I’ve known several blokes who have been called “Gibbo.”
One who I grew up with in Canberra and also played rugby with for many years was
named Brian Gibson. Unfortunately he died in or around 1982 in a car accident, which was tragic. He was a very nice bloke and I am not saying that because he's no longer with us. I know nobody who disliked him. Another Gibbo I knew was a large and powerful Maori bloke who I
worked with when I lived in New Zealand. He had the surname of Gibbons. I can't recall his first name as nobody used it. Australians and New
Zealanders have a tendency to abbreviate given and surnames and sometimes put
vowels on the end because it seems to make them easier to say. I suppose
it comes down to laziness.
The Gibbo I knew in New Zealand was also a very nice bloke. I will refer to him as Maori Gibbo for the rest of this
yarn as opposed to the Canberra Gibbo. Maori
Gibbo and I worked on a building site near Karangahape Road in New Zealand in
early 1972, which was when I first lived in New Zealand. I was in my 20th
year at the time, aged 19.
Sometimes stray thoughts of Maori Gibbo come to me, and when we remember people we knew many years ago we tend to
imagine them looking like they did at the time. I still picture him as aged around 40, which to me is now relatively young. It dawned on me however that if he still has a pulse he would be in his 82nd or more year, (this was written in 2014) which means there's a good chance I missed his tangi.
I regret not having kept contact with Maori Gibbo after I
stopped working with him as we got on really well and I never thanked him for what he did. I am indebted to him because he kept me amused during
the 8 hour day, which made an otherwise extremely boring job far less boring than it would have otherwise been. He at times made it very enjoyable.
In elaborating; I never enjoyed most of the labouring tasks I was given on building sites. I did get some relief on the Auckland site when the cement trucks arrived and we had to carry concrete in wheelbarrows up planks, as the physical
effort got my endorphins pumping. Relief however, also came when Maori Gibbo entertained me. He had a very sophisticated sense of shit-stirring deadpan humour and was a great
raconteur. I would go out of my way to encourage his misbehaviour and we both pushed the
boundaries because of our shared need for stimulation.
Come lunchtimes Maori Gibbo would come out with yarns, and
many of them were about his mad Aussie mate. I believe every word he said. I was always able to pick a bullshit artist a mile
away, and his stories flowed and were consistently believable.
He also did not alter them in the slightest when they were retold. I often
think of the old Queanbeyan adage, “One can become a better dart player the
more one practises dart-throwing, but one’s skill in telling lies decreases in
proportion to the number of lies one tells.”
In regard to the subject of mad Aussies, there were a lot in New Zealand at the time, and I met several. At
that time Aussies and Kiwis could fly to each other’s countries without a
passport, which resulted in there being a constant exchange of criminals.
Australians who had the police on their backs would go to New Zealand to lose the
Aussie cops and New Zealand crim’s would fly to Australia to get New Zealand
coppers off their backs. Maori Gibbo’s Aussie mate fell right into the "Aussie criminal on the run" category.
I can recall one lunch time when Maori Gibbo had me in tears
of laughter after describing to us how he went to the beach with his mad Aussie
mate who swam right out into the sea. Maori Gibbo saw from the shore his Aussie
mate’s hand go up, giving a signal that he was in trouble and needing help. Maori
Gibbo immediately told a lifeguard, who swam out the great distance and dragged
the Aussie all the way into the shore.
The Aussie ratbag remained passive
during the whole procedure, but when he got to shore he said to the exhausted lifeguard,
“Thanks for that mate. I could have swum back by myself but I was a bit tired,
so I thought I’d get you to take me in.” The lifeguard went off his brain. It was a terrible thing
to do but I've always laughed at off humour.
Our lunch times were sometimes interrupted by an old Pakeha (A Pakeha in NZ is a Caucasian/indigenous European) pensioner named Brian, a WW1 veteran. I should have had more
conversations with the WW1 veterans I knew during my youth as they no longer
exist. I was told that Brian had had a very eventful life, although I never
asked him about it, but having
experienced the hell of WW1 there was no way anyone could say his life had been uneventful.He told me he had fought at Gallipoli and I presume his “all expenses paid overseas
holiday” also covered the battlefields of France.
Brian was hired for only a couple of hours a day to clean
the sheds and make the tea. He must have had a good brain and had used it a lot
during his working life because retirement obviously bored him shitless and he
craved stimulation that was more intense than cleaning out the sheds and making
the tea. For this reason he would sometimes pick arguments. I’m not sure if his
wife was alive at the time but if she was I would not have envied her.
One lunchtime Brian stood outside the shed which was used
by Maori Gibbo, a couple of other carpenters and several of us labourers. He pounded
on the door with his fists for no reason other than to get a reaction and to deliver us a menacing stare. In a light-hearted manner one of the carpenters said
to him, “Piss off you old cunt.” He replied with a scream; “You’ll be an old
cunt yourself one day!”
After rituals of that sort were complete he had our attention and would engage
us in some sort of conversation about work or life in general. He was a lesson
to me to the extent that I became aware of how important it is to keep the cogs
turning, and it is part of the reason I like to write.
Maori Gibbo, being a carpenter,
was once asked to do some sort of work on the corner of a temporary fence surrounding our
job and I was sent with a Samoan labourer to assist him. As we were on the outside of the fence and away from the
eyes of bosses I began mucking around doing stupid things with my
Samoan workmate, such as throwing things and catching them, without taking enough notice of the flow of traffic that was coming very
close to us from around the corner.
All of a sudden Maori Gibbo grabbed my stupid 19 year old body from
behind and pulled it violently off the road. I am glad he was such a
powerful bloke as well as a judoka, because his combination of power and
technique ensured I moved rapidly enough to miss a car I had not seen coming.
If it had not been for Maori Gibbo’s quick reactions I may not be writing about this episode of my life.
Sometimes Maori Gibbo would make models out of clay of people doing
things of an obscene nature and leave them at really obvious places around the site. He would also shape with clay very large penises and leave them in the same sorts of places. It may sound childish, but because he was very good at it and because he left his work in places where “important” visitors to the site were confronted by them we had many belly laughs.
Some of the
visitors took offence and it angered our bosses, but of course Maori Gibbo with
his deadpan expression said he knew nothing about his artwork. I think they suspected that
I was the culprit because I was less skilful at hiding the fact that I was a shit-stirrer.
Maori Gibbo would also throw mud at people walking past when they were
not looking in his direction. He would then return to his work with a deadpan
expression on his face and point in the direction of other people so he could blame
them for what had happened.
