Not very princely

You will have all seen the photo of Andy Mountbatten slumped in the rear of the police car. Andy is no longer a  prince, and instead of being prince like, sitting up straight and looking straight ahead, he thought he could outsmart the best paparazzi in the world, providing great grist to the media mill worldwide. It just proves what a tosser he is. 

One commentator said he was the first royal to be involved with police since the Princess Anne dog biting incident. I seem to remember Princess Anne being intercepted by police for speeding in her younger years, let alone Prince Phillip's car crash where he was at fault, and stripped of his driving licence.

I made a comment on someone's blog that I had a rethink about and concluded I was wrong. My thinking was maybe Andy Mountbatten might be caught out by providing information to foreign sources. Kind of like Al Capone was caught out by the US tax department. He went to gaol, but not for many other crimes he committed. If Andy Mountbatten goes befores courts and receives a conviction for some corruption issues, does it matter if he is convicted and serves gaol time, just not for the other crimes he might have committed, with the suggestions those could be trafficked and underage women.

I conclude it matters big time. From US #47 to Andy Mountbatten, and all those others who took advantage of Epstein's and Maxwell's 'hospitality', investigate them and charge them with crimes they have committed, starting with #47 but don't leave Mountbatten out. 

In other news, I gave Kosov a driving lesson today, and he drove on big roads and busy roads and while there is a long way to go, he didn't do too badly.

Phyllis was emptying the dishwasher and broke my port decanter. At least is wasn't my Waterford crystal sherry decanter. He was so upset and sorry, and I was pleased that he took on total fault at his carelessness and did not try to blame anyone or anything else. We'll find a new decanter in a charity shop, or I'll just guzzle from the bottle.

He also repainted my fingernail, so that it looks nice for when Ray's nephew and wife arrive next week. Two coats of quick drying polish, with a slow drying protecting kind of coat on top. That with my pedicure today makes me feel rather good. 

 

Frightful Friday

The new lounge chairs were scheduled for delivery late Friday afternoon. I received a call that they would be here in twenty minutes. I was in the lane waiting for them and they soon arrived but just before, Phyllis called. I had said he could take the car to a job interview and Kosov was with him.

"Andrew, Pearl won't start. What should I do?"

I was puzzled. By this time the delivery had arrived. I said, remember I told you to put the phone number of the Royal Australian Automobile Association into your phone? Yes Andrew. Well call the number to get help. 

The boxes would not fit through the door from the carpark into the building, so the men had to open the boxes to bring the furniture up. No big deal, but Phyllis called again. He needed my RACV membership number and my registration number. He didn't realise that was the car plate number. The rego number should have been enough but I could not drop what I was doing with the delivery. When I had a chance, I found the number and called him, and explained the registration number and gave him my membership number. 

He soon called back and said the RACV would be there in less than an hour, and it wasn't too long before he called back and said the man had arrived, and as I had guessed, Pearl needed a new battery. $400, ka-ching. Phyllis paid for it and I reimbursed him. 

As I was letting the delivery men out, they must have taken a little pity on this old man, and asked if there was somewhere where they could put the boxes. Not removing the packaging was clearly noted on the contract. They squashed the boxes through a door, down stairs and through two more doors and put them in the recycling room in the basement. 

Phyllis called again, the car is fine now and we are just leaving. 

Meanwhile I had to turn huge sturdy boxes into flattened cardboard to go into the cardboard recycling skip bin. I took down a cutting knife but it was too weak. Back upstairs, I found the Stanley knife with a blunt blade and used that. Over thirty minutes later, I had cut up all the boxes and stacked what wouldn't fit into the skip, next to it. This is a proper cutting knife, and I was only slightly tempted to use to cut a vein in my own arm. 

And wow, did I have sweat up. I try to avoid anything that makes me sweat. I also have purple bruises on my arm of the type that anyone who takes blood thinners will know about.

That done, I checked if there was congestion on the West Gate Bridge or wherever as Phyllis wasn't back yet. Sometime later he arrived. 

"Oh Andrew. I missed the freeway exit and had to go through the tunnel."

His convoluted explanation as why he could not use the Power Street exit, the next before the tunnel before the was beyond my understanding. More ka-ching for taking the car through the tolled tunnel.

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I had new blinds installed. The company took the old ones away. I also had a quote from the company neighbour HH used for new blinds and its policy was to not take the blinds away. HH used the company and insisted the old blind removal should be part of the deal, and it agreed. 

I am a bad consumer. I should have insisted the old chairs be taken away, along with the packaging. If the company wants the sale, it will oblige, and perhaps charge a bit more. The stress of getting rid of the packaging, and having the old lounge chairs still here is not worth getting a bargain. There will be part two to this post. Jass is most unhappy with the disruption to her life.  

Remembering Agnes

Agnes emigrated to Australia from Scotland in the 1970s. She was single but she had been in a relationship with someone called Bob. She knocked several years off her age and obtained work as a chambermaid at the Windsor Hotel, yes a posh Melbourne hotel and it still is. 

Mid 1970s she joined the tramways as a conductor at South Melbourne tram depot where she and Ray met and they became life long friends.

She spoke with what I now know as a posh Scottish accent, and it was magical to hear her speak. 

She lived in a rented flat in a block called Cremorne Court on the extremely busy Punt Road, Richmond.

