What is happening to my wonderful Australia??

I am becoming most concerned by things that are now happening in my wonderful country.  The Australia that I have known for the past 68 years is slowly being eroded away and no one seems to be doing anything about it.  It is almost as if our Governments and so called intelligentsia are edging into a totalitarian state of mind where freedom of speech is curtailed and any thought not sanctioned by the Thought Police is unconditionally squashed.  I wonder why this is?  Australians are a tolerant people, for the most part, known for speaking their mind but also known for giving others a fair go.  We have accepted people from every country and every religion and the only thing we really ask for is for newcomers to accept us as we are, let us live as we have always lived, and enrich our lives with the best of their culture. So why are Australians being marginalized?  Why is anything and everything Australian vilified?  I do not know, but I do know that I am totally sick of it all and I am not alone.

In the last three days, four reported incidents have caught my attention and prompted me to write this blog.

The first incident involves a very intelligent and astute woman.  Ayaam Hirsi Ali was in Australia for a lecture tour this week.  I read her autobiography "Infidel" a number of years ago and found it to be a very thought provoking book and one which should be read by every Politician and Academic in Australia.  She was born a Somali Muslim and went to The Netherlands as a refugee.  Her observations of the Muslim Community in her adopted country are as relevant to Australia and other Western Countries as it is to Holland.  However, what she had to say was not what the Thought Police wanted us to hear, so the rest of her lectures in Australia and New Zealand were cancelled for "security concerns".  No one denies that the vast majority of Muslims want to live in peace, get on with their lives and worship as they wish.  However it is also foolish to deny that there is a very strong and vocal element within that same community who hate Westerners and everything we stand for.  That is why Muslim youth are being radicalized and people are joining ISIS so they can chop the heads off the unbelievers.  If we wish to understand these problems and deal with them appropriately, we need to listen to the people who know what they are talking about - people like Ayaam Hirsi Ali.  To ignore the problem or deny that it exists will only make it worse in the long run.

Ayaam Hirsi Ali is not the only person who has been denied entry into this country or had their lectures interrupted by protesters, or their tours cancelled because they do not toe the Politically Correct line and I find this appalling.  I do not think that people who preach hatred, anarchy and murder should be allowed into our country (although obviously the Thought Police have no qualms about certain radical Muslim clerics spewing hatred and encouraging ISIS) but well informed people who just have a different opinion to the Thought Police should not be banned.  After all freedom of speech and freedom of ideas is the backbone of  Western Society and to deny people expressing different ideas, even if unpalatable, is a return to the days of the Inquisition and witch burning.
 

The second incident that concerned me was a reported remark by Gillian Triggs of the Human Rights Commission fame.  She lamented that she could not control what people said around their dinner tables at home.  I am sure that if she could find a way to do it she would.  This really rings alarm bells.  In my Australia people had the right to say whatever they liked whether it is around the dinner table, the coffee machine at work or on a soapbox in the Domain, providing it was done in a law abiding manner.  Not so anymore, apparently.  Censorship on a personal scale happens in all Totalitarian Societies. As far as I am aware Australia is not a Totalitarian Society YET.

The third incident involved a third generation Australian mum of Anglo-Saxon origin, who took her children to her local Playgroup only to be told she could not attend because it was only for people of
 Multicultural background.  She was thrown out, figuratively if not literally.  When has it become a crime to be Australian and why should Australians be banned from any activities?  If a person of Multicultural background had been barred from attending an Australian Playgroup there would have been hell to pay.

The fourth incident involves a ring with a gap in it which is supposed to show solidarity for marriage equality.  A number of companies have signed up for this policy, demanding their employees wear the ring or be known as a bigot.  Some employees are already fearing that non compliance with the directive to wear the ring could place their jobs on the line and hamper their chances of promotions and those who object for religious reasons may suffer further discrimination. My personal opinion is if people want to get married then let them.  After all why should heterosexuals be the only ones to suffer???? 😈  However I will be damned before I am forced to wear a ring if I don't want to do so.

 Many people do not have a problem with same sex marriage but there are many who do, for whatever reason and their beliefs should not be made to impact their career or their possible advancement in that career.  The Marriage Equality people have turned into some of the worst bullies in the land, equaled only by the Climate Change bullies, and I am sick to death of them all.  In my opinion the sooner Turnbull has his plebiscite the better.  Let everyone vote on the outcome and let the results be the end of the discussion.
Christians and Jews are being vilified mercilessly.  They are losing their jobs for standing up for their beliefs.  Does this ring of Nazi Germany?  Yet people still tiptoe around Islam and to say anything slightly critical is howled upon, especially if it is true.  Fortunately the Buddhists, Sikhs and other religions have so far slipped under the Thought Police radar but give it time and they will be embroiled in the mess, too.

