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.

Why I was once fired from a State government bureaucracy

It has just occurred to me that I have never written anything about the time I was sacked from the NSW Public Service.  It has never been a secret.  It just didn't seem important in my scale of values.  But maybe there are some small lessons to learn from it.  Though it was over 50 years ago now.

When I had completed my B.A. degree with honours in psychology from the University of Qld. at the end of 1967, I decided I needed a change of scene from Brisbane so I moved South to Sydney.  Being Mr Frugality, I had a comfortable level of savings, no debts and a sky blue VW beetle -- so the transition was an unproblematic one.

I did however want a job.  So I went along to the Army recruiting office.  From my time in the CMF in Brisbane I was a fully qualified Sergeant in the Psychology corps so thought I might get work there.  They grabbed me.  An extra qualified hand was very welcome.  So within days of arriving I  was back in the Army!

I was not however interested in an army career so I looked around for an alternative.  So I took the selection test for the NSW public service.  Taking tests is one of the few things I am good at so I got an immediate welcome.  One of the tests I did was a test of computer aptitude.  Bill Bailey was the man in charge of that so he called me in for a chat. He revealed that I had gone off the scale for the test. I had got every single item right.  Bill wanted to see who this freak was!  The reason I did well, however, was not very freakish.  I was by that time already an experienced FORTRAN programmer.  When I told Bill that he was greatly relieved.  It meant that his test had given the right answer after all

I was assigned to the Dept. of Technical Education as a graduate clerk.  Their graduate clerk program was however a typical bureaucratic bungle.  The only work they had for me was filing, something I had done years ago as a junior clerk in the Queensland Dept. of Public Works.  I was quite miffed at being given such dumb work so I refused to do it.  And it was all downhill from there.

Eventually I was transferred to Head office where they gave me some slightly more interesting work. I did what was asked but there was not much of it so I had a lot of spare time on my hands.  I was at the time enrolled with the M.A. program at the University of Sydney so I mostly used the spare time on academic work.  The managers apparently felt unable to do anything about that.

But one morning, just after I had handed in my Master's thesis at U Syd towards the end of the year, I unintentionally slept in and arrived at work late.  That was it!  They had me. Lateness was something they could act on.  So I was promptly fired that day.  There would have been access to an appeal but I didn't bother. I knew I was going on to other things next year.

So I went and saw Harry Beanham, whom I had worked for at one time in Brisbane.  Harry had been impressed with my work in Brisbane.  I sold lots of diehead chasers for him, if anybody knows what they are. Few do. Anyway Harry promptly put me to work preparing his stock for sale.  So in the space of less than a year I had got 3 jobs, none of which were advertised!

Lessons:  Don't be late in a bureaucracy and finding a job is easy if you have usable skills and qualifications.

A natal anniversary and Timmy

What is the difference between natal and Natal?  One is  a province in South Africa and the other refers to birth. So a natal anniversary is what is normally called a b*rthday. We are advised by security people never to use the normal term because evildoers can google our writings and find out what our natal anniversary is.  And that is an important form of ID, enabling evildoers to impersonate us and perhaps steal our money.  The age of the internet has its own problems.

So on Saturday last we had an evening  party to celebrate Joe's natal anniversary.  The first thing that morning however was to bring upstairs another of my furniture purchases from Vinnies.  It was a rather magnificent sideboard that I had bought about a week before and had it delivered into my garage.  Getting it upstairs needed two strong men so Joe and the ever-helpful Aristides got it upstairs at about 9am.  Much furniture re-arrangement was needed to get it into place but it is now adorning Anne's bedroom.  Its front features some very clever veneer work.



The party  was a quiet occasion, as Joe wanted it to be.  There were only 12 people present in Jenny's backyard for the occasion -- Joe's old friends plus close family. The twins came over from NZ especially for the occasion.

