The stolen Car and other strange procedures for the Aged

It has been some four months since the daughter phoned us up to say her car had been stolen from inside her remote controlled garage. Even though the car was recovered within a couple of days, the police impounded it because it had to be used as proof in a court case. The sales yard where the car was recovered from had bought the stolen vehicle from the thieves and claimed innocence. A police Court case ensued. Our daughter was told she would have to go without the car for a while. She thought though she would get the car back soon.

It is a complicated story but she finally got it back yesterday. No apology or explanation from the police. They expressed surprise the car wasn’t returned immediately! We gave her our car to use in the meantime. As time went by, we too had to get around and after driving past a car on the highway with a “For Sale’ sign, we ended up buying the car. It looked nice and had no obvious signs of being previously crashed. It was a car built by Bayerische Motoren Werke. What made us decide was that the owner told us you can drive this marvel of German Technology with all four tyres flat. Now, there is car which gives a new meaning for driving flat out.

However, now that our daughter finally got her car back, we took the train yesterday to Sydney to retrieve our car, the Peugeot (with foot-rest). However, we don’t need two cars. The BMW is smaller with endless electronic gadgetry for which one needs to take a couple of weeks to plough through the manual. A baffling mix of so many options on heating, steering, lights, the seat tilting up, down, sideways or forward. Locking of doors and bonnet alone takes a PHD to comprehend. However, as we again became embroiled in the Strata Body of our housing complex, and a heated dispute about parking problems, Helvi thought it best to keep both cars in order to give the neighbours something to worry and speculate about.

Just as things had calmed down and peace returned, the painting by the Iranian born Father and Son contractor and conflicting claims of priorities to some owners resulted in the percolating up of dormant problems. Some owners claimed their patch of front garden had been trampled on. One owner reckoned her Rosemary bush had been snipped. The colour of paint was wrong, or not enough coats of paint. Some demanded their town-house be painted first. It just kept on bubbling away. The usual fights of periodontal suffering pensioners, all keyed up and nowhere to go. So little available irony despite all the attempts for seniors to do fitness classes.

In any case. We will keep both cars for the time being. The rego is free for one car but not for both. There is a limit to our Government’s generosity towards pensioners. We would like to claim our spot of visitors parking which is next to our garage. The neighbours opposite us have three cars. One for each daughter and one for husband and wife. We get on well with them. They also are considerate enough to have lots of potted plants in front of the house which gives us a glowy feeling. Kindred souls so to speak. They were nice to the painters.

Spring is on its way. Millions of daffodils are nodding in parks and nature strips. All is well and the daughter has her car back.

https://www.amazon.com.au/Oosterman-Treats-Gerard-ebook/dp/B01IRQZY7C/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1470877728&sr=1-1&keywords=oosterman+Treats

Old fools and The Anzacs.

This photo taken during an Anzac parade in the 1990′ Sydney

Just when we thought it safe to go outside the front door, our colds came back. It seems the lull in sneezing and coughing was just the eye of the storm. The worst was yet to come. We are now in full flight of a solid cold but with an appetite for food not diminished it can’t possibly be that bad. It just feels like that. We had booked a flu shot for last Thursday but had to cancel it. In all surgeries signs appear not to visit the doctor while having a cold. Hardly an encouragement for seeking help.

In any case I also noticed a sign blue-tacked below the secretary’s window, ‘the 2015 flu vaccination will not be available till after 23 April’. That date is yet to come. So, why was it possible to get this shot last Thursday? A friend of us told the same story and was told by doctor he could also get his flu shot now but it would be last year’s serum! What the hell. Are we oldies being taken for a ride or what? Who needs a flu shot for last year’s flu? The world is a dangerous place with lurking deceptions as common as specials of Super market’s butter reduced from $ 1.80 to a mouthwatering $ 1.95.

The stubbornness of our colds could also be due to the relentless campaign for the 100 years remembrance of the fallen soldiers at Turkey’s Gallipoli. All TV channels now seem to only feature Doccu-entertainfomation footage of war and mayhem at Gallipoli. The spirit of the Australian Anzacs, the legends and  stories of heroism and bravery, sacrifice and duty for Mother England so the world can live in freedom. On on and on it goes.

And yet, what has it taught us? Our foreign minster Julie Bishop, scouring  war ravaged Middle Eastern countries trying to get agreements, including of all place by Iran, to take back by  force from Australia hundreds of Iranians that sought our refuge, a safe haven, freedom from oppression and bombings!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-18/julie-bishop-arrives-in-iran-for-talks/6402776

“Iran has reportedly been reluctant to agree to the repatriation of failed Iranian asylum seekers.

Earlier this week, Iranian ambassador Abdolhossein Vahaji indicated his country was unlikely to agree to a deal on the issue.

“We cannot put any pressure and impose any forces on them in order to send them back to Iran,” he said.

“This is against the law and regulation and we cannot [do it] according to human rights [laws].”

Even Iran is telling Australia that it would be a breach of human rights. So where does this leave us? Australia is clearly flouting its obligations, but it gets worse. People in detention on Australian soil while getting the refugee status dealt with, in most cases taking years, will be send to Nauru if women fall pregnant. Babies of refugees will not be allowed to be born on Australian soil to avoid a claim for residency status. Can you believe it? While Italy and other countries are sending boats and helicopters to try and save hundreds from drowning, Australia sends warships and tow the refugees back to  where they fled from.

