TELL ME WHY ...

...we can't live together

 

 

I've just finished watching the TV series - The Tattooist of Auschwitz.

It's worth a watch and while it deals with the harrowing story of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Poland in WW2 ...

It is estimated that the SS and police deported at least 1.3 million people to the Auschwitz camp complex between 1940 and 1945. Of these deportees, approximately 1.1 million people were murdered.

The best estimates of the number of victims at the Auschwitz camp complex, including the killing center at Auschwitz-Birkenau, between 1940 and 1945 are: Jews (1,095,000 deported to Auschwitz, 960,000 died)
Non-Jewish Poles (140,000- 150,000 deported, 74,000 died)
Roma (Gypsies) (23,000 deported, 21,000 died)
Soviet prisoners of war (15,000 deported and died)
Other nationalities (25,000 deported, 10,000- 15,000 died)

During the Holocaust, concentration camp prisoners received tattoos only at one location, Auschwitz. Incoming prisoners were assigned a camp serial number which was sewn to their prison uniforms. Only those prisoners selected for work were issued serial numbers; those prisoners sent directly to the gas chambers were not registered and received no tattoos.

         - The Holocaust Encyclopaedia 

... it is also a story of relationships being a drama largely based on the true-life history of Lali and Gita Sokolov who were imprisoned in one of the Auschwitz camps. There of course has been some controversy over the book and now the Netflix series but it is said to be mostly true with only the conversations and the insertion of the characters into other events being fictionalised. No realistic person would deny the general truths behind this and pretend that it never happened. It was only a generation earlier than mine and I feel bewildered how people could have been so cruel.

The SS (Schutzstaffel) were mostly responsible for the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps controlling labour, health, security, accommodation, and administration sections and of course were responsible for the murders.

Seventy-five percent of the Auschwitz garrison performed guard duty. The SS guard battalion was made up of 8 to 10 guard companies, two staff companies, and a company of guard-dog handlers (Hundesstaffel). The SS men assigned to guard duty belonged to the SS-Totenkopfverbände. At a later date, Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe soldiers who were too old for frontline service were also assigned to guard duty at Auschwitz.

          - Wikipedia

 The Wehrmacht soldiers wore this insignia on their belt buckles:

"Gott Mit Uns" - God is with us.

The SS soldiers wore this belt buckle:

“Meine Ehre heiBt Treue” ('My honor is loyalty’)

I don't know which is more offensive. These people were psychopaths - conscienceless murderers, thugs, bullies and thieves and I hope that Richard, in his new 'Judgement Day' series reserves a special place in hell for them.

We've been told before that the SS murderers were put on trial after the war and punished but it seems that this was only the very senior people with many, many more going free for political reasons, economic considerations or sheer inefficiency. I noted in the postscript to the series that of the 9,800 SS guards at Auschwitz only 10% of them were prosecuted and punished. That leaves a whopping 90% or (9,000 psychopathic, racist, misogynistic, Jew hating killers who re-entered post war society. It makes me want to spit.

"What will I do now? I know, I'll become a priest."

ALL IS GOOD IN THE WORLD ...

 

... well, apart from USA and its bizarre election run up, Putin and Kim cosying up, Israel proving that they are a bunch of bastards who've forgotten their own history and all the other geopolitical, racial inequality, social injustice, gender hatred, poverty gap and religious intolerance shit -  you know, all the stuff.

I mean (well it is all about me), today at about midday we had a power cut. OK, we've had those before and they usually last  minutes or, at most, an hour. After a couple of hours I remarked to The Old Girl that this was the biggest outage we've had for a while. "Since Cyclone Gabrielle last year" she said - always having facts to hand. "OK" I replied.

We went through the afternoon, pre-preparing dinner (fortunately we have a gas cooker on the top of our oven), reading (she couldn't work because internet was down as well as power) and planning for the evening. Our phones didn't work even using 'data' which was surprising and I can only assume that this was because the 'repeater' stations or whatever the telecommunication companies use were all down.

At 4PM I turned the radio on (battery powered) for the news and we learned that the whole of Northland was out of power due to some major transformer disruption. and 180,000 people were affected. Hell's bells (sorry Robert) and that this was going to be a problem until at least midday tomorrow. WTF! We redoubled our preparations - checking for torches, candles (where the alcohol is) and resigned ourselves for a longer than usual night.