There was no music, no dancing and only a tiny amount of alcohol.  I supplied one bottle of Seaview champagne for toasting purposes and that was it. It could almost have been a fundamentalist Protestant occasion.  But it wasn't.  Joe is a baptised and confirmed Roman Catholic but he doesn't believe in anything much at all these days.  So why was it such a Puritanical natal anniversary?  It's because what we like to do is talk -- and we have no difficulty talking to one-another.  For many other people, music and dancing are substitutes for conversation.

So what did we talk about?    We just covered a lot of ground.  Mr Trump got a mention, of course.  Von sat with me for a while, as did Jenny and Joe, but we didn't talk about anything specific.  Paul's Susan once told me that talking about family matters was gossip, which was rather hard to refute.

I shouted us a number of pizzas for the food and Jenny provided several side dishes and canapes.  Pizzas are humble food but Jenny ordered a variety of them so they went down well. I asked Joe the next day what was his best memory of the occasion and he said that it was just seeing everybody together.  He has very good friends but the family does not normally see much of them. It was actually quite a jolly occasion and Joe had a good share of the laughs.

I left after about 2 hours there -- which is my usual socialization capacity -- so I missed the cake.  Jenny had asked me what sort of cake Joe would like and I hazarded a guess that it would be icecream cake. And that was apparently well received.  I hear that the party wound up not long after the cake ceremonies.

Then on the Sunday nothing much occurred -- though Joe and I had our usual leisurely bacon 'n eggs breakfast at the pie shop.  We talk continuously for about an hour there every Sunday -- mainly about American politics.  We both follow closely the many crazy events there.

Then on Monday, we welcomed Timmy back from his travels. Jenny put on a dinner of butter chicken and many accompaniments for the occasion.  Timmy and Rachel got married recently and did a lot of travel in Europe for their honeymoon. Timmy had some rather strange girlfriends in the past but when he met Rachel he recognized quality so he did not waste too much time before he married her. She is a pretty and sensible Kiwi dental nurse and is slowly getting used to our strange family.  Timmy these days is a bank Johnny. He has what has always been seen as one of the best jobs in Australia -- a job with the Commonwealth bank.

A significant part of our evening was a wedding present for Timmy.  I had said that I had an ideal wedding present for Timmy when he invites me to a proper wedding celebration.  His actual wedding was a minimalistic affair. He too doesn't like a lot of fuss.  The news that I had a mystery present for Timmy did get around so I suspect that Jenny put on the dinner in part to find out what the present was.

Before I delivered the present I told the story behind the present.  I told how the 4-year-old Timmy always raided the jar of choc chip cookies the moment he arrived at our place in Queen Bess St. I gather that Ken and Maureen didn't allow many cookies at their place so I understood Timmy's practicality.  The jar holding the cookies was a rather distinctive hexagonal one and was still in good condition many years later so that was my present to Timmy -- filled with Arnott's premium choc chip cookies.  So it was a link to Timmy's 4-year-old self and Timmy greatly appreciated it.

We always adored Timmy when he was a little kid because he was so smart.  So in all the many family dinner invitations I sent out over the years, I always included a special shout-out to Timmy. And he is a really nice guy now that he is grown up.

During the rest of the dinner I periodically piped up with stories about the young Timmy. I even repeated the old story about two cents for blood -- as Kate had not heard it. And the marvellous curative powers of the "red stuff" (Mercurochrome) were also mentioned. With a two cent coin and the red stuff I could dry all tears from all of the kids.  I used to plaster it on and Tmmy in particular loved having big patches of red on his limbs. And the story about Timmy as a 4-year old lawyer was a classic. Von greatly enjoys the old stories even after she has heard them many times and I noted that she did this time too.

So it was a great dinner and we broke up after a couple of hours or so.  Joe drove Anne and me to the dinner and looked after me generally.  I am a bit unsteady on my feet these days so Joe walks with me on uneven ground in case I trip over.

