Open Thread – Weekend 8 Oct 2022


The Battle of Lepanto, Paolo Veronese, 1572

1,980 responses to “Open Thread – Weekend 8 Oct 2022”

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  1. Old School Conservative Avatar
    Old School Conservative

    chopping off breasts

    Or, as women’s rugby superstar Ellia Green said recently when having the chop, “top surgery”.
    Reading about her attempts to pretend to be a man, I was constantly bombarded by engineered language.
    “She” was always written as “him”.
    She and her female partner “had a child together”. No she didn’t!
    “He” won a gold medal at Rio – in the women’s 7s!!!!
    At birth, Her “gender” was “assigned”.
    Sickening.

  2. Boambee John Avatar
    Boambee John

    duncanm

    NSW households can look forward to lower electricity prices between now and 2023, with new modelling showing an expected 2% drop – a saving of nearly $30.

    Modelling, is there anything (except deliver actual results) that it can’t do?

  3. flyingduk Avatar
    flyingduk

    Bugger, part 2

    The best drivers in descending order:

    Rally drivers
    F1 drivers
    Speedway racers
    Truck drivers
    Garden variety drivers

    I have driven rally cars (Escorts ;), Ambulances, Firetrucks and semis. All had their challenges: Rally cars, on dirt, are a hoot and are sliding all the time. Paradoxically, I found tarmac rally harder to do well (and more dangerous) because you were *not* sliding all the time – but when things let go, it was sudden and hard to catch. The main issue with ambulances and firetrucks was the propensity for civilians to not see/hear you, then, when they did, to brake and swerve – you had to leave quite a ‘bubble’ around you to compensate for that. On the other hand, you had to show intent … slow down to disobey a red, but don’t stop… if you did, civilians would move off. Heavy trucks have 3 main challenges – their physical size, low power to weight (including low braking power/reserve), but hardest of all, I found, was the need to ‘balance’ the drive train load. The clutch was used only to start from rest. After that, you didnt use the clutch, but to change gear it was essential to ‘unload’ the driveline by acellerating/lifting off or the gears would simply bind and not unmesh. Add to that double declutching and overall I found the heavy truck the hardest task.

  4. Sancho Panzer Avatar
    Sancho Panzer

    H B Bearsays:

    October 10, 2022 at 8:32 pm

    … new modelling showing an expected 2% drop – a saving of nearly $30.

    Who did that? Treasury?

    Looks like an inverse Neil Ferguson.

  5. Bruce of Newcastle Avatar
    Bruce of Newcastle

    Many years ago I discovered the secret to drinking home brew beer is to decant it steadily into a large red wine glass, held up to the light and ensuring none of the sediment leaves the bottle. Super clean glass, chilled like the beer and tilted to get the best head. Hold it up to the light and marvel.

    Then pour the beer down the sink and fill the red wine glass with red wine.

  6. H B Bear Avatar
    H B Bear

    Garden variety drivers

    The ones who regularly hit houses.

  7. H B Bear Avatar
    H B Bear

    Then pour the beer down the sink and fill the red wine glass with red wine.

    We are still several quarters from the need to drink home brew.

  8. Dr Faustus Avatar
    Dr Faustus

    And I’ll stand by my prediction – for what it’s worth at this distance – that Putin will come away with all or some of the originally contested territories and frame it as a victory.

    Seems about right.

    Russia, under Putin, will be shunned by the West; it will become a client state of Emperor for Life Xi, and be picked at by lampreys like Iran, the Shitstans, and opportunists like Erdogan.

    The US, wounded, will shuffle off into isolation – at least until its animal spirits recover.

    The EU experiment is over.

  9. chrisl Avatar
    chrisl

    Calli , I love your travel posts ( and possibly love you) and have travellled a fair bit myself , but have no desire to travel in the foreseeable future.
    It all seems too hard

    10
  10. Knuckle Dragger Avatar
    Knuckle Dragger

    as women’s rugby superstar

    The what?

    There’s a what now?

  11. H B Bear Avatar
    H B Bear

    Old School Conservative at 8:41 – Orwell had them pinged on the use of language.

