Cashing in on the cashless society

While the world’s media was trying to get a handle on Russia and Ukraine, my counter-cyclical approach was to investigate the move towards a cashless society. Retailers and banks have been (stealthily), moving away from having their shop assistants and tellers handle cash. Maybe it was already happening, but the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the push by retailers in particular, to insist on people using a debit card to pay for goods and services. The rational…

Continue reading

Refugees leave Nauru (at last)

One hopes the headline is not a jinx, like headlines pre-empting the Federal Government’s $2 billion investment in social housing. The Government is having trouble getting the legislation through the house and we ought to be asking why. We should also be asking what is happening with Australia’s human logjam of refugees awaiting decisions on their future. As you probably gathered, it is Refugee Week in Australia. We will be doing our bit on Sunday…

Continue reading

In the event of something happening to me

Nothing quite focuses the mind on mortality more than a family bereavement. It’s been a long time between our family’s episodes of sorry business. However, I headed to New Zealand on pure instinct,  arriving in time to support my sister as she said goodbye to her husband of 62 years. They say that 95 is a ‘good innings’, but it is no less hard for the family when the time comes. The manner in which…

Continue reading

Men who cook and do housework LOL

As I have just returned from 10 days in New Zealand on sorry business, today I’m reposting a piece from 2018 when my best half broke her wrist and I became chief cook and bottlewasher. Normal transmission will resume next week. This topic would not have raised an eyelash in my Dad’s era, a generation of men who did not cook or do housework. Many men of my vintage grew up in households where duties…

Continue reading