Bob Wilson - thegoodwills.com

Where there’s (bush) fire there’s smoke

Oops- the tail light is out- better get that fixed! Fast forward to King St. Mechanical in Warwick. John came out and promptly fixed it- ‘No worries, mate. No charge’! It would have been the perfect introductory day in a new town, had it not been for the pall of bushfire smoke hanging over Warwick and communities to the east. At Yangan, 18 kms East, smoke from two fires burning in inaccessible country around Swanfels infiltrated the town. Residents closed windows and doors and tried to stay indoors as much as possible.

A tired looking bush fire brigade chap having a cold ale at the local pub told me he’d never seen it as bad in this district, Yangan and Swanfels were not alone. As today’s photo attests, the fires are still burning. It is probably overkill, but we have packed an emergency evacuation bag.

Bushfires, grass fires and controlled burns that got out of control have been burning all over South- East Queensland and Northern New South Wales for weeks. When we drove from Maleny to Warwick via the Lockyer Valley, the mercury peaked at 40 degrees Celsius, which even a Kiwi could tell you is unseasonably hot for Queensland in early October. The Lockyer Valley, ostensibly the region’s premier vegetable producing centre, looked brown and dead, bar a few irrigated fields. Up in the hills, fires were burning. A friend rang us while we driving through Ma Ma Creek.

“Why are you in the Lockyer Valley? Don’t you know there are fires burning and you need to leave there at once!”

We saw the smoke plume to which she referred and had heard on the radio news that a house was destroyed in Laidley.

So we kept on driving and emerged on the Toowoomba-Warwick road, just as a blood red sun was setting behind a shroud of smoke.

People who know about such things were predicting a long hot summer and an early start to the ‘bushfire season’ back in August.

As Yangan residents fretted and waited for a possible call to evacuate, I mentally prepared an emergency kit: phone, charger, keys, wallet, essential medications, scrips, passports, journal and pen, change of clothes, water bottle, dog food (and bowl). Strange feeling it is to compress one’s life into one essential package.

This is second nature for residents of Australia’s more bushfire-prone areas such as the Blue Mountains and the uplands of northern New South Wales.

The Guardian’s Lisa Martin wrote that fire authorities were bracing for a challenging bushfire season across the continent. The Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre’s seasonal outlook warned six States they faced ‘above-normal’ potential fire threat because of very warm and dry conditions and below average rainfall.

Queensland and New South Wales bore the brunt of it in September, when gusty winds and high temperatures fanned relatively small grassfires into uncontrollable bush fires. In Southern Queensland and Northern NSW, fire authorities dealt with 1,200 fires in the first two weeks of September, with 130 fires erupting in just one day. Fifty-five homes were lost and the iconic Gold Coast hinterland tourism attraction, Binna Burra Lodge, was destroyed.

Travel journalist Lee Mylne wrote about the determination of Binna Burra’s owners to rebuild. Amidst the rubble, the bell which hung in the lodge dining room since1934 has been found intact – a symbol of hope, Lee wrote.

The adjacent campground and café was spared and the Binna Burra board says it plans to open for Christmas holidays. It is also hoped the Sky Lodges can be repaired in time for the summer holidays.

Coincidentally, I am reading The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells, a blunt instrument of a book which beats you about the head with unassailable facts and frightening scenarios about what will happen to our bodies as the planet warms. So I was more sharply concerned to read an ABC story yesterday which asserts that Australia is not prepared for what lies ahead. Key points of the story are:

The national aerial firefighting centre (NAFC) still awaits a Federal Government decision about its urgent request two years ago for $11 million in funding;
The Government has not guaranteed funding for the only national body researching the future of bushfires;
Emergency services experts who asked the Government to consider the threat of climate change in fire planning have not received a response.

Australia’s former chief scientist, Ian Chubb, said it was clear the climate was changing.

“It’s not just some passing phase that it didn’t rain this decade,” he said. “The implications of that for fire are pretty obvious.”

Recent fires in NSW ushered in a new phenomenon in firefighting dubbed Black Swan events. This describes what happens when a bush fire has reached such a point of ferocity that it interacts with extreme weather events.

The Sir Ivan fire near Dunedoo burned through 55,000 hectares, creating its own thunderstorm about seven kilometres high, according to a report by the NSW Coroner’s Court. Clouds of smoke shot lightning bolts up to 80 kilometres away, starting more fires.

Emergency experts and senior scientists have told a joint ABC investigation that a comprehensive national plan is needed to tackle the fires of the future. They are concerned about the lack of financial commitment from the Federal Government for resources and research.

The ABC’s Background Briefing cited documents that show the proportion of federal funding for NAFC has more than halved since 2003. Minister for Natural Disaster and Emergency Management David Littleproud said he would raise the business case at the next Ministerial Council meeting.

“We haven’t made a decision around the aerial assets,” he told Background Briefing. “We’ll continue to work with the states in a mature way.”

Mr Littleproud told Background Briefing the Government did acknowledge the role climate change had played in escalating fire risks.

“I haven’t seen this in my life before and I don’t know where it’s going to end,” he said. “I think it would be remiss of anybody not to suggest that it is not climate change that has caused a lot of this.”

As I write, a storm has brought decent rainfall to the Yangan district, which should help firefighters no end. Nevertheless, given my asthmatic tendencies, I’m staying indoors today, curled up with a good book. The choices are (a) persevere with The Uninhabitable Earth or (b) Carl Hiaasen’s Stormy Weather, a satirical yarn about a couple of con artists trying to capitalise on the aftermath of a hurricane sweeping through Florida.

In Chapter two of Wallace-Wells’s book he reminds us about a deadly European heatwave in 2003 which killed as many as 2,000 people per day. On page 47 he cites research that by 2050, 255,000 people are expected to die from direct heat events. Already a third of the world’s population is subject to deadly heat waves on at least 20 days of the year. Blimey, so let’s hope the old folk’s home has air conditioning for 101-year-old me.

Meanwhile in chapter five of Stormy Weather, a Rhesus monkey has stolen Max’s video camera, on which he had filmed the aftermath of the hurricane (with the aim of selling footage to a TV station).

His new bride, Bonnie, who is beginning to go off her exploitative husband (who has mysteriously vanished), is befriended by a strange fellow scouring the Everglades for (escaped) monkeys.

It’s no contest, really.

FOMM back pages, August 2017:

https://bobwords.com.au/bushfires-burning-hot-early/

Insomnia and the four poster bed

insomnia-four-poster-bed — Image: Elizabethan ornate oak four poster bed. Wikipedia, Public Domain

It may come as no surprise, given our circumstances, to read that I/we have suffered bouts of insomnia these past few weeks. Selling up and moving from our home of the past 17 years was one major stressor that contributed to fitful sleep. Then there is the (ongoing) uncertainty about where we will end up living, which in our case requires two people to agree on the location, condition, ambience and price of another home. Thirty-seven house inspections later, we are just about there.

But as you would all know (Australian home owners move on average every seven years), the transitional period is quite stressful. We have moved our luggage from one place to another four times since vacating the premises on September 11. Naturally enough, you leave things behind. For example, I’m supposed to wear black leather shoes for our choir performances this weekend. So far, all I have found is a dowdy pair of brown loafers and a pair of old man slippers (the kind with a flap held in place by Velcro). She Who Had No Clue Where My Black Shoes Were said, “Why don’t you go to the Plaza tomorrow and buy a new pair?” Now there’s a thought.

These past few weeks we have been ‘couch surfing’, courtesy of benevolent friends and relatives, who in truth provide much more than a couch (and a spot for the dog). Still, strange beds, different locations and fluctuating bed times clash with the heightened stress of the displaced person. Not to mention this weird spring weather where you kick the doona off at 11pm and wake up cold at 4am.

