Blogger Bill

In view of the planned withdrawal of US and other troops from Iraq, we will see the way in which a typical Arab country engages in nation-building. I myself, rightly or wrongly, supported the invasion by the USA and allied forces to overturn a brutal dictator. Regardless of whether Saddam Hussein finally possessed chemical and biological weapons, or nuclear weapons, it is certain that he possessed and used the former, and was certainly known to be working toward the latter.

The invasion was a pushover, as expected, but from then on the situation went about as pear-shaped as anything could be. The US thought that the Iraqis would rise to the occasion, embrace freedom, and start to build a civil and democratic society. But they basically trashed the joint, fouled their own nest, and squandered a golden opportunity to build and prosper. A panoply of militant and terrorist groups took over and made sure that the state would remain defunct. (This is what the Palestinians have always done, by the way.)

The situation was not helped by the Americans apparently having no Plan B. They never used enough troops to control the situation properly to the point where utilities were repaired and commerce and industry could recover. Instead the terrorists started to control the situation almost immediately after that famous statue tumbled down, and they concentrated on keeping essential utilities unrepaired. The Americans perpetrated in Iraq one of the biggest fuck-ups in modern history. President Bush and his idiotic, bumbling, lying, pig-headed cronies will go down in history as a phenomenal failure in Iraq. But it may well be that the failure of the Iraqi nation to build from the ruins will be a comparable failure. Time will tell, but I fear for the worst

It always amazes me that some “insult” or other to Muslims, or some excess bloodshed or errors by Western forces toward Muslims brings hundreds of thousands of rent-a-Muslim demonstrators out into the streets of the world. But when the statistics are done, the Muslims for years now have been slaughtering each other in Baghdad and beyond in extraordinary numbers. And it’s indiscriminate. Even now, bombings of markets, mosques, offices, police stations, pilgrims and funeral processions continues daily. There have been thousands of summary shootings and be-headings. They seem to revel in the gore of cut throats, and bodies torn asunder by courtesy of modern explosives. Not just opposing militants, but bystanders, shop-keepers, women, children and the elderly, all helpless in the face of ruthless savagery in the name of Allah. Islam seems to be a death cult.

And now it’s increasing as the time draws near when all that will be there will be the Iraqi police and armed forces- oh! - and their Western trainers. Now is the time when we will see the furious crescendo of bloodshed as the Shiite and the Sunni Muslims fight each-other, the both of them turn against the Kurds, and the Muslims turn on any remaining minority religions. I think that the Shiites will split and migrate to the south and east, next to Shiite Iran, the Sunnis will take the west and part of the north, and the Kurds (who are not Arabs) will try to split off the north. The latter will be especially contentious, because that’s where a lot of the oil wealth is found. There will possibly tens of thousands of deaths, and

After the blood shed there will be mass movements of these two different sects of Islam, who have always hated each-other from the very time of the death of Mohommed. Ever since then They’ve been fighting over the question of succession to the leadership of Islam. Although both sects are found together in all Muslim countries, one or the other is usually predominant. Iran is the centre for Shia Islam, and seeking to dominate the Middle East, with its work on the nuclear bomb. Nearby Saudi Arabia is mainly Sunni Islam, and so are most other Muslim countries, which are very worried by Iran’s search for dominance. The struggle is political, economic, spiritual and also has weird mystical overtones to it when you read up on various aspects of Islamic history.

I am pretty certain that most Iraqis just want to live a peaceful and prosperous life, following the main tenets of Islam in a reasonably civilized manner. They can do that, as do Christians and Jews, by consciously choosing to ignore the various unfortunately cruel, unjust and bloody-minded sections of the scriptures of their religion. In the latter two, at least in modern times, believers can choose whether or not to adhere to particular features of the chosen religous practice, or to choose a different religion, or in fact to have no religion at all.

Not so in Islam. If your parents are Muslim, you’re a Muslim for life. The Koran teaches that the penalty for apostasy (converting to another religion ) is death. It is mandatory, and what’s more, it is carried out in various Muslim countries this very day - especially in Saudi Arabia, where executions are publicly carried out regularly in a sports stadium. So you, see, Iraqis have no choice but to remain Muslims, whether they like it or not. They can’t even change from Shia to Sunni, or vice versa.

Some Muslims regard President Obama as a Muslim, because his father was Muslim and his early education was in an Indonesian Muslim school. He’s now apparently a Christian. For millions of Muslims that means that he’s an apostate and shoud be put to death.

So, regardless of there having been reasonably free and proper elections in Iraq, and the establishment of the essential elements of a democratic state, I am afraid that shortly this will all fall apart. Arab societies are very tribal, and this dynamic runs counter to democracy as we understand it. It is already a kleptocracy, as are all Muslim countries, and I foresee the disintegration of whatever elements of civil society exist. No doubt, from the time of the next election (if we get that far), there will be increading clashes between armed groups, private militias, and the emergent use of advanced weaponry which is already flowing in from Iran.

The Sunnis will be aided by Wahabis, Al-Qaeda and so on from Saudi Arabia and Syria (next door, to the west), and the Shias will be supported by arms and personnel from Iran (to the east). I think the Americans will not have the stomach for further intervention, and they antagonists will be left to fight it out however they will. Pity the poor average Iraqi, mentioned earlier, who just wants a peaceful and prosperous life, who will be mercilessly sandwiched.

The crunch for the West will be if there is any serious disruption in the flow of crude oil from Iraq. That is critical for us all, even for Australians, and it is in fact equally important for even the most rabidly anti-American Iraqi, because Iraq depends upon the export earnings from the oil-fields.

It’s a serious situation, and a very complex one, but I do fear that much blood will flow, mostly innocent blood.

It’s being a hard year for my darling wife Glenyce. She’s had a couple of skin cancers cut out of her face, and that’s needed a total of 30 stitches (see below).

She’s soon (late July) going to have to rub some anticancer ointment (Efudex) on her face for 3 weeks, during which time her skin will become red and blotchy. It preferentially destroys solar keratoses (incipient skin cancers), but partially damages the normal skin at the same time. Then there’s a period of another 3 weeks where it heals up again, giving new, cancer-free skin.

