onetrack

Octave, he should sell that little crawler to the Ukrainians, fitted with a remote control, so they can get their explosives or cameras right up close to the Russians.

The spout is rotted out, the minerals in the water react with the poor quality brass in the tap spout, and this etches out the metal, and creates pinholes in it. I have to replace our sink mixer every couple of years, it does the same thing. You can't fix them, or buy parts for them, just buy a new sink mixer, they're only about $35 - and they're just about all made in China, we make only minimal amounts of tapware in Australia today. You can buy Methven for lots more money, the Methven stuff is made in NZ, but the Methven stuff is horribly expensive. Phoenix, Brodware, Astra Walker, Faucet Strommen, and Sussex are made here, but are "exotic" in their pricing, too. The Estilo, Mondella, Caroma, Dorf and a few other brands are all made overseas, in China and Malaysia. They have a warranty period of between 1 and 2 years. I bought a Methven shower rose head with adjustable arm about 3 years ago, and the pipe on the arm rotted out, and developed pinholes, and sprayed all over the shower. I pulled it off, and found it was made out of a cheap-arse really thin piece of brass pipe. Then I studied up and found out Methven have a lifetime warranty! So I contacted the Methven agent here and told them my sob story, and sent them photos of the arm. In the best fashion, we'd lost the receipt - but I had the original box it came in, so I gave them photos of that, too. They hummed and hah'ed, and said by law, a receipt is required to claim (which is correct). So they thought about it for about a month, then said they'd replace it, as an act of grace. I waited about another 6 weeks, and was getting ready to contact them, when a parcel arrived. It contained a whole new shower arm, including the adjustable pivot ends (not just the pipe) - and this replacement unit was made out of a MASSIVE piece of brass, with the setup weighing about 2kgs!! I was amazed, and convinced they'd sent the wrong part. But I waited a week and heard nothing, so I thought I'd try fitting it up. It fitted perfectly to the old shower head, and looks a million dollars. The stunning part is - we paid $117 for the original shower head and arm - but the same part number is still available at Bunnings, and it's now $265! They must have lost a lot of money on warranty claims and are now making up for it! I have to say, the new shower arm looks like it would last the average persons lifespan.

*Queenstown - sorry about the spelling error, my proofreading needs to improve.

Nomadpete wants a meteorological instrument that predicts when it's going to stop raining for him, for at least half an hour. 😄 I can recall a bloke telling me how he worked at Queentown, and it rains so much there, that any time the sun came out for a few hours, workers would knock off and go for a picnic, just to enjoy a couple of hours of sunshine!

Trump is only interested in Trump, and making himself richer at every turn. He's corrupted the position of the U.S. Presidency into an extension of Trump Inc. businesses. Never read a Bible in his life, but sells them to Christian Fundamentalists at $75 a pop - when every Christian organisation in the world will give you a Bible for free. My Father was a member of The Gideons, they distribute Bibles to anyone and everyone in the world, for free. Trump would know nothing about giving things away for free, he wants to be paid handsomely for every single thing he does - and the suckers and losers who love him and think he's God, continue to fork over millions to him, so he can continue to shaft them ruthlessly, while they think it's Love. He's a grub, and a lying, BS-ing misogynistic one at that. If he hates Socialism so much, why does he reckon Putin is such a great bloke? It's because he loves the way Putin has suppressed every bit of opposition to him, so he can rule like an Emperor. Donny can only dream of doing that, but he threatens every lawmaker that proposes to stop his plans.

They had a fox-shooting weekend in Feb 2019 in Boyup Brook, W.A., and the final tally was a total of 705 foxes, 170 rabbits, 18 cats, and 2 pigs. I think there were about 30 or 40 shooters. The local farmers organised it, as they were sick of losing hundreds of lambs every month to foxes.

