Albany Aboriginal Centre

We have just returned from two nights in Albany 406 kilometres south of Fremantle. It was a busy, but very pleasant trip. Going down we had about three hundred Ks of rain which was not that nice for an oldie like me doing 110kph. Those big wheat trucks create a water wash whirlwind but fortunately there are plenty of overtaking lanes on Albany Highway.

Once in Albany we got set up in our motel room. Should give a plug for the Dolphin Inn at Middleton Beach…excellent facilities and inexpensive. $79 per night for a two bedroom apartment. That saved on having to brave the cold evenings to go to a restaurant.

That afternoon we had arranged to meet a coordinator of the Albany Aboriginal Community Centre to deliver and set up four computers with the aim of helping combat the alarming suicide rate amongst aboriginal youth in Albany.

Unfortunately nobody turned up and we made arrangements to return the next day at 9.30am hoping that there would be people to give some instructions in the programs we had loaded on the machines and general instructions on the Mac operating system. This time we were let in and had the place to ourselves until a retired aboriginal lady came along and we were able to show her how things worked. Although she had not used a Mac before she very quickly got a handle on the operation and the software and is going to be the IT specialist. It was stressed that they did not want to place computers in individual homes and they are hoping it will bring youth and oldies together to learn to write letters, play games etc and communicate with each other.

She is a very pleasant person and we chatted about the organization and the building. We were told that there is no ongoing government funding for maintenance and development of the facility. Another younger woman joined us and we were told that although funding was good, their community had for too long been welfare dependent and for funds to keep their community centre going it was better for them to fund it themselves with the help of a few donations such as ours. There is a perception among many white Australians that aboriginals get too much welfare.

The computers are ready to be used and we have requests for more machines for specific cases…one being a young woman who has recently been released from prison and is starting full-time studies.

Although the centre was a little run down, we were impressed by the efforts of the people to get their people together for cultural events etc.

Whilst down at Albany we did all the touristy things and there is much to see there. It is a little chilly there at the moment, but the coast and islands are magnificent. The town (is it a city?) is very hilly with many fine houses with wonderful views out to sea. It is however, mountain goat country and one needs to be quite a good driver to negotiate very steep driveways.

Some Pics of Albany tomorrow.


A teaser.....Albany Town Hall

Albany Western Australia

We have made the arrangements to install some computers at an aboriginal drop-in centre in Albany. Albany has a quaint colonial feel to it with many old original buildings still in good repair.
We will be heading down south on Monday morning and hope to be in town just after lunch.

When we lived in Bicton, we were the second owners of a large colonial house built by a Scottish emigrant in 1897. In the house was his diary of his voyage to Australia in 1888. I have reproduced a part of his diary pertaining to the ship's first landfall on Australian soil at the port of Albany. It makes for an interesting read. The observation he made about aboriginals and their skin problems is similar to some native people in Papua New Guinea where skin fungus problems are quite common. The long time taken to 'coal' the ship was because the coal had to be transported to the ship at anchor by small boats. The ship was the Orient Line's SS Ormuz.

Thursday, a splendid day and we are now in sight of Australian land and what a great commotion it causes on board ship, all eagerly eyeing it with such a relish as we have not seen land for nearly three weeks.
In the evening we had a lecture on Temperance by Mr Booth the Temperance orator who gave a first class lecture and afterwards invited all to come forward and sign the pledge and get a piece of blue ribbon attached to their button hole, but only half a dozen availed themselves of the opportunity.

At twelve o’clock tonight we anchored at Albany, after which we retired for the night. Friday, beautiful weather still, when we got up we find them busy coaling the ship, which takes a very long time when compared to other places on the route. It was expected that they would be through at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, but instead they got through at 12 at night. The notice was posted up that passengers could go ashore till 5 o’clock and which a great number did. Albany is a very young place at present, but it is a very pretty little place you would almost think that they had just cleared away as much of the bush as allowed them to build as all the rest seems nothing but bush and sand. There is also a good deal of granite Rock, same as Aberdeen granite but much softer. The shops here are very neat and clean and they also sell their goods at a very moderate price, fruit being very cheap.

The people here are principally English, we took on about two dozen passengers who have left it owing to it not being well enough developed yet for their businesses or trades. There are a number of aborigines here who are about the most miserable looking creatures man looked on, being covered with some kind of a skin.

Charles Darwin also visited Albany in 1836.

The 'Beagle's' final port of call in Australia was the infant settlement of Albany, on the southern coast of Western Australia. Darwin was not very impressed with Albany as it was then. But he and/or Covington did manage to collect some zoological specimens that were new to science, including a non-marsupial bush rat, two fish (namely the longhead flathead and the common jack mackerel), and 48 insect species.

Ibex and us

Last night I watched a National Geographic special called 'The Wall of Death'. Brilliant!

The Wall of Death is an almost vertical cliff face in Israel on the Dead Sea where there are large colonies of Ibex (large goats) that live on a barren mountainside and have to descend vertical routes to get to food and water daily. They make the daily descent to water and food and manage, mostly, to survive the attacks of wolves, leopards, snakes, hyenas and vultures to return to the safety of the clifftop.

I found the fact that leopards, wolves, wolves and hyenas existed in Israel pretty amazing.

What did hit home to me is that the Ibex, at about two weeks of age start to practise their maleism. Is that a word? Anyway, they, at a very young age, know that they have to be strong and a winner to mate with the female Ibex. Plenty of clashing of heads and later, large horns.
As is the case in all of nature the tough guys win out and get the gal(s).

Made me thankful that somewhere back in the past, humans established a few rules about marriage and Kev was able to get a good wife without too much agro. In humankind there is that same, albeit diluted, animal attraction. I do see it sometimes when I notice the very attractive of the females of our species go for the the more animal of humanity.

Crematoria

South Australian authorities have recently taken another look at the operation of crematoria, something that wasn’t taken seriously at Auschwitz. Strict conditions apply to crematoria disposing of human and animal remains. Pollution in the form of odour, smoke, greenhouse gases and chemicals is addressed with requirements in the design of crematoria.

My brother lives quite close to Fremantle Cemetery and at odd times we, enjoying a lager out the back of his house, have noticed a smell not unlike that emitting from a McDonalds outlet? Nah; can’t be?

We have made arrangements to install five computers at the Noongar Centre in Albany and will drive down to Albany in about ten days. The director of the centre said it was a good idea and would give bored kids something to do. There have been a number of suicides amongst aboriginal youth in the town. We plan to stay overnight at least and take a lot of photographs of the historic town and maybe catch up with an ex-student who is teaching there.

