Tag: Challenge

Looking for news that doesn’t include Trump or COVID

So, what else is happening out there in the world. It’s very hard to find anything of newsworthy note other than the now what seems to be a farcical US election, or COVID 19, which continues on its merry way killing almost a million people worldwide.

What’s in the New York Times, allegedly one of the purveyors of fake news, a small headline appears, 356 elephants dropped dead in Botswana. For those who don’t know where Botswana is, it’s in Africa. Algae infected waterholes or people poisoning them are two possible reasons for the calamity in a country that has largely succeeded in conservation of the animals.

And a very interesting piece about sled dogs and planning for the unknown. I have to say, after I read it, we should all be looking for a sled dog as our guide through life, because they know more about what’s going on around them, especially in the remote parts of Alaska, than any of us humans. While I’m not packing my bags and immediately heading for Alaska, it’s made it to my bucket list.

Over at CNN another conspirator in the fake news brigade it took a long hard look to find anything other than a report that Qantas in Australia is selling off old Boeing 747 carts full of goodies (wine, pyjamas, throw rugs, and other items offered on flights) to the public. They sold out quickly.

Of course that’s not the only item Qantas is in the news for., In these COVID times when traversing state borders is a trial in itself, Qantas is offering flights to nowhere. & hours of flying over some of the sights Australia is famous for, beaches, reefs, and very, very large rocks. The first of these also sold out very quickly. There may well be a lot more of these nowhere flights as Qantas has lots of planes sitting on the ground doing nothing.

As for news that really isn’t news, a South Korea official was shot dead after crossing the border, proving once again, North Korea is the last place you would want to go.

And for information that you desperately needed, how to grow tomatos in the desert, and in particular, the Arabian desert.

There was a small piece on the fires in California, but I suspect since these have been linked to Climate Change, a subject that isn’t getting much of an airing, it doesn’t rate as newsworthy over Trump and COVID 19, other than in the latter’s case, it is all but gone.

Someone else’s words, not mine.

In a word: Drink

Everyone loves a drink, and that interesting expression, ‘what’s your poison’ often resonates at a bar when among friends.

The thing is, we are supposed to know what our friends drink, me, for instance, I like beer, preferably in a bottle and not local mass-produced brew if I can avoid it.

But, some like white wine, no preference to type, some like cocktails like a Manhattan, or a Long Island Iced Tea, very dangerous if made correctly which quite often it isn’t, or champagne, the real thing not just leftover wine carbonated and given a name like ‘sparkling …’ something.

Every now and then we need to have more than one drink, and that desire is fuelled by our emotions.  A celebration, it’s two or three, just enough to allow the euphoria to seep in.  A tragedy of any sort means more than a few, usually prefixed with a statement like, ‘I need to get hammered’, but not literally.

Perhaps that’s why it’s called drowning our sorrows.

Of course, there are other meanings for the word ‘drink’ and often poets, and romance novelists will refer to a phrase such as ‘drink in…’ where it may refer to a loving gaze or a look of adulation.  You could also, at a stretch, drink in the sight of a magnificent landscape.

Then, at the end of that drinking session, good or bad, where you may have had the opportunity to drink in looks or locations, you might, if you didn’t play your cards right, get thrown in the drink.

Not in the glass, that’s a bit small, but it means a much larger body of water such as a pool, a lake, or the ocean.

And lastly, but probably not the only context for the word ‘drink’, it could be said you were ‘driven to drink’, and I don’t mean by another drinker to the hotel, bar, restaurant or party.

Driven to drink means you blame someone else for your recently acquired desire to drink as much as you can so that it blots out something or someone.

I’m officially blaming my dog for my drinking problem.  He drove me to drink.

And that’s all I have to say about it.

Pour me another drink, will you?

In a word: Lie

Here’s another of those small words that have so many different meanings that it can boggle the mind.

The most obvious, is telling a lie, in other words trying fervently to avoid getting the blame, admit that we are anything but ordinary, or that we are larger than life.

