Not starving

While I still have my sad and eye watering moments, I am surviving being alone without Ray Last Sunday Ray's English family had a send off for him, which was so nice. His closest sister spoke briefly and glasses were raised to Ray. The food looked amazing, and not for anyone on a diet. 

There has been enough steak in the freezer for four meals, and I have cooked three of the steaks, two with frozen chips cooked in the air fryer, as the steak was. Two were with salad, one with microwave steamed vegetable. I've also eaten lamb chops with salad. The red capsicum that has been in the fridge crisper since before Ray died is still ok. I will make fried rice, probably for Saturday night, as I need to use up some capsicum and there is Chinese sausage in the freezer to use up, and that is what I am doing, using up freezer food. There is a frozen bolognaise sauce Ray made. I expect I can manage to boil some pasta and heat the sauce to make a decent meal, or maybe two. I think there is frozen garlic bread to go with it in the freezer. 

I bought a small take away pizza a week ago. It was enough for two meals. Otherwise, I've lived on what I've cooked and what I've been given. I've had three meals out with friends, and a couple of brunches. 

I bought four meals from Katrinas Kitchen frozen, heat in an oven for 30 minutes and four meals from Dineamic, fresh but can be frozen at home, heated in the microwave. I am very impressed by  and Katrina's is good for old time Australian food. All meals from both shops are priced at $11.50. Here are a few photos.

Katrina's roast pork. Very nice.

Excellent lasagne.

Nice.

Katrina's tuna patties are really nice. Before the 30 mins heating from frozen in an oven at 220 C, it's best to peel back the cardboard lid so the patties crisps on the outside.

I just added some peas and beans to this food, left over from a lunch friends cooked for me.

This one was ok but I probably won't have it again. Dineamic can be frozen but they are bought fresh and are cooked in the microwave. There is still a Dineamic spicy Portuguese chicken meal left to heat, along with a KK curried sausages.

There will always be an England

 Well, English PM Richelle Snuck has pulled the pin on the grenade he has been holding. 

And Sir Keefe Stammer (I say nuffin') will be the next PM. 

You just wait 'Enry Higgins, citizens of England, to see how your lives immensely improve under the new Labour government. 

The English public health care system is widely admired around the world, but it seems it is grossly underfunded. Over to you Sir Keith.

Misinformation

A spokesperson for the conservative  Transport Workers' Union at a Labor Party conference said Victoria is an embarrassment to Australia with not having a train to the airport, especially as every other Australian capital city has one. 

Our airport line has been planned, work well and truly began but has now ceased as the State Government has suspending funding until it is in a better financial position. An argument is continuing over whether the station at the airport should be underground, the airport management's preference or the State Government's preference for a cheaper at ground level station. While a private company might operate the airport, the airport is owned by the Federal Government. I honestly don't know which would be better for users. Above ground sounds like a walk, below ground will be lifts and escalators and not necessarily better. I don't know, but I do know the airport management will be arguing for an underground station for some financial reason. It wants the surface land for something? It doesn't want to lose the parking revenue from having a train service to the airport so is it just delaying the train project? 

Back to the point, the TWU person said every other Australian city has an airport train. He diluted his argument with false information.

Adelaide, the capital of South Australia doesn't have an airport train, nor does the Hobart capital city of our island state Tasmania. Perth, the capital city of Western Australia has only just opened its railway line from the city to its airport. I don't know how convenient it is yet. 

Neither of our two major Territories has airport trains, Canberra in the Australian Capitol Territory and Darwin in our Northern Territory. 

Nor does my city of Melbourne in Victoria. There is a good chance I'll be dead by the time the train line is built. 

C'est la vie. 

Suggested reading

Later edit: I did not make it clear that this was a newspaper article published in The Age newspaper. 

We will have a new Governor General soon, one Samantha Mostyn. She  seems eminently qualified for the position. In Australia our King has State Governors to represent him and his representative for the whole of Australia is the Governor General. 

Practically, the Governor General is a public speaker and a ribbon cutter but that is I am sure doing them a disservice to describe their job as such. They also sign off on legislation presented to them by governments. The job comes with a couple of very nice houses. Of course the job is not always just ceremonial, as we discovered in 1975 when via the Governor General, Her Majesty The Queen sacked our Prime Minister and his government.

Anyway, the knives came out for the new Governor General once her selection was announced and I rather liked this read. NB, our so called Liberal Party is our conservative right wing party, like the Republican and the Tory parties. AFL is Australian (rules) Football League. I hope you can read it as it goes deep into the heart of sexism and misogyny. 