Dusty and Hannah playing  in Jenny's back yard

The arrival

It was difficult to get our New Zealand families over for our birthday month because of clashes with school times for the kids. So they couldn't get here for everything. But they prioritized Joe's birthday. And on Thursday night they arrived with Jenny and me to welcome them: Von, Suz, Hannah and Dusty. Sahara got left behind in Invercargill in the care of her father for some reason.   Ken picked them up from the airport and transported them to Jenny's place.  Maureen was there too

Von was looking gorgeous as usual -- in her woolly singlet -- and even Suz had made an effort at dressing up, something she is not much inclined to do. Von was in great form  -- as happy as a lark -- and Hannah was full of beans too.  Dusty was quite serious at age 7.  Hannah has grown quite tall and quite confident at age 8 and was full of feminine mannerisms as she talked.  She is already the lady you would expect of Von's daughter. At one stage she said -- to general surprise -- that she likes flies.  Ken then said that he did too.  It's amazing what can be genetically transmitted.

Hannah is a very lucky girl in this day and age.  Because she and her mother are so alike, she has a mother who understands her readily plus she has a father at home who adores her.  You don't get much better than that and it's becoming rare these days.

A lot of the talk was about New Zealand and the trip over -- to fill in our Brisbane people about the other lives in New Zealand.  Von, Suz and their kids seem to be regular New Zealanders now.

Fortunately they do not seem to have acquired the strange New Zealand accent so far.  The Kiwis are the only English language group to have lost an entire vowel.  Cockneys have lost a consonant -- Theta -- but losing consonants is fairly common.  Only the Kiwis have lost a vowel.  They replace the short i sound with the grunt vowel.

An amusing story was about their reception by the immigration authorities when they arrived in Brisbane.  Apparently the officer asked the girls whether they were they closely related.  Dusty piped up saying they were twins.  He was ignored even though he was right.  No surprise that he was ignored though. The  girls  never did look at all alike and these days the differences seems to have grown.

I got  a few expressions of sympathy about my prostate diagnosis and they all seemed to be surprised that the treatment was so simple.

The arrival was at dinner time so Jenny put on spag bol for us all plus a big bowl of salad. Jenny timed it well as we sat down shortly after the twins arrived.

On previous visits to Brisbane by the twins, we have made a point of going to a nearby restaurant that did good dosas, a South Indian offering.  Such vists were much enjoyed.  Sadly, that restaurant went under recently and there is nobody else nearby that does dosas.

The Dapur Dahlia has however acquired similar popularity with people I know so I wanted to get the twins to experience them as well.  So I took them there, plus Jenny and their kids on Friday night (tonight).

The first dinner to arrive was for Dusty. It was a nice wire basket full of chips plus some chicken nuggets.  As soon as I saw it, I said, "I want Dusty's dinner".  The others agreed with me. It was quite a big lot of chips so we all had a few to taste.  There were still tons left for Dusty and he did in fact polish them all off.

Suz and I had Nasi Goreng Pattaya (below) but I forget what the others had. It is basically fried rice with chicken plus an omelette on top.

We talked about various family matters and reminiscences.  Von was still upset over a memory from wayback.  This was at Gordonvale where we often took our dinners down to the Gazebo to have. One night we were having spaghetti and all took our plates of it down to the gazebo.  On the way, Von's dinner slipped off the plate onto the ground so became uneatable. Spaghetti is very slippery stuff so it was not really Von's fault but she was understandably upset at the time.  And she is still mourning that lost plate of spaghetti.

Once again, everybody spontaneously commented how good the food was so it did turn out to be a good replacement for the dosa place. Hannah got a full-size meal but ate only about half of it so Von wanted to doggy bag it.  The restaurant accommodates that but to do so sells you a nice container for a small sum.  The container has Dapur Dahlia written on it in large letters.  Knowing how Von collects mementoes I am betting that that container will be going back to New Zealand.

The celebrations continue

On Monday, Joe was off work in the morning to allow him to deal with some bureaucratic matters so we had breakfast together at our favorite coffee lounge.  Bacon and eggs for both of us.  I forget what we talked about but it would probably be about Mr Trump's latest tweets.

Then that night Anne made me a dinner with things I particularly like:  Sydney rock oysters to start followed by meatloaf and finished by fruitcake.  She made the meatloaf and cake according to her own recipes.  And both worked out very well.  We washed it down with a bottle of Henkel Trocken, a German "champagne" Anne likes.

