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Tag Archives: Australia

Hungs Wide World of Shorts

26 Tuesday Aug 2014

Posted by Mark in Mark, The Sports Bar

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Australia, cricket, Warrigal

Pic by Warrigal

“Lillie approaches from the Vulture Street End, Boycott pads up, its bowled him, Boycott’s off stump knocked out of the ground, no shot offered, can you believe that……”, the lounge room roars into action, grown men cry, dogs bark, people flood the street tossing hats in the air rejoicing, backs are slapped, beers are poured, babies are conceived, this is summer this is cricket, this is heaven, their best batsman bowled without offering a shot, life doesn’t get any better than this, ah yes, cricket where the only thing better than cricket is more cricket.

Yes cricket, the one true national game. Forget your football codes cricket is life and life is cricket. Understanding cricket is easy. Get more runs then they do, simple. Nothin’ too hard bout that. And yes the culture, the joy, the atmosphere, its quasi-religious and coming from an atheist that’s saying something.

As a kid growing up in Wollongong all my mates played cricket and for me batting, bowling or fielding I couldn’t care less, just playing the game was all I needed. Weekends were cricket in the juniors Saturday morning, Grade in the afternoon. Sunday morning surf then when the nor’easter came in cricket in the park with me mates. Mum had to come and get me for tea as the sun had set ages ago. She’d call out from the street “Mark, get home, it’s as black as, tea’s on the table, how can you see that ball anyhow?”, “But Mum, a century beckons”, I always wondered why mum called me Mark when my name’s Hung, anyway some thing’s are a mystery.

My Dad, an Englishman tolerating us colonials, would get the bus to the bottom of Bulli Pass then from the roadside would hold up a sign “SCG”,

Pic by Warrigal

someone would always pull over and give him a lift. I was too young to go along at first but then my initiation came, the SCG, the hallowed turf, the smell of the freshly cut grass, the crowd, the banter between the Poms and the Aussies, always witty, never violent or abusive and supporters of both sides could sit together and barrack for their team. Mum would pack ham and mustard sandwiches and Dad would shout an ice cream, bliss.

Then as a young man going to the test with my mates, eskies full of beer, pies and hotdogs, hot chips and seagulls. Doug Walters would stride out and the crowd would erupt, “Dougie, Dougie” we’d chant. If he got a boundary the noise was deafening, all of us would rise as one, “You bewdy”. Then tragedy, Dougie caught in the covers, “Poms can’t field, how’d they catch that “.

Then as I aged a bit more and the Hill disappeared and my brother-in-law, Brad, and I would sit in the stands. One birthday, which falls in January, somewhere between the 4th and the 6th, hint hint, we went to the SCG and watched India play, Azzarudin, mate, me and Brad wanted to make him an honorary Aussie, he was brilliant. But it was against the Poms that was best, the old dart, the mother country, those were the days.

Tutu and I moved to Adelaide in the eighties and loved it. 15 minutes to the oval, no rain, 5 days of heaven. Saw the mighty West Indies, Adam Gilchrist, V.V.S Laxman, Wasim Akram and the graceful Brian Lara. In the first few years here, Tutu would bring books to the game to read but it gets hot in summer, 40 plus, so now she drops me at the Oval and goes on a spending spree on my credit card, I mean am I a winner or what.

So for those that don’t understand cricket, don’t worry. Just pretend you like it or compromise like Tutu and read a book, enjoy the fresh air, the sun, the community, being as one with total strangers, the total boredom, applauding your opponent for good play, all of these things are cricket and oh yes check the scoreboard occasionally.

 

The Minty Wrapper

18 Monday Aug 2014

Posted by Mark in Mark

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Australia, Gordon O'Donnell (GOD), Minties, station wagon, wrappers

more minties 2When I was young boy I was walking down the street a station wagon drove past. The window was open and someone was waving to another car and let a minty wrapper go. I picked it up and when inside to tell Mum and Dad. Now my parents were very serious people, mum starting crying “Environmentally devastated” said Dad.