One day he threw some mud at a bloke a few years
older than me, a very large and well-built full-blooded Pakeha named Graham (who worked for a contractor) who always wore a Jackie Howe singlet despite him not being Australian. When Graham turned around Maori Gibbo pointed to me. Graham had a dirty look on his face but said nothing. He knew it
was Maori Gibbo who threw the mud but he would not have dared say anything to him
even though he saw no humour in the situation.
I had spoken to Graham on a few occasions before this and
had seen him interact with others. I could tell he was a classic bully and coward who would only pick on people he thought he could beat up. He thought he
knew his place in the pecking order and tried to exercise his position when
interacting with a smaller Pakeha labourer named Gerrard who had begun work with us. He
took an immediate dislike to Gerrard and began putting shit on him regularly for no
reason. I witnessed it happen a couple of times and I did not
interfere because Gerrard gave it back and Graham could not match his wit. I
could see by the way Graham walked and moved that he could not fight, and
having sparred briefly with Gerrard, who had done a fair bit of amateur boxing
as well as some judo, I was 99% sure that if things ever became physical
between Graham and Gerrard, Graham would come second
despite being significantly larger than Gerrard.
Yet despite having a quicker mind than Graham, Gerrard, who was a nice bloke, expressed his frustration to
me about the way Graham had been having a go at him and he told me he
wanted to bash him but was hesitant to do so because he did not want
to throw the first punch and be found guilty of assault. He had applied to be a copper and having no criminal record was
essential.
After Gerrard had told me about his frustration I unfortunately
put my voice into gear without checking with the brain and suggested to Gerrard
that the best way to set Graham up for a bashing and to not get into trouble would be for him (Gerrard) to
pretend he was scared of Graham so he could slowly build up Graham’s confidence
to the point where Graham would either begin swinging at him or
challenge him in front of others.
When that occurred, I told Gerrard he could either bash him on the spot in self defence or accept the challenge and meet him somewhere where they were by themselves, and bash him there. It was a tactic I had used on several occasions which I'd found to be a lot of fun, although it would not be a tactic I would use today as I am more conscious of the fact that there are alternatives and I have greater empathy than I had at that stage of my life.
The main reason I should have thought before offering such advice
was because had I have just shut up eventually Gerrard would have put Graham in his
place without having to use physical violence. Why this would have occurred is because under certain circumstances when there is friction between two young male humans who are without an audience they usually establish by way of the confidence they show or do not show who is the top dog without it coming to blows. Male dogs behave in a similar way, hence the expression. Of course it is all unnecessary because all people have to do is be civil and empathetic towards each other in the first place, and if there is a problem they should be able to talk things out. But that is not in the nature of many people and some people like Graham get a sadistic thrill by humiliating or physically damaging others. Sometimes they force us to play their games. Most humans have not gone beyond the level of dogs and other animals.
So, instead of staying out of it and letting nature take its course, I had encouraged Gerrard by telling him how he could go about getting away with giving Graham an unnecessary hiding.It took a while for me to learn to think
before opening my mouth, and I made a concerted effort to do so after I left that building site.
Sure enough the setup began to look like it was going to work. Gerrard pretended he feared Graham and the more he pretended to fear him the more abusive towards Gerrard stupid Graham became. Gerrard should
have been given an academy award for his acting ability. Where the plan went wrong was that eventually Gerrard tired of acting, and as he had
warrior genes he could only hold back for a certain amount of time. He had hoped that Graham would have thrown a punch at him or challenged him sooner, but it did not happen. Graham just continued to insult Gerrard and Gerrard's anger continued to increase.
Obviously it was going to come to a head, but when it did I was not present, although I did see the aftermath of the event and what occurred was relayed to me in detail by several observers. At the time it occurred I was trying to start my Indian Scout motorbike, as it was after knockoff time and it had been giving me problems due to it having an intermittent sticking carburettor float and an intermittent electrical fault.
The 1972 photo above shows me with my mate Blackie Blackburn from Wellsford who is on the back of my 1942 Indian Scout, which was the motorbike I was trying to start at the time Graham's interaction with Gerrard came to a head.
The incident occurred in the lunch sheds when Graham and
Gerard were getting their gear before going home.While
one was coming in and the other going out Graham called Gerard a nasty name, and
Gerard, who could contain himself no longer, walked up to Graham and delivered to him a very
hard slap across the face. Apparently Graham, who could see Gerrard's confidence and feel the weight of his slap, just stood there like a stunned mullet
and did not say a word.
I saw Graham walking off the site after the event. Half his face was red and inflamed but the whole of his face carried a sheepish and disturbed look.
Graham held his face for a while after receiving the slap and seemed to go into a state of shock.
It all turned out okay. Neither Graham nor Gerrard suffered
any permanent physical damage as a result of my advice, the bosses did not know about
what happened and Graham was put in his place. We never heard a peep out of
Graham after that, although I doubt the incident was enough to turn him into a good
bloke. He probably only tried to bully very old men, very young boys, quadriplegics and people with very advanced cancer after that, just to ensure the odds
were heavily in his favour should a physical conflict arise. There is no shortage of Grahams in this world. It’s such a
pity they are not sterilised once they become old enough to reproduce. Not long after the slap the owner of the company had a heart attack on the job and died before our eyes. I described the incident in “Tales of a Canberra Boy.”
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The last post on this site was in the form of a recent email from a mate by the name of Tony Quinn, who is visiting Thailand. In it he described what happened to him after he ate off seafood at a Thai restaurant. He is still in Thailand at the time of this post and I received the following true story from him in the form of another email on the 10/2/14.
Dave Wheeler 10/2/14.
A CANBERRA BOY IN THAILAND-A CONTINUATION FROM THE LAST POST
By Tony Quinn
Gooday you mongrel,
A mate of the Mrs rang yesterday morning to ask if we would like to go with her and her husband to visit a temple a couple of hours drive north of Bangkok on the road to Lopburi. I jumped at the chance as it had been several days since I had been to a temple (sarcasm).
They picked us up a few hours later and off we went. The temple is a large establishment and is a rehabilitation centre for drug addicts. Western drug addicts also reside at the temple. Evidently the hardest addicts to cure are the glue and petrol sniffers.
