For many days my Twitter and Face book were out of action. The word ‘Twitter’, even when looked up on ‘Google’, would send shivers through my computer. The page would freeze, go stiff with rigor mortis and turn blue and incoherent. It turned out that ‘Blue Screen Page’ is a well known phenomenon. No one knows why, but scientists and engineers are working on it. There are a host of web- sides claiming they can cure Blue Screen. Those sides promise to be helpful and start off with a free scan and a further promise to clear it in less than 2 minutes. Not true. The free scan just turns you almost into a jellified blob of rage when showing their scan result. I was told, despite having Norton security, I had 129 viruses and 766 ‘problems’ on my computer. But… for $29. – (US) by credit card you will be Face-booking and Twittering again within a couple of minutes. Everything in the US seems to be measured in two minute time spans. Things move very fast there.

As soon as I see that the ‘free’ scan is a scam I naturally delete the page. Not so fast though governor!  Turns out those free US based scam web pages are difficult to delete. Most don’t have a delete option. Over and over, one is urged to down-load the credit card option and pay up. No wonder capitalism is in trouble, the cheek of it all.  I thought by turning off the computer I would get rid of those ‘free’ scan merchants. Not at all. I switch back on, and there is that same persistent page again. After a lot of moving backwards and forwards the scammers finally gave up the ghost.

I decided to take firm action and took the laptop to a reputable (non free-scan 2 minute) computer shop run by very young but savvy experts. They helped me before with a problem without even charging me. Always a good sign! They switched on the laptop and… it worked perfectly. There was my familiar Tweet page and Face-book. I couldn’t believe it. He put it into my list of favorites, “Gerard Twitter.” No charge again. Boy, was I on a roll?  Was so happy I shouted regular latte coffees and Danish delights all around for the two of us.

After doing some shopping at Aldi and walking home I did not give the Tweeting a second thought. That shows how supremely confident I was. Later on in the evening after a couple of Merlots, I felt like a good Tweet. It only needs a few words, so what the heck. With Face-booking I always feel it needs a more serious and literate level of involvement. That’s why I usually, but not always, do the Face-booking in the morning after a good night’s rest.

I opened the lid of the laptop and after a few seconds the home page arrived. I went to my list of favorites, just relishing the moment and allowing the luxury of hovering above “Gerard Twitter” button… and….. The Blue screen page was back on again. I was devastated, crestfallen. A blind fury welling up, totally lost for words.  Fuck Face-booking, fuck Tweeting and Fuck life.

Life is just like that. We move around getting involved into the ambit of things that can go wrong. Perhaps excluding relationships, there is nothing quite like the Internet Technology world whereby one walks a fine line between remaining sane or hovering on the edge of going out in the deep of a dark night and strangle a sheep or a Belgian draught horse. The world of IT including Iphone, pads, kindles and Apps is there to try our mettle. Have we got what it takes? Will we survive or end up smashed on the rocks of Blue Screen phenomena?

I survived and am here to tell the tale. What was the solution and how did the logistics of the Blue Screen Page get repaired. My daughter told me to always try and switch off the computer and then the router. I had switched everything off many times but not the router which gives me the ADSL internet connection through Telstra phone line.  I went downstairs in the bedroom where both phone and router are next to my bed blinking away intermittently. I switched all off and waited. I switched all on again and climbed upstairs to my computer. It all worked. Twitter and Face Book are back. Hoorah! I try and not think why Helvi’s computer never had this Blue Screen and yet uses the same connections. But there you are. That’s the devious world of IT. Never question it. Acceptance is the answer.

Never take it out on the Belgian Draught Horse.

Surviving an economic depression.

As a survivor from the last turmoil between 1940- 1945, I wonder what one could do in case of another downturn. How would people react when there is an economic collapse whereby the norms of a working society go askew?

The banks have gone broke. The rush to withdraw all savings turned into a stampede. The next day there were chains and padlocks on all the banks doors. There was a curt little notice that the bank would be closed till further notice. People queued up and small groups formed outside staring at the bank’s doors as if by magic they would somehow open up again. It was a strange and discomforting diversion from the norm.

The housing investment market started to wobble a few years earlier. Houses took a long time to sell and soon they reverted to dwellings that people lived in. With the banks closed, mortgage payments became superfluous. Roofs over one’s head became again what houses were originally, it kept the rain out. Keeping the rain out became what the homeless now needed more than ever. The government or what was left of it tried to arrange public buildings for sheltering the homeless.