OK, now the next bit. We saw an orthopaedic surgeon today, and the upshot of it is that she needs a total knee replacement on her left leg. And so it will come to pass that on October 14th, Glenyce will have a 90-minute operation in which her left knee will be replaced by a cunning contraption of titanium, chromium-cobalt, and specialized plastics, all glued in place, aligned with the aid of a computer.

She will have a considerable period of convalescence at home afterward, during which time I will rise to the occasion vis-a-vis domestic tasks (which I have so cunningly hitherto avoided). I am sure there will be frustration and problems in all sorts of ways. But the good news is that she will have many years of trouble-free living in the years to come. We both come from long-lived families, and need to make it all count as much as possible, albeit with the application of modern medical technology.

Here’s to a long life!

Well, we’ve been to Merimbula and come back, and it was very good. I’ll blog on this again soon, but first - an update!

In second-last topic before this I showed pictures of my wife Glenyce’s adventures with surgery to remove a couple of skin cancers on her cheeks. One picture showed a wound with 20 stitches in it after a basal cell carcinoma was removed from her upper left cheek. While we were away in the caravan I was dressing the wound daily, and since we came back she’s had the stitches removed. The results are shown in the following picture:-

Now, Glenyce is pretty sensitive to the way she looks and is somewhat mortified that she’ll have this scar and the other one on her right cheek to contend with in her self-image in coming months and years. But it is part of life for many of us who have had skin damage from sun exposure in earlier years. I assure her that these will fade with time, and, anyway, cosmetics will work wonders.

What’s more, I still love her just as she is!

Today we’re off to Merimbula Jazz Festival where I’m playing with two bands. I love the south coast of NSW, and the Victorian countryside is now beautifully green and lush. Not sure that I can blog while on the road, so I’ll be back in 10 days.

Looking forwards to playing, and confident of my playing. Health tolerable (with pills). Ciao.

Looking at the last several posts, it might seem as though I have a possibly unhealthy fixation upon mutilation or disfigurement. However, quite to the contrary, I am very interested in the healthy functioning of this wonderful mechanism in which we all appear to be encased for the duration of our lives.

The mysterious rash from several months ago has vanished completely, courtesy of my trust-worthy immune system. Glenyce’s right cheek featured recently, after the removal of a skin cancer, but I am glad to report that after a fortnight the stitches are now out and she is healing up quite well, as the following picture shows:

After he’d removed the above stitches, the dermatologist tackled a basal cell carcinoma high up on her left cheek, close to her eye. Using Moh’s surgery, he removed the extensive lesion, leaving an L-shaped wound with 20 stitches in it:

After he’d removed the offending tissue, there is a wait for the pathologist to do a microscopic study of the removed cancer cells, before the incision was stitched up. As it happens, based on those results, he needed to go in again and remove more tissue to get the carcinoma all out properly before closing the wound.

Now I have the task for the next fortnight of dressing the wound daily, with hydrogen peroxide, followed by vaseline, the latter minimizing scarring. I’m getting pretty good at using the dressing materials and the Micropore tape. My poor darling Glenyce is not all thrilled by this damage to her face, and concerned about her future appearance. But on the other hand we’re glad to have been under treatment by a surgeon who appears to be very good at his profession, and pleased to have been able to get rid of Glenyce’s nasty skin cancers.

Perhaps I should get him to give me the once-over, just in case!

Saudi Arabian authorities have beheaded and crucified a man convicted of killing an 11-year-old boy and his father.

The Saudis claim to stick to the letter of the Koran for the administration of their pure Islamic state. This is what Islamic jihadis all around the world are fighting to attain. It is a tenet of Islam to try and dominate any society (including ours if they can manage it.) In Islam there is no distinction between religious matters and socio-political matters. Muslims claim that the Koran offers a complete blueprint for any society, including the criminal justice code.

I must say that the prospect disgusts me. Such a process must be fought against tooth and nail.

What an repulsive society is Saudi Arabia! What a religion!

On the other hand it must be said that, for example, the USA has many people still on death row, and many states will have capital punishment on the books. There are some parts of the Bible that are pretty vindictive and bloody

What about the doctrine that the biblical God is a God of love, but also requires the shedding of blood for the forgiveness of sins? Hence the crucifixion of Jesus. Something not quite right about this distasteful idea, methinks.

But beheading followed by crucifixion sounds so primitive and vindictive, doesn’t it? It kind of doesn’t figure - if you really wanted someone to suffer, why not crucify them first, for maximum agony, followed by beheading if you must.

Uuuurrgh!

God, it’s so long since I blogged that all my hundreds of fans must have dissipated! Well, I am resolving to blog frequently to maintain interest, and for my own discipline. God knows I need it because I can be so dissolute, wasting day after day on internet-surfing, reading books and playing the piano.

I’m not getting enough exercise and my back really hurts - day and night - non-stop. Aaargh! I do have a major arthritic problem of non-operative spinal stenosis causing chronic pain, and I’m supposed to get out and walk. But that hurts more than just sitting around, so it’s a bit of a bind, and this suburb is so boring!

Anyway, I have been rehearsing with several musicians each Saturday at my place, and that’s quite good fun - hard work a lot of the time, but good fun. Tomorrow’s the final rehearsal before we go off next weekend to play at the Merimbula Jazz Festival. It’s called the Jazz Travellers (a name I coined in 2000). We have piano (me), drums, bass, tenor sax/clarinet and a singer.

I’m also in a nice little trio called Jazz Therapy, so-called because it makes us feel good. Come to think of it, I once played with a trad band called Major Fieldgood (”made-ya feel good” - gettit?) and that was fun too. My mate Des Shaw from that has given it all way because he now has emphysema, and you can’t play the trumpet with that!

So next Tuesday Glenyce and I pile into the car and push off (actually - pull off) with the caravan for the NSW South Coast - always beautiful up there - staying at Orbost overnight on the way. We’ll do our jazz playing, listening and socializing and then come back in a week’s time.

In the last blog item I blogged on my rash, which has now vanished completely. But Glenyce (my wife) recently saw the GP and got a referral to the same dermatologist who looked at a couple of almost invisible things on her face. She has a squamous cell carcinoma on one cheek and a basal cell carcinoma on the other, and they need to be removed surgically.