Freedom of thought, freedom of speech.  Two beliefs that need to be protected at all costs,

Fans and adoration

One Direction has hit Sydney.  Being an oldie and not much interested in modern music (as those who suffer my whistling can attest) I had not heard of these latest boy band heartthrobs from England until they landed in Sydney amongst scenes of mass hysteria.  However, I had to smirk at all the experts (how I have come to hate that word) who are jumping on the bandwagon of self righteousness and predicting dire consequences from the outpouring of looovvve that the young girls are heaping on these young lads.  One child psychologist actually stated that thirteen year old brains were still developing and this was not doing them any good and so parents should exercise more control on these young girls to stop them from hurting themselves.  What a lot of pish-tosh.

I might not have known who One Direction are but I certainly was alive when those other great heart throbs hit Sydney nearly fifty years ago.  I am talking about The Beatles, of course, and while I was never a screaming hysteric, I was as fanatical a Beatle fan as the next girl.  I actually rose from my bed at some ungodly hour and sat glued to the television to see them arrive in Sydney.  It was a dreadful day - the rain was teeming down and the poor Fab Four were put aboard a jeep, raincoats flapping and umbrellas turning inside out, as they were taken to the terminal.  (Before the building of the International Terminal, everyone had to walk down gang planks and along the tarmac to the terminal)  My mother wouldn't let me go to greet them, nor would she allow me to go and see them, which was sad.  She promised I could go the next time they came to Australia, but they never did - sigh. However, tens of thousands of girls did go to greet them - not only in the pouring rain in Sydney, but in every other city they played in.  The crowds in Adelaide were enormous and I believe half the city turned out to see them.  If we discount the oldies who would not have been interested, one could say that almost every girl in Adelaide was there to greet them.  Beatlemania had well and truly arrived. 

As stated, I wasn't a screaming fan.  When I went to see A Hard Days Night and Help, I wanted to hear every song and wonderful witticism uttered by my idols - not a bunch of idiotic girls screaming - but scream they did.  When the Beatles filmed A Hard Days Night, they invited fans to be the audience as they sang a number of brand new songs.  Not one of those fans heard a word - they were too busy screaming, so when the album came out each song was as new to them as it was to me.  Ah no greater love has a father who willingly sits in a picture theatre with his daughter to watch the Beatles - surrounded by hundreds of screaming fans, nor a mother who paid for any magazine that had a photo that I didn't have, nor Grandparents who patiently fended off my fanatical attempts to convert them to Beatle fans without losing their sense of humour.

All those screaming young fans would now be staid, dignified and sedate ladies in their sixties - just like me :-) and all that outpouring of love didn't affect our brains or cause us to implode. We're all fine (twitch, twitch) - and I have no doubt that this modern crop of screaming hysterics will be fine too- regardless of the experts' contrary beliefs.

Of course the Beatles weren't the only band to cause hysterics.  In the intervening years a number of bands have set the teenage hearts a-throbbing.  Most have not stood the test of time unlike the Beatles who have an acknowledged place within the history of music.  I wish One Direction well but only time will tell if they have the staying power and will still be thought of with affection by their fans fifty years on. 

And in the meantime - go girls go - take no notice of those who disapprove - and if any of the naysayers are women in their sixties then I say shame on you.  Have you forgotten what it was like when the Beatles came to town? Because I haven't.

The Great Global Warming Climate Change Lie

Every time I hear the words "Climate Change" and "Global Warming" I feel like pulling out all my hair and screaming like a banshee.  The scare tactics, the hype, the lies that are being told and the sheer lack of reasoned thought makes me want to spit chips and bang heads together.  I am even more furious because our duplicitous Prime Minister is using the GREAT CLIMATE CHANGE lie to raise taxes, increase prices and generally do everything that she can to make the lives of the common Australian people as miserable as she can.

Don't get me wrong.  I do not believe in the wholesale, unregulated pollution of our wonderful planet.  I don't agree with discharging sewerage into our waterways and oceans, raping the seas of every fish that ever lived, throwing filth into our skies so that the air we breathe is toxic, or cutting down our rain forests, destroying natural habitats and stripping the earth of all its resources.  Such activities are the way to disaster.  However, all the above abuses can be corrected by careful management and long term planning, so that the needs of the people living on this planet now are balanced with the needs of every other living creature and our future potential.  No one has the right to destroy the property of another and that includes Big Business and their seizing the rights of the poorer nations.

