A departure

Wednesday was departure date for both Von and Suz, though not on the same plane, I gather.  They were leaving rather late in the evening so Jenny invited me to come over and share some leftovers for dinner

Jenny was still unwell so big Susan did most of the cooking.  And it was good.  Susan revived the lasagna from the night before with great success -- served with vegies.

I had some good talks with both Von and Susan so it was a good night. I actually learned some things from them that I had not previously realized.

Family fun

Here's my list of recent events

Sat 30 Nov - Paul & family arrive in Bris, welcome dinner at Jenny's

Sun 1 Dec - I breakfast with Joe, Paul & Matthew

Mon 2 Dec - I breakfast with Paul

Mon 2 Dec - Dinner at Nandos with Jenny, Paul & Elise

Wed 4 Dec - Breakfast with Paul and Susan at Buranda

Thur 5 Dec - welcome Dinner for Von at Jenny's

Fri 6 Dec - Breakfast with Paul and Susan at Vietnamese cafe

Sat 7 Dec - picnic at park next to Ken and Maureen's house

Sun 8th - Dinner at the Dapur Dahlia with Jill and Lewis

Mon 9 Dec - Breakfast with Von at Vietnamese cafe

Mon 9 Dec - Dinner at Jenny's with all visitors Paul, Von and little Suz

In detail

On Saturday evening 30th Nov. Paul arrived in Brisbane from Scotland together with his whole family.  It was 5 years since we had seen Susan and it was good to see how his children had grown too.  Jenny put on one of her excellent dinners for his arrival and there was a bit of a  crowd to welcome the family:  Susan's father Mark plus his lady plus Ken and Maureen.  Anne couldn't come.  So it was a lively occasion as we all got to know the littlies, Matthew, Elise and Primrose.

The next morning (1st Dec.) we arranged a breakfast at the Phams for Paul, Matthew, Joe and myself.  The idea was for me to get to talk to Matthew but he was a bit shy so that did not work.  We did however discuss Matthew's probable translation to Fettes.  I will be helping with the costs of that.

Von arrived late on 4th so her welcome back was on Thurs evening the 5th --  again at Jenny's. I managed a bit of play with Elise and Primrose.  Whatever school Primrose goes to she will be the naughtiest girl in the school. At age 4, She has got a really mean look most of the time

On 6th I shouted Paul and Susan a brekkie at my usual Vietnamese coffee shop.  The food was as usual good and Paul said the Banh Mi was the best he had ever had.  It turned out to be about a 2 hour breakfast as we were looking at all angles of Susan having another baby.  I said to her that her first 3 had been so interesting, I really wanted to see the 4th.

Both Sue and Paul are very keen to have another one.  The problem  is that Susan has a very time-consuming job, and babies are VERY time-consuming.  And her job is part of how she and Paul make a living. I offered to pay for any arrangement that would give her time off but nothing firm emerged. I was impressed when Susan said her life was for her kids: She's real female, not a feminist.

We also discussed more about Matthew and Fettes.  It seems highly likely that he will get in but I did outline a Plan B in case he does not.  There was even some talk of him going to Eton for secondary school.  He has the IQ and other attributes for it so he would be looking to become a "Scholar" and Eton does offer quite a lot of bursaries.

On Saturday 7th we had a big BBQ at Ken's place. Timmy, Dave and Avamarie turned up, which was good to see.  At age 11, AvaMarie has got a very pretty face, great skin and an athletic body.  She will go far. Her great skin comes from her Chinese mother but her eyes are only a touch narrow. You can see that not all of her ancestry is from the British Isles but the difference is quite subtle.

The thing that most amused me at the BBQ was the margarine supplied for our bread rolls.



A regular spread of what??  It is in fact a perfectly good canola-based margarine but margarine must sound bad, I guess.  It is a quarter the price of butter so it is a very clever product.

Jenny kindly picked me up for the party and drove me home.  I don't like driving any distance these days.

Joe arrived very late and neither of us felt very lively so we both ended up having a lie-down in Ken's living room.  Sometimes just being there is the point.

On Sunday 8th, I had a long-arranged pre-Christmas dinner with Jill and Lewis at the Dapur Dahlia. I had gone down for a nap around 5pm so was rather horrified when I woke up at 2 minutes before 6  -- the appointed time for us to meet.  So I jumped into some clothes and did a demon drive to Buranda.  I got all the lights my way, happily, so I did that drive in 5 minutes flat and arrived only 7 or 8 minutes late.

Jill and Lewis had previously been favourably impressed with Dapur Dahlia so were pleased to take another trip there.  We all ordered the Nasi Goreng Pattaya and it was again excellent.  I also ordered some samosas to start and they comped us with a strange salad that included bits of tofu. Jill and I caught up with one-another's family news. She seems pleased with her two grandsons and does some caring for them -- despite being in her 80s.

