Friday Funny

It is still Friday somewhere isn't it? 

I love these guys, especially their accents. They turned up in one of my social media feeds. I should research who they are. They do at times do quite smutty stuff, but I've saved you dears from the more extreme. 

Friday Extra

I came across this US YouTuber Adam Mockler and I sat mesmerised for an hour. While in some ways I think he is a bit too clever for his own good, he does nail it, in clip after clip. I love that in such a short time, chickens are coming home to roost for #47 voters. 

And speaking of the US, I was not alone when I thought bad thoughts about the murder of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthCare. He led a truly evil company, and according to polls, some 41% of young people under the age of 30 thought the murder was 'acceptable'. 

Viva la Economic Black Out Day.

Just another day

This was Wednesday, meant to be published Thursday, but today is Friday.  I intended writing a brief post about my day like Steve does, with an economy of words, but I failed. 

Hippie Niece's daughter needed a dental check at the Dental Hospital in Carlton. I met them for coffee and cake at a rather good cafe in Lygon Street, called Cyrus Artlounge. There is a gallery upstairs and the great niece has been there before and dragged me up a steep spiral stair case to see the tasteful nude female paintings. The cafe hosts 'life drawing' evenings. You know what life drawings is a code expression for. 

It was a nice catch up with Hippie Niece and her daughter, H, who with her twin sister and father have recently travelled to New Zealand for the two girls to meet their father's family. They had a wonderful time, and their father's mother, who is quite strict, loved the girls and spoilt them. H told me she didn't like the plane trip, had a headache and was sick. Just a bit sick?, I asked.  No, very sick. You didn't projectile vomit did you H? Yes, four times. I made a big mess.

Merlot, you may recall another projectile vomit situation at a theatre by another of my great nieces.

Hippie Niece had met the family in New Zealand when she was with her Maori partner. She recounted how his now late grandmother just stared at her with malevolent eyes as she ate a mango. Hippie Niece had been travelling in Europe and Britain just before she and her Kiwi partner got together, and she did think the twins might be red haired and Scottish looking. 

It was a nice catch up with them. On Sunday I've been invited to Ex Sis in Law's home to meet her husband's daughter's second child, a month or so old. He is a nice looking baby named Winston, and there is a joke going around that it is Wynston. I was warned when I was invited to not mention anything about Wynston with a y. The parents are over the joke.

It was a hot day, so I was happy to return home to the cool. Kosov! Attend me. Yes Andrewww. 

We will look in the crate in my wardrobe to see what is there and get rid of what I don't want to keep. I will help you Andrewww.  

Forty plus years of theatre programmes from all kinds of shows, some possibly valuable. The oldest I believe is from the 1980s when we saw Debbie Reynolds perform at The Palais. Some work paperwork, which I should have gone through. A stack of of public transport timetables, from the 1990s I think. Several maps. 

There was one single piece of paper with some Hungarian printed writing on one side and a handwritten address on the other. Cogs turned, gears engaged, and I remembered. When in Budapest (wow, 11 years ago) we met up with Jane and Lance Hattat and Lance wrote down the address of the rather good restaurant Spinoza in the Jewish quarter for us to catch a taxi to meet them later for dinner. We had a lovely evening, with the only  problem being the fun couldn't kick on as we had to be up early to be ready to board our Danube River cruise boat. Lance had offered to escort us to a gay bar where there was a special leather party night. Ray was so annoyed with me that I insisted on being responsible and returning to our accommodation and not go off to a gay bar. I think that was my beginning of me being an old man. 

In behind the crate was a gift from our friend Danny in Malaysia. He has a coffee sales and coffee machine business, as well as a barista training school and he gave us this 2002 Lavazza Coffee calendar. The were very popular to being hung in mechanics workshops and male building workers' lunch rooms. You get the idea. This calendar was never used and only opened once. I just checked and there is one the same on Ebay for about AU$180. I believe Lavazza collaborate with top photographers from around the world to produce the annual calendar. Duh, of course the calendar must be annual. 

Keeping in mind I had cleared this crate out a few years ago, ridding it of most travel brochures, tickets and all sorts of things associated with travel, we just put everything back in the crate. So as Swedish death cleaning, that was a bit of a fail. I expect in a couple more years I will again wonder what is in the crate, and repeat the process. 

There is a smaller crate that I need to check. It is marked 'Diaries and IT'. In the early days of IT, I wrote things down. I'll leave that for another day.

Drying your duds and a swing at home

Something I've picked up over the years of being on the information super highway, is that generally Americans don't hang washing outside to dry. There must be plenty of opportunities to dry clothing on a line outside in the warmer months, but it doesn't seem to be a thing they do, even if they have a freestanding house.

I can't dry clothing outside, even on the balcony, as that is prohibited by Owners' Corporation rules. But when we had a free standing house, we dried clothes on an outside clothes line, perhaps at times having to give them a final finish in a clothes dryer for ten minutes in the winter. Truly, I could never tell the difference but people used to say how lovely and fresh their clothing, bedding and towels were if they were dried outside (in air full of traffic exhaust fumes).

Now, I and my tenants hang our washing on the clothes rack in the spare bedroom and turn on the ceiling fan. Maybe twelve hours after being under the overhead fan, the garments will dry. They never use the clothes dryer, but I do for a short time to soften up my towels once they are dryish. My worn socks and jocks are washed about once a fortnight, and dried in the dryer. I am not hanging up 42 small garments on a clothes rack. Not shown in yesterday's post of our house was a pull out clothes line attached the neighbour's brick wall, but I can't remember what it was attached to when pulled out. The clothes dryer was rarely used. 