And on Tuesday, yesterday, I hosted a big dinner for close family and friends at the Dapur Dahlia, a Malaysian restaurant I often go to these days.  They are particularly good for hosting a group.  Their tables for two are largeish and can easily be pushed together to make one long table.  There were 11 of us so we needed that.  And people always make appreciative comments about the food.

I made a special request for Geoff to come down from his perch in the near North for the dinner as it was a long time since I had seen him.  I used to see him about monthly when he was my handyman.  So I wanted to hear how he was going these days.  We had a good chat and he did seem to be in better form now that he has retired.  Some stresses have been taken off him.

George was there as he always is when I am doing the invitations.  Lewis and Jill were also there and Lewis had never met George so Lewis asked a lot of questions to figure how George fitted in to the family.  Lewis has still got a keen and enquiring mind even in his advanced years.

At one stage I was talking to a couple of people and pointing out how much of their religion the Muslims had stolen off the Jews -- even down to "Allah" being originally a Hebrew word (Eloah in Hebrew).  Lewis looked a bit uncomfortable about that but he knows I am a fanatical supporter of Israel so he was probably wondering about the attitudes of other people there.  For me Israel can do no wrong and I put my money where my mouth is by occasional donations to Israeli charities.  Israel has to spend so much on its defence that the government does not have much to spend on welfare work.

Anne spent a lot of time talking to my brother and his wife Kym. I put up some teases to Kym about Aborigines to which she responded well.  She does welfare work with Aborigines. I talked a bit with my brother about motorbikes, getting the latest on English motorbikes, an interest we share.

Joe spent a lot of time talking to Lewis which he enjoyed and when I asked him afterwards how he found the dinner he said it was "fun".

Kate was her usual social self and talked mostly to Jenny.

I had pretty well healed up after my Friday surgery so could enjoy the occasion.  I talked to George and Jill and most of the people there.  At one stage, I announced to Jill in my usual cheerful way that I had recently been diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer and Jill remarked that she had never heard me complain about anything, which may be true  My instinct is to look at the positive.

Everybody liked the food as usual. It was both filling and tasty. I provided a couple of bottles of Seaview champagne to help wash it all down.  Below is the docket as a memento of what we had.  The overall cost was embarrassingly small. I actually could have paid it in cash




Figure that lot out!

Cold calls

Almost every day around mid-afternoon I get a junk phone call --   Sometimes on my mobile, sometimes on my landline;  Most are are polite, some are threatening;  Some know my name, most do not; some claim to be official from the tax office or the telephone company and others have all sorts of introductions.

I can usually decide within 5 seconds that the call is a scam and simply hang up immediately without saying a word.  I guess that is impolite of me but I have no qualms about being impolite to crooks.

The interesting thing is that -- as far I can remember -- all the callers have had a strong foreign accent. Being a bit deaf I don't understand foreign accents well at the best of times so that alerts me from the first word they say.  So they are optimistic.  For best results they should put someone who is a native speaker of Australian English on the line. That would be more likely to get attention.  So they are all evidently just small-time crooks from somewhere abroad taking their chances.

I understand foreign accents over the phone so badly that I really have little idea what they are saying.  So I am occasionally in doubt about the call.  I think it might be legit.  So in those cases I am perfectly frank.  I tell them that I cannot understand a word they are saying so get a native speaker of Australian English to call me back.

They rarely go quietly.  They keep jabbering.  So I then hang up.  Occasionally, that frustrates them so much that they keep calling back -- often in angry voices. Having their pronunciation condemned seems to frustrate them more than losing the call.   Which amuses me. Once again I hang up as soon as I decide the call is a scam.  Some call back a few times.  They are determined that their English will be understood.  But it isn't.

