Goodnight from Melbourne. Things will, and do, most likely, work out just fine. Life’s a gift, mostly. We like to think its a bit more, or a bit less, but its pretty much all as it is...pretty much.

Mental Health: "John, can I talk with you? I have some issues I wish to discuss, I've been really upset". 5 minutes in..."Gosh, John, I'm feeling so tired now, but I feel better. I just want to sleep now." "That's just fine, you're welcome. I have that effect upon all women. What can say? It's a gift..."

Today, The Communist Party of China has proposed that the Constitution should be deleted of the one line that limits a President to 2 consecutive terms...and as it would be very much impossible for any such proposal to be rejected, Mr Xie (aka Grandpa Xie) will most likely be President and Chairman of China long after Mr Putin and Mr Trump are long gone from the scenes. Continuity. Stability.

Sam Cooke - A Change Is Gonna Come (Official Lyric Video)

Sam Cooke - A Change Is Gonna Come (Official Lyric Video)

Bob Dylan - Cold Irons Bound (Live Video)

Van Morrison - Listen to the Lion (full version)

Van Morrison - Alan Watts Blues(HQ/HD - original + lyrics)

BB King & Van Morrison - If You Love Me

Van Morrison - Slim Slow Slider / I Start Breaking Down (live at the Hol...

Van Morrison - Astral Weeks / I Believe I've Transcended (live at the Ho...

NURSING: It doesn't matter how fantastic you are or how good you are, every now and then someone, because they are who THEY are, will subvert you, attack your reputation , and seek to annihilate you. I think this is just Nursing, as it is. It is a history of 'horizontal violence' from when nursing began, and it doesn't ever change. Mind you, I would never ever do that to anyone because I have a certain standard of personal ethics...but I do have a list of those who have done it to me, if you'd like to see it.

Noting the stepping down of Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce for basically rooting/rorting the system more than anything else. Good. You can't give your girlfriend a high paying job that doesn't exist...then give her a good severance package​ to leave it​. I wonder if anyone will ever ask her for the money back. I doubt it. It is not about the money, except...it is about the money. It's called corruption...but politicians and public servants in Australia are never expected to pay back the money. They just step down. Easy money. A country can run pretty well without a Deputy Prime Minister, and indeed a Prime Minister, and, indeed, an actual government, for many years without anyone noticing. That's reality. In fact, it usually runs much better, and more economically, that way.

John Prine - A Message from Bill Murray

Comparisons: Melbourne and Cairns Rent in Melbourne is double what it is in Cairns, in general. Pay, per hour nursing, is less. Food in Melbourne is cheaper, unless you eat out. then the cost goes up dramatically. Cars: Melbourne driving costs are higher for Registration and the Tollways cost a fair bit over a month if you need them. Apart from the highways and tollways the roads in Melbourne are a bit choppy due to the trams and their infrastructure. Utilities: Gas is reasonably priced in Melbourne so if you don't need a huge fire or heat in the winter, and don't shower every 3 hours, or cook every hour, then its better. You need big heat for about 2 months. Electricity is cheaper than Cairns and you don't need air conditioners much at all, or only rarely, because most of the houses are brick and tend towards being cold rather than hot by nature. House Buying: In Melbourne this is a bit silly. a Cairns $400,000 house around here would cost about $2million but in Ballarat or the outer West,the cost would be about the same as Cairns. Public Transport: Is very good in Melbourne, bus, train and tram...but it only takes one road accident or crossing accident, or train computer glitch, to stuff things up for half a day. Lifestyle: Melbourne is great if you don't have to work or go far to work, otherwise the travelling time eats well into living time. Police: Police are great. Very risk averse when dealing with felons and mad folk, very good, very good indeed. Ambulance: You have to pay for it here, it isnt covered under the Federal State Medicare agreement as it is in Queensland. Quite a primitive system of joining up or having private insurance. Very primitive. Summary: Cairns has its virtues, as does Melbourne. To start up here in Melbourne, without $2million in the bank, well, you can't really own a house, per se, or you live so far out of Melbourne that it is not Melbourne. For those young and making sufficient wages in the tropics, it would be silly to move to Melbourne.

My dad, the financial adviser's, advice in 1968. "save your money, save your pay and verily, you will be rich, oneday... and don't go down to banks today. Share your trust with those you love, they are not bankers, hand in glove. Don't believe who says you must invest your life in those you trust. bankers are just unmade men...and these are greedy made un-wholly men who profit by the now and then and it makes them fat and bad and then and...well...it is really bad for them. it is your work it is your pay have nothing to do with banks today."

