Blog Day 38: Thursday 30 April 2020 Another Thursday when I would usually be donning my Shrine blazer and heading off to do my duty which often translates to doing battle with a bunch of surly year nine students or alternatively having fun with a group of grade five kids. Its funny how you miss these things. I complained yesterday of nothing happening in the dark and dangerous streets of Bentleigh East, well what a difference a day makes. As I headed out on today's walk I noticed a police highway patrol vehicle parked in the nearly empty pub car park with lights flashing parked next to a vehicle with its bonnet raised and two officers discussing the events of the day with an uncomfortable looking miscreant (ULM). About half an hour later on my return journey the same coppers and cop car were there but now there was a flat bed tow truck there as well, apparently preparing to take away the ULM's motor vehicle. Said ULM was unloading what appeared to be all o...
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Blog Day 37: Wednesday 29 April 2020 Does this headline refer to a sometime correspondent to this blog and if so is he keeping 'mum' about his good fortune? The headline below refers to an unnamed male who recently purchased a tattslotto ticket in Narre Warren. "Man $23m richer after first overseas trip cancelled" I was pleased to see that the photos in yesterday's blog generated some interest and comments although I am not sure that being compared to a crispy pork knuckle is a compliment or not, although I dare say that there are worse things to be compared to. I see that over the last 24 hours there were 4 deaths in a NSW nursing home taking the total number of deaths in that nursing home to 11. Just when you think that this thing is under control it bounces back. My sister in Burnie has told me that the outbreak in Burnie causing the closure of two hospitals and the isolation of about 5,000 people was caused by one person returning from...
Blog Day 36: Tuesday 28 April 2020 You know that I am battling for content for the blog when I resort to another in the occasional series of "What's in the pantry Graeme"? Quite seriously this is a product that I use often. It is vacuum packed and has a decent shelf life if stored in the fridge. Each knuckle weighs about a kilo and I get 1 hot meal and a couple of cold lunches out of it. If wiped with some oil and salt and bunged in a very hot oven I even get crackling. Delicious with apple sauce, sauerkraut and vegies and maybe a flinty reisling. Highly recommended and available from Woolies for about $10 for a kilo pack. I have been under some pressure to provide some photos from my youth which I have vigorously resisted. However to appease some people and to take up some space I will post one photo of a youthful Graeme and that will be it. First and last time that I wore a dress! That's it and no further c...
Blog Day 35: Monday 27 April 2020 I have signed up for the virus tracker app today, very simple and straightforward. I was a little surprised to shortly after receive an email from the Government telling me that my ankle bracelet will be sent to me in the mail. Apparently once I put that on I don't have to worry about carrying my phone around with me all the time, and if I wander too far away from home it will give me a little electric shock, great idea I reckon. Below is an updated spreadsheet. The last two columns, 'Deaths Increase No' & 'Deaths Increase %' are the increases from the previous week (20/4/2020). Corona Virus International Stats as at 27/04/2020 Country Population Infected No Infected % Deaths No Deaths % Deaths Increase No Deaths Increase % Australia 25,000,000 6,716 0.0269 83 0.00033 12 17 New...
Blog Day 34: Sunday 26 April 2020 Can you believe that this is day 34 of the blog and it is as amusing and informative as it was on day 1. Graeme, how do you do it I hear you all say. Well, its a gift and I must admit to being inspired by the thought that I am bringing a little sunshine into your corona virus blighted lives (and helping to keep me sane in the meantime). Anzac day this year was certainly a lot different than Anzac day last year. Some of you may recall that last year I was in the small Belgian city of Ypres (Ieper) for Anzac day. Ypres was one of the crucial cities fought over on the western front during TGW. Four major battles were fought around Ypres with the battle in 1917 known as 3rd Ypres involving every Australian battalion in the AIF. One of the major battles in 1917 involving the Australians was the battle of Polygon wood, in which all sides suffered significant casualties. The dawn service I attended last year wa...
