gg@gordongregory.net – Page 6 – Gordon Gregory's blog

Life transformed?

In which it is explained how the arrival of a grandchild and contemplation of dysfunctional garden shears are combining to have me keep the garage tidy.

My first grandchild was born in Melbourne in July. This led to me tidying the ‘garage’ where all the tools and other gardening stuff are kept; my bedroom; the writing desk in the front room; many pot plants; and the family photo albums. It also led to a renaissance of the front garden, and a sudden change in its profile as compared with the back where all the potted flowers are.

It happened this way. The grandson’s mother and father came to Canberra for three weeks as soon as it was permissible to travel from Melbourne. His uncle – another son of mine – also came for that period so as not to miss out on the new class of family engagement now possible. (He suffers from acute FOMO.)

The stage was therefore set for major tasks: what might be called ‘outside infrastructure works’ rather than just the watering of the pot plants, picking up leaves from the prolific laurel, and other light maintenance. One of the boys did some of his real work from home while the other, the grandson’s dad, was on long service leave and therefore able to concentrate fully on these infrastructure tasks when not helping to care for the infant.

A new washing machine was bought and installed. Extra cupboard shelves were designed and built. A tumbler composter found its way into the front garden along with two raised garden beds expertly constructed by the boys. Work continued all the while on the Garden Art.

The strange thing was that, after the Melbourne team had left, I was possessed, quite uncharacteristically, of a drive to tidy up messes with which I had been living for 30 years and more. Most challenging of all were the garage:

garage before one.JPG — **Figure 1 The garage, ‘before’**

– and the verge on the roadside out the back:

However I was not daunted by the size of the challenge, as the ‘after’ pictures below show:

garage after again.JPG — **Figure 3 The garage, ‘after’**

In the course of the immense amount of tidying up done I came across a number of interesting artefacts, including the (now iconic) oil can dating from before the Second World War with the stylish dint in it:

And there were keys – more keys than in a locksmith’s shop – a clockface-full of secateurs, and interesting garden shears.

The cunning thing about the design of these shears is that when the blades are brought close enough together to cut anything, the space between the two handles is insufficient to accommodate two hands or fingers. The result is a crushing feeling and cutting of an undesirable kind.

Another pair of shears I re-discovered is ‘Jake’, whose deficiency is more apparent than that of his cunning cousin. When you least expect it Jake can fly off the handle.

sheers 1.jpg — Figure 8 Dysfunctional sheers #2 (Jake, who takes you by surprise)

As you can tell the tidying exercise turned up many reminders of times past. In part it was an audit of things kept for 30 years because of the ‘you-never-know-when-something-just-like-this-might-come-in-handy’ syndrome. By which I have been much affected.

The surprising thing is that it happened at all. I now have nuts and bolts in one container and large screws and small screws in two others. And my collared shirts are separated in the wardrobe from my t-shirts.

These things may or may not last. But I will always be a grandpa.

Sarah and Fergus.JPG — Figure 9 **Sarah and Fergus**

Sarah Fergus int bath.jpg — **Figure 10 Bæth time**
Note: æ is the phonetic symbol for a short ‘a’. Sarah is from north of the line across England that separates those who bæth from those who bɑ:th.

Sarah grass art.JPG — **Figure 11 Grass art (a work in prograss)**

Season’s greetings from 35 years ago

Some of my time is still spent tidying papers in what is called The Shack here at home in the ACT. For whatever reason I find it impossible to throw away papers I have collected and stored, some for many years. A timely find, given the arrival of the 2021 New Year, is a handwritten document headed The Season’s Greetings, dating from early 1986. It is reprinted here without amendment (or apology).

The Season’s Greetings

We had a bag of pears today from Mrs Cole. Packham’s I believe. Pears with a few blemishes; odd sizes; in a plain plastic carry-bag. And I realised how far away from our everyday lives were fruit trees: the days at Kentucky when we were surrounded by orchards, and at Beardy Street where we had a nectarine right at the picture window; those things have changed.

Our address is no longer Beardy Street for those who are uncertain. We now have traffic of almost metropolitan proportions at our front windows and, at the back, one tree. Were it not for the pears we would hardly know it’s autumn; the tree is an evergreen (Laurel?).

