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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"



28 December, 2023

Another surprise visit

Last Thursday evening I was pleased to find Anna at my front door when she arrived unexpectedly and without warning. It was a very pleasant surprise.

And today I got such a surprise too. I answered a knock on my door to find Anne there. We had discussed meeting today but Anne had a busy day ahead so it was not arranged. But a gap came up in her schedule during the day so there she was on my doorstep at 12 noon. The opportunity to see me came up suddenly so she just got into her car and came over straight away. I gave her some lunch and we spent a couple of hours together which I greatly enjoyed.

So I am rather pleased to be someone whom at least some ladies feel free to visit at will

Come to think about it, another lovely lady called on me unannounced a few months ago. Also a very pleasant surprise. I will not mention her name but she is a very old friend



26 December, 2023

Boxing Day reflections

A very quiet day for me so plenty of time for reflections. The torrential weather prevented anyone from visiting me so I for once spent the day with no company at any time. But I was not completely alone. I had the most extensive chats with Anna via text messages. she has two very fast thumbs and I have a full-size bluetooth keyboard for my mobile. She was her usual happy self so that was pleasant. The irony is that she and I should have had no trouble seeing one-another in person as we live in the same house. As it happens, however her dog-minding duties meant that she was temporarily staying at Tingalpa, a long way away.

Now that I am 80,I tend to look back on mylife and think about its ups and downs. Thanks to a series of kind ladies however it has mostly been a happy life with very few downs. My one big regret is that I am not married. I have had 4 marriages so that has clearly always been my aspiration. So I have failed at that goal. My compensations have been large, however. I have had some remarkably good relationships and still do. I have in my life at the moment 4 very kind women. I say something about each of them in my annual personal report but I think I might add to that here.

Jenny and I met 40 years ago, married shortly after that and split up 30 years ago. But we have always remained in close touch and have in recent years ended up in close to a married state again. We dine together four nights a week and she accompanies me to all my medical appointments. And that has been a big emotional support to me. She does love someone else in a very platonic way but he loves his ex-wife so I come an honourable second. I am grateful for that. The man she loves is also an old friend of mine so there are no hard feelings about it.

And as well as an ex-wife in my life I have an ex-girlfriend: Anne. We have known one another since Sept 1, 2005 and were an item for 14 years after that. She now has a good quasi-marriage with another man. They live together. Unusually, however, she insisted from the first in her new reltionship that she would continue to see me regularly. Her new man did not like that at all but she gave him no choice. To save his feelings she normally sees me on Saturday mornings only, while he is attending his Seventh Day Adventist church. So the surprising thing is that she still wants to see me and that I want still to see her. But we do. There are still loving feelings between us so it is a romance, though now a very unusual one. So our relationship remains an important emotional support to me.

I am however not done with an ex-wife and an ex-girlfriend. I also have two other close female friends to help keep me happy. My current girlfriend is Zoe, a native of Srbia who left that place aged 45 thirty years ago. We are hugely incompatible in all sorts of ways but from our first meeting we liked one another and the relationship rapidly develped. We have been seeing one-another for two years now. She lives out Ipswich way so that is a long way from where I live, making it around a 40 minute drive every time she wants to see me. So for a long time she would would see me only 2 or 3 times a week. Lately, however, she has been seeing me more frequently than that. There is no doubt of her feelings for me now. Our incompatibilities are still an occasional source of friction but they don't disrupt the pleasure we have in seeing one-another for long.

And I also have a platonic girlfriend: Anna, already mentioned above. There is no intimacy involved but we are very good friends. She is 35 and of Fiji Indian ancestry. The huge age-gap between us does of course preclude us from getting too involved with one another but we spend a lot of time together nonetheless. She is a very happy soul so it is always a pleasure to see her. We spend a lot of time talking and we seem to agree on just about everything. She has a nursing degree but human relationships are her principal interest and she has come to some very insightful conclusions about them. She was in a relationship fairly recently but is now happy to be"free". She is now "off" relationships. A lot of her social needs are met by people at her hospital workplace and with me she has lots of dinner outings so she still has a very social life. Although she and I get on very well, we would not make good partners as she is a travel-holic so would need a bloke who is a travel-holic too

So I may not be married but I still do pretty well for companionship and I am profoundly grateful for that.

I have seen and experienced a huge number of things in my 80 years, including big changes in almost everything, from gramophones to DVDs. I am very pleased and satisfied to have been there -- to have seen and experienced it all. I probably have a few years left to me but I can already say, in the words of a famous Bach cantata, Ich habe genug



25 December, 2023

A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL WHO COME BY HERE TODAY

I gave both Anne and Zoe bouquets of flowers as Christmas presents. See below. The one for Anne was Christmas-coloured gerberas, quite unusual. But Anne helped me to pick it. I did not give Jenny flowers as she is getting other things. And I did not give Anna anything as she does not believe in Christmas presents. The fact that she is a Hindu might have something to do with that.


For Anne


For Zoe

Our Christmas lunch was between 12 and 3pm. It was a quiet affair, principally due to the absence of kids and grand kids overseas. Present were Jenny, Joe, myself and a couple who are good friends of Jenny. The principal food was ham off an actual ham and roast pork. Dessert was Pavlova. Neither Joe nor I talked much but others made up for that

Zoe paid me a visit between about 5pm and 8pm. Neither of us were hungry so we mostly just lay about. So I got some Christmas kisses and cuddles, which I enjoyed



22 December, 2023

Vego Persian

Zoe has noted the praise I wrote about the "Saffron" Persian restaurant and felt that I should take her there. I pointed out that the place is best known for grilled meat so that might not suit her -- as she is an extreme Vegan. She was very keen to see what I saw however so I took her there. They did have two vegetarian offerings so we ordered those. She was not really happy with those items but it ended up as a reasonable lunch

The lady with the bosom waited on us again -- dressed this time in close-fitting clothes. The bosom could therefore be evaluated. I guessed DD



21 December, 2023

A doggy surprise

In part because we live in the same house, Anna and I have developed the custom of spending some time with one-another every day. She does however at times do dog-minding and on those days she goes straight from work to where the dogs are. And today was such a day, beginning a minding period lasting until Boxing day. It meant that we would not see one-another that day. Both of us regretted that but our agreement was that she would keep me up to date with photos

So today she Left her shift at the Royal Brisbane at 6:30pm and drove directly to the location of her dogs out at Tingalpa. It didn't feel right to her not to see me however so she promptly bundled the dogs into her car and drove back into town to see me. She arrived on my doorstep unannounced at around 7:30 pm. So it was a pleasant surprise to open my door and find both Anna and 2 dogs there. I was once a registered dog-breeder ("Canis Niger") so I like dogs too. I had been lying down in my bed at the time doing nothing in particular so the visit really livened me up. I had been feeling rather negative but that was soon dispelled. She made us a cup of tea and we enjoyed the dogs -- a Jack Russell and a Maltese. Both dogs were very well groomed and very well behaved so that helped.


In bed with two dogs



19 December, 2023

A very social day

Around noon my old friend John H. brought me over some lunch, a mild curry his wfe had cooked. It was very good.

We mainly talked about church matters, out of deference to his conversion from Anglo-Catholicism to Roman Catholicism. He has walked the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. So he takes ceremonial religion seriously. He Left about 1pm

Then at around 2pm, Zoe arrived bearing a salad lunch, of which I had only a small part. After lunch we just lay down cuddled up in bed, which I always like.

Then at at round 6pm, Jenny arrived, bringing a dinner of some excellent chicken kebabs and salad. She stayed to around 7:30pm

After she left, Anna came up for a chat. We mainly swappeed details of our day

So seeing 4 congenial people in one day was pretty good from my viewpoint



7 December, 2023

The modern marvels of food delivery

Uber Eats began food delivery in August 2014 with the launch of the UberFRESH service in Santa Monica, California. It set off a revolution. There are now food delivery services worldwide with a number of organizations offering similar services. The one I use is DoorDash, also of American origin but now well entrenched in Australia.

Now that I no longer drive I have become a regular user of their services and greatly appreciate them. For $20 I can have a freshly cooked meal delivered to my door as soon as half an hour after ordering it. And the charge for delivery included in that $20 is only about $3, which I regard as a bargain. Compared to getting in my car and driving to the source restaurant it saves me a lot of time and probably money. And I get a very wide choice of restaurants, ones I mostly was previously unaware of. I even use them to give me cooked breakfasts on occasions

So it is not as big a deal as the invention of the steam engine but it is a modern marvel nonetheless. And it is all the work of profit-seeking companies with no government involvement: Capitalism at its best. I shudder to think what a government-provided service would cost.



5 December, 2023

Dinner for 3

Anna has driven me to a few breakfasts at the Kangaroo pt. coffee shop. So she has met my friend Julie, who is there most mornings. When I was driving, I saw Julie there most Wednesdays over breakfast. She is around my age and hails from Gordonvale, just a short drive from Innisfail where I was born. So Julie and I have a huge amount of commonality in our backgrounds. And Julie is a very lively conversationalist so it has always been a pleasure to see her.

Anna noticed what a congenial person Julie is and suggested that it was a pity not to see her more often. So she suggested that I should invite Julie over for dinner and she would cook for us. And so it was done this evening. Julie was in her usual buoyant mood so the conversation flowed well Anna cooked us a meal of chicken, rice and vegetables in her own style which went down well. She is a good cook



3 December, 2023

She's back

A certain person who no longer wants me to mention her on this blog materialized at my place this afternoon. It was good to see her after a 3 week gap.



30 November, 2023

A good Malayan restaurant

I have in recent times taken Anna to all the restaurants and cafes that I usually frequent so I asked her if she knew of a good new place we could go to. She suggested that there was a good Malayan restaurant in Sunnybank at Market Square

So we went there for lunch today. It was just inside the entrance to Market Square. It was a big place and very busy with a very big menu. I ordered some mixed laksha which was quite good but I had no idea what I was eating most of the time as it was indeed mixed.

And the lunch for two came to only $41 so that was unexpectedly reasonable given the quality of the food.



25 November, 2023

A good week

On Wednesday November 15th Zoe and I had a discussion about the serious incompatibilities in our relationship. She decided as a result to stop seeing me. I did not want that to happen and tried to dissuade her but she has stuck by that decision so far. So that left me with serious gaps in my social life.

Fortunately, however Anna has been willing and able to fill those gaps so I have had quite a few of my meals with her recently. The week just ending has been particularly good. It has been a week off work for her so she has had plenty of time to keep me company. I think I have seen her nearly every day this week for dinner. We get on very well so that has been most congenial. We seemto see eye to eye on most things so we always have good conversations when we meet. India has long been a great interest of mine and her heritage is Indian so we often discuss cultural differences.

She is however over 40 years younger than I am so we are deliberately not allowing one another to get too close emotionally. She has to be in a position to form a relationship with someone closer to her own age if an opportunity arises

So I would like to have Zoe back in my life but I am not suffering much meanwhile. I still have a lot of affection for her and do miss her

My relationship with Anne also had some hiccups a few weeks ago but we resolved that pretty quickly. So our time together this morning was as blissful as ever.



19 November, 2023

A return shout

My major recreation is shouting dinners for ladies but most of the ladies I see are old like me so are pensioners, not in a position to shout me back. And I am fine about that.

Today was a bit different, however. Because Anna and I live in the same building it is very easy for us to get chatting. And I mentioned this afternoon that Zoe was not coming over for dinner as she usually does on a Sunday. Anna is a good hearted woman however so when she heard that she promptly offered to make me a dinner. She has a job so has some spare money so I was delighted to accept. And it was a very good dinner -- with chipolatas, pasta and sweet potato all cooked expertly. And she even added an icecream and berry dessert.

