The Bike in Rotterdam

The Bike in Rotterdam.

During the war in Rotterdam, there was no electricity. My dad, who already then, was very much into electric things, moved the dynamo (generator) from the front wheel of his bicycle to the rear wheel. He put the bike on a stand and in the evenings and in the dark, would peddle like possessed to provide my mother with some light in the kitchen to cook by on her little pump-up kerosene single flame cook top. Not every evening, some evenings there was no food. Brothers and I would go to bed early.

I read recently that there are hotels in Scandinavia (where else) whereby guests can reduce their accommodation cost by doing the same, peddle to produce power. The hotel of course has a converter which measures each bike’s produced energy being fed back into the national grid, which then converts into money and deducted from the bill. Nice idea hey? Now, as we all know we have a problem with weight as well as being the largest per capita of CO2 producers. Let’s put our thinking caps on. Hmmm…., what could be done to give relief to CO2 emissions and weight?

Eureka!

We subsidize all homes with a converter and a power point able to feed back our own produced electricity. We further get provided with bikes and stands with a lead to go into the converter. At every opportunity we jump on the bike(s) and lower our energy bill and hence the CO2. I am sure that if people that can afford to stay in hotels can do it, so can many of us. Just imagine the unemployed being able to earn a bit more to supplement their unemployment income. (Please don’t call it ‘dole’, it is a demeaning term.) The elderly who are sometimes inclined to getting a bit hazy in mind can defer Alzheimer by also jumping on the bike and get fitter than ever. Younger couples with increased fitness will, and getting all tingly in between those peddling thighs, hurriedly, disappear into the bedroom and by some kind of mechanism will convert their conjugal movements into even more electricity.

I am sure that the bike generated electricity will make more and more sense as the price of energy will inexorably increase to much more than at present. People that complain about the cost of electricity can do something about it and the more they peddle the lower the power bill.

Just imagine if politicians took up the cause. What could be more edifying than seeing Abbott on the bike stand inside Parliament House peddling like he so often does but… generating energy for Australia? I can’t think of no better way of dealing with all Liberal politicians including Slipper and Thomson. On their bikes, the bloody lot of them, eight hours a day.

Australia would be featured as a leader in saving the world’s ecology. Soon other countries will do the same.  Merkel would be powering ahead of Sarkozy .Whole armies, instead of fighting at useless wars and on killing fields would be put to work on bikes. Wars would be forgotten and Anzac Day would just fade away and being replaced by jubilant celebrations of peace and a clean world. Monuments of soldiers would be replaced by giant bikes and lithely shaped thighs.   just imagine, instead of wasting time texting and fiddling with Iphone and staring at little screens, the time was spent generating electricity and lose weight at the same time? What about converting all poker machines into power generating bicycles?

It would be so moral.

The mind boggles what many will come up with.

My poor rich Country

 

There are riots in Greece and a ruckus in the Ukraine, terrible events in Syria, a possible overthrow kept at bay in the Philippines. The tribes in Yemen are getting restless; the € euro is wildly gyrating at the mercy of Merkel. Will she kiss or just shake hands with the obstinate Nicolas Sarkozy? Europeans are all bleary eyed, keyed up with tension and Common Market constipation, millions suffering intermittingly serious bouts of intestinal hurry. Some desperate Italians are said to be holed up in caves sitting on hoards of gold.

But, where are the problems in Australia?

Are the butchers running out of T-bones or have the rules of cricket been changed. Don’t tell me the Friday night bingo has been scrapped, the meat raffle banned, cows off their milk? All of a sudden, with not as much as a single seething university student or a hyped up history professor, Australia has gone terribly hormonal. When everything is rolling around in total peace and everyone happily tucked in bed, an ex PM decides at midnight’s hollow chime to chuck it in and go for the Government’s jugular. The bells are tolling, heads are rolling, and tongues are wagging. We are having a serious political breakdown and the whole nation is gone troppo with all the excitement of a coup d’état at the Dungog local ladies bowling club.

This country is, according to almost everyone in the rest of the world, the prime example of a well run economy. Our treasurer even won an award for being the best. We are whooping it up as never before. Mountains of iron ore, together with shiploads of the top few hundred metres of the Australian continent is scraped, sold, and shipped to China. We are all getting rich without even having to be on the boat to China and risk sea sickness. Isn’t it nice to be so well off? Our McMansions are the biggest in the world. Anyone visiting us can’t get over our lovely acreages of rolling suburbs stretching out over those enticing blue hills into the ‘never never’. The Rosella circuits with triple garages to boot, all dress- circled around those flowing round-a-bouts are the envy of the world.

Could it possibly be a personal vendetta that is now holding our sweet nation of Australia at ransom? Have souls been so deeply hurt, almost irreparably, that forgiveness can never be achieved without first hurling wreckage at an entire nation? How could this ever happen to a country known for its people being easy going, tolerant and full of bonhomie? Why the vindictiveness and allow the screaming of the indignant cries of having been personally wronged overpower all and obliterate all the previously achieved good-will and public achievements? How can the personal be put so above the good for the country. Where is the common sense in all this? Is this what power finally does to the person?

No matter how we look at it, Australia has achieved milestones since the last election. Acres of Legislation have been passed, mountains moved and all was going well. Are mere egos now wrecking a political party? How far are politicians willing to go to pursue their narcissistic ambitions above those of their party and constituents? Of course, the media, as ever sniffing around for blood, has been shoveling manure to the max, holding a knife at our Nation’s throat while doing the bidding for those large overfed mining moguls with the help of the shock jock’s blood hound expertise. Has anyone seen the headlines? An orgy of self destruction, and to what end and where are the benefits for this rich and poor country of mine?

How far are any of us from being a Bashar al-Assad?