An excision and a dinner

On Friday I visited my usual skin clinic for an excision on my left temple.  I normally go there just for biopsies and cryotherapy. So this was a first. The lady doctor -- Sandy -- who normally attends to me did the excision. Most of my excisions in recent times have been done by Russell, a brilliant plastic surgeon who gets exemplary results, so I was a bit concerned about how well Sandy would go.

She was meticulous and it went very well:  No subsequent pain and no inflammation. The result was in part because it was an easy job with enough loose skin at the site for an easy post-excision joinup.  If it had been a tricky job needing flaps etc I would have gone to the plastic surgeon.

And Sandy's post-op care was extraordinarily good.  She gave me her personal mobile no. and said I could call her at any time if I had any concerns about the excision.  And she said she would home visit me if there were any serious problems.  And the morning after the procedure she rang me personally to see how I was. 

I actually took advantage of that to ask if I could come in to have the dressings minimized as the existing ones were itchy. She agreed and within 20 minutes she was attending to me.  I had no idea that such a level of service was possible.  She says she usually does about four surgeries a day so she is just a very capable lady. And she is a great communicator too. I would recommend her to anybody with bad skin bits.  She is only a little thing but is 100% quality.

So my recovery was very rapid and by Sunday I had only steristrips on the wound.  I was already hardly aware of it.  Which was a good thing because I could enjoy my dinner that evening without distraction. 

And my dinner was a special one.  July is birthday season for Joe, me and Nanna.  So as usual, Joe and Kate cooked me a seasonal dinner to have on our verandah.  It was a dinner of devilled sausages.  As I am something of a sausage freak it was a very well-chosen offering.  It was greatly enjoyed.  I supplied Seaview champagne as usual

Most ladies have a special dinner they do for special occasions so I think Kate could well use that dinner as her special.  Now that she is a married lady she will probably be doing a bit of entertaining.

It was a good opportunity for me to have some relaxed chats with Kate.  As Kate has recently got her psych degree, we talked a lot about issues in education and the parlous state of academic research in the social sciences and medicine.  The replication crisis has shaken a lot of people -- though I personally thought it was long overdue.  The glaring holes in most research in those fields were obvious to me from wayback.  I even had a lot of critique articles published which said so. Journal editors don't like publishing critiques so I was obviously making strong points.

An interesting day

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a large table-height sideboard  from Buranda Vinnies.  It was a very attractive piece with lots of drawers etc.   Anne liked it.  About a week ago a similar one popped up in Stones Corner Vinnies.  This one was normal sideboard height but was otherwise a little smaller.  But it also looked good.  So I bought it for Anne but left it to Anne to arrange delivery.

And it arrived today. So when I turned up at Anne's place at 7pm there it was.  Anne had done some big furniture rearrangements to fit it in to her living room but it did fit in very well.  She was of course rather worn out at that stage so I took her to dinner at nearby Tingalpa.

When we arrived at Tingalpa we noticed that the Japanese restaurant had been much done up so decided to try it.  What I ordered and what we got seemed very different but it was very tasty nonetheless.  We will return.

After the meal we went for a short walk to see what else was new at Tingalpa.  A Thai restaurant had some leaflets out the front so I took one and sat down to read it.

I sat on one of the flimsy stools that the restaurant supplies.  Both the stool and I fell over.  I must have sat further back on it than I should.  So I ended up flat on my back on the concrete floor.  As the stool was only about 18" off the floor I didn't have far to fall so did not injure myself.  Old fellas like me should NOT fall over, however. We tend to break things.  My fall must have been much observed because people leaped up and came from all over to help me.  I needed it as at my age I have difficulty getting off the floor by myself. 

So it was good to see how many kind people were there. I don't think I have sunk to the level of Blanche in "Streetcar named Desire", though.

A pre-birthday dinner with Lana and Peter H.

July is birthday month for me.  It is my birthday plus there are two other family birthdays. And there can be more than one celebration of a birthday. So this July is shaping up as busy too. So I thought I might fit in a dinner with Peter early on in the month. So I took us to the Dapur Dahlia Malaysian restaurant again tonight.