For lack of preparation, I had to go to the toilet during the dinner.  The toilet was however in the middle of a real rabbit warren so I got lost coming out.  I eventually found a way out onto the street, however, so ended up going out the back door and coming back in via the front door!

On Monday morning 9th., Von and I got together for a brekky at my usual Vietnamese. To start, Paul kindly dropped Von at my place and picked her up afterward. Before we set off to the Viets, I showed Von all my recent acquisitions of old furniture and she seemed to like them.

Paul and Susan had liked the Viet place so I wanted Von to try it too.  She had the Banh Mi and I had a hamburger.  For drinks I ordered iced-coffees, which was apparently a rare treat for Von. Von and I have always been good mates so the conversation was animated, with lots of reminiscences.  I was delighted to hear that Hannah and Simon have a real "Daddy's girl" relationship.  That is tremendously positive for a girl growing up.

I also noted that Von writes very well on her personal blog -- with very rare spelling and grammar mistakes.  As she was a duffer at school, that is a little surprising. I had a put her poor marks down to her simply being uninterested in schoolwork but she told me something more at our brekky.  She told me that she just did not agree with all the feminist-influenced stuff they were teaching.  So she just ignored her lessons as a whole.  She had me at home telling her quite different stuff and that was what she related to

Monday 9th was the welcome home dinner for little Suz. Bad weather delayed her flight from New Zealand so she arrived a day late. It was good to see her plus her kids.  Dusty had changed little since I saw him last but Sahara was definitely more of a lady -- at age 10.  The ladylike genes are definitely strong in that family, with both Suz and Von having girly girls.  I was pleased to hear that both Sahara and Dusty are going well at school.

Big Susan appears to have done most of the cooking for the night as Jenny was unwell. But cooking is one of Susan's many talents so we had an excellent lasagna that was even gluten-free!  I got a fair bit of it onto my shirt so you could tell it was a good one!

I had catch-you games with Elise and Primrose and Joe had hand-games and so on with them too. It was quite a riot there for a while.  Joe plays the same sort of simple games with the littlies that I used to play with their mothers and father.  It's emergent continuity: unplanned.

My Vinnie forays

Where I go to get my weekly skin cancer treatments happens to be close to an outlet of the Society of St. Vincent DePaul.  The saint is a purveyor of interesting second-hand items. So I usually look in on my way past.

I have refreshed my furniture by tossing out a lot of ElCheapo items and replacing then with classic pieces supplied by Vinnie. Lately, I have also started buying more portable items.  Below is my latest. It is a 16" silver salver by Hecworth, a firm of Australian silver platers. The salver is in Sheffield plate, which means EPNS silver on a copper substrate.  The substrate for EPNS is most usually brass.  It is a remarkably heavy item.

Silverplate from Hecworth was advertised in the 1930s. “Hecworth” was a brand name sold through a shopfront in Collins Street Melbourne.  Hecworth plate was made by Platers Pty Ltd in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda at 39 Greeves street. The “Hecworth” brand was taken over by Rodd Pty Ltd in 1940.



There is a LOT of Hecworth plate on eBay and such places so is not generally dear. I paid $30 which is only a touch below the norm.

A taste-bud drama

As I settled down for the night with a glass of vodka and cold water a few weeks ago, I had a very unsettling experience.  My vodka had a horrible bitter taste. A bad batch  of vodka?  I opened another bottle. Same result.  So I opened a third bottle.  Same result.  So it seemed that my taste-buds had gone awry.

And the curious thing was that all my other tastes were OK. It was only alcohol that tasted bad.  And alcohol is supposed to be odorless and tasteless.

So I abandoned my usual dinner wine -- Tyrrells Verdelho -- and sought a sweeter wine that would drown out the bitterness.  I chose Rosemount Traminer Riesling.  I knew Traminer as a grape that Germans make their "fruity" wines out of so suspected that the Rosemount product might be a bit sweet too.  And it was, though not Chablis sweet.  It was a very nice wine in general, and only around $9 from Murphys.  I drink it to this day.

I tried various things to jolt my tastebuds back into normality but not with much success.  I eventually tried a FULL glass of cranberry juice.  Cranberries have a very strong taste and commercial juices generally combine them with a lot of sugar or other sweetener.  Even so, half of a glass of it is all one would usually be able to drink.  And that big glass did the trick. Alcohol gradually lost its bitterness after that.

What was it all about?  I think I know.  My cumquat tree was in fruit and I had recently discovered lemonade with a dash of cumquat juice in it. It gave lemonade a real tang.  Cumquats are however a very bitter fruit so a dash of their juice is all you need.  So to extend the discovery I started to have it with vodka as my going-to-bed drink.

And I think my brain began to associate cumquat bitterness with alcohol.  So it returned any experience of alcohol as bitter.  And the strong taste of the cranberrries over-rode that. That's the best I can make of it, anyway.  I threw all my cumquats out.