We spent quite a lot of time at the main temple as it contained some Buddha images and relics. There were a lot of coloured lights around a structure in front of the images. On closer inspection the structure was a large glass tank filled with water containing the body of a head monk who died 3 years ago.The head of the head monk, with its hair supposedly still growing, was pressed against the side of the tank. A live monk in the hall came over to tell us the details of the preservation of the body. Next to the tank was a bottle containing water with a yellow substance floating on top. The substance was fat from the dead monk's body! I was surprised that the body could be preserved only by using water.
The live monk told us how every so often he would drain the tank of water,remove the body and clean it up. He switched on his computer and showed us the various images of the body. He would remove the dead skin and dead finger and toe nails which he said would grow back. He obviously enjoyed his work as he had a big smile on his face. He also said there were another 5 bodies out the back in a similar state. It was like a house of horrors!
We left the hall and went to a different part of the complex where the abbot was. We sat with him discussing various topics (I could not understand a word as it was in Thai). The husband went and sat at a table and started eating a bowl of soup. He waved me over to join him. I hadn't eaten since I had a breakfast of oats and bananas so I was quite hungry. He was hoeing into the soup so I thought it would be okay. It was a grey, slimy gruel and floating in it was what appeared to be fish balls and raw chunks of liver. The fish balls ended up being bird's eggs. I ate about a third of the bowl. The stomach would not take any more.
We went back over and sat near the abbot and he gave me a ring with a precious stone attached plus a stone by itself. These he said would bring me good luck and good fortune. He then offered me a glass of water to drink. It was very cloudy-looking so I declined, saying I had a weak stomach. He said the water had healing powers and would cleanse my body of illness and injury. I still declined as the thought of my recent food poisoning was still in my mind. He assured me the water was okay and proceeded to dip his finger into it and dab the water droplets onto his tongue. Against my better judgement I lifted the glass and gulped the contents down. Maybe the water would cure my training injuries. The water tasted foul and I grimaced.
The abbot then told me where the water came from. You wouldn't believe this, but the water came from the tank containing the dead body! I was shocked! No wonder the water looked cloudy and tasted so foul! I didn't know what to say. I wondered how long it would take for the symptoms of cholera to appear.
The abbot then produced a bottle containing a dark brown liquid. The drug addicts drink it and it makes them vomit uncontrollably. It's part of the cure. I was tempted to take a swig.
Shortly afterwards we headed home. We stopped off for dinner at a restaurant but I wasn't in the mood for eating.
I have attached a photo of the abbot. The brown drink is to his right.
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Last week I received the email which follows this introductory rave from a mate, Tony Quinn, who is visiting Thailand. In it he describes to me what happened to him after he ate off seafood at a Thai restaurant. Tony is the same age as me, having been born in 1952, and like me was also raised in the Berra from an early age. He has been married to a Thai lady for over 30 years and usually visits Thailand with her annually. For the sake of his wife, who is a private person, I will not identify her. I have therefore removed his wife's name where he refers to her in his email and replaced it with "the Mrs."
Last time Tony was in Thailand, which was about a year ago, he went for a run in the jungle and came very close to being attacked by a large male monkey who stood in his path defending its territory. He hasn't had a lot of luck with animals. He's been the victim of attacks by goshawks while running in the Berra on two occasions. As a result he likes to run with me because it decreases his chances of being attacked by 50%.
Dave Wheeler 26/1/14
A CANBERRA BOY IN THAILAND
by Tony Quinn
The following is an email I recently received from Tony Quinn, a mate who is visiting Thailand.
Dave Wheeler 26/1/14
Gooday you mongrel,
We left Bangkok on Sunday and went south to a place on the coast called Cha Am. We stayed in a hotel which was very quiet and had a big pool. I could also run along the beach. I hired a Honda CRV and on Tuesday we drove further south to a place I can't recall the name of to visit a mate of the Mrs named Nataya.
I met Nataya a couple of times before and she thinks I'm really nice (good judge of character). She gave me a shirt last time we met. When she saw me this time she ran over and hugged me. She's very wealthy and owns a lot of properties. Her husband's been active politically.
She was a beauty queen in the 70's and the last time I saw her she looked okay for her age but this time she looked hideous. She obviously had plastic surgery on her face but something went horribly wrong. Her nostrils were pointing straight out like a pig's snout. It's a pity, because she's a nice woman but now advertises herself as being mutton doing a bad job of trying to dress itself as lamb. Why can't people just grow old gracefully? It's good to keep fit as you age but we can't do much about keeping our looks.
She took us to a restaurant for lunch and was so happy to see us she ordered beer after beer. As I'm a very polite person and didn't want to offend her I drank several glasses. The food was fried fish, crab, prawns, oysters, pork, noodles, etc. I was turned off when I was eating because every time I looked at her I could see a pair of nostrils staring back at me.
She told me I looked like a movie star but could not think of his name. I suggested it may be Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, George Clooney or James Bond. She said I was very handsome. I said "If you had a few more beers I would look even more handsome."
After lunch she wanted to show us some of her land holdings and insisted on driving the hire car. I was shitting myself as she was driving all over the road. I took over at an appropriate spot.
I wasn't feeling too good at that stage so we commenced the drive back to her place. I started to feel really sick. I had severe stomach pains and my bowels were moving. I pulled over to the side of the road, staggered around to the other side of the car, dropped my pants, and in a half squat position while leaning against the vehicle let fly. The shit flew out of me like a geyser and must have looked a great sight. The Mrs said she was lucky not to be standing behind me as it went about 2 metres. I wonder if Nataya still thought I looked like a movie star.
I remained in that position for about 15 minutes with multiple shits coming out. Unlike Australia the main roads in Thailand have houses and shops along them. It must have impressed the locals. To make matters worse the wife started yelling at me that I was getting shit all over my white RM Williams jeans (I wore them especially to impress Nataya). I was in no mood to listen to her claptrap so I summoned the last remaining bit of energy I had, to respond with "Get *******!
After shitting I was too weak to wipe my arse so the Mrs washed it with a bottle of drinking water. While still in the half squat position leaning forward and with much difficulty I started to pull up my now not so white RM Williams jeans trying hard not to expose my genitals in the process. This would have provided even more amusement for the locals. I crawled back into the driver's seat and continued on my way despite feeling sick, as I had no faith in the driving ability of either Nataya or the Mrs. The nagging started once again. This time the Mrs was complaining that I had spray-painted shit over the front passenger car door.
I only got about 10kms when I started to feel even sicker, so I pulled over to the side of the road again and had 3 vomits out of the car door.I felt a bit better and drove on, but by the time we had dropped off Nataya I began to feel sick again and we only just made it back to our hotel, where I had several more shits and many more vomits. I thought I was going to die. I could not even drink a mouthful of water but I later on managed a bit of green tea.