Blog Day 33: Saturday 25 April 2020 - Anzac Day I know that you are all eagerly waiting on the results of last night's zoom trivia. Well, after 5 rounds of very excellent questions composed by and asked by yours truly the Mexicans gave the FNQers a good thrashing by two points with the final scores being 39 points to 37. Well done to all concerned. As we would all be aware it is a very different Anzac day this year with social isolation and various levels of quarantining effecting us all. My early recollections of Anzac day go back to my childhood in Burnie. Pretty much every adult male I knew was a returned serviceman from TGW or the 2ndWW. I won't use the term veteran here, because that wasn't a term that was used in Australia at that time. The men referred to themselves as "returned men" or "ex serviceman". To be a member of the RSL, which stood for Returned Services League, you had to be a returned man, that is somebody who had serv...
Blog Day 32: Friday 24 April 2020 Anzac day tomorrow, not sure if I will get up early to attend any of the virtual dawn services on offer or to stand at the end of my driveway in a sign of solidarity with my neighbours (who I rarely speak to anyway). It will be an interesting day, the last few Anzac days I have been overseas or involved at the Shrine, it will be interesting to see how it all pans out. Might have to break the no drinking before 5.00pm rule. I see in one of the newspapers that there is 14,000 2nd World War veterans left. At their youngest they would have to be in their 90's, an amazing generation of people. I just received an email from the Carriage Way Inn in Saint Augustine in Florida USA. A group of us from Australia stayed at the Carriage Way when we were in the US for Andrew and Katie's wedding in 2008. My word that was a long time ago! It was a lovely place to stay in a delightful town with our hosts showing good ol southern hospital...
Blog Day 31: Thursday 23 April 2020 We do live in troubled times. We have all this corona virus stuff going on, although we seem to be climbing out of that a bit, and now we get the news that four police have been killed in a traffic incident on the Eastern freeway. Two police pulled over a Porsche driver for speeding and gave him a drug test for which he allegedly returned a positive response. Two more police arrived to assist with the arrest and seizure of the Porsche. Whilst they were doing this a truck drove onto the emergency lane and into the Porsche and the police vehicles killing the four police officers. And in a macabre twist the Porsche driver allegedly took some horrorific photos at the scene and then shot through and then shared the photos with some friends and posted them on Facebook, sorry I mean social media. Reinforces my opinion of social media. I have received reports from two of my correspondents that the CBD is like a ...
Blog Day 30: Wednesday 22 April 2020 Hump day today, thank goodness only two more days to the weekend. If you don't do anything else today have a look at these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO0kAtg9dRw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HezxInuN1YA&list=RDDO0kAtg9dRw&index=1 I was looking for something else on YouTube and this came up in my recommendations, to get the full effect try and watch it on a screen larger than your phone. In fine example of adaptation and improvisation in this time of corona virus Pub Choir has become Couch Choir. On that note I might call it a day, lunch to have, books to read...... Cheers..... Current Virus Stats Day 107 Vic: 1,336 (+ 0 from previous day) - 15 deaths (increase 0) Aus: 6,650 infected (+ 9 from previous day) - 74 deaths (increase 1) Recovered: 4,291 World: 2,557,181
Blog Day 29: Tuesday 21 April 2020 Drove to Woolies today for my main weekly shop. Whilst I was there I decided to walk the length of the Bentleigh strip shopping centre for both my daily exercise and to have a look at what was happening in the area. (3,500 steps for those that may be interested) Not many people around in Centre Road, the butchers, bakers, newsagents, banks and greengrocers were open but pretty much all the other retail shops were closed. Some of the coffee shops and cafes were open with people waiting outside for their takeaway coffee. People seemed to be observing the distancing rules. Woolies was very quiet with most items back in stock, the only shortages appeared to be hand sanitiser and some varieties of frozen vegies. The bottle shop was well stocked and able to cater to my modest needs. The news has come out that Virgin has appointed Deloittes as administrators. I wonder how that will play out in both the short and lo...
Blog Day 28: Monday 20 April 2020 I have returned from my walk, just getting home before the rain by the looks of things. I thought today that I would do some comparisons of corona virus infection and death rates by population for various countries and just see how we are doing (you can keep the accountant out of the office but you can't keep the office out of the accountant). First column will be the country name, then population (rounded to the nearest million), then the number of infections followed by the percentage of infections to the population and lastly the number of deaths followed by the percentage of deaths to the population. Corona Virus International Stats as at 20/04/2020 Country Population Infected No Infected % Deaths No Deaths % Australia 25,000,000 6,558 0.0262 71 0.00028 New Zealand 5,000,000 1,440 0.0288 12 0.00024 ...
