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Part 1.The Danger of being on a Boat with a Lunatic Mate.

This is a composite of five short stories about the hazards of going boating with a lunatic mate. Don't get me wrong. While living in Cairns, Tropical Far North Queensland, this guy was my best (human, and I use the term loosely) mate. Having written that, I may even include a story that doesn't include a boat.

To give you a better perspective, I suggest you read my stories " Used Cars, Rotten Fish and Vegemite" and "The Tropical Roof, the Depth Chargers and the Hookah". These both feature my mate, who I will refer to as "Dockie".

Dockie was a big guy, about 185cm, who was as tough as nails, totally out of it when drunk, which was quite a regular occurrence and one of the wildest, funniest people I've ever met. Most importantly, a true friend, something that I've found to be very rare. He also had the distinction of having put me in more life-threatening situations than anyone else that I've ever met. And that's saying something!

So here we go. This could take you a bit of time to digest or even read. Sorry, there are no pictures to assist those of you who are illiterate. That was a stupid sentence because they can't read it. This is the time to take a toilet break (take as long as you like), make a snack, pour a large glass or three of your favourite tipple and enjoy. As usual, all these stories are 100% true.

A storm a small boat and no steering.

This is a short story but, I promise, it was as scary as hell.

In tropical North Queensland, (eg. Cairns) short storms can appear out of nowhere. They rarely last more than an hour but they have a lot of power, with heavy rain and very strong winds, which create large, windswept waves and sets the tone of this seriously scary, potentially very dangerous adventure.

Dockie and I were in his 5m off shore cruising boat, fishing about a kilometre off shore from Palm Cove, just north of Cairns, when the storm hit. So, we packed up our fishing gear and headed back to the safety of the Yorkey's Knob marina.

This caused us to come quite close to the shore, due to the wind, rain and largish waves. This posed a problem, as the shoreline between where we were fishing and the marina was mainly rocky cliffs, with no sandy beach to use, in case of an emergency which, of course happed, as boating trips with Dockie invariably did.

"What happened?", you ask. The bloody steering broke! There we were, scooting along as fast as the 110hp engine would allow, sans steering.

Considering the wild condition and our proximity to the rocky shoreline, steering was kind of essential. It was decided that we would take in turns to steer the boat with one of us slowly driving while the other one steered the boat by wrapping his arms around the out board motor engine cover and steering. Do you have any idea How hard it is to move the direction of a very heavy, fibreglass off shore boat that way? Let me tell you, It's bloody impossible!

So, we did the only sensible thing. Dockie shut down the engine and we both had a large, single malt scotch and considered what to do next, apert from panicking. A good move, don't you agree? After a second scotch, Dockie actually came up with a good idea. As we had a pair or oars on board for an emergency and, as this qualified as an emergency, he suggested we tie one of the oars to the side of the engine, to provide some leverage, and help us steer. Sheer bloody genius. It actually worked!. We finally arrived at the boat ramp as the storm died, as quickly as it appeared and we finally got the boat safely onto the trailer and towed it out of the water. Being a pair of relatively sensible creatures, we didn't hit the bar in the Yorkey's Knob Boat Club, waiting until we got home before finishing the bottle of scotch. By the way, we had a pretty good esky, full of very tasty fish, which our loving, but very loud and angry wives, cooked for our dinner

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Part 2.The Danger of being on a Boat with a Lunatic Mate.

A dip in a river teeming with sharks and very large crocodiles.

This is a very short story but was a seriously dangerous situation. Whenever we were going fishing on The Great Barrier Reef, we used to put the boat in the water at the boat ramp in the Cairns Inlet. This was done with me backing the boat down the ramp into the water, where Dockie would reverse the boat into the Cairns Inlet and pull in, next to a small jetty, while I parked the car. See? Nothing dangerous about that.

Just a few things to clarify the situation. The Cairns Inlet is situated on the edge of Cairns CBD and is a very popular place for people fishing off the wharves and jetties. It was a good place to fish and the successful fishermen would invariably clean their fish there, throwing fish heads and guts into the water, attracting both sharks and crocodiles, both of which enjoyed a free feed,

One more thing, Dockie's boat had a protective awning over the rear deck, to keep the tropical sun off us, while fishing. It was a thick canvas awning with a solid aluminium frame around the edge, with similar posts fixing it to the boat. Why all this useless information? Read on.

To get on board, I had to grab the awning rail an gently step into the boat. Easy, peasy. Except when Dockie felt like a practical joke, Totally unsuspecting anything, wearing my Akubra (yep, the same one that's in my heading photo), with a lit pipe clenched between my teeth (yep, I used to smoke a pipe), Dockie pushed the boat away from the jetty, just as I was stepping aboard, promptly dumping me into the shark and croc infested water. To my credit, I surfaced with my hat still on my head and my, now unlit pipe firmly clenched between my teeth. I reckon I might have broken a few world records, swimming to the back of the boat and, in panicked haste, climbing aboard, just to se Dockie, literally rolling on the deck with laughter.

As you can imagine, I used every foul expression that I had (and I have quite a few) at Dockie, we finally went fishing. My wet clothes dried quickly in the tropical sun and the wind, as I sat on the foredeck. We had a great day's fishing while Dockie kept laughing and I quietly pondered all kinds of evil revenge. Now, maybe you understand why I created the heading to this series of stories.

Parts 3-6 coming soon.

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Crocs a Casino and a Rifle

This little tale, like all the others, is 100% true and took part in Darwin, over an 8 month period in the 1980s when my marketing company and all its employees (just me) had a contract there. During that time, I rented a small, elevated weatherboard house in the suburbs. Why do you need all that information? It beats me!

That's my only time in Darwin and had an absolute ball. I loved the town (City?), the atmosphere and the amazing people. My contract was with the local Ford dealer and, I have to say, the people there were total arseholes, who the locals hated, which is why they contracted me, to change their bad image. Once an arsehole, always an arsehole so no matter what I did, it was never going to change. After several "discussions" with the Managing Director and his sycophantic managers, I told them to shove their contract and decided to stay for a few months and enjoy my time there. They promised to sue me for breach of contract. I told them to give it their best shot. And it went away.

OK, let's start with the crocs. Every river in the "Top End+ of the Northern Territory is FULL of nasty, bitey crocodiles. Some up to 5 metres, or more, long, that would, given the chance, enjoy local or tourist sashimi. So, here are few crocodile experiences that I "Enjoyed".

The first 2 experiences were due to my neighbour, whose company and talent for getting into trouble, I really enjoyed. He had a swimming pool! This was unusual because the hot, humid weather in Darwin meant that you would be swimming in a warm bath. Something, I admit, I never bothered doing. My neighbour's usual habit, after work was that, although it was dark, he would lay on his deckchair, next to the pool and enjoy a cold beer or two or…. You get he idea. On this particular evening, he draped his hand into the pool ….and it bounced of something very hard. Not being one to panic, he let out a scream, turned on all his lights and discovered a smallish 2 metre croc in his pool. During this calm period, he phoned the police, the emergency services and half a dozen other agencies to fix the problem. They arrived in droves and immediately started laughing at him. It took the Wildlife mob about 15 minutes to remove the croc and about a slab of beers to calm my neighbour down, who never had his nightly beer, with the lights off, ever again.

Several months later, I received an early morning phone call from the same neighbour, who asked me to grab a rifle, particularly a large calibre one and shoot the, rather large, crocodile that was sleeping in front of the steps to his house. This time, it took the Wildlife people about 30 minutes to move the animal, making him late for work.

The last crocodile story is a very scary one, particularly for me. I love fishing. There was a large river delta about a 30 minute drive from Darwin that I thought would be good for Barramundi, Fingermark or Mangrove Jack. All amazing fish to eat, especially if freshly caught.

The area that I chose to fish from was a wide section of the river, with a grassy, gently sloping bank, where it was easy to park my car. The other river bank was thick mangroves which I thought would house my target fish species. To reach casting distance to the mangroves, I had to wade through a very shallow stretch of water (maybe 15cm deep), to a large sand bar. It was a fishing mecca and I caught several Barramundi, a couple of Mangrove Jacks and even a Threadfin Salmon. A good day's fishing. You may have noticed that, until this point, I haven't mentioned crocodiles. That was just because, until I started packing my fishing gear up, I noticed that the tide was coming in and the water level was rising and the patch of very shallow water that I had waded through was now about 30cm deep and the sandbar had considerably shrunk.

The other thing that rather quickly grabbed my attention were the two crocodiles, around 3 metres long and sitting in the sun, each one about 25 metres either side of my car, which was a Toyota utility, carefully watching me.

I'm not a fast runner and I had my fishing tackle in one hand and a wet bag of fish in the other, neither of which I thought to let go of and took off, running as fast as I could, to the car. The crocs must have thought it was a race, because they also took off towards me and the car. Fortunately, the car wasn't locked and I beat the closest croc by about 5 metres, throwing fishing tackle and fish into the back of the ute, jumping into the driver's seat, locking the doors and reversing out of the area as fast as I could. It wasn't that fast, because the car was sliding all over the grass, but it was fast enough for me to get the hell out of there. As soon as I reached the bitumen road, I stopped the car and secured my fishing tackle and even managed to put my fish on ice, in the Esky. As for me, it was a long time before my heart stopped pounding, I stopped shaking and hyperventilating. Fortunately, I managed not to shit my pants, as it would have been a foul drive, in the tropical heat all the way home. I don't have anything else to add to that story as I reckon you've pretty much got it sorted out. By the way, I ate gorgeous fish for the next three days, unsuccessfully trying to convince myself that it was all worth it. I also mentally awarded myself "The Dickhead Of The Year Prize",

I have no more about crocs, in this story, except to tell you that if you ever visit the Mindil Beach Casino, while in Darwin, you'll see a life-size crocodile woven into to the carpet. Her name was Sweetheart and she was a 5.5 metre croc that lived in and around Darwin Harbour. She was famous for tearing outboard motos from boats as they invaded her territory. I don't know how true that story is, but it sounds about right, to me.

That was a nice segue into to this next tale which, more or less, revolves around the Mindil Beach Casino. The main characters in this story are a really good mate of mine, "Scrim". It's not his real name, as I never reveal other people's names, for reasons that I've explained in other stories. OK, other players are a very large sergeant on the Northern Territory Police, his, also large, Constable sidekick and a number of unidentified young men of Aboriginal background

I've added shis next bit, several days after writing and uploading the "Crocs, a Casino and a Rifle" story. It came back into my mind, while I was telling my wife some "Scrim" stories. This is one that I feel safe writing.

On Xmas eve in 1975, Cyclone Tracey came barrelling through Darwin, causing a huge amount of damage and, I believe, some lives. This all happened some years before Imet Scrim and this is the story he tells. At that time, Scrim was living alone and had started celebratig Xmxas early, sitting in his rocking chair in his lounge, with a bottle of rum and his cat, curled up asleep on his lap. And that's how he fell asleep. He woke up on Xmas day, soaking wet. He had slept right through Cyclone Tracey, due to the empty rum bottle, so he missed the whole event.. The reason that he was soaking wet was that his roof had vanished at the height of the storm....and so had his cat. Neither the roof, nor the cat were ever seen again. As foir Srim. Not a scratch or a bruise.I think he had more lives than the cat.

Scrim had several, very successful businesses in and around Darwin, one of which was a vehicle wrecking yard. The yard was quite large and full of all kinds of vehicles, in various stages of being wrecked. It was surrounded by a 3 metre chain-link fence, for security and had a small, flat roofed building, which served as the office. One of Scrims pet hates was the amount of theft, most nights, by young local Aboriginals. NO! that is NOT a racist comment. Merely a statement of fact, supported by security cameras, mounted on Scrim's office roof. Sadly, in those days camera quality wasn't as good as todays, so it was difficult to identify individuals, ss they were all young, slim, very fit young guys. They had to be, to scale that 3 metre fence as quickly as they did, particularly with a knapsack full of car parts. That's just a bit of background. Here's the real story, that I can verify.

One afternoon, I had a phone call from Scrim, telling me that I would be at the casino, playing blackjack, from 6pm. You noticed I wrote "telling me", not asking. I was intrigued, so I agreed. Generally, if Scrim told you to be somewhere or do something, it turned into an interesting and fun adventure. Apart from this one, none of which I will ever write about, except to say that no-one ever got seriously harmed.

About 6.30, Scrim arrived at the casino, little out of breath, which was unusual for him, as was very fit. Of course, I asked him what was going on. He just that said that he had been here, playing blackjack since 6pm.

OK, did you manage to pick up on the 6pm 6,30pm thing? Just think about it.

Shortly after Scrim arrived, the previously mentioned Police Seargeant and his Constable sidekick showed up. Both Scrim and I knew these Policemen and considered them to be friends, so it was bit of a surprise when the Sergeant, in a very loud, stern voice, ask Scrim if he was aware of a shooting at his car wrecking yard and how long had Scrin been at the casino. He told the cops that he got there just before 6pm and asked me to verify it. Of course I did. I then asked the cops if anyone had been killed or seriously hurt. The sergeant said no because the shooter had been using birdshot. He also told us that the victims were a group of local Aboriginal guys that were known to the police. Scrim breathed a loud sigh of relief, saying thank God no-one was hurt. The sergeant asked Scrim a few more questions and left. Before he left, he leant down and whispered in Scrim's ear, "Good shooting, Scrim!" For those of you who aren't aware, bird shot isn't a lead bullet, it's actually potassium nitrate, also known as saltpetre, Which won't cause actual harm, but stings like hell. Oh, I forgot to mention thefts in the wrecking yard reduced quite dramatically, for a while.

I loved my time in Darwin.

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An Interesting Evening.

You have no idea how long it has taken me to decide to tell this story. Right now, I'm struggling to find stories that won't get me into trouble, one way or another. All my stories are true, so caution is a serious consideration….for me.

Not to give everything away too soon, your understanding of the story will be easier, if you've seen the move, "Prisciila. Queen Of The Desert". So, during the story, you will understand that when I refer to "She", it doesn't mean that the person was sans a dick and balls. I guess that explains it.

During the mid 1980s, super wowser Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen was ruling Queensland with an iron, God fearing fist, powered by his wife, Flo's, pumpkin scones. Remember this is all true, except for a little conjecture, on my part. During this time, my marketing consultancy was in its infancy, so any and all contracts were welcome, without question. So, when a Western Australian pinball machine company offered me a well paid contract in Queensland, I jumped at it.

Here comes the conjecture bit. The contract that I took was to be the contracted Marketing Manager of an enterprise that would produce "Lucky Envelope Machines" to be introduced to all licenced premises in Queensland. These machines were only to be used as a fund raiser for charities, sports clubs or other community non-profit organisations. Everybody involved in this, made a lot of money.

How it worked was that the company that I was contracted to, supplied the machines free of charge to the licenced premises. For 20 cents inserted into the machine, you would gat a ticket. Some tickets were "lucky". The ticket purchaser could win 6 or 12 bottles of beer. The recipient of the proceeds, charity, club etc, paid full retail for the prize, so the premises made money and the tickets for the machine had to be bought from the company that I was contracted to, that made a LOT of money. The premises, where the machines were located were contracted to us to only allow our machines on the premises for, I think, five years.

Now, a little more conjecture. My employer had six months prior knowledge of the impending change in the law, allowing them to mass produce thousands of machines, open a warehouse in Brisbane, contract me and, very simply be in a position, via a large team of salespeople that I had trained, to saturate all Queensland's licenced premises within 48 hours of the legislation being passed. It worked, we had more than 80% of premises under contract, in 2 days. That wasn't conjecture. How it all happened, so secretly, was serious conjecture. I later found out how it happened, or so I was told. More conjecture. Don't you just love that word. All of that brings me to the story.

I was made aware of a problem in Tropical Far North Queensland (Cairns, Townsville etc) where a local entrepreneur decided to undercut us, despite legal contracts being in place, so I went there with our area salesperson to fix the problem, which we did in one day. That's another story that I will probably never tell. We had a couple of rooms in a Cairns motel and were due to fly out, the next morning, so we decided to have a few drinks and dinner in a local pub.

It had been a long day and it was quite late, when we left for drinks. We had no plan, so when we walked past a bar, with a lot of noise and people, we decided to check it out We ordered a couple of single malt scotches (what else would I buy?) and noticed two, absolutely gorgeous women, sitting by themselves. We asked if we could join them and they agreed. It never occurred to us why such lovely women were by them selves. Nor did we care. We were tired and just needed to relax. What could possibly go wrong?

We got on famously with these ladies, so when the bar closed, we invited them back to our motel rooms, as you do, in that situation. I poured a couple of drinks and we stated chatting. My salesman was in his room with the other lady. That's when the one in my room asked me if I had seen her show. I said, "What show?" That's when she told me that she was burlesque dancer. In fact she was a he, complete with family jewels, I was shocked. For a few seconds, I didn't know what to do say or do. Then, I saw the crazy side of it and burst out laughing, as did she. She said that she was sure we didn't know and played us along, for a bit of fun.

Just then, I heard someone yell "FUCK!!". This was followed by a loud banging on my door. I opened the door and there was my salesman, as white as a ghost, loudly muttering things like "Do you know what I've got in my room?" and all other sorts of hysteria. When he calmed down, we explained what had happened. After a couple of double scotches, he finally relaxed and saw the funny side or it. The result was that all four of us had a hilarious night, swapping jokes and stories AND NOTHING ELSE! I swear that's true, not that it matters.

This all happened in the 80s, in Joh Bjelke-Petersen's, very prudish, Queensland. As we entered the airport, to catch our flight back to Brisbane, suffering from serious hangovers and the stares of many of those in the airport, who had seen us leave the pub with those girls, or had been told about it. You know. Small town, big gossips. If we had coats, we would have pulled them over or heads. Serious embarrassment.

Now, do you understand why this story took a long time to be written?

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The Pros And Cons Of Becoming Ancient.

Being a wise old fart, I see the glass as being both half full and half empty. Half empty tends to annoy me, along with screaming, unruly children, harping women, smelly old people, rude people in general, political correctness. The "Woke" thing , whatever it is, governments, "know it all" young shits, cheap red wine and any whiskey other than single malt, just to name a few. So, while on the negatives, let's start with the cons of being old. At least that way, I'll end up on a positive note, assuming I don't kark it, mid-sentence.

The Cons: They all start upon waking up in the morning. Invariably, I will have slept in an awkward, unnatural position, reminiscent of Quasimodo, which results in several degrees of agony, as I attempt to roll out of bed without falling on my face. As I hobble to the toilet on arthritic feet that I haven't seen for several decades, I ponder if I'll be able to accurately pee into the toilet, and not miss. This often poses a problem, as I haven't seen that part of my anatomy for several decades, either. Although my wife tells me it still exists. Other difficulties include maintaining my balance while getting dressed, not spilling breakfast on my clean shirt, trying to remember whether I've already taken my tablets and failing to check my zipper before leaving the house.

Before retiring, driving to work was always interesting. Younger drivers seemed to think that older drivers should automatically get out of their way, regardless of the road rules. I'm really not a doddering old fool on the road. I like to think that I'm just being careful. When other drivers sound their horns at me and scream abuse. I smile and wave at them although, sometimes, they didn't seem to realise that the reason my middle finger sticks up was due to arthritis.

I worked, part time, in a retail environment. That, in itself, was not a big deal, unless I stumbled and accidentally pushed a snotty little kid out of a trolley. I swear that whenever that happens, it WAS purely accidental. The major problem was, because I'm old, the customers thought I was supposed to know where everything was located, its price and whether it was a good product or not. Didn't these stupid people realise that I had trouble remembering where the hell I was, let alone the answers to their useless, inane bloody questions?

When I got home in the evening, the problems continued. My wife asked how my day was. How the hell was I supposed to remember? She then asked me what I'd like for dinner. Surely, by now, she'd realise it all tasted like soggy cardboard, so why ask the question? Finally, going to bed was pretty much the same as getting up, just in reverse, but it lacked the excitement of waking up, knowing I made through the night.

Oh, I realise that that you think that I forgot the pros of being old. I didn't forget, so here it is.

In the previous bit, I pontificated about the Cons of being ancient. Now it's time for the Pros. Strange as it may seem, there are good sides to getting old. All I have to do here is to try to remember what the hell they are. To that end, I have just poured a large glass of single malt scotch to assist me in my ruminations. It always seems to work. Thank God for spell check.

The Pros: Obviously, the first one is the glee of waking up in the morning with a fairly certain notion that I actually made it through the night. Sometimes there is a negative side to that when I check the world news over my first cup of coffee for the day (Enjoying good coffee is another pro.) and read what a crap state the world is in. I blame this on the lazy Millennials and inconsequential Greens for polluting the air we breathe by their existence. I'm old. I don't have use logic or explain my opinions. See? More pros.

Another pro is using the excuse of having a fading memory to avoid doing onerous tasks. You have to love, "Was I supposed to do that? Sorry, I must have forgotten. Old age, you know."

Playing the "Grumpy Old Man" game is a hoot. It's an amazing tool we oldies can use to terrorise young people, make women pushing trolleys or prams in supermarkets move aside, get a seat on public transport, get served quickly almost anywhere and being able to vent our opinion on almost anything without getting beaten up. Sadly, it doesn't work on my wife. I'm still trying to perfect that.

Making other people embarrassed is another goody. Wearing old or mismatched clothes, odd socks, leaving my fly open with my shirt hanging out of it, mumbling to myself in public, just staring at people and loudly farting in public are just a few. All good fun.

So, as you can see, getting old isn't all bad. There are lots of other pros to being ancient but, as I've just emptied my glass of scotch and need to pour another, I probably won't remember to come back and write more drivel.

I'll leave you with a toast, taught to me by my long departed Scottish grandfather. "Here's to it. If ye get to it and don't do it, may ye never get to it to do it again." You figure it out!

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The Pros And Cons Of Becoming Ancient.

Oh, I realise that that you think that I forgot the pros of being old. I didn't forget, so here it is.

Another pro is using the excuse of having a fading memory to avoid doing onerous tasks. You have to love, "Was I supposed to do that? Sorry, I must have forgotten. Old age, you know."

I'll leave you with a toast, taught to me by my long departed Scottish grandfather. "Here's to it. If ye get to it and don't do it, may ye never get to it to do it again." You figure it out!

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Everything happens for a reason.

I haven't written anything for a while. Whoa! I can hear your "Thank F**K for that!" comments from here. Tough luck! Here we go.

There's a reason for that hiatus and here it is..
I have been in a constant shit load of pain, due to arthritic fingers, a very sore back and bloody painful venous ulcer on one leg.
See, I'm old and I take some joy complaining about my problems with others. Pain shared is pain halved, if you see what I mean.
What a crock of shit! The only good thing for pain is (prescribed) Oxycontin. Hah, good luck getting a prescription! One of the only ways you can get it is to be a decrepit old fart, like me.

Now, here's a serious warning. That shit is DANGEROUS! I only have a prescribed low dose that gives partial relief from pain and I only take it when pain persists. Maybe once or twice a week, even though my prescription says once a day. Here's a very true story about what that crap can do to you.

Many years ago, when I was living in Cairns, I got my first leg ulcer. It took 3 years and a move to a colder climate to heal, which it did, one month after arriving in Tasmania. At the time it occurred, the pain, pus and stench was unbearable. Enjoying your dinner? To ease the pain, my local doctor, who was a yachting mate, prescribed 80mg tablets of oxycontin, presumably, so that I could continue crewing on his racing yacht. 80 bloody milligrams!

At that time I had two Delicatessens, one of which was a 3 day a week market stall, called "The Olive Tree Cairns", at Rustys Markets (Google it). It still exists but has been changed from Cairns' only high quality European style Deli. to what now is basically a low quality bread shop.

"Note to the current operator". Want to sue me for my disparaging comment? Go for it! Then we can discuss how you only bought the equipment, not the business, yet you have illegally kept the trading name. After I have countersued, claimed damages and had a, not so quiet. conversation with the ATO, we could have a beer together…..or not.

