The price of fagging

Like it not, I will use the US currency for the price of a packet of 20 fags from around the world.

US, $8 to $12

UK, $15 to $18

France, $12 to $14

Japan, $4 to $6

Indonesia $2 to $4 

Portugal $6 to $7

Australia, $28 to $35

As you can note, cigarettes are very expensive in Australia and over 70% of the cost is government taxes, that increase often and has acted as a disincentive to smoking, a good thing. Australia's rate of smoking is around 10% of the adult population is one of the lowest in the world. 

That is until the illegally imported cigarettes arrived that sell for around US$9, which is close to what the rest of the world pays.

That came the stand over tactics, 'buy our illegal cigarette or you business will be firebombed', and mayhem arrived, with many many outlets firebombed, with flats often in the same building.

The sale of vapes has been banned unless by doctor's prescription, yet vapes are readily available in the cigarette shops that sell illegal cigarettes.

It is a protection racket, which has now extended to nail salons, dance club venues, gyms, and new car businesses, one close to the dealership where I bought my car.

Let me draw a parallel. Extortion at cigarette shops that sold illegal cigarettes and vapes was ignored by governments, just as cops ignored manic ebike and electric scooter riders speeding along footpaths. Eventually authorities were forced into action, but had they clamped down on all before they became so big, Australia would be a better and more law abiding place.

The illegal cigarettes come in by container load from China and the Middle East, the latter via Singapore, I believe. I've seen and in a minor manner used AI. Surely can't technology detect the illegal cigarettes? 

At best I suggest there has been a lack of political will, at worst, some very powerful people, and I don't mean gangs, have a vested interest.

This is mayhem that has never been seen before in my lifetime. Changing your vote on polling day will make no difference. A chilling statistic is in Victoria, nearly all Melbourne based, between mid year 2024 and mid year 2026, there has been 300 fire bombings, a shocking statistic.                                                                             

Dashcam caught a crash

Yesterday was a bit of a disaster. Phyllis wanted to show me an incident that would be caught by dashcam, so I removed the SD card, brought it up to plug into my desktop. I am struggling a bit with the front and rear dash cams connectivity to my the app on my phone, but I'm getting there. 

We viewed the footage, showing one of two incidents he passed by in one trip. The first was a tipped over concrete mixer truck but other vehicles blocked most of the view.

I took the SD card back to the car to insert it into the camera unit and as I pushed it in, the camera fell off the windscreen. I also realised I had put the card in the wrong way and it was stuck. I tried to pull it out but made it worse, pushing it in further. I can't do this in semi darkness in the carpark, even with my phone torch. I unplugged the camera from the wires and tapped the unit on a hard car surface and the card disappeared altogether, somewhere inside the camera. Woe is me! Yes, I could hear the card rattle inside the unit. Back upstairs.

Kosov, help me. I gave him the jeweller's kit screwdrivers and went off on my errand, hoping he could extract the card. I returned and he had taken part of the camera apart. His opinion was that the card was not inside and had fallen out, so down we went and with our phone torches on to search the car where it may have fallen out. It was not found.

I was very sure the card was inside the unit somewhere, so Kosov used the AI Gemini to find out how to take the camera further apart. Later I asked him, couldn't you just find that using Google. Yes, he replied but it will take me much longer because of promoted ads, and a lack of detail where I will have to burrow down unknown holes. Gemini gave me an instant answer in about 10 seconds. 

Armed with information, he stripped the unit down to exposing its motherboard and and did find the card, carefully extracted it with tweezers and we reassembled the unit and put it back in the car and all was well. That was about an hour out of his day because of my stupidity. But really, that part of the camera was not designed well. I didn't force anything, and it all went terribly wrong. 

To to the incident. Traffic was banked up at an intersection. Phyllis did not know why. He gave a toot to the driver in front of him and then soon realised the driver was stuck, and felt so bad about the toot. The dash cam downloads separate files each of about two minutes in 4K definition, over 100mb for two minutes of recording. 

25 seconds in you can see there is an issue. 

30 seconds Phyllis tooted the car horn.

42 seconds it is clear the driver in front is trying to change lanes. One driver to the right hesitates to let the car in but the driver in the car front did not pick up on this. The next driver was rather impolite for not letting the car diverge into the right lane. 

Then Phyllis diverged left around the obstacle. And what was the obstacle? It becomes visible at 50 seconds. A learner driver on the wrong side of a three lane road facing oncoming traffic. On the face of it, a terrible mistake by the learner driver. But let's look closer.