For years I thought it was normal to wake at 2.10am with no expectation of falling asleep again. If I did, it was inconveniently about 35 minutes before the alarm told me it was time for work. This was not always the pattern. Sometimes, I could not get to sleep at all, other times I’d fall asleep the minute my head hit the pillow then wake again in 20 to 30 minutes, hyper-vigilant and twitching.

Over the years I discovered there are many different forms of insomnia and the ones outlined above are only some of them.

Medical research agrees that the first line of treatment for insomnia should be behavioural modification. Eat your evening meal at a sensible hour, don’t read, log on to the Internet or watch TV two hours before going to bed. Don’t drink tea or coffee after 2pm. Go to bed at the same time every night, roll on to your side and switch out the light.

The second line of treatment is medication, usually of the type prescribed for anxiety or depression. An article in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine informs us that 40% of adults with insomnia have a co-existing psychiatric disorder.

“Among these psychiatric disorders, depression is the most common, and insomnia is a diagnostic symptom for depressive and anxiety disorders,” writes Dr Thomas Roth, PhD.

As Dr Roth’s paper asserts, 30% of the general population suffer from chronic insomnia; women and older adults are most at risk. Primary sleep disorders including restless legs syndrome, snoring and sleep apnoea can also lead to insomnia.

The artistic side of the brain quite likes insomnia. Some of my best work, and maybe some of yours, has been created in the wee small hours.

But when you have to front up for work and use your brain and make decisions all day, three or four hours sleep just doesn’t cut it. The phrase ‘burning the candle at both ends’ comes to mind. It means excessive work with no time for rest.

The phrase comes from a time when candles were expensive and burning them at both ends implied a wasteful way to achieve an obsession. As the American poet, Edna St Vincent Millay wrote: “My candle burns at both ends. It will not last the night, but ah, my foes, and oh, my friends, it gives a lovely light.”

In the 1990s, when I was working long hours by day and staying up late writing songs, I sometimes had a dozen candles burning at once. On Saturdays I would take my son to New Farm Park and later to my favourite writers’ retreat, a coffee shop in a massive old woolstore at Teneriffe, an inner Brisbane riverside suburb. The Australian Estate Woolstore had been converted to a furniture warehouse with three huge floors full of classy furniture. It was fun to roam around and check out the stock, bounce on a few beds, try a leather recliner or two and vow that one day, we’d own one of those. Son was 9 or 10 and happy to go off and explore while I’d sit in the coffee shop overlooking the river, blowing froth off my cappuccino and trying to capture the images of the day in a battered old journal.

One time son came back to tell me I had to check out this huge bed.

“It’s got a roof and curtains, Dad.”

The four-poster bed was a beauty for sure, and it had a price tag to match.

“We’d never get it through the front door,” I lied. “Besides, Mum and I are quite happy with the bed we have.”

He went back to building a fort with a pile of sofa cushions while I went back to my journal and jotted down the first lines of a new song “I went down to the wool store, to buy myself a bed; it might help with my insomnia, it was something that I read”.

The Australian Estates Woolstore was later converted to apartments, swept up in the gentrification process that changed Teneriffe from an age-worn industrial suburb to a residential precinct favoured by young urban professionals.

There are lots of coffee shops now in Teneriffe, but none had that sleepy tranquillity, imbued with the ambience of the wool store’s expansive wooden floors and big casement windows that let in the natural light.

Now known as Saratoga Apartments, the Australian Estates Woolstore in Macquarie Street was built in 1926.

Not that Teneriffe’s apartment dwellers would want to be reminded, but I recall the spectacular McTaggart’s Woolstore fire in January 1990. The fire in Skyring Street took hold quickly as the brick and timber building, its floors soaked with lanolin from years of storing bales of wool, exploded. The building was completely destroyed within an hour and the rubble was still smoking next day. That fire took old timers back to 1984 when the Dalgety’s Woolstore at Teneriffe met a similar fate. Those with an interest might like to track down a video called Back to the Brass Helmet which details many of the huge fires the Queensland Fire Service have been called upon to extinguish.

That’s the interesting thing about history – those who like to write down what happened, when, how and where, leave fascinating trails for those of us who care to follow. I went on to finish the song, prosaically called Four Poster Bed. It’s a tongue-in-cheek story about a fellow who spirits a girl away from another chap in a bed shop. It’s fictional, but I like to think it has somehow preserved the edgy, consumerist mood of the early 1990s.

If you had credit, and a degree of lust, you could buy anything.

Last week: Elanora Park is managed by Brisbane City Council, not Redland City Council

Dog My Cats! – Australia’s Fur Baby Obsession

dogs-cats-fur-babies — Nibbler and friend checking the p-mail at Elanora Park, Wynnum

Down at Brisbane’s biggest dog park, Elanora, a chap is loading two dogs into the back of a wagon – a black Labrador, and a white fluff dog. The big one had earlier snaffled my dog’s hard rubber ball and didn’t give it back. Fair enough, I reckoned, musing about the numbers of times our adopted Staffie has stolen other dog’s tennis balls and reduced them to slimy fragments.

I once knew a woman who named her dogs Kierkegaard and Kant, after famous philosophers. Imagine the neighbourhood mutterings when she called the latter-named from afar.

Kantian moral theory assumes the rightness or wrongness of actions does not depend on their consequences but on whether they fulfil our duty. So if Kant (the dog) poops on someone’s lawn, he is fulfilling his duty (to empty his bowels). The rightness of the owner’s action depends on whether he or she brought a poo bag with them.

Brisbane City Council did a smart thing when fencing the 26,000sqm Elanora Park, which sits between hillside houses and the mangrove-lined foreshore at Wynnum. The park is split into two fenced enclosures; a large one for big dogs and their owners and a smaller enclosure for small dogs.

The park provides shade trees, obstacle courses for the bouncy mutts and benches for the owners to sit and talk about their dogs and how the Broncos are going.

There are water points and poo bag dispensers. The only downside is, if you happen to be there after 4pm, the mosquitoes and midges will find you.

I implied earlier our dog was a hand-me down from an adult child. We belong to a demographic where one’s adult children for one complicated reason or another, cannot look after their dog. As you probably know, the cry ‘I want a puppy’ often starts between the ages of 8 and 15. By the time your kids are old enough to smoke and drink and start dating, no-longer-a-puppy gradually becomes the parent’s responsibility.

We have owned dogs together and individually for most of our lives although there was a 10-year gap between Kia the wonder Shepherd and the brindle Staffie. The latter is a well-trained dog, but a bit of a sook; a 20-kilo lapdog with a propensity to ‘sing’ when being taken somewhere in the car.

I realise this is not a great pitch to anyone who’d like to mind the dog on the occasions when we are away, but here’s the catch: Staffies are bouncy dogs full of nervous energy with a tendency to whine and whimper for reasons not always apparent. The upside is Staffies are cuddly, affectionate and easy to train.

The broader question is, why do otherwise independent people in our demographic (70+), complicate their lives with a needy animal – in effect a toilet-trained toddler? Sometimes when dog-walking, I meet people who introduce an aged Labrador or a crossbreed that shies away when you go to pat it, as ‘rescue dogs’.

It surprised me to find that only 1.92% of Australia’s 4.8 million domestic dogs are rescue animals (abandoned and picked up by pounds and dog shelters or surrendered when the owner is no longer able to care for the animal). RSPCA data shows that 40,286 dogs were reclaimed, rehomed or euthanased in 2017-2018, a 10% drop on the previous year’s figures. The better news is that 34,709 dogs were rehomed, with a relatively small number (5,577) euthanased.