In an ironic turn of events, heavy rain has come with the hay runners, to the extent that some farms are now too wet to get the trucks into them - so the hay will be delivered to other points in S.A. This rain may turn out to be the point in time, where this dreadful S.A. drought ended. Here's hoping. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-27/hay-convoy-delivering-drought-relief-reaches-eyre-peninsula/105576844

Sharp eyes, there, men! My eyesight must have gone, doing all that study for the Roads Scholarship. 😄

We're on the receiving end of another large cold front and big rain band, which has produced another very welcome 10mm of rain between 7:00AM and 9:00AM this morning. There's a lot more to come, according to the BOM, but it has stopped raining for the moment (9:30AM). I went up to my block in the Wheatbelt yesterday just to check on things, and it was still bitterly cold. The area got down to below -2° the night before. I was walking around the yard at 10:30AM, and came to an open-topped crate that has a tarp draped over it, which always collects water. I looked at the water and it looked a little opaque. I thought, "That's ice, still in there!" Sure enough I reached into the pool and pulled out a large sheet of ice, which was still about 3mm thick!! It broke in half, but the piece I'm holding is still about 300x500mm. And yes, I'm still wearing my well-insulated mechanics gloves!

C. I know this is right, because I'm a Roads Scholar.

That's simply careless driving on the truck drivers part. There's no excuse for rolling a loaded truck, truck drivers are supposed to be professionals. It also appears this hay truck in the rollover, is not part of the W.A. convoy.

Ahem ... the "100 cattle lost annually to crocs", is just from ONE station! The cattle losses are in the thousands across the nation. Here's a good Yahoo article about them. https://au.news.yahoo.com/aussie-fishermans-confronting-crocodile-photo-reflects-hundred-thousand-dollar-issue-074455723.html

One of the things that gets me, is I have yet to see a properly-instituted "cost VS benefit" study done on the principle of letting crocs breed uncontrolled. They eat a LOT of fish - and excellent eating quality fish, too, such as Barramundi - thus depriving the humans of a substantial amount of good quality, high value food product. Then there's the amount of valuable cattle taken by crocs - which is considerable, by all reports. That's more good quality food out of the humans food demand. There seems to be a generally increasing belief trend amongst Queenslanders (and some Territorians too, no doubt), that croc numbers are making life a lot more dangerous for humans, and seriously impacting on the humans enjoyment of the waterways and waterholes of the North, and impacting on recreational fishing. Against that, there's obviously some major value in harvesting wild crocodile eggs (which appears to have little effect on their ever-increasing numbers), and some tourism value in seeing crocs in the wild. However, the only document I can find is a very "pro-Croc" document, the NT "Wildlife Trade Management Plan for the Saltwater Crocodile", which effectively just outlines all the NT laws around the protection of crocs (both wild and farmed). https://www.dcceew.gov.au/sites/default/files/env/pages/e85c86ad-0af5-40ad-b07b-99a27eed17e6/files/nt-saltwater-crocodile-mgt-plan-2016-20.pdf Here is the Qld Parliaments Report on Katters "Crocodile Control and Conservation Bill 2025". I believe the Qld Parliaments Report and Katters Bill are both deficient - and substantially more wild crocodile research, producing "pro" and "con" views on culling, backed by all the evidence and factors involved, with regard to how significant the crocodile problem is, is required. Too much of the consideration today appears to hinge completely on how good we are at conserving wild crocodile numbers, and little consideration is given to the possible benefits of reducing their numbers. https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/Work-of-Committees/Committees/Committee-Details?cid=274&id=4504

Jerry, I've seen her cross the road to drag a huge bouncer off a club patron, when the bouncer was pounding the (obviously drunk) patron to a pulp. She won't stand for any wrongs being carried out - and she was right - the bouncer was seriously in the wrong, and could have gone to jail if the patron had been seriously injured or even killed. Meantimes, myself and her son (an MMA Champion with a Karate Black Belt), just stood there open mouthed, as she ran across the road and grabbed this giant of a bouncer by the collar, sternly saying to him, "THAT'S ENOUGH!" 😱 Amazingly, the bouncer DID stop (possibly out of shocked surprise, more than anything else) - but she achieved her aim, which including checking on the drunken patrons condition (he was O.K., just a bit bloodied, and possibly having learnt his lesson, about taking on huge bouncers!) I'm sure she could deal very well with your errant builders, the minute she found something illegal, devious, or shonky going on! She's the ultimate "righter of injustices". And she's a big girl, she can virtually go eye to eye, with most big blokes. On top of that, she can spot or smell BS from 10 miles away, long before I pick it up.

