Blog advertising

 Little surprises me on the net especially what Google knows about you. I like to leave positive comments on blogs but no doubt I fail at that sometimes. I was a little caustic with my comment at the lovely Grace's blog Perth Daily Photo. I mentioned flying into Perth Airport. 

Not too much later the pop up ad that Travel Penguin has as part of his much admired blog offered me cheap flights to Perth. 

No doubt targeted advertising will improve in time and pick up on context and realise I was not looking to travel to Perth. 

It is quite annoying though to receive targeted advertising for something you have researched online and already bought. Please Trip Advisor, stop offering me accommodation for where we have already been and stayed. And no more air fryer ads please.

Busy Day

 A first in our life, we went to the recording of a tv show at ABC's Southbank, Melbourne studios. Hard Quiz is a comedic quiz show and someone near and dear was a competitor. She absolutely shone. It was a really enjoyable hour and  a half and so interesting to see how tv shows are made.

We had a drink at a nearby bar and they headed for home. R and I had dinner. The city was so busy so we ended up back home dining across the road at Nar Bangkok. 

The show won't be screened for 18 weeks yet. Here are a couple of photos I took before the show began to be recorded. Great fun but I can't say anymore about it until after it is screened.

I am very tired. Bye.

Vale Arthur

 Our long time friend Arthur has died from an infection in a country hospital, as I was informed by his cousin last night. He wasn't a close friend but even after left Melbourne and moved a couple of hours away in the country, we visited him until he could no longer cope with visitors and occasionally we phoned each other.

He grew up in the suburb of Essendon in a nice area and was well educated, especially in the arts. He worked in the department store Myers as Myer was then known and knew the outrageous Freddie Asmussen, who was staff, a consort and party planner for Dame Merlyn Myer. I don't know why but he knew many celebrities of the sixties in Melbourne. 

Like many adventurous Australians he moved to London in the sixties and settled in very nicely, living and working close to Edgware Road. He was there for more than ten years before a change in regulations in the seventies meant he had to leave the city he loved and he was quite bitter about that. 

He moved to Amsterdam and met Jan and after a time they both came to Australia and lived in East St Kilda in Melbourne. They separated and Arthur moved to Caroline Street in South Yarra and that was when came to know him for nearly two decades, went out with him to venues and socialised with him. In that time he moved to Denbigh Road, Armadale until his workplace offered him a retirement package and he took it.

Why I do not know but he bought a former bakery turned into a house in the shadow of Mount Elephant in Derrinallum, western Victoria. Subsequently another friend, an Anglo Indian who also took the same work package, bought a cheap house there too. It wasn't long before they fell out after the other guy found out that Arthur had said to local town gossip when asked what W was doing, Arthur replied, "Polishing the leaves of the ivy on his front fence I expect". It got back.

Arthur's country home was basic but ok and we stayed there a number of times. In his time there he had two dachshunds. He took on our Westie dog when she was about ten years old but she soon died of cancer. He cried when he told me over the phone. With his remaining money he set up a home garden nursery business called Fawlty Flowers. It lasted a couple of years. A veterinarian from a nearby large town rented part of the old bakery for a fortnightly pet clinic. Arthur became secretary of the local Country Fire Association and a member of the local progress association. 

Arthur was a slow person, a heavy drinker and smoker. He started drinking boxed wine at noon and then never stopped until he went to bed. When we were there for dinner, we would have pre dinner drinks at 6pm. By 9.30 a magnificent dinner would be served and beautifully presented but we would be drunk as skunks, as would he, but he functioned perfectly well even when terribly drunk. Regardless, he would be up early enough the next morning. 

His library was full of  lavish books about cooking, paintings, architecture and old motor cars.

Until his late seventies he was always perfectly turned out clothing wise. He succumbed to the comfort of track suit pants and then a motorised scooter to get himself to the shops. Nevertheless, he was always perfectly groomed with his full head of hair tamed and clean shaven aside from his handlebar moustache.

He moved from Derrinallum to Mortlake in a low care place after he sold his house ten years ago and adjusted very well. We spoke a couple of times a year on the phone, the last time being at the end of last year.

His cousin called me yesterday to tell me Arthur died from an infection in hospital after a fall in the street a few weeks ago. Last year he was diagnosed with lung cancer and did not want invasive treatment.

A poster will go up in the Derrinallum Post Office noting his death and the flag will fly at half mast.

Arthur 1937-2021.

Throwback Thursday

I don't like Sparkle Markel at all. Something about her comes across as false. It troubles me that black women see her as inspirational and a role model who represents them and their battles against discrimination. She has black heritage but she is a very wealthy and privileged woman who just looks exotic rather than black.

Maybe 15 years ago I overhead a conversation between two pale skinned Indian women on a tram. One said to the other, 'Your baby boy is so lovely. What a pity his skin is so dark'.

My own 'Cafe Latte Coloured' great niece twins are gorgeous looking girls with beautiful coloured skin. We wondered how Maori they would look. Well, actually we wondered if they would look Maori or red haired Irish. It was a chance each way. 