I have shouted her a few meals so it was a return shout. Much appreciated

In the above I was thinking of cooked meals but Zoe made me many Vegan type meals which were also good



12 November, 2023

She's back

I wanted to take a pic of Zoe when she arrived back from Srbia two weeks ago but she caught a bad wog on the plane so has not felt up to being photographed until today





11 November, 2023

A Persian lunch

I wanted to treat Anne to a special lunch so I took her to the "Saffron" restaurant at Stones corner -- run by Zoroastrian Persians. As I usually do there, I ordered the combination platter for two, which was huge and impressive as usual: 3 different kebabs plus rice, salad and chips. Persians are masters at grilling meat

Lunch was 12 noon but Anne and I normally see one another for 9am breakfast so Anne came over around 9am anyway as we had a few things to discuss. While we were waiting for lunch, I put on a lot of Sibelius for her, which she liked



9 November, 2023

A triple treat

I had today arrangements to have lunch with Anne and dinner with Jenny. But today was also Zoe's birthday so she came over at mid-afteroon with the idea of us having coffee and cake by way of a celebration. We could not think of a nearby cakeshop that would be open at that hour so we went to McDonalds and had iced coffee, something we both enjoy. We spent a couple of hours together in total so I had pleasant times with three fine ladies in the one day. I think that qualifies me as a lucky man



6 November, 2023

Lunch with Anna

She wore her very smart black dress for our trip to the Buranda coffee lounge. I wanted a big meal so had Calamari but again she just had a cupcake with her chai. I couldn't eat all my chips so she helped polish them off. See her in the dress below

And below is the lucky man she went with

4 November, 2023

From Anne's big trip

I had my usual pleasant Saturday morning with Anne and we tried to find on her phone ANY picture of her on her big trip. As the photographer, all her photos were of other things and people. We finally found one of her, however -- from when she was in Normanton. As you will see, she too is a doggy lady. That's a sculpture of a crocodile behind her





3 November, 2023

A very social time

Anne came over between about 9:30 and 11:30pm yesterday for a chat and a trip to the Japanese restaurant for brunch. The food there is always first class. I am hoping for more Thursday morning visits from her.

Then last night Jenny came over and cooked us a dinner of red meat plus lots of salad. She had decided to stay overnight so we opened a bottle of Tyrrell's Verdelho. Wine with dinner is a rare treat for me these days

This morning Jenny will be driving us to breakfast, venue as yet undecided but probably Buranda.

And this evening I am expecting to see Zoe. She came off the plane from Srbia a few days ago with a bad wog so has not been fit to travel up until now. It will be over 3 months since I have seen her so I am looking forward to it

And the rest of the weekend is looking good too: Breakfast with Anne on Saturday and lunch with Anna on Sunday

AFTERNOON UPDATE

Zoe arrived at around 3pm. She looked surprisingly good, I thought. She has always looked good for a woman in her 70s but she looked at least as good as ever despite her heavy cold. Maybe her stay in Srbia was good for her. She did miss the Brisbane winter by going there in mid July.

She really should have stayed away from me for a couple more days to complete her recovery from the virus but she has been back in Brisbane since 26th and we both felt uncomfortable at waiting so long to get back together.

Sadly, we could not kiss as the viral load I would get from that would be too risky altogether.

She arrived asking for a salad lunch so I took her to Nando's for a Mediterranean salad, which she likes. I ate only half of mine but she polished off the remaining half. So I fed her well. We then went to to MacDonalds for an iced coffee each

After we got home, all we did was have a big lie-down in bed together. She went to sleep for most of it, which should have helped her recovery. She went home at her usual 7pm -- looking rather more lively than when she arrived

She brought me back a souvenir of her trip. See below. She and I both like and collect oil lamps and the one below is the smallest we have ever seen. She got it in Turkey. But it is fully functional. I show it beside a 50c piece for scale. It is just over 4" tall





31 October, 2023

A new dress

Anna was off to work in a new dress so before she left she came up to show me the dress. It really suited her. See below





29 October, 2023

An unusual lunch

Anna and I went to Buranda for lunch today just after 1 pm at my usual coffee lounge but the kitchen was closed! It was a Sunday and they close the kitchen at 1pm then. Anyway we were able to order from the cabinet. I had a sausage-roll plus an apple Danish and Anna had a chocolate brownie so neither of us went hungry. The brownie there is quite a substantial one. I thought Anna looked good in her little red dress and she took a photo of the two of us at table

A small note: Anne and Anna are two different people. It's not just bad spelling. Anna's actual name is an unusual Indian name but I abbreviate it as Anna to give her some privacy. Anne is very Anglo-Celtic, with a lot of Irish in her



28 October, 2023

A big Pow Wow this morning

Anne has recently returned from her big caravan trip around Australia. So was that the end of her caravanning? She was thinking of one more trip but I told her that another trip would upset me. I missed her during her recent trip so I would not like another trip. She agreed with my view and has now sent the Toyota Prado (used to tow the caravan) to her son for him to sell. He is very cluey so should do that job well. He estimates that we should get back the $70,000 we spent buying it plus perhaps a little more

Anne and I also agreed to a change in our meeting arrangements. We will continue as before to breakfast each Saturday morning but will add a breakast most Thursdays. I am really pleased about that

After our big discussions, we went to Buranda as usual for our breakfast



25 October, 2023

A gastroscopy

I had a gastroscopy today which took up most of my day, one way or another. The doctors were searching for the cause of my anemia and thought that I might have leaking varices (enlarged blood vessels) somewhere in my stomach area. I didn't. I was all normal down there.

So that is rather good news but leaves the cause of my anemia unexplained. It would normally signify low levels of serum iron but my iron levels are normal



15 October, 2023

An amazing sort of a day

Yesterday was good for me in both personal and political ways. The decisive defeat of the referendum in Australia and the decisive expulsion of the Left in NZ were the political highpoints but there were some good personal highpoints too.

For the last couple of days I had been troubled by a gammy hip -- one of the nightmares of the elderly. But Ibuprofen had been helping with it so I took some more at 7am. And by 10pm the hip was no longer gammmy. If someone had prayed for me over it, it would have been accounted as a genuine miracle from the Lord. And the cure is still in place this morning.

And Anne arrived at 8:30am and drove us to the Buranda coffee place. And we did well there. We both had favorite breakfasts with coffee that cost me surprisinly little. With deductions and discounts, the bottom line was $37.45, a very old-fashioned price. I am "not short of a bob", in the old Australian idiom, but I still like to get value for money. I give half of my disposable income to a charitable cause and I like the results I am getting there too

And before we left Buranda, Anne and I managed to snag some Portuguese custard tarts for our morning tea -- one of our favorite rituals. While there I also bought Anne a small bunch of flowers, including some red roses.

Then I decided some Nandos chicken was what I fancied for lunch. So after some time trying to navigate food ordering via the internet, I finally managed to place an order with Deliveroo. And the food arrived still warm. Again I was pleased at my spend. They charged me only $5 in addition to the cost of the food

And I had a nefarious scheme in mind for that night. I have been rather regretful that my "days of wine and roses" seem to be over so I thought that by giving Anne roses and having a glass of wine with Jenny over dinner I would be able to defy that limitation. Sadly, however, Jenny was too unwell to have any wine

So I decided to have a "Jimmy Woodser" (drink alone). I had a of glass of very nice Rosemount Traminer Riesling as a nightcap. So I did have at least one more day of wine and roses



12 October, 2023

I think my days of wine and roses are over

I have just been notified that for health reasons I am no longer licensed to drive. I had stopped driving anyway. For most of my life I was a demon driver but in 60 years of driving I have never hurt myself or anyone else so I am rather proud of that

It makes me think of a famous short poem from over 100 years ago by Ernest Dowson

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

My days of wine and roses were actually very long -- largely ending only a few years ago when I first had a life-threatening encounter with cancer. But ceasing to drive puts a final cap on it. So I am thankful that my good days were many. And I had a very pleasant young woman -- Anna -- join me for my afternoon walk today -- so all is not lost.

But I think there was a peak to my days of wine and roses. I see 1968, when I was in my mid-20s, as the time in my life most aptly described as that. See: https://memoirsjr.blogspot.com/2023/06/a-memoir-of-1968.html

The Hollywood film called "Days of wine and roses" describes a descent into alcoholism. That is not me. I drank much good wine in my time but it never harmed me. These days a wee dram of Scotch at night before bed is my only indulgence



10 October, 2023

I was young once

On looking at my old photo collection, I was rather struck by the photo below from 1983 when I was 39 and Jenny was 30. It was taken at the Russian ball.

I may be kidding myself but I am inclined to think that I was rather young-looking for my age in that photo. My face was still well filled out with very little in the way of lines. I could well be one of the lucky few who age slowly. The fact that I am still alive and feebly kicking at age 80 may be consistent with that.

6 October, 2023

Lunch with Anna

She is doing a lot of dog-sitting these days so I don't get to see her often. But we managed a 1 pm lunch date today at my favourite cafe in Kangaroo Pt. I had my usual burger and I was pleased to see that she ordered the savoury pancakes, which is a rather big meal. But she said she hadn't felt like much for breakfast so she had a good appetite for lunch

She was dressed in a rather summery way which really suited her, in my view. As I am not driving these days she drove us in her Toyota. She was the best-looking driver I have had for a while.

5 October, 2023

At the Hotel Moskva again

The Hotel Moskva is a luxury hotel in Belgrade. That smile on Zoe's face is partly due to the drink before her -- a big mocha coffee with cream. Cream is against her usual dietary rules but you only live once



24 September, 2023

Zoe is touring Italy

Judging by the heavy sweater she is encountering some cold weather. She would probably be warmer in Brisbane



23 September, 2023

Learning foreign languages: A true story

Studying a foreign language at school or even at university tends to be a waste. Rarely do the students concerned progress to anything like native fluency. They are even lucky to remember enough to be useful on holiday in the country concerned. So why do it? I would generally advise against it.

There was a young Australian girl, however, who decided to make a big effort to learn French. She studied it at High School and later at university. Why did she do that? Because her "ex" was a keen student of German. Good female logic.

And her efforts had some success. She learnt enough French to move to France and become an English teacher there. With her Australian background, she also of course had some interest in England and holidayed there from time to time and made some friends in London.

On one occassion her English friends were putting on a dinner party for people they knew and included in the guest list a young up-and-coming Frenchman. He knew little English but that problem was solved by sitting him alongside the Australian girl, as she was the only other person who spoke French.

The two have been married for around 50 years now and live in grand style in central Paris with a country house in Normandy and a beach house in Brittany. So studying foreign languages CAN pay off sometimes



17 September, 2023

An anachronism survives

Cutting-edge medical science seems to have given me hopes of two or more years of life

And while I am far from alone in it I appear to be one of the few still alive who had the benefit of a good classical education. That makes me an anachronism, a person from a bygone time

During my days in High school I gained a knowledge of the language and literature of three foreign languages plus ancient history and classical English literature. I entered High school at a time when a classics education was no longer compulsory but it was optionally available and I took good advantage of that opportunity

My classical education would once been have deemed incomplete without some knowedge of ancient Greek. To call a person "Greekless" was once to call them uneducated -- but to a small extent I remedied that deficiency by private study and can to this day recite two famous passages in Greek and debate the grammar involved. ?? ???? ?? ? ????? etc

But the point of a classical education is not to know the declension of the Latin noun "mensa" but rather what goes with classical study: The introduction to assumptions and ways of thought from different times and places. It enables us to transcend our awareness of our own times and places. It "broadens" our minds, if I may be so old-fashioned as to use that phrase. It liberates us from seeing anything in our present as being inevitable or normal. It uproots assumptions

And of the three foreign languages I studied, the one I enjoy most to this day is Latin. German and Italian are more useful to me because I also like classical music and most classical music emanates from German and Italian sources. When I hear the great Bach aria "Mache dich mein Herze rein", I actually understand what the singer is saying. And when I hear the Monteverdi madrigal "Chiome d'oro" I marvel at the fact that blonde hair was admired even in Renaissance Italy -- 400 years ago.