  12. Indolent Avatar
    Indolent

    121,882 Children as Young as 6 Tracked for ‘Transgender’ Treatment
    Puberty blockers have been inflicted on as “at least 4,780 adolescents”.

    This is not an original thought, but doesn’t this prove that pedophiles are running things? What do puberty blockers do but trap people in an adolescent state?

  13. H B Bear Avatar
    H B Bear

    rugby superstar

    About as rare as a male mother.

  14. Sancho Panzer Avatar
    Sancho Panzer

    We are still several quarters from the need to drink home brew.

    Everyone should make one batch of homebrew in their lives.
    Anyone who makes another, however …

  15. Indolent Avatar
    Indolent

    The US, wounded, will shuffle off into isolation – at least until its animal spirits recover.

    The EU experiment is over.

    Not to be sniffed at.

  16. H B Bear Avatar
    H B Bear

    Everyone should make one batch of homebrew in their lives.

    Like kittens, the trouble is giving it away.

  17. Dr Faustus Avatar
    Dr Faustus

    We are still several quarters from the need to drink home brew.

    Winter is coming.

    Over many years I’ve flirted with homebrew, researched the science behind it, and followed homebrew gurus. I’ve never got to the stage where XXXX doesn’t seem like nectar in comparison.

    I know one person who can make an acceptable ale. He’s nearly dead.

  18. Sancho Panzer Avatar
    Sancho Panzer

    H B Bearsays:

    October 10, 2022 at 8:56 pm

    Everyone should make one batch of homebrew in their lives.

    Like kittens, the trouble is giving it away.

    When you have 30 laid down in the shed you fear they will explode and the brew will be lost.
    When you’ve had two, you start wishing it on the remaining 28.

  19. Cassie of Sydney Avatar
    Cassie of Sydney

    “121,882 Children as Young as 6 Tracked for ‘Transgender’ Treatment
    Puberty blockers have been inflicted on as “at least 4,780 adolescents”.”

    I’ve long argued that this whole transgender movement is, at its core, an ideology that aims to separate children from parents, and to groom children en masse for sexual purposes. The ideology of transgenderism is about the sexualisation of children and is about normalising adult/child sexual relationships. The scandal in the West is that this grooming has long been given cover by the progressive left and particularly by social media platforms and the MSM. But we are now seeing this dam beginning to crack wide open and it’s high time. Last week the UK Telegraph finally did something that the MSM should have been doing over the last decade, it launched an investigation into the UK transgender charity “Mermaids”, a children’s transgender charity that has numerous celebrities spruiking for it, even the Ginger and the Whinger. First the Telegraph reported that the charity were sending teenage girls chest-flattening devices (which can do serious damage to a young girl’s health), without parental consent and then the Telegraph revealed that one of its trustees, a Dr Jacob Breslow, had attended a paedophile-support conference and had written numerous papers advocating for “adult/minor attraction”, in plain parlance….pedophilia.

  20. Cassie of Sydney Avatar
    Cassie of Sydney

    “but doesn’t this prove that pedophiles are running things? What do puberty blockers do but trap people in an adolescent state?”

    Correct.

  21. H B Bear Avatar
    H B Bear

    I think the Coopers kits have taken a lot of the guesswork out of it. The old man used think a pint of home brew stout was adequate reward for a day’s labour when visiting the farm. I was usually too stuffed to argue.

  22. Sancho Panzer Avatar
    Sancho Panzer

    Dr F.
    You are destined to make one top quality batch of brew in your life.
    The cruelty will be that you will not remember how you did it, or be able to replicate it.

  23. H B Bear Avatar
    H B Bear

    Any news on who got called while Brittany is away?

  24. Dr Faustus Avatar
    Dr Faustus

    Dr F.
    You are destined to make one top quality batch of brew in your life.
    The cruelty will be that you will not remember how you did it, or be able to replicate it.

    This is philosophically true.

    The cruelty is, 20 years ago, Mrs F advised me that was an unwise goal.

  25. dover0beach Avatar

    This is Putin throwing his toys out of the cot.

    This is hardly a tantrum. RUS waited for about 8 months, didn’t immediately respond to the destruction of N1 and damage to N2, and, only, after the sabotage of the Kerch Bridge, struck in this manner.

