In Your Own Write!...

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G'day mate... how are ya!?

English must be such a confusing language for ‘LOTE’ speakers, right?? (LOTE=Language Other Than English!)

Years ago I lived & worked in Spain. While not ‘perfect’ my Spanish is still ok - 'después de una copa o tres de vino tinto!!! (esp. after a glass or three of ‘red wine!)

But English???... Let’s talk about the ‘C’ word!... well, the way the letter C is said in combo with a second letter.

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What?... I Missed that???

I’ll be honest up-front… I have a VERY short attention span when it comes to speeches. Unless they grab me in the first 30 seconds or so, I’m outta there… mentally anyway! Boring monotone voices are the worst for me.

As a kid I developed a keen sense of listening to the radio. Mostly radio plays and the latest rock ‘n roll music taking the world by storm. Then later listening to far away voices via the short-wave radio (with all its whistles, crackle and pop)

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Life, Love, Laughter!

Google the phrase ’what is happiness’ and you’ll find a range of interpretations.

Princeton University in the US say’s happiness is “a state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy”

I personally quite like this one - Abraham Lincoln is quoted as saying “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

Other interesting quotes are;

The purpose of our lives is to be happy. The 14th Dalai Lama 

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Trolls... Just Ignore Them!

(Singing)… “You’re the voice try and understand it… Make it loud and make it clear… Whoooaaa…” A great song by Aussie legend John Farnham, right? Since the release of this song in 1985 — pre-internet, which basically started in 1989 — many people have taken the idea of ‘free speech’ to another level. Especially online!

It’s one thing to be able to say what you think or what you feel, it’s another to put people down with derogatory comments, especially online and especially on places like Facebook, Instagram and (sigh) ex United States’ president Donald Trump’s favourite public platform, Twitter from where he was banned in 2021 due to “inciting violence via his tweets”!

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Life, Love, Laughter!

I was reading a story recently (ABC-News) about ‘Hermettes’ – a ‘secret society’ of women celebrating female ‘aloneness’. Basically, it’s a play on the word ‘hermit’ and it got me thinking, how many people - myself included – quite like our own company from time to time… (with the obvious exception of being side-by-side with my darling KB of course!! )😊

As it happens I have a few friends who think pretty much the same way… you know who you are eh Mr Grumpy!?!

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10c A Bottle? Pays The Bills

Times are obviously very tough when you see people ‘dumper diving’ for bottles, cans and other items that can give them 10cents a pop & more!

Just starting out on my daily walk, I came across a bloke – probably in his early 30’s – going through the bins outside where we are staying in Hervey Bay QLD. I’d seen him elsewhere a few times before doing the same thing on the ‘day before garbage’ collection here.

So I stopped and asked … “you look pretty busy… is it worth going through all that stuff for a few cents a bottle?”

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Computers- Love 'Em or Hate 'Em!

The modern computer is a wonderful piece of equipment isn’t it?... It can perform literally millions of tasks, with more being added all the time as fresh programs are written and larger and larger memories can be built into smaller and smaller machines.

Very few homes or offices can run efficiently without them these days, they help with the family budget, they assist in the design of new products, and they make a novelist’s effort much simpler than in the days of say, Charles Dickens, who wrote all of his fine literature with a pen and ink, on pieces of paper!

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Don't Worry... Be Happy!

Maybe.  Certainly ‘H’ featured prominently in the life of my much-loved and now sadly recently departed father-in-law Jack.

During the many celebrations for his 90th Birthday I’d asked him… “what’s your secret to a long and happy life?” – he said simply…  “I don’t worry!”

Sounds easy right?... Three little words… I - DON’T - WORRY!
And it got me thinking that there has to be a bit more to it than just those words.   After all, how do you ‘not worry’?

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Enjoying the cooler weather?

We’re suffering a quite severe cold spell at the moment, down in deepest, darkest Gippsland (VIC), it’s a bloody freezing 5ºC as I write, (this is supposed to be an example of global warming?), and my “studio”, where I keep my computer and painting equipment, isn’t the most comfortable place to be, but I have to work somewhere and my computer is too cumbersome to move.

But sitting here, complaining to myself because there’s no one else to listen at the moment, the so-called freezing temperature made me think back to when I was a kid, living in the city of Bristol in England.

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Which Ones Are Better??

Everywhere you go, round the coastline of Great Britain you will find beaches.

Beaches which can seem as different from one another, as a lush green English field and the Sahara Desert.

They can be composed of sand, in a whole range of colours, from near white to near black, many having been coloured by man himself and his pollution, from oil, coal and other industrial waste.

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So What Is 'News' Really?

Remember that old song from the Hedgehoppers in 1965?….

It's good news week

Someone's dropped a bomb somewhere
Contaminating atmosphere
And blackening the sky..

Not old enough to remember the song? No problems - it was a protest song commenting on the media's obsession with bad news! (full lyrics below) - 
Well it seems not a lot has changed in almost 60 years has it!

WAR - COVID – MURDERS – SEXUAL ASSAULTS – DEFAMATION CASES and more!...

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