Kindly Yours

Landline is on the way out. I am told the NBN infrastructure in Australia does not optimally support fixed line telephones as well as the previous arrangements we have had since the invention and installation of the house phone. Retro phones are sold in decreasing prices and are destined to go the way of the compact disc, television set and analogue media. At least, however, to replace them involves paying less than buying a new smart mobile phone. The old fashioned phone does not need to be recharged regularly in order to function. It even has a back up battery until the day the NBN contractors arrived at your abode - now you have to cough up replacing with a new battery as the NBN has disenabled the previous back up battery that was working fine. Both landline and mobile phones are subject to nuisance calls, hacking, fraud and pesty commercial sales. Every human communication opportunity is utilised by the so called slick oily sales person, the threatener, th...

On the Internet, we type in the key words and click on a search engine before finding their top suggestions.    Numerous search platforms have risen in as many previous years.  Is the process for individual users as direct and simple as going through manual directories, conversational checks with mates or walking around a suburban shopping strip? Contemporary society may seem to enable things on a faster and more accessible basis, but what is the hidden price for users?  A key feature of daily life as we approach the iconic year of 2020 is the less need to physically be at the source of your products and services, whilst surrendering much privacy to the electronic channels that enable such convenient transactions.    Cyberspace increasingly dominates as the delivery channel, all as part of the overall picture of so called automated script and other artificial intelligence coming to every one of us in daily life experiences.   The informati...

The prevalence of commercially sold vitamins has increased many fold in many nations, especially those with viable incomes and purchasing power.   Vitamins, to go back to basics, are manufactured by use of artificially made ingredients, claim the health benefits of a spectrum of produce, fruits and vegetables and mostly contain other stuff to come in tablet form. There can be an increasing need to monitor the basic standards of manufacture in countries outside your own.   We have come across horror stories of illegal and unhealthy materials being covertly used in the manufacture of several things we consume, so we should be cautious about the quality requirements in the vitamins that many of us take daily.   Vitamins are essentially body intake supplements and are not prescribed medicines to help relieve or mitigate negative medical conditions. The best sources of health nutrition come from partaking vegetables, seafood and fruits in moderate amounts and ensuring tha...

We replace one habit with another, thinking we have truly changed. We feed our passion to possibly become an obsession. We can overuse a specific one of our five primary human senses, possibly to the exclusion or impairment of the others. We can trap our selves in routine, happy with its familiar structure, to the extent that we become less willing to try anything else. We love a daily purpose, no matter how simple or complex it is.  We often find someone trying to sell us something. It is with a surprising delight when we have an unexpected encounter - a smile, an encouraging chat or a nice gesture - with no hidden agenda. We can identify double speak and insincerity, but can be forced to deal with them even if we are just minding our own business. We have to increasingly manage the garbage we generate ourselves or unfortunately encounter in daily life, be they in material waste, misunderstood reputation or unfair experiences. We take comfort whe...

Cooking for the week. Ya, I like my chicken on the bone and all those spices. Yet I still relish the best apple pie I had last night at an invite. The diversity in Australia makes access to various culinary styles so taken for granted. The overload of information from cookbooks, family and the net means one just makes time to try recipes and not excuses. The variety of ingredients available in capital cities just require passion and detail to undertake personal and commun ity journeys in cooking. I can ask neighbours, relatives and friends for understanding better the nuances in better cooking various styles. One can then deeply appreciate the techniques, interplay of catefully chosen ingredients that affect the final outcome and the fun experienced in this respect. You can choose authentic, fusion or contemporary. Dishes are created in a continuum and are never static. Usually when someone nice reveals an extra step or ingredient in making their cooking stand out, I...

The stats people say Australia's population reach 25 million by the first Monday of August 2018, roughly the size of a major conurbation in China - the greater Beijing area. Are we a nation still consumed in worrying proportions by the 5Ds, an observation first mooted in the 1990s? States of sedation or elation induced by drugs, drunkenness, driving, dependencies and deals? Our continuing take up of smart phones, opiates, coffee, sugar, oligopolies, poor compliance with regulation, political mischief and short sighted planning can make each of us look like a potential total wreck today, just like a cross between a potentially extinct elephant and our native koala, looking having a serious hang over with bites on our surprised demeanour. More people are moving to outside Australia, but then this is countered by others moving in. It can all be attributed to the dynamics of a nation with both high levels of shortcomings and attractive features, depe...