But Latin is the language that I enjoy most for itself. I like it in part because of its succinctness. The most famous example of that is of course "veni, vidi, vinci" but a 19th century British General in the Indian wars allegedly did even better with "peccavi". And Latin is also a powerful way of putting something. "de gustibus non disputandum est" is hard to argue with.

So the point I am making is that a classical education opens doors to both enjoyment and wisdom. To have lost it is a serious deprivation. So the fact that I write from that perspective will help keep a small amount of that perspective alive and functioning for a while.

I am aware of an appearance of inconsistency in praising the classics while it is Cemiplimab that is keeping me alive but there is no opposition between the classics and science. And as someone who has had 200+ scientific papers published in the academic journals I am an embodiment of that. I even know what heteroscedasticity refers to.

And a classical education can in fact the helpful in science. Academic writing is notoriously hard to follow but a person with a background in Latin will usually be able to write English more clearly. So an academic colleague once said to me: "John, we don't always agree with you but at least we understand what you are saying"



15 September, 2023

Medical Event

At age 80, I can reasonably expect some health problems. And I am no exception. I am at the moment battling two types of cancer -- SCCs in my upper body and metastasized prostate cancer in my lower body. Both are treatable. I underwent the first treatment steps today. I got an anti-androgen medication (injected Firmagon) for the prostate problems and a monoclonal antibody -- Cemiplimab --for the SCCs in my upper body.

Cemiplimab is an extremely expensive medication that has only recently emerged from clinical trials. The Australian government put it on the "free" list just in November last year so I am lucky to be getting it

Zora and Anne are both out of town but I am pleased that in my time of trial I have received affectionate messages from both of them -- and Jenny has stepped up to become my live-in carer

Saturday update: They talk about the luck of the Irish. I do have substantial Irish ancestry and some of that luck seems to have rubbed off on me. I went to the Wesley for my treatment, which is a major Brisbane private hospital. And it turns out that I was the first to get Cemiplimab there. It came on to the free list just in time for me to get it



9 September, 2023

Reprieve

My cancers have now been identified. I am full of cancer so should be facing death soon but it has emerged that I have two types of cancer and both are treatable. Both have in fact been successfully treated in me before.

PET scans have revealed that my upper body is riddled with SCC metastases and my lower body is riddled with prostate cancer metastases. Between them they eat up my energy but other symptoms are mild.

I have had immunotherapy for SCCs in the past which has worked well and I have previously controlled prostate cancer with antiandrogens. The prostate cancers will not go away but will stop growing and may shrink to some degree. In some cases anti-androgens have controlled prostate cancer for up to 10 years. Patients just die of other things

Anti-androgens do however damage energy levels so I am out of the fryingpan and into the fire on that one. I will continue to live but in a semi-invalid state. That is not a big bother to me as I will be able to continue blogging, which is most of what I do anyway



7 September, 2023

Zoe is in Ephesus

The apostle Paul once write a lettter to the Christians of Ephesus. It is mostly ruins these days

I had my last PET scan today to see exactly where and what the cancers in me are. I will learn tomorrow afternoon if the results indicate a future for me

I celebrated completion of my scans with an apple Danish and a fresh orange juice. Both were delish



5 September, 2023

A hug postponed 50 years

Around 1970 I was part of a social group that included an attractive lady I will refer to as KC, she was tall, smart, was very good humoured and had a good figure. I was sweet on her. Another male in our social group was, however, also sweet on her so I deferred to him and did not pursue the lady. I thought he needed her more than I did. He was in rather poor health.

And they did form a relationship until he fell in love with China instead. He went and lived there and married a Chinese lady. So she soon sought others and ended up the wife of a rather prominent person. He was a lucky man to win her. They have been together now for over 30 years.

So it is a long time since I have seen her. Rather wonderfully, however, another member of our old social group brought her over to see me today. We had some very lively chats. She was still the good-natured and good-humoured person of old. It was a great pleasure to see her.

As she was leaving, however, I gave her a hug, a hug I had never given her before, given the circumstances.



She and I used to be about the same height but I have shrunk over the years while she has not.



3 September, 2023

A lady in a hat

I have never seen her in a hat before as she has very tanned skin that resists sunburn but she is obviously spending a lot of time at the beach in Turkey so it is a wise precaution

2 September, 2023

Turkey

Zoe in enjoying her holiday to Turkey's Antalya coast in Southern Turkey. It is a resort are and the beaches are very crowded





31 August, 2023

A shortened horizon

Because my health indicators are all good, I had seen myself as having maybe 10 more years of life. Cancer can however get anyone at any age and it has me firmly in its grip at the moment. I am in no great pain and discomfort so far but my future is now looking short. Modern medicine might save me yet but I have to be prepared for an end fairly soon otherwise.

There is little I can do to deal with a shortened future but I have made some preparations. In particular I have discussed with Joe the future of my large collection of old games computers. They have sentimental value to me and it turns out that they are of a similar value to Joe. So we have agreed that we will gradually transfer them to his place, where he expects to have a room devoted to them. 4 of my old computers are Amiga 500s so I sometimes think we should start an Amiga appreciation society.

Now that my innings is coming to an end, I do think a little about how well I have used the 80 years I have had. And I think I have used those years pretty well. I am satisfied with the life I have lived. One particular source of satisfaction is that I have achieved well in two quite different fields: Business and academe. Those two normally never meet. The people involved tend to despise one another in fact.

But I did very well in academe -- having over 200 papers published in the academic journals over a 20 year period. And a bonus is that even papers I wrote back in the 70s are still widely read. See http://jonjayray.com/citedjr.html

And I did well enough in business to finance both a comfortable later life and allow myself to give extensively to charitable causes. I retired when I was 39 so I have had over 40 years living on my business proceeds.

But I judge my life neither by my academic nor by my business activities. I think that I have had a good life because of the relationships I have had with women. I have had many pleasing relationships with many women and despite that have no angry women in my past. I regard the 4 marriages I have had as good marriages and the divorces have all been with no acrimony. So that is why I see my 80 years as well-used. I will shuffle off into the night with no major regrets.

One of my girlfriends once said to me: "John, there will be a lot of weeping women at your funeral". I will make sure she gets an invitation



24 August, 2023

Cancer

I had a CT scan on Tuesday. Yesterday I got the result. I am riddled with cancer. So that explains my very low energy levels in recent weeks. I was of course pretty depressed to get that news but Joe was very helpful that night. He cancelled an appointment and came over to have dinner with me -- at Hungry Jacks, which I like. That did lift my spirits a bit.

And today I have heard from my oncologist. He thinks my main problem is a recurrence of my prostate cancer, which means that immunotherapy is not available for it. But he thinks that radiation could fix me. So now I go for a battery of further tests to see exactly what is going on.

I nearly died from stomach cancer a couple of years ago but recovered after a course of immunontherapy so I am in a sense already in extra time. And in that "extra" time I have got to know both Zoe and Anna, which I am pleased about. Making new friendships in old age is rare. So I hope I will survive my present crisis to enjoy all my friendships more



21 August, 2023

Revealing breakfasts


My mother was a rather strange woman unhappy in her marriage. I probably get some strangeness from her. The wonderful woman in my longest-lasting marriage often called me "Mr Difficult".

I would have said that my mother was autistic except that she was a chatterbox, two things that are normally opposite

But I have always said that she gave ne a very permissive and indulgent childhood, which I of course greatly liked. And something comes to mind that shows how indulgent to me she was. Whatever faults she had, I certainly had a loving mother

So what has inspired this reflection? WeetBix. Yes. Weetbix. WeetBix are a very common breakfast cereal in Australia but they are very dry out of the packet. You normally eat them with milk. I still like and eat them on occasions.



But their dryness means that you have to let them stand in the milk for a minute or two before you can eat them. You have to sit in front of your bowl for a minute or two waiting for the milk to soak in. It's only a very small call on your patience.

But my mother spared me even that call on my patience. As soon as she put the bix down in front of me, she would pour hot water on them to soften them immediately so I could eat them immediately. No patience required. As kid, I thought that was normal. But as an adult, I manage to wait a minute or two and just have them with milk, no hot water. She also used always to spinkle sugar on them for me, but these days I just enjoy the taste of the bik by itself.

So I see all that as a vivid sign of how much I was loved. I am very lucky to have had such a start in life. Not all do. And with only a few breaks, my life since has been a cruise. Though my health does sometimes get to me now that I am 80.



19 August, 2023

The Bhagavad Gita

I have always respected India and Indians so I thought that is was time to read something of their great holy book, written around 200BC.

I have just read the first two chapters and am very impressed. Its thoughts resonate with me. Chapter 1 sets out very vividly the folly of war. Even though I am a former member of the Australian army, war has always seemed a horror to me: So many deaths of so many good men for so little gain. I am at the moment distressed by the war in Ukraine. I have Russian and Ukrainian friends so Russian and Ukrainian deaths are horrible thoughts to me. Why can we not put that ongoing disaster to a stop? And the Hindu prince (Arjuna) in the Gita expresses grief at war very vividly. He sets out the folly of war better than I could do. He sounds very modern to me.

I am no pacifist. I accept that if we are attacked, we have to fight back. But the Bhagavad Gita questions the very essence of that. It asks what is the benefit of any attack? Nothing is worth it. The Hindu prince asks should we simply refuse to fight. Is pacifism better?

I have some sympathy for that view. Would rule by Hitler be so bad? Germans loved him. Was it worth all the bloodshed to defeat him? Hitler did after all initially just want to banish all the Jews to Palestine (The Haavara Agreement) but the British and others blocked that. Those are the sorts of doubt that the Hindu prince had in chapter 1 of the Gita. And a couple of hundred years later Jesus said much the same: "Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also" (Matthew 5:38). That scripture has worried me since I was 14 and is why I was a pacifist in my teens

But the Gita said it first and said it much more vividly.

And in chapter 2 the Gita goes on to answer the pacifist doubts. It says your soul is indestructible so what you do in war can cause no serious harm. I don't believe in God or souls so that is no help to me. We atheists are stuck with reality.

I will read on



Doggie ladies

Both Zoe and Anna are doggie ladies. They both think their best friends are dogs

Anna is at present doing dog minding. After her shifts at the hospital she goes to an address where the owners are on holiday and looks after their dogs.

Below is a picture of her with her current charges



Last time we had dinner together I asked her what she was most looking forward to in her future. Her reply: The dogs

Zoe also sent a picture of her current companion -- below





1 August, 2023

Cowley beach, a small memoir

Now that I am very old, I am inclined to note changes I have seen

At one stage, I am not sure when, but it was before I was of school age, the family moved and lived in a cane-cutter's barracks at Cowley Beach, not far from Innisfail

Barracks were provided by farmers to house the itinerant cane-cutters who came North for the crushing season. I gather that in the "off" season they were usually let out free to locals whom the farmer knew. It helped keep them maintained. (I myself later lived for a time in barracks free of charge -- when I was about 17).

So there my mother had a wood (burning) stove and no electricity. I remember the carbide lamps and hurricane lamps we used for lighting at night. Carbide (acetylene ) lamps gave a quite bright light.

The walls of the barracks were of corrugated iron and I seem to recollect drinking brackish water there so maybe we relied on a well for water.

I am pretty sure we had a kerosene fridge there that didn't work very well and I remember my mother using a Coolgardie safe and water bag.

Since then I have always liked the design of cane barracks -- a big kitchen/dining room at one end and a straight line of bedrooms running off it and accessed from a verandah. Most post-cyclone houses in Darwin have a similar design -- though they are high-set (elevated).