The huge Ernest & Young multi storey building now housed seventeen thousand homeless spread out over all the floors. People did not mind climbing the emergency fire-escape stairs. The generators just supplied emergency power for some lights but excluded the lifts. The toilets still flushed but for how much longer? Rumours were going around that the Myer’s store were distributing food brought in by the Salvation Army and so far no reports of looting were heard about.

Neighbours, who previously kept themselves apart and much to themselves, very private, now introduced themselves and offered help. People started to be drawn together with sharing common needs. Fear and instinct for survival made for instant communication. “Have you got enough food” was a common question and concern for sharing became necessary. “One can get ten kilo bags of flour from the Town-Hall” someone told the neighbourhood.  Another one offered to pick up tins of powdered milk from somewhere else. It became a scramble to just see the next few days out. The closure of banks meant that money was scarce and bartering became the norm.

During cold weather fires were soon lit in public areas. People were seen huddling together talking and sharing the latest news. Some suburbs had no electricity and generators were hard pushed to find fuel for. The little fuel that was available was being kept for emergency driving only. Hospitals were still going on with caring for the sick and the government was issuing warnings that people ought to stay away from rioting youth and street fighting which had broken out in front of the Center-Link offices which had closed down as well. The police was kept busy.

Of course, the above is just one scenario that could happen. With the sort of survival methods that became necessary during the last war in Europe I can’t remember too much detail. I know more from what my parents told me than from memories. I do remember hunger though. That is something that doesn’t easily go away.

So, in short; food is the most essential part for survival. Shortage of food is still the norm amongst hundreds of millions of people around many parts of the world to-day. They experience economic depression as something that seems to last forever during their entire lives. How would we cope?

Rebekah Brooks and Phone Hacking

While the tentacles of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire stretches well beyond Britain, the phone hacking and intrusion of ‘privacy’ seems to be mainly concentrated in the Anglo world. Why, one could reasonably ask?

Well, one answer might well be our obsession with deliberately living lives that are hidden. This wanting to be hidden dates back hundreds if not thousands of years. Perhaps the pillaging, raping and burning by the Vikings on our soil left its inedible and indelible mark on our proud British heritage.  Our home is our castle and if it wasn’t for lack of money, everyone  of us would want to be surrounded by moats and drawbridges. We compromise and have blinds, thick curtains and 6 feet high fencing instead.

We like our privacy. It is the first word of preference when asked how we would like to live. Where is my privacy? This is often the primary requirement when moving into a new home. When neighbours apply permission to extend or build something next door, the possible invasion of privacy is often the reason for councils objecting to the development application. I sometimes wonder why we build houses with windows.

We like our gardens but don’t want to be seen in them. When do the Anglos do their gardening, at night perhaps? We put in outside furniture and giant turbo driven 8 burner stainless steel gas barbeques but, by and large, we stubbornly want to remain hidden and prefer to have all that in the back yard and not at the front, risking fully exposing snags and ourselves to the dangers of the outside world.

Now, with this almost universally well known need for the Anglos wanting to remain hidden, unknown, unseen and ‘private’ till the grave, it is baffling what we are so keen about in wanting to remain hidden. What goes on behind those curtains of privacy? What lurks behind that wall or fence? Are dastardly acts of the most hideous and perverted nature  happening? Are the Anglos whipping themselves into a frenzy of orgiastic delights unknown to the rest of us?

Phone hacking outside the British Empire would never have that attraction to readers because everyone knows that the French Prime Minister has affairs or that the Italian President has a penchant for rubbing coconut oil on nubile young girls. Continentals live their lives in the open and rely on openness and community values in keeping an eye out over each other. In fact, the scandals that the Brits so delight in would at best elicit a yawn amongst most of the rest of the world.

Of course, the neuroses to remain hidden don’t mean that we are not curious in finding out what others are doing. It is a double edged sword. Make something hidden and we will inevitably want to snoop around, if only to find out if others are like us as well. This is why people were paid to do all this phone hacking.

Finally it becomes an addiction, hence those awful Anglo Sunday papers revealing who is doing the latest stint in a re-hab., or who is looking suspiciously pregnant and not even married to boot. That close up, is it proof of a Brazilian wax, surely not?  Gee, doesn’t Andrew Beiber look a bit pale; I am sure he is back on the crack-ice again, is he?

