Tag: Non Fiction

Past conversations with my cat – 94

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This is Chester.

We are in the middle of a philosophical debate.

No, it’s not about whether the world is flat, though sometimes I think he has that notion, as well as all humans are basically stupid.

I’ve been thinking about the pandemic and how it might meld into a plotline for a story.

Chester is not happy that I should use China as the country with global ambitions, after using the term ‘global domination’ and got a very silky retort.

He doesn’t seem to think that by causing a pandemic, making each of the G20 nations basically launch themselves into insolvency in order to maintain some semblance of economic stability, that China, who miraculously recovers, becomes the nation who saves the world?

It sounded quite good in my head.

Particularly when you see nations like the USA, the only other country that could tackle China as a ‘savior’ state, is going slowly down the gurgler.   Or so it seems, and it’s only a matter of time before something gives.

Chester and I now have mandatory viewing every morning, the Donald Trump show, where we lay bets as to whom he’s going to fire or lambast.

Chester thought the Doctor was gone for all money on Monday.

My money was on the reporter, who wouldn’t stop asking questions.

But today, it might be about Joe Biden and the Democrats, and the ramping up of the Republican’s political campaign.  Who said the COVID briefings had to be about that mundane virus?

Still, it’s back to the drawing board.  The overall plot is good, creating a virus that brings almost every nation to its knees, and one that rises out of the ashes to ‘save the world’.  It’s like you don’t need bullets and arms to fight a war, just a hell of a sneaky virus; you know, infecting people when you don’t know you’ve got it and infecting others.

Hang on, Chester’s calling.  It’s time for the Donald Trump show.

Another photograph from the inspiration file

This is

A rainy day.

Not much of a revelation when it’s winter, but why is it when you have to go somewhere in a hurry, the universe knows, and tries to throw everything at you so you don’t get there on time?

I like to be punctual.

I’m one of those people who leave home to get to the airport hours before I have to because I know, from past experience, that if you leave at the time where you’d make it with an hour to spare, you would get stuck in the mother of all traffic jams.

I know this to be true.  It’s happened more than once to me,

If you’re not in a hurry, you get the best run you’ve ever had.  I know that’s true too, because that’s what happens most times.

It’s like when at work you’re in a hurry to get a photocopy.  The machine knows if you’re stressed and picks that particular moment to break down.  That use to happen to me more times that I’d had hot dinners.

Sorry, I needed to use that expression, which generally means a lot.  That photocopy machine, back in the days when they were huge and almost a new fad, my task every Tuesday was to copy a 3 page shipping report, 300 odd times.  Not once did I get a clean run, not in the two years it was my job.

But…

Back to the weather.

My day to pick up one of the grandchildren from the railway station.  It’s not far from our house, on any other day it would take about ten minutes, but since this is after 3 pm, I have the other school traffic to contend with, the tradies going home, and late afternoon shoppers getting dinner.

It never used to be like that.  The road was a single lane that used to be blocked by floods when it rained, there was no shopping centre, and no new estates.  In 30 years everything has arrived, the road expanded to two lanes either side, and almost continual traffic jams.

There’s a story there somewhere, but for the moment I have to take on the traffic.  Maybe once I get to the station I might have time to consider it.

In a word: Second

It would be very interesting if duelling was still allowed.  There are a few people I’d like to stand toe to toe with, take ten paces, then test my ability to shoot with an old style flint duelling pistol.

What’s this got to do with anything?

It’s where our word of the day comes in.  If I lose my nerve, or I know my opposite number is a better shot, my second would have to stand in my place.

It’s,  if anything, an older use of the word.

Of course, it mainly means, on one hand, coming second in a race or a competition, not exactly the place you really want to be, simply because no one really remembers who came second.

It plays host to a plethora of statements using second as part of the saying, such as,

Second rate, second hand, even if it had more than one owner, second best.

But then there’s a few more that mean something else like a second look, mainly because you didn’t trust your eyes, second nature, it’s been drilled into you (a rather painful idiom if it truly was) and second sight, though this might not necessarily be a verifiable attribute.

And, of lesser note, I’m not necessarily sure I’m second to none.

On the other hand, and pardon the pun using this definition, it also describes a length of time, very short in fact, and it takes 60 of them to make a minute.

Hang on, it’ll only take a second.  Yes, we often use the word in vain.  I doubt there is any one of us who could do anything useful in a second.

In a word: Right

Am I right?  Or is that correct?

