On Death And Ageing.. A Serious Post

In a few months, I'll turn 70. I never thought, or even hoped I'd make it this far, given the events in my life. Recently, I've been reflecting on this. I've noticed that most of my heroes have passed on. Great sportsmen and women, a few politicians, wonderful actors and, most of all dear and valued friends.

At work, I often bore my colleagues with, what I believe to be, funny and wonderful stories about times spent with my, very eclectic, group of friends and acquaintances. I enjoy telling these stories but, upon reflection, I realise these wonderful people are no longer here. I am richer for their being but much poorer for their loss.

Sometimes, it seems like I'm the last man standing. This is a seriously lousy feeling and, at times, I feel like I don't want to carry on.

Fortunately I still have a wonderful shining light in my life. Her name is Kim. She is my wife. Her beauty, honesty and love keep me going, give me the will to create new things and appreciate the good things surrounding me.

So, to my departed heroes, friends and acquaintances I say "Vale" and look forward to new adventures and new friends,

The almighty "Mystery Bag"

In Australia, many retailers choose to support worthwhile charities by providing facilities for those charities, clubs and associations in the form of a "Sausage Sizzle" in an effort to raise funds. This facility is not charged for.  Ten points awarded and hats off to those retailers for a great community service. Also, ten points to those who who use that facility to raise funds.

The product served is a "sausage", served on a slice of cheap, white bread, topped with some kind of sauce and/or onions.

This gourmet delight is known by a number of names, such as "sausage on bread" (how original), " sausage sandwich", "sausage sanga" and others. I prefer the name "Mystery Bag".
"Why Mystery Bag?" you may well ask.

Have you ever been to a supermarket and checked the ingredients on a a pack of sausages? There are generally some poor off cuts of meat and offal, cereal and a shitload of chemicals to stop it rotting. Charities will generally buy the cheapest sausages possible, in order to raise maximum funds, hence a plethora of chemicals.

That's why I call it a "Mystery Bag". You have no idea what the hell you are eating!

Having said all that, I wish you bon appetit with your next Mystery Bag.

Aussie Women March Against Trump

Harpies Bazaar in Melbourne

WTF!

Australian women around the country rallied and marched against President Trump's Inauguration. Why?
He's not our president. We didn't elect him. And, for all we know, he is no better or worse than any previous President, re his alleged locker room statements on women. We do know, however, that he has been vilified by the American press and, so called, celebrities.

As for the "locker room" comments, how many of the protesting women have never said rotten things about their husbands, boyfriends, bosses or other men to their circle of friends or acquaintances? Whether they meant it or not, they've ALL said something evil at sometime or another. If that is the case, surely the protesters are, at best, hypocrites or, at worst, evil, mean spirited busy bodies interfering in something that is none of their business.

A personal note to all those protesters. It seems to me that since you have no bras left to burn, you've turned into judgemental harpies. Let it go! Perhaps your outrage and indignation toward politicians should be turned towards our own inept mob.

The Good And Bad Of 2016

In fact, 2016 was a REALLY CRAPPY YEAR! I'll briefly recap on some of the crappy things that happened.
  Lots of famous people died. I actually felt quite sad about some of them passing. The most sobering (yep, strange is it may seem, I'm sober at the moment) thing about many of those who died is that they were around my age. I go to bed each night in trepidation.
  The fiasco in Syria continues, largely due to interference from Russia and the USA, who are using the tragedy as a show of power. We all know that's never going to stop anytime soon.
  Terrorism is spreading in Europe. They brought that on themselves with their open border policies. A quick note to Angela Merkel. Try and survive that one, baby!
  In Australia, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is becoming more unpopular weekly. He has no control over the senate and is hanging on by his fingernails in a vain bid to be Australia's first President. A quick note to Tony Abbott, who Turnbull cowardly knifed in the back to get his job. In 2017, you need to show Turnbull that paybacks are a bitch and bury the bastard politically.
  Another major tragedy was that the Brisbane Broncos didn't win the NRL premiership. If you don't know what I'm referring to, Google it.
 
Now for the good things that happened in 2016......
Bugger! I can't think of any.

Happy 2017.

A magic Xmas

It was just one of those years. My lovely child bride had to go back to Vietnam for family reasons, leaving me alone for Xmas and New Year.

This may sound sad to many of you and in some ways it was. For five weeks I had to cook for myself, clean the house and water her ladyship's flowers and garden. In addition, I had to wash my clothes. I got quite inventive with that. I found that if I turned my under ware inside out, I could get two days out of them before washing. I was even more inventive with socks. I discovered that on day two I could put them on opposite feet to the previous day. Then, on day three I could turn them inside out, and on day four I could reverse the feet thing again. How good is that! Four days out of a pair of socks! Think of the water and washing powder I saved. I might tell my wife to keep doing that, so we can save money and go to MacDonalds once a year on the savings. Bloody genius!

As for cooking, I have become a connoisseur of $5 supermarket pizzas, $8 roast chickens and potato chips. Once again, I'm proud of the savings in food costs.

Now, as for Xmas. I saved money again. No decorations, no presents, no loud, boring friends and family. Absolutely perfect!

As you may have noticed, I made a fairly strong point about the savings.This was all to the good. Those wonderful savings allowed me spend Xmas with a rather copious supply of very good single malt Scotch whiskey, excellent Australian shiraz and ice cold Heineken beer. I used those to wash down a sumptuous Xmas dinner of pizza, ham and chicken while watching the new James Bond movie, Spectre. From what little I can remember, it wan't a bad movie.

Sadly, I had to work the next day. As I was grumpily going about my work with the worlds worst headache and eyes that resembled a pair of vultures arseholes in a power dive, I received zero sympathy from my co-workers. I was quite irked by this, until I realised the they were suffering too. I then thought to myself, "Who cares?", because there was no way they felt worse than me.

All in all, it was a wonderful Xmas. Thank God my wife will be here to rescue me next year.

Presidents Putin and Trump at their first Moscow meeting

First Meeting

"Will you agree to help build the Mexican wall?"

"Da."

"Can I count on you to help us screw the Chinese?"

 "Da!"

"Great! And can we count on you to help us relocate

all our illegal Mexicans to Syria?"

"Da!!"

"Wonderful! Can the USA count on you not to bomb the shit out of

us, until after my Presidency?"

"DA!!! I'm sorry, I wasn't listening. I've been calling my father to bring us some tea.

The silly old bugger is almost deaf. Can we start again?" 

Cooking Roadkill

Sadly, in Australia, the sight of dead birds and animals killed by cars on the road is a common sight. These are commonly known as road kill.

Some people are known to collect fresh road kill to cook for food. While I can, kind of, understand this, it's not something that I could bring myself to do, particularly in light of my ownership of a beautiful Roseate Cockatoo (Galah).

Cockatoos are renown to have very tough flesh and are considered to be unfit for human consumption. I'm not sure about this, as I recall a recipe that my Grandfather told me about how to cook a cockatoo. It goes like this.

1. Collect your dead cockatoo from the side of the road.
2. Pluck it and remove its guts.
3. Place a large rock in a pan full of water and bring to the boil.
4. When the water is boiling, add the cockatoo.
5. When the rock is soft, throw out the cockatoo and eat the rock.

Bon Appetit.