SOME MEMOIRS -- by John Ray
Some occasional personal notes from a quiet life...

John Ray's Home Page; Email John Ray here. The Blogroll. Photo album for this blog here. A link to memoirs from previous years can be found just above the flag at the foot of this page.


A smile not as good as the famous smile of Antonia Staats but of that ilk. In my late 50s. Not so good now

What am I? I am the tiniest spark in the great conflagration that is life on earth

I have made a few mistakes in my life but it has nonetheless been a pretty happy life

Some people want to live as long as possible. I want to enjoy my life as much as possible.

MOTTO: As Oscar Wilde may have said: "Life is too important to be taken seriously". But the Hagakure had the idea too: "Matters of great concern should be treated lightly"



13 March, 2024

A visit

I was eating my dinner on the verandah when an intelligent-looking face appeared on the handrail in front of me. It was a substantial mother possum with a well-grown joey on her back. I didn't react. My startle response is often absent. So she came over and sniffed at my dinner but I held it away from her. So it was a a peaceful encounter beween possum and person. She was rather a big possum so an Abo indigenous person in a tribal context would have thought his dinner had arrived

A peaceful contact with an attractive wild animal was a rare pleasure. We were nose to nose at one point. Only in Australia

Another pleasant surprise of the evening occurred as I was preparing for bed. I found a rather nice little panty on the rug on the other side of my bed.



Sadly, there was no nearby empty champagne bottle to go with it so the significance of the panty was much diminished by that

I suspect that finding a discarded pink panty beside his bed would be aspirational for many men



12 March, 2024

Being intellectual

It's a well-known thing that some autistic people have extremes of ability in various ways, often in music or mathematics. My oddity is to be extremely intellectual. That had advantages in my academic career but it does tend to cut me off from most other people

It is of no importance but something that may put me in a minority of one is what I do when I get itchy and scratch. I say out loud "Oh,oh, oh. Totus ardeo": An absurd thing to say. It's obviously a literary quotation and seems to be Latin but where is it from? I have just remembered. It is from a line deep within (song 22) the Carmina Burna:

Oh, Oh, oh, totus floreo, iam amore virginali totus ardeo, novus, novus amor est, quo pereo.

The full sentence says the singer is bursting with love. I will have to sing it to Z some time



10 March, 2024

A commemoration

As any frequent reader of this blog -- if there are any -- will know, Z and I have had our ups and downs but we have nonetheless been together for over two years and I am happy about that. And Z is too. She has suggested that we commemorate "two years of love" (in her words). As I have said here previously that I love her and always will, that is an ideal state of affairs.

She has suggested that I buy her a watch as commemoration. She likes watches and I have previously bought her a couple from OpShops that I liked. This time she wants one that she has chosen -- seen in a jeweller's shop. So I am giving her the money for it. I am glad that I am able to give her something that she likes

I was originally going to buy her flowers but she asked for a watch instead

She arrived at my place around 2pm. Our afternoon consisted of a trip to Nando's for a salad lunch; a trip to Coco's to stock up on fruit and veg; A trip to Macca's for a cold Mocha coffee. We then mainly lay around until about 5pm, when she left in a happy state. I was happy too.



9 March, 2024

A sad day

Anne is off for another around Australia trip so today was the last time I will see her for around 6 months. We breakfasted at Buranda: Calmari for me and a Viet omelette for Anne.

We went back to my place afterward and spent the rest of the time until 12 chatting desultorily, as we usually do, and listening to Bach



7 March, 2024

A pretty good day

With the aid of various pills and potions, I got a good night's sleep last night so woke up not long before 9am.

I then texted Z for a while but she was in a negative mood

Jenny arrived shortly after 9 to help me with a medical appointment and left after that.

Then around 10am Anne arrived ready for brunch. We went to Buranda where I had a breakfast of smoked salmon and a big mug of iced coffee. Gourmet stuff! We then back to my place where we relaxed and listened to some medieval polyphony, which we both enjoyed. Anne left at noon.

