I would spend time there watching TV while tenants came to me with rents, problems etc. My TV was an old B&W monitor drawing on the signal from an old VCR that was no good for its original purpose but still had a working tuner. So all the tenants could see that I was using a VCR without knowing that the VCR was useless for recording or playing back video tapes.

One or two of the resident thieves saw this and decided to steal the VCR to sell it to a pawnshop or the like. But that was not easy as I had placed deadlocks on all the doors.

Nothing daunted, they took advantage of my room being fairly close to the ground and moved a wheelie bin to underneath my window -- and climbed on the bin and broke in via the window. The deadlock prevented them from exiting via the door so they had to climb back out of the window with the VCR

When I saw what had happened and the trouble the thieves had taken, I was much amused and liked to imagine their conversation with the pawnbroker and the look of both surprise and disappoinmenton on their faces when they were told the VCR was worthless! They would not have been able to figure out where they got it wrong. I mentioned the matter to some of the other tenants so the the thieves would have become quite a laughing stock throughout the boarding house

Well, bless me!

I was recently critical of Google for "search blocking" my Blogspot blogs. They do however now appear to have reversed course on that and now most statements on my blogs will appear in response to a Google search on the topics they cover.

So I was curious to see if they indexed statements on this blog. This blog has only a tiny readership so could fairly reasonably not be indexed by Google -- though it is hosted on Google servers!

Anyway, I was not surprised to see posts on this blog being ignored by them. But here is the funny part: They do index the copy of this blog that I put up on one of my backup sites! Colour me surprised but grateful!

See: http://jonjayray.com/memoirs.html

UPDATE: Since I wrote the above, Google have started indexing the Blogspot version of this blog too. I get the strong impression that someone at Google is keeping an eye on me! Probably mediated via their AI

I am a happy monarchist

Being both born into a monarchy and a citizen of the only country to have an entire continent to itself is pretty pleasing to me. Leftists for a while were always telling people to "check your privilege" and I acutely feel and appreciate my privilege of birth.

And the monarchy of which I am a subject is also undoubtdly the grandest one on earth. No-one does monarchy better than the British. And the amount of publicity they have been getting lately has been phenomenal. Politicians would kill for that sort of coverage. I have particularly enjoyed the coverage of the King's birthday celebrations -- even though it is actually not nearly his birthday! A delightful British eccentricity.

I was particulaly moved by the following report:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-13537765/trooping-colour-royals-balcony-prince-louis-comment-kate.html

Like half the world, I was delighted to see Kate looking so well after battling cancer at such a young age

And I had to reflect that the British do military uniforms surpassingly well. And I am pleased that the royal family are an emphatically military family, wearing uniform on most public occasions. I did myself for a time serve in the armed forces so I have to a degree put myself where my mouth is in that respect.

And the young children who were on the balcony for the flyover were a delight too, with Charlotte being a typical big sister by telling her younger brother what to do

And our King is obviously a kind man of goodwill

Raw milk does taste better

A few years ago there was a controvesy in America over dairy farmers supplying milk from their cows directly to customers without going through pasteurization or going through any official channels at all. Farmers were prosecuted for it.

The matter was resolved by everyone involved claiming it was sold only for bathing in! Once you had it, drinking it was up to you.

I tasted it in my childhod and and still remember it as tasting richer.

It was when we were living at 41 Campbell st in Innisfail. The farmer had his herd where we could see it from where we lived. His name was Augie Sorensen. He used to supply unpasteurized milk (probably illegally) to quite a few Innisfail households -- including ours for a while. People would leave out a container and Augie would come along and fill it with very fresh milk.

The memorable thing about him however was his milk delivery vehicle -- a white horse-drawn cart that looked rather like a chariot. It did however have pneumatic tyres. The milk was stored under cover at the front of the cart and Augie stood up at the back to "drive".

I can still see Augie, tall and thin with his typically Scandinavian golden-brown skin and wearing his white pith helmet while standing up proudly in the back of his white cart guiding it along with his long reins. His big chestnut horse always used to have blinkers on -- probably needed if it was to be driven among motor vehicles.

My mother did not patronize Augie for long. She went back to bottled milk -- probably because of health concerns.

I think he was eventually shut down by the govenment. It was a loss. Back-to-nature enthusiasts would have applauded him. He was certainly a brilliant example of low-tech

The reason raw milk was eventually banned is that it was thought to transmit TB from infected cows. So it was amusing a few years later when we schoolkids all had to be tested for TB -- using the Mantoux skin test. We were all positive! We had all had TB without knowing it and were perfecly healthy. Augie's milk could have had something to do with that.

I am heathier than ever

I have just got the results from a big range of blood tests going back a couple of years. I was particularly interested in my vitamin D levels. I have spent most of my life hunched over a keybord so my D levels have always been a bit low. But I recently decided that I should take more care of myself so started taking 1000 IU of D3 with dinner

So I was pleased to find that my D levels are now mid-centre of the ideal range.

But the really pleasing thing is that a lot of things I was high or low on a couple of years back are now normal. I have got healthier over the last couple of years! Not sure why but Z would no doubt put it down to all the salad lunches she has been feeding me

Found it!

