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Today, the Federal Government, through the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, introduced a flood levy. People with an income of $60,000 will pay just under $1 extra per week and a person earning $100,000 per year will pay just under an extra $5 per week in tax.  There is already much debate [and in some cases, almost outrage] within the community at this imposition, and predictably I suppose, the Federal Opposition has opposed the idea. Tony Abbott’s initial response, when the levy was first hinted at was a rather tame reaction of  “It seems the prime minister is going to call this a ‘mateship tax’. But mates help each other, they don’t tax each other.   In fact, with Federal Parliament due to resume within a week or so, the first debates of significance are going to be focused on this proposed new tax – because of the closeness of numbers in the Lower House, the Government may have some trouble actually getting the levy passed!  At this stage, it is intended to just apply to the 2011-2012 financial year, as basically a one-off taxation levy, and then as indicated, on only a certain percentage of taxpayers..

The main question being asked is that after donating to the flood appeals, do we also now need a flood levy?  From my point of view, hopefully the bulk of donations were aimed at helping to meet costs faced by individual home owners, and small businesses, etc, whereas the need and purpose of the levy  is aimed at partially meeting infrastructure costs, such as repairs to roads, bridge, rail lines and other government and public facilities. Many arguments are been put along the lines that the governments should meet these kind of costs from their existing resources, or reduce spending in other areas of government programs, etc. The absence of emergency ‘disaster funds’ is also being criticised, while suggestions such as reducing foreign aid in preference to looking after our own are being put forward. I must say, I’m a little disappointed to see that the Opposition have come straight out following the announcement, in total disagreement with the proposal [though not suggesting that I am total agreement myself].  I guess I would have like to have seen a little politicising of the issue by the opposition groups and the adoption of a more statesmanlike stance with all members of parliament on the various sides prepared to work together in a bipartisan manner – sad that it’s obvious right from the start, that this won’t happen!  Mind you, it could perhaps be argued that the government’s proposal has an element of ‘protecting’ the planned return to surplus in the next year or so, which also reflects a political motive.

I have no concern with the concept of all Australians providing assistance in one way or another, but there are various disasters of this nature which occur from time to time, and yet there have been very few proposals of this sort – to the people concerned,  are the floods any less tragic or traumatic then those people who died and/or lost everything in the Victorian bushfires of February 2009,  the cyclones that affect various parts of our coast, and so on. Or is the beginning of a regular response whenever a national crisis occurs  – turn to a new tax?  I personally prefer the idea of the introduction of permanent levy of some sort on ‘all’ taxpayers, with the precise purpose of paying all monies so raised into some form of ‘disaster relief fund’. A permanent Disaster Fund is in my view, a necessary burden for our country as we see the billions of dollars damage this country has suffered in the past few years and have had to meet the recovery expense of with no outside help. Australia is generally a front runner when there is disaster in another part of the world, and yet we seem to have no permanent fund to meet local needs. We are a wealthy country, and I don’t believe we should need to depend on support from other countries when disasters occur here. One suggestion I noticed today was a figure of an extra dollar per week be added to our annual individual taxation [$52 a year, not excessive] or pro-rata based on salary levels, and that business pay a percentage according to annual profits. While that kind of suggestion is too late for the current flood situation, it is an opportunity. I maintain that $52 a year is nothing when it comes to preventing much of the grief that comes with these sorts of disasters, particularly the personal economic grief that follows on.

So I’m not interested into getting into arguments against the levy based on cries of past mismanagement of government funds, on things like the stimulus package, school building programs, insulation fiascos etcalong the lines of ‘‘This levy announcement and the resultant backlash from the public in loss of public donations is unquestionably the worst possible thing a financially incompetent federal government could do. It is governments’ job to build and rebuilt infrastructure from existing corporate and government taxes, that’s what we pay taxes for isn’t it and how could they have gotten the financial planning so wrong and still be in government’.  I might well, in fact probably do, agree with many of those sentiments, but really, I’m more interested in meeting the current situation,  but in an efficient manner which is properly controlled, and as well as putting attention to those immediate needs of damaged infrastructure etc, looks to the future and the almost certainty,  that floods, fires, storms, etc, will occur again, as surely as night follows day.  Funding of this sort is absolutely necessary, especially when you look at the ‘untold’ [yet] damage caused in both the Queensland and Victorian floods in particular, to the food production areas of the entire country, and the impact it could have on our national economy? And all of this following hard on the heels of a decade of drought!

Overall, it seems we are in for the usual round of heated debates in Federal Parliament in a week or so. Might be a change from  the refugee debates, though that subject should not be overlooked. Meanwhile, a little closer to home, and of more personal interest, Susie did another trip up to Bendigo today [this time on her own, which as usual worried me to some degree], seeking to finalise accommodation arrangements for her forthcoming year of studies in that city. Finances were going to be a problem, which was why I was glad to be able to be a position to provide some support in that area. Unfortunately, in the accommodation area, she had to commit to the full study period [8/9 months] even though she would not be there for the entire period, understandable from the viewpoint of the provider, but making the whole process a little more expensive than really necessary. She was not expecting any handouts from her Dad, but constantly referring to any assistance I provided as ‘loans’, and while that aspect was of no immediate concern personally, I was not worried about arguing one way or the other. I simply wanted to assist while I was in the position to do so, as I had been doing on different occasions with Susie’s three siblings. I know that in twelve months, my circumstances will be a lot tighter, so in many ways, this ‘out of town’ study and living arrangements had come at a good  time.

This afternoon,  at the Australian Open Tennis, the two women’s semi final games were held. Good results in both cases, as far as I was concerned.  Tennis reports tell us that   

[1] China’s Li Na stunned top seed Caroline Wozniacki Thursday to set up a historic Australian Open final with Belgium’s Kim Clijsters. .Li clawed her way back from match point down to become Asia’s first female Grand Slam finalist 3-6, 7-5, 6-3, and lies one win from a maiden major victory which could ignite tennis’s growth in her giant home country.  It was sheer delight for the beaming Li, who was beaten by Serena Williams in last year’s semi-final, and heroically recovered from a dreadful start against Wozniacki which she blamed on lack of sleep.  “I didn’t have a good night’s sleep last night,” she joked. “My husband (snored). I woke up every hour.”  Li, China’s number one, saved the second-set match point with a crunching forehand as she finally came alive and overhauled her fading opponent on a sun-baked Rod Laver Arena.

[2] Meanwhile, Kim Clijsters says she is in top form ahead of Saturday’s Australian Open final against Li Na.  The triple Grand Slam-winner proved too strong for Vera Zvonareva, beating the Russian 6-3 6-3 in one hour and 13 minutes at Rod Laver Arena on Thursday.  The result means Clijsters will leapfrog Zvonareva and be world No.2 behind Caroline Wozniacki when the next rankings are issued.   The Final on Saturday night promises to be an entertaining game, particularly because we haven’t got the same players, eg, the William’s sisters playing – I’m afraid I find it boring having  those two dominating every year!!

Similarly with the men – while Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer are crowd favourites, and admittedly, normally, the best two players, I’m less inclined to watch their matches than I am with other players. So, as a consequence of last night’s exit by Nadal, and the outcome of tonight’s Men’s 1^st semi final, we will also have a new pairing in the Men’s Final on Sunday night!  In both cases, I will look forward to ‘wasting’ a few more hours in front of the TV, watching the Australian Open Finals That situation came about  because ‘Novak Djokovic signalled a possible new order after ending Roger Federer’s title defence at the Australian Open in a titanic semi-final on Thursday. The resurgent Serbian third seed wore down the 16-time Grand Slam champion 7-6 (7/3), 7-5, 6-4 in three hours to repeat his semi-final win over the Swiss great when he went on win his lone major title at the 2008 Australian Open. Djokovic will now play the winner of Friday’s semi-final between British fifth seed Andy Murray and Spain’s seventh seed David Ferrer in Sunday’s title match. Significantly, it will be the first Grand Slam for three years without Rafael Nadal or Federer. With world number one Nadal out of the tournament amid fresh doubts over his fitness, and now Federer vanquished, Djokovic’s triumph may have signalled a changing of the guard at the top of men’s tennis’.  While I’m not particularly a fan of Djokovic. I was not as unhappy with the result as Susie was, she was hoping Federer would fight back, but tonight was not his night! Incidentally, the two Finals’ days over this coming weekend, are expected to be the ‘hottest’ days of the tournament, in the middle 30s. I think the players will be glad that the matches are scheduled for the evening in each instance!

