Tony – Page 3 – OZTHOUGHTS

My Beard……

I am noted for the length of my beard, which is HUGE! I have never shaved (apart from once, when I shaved my beard off, on that occasion I shaved, and met my younger sister in the kitchen, and she was aghast at my appearance, thinking I was a stranger!).

I have had a beard for all my life, well from about 15 or thereabouts.

As my beard now……It is white now, not red…….

In a pensive mood………

So I have had a beard all my life, well, since puberty, in fact. I have never shaved, so my beard is really looooong. And messy!

I cut it, well, Lotty does that, so it isn’t horribly long, but it is full. So I wear it long, as I see no point in trimming it short. Beards are supposed to be long, not short – see the Viking’s beards – they are really long, as is mine.

A REAL Vikings beard……. HA!

Optical illusions, do they work?

Optical illusions work, there is no getting away from that. They confuse us, and get in the way of our comprehending things – laughably really.

To set us off, here is a classic image.

We have all seen these……..

These are “classic” optical illusions, and thus well known, but we have a selection of ones that you will probably never have seen before.

This one is well considered to confuse everyone!

This one is a well known illusion…..

And this is also a well known illusion, if you look carefully, it is simply a face upside down, printed like that. Easy really.

This one is a well known illusion, find the baby……..

And this one is a normal room, but with all sorts of lines on the walls and floors……

And this is a well known one….. You can duplicate it with a simply set of scissors…….

So, these are what I will write and show you today. If what I have shown you sparks any ideas, please let me know.

Odd LP covers….. And these are really crazy!

This is really odd!

This one is really an odd thing, and to give you an idea of what is to come……….

Now this is really weird!

This one was really strange, and worrying! And it was a great success, believe it or not.

And now for the famous one!

This, believe it or not was a real success….

One of these things, is a real woman!

Believe it or not, this album was a real success.

This one was a real failure… sadly.

And this one was also a real success….

But the lead singer was dead, which didn’t help……. Even if they were a great band, which they were, apparently.

Now this one was plain rude!!!!!

Nothing further to be said about it.

Now this one defies logic!

So, these are all actual LP covers, and the defy reason.

We are robbed in the Philippines.

Once, while I was in Australia, we were robbed in the Philippines, by the nephew of our landlord, no less! And we discovered why we had such a high wall around the place – to keep thieves out!

Sadly, he broke in via one of his assistants who was in love with him! So the high wall was not a help in this case.

He was a junkie, sadly, and had a real habit which was a problem with him, and it caused him to have to steal everything that wasn’t tied down. But happily for us, he was known to the police as a thief, so we managed to get most of the stuff back – but nonetheless it was a real shock to get broken in, and I lost all my tee-shirts which I had from my time as a roadie, and from my WAB days. So we scanned all of our of our papers and loaded them into the cloud (Dropbox), which we have kept going ever since. We now scan any new papers that we have (like our Australian drivers licences) and guard them like mad!

The result of our being robbed was that Lotty had to give evidence at his trail, where he was sent down for years. I was in Australia at the time of the robbery so I was not called on to give evidence. But Lotty was very shaken by this event and was given to locking up at all times! We had to put a lock on the front door……..

Bush Fires….. The danger that is facing us all

The real danger that is facing us all!

Right now we who are living in Australia are facing the real risk of bush fires, already about 40 houses have been destroyed in this State, and people are living in all manner of shelters, in desperation.

We are prepared for the worst to happen to us,as we are ready to drop everything and run for it!

We, as a result of a burglary in the Philippines, ( I write about that in another post) have scanned all of our important documents (Good old Dropbox!!) and have real copies in a file folder, which we are prepared to grab if it gets so far.

We are also prepared for the worst, in that we have a tent, battery, bedding and so on in a trailer which we have on the drive, so we can go camping rather than loose everything in one clap. We have placed everything we might need for camping in that trailer.

The only sadness (among others) is that we will ruin all of our books, of which we have about 300! That is a real sadness, as we can think of no way to save them, if it comes so far.

So, if the worst happens, we are slightly prepared.

Camping in Australia….. More about this.

We spent the last weekend, well, actually four days, in a splendid camp with a bunch of our friends. This camp site was a Hipcamp, which is a member of the organisation of Hipcamp (https://www.hipcamp.com/en-AU). We went there with a bunch of friends from our walking group, well actually all of them came to this campsite, so we were there with all our friends!We

This was the place and our vehicles are all over the place….

We had great fun here….. And we really enjoyed ourselves totally.

Our pooch, Gizmo, who always accompanied us in all our various camping exhibitions…. Plus the kitchen.

Local wildlife…. A Goana, this one was about 1 meter long…. This was the second Goana we saw.

We made a sort of rough Tent to protect us from the vicious sun!

We needed 4 wheel drive vehicles to get to the camp site, it was a really rough track.

So all in all, we had a REALLY good time there, all with our 4 wheel drive vehicles, in order to get to the camp site. We had an all wheel drive X-Trail – but we also have a Suzuki Vitara – As one does! But that is Lotty’s car, and it is really rough, so we don’t use it on these trips.