In the moral sense, or in answering a question?

Do I have a right to …

As an entitlement?

Maybe

But right means generally to be correct, but the word itself can be used, like many others in a variety of ways

Such as, do we have any rights any more, since the government is slowly shutting down our freedoms, and, you guessed it, rights.

What about a right angle, we know this as being an angle of 90 degrees

How about I right a wrong, returning a bad situation to a good one?

Are you left-handed or right-handed?

Are you one of those people who can’t tell their left from their right?

And who was it that decided what was your left or your right, ever thought about that?  I didn’t until just now.  Good luck finding an answer on Google.

And how many times have you wished you were in the right place at the right time???

Then, of course, if English is a second language, how about confusing right with write.

Means something quite different, doesn’t it?

How about rite?  Yes, I guess if we were in the habit of chopping chicken heads off and dancing around a fire, that might be its meaning,

But…

It too has a lot of different meanings

Are you confused yet?

Is one vote worth anything these days?

Here’s another interesting question that seems to have been forgotten in the election.

The value of one vote.

Let’s forget about the 50 million or so so-called possible illegal postal ballots, and concentrate on just one.

Your vote.

Has any election of any candidate ever depended on one vote? Well, perhaps not, but I’m willing to bet that there have been occasions where the separation between winner and loser has been about 20 or so.

After a dozen legal challengers and recounts.

But…

The point here is, that one vote, your vote, could have been one of those 20. Or just one.

This year seems to be the year where one vote will make a difference.

Just think! That divine right given to you, that one vote, could change the very fabric of what happens in the future.

How often has it been where one person has changed the course of history, sometimes not for the better, but by and large, they have. I know, where we are, my one vote got the right man elected, and he has given us better roads, better sporting facilities to keep kids off the streets, better bus services.

We have learned not to expect miracles, but sometimes, after casting that one vote, miracles are possible. And what was more miraculous was that none of the candidates stooped to trashing the other.

We got policies, we got promises, and we got action.

In a word: Top

Spinning like a …  yes, had a few of those dizzy spells, especially after too much to drink.  It’s where you say, ‘stop the world, I want to get off’.

And, ages ago, I think it was a musical production.

But…

Top, well there’s sides, a bottom, and a top.  Have you been to the top of the world, I think I’ve been to the bottom, and it’s not the poles I’m talking about.

But then the top of something is the highest point, such as a mountain.  For some odd reason, I’ve never had the inclination to climb to the top of a mountain, but I’m guessing the view from the top of Mt Everest would be interesting.

Are you at the top of your game?

We say this when a player, or athlete, is winning or playing at their best.  I just keep hoping this year will be when the Maple Leafs will be playing at the top of their game.

Especially when I personally attend at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.

If you read thrillers then you’ll know the assassin is always about to top someone, that is to say, kill them.

Will you top up my drink?  It’s where someone asks you how many glasses of wine you’ve had, and the correct answer is one, it just never got empty!

Can you put the top back on the bottle?

I’m headed straight to the top of the company.  The roof maybe, certainly not as CEO.

Top gear, aside from being a motoring show on TV, it could also be third, fourth, of fifth gear, depending on the type of gearbox.

And, of course, there are about another hundred ways it could be used.

Confusing?  to say the least.

Have you another?  Let me know…

Can politics get any messier?

Perhaps a question we should be asking is whether there are still any laws that cover libel or slander. I often mistake one for the other, whether oral or written.

But…

Shouldn’t someone wheel out the legal cart during elections, and put the brakes on some of the stuff being said about candidates?

And after it’s said, the media takes great joy in repeating the remarks, in as large a typeface as they can, perhaps proclaiming the Editor’s bias towards one party or the other.

I’m guessing that journalism standards have dropped to such a low point that even I could qualify to write for a news outlet, and that’s saying something.

My problem, I suspect, is that I have integrity, so I’d be the last person they’d hire.

Equally, I’m guessing, it’s these libellous and slanderous statements that make the best headlines, and, as they say in the circulation department, the trashier it is, the more papers they sell, or whatever it is that brings in revenue.

They’ll tell you that people don’t want the truth. The truth is too depressing, so they tend not to look under the covers and journalists are more interested in writing about whatever is contentious. The Police are a likely target for one side. Protesters (sorry, so-called communist agitators) is a target for the other.

Whatever happened to ‘no one will get left behind’?

It seemed to me to be a very good slogan at the time of the 2016 election. I bet a lot of people thought, hey, it’s about time we all got on the train, not just some of us.