Certainly, upon looking out the window this morning, on this Australia Day public holiday, it did not seem like a typical ‘Australian’ summer’s day  –  drizzling rain, overcast skies, and [pleasantly] cool conditions. I immediately felt for Susie, who with a group of friends had planned a day down at one of the popular southern coastal beaches – Torquay.  Wandering into the kitchen before she left, it seemed as though she was catering for the whole group – sandwiches and other food everywhere – presumably it was a joint contribution, but Susie was doing all of the preparatory work for their beachside luncheon!!  For myself, I had planned a day at home – there were local Australia Day celebrations planned for this morning, down at Sunbury’s Village Green,  but it was going to be a bit of a damp affair for a while, the way things were looking above. Meanwhile, I assured Susie that the day’s weather was going to improve, and by the time she and her girlfriends reached the coast, it would be a fine day – perhaps not so warm for the swimming they had hoped for. Personally, I don’t mind the beach when the weather is cooler, cloudy, even rainy, means it is less crowded, and has an environment that is not going to ‘burn’ one to cancer inducing proportions!

Before all this happened however, I happened to be awake earlier this morning, with the radio switched on quietly in the background, and was rather pleased at the Soccer result – Asian Cup Semi Finals  –  Japan defeated the Korea Republic, after a penalty shoot out, when scores were still level at the end of extra time. More importantly, in the second Semi, Australia had a mammoth win over Uzbekistan, whom I described yesterday as the form team of the tournament – the final score – Australia defeated Uzbekistan  6- 0, unbelievable.  Still annoyed however, that there was no free to air TV coverage of the tournament, nor even any kind of direct radio coverage that I could find. I wondered had stayed awake long enough to watch it  –  he has his own Foxtel TV [note I with extreme jealousy  – actually, not really, I could never have the time to watch pay TV enough to justify the cost, even though there are occasionally events such as this present Asian Cup that I would relish the opportunity to see!

One of the features of Australia Day each year, is the announcement of the ‘Australians’ for the year [2011]. The winners were actually announced at a ceremony last night, and were as follows.

The 2011 Australian of the Year is a Victorian businessman and philanthropist Simon McKeon is the executive chairman of Macquarie Bank’s Melbourne office, but performs the role on a part-time basis, freeing himself to support a range of causes and organisations, He has been a director of World Vision for 15 years and is a director of the Global Poverty Project. He volunteers as a counsellor for heroin addicts in St Kilda, and works with remote indigenous communities. Simon McKeon is the executive chairman of Macquarie Bank’s Melbourne office, but performs the role on a part-time basis, freeing himself to support a range of causes and organisations, He has been a director of World Vision for 15 years and is a director of the Global Poverty Project. He volunteers as a counsellor for heroin addicts in St Kilda, and works with remote indigenous communities. Mr McKeon, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 10 years ago, is also chairman of the CSIRO and Business for Millennium Development, an organisation that encourages business to engage with the developing world. He recently retired as founding chairman of MS Research Australia and founding president of the federal government’s takeover panel

The Young Australian of the Year is the teenage sailor Jessica Watson. At the age of 16, Ms Watson endured 12-metre seas, 75-knot winds, storms and loneliness throughout her seven-month solo journey round the globe.

 I thought this was a much deserved award to Jessica, and I commented to that fact in a note on Facebook this morning, while at the same time, acknowledging that not all would agree. Helen, a friend here in Sunbury didn’t agree. She noted that ‘Sorry Bill, but I don’t agree – about Jessica. I thought Australia Day honours were for those who ‘make a significant contribution to the community’. I don’t feel that lone sailors contribute to anything other than their own satisfaction and subsequent publicity. Often their personal adventure results in thousands being spent on search and rescue [luckily for her this didn’t happen]. I felt a response was justified in this case, and replied as follows.  ‘Fair enough Helen, and thanks for your viewpoint. I guess that I was looking at it from a different angle, and applying the contribution to the community aspect in a broader sense = the actions of a young person getting out and inspiring others her age to be adventurous, and get beyond the rut of video games, and the like, that was how I saw her contribution to a part of the community. The motto I apply to her, and the difference between her and many of us –  the difference between a dreamer and a doer. Like it or not, she was an inspiration to thousands, not just in Australia, but around the world, as evidenced by the overload to her blog throughout the journey.  I would apply the same philosophy to and I feel similarly about ‘The Australian of the Year’, Simon McKeon, whose work in community, and not for profit areas, etc, inspires others to take the lead and participate for the benefit of the community, but obviously in a different way to Jessica.   However I accept that we don’t always agree with the ‘reasoning’ behind the type of decisions that come up with these Award recipients – one only has to ,look back at the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barak Obama, just a few weeks after he came into office p- basically awarded for the ‘potential’ he represented rather than what he had actually achieved to that point in time in respect to world peace, which two years down the track, still appears to be little changed!!

The new Senior Australian of the Year is Professor Ron McCallum, the first totally blind person to have been appointed to a full professorship at an Australian university. The New South Welshman is a fierce advocate of equal rights for the blind, and is one of two deputy chairs of Vision Australia, and one of 12 members of the first monitoring committee for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Finally, the Local Hero is a Sydney man , Donald Richie, who has saved more 160 people from taking their own lives at a notorious suicide spot. The 84-year-old lives by the infamous cliff, and keeps an eye out for people likely to jump. He then coaxes them away from the edge by inviting them into his house for a cup of tea. Mr Ritchie has lived near The Gap for almost five decades and has kept up a voluntary watch from the window of his second-storey bedroom for most of that time. In the early years, Mr Ritchie tried to physically restrain people wanting to jump while his wife called the police, but since then he has taken a more hands-off approach. He’s been recognised multiple times for his efforts; he was given a Medal of the Order of Australia in 2006, while both he and his wife Moya were named Woollahra Council’s Citizens of the Year in 2010.  My late mother and her family used to live just opposite The Gap also, probably not many houses from where Mr Ritchie lives, may even have known each other back in the 1950s/60s. She told us of various incidents of suicides and/or attempted suicides taking place at that location. I’ve  wandered around the cliff tops myself on the occasional visit to the area, in fact one year, with brother, Robert, we watched the start of the Boxing Day Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race from The Gap, and I can easily testify as to how potentially dangerous is the cliff face on the South Head of Sydney Harbour

Of course, in addition to the above principal awards, there are some 700 Australia Day honors handed out – and as I do each year, a perusal of the list of names, failed to find ‘my own name’ listed J Another friend was kind enough to suggest that ‘It’s because you are too modest to put yourself forward – maybe next year J’  Too kind, indeed!

As a matter of interest, the outgoing Australian of the Year, Professor Patrick McGorry, yesterday described Australia’s mental system as dysfunctional, and piled pressure on Prime Minister Julia Gillard to deliver additional funding for mental health care and prevention. “We want to see Australia invest to the level of other developed countries, like New Zealand. New Zealand spends 11 per cent of its health budget on mental health care, we spend 7 per cent. Countries in Western Europe are even more appropriate,” Professor McGorry said. “Money is important, but it has to be put into new models of care, not more of the same, not just incremental patching up of this dysfunctional system that’s currently operating in this country.” Professor McGorry also said that as somebody born overseas — in Ireland — he had always felt privileged to have become Australian, but that our society is growing less equal as the years pass. An interesting comment, and certainly throughout his year in the role, Professor McGorry has been very active in speaking up and for the mental health environment within Australia.

To more mundane matters, as I suggested at the beginning of this piece, my plan was a quiet day at home, and I think that was generally achieved – bit of writing, reading, housework, and other research, in what remained a cool day, although the rain from early this morning disappeared. Apparently down at the Torquay beach resort, the weather was perfect all day, so the decision of Susan and her friends to have a day at the beach was a good move. It was quite popular down there today also, with a number of Australia Day festivities happening, as was the case throughout Australia.

Incidentally, in the Australian Open Tennis tonight, a bit of sensation in the men’s quarter final stage of the competition, with hot favourite Rafael Nadal, hampered by some kind of hamstring injury, was defeated by fellow countryman, friend and Davis Cup team-mate, David Ferrer, in straight sets. I think the admirable thing about this loss was that instead of pulling out before the match ended, because of his injury, Nadal played through to the end, though it was obvious a loss was inevitable – I think he hinted later, that he wanted Ferrer to win the match, by playing it to the end, rather than getting it on a forfeit. He didn’t want to talk about the injury out of respect for his opponent who had played a good match and deserved the win.

Meanwhile, on the cricket scene, in the 4^th of the seven one day matches between Australia and England,  the Aussies, chasing 300 runs to win the game, fell short by about 35 runs in the end I think.  Maureen was quickly back on Facebook to be sure I noted that result!!!