Then at around 5.30pm Jenny arrived ready to spend the night at my place, which she did. At around 6pm she cooked me some tender Scotch fillet with fried onions and plenty of salad. I am skipping bread rolls these days so that I eat more salad.

So it was a pretty good day for a geriatric 80-year old. A pity that Z was not in a positive mood but you can't win 'em all



6 March, 2024

Excommunicated by Medium.com

Google has deleted some of my blog posts because of their political incorrectness. But I now have a new censor: Medium.com is a site where people can put up their personal thoughts and stories. I use it as somewhere to go when I have time on my hands.

Its posts are mostly open to the public but you can become a "member" by paying a small monthly fee. I have paid that fee as I do get some value out of the site. And there is a privilege attached to membership. Some posts are made available to members only. How that selection is made is a mystery to me.

The site does allow and encourage comments on its posts and I have put up comments occasionally. They have however now put up a flag whenever I log on to say that I have violated their rules The rules concerned are a very long list so I have no idea which rule I have broken and when. And I now no longer get the privileged members-only emails.

It would be nice if they had the manners to tell me which particular comment they disliked. Even Google does that whenever they delete one of my blogspot posts.

It will be interesting to see if they take their monthly fee from me. It will be a test of how hollow or not their pretensions of having principles are.



5 March, 2024

Some original mini-plays meant for household performance

In English country houses of yore, guests up from London over the weekend were always welcome. Country life was a bit boring so guests were a welcome distraction.

But what did you do with guests when you had them? During the day was no problem. There was always huntin' 'n shootin' 'n fishin' -- which is mainly what the guests came for. You can't do much of that in London. And for some there was also tennis.

But what about the evening? What about after dinner? Port and cigars were helpful but not always quite enough. So amateur entertainments were often organized: Often for the last day of the visit. There were charades and concerts and amateur plays written for the occasion that people rehearsed in their spare time up until the actual performance. And the amateur theatricals had the advantage of involving the ladies, who otherwise mainly read the latest novels and gossiped.

I thought that those traditions should not die entirely so I have written some mini-plays for performance at parties I attend:



Waterhouse (Concerning the Professors Waterhouse in Sydney)

Unselling (How a retailer sells you what he wants to sell you)

AN EDWARDIAN TRILOGY

Following are three plays with Edward VII as the central character. They can however all be performed successfully as individual plays without the context of the other two plays.

BOOK 1: Building the "Dreadnought" (An Edwardian version of "Yes Minister")

BOOK 2: The King's trip (Concerning Edward VII as a diplomat)

BOOK 3: The King's idea (The King had an idea about how to deal with the alarming Mr. Roosevelt)



All plays are copyright but no permission is needed for home performances. Author email: jonjayray@hotmail.com



4 March, 2024

An irrational attachment

An irrational attachment is one that persists despite the balance of positives and and negatives in a relationship being unusualy adverse. Social psychologists usually see in good male/female relationships a clear favourable balance of values. Each parter gets satisfactions out of the relationship that clearly outweigh sources of dissatisfaction. People who want positives only, with no negatives, are immature and will stay single.

There are for me many negatives and only a few positives in my relationship with Z but I none the less feel very affectionate towards her. We both agree that there are large incompatibilities between us. So the relationship should not exist by conventional criteria.

But despite that I have told her that I will always be here for her. And I mean it. Because of our incompatibilties, she has often tried to leave me and has sometimes been very abusive to me. But I am always happy to have her back and renew our relationship. My feelings towards her are rather inexplicable but they are strong.

She fears that I will leave her for someone else and I can see why she fears that. I have other female friends. But her fears are groundless. I could never dump her. It would go against my admiration of her for me to do so. And despite trying, she has never been able to dump me either.