Albany, like Fremantle, was a U.S. Navy submarine base during the second world war. It was at Albany that test were carried out to prove to navy authorities that early torpedoes were faulty and that many misses were because the torpedoes were running deep and missing targets. See here. Those tests caused the redesign of the Mk XIV torpedo and with that high success rates against Japanese shipping. One of the successful sinkings was that of the Montevideo Maru, a Japanese cargo ship carrying Australian POWs and civilians from the Japanese held New Guinea port of Rabaul en route to Hainan. All prisoners died in the sinking.

To this day there are people who believe that the Montevideo Maru was not carrying Australian prisoners when it was sunk. One suggestion is that they were embarked on the ship at Rabaul and thrown overboard at sea. For those who love such conspiracy theories, you can read more here.

There are calls for a HMAS Sydney type investigation and search for the wreck of the Montevideo Maru. There were more Australian deaths on that ship than on the Sydney.

possessing a smoking implement

A couple of days ago there was a newspaper report about a police raid on a Meth Lab in the Perth suburbs. A woman was arrested and charged on a series of charges, one of which was ‘possessing a smoking implement’. I really don’t know how the law works on this one. There are literally dozens of stores selling smoking implements around the city and suburbs, but the sale of these implements is not deemed to be illegal; just if you have one in your possession?????

Yesterday I did a computer collection from three sources and got some very nice machines. One place I went to was a residence in the northern suburb of Ballajura. It is a very nice area and in front of the house I visited is a lake of what looks like about 10+ hectares in area. It is a very attractive outlook for the surrounding dwellings.

Every household in W.A. with a backyard swimming pool has to register it with the local council and regular inspections are made by council officials. Special childproof locks and fences ensure that kids cannot easy have access to the water and possibly drown. Our pool in Bicton was regularly inspected and we had to make some modifications to security over the years, but when we tired of swimming and converted it into a large pond, council informed us that we no longer had to stay on the register and security was not an issue. I figured that every council has small lakes within their areas and to fence them off would be very expensive and certainly look crappy. And so that is how we had an unregistered pool/pond without inspections. Crazy??

Yesterday’s newspaper also had an interesting article about some students (boys) getting expelled from a Baptist College quite close to where we live. It seems that on a school camp, the lads took along a joint and several boys had a toke. The word got out and the lads were sacked. Parents of the boys appeared on TV saying that the treatment was harsh and one fellow suggested that if they really were Christians they would forgive the boys and reinstate them. It seems that each student enrolling at the college signs a contract of behaviour and as in a TV game show….’dope is on the list’.

I taught all my teaching career in government schools and have always felt that private schools take the kids from wealthy families and if those kids muck up, toss them out and they have to return to a government school. Government schools can only expel a child for the most serious repeat offences. Perhaps government should legislate to force private schools to take a percentage of bogans in their cohort. For non-Australians; Bogans are rude and rough rednecks.

Bugs Bunny 1940

Today is the day in 1940 that Bugs Bunny made his debut. His trademark 'eh what's up Doc?' is said to have been inspired by Groucho Marx. I recently saw a Bugs Bunny cartoon and he seems to have found the elixir of life looking better than he originally looked in 1940.

In the Inside Cover of today's West Australian newspaper there is a small article about John Ryan the creator of Pugwash. It's a good read.....
Click it to enlarge.

Our daughter Helen has had her car window smashed in for the third time in three years. The area she lives in is very popular especially with the villains. During the day, groups of lads wearing the Hip Hop gear cruise the suburb surveying the layout of the place and returning at night to brazenly break and enter cars in parking areas. It seems that even when an alarm goes off, residents of the units where Helen lives are too scared to confront the villains. The bad boys don't bother rushing the job; one resident had the battery stolen from under the bonnet.

Helen's car is a Mazda 626 which someone imported from Britain when they emigrated. The VIN (vehicle Identification Number) doesn't tally with anything in the Mazda Australia lineup and we are having some difficulty identifying the correct window glass. I emailed Mazda Australia, but they say they cannot help in finding the appropriate VIN for Helen's car. I would think it would be quite simple for them to email Mazda Japan...but it would seem not.

Human Pampillomavirus

Well, things are-a-changing! In this morning’s ABC news there was a report about the possible need to vaccinate young men for the HPV (Human Pampillomavirus) This announcement didn’t make me choke on my Wheaties, but when Joan told me that for HPV, young females can get a free vaccination to prevent the virus and that a free vaccination for young men to prevent mouth infection was being considered because of ‘changing mores’, I admit to coughing a bit. Don’t fully understand the implications? Google HPV.

Another snippet from this morning’s West Australian. The Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Turnbull made the following comment about a fellow Liberal Senator, Wilson (Iron Bar) Tuckey.
Wilson, the Federal Member for O’Connor, is the only comic relief in Federal Parliament since Keating opted out. He is a silly old man who earned the title of Iron Bar for donging an aboriginal fella with a bit of pipe. His own party is embarrassed by him, but I reckon they keep him there on a long lead to act up like a junk yard dog. Rumour has it that he aims to be ejected from the House on Thursdays so that he can catch an early plane back home to W.A.

Our son Martin leaned on us again for monetary assistance to get a paining tooth looked at. He joined HBF, the state’s largest medical fund, and we paid the dentist the $220 up front for an extraction. Must have taken all of ten minutes. Martin wanted the dentist to repair and rebuild the tooth, but he was informed that it was a root canal job which would end up costing thousands. He went for the extraction, not because of the money involved in a reconstruction, but I believe, because of those words….ROOT CANAL.

HBF will refund him (us) 60% of the $220, so it isn’t too bad. When I drove him to the dentist I introduced him to Oil of Cloves and he was amazed that the pain immediately vanished. Some grannies’ remedies do work!

Albany, Western Australia

Today I made contact with a liaison officer from the Albany City Council who is to facilitate the installation of a few Mac computers at the Noongar Centre. This centre is catering for aboriginal youth in the south of W.A. where there have been a number of suicides.

I am unsure if computers will be the panacea, but they cannot but do some good to keep kids busy and entertained. We are prepared to travel south some 410 kilometres to install the machines and give basic instructions on their use. Albany is a lovely historic town which unfortunately has no need for a sunglasses stores....it is mostly grey and overcast. Photos when and if we go South.