Back to the Oxycontin crap.
It worked a treat. Absolutely no pain. Nothing, nada, zip.
I religiously took a tablet, every 6 hours, as per the prescription, for the three market days, each week. The following two days, I was bedridden, due to doing stupid things with an already stuffed back, that I would not have remotely thought about doing, prior to the bloody pills. All I managed to do was permanently ruin my back without any benefit to my leg ulcer. Get the picture? That stuff IS dangerous, and I am very aware of the danger.
That's the reason for this story's title.

That incident was more than 15 years ago. The main difference is that I'm now ancient and becoming increasingly more decrepit.

As I mentioned in a previous story, I'm in the process of building a stud wall to enclose the laundry, where our, absolutely necessary, (ask my wife) second toilet is situated. This wall is taking longer to build than the Sydney Harbour bridge, due to my various, very persistent, old age ailments. So much so, that I have succumbed to the low dose Oxy thingumebobs, taking one a day. It seems to be working and significant progress has been made, including my most hated task, painting.

I'm (un)reasonably confident it will, could, may be finished before Xmas. Which Xmas? I don't know. Still a (functioning) work in progress.

I forgot to mention that another probable contributing factor towards the successful completion, was thinking of ways to hasten the job along with the hours spent sitting on toilet, playing Sudoku (now ranking "Extreme", which is the level higher than "Expert".) Not bad for an old fart, while contemplating safe, building shortcuts.

So, what has happened for a reason?
1. I became aware of the danger of the poison, which is Oxycontin.
2. I was remined to sue the bastard that stole my business name.
3. I improved my skill at Sudoku.
4. Rolling around the floor, pissing myself laughing at all the, hopefully now corrected, grammatical and spelling errors made while typing the original draft of this story, while affected by painkillers. Yep, painkillers, plural. As well as the Oxycodone, I now, fortunately have a painkiller for Diabetic Leg ulcers. Let me tell you, pain free is better than boring sex.

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Making Our Fortune As Kids And How We Spent It.

Generally, in our area in the 1950s, it was a fairly impoverished time, with many families struggling to feed their families.

OK, you criticisers of us Baby Boomers, shove that up your sanctimonious backsides and smoke it. I could write a multi-page epic on those misinformed generations, that blame their own lack of ability and laziness on us Boomers, but I won't waste my time. "Why is it a waste of time?" you ask. Simply because, at my age and crappy health, I don't have enough time to waste on negative, bullshit espoused by the later generations, who blame their woes on Baby Boomers. Instead, I'll tell a true tale of how two kids, around 10 or 11 years old made a fortune and what we did with it.

Those of you, who may have read my story about Darkie, (A retrospection: Sasha and "Darkie") will know that Darkie taught my mate, Sasha and me how to fish and hunt in the wild surrounds of the dirty, slow flowing creek called The Torrens River, which crawls through Adelaide's northern suburbs and to Adelaideans' pride and joy, through the city itself where, for a pittance, you can go on an exciting boat ride on "Popeye" and see reeds, the occasional black swan, a few ducks and people staring at you from the river banks at you, in awe.

OK, back to the story. Apart from teaching us how to catch the very tasty Redfin Perch, Darkie also taught us how to catch yabbies and, best of all, how to trap water rats, skin them and preserve the skins. These skills enabled us to amass our fortunes.

Australian Yabby

Fortunately, there was local butcher in Walkerville (my suburb) who would buy our fish (Redfin Perch) for sixpence (5 cents) a pound (about half a kilogram). We could supply him with about three pounds of fish and a similar amount of yabbies a week. This netted Sasha and me about one shilling and sixpence (about 15 cents) each, for a day's work. A veritable fortune for a Sunday's "work". So, how did we spend it? Every Saturday, the local movie theatre had a matinee session, designed for kids. It went like this. The first movie was a serial, with a new episode each week. It was usually a Roy Rogers or Lone Ranger story. This was followed by a Walt Disney cartoon. Then came intermission. This was about a fifteen minute break where we ran across the road to the fish and chip shop, which was expecting us and had several pounds (2kilos) of hot, freshly cooked chips waiting for us. We could buy a huge bag of chips, wrapped in newspaper for sixpence (5 cents). We then ran back to the theatre in time for the main movie, usually another western or a kids comedy. We thought this was a shilling well spent.

Australian Water Rat

The final sixpence was duly deposited in our Commonwealth Bank money box. I think those money boxes were provided free to the parents of kids. They were made from sheet iron and could only be opened by the bank, when they were full. The bank deposited the money into our account and provided us with a new money box. I can't imagine how much money they collected every year, from every kid in Australia. Then we hit the jackpot!

Money Box

As I previously mentioned, Darkie taught us how to trap, kill and skin water rats. It was easy and involved a tin can, a piece of string, a short wooden stake and a piece of fat, left over from our mothers' cooking. I'm not going into detail, as it was a fairly gruesome procedure, but it worked….incredibly well. After a bit of practice, involving salt, pinched from our mums' kitchens, a large fallen tree log, a wooden, home-made mallet and some nails and a hammer, we perfected the skin preserving. This begs the question, "What did we do with the skins?"

Redfin Perch

Already being successful entrepreneurs, we knew enough to do some research, before embarking on the water rat skin enterprise, during which time, we found a furrier who would pay us FIVE SHILLINGS = 60 pence (about 50 cents) per acceptable cured skin. Not all the skins were of acceptable quality. We threw these skins into the river where we knew we would feed the yabby population. How's that? Recycling! Even way back then! Cop that, you abusers of Baby Boomers!

About 60% of our skins were acceptable and we produced around 5 of those, every week, That netted us around 1pound 6 shillings each. That was unheard of in those days, when, I think, the average wage for an adult, working 40+ hours a week was about 4 pounds (around 8 dollars). I'm guessing at that, but I think I'm around the mark. What did we do with the money? I don't know what Sasha did with his. As for me, I put 2 shillings in my money box and gave the rest to my mother. The quality of our food did improve a little and I was certainly happy about that.

We kept this up for about six months, then the furrier either died, moved on or went to jail. I have no idea which. He just vanished. So, we just went back to being the feral ratbags, which we excelled at.

I may have made some mistakes with the pence to cents conversions, but I don't apologise for that, however, I think they're accurate. At my age, mistakes are normal. Ask my wife.

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Why I Grew Up As A Feral Ratbag (My Assessment)

I tried several dictionaries to find an accurate definition of "ratbag" and was seriously disappointed with the results. So, as I usually do these days, if I need a solution to most problems, I refer to chatGPT3.5 or 4. They came up with the goods. Here it is.

ChatGPT "In Australian slang, the term "ratbag" is often used to describe a person who is mischievous, eccentric, or behaves in a cheeky or slightly unruly manner. It's a colloquial term that can be used affectionately or pejoratively, depending on the context. Calling someone a "ratbag" might suggest that they are a bit of a character, perhaps known for their playful or unconventional behaviour. It's not necessarily a harsh insult but more of a light hearted way to describe someone who tends to be a bit unconventional or unpredictable."

I reckon that just about sums it up and I'm proud to be considered to be one. Strangely, most of my closest friends were, ratbags. Sadly, they have all passed away and are, undoubtably causing havoc, wherever they ended up. Vale, guys.

OK, let's get my assessment of the factors that caused my ratbagism (Is that even a word?).

I put it down to the events that occurred during my primary school years. There were 3 schools that I attended over a 7 year period. The first one was Bundamba Primary School, which was situated outside of Ipswich in Queensland.

Not our house, but similar.

Our house was a small weatherboard home, on a dirt road with a large dirt storm water culvert with the driveway crossing it being old railway sleepers. I bet you're thinking, "Who cares?". It's relevant as it was the only thing that I can think of that got me started as a ratbag. There were some other factors, which I'll get to, shortly. As I mentioned, there was a storm drain with sleepers crossing it as our driveway. Conveniently, for my mates and I, there was a very large and active hornets' nest, built to the underside of the sleepers. Here's a tip. Unlike bees, bloody hornets can sting you as often as they want. And they always want a lot!

Yep, it's a hornets' nest.

This hornets' nest provided us with a fun, but painful game. The three of us would take a long stick, rattle the hornets' nest and run like hell. The winner of the game was the last one to be stung. The problem was that people walking by didn't run. This resulted me being belted by drunken father, whenever he decided to come home. OK, I accepted that. I think that was my first venture into ratbaggery.

Time to mention my father. He really enjoyed WW2 (his words) and was lost when the war finished. He spent all of his free time in the pub, reminiscing with his mates. I only ever saw him when he ran out of money and had to come home to sleep. During this time, he had a job in the Australian Air Force at Amberly, as a military policeman, until he was discharged for being drunk at work. This was a pattern that followed him all his life.

The other thing that contributed to my ratbaggery was Bundamba Primary School. This was where I started school. I was only there for a year, as we had to move, after my father lost his job and we moved to Adeliade, where he got a job as a tram conductor, for a short time. At Bundamba school, we had to wear a uniform. Unfortunately, kids from poor families couldn't afford them and we were bullied mercilessly by other students. This is where I learned to fight and form a lifelong hatred of bullies, who I discovered were always gutless cowards, if they were stood up to and got belted. Sadly, the teachers turned a blind eye the bullying (see, nothing's changed) and actually encouraged the bullies to harass the poor kids, I was happy to leave,

My second school was Salisbury North Primary School, where I stayed until 5th grade, when we moved again, due to the usual reason. We moved to my grandparents' house, because it was rent free. More about that later.

After my father lost his job as a Military Policeman, due to, you guessed it, drinking on the job, we moved back to our hometown, Adelaide, where my father got job as a tram driver/ conductor. I went to Salisbury North Primary, which was adjacent to farm land and bushland. This was the perfect environment for me, after Bundamba, with great school mates and friends, adventures in the bush and the rapid development of my ratbaggery (that is a word). I'm not going to go into detail here, but you get a pretty good idea by reading some of my other stories, such as, 1..50s Kids a Bonfire and a Sack of Snakes..2..Magpies, Boxthorns and a Ladder.. and, finally..3..Injuns, the Railroad and the Sheriff. These will give you a pretty fair idea. *Quick note. All those stories are 100% true.

We then moved to Walkerville, a northern inner suburb of Adelaide, to live with my grandmother, which meant living rent free, as my mother became her carer. She was a miserable, selfish old biddy. So much so, that she scared my drunken father into fleeing, leaving my mother pregnant with her third daughter. Do the sums. A grandmother, a mother and two, soon to be three, sisters and one male. Guess who? That will be a whole other story.

I went to Walkerville Primary, until graduating to high school. I seriously recommend reading the series of "Nasty Old Nailsworth" stories to get an amusing insight to that.

Walkerville was an interesting suburb bordering on an old/affluent area (where we were lucky enough to live, thanks to my wonderful, hard working grandfather, and a social housing area, This meant that my primary school and high school had a combination of different background students. In high school, it wasn't a problem but at Walkerville Primary, it really was. The bullying by the kids of the "haves" over the kids of the "have nots" was rife.

By this time, I was a big, strong boy who still hated bullies and had a fairly good talent at "street fighting", 12 year old style. This resulted in numerous (almost weekly) punch ups with the toffee nosed bullies. I copped a few blood noses and black eyes, but dished out quite a few more, which kind of slowed the bullying down. The problem was that every fight ended up with me in the headmasters' office, getting "six of the best" from his cane on my hands. By then, I had developed a big mouth which, to this day, gets me in more trouble. After receiving the cane, my "Is that the best you've got?" gave the headmaster all he needed to give me six more. Some days. I couldn't even pick up a pencil.

I guess that gives you an idea why I became known as a "ratbag". Oddly, it's a title that I wear with pride, even at 76 years old. Going crazy is part of getting old, right?

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Nope, I don't enjoy Xmas, But Here's A Recipe For Those Who Do

There are many reasons why I don't like, or want, anything to do with Xmas. I've occasionally thought about consulting a shrink about that. However, I have a strong feeling that a part of every psychologically fucked, patient's problem stays embedded in the shrink's mind so, by the time he/she gets to me, his/her mind is more fucked up than mine could ever be, so I discarded that idea.

That doesn't mean that I think that those of you who actually enjoy the Xmas thing are necessarily weird and wish you all a great time.

More than 60 years ago, I had a very beautiful German girlfriend, whose family were like a second family to me, and who I actually loved. My girlfriend's mother was an amazing cook and taught me many traditional German recipes. One of my favourites was "Kartoffelsalat", which means potato salad. I hadn't made it for about 20 years and had pretty much forgotten the recipe, until, about 30 years ago, I saw it on Taste.com. It seemed almost identical to the recipe I had been taught. Since then, I've made it dozens of times, always to rave reviews and think it will make an ideal "no fail" side dish for your Xmas dinner. Enjoy.

The recipe.

Ingredients,

1kg desiree potatoes, washed
4 hard-boiled eggs, peeled, sliced
4 green onions, thinly sliced
5 gherkins, sliced.... #Note Although the recipe doesn't call for it, I toss a handfull of baby capers, as well.
50g shaved ham, chopped
1/2 cup whole-egg mayonnaise
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves

Method

1
Cook potatoes in a large saucepan of boiling, salted water for 10 to 12 minutes or until just tender. Drain. Set aside to cool for 5 minutes. Thinly slice crossways. Cool completely.
I microwave my potatoes, skin on, with a lttle water in the dish, for 9 minutes. Your choice

2.
Place potato, egg, onion, gherkin and ham in a large bowl. Combine mayonnaise, garlic, lemon juice and parsley in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Add to potato mixture. Toss to combine. Serve.

I sincerely hope that you all have a great Xmas and a happy and prosperous New Year.

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The True Tale of Two Gay, Happy Guys in Cairns, Circa 1988

Before I get into this story, which is about a gay couple, an Australian and a Japanese. Their nationalities are not remotely important and I'm being neither racist nor judgemental. I've only mentioned it so that you can mentally picture their conversations in their own strong, native language accents. Bloody hilarious!

Also, and not having any relationship to this story, is my confusion about the, ever increasing LGBTQ (ABC…XYZ) acronym. I'm aware of the intended meaning of each of the first five letters but I have no idea what the other letters in that increasing list signify. Nor do I care. In fact, I see absolutely no need for any of them. We are all people and, as such, are entitled to be treated equally, regardless of our sexual bent (pun intended) or anything else that pointlessly sets us apart from each other. In fact, the use of that acronym is seriously divisive. End of rant.

Now, to the story. Aahhh, I hear you sigh, "Thank God for that. About bloody time".

Cairns, is a small city, located on the coast in Tropical Far North Queensland. That is for the .001% who weren't aware of it. Way back in the 1980s and 90s, it was a fairly unsophisticated place, relying on marlin fishing, backpackers and tourists, wanting to visit the great Barrier Reef. The main street was lined with small cafes and souvenir shops. The two heroes of this tale both worked in souvenir shops on the main street. Don (not his real name) worked in a Country Road clothing store, while, on the opposite of the road, Kenzo (also not his real name) worked in shop selling Australian opals.

All that last paragraph did, was set the scene for a continuing source of embarrassment for me. At that time, gay guys were tolerated, at best. Gay couples, not at all. None of that worried Don nor Kenzo, who never cared what others thought of them. I found them to be painfully honest and hilarious and I was proud to call them good friends, then and now… except when they took great delight in embarrassing me, EVERY time I walked down the street.

Don usually noticed me first, as Kenzo's shop was a little further down the street, on the opposite side. Without fail, Don would run out to the foot path and in a very loud, fully put on, fake gay voice, and yell, "Hello, Bruce darling, are you coming over for dinner tonight? Ken(zo) and I would adore to see you. We miss you".

That would still be embarrassing in 2023, so you can imagine how it was in the late 1980s.

Having heard Don, in full voice, let Kenzo know it was his turn, which he performed almost the same as Don, just louder and with a strong Japanese accent. Just repeated, in reverse order, on my way back. It was seriously embarrassing at first but, after a dozen or so times, I just ignored it….a little bit.

In real life, neither of those two spoke in the camp, effeminate way, except when they were trying to make me, literally, piss my pants laughing. I thoroughly enjoyed dinner at Don and Kenzo's house as they were both excellent cooks The after dinner performance was the killer. They both chose that time to put on the camp accents and an, "It's my turn to talk to Bruce, so you have to wash the dishes." Followed by, "No it's not. You talked to him last time. I'm talking to him, you do the diches." This would go on for about 5 minutes, getting more and more camp by the second. By this time, I was rolling on the floor laughing, trying not to piss myself. Did I ever have that accident? Never…except for once or twice, a few drops….Enough said.

They were a great source of gay jokes. Some of which got me in trouble, many years later. I once told one of their jokes that I thought was both funny and harmless, in the lunch room of a Bunnings store, where I was working. A few people politely laughed, but the majority of the women in the room, took me to task for being homophobic, despite me explaining that my gay mates told me the joke. I phoned Don and told him what had happened. He and Kenzo were so understanding that it was their turn to piss themselves laughing. Here's the joke that I told. You decide.

"A gay guy walked into a bar, in Kings Cross, with a stuffed parrot on his shoulder. He approached a big guy, in a blue singlet, and said, "Guess what I've got on my shoulder, big boy, and you can take me home." The big guy replied, "It's a bloody elephant!". To which the gay replied, "Close enough, come along." After being so rudely rejected he started to leave the bar, when he heard an almighty crash, just outside.

When he got outside, he saw that a large truck had crashed into his car. He was seriously angry and screamed at the truck driver, "Look at my car! Look what you've done to my little Mazda! I'm going to sue you. I'll sue you for all the money you've got!". The truckie looked down at him and said, "Kiss my arse!". The gay smiled at the truckie and said, "OK, if you want to settle out of court, then."

See, that wasn't too bad. I really hate political correctness. It sucks the fun out of life. Lol.

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My Take On Xmas And New Year

I have reposted the next two stories, as I have a genuine dislike of the, so called, "Festive Season". Read on and you'll discover why. However, as I'm a very magnanimous person, regardless of my personal views, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year. Having said all that, I'll just go and brush my teeth. The bad taste in my mouth thing....you know.

I Hate Xmas

Yep, I seriously hate Xmas. Unbelievable as it sounds, it's true. I revel in being called a Grinch. Although, that's not quite an accurate name. I don't want steal or destroy Xmas, I just don't want to be any part of it.

Even as a child, it was crap. The only two presents I remember receiving were a tiny, plastic spaceman, which went missing within a few weeks, during one of my mongrel, bastard father's drunken tirades. The second was a toy trumpet which mysteriously broke within a week also during another one of his episodes. He always seemed to have plenty of money for beer and cheap whiskey. Despite being of Scottish heritage, the miserable bastard never learned to appreciate excellent, single malt Islay whiskey, which doesn't surprise me. How's that for an, early in the tale, rant?

My Xmas experiences, over the following 70+ years never much improved, except for one, about 7 years ago, due to the efforts of my wife, my ex-wife, some of my wife's family and several hangers on. It was quite enjoyable, mainly because of the presence of my wife and ex, who are good friends, plus great food and good wine. This made the day unusually enjoyable. Sadly, that experience was never repeated, due my wife and I relocating, plus a few other inconsequential reasons.

Now, several other reasons why I dislike, no, despise Xmas.

1 The cost. The sheer waste of money on decorations, presents for family or "friends" that only make an appearance at Xmas or birthdays, when come for the free food and booze. The rest of the year, you never see or hear from them, unless they want something.
2 Having to waste good food and booze, plus being nice all day, to family or people you don't even like.
3 Xmas shopping. Spending hours and money that you can't comfortably spend, in an over-crowded store, which is playing the same, really bad, Xmas music over and over again. A totally nauseous experience.
4 The look of disappointment of peoples' faces, when they open presents they don't want or even like. "Note" Vinnes is a great place to shop at the month following Xmas. It's where a lot of those unwanted presents end up.

Finally, some of my favourite Xmas one liners.

"What do you call people who are afraid of Santa Claus? Claustrophobic"

"There's nothing like the joy on a kid's face when he first sees the PlayStation box containing the socks I got him for Christmas."

"Remember, children. The best way to get a puppy for Christmas is to beg for a baby brother."

"Why is Christmas just like a day at the office? You do all the work and the fat guy with the suit gets all the credit."

"The 3 stages of man: He believes in Santa Claus. He doesn't believe in Santa Claus. He is Santa Claus."

"Santa's elves are just a bunch of subordinate Clauses."

"What's the difference between Tiger Woods and Santa? Santa stopped at 3 ho's."

"I have this weird talent where I can identify what's inside a wrapped present. It's a gift."

"How about a month filled with stress and obligation? Try December"

"No one wants a framed picture of your children as a gift."

I deliberately left (most) the filthy one liners out.

MERRY CHRISTMAS.

The Ridiculous Idea Of New Year's Resolutions

It's almost 2024 and the time has come to make our New Years Resolutions. We all like to think that we will start the new year by giving away all our bad habits from the past twelve months. Excuse me a minute while I piss myself laughing. What amuses me is that many people actually believe that they will keep to the aforementioned resolutions. Excuse me, one more minute.

I have seriously made some resolutions in order to become healthier and make my, long suffering, wife happier. Unlike mere mortals, I will keep to these resolutions. Here is the list.

1. Stop drinking too much booze. The "too much" bit is fairly subjective. My wife, my doctor and I all have differing ideas on the concept of "too much". My wife says I should only have one glass of wine with dinner and only an occasional Scotch. My doctor is not quite so parsimonious, suggesting two glasses of wine and one Scotch a day. In an effort to satisfy everyone, I will agree will both of them, with a couple of exceptions regarding quantity. My resolution is to not drink more than two bottles of wine with dinner (bottle size/quantity not specified) and to limit my Scotch intake to two (bottles) a week. This resolution may have a reasonable chance of success.

2. Stop being so grumpy. This one is a challenge, as I'm the quintessential "Grumpy Old Man", a role I am comfortable with and exceptionally good at. In a brave effort to maintain this resolution, I have attached a few, easy to follow, conditions and these are as follows. My wife must stop nagging me to do as she wants and my doctor, the fat slob, must stop lecturing me on my health. I bet that I'll outlast him. Having imposed those simple conditions, I feel that I'm on fairly safe ground.

3. Stop farting in bed. This one will be difficult, as I only do it while I'm asleep and I'm totally unaware of it. In order to keep my lovely wife happy, I will try very hard not to continue the (imagined?) disgusting practice. Once again, I will impose a condition on my wife, to help me with this. She must reduce the amount of beans and disgusting green leaf things that she puts in my meals. This is only fair. As I've explained to her, the reason horses, cows and sheep fart so prodigiously is because they eat green, leafy stuff. Should I fail to keep this resolution, I will resort to shock tactics to vindicate myself. Unknown to her, I actually have recorded her farting in her sleep on my smart phone. Smart phone, smart thinking!

These are the main three resolutions that I've made. There are quite a few others, but they're not worth mentioning, as I have absolutely no intention keeping them.

The simple lesson in this post is to make conditions with your resolutions, so you can actually keep them longer than a week. Here endeth the lesson and a Happy 2024 to you and your family.

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My Experience Of Being A Type2 Diabetic With Leg Ulcers. A More Serious Story Than Usual

As this story's heading says, It's about my experience with type2 diabetes and why, if possible, you should everything you can to avoid getting it. I'm sure that, in many cases, it can't be avoided, but often, it can be controlled. If you live with or know a type 2 diabetic, you will have probably experienced that person's grumpy spells. After reading this, you may understand them better.

A few shout-outs, just to start, not in any order of wonderfulness (is that a word?)

