How not to succeed with the law

My friend A gave a textbook demonstration this week of how not to behave when stopped by a policeman.

She was pulled over for driving an unregistered car by a policeman with his sirens blaring and horns honking (according to A).

Her first response was to be excused as she had a hairdresser's appointment. Always a likely winning argument you wouldn't think.

Her second response was 'to say things (to him) that she probably shouldn't have' not knowing that she was being recorded.

Her third response was to plead ignorance. An argument that even I know from Movies 101 doesn't succeed.

Wilted spinach

There is a news item today that scientist have 'invented' spinach that can be used as a bomb detection device. The spinach wilts when in proximity to bomb devices.

And it is not even 1 April!

We have to move

Apparently Australia is not where we think it is.

Yes I know, we are still in the Southern Hemisphere with the Indian Ocean to our west and the Arafura and Timor Seas to our north and the Pacific Ocean to our east and the Southern Ocean to...well the name says it all.

Yes, we are sort of where we always have thought we are, only that we are 1.5 metres away from there; wherever 'there' is.

Funnily enough, I have sort of known this ever since the introduction of Apps and smart phones. Looking up Google Maps or Apple Maps I'd find myself indicated as being slightly adjacent to where I believed I was or, somewhat unnervingly, across the road from I believed myself to be.

Spooky, isn't it?

You just don't know...

...the interesting past of your co-workers. This is not always the case, of course, as some people waste no time letting you into their world ad nauseum whether you want them to or not.

But what about that humble, always polite, quietly spoken and courteous gentleman who makes no fuss, stirs no agitation and whose presence in the office goes largely unnoticed? The fellow who plays bowls on the weekend and likes the occasional punt and who is so meek and mild. Such was the early 80s aged Ron who passed away quietly in his sleep last week; as quietly as he lived his life. Or so it seemed to us fellow volunteers with Ron at the hospital.

Arriving at the church for his funeral this morning I was gob smacked at the sight of a full police honour guard, bagpipers and literally dozens of uniformed top brass police officers each be-medalled as though they were Russian Generals.

The church was literally overflowing with mourners. A sizeable portion of the top echelon of the Queensland Police Force was present including that State's Police Commissioner who delivered one of three eulogies. There was an almost commensurate presence of the NSW Police Force top brass with our State's Commissioner unable to attend but present in spirit with a message delivered on his behalf.

From those eulogies I learnt that Ron, who quietly pushed the library trolley around to patients once a week, had been a career police officer in Queensland rising to the highest rank, the 15th Commissioner of his State's force, upon the sacking of his predecessor as a consequence of the Fitzgerald Inquiry into police corruption.

You just don't know.

My station in aisle 6

I was idly scanning the digital radio stations last night when I came across a station I hadn't noticed previously, Coles Radio. Heigh Ho, I wondered is this the supermarket beast's background music in my own home? (No, I didn't really think 'Heigh Ho' but you get my meaning.)

Listening for a few minutes confirmed this was indeed a broadcast of the music played in the background at Coles stores, advertisements for store specials and all included.

No, I don't think I will save the station as one of my pre-set favourites.

I'm so excited....I just can't hide it....

I've qualified! An envelope I will receive in the next few days may contain a winning number! I may become up to $450,000 richer! How good is that?

Here's the proof.

The news personally delivered to me by the Prize Award Administrator

How exciting is that? And guess what I am about to win? Guaranteed!

The Prize Award Administrator (PAA) is fully prepared to arrange an instant bank transfer! To any bank or financial institution of my choice in or near Edgecliff. How convenient is that! However one of the greatest pleasures the PAA has is welcoming their newest winner - that's me! - to Sydney for a 5 star winners weekend! Most of the past winners were delighted with this extra privilege! (What's wrong with those who were not delighted?)