Dad called a meeting in the town hall and a decision was made to send a small delegation to government house to protest. So Dad got out the Zephyr and we drove down to the big smoke.

The funny thing was that as we got closer to the city signs kept popping up on the side of the road like “Down with minty wrappers” and “Polluters die”. Somehow people knew about our protest, bush telegraph I suppose.

When we got to the main square a good size crowd had gathered. A man with a megaphone stood on a crate “Wadda we want, biodegradable minty wrappers, when do we want ‘em, now”. The crowd roared the chant back and more people poured into the square. People were yelling and rattling the gate of government house and yelling abuse at the guards. Riot police entered the square and protesters threw rocks and fire bombs. The police charged at Dad but he stood his ground, the copper said “look mate we all want biodegradable minty wrappers but no protest allowed without permit number 1068B”. The crowd surged behind Dad, now in the tens of thousands.

SAS troops piled into to the square discharging weapons into the air, cars were being turned over and set alight, “No more minty wrappers, down with wrappers” they yelled. Fighting was erupting all over the place, there were over a hundred thousand people now and machine gun fire sounded in the distance. Tanks were rolling into the square.

Suddenly a trumpet sounded the loudest sound imaginable. Everyone stopped in their tracks and looked to the sky. Anminty wrapper enormous cloud enveloped the square. The trumpet played one more note piercing ear drums and flattening any resistance. The crowd, police and troops all stopped and all eyes were fixed on the sky. The cloud opens and a figure appears that resembles a man with one of those flat caps. “Listen up” the creature says “haven’t got long Z Cars is about to start” he grumbles “God here or Jesus, Allah, Yahweh, Jehovah whatever just don’t call me late for dinner, get it, my real name is Gordon, Gordon O’Donnell, get it GOD, boy, you lot need to get out more”.

The crowd is stunned into silence, troops and police alike lay down their weapons.  “Look” the creature says “It’s 1966 your time and biodegradable wrappers aren’t ready yet but they will come, it won’t be long. Computers will be the size of a pocket watch and a man will walk on the moon”. A man to my left yells “He’s a fake, a computer the size of a watch, man on the moon, he talks in tongues”. God points his  index finger at the man and the man vaporizes and God shrugs his shoulders “Look, it will happen, a time will come when almost every home will have a computer and they will all talk to each other via the telephone, I will contact you when this happens, look to the ABC, my name will be Emmjay, any questions?” “God, what will become of us, what’s the meaning to life?” “Life, well, a writer will appear and give you the answer, 42 but no one will take him seriously. Look I can read your minds, sorry no cash or winning numbers and with football don’t worry everyone will continue to hate Manly” I thought to myself, I guess some things won’t change. “Is their life in the universe besides Earth, of course, but not as you know it Jim, anyway enough now. I am now going to make you all forget what’s happened. I want you to stop fighting and go home”.

more mintiesWhen I was young boy I was walking down the street a station wagon drove past. The window was open and someone was waving to another car and let a minty wrapper go. I picked it up and when inside to tell Mum and Dad. My parents looked at each other and as their eyes met a meteor burned up in the stratosphere causing a bright trail across the sky, “Be a good boy Hung and put it in the bin” said mum, Dad smiled, the dog yawned. Life’s a funny thing sometimes.

Midnight Oil 10 to 1 but not really

20 Friday Jun 2014

Posted by Mark in Algernon, Bands at the Pig's Arms

≈ 21 Comments

Tags

Australia, Midnight Oil, music

The Oils

The Oils

 

 

Midnight Oil 10 to 1 but not really
Playlist by Algernon

I heard this week that Midnight Oil maybe reforming with Peter Garrett as lead. Here’s a small selection for your enjoyment


Wedding Cake Island

Power and the Passion

US Forces

The Dead Heart

Beds are Burning

Put down that weapon

Blue Sky Mine

King of the Mountain

Truganini

The Real Thing

Racism in Australia?