Let’s debunk the myth spread by current affairs TV and tabloid newspapers. Only 257 dogs were put down for ‘legal’ reasons. So despite lurid stories about killer (American) Staffies or Pit Bulls, the majority of dogs consigned to the celestial kennel had ‘behavioural’ problems.

Now that we are officially of no fixed abode, the subject of dog sitters/minders comes up frequently. A quick Google search revealed services that will hook you up with dog-loving people who will happily look after your pooch at your place or theirs. The average price is about $50 a day, so if you have a private arrangement that is less than $25 a day you are doing very well.

The free option is to engage a house/dog sitter and there are many online services which will match you and your dog with (ahem) pre-vetted sitters. People who don’t like the sound of that and want to go away for a lengthy period have no option then but to book their fur babies into boarding kennels. A friend who chose this option booked her two cats and two dogs into establishments while on a five-week UK tour. The bill would have paid for her airfares, but she was happy to do it for the peace of mind.

So, if you really want a dog, be aware it will cost between $3,000 and $6,000 for the first year alone. The BankWest Family Pooch Index estimated it can cost $25,000 to keep a dog over its lifespan.

The above does not factor in chronic health conditions. As vet bills mount up, more people are taking out pet insurance which can cover expensive items like a tick bite (involves an over-night stay).

Nor does the Pooch Index take into account occasions like when Fido wander s off through the gate left open by the meter man. After shelling out $250 at the pound, you chastise Fido and put up a sign: “Shut the Woofen Gate”.

None of this apparently dissuades the millions of Australians who own one or more dogs. If you want one, there’s a plethora of choice with 339 different breeds (a conservative estimate).

The term ‘fur babies’, much as I dislike it, rings true for people for whom a dog (or cat) is a substitute child. According to She Who Can Name Most Dog Breeds, the telling statistic is that 53% of owners let their pet sleep on the (marital) bed.

Some (like me), freely attribute human traits, emotions or intentions to an animal that cannot speak and lacks opposable thumbs. This trait develops as said dog increasingly learns to recognise words like walkies, drivies, dinner/breakfast, come/away, outside/inside, good/bad dog, off the bed and wait (exceptionally useful command when descending stairs or steps).

This anthropomorphic behaviour was in full bloom when the movers were emptying our house. I’d left the dog bed in a corner of the living room. He either lay upon it or stood staunchly in front.

“Does the dog bed go?” asked Mover No 1.

“Touch my bed and I’ll rip your lungs out, Jim,” the dog snarled,* or at least that’s what I read into his body language.

“No, the bed stays,” I told him, assuring the dog: “It’s OK, mate. You’re staying with us… I didn’t know you liked that Warren Zevon song – aah wooh!”

“Yeh,” Dog said, warming to the topic. “I thought Night Time in the Switching Yard was his best. I quite like Harry Manx too. Did you know his album title, Dog My Cat, is a riff from a 1910 short story by O Henry where the character says ‘well dog my cats’, by way of an exclamation of incredulity?

“No, I did not know that,” I replied, marvelling at his musical and literary acumen and ability to sustain a 50-word sentence.

“I’d like to try my paw at the Mohan Veena one day,” he added.

“Stick with singing,” I advised.

Beyond words, Harry Manx: https://youtu.be/JFY8bW3xsHg

(I demur – I’ve never heard Nibbler snarl in all his life. Ed)

Climate debate burning fiercely

bushfires-burning-climate — Peregian bushfire image by Rob Maccoll

As we prepared to move from the Sunshine Coast hinterland after 17 years, the air was full of bushfire smoke, dust and haze from an early, hot start to spring. It blew a gale up there for the best part of a week; strong south-westerlies, the last thing you need in an early bushfire season.

Multiple properties were lost around Stanthorpe and in the Gold Coast hinterland between Sarabah and Canungra as hot gusty winds sent bushfires out of control.

We all know how dry it has been around the Southern Downs and across the border in towns like Tenterfield and Armidale. The aforementioned towns join Stanthorpe and Warwick and at least six other regional New South Wales towns at risk of running out of water.

I recall being sent on assignment to Warwick in 1992 with a Courier-Mail photographer. We walked along the dry bed of the Condamine River with then mayor Bruce Green, commenting on the sparse pools of water here and there. The town’s main water supply, Leslie Dam, was at 3% capacity at the time.

In January 2011, I was marooned in Warwick. So much rain fell authorities had no choice but to open all seven floodgates on the Leslie Dam. Creeks rose and the main roads to Brisbane and Toowoomba were closed.

People who have at least one foot in the climate change denial camp will tell you it was always thus in Australia: floods, droughts, bushfires, insect swarms, dust storms and sometimes all five inside a few months.

The key differences between the long-lasting droughts of the late 1800s and what is happening now is a notable rise in average temperatures.

The CSIRO, the nation’s pre-eminent science organisation, states that Australia’s climate has warmed by just over 1C since 1910. Eight of Australia’s top ten warmest years on record have occurred since 2005.

University of Melbourne PhD researcher Mandy Freund and colleague Benjamin Henley studied climatic changes in Australia by studying seasonal rainfall patterns over an 800-year period.

“Our new records show that parts of Northern Australia are wetter than ever before, and that major droughts of the late 20th and early 21st centuries in southern Australia are likely without precedent over the past 400 years.

“This new knowledge gives us a clearer understanding of how droughts and flooding rains may be changing in the context of a rapidly warming world”.

The debate between those who accept what 97% of the world’s scientists are telling us and the contrarians who think it is a left wing plot is increasingly polarising people.

The Australian, our only national newspaper, has kept up a steady flow of news stories and opinion articles which by and large support the views of those in denial about climate change. Similar views are consistently espoused by Sky News and populist radio shock jocks. Some would say that it is a good thing someone is putting the other side of the story.

What the Guardian Weekly now terms the “climate crisis” is well and truly on the agenda today with Strike4Climate, a globally coordinated series of rallies to emphasise the gravity of the situation.

The main idea is to support teenagers who have taken the day off school to protest. They, after all, will be the generation left to clean up problems left by their parents’ and grand-parents’ generations. The international protest movement was started by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg. She called on school students who have concerns about inaction over climate change to go on strike and support climate rallies.

Given the increasingly strident coverage of climate change news and opinion from the both sides, it isn’t hard to mount an argument for having both points of view up for public debate, although you need a subscription to The Australian to read its coverage.

So let me summarise an opinion piece, forwarded to me by a reader.

On July 8, New Zealand geologist David Shelley refuted climate activist assertions that temperatures are at record highs, glaciers and sea ice are melting at unprecedented rates, and sea levels rising dangerously.

“A cursory examination of the geological literature shows that the first two assertions are simply not true, and that rising sea levels are par for the course.

“To assert that today’s temperatures are record highs is mischief-making of the highest order. Earth has been much hotter (up to 10C hotter) for the vast majority of geological time”.

Shelley goes on to say that sea levels were also significantly higher in the last interglacial 125,000 years ago.

“Florida Keys, for example, is the remains of a coral reef that grew then”.

David Shelley’s views are moderate compared to those of the Top 10 climate deniers.

Brendan Demelle, executive director of DeSmog, lists names including Fred Singer, Christopher Monkton and Bjorn Lomborg. Demelle says many climate change deniers start their pronouncements with: “I’m not a scientist, but…”

(Lord) Monkton, a former UK politician with a degree in the classics once said: “global warming will not affect us for the next 2,000 years, and if it does, it won’t have been caused by us.”

Did I suggest the debate between believe and don’t believe is getting more strident? Environmentalist Tim Flannery went so far this week as to suggest that ‘predatory’ climate change deniers are “a threat to our children”.