Tonight on ABC television there was a nice look back at the role of goats in early Australian history.

It reminded me of my foray into goats when we lived in Papua New Guinea. Each time we drove to the coast from Maprik to Wewak in the Sepik district, we saw goats in the coconut plantations near Wewak. I decided that the school should have goats and we could get real milk rather than the terrible Tetra Packs of LongLife milk available at the time. I decide to buy a small herd of 15 goats and had them transported to the school. Wrong!!!

They were not welcomed by the Agriculture Department and they would not give me any assistance when the first goat succumed to bloat. Bloat is a gaseous condition caused by consumption of young fodder creating a fermentation in the rumen. The only advice that I received was a combination of 'Kill em all!' and from a kindly Ag. Officer...'shove a screwdriver in its rumen to let the gas out' . I couldn't do the screwdriver surgery, so drenched the goat with peanut oil which stopped the fermentation.

The goat problem was solved soon after, by striking students who were unhappy about billy goats urinating over their mess tables. Goats were sold and I cannot imagine why we didn't eat them. Many things I have done could have been done better.

Nursing homes

This morning I visited our friend John in his nursing home. I don’t think he really knew who I was. I took him a pack of Ferrero Roche chocolate which he seems to enjoy. We were sitting at a dining table with a couple of other ‘inmates’ and I offered one to each of them. The man sitting opposite me stared blankly at me and didn’t take up the offer and a lady who turned out to be completely blind informed me that she doesn’t like chocolate, so John had the job of finishing of the packet.

The dining room as lunch time approached is the place to get a good idea of most of the semi-mobile people in the nursing home. I expect that most of them have names given by the staff. There is one woman who for 17 months that John has been in care has been incessantly yelling out ‘help me, help me!’, punctuated by ‘get me a cup of tea’. It must drive the rest of them…….?

There are two students from the nearby Iona Presentation College doing their work experience/community service gig. They both looked shocked by what they were confronted with. Today was their first day and I guess that they, like us, hope we don’t end up locked away sitting out our time left playing bingo etc. Most of the patients are past playing games such as bingo and I noticed a board with ‘sounds like’ words ……prance, dance; France etc. I didn’t see anyone there who would be gung ho at such exercises. Most people don’t even watch TV.

Whilst there are plenty of staff there, some of the patients are not well looked after. Quite a few came to lunch with food stains around their mouths and sleep in their eyes.

One visitor is a fellow I know who visits his wife there. In front of her he moaned that they are feeding her a supplement to keep her alive. ‘I want her to die and get it over with’ he told John’s wife a couple of days ago. He had previously told me that he had tipped her supplement down the drain. Ouch!

No nice photos with this post.

Madang, Papua New Guinea

I am subscribed to PNG Gossip, a free weekly newsletter of news and events from Papua New Guinea. One of the articles provided a link to a blog by an American bloke living in Madang. It is very interesting to me as there seems to be a large expatriate population in Madang and with that a reasonable social life. I worked in Madang in 1964 and it truly was a beautiful place. It seems to have lost a lot of the public works infrastructure and so doesn’t seem to be running as efficiently as it did in ‘colonial’ times.

Take a look at Jan Messersmith’s blog here......especially the main photo.


The Tour de France is still running (or riding) and I confess I don’t understand the whole thing. What I do know however, is that they must have more meat on their bums than I do.

Here is a pic of the 1942 Tour de France.

This morning we drove to Joondalup to look at a car for sale. It was advertised for sale for $1850. It is a Mazda 929, 1992 model. We have owned two of these cars in the past and I thought it might be a nice restoration project for Kev. It had a few 'dings' in the bodywork, the leather seats were a bit too tattered and the paintwork was very daggy. As well as that there were a few ghostly electrical problems where some things worked randomly. The airconditioner was also not functioning. The idea was sound, but the costs looked like being too much for me. I will continue to look for a better car at a more realistic price.

Class car with 4 wheel steering; electric everything. See here.

Old style divorce

A right wing Federal politician, Tony Abbott, has just outlined his idea for the great leap backwards to blame-game divorces. Read about it here.

When I was a young fella, some 50 years ago, I was a member of a group of Rover Scouts who would often go on a group outing to the movies on a Saturday night. One of our group would buy the scandal rag 'The Mirror' for pre-movie reading. The paper would be divided up amongst us and the hunt was on to find the juiciest divorce scandals the 'journos' could dredge up. In every issue there would be a photo of some hapless couple caught in bed in a hotel room or a car parked down by the river along with the detailed evidence brought before the divorce courts. At the time it was a taboo subject in polite society, but it took another 18 years before the state government changed the terms of divorce proceedings.
Now our Tony, being a God Fearing man, wants to bring it all back. Often these rabid moralists have a few skeletons in their cupboards. Does Tony?

I have been liasing with a lady from the W.A. Justice System arranging for a computer to be given to a 22 year old Aboriginal man who is at present in Hakea Prison. I have not asked what he is in prison for, but his mentor is hopeful that he will be bailed by next Monday and able to return home to his partner and five children. If he gets out of the big house I will deliver a computer and instruct him on its use. He is not of low intelligence, but as can be the case with many young aboriginal men, school was not a pleasant or important part of life and he has very basic communication skills. Could be a big ask to get him computer literate.

He has been enrolled in an Aboriginal educational program and has hopes of getting employment. I wish him every success, but he will be up against many other young people with better qualifications and communication skills. At least he will be getting government assistance for all his kids. It is very difficult to sift through the government documents, but it would seem that each child born gives the family a $5,000 cash benefit and a steady ongoing income for the family along with the unemployment benefits and rent assistance. Not too bad eh?

MasterChef Australia

Since my friend Paul recommended the TV ‘reality’ show MasterChef we have watched a couple of episodes with interest. I am not into reality shows and the ones that I have looked at as I do the remote flip around the channels all seem to follow a similar formula. There is always a contestant who is selected to be the unlikeable. There are the unlikely winners and the pretty gals.

We enjoyed the show and will continue to watch it in its final week. Far less contrived is the ABC cooking show…..The Cook and the Chef .

In the last few days in Bali we watched an Australian woman have an Indonesian cooking lesson in the hotel. The actual lesson went for over an hour, which was preceded by an early morning escorted buying foray in a local fresh food market. She had a chef and about three assistants helping her through chicken and two fish saté; one white Tuna and one red Tuna and a side dish of Gado Gado. She learnt how to make the peanut sauce and to top it all off made coconut and palm-sugar pancakes.