I knew I had written something about alexithymia in the past but could not find it. I thought it should be on this blog but a database search did not find it. I mentally blamed that on Google. It is suprising what they do NOT index and I have no idea what the guidelines are. Though I do know that nothing on my Greenie Watch blog or my Tongue Tied blog will be indexed

Anyway I have some old biographical notes from the 90s that have never been online and I found there what I had written. I think it is of some interest so I give it below:

"My mother was a bit of a social isolate and she inculcated her values into her children also. So that did not help my social development. She had a high opinion of herself and thought that everyone else was silly. I doubt that she ever had much fellow-feeling for anybody other than her own children.

I probably get my own rather flat emotional life from her. "Alexithymia" is the word for extreme cases of it, though alexithymics have psychosomatic illnesses and I do not. At any event, the sentimentality I inherited from my father made me much better able to relate to people than my mother could"

A trip to Capalaba

Capalaba is one of Brisbane's older satellite suburbs so is not far from the centre and has a myriad of shops. Jenny drove us there yestrday morning.

And it was a good trip. One of the coffee clubs survives there so we ate there. I particularly like their flat grills and the one I had -- camembert & chicken -- was just right. A big lot of salad too. We then went OpShopping and I did well at the Vinny. I got some cutlery I liked, some boxed hankies, a new wired mouse (which I am using at the moment. I prefer mice without batteries) and I got a fun watch. It looks like a $2000 watch with a lot of dials but they are all fake -- just painted on. Looks impressive if you don't look closely

We then found a real true old-style bank nearby with a counter and tellers, where I drew out some money. Minimal queues. No machines. It was a BOQ. They have always been best for personal service. It was like a trip back in time. Jenny and I joked that it was almost worthwhile to go out to Capalaba to do your banking

Some Jungian psychology

Unlike many psychologists, I have some respect for the psychoanalysts of around a century ago. John Maze, one of my tutors at the University of Sydney when I was doing my Master's degree there, was also of that mind and he did influence my thinking about that to some degree

Z likes the psychoanalysts too so she occasionally sends me something from that literature. Below is a comment on why some young men continue to live in the family home well into adulthood. They see that as a sign of immaturity

"What actually led to this phenomenon? Psychologists claim that the root of the problem is that we live in an era of the absent father (he does not have to be physically absent) - young men are expected to leave the comfort of home, overcome the mother complex and shape a worthwhile life, but without the psychological support of their father. It is very difficult, especially in light of the fact that the absent father affects the mother as well. This creates a situation in which the mother tends to become more authoritative in order to compensate for the lack of a male figure in the dream life, but also the failure of the father to give the mother love and support creates an emotional hunger in her that she tries to satisfy through the relationship with the child. This is the moment in which the "perfect storm" is created in which the mother becomes what the Jungians call the "devouring mother", reports "Academyofideas".

https://zena.blic.rs/lifestyle/jung-otkrio-kako-nastaju-slabi-muskarci-i-zasto-je-danas-svet-prepunih-takvih/v7pvnp2

That relates to a lot in my own life. My mother was clearly the boss in our home and she rather disrespected my father --so my father had very little influence in my life. And my mother was very permissive and supportive to me. And she was something of a "devouring mother", who tended to live through the lives of her children. I was aware of that and disliked it

Where the Jungians get it wrong however is how the chidren tend to react to parental suffocation. In my day we simply left home. I did so at age 16 and lot of my contemporaries also did at age 16. It was normal in that era (the '60s). We were NOT permanently "suffocated". We just left the scene. So kudos to the Jungians for some insights but their predictive powers were weak

From the Pantheon in Rome

Centred is a peripatetic person I sometimes lunch with. He is in good shape for a man in his 70s. Fortunately he is uxorious so his wife does not have to worry about some thirsty lady racing him off

Alexithymia

The search function on Blogspot blogs is very good but has just let me down. I tried to find what I have written about alexithymia without success. I clearly remember writing about it but cannot find where. Anyway, I remember pretty much what I wrote so I will recapitulate.

Alexithymia is usually described as emotional flatness. Alexithymics don't display much emotion. I am very much in that category. I just don't get angry, for instance, and I just see criticisms as useful information, sometimes about me and sometimes about the critic. I am always "cool, calm and collected": Rather British, actually. The English are known for their horror of emotional displays. I fit in with that effortlessly.

The downside of that is that I don't express positive emotions much either. I am perfectly capable of feeling affection for the women in my life but have usually not done much to display it, which has undoubtedly damaged my relationsips at times. I am altogether too "British" in that department too. I am a very poor romantic. Any Italian would leave me in the dust in that respect, though I have had my moments. There is a rather famous movie about "Shirley Valentine" who leaves her boring British husband for a demonstrative Greek man which illustrates the national differences concerned. I have had Shirley Valentine aimed at my head a number of times

So when I heard about alexithymia I thought I might be an alexithymic. I discovered however that alexithymics are very distressed underneath their non-emotional exterior and that is certainly not me. I sail cheerfully through life in complete calm for almost all the time. Even my dreams are pleasant. I have only twice been very upset and those occasions were when the lady in my life walked out. Almost all my relationships have ended with the lady walking out but those two relationships were ones that I highly valued. Fortunately, the two ladies saw enough good in me not to walk very far and I remain on cordial terms with both.