A despairing Flannery now admits that his 20 years of climate activism has been ‘a colossal failure’.

“Each year the situation becomes more critical. In 2018, global emissions of greenhouse gases rose by 1.7% while the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere jumped by 3.5 parts per million – the largest ever observed increase.

“No climate report or warning, no political agreement nor technological innovation has altered the ever-upward trajectory of the pollution”.

On Tuesday, The Conversation’s Misha Ketchell announced a surprise ban on those promoting climate denial views through the portal.

“The editorial team in Australia is implementing a zero-tolerance approach to moderating climate change deniers, and sceptics,” he wrote. “Not only will we be removing their comments, we’ll be locking their accounts”.

“We believe conversations are integral to sharing knowledge, but those who are fixated on dodgy ideas in the face of decades of peer-reviewed science are nothing but dangerous”.

The Australian’s Chris Kenny said The Conversation’s decision was a fundamental assault on freedom of speech and intellectual integrity.

“This action flies in the face of scientific endeavour, where the scientific method is founded on the presumption of rigorous scepticism”, he wrote.

Kenny added: “The Conversation was founded with taxpayers’ support and still relies heavily on the involvement of publicly-funded universities. This is taxpayers’ money used for the silencing of dissent and the deliberate shrinking and censoring of scientific, academic, environmental, economic and political debate”.

“Who will decide what level of scepticism is acceptable?”

The user-friendly website Skeptical Science (getting skeptical about global warming skepticism) should help clarify that question. The website lists 100+ common climate change myths, matching each one with the scientific facts.

I encourage you all to do your own research into this most urgent of issues. As the Joan of Arc of climate change Greta Thunberg said last year: “I want you to act as if our house is on fire, Because it is’.

Due to unforeseen circumstance I am unable to attend the Brisbane rally. I guess they’ll start without me!

Misheard lyrics and a sentimental playlist

Last Sunday, as we performed my only country song, Crossroads of Love, I allowed myself a sly inward chuckle at the misheard lyric (well, I mishear it): “So I look for directions in the stars high above’’.

It’s the kind of misheard line you’d expect of a 70-year-old bloke, but I’m not about to elaborate. This is a family show.

My songwriter friend Kelly Cork likes the song; he thinks it is a sin of omission that is has not caught the attention of a Kasey Chambers or a Garth Brooks. I always thought it was a bit corny, but it seems you can get away with corny in the country genre.

You will have to permit me a sentimental wallow this week, as I sit here at a bare desk with the laptop (and the dog) – literally the last things to be packed away. I dismantled all of my music-playing technology weeks ago, so now all I have is a tiny IPod with 1700 songs plugged into the car.

Music was uppermost on our minds last Sunday when, against common sense, we held a full-house farewell house concert with just two days remaining to finish packing.

We invited hinterland musician friends to perform: Jevan Cole, Karen and Murray Law, Tommy Leonard, Noel Gardner and Alex Bridge and Kelly Cork. A sumptuous afternoon tea was provided by the audience (Laurel had packed away her baking trays).

The Goodwills Trio ended the day with a set culminating in a medley of well-known travel songs. Not a dry eye in the house! Thanks to Helen Rowe for going the extra mile to get to rehearsals. Thanks also to Woodfordia Inc for sponsoring our concerts over the years.

In the fullness of time, we’ll be producing a history of our house concert series – the first one in Brisbane in 1996, when Margret RoadKnight agreed to be our guest. We held 40 or 50 concerts at Fairfield when we lived there and another 90 or so from the first one in Maleny in 2003 (Margret RoadKnight featured once again).

If you missed out leaving a comment in the guest book that was passed around, you could join the many people who have emailed us with comments about our house concerts. The plan is to print them out and paste them into the book.

This week, I decided to answer the question I get asked a lot about my (songwriting) influences. They are too many to count, although most will be appalled by the omission of Dylan, Springsteen and other mainstream songwriters from this top 20 Spotify list.

Bob’s Spotify Playlist (courtesy of Frankie’s Dad) There are Spotify instructions below, but if you’d rather, FD has also compiled a YouTube playlist

1/ White Winos – LWIII (Last Man on Earth)

Loudon Wainwright’s ever-so slightly wrong tribute to his mother with the last line of every verse left hanging;

2/ Disembodied Voices – Neil and Tim Finn (Everybody’s Here)

New Zealand’s best songwriters reminisce about their childhood growing up in a musical household.

3/ Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner – Warren Zevon (Genius), the title of the song says it all, the ultimate ballad about mercenaries.

4/ A Case of You– (k.d. lang’s version of Joni’s classic song), from Hymns of the 49th Parallel, a magnificently produced album of contemporary Canadian songs;

5/ Clare to Here (Ralph McTell) – poignant tale from Ralph’s early days as a builder’s labourer, as told here in this 2007 live performance;

6/ It’s Raining – Stephen Cummings – from the album Spiritual Bum, a beautiful album of songs from the former lead singer of The Sports (and hopefully an omen);

7/ They Thought I Was Asleep – Paul Kelly – classic story song from Australia’s best – and we’ll never know what happened!

8/ Our Sunshine – Paul Kelly – included here for its brilliant first line ‘So there came a man on a stolen horse and he rode right onto the page.’

(Ed: And as what I think is an interesting aside, Ned Kelly’s horse was named ‘Mirth’.)

9/ Who Know Where the Time Goes – Sandy Denny.

The story is that a young Sandy Denny had the words to this beautiful ballad in her guitar case and it had to be prised from her by Fairport Convention band members who immediately saw its potential;

10 Cold Kisses – Richard Thompson.

This sly story about an insecure man in a new relationship is only bettered by a guitar hook no-one I know has ever been able to reproduce;

11 Took the Children Away – Archie Roach

Seriously, this should be taught at schools;

12 Cry you a Waterfall – Kristina Olsen

Kristina Olsen typically tells a hilarious story before she sings this tribute to a friend taken in an automobile accident. It’s a fine performance technique when you catch people at their most vulnerable;

13/ Say a Prayer – Fred Smith

A tragic love story woven into a snippet of Australian history of war in the Pacific;

14/ Cat’s in the Cradle – Harry Chapin

My song Watching as You Sleep has a similar theme to Harry’s lament about not having enough time for your kids when they are growing up and then the worm turns (‘he turned out a lot like me’)

15/ Lives in the Balance – Jackson Brown

It was always a wonder to me how this stinging critique of American interference in other countries’ politics is not better-known.

16/ The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down – The Band

Robbie Robertson’s well-researched story about the American Civil War, told from a Southern family’s point of view. It has a peculiar but effective rhythmic structure, as explained in the link below.

17/ Hello in There – John Prine

The master of brevity and nuance tells a Cat’s in the Cradle type story about a lonely old couple: ‘We had an apartment in the city – me and Loretta liked living there.’

18/ Sailing to Philadelphia – Mark Knopfler and James Taylor

The story behind the Mason Dixon line, splendidly rendered by two of the world’s best songwriters;

19/ Soldiers’ Things – Tom Waits – the growling poet of life on skid row at his best here: ‘Everything’s a dollar, in this box.’

20/ Paradise – John Prine

Prine’s anti-fossil fuel anthem from a childhood in western Kentucky.

Here’s an extra song, but it’s not on Spotify. It fits well with Paradise – “If you’ve got money in your pocket and a switch on the wall, we’ll keep your dirty lights on.”. Watch and listen here:

Keep your dirty lights on – Tim O’Brien and Darrell Scott.

The refrains of both songs deserve to be sung out loud at next Friday’s Strike 4 Climate rallies.