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/the-sick-joke-that-insults-our-new-gg-and-beyonce-20240404-p5fhhp.html

So I discovered a new word this week. While obsessively playing Beyonce’s stupendous new album, Cowboy Carter, in every room of the house, and on every street I walked down, I was trying to think of how best to describe her ferocity and strength, her sexuality and power as a singer, mother, lover.

Virility kept coming to mind, so I hopped online to check if it only refers to manhood or masculinity. And it does. But it turns out there is a female counterpart – muliebrity – meaning the state of being a woman. It often means softness, but surely, when applied to the Queen Bee, something immensely potent too.

A word we seem to have found little use for.

Beyonce is a woman of meteoric achievement who has soared and been savaged, and in experiencing the cycle repeatedly, as so many public figures do, she has railed against bile and pessimism, saying “with a lot of success, comes a lot of negativity”.

She’s right. I’m growing increasingly intolerant of pervasive negativity, of nasty, often partisan criticism, of seeing the worst in people and gracelessness in public life – it’s exhausting and depressing and just turns people off the news, and politics – and this week set me off again.

Because, within just hours of this week’s announcement that the businesswoman, board member and former AFL boss Sam Mostyn would be our next governor-general, the snark and criticism began, with headlines and commentary declaring: “Cushy job for the wokest of women”, “the most political pick for GG in a long time” and “How can a second-tier warrior of the new Left be a neutral umpire?”

Where was the respect? She hasn’t even started yet. How does anyone benefit from immediately ripping down an experienced leader, respected across major parties, whose future role is largely symbolic and ceremonial, but contains the potential to fill a vacuum left by bickering politicians?

Mostyn will be the second woman to occupy this position, after Dame Quentin Bryce (from 2008 to 2014), but the only people really focusing on this fact were those arguing that this somehow insulted men. And, weirdly, women.

In The Australian, one commentator wrote: “I guess some women will be celebrating Sam Mostyn’s appointment as governor-general as a clenched-fist moment of empowerment. Just quietly, women of that ilk will also be celebrating that someone called Samuel Mostyn would not have had a snowball’s chance in hell of even being short-listed.” I didn’t see any clenched fists, did you? The writer continued: “Mostyn’s appointment is the crowning achievement for one of the country’s most outspoken quota queens.”

Whaaaat? So, if you, as a woman, lament gender inequality, and you get appointed to a high position, it’s because the world has suddenly, despite all evidence to the contrary, tipped the other way? After a century of rule by Samuels, they’re suddenly locked out?

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Political leadership

Empowering, consultative, uniter: Meet Sam Mostyn, the next governor-general

Australia has had 27 governors-general. And, aside from Bryce, an academic, those 26 have been aristocrats, governors, politicians of all stripes, soldiers, judges, army officers, a prince, a former premier, military commanders and major-generals, legal scholars, an archbishop. Notice anything in that line up? A certain … in fact, literal … uniformity?

Mostyn was president of Chief Executive Women, worked for Labor in the 1990s, and the boards she has sat on include Virgin Australia, the Sydney Swans (she was the first female AFL commissioner), Mirvac, Transurban, the Climate Council and GO Foundation. She has exerted a quiet, broad influence. In her words, she has worked in “sport, civil society, arts and culture, First Nations reconciliation, sustainability in the environment, policy development, mental health, gender equality and young people”.

The idea that an appointee needs to demonstrate an absence of views, have no party background, no political experience, is a fiction. Male political leaders, premiers and opposition leaders have filled the position of GG without protest. Liberal MP Eric Abetz encouraged Mostyn, in shedding her “activism”, to emulate former governor-general Bill Hayden, an actual Labor leader.

Do we see men as political operatives and women as political activists?

At a time when the Liberal Party has been haemorrhaging female voters and losing seats to teal Independents, it’s fascinating to watch conservatives argue that the very words diversity, inclusivity and equality are somehow divisive, ignoring that they are values pursued by the majority of the corporate sector. Indeed, these values are not partisan but are held by a broad range of people without controversy or, in most circles, comment.

The idea that any woman who believes in gender equality, as well as diversity, is somehow a left-wing lunatic is a joke. A quick reminder of the likes of former Liberal PM Robert Menzies, who said: “In the long run, won’t our community be a stronger, better-balanced and more intelligent community when the last artificial disabilities imposed upon women by centuries of custom have been removed?”