I get a feeling of real satisfaction from Dapur Dahlia dinners.  Their dinners all seem to have a lot of rice so that may be at work.  Rice is very filling.  About 2 billion people find it so anyway.

Anne and Lana spent a lot of time talking, including discussion of the role of soy sauce in cooking.  Both ladies have their own uses for it.  Peter and I talked about many things, including about his eminent father whom I knew from his writings. We both studied psych at UQ in our student days at about the same time so some reminiscences about that also cropped up.

A pleasing discovery was that Lana is a keen Chaucerian.  We joined in a recitation of some lines from the Canterbury Tales for a short while. We used the original Middle English pronunciation.  It just does not work otherwise. We both share a keen appreciation of Chaucer.  It is a pity that people are put off getting to known him by the very old form of English he used.

The food was as good as expected but a surprise was when Peter ordered a dessert. It was a sort of Malayan trifle -- only with about twice as many ingredients as a normal trifle.  It is called Ice Kacang.  There is a description of it on the menu.  Peter gave me a taste of it and it was Yum!

So it was a good dinner all round.  As a memento of it I reproduce the docket, showing what we had.



UPDATE:
I cannot resist mentioning something very few people realize about Chaucer. He lived during England's Plantagenet dynasty about 600 years ago. At that time most writing was done in Latin or Norman French. So when he chose to write in the English of his day, he largely had to invent his own spelling. So he simply wrote down the sounds he heard. So Middle English was phonetically spelled, unlike modern English. And, to a remarkable extent, we still use Chaucer's spelling, even though the pronunciation has changed. So in our English word "knight", both the K and the GH were originally sounded, not silent as they are today. We still write English largely as it sounded 600 years ago. Chaucer was very largely the founder of English spelling.

An after effect

The usual treatment for prostate cancer these days is injections of a testosterone antagonist -- degarelix in my case.  You get an initial high dose followed  by much lower doses at one month intervals

I had the initial dose in the form of two injections on Wednesday 26th.  Within hours the injection sites had become very painful and I was much inhibited from getting about as most movement was painful.  It is only now on Sunday that the pain has abated to a trivial level.  I expected the healing to be almost overnight but that was not to be

Apparently some pain is normal but I suspect that the nurse who did the injections did not do it quite right. One injection was much more painful than the other. I will ask my GP to supervise it next time.

Savings (frugality) is the key to having money when you need it

I mentioned some days ago the importance of putting money aside in your youth for a rainy day in your latter years. There is a lot of medical rain in your latter years and medical rain can be particularly expensive.  So I thought I might set down some notes about what I did to put money aside.

I have been frugal from childhood.  Frugality was preached to me at my Presbyterian Sunday school and I took to it like a duck to water. So as a kid I saved my 2/- per week pocket money rather than spending it on confectionery  -- which is what most of my peers did.  Though I would always buy the latest "Phantom" comics. But every now and again, my mother would borrow the money in my money box to buy family needs.  How poor can you be when you have to borrow the money in your kid's money box in order to put dinner on the table? My mother's purchases were almost all from convenience stores so she just did not have a frugal mind.

So I have always lived simply and very economically, which has left me in a very comfortable situation in my old age.

The high point of my frugality came during my student days, when I lived on skim milk plus a few vitamins for around six months.  I bought the skim milk from the local dairy factory in the form of a 56lb paper sack of dried skim milk, which was almost a give-away product at that time but was very nutritious all the same.  So in modern terms my food bill was something like $5 per week.  It was ridiculously small.  As the recipient of a government scholarship to go to university I had a small living allowance and I saved virtually the whole of my allowance at that time -- and also remained in perfect health.

With my savings much reinforced, I gave that up after a while,  and moved back on to a more normal but still economical diet featuring a lot of cheese sandwiches.  I still like a slab of cheese on a fresh bread roll. Did you know that a dollop of plum jam on top of the cheese in your cheese sandwich really lifts it?  Plum jam has always been the cheapest jam.