I’m none of the above.

Then it’s where a golf ball lands, and is quite often, for me, at the bottom of a lake, or in the middle of a sand trap. That statement, play it where it lies takes on a whole new meaning when playing with friends who hate to lose.

Then, if I’ve got a headache, which is what this is giving me trying to catch up with all the meanings, I have to lie down. Usually that’s in a prone position, though I’m sure there are people who would argue otherwise.

You can lie in state, after you’re dead, but that ain’t going to happen to me. And the way Prince Harry’s going, I don’t think it’ll happen to him either.

The mountain lies in that direction, said the elf pointing towards the sea. Elves are meant to be confusing. But inevitably something will lie in a particular direction.

Perhaps the elf will lie about the lie of the land?

A book will lie on the table, or a sill, or a shelf, or just about anywhere.

And just to add to the confusion, your future will lie before you. Figure that one out!

This is not to be confused with lye, a strongly alkaline solution, especially of potassium hydroxide, used for washing or cleansing.

Is this more TV gold?

I have been watching television for a long, long time, and a lot of it has come from either the US or from Britain.

I have Cable TV by satellite, an interesting contradiction in terms, and it has a channel that shows all of these old series, such as,

The Prisoner, a rather fascinating series that starred Patrick McGoohan about a man who became a number. Of course week after week we puzzled over who he was, and came to the conclusion he was an ex spy put out to pasture. Each week he’d try to escape, each week a big white ball would appear on the scene. And what was his number? 7 I think.

Years later I saw Patrick McGoohan in an episode of Columbo, so he must have been popular in the US.

The Avengers, which was my all time favourite because of Emma Peel. Yes, huge crush I’m afraid. But, then, I think Diana Rigg had a lot more men with crushes. Nobody really cared about the others, one of which was Patrick McNee, but I couldn’t tell you who his character was, or who Emma’s partner in the show was.

The New Avengers was not a patch on the original, but I did watch a few episodes because of Purdy, who, of course was Joanna Lumley, equally as intriguing as Emma Peel.

The Saint, only because I liked reading the book versions of the stories by Leslie Charteris, and that my mother liked Roger Moore so we got to see it. That came from when Moore was in Ivanhoe, a real knight rather than a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Roger Moore of course turned up later among other roles, as James Bond. Probably not the best contender for the role.

Upstairs, Downstairs, a forerunner to Downtown Abbey, the first introduction to the lost class system that gradually disappeared from the 1900’s onwards.

Rumpole of the Bailey, which starred an Australian actor, Leo McKern, who was a delightful claret drinking barrister that never had ambitions of being a judge, and hinged his success on the infamous Penge Bungalow Murders trial. I like reading the books too.

Are You Being Served, with John Inman, and others that made this show a riot of a comedy. We saw John Inman much later in a stage play in Melbourne, and when two people turned up late and interrupted the performance, Inman recited all the lines of all the roles up to that point so they wouldn’t be left in the dark about what was going on,

It was one of those rare performance’s when you just had to be there to believe it.

More on other series later.

In a word: Pear

Now, how did such a simple word that described a piece of fruit become so tangled?

The English language of course.

It throws up many a variation of the same sounding word, just to confuse us.

Just think, there is also pair, and pare.

But a pear, that’s a piece of fruit.

And if you’re not careful things can go pear shaped very quickly.

Then there’s pair, which means there’s two of something the same, such as a pair of socks

Except in my house it’s more than likely that pair of socks are an odd pair.

Then there’s pare, which is to take the outer layer off such as an orange.

It can also mean to cut down, as in staff after restructuring an organisation.

Past conversations with my cat – 99

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This is Chester.

Not everything is fine in la-la-land, as he now calls it.

Not happy that I didn’t tell him about the second week of child invasion.

He should consider himself lucky that the school week started on Tuesday, and only one was staying home to do schoolwork.

The other has been able to return to the classroom.