Mrs Cole is a symbol of our new life: a much-needed new friend of the older generation, a potential babysitter, a neighbour, a Canberra dweller. So she has to take on the roles previously played by Ella, Pearl, Reg and Daisy, and Eileen. The home-based one of the couple is of course the one in greatest need of a Mrs Cole; the other has workmates and non-family distractions. The need for these is substantial: Parri is it that frightful age – big enough to reach, not old enough to teach – cute to look at briefly, sticky to hold. Tadryn, according to Alpha, is in a phase of pleasant disposition; characteristically, nude. Pella and Tauri seem to me to have swapped dispositions, she now fractious, rude, disobedient, he quite a reasonable pleasure to be with. And he’s as brown as a berry too, and already has the sort of shoulders I’ve been trying to develop for 40 years.

I was trying for three months to swim two lengths underwater. The week after I finally did it, one of Tauri’s friends did three lengths without any trouble. He wets his bed at night though.

Canberra is the most expensive city in Australia: food and housing, mainly. We were paying $125 per week for renting a 4 bedroom place for the first three months; hated the agents – especially the agents! – hated the house, hated the garden: dark and soggy. Our mortgage on this place is the same weekly rate. The pool, the spiritual centre of the house for the duration of the warm weather, is at the very back and properly secluded. (I do, Alpha doesn’t.)

Tauri and Pella attend Hughes Primary School, located some 150 yards down from our house. There are shops there too: garage, chemist, supermarket, fish shop, bottle shop. Buses go past our front door,- several in an hour during rush hours! – one way to ‘the city’, the other to Woden, the shopping centre which dwarfs ‘the city’ in shops although not in office buildings, hotels/motels or civic places.

One of Canberra’s characteristics is unpeopled civic places; grey be-fountained squares, mini-Soviets, with flagstones untrodden and seats unbummed. This because it seems to be a car city, whether because of its design or its people I’m not certain. Out of your car, into your workspace; out of your car, into your home. As one would expect of a car city, the network of roads is magnificent: large roundabouts, dual carriageways and, on some, an additional fast bus lane. And traffic lights! – Oh those traffic lights.

We had the house done last week for fleas, ants, bugs, vermin et cetera; Parri is still here. As well as the vermin, the house has a number of special effects such as we haven’t had before: heaters in several rooms, exhaust fans in kitchen and shower, a second toilet and shower (en suite – off our bedroom), variable light in the living room, and fly screens.

Alpha is soon to become an Australian citizen, without having to renounce Canuck-ship. The ACT Education Authority, for which our bank manager thinks she should work, is part of the Federal public service, for which Strine Cinship is a sine qua non. Such aspects of status are no bar to home-based preschool music activities, which are due to start next week.

Editorial comment.

The piece is a reminder of the relative luxury to which we moved when we left Beardy Street in Armidale: some house heaters – and a variable light switch in the living room, which is unchanged to this day! The final paragraph is outstanding in its significance for it marks the beginning of Alpha’s Pied Piper work which became a core activity until 2020. Also significant is the fact that, as yet, there is no work with choirs mentioned. It is notable that at the time the ACT was part of the Federal jurisdiction, not an independent political entity. The swimming pool remains central to the residents’ feel for the home – perhaps Brad would enjoy reading this piece?

On the nature of giving – and the giving of Nature

As a number of people know, I have had a serious long-term relationship with cowslips (Primula veris). Some of the background to this unrequited fascination is revealed in a piece posted to my blogg (www.aggravations.org) on 24 July 2016: The tale of a cowslip, in which I reveal “my love of cowslips and a new-found admiration for civil engineering earthworks”.

Visiting the UK in 2011 we happen upon a very small clump of cowslips in a suburban gateway. I insist on photographs.

Later on during that same trip those first photos become immaterial. I cause some confusion for other drivers at a junction near Shepton Mallet (Babycham anyone?) by circumnavigating a roundabout on which grows a fine crop of cowslips guarded by a flock of concrete sheep.

Leicester? Dorset? Hampshire? No: Shepton Mallet, Somerset

When one is on a holiday, as I then was, one of the matters that can cause anxiety is remembering to take a gift for those of your family and friends who are on the nearside of a notional line separating those in the must-get-a-present set from everyone else.

When it comes to the giving of gifts it seems to me that there are two stand-out types. One – in my experience the majority – get around to the job late in their time away or on holiday and then carry it out with a sense of duty, trying to match a gift with what they believe the recipient might find amusing. As long as it fits into the carry-on bag. (Hands up those who remember the carry-on bag.)

How I wish I was in the second notable type: the Great and Thoughtful Givers. They seem to carry round a sort of mental spreadsheet, specifying each friend’s particular quirks and interests. This database is close to the top of their consciousness and regularly accessed. Set this person down in a second hand bookshop, at a garage sale or in an antique shop and they seamlessly make the connection between an object they spot and the person in their network, family or friend, for whom it would provide pleasure.

