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Back in 2010, we spend a couple of days on a junk on Ha Long Bay.
The picture top-left is new taken from the ship in 2024. The others are from 2010. The weather hasn't changed much. To see all the 2010 images Click here...
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In May 2024 Wendy and I travelled to Berlin then to Greece for several weeks. We finished our European trip with a week in Bulgaria, followed by a week in the UK, before flying back to Sydney.
On a previous trip to Turkey and the Balkans we had bypassed Bulgaria, not knowing what to expect. My awareness was mainly informed by the spy novels that I've read in which Bulgaria figures. These reflect real life 'Cold War' espionage when the country had one foot in the Soviet Union and the other, half in the West.
Our memories are fundamental to who we are. All our knowledge and all our skills and other abilities reside in memory. As a consequence so do all our: beliefs; tastes; loves; hates; hopes; and fears.
Yet our memories are neither permanent nor unchangeable and this has many consequences. Not the least of these is the bearing memory has on our truthfulness.
According to the Macquarie Dictionary a lie is: "a false statement made with intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood - something intended or serving to convey a false impression". So when we remember something that didn't happen, perhaps from a dream or a suggestion made by someone else, or we forget something that did happen, we are not lying when we falsely assert that it happened or truthfully deny it.
The alarming thing is that this may happen quite frequently without our noticing. Mostly this is trivial but when it contradicts someone else's recollections, in a way that has serious legal or social implications, it can change lives or become front page news.
South Australia has run aground on the long foreseen wind energy reef - is this a lee shore?
Those of you who have followed my energy commentaries published here over the past six years will know that this situation was the entirely predictable outcome of South Australia pressing on with an unrealistic renewable energy target dependent on wind generated electricity, subsidised by market distorting Large-scale Generation Certificates (LGCs) (previously called RECs in some places on this website - the name was changed after their publication).