Seventy Years On.

I ’m only 163 centimetres tall, so I can’t even claim to be a big kid. Sixty years ago, my Dad took me to the London Motor Show. I saw my first Lotus, and swore to own one, when I was a grown up. What do I drive today? A Lotus. My 5th

I also dreamt of being the next Stirling Moss. I wasn’t. But I do have a trophy cabinet with about sixty trophies in it. I gave it shot! Some years ago when over in Australia on a visit, my mother remarked to a group of my friends. “The only thing that surprises me about my son, is that he is still alive.” When in the UK visiting her. I announced my intention to go to Covent Garden the following day. Mother claimed this was not possible due to the then current terrorist activities in London. I told her. “The day they stop me doing what I want, when I want to do it, they have won. But it’s not today.”

Life has had it’s battles, alcoholism, bankruptcy, cancer. The toughest was alcohol. Bankruptcy? Planning and discipline got me back from that. Cancer? Well that wasn’t even a fair fight. I was always going to win that one. And though I haven’t yet. It’s only a matter of time. I mean what do you do when diagnosed with cancer. Why, you make a come back to motor sport of course. I thought everybody knew that. To actually win after a thirty year absence from the track. That might be special.

I’ve taken the odds to everything in life. But not the Corona Virus. That’s not just my odds. That's everyone around me, loved ones and friends. I’ve lost too many friends. It doesn’t seem fair somehow. I took all the risks, and I’m still here. Dad, Carol, Terry, Silly John, all lost to cancer. Never took risks, but gone. My Dad died at 53.

So what’s next for Roger? Well Europe seems out for a while yet. So a bit more motor sport. After all I’m only 70. So that’s 2021 taken care of. Followed in 2022. By a tour of all the European iconic Opera Houses. La Scala to St Petersburg!

What a life! How fortunate I am to have lived it. I’m not a victim of anything. Rather a victor of everything!

What I Have Learnt in Lockdown.

I have learnt many wondrous things in lockdown. Some I already knew, Just needed a reminder. Others confirmed I was right in the first place. Then there are those I knew, but but didn’t need to be reminded of.

Take television. Growing up in post war London, we didn’t have a television. Later we did get one. It was big, only the screen was small. Black and white, and only one channel. The BBC, British Broadcasting Company. I soon developed the view, that if your sole topic of conversation was either the weather, the British weather at that. Or last night’s television! You were best off to shut up! In the course of our recent lockdown I have sadly watched a little more TV than normal. Education is a wonderful thing. I have learnt which is the first item of clothing a woman removes on arriving home. In my almost seventy years, I have never witnessed this. I’ve known a few women in my life. Been fortunate to witness a number undress. I may even have helped on occasion. But never have I seen the bra come off first!

Now I know a lady. She claims it is possible to remove the bra via a sleeve. Thus far she has declined my invitation to demonstrate. Leaving me to ponder the validity of her claim. Or the television add.

Other revelations! Sport is not important. You may be saddened to miss your favourite tennis tournament, football match. Or in my case motor race. But it’s not important. It’s the television rights that are important. Ways must be found to circumvent boarder restrictions, so the games can go on! There’s no one in the stands. No one to cheer. Just an empty venue, save for the cameraman. Foxtel must prevail. Well why not it does over our government.

In the late 80’s I was busy studying and writing papers on supervision and motivation of the remote workforce. Telecommuting was coming, but we had to wait almost forty years and a pandemic to see it eventuate. Do you know what FTN is? It’s fibre to the node. Another brilliant assassination of a poorly implemented piece of infrastructure. It was never a good idea, but it took a pandemic for the government to realise it. Anyone from IT saw this one coming a decade back. Similarly, I have waited 40 years fore the paperless office. The cashless society. Covid 19 has taken us closer in 5 months than the last 5 decades!