For the Murdoch Empire it was a colossal and monumental opportunity of money making. It worked while it was going on. And now, the spectacle of Rebekah Brooks in Court with her lovely tousled red hair will be another one of those continuing sagas, raking in even more money. Go for it boys.

χάος

Another big fall in world markets, billions will be wiped off and Greece is tottering on the brink of total economic collapse. Good morning!

Some European countries which were supposed to be examples of how society ought to distribute wealth more equitable are now being lined up to fall like a row of dominoes set up on the dining table of good and well intentioned but un- equitable sharing of the rich Euro baked pork dish with crackling good social security till the grave.

What went wrong? Was it the apple sauce?

The answer might well come from the dining table itself. The excessive ladling out of all those goodies without balancing it to an equal generous increase in taxation revenue was always dodgy. The expenditure didn’t match the income. A classic case of economic delusion that one can live beyond means was always a premier lesson at the kindergarten of economics. If you keep scooping the sand out, the sandbox will finally be empty.

The lure of getting more with less income seemed to have overtaken the world of capitalism. Election after election the sound economic principles of setting expenditure to income was eroded away. The voters swallowed it like marsh-mellows on a stick held above the fire of greed and avarice. Right wing governments took over with the promise of more for less and we were all seduced by this ugly Judas kiss. And look at us now? Will there be blood on the streets once again?

With Portugal and Spain queuing up after Greece with youth unemployment at a staggering fifty percent it seems to be hovering on a similar precipice into economic collapse.

In Australia we keep rubbing hands together with glee in how we seemed to have escaped the GFC turmoil with our scooping up of mineral resources. In the process we seem to forget that this is due to luck much more than sound economics. Take out China, and we too would be lining up at soup-kitchens.

Are we too taken in by the lure of more for less? Notice the upheaval in the suggestion of raising taxation on our resource mining companies. Notice how the Three hot headed Musketeers of our resource companies have taken on Australia and its citizens daring to utter getting paid a fair share of the economic resource pie. Notice too, how the principal of taxing those that defile our environment is fought against tooth and nail. Millions are being spent in advertisement opposing this very sound and principled way of making the environment spoilers pay for it. We too are cruising for a bruising being taken in by the fairy floss of more for less.

At least in Europe there seems to be a return to the left with new governments willing to find a solution in bringing the rich back to the kitchen table of give and take.  In France, the rich will have to pay much more tax and many are questioning how anyone should have more than they can possibly need. Capitalism has gone berserk and the masses are paying for the sins of the rich. The poor, for too long have been denied a share for which they have worked just as hard as the rich, which, in the majority of cases inherited the wealth enabling them, with the regimes of lower and lower taxation, to keep on exploiting handy taxation loopholes and fattening themselves on the pork crackling of lenient taxation laws.

It is not for nothing that the collapsing economic capitalist world is looking anew at Scandinavia. They were always looked at askance and with suspicion. How could a taxation regime of over fifty percent continue to thrive giving its citizens a world of social welfare that would sooner or later end in total collapse and disaster? Well, the Scandinavians did not and now seem to own the only beacon of light and insight in perhaps having a solution for those countries on the brink of economic disaster.

We should perhaps look anew at those prophets of lower taxation being the only way forward. Just look how, with the new budget, we have delayed Foreign Aid? We have the top three wealthiest in our society owning over 30 billion. Or is it 40 billion now?

How just is our society and how moral when we can’t support foreign aid anymore and at the same time support not raising taxation for the obscene wealthy?

Words of Endearment.

“Can you pick up your jacket, please?”  “Yes dear, but my right hand feels cold, even feels a little numb.”  “Yes, but use your warm hand then, you’ve got two you know, and while you’re getting up – take your cup to the kitchen- sink as well-, it has been sitting there all morning.”

“Yes, but can I warm my hand up a bit first?   “It’s not as warm to-day as it was yesterday”.  “Ah, you are always cold”. ..Why did I marry you?”  “I don’t know. It was a long time ago.”

Here are snippets of love words that can be heard in hundreds of languages and millions of households at any given time and all over the world. It is the araldite of common marital language that binds couples and relationships together. Now-a-days one daren’t use the word ‘marital’ without qualifying it further, because, at least here in Australia, it implies man and woman couples hitched together through an official certificate of proof. It still excludes same sex or odd sex couples. Sorry folks, just hang in there. It won’t be long now but keep up the same sex coupling anyway. Your certificate of marriage is coming soon

Savvy writers try and avoid pigeon holing with too many definitive descriptions of things, risking the wrath of readers. That’s why I, thoughtfully, added ‘relationships’, thereby including the whole gamut of possible mixtures of relationships. You can’t be too careful, even a full stop sometimes gets taken for being racists or homophobic, unless followed by at least a space.