A fortnight ago she had the first one cut out of her right cheek and I’ve had the task of daily dressing of the wound with hydrogen peroxide and then vaseline. After the first 48 hours she removed the wound dressing for the first time and I took a photo of the nice, neat 8 or 9 stitches:-

And now she has a bigger cut in her left cheek, up near the eye, which is slowly turning a sort of reddish-purple. We trust that that won’t become too bad, because she assiduously applied an ice-pack regularly after she came from the surgery. When she first takes the wraps off that one on Sunday I’ll take another photo to continue this little saga of the wounded wife.

Stay tuned!

Well, the day after I saw the dermatologist, the rash broke out all over me, mainly all over my thighs, down to the ankles, around the bum, up the back, around my sides up to my armpits, and all along my arms to the wrists. The only areas free of wheals were my chest, the top of my back, and, mercifully, my face! It’s a pity the doc didn’t get to see this in all of its glory. I was so impressed that I took a photo.

Three days later the dermatologist rang me to say that the pathology showed that there was no vasculitis (that is, capillary damage underlying the rash), and that there was no need to obtain a swag of blood tests that he’d arranged for me to get in the event that there was vasculitis. This was a bit of a relief, as it removed the possibility of something sinister associated with the rash.

This left me with plain ordinary urticaria (hives), for which there was nothing to do except take anti-histamines morning and night, to use Celestone-M cream on it, and to shower using body lotion instead of soap. So I’ve continued to do all of that.

The rash has continued for several weeks more, coming and going, but gradually dwindling. And now I’ve gone a week with no evidence of the morning rash. The dermatologist thinks it’s pretty well played itself out, and we’ll never know exactly what caused it. “Idiopathic”, is the term used for that.

Next thing is for him to cut out an enlarged and infected sweat gland in my back, in a week or so, when the antibiotics he prescribed have had a chance to work.

Now I’ve got a whole container of QV body wash for the shower, so I guess I’ll just use all that up instead of soap for a while. God knows what I’ll do with two large tubes of Celestone-M and a whole tube of Hydrazole (for non-existent thrush), but if I get that annoying fungus rash around my crutch (that’s another story of “jock itch”) next summer I’ll be well-prepared!.

I’m due to have the GP arrange for me to have the annual influenza vaccination, and a scheduled pneumonia vaccination, but she’s told me to hold off, as apparently that sort of thing can stir up the recent rash.

I wonder what my body will do next? Who knows what sort of alien protein is lurking around in my intra-corporal nooks and crannies?

Just so long as it’s not Swine Flu!!

The dermatologist today suggested that my mysterious rash is urticaria - hives. But probably not the usual short-lived (24-hours) hives associated with allergies. Rather, because I have chronic urtucaria, it might be urticarial vasculitis. We’ll know soon because he took a biopsy - a plug of skin and underlying tissues, which will be studied and stained and so on, looked at by a pathologist who will determine the nature of any deep-seated changes in the structure of the capillaries lying underneath the hive lesions.

The news might simply be that nothing major is going on, that there is no known cause of the urticaria, and that it will simply go away in its own good time, whic can be months or years. Meanwhile, I take antihistamine tablest and use the Celestone-M cream to minimize the rash.

From my sleuthing on the internet, the bad news is that the rash might be associated with the early stages of an autoimmune disease such as lupus erythematosus or rheumatoid arthritis, in the extreme case. Depending upon the results of today’s biopsy, then the specialist might order blood tests, which may well pick up anything sinister that may be happening.

I await with interest! I never know what by fascinating old body is going to do next. The process of watching the years roll by is just like turning the pages of a novel

The rash first appeared around my genitals as several raised reddened zones and what looked like bites! “Yikes! I’ve got crabs (pubic lice) off that bloody shower block on the foreshore at Inverloch”, I thought, gloomily. I’d been down that road once before years ago under circumstances that were entirely innocent - I swear!

This time I waited a day and there were more spots and zones, so I went to a GP. She said that I’d got thrush. Startled but relieved, I bought the thrush cream (Hydrazole) and used it. No effect.

The spots were appearing each morning in increasing quantities, radiating from my crutch, as series of slightly reddened spots, (each about 10 mm in diameter), and grouped clusters of such spots. I still thought “Crabs!”, ‘cos they looked like bites, even though they didn’t itch. The net informed me that crabs were spread by sexual contact. Now I happen to be happily married, hadn’t strayed lately, and what’s more am pretty deficient in the hydraulics department after my prostatectomy 2 years ago.

So I went to the chemist, confided my problem and was sold a lotion (Ascobiol).This instructed me to paint (!) it all over my body from the neck down, let it dry, and keep it on for 24 hours (!!). I obeyed. It had a peculiar smell, and it stung like hell on my testicles. Hobbling around naked in the back yard to make it dry, I was jumping from one leg to another for the 15 minutes that it kept stinging.

Another 24 hours passed and I gladly washed the damn stuff off me. No effect - just the now familiar crops of zones and spots. By now they were all over my upper legs and even my upper arms, but not my back or my chest. It was quite spectacular!

I got me to my regular GP (not the thrush doctor), who said “Oh my God!” as I shed my shirt and dropped my trousers. She wondered whether I’d had an allergic response to my self-medication lotion. This was becoming confusing. Perhaps I had bites from lice as well as an allergic reaction? She prescribed a anti-histamine tablets as well as a lotion to stop the itch. So far there was no itch, because if there was I would be going barmy!

My internet searching convinced me that I didn’t have crabs - didn’t fit the bite symptoms. Also, I discovered from the bottle that the lotion I’d been given by the chemist was for body lice, which I certainly didn’t have. I’d suffered in vain!

Two days later I saw the doctor again. The “bites” had progressed down to the ankles and lower arms, and everywhere they’d appeared changed within a few hours to spectacular bruising zones of various colours, fading away after about a week. By now my lower parts were very spotty indeed. She thought it was getting less, and I was otherwise well, so we left it, hoping that it would just go away.

Well, it hasn’t! Each day I’ve been waking up with new patches of zones/bites which have progressed down to my ankles, than up both sides to my armpits and around my back legs and buttocks. I started to consider the possibility that I had bed bugs, but it didn’t quite fit. And besides, my wife Glenyce had not been similarly afflicted. That was a relief.

