Getting the sharp end of the pineapple!

Seems all Senior/High School in NSW are to get their promised laptops by the end of term two next year… all those in *public* schooling that is. For those of us funding private sector schooling… there’s nothing. Forgive me for mentioning this… but aren’t *we* taxpayers as well? Isn’t it likely in fact that ‘we’ [...]

Well done Wales!

The score says it all Wales 21 Australia 18 and regardless how it got to be that way… in the books the result stands! I suppose things might have been a little different if they Wallabies hadn’t lost their captain Stirling Mortlock in the first few minutes, but nonetheless a stirring victory. Well done guys! [...]

Nigerian scam artists.

Got this in the post the other day… and it made me wonder just what sort of idiots these scam artists think we are? Just *who* in their right minds would respond to a letter that ‘out of the blue’ tells you you suddenly own $800,000? Just *who* in their right minds would send off [...]

Halcyon Days – again?

Yet again the name of that idiot Garry Houghton, owner of the landscaping company with the laughable name of ‘Halcyon Days’, has popped up because of his shoddy slap-dash approach to his responsibilities. Despite the incredible problems we had with him, despite having the local Fair Trading people finding against him in our dispute, despite [...]

Too much reading is bad for you!

With my cold finally in retreat I’ve been feeling a lot better so was intending to nip up to the Guide Hut today to mow the grass and get ready for the District Camp Fire which is on tomorrow evening. Instead I spent a lot of the day finishing off re-reading a series of books [...]

Haiku

For any of you out there without a culture bone in their bodies I am *not* sneezing… well ok I *am* sneezing because I have a cold but that’s nothing to do with the subject. Haiku is a traditional Japanes verse form which uses the line syllable format of 5 – 7- 5, i.e. the [...]

Xmas is coming

You probably are aware that Xmas will be here in just a few short weeks… if not you must be living under a rock! So are we ready? No we are not. As usual all is chaos here. Financially we’re trying to assess the damage the recession is having on our outgoings and come to [...]

David Hicks – the saga continues

The majority of people around the world have probably never heard of David Hicks or if they ever knew the name have all bar forgotten who he was, the troubles he got himself into… and the abandonment of this Australian citizen by the politicians who were sworn to protect his rights. I’m not one to [...]

They came – they went.

A few days ago I posted “They’re Coming” because the local council decided our trees needed pruning to allow better access across what is laughably known as ‘the nature strip’, theoretically our poperty but in fact used to create pedestrian access along the street. So today they came. I could hear the saws as they [...]

Photoblog open.

After vacillating for a while I decided I’d add the photoblog to the site ‘Blogroll’. There are only a dozen photos on there currently and none are particularly spectacular, but I like them. I apologise to some visitors that there are no ‘family oriented’ images in there, they go into the private forum or photo [...]

Me makey cakey!

So there I was on Sunday with a houseful of giggling teenage girls… well there were 5 of them anyway. They’d come to rehearse a play… ‘Frankenstein’ would you believe… with the eldest daughter. The wife decided to take herself and the youngest daughter off to the shops to buy some ‘casual’ gear for an [...]

They’re coming!!

We’re a scruffy bunch here sometimes. For example, I like a bit of ‘wildness’ in the garden and so apart from throwing handfuls of slug pellets out now and then I tend not to do much in the way of pest control. Likewise I do *very* little pruning in some areas. Once such area is [...]

Lonesome George!

This poor creature has been named “Lonesome George” and is the sole remaining member of his particular species of Galapagos Tortoise. Currently ‘George’ who 90 years old, and is the only known Pinta Island tortoise, resides in Ecuador where he was taken in 1971. All his fellows were killed for meat or died as a result [...]

Australian Child Protection Laws – new guidelines.

New draft guidelines related to Child Protection Laws have been released by the Australia Council in the aftermath of the Bill Henson controversies. and require that anyone taking photographs of children needs to obtain parental permission first. Ok we’ve been pressing for changes to the law but some of the recommendations offered constitute *far* too [...]

Comment Spam on the rise!

Over the past couple of days there’s been a dramatic rise in the comment spam that’s arrived on all the blogs I write in so I’ve had to change the settings to make it compulsory for anyone who wants to comment to first register and then log in. It’s a PITA but I can’t be [...]

Lest we forget…

At a time when our young people are still bravely holding the line against the forces of evil, let us not forget those who made the ‘supreme sacrifice’ and laid down their lives to keep us free. In Flanders Fields In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our [...]

What *is* ‘out front”?

I thought I’d post a few pictures to let you see the front gardens. Not that they are anything spectaculat but it might stir the memory for those familiar with it First the ‘right hand side’ as you look at the house… Then the left – much scruffier. We need to plant the bare weedy [...]

Artec, Artec, all fall down

So, the Strimmer (whipper snipper, brush cutter… whatever) is in for repair. At the back of the garage buried under tons of junk is… wait for it… a *spare* Strimmer. This is an electric thing made by Arlec Industries that I’d bought when the last one we had (a Ryobi) gave up the ghost. It [...]

Last Xmas he took it apart…

Last Xmas the daughter and son-in-law (plus kids) were here for a few weeks… not long enough really but that’s another story, but one of Mark’s best features (apart from really being good for the daughter) is how hard he works. Even on holiday it was hard to keep him still! Something he did that [...]

The weekend that was.

Because my birthday was last Monday there were ‘noises’ from the wife and the kids about dad having a quiet weekend to do whatever he felt like… which suited me. As usual it didn’t quite work out the way I’d expected. The wife took pity on me and got up at 5:00 a.m. to take [...]