“What are you taking out of the fridge?”  “Ah, just a plate, dear.”  “A plate of what?”  “Last night’s risotto, dear.”  “Ah, yum, can you heat it up?  I want half.”  “Yes, of course,” “I’ll put some water in the saucepan”.  “Use the non-stick fry-pan, you know, the round one.”  “I was going to use the non-stick one, I always do. You know that (Testily).”  “I meant to put in the baby peas.”  “You did put them in; have a good look inside the risotto.”   “Oh, you are right, I can see them now.”  “I thought there were more peas.”  “Well, I didn’t count them.” “Do you think I stole them?” “The peas have shrunk a bit, that’s why they were hard to see.”  “Yes, that’s because they have been in the fridge overnight.” “They just dried out a bit, that’s why.”

Again, later at night going to bed.

“I can’t find my pyjamas.”  “Try looking under pillow dear. They are always there.”  “I thought they were in the drawer”.  “No, I changed that system months ago and I told you.”  “Sorry, I’ve forgotten.”  “You forget because you don’t listen.”   “I do listen but I can’t do everything at once.” “Looking for pyjamas under your pillow is hardly rocket science.”  “No, but I am beginning to get indigestion from the peas in the risotto as well.”  “Oh, you are busy now, aren’t you?”  “Hope you’re not going to do strange things all night.” “I’ll try not to”. “I’ll take some Mylanta just in case.”

Good night-good night.

While some might well think the above is just useless and mundane natter, for many, especially the au courant and well posted in couple bliss, it will be seen for what it really signifies; proof of a well nourished and deeply involved couple. While its first frenetic rush of love might have subsided or settled with pausing passions and intimate familiarity there is still an enormous amount of involvement with each other. Take the issue of the peas in the risotto for instance. Twice the subject of peas are lovingly being mulled over and instead of those peas being found to be boring as many of you might well have come to expect, it remained significant enough to be mentioned at length by the couple.

Surely, this wasn’t just mundane natter for the couple. This is the very essence of long established and thoroughly involved loving couple. They care enough to keep talking.

Talk is the araldite of good relationships. (It comes in two parts; Part A and Part B and when mixed together hardens with age.)

The old ‘Stamping’ will never stop. (This NOT from le salon des ABC refuses)

Isn’t it sweet and proof of the conviviality of the readers including those ‘Pigs Arms’ patrons that my writings are never purely judged by its spelling? There I was happily ‘stamping’ away at my old ‘stamping’ grounds of Revesby being haughtily dismissive of lawns and petunias. And yet, with the dawning of another day and with more words urging me on, I remain humbled, (doing a Rupert Murdoch)  by the kindness and tolerance of the readers, not only allowing me to dwell on these pages, but also being presumptuous enough in thinking those words worth reading, including the ‘stamping’ around.

Perhaps this stamping around in suburban Revesby has some basis in happenings at earlier times.

I was given a stamp album for Christmas in 1948. I have kept it ever since but no stamps have been added since 1956, the year of our arrival in Australia. I started saving postage stamps as soon as I could walk (my mother told me). They used to include stamps from all over the world. It became far too complicated and I decided with my new album to concentrate on The Netherlands and its colonies instead. The colony of Indonesia (former Dutch East Indies) was then tottering on the edge of becoming independent under Sukarno and I remember tens of thousands arriving in Holland taking with them the world’s finest cuisine and different cultural habits. Many could not hack the colourless Dutch climate and its relentless damp weather and moved onto Australia. This eventually resulted in many Indonesian restaurants popping up in Sydney and elsewhere. One of those was called Selamat Makan in Victoria Street, King’s Cross.  Much later another one opened up in King Street, Newtown ‘The Safari’. I can sometimes still taste the spicy ‘Rendang’.

The date of this Christmas gift stamp album from my parents of 1948 is written on the front page in lovely long- hand writing. Do kids still learn long-hand or has that gone overboard as well? The world of the abbreviated language is now much in vogue, with C U LTR or LOL with ROLFING being bit more expansive. I remember in the late fifties the start of texting with the 4 SALE signs arrivals in front of second hand car sale yards stretching mile after ugly mile on Parramatta Rd, Sydney.