However blaming everything on global warming and climate change and using these unproven theories as the excuse to levee unfair taxes and introduce draconian legislation is beyond hypocritical and could well have results that our current short sighted politicians are incapable of imagining.

Climate Change is and has always been a part of Earth's history.  During the age of the dinosaurs not only were the continents as we know them non-existent, but the climate was so warm that there were no polar caps. A few million years later we had the ice ages when ice sheets covered a large percentage of the Earth and since then we have alternated between warm and cold phases.  Over the 10,000 years or so our climate has been pretty stable.  However, technically speaking we are still coming out of our last ice age and so it stands to reason that the world should get warmer, However, we are just as likely to get colder as the world sinks into another ice age, or our climate can just continue on doing what its been doing for the last few thousand years.  The scientists have absolutely no idea which of the above three scenarios will govern our lives for the future and all three possibilities have been put forward as fact over the last twenty years.

The trouble is that with our current level of technology - with all the satellites scanning and probing every little part of the earth - we are aware of things that our great great great grandfathers had no idea about.  Can anyone say for certain that the ice caps don't melt on a regular basis?  Three hundred years ago the only people who would be aware of melting ice caps would be the polar bears and the eskimos.  I doubt that anyone else would have had a clue and wouldn't have cared less if they did.

It seems like there is always something that the media and the scientists use as bogey men to scare us.

Remember the crown of thorns starfish that was going to destroy the Great Barrier Reef in the sixties and seventies?  Well the Reef is still there and I haven't heard mention of the crown of thorns starfish for a number of years.  Apparently  the starfish invasions are part of the natural working of the reef - something like locusts which plague the farmers when the conditions are right.  Many scientists received a lot of money to deal with the starfish - just as there is a lot of money flowing into the Climate Change Scientists pockets.

Remember the Millennium bug which was going to destroy the world when the computer clocks turned over on midnight 2000?  What a laugh that was - but the fear tactics and the media beat up was very real. I remember my daughter chatting with a girl in America who was sitting in her family cellar, surrounded by provisions, waiting for the world to end.  When my daughter told her it was already 2000 in Australia and all was well, the girl refused to believe her.

I see the Climate Change scare tactics in exactly the same light as I view the Millennium Bug hype.  Certain scientists have a vested interest in maintaining the myth and politicians are happy to oblige especially if they can use those scientists to justify their money grabbing taxation. How much money raised by this tax will actually go to cleaning up our environment and how much is going to go into consolidated revenue to make up the short falls caused by the selling off of our assets to foreigners?  That is another annoying gripe.

Our lovely Earth does not remain static.  Changes have occurred within recorded memory.  Troy was once a coastal town, now it is inland.  Pergamum was also a sea town. Now it is surrounded by fields.  Travel anywhere in the world and you will find towns which were once by the sea that are now inland - sometimes miles inland- or were once inland but have now fallen into the sea or are in danger of doing so. 

There is a theory that the Indians who created the Nasca Lines in Peru left the area because of drought, that the Anastasi Indians of Northern Arizona also abandoned their cliff dwellings because the climate changed.  All over the world there is evidence of cultures which abandoned a region because of climate change.  Why are we so surprised that such events can and probably will occur again?

Climate change has everything to do with the orbit of the Earth around the sun - it is an elliptical orbit not a circular one - sometimes it is closer to the sun and sometimes it is further away. Climate change has everything to do with the rotation of the Earth on its axis - it wobbles, so different parts of the Earth is closer or further away depending on that wobble.  Climate Change has everything to do with the action of the moon on Earths gravity and it especially has everything to do with the Sun and its chemical behaviour - sunspots, solar winds and other phenomena.  I doubt it has anything whatsoever to do with the carbon emissions of 22 million people who live in Australia. 

Our Prime Minister says that Australians have the highest carbon per capita usage of any country in the world. I have no doubt that this is true.  However, she doesn't take into account the fact that Australia does not have a large peasant population or a large destitute population - unlike so many other unfortunate countries. So it is logical to presume that more people in Australia can afford such things as technology, cars, air conditioners etc.  At least we could before the Government decided to make sure we couldn't.  Of course our Politicians - with their newly increased salary - will still be able to live in comfort even if those on far lesser salaries have to return to the dark ages to survive.