Yet more about my time in Greece.

I was not in Greece for a long time, as the famous “Colonels Coup” had happened, and all of the prisoners in camps all over Greece were exchanged for others as the politics changed. This coup (which was organised by the CIA) caused an exchange of prisoners, the original prisoners were changed for a bunch of people who against the “Colonels”. Which included me.

Greece suddenly became a much more fascist state, reflecting the current state of American politics, and so it was really difficult to express yourself about all manner of issues and avoid being bunged into prison. Ah well, all good things end.

For a while, Greece became impossible to visit. Or at least if you were aware of politics. The “normal” tourists still went to Greece, but politically aware ones avoided it like the plague.

After the coup had softened its grip on power, Greece once again became possible to visit, and the Greek nature showed through once again, and the political prisoners once again changed back to the ones that the “Colonels” had imprisoned life became once again possible.

In other words, all changed back to the way things had been before the infamous coup, and Greece once again became Greece!

More about Greece.

Prince Phillip was born in Corfu, in the most unlikely named place, which was in Corfu town, It was called Mon Repos. Yes, really it was! So in fact, he was a Greek and not British. Just felt like saying that…. Not any reason, merely I felt like saying that.

When Greece was anti-British, as Britain was being horrid about Cypress and looked like Greece was about to go to war with Britain over Cypress, I found myself in Greece, to my horror, and I was really nervous about admitting that I was British. And a Greek said a most remarkable thing to me, when I did admit that I was British. He said, or words to that effect, “Their argument was with the British Government, not the British people, and that therefore I was OK”. I was overwhelmed by this……..

As I said in another post the other day, I used to see the women carrying water to the cafe on the beach at Glyfada, when I was on the beach there. These women used to carry water on their heads, not simply a bit of water, but about 50 litres! They used to carry this on their heads as they walked down the hill (the village they lived in was above the beach at Glyfada). Can you imagine the strength of these women, water weighed 50 kilos, and they walked down the hill with it! Amazing!

Corfu…. My time there….

Corfu is an island to the east of Greece, just where Greece joins Albania, where I spent some time. Well, actually rather a lot of time, I tended to rest there after having hitched from England, and it was the first bit of “Greece” I experienced

Corfu……. Near Albania.

I used to camp on a beach on the eastern side of the island, where I had all sorts of experiences, including the first time I smoked Marijuana! The last time I went to Corfu was a real disappointment as that beach I used to camp on, was full of Hotels and snack-bars and the village on top of the hill (where I used to watch the women carting the water to the one cafe which was on the beach. On their heads!) was full of tourists.

This beach was called Glyfada, by the way.

All manner of experiences happened to me, on that beach, apart from smoking my first joint, I was scared rigidly on one occasion as we experienced a thunder storm there, which came onto the beach we were sleeping on… Lightning was hitting the beach…. This was a first for me, lightning was landing about 20 meters from me!!!!!! Which was terrifying! We didn’t know where to go, as lightning was hitting the beach all over!

More about my time on Corfu later……….

My time in Greece…. Donkeys and other things…..

Lots of years ago, I spent a lot of time in Greece, wandering around, and learning how the Greeks did things, and how they lived. This was in the 60’s of the last century….. Long before everyone went to Greece!

A lot of time was spent hitching around Greece. One of my favourite things was the concept of Xenia, not as hatred of foreigners, but of welcoming them to their lives.

The concept of Xenia was to welcome foreigners (which meant anyone from a different place, not foreigners necessarily), but anyone from elsewhere – but not the neighboring villages, they felt about them as anyone in the world did….

That was different to our meaning of that word, which is xenophobia, which means hatred of foreigners, they welcomed them….

In the north of Greece, when I went into a village, everyone ran out the other side of the village, as I looked like a bandit (I had long hair and a beard, which only bandits wore in that time), so I simply sat down in a cafe and waited. The civil war was very fresh in everyone’s memories.

In due time the village priest came back, as he was untouchable for bandits, and sat beside me, to find out who I was. Once he discovered that I was a foreigner, he signaled the rest of the village, and they all came back – well, the men came back, not the women. I never saw any women at all.

I was then welcomed in the entire village houses…. All of them! Each night I had to stay in another house – and I never saw a woman! As payment, I brought the kids presents, as they would accept no other payment, as being paid went against the concept of Xenia. But I couldn’t take endlessly and felt that I should pay for things, as they were poor, poor, and – relatively, I was rich.

This soon stopped as Hippies abused this concept, and made use of it, and now, if you go to Greece, you will search for Xenia all over the place, but you won’t find it, sadly.

One of the other things I found with hitching around Greece was that I was given rides in the most extraordinary vehicles….. Given lifts on a donkey was not rare. I sat upon the donkey’s back and found myself in endless villages, and in army trucks was not a rare thing. I really enjoyed myself in Greece, and loved the Greeks, particularly the country ones.