It looked great and there was a huge amount of which the bulk was packaged up and given to Balinese friends in a beach market.

The cost of this extravaganza….
RP100,000 (about A12.50) for the lesson and around RP70,000 (about A$8.55) for all the ingredients.

Obviously a PR effort on the part of the hotel – that wouldn’t have paid the wages of the instructors.

ABC television Four Corners

On Monday evening the ABC program Four Corners did a hatchet job on Western Australia's St. John's Ambulance Service. Much of what Four Corners dredged up was valid criticism of the service. There were interviews with families of people who had died due to bungles in emergency calls and dispatching of ambulances. The almost one hour show finished up with a clip of a hearse at a funeral. They were a bit cheap and used a file clip of a hearse with a NSW number plate.

In today's newspaper there was a letter to the editor from a woman who told of her husband's painful terminal illness who wished that euthanasia was legal to stop such suffering. Once again Dr Phillip Nitshke, the euthanasia advocate was mentioned. The editor of the letters page added a photograph of Dr Nitshke with a nasty judgemental title. Judgement on this will depend on whether you are a 'Right to Lifer', but I personally think the editor is a rat.
Our National food, Vegemite, has taken a turn for the worst with the introduction of a Kraft engineered mutation. It is good old plain vegemite with cream cheese mixed in. Did not they remember when CocaCola tried to revamp the traditional coke? Dismal failure; as I predict this also will be. The bottle of the new 'stuff' comes without a name and there is a space for you to write in what you wish to call it. I have already done that on our jar.
Our friend John is getting a bit anti-social in his nursing home. His wife, Joy, has been told that he is getting a little aggresive with furniture etc. Eventually he will have to be medicated more to calm him down. The alternative is not viable or nice: restraining equipment.
Until you have family or friends in this situation, nursing homes are looked upon as the domain of evil nurse Ratchett from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. In actual fact the management of dementia patients is a complex and difficult task with weighty moral issues at stake. I have no solutions...that is the way it is. We hope that we can die at home still with all our marbles as did our parents, and if necessary with the help of someone like Dr Nitshke.

Michael Jackson

Well, the Michael Jackson thing is almost over...just a few more weeks of burials, autopsy reports and custody battles. I am not a Jackson fan, but I do remember some of his hits...not too bad, but not so good that he should be accorded God status. One thing is good about all this, his kids are seen without their faces covered. They don't look at all like Jackson and they certainly don't look mixed race. That being said, if he raised them, he is entitled to be called their father.

Cleaning up the computers I am preparing as give-aways, I have a not so good job of cleaning the keyboards. This means taking the keys off the boards and removing all the hair, biscuit crumbs and coffee stains and cleaning all the keys and the boards with alcohol. It takes some time and I need another keyboard alongside me to refit the keys in their correct places. When I was doing relief teaching I noticed that some of the bored students amused themselves by removing keyboard keys and replacing them in different spots. Most frustrating for two-finger typists!

I guess I can understand how computer operators can mess up a keyboard. When I am reading a book I usually tug away at my eyebrows and end up with pages of hairs needing a shake out. Personally, I am a clean nut and wouldn't think of eating and drinking over a keyboard.

Take a look at this baby with enough crumbs etc to feed half a dozen finches.

China's Urumqi

There are a few problems in China's North Western city of Urumqi. From what I can deduce, the minority Muslim population has been swamped by Han Chinese; somewhat similarly to Tibet. The Uighur Muslims have obviously seen the Tibetans get a bit aggressive and have followed suit. Next will probably be Muslim brotherhood support rallies in Middle Eastern and South East Asian countries. Is there another Crusade in the offing?

The Chinese government has done the Big Brother act, cutting off internet access to the province.

Another Big Brother act is being played out in a country just north of Aus. A fellow blogger who is a volunteer in that country had made some observations about recent anti-Asian riots there and was 'asked' to shut down his blog. I am unsure if that request was made by government or merely a very nationalistic national working at the ISP the blogger uses.

He hopes that it will blow over and he can get back to restoring his most interesting blog about a country I spent some ten years teaching in during its latter developing stages.

Yankee Invasion

I have been watching the AFL match between the eastern states bullies and our Dockers. Dockers??? Dockers is an American word for waterfront workers which was never used here. Wharfies was the term used here, but I guess that doesn't sound as good as Dockers.

There are around 6000 US Navy sailors in town on R&R. I think R&R means Root & Rehydrate.
I wonder what they make of Australian football if they are watching in a pub somewhere in Perth. No helmets, no padding just footy shorts and a jumper...and a mouth guard. Not like that sissy Gridiron!

I went for a drive around the suburb of Bicton this afternoon as they have a 'Bring out your dead' collection on this week. I was hoping to collect a few computers to salvage the RAM (memory sticks) for my Mac donation project. No luck! There are stereos, TVs, microwave ovens, furniture etc but not a single computer. I belong to an internet list called WAMUG.....the Macintosh User Group of W.A. so I put out a request for old RAM that would suit the machines I have. I had several replies with the prospect of getting about ten sticks of RAM of significant size. Thanks WAMUG. The RAM for the latest machines is relatively cheap, both new and secondhand, but the older stuff, PC133, is still very expensive.

Our daughter Helen is teaching full time at a school in the northern suburbs on a six month contract (two terms). She has just received a letter from Education Department staffing saying that she has been terminated and will have to apply for her own position again during the school holidays. Say what???? She has a contract for the two terms. No need to panic though as the Principal and Deputy Principal at the school also got terminated at the same time. They have assured her that they will sort it out. I wonder if they would have been as keen to help if they weren't in the same boat. The Education Department couldn't organise a pissup in a brewery! A couple of years ago a friend who teaches science in a city school got her first pay slip for the year informing her that she was a gardener at a school in the south of the state. It took about a month to sort that one out.

Warm Bali-cold Perth

We have been three days back from Bali...warm Bali! A friend in NSW once said that he was going to live in Tasmania so that he could truly experience the four seasons. He has since changed his mind. We couldn't live in a place that has a minus number in the temperature.

We gave blood today. We were supposed to give yesterday and forgot. It is not a bad experience and it gives a warm satisfying feeling as a donor.