One less tormentor, I heard him mutter as he slinked past the room where the homeschooler was working.

But a more sinister problem had arisen.

He’s stopped eating his food.  I first thought this was part of a two-week standoff, where he cuts his nose off to spite his face.

This is not the first time we’ve been through this.

So, just to see if it is a fit of pique, I get him his absolute favorite food.  Fresh Atlantic Salmon cut into small pieces just the way he likes it.

Yes, the aroma reaches him in his hiding spot, along with the call-out that I’d bought him salmon, but when he goes to the bowl, he takes a sniff, or two, then wanders away.

He doesn’t even look at me.

Very, very unusual.

I will be keeping an eye on this.

 

Is this TV gold?

I have been watching television for a long, long time, and a lot of it has come from either the US or from Britain.

I have Cable TV by satellite, an interesting contradiction in terms, and it has a channel that shows all of these old series, such as,

Bonanza, yes back on the old Ponderosa, with the Cartwright’s. I was astonished to see Lorne Greene pop up in another series, much later, in outer space, called Battlestar Galactica, a poor man’s Star Wars. It was 14 years of westerns.

This if course was accompanied by Rawhide, with a very young Clint Eastwood. As we all know, he went onto bigger and better things.

The Munster’s, yes, a rather creepy bunch of kooky people, the only sane one was the daughter. Herman, though, he was a barrel of laughs. I’m not sure what Yvonne DeCarlo thought of it, coming down from a movie career to television.

The Addams family, another bunch of kooky people who were quite funny, and of course my favourites were Lurch and Thing. Not too sure about Uncle Fester and Cousin Itt though. And moonbaking? Really?

Hogan’s Heroes, and the Stalag 13 crew was another of those strange but intriguing shows that showed a lighter side to what must have been a really grim situation. I’m sure a POW camp wasn’t this much fun.

Gilligan’s Island, a rather interesting bunch of castaways whom I’m sure could have got back home without much trouble, but who close to stay on their island. Jim Baccus, the voice behind Mr Magoo made this interesting, along with the skipper.

Bewitched, with Elizabeth Montgomery, and another old movie star Agnes Moorhead, but it was the changing of Darren that had me doing a double take, and it sort of went off cue when they introduced a baby, Tabitha. Bad Samantha was a treat.

My Favorite Martian with Ray Walston, another actor that descended from the movies made this a little more interesting than it really was. Still there were enough laughs in it to keep the interest going.

Mr Ed, the talking horse. Yes, special effects were working overtime with this one, but really, a talking horse?

The Beverly Hillbillies, I could never get into this. I doubt anyone finding oil on their property these days would get rich and moved to Beverly Hills. Perhaps a quiet ranch in Montana?

Get Smart, who could forget the cone of silence, or the phone in a shoe. How the producers would have loved mobile phones back then.

And my all time favourite, Mission Impossible. Those early episodes were the best, especially with Martin Landau, who later turned up in Space 1999.

There’s more, but we’ll get to them later.

So the good news is…

All I have is the common cold.

The result came back negative, which is good. Like I said yesterday, it borders on impossible to get it when community transmission of COVID is zero. All of our COVID cases come from overseas travellers returning home, and in quarantine.

And, all the cases that came in a second wave in Victoria, and to a lesser extent New South Wales, were caused by a botched quarantine system where the people charged with keeping people in quarantine were letting them out to roam the streets, and mixing with them.

Of course, that’s been fixed now with members of the armed defence forces taking over, in a move that should have been done from the start. I doubt whether these obdurate returning people who knew before they left what would happen when they returned will run the gamut of armed soldiers.

I know what I would do if they tried.

But, the news is good, and plans for my funeral can go back on hold, and I will take the opportunity to rest more over the next few days.

Then it’s back to the renovations…

It’s funny what goes through your mind…

And odd too that we might think it ‘funny’, but the English language is littered with a great many ironic, and sometimes daft expressions.

But, I am beginning to understand what it’s like waiting for a result to a test that you don’t really want to know.