10 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by gerard oosterman in Uncategorized

≈ 39 Comments

Tags

Australia, Britain, Indian

untitled
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-10/boat-race-protester-allowed-to-stay-in-britain/5145644

Australian protester allowed to stay in UK after discrimination fears

An Australian jailed for disrupting one of the world’s most famous boat races has escaped deportation after arguing he did not want to expose his wife and daughter to racism in Australia.

Trenton Oldfield disrupted last year’s annual Oxford-Cambridge boat race in London, when he swam out into the River Thames to protest “entrenched elitism”.

Mr Oldfield, 37, was convicted of public nuisance and sentenced to six months in prison over the protest and was then ordered to leave the UK.

But he successfully appealed to Britain’s Asylum and Immigration Tribunal, saying Australia “is a particularly racist country” and his wife and daughter, who are of Indian decent, would face discrimination.

“I don’t think I could put either Deepa or my child through that,” he said.

Possible High Court action on a sick baby and mother

29 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by gerard oosterman in Uncategorized

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Australia, High Court, Scot Morrison

1210_morrison_ahttp://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-29/asylum-seeker-family-continues-fight-to-stay-in-australia/5124988

Isn’t it sickening that a sick baby with a severe respiratory illness born in Australia has to take Court action to stay in Australia. I always understood that anyone born in Australia would automatically become an Australian national.
That is apart from humanitarian considerations. How cold and more heartless can Morrison still sink to?
Apparently Australian citizenship of local born babies depends on the date of birth.
We used to be known for having big hearts and welcoming generous arms, especially those in trouble because of war. Now Morrison is fighting tooth and nail to deport a local born baby and his mother.

Julia Gillard . Wonder woman

29 Saturday Jun 2013

Posted by gerard oosterman in Uncategorized

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

Australia, Julia Gillard, Rudd, Tony Abbott

untitled

Julia Gillard ousted: Achievement does not equal respect if you’re a woman

Julia Gillard navigated through the financial crisis, presided over a 14 per cent growth in the economy and pushed through several impressive policy reforms. The problem for the Australian PM was not her performance. It was that, from to beginning to end, she remained female, says Australian writer Van Badham

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/10143834/Julia-Gillard-ousted-by-sexism-

Achievement-does-not-equal-respect-if-youre-a-woman.html

The reality is far different. After her rolling of Rudd, Gillard nudged to power in minority government after a disastrous election result for both Australia’s major parties in 2010. It was Gillard, not her opponent, the conservative Tony Abbott, who managed to win the support of what looked like an impossible coalition of four crossbenchers – a Green, and independent progressive and two independent conservatives.

Despite a minority government, her leadership and willingness to negotiate led to her passing a record amount of legislation for a post-war Australian Prime Minister.

This included:

  • Australia’s first National Disability Insurance Scheme, of direct benefit to the 500,000 Australians living with disability
  • Introduction of carbon pricing and an Emissions Trading Scheme which has reduced carbon emissions in Australia      between 8-11 percent
  • Overseeing the Gonski review for the revolutionary overhaul of the entire primary and secondary education sector
  • Seeing that Australia take up a seat on the UN security for the first time
  • Instituted life-changing policies for improvements in indigenous literacy
  • Overseeing a national broadband network of high-speed internet is nation-building infrastructure.

Economically, her government maintained a commitment to Keynesian policy, unswayed by popular Ayatollahs of faulty spreadsheet economics that have impoverished other developed nations. Australia was the only developed economy to survive the global financial crisis, and under Gillard’s leadership the economy grew by 14pc.

It must beggar belief in other developed nations to see a leader who has delivered low unemployment, low interest rates, low inflation, three triple-A credit ratings and the third-lowest rate of debt in the OECD shafted so brutally.

