Busy

I was a bit scared to tell R, but Sister asked if she and Jo could stay this Saturday night. R mumbled something but was ok with it. Last weekend Nephew imposed and this weekend Sister imposes. You can't say no to family, except for your own mother who I have told she can't stay here. She is hard work and has little respect for our home. She breaks things and adjusts our things to her way of thinking. R can almost deal with good guests in our home, but not difficult ones. I don't too much like the phrase 'go with the flow' but is kind of what I do.

Sister and Bone Doctor are kayaking or  canoeing on the Yarra River Saturday night. We will 'look after' the now very self sufficient Jo and then Bone Doctor will return to The Bellarine with canoes or whatever and Sister and Jo will stay here and go to see Mother on Sunday for Mother's Day. 

Mother has been in hospital for a week or so. It seems she has finally accepted some happy pills and is very chirpy. We will also see Mother on Mother's Day. There is a mass in her thyroid gland that one of the doctors is very concerned about. A biopsy has now been done but we don't know the result yet. 

I may get something together for a Sunday post, or maybe not.

Funny Friday, or just a stupid politician

City of Yarra covers the inner eastern area of Melbourne. It actually has a socialist as a local council member, quell horreur. 

Gas is used for cooking and heating in Victoria. Gas fired central heating is dusty and while effective enough, I find it makes me sleepy. It no longer the cheap energy it once was and has become less popular. Electric heating is more economical. Australia exports natural gas to the world which buys it cheaper than domestic consumers here pay. I don't think Australians love gas too much, although it is not bad for cooktops. Most ovens I think are electric.

City of Yarra wants to phase out new gas connections and why not? Green generated electric is better and generally cheaper with our climate and poorly insulated homes.

Our state conservative party's leader one Michael O'Brien thought there might be some political capital in this and Tweeted;

Talk about stupid political point scoring. Firstly barbeques use LPG not natural gas as is used in homes for cooking, heating and hot water, so the barbeque angle is irrelevant. No one is going to arrive in the dead of night shut off the family gas tap. How can you have respect for any politician who says such ridiculous things. Note the 'cold dead hand' quote steal from the US National Rifle Association. O'Brien made himself look rather stupid. Tosser!

Labor and the Greens want to ban gas appliances - like your BBQ - to meet climate targets. They can have my BBQ tongs when they pry them from my cold dead hand! BBQs aren’t a “luxury” - no matter what the Greens say. Tell Labor and the Greens to keep their hands off our BBQs!

Kill the poof

I am making assumptions but it seems this man was killed because he was gay. Tongans were screwed up by missionaries. If that sounds like a superior white male statement, so be it. Tonga embraces effeminate men who are female like, but not men who like men. 

https://www.starobserver.com.au/news/shock-and-grief-over-tongan-lgbt-activist-polikalepo-kefus-murder/202789

This one is just too awful, such a horrible way to die.

https://www.starobserver.com.au/news/gay-latvian-dies-after-vicious-homophobic-attack/202751

Both overseas but not our business to bother with their judicial systems although to note, people are in custody for both crimes. This one is, a copy and paste from Star Observer. FYI, Grindr is a gay hook up app. The penalty from the South Australian District Court Judge Liesl Chapman follows. It doesn't really matter that the victim was gay. It is an extreme crime against a person and credit to the SA Police and public prosecutors for getting it before the court with damming evidence. That is not always the case by police forces. 

This is not something I do lightly. Blogger may disappear one day and we will all be forced to Wordpress (sorry Wordpress users. Beta videos were superior to VHS but hey, Beta disappeared), but my blog is also archived by the State Library. It is on the record for his future grandchildren to find if they Google him. This is not summary justice. Caire has been convicted by a court and his penalty for torturing someone is an absolute disgrace.  

 saw the victim lured through a fake Grindr account set up by Caire. The elderly man was taken to a Murray Bridge house and then tortured by what was described as a ‘horrifying array of weaponry’ including having a gas lighter held to his head, being probed with a taser, electric drill, his arm sliced with a knife and his fingers placed between secateurs.

The victim was also injected with a needle that he was made to believe contained AIDS, and was told “there’d be consequences” if he did not hand over $5,000 in cash.

Charlie Michael Edward Caire is a right charmer and not even particularly attractive. The sentence? Caire will be released from the Mount Gambier Prison on Wednesday to travel to the District Court in Adelaide to sign a three-year good behaviour bond. 

Baby care

Before last Saturday night Fire Fighting Nephew asked if we could look after his daughter for a couple of hours while he and his wife had dinner in town with friends. We asked if they would like to stay the night as they live one hour and twenty minutes away on the Surf Coast. They said no because they had to get back to their dog. 

They could have brought the dog here and we would have looked after the number two child too, but he is a large and exuberant dog who has a tail sweep that would clear our shelving unit of precious things, and sweep the coffee table too. 