Another thing that is not mentioned too often is that a lot of the carbon we are talking about is actually carbon dioxide.  Carbon dioxide only makes up about 0.04% of the Earth's atmosphere.  It is the substance plants use to make oxygen.  The more trees there are, the more carbon dioxide can be turned into oxygen.  Carbon dioxide can also be metabolised by algae in the oceans, which in turn feeds plankton and is the bottom of the sea food chain which eventually leads to the whales and sharks.  Planting two trees for every tree felled would be a good start to solving the carbon dioxide problem. Oh wait.  How many acres of rainforest are we losing every minute from around the world?  We don't need a tax - we need more trees and less world wide criminal destruction of our natural resources.

Another thought occurs to me as well.  We also breathe out carbon dioxide.  So I guess our Government has finally found a way to tax the very air we breathe.  I always knew they would find a way to do it eventually.

I do hope reason prevails and this whole Climate Change hype is finally acknowledged to be the great lie that it is and the Government finally agrees that this proposed tax is nothing more than extortion.

The fate of so many little girls

Yesterday a friend of mine told me about this horrific documentary she had seen.  There is a region in India where women are so undervalued that female babies are drowned at birth by pouring sand down their throats.  Can you imagine the mentality of men who could inflict such a horrible death on something so small and innocent?  A knife to the heart would be quicker and kinder.  The same people burn their wives alive so they can marry another poor woman and get the dowry that her parents have to pay so that their daughter will be accepted by such a monster.

In yesterday's paper I read of the fate of a fourteen year old girl in Pakistan who died after receiving one hundred lashes with a cane after she was raped by a forty year old relative.  Before being handed over to the clerics who imposed the punishment, she had been beaten by the rapist's family.

I have read of women in Afghanistan who are killed if they leave the home without being escorted by a male relative.  If they have no male relative then it is not inconceivable that they could die from lack of food.

Women in Africa are raped and raped repeatedly. The mother of one such rapist excused her son by saying that the woman had been raped before so why should if matter.  Baby girls are raped in some of these countries.

In so many societies women are considered to be the dregs of society- lower than dogs - born without a soul - by their men.  Why? Why do these excuses for human beings fear women so much? For it must be fear that motivates them to keep an entire sex degraded and down trodden. Well I have no idea why these things happen.  I'm just glad I live in a country and in a culture where such behaviour would be punished and abhorred.  I know that rape and murder occurs in Australia and DOCS can testify to the number of people who ill treat children, but the perpetrators are individuals.  There is no official sanction, no official acceptance, no official belief that such behaviour is acceptable.  I just hope that no one is idiotic enough to allow any aspects of foreign law into our country which might make these things acceptable..

As for those cultures that only want sons, I wish, wholeheartedly, that they get their hearts desire and only have sons; and when those sons grow up and have no women to marry, that their neighbours refuse to allow them to marry their daughters.  Not only will the world's population figures benefit from this, but within a generation or two the misogynist cultures will cease to exist -  and that has to be a good thing.

Changes I've seen

When my grandfather died in 1992 at the age of 95, I thought that no one would ever see the changes in one lifetime that he had seen. When he was born in 1897, his mother carried him home from Armidale to 21 miles past Guyra, cradling him in her arms while she rode her horse, side saddle. He could remember seeing the first cars in the district, his first plane which was little more than canvas and plywood, lived through two World Wars and a Great Depression, the Korean war, Vietnam War, and numerous other wars and skirmishes. He saw women’s skirts rise from their ankles to their thighs and back again. He died in the computer age - not that he was particularly interested in computers. I really did think that the changes he had seen would never be equalled and perhaps they won't. However, I came across an email dedicated to all those born before 1945. (I was not born before 1945, I hasten to add, but close enough to it so that most of the things still apply) and I suddenly realised that I had seen a lot of changes in my lifetime, too.

As I was reading through the list, it brought back memories of my own firsts. When televisions first arrived they had a small 17 inch screen and were quite a substantial item of furniture. We didn't get a television until around 1959, and by then the screen had grown to 21 inches. People who had television used to throw parties and invite all their less fortunate friends in for a television evening. Our parents would take along a plate, and we'd take our pillows and blankets, and everyone would sit in a darkened room. In those days people thought you had to watch television with the lights out. I was so thrilled when we got our first television. I became as addicted to my favourite shows, like The Mickey Mouse Club, Roy Rogers Show, Topper, and a host of others, as I had been with all the radio serials I used to listen to before T.V. (Serials that I swore I would never abandon - ah the fickleness of youth). The T.V. had valves which always blew when my favourite shows were on. We became well acquainted with the T.V. repair man. Not like now, when it seems T.V.s go on forever with few problems.