We will remember the fallen of the thousands of Anzacs in private and spend time in ‘Lest us forget’ in silence and contemplation, without all this Government’s phoney hoopla and shabby mean-spirited ploys to a pretence of care.

The Anzacs would understand.

 

Our friends are our enemies.Foxglove poem

A few days ago I read an article which has disappeared into the bowels of IT. That’s how things are on the WWW. It’s a bit like flipping through a phone book after the imbibing of a couple and not only not remembering the page number but also what you had actually read. I get this more and more. No sooner have I read a fascinating unforgettable bit of essential trivia and even before taking leave of my chair, it has already gone or in a Dali Watch meltdown.

I have told my wife to take a good grip on me. I am losing it. Oh, now I remember what it was that took my inattention. Something about bombing and the futility of it. Someone pointed out that;
We not only fight our enemies in Iraq and Syria but also our allies and friends.
The situation gets more and more complicated as time goes by.

Get again a bit closer now and écoutez carefullement svp.

We don’t like Isis, but Isis is supported by Saudi Arabia who are our friends. We don’t like president Assad and support the fight against him in Syria. So does Isis who we don’t like. We don’t like Iran but Iran supports Iraqi government against Isis. We support Iraq in fighting Isis but not others such as Iran who also fight Isis. Isis must only be killed by our friends but not by our enemies.

Some of our friends support our enemies and some of our enemies support our enemies. Some of our enemies support our friends. Some enemies are fighting against enemies that are also (at time) our friends. Some want our enemies to win while some of our enemies want our enemies to win depending on who is enemy or friend.
Our best friends are or were also our enemies and vice versa.
Hope this clears it up.

Or, someone better grounded in logic could sum it up thus: Our friends and enemies are one. They are us. I now surmise but ask; are we really bombing ourselves?

Does that make sense?

Or have I fuckcen flipped?
Should I just concentrate on growing Foxgloves.(Foxglove poisoning usually occurs from sucking the flowers or eating the seeds, stems, or leaves of the foxglove plant.)

Foxgloves by Mary Webb.
“The foxglove bells, with lolling tongue,
Will not reveal what peals were rung
In Faery, A thousand ages gone.
All the golden clappers hang
As if but now the changes rang;
Only from the mottled throat Never any echoes float.
Quite forgotten, in the wood,
Pale, crowded steeples rise;
All the time that they have stood
None has heard their melodies.
Deep, deep in wizardry
All the foxglove belfries stand.
Should they startle over the land,
None would know what bells they be.
Never any wind can ring them,
Nor the great black bees that swing them
Every crimson bell, down-slanted,
Is so utterly enchanted. –

Australia’s treatment of refugees on Manus Island .

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-06/manus-island-whistleblower-describes-filthy-conditions/5725042

Whistleblower describes ‘filthy’ conditions inside detention centre

By Andrew Greene and Benjamin Sveen

“A former detention centre guard says he is not surprised an asylum seeker has died from an infection he caught at Manus Island because he witnessed filthy living conditions inside the facility.

Hamid Kehazaei cut his foot at the detention centre about three weeks ago, developed septicaemia and was sent to Brisbane’s Mater hospital.

The 24-year-old suffered a heart attack, and was later declared brain dead.

His family in Iran made the harrowing decision to switch off their son’s life support late Friday.

Former Manus Island detention centre employee Beau Mitchell has told the ABC he is not surprised at Mr Kehazaei’s plight after recording evidence of poor hygiene inside.

“There’s no air conditioning, the beds are extremely close together. The living standards are pretty quite filthy,” Mr Mitchell said

“Often they’d be standing on concrete to have a shower that was literally falling apart underneath them, just completely rotting away.”

Females need not apply in Australia; Try Iran.

Afghanistan has more females in Government than Australia.
http://www.news.com.au/world-news/women-better-represented-in-afghan-cabinet-than-in-australia/story-fndir2ev-1226720398777
It is amazing but Australia is now a deep embarrassment to the world. There is just one female on the front bench.

Norway just appointed its second female prime minister. Germany has a female chancellor Angela Merkel. Finland has 86 women in parliament which represents 43% of its 200 members.
Bangladesh has a female PM as has Denmark. Iran’s Vice-President and Head of National Youth Organization Farahnaz Torkestani is a woman.

Ahmadinejad appoints 4th woman to cabinet
Afp, Tehran
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sacked the head of Iran’s National Youth Organisation yesterday and appointed a woman to the cabinet post, official media reported.
Ahmadinejad removed Mehrdad Bazrpash and named Farahnaz Torkestani as the head of the National Youth Organisation, the official IRNA news agency said.

So, in summing up!

Abbott is either incapable of seeing and recognizing capable women for his cabinet or ‘his women of merit’ women don’t want to have a bar of his present coterie of the sneering beady eyed males burrowing away in Canberra. Either way, it doesn’t speak well for the integrity of our present government led by Abbott.

And cop this too Abbott.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/10313055/Why-some-Australian-women-loathe-Tony-Abbott-especially-now.html