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

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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