I felt a bit better in the morning so I did some exercises and went for a swim. I forced myself to eat some food and I didn't shit all day, although I had a severe headache and a hot forehead. I also felt my blood pressure was through the roof.
That night I forced myself to go for a 20 minute run along the beach and didn't feel any worse. I’m still not 100% and I'm looking forward to eating some decent food when I return to the Berra.
Regards,
Tony 26/1/14
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It was sometime in 1999 my elderly parents had a dispute with a bloke who lived over the road from them I will
call Robert; a tall skinny, balding bloke in his early thirties.
I won't go into details of their dispute other than to say I was of the firm opinion my parents were not at fault.
The above photo is of Mount Majura, which is where I made the bad mistake I have described in this yarn. It is also the scene for the song "Goanna Oil," sung by Raymond Crooke, which can be listened to free of charge on youtube by clicking
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W6FJEZd3RM . It is also where we spread the ashes of my mate, the late Geoff Fitzgerald, as described in the story entitled "Fitz and Mount Majura," which is on page 190 of "Takes of a Canberra Boy." The latter book can be downloaded free of charge by clicking on the appropriate button above.
It came to a head when my dad knocked on Robert's door after a certain event had occurred, which resulted in Robert screaming at my elderly cancer-stricken dad and physically assisting him off the
property by pushing him. Had he not screamed or pushed him I would not have got involved, but because my dad's personal safety had been threatened, and was therefore still under threat, I felt morally obliged to become involved. Getting assistance from the law would not have helped as it would have been difficult to prove my dad was pushed/assaulted because no injuries were made and there were no witnesses. The process would have also given my dad a lot of stress, which was something he did not need considering his age and condition. How I would ensure it did not happen again was a challenge for me in several ways. I thought the problem could only be solved with physical violence or a threat of physical violence, be it from the law or elsewhere. The universe operates as a result of physical violence, with superior forces always overpowering inferior forces, and it seemed to me human garbage like Robert would only change his cowardly ways if he thought his actions would result in his body being damaged or him being deprived of his liberty. I find the idea of bullying abhorrent under most circumstances having been bullied myself as a kid. If however, I was to bully a bully like Robert, who I could tell was as weak as piss for a bloke his age, could it be morally justified? When contemplating the morality behind using violence or threatening to use violence in certain situations I thought of the lobby groups who are strongly opposed to those who use violence as a form of control or to vent their wrath. These lobbyists recommend that violent people be dealt with severely with the full force of the law, particularly violent bullies, which is a blatant contradiction in their philosophy. Don't get me wrong; I agree that violent people should be dealt with by the law. Where I differ from most of the lobbyists I refer to however, is that I am fully conscious of the fact that when the law is used to punish or control the violent a form of bullying violence is used to accomplish the task. I refer to when states, by way of police forces, use their superior force to overpower people, or threaten to overpower people, and/or lock them up; sometimes for very lengthy periods. Violence is violence is violence, whether it is committed by the state within the law by way of a police force or an army, or whether it is committed by an individual illegally. It is up to us to decide when committing acts of violence can be morally justified, and in saying that I am referring to the morality of situations and am not encouraging anyone to do anything of an illegal nature. I worked on building sites in the Berra during my youth with many middle aged Germans, and almost all of them fought for Germany during WW2. These blokes were invariably very law-abiding and conservative and not at all violent in their day-to-day lives. Yet I wondered if they had learnt anything by the huge mistake they had made when they blindly followed the orders of the Fuhrer, their supreme authority figure during the war.
I don't know how many of the Canberra Germans were ex SS and actually performed atrocities on Jews, Poles, Gypsies, homosexuals, communists, etc, but supposing they didn't, and supposing they just fought for Germany during the war under the rules of war, that alone in my mind meant they committed acts of violence which could not be morally justified. I am not having a go at the Germans per se; as I believe most Australians would have done the same thing under the same circumstances, because most humans are sheep-like in nature irrespective of their race, nationality or creed. Hitler knew people were subservient to authority and took advantage of it. He was quoted as saying "The masses are blind and stupid." In or around 1971 a couple of mates of mine were thrown out of the German Club, here in the Berra. Of course there would have been many Germans there at the time who had fought under Hitler. My mates stood in the entrance and yelled out "We won the war! We won the war!" They then made machine gun sounds and pretended to fire upon the Germans inside. Okay, let's get back to where I was with Robert. I knew something had to be done about him and I knew the last thing I needed at the time was to get in trouble with the law while trying to solve the Robert problem. I was working for the ACT government in 1999 and I did not want to risk the sack.
So rather than confront Robert and launch straight into an act of violence or a threat of violence I decided to sit on the problem for a while, although I did not want to sit on it for too long. I'd been running up Mount Majura regularly (I still do today intermittently as it gives me great pleasure, even though due to my more advanced years I now run at glacial speed) and I thought I'd seen Robert up there on several occasions. I therefore also thought that maybe the opportunity to confront him may arise when there was nobody on the mountain but the two of us. I had also learnt through experience that sometimes one's brain can solve problems if it is allowed to work on them over time non-consciously, and I was hoping an answer to how I would deal with the Robert problem would "come to me."
Not long after making my decision to not make an immediate decision on the matter I was running up Mount Majura by myself and I saw in the distance a bloke I took to be Robert walking towards me by himself. I was about three quarters of the way up the mountain whereas he had been to the top and was walking back. I was placed in the sort of situation people are often placed in when they try to give up smoking or drinking or eating garbage food. They see the positives and negatives of each course of action or non-action and can feel a sort of cognitive dissonance if they cannot decide immediately in a single-minded manner the choice they should make.
I could have suffered in that way had I have not known how to handle such situations, as I had to balance the welfare of my dad and the welfare of myself. I had no wish to see my dad bullied again and I had no wish to be locked up and/or sacked from my job for committing an act of violence.