Some good advice

I was having breakfast with "Anna" this morning when I mentioned that I had been having a fair bit of stomach upset lately. She asked me if I was still taking vitamin D supplements and I told her I was. She said that the vitamin D was probably the cause of my stomach upsets. She had herself had some experience of it apparently. I had already suspected a correlation between taking the supplements and my troubled stomach so I am convinced that she was right. As it happens, I took none last night and was able to enjoy my breakfast with a quiet stomach

Most old ladies seem to be on mega-doses of Vitamin D without any problems so why I had problems is a bit of a mystery. It turns out that stomach upset is a known side-effect of vitamin D supplementation but normally in response to high doses only. I must be unusually sensitive to it -- maybe because I am not an old lady


Breakfast with "Anna"



28 July, 2023

On a Srbian farm





26 July, 2023

Having coffee at the grand Hotel Moskva in Belgrade

That iced cofee is a weakness







24 July, 2023

It's flower time in Srbia





Another pic from a Srbian summer

Zoe with friend Verica





22 July, 2023

Flowers

Anne sent me abunch of native flowers for my 80th. Thanks to a bungling florist, they arrived just today





17 July, 2023

Zoe has departed for her holiday in her native Srbia

Where she lives in Redbank Plains is a long way from the airport, which would make a taxi trip to the airport prohibitive. So I offered to pick her up from home early in the day so she could go from my place for her late night flight with Qatar airways. My place is fairly central. I don't like driving at night so she did take a taxi from my place to the airport

A slight complication was that I had a mid-afternoon medical appointment today. So I arranged to pick Zoe up at 1pm so I could easily meet my appointment. Zoa is very disorganized, however so it was 1:30 before we got away. As it happened, however, I had a number of holdups getting to my appointment but I arrived at exactly the appointed time. So it was fortunate that we got away when we did

Zoe accompanied me to my appointment and amused both me and the urologist by telling the uroogist that my prostate problems would all be over if I would only switch to a raw-food diet. She is incorrigible.

Qatar have a fairly generous weight allowance for luggage and Zoe made full use of it. To supplement that however she also put on three pairs of trousers and at least four jumpers -- all on top of one another. Lucky it is winter or she would have roasted. She is an experienced traveller, however so she knew what she was doing

I was aware of her exact departure time so I could imagine exactly where Zoe was when I heard a large aircraft passing overhead at that time

I will be keeping an eye on reports of plane crashes and hoping none involve Qatar. It seems to be a cut-price carrier so one hopes that maintenance is not compromised



16 July, 2023

I am 80, you know

I have recently had a b*rthday, my 80th

So I suppose it is time for me to look back a little. It has been a very happy life. Starting with my mother, many women have treated me remarkably indulgently over the years.

Life highlights? I will mention just an academic one: I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation in just 6 weeks. 3 years is normal for a Ph.D. and some candidates take longer than that. And it was an exceptional dissertation. A number of academic journal articles came out of it. Most dissertation writers are happy with one derivative article. There is a full list of my academic articles here. I did much better than most because I am a high functioning autistic. Autistics often have eerily great abilties in some field. My field has been academic writing. This is probably a very autistic biographical note

My best year? Most of my years have been good but 1968 does stand out a bit. I have written about it at length previously. Joining the regular army and gaining a Masters degree in the same year certainly makes it different. Conservatives will understand that I wore my country's uniform with pride

Children: To me, children are the meaning of life so I am very glad that I have had three stepchildren and one natural son, all of whom I adore. I am particularly pleased that all of them have prospered and none have become "black sheep". I must particularly mention my stepson Paul. He and I have had great rapport ever since I first met him when he was aged 7. We have the sort of father/son relationship that most fathers can only dream of. He not only asks my advice but sometimes he even takes it! We are both very fortunate to have found such soul-mates in one-another. I put up some thoughts about both my boys over a decade ago whch still mostly hold true

Gratitude? Thankfulness? I am partcularly grateful to all the women who have treated me kindly and tolerantly over the years -- but I am also pleased these days to have in my life the little sweetiepie whose picture I keep putting up on this blog. She is a keeper. I shouldn't call her a sweetiepie because she never stops scolding me about my my mainly old-fashioned diet -- but she means well. She is leaving tomorrow for a holiday in her native Srbia. I will miss her.

As well as that, I am grateful for the way my British ancestors and their compatriots turned wilderness into one of the most civil societies on earth. I am a 5th generation Australian who still lives in Australia and I am acutely aware of what a great privilege that is. Leftists instruct people to "check your privilege". I have checked mine and am very pleased by it

Thanks to the good society my forebears created, I have not had to work hard to create a good life for myself but their sterling example tells me that I could do so if I needed to. I have in fact spent a large part of my life being a highly paid academic. And after that I spent many years making significant money in various real estate ventures. Now I just blog.

On the day: Jenny put on a very special dinner for my b*rthday: An esoteric Indian meal called a Parsee Dhansak. I like that meal but it takes hours to prepare if you do it properly -- so I usually get it on my birthday only. I am fortunate to have had Parsee friends who introduced me to it.

The table set with a Dhansak, green chutney etc

The conversation around the dinner table mostly was about guns. Christopher is a gun collector and the legal officer of a gun club so had some unusual information to give. He noted that the police have become slow at issuing gun licences, with some applicants waiting as long as 12 months, an apparent deliberate go-slow. There are still a lot of legal gun owners in Queensland so that could become a political issue

Jenny between the two brothers

I got a number of thoughtful presents and cards, all of which I appreciated, but the one I liked best was the message little Suzy wrote on her card to me. See below

And life is still good in my old age. I still have three fine women in my life. I have no money worries. I give half of my income to a charitable cause. I live in a big house in a good suburb that I like. My car is virtually worthless but I am still completely happy with it. What else is there?

My ambition for the future? It is to live until I am 90. That way I will live to see my social grandchildren into their teens and later life. I would love to see what becomes of them. Three of them are already displaying unusual potential in different ways

Late Sunday update: Zora has been very busy getting her house and yard ready for her holiday overseas so I saw her only briefly today between 6pm and 7pm. She brought me a birthday present in the form of two flannelette shirts. Her card included the handwritten words "You are very special to me", which I very much liked



6 July, 2023

A visit to Khalistan

Not quite. Khalistan is the Sikh dream of an independent homeland but I am very pro-Sikh so I like to acknowledge their aspirations. Libertarians are generally in favour of independence movements

Zoe had decided yesterday that she wanted a curry for lunch -- vegetarian of course. So we went to "Dudes Dhaba" at 86 Annerley Road, Woolloongabba, an Indian cafe associated with the Annerley fruit shop. It is run by a big and good-humoured Sikh. Lunch for Zoe usually starts at 4pm and it just happened that the cafe opens at 4pm so we were in luck

I walked in and asked the proprietor did he have any vegetarian curries? "Yes" he said and handed me a menu listing about 10 different vegetarian curries. It would be a rare Indian restaurant that did not offer a vegetarian curry.

Anyway I chose two curries at random. I think the Sikh guy just gave us what he thought best anyway. I normally let Zoe do the ordering in restaurants but I did not think she knew what she was doing on this occasion so over-ruled every thing she said, much to the amusement of the Sikh. Zoe took it in good part

What we got was a feast for $44.95. We had two excellent curries to share, rice and a big basket of very light Indian bread. I thought it was too much food for a lunch but we eventually got all but some of the bread down. Zoe kept saying "This is terrible" as she shovelled it down. She meant that it was terrible that she enjoyed it so much -- as it was in violation of her normal dietary restrictions.

Long live Khalistan!



1 July, 2023

A significant proposal

I made a significant proposal (NOT a marriage proposal) to my little sweetiepie recently so I thought I would put up a picture of her that we both like





27 June, 2023

A very mixed weekend

It started badly with the special lunch with Anne on Thursday ending up being not so special. It was good to see her anyway

Then on Friday morning I came down with a heavy cold so missed my appointment with Sandy, the doctor who helps with my skin problems. She is very busy so I had been waiting for that visit for about a month. Fortunately my various skin bad bits are not in urgent need of attention at the moment. I was sorry to miss my day with Zora, though. Jenny tested me on Friday to see if I had Covid but I did not. It was just a seasonal virus. There is a lot of it around at the moment

Then on Saturday morning I was due to have a farewell breakfast with Anne before she goes back on the road for her caravan trip. But I could not risk giving her my virus so had to cancel our meeting. She will not be back until October so that is a sad loss

I still had the wog on Sunday but by nightfall I was well enough to host the men's dinner I had pre-arranged. Graham came all the way from country Victoria for it so I was very glad that I could play host despite a remnant of my flu-like symptoms. In the end it all worked well.

Then on Monday I was further recovered but still coughing a lot so I had to cancel a medical specialist appointment I had been waiting for. They did not want me anywhere near them with the symptoms I had

Today, Tuesday, I am pretty well over it all and was able to have a normal day. So being knocked out for four days by a virus was bad but was actually a fast recovery for an old guy like me.



26 June, 2023

Another very successful men's dinner last night

It was particularly successful because Graham decided to battle his health limitations and join us. He had to fly up from Melbourne. I originally put on the dinners to allow us to hear from him. JPH, Chris and Joe also joined us

The conversation was as usual something of a riot. We all enjoyed comparing notes about mostly political topics. Graham as usual had some good insights to offer. Something that I found very topical was his experience of families with transgender chidren. He said that in all cases the mother was a strong and dominant personality who was either a single mother or married to a unassertive husband. There should probably be a proper study of that

Another of his insights was so original that I have written it up on one of my political blogs:

https://pcwatch.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-rise-of-autism-diagnoses-of-autism.html

under the heading: "The rise of autism"

JPH told us a little about his recent travels in Italy and I was surprised to hear that Michaelangelo's David was roughly twice life-size.

Christopher was very knowledgeable about both history and current events and saw the present Leftist obsessions with both transgenderism and critical race theory as deliberate attempts to break down our civilization. Transgenderism is certainly an endpoint in Leftist attempts to undermine normal human relationships. Karl Marx hated the family and that lives on in today's Left.

I pointed out that critical race theory was a last ditch Leftist attempt to blame anyone but blacks for black failure. The theory demonizes whites but most whites seem unfazed by that and blacks like it so it probably nets the Left a few extra votes.

For the dinner I prepared my usual humble offerings -- savoury mince plus a mild curry. Graham provided cheese, cracker niscuits, grapes and some fruit wine. He stayed overnight and we had a simple breakfast of tea and toast before he left



June 19, 2023

A dining disaster

Anne will not be here when I have my 80th birthday so she arranged to shout me a dinner for it in advance. We arranged to go to the "Saffron" Persian restaurant at Stones corner as I particularly like the food there. So I booked a table and had the booking confirmed. We both dressed up a bit for the occasion. See below. I really liked the red blazer that Anne wore.





But when we got to the restaurant it was closed. We were well within its opening hours so it should have been open even if our booking was awry. But it was very definitely closed so we had to go elsewhere. Seeing we were at Stones corner we went to another restaurant there, the "Vietnamese Street Food" restaurant. I had been there before so knew the food was good. We had grilled pork and grilled chicken and both were good. So we ended up ok but a bit disappointed at our frustrated plans



June 19, 2023

A grapefruit tree opposite my house -- in fruit at the moment



Attractive fruit but challenging taste



17 June, 2023

A memoir of 1968

When I had completed my B.A. degree with honours in psychology from the University of Qld. at the end of 1967, I decided I needed a change of scene from Brisbane so I moved South to Sydney. Being Mr Frugality, I had a comfortable level of savings, no debts and a sky blue VW beetle -- so the transition was an unproblematic one.

I did however want a job. So I went along to the Army recruiting office. From my time in the CMF in Brisbane I was a fully qualified Sergeant in the Psychology corps so thought I might get work there. They grabbed me. An extra qualified hand was very welcome. So within days of arriving I was back in the Army!