I am lucky enough to be in the network of one of the very best of the Great and Thoughtful Givers. The captain of the team.

However the particular incident recorded here was not of the antique shop variety; rather, it was Internet-assisted. Knowing of my harmless obsession as well as my birthday, this person searched the Internet for an Australian source of cowslips. Perhaps surprisingly a nursery in Queensland came up trumps. (allrareherbs.com.au)

While researching this story it has come to my attention that a Ms S. of Queanbeyan sourced a cowslip or two from Lambley’s in Ascot near Ballarat in Victoria, which seems much more likely (info@lambley.com.au).

Anyway, for my birthday I was presented with a small, green soggy mass, somewhat seaweed-like, in a minuscule plastic container, with the clump itself surrounded by what appeared to be damp blotting paper and protective layers of cardboard and string – also damp.

It was a thrill to see the plastic tag specifying the entity’s apparent botanical form:

[I’ve tried every which way to take a sharp photo. It’s small.] Attractive English wildflower. Tea from the whole plant, particularly the flowers, is sedative and pain relieving. Cool position, protected and partly shaded. Perennial; 0.3m x 0.25m.

But such was the unprepossessing nature of the item that it seemed likely that hope and trust would fail to triumph over any probability of a future life. ‘Unprepossessing’ is a gentler description than spindly and forlorn-looking.

Anyway it was set into one of my best little ceramic pots and placed gently down in first one and then another spot near the back door considered ‘highly desirable’. Time passed, as do the season’s blossoms. Such was the lack of change in the condition and countenance of the item that some days came and went without me stopping and stooping to inspect it. To all intents and purposes it was sometimes forgotten!

About a week ago, on Tuesday 6 October 2020, the miracle happened:

One should never doubt the resilience of nature and the power it has over us mere mortals, sometimes exercised in a pernicious fashion. But together with Nature we can do miracles. And humankind isn’t all bad. Some have in their own nature the capacity to think kindly of those they know and to brighten the world with little parcels of goodness.

Beneath Swan Lake

It seems an odd place for a favourite coffee shop. It’s on the edge of a small shopping centre dominated by the branch of a major retail grocery store and the new office block or car park being built next to it. There is a small square, 20 paces by 20 paces, and the coffee shop backs onto a veterinary surgeon’s premises.

The coffee shop itself is somewhere between unpretentious, untidy and trendy. The coffee seems good – but I’m no expert. It’s on a busy road, with the bus stop within spitting distance and a church on the other side of the road. “Refugees are welcome here.”

It’s just a reasonable bike ride from home, requiring sufficient effort to feel deserving about a coffee once there. I bonded further with place when I took part in a working bee to plant some seedlings and bulbs – part of the floral bounty distributed this year to suburbs in all directions under the banner of Canberra’s Floriade which was abandoned in its usual form months ago due to COVID.

The de facto manager of the working bee encouraged me to claim one of the half-whiskey barrels as my own – in the sense that I could plant it out. I check on ‘my’ barrel occasionally and compare it with the six or seven others. I must have planted my tulip bulbs a little deeper than some of the other volunteers because mine are slow to appear.

I FaceTimed Pella in Sydney and gave her a tour of the various planters. Most of them are coming on well but one of them looks very sad indeed. I can’t help wondering what happened. Was the fertiliser forgotten? Did the people on the watering roster forget it? Did a volunteer under-perform?

Another lunchtime in the early spring sunshine. The wind is from the south, cold but subdued. There is so much traffic I can’t hear myself shiver. A bus pulls up and to my surprise there are a few people aboard. I suck on my takeaway cup, trying not to feel guilty that it’s single use.

I try Pella for a catch-up but there’s no answer.

A single leaf is blown towards me across the red brick pavement. The wind stops and the leaf assumes the attitude of a swan on dry land – the arch of the neck perfectly framed and proportioned. Another blast of cold and the leaf roles over twice, only to reassume the swan’s neck position as if to give me a second chance. Three of four times it moves, until, convinced, I pick it up. It’s as dry as a crisp and it seems certain that it must break. Nevertheless I push it gently into the pocket of my high-viz cycling coat.

Having completed the shopping for home, as much as I can accommodate in my pockets, I head off. The swan is almost certainly being crushed by a plastic sleeve of dill on its way to our kitchen.

She proves surprisingly resilient. I reunite her with the water needed to complete the illusion, in a white cereal bowl.

