I avoided Aldi on Saturday morning because I was aware that their ski gear sale was starting. And apparently there were indeed queues.
But on Monday, I was at Aldi. Lots of ski gear still available. I’m not sufficiently well-informed to be able to tell how comprehensive the range available was but it looked to my unskilled eyes that there were still plenty of most items available.
I had an appointment to receive a covid vaccination at the GP’s, but when I called to change it, I was told it would be months before they could fit me in. Yes, they had been promised additional supplies, but they had no idea when, or even if, they might turn up. I’d heard that vaccinations were available at the Prahran Town Hall, but strangely it wasn’t listed on the government website. However, further research (not really intuitive, however, so it took an effort to find) indicated that a centre was in fact operating there, so I made an appointment for the next day, and headed down at the appointed time.
On arrival, the fact that I had an appointment didn’t seem to matter; people were being processed as they arrived. The fact that I’d pre-filled the questionnaire helped, and in any event, the wait times were minimal.
The staff were all exceptionally friendly, and everything was very clearly explained. I got my “jab”, along with an appointment for the 2nd dose in 12 weeks time (almost to the minute!).
As for side effects? Well, I woke up next morning with a very slight throb in my arm – before realising it was the arm I’d slept on, and the jab had been in the other arm!
We know from experience that, when throwing tennis balls for the dog to retrieve, they don’t last long. So very thoughtful of the local Salvos, at a local park!
I get that companies need to remediate past mistakes, but I wonder if it goes too far. First it was ANZ, and recently it was CommSec. I received a cheque for just over $40 from them. There wasn’t much of an explanation, but seemingly it related to transactions on an account that had been closed in 2011.
Just what “error” had occurred back then was not clear to me. I certainly don’t recall having any issues.
An added complexity was that the original account was a joint account, and the cheque was made out to the the joint holders. This created some issues with having the bank accept the cheque, but I’m pleased to say that, with a little explanation, ANZ were prepared to be a little flexible and accept the cheque as a deposit into an account in my name, not in the name of all the original holders.
It’s taken a while, but we finally received a refund of the airfares we paid for the trip to the US we planned to take last year. This was the biggest single cost that we’d incurred, and we had been informed when we paid that it was “non-refundable” (although it could be amended).
So we’re very glad to see the money, and grateful to the travel agent for persisting. What’s more, we got back every dollar that we’d paid. However, with some of the other refunds, our refunds were a little less than what we’d paid, and we didn’t see any details of how they’d been calculated. Perhaps in the overall scheme of things, the amounts were relatively small, and so if there were some incidental charges by the providers or the travel agent, we should be accepting of these.
At least, that’s the attitude we’re taking. But deep down I think it would be better to have a more transparent process. Of course, the problem for providers with this is that if people have more information, they’ll be more likely to query it. Didn’t someone once say, “when ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise”?
I read Dashing for the Post a few years back. More Dashing is another collection of Patrick Leigh Fermor’s letters, although the style and content is quite similar to the earlier work. But is it elegant and very well informed, or is it tedious?
Well, really, it’s both. PLF comes across, as before, as a restless soul. He meanders all over the place, both geographically and in the subject matter of the letters, and drops upper class names everywhere. The letters certainly give you his view of things. In fairness, the letters weren’t written with a view to publication, and he did have a wide circle of friends and correspondents. After WW2, except for a sort period of paid employment, he was a freelance writer, and he freely admits that for many years he was almost a professional houseguest, a scrounger of invitations and of houses he could borrow. Later in life, he reciprocated some of this hospitality, when he and Joan had a house of their own at Kardamyli. His descriptions of the places he visits are often fascinating. His linguistic abilities stood him in good stead to mix with all types of people.
Obviously, a collection of letters provides a series of “snapshots” of PLF’s life. It’s not always clear why he’s in a particular location; for example, one letter is written from a series of South East Asian cities, but we’re not told why he made the trip. That said, the footnotes are invaluable, and must have taken a great deal of research. Amongst other issues mentioned is the “Enosis” campaign in the early 1950s, where the Greeks sought unification of Cyprus with Greece, creating bad relations with Britain, which was reflected in some hostility towards Britains such as PLF. And his collection deals in greater detail with his reunion with Balasha, and contains several letters to her.
There are numerous references to his feelings of guilt about his procrastination, in replying to letters or forwarding material to his publisher.
I don’t know how it is that so many of PLF’s letters survived; perhaps the recipients recognised their uniqueness at the time and retained them?
Yes, all in all, a fascinating insight into PLF’s life, but to be honest, I found I was skipping through some of the letters. Yes, they’re all interesting, but at the end of the day, perhaps there’s a limit to the number of “glimpses” into PLF’s interesting life that we need?