So it is a real romance. We do love one-another. A romance that exists despite obstacles is usually admired, with Romeo and Juliet being the classic examples of that. Unlike Romeo and Juliet, however, Z and I are in no danger of killing ourselves over it.



26 Februry, 2024

Today's crunchie, wunchie lunchie

Around 3pm Z brought over a big dish of salad which she had prepared for us



It looked good, tasted good and tended to promote good health. It was in effect a crunchy vitamin pill. It reflects her concern for my health, which I appreciate. The dark red bit in the middle is pureed beetroot, which provides iron that I need for my blood as my haemoglobin level are too low. So I appreciate both the food and the thought behind it



26 Februry, 2024

Am I a narcissist?

Z has a great interest in psychiatric diagnosis. As I am a psychologist, it is is something we occasionally discuss. Z is particularly interested in Freud and the post-Freudians.

Freud was in fact the effective originator of the idea of a narcissistic personality -- in 1914 in Zur Einführung des Narzissmus -- but we do not have to accept his explanation of its origins. Freud himself doubted the adequacy of his account.

Z sometimes toys with the idea that I am a narcissist so let us look at a modern definition of it.

The Mayo definition:

"Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance. They need and seek too much attention and want people to admire them. People with this disorder may lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence, they are not sure of their self-worth and are easily upset by the slightest criticism"

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20366662

The Mayo clinic is America's leading hospital

So I think that lets me off the hook. Far from being "easily upset by the slightest criticism", I am one of those peple of whom it is said that I "have a hide like a rhinocerous". In other words, criticism has to be pretty severe or repeated before it gets through to me or bothers me. I in fact usually regard it simply as information -- sometimes as information about reality and sometimes as information about the person criticizing

I am certainly self-confident but I am not a narcissist.



23 Februry, 2024

Back on track

The relationship between Z and me seems to be fully back on track. She had an afternoon nap in my arms today, which is an aspect of our relationship that I have always particularly liked

So we have been together for two years and are now headed into a third year of similar times together, which I am greatly pleased about.

I bought her some flowers today in recognition of the times we have spent together.



She has alway shown particular concern for my health and so has made me many "healthy" meals, something that will now resume. She follows the raw food diet, which has had many reports of health benefit



22 February, 2024

Am I a nocturnal animal?

Our bodies retain remnants of our evolutionary past. The obvious example of that is the light covering of hair on our bodies. They suggest that we were once furry animals but lost most of the fur when we became marine animals. Many marine animals have lost all fur -- whales, dolphins etc. So we were well on the path to that but did not quite get there because we started doing something else

And what that is seems obvious. We became arboreal. We started climbing trees. Our closest relatives, the monkeys, mostly climb trees and have hands like ours -- good for grabbing branches.

Many arboreal creaures are also nocturnal. They come to life at night

So, like our body hair, it seems likely that we have some evolutionary remnant in us that inclines some of us to being nocturnal. And there is evidence of that. Many party-goers and night-clubbers jokingly refer to themselves as nocturnal because of their tendency to carry on late -- up to 3am in the morning or thereabouts.

I think I share those tendencies. Parties tend to bore me as everybody gets drunker so I don't stay long at them but I often am brightly awake at midninght and tend to nap a lot during the day.

But being nocturnal has its problems. It puts you out of synch with the normal activities of daytime. Just when you are sleeping nicely, you may have to get up and go to work.

At age 80, I no longer go to work but I do have some morning activities that I value so I try to sleep at night and be awake during the day. But to do that I have to take sleeeping pills to bomb me out before midnight. So I go against what my body wants me to do. I am very tempted to throw away the pills and just sleep when I am tired. And I will see if I can make arrangements to accommodate that.

I did do it once before. I went pill-free and ended up still getting enough sleep -- mostly during the day



20 February, 2024

Valentine's day recollected

Feb. 14th was a big day for me this year. In recognition of all she does for me, I made Jenny my Valentine. We went to the Buranda coffee lounge for breakfast, followed by a visit to my doctor, who works close by, followed by a trip to Woolworths to buy flowers. Jenny chose her own, which was a bouquet of native ones.