I don't know how much this hay convoy has made the mainstream news - but to those who know nothing about it - a sizeable number of W.A. farmers have donated a huge amount of hay to drought-affected farmers in S.A. -and are delivering it, free, as well. This is a sterling and worthy effort, and it's good to see wealthy people helping out those who are battling major adversity. I actually know a number of these people personally, and the Lucchesi family are past clients of mine. The sheer effort in organising the collection and delivery is monumental, with a lot of bio-security roadblocks and bureaucratic hurdles to overcome. Full kudos to Samantha Starcevich for her organising and rallying ability. The Starcevichs are well known in the Eastern Wheatbelt, and a close mate (a local truckie) is one of them, too. He was born and raised in Merredin where a lot of the Starcevichs were originally located. Les ("Tom") Starcevich, the WW2 VC winner, is one of the Merredin area Starcevich mob. The sheer amount of driving to be done is colossal, and a number of individual truck drivers are driving the road trains for free, easing the burden on the farmers who have contributed the free hay and their trucks. I drove a truck from Echuca to the W.A. Wheatbelt in May 2024, and I can tell you, it's a BLOODY LONG WAY! - with a lot of endless road, and driving boredom to deal with. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-25/convoy-of-compassion-wa-farmers-hay-to-sa/105564054

I see where Bob Katter and his supporting MP's are again proposing a major crocodile cull and croc-shooting safaris, to put the bitey buggers back to the level where all the waterholes are safe. But his ideas have been knocked on the head, not only by the Qld Govt, but by wildlife warriors and croc lovers such as Terri Irwin. What say you? - do you think a decent croc cull is long overdue? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-25/qld-katters-australian-party-crocodile-cull-plan-rejected-/105573960

There's a good "write up" in the Farming News article below about the "GREAT Beef DEAL". The last two paragraphs in the article are pretty telling. The DEAL is just more massive Trump BS. https://pulse.auctionsplus.com.au/news/australia-opens-door-to-canadian-beef-expands-us-access?utm_campaign=Market Pulse&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_I_un3miFkIzq3BmaGFuIbQJq_PSD7ua5ogQNRZqqG0qf5K4Q9VfM1Um92KQSzKj4KSDXew49nO_hZylrgGzcwzwVPlQ&_hsmi=372938691&utm_content=372938691&utm_source=hs_email