So I am definitely not alexithymic. Maybe I should just describe myself as "British". I do trace all my ancestry to the British Isles and I have certainly got on exceptionally well whenever I have been over there

Maybe I am adaptible, however. Friends and family in Mediterranean countries such as Greece and Italy are well known for shouting at one another a lot. And my girlfriend haiis from a Mediterreanean country. And we do shout at one-another a lot. But we still love one-another. So I seem to have my Shirley Valentine after all

An arrival and a b*rthday

Z has arrived safe and sound in Beograd and has messaged me to say she misses me, so that is all in order. I miss her too

Jenny had a b*rthday recently so I shouted her her favourite breakfast (much smoked salmon) and went with her to buy some flowers. I suggested some led loses (forgive the Chinese accent) but she said she preferred something still living. Big Kath had that preference too. So she got a very pretty orchid in a pot. See below:

A departure

Z flew out at 10pm last night for her holiday in Serbia, her native land. She will be away for a few months. She likes to swap the Brisbane winter for the Serbian summer.

I didn't go to the airport to see her off as I no longer drive, but she arranged for us to have a sendoff lunch that day. We went to the Buranda cafe, then back to my place and spent two hours together in all. It was a very affectionate occasion. She was messaging me right up to her departure.

I will miss her but expect to receive frequent messages from her. She is my little honey

A good dinner

For some time now, Jenny and I have had the custom of having a Thursday night dinner consisting of a Scotch fillet steak and a bottle of my favourite red. Jenny took a picture of part of our dinner last night so I thought it would be a good memoir of our custom. These days, it's the only night of the week that I have wine with my dinner

An instant roadside diagnosis

I thought I had posted this little story some years ago but I cannot trace it so I will tell it now.

At one stage when I was driving Anne around, she complained about a rattle in my Toyota Echo. I at first thought it was something loose in the glove box so told her not to worry about it.

One day, however, as I was exiting the carpark at the Buranda shopping centre, I paused briefy at the entrance to allow traffic in the street to pass.

As I did however, a man nearby on the footpath shouted out "timing-chain". From my youth in country Queensland where rattly British machines were all we had to work with, I knew exactly what he was saying and drove straight to the Toyota dealer and asked for the timing-chain to be checked. They in fact found two faulty chains and replaced both.

So that was a remarkable example of quick communication. No palaver at all. Just one word

A busy day today

I went to breakfast with Jenny at Buranda at 9:30am; I saw the plastic surgeon on the Terrace at 1 pm for a follow-up visit. We then had a "lunch" of iced coffee and cake back at Buranda.

Z came over between 5 and 7pm; I gave her a Pulsar electric watch as she likes watches and I have given her a few. This one was in its original box so she was very pleased with it

Michael Darby

Below is his Wikipedia entry, now deleted

Michael John Darby is an Australian who has run for political office for the Liberal Party and the Christian Democratic Party.^[1] He is an active business man, having had business ventures in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.

Darby is the son of long-serving state Liberal MP Douglas Darby and attended Newington College (1957–1962).^[2] A former army officer and interpreter, he became active in politics in the 1970s.^[3] His first run for office was as the Liberal candidate for the safe Labor seat of Werriwa in the 1974 federal election, running against then-Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.

In 1975, Darby was one of the organisers of the Australian Society for Intercountry Aid – Timor, based in Dili. He was present at the hijacking of a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) plane in Baucau by Timorese Democratic Union (UDT) soldiers, who had surrendered to him and asked to be evacuated to Australia.^[4]

Darby later contested the 1988 Oxley by-election as an independent, and also ran as an independent in Dickson in 1993. He subsequently returned to the Liberal Party and ran in the fifth position on the Coalition Senate ticket for New South Wales in 2004. In 2009–2010 he was campaign director for the Christian Democratic Party.^[5]

References[edit]

1. ? Hancock, Ian (20 September 2007). The Liberals: The NSW Division 1935-2000. Federation Press. ISBN 9781862876590. Retrieved 2013-10-18. Search this book on
2. ? Newington College Register of Past Students 1863-1998 pp 48 (Syd, 1999)
3. ? Squires, Michael (2010-01-04). "Michael Darby on Google, China, Islam and taxes". Digital Journal. Archived from the original on 29 September 2012. Retrieved 11 November 2010.
4. ? Henriques-Gomes, Luke (17 January 2021). "'It was life or death': the plane-hijacking refugees Australia embraced". Guardian Australia. Retrieved 17 January 2021.
5. ? Nicholls, Sean; McKenny, Leesha (17 February 2010). "Nile scapegoat calls in lawyers". The Sydney Morning Herald. Fairfax Media. Retrieved 11 November 2010.

