onetrack

There's a better system than Surepave, it's called Rombus. Australian-designed, Australian-owned and Australian-produced, it uses recycled polyethylene filled with concrete. One square metre is capable of supporting 10.9 tonnes. The quote I got last year was $34 a sq metre installed - about a 60% saving over a 150mm thick concrete pad, and equal to the 150mm thick pad, even though the Rombus grid is only 40mm thick. All you need is a solid levelled and compacted surface to install it on, such as compacted road base, gravel or limestone. Rombus has the major advantage of flexibility, which eliminates the problem of cracking in concrete slabs. https://rombus.com.au/

And did you notice Eric Trump has a degree in BS, too! - just like his Dad!

The Ausgrid workers will flatten the battery over lunchtime, keeping the A/C on in the truck, while they have lunch!

You were there early!! I was at Nui Dat, Sept '70 to Aug '71. Here we are at FSB Helen, SE of Bien Hoa, getting a resupply from Nui Dat via the Huey.

We went into the National Hotel in Fremantle one Sunday, looking for a place to have lunch. They have an open rooftop dining area, which is on top of the 3rd floor. Despite being an old heritage hotel, it's been modernised and has a lift to all floors. We went up to the roof and wasn't impressed with the crowd, it was packed. So we decided we'd better eat elsewhere, as it looked like a fair old wait to get served, and to get a meal. So we went back to the lift and pressed the "down" button. About 20 seconds later the lift arrived, and the doors sprang open rapidly - just in time for us to catch the young waiter pinching chips off someones plate of food he was delivering!! I reckoned it probably was a good thing we picked somewhere else to have lunch!!

We still have a few numbers of the Scrub Turkey here, otherwise known as the Bustard. They're pretty slow-moving and slow-thinking birds, and excessive clearing for farming knocked their numbers back badly in the W.A. Wheatbelt in the 1960's to 1980's. Here is one I came across in Oct 2014, along the Great Central Road, East of Warakurna, W.A. (just inside the W.A. border, heading West). When I first started in business as an agricultural earthmoving contractor in the mid 1960's, there was one farm I worked on at Newdegate, where there was a flock of about 50 Bustards that were extremely docile. There's some argument about whether they're good eating or not. I've had people tell me they're great eating, others have said they taste terrible! But they must have tried eating them a long time ago, because they're a protected species now, and have been for a long time, because they're threatened with extinction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_bustard

SWMBO called me out onto the front verandah this morning as I got up (she'd been up since 6:00AM, painting the lounge room!) - and she said, "Come and have a look at this!" Right out front of the porch we have a big Carob tree, it's about 6-7M high and very lush. So she walks to the edge of the porch and points into the tree, and here was this visitor .... He was very docile and sitting only 2M above the footpath. He seems to take catnaps all day, rather than continuous sleep. Stepdaughter reckons he probably couldn't find a tree hollow in time before daylight, as she reckons that is apparently their preferred snooze spot. However, Wikipedia says they like to retreat to trees with dense foliage during the day. I've identified him as a Boobook. Never seen one here before, but I have seen the occasional owl gliding around at night, and we also hear "mo-poke", every now and then. Wikipedia also says the passerine birds go ballistic when an owl perches in their territory. This is what gave him away this morning, the New Holland honeyeaters starting making a huge racket, and this made SWMBO go and find out what was up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_boobook

I reckon Gareths got a mind like a steel trap when it comes to faces.

I'm afraid I don't even remember him! Maybe it was because I never watched any American daytime housewife soapies, and because I never got to watch much Hogans Heroes, either! I was living in the Wheatbelt of W.A. from '65 to '69 and we could only get ABC TV. Then I spent 2 years in the military and hardly saw a TV programme, because there was no time to watch TV! His life story is quite amazing. One of 14 children born to a Polish Jew father, he was the only Holocaust survivor of his entire family. He was shipped to no less than 4 Nazi concentration camps over 2-1/2 years and was only liberated from Buchenwald in April 1945, by American troops. Yet he still got to live to 96! He must have been made of some tough stuff. https://www.wsfm.com.au/entertainment/robert-clary-last-of-the-hogans-heroes-stars-dies-at-96/

It'll be a month or more before we see fresh oranges off the orchards. Willie, this system of preparing patients for surgery seems to be something that many doctors practice, but this is the first time I've heard of it being carried out by a Health Dept. SWMBO had both her knees replaced in 2008 and the Doc was very good with a programme of surgery preparation. She was 100% dedicated to the surgery being a success and lost 10kgs in weight as part of the preparation - even though the Doc didn't insist on it. Her knee replacements were 100% successful, and have given her a nearly normal life since that date - before, she was just one small step away from a wheelchair. We had to limit her walking to about 50-80 metres at a time before the surgery, and the pain levels were constant and wore her down. Since the surgery, she's led a pretty normal life, and any pain is minimal.

Cadogans presentation leaves vast amounts to be desired. He's abrasive, arrogant, supercilious, and smart-arse all rolled up into one. I can't actually stand listening to him. The problem is, he thinks he's really clever, but his style rapidly becomes obnoxious.