Since we have been back, there have been several requests for computers and today I will get back on the job configuring machines to individual needs. The cold weather has a hibernating effect on me. The machines given to me by a printing establishment are quite fast and powerful. They are mainly eMacs @ 1.25ghz with 'superdrives'; CD/DVD read/write. I label them as I finish setting them up, but often don't trust myself and have to crank them up again to verify what I have actually loaded on them.

Enough ramblings for today!

Tuesday and Wednesday-Bali and Perth

We are in the Garuda departure lounge at Denpasar Airport. We got through Immigrasi and customs with no sweat, however the usual departure tax had been hiked up to RP150,000 and Joan had done her efficient calculations of what Rupiah we needed based on RP130,000. We had to go back and change a few bucks at an airport rate to get the correct amount to present to the unsmiling.

Sitting in the lounge I reflected on a couple of things about our visit…….

Yesterday whilst having a foot massage on the beach we were enjoying the balmy breeze at about 26c whilst the locals mostly wore sweaters and jackets and complained about the cold.

Bali is a place where nobody looks askance at me piling chilli sauce on my breakfast.



When Joan was packing to leave this morning she noticed that a small umbrella which was in an unlocked pocket of our main case had disappeared…..baggage handlers.

When we arrived at Denpasar airport from Australia we were second off the aircraft but waited at the baggage carousel until everyone had collected theirs and figured that ours went to Singapore or some other destination. I was about to do a Rumple Stiltskin and stomp through the floor, when a bloke yelled out..’Mr Lock?’ The bastard had grabbed our bag and put it on his trolley and was expecting us to be happy about him trying to scam us. I grabbed the bag without comment.

In the airport there are probably a hundred stores selling everything imaginable. There are at least a half dozen watch stalls selling expensive watches. I mean, who would believe that the watch you bought in Bali was a real one! We bought a bottle of Vodka for daughter Helen because it was much cheaper than the duty free stores at Perth Airport.
We did notice that Australian wine which sells for around A$13 RRP was selling for US$28. Nice mark up!

Wednesday:

Helen collected us and we came home to a cold house. I went and bought fish and chips and that went down very nicely.

This morning’s newspaper had a front page story about a Garuda plane coming into Perth, trying to land on a runway which was under repair (twice). The pilots didn’t read their airport briefing properly and had to go around twice until they were talked down. I am not surprised that some pilots have problems with English. When our man talked to us on the plane we could hardly understand what he was saying.

Last full day in Bali

This is our last full day before we return to Perth tomorrow. We have had a good time, but it is time to eat some regular Aussie food.
Though the omelettes at brekky are really good

This morning I found Wally outside the hotel and confirmed our booking for 9am tomorrow to get us to Denpassar airport. Wal reckoned we could leave later, but his old van could break down and we want to be in the Garuda Executive lounge with plenty of time to spare and no stress.

I used the hotel WiFi to download Skype, set it up and we deposited A$16.00 into our account so that we could use SkypeOut which allows calls to landlines. We called daughter Helen in Aus. And talked for at least five minutes for a grand total of $0.25. The reception was great and Helen decided to download Skype so that she can talk to us for free on the computer…must save every 25c we can in these times.

Last night we walked up to a small restaurant and had a cheap and reasonable meal. I had beef Rendang which was a bit disappointing. The beef was from an old pensioned off water buffalo and the accompanying vegetables were steamed. Most of the other vegetables we have had have been either crispy fresh or pickled.

Joan had Lumpia which although tasty was deep fried to a crisp. Mostly the food has been excellent. No rabid dog or monkey, Paul.

The owner of the restaurant, Kalamantan, is a Yank who has owned the place for the last 20 years. It is reminiscent of Ricks Gin Joint and the regulars were right out of Casablanca. Its reputation draws oddball characters, which isn’t all that bad.

This morning after breakfast I took a few snaps of the things that are very familiar to us, but probably not so to people who have not been here before. Are there any Australians who have not been here before??? I shot the gamelan players who play the repetitious trance inducing sounds of Indonesia, a rest house in the gardens and some outrigger canoes. Sorry no audio for the Gamelans.

On previous visits to Bali we have stayed at the Grya Santrian Hotel, also on the Sanur beachfront. This hotel, the Segara Village Hotel (free plug here) is a far more friendly place with much better free facilities for the guests. There is a tennis court, two pools, the Jacuzzi bar which is sort of a pool, table tennis, chess and billiards. Also there are lots of quiet places to sit or sleep in the breeze.

We have noticed that when we greet other guests the ones who respond with any enthusiasm. are mostly Australians or Americans. The Europeans, who seem to be mostly German, are a bit reserved and usually gather together on their world-dominating table.

That’s a bit harsh Kev.


Update: Joan and I had both had a long foot massage for $5 plus a small tip. Not too bad at all!
After the massage I had a haircut at a nice salon on the beach for an extortionate fee of just under $5. Which included the eyebrows, ears and a hair wash. She promised to make me handsome…the cut is OK but the promise unfulfilled.

Of coconuts and Haus Winds

Our hotel room

Today we have been relaxing, reading and having a couple of drinks. Joan did venture down to the beach markets and bought two sarongs; one silk and one cotton, both Batik printed.

I took the laptop over to the ‘meeting place’ which is a beautiful Balinese ‘house wind’. I used the free WiFi to download Skype and we will call Helen using Skype on the computer this evening.

Later I took a few photos of the structure, but felt intimidated by some unfriendly Europeans there.

Wish we could get something as beautiful back home.

Sitting out on our balcony we saw a sudden gathering of grounds-people near a coconut palm. A young fellow quickly climbed the palm and sent down a dozen or so small coconuts for the assembled mob. Whilst he was up the palm, eyes were ever watchful for the administration. In no time at all there was no evidence of what had taken place and the remaining nuts were skilfully arranged to look like nothing had been taken. I was tempted to yell out ‘Security is coming’ to see how they would react.

Our neighbours left to return to Sydney town this morning. They offered us a half bottle of Scotch and I am loathe to admit that we didn’t take them up on their offer as we already have two half bottles of spirits to get rid of before Tuesday when we also leave. The last time we were here we tried to leave with a half bottle of vodka and customs confiscated it on the grounds that “Must be full bottle; cannot be half bottle’. Thieves!

