Oldsheimer's strikes

Do many of you have this problem?

I mull over a number of things, suitable for mention perhaps in an online diary, during my ho-hum work day that ranges from writing a submission to a minister to alter an aspect of legislation to climbing on to my shed roof to clean out the gutters - and by the time I sit down at the computer I have no idea what I was going to say...

Is this perhaps what they call 'oldsheimer's'? (With only weeks to the big Seven Oh, I could be forgiven.)

Maybe those two days wasted cleaning and polishing the van with six different bottles of Meguiars lotions, inside and out, just to present it at an out-of-town service place for its annual checkup accounts for the mental lapse? The van is now three years old and, as they say, 'in showroom condition'. What if I were to get a good price for it and lessened my planetary footprint by not owning a car? Already, I don't fly no more, and as detailed here earlier, mow the lawns with scythe and pushmower...

Now, checking on the progress of my one-pan rice dish with vegies, one of those points comes back to me:

"Where the bloody hell are you!?!" The fuss made about this Tourism Australia come-on escapes me - rude Brittania (thank you, Speccie!) surely has heard worse. The really objectionable thing in this advert is not the word 'bloody', but the implied notion - from this nation of cargo-cult followers that is the Land of Oz - that people should be so lucky just queing up to get a look in. And the demeaning subtext that Australian Aborigines "spent 40,000 years preparing' for a tourism spectacle - this totally perverts any appreciation of their culture, were there any in the first place... Shame on the perpetrators! (Perhaps the agency is a Liberal Party family enterprise?)

Noxious species, incorporated...

Bianca saw a big Alsatian roam in broad daylight, sporting a yellow collar. She rang around among the neighbours to see if someone would claim this potential slayer of chickens, to no avail. She contacted the local council animal control guys, and a surly staff member duly deposited a trap that would certainly not hold an Alsatian. And its construction left much to be desired in the triggering department. After three weeks of catching nothing, the man rang to say he wanted the trap back on Monday.

Now would you believe we caught a ferocious grey cat overnight Saturday. I contacted the Animal Welfare league on a number that proved five years obsolete (but got through in the end), but she said it was 'technically' the council's problem. I rang them Monday to say yes, you can have your damn trap back, but it now contains a resident feral...

A team of two council staffers organised a trailer for the SUV (at least we know where our rates are spent effectively) and rolled up pretty much within the time they said they would. The hefted the trap with the snarling feline on to the trailer. I remarked that the poor thing had got itself a bloody nose from running against the cage, at which the surly one remarked: "It won't matter where she's going!" - obviously she was destined for the same fate as the second of two black cats I'd caught in a bigger trap supplied for a while by the Rural Lands Protection Board, until the ranger retrieved it.

The subsequent attempt to contact said ranger, after Bianca saw the Alsatian, failed miserably when he did not return our call. This incensed me so much that I refused payment of the annual levy, opting instead to challenge a regulation that had me raise "10 grown steers" on our fully wooded piece of coastal bush. (Hence the letter to the minister today, arguing for a change in the law to accommodate conservationists such as yours truly.

In the meantime I proceeded to have a local steel supplier weld me up a huge cage to trap future intruders - all I need to do is rig up a suitable guillotine-action front piece. I've already bought a welder, but am yet to try it out... The new trap will have an infrared barrier beam at a height sufficient to not trigger it when goannas or bandicoots enter, but only when cats or dogs are about. I even thought about applying for an environmental protection grant to help defray costs, but found the paperwork too daunting. On the same day I looked up the forms, a guy appeared on The New Inventors program with a cunning trap designed to catch and gas Indian mynahs. I'm sure he got that grant...

And a final irony: today, after I sent of the e-mail, complete with Google Earth shot of our conservation piece, to the relevant minister, I noticed a little line at the end of the Board's reply to my objection, which I'd hitherto completely overlooked.

It said: "If at any time we can be of assistance with the control of noxious animals please don't hesitate to contact the office."

Come back, Laurie, all's forgiven...

Cheers!