Would have anyone in The Palace dared to say that? I don't think so, and I think it is perfectly normal to speculate about whether a child born of someone notionally black will have dark skin, as it is if they will look either of their parents, or be a large or small baby...I could go on.  There must be a modern inoffensive term, but I will use the old term, a throwback to a darker skinned ancestor. It happens.

It happens. What's the problem? In my opinion it is kind of racist to not mention the damn obvious, such as speculating about Sparkle Markel child's skin colour. 

As for the interview, it was a slow motion horrific car wreck before your eyes. It was creepy and distasteful, and surely did not add any admiration for them from viewers. 'Father forgive them for the for they know not what do'.

In my life I've seen disparate cultured couples successfully match in a relationship and I've seen them fail too. At times you can tell it won't work and sometimes you will be right and sometimes not and at times you will be surprised. 

Having said that, I expect in the future there will be separation of a very differently brought up couple for whatever agreeable words they come up with. Just wait for Sparkle Markel's next press conference explaining why they have separated. This is just my prediction, not something I want to happen. 

Echuca Day 2

Step Mother is so different to my four year older Mother. She uses a mobile phone and computer and drives. Mother does none of those. She told me the time of her doctor's appointment and maybe the doctor was running very late or she or I got the time wrong. We called her at 11 and she had just left the doctor's. She said meet me at Woolworths Supermarket and we drove there in about ten minutes but she was nowhere to be seen. We called her again and she was at the toilet. 

We eventually met her and not having seen her for a couple of years, I was shocked at how she had aged. She was hunched over, using a four pronged walking stick and her lipstick was a bit smeared. She had a hair appointment for 1pm, so she took us to her favourite place for lunch which was nice enough. She fixed her makeup and it was nice enough lunch. She asked us to her and her partner's place for afternoon tea. She left after showing us her partner's early birthday present for her Toyota Rav 4, a kangaroo bar with built in LED driving lights.

Look Hels. Here is your houseboat. Isn't it so cute and so cosy for you and Joe!

After lunch we visited the excellent National Holden Motorcar Museum. 

The large black thing is an oil filled air filter. I once made a terrible mistake with a workmate's new second hand car by taking it off and tipping it sideways and spilt oil on her shiny engine.

Not original, methinks.

Father and Step Mother used to have a Holden Caprice. The Holden car company was owned by General Motors. 

The town hall was often grander than the local post office, but not by much.

In the afternoon we booked a trip on this vessel the next day.

Step Mother lives on an unmade road and our car became covered in dust. It was nice to see her partner and their two dogs along with their home, but honestly after battling conversations between our friend who wears a hearing aid and Step Mother's partner who also wears a hearing aid, and everyone trying to hear each other, none too successfully, I'd had enough after an hour and half and we left. 

I was quite touched as we left and Step Mother gave me her wedding ring Father had given here when they married about 44 years ago. She said, you will have to think carefully about who you pass this on to, and she is right.

We had delicious take away fish and chips dinner back at the park from Fish Bite Seafood, the best fish and chips for yonks. 

Town Hall Tuesday

This was a surprise in a street I may have travelled along half a dozen time and I've never noticed Brunswick Town Hall. I was very impressed with its solid and elegant proportions, although at the side it have have ugly library extension. What were they thinking!

Like the Coburg Town Hall's location posted two weeks ago, City of Brunswick now falls under the the People's Republic of Moreland City of Moreland after 1990s local council amalgamations. It's now used as secondary council administrative offices.

It was constructed in 1876 and in 1973 the local council wanted to demolish the building and have it replaced by a modern building. The Brunswick Progress Association did not see this as progress and fought a winning to battle for the plan to be dropped. Had the plan proceeded, I expect the the seventies building would probably have been demolished by now.

It is a very nice building facing Sydney Road with a portico and balcony above. Sydney Road has several kilometres of shops and is such an interesting area where many cultures come together.

Side view from Dawson Street.

Gas

While Australia is not as divided by two common languages as the UK and US, we are still somewhat divided from the US here.

A line from a novel. "I've got Blue Cross". That'd be health insurance. Another, "I've got gas". The latter would refer to wind, burping or farting I suppose.

Every few months we buy gas. That is for our barbeque. There are still some cars around that use gas as fuel and some service stations that have gas bowsers. In the US, buying gas would be more frequent, to fill a car with fuel. 

Our gas is LPG, Liquid Propane Gas, for a few cars, barbeques and camping lights and camping stoves. Natural gas is what comes through pipes for your hotplates and oven unless you are in the country and buy bottled gas, which is LPG.  As in the US gas is petrol for a vehicle, they can't use gas for LPG, so it is called just Propane. I'd be quite happy with using that here but I would not be happy calling petrol, gas. Petrol is a liquid after all.

Where to you buy petrol/gas in the US? We buy it at a petrol station or a service station, abbreviated to a servo. Are you confused? I am.

Echuca Day 1

 A few weeks ago we started to looks at beachside accommodation for a few days with vague plans to see our west coast, which is actually the southern coast of Australia. Alas with COVID making international travel impossible, and who would want to at the moment, Australia is the only option and even within Australia with state borders opening and closing at small COVID outbreaks, people aren't even game to go interstate, worried that state borders will quickly close even as they are in mid air in the case of Western Australia which is a flight of a few hours from here.

