Monday, April 30, 2018


 At the fish market, Mullet are the only fish that arrive all at once in quantity, I'd say.
 Fish are unceremoniously tipped off one truck, packed in ice, then put onto another semi and taken away for use in products of which one is paint, I believe.
Today, a medium sized mullet fish cost me $7.76 at $6 90 kg. It is a lower priced fish and usually has  a strong yet distinctive flavour.  In comparison, delicate Schnapper was about $32 per kg.

Below. A sartorial Tasmanian salmon, bodyless, with body was 70cm long, looks very fresh yet a bit  absurd posed beside a banana for the sake of comparison.
Salmon 'steaks' have greatly increased in popularity and are healthy eating.  There is the point that the fish is higher up the food chain and believe it is suggested in some instances to restrict consumption.



Sunday, April 29, 2018


The seasonal Mullet Run netted a fullsome catch seemingly off a local beach judging by the beach going rig and the sand.

Sunday, April 15, 2018


We need not be deterred from radicalism for such as environmental or social justice issues. That is one of my reactions to these words.  Yet these words point to the reality.

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
A perfect world is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. 
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is life's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No program accomplishes the whole mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realising that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own. 

Untener of Saginaw.

Friday, April 13, 2018


Morris dancers hop into line.  They like entertaining the festival crowd.

It is heard said that the typewriter is not out of favour. The new generation have a  nostalgia for nostalgia. And typewriters have no hard drives or backup so are seen as secure which is liked by some officials.  Budding writers learn their craft better while using the limited processes offered by a typewriter. ABC Radio National reported. All the same, word processing has many pluses.

Wednesday, April 11, 2018


Labrinth.  The new economy is a labrinth.  Subservience and abuse of work conditions, dog eat dog methods of employment, unionism given the axe with approval by Liberal party government.  Is it all that bad?
  Labour hire at the controls.  Job seekers, backpackers and new arrivals are sent to dangerous construction sites on the far side of the city to take up the reins and find a role there, English speakers or not.  We are not in the grim days of a depression, far from it, there is a building boom yet labour hire is there to get what they can out of the system at the expense of decent workplace conditions.
 Loyalty and pride in work and security is not part of it.  Do it yourself workers, no responsibility is offered from hire or from the boss, no redress.
  Superannuation contributions are an issue. The onus must be on the worker to follow this up on their mobile phone from the construction site.  Several years on and it is found that no super contributions have been made, Labour hire went bankrupt or so-called and no employer contributions made and it is a complex task for a labourer/worker to extract any justice. What about pay as you earn tax?
 Tax and social security departments have been whittled down to bare bones and a worker who calls them has great difficulty getting beyond the long que to get a hearing.  Ombudsmen interventions and the complexities seem impossible on the end of a phone. 
 Those who are well paid are assured of superannuation benefits in their retirement .  It is the lower paid, less secure workers who need all the help they can get and they have no chance to legally manipulate the system to secure their old age as others do,  
 So, to new apartment owners, if you are unlucky, enjoy any shonky failures in the apartment, the windows that leak maybe one of the minor issues, there is the privatised officials that sign off without due regard,  remember that apartment development was based on a lot of exploitation.  

Monday, April 09, 2018

Pile of bikes.  This is not in China but is in the national capital at the folk fest.  Could be that at the same time as the Chinese are giving up their good habits around cycling we are seeking to increase the number of cyclists.
  Canberra has caught the light rail bug - the latest 'must have' and a construction zone is beyond the trees and bikes.  Cruise down Northbourne Avenue in a state of mild disbelief along one long construction zone with speed restrictions and its share of chaos.
  So our valley and Canberra have at least two points in common - light rail pioneering and drought. The district is as dry as, brown and dessicated plus water restrictions and very warm days and nights into autumn tho generally the trees had not turned golden or red which can be special where nature is usually evergreen grey or olive.
Return via the Southern highland for a totally different scene of green. 
 

Saturday, April 07, 2018

Vegie, Halumi, beef etc burgers were rather good from this outfit.  Om Noms, Nat Folk Festival Canberra. There are degrees of a good diet at a festival if you pick and choose, what would you make of the stockman's camp who did a spit roast whole lamb over an open fire plus big boilers full of potato pumpkin and greens, miles of onion gravy  and  damper with cocky's joy and billy tea for $12 in a smoky atmosphere with bush ballads. The 'chefs' were scrawny stockmen characters each wearing an old kilt skirt, thongs and maybe an old singlet and a broad brimmed hat.


Wednesday, April 04, 2018


Closing concert at the National Folk Fest.  Today there is a report that live gigs have all sorts of benefits for our well being.  Depends on some factors with performers as different as chalk and cheese, Belshazzar's Feast quietly diverting humour from the UK to Western electrifying swing from the USA there is diversity to filter and get those benefits.   Below recalling, is believed to be The Western Flyers, The fiddle player is really notable.