Here she is for you to see again.

And here are her sisters waiting for their chance. It’s a competitive business this ballet of Nature.

Facebook is a friendly foreign country

Being on Facebook is like being away alone at a favourite holiday spot.

You’re very familiar and comfortable with the place; many of the other guests are people you Like. You have at least a passing familiarity with all of them. And just a few of those knocking about are by now close acquaintances with whom you’ve been sharing nodded greetings for years. And with some of that smaller number you’ve had a drink at the bar or a ramble on the mountain. Just now and then there are new people around who presumably have just discovered the well-kept secret that is your preferred bolthole. You nod a hello.

It’s a place one can still get to, despite the pandemic. No travel restrictions, no borders.

But if you go there alone, part of ‘Who You Are’ will be unknown to those of your family and friends who don’t go there. The more time you spend abroad in that friendly country, the more of you will be hidden from their comprehension.

Where one’s immediate family is concerned, if they aren’t on Facebook spending time there yourself may seem like a betrayal: one is choosing to be away from them. They will have no idea of the existence of You Abroad nor know the purpose or outcomes of your time spent there. Perhaps they are entitled to ask: “Who did you see? What did you think? What did you do?”

The force of this fanciful syndrome was brought home to me just recently. Alpha, who is risk averse, called me out for having divulged her Facebook and email addresses to the public by posting them on Facebook. This is a person who, advised by a close friend who works in cyber security, shreds separately any printed material that shows our address; and who, despite very little scientific evidence about the value of it, wipes down with a detergent solution everything that enters her kitchen. (Should you be invited to dinner, please be aware that you might be met at the door with an abundance of caution – a phrase for the times.)

Anyway, I could not for the life of me recall having transgressed in this fashion. So, like a self-obsessed archaeologist, I set about hunting through past postings on Facebook to see when and why I had committed this wrong.

It was quite frankly fascinating to skim what I have posted since I started on 1 July 2016. The first post was a long piece (hah! the pattern was set!!) about rural health in the Federal Election. [The five ‘Likes’ of that first post were from friends who are still spending time in our secret place today. You know who you are: Rachel, Viv, Anne, Denny and Steve. And thanks for the company.]

(That’s me down there – in white – at the top of Red Hill. The restaurant top left on nearer horizon.)

With the digging down I found reminders of a few special occasions and of many ordinary ones. There were everyday walks, cycle rides, and pottering in the back garden in all weathers but enjoying in particular the colours and the rude, unbridled energy of the four past Springs. I was impressed, not by any quality of the works or by insights they provide to my way of the world, but just by the evidence of how much time and energy I must have put into this Facebook anthology. I’ve been away from home a lot.

People in your network who don’t follow you will have an incomplete impression of who and what you are.

This includes members of your immediate family. There are seven in mine. One of them eschews interaction with Facebook entirely and always has done. Three are occasional users. One uses the platform but not for reading anything posted by family members. And two are avid, interested and Friendly.

So just imagine the varied volumes of evidence they must have about my meanderings! When they all gather to farewell me after the Last Post, they will have different levels of comprehension of me. Some of them should recall the brief moment when the question “How Green was Trevally?” gave the sort of insider pleasure in which one’s personal family should all share. They will have a more detailed view of walks on Red Hill and celebrations of the shortest day.

Fishy business to enjoy one’s own jokes –

Perhaps that final farewell should be in two parallel parts: one for those whose knowledge and understanding of who I was includes information and clues from my time Abroad; the other for those who knew me only from the personal interaction we had. Or those in attendance could be divided in two, as at a wedding: “Facebook friends this side madam; Busy People and technophobes to the right”.

So what did I discover about the publication of my wife’s email address? I had to trawl back to 26 January 2018 to find the offending article. It celebrated the news that Alpha had been awarded an OAM for services to music in the ACT. The post received 79 comments. It has now been edited to omit Alpha’s email and Facebook contacts.

Not long after I had finished this archaeological dig, I received an unsolicited offer to produce (for “a very reasonable price”) a hardcopy book in full colour of selected bits of my Facebook posting history. Perhaps it was coincidence or, more likely, a flag goes up when someone reaches back into their postings and some entity spies a commercial opportunity. I didn’t mind – in fact I bought one of those books a few months ago. It now sits on what used to be called the coffee table in the front room. It lies there like some secret repository of time spent guiltily overseas, away from the nest.

Perhaps I should stay home, locked up in my native country. But being abroad and alone frees the imagination, widens the view, and outreaches the horizons.