 

With a public holiday tomorrow, and other staff taking time off later in the week, I decided to take today off, on official leave, and try and spend some time in the garden – well, I did manage the best part of half a day, after an earlier walk, but eventually, the volume of maintenance required in the backyard, wore this ‘ageing’ gardener down, as I decided that the task required more than one of us. However, there ‘is’ only one of us, lol, so this one will just keep plugging away, bit by bit, until the job is up to date. My main problem is a large patch of the dreaded blackberry bushes which seem to have taken over part of the rear garden area – I’m disinclined to use any kind of poison because of the affect on other plants, the birds in the area, and any potential danger to my daughter’s two cats! Digging the plants out is a difficult and tedious job, and unfortunately, poisoning the plants seems the only option. I did notice for the first time, that they are actually budding some actual blackberries!!!   Anyway, work stopped in the early afternoon, as the temperature outside started to rise!

Australia’s Womens’ cricket team doesn’t get a great deal of publicity, and most of their achievements probably go un-noticed unless you were a keen supporter. I take notice, as a broad supporter of any Australian sporting team. So in a summer punctuated by defeat and humiliation, Australia’s women’s side has restored some much needed pride to Australian cricket. In what one writer described as a potential  watershed moment for the women’s game in Australia, Alex Blackwell’s side succeeded where Ricky Ponting’s failed, by reclaiming the ‘Ashes’ on home soil. In response to Australia’s seven wicket win in the one-off Test match at Bankstown Oval in Sydney, Blackwell said that  “We have received some huge support from the men’s side and despite what happened with them this summer there were some efforts there that we took a lot of inspiration from,”  “It means a huge amount for us to win the Ashes back and I’m so proud of the girls. We take a lot of pride in wearing the Baggy Green.  “Winning the World Twenty20 championship in the Caribbean was a highlight for us and winning the Ashes now, we are on a real high at the moment.”  England have held the ‘Women’s’ Ashes since 2005. Meanwhile, my cricket loving friend over in England was pretty dismissive of that result – it meant nothing because there was only one test played!!!  But I’m happy to take whatever wins we can achieve, especially against England!@!!

Showtime, my Tuesday night regular show, tonight featured some songs by well known Australian folk singer John Williamson, from a 2002  album of his, called ‘Gunyah’ in which Williamson introduces each song with a little preview of how  the song originated. is an Australian country music singer-songwriter. Williamson has released over thirty-two albums, ten videos, five DVDs, and two lyric books. He has received more than twenty-three Golden Guitar Awards at the Country Music Awards of Australia and has won two A.R.I.A. Awards for Best Australian Country Record. John’s middle brother Robin died of cancer in 1999. Williamson’s 2002 album “Gunyah”, in particular the track Salisbury Street, was dedicated to Robin, and was one of the tracks I played tonight, the lyrics of which appear below. John wrote them, after he had taken his brother on one last boat cruise on his favourite river, the Murray

John Williamson Salisbury Street Lyrics:
Now’s not the time for wailin’
While there’s water in the river
We’ll all lay down and cry when it’s gone
I’ll be a jackass and laugh at every sunrise
Celebrate the day when it’s born

[Chorus]
And we’ll cruise one more time down the river
While our hearts overflow-ow with joy
And we’ll reminisce our days down Salisbury Street
Salisbury Street, Salisbury Street
Yeah we’ll cruise one more time down the Murray
don’t wave the river gums goodbye
Just thank ’em for the shade and the stories 

The Late Session on SBS tonight – an interesting discussion about ‘families and their influence in our lives’ in tonight’s program – you could almost say, that I currently look forward to this program late every Tuesday evening, with much anticipation.  Many of the participants in these shows, while either famous or generally well known in their own fields of entertainment, the arts, etc, are quite often not familiar to myself, so I find the show a rather fascinating learning curve, which gives me the opportunity to learn more about the personalities that feature in our public areas of life in Australia. Because of the nature of the program, a casual chat show around a studio dinner table,  the ‘private’ lives of these guests, often to a certain extent become very public, but by personal choice, just by coming on the show. Tonight’s guests, for example, spoke about the influence of families and the kind of relationships they had experienced as part of their family life. One interesting little moment – one of the male guests was speaking about his partner, and when he suddenly referred to that person as ‘he’, one of the females at the table quite innocently off the cuff exclaimed ‘Are you gay? I never realised!!’.  Anyway, as usual, I found it an interesting hour of discussion, together with as couple of musical interludes, this time performed by a couple, who were not actually part of the chat group – a father and daughter ‘music hall’ style duo, whose names I didn’t catch, but were certainly good to listen to, and appropriate to the setting. Anyway, tonight’s guests were:

 Julie Catt –  a Counselling Psychologist, from Sydney, CBD, and  Paddington, specialising in  relationship and couples counselling and therapy, gay and lesbian counselling, anxiety, etc. She provides quality, confidential psychotherapy, coaching and counselling for individuals and couples needing support in making changes, finding direction, or negotiating a rocky period in their life.

 Virginia Hausseggar    – a journalist who has been the presenter of the 7pm ABC Canberra News since 2001. She was previously a reporter and presenter of the ABC’s “7:30 Report”, and was a senior reporter at Channel Nine and the Seven Network on flagship current affairs programs. In addition to broadcast, she is a columnist and leading commentator on a range of social and gender issues and is published across various Australian media. She was awarded the United Nations Association of Australia Media Peace Prize for her coverage of Indigenous Affairs in 1996. She is the author of “Wonder Woman: The Myth of Having it All”^[1] which examines issues of feminism, fertility and female choice.

 Fiona O’:Loughlin –  is an Australian comedian, known primarily for her stand-up comedy; for her television performances, on ABC TV’s Spicks and Specks, and Channel Ten’s Rove Live and GNW; and a series of advertisements for Heinz soups.^[1] She has performed as a headline act in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe festival.

 John L Simpson  – film producer, distributor and writer

 Christos Tsailkos  – is an Australian author of the novel ‘The Slap’

 

I had a bit of a diversion on the way to the office today – finding an auto service prepared to undertake a simple tyre repair at short notice. Our organisation’s regular auto place didn’t have time, so I was forced to go back to the bulk ‘K Mart Auto’ style store. Like myself on Friday, an initial perusal of the offending tyre, didn’t really reveal what had caused the ‘deflation’ problem. I left it with them anyway, to be collected later that afternoon. A few minor trips associated with the job planned during the day, but nothing of any great distance – generally not a wise move to drive around without a spare tyre!

Incidentally, after a very warm, humid and uncomfortable tonight, I had awoken this morning to discover that it was raining steadily outside, and in fact, continued that way for the whole of my drive this morning.  That left me with some concern for Susie, who was driving back up to Bendigo again today – searching out accommodation for her year [or 8 months] of planned post graduate study at the La Trobe University up in that city. While she had a friend travelling with her today,  it was a pity that once again, she would have to do the trip in poor weather – although, as I drove south, the weather behind me, and to the north, seemed to be improving, as indeed it did. Anyway, all I could do, was hope the trip went off without mishap, and didn’t really try and contact her through the day.

In fact, it was a rather busy day at the office – first committee meeting for the year, with all except one member present. Unlike a couple of years ago, I was generally not required at these meetings any more. Under Jackie’s guidance, the membership executive itself, was looking after that side of things, such as minute taking, etc. I guess when that change first took place, that I was a little bit ‘put out’, particularly as the committee meetings these days are far less confrontational and as argumentative as they used to be – the role would be a bit more peaceful, less stressful now!  However, it did give me the opportunity to get on with other things while such meetings were in progress, even though it meant being responsible for most aspects of the ‘catering’ side of things in lieu of. How things have changed since the days if senior financial management roles with the municipal councils I once worked for – but then, the current job role had been my choice, a chance to wind down to a large degree in my last years of fulltime employment, even if that meant that some of my ‘responsibilities’ were of the basic office management type of 40 years earlier!!!

One of the books I purchased a few weeks ago from ‘\Christmas present’ vouchers was a book by a lady named Stephanie Dowrick, called ‘Seeking the Sacred – Transforming our view of ourselves and one another’. Not normally of the genre of book I would read [I’ve begun it, but have not got very far into it as yet]. I still wonder why I purchased it – was it simply the impressive orange patterned pages about a subject which seems to have been summed up in a few paragraphs in those early pages?  I’m certainly not suggesting that there won’t be some useful material \ in the book, but as this point, I’m wondering just how much can be said on the subject! Nevertheless, there are some interesting points made, just how many times will they be repeated throughout the subsequent sections?  The first section of the book, for eg, is on the topic of ‘Reverence’, and there is an interesting paragraph on p. 37, which reads as follows.