1. Dr Ali. This wonderful hospital doctor noticed the amateur bandage efforts on my legs, while I was in hospital, waiting for blood test results for another problem. He asked whether I had diabetes. He then asked me if I was being treated for it. When I explained that there was no-one interested in diabetics in Burnie, despite medical clinics and pharmacies (except for one pharmacist. More on him, later) displaying signs that they suppled services for diabetics, Dr. Ali then proved me wrong. Within 30 minutes he had my leg bandages professionally replaced, made an appointment for me to see a specialist, registered me with the Tasmanian District Nurses and prescribed special nerve pain medication, which allowed me to have a pain free night's sleep, for the first time in more than a couple of years. My regular GP who I had been seeing for 3 years, knew I had diabetic leg ulcers, and showed no interest, never even removing the bandages to check. He's no longer my GP. Sadly, Dr. Ali isn't in private practice.

2. My wife. Prior to Dr. Ali's efforts and the, twice weekly, visits from the District nurses, Kim had been cleaning and dressing the ulcers on my legs, every day. It must have been a revolting thing to do, but she did it without complaint. I will always keep that in my "Reasons I love Kim" file. Or I would, if I had one. Not only that, she has helped me live with a heart problem and a back so chronically bad, I was placed on a Disability Support Pension, as a result of the severity of the damage to it. All that, with no complaint or maybe, just a well-deserved little.

3. The Tasmanian Govt's District Nurses. These are a group of qualified nurses who provide home visits to eligible patients. Without exception, they have always been cheerful, pleasant and, most importantly very professional. They see me, on the same days, every week around 9.30am. Why the big deal about the timing, you ask. Because of the size of the bandaging (entirely below the knee, on both legs), I can only shower on the days they come, twice a week. The other days are all hot soapy water washing. They arrive at 9.30, I hit the shower at 8.45. Absolute bliss. I have to pay for these visits. The Tas. Gov't charges me $5 per visit. Yep, $5. I couldn't buy a bandage for twice that. My heartfelt thanks to the District Nurses and their employer.

4. My "go to" pharmacy is Boland's Pharmacy, in Burnie. It's owned and managed by Peter Boland and he and his staff provide me with professional assistance, advice and obvious care every time I visit there. I won't go into details, but I will honestly say that I have not ever received better service at any other pharmacy, in my 76+ years.

There are many other problems with being a type2 diabetic, but I've only focussed on this one as it's the most debilitating one for me. If you think that I'm just being a bit of a whinger, I have attached a photo of the ulcer on my right leg. I have them on both legs, but this one is the worst ATM. Before you click on the link (and I don't recommend that you do, especially before a meal), be warned. It is seriously revolting. Click here. You have been warned.

Here's another biggy and I am NOT joking about this. A big issue for type 2 diabetics is damaged, and often very painful, feet. Wearing shoes can be agonising. Here's the tip. If you, or somebody that you know has painfull foot problems, tell them to buy a pair of Crocs. Yep, I know that they are seriously ugly, but I don't care. They are most comfortabla footwear for a diabetic, or anyone else, with painful feet. Wearing Crocs, as both my wife and I do, is like walking on a cushion that gently massages your feet, with every step. And they last for years. I have several pairs of Crocs, including a pair of thongs (flip flops) that I've been wearing for more than 20 years. Yep, no joke. The tread has worn off the sole, but they're still comfortable, despite having no tread left. I seriously recommend them.

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A Bit About My Best Mate And A Seriously Evil Practical Joke.

If you've read some of my earlier stories, you'll have seen some about my, now, sadly missed, deceased, best mate and our ongoing practical jokes This story is not about me. It's a fond memory of him, his private life and, in my opinion, the most evil practical joke, ever.

As I've mentioned many times, I will never use peoples' real names, out of respect for them, their families and potential police action. The last bit was a joke; maybe.

My mate was about ten years older than me, a very successful businessman, in his own right, from a wealthy and respected family. To me, he was just a good, respected and trusted, ratbag mate who I loved like a brother in spite of (or as a result of) his penchant for practical jokes. Our jokes only had two rules. No-one got physically hurt and nobody's property got damaged. Good rules which left a lot of room for interpretation.

On a personal level, he had an interesting take on marriage, and had experienced that institution on six occasions. His philosophy was that marriage should only be for a period, not exceeding five years. "Why?", you ask. He maintained that the romance couldn't last, past that time, after which, it just descended into friendship, at best. He was honest enough to tell his wives that before marriage and, of course they all knew that they could change him. Even though they were all beautiful, well educated, intelligent women, I have a sneaking suspicion that they all believed in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, as well.

Divorce them he did and they all went kicking and screaming, despite the $1m that went into their bank accounts, a new house, a new car and a promise that he would be there to help them, should they ever need it. Fortunately, he could afford it. The part that amazed me was, after they got over the divorce thing, they all maintained a deep friendship with him, In fact, they formed an "ex-wives club". Seriously! I witnessed it on many occasions. When I asked him how he managed it, he told me that he never lied to any of them. I took that lesson to heart and have the same philosophy with my marriage, without the five year thing and certaily not being able to affoerd it. Sorry darling, if you have read this, that last bit was a joke, really!

Now, here's what you've all been waiting for. The most evil practical joke, ever!

One of his several businesses was a large, new car dealership, with several sales locations, which necessitated numerous managers. Due to a very profitable year and leaving his, very well paid and efficient 2IC in control, he took all his managers for an, all expenses paid, week of debauchery in the Philippines. From his description, it was seriously debauched.

On the way back to Australia, he had a short stopover in Hong Kong, during which time he insisted that all his managers took a health check, before returning home. Fortunately for his managers, he had a GP mate, living there, so he arranged an appointment for each of them. To their collective shock, they were all told that they had all gotten a venereal disease, which would mean that they had to take a course of prescribed medication and abstain from sex for six weeks, No exceptions!

As you can imagine, this caused a huge problem for his managers, all of whom were married. How the hell were they going to explain this sudden lack of sexual urge to their wives without raising suspicion?

Just to spoil it for those of you, who haven't worked it out yet, the medical examinations were real, the prescriptions were just sugar pills and all the managers had a clean bill of health. In their collective panic, none of them were aware of it. After four weeks, due to a need to have them working at peak efficiency, he let them in on the joke. Trust me, sympathy had no part of it. My mate later told me that they were very quiet around him, for quite a while, after that. He also told me that there weren't any divorces, either. But then, car salesmen can lie quite effectively.

I think you would have to agree with me, that this was one of the most evil practical jokes, ever.

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A True Ghost Story

The title of this story is partially correct It is 100% true. It is a ghost story. However, I never saw a ghost. Do I believe in ghosts? I'm not sure. But I am absolutely certain what I felt. Just to be sure, I revisited the place on several occasions, just to check, and it was the same each time. Now, let's set the scene.

This took place on top of Koyasan, which is a mountain in Wakayama prefecture, in Japan. Wakayama is a large prefecture, situated to the east of Osaka and south of Nara. There are a few other prefectures nearby, but I'm not going to bore you with a geography lesson. Want to know more? Check a map.

The area featured in this story, is part of the ancient and very famous Buddhist Okunoin temple, known as Koyasan cemetery, which is the traditional burial site of powerful Samurai warlords as well as famous Buddhist priests. The cemetery is in the middle of a pine forest, where it's not uncommon to be surrounded by mist, which winds its way through the graves and trees. Does that sound spooky? In reality, it's even spookier than it sounds, particularly just on dusk, which is when I visited, each time.

Imagine the mist 3 or 4 times thicker than this photo of Koyasan cemetery and you'll get the idea.

Just to walk amongst the 600-700 year old grave stones, covered in moss, just adds to the eerie atmosphere.

How spooky is this?

What I'm about to tell you now, is probably the eeriest experience in my life. I swear this is true. As I walked through the graves, I could feel absolute hate emanating from them. Whenever I stopped to look at a particular grave, for just a few seconds, the intensity of that hate multiplied, to the point that I could almost taste it! I'm serious. I wasn't scared, because I knew that nothing there could hurt me, but I was amazed at the feeling that I was getting from that cemetery.

Later, while visiting the Okunoin Temple, I mentioned my experience to the head priest. He wasn't surprised and told me that was a very common reaction and said that many Japanese were too afraid to enter the cemetery. He also told me that, in his opinion, the hate I felt was real. That's what made me go back and visit there again, several times. Each time, it was the same. Were there ghosts? I never saw any, but there was some unseen thing there.

Now to something a lot less scary. Koyasan is also famous for producing sesame tofu, called "gomadofu" in Japanese. It is absolutely delicious. You can visit the small factory that produces it and buy a small slice of the tofu, still warm from its production, in a bowl with a little soy sauce and a tiny, thin slice of spring onion on top. It's the best tofu that I have ever eaten.

This was at a restaurant that specialised in sesame tofu. Amazing!

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An Unfortunate Squat and Drop Tale in Japan

I must admit that this is a fairly crappy, but 100% true, tale. The event is forever embedded in my mind and happened in September 1996, in Nara Prefecture, in Japan. More details a little further on, but first, a little bit of background

Those of you, who have travelled overseas, are undoubtably aware of the importance of only drinking and brushing your teeth, using bottled water. Vile things can happen, if you pour local water into your stomach. Yep, this is one of those stories, so click off now if you don't want to find out what happened.

I was quite aware of this but, as I was intending to stay in Japan for a year (I ended up staying for 7 years), I couldn't handle the idea of using botted water for such a long period, so I though that getting my body used to Japanese mains water, as quickly as possible, was a good idea and I was aware of problems that I was going to face, or bottom, in the short term. Having just completed the requisite two week indoctrination course at my employer's head office, with no major mishaps, I felt comfortable about facing my first day on the job, as an English language teacher.

I worked for a company called Nova, which was the largest language school in Japan. Don't get the impression that is was a major, huge campus, situated in either Tokyo or Osaka. The "school" consisted of more than 400 , very small, schools, spread throughout Japan in an office building, usually situated on one floor, consisting of either an open plan teaching area with a number of round or kidney shaped tables and 4 chairs to each table 1 chair for the teacher and 3 for the students. The other option was a number of cubicles, with glass partitions and the same table/chair set-up. There was also a reception counter, a small "teachers' room" and one or two toilets.

A typical Nova school entrance.

My first class on my first day as a teacher was in a very small school, which consisted of a miniscule reception area, an open teachers' room, separated from the teaching area by filing cabinets and the teaching area, with about eight round tables. Next to that was a tiny kitchenette where you could make a cup of coffee, between lessons (good luck with having time to do that). On the other side of the kitchenette was a door, opening directly into a traditional Japanese "squat and drop" toilet. The picture that I'm trying to paint is that EVERYBODY in the school got to share the aroma emanating from the toilet, whenever the user open and closed the door, on their way out of the toilet. Now, do get where this story is going?

A traditional Japanese "squat and drop" toilet.

And here is where nightmares are made. For the three weeks that I'd been in Japan, drinking local tap water, I'd only experienced a mild reaction to the water, so I felt quite comfortable, until my first lesson, on my first day, in my first school, in Japan. And then God deserted me. Half way through the lesson, I was very suddenly hit with desperate need to rush to to the toilet, before filling my suit pants with you know what.

I quickly excused myself, rushed through the kitchenette, into the toilet. The art of using a "squat and drop" toilet is based entirely on accuracy. Something that I neither had the skill or time for. I very quickly covered the rim if the toilet with toilet paper, sat own in a very cramped position and literally exploded! And it seriously stunk, like a dozen dead rats had been buried in my bowels for a month. At the end of a very quick, stinking explosion, I cleaned and washed everything I could and went back into the classroom, closing the toilet door as fast as possible, to no avail. In fact, I think closing the door so quickly, acted like a giant fan, spreading the stench throughout the school. Several students immediately got up and left. Can you imagine my embarrassment? I was mortified! Fortunately, Japanese people are probably the most polite people in the world and, those who hadn't left, acted like nothing had happened. You have to love those people. Oh, the day got worse. Of course.

The same type of chair we were using.

Still mortified but trying to pretend that nothing had happened, with the stench still lingering, I tried to start my next lesson as professionally as possible, even though the new group of students, having heard what happened from others, kept glancing at me and giggling amongst themselves.

To try and lighten the atmosphere (pun intended) and make things a little more casual, I turned my chair around, with its back facing my students and sat down, whereby the chair folded up, dumping me on my, still very tender, bum on the floor, casing me more pain and added embarrassment.

Fortunately, apart from the non-stop teasing from the other teachers, the remaining lessons were uneventful. The teasing continued after I got home to my father-in-law's house and related the days' events. A large quantity of very high quality sake, from my father-in-law's liquor cabinet did help ease the pain and embarrassment, so my second day of teaching was uneventful, apart from the splitting headache from the sake.

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The Kirribilli House

If you have taken the trouble to read my story, "The Analyst a Model and a Toga Party", good luck to you, because this story has nothing to do with that. However, it almost immediately follows on from that time. If my memory hasn't totally failed, it's probably around 1970. That was a clever little space filler, wasn't?

*Note. The previous sentence was a "tag question". Very simply, it just turns an ordinary sentence into a closed question, that requires a yes or no answer. "So what, who cares?", you ask. Ok, my little plebian lovelies, read and learn. Tag questions are very powerful, if you want to get what you want. Imagine this. Your significant other says, "A new sofa would be nice." This leaves you the option of explaining that the old one is good for another 10 years. BUT, if he/she says, "A new sofa would be nice, wouldn't it?", combined with a loving smile and nodding his/her head, it would be much more difficult to say no, without starting an argument. You understand that now, don't you? I bet almost every salesperson you've ever spoken to, has used it on you, haven't they?

OK, back to the story. After moving to Sydney from Adelaide, where I discovered that the best view of Adelaide was the view in the rear vision mirror, as you were driving up Mt. Lofty Road, as you were leaving. I rented a very tiny bedroom in a very old wooden accommodation place, I called the Kirribilli House, not to be confused with the Official Kirribilli House, probably because it was situated in a suburb called Kirribilli. It was near the Harbour Bridge, with great views across the water to the Sydney CBD.

This is, most likely, where you expect me to bag my accommodation. On the contrary, although it was a run-down place, it had the greatest bunch of social misfits that I've ever witnessed in one place before. I loved it!

Here's a couple of short stories, just to give you an idea of how it was.

The tenants included backpackers (yep, they were a thing in the 70s), hookers, alcoholics, young people, working in the CBD, who couldn't afford a better place to rent, a seaman, me and a rookie NSW police man (more about him, later). Now, about the seaman, who I became good mates with….until I didn't, for a short time.

Every Friday night, a group of us would go to the local, sleazy pub for a night of booze and laughs. The were a lot of others, from different boarding houses there, so it was usually a great night. My seaman mate (I forget his name) was young Pommie guy, around thirty. He was quite short, with a quick temper and looked like a mini Joe Cocker. His only purpose for Friday nights, was to try and pick up a female companion, for the night. He didn't care about age, looks or marital status and, despite his looks or, in spite of his looks, he rarely scored, so he took his hunt quite seriously.

I, on the other hand, went there for a few drinks, a laugh and an occasional practical joke wasn't out of the question. On that particular night, my victim was my seaman mate. I had bought a small water pistol, which I had the barman fill up with straight raspberry cordial Every time my mate started to chat up a girl, I would squirt some cordial into his ear and, of course, would look away from him after the squirt, in all innocence, while he was screaming that he was going to kill the bastard that did it. It was hilarious. No-one gave me away. After about the third time, an ugly, middle aged, hag, that he was chatting up, dobbed me in. Because I was looking away, I never saw him coming, but I did feel the punch to my jaw that knocked me out of my chair. He came after me again, as I got up, but being short, his reach wasn't that long and, as I had a firm grip on a hand full of his long, curly hair, I was quite safe, holding him at arms-length, until he calmed down. The entire pub, full of laughing patrons, didn't help. In time, he got over it.

Now, about our rookie NSW policeman. He was a great hulk of almost human with no apparent brain. He would bluster around the dining room, threatening to arrest anyone he thought was crooked, which a good percentage of the tenants were, something he never recognised. Then, one day he brought his service pistol home, boasting that he had to clean it ready for an inspection the next day. He even had one bullet, that he had misappropriated, just to show how dangerous that he really was. Just to show off he took off his belt, complete with pistol and the one bullet and hung them on the hat rack in the dining room.

The idiot must have taken his pants off earlier just so he could hang the gun up to impress us. No idea how his pants never fell down. Then, during his dinner, he decided that he had to go to the toilet, without the gun. Bad move! Within seconds, the gun had disappeared. When he came back to the dining room and noticed his gun had gone, he placed all 20+ of us under arrest. Then he called his station and reported his missing gun.

Within minutes, there must have been 30 police in our dining room, searching everyone. Of course, they found nothing, so we weren't under arrest. The next day, more police arrived to search for the gun. Apparently, losing your gun, if you're a policeman, is a fairly serious thing. Eventually, they found several parts of the gun, including the bullet (I would have loved to see how he explained that), buried in the garden beds. They never found the rest. I have it, on good authority, the missing bits were rusting in Sydney Harbour. We never saw our tame rookie policeman again.

Shortly after that, my girlfriend in Adelaide decided to mover to Sydney, so we could be together. This was a very good thing, but not at Kirribilli House, so I rented a beachfront flat at Collaroy Beach. That's probably my next story.

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The 70s, Collaroy, Long Reef and Hand Feeding Sharks

After the Kirribilli House thing, just before my girlfriend arrived, I found a job with a small Ford dealer, selling new cars, in Narrabeen, on Sydney's North Shore. I managed to rent a one-bedroom flat, across the road from the beach, in Collaroy. The flat wasn't much to look at, but it was convenient to work and my favourite leisure activities, surfing, fishing and scuba diving,

Life in the early '70s was very different from 2023. Of course, I had to wear a suit at work and long hair was OK, but fashion wasn't fashionable in my leisure hours. I think most of my era, including me, wore tie-dyed Tshirts, when we bothered to wear a shirt, flared chinos and either sandals, thongs or real moccasins, if we bothered with footwear. Headbands were optional and were only worn to keep your hair out of your eyes, unless you were a poser, pretending to be hip.

Not me. I was much bigger and liked a bit more colour.

In my opnion, the best things abour 70s fashion were the high waisted, flared bottom trousers and colour. Even my work suits had the high waist and flairs and my suit coat lining was silk with a bright paisley print. Straiht guys never had to worry about being considered gay, not that we ever cared because, in that era, nobody cared. A seriously great time. All that, plus the best music of all time, which meant NO RAP!! Yay. Sorry Rappers, RAP ISN'T MUSIC!!

Back to the story.

Collaroy

My girlfriend moved in and life was very good and romantic...until it wasn't. We had been dating since our mid-teens, but this was our first time living together. After a few months, we discovered that we were more like family, than lovers, and sadly she moved back to Adelaide. Shortly afterwards, she went back to Germany to visit relatives. During that time, she met an English guy, married him and had several kids. Read more about her in my story, "A Knife Fight, Attempted Murder And A Lump Of Firewood". Just to close this chapter, I had no contact with her, after she went to Germany, until about 30 years later. I had moved back to Adelaide, temporarily, until the S.A, Police invited me to move out of S.A., but that's another story that may never be told. I had not broken any laws but, for several strange reasons, I was considered to be undesirable and by continuing to remain in Adelaide, I was assured of "continuing police attention". I left. However, before I left, I accidently bumped into my ex-girlfriend. It was a hot day, so I went into a local "milk bar" to buy a cold bottle of Fanta, not taking any notice of the person behind the counter. Suddenly, the lady behind the counter said, "Bruce?". I looked up and it was a few seconds before I recgnised her. As I previously wrote, she was married to an English guy and had a few kids. The woman I was speaking to bore no resemblance to the beautiful, very busty young woman who had been my girlfriend for a number of years. She was now very fat, with the skin under her jaw ,long enough to reach her navel and, those amazing breasts that I remembered 30 years before, were now able to be tucked into her panty hose. I know these are bad things to wtite but, those were my shocked thoughts, at the time. I made small talk for a few minutes and then left. As i walked out the door, I said a little "Thank you God" prayer.

Long Reef

Long Reef Beach is the next beach, south of Collaroy. While Collaroy occasionally produced reasonable waves for surfing, it was nothing, compared to the monster waves produced by the Long Reef bombora, up to 5 metres. I've only seen it that big a few times and, even though I was a pretty good surfer, I never had the guts to try the really big waves. The biggest day that I ever surfed there was around 3 to 4 metres...and only once. "Why? were you gutless?", you ask. my reply is nope, yep. I'll explain a bit later.

I loved surfing there. That break and the one at North Narrabeen, were my favourites. I was lucky enough to live close to the "Shane Surfboard" factory, in Brookvale. In my opinion, Shane Steadman was Australia's best board shaper, at that time, and I had a 6'6", tapered rail, Shane board which had been made just for me. I loved that board so much, I named my son after Shane. True story.

Not my board, but a similar 1970s style

Sadly, my board died at long reef and I alumost joined it. It was the first time that I had surfed Long Reef's big waves. That particular day, it was pumping at about 3.5 to 4 metres. I had been out there for about an hour and had caught some really good waves, so my confidence was high as was my over-confidence, which resulted in a wipeout that totally destroyed my board and broke 2 of my ribs and cracked a third. I don't know if you have ever experienced broken ribs, but I can tell you, they hurt. Because I was held underwater for a while, I obviously held my breath. Until I surfaced, took a deep breath and promptly passed out.

Long Reef, on a perfect day.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on who you ask, I was rescued by a couple of other surfers, who got me to shore and called an ambulance. I was devastated becuse my board was smashed and so were my ribs, which also cost me my job, because I couldn't walk or drive for a while. It turned out for the best, as a large Ford dealership in Brookvale, offered me a job as their F&I (finance and insurance) manager until I healed and was then promoted to General Used Car Sales Manager. See? If you lead a good, clean, sober life, you become as boring as hell.....or, if you ignore the good, clean, sober rubbish, you get promoted.

Hand Feeding the Sharks

In addition to surfing, I was hooked on scuba diving. The diving equipment was quite primitive. No buoyancy vest, no octopus (extra mouthpiece) or any other safety devices. All you had was an air tank, with a bit of steel wire on the outsie of the tank that release an exta 5 or 10 minutes (I forget which) of air, in case you ran out. It worked, as long as the person who was refilling the tank remembered to open the valve, while filling the tank and closing it afterwards. If that happened and you ran out of air, instead of getting a few minutes more supply, you got....nada! How do I know this? It happened to me..twice. I don't care how shallow you're diving, it's a long way to the suface with zero air.

Let's get on to the shark bit.

Manly Marine Land was a large, circular tank with glass viewing windows around it. On weekends they had divers in the tank, hand feeding, very large Grey Nurse sharks, stingrays and other bitey things. The Scuba diving club that I belonged to, supplied the divers. I think the club got paid. The divers didn't.

Check out his pearly whites

As I wrote earlier, the diving gear was primitive, except, in the tank, it was even more so. Divers didn't wear fins, because it was important to be steady on your feet, when standing on the bottom. We even had exra weights on our weight belt, to keep us on the bottom and not bobbing around, like an injured fish. So, armed with a bucket of dead mackeral or Australiam salmon we'd start feeding the sharks and rays, while the customers were glued to the windows, waiting for the first shark attack. I used to think to myself, after looking at all the peering, expectant faces, "Suckers, It ain't going to happen". Little did they know that those huge Grey Nurse sharks, with those fearsome teeth, were gentle giants, that only ate fish.. So much so, that they enjoyed having their backs scratched. Was I ever scared? Yep, the first time, I almost crapped in my wetsuit. After a week, I couldn't wait to get back in the tank again. The only scary bit was getting out of the tank, because of not having fins and wearing very heavy weight belts. We overcame that by having our weight belts tied to the top of the ladder that was used to enter and exit the tank. We would just drop the weights, float up to the top and pull the belt out afterwards.

