Bittersweet

It is unsaid between R and myself, but we both know this will be last time we will visit England. It will be the last time we see his family, unless any of the younger ones visit Australia.

It will certainly be the last time R sees his sisters. R is getting old, his sisters are too and I am not far behind. We are only going this time because we found some very cheap business class air fares. We are too old for cramped 23 hour economy flights. We are nervous and stressed. I tell R, we have done everything we can to ensure things work for us, but there is always the unknown.

 

As this is published, we may well be in a state of panic.

The bare bones are we arrive in Colombo with a hotel stay of around 12 hours included in the flight cost. We arrive in London about 8pm. We are staying in a nearby Heathrow hotel and have a morning flight (insert some bad words about BA domestic) to Newcastle upon Tyne. To return, we have a tickets booked for a train to London for a late evening flight and the the reverse of travelling to England.  

Normally I don't blog or interact but this time I may interact. We shall see.

Back in a month or so. Take good care of yourselves my friends. 

Vale Barry

It was sad to hear the most brilliant performer Barry Humphries died, but at 89 clearly his best years were behind him.

Here are a couple of clips, the first brief and I doubt I need to tell you who his character is in the first clip. The second is longer and Sandy Stone of a different era was my favourite Humphries' character. He was just such an amazing performer. I think we saw Dame Edna on stage ever so many years ago.

Deck Clearance

It was supposed to be at the Frankston Botanic Gardens, but was changed to McDonalds at Karingal because of the weather. Well, that is a bit of come down but the night before Melbourne received 38mm of rain. It would have been very wet underfoot. There were so many kiddies who attended the party, I had to kick them out of way to walk around. 

Afterwards we gathered at Ex Sis in Law's home to celebrate the six year old cafe latte coloured twin's birthday. While Sister, Bone Doctor and Jo could not make it, the rest of the family were there. As per usual, Mother made a late entrance. 

There was much watching of children playing and babies crawling to escape to any door that looked like it would take them outside.

We brought six year old great niece Little Em home with us to stay a couple of nights.

Day 1, she nagged to swim in the pool and R did take her. He cooked sausages, chips and veggies for dinner. That went down well enough. She went to bed at 8 and woke at 7.

Day 2, we had bought tickets to a circus in St Kilda. R was in control, we were there way too early. My arthritic pain was so bad in the area before entering the circus, I found a seat with a backrest, the only way I can relieve the pain. I felt rather unwell. R, can you get me a bottle of water? He did. Oh, I really feel crook. I tried to stand but I could not. I felt faint. I drank some water, and then with my hand clapped over my mouth, brought some of it back up. In some way it was good that I had my hand clapped over my mouth when I then vomited big time and stopped it being projectile. Instead it went mostly over me. The attendant nearby rushed up with cloths and paper towel to help me and clean up. I apologised profusely and he insisted, no problem. Nice lad. I tried to send a complimentary message to Circus Royale, but it there was no contact listed as it is about to launch a new website. 

I visited the toilet and cleaned vomit from my glasses and realised my clothes were in such a mess, I could not attend the circus. I stank. My arthritic pain was so  bad and I felt so unwell, I very slowly walked 200 metres to the tram stop. R wanted to call an ambulance but I knew I would recover. I promised to send him a text once I was home. 

Just two tram stops from home someone sat on the seat next to me. I apologised to him for the smell and said I would soon leave tram. 

I sat in my armchair which always fixes my arthritis pain, then showered and washed my clothes. Imagination or not, I seemed to still smell vomit. 

The circus was apparently very good. My $35 ticket went to waste. R and Little Em returned and there was more swimming in the pool. We took Little Em to a pub for dinner. She went to bed at 9 and did not wake until 8. 

The next day we took her to Prahran for a bit of shopping. We bought take away food and coffee for us and sat in Prahran Square. Little Em loved the fountain water feature and clambered around the 'forest hill'. 

Back home, there was more swimming, an hour and half. 

Oldest Niece with Little M picked up Little Em late afternoon on their way home after staying a couple of nights with my ailing Step Mother who lives up north. 

A couple of photos.

When Little Em stepped into our car to bring her here, she remarked, "How come your car is so clean?". I replied, because we don't have children. Little Em certainly made the place untidy without ever any attempt to tidy up. Things were just dropped on the floors.

The Shrine

Oh. I forgot. When Sister and Jo visited, R and myself took Jo to the Shrine of Remembrance. 

The Eternal Flame.

How Putin and Zelensky could get together. Two snouts in one trough. Quakers are cool. 

I see our home, our building at least.