 

Go UXC, They cracked the top ten in Leadership

20 Tuesday Nov 2012

Posted by gerard oosterman in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Australia, Deloitte, IT, UXC

UXC Connect cracks the Deloitte Technology Fast 50

Please see the below release from UXC Connect announcing that the company has been featured in this year’s Deloitte Technology Fast 50, having recorded 78.4 percent growth in the past three years.

Special recognition in the Top 10 Leadership Awards category highlights UXC Connect’s significant achievements in revenue growth this year Sydney, Australia – 20th November, 2012 – UXC Connect, a leading Australian IT infrastructure solution provider that connects technology to business outcomes, has been announced in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Australia 2012 awards, having recorded 78.4 percent growth in the past three years. Now in its twelfth year, the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Australia 2012 program recognises and profiles Australia’s 50 fastest growing public or private technology companies, based on percentage revenue growth over three years (2010 to 2012). UXC Connect also featured in the Top 10 Leadership Awards category, which provides special recognition to winners with revenues in excess of $50 million this year. The Deloitte Technology Fast 50 report notes that in this category, not only is achieving in excess of $50 million revenue status a significant achievement, but so too is achieving revenue growth of sufficient proportions to make this year’s Deloitte Technology Fast 50 winners list. “It is a tremendous honour for UXC Connect to be recognised not only as a Deloitte Technology Fast 50 winner, as well as our inclusion the Top 10 Leadership Awards category,” said UXC Connect’s CEO, Ian Poole. “Both these awards underpin the significant achievements the company has made in recent years, reflected in our revenue growth, and it is a testament to the diligent and driven team at UXC Connect, that works closely with our partners and customers that all share in our success.” Joshua Tanchel, leader of Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 Program said: “The sectors driving the growth in this year’s Fast 50 are online, software and the infrastructure needed to support these. The convergence of disruptive, post-digital technologies is changing the ways businesses must respond to individuals’ needs and expectations. Particularly impressive across all of this year’s winning technology companies is the way they have capitalised on opportunities in an environment of rapid change and disruption.”

– ends –

About UXC ConnectUXC Connect is a leading Australian IT infrastructure solutions provider that connects technology to business outcomes. Offering broad and deep capabilities across market-leading products and services, it offers Core and Specialised Infrastructure Solutions, including Outsourcing, Cloud Brokering, and Managed Support Services. With innovation as its guiding principle, it is driven by a flexible and agile approach to solution design, delivery and support.

UXC Connect is a wholly owned business of UXC Limited and employs more than 620 staff across the country. Its head office is based in Sydney, with six state offices and staff located on-site at customer premises. UXC Connect prides itself on commanding a major presence in the Australian technology market.

About The Deloitte Technology Fast 50 AustraliaThe Deloitte Technology Fast 50 is part of the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific program, which recognises technology companies that have achieved the fastest rates of annual growth in the Asia Pacific region during the past three years. The Leadership awards honour those Technology Fast 50 companies with revenues in excess of $50 million this year. The Rising Star award recognises high quality and innovative companies with strong growth potential that do not qualify for the Technology Fast 50 list, either as a result of having less than three years’ existing revenue data or not meeting the new $8 million threshold requirement of the Technology Fast 50 program. For more information about this year’s program please visit http://www.tech50.com.au

http://www.cfoworld.com.au/mediareleases/15321/uxc-connect-cracks-the-deloitte-technology-fast-50/

Family Court excludes Children. Where are their voices?

01 Saturday Sep 2012

Posted by gerard oosterman in Gerard Oosterman

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Australia, European Court, Family Court, Germany, ICL, Judge, Magistrate, UNCRC

Family Court excludes Children. Where are their voices?

Fam Court excludes hearing the Children. Where are their voices?

In Australian Family Court disputes it is often the children that miss out on being heard by a Federal Judge or Magistrate. In most cases, even though the judge or magistrate has the power to hear the children, it is rarely exercised. In many cases it is the Independent Children’s Lawyer who represents the child/children/ (ICL). In Germany and many other countries, the Family Court Judges always hears the child. The argument generally holds that there is now a growing understanding of the importance of listening to the children involved in children’s cases. It is the child, more than anyone else, who will have to live with what the Court decides.

