On Plans for Melbourne:Yes, planning for Melbourne, quite cold there in winter I hear, and a big city...so I am thinking maybe just a black velvet onesie outfit should deal with that for work and transit and home. Probably no need to put on the full length Afghan Wolf Coat. I don't want to stand out or look odd in the crowd.

At 63 I think I can pretty well say that as a working class man, I have never been violent to a woman, a child, a pet; and even in the feisty hormone charged years, my one or two fights with other men were pretty fucking silly and no one was actually grievously hurt. We tried for awhile, but it is quite hard to do this effectively. There was indeed a moment when I could have smashed my rival's head onto a corner brick edge and do him great harm, but I didn't do that. Even enraged, I knew...why would I do that? Five minutes of man to man wrestling and punching was all I could do before I was exhausted and started to laugh. That's fucking hard work. And what were we fighting over? Some woman who was well away and safe. Ridiculous. So whilst agreeing that violence against women is obviously bad, violence against Anyone is equally obviously very bad. It always has been. It always will be. No one, especially a man, is going to radically evolve because of some notion. None ever has or can. The best you can be is non violent in all forms to all the forms of being...same as ever...and then you have good laws.

Reducing Domestic Violence Against Women isn't Rocket Science nor will it be done by re-educating Men. To seek to bring about social change by re-educating Men is a Wank and that's all it is. I've been wearing a black plastic anti-domestic violence armband for about 2 years now. I bought it at a pub, interestingly enough. It is about stopping violence against women, and I agree that is a worthy goal. At the same time, violence against anyone of any of the 3 or 4 genders, is also equally important. Why not just have an anti-violence armband? Or better still, not need an armband and just cut hotel open times by 4 hours a day and you get a massive reduction in all violence anyway...beyond what any Program can ever hope to do...then just reduce opening times by an hour a day ongoing for about 5 years...and you will get a society with much less violence...and isn't that necessary, really? It would work. No one would suffer that way...if we are actually really interested in stopping the suffering and violence. Commitment is all it takes. Commitment, continuity...and you have it. the Answer is quite easy...but the hard question is Do we really Want less violence?

Afghanistan, 2016...those we define as our enemies...culturally and religiously...a whole population with a median age of seventeen years old.

MOVING from Cairns to Melbourne Update

I bought the packing boxes today , 20 Tea Chests and 20 Book Boxes. Big plastic bags for the mattresses and lounge etc.

The BBQ is clean now. The lighter-clicker thing still doesn't work but I believe it not working is actually a feature of the Weber Qs after a year or two, and shows it is a genuine Weber product. A very good BBQ.

The selling of the BBQ has covered the cost of the packing boxes to the dollar.

The place is crowded as always...much like a Chinese furniture shop ... fitting a big Thai 4 bedroom 40 sq metre 3 level apartment full of stuff into this Australian sized 3 bedroom 12 sq metre place has always been a challenge...now, at least when we get to Melbourne the house there will be big enough for our gear...or we can just light a bonfire in the backyard and burn everything whilst we dance around it. Now, there's a thought.

Potential tenants come by at 4pm today and I will leave them to have a look around with the managers. I will leave a note saying they can have all the plants, including the incredibly lucky Chinese Jade Plants, and their interesting Chinese pots, if they want or I will get them out of the balcony and sell them or give them away etc.

The place does look nice, if crowded just now, as always. It was built brand new, high spec, and over priced at the time of the Great Recession of 2008 and so was VERY overpriced, though nicely done, and no one bought it til we did 3 and a half years back when the price was down by 100,000... So it has only been lived in for a few years and everything is easy to clean, even the bathrooms... (except that fcking BBQ).

Anyway, it is the coolest place I've ever lived in Cairns, because of the good cooling atrium design of the towers themselves, and it is very quiet and normal people with a normal amount of gear would find it very modern and quite spacious.

So, from now til 20th december, we just pack and clean slowly, pack and clean etc. Not bad.

We may well have baulked at the cost of the move, that we really can't afford , and especially seeking work in a very distant place etc...but there was something about Donald Trump becoming President of the USA...if he could do that, well, we can do anything. So off we go.

I listened to the previous Australian ambassador to the US, Kim Beazley, talk today about the shock of the Trump victory and he pointed out the mistakes that the much richer, much spendier, much more aligned to Australia, Clinton campaign made, and it was interesting. Obviously Kim is still a US acolyte/parasite (true believer) but still his observations were well reasoned within his capacities. A true Australian Diplomat. I'm glad the problems he faced regarding child abuse charges went away for him.

Daughter DJ is one of those folk who believe that if you pay for something, then you should get it. This is not how Sydney Airport operates.