Fortunately I'd lit the fire in the lounge in the morning so we had a cosy blaze going and warming the house. I brought in some extra wood, just in case and settled down to reading - not on my non-working iPad - but a book from the bookcase. This was the chronological history of the Second World War (a big book) triggered by the fact that I'm in the middle of reading 'Operation Mincemeat' which is a documentary novel of the misinformation plan by the Brits in 1943 to mislead the Germans about the Allies planned invasion of Sicily. Good stuff but, in 2024 needing power and internet to read on an IPad.

We joked about how teenagers would be faring without internet and television and I noticed a lot of people walking along the road - something we hadn't seen since 2020 (Covid lockdown days). It was obvious that they were families (parents and children) going for walks after school-time and before dinner because with the power off there was no social media catch-up and TV to watch.

We also noticed many cars leaving the bay (before 5PM) which is unusual and surmised that they were all off to town in hunt of takeaways for dinner. We imagined harassed mothers planning an evening and night for the family with cold meals or something on the BBQ followed by candlelit entertainment of board games, charades and other non electronic activity - camping fun for all and then .... the power came on.

Wow! It was both a relief and a disappointment. Relief at being able to charge up our phones and iPads and to check mail and get internet but ... that cosy, snuggly camping experience had gone.

Oh well.

SHEESH!

 

YouTube got all snarky when I tried to show ALL of my readers (so far two proven ones) a clever video outtake from the 4th series of RAKE. I couldn't find it anywhere on Google and YouTube so filmed it from the TV screen on my phone. It was only 5 minutes long and, if anything was a good advertisement for the Australian Broadcasting Corp but they got their panties in a bunch.

I only used YouTube as a vehicle because when I tried to directly publish it on the blog post it wouldn't upload because the file was too large, As I said in the heading - sheesh! I wasn't trying to monetise it and anyway you readers are so bloody parsimonious I'd be lucky to get a button from you. At least YouTube said that it's not a copyright strike and it doesn't affect my channel. Needless to say I won't be doing it again and you dear readers ... or, as T.S. Eliot put it:

"hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”

... will miss out on some lovely and watchable vids.

 

NEW POST - THE RELIGIOUS CURMUDGEON

 

A TRUCKLOAD OF SINS

MEA MAXIMA CULPA

 

Yes, I know I've used this Enigma clip before but it is very good and I like it so ...

I am very sorry that I let readers down yesterday - only managing to write one post - on a Sunday! I can do better.

As I said I was feeling under the weather but promise to make up for it though.

The other bloggers read my posts and only one commiserated - slightly. That was Robert who quickly managed to make it ALL ABOUT HIM! He banged on about the fact that he still gets hangovers even when he hasn't been drinking alcohol. See:

Of course this does raise the question: "How the hell does he write his silly and generally incomprehensible posts when there's no alcohol involved?"

Maybe that Holy Spirit he takes has a higher proof than I realised.

The other blogger, Richard, didn't commiserate but instead bizarrely told us that he was considering cutting his balls off with a knife. Although it would only require a very small knife for such minor surgery it was still of concern and reminded me of that sad story Robyn Langwell wrote about weightlifter Robin Tait beating his penis with a beer bottle. See:

METRO - ROBYN LANGWELL

I guess that Richard would use a clean-skin chardonnay for the job.

SHOULDN'T-A OUGHTN'T-A

 OK, we pushed the boat out last night and I'm feeling the effect of it today. It's the fist hangover I've had for a very long time. I blame this:

The Taylor's 20 year old port that I bought back in about 1980 or earlier. This makes the wine inside at least 64 years old - nearly as old as me. It was still lovely even though it had become very tawny coloured. The four of us drank it all after dinner.

I blame the port for my hangover ...

 ... and I guess the Hawkes Bay chardonnay, the Barossa Valley shiraz and the Central Otago pinot noir might have contributed.

CHRISTMAS MUST HAVE COME EARLY

 

STRAIGHT TO THE POOL ROOM

 Richard (of Richard's Base Brag) finally came through with the promised certificate for participation in his latest quiz.