At the moment while Federal Judges and Magistrates can hear the children in Court. A survey has shown most decline the opportunity and rely on the ICL and other ‘experts’ for advice during the procedures. The cases coming before the Family Courts deal with property and access to children. The fact of Court action is generally a sign that the parents haven’t been able to amicably deal with the separation. Access rights to children are often just as heatedly fought over as the division of property.

The Family Court in all cases  decide what is ‘best for the children’; it seems therefore ironic that the children are not given the opportunity to bring their wishes in front of the Court like in many European countries that are signatories to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.(UNCRC)

While it is unsatisfactory to say that children should all have the same rights as autonomous adults, including the rights of freedom of expression and the freedom of association and all other rights that adults own, it is equally unsatisfactory and unjust to say that children have no rights of this kind and that their rights in Court matters are irrelevant to the task of adults determining and deciding what is best. It seems to ignore the claim of children to be treated with respect and dignity instead of, as is often the case in Family Court battles, fought over objects.

http://www.familylawwebguide.com.au/library/spca/docs/Childrens%20participation%20in%20family%20court.pdf

As Australia has been a member of the convention since 1990 it seems  to beg the question why children are not heard in front of a Court and allowed to give their choices of those matters which the Court determines is in “the best interest of the child’. Why should they not be given the right to appear in Court?

Often the reason given is ‘parentification’ of the child.  In parentification the child is choosing one parent over the other as a need to protect the one parent over or against the other. In Family Court cases it is not unusual that one or both parents are deemed to have put the child in this position to try and enhance the prospect of getting more time with the child than the other parent. The child is expected to act as the parent to their own parent and sometimes over other siblings as well. The issue is very complicated because in some cases one of the parents might indeed be totally unsuitable as parent or as the primary caretaker. This is especially when there is violence against the other parent or children alleged, or in the case of drugs and alcohol abuse. However, parentification together with alienation theories about children in relationships remains highly controversial amongst psychologists, psychiatrists and therapists, who claim they are often simplistic or erroneous.

http://healthyparent.com/Parentification%20Web%20Preview.pdf

In the Family Courts it is the job of the ICL to sort the wheat from the chaff and investigate to get to the bottom of the issue if ‘parentification’ of the child is occurring. The Court appointed lawyer acting for the child will then call in an ‘expert’ in those matters. Both parents are to meet up with the ‘expert’ who is often a qualified child psychologist or therapist. Anyone who ever had dealings with Courts knows that at every turn huge amounts of money is spent. The ICL with the help of the Expert’s report weigh heavily in the final decision making by the Judge or Magistrate.

The report by the children’s expert is drawn up as a result of a few hours or a day spent by both the parents and the children with the expert. Sometimes first in each other’s company then separately and then the children on their own. After parents as applicant and respondent  have filed into Courts numerous times for ‘mentioning’ and ‘final hearings’ the case is put and then includes the affidavits, responses and reports by all the parties’ lawyers including the ICL and ‘experts’..

But, when all the lengthy proceedings come to an end, there is this glaring omission. The fundamental rights of every person including children to be heard in Court are totally ignored.

The ICL and other child experts cannot help but put in their own submissions and even if based on the best of intentions and the best advice given, it is second hand and not direct. How is it possible that the ‘best interest of the child’ excludes this fundamental right?

One reason given is the perceived intimidation of the Court system with its tradition of the dreaded three knocks on the door and ‘all rise in Court’, the bowing of all and then the entrance of the black gowned judge or magistrate on the raised podium. The procedures are often seen as unfriendly if not silly as well. Surely the system can change when children are involved and become child friendly. I could ask, why not change it even for adults?

We love adhering to convention, but what about the children?