Ovid in a time of COVID: 19 timely quotes from the Roman poet – with dedications as appropriate.

1. Dedicated to people in ‘lockdown’ – wherever they are.

Dolor hic tibi proderit oli.

Be patient and tough; some day this pain will be useful to you.

2. Dedicated to antiviral drug and vaccine researchers:

Mille sint mali mille salutis erunt.

There are a thousand forms of evil; there will be a thousand remedies.

3. For those in public health agencies:

Qui non est hodie cras minus aptus erit.

He who is not prepared today will be less so tomorrow.

4. For Dan Andrews:

Requiescendum; dat ager uberrimam segetem requievit.

Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.

5. For Treasurers and managers of science agencies:

Principiis obsta; sero medicina paratur
Cum mala per longas convaluere moras.

Resist beginnings; the remedy comes too late when the disease has gained strength by long delays.

6. For everyone:

Qui nolet fieri desidiosus, amet!

Let the Man who does not wish to be idle fall in Love!

7. For researchers of the effectiveness of lockdown:

Nil adsuetudine maius.

Nothing is stronger than habit.

Nothing is more powerful than custom.

8. -and another:

Quod male fers, adsuesce, feres bene.

Habit makes all things bearable.

9. For children:

Casus ubique valet; semper tibi pendeat hamus
Quo minime credas gurgite, piscis erit.

Chance is always powerful. Let your hook always be cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be fish.

10. For Albo:

Medio tutissimus ibis.

You will be safest in the middle.

You will go most safely by the middle way.

11. For social media enthusiasts:

Causa latet, vis est notissima

The cause is hidden; the effect is visible to all.

12. For Joe Biden:

Fas est et ab hoste doceri.

It is right to learn even from an enemy.

We can learn even from our enemies.

13. For Barnaby:

Quod licet ingratum est. Quod non licet acrius urit.

We take no pleasure in permitted joys.
But what’s forbidden is more keenly sought.

14. For cultural warriors:

Nam genus et proavos et quae non fecimus ipsi,
Vix ea nostra voco.

For those things which were done either by our fathers, or ancestors, and in which we ourselves had no share, we can scarcely call our own.

15. For Scomo and Paul Fletcher:

Et ignotas animum dimittit in artes.

And he turned his mind to unknown arts.

16. For BLM:

Gutta cavat lapidem

Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.

17. For people of hope and good will:

Omnia mutantur, nihil interit

Everything changes, nothing perishes.

18. For Dan Tehan, Minister for Education:

Adde quod ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes
emollit mores nec sinit esse feros.

Note too that a faithful study of the liberal arts humanizes character and permits it not to be cruel.

19. For realists everywhere:

Laudent ceteri olim; ego sum laetus ego eram natus est in illis.

Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these.

[Source of quotes: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ovid]

leanne@ruralhealth: the woman behind the email address

It was the end of an era last week with Leanne Coleman’s departure from the National Rural Health Alliance (NRHA) to work on the staff of Kristy McBain, MHR, the Member for Eden-Monaro.

For a quarter of a century people involved with the health and well-being of those who live in rural and remote Australia have been receiving messages from leanne@ruralhealth.org.au. Thousands upon thousands of people have been provided with information from that source about events related to improving rural health and well-being. The information has been provided in good time, with precision and, continually, with an inclusiveness based on Leanne’s polite indifference to the status or position of people who care for – or might be persuaded to care for – the well-being of those in danger of being left behind simply because of where they live.

This natural ability of Leanne to deal with all people in the same open, respectful and task-oriented fashion, irrespective of their formal status, was first observed when she worked in the office of John Kerin in Parliament House. In her time on John Kerin’s staff, Leanne served as Personal, Cabinet and Appointments Secretary.

In that last position she was required to manage the Minister’s diary; arrange travel and accommodation for him and his staff; and organise meetings. Following the Minister’s decision, it was Leanne’s job to inform people and to make all of the arrangements for a meeting to happen – or not, because there were always more requests than could be met. As Minister for Primary Industries and Energy, John Kerin undertook an immense amount of travel, both within Australia and overseas. His diary was a thing of great logistical complexity, especially as he liked to be in his electorate in south-west Sydney for the party’s branch meetings on Monday nights.

Flowers from Helen, designed by Catherine

John Kerin was one of those who attended a celebratory dinner last week to recognise the value of Leanne’s service to him and, even more so, to the people of rural Australia during her 25 years at the NRHA. By the time she joined the NRHA this young woman from Queanbeyan had become a mature and valuable asset to any organisation with administrative complexity and the aspiration to grow its effectiveness, its policy footprint and its contacts database.