Are the only skills we want in our governors-general military, legal, political and theological? Or do other skills matter too? Attributes Mostyn has been criticised for lacking – not being a “business heavyweight … [with, as] far as one can tell ... no track record running an actual business or taking P&L responsibility” – would disqualify most of the GGs in history.

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Opinion

Political leadership

The antics of Liberal men will cost the party the next election

Niki Savva

Award-winning political commentator and author

It is not as though Mostyn has engaged in corrupt conduct, in any kind of scandalous behaviour or made offensive remarks? How high we set the bar for women. How stubbornly we continue to portray them as interlopers into male worlds.

There is today a nastiness to much commentary that is counterproductive and only discourages decent people from agreeing to take on public positions, as the onslaught can begin early and become deafening, relentless.

We have witnessed the same thing being done to Australians of the Year. Look at how former army chief David Morrison, a good man with a long, distinguished career of service, was vilified as “woke” when he was selected because he became a diversity adviser after leaving the army, where he had been a powerful advocate of women in his ranks. Think of Grace Tame, a survivor of child sexual abuse and powerful foe of paedophiles, who was relentlessly pulled into culture war debates, against her will.

An extremely unpleasant experience, at best, for both of them.

Again, who profits from caricaturing these people and shutting them down? It’s patently obvious that we are crying out for some decency, some compassionate, even uplifting leadership. Former High Court judge William Deane had been on the executive of the Democratic Labor Party in the 1950s, and as governor-general from 1996-2001, as John Howard put it, “displayed an unfailing interest in the place of the disadvantaged within Australian society”. He also unified the country by the compassion he showed to those suffering after the Port Arthur massacre, the Thredbo landslide and a backpacking fire. He was loved for being human, for showing care.

And he was shown respect.

I couldn’t care less if I disagree with someone politically as long as they are a person of character, integrity and kindness.

New research by Sarah Cameron and Ian McAllister on the decline of the popularity of political leaders, published in the Electoral Studies journal, found that, over time, a perception of personal integrity has become crucial. They write: “We find that leader integrity is the main trait that influences leader popularity and the results indicate that its effect is increasing over time.” One possible explanation was: “in an era of declining public trust in politics and rising populist sentiments among the mass public, voters may be looking to their political leaders to arrest this decline. In short, voters may be seeking qualities in their leaders that they do not find in the political system as a whole.”

Mostyn was a frequent guest on the ABC’s former week night panel show The Drum, which I hosted for years, and was unerringly professional, reasonable, articulate and non-combative. She seemed able to unite, to enter any conversation and somehow bring people to a point of agreement. But what struck me most of all about her appearances was how unusually the younger women in the office responded to her when she came on. One of them said to me one night: “That is exactly the kind of woman I would like to be when I am older.” Others nodded in agreement. They shrugged when I asked why, as though it was obvious. She has an air of cool competence, obvious intelligence, equanimity, cheer and co-operation that lit them up.

Most of the young people I know would struggle to name any governor-general. So isn’t that a good quality to have in one: someone who inspires?

It’s a rarity not just in public life, but anywhere.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese congratulates Sam Mostyn.

Monday Mural

I am joining in with Sami and others for Monday Mural. 

Oh, these were taken back in 2022. They are getting stale. I took them when they adorned what is now known as Melbourne  Polytechnic. In its former lives it was known as Prahran TAFE and maybe back in its past, Prahran Technical College, Prahran Tech.

Some of the school building is very old and has a lot of history. But this is about murals. None stand out for me, but publishing them is a deck cleared. They are seriously large and quite high up, perhaps a little faded over time.

Just writing

It is over three weeks since Ray died. I seem to be doing ok. There seems to be plenty to occupy me, with dealing with matters related to his death, looking after myself, working out food for myself and general life matters.

Ray used to iron my collared shirts, which are the only shirts I wear. I am working out the best way to wash them and not iron them and still be presentable. Ray used to change his clothing often and now there is so little to wash now. 

I am using the dishwasher every third day instead of daily. Heating up bought meals does not produce much in the way of dishes. Even this third day, the dishwasher is hardly full but I am getting short on glasses. I cleaned the burnt on fat from the gas hotplate rings a few days ago, which left Steelo soap blocking jets. I turned on all burners on and the range hood fan to clear them. A glob of oil fat from the exhaust dropped down onto the hotplate, so the filters went into the dishwasher today to make up a load. 