Turning Japanese

21 Monday May 2012

Posted by Therese Trouserzoff in Warrigal Mirriyuula

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

Australia, Cadia, Copper Hill, Japan, Ordovician, plate tectonics, Silurian, Skarn Mineralisation, Subductio, The Death Of The Dragon, Turning Japanese, volcanic island arc

Story by Warrigal Mirriyuula

It was with some happiness that I looked into the Arms the other day; first time for a long time and there was Lehan’s piece about the movie she’d seen. It all sounded a bit familiar and then I remembered.

I read that book, in translation of course, back in 1979. According to the note I compulsively scribbled on the first page, I purchased the book in Adelaide at The Third World Bookshop. Sadly that august institution has disappeared but the book remains on my shelf. It survived the house fire and the culling that went on afterwards when better books went west, I suspect mainly due to its geophysical theme and geomorphological underpinnings. I do like a good geology yarn.

So why is it that Japan rocks and rolls and Australia doesn’t?

The answer is simple. Japan sits almost on top of a triple convergence where three of the major tectonic plates that make up the crust of our planet meet. At this triple plate boundary the differing geodynamics of the plates are constantly jostling each other in an attempt to relieve the strains and pressures that build up as they are driven about the surface of the planet by the vast heat engine below. They want nothing more than to go about their business unrestrained but on all sides they are held in dynamic tension and every now and then one or another of them just seem to reach a point where they’ve had enough, and lets go and we get the recent Japanese quake and tsunami. The same thing happened in Aceh back in 2004. It’s the plate boundaries that spell trouble.

Australia sits smack bang in the middle of its plate; and it’s a pretty big plate, covering about 130 degrees of longitude and 65 degrees of latitude. Those troublesome convergent boundaries are a long way off shore.

You could say that the Indonesian Archipelago, New Guinea and New Zealand are to Australia what Japan and The Phillipines are to Asia. These countries are all on or near plate boundaries and all experience high levels of vulcanism and earthquakes. Indeed Indonesia and New Zealand are home to two of the biggest volcanic risks on the planet. The Toba Supervolcano and the Taupo Supervolcano.

The reason is simple. You simply can’t move such vast slabs of lithosphere about without creating huge amounts of internal heat and pressure and that heat and pressure are at their most intense at the plate boundaries, and it’s all got to go somewhere. The most common way heat and pressure are released is up, through the necks of volcanoes, and the slipping, sometimes catastrophic slipping, of faults already activated by eons of strain.

The vulcanism is also easily explained. As these thick slabs of rock collide it is not uncommon for one of them to be pushed under the other in what is called subduction. As the subducting plate is pushed deeper down into the mantle, a lower zone of plastic rock, it is subjected to increasing high pressures that raise the temperature of the subducting plate. Moreover, the subducting plate is gradually squeezed dry of the water contained in the rock and its interstitial spaces. This dehydrating of the plate does two things.

Firstly the migration of all that water makes the rock above the plate less dense and increases the temperature in the overlaying plate. This leads to melting and the plume of relatively less dense, very high temperature melt so created begins its rise to the surface by cracking and eroding the overlying material and incorporating it in the melt. Eventually the plume has so fractured and deformed the overlying slab that it breaks through in the form of an eruption.  Think Mount Pinatubo, Vesuvius, Mount St Helens or any number of Andean volcanoes.

The second thing this process achieves happens at great depth and involves the percolation of superheated mineral saturated water through the cracked overlying plate. These mineralised waters are the beginnings of our mining industry with respect to metals such as copper, gold, silver, lead, zinc and many others.

In Australia these ancient geological processes enriched the western goldfields, the Broken Hill lode, the untold and as yet mostly untapped wealth of the Lachlan Fold Belt including the Cadia gold mine at Orange, and parts of Victoria and Tasmania.

But it takes millions of years, sometimes hundreds of millions of years for the overlying rock to be uplifted and worn down to expose these zones of mineralisation.