What happened? Did the train leave, and we all failed to get to the station on time?

But you know what’s worst of all – it’s only going to get worse.

70 odd days to go and we are no doubt going to find out every horrible detail about all of the candidates that are up for election.

It’s not about the good they might do, or the policies the country’s crying out for, or the fact they might be decent, honest, family people. Forget that, that doesn’t sell papers, it’s the dirty laundry we want to hear about, about them, their family, anyone who can be trashed in a public forum without any filter.

Is it possible not to cast a vote, simply because you hate the lot of them?

Is there a middle line, an independent, someone who has no axe to grind, someone who doesn’t spew hate with every word they utter?

Or would it perhaps a better idea is to vote for ‘none of the above’, even if you have to write that on the ballot yourself and tick that box.

‘None of the above”…

Now, where have I heard that before?

There’s this affliction going about

It’s not new, it’s been around for a while.Everyone seems to be talking to themselves and I think it has something to do with smoking, perhaps a side effect.

You know how it is, you are walking along the sidewalk and someone near you starts talking.  You turn around thinking they are talking to you, but they are not.

And then they take a puff of a cigarette.

It’s not an uncommon assumption to think they are going mad.

But the thing is, if you take a closer look you notice they have a Bluetooth device in their ear and they are really talking to someone out there in cyberspace.

Or for the uninitiated, they’re talking on their mobile phone.

Not that many years ago, men in white suits would be collecting these people and taking them to an asylum typically called Bellevue.  It was the stuff of 1950’s horror films.  You really didn’t want to be caught talking to yourself.

It, of course, has a number of symptoms, this condition we’ll call cybersickness.

Like, for instance, wandering aimlessly.  Or bumping into people.  Or walking in front of cars on the street.  Or falling off the edges of sidewalks, which can result in very, very bad injuries.

You could be forgiven for thinking these people are hearing voices in their heads telling them what to do.

But, as a worst-case scenario, we could say we have just created a viable excuse for these people.

I suppose it’s better than locking them up because, at the end of the day, our jails would be full to overflowing.

One thing is for certain, I think a lot of them are already living in their own world, oblivious to everyone and everything about them.

Now, as for using phones in cars, just don’t get me started.

In a word: Bill

Yes, it is a name, short for William, though I’m not sure how Bill was derived from William.

But…

As you know, like many words this one has a number of other meanings, like,

A bird has a bill, particularly those birds with webbed feet

A bill is something you are sent to pay for goods or services, and often turn up when least expected, or when money is tight

And, sadly, they are neverending.

Then there’s fit the bill, which means it is suitable.

It could also be a list of people who appear in a programme.

It is used to describe banknotes, such as a twenty dollar bill.

It could be a waybill, used for the consignment of goods.

It could also be a piece of legislation introduced into parliament.

In some places in the world, it could be the peak of a cap

But the most obscure use of the word bill goes to:  the point of an anchor fluke.

We all change over time

The other day when visiting a friend I was asked if I would like some camomile tea. I said it was something I had tried once and didn’t like, which prompted the comment ‘you don’t seem to like very much’.

It was not a comment made in malice, we have known each other a long time, but I didn’t realize it until then that our individual tastes had changed over time, more particularly in my case.

I used to drink tea with milk and three, sometimes more, sugars once, drink the archetypal Australian beer like Fosters Lager and Carlton Draught, but in recent years found I could no longer drink it and had switched to European beers such as Peroni or Heineken.

It got me thinking about how our likes and dislikes change over time, sometimes through a bad experience (as is the case with a type of alcohol – mine is tequila), sometimes for other reasons, like for dietary or health reasons (one is having diabetes).

My steak preference has changed from medium to medium-rare to rare, I no longer have tea with milk and sugar, and drastically cut down on chocolate.

Another phenomenon I have noticed particularly in my and my wife’s case is how our tastes have changed together, so I’m assuming that is from familiarity.

In the case of friends, you do not necessarily see them all that often, so it would be possible for them to change and you do not know about it, and no doubt eventually prompt a comment.

There is also the case of external influences on each of us that bring changes, such as those who have children and those who do not, those who travel to particular places and those who travel to different places, even having a different job can affect our lives.

This is why, over time, our friends come and go, going off in different directions for one or many reasons.

I guess that’s why the saying ‘change is not always for the better’ came into being, but, there again, for some the exact opposite might be true.