I don't generally have any problems around talking about money. I can talk about it for hours, and about how it's artfully avoided me all my life! 😄 Cash is still king in my neck of the woods. All the food van vendors have signs saying they prefer cash, and give reasons why - such as not making rich banks richer, and making sure that cash never gets phased out. I like dealing in cash, it quite often gets me a better deal. If I do a deal, I lay out the money and make the seller count it, so there's no errors (on my part or theirs), and no comeback. I got my big Lotto payout in cash, the newsagent asked if that was how I wanted it, and I said yes. He had to open his safe, which had a time delay on it. I didn't have a problem with that. Most of the items I sell, I get paid in cash, although I'm happy to take bank direct debits if they want to do it that way. But that introduces a delay, which is generally undesirable for both buyer and seller. I sell stuff on eBay and I can only get paid via bank deposit. I don't have a problem with that, it's not like the amounts are in the tens of thousands. The good part is, eBay sales operate 24/7/365. I sold $250 worth of stuff on eBay while I was on holiday in Broome. The buyers are happy to wait until I get back, to package it up and send it off. The part that bugs me about sales transactions is the people who want to keep chiselling you down and down, I'm sure they practise it constantly on everyone. I just select a point where I won't sell below and stop at that. I've had buyers trying to chisel me down on cars, but I tell them my bottom line, and if they keep trying to get it for less, I just tell them to look elsewhere. A lot of people simply want a more expensive item than they have the money to buy. Then there's the "psychological block" numbers. A car salesman told me once, $10,000 is a critical figure for cars, it's a complete stumbling block. $9,999 sounds affordable, but $10,999 is just too much, so people won't pay it. It's the same at auctions, you see bidders stumble at the round figures - $2,000 - $5,000 - $10,000. They stop bidding because they see the bids keeping on going relentlessly if they go over the round figure. A sad part of our modern wealthy society is children are not taught about the value of money, how to deal in it, how to resist buying urges from enticing advertising, about how to save and invest. So many parents just hand over money to their children with no strings attached - $200, $300, $500, just to spend on some item the kid insists it reallys NEEDS. I got brought up in a family with no money. They say you've never known poverty until you've been a dairy farmer and developing a farm. I had hessian bags on my bed as a youngster because my parents couldn't afford good blankets or doonas. But they were warm enough and I didn't freeze to death. I found I had to work to get money, money didn't just land in your lap. I do regret I didn't get more professional training when I was younger, in how to deal with corporate scumbags and finance houses and banks, and how to keep their grubby hands off your assets. I've got to 76 with a lot of hard firm rules in place about money, and they were all from hard-learnt lessons. I advised SWMBO about 25 yrs ago to place some spare funds she had, with a mortgage broker I knew (we keep our finances separate, and we each just contribute to a household kitty. This system works fine, and has done for 35 years. No "coercive money control" in this house). She put $50,000 with this broker for a good percentage return (ISTR it was about 10%), and the money was backed with you holding a property title for security, provided by the mortgage broker - or so he said. The bloke had been in business for decades, I couldn't see any risk with him. However, after a fortnight and no sign of any property title for security forthcoming, I started to get uneasy - and so did SWMBO. So I told her to start really pressuring him - for the title - or for her money back! She ended up in his office, screaming at him in righteous rage - a frightening sight, I can assure you. She won. The $50,000 was returned, promptly - and we breathed a sigh of relief. It eventually turned out, the mortgage broker was in deep s*** with bad investments, and paying Peter from Pauls account, and defrauding hundreds of people. He ended up with such a massive mess, it took a liquidator about 10 years to sort it out. He'd invested in sandalwood plantations, and hundreds of properties all around the State, and given title to properties to more than one person! - it was a "total schemozzle" as Borat would say. The only good thing that came out of it, was that he repaid the money to SWMBO out of his personal bank account (in absolute and total fear I think - what you get, when confronted by a police superintendents daughter, in a righteous rage) - and a number of years passed before all his scheming came undone - so the time limit on transactions involved in bankrupt estates, that could be reversed, was well and truly over - so she got to keep her money. She actually put that money into a Telstra Super account (because she worked for Telstra for a while), and Telstra Super has paid far better than any mortgage broker ever would.

Yeah, well, it appears someone in City Beach ended up roofless, thanks to a pretty nasty looking mini-tornado. I'm sure they won't suffer too much financially, houses there are all multi-million dollar properties, and they can all afford the best insurance cover. Re the season, it appears we got just over 100mm of rain while we were away in Broome. It rained in Perth for 10 of the 12 days we were away - but both the July average rainfall and YTD are still wa-aayy down so far this year - a trend that is general throughout the State. But the crops are doing O.K., even though they're behind, and had a very dry start. However, if the rains are poor in August and cut off sharply at the end of August, it will be a less-than stellar cropping season. Here's hoping the rains continue. We came back to a freezing 0.3°C in Perth this morning, it was bitterly cold, the coldest day in Perth for 15 years - and there were frosts all through many suburbs, and throughout the SW of the State. Tomorrow isn't looking a lot better, the bitterly cold pool of air is hanging around, and the BOM forecasts 3°C for tomorrow morning - but they also forecast 3°C for this morning, too! https://perthisok.com/lifestyle/brrrr-perth-shivers-through-coldest-morning-in-15-years/

The American companies are free to use a wide range of chemicals, pesticides, food additives, colourings and preservatives, that are banned from use in Australia. That alone makes me wary of buying any American-produced food. And I don't see how American beef can be competitive in Australia, they are a high-input-cost nation, and the currency exchange rate is shocking. Add in international freight/shipping costs that have doubled since COVID, and I can see no reason why Americans could even imagine they could sell beef to us. Of course, in the Lewis Carroll world of Trumpianism, the Australians are crying out for American beef - because it's the best, right? https://betterlivingthroughbeowulf.com/lewis-carroll-has-trumps-number/

15°.