I did not stay there for long however. I applied and was accepted into the NSW public service

I was assigned to the Dept. of Technical Education as a graduate clerk. Their graduate clerk program was however a typical bureaucratic bungle. The only work they had for me was filing, something I had done years ago as a junior clerk in the Queensland Dept. of Public Works. I was quite miffed at being given such dumb work so I refused to do it. And it was all downhill from there.

Eventually I was transferred to Head office where they gave me some slightly more interesting work. I did what was asked but there was not much of it so I had a lot of spare time on my hands. I was at the time enrolled with the M.A. program at the University of Sydney so I mostly used the spare time on academic work. The managers apparently felt unable to do anything about that.

But one morning, just after I had handed in my Master's thesis at U Syd towards the end of the year, I unintentionally slept in and arrived at work late. That was it! They had me. Lateness was something they could act on. So I was promptly fired that day. There would have been access to an appeal but I didn't bother. I knew I was going on to other things next year.

Instead I turned to someone I had worked for in Brisbane: The eccentric Harry Beanham. I sold light machinery for him in Brisbane -- new lathe gears and other new machinery. Harry also had a big stock of secondhand machinery which he had bought at auctions. Auctions were his second favourite hobby, I gather.

So when I was fired, I went and saw Harry at his Sydney business -- in case he might want me to work for him again. He did. Harry remembered how I sold lots of diehead chasers for him in Brisbane so had a high opinion of my usefulness. So he promptly put me to work preparing his secondhand stock for sale. So I got a job that did not exist until I asked for it!

So in the space of less than a year I had got 3 jobs, none of which were advertised! Lessons: Don't be late in a bureaucracy and finding a job is easy if you have usable skills and qualifications.

The Baroque Music Club

I founded The Baroque Music Club club shortly after I moved to Sydney in 1968. It was a very informal thing that consisted of Sunday afternoon meetings at somebody's place where we would drink cheap flagon wine and listen to recorded Baroque (pre 1750) music.

Denis Ryan was our most frequent host and his wife, Fay, used to put on a whopper afternoon tea to aid the deliberations.

It was a good way to meet musically-inclined single women and I did meet a few there, including one wife (Dawn) and some other sexy ladies, such as Leslie Johnson and Nola Holland. I still remember Leslie Johnson arriving there and noting at the time what an admirable bottom she had. Joy used to come to some of the meetings but I did not meet her there.

Terry French was another frequent participant at the meetings but I never got into her knickers. Like Joy, I met Terry at Mensa. She was quite attractive and I made several attempts to take her out but was always knocked back. I asked her about that some years later and she said, "You just didn't try hard enough" (!)

All that aside, however, my chief memories of the Baroque Music Club still are musical. I still feel the lonely eminence of Bach, the circular-saw-like power of the Vivaldi oboe and bassoon concerti and the elegance of Albinoni, Pescetti and Gabrielli. As far as I can remember I kept the club going until I left Sydney in 1983

At the University of Sydney

As soon as I arrived in Sydney I went along to the University of Sydney and was told that part-time students needed to take 2 or preferably 3 years to do a Masters Degree. That suited me not at all so, even though I in fact had a full-time job, I enrolled as a day student and did the M.A. in the bare minimum of one year. I just took time off my work in the Dept. of Technical Education to attend whatever lectures I had to. There weren't many lectures and tutorials and the Public Service encouraged time off for education anyway. "Further study" was greatly facilitated as a matter of general policy.

I actually got the highest marks awarded in the M.A. exams but the Psychology Department would not give me the degree with first-class honours because (I imagine) they suspected I was really part-time and didn't want to look fools. So the cowards sent me a special letter saying that I only got second class honours but would probably have done better had I taken the "normal" two years. I still have the letter somewhere.

While I was doing the M.A. I also enrolled at the University of N.S.W. as an evening student and studied economics. Economics was a major intellectual discovery for me and Economics I was probably the most valuable course I ever did (in my opinion). I did a bit of accounting too just to find out what it was like but didn't persevere with it. So that was a busy year for me: A full-time job plus a complete higher degree plus a new undergraduate subject. I enjoyed meeting the demands that placed on me. For once I had to use my time fairly efficiently.

Social

Work and study were not my only activities, however. I also had a good time socially. I had joined Mensa not long before I left Brisbane so started going to their meetings as soon as I arrived in Sydney also. Mensa formed an important part of my social life during my entire sojourn in Sydney. As well as being highly intelligent, Mensans tend to be eccentric. This suited me as such people are more interesting and they certainly don't threaten me in any way. Social skills, however, tended to be in short supply so I ended up running Sydney Mensa for quite a few years. Organizing meetings seemed to be beyond most of them.

I particularly remember summer nights in 1968 when I was doing my M.A. and eating chicken Maryland at the Forest Lodge hotel -- in company with Michael Crowley, the wonderful Lesley Johnson and various "Sydney Push" types like David Ivison. For some reason, Shostakovich's "Second Waltz" also reminds me of those times. And the song "Moscow Nights" captures my mood at the time rather well

Michael Crowley was a fellow psychology student at Uni Syd in 1968. Michael is a very caring man but later got into trouble over an affair with a lady aged just 15. A year later he would have been in the clear. So I hold nothing against him. He and I both had affairs with the redoubtable Mavis K. And he married an ex-girlfriend of mine, the delightful Elizabeth T.!

Isabella

One lady from that time whom I remember was Isabella Schmidt-Harms. I met her at a Goethe Society function at the University of Sydney. She had the bloom of youth upon her and fitted the Scots description: "a bonny lass". She was the daughter of the West German Consul in Sydney. I took her to a musical -- Man of La Mancha, I think -- but basically did not know what to do with her. I get on easily with English and Australian women but I don't really understand German women at all. I think that German women expect German men to order them about whereas I am more used to good old Anglo-Saxon "signals" to guide behaviour. So I never asked her out again.

I felt rather foolish about that at the time. It would not really have been hard to progress matters further and if romance had developed I might well have followed her back to Germany. My German wasn't too bad at that stage and I would have been fluent within 6 months. And there is a lot of German in my personality -- Prussian punctuality etc. I am even a devotee of sausages! And a diplomat's daughter would have socially elevated contacts so I might have ended up among the movers and shakers in Germany. And Germany is a much more important place than Australia.

I saw all that at the time but deliberately opted out. I could have been a very good German -- the high culture would have suited me greatly -- but it was a lot easier to be a relaxed Australian. I was lazy and unambitious. Still am. So that was a turning point -- a road not taken.

But I did contemplate becoming a German -- a Prussian even. The great marker of the Prussian is precise punctuality. And I have that. And I would certainly have been happy to wear a Pickelhaube, long gone though that now is. And I am in fact a former army man anyway. Prussians are particularly known as soldiers -- not that I was a good one.

And Germany's rich cultural life would have suited me down to the ground.

Joyce H.

Shortly after I arrived in Sydney I ran into Joyce Hooper -- while walking down George St -- whom I had briefly taken out in Brisbane (I met her at the Folk Centre).

We soon started living together (in Rozelle). As Joyce looked great (big firm breasts, slim waist, creamy skin, freckled face, brown eyes, about 5'6" tall and a mop of dark red hair) and shared my musical interests, I was pretty pleased with things.

We lived together in a flat at Rozelle for a while. Joyce is an enormously critical woman, both of herself and everyone else so we ended up arguing enough to split up. I was disappointed at the breakup but I don't know that I was really upset. It was just very hard to stay on the right side of Joyce and I felt confident that I could do better than such a difficult relationship. I was still working for Harry Beanham when we split up

Lesley J.

A definite lady that I met whilst I was at Uni Syd was Leslie Johnson. Lesley was from a Communist family, though she was more into philosophy than politics. When I was dating Lesley, she had a beauteous sister who was being dated by Mark Aarons, son of Laurie Aarons, boss of the Communist Party of Australia. Mark had the blonde and I had the brainy sister

Lesley was 5'10" and a very nice person indeed. She was very slim, elegant, well-spoken and poised and had a very sexy big bottom. She had very long auburn hair which she would only ever let down when getting into bed.

She was a gentle, thoughtful person but with a good sense of humour. She had done very well in Philosophy III (topped the year, I think) at the University of Sydney, which is a major intellectual achievement. We got on very well intellectually but we also did very well in bed together.

Her high level of education caused her to appreciate my high cultural level -- e.g. my desire and ability to make apposite quotations from Goethe, Chaucer etc. She was so thrilled to find a man who was both up to the highest intellectual standards and yet not a nerd that our eventual breakup was particularly hard for her.

I remember sitting on a bench with her overlooking the Lane Cove river on a calm moonlit night. An appropriate poem by Goethe came into mind -- Meeresstille -- so I recited it (in German) right down to "reget keine Welle sich". I suspect that I did it rather theatrically but it elicited great approval anyway. It was definitely one of my "Moscow Nights"

A curious thing about her was that she was urged to take Philosophy honours but felt that she should not because it would alienate her from men. (At that time she just wanted to start a family). She was probably right. She therefore much appreciated it that I also had also done a fair bit of Philos. (Philos. I at Uni Qld and "General Psychology" as part of my M.A. at the University of Sydney). So we had a lot in common and should have stayed together. We did not. Mainly because I had a wandering eye at that time. If you cannot have a wandering eye in your mid-20s, when can you? It would have been a lovely calm life if I had stayed with her, though.

I was living by myself in a flat at Balmain at the time I was seeing Leslie. Her family were very permissive. Her younger sister used to have her boyfriend (Mark Aarons, son of the Australian Communist party boss and later party boss himself) sleep with her overnight at the parental home. I think the parents were fairly academic. I dined with them once or twice and I remember that they used to have wine with dinner -- still fairly unusual at that time.

Despite the permissiveness both girls were far from promiscuous. Leslie had slept with only a few blokes before me. She was quite choosy, actually. Most of my woman-friends have been. It is probably the main reason I have never got any V.D. other than the ubiquitous wart virus and thrush.

She did eventually became an academic and I still see the occasional article by her in the journals. I think that she eventually made her career as an Educationist but she also seems to have managed to become a Pro Vice Chancellor at the University of Technology, Sydney! She really was an extraordinarily fine woman.

Nola

Nola Holland is someone I kept in touch with for a long time. I met her through the Baroque music group. She originally came from Dubbo and her maiden name was Boyle but she greatly disliked the bog-Irish image that her family name gave her so she used the surname of her first husband (John Holland) for the rest of her life, even though they were together for about a year only. They married while she was a teenager. I seem to recollect.

Nola is about 5'3" tall, has blue eyes and brown-to-red hair. She also has a very plausible tongue but I can usually see through her machinations despite that.

Nola is a very sophisticated person in general and has had a very large number of sexual partners -- most of whom have been very well-off. So she was "slumming it" to be with me.

Nola and I were together in the early stages of my stay with John Henninhgham and Alf Croucher in a terrace house at Wentworth Rd., Glebe. An incident I remember from that time was when Henningham, Croucher and I were about to take out some insurance. The salesman, George Serhan, was of Lebanese origin and a real bull-artist. We rather liked that side of him. We thought it an art-form and quite amusing (He even had a chauffeur!) Nola was there, however, and also detected the insincerity. Did she get up him! She really gave poor old George a tongue-lashing. We almost had to pull her off him. It is lucky I am so exceptionally blunt and straight-forward or else I would never have got on with Nola.

I remember Nola and I spending one Xmas day together during that time. We got on my motorbike (a little Suzuki. I think I had both a motorbike and a car at that time) and rode up to Galston Gorge. Nola loves motorbikes. We had a picnic lunch and we made love in the bush. I remember noticing at that time that her pubic hair had a reddish tinge to it.

On the way back we fell off the motorbike, which Nola scolded me about for a long time. We both had some fairly painful but really minor injuries from it.

