Chopsticks at home

It's a bit like typing on your phone. From my observations, the kiddies, which are now reaching their forties, type on their phones with their thumbs. My thumbs don't work like that and yours probably don't either. It is very much a digital natives against people who have learnt digital later in their lives. We boomers poke at our phones with our forefingers. 

I'd like to tell these young people with their extra special thumbs about what what it was like to send an SMS in 90s, where you pressed the 1 key three times to make the letter 'c', then once on 1 for an 'a', twice on the 6 key to make 'n', then once on the 8 key to make a 't'. You then have the word cant. I forget how we did punctuation. I was quite fast at phone writing then. I fell behind. My first phone was an Ericsson 218. The large battery was detached from the back and put onto a charger. My version of a power pack back then was a spare battery. When I bought my next phone, I sold this one for $100, quite a sum in the late 1990s. 

I was also behind the eight ball when it came to using chopsticks. Now young Australians are very adept with chopsticks. I suppose I learnt to use them in my mid twenties but I was never very proficient with them. I could use them to the point where I wouldn't starve. 

When Ray cooked an Asian meal, the Asian styled crockery would come out. A large bowl for the food. A bowl with a lid for the rice, small bowls to eat from, Asian china spoons, and....chopsticks. I would use them for a while and towards the end,  use the Chinese spoons to finish off. My hand shaking doesn't help with the use of chopsticks and now if I eat Asian food out, I ask for a fork and spoon.

We stopped doing so a few years ago but we used to also make Chinese green tea in a Chinese teapot but I can't remember what cups we used. Well, now I think about it, I can. They were small without handles but where are they? Maybe at the back of this shelf that I can no longer reach as my height shrinks. When unloading the dishwasher, I used to be able to put the Chinese crockery up on this shelf but in recent years, I could no longer reach so I left the crockery on the bench for taller Ray to put up. I'll have to get the steps out to see what is up there, but then why should I bother. 

I am away for a couple of days for a great niece's birthday party. Catch you all next week sometime. 

Luscious Lad

Perhaps this post should be titled Faggot Friday.

I can't help it if I come across things, or people send me things. I don't know who this is or where this Italian lad was competing, but he has the biggest smile and is so full of joy. No it is not that Paris Olympic pole vault clip that you may have already seen.

What's the music being played in the clip? I quite like it. Shazam! Dua Lipa is English Albanian. How many just ordinary looking attractive men can be inserted into one music clip! I doubt there are any Muscle Marys.

A civic duty and public service

As frequent public transport user, phone noise drives me mad. The evil eye does not work as the culprit is engrossed with what they are seeing and or hearing. I have theatrically moved seats. I've certainly thought about speaking up. I've thought about offering advice about the price of earbuds at a $2 shop. 

As for the dimwits who hold their phone like a plate in front of their face and use the speaker phone, they need to be removed from the gene pool. Thank you for the example, Alistair Dabbs. 

 

I don't remember any of this happening on English public transport but clearly it does now according to the newspaper article I've linked to above. The citizens of Japan and Malaysia get it right. If there is a train vestibule or an area between carriages, they will move there to talk on their phones, otherwise noise does not emerge from their phones. I qualify this broad statement with it is a few years since I have been in either country. 

I don't expect people to ignore an incoming call, but please, keep it brief and there is no need with modern phones to talk at maximum volume and no need to see the person you are speaking to, or use speaker phone. As for any other noise coming from your phone, just don't do it. 

Our regional trains have a quiet carriage. Photo from Southern Highland News. I was on a train last week in a quiet carriage with some young women sitting on the floor, blocking an exit doorway and being very loud. The conductor came and had a word and all was silent as the girls moved a bit out of the way. There were seats available but they wanted to stay in a group. 

Holiday Memories

Gattina near Waterloo in Belgium recently posted about Mannekin Pis, the pissing boy statue in Brussels. It was most interesting but what else is Brussels known for, or Belgium if you like? Fine chocolate? Cigars? Cones of something to eat on a street (yes, I forget what). Hercule Poirot?

Less well known is the amazing Atomium. Photo from Wikipedia.