Today I saw the GP again, who exclaimed “Oh my God” once more and promptly arranged an urgent appointment with skin specialist. She said it might be Pityriasis rosea and gave me a pamphlet.

I’ve read the pamphlet and searched the net, and am pretty sure that that is not what I have. So now I’m off to bed, hoping for a good crop of new spots show him in the morning, so I can get a proper diagnosis. I reckon it’s some virus, and that it will last a couple of more weeks and then go away for ever.

I never cease to amaze myself with this old body!

Earlier this year I played in the Grampians Jazz Festival. My usual bass player had fallen ill, so I found a replacement in the form of Don Calvert, owner of one of the venues, the Mountain Grand hotel. Described by him as a “boutique” hotel, it’s closer to a guest house and restaurant, and a very nice place it is, too.

Well, Don provides music in the restaurant on Saturday nights, with himself on the electric bass and singing. He usually gets a piano player on the grand piano or a guitarist to accompany him, and he has a range of good people playing with him. He provides the musician with meals and accommodation.

The pianists he gets are good - very good, so I was flattered when he offered me the chance to go up and there and play with him. And so, accompanied by Glenyce, I drove the 300 km to Halls Gap last Saturday and settled into our room for a rest and recovery. Togged up in musicianly black, we took our places on the small stage and started in with our first set of numbers.

For this, I sight-read the piles of music he places in front of me, and so we proceed through the eight or so songs. Taking a break, we had a chat about how the playing’s going. I was playing a little too loud, with a few too many notes from the piano for his style. That’s partly from the fact that I do all my practicing alone, and am not used to this duo work.

Undaunted, in we go for the next set, after which he expressed satisfaction with my adaptation to the gig’s stylistic requirements which pleased me greatly, because I was working very hard to keep on top of the sight-reading and the need for a kind of minimalist approach to the keyboard.

The dining room had been almost full, and as people left, we could make a bit more noise. We finished up with just one table full of enthusiastic listeners, as we turned to some spirited jamming to cap off the night.

Then it was a late dinner of his beautiful breast of chicken with pistachio sauce, accompanied by some excellent local red wines. We talked of music and vocal style, jazz personalities, and had a damn good time of it all. However, lying in bed, I was so stirred by the stimulation of the night (and the red wine), that, despite a sleeping pill, I had insomnia.

Next morning, showered, I started to wake up (or so I thought), and had a hearty breakfast in the busy dining room. There’s nothing like a good cooked breakfast to get you through the day! Glenyce, bless her heart, loved every minute of it, and so did I!

Knowing how I tick, I’d taken several caffeine tablets (No-Doze) to keep me awake for the drive home, and off we went. Before long I realized that I had a problem. Last night I’d taken a sleeping tablet that didn’t help me sleep. Now I’d had taken wakeup tablets that weren’t keeping me awake! So I handed over the steering wheel to Glenyce.

I settled in to snooze in the passenger side of the car. Now, I am not usually the passenger, and am not a good one, because I get nervous about the driving not being done quite how I do it. And so, whatdya know - I stay awake all the 300 km back home just from my nervous Nellie antics!

As soon as we got to Glen Waverley in the late afternoon of a grey day, I hit the hay, and succumbed into the arms of Morpheus. That, until I awaken by darling Glenyce with the news that the neighbour had noticed that we (actually she) had left the headlights on. Consequently the battery was too flat to start the car! Girding my loins, I got on the blower to the RACV, who arrived quite soon, jump-started the car and we pushed off for a long twilight drive on the freeway to charge it up again. By now I had woken up, fortunately, and after our drive we had tea.

Next thing, we had a knock on the door from a man who had noticed that I had left the headlights on! Talk about slow learners. Fortunately the engine started OK this time.

It was a long trip and an eventful weekend, but most enjoyable, in a very tiring sort of way. it took me a couple of days to get over it. But I look forward to hearing from Don for another chance of playing up there with him.

Making our way down the picturesque South Gippsland Highway to the attractive town of Inverloch, Glenyce and I settled in to the foreshore caravan park for a week. The park gradually filled completely with campers and caravaners for the Labor Day public holiday.

Come Friday, we picked up our registration badges which let us in to all of the jazz venues for the Inverloch Jazz Festival. I’ve been to about eight of these, now, at Inverloch, and looked forward to playing some good jazz, hoping the audiences will be reasonable. That’s the way it turned out, and we had an excellent time of it, regardless of the fact that Glenyce had a nasty fall backwards down 3 stairs and we had a couple of nice folding chairs stolen from our caravan annexe! The weather was nice, apart from some initial rain.

I was registered in three bands. Firstly there was my own band, the Jazz Travellers, a quartet plus vocalist, playing mainstream style. Then there was the Elster Vista Jazz Band, a group oriented to traditional jazz, including a banjo and washboard, led by Tony Brothers. I also played with the Janet Arndt Quintet Plus, a group paying slightly more mainstream style than the previous band.

Each band plays 2 sets of numbers in a 45 minute slot, each set being comprised of about 8 numbers. So I got to play 6 sets, totalling about 48 tunes over four and a half hours playing time. In addition, I was approached in a car park by a friend of mine, Tony Harling, who was looking for a piano player to fill in one set of his band the Clare Castle Jazz Band. I happily agreed, as I’d played with that band for a couple of years in the late 90s. So that made 6 hours of playing, a total of about 56 tunes.

All told, I had a most enjoyable time of it, and apart from one or two hiccups, was happy with my playing. I met a lot of friends from the past, and ate at the Chinese restaurant 4 nights out of the seven. The day after arrival, we drove down to Wilson’s Promontory, through the pretty Gippsland towns of Korumburra, Leongatha, Foster, Yanakie and Fish Creek. The landscape was dry and drought-stricken, but slightly enlivened by some rain on the first night. There had been some severe bushfires at the prom, and it was closed. But there was little smoke visible from the fires, which had been dampened down by the overnight rain.

My wife Glenyce is still pretty sore from her backwards fall, and has difficulty getting in and out of bed and the car. She’s to be seen by a back specialist in a couple of weeks time. She already had spinal stenosis which might need surgery before long. I suspect the fall simply exacerbated that condition rather than cause new damage.

Since we came home this week, I’ve been pretty sore in the back and very tired, taking a bit of sleep during the afternoons. I’m typing this around 6 am, as I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. I think my 70 years are catching up on me.