Then they contacted us again; someone is looking after their dog, so they will stay the night after all. The two hour dinner with friends turned from 7pm to 1am. I went to bed but R stayed half awake listening for baby distress noises. I is a bad great uncle.

Nine month old great niece Little Ju is the most delightful baby. She was always happy and went to sleep easily, unlike Little Jo some years ago. She seems very advanced for her age, so unlike the Café Latte Twins. Little Ju will win people over with her beautiful smile. Of course I love all the greats equally, whatever their temperaments. 

Apparently FFN and his wife bought take away food from the Scottish restaurant across the road and at 1am sat on balcony while eating, so awed by the views of lights.

R was very good with Little Ju and had her to sleep soon enough. It was so good that she did not projectile vomit while she was in our care, but she did at 5am and 6am. Not our problem then. I am the gofer in such child care. I look after everything else except looking after the baby. I even had to take R's cooked lasagne out of the oven and put it on the dinner table. I think I then afterwards I had to put a plate in the dishwasher. I am terrific at support. Just ask me for assistance.

I had put out towels for FFN and his wife to shower but they didn't. I put out cereal for their breakfast, but they had none. I put out the toaster, but they had none. I had a tea bag in a mug for FFN when he eventually arose, but we didn't have any soy or almond milk so he didn't have tea. They left at about 10am Sunday and no doubt stopped off somewhere for brunch. 

Nevertheless, a successful visit and Little Ju was a delight. I'll sneak in a photo and let it sit for a day.

Town Hall Tuesday

Northcote is known as an area where ladies who live there wear sensible shoes. Wherever gay and lesbian people start to buy homes, it ends up making the area expensive and very desirable to all. Take us living in Balaclava in the 1990s. It has been thus in Northcote. 

I am not so familiar with the north eastern areas of our city but it was a very nice place to visit by tram and train back to town. 

Off to Wikipedia. The City of Northcote became the City of Darebin in the 1990s after forced local council amalgamations. The town hall is now mostly used as a performance venue and was built in 1887, earlier than I thought. I saw something about it being quite Art Deco inside.

It is a rather nice town hall. I had good coffee at a nearby café served by a nice looking young bloke of Middle Eastern appearance. 

Ah, another of the bicycle fixing stations. Air pump and tools for fixing your defective bits.

 

Lord, save me

I hate English. I originally wrote "I suppose our television set is called the Idiot Box for a reason". No it is not just ours, so... 

I suppose television sets are called the Idiot Boxes for a reason. 

Delete one word and I had to change three others. Anyway, on to the stupid news story. 

I predicted this in my head last year yet commercial tv news tonight gave us this, to paraphrase, 'The 2020 COVID lockdown  has led to an unexpected huge increase in births in Victoria for this month'.

Unexpected? Really? I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer but it was perfectly predictable. 

Monday Mural

While it is only a small mural on a traffic light control box in Chapel Street, it is attention grabbing and Reven is a rather good artist. I can't give you link to a website because his name is common and I am quite weary. 

Go west, old man

Still with neck pain making it uncomfortable for me to drive, I commanded my driver to take me to the western suburb of Keilor East because I wanted to see something train related. My driver has had about eight weeks of driving and parking now in everyday situations and I doubt when I can drive again that he will complain so much about my driving. My driver moaned on about freeways and then moaned on about unfamiliar streets, even though I gave him precise and correct directions. 

After viewing what I wanted to see I then guided my driver to a café in Maribyrnong where eight years ago there was an ever so hot waiter at a nice café. Alas, the café is something else now and the waiter would now be eight years older and not so hot. You can read about our visit to Jacks Magazine from eight years ago. Still, we found somewhere nice where I had poached eggs on sourdough toast and coffee. We drove down to the Maribyrnong River, well it is a lake actually with the river running on the far side. Very pleasant on a fine and cool morning with lots of people out and about.

In Keilor East is a vacant block of land among a suburban street of houses and a viewing area with a seat to view a bridge. As soon as I stepped out of the car I was gobsmacked to see the train viaduct was so close. It is mostly used by freight trains and the Sydney to Melbourne trains and some trains to and from the NSW border town Albury. We didn't get to see any trains using it, but still, wow!

With much of Victoria being broad gauge rail lines, with some dual gauge this one is standard gauge only so it is compatible with the NSW standard gauge. Actually, after looking at a map, it is dual gauge.

It would be great to see a steam train crossing the bridge, any train really. I know of one other similar viaduct near Geelong and crosses the Barwon River gorge and it is freight too, from Geelong to Ballarat.

The viaduct is correctly called the Albion Viaduct and crosses the Maribyrnong River gorge at a height of 55 metres (180ft) and is 383 metres (1257ft) long. Construction by the Victorian Railways was completed in 1929 but I doubt it was built as dual gauge. 

Looking down the gorge towards the city. Pity we couldn't see the river. We could hear so much bird life in spite of the traffic noise from the nearby imaginatively named Western Ring Road. 

Even my driver who is not interested in trains was rather impressed by the bridge and the scene. I know how to show him a good time.