A hexibtion

The Melbourne City (lending) Library is rather marvellous, and during the gay month of Midsumma beginning with a huge carnival, followed by a dance party and culminating in Pride March on Sunday, there has been a huge number of other events, from films, to art exhibitions...well all sorts of things.

Hairdresser Friend asked if I wanted to go to Pride March, and I kind of would have. We used to form large parties of up to twelve people to lunch on Fitzroy Street with a few drinks and watch the parade. But I think my years of participating in such events has passed, besides, it is hard to get to without walking over one kilometre from a tram stop, unless I go into the city and out again on a different tram to the normal direct tram.

While it is a bit of a tenuous connection, N & B are considered part of the family and they came to Ray's memorial celebration. B is Ex Sis in Law's step daughter. N & B have a three year old daughter and a one year old son, and his birthday will be celebrated on Sunday, so no Pride March for me.

I can't totally ignore Midsumma though, so I visited the photo exhibition at the aforesaid City Library, and it was pretty cool for about twenty minutes. The curator of the exhibition was there and I overheard him saying and showing on his phone a visitor of the only photo in the collections that was definitely Australian. I assume most photos are of American lovers. There were more couples in military uniform than I would have expected. 

It is interesting that is was presented by the European Union to the Midsummer event, with a message from the EU Ambassador to Australia. Are our connections to Europe already becoming stronger as we slide away from the US?

Here are a few photos.

AI Slop Answer

I haven't given everyone a chance to check my last post, but as I was watching the YouTube clip, it jumped out at me. What? I stuck a pencil in the cog of the tape and rewound to check if what my eyes were seeing was true. Game Roon? Well done Marie Q.

AI Slop

Artificial Intelligence Slop. This is a term I've heard used and I've seen examples of AI Slop. This photo below is a prime example of AI Slop, as this photo pretended to a Melbourne Station in St Kilda but the building was actually London's Old Bailey Court.

In the 1950s there was a serious train crash at the Washington DC Union Station. The short YouTube video about the crash was interesting enough and sounded very factual, but what can be trusted in the video? I took a screenshot towards the end of the clip and something didn't seem quite right in what I was watching. Can you see it? Actually, I've seen a another AI Slop in the still. 

Slapping the missus and breast cancer

Written some time in 2024.

A random statistic I heard, one in seven Australian women will have breast cancer. Yes, even within the small circle I move in, I've known a number. In spite of much better treatments and results now, it is still a hell on earth treatment. And I complain about a three centimetre incision.

Unrelated:

Hey mate, how was your night?

Not great man. Things weren't good at home. I fucked up and gave the missus a rough time. 

What, you gave her a slap? 

Yeah, a bit more than a slap. 

Maaaate, you can't be doing that. You've got to get some self control.

Yeah, I know, but she deliberately pushes my buttons and then starts nagging. I have a couple of beers and I get so angry. She really provokes me, like she does it deliberately. 

Maaaayyyte, you are fucked in the head. You need to talk to someone, a professional, or at least one of those help lines. 

Yeah, I know. I hate myself for it, but I just can't help it.

Rinse and repeat, and in which country in the world does this not happen in some form. 

Traveller complaints

Written September 2023.

These are quite typical of reviews you would find at Trip Advisor. 

THESE ARE ACTUAL COMPLAINTS RECEIVED BY "THOMAS COOK VACATIONS" FROM DISSATISFIED CUSTOMERS:

1. "They should not allow topless sunbathing on the beach. It was very distracting for my husband who just wanted to relax."

2. "On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don't like spicy food."

3. "We went on holiday to Spain and had a problem with the taxi drivers as they were all Spanish."

4. "We booked an excursion to a wat…

See more

I am not Mellow Yellow

Draft post, not published, written June 2025.

A blogger recently mentioned about what yellow they have in their home, or something like that. Although I am a really a caring and sincere person, I cannot remember who that was.

Yellow is not my colour and not a colour I am fond of. I hunted around to find some yellow, and there were some odd bits. But that is the extent of my yellow.

Metric Madness

Written 08/25

I think it was in the 1970s when Australia became metric, and everything became metric. There was no wishy washiness of showing the old and the new. No, this is metric, this is how it is. You learn it, and we did, because we had to. For some, no doubt they had to make mental conversions, but younger people such as I was, quickly picked up the new system.

A bad moment for me was when we were driving in England, looking for a turn off I saw a sign with the name and 200 yards ahead. I know a yard is a bit less than a metre, but my brain would not instantly calculate the distance to being not very far ahead. England is half metricated. 