The next jazz festival is at Merimbula Jazz Festival during the Queens Birthday weekend early in June. I have 2 bands registered in that, namely, the Jazz Travellers quintet, and the trio called Jazz Therapy. Quite soon I’ll arrange some rehearsals for both of those groups.

Let the music play!

Last weekend I was away with my wife in the caravan for a week to participate with my band the “Jazz Travellers” in the Grampians Jazz Festival. Just one of 100 or so bands, we play for pleasure and fun. I hadn’t been to Halls Gap for a couple of years, and welcomed the opportunity to play our mainstream style of jazz in front of reasonable audiences.

Our band consists of myself on the piano, a drummer, a double bass player, and a colleague who plays the tenor sax, doubling on the clarinet. We also have a singer who is new to the art of jazz singing: Anne Smith is also a talented actor and puts that to good use fronting the band and entertaining the audience in various ways as well as by singing. The extra entertainment value adds to our success nicely.

On the Friday my bass player phoned up to say that he was ill and couldn’t make it, so I had to do some quick thinking. We have to play for two slots of 45 min each, so I needed to fill that. It so happens that Don Calvert, the owner of the Mountain Grand hotel, one of the seven performance venues, plays the electric bass, and he agreed to play with us, at which I breathed a sigh of relief. I raced over to the newsagent, who kindly enabled me to duplicate the bass music and put it into a folder, after which I had a short rehearsal with Don.

Jazz Travellers playing in the Mountain Grand

Come time to perform on Saturday at 3 pm, with our replacement bassist on deck, all went smoothly, with considerable acclaim from the appreciative audience. Our 45 minutes set of 7 or so tunes passed quickly, and all we had to do was to get through our Sunday 10:30 am slot and all was hunky-dory. We wondered whether much of an audience would arrive so early in the morning, but our fears were groundless.

Glenyce and I listened to many other bands during the day, as usual, and we met many friends and acquaintances from the 11 years we’ve been coming to these country jazz festivals. After tea on Saturday night I got involved sitting in at the piano at a hamburger joint called Ralphy’s. This was just an impromptu “casual playing” venue where whatever musicians feel like sit in during the day and night. There’s a kit of drums and a guitar amplifier provided, and there’s no charge for audiences, unlike the main program venues.

Myself playing the piano at Ralphy’s hamburger cafe, Halls Gap

As I played, other musos came and went; I think at one stage I was surrounded by a sousaphone, banjo, guitar, drums, trumpet, saxophone, clarinet, a couple of trombone players and to top it off, a washboard! No wonder I could hardly hear myself play and had to take the front off the piano! All told, I stayed there an and off for about 3 hours. Tragic, isn’t it?

Come Sunday at 10:30 am, we fronted up to an excellent morning crowd who soon warmed to our musical efforts. In no time we were done and retired off stage feeling relieved at our success, and that was that - we’d sung for our supper - the advantage being that being performers we can attend all the many other performances free, unlike the paying public. What’s more, we get paid a modest fee.

On Sunday afternoon I played some more at Ralphy’s and then we had a band barbecue where some of us were staying. Then Glenyce and had a couple of days to stay over in the caravan park until we came home caravan on Wednesday. On Monday night we decided to eat at Don’s hotel restaurant, in gratitude for his helping me out. It wasn’t a cheap meal, but excellent food - I recommend his menu!

In fact we went to a little vineyard near Ararat on the way home and bought a couple more bottles of the wine we’d had at his hotel.

Bon appetit!

I find myself totally devastated as I’ve followed the progressive unfolding of the true horror of the bushfires yesterday, Saturday February 7th. It seems that maybe 100 people will have perished horribly, agonizingly, in their cars and in their homes, and that maybe 700 houses will have been utterly destroyed, in some of the most beautiful parts of this state.

Yesterday was suffocatingly hot, the hottest day on record for Victoria, at 46.4 degC. The wind was very strange, strong and turbulent. The day was surreal. I spent the afternoon at the first birthday of my grandson, Darcy, with family and friends gathered around, the air-conditioning struggling valiantly. My son Peter bravely cooked the meat outside in full sun!

My wife Glenyce and I came home and just lay on the double bed together, somnolently listening to the local ABC station on AM 774. It was fulfilling the role of tying together all of the emergency reports about fire fronts, including reports directly from members of the public, (subject to confirmation). As the afternoon and night unfolded we were more and more disturbed and upset. Fires were going in all directions under evil winds. My tears flowed. (That happens more and more frequently lately.)

In the small hours of the morning, as we lay just under the single sheet in the heat, I awoke about 2 am and turned the radio on. I was shattered to hear the statement that the small town of Marysville had only about one structure left standing!! I hesitated to believe it, and hoped it was an exaggeration, because it’s a beautiful little hamlet of a few dozen houses and guest houses, in a snug valley. It being about 120 km from the city, I’ve been to guest houses there for about four conferences of various kinds over the years. I’ve taken my kids there on the way to the snow. In recent years Glenyce and I have been on regular forays looking for fungi in the surrounding mountains. We love the place.

It gone, obliterated by an impossibly fast, hot fire that turned streets of houses into plots of gray ash. People died in their cars in those streets.

I am gut-wrenchingly devastated that such a thing has happened. I am in grief and surprised by the depth of it. But this destruction has happened all over this beautiful state, and the fires are still active, even though it is cooler. Melbourne’s hospitals are full of burn victims.

Marysville’s loss focussed for me my reaction to this whole bushfire catastrophe. Another hamlet, Kinglake, is another place where we’ve happily forayed for interesting fungi, and it’s gone, too. Many, many people died in their cars there, a family of six perishing together in one car, and they say that 500 houses have gone, over there!

During the day the death toll has been progressed from the tens to the dozens; it has now passed the 71 who died on Black Friday, 1939. I am witnessing the creation of an indelible scar on the collective consciousness of the millions of people in this state of Victoria. We can none of us be the same again. I certainly shan’t be, and I now truly understand the meaning of a “heavy heart”.

But I have personally lost no property, no loved ones. But still I am shattered in a way I would never have guessed. And I have realized how fortunate I am to have my health (such as it is), my beloved wife and family, my home, and a good suburb in which to live my quiet, average, humble little existence.

