Old Koreelah

What is that measured from?

Pushing my wheelchair/walker around for the last few weeks, I had to focus on what I was stepping on. Pavers and cobblestones in England tend to be much larger than in France. I have a nebulous theory that the French deliberately install cobblestones small enough to be easily ripped up and used as ammunition against oppressive governments!

Looks like a wonderful harvest. Australian farmers tell me they cannot approach the yields achieved across northern Europe, because of of their fertile soils and looong summer days. Last month we spent a couple of days driving across southern England. Beautiful country. Wish our farmers would adopt some of their land management practices. Wildlife corridors and refuges around every paddock, providing windbreaks to reduce wind erosion and evaporation. Too often I’ve heard farmers complain that trees get in the way of their machinery! That doesn’t seem to have bothered the French. Normandy farmland is similar to England, with small to medium sized paddock all surrounded by trees, yet some of the farm machinery is a big as you’d see in the wide open farmland of Australia.

Nev if i didn’t have so many projects on the go, I’d build a wide, low CoG, all terrain mower that could tackle our slopes. Lots of possibiliites. It just would have to be a bit more adaptable than these buggers:

Back in Oz this morning! Nev we built our house 3/4 way up a steep block of almost three ha. I’ve spent forty years rehabilitating this overgrazed, eroded hillside. Now most of it is trees and native grasses. Habitat for mobs of natives. I love wandering around our bit of paradise watching the critters and listening to the birds. Before each bushfire season we use the wizzer and mower to push firebreaks out from the house. Some times I borrow a neighbour’s slasher or have sheep in for a day or two. A ride-on? Never! She mows for the exercise. A few years ago she got a mower with an engine, so has expanded her grass-conquering territory well down the hill from our fairly level lawn. Most of our block is too steep and rocky to safely operate a ride-on. I use a zero turn at our airport, but it doesn’t do my back any favours. I prefer to use my wizzer. It’s a mechanical derivative of the medieval scythe and gives my body a workout akin to Tai Chi. It must have paid for itself by saving me all those Gym fees! Three months since I went base over apex, I’m walking fairly confidently with my new hip, but uneven ground still scares me. Time to give her the tools to cover more ground. .

Been away from home almost a month and have had one afternoon of drizzle. Took two umbrellas and a jacket to Blighty, but got more sunny weather than Oz! Crazy. Due home on Tuesday, hopefully with enough cash left over to buy the missus a new self-propelled mower- she’ll need it!

Long ago a researcher (American, from memory) discovered most troops never aimed at their opposite number; it takes quite a a bit of motivation and training to overcome human decency.

My mum’s sister kept their Cumberland Plains dairy farms until recently. In 1971 I operated loaders on their Moorebank farm. ”Cow Pastures” was a local name for the good grazing land just SW of Sydney’s CBD.

Yesterday in Paris we had a very cheerful cabbie. None of us could speak enough of the other’s language to converse, but he caused all his Aussie passengers to erupt with laughter when he started humming Henri Mancini’s them to The Pink Panther...

I can’t see Crimea being given back to Ukraine- too much historic and ethnic baggage. Let’s hope it get some sort of special neutral identity.

A sort of car story: Today I overtook a pair of stylish people driving a red Ferrari Mondial. Burbling and crackling at idle, it was far less practical for the West Bank traffic than the folding wheelchair I was pushing.

There are plenty of dysfunctional families around, but the rich seem to have it in spades. Glad my parents weren’t rich- my siblings still talk to each other.

Perhaps not, NP. After the destruction ends, the world will be queueing up to get a piece of the reconstruction action. How fast will Ukraine recover? Given the spirit they’ve shown this year, probably much faster than the other ex/soviet nations did. We’ve heard some pretty clear talk from Biden about how the west would react to Russia using a tactical nuke in this war. NATO has the capacity to devastate Putin’s military and economy- without using nukes. Meanwhile, we’re told that nuclear weapons require regular maintenance and testing, so why they be any more reliable than Russia’s conventional weaponry? Some predict an absolute shemozzle, where many nukes don’t work.