We then went to Coco's to buy chocolate-coated nuts as a present to her. Jenny then drove us to Dan Murphy, where I bought Seaview "Champagne" and Rosemount Traminer Riesing.

The big surprise was yet to come, however. Shortly after Jenny left, Z arrived, as I noted on the day. I had not seen Z for weeks so that was the big event of the day. A Valentine surprise for me. So I saw two fine women on Valentine's day

Then, the next day (Thurs), I saw Anne. I had planned a Barramundi breakfast for us but the fish-shop was out of it. So we both ended up having a McDonald's breakfast on my verandah, which was still quite pleasant. I also gave her chocolates and flowers


Flowers for Anne



18 February, 2024

She IS back

Z came to my place about 4.30pm yesterday and we went to Nando's for a 5pm "lunch" of salad. We discussed the issues between us and made some progress. She went home at about 6pm but we continued our discussions via text messages. We did eventually seem to resolve the issues between us and I have received some positive messages from her this morning. She wanted me to make some revisions to what I wrote on this blog and I have done that. I look forward to a calm and affectionate relationship with her from now on



14 February, 2024

She's back, I think

After a gap of around 6 weeks Z called on me this afternoon. We went to the Buranda coffee lounge for lunch. After lunch she came up and lay down beside me in bed, which is our usual custom. So that was the basics of restoring our relationship.

Both at the cafe and in bed, however, she spent almost the whole time criticizing me, which was quite unpleasant. I put up with it in the hope that she will be more civil in future. We were together for about 2 hours of the afternoon but she left wihout making any arrangements for us to meet again. But I imagine I will see her again some time soon

I deeply regret upsetting her as I do love her




A good song

One of my faourite songs is the "alternative" version of "Scotland the Brave" associated with Scottish singer John McDermott. McDermott is known for performing traditional songs to a high standard.

I wondered however where McDermott got "his" version of the song. Did he write it? He is professional singer rather than a poet so it seemed unlikely. So I did a bit of digging.

And it seems that McDermott has simply extracted the best bits of a rambling 19th century poem by James Hyslop. The result is very powerful but rather mystical. Poem are often rather mystical, however, so a clear effect is still conveyed.

I give below a video of a good performance and end with a listing of the original poem



The words being sung are given at the foot of the video

The original words, by James Hyslop (1798-1827), are as follows:

Let Italy boast of her bloom-shaded waters,
Her bowers, and her vines, and her warm sunny skies,
Her sons drinking love from the eyes of her daughters,
While Freedom expires amidst softness and sighs:—
       Scotland's bleak mountains wild,
       Where hoary cliffs are piled,
    Towering in grandeur, are dearer to me;
         Land of the misty cloud—
         Land of the tempest loud-
   Land of the brave and proud land of the free!

Enthroned on the peak of the dark Highland mountain,
The Spirit of Scotland reigns fearless and free;
Her tartan-folds waving o'er blue lake and fountain,
Exulting she sings, looking over the sea,—
          Here 'mong my mountains wild
          I have serenely smiled
   When armies and empires against me were hurl'd;
         Firm as my native rocks,
         Calmly sustain'd the shocks
   Of Denmark, and Cesar, and Rome, and the World!

When kings of the nations in council assemble,
The frown of my brow makes their proud hearts to quake,
The flash of mine eye makes the bravest to tremble,
The sound of my war-song makes armies to shake;
         France long shall mind the strain
         Sung on her bloody plain,
   Made Europe's bold armies with terror to shiver !—
         Shrouded in fire and blood,
         Then sung the pibroch loud,
    "Dying, but unsubdued — Scotland for ever!"

