Bruce Tuncks

I agree with that Nomad, and many years ago when I was an accidental landlord, I found it out to my cost. One thing that I should have forseen was how the agent would see lots more of the tenants than the owners, and come to take their side.

Well wherever he got to live, it was better than the jail he avoided. I wonder if he ever got back with the now-rich wife...

Shearers are costing the farmer more than he gets for the wool around here, with meat sheep. This is a new thing, and old habits die slowly. And here's one for jerry... there was a farm "consultant" who was ripping off farmers. Just before he went broke, he had a divorce and she got all the assets, so there was none left for the dudded farmers. ( I don't think he deliberately set out to rip them off, I thought he decided he was smart enough to invest their money at high rates and pay them at the lower rate of safe investment, all the while pretending that the money was invested at the low rate.) I was always suspicious of the divorce, but in admiration of how clever an idea it was.

I hope the Chinese make electric cars cheaper in the future. Right now, you are paying a LOT more for being an early adopter. There is a lot less build in an electric car than an IC one. And there should be cheaper batteries one day too.

When I was in London my host took me to a restaurant, and I gradually got the message that he had paid a LOT for what I thought was a normal white wine. Yep those frogs know how to overcharge rich poms. But we in Australia are spoiled by the quality of what we drink. If a winemaker put poor quality stuff into a bottle, I doubt if he would be invited to the next industry meeting. Yes, they do make some bad stuff, but this is sent to the distillery, or at worst put into a cask.

I never understood just why " unwooded chardonnay " was more expensive, now I know it must taste better.

If you put "saracen's head" into google you will get quite a few, so you are correct OME.

I have to say that IF you are really employing a winemaker, you need to know a lot more about the candidates than where they were educated. We sure did graduate some dopes. But once I met a frenchman who had inherited a winery from his grandfather. He knew no chemistry, which is terrible for a countryman of Lavoisier, and he answered many questions with "We do it zat way because my grandfather did it zat way"... I would never have employed him.

I think you have a funny old system there. We have the Torrens title stuff, and you appreciate it when you go older than it goes. Once we tried to but a block at Kapunda, and the sale fell through when the seller couldn't prove he had the right to sell. Kapunda is a very old town.

OME, I do know of a Saracen's Head pub in Adelaide, Its on Carrington Street. But there must be others, which do you mean?

I agree Nev, but in cool areas like Europe, you are allowed to add sugar to the ferment, while in Australia, you are allowed to add acid but not sugar. Acid helps if there was too much sun and for good wine you need a balance, or so I've been told. Thanks for the comment about the yeast. I reckon you studied winemaking more than me.

When the wine students were at a tasting, I was often the only person present who could say something stupid ( being an engineer) without risk of losing his job, or buggering his chances of being offered one. The best tastings were when they lined up the same wine from grape juice to finished wine, year by year. It sure takes some skill to know how the taste is going to change, more skill than I ever had.. I do remember the adage that ,while you can't make good wine without good grapes, it is real easy to muck up good grapes and make lousy wine. There are lots of smart students who, like me, lack talent in the tasting department. They get jobs in the labs, of which big wineries always have one these days. Here's a bit of trivia... Who trains the most sought-after winemakers? The answer is Australia. Here, we use chemistry, which makes the winery more money that the froggy "tradition" does.

Ever been to World's End? It's in SA, not far from Kapunda.

The "e" stands for electric cos it has an electric starter as well as a kick-starter.

I reckon onetrack has it right... there should be an upper limit on what is claimable as a non-tax item. It is ridiculous that with our benign climate, we have the world's biggest houses. Nev, if you visit, we will have a room for you in our shed-house. I would love for you to ride my ag motorbike around the farm. It's a 200 cc yamaha e bike and I'm thinking I'd like to be able to ride it into town.

It seems to me like a well-meaning idea gone wrong. The idea was clearly to protect buyers from unscrupulous builders, it was not intended to send honest ones broke.

So what happens to the "owners" of the half-built houses? What if they can use tools and want to finish them themselves?

I reckon Albo will survive ok.... I voted "no" but really want to support albo in most other ways.

The housing was to be built at Amoonguna, which is a govt abo settlement about 20km SE of the town. I was a kid when it was built, and the last "wild" abos retired there after giving up hunter-gathering.

About houses designed by indigenous, I have a true story. I was in Alice Springs and there was a contract being let for newly-arrived abos. A group consisting of an architect, an abo elder and ( my mate ) the manager of a building supply company in town. They made the design without any timber or glass as these materials get smashed or burned. I thought it looked quite good as a concrete-block and galv iron house. Well the group was told in no uncertain terms that their "racist" design had been thrown out ... "we will have you know" some bureaucrat from Canberra wrote " that indigenous are citizens and entitled to similar housing as other citizens

This really happened 15 years ago in Alice Springs. My commodore had the heat always on, so I saved money by turning the aircon on a bit to balance things out. Well one hot day in October the gas ran out of the aircon, so I drove the car to the big Holden dealers in town. I did feel worried when I saw the maintenance dept executive offices, but I approached the guy on the desk. He told me there could be lots of reasons for my problem, but he could book the car into "diagnostics" in a week's time for $220. ( extra to fix the problem, the "diagnostics" was just to identify the problem. With tears in my eyes, i then drove to a shed where an independent mechanic worked. He didn't want a bar of the job.... " 3 days work to get the dash off n on and you always bust something" he said. So, soundly beaten, I drove the hot car home, going past the K-mart at Billygoat Hill. There I bought a manual, since it had this very problem, which I fixed in 5 mins by turning a wire control rod down near the pedals. One day, I guess that you will not be allowed to touch your own car like this.... it's already true for planes.

AND i think it was for the best that the "no" vote prevailed so convincingly. There may be a chance for my "tough love" ideas in about ten years time.

I always thought that the referendum was fulfilling an election promise, and Albo did that properly.

Yep I am sure you are right Jerry. But there is no more important battle to have, says I.

I have tried without success to find just why Allah chose to level so many buildings in Afghanistan. Are not the Taliban especially devout?