“Making the world sacred – or, more precisely, ’making our view of the world sacred’ and acting accordingly – certainly cannot be left to governments, corporations or major institutions, even religious ones. Religious institutions are themselves far too deeply implicated in the problems to relieve them effectively. This is a quiet but passionate revolution that can only be achieved by individuals – in the company of one an other. It means thinking as well as perceiving with reverence and often with humility. It means thinking inclusively, taking for granted that what is most important to us is also important to others” In simple terms, is she suggesting ‘do unto others as you would have them do to you’?  Seems practical enough! Even statements like that leave me with the thought that ;just our ‘real to life’ is this book going to come over as?  Or is it just another ‘pie in the sky’ or utopia visions of how one writer likes to see things? Well, I will give it a fair go, but not until I’ve finished reading Bryce Courtney’s latest novel [another Christmas present] – ‘The Fortune Cookie’. I must admit that at present, that is retaining my interest and desire to keep reading at a much higher level than Ms Dowrick’s writings!!

Meanwhile, the following three sayings came via an email, just recently – thought I’d finish this entry, with them here. The latter came from Elenor Roosavelt, perhaps the others did also, not sure!

• Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you respond to it.
• A word of encouragement during a failure is worth more than an hour of praise after a success.
• Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift, that’s why they call it the present. [Elenor Roosavelt].

As Victoria’s huge ‘inland sea’ continues to move downstream , emergency workers in Victoria’s north this weekend,  are turning their attention to the town of Swan Hill as floodwaters in the area flow into the Murray River. Hopes rest on a large permanent levee to stand between Swan Hill’s population of around 10,000 and the coming deluge. While hopes are favourable that a large permanent levee that has been constructed over recent years [much of it at the instigation of a local farmer] will protect most of the 10,000 population in Swan Hill, it will do little to help those in the surrounding farming areas, and smaller settlements between the bigger population centres. In fact, I have felt over the last week or so, with all of the publicity being centred upon the many Victorian towns that have faced the onslaught of the Victorian floodwaters,  those thousands of hectares of land, much of it farming land, in between the towns has for all intents and purposes, been forgotten. Subsequent reports of huge stock losses, thousands of acres of crops, stone fruits, etc, destroyed, have brought this home quite severely, and of course the personal plight that my former brother-in-law up near Kerang faced during the week, made the situation of those lower populated areas, so much more realistic. Sitting back here in the ‘dry’ part of the state, on a day where temperatures got up into the 30s in what was one of the most uncomfortable days this summer, it’s so hard to picture the full extend of the losses and financial suffering that is coming out of the Victorian floods. And that is not forgetting the catastrophic floods and consequences that occurred up in Queensland, and the city of Brisbane itself, just a week ago.  Even today, the after affects of the tsunami style flood that occurred west of Brisbane, are yielding their grim results – with reports this weekend of the findings of human remains in the areas hit by the flash flooding on January 12^th. There are in fact a number of people still missing from that day, and many feel that they will never be found!

Meanwhile, on the home front, as is the case each second Sunday, I had the two shows on the radio today – as usual lately, the early morning program was difficult to initially get motivated for, although once on the road, that motivation would quickly return, and the pleasure of sharing my music equally as quickly change any ‘tired’ moods that might have begun the morning. By late afternoon, the day had become extremely warm, humid and unpleasant, so it was perhaps a relief to get back into the air conditioned studio for a few hours [not that the conditions in the house were particularly uncomfortable, although we were in for a very warm night, followed by a thundering change!]. Anyway, this afternoon, I decided to acknowledge Australia Day a few days early [that was Wednesday]\, with a program of strictly Australian traditional music in the main [a few modern folk songs added at various intervals]. For almost three hours, I played a selection of popular Australian ‘folk’ songs and tunes from the last 100 years or so, together with a number of  known traditional Australian shearing songs, recorded some 40/50 years ago by ‘folk’ singer, the [Rev] Gary Shearston. These were taken from a vinyl recording put together by Shearston under the title ‘The Springtime It Brings On The Shearing’, with his singing accompanied by some wonderful playing on the harmonica, and banjo and guitar.

The notes taken from the recording were obviously written some 35 years ago, but provide an interesting insight into the origins of the tracks theron, most of which I would play throughout the afternoon. Here’s an indication of where the songs came from.

“The first recording Gary Shearston made was called ‘Folk Songs and Ballads of Australia’. Most of the songs on it really are old [Australian] bush folk songs. But later he became best known as a singer of new songs, which are not really folk songs, though they are written in folk-song style. Songs, for example, by writers like the Americans Bob Dylan and Peter Seegar, or the Scotsman Ewan McColl; and songs that he wrote himself.

But a while back he decided that the most important thing for him to do, just then, and for some time to come, was to learn more about authentic folk songs; and especially about the folk songs of the bush; and above all about the way that the old bush singers sang the bush folk songs.

So he sat down to listen carefully to every field recording of traditional bush singers that he could lay his hands on. He has listened to recordings of the best of our traditional singers, especially Sally Sloane and Simon McDonald, over and over again. He has also being listening very carefully to the recordings of bush songs made by A.L.Lloyd: a pommy [Englishman] no less! But Lloyd began learning bush songs during the nine years  he spent working as a station hand in western New South Wales, before he wen t back to England to become a distinguished folk-song singer and scholar

This collection of shearer’s songs is the first result of all this. Wherever possible, Gary Shearston has learnt the version of the song which he uses from a recording or tape, rather than from print. Many he learnt from the singing of A.L.Lloyd, some from field recordings, made by the Folk Lore Society of Victoria; one from an old shearer, ‘Duke Tritton’, with whom he sang many times at folk-song concerts.”

Let’s have a look at just one song – this will certainly be familiar to Australian readers, and perhaps may have been heard at some stage overseas – called ‘Click Go the Shears’. In this ‘story’, Henry Lawson [one of our most famous Australian poets] tells how the gold diggers, during his boyhood days  [circa 1860s] used to sing a song by the popular American composer, Henry C Work, which went as follows

RING THE BELL, WATCHMAN
(Henry Clay Work 1865)

High in the belfry the old sexton stands
Grasping the rope with his thin bony hands
Fix’d is his gaze as by some magic spell
Till he hears the distant murmur
Ring, ring the bell

Chorus
Ring the bell, watchman! ring! ring! ring!
Yes, yes! the good news is now on the wing.
Yes, yes! they come and with tiding to tell
Glorious and blessed tidings. Ring, ring the bell!

Baring his long silver locks to the breeze
First for a moment he drops on his knees
Then with a vigor that few could excel
Answers he the welcome bidding
Ring, ring the bell

Hear! from the hilltop, the first signal gun
Thunders the word that some great deed is done
Hear! thro’ the valley the long echoes swell
Ever and anon repeating
Ring, ring the bell

Bonfires are blazing and rockets ascend
No meagre triumph such tokens portend
Shout! shout! my brothers for “all, all is well!”
‘Tis the universal chorus
Ring, ring the bell

Some shearer borrowed Work’s tune, and some ideas from his words, and created ‘Click Go the Shears’. The collectors he found a lot of old shearers who knew the song. Versions do not differ very much, but in this version  – which comes from A.L.Lloyd – the words are almost the same as those that Banjo Paterson printed in ‘Old Bush Songs’ long before Lloyd arrived in the Riverina.  The popular version is printed below of our ‘Click Go the Shears’

Click go the Shears

Out on the board the old shearer stands
Grasping his shears in his long bony hands
Fixed is his gaze on a bare-bellied “joe”
Glory if he gets her, won’t he make the ringer go

Chorus
Click go the shears boys, click, click, click
Wide is his blow and his hands move quick
The ringer looks around and is beaten by a blow
And curses the old snagger with the blue-bellied “joe”

In the middle of the floor in his cane-bottomed chair
Is the boss of the board, with eyes everywhere
Notes well each fleece as it comes to the screen
Paying strict attention if it’s taken off clean

The colonial-experience man he is there, of course
With his shiny leggin’s just got off his horse
Casting round his eye like a real connoisseur
Whistling the old tune “I’m the Perfect Lure”

The tar-boy is there awaiting in demand
With his blackened tar-pot and his tarry hand
Sees one old sheep with a cut upon its back
Here’s what he’s waiting for “Tar here Jack!”

Shearing is all over and we’ve all got our cheques
Roll up your swag for we’re off on the tracks
The first pub we come to it’s there we’ll have a spree
And everyone that comes along it’s, “Come and drink with me!”