External links[edit]

• Official Website
• Do CDP members realise what is happening?, at gordonmoyes.com
• Janine Cohen's interview with Michael Darby, Liberal Party Federal Council on Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Four Corners, 17 July 2006
• Angie Raphael, "Lone Anzac Day marcher during Perth lockdown revealed to be former One Nation staffer", news.com.au, 26 April 2021.

A political memory

In 1983, shortly after Jenny and I had got together, I took her and her children to an election night meeting at Toowong, to see in the election of Earle Bailey, now recently deceased.

Bailey was a Brisbane TV personality so as an established Brisbane figure, the National Party recruited him to contest the metropolitan seat of Toowong in tne October 1983 State Eleaction.

I was a rather active in politics in that era and I was in something of a habit of going along to watch in company as the results for my favoured local candidate came in. So I was pleased when he did get in

I must have done something to help with the campaign but I don't remember what. Michael Darby probably got me invited to the meeting but I think he was elsewhere. I knew him from when we were both in Sydney



In his first major speech in the Legislative Assembly on 30 November 1983, Bailey nailed his colours to the mast when he said—

"To me, the most important principle of human existence is the freedom of the individual. One way of evaluating freedom is by reference to decision-making ability, decision-making being shared between Governments and individuals. It is obvious that decision-making is power, and the more power that Governments have, the less remains to be shared amongst individuals."

So he was a good guy in my book and I am glad to have supported him. He was defeated in 1986 by the local Liberal alderman, Denver Beanland. It was at a time when the National party and the Liberal party were rivals

I had at that time been back in Brisbane for only a couple of months so knew nobody at the meeting, which was probably why I took Jenny along -- for company. I in fact stayed for most of the time with Jenny rather than mixing. But I remember somebody saying how nice it was to see children at the rally. I seem to recollect that the kids (aged 5 and 7) ran around a bit

Reference:

https://documents.parliament.qld.gov.au/speeches/spk2023/David_Crisafulli-Broadwater-20230914-231384023148.pdf



Footnote about Michael Darby: Among his many talents, Michael is quite a good bush poet. I particularly like his poem "The Stranger" It is online here:

https://michaeldarby.net/DarbyFamilyPoetry.pdf

You have to click 44 in the sidebar to get to it. I believe it was based on an actual event

The post-Yugoslavia wars

Since my girlfriend is a fierce Serb patriot, I have been trying to get a grip on the wars in that general area after Yugoslavia broke up. Below is what I make of it:

The main conflict immediately after the breakup was between the Serbs and the Croats, which exist basically side by side geographically

in 1991 the Serb population in eastern Croatia (Slavonia) tried to secede from Croatia

The Serb army was however mainly aiming at capturing Dalmatia, under Croatian control. So they were busy in the South, trying to capture Dalmatian Dubrovnik from the Croats. But in the end, the Serbs failed to rip anything off Croatia, both in the South and in the North.

The Serbs in Bosnia however set up an independence movement in 1992. With the assistance of the Serb army, they prevailed and two big chunks of Bosnia were split off under Serb rule, to form a new territory called Republika Srpska which was formally recognized by the UN in 1995


Serbs had the best hats

It was part of the Bosnian war when a lot of Muslim civilians were killed at Srebrenitsa, while Dutch troops who were supposed to be there protecting them did nothing

It was also in that war that the long-lasting siege of Sarajevo took place, in which forces of the Republika Srpska blockaded the Bosnian capital. It was primarily to end that siege that the U.N. granted official recognition to the Republika Srpska

A soldier of the Republika Srpska in dress uniform -- holding her Serbian-made Zastava assault rifle. At its peak, the armed forces of the Republika Srpska numbered over 80,000.

My little Cetnik emigrated to N.Z. in 1995, foreseeing future trouble from Kosovo

So Serbs lost out in their wars with Croatia but had a big gain in Bosnia. Serbs now control roughly half of Bosnia. The Bosnian Serbs were not however allowed to unite with Serbia. They remained an independent State. So there are now two Serb political entities: The Republic of Serbia and the Serbian Republic -- not to be confused! Nothing in the Balkans has ever been simple

But just when eveything had settled down, in 1997 the Kosovars (Ethnic Albanian Muslims) in Southern Serbia rebelled, demanding independence

The Serbs however did not want to lose control of their South so tried to suppress the Kosovars militarily. That attracted a lot of international attention and support for Kosovo independence.

So NATO got involved to help the Kosovars, bombing the Serbs to make them retreat from Kosovo. So the USA under Clinton bombed Christian Serbia to help Muslim Kosovars! The Serbs more or less gave up after the bombing and all is mostly peaceful there now.

There were atrocities committed by all sides in the wars of the 1990s, causing most people living as minorities to flee to the heartland of their respective nations. So most Croatians now live in Croatia, most Bosniaks now live in central Bosnia and most Serbs now live in one of the Serbias. That is probably conducive to future peace. There are however some Serbs still living in Northern Kosovo so that has led to some unrest

An odd footnote. Immediately after the U.N. recognition of the Republika Srpska, its first President was a "Mrs Plavšić". Suprisingly feminist.



