It should have been a non posting day

Do I need to explain what is obvious to me? Staffers monitor Metro movements at the Tallawong control centre. Why doesn't the control room just have staff, who control things? Staff sound cheaper to employ than staffers. 

Station Controller Riva Shaheen, Chief Controller Daniel Merlino and Station Controller Nicole Radakovic. Australia has changed. No longer are station controllers called Mr Smith, Mr Jones and Miss White. This is good as it is a representation of modern Australia. But I would guess any Australian shareholders in the in the international company that runs Sydney Metro, are called Smith, Jones and White. 

I made a comment on someone's YouTube clip. I didn't expect two kisses in the reply, Thank you Andrew xx.

Do we root or rowt? 

In Australia we used to pronounce the word route as root, and I still do. But from somewhere, you guess and I'll point, the rowt pronunciation has come to the fore. 

I've just said the words route as as a path on a map, and root as in a tree root and my mouth movements are different. Root v. route, it is different, disregarding rowt. 

Have I breached your boredom threshold yet? I expect so. 

Me birfdy

My birthday was Monday and Phyllis and Kosov made a delicious meal of spicy chicken drumsticks and a version of fried rice. They also bought a stunning birthday cake and while I am not a fan of chocolate cake, it was terrific. It was a bit mousse like with hard chocolate atop. 

In appreciation, I made a magnanimous offer, that Kosov is welcome to stay overnight as often as he wants. Yeah, well, he hasn't been to his home since. He is a nice young man and him staying now has little impact on me. He is polite, friendly and helpful. Neither Phyllis or Kosov use the living area when I am here. I watch my tv, listen to my radio and sit here typing, just as I have for a couple of decades. I'll get back to this.

Tuesday night, the evening after my birthday we had drinks and nibbles here. I know what an effort Ray would have gone to and how stylish his presentation would have been, but I just did my best. Ray would not have approved. I realised I have donated away dishes that could be used to serve dips, along with a nice correctly sized platter for the dry biscuits.

You could say it was a very mixed group, myself, Phyllis, Kosov, my neighbour H, Our Friend in Japan and our Hairdresser Friend. We crossed the road to our very nice local Thai restaurant where I had booked, and had a nice meal and very good chat considering we were four pretty well over sixty white people in the company of two male 21 year old Indian lads who have been in Australia for only a year or so. Neighbour H made a special effort to engage with them, well she was sitting opposite them. 

After dinner, back home we ate more of the chocolate birthday cake. 

Someone who wasn't here said it might be a sad birthday for me, the first without Ray, and of course that was in my mind, but it wasn't. I must do something right in life to have such kind people around me.

Getting back to saying Kosov could stay freely, I used the analogy to them both of one of my work experiences when I asked a public transport security officer about how he wakes up drunks on trams when trams were returning to their depots, and so the person had to be off the tram.

He said, you go in hard and aggressively wake them, shaking them if you have to. You present as a powerful and authoritative law enforcement person. Once they are awake and seem fine, then you switch to being Mr Nice Guy and try to help them to get to where they to need to go.

That is what I did with Phyllis and Kosov. Once I grasped that they are good guys and not out to take advantage of grieving old widower, I've given them some slack. 

Mind, the next morning when I arose, the living area was stinking hot, with the heating setting raised from 20 to the maximum of 28. Apparently Phyliss stayed up until 4am and forgot to turn the heating off and the temperature setting down. Had he had done so, I might never have known, except I would have because I monitor my home's electricity consumption and mein gott, you should have seen the power spike from 1am to 7am when I got up and turned the heating off. I showed Phyllis the power consumption graph two days later and I don't expect that will happen again. 

Don't look at the fine print.

The height of fashion I suppose.

The Brunetti cake box reminds of our visit to the The Grand Hotel in Brighton with Fun60, where we took our left over food back to London by train. I managed to fit mine into my backpack and so was not embarrassed by The Grand Hotel food cardboard boxes. 

Things I don't understand appear in The Highrise. I mucked up the stylish shell arrangement by having to use the printer. You would not believe the story behind the shells, that involves sex, pain and a young woman's libido. Do not worry. Phyllis gave her counselling at a nearby beach as they collected shells. Ok, you are such sticky beaks. She likes the guy more than he likes her. They have sex often, which causes her pain and bleeding at times but she really enjoys the sex and doesn't want it to stop. Racial difference doesn't seem to apply when it comes to sex. 

 

My dinner, so nice. 

I was given a badge too.

The fabulous cake. 

Even the card envelope was special.

Maps

I don't think this last YouTube clip from Map Men is their most interesting, but I've enjoyed and found many of clips interesting. I do love me a map, and I have rather a lot of them, loose maps, and as here, my street directories, which I think in England are called A to Z. I don't know what they were called in America. In Melbourne we turned the brand name Melways into a generic name. They are a bit of history now, and that's why I keep what I have. Real estate agents added a Melway reference map number and grid reference to their property advertisements. 

Just before Google maps came to the fore, with a new car we were presented a small Melbourne street directory. While not pocket sized, it was small enough to carry in my backpack when I went out. I used it a few times. Very soon, Google maps on my phone made it redundant.