Of course the Australian invention, the Hills Hoist, dried clothes in most back yards of Australian houses. They would spin around in the wind and they were raised higher by a crank handle, or if you were posh but without staff, mains water pressure. On very hot days with a strong wind, you could almost hang your washing out and take inside as dry the first garment you hung up by the time you hung out the last garment. Strong horizontal bars on something that could spin were very enticing to children, so a number of inferior brands would have bent bars. Yes, I was guilty. 

I expect if people have the space, a form of the Hills Hoist is still used, now made by aluminium and nylon cord but back in the day, galvanised steel and twisted wire rope.  

So be it Britain, Europe or America, how do you dry your clothes, and is it economical?

Just not quite enough

Debby and Tim have finished laying their timber floor at the new home to be, with only just enough flooring timber. It was a long time ago but I'll repeat the tale about when we tiled the kitchen floor at our cute little Victorian (period) cottage in Balaclava.

The gas stove had fixed piping and I think we disconnected the gas pipe to tile under the stove, but we ran out of tiles and so left it untiled aside from around the edges.

You may be able to see, but if not the fridge was to the left down a single step to a carpeted area where the small dining table sat along with a computer desk with a tower, keyboard, printer and CRT screen. 

Goodness knows why, but the buyer of the house had our carefully selected two tones of green trim, not really visible, and cream painted over with all white. We were horrified. The paintwork was in a fine condition. Mr Zeal next door made our mail box and fitted it for us. 

The lounge suite which fitted the area perfectly was ridiculously small when we moved here. Above the fire place is my grandparents' clock on the mantle and we had a cozy gas fire installed, along with a hearth. The chimney was raw brick and had significant lean. My second brother, the tradie, made it look straight just with plaster board. The chimney baffle for the fire place had to be kept open, otherwise the rising heat was immense. Once, unnoticed by us, the baffle fell forward and the mantle was scorched. To the left is an Ikea Billy shelving unit, now at my sister's, and held the small tv. One of two mounted speakers is in the corner. The mirror above the mantle came from my grandmother's dressing table. 

I don't take pride in much of what I've done in life, but I do of our rear courtyard. The basics were there. This is a winter photo, so allow for that. In the foreground were two pots of New Zealand Christmas bushes. From the distant left was an ivy covered fence, leading to a bougainvillea, dormant in winter, then a weeping birch tree with a terracotta bird bath and a stag fern on the tree, then along the back fence, propped up with metal stakes in the lane way behind, and the gate to the lane, more ivy with an overhanging of a wisteria vine. Out of sight to the right was next doors garage wall, covered by creeping ficus. I had to trim some of the ficus from the roof of next door's garage. I had an electric hedge cutter by then. There were garden beds too, but I can only remember the one to the far right, with winter roses, or Christmas roses, if you like. I think the pot to right contained a nandina.

My goodness, did our courtyard see some great gatherings over the years we were there. Out of sight was a gas barbeque, used frequently. Ray and I used to sit out at the table on warm summer nights, with a glass of Scotch and play backgammon. There were outside speakers that the cd player could be switched to. I've only just remembered the speaker switching box inside. 

Weeds and baby tears would grow in the brick paving, and I began with using weed killer, but ended up using boiling water, and that worked. 

My bedroom at the very front of the house. Out of sight was a bookcase in front of a boarded up fireplace and behind that was my exercise bike sitting in the fireplace which has been or will be a surprise for someone one day. 

The glass coffee table came with us to our apartment, along with the glass hall table to the left. One day Ray slammed down his glass  on the coffee table in anger, and the table shattered. I can't remember what happened to the glass hall table, but it was here for a while. Under the air con unit is a cheap print of something, covering over a rough part of the wall where an old style cooling only air con was installed by us. I remember we sold the aircon unit for a decent amount. To the left was a gas wall heating unit, that stopped working. We called a gasfitter and he said it was old and unsafe, and disconnected the gas supply to it. That was when we bought the reverse cycle air con unit, for heating and cooling. 

It is amazing how I have waffled on, inspired by the post by Debby about just having enough flooring timber to complete a job. 

Monday Mural

With Sami and others, here is my Monday Mural.

I wonder what the crosses are about?

Never mind, this sentiment on Jacka Boulevard in St Kilda was nice.

What an exhausting social weekend, but good that I'm alive to 'enjoy' them.

Sunday Selections

Along with River and others, my usual random Sunday Selections.

Brother 1 has grown fine crops of tomatoes and has given away many many, just none to me because I haven't seen him for a while. 

In the age of digital photography and selfies, the popularity of this photo booth outside Flinders Street Station is amazing. I believe many a first kiss happened in this photo booth, behind the half length privacy curtain. No doubt half length is for good reasons. 

A bargain, I thought. Phyllis had asked me to buy them. 12 sausages for $4! No, the 12 is minutes of cooking time, and the latter written sideways. I'd call that deceptive. 

Phyllis, what have you done to my view! Fix it!

Thank you.

I broke a tumbler, with two of the set six already broken, then Phyllis broke another one. There was also three of a set of four left. I like full sets. Other odd glasses were removed from the cupboard and all will go to the charity shop.

Aww, thank you Phyllis. They are so colourful.

And something for Phyllis himself. The one on the left is metal and heavy.

Hmmm, I have seen worse sculptures. Who knows what it is about. 

I believe this is Princess Cruises' Royal Princess. Mid photo is the attractively named MSAC, Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre, and miniature yacht storage sheds on the edge of Albert Park Lake in the foreground. I chopped out the equipment laden building rooves, just for you Hels. It does make a better photo.