Gorgeous cypress trees. 

The old Observatory in this photo.

The spire of St Ignatius on Richmond Hill. 

Worth visiting just for the views but R found it to be a sad place. Well, it is a war memorial after all. 

I can't afford to visit the US because of health insurance costs

This comes from the website Quora and is written by Mark Pitt. I innocently thought if you did at least have health insurance in the US, you would be ok and the insurance company will look after you as the British National Health System does. Australia's system of public health care is not as good as the NHS, as I well know, with very long waits for important surgery, never mind the cost of visit to a doctor, though subsidised by Medicare, still costs a bomb. However, if you have something life threatening, your treatment will be prompt and absolutely free, as I also know.

Note point 4. In the UK a 5% chance of success would ensure alternatives were looked at and it is unlikely surgery would have proceeded.

If this is accurate, it is damning and could possibly happen to any of you American readers of my blog. 

1. My friend Mike (name changed) is a civil engineer who married his second wife following the death of his first wife in a car accident. Her car was smashed into by a garbage truck.
2. Mike’s new wife is a Pharmacist, so know the medical field very well.
3. A couple of years ago, Mike started having headaches and developed a lazy eye.
4. Mike was diagnosed with an aneurysm on his brain. Surgeons gave Mike a 5% chance that the surgery would work. Mike risked it.
5. Mike had the surgery, following by a stay in hospital of a couple of months.
6. Fluid on the brain then caused mini-stroking, so he had further surgery to slow the swelling. His lazy eye is now permanently closed.
7. After his hospital stay, he was transferred to a facility in order to rehabilitate. He stayed for a few months before his insurance company informed him they would no longer pay to keep him there.
8. Mike then went to another facility, where he stayed for a while before relapsing. A further hospital surgery ensued.
9. After discussions with the insurance company, Mike’s wife convinced the original rehabilitation center to take him back.
10. Madonna Hospital Omaha then allowed him to stay until the insurance company, again, said that they would not pay. Madonna informed the couple that “Many couples get divorced in this situation.” This, in order that the sick spouse does not bankrupt the well one.
11. Mike was transferred to a third facility where was allowed to stay until they informed his wife that their facility cannot look after Mike any longer - he is too sick.
12. Mike is now in no-mans’- land. Madonna Hospital Omaha will not take him as they risk not been paid and the current facility is little more than a convalescent home.
13. Mike is now out of insurance - his lifetime maximum has been reached and the only option is now Medicaid.
14. If Mike takes Medicaid, all of his assets, and those of his wife, will be taken by the government in order to ‘pay’ for ‘care’ that is provided under this catastrophic government plan. If Mike does not take Medicare, then imagine buying a new car every month - such will be the bills.
15. So, a 49-year-old civil engineer and he and his pharmacist wife now face a future of selling their home, depleting their savings and perhaps declaring bankruptcy due to the American health ‘care’ system.
16. Meanwhile, Madonna advertises its expert care on TV, the hospital boasts that they have the best treatment facilities in Nebraska, and the economy of Omaha is about two million dollars better off because one of its citizens got brain cancer.
17. There is no ‘care’ here unless you can pay, and where the American people are kind and generous, when it comes to health, there is one great big elephant in the room.
18. No President or Congress has ever been able to fix it because of an inherent fear of ‘paying a little tax for the benefit other people’.
19. American health technology is indeed the best in the world, but, like everything else in this land of the free, there is a fee. It’s all about that thing that does not exist, apart from an idea - a bill of exchange - money.
20. As for Mike, well, he’ll have to manage as he sits in his $12,000 wheel-chair, surrounded by paid-for drips and technology, in his new apartment that he is forced to rent due to the sale of his home.
21. It matters not that your insurance policy is maxed-out at $1 million or $10 million. Eventually, it will run out.
22. Imagine going to a country where a plate of food costs $5000. Then, when you cannot afford to pay for food anymore, you are dismissed as a nothing; a financial burden - persona non grata. You cannot keep yourself alive, you cannot afford it; you die because you cannot feed yourself and nobody gives a shit. That, my friends, is healthcare USA.
23. This shall never be fixed. Like wars, healthcare makes too much money for the millions of people who work in the field. There are too many special interest groups and lobbyists to change things; too many bribes, corrupt politicians and ineffective presidents to be able to bring change.
24. Meanwhile, Mike is literally speechless, and his schooling, college degree, patriotism, church-going and membership of the Knights Templar will not matter. His hundreds of thousands in taxes may fill a few potholes on Omaha’s dreadful roads, but it will not help him. Mike is an American patriot, but sadly, in America, the flag-waving and hand-on-heart means nothing. On the issue of health, America pleads the fifth; it says nothing.
25. Americans are a commodity; they are useful to the economy until they are not, and while Fox news propaganda hails that this is “the greatest country God gave man,” try telling that to a man who has worked all his life, only to be forced out of a system because he is unable to pay.
26. Think of the concentration camps of 1942–1945. You were either fit to work and aid the effort, or you were left to die. The analogy may seem dramatic, but then both ‘outcomes’ were determined by a tick box on a clipboard.
27. In 200 years, the USA is unlikely to be here. Empires die, as they make stupid decisions which implode. However, in 300 years, history will say, “In the USA, if you did not have enough of that paper - that ‘money’, then the people who were in charge of collecting more of the paper money put to death those who had not enough paper money to give them. Some people died, because some other people said, they were not worthy - they were not endowed with money.”
28. Thereafter, when tiny robots repair every cell in the body for free, and when work and toil are a thing of the past, people will ask, “Why did people die?” The reason shall be just the same as when people fell into mills and factory equipment during the Industrial Revolution. The reasons will be the same as why millions died in WW1 where generals ordered men to go over the top of trenches only to be shot and killed. The reason will be that the few controlled the many, until the many woke up and saw that the few controlled too much, and called ‘enough.’
29. The NHS is not perfect in the UK, but the 1940’s government freed the British public not only from tyranny but from the worry of their healthcare. In 1948, the National Health Service was born. It remains the greatest of British decisions and has saved millions from death, disease, and despair.
30. Whatever you think of the NHS, it is near and dear to the British hearts and minds. It is the Mother of the UK. Using that analogy, the USA is simply an orphan. The USA is a camera obscura - a dream-like nation. It appears to be fantastic until you see that the bleached white teeth hide a mouth full of decay.