That's certainly an excellent idea. But like all "programmes", the results must vary, according to the enthusiasm of participants. I find that a lot of people who are in poor shape are just too bloody lazy to get out of their own way. Living well on your own requires a particularly tough, independent mindset, that doesn't generally match well with others trying to tell them what to do.

Bruce, I've never experienced gout, but I understand it's also exceptionally painful.

I'm more disturbed by the thought of what Donald Trump would do, if he thought no-one was looking, no-one was checking, and if he thought he could get away with it.

The North Vietnamese used those sharpened metal caltrop spikes, too - but they weren't the first - the idea goes right back into antiquity. In todays world, you can mass-produce them easily. Just bend two pieces of sharpened rod into about a 120° bend, and then weld them together so 3 legs are always down, and one leg is always up. You can then sow them by the thousand, dropping them from a vehicle, or from an aircraft. https://makedonia-alexandros.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-caltrop-weapon-to-be-reckoned-with.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caltrop

Oh yes, nothing like an inflamed bursa for sheer agony! I injured my shoulder about 18 mths ago and incurred an inflamed bursa in the shoulder joint. The pain was like nothing I've ever endured before!

Neil, I take offence at being called a goose - and yes, I am a Vietnam Veteran, I served 12 mths in South Vietnam as a Military Engineer, and I'm more than a little familiar with front-line War action.

But 90 days is not the specified business payment time. The payment time is normally between payment upon delivery, up to 30 days maximum. The fact that so many businesses are hung out to dry by bankruptcies of larger businesses that they are supplying, is invariably related to the length of time the supplier businesses take to get paid. Try getting fuel on 30 day or 90 day terms, when you operate a service station! Payment for fuel delivered is taken from your servo bank account, before the tanker even leaves your servo driveway!

Here's an interesting examination of Coles and Woolworths modus operandi, when it comes to financing their purchases. The bloke who did the analysis is a former accountant, but is now a farmer. "Hi Dxxxx ... Your comments on this caught my eye, and as a former accountant, I had to take a look at the 2023 Annual reports of Coles and Woolworths. In the following observations, in order to extract the relevant information, in the case of Coles, I have to include the Liquor division with Supermarkets; in the case of Woolworths, I can only look at their consolidated financials. Here is what I have found: Coles (Supermarkets and Liquor) Sales $41 Billion Gross margin 26% Cost of sales $30.3 Billion Net profit before tax $1.5 Billion Trade Payables (outstanding supplier payments) $5.7 Billion ( Known as no cost working capital ) No. of days supplier payments outstanding = 69 If suppliers were paid on a 7-day basis, it would require funding of $5.1 Billion. If they financed this by borrowings at, say 8%, it would cost them $410 Million, reducing their NPBT to $1.1Billion (from $1.5 Billion) If they financed this through a capital raising, it would reduce their EPS (earnings per share), Dividend ratio, P/E (price to earnings ratio), resulting in a reduction in their share price. Woolworths: (all operations) Sales $64 Billion Gross margin 26% Cost of sales $47.4 Billion Net Profit before Tax $2.4 Billion Trade Payables $7.6 Billion No. of days supplier payments outstanding = 59 If suppliers were paid on a 7 day basis it would require funding of $6.7 Billion. If they financed this by borrowings at say 8% it would cost them $540 Million, reducing their NPBT to $1.9 Billion (from 2.4 Billion) If by capital raising, same impact as for Coles. Given Coles has only $600 Million cash on hand, and Woolworths has $1.135 Billion, neither of which makes much of a dent in the working capital required ($11.8 Billion). Their only other option (apart from borrowings or capital raising) is to sell assets or reduce inventories. Suppliers do not have a hope in hell of even getting close to a 7-day payment (unless they cop a hefty early settlement discount) Hope your readers find this of some interest. (I will go back to Farming now). Mxxx."

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It's almost certainly Shaoquett Moselmane, the Chinese brown-noser. He should move to China if he thinks the place and Xi Jinping are so great. The Chinese played him like a fiddle. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/world/australia/politician-home-raid-china-influence.html

An Italian comedy show has been poking fun at Joe - but unfortunately, they have plenty of material to work with.

When a cynical mate and I were discussing politicians ages, many years ago - and I remarked at the lack of younger politicians, he replied with, "You do know the reason why there's no younger politicians, don't you? It's because you don't learn to lie properly, until you're 40!!"

The Taipans destruction is just the BS defence-use agreements by the military industrial complex, all designed to make more work for them, producing replacement equipment. The Taipans would have been just fine for the Ukrainians. It seems that the complex technology in the Taipan night vision technology is where they fell down. I'll wager the cause of the last Taipan crash into the sea at night was related to the machines night vision equipment. https://www.defenceconnect.com.au/air/13487-senate-probes-safety-of-mrh90-taipan-night-flying-equipment The availability of the Taipans was low, but this was due to poor logistics on the part of the Defence Dept, and especially their parts procurement programme. https://asiapacificdefencereporter.com/helicopters-there-is-nothing-wrong-with-tiger-and-taipan-the-problem-is-defence-logistics/