My dad, the financial adviser's, advice in 1968.
"save your money, save your pay
and verily, you will be rich, oneday...
and don't go down to banks today.
Share your trust with those you love,
they are not bankers, hand in glove.
Don't believe who says you must
invest your life in those you trust.
bankers are
just unmade men...and
these are greedy made un-wholly men
who profit by the now and then
and it makes them fat and bad and then
and...well...it is really bad for them.
it is your work
it is your pay
have nothing to do
with banks today."

be of good cheer all those who fear who find the future to be mined and break to war for no good reason's sake. it is those who bend who win the end.

NURSING HANDOVER:Nursing Hand Over. "I'm sorry, but the nurses are having hand-over now, so your requirements may need to wait for a little while. I would suggest to you that it is not a wise thing to do, to disturb the coven in the midst of their various incantations. Many beings, over the eons, by seeking to do so, have been, unfortunately, smote to their very ruin."

Lots of advertisements from Australia's Special Police, lately, noting civilian vigilance as ​being ​critically important. Ads with ​cute ​little boats with Huge red flags on them, and gaunt ​rock ​fishermen phoning in​ their deepest​ ​strangest ​suspicions​ about little boats with Huge red flags on them​. Must be a snap federal election in the wind. Ssssh.

Important Weather/Australia:Weather Prediction Specialist Teams reviewing new high tech weather algorithms from satellites and edge-of-space high velocity jets have noted that the expected Autumn Period for Melbourne will be, in general, Autumnal in nature.

Talking with patient, a brilliant OCD eye surgeon who tried to commit Japanese ritual suicide, with a big sword, although he was born in Sydney. He failed. I said 'well, Seppuku, is, like the many severe arts of Shinto Nippon, a true art where the self is forgotten, obliterated by real pain' . 'The driving meaning of seppuku is that the death should be much more thought about and more ritualised, and mistake-proofed, than the whole life. It must be much more painful and much more horrific than anything ever experienced in life, or otherwise, the death serves no purpose in terms of the quite honourable value system. it must be excruciatingly painful, and it must take a fairly long time, to have meaning. 'If you fail at Seppuku, it is probably because you are some Westerner who, by failing Seppuku death, achieves a normal life afterwards. It is a personal trial. 'To fail at Sepukku is quite honourable, in the way we see life. To succeed at Sepukku, well, if we did that, we would all be up there with the True Saints of Shinto. This is why we need to honour them, rather than seek to impersonate them. 'One of the most important things with ritual Sepukku, is to make absolutely sure, that whilst you are disembowelling yourself causing you horrific pain, with one hand guiding the bright sword, the other hand must be useful to you in covering up your body with a blanket or mat so that you do not traumatise the person who must find you. This is simple human respect. We are not here to traumatise those we leave behind. Seppuku is not for everyone. To fail at Seppuku is basically good for us. Imagine just how evil it is for buddhists monks to set fire to themselves in a public spectacle...I mean, just all the poor people who must see it...witness it...traumatised for the rest of their lives...and the poor bastards who have to clean it all up and wash down the street afterwards...paid less than minimal wages to have to do that...where is the human self-respect in that kind of death? Where is the human respect for others in that? I'm not into buddhism at all, you know, but I do respect Seppuku, and I do respect Shinto...it's just not for everyone...but I still know what it is and what it means...and I respect that. I respect our human condition. Of course, it's all too much sometimes to bear. It always has been. Lesson from Old Pain Control Palliation and Mental Health Nurse John Katana Fitz.

Because there are about 8 billion people talking right now, I think it's important to say what you need to say in as few

Happy New Year! Jaiyo! More Fuel!...and Happy New Year to Cardinal James Pell.

Happy New Year to Cardinal James Pell. 

May the Year of the Dog be a Hound to your Fox.

Personally, I do believe in the eternal existence of Jesus Christ on a metaphysical and deeply personal level, I do, but I don't count myself as a Christian. I live by a few Christian values, but certainly not all of them, because a lot of them are pure rubbish. I don't think God is a Christian, or a Buddha, or an Allah, or a Yahweh. I think that by choosing to believe in some deity we do, in some way, approach a greater reality. I do believe in a greater reality, one that is far too magnificent and complex for me to ever understand at all or in any way...but I do approach it all with an open mind and some good qualities, from the stars above, to the taps we make with our shoes dancing homewards on the crooked concrete of the town.

