Dark Times in Bentleigh East

  Wednesday 28 September 2022 Another interesting week in this funny ol state of ours.   Some of you may recall that last Thursday was a public holiday for our National Day of Mourning for the late lamented Queen Elizabeth II.  Some sections of our community used the day for a National Day of Protesting, protesting about the usual things, the monarchy, the flag, the constitution, free lunches and haircuts for uni students, no vaccinations, etc and the usual bunch of unwashed and ill-informed protesters turned up to block the city streets. Well, last Thursday afternoon was also my usual shift at the Shrine, and lo and behold a small group of the great unwashed and ill-informed had decided to move their little part of the protest to the Shrine forecourt.   Due to concerns about what mischief the protesters were going to get up to the Shrine went into "lockdown" mode with the doors closed for about an hour or so.  Visitors inside the Shrine building were ...

  Wednesday 21 September 2022 A few things happening around the place this week, with the covid figures moving into the background with weekly reporting instead of daily. The big media event this week was surprisingly not the Brownlow medal broadcast but the funeral of HRH Queen Elizabeth II.  It has been claimed that about 4 billion people worldwide watched the broadcast of the funeral.  Of course there were hundreds of thousands watching the funeral live in the streets of London and the roads leading to Windsor castle. Although we can sometimes be critical of the British over certain things such as food, warm beer, lousy cricket teams, not showering etc. However they do certain things very well and by that I am talking about both pomp and circumstance. The pageantry of the funeral was extraordinary and the whole thing ran like clockwork although I daresay there were some anxious moments behind the scenes. Once again Hazza and Megs were relegated to the second row in the...

  Wednesday 14 September 2022 "The Queen is dead, long live the King" Last Friday morning Australia woke to the news that Queen Elizabeth II passed away overnight and the new British (and Australian) monarch is King Charles III. You may have missed this event as the media coverage has been minimal and restrained.....of course I am kidding....Martians could have landed and it would have been reported on page 10 of the newspapers after the multi-page coverage of all aspects of the Queen's life and that of the royal family. Of course there is a huge amount of royal protocol around the death of a reigning sovereign and the ascension of the new monarch.  This pomp and circumstance is ongoing with the funeral scheduled for Monday 19/09 at Westminster Abbey, after the body lying in state for four days. The Queen was 96 when she died and had reined for 70 years, the longest reign of a monarch  in British history.  Of course even as a princess she was never intended to be que...

  Wednesday 07 September 2022 Out in the real world I see that Britain has got a new prime minister, the USA has got an old one, NZ is soon to have an ex one and words fail me to describe what ours is. What a pity, Nick Kyrgios has just been beaten in his quest to win the US Open tennis tournament.  And not only has been beaten he has been beaten by a girl named Karen, that has to be a blow to his ego.  Apparently he went through is entire repertoire of tennis skills, including throwing his racquet into the ground, taking injury time out and shouting at his box (now isn't that a funny thing to do) to no avail. Talking about sporting bad boys, one of the AFL bad boys, Wayne Carey (The Duck), has been in a bit of strife this week.  Whilst gambling at the casino in Perth he went to get his hankey out of his pocket and as he did so a bag of white powder fell out of his pocket onto the casino floor.  This was spotted by a keen eyed croupier who reported it to casino ...