The worst airport

April 2025

I've made no bones about New York not being my favourite city. Nevertheless, our arrival to JFK airport from Toronto's Pearson Airport was seamless. If I was on my own, I would have caught public transport to our digs on Fortieth Street in Manhattan, but I had Ray to consider, so we caught a cab. I remember being underground for a time, which I now think was driving under East River.

(I was going to write on about the awful Newark Airport)

Covid

Written early April, 2024.

In a few months it will be four years since Covid hit the shores of Australia. Today I watched a YouTube clip from Mike Downie where he mentioned Covid and his experience in Vancouver. It screwed him up and affected his mental health. It affected R mentally, and I had no clever words or smart phrases to say in reply. 

I recall the early days of such fear, where people like Daniel Bowen crossed a street to avoid a fellow pedestrian, while they both acknowledged each others common decency. I remember when we were out walking and R involuntarily coughed without covering his mouth and the woman walking towards us jumped a metre to the side.

I can dispassionately write about it, but I was up there with being fearful. It was a fear of the unknow in the early Covid times. I kept wearing a mask long after most people stopped. Even now I will use a mask on public transport at times and in medical facilities after observing what the clear policy is of the facility. 

However from Doctor Andrew's expertise, it seems like you have to spend a decent amount of time with a Covid infectious person. You probably won't pick it up from surfaces or passing an infectious person on the street. 

Nevertheless, it is wrong to say post Covid. It is still among us and still killing people, not that the disgraced former British Prime Minister Boris Johnston cared, to quote, "no more fucking lockdowns – let the bodies pile high in their thousands.".

We really do have to remember that Covid is still rife and it kills. We've just had our sixth Covid vaccinations and you too should get the latest serum. 

Old posts never published

Unfinished and unedited posts follow, going back a couple of years. While some were worth continuing with, I haven't. Don't feel obliged to comment, but of course they would be welcome.

The mopping Rover

Rover has been difficult getting to and from wherever he has been ordered to clean. He wasn't taking a direct path but wandering around under the bed in the spare room, his home base. In frustration at his antics, I picked him up and took him to the area to be cleaned and then ordered him to clean. That worked twice and he found the direct route home, but would not climb onto charging and emptying stand. I eventually put him up by hand and he began charging but of course as he didn't make the move himself, he didn't empty his bin.

For some reason Rover has corrected his path and now travels directly. You really have to work hard with Rover in the early days to get him right. The time I've spent on my phone app for Rover, the time I've spent watching him, the time I've spent with other Rover matters, I could have vacuumed myself, perhaps twice. However, we are on the upward. I always knew I bought a toy.

Rover mops the tiled areas. I've learnt to tell him to do all jobs twice and use extra water with added detergent on tiled areas. In this video you can see Rover's mopping arm come down. The underside of the arm is a mopping material, velcro connected to the arm. It has to be changed perhaps every six months or so. 

I wondered if Rover could sweep and mop the balcony? I measured Rover's height and the gap at the bottom of the glass, where Jass loves to stick her head out, and no. Rover would go to his death as he went under the glass. 

Dollars and Personal

When governments, or even private developers, used to talk about the cost of projects, they once, and it seems like just a few years ago, spoke of millions of dollars or hundreds of million dollars. Nowadays such projects are spoken of in billions of dollars, and I think we are now conditioned to hearing billions of dollars and no long gasp for air in shock.

But what is a billion dollars? Billions was an unimaginable amount to me as a child and teeenager. Apart from the obvious that it was a massive amount of money back then, the definition changed. 

When I was young, a billion dollars was a million million dollars. Unknown to me, Australia changed to the US billion dollar definition, a thousand million dollars. I think I discovered that in the eighties. The world followed the new definition but there wasn't a date announced for the change. It was a slow dawning. 

I can't put a photo of a billion dollars laid out with notes, more is the pity if it was mine, but can I write one billion dollars in numerals (I just amused myself by accidently typing numberals). 

One million is $1,000,000. One billion is just an extra zero? $10,000,000? No, that is ten million. One hundred million, two zeros. $100,000,000. One hundred million equals one billion. That must be correct. I is a maths genius. 