An Achar Gosht variation

Indian shops have a masala called Achar Gosht -- "pickle curry", originally meant for use with mutton

I have made up curries from it as per the instructions on the packet and found it quite good.  I made my own variation on it tonight, however,  which in my view was much better.  It was a very tasty curry, though a bit on the "hot" side.

I poured a can of diced tomatoes into a big frypan, added an equal amount of water, a chopped up onion, a good sprinkle of salt, a dessert spoon of ground ginger, the WHOLE packet of masala and 500g of mince meat (ground beef).  So it was low-fat cookery, with the only fat being whatever was in the beef, and the beef was described as "lean".

So I mixed everything in together as far as I could and cooked it on a fairly low heat for half an hour.

Shortly before the curry was ready to be served, I mixed in a mini-can (125g) of corn kernels and a mini-can of baked beans -- just to give the meal some variation in texture.  I served it with boiled rice.

The result was delish! Simple, low-fat and delish. That has got to be good! It was probably even gluten-free.

A Cumquat Daiquiri

The Cumquat is a marvellous bush.  Grown widely outside its native place in Southern China, it is basically a warm climate tree but as an onamental bush it is grown in much cooler places -- such as Sydney and Copenhagen. A large part of its visual appeal is its bright yellow fruit, which look like mini-oranges and which the tree puts out prolifically twice a year.

Sadly, however, people mostly ignore the fruit as a food source because it has an appealing but strong taste -- rather bitter.  The one thing the fruit is used for is to make a jam -- and Cumquat jam is the best marmalade you ever tasted.  Once you have had Cumquat jam on your toast, you will never buy another marmalade.

Brisbane is a rather warm place so my cumquat tree is around 10' tall now -- having been planted only about 10 years ago.  And it is in season now at the begining of spring.  I couldn't see all those bright yellow fruit go to waste so I decided to make a Daiquiri out of them.

Daiquiris are a popular tropical cocktail.  Their basic recipe is some form of citrus plus LOTS of sugar, served cold.  The citrus is usually lime or lemon but there are also such abominations as strawberry Daiquiris. In my youth I used to use grapefruit for the citrus juice, which made a REALLY strong drink. I believe Hemingway used grapefruit too. There are several things you can do to get maximum sugar into the drink but the simplest is to use Caster sugar, which is what I use.

So I harvested some of my Cumquat crop and juiced them on my citrus juicer.  It took a while.  Because they are so small, you have to juice a lot of them to get much juice.  But I persevered, added caster sugar until it no longer dissolved plus vodka and topped up with cold soda water.  It was a unique and very refreshing drink.  If you have access to a Cumquat tree, you know what to do now.

When I was at the Uni of NSW in Sydney, the library used to have ornamental Cumqat shrubs outside it. The fruit was unmistakeable. It nomally just fell to waste so I used to go around at night and harvest all the ripe fruit. Nobody seemed to mind.  They didn't know what a treasure they had.

Incidentally, in the Philippines they have a hybrid Cumquat tree called a Calamansi. It is probably a hybrid with a Mandarin.   They use it routinely there to make a fruit juice drink.  It has the unique Cumquat taste without the bitterness. You can even get it in cans.

Cancer update

I am the cancer kid.  I have been having skin cancers removed since I was about 20.  And that has gradually got more frequent.  I now have that done nearly once a week. That is mostly done by a small local skin clinic and bulk-billed, so costs me nothing.  Nitrogen spraying gets rid of a lot of the bad bits and shave biopsies zap nearly all the rest.  As a frequent visitor I also get very friendly and courteous treatment there.  So having so many procedures does not get me down. I had a cancer underneath my left eyelid frozen last Friday.

I recently had a big operation for a cancer under my left jaw. In getting the tumor out, my left facial nerve was cut, despite the surgeon doing a lot to avoid that.  So there are now areas of numbness on my left face.  I have however had good recovery of function.  I don't have a sagging mouth or a crooked smile and I can eat and drink with no great problems. I do however have an itchy ear that we are working on and my left eye tends to get a bit watery outdoors. A pair of sunglasses helps that however --if I can remember to put them on!

I also have metastasized prostate cancer but it is controlled by an anti-androgenic injection once a month.  And that seems to be working well.  My most recent PSA score was 2.5, which is close to zero.  So my prostate cancer has shrunk, which is the desideratum.  The cost of the injections of "Firmagon" is interesting.  Each injection costs the government $400 but thanks to the PBS, I pay only $40.  So on the financial side, I have a lot to be thankful for.

Private health insurance cover

As most people reading this will be aware, you can get a range of cover for "extras" with private hospital insurance. And for services that are not too dear and not too often called upon that can be worthwhile. The cover is for such things as spectacles and hearing aids and dental costs up to a limit.  A small contribution to some medical costs can also be available.