See at the war-note my proud horses prancing,
   Deep groves of steel trodden down in their path;
The eyes of the brave like their bright swords are glancing         
   Triumphantly riding through ruin and death!
         Bold hearts and nodding plumes
         Dance o'er their bloody tombs—
   Shining in blood is the red tartan's wave.
         Dire is the horseman's wheel,   
         Shivering the ranks of steel
   Still victor in battle-field, Scotland the brave!

The poem appeared, apparently for the first time, in "The Edinburgh Magazine" (April, 1821), pp. 360-361.



13 February, 2024

Insomnia cured

I have had trouble sleeping as far back as I can remember. My nervous system is just too active. For a long time I cured the problem by drinking. I would drink myself to sleep. Sometimes I would drink half a bottle of gin a night.

But that could not go on so in more recent times I have used sleeping pills instead. I relied for a long time on Temazepam, a common benzodiazepine

And the interesting thing is that all my heavy drinking seems to have done no harm. My liver and kidney function tests come back normal. Zero cirrhosis. So I appear to have cut out the booze in time. I would still have one drink a night but that was all

A complication has emerged recently, however. I have prostate cancer -- a pretty common occurrence for an old guy like me. I am on medication to stop the cancer but the stuff I take has the side-effect of waking me up. So my sleep difficulty has got worse recently. The Temazepam is no longer enough to get me to sleep.

I have however just found a new drug combination that works. I take Ibuprofen twice a day followed by Stilnox at bed-times. That works. For three nights running I have now had a normal night's sleep. That might not seem much but it is heaven for me. I am just hoping it continues.

Update of 27th: The effectivesness of the above combination did not continue. I now take both Stilnox and Temazepam at bedtime. A wee dram helps too. That works so far.



11 February, 2024

My days of wine and roses

Some of the things I write in this post are excerped from things I have previously written here. But with Valentine's day looming over us, I felt inclined to do a summary. Below is the famous poem behind my heading:

"They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.


They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream"


In other words, one is expected to have some happy years in one's youth which soon vanish never to return.

I have been much luckier than that. My days have been good most of the time. I have drunk much wine and given many roses. I count my good days as the ones I have been in happy relationships. And in my last 60 years that has been most of the time.

In April, 2021, when I was 76, however, I came out of a long relationship. The older one gets, the harder it becomes to form new partnerships so my prospects of more wine and roses seemed bleak. Many old people die alone.

But my luck held. At the very end of that year, I met Z, a lady of Serbian origin, also in her '70s.

It was not love at first sight but we did like one-another from the beginning and that soon deepened into a very loving relationship. The biggest surprise is that she and I are about as incompatible as it gets. I fail to understand her strong European accent a lot of the time and I am as unfit as she is super-fit. She jogs for miles every day and I walk only short distances. She is still pretty good-looking for her age while my looks break cameras these days. And that's just the start of our differences.

So compatibility is not all it's cracked up to be! You CAN fall in love without it!

So how do I analyse what worked between us? Hard to say definitively but I think it begins with us liking one-another. And we are both around top of the IQ range. She once said: "I used to go for handsome men but they are all stupid!"

I think the main influence that keeps us together is a principle I have always followed: If you find two good things in another person all the rest can be negotiated or adapted to. And the two things I particularly look for in women are a high IQ and a liking for classical music.

And my little Serb has both of those two rare qualities. She is even strongly moved by the music of J.S. Bach. That latter would mean nothing to most people but it is huge to me as I feel the same way about Bach. Mine are minority tastes but as an academic I am stuck with them.

We are also both high-functioning autistics so understand one-another's autistic behaviours when they emerge. The fellowship of the autistics is an unlikely concept but something like that does seem to work for Z and me at times. And aging does mellow one. At my age I have nothing to prove and no need to achieve. So I can just sit back and just enjoy a relationship for what it is.