There were a few rules that really had to be obeyed.
First of all, the hand that was not holding the fish, needed to be securely tucked away and not waving about. Waving to Aunt Betty, who came to see her brave young nephew in that tank with those big, nasty sharks, could fool another shark, or bitey, into thinking that the hand was dinner. It was a mistake that you would probably only make once.
The next rule was, if you were actally feeding a shark, you stood with your back hard against the wall, to prevent being ambushed from behind. As the shark approached you, jaws agape, you held the fish very still. As the shrks nose touched the fish, YOU LET GO! And got that hand tucked awy rather smartly, for obvious reasons. Finally, for whatever reason NEVER reach under one of the rocks in the tank. The resident moray eel would certainly get pissed off. That's probably another one time mistake, as the blood in the water could have some rather interesting consequences. That's all, about the sharks.

Shocking Numbrays

Numbrays don't get much of a mention in the list of scary beasties in the ocean or, as in this case, the shallows of Pittwater in North Sybney. However, I guarantee that an intimate encounter with one of these harmless looking little rays will leave a shocking impression on you, as one of our scuba diving club members will attest to.

This little tale took place on an exhibit colloection adventure for Manly Marine Land. We used to do these adverures on a fairly regular basis, to fill an ever increasing list of requirements for them. Once again, I think the dive club got paid. The divers didn't.

We were only diving in about 10 metres of water, carrying what looked like large butterfly nets. If we saw a numbray, buried in the sand, which were very difficult to spot, one of us would put the net over the ray which, being startled, would obligingly swimm into the net We'd then flip the net over, so the ray couldn't escape, swim back to our boat and pop the ray into one of several rubbish bins of water, until we took it back to Marine Land. Sounds simple, doesn't it?

Touch these lttle guys and they will light up your life

I think that I'd be correct in assuming that either in your extented family, clubs, pubs or work, you have come across someone who, for whatever reason, justs rubs you the wrong way. So it was with my scuba diving club. There was one particular guy, whise name I really, fortunately, can't remrmber, who thought he was the best, most highly qualified and adventurous diver in the group. Oh, I forgot to mention, also the most self opiniated. That would be remotely acceptaple, if he was even one of those, which he wasn't. It just makes this story more enjoyable, for me anyway.

As I wrote, we were hunting for numbrays But weren't having much success. I happened to spy one, half buried in the sand. As i pointed to it, the dickhead that I just referred to, pushed me out way and went in to net it. There is a God. It was warm day and we were all wearing short wetsuits with short leg and arm covering. As The dickhead kneeled down on the sand to net his victim, his knees each landed, squarely on the back of a couple of numbrays, completely covered by a thin layer of sand.

I never though you could hear someone scream underwater, but you can and he did. Very loudly. While completing a full bacward somersault, 10 metres under water. It was almosy like slow motion ballet. Sadly, four or five of us almost choked on sea warer, while laughing at what had just happened, such was his popularity. We eventually got him back to the boat and into an ambulance. He survived but strangely left our dive club, shortly after getting out of a very short stay in the hospital, mouthing very bad comments about our laughing at him, in his hour (seconds) of need. Fortuately, our laughter at that, didn't put us in danger, as we were in the clubhous, at the time. Best improvised entertainment....ever.

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Used Cars, Rotten Fish and Vegemite

I bet that heading's got you just a tad intrigued. As usual, as we progress, all will be revealed. This story is based on the events over a few years, circa 1994 in Cairns, Far North Queensland. It's about the lifestyles of a group of mature (cough!) Aussie guys in their mid-forties.

*Quick note. The group weren't all Aussie born and included a Kiwi (Dockie) and a Mauritian (John-Paul), who were, as far as I can remember, both naturalised Aussies, which, technically, makes my third sentence make sense. Say the last four words aloud, repeatedly, without sounding like Sylvester the cat from Loony Toons. Don't get It? Hmmm, then you be waaayyy younger than me.

I've only named two of the miscreants who made up our group and it will stay that way, although I will use false first names, just to make reading this a bit easier. Dockie was probably my best mate and, if he hasn't already passed away, he will/would appreciate being named. As for JP, I never cared too much for him (way too serious), so I don't care what he thinks. He probably won't be mentioned again, anyway.

Most of this story is centred in or around, what was Cairns' largest used car yard, which was situated in an old service station (Gas Station for those of you who speak Americun). It consisted of a large display area in the front. Surprisingly, this was quite useful for a car yard. The office area was used as an office area. Yep, really! It also had an enclosed, outside toilet and a workshop at the rear. An old house, on an adjacent block of land, at the rear, was part of the premises and was used for administration. Why all this detailed information? Keep reading. You'll work it out.

The company was owned by two brothers, who I will call Alf and Bert. As I wrote previously, these are not their real names. Just note that I used names beginning with A and B. This is just to make it easier for me. The rest of us either worked full time or casually For Alf and Bert, who were part of our group of ratbags. I worked there casually, just as a place to hang out, as I had Cairns' first Sushi restaurant which my staff, including my future ex-wife managed quite well. You work that bit out. The last, but equally important member of the group was Cal, (see, the ABC thing?) who was the settlements manager and finance broker, for customers. Yep, they actually sold cars. A lot of them.

However, as far as our group was concerned, the premises were also a fertile ground for our seriously childish practical jokes and for planning our weekend adventures, which usually included the ocean eg swimming, diving, sailing, fishing etc usually included an occasional wild party on Saturday night.

As I mentioned, we were into seriously bad, childish practical jokes. Here Are some examples:

The Goldfish.

You have to remember, Cairns was often hot, incredibly humid and raining. In a shaded area, just outside the offices, was a cold water drink machine. It was just a large water bottle over a refrigeration unit, with a tap underneath and a paper cup dispenser. You can imagine how popular it was on hot, humid days…until it wasn't. Across the road, was a shopping centre, which included a pet shop, including goldfish. I don't find goldfish attractive, usually due to the, two or three centimetre, piece of crap trailing out of the goldfish's bum.

I have no idea who thought this up, but it was priceless. We put two goldfish, complete with trailing crap in the water bottle. You can imagine when someone had just poured a lovely glass of ice cold water, on a hot tropical day, to suddenly see the goldfish in the water bottle. It was fantastic. The reactions ranged between disbelief, anger, disgust or fall down laughing. or a combination of all of them. Except if they hadn't seen the goldfish until after they had taken a mouthful of water. Then, you could scrub the laughing bit, Strange, that. It was months before we got bored with that.

Vegemite

People either love or hate vegemite. I absolutely love it thinly spread over heaps of real butter (not that filthy margarine rubbish) on fresh bread, hot toast or hot crumpets is the ONLY way to eat it. Philistines who use it in a soup, on a pizza or as a cooking ingredient should be sentenced to a long term of imprisonment.

However, there are several other useful applications for vegemite in practical jokes. Here are a couple. As I previously mentioned, the car yard had an enclosed, outside toilet, with an old, rather dilapidated, black toilet. Yep, black toilets are a thing. In fact, they are such a great thing that when the seat is liberally smeared with vegemite, it's almost invisible. The almost bit usually wasn't a problem, because those in need were generally urgently in need and didn't have time to carefully inspect the seat before using it. The number of people who got caught out was surprising, because they obviously never bothered to wipe the seat before using it. In my opinion, that, in itself, made them deserving of a vegemite smeared bum.

The other great use for vegemite was to apply copious quantities of it underneath car door handles and, if possible, on the steering wheel. Being a used car yard, it was often visited by the police. Usually about a break in over night and checking for false number plates etc. As much as I appreciate the work that the police do, their cars made wonderful targets. Sadly, they usually never had much of a sense of humour. I can only imagine what they thought, when they were asking us, in a rather unpleasant tone, who was responsible for vegemiting their car and being confronted by a group of 40ish, mature guys, who were shaking their heads in denial, trying not to laugh.

Nothing to do with vegemite, but another little toilet prank was to stretch gladwrap across the toilet bowl and lower the seat down over it. You can possibly imagine where the pee or other stuff, deposited by those who sit down to pee, went. Amazing, just how much foul language can come out of the mouths of the fairer sex.

Rotten Fish

In my opinion, this has to be the best practical joke, complete with revenge, ever.

Just to refresh you memories, Cal was the settlement manager and finance broker for the car yard, His office was situated in the old, wooden house at the rear of the yard. Cal was a really good bloke, who loved a practical joke as much as anybody, except when it was aimed at him and it worked perfectly. Dockie was my best mate and the chief practical joker. He had recently bought a 5m boat, that was capable of the the 30km trip to the Great Barrier Reef and back, in complete safety. It was a beautiful boat and his pride and joy. He was lucky to have Cal as a mate, as he helped Dockie to obtain a loan to buy the boat. So, good feelings all round....until Dockie couldn't help himself, with a practical joke on Cal.

It was the middle of the wet season. Really hot and humid every day. So all the windows in the house were wide open. This was just too much of a temptation for Dockie, who nailed 4 dead pilchards (large sardines) to the wall, just under Cal's wide open window. By mid afternoon, the stink was unbearable. Cal had no idea where the smell was coming from. As hard as he looked, he couldn't find the source. Even when he looked out of the window, he couldn't see why it stunk. This went on for 3 days, until the rotten fish fell off the nails. When Cal finally saw the bits of dead, broken fish, he finally worked it out.

He was ropeable. He also knew it would have been Dockie's handywork. Cal was an averagely built, 180cm, fit guy,who had trained as a boxer. Dockie was a very solidly built 185cm, dirty, street fighter. Cal also knew he would come out worse in a fight, also Dockie was a mate, so he just bided his time, until he could think of a revenge prank. It didn't take long. Cal was seriously intelligent, very popular and well connected to the finance industry. He also knew that Dockie absolutely loved his boat and that it would be the best way to revenge prank him. He did it beautifully.

Dockie had had his boat for about three months and spent every available hour on it, fishing diving and crabbing. Then, his whole world fell apart. He unexpectedly received a letter from the finance company that financed his boat, saying that there had been a mistake in the loan's processing, and upon investigation, it was decided that he was not able to repay the loan's monthly repayments. Therefore, unless he could pay out the loan within 30 days, they would repossess the boat. Dockie was devastated. His whole world was crumbling around him. During this time, I often saw him in tears. Dockie was a very big, tough guy, who I had never seen shed a tear before.

He approached Cal to see if he could refinance the boat but unfortunately, no other finance company wanted to know about him. Dockie was an emotional wreck.

It was only two days before his boat was due to be repossssed, that Cal told him it was all a revenge prank for the rotten fish. I swear that it took 4 of us to hold him back from murdering Cal. Fortunately, it only took a bottle of single malt Scotch whiskey to calm him down. After about an hour, Dockie was pissing himself laughing at the genius of the prank. However, to my knowledge, he never played a prank on Cal, ever again. Thinking about it, It's amazing how a few stinking dead fish could almost cause a nervous breakdown and a potential murder. Lol.

That's the end of the practical joke stories. There are many more but, due to them either being boring or possibly ending up with a few jokers being imprisoned, I'll leave it there.

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Better Than a Slapstick Comedy Script

I absolutely swear that this actually did happen, as written, with no embellishments.

Many years ago, my lovely ex-wife and I had a market stall in the famous Rusty's Markets, in Cairns, called "The Olive Tree Cairns", specialising in very high quality delicatessen goods, such as 5 varieties of local organic honey and the very best Australian Extra Virgin Olive Oil (Olivet). I challenge you to find it. If you do, buy it! It's so much better than the European olive oil that's dumped in Australia. If you can't find it, try Cobram Estate Robust extra virgin olive oil. While it's not anywhere as good as Olivet, It's still way better than the European stuff and can be bought in Coles or Woollies.

The stall still exists, but, in my opinion, is now just a bread shop specialising in pretend artisan breads. How do I know this? Simply because I know the bakers who are producing it for the current owner.

It was a very successful business, but we were tired of the six and seven day weeks that were required on the 3 market days and the long days, preparing, packing and labelling our large range of goods, so We sold up and moved to Tasmania. In hindsight, it was probably a bad move.

Enough of the padding, which was required, due to the shortness of the story.

Directly across the aisle, from our stall was fruit and vegetable stall, which was operated by the son of a Rusty's legend, named M****, who owned maybe 4 similar stalls in the market. I absolutely adored M****, but make no apologies for the following event, involving her son, John (not his real name.).

John was a lovely young man, in his mid 20s, who had heart of gold and wouldn't harm a fly. He also had a middle aged Russian lady (name conveniently forgotten) who worked as a part time assistant to John. For the sake of the story, I'll call her Olga. Olga was a very nice woman, and was also a very religious person. married to an Aussie and who would never tolerate bad language from anyone.

Here's where I come into the picture and I'm going to hijack the story for a while. I promise that it will be worth the wait. Not my bit. The original story.

At the time of the story, I had just permanently damaged my back, lifting 30Kg tubs of honey out of my small Renault van. My doctor, whose racing yacht I crewed on and, I thought was my friend, prescribed 80mg tablets of oxycontin, twice a day, on market days. 80 bloody milligrams! I had never used that kind of drug before. They worked a treat! I felt no pain, whatsoever. The fact that I was bopping around the ceiling and talking at 300kmph didn't bother me. Until Monday, when I tried to get out of bed and couldn't move.

The ambulance paramedics couldn't believe the dosage I was on and spoke to my doctor (friend) who apologised, claiming a typo mistake and reduced the dosage to a more manageable 40mg. To this day, I reckon the only reason he did it was to make me able to crew on his bloody yacht in the upcoming racing season. Bastard!

Back to the story. "About time!", you say.
As I previously mentioned, John was a gentle, affable soul who would go out of his way to make everyone's day better. This included learning a few words of Russian, just to show Olga that he respected her culture.

During several previous discussions with John, I had mentioned that my best friend, growing up, was a Russian guy, whose parents had migrated to Australia after WW2. Logically, John assumed that I knew a few words of Russian, which was correct. In fact, I could, quite fluently, swear in Russian. This created several problems for John.

1. I'm basically a ratbag.
2. At the time, I was off my tits on oxycontin.
3, I seriously love a good, or bad, practical joke

During a rare, quiet period of trading, I wandered across to Joe's stall quietly pulled him aside and told hm the only essential Russian word he needed to know was "pizda", which is the Russian equivalent of the forbidden "C" word in English.

I'm pretty sure that I hadn't noticed Olga lurking in the background, but I can't swear to it.

I beckoned John closer and, very quietly, taught him the word, "Pizda",

I couldn't have scripted it better. John, not knowing the meaning, repeated it, quite loudly. Olga's open handed, right cross, face slap to John was Muhammad Ali quality The look of anger, Olga directed at John and the look of absolute distaste she directed at me, should have taken hours of rehearsal. The look of shock and horror on John's face, not understanding what had happened was priceless. The sight of me, still off my tits on oxycontin, holding my sides, while roaring with uncontrollable laughter, just added to the scene.

The result was Olga never making eye contact with me ever again, John refusing to speak to me for more than 3 months and the story spreading throughout the market and the seriously evil stall holders saying "Pizda" to John for months afterwards.

Was it worth it? For the actions and reactions of Olga and John playing out in my mind for a very long time afterwards, it certainly was, Do I feel bad about any of it? Yep. Being the gentle soul that John was, he certainly didn't deserve it. His mother's anger towards me was very sad for me, although, much later, she confided in me that she thought it was hilarious and might have toughened him up a bit. All in all, it was totally unscripted and much funnier for that being the case.

Naturally, I blamed it all on the cursed oxycontin.

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The Joys of Being Grumpy

If you've ever read any of my Facebook posts or Bruce Oldfarts's stories and have managed not to fall asleep, you may have noticed that I appear to have a fixation on old age and in particular, the pros and cons of being old (yep, they are a thing). This could possibly be because, at 76, I consider myself to be a tad ancient and an expert on the subject.

Now, before you think, "This is just going to be a boring story from a self-pitying, miserable old geezer," and click off, just read on a bit and, if you start to doze off, quickly click off, before you fall off your chair and break something, like the glass containing your single malt Scotch whiskey and that would be an unforgiveable thing. If you're not drinking the aforementioned whiskey, for all I care, you can break your neck…Lol

As I entered old age, at around 60, and had to become used to pain and I mean relentless pain I, for some unimaginable reason, started to become grumpy. I mean seriously grumpy. Grumpy to the point where I found it totally necessary and incredibly gratifying to share my pain with all and sundry.

At that time, I was working at one of the largest Bunnings stores in Australia, which was ALWAYS absolutely packed with customers and would be/ could be/ wannabe DIY experts. I think this is a good time to share some of the incidents that occurred during this time of my approaching !00% grumpiness. Hopefully, it will give you an appreciation of why it happened.

Just a couple of quick thoughts, before I get into to the nitty gritty. As I was typing this, it occurred to me that female menopause and the time of the onset of male grumpiness happened at about the same age. It kind of scares me that male grumpiness could actually be male menopause. Women get grumpy because their monthly ovulation cycle ceases, depriving them of the natural alarm clock that lets them know that they now have a socially acceptable reason to be more bitchy than usual, a reason to seek pampering etc. Men get grumpy because the pain they only occasionally experienced, now became a nonstop, 24 hour a day, part of their lives. You can see the similarity, there, right?

I'm feeling a tad lazy, at the moment, so instead of rewriting all the pros and cons of becoming ancient, I've copied and pasted this from my Bruce Oldfart website.

Being a wise old fart, I see the glass as being both half full and half empty. Half empty tends to annoy me, along with screaming, unruly children, harping women, smelly old people, rude people in general, political correctness, governments, "know it all" young shits, cheap red wine and any whiskey other than single malt, just to name a few. So, while on the negatives, let's start with the cons of being old. At least that way, I'll end up on a positive note, assuming I don't kark it, mid-sentence.

The Pros And Cons Of Being Ancient Part 1

The cons all start upon waking up in the morning. Invariably, I will have slept in an awkward, unnatural position, reminiscent of Quasimodo, which results in several degrees of agony, as I attempt to roll out of bed without falling flat on my face. As I hobble to the toilet on arthritic, diabetic feet that I haven't seen for several decades, I ponder on whether I'll be able to accurately pee into the toilet, and not miss. This often poses a problem, as I haven't seen that part of my anatomy for several decades, either. Although my wife tells me it still exists.

I worked part time, in a retail environment. That, in itself, is not a big deal, unless I stumbled and accidentally pushed a snotty little kid out of a trolley. I swear that whenever that happened it WAS purely accidental. The major problem was that, because I'm old, the customers thought I was supposed to know where everything was located, its price and whether it was a good product or not. Didn't those stupid people realise that I had trouble remembering where the hell I was, let alone the answers to their useless, inane bloody questions?

Other difficulties include maintaining my balance while getting dressed, not spilling breakfast on my clean shirt, trying to remember whether I've already taken my tablets and failing to check my zipper before leaving the house.

Driving to work was always interesting. Younger drivers seemed to think that older drivers should automatically get out of their way, regardless of the road rules. I'm not really a doddering old fool on the road. I like to think that I'm just being careful. When other drivers sounded their horns at me and screamed abuse. I'd smile and wave at them, although sometimes they didn't seem to realise that the reason my middle finger stuck up was due to arthritis.

When I get home in the evening, the problems continue. My wife asks how my day was. How the hell am I supposed to remember? She then asks me what I'd like for dinner. Surely, by now, she'd realise it all tastes like soggy cardboard, so why ask the question? Finally, going to bed is pretty much the same as getting up, just in reverse, but it lacks the excitement of waking up, knowing I made through the night.

The Pros And Cons Of Being Ancient Part 2

Previously, I pontificated about the Cons of being ancient. Now, it's time for the Pros.

Strange as it may seem, there are good sides to getting old. All I have to do here is to try to remember what the hell they are. To that end, I have just poured a large glass of single malt scotch to assist me in my ruminations. It always seems to work. Thank God for spell check.

The Pros:

Obviously, the first one is the glee of waking up in the morning with a fairly certain notion that I actually made it through the night. Sometimes there is a negative side to that when I check the world news over my first cup of coffee for the day (Enjoying good coffee is another pro.) and read what a crap state the world is in. I blame this on the lazy Millennials and inconsequential Greens for polluting the air we breathe by their very existence. I'm old. I don't have to use logic or explain my opinions. See? More pros.

Another pro is using the excuse of having a fading memory to avoid doing onerous tasks. You have to love, "Was I supposed to do that? Sorry, I must have forgotten. Old age, you know." Playing the "Grumpy Old Man" game is a hoot. It's an amazing tool we oldies can use to terrorise young people, make women pushing trolleys or prams in supermarkets move aside, get a seat on public transport, get served quickly almost anywhere and being able to vent our opinions on almost anything , without getting beaten up. Sadly, it doesn't work on my wife. I'm still trying to perfect that.

Making other people embarrassed is another goody. Wearing old or mismatched clothes, odd socks, leaving my fly open with my shirt hanging out of it, mumbling to myself in public. Just staring at people and loudly farting in public are just a few. All good fun. So, as you can see, getting old isn't all bad. There are lots of other pros to being ancient but, as I've just emptied my glass of scotch and need to pour another, I probably won't remember to come back and write more drivel. I'll leave you with a toast, taught to me by my long departed Scottish grandfather. "Here's to it, and if ye get to it and don't do it, may ye never get to it to do it again." You figure it out! It took me until puberty.

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My First Battle with a Local Council

During the course of the past three quarters of a century, I've had several battles with Local Councils, both in Australia and in Japan. Yep, you read that correctly. Read my story, "Garbage and a Gun in Japan."

This very short story details my first and only win in a dispute with a Local Council. For those of you who aren't aware or couldn't care less about Australian politics, here's a quick rundown on how it works.

There are three levels of government in Australia. The first, largest and, in my opinion, the most useless, is the Federal Government. This is the top tier which is responsible for making all the important decisions regarding Australia's economy, defence, welfare, etc, etc. It's headed up by our Prime Minister. This layer of Gov't, in my opinion, is moderately efficient and certainly less corrupt than the Governments of many other countries. I'm not going to get into party politics, as I'd be typing for several months.

The next level of Gov't are the State and Territory mobs. They are obviously, to most of you, responsible of running the various states' finances and services and are headed up by a Premier or, in the case of Territories, a Chief Minister.

Finally, "Thank God for that!" you gasp, are the Local Councils. There are many of these in each State and Territory, each lead by a Mayor and, once again, in my opinion, are often inept and corrupt. This is my story about my conflict with one of them.

Quickly, rush off and take a a toilet break and load up on snacks and drinks. There should probably be a bit of hand washing in there. But you knew that….didn't you?

The reason for the long preamble to this story is that it's quite a short tale, so I had to pad it out a bit. Why? No idea.

This story concerns the first house that I bought. I was in my early twenties, married to the Dragon Lady and had two lovely, young kids.

I was very proud of this home and had spent many hours transforming Both the front and back gardens into beautiful areas, full of lawns, flowers, bushes and trees. It was like a mini botanical garden. This included maintaining the lawn surrounded, concrete footpath, which blended into my front landscape perfectly. And to which, the Local Council had contributed nothing.

Now, to the nitty gritty. Do I detect an, "About bloody time!!," gasp of exasperation, from you? Tough tits. That's how this writing stuff goes.

We had just received our council rates (annual land tax) and had noticed a significant rise in the cost, from the previous year. I think every first home buyer feels angry, when they experience this. I was no exception and fumed with anger…until I devised a scheme of payback or revenge, or whatever you want to call it.

I duly sent off a cheque to the council, for my rates, accompanied by….wait for it…a bill, which matched my rates bill, to the council, for beautifying and maintaining the footpath in front of my house This bill was, quite expectedly, totally ignored. I then sent the council a letter saying that, if the bill wasn't paid within seven days, I would take legal action to recover the debt. Once again, as expected, the letter was totally ignored.

I the lodged a demand, via the Magistrates Court, as a small claims debt. You have to remember that this all happened in the early 1970s when things were much less complicated, than now. A small claim hearing was between the claimant (me) and the defendant (the council) with no lawyers involved which, of course was totally ignored by the council and the Magistrate had no choice but to find in my favour.