Going back to my album,   I used to get a yearly stamp catalogue specifying and updating the latest stamp issues and, more importantly, the value of stamps. The value of some stamps, depending on the numbers issued, would drastically increase as the years went by. I kept a little book with their updated values. Sadly, while I still have the album somewhere, the book of updated stamp values has gone, disappeared. Perhaps my parents chucked it out or left it behind in our house at The Hague together with the lovely tropical fish aquarium and all those Neon-Tetras.

Now, with the likelihood of more years past then coming still, the inclination to dwell on what has been, have to be resisted somewhat. The temptation to finish up being called ‘a boring old fart’ by many will surely become the incentive to look afresh at the ever changing world and its many colours. There is no other way and so many words might still be queuing.

From the Salon des ABC refuses.

The good news just keeps on coming. First there appeared on the news yesterday an item on finally considering a ‘fat tax’ and this morning by no less than the President of the United States, Mr Barack Obama, the support for same sex marriage.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-10/obama-backs-same-sex-marriage/4001992

It is only a matter of time before some kind of disincentive for junk food will be introduced in Australia. The rumblings by health experts on the costs of obesity far outweighing the benefits of profits by the junk food corporations will finally have to be acknowledged. Why is it that so many bad things are allowed to continue? It seems that nothing must stand in the way of ‘freedom of choice’, even if it is killing us.

A few months ago the proposed legislation to limit gambling on poker machines was so watered down it became useless. Once again, the shouting supporters of ‘free choice’ were the loudest and concerns for the tens of thousands of families’ lives continuing to be ruined, were side-lined. One of the most depressing sights would have to be a stroll through those poker machine dens in clubs. There they all are, at 10am, queuing up outside the clubs, including many of the overweight and in total silence desperately feeding money into a clanging and blinking machine. The answer by the club industry,” it supports many of our youth sporting clubs and without the revenue from those poker machines we would also not be able to supply entertainment and cheap meals to our members, many of whom are retired pensioners”

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That’s just so great, isn’t it? We support the good by first allowing and encouraging something bad! In any case, if those sporting youth clubs are so good, why are our young increasingly suffering from being overweight and becoming victims of diabetes? Does revenue from gambling and eating junk food go hand in hand?  Yes, it does. Both are the extreme sides of allowing unfettered ‘freedom of choice’. How come though that in some countries they do act on obesity and excessive gambling? Denmark and the UK are some of the countries having introduced a brake on the consumption of fat by increasing the price of fat. Excessive gambling and availability of gambling venues have also been clamped down in many countries.

Any government worth its salt ought to consider the good for society, even if at times, it means restricting this silly  ‘choice’ above all mantra. It took years to get cigarettes on the undesirable social benefits list, even though it meant restricting the societal exercise in the holy cow of ‘choice’.

Why not put gambling and unhealthy foods on the same list as smoking. Restrict the number of poker machines with maximum 10 cent limits and decrease the cost or subsidize good foods. Put a good solid fat tax in place. Increase revenue and slim the population. A win, win for all. Make carrots and cabbage machines freely available at clubs and sporting venues. Replace coke machines at our hospitals, schools, center link offices and police clubs with plain natural water or freshly squeezed fruit juice dispensers.

The freedom of choice has also reached a ridiculous level in our media. It doesn’t seem to matter how people are being demolished, attacked, denigrated, insulted or slandered; nothing must stand in the way of freedom of expression. It’s freedom, in at least the UK,  included the invasion of privacy by journalists happily hacking away into people’s private lives.

The single most outstanding exclusion in all this lovely freedom in Australia is its obstinate stance against same sex marriage. By hook and by crook (more crook) its opposition to same sex granting of a marriage certificate seems to be an almost impossible obstacle to overcome. How odd, that a simple ‘freedom of this choice’ is so difficult to allow. What is it? How come that when it comes to equality involving a union of two people that might or might not include sexual union as well, seems to remain a barrier when it comes to marrying. We allow relations between same sex people but it is the recognition into a registered marriage that seems to remain a puzzling and seemingly unsolvable conundrum for our unmarried Prime minister to accept…

Anyone for a cabbage? Your shout.