    The Russian army has proven itself incapable of taking and holding Ukrainian territory.

    It still holds Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhia, and is making steady advancements in Donetsk, the most fortified front since WW1.

    I don’t think the mass call up and replacing generals is going to change that.

    They just appointed a overall commander of the SMO this weekend. Three days and this may mark a change in the wings. It’s not just the missile strikes, apparently they are countering Starlink which is degrading communications in the field.

    In the end, he’s going to settle for what he can retain of the territories contested since 2014 and frame it as a victory.

    I don’t think so.

    10
  26. Farmer Gez Avatar
    Farmer Gez

    Britnah is the assigned Cat name HB.
    Brittany can only officially be used for for rhyming.
    ‘Brittany you’re shittin’ me.’

  27. calli Avatar
    calli

    London City airport was designed by a mad person. No airbridges? No worries, nor does Coolangatta.

    However, you must climb up the stairs to walk a few metres to climb down the stairs. All while laden with cabin luggage. I felt like I was in an Escher drawing. Then, with glacial slowness, the checked bags spring forth. Ours, marked “Priority” came out last. 😀

    And, finally, the cabbie tried to rip us off £52 for a metered £25 fare. He picked the wrong big, burly, grey headed Aussie (the Beloved, not me) who is always vigilant about such things. Let’s just say he left with slightly less.

  28. Zulu Kilo Two Alpha Avatar
    Zulu Kilo Two Alpha

    Kumanjayi Walker inquest: Nurses did not tell elders they fled Yuendumu

    Liam Mendes
    Reporter
    @liammendes
    2 hours ago October 10, 2022

    A nurse who fled a remote community before a Northern Territory policeman shot an Indigenous teenager dead has conceded she failed to inform elders that clinic staff were fleeing the town on the day of the shooting and feels her team were blamed for the death.

    The inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Walker, after he was shot three times by Constable Zach­ary Rolfe during a botched arrest in Yuendumu, northwest of Alice Springs, on November 9, 2019, resumed on Monday following a week-long break.

    The three-month-long inquest, held at the Alice Springs Local Court, has been told that in the hours before the shooting, Yuendumu’s medical staff fled the community after a series of break-ins at their homes and the local clinic.

    It left the community of about 800 with almost no medical staff at the time Constable Rolfe shot Walker, who died on the floor of the local police station while a medical team rushed from a health centre in Yuelamu, 70km away.

    Nurse Luana Symonds, primary healthcare manager at the Yuendumu Community Health Centre, told the inquest there was insufficient consultation with the community before the clinic staff left, despite her having the personal phone numbers of elders.

    Under examination by counsel assisting the coroner, Peggy Dwyer, Ms Symonds said in hindsight there “absolutely” should have been an effort to contact a number of elders by telephone.

    Appearing remotely from New Zealand, she agreed the decision had consequences that the Yuendumu community could “not be provided for” if there was an emergency.

    The inquest heard Ms Symonds also failed to contact Aboriginal nurses who were still in Yuendumu at the time of the shooting after police called the clinic’s on-call phone – only to reach Ms Symonds, who had fled the town with other nurses.

    She agreed that, in hindsight, it would have been appropriate to consider contacting the Aboriginal clinic staff.

    After returning to the town on November 12, three days after the shooting, she found her house had again been broken into.

    She said there was a sense within the community that she and other health centre staff who had fled the town were being blamed for Walker’s death.

  29. calli Avatar
    calli

    On the positive side of the ledger, the sun is shining and Greenwich is looking green and inviting. Almost time to check out the covered market and say hello to Cutty Sark.

  30. Sancho Panzer Avatar
    Sancho Panzer

    H B Bearsays:

    October 10, 2022 at 9:09 pm

    Any news on who got called while Brittany is away?

    Mr Wolf?
    (The clean-up guy).

  31. Zulu Kilo Two Alpha Avatar
    Zulu Kilo Two Alpha

    On the positive side of the ledger, the sun is shining and Greenwich is looking green and inviting.