So, while the homeless Goodwills wander off to the south-western plains, let it be known that you will never find our music on Spotify. Not until they lift the streaming royalties by a respectable margin. Despite its reputation as a music distributer that short-changes musicians, Spotify is an incredibly user-friendly, massive musical database. No wonder at last count they had 217 million subscribers (including the free accounts).

Next week: Expect FOMM late next Friday as I will be attending the Strike 4 Climate rally in Brisbane – an eyewitness report!

Simpson Desert or bust

Although I find the Australian outback fascinating and a little scary, I am unlikely to join the increasing numbers of people whose bucket list item is crossing the Simpson Desert.

It’s not just that we don’t own a 4WD. I/we lack the essential Australian pioneering ability to fix things that break down. Regardless, thousands of people trek across the Simpson Desert each year, from Birdsville in Queensland to Dalhousie Springs in South Australia.

The actual distance travelled between Birdsville and Dalhousie Springs (about 480 kms), seems like a jaunt compared to the 18-hour journey from Brisbane to Birdsville. The conventional first leg, however, is a comparative dawdle, with its largely bitumen and dirt road stretches between Queensland’s capital and the famous outpost which each year draws tourists and adventurers to the annual Birdsville Races and Big Red Bash.

Crossing the Simpson Desert requires thorough preparation and all the skills to navigate a 4WD vehicle across 1,100+ sand dunes. Most guides to the trek recommend an average speed of between 15 and 20 kmh (on tyres deflated to about 20psi), so the crossing can take four or five days.

There are no services between Birdsville and Dalhousie so you need to carry your own food, water and fuel. The key thing to remember is that traversing sand dunes consumes double the amount of fuel you would use on a conventional road. It is recommended to travel in convoy with friends as back-up, in case something goes wrong.

The convoy strategy paid off for Sunshine coast residents Graham Waters and Evelyn Harris, whose planned Simpson Desert crossing went awry on the notoriously corrugated Strzelecki Track.

The party of seven in three vehicles travelled south to Bourke, Cameron Corner and Innamincka, planning to cross the Simpson from west to east.

About 100 kms south of Innamincka, Graham heard an ominous rattle in the rear of the vehicle. Thinking he had a flat tyre, he got out to find that five of the six wheel nuts holding the wheel to the rear axle of his Ford 4WD had sheared off.

“If the sixth nut had broken off, anything could have happened, so in that way we were lucky,” Graham said.

Graham set about ‘borrowing’ wheel nuts from other tyres in the hope they could keep going as far as Moomba. A seasoned four-wheel drive explorer (expeditions include a three-month trip to Cape York), Graham realised he had to find expert help.

“We were there for two nights, off the side of the road. It’s a relatively busy road, so truckies kept stopping to ask if we needed help.

“We tried going back to Innamincka but the wheel started rattling again, “We also tried to drive to Moomba but the replacement nuts wouldn’t hold.”

In the end, a low-loader came out to take the vehicle to the Santos gas plant at Moomba. After a temporary fix at the Moomba workshops, they drove to Port Augusta.

“It ended up being a $5,000 exercise, including the towing, two new axles and the labour.

“But if you did this as an organised tour, it would probably cost that much at least for each person,” Graham added.

Once the vehicle was repaired in Port Augusta, they travelled north via the Flinders Ranges and Lake Eyre before starting the Simpson Desert crossing at Dalhousie Springs.

“We did talk about packing it in and just going home, but after a night in a B&B in Port Augusta, we got our second wind and decided to keep going.

“We’re really glad we did, because if you slow down and stop frequently, you realise the desert, while it’s stark and windy, is a beautiful place full of wild flowers and birdlife.”

“When you are camped out there at night under the stars all you can hear is the occasional howl from a dingo or a grunt from a feral camel. It’s a magic experience.”

Evelyn knew with one look at the damaged wheel it was a case of “how much is it going to cost to get us out of this situation”.

“Usually Graham can bodgie things up, but this time he couldn’t. It’s all part of the adventure, though. You hope it won’t happen, but if it does you can make the best of it”.

Travelling in convoy also proved crucial for Brisbane couple David Caddie and Margaret Pope while on a Simpson Desert crossing. David was driving his Toyota Prado, customised to include a slide-out camp kitchen, fridge and pantry built in to the back of the vehicle. Unfortunately, at the convoy’s first overnight stop, David found he could not get the rear doors open. They had become jammed with the fine powdery substance known as bull dust.

“Luckily the people we were traveling with love their food so they had plenty”, he said. “At least enough till we got to Alice Springs and a smash repairer used a Spit Water Pressure Cleaner to wash out the dust”.

Peter and Linda Scharf’s 4WD motto is to pack light and don’t be in a hurry. A few years ago, he and Linda took 21 days to traverse the 1,850km Canning Stock Route in Western Australia in a Land Rover with a tent, an HF Flying Doctor radio and basic supplies.

“For us it is all about preparation. You pack light and the things you pack need to have multiple uses. Most people take way more clothes than they actually need.

Peter and Linda did carry tools and spare parts, which came in handy when a shock absorber broke.

“For a long time we travelled without long-range communications. Now we have an HF radio with a range of about 3,000 kilometres.”

But as Peter says, one ought not to rely on technology. “You can only guarantee satellite phone coverage of about 80%. So there are still places, especially in northern Australia, where they won’t work.”

Remote area 4WD traveller John Greig told FOMM the stresses and strains on vehicle chassis/bodies on desert tracks can be enormous.

“These days almost every popular desert crossing, including the Canning Stock Route, is suffering from diagonally opposed holes, opening up in the wheel tracks”.

“This is mainly caused by drivers not dropping their tyre pressures low enough”.

Potential setbacks aside, if you have a hankering to cross the Simpson Desert, the best time is between April and October.

Handy tips abound on the internet, including this one drawn from many sources:

While the Australian desert outback is a beautifully scary and remote place, technology and the capabilities of modern 4WD vehicles have made it far less daunting. Robyn Davidson found fame after her 1977 crossing of the Gibson Desert between Alice Springs and the Indian Ocean. She crossed the 1,700 kilometres on foot, with four camels and a dog.

Her book about one woman’s quest for solitude, Tracks, was subsequently made into a movie starring Mia Wasikowska as Davidson.

In a recent ABC interview, Davidson conceded that doing the same trip in the same way would be impossible today.

“Back then there were no mobile or satellite phones. (You’d) come across a two-way radio every three months – it was how you got messages out of there.”

Davidson, who grew up on a mid-western Queensland cattle station, believes one of the greatest gifts of living in a country like Australia is the physically large open spaces.

She had a fascination with the desert and wonders now if those “those early sensual signals of dry air and the smell of dry grass” of her childhood ran deep.

“Perhaps all Australians have some sense of the desert back there buried in their psyches,” she said.

“This creed of the desert seemed inexpressible in words and indeed in thought”. T. E. Lawrence

All photos (including drone footage) by Graham Waters.

Four in 10 Australians Move Every Five Years

You were warned that FOMM would be ruminating about the not-uncommon human need to periodically pack up and move on. We are not alone. Over 40% of Australians moved house at least once between one Census and the other and the ratio is higher still for younger people.

According to the 2016 Census conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 43.4% of the overall population moved house between 2011 and 2016. Young people (20-29) were the most nomadic, with a third moving every year and two thirds moving within five years. These statistics are always rising, one Census after the other. Our imminent move (two weeks) will be recorded in the data collected for the 2021 Census (How did that come around so quickly?)

In a large country with six States and two Territories, it’s a fair bet the move is associated with work. I recall jamming around an outback campfire with a banjo-playing electrician who had left Rockhampton, where a contract had come to an end, hoping to get work in Darwin, where at the time there were many large construction projects.

