Well That's One Person Who Reads My Blog

On Christmas Eve a friend I don't see often - he lives and works in Canberra now although he's originally from here and we used to work at the same place - called in during his visit home for Christmas. It was lovely to see him and Pisces and I had a very enjoyable catch up and chat. In the course of conversation he mentioned that he reads my blog. I was delighted to hear this because, although my stats (helpfully supplied by Blogger) show that people read my blog, they rarely comment on it so who they are is a mystery for the most part. I do link to the blog on Facebook and get responses and comments there but it would be nice to know who outside my circle of Facebook friends reads it.

To that end I'm going to finish setting up the writer's page I've been fiddling with on Facebook and never quite getting around to finishing. Then I'll try sending my little blog out into the wider world via links on that - and among my New Years resolutions (AKA the100 Day Goal challenge) is the plan to write/post a blog post at least once a week.

If you've never heard of the 100 Day Goal (which I think I wrote about earlier in the year) and you are a born procrastinator like me I highly recommend it. The idea is that you achieve big things by micro-actions and it really does work. It's free, too. I also belong to a small, closed Facebook group of fellow participants and that I find is very helpful in keeping me accountable. The next challenge begins on January 1 and if you want to learn more about it this is the link to the website. 

So I've Been Thinking About Social Media

You know the thing keeps getting all the bad press because well, you name the problem. It's all down to social media. Among other things it's responsible for mothers not paying attention to their children because they no longer interact with them apparently. An Australian cartoonist recently caused a furore by drawing a cartoon of a woman glued to her phone who hadn't noticed her baby had fallen out of the pram she was pushing because, of course, mothers who engage even momentarily with anyone else or anything in any way are neglectful. Makes you wonder what he thinks mothers with more than one child, doesn't it. Then there's the pile on that can happen when people express dissenting views and the way everyone is supposedly being led along by fake news and the social media companies which kindly offer us 'free' services in exchange for our data so their algorithms can target us with advertisements. and put us in a 'bubble' with like-minded folk.

The thing is this is all true to some degree. There are mothers who for whatever reason get distracted - by another child, their phones or books or television or - well you name it. They probably have an eye or ear open at the same time though and if little Johnny was to slip off his seat and start to wander they are likely to notice it and take action. Then there's the fake news - yes, it's everywhere and people do fall into believing it for all sorts of reasons but mostly because they don't fact check which is the first thing you should do when something controversial comes up.

I'm not forgetting the way the social media companies use the data they collect on either. It does happen and we need to be vigilant about what we give them to work with but that's down to us, isn't it. We need to be aware of what information we're making available and that we are at risk of manipulation if we're not careful. That's easy to say, though, and sadly not everyone is savvy enough to protect themselves. There are areas where we should hold these companies accountable and it's a failure on the part of our governments that rules have not been put in place to protect the users from this.

Then there's the pile on. It does happens and it can be truly awful. Anyone who's been on line for even a short time will have heard 'Don't read the comments' and 'Don't feed the trolls'. There are some horrible people out there and hidden in the anonymity of Facebook or Twitter they can and do say things they would never say to you face to face. Women are threatened with violence of all kinds from rape right through to murder for daring to say something that someone disagrees with. And it's not only women - threats of violence including threats to the family are a regular feature when anyone dares to lift their head into the public arena. It's not pretty.

These are all the reasons why I have a very carefully restricted number of 'friends' on Facebook and they are only people I care about. That doesn't mean we all always agree - life would be pretty boring if that was the case - but I expect them to show me the same courtesy I show them.

And that's why I came to write this post. I sometimes post things on my Facebook page that I know some of my 'friends' will either not like or will disagree with and I don't mind that. They can post comments and disagree as long as it is civil and they show the same civility they would if they were guests in my actual home. So I got somewhat miffed at what happened when a while back a disagreement between some of my Facebook friends started to get fiery and I asked people to stop commenting on that particular thread. This is my virtual 'home' and I don't want people getting into fights there anymore than I would want it happen in my real home. The majority backed off as I asked but some continued on bringing up the things that had been causing the heating up of the topic and it ended up with my getting terse with them and feeling disrespected.

So is it the fault of social media? I don't think so. Social media is only a platform and is not responsible for how we behave. It seems to me that it comes down to good manners which are basically just consideration of others. That means the same rules of behaviour should apply to virtual spaces as they do to real life spaces. Sadly though in many ways people don't see these spaces this way. Why? Well that's a difficult question but at least in part it comes down to the way social media provides anonymity on public platforms like Twitter and that leads to confusion in more private spaces. Let's just be aware of this and understand and differentiate between a civil disagreement and a 'flame' war. If you wouldn't say it to my face maybe you shouldn't say it on social media either.