    I got dragged out of the National Maritime Museum, and the Royal Observatory at the end of a rope…

  32. Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity Avatar
    Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity

    This one sentence says so much:

    After returning to the town on November 12, three days after the shooting, she found her house had again been broken into.

  33. Wally Dalí Avatar
    Wally Dalí

    during a botched arrest ???
    Infantile choice of words. Once upon a time a cadet trying to put that past an editor would be reamed, and it would never see a pixel, let alone a printing press.

  34. Knuckle Dragger Avatar
    Knuckle Dragger

    Brittany can only officially be used for for rhyming.
    ‘Brittany you’re shittin’ me.’

    ‘Brittany, don’t spew on me.’

  35. Knuckle Dragger Avatar
    Knuckle Dragger

    during a botched arrest

    The bloke was arrested.

    The End.

  36. Wally Dalí Avatar
    Wally Dalí

    I always mentally pronounce Brittany as two syllables, chav silent t’s and with a rising inflection, as in, Bri’nee?

  37. calli Avatar
    calli

    I got dragged out of the National Maritime Museum, and the Royal Observatory at the end of a rope…

    Good lord! What did you do? 😀

    Been here before and loved it. They say never go back so I’ll let you know if it’s true or not. The place is very autumnal and soft, quite a contrast to the last high summer visit. Hopefully the pubs are just as good.

  38. Knuckle Dragger Avatar
    Knuckle Dragger

    Brittany, just have some tea
    That double voddy is not for thee

    Those chockies – no no, they’re not free

  39. Knuckle Dragger Avatar
    Knuckle Dragger

    Actually, I believe Eminem was thinking of Brittany Bingo Wings when he penned:

    Now this looks like a job for me
    So everybody, just follow me
    ‘Cause we need a little, controversy
    ‘Cause it feels so empty, without me

  40. Sancho Panzer Avatar
    Sancho Panzer

    Interesting re today’s witnesses in the Britnah case.
    Nothing in the Oz.
    SMH closed play at 1:51 with nothing to say due to “non publication order”.

  41. cohenite Avatar
    cohenite

    What a bleak, bastard of a film, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold is. One of Buron’s best, arguably the best filmic depiction of governmental connivance. The irony is Burton made another movie, in every respect the complete opposite of In From The Cold even though it also dealt with double dealing by spies. That movie was Where Eagles Dare. A great sockum none stop action movie with a young Clint Eastwood definitely coming off as junior hero to Burton’s scheming spy who matched his intellect with thumps to the head of the Nazis. Unlike Cold Eagles had a very satisfying ending. I think I’ll have to rewatch Eagles after the dreary ending in the other.

  42. Zulu Kilo Two Alpha Avatar
    Zulu Kilo Two Alpha

    After returning to the town on November 12, three days after the shooting, she found her house had again been broken into.

    Tribal elders should have been told to produce the culprit within twenty four hours, or the nursing staff would be withdrawn – permanently.

  43. H B Bear Avatar
    H B Bear

    Any news on who got called while Brittany is away?

    So that’s a No then? Special Ed must have spent the day on re-skinning. About time.

  44. Dr Faustus Avatar
    Dr Faustus

    London City airport was designed by a mad person. No airbridges?

    Try catching a tube from there into the City.
    With luggage.

  45. Sancho Panzer Avatar
    Sancho Panzer

    It seems something went on, Bear, but under a suppression order.
    Could it be a psych running interference for Britnah?
    “She can answer questions, but no hard stuff.”

  46. cohenite Avatar
    cohenite

    London, 10 October – New research from Net Zero Watch reveals that a loophole in the rules governing the electricity grid allows renewables generators to charge consumers twice for the same electricity.

    The loophole is centred around so-called constraints payments, which are triggered when the grid has insufficient capacity to take the power generated by renewables – mostly windfarms. While the soaring cost – more than £2 billion per year – has regularly hit the headlines in recent years, it has widely been understood as being a payment to get the windfarms to “switch off”.

    But Net Zero Watch has now revealed that grid rules do not in fact force windfarms to switch off – they are free to sell or use the electricity so long as they don’t inject it into the transmission grid.