Although she never killed anyone, Biljana Plavšić was later convicted as a war criminal. She was in fact a distinguished academic. After serving an 11-year prison sentence in Sweden, she returned to Belgrade in 2009 where she has been living ever since. She is now in her 90s, having survived Covid-19

Tickling as foreplay

It is most likely to result in orgasm, a new study suggests

Well, what do you know? I had forgotten this. For a couple of years I had a relationship with C.W., an exceptionally good-looking woman with whom I also had an exceptionally good sexual relationship. I am not normally a great sexpot so that is surprising.

I was around 50 at the time but thanks to Viagra, we normally had sex at least twice a night. She once went around at her office job the day afterwards boasting that she had it seven times the night before I may have gone into her seven times but I certainly did not come seven times. She regularly used to go around with the top button of her blouse undone so people would get a glimpse of her big black bra so she would have been believed

And I did tickle her a lot while we were in bed. Her shrieks of laughter would stun other occupants of the house at Forest St. And, yes, the tickling was a form of foreplay. It led up to intercourse. It was a custom we just hit upon that I attributed to her general good humour so have never done it with anyone else. From what I read below I failed to learn a lesson from my own experience.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13354539/sexual-fetish-orgasm-time-study.html

****************************************************

A vist to the dentist

Way back in primary school I learnt a little rhyme:

Some tortures are physical
And some are mental
But the one that is both
Is definitely dental

And there is much truth in that

I have good teeth so my vists to the dentist have been rare. I could feel a cavity and a slight soreness, however, so I saw Tina Tavakol at Buranda. I have seen her before and was favourably impressed.

She spent half an hour doing 2 fillings at a total cost of $600+ of which my health fund defrayed $200+. So that was not too bad for 2 fillings

But here is the good bit: Once the local had worn off I had no pain or discomfort whatever. Can anyone ask more? Kudos to Tina!

And Tina spoke Australian English, which is a great help to an old deafie like me. Her surname is Iranian but I am guessing that her heritage is Zoroastrian rather than Muslim

I was amused at what fillings are called these days: "Adhesive restorations".

https://dentalonpark.com.au/our-team/

Driving

There is a story below by a woman aged 89 who was confident of her driving ability but who had poor peripheral vision. When she nearly ran over a child she had not seen because of her limited vision she gave up driving

I sympathize with this. I gave up driving shortly after I turned 80 and I am glad of it. I have vision limitations too. I am also pretty un-co-ordinated and shaky and I certainly did not want to be one of the old people who mistakenly hit the accelerator instead of the brake.

I now have no fear that I will ever do that. Not driving is a weight off my mind even though I drove for 60 years without once hurting myself or anyone else. That record will now stand. Fortunately, I have in Jenny a wonderful carer who makes that decision easy. A long time ago I made life easy for her so she now is happy to make life easy for me

And a rather useful auxiliary helper is Doordash! From them I get expertly cooked hot meals without stepping outside my door

https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/i-m-about-to-turn-90-and-i-didn-t-want-to-give-up-my-licence-one-moment-changed-my-mind-20240502-p5foj0.html

Am I a philanthropist?

I have never thought of myself that way but I have just realized that I could be called that. Amid the housing crisis, I provide greatly reduced rents for five people, including a disabled person. And I give half my disposable income away to a charitable cause. So I have made a bit of money in my time but I use it in a kind way: No boats, planes, travel or fancy restaurants. I do "eat out" a lot but it is mainly at McDonalds.

I just like using my money and assets in the way I do and am pleased with the results. I have always tried -- not always succeeding -- to live a Christian life even though I am a complete atheist. I think that is simply wise.

And I can prove it is wise. I once married a working single mother with three kids and enabled her to give up working. I also gave her a car. 40 years later in my bent old age she is my carer. I did those things because I loved her but partnering with a woman who already has even one kid is often seen as a no-no. Being generous has always benefited me

So I do not think I am really a philanthropist. I get rewards of some kind for what I do. I benefit in various ways from what I do. It may take time for the reward to emerge but it does emerge. I may make something happen that I would like even after my death

Why I like my little Cetnik

There are quite a few things I like about Z -- her good brain and good looks and her good cuddle-power, for instance. But I liked her right from the time of our first meeting. There has always been a something in her that I like that goes beyond the obvious. And I have always struggled to pinpoint it. What makes me feel so affectionate towards her?. It is something in her personality but what exactly?

I think I am finally getting close to it. It is her insouciance. But that is a literary word so I think I need to put it into simpler terms. It is her cheerfulness and good nature combined with a defiant independence. We are both high functioning autistics so tend to be either unaware or disrespectful of social norms and customs. And she is especially so. She is the ultimate contrarian. If something is conventionally believed, she disbelieves it. She says frankly what she thinks but does it cheerfully.