I was also aware however, that because we do not have contra causal free will Robert was not responsible for his actions in the absolute sense, which meant I did not feel as much animosity towards him as I would have had I have not been aware of him being no more than a collection of cells that had been involuntarily manipulated by the forces of the universe. This however, did not diminish a partial urge I had to slap him around and threaten him, as my paramount concern was my dad's welfare. Fortunately I am able to ensure I never suffer that sort of cognitive dissonance and am always able to make the sorts of decisions I was referring to in a single-minded manner. My philosophy as described in the book I wrote entitled "A Rationalist's Guide to Life" which describes how one can overcome the sort of cognitive dissonance described in the previous paragraphs is beyond the capacity of most people to understand. I shake my head when I see people paying good money to attend "boot camps" to make themselves exercise or when I see "give up" groups dedicated to assisting people give up smoking or overeating. They need an understanding of how the decision-making process works and how one is able to ensure one can make decisions in a single-minded manner and as such devoid of cognitive dissonance. This resulted in my approaching my quarry with no set plan. How I reacted would depend on how he reacted. I had the option of slapping him around a bit and applying a partial sleeper to his neck, making him think I was going to murder him at the time. I could then release him, then let him know what he was in for if he ever dealt with my dad the way he had again. But, as I have indicated, how I would react would depend on how he reacted, and I would make sure that whatever I did I could not be in trouble with the law.
So, while allowing the reptilian part of my brain to operate for a while I approached him. As I did my hands began tingling and I began to silently laugh to myself. I said to him in an appropriate tone of voice, “How’s it going
mate?” Aren’t you the bloke who lives over the road from my dad?”
In a shaking voice he said, “I think
you’re mistaking me for someone else.”
I asked him if he lived in Watson and when he told me he did not it struck me he seemed
too well-spoken for the inbred I had presumed he was. It also struck me
that the sort of person who exercises regularly does not usually fall into the
inbred/bogan category, which was the category Robert fell right into.
On top of all that I became conscious of the fact that I
have become a bit short-sighted as I aged, and for that reason I realised I may have made a dreadful mistake by thinking someone who looked like Robert was Robert. A sinking feeling hit me after a couple more seconds as I became fully aware of the fact that the bloke I had approached on Mount Majura was not the same bloke who had bullied my dad.
I felt like crawling under a rock, and that feeling could have continued had I let it. After I sincerely apologised to the bloke for mistaking him for someone else he did not say much and instead of continuing his walk he ran off. I have not seen him on Mount Majura since. I immediately continued my run up Mount Majura and did my best to savour the here-and-now rather than focus on the terrible mistake I had made. I focused on my breath, the wind in my face, the sun on my skin and the sound of the birds. Why people use drugs to sooth their troubled minds when such superior options are available is beyond me. Within a week of finishing my run I had a good close look at
the real Robert and I could see the physical differences between him and the bloke I had confronted on the mountain, but the differences were not great. Through sheer bad luck on my part they had very similar ages, physiques and degrees of baldness.
The mistake I made occurred because I was not sufficiently conscious of the fact that some people do have near doubles and my eyesight could no longer be relied upon for viewing things at a distance.
After the Mount Majura episode I made sure another event occurred
which resulted in the real Robert being motivated to stay away from my dad for the rest of my dad's life. My
dad had another 7 Robert-free years before his death at the age of 84.
FOR MANY MORE MAINLY CANBERRA-BASED YARNS HIT THE "HOME" BUTTON UP THE TOP.
Before discussing the new Canberra suburb of Crace I will say that Canberra has changed a lot since I first arrived at the age of 8
turning 9 in 1961. Although I am conscious of the fact that sometimes
when people look back in time they think of the positive things they
experienced and forget the negatives and thus give themselves a
false impression of what things were really like, I can’t
help believing that Canberra now delivers most people a poorer quality of life than it
did in my youth. I can back up my beliefs with some relevant facts.
Let's take housing and housing affordability. Buying a house
cannot be compared to the purchase of items such as jewelry or items
which have a limited use, such as electronic gadgetry. Having one’s own
territory is basic to our species, be it collectively or individually, and it
is something most humans have always had and something which usually improves a person's quality of life. And buying a house with a reasonably
sized backyard is something which was well within the reach of most Australians up until the mid 1990’s.
In 1982 a
basic 12 square house with a backyard of around 800 square metres in an outer
suburb of Canberra was easily affordable for most people, and this also applied
to most of the rest of urban Australia. During this time period a person earning around
$23,000.00 pa (which is what a tradesman would have earned on a 38 or 40
hour week or what an unskilled person would have earned for the same hours with
penalty rates) could buy a house of the latter description in an outer
Canberra suburb for around $46,000.00. Low interest government loans were also
available provided your income was not too high.
If you don’t believe me have a
look at 1981 copies of the Canberra Times where jobs and houses are advertised.
I know this to be the case because I bought such a house in 1981.
A tradesman
living in Canberra today would have to be on around $220,000.00 pa for such a house to be as affordable, because the same house I bought in Chisholm in 1982 (a modest 3 bedroom 12 square house without an ensuite on an 800 square metre block and still
located in an outer suburb) would sell for around $440,000.00.
Houses
were even more affordable in the 60’s, and people were often able to get 100%
low interest government loans to make them even easier to pay off. It was also easier to rent a government-owned house and they could usually be purchased with a 100% low interest government loan
after a couple of years of renting.
Govies also did not have the same stigma as they do today as they were not reserved for the very poor. I know several school teachers who were
living in government houses and who later purchased them with cheap government
loans during the sixties and seventies. There is no way a schoolteacher would be given a government house today.
Pig Iron
Bob Menzies, not long after the war when building materials became more easily
available, was determined to make the purchase of a basic house affordable for
all working Australians because he was of the belief that if people owned their
own houses it would stop the spread of communism. He achieved his goal, and
maybe housing affordability, plus virtually 100% employment due to our having high tariffs, did make people less politically active than they
would have otherwise been simply because life was easy and most people were satisfied with their lot.
(Menzies'
protectionist economic philosophy was a long way to the left of the left of today's Labor Party or today's Greens. High tariffs also reduced greenhouse gases considerably as it meant items had less distance to travel between producer and consumer.)
Today even houses with tiny backyards, such as are found in much of the Canberra suburb of
Crace, are far less affordable than a house with an 800 square metre block was
in the early 80’s. Some of the blocks in Crace are as small as 250 square metres
and I have not seen many larger than 550 square metres. About 450 square metres
seems to be the most common size, which is tiny relative to the size of most
Canberra blocks up until relatively recently.
(The issue of our having smaller blocks is very controversial and I can recall not long ago seeing signs advertising Crace which had been defaced by having the letters "Dis" sprayed on them before the name "Crace."
