Jerry_Atrick

I only buy second hand phones from dodgy phone shops around town. But, I find they work well. I have a Samsung A52 that was about two years old when I bought it and I have had it three years. Paid £100 for it, and it is fantastic. Doesn't miss a beat. I bought my son a 5g version of it for £140.. goes like the clappers. The camera though, is carp. @red750 - lower end Samsungs may not have the phone uality you want given your photographic skills. See if you can try one before you buy it.. My son ended up saving for himself and bought a one-13 or something - some Chinese "rubbish" Wasn't cheap, but for 1/2 the proice of whatever iphone was the latest when he bought it, and with better chips and camera, it was a steal. He gave me the A52 I bought for him, but I like my older one that is only 4g so much, have never bothered "upgrading".

Yep.. that is where he succeeds where other pollies fail

The reality is Labor is politically failing big time and the conservatives have become such a basket case, they make the Libs look like rational people caring for the wider population. The Lib demo are for some reason unable to capitalise mainly because they look like a lefty version of Labour, I guess. Quite amazingly, the Greens are on course to poll better than Labour: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/11/greens-overtake-labour-polls-zack-polanski There is some resentment over the failure of Brexit, but that is more attributed to the Conservatives handling of it and Labour failing to grasp the new opportunities Brexit apparently provides than Brexit itself.. And Farage has the gift of the gab and uses it far more skillfully than Chump.. and he is able to deflect blame successfully to immigration and when it goes pear shaped, not enough of the press hold him to account for some strange reason. Even the Reform councils that are sending their councils broke or being convicted of crimes seems to not make headlines. I think it is a case of them at least appearing to be listening to the little person..

Fixed average speed cameras seem to work pretty well here. Cheaper to install I would guess and can pay for themselves too

Sounds like an inappropriate use of Technology when speed bumps do the job adequately or at least no less inadequately

Not sure, but fujitice journo Shane Dowling is running with it. https://kangaroocourtofaustralia.com/2025/11/23/kevin-rudd-pays-lawyers-to-cover-up-his-jeffrey-epstein-link/

You're not claiming to be a mining scumbag, are you?

Wilfully blind, ignorant and gullible in one. You don't play cricket for England, do you? The "man" has presided over defunding government departments designed and, in US terms, making the US clean and healthy, such as the FDA, Obamacare, the FAA, and the like. Maybe you should go over there and experience first hand what it is like. Many of my US based friends are telling me to stay away as it is turning more and more to shit Oh, and pardoning criminals to go out and murder again is also a positive in your mind, I guess?

It already has

Mate, I am not waiting for it. I bought at this time of year as a commuter, and I am going to use it as such. I didn't get my ride in today, but that is OK as the Ducati boy has said his Ducati i a little sensitive to rain and cold, and tomorrow is rainy and cold. So, I will go out then and hit those twisties. I got some of my planned items done today... To cut a very long story short, didn't go to Gloucester, but ended up at a main dealer in Exeter that had 20% off everything. BThe sales assistant was young, female, and blonde. And I thought great, a Saturday student workder. Holey moley, she knew her stuff.. well beyond blokes with 20 years riding experience. She was absolutely professional, and the lad was totally enamoured by her, professionally (though I doubt he would say no to a quick drink with her, even though he doesn't drink). @facthunter - goes to show, blondes do have brains! She would give most of us a run for our brainiac money.

Yes, although she made for great comedy, I have to admit. Also, isn't it funny how people switch from being great supporter to great critic of Chump... (or vice versa in the case of Graeme Lindsay and the Texan congressman whose name I can't remember at the moment.

Agree.. Trust me, if it made the real news, my partner would know about it. I just checked and she hasn't heard anything about it, so as the bellwhether of all shlock news, I would also call it fake. BTW, if it were true, I would agree with the purported kings response!