Friends, and I am not sure that is the right word as while we have a long history, we've only seen them about twice a year since our friend David died in 2017, invited me for a home cooked lunch, which I did this Friday as I write. It was nice and they live in a stunning apartment on the beach front in Port Melbourne. overlooking the sea and Station Pier. I left home at 11.00, stopped off at shops in Port Melbourne, looked in the Reject Shop for some kind of container to send some of Ray's ashes to his sister in England. I am not paying for some posh urn. I found nothing but I did get a thought. Use a click lock food container from home and firmly tape it up with a freezer bag inside containing some of his ashes. I bought one of those multi size screw lid jar openers at the shop. I no longer have a strong man at home to open stubborn jars.

I bought a bottle of chilled Sav Blanc to take for lunch. 

We just talked and talked over lunch, continuing on after his partner had to leave for work. His first partner died from hepatitis related liver failure at the age of 69, M being ten years younger than him. He really struggled after his life partner died.   

Sometimes Ray would say I am like my mother, an only child, spoilt and she was probably spoilt for much of her life. She could get sympathy and help from anyone at any time. I never quite realised how much Ray spoilt me. However, I did say to him at times how I recognised what he did for me. I became extra spoilt when he retired and I was still working. He started to clean my ensuite and iron my shirts. But he didn't stop doing those things when I retired. When I was working, he cooked and I would do the dishes, that is load the dishwasher but and clean up mess, along with sorting out left overs, generally for my consumption. Once I retired for some reason Ray took over cleaning up the kitchen after cooking the meal. Cooking is one thing, but I can iron and I will push myself to do so. 

Anyway, it is all down to me now. The furniture hasn't been dusted for four weeks but I am not noticing any dust. Through our Mr Fixer in our building, I have cleaners coming on Monday to clean my ensuite and clean the balcony windows and balcony railing glass. They are cheap, Mr Fixer assured me. If that works out, I might have them come once a fortnight to clean my ensuite and once every four months to clean the balcony glass. Ray tried to clean the balcony glass, and only got as far as doing two panels of glass. He just couldn't do it anymore and while I was once the balcony glass cleaner, because of my arthritis, I can't do it.

I am spending money as normal and I know I will have an adequate amount to sustain me with my inheritance from my mother and now Ray but I am paying for everything on my own now. It costs so much to live in the building we live. Mind, I think we get value for what we pay. I paid the quarterly council rates, around $300. I sent some of Ray's clothes, two collared shirts, two polo shirts, two at home track suit pants and one pair of jeans to his English sister, who will cut up the fabric to make teddy bears. I almost fainted when Post Office staff said the standard postage price would be AU$87 plus $4 for the box. His clothes are in flight as of 12.15pm today.

While I've pretty well always be in a relationship from a young age, I am also kind of loner. I am quite happy to do things on my own, and I did many things on my own when Ray was still alive. 

Three times this week I've had to answer to shop people, where is your friend or where is Ray. We had a small Tatts prize to collect, $12. I did so and the woman said that Ray's card. You are not Ray. I told her every Thursday he would put the Lot gambling. It cost me $17 a fortnight. We had the same numbers from a very early years, so while the choice numbers increased from 40 to 45, our original numbers are only up to 40. We've had a couple of decent wins but we would be a long way behind financially. Most weeks, we get a small prize, less than it costs for the tickets, but it is always exciting to get something back. The Lot woman seemed unsure. I showed her a photo of Ray on my phone and she said, "Oh no. He was here last week". No hon, he was last here on April the 24th when we shopped a day earlier than our normal Thursday because of the public holiday, Anzac Day on the 25th. My voice cracked when telling her and my eyes welled with tears. As everyone is, she was so kind. 

Otherwise no tears, until this Saturday night when for some reason I cracked and said out loud, Why the fuck did you leave me. More tears as I write but don't worry. I am doing ok.

Life feels a little surreal at the moment. I feel a little like an actor on stage. But I am living a good life, with an adequate income and secure housing. So much more than many have.   

I am sure this needs a good edit, but I can't be bothered. 

I kept a ledger of the home expenses kitty and Ray kept a ledger for our shopping kitty. It is pointless now. 

Later edit: The Lot prize was $12. There is a presentable youngish man who is often sitting on the footpath outside the supermarket with an upturned cap in front of him for people to make a donation to him. He is unobtrusive and never asks anyone for money. Two Christmases ago I was going to give him a donation but he had disappeared, not returning until very recently. I gave him him the $12 prize.