The council was ordered to pay the full amount that I claimed, plus court costs. At this point, the council stopped ignoring me and sent someone from the council to visit me. This person tried to get me to drop my claim, which I refused to do. I also told him, that due to having created a precedent, I'd be doing the same thing, every year. He then agreed to pay the claim and said that I wouldn't have to pay rates for the following 5 years. I knew that the council would pass a motion not allowing any ratepayer to be able to do what I did, in the future, so I accepted his offer but, as the council had proved that it couldn't be trusted, I would require it in writing, along with a BANK CHEQUE for The court ordered judgement,

It was then, that the council did an unbelievably stupid thing. They actually put the offer in writing (which I accepted, in writing) along with the cheque.

Game, set and match? Not quite. Iwas still pissed off at them so, as a final gesture, I took my story and copies of the council letter and the bank cheque to the local newspaper. I believe several of the elected council members resigned and, for a few years after, the council were receiving bucketloads of grief from the rate payers. NOW. Game, set and match. And I didn't pay rates for the following 5 tears.

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Garbage and a Gun in Japan

As I have boringly, repeatedly and for no really important reason, mentioned, I lived in Japan from 1996 to 2003. I worked as an English language teacher for a very large company that had over 500 small language schools throughout Japan. My school was situated in a beautiful, historical city called Nara and I lived in a small traditional, town house in Nakanabata, a suburb of a town called Ikoma, about a 20 minute train journey from Nara and a 40 minute train ride to Osaka, which is Japan's second largest city and is an amazing place to visit. Way better than Tokyo, in my opinion.

None of that is relevant to this story. It's just to give you an excuse to go and make a cup of coffee, so you don't fall asleep from boredom, while continuing to read this riveting tale.

These are a couple of short stories about living as a local in rural suburbia (that has to be an oxymoron) in Japan.

Garbage

Unlike Australia, suburban areas in Japan don't have garbage bins to put your garbage in, to be collected by a guy driving a large truck. Instead, secured, plastic rubbish bags are all piled together in a designated spot in the street. Every street has its own spot. The pile is covered with a piece of netting, to keep the crows from ripping it all open, before it is picked up by a local council employee, driving a very small utility. It sounds primitive for a super high tech country, but it is what it is. Probably due to the lack of footpaths and very narrow roads.

All this is managed by a local committee who collect a small fee for their effort. At the time, I wasn't aware of this, purely because I was a foreigner and, as such, was totally ignored by the committee. So, on my first garbage day, I just put my rubbish on the pile. The committee duly removed my bags from under the netting and the crows spread the contents all over the road, My Japanese, now ex, wife was horrified and embarrassed.

After I had finished cleaning everything up, re-bagged it and taken it to the local dump, my wife sought out the ugly, bad tempered old bitch who managed the committee, to apologise and pay the fee. The old bitch refused to accept the apology, or take our joining fee, telling my wife that I wasn't welcome in the neighbourhood.

I went to the local council office and told them the problem and asked them to fix it, which they agreed to do. Accordingly, the following week, I put my rubbish under the netting, only to find that it had been removed again and, of course the crows enjoyed it. This happened again, the following week. As you can probably imagine, by this time, was in a very foul mood and wanted the problem fixed, plus a little bit of revenge. Japanese are generally quite fearful of upsetting anyone in authority. I think it's a cultural thing, so this is what I did.

I put my rubbish out again and, as usual it was removed. After re-bagging it, I put the two full, neatly tied off, bags in my car, drove to the council offices and dumped them in the middle of the floor. As you can image, this caused a bit of a stir. A couple of officials came running over and, very strongly, told me that I couldn't do that and to take the bags away.

I refused to do that and walked off, leaving the bags of rubbish there. I also told them to expect more, every week that my rubbish wasn't collected from the street. Strangely, the following week, my bags of garbage were collected and every week after. The ugly old bitch gave my wife a grovelling apology and scuttled away, like a diseased rat, every time she saw me, from that point on. Problem solved.

A Gun

If you want to go to prison for a very long time, in Japan, get yourself caught in possession of a real gun. I'm told that Japanese prisons make Australian prisons look like luxury hotels. I've seen the news stories on TV, in Japan, and I believe it. Simple rule. Under no circumstances possess one.

Except…it's quite legal to possess an air rifle, or air pistol. Even exact replicas of the real thing. As long as it is gas powered and fires 6mm round, plastic BBs, it's OK. They are very high quality and surprisingly powerful, with a muzzle velocity of around 400 feet per second and an effective range in excess of 30 metres. Of course, I had to have one.

On rainy days, while smoking my pipe (real pipe tobacco (Dr. Pat), not that "happy baccy" rubbish), sipping on a glass of single malt scotch or a nice dry sake, I took great delight in blowing Saddam Hussain's head to pieces with my air pistol. For those of you gasping in horror, it was a photo that I had downloaded, inside a thick cardboard box, taped on to an old phone book, sitting on a table about 10 m in front of me. Never mind that. It's not part of the story.

As I mentioned, there were no footpaths, so wooden, electricity power poles were actually on the side of the road. One of them was directly across the road from my kitchen window. By the way, you would not believe how small and primitive Japanese kitchens are.

The ugly bad tempered old bitch who I mentioned in the previous story lived about four houses down from me and she kept four small dogs in her tiny house. The place must have absolutely stunk. Every morning, she would let the dogs out to pee and crap. In the street. One of the dogs always trotted up the road and pissed on the power pole, opposite my kitchen window. To her credit, the old bitch did clean up after her dogs, including washing down the pole with soapy water, so it wasn't a problem…until it was.

In the middle of one hot (35C, very humid) Japanese summer, the old bitch gave up washing down the pole, after her dog peed on it. And it really stunk, in the hot sun. My wife spoke to her about it and was totally ignored. I had a strong feeling it had something to do with revenge for the council/rubbish thing.

One particularly hot morning, she let her dogs out and the same dog, as always, trotted up to the pole and lifted his leg. I was waiting in the kitchen with my air pistol and as soon as he lifted his leg, I fired a little 6mm plastic pellet at his bum. He let out a yelp and took off down the street to the safety of his home.

I take no pride in hurting the dog and still regret it, even to this day. I would have preferred to zap the old bitch, but the Japanese prison thing came to mind. However, the dog never came back to pee on the pole.

Interestingly, when I came back to Australia, I brought my air pistol and declared it at customs, who promptly confiscated it. I also brought my 40cm hunting/camping knife back with me, which I dutifully declared, and it passed through without comment. I think the customs officer was so excited about scoring the air pistol for himself, that he totally overlooked the knife.

That's it for now. Are you still awake?

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Sudoku, the Jacket and 5 Minutes Of Fame

This is a very short, but 100% true, story. It happened in the winter of 2013.

I had a day off from my job at Bunnings and decided to catch a train from Hoppers Crossing into Flinders St. station to have a solo lunch and a cup of coffee at a café in Federation Square. I always took the train, because I hated the drive on the freeway, plus the parking was horrendous and expensive.

It was only a short 40 minute trip, which was just enough time for two or three games of Sudoku, on my phone. Bragging rights here. Now, as a 75yo oldfart, I'm not too bad at Sudoku, currently rated as "Expert" and playing at level 12 (only about 10 games away from level 13), as I write this. I'm quite proud of that. It proves the grey matter still functions a little. OK. That ends the Sudoku part of the story title.

As I previously mentioned, it was winter, so I was wearing my favourite coat, an old, but very warm, suede leather thing, with lambswool collar and lining. As I said, it was old, and is still in good condition.

As I walked across the road, from the station, to Federation Square, a "wannabe" comedian was set up with a microphone and a cheap amp, doing his thing in front of about 20 or 30 onlookers, with limited (very little, but polite) applause, from them.

When he spotted me walking past, on my way to the café, he decided that I, and particularly my coat, would be his target. He, very quickly, became obnoxiously offensive about the way I was dressed, thinking that his demeaning comments were funny. Sadly for him, he didn't realise that I respond rather quickly and badly, in those situations. So, I calmly walked over to him and, as I did, he took it as an invitation to step up his vitriol, in an effort to be, in his weak mind, hilarious.

I stood there, smiling, for a few seconds, and then beckoned for the microphone, which he stupidly handed to me. I then pointed out to him that, apart from not being remotely amusing, his timing, enunciation, pronunciation and delivery were a woeful testimony to his lack of education and training. I then offered to demonstrate what I meant.

I explained how a one liner could be used as a gag, eg. "As a man in my (at the time) mid sixties, slowly approaching middle age, I occasionally thought about dying, a bit like his act, and I decided that I wanted to die as my grandfather did. Peacefully, in his sleep, unlike the screaming passengers in the back seat of his car. The onlookers liked it and it got a lot of applause. Quite surprising, considering was a very old gag and not remotely original.

I then told my favourite joke, also old and unoriginal. It goes, "I was driving to Ballarat in the pouring rain, when my car ran out of petrol. (I told you it was old and unoriginal, so bear with me.) "Luckily, I saw a farmhouse just down the road, with a light shining through the window so, when I got there, I knocked on the door. There was no answer. I knocked again, still no answer. I thought that if I knocked on the window, where the light was shining, someone would hear or see me. I looked through the window and saw an old couple, probably in their eighties, naked, facing each other cross the room. She was shaking a saggy old boob in one hand and holding an alarm clock in the other, He was masturbating while holding an open umbrella over his head.

I decided to walk to the next farmhouse, where the farmer was very helpful. When he asked me why I didn't go to the other, closer, farmhouse, I told him what I saw. A naked, very old couple facing each other, across the room. Her, shaking a floppy old boob and waving an alarm clock, while he was having a wank while holding an open umbrella over his head. He second farmer told me not to worry about it. He explained that they were both deaf and dumb. She was telling him that it was time to do the milking and he was telling her to get f***d because it was raining."

That got a big round of applause, so I handed the wannabe his microphone back, which he started to pack up, and I went to have lunch and coffee.

During lunch, several of the onlookers came over to say that they enjoyed the show and three even ask for an autograph. Seriously, that's true.

All in all, it was quite an enjoyable afternoon.

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The Analyst a Model and a Toga Party

This is going to be a longish story, so pour yourself a drink, make a snack or take your meds and settle in.

All this happened around 1968-1969. I think I have the facts right, but some parts are a bit hazy. It was the era of flower power, free love etc. I'm sure you will understand, if you were around in those days. If not, tough luck. You REALLY missed out on some good shit.

I had just finished my electrical apprenticeship in Adelaide and decided that I didn't want to be an electrician, having seen two of my workmates die on the job and crawling around asbestos filled ceilings and in the filth under floors every day, or so it seemed. I was also well and truly over Adelaide, at the time, so I moved to Sydney, looking for something new. Little did I know…. I still think that the best thing about Adelaide, at that time, was the view in the rear vision mirror, as I drove away.

When I arrived in Sydney, I booked a room in a sleazy boarding house, overlooking Sydney Harbour in Kirribilli. Oddly enough, the accommodation was called Kirribilli House. Strange, that. It was a dump, but I had a great time there, made some really weird, great mates and had enough wild adventures to warrant another, possibly R rated, story. Another time, perhaps.

I had no fear, in those days, so I would give anything a go, and ended up selling new Fords for a large North Sydney dealer. The job didn't last very long. I'm not sure why. It was either because I never sold anything or because I used my new Falcon demonstrator for a weekend trip back to Adelaide and return, a trip of about 2,800 km. A lot of Kms to put on a new car, just to visit my girlfriend who, about six months later, moved in with me. In Kirribilli House! Not a good move. That WILL be another story.

This is the part where I tell you that everything that I wrote before this point has nothing to do with the story. Just a bit of background. Now, let's get started.

My next job was working in the electrical department, in the North Shore store of a large company called Swann Hardware. The job was a piece of cake and seriously bloody boring, as I was the only qualified electrician in the whole company. I had lied about my age, adding 5 years, and giving myself a business diploma. I was desperate for a job, so I did what I had to do. Little did I know that the company was looking for a professional Sales Analyst. Apparently, some moronic middle manager noticed that I had a business diploma on my resume and asked me if I was able to fill that role.

Note* Over the following several decades, I came to realise that most of those, employed in middle management, in any company, are morons. It seems to be a job prerequisite. Naturally, I said that I could fulfill the Sales Analyst role quite capably, so I became the Senior sales Analyst for the Swann Hardware group of companies.

There I was, in a large office in the Sydney CBD company headquarters, complete with a secretary and several clueless minions, none of whom, including myself, had ay idea what to do. At this time, no one really had any idea what a Sales Analyst actually did. It was just a new fad, just like Marketing Manager, a couple of decades later. But large companies all seemed to suddenly need one. I think it was just to demonstrate to their shareholders how progressive their companies were.

I really wanted to keep the job. The office was great. The salary was huge (for those days), I got a new car to drive and my secretary was an absolute glamour, who moonlighted as a fashion model for a prominent agency. As I said, she was an absolute glamour, until she opened her mouth and her rough, uneducated. country (Newcastle) accent had the same affect on people as if she had suddenly grown long hair under her arms, on her legs and teeth, would have. Oh, by the way, she was so far up herself, she needed a snorkel to breathe. I think she must have been employed by the same moron who employed me.

Back to me, knowing nothing about sales analysis. I was in seriously deep crap, so I had to acquire knowledge very quickly. I managed to get a couple of weeks grace, saying I needed to tour the various companies branches and departments, to get a feel for the company's needs. I also said I wanted to do it incognito, so I could see the reality, as opposed to what the various branch managers wanted me to see. That way, my absence wouldn't draw attention.

My next phase was to visit the Commonwealth Department of Statistics. I thought if anybody would have any idea what I was supposed to do, they would. I was introduced to a lovely old guy, who was just waiting to retire and had been shunted off to a small office, by himself, waiting for the day he could hobble off into the sunset, with his pension.

I knew there was no chance of bullshitting to him, so I told him exactly what had happed and asked for his help. He laughed so bloody hard, I thought he would piss his pants, have a heart attack, fall off his chair, or all three. He loved the idea and he was delighted to help. Over a week, he gave me a list of tasks to do, reports to my boss to write (to instil confidence) and a plan of how to actually do the job. It turned out not to be too difficult.

The best thing he taught me was how to regularly send memos to all the branch managers, requiring them to supply me with a continuing stream of information which, while causing them to hate and fear me, gave me a legitimate excuse for being late with my reports. Senior management loved me!

I kept the job, until my girlfriend in Adelaide came over to live with me. By this time, I was getting bored with it, missing my surfing and scuba diving, so I quit and we moved to a beachfront home in Collaroy. More about that in another story.

I know you've been waiting for the toga party so here we go.
As I previously mentioned, my secretary, whose name I have long forgotten, also worked as a part time fashion model, occasionally working for a large, famous modelling agency. The agency owner lived on millionaires row, in a large, luxurious home overlooking the harbour.

On this occasion, she decided to host a Toga Party. My secretary was invited and I came as her plus one. Just to be clear, I never had a relationship with my secretary, as I've never believed in crapping where you eat. She also made it very clear that, although she arrived with me, it would be very unlikely she'd be leaving with me. I must admit, I didn't care less, especially when I found out that underwear was NOT permitted beneath the toga that and was checked on arrival.

This is when I first understood that Toga Party equalled Orgy. It was to be my first and last toga party/orgy and I had no real idea what to expect. Within thirty minutes, most togas we totally off, partly off or being worn in a somewhat, inappropriate fashion. My secretary was nowhere to be seen. Care factor, zero. I have never seen so many naked, gorgeous women getting humped by so many fat, hairy ugly, middle aged men in my life. It seriously made me want to throw up. I'm neither a prude nor a wowser, but the whole thing was seriously off putting and not a condom in sight. It took me about ten minutes to wrap myself, more or less, modestly in a sheet, grab an armful of bottles of single malt Scotch and flee, back to my car. I forgot to mention, there was an absolute fortune in drugs of all description laying around for anyone to use. Even in that era, I've never had a thing for drugs, so I never took any home. That was my only Toga Party/Orgy experience. Thank God for that.

The following Monday morning, my secretary came to work as usual. Nothing was discussed but, I swear, she was walking a little bow legged.

The end. You may now take a well deserved toilet break

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A Thief And A Katana

This is a very short story that I had all but forgotten, until a recent phone conversation with my favourite sister, Elizabeth. I have two other sisters, whose names are barely remembered and whereabouts unknown which, in my opinion is a good thing, resulting from growing up in a totally unpleasant and, apart from Liz, dysfunctional family.

We were having our usual chat about our respective families and, as usual, started to reminisce. These reminiscences always involved people we knew, adventures we shared and, on occasion, stories one of us had never heard before or had forgotten. The result of these infrequent phone calls always ended up in gales of laughter. The most recent story that Liz hadn't heard before and I had pretty much forgotten, happened way back in the early 80's.

I was living in Melbourne, at the time, in a rented 2 story house, in Mulgrave, with my dragon lady ex-wife and two young children.

A couple of years prior to that, I visited Japan, for the first of many times, on this occasion, as a guest of the Honda Motor Co., where I was fortunate to have had a party, in my honour, prior to my return to Australia.

I've never known if the party was a "thank you" for the work I had done for the company, or a "glad to see the end of you" thing.
No matter.

The party was huge and quite lavish. There were about 50 Honda executive guests, a huge ice carving of a swan, lots of booze and amazing food, served by real Geisha who also provided entertainment. I have no idea how much it cost but it would have been A LOT!! In addition to that, I was presented with a BARREL of high quality Nihon-shu (Sake) and a real Dai Katana (Japanese sword) which I was told, but can't prove, was around 400 years old. I don't know how, but Honda had arranged the customs clearance, freight and delivery to my home in Australia.

My son ended up with the sword, many years later and the unopened sake barrel disappeared at a BBQ at my home, about a year after it arrived. I'm still seriously pissed off about that.

I said this was a short story, and so it will be. All the previous drivel was just background.

On that particular evening, about 3am. the dragon lady woke me up, saying some-one was trying to get into our home. From our upstairs bedroom window, I could see the front door and, sure as shit. Some bastard WAS trying to get in. It was midsummer and, as usual, I was sleeping naked. No no, not too much information. It's mildly relevant.

The Katana was mounted on my bedroom wall, well above inquisitive kids' finger height. I quietly removed the sword and krept onto the landing, waiting for the thief to enter, which he obligingly did. As he entered the living room, directly below the stairs, I flicked on the light and charged down the stairs, naked and yelling, with a bloody great, razor sharp sword held above my head.

He was fast. By the time I reached the bottom of the stairs, he was gone, clearing a metre high, brick front fence, on his way out. I never saw him again. I'm not sure what frightened him the most. The sight of a big, hairy, naked man, a bloody big, dangerous sword or the non-flattering sentences that I was shouting. Probably a combination of all of them.

After shutting and locking the front door, I sat on the bottom stair, pissing myself laughing, as well as trying to calm a frightened dragon lady and a couple of terrified young kids.

It wasn't until much later that I took time to ponder what could have happened, if I had tripped on the way down the stairs or if the thief hadn't ran. In hindsight, it was a really stupid thing to do, even though, at the time it was both fun and exciting. Thinking about that, would I do it again? Yep.

See, I told you it was a short story.

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Nasty old Nailsworth Part 1

This is a very fond memory of my four years as a high school student at a very rough high school; in the 1960s.

Nailsworth Boys Technical High School was a drab, two story, rectangular building situated in Nailsworth (how surprising) on the border of a very affluent suburb called Walkerville and several northern suburbs, which names I forget, that housed low income workers and those on government support. This meant boys from both sides of the tracks mingled (surprisingly) quite harmoniously. I think this was due to us all being in survival mode at that high school. You'll understand that a bit later.

As a Technical High School, Nailsworth focussed on teaching basic trade skills in aeras such as technical drawing, woodwork and metalwork, as well the usual curriculum. So, as I hope you can image, to control this bunch of generally feral students, the predominately male teachers were seriously tough, which posed a collective challenge to authority for us.

For example, we had an English English teacher. No, that wasn't a typo, he was a Pom, trying to teach us English. He was also a sadistic bastard, who delighted in pulling students out from behind their desks by their sideburns, dragging them to the front of the room, bending them over his desk and belting them across the backs of their legs with a yardstick, until they cried. A yardstick was a metre long piece of flat wood that teachers used as a ruler on their blackboards and as an instrument of torture on their students. Most of us larger kids refused to cry, which meant we got belted longer Some parents complained to the headmaster but were ignored….until one day they weren't. One of my biggest classmates was from the poorer areas and copped excess punishment, almost every day, for no obvious reason, but he NEVER cried. Not once. But he did tell his father, who didn't complain to the headmaster, but solved the problem himself. The classroom was on the first floor (second floor, to the uneducated Yanks). Why I mentioned the location will become obvious.

On that fateful day, which I clearly remember (unusual for me to remember anything clearly) the classroom door was savagely flung open and a VERY large, visibly angry father stormed into the room, grabbed the teacher by his collar, marched him over to the opened window and shoved the said teacher out the window, holding him by his ankles. He then, quite clearly explained that next time he ever laid a finger on his son, there would be no grip on his ankles to save him. When he went to go home at the end of the day, he found his Volkswagen on its roof, courtesy of his students.

He not only never hit another student, but he also resigned a week or so later.

Other interesting events included our woodwork teacher. This bastard had a knack of throwing chisels into the work bench of any student making a mistake, missing their fingers by inches. He was cured of this hobby when many times, over a few months, all his wood chisels vanished, never to be seen again. Strangely, he also resigned shortly after.

My best mate, Sasha, who I've mentioned in previous stories, was a genius at chemistry, with a much larger knowledge of the subject than the teacher, whose mistakes he constantly corrected, in class. Not a good idea, as it meant that the science teacher had it in for him, trying to make Sasha's life miserable as often as possible. Bad move.

Sasha responded by filling all the sinks in the science lab with water and throwing in sodium balls, before running like hell. Result, a trashed lab and no proof of the culprit, even though they knew who was responsible. I think that self preservation had something to do with that.

Other gems included some unknown substance in the science teacher's car's fuel tank, destroying the engine. Small, not waterproof, containers of calcium carbide being flushed down the teachers' toilet, resulting in a large plumbing bill. Culprit unknown etc.

A lot more of that went on for the entire four years that I was there and, I dare say, continued for many years after.

Despite all that, it wasn't a bad place to go. I was a swimming champion in our school's team and also represented the school's Aussie Rules footy team. My fondest memories were as a member of our school's Army Cadets, where I attained the glorious rank of Platoon Sergeant.

Much more about that (mostly unbelievable, but true) in part 2.

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Nasty old Nailsworth Part 2

This part is pretty much devoted to my time in the Nailsworth Boys Technical High School Army Cadets. I can unhesitatingly state that my four years in the cadets was most entertaining, satisfying and sheer bloody hilarious time in my high school life. I think you'll enjoy some of the stories in this part of the Nasty Nailsworth saga. I promise you they're all true, or as true as my fading memory allows

Take some time now to have a toilet break, make a cup of coffee, pour a scotch or something more detrimental to your liver and grab some snacks, because this will take some time.

It's time to set the scene. As I mentioned in Part 1, Nailsworth was a fairly rough school and the student body was a primarily feral mixture from lower and lower middle class areas. This fact was well known throughout the South Australian educational system and we were actively discriminated against whenever and wherever it was possible to do so. Our nemesis was Adelaide Boys High school, which was the upper end of the social system. Any interschool activities between them and Nailsworth was very simply, almost uncontrollable warfare.

This was never more obvious than with the Army Cadets. Adelaide High cadets all received quality, new uniforms and equipment, while we received ratty, used, hand me down leftovers from WW11. So, as you can imagine, any multi school, cadet activities were seriously intense.

Thanks for your patience to this point. Here's where the fun begins. It's just going to be a series of short tales. The weapons referred hereon are what we were trained to use. The Lee Enfield 303 rifle, The Bren 303 light machine gun and the Owen 9mm sub machine gun. Yep, the authorities actually placed these fully operational and loaded weapons in our feral hands and trained us how to use them. Seriously!!

Lee Enfield 303

Bren LMG

Owen SMG

The interschool cadet shooting competition.