It would be quite unfair to equate Leanne’s email address with the woman herself. But the reality is that many thousands of people who have never met her face-to-face have had the opportunity to contribute to better health for rural people because of Leanne’s networking abilities. And her main means of communication, since its arrival on the scene, has been email.

In her later years at the NRHA her substantive job was as Manager of Programs and Events, a position she took over from Lyn Eiszele, from whom she learned the ropes of professional conference organising. In this capacity Leanne was responsible for every aspect of the administration, promotion, budget and (in conjunction with the NRHA’s policy staff) professional content of the biennial National Rural Health Conference. This is the NRHA’s largest and most important project and Leanne has played a key role in building and maintaining the reputation of the event, both for its contribution to professional developments in rural and remote health, and for its culture. Leanne was also responsible for leadership of the Conference team of staff and volunteers.

The Conference has won awards for education and for social responsibility and through Leanne the NRHA has provided advice and support on conference and event management to other like-minded organisations.

But Leanne’s effective leadership and management of the conference and other meetings is put in the shade by her roles with the NRHA’s social media presence and content. Leanne almost single-handedly invented, grew and managed the NRHA’s Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Youtube activities. While other members of staff were busy tending their own gardens, Leanne – recognising the potential value of the new platforms and methods to an organisation like the NRHA – just got down and did it.

Friends of the Alliance is a group of people and organisations who know the NRHA well and seek to support its work. So its members are people who will not only recognise the email address but will have had sufficient contact with the real Leanne to recognise her unique qualities and to value her friendship. They are among the lucky ones.

Our recent dinner in Canberra – appropriately socially distanced and with only a small amount of singing – was testament to the high esteem in which those who know Leanne hold her. Two past Chairpersons phoned in to thank Leanne for her service. And Warren Snowdon, on a dodgy phone link from Alice Springs, recognised that the greater challenges posed by engagement with people in remote areas and Aboriginal communities were never too much for her.

John Kerin braved the unlit external stairs at the venue to reflect on Leanne’s time well-served in his office; and the bolder or more loquacious of her NRHA colleagues, past and present, who we could fit into the COVID-restricted space, ventured various warm opinions as to her contributions, work ethic and manner. Frank built a nice slide show with photos from meetings, conferences and Christmas parties. The opportunity to contribute at the dinner was missed by many ex-colleagues who were unable to be out or could not be accommodated.

Simon, Jenny and Dave aka 60%of Skedaddle

Photography for the evening was in the hands of Janine Snowie, much loved by RAMUS scholars everywhere and by her colleagues at the NRHA.

For me the happiest tenor of the views exchanged at the dinner was that while the NRHA and rural people around the nation will miss Leanne a great deal, their loss is Eden-Monaro’s gain. The point was aptly made by Kristy McBain, Leanne’s new employer, who also phoned in her best wishes. Kristy was met with threats from around the table to pull her arms off if she fails to look after Leanne.

I’m sure she won’t fail. Together the two of them will be part of a great team.

Postscript

We are warned these days that everything one commits to digital communications can be accessed and seen by hackers and other cybersecurity experts. I have come up with a way that secret or intimate information which one wishes to remain confidential can be conveyed from one individual to another. This is an exciting prospect – and one which offers both a commercial opportunity and the prospect of hundreds of jobs. See what you think.

Postscript: When all of our communications are digitised, impersonal and readily available to any party skilled in cyber-insecurity, it occurs to me that there might be a commercial opportunity arising from people’s occasional need for communication which is characterised by certainty that the information is being transferred in confidence from a point-source to a limited number of point-recipients selected by the source. Imagine, for example, the situation in which one person (the point-source) wanted to communicate personal information (of any sort) to one receiver: a one-to-one communication. Rather than following the usual protocols relating to transmission of digital information by satellite technology, through selected encrypted social media in the Cloud which is, in effect, permanently available to the public, suppose that it was possible to encode the selected information in single issue, unique, hard copy form.

It is possible to conceive of this being operationalised by the point-source, using some combination of a medium capable of being physically marked (stone, say, or slate, or compressed layers of barley husks?) and a medium for the marking (a flint, say, or ash, or a corrosive acidic reagent?). By such means, the point-source could transfer the required information from their brain to a unique inanimate physical entity (one wouldn’t want to have the secret intelligence simply wandering away).