Having said that, presumably because it has so many tiny blocks, I was not surprised to read an article in the Canberra Times on the 17/10/13 which claims that Crace is second to Charnwood as the most affordable suburb in the ACT to buy a house, with the medium price being $392,308.00. Charnwood's cheapness can be explained by the fact it is an outer suburb and a previous administration made the enormous mistake of placing a large number of government houses in close proximity to each other, thereby increasing the crime rate. I am not sure how many govies there are in Crace or how the presence or absence of govies may affect the price of Crace blocks.)
We are now
seeing in Canberra continuing "infill” in an attempt to Gungahlinise the place
and thus ensure most residents will eventually be living cheek-by-jowl like
they do in much of Gungahlin.
Normal sized blocks anywhere in Canberra are now expensive, and as a
result pensioners who own houses in the inner suburbs like Braddon and
Ainslie are being forced to move out because they cannot afford to pay the
hefty land rates, which have risen at a far higher pace than the CPI.
POSSIBLE PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH LIVING IN A
HOUSE WITH A SMALL BACKYARD AND CLOSE PROXIMITY TO NEIGHBOURS
Our local
Liberal, Labor and Greens politicians think living cheek-by-jowl is great,
although probably only for people other than themselves. The main reason they like it is because when a given area of land is sold to a developer and the developer divides it into small blocks it will mean more revenue per hectare for the ACT government in the form of initial stamp duty, (even if stamp duty has been reduced), but more so in ongoing rates. As previously stated, land rates have increased at a far higher pace than the CPI and they are destined to continue on that path. It also means less costs in infrastructure.
One would think the Lib's by being in opposition
would have something to say, but they have always been in the pocket of big
business and they will also grab the revenue if they ever get into power, (which is unlikely because of the way they tried to reduce the pay and conditions of ACT public servants when they were in office).
The Lib's,
Labor and Greens also rarely speak out against the destruction of the buildings
I grew up with, and as a result I have seen Civic turn from a quiet and relaxed
place, where one could park easily for free, to an absolute sewer. The word “vibrant” is now used to describe the place, which I
see as a sickening euphemism for the words hectic, noisy and overcrowded. I do my best to avoid Civic and I think that if Walter Burley Griffin came back to life and saw how far Canberra has deviated from his plan he would vomit.
In regard to our loss of heritage and the matter of wastage, I’ve seen some very historic buildings in the Civic area destroyed over the previous 4 decades and I have seen on certain blocks 3 or 4 buildings erected and
destroyed during that period. Think of the energy that went into making those buildings and the CO2 that was produced with every rebuild! And it continues!
I believe most members of the ACT Heritage Council are a bunch of gutless wonders
because I see their stance as blatantly pro development considering what they
have knocked back for heritage listing, the Turner PCYC being an example. I have been told by what I believe is a reputable source that some Council members are on the take, but I am unable to provide any evidence to back that claim. Yet
even the ACT Heritage Council had their heritage listing of St Pat’s school in Braddon overturned.
I suppose the historic Northbourne Oval will be the next to go. The ACT government has recently announced that they may not open the Civic Pool again because of the extreme cost of fixing a leak. This is really insulting our intelligence. How gullible would you have to be to believe that? if they want to bring in the bulldozers and sell off the land why don't they have the guts to just say it? I wonder if certain ACT politicians are having their palms greased.
Where this is leading is to my being contacted by a person who is also concerned by the relatively recent trend in Canberra of building houses on tiny blocks, particularly in new suburbs, and with "infill." He believes the ACT government is trying to con us into believing that living like sardines will improve our quality of life (social engineering) and that we have no choice other than to accept smaller blocks for environmental reasons.
He sent me a link to a letter to the editor in the Canberra Times which described the new Gungahlin suburb of Crace as looking like “a new slum," presumably because it has a large number of very small blocks within it.
The writer was commenting onan article by Canberra Times journalist Emma Macdonald entitled "Search for World's Happiest Suburb starts in Crace, Canberra," which appeared on the 10/9/13.
Emma was reporting that a team of University of Canberra academics is attempting through the ''The Crace Study'' to find out if the communal design of Crace will have long-term benefits for resident's health and wellbeing. Apparently homes are built around communal and recreational areas and people regularly meet in places such as the communal vegetable garden. The article said in part “The world will be watching, with the World Health Organisation a keen observer of strategies that could be replicated in future suburbs around the globe.”
The letter-writer seems to be sceptical of the study, as was the person who sent me the clippings. The writer seems to suspect that the developer or the ACT government or some other body which may benefit financially from the project directly or indirectly may be funding the survey.
The letter-writer seemed to be implying that if this is the case the survey may not be done with open-minded detachment by the academics (it may be a con-job) and it may be a case of "He who pays the piper calls the tune," meaning whoever pays for the survey will get their preferred result.
And as I have suggested, the developer may benefit by being allowed to sell tiny blocks, but more so the ACT government by way of initial stamp duty and ongoing rates, given that the rates are increasing so dramatically and given that it would earn more per hectare in rates with tiny blocks than it would with normal sized blocks.
The letter also stated in part"I call upon these academics to assure us the research is not being funded by a developer, the ACT government or any other body which gains financially by selling as many blocks as possible."
At the date this story was first posted, the 22/10/13, I was not of the opinion that the academics tried to answer the question through the Canberra Times, although I was told by one of them at a later stage that they tried to answer the letter but the Canberra Times chose to not publish it.
Above is a photo of Crace's spacious housing, showing residents hugging each other and displaying a sense of community. How far would kids have to walk to kick a footy? I am sceptical about virtually anywhere in the Western world today being able to promote a real sense of community having experienced an early childhood without TV and then having seen how its introduction had such an adverse effect on Canberra's sense of community. This was brought home to me when I spent 3 months in Tonga and 4 months in the Cook Islands in 1975 prior to those places having TV or videos. People were far more likely to visit and talk to each other instead of vegetating in front of a box. Things have got progressively worse in the Western world in regard to the destruction of any sense of community with the introduction of multi-TV channels, mobile phones, the device I am using at the moment and other forms of electronic entertainment. These are the "bread and circuses" which stupefy people and allow them to continue to be shat on without them even realising it.
In relation to the Crace study, as well as asking some pertinent questions I will present what I see as some possible "confounding variables" which could arise when the results of the survey are known. I called upon the academics at the University of Canberra who are conducting the survey to email me by way of the above contact button and explain why the points I have raised may not be an issue. I assured them when this post was first published that I would publish what they have to say in full as soon as it came to my attention. I did receive responses to the concerns I raised, although they were not all answered. The concerns I outlined were as follows:
1/Who is funding the survey?I contacted Professor Helen Berry, who I believe is heading the study or is the head of the university's "Healthy and Sustainable Communities Research Program," and therefore possibly overseeing the study, about this matter. She assured me the study is not funded or undertaken on behalf of the developer, even though the developer provided a very small degree of in-kind support such as advertising the study on its website and printing information leaflets about the study for residents. She also explained that they have a written agreement with the developer asserting and assuring the independence of their research and that it was prepared with the active support of the developer.