Down by the bar the old shearer stands
Grasping his glass in his thin bony hands
Fixed is his gaze on a green-painted keg
Glory he’ll get down on it ere he stirs a peg

There we leave him standing, shouting for all hands
Whilst all around him every shouter stands
His eyes are on the cask which is now lowering fast
He works hard he drinks hard and goes to hell at last

You take off the belly-wool clean out the crutch
Go up the neck for the rules they are such
You clean round the horns first shoulder go down
One blow up the back and you then turn around

Click, click, that’s how the shears go
Click, click, so awfully quick
You pull out a sheep he’ll give a kick
And still hear your shears going click, click, click

A couple of explanations  –  the ‘bare-bellied yeo’ and ‘blue-bellied yeo’ refers to a ewe, an English dialect word for ewe, with little wool on it’s belly;  snagger  – is an unskilled shearer who leaves ‘snags’ of wool on the sheep; ‘as it comes off the screen’  – meaning as it comes off the table at which the fleeces are classed into different grades;  ‘the colonial experience man’  – refers to the English gentleman, getting some experience of life in ‘the colonies’, by working for a time on a station; an object of both derision and resentment on the part of the shearers; ‘you can take off the belly wool’  – this saying  gives an account of the order in which the shearer was expected to remove the wool; and finally, ‘shouting for all hands’  –  means to buy drinks for everyone in the bar [at the pub].

Gary Shearston didn’t dominate the program, which also included a number of instrumental and vocal versions of a broad range of popular Australian folk music, not just of the ‘shearing’ variety;. Amongst other things, I also slipped in a few tracks of ;non-Australian’ music but which was performed by a very popular ‘semi jazz/popular music’ band here in Australia of the 70s and 80s – the Daly Wilson Big Band, very much an Aussie group of performers, whom I had the pleasure of seeing perform at the Albert Hall in East Melbourne towards the end of the 1970s. I don’t think I can recall up until then, music at such a high volume as was presented at that particular performance, although you soon adjusted to it!. Towards the end of the show, I also played portion of a performance by Dame Edna Everage, from a show ‘she’ did at the Globe Theatre in London, on the 8^th July, 1976 – this was a performance I had copied from a vinyl recording, but unfortunately, the version I was playing this afternoon didn’t quite get to the end of the track, the CD decided to play up on me. One of Barry Humphrey’s other ‘characters’, Sir Les Patterson [cultural attaché to London] I also had on this CD but had decided not to play it –  in 2011, much of the dialogue that Les Patterson carries on with, would today be considered extremely racist, and prejudicial against certain classes in many ways. Although admittedly, when one looks at the content of many of the ‘so-called’ comedy acts in our annual comedy festivals, and many TV comedy programs, I’m not that sure that I needed to have worried too much.

Earlier this afternoon, the Tour Down Under cycling race finished over in Adelaide., the final stage [6] over a distance of 90 kilometres – 20 laps of a specific course through a part of the capital. It turned out to be quite an exciting finish, with a number of potential winners. Was interesting trying to work out the various team tactics as they tried to get their preferred rider into to the right position to take the final stage placings, and hopefully decide the overall winner in the competition. I’m afraid I don’t clearly understand many of the tactics used in professional cycling, if I have a query of that nature, the question has to be addressed to my brother, who presumably was stationed somewhere near the finishing line as I watched the conclusion on the TV.  Anyway, today’s winner was Ben Swift [Australia], from Ben Henderson, and Michael Goss of Australia in 3^rd position. It seemed as though we had about 60 cyclists all coming over the line, virtually at the same moment! It also seems that the configuration of those placings, meant that the overnight leader, Australia’s Cameron Myer kept that lead, and was declared the overall winner of the Tour Down Under.  Michael Goss was 2^nd, and Ben Swift finished in 3^rd position. As for the other main Australian competitors, the two riders whom Robert managed to get into a photograph with the other night finished the overall race in 28^th position [Robbie McEwan, had one day wearing the leader’s jersey] and 50^th [Stuart O’Grady]. In what was supposedly his last major professional cycling race, Lance Armstrong finished in 67^th position of the 129 cyclists who completed the race [130 started, a great outcome].

Meanwhile, on the cricket scene, Australia after it’s disastrous Test Ashes Series against England, seems to have found better form in the One Day International series of the best of seven games, against the English team. While the makeup of this team is a little different to the test team, and also without Test captain Ricky Ponting, still recovering from his broken finger, and ODI captain Michael Clarke continues to be out of form, they seem to be performing much better – today saw the third of the seven scheduled 50 over matches, in which Australia has won all three of the matches. I had noticed that my cricket friend in the UK had been fairly ‘quiet’ over the past week or two, but give her credit, she did acknowledge today’s win, on Facebook, in a message to me!  An interesting quotation was mentioned by one of the cricket commentators at one stage during this match  – a saying that could be applied to all walks of life  –  it was the ‘TCUP’ advice  –  ‘Think Clearly Under Pressure’.

I had the opportunity to watch another ‘advert free’ movie on the ABC tonight –  another Australian film featuring the Indigenous communities, called Bran Nue Dae [literally Brand new day]. It was actually a film version of a 1990 Indigenous musical produced over in Western Australia. Our regular ‘Age’ film critic, Jim Schembri [who admits later in the article that he didn’t like the film] writes that it ‘deserves to be celebrated, indeed, the film’s celebratory tone, catchy tunes and emphasise on self-mocking comedy is widely credited for its game-changing success, the thinking being that audiences found it a refreshing change from the depressing, maudlin mood often stapled to any story about Aborigines’.  I tended to agree with that, although like the critic, I found it hard at times to warm to the movie either – perhaps it was my conservative nature finding it hard to laugh along with the characters in the various send up aspects of the film. I also decided that I prefer to see Geoffrey Rush in a more serious role, than that of the caricature style priest he plays in this film. Apart from Geoffrey Rush, the film starred current pop idol, Jessica Mauboy [as Rosie, the girl our hero, Willie is in love with], Willie played by a young Rocky McKenzie, along with Missy Higgins [ passing hippy], Magda Szubanski [as a gun-toting, petrol pumping harlot], Deborah Mailman [as a Kimberley floozie], Ernie Dingo as Willie’s irascible Uncle Tadpole, and  Australian blues and country singer, Dan Sultan, who plays the role of a rock star competing for Rosie’s Affections. I’ve played Dan Sultan’s music on the radio a few times, but had never seen him act before [may not again, either – think he should stick to singing].

Anyway, whilst glad I got the opportunity to see the movie,  I felt thankful afterwards that I’d not paid the price of a movie ticket, because I think I might have felt that I didn’t get my money’s worth, despite the fact that the film has generally been highly received. I think my problem is that I don’t like what I perceive to be a serious subject – in case, the non-Indigenous prejudice of the 1950s era towards the Aboriginal population been treated in such a carefree and light-hearted manner. Apart from that, it was good entertainment,, and as another critic noted [Emily Dunn] ‘The story stretches the boundaries of credulity, even for a comical musical, but this made up for in the joy and exuberance heard in classic chorus-line tunes’ such as ‘There is nothing I would rather be, than to be an Aborigine’  The music was infectious, and in many ways, a pleasant enough way to finish the weekend.

A mixed day of cloudy periods and brilliant sunshine. Lots of tasks required out in the yard, but seemed to get bogged down with other matters, the ‘paperwork boy’ they call me!  Also still feeling a little annoyed at an incident with my car, which occurred soon after I reached Sunbury from the city [thankfully not earlier I guess] –  suddenly had a puncture in my rear right tyre. Had not noticed anything on the drive out, at generally the maximum speeds, but all of a sudden, felt something go, stopped in the supermarket carpark and found a completely flat tyre, down to the rim! I didn’t have much luck getting the tyre off myself –  tighten the nuts up with damn machines and then expect ordinary mortals such as myself to reverse the work of a machine!  Anyway, I decided not to fight with it – the wheel was rather dirty and black, and a continued struggle was likely to change the look of everything I was wearing!! Called the RACV – our State roadside service organisation. The response is usually pretty good around Sunbury, and a service van is generally with you within about 20 minutes!!!   Not last night!  Two hours later!!! Apparently a couple of ‘out of the ordinary situations’ had arisen in the district which caused the unusual delay! By the time a mechanic arrived, I was wishing, and cursing the fact, that I’d not ‘fought’ a little more with that tyre!  The situation did give me a chance to have a chat with young Jodie – thinking I might me waiting even longer, I had called her up, with the purpose of asking her to take home the fresh and frozen food items, I’d been silly enough to buy ‘before’ calling the service people. As it turned out, she arrived the same time as they did!