The challenge is then how to have this entity transferred into the cognition, via visual field, of the intended recipient. This is where I think the commercial opportunity exists. Suppose one was to enter into a contract with a person to actually carry the entity to the place of residence of the intended recipient: the contract could specify a financial return to the trans-shipper and a moiety for us as owners and managers of the intellectual property associated with the venture.

A huge amount of administrative backgrounding would of course be necessary: one would need physical addresses for any party that might be the target for transmissions; a book of Yellow pages into which those addresses could be collected (they could be alphabetised for easier access?); a system for putting potential point-sources in contact with the service, some means of levying the agreed fees from users of the service, and a large stock of yellow waterproof coats and modestly-powered motorbikes. (I wonder whether the fees could be levied on both parties to the contract – source and recipient?)

There would also need to be developments of associated infrastructure. For example, if the targeted recipient is not working from home there might be no-one home to receive the entity. Perhaps those who opt in to the scheme could affix some sort of receptacle to the outside of their door or their fence into which the entity could be placed? (This might lead to yet another commercial niche: whole companies could produce little printed flyers to be pasted onto these receptacles in an attempt to prevent miscreants from putting unsolicited items in them?)

Some sort of government licensing of the parties involved would probably be required and if it went really well government might take it over from us?. Inter-State travel might be involved and (I am ambitious for the scope and scale of the service.) even international flights.

My preliminary budgeting suggests a unit cost per contract in the range of $US13-14,000 but if the service took off that cost would fall rapidly. There might be a market for a special service (a twice daily delivery?) for a slightly higher fee. As I describe these possibilities, still more options occur to me. For example, being a physical object, the entity to be trans-shipped will have two sides; it might be possible to put the two to different purposes: one for the textual intelligence to be communicated, the other for a pictorial representation of the nearest seaside resort to the location whence the entity is being dispatched.

Any such further aspects to the proposal must be evaluated in the context of the requirement that the central purpose of the whole enterprise is not compromised – being the protected transmission of thoughts, feelings, intelligence and family news between two parties, both of whom seek a level of privacy or confidence not provided by traditional digital means.

What do you think? Am I onto something here?

Please get back to me.

Love always – your brother – gg

Telehealth, demographic change – or both?

Three decades ago, in late 1990, an officer of the Commonwealth Department of Health and Community Services travelled from Canberra to Gundagai to meet with eminent rural GP Paul Mara.

Steve Catling was a UK civil servant on exchange in the Department. It was the first week of his placement, so who knows what he thought of the curious countryside through which he passed.

After his return from the trip Steve famously said to colleagues in the Department that the only solution to Australia’s rural health problems was to move everyone to the cities. That view did not stop him from working hard to help manage the 1st National Rural Health Conference in Toowoomba that took place a couple of months later (Feb. 1991).

Paul Mara chaired the Agenda Forming Committee for that conference and in that capacity had oversight of a draft prepared by Commonwealth, State and Territory officials of the very first National Rural Health Strategy. It was discussed, amended and adopted by those who attended the conference.

One of the outcomes from Toowoomba was the conversion of the Conference Committee to what was called “an ongoing advisory group on rural health”. That became the National Rural Health Alliance (NRHA).

The purpose of the NRHA, then and now, has been to challenge the view that the only solution to the nation’s rural health problem is to move everyone to the cities. It is possible, goes the argument, that by various means people living in rural and remote areas can be provided with good access to health services which gives them equity if not equality with those living in the major cities.

Thus it is that the NRHA promotes action to have health services in rural areas that are fit for purpose for such areas. This quite often requires changes to financial, regulatory and workforce arrangements compared with those that apply in metropolitan areas.

But how important are improvements to health service access compared with, say, regional development in non-metropolitan areas and the demographic change that results?

In working towards better (more equal) health for people who live in rural or remote areas it doesn’t take long to realise that what matters is not a person’s relationship with health services as much as their educational and employment status, their social and cultural background, and their genetic make-up.

This is the stuff of a social determinants approach to health – one that sees health services narrowly defined as being little more than repair shops:

Except for a few clinical preventive services, most hospitals and physician offices are repair shops, trying to correct the damage of causes collectively denoted ‘social determinants of health’. Donald Berwick, The Moral Determinants of Health, JAMA Network (on line), June 12 2020.

Towards the end of my time with the NRHA, Martin Laverty (at that time CEO of the RFDS) led work to bring agencies together into a social determinants of health alliance. That group pointed out that, in Australia, a multi-party Senate Committee had unanimously recommended that the Government should adopt the recommendations from the World Health Organisation’s Commission on Social Determinants of Health.

