AUSTRALIA:Australia is a funny country...people at 40 strive to get a Gold Card having served in the Army, to make their lives easier when medical care is free anyway. People at 20 strive to get a Disability Pension so they don't have to ever deal with people like me...and all I am is a nice guy. Australia is, and has always been, a funny country. We are independent and yet the Queen of England is our head state. On every coin of ours, there she is. If that isn't hilarious, I don't know what is. If that doesn't devalue the country, and the people of Australia, I don't know what does.

Melbourne

Melbourne has been hard. It is ridiculously expensive and the pay is significantly less for nurses than in Queensland...and the work is far harder....and hardly anyone is in a union, so you are just basically fucked n comparison.

This is not an easy town. If you have no formal recognised qualifications, they fuck you into the ground and pay $8 an hour. That's normal. $8 an hour is normal. No continuity. No superannuation, no sick pay, no holidays no overtime pay no penalties...and $8 an hour... If you have formal skills, they fuck you a bit less.

The weather is weird but better than Cairns. After a year of working our guts out as middle aged/old people not flush with millions..or with anything much....this is a hard town...the hardest ive known in my 64 years in Australia....and you do really need a good reason to establish something, but we are on the slow mend now.

Still no point to buying a house or even a flat here...but still, as retirement beckons, towns like Ballarat look just fine in comparison to both Melbourne or Cairns, price wise...

As for Melbourne being the worlds most liveable city...it just isnt. Thats a fucking lie. In many ways it is an unwelcoming and aweful dump. IT is a relatively big city of 4 million that fails its own people, every day, and enjoys and profits by screwing its own people, every day. This is true.

In its way it is much like Sydney. When Australian cities get big they become much less like places for people to live in , and more like infections.

But we, my family, have stuck to the task at hand.

We are amazing.

Move to Melbourne from the provinces ?

Yes, it can be done. But when you have done that, when your reasons for being there have passed, move away.

as i mentioned to my patient, the meaning of life has nothing to do with what you remember, because that doesn't exist anymore. The meaning of life is getting out of bed and enjoying the garden. Mind you, you don't have to. It is a reasonable garden, but it is nothing special. No one has actually leant anything about life on earth, apart from knowing we are born, live, and die, by living their life. The rest is advertising. The great and meaningful thing in life is to know that. And, occasionally, it is fun to say things that you haven't said before, rather than regurgitating the crap of others.

Within 20 years , whatever we say on facebook etc, will never be able to be seen or known... for in that future time, just down the road, we will not have the technology to remember any of us.

hard to beat. Bryan Ferry - Let's Stick Together [Official]

Magnificent song about the real living of the USA, as it really is. Tearing itself apart. It needs to do that. The progression from human adolescence to being a real grown up is painful, as we know. Thats just how America is...struggling to come to terms with itself, oh, so many hormones, working out if it really wants to solve its own abiding problems. Hard times for America. Necessary, obviously, but still hard. Good luck with yourselves...come back to us when you have worked yourselves out. Take a hundred years. You won't be missed. Your development as a civilisation is all about you. Leave us alone until you've done that. We will be just fine without you. We will welcome that new you in a hundred years. We may even throw a party to welcome you back to the real world.

Australian Politics:these are my people...hmmm. These are/were our national leaders...the elected folk of 24 million people...for fucks sake...Mother, I'm rooted. They make even Bill Shorten look ok, and that's no easy task. He may be a bully, when it comes to girls in pie shops not realising how magnificent he is...but at least ...well...at least he isn't one of those 2. As a supporter of Australian Labor all I can really say about Bill Shorten is...well, yes, he is a fuckwit...but he's OUR fuckwit. I dont think you can hope for more than that in Australian politics. Its a shallow muddy puddle. Its not a deep pool of talent we are talking about.