Something human seem to excell at: coming up with ever more efficient ways to maim and slaughter our own species.

All these comments ring true; the people are mainly nice like most places, just nobody steps up to help when it is bleedingly obvious I needed it. Our family group discovered something interesting about language: greet locals in your best version of their lingo and they respond with a barrage of rapid and unintelligible French- our accent was too good. They need to know you have little command of their language. Now that we have reached Paris, the traffic is a revelation. Vehicles of all sizes and speeds share the road and somehow just miss bumping each other as they change lanes, turn across traffic into side streets and exit huge roundabouts with no lane markings. Several cab and Uber trips have explained to me why the French, Italians, Spanish, etc have produced so many champions: their driving skills are amazing. More amazing is the self-control of cabbies from diverse ethnic backgrounds: never heard a raised voice!

A valid argument, OT, but consider how many fossils remains we find of animals believed to number in the millions. They are incredibly rare. We are told that there were only a few thousand Neanderthals spread across vast continents. Despite Australia’s appalling extinction record, a few survivors of animals thought long lost have recently been found. Also, occasionally new species are still being discovered. And another thing (crickey, it must be the beer talking!): I’ve been involved in lots of searches- mostly for little kids and old farts with dementia. The main lesson is they don’t want to be found and are plurry good at hiding. A couple were found quite close to search HQ, so had evaded quite intensive sweeps. If we miss little kids and old farts in ordinary clothes, what chance for an intelligent, experienced bush creature?

Don’t write off that slimy orange grub just yet; the despicably corrupt Republic mafia is rapidly dismantling Americans’ right to vote. Soon there may be not be any chance of them being voted out: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/06/the-most-terrifying-case-of-all-is-about-to-be-heard-by-the-us-supreme-court

Cultures change; new arrivals often adopt the best traditions of their new nation. After a few weeks there, I’ve just left that Green and Pleasant Land and already miss the multicultural people. I heard lots of languages spoken in central London, although everyone we approached spoke English. Most importantly, they seemed to have quickly embraced the best in British culture. Travelling with bulky luggage and a wheelchair in England,people of many races and religions ALWAYS came rushing to offer help. In my first few days crossing northern France to locate the war grave of a relative who gave all to defend that foreign land, the cultural difference is profound. We’ve struggled up and down stairs, onto buses and trains. NOT ONCE has anyone offer to help. Yesterday we managed to carry our gear onto a double-deck express train. Young, fit men sat and impassively watched my desperate attempts to load my folded wheelchair onto the luggage rack. None moved to help.

The corporate world is overdue for a pay reset- before the mobs burn down their mansions! Musicians receive Royalties from those who benefit from their creative efforts. Surely some bright spark can come up with a mechanism for remuneration of our corporate and political leaders, based on the long-term usefulness of their decisions?

Well said, OME! I’m tired of the world diplomatically ignoring the long-term, ingrained, ongoing abuses of basic human rights across the Islamic world.

Often true, but sensible design (rare in Oz) can overcome this. Plenty of solar farms graze sheep, and report only a small drop in yield. The panels give plenty of shade, important to livestock. India is killing two birds with stone: covering irrigation canals with solar panels- no land lost, evaporation losses greatly reduced.

Good discussion. To be totally non-PC, we should recognise a major factor holding back many mixed race people who identify as indig: their non-aboriginal ancestors. Too often they were the dregs of white society, so their decendants have to overcome whatever genetic or attitudinal handicaps they passed on.

Strikes me as very similar to Australia in WWII, when we had a critical need for troops to defend our north. Curtin was legally forbidden from sending conscripts overseas, but PNG was considered Australian territory.

Our local blokes are limited to 3,000kg and on hot, bushfire days struggle to lift 2,700 lites. Perhaps they have less SHP than those in the west.

There have been numerous reports of “wild hairy men” down thru the ages and in several continents, some well documented. Some of those descriptions are consistent with Neandertals. Scientists tell us that our early human cousins were widespread, but incredibly small in number. I’d life to think a few have survived into recent times.