Blog Day 27: Sunday 18 April 2020 (Orthodox Easter Sunday) First up, to the lady riding the push bike on the footpath that forced my self and the family in front of me off the footpath - no matter what you think and say, you are not allowed to ride your bike on the footpath, so there. I doubt that she will see this, but it gets it off my chest. Part of my therapy. Great night on telly last night. At 7.30 the ABC had one of my favourites "Death in Paradise", although the plots and solutions are getting a bit far fetched it is still good entertainment. I particularly like the current detective. I can't think of the actor's name but he was Father Dougal in the great Irish television series "Father Ted", also one of my all time favourites. After "Death in Paradise" SBS revisited one of the great classic movies of all time, "The Blues Brothers". I don't know how many times I have seen this but I love it and enjoy it more a...
Blog Day 26: Saturday 18 April 2020 Trivia last night was hosted by Andrew and Katie and they did a marvelous job using technology to present the questions but to also recreate the atmosphere of trivia night at the Elsternwick Hotel (the Wick), it was almost like being there, without the sticky carpet. A tense game filled with pathos, drama and humour ensured which resulted in a draw between team Phillips (Roger, Penny and Jo) and team Me. The result was obtained by a nearest the pin playoff which after some tense toing and froing was one by yours truly. This Zoom thing is marvelous piece of kit. Last night for trivia we had the following attendees; Andrew and Katie - Burwood Jo - Hawthorn Ben - Coburg Shane - Sydney Roger and Penny - Cairns Me - Bentleigh East And joining us after the quiz for a chat was Katie's parents Kathy and Mac from Deland in Florida in the good ol US of A. I wonder how people caught up during the Spanish Flu pa...
Blog Day 25: Friday 17 April 2020 Some of you would be aware that in less troubled times I volunteer at the Shrine of Remembrance. My little pop up diary thing on my phone has told me that today should have been Legacy day at the Shrine. Legacy day is part of a series of commemoration events at the Shrine leading up to Anzac Day and is usually attended by 4,000 to 5,000 school students. However unfortunately this year the Shrine is closed and there will be no public Legacy day commemoration. There will be a Legacy service in the Sanctuary but unfortunately this will be closed to the public, however it will be live streamed on Facebook. The Education & Volunteer staff at the Shrine are doing a great job in maintaining contact with the volunteers by way of bi-weekly newsletters. The Ed staff have been running some competitions for the volunteers with tins of Anzac biscuits as prizes. For your information there are around 120 volunteers involved wit...
Blog Day 24: Thursday 16 April 2020 Big day today, first up a visit to the chiropractor, for some back crunching. Made an appointment for my next visit on 14th May. I wonder where things will be by then, I daresay we will either be in total lockdown and not going anywhere or the lockdown will have been relaxed and we are somewhat on the way back to normality. I wouldn't like to be guessing either way. The next bit of excitement was initiated by the receipt of a message from Roger in Cairns. Some of you may be aware that Roger teaches English as a second language at a college in Cairns and due to this virus thing the college has closed down. Well, the college is starting up again using Zoom and remote teaching and in the set up process they needed a guinea pig student. So who did they think would make a good guinea pig...…..yours truly. So with my technical expertise and a little assistance from Jo as well we got his thing up and running....
Blog Day 23: Wednesday 15 April 2020 Andrew, you will be pleased to see that I now have the correct date at the top of the blog page. I was in the settings area looking for something else and I found how to correct the date and time. I would like to thank two of my regular contributors for their suggestions as to what I can do with my tinned corned mutton and thank you for keeping your comments nice, considering this is a family blog. Being a bit bored last night I had a look to if there was anything interesting on Netflix and I discovered some new episode of the Windsors. The Windsors is a British comedy series taking the mickey out of the royal family, very funny and very close to the real thing I reckon. Well worth a look at it you want a laugh. Last night's episode had Harry marrying Malcolm Turnbull's daughter to save the Commonwealth - "the most important organisation in the world". Good fun. Here is an idea that I have come up with whilst on...