"For nearly having a go" the certificate says and I like that. My whole life has been influenced by this sentiment and I make no apologies for being lazy. 'Mr Sleepy' was my nickname at work and I took pride in that.

This will go straight to the pool room.

It will be proudly featured here when I get it framed

YOU WOULDN'T WANT TO BE HANGING BY YOUR NECK WAITING ...

... for the certificate that Richard promised for entering his quiz.

 Well, I admit that it was a lukewarm promise but ... so far nothing.

It's about as lukewarm as Robert's promise that his pal Jesus Christ was going to return to earth to 'save us'. Well, it's been over 2000 years now and still no sign unless you count Donald Trump who is, with all those silly bible-belt Americans claiming that he is the Saviour.

No ... I can't wait so I've sourced my own certificate.

It's a bit rough I admit but then, so was my quiz entry.

Time to celebrate I think - Tipping Point Rose beckons.

QUIZZZZZZZZZES

That other blog - Richard's Brass Band or something ran a quiz the other day (note that The Curmudgeon was the first blog to run quizzes). This rather obscure quiz featured arcane musical references and was about as exciting as reading Robert's blog (another blog in this community).

It's not the tediousness of the quiz that I want to talk about though it's the attitude and behaviour of the quiz setter that beggars belief.

The old joker set a silly and incomprehensible quiz hoping that some readers would enter the competition (more on that later).

"A B C D Eb F F# G# A .. ah ah ahhhh .... dammit I have to go and change my underpants."

When kind and obliging readers entered the quiz they received derision and the results were published in a high handed way. This was dizzzzgusting (see what I did there?).

To cap it off there was no mention of a prize for a winner and there were no certificates presented to the participants. A poor show really.

Now while I'm not one to hanker after badges and certificates - you know me ...

... I do think that some sort of acknowledgement for the effort made would have been appropriate.

NEW POST - THE RELIGIOUS CURMUDGEON 'FOR ROBERT'

 

FOR ROBERT

OORAH!

 

"Oorah!"

I had great success today - well, I had to visit four stores but eventually found what I wanted for digging out the crawl space in the basement.

Short-handled digging spade, levelling spade and pick-axe
with padded gloves.

I'll be able to do the job much better than with the normal long-handled tools which were inoperable due to the constraints on space.

The cashier at Bunnings looked at the tools and asked why I was buying such short ones. I told her that I get the little woman at home to do all the digging. She looked at me funny and wasn't quite sure if I was joking or not.

OORAH!

HOW'S MY DAY GOING?

 After a week of rain and dreary and cold weather today is sparkling bright and warm - well over 20 degrees.

It's like a summer day. I've just been for a long walk and am now contemplating a swim.

I did three loads of washing - well, I'm not trusted with washing and hanging the delicate stuff so The Old Girl did two loads of washing being clothes, towels and bedsheets and I did one. Mine was "your old overalls and shit" which was my very important 'under the house' gear consisting of two pairs of overalls, two caps, five pairs of gloves and knee pads - all covered in mud. I feel that I've accomplished something.

This afternoon I might head into town to Bunnings and the 'tradie' stores to look for those specialty digging tools I told you about.

Heigh ho!

BLURRED LINES

OK, I know that video was controversial and the odious Robin Thicke was pilloried but ... there's something about it ...

"If you can't hear, what I'm tryna say (hey girl, come here)
If you can't read, from the same page
Maybe I'm going deaf (hey, hey, hey)
Maybe I'm going blind (hey, hey, hey)
Maybe I'm out of my mind (hey, hey, hey)"

I watched a Liam Neeson film last night - Blacklight - and you can imagine how dire that was.

But, to be fair to Richard who equates Liam Neeson to Laurence Olivier and his films to something Akiwa Kurosawa would have liked to have made, it was entertaining.

Many years ago literature was recognised as literature and comic books as comic books , There was a clear separation from a bit of fun and something a bit more serious. Video games, when the media emerged were just that - games and films were something different. The best films were often based on literature and had themes, plots and narrative. Today the lines are blurred.

Major streaming companies like Netflix are churning out the films (movies) and ex video game producers are writing, directing and producing those films. Often there isn't a lot of difference between the two platforms.