I'll be picked up by private car at my home and whisked away to the nearest airport if necessary. Just as well my nearest airport is Sydney Airport! How lucky is that because the PAA will greet me at Sydney Airport and 'we'd enjoy another leisurely ride' to a top hotel to get settled in! If that ride is leisurely then I must be arriving out of peak hours.

The next day I will be presented with my prize cheque at a gala winners' reception by the Managing Director! Um, wait a second. Hold on. Hang on. Hasn't the PAA already made an instant bank transfer?

Never mind, I'm also offered a personal, chauffeured sightseeing tour of Sydney! I'll be lavished with attention, eat at the finest restaurants of my choice or enjoy a room service feast! Who wouldn't choose a room service feast over the finest restaurants! You'd have to be crazy!

So, to summarise, I'll be picked up by private car at my home in Edgecliff and driven to the nearest airport and then flown to Sydney - just as well that Edgecliff already is in Sydney, makes it so much easier - and then on to the top hotel to enjoy ceremony day.

I'm so excited!

Do you hear the people sing?

An embarrassing incident at the hospital today.

I was walking the corridors from one section of the campus to another with a staff member beside me when suddenly, quite unexpectedly, the strains of 'Les Miserables' filled the air. We had just left an area where computer technicians were making adjustments to cupboards filled with coloured cables and IT equipment. I assumed they had set off the hospital's PA system.

It is not unusual for music to be heard over the hospital's PA system but the music is normally wordless and either classical or Muzak in style; not the strident strains of Hollywood/Broadway musicals.

The staff member and I looked around in surprise at this unusual intrusion in the otherwise quiet environment of the corridors and we wondered at the source of the music which at that moment seemed clear because we were walking under a loudspeaker. 'Les Mis' continued to fill the air as I travelled an elevator alone up four floors where staff looked curiously my way as the rousing choruses continued.

I returned down the four floors and moved internally through an adjoining building and still the music and singing continued. Waiting patients showed obvious signs of surprise at this unusual broadcast in a hospital.

At this point I should point out that I lost total hearing in one ear following nerve damage about fifteen years ago and since then I have had difficulty determining the direction of the sound that I do hear. I was beginning to wonder when the technicians would realise their mistake and shut down the broadcast when an embarrassing thought began to enter my mind. It occurred to me that the music might be following me. I pulled my iPhone from my pant's pocket and to my horror it was the source of the music. Somehow my iPhone rubbing against my body - settle down, readers - had caused the Music App to activate and it was me who was stirring the people to rise against their masters across four floors and two buildings of the hospital campus.

I dreamed a dream and it was an embarrassing nightmare.

Waiting for technician

Do you know 'Waiting for Godot'? It is the play where the two main characters spend the entire three hours waiting for this person Godot to arrive but he never does.

Waiting for Godot

That is how I feel sometimes when I have booked a technician's or service call. I booked a dishwasher service call this week. I inherited the dishwasher when I bought this apartment last year. I know the dishwasher works. I saw it work once. But I and my friends have been unable to make it work since.

The instructions are so simple. Close the door and select the wash program. Then it works. Except that it doesn't. There is some quirk to making this dishwasher work but I can't remember what it is. Hence the technician's service call.

Whenever I book a service call and I am told the call will be between X hours and Y hours on a certain day I start to go into a mild panic if the serviceperson hasn't called within, say, thirty minutes of X. 'What if the booking hasn't really been made' I start to worry. 'Will I sit here all the way through to Y and the serviceperson is not coming because the booking wasn't made' I think. 'What if the serviceperson would still have called notwithstanding the booking 'foul up' if only I had rung to check within thirty minutes of X' I ponder 'but that won't happen now because I didn't check quickly enough'. Sounds neurotic, no? A sort of George Costanza moment. Well, that's me.

Back to the dishwasher. Thirty minutes after X hours and there is no call. An hour after X hours and still no call. My mind is starting to go through the aforementioned mild panic. One hour and fifty-five minutes after X which is also one hour and five minutes before Y he telephones. He will be with me at Y plus one hour. Ten minutes later he telephones again, he will in fact be with me in twenty minutes.