Thank goodness for boring old normality!

Last Xmas, at Xmas dinner, in front of the family, I asked my son Peter if he would take me for a ride on his motorbike, to which he readily assented. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, and it’s taken almost 12 months to happen.

Every now and then I have a go at things which are a bit risky in some way. Many years ago it was taking my clothes off at a big hippy festival, and then joining a nudist club. That was great, but a bit daunting at first. We haven’t done that for a while, and must get back to it somehow.

And so the idea of the motor-bike ride came up recently, and we set a date. Unfortunately that was washed out, and more or less on the spur of the moment yesterday we contacted each other and decided to have a late afternoon bike run through the nearby Dandenongs, where there are some nice sharp bends.

So it came to pass that I became swaddled in tough motor-bike garb, which is heavily padded at the knees, elbows and bottom, just in case the worst happens and I fall off! I was instructed how to sit on the bike, gloves and helmet were donned, photos were taken, and off we went.

From the very start it was a full-on experience with all my senses taxed to the limit. I held on grimly as we accelerated and braked through traffic. Pete was pretty gentle with me, and stuck to the speed limits. But quite soon I was getting a fair amount of pain owing to my spinal stenosis (narrowing of bone onto nerves). My back and left leg let me know they were not at all pleased with me, but I decided to simply put up with it, as I usually have to.

It also took a while before I got the hang of simply allowing centrifugal (or is it centripetal?) forces lean our bodies sideways as we went around curves. As well, when we braked, it threw by body even more snugly up against Peter’s back. I was holding on with my legs, as instructed, and was wrapping my arms firmly around him, so that as he accelerated away again I wasn’t left behind rudely on the road.

After reaching Grant’s Reserve, part of Sherbrooke Forest, we stopped for a welcome stretch of the legs, and an ice-cream. It turned out that Pete was having some leg cramps which he couldn’t resolve because my legs were in the way. And we both experienced a crushing/tangling phenomenon on our testicles. Par for the course for the biker brigade it would seem!

As we battled through the traffic on the way back home I was still acutely aware of the sheer vulnerability of both of us in the event of an accident. I simply put my trust in the riding skills of my son and let the anxiety float around wherever it went. I must say that when he was tempted to accelerate strongly up a traffic-free hill, it was pretty interesting for a minute or so! Glad we did it - it topped off the ride for me.

Back home, having climbed out of my borrowed riding gear, and after a beer or two, I must say I was full of contentment, extraordinarily pleased that I’d done the motor-bike thing.

What’s next? Bungee-jumping? Tandem parachute jump? Scuba-diving? Or just a bit more nudism?

The world’s out there for me to savour, like some spicy dish. Whee!!

Well, it’s been over a month since we arrived home from our 6-week caravan holiday in Central Australia, and it took that long before could no longer withstand the blandishments of television. But that’s not bad, is it? And we only ever watch ABC TV or SBS. But even the latter’s ads are becoming more and more brainless, aren’t they? As bad as commercial TV, which we only ever watch if that nice David Rabbitborough is telling us some more about Nature, of course. Snobs, we are.

In the caravan we have no TV, by choice, and because there’s no room. You can tell, because when you walk around the caravan parks at night you can see the blue glow from within their darkened shells and you know everyone’s watching TV. Probably the usual American drivel loaded with guns, crime, murder and sex. Or some totally brain-dead sitcom where people behave like we are afraid real Americans might really behave.

But at night in our superior caravan we read books. Lots of books. I read one (1) on a scientific study of whether or nor alternative medicine really works, and guess what - it doesn’t. That’s why it’s still “alternative”, because if it worked, everyone would be using it. And I read a deep one (2) about the sociology of Australian culture and politics - or was it the culture of Australian politics and sociology? Doesn’t matter - just so long as I can feel superior. No - just joking - I think…

And I read one (3) about the word of Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, in crap places like Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda, DR of Congo, Bosnia, Kosovo, etc. Some of them have been literally crap places, because there are descriptions of the health workers actually paddling around in blood and faeces amidst the refugees. That was really sobering and infuriating. Infuriating that the UN can be so manipulated by the major nations of the world. The USA, Russia, France, Britain, and a horde of Islamic and African nations have a lot to answer for in some court of justice that unfortunately does not exist. Hundreds of thousands of humans suffer and die just because there are political struggles based on religion, or on the fight for ultimate control of territories and future resources such as petroleum and minerals. Very disturbing books, some of these.

In our caravan holidays we have a portable radio which may or may not pick up the local ABC radio stations - commercial is always useless for decent news, and loaded with inane ads and ghastly pop music. We almost never buy newspapers, by choice. We enjoy just talking together about our travel, reading our books, having the occasional chat with fellow travellers, and listening to the radio.

And so when we came home we chose to continue the relatively media-free existence. But we do read The Age daily - Glenyce first, then myself, later in the day. Often I barely bother, because I must confess to missing the internet while I was away. Occasionally I logged on to an internet café, usually to get the weather forecast, which is important when you’re on holiday.

But one major activity we do relish when away is writing our diaries. Every night before bedtime we get out our A4 exercise books and write about our day’s activities. Individually we write about the country we’ve seen, the sights we’ve seen, the people we’ve met, and the way we felt. Each night we write a page or a number of pages, and then when we’ve each finished we swap books and compare notes. It’s aways very interesting to see the differences and similarities of our daily stories. What’s more we find it an excellent exercise for our minds to sit down in this disciplined way and. string sentences together.

In our recent trip I wrote 92 A4 pages in my diary. One day it’s my intention to type it into my web site and together with photos, create an illustrated diary of our journey that might be of interest to others. That would be a big task, but I’ve done it before. In 2001 we did a 3-month caravan tour across to WA, which is illustrated in my web site as Bill Leithhead’s WA Trip Diary.

A whole blog item and no complaints about health or money!

References for books if you’re at all interested:-

1. Singh, Simon and Ernst, Edzard, “Trick or Treatment - Alternative Medicine On Trial”, Bantam Press, 2008.
2. Davis, Mark, “The Land of Plenty: Australia In the 2000s”, Melbourne University Press, 2008.
3. Orbinski, James, “An Imperfect Offering: dispatches from the medical frontline”, Text Publishing Melbourne Australia, 2008.