There are many ways you can have a good and healthy diet for a small cost -- with anything featuring eggs being high on the list.  A 3-egg omelette makes a very good breakfast, with the eggs costing you a total of around one dollar only. And oats for making porridge are also very cheap. I still like a nice plate of porridge on occasions.  And you can often get day-old bread for a song.  It makes great toast.

These days my frugality consists of buying most of my groceries as "specials" and "markdowns" from my local supermarket.  And I buy most of my alcohol in the form of Vodka, which is generally the cheapest of spirits. And if I eat out, I eat at ethnic restaurants, which often give me amazingly good dinners for a very modest price.

And I am not seized with the vice of old age:  Travel.  Travel can be very expensive but I did all I want of that when I was younger and highly paid.

So I now spend very little on myself and give about half of my income away to friends, relatives and conservative causes.

An unusually interesting two days

Over the years I have had quite a few tests to see if I have prostate cancer -- and all have come back negative.  I suspected that it had finally got me now that I am 75, however.  I am in the middle of the age range where it is most usually detected.  So Thursday last I went and saw my GP, who ordered some tests for me.  I had the blood test that day plus an ultrasound on Friday. And on Monday I had another scan, a PET scan (nuclear medicine) which lights up your insides.  Nothing to do with cats and dogs.

It was a bit pesky to have the test on Monday as that was the day I had already booked my car in with the panelbeater to get some minor dings fixed up.  And another complication was that I had dropped in to Vinnies on the Saturday and spotted a large and beautiful TV cabinet with umpteen drawers etc.  It was a very fine piece of furniture going for a song.  So I could not resist.  I bought it. So I had to organize for it to be picked up and taken to my place on Monday or Tuesday.

So on Monday I had to take my car in for two days, have a very lengthy PET scan, do all my usual activities and host my usual Monday night dinner for Jenny, Joe and Kate.  We went to the Sunny Doll, which was up to its usual high standard.

And then Tuesday was even busier.  I had to wait for the carriers to deliver my cabinet from Vinnies to start with.  When that had arrived and been put in place, I went off for a late breakfast and a trip to Woolies at Buranda.  Early that afternoon the car was ready so I had to go and pick that up.  Then at 3:30 I had my appointment with the urologist.

He seemed a rather gloomy man and I suspect I know why.  He had to tell me that I had prostate cancer which had already metastasized and was therefore beyond surgical cure.  He probably gets some bad reactions when he tells people that sort of thing.  I was however mentally prepared for that so had no emotional reaction at all -- and simply had an interesting conversation with him about the matter.  He was much warmer to me by the time I left.

Anyway, the treatment for the problem is simply a monthly injection of a testosterone antagonist, which should keep me going at least until I am 80 -- by which time I will be happy to bow out.

Anne came over in the evening to find out how I had gone and was surprised to find me in perfectly good cheer, given the diagnosis.  I have always been hard to bother. I then went and got us dinner in the form of Barramudi n chips from a nearby place which does fish n chips superbly.  We had it on my verandah.  I even got out the fish knives for it -- which I usually forget. We washed it down with German "champagne" -- Henkel Trocken,  Anne's favourite.

So in one day, I received and set up furniture, went out for a cooked breakfast, shopped at Woolworths, picked up my car from the panelbeater, had a medical consultation, did my usual blogging, and had a dinner with the lady in my life.  Busy!

The PET scan was quite expensive ($700+) so I was a little surprised that neither Medicare nor my private insurance gave me anything back from it.  I understand why, however.  Most men do get prostate cancer eventually so paying for a PET scan for them all would break the bank.  Once again there is no substitute for putting money aside in your youth for a rainy day.  Medical rain can be particularly expensive.

Mr Halloumi again

Halloumi is not his actual name. It is just a version that amuses me. I last wrote about him here on 28 December last year.  He  has a shocking driving record but does not like that to be publicly known. He is battling uphill over that one, though.  If you google his unusual surname, the first three hits that come up are all about his driving record and his troubles with officialdom resulting from that.

He is probably a bit of a poor thing.  He has given me a number of indications that he is not very bright and it seems to be part of that that he needs to drive expensive sports cars at excessive speeds.  It's his way of showing what a big man he is. He has an ego need that repeatedly puts him in conflict with the law.