Share Mother’s Day with us at Bunnings. (Bring the kids)

It’s hard to believe, but that’s what the blinking sign said. We came home late from Sydney and drove past that sign at Mittagong. ‘Barbeque and jumping castle will be there’, was added for good measure. It just never stops, does it? The barbeque, of course, was meant to entice the forever hungry male partner, the jumping castle for the kids. Nothing was left to chance. It had all been worked out after weeks of doing surveys and conducting polls.

Grey’s advertising team had been working on this campaign (feverishly) and with a $600.000 budget was expected to come up with the goods. The ‘goods’ being a gross return of at least $20.million for that single day of the year spread around Sydney’s suburban stores. There was a palpable buzz of excitement around head office in the days leading up to the big event. Office boys were recklessly flirting with the typists and a team leader had even been so brash as to put his hand on the shoulder of the manager in charge of bolt-cutters and wrenches divisions. This time, she allowed his hand to remain…- Bolt cutters and wrenches are big ticket items for Bunnings, hugely profitable, and at least as big as bananas are for Woolworth. – She was hoping for a bonus and thus allowed his hand to linger longer than she would normally tolerate.

I can never think of wrenches and not come to a smile. Every time we catch the train to Sydney we go past my old stamping ground of Revesby. Not that there ever was a huge ‘stamping’ going on at Revesby in the late fifties, unless of course you consider crawling over a lawn and picking at the grass or staring at petunia beds from behind the venetians enormously  riveting.

However, Revesby is well known for its Workers Club. Many famous artists have performed there including The Bee Gees and Diana Ross. Even today some of the best gigs sooner or later appear at Revesby’s Workers club.  The reason for my mirth when the train passes Revesby is its large cement and white painted emblem at the front of this huge building, high up the façade, facing the railway. It has a hammer and a wrench crossed over. I can just imagine the numerous meetings held by Revesby’s Workers club management, trying to iron out how to put a recognizable face to the club. Clearly the word ‘Workers Club’ indicated an affiliation with ‘workers’, but, at the same time, there must have been some in management hesitant to use the ‘hammer and sickle’ emblem. The symbolism of that emblem could too clearly and too soon be perceived as a possible reversal to communism.  The club certainly did not want to miss out on the thousands of Eastern European migrants having arrived here as a result of the ‘hammer and sickle’. After many meetings and heated arguments a good compromise must have been reached, hence, the crossed over ‘Hammer and (plumbers) Wrench’. A good compromise, don’t you think? One foot in capitalism and yet, still a small lingering and hunkering of that other ‘social’ world.

Have a happy Mother’s Day. (Think of buying mum a rubber plunger to unblock the drain)

Delights of King’s ex-Army Disposals.

There was nothing more encouraging for going bush than taking the train to Sydney’s Central and walk along Broadway towards Town-Hall. On a corner at George Street there was for many years a shop named King’s Disposals. It was advertised as an ex-army store selling used ex soldiers equipment but I was never so sure of that. They never sold guns or disused cannons or tanks. If you wanted a gun you had to walk on a few hundred meters towards the Town-Hall.  The gun shop was next to Pellegrini religious goods and gifts which I thought a rather strange combination of shops right next to each other. Although, history does tell us that one doesn’t preclude or exclude the other. In fact, often God and guns have been the best of buddies.

I bought my first gun in that shop next to the religious shop. It was a B.S.A 22mm rifle with a nicely polished wooden handle. It was graced with a sliding bolt action and five bullet cartridge. I remember buying it all wrapped up and then peering into the Pellegrini shop next door. The window was full of virtuous and holy looking virgins with many variations of Christ keeping an eye out for order…it must have been a difficult task with a wreath of thorns embedded into your head. Compared with the gun shop it all looked very unrealistic and somewhat silly, especially considering its situation. If ever there was a conflict of interest it was surely manifested there in George Street.

From memory there were also a few barber shops and perhaps a milk-bar called Stavros or maybe Mavros. Sooner or later your walk would then have taken you to the Trocadero Dance Hall where many of those Southern European migrants would be given their first of many refusals for a simple fox-trot. Later in the evening, many of those dark eyed lonely men would look for solace with East Sydney’s Chapel Street whores and go for a two-quid ‘short-time.’ No refusals  and there would be a busy and brisk trade in a different kind of fox-trot,  especially when the bus loads of Queensland cane cutters arrived. Pellegrini was fighting an uphill battle keeping those young men virtuous and from straying. Those brothels in Chapel Street now cost millions with many including ‘long time’ mortgages.