A Bit of Music

I needed cheering up and I went to find some to find something to lift my mood. So here are some links to a few favourite music videos by Celtic Woman from their official website.

First here is Amazing Grace

This time it's Tír na nÓg (this is in the Celtic Otherworld which translates as Land of the Young). Tír na nÓg is not the safest place to visit because time passes there very differently from the human world and you might suffer the fate of Oisín who finds what he thought was only three years was in fact three hundred. That aside the song is lovely.

And finally here is Níl Sé'n Lá 

Enjoy.

Ethical Fashion

Until my hands got bad I used to make many of my clothes.  I still have a fabric stash that I'll eventually work my way through although these days it's harder work. That said when I went to YouTube following a link on the Donald Trump impeachment hearings I did not expect to find something about sewing or for that matter fashion related.

What happened was the link I had followed was interesting so I had a look at the list of other supposedly related videos that YouTube kindly provides on the side and a couple of videos down I found this video Buying a Knockoff of My Own Dress. In it Bernadette Banner, in the most educated, civilised and lady-like way possible, talks about the mass manufacturers who rip off clothing designers and artists by detailing her own experience.

Describing herself as an historian with an interest in historical clothing, she found a knockoff copy of a very lovely medieaval gown she had made with the seller even using the Instagram image of her wearing the dress on their website. Having bought the knockoff for comparison she then proceeded to point out the poor quality of the copy before going on to rant - her word - about the way so-called fast fashion has led us down a path that is ethically problematic and environmentally irresponsible.

It was interesting that I found this now because recently Facebook - whose algorithms obviously don't have a clue about most of my interests (and I intend to keep it that way by not providing them with any more data than is absolutely essential) - has been sending me ads for a clothing company which makes just this sort of rubbish. Goodness knows why but then they also often send me fashion ads. It’s pretty pointless really because, given my view on clothing shopping - that it is pretty much the last thing I ever want to do - I never even click on them.

But I digress. What this video reminded me of (apart from the blatant theft of intellectual property of a creative person which seems to be a business model for some companies these days) was how pervasive the idea is that clothing should be cheap and pretty much disposable. I was buying a few essentials at a local department store recently and I had to go past the women's clothing section on my way to what I needed. Pisces swerved into it hoping that I might be tempted to buy some much needed clothing. I'm afraid he was disappointed because although there was much 'stuff' at ludicrously low prices - $3 T-shirts for example - the trade off for cheap was poor quality and the knowledge that they were all almost certainly made in sweat shops and I’d prefer not go that route. I’d rather buy fewer clothes that are better quality and will last. I’ll let you into a secret here - I even mend things and that’s something I’m told is rare these days.

The thing is as a society we’ve fallen into a trap of wastefulness with a feeling that everything is cheaply replaceable and Banner goes on to talk about how in the past clothing was meant to last. It was mended and cut up to be repurposed or made over into other garments or for other textile uses like curtains or quilts. Patchwork quilts are a perfect example of careful use of what you had because originally they were not made of new purpose bought, carefully matched fabrics as a hobby for those who like me enjoy creative sewing but were a thrifty way to use up any scraps that could be salvaged from worn clothing or leftover cut offs from making garments. The same applied to children's clothes which were almost always made from older adult garments. It wasn't only the poor who remade clothes either as this link shows.

Coincidentally I came across this link on making do as I was working on this post and it made me think about how being thrifty has become an almost forgotten part of living. I know we're busy but truth be told people - apart from those lucky relatively few who could afford servants to do the work - have always been busy and time poor. I suspect that it's as much to do with availability of so much and the distractions with which we live as much as lack of time. Maybe it's time we tried a new/old way - a way where we carry over the KonMarie idea of only keeping that which sparks joy into what we buy and at the same time learn the pleasure of a less waste filled life.

Well, That's a Fail

I'm talking about NaNoWriMo because let's face it if I've only managed about 6,000 words by now the hope of reaching 50,000 is long gone. I have reasons - of course, I have - and they are quite genuine but I knew much of this was going to come up before I started so I should have known better.  There were things I couldn't factor in as well - a funeral, weather which is scorching and drains the energy, medical 'stuff' for both of us (not serious but time consuming) and that's only part of it.


So I've faced reality which is that NaNoWriMo is a step too far this year. Instead I'm turning my mind to Christmas and trying to get myself organised earlier rather than later. These days I don't go crazy with Christmas decorations but I do like to do a little and this means it's time to pull the tree out of the shed and give it a hose down -  the amount of dust it accumulates even though it's sheathed in plastic always amazes me. Then I'll sort through the decorations and decide what has passed its useful time - and there's always something that has apparently spontaneously decided to crack or fall apart - and from there decide whether or not I need to invest in anything new.