Tis the season to renovate. When it all started I bashed the plastic at Bunnings. Stoked up with all the materials for next few projects. The Pagola wasn't scheduled to be finished before June. That was completed in March. New trellis, new gate. New security. Including a smart lock on the front door. Now I don’t need to take keys with me when I go out. It even talks to me when I get back.The headboard, the seamless door frame. The bedroom is complete! Now I’m out of stuff to do. This is when you start getting silly and working through the software that will enable to lock or unlock your front door from Istanbul! To say nothing of the 15 IP address I now have in my house.

Or you start trying to configure a computer just to play your old Tomb Raider games. Then there are all those annoying little things that never worked properly. But you had learnt to live with. This is the time to fix them all. I’ve run out of them too.

At the height of the lockdpwn I realised as a retired racing driver. The most dangerous thing I was doing, was going down to the shops for a fresh loaf of bread. Answer, buy a bread maker. I soon figured I could do better myself and started baking it myself. Sold the bread-maker, but continued baking.

We also learnt that the most important purchase in our weekly shopping is bog roll. Nowhere in any news bulletin, from any news agency anywhere in the world, did I ever hear mention of Covid 19 ever causing diarrhoea! Yet toilet paper disappeared overnight off every single supermarket shelf in every village, town, city or capital throughout the world. WHY! People were fighting over it in the isles. And this was all while they were still publishing the local newspaper. Where was the panic?

Of the superannuation withdrawals you ask? Figures suggest that 64 per cent of it has gone on discretionary items such as clothing, furniture, restaurant food, gambling and alcohol. Rather than essentials like survival. In a world where toilet paper has become the number one priority. One is left to ponder where ours went wrong.

Isolation

Isolation

Isolation? How tough is it, if you've lost your job, it’s tough, and probably worse to come. My heart goes out to you.

For a writer, photographer, a racing driver. All things you do on your own. Add to that, I’ve always been something of a loner, it’s OK. A few adjustments. There’s no motor racing, so that’s out. There’s no travel, so no Opera House tour of Europe. That wasn’t on this year’s agenda anyway. All of which means less expenditure. So this has become the year of the house.

I’ve done damage to the credit card at Bunnings. Stocking up on materials for the next few projects. Look at it this way, I’m doing my bit to keep the economy ticking over. So I’m reading researching, writing, editing, and home projects.

The big question is. “Do I need to go out.” The only thing I regularly run out of is fresh bread. Answer, buy a breadmaker. Now I have 12 kilos of bread flour and way too much yeast. I shan’t need to buy bread for a few months! Of other household items? Well I’ve always made it a practice to have an “Unbroken” pack of all things I regularly consume. Soap, toothpaste, bleach, tea, rice, tinned stuff. I use long life milk to make yoghurt so I have plenty of that. About 2 dozen eggs. The irony is, there is no shortage of fresh food. Toilet paper you ask? Well I have two toilets, so I always keep an unbroken pack upstairs, and another one downstairs.

I have a medical appointment next week, so I’ll have to go out for that. Sadly I don’t have enough melon to last me until then. (Rock melon please). I’m using less fuel, and the dishwasher well that looks like being about every 8 days, without visitors.

My take? The next time you complain about what they are teaching our kids at school, look back at yourself. It wasn’t our kids who bought all the toilet paper!

Lotus. For those who know the difference.

Eric Abetz

Eric Abetz 

I’ve always held the view, that if you don’t think you are going to like the answer, think twice before asking the question. Not our Eric, why oh why, if you were a sane moderately intelligent Liberal, would allow Abetz on a committee? Where could you find a more stupid person, a greater liability to your cause? 

Workers are overpaid, dole recipients overpaid, politicians, apparently not. Opposed to same sex marriage, wants to beef up Religious protection laws. Oh and let's just get this question right, it may go down in history! “No ineligible project or application was funded.” Of all the inept questions we have heard from politicians over the years, that one is way up there on the list, what an absolute effing idiot. And so are we, we’re paying his wages.

Bridget Mckenzie

Come on, how stupid do you think we look. That’s right, us the voter.

Do you seriously expect us to believe that no one else knew. That Bridget Mckenzie, disappeared to her office and conjured up this wonderful plan to appropriate Sports Grants to favoured marginal electorates. Or is a staff member about to take the fall, and it was all done in secret. Come on, what do you take us for. That may be the most insulting thing of all, treating the voters like idiots.