The neighbours were a little concerned at possible delays checking in at Denpasar Airport as there is a very large contingent of Christians and their families leaving today after their annual jamboree or whatever a gathering of happy Christians is called – perhaps a crusade? It is rumoured that they number around 600 and that they return to the Bali Beach Hotel annually because they some years ago discovered the Bali Beach’s cheesecake.

yesterday's outing; Bali Bird Park

Wally drove us to the Bali Bird and Reptile Park yesterday. It is about 20-30 minutes drive away from the hotel. We were impressed; very lovely set-up with a wide variety of birds and reptiles. During the main bird show which featured about six or so impressive large birds flying to set stations and handlers, a Sulphur Crested Cockatoo stole the show by hanging upside down, wildly flapping its wings and screeching like a mad thing. A typical Aussie on holiday!

Most of the birds were in large cages, but many were free to walk and fly around. There was one pretty sad Kookaburra in a cage without a mate. I was photographing a cranky looking Ibis and it quickly did a walk around me and had a go at my backside, luckily fended off with a growl and hand wave.

Wally delivered us back to the hotel and we have his card and will probably use him to get us to the airport next Tuesday morning. We are still amazed at the complete calmness shown by drivers and riders in the mess that is Bali traffic. There is absolutely no road rage! Drivers use their horn for a variety of signals…’I am overtaking’, ‘look out I am coming through’, ‘please don’t try and turn in front of me’ and ‘hello pretty girls’.
In all our times here we have not seen one scrape or accident which is truly amazing as cars, trucks, vans and motorcycles weave around either side of slow traffic and through intersections. Motorycles can carry a rider and up to three or even four passengers. The rider has priority on the helmet, mum and kids travel bare headed.

That evening, relaxing on our balcony, we struck up a conversation with our neighbours. They are ‘we’ve been everywhere and done everything’ people from Sydney. We had a Six Degrees of Separation moment when she told us that she had been on Sale Of The Century years ago. I mentioned that we have a friend/colleague who was also on Sale and lost two BMWs and a truck load of cash on the last night. The lady next door/balcony said that she was beaten by a young fellow name Peter who was also up for the same prizes. It turns out that it was the same Peter…Peter Harmsworth we know. Amazing!

We have the DVDs, the watches and new shoes, so we don’t think we are going to enhance the economy of Bali much over the next three days…just food and drink, Wally’s fare and the departure tax.

Bali day four continued

Wally gave us a good price so we made our trip to Hardy’s with him. He waited while we visited a few other places, including an internet café where we uploaded the blog. Then to Hardy’s for beer and nibbles. We also bought some fruit and milk – we both dislike the powdered coffee creamer. Back with a box of groceries – no eyebrows raised as we breezed in past Reception.

We decided to eat in the hotel restaurant. Very nice: Kare Ayam and Ikan Sambal (chicken curry and spiced fish and coconut). Came back to our room, replete. Then a drama ensued.

The room key wouldn’t work, just turned round and round in the lock. Off to Reception. Security guy comes with a master key and suggests we had made some error. He tries the master key – same result. The lock is cactus. We had also barred the door to the balcony (we are upstairs). However he proved to be resourceful. There was an empty room two doors along. He opened it with the master, then clambered over the ledges and balconies between rooms, past an occupied room, to get to our balcony. After a fair bit of pushing and banging, he gained entry and opened the door from the inside. We wonder if the people next door (who we think are Russian) phoned Reception about a break-in or just decided it was wise to take no notice.

So now we can get out, but not in. We were offered the empty room, but thought it was too much of a hassle to gather everything up and move. Tomorrow we will take it in turns to have breakfast. They have promised the maintenance men will be here by 8.30am. Wally is taking us to the Bird Park tomorrow at 9. Maybe he will have to wait for us this time.

Bali Day 4

Yesterday when we were in Kuta we tried to escape the hard sell on the streets by jumping into the main department store Matahari. Just inside the entrance some enterprising bloke(s) had set up some low plastic tanks with surrounding seat for tourists to pay RP 100,000 (A$12.50) to dangle their legs in the water and have small fish (Gambusia) nibble at loose skin and hair. There was a waiting line for 20 minutes of what we used to do in our fish pond back home. I didn’t read the spiel, but it probably trumpeted health benefits.

We didn’t feel much like a major Indonesian meal last night so ventured out to a beachside restaurant and ordered a club sandwich. The only saving grace to this meal was the complimentary tomato soup….we couldn’t finish eating the sandwich.

We were about to take a walk along the beach and fend off sellers of all kinds of stuff and massage, pedicure and manicure ladies waiting like birds of prey along the route. The alternative is to walk inland a bit along a roadway with dozens of car drivers trying to take you somewhere either now, tomorrow or the rest of the holiday. The footpaths are much better than when we were here last, but there are still unexpected gaps and drops.

Many years ago our son fell into an open sewer hole, just managing to save himself by extending his elbows. As I desperately extricated him from a very smelly landing a bloke selling silver jewellery was tugging at my sleeve, suggesting I buy from him. I didn’t!

We decided to go to Hardy's by cab to buy some shampoo and beer. Waiting outside was Wally, the guy we had booked yesterday, but who didn't turn up. His friends told us that his car was broken down etc etc. When we told Wally that his mates had given us a load of BS he just laughed inferring that he would have done the same to them. I could see that situation turning a bit nasty in Australia!

Bali Day 3

This morning at 7am all the pool lounges were tagged by personal possessions. One featured a Lufhansa beach ball. The same ball was still there at 2.30pm...enough said!

I don’t normally read when there are other distractions like TV. But in Bali TV is 2/10 and yesterday I read the latest Tim Winton book, ‘Breath’.

I am a Tim Winton fan and his books
have always just felt right. It is probably because he is a Western
Australian and I know the places he talks about and I have known most of the characters.

One of his best, I think, was ‘Cloudstreet’ set in suburban Perth in the late 1940s. Sometimes I think he is a fan of another similar writer Tom Hungerford who is now in his nineties. Tom; and I feel I can call him Tom because he was a childhood friend of my mother, writes with a suburban feel in his anthology of short stories named ‘Stories from Suburban Road’. It is very similar in some ways to Winton’s ‘Cloudstreet’. I suspect Winton is a Hungerford reader!

Hungerford wrote two novels in the 1950s, one dealing with his wartime experiences in New Guinea. It is a great read, but only published in Australia, it entered a quite small market. It might well be that had he published ‘The Ridge and the River’ in the 70s, people would have been prepared to look at war as a topic again?

Anyway, back to ‘Breath’. The first third of the book built the strong characters of the story and the last third a successful denouement.
The middle section of the book appeals to surfers and left me a little frustrated that I had to wade through so much to get the guts of the story.