I did tell my son to wait until he got to Aus to learn to ride. He is starting to complain that 125CC - especially around rural areas is simply not enough power should he need to get out of a pickly - or get to 70 (for most bikes) on dual carriageways. My son is not the cavalier sort by any stretcy of the imagination and the chances of him voluntarily exceeding a speed limit, even on a Hyabusa, is about the same as someone willing first division lottery every Saturday in a row, for a month. I looked up Vicroads learner bike restrictions, and wow, was I shocked, If anything, I would have expected the restrictions to have come down unilaterally to below 250c, but can be up to 660cc if thei have a power to weight ratio of up to 150kw/tonne (actially Transport Vic lists it and not Vicroads): https://transport.vic.gov.au/road-and-active-transport/road-rules-and-safety/motorcycles/motorcycles-for-learner-and-restricted-riders#h2-e4cr8 If a bike is not on the approved list on that web page and it meets reuirements, you can apply to have the bike you want added to the list. 150kw/tonne seems massive, given the kw/tonne of a Hyabusa is about 570... So unless they have some dicky formula rather than sijmple kw/weight * factor to get weight to a tonne, it would seem just about every bike under 660cc counts. My son's desired steed, a Triumph Speed 400, would certainly fit the bill. Anyway, back to the blog: Day 5 (yesterday) of ownership saw it stand under the covers. It was a lovely sunny day and got to 9 degrees, but with this reno and needing to get stuff done, didn't get the time. I had whatsapped two of the local village riders to let them know I had a bike, but one didn't believe me. My partner and I decided to eat the the village pub last night (foor was unusually very good - I was on orange juice and sodas as the beers there aren't great and I didn't want to have wine on account of severly reducing alcohol intake). We took the dog, but he was playing up so after dinner, I took the mut home and partner stayed on. One of the riders I text arrived after I left, and my partner told me when she got home he thought I was pulling his leg. So, tomorrow - Day 7, have a small ride out planned with he who was a disbeliever. This is the route: For context, within England a slightly wider map: Day 6 (today): It started wet today and the cover did a good job of keeping the rain off. In front of the dilapidated garage is a build up of soil thanks to a blocked drain thanks to builders digging up some of the lawn dlose to the long driveway and rain washing the soil down to the drain. So, the plan today is: Gotta help prepare the cottage for this weekend's holiday let. Taking the lad to Glocester (about an hour and a half away) to get Helmet and boots (nothing much in Tauton nor Exeter; the mega store in Bristol doesn't have great deals on helmets at the moment. Back and clear the soils from the front of the garage and unblock the drain. Maybe take the bike out in the wet for a small confidence builder. Bike to be put in garage. Here is the bike today in the muck of weather we have today: A bit different to Marty's post on Celebrating Positives 😞

And it's a terrible/trajic joke of history both were put and kept democratically (and it looks like one will go as undemocratic as the other).

Looks like a lovely day for it! Sorry about my poost afterwards. For some reason your post didn't come up, nor was there a notification of replies to the thread.

Maybe a new thread? The NHS here is free at point of use. Goin to a GP costs nothing at the time. When I first came to the UK in 1996/97, I was amazed at how good it was and considering the public/private system in Australia, one was waiting longer at Aussie public hospitals, etc. But the NHS as a service has deterioriated sigfnificantly since then.. there were waits in A&E/Casualty/ER literally for days - I think 99 hours was reported at one stage! It wasn't the "Slow down, mate" attitude. The front line staff are generally (admittedly not always) conscientious and while they aren't running at break-neck speeds for 12 and beyind hours, they put in a decent amount of work. In addition, They are always on call, etc. One of the good things under TTony Blair was it was well fundedm a politics was as removed from the service as possible. You could get a GP appointment almost anyhere in the country same day, Even if you were privately insured (not very common at the time), you would go public for anything not elective. Private insurance was (and still is) very expensive. The problem is when the converatives came in, they played political football with it. Reform after reform, introducing more and more layers of management and administration, splitting them into trusts with an eye to prrivatising the system took more and more of the budget away from front line services and more and more in to management and admin. In addition, hell bent on ideology, they privatised services - some critical, which meant more of the budget to investors and more admin and even less of the budget to actual front line services., Of course, in private enterprise you tend to "innovate", which means in these sorts of situations, finding ways to extract more profit from a flat revenue.. and that rately results from captial investment. Of course, having a private/publoc model like Australia doesn't mean any of the above won't happen, either. The Howard reforms seems to have worked more for the insurance companies than the patient. I can recall before I left Australia, medical insruance was paid to Medibank Private, HBA, or a handful of others.. But the cover was almost limitless for what compared to today seems to be a very small premium. I have been researching medical insurance and it is now very expensive (of course, I was O/S when he introduced the changes, so I will have to pay the full loading when I return), and there are caps that mean once you really need the insurance you are pretty well SOL (ship outa luck). I am not against the loading per se, as it represents increased risk with age without previous contributions, but on my return to Aus, I may perpetually travel around (grey nomad???/) and use travel insurance - a lot cheaper.

For the CBT here, it is an 8am start - 2 hours in the classroom covreing the road laws, bike basics, riding basics, and safety. Then it is as long as you need on site until the instructor and student are both comfortable on the bike and confident that the road will be OK. Then a minimum of two hours on the road. There is no pass or fail per se. You either get the certificate or you don't. If you don't, it is not recorded as a fail. You keep going as and when until you do (or give up trying). Here is a not very well organised syllabus from the guvmint: https://www.gov.uk/search/all?keywords=element+&manual[]=%2Fguidance%2Fcompulsory-basic-training-cbt-syllabus-and-guidance-notes

It depends on where you align

Dat 4 of ownership - the bike tood under covers all day even though it was sunny and hit 5.5 degrees! Although, my son's jacket and gloves arrived today. He paid hommage to the roo that gave up its life for my son's safety... And he is booked in on Tuesday for the CBT (learners permit).