And in talking to me she makes gaffe after gaffe but seems blissfully unaware of it. She expects what she says to be accepted. But she does so innocently and pleasantly so that instead of being offended I feel protective of her. Her innocent irreverence makes her vulnerable and I feel protective of her over that

The Cetniks were a feature of the terrible wars in the Balkans of the 1930s and 1940s. They were primarily Serbian nationalists and also monarchists. They no longer exist in any formal sense but old loyalties don't fade quickly

Update: My little Cetnik has pointed out to me that Cetniks in fact go back a long way -- to the 19th century

Good Indian food in Brisbane

I have eaten Indian food in India, Indian food in London and Indian food in Sydney so think I have some claim to knowing Indian food

For various reasons, however, I have not eaten a lot of Indian food in Brisbane. But one thing I have often noticed is that there is an Indian restaurant at Annerley which fronts onto the main road there - called Sankalp. It is part of a chain by that name. And every time I have driven past they seemed to be busy. So I thought I should go there.

I went there tonight, via DoorDash, which was very convenient. I ordered Tandoori chicken. It was a good size and came with the proper mint and yoghurt dipping sauce. And it was cooked to perfection. So yes, you can get Indian food in Brisbane that is as good as Indian food anywhere -- a most satisfactory situation. No need for travel and no need even to step outside your house

https://sankalp.com.au/pdf/Annerley-menu.pdf

ANZAC DAY

ANZAC DAY is the High Holy Day for the entire Australian people. The Left try to portray it as a celebration of militarism. All the troops marching through the streets can give that impression. But they overlook that on this day we actually celebrate a military DEFEAT. Pretty poor militarism. Two typical ANZAC day scenes below. Note the big crowd turnout.

ANZAC commemorations are stlll widely embraced in Australia. To the undoubted chagrin of the Left, there are marches in most of our cities and crowds turn out to watch them and applaud.

What we are really doing on ANZAC day is remembering and thanking our war dead. And as demographer Berard Salt rightly notes, No family was untouched by the two world wars. Some of my relatives were among the dead.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/weekend-australian-magazine/no-family-was-untouched-by-the-two-world-wars/news-story/0ae3f2585b8b1cd47208f6830849cd27

The deaths among the ANZACS at Gallipoli were among the more insane of the military engagements of that war so we rightly praise the grit and endurance of those who participated.

I personally see war as the greatest of human follies. To have men marching into gunfire seems barely sane. Yet it happened and still is happening in Ukraine. Chapter 1 of the Bhagavad Gita makes most sense to me of any writing on the matter.

Yet I am not a pacifist I volunteered for service in the Australian Army and reached the rank of Sergeant. I served in both the CMF and the ARA back in the 60s. I can see why some wars probably have to be fought, WWII, particularly. But WWI can be understood in the context of its times

http://jonjayray.com/short/ww1.html

I exist, however because both my grandfather and father never went to war. My grandfather was excused because he provided a highly skilled essential service. He was a bullocky. And transport is in huge demand during a war. My father volunteered but was rejected on medical grounds. He had a slight limp. I volunteered for the Vietnam war but failed to get a posting there. So here I am still kicking at age 80.

I think it is worth noting that the Gallipoli engagement was greatly marred by the cowardice of the British generals involved. The first landings were unopposed. The Turks were taken by surprise. But instead of charging to take advantage of surprise as any German general would gave done, they decided to wait in place for reinforcements to arrive. The Turks used that warning well. If only the British generals had studied Vom Kriege in their staff colleges

Stratford (Not on Avon)

Most of my postings here involve female persons so it must be time that I posted on something else: My first year living in Cairns

1956 was a rather good year for me. I was 13 and in the final year of primary school. The family moved to Cairns from Innisfail half way through the year. It was just after my father's father (Jack Ray) had died and we went to live in the house formerly rented by him.

It was a half-house at Stratford, an outer suburb of Cairns. We were on the main road and a railway line ran on the other side of the road.

It was in the days of rent control and Jack had been given a controlled rent that was very cheap. The rules at that time allowed a controlled rent tobe inherited by the children so my father took advantage of that. He thought he would get work more easily in Cairns, so it was a good opportunity for him

Shortly after we moved I got on the bus from Stratford one morning and found my new school by myself. My mother or father did not go along to help enrol me. I did not think much of it at the time but in retrospect I see it as another example of my mother's indolence. Though I suppose I was an independent little bugger

After that I went to school on the rail motor, which had a stop conveniently over the road from where I lived. It was one of the old red ones and had another stop a short walk from the school in Sheridan St


Wonderful old things. I can still hear the growl of their motors -- probably AEC Diesels

As a result of the move to Jack's old house, I inherited a store of old children's books which I promptly set out to read. I remember a nursery rhyme in one of them: "Our greatest battleship the Hood is made of iron, steel and wood". No wonder the sinking of H.M.S. Hood by one salvo from the Bismarck in the early phases of World War Two made such an impression. (H.M.S. Hood was actually a battle cruiser, of course, which explains why it was sunk so easily).


HMS Hood

Some of the books even predated World War I. They were mostly books given as presents or won at Sunday school to the children of my father's family. After I left home, my mother gave them all away! All the maps of the world in them did of course show vast splashes of red. I wonder how many people in future will know what that signified?

So I got strong doses of Victorian ideas from those books. When they were written such ideas were still current. I still to this day agree with most of them (such as the distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor).