On Christmas day, 2022 we just lay in bed talking for most of the time together -- with her doing most of the talking, as usual. She spent some time talking about Trajan, which is a pretty intellectual topic. I am myself interested in Roman history so I knew what she was talking about. She has a lot of intellectual interests -- principally in ancient history, European literature and clinical psychology. We have shared high culture interests and that pleases both of us. On one occasion, when Z wanted to mock me as being idle (I am) she quite appositely referred to me as being an Oblomov, which is an allusion to a classic 19th century Russian novel.

On another occasion, Z gave me an extended lecture in moral philosophy. She likes Erich Fromm's rejection of relativism. I said nothing in response but I was familiar with her topic. I have had a few academic articles on the topic published.

Z also has a good sense of humor and a liking for kisses and cuddles. She often has fallen asleep in my arms and I like that. So there was a lot of affection between us. It was a real relationship. It lasted for two years and I have many good memories of it. It still seems amazing to me that I had so many days of wine and roses so late in life.



6 February, 2024

I seem to have lost my litle Serb

I have not seen or heard from her for over a month and in her last text message to me she declared her independence of me.

There are still three other ladies who call on me and I have reorganized my social life around them so I am feeing no loneliness but I do nonetheless greatly regret the loss of an affectionate relationship that lasted two years.

I know she is actively looking for a new partner so I do hope that she finds one that suits her better than I did. She has a good heart so deserves a good relationship

Conicidentally, I have recently come across another Serb lady whom I admire. I have been watching recordings of coloratura operatic singer Radoslava Vorgi?. I think she has the most powerful soprano voice I have ever heard. She is in full voice below



The words (Excerpted by Handel from "At a Solemn Music" by John Milton)

Let the bright seraphim in burning row,
Their loud, uplifted angel trumpets blow.
Let the cherubic host, in tuneful choirs,
Touch their immortal harps with golden wires


She's got blue eyes too:



Die ganze Welt ist himmelblau
Wenn ich in Deine Augen schau\'
Und ich frag dabei: Bist auch Du so treu
Wie das Blau, wie das Blau Deiner Augen



2 February, 2024

A strange day

Yesterday (Thu.) was a very strange day. The strangeness actually started the day before (Wed.). I woke up with slightly sore eyes and slightly blurred vision, which was annoying. My vision was so blurred that I could not read my Greek New Testament. I was having trouble with Zeta, in particular, which is just a squiggle in lower case. Why was I bothering with the New Testament in the original Greek? It is all here:

https://ntwords.blogspot.com/

Anyway, I had a pleasant dinner at Annerley McDonalds with my son that night so I went to bed in a good mood. But next day (Thu.) I woke up early at 4:30am with a ragingly sore right arm. I took various things for it, including Tramadol, which is a rather powerful analgesic. The pain made it difficult to get back to sleep but I managed some sleep and woke up at about 9am with my arm still sore. My eyes had recovered and I could read my Greek New Testament again but that was slight consolation. The arm was so sore that I thought I needed to go to the hopital with it. So I rang Jenny to get her to take me.

But when she arrived, the pain had receded a bit so we thought we should wait and see if the arm got better by itself. I had my usual DoorDash breakfast from McDonalds while we were waiting. The arm did slowly get better. At around 3pm, however, I was chatting to Jenny when I sudenly got nauseous and had a big chuck. I had a chamber pot nearby as a receptacle so no great harm was done and I continued chatting for a while afterwards. But after that I went to sleep for the rest of the day and evening. I woke up at about 10pm and had a big drink of my favourite beverage: Cold water. I felt quite well after all the excitement of the day.

After that I went back to sleep until the morning and feel OK now after my usual breakfast



28 January, 2024

A new earworm

An earworm is a tune you can't get out of your head. I am rather prone to them, But my latest one is a lulu, it is a line from a cantata written by Vincent Lübeck in 1728 in North Germany. My autistic brain comes up with some weirdly intellectual stuff. The cantata is Gott Wie Dein Name.