I have maximum ("top") cover so my experience might help others to get a grip on what is available.  The premiums I pay to my fund (CUA) are higher than most but they are unusually generous with hearing aids.  My last lot cost nearly $4,000 and they paid nearly half of that.  I rarely have dentistry and what I have is simple so last time they paid all my costs.  There was also a substantial benefit for new spectacles.

But the most interesting case is what it cost me for my recent big cancer surgery. I was on the table in Brisbane Private Hospital within a week of the cancer being detected. I was in intensive care for a couple of days afterwards so that would have generated an enormous bill from the hospital which my fund paid in full.

The surgeon and her assistant sent me a bill totalling over $5,000, of which Medicare paid $1500 and my fund paid nearly $500.  So I was around $3,000 out of pocket.  In my younger days however I lived frugally and was able to put aside substantial funds to cover "a rainy day" -- so $3,000 was no problem.  Savings are the true health insurance.  It's towards the end of your life that you incur most of your life's medical bills. Proverbs 6:6-8 refers.

A geriatric cook reaches out

For almost my entire adult life I have had both my breakfast and dinner made for me.  If there was not a lady on hand to do the honours, I would eat out -- for both breakfast and dinner. Some time around when I turned 70, however I decided that eating out twice a day was a bit gross -- and night-time traffic was a bit hairy.  So I decided that I would cook my dinner myself.  I have no background in cooking however so have bungled a few dinners along the way.  There are a few simple dinners I make that regularly turn out well, however, so I even cook for other people on occasions.

And last night I cooked for Ken.  It was for his birthday. As Maureen is quite ill these days, I surmised that there would not be much happening for his birthday -- so I offered to make him a home-made dinner to mark the occasion.

So I made him my "best" dinner, one that is routinely complimented -- a version of savoury mince.  And I even trotted out my best tablecloth for the occasion -- a pretty embroidered one from China that Anne gave me recently.  I seem to have accumulated rather a lot of tablecloths over the years

I don't think Ken noticed the tablecloth but he complimented the food and the champagne so all was well.  For canapes I offered salty biscuits plus a choice of three cheeses.  Quite to my surprise, however, he said he doesn't much like cheese these days.   I thought everybody liked cheese.  Maybe it was a polite way of saying that he didn't like the cheeses I offered. English politeness can be extreme. You have to know the English to decipher it accurately, as Kate Fox has shown us. He also said however that he didn't like tea or coffee very much these days and rarely drinks either.  So maybe he is just generally gloomy in his old age.

Ken and I always enjoy conversations and that is rather helped these days by the fact that Ken and I seem to agree a lot. We have known one-another for over 30 years so our conversations also  can be rather frank at times. We have many shared memories.

We talked a fair bit about real estate as Ken is selling his warehouse in order to invest in upscale retirement living.  I hope the vendors don't rip him off.  There is a history of it. The price you buy at can be critical for investments.

One topic that we disagreed on last night was the concept of "healthy" food.  I go against the almost universal concept that there is such a thing as "healthy" food.  I doubt that there is much difference in the goodness of various foods and if there is I don't think we know which ones are healthier than others. So Ken cannot be blamed for being unconvinced by such a radical view.

It is however a well-informed view.  I have been reading the medical journals for years and have even had a few things published in them. And I still read JAMA almost daily.  And from a statistical point of view it is mostly crap.  I used to teach research methods and statistics at the University of NSW so see the sleight of hand that underlies an awful lot of the statistics in medical journals.  Most of the "findings" they report are not significant in any important sense and may even  be totally wrong.

Despite his earlier disavowal of it Ken accepted my offer of coffee. My brain seems to have short-circuited at that point however as I gave him some instant coffee I had which turned out rather badly.

I should have given him the coffee that I usually drink as I recollect him once speaking well of it.  It is however the most unprestigous form of coffee: Bushell's coffee and chicory essence. It was the first coffee that the British and Australians  got to know. My father used to drink it.  So perhaps  I thought it was too humble to offer last night.  So that was sad note on which to end a generally pleasant occasion

Update:  I mentioned above that articles in even the most prestigious medical journals often report conclusions that are  poorly supported by the underlying statistics.  As it happens, the very next day I put up commentaries on two such articles -- here and here

My recollections of Harry Beanham

When I first came down to Brisbane from Cairns in 1963 I had left my Triumph Tiger Cub motorbike in Cairns for Frank to sell -- which he did with some difficulty.  So one of the first things I did in Brisbane was to look in the Courier mail classifieds for a secondhand motorbike.  I found and bought an old ex-army BSA -- a low revving 500cc single pot machine complete with manual advance/retard. Military equipment is often not reliable but this machine never let me down

I used it to get to work at my first Brisbane job, Abraham's Paper Sacks out at Rocklea, a firm that made heavy paper bags for the sandminers on Stradbroke Is.  But I have described that experience  elsewhere

Later in 1963, I got a job selling transmission machinery from a shop in George St., Brisbane. It rather strangely had 3 names: Gearco, Irvine's and Munro Machinery. That is such a strange job for a literary type like me that I think I should say a few words about how I got that job.