Somewhere along the line(s) narrative seems to have slipped between the cracks. It is no longer deemed to be important. As long as there is enough crash-bang action, some recognisable actors and lashings of sex then, apart from a basic story-line nothing has to make sense. I've noticed this more and more with the 'modern' films other that those made by real and serious directors and last night's Blacklight was a case in point. The premise of the FBI being headed up by criminals and waging war on American dissidents was OK but the execution of it wasn't. It was fatuous and downright silly. What bugs me though is that it doesn't seem to matter. Many, many people can be shot dead, strangled, stabbed and blown up without any police investigation let alone any moral scruples coming into play. The outcomes, like in this one, always come out happy-chappy and lovey-dovey and everyone goes on about their business after major mayhem and destruction. Is this a devious plot, like in 1984, to keep the masses happy? Maybe, since the old standby of religion has fallen by the wayside or taken over by AI.

WE'LLL, THAT WAS SUNDAY

 Not a lot's been happening on the blogs today - in fact, so far, nothing.

Not that it's a bad thing - after all, we might have seen some more nutty posts from that inflamed Catholic from Moera (he should try using some cortisol cream) or some more grumblings from the old Covid-affected man who lives in the furthest and darkest room of his house - again, not a bad thing.

It's been a rainy and grey old day up north. Apart from a grocery run (by car) to the local grocery store for green vegetables for dinner I've been ensconced inside all day reading, dozing and generally doing nothing.

My sedentary state was no doubt influenced by the breakfast I had. Eschewing my normal Weetbix mush which I've told you about before: BABYFOOD  As it was a grey and dreary day I had a 'full English breakfast' but without bacon, sausages and black pudding.

Even without the carcinogenic meat, the egg, toast, tomatoes and potato hash cakes was very filling and I had to have a few zzzs afterwards.

I had planned a few posts for you from The Curmudgeons Inc.ⓒ but didn't turn the computer on. The Old Girl decided to do a full day's work today and will take next Friday off in lieu so I wasn't given access to my study her office. Maybe I'll write these for you tomorrow.

COMING SOON

PARDON ...

 

... or, "bring three and fourpence we're going to a dance."

Are you, like me getting a but deaf and finding it difficult to properly hear dialogue on modern television series and films?*

Often it isn't the hard of hearing at fault, it's the indistinctness of enunciation (mumbling) and the poor sound quality of the production - that and the 'crash-bang' background noise and music that's dumped in the mix. Even using hearing aids doesn't help.

It used to be that proper (edited) subtitles work but these are few and far between now. Hold on, hold on,  I know that you're going to say that almost every streaming service provides an option for subtitles but, if you would read properly, I said "proper (edited) subtitles". The rubbish that goes for subtitles nowadays is AI generated and is frankly nonsense.

Even the AI logarithms find it hard to decipher what the mumbling actors are saying.

How accurate are YouTube auto-generated subtitles?

YouTube automatic captions typically provide about 60-70% accuracy, which means that 1 in 3 words can be wrong. This accuracy rate will be improved with good audio quality and simple content but worsens when there is background noise, accents, or multi-syllable words.

At worst this totally destroys comprehensibility and it's better to watch with the sound off.

* I have written on this before you know.

STALAG LUFT 33

My abdominal muscle tear or whatever it was is coming right. Doctor Google told me that with rest it would mend itself. I was planning to, as soon as I got better, continue excavating under the house just in case further plumbing problems arise. The Old Girl is off to a fancy schmancy restaurant today for lunch so I won't be able to go searching for suitable digging tools at the 'tradie 'warehouses. This is probably just as well as it forces me to rest up for a few more days.

I found that because of the extremely cramped space, normal digging tools - spade, pick, shovel etc were no use as there's no way to swing them. I used a Niwashi digidigi tool which was OK but took ages as it only has a narrow blade.

 It also hurt my hand from having to force it through the dirt with my palm.  It made me feel like a WW2 POW digging an escape tunnel.

I'm looking for a short handled spade with a cross piece at the bottom of the handle for grip. Something like this:

I also found this when looking for excavation tools on the internet:

This might do the job but it costs $500 and is supplied by ALI Express from China so I'm a bit dubious of it. I'd rather find a 'tradie' store that has things like this in stock so I can see and handle it before purchase.

Mind you, I could also just 'get a man in' as The Old Girl suggests which, if I get qualified excavators might avoid me undermining and