Nola is your original wild Irishwoman (though Australian-born) whom most men cannot handle at all. She just manipulates them. We had a pretty intense relationship for a brief period soon after we met but soon realized that we were both too headstrong to live together.

Nola is a great traveller. She seems to have at least 4 holidays a year: A sensation-seeker. She is about the same age as I.

She told me that once she was at a fancy dinner party with her Greek barrister boyfriend (John Gleeson) when people started discussing who their best friend was. When they asked Nola who was her best friend she said: "My vibrator". Typical. She finds it hard to be tactful for five minutes.

I think Nola and I got on well because we both have very down-to-earth attitudes and because neither of us is much restrained by convention. Her blunt utterances would offend a lot of people but I just find them fun -- as they are intended to be. She is full of fun generally.



11 June, 2023

A recollection from childhood

Some time in my childhood, maybe when I was about ten (i.e. 1953) I was given the book "The magic of Matt" to read. I think it was a gift. It really amused me and I re-read it from time to time. I think it was a new book that had just become available

It was set in Jamaica (where the author had lived) and consisted of stories about a young Jamaican boy ("Matt") who had a habit of outsmarting the adults in his environment.

It would all be politically incorrect these days as the black adults in the stories were very stereotyped. And the book does now seem to have been forgotten: Which is sad considering the entertainment it can give. The only mention of it that I can find on the net is:

"Between 1934 and 1950, [Alan] Hyder published around 130 short stories in the London newspaper The Evening News. Many of these stories are about a ten-year old Jamaican boy named Matthias Nehemiah Martingue but called Matt, and twenty-six stories were collected in Matt (London: Quality Press, 1944). A further fifty stories were collected in The Magic of Matt (London: P.R. Gawthorn, 1950), which includes seventeen rather crude illustrations by the author. The dust-wrapper blurb notes the ingredients of the stories are "humour and pathos, thrills and adventures, fantasy and romance, with a slight salting of horror." Jack Adrian characterized Matt as "lively, mischievous, and irrepressible" and his stories as "knockabout tales in which Matt either gets the better of fat constable Mermian, or gets whupped by his (equally fat) Mammy."

Some wicked person should acquire a copy and put it online. I no longer have it. My mother (now deceased) threw out all my books after I left home -- to my great irritation.



30 May, 2023

Another b*rthday celebration

I did get to see Jenny on her actual b*rthday. We had breakfast together at Buranda. I celebrated by having Calamari. I had already given her some presents but I kept a couple for the actual day -- both gluten-free.



27 May, 2023

Serbia's groovy grannies

My Serbian companion is very good looking for her age -- in the granny age cohort. So I thought I might mention another Serbian lady in that cohort. Behold Vesna Pesic -- the book editor, not the politician. How does she stay so youthful looking? I guess gym and care with diet would be involved but good genes are probably the main thing







See more of her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pesic.sinovi

UPDATE: Another picture of her with one of the authors for her nationalist publishing house. How can she look so good when she is not all that younger than I am?




26 May, 2023

A b*rthday dinner

In honour of Jenny's forthcoming b*rthday, I took her and Joe to our local Persian restaurant last night, the Saffron. Their food is as exceptional as their prices so it is worth it. Nobody grills meat as well as Persians do. It's all in the marinade, I suspect

They seem to be Zoroastrian Persians as I saw there women with no head coverings and men drinking wine. Definitely not Muslim. And they had reproductions from the old Persian empire on their walls -- which was Zoroastrian. I have Zoroastrian friends and think that Zoroastrianism makes rather more sense than Christianity

They have had the same young receptionist at that restaurant for some years and she has always amused me. She has a large bosom that was always very much in evidence. But last night the bosom seemed to be missing. I think it was still there but modestly covered. Maybe she has now found a bloke.

I ordered the mixed plate for Joe and me and Jenny found some gluten-free things to order. Mainly kebabs. It was a great night for food

Jenny will be having her actual b*rthday dinner with Jeff, her oldest friend, who has always been very good to her and who is coming down from Northern parts just for the occasion

It's a while since I put up a picture of myself so I got Jenny to take one of me this morning. It came out better than I expected, all things considered





25 May, 2023

A wonderful tree

Cumquat trees are normally encountered as shrubs. But the cumquat tree in front of my place has never heard of that. I am guessing that it is about 20' high -- and is in fruit at the moment. The brilliant yellow fruit make a good picture. And the fruit makes the best marmalade ever



There is a close-up of it here Wait for it



8 May, 2023

Scavenging

Brisbane City Council does a cleanup in my suburb once a year. This year it was in late April. It consists of an invitation from the council for people to put outside their houses anything they do not want. The council will then collect and dispose of it. I enjoy those occasions. Like many others, I drive around looking at what everyone has put out in case someone has thrown something out that still seems usable to me. And I usually do find something.

This year I was particularly on the lookout for wooden chairs where the seat is a single deal of wood. Only very big trees can give rise to deals big enough for that so they are now something of a rarity. And about a week ago, the inhabitant of an old house near me had thrown out SIX such chairs. They needed a cleanup but nothing more. I am now using four of them

And yesterday Zoe got into the act. A neighbouring suburb was having a cleanup so she drove us around it looking for treasures. And one thing she found was remarkably good: A pushbike in near new condition. It even had derailleur gears. She found a few other things as well. So she was pretty pleased with her expedition. At one point we got caught in a hailstorm but it was short-lived

A dinner at Zambreros also enlivened the day



3 May, 2023

A pleasant moment in time

It is very rare for any of our moments to inspire a record of them. Wordsworth went for a walk one day and saw some daffodils that he liked. He put that small happening into a poem and people have been reading about it ever since. So a moment in time can be worth recording.

I am no poet and have no thought that any of my moments will be of significance to others. But I do like to record some moments that will form happy recollections. There was such a moment this afternoon

I was expecting Zoe for her usual Wednesday visit. I was missing her and wishing she would arrive soon. And waiting for her was rather distracting. I could not concentrate on anything very serious. I expected her at her usual time between 3 and 4pm so at 2pm I distracted myself by going down into my garage to reorganize a big set of chairs I had acquired just days before. I was engrossed in that when I got a surprise. A voice came from the open garage doorway behind me. It asked, "what are you doing"?

It was not an utterance of any profundity but to me it was a very sweet voice I heard. Zoe had arrived early: A very pleasant surprise. That shock of hearing an unexpected sweet voice is one I would like to remember. I make no claim that it was a sweet voice in any objective sense but it was a sweet voice to me. I was very happy to hear it

We went on to have a late lunch at Nando's followed by a shopping trip to Coco's. We spent the rest of the afternoon together until about 6pm



25 April, 2023

My past



Spring time in Cairns North Queensland 1961. I lived there at that time but left soon afterward. I was 18



21 April, 2023

I moved from London to Sydney for a man I had spent six days with – of course it was a mistake

A British woman has written a rather long article under the above heading. I reproduce below just two paragraphs from it that speak to me.

What struck me about the first paragraph was her assertion that highly incompatible people can have a good relationship. That is my situation too so I was pleased to see that I am not alone.

I have remarked on several occasions about the large incompatibilities between Zoe and myself but we nonetheless get a lot out of our times together. We are well into our second year together and are still firmly attached despite some ups and downs. About an hour ago she went home from my place in a very jolly and cheerful mood.

Regarding the second paragraph below, I too had a great time during my 15 years in Sydney -- with many unforgettable memories. And I too made some wrong turnings at that time that I learned from and do not regret -- including two marriages

And I once had in my life a lady who did as the lady below did -- a rather aspirational lady whom I met during my Sabbatical in England who followed me back to Australia at the end of my Sabbatical with hopes of forming a lasting relationship with me. And that lady was eventually as disappointed as the lady writing below. She ended up with a very supportive partner anyway


A lot has happened over the course of the seven and a half years I’ve lived in Australia. More heartaches and more ill-fated relationships, though I’ve now been with my boyfriend for just over a year, and he is caring, honest, kind and funny in ways that others weren’t. My opposite in every way imaginable, but a man who feels like home nonetheless. He moved in two months after we met on the street in Bondi – proving, I suppose, that when it comes to romance and spontaneity, old habits die hard.

Sydney has shown me some of the best times of my life, and some of the most brutal. Now, looking back – with the benefit of distance and hindsight – I’m grateful for each heartbreak, each time I turned left instead of right; each crooked line and how they shaped me. I would not have missed this experience for anything.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/11/i-moved-from-london-to-sydney-for-a-man-i-had-spent-six-days-with-of-course-it-was-a-mistake



19 April, 2023

Scarborough again

We drove to Scarborough so that Zoe could have a swim from the beach there. But it was cold and windy when we arrived and Zoe does not like the cold so she did not go in. So all we did there was have a meal of fish, chips and salad at a local fish shop.

She has been in a rather low mood lately so I originally suggested the outing in the belief that it would cheer her up. That did seem to happen so the trip was not wasted



16 April, 2023

Hauser has had a haircut

Croatian cellist Stjepan Hauser has brought new attention to the cello as a solo or nearly solo instrument. He is undoubtedly the world's best known cellist today. He has performed innumerable times in innumerable places, playing just about anything that can be played on the cello.

I have always found his more popular performances amusing, partly because of his wild hair. So it is rather amazing that he has had a haircut recently that makes him almost unrecognizable. I reproduce below two pieces, a "hairy" one with the very glamourous Caroline Campbell and a more recent one.

I also add a performance that is probably the most amusing one of all -- a duet with Lola Astanova, a very sexy Russian lady pianist







I have some more extensive comments on the performances here. The gorgeous Caroline Campbell is a married lady these days: Married to a sportsman, not a musician!



15 April, 2023

A farewell

Paul & family fly out and back to Scotland tomorrow so Jenny organized a big lunchtime sendoff today for them

All the rellies were there so the kids had all 4 grandparents present. Jenny had ordered in pizza to cope with the crowd. She got me my lunch like the good wife she is. I talked mainly with Jenny and Paul.

Star of the occasion was young Liam -- of about 18 months old. He is the son of Timmy and Rachel.



Earlier that morning I had Matthew at my place for a wrapup of the poems I have been trying to teach him. He has got his Latin poem down pat and is pretty good with Middle English. I also put on some bits of good music for him, including "Jerusalem". I explained the British Israel beliefs that lie behind that poem

UPDATE: I did not go to the airport for the actual departure. It was a Sunday so I had my normal morning meeting with Joe and my normal Sunday afternoon meeting with Zoe



12 April, 2023

Another trip to Redcliffe and Scarborough

Zoe and I first went to Redcliffe, which was hugely busy, mostly with families. We ordered mugs of coffee from a coffee bar and Zoe provided food for lunch -- chocolate muffins and Serbian corn bread. I had just a muffin, which contributed to my small weight loss that day

Then we went to Scarborough where Zoe had a good swim and did some suntanning. I just sat in the shade and read my book

We both arrived home in a good mood



9 April, 2023

A busy Easter weekend

Zoe came over on Good Friday between 3pm and 8pm. There was a big storm at one time, which it was good to experience home dry and snuggled up

On Saturday morning I spent some time with Matthew getting him to learn some poems in German (die Lorelei) and Middle English (Chaucer). I also put on some good arias from Italian Opera for him

That evening was a big family dinner downstairs at Jenny's place. Jenny had an attack of Covid so stayed upstairs. Susan catered admirably, including a 3-part dessert. The kids were very amusing, particularly a certain little extravert

Now on Easter Sunday, I have just got back from a trip to Redcliffe and Scarborough with Zoe driving. We left my place at about 9:30am and got back at about 4:30pm. In a rare exhibition of tact, I wore the very colourful shirt that Zoe bought me in Laos.

Just about everything was closed up at Redcliffe but we got a couple of reasonable lunches at the Redcliffe Tavern: Calamari for me and fish n chips for Zoe. She also ordered some pumpkin soup to share, which was surprisingly good. I always leave ordering to her, as she is very particular about what she orders. I just hand her my card and sit down.