There were not many jobs advertised in the local paper for experts in Middle-English poetry -- which is what I knew most about -- so with some optimism I applied for a job as an engineering equipment salesman.

I was interviewed by Harry Beanham, who owned a chain of similar shops in other capital cities. I turned up for the interview in a green suit wearing a green fuzzy felt hat. That was not a good move. But Harry was a cautious man so he just asked me two questions which should have sent me on my green-suited way. He asked: What is a tap and what is a reamer? Being a country kid I answered both questions correctly. And if you think a tap is something you get water out of you don't know engineering machinery. Harry was so delighted to meet a kid who actually knew something that he gave me the job straight away.

Harry was usually resident in Sydney but he visited his interstate shops occasionally.  His Brisbane shop in George St. was mostly called Gearco.  The job was to run a business selling second hand factory machinery and some new machinery: Mostly to do with lathes and other machine tools. I found it interesting.

Harry was in partnership with a very smooth man (Bob Naesmith) selling new and secondhand photographic gear. I ran my (engineering) side of the shop and the other side of the shop was run by George Smith and Mrs Staer. I had for many years a SLR Pentax camera I acquired from the other side of the shop when it came in second-hand.

I once had a Pom come in to buy some chain off me. He was a bit vague about what he wanted but assured me that he was a great British engineer.  I gave him some 1/2 x 3/16 inch chain which he accepted. He came back next day rather irate because the chain did not fit.  It turned out that he wanted 1/2 x 5/16 inch chain.  I was a bit mocking about a great British engineer not knowing something as basic as the difference between 1/2 x 3/16  and 1/2 x 5/16 chain.  He couldn't recognize the difference between pushbike chain and motorbike chain.  He went away very angry with me!  A sad soul.

I made my mark in Harry's mind by being a very successful seller of diehead chasers. There was a complexity to them that interested me. He eventually sent his total stock of them up to Brisbane for me to sell. Don't ask what they are. You don't need to know. Mechanical engineers know already.

Harry was pleased to find that I was a motorcyclist as that was very much his hobby.  He was riding them well into his later years.  His favourite bike when I knew him was the Velocette, a high quality British bike.  He had one  stored in the basement of his Brisbane shop for his use when he was in Brisbane.  It was a bit like a motorscooter so I am pretty sure it was an LE model.


A 1953 Velocette LE

Harry seemed to monitor my sales and orders fairly closely and would send me up handwritten notes about them.  I suspect that he couldn't work a typewriter.  On one occasion he wrote that something I was doing was NBG.  He was a bit on the grumpy side but never unpleasantly so. He saw it as his job to teach me things about the business -- which I was glad to learn.

As well as selling new lathe gears and other new machinery.  Harry had a big stock of secondhand machinery which he had bought at auctions.  Auctions were his second favourite hobby, I gather.  So there were various things I had to do with his second-hand stock  to get it ready for sale.

And that stood me in good stead in 1968 when I was fired from the Dept. of Technical Education of the NSW public service.  You did not think ANYONE could get fired from the public service did you?  But I behaved unusually rebelliously.  I was not meant to be a bureaucrat.  Details of that episode here.

When I was fired, I went and saw Harry at his Sydney business -- in case he might want me to work for him again. He did. Harry remembered how I sold lots of diehead chasers for him in Brisbane so had a high opinion of my usefulness.  So he promptly put me to work preparing his secondhand stock for sale.  So I got a job that did not exist until I asked for it!

There are a number of affectionate stories about Harry online -- e.g. here

A new Ingeborg Hallstein channel on Youtube with lots of videos

See here.  Many of the videos are of her in her younger days.

My favourite is her version of Frühlingsstimmen Walzer (Voices of Spring Waltz) by Johann Strauss. I will never be able to listen to anybody else's version now.  See below:



The owner of the channel is "megadim" (megadimih@gmail.com), who informs me that he has a lot more videos of her that he will put up in due course.

A wonderful Brisbane afternoon in winter

For people who like warm weather -- as I do -- Brisbane is a great place.  Even our winter afternoons are almost always warm.  But yesterday Brisbane really excelled itself.  The midafternoon temperature was 34C -- which is a normal SUMMER temperature for Brisbane.

Warmists would regard that as a global catastrophe but for Brisbane people it is just a part of normal variations.  And if Brisbane people carry on regardless in such temperatures, does anyone need to fear the one or two degees of warming that the climate fanatics foam about?

An unusual Father's day

I am one of those people for whom it is hard to buy gifts because they already have everything.  So when my birthday or fathers' day comes up, I make it easy for Joe by saying that all I want is for him and Kate to make me a dinner for us all to have on the verandah -- which suits us all. I have got some good dinners that way.

