What a dame

Patricia Routledge has died at the age of 96. One can't grieve too much over a peaceful death at that age. What a trooper she was, from theatre including musicals, to film and tv. 

Most of us will remember her from Keeping up Appearances, where she played Hyacinth Bucket. Gay men straight away picked up on the humour, and used lines like, 'Don't brush against my walls', "Would  you like your coffee in a hand painted periwinkle cup?" "Best you have a beaker". "How much Sheriden? Talk to your father." "Mind the pedestrian, Richard", as someone opened their front door.

Of course I need a Hyacinth clip to add to this post. 

Privatisation is good?

Aren't we told privatisation leads to competition and a better customer experiences, along with cheaper prices?

Hey, cheaper prices really happened with the UK railways when the system was privatised! No? Certainly not. It also lead to some terrible train crashes as the system became poorly maintained by Thatcher's private companies. Slowly, slowly, catchee monkey, railway companies in England and Scotland are being returned to being government operated.

Essential services should be run by governments, who own, operate and are responsible for what happens. Governments need to put the right people in positions of power to operate the services, along with adequate funding. 

Australia's government owned telecommunication department, Telstra, was privatised and its major competition became Optus. Optus is on the back foot at the moment because of the failure of its 000 emergency call system, where some people may have died because of the failure of the system.

So Telstra is now a private company, and Optus is ostensibly a private company, but is it? It is owned by Singtel, a telecommunication company owned by the government of Singapore. So, was it a great idea to privatise Telstra and allow a foreign government owned company to become its major competition? Now our private company competes against, effectively the full resources of the government of Singapore.

In the last financial year, Optus earned AU$8.4 billion in Australia. There will be allowed deductions from the earnings, but what would you think was a fair corporate tax on such earnings? $2 billion? $3 billion? 

Try zero!

Netflix in Australia, earning $1.2 billion, no tax.

Tech giants pay a very small amount of tax in Australia.

Murdoch's corporation, owner of three major daily newspapers in Australia, and with Fox streaming, Foxtel, Sky TV, Sky News, along with the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal, paid no corporate tax in Australia  

I don't blame these companies. They have complied with legal requirements. Tax is not a voluntary contribution. 

There is something seriously wrong with Australia's tax laws.

Many of Australia's major companies are US investor owned, including our big four banks, one of our major two supermarket, Woolworths and the mining company BHP. They are private investors who own so much in Australia, and not governments. I don't think that is ideal, but it is the way of the world now.

Also there is another foreign government investor in Australia, Canada's Pension Plan. While it is managed at arms length, it is still owned by the government of Canada.

Then worse, a Chinese company connected the government of China has a 99 year lease on the Port of Darwin. No one was happy with this, but it happened under our conservative party in 2015. Unbelievable. Darwin is probably Australia's most strategic port should there be trouble, and is used by the US defence force. 

Whatever your thoughts are about the merits of privatisation, I do not like Australian government assets privatised, only to be owned by foreign governments. 

And what kicked this rant off? I discovered a prominent player in Australia industry, especially public transport, is Keolis. The company is owned by SNCF, the French national government owned railway company.

The real point of this post is that Australia removes essential services from public hands to private hands, only to have our privatised assets being bought up by foreign governments. 

Friday Frippery

I have posted this clip before but a long time ago, and the clip was made even a much longer time ago. As brilliant as the concept is, I think I can safely say, it didn't catch on. 

On a serious note, it was sad to hear of the death of Dr (Dame) Jane Goodall. If you don't know who she was, do yourself a favour and look her up. You will be uplifted. 

Flattery works

Phyllis asked me for my fried rice recipe. He makes his own fried rice but it is quite different to mine. I put rather some effort into mine, but honestly, I am over cooking anything. However, with some flattery I will get around to cooking fried rice upon request. A few days notice that I have to cook it is good.

I typed out the recipe for him today. He loved it. "I will keep it forever, Andrew".

Mount Macedon Part 1

Last Saturday, Phyllis drove myself and Kosov to Mount Macedon. I discovered Mount Macedon was not actually the mount of Mount Macedon. I had forgotten that there was a town of Mount Macedon. Along the way we stopped off at Organ Pipes National Park. 

Ray and I visited the Organ Pipes in about 2015. In 2013 we visited Mount Macedon and the mount itself.

Here are photos of our visit to Mount Macedon many years ago Part 2 will be of last Saturday's visit with Phyllis and Kosov. 

The memorial cross, large enough to be visible from many metres below on the road at the base of the mount. 

The walkway to the mount is very nice.

The cross up close. 

Evidence of the terrible bushfires ten years earlier. 

Oh, there is some spooks equipment up there.

Meanwhile back in the township of Mount Macedon there were terrific street scenes. 

Death comes more often

Death of family, partners, friends, contemporaries, and now along with blog mates is inevitable when you reach older years. It is what happens. I've experienced enough deaths in the last few years. 

A week ago my step mother was buried at Moe Cemetery in the regional area of the state known as the Latrobe Valley in Gippsland. I had never been to Moe Cemetery and it was beautiful, with stunning views.

The mountains are part of Australia's Great Dividing Range, which runs from western Victoria in an easterly direction and then turns north along the east coast, through New South Wales and eventually reaching the far north of Queensland.  It's a major Australian watershed and the weather can be dramatically different on either side of the range. Our mountains are very old, well weathered and very rounded down. In the faint distance is the ski resort, Mount Baw Baw. The farm of my childhood was in the foothills of Mount Baw Baw. Closer at the far right I will guess as being Mount Erica. 

Step Mother Thelma has a lovely resting place.

Shattered

I should be composing my Monday Mural post, and normally Elephant's Child, that is Sue who lived in Canberra, would have commented on my mural posting. Her comments will be no longer. She has died, during her treatment for cancer. I am shattered. 

Anyone who knows her via her blog will know what a wonderful and kind person she was. If you exchanged an email with her, she was as wonderful in person with her replies as she seemed on her blog. She gave me great comfort in some difficult times I went through. I could feel her virtual hugs. 

I am sure there will be much sadness at Lifeline where she volunteered for many years and in her latter years, became a respected trainer of volunteers.

Kylie wrote such a nice post about Sue. 

Sue received an award for her service to Lifeline, which with great modesty she mentioned, and it was accompanied by a photo. 

Vale Sue. You were a wonderful person, and I hope you are a place cold enough to blow ice bubbles. 

Sunday Selections

Along with River and others, here is my Sunday Selection.

I think it may be the Queen but it could be Princess Margaret standing beside the 3.5 litre V8 Rover. She is not at all amused.

Clarendon Street, South Melbourne, Mrs. Mc.CABE WOMEN.

But wait, there's more. Mitchell Mc.Cabe.

Well, here is another. These Mc.Cabes really seem to have clothing needs wrapped up. But no, there are two other menswear shops very nearby, the label Gazman and Paul's Jeanery. 

Still in Clarendon Street, and nicely upkept old Maples department store. There are many traces of Maples around the city, including Maples Cafe at the base of the old Footscray Maples, and the turned into apartments Maples warehouse I can see from my balcony.

 

Phyllis and Kosov bought me this for the non prescribed tablet I take with food. 

My Dead in Bed neighbour had coffee and cake at the top of this very smart and expensive new city hotel. I quite like the base of the building. 

There is space at the base for sitting and resting.

And for some reason, a baby blue London cab.

This is one of the few times I've not seen rotting leaves in this water feature at the National Gallery.

The water cascades down to one of the huge pools.

This pool is not exactly clean. People also throw coins vapes into the water. It used to be coins, but not too many carry them now. They were collected for charity every so often, if the less fortunate in life hadn't taken a swim first.

I took some better photos of The Three Businessmen who Brought Their Lunch (Lunchboxes?), commissioned in 1993 as a gift from the island of Nauru. The are named Batman, Hoddle and Swanston, notable figures in Melbourne's history.

A then and now photo of High Street, Sydney, taken I think from Argyle Place. I would guess the housing close to the working wharves was quite cheap when the first photo was taken. It would not be cheap now, that is for sure. The dome of the Sydney Observatory can be seen in the top left of both photos. Right click and open the photo in a new window to see more detail.