Missing a tram

My intention was to catch the number 12 tram to South Melbourne. I had just missed one and the next scheduled was about ten minutes later. I walked along a side street to the next tram stop, instead of just waiting. It was quite rewarding. 

From a distance, the exterior of these two houses in this photo looked like painted bluestone. Much of inner Melbourne is built in bluestone, including many, many cobbled lanes. What we call bluestone is basalt rock, or lava rock if you like, formed many thousands of years ago when Australia had active volcanoes. It is a very strong and tough rock.

But hey, this is fake bluestone. It's just a facing material that looks like bluestone...not very much upon closer inspection. Frankly, the houses looked ridiculous. 

Modern housing is nicely integrated into older housing streets. 

It appears ivy has been let to get out of control. Never let your Ivy roam freely. She will get into to trouble and cause you trouble. 

Not a complete plant takeover, but getting close. What a huge home for some rich ****er. 

Quiz Fail and Win

Not smugly, no not at all, I was too young to really know The Beatles. I did buy Paul McCartney's Wings album, but that was my only love of The Beatles. Of course everyone knows some Beatles music. My Beatle ignorance was reflected my zero score in this week's  YP's quiz. A couple of quizzes before, I scored 7/10 in his Famous Women quiz. 

Last week I bragged to my Dead in Bed Neighbour when I messaged her, that for the first time I scored 10/10 for The Age newspaper Victorian topical quiz. There are four options in the drop down boxes. The answer to the question about Bright was a plausible guess. 

Still with The Age, each week since the quiz' inception I have participated in its weekly opinion poll. There is some kind of prize, valued at around $100 as I remember, but I've never won it. 

The poll is not general opinion, because readers of The Age are more educated than the general populace, more socially progressive, wealthier, and have a general care about society. They are less religious, but that's from a fairly low base anyway. They are older and feel the threat of street crime. Mostly there is no question to ask myself when answering, but at times there a 'but?'. 

I voted with the majority in every question in these polls, but I wanted to qualify my answer about YouTube being available to kids, because parents or carers can already restrict children to only watching YouTube for Kids. Had that been mentioned, I would have changed my answer. 

The cults within

I learnt this evening from a friend who I dined with that Pancake Parlour is a Scientology business, its founders all being of the faith.

I already knew that the happy clappers, the born agains, the Hillsong Church, is behind the coffee shop chain, Gloria Jean. Who would drink their crap coffee anyway? 

The Plymouth Brethrens is no more than oppressive cult, dressed up as religion.  

Yet, our government judges them as proper religions, as they receive tax exemptions etc. 

Will such benefits be handed out to Sovereign Citizens?  It is another cult, made up of people who don't believe in the organisation of modern society, and don't recognise the laws of Australia, nor its governments. It is odd that the word sovereign is used, since they clearly don't swear allegiance to our king.

The organisation's views are extreme, with a couple of police officers being killed a few years ago by a 'sovereign citizen', and now close to home, two more cops have sadly been allegedly killed by a 'sovereign', the murderer as I write, not yet being caught.  

In both cases, the police were doing their duties. It is just too awful. Ingrid, note, one of the police killed was Belgian born. Cops are not perfect, as older and more recent media shows. But generally they do a very difficult job, mostly quite well.  

It seems that for police to safely deal with these sovereign state nutters, is they need to go in with all guns blazing, in a metaphorical sense, or maybe not metaphorical.

My life experience has taught me to have little respect for 'organised' religion, but they are now mild compared to those I've mentioned above. Should I connect the cult religions to those sovereign state types? For sure I should. They are all fucking nutters. 

Just focus on building a better society. 

Later edit: Hels has written some detail and background about the Sovereign Citizen movement.