Blog Day 22: Tuesday 14 April 2020 One of my regular readers has recommended the Country music documentary that has been on SBS on Saturday nights over the previous few weeks. I have also been watching it and recommend it highly, it is by Ken Burns who might recall did that series on the American civil war some years ago. I am not sure if it is still on or not, if not it would probably be available on the SBS back up channel. That same reader reminded me of the time that I appeared on stage at the Ryman Auditorium (the original home of the Grand Ol Opry) in Nashville Tennessee. So for all you country and western fans here is a photo of me on stage at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville Tennessee. Eat your heart out Johnny Cash! And now it is time for another in the popular occasional series of "What's in the pantry Graeme"? I must admit that I didn't have this in my pantry but saw it in Woolies the other day and thought that it would be ...
Blog Day 21: Monday 13 April 2020 Just a short blog today as I have been somewhat busy, but you can look forward to a bumper issue tomorrow. I will just say, vale Tim Brooke-Taylor (formerly of the Goodies) For today's effort I will just provide you all with an update on the virus stats. Current Virus Stats Day 98 Vic: 1,281 infected (+13 from previous day) - 14 deaths (increase 0) Aus: 6,339 infected (+24 from previous day) - 61 deaths (increase 4) Recovered 1,806 World: 1,848,503
Blog Day 20: Sunday 12 April 2020 (Easter Sunday) One of my many astute readers has asked how my French studies are going. Well, at the moment they have ground to a bit of a halt. As some of you may be aware my study of the French language has not been a happy one and has hit many speed humps (le speed hump?) along the way and in this particular instance it is a distinct lack of interest. Usually my study of the French language is driven by an impending trip to France and a desire to indulge in lively banter with the locals in their native tongue. (As we have discovered in the past I usually get around my lack of knowledge of the language by speaking louder and waving my arms around, this hasn't failed me so far although I have found the waving of arms around bit loses its effectiveness when trying to speak to a French person on the phone). Anyway, as I can't see myself travelling to France in the near or distant future I am experiencing difficulty in mo...
Blog Day 19: Saturday 11 April 2020 Another successful trivia night last night courtesy of zoom. Many very excellent and challenging questions drafted by yours truly and played in a competitive and fair manner by most of the contestants. Further drinks and lively chat continued after the trivia, it was almost like being there. It is nearly 1.00pm Saturday and very windy outdoors, and now raining, will need to see if I can get my walk in today or not. Woke up to a pleasant surprise this morning, no not the easter bunny, but a visit from the soup fairy! There on my doorstep was a supply of freshly made, home made, pea and ham soup. Thanks Donna. I am currently reading a couple of interesting books. The first is an ebook, "The Nuremberg Raid 30-31 March 1944" by the British historian Martin Middlebrook. The book covers the night time raid by approximately 800 bombers of the RAF Bomber Command on the German city of Nuremberg. As part ...
Blog Day 18: Friday 10 April 2020 (also known as Good Friday) Well if was supposed to have been 23 degrees and clear today, at 12.15pm it is about 19 overcast and raining. Hopefully if it clears up a bit I will get to go on my corona virus approved walk. I see that Pell travelled from Melbourne to Sydney by car on Thursday, I wonder what category of essential travel that comes under. Suggestions anyone? I have some contributions from some of my readers today. Last night Leanne sent me a SMS telling me that Finland has closed its borders, I asked "what does that mean"? and she responded "nobody will be crossing the Finnish line", which is pretty funny. And Andrew sent me a link to a government site that is publishing the various stats about the corona virus, provided for your info below; https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-at-a-glance I have just received a message from Jo telling me that the local Mexic...
Blog Day 17: Thursday 09 April 2020 When I was heading out for my lockdown friendly walk today I happened to notice this in the sky. It took me a little while to work out that it was an Easter message and I think it was saying that God/Jesus loves us. That set me to thinking, which is sometimes a dangerous thing, if God loves us so much why has he or she inflicted this terrible pandemic upon us, his/her subjects. Its a funny way of showing your love. Then, what about the Pope, god's representative on earth. Does the Pope still have infallibility, if so why doesn't he use his infallibility to invent a vaccine to fight this virus that his boss has inflicted on us. Or maybe the Pope was allegedly too busy defending alleged kiddy fiddlers to worry about the rest of us. Crikey, this is getting complicated. And so endeth the lesson. (The extent of my theological studies was 3 years of Sunday school at the Burnie Methodist church, pre Un...