This year however, I complicated things a bit by inadvertently scheduling something else for Sept., 1st, which is when Fathers' day is observed in Australia.  I scheduled one of my men's dinners for that day

So we had my "day" a little early instead.  I suggested that instead of a Sunday observance I would be happy for Joe to join me at a breakfast on the Thursday beforehand -- to take place at the Gold Leaf coffee shop at Kangaroo point.  I particularly like the Lot burger they do there and wanted Joe to try it too.  We both had other things already on that morning so we set out at 7:30am to fit it in.  And it all went well, a very pleasant breakfast in a pleasant milieu. 

Then on the Sunday Joe and I breakfasted together again -- as we always do on Sundays.

And that evening we had our men's dinner.  Present were myself, Joe, Chris, Graham and H**.  It was the first time H** had attended.  H** is a jolly soul and has political views similar to mine so he fitted in very well and helped the night to roll along as a fun occasion. 

We did talk politics as usual -- with particular derision for global warming -- but a whole range of other things as well.  Speaking from his background in counselling, Graham was informative about pedophiles.  He said that most of them had themselves been abused in their childhoods.  From there we went on to discuss homosexuality.  Graham was again informative there and noted the extreme bitchiness that is often found in "bottom" male homosexuals. There have been two Lesbians in the Ray family so it was a topic of some interest to Chris and myself.  I noted that I had always got along well  personally with any homosexuals in my orbit.

To feed the horde, I made my usual mince dish, Chili con carne this time, which all went right down.  I also provided tinned fruit salad and icecream as a dessert, and that vanished rapidly too.

Chris brought long a replica Gladius for "show and tell" which was much admired.  The possibility of him bringing along a classic machine gun next time was discussed.

Dressings off!

A happy day today.  The dressings on my surgical wounds came off.  So I once again have a normal-looking face.  Emily took the dressings off and said that the healing was good so there was no need for any more dressings.  I still have a lot of subsurface stitches but they will dissolve of their own accord.

I am far from totally out of the woods, however. I still have to undergo radiotherapy to kill off any stray cancer cells that might still be there. But that won't be invasive.

I am still feeling a bit washed out after all my experiences but I hope that I will gradually bounce back from that. I have had rather good recovery of function.  My left eye gets watery only occasionally now and I can eat anything I want with no great trouble.  I will always have a crooked smile henceforth however.

Free at last!

I did not enjoy my time in hospital.  Who does?  So I was very glad when Joe came and picked me up at 10am this morning. As soon as I got out, Joe and I went and had Sunday morning breakfast together as we usually do. Routines must be observed! We talked mainly about American politics as we usually do.  Politics is a great interest for both of us. There was no point in saying anything much about my health as what is done is done.

An unexpected blessing while I was in hospital was that there were a few things things on TV -- mainly history -- that I found interesting. That helped with the boredom.

The Brisbane Private Hospital on Wickham Tce. is a VERY good hospital.  In some respects, it even pipped the Wesley, to my surprise. Each room had its own temperature control, the meals were first class restaurant standard and the TV controls were better.  Such things may seem trivial but they are not trivial when you are in there.

My captor who kept me in hospital for four days was the pretty and gracious "Emily" (Dr. Emily Perry), the highly regarded head and neck surgeon.  Outside the office, she dresses like a young woman about town rather than the very serious professional that she is.  So her daily visits to check on me were definitely a bright spot in my day. See her  below with Chris Perry, her father, also a distinguished surgeon.  They are both very self confident people.  She is in mufti there, not at all glammed up, as she can be.




I had an aggressive tumour on my neck which had metastasized (spread) from one of my skin cancers (SCCs). SCCs are known for spreading so my luck just ran out eventually.  That I had something like 100 SCCs removed that did NOT spread is the wonder. I always said that cancer would get me one day.

The tumour was in my parotid gland (one of the salivary glands) and was wrapped around my left facial nerve so I lost both the parotid gland and the left facial nerve, which was an unexpectedly bad result.  It was a two hour operation and Emily said she tried for half an hour save the facial nerve but it was just too entangled.

My face looks much as it did -- no saggy features -- but I do have to be careful eating and my left eye is rather watery so it is still no fun.  But it is certainly not fatal so I plan to carry on as before until something else gets me.  I do expect to live to help celebrate Mr Trump's second inauguration.

A small update: When I was being interviewed by the anesthetist prior to the procedure, he asked me what medications I was on.  None, I said perfectly truthfully.  He did not believe me at first. He said I was one in a thousand at my age who was not taking anything regularly.  That was rather pleasing.  It suggests that I might have had a long life span without the cancer.

More scans

After my failure to cop the MRI machine at Mater Private, alternatives were sought.  But I was already down today for a scan on a PET/CT machine at Mater Private.  That scan was however scheduled at the ungodly hour of 7am.  So they thought a second scan that day to get an MRI result should be possible.  And that scan was scheduled for 1:20pm at the QE2 branch of Qld Xray

Joe drove me in for the PET scan and it went ahead without a hitch.  That machine did not bother me and it was only a 12 minute scan anyway.