Nevertheless I would love to be
able to write like both authors, just like I would love to be able to play guitar like Tommy Emmanuel…..it ain’t gonna happen!.

When we went out to the front of the hotel to meet with Wally, our booked taxi man, he wasn’t there. Kev had the once in a lifetime opportunity to ask “Where’s Wally?”, but nobody got the joke. Wally didn’t turn up on time and other drivers gave us various reasons why he didn’t and why we should take their cab. ‘His radiator has broken’, ‘He is sick’ were a couple. We gave Wal about 15 extra minutes and then we took another bloke.

Kuta is a very busy place and is teeming with scammers. We’ve seen the scam before. A scratch card is given ‘Free’ and every one is a winner. All you have to do to collect your free dinner prize is attend a dinner party where the timeshare spiel is given. No thanks!

Another annoying thing about large stores in Bali is that most, if not all, the staff is on commission and when escaping the street spruikers by dashing into a department store you find a new lot working in the store trying very hard to sell their wares.

Day 2 BALI

Our first day in Bali was quiet. We had a late lunch then in the evening, went out along the beach to a restaurant named the Bonsai. Joan had a mixed sate and I had traditional Nasi Goreng. Very nice food and a pleasant atmosphere on the beach. It cost us less than $20A which included two large bottles of Bintang. Bintang is 5% alcohol, but it must creep up on you as I don't feel it like I would a beer back in AU.


This morning we had breakfast in the hotel restaurant and later around 10am grabbed a 'taxi' driven by Wally. He took us to Harvey's, a department store and waited until we had done our shop and brought us back to the hotel for RP60,000. That sounds a bit frightening, but each A$ can be exchanged for RP8,200. Tomorrow he is booked to take us into Kuta for a bit of shopping and he will collect us at about 3pm.

At Harvey's we bought real toilet paper. The stuff in the hotel could be broken by a young mosquito! Same goes for the soap; they supply us with the smallest cakes imaginable. We bought a real sized cake of soap. Joan 's packing skills had failed her and she had to buy a hat. Of course we did stock up on mixers and snacks.

The hotel room is quite nice but as with most buildings here the finish is not tradesman-like as we would know it in Aus. There is some dodgy plumbing and tiling and repairs done look like someone has sent his 13 year old son to do the job. Still, it is comfortable; the airconditioning works well and we have free WiFi in the room to write the blog and send and receive emails.

The grounds of this hotel are magnificent. Water seems plentiful and all the paths are washed down continuously. There seems to be dozens of grounds people busying themselves all over the place. One of the pools is the spa bar where the bar staff are inside a 'pocket' inside the pool. Very smart!
Jacuzzi Bar
Beachside Pool

My friend Paul has a bit of a thing about big things...bananas, sheep, quokkas etc, so I have included a pic of the big lobster on the beach.

Bali Hai

Well, we are in Bali and settling into our hotel room. The flight up with Garuda was in a Boeing 737-800 and I was happy to be flying in an aircraft made by Boeing. They’ve been in the business for a very long time and Airbus have had a few rough flights of late…one so rough that the plane seemingly fell apart.

It was a pretty smooth flight even though the skipper told us that there was a westerly cross-wind of around 100 mph. There were a few interlopers trying use the toilet in business and the cabin crew soon told them where they should go….up the back of the plane! The cheek of them!

We cruised through customs in no time and secured a taxi from a company in the airport. A couple of hangers-on grabbed our bags and walked with us to the parked cab about a hundred meters away. They demanded a $6 tip to share, but Joan gave them a $2 gold coin each. It was still money for jam!

We were too early to check in to our room so we had a drink and a meal. The meal was very nice ….Cap Chay; a rice, prawn and chicken dish with crispy vegetables and a delicious sauce. RP 50,000 each which is about A$6.00.

The hotel, The Segara Village Hotel in Sanur is very nice with three large pools. There are notices up saying that lounges near the pools should not be held by absent swimmers by placing personal items on them. All the lounges had stuff on them and only 6 or 8 people were either swimming or sunbaking.

Gastric upset

Our friend John has once again flown the coup from his nursing home. He was found walking down the middle of a busy road and some one called an ambulance and he was taken to Fremantle Hospital where a comedy of errors took place and he was, after some four hours, released into family care and returned to the nursing home.

His nursing home is in a lock-down situation due to an outbreak of a gastric bug. I was on my way to visit him and cut his hair when Joy, his wife, told me about it and I am thankful that I am not about to land in Bali tomorrow with a dose of the poos!

Brother Graham is collecting us tomorrow morning early and driving us to the airport at 4.30am. I apologised for the early call out and he replied that it is no different than coming home from a night club at that time....but sober.

Graham's 60th birthday bash went off well with about 60 guests at his house. I was just a little concerned that we might have some party gate-crashers, but looking around at at some of the older guests I figured that any crashers would have a rough time dealing with his guests. The party did finish up at 4am with two hangers-on. I went to his place to assist with the clean up. The usual half empty bottles of beer were found in various strange places around the house. His rubbish bin was collected today and it would have made a noise like a multiple car crash when dumped into the truck.

Next posting will be from Bali where the temperatures range from a low 24c to 30+c. We are going to hate leaving cold Perth for 8 days.

Nursing homes

We have my sister staying with us for a week. She is ostensibly here for our brother's 60th birthday party this Saturday, but also is on a major shopping mission. Having a sibling as a house guest is, I think, not as easy as having a friend stay.

This morning I was searching through our pantry for some coffee beans. I know Joan had bought some recently... eventually I found them down next to the packets of different sugars and coffee bottles. Obvious?? Well, not for me! I suggested that Joan make a mud map of the pantry for me in case she goes before me. 'Go look for it' she offered. Both of us hope that we will spend the rest of our lives looking for things in our own house rather than ending up in a nursing home.

Our friend John is in a nursing home and visiting him is often sad. Joy, his wife, visits every second day and I feel a little guilty that I only visit occasionally to give him a haircut. John is losing weight, but otherwise is quite healthy and looks like he is going to be around for some time yet. I have a theory that once dementia sets in, people usually live longer. They seem to have fewer worries. In John's case this theory doesn't hold up. He is often worried about things and these worries are the major subject of the conversations we have.

We are off to Bali early Tuesday morning. Brother Graham is taking us to the Perth International Airport and then heading off to work. Daughter Helen can collect us when we return to Perth. On Monday morning I will drop of sister Shirley at the domestic airport for her flight back to Esperance.