She did not however, tell me who is funding the project, so I wrote back to her assuming it was not being funded by any body which may benefit directly or indirectly from the outcome of the survey, but she did not write back to me assuring me I was correct. And even if the developer is not providing a direct injection of funds to the survey is the assistance he/she/it is providing saving the university a lot of money?
Why I asked this was because I received from a mate an invitation he received to participate in the study. I am presuming it was sent by the developer and it offers those eligible to participate in the survey a chance to enter a draw for prizes if they participate.
What I was asking was that if we accept that the developer is not funding the study directly, if the developer was not promoting the study how would the University of Canberra have got anyone to participate? Would it have meant the academics had to knock on doors to get people to participate or pay others to knock on doors? Surely the developer's assistance would have saved them a lot of time and therefore a lot of money in the form of wages in this respect?
In summarising the point I was making, it may well be that the Uni of Canberra's survey is not being funded by vested interests, but if this is the case we need to be assured this is the case, because any study which is being funded directly or indirectly by a body which may benefit from a preferred result is not worth two bob. I say this because many people, including me, believe in the adage, "He who pays the piper calls the tune."
(I have since discovered Professor Berry was overseas when I first wrote to her, hence the delay in a response, and after having made contact with the UC their response to the matter of funding is shown at the base of this post).
2/I would have thought the survey would have been confined to those who have lived in Crace for more than a year in order for such folk to have been able to give a true opinion on the matter, but I am led to believe this is not the case and that even people just intending to purchase in Crace are allowed to participate. If I am correct how could such people know what it was like to live in Crace if they have never lived there? (Professor Berry bought in Crace, which should disqualify her from carrying out the study considering her property may rise in value if the study suggests the residents have an increased quality of life. I strongly suspect that would be her preferred result, and if so there would be a real conflict of interest).
3/ Those who live in Crace would be mainly those who have moved there by choice, as opposed to someone like me who would not choose to live in Crace. Therefore, it would be more than likely they will not speak as negatively about the place as someone like me who would not go there by choice. If this is the case the usefulness of the survey may be limited to the extent that it would not necessarily mean a broad cross section of Australia's population would enjoy living in a suburb designed like Crace even if the results indicated that Crace residents enjoyed living there.
4/ If people have put their life savings towards a house in Crace are they going to admit to themselves let alone those conducting the survey that their neighbourhood does not deliver them a high quality of life?
5/ Is the survey going to find the mean level of contentment of the varying categories of people who live in Crace, ie single people, married people, married people with and without children, people with and without pets, migrants from a variety of countries, retirees, all of the former who are either renters or house owners, etc, or is it going to gauge the level of contentment for each of a myriad of groups?
I say this because one person's hell can be another's paradise, and I can see for instance that someone raised in high-density London, Shanghai, Hong Kong or Calcutta would be more likely to find living cheek-by-jowl in Crace acceptable, whereas someone raised in Australia in a house with a normal sized backyard may be far less likely.
6/Is the same survey being conducted in older suburbs in Canberra with normal sized backyards where residents are able to keep dogs, throw parties, have their kids run around while they are being watched, plant fruit trees, etc, to compare the quality of life experienced between the suburbs? If not why not?
7/If I had just bought in Crace I would be aware that if the survey revealed that the residents of Crace were happier than anywhere else in Australia it may improve dramatically the value of my property. For that reason I would be tempted to tell the survey I loved the suburb even if it made me feel as miserable as a bandicoot. Has this question been addressed?
8/Given that so many Australians own dogs or would like to own a dog if they could, living in one of the tiny blocks found in Crace would ensure a moral person did not purchase a dog because in doing so it would be cruel to the dog and a pain for neighbours who would be in close proximity to its faeces and possibly its barking. This is not so much of a problem in suburbs which contain blocks of a normal size. With tiny blocks a dog owner would have to be waiting with a spade for his dog to defecate so he could pick up the faeces immediately after it was laid to ensure its smell was not inhaled by a neighbour.
I emailed Professor Helen Berry about this issue and asked her if they had consulted the RSPCA as well as the health authorities in regard to the keeping of dogs in Crace. She told me the survey was not focusing on pet ownership and they had not been in discussions with the RSPCA but she did not say why. This issue needs to be addressed because pet ownership is part of the Australian way of life, and when dogs are kept in small blocks the issues of hygiene and animal welfare are real.
9/Many Australians do not like to live near government housing. It is not my intention to discuss whether this is because of blatant unwarranted prejudice and snobbery or whether it is because many Australians rightly or wrongly believe that government housing tenants are more likely to have social problems and are as such more likely to be unpleasant to live near.
Australia's prejudices on this matter seems to be proven by the fact that privately-owned property adjoining or near government housing is worth considerably less than identical privately-owned property with little or no nearby government housing. For this reason it would seem that people living near government housing would be more likely to be dissatisfied with where they live than people who are not, and as such may be more likely to record a lower level of wellbeing.
In relation to Crace, I do not know what percentage of the houses are government-owned or how the government housing may be distributed. For all I know Crace may have no government housing at all.
Therefore, if the Crace survey is going to compare the level of wellbeing of Crace residents with the level of wellbeing of residents from other Canberra suburbs, it will need to establish how much government housing each suburb has on a percentage basis and how it is distributed. After doing so the survey would need to explain how the suburb's differences in government housing percentages and distribution and their differences in design were taken into account when comparing the levels of wellbeing of residents from each suburb.
In regard to the government housing tenants themselves, if they have a lower sense of wellbeing than other Australians because of them being on the lower rung of the socioeconomic ladder, it presents yet another reason for the survey having to take into account the percentage of government housing tenants in Crace compared to the percentage of government housing tenants in other Canberra suburbs.
I do not know if the Crace survey is addressing this issue or how it could be done.
IS THERE A CHOICE?
Okay,
let's forget about the question of whether the Crace project has any worth or whether it is a con job and instead ask ourselves if we have a choice other
than to live on small blocks. It is claimed that living cheek-by-jowl encourages energy efficiency and will help us save the planet from the
effects of CO2, but does it?