But the MRI scan was another story.  I knew I would need some sedation so I got Jenny to bring me over some Valium and she then drove me to QE2 and waited to pick me up afterwards.  She is an old hand at QE2 visits and has things she takes with her to entertain herself while waiting there.

We talked about old times in the car driving over and we still got a laugh about how we got her a good parking spot for the Expo fireworks.  We parked her little yellow Daihatsu the previous night and left it there.  We went home in my Ford Laser after doing so.  So she had a prime parking spot on the day

The situation at the MRI machine was a little better than previously but not enough.  The machine was still very narrow and rubbed on my elbows as it moved.  But the worst part was that for a head scan they put a tightly fitting plastic cage over your head -- presumably to keep your head immobile.  That really freaked me out. I felt like The Man in the Iron Mask.  I could not even close my jaw.  I could probably have hacked it for 5 minutes but that scan is 25 minutes and that would have distressed me greatly.  So I refused to go ahead.

One hopes that all the other scans I have had will suffice.  I had a couple last week at Qscan.

Some pesky surgery coming up

I have a tumor under my skin beside my bottom left-hand jaw. It has biopsied as a metastasized SCC from my  skin cancers. So it has to go.

 It needs serious surgery to get it out so I will be in hospital for a couple of days recovering.  The tumor is in my Parotid (salivary) gland but the surgeon will be Emily Perry who has a record of doing that sort of thing well.  It does look like I will lose that salivary gland -- but I have a few others so the salivation should still be OK.

The procedure is on Wednesday but getting  various preliminary scans done continued today.  I was due to have a MRI at Mater Private.  It did not go ahead however. The machine they wanted to put me in was an old one with an aperture much smaller than any other scanner I have encountered.  I have never got claustrophobia before but this machine did it and from the moment I went in to it I asked to be let out -- which I was.

I am booked for a PET scan tomorrow morning so I may be able to do the MRI in the afternoon with a better machine

A dinner with history

Anne and I had dinner last night with Gordon and Julia, old friends of Anne.  Gordon and I get on well so we do have a few dinners together.  Anne and Julia see one another a LOT.  Julia is of English birth and is noticeably English in some ways, though she is no fan of English triumphalism.  Gordon is a bit more exotic.  He is not only from Norn ("Northern" in Irish vernacular pronunciation) Ireland but he is a genuine son of the Manse, with the Manse concerned being located in the Crumlin Rd, no less.



Because of the "Troubles" in Belfast over the years, the whole world has heard of the Crumlin Rd and the Shankill Rd. but to Gordon both were simply local places. Despite his Presbyterian background, however, Gordon is no Orangeman. He condemns religion generally in fact.  To a considerable extent he came to Australia to get away from "all that".

The Protestant "lads" of Belfast have some reputation of being tough guys.  If many of them are much like Gordon they could be alarming to encounter. He is around 6' tall and an imposing well-built man even in his '70s. The Rev. In Paisley was a tall man too: 6'5".

I rather adored Paisley. When Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother met Pope John XXIII in 1958, Paisley condemned them for "committing spiritual fornication and adultery with the Antichrist". When Pope John died in June 1963, Paisley announced to a crowd of followers that "this Romish man of sin is now in Hell!". Paisley also believed that the European Union is a part of a conspiracy to create a Roman Catholic superstate controlled by the Vatican.

I don't agree with any of it but to hear it is like stepping back 400 years into our religious past.  I admire its sheer committment and conviction. That I was a very fundamentalist Protestant in my teens, with beliefs not too different, means it has good resonances for me.  I could see his point of view and admire the energy he put into his evangelism.

Anyway, I am guessing that the "lads" of Belfast were not in fact generally tall.  If they are like their brethren in Glasgow they will be "wee bauchels" (stunted).

Gordon's big peeve is Australia's many governments.  He sees that as inefficient and thinks the States should be abolished and be replaced by one central government along (presumably) French lines.  I pointed out to him that he originates from a Federal state.  The Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has five legislatures:  in London, Edinburgh, Belfast, Cardiff and the Isle of Man -- and the voters for those assemblies are rather attached to their arrangements.  And, of the other nations most closely related to Australia, the USA and Canada also have Federal systems, as do Germany and India.  But I think I managed to moderate his views only a little.

Something unusual about Gordon is that he frequently speaks highly of his wife!  And I am told she hates that!  I think he means it though.

Anyhow we had chats about lots of things.  One thing all present seemed interested in was my explanation about why Pius XII (Pacelli) is most unjustly called by some, "Hitler's Pope". Before he became Pope, in the '30s, Pacelli was posted to Germany as a representative of the Holy See and he condemned Nazism often.  He wisely shut up when the Nazis came to power however and that is the thread that Soviet disinformation seized on to condemn him.  And the Western Left always swallowed Soviet propaganda hook, line and sinker. Pacelli in fact rescued many Jews while Pope. He was a true man of God.