She and Ray eventually became assistant conductors, boarding busy trams to assist with collecting fares, but they managed to sneak time off for coffee and shopping, never being discovered missing by their supervisors Misters Jekyll and Hyde, as they called them. In the afternoon they would be stationed in Russell Street to sell tickets to the queues waiting to board tramway buses towards Doncaster and Templestowe.  They carried a machine that dispensed tickets with the wind of a handle. This meant the buses could quickly load as the driver did not have to take fares, and the bus would be smartly away. Rinse and repeat for the a couple of hours.

She retired at government pension age, then perhaps 63 for women and at the urging of the union, received compensation for her chest and breathing issues caused by inhaling diesel fumes from the the buses, never mind that she smoked forty cigarettes a day. Along with the then retirement gratuity scheme, she had enough money to buy a modest flat in Murrumbeena. 

We helped Agnes move, and she was a hoarder and a voracious reader. There were even books stacked in her toilet. We got rid of so much of her hoardings, but I can't remember how. 

She was very happy in her Murrumbeena flat, and unless someone invited her out, she was content at home with her cigarettes and books. She did stop hoarding once she moved. She had less opportunity to do so where she now lived as there weren't all the Richmond shops nearby. 

At our home in Prosper Parade, Glen Iris, we were hosting a family barbeque, with us all sitting out on the timber decking under the shade of the massive jacaranda tree, growing in our neighbour's back yard.

We had to come together to celebrate my birthday. Simultaneously, the fat in the barbeque caught fire with flames a metre high and the telephone rang. Ray answered the phone while I and my step father dealt with the fire. 

The phone call was from a neighbour of Agnes, who remarked that he hadn't seen her around for a couple of days and she wasn't answering her phone. Ray called the police, who forced an entry and Agnes was found dead in a lounge chair with a book on her knee. 

Ray had met Agnes' sister, who lived on Bribie Island off the Queensland coast.  The sister immediately cranked up when informed and said, Agnes has a will and her money and property are left to me. I know Agnes had a sister still in Scotland, so I am not sure why she wasn't due something. But isn't that just so sad that it was the first thing the sister said, and she was very aggressive towards Ray, as if he was going to steal from Agnes.

I think that would have been about 1991.

Along with her friend, Pat O'Haire, who lived in a lovely flat overlooking Hedgeley Dene Gardens in Malvern, Ray and I scattered Agnes' ashes in the rose garden at Springvale Crematorium. Pat was a very funny woman and there was much hilarity as Agnes' ashes were thrown into the wind, rather than downwind.

So here's to Agnes, and wouldn't you like someone to compose almost an OB about 35 years after you died. I found all these when sorting through Ray's stuff after he died. 

With George Harvey, a Mormon and not gay as the church would have disapproved, but he was as camp as a edit: row of tents.  

Monday Mural

Sami hosts Monday Mural and I am joining in with her. 

Nothing too wonderful this week but I like the images.

Sunday Selections

Along with River and others, here is my Sunday Selections.

Those who drive on the left are a clear minority by area, but if you calculate by populations, with quite a number of Asian countries including Japan, and then Oceania, southern Africa, and India, the difference closes markedly.  

Jass frequently changes her sleeping places and at the moment she has taken a liking to my bed. She is in the mood of not seeing anything.

Why did I take this photo, and then crop out the man and enlarge him for a closer look. Odd, and I don't know where I was. 

The Bryant and May match factory in Richmond. While I can see the clock tower from my balcony, it isn't visible in the photo. I believe it is now apartments.

I was in Seddon and these are typical Victoria workers cottages, and we lived in similar in Balaclava. They have become desirable homes and most will only have the Victorian facade and maybe the entrance hall. The rest will be very modern, extended and opened up at the rear.

There was quite a mix of housing in the street, old and new.

The Fig and Walnut Cafe where I had a bite and coffee. It was nice enough.

Seddon railway station and surrounds.

I don't know where I was when I took this photo.

I think this is an Aboriginal Art Tram,passing by in front of my building.

While we knew it as the Boer War Memorial, it has been renamed to perhaps the South African War Memorial. During construction of the Metro Tunnel, it was dismantled with each piece being numbered, cleaned over the period of a few years and re-erected, and it now looks brill.

Looks like I was somewhere a bit posh. I can always check, matching the photo date with Google Maps history, but it's a faff. 

The dollars and the pence

No one wants their house to burn, and I do feel sorry for the family, but...,

the fire was started in the two storey house by an electric go-cart. Now I am making assumptions but if you can afford a two storey house in Eltham, to breed five children and afford an electric go-kart, you can probably afford home insurance in case of fire, yet they did not have such cover. Naturally a gofundme has been set up.

At my great niece's birthday weekend before last, there were quite a few families who came along and bought their lunches and for their children. From my observations, it would have cost a couple with three children north of $150, drinks included, say a jug of Coke. My two gin and tonics cost $26, and my meal $32. It is a nice venue and the service was good, but it wasn't cheap. 

With a friend whose birthday it was, we had coffee and cake and the total cost was nigh on $40, just in a cafe. 

I'm not crying poor but as people moan on about the cost of living, there doesn't seem much of a sign of it affecting their spending. 

While I'm on about money, just over 60 years ago Australia switched from pounds, shillings and pence to dollars and cents. This clip to educate us about dollars and cents was released by the Reserve Bank of Australia.

Friday Funny

I don't like videos that insert text to insist that you watch to the very end, but in this case you must. It was the final few seconds that really cracked me up.