The gold and copper at the Cadia mine went through two primary periods of mineralisation; the first in the Ordovician nearly 500MYA and another, later during the Silurian some 60 million years later. At this time Australia was still part of Gondwana and what we now know as the east coast of Australia hadn’t formed. It was all under a shallow equatorial sea. Offshore from the then coast was an arc of volcanic islands above the then edge of the Australian plate as it subducted the paleo Pacific plate. It’s waited since then for the growth of Eastern Australia, continental extension and then compression, a long period of deposition, then uplift, and finally erosion, until a group of hard working, hard handed Cornish men began pulling the copper ore from the ground in the 1860’s, just a few years after The Copper Hill deposit at Molong had commenced sporadic operations and earning the right to claim the Copper Hill deposit as the first working copper mine in the colony.

So you see today’s Japan is just like that ancient Australian arc of volcanic islands, and in time it too will see a similar fate, but I doubt it will ever sink as Lehan’s movie and my book suggest. What is more likely, though it will take perhaps 100MY to come into being, is that Australia will scrape Japan off the map after ploughing its way northward through the Western Pacific at about 10-20mm/y and finally parking itself up beside the Asian landmass, creating another Himalayan sized range in the process. Back behind that range Japan will be just another scrambled terrane making up the suture sewing the next supercontinent together. They’ll be mining the deposits that are being laid down deep below Japan as we speak. That’s if we’re still here and still mine minerals.

http://spacerip.com/earth-100-million-years-from-now/

The Art of making up in the Kitchen of give and take

08 Sunday Jan 2012

Posted by gerard oosterman in Gerard Oosterman

≈ 56 Comments

Tags

Australia, Bowral, Camellia, Hebe, Revesby

.

Pleased that some of you would like me to return to the Pig’s Arms. ( I hope with open arms) My heartfelt thanks.  Quarrels or disagreements are easy to fall into but less easy to get out of. Both parties to the fight often think they are right and the more the disagreement continues the worse it often gets. Firmly entrenched and utterly convinced of their just stance, both parties keep stoking the fire with the kindle of indignation of “how can the other ones be so stupid and remain so belligerently opposed to my stance which is the right stance.”  ” I am right, the other is wrong. How come they can’t see that?”

The answer to getting out of this dilemma is a good deal of trying to imagine seeing it from the opposite point of view. Put yourself in their shoes and try and get a handle on them. What makes them think they are right and could there be some way to move forward or away from the fight? A great deal of compromise is needed. I might just have to swallow my false pride and improve my negotiating skills or avoid hostile territory all together. Hone one’s diplomacy and above all use humor and imagination, and always try to get as many perspectives on issues as possible.

I certainly stoke the fires in some of my writing. I love Australia but see many areas that seem ridiculously out of kilter or askew or just plain funny. I then write about it, leaving others to agree, disagree or put it better. (Not difficult) The years in Revesby’s suburbia have been a rich vein in which to fossick, delve into and write about. The lawns, fibro houses, the rockery gardens and above all, the deafening silence of those lonely streets I used to walk through, in the heat of summer’s cricket score filtering through the venetians, cracker night, the local pub with mums in pyjamas and wearing hair curlers waiting for hubby to hand over his wages, the workman’s weekly train ticket; a never ending smorgasbord of experiences.

Here in Bowral, another different experience. Camellias and Hebe, the retired men wearing red jumpers and immaculately coiffured blond matrons driving their Mercedes. This is a rock solid area of staunchly held with well concreted conservative views. So many fences to peer over, so many shopping trolleys to survey, and much, much more. I’ll hardly have the time.

Perhaps this and much more at times create discord and I cause umbrage to some. Sorry for this, I’ll pack it better; leave out Norway or stats on teen-pregnancies, try and reduce areas clad with zinc-alume or pebble crete. So….I am sorry for any perceived or real injury I might have caused, but and must also say, was secretly pleased by Vivian’s brave plea and others to keep coming to the Pig’s Arms. I will, it’s just too much fun. So, here I go again. Back…

PS. If there are any others that feel the need to say sorry……. form the queue here.*

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