The car is a Royal Automobile Car Club of Victoria car, displaying learner driver L plates, meaning there is a student at the wheel, with a driving instructor who has foot and perhaps steering controls on their side of the car. It simply cannot end up where it is without a very good reason. Move on to 58 seconds and freeze, and you can see the car as been hit. I suspect it was hit and spun around by another driver and I doubt the L driver in the RACV car was at fault.  

YouTube is as ridiculous as it is absurd about background music, and because there is music playing in the background of the car, for copyright issues, in some countries this clip won't be viewable. YouTube even informed me of the two songs being played. Hey, it's better at recognising music than Shazam.  

A memory

This is written more for myself than for you. Clarity of thought and memories came through.

There were two Melbourne DJs I really liked in the 1980s who played at the clubs. They really knew how to work a turntable, playing the stereotypical music gay men liked. One was Andrew Collins, who is still around, Andrew on the left in this pic.

The other, who I had the privilege of being introduced to once, was Guy Uppiah. 

It was sad to learn Guy died a couple of years ago. 

Later edit: A question was asked in the comments about what is 'gay music'. There is a subjective list compiled by the magazine Rolling Stone. There are many more songs that could be there. The only one I know in the 2000s is by the Scissor Sisters. Check it out here.

The Flora

The Mother's Day flowers we bought after Mother's Day are some two weeks later still in the vase. They survived the heating and while they don't look great, they are still alive with most blooms looking ok.  Truly amazing longevity.

An interesting thing happened with pink flowers that were, it became obvious, dyed. 

The dye filtered down down the stems into the water.

Then the dye in the water filtered up the stems to previously white flowers, giving them a touch of pink. Isn't nature marvellous! Well, not quite nature alone.

Monday Mural

Along with Sami and others, here is Monday Mural. This could be North Williamstown Station, but I can't remember. 

Sunday Supplement

We watched an interesting YouTube clip about the seven stages about cat acceptance of humans. When Ray and I had cats, this would have been a load of nonsense with our cared for cats, fed and watered, given medical care if needed, and affection on demand. Having a house bound cat who was a pregnant stray is a very different kettle of fish.

The first big step came when Jass would sit on Kosov's lap where he would give her a paste treat and then brush her fur. 

Then came the time when Jass stopped running away from the at times screeching Phyllis. He could pick her up and hold her for short time, bribed with treats.

Then one night she slept on my bed next to my thighs, and then it happened most nights, but not for all of my sleep. Instead of walking down the bed to get off, she would walk over me to get off the bed, and wake me. 

As is my wont, I was lying on my bed this afternoon, about to watch something on my tablet when Jass came and lay across my legs. This was a first. After a couple of minutes, Kosov got out of his bed after a day sleep after not getting home from work until 7.30am, and Jass jumped up to go to greet him. I think we might be at about stage five of the seven of cat acceptance levels. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mVoQ2d4WyY  

Sunday Selections

It seems a while since I joined River and others for Sunday Selections.

One fine Saturday we drove around the Yarra Boulevard to Studley Park Boathouse, and so did the rest of Melbourne. We were very lucky to find a parking space. What was a boat storage shed was many years ago turned into a cafe, or perhaps restaurant is a better description. It is a very popular, and the location on the edge of the Yarra River is attractive.

We took a short walk to Kanes Bridge and stood in the middle looking down at the water.

Securely anchored to land.

One boat is visible in this photo.

It was a very nice drive.

Not sure the how and where of this photo of two planes. Maybe it is from Grand Prix flying displays.

Last Sunday was set aside for a drive in the new Perl. Phyllis works as far out as Kangaroo Ground, to the north east of the city. I wanted to see the area he described with which I wasn't at all familiar. When looking at an electric map before we left, I noticed the location was near Sugarloaf Dam, which I also hadn't seen. I drove and Phyllis drove back.

It was an amazing journey through Bulleen, Eltham, Research and other places I don't know. The roads twist and turn, uphill and downhill, at times revealing some great views. With cheaper land, more can be spent on houses themselves, and Phyllis described one huge six bedroom, six bathroom house he has cleaned, with a quite old woman living there on her own with a huge uncontrollable dog. He mentioned a couple of monster houses that were so filled with stuffs, they refused to try to clean.

There was nothing to see at Kangaroo Ground, which seemed to be just a school. We went on to Sugarloaf Dam (Reservoir), with very low levels, but I think it is fed by larger storages upstream.

A fine liquidambar in its autumn shades.

It was certainly such a pretty area.

We didn't come across anywhere to eat, so the lads looked at their phones and suggested Yarra Glen, and we found a nice bakery for lunch, and then it was homeward bound with Phyllis at the wheel. What an amazingly good driver he has turned out to be. Mind, he has done a lot of driving in MY cars.