Leaderboard

Thanks octave, that brings back a lot of childhood memories. As a kid I had mates who lived in the local small town and I sometimes stayed with them on weekends and got to do town kid stuff. A few of our activities involved the steam trains that were the common train back then. The rail bridge had a small nook in the concrete abutment directly below the train line, so two or three of us could squeeze in there and watch the trains go over our heads only inches way. It was exciting stuff, a lot of anticipation when we heard the noise and vibration of the train coming, and then totally cacking ourselves as it passed overhead. Sometimes we got burnt a bit but that was ok, it was all good fun until we eventually got busted. When the train drivers were shunting wagons on the spur line they would let us ride up with them in the loco and work the brake lever and stuff like that.

One thing I use social media for is as a diary. Some people keep a written diary, but I am far too lazy for that, so it is mainly pictures and videos. Most mornings, I will be presented with memories from 1, 2, or more years ago, which is nice because I usually only post good events. This video came up today from 3 years ago. It was on a rail trail that we ride fairly regularly. The rail line, which is only 16km long, is used by a couple of tourist trains. One of these serves a three-course meal and has live music. Whenever I see this train, I will usually take a pic or two, but after a while, all the pics look the same. On this occasion, I thought about how I could video this from a unique angle. I think I may have posted this video before, but I think interesting enough for another airing. Untitled 556.mp4

700 Quid built a good House. Mind you It wasn't nearly as grandiose as what we want now. NO air conditioning or Insulation. A fireplace was it.. No garages. Maybe we expect too Much these days? Nev

I nearly died when I was 16 working on building concrete wheat silos. I'd put my age up, you were supposed to be 18 minimum to get a job there. They were four silos joined together and the working platform raised up as the concrete walls grew in height, a bit like a big extrusion machine. Concrete trucks would dump into a hopper which went up an elevator to the top where labourers with wheelbarrows would wheel it to the formwork rim. There wasn't much in the way of concrete pumps back then. It gives me the shivers when I think of the workplace safety standard back then. The only thing to stop you falling off the scaffold was a handrail made of tomato stakes cobb and co.'d together with tie wire. Pure luck it held up when I fell against it; it was about an 80 foot drop to the bottom at that stage. On the thread topic of positives, I made a lot of money for a 16 year old, had a big adventure and got to keep the hard hat at the end of the job.

A pound a Lb it was for Merino fleece. Rolls Royces abounded in Places like Tamworth and Cocky's all had Planes to fly around in. I flew some Blokes out to Burren Junction to Set up the Wheat silos there in the 60's from Rutherford. ( West Maitland). They were of Concrete and probably still there. Nev

The imbecile is unhinged and living in an alternate reality. He wakes up un the middle of the night and goes on hours-long rants on social media, BS-ing about how wonderful his plans and results are - when the reality in the cold light of day, is the exact opposite of what he's promoting. He raves on last night, claiming the Iranians are ready to sign his peace deal on his terms, and it will be a wonderful peace deal, and so great for America. Then the reality in the cold light of day is the Iranians have cancelled all peace negotiations due to Israels attacks in Southern Lebanon, and they won't restart them until Israel stops its attacks there. If this BS-ing, lying, abusive moron was in a job anywhere else, he'd have been shown the door as regards his unacceptable behaviour, and told to never come back. Yet, his entire sycophantic, mealy-mouthed, gutless bunch of equivalent morons in his administration, continue to support every lie, every mouthy piece of BS, like it was Gods own Truth. I cannot believe America has descended into such a state of propaganda and alternative reality, that it makes the Goebbels reign look like pure unadulterated truth. The Iranians have it all over Trump, he has achieved precisely nothing in his massive war expenditure and aims to reduce Iran to a submissive ruin. He has brought about increased costs for every single country in the world (including America), and he still tries to claim the American economy is booming, and Americans have to thank him for leading them to increased prosperity. I don't really know how long it will take for the Americans as a whole (including the dumb Republicans who continue to support Trump) to come to the conclusion that Trump is the biggest disaster of a leader that has ever sat in the White House. An abusive, disruptive, totally corrupt, totally self-centred narcissist, who cannot utter two sentences, without at least one of them being a total lying fabrication that tries to reverse the truth.

Aaarrrgghh!! Does anyone else hate those video shots where a monstrous machine passes over the top of the camera? Watching it, I feel like I'm tied to the railroad tracks! My innate fear must come from the nightmares I had as a child, where I used to dream about being stuck to the ground, and a big tip truck backed up to me, and dumped its load of sand on top of me! I'd wake up in shock and fear, and probably crying out, too. It was terrifying as a youngster. I have no idea what caused me to have such terrifying nightmares.

I've given up believing anything that Trump is reported to say about the Middle East situation. This morning the ABC reported that he had said that he had got Israel and Hezbalah to stop shooting at each other. He also was said to have claimed that a peaceful end of the Iran situation was at hand. To my mind those were the ravings of a person with no hold on reality.