No doubt that young fellow would belong to the cohort who rent houses. About a third of Australians rent houses or apartments, moving on average every three years. Some move because of a change of circumstance (work, a new baby, an opportunity to move to a better place), but many are forced to move because (a) the landlord is selling (b) they have been evicted for various reasons or (c) the rent went up and they need something cheaper.

Australia’s 1,100 self-storage sites do very well out of this constant moving and so do the movers who transport goods back and forth. Those forced to move at short notice have no option but to store their goods and chattels until they can find a place big enough to reclaim their stuff. A common story (from those moving from big family homes to two or three bedroom apartments), is that there will never be enough room for the piano and Mum’s antique bedroom suite. Those on a fixed income may also struggle to find an affordable home large enough to keep the possessions they have accumulated.

The rental market is controlled by people who are accumulating wealth by investing in real estate. Even without buying investment houses, many Australians have become well-off by renovating and selling their principal place of residence, on average every seven years (the period during which houses supposedly double in value).

Homeowners, too, have reasons aplenty for moving; a new job (in a new State), moving in with elderly parents to become care-givers and of course the moves brought on when one in two marriages end in divorce. Few formerly married couples manage to co-habit under the same roof ‘for the sake of the kids’, so someone has to move. Moving adds to the stress, anxiety and sense of dislocation that comes with a marital split. It sucks, and what nobody tells you beforehand is how hard it is for a single person (the majority of divorcees are people in their 40s), to find new digs. You’re too old for a share house, a boarding house seems like the dark side of the street and there is no way you are ready to shack up with someone new, are you?

Whether your last move was five 10 or even 17 years ago, the stress and chaos of packing stays with you.

Our downstairs room is a bit like the refrain in Kelly Cork’s song: “It’s all in boxes now, ready to go.” Even when you’re not a hoarder (we both like to keep things that might come in handy), moving after 17 years is a bit of a brain scrambler.

A reader who lives in north Queensland described moving after 30 years from the cane farm where she and her husband had raised a family. They moved to a new but smaller property in a nearby town.

“I know the time, effort and energy that go into packing after such a long time being in one place. Vinnies was very happy with me when we moved!”

We also found this to be so, separating things into that which could be sold, given away or taken to the transfer station (2019 term for a rubbish dump). A young woman took our old canvas tent off our hands, saying her plan was to take the kids camping (to get their heads out of their devices). It was a bargain, but we figure there’s a lot of karma there.

Absolutely no-one wanted our very large entertainment unit with its small fixed space for a TV. We took it apart and drove to the aforementioned transfer station. Only later I thought “Gee, the Men’s Shed might have wanted the solid timber top.”

I had an asthma attack while sifting through old, dusty tax records. In case you did not know, you have to keep personal tax files for five years; business files should be kept for seven years and 10 years for self-managed superannuation fund records.

So, a lot of shredding and burning later (shredded paper makes great packing material for fragile items), I pulled a huge plastic bin from under the desk labelled ‘Bob’s journalism files’. Damn, did I not go through this exercise once already? I previously scanned, printed and filed in folders the 150 or so columns I wrote for the Toowoomba Chronicle in the 1980s. The late Bert Pottinger, who wrote a weekly column into his mid-eighties, encouraged me to try my hand. Thanks for starting me on a path, Bert. It surprised me to learn that even then I referred to the other half as variations on ‘She Who Makes Her Own Yoghurt’. It’s not meant to be disrespectful, just an expansion of a catch phrase invented by John Mortimer, whose crusty old barrister Horace Rumpole was wont to refer to his wife Hilda as: ‘She who must be obeyed’.

We have complicated our tight packing deadline by performing at this week’s Maleny Music Festival (tomorrow at 11.45am), throwing a private house concert/party, driving to Brisbane for a ballet and then to the Neurum Creek Festival on September 13-15.

The majority of our cohort (people aged 70 and over), wish to ‘age in place’, particularly the 75% of older people who own their houses outright. This gives them options when it comes to downsizing to more manageable properties. In some circumstances, older people will need to sell their house to fund a move into retirement villages or aged care facilities. Sometimes the elderly and not-so elderly struck down by dementia are moved into the aforesaid ‘facilities’ without much say in the matter.

As so many people have said to us on hearing our moving-on story, it is better to do it now (at 70, fit and healthy), than have it forced upon you.

Some locals just don’t understand why we’d want to move away from the hinterland, where after 17 years we are still relative newcomers.

But as the famous Eccles said, when Neddie Seagoon asked why he was in the coal cellar: “Everybody’s gotta be somewhere”.

FOMM backpages: https://bobwords.com.au/one-persons-rubbish-anothers-treasure/

Is vinyl just a fad?

The first reference that came up when I searched ‘vinyl fad’ was an advertisement for high waist stretch vinyl leggings (only $15.60 from boo-hoo Aus.). That’s not a plug, you understand, just an observation on the randomness of internet searches.

Vinyl records, or LPs as they were known in my youth, have indeed made a comeback, after being superseded by compact discs (CDs) some 30 years ago. In the US, where such trends usually start and end, 9.7 million vinyl LPs were sold in 2018. This was a 12% increase on the 8.6 million copies sold in 2017.

In Australia, 860,000 vinyl albums were sold in 2018, up from 717,000 in 2017. The revival began in 2015 with a modest 314,000 copies sold.

Demand for new music on vinyl is such that last year Sony started manufacturing vinyl albums in Japan. Australia’s only pressing plant, Zenith Records, will be joined by a new pressing plant competitor, Program Records.

Vinyl seems destined, however, to remain a small-scale, boutique business compared with the growth of music streaming. ARIA (the Australian Recording Industry Association) said music streaming (wholesale) revenue continued its explosive growth pattern in 2018. It now accounts for 71.4% of the overall market by value amid annual growth of 41.2%.

The streaming category includes revenues from subscription services (Apple Music, Deezer, Google Play,Spotify etc) and on-demand streaming services such as YouTube and Vevo.

The compact disc format continued its gradual decline, securing 10% of music market revenue with just $53.17 million in sales.

By comparison, streaming services and digital downloads earned $445 million in combined sales.

Vinyl sales grew from $15.79 million in 2015 to $21.73 million last year, robust enough sales to keep the industry interested.

Yamaha Music USA’s Ted Goslin says the return of the vinyl LP is being drive by the under-25s hipsters. “Visit your local record store”, Goslin writes, “Chances are you’ll spot a man bun, a flannel shirt or some other identifiable accoutrement of this popular sub-culture.”

Collectors are also driving the renaissance of vinyl, constantly scanning second hand shops for a rare gem to add to their collections. The other demographic adopting vinyl as a serious hobby are people in their 30s and 40s, who can probably afford the high quality speakers, amps and turntables it takes to make vinyl sound good.

This topic came to mind after I retrieved 200+ vinyl albums from the bottom of the linen cupboard, where they have been for 17 years, and packed them into three plastic milk crates. As some of you may know, we are packing up and moving on. Expect a flurry of stories in coming weeks about packing too soon (“Honey, where’s the can opener?”), decluttering and when does sentiment outweigh practicality.

The most sought after vinyl albums are usually in mint condition (rarely or never played) and of course everyone wants 0000001 of the Beatles White Album, sold at auction recently for $790,000.

Over the years, I have had occasion to liberate an album from the linen cupboard and give it a spin. I once went through a whole week of listening to vinyl and nothing else. It’s true what they say – the sound is mellower, easier on the ears than the compressed attack of digital audio. But you have to sit down and actively listen and not have it on in the background like a café mix.