Isn't the idea that the value of money drops over time.. So, according to Google AI $100,000 AUD in the year 2000 is worth almost $208,000 today: Assuming no cost of maintenance/works over time nor other allowable deducations, if you don't discount for inflation and simply deduct sale price (let's say $500,000) from the purchase price you will get $400,000 gain you have to pay tax on. However, you are comparing a different dollar today than in the year 2000, where the value of the dollar less than 1/2 of what it was back then. To work out the value of your capital gain as opposed to the amount of the capital gain, you would either have to convert your original purchase price to today's value (almost $208K) oir convert the sale price of $500,000 to the value in year 2000 (c. $240k). If course doing it the latter way will mean you have to convert the difference back to today's dollars to calculate the income in today's numbers to allocate the correct tax; the former method converts to tody's values. If you don't convert the to today's value, you are overstating the value of the capital gain by almost $108,000. The raw difference (in this case $400K) does equal value (in this case, c. $292k). The only way to work out today's value of yesterday's dollar is to apply the inflation rate (or if there is some other price index more reliable indicator of purchasing power/value, than that should be used). The it comes down to the objective. Taxation policies are used to impact behaviour and therefore are not always applied fairly. For example, if you want to take hot air out of the house price market, taxing on values so more tax is being paid is one way to do it. If you want to simply tax fairly, so it is more about revenue generation than market correction, deducting inflation seems fairer as it is on value. But, of course, if like the UK, the country is broke and it needs to maximise revenue, taking out inflation should be dropped.. It will be a progressive tax as the more you make on a captial gain, the more proportionately you will pay. Personal income tax is a problem in this area (I know this is not a capital gain). As the purchasing power of money drops over time, the taxation thresholds at which different rates of tax kick in should be increased to cover the reduction in purchasing power. Famously, as in the UK, they have delayed this well beyind the current thresholds. This means you start paying tax, or paying higher rates of tax on lower values of money. This hurts the lower income earners more, because as the value of money decreases, wages tend to increase pushing say non=payers into paying tax on the same value, not amount of money. [Edit] I think a better option would be to eliminate the capital gains tax relief on property: Funny how this won't happen - just check the assets held my many senior politicians in the country - they have proven very unlikely to vote to eliminate that little deal.

Nothing stopping you from trying. Let's see how many votes you get.

One Nation is increasing in popularity - that is true. A 2% jump to be precise: https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/9951-federal-voting-intention-november-16-2025,. However, it did fall in two states. QLD, unsurprisingly, registered its biggest gain. And yes, ALP is down 2%. The reality is more and more people do feel left behind, the product if an increasingly unfair distribution of wealth. I would also say it is the disproportionate taxation and burdening middle classes that is also contributing. Couple tha with the owners of both mainstream and social media pedalling the message of their donors/sponsors/advertisers that distract from the real issue and lay blame on various "-ism's", and along comes parties that have policies to suppress democracy and sew further hatred, and you have people like Chump, Farage, etc getting prominance and ultimately power. None of their policies will solve the problems. However, the mainstream parties do have to lift their game, and that also means fighting with fire. Here's an example of the Chumps, Hansons, et al of the world work.. The major parties have to realise the messaging modes have changed and fight back sometimes using the tactics, if not the lies or misleading statements put out by those who will ultimately make lufe hell for many they purport to be the saviour of:

What is wrong with supporting big infrastructure projects? They create economic value on two levels - one is directly/indirectly while the build is going on and then increaseing economic capacity. Many jobs are directly created, investment is made, and then the thing has to be operated and maintained. Then there is the indirect economic consequences of the industries that support it - again during the build and beyond. The second economic return is the capacity it adds to the economy and consumer through workforce mobility. They are far more efficient than adding highways and road networks alone. The plan is to build it in stages and each stage will start operation - starting with the airport rail link in 2033, then the Cheltenham to Box Hill in 2035, then two more stages after that. It can take up to 30 years to deliver it all,yes, but operation will start much sooner, and benefits to the economy have already started. So, why would bebe an issue - especially if the federal government are footing some of the bill.. About time somewhere else other than NSW got the lions share (under SFM and Abbot) If the money wasn't being spent on the SRL, it would be spent on something else. Frankly, the investment is a good thing.

Maybe a False Angels patch...