Edit 17th April 2023.

Thank you for all of your upvotes and comment.

Steve passed away leaving his two girls and a wife. The doctors applauded the body as it passed through the halls of the hospital. Some have commented that the UK NHS would not have performed the surgery anyway? This is subjective. In the UK, costs are so much lower, so if Steve had been to a private hospital, then the bills would be much lower - we don’t bankrupt people here. Again, the USA impersonates the ostrich when it comes to healthcare. The government likes the anxiety that comes with fear, with worry - it keeps people under control and on the treadmill. It’s even becoming a burden for foreigners to visit the USA; such is the high cost of travel insurance. The system will break, the ‘let them eat cake’ attitude is too much.

Easter Monday

Sister and her daughter Jo arrived by train/tram on the Monday. Sister bashed off to a football game and somehow we entertained Jo. Again many places were closed so we ordered pizza to be delivered for dinner. 

The next morning, no one was being decisive. I don't like that situation. R and Jo were going see the 1pm performance of the musical Mary Poppins at a theatre. They loved it.

Before, we all trammed into town and brunched at a place we know well and to fill in time, we visited the Ian Potter Gallery.

There was an exhibition at the Australian Centre for Moving Images that Sister wanted to see. She and Jo paid to see it. We didn't. https://www.acmi.net.au/whats-on/goddess/  We just waited outside for them in comfortable seats. R and Jo then headed to the theatre, I went home and Sister roamed the city. Sister returned back here and her wife, Bone Doctor joined us. We returned to the city and met up for an early dinner after R and Jo's show at a nice enough place. Jo came back with us while Sister and Bone Doctor attended a comedy performance. I can't remember after that, except they went home. 

I love the Ian Potter Gallery. Some photos were taken when I visited on my own and some were taken on the day.

A teenage school student was responsible for this exhibit. The name of this work was so good, I can't remember what it was. I'll just say, Increasingly impractical jugs. 

Melbourne's loss

Some charities divide people into deserving and non deserving and treat each as judged accordingly. This is one reason why I have big issues with human charities. 

Yesterday Melbourne lost a good soul, Father Bob Maguire at the age of 88. He was a Catholic Priest who was forcibly retired by The Church when he reached a certain age, but that never stopped his care for the poor, the disadvantaged, the drug users, those down on their luck...anyone really. He simply helped without judgement or discrimination. Of course the church hierarchy did not like his modus operandi of non judgemental care but his popularity was so great, it dare not interfere.

He set up a respected foundation after retirement, https://www.fatherbobs.com/  

Bob also had a good sense of humour, was a bit of a larrikin, never took himself too seriously and was a wonderful raconteur. 

I understand his family has accepted the offer of State Government Funeral.