Then there were transistors and transistor radios and you could listen to your favourite rock stars anywhere. You could bop down the street without a 300 ft extension lead following behind. (Just kidding), then came walkmans and ghetto blasters and CD's, MP3s, Bluetooth etc. Vinyl records gave way to cassettes, cassettes to CDs, CDs to MP3s etc. Before cassettes, some lucky people had bulky reel to reel tape recorders and could record all their friends saying all sorts of cool stuff.

Typewriters were big bulky things that required strong fingers. There was no such thing as liquid paper, whiteout and corrections. Thankfully there was an X key, which figured quite prominently in anything I typed, which is why I never made typing my career. The first time I typed on an electric typewriter was an experience to behold. Each letter appeared six times because the stupid thing was so sensitive. I love computers and word processors. Instant corrections - a typist’s delight.

Kentucky Fried Chicken was the first American style fast food outlet to hit Australia. In those days the chooks were chooks, not three week old chicks, and a meal was a meal. I managed to resist McDonalds until my children were toddlers, but my first taste of Pizza was at the opening of the Baulkham Hills Pizza Hut, which, as the local Librarian and therefore pillar of the community, I had been invited to attend.

When the first satellite was launched, I with everyone else in Australia, rushed outside to see this moving star and marvel at man's ingenuity. In 1967, I watched the first worldwide broadcast by Telstar satellite. The world was linked for the first time, and although most of the show was not exactly riveting T.V., it was astounding to know that I was watching someone in England, or the U.S.A. etc talking to me LIVE. Then man stood on the surface of the moon and proved forever, that it was not made of green cheese. WOW.

Refrigerators were solid boxes with nothing much in the way of a freezer. We were lucky and had a fridge. Our neighbours had an ice box and once a week the ice man would call with new ice. Sometimes he’d break off a bit and give it to the children who were following his van.

People had coppers and two concrete washing tubs – one for rinsing and one filled with Reckitts blue and an old fashion hand wringer to move the clothes from tub to tub. Now we put the washing in the washing machine and forget about it.

Calculators were fingers and toes, electronic diaries? What were those? Microwaves. computers, faxes, e-mail, Internet, the list goes on. Just think of all the gadgets we now have in the kitchen. Almost all of them appeared in my life time.  I just wonder what else will come along before I shed this mortal coil. I can't wait to find out.

Fathers and Sons

I have often thought it interesting that a strong father can sire a weak and ineffectual son. This is particularly true of the Kings of England, who fairly abound in strong fathers and weakling sons. For the average person a weak son may be a perpetual nuisance and a continual drain on the purse strings, but nothing to worry about. However, a weak king, particularly in those days when kingship meant power, was a real pain in the proverbial.

Perhaps the best example of this father/son phenomena is Edward I and his son Edward II. Edward Longshanks rightly takes his place as one of the strongest Kings of England. Of course the Welsh and the Scots have rather less kindly opinions of this King. Just read Edith Pargeter's "Sons of Gwynedd" series, or Nigel Tranter's "Robert the Bruce". After all it was Edward 1 who, having dispatched Llewellyn, the last Prince of Wales, held the new born Edward up to the Welsh and said "Behold, here is your new Prince of Wales" not only showing how sensitive he was to other peoples feelings, but also starting a tradition of naming heirs to the throne the Prince of Wales. Edward got his other nickname "Hammer of the Scots" because of his penchant for meddling in their affairs - usually with an army in tow and while Edward I was alive, Robert the Bruce spent a fair amount of time on the run and communing with spiders.

Edward II was made of less fiery stuff. Not that he lacked courage, but he didn't seem to get things right. Firstly he lost Scotland at the battle of Bannockburn, which probably caused his dad to roll over in his grave. Secondly he had a penchant for favourites who were soundly disliked by powerful people. His first favourite, Piers Gaveston, was murdered, but he recovered from the loss and later became "good friends" with Hugh Despenser. Now Edward's queen, Isabella, hated Hugh, and decided to get her own back by taking a lover herself. This was the devious Roger Mortimer. Together they deposed Edward, forced him to abdicate, and took over the Regency in the name of his son, Edward III. Despite all their subsequent efforts - starvation, unsanitary conditions, concentration camp tortures - Edward II stubbornly refused to die. He was even briefly rescued. So there was nothing for it. They murdered him. With sadistic delight and some evil sense of commentary, they stuck a red hot poker up his nether regions. It is said that the agonising screams of the King can still be heard echoing around the halls of Berkley Castle, where the deed was done.

