Perl is out and about

Last week Phyllis asked if he could take Perl to a party in Box Hill. He hasn't asked to use the car for over a week aside from one trip to Aldi to buy bulk cat food and cat litter, so cautiously I said yes, where are going and what time will you return.

They met up with friends in South Yarra for a meal, returned here (I quickly turned on the full living area lamps to impress, but not the overhead lights), and they were here for an hour. The friends are a couple, she of Indian heritage and he of Asian heritage. Translating for English people, she is Asian and he is Chinese, except he isn't from China.

From my computer chair, I at times chipped in with a witty remark, as best as 68 year old can do with twenty year old's. 

They piled into Perl and off they went. I am pleased I have the front and rear dashcam. I looked at it today to watch what happened when my car went into for new car service, one month later after purchase. Jeez, all the motor mechanic staff are Indian. When you think about restricting immigration, be very careful what you wish for. Didn't we learn that post Covid when there were no staff for cafes, shops and other businesses? 

I don't like Perl being out late at night, and I've warned Phyllis and Kosov that if there is incident and they are under threat from a road rager, to not put the car into Park whereby the doors will unlock, but into Neutral and apply the electric handbrake.

The next time I drove Perl, all floors were covered in sand. Phyllis or Kosov, or both, will take the Dyson V7 Tiger with its short attachment to vacuum the car floors. I wonder where they went that was so sandy? Not my business. 

Later: Phyllis worked today, Tuesday all day at one job and asked if he could take Perl. It is a decent walk from the train station, and it was wet, so I said yes. Later he messaged me to say he was going to work at his other job, so the car is out for ages today, 10am to midnight. 

I am lunching with HH later today after she returned from New Zealand, and she may want to go somewhere that is easiest by car, so I checked and yes, the sand has been vacuumed out. 

The cult of celebrity

As I observe from afar:

It is funny that all I can remember about former PM John Major is that he tucked his shirt tails into his underwear. Former English PM Boris Johnston had lots of charisma, until he became too absurd and too broken. He had taken over from the rather dull May, solid and dependable but hardly exciting. Former PM Cameron dressed smartly and had something about him, rather like former PM Blair.  Nowt to say about the Truss disaster. The exotic Sunak was not a rich old white bloke but a younger rich brown bloke. I struggle to remember anything he did.

Then came Sir Keef Stammer, with a landslide victory, which was not won but by a decisive rejection of the governing Tory party. Sir Keir was not inspirational, and while not Scottish, he came across as a dour leader, without any charisma whatsoever, perhaps like Gordon Brown. He speaks with a posh accent, and I don't really know how this goes down with those who don't speak thus, but it must be a disconnect. But I can't remember leading political figure in the UK with a regional accent.

I really don't think anyone would be electable in Australia now if they spoke was such an accent. It is too loaded with wealth and privilege. 

Sir Keir, I'm sure a decent and honourable person, who did get some some good legislation through to improve the lives of the English citizens. But no one could say he was inspirational. If only he attacked the rich...practically and verbally, which is what a Labour leader should do. 

Which brings us to his replacement, Andy Burnham who does seem to be inspirational, with good political credentials. I've yet to hear him speak, so that will be something interesting. Burnham picks up the huge majority of parliamentary seats from Starmer's Labour Party, and he really must take advantage of this to improve the lives of the average English citizen in an obviously public manner. A bleeding heart about immigrants will not cut to the chase. The loud citizens of England have made this clear, and I think it goes deeper.

This is rather like Australia. Most people know we need immigration to sustain our country, but it needs to be very controlled. The perfect example was immediately post Covid when there weren't enough workers in the country to staff businesses, and then there was a flood of migrants. In my opinion, too many refugees from one country doesn't work. Take in refugees from all over the world but not huge numbers from one country. Apparently assimilate is a bad word, so I suggest less numbers from one part of the world with a careful monitoring of numbers, will mean better integration into Australia. 

Monday Mural

Along with Sami and others, here is my Monday Mural. The whole work is in a short laneway just a couple of hundred metres from home.

                    

Sunday Selections

I'm linking to River for Sunday Selections, and joining with others.

These dawn photos are interesting for this reason. The first was taken at 6.54 and 23 seconds.

I swung the lens maybe 15 degrees to the north and zoomed in and this one was taken at 6.54 and 49 seconds, 31 seconds apart. It looks like a totally different sky.

A three wicked candle. Things come and go into the highrise. 

The tall building on the corner of Toorak Road and Chapel St is on the site of a former tramway cable engine house, with the cables running under road pulling along the trams running on Toorak Road and Chapel Streets. The building, Capitol Grand LK Tower, even when almost enveloped by fog, still dominates. The Capitol name comes for the business that took over the building after cable trams were replaced by electric trams, Capitol Bakery, and remained so into my younger years. It then became Johnny Rockets, a kind of American diner specialising in burgers. It was also used for Gayskate, gay guys gathering to roller skate around a track. AFIK, no funny business happened when gay men were on skates.

Two unidentified dinosaurs have attacked dear Pteranodon. 

"Kosov, why have you kept sweet potato peels?"

"You will see, Onnnndrew".

He fried them and they were a delicious snack. 

At the corner of Carlisle and Acland Street, I remember the days when this was a corner milk bar, then a sex shop, selling adult toys and such paraphernalia, with a sex on premises venue upstairs, for men only I suppose. After a long period of closure, the building has been very nicely renovated and is now what I would call an Australiana shop. 