I get to brag a bit here. I actually was awarded the Marksman's Crossed Rifle badge for proficiency with the Lee Enfield 303 and The Bren Wreath for proficiency with the Bren light machine gun. Great for a high school kid's ego but a bloody waste of time, because I wasn't allowed to take the weapons home as a prize. Think about the wasted opportunity to create havoc on the bus, going home, with a 303 slung over my shoulder and a Bren casually gripped in my hand! Bummer that.

The competition was held at a large, outdoor firing range a bit outside Adelaide's CBD and consisted of a large paddock with a very substantial dirt mound, maybe 10 metres high, behind the target area. Behind the mound was a salty swamp, inhabited by a few sheep.

The 303 competition was fierce, with Nailsworth slightly ahead of Adelaide High. The other schools didn't count. They couldn't shoot, anyway. The final event was the Bren gun. Each Bren had a 2 man team. A gunner and a loader. Fortunately, I was the gunner. Why fortunately? Simply because it was my favourite weapon. Easy to assemble and incredibly accurate to shoot.

The competition was in two parts. On a tarp around 500 metres from the target were a totally disassembled Bren, two empty 30 round magazines and a pile of loose 303 bullets. The gunner had to assemble the Bren while the loader did what loaders do. No, not standing around, picking his nose. To win that competition, the team had to assemble and load as fast as they could, then run 100 metres to another tarp and start shooting at the targets 400 metres away. Sounds impossible, but the Bren was such a sweet accurate weapon that, if you could control your breathing, it was relatively easy. I thought we had the win all sewn up, until….shit hit the fan.

Can you imagine the noise and excitement generated by ten or twelve (I don't remember how many) Bren guns all firing simultaneously? And can you imagine what happens when a very old sheep wanders up to the top of the mound behind the targets? I think the sheep just dissolved. All hell broke loose. Whistles blew, sirens blared and screamed commands to stop shooting and stand away from the weapons put a fairly sudden halt to the proceedings.

The fallout was understandably swift. We were all mercilessly bundled into our respective school buses and that was the end of the competition. For a number of years, I understand. Also sadly, no school got to win. I swear it was the Adelaide High cadets that did it on purpose, because they couldn't win. Of course, Nailsworth got the blame, for a while. It was only afterwards that it was discovered that our Bren team had exhausted our ammunition when the incident occurred, which meant that we would have won the competition. Serious bummer!!

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Nasty old Nailsworth Part 3

This part is a continuation of Part 2, which was about my time in the Army Cadets. I'm just clarifying that in case you are pissed, off your tits on illegal substances or just a plain, everyday idiot. It's also a good way to get you wound up a bit before reading any further.

Drill rounds, blanks, ballistite cartridges and grenade launchers The above mentioned goodies probably need some clarification for those too young or disinterested to know what they were and the amusement they afforded us.

Drill rounds were real 303 bullets will no primer or cordite, so they couldn't be fired. They were just empty bullets, used for instruction purposes and ensuring no one could actually get shot, either deliberately or accidently. However, it was very easy to remove the bullet itself (the pointy bit) from the casing. "Why would you do that?", you ask. Patience, my lovelies, all will be revealed.

Blank rounds were bullets with no pointy bits. They could be used, relatively safely in practice drills and exercises. They just went bang and did no harm, unless held hard up against your opponent, then they could be fatal.

Ballistite cartridges looked like a blank round, with no pointy bit. But they were loaded with ballistite which, I believe, is a potent mixture of nitro cellulose and nitroglycerin, instead of the usual cordite. They had seriously powerful punch and were used to hurl a hand grenade from an attachment on the end of a 303 rifle. When firing one of these the rifle but was firmly pushed into the ground. Firing it from your shoulder would probably cost you said shoulder.

Now, I'll try and make some sense of all the above drivel.

Weekend camps

Several times a year, we went on weekend camps, just as a cadet unit from our school. Generally, they consisted of map reading and orienteering as well as simulated patrols, either in attack or ambush. Great fun. We got to play real soldiers, fire blank rounds and run amok through the pine forest, where we were usually camped.

I may have mentioned the rough backgrounds of many students (many, of whom were cadets) and the fact we were all quite feral. As we got older, the more feral some of us became. In particular, those cadets who were sergeants. This was because we had access to the school's Army cadet Q Store, where all the above mentioned goodies were stored, thus giving us almost unfettered access to bullets in the drill rounds. Very carefully, we would pirate one or two of these each month, just to take to camp.

The fun bit was that none of the regular army trainers cared how many blank rounds we fired during exercises, so we were always able to keep a few blanks back, unnoticed. Some of you may have caught on by now. But, for those who haven't, if you pushed the bullet (pointy bit) into the rifle, in front of the blank round, you have, in fact, a live round. There are a few problems with that. A live round makes a very different sound to a blank, immediately noticed by the Regular Army trainers, who could grab you in an instant, if caught. There was also no way of denying your guilt because the barrel of a rifle is filthy after firing blanks, but relatively shiny after firing a live round. So, no excuses would work. You were dead meat. Why did we keep the bullets? It will soon be revealed.

The "lost" 303 rifle.

There were three platoon sergeants, including me, in our school Cadet Corps, one of whom had a brother who was a Captain in the Regular Army, who had managed to get a ballistite cartridge for him to take to camp. Why? Because he was as feral as his younger brother. We all admired him.

I won't ever mention his name because, 1. I can't remember it (convenient, hey?) 2. It's a true story 3. I don't want to get him into trouble.

He wanted to see how powerful a ballistite cartridge was so, while on recon patrol (no supervision) and in the absence of a grenade and the rifle attachment for one, he placed a drill round bullet (pointy bit) in the barrel, pushed the ballistite cartridge in behind it, pulled the rifle in tight against his hip (not stupid enough to pull It into his shoulder) aimed at the base of the thickest pine tree he could find and pulled the trigger. The noise was horrendous. The recoil sat him on his arse, the bullet passed clean through the tree and we had no idea where it ended up, and shattered the rifle's bolt in two places, totally jamming it.

Instant panic set in and we took off running in different directions as fast as we could. As sergeants, we didn't carry a 303 as we were issued with Owen sub machine guns. No 9mm bullets or blanks, no fun. The 303 he used was "borrowed" from the back of one of the Regular Army's trucks. Sadly, it was reported lost and never found.

There was so much consternation over the noise of the shot, the camp was immediately cancelled, and we were bused back to school. I'll never understand how we kept a straight face on the way back. Possibly the abject fear of getting caught.

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Nasty old Nailsworth Finale

Once a year, all the main school Army Cadet units would come together for an intense week of training, exercises and inter-school competitions at an Army Training Camp in the Adelaide hills. We slept on wood framed canvas bunks In weatherboard barracks, housing about 30 cadets plus a small sergeant's room at one end. This layout will become relevant a bit later.

As usual, the quality and location of the accommodation was allocated to the "quality" of the school. Of course, Adelaide High scored the best and Nailsworth got the dregs. Naturally, this created bitter competition between the schools. Adelaide High knew that they were the best and we knew we were better at inter-school sport, constantly flogging them in swimming and football but, more importantly, we flogged them, every time, in the cadet marksmanship comps. This escalated into a possible life-threatening rivalry. I'll just relate three of the worst (best?).

The Aldershot Grenade part 1

Just to remind the more forgetful ones, we were generally regarded by other schools as being "feral". We wore that label with a degree of pride. Back to the story. On patrols, we were given a limited supply of, what were referred to as, Aldershot Grenades. They were a cardboard, tennis ball sized, training hand grenade with a stumpy little chimney thing on top which you had to strike on a matchbox to ignite the 5 second fuse. They were considered to be quite harmless, going off with loud bang, a small flash of flame and a lot of smoke. Great fun for early teenage cadets. I assume you can see where I'm going with this.

This first tale involved a platoon of the Nailsworth cadets going on a patrol, armed with 303s, blank rounds and Aldershot grenades. As usual, we were set up as the bunnies for the Adelaide High cadets, who had a one hour start on us, to set up an ambush. We'd fallen victim to this one sided deal on previous camps and came up with a plan. Instead of just a platoon of bunnies, with the support of a Regular Army Sergeant Major with an evil sense of humour, we had arranged for a second platoon of Nailsworth cadets, armed in the same way, to go on slightly ahead of the others, but off to the sides of the planned patrol path. We quite quickly located the Adelaide High ambushers, noisily setting up and proceeded to quietly set up our own ambush.

It worked extremely well. At the first shot from the ambushers at our main patrol, we opened up on them. It scared the hell out of them. One Adelaide High idiot had set himself up in a very large, sawn off, hollow tree trunk with a large split facing the trail. I couldn't resist it. I was only about 2 metres away, behind him. I took an Aldershot grenade, struck it, counted to three and lobbed it into the trunk. It was bloody hilarious.

He felt it come in and he took off out of the tree truck, like a rocket. Sadly, for him. he never quite made it the flash caught him on the bum, causing a slight burn. The regular Army sergeant, monitoring the exercise, blew his whistle and ended it, immediately. The Adelaide cadets were in shock, crying "foul" and carrying on like a flock of headless chooks, while about 30 Nailsworth cadets were, literally, rolling on the ground, pissing ourselves laughing. Of course, the Adelaide call of "foul" was upheld, but who cared?

The Aldershot Grenade part 2

The ramifications of that patrol went on all afternoon, with calls from several school principles to have us removed from the camp. Fortunately, the Army was on our side, saying it wasn't a class exercise, it was real battle training. We got to stay…And exact revenge for the "foul" call, that same night.

At the beginning of this page, I told of the sleeping arrangements. Forgotten? Go back and check.

In the very early hours of the morning, about 2am, three of our fastest runners made their way up to the Adelaide High barracks, each lit up an Aldershot grade, which had been held back from the day's patrol. and rolled them under the bunks of the sleeping Adelaide cadets. Then they ran like hell back to our barracks and pretended to sleep. You can imagine the floodlights, sirens and yelling officers and sergeants. We were blamed but obviously denied it, as there could never be any proof. For some strange reason, no-one in the camp got any further sleep, that night. BTW, no Adelaide cadets were harmed, apart from their egos and nervous systems.

The lantern hunt.

The final night of the camp culminated in a "Lantern Hunt". This was, as we saw it, just another opportunity for the Adelaide cadets to be seen to shine.

There was a smallish, conical shaped hill in the camp, where a kerosene lamp was lit after dark and placed on a stick at the top, The competition was between the three top performing cadet schools at the camp. This year was Adelaide High, another school (I don't remember. Not important) and us.

Two schools got to create defences around the hill, in order to protect the lantern from the invaders who were, of course, us.

The defenders had all afternoon to prepare their defences and we had to get past the them, without being caught, in the pitch dark, and blow out the lantern. This was impossible, as they had dug in less than 2 metres apart. How did we know this? A couple of the Regular Army sergeants allowed us to have three spies watching proceedings, during the afternoon, on the proviso they didn't get caught.

Everybody was armed with 303s and blank rounds. No Aldershot Grenades which, for some strange reason, were now considered too dangerous.

As usual, we had a plan. A couple of cadet platoon sergeants had brought some drill round heads (the pointy bullet bits) to the camp, and it was decided to shoot the bloody lamp out. Which after about ten minutes of wildly firing blanks, there was suddenly the sharp crack of two live rounds being fired…and the lamp vanished. Unusually, just as the flood lamps came on there seemed to be a concentrated burst of blank being fired, just to dirty up the barrels of the rifles that had shot the lantern.

No clean barrels, no-one saw nor knew anything, no culprits found. After that, all the cadets were hustled into their school buses and that year's camp ended….as it should. With a bang….or two.

My final interaction with the cadets was about a year and a half later. I had joined the Navy, as an Apprentice Electrical Artificer and was invited to inspect the Nailsworth cadets on parade. Which I duly did, fully decked out in my Acting Petty Officer dress blues. I think it was the proudest moment of my life.

Here endeth the Nasty old Nailsworth saga.

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My idea of Giving Thanks

Many people give thanks to families, friends, Gods, and politicians (sorry, seriously bad joke) at different times of the year and for different reasons. That's certainly OK. Whatever floats your boat, as long as it doesn't hurt others.

As you know, I'm a Grinch and have no time for things like Xmas, Santa, Easter, the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy or birthdays.

However. I am very thankful for the few beautiful people that make up my very extended (by distance) family. It's probably the distance thing that makes it work. I'd like to give a very public shout out to my sister, Elizabeth and her family (in Adelaide), my wife's sister and nephew and their families and my ex- wife, who is also my best friend (in Melbourne).

In particular, I'd like to mention my lovely wife, Kim, who manages to put up with me and my, slightly unconventional (cough), ways on a daily basis.

Another thing that I'm grateful for is the close friendship between Kim and my ex-wife, who will remain nameless for her peace of mind.

"WTF!!", you say. "How can you have a current and ex as friends, without, at least one of them, hating you?". No problem, my ex and I had a very amicable, mutually agreed and respectful divorce and she and my wife enjoy each others' company. How does that work for me?

Here's the kicker, I don't lie to either of them. I don't tell either of them all my secrets and I have many of those, but I never lie to them. So, keep that in mind. Not lying now, could save you a lot of grief in the future.

I give thanks, every day, for the good fortune to have those lovely people in my life.

Enjoy your life and be happy.

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Injuns, the Railroad and the Sheriff

In a very ancient decade, in a suburb far, far away from the metropolis of Adelaide, lived a very small tribe (5) of feral Injuns, average age around 8, whose life, on weekends and after school, was to terrorise the Guvmint Railroad. They did this for no apparent reason, other than it was fun, with no malicious intent. But they did it.

We, sorry, I mean they, were adept hunters of harmless (except for snakes), wild, but edible, wildlife using very crudely made spears, knives and bows and arrows. We, sorry, I mean they, found that using bows and arrows on defenceless animals and each other was kind of boring and more than a little painful.

So, we, sorry, I mean they, decided not to be cowboys but Injuns, attacking the loud, smelly, coal fired, steam engines that passed nearby, These Injuns were wise enough to realise that our hunting arrows were a little dangerous to shoot people with, so the arrows had no sharp ends, just a wad of grass, tied over the end. And attack the trains, they did, from high up in the branches of a tree that was growing next to the railway tracks.

The Guvmint was not impressed with the attacks and notified the local Sheriff, who send a posse (the local police constable) to apprehend the culprits. The posse was never successful in capturing those rogue Injuns, due to the posse's very noisy car and were long gone when he arrived.

After several close calls, the Injuns decided to go back to hunting wildlife. Strangely, my father, without any proof but, I suspect, on unsubstantiated information from the posse, confiscated and destroyed my knife, spear and bow and arrows as well giving my back and legs a taste of his belt buckle.

It must have taken a whole weekend to rebuild my arsenal, but the trains were safe from then on. Ya just can't keep a good, or bad, Injun down.

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How NOT to join the Navy in the 1960s

This was an interesting, unenjoyable and often painful experience which, I must admit, gave me an excellent insight into how I became the strong willed (arrogant?), authority hating, social misfit that I am today. Do I regret any of it? Maybe a little. Very little. Nah, not at all. What it did do, was give me an understanding of why I am the way I am, of which I would change nothing.

Let's start at the beginning (always a reasonable way to start anything, I'm told).

This may come as a bit of a shock to those of you who know me well but, as a 15yo, I was basically an uncontrollable, trouble making lout. I know, I know, you find it hard to believe. As the only male in a household of women, including a selfish old grandmother, a man hating mother and three younger, obnoxious sisters, it was hell on earth for both a feral teen age male, with zero parental guidance and from my family. Therefore, it was no surprise, when my mother, very strongly, suggested that I should join the Army as. at the time, I was a sergeant in my high school army cadets.

Having experienced the army thing, I obviously chose the Navy as an apprentice electrical artificer. Why that choice? Less chance of being shot by someone I neither knew nor hated and I could get a trade qualification in an area that interested me. I applied and to the surprise and relief of all those near and not so dear, I was accepted.

This is what happened next. I won't go into a lot of detail, as it would take pages. My intake, from Adelaide, were sworn in and put on a train, via Melbourne to Sydney, where we were met by a very large, fully bearded, very kind Chief Petty Officer, who shall remain nameless. He put us on a bus which dove us to HMAS Nirimba, an ex airfield, just out of Blacktown in Sydney's western suburbs. A strange place for as HMAS anything (HMAS=His/Her Magesty's Australian Ship), with not a sailing vessel in sight.

A strange, but frightening, transformation overtook out kindly CPO, on arrival. He tuned into screaming, foul mouthed, bullying monster, reducing a large number of about 60 new recruits, from all over Australia, into tears. Strangely, I didn't cry but learned to hate that bastard, for the bully he was, for ever after. Needless to say, we clashed on many occasions, which sealed my fate. I could never accept that senior rates and officers had to be obeyed, without question, regardless of how senseless they were. I haver never changed that view. Like I said, my fate was sealed.

We were domiciled in Army style huts, sleeping fifteen each side. There were two intakes (Terms) each year and the Navy tradition was that the previous term could raid the huts, throwing buckets of icy water over the new term arrivals and trashing the accommodation, without any fear of senior ranks interfering. I eventually understood that this was the first step in "breaking down" new arrivals.

After the first raid, of three that night, the feral lout in me took over. I organised a defence, consisted of mops, brooms and fists and we waited for the next raid which came soon after. Our defence took the raiders by surprise and we hunted them off, before they could cause any more mayhem. In addition, we raided their huts about thirty minutes later, which was a very strong no-no, and brought senior ranks out of their warm beds to quell the "riot". My fellow new recruits took no time in blaming me as the instigator. Yep, my fate was sealed and I learned that no-one could be trusted. This point was revealed on many occasions.

There were so many rules that I broke in an effort to not being broken by the system, that it was eventually decided that the Navy was not for me and I was subsequently discharged as "unfit". My fate had been sealed. It just took two years to happen. In all fairness to the Navy, I understood their actions and I was indeed a "misfit". At this time, I was two years into my apprenticeship and showed "outstanding" results in that field. The Navy did help me to finish my apprenticeship with the SA Gov't's Public Blgs. Dept., which I appreciated.

I'm not saying don't join the Navy but, I certainly am saying that it can be a wonderful career, just as long as you are 100% a team player. Not a loner, like me.

Do I have any regrets? Nope, not one. In fact it was the defining point in my life that made me aware of who and what I am, which helped my future successes and showed me how to move on from my failures.

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Jack, Casper and a Crematorium

I suppose we have all had a favourite relative. Just one of those very special people who managed to influence our life. Mine was my mother's eldest brother, Jack. Jack was one of the greatest larikins that ever drew breath and, as a very impressionable teenager, I absolutely worshipped him and had the good fortune to stay with him on many hilarious occasions. This is his story, as I remember it.

There are many adjectives that could be used to describe Jack, including rake (look it up), opportunist, con man (in a mild way), natural leader, adventurer and a whole heap of others that I won't disclose, because I will never disparage his memory. However, you'll probably guess what they are, as his story unfolds.

This first part is something I've managed to put together from stories told by my mother, Jack's lovely, long term partner, Beth (who I adored, as did Jack) and from Jack himself, when he thought that I was old enough to understand.

During WW2, Jack served in the Royal Australian Airforce, as someone who took possession of film that was retrieved from the cameras on recon. planes. when they returned to the airfield, which were located on several Pacific Islands. Jack, being Jack, saw an opportunity to make some extra money, by saving the unexposed film, splicing it all together and, using a camera retrieved from a damaged aircraft, producing his own pornographic movies, with the very willing assistance of the local Islander girls, his mates and, most likely himself.

He did this on numerous occasions, until he got busted, resulting in a demotion from flight sergeant to airman. He never got into serious trouble because several officers were in on the project. All this was apart from the side hustle that he had selling fuel from damaged aircraft to officers, who all drove mis-appropriated motor bikes. According to Jack, he thoroughly enjoyed his war.

The first time that I met Jack was about 12 years after the war when my parents took me from Adelaide to visit him when he was living in Brisbane, married to the dragon lady, who I hated on sight, and with his 3 kids to the said dragon lady.

Jack's wife, who's name I can't remember, was a nagging, screaming shrew that Jack eventually decided to escape from. He needed cash to do this, because the grafting shrew kept him poor. Jack, being Jack, as usual, came up with a scheme to make some quick money. He leased an area of tidal swamp on the Brisbane River, roughly fenced it, called it a mud crab farm. He had no idea if there were any crabs there but, at that time, there probably were. Apparently, Jack quickly found a gullible American buyer, which helped finance Jack's escape and subsequent divorce. That's all I've been told about his early years and I never saw him again, until I was in my mid-teens.

At that time, I was an apprentice electrical artificer in the Royal Australia Navy, which is whole different story. Fortunately, I spent almost every weekend leave staying with my uncle Jack in his crematorium. Yep. You read it correctly. Jack was the General Manager of Rookwood Crematorium, which was, and probably still is, situated on a hill, smack bang in the middle of Rookwood Cemetery, the largest cemetery in the southern hemisphere, or so I was told. The rest of this short story is about the 3 years that I spent with him, when I was around 15 to 17.

Jack lived in a lovely house, situated directly behind the crematorium. Being a very resourceful man, Jack had routed his heating and hot water system through the "business section" of the Crematorium. He had also set up a system whereby he could melt lead to make his fishing sinkers, during business hours.

He also had a steady stream of priests, from all denominations, calling on him. I think they saw him as welcome respite, after a hard day with the bereaved. They knew that they would always get a cup of tea, coffee, scotch or brandy and they never seemed to mind that Jack's thumb was firmly planted in their cup, mug or glass when he handed it to them.

Instead of a watchdog, Jack had a "watch cocky". He was a large sulphur crested cockatoo, appropriately named "Casper". Casper was way more efficient than a normal watchdog. If anyone approached the house that he didn't recognise, Casper would fluff up his feathers, wildly flap his wings and scream "Fuck Off!!", with perfect pronunciation at the intruder. It worked a treat.

Once Casper met you and knew you were welcome, he was most affectionate bird imaginable, unless you didn't scratch his head when he demanded. It was then a bastard in him arose and you get a "Hey, I'm waiting! nip that you wouldn't forget. Generally, people only ever needed one reminder. He also had an amazing memory. Once he had met you, he would never forget your face and he either loved you or hated you. Those who he hated rarely came back again.

As an impressionable teenager, I welcomed everything Jack taught me. For example, he taught me how to drive, which my father couldn't be bothered doing. The lessons were very short on theory and long on practice. He taught me in the crematorium's "three on the tree" (look it up) Holden ute.

Once he had explained things like gears, both forward and reverse, the brake and clutch pedals and one sentence of sage advice, "When in doubt, both feet out", meaning, if I got into trouble, step on the clutch and brake pedals at the same time. As I said, sage advice, indeed. The lessons were all after 5pm, when the cemetery was closed. His philosophy was simple. I couldn't kill anyone, because they had all beaten me to it. The only problem was getting bogged in a freshly dug grave. I loved those lessons.

He bought my first speargun, so that I could join him spear fishing. I was over the moon with it, except for the time that I had pulled the speargun apart to clean it. When I finished and had reassembled the gun, I put a spear in the guides and cocked it with both rubber bands. When I looked along the guides, to make sure the spear sat straight, I accidently touched the trigger. This resulted in a broken nose (the first of 7, in my life, so far) and a hole in the wall of his shed. Worst of all, when I went back to the Naval Base, after my leave, I was charged with having a self-inflicted injury and no leave for a month. Bastards!.

I previously mentioned his life partner, Beth. They never saw the need to marry but I have never seen a happier, more loving couple. Beth was a very beautiful, gentle, softly spoken woman, who I absolutely adored (I mentioned that earlier). She and Jack lived happily until Jack's peaceful death, many years later.

So, that was my Uncle Jack. I loved him then and I love him now.

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A Knife Fight, Attempted Murder And A Lump Of Firewood.

It's taken me a very long time to tell this true story, for reasons that will become obvious. It's about serious conflict and there were no winners. So, I'll try to tell it in as light hearted a way as possible Please forgive me, if I fail.