    Net Zero Watch’s Andrew Montford explains:

    “All over the country, batteries and flywheels are being installed next to windfarm grid connections, because the operators can get a constraint payment and still sell the electricity. The consumer is therefore paying twice for the same electricity – firstly in the form of a constraint payment to divert the power from the transmission grid and then a second time when the battery releases power to the grid at a later date.”

    The scandal comes just months after Net Zero Watch revealed that another loophole in the rules governing renewables was allowing operators to ignore the contracts they had signed to supply low-cost power to the grid.

    Net Zero Watch’s director, Dr Benny Peiser said:

    “This couldn’t come at a worse time for the consumer. It’s clear that these windfarms are only being built because the rules allow them to rip off hard-pressed households. It has to stop”.

    Reece and other pricks who say ruinables are cheaper should be strung up by their scrawny balls so they generate power when their nuts flap in the wind.

    12
  47. Mother Lode Avatar
    Mother Lode

    Modelling, is there anything (except deliver actual results) that it can’t do?

    No doubt there are ads in the back of magazines offering, for a token sum, to provide modelling showing a guys dick to be 50% larger.

    Presumably when women are underwhelmed by the marginal member you wave the results in front of them in pdf or excel format to convince them it was more exciting than they remember.

  48. H B Bear Avatar
    H B Bear

    Try catching a tube from there into the City.
    With luggage.

    Try catching the Tube from Heathrow with a double board bag during the morning commute. I don’t think I made many friends that day.

  49. pete m Avatar
    pete m

    Hi Callie

    The Gold Coast Airport has FINALLY built some airbridges in their new extension – FOUR!

    Sotry on it

    We flew Jetstar to Cairns via the new link and as the picture shows those bridges are VERY long, but comfy.

    What wasn’t comfy was the fact they had all of 8 charis in the waiting area – for flights with 200 people at a time. Also dreary colours, no artwork and not a very wide corridor. Hopeless design and colourless. Amazing the architects these days.

    Enjoy your sojorn.

  50. Zulu Kilo Two Alpha Avatar
    Zulu Kilo Two Alpha

    Indigenous leaders, Greens unite against the voice to parliament
    Exclusive
    Matthew Denholm
    Tasmania Correspondent
    Paige Taylor
    Indigenous Affairs Correspondent, WA Bureau Chief
    14 minutes ago October 10, 2022

    Conservative Aboriginal leaders and Greens have held talks over their common opposition to a referendum on an Indigenous voice to parliament, as Anthony Albanese leans toward starving both the Yes and No campaigns of ­public funds.

    A diverse range of Indigenous leaders and politicians is coalescing against the voice, ­demanding the government halt the referendum, or at least ensure public funding for an Aboriginal-led No campaign.

    The Australian can reveal Indigenous businessman Warren Mundine met Greens senator Lidia Thorpe last Wednesday and discussed ramping up a No campaign, on the sidelines of wider talks with crossbench senators about Indigenous affairs.

    The meeting – between Mr Mundine, a former federal Liberal Party candidate, and Senator Thorpe, who says a voice is not radical enough and a treaty between Indigenous Australians and the federal government is needed – was the first informal step to bringing conservatives and ­radicals in the Aboriginal community together to support a No campaign.

    “These blokes (supporters of the voice) are better than Jesus Christ,” said a source who was at the meeting. “They have brought all these people with different politics together.”

    Mr Mundine also plans a ­national talking tour with Country Liberal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price in coming months to promote the No cause.

    Veteran Aboriginal leaders across the country, including Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania chairman Michael Mansell and former North Queensland Yarrabah Aboriginal Shire mayor Percy Neal, are also rallying colleagues to help halt the referendum. Mr Mansell is campaigning for designated Indigenous senators from each state as an alternative to the voice, while others such as Mr Neal want to move immediately to a broader treaty.

    A spokeswoman for the federal Greens confirmed the meeting between Senator Thorpe and Mr Mundine took place, and did not deny they discussed their mutual opposition to the Albanese government’s referendum.

    “As you would expect, Senator Thorpe meets with a range of First Nations stakeholders,” she said.

    “Senator Thorpe and Greens leader Adam Bandt are currently working with the government to ensure all elements of the Uluru statement including truth, treaty and voice are delivered.”