Yesterday we went to Joy's 70th birthday party. There were about 70 people attending also. A very nice day!

Earlier in the day I collected some 20 computers from a publishing house in East Perth. The company decided that I could place them with needy people rather than trying to dispose of them themselves. In typical office use of computers there is a lot of sticky tape and post-it notes on the cases which will have to be cleaned off before I can feel good about working on them.
I have placed quite a few computers with educational games loaded on board with aboriginal families and have had very good feedback. A lady collected a couple more machines today and has requested quite a few more. I know that they are mostly going to relatives and that is fine with me. At least the lady distributing them to rellies is Mac literate and can help out if her family needs backup.

On a local news feed 'WA Today' there was a report about the police and pollies bringing in a grog ban in the north west of the state. Attached to the article was an advert for grog!
I do not know how police or indeed government can legally ban a product to a selected group of Australian citizens?

And lastly a death notice in the local paper. Slobodan Milosevic is not the bloke mentioned, but he is a despot!

Lockie the loser

After attending the Alternative Energy show recently we waited patiently for a rep. from the solar energy company to come visit and sign us up for some solar panels before the federal government's cutoff date for the solar energy subsidy which was to end on the 30th of June. Then yesterday news broke that the federal government did a bit of a panic about what that subsidy was costing the nation and suddenly gave it the chop with about two hours' notice yesterday. No free electricity for the Locks!

The state government has also dumped its water subsidy which gave cash back on purchases of water saving devices and wetting agents. This subsidy covered a range of items from 'wetta soil' to household items like water-saving shower heads to water tanks.....all gone!

Today on talk-back radio (ABC of course) a caller asked why the government still allows the sale of water guzzling washing machines and dishwashers when there are machines on sale which do use water wisely. I guess that argument could also be used about gas guzzling vehicles?

Sport

The main weekend sporting did not favor us in the West. Both footy teams lost to the Eastern States bullies. Each team in the AFL has coaches, assistant coaches and coach-coaches, medicos, a psychologist and of course the management team. The main thing they are missing is a choir master to tune them up before they belt out the club anthem in the change rooms. A National Disgrace!

Also on sport one of Australia's star cricketers has been dumped and sent straight home because he is a pisspot and gets stuck into the booze. His story is in all the newspapers of the nation and some people are arguing we should let him stay with the team...win at any cost!

Meantime whilst Australia reels in the wake of this sacking, thousands of people throughout our world have been starved to death, murdered and indiscriminately slaughtered. If I were a conspiracy theorist (and I'm not) I could put forward the theory the governments all around the world spend vast sums of money to support sports and sporting facilities just to placate the masses and keep them happy. A happy mob doesn't bitch too much about the economy!

Another little bitch about sport is the stupid waste of perfectly good champagne which seems to be showered over the winners at motoring events. Let them use soda water!

Advice for the elderly: Don't wear black when you have dandruff.

Segara Village Hotel, Bali

We are all booked for our Bali trip on 23rd June. That is just two days after brother Graham's 60th Birthday party. Hope the head has cleared up by departure time.

We are staying at a fairly up-market hotel on the beach at Sanur. It has free wi-fi and lots of other services. We hope that it is not the high season for European visitors known internationally as Towel Placers, due to their habit of reserving a deck chair at the pool(s) by placing a towel on it for the whole day even if they have gone shopping etc. That doesn't really worry us as we don't have the bodies to show off around the pool.....not that that worries Dutch and German oldies.

The news about an Air France plane crashing is not good news when we will be flying on the same aircraft operated by SE Asia's own dodgy airline. We are flying Business Class so that should make us a bit safer than those in Cattle Class...shouldn't it??

This weekend there is an IT disposal throughout the metro area of Perth and Fremantle. It is sponsored by Apple Computer and not restricted to Apple products. I have quite a few monitors, printers, scanners etc to go. Recently I was given a couple of Apple 20" CRT monitors and they are huge and heavy! This morning I was offered a few more 24" monitors and had to decline as they are very hard to place. Not only hard to place, but hard to carry!

A friend Joy called asking for advice about finding lost data on her computer. She is writing a sort of Bio and after typing up the latest chapter, pressed a key and all is gone. I visited this morning and looked in all the regular places without luck. I have download a demo version of Data Rescue and will return to see what it can find. The Demo gives you one shot at finding a file.

Sustainable Energy Expo

Yesterday we decided to train into Perth to visit the Sustainable Energy Expo. We drove to the train station and got the free trip for oldies. We left from the Murdoch station and it is about a ten minute fast trip into the city centre. One thing I hadn't noticed before is the smart escalator. If no one is riding it it slows right down but if a passenger get on board it speeds up. Maybe I need to get out more!

The so called Sustainable Energy Expo was a bit of a swizz. There were a number of booths selling solar power roof units, but mostly it was the Royal Show type of booth exhibition and selling all manner of household products, including steam cleaners, vacuums, spas etc etc. We did glean quite a bit of information about solar power units and a representative of one of the companies is to visit us this week to look at our needs and household set-up. We think we will end up purchasing before the state government subsidy is terminated at the end of June. After the subsidy of $8,000, the cost to us is about $2450.

We had lunch in Perth city and as we seldom visit the city were surprised at the crowds there. Perth and Fremantle have seven days trading. There didn't seem to be as much trading as parading!

On the train home there was a young bloke coiffured and dressed and to stand out, taking up a priority seat. He was encouraged to stand for us and proceeded to sketch nothing in a sketchpad and then read a picture novel from the back page forward. When a spare seat became available he grabbed it putting his feet on the seat and taking up both seats. Needed a good slapping!

Today has been a computer fixing day. A friend who is a Mac Guru had damaged the power input to a hard drive, so I visited with my soldering iron (which is not made of iron!) and re-soldered the broken joints. Next, a friend had a spam attack telling him that a scan of his PC hard drive had found 164 virus attacks and a dozen or so worms in various places on his Windows something directory. Trouble is he is running a Mac and I believe the message is a trap to get young players to purchase their anti viral software. In this case old players!
The message is set up so that the computer operator cannot just delete the warning message. It hangs around like a bad smell until (in Firefox) under the Tools header you delete personal data including cache etc. Lastly my brother Graham had a bit of trouble scanning a document on his new Canon all-in-one printer. I visited and ran through the process with him. Whilst there he gave me a little job; to make an invitation to his 60th birthday in the form of a Summons to Appear.