Blog Day 16: Wednesday 08 April 2020 Here is a funny story. When I got my flu jab the other day the nurse put a bandaid over the little wound left by the needle. When I rolled my sleeve down the material of my sleeve caught on a sticky part of the bandaid causing it to pull against the skin of my arm. I instinctively reached up to release the material from the bandaid. Both the nurse and the doctor looked at me with alarm as they thought that I was having a reaction to the injection, I assured them that it was only the bandaid catching on my shirt and they both breathed a sigh of relief and let me go on my way. I picked up piece of corned silverside the other day so that might be dinner tonight with some vegies, and best of all there will be cold silverside for lunch tomorrow. That's life in the fast lane in Bentleigh East. I have just had a break, put some washing on, made a couple of phone calls to see if I could get my creative juices flowing,...
Blog Day 15: Tuesday 7 April 2020 Last night I was watching the magnificent movie Zulu, thanks to a heads up from Jo, and I realised that many of the lessons found in this movie could be applied to our battle against the corona virus. Very briefly the movie Zulu is about the 1879 battle of Rorke's Drift. In this battle around 150 British soldiers defended an unfortified mission station against numerous attacks by around 4,000 Zulu warriors. The movie set me to thinking as to how the vastly outnumbered British defeated the attacks by the battle hardened and ruthless enemy. (A couple of days prior to this battle the Zulus had defeated and massacred British column of 1,000 troops also capturing a quantity of arms and ammunition). Ok, so how and why did the British win this battle and what lessons can we take out of it to deal with our current battle; 1) Strong Leadership: At Rorke's drift there were 2 British officers of equal rank, both being Lieutenants....
Blog Day 14: Monday 6 April 2020 Yesterday I received an email from Tattslotto telling me that I was a winner, ripper, I thought at least my financial concerns are taken care of - anybody got any advice as to where I can safely invest $21.00! This afternoon I will be heading around to a local doctor's clinic in an effort to get a flu shot, they are in short supply in these parts. The clinic told me over the phone that their flu shot program begins at 2.00pm today but as they are not taking any booking I just have to take my chances. I will check it out, if there is a long queue I will give it a miss, not high on my priorities at the moment. In my idle musings I am wondering what has happened to grumpy Gretta and her handlers, they have been very very quiet lately. A prize for the most creative response. The big supermarkets have today initiated controls on the number of people in their stores at any one time. This is to assist in ensuring people ma...
Blog Day 13: Sunday 05 April 2020 Another dull wet day in locked down Bentleigh East. I have been amusing myself this afternoon looking at the 2nd Independent Company association website (doublereds.org.au). The independent companies were the forerunners of the commando companies in WW2. For those of you that don't know the 2nd Independent Company was the commando unit that my father (Staff Sergeant Max Miller TX3328) joined up with on Timor after the majority of his own unit, the 2/40th battalion, was captured by the Japanese in February 1942 in Dutch West Timor. At the time of the Japanese invasion the 2nd Independent Co was stationed in Portugese East Timor, which was a bit naughty as Portugal was a neutral country and Australia had violated that neutrality by stationing a military unit there. The Japanese landed on Timor in February 1942 and the Independent Company now including the survivors of the 2/40th remained on Timor fighting the Japanese until De...
Blog Day 12: Saturday 04 April 2020 Last night's Zoom trivia quiz was a great success, although modesty prevents me from saying too much as to who the winner was. You won't be surprised to hear that some of the questions and answers were the subject of some controversy, particularly a dispute about whether Australia has the world's deadliest snakes or the world's most venomous snakes. How exciting I hear you say. As winner of last night's quiz (oops I wasn't going to mention that) I have been charged with preparing the questions for next weeks quiz. Just thinking, this time last year I was in Sarajevo experiencing all the delights that the Balkan city had to offer. Who would have thought that in 12 months time we wouldnt be allowed to go out our front door let alone travel half way around the world to such exotic locations. Coolish, wet and overcast here today so not much temptation to go outdoors. If the weather improves I still might...