    Senator Thorpe has repeatedly attacked the voice referendum despite saying she does not oppose it in theory.

    The Victorian Greens senator has called a referendum a waste of money and claimed that a campaign could be harmful to Aboriginal Australians.

    Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney said the government was yet to make a decision on funding for the Yes and No campaigns. “It’s one of a number of issues that government will be consulting on … in the months ahead,” a spokesman said.

  51. Dr Faustus Avatar
    Dr Faustus

    Try catching the Tube from Heathrow with a double board bag during the morning commute. I don’t think I made many friends that day.

    It would have been jealousy.
    You don’t get many surfers heading into town for the Westminster Break.

  52. calli Avatar
    calli

    Try catching a tube from there into the City.
    With luggage.

    My imagination was good enough to warn me not to . Hence Greenwich and the cab. We might pop up to Westminster tomorrow on the ferry, or there’s always Southwark and a peep at The Globe.

    We appear to have attracted baggage like iron filings to a magnet, so it’s a set price transfer over to LHR on Wednesday. I’m just glad my manservant is tough as teak and handy with ports. Next time I’ll engage another for the sedan chair.

  53. Dr Faustus Avatar
    Dr Faustus

    Westminster tomorrow on the ferry, or there’s always Southwark and a peep at The Globe.

    Lots of interesting stuff at Southwark.
    The Tate Modern (just next door to the Globe – loads of crap and some awesome stuff), the Clink, Borough Markets (foodie central), the Old Operating Theatre opposite Guy’s (a little known horror story, the operating table carries the saw marks from 30-second amputations), and the southern entry to Tower Bridge.

  54. Zulu Kilo Two Alpha Avatar
    Zulu Kilo Two Alpha

    I packed Mme Zulu off to Harrods – I lost myself in Foyles Bookshop on Charing Cross Road – the lead character in “Foyle’s War” was named after that bookshop..

  55. Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity Avatar
    Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity

    I packed Mme Zulu off to Harrods….

    How many more years until the overdraft is cleared?

  56. calli Avatar
    calli

    I could be easily packed off to Liberty. But Regent Street is waaaay too far.

  57. Zulu Kilo Two Alpha Avatar
    Zulu Kilo Two Alpha

    How many more years until the overdraft is cleared?

    I allow her Harrods, she allows me Foyles and Waterstones bookshops…

  58. Cliff Boof Avatar
    Cliff Boof

    Faustus said:

    “Over many years I’ve flirted with homebrew, researched the science behind it, and followed homebrew gurus. I’ve never got to the stage where XXXX doesn’t seem like nectar in comparison.”

    I started drinking XXXX when I was posted to Queensland in the military in 1967 as a 20 year old and I thought it was pretty good. Nowadays most stock pub beer is pretty ordinary.

    I’ve been brewing my own for about 45 years now using these days Coopers products exclusively which I enhance with pelleted hops and off the shelf cordials such as Bickfords Red Grapefruit and Buderim Ginger depending on whether I’m brewing pale ales or lagers or darker beers such as English Bitter. I suppose my experimentation has paid off over so many years doing different things.

    Try a bit harder.

    15
  59. Winston Smith Avatar

    ZK2A:

    Tribal elders should have been told to produce the culprit within twenty four hours, or the nursing staff would be withdrawn – permanently.

    Aboriginal culture prevents any action being taken because once you admit there is a problem, then it’s your job to fix it.
    Some of the attempts to dodge problem ownership are quite amazing and subtle, but once the jaws of the trap are closed, there’s no way out of it.

  60. Zulu Kilo Two Alpha Avatar
    Zulu Kilo Two Alpha

    Aboriginal culture prevents any action being taken because once you admit there is a problem, then it’s your job to fix it.

    Point taken, Winston, but what’s the answer to the security on the nursing and support staff in those Third World shitholes?

  61. Bazinga Avatar
    Bazinga

    She can answer questions, but no hard stuff.”

    That’s what she said.

  62. H B Bear Avatar
    H B Bear

    I packed Mme Zulu off to Harrods….