Another thing left at the Stratford (Cairns) house was an old wooden windup gramophone with lots of old popular 78s (78 r.p.m. records). No pictures of the actual family gramophone have survived but the one below is very similar



The spring that drove it had a habit of breaking, unfortunately. After that I rotated the records with my finger. It was my introduction to music of various sorts but the record I particularly remember was "Florrie Forde's Old Time Medley" -- songs from about a century ago.



By some miracle there is a video of her online singing exactly the songs I remember: The Lassie from Lancashire; Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?; Down at the Old Bull and Bush etc. I think they would still have a broad appeal today. See below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYWygJSetbA

There were also wrecks of various old pushbikes left behind under the (low set) house and, being a clever kid, I used parts from them them to create a single "new" bike. I think my father was rather impressed. I rode it to school after that and seem to recollect that my father also rode it to work for a time. I painted it maroon.

My cleverness extended to being the home handyman. I used to fix the family toaster, the family electric jug and the house fuses, all of which would "blow" from time to time. I knew only what I could see however and had no formal knowledge of electricity. So one day I replaced a house fuse with wire that was too thick -- which let through too much current. It "blew the pole" outside the house -- requiring a a call from the CREB to fix it. My father felt embarrassed by that and started to speak aggressively towards me. My mother however said to him: "At least John does things around the house. You do nothing". It was very crushing and reduced him to silence

The toilet arrangements there were old-style, with "thunder boxes" that had to be emptied once a week. A "honey cart" used to come along early in the morning and the "dunny-man" would come into the back yard to exchange the full receptacle with a clean one. Since it was very early in the day when the light was poor, there was some possibility of the dunny-man tripping over any obstacles left his way -- such as children's toys. So I remember my mother going around the yard the evening before making sure there was nothing there to trip the dunny-man up. A wise precaution.

And then there is the episode with "Rex", the dog. Rex was a "mung" (mixed breed) with a fair bit of German Shepherd in him who just wandered into our place one day. My mother fed him, so he stayed. He was covered in ticks but they didn't seem to bother him. He seemed to have a particular affection for Christopher, my little brother, who was around one-year old at the time. A much remembered occasion is when my mother was telling Christopher off for something he had done. Rex got up and placed himself between Christopher and his mother. He was protecting him from her. Pretty good for a "mung"

I read a bit of the works of Karl Marx at the local "School of Arts" library around this time and occasionally talked about what I had read. For this reason I was sometimes at that time called "Commo John".

At the end of the year I did my "Scholarship" exam, necessary for entry into High School. I got an 80% mark overall. I seem to recollect that that was seen as a very good result at the time. To "pass your Scholarship" was a big deal back then and you only needed to get 50% or more to pass.

Our sojourn at Stratford ended when my father bought a house at 308 Mulgrave Rd, formerly owned by John Timbs, who still lived nearby

A good day

Small things make a difference when you are as disabled as I am...

I got up at 8am after a good night's sleep; Around 9:30am Jenny and I had a good breakfast at Buranda; I had my usual Calamari and their excellent iced coffee and Jenny had smoked salmon

Then was the big triumph. I managed to go shopping at Woolworths. I bought some fruit and some frozen food; then next we went to Vinnies and I asked if they had any ladies' watches. I wanted to give Z another one. But they did not have one I liked

I then went home and promptly had a big nap, which I enjoyed

Now it is lunchtime and I am hoping to see Z this afternoon; She gives me "the peace of deep combes, no world anger consumes"

A poem I like

It's not easy to access online so I thought I would make it easier. It is a poem about WWI

The Misfit

By C. Day. Lewis


At the training depot that first morning

When the west-country draft came forth on parade —

Mechanics, labourers, men of trade

Herded with shouts like boneheaded cattle —

One stood out from the maul

Who least of them all

Looked metal for killing or meat for the butchery blade.


He wore a long black cutaway coat

Which should have been walking by blackthorn-fleeced

Hedges to church; and good as a feast

Was the spare, wild face much weather had flavoured.

A shepherd or ploughman

I thought, or a cowman —

One with a velvet hand for all manner of beast.


I cannot forget how he stood, bemused,

With the meek eye of a driven thing

But a solitude old as a cromlech ring

Was around him; a freeborn air of the downland,

A peace of deep combes

No world-anger consumes

Marked him off from the herd to be branded for soldiering.


I saw him not after. Is he now buried

Far from pastures buttercup-strewed,

Or tending his beasts again with the same rude

Rightness of instinct which then had brought him

So quaintly dressed In his Sunday best

For the first step along the Calvary road?

Double doctors

I get a LOT of skin cancers so I have a skin clinic where I regularly go and am well-known. But today was a surprise. I was attended to by TWO doctors, who also happen to be married to one another. I get on well with Rupert and extra well with Penny, who is a lovely lady in every sense of that term. It was actually Rupert who sprayed my bad bits while Penny watched.

So why was that? My guess is that it was Rupert's last consultation of the day and Penny was simply waiting for him to finish. It was all very pleasant

Dealing with a problem of loud music next door

The article below has some reasonable suggestions but I have my own way

https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/love-thy-neighbour-what-to-do-when-you-can-t-stand-who-s-next-door-20240408-p5fi62.html

I once had some young people move in next door and they liked their music loud. I called on them and asked them to tone it down. I also mentioned smilingly that we both had equal rights about playing music.