Well, we've had our "Virgin experience" this afternoon, and it reflects the current state of Virgins (and Qantas') planes. We were due to depart at 2:35PM for a 5:20PM arrival into Perth. However, as we were having lunch, a check showed the flight was delayed. Got to the airport, and found our aircraft had broken down and a replacement had to be sourced, so it was over half an hour late. That delay extended into a 3:05PM departure, with passengers dragging their feet, a bloke turning up late with 2 kids that he claimed were his (they bore no resemblance), and saying they all needed to be seated together, as that was the airline laws. But he'd booked the three of them at different times and from different places, as the steward pointed out. Nonetheless, the bloke claimed they were legit, so the steward, under great pressure, but acting with speed and professionalism, re-arranged seating in a virtually full aircraft, by extracting a Virgin employee from a rear seat and placing him in the sole empty business-class seat, and shifting a couple of other people around. With everything settled, we barrelled off into a gusty headwind (my God, it was windy in Broome today, never knew it could blow there like that, in the Dry season), and we rotated very rapidly, and got to great altitude very quickly it seemed. The flight was pretty smooth, a few bumps, lots and lots of cloud of all sorts and types, lots of haze, and difficult to see any terrain in detail. We got a nice feed of chicken with potatoes in business, nice comfy seat in a late-model (2013) B737-8FE (VH-YQR), which must be one of Virgins better aircraft - and we landed very smoothly in Perth at 5:48PM - to bitterly cold weather (13° and a promise of 2° tomorrow morning!) Oh, how we'd loved to have stayed another month in Broome! I was studying up on the history of VH-YQR, and discovered it featured in an ATSB incident report, where a similarity to Air India Flight 171 is logged. The incident was a major flight upset caused by an incorrect control selection! I'll post it in the Air India thread, just to add some thought to the AI crash considerations.

He was a Pole and his family fled the Nazis during WW2. He had a terribly rough, fractured upbringing - but he and his parents made good in Australia after the War, as "refo's". This article is 5 years old and needs updating, but it outlines the tough times he had, before he made good in acting. https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/henris-story/#:~:text=Henri Szeps is one of,and separate from his family.

It's not going to be "rough quarters" ahead for Tesla, the Chinese are going to rip a new and much larger cloaca for Tesla, with their massive range of technically superior EV's - that are available in HUGE numbers. Within 6-8 years, Tesla will be an "also-ran" in the EV stakes. I can see parallels in the dockside crane industry. As a typical example, Esperance (W.A.) Port, about 10 years ago, wanted a number of new wharf cranes. They got a quote from established Western wharf crane manufacturers, and the quoted prices made the port operators eyes water, and they had to sit down - Oh, and there was only a 2 yr warranty at best from these suppliers. So the Esperance Port asked the Chinese to tender for the cranes. The Chinese cranes came in at under half the price of the other quotes - AND their price included DELIVERY to Esperance Port, with their dedicated crane-carrying ship. The Chinese ship has a flat deck, they sit the cranes on the ships deck, and when they get to the Port, they ballast the ship to the level of the wharf, and simply drive the cranes off, and they can put them straight to work. So then came the Esperance Port operators question. Do the Chinese cranes come with any kind of warranty? "Oh, certainly", says the Chinese. "We give TWENTY YEARS warranty on all our wharf cranes!! Is it any wonder that virtually every port now, runs Chinese wharf cranes? Musk is on a hiding to nothing, the Chinese play the long game, and they play hard ball.

I get porterhouse steak on special from Aldi for $22.50 a kg, and it's just as good as Colesworth porterhouse at $45 a kg. I wouldn't touch American beef, it's all lot-feed rubbish.