Well, I can’t say that it doesn’t feel quite nice thank you very much to have a new twenty-two inch flat-screen LCD monitor sitting in front of me as I type, but it wasn’t planned. Last week, my old CRT monitor, which was a hand-me-down from the Alfred Hospital via a good friend, developed a strange colour, which I figured out was due to the red gun carking it. (Cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors have a red electron gun plus a blue and a green one to create all the colours.) As my very life and sanity probably depends upon this computer, it (the CRT monitor) had to go. And so it did, into the garage until the next hard rubbish collection in nine month’s time.

But the nice new flat-screen LCD from Officeworks cost us $399, just when we’re trying to be a bit frugal as the bank account recovers from our lovely holiday. I don’t regret one dollar of our trip to the Red Centre, but we now really are trying to cool it money-wise, so it’s a bit sad, especially considering a similar slug of money begin hoisted out of said bank account yesterday!

Well, two days ago the shared electric blanket on our queen-size double bed failed, leaving Glenyce with no heat on her side. Now, you might wonder why this is necessary, what with summer coming on and so on. I remind you that this is Melbourne, Victoria, where on numerous occasions we have had snow in the hills around Xmas Day. The weather this time of the year can change in a flash.

But, mainly because we both have similar serious back disorders which cause referred pain in our legs, and this is partly relieved by the heat of an electric blanket in cool weather. The pain can be accompanied by pins and needles, heat and itching, burning sensations, or just a frozen feeing. What’s more, in milder weather or even in quite warm weather our feet and legs often feel like blocks of ice as we go to bed. And so the necessity of said electrical device to mollify the agony of our seventy-year old bodies! This has been going on for decades.

The blanket came from the highly esteemed David Jones store nearby, was purchased for $144 last July, and it’s their own name brand. We’ve struggled with peculiarities of the computerized controls thereupon ever since we bought it. But several days ago Glenyce’s side conked out completely, with blank controls and no heating. We rolled it up and took it back, holus-bolus. After considerable dithering on the part of their flummoxed staff we offered to have our money back, especially because their being no electric blankets in their store at the moment. All these stores seem to operate upon some idealized concept of what the weather is supposed to be - not like it actually is.

Cash in hand, we choofed off to the mega-shopping centre of Chadstone. There we looked at the Myer store. They had just one queen-size electric blanket, Sunbeam brand, and we took it. but the thing cost us $399. Yikes! Anyway, it’s now on the bed, it works properly (unlike the defunct David Jones one), and we’re happy. But we’re not one hundred percent happy, because these two $399 devices really have made a dent in the cash at hand.

But we’re happy about one thing: it seems that yesterday at Myer’s they were having an evening sale with quite large price reductions and they applied it to our $399 blanket, giving it a sale price of $279, a saving of $120, which is not to be sneezed at!

We’re happy!

This is not going to win me many friends, but I want to declare my support of the right of the country of Israel to exist in peace. I am not Jewish and there is no family connection with Judaism; rather, I am an atheist with distant family connections to Denmark, Scotland and England.

It was during the last eruption of fighting between the Lebanese Hezbollah and Israel that I took to following the happenings closely, from both sides. Israel has been fighting for its life ever since it was formed in 1948 and is still doing so against potentially 201 million Arabs and other Muslims. It is a democracy with a free press. Its population range from the intensely religious Jews to the mostly more or less secular majority; among its citizens are Arabs and people of many other origins. It has been a place of refuge for millions of Jews who have been persecuted in countries from all over the world, but particularly Europe, Eastern Europe, Russia Africa and the Middle East. I believe that this is just.

I know that tens of thousands of Arabs fled Israel during the fighting after the declaration of nationhood for Israel, but the Arabs from all sides did attack Israel. In later conflicts Israel gained more territory, and Arabs left that, too. There are many web sites that cover all this history, which is complex in the past and still is, today. Of course, there are many injustices that stem from this mess, and I hope things eventually settle down. But I doubt it, because the Arabs, and in particular the Palestinian Arabs, have been cursed with bad leadership. In particular, Yasser Arafat gained nothing for his people and stole hundreds of millions of funds, most of it aid, donated by various countries. The current leadership of Hamas in Gaza and the PLA in the West Bank can do nothing but continue to swear to drive the Israelis into the sea. meantime their people suffer. No doubt these leaders also are kleptomaniacs.

During the last Lebanon conflict I realised that the anti-Israeli movements and forces are very good at manipulating the world media to make things out to be far worse than they are. The effects of bombing and rocketing were continually faked, casualty figures were inflated, damage was exaggerated, and the mainstream press went along with it because there seems to be a bias in favour of the poor, long-suffering Palestinians.

But the Palestinian refugees were tolerated for a while by places like Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon but kept in poverty and herded away into other places. Currently, Hamas in Gaza constantly manipulate the images of suffering which is no worse than any other poor country, even when Israel closes the checkpoints because the Gazans are firing rockets at random at the civilians in Sderot and Ashkelon. But when the Israelis left from Gaza they handed over working farms, glass-houses and industrial plants which the Gazans literally trashed, leaving nothing for themselves to utilize. What stupidity!

It is by no means certain that Israel will win any future conflict. If that happens, then we can be sure that the Arabs will engage in bloody war crimes that the world has hitherto witnessed only in Rwanda. Arabs will not hesitate to use their modern weapons to kill each and every Israeli, man, woman and child.

Hence my support for the nation of Israel. My wish is to see the Palestinian Arabs and Israelis live in peace together, but if it war, then I am on the side of the Jews.

Some ten days ago we arrived back home from our epic caravan tour of Central Australia and some SA wine-growing areas. It is always an easy transition from caravan life to existence in our suburban house, but back home both my wife and I have unaccountably endured insomnia and damnable aches and pains. It is a mystery why this is so, because in the caravan we have about 4 square metres of floor space, which means lots of twisting and bending into cupboards and drawers, and deft sashaying past one another. Perhaps we became fitter with all the walking entailed by desert tourism; I lost 2 kg, so that’s a bonus.

Our route has been as follows:-

• Melbourne to Bordertown (SA), Crystal Brook, then Port Augusta, lying on the edge of the desert outback.