Angus Taylor

Angus Taylor

There can be few bigger wastes of space in Canberra than Angus Taylor. 14.2 million on domestic travel! How believable is that, yet he makes the accusation in Federal Parliament, apparently without even checking the accuracy of his information. Please note this is the Minister for Energy and Emission Reductions ! The behavior of Angus Taylor is so inept, so steeped in stupidity, he should be frog-marched out of Parliament. People that stupid should not be permitted in the chamber.

14.2 Million, when the real figure was $229,000. Did he not expect that someone might not pick up an almost 14 million discrepancy, how can anyone be that stupid.

Currently as Australia burns, Mr Taylor has found a convention fire shelter in which to hibernate, Scott Morrison is rumored to be holding the key. This guy’s Ministerial title includes “Emission Reductions”

Liar, Liar, Pants on fire. But seriously what does it take to get the richly deserved sack!

Josh Friedheadburg

Next time you see Josh Friedheadburg smugly claim a budget back in the black, remember two things, first, it’s not! Second, spare a thought for the disabled he stole it from. The Federal Government, of which Friedheadburg is the Treasurer, has underspent the NDIS Budget by a whopping $4.6 Billion!

So next time you see someone in a wheelchair, struggling with a curb or a step, the next time you hear of a parent struggling to care for a disabled child, or how long the wait actually is for funding.

The NDIS will tell you it’s ten to twelve days, reality tells you it’s anything up to 9 months. That’s another substantial saving to the budget, but who’s paying for it. People in wheelchairs, the disabled who are housebound, those with mental health issues, who’s lives are made worse by an inhumane drive for a balanced budget.

So the next time Josh smugly claims a balanced budget, remember who paid for it!

But then spare a thought for the NSW resident, who needs to travel for the relevant specialist attention. IPTAAS, “Isolated Patients Travel and Accommodation Assistance Scheme. Who have just stopped paying the GST content of a claim. Once again leaving the patient out of pocket, another budget saving from the sick! Thanks Dominic Perrottet.

Remember also, Vicenzo Peruggia, famous for stealing the Mona Lisa. An honest thief, who went to jail for his crime.

The Isolation of ill Health

In a country with a population of twenty-five million, and a landmass of 7.692 million Square Kilometres it’s simply not feasible either economically or logistically to sustain major health facilities, duplicated in every town, city, and state. 

It would make sense to specialise say in Cardiac at Port Macqurie, maybe Neurosurgery in Coffs, Orthopaedic, say Armidale, and so on. You can’t hope to duplicate those services everywhere. 

Yes there is travel involved both for patients and families, what you need to make it work is transportation, and that's what we don’t have. I have Just returned from a stay at the Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney. The spinal unit, so unsurprisingly, my back is not good. Normally when travelling to Sydney I’ll take the overnight train, and wake up in Sydney. Why it should take best part of nine hours to travel 525 kilometres on a train in 2019, or why you can drive it three hours faster, is anyone's guess, but that’s on a good day. On a bad day, like last time, well there’s no overnight train, so day time only, due I’m told to deplenishing rolling stock, another surprise. The XPT (Express Passenger Train) ha, ha, has been running since 1982, it's almost forty years old, it's a museum piece, and it looks like it. So daytime only, that won’t get me into Sydney, in time, so I have to go a day early. So I need an additional night’s accommodation, more expense. But this just keeps getting better, the train is over an hour late into Sawtell, it’s only come from Grafton! More than two hours late into Sydney. I had arranged accommodation at the Patient / Carers facility at Royal North Shore, all closed up and secure well before the train's arrival in Sydney, never mind the cross harbour trek and walk from St Leonards Station. So I need to arouse security at the main entrance who let me in, thank you. The accommodation was great, everything you need, quiet and comfortable. 

First appointment is for an EOS scan, a scanner that keeps you vertical, it looks like a transported from Star Trek, probably with disappointment I exited still in the same place! Not available in Coffs Harbour, it takes less than five minutes. The nearest one to Coffs is Newcastle, or Brisbane. 