Finally got to see the rest of your clip. How long did you have to lie there on your back, waiting for the train?

Isn't a politcal party an alliance of like-minded persons?

Today, Australia's population clicked over 28,000,000 today.

Just HOW can you have a "Party of Independents"? Nev

The US education system doesn't cover much that happens outside of America. Their right wing media tells them they are doing well everywhere with Trump at the helm but most are completely insulated from the rest of the world. These are the MAGA nutters. You tube is full of clips showing their complete ignorance. Trump needs them to bolster his own ego and to relieve the complete insecurity of his pathetic existence. The problem is that the reality of inflation from his crazy tariffs and cost of petrol etc affects them as it does everyone and they are starting to run out of reasons to explain it all away. The mid term elections could change everything.

It's astonishing how many of those who support him still can't see what he's doing to their country and the world. I can understand that people may be on side with his policies, such as they are since he doesn't seem to have any idea of what his job is supposed to be, but how they can accept his corruption, lying, incompetence, racism, bullying and general nastiness is beyond me. I think a lot of his supporters don't follow politics and don't know much about what's going on in general.

In my thirties I used to dream I was flying a light plane from Paris to London then realise that my licence had expired, I would wake up in a panic. When I got my licence back the dream went away. If Freud is about sex, you know what to do.

I was listening to a talkback segment on the ABC radio tonight and the publican from Eulo rang in. He was on his way back home from Roma and mentioned that when he bought the car in Roma, the dealers offered a free 1,000 kilometre checkup. That's about 60 k's short of the distance to drive it home from Roma to Eulo and turn around and drive straight back to Roma.

It is, but it's a very tight and strict alliance normally. Stray from the party line and you get the boot is how a lot of them operate.

BYD has a dedicated RHD assembly line in one of their factories. It churns out a new RHD BYD car, every 52 seconds. Trump has handed ownership of the car market to the Chinese. https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/an-enormous-ship-docked-in-melbourne-today-its-cargo-could-permanently-change-australian-motoring-20260531-p602f6.html

Yes, I think they are far better off on their own. As a party they could end up being neither here nor there. Some of them of a similar persuasion could be loosely alligned but I doubt a party would work.

BYD is currently executing a massive logistics surge to Australia, having committed to tripling shipment volumes to 30,000 vehicles for May and June 2026 to address record demand driven by high fuel prices. The first special shipment of nearly 5,000 vehicles has already departed Shanghai aboard BYD’s proprietary carrier, the BYD Zhengzhou, and is scheduled to arrive in Melbourne on June 2, 2026, before proceeding to Sydney and Brisbane.

Their Gasoline seems to have gone up about the same as Ours Has. Nev

Nev, that would have been a license to print money when you think of the relative value of a pound (currency) back then.

The coldest official temperatures we get in Qld. are always at Stanthorpe on the border and Oakey on the Darling Downs. They record winter lows of -4 to -6 on average. A big difference between official recordings and private recordings though. A mate who had a small crop farm at Stanthorpe has recorded up to -15 at rare times. I get why Stanthorpe is cold; it's a thousand feet higher than the Toowoomba range but Oakey has always baffled me. I think it must be the shape of the land around it trapping the cold air or something like that.

Australia doesn't "Know" Cold, even in the Alps. Melbourne is only 36 Degrees of Lat. South of the equator.. Nev

40c below is the coldest I've experienced, at Grand Prairie in Alberta. 30 below was quite ok with the right gear but 40 was a point where it was like being in an industrial freezer. 20 below at Calgary was quite pleasant if the wind wasn't blowing and was about equivalent in coldness to two or three above in western Qld. A different cold over there in Canada, as long as you could block the outside air you'd be quite warm. Australian cold is more insidious and can creep into your bones no matter how much clothing you have on. A bit like the difference between dry and humid heat.

Our place had a mix of self mulching black soil and areas of red soil. It was probably about 80% black, 20% red. You could always get a strike on the red soil with limited rain, but it was a gamble as it needed follow up rain to keep going. The black soil needed more rain to get a seed strike but usually held the moisture well. It's changed a lot these days with zero/minimal till and tramtracking. Seems to a lot wider row spacing as well.

Too Lazy to think abut what their idol is up to, and the consequences to others and the reputation of the USA around the World which is TRASHED by this dumb, totally out of control, Egomaniac. Nev

Those were the days when we still rode on the sheep's back as the saying goes. My main memories of that town were the steam trains and the yellow Western Transport B-model Mack semis hauling wool bales in from the west. That and being able to consume as many free lemonade spiders as I could handle as my mates parents owned the local cafe.

I still have the classic flying and naked in public dreams from time to time. I think as a consequence of being an RAAF musician (I left 36 years ago) I still occasionally have a dream where I am getting ready for a performance and I can't find an item of my uniform (which would have been a big deal at the time). Often, I will have something in my wardrobe that resembles the required uniform but is somehow different. A related dream is that I am somehow about to go on stage for a play or musical, and I realise that I don't know the lines. Dreams about flying (in a plane) also plague me from time to time. I am usually renting the club's plane, but I can't seem to get everything ready in time, and the light is fading, or the weather is deteriorating.