Anyway, my slight ‘annoyance’ on Saturday was the fact that I could not get the tyre repaired until Monday – thankfully, not trips of any significance planned this weekend, so at least I didn’t have to go far, with a flat tyre in the car boot!

I did manage to  finally have a bit of a look at the Tour Down Under [over in South Australia] which is in fact the first major international bike race for the year. I didn’t realise until today that it has been going on in Australia since the late 1990s, perhaps it’s prestige has only just begun to be noticed over the past two or three years, with the influx of  international riders, and of course, in particular, people like Lance Armstrong. Now, following yesterday’s stage of the race, there was a new overall leader.  West Australian Cameron Myer, aged 23,was the new leader after sprinting home at the end of yesterday’s 124 km Stage 4 of the race, into Strathalbyn.  The former leader, Matthew Goss, and also Robbie McEwan, are overall 3^rd and 4^th in the classifications after the 4 stages. Today, in Stage 5,  the cyclists travel 131 kms between  McLaren Vale and Willungra, which includes quite a severe hill section  at Willungra. This section includes a partial beach front ride, with the cyclists looking out towards the great Southern Ocean, though I doubt that many of them would really be enjoying the ocean scenery! I’m also wondering whether my brother, Robert, gets to ride over that area with the amateur tour party he is riding with? Haven’t heard from Robert for a couple of days, so I’m not sure what progress he has been making.

Anyway, jumping ahead, today’s stage was won by Francisco Ventoso [Spain] from the Australian riders, Michael Matthews and Matthew Goss. That left Cameron Myer still wearing the overall Leaders’ Jersey, followed by Goss in 2^nd place, and Matthews in 4^th. Tomorrow would be the 5^th and final stage of the Tour Down Under.

Tonight, I had been looking forward to the night session at the Australian Open Tennis, with two Australians competing [the last two Aussies in the singles’ competitions]. Samantha Stosur was expected to win her game, but while nobody expected young teenage star Bernard Tomic to have any real hope of defeating Rafael Nadal, we did hope he would make a bit of a game of it!! Well for a start, disappointment with our Sam!  Seemed to be played reasonable well in the First Set against a very talented and determined opponent, then all of a sudden, the set was over, and she was coming from behind. Actually still expected her to get up and win from that point onwards, and while Sam claimed afterwards that she felt she was playing quite well, the 2^nd set did not give that appearance, and she was basically crushed by a very good up and coming player, who managed to win all of the points that really mattered. In the end, the score line was not flattering for our girl – Petra Kvitoca of the Czech Republic defeated Samantha Stosur [Australia] 7/6, 6/3.

 Next game up was the much anticipated mismatch  between No. 1 in the World, and No. 199. This little media report summed it up.   ‘Grand slam tyro Bernard Tomic delivered hope to depressed Australian tennis fans with a heartening display against the world’s premier player at Melbourne Park on Saturday night. Tomic made all-conquering top seed Rafael Nadal sweat for two-and-a-half hours at Rod Laver Arena before the Spaniard safely progressed to the fourth round of the Australian Open with a sapping 6-2 7-5 6-3 victory over the teenage wildcard Despite 198 rankings spots separating the two combatants, Tomic had Nadal under immense pressure at 4-0 down in the second set as the 18-year-old upstart briefly threatened to pull off the biggest upset in grand slam history’. Of course, it wasn’t to be, but Tomic’s effort meant the match lasted well in excess of an hour longer than most had anticipated it would.  And for this viewer, yet another late Saturday night prior to an early Sunday morning!

Tonight, up in Tamworth, New South Wales [NSW], the annual  Country Music Awards were held – this is an annual event at this time each January, but because of the floods in parts of northern NSW, it had at one stage been feared that the event might have to be cancelled. However, the organisers had no such intention. Reports from the night’s activities at Tamworth, revealed that singer, Kasey Chambers  dominated country music’s night of nights, taking home four Golden Guitars including Female Artist of the Year. She also won Single of the Year and APRA Song of the Year for Little Bird, from her 2010 album of the same name at the awards ceremony on Saturday night. This is song I have already a few times on my radio shows, and after this win tonight, I was determined to do so again tomorrow afternoon.  The song was written about the trouble she had breaking into the industry before she skyrocketed to fame with her hit single Not Pretty Enough from the 2001 album Barricades and Brickwalls. Her fourth award from seven nominations was for Love Like A Hurricane with Kevin Bennett in the Vocal Collaboration of the Year category. The haul puts Chambers’s Golden Guitar total at 12.  ARIA Award-winning country artist Graeme Connors took out the title of Male Artist of the Year for the track A Good Life.  The other big winner of the night was Jimmy Little who joined the ranks of Slim Dusty in winning the Lifetime Achievement Award, his first Golden Guitar after six decades in the business. Admitted to the ARIA Hall of Fame in 1999, Little has more than 30 albums and has been a regular at the Tamworth Country Music Festival since its inception 39 years ago. Little said it was an honour to receive the award ahead of his concert in Tamworth on Sunday, which is likely to be his last. “I have been performing at the Tamworth Country Music Festival for years and to receive this award on the eve of possibly my final live performance here is such a great honour,” he said.

Back to Bill’s ‘world of sport’ briefly. in a match that I didn’t see [because there is no free to air coverage], the Australian ‘Socceroos’ played their quarterfinal Asian Cup match  against the reigning title holders, Iraq,  in the early hours of Sunday morning. I would read the next day that Australian champion soccer player   Harry Kewell’s last-gasp extra-time header fired the Socceroos into the Asian Cup semi-finals, sealing a 1-0 win in a thrilling clash with Iraq at the Al Sadd Stadium in Doha. Kewell struck in the 118th minute with the match looking certain to be decided on penalties after Australia were unable to convert their dominance against a gallant Iraq. The Galatasaray star nodded home a brilliant Matt McKay cross to secure a deserved victory and avenge Australia’s 3-1 loss to Iraq in the group stages of the 2007 tournament.  The Socceroos will now face Uzbekistan in Tuesday’s (Wednesday morning AEDT) semi-final at Khalifa Stadium for a spot in next weekend’s final against either Japan or South Korea. “Qualifying for the semi final is definitely a great achievement,” Socceroos coach Holger Osieck said.  “Looking at the game itself, although it went into extra time during the regular 90 minutes, I think we had more of the game, we played solidly in defence, we had a good structure, we played up, we had good chances.” “… If I am not mistaken Iraq probably only had one great opportunity, the rest came from half chances and I think that we should have done our job in 90 minutes and Iraq came on very strong in extra time.”  Japan face South Korea in Tuesday’s other semi-final after South Korea also prevailed in extra time on their quarter-final, 1-0 over Iran.

Thanks to a work associate, I came recently across an extract from an article written by Albert Ellis, an American psychologist, who in 1955 developed Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), and was considered by many to be the second most influential psychotherapist in history. Ellis had numerous published contributions within the various fields associated with all aspects of psychology and it’s adjuncts, and REBT was just one such ‘creation, which was originally simply called rational therapy –  both a psychotherapeutic system of theory and practices, and a school of thought. I took it home to show Susan, as it seemed to be related to her areas of study over recent years. One area referred to in this REBT was a list of  ‘12 Irrational Ideas That Cause and Sustain Neurosis’, and that formed the basis of the extract that was given to me. Upon reading the contents,  it occurred to me, that rather that simply being a highly technical and medically inspired set of ideas, they were in fact highly practical everyday realistic [if you like] theories of the ways in which we so often think and react to situations that form a part of our daily lives.

For those looking for a definition of neurosis – well, according to our Australian Macquarie Dictionary ‘Neurosis is a relatively mild mental illness in which feelings of anxiety, obsessional thoughts, compulsive acts and physical complaints without objective evidence of disease, in various patterns, dominate the personality. With this kind of definition in mind, here are the ’12 Ideas’ that Ellis considered were a causation factor in sustaining such neurotic states of mind (taken from The Essence of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, by Albert Ellis, Ph.D. Revised, May 1994.)

1. The idea that it is a dire necessity for adults to be loved by significant others for almost everything they do — instead of their concentrating on their own self-respect, on winning approval for practical purposes, and on loving rather than on being loved.

2. The idea that certain acts are awful or wicked, and that people who perform such acts should be severely damned — instead of the idea that certain acts are self-defeating or antisocial, and that people who perform such acts are behaving stupidly, ignorantly, or neurotically, and would be better helped to change. People’s poor behaviours do not make them rotten individuals.

3. The idea that it is horrible when things are not the way we like them to be — instead of the idea that it is too bad, that we would better try to change or control bad conditions so that they become more satisfactory, and, if that is not possible, we had better temporarily accept and gracefully lump their existence.