And so it proves. Twenty minutes on and a young and very attractive young technician is at my door. An hour later my dishwasher is pulled from under the counter, on its side and half dismantled. The technician cannot work out the problem other than the timer is probably not working and would likely cost half the price of a new dishwasher to replace. My dishwasher is at least 18 years old and with only about two years of its average life left I'm not comfortable spending half the price of a new model to keep it going only for that period. He will report to his superiors that he can't repair the dishwasher.

The technician reassembles the dishwasher, puts it back in its place and almost for old time's sake he presses the program knob as a farewell gesture. To the astonishment of us both the dishwasher starts up!

Godot arrives after all!!!

Lefties

I'm left handed but no one who knows me would argue with conviction that I am left leaning politically. I live in the electorate of Wentworth. My postcode is mentioned annually as Australia's richest suburb according to the Australian Taxation Office but I can assure you that my contribution to that wealth is modest to a degree. Our Federal representative is Malcolm Turnbull whose antecedents as a Merchant Banker mean that he is regularly portrayed in cartoons wearing a top hat such is his image as a 'toff'.

So, I and my electorate would be to the right politically. Right? No, that's wrong! Who says? The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's excellent Vote Compass site says. More than a million Australians have used Vote Compass - I'm one of them - and its findings about Australia's political complexions are fascinating.

Almost unbelievably, my electorate of Wentworth is the tenth most left leaning of Australia's 150 electorates.

Electorate of Wentworth

Six of the nine electorates that are more left leaning than mine are so far to the left they are almost in North Korea, so it astonishes me that we sit so far to the left in the overall spectrum. My own results on the Vote Compass survey apparently contribute to our placement.

In the predicted lurch to the right in next Saturday's election, this toffy, rich, left leaning, latte sipping, chardonnay drenched electorate will do its best to stay left. Well, our sort of left, anyway.

Life was beautiful then*

(*'Memory' from 'Cats' by Trevor Nunn, Andrew Lloyd Webber & T S Eliot)

I ran into my 4th Class (Primary School) teacher at the hospital today. He taught me in 1958; a mere fifty-five years ago. I recognised him immediately and he knew who I was once reminded of my name. Amazing!

Here is our class photo:

Eager-beaver nine year olds

Birthday tid bits......

The medical surgery I visited during my stopover in Rio de Janeiro last January has sent me a 'Feliz Aniversario' email that reads 'Muitas Alegrias' which I believe is 'Many Joys' in Portuguese. I don't get that service through Medicare nor my private health fund in Australia.

Lunch on my birthday was at the Bondi Icebergs;

Bondi Icebergs overlooking Bondi Beach and the Pacific Ocean

The view over a wintery Bondi Beach was still stunning even though bereft of the usual scantily clad bathers and packed sands.

Bondi Beach

I'm not much into seafood but enjoyed a very tasty Grilled Mahi Mahi meal even if it was more tropical meal than winter's fare;

Grilled Mahi Mahi

CZ and I shared a Lemon and Lime Tart and a French Apple Tart for dessert. I suspect not up to wcs standard but delicious none the less.

Fiddle-dee-dum, fiddle-dee-dee

This is Barry O'Farrell, the Premier of New South Wales. I generally don't like to ridicule people by posting odd looking pictures of them but, really, politicians just ask for it sometimes.

Mr O'Farrell led his party into Government a couple years back after decades in the wilderness of the Opposition benches. He did so with a thumping big majority. He deserves credit for that achievement which his numerous predecessors failed to achieve even if the constituency was so desperate to remove the other party from power that we may well have elected Kermit the Frog had been the only choice.

Anyway, Mr Farrell has that huge majority and he had the goodwill of the constituency to effect change and improvements but he has proved a huge disappointment. He would rather send a matter to a committee for endless consideration than make an actual decision. He seems afraid to make any decision that might not be popular. He has made the mistake of trying to be all things to all people.