Nothing has happened. The distribution of wealth in Australia has worsened. Over a million children are living in poverty.

The Marmot Review published in the UK in 2010 asserted that work towards six objectives would reduce overall health inequalities:

Give every child the best start in life
Enable all children, young people and adults to maximise their capabilities and have control over their lives
Create fair employment and good work for all
Ensure healthy standard of living for all
Create and develop healthy and sustainable places and communities
Strengthen the role and impact of ill-health prevention.

So it is clear why the NRHA has to work on such an enormously wide range of matters, which some have interpreted as having the organisation skate on thin ice. Falling through has usually been avoided thanks to the fact that the NRHA is such an inherently good idea that it has proved feasible to enlist the support of experts in particular topics to join with it in its work.

The Regional Australia Institute reported this week that regional centres attracted more people aged 20-35 than the capital cities during the last two Census periods. While 180,000 millennials moved to capital cities between 2011 and 2016, more than 207,000 moved between the regions, resulting in a net inflow to regional centres of 65,204 people. From 2006-2011, this number was 70,493.

In total 1.2 million people moved to and around areas outside the capital cities between 2011 and 2016. The places concerned included Cairns, Toowoomba, Ballarat, Maitland, Bendigo and Lake Macquarie. (The big movers: understanding population mobility in regional Australia, Kylie Bourne et al, Regional Australia Institute, June 2020.)

Overall, the population of regional cities with more than 50,000 people grew 7.8 per cent, industry and service hubs with more than 15,000 residents grew at 3.3 per cent, and smaller regional areas increased 1.6 per cent. On top of this existing trend, the COVID pandemic has strengthened people’s belief that location may not be a barrier to where they choose to work.

So which is more important, telehealth or demographic change?

As a result of COVID-19 there have been very welcome extensions of Medicare benefits for telehealth consultations – the scale of which has the heads of rural health advocates spinning. But it may be that the kind of demographic changes reported by the RAI will do even more in the long run to deliver health equity to rural areas. The former improve services in the repair shop. But demographic changes are producing more central places in rural areas with the population and service characteristics necessary to stave off, for some, the time when repairs are needed.

But the real answer is both: the ice looks thick enough for a twirl.

Distinguishing Poetry, Verse and Doggerel

Summary: doggerel is inferior poetry; they are both usually divided into verses.

Verse (a collective noun, usually used with the definite article (‘the’); as in: “I am fond of the verse of GM Hopkins.”)

a body of poetry, as of a specific writer or period.
a poetic form of writing with regular meter and a fixed rhyme scheme.
metrical writing or speaking, esp. when light or trivial or merely metered and rhymed, but without much serious content or artistic merit.
a particular form of poetic composition: free verse, trochaic verse.

Verse: a noun, referring to a particular segment of a poem or of a piece of text.

a stanza or group of lines in a poem or song, sometimes used to distinguish the verse (the new bit of the narrative) from the chorus/refrain.
a single, usually numbered, short division of a chapter of the Bible. (As in Leviticus 3:16 – the book of Leviticus, chapter 3, verse 16.)

Poetry: a noun.

literary work in which the expression of feelings and ideas is given intensity by the use of distinctive style and rhythm.
poems collectively or as a genre of literature.

The types of poetry include Ballad, Elegy, Epic Poem, Free Verse, Haiku, Imagery, Limerick and Pastoral.

Doggerel: poetry or verse of a crude or irregular construction. “The term was originally applied to humorous verse, but now means verse lacking artistry or meaning. Doggerel is poetry that is irregular in rhythm and in rhyme, often deliberately for burlesque or comic effect. Alternatively, it can mean verse which has a monotonous rhythm, easy rhyme, and cheap or trivial meaning.”

“Doggerel is a technical term for bad poetry, which is usually characterized by irregular verse, forced rhyme and overly sentimental tones. It can also be used for comical effect. You probably know or knew someone in high school who wrote doggerel.”

– and breaking news: [from Macquarie dictionary blog]

“Who are we versing this week? A teacher commented that the verb ‘to verse’ as in ‘Who are we versing this week?’ is so entrenched that it ought to be in the Macquarie Dictionary.

Well, we are pleased to say that it has been since 2009. The usage note says that it occurs mostly in the speech of children, but the children are growing up. As Column 8 said, the children are now working in the sports department of the ABC. It is time to accept that versing is in adult language now.”

Neologism: A neologism is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not yet been fully accepted into mainstream language.