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Recollections

Reminiscing about the 50’s - The building boom

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The building boom

 

From 1948 onwards Australia opened the doors to migrants:  first from Europe and North America and later from Asia and the Middle East.  A massive building boom resulted.  In Thornleigh a lot of inexpensive three and four bedroom cottages were built.  We treated these building sites as playgrounds; wonderful for battles but also just to explore the timber frames.

Even as children we understood the construction process and were even critical of the construction quality. There were four basic standards: trench foundations, wooden frame, fibro cladding and steel, fibro or tile roof; similar with timber (weatherboard) cladding; deeper drilled foundations and outer brick walls (brick veneer); and full brick.  We noticed if the timber plates had been properly knocked-in or just nailed and the quality of the floors and materials in general.  The days of architectural flair were in the past; and the future.  This was a time of production-line housing.

Typically the first sign of a new house was the pegging out.  Sewerage pipes were laid, followed by a foundation trench filled with reinforcing then concrete around the periphery; upon which a low brick wall was built. Concrete pads within this outer foundation marked the location of brick piers capped with galvanised ant-caps.   Within a few days the timber frame was knocked up and roof joists and ceiling rafters added for stability. Sheets of corrugated iron, upon which concrete was poured, marked the bathroom and laundry floors.  The timber frame was then clad on the outer walls and wet areas with fibrous cement (fibro).  The fibre in fibro was asbestos.  Corrugated fibrous asbestos might also be used for the roof.

Workers typically cut fibro with a hand saw or a special long handled nibbling tool, creating a snow of white dust and/or lots of little chips; in which we played. 

A particularly amusing thing for us was to light a fire of timber off-cuts then soak a piece of fibro in water and heat it until it exploded.   Today this material is considered to be extremely dangerous.  It is only handled using protective clothing and face masks.

I expect to die anytime soon.

From time to time, as children, we accidentally broke windows; usually with some projectile: a ball; a spear; a marble fired from a catapult; a slug from an air rifle and on one occasion a cricket stump.  

But people who lived in fibro houses had the additional risk of their wall being broken.  One day we were playing cricket at school when one of the bigger boys hit a six over the fence and smashed a large hole in the wall of the house next door.  No wonder I didn’t try to catch those balls!

One of the kids knocked on the door and asked:  ’can we get our ball back?’  He failed to mention that it had put a large hole in their house. People who live in fibro houses shouldn't... (that's all).

Bob Piper reminds me that we also risked our lives exploring the underground storm-water drains using burning newspaper torches – wrong on so many levels that it's almost unbelievable that we are both still alive.

 

 

 

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Travel

Canada and the United States - Part1

 

 

In July and August 2023 Wendy and I travelled to the United States again after a six-year gap. Back in 2007 we visited the east coast and west coast and in 2017 we visited 'the middle bits', travelling down from Chicago via Memphis to New Orleans then west across Texas, New Mexico, Nevada and California on our way home.

So, this time we went north from Los Angeles to Seattle, Washington, and then into Canada. From Vancouver we travelled by car, over the Rockies, then flew east to Toronto where we hired a car to travel to Ottawa and Montreal. Our next flight was all the way down to Miami, Florida, then to Fort Lauderdale, where we joined a western Caribbean cruise.  At the end of the cruise, we flew all the way back up to Boston.

Seems crazy but that was the most economical option.  From Boston we hired another car to drive, down the coast, to New York. After New York we flew to Salt Lake City then on to Los Angeles, before returning to OZ.

As usual, save for a couple of hotels and the cars, Wendy did all the booking.

Breakfast in the Qantas lounge on our way to Seattle
Wendy likes to use two devices at once

Read more: Canada and the United States - Part1

Fiction, Recollections & News

Are we the same person we once were?

 

 

 

I was initially motivated to write this cautionary note by the controversy surrounding the United States Senate hearing into the appointment of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court that was briefly called into question by Dr Christine Blasey Ford's testimony that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were both in their teens.

Kavanaugh is but one of many men who have come to the attention of the '#MeToo' movement, some of whom are now cooling their heels in jail.

Like the Kavanaugh example, a number of these cases, as reported in the media, seem to rely on someone's memory of events long past.  Yet as I will argue below after a decade or so our memories are anything but reliable.  After that time we should be respecting the accused's legal right to be presumed innocent, unless there is contemporary immutable evidence (diaries photographs and so on) or a number of non-colluding witnesses or others who have suffered a similar assault. 

Now in the news another high profile person has been convicted of historical sexual assault.  Cardinal George Pell has appealed his conviction on several charges relating to historical paedophilia.

There is just one accuser, the alleged victim.  A second alleged victim took his own life some time ago. The case was heard twice and in total 22 of the 24 jurors decided in favour of the alleged victim, despite the best defence money could buy.  Yet, as with the '#MeToo' movement in respect of powerful men, there is currently worldwide revulsion (see my Ireland Travel Notes) at sexual crimes committed within the Roman Catholic Church, such that a Cardinal is likely to be disbelieved, just as at one time a choir boy's accusations against a bishop or a priest would have been, and were, dismissed.

Both trials were held in closed court and the proceedings are secret so we have no knowledge of any supporting evidence. We do know that the two alleged victims were members of the Cathedral Choir and at least one other ex-choir boy also gave evidence. So justice may have been served. 

Yet I'm just a little concerned about the historical nature of the charges.  How reliable is anyone's memory? 

Read more: Are we the same person we once were?

Opinions and Philosophy

Carbon Capture and Storage

 

 

(Carbon Sequestration)

 

 

The following abbreviated paper is extracted from a longer, wider-ranging, paper with reference to energy policy in New South Wales and Australia, that was written in 2008. 
This extract relates solely to CCS.
The original paper that is critical of some 2008 policy initiatives intended to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions can still be read in full on this website: Read here...

 

 

 


Carbon Sequestration Source: Wikimedia Commons

 

This illustration shows the two principal categories of Carbon Capture and Storage (Carbon Sequestration) - methods of disposing of carbon dioxide (CO2) so that it doesn't enter the atmosphere.  Sequestering it underground is known as Geosequestration while artificially accelerating natural biological absorption is Biosequestration.

There is a third alternative of deep ocean sequestration but this is highly problematic as one of the adverse impacts of rising CO2 is ocean acidification - already impacting fisheries. 

This paper examines both Geosequestration and Biosequestration and concludes that while Biosequestration has longer term potential Geosequestration on sufficient scale to make a difference is impractical.

Read more: Carbon Capture and Storage

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