4. The idea that human misery is invariably externally caused and is forced on us by outside people and events — instead of the idea that neurosis is largely caused by the view that we take of unfortunate conditions.

5. The idea that if something is or may be dangerous or fearsome we should be terribly upset and endlessly obsess about it — instead of the idea that one would better frankly face it and render it non-dangerous and, when that is not possible, accept the inevitable.

6. The idea that it is easier to avoid than to face life difficulties and self-responsibilities — instead of the idea that the so-called easy way is usually much harder in the long run.

7. The idea that we absolutely need something other or stronger or greater than ourself on which to rely — instead of the idea that it is better to take the risks of thinking and acting less dependently.

8. The idea that we should be thoroughly competent, intelligent, and achieving in all possible respects — instead of the idea that we would better do rather than always need to do well and accept ourself as a quite imperfect creature, who has general human limitations and specific fallibilities.

9. The idea that because something once strongly affected our life, it should indefinitely affect it — instead of the idea that we can learn from our past experiences but not be overly-attached to or prejudiced by them.

10. The idea that we must have certain and perfect control over things — instead of the idea that the world is full of probability and chance and that we can still enjoy life despite this

11. The idea that human happiness can be achieved by inertia and inaction — instead of the idea that we tend to  be happiest when we are vitally absorbed in creative pursuits, or when we are devoting ourselves to people or projects outside ourselves.

12. The idea that we have virtually no control over our emotions and that we cannot help feeling disturbed about things — instead of the idea that we have real control over our destructive emotions if we choose to work at changing the musturbatory hypotheses which we often employ to create them.

One simplified breakdown of all of this was illustrated where Ellis talked about the three main irrational beliefs of people, viz:-

1.  “I must be outstandingly competent, or I am worthless.”
2.  “Others must treat me considerately, or they are absolutely rotten.”
3.  “The world should always give me happiness, or I will die.”

Ellis has come to emphasize more and more the importance of what he calls “unconditional self-acceptance.”  He says that, in REBT, no one is damned, no matter how awful their actions, and we should accept ourselves for what we are rather than for what we have achieved.  One approach he mentions is to convince the client of the intrinsic value of him or herself as a human being.  Just being alive provides you with value.   He notes that most theories make a great deal out of self-esteem and ego-strength and similar concepts.  We are naturally evaluating creatures, and that is fine.  But we go from evaluating our traits and our actions to evaluating this vague holistic entity called “self.”  How can we do this?  And what good does it do?  Only harm, he believes.    There are, he says, legitimate reasons for promoting one’s self or ego:  We want to stay alive and be healthy, we want to enjoy life, and so on.  But there are far more ways in which promoting the self or ego does harm, as exemplified by these irrational beliefs:

I am special or I am damned.
I must be loved or cared for.
I must be immortal.
I am either good or bad.
I must prove myself.
I must have everything that I want.

He believes very strongly that self-evaluation leads to depression and repression, and avoidance of change.  The best thing for human health is that we should stop evaluating ourselves altogether!  And so it continues, but I won’t go any further in this ‘forum’ –  I just felt that the main principles behind Ellis’s theories were very interesting, and as I said above, practical or realistic. No doubt there are plenty of experts in the fields of psychology who would probably ‘draw swords’ with the Ellis theories, while I can’t argue on a ‘scientific’ basis, one way or the other – they were simply a set of ideas I felt was worth noting in my ongoing blog or diary of things and events that interest your ‘personal essayist’ from time to time. Comments welcome.

Meanwhile, it’s a warm Friday here, but with yet another change on the way, as the Victorian floods continue to move down stream to more little towns that get in the way of the waters. Over 70 main communities have now been affected, and we should not overlook the hundreds of farming communities and more isolated settlements etc, between the main towns, which are also ‘victims’ of the ongoing flood surge. As someone described it yesterday, the Victorian flood is onlike the tsunami style surges that occurred in parts of south east Queensland last week – but more in the style of a slowly creeping inland sea taking everything before it, but creating the same degree of personal and business havoc, destruction and loss that occurred up north! While in Brisbane today, the inner city suburbs and CBD are again apprehensive at the arrival of a ‘King Tide’ round about midday!! Everyone is very nervous, particularly those areas where last week’s floods have not completely receded or areas where major cleanups are complete or underway!

Australia’s last three singles survivors took to the courts in the continuation of second round  matches of the Australian Open today. Jelena Dokic’s defeat last night  left fifth seed Samantha Stosur and wildcard entrants Alicia Molik and Bernard Tomic to fly the flag for the host nation at Melbourne Park. Molik will meet Russian 13th seed Nadia Petrova, while Tomic is set to take on 31st-seeded Spaniard Feliciano Lopez during the day session. Stosur, who scored a commanding 6-1 6-1 victory over American wildcard recipient Lauren Davis in the first round, meets Russian world No.61 Vera Dushevina in the opening match of the night session on Rod Laver Arena, and I would be planning my evening activities to be sure I saw that game – though perhaps, Sam might have more chance of winning were I ‘not’ watching!!

Anyway, I watched her match this evening regardless, and she won – at last I have an Australian player to keep watching, well at least one more game. In fact there are two – Bernard Tomic won his match in three sets, but unfortunately, Alicia was no match for her opponent. Today’s Australian results saw Samantha Stosur [Aust] defeated Vera Dushevina [Russia] 6/3,6/2;  Bernard Tomic {aust] defeated Feliciano Lopez 7/6,7/6,6/3 and Alicia Molik [Aust] lost to Nadia Petrova [Russia] 6/4,6/1.  After his match, Tomic insisted that he could upstage history-chasing top seed Rafael Nadal [his 3^rd Round opponent] on Saturday night. Despite the fact that no Australian man in almost a decade has defeated a World No. 1. Tomic believes anything is possible.  Mmmmm, not this time I don’t think, Bernard.

A couple of comments from Brisbane relatives today, a kind of sympathetic return for my concerns about the Queensland floods last week. Jill [sister] noted that  ‘sorry to hear and see Victoria in such a mess. Between Australia and overseas, with their floods and landslides, you begin to wonder what the world is coming to’ [that was a reference to the extremely tragic floods and subsequent landslides which have occurred in Brazil over recent days, with quite heavy loss of ,life, and much destruction.  Meanwhile, from my Uncle Merv [with whom, together with his wife, I enjoyed a pleasant lunch in the heart of Brisbane, back in October when I was up there], wrote back in response to my latest enquiry about their welfare – living in the inner Brisbane suburb of St Lucia, he had told me previously  that their home was safe from floodwaters as they were on higher ground. However, St Lucia was one of the Brisbane suburbs heavily hit by last Thursdays inundation of Brisbane, so I had wondered whether his optimism had been misguided?  Merv wrote that “No, we escaped all ill effects from the floods and only had a 4 day blackout [of the power] which was bad enough but absolutely nothing compared to the flood victims’ problems”.  Merv went on to say that “We want to express our regrets for the problems you are all experiencing in Victoria with your flood problems and trust you will receive all the help you need”.

I mentioned a week or so ago, that daughter Susan gave me for Christmas, the two outstanding Wilbur Smith books that I had not read. I finished ‘Warloch’ just before the end of the Christmas/New Year break, and last night before I went off to sleep, completed the second of those novels, ‘The Quest’.  This story was in fact the sequel to Smith’s Egyptian series – consisting of River God, The Seventh Scroll, and Warloch, and basically continued the story of the Warloch named Taita, described as being ‘wise in the lore of the ancient gods and a master of  the magic and the supernatural’.  As I indicated with the earlier novel, while I found that the reading of this novel meant that as usual with a Wilbur Smith novel, it was very difficult to want to put the book down, that aspect of magic and the supernatural was probably the main aspect of the book[s] that I didn’t enjoy as much as other aspects of the storyline. I just felt there was too much ‘magic’.  That all may well be believable for others, but I find it less so, than the normal historical fiction aspect of moist of his novels which don’t rely over much on supernatural forces.  The book was published in April 2007, so on this occasion, I was a little slower than normal in getting hold of the book.

In brief précis form, the main theme of this novel relates to the situation where Egypt  is struck by a series of terrible plagues that cripple the kingdom, and then the ultimate disaster follows. The Nile fails. The waters that nourish and sustain the land dry up. Something catastrophic is taking place in the distant and totally unexplored depths of Africa, from where the mighty river springs. In desperation the Pharoah sends for Taita, the only man who might be able to win through to the source of the Nile and discover the cause of all their woes. None of them can have any idea of what a terrible enemy lies in ambush for the Warlock in those mysterious lands at the end of their world.  Meanwhile, one of the editors [Hazel Orme] at MacMillan publishers had this to say about ‘The Quest’.