Going back to Kings Disposals there was a Chinese restaurant called the Tai-ping just around the corner. It was upstairs and specialized in Mongolian Lamb. I would sometimes be able to afford going there for a lunch before ending up at the markets a bit further on. Many times my brother John and I would buy young six weeks chicks guaranteed to be laying eggs within a couple of months. They always all turned out roosters. We finally decided to buy adult chickens which we took back to Revesby on the train all with their heads poking through the hessian bag staring bewildered at the fellow passengers. They often turned out to be old boilers but still managed to squeeze out the occasional egg or two. You had to look at their combs, we were finally taught by the more experienced chook buyers. We were on a long learning curve.

King’s Disposals have all disappeared. Soon after came the Clark Rubber shops selling rubber pool liners and above ground pools, inflatable rubber mattresses and other bedding goods imported from Turkey.  Many of our friends in the Inner West bought foam- rubber seating arrangements which came in ugly modules but thought of as quite ‘hip’ at the time. Clark Rubber never had that adventurous look about them as did King’s Disposals with huge knives and those massive lace-up genuine army boots…

As for my BSA rifle, I have a photo somewhere holding up a dead snake and also still remember the garbos coarse oaths early one morning dealing with a bin full of rabbits redolent with decay and maggots.

The era of adventurous shops seems to have disappeared.

Steve Jobs and the Art of Spectacle making.

I have changed my mind about ‘Apple’. Steve Jobs was a creative genius and may his soul rest in peace. I watched a program about Steve’s life on TV last night and it just blew me over.

If ever there was proof of ageing stultifying opinions, my previous haughty disdain for any gadget with little buttons, was in the pudding. The proof of the pudding is that very often, people with advancing years resist the jigging about of the younger ones and fresh ideas. It must be a form of dormant jealousy that pops up when it starts to dawn on us, that that’s it, the fag end of life is nigh. There is little I can do about it now except repent and try and improve, become tolerant of little buttons and their pushers. Perhaps take up dancing lessons or knitting.

Years ago, on the train chockers with passengers I once stood up for a woman who looked a bit pale and tired. I was perhaps seventeen and working for Spectacle Makers and Co, a company in Clarence Street. My job was to grind lenses to their prescribed specification. A horribly dirty job that included splashing slurry of water and fine grinding powder on the future lenses of chunks of glass that were fastened on a metal rotating chock with the use of hot tar. It was then a world of concave and convex measurements with strange and exotic workers initiating ceremonies involving blue ultramarine dye rubbed around the novice apprentices’ private parts.

When I stood up, gallantly offering my seat, I was astonished by the reply,’ do I look that bad, she said?’ I mumbled something like’ no-sorry, you look OK’. Of course, I moved carriages and never stood up since, even if they were pregnant and close to breaking waters. The world of convex surfaces taught me a lesson and pregnant women did not break my resolve to remain seated.

Some many years later, with the Balmain local ALP Branch firmly in the hands of right wing crooks and welders of steel containers smuggling drugs and importing loose women, I queued up to renew membership. Suddenly a few large burly blokes entered the Balmain Town-Hall. One came behind me and said ‘make room for a pregnant lady, you poofter.’ I retorted, ‘you are not pregnant and you are not even a woman but could be a poofter’.

Pandemonium broke out, especially when a fire extinguisher was pulled from the wall and hurled through the upstairs window. The police, who were next door never even turned up. They were in cahoots with the punch throwing right-wing thugs. All the women at the meeting turned pale. The member books were stolen, lights switched off and we all (the bleeding left wing faction) adjourned to the local William Wallace for schooners and solace. My bleeding nose was soothed by a woman called Elisabeth, I remember it still. My pain started to wane after the fourth schooner coinciding with Bridie King’s band starting up a wild and tempestuous blues number. It shows that the world of pregnant ladies and my cruel refusal to get up for them in trains finally caught up with me.

It came back to me on the train last week, this time between Mortdale and Central Station. There I was, standing up swaying amongst all the Iphone pushers and shakers. I was hoping a young person would get up and gallantly offer an elderly gent a seat. No, not even a hint of respect, they kept bent over their world of Apps and GPS’s. “It tells me I am on the train”, someone whispered to a friend; really, wow?

Perhaps pregnancy and old age used to be neck and neck during the past when it came to standing up in public transport.

I’ll try it on crutches next time or shall I just faint and dribble a bit?

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