My first serious girl friend was one of my least favourite sisters' best friends. That was something she never forgave me for. I never understood why until, much later in life, when both she and I realised that she was, and still is, a lesbian. I have no problem with either gays or lesbians, counting some of them as my good friends.

None of that has anything to do with this story, and I will not be revealing anyone's name, for my obvious safety. Lol.

At that time, I was about 17 and my girlfriend was about 16. She was a very beautiful, blonde haired, well built, German girl. Those physical attributes were a prime cause of the following tale. It's also important to understand that I felt that I was punching well above my weight and was very protective of her.

Now, to the knife fight.

Every Friday night, we used to go to Adelaide's only ice skating rink, in Hindley Street, which was the city's only night club, strip club and other nefarious activities area. A bit like Kings Cross, without steroids.

It's probably a good time to mention, that at that time, I was 183cm, 100kg and very fit, and didn't mind the occasional fist fight.

On that particular evening, my girlfriend and I were walking down Hindley Street, on our way to go skating, when we walked past a lane, where three young guys, of European background were lurking . We never noticed them, until one of them pinched her quite hard on her bum.

She was obviously in a lot of pain and my protective atitude and my love a good fight, traits kicked in. I told her to get a taxi home, NOW, and went after the shits who had hurt her.

Now, to the "attempted murder thing".

Fortunately, they weren't very good at an "all in" street fight. One was very obliging and fell down quickly. The second and third guys took a bit longer. The second guy evrntually ran away. At this point, shit number three pulled a knife.

From this point on, I don't really remember anything except that I really hate knives and went into a "black rage". That's one of those fits of rage where you are just so angry, that you react without thinking., Fortunately, that's only happened three times in my life. Those other stories will probably never be told.

The rest of this part of the story is what the two policemen, who were across the road and witnessed the incident, told the magistrate, the next day. Apparently, I punched the guy with the knife, who politely fell down with his arm across the footpath and the road, which I, apparently, jumped on, breaking it. Also, apparently, I then dragged him up to his feet and gently threw him into the side of a bus that was slowly driving past, apparently causing a broken collarbone and a hairline fracture to his skull.

As I said, I have no recollection of this, as it is all based on the evidence of the police who, apparently, witnessed it, without any intervention, until after the incident. If it is true, I'm OK with that, as I hate arseholes who pull knives. Subsequently, I was arrested for attempted murder.

In the police watch house, one of the arresting cops, who seemed like a nice, if gutless, guy was trying to take my fingerprints, I wasn't happy about that, as I thought that I was the victim. But he persisted, so I hit him and he ran away. There I was, wandering up and down the cell block, telling all the crims, drunks and general arseholes that "I showed him".

A few minutes later, about ten of the biggest, ugliest cops, one of whom was my cousin, pushed me into a padded drunks' cell, formed a ring around me and started beating the crap out of me.

The next morning, I woke up, bent over like Quasimodo, with a broken nose and pissing blood. That's how I appeared in court. The judge made a comment about haw I seemed to get the worst of the fight in Hindley Street, but wasn't impressed when I told him the police had done it

The upshot of the whole incident was that, as a minor, I could not be charged with attempted murder and the police "evidence" was suspect, to say the least and I was released on a six months good behaviour bond.

Now, to the firewood thing

As I mentioned, one of the policemen that beat me up was my cousin. About five years later, I was at a family Xmas party. My cousin went outside for a smoke. I followed him out, picked up a piece of firewood, on the way out and belted him behind the ear with it. He knew something was coming and, to his credit, when he finally came back inside, he just looked at me, nodded, and we never mentioned it again. Come to think of it, we never spoke again.

I guess that's why you can imagine why this story took me a long time to decide to write.

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About Our Move to Tasmania

In 2018, my wife and I bought a house in Burnie, North West Tasmania but rented it out until we moved over there in 2020. *Note to self. If you really love a house, NEVER rent it out. Our tenants, who were well recommended by the idiot agent, totally neglected the garden and caused hundreds of dollars in damage to the inside of the house.

At that time, we were living and working in Melbourne's western suburbs (not the most salubrious area) having moved from a hobby farm in Tasmania's south east, eight years before that.

The farm was about 40km out of Hobart, on a hill, overlooking the Derwent River estuary and in direct line of sight, across the water, to Mt. Wellington. The views were incredible. Unfortunately, so were the gale force, icy cold winds, blowing from the mountain, across the water to the farm, about 9 months of the year.

This was a bit of a shock to someone who had spent many years living in Tropical North Queensland. This was why, after 18 months of breaking the ice on my chooks' water bowls, we sold up and moved to Melbourne. Why Melbourne? No real reason. In hindsight, I would have chosen somewhere else.

Sorry Melbournians, I just never warmed to the city, the number of stupid drivers and the generally, unfriendly people and local crime. Probably something to do with the area.

Why did we choose Burnie? The air and the water are supposed to be the amongst cleanest and most unpolluted in the world. I'm not sure about that but it certainly is very pristine.

The people are super friendly. If we're in the front garden, people we have never met, either walking or driving past, will wave or stop for a chat.

Burnie City is on the absolute beachfront, with beautiful views and beaches. It has all the conveniences you'll ever need but parking is horrendous. I don't have much respect for the council, who seemed to be managed by idiots. I missed nominating for election to the council, this year, but I hope to shake them up, next time round. I love a good shit stir.

Our house is about 2kms from the CBD, perched on the side of a hill, 200 metres above sea level, with amazing views. It is a small 64yo weatherboard house on 825sqm of land with several mature 60+yo trees and tree ferns. It also has a wonderful, decked, undercover area with gas and charcoal BBQs.

"Why did you buy such an old weatherboard house?", you ask. Simple, older Tasmanian weatherboards are not built from pine. They are very solid hardwood and will last well over 100 years. I have actually bent nails, trying to put up some picture hooks.

Oh. The other reason was in 2018 we paid $215K. Its current value now is around $400k. Does that sound like a good reason? I think so.

I really can't think of a better place to spend the rest of my life.

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Tassie jokes, costs and a toilet

We've been here almost 3 years and life is still excellent.

My main complaint is that I've had to put my Tasmanian jokes on serious hold, until I can better judge how, or if, they will ever be appreciated by the locals. To give you some idea of the tone of my offensive sense of humour, here is my favourite Kiwi joke, which I've shared with my Kiwi mates and co-workers with various reactions, from forced laughter to physical threats.

"What's the definition of a Kiwi? Living proof that Poms f**k sheep". See my problem? Strangely, I've been told that it's not funny, because it;

(a) Denigrates sheep (LOL)
(b)Disrespects Poms (as if)
(c)Brings the sexual preferences of Kiwis into disrepute (ditto, as if).

You can obviously see why I'm biting my tongue, here in Tassie.

Another thing that can be a bit of a worry, is the cost of EVERYTHING.

Water (about $1000pa) and electricity (about $25per week) is what I'm paying, even after my pensioner discount. Food and booze are also high, due to the cost of getting it across Bass Strait. If you need a tradie, be prepared to wait….and wait. Also, be prepared to pay…a lot.

My darling wife recently decided that we absolutely needed a second toilet for just the two of us. I tried explaining to her that entire families of 4 or 5 people survive quite well with just one toilet. To no avail. I mean that, if things get desperate, that's what gardens are for. She got her toilet.

That created another problem. The only place where we could fit a second toilet was in the laundry, which was an open room. You noticed that I said "was". This meant a stud wall, including a door, new light switching and a wall mounted exhaust fan all had be built or fitted and painted. I kept telling her and telling her how lucky she was to have a handy man (ex electrician and Bunnings DIY instructor) as a husband. She just rolled her eyes and told me, a 75yo invalid pensioner, to, "just get on with it." At this time, all that's left to do is the painting, a job I really hate.

Meanwhile, she is proudly announcing to all her friends, here and overseas, that we have two toilets. I'm sure she sees it as a status symbol. That's why I adore her. Never a dull moment.

More to come. After I've painted the bloody wall and door.

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A Belt, A Bra And A Harpy

This is a true, but short tale about an incident that happened at Woollies, yesterday.

First of all, a little bit of information that will make sense later. When I wear jeans, I hold them up with braces (suspenders), This just stops the jeans ending up around my ankles, while walking around in public. I also wear a belt, which is just just for appearances, because I think jeans without a belt looks wrong.

Recently my wife and I were doing a bit of food shopping in Woollies and were waiting at the fairly crowded Deli counter, when I was approached by an elderly woman and her female friend. I think they were in their late sixties. I didn't ask their ages because it would have been rude and I didn't care.

In a voice, just loud enough to carry to all the other shoppers at the counter, she said, "Why are you waring a belt AND braces together? A bit un-neccesary, don't you think?"All went very quiet and I thought, "What the f***?". I then noticed that she had quite a large bust, so I replied, "I may not need to wear a belt and you certainly don't need to wear a bra. I'm pretty certain that you could tuck them into your panty hose, without too much effort".

Some of the guys, standing at the counter started to laugh. One even clapped. The elderly lady was visibly angry and stormed off, saying that she was going to write a letter to the Woollies' manager. She was probably going to ask him if he wore a belt and braces at the same time, too,

A few minutes later, while still walking around the store and shopping, my wife had had time to mentally process what had just happened and she started to giggle. Loudly. For about ten minutes. Attracting a fair bit of unwelcome and embarrassing attention.

This incident helped support a theory that I've had for some time, That is that many elderly people can't help talking crap, at any time, loudly and without fear, myself included. It's an endearing trait which all younger people will get to experience, later in life.

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Drums, Dope and a Dunny

Whoa! I bet that's got you intrigued. This is another sad, but true, story.

I've been playing drums, since I was 12. After WW2, in Adelaide, the children of ex servicemen could get free music lessons at The Adelaide College of Music. My mother loved the trumpet, so she enrolled me for twice weekly lessons.

There were two problems. First of all, I could never get any noise of a trumpet, probably because I didn't like the instrument. Secondly, I loved the noise coming out of the drum studio next door, so I transferred there, without telling my mother. Imagine her reaction, when, three years later, she came to a concert at the college, expecting to see me out front, on the trumpet, but finding me happily sat at the back, belting the hell out of a kit of drums.

Not a pretty aftermath at home, but the damage was permanently done. I was drummer and, over the years, played in several rock and metal bands of no repute

So, what has any of that got to do with this story? Pretty much nothing apart from padding out the story. also, of no real importance, my favourite drummers are Ginger Baker (Cream et al), Charlie Watts (Rolling Stones) and Michael Shrieve (Santana '69-'71). Santana still remains the best band in the world. That's just my opinion. As you probably already know, opinions are like bums. We all have one and they are often both full of crap.

Carlos Santana (R) and Michael Shrieve (Drums) Woodstock 1969

To the story.

Way back, in the 1990s, I was living in Cairns and helped create a band with three other, very interesting characters who were a decade or so younger than me. We decided to only play our own original songs. The lead guitarist was a talented singer and guitarist. The rhythm and bass guitarists were adequate and I was the drummer and lyricist. We practiced for a couple of years and had over 40 original songs, From experience, I thought we were well and truly ready to gig, but the lead guitarist never felt confident, so out of sheer frustration, I left the band, which continued with a new drummer but, even after another 2 years, still never gigged and folded.

Not my drums, but very similar.

Now to the Dope and Dunny bit.

I have never done drugs, in spite of growing up and playing in bands during the 60s and 70s. My main vice was, and still is, a fondness for single malt Scotch whiskey. However, the other three band members were absolute pot heads so, as you can image, after about 30 minutes, what was great music turned into a wailing cacophony of sound.

To protect myself from the stinking smell of marijuana, I strategically placed my drums under an open window, with a fan behind me. It worked. Except for one day that it didn't. That day, we were experiencing the tail end of a cyclone, with strong winds and pouring rain, so the open window wasn't an option.

I kept the fan on, in the forlorn hope that it would keep the smoke away from me, but it had the opposite effect. It just made sure that I got a super dose of it. I have a bad reaction to marijuana and it makes me violently ill. Hence the dunny bit.

I was so ill that I got the other guys to phone my, lovely but long suffering, wife to come and pick me up, which she duly did, only to find me hunched over the toilet, loudly singing "Europe" The problem was that she thought I was drunk, which was a huge no-no in my house, so I copped a whole lot of grief from her, on the way home and for some time afterwards. I was too ill to explain what had actually happened until the next day, so the gief was long lasting, although undeserved, or so I thought, in my misery.

Strangely, I refused to attend band practice on future wet and windy days. I still feel ill, just thinking about it.

I continued playing my drums until about a year ago when arthritis made it difficult to hold the sticks and diabetes made the bass and hi-hat pedals too painful to operate. I still love good drum music and always will. Watching the ever changing drummers in Santana (all excellent) is a passion.

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50s Kids, a Bonfire and a Sack of Snakes

Yep, this is a true story. It's based around a few kids in the 1950's, aged around 7 or 8, living in a poor neighbourhood, on the edge of bush, just north of Adelaide. A kid's life was a lot different than today.

It was just after the end of WW2. There was not much money, so very few toys. There was no TV, just a radio, which the adults huddled around in the evening, listening to the news or serials. Very boring for kids. So we made our own entertainment, which more often than not, got us into a lot of trouble with our parents, neighbours teachers and, on occasion, with the police.

The police weren't too bad. If you were caught doing something evil or illegal, the local cop would give you a firm clip around the ear and took you home and toid your parents why. Then, all hell broke loose. I lost count of the times I felt my fatherther's belt buckle across my back and legs. I think that's when I learned to hate him, also because he was usually drunk at the time.

Despite that, I had an amazing time with my mates, running around in the bush, hunting for rabbits, lizards and snakes. Yep, snakes. Usually very poisonous brown snakes, which we used kill and cook on a small campfire and eat. Surprisingly, none of us ever got bitten by a snake or poisoned from eating them. The only danger was the belting my mother would give me with her wooden spoon, when she found out.

Typical kids from the 50's (not us).

One of our favourite days was Guy Fawkes Day. This was always celebrated on November 5th. and celebrated a failed attempt by the aforementioned Mr. Fawkes to blow up the British Houses of Parliament, way back when. A worthwhile cause, I always thought.

Every neighbourhood used to get together and build a huge bonfire, let off some fireworks and drink beer. It was a great night, even if we kids didn't get any beer.

A typical Guy Fawkes Day bonfire

This particular year, one of my more adventurous mates and I, decided to spice things up a bit. As I mentioned, we used to hunt snakes. It was November, which is quite warm, and meant snakes were easy to find. We decided that a sack full of live brown snakes thrown onto the bonfire would be an exciting distraction that everyone could enjoy, so we went hunting, with a large burlap sack in tow.

I took us almost all day to catch enough snakes to half fill the dack. I think we had around 20. That was heavy enough to easily and safely carry that many squiming, hissing, bad tempered brown snakes to an area near home, where we carefully hid them until the bonfire. I know what we were about to do was wrong and, today, anyone, who is a conservationist, myself included, will be horrified at our intentions. Bear in mind, we were two eight year old, semi wild, definitely feral kids of the 1950s.

About a sackful of brown snakes,

Later that night, the bonfire had burnt down, all the fireworks were finished and, most of the adults were drunk or working on it. It seemed like a perfect time for our little surprise, so we snuck off and retrieved the bag full of snakes, undid the rope holding the sack closed, and chucked it on the fire. The snakes were less than happy and burst out of the sack at what seemed like 100 miles per her hour and took off in all directions, as did all the drunk or almost drunk adults.

Only us kids ,most of whom were in on the prank, were rolling around on the ground, pissing ourselves laughing.

The bruises on my back and legs, from my father's belt buckle, took longer than usual to fade. This was because his drinking mates blamed him for not keeping his kid under control and almost causing a mass snake bite event.

It was seriously worth every bruise!!.

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Magpies, Boxthorns and a Ladder

It's that season again!

Yep, it's almost magpie swooping season again.

Some people hate them, others love them. Either way, they are just protecting their nests. I'm in "love them" category. Why? It goes back to my childhood.

In my early school years (1950s), my family lived in a, somewhat less than salubrious, town called Salisbury North, just north of Adelaide. It was, however, a young kids' paradise, being on the edge of the bush.

We spent every spare moment in the bush, hunting rabbits, lizards and snakes. Yep, snakes. That leads me to another story about a sack full of snakes and a community Guy Fawkes Day bonfire. I'll tell that one later. We also went hunting for fledgling baby magpies to steal from their nest, to keep and raise as pets. They make great pets. We never cut their wings and they were free to fly away at anytime, which they usually did, after about a year.

As you may imagine, pinching baby magpies from their nests was fraught with a smidge of danger, due to their parents being slightly more than a little pissed off.

Jmagine this. Two 8 year old boys, bare footed and wearing shorts and short sleeved shirts, with no head coverings, riding their rickety old bicycles down a dirt country road while each holding the end of an old, wooden ladder. "Why would we do that?", you ask, or not.

Along side that dirt road, grew large boxthorn bushes, upon which the maggies built their nests. Hence the ladder. One of us would scoot up the ladder as fast a we could, grab a couple of baby magpies, almost ready to leave the nest, gently put them inside our shirts and escaping, with parents in hot pursuit, swooping the hell out of us, almost all the way home. We always abandoned the ladder for a few months for safety's sake, while whizzing a long piece of bamboo above our heads and riding like hell.

The downside was multiple chunks of skin missing, due to successful swoops from angry magpies and deep scratches from the bloody boxthorn bushes. The upside was we each had a beautiful pet magpie that, almost instantly became part of the family for the next year, until they flew away.

I always called my pet magpie Foster Williams, who was a player/coach of the Magpies (Port Adelaide Football Club).

That's why I love magpies.

Fos Williams

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The Tropical Roof,the Depth
Chargers and the Hookah

Hah! I bet that title gotcha!

I lived in Cairns, Far North QLD. for fourteen years, from '89 to 96 and again from '03 to '11. The seven year gap was spent in Japan. None of that is remotely relevant, apart from this story having happened during a few crazy days in days in '91.

I was part of a group of five, tight knit friends who enjoyed anything to do with the ocean, including swimming, fishing, sailing and diving. This story is about a diving trip to Cooktown over a long weekend holiday. The targets of our dive were Painted Crays (Google it).

Painted cray

The drive to Cooktown from Cairns was a long one, often taking most of the day, due to heavy rain and unsealed roads. We used a battered, old Toyota Landcruiser with over 1M kms on the clock and broken air conditioning. Fortunately, it was fitted with a tropical roof which kept the sun off the car's roof. For the uninitiated, a tropical roof was a rack mounted, usually wooden deck, fitted over the roof of the vehicle, designed to keep the tropical sun off the roof. It worked.

As the weather was quite wet and parts of the road seriously muddy, requiring a lot of slow 4WD driving, we decided to make a day of it, breaking up the monotony by having a pub crawl. The idea was to stop at every pub or booze shop and have one beer. Here's where I introduce "Dockie". Dockie was a Kiwi (not his fault) who had a habit of always going one step too far. For example, although we had agreed to the "one beer per stop" rule, Dockie chose to drink Depth Chargers. These were a schooner of beer that had a full shot glass of whisky dropped in them. You can guess the result.

We had music playing throughout the trip so it wasn't too long before Dockie wanted to dance. Yep, I'm serious. Fortunately he fell asleep before trying to dance in a car with four other big guys and diving equipment. It wasn't until we were about 45 minutes out of Cooktown when he woke up. At this point, we were driving very slowly through thick mud.

Having just woken up, Dockie decided he needed to pee but, when he looked out the window and saw the mud, he chose to climb out the window and on to the Tropical Roof to do the business. We told him that we couldn't stop because we would become hopelessly bogged in the mud. He said not to stop and he'd be OK on the roof. Once on the roof, after about ten minutes of grunting and swearing, he proceeded to piss all over the windscreen which, because we had all the windows open due to the heat, filled the car with a foul stench and a fine spray from the pee and rain from the wipers.

Then he decided to dance.

On the roof.

How he never fell off, I'll never know. We'd all had enough of him by then, so we happily left him there, dancing. As we started to enter Cooktown, there was a loud banging on the roof and Dockie was screaming at us to stop the car. Fortunately, we were finally driving on bitumen, so we pulled over and got out to stretch our legs....only to see a fearful sight!

Crouched down on the roof of the car was Dockie. Absolutely stark naked! The silly bastard had been doing a strip tease and his clothes were strewn in the mud over the past 20kms. On top of that, the idiot was seriously sunburnt, all over. Don't ever let anyone tell you that you cant burn on a cloudy day, especially in the tropics! We found a pair of shorts and a T shirt for him and drove him to the local chemist who sold us cream and pain killers for him, then booked into a motel for the night. For some reason, Dockie declined to have a drink in the bar with us.

The next day, we loaded all our diving gear onto the boat that we had hired for the day and headed out to The Great Barrier Reef, about 25km offshore from Cooktown to go cray hunting. It turned out very fortunate for us that Dockie was so sunburnt and could bear straps on his skin, as we didn't have to draw straws to see who was going to be in charge of manning the hookah gear, while rest of us dived.

Hookah

For those of you who don't understand what Hookah is, it's a portable air compressor that feeds air, via a long hose for each diver, enabling him to stay down longer. Strict decompression rules apply, so I only recommend it to very experienced divers. Seriously!!

Hunting for crays has it's hazards. We never speared crays, but used a steel hook to pull them out from under coral and put them in a netting bag that was attached to our weight belts.
Hazard 1. Sometimes you pulled out a moray eel instead of a cray, Seriously unfriendly buggers.
Hazard 2. Sometimes your hookah hose got caught in coral. NEVER try to just pull it free.
Hazard 3. Live crays often make a snapping sound with their tails, while in the nets. This is a dinner bell for sharks, of which there are plenty, That's why we all carried spears guns with power heads.
Hazard 4. A malfunction with the Hookah on the boat meant your air is suddenly cut off and you had no emergency reserve, so you had to curb your panic and surface slowly, expelling the air in you lungs all the way up. Don't do that and you could get the bends and/or die.

Yep, you guessed it. The four of us experienced Hazard 4 in about 15 metres of water. Fortunately, we were all very experienced divers and surfaced safely. We all arrived at the boat to find Dockie sitting there with a glum look on his face.

As you can imagine, none of us were happy, to put it very mildly. When we asked Dockie what had happened to the Hookah, he replied, "I turned it off because I was feeling lonely".

It was a very silent trip in the boat all the way back to Cooktown, as was the long drive back to Cairns. The two outcomes from the trip were we did get an impressive haul of crays and Dockie was banned from all further diving trips, despite his begging.

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The Great Gold Coast Restaurant Saga

Wait!!

Before you read this, pour yourself a drink or make a cup of coffee, prepare some snacks and take a toilet break. This tale is kind of long! That's probably why I called it a saga.

HOW IT ALL STARTED

As I've mentioned in previous stories, my mate and I had a habit of having boozy Friday lunches that stretched into the early hours of Saturday mornings. At this time, in the mid 1990s, we were both living on the Gold Coast. He, in his penthouse in Labrador and me in my modest canal front home in Broadbeach Waters. Why do you need this information? I have no idea.

As a hobby business, we had formed a partnership, buying failed restaurants, turning them into Mon. to Fri. business luncheon restaurants employing a chef/manager and selling the business to the chef/manager after 12 months. This was a great win/win deal for us and the chef. We received the profits for a year and then picked up a standard sale price of $60k. We also arranged finance for the chef to buy it, which meant he could own the business that he had built up over the past year with no upfront personal cash outlay. We did this 22 times, over the years. Eighteen times it was very successful and 4 times we crashed and burned.

Back to the saga.

Our pig farmer Prime Minister, Paul Keating, had just given us "The recession we had to have", part of this meant that people could no longer claim a tax deduction for their "business lunches", This unsurprisingly killed off the business luncheon trade and our hobby business.