So yes, I have a number of street directories. This is the oldest and it was my grandfather's I guess published in the 1940s. It is brilliant for old tram and train lines that no longer exist, along with lost streets, like the delightfully name Sloss Street that ran along the frontage of what is now the School of the Arts Dame Elizabeth Murdoch Building.

My first Melways, 1978 edition 11.

I the mid 1980s we visited Adelaide and I must have decided I needed a street directory.

The last Melways I bought, edition 39.

Melways stepped into Sydney with its Sydway. I think the dominant directory there was UBD or perhaps Gregory's. 

UBD also produced a Melbourne street directory, this being a reproduction of the 1956 edition with information about the Olympic Games, held here that year. 

This 1934 Gregory's reproduction edition is terrific as it shows Sydney tram system at perhaps its full extent. 

Edition 29 of Melways  I used to mark all of Melbourne's former tram and train lines that existed, along with the tramways in the regional cities of Geelong, Bendigo and Ballarat. My step father when he was still alive checked my markings on the Geelong map for accuracy and I had done well. 

This marking shows the old inner city railway line. I walked both the inner city circle and the outer circle railway a decade or so ago and blogged about the walks on my old blog. It's strange that I can't find time for such projects now I am a retired person. 

I stapled notes on paper to explain what the lines on the map to explain what I showed. 

I thought I had a reproduction of the first Melways, 1966 but it seems not. It can be found online here. 

I began thinking about this post last week and it then occurred to me to make a second post with my Atlases, but someone beat me to it with her atlases. 

Go away gift

This bag was given to me when I left my motor mechanic employment in the 1970s. I knew it was in Ray's wardrobe and when I checked, inside there was a heap of letters from his mother, which no one now will be interested in, least of all me, and some photos. I think it was a mix of photos of his English family and local photos in his early years in Australia before we met.

I've kept the photos to go through but shredded the letters, which were just news about family. I had asked his sister if she wanted them, and she didn't. 

So the case must be getting on for being 50 years old. Who would have thought I would still have it at my age. Aside from the inside fabric at its base breaking down, it is still in good condition. 

There was a lot more in the case before I took the photo. Is it a Gladstone bag, or just similar? I can't remember.

PS I've now remembered what a gladstone bag looks like. It is a similar size.

Monday Mural

I'm linking with Sami and others for Monday's Mural. 

Meet Pesto, a young penguin at Melbourne's aquarium.

You can read a little about pop star Katy Perry meeting the very large Pesto here, who is a nine month old king penguin and weighs 22kg, the combined weight of his parents. 

Unfortunately with such a name, the next story in the newspaper list was Easy one-pot meals designed for weeknights. Please no. No adding Pesto to a pot.

This mural was painted last week and is found in Higson Lane in the city. 

Note to self

Do not doze off in a lounge chair while Phyllis is around. 

Train excitement is building

In 2025 a new underground railway line in Melbourne will open. We have a station nearby and yesterday was an open day for local residents, although not all were so local. My neighbour H booked us tickets for 10.40 but we were there early and I guess we were on the 10.20 tour. 

What we didn't know was that there would be food vans and food and coffee were free. I ate a Bunnings type sausage (in bread with onions and tomato sauce), followed by bahn mi pork belly slider, and ice cream and then coffee. But that was after the tour. We ran into two neighbour couples from our building. One was complaining about a lack of rubbish bins on the station platform and there not being enough seating. Given trains will come through every ten minutes or better, seats aren't such a big deal. 

The underground station is all but complete, as is the external area. Now, we just wait for trains. 

A few photos from the day, starting with the entrance from Domain Road. There was one escalator coming up, which we used at the end of the tour, but why wasn't there a down one? There was a lift. However, there are multiple stairs, escalators and lifts to down and up from the station.

The main concourse is huge.

These coloured fabrics give people way finding. The are white on the other side. This is repeated at all of the new stations. From what I saw, the signage within the station was good. 

To and from the St Kilda Road tram platform stop.

Once on the platform, the colours changed to orange. 

Just ahead of Melbourne, Sydney has platform doors where by there are platform doors that open with the train doors.

These glass panels were just stunning.

Food time, and there was plenty. Very satisfying. 

A three piece fruit band greeted us. A banana, watermelon and grapes. 

We chatted with neighbours for a bit and then wandered home. It was a nice experience. Unfortunately a neighbour of my neighbour was out with her aged dog as we walked home, who my neighbour wanted to avoid. We tried to sneak past her, but failed and H and she had a bit of a chat, while I walked on further and looked back like an impatient and annoyed person. That worked with only a two minute chat between them. H praised me for saving her from a long chat. The woman is loopy.

At 5 Phyllis and Kosov arrived and cooked up a storm. They came and went at times into the living area, they had big laughs and so did I. They are incredibly nice to me, and want to hug me all the time, even though I am not really the hugging type. It is like they are grooming me, but as I will tell them, Uncle Andrew is a nice person, but when he changes to the mean Aunty Andrea, you will need to look out. I should not be so cynical. They are both nice guys. 

I bought a punnet of blackberries this week. They tasted nothing like the blackberries we picked in my kiddie years. Phyllis said they tasted of chemicals. They were a little sour but didn't really have a taste.  I was so disappointed.