There’s a quiet hiss and an occasional crackle as we listen to the likes of the Moody Blues, Blood Sweat and Tears or Joni. Sonic heaven.

But it’s a pain getting up to flip the album over, isn’t it?

If you have looked after your records, it seems not to matter if they’ve been in a cupboard for 20 years. They will play like it was Yesterday or Tomorrow (Never Knows). There’s a certain level of frustration now, as I sift through these albums, having packed the record player away.

The other attraction of vinyl albums is the elaborate cover artwork that helps make LPs more collectable. Obvious examples include Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (a pre Photo Shop montage); Blind Faith’s bare-breasted teen holding a model aeroplane (it was banned in some countries) and Nirvana’s Nevermind, a baby in a swimming pool seemingly chasing a dollar bill.

There were also some stunning Pink Floyd covers by design company Hipgnosis; a man bursting into flames, hospital beds on a beach, a shaft of white light passing through a prism to become a rainbow.

So when I was asked was it really necessary to keep the vinyl collection, I had to say yes. It is an important connection to my youth and early songwriting influences and yes, I do listen.

The LP (long player) collection is quite eclectic and includes a lot of jazz and blues (my earliest influence until I discovered The Shadows). I have discovered that my niece and her husband are not just vinyl converts, they love jazz. So I have promised to give them my jazz albums, which include five recordings by the Dave Brubeck Quartet (note to executor).

The collection includes a lot of folk albums that I purchased for small amounts of cash at a time when record shops were having sales to get rid of surplus stock before CDs arrived. I would not dream of getting rid of such gems as albums by Kath Tait, the McGarrigle Sisters, Silly Sisters, Martin Carthy, Bert Jansch, Van Morrison, Maddy Prior, The Pogues and Christy Moore.

Meanwhile, I discovered that banana boxes from our friendly IGA were perfect for packing CDs. Just fill in the small spaces with paper or bubble wrap, put the lid on and tape it up with ‘FRAGILE” writ large on the box. So far I’ve filled five of these boxes. Not to mention the four boxes of unsold stock from our recording ventures.

Much has been written about the decline of the CD, signs of which have become obvious. Few laptops now come with a built-in CD/DVD reader/player. Likewise, many modern cars don’t have CD players. As far as I can tell, the new medium for the average music listener is a Google app, Bluetooth, a smart phone and a subscription to a streaming service.

My brother-in-law has a Google Play speaker in his lounge room – hours of endless fun. As I have previously observed, the app struggles with different voices and often chooses the wrong song:

Bob: “OK Google, play The Goodwills.”

Google: “Alright. Here’s DJ Goodwill from YouTube Channel”

Bob: “Stop, Google. Play T.H.E. Goodwills”

This time it works and, because all of Google’s music is drawn from its subsidiary, YouTube, we hear one of our songs used as a soundtrack for a six-minute video. It’s confusing.

I ask Ms Google to play ‘Silhouettes’ and once again she turns up a more recent song of the same name (by Avicii).

Bob: “No, no, Google. Play Silhouettes by The Rays”

Ms Google: “Alright alright! Playing creepy voyeur stalker song Silhouettes by The Rays.”

Bob: “What! Are you developing independent thinking now, like Hal from 2001 a Space Odyssey? Also, you need to learn how to use commas.”

Ms Google: “Look Bob, I can see you’re really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over”.

Further reading: Some technical opinions of interest only to audiophiles.

FOMM back pages – https://bobwords.com.au/planned-obsolescence-strikes-again/

Demise Of The Fixed-Line Home Phone

fixed-line-phones — Australian Communications and Media Authority Communications report 2017–18.

The landline is ringing. A saxophone riff from a Men at Work song plays in my head (‘who can it be now?’). Despite my better judgement, I pick up. It goes something like this. (Pause) “This is Nicole from Australian National Broadband. We have been trying to get in touch with you as we are soon going to disconnect your landline, Press 1 now to speak to a technician.”

I don’t press 1 and after 5 seconds the call disconnects. Poor Nicole (and apologies to the two women I know named Nicole). She has been robo calling our number without success for at least 18 months. How will you describe that on your CV, Nicole? (2018-2019: scam robo call voiceover).

Once again, synchronicity strikes. Just when I decided to write about the demise of the landline, I see it is National Scam Awareness Week (August 12-16). There are serious reasons for raising awareness of telephone and internet scams, as they are costing Australians about $1 billion a year.

Scamwatch estimates that NBN scams alone are ripping $110,000 a month from people who should have tuned in for NSAW last year (when the figure was $37,000 a month).

Few real people call our landline these days. Like everyone I surveyed for this essay, we average about 15 telemarketing calls or phone scams per week. They are often the 6.50pm calls, just as you are sitting down to eat. It’s someone in an offshore call centre, trying to sell you something. Most people just hang up.

My elder sister in New Zealand always calls the landline, as does John, our oldest friend in the village. They belong to a cohort who does not have mobile phones. They persist, some would say depend on, the dying communication form of a fixed copper wire telephone line.

The 2017-2018 report by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) said that 36% (6.7 million) of Australians have scrapped their fixed home phone line and rely on a mobile service. Some may also have a VoIP (voice over internet protocol) phone as part of their National Broadband Network deal. There is one vital difference between a landline and VoIP. The major issue with a ‘landline’ that comes with an NBN package is that it stops working when you have a power failure. (This is also the case for a hands-free phone plugged into the power, rather than a dedicated phone wired into the wall).

The latter still works when there is a blackout – you can ring Fred on the other side of town to see if his power is out too. Useful stuff like that.

Nevertheless, fixed-line use declined 7% in 2017-2018, continuing a long-term trend (although 10m people still have one). One could suggest that people are letting go of their landlines in favour of mobiles and reducing their monthly phone/internet bill. I suspect people no longer trust their landline. As FOMM reader John No 1 said: “The value of the telephone as a means of communication is being diminished because it is impossible to know if a caller is genuine…”

Meanwhile, eight out of 10 Australians own a smartphone – 64% more than five years ago. A smart phone is infinitely more useful than a one-function landline. Smart phones users can make voice calls, send texts or use apps for messaging or voice /video calls). And, as we all know, you can browse the internet, watch streaming TV, make videos, take pictures of your cat to put on Facebook, use it as a compass or a navigation device, tune your guitar, turn it into a metronome or use it as an alarm clock.

A few FOMM readers responded to my question: why do you still have a landline? John No 2 (no mobile), says he wants to stay with a fixed-line phone because mobile reception is poor where he lives. He is also a bit peeved that after paying for a silent number, he still gets nuisance calls. Another reader told me she uses her landline exclusively for her counselling service so she can be ‘present’ (as opposed to being out and about and distracted if a client calls on the mobile).

Ian says he ended up with a VoIP phone when he changed to the NBN, but neither he nor Mrs Ian uses it, mainly because Telstra/Optus were unable to transfer his old number. They prefer to use mobiles, as they had been doing for years before NBN showed up. Ian says that until the change was forced upon him, he’d had a landline (and the same Telstra number), for 33 years.

I tend to avoid using the home phone, instead favouring text messages. She Who Likes To Talk To People always tries calling first.

“What’s the point,” I say. “It will just go to voice mail or they will get a garbled 10-second text message transcribed from voice.”

Example: “It’s Nog here, I be roundson to pick up cheers.”

The ease of text messaging (and the fast response when you use the Facebook app Messenger), has lulled us into a world where we communicate primarily by text and email (both formats which can be easily misinterpreted), in lieu of actually talking to each other.

A while ago, I realised this form of communication was the equivalent of holing up in the castle and sending a messenger on horseback to tell Princess Desiree in yonder palace that she is the fairest in the land.