At Redcliffe Tavern in my colourful shirt

Afterwards Zoe drove around a fair bit looking at various places in the general area. I had not realized that Deception Bay actually is a bay with a beach of sorts. I knew it only as a reputedly low income suburb.

Eventually, we got to Scarborough, which was absolutely thronged with Easter visitors, but, with her usual amazing luck, Zoe got a parking spot just a short walk from the beach. She got in a good swim, her aim for the trip. I managed a small paddle but mostly sat in the shade and read my book of didactic short stories

One of the stories I read was How Much Land Does a Man Need? by Leo Tolstoy. It is a brilliant and very moral example of a short story

The day wore me out a bit so I lay down for a rest as soon as we got home. A little warm body clamped on to me not long after I lay down so I enjoyed my rest.

And tomorrow morning (Mon.) I see Joe for brekky, in lieu of our usual Sunday

Easter Monday update: I had quite a long talk with Joe this morning -- talking mainly about Trump, China and Zoe. I probably told him more about my little sweetheart than he really wished to hear.

And Jenny was recovered enough from her bout of Covid to join me tonight for dinner, together with Paul. We went to the Burmese. It was one of the few places open but we often go there anyway. So my Monday was pretty good too



3 April, 2023

Some pix from Zoe's recent trip to Laos via Kuala Kumpur and Bangkok

At the foot of the Petronas towers in Kuala Lumpur



With a backdrop of the mountains in Laos



In Bangkok on the way home





2 April, 2023

Eventful days

I had my surgery on Friday. After an hours-long wait in Greenslopes hospital, I was ushered into theatre at about 7:30pm. The surgeon took out the skin lesion on my leg under a local as I requested. It was sore that night and the next day but was pretty right by Sunday morning.

Which is a good thing as I had a lot scheduled for today (Sunday). I breakfasted with Joe at the pie shop as usual and from about 2pm to 4pm spent time with Zora. We went to Nando's for lunch but that was all of note. We have had some stresses lately but were back on good terms today

Then tonight I put on one of my men's dinners for Joe, Chris, Paul and Matthew. Matthew is only 11 but did did participate in the conversations to some extent. We mainly discussed Scottish matters



30 March, 2023

Medical matters

On Monday 27th I had a farewell breakfast with Von and Jenny in preparation for Von flying home to NZ early the next morning.

I wasn't feeling too bright during the breakfast. I felt very washed out and fuzzy-headed. So I went to bed shortly after I got home. I ended up sleeping most of the day. But at 10pm I woke up feeling back to normal. There was flu about so I think I had it. But I tend to get over flu after just a good sleep so I think that is what happened. I am very lucky that way.

And today I was given an appointment with a surgeon to get a rather nasty looking skin cancer cut out of my leg. The appointment is for tomorrow (Friday) afternoon so I will probably stay in bed for the rest of the day to give the excision time to heal. It will be a rather large one



22 March, 2023

A family reunion

Jenny's daughter Yvonne and son Paul are back in Brisbane on holiday for a short while. Paul's wife Susan, son Matthew and daughters Elise and Primrose are also here. Jenny and I have been missing them all badly so it is wonderful to see them all again.

They arrived on Saturday morning so Jenny put on a breakfast for everyone, including Susan's famiy. It amused me a little to see both Susan's mother and stepmother together on the occasion. Both are lively ladies. Paul sat with me for most of the time as we have always enjoyed discussions about what constitutes wise behaviour. After a while, Ken also joined in, with Paul immediately disagreeing with him, as is their custom. Religion and morality was the main topic

Some pix from the occasion.


Paul's gorgeous wife Susan


My decrepit self flanked by two lovely ladies


Elise is very cuddly


Primrose is very feminine too

Then that night Jenny put on a smaller gathering for closer relatives, featuring a spaghetti dinner. I managed to get most of the spaghetti down but my clumsiness saw some of it end up elsewhere, to my embarrassment. I really tried to keep it all on track but it was not to be. Joe told us all a lot about his work and how his elevation to management level has given him the unpleasant task of firing one of the employees.

On Sunday morning, Joe, Jenny, Von and I went tothe "Chatterbox" at Mt Gravatt for breakfast. I had my usual there, a club sandwich

Then on Monday night Jenny, Yvonne, Joe and I went to the Burmese restaurant. I had the roast duck as usual and Jenny had the sizzling seafood, as did Von. Joe was not feeling very talkative but I managed to draw him into the conversation a couple of times.

Yesterday (Tuesday) was present day. Jenny again put on a great dinner featuring that family favourite, egg rolled pork. Susan brought out presents for Joe and me, featuring British foods that we don't see in Australia. Among many other things, I got some German rum, raisin and hazelnut chocolate by "Brenner" that went down particularly well

I didn't see them today as Wednesday is a day I always share with Zoe. She was a bit down in the dumps when she arrived but was in reasonably good cheer by the time she left. She is still thinking of buying a house on Lamb Island but seems to have decided against it on account of the midges there.

Update of 23rd., Paul's birthday: Jenny put on a party in her backyard with both sides of Paul's family present. Tim and Rachel were also there for a while with Liam, a classic little blondie boy. Jenny provided some very tasty kebabs plus a type of risotto. There were also two good Pavlovas.

Primrose took a fancy to Joe and wrapped herself around him in a display of classic femininity. I had undergone a urological procedure at the Wesley hospital that morning so was not very lively. So watching Primrose was a fun distraction. She is a very confident little girl

Update of 25th: We all went over to Joe's place on Saturday morning to look at his musical instrument collection and hear him play. He has reached the top grade in piano playing. Jenny brought over food for lunch for us all. Joe is definitely a collector. He has for instance two old pedal organs. Jenny and I both collect things so we did wonder for a while if he too would be a collector but what he in fact started to collect was a a surprise.

Joe did play for us for a short while but for most of the morning the piano was taken over by another very competent pianist: Matthew, aged 11. He even played us some Philip Glass, which we all were pleased to hear.

A few days before, I had for some reason recited half a dozen of the opening stanzas of the Latin poem "Stabat Mater" -- Stabat mater dolorosa juxta crucem lacrimosa -- and Paul immediately wanted me to teach it to Matthew -- as Matthew is learning Latin at school and likes it. So when we could get Matthew off the goanna I did go through the poem with him line by line and taught him the church pronunciation of it. It will be quite a party piece for him. It is one of mine. I guess it is a bit odd for an atheist like me to be teaching a work of Marian devotion but it is simply a good poem. And Pergolesi's setting of it is sublime. My favourite performance of the Pergolesi setting is below:



My comments on the performance here

I had a good chat with Susan at one stage, telling her of some good things I saw in both her girls -- including that I saw a bright future for Primrose. Susan is bright, beautiful and kind but is despite that not terribly self-confident so it is pleasing to both of us to see that Primrose has self-confidence by the bucketful -- a legacy from Paul



16 March, 2023

Zoe goes on another trip

Zoe's trip to Malaysia and Laos has whetted her appetite for holidays. She is this evening (Thurs) on Lamb Island in Moreton bay on another holiday. She is seeing Ken C. there, a businessman I happen to know. He will be hosting her at his weekender there for a couple of days. She is looking forward to swimming in the sea there.

Initially, on Wednesday, Zoe told me only that she was going to spend a couple of days on an island with someone she had recently met. As she had met him only once before, I thought that sounded a bit risky so suggested that she give me his particulars before she left. I said. "I am your family". She agreed, saying "You are my ONLY family". So she gave me what details she had

Anyway it turned out that I knew Ken from a music group we both used to attend so I had a bit of a chat with him on the phone yesterday about old times

She sent me some pictures of the house she is visiting. It looks pretty decrepit and almost abandoned



She included a picture of Ken. He looked pretty decrepit too.



I got a text from her at about 9pm saying that she was thinking of coming home a day early (Friday)

Saturday morning update: I have just heard from her. She appears to be enjoying her holiday somewhat after all and will stay on tonight.

Sunday update (19th): She's back! She enjoyed some things about her holiday, mainly swimming in the nude in the sea and the fresh sea air. But she did not relate well to Ken. She was very critical of his poor state of health, his decrepit house and his failure to give any respect to her food and health ideas. The clash over the latter was so bad, apparently, that he at one time told her that she was fat and wrinkly! For a man who has been married 4 times he seems to know surprisingly little about women. No wonder his last wife was a patient Asian

He sounds rather narcissistic in fact. It is a trait of narcissists to put others down in the foolish belief that it makes themselves look good

Below is a picture of the bed that Ken gave her to sleep on. It is very narrow (50cm; 20"). He said the alternative was to sleep with him. She chose the narrow bed. She says that she nonetheless slept well because of the sea air coming through the open windows



When Zoe arrived back at my place around 1pm, we went to Nando's for lunch, followed by eating cold watermelon on my verandah, which was very pleasant on a hot day. We had a lot of laughs about one thing or another, as we usually do. We were both happy to be back in one-another's company


Not too wrinkly -- but a big suntan from all the swimming



14 March, 2023

A find

Jenny went to a church sale and saw a PAIR of mini oil lamps. It is the mini ones I like best. She paid $2 ea and gave them to me this evening





6 March, 2023

She's back!

I was still half asleep at 7am in my bed yesterday when I heard some noises from nearby. I opened my bedroom door and there she was -- all clad in yellow. She had taken a taxi from the airport and I had left my front door open in case she arrived before I was up.





She had a lot to tell so we spent an hour talking before she went to bed in my guestroom at about 8am. She had not been able to sleep on the plane so was very tired. My previous night had been a bit disturbed too, probably out of excitement at her anticipated arrival. So I went back to bed for about an hour and a half as well.

She emerged at 11am and we went to Nando's for a brunch. We of course continued a discussion of her trip there, with quite a lot of mention of Sam, her travel companion who had dumped her in Laos. She has a very good sense of humour -- as I do -- so we are always laughing while we are together but Sam is much more sombre. She referred to him as "Stoneface". So I emerged in a very favourable light in comparison with Sam and Zoe told me there that I was "fantastic". A good homecoming! I eventually drove her home in mid-afternoon. We had some affectionate times together throughout. She was very warm to me as I was leaving

As I expected, it emerged that Sam was not wholly at fault in dumping her. He tended to walk ahead of her, ignoring her. So she eventually got impatient with him and kicked him lightly in the leg to get his attention. But he is 78 and not too good on his feet so that alarmed him greatly and he immediately went back to their hotel and moved out, leaving her to fend for herself. She has Serbian "inat" however so was not much fazed. Being very smart and very fit, she could look after herself pretty well

She greatly enjoyed Laos and took some trips around it while she was there. the Lao People's Democratic Republic is an unreformed Communist country so differs markedly from its neighbors and Zoe rather enjoyed the differences. She liked the absence of traffic jams and found the people to be very relaxed, which she admired. She also found tourist accommodation and other costs to be very cheap despite being of reasonable quality. The souvenirs she brought back were local craft products. The cellphone holder is made of bamboo and the purse features elephants, which Laotians are rather proud of



That Communist rule can have its attractions if you keep your head down is something I have previously noted about the former East Germany and the current Belarus. People tend to be more brotherly and friendly there, which Zoe admired

As is common after travel abroad she has come down today (Monday) with a cold but has found time to send me many messages

Update of Tuesday 7th.: She came over today between 2pm and 4pm for lunch and was still mentally processing her time with Sam. When she was explaining her dissatisfaction with him, she made a comment that rather amused me. She noted that she had travelled a long way across the world to be with him but despite that: "He didn't say one nice thing to me and I can't stand that!". I say lots of nice things to her.

She also says that at no time has he tried to touch her in any way, despite plenty of opportunity to so. He sounds rather schizoid in fact.