    Once you get one of those naff carry bags what else is there to get? I think I saw a 60,000 quid barbecue.

  63. H B Bear Avatar
    H B Bear

    Also got a great photo at the Di & Dodi shrine. Money can’t buy experience.

  64. Zulu Kilo Two Alpha Avatar
    Zulu Kilo Two Alpha

    Once you get one of those naff carry bags what else is there to get?

    Don’t knock those carry bags – it drew a fair amount of attention in our local I.G.A…

  65. Zulu Kilo Two Alpha Avatar
    Zulu Kilo Two Alpha

    Anyway “Sliante” – I’m reading Joan Beaumont’s book on “Australia’s Great Depression.” My great uncle said he spent three years on the road, with his swag on his back, looking for work, and the only reasons he volunteered in 1940, was for “Six bob a day, a pair of trousers with the arZe still in them, and the first new pair of boots he had ever owned. ” Two battles of El Alamein, Ruin Ridge, and the “Wasted campaigns” of 1944/45, in New Guinea..

  66. Wally Dalí Avatar
    Wally Dalí

    Cohen, The Spy… Cold was a damn hard book to get excited about. I’d started with the Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy movie with Oldman as Smiley, which seemed a bit rushed compared to my memories of the BBC miniseries, so I read that book, which challenged but rewarded, though I was primed for the plot so to speak.
    Went back to …Cold, and it read like the first novel by someone who might become something, but seemed to revel in it’s bleakness- I think it might even have been a bit of a confessional from Nom le Carre. Funny, right now I remember a meeting on a firebreak in the middle of some borsch forest- who knew forest fires were a thing in continental Europe 150 years before Catastrophic capitalism hot weather?
    The Tailor of Panama was weak
    The Constant Gardener was weak… funnily enough it included the scarytale of Big Pharma dumping dodgy drugs on the third world… which is just a fairytale… right?
    Shame about that movie, because it was a massive talent pool. Lovely Rachael Weiss, Bill Nighy, Ralph Fiennes who was fine before I realised he’s played every effing role he’s ever done with the same voice and same pitch, only ever managing to look like someone new with eight kilos of latex on his head. And the toxic cad Old Eton bad guy, dunno his name, but what a face.

  67. Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare Avatar
    Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare

    And, finally, the cabbie tried to rip us off £52 for a metered £25 fare. He picked the wrong big, burly, grey headed Aussie (the Beloved, not me) who is always vigilant about such things. Let’s just say he left with slightly less.

    Glad to hear it, Calli. Our men deserve all the praise we can give them.

    Rita Panahi had a segment in her show tonight about how masculinity is under threat.
    Young men are losing their protector instinct re women and are unreliable in many other ways.
    A Rabbi says on the show that a lot of it is dissociative, due to intense involvement with internet porn.
    An interesting comment in one of the transgender links I put up above suggests there is evidence that frequent users of internet porn are more likely than non-users to turn trans-gender.
    I suspect that could be a statistical artifact – internet porn addicted users are also likely to be confused social isolates. Often on the autism spectrum. These factors leave them prey to recruitment.

    Our whole society has broken free from its moorings, lost its bearings.
    Talk about Shakespeare’s ‘wandering barques’, that just meant lovelornness, not loss of manhood.

  68. Wally Dalí Avatar
    Wally Dalí

    John Le Carre- forget his real name, David something- died a shocking reactive Trot. You can see the veer left to pinko delusion in his novels.

  69. Zulu Kilo Two Alpha Avatar
    Zulu Kilo Two Alpha

    I’ve got my “Don’t Welcome Me to My Own Country” bumper stickers on order.

  70. Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare Avatar
    Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare

    By the way, I call my man Hairy for a reason. He is male, and proud of it. And I am so proud of him and will say so here as often as I like, quietly – when he’s not around. For he is a modest soul.

    As for geriatric lovers – Confessio. I came on here more than ten years ago in the guise of my younger self in my late thirties, perhaps early forties (telling nothing but truths in that context), in order to protect Hairy’s identity (which was a crucial requirement). Newbies don’t know that side of it nor the flirtatious ways of the old Cat back in those days, which some current disturbers of the peace, opprobriators and their recent-arrival followers, still allude to quite out of context.