At the moment he has a problem with one of his Ministers who had to be helped out of the Parliament the other evening when it appeared he was too drunk to participate. Now, this is not the first time a Member of Parliament has been found to be drunk in the house. Most have survived to continue their prosperous public careers.

This situation may prove different. The Minister has since been accused of making many interstate trips, at taxpayer expense, apparently to attend major sporting events. This may have been understandable if the minister's responsibilities were for sport or a related field but they are not. It seems the Minister has been rorting public funds. Significantly, said Minister is the Minister for Finance!

So what has this to do with Mr O'Farrell? Well, he is the Premier of the State. He is the leader of the Government of which the recalcitrant Minister is a member. Asked today, what Ministerial responsibilities apply in this situation Mr O'Farrell stated that he didn't know - an astonishing admission for the State's leader - and that a reason why did not know is that he, himself, has never been a Minister - a rather silly excuse in the circumstances.

Politicians are only human but, gee, they can be very stupid - even at the highest levels.

So...that was Autumn

Traditionally winter commences 1 June in Australia, so today was our last day of Autumn. Overall, it was a very mild Autumn in Sydney, especially during May which was historically one of the warmest ever. Fittingly, today our maximum temperature was 24.9ºc (76.8ºf) which the Weather Bureau informs made it Sydney's warmest May 31 on record.

Roll on winter.

Um....

......apparently today (20 December 2012) is our last full day on Earth. It all ends tomorrow. I wish I hadn't paid next year's car registration already.

Anyway, it's been nice knowing you.

All the best!

The Removalist

(La Boite Theatre)

Hopefully I won't end up looking like the guy in this promo for David Williamson's play.

I've just spent an hour or so with a removalist who is quoting on my forthcoming change of apartments. I dislike moving. All that packing and unpacking, all that rearranging of dust, all that angst on what to keep or discard. Yes, all of it is too, too daunting for me.

This is my first move for 22 years and at the age of 63 I have a confession. This is the first time when a change of residence is my responsibility and mine alone.

For my first 24 years I lived with my parents and all my moves were initiated and organised by them. I just went along for the ride. From 24 to 38 all my moves, including four overseas countries, were employment related and taxpayer funded. The Government made the arrangements and I followed orders. Then at 41, my most recent move and for the first time I had to pay the bills. My parents were still around and active and they made all the arrangements whilst I enjoyed the fruits of their labours and organisation without breaking into a sweat.

My parents are no longer around and now I have to organise a move for the very first time. Like a real grown up. What a responsibility. A fellow volunteer at the hospital recommended a removalist to me and later when I saw the same firm's advertisement in a community newspaper I took that as a good omen.

A very bubbly and evidently efficient young woman spent an hour this morning with clipboard in hand taking notes and acquainting herself with my 'property'. I liked her. I liked that she didn't complain about walking up my steep driveway in the steady rain. "It's only rain", she commented cheerfully. I was impressed by her. Her firm provides a full range of services that I had expected previously I would need to coordinate with three or four service providers. She gave me confidence. I've already decided to accept her quote no matter what it is. Well, maybe I will need to rethink if her quote is, say, a million dollars but it won't be that outrageous surely?

Eat your heart out, David Williamson.

A little prick

Now that I have your attention......

I am putting my hospital ID around my neck. You know the type. A bundle of plastic cards hanging from some thin stretch material with a photograph, purporting to be mine, faintly visible. For our sins we volunteers also have to wear a plastic name tag even though the formal hospital ID already bears our name and status. I have my name tag pinned to the stretch material to avoid having to pin holes in my shirt everyday.

My tag

Anyway, as I was saying before I interrupted myself, I am putting my hospital ID around my neck when I notice that my tag is missing. How can this be? The tag is securely pinned through two ends of the stretch material. At least I thought that it was. There is no evidence of it having been ripped from the material and I have never noticed the pin to have been loose previously.