I imagine sitting in the doctor’s office after a phone call to say the results are in, you’re sitting there patiently waiting, and then he comes in, sits down, always with the poker face so you have no idea what he’s thinking, or about to say.

With COVID the death sentence comes as a phone call, and you get to sit in a room and wait. Here, once you get a test you go straight home and self quarantine until the result is known.

That won’t be until tomorrow.

Meanwhile the symptoms I have mirror that of a very bad cold. Runny nose, sore throat, aches and pains, very bad sinus that leads to a headache that ordinary paracetamol has no effect on.

Is it worse than yesterday, yes.

Am I having trouble breathing?

No, but sometimes it feels like I am. I know it’s the mind messing with me. Psychosomatic, I think the word is, that we will ourselves to believe something is true even if it isn’t.

Am I trying to convince myself I have COVID? Do I realise that in a state where there is either one or no new cases day in and day out, that it’s possible, not being in or near a hot spot that I could get it?

Improbably to impossible.

Yet here I sit thinking the worst, and not the best. Why is that?

Nevertheless, my mind then switches to the possibilities, that if it is my time, what is there left to do? A truck load of stuff. It’s too early to be checking out, that there’s a hundred and one things I have to get done.

OK, time for an attitude readjustment. In two days it will be my eldest granddaughters 17th birthday. To be honest, I don’t know where that 17 years went because the last time I think about it, she was 10 and we had taken her to London and Paris because I promised her I would.

Well, that’s it then, isn’t it. I don’t have COVID 19, I’ve just got a very bad cold. Down with the lemon drinks, the paracetamol for the aches and pains and stop mulling over death. Too soon, too much to do.

Let you know tomorrow what the result is.

Any other time…

I would not be worried, but…

We are being told, even when there is no major outbreak, or any new cases of COVID in the last few days, that we should get tested if we are showing even the slightest of symptoms.

I;ve got a runny nose.

I don’t have a scratchy throat.

I feel like I have a fever, but I’m not sure. You would think there’s be a thermometer in the house, since we often look after youngish children, but it isn’t where it was last, so I don’t know.

The COVID clinics that used to be open near us have all closed die to the lack of cases, so we don’t know where to go to get tested.

So, next point of call, call the doctor.

And, as if he is registering my panic, he calls me, but not in relation to COVID, but some blood tests, and a care plan, something we old people get once we’ve survived 65 years or more.

Something else to note, all of our medical care is free, doctors accept what is known as bulk billing, ie they accept what the governments pay them for visits. It’s not the same in other states, so this one is good.

We also get 5 free visits to either dietitians, physiotherapists, foot doctors, and the like, a year every year from now on.

Hospital, well, you need to have a secondary medical plan to pay all but $200 of your hospital stay no matter how long or which ward. Hospital care is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, so it’s a relief to know that the most I can pay in a year is $500, no matter how many times I go in, or stay.

But, the COVID test. The doctor says there’s a clinic at the local hospital, just down the road from us. Like everywhere in Australia, the tests are free, you just turn up and they test you.

Then you have to stay home until the result is delivered, usually within 24 hours. if you have it, well, I don’t know what happens next, perhaps men dressed in white suits arrive in an anonymous white van and take you away.

But we both have a symptom, and so we’re getting tested tomorrow. I’ll tell you then what happens in the clinic.

I think I can say quite safely I don’t have it, because I’m one of those in the critical category with a compromised immune system, and the reason why I have spent most of the last six months home, in hiding, and going out only when necessary. It’d be fate to get it on what is a one in 100 chance.

Still, if I do, my chances of survival are less that 20%, so, not that I do this very often, I will be saying a prayer, not just for me, but for everyone like me, because that bug we were told was no more than another strain of the flu, has killed 940,000 people worldwide, and it hasn’t finished yet, despite some very important people saying it will go away by itself.

It would be very bad luck after avoiding it for six months if…

No, lets not go there. Let’s be positive.