When nothing changed, I dealt with it promptly. I put my HiFi speakers on the window sill nearest to them and promptly played Janacek's Sinfonietta through them -- loudly. Within minutes the kids came streaming out of the house and into their cars. They couldn't stand it.

The Sinfonietta is brass-heavy avant garde classical music which to most people sounds like scratching your finger-nails on a blackboard . Even some classical music fans don't like it. But I do. It was a very simple lesson in human diversity that some young people needed to learn.

I must mention some day how I dealt kindly with an incessantly-barking dog. I am a psychologist and ever since Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, psychologists have modified animal behaviour

An event with an ode

My sudden inspiration to write an ode called up an amusing memory from 1965 when I was a student in the English Dept. at the University of Qld. It was in English I which was heavily populated by student teachers, who had to do that subject as a course requirement for their teaching diploma. So, as it turned out, I was the only real literary enthusiast in my tutorial group. I was there because I wanted to be.

My tutor was a "Mrs Curry", who was a very good looking woman who undoubtedly made Mr Curry happy by having a part-time job. And she too was a genuine literary enthusiast. So we got on well. Teachers have always liked me because I understand immediately what they are trying to convey. So I was undoubtedly her star pupil

So one day we were studying a poem which turned out to be an ode. It was probably Shelley's ‘To a Skylark’. Mrs Curry identified the poem as an ode and asked the class, "What sort of an ode is it?" All heads in the class stayed down, looking at their books, including mine. But I silently mouthed the word "Pindaric". I did not want to be the only smartypants in the room and actually say it. But I had evidently been under expectant observation by Mrs Curry, who promply said, without naming me, "Go on. Say it" which I did, to her obvious satisfaction.

As I said, it is satisying to a teacher when student really knows the subject. But it was one of the many occasions when the student teachers looked at me askance. Student teachers were not as much the bottom of the academic barrel as they are these days but were certainly not the cream of the academic crop. But it was amusing to be so watched that even an unuttered word was taken as a desired answer.

A lunch and an ode

I had lunch with an old friend of journalism fame today and was pleased when he recognized my reference to my "runcible spoon". It rather encouraged a revival of my literary inclinations. So what did I do? I wrote an ode! I think it is even Pindaric

Ode to Z

O heart who does just what she will
regardles of restraints
and does so without complaints
Of her I n'er will have my fill

I think between us there is a glue
of strange but strong content
that never once was meant
but keeps us close and true

Do autism and psychopathy overlap?

Answering that question runs into a lot of difficulties over definition. For reference, I give the Mayo definition of both conditions below

* Autism spectrum disorder is a condition related to brain development that impacts how a person perceives and socializes with others, causing problems in social interaction and communication. The disorder also includes limited and repetitive patterns of behavior.

* Antisocial personality disorder, sometimes called sociopathy, is a mental health condition in which a person consistently shows no regard for right and wrong and ignores the rights and feelings of others. People with antisocial personality disorder tend to purposely make others angry or upset and manipulate or treat others harshly or with cruel indifference. They lack remorse or do not regret their behavior.

As you will see, psychopathy is no longer called that any more. For a while it was renamed "sociopathy" but now it is usually called "antisocial personality disorder'

There would appear to be one clear area of overlap: concern over other people and their feelings. But the causality would appear to be different. The psychopath is aware of other people's feelings but doesn't care while the austistic person is not aware. Both ignore other peoples feeling but for different reasons. Still, that indifference is a central feature of both syndromes so their apparent identity is an important question.

In my case, I am a person with a pretty full set of autistic characteristics, and I am aware of how little other people's sufferings and feelings impact me. I am not a sympathetic person. I do for instance greatly deplore the vicious October 7 attacks on innocent Israelis by a deranged Palestinian minority but I cannot FEEL anything about that event.

But on the other hand I have always been generous to others in some ways. At present I give roughly half of my disposable income to a charitable cause while living a generally frugal personal life. I have long given away a large slice of my income

So there is clearly a possibility of mistaking the two traits and unwinding any confusion depends on looking at other characteristics of the person

Another potential confusion is the way I drive. I am a "demon" driver and that could be mistaken for psychopathic carelessness. But it is an item of pride to me that in 60 years of driving I have never hurt myself or anyone else. I just work with fine margins, that's all. I have been known to give my passengers the shakes however

So again, things that may look the same may in fact be fundamentally different

This very post is an instance of autistic behaviour. It is common for autistics to be unusually self-revealing. Psychopaths, on the other hand, tend to be devious and to "fake good"

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen is an acknowledged authority on autism and he argues that calling it a "disorder" is wrong.

https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcpp.12703

Like some of the people mentioned in the article linked below I am inclined to think it can be a gift, or even a "superpower"

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/beautiful-minds-inside-the-identity-politics-of-autism-20240221-p5f6sc.html

I commented on that article a few days ago

https://pcwatch.blogspot.com/2024/04/beautiful-minds-inside-identity.html