Of course Edward III despatched Mortimer and sent his mother into "retirement" as soon as he was able and ended up having one of the longest reigns in English history. But people have always got to carp and so it is said of Edward, that he had too many sons for England’s good. So it was down the track that his quarrelling descendants ended up having a little party called the War of the Roses. This came to a head in the reign of Henry VI. Henry was only nine months old when his father, Henry V of Agincourt fame, died. He grew up to be a gentle and sensitive man, who suffered a fair bit of illness. Some said he may have been mentally ill, and I guess any man who was more interested in sending his own soul to heaven, instead of despatching others to meet their maker, could be considered mad by the standards of the time. Barons could point out that the French were still waiting and there were more Joan of Arc's to kill, but Henry didn't care. In fact he preferred to pray and allow others to care for his kingdom. Battles for power ensured, especially with the House of York and Henry was finally defeated and sent to the Tower. He was murdered there: struck down while saying his prayers. It is said that while he lay in state, his wounds still bled as a testimony to this horrible and sacrilegious deed. In medieval times some believed that a murdered man's wounds bled in the presence of the murderer, so perhaps this is poetic licence on the part of the chronicles. If not, then the only other explanation is that the poor man wasn't dead - only in a massive coma. Makes you shudder to think doesn't it.

Macbeth-ically speaking

"Double, double, toil and trouble, Fire burn and cauldron bubble." What a neat way to set the dark scene in a dark play. "THAT play", "THE SCOTTISH PLAY" - a play that is considered so unlucky in theatrical circles that it's very name is forbidden. Should some unfortunate quote a line from that play, when not in rehearsal or performance, he has to go through an elaborate ritual to deaden the curse, and stop the misfortune, that thespians believed will fall. Disaster seems to follow that play, and there are reputably more accidents associated with Shakespeare's "Macbeth" than any other play.

Shakespeare wrote "Macbeth" for James 1, King of England. It was supposed to be a moral tale, outlining the fate metered out to those who decide to kill their King. Unfortunately, James, who Guy Fawkes had tried to blow to pieces in the failed Gunpowder Plot, found the storyline a little too close to home for comfort. He did not find Regicide an entertaining topic and made his displeasure felt. So "MacBeth" was unlucky from the start.

Nigel Tranter, the Scottish historical novelist, has more than one bone to pick with Shakespeare. This lying Sassenach had besmirched a noble king, he says, and he tries to set the record straight in his novel "Macbeth, the King". Lady Macbeth, according to Tranter, is one of the most maligned women in history. Obviously she was not known for sleepwalking and the wringing of blood soaked hands. This novel makes interesting reading for anyone who has studied MacBeth.

Why is Macbeth so unlucky? Why is it cursed? Well- according to Richard Huggett in his book "The Curse of Macbeth and other Theatrical Superstitions", Shakespeare included a real witches curse in his play. Yes folks - all that eye of newt, and hair of bat business is a witches code. The hooked nose warty ones don't really go around de-eyeing newts or doing a pluck-a-bat on Dracula's friends. These comical terms hide the identity of secret, sinister ingredients. If you want to know what they are, you'll have to become a black witch. I wonder if Shakespeare would have opted for accuracy, if he'd known what trouble the real curse was going to cause.

If you happen to find a copy of the "Curse of Macbeth and Other Theatrical Superstitions", check the index and see what the book says about Dame Nellie Melba. I guarantee you'll never think of her in quite the same way again. I hope he is wrong, that the superstition referred to is a malicious lie about a great Dame, but strange things happen in this world.

While thinking of witches, the following ditty sprang to mind. (Composed by me during a moment of madness.) I include it for your groans.

There's bad dogs breath and horses tails and lots of eye of newt

All stirred up in the stew, just for you

There's black bats wings and a nightingale sings as I stir it round the pot

And I've made it nice and hot, just for you.

You left me for another. T'was a rotten thing to do

But you'll be sorry Dearest when you've eaten up my stew.

There's oodles of poodles and wormlike noodles and Mummy bandages, too

All stirred up in the stew, just for you

There's criminals nails and puppy dogs tails and soot from the chimney flue

All stirred up in the stew, just for you

You left me broken hearted, I cried all through the night

But this concoction Darling, will make everything alright

There's toes of frog and bristles of hog and spider webs and more

And yukky things galore all about to even the score

With the rat who left me for another girl.