So it was a good dinner with good company and good food.  Gordon had made what he called a Canadian crumb cake for dessert, which was particularly good.  I think I ate most of it.

Towards the end we started to sing -- very badly -- but it indicated good times being had.  And we weren't even drunk!  Only half a bottle of champagne was consumed all night.

Footnote for people of our current irreligious times:  A Manse is where a Presbyterian minister lives.  A child of the Manse is expected to show various influences from that background.  And Gordon can in fact quote scripture appropriately

A very small incident but perhaps worth a mention

Anne and I have recently been noting the disappearance of Chinese restaurants -- once a great Australian tradition where you could get Chinese food unknown in China.  The big phenomenon now is Indian restaurants.  There are two excellent Indian restaurants within a very short walk of where I usually shop.  So I asked Joe if he knew any nearby Chinese restaurants. He said the one in Ipswich Rd. near the Subway and near Beaurepaires had good food.  He gets takeaway food a lot.

So I went there to try it out.  I found that is really just a takeaway with a few tables and chairs.  But seeing I was there I decided to eat in and ordered BBQ pork with plum sauce, which can be very good.  Cost with rice: $15.50.  To pay I took out a $10 note plus a pocketful of change.  I counted out $5 in change and was about to pick out a 50c coin for the remainder when the Chinese girl serving said, "No, That is enough for you".  She took only the $15.

Now why did she do that?  Why the small discount?  I think I know.  I come across as very old and frail (which I am) and my fiddling around with change probably suggested that I am poor (which I am not).  So it was just kindness to the elderly.  I get a lot of  kindness and helpfulness from all sorts of people now that I am old so I am very pleased that there is so much civility in Australia. I am grateful for it.

And the food was a good standard notable for the big size of the serve. So if you are feeling like takeaway Chinese, drop into the "Gabba Chinese" at Shop 4, 80 Ipswich Road, Woolloongabba, Brisbane.  There they are below:



People may remember that I received similar kindness from a Vietnamese pie shop owner last year

More Hyderabad

I took our Monday dining group to the "Hyderabad Flavours" restaurant in Buranda tonight. It is just a couple of doors from the Dapur Dahlia.

My recent visit there had been good so it was an opportunity to explore more of their menu. There is both an Indian Hyderabad city and a Pakistani Hyderabad city but I think our Brisbane Hyderabad restaurant is of Indian origin.  The waitresses were wearing Western dress so I think that settles it

And I do get the impression that the offerings were meant to be similar to what you would get in Hyderabad, India.  The specialty of the house seemed to be Mirchi Bajji (battered green chillies) so I did order some of those.  I enjoyed them.

Everybody ordered something different but we all found the food to be first class. I think the chicken Korma I had was the best I have ever tasted.  And I have eaten a lot of chicken Korma in my day

And all the meals were LARGE.  So nobody went away with room for more.  Kate was talking of going back another day with Joe to try more of their offerings.

As a memento I reproduce the docket to show what we had:

Some good dining recently

The day after the twins had departed, I took Anne to the Dosa Hut restaurant at Mt Gravatt.  We had not been there before.  I ordered Masala dosas and a couple of idli.  Our previous dosa restaurant, the Riverwalk in Gladstone Rd., had gone out of business, much to our disappointment.

But the new restaurant was just as good and was even better in that our previous place did not do idlis, not that idlis are great. They are just a traditional thing that go with dosas.

The menu was enormous and the prices were reasonable so we were perfectly happy with our new source of dosas

On Nanna's birthday I took Anne to the Hyderabad, which is just a couple of doors from the Dapur Dahlia.  It was leaping.  There were brown people everywhere and lots of brown people coming and going.  We were the only white faces there.  And the food was good and the servings were enormous.  One dinner would have done both of us.  A specialty of the house seemed to be battered green chillies so we ordered some as an entree.  They were really good and only a little bit "hot".  I think the Hyderabad will be our regular Indian from now on.

And just yesterday, Jenny and Pam cooked Anne and me a Dhansak with all the trimmings.  A genine Parsee Dhansak is a rare privilege. It took the two of them many hours to make it all.  As usual it had a rich taste and was very filling.  I particularly got into the kachumber (Parsee salad). It leaves all other salads for dead.  I am not a big salad eater but I ate lots of the kachumber.  And Jenny served up two chutneys -- the traditional green chutney plus an eggplant chutney.  Both were first rate.

And today, I got a new dinner table in my dining room. It is a very fine traditional brown dinner table.  I got it from Vinnies a few days ago and Joe and Aristides brought it up and put it in my dining room this morning.  The old pine dining table went on the verandah and the Laminex table off the verandah is now in the garage.