What a boring post. I continue to be surprised at how long it takes to get from street level to the platforms of our new Metro Tunnel train. I had plenty of time today at Town Hall Station today after getting my hair cut, with an un asked for eyebrow trim, but after holding a lift for a woman, her two young children and their dog, and again gesticulating to her for the lift to travel to the platform from the concourse, I just missed my train, and so did they. She spoke Spanish to her children and her dog, and was carrying a crudely drawn Aboriginal flag on a piece of cardboard. Spanish speaking woman had been supporting Aboriginal rights and indoctrinating her children. I liked her. I went back to the street to what I could see. With another plug for our ABC TV, and the government of NSW, what a terrific music concert from Sydney Harbour, as I am about to hit publish. 

The pro white Australia march had broken up earlier as I observed in Elizabeth Street, carrying their flags wrapped around their sticks, trying to hide their symbols of white power. I stared into a number of eyes, in a stupid attempt to get understanding. They all had dead and unseeing eyes, staring straight ahead. 

With another plug for our ABC TV, and the government of NSW, what a terrific music concert from Sydney Harbour, as I am about to hit publish. 

Today I must go out in 43/110 degree heat for a medical appointment. The obvious is to catch a a tram, but there is no guarantee of one with aircon. I will drive, after calling reception to get the car park access code.

A very happy divisive day

Happy Australia Day, and as is my wont most years, also happy Indian Republic Day. Thankfully the overt jingoism that occured in Australia for several years seems to have toned down since Covid lockdowns. The genuine celebrations of our country's achievements and what it is to be Australian are wonderful, but protests become louder. I've long thought the date should change to reduce friction.

It's not such a happy Invasion Day for Australia's indigenous population.

The new ABC tv programme Always Was Tonight is quite challenging satire to watch, and it's been a while since the ABC has made anything that upsets conservative types. 

Those usual types are on the warpath, aided and abetted by the the conservative Murdoch media, The Australian and Daily Mail.  

The white head coverings in this clip are called spit hoods, and I don't necessarily agree with not using them. Staff who work in these places don't deserve to be spat upon, unless their own behaviour has been bad.

The 'Rat

Ballarat that is, where Phyllis drove us mid week. We missed a turn onto the M8 from the M80, or something like that, and ended up in Ballarat Road where we found very cheap petrol to fill the up the car's tank. We were soon back on what became the freeway to Ballarat and parked somewhere near to the lane where we could see suspended umbrellas. 

As well as this photo, we took photos of us too.

We walked for a bit and came across the wonderful main Sturt Street, once the major through road and tram street before trams were shut down and the city bypassed by a motorway. This is the Ballarat Town Hall, wth the usual grumpy and frumpy old Queen Vic statue.

If you click here, you can see a night time photo I took of the tower last May from my accommodation when I visited Ballarat.  

The National Mutual Insurance Company building is impressive, with the fountain to commemorate explorers Burke and Wills, who died when investigating inland Australia.

We lunched at the Rusty Spud, where I ate nachos and Phyllis and Kosov had a very loaded spud each. Too much  potato, they proclaimed. Duh, Rusty Spud? You didn't expect potatoes? As we were leaving, a man wearing a dress was entering with a woman. 

Interestingly, we paid for street parking at the umbrella lane, and the unused balance carried over to the parking meter at Rusty Spud.

We stopped off at a supermarket for a packet of soup and some bread for my dinner, me not wanting much that evening after a large lunch. I remarked that there were a lot of fat people in Ballarat. Andrew, Phyllis proclaimed, you are fat shaming. It was just an observation, Phyllis. 

We circled Lake Wendouree with a stop off to see this fountain that I've never seen before, in spite of visiting the city many times. God, it is ugly, but at least it was a working fountain.

We reached the Botanic Gardens, and sadly the tourist tram around the lake on Wednesdays does not run, and nor is the tram museum open. I had to point out the tram tracks running beside the road to Phyllis and Kosov. We had lovely wander around the botanic gardens, although it was a bit warm in the 25/80 heat.

The statue's male groin covering is rather small, and I think things were smaller back in Roman times. The small appendages were seemingly very functional though. 

The hydrangea heads at the top of this photo were the largest I've ever seen. The photo doesn't really show how large they were. 

We did walk along the line of sculptured busts of former Australian Prime Ministers. I think the last one was the exerable PM Tony Abbott. Two more heads are in the offing, and at times a head is chopped off by vandals or someone who hates a former Prime Minister. Moulds are kept to replace them. Some of the trees within the gardens were truly stunning. 

The journey home was slow as we approached Melbourne in afternoon peak traffic. It was a whole lot worse in the other direction.