We have a family tradition of putting up the tree and other decorations on the first weekend of December and then taking the whole lot down on the traditional date of January 6 and I think that's quite long enough for it to be up. There seems to be a tendency these days - largely due to commercial drivers - to extend the seasons for festivals of all kinds and I think that's a pity. One of our local supermarkets has taken to selling traditional Easter hot cross buns year round for example. This irritates me not so much because it's a break from tradition but because it takes away something that's unique to a particular time and something that could be looked forward to and savoured. If you have Easter buns all year there's nothing special about them, is there, so why bother?

It seems to me that this is all part of the way we live now where we seem to seek instant gratification and waiting for something is just too hard. Well, I refuse to give in to this because often anticipation is as much part of the delight as the actual event itself. This means I try to live by the principle of 'to everything there is a season' although others might find it odd and in line with that I'll keep to my traditional rituals and let each spark some pleasure because small joys are the things that make our lives worth living, don't you think.

We Will Remember Them

This handsome young man is my great uncle, Captain Horace Chamberlain King MC, and this photo was taken just before he joined up.

Horrie was born on 25 September, 1895, so he was 19 ½ when he joined up on 4 March, 1915. He was promoted rapidly becoming a sergeant on 27 July 2, 1915, second lieutenant on 14 March, 1916, lieutenant 21 August 1916 and finally captain on 23 March, 1917. He fought at Gallipolli and later in France where he was awarded the Military Cross on 2 September 1916 'for services rendered during recent fighting at Pozieres'. He was wounded on 2 November, 1917, and mentioned in despatches at the same time. He was wounded again in action on 7 April, 1918 and died as a result on 1 May, 1918.

A much loved youngest son and brother, his sisters, my grandmother and great aunt, mourned him all their lives.

Lest we forget.

Cultural Appropriation

After my successful return to yoghurt making I wanted to do more. With my Dairy-o kit came an instruction booklet - and since I had the foresight to cover it with plastic back in the day it's still pretty well intact. I had read it, of course, back when I got it but never gone beyond basic yoghurt making for some reason. There are other interesting recipes in it starting with how to make 'thickened yoghurt'. This is what we now know as Greek style yoghurt so it turns out I could have been making this for myself for years instead of waiting until it became a popular food item in the supermarket refrigerator shelves. Doh. Then there's how to make other cultures - buttermilk, sour cream, creme fraiche and cottage cheese - and buried among these is drained yoghurt cheese.

This last really caught my eye because I was recently watching an excerpt from The Feed (from public broadcaster SBS) in which the presenter, who is of Lebanese descent, was saying how she had come across this somewhere and how she felt there was some cultural appropriation taking place where someone had taken an item of Lebanese culture - labneh (a cheese made by draining yoghurt) - and misrepresented it by calling it something else (that is drained yoghurt cheese). I can understand how this might feel. Labneh is one of those traditional foods in Lebanese cooking that appears in many guises and I'm more than happy to acknowledge its place in that cuisine. I read a lot of cooking blogs and the further I looked into it the more often I found Lebanese folk claiming drained yoghurt cheese in the form of labneh as their culture's own.  They turned up writing critical comments about how their culture was being mistreated in some way which sometimes became quite heated - and I do understand.

But, the thing is drained yoghurt cheese is made all around the Mediterranean - it's found in Syria, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Cyprus and Egypt and many other places. It's known by different names - it's labne in Egypt for example - and used in different ways in many places. There are even some slightly different versions of drained yoghurt in Asian and southern Europe cultures. Some might even view Icelandic skyr as in the same tradition although it does use rennet as part of its ingredients so maybe not.

This is where my dilemma arises because cultural appropriation is very tricky and as a writer it's something I have to be aware of. The trouble is when is it appropriation? In the case of drained yoghurt cheese I think I come down on the side of no, it's not cultural appropriation because it's a staple in many places and doesn't belong specifically to the Lebanon. I'd be interested to know what you think, too.

While I investigated a lot of things came up that I'm very unsure about. One thing about cultural appropriation seems to be that someone from a dominant culture lays claim to something which is unique to another culture and uses that for profit. So I can see why a fashion designer putting catwalk models in Native American war bonnets is definitely not on. Apart from anything else such headdresses are not merely meant as ornamentation and have other cultural significance. But another example given was of an incident where a manufacturer had used without permission paintings and designs by indigenous Australian artists on items like T-shirts and tea towels. To me this isn't simply appropriation - although it is in part - but more accurately it's outright theft of the artists' work. If someone makes something - a piece of art or written words or whatever - this belongs to them and they should be the one who profits from it. Just like movie and book piracy if you take and use what someone produces for your profit or to avoid paying for it without either the creator's consent or permission in my view you're a thief. Again I'd like to know what you think.