Noticing that 3 Federal Govt Ministers this week have made their plans to not re-contesting the upcoming Federal Election because they wish to spend more time with their families. That's exactly what Alpha type characters do once they've fought and struggled their bitter way to positions of significance and power, of course...they just go home to be with the kids. Take them to soccer. Australia may not have to have an election this year if the Members of the Government keep going home to be with their kids at the present rate. Just hand over the keys to the Opposition, and start talking about the costs of after school care and kids parties amongst themselves. I wish Peter Dutton would go home...but I would feel sorry for his family I must admit. Imagine having him at home all the time. "We need to stop the toast! If we are going to have any toast it must be toast that we choose to have and have in the manner we choose to have it with the various prescribed condiments." For the sake of your family Peter, you should stay in Canberra. A good few years grumbling in Opposition would be better for everyone.

World Travel used to be, for me, about going somewhere and living there for awhile. It has never been about having a holiday and staying in a nice hotel and looking at stuff on any tour. My travels were about living somewhere else for a medium or long time, going slowly broke, and with heart mind and soul looking out at things. Learning. Being, walking about. So my journeys have been less frequent than those of many Aussie holiday makers around the world, for sure, but having a holiday wasn't really the point. If one is fortunate to be born in Australia and saved a bit, then one doesn't need holidays in exotic places...but rather it is better to actually live there. The hotel I liked most was a 2 star hotel in the Italian Quarter in Paris, mostly because of the lazy big breakfasts, the bowls of warm coffee, the bread, and sharing the tiny lift with an emotional naked large breasted girl who had been thrown out of her room by her beau, and getting to know her, and help her. I gave her my leather jacket...partly because she was cold, but mostly because, naked, she looked so good in it. Much better than I ever looked. Still, I remember the warm bowls of coffee most.

Did you ever notice that just after the Malaysian plane was knocked out of the sky over the South China Sea, that, almost the next day, the PM of Malaysia received a gift of $800,000,000 from the Saudi Royal Family, even though he didn't know them that well, but still, a nice gift is a nice gift...and that the day after that, Mr Obama arrived in Malaysia to offer them a really big favourable military weapons and trade grant? It was on that day that the PM of Malaysia, having studied the data about the plane going missing, noted that the plane had, um, changed directions entirely, for no reason at all, and went to crash itself far away, far far away, thousands of miles away in the sea, where no one was looking.

MINDFULNESS:Mindfulness: Sounds of the Sunset. ...Distant cars on the highway, like waves on a Melbourne beach. ...TV news talking about politics, some ABC gay guy talking about non-binary sexuality and toxic things ...within the moment...the sound of the 2nd hand Apple keyboard, bit bop. bit bop, ...nearby, the sound of Mrs Fitz swinging back and hacking the Murray Cod fish head into pieces with the Chinese machete. Life: Heaven on a stick.

I see Scott Morrison, the PM, has dropped an important Australian Aborigine into a marginal seat with a 12% Aboriginal constituency. My god, Scott Morrison, with an election coming up within a few months, is a Visionary. He was hoping that Mr Mundine would declare himself as a gender-fluid non-binary transexual woman, but still, I guess, in the interim, a conservative black bloke will have to do.

Life at 65.5 years.At a time in life when I'm very happy with the 'machines' in my possession...the simple Nissan truck, the 7 year old second hand apple iMac, the big Samsung fridge, the new remarkably inexpensive Haier Chinese washing machine...the $40 ZTE telephone...my Citizen watch...the lawn mower, I don't need, in the garage..but might need some year in the future... the 10 year old $70 microwave...the old un-smart TV on which I watch the news..., and the little free 4 year old Samsung tablet on which I watch movies at night. I don't actually need many things now and I don't like new things at all unless the old one breaks. Kind of a nice time in my life. Still wouldn't mind the 2003 Ducati 999S Testastretta Super-bike...and even they are at a much much better price now, and have always well looked after by bizarre OCD old baby-boomer blokes who have now 'gone into care' into some relentlessly horrible nursing home in Australia, put there by their lovely daughters and sons who are, really, just sick of the terribly demanding and smelly poor old cunts. Perfect time to score a bargain.

The Truth Seekers/ Mr & Mrs Fitzpatrick. They often didn't talk much. They both worked different shifts, and a lot of them, in different professions, but usually arrived together at home at about 1am, and they would make some dinner or snack for each other. Sometimes a barbecue. They usually ended up in bed at about 2am or 3am somehow. She would be playing some game on her phone, some game that went 'beep' and then 'bop' and he would be watching some netflix movie or series on the tablet in the bed. Facing opposite directions, she would usually throw her leg back over his hip. His job was to hold her small foot in his large hand, and massage it for awhile, and then forget to, until her foot kicked him, then he would massage it again for awhile until he forgot; and that's how they lived their joy in the world, in that intimate silence when all that was ordinary was glowing.