    We were a smaller group, and far less condemnatory than today’s scolding Kat Karens. I am no more prone these days than the next older woman to create a porn show of our marriage, which I have no hesitation though in saying is a loving one, so grow up, BBS. It is also no sin to want to look one’s best nor to relate life experiences from one’s eighties, especially if one enjoys writing as I do.

    When Hairy retired, I quickly admitted my real age, ten years older than he, for it was possible to do so then without fear of damage from the probing doxxer/s who had been very busily ‘investigating’ us. Anyone who knows us personally is fully aware that my husband’s work entailed at that time a necessarily public profile, thus any doxxing of my husband via me would have been quite damaging and easily used against him in his politically-charged employment. There is a reason that this blog values anonymity. I also had my own privacy to protect.
    As retired people we are both free agents now.

  71. Wally Dalí Avatar
    Wally Dalí

    Weekend 50th, friend was relating with a bit of incredulity how her 12 y o boy had stepped in for his sister who was being intimidated by another boy at the friday night leisure centre pool whoop-up, given the shithead kid a shove and said lay off my sister. She crows, “I thought, where did that come from? That’s not my boy! Where’d he get that testosterone from?! Why’d he suddenly think it’s ok to shove other kids around?!!?!” and met by much supportive clucking and sunday supplement psychology from the assembled gals.
    I took a cue from another bloke before I reacted- I’m on notice for serving up home truths to “our” friends a bit too mercilessly-
    One, if your son isn’t going to protect your daughter from getting static from a strange kid at the pool, who the f do you expect to? The lifeguards, who are barely three years older and not paid enough for that shit? Or are they meant to come and dob to mummy, who’s actually counting on being left alone with a cheeky can of G&T far away from the splash radius, and would be rightly shit scared of intervening despite her mantra of “it takes a village to raise a child”?
    Two- and most importantly- stepping up is exactly what men do, and exactly what they should do. They should be unafraid and rightly unthinking to automatically stick their neck out for their women, and either take the lumps or take the temperature down- all bullies will crumble when tested, it’s the nature of intimidation which is foremost psychological and supported in the breach by group assent.
    The idea that he should take the heat and be told to check his testosterone is ridiculous. From womenfolk, it is turkeys praying for christmas.

    16
  72. Old School Conservative Avatar
    Old School Conservative

    Try catching a tube from there into the City.
    With luggage.

    Done.
    In peak hour.
    Never again.

  73. rickw Avatar
    rickw

    If Australia insists on being idiotic, they’re the only ones left. Which is odd – we usually over-worry about what other countries think of us.

    Sooner or later Australians are going to have to face the reality that the way they image themselves, and the way they are, parted company a long time ago.

    They’re a mob of scared sheep easily herded into a corner by deranged mutts like Andrews, Gunner and McGowan.

  74. Old School Conservative Avatar
    Old School Conservative

    her 12 y o boy had stepped in for his sister

    That 12 y o boy deserves a medal.
    An instinctive reaction showing all the “right stuff” – family loyalty, care of his sister, and the use of an appropriate level of force.
    Probably too young to have his inherent decency emasculated by Karens, marxists, fellow travellers and useful idiots.

  75. rickw Avatar
    rickw

    Hopeless design and colourless. Amazing the architects these days.

    The architects on Adelaide’s new terminal apparently had a debate about whether or not to install glass walled aero-bridges, deplaning might be delayed by passengers being transfixed by the vista of the Adelaide Hills! FMD.

  76. Wally Dalí Avatar
    Wally Dalí

    Yep OSC- a natural spur to action, then controlled force. That much is probably intuition- if his parents can let him get on with it, he’ll learn to take calculated risks, then he’s got the world at his feet.

  77. Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare Avatar
    Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare

    I’m just glad my manservant is tough as teak and handy with ports.

    Just doing our usual late pack, and I can no longer lift my own suitcase.

    Travelling with my gym junkie is definitely the go. He can take one in each hand! Down stairs!

  78. rickw Avatar
    rickw

    Excellent dinner last night with some former colleagues:

    https://macelleria.gr/

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