I could tease you with some words about its former use as a SOPV and my experience with the building, but it wasn't related to the upstairs goings on. When the shop was empty, the area at its rear with room for a couple of cars to park, was a mess. With a large double gate open, I stepped in for a sticky beak. As I walked out a belligerent woman, without taking a breath told me as owner of the property, I ought to be ashamed of myself for allowing such a mess of junk and rubbish to accumulate and being exposed to the street. My character is that I think of all the clever and smart arse answers later, but gee I wish I was guilty as accused and owned the building worth a million dollars plus.

HH's daughter grew these chillies on her small farm, and I believe they are called Habanero chilli, possibly the hottest in the world. There is the obvious question as to why she grew chilli that she could never use, and why give them to HH? Perhaps they were meant for Phyllis and Kosov. HH gave dire warnings about using gloves when preparing them, and to stand under the range hood fan to extract the fumes. 

While I was waiting for Perl to be serviced last week I took a rather long walk for me, and among the high rise buildings, factories, offices and commercial buildings, I came across this electricity substation. How great that it is kept, and for all I know, is still functional.

The little tower atop is cute. Somewhere on this wall is a door. It does still seem to be a working building, with modern signage. But can this substation deal with the vast electricity demand in the area? 

It seems not. Around the corner, this is where the magic happens.

I can't stop ranting

Tommy Robinson, not his real name, is a far right activist in the UK. I remember lunching at a pub in Whitehall as a protest march passed by, with buses diverted, which I think is quite common in Whitehall. It seemed to be a protest about a certain Tommy Robinson being gaoled. I had no idea who he was. 

More than a decade later, I now know about his far right politics and he has served five prison sentences, for assault, threats, harassment, fraud and contempt of court. He became a bankrupt after racking up a lot of gambling debts. He was sentenced to a community service order of 150 hours, and a three year ban from attending football (soccer) matches.

In August 2025, Robinson shared a video on Twitter of a black man and his brother playing with his white granddaughters in a park in North Yorkshire, falsely accusing them of paedophilia, which resulted in the family being racially abused with false paedophilia accusations. Labour MP for Redcar Anna Turley had to write a reference letter of good behaviour after the victim was suspended by his management. Turley stated that there was "no place for hate in our town" and said she was "heartbroken" for the family "who've been targeted and abused because of Tommy Robinson's poisonous lies"

Nice dude hey. No! A nasty piece of work. He's maybe as bad as #47!

Not my business? It is when an Australian became involved, one popular morning tv host, Karl Stefanovic. 

In a vodcast, Stefanovic became Robinson's best mate and not at all interviewing him in a normal journalistic questioning manner, and ignored Robinson's past. It was all very lovey dovey. From other areas, it seems Stefanovic has become hard right, even though his father, a Serbian, was an immigrant to Australia. 

Stefanovic has been sacked from his television gig and for many of us, is a disgraced person. Public figures may softly indicate where their politics lie, but if they follow extremism, they will accordingly 

be judged. 

My Politics #101

Labor Australia, Labour UK, Democrat US, Liberal Canada.

All of the above have manual worker beginnings, as downtrodden and abused workers came together and demanded decent pay and rights. The right for workers to strike became entrenched, and I must say abused at times. But the only thing protecting basic workers rights was that they collectively would decide on a course of action against their exploitive employers, and it worked. Pay increased, working conditions improved, and best of all safety for workers in their workplaces improved immensely. From this arose the above listed political parties. 

Liberal Australia, Conservative (Tory) UK, Republican US, Conservative Canada.

These are parties built by rich people and wealthy business people. They are anti worker, anti union, anti progressive society, such as gay and trans rights, no care for the disadvantaged in society, anti free public health care and public school education, anti taxation of rich people to improve society, anti big government control, anti regulation of safety in all kinds of areas. Anti tech regulations, anti public transport.  Also anti environment over profits, and anti renewable power. Anti brown people, unless they are factory fodder. These parties are anti everything that makes modern society better. 

But then we now have far right parties, so much worse than the conservative parties. In the UK, Reform Party, in Australia, One Nation. The US Republican Party has crossed over from being conservative to extreme far right, up there with One Nation and Reform. 

To quote the leader of Australia's One Nation, "There are no good Muslims". This from she who said thirty years ago, "We are being swamped by Asians". She has also been heard spouting anti African immigrant comments.

I have my opinions on immigration and how it could work better for Australia, one being don't take too many at once from one country. There are refugees all over the world, and many well educated possible immigrants. Many of our successful immigrants are those who came here as students and received permanent residency before becoming citizens, my hope for Phyllis and Kosov.   

I could never vote for conservative parties simply because everything they stand for goes against my values. And OMG, voting for the felon, war monger and pederast, the Orange TACO, aka the 47th President of the United States. You just can't.

I'll try to be less ranty at the weekend.   

A good blog but beware of tour guides.

Frogdancer travels rather a lot, and her blog is a good read as she writes with wit, humour and some self deprecation. As I write she is about to visit Machu Picchu by train.

During a recent tour she posted about something a guide told her group. A quick Google and AI check definitely says this is untrue, in spite of how cruel the Spanish were.

The Inca men had long ponytails down to their hips. The Spanish would tie the men’s hands behind their backs, then tie their ponytails to their testicles. Then they’d castrate them.

I can't remember the 'fact' we were told on the open topped New York hop on, hop off bus, but I was suspicious and I checked and it was totally wrong.

This photo taken from the top of the bus, and I don't know what the statue is about, probably in lower Manhattan. Of course I could Google it, but maybe one of you already know. 

Rottnest Island, Western Australia, to paraphrase the tour guide, "We don't have an electricity connection to the island from the mainland, so we generate all of our electricity here on the island, and any excess goes back to Perth (mainland)". I guess that is by osmosis. 

Quokka barrier at the Rottnest Island supermarket.