I retrace my steps all the way to my locker but cannot see my tag. Maybe it has come off in my car when I swiped my ID to enter the car park? I will check my car at the end of my shift.

End of shift, seven hours later. I check my car but no tag is visible. Lost! I had already alerted my co-ordinator and she has ordered a new tag for me.

I drive home from the hospital calling into my local shopping centre to pick up some groceries. I return to my car and place my groceries on the passenger seat, carefully checking again for the missing tag. No luck.

I move around the car and am about to resume my seat on the driver's side. What's this small black object barely visible against the black fabric of my car seat? That object with a sharp looking needle pointing up!

The reverse of my tag with needle pointing up

Yes my name tag. On my driver's seat. I have driven from the hospital, almost home, sitting on this needle stick and not noticed it. Or felt it! A little prick on my bum and I never noticed.

Nothing else to say really.

Never mind the length, feel the quality...

Who dreams up these things?.......

Sadly, I can see an Irish joke coming. Oh, and at the other end of the scale I'll save you the trouble of engorging the diagram. Get your visas for Hungary and France.

I am the 75,592,651,242nd...

...person to have lived since history began according to this site.

(BBC News)

Don't believe everything you hear....

The redoubtable Andrew has posted a cautionary tale about placing trust in what you hear on the radio. It is a valid point. I've long realised that not everything stated on the radio is correct especially (and I suppose obviously) on those commercial stations that rely on 'shock jocks' to inform their listeners.

For the most part I've assumed that Australia's public broadcaster the ABC is more reliable and cautious about the information it broadcasts. For years I've admired Margaret Throsby who has a morning program on the Classic FM network.

Margaret Throsby

Margaret's program where she talks to a guest and discusses their work/life with the guest's personal selection of musical items interposed has always struck me as brilliantly researched. But even the formidable Margaret makes mistakes. I was listening last weekend to a podcast of a recent broadcast where the guest, a Singaporean artist, selected a tune from the musical 'Chess'. At least twice Margaret referred to 'Chess' as an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical which it is not. Now this is not a major piece of misinformation in the broader scheme of things but I thought it a surprising mistake from such an experienced broadcaster.

Pick me! Pick me! Pick me!

Have you ever wondered whether you are in the line of succession to the throne of any country? No? Neither have I.

I stumbled across a Wikipedia entry for the line of succession to the British throne. As we know Wikipedia knows everything about everything. The site lists the first two thousand five hundred and sixteen people in the line of succession. Yes that's 2516! Actually there are even more names than that listed but some are crossed off or otherwise listed in a tangent outside the line. For example Princess Margaret Rose is crossed off because she rather thoughtlessly went and died. So did HRH Prince Wilhelm of Prussia who otherwise would be 365th in the line. Also off the list is HRH Prince Michael of Kent who did something worse than dying, he married a Roman Catholic. But for that heinous occurrence he would be 37th in the line.

So who is 100th in the line? None other than HRH Peter, the Hereditary Prince of Yugoslavia. Wow, he is the Prince of a country that no longer exists for a throne long ago abolished but he is still 100th in line for the British throne and (I assume) Australia's too.

What about the 1,000th in the line? That is one Nicholas Nilert who turns 20 this year. No, I've never heard of him either but someone of that name has a Facebook account and lists his interests as Skiing and Ullr (look it up!). We better wrap him in cotton wool just in case we need him to be our monarch some time in the future.

And who needs 2515 living people to be bumped off without any of them producing any further issue in order to be the future monarch of Britain and Australia? That honour goes to Karin Vogel who turns 28 this year and therefore potentially has many years of monarchy left in her. Now if that Karin Vogel is the same person who is the subject of this Facebook account then I can only hope that the bearded gentleman in the photograph with her is a virgin.

God Save The Queen!