We really should visit my ageing step mother, who is 84 and her partner who is 93. They live in the north of the state near Rochester. Rather than impose on them, we booked a cabin in the excellent Echuca NRMA Caravan Park. NRMA is the New South Wales motoring organisation. 

R mentioned our booking to our friend who has a caravan and he decided to join us and booked a site at the same park and we met up with him there.

The idea was to call in Step Mother on our way past. It is a fifteen minute drive to Echuca from there. However she said she had two appointments that day, so that made it too difficult. From home it is over a two and a half hour drive to Echuca. 

We left at 9.40 and I was not concentrating and missed the exit to the Tullamarine Freeway. It didn't matter too much. I could use the Western Ring Road which would be about the same time and without tolls. Massive roadworks are underway near the Ring Road and I exited too early due to poor signage.  That's two muck ups and it was less than 30 minutes into the trip. We found our way onto the M79 and stopped at a layby for a stretch. Further on R said he wanted food and coffee. There aren't any places on the freeway so I pulled off at Kyneton and we found a place selling coffee and sandwiches. 

Sated we headed back towards the freeway but there wasn't an entrance. We had to go further into town and up a side street to the entrance. More poor signage.  We reached the freeway and that was where we were to turn off the freeway. Mea culpa again, I turned back onto the freeway and we were now heading towards Bendigo. Damn. We used the Castlemaine exit and travelled on some minor roads across to Elmore where we stopped again at the Elmore Bakery. 

We weren't in a rush and so we drove to where the house of  the mother of a dyke friend once lived and we stayed there a couple of times. The mother would be dead now and we lost touch with her daughter. We arrived at the park at 1.40, four hours after leaving home for a 2.35 trip. I suppose we would have stopped for breaks for an hour, so I suppose it was only half an hour extra time caused by my navigational errors. R cannot navigate so I did both driving and navigating and my arthritis was playing up big time.

We were very happy with our cabin. We paid extra for a larger cabin than the standard. It had a queen sized bed in the living area and bunk beds for three in the bedroom. That's plenty of space for two people.

We met up with our friend and walked along the Murray riverbank towards the Port. Privately owned house boats line the river here.

The thong tree trunk was full so another has been started. 

I think the first contact between white people and he local Aboriginal tribe was in the 1830s and it was a friendly meeting. 

Echuca is very historic and was the river port for shipments of wheat and wool which would be transported downriver to Adelaide by paddle steamers. The railways killed off the paddle steamers and now they are only tourist craft.

As you may know, I love a good rotunda.

Scarcely believable river flood heights.

Not a great photo of a stunning house in Watson Street. We walked back to the park on the levee bank.

This hopeful kookaburra visited twice a day, always landing on the same lamp post opposite our cabin. It would be after a free feed but we didn't. They can be quite skilled at swooping down to a barbeque and picking up a sausage or a lamb chop. 

Galahs also visited twice a day to graze on whatever they find in the grass. Other birds were huge flocks of corellas, pairs of rosellas, ducks in flight and waddling around, mudlarks and magpies. No Indian mynahs, crows or ravens nor cockatoos.

A very odd structure on the road next to the caravan park. I was wearing thongs and this photo was taken at great risk of bites from jumping jack ants.

Nearby was this fountain. 

We tried the Star Hotel for dinner, closed, The Shamrock, booked out but had luck sitting in the back courtyard of the Echuca Hotel. The meal was nice and it was very pleasant, only marred by a couple of hundred squawking corellas circling around, so loud it was hard to hear at times.

Once back at the cabin I called Step Mother and she had made a mistake. Her appointments were the next day, not the day we arrived. We arranged to meet with her between appointments. 

Not really a problem?

The source said the digitised system deleted a key hours-long interview with an infected person in the Black Rock outbreak, but the department spokesman said there was “no indication” this had occurred.

There have also been problems with the new program using US date formats, which list the month before the day, the source said.

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Featured snippet from the web

NASA lost its $125-million Mars Climate Orbiter because spacecraft engineers failed to convert from English to metric measurements when exchanging vital data before the craft was launched, space agency officials said Thursday.

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This post is set to be posted 07/03/21 as I set it but then asks for confirmation that I want it published on 03/07/21. No, I want it posted now, today and not in July. What a mess. If a web site is international, and most are, at least use the international system of 21/03/07. That's year, month, date.

Does the US still manufacture cars? If so, do they still use A/F rather than metric? I hope no car manufacturer is using the English Whitworth system. It was rare even when I was young but I had to have three sets of spanners to deal with three measurement systems. A/F was the most common for Australian made cars but now it would be all metric.

Sunday Selections

Joining with Elephant's Child and River for Sunday Selections and a quick and easy balloon themed on this week. The balloons went up in Fawkner Park, which is a lot more photogenic than when they land there. Dawn is arriving later, in this case 7am, so I was up to take photos and I am quite pleased with them.