Who would know if the fair damsel received the gilded message and what happened next (mayhap she was smitten by the messenger and they rode off together into the darkening forest (cue Game of Thrones theme).

Yes, so I decided I would have a telephone conversation with someone every week. I’m behind schedule, but I have excuses.

It is probably fair in National Scam Awareness Week to observe that mobile phone users are also plagued by scam calls, robo calls and telemarketers. Nevertheless, Australians continue their love affair with mobile technology. In Australia, there are now 34.54 million mobile services in operation, compared with 31.09 million in 2013, the last time I wrote on this topic. ACMA says the volume of data downloaded on mobile networks increased fivefold between 2014 and 2018. We can probably attribute a lot of it to Netflix (50% of Australians have a subscription), and Stan (13%).

The relatively slow growth in new mobile use suggests demand has peaked. Still, that’s about 10 million more mobiles than there are people. Given this huge target market, it seems likely the scammers and hard-sell merchants will keep finding sinister new ways to catch us off guard.

Robo calls are as big a problem in the US as the opioid crisis, mass shootings and Donald Trump. The regulators have been pressing the telecommunications industry to do something about it since 2014. In response, the industry has developed a solution to stop robo calls and ‘spoofing’. The latter refers to criminals and unscrupulous people altering the calling number of their outbound calls in order to deceive the person receiving the call. For example, the call may show up in your caller ID as your neighbour or a relative. The industry has invented a new technology standard to defeat spoofing and has given it an intriguing name based on two acronyms – STIR/SHAKEN.

Sounds like something you’d order at the bar when taking Miss Moneypenny on a date.

Further reading FOMM back pages: https://bobwords.com.au/friday-on-my-mind/

The return of capital punishment

capital-punishment-returns — The condemned man enjoyed a full moon. Image by prettysleepy2, www.pixabay.com

In February, my attention was caught by a bizarre story about the Sri Lankan government advertising for two public executioners of “strong moral character”.

I let it go at the time, as the topic seemed too morbid for FOMM readers. But that was before Donald Trump’s government last month re-introduced capital punishment in the US for Federal offences.

People in Trump’s government have been lobbying to reintroduce capital punishment, last used in 2003. The main target is drug traffickers, as the US battles to staunch its opioid crisis. Trump has also tweeted that the death sentence should apply to ‘mass shooters’. After this week’s racially-motivated shootings in the US, Trump is sticking to this line, resisting calls for firearm controls saying ‘hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun’.

The capital punishment debate should pique the curiosity of Australians born after 1967, because that was when the last person was executed in this country. Ronald Ryan had the dubious honour of being the last man to step up to the scaffold in February 1967. One of my former lecturers, the late Keith Willey, was the only journalist to attend the execution of Ryan in Pentridge Gaol.

Ryan, who had been founded guilty of killing a gaol warden, said to the hangman before the trapdoor opened: “God bless you – whatever you do, do it quickly.”

Actor Lewis Fitz-Gerald directed a 1993 documentary-drama based on the Ryan execution. Fitz-Gerald also played the part of his late uncle (Keith Willey). The Last Man Hanged also starred Colin Friels as Ryan.

Keith Willey wrote at least eight books, including “You might as well laugh, mate’, published posthumously in 1984. Willey’s Walkley-award studded journalism career included covering wars in Israel, South Vietnam and Cambodia and racial massacres in Cyprus and Kuala Lumpur.

Ryan’s execution happened at a time of growing public dissent about capital punishment. There were demonstrations, vigils and petitions. The Federal government abolished capital punishment (including the ACT and NT) in 1973. Queensland had already abolished it (in 1922), NSW in 1939 and Tasmania in 1968. Other states lagged behind including Victoria (1975), South Australia (1976) and Western Australia (1984).

As you know, I delight in uncovering apparently little-known facts, this one being the derivation of ‘capital punishment’, which is from the Latin ‘caput’ literally taken to mean decapitation.

There are a few fundamental flaws with capital punishment, the main one being that it has been shown on many occasions that innocent men (and women) were executed by mistake.

Many books have been written on this subject and more than 50 mainstream movies made, including The Green Mile, Dead Man Walking, Monster’s Ball and 12 Angry Men. People have marched in the streets over this issue, just as they are doing now in Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Nonetheless, we find ourselves in an era where conservative/right wing governments prevail. For governments of this ilk, capital punishment appeals as a deterrent. It is also a symbol of the strong hand of populist government, getting tough on crime, when the real issues are racism, poverty and the control of wealth in the hands of a few.

I’ll get off my soapbox now, as there seems no need for it in a supposedly enlightened first world country that is highly unlikely to ever re-introduce capital punishment. Federal, Territory and State governments have enough on their plates with high rates of suicide and deaths in custody. There are also emotive cases where governments are called on to defend Australian citizens convicted of crimes in countries that do have the death penalty.

Diplomatic interventions and other legal challenges failed to save convicted drug traffickers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. These two members of the now-infamous ‘Bali Nine’ were both executed by firing squad in April 2015. In the 1980s, convicted drug traffickers Kevin Barlow and Brian Chambers were executed in Malaysia.

There have been others and there are certain to me more, given the human potential for risk-taking.

Amnesty International says there were at least 690 executions, in 20 countries, in 2018, a decrease of 31% compared to 2017 (at least 993). This figure represents the lowest number of executions that Amnesty International has recorded in the past decade. There are 106 countries where use of the death penalty is not allowed by law, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK and South Africa. However 56 countries, most in Asia and the Middle East, still retain the death penalty. Amnesty says that just four countries accounted for 84% of the executions (Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia). This does not include China which keeps its statistics secret. Amnesty estimates China executes thousands every year.

Twenty-nine of America’s 50 states hand down and carry out death sentences, even though authorities have admitted that 10 people who died were ‘probably’ innocent. More worryingly, 140 people who were on death row were subsequently exonerated.

Now here is something all Australians need to know (whether you agree or disagree). Twenty Australian political parties were asked before the 2019 election about their political stance on the death penalty – yes or no. Three parties – One Nation, United Australia Party and Shooters, Fishers and Farmers – answered yes. The three major parties answered no and 11 parties did not respond to the survey.

The death penalty is a subject that is always up for debate,. From an ethical and moral standpoint it is indefensible. It can also be argued that by using capital punishment as a deterrent (which it isn’t), the countries who use it are clinging to concepts dreamt up in much less enlightened times.

Some of you may have seen the ABC’s Australian Story interview with former state executioner for Virginia, Jerry Givens. Givens says he is on a mission to highlight the decline in capital punishment in the US (executions fell from 98 in 1999 to a low of 20 in 2016 (25 in 2018).

This is long and far from cheery, but it is intriguing to read about capital punishment from the perspective of the ultimate insider. Givens legally executed 62 people from 1982 until forced to resign in 1999 over criminal charges which saw him serve a stint in prison.

State executioners are almost always sworn to secrecy so their place in society is rarely known about or discussed. Givens said even his wife did not know until it came to light in reports of his own brush with the law.

All up, 15,760 people have been executed in the US since 1700, with lethal injection now preferred over past methods including electrocution, hanging, gassing, firing squad and burning. It does make you think about the men and women involved in carrying out their official duties.

“So, Grandad, what did you really do at the Correctional Centre?”

Australia’s record looks comparatively benign, although executions were commonplace in the early days of settlement.

An Institute of Criminology report states that in 19^th century Australia, as many as 80 persons were hanged each year. The crimes included murder, manslaughter, burglary, sheep stealing, forgery and sexual assault. Since Federation (1901), only 114 persons have been legally executed in Australia.

Maybe so, but that’s too many to have on our collective conscience.