 Next appointment, the surgeon, not much happens other than impressing on me how much I don’t want surgery! Next appointment January, 2020. “What about the pain I ask?” Pain killers comes the answer. What is it with the medical profession these days, let's just treat the symptom! Pain is a symptom, what about treating the cause? 

 And so to the journey home. The eleven o’clock morning train out of Central will do nicely. But no, currently it’s a coach, my spine cannot endure coaches, been there done that. The alternative is the seven o’clock, which means I have to be up at 5.30am, dressed, walk to St Leonards, catch the train to Central and catch it, which I do. I cannot tell you how discussing the food is, but imagine having to chew on a croissant and that’s the good news. And so back home, the obligatory over one hour late. Then the nightmare obstacle course to file the IPTAS claim, I swear they do it deliberately, so the punters will give up and go away. And I get to do it all again next January! (if there is a train at all)

Compliant, or Complicit?

Compliant, or Complicit?

From the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare:

Older people make up a considerable proportion of Australia’s population—in 2017, over 1 in 7 people were aged 65 and over.

An interesting statistic, but is it of any use when we sit silently by impersonating compliant voters. Should we not be taking our concerns to our elected members of parliament. Is this what we worked all our lives for, to be tossed aside, rendered homeless by rising property prices, fuelled by the wealthy?

Did we compliantly pay our taxes, so the government could favour balancing the budget over the care of the disabled, simply because it’s politically expedient?

How many of us actually know the identity of the Australian Tax Office whistleblower? What did he disclose, and do we as taxpayers have the right to know, again we keep our silence just like the compliant citizens we have become.

The Afghanistan whistleblower. War is a terrible thing, killing another human being is inhuman in itself, we need to fully understand the consequences of war, and trauma faced by those sent to fight it. It’s in the public interest to know these details, unsavoury as they might be, yet the man bringing it to our attention now faces the Supreme Court, charged with five offences including theft, unlawfully giving information under the Defence Act, and disclosing information under the Commonwealth Crimes Act. This case led to an Australian Federal Police raid on the ABC's headquarters in Sydney earlier this year, which is now the subject of separate Federal Court action.

Just where did we allow “Public Interest” to be replaced by “Political interest?” What laws are our Federal Departments operating under, and whose interests are they protecting?”

Our have we become so compliant, we are now ourselves complicit? 

Riots 2019

It’s a sobering thought, from Fascism to Communism, Racism to multiculturalism, Capitalism to Socialism, everyone’s a critic.

Right now, in these cities, London, Paris, Berlin, Hong Kong, and Moscow, they’re rioting against authority, or is that Authoritarianism? In all my 69 years I cannot remember another period in history, when the world has stood against it’s governors quite so globally as today.

In London, it’s “You’re not listening to me. In Paris, “Vous n’ecoutez pas.” In Germany, “ Du horst nicht zu.” And so on. The language may change, but the meaning remains the same. Governments and our elected politicians believe they are autonomous, answerable only to themselves.

Alarmingly, here in Australia, we voted back in a government we already knew wasn’t listening to us. It seems world wide our governments are no longer answerable to us, those that voted them into office. In fact it seems it is us that answers to them. Even more alarmingly, we are dissuaded from questioning our elected politicians, news rooms raided, journalists homes raided, why? Revealing the truth. Did we, Australia, really bug the offices of the East Timorese government? If that happened, and it seems it did, do we not have the right to know? I recall a car dealer being jailed for much the same offence. Why should politicians be different?

If laws have been broken, by our Bankers, our armed forces, and yes even our elected politicians, then we have the right to know, and to make our own judgement, when choosing a bank or going to the polls.

Journalism is the corner stone of our democracy, or what remains of it. If an employee of a company behaves dishonestly he, and the company are, or should be, held to account.

We need the media to keep us informed, so we can make informed judgment. Stand up, the freedom our parents and grandparents fought for, is being eroded, by the very governments we elect. Have your say while you still can.