And Belgium is famous for crime solver Tin Tin with his dog, Snowy. This is what we saw when we exited Brussels Midi Station in 2014 as we sat in the cigarette butt carpeted seating area outside Brussels Midi. We were changing trains after travelling on the high speed Thalys train from Amsterdam to travel on Eurostar to London. Seeing peaking Tin Tin  and Snowy high above a building was surreal.

Eurostar, the operator of the high speed train between London and Paris via the Chunnel,  has taken over Thalys, along with expanding services to other European destinations. My god, a cursory check has indicated multiple owners and operators of the Chunnel and trains. It's very messy. 

Miss Harris goes to not Paris but Washington

An attempt at humour involving the film Mrs Harris goes to Paris. 

This Harris person seems like she might be a good fit as President of the United States. I wondered why as Vice President, she kept a lowish profile. Ha, she was saving and accumulating her ammunition. She remained a respectful junior to President Biden until he retired. Look at her big....forehead. There is a lot of brain in there. 

Her or the party's choice as her Vice President running mate seems to be a good one, a decent fellow with a lot of experience and perhaps better at connecting to Hillary's accurate but unwise phrase, the basket of deplorables. 

OK, I'll put my brave hand down with my left foot and call it. Harris will win. Surely Americans are over the god awful orange and hysterical #45 who brought such terrible division to the country, as the world watched wide eyed and gobsmacked. Sadly many in the world lost respect for the US. It just seemed too crazy to comprehend. 

You know one really good thing about the US is that behind the scenes, administrative government goes on. At times fraudsters will be caught out. Corruption will be rooted out. Dodgy companies will be called to account. Large and powerful companies will be questioned about their practices in a public forum. #45 will go down in history as a shocker. 

Seems kind of like my own country really, reactive rather than proactive. 

Monday Mural

Carpet is being laid today. I expect my desktop will be disconnected and who knows when I will be back. I am so stressed about it all, trying to think of ways to stay away from home while it is turned upside down. Then as I mentioned, I have two medical procedures this week, one Wednesday and one Friday. Posts for this week are scheduled but don't expect me to reply. 

The Boarder firstly asked if he leave some of his belongings here, Sunday, until he moves in on the delayed date the 20th but then he told me his friend's landlady where he is now staying will not agree to an extension to him staying, so he will be moving in here Wednesday night. I didn't really want him here until the 20th as I will be away for the two nights at the weekend after he moves in, meaning he will be here on his own. I am not an unworldly old naïve man and he seems decent and trustworthy. I've noticed he is not backwards in speaking up. Hmmm. My home, my rules. 

On to the mural. How on earth, or rather why, do I end up in such obscure places. I always go to places to see something. It seems this hotel is in Sydney Road. Why was I there? I have no idea.

Opening the closet to expose your pepper

Well, I've never been in the proverbial closet, so the headline should read cupboards. 

We had these cupboards built into the space where your knees would be if you were sitting at the never used breakfast bar on bar stools. They are so useful but looking a bit empty these days as the food stuffs winds down, now that I have no one to cook for me. (Food parcels are welcome)

I chucked out a large container of some green peppermint lollies. Why were they there taking up so much space? What's in the container on the left? We used to drink Chinese green tea.

Oh, a remembrance of times past.

This is the spice cupboard above the range hood, above the stove, err, hotplates and oven. You can only see the front row. There is more behind.

What do I do with this? The peppercorns have run out. Do I buy a new grinder with some peppercorns within? Nope. I need to manually fill it. It's funny because it used to my job, whereby I would fill the salt and pepper grinders when they were empty. Ray found this far too late and liked to fill when a quarter was left in the grinders, so he used to beat me to it and it was another job I didn't have to do. I have always been a person who doesn't top up until something has finished. There are two exceptions, the car's petrol tank and my drink.

My memory says look for a small cellophane packet of peppercorns to refill the device. I searched high and low and there weren't any peppercorns. I was getting cross with Ray for not buying a new packet of peppercorns, even though it is over three months since he couldn't. I took a third look and lo and behold, Ray did not fail me.

With my shaky hands, I could envisage a vast quantity of peppercorns needing to be vacuumed off the bench and floor. There must be a better way to fill the grinder and I worked out how.