‘What a spell-binding, magical (in more ways than one!) story this is! I was swept into Taita’s quest from the first page and onwards through your vividly evoked African landscapes – the papyrus swamps, the tsetse fly belt, the barren landscapes of the Red Stones and, perhaps best of all, the glorious Cloud Gardens that are rotten at the core – to the thrilling confrontation with Eos. “There are many splendid battle scenes that kept me on the edge of my seat, and I was gripped by all that went on in the sanatorium, which seemed, also, to carry a neat comment about the price of today’s medical research. Taita himself is a mesmerizing character and Eos, the witch, his perfect foil – her beauty contrasting sharply with the horrors for which she is responsible. Incomparable storytelling from the master – as ever, your host of readers will be absorbed in and delighted by this novel, as I was.’

Well yes, I was, certainly keen to read the book through to it’s end, but as usual, I found the extent of violence, and the descriptions of man’s inhumanity to man, occasionally quite disturbing – though having now read all of the 30+ novels that Wilbur Smith has written, I should either be used to that aspect of his writing by now, or in fact, stopped reading them!  I’ve done neither!  I am well warned also  –  on the back jacket cover of this novel, that expert writer of violence and the supernatural, Stephen King, writes simply that ‘Wilbur Smith’s swashbuckling novels of Africa – the bodices rip and the blood flows. You can get lost in them and misplaced all of August’. Looking at it in that manner, it seems that I have misplaced the three weeks since Christmas!

I wonder how many more novels this author can produce?  He will be 78 this year!  Well, there is at least one more on the drawing board, in fact it may be very close to being available by the publishers –  called ‘Those In Peril’, due for release in 2011.  I shall enquire.

Meanwhile, last night, I commented to my brother, Robert, over in South Australia with the cyclists, that his photo with Robbie McEwan, was beginning to increase in value [with McEwan the Tour leader after Stage 2].  His brief response to me today noted that he had ‘Met Robbie again last night, as we had drinks with the Radio Shack team [minus Lance Armstrong]. Got a good shot of Cavendish today, trailing the field covered in bandages [he had a bad crash 4km from the finish yesterday].  As for my Rob’s own riding with the touring team he is over there with, he noted that ‘he was going well. ‘Maintaining my status, i.e, the rest of the group want me drug tested!!’   At 62 years old, he is probably the oldest rider in his group, but knowing Rob from his training regime, etc, he would be keeping well up with the rest of them. In the meantime, the real race, the Tour Down Under, completed Stage 3 of the race today, and there was another change in the overall leadership. This featured a King of the Mountain stage and a sprint, over a total distance of 129 kilometres. The winner was Australia’s Michael Mathews, from last year’s Tour leader, Andre Greipel, with Matthew Goss of Australia in 3^rd place. That placing was enough to give Goss back the overall leadership position.

Incidentally, the 20^th January is a significant date – back in 1973, that was the day on which I was married. While that marriage is no longer an issue, one of the many memorable occasions about the wedding, which was held down in Ballarat [a city notoriously referred to as the coldest place in Australia – totally wrong of course] where the temperatures that Saturday afternoon were in excess of 100 degrees Fahrenheit, probably closer to 40C, and those conditions were accentuated by the fact that the reception centre [a building in the middle of Lydiard Street, Ballarat, close to the Art Gallery from memory] had no proper air conditioning in those days! I do recall a bit of a ‘dispute’ between one or two guests and the staff of the establishment over whether the curtains in the place should remain shut, or be opened [to let in some air] – that ‘debate’ involving curtains being opened, then shut consecutively, went on for some minutes. I actually can’t recall which ‘side’ got the upper hand in the end.  Merv [referred to above] together with wife Margaret and two of their four sons drove over from Whyalla, in South Australia for that wedding – I recall the boys arriving at the church in shorts and thongs!! Again, I can’t recall if they came to the reception, but I believe Merv may have been one of the ‘combatants’ in the curtain saga, along with Shirley’s father, Louis, who had earlier in the proceedings had an argument regarding the time taken for photographs – I think our wedding guests might have justifiably become a bit peeved at the time they’d had to wait between the church service and the beginning of the reception, understandable in view of the climate of the day. Did we go up to the Botanic Gardens for those photos?   My memory seems to be deteriorating on many aspects of certain occasions.



The relations [on my wife’s side] who are currently affected by the floods in northern Victoria, are apparently not doing too bad, despite the dramatic affects on many families and businesses. The farm, south of Kerang [which town by tonight was completely cut off and surrounded by water, with all exit/entry roads closed] was pretty wet, with a lot of water on the property. However, Barry had managed to find a slightly higher piece of land to which he had moved his livestock too, while he engaged in a fair amount of drainage and digging works, as he attempted to keep the water away, from presumably the house, and other important features of the property. Meanwhile, his nursing wife, Lois,  was ‘stranded’ in the town of Boort, while his son, was further up the water line in Swan Hill, which hasn’t yet been largely affected by the flood waters. Interestingly, much of the northern/central districts and towns that have been the worst affected by Victoria’s floods, are where the Kirk ancestors established their homes, and coach building businesses in the latter part of the 1800’s, and having visited them all at different times, I am broadly familiar with them.  It is very flat country for the most part, another reason why these places are so susceptible when ‘too much’ water suddenly makes an appearance!  Overall, as of late tonight, there are 62 towns in Victoria which have suffered in some form or other, from  the current flood crisis, covering much of the north central and western regions of the State.

I had to take my lawnmower in for a service today – a bit annoyed to be told it might be a week or two before I could have it back!!  My lawns were already in need of some attention, and I always feel a little guilty when any aspect of the front of my property is looking untidy. Normally, by the middle of January, there would be much in the way of lawn growth to be concerned about, but with our unseasonally wet  summer, growth has been quite persistent!!!

Now from Stage 2 of the Tour Down Under  –  today’s race of 146 kms, between Tailem Bend and Mannum in South Australia, was marred by some bad crashes near the end of the stage, which saw, amongst other riders, the English champion, Mark Cavendish virtually relegated to the rear of the field, overall, and also led to the loss of the lead to yesterday’s winner, Matt Goss. Australian cycling legend, Robbie McEwan now leads the Santos Down Under after finishing second today.  Stage 2 result was – 1. Ben Swift. 2. Robbie McEwan. 3. Graeme Brown. Lance Armstrong came in 42^nd, and Stuart O’Grady, in 49^th position. McEwan and O’Grady were the two cyclists that my brother brother, scored photographs with on Sunday night, and certainly in respect to McEwan, that photo is growing in value and prestige, as each day goes past.  As mentioned, Robbie McEwan now wears the Leader’s Jersey, followed by Mathew Goss and Ben Swift. O’Grady is 33^rd, Lance Armstrong, 60^th and Mark Cavendish 130^th of the remaining 133 competitors.

Meanwhile, my jinxing of our Australian tennis players continues! Every time I make a point of sitting down to watch one of our Australian players compete in the Australian Open Tennis Championships, they seem to manage to lose! Tonight was no exception.  My favourite Aussie ‘import’ player, was on centre court in a Round 2 match. The following description explains the outcome.  Australian Jelena Dokic’s attempt to again use the Australian Open to regenerate her career fell flat as she tumbled to a straight sets defeat to Czech Barbora Zahlavova Strycova on Wednesday night. The unseeded Zahlavova Strycova won the second round clash 7-6 (7-3) 6-1, to set up a third round meeting with China’s Li Na, a semi-finalist in Melbourne last year.  Dokic, whose ranking has slumped to No.137, played the sort of tennis in the first set that provided hope she might again defy that lowly status, as she did two years ago, with a surprise run to the quarter-finals. But, after the Czech world No.63 took a see-sawing first set in a tiebreaker, she raced away with the second, completing it in just 24 minutes to ensure there would be no fairytale for the Australian wildcard entrant this time.  It was a bit of a disappointing slump in the second half of the game, though I must admit, I would have been surprised if she had won, in view of her poor form over recent months.  I think Jelena was the only Australian to play in a Singles game today.

Feeling a little frustrated at present. The Taxation Office has asked me to confirm some figures that I’d included [or actually, not included, they claim] on a tax return of 2 years ago. I believe I have done all that was required at the time, however I’m having trouble finding the paperwork that relates to the year in question!! Have all material for years preceding, and last year, but can’t find my copy of the period queried.  Is really annoying, as I am generally very precise in keeping and maintaining records of that sort!!  A hasty search tonight did not reveal what I was looking for – looks like time this weekend is going to have to be allocated to a thorough search!  Other things I would rather be doing!