The line that keeps coming to me is:

Und deine Fusstapfen triefen von Fett

Its a line from the Psalms but I won't translate it as it sounds absurd to modern ears

It is on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/O_Lhz-t6JF8



22 January, 2024

A b*rthday lunch

Anne is having a b*rthday soon so I put on a special lunch for her today. We have a formula for special meals: I get in a dozen French cutlets and she supplies a dozen Sydney rock oysters. The oysters she brought today must have been very fresh as they tasted divine. I can never figure out why people drench oysters with sauces etc. A fresh raw oyster has a taste that cannot be improved.

The weather was hellishly hot -- 37 degrees -- so I took my big electric frypan out on to the verandah where we always get a breeze. So Anne cooked there in a lot more comfort than she would have if we stayed indoors. I have a big pine table on the verandah so we could both cook and dine there

And Anne cooked the cutlets to perfection -- both tender and tasty -- and I had fresh bread to go with them. I opened a COLD bottle of Tyrrells Verdelho, which went down really well with the cutlets. And I even got out my best crystal goblets to drink out of. I ended up having two glasses of wine instead of my usual one.

We finished up listening to music as we usually do. We listened in comfort under air-conditioning. I put on Taras Bulba by Janacek, which Anne liked.


B*rthday flowers



21 January, 2024

A disappointing experience with Uber Eats

The disappointment started as soon as I logged on. They did not have an option to add in something from a nearby shop. Doordash has that service and I do use it.

I ordered from Taco Bell and that was bad too: The chips were cold, the Taco was doughy and I got the wrong drink.

In summary I will not again use Uber eats or Taco Bell. It's a pity because I quite enjoyed tacos when I was in Mexico and the Southern USA. What I got from Taco Bell was weird by comparison



20 January, 2024

Janacek and a double breakfast


The cafe "MK Bower" is in Stones corner at the far end of the restaurant strip

https://mkbowercafe.com.au/ at 433 Logan Rd.

It has a big and very tempting menu and provides outdoor seating as well as indoors. So Anne and I went there this morning. I particulary like their "Off Grid" breakfast. It is only $21 but is so big it is a challenge to eat it all. As well as the customary bacon, eggs and toast, you get two sausages, gourmet baked beans and a dish of chutney. So it is two breakfasts in one.

I failed to eat all of mine but Anne got through just about all off hers. She is a moderate eater in general but can eat up when she likes it enough. And we sat in the shade outdoors so it was a memorably good breakfast.

Then after breakfast Anne asked me to put on the Jancek Sinfonietta, which she had seldom heard in the past. It is a very clangourous piece with lots of brass so is a bit much even for some classical music lovers. I think I introduced her to it as I have aways liked it. It is basically an exciting piece of music. It was written in in 1926 so is "modern"

Anne loved it so I went the next mile and also put on for her Janacek's Glagolithic mass, which is quite similar to the Sinfonietta. Anne liked that too. When it finished it was such an experience that we agreed we could not put on anything appropriate to follow it. I must try her out on Taras Bulba next week

Anne and I normally relax in bed while listening to music but the Janacek interested her so much that she got up several times to have a close look at what the orchestra was doing. The show was from the Czech Philharmonic via YouTube


Leos Jancek

So we had a morning together that it would be hard to beat

And Jenny is coming over this evening bringing dinner so that will really cap a good day for me



17 January, 2024

The SIT, a most remarkable institution

Would you believe a fully accredited college situated at the end of the world that charges no fees, offers degrees up to doctoral level and is headquartered in a town of only 54,000 people? And it even has a respectable score in the world university rankings

Such is the Southern Institute of Technology, headquarterd in Invercargill, New Zealand. Invercargill is about as close as you can get to Antarctica and still live a normal life. As Invercargill is close to the sea, its temperatures are moderated somewhat, nothing like low Candian extremes

I have family in town at the moment who live in Invercagill so that has sparked my interest in the SIT

The SIT has a number of campuses in addition to the one at Invercargill, notably one at Queenstown and a small tentacle at Christhurch. And all of them are "free" to NZ citizens. They also have around 2,000 overseas students who pay, but mostly not very much -- around $US15,000 per year. The overseas students come mainly from Indonesia and the Philippines, which are warm countries. Invercargil must be a shock

And the SIT has a rank of 400+ in the world university rankings. Not bad when you know that is out of about 11,000 colleges worldwide. The major NZ universities score around 200+ but none are up to the standard of its big neighbour. There are two Australian universities in the top 50 worldwide. I went to one.