I was interested, in this “PC” era, to see this sign in the street.
There again, if it’s accurate, and the person working is male, why not? In this case, there’s presumably another sign stating “Woman working at heights” to be used when appropriate? Or doesn’t it work this way?
I attended a talk/discussion led by by a respected mathematician on the subject of epidemics. Of course, this had particular relevance to the current Covid-19 pandemic, but the talk covered more than this. In particular, we shouldn’t forget that there have been more serious epidemics in the past, such as the various instances of the plague, the Spanish flu and HIV/AIDS. In fact, the current Covid-19 is ranked in terms of number of deaths as the 9th most deadly, but in percentage terms, it’s much less serious because of the increased world population. So far, it’s about 0.04%–0.09% (lower figure is reported deaths, higher figure is estimated total).
One of the themes, however, was – there are a few “known unknowns” with the vaccines that have been developed. Because the vaccines have been developed in haste, the longer term implications are not known. Hence, it’s not known how the Covid-19 virus might mutate in response to the widespread adoption of vaccines. For example, it may mutate in such a way that if has a lesser impact on people who have been vaccinated but a much more severe impact on those who have not been vaccinated. If this occurs, the impact on 3rd world countries could become even more serious than it is at present.
Then of course there’s the issue about potential side effects of a vaccine. From a pubic health perspective, it’s far better to vaccinate the population even if there’s a 1 in a million mortality rate from side effects, versus a 1 in a hundred death rate for m people who contract Covid-19 because they’re not vaccinated (even though these are not exact comparisons).
An interesting example was given about the use/misuse of statistics. It seems that a number of British army officers contracted polio in the WW1 trenches, but apparently, the enlisted men seemed to be immune. The explanation was that the men had probably been exposed to polio (which is spread in unsanitary conditions) during infancy, and thus those susceptible to it had died as infants while those who survived had an immunity. On the other hand, the officers had probably not been exposed to it. However, although this example was cited, I can find no support for it from a google search.
A quick google search shows that there have been many lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic, not necessarily all consistent! It’s true that, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. However, in spite of this, one important point that was made is that we must be aware of the risk that Covid-19 may be “the virus that cried wolf”. In other words, there’s a risk that the “lessons learned” from the handling of this virus (whatever they might be!) will be taken as the way to handle any future epidemic. Yet, every epidemic is likely to be different and there’s a risk that we won’t be alert to these differences “next time” and so may not handle it in the best way possible.
I heard a fascinating talk from a linguistic expert on the subject of swearing. We were told it’s not really a sign of verbal deficiency. The research (yes, it seems they research into things like this) is that swear words are socially and emotionally indispensable, in that they’re vital parts of our linguistic repertoire. They help us mitigate stress and cope with pain, they demonstrably increase strength and endurance and help us bond with friends and colleagues.
It seems that swear words are/have been used in most if not all languages and throughout history. In fact, it seems that “strong language” is used even more in some other languages than in English. However, frequent use of a word debases its effect, and it’s likely in future years new swear words will develop, perhaps invoking concepts that are becoming “politically incorrect” (such as race). In the meantime, different words are more offensive in some countries than others. Similarly, in the past, blasphemous words had more effect, but are not considered to have the same impact in today’s world.
The talk was very interesting, partly because it’s not something that I’ve ever previously thought about in detail.
I was interested in John Lethlean’s article (behind the paywall) in The Weekend Australian about restaurants requiring a credit card when taking a booking, to mitigate against “no shows” – extending, in some case, to requiring a hefty payment “up front”.
We all sympathise with restaurants that lose business because of “no shows”, but the examples given in the article seemed to be at a much higher end of the scale that we’re used to. The article cites restaurants that required the whole food cost to be paid “up-front”, such as Attica ($320pp) and Brae ($300 pp). However, these restaurants are in a different category to the places where we usually eat. They’re more into the whole “dining experience”.
Locally, we’re not generally asked for a credit card to guarantee a reservation even though we eat reasonably regularly (but not always!) at “upper-middle” range restaurants. However, many establishment have session timings (especially at busier times) meaning that we’ve accepted set times for bookings on occasion. Interestingly, we’ve found that there can be some flexibility with these timings, if requested.
I’m not personally averse to the concept of providing a credit card guarantee, but when the matter came up at a family discussion, I found that others bristled at the concept.
The article makes the point that the request for a credit card sometimes occurs if the booking is made through a booking platform such as OpenTable. Perhaps these platforms “de-personalise” the booking process, whereas a direct booking by phone is more personal? As a consequence, I wonder if the request for a credit card is more likely to be made if the booking is via one of these platforms? We don’t use these platforms; perhaps this is partly why we haven’t encountered the request.
Musings and Mutterings 