The 90th birthday of Brighton Antique Dealer

She has lived an extraordinarily interestingly life, from being the daughter of an Sicilian immigrant green grocer in the western suburbs, to mixing it with the best of the ever so posh suburb of Brighton. Her wheeling and dealing with antiques was very successful. She had a long behemien period. Her English is fluent with clear diction, and she is well spoken. She also speaks Italian and can get by with Arabic and Greek. She is interested in theatre, films, opera, ballet and especially jazz music. She is world travelled, with about seven years ago taking an around the world three month ship cruise. Funnily, on the cruise she met the mother of my gay former workmate. We did subsequently all catch up for a meal. 

She wasn't averse to taking a puff of the weed, yet she being Catholic, went and still does go to church every Sunday. Her first husband was an Arab with the biggest... When she saw it, she thought it wouldn't possibly fit. She had two children by him, so apparently it did fit. Her second husband was a well to do, cross dressing yacht club commodore. She loved him dearly and he died just before we met her, late 1990s.

Her eightieth birthday party was fantastic, with Jazzie making her last performance before she died a few months later. 

As her dyke daughter organised her 80th, so too did she organise her 90th. The birthday celebration was great,with an open bar (I made sure I got my fill) and a two course sit down meal. There was a DJ, and the birthday girl was certainly on the floor, as were rather a lot of older people. The evening went flawlessly, and given the age of most of the guests, the party began at 6.00 and was pretty well over by 9.30. 

She is a very kind person but not one who takes rubbish from anyone. I am privileged to have known her for twenty five plus years. Her signature greeting at any gathering is, 'I only come to kiss the boys'.

Jazzie at BAD's 80th.

BAD at her 90th as we sang happy birthday, with fifty guests. Aside from family, I'd be lucky to rustle up ten for my funeral. 

Monday Mural

I go to a party one night, and I get so behind with things, so Monday Mural comes to you on Tuesday, although it is possibly Monday for you. Sami has some good murals this week too. 

These were all taken in the same location, I remember not where. There is nothing too remarkable about them, but a couple are quite attractive.

Sunday Selections

Along with River and hopefully Elephant's Child, I am participating in Sunday Selections. This week it is different to my usual scatter of random photos, but records my visit with family to Melbourne Zoo. I was at the Dinosaur Park last Saturday and the zoo on Sunday.

Meerkats were a delight. 

A new giraffe was born not so long ago, apparently the first for many years. Only a week or so before we visited, it was let out into the public viewing area. It seemed to be already weaned. It was very popular, with many people surrounding the enclosure fence. 

With mummy giraffe, and daddy giraffe separated behind a fence. 

It did have a short gallop around, which made the crowds happy.

I did not know this very impressive bird. Sister said it is a stork. My bird identifying app would have found it straight away but it was steering me to pay for the app. I gave up and checked once I was home. It is called a black necked stork, but also known as a jabiru, the name that I am familiar with. Watching the bird walking around was very entertaining. 

A wombat, hey Wombat. I've never seen a wombat with a mottled coat before. I dunno.

The lion had worn a muddy path as it repeatedly marched along the cage wire, taking about 20 seconds to complete its return walking. While the enclosure is quite good, it was sad to see and I hope there are plans to better home lions. At the seal pool, with underwater viewing, the sole seal I could see was also following a repetitive swimming path. 

A python I would guess, non venomous. 

I expect the python would quite enjoy making an entree of this frog. In Australia an entree is a small course before the main, and not the main course as in America. 

Sister and I bailed, while other family stayed on. Sister went to Melbourne University open day, to check it out for Jo's future education, and I returned home. I could have caught a train and tram, which would be a little quicker, but given the train was over ten minutes away and after checking what the usual Sunday demonstrations happening to affect city tram services, I just caught the direct tram home. 

I was being nagged online to become a zoo member for one year, with my entry fee for the day deducted from the annual membership. I thought about it for a day or so, and then what I hadn't seen at the zoo, such as the butterfly house and the great apes. I decided the price for a poor old age pensioner was quite reasonable, so I paid to become a member. It is easy for me to visit, and I expect I might visit three times over the one year period. On my own!

PS Since our visit, by popular public vote, the baby giraffe has been named Tambi,  pronounced tumbee, a Swahili word meaning noodle,.