The courses listed on the Invercargill campus offer a wide range of technical subjects plus some degree courses. You can become a degree-level nurse, teacher or accountant, for instance

You could certainly do worse than to take courses from SIT. They are fully recognized by the NZ accreditation authorities



6 January, 2024

Two divorces in the one week!

The new year has certainy proved new for me. The first week of the year is not gone and yet it has already featured two divorces for me. Neither Anna nor Zoe is talking to me and there is no indication of if and when communcations will resume.

So I am down from having 5 ladies in my life to only 3. Those three are however around my age, bright and highly compatible culturally. So I am still pretty pleased about my life.

Still, I saw a lot of the divorcing ladies until recently so my life is a lot quieter than it was. I would enjoy any resumption of communications



3 January, 2024

Proof that I am uncool

At age 80, food is a major satisfaction for me. I miss out on some of life's pleasures but food remains. And something that has always been part of that for me is a cooked breakfast. If there is someone at home to cook me a breakfast that is fine but if not I have always gone out to a nearby cafe and ordered bacon & eggs etc. So that is a pretty conventional breakfast

But I have excelled myself lately. I now get all my solo cooked breakfasts from McDonald's via the Doordash delivery service. It costs me about the same as a cafe breakfast and is a lot more relaxed and convenient. So below is the docket I got with my most recent breakafst.



All the cool cats spit on McDonald's from a great height but I see that as mere snobbery. The various ingredients that were once denounced by the "experts" -- fat, salt, and sugar -- have now been rehabilitated by epidemiogical research. Fat is now good for you, excess salt is excreted and if sugar is bad we are all dead. So I am very relaxed about my uncool liking for a McDonald's breakfast



1 January, 2024

A quiet New Year

I am pleased and rather surprised that I have made it into 2024. When you are as old as I am each new year seems a privilege -- even a quiet one

My New Year's eve was not very social. I had a pleasant breakfast with my son Joe but that was it. I had no visitors in the evening. But I had a lot to do with end-of-year blogging so that was no problem. I kept busy. I didn't even get up to watch the fireworks. You can see some of them from where I live.

Today I am scheduled to have lunch with Jenny but nothing else so far. So I am looking forward to lunch. I had a very good breakfast courtesy of Doordash and McDonald's

Pink beauty

The Crepe Myrtle tree nearest my back door has responded prolifically to all the rain with a great mass of pink blossom





For posts on this blog in previous years, click

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

etc.










Brief bio


My full name is Dr. John Joseph RAY. I am a former university teacher in my 80th year in 2022. I was born of Australian pioneer stock in 1943 at Innisfail in the State of Queensland in Australia. After an early education at Innisfail State Rural School and Cairns State High School, I taught myself for matriculation. I took my B.A. in Psychology from the University of Queensland in Brisbane. I then moved to Sydney (in New South Wales, Australia) and took my M.A. in psychology from the University of Sydney in 1969 and my Ph.D. from the School of Behavioural Sciences at Macquarie University in 1974. I first tutored in psychology at Macquarie University and then taught sociology at the University of NSW. I am Australian born of working class origins and British ancestry. My doctorate is in psychology but I taught mainly sociology in my 14 years as a university teacher. In High Schools I taught economics. I have taught in both traditional and "progressive" (low discipline) High Schools.



See here for more of the notes and pix occurring in the side column of the original memoirs blog



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"Education Watch International"
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"The Psychologist"