I see last night where he wants the roof of his magnificent beautiful ballroom to be a military drone base. That will make it a great target.

Freud is about SEX. Nev

Because it's worth a lot of money when you get it right and it doesn't require trees or Vines and the world needs it. Nev

Where is Freud when you need him? I went yhrough a falling nightmare phase, later on I grew out of it - I'd dream of falling, then i dreamt that I could swoop out of the fall and fly over the houses.

He's the Most talked about Person in the World. Most of what He says Makes no sense at all. Nev

As a small young thing I dreamed of falling from a great height OR Having no clothes on with people around. Nev

Thanks for sharing, Octave. Unfortunately I could only play the first bit, we do have slow internet in the remote south! Good perspective. Keep up the exercise - once you lose fitness, it's almost impossible to get it back.

Who'd be a grain grower? In May it was too dry around here to plant. Over the past week we have had good falls of rain. Now the ground is too wet to get onto. The end of the sowing ssois fast approaching, so it may still not be possible to get a crop in.

Do they use a lot of finger gel? 😄

if you took the time to listen you would realise she is not rascist. thats just a word lefties like to throw around when they have nothing better. you still love albo and snake chalmer even after all the lies and the damage to our land and economy with the stupid net zero plan that most countries have abandoned. hopefully labour are out at the next election and the country can recover. go one nation . out with the left and the woke clowns.

An old work mate has cancer and I haven't seen him since late last year. I've been meaning to ring him for a while but didn't know what to expect considering how sick he looked last time I saw him. Anyway, he rang me yesterday and he sounded great, just like his old self. It was the chemo making him sick last time I saw him he told me. His wife has cancer as well and both have been on chemo and have had a lot of success with it. They're both doing well and are back to fairly normal lives, so good news.

Nice pics, Octave. Looks like the view from my bedroom window

Another Positive to celebrate. It looks as if the Trump Tower at Surfers is not a Goer. Nev

Well, I have a great piece of positive news. My Hilux is suffering from noisy rear wheel bearings, so I thought I'd get a couple of new ones. I started looking around, and you have to buy a kit with seals and collar, as well as the bearing. The best price I could find was around $104 each. Now, I'm a bit fussy with bearings, and I much prefer to buy German, American, Japanese or even Taiwanese bearings, as I consider them superior bearings to Chinese, and even Thai-made bearings. As my Hilux was built in Thailand, I suspect it has Thai, or even Chinese bearings. I think that's the reason they haven't performed as well as I'd expected (the Hilux has done 190,000kms and has done a lot of heavy hauling). So I kept looking around, and I was amazed to find a website throwing out Timken bearing kits to fit my Hilux - on "clearance" - at - wait for it - $4.89 each!! The company is in Doncaster in Vic, so I ordered them last night - and blow me down, they were delivered this afternoon!! The two bearing kits cost me a grand total of $25.79 including delivery!! The company is Precision International, and I reckon they must have packaged them at first light, and run them out to the airport to catch the early morning flight to Perth!! What is even better - I opened one of the packets and the bearings are actually Made in Japan!! Bonus! So this little exercise has made my day!! Thank you muchly, Precision International!

Well, what a bummer that is! I never count on any ticket checking until it's done at the Lotto counter by the agent or the scanner. I've had multiple tickets that I'd checked, where I thought I'd won nothing - then when I scanned the ticket, there was a prize line I'd missed, and I had a winner! We had an 80 yr old war veteran here a few days ago, who thought he,d won a few hundred dollars - then when he checked, he'd won the jackpot, a million dollars! He said he knew he had 6 numbers and thought he needed a supplementary number as well, to win the jackpot. But you only need 6 numbers on one line, and that's it, you take home the first division prize.

Back on topic. Regarding recent talk of a possible Teal party forming, I was wondering what views are on that. Personally I don't think it will go far. At this point there's not enough interest among independents; a lot of them are very mindful they were elected as independents and probably also thinking they could lose their seat to a true independant if they joined a party. There's talk among journalists about the possibility of them filling a centre right void.

Well in spite of all the depressing stuff that Donold is doing and saying, He still has a big following. Recent polls (grain of salt required), suggest that Republicans are losing ground from Latinos and less white voters. Then the detail emerges.....support ('I'll vote for Trump again'), has dropped from 72% to only 60%. For that demographic. What? If they still have 60% support, after all the damage done so far, next year will be even worse than this year! I realise it is only one segment of their public, but it still indicates an amazing level of support for continuing the rolling disaster of USofA.

People go to Qld for the Warmth, NOT the Politics. Few in Australia KNOW what real COLD is. Unfortunately the old "Beautiful one day, PERFECT the Next'' is not the case. anymore. Weather related disasters are causing high Costs. Nev