The fateful day that created this saga happened at our Friday lunch, during the recession There were three factors that caused this. My mate having a whinge about the demise of our restaurant business, three or four bottles of Wolf Blass Grey Label shiraz and my fat mouth.

During this discussion, my ego and fat mouth conspired against me to the point I where I told him that I bet I could still do it and, what's more, I could do it for under $1000. My mate saw an opportunity for quick dollar and bet me $1000 that I couldn't do it. I took the bet, but he gave a 3 month time lime limit to do it. I agreed. The next morning, I woke up feeling like death and then remembered the bet. Since then, I have never ever drank Wolf Blass Grey Label shiraz.

GETTING THE RESTAURANT

Finding a vacant restaurant on the Gold Coast was seriously difficult in the 90s, due to the influx of "wanna be entrepreneurs" trying to join "The White Shoe Brigade" (Google it) who infamously inhabited the area. Those wannabes, with pockets full of borrowed or misappropriated cash snapped up every business premises lease as soon as it hit the market. Most of them went broke almost as quickly, ensuring that the feeding frenzy continued.

Meanwhile, I had to find a restaurant quickly, if I was to have any chance of winning the bet. Having been a resident of the Gold Coast and an existing business owner (Marketing Consultant), I had the very real advantage of local knowledge. It came to my attention that a small, 48 seat restaurant was available fronting the Gold Coast Highway and had been empty for more than a year. There were no "For Lease" signs in front of it, nor was it listed with any agents.

It was located on the ground floor of a large residential high rise complex and screened from the road by tropical plants. Ideal for my purpose.

I located the owner, who owned the entire building and lived in the penthouse He was a very nice, elderly man who had deliberately left the restaurant empty to make sure the noise wouldn't disturb his tenants. When I explained to him that the restaurant that I planned would be a business luncheon business, only operating mon. to Fri., 12pm to 5pm he was quite happy. When I further explained that it would have topless waitresses he actually roared with laughter and promised to be regular customer A promise he kept.

I signed a 3x3year lease and didn't have to pay any goodwill, as it wasn't a going concern. This was important, as the bet that I made with my mate limited my start up cost to $1000. At this point, I had spent less than $200. What I haven't mentioned was that the restaurant was completely set up. The kitchen was totally fitted out. The only things a chef had to bring were his pots and knives. So were the bar and dining room, right down to the crockery, cutlery and bar glassware.

STARTING THE RESTAURANT

I kept the restaurant's original name. Why? Simple. The name was already assigned to the premises along with the required licences, so it saved money.

Now, ten days had passed since the bet, so I had to get a move on. I advertised for topless waitresses and a chef in The Gold Coast Bulletin which cost about $50. The response was amazing! I only needed 6 waitresses and received 100+ applications. More than 20 chefs applied for the one vacancy, so I called on my mate to interview the waitresses and choose 6. I had absolute faith in him, as he a lot of experience in other restaurants we had owned in the past and he didn't let me down.

I deliberately decided to interview the chefs myself, because I was looking for a specific kind of person, plus a spare. All will be explained in good time.

The starting chef had to be a home owner/buyer, a family man and an excellent chef who had no experience in working with young, bare breasted waiting staff. As I said. All will be explained in good time.

I explained to all the chef applicants that they would not be paid a wage, but would get all the profit from the kitchen, while I would get the bar profits and the entry fee ($10/head). Running costs would be shared.

Most of the chefs were OK with that, because they would make more than a normal salary. It was good for me, as I would not have to bother with stock control or wastage in the kitchen. I also explained that I would require a $1500 bond because they were an unknown quantity to me and were responsible for running half the business and they would have to sign a contract as a sub contractor, not an employee. The bond stocked my bar, keeping that cost to zero.

The other firm rule was they were only there as a chef and NO harassment of the staff would be tolerated.

So, there I was. Three weeks in and about to open the restaurant and still only spent less than $400.

THE OPENING AND THE DEMISE OF CHEF #1

The week prior to opening, each day I placed a small "Bookings Essential" ad ($70) in The gold Coast Bulletin. By Wednesday we were booked out. Two weeks later, we were booked out two months ahead on Wed, Thurs. and Fri. Before long 75% of our bookings were permanent. The problem was that I wasn't getting the income from the kitchen. I found this annoying because it was totally my idea and hard work that started the whole thing.

Fortunately, fate stepped in, which made my problems go away. It came to my notice that the chef was starting to act inappropriately towards some of the waitresses and they felt uncomfortable collecting meals from the kitchen. When I confronted him about it, he became defensive and abusive. There was absolutely no way that I was going to accept that so, in collabaration with my mate' s partner, the chef's wife got an anonymous phone call, asking if she knew the kind of restaurant that her husband worked in. She didn't believe the caller, who then suggested that she go through the restaurant's kitchen door around 3pm on Friday and check for herself. The caller then hung up.

Why 3pm? Food service had ended then and a couple of waitresses were in the kitchen, helping to clean up.

I was busy in the bar when the chef's wife arrived around 3.15, so I'm relying on the report from the waitresses working in the kitchen at the time. Apparently, she literally stormed in, took one look at the waitresses and grabbed the chef by the shirt and dragged him out the back door while screaming abuse at him.

There are two things to learn from that. Be honest with your wife and treat employees with respect.

To continue, a locksmith arrived at 5.30 to change the locks and my "stand by" chef, who only wanted to work for a salary, was told to report for work the next Monday.

SAYING GOODBYE TO THE RESTAURANT

As I mentioned earlier, many of my customers had permanent bookings. Two of my regulars were a lawyer and his accountant mate. They were great customers but, after a few too many drinks, would call me over and tell me that I had the best job in the world. Little did they know how full on it was. So much so, that it was affecting my main business, the Marketing Consultancy, and I had already decided to sell the restaurant.

After about 6 months, on a Friday, the lawyer and his mate called me over, as usual, and started on their "best job in the world" routine, so I asked them why didn't they buy it. Of course they asked how much and I told them $60k, walk in walk out. I went home and never thought any more about it. On the following Monday, the lawyer walked into my Marketing Consultancy with a bank cheque for $60,000 and a contract of sale. We did the deal in record time and we both parted, very happy. I never set foot in the restaurant again.

A PARTY AND THE POLICE

Shortly after the restaurant opened, my mate, who lost the bet and graciously handed my $1000 winnings, decided to have a party on board his 12m game fishing boat, to celebrate the restaurant's success. His parties were legendary, so I readily agreed and having just pocketed $1000, I offered to pay for the booze. He "forgot" to tell me that he had invited about 15 other people. No wonder the booze bill was closer to $2000 than $1000. He hates to lose as much as I do....bastard!! Great party, though.

Now for the police bit.

A few months after I sold the restaurant to the lawyer, I had knock on my front door from the police. They wanted to know if I had sold the restaurant to that particular lawyer for $60k. When I said that I had they told me that the lawyer had used his clients trust account funds to buy it as well as to cover his gambling debts and they required me to refund the money.

I explained to the police that I was not involved in any of his illegal activities and was paid with a perfectly legal bank cheque and had a legal bill of sale for a legitimate business and would not be returning any of it. I then gave them my lawyer's business card and told them to take it up with him. I never heard from them again,

I later heard that the lawyer who bought the restaurant had been charged, found guilty, disbarred and jailed for six months.

Here endeth the saga.

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A retrospection: Sasha and "Darkie"

I met Sasha (Alex) in primary school. His parents had emigrated to Australia, from Russia, shortly after WW2. We became best mates until his untimely death in his mid 20s. This is a true story that happened in the mid 1950s.

Our homes were divided by the River Torrens which kind of flows (very sluggish and often green) through Adelaide and its northern suburbs. Its banks were overgrown with trees, reeds and weeds and it was inhabited by snakes, water rats, ducks, swans, yabbies and fish. Obviously, the perfect playground for Sasha and me.

My father has deserted my family and Sasha's was never home, either working or out whoring and drinking, so we were both raised in households of women (mothers and younger sisters). Not ideal for a pair of fearless ratbage, totally devoid of fatherly guidance. Needless to say, we spent every waking moment before and after school, as well as all weekend, at the river. Fishing, hunting water rats and ducks and swimming.

We were always well armed with quite lethal, home made bows and arrows, spears and knives that had mysteriously "disappeared" from our mothers' kitchens. We used to bring home the ducks that we had killed to our mums, who appreciated the fresh meat for our families The yabbies that we caught were sold to the local butcher for a few pennies a pound, which also were given to our mums. As for the fish...nada. Try as we might, we couldn't catch a fish.

Until we met "Darkie".

No-one knew his real name and he never told us. Darkie was a man who the locals named, due to to his unkempt black hair and beard and his dark sun tan. He never spoke to anybody and everyone was frightened of him. All the kids were told that he was dangerous and to stay away from him.

I think Darkie was suffering from PTSD as a result of his WW2 experiences but, in those days PTSD was pretty much unheard of, let alone understood.

Sasha and I often saw Darkie fishing in the river and we always kept a respectful distance from him although he always nodded "hello" to us, as we did to him. As I said before, Sasha and I could never catch any fish, despite many hours trying. Darkie, on the other hand, ALWAYS walked away with a bagful of fish in less than an hour. You can't believe how frustrating this was for a pair of intrepid hunters, such as Sasha and me.

One day, after a very long, fearful discussion, Sasha and I decided to put our fear aside and ask Darkie how to fish. I clearly remember that day, when 2 eight year old boys, almost crapping their pants in fear, quietly approached Darkie and, very politely, asked him to teach us how to catch fish.

I think we were the fist people to actually speak to him in a very long time. He just stared at us for a terrifyingly long time, then smiled and said "OK". Over the next few months, he not only taught us how to fish but also how to make very effective water rat and yabby traps. He also showed us how to cure water rat skins so that we could sell them as wall as lots of other useful hunting skills.

He was a wonderful, gentle person and never posed a threat to either Sasha or myself. One day, he just disappeared and we never saw him again. My mother said the police had taken him away, because he was a danger to people and he was either in jail or a mental asylum. Sasha and I were devastated.

In later years, I think that our experience with Darkie made both of us aware of peoples' ignorance and intolerance and, I hope it was responsible for our passion for social justice that we we both shared, despite our political differences as adults,.

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Surviving a Yakuza's Wife

I bet the title has you intrigued. Be patient, all will be revealed, in due course.

I was married to a lovely Japanese woman for 20 years, before she had enough. Strangely, she is still great friends with my current wife and me. I'm very happy about that. Having said all that, I moved to Japan in 1996 for a year, supposedly to learn more about the culture and the language.

I absolutely loved the country and the people. So much so, i took a job as an English teacher with the largest language school in Japan and spent 7 years there, until home sickness got the better of me. I remember getting off the plane in Cairns and immediately wanted to reboard it back to Japan. All this, while having a heart attack. A bit weird, huh?

At the school where I was teaching, apart from classroom lessons, there was a conversation lounge, where students could practice their English, with a teacher moderating. The lounge was a large room, seating about 20 students on casual sofas and the moderating teacher changed every 40 minutes. It was very popular with the students.

One day, a new student was in the room. She was in her early 50s, spoke good English and was wearing that much gold and diamond bling, her knuckles almost dragged on the ground. She was a very pleasant person and introduced herself as Meko, or that's what I heard. I was quite new to Japan then, so I wasn't very familiar with Japanese names. You can see what's coming, can't you?

As with all new students, I tried to encourage her to speak, frequently referring to her by name. During this time, her face became darker and darker and it wasn't difficult to see her anger. Fortunately the bell rang to signal it was time to change teacher, so I fled the room.

I was followed out by one of my regular students who pulled me aside and asked if I knew why the new student was angry. I told her I had no idea and asked her why, She asked me what the student's name was.

I replied, "Meko". She said the student's name was Mieko, not Meko. She then asked if I knew the meaning of meko. I shook my head. she then told me it was one of several rude slang words for vagina. I had just spent 40 minutes calling the new student the "c" word. Then she told me the zinger. Mieko was the wife of one of the biggest Yakuza bosses in Nara Prefecture. The term, "I crapped my pants", almost took on the literal meaning.

Self preservation reared its ugly head, so I waited for Mieko to leave the conversation room and approached her and immediately apologised. I explained how I was new to Japan and was unaware of my mistake, until after I had left the room. She was a very gracious woman and told me that she had guessed as much and, to my embarrassment, she told me how her and the other students had laughed about it

She often came back to the conversation lounge, after that incident and, I'm happy to say, we became great friends,

The downside was that, after that day, whenever a new student came into the conversation lounge, while I was there, they always wrote that student's name on the whiteboard. They obviously shared the story for years.

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The Ayers House Incident

There is a famous restaurant in Adelaide called Ayers House. Today, it's very different than it was in the '70's. In those days it was OK to smoke in a restaurant, but Ayres House was much more than that. You had to book several days in advance.

Upon arrival, you were greeted with a glass of real champagne and a woman was also presented with a perfect single rose. When you were seated, there was a glossy, black book of matches, with you name printed in silver, sitting in the middle of your table. There was a separate waiter for every course and another with a choice of the finest quality cigars after the dessert..

Are you getting the picture? Was it expensive? Bet your booty, it was. Was it worth it? Yep, every cent.

Ayers House

I'll get back to Ayers House later. Let's rewind a few months.

As I have mentioned earlier, my mate and I thrived in playing practical jokes on each other. One particular Wednesday, we were having a quick business meeting in a small seafood restaurant. Yep, we had few small partnership ventures, too.

We were the only customers in the restaurant, at the time. The very gay waiter took an immediate shine to my mate, touching him on the shoulder and asking if he needed anything else on repeated occasions, while totally ignoring me. And, no I wasn't remotely jealous. Trust me on that. However, I did see the opportunity for a great practical joke.

During lunch, I got up to go to the toilet. On my way back to the table, I handed the waiter one of my mate's business cards, quietly telling him that my mate really fancied him and to phone him at home. I also told him that my mate was very shy and that he should be persistent with his calls, Later, I called his wife and told her what I'd done. She thought it was hilarious and promised to go along with the prank.

The poor, lovestruck waiter drove my mate crazy for a couple of months before he gave up, phoning him several times a day. My mate's wife finally gave me up and, once again, I was threatened with revenge. Yeah, yeah, what's new?

A short time later, I had been introduced to a very beautiful lady at a party. This person was a professional singer who I had admired for years. I finally got up the nerve to ask her out for dinner at Ayers House and she accepted. Yep, I was out to impress.

I was over the moon about my upcoming date and couldn't help bragging about it to my mate at our regular Friday lunch, not realising what a stupid thing that was to do, particularly so soon after the gay waiter thing.

The eventful day arrived and my date was suitably impressed with the Ayers House venue and, better still, we were getting on really well. I couldn't have been happier.

About halfway through the main course there was a commotion in the restaurant's foyer. A very large, loud, indigenous Australian woman, dressed in grubby clothes was demanding to come in. My date and I tried to ignore the scene and continued with our dinner.

The woman at the door finally burst into the room, ran straight over to me, grabbed me by the shirt and screamed, "Come home, you bastard. Your dinner's on the table and the kids are waiting for you!". With that, she stormed out of the restaurant.

I was absolutely stunned. The restaurant was deathly silent. My date ran outside in tears and the management asked me to leave. All the way home, I was literally in shock, not to mention totally embarrassed. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before.

By the time I goy home, I had calmed down a little and I suddenly realised that I had been revenge pranked. I was furious! I grabbed the phone, ready to hurl foul abuse at my, so called, mate. Obviously, he was expecting my call and all I could hear from his end was roaring laughter. Game, set, match.

I turned out that the woman who burst into the restaurant was an actress that he had hired and, what's worse, the Ayres House management were in on it. Needless to say, I never saw my date again.

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The Yacht

In my mid twenties (circa 1970) I bought a little 7 metre, plywood sloop, which I kept moored at a marina near Glenelg, in Adelaide. Over time, I became bored with it and it spent most of its time at its mooring.

My mate used to borrow it quite often and wanted to buy it. I always said no, just to see the disappointment on his face. He responded by ordering an expensive bottle of wine, when it was my turn to buy, during one of our Friday lunches. We both knew what was happening but chose to pretend that we didn't. It was just part of the game.

One day, after a particularly heavy storm, the yacht filled with water and sank at its mooring. The marina manager broke the news to me and asked if I wanted raised. When I found that only a metre of its mast was above the waterline, I had a great idea for a prank, as I was behind on the practical joke scorecard, at the time.

Yep! You know what's coming.

I phoned my mate and casually asked him if he still wanted to buy the yacht. We agreed on $1500 and arranged to exchange the documents and mooring lease for the cash at Friday's lunch. On his way home, he called into the marina to let the manager know the boat was his and to lodge the transfer of the mooring lease. It was only when the manager asked if wanted the yacht raised that he realised the problem.

The phone call I received that night was decidedly frosty, not helped by my cackling laughter. Strangely, and quite unexpectedly, he swore revenge. That only made absolutely roar with laughter.

After about a month of no Friday lunches, things seemed to have calmed down. The lunches resumed and he seemed to have forgotten or forgiven. I should have known that he was only biding his time. Stupid me!

At this time, it was my standard practice to close my office at lunch time, every Friday. My office girl had a final job for the weekend, which was to get a taxi and collect all our outstanding accounts for the week and take them home. prior to banking on Monday. One Monday, she came into my office to tell me she didn't feel safe using taxis for the Friday collections. I understood and agreed to buy a car for her to use to and from work and the Friday task. It was a great idea and she was really happy.

One of my mate's many business was a new car dealership, so I called him to see if he had a reasonably cheap car for my office girl to use. Of course he obliged. He told me that one of his employees would deliver a blue Holden for $900, the next day. It was "off the books" so he wanted cash. I agreed. That should have sounded alarm bells. My bad!

As promised, the next day a young guy came to my office, handed me the car keys and left with the cash. I gave the keys to my office girl and told her it was the blue Holden in the car park. She was overjoyed. She ran downstairs and jumped into the car to see how it drove.

Several minutes later, she came upstairs, quite upset that the car wouldn't start. It was then i guessed this was a bit of revenge for the yacht and he had sold me a car with a flat battery. I went down to see if I could start it. Nothing! When I lifted the bonnet, there was nothing there. No engine! Bastard! He had had the car towed there and pushed into the drive!

Naturally, having totally lost my cool, my phone call was a tad abusive. In between fits of laughter, he told me I had just bought the car and the engine was available for another $600. Do the sums. It took me a few weeks to stop spitting the dummy and restart Friday lunches. Well played! A great revenge. Ten points to him.

The rub was that my office girl had a huge crush on him (not a problem) and when she found out what had really happened, she fell about in fits of laughter, every time she looked at me. That was a problem for my fragile ego.

I can feel your sympathy for me.....not.

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Our Tame Magistrate

Way back, in my mid twenties, I was the MD of a legal (not criminal) retail business. I had to clarify that, so you wouldn't get it confused with anything to do with lawyers etc. In fact, all the previous information is totally irrelevant to this story.

My best mate was also a very successful businessman. Who cares, you ask? It's relevant because, every Friday, we had a boozy lunch together in a very popular and somewhat expensive business luncheon restaurant. The food and wine were excellent as were the strippers and topless waitresses. It was also a place where, after several bottles of wine, we solved the problems of the world and our businesses.

One particular afternoon, while on bottle three or four, or something like that. we were both bitching about having recently been sued, albeit unfairly, as is always the case. One of us brilliantly came up with the idea of having a new best friend who could help us in such situations...a Magistrate!

At that time, we were aware of a single Magistrate who was still living at home with his mum. What could possibly go wrong? Over a period of a few months, we managed to "run into him" at a number social functions and, to our surprise, formed a friendship with him and invited him to join us for one of our Friday lunches.

Now to digress for a moment. As I previously mentioned, the restaurant had strippers as entertainment. One in particular was a tall, beautiful, Cook Island girl with a great body and very funny. Obviously, she was immensely popular. Except she wasn't born a girl. The only thing that gave her away was her 5 o'clock shadow. She never removed her bikini bottoms, so that was never an issue. One day, she just vanished. We later found out that she had gone to Thailand to complete the transition.

Meanwhile, our friendship with our new friend was going well and he became a semi-regular at our lunches. We also found out that he was a virgin, which is why he probably enjoyed the lunches so much. I daresay that they were stimulating for him. What could possibly go wrong?

I forgot to mention that we had a permanent Friday booking at a raised semi circular booth towards the back of the restaurant.

On this particular Friday, about 3 bottle o'clock, our missing stripper was back. It was the first time our Magistrate friend had seen her. I swear his glasses fogged up, he broke out into a sweat and , I swear, he started drooling. Bloody disgusting!

He was sitting between my mate and me and we both awkwardly shifted as far away from him as possible. After Jazzie (not her name) finished her show, she walked up to our table to have a drink, as usual. What could possibly go wrong?

The first thing she did was lift up her skirt, sans panties, and proudly said, "Look what I've got!". What could possibly go wrong! My mate told her it was lovely and asked her to kindly put it away.

That's when she noticed our new friend. Now Jazzie was never shy (strange, that). She promptly climbed across me and plonked herself down next to the virgin Magistrate After a few minutes of chatter, all from Jazzie, Our new mate was bright red and panting. Jazzie noticed his discomfort and provided her idea of calming the situation. She promptly grabbed his hand and jammed it between her legs, saying something like "How good does this feel?". What could possibly go wrong?

When she found out that our Magistrate was a virgin, she took him home with her. Since she was technically a virgin too, it probably seemed appropriate to her.

That's what could possibly go wrong!

My mate and I never saw him again. we later heard from the restaurant manager that they had moved in together. God bless them.

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Story Index

Part 1.The Danger of being on a Boat with a Lunatic Mate.

A storm a small boat and no steering.

Part 2.The Danger of being on a Boat with a Lunatic Mate.

A dip in a river teeming with sharks and very large crocodiles.

Crocs a Casino and a Rifle

An Interesting Evening.

The Pros And Cons Of Becoming Ancient.

The Pros And Cons Of Becoming Ancient.

Everything happens for a reason.

Making Our Fortune As Kids And How We Spent It.

Why I Grew Up As A Feral Ratbag (My Assessment)

Nope, I don't enjoy Xmas, But Here's A Recipe For Those Who Do

The True Tale of Two Gay, Happy Guys in Cairns, Circa 1988

My Take On Xmas And New Year

I Hate Xmas

The Ridiculous Idea Of New Year's Resolutions

My Experience Of Being A Type2 Diabetic With Leg Ulcers. A More Serious Story Than Usual

A Bit About My Best Mate And A Seriously Evil Practical Joke.

A True Ghost Story

An Unfortunate Squat and Drop Tale in Japan

The Kirribilli House

The 70s, Collaroy, Long Reef and Hand Feeding Sharks

Used Cars, Rotten Fish and Vegemite

Better Than a Slapstick Comedy Script

The Joys of Being Grumpy

My First Battle with a Local Council

Garbage and a Gun in Japan

Sudoku, the Jacket and 5 Minutes Of Fame

The Analyst a Model and a Toga Party

A Thief And A Katana

Nasty old Nailsworth Part 1

Nasty old Nailsworth Part 2

Nasty old Nailsworth Part 3

Nasty old Nailsworth Finale

My idea of Giving Thanks

Injuns, the Railroad and the Sheriff

How NOT to join the Navy in the 1960s

Jack, Casper and a Crematorium

A Knife Fight, Attempted Murder And A Lump Of Firewood.

About Our Move to Tasmania

Tassie jokes, costs and a toilet

A Belt, A Bra And A Harpy

Drums, Dope and a Dunny

50s Kids, a Bonfire and a Sack of Snakes

Magpies, Boxthorns and a Ladder

The Tropical Roof,the Depth Chargers and the Hookah

The Great Gold Coast Restaurant Saga

A retrospection: Sasha and "Darkie"

Surviving a Yakuza's Wife

The Ayers House Incident

The Yacht

Our Tame Magistrate

Contact me. But don't waste either of our times by trying to sell me stuff.

The Tropical Roof,the Depth
Chargers and the Hookah