To answer that
I will first say that there is good argument to suggest that the old suburban
ideal of a quarter acre can already be very energy efficient if we can
disconnect from the power grid, water and sewerage services and grow our own veggies, which some people have already done. We already
have the technology to do so, and if batteries which do not wear out are ever invented there will be a rush to disconnect. Those who live cheek-by-jowl in Crace may not have the capacity to fully benefit from disconnecting
from all services should this technology become available.
The idea of
local communal reservoirs which collect rain water could also be a solution as could be the case for local power production such as by way of wind turbines or solar technology.
Since writing this post I have been told there was an article in the Canberra Times which maintained that the temperature in the older leafier suburbs of Canberra is around 7 degrees lower than the newer sardine-like suburbs during heat waves due to there being more vegetation around the older houses. If so imagine the amount of power the residents of Crace will use on their air conditioning compared to those who live in the older suburbs during the summer months.
The other
alternative of course is for us to not increase Australia's population, because in
doing so Canberra will grow far more slowly or not at all, and tiny blocks will not be necessary.
This however, would involve economists and federal politicians discarding their growth mantra in regard to the economy and population.(The Stable Population Party is the only political party which has done so, although no representative holds office). It would involve them accepting that nothing in the universe can grow forever, but unfortunately most politicians (other than the lone Labor voice of Kelvin Thomson) are too egotistical, bent or stupid to accept such a reality.
To explain how
we could jump off the growth train and alter our economic system to ensure we had full employment and were ecologically sustainable in the process
would require a book, although Ernst Schumacher goes part of the way in explaining how it can be done in his literature.
Of course Canberra could go it alone and and send a strong message to our federal politicians by simply not releasing anymore land, thus leaving it to the Queanbeyan Council to either take up the local overflow from our ridiculously high level of immigration or to go the same way as Canberra.
Our local Labor, Liberal and Green politicians, who are puppets to big business, would not be in it, although there is a possibility the Greens could eventually be pressured into taking such a stance, because in the eyes of true conservationists their "big Australia" stance makes them look like absolute hypocrites who care little or nothing about future generations of Australians. I know several ex Green members who have resigned because of the Green's gutlessness on this issue and many current members who are trying to change things from within.
UPDATE-26/10/13
I emailed our pseudo Green, Shane Rattenbury, who amongst other things is our minister for housing, on the 26/10/13. I asked his office if the ACT government is partly or wholly funding the Crace study. I was told the Crace study was not being funded by the ACT government either partly or wholly.
FURTHER UPDATE-5/11/13-
I had further communication with a person from the University of Canberra regarding the Crace Study who I will not name as I am paraphrasing what I have been told and I may get some information wrong.
I will now paraphrase what was communicated to me to the best of my ability.
I was informed by a person involved in the Crace study that the University of Canberra is preparing a "summary explainer" regarding sources of research funding and how they approach their possible influence on their practice. I was told the explainer will be made available on their website when it is ready and that their website is
In regard to general points I made in this post I was told that the UC takes the issues I have raised seriously as does the person I communicated with, and that the UC has numerous sources of advice and regulation to assist researchers, as well as being subject to national regulations around research and ethics and financial accounting, and that they are all publicly available. In addition to this I was told that general information about their research centre and projects can be found at the previously shown link to their website.
I was told that in addition to working with colleagues at the UC and other universities sometimes non-academic partners are involved when it is possible and appropriate. I was told this may include representatives of government, industry, the non-profit sector and other representative groups.
The view expressed to me was that research is better designed, conducted, interpreted and shared if undertaken with suitable partners.
In regard to the continual job the researchers have of sourcing funding for research when it is required, I was led to believe that until a fairy godmother appears all they can do is seek funding from a wide variety of sources, including research funding bodies, and that, as previously stated, the conduct of such relationships is governed by numerous regulations and guidelines and that the partners are usually governed by similar regulations of their own.
I was told the personal practice of the person in charge of the Crace study is to make the source of funding procedure overt and that that person conducts bonafide research and applies scientific principles at all times in order to design and conduct the research. I was also told the interpretation and publication of research findings is not negotiable and made clear.
In relation to the Crace Study, I was told that it has received no direct financial support at all from any source.
FURTHER UPDATE 4/10/16. If the questions I have raised were answered on the previously shown link to the Crace study website, as I was told they would be, I could not find where they were answered. Actually it took me to a Canberra Uni log in. I presume the site no longer exists. If I am wrong and the study and site still exist I am happy to publish the details of any update should someone in the know care to contact me. I strongly doubt I will be contacted.
FURTHER UPDATE 31/3/17 On the ABC TV program on the 31/3/17, “ The Link”, Professor Helen Berry was interviewed about the Crace Study by Stan Grant. I think Stan did an appalling job as a journo in regard to the questions he asked. He had no hesitation in getting stuck into Dick Smith last week regarding Dick wanting to stabilise our population, why did he not at least play the Devil’s advocate with Professor Berry? As Professor Berry owns property in Crace why did he not ask her why she did not disqualify herself from the study and instead study somewhere else, given that her property value is likely to rise if the research indicates the people in Crace are happier than elsewhere? Surely there is a conflict of interest there? If someone studied the health benefits of avocados and he had a large avocado farm is he likely to be objective? Studies like that are not worth two bob. Why did Grant not question the idea of Crace being designed to improve people’s wellbeing, as is the claim? It seems obvious to me Crace was designed to get as many blocks as possible into a given area of land to maximise the developer’s profit and to increase government revenue through stamp duty. I also noticed professor Berry has an English accent. Most English live in built-up high density areas. If this was how Professor Berry lived when she was in England she may enjoy living like a sardine and it may be why she chose to live in Crace, but that does not mean Australians who were raised on their quarter acre also block feel that way. I look forward to reading the results of the Crace study and seeing if any of the points I have raised have been addressed.
Above are cheek by jowl dog boxes that are being made in Molonglo (September 2016), probably from a lot of prefab Chinese material. What an existence! Who wants to live like a battery hen?
Below is a photo of Hong Kong. The lowlife that governs the ACT (Labor, Canberra Liberals and Greens) would love to see us live like they do in Hong Kong. It would be really "vibrant."
PLEASE WATCH THE EMBEDDED YOUTUBE CLIP BELOW. IT SHOWS WHAT CANBERRA WILL PROBABLY BECOME WITHIN THE NEXT 50 YEARS.
FOR MANY MORE MAINLY CANBERRA-BASED YARNS HIT THE "HOME" BUTTON UP THE TOP.