24 February, 2023

Bulletin from Asia

Pics received this morning from Zoe -- showing her with travel companion S.  The message with the pic was "still surviving", which I take to mean that she and S have not so far fallen out. 

Zoe below at the foot of the Petronas towers in Kuala Lumpur



UPDATE OF 1 March: S has "dumped" Zoe so she is at the moment exploring Laos by herself. Her most recent description of Sam is acerbic but I would probably be committing a libel if I published it

UPDATE of 4 March: She's on her way back! On a plane at the moment, via Bali. ETA early Sunday morning. She seems to have enjoyed her trip despite doing part of it on her own. I will of course be glad to have her back safe and sound. We corresponded a lot while she was away.

She's sent a pic of herself against a background of the mountains ofLaos



A pic from Bangkok on her way back home





21 February, 2023

Zoe goes to Asia

Zoe flew out of Brisbane last Sunday (19th) via Malaysian Airlines on her way to Kuala Lumpur. When she heard that her friend Sam ("the good Bond") was headed that way she asked to join him when he got to KL.

She went with some romantic hopes but what mainly moved her was the love of travel that is normal among women in their '70s plus the fact that she had never been to Asia and badly wanted to make up that deficit.

I have not so far got any texts or emails from her but I have already got a couple of Facebook messages. So that is good



14 February, 2023

V-day

My V-day was busy and a bit unusual. During the day I consulted with a surgeon about some skin cancers and made an appointment to get them excised.

I then saw an audiologist to collect a replacement hearing-aid for the one I had lost. And the new one is better

Then I let my vacant room downstairs to a new tenant for a slightly increased rent.

But what about St Valentine? Jenny cooked me a favourite dinner to mark the day and Zoe emailed me to say that I am her "First and ONLY LOVE". So that is pretty good.

I did not see Anne but I had seen her the Saturday preceding, with much discussed.



31 January, 2023

Crepe Myrtle time

They come out at different times, depending on how much rain and sun they get. Mine mostly have my house between them and the sun so are rather late bloomers. But today they are fully out





28 January, 2023

Anne and I go to church (again)

We rather liked our previous visit to the O'Keefe St SDA church so decided to go again. I encouraged Anne to wear her hat in church in accordance with 1 Corinthians 11 but she just wore it to and from the church. Hat wearing seems to have died out even in SDA churches, as none of the ladies in the church were wearing one. I thought Anne looked fetching in her hat anyway so see her below.

The service was a write off: Not a divine service at all. We had a long business meeting to start, followed by a couple of hymns and then a long retrospective on what church members had done during 2022. It might as well have been a CWA meeting. It was so boring that we walked out at 12:15. Both Anne and I vowed forthwith never to go to that church again



26 January, 2023

A good day

Yesterday, Wednesday, was an unusually good day for me. It started out with a 9:30am brunch at the Cannon Hill Coffee Club with Anne. We don't usually meet on a Wednesday but the confluence of Anne's recent birthday and Australia day meant that Anne had a lot of social obligations and Wednesday was the best day for us to celebrate her birthday together. I gave her a card and transferred a money gift into her account as my contribution.

I had one of their flat grills and Anne had the big vegetarian breakfast. It is one of their most lavish offerings. My flat grill was overdone but I did not send it back, as is my custom. I don't like sending back good food. I just eat it.

After the meal we sat in the car and chatted for a while and then visited the nearby Vinny -- but did not find anything to buy.

Then at around 2pm Zoe arrived at my place. First up we visited the OpShop in Cavendish Rd, Coorparoo where they have many pretty things. But again we did not buy anything. We both have too much stuff already.

We then went to the Buranda Sushi train where we had a couple of plates each. We then went to the Kangaroo Pt Maccas for iced coffee and then home. Once we got back, Zoe prepared us a raw food meal as she usually does. After that we spent the rest of our time lying down. Between about 6pm and 6:30 Zoe went to sleep in my arms, which I liked.

Before she left however it was photo time. She is a real clothes-horse but has very good taste in my opinion so I often like to take a photo of her latest outfit.



So I saw a girlfriend and an ex-girlfriend all in the one day. I liked it! A good Wednesday.

Thursday

And today is Australia day so I have our distinguished flag flying proudly from the tall flagpole out the front of my house

During the day, one of my tenants spoke to me and said: "Long live the Empire". He was referring to the British Empire and noting that Australia Day marks the successful completion of a great Imperial project. His own heritage is Greek but he is a great student of history

Then, around 2pm, Zoe arrived. And she too is neither British nor Australian. She is a proud Serb. But she wanted to celebrate the day by eating out for lunch. Hence her earlier than usual arrival.

So I took her to Nandos where there is a meal -- Mediterranean salad -- that suits her diet. We spent most of the rest of the day under the airconditioning in bed and we again ended up in a close cuddle that led to her falling asleep in my arms for about half an hour. So that helped make a very good day from my viewpoint.

Then that evening I went over to Jenny's place for dinner where we had spring rolls and sweet & sour chicken. So I had two great days in a row.



17 January, 2023

A bit of fun

As readers here will be well aware, I take lots of pics of Zoe in her great range of chic attire. At the same time, I always discourage her from taking pictures of me. I have a theory that a picture of me will one day break a camera. I looked passable once but those days are long gone. Recently, she got a photo of me when I had just collapsed onto a park bench after a walk. She sent me the pic with the comment that it reminded her of the Dying Gaul, a famous classical sculpture. See me below:

Definitely not a posed photo

I mentioned the matter to Jenny, who looked up the sculpture to see what it looked like. She made the point that the dying Gaul actually looks very attractive. So that was an unexpected twist. It was vaguely pleasing that I reminded Zoe of someone known to be good looking. See the guy below



But perhaps she just thought I looked to be dying



10 January, 2023

2022 in review

2022 had lots of big political news but for me it also had big personal news. I actually fell in love! How's that for a man in his 80th year?

Zoe and I met at the very beginning of 2022 and are still going strong into 2023. But if and when the romance ends, 2022 will still be a memorable year for me. It is of course particuarly rare and difficult for really old people to form new relationships. Large numbers of elderly people die alone. Zoe was referring to that difficulty recently when she put her arm around me and said: "John, we have one big thing in common: Nobody else wants us". She had a point.

It was not love at first sight but we did like one-another from the beginning and that soon deepened. 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!

So what works 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 Zoe 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.

Zoe also has a good sense of humor and a liking for kisses and cuddles. She often falls asleep in my arms and I like that.



A bonus picture of her

I thought she looked very chic in the recent photo below:





9 January, 2023

A very small outing

Yesterday was the end of a period in which Zoe and I saw one another on three successive days -- something we rarely do. Last time was during the floods. On that occasion we drove down to Kangaroo Point to see the river in flood. Yesterday we also went there to see the river and sit by it.

We were sitting in a shelter when a kind lady from a nearby shelter came over and gave us some chocolate cake, which was very good. Kindness to the elderly perhaps.

I usually take pictures of Zoe on our outings. People in love do that. Below are two pictures from yesterday, taken with her mobile. She says that her camera likes her better than mine does.



Below is another picture from the same outing





7 January, 2023

An Orthodox Christmas eve

Yesterday was December 24 in the Orthodox calendar. And Zoe was brought up as a communicant of the Serbian Orthodox church.

Having a Serbian girlfriend must seem rather exotic to people of British traditions and it certainly is different. Zoe and I went to one (Holy Annunciation) of the two Russian Orthodox churches in my neighbourhood last night. And an Orthodox service is MOST unlike anything familiar to an old Protestant like me

The thing I cannot get over is how everyone STANDS during the service. Only decrepit oldies like me are allowed to sit down -- on the sidelines. A Protestant service is mostly absorbed with everyone sitting down for most of the time. Standing must promoke good stamina among adherents of Orthodox churches. And they did a lot of bowing so that must have helped their stamina too.

And again there was no singing. A recent Seventh Day Adventist service Zoe and I attended featured about six hymns. I enjoyed that

So the service consisted of over an hour of chanting of devotional texts. The service was in fact in English but the chanted delivery combined with my poor hearing meant that it might as well have been in Russian for all I knew.

One thing I liked was that almost all the women wore head coverings -- as the apostle Paul commanded in 1 Corinthians 11. I remember the time when women in Western churches did the same but that seems to have completely fallen by the wayside over the years.

And the Orthodox service was accompanied by extensive use of "bells and smells". The censer was vigorously and often deployed. Catholics and High Anglicans do that too but it seemed pointless to an old Presbyterian like me, rather pagan in fact.

And there was a rude screen which was opened and closed at various times during the service. The Priest and his assistants were behind it most of the time and came out of there only during the communion part of the service. The actual consumption of the tokens presumably happened there. The congregation got only a view of the bread and wine, not an invitation to share it. At least they probably had real wine. Our Puritan Presbyterian practice of using unfermented grape juice is a bit of a disgrace

Anyway it was an experience. Let everyone find their own way to their God. I am merely an onlooker these days.

The service was attended by old friends of Zoe, Ana and Robert. Both are very nice people. So Zoe asked them back to my place after the service -- where she had party food ready for them. We mostly discussed religious differences between Western and Orthodox Christianity but it was a pretty jolly party anyway. Zoe kept referring to me as "him", but in a jolly way. Robert is of Catholic background but is making an heroic attempt to adapt to the Orthodox faith of his gorgeous Serbian wife. I was at their wedding a few months back.

Below is a picture of the happy couple from that time



We arrived at the church around 6pm and Zoe left my place for home at about 10pm



Late update:

Today was pretty good too. I had my usual morning with Anne wherein we varied our routine a little. I took her to the Gold Leaf cafe for brekky instead of our more usual haunts -- receiving an enthusiastic welcome from our little Vietnamese hostess. Anne had a Canadian breakfast and I had one of their very substantial cheeseburgers.

After breakfast we watched on YouTube a good Italian performance of Mozart's Zauberflöte opera sung in German with both Italian and English subtitles. I was struck by how much more elegant than the other two languages the Italian subtitles were.

Zoe had also asked to come over today so arrived at about 2pm in a very happy mood. It was her Orthodox Christmas day but I think her good mood was mostly traceable to our good Christmas eve party last night.

We went to Buranda for iced coffee and also had a Borek: Serbian food. We then did outings to Vinnies and Cashies. A Borek is totally aginst Zoe's dietary ideas so when I later challenged her about that, she quoted Oscar Wilde: "I can resist everything except temptation". As I am an Oscar Wilde fan she once again pleased me with her high cultural level

Saturday afternoon is not a routine time for Zoe and me to meet but we enjoyed it greatly anyway. She sometimes says things that I find memorable and she did that again today. As we were walking to the Buranda shops, she referred to the fact that we are both still enrolled without much effect on dating sites. She put her arm around me and cheerfully said: "John, we have one big thing in common: Nobody else wants us". Which is in a perverse way rather romantic. But we did have lots of laughs. She left for her home at about 5pm.

Then just after 6pm Jenny arrived with some good sandwiches to toast for my dinner. We had a long chat about various things over a cup of tea.

So how lucky can you get? I saw all three of my lady-friends in the one day!



2 January, 2023

New Year's Day

The season ended well for me. I had an unusually long chat with Joe over breakfast at the pie shop. We discussed matters both political and religious. He thinks that the Catholic church will have to liberalize its teachings on sexual matters if it is to continue to flourish.

I pointed out that religious conservatism is in fact doing well in many places. The very traditional Anglican diocese in Sydney and the popularity of Catholic churches that still use the Tridentine mass being cases in point The Seventh Day Adventist church is also doing well with 95,000 churches worldwide

Then after lunch I managed to find Irene in the rehab unit of the Mater private. We had some good chats about medical matters and discussed seeing more of one another after she gets over her knee replacement.

I would have liked to see Zoe that night but that relationship appears to be in hiatus. We did have a memorable year together last year



For posts on this blog in previous years, click

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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