Anyway, I once reproduced on one of my blogs a news report about his amazingly bad driving record. He has been described as the worst driver in the state, due to the number of tickets he has received. He has been disqualified for many years

Some years after I reproduced the newspaper article about him, however, he discovered my copy of it and was hellbent on getting me to take it down. He was very aggressive about it. I described the outcome of that in my previous post  Various negotiations produced a satisfactory compromise.

Just this month, however, I heard from him again.  Some other blogger who does not reveal his identity had also become amused at the antics of Mr Halloumi and had copied one of my pages about him -- a page which I had subsequently modified to be less upsetting to Mr Halloumi.

Mr Halloumi had just come across the copied page and assumed that I was responsible for it.  That I had written it but someone else had copied and posted it without my knowledge was too difficult for him to load. It was obviously not one of my blogs but he was too dim to see that.  I never copyright anything I write so if someone copies what I write I take no notice of it.

Anyway, Mr Hallomi was in a rage about his discovery of the copied page so sent me an email as follows:

"Mate your a liar & a keyboard coward hiding behind a computer thinking your safe & insulated... This is the last warning before I jump on a plane & visit you at your redneck shack ... 24hours to remove your garbage."

An only slightly veiled threat!  He was dumb enough to threaten me over something over which I had no control!  Epic folly.

Anyway, I eventually managed to explain to him what the situation was and he has now gone off to Google in the hope that they will take it down for him.

More protection for "Old Queenslander" houses in Brisbane

I originally wrote the notes below for my "Australian Politics" blog -- as a comment on the news item below.  But I thought they had a place here as well

There can be conflicts between stability and economic efficiency and it is sometimes important to prioritize stability.  Money is not everything. People do value stability.  Change can be too much.  So a balance is needed.  And Brisbane people do value their reassuring streetscapes of old wooden houses.  They want them to stay

For many born-Queenslanders such as I am, those houses have a warm and comfortable feeling whereas a modern brick house seems cold and lifeless.  Hard to say why but there's probably more to it than familiarity.  Timber is from a living thing so that may have some influence.

I have spent a lot of time and money restoring old Queensland houses and when I walk into an empty one of them I can feel all the families who have lived there before.  I can almost hear the children playing. Its a feeling of continuity with other people like myself in the past. It feels right.

I suppose I am a sentimental old fool but I am far from alone.  There is already in Brisbane a total ban on demolishing any pre-war house

A ban on townhouses and apartment blocks in Brisbane’s character suburbs could come into effect before the end of the financial year, after the state government gave the green light for public consultation.

In September last year, the council requested state government's approval to amend the council’s City Plan 2014, in a bid to prevent apartment blocks and townhouses from being built on blocks larger than 3000 square metres in low-density residential zoned suburbs.

On Wednesday evening, Infrastructure and Planning Minister Cameron Dick gave Brisbane City Council the go-ahead to progress to public consultation.

He said council was required to consult with the community on the proposed amendments for 20 business days.

“Once the council has completed the consultation they will be required to submit the proposed amendments, including feedback received during the consultation period, for my approval to proceed to adoption,” he said.

“It is now up to the council to consult with the community to test the adequacy of the proposed amendment with the broader community and industry.” The ban would last for two years, if approved.

Brisbane lord mayor Adrian Schrinner welcomed the government's tick of approval for council to progress its plans to halt "cookie-cutter townhouses".

“I am committed to building the infrastructure our city needs, while protecting the liveability of our suburbs and that is exactly what this proposed major amendment can achieve,” Cr Schrinner said.

“Brisbane is growing, but Council is committed to maintaining the character of our suburbs and ensuring any development fits in with the existing surroundings.

The opening of public consultation comes as nearly 6000 properties around Coorparoo have been rezoned to character residential under Brisbane City Council’s latest neighbourhood plan.

The rezoning means more properties will be protected to retain the typical Queensland house from being demolished or altered significantly.

SOURCE