• Drive 536 km in one day to the fabulously strange opal town of Coober Pedy, via strange town of Woomera. Do tour of Coober Pedy, seeing the opal mines, the coloured Breakaways, the Dingo Fence, your underground mines and houses, buy expensive opal pendant.

• Go to Alice Springs via overnight at Erldunda. Do tours of the township, all-day tour to points along the West Macdonald Ranges, have a spontaneous helicopter ride over Glen Helen Gorge, which was fabulous. There were no doors - yikes! See a night-time Didgeridoo show (in which I got to play the drums briefly). Stay over a week in Alice, enduring high 30s heat most of the time. Whew! We drank lots of water.

• Drive 400 km down from Alice (via Erldunda) to see Ayers Rock and the Olgas. Although seen many times on TV, these rocks are truly awesome. We walked a lot around their bases - again in high heat.

• Drive 300 km up to Kings Canyon, doing a small walk to the canyon. In the camp there are signs warning about dingos, and sure enough, one walks past our caravan, bold as brass! Next day we see another ferreting around in the belongings of a nearby camper-trailer, trying in vain to get at some foodstuffs. We have a second helicopter ride (in a bigger one, with doors) over a mountain range with fascinating domed-rock formations. We can see the cliffs, gullies and canyons with clarity.

• Drive back down to Coober Pedy (again, via Erldunda) and go down another opal mine. Then on to Port Augusta. Along the way we find one caravan window is gone, possibly sucked out by the vacuum as one of the monstrous road trains slams past! Make temporary repairs from sheet plastic and duct tape, which has to last 1500 km until home. Thence to a quaint little town of Quorn, on to Wilpena Pound, in the ancient mountains of the Flinders Ranges. Here we do a hair-raising 4WD tour into a sheep property amongst the mountains, followed next day by a flight in a light aircraft over the stunning Flinders Ranges which stretch for a hundred kilometres in undulating beauty.

• We drive down the the town of Clare, savouring the greenery of wheat fields and freshly-sprouted vineyards after the red-brown-ochre stony desert with its spinifex and saltbush. We discover the lovely Clare wine district, and spend some time visiting some of the lovely old properties and sampling the wines. We start buying bottles of wine.

• We go south to Nuriootpa, in the Barossa Valley. We savour the beauties of this region, almost wallowing in the lovely scenery, the old wineries and of course the alcoholic vineyard fare. We buy more bottles of wine to take home.

• We drive back towards Victoria to Hall’s Gap, via Horsham overnight. After several nights there, we tour another winery, Great Western, and buy more wine, and then head for home. The city smog, the traffic, and the experience of being constantly surrounded by semis and other trucks on the freeways is unpleasant.

• We arrive home after 6 weeks on the road, travelling 7,500 km, spending $1024 on accommodation, $2750 on 1611 litres of petrol, $1400 on tours and flights, and $700 on 35 bottles of good wines. Now we’re a bit broke, but recovering.

• We saw all that we had aimed to see, did even more than we’d thought to do, retained our general health throughout, with judicious, sometimes copious use of pain-control medication, discovered a great deal about Australia, and are overwhelmed by the beauty of it all, including the stark, primaeval quality of the deserts. Our car ran OK, and we only had a damage to a caravan window, which can be fixed.

And so we can truly say “Mission Accomplished”.

Back to ordinary daily life, which isn’t so bad after all.

Well, the gastroscopy gave the news that I have no more ulcers and no more damage and inflammation. Jeez I’ve been missing the dishes with chilli in them! I’m going to make up for it tonight when we go out with my daughter Leanne.

So it’s clear sailing for my gut, and after holdups with car and caravan we’ve decided to push off for Alice Springs, a unique town in the centre of Australia. We’ll be driving my 1993 Ford station wagon (6 cylinders, 4 litres), which has enough grunt to handle our modest little caravan, a seventeen foot Viscount Ambassor van that my father bought sometime in the late 1960s. It’s old, but it’s been renovated and properly sealed at all the joints to avoid leaks. We know where everything goes, and we’re quite comfy in it. It has two beds and a table and benches for the eating area. We sleep in or on sleeping bags.

I spend a lot of time in the van lying down sleeping, reading, and listening to whatever I can hear on my portable radio, and Glenyce is the same, except that she likes to sit outside more than I do. We have a gas stove, electric frypan, toaster and electric jug; these do fine for our needs.

There is no television or microwave (no room for either), and we buy newspapers very rarely - just when we need for wrapping, etc. We have a range of books to read. Mine are mainly on sociology and politics, broadly speaking. We have books on birds, flowers, trees and fungi. I also have a range of books on geology, minerals and gemstones, as the region is quite interesting that way.

I have a hammer and special rock chisel for chipping away at interesting rocks, as well as boxes to bring them back home. We have a collection of rocks from many parts of Australia, souvenirs from our travels - many of the larger ones wind up in the garden!

On the Stuart Hightway between Port Augusta and Darwin there is a gap of 256 km with no petrol available, so I’ve got a 10 L special plastic container for carrying extra petrol. We also have a 10 L container of mineral water as a spare, so we can avoid hard water, because Artesian bores are common in this area. Even Adelaide has water with more calcium ions than usual, so I understand - makes the soap lather poorly. (We’ll be close to Adelaide tomorrow night, if all goes to plan.)

We’ve had to spend a lot more money on repairs and maintenance for the car and the caravan than we expected. But we’re both getting more and more aches and pains, such that I really wonder how long we can keep caravanning with an pleasure. The Red Centre is somewhere that we’ve not visited until now, so I want to make sure that we get there before some sort of disablity or infirmity sets in!

What Glenyce doesn’t know is that when we’ve done Alice Springs I’ll propose that we’ll push on for Darwin! That depends on how our bruised budget is coping with it all. Also, during October the build-up for the monsoon season starts, and starts to get very muggy, with frequent thunderstorms. But I’ll enquire about it at the “Alice”, and try to make it, as we’re so close, comparatively speaking, even though it’s a 2-day journey from Alice Springs.

Anyway, we’ve packed almost everything, and are eating out. Then it’s just a few more things before we go off into the wild blue yonder sometime about 6am, if possible. I’ll try to keep up with this blog, just in case someone other than my friend Gaye reads it!!

Arrivaderci!!