It seems it is ok for large Australian companies not to pay tax. It seems it is ok for Casino owners such as James Packer to give large gifts (with benefits) to the Prime Minister of Israel without it affecting their status as a good enough character to hold a casino licence in Australia. Interesting set of lofty Australian Values we wish to instil in and demand from new citizens.

You can't expect to be in an Israeli fighter jet, flying over Syria, which isn't your own country, and just somehow expect that no one is going to shoot you down. That's just silly. National Borders of Sovereign States are, in fact, Real Borders...and they Mean Something...and for Good Reason. That is not your piece of sky, dickhead. We are not talking the Big Picture here, Buy yourself a fucking atlas.

KOREA KOREA THERE IS ONLY ONE KOREA. It is excellent to see the beginnings of a kind of friendship between the brothers and sisters of North Korea Province and South Korea Province. There is only one Korea. Only Koreans will resolve this issue between kinfolk and they will only resolve it by talking with each other and occasionally scrapping with each other, as is the traditional method of dispute resolution in Korea from time immemorial...and without any interference at all from the usual knuckle-dragging mega-death fuckwits of the USA, or little, very scared, quasimodo-like, Japan. There was only one Korea, there is only one Korea. This is the job of all Koreans. I wish them well. Greater problems on earth have been solved, with a bit of argy-bargy, and they are an industrious and bright bunch of people, and, importantly, kinfolk. Neither are Americans, neither are Chinese or Russians. They are Koreans. There is one Korea. Korea will work this out. Eventually America will go home and do what it does best, in America, their own country. Americans have problems also, and only they can work them out.

Israeli F-16 fighter jet shot down by Syrian anti-aircraft fire/Well Done! Should be more of it!

FISH OIL AND KRILL CAPSULES One of the great things about the plethora of ridiculous and pointless useless and unproven health food supplements is that some can actually serve a real purpose. If one is going fishing, take some Krill /Fish Oil capsules with you. When baiting the line, insert the hook through the Fish Oil/Krill capsule carefully. Then apply the usual bait, a bit of prawn or squid... whatever. Then cast the line. The thing is that the Krill/Fish oil slowly leaks into the surrounding water, and if you initially hook it carefully, it Very Slowly leaks...thus providing a damn good local attractant for the fishes near by. They will come for the smell, then see the bait...and they feel hungry. It works. One capsule will provide enough fish smell for about 15 minutes. It also improves the fishes' cardiovascular systems (in healthy fish with normal blood pressure only... and may assist support and enhance, with general cardiovascular health and wellbeing, both the fish and, indeed, the fisherman... when they pan fry the fish with fresh butter and chives).

Bicycle Chain Maintenance for those who enjoy a mild Obsessive Compulsive Syndrome on a Sunny Afternoon, the syndrome being caused by some fuckwit not smoking for 3 months. Yeah, that's that was great fucking advice. 1: Two days before, wash down the bicycles with water from a hose. 2: Leave the bicycles in the afternoon sunshine. 3. One day before, spray WD40 onto the chains and sprockets. (WD40 has limited application but what it does do well is replace the grime for a day or two) 4: On the day, Wash the bicycles down again. 5: Draw up 3 mls of fresh engine oil in a good 5 ml syringe with a 19 gauge drawing up needle. (You need 3mls for each bike chain) 6: Take off the drawing up needle. 7: Apply the engine oil to the chains, drop by drop. You don't need to worry about the sprockets because the oil will find them. 8: Leave bikes in the sun for a few hours. You should not get 1 drop of oil dropping from the chains this way, so it is very economical and environmentally sound and you don't have to spend $30 buying aerosol hydrocarbon chain lubricant from an Enthusiast's bike shop...which only lasts til the next rainfall anyway, or for as long as it takes some bastard wearing lycra to shave their legs in front of a mirror. If you don't have any spare fresh engine oil around the place then 9mls of injectable clonazepam, or clozapine, will do as they have an oily base. Be sure to return the drawing up needle and syringe to your local hospital for immediate re-use.

insouciance...now there's a word. I'd like to know the meaning of it but, at the same time, I have a casual indifference to finding out what it means.

Laurie Anderson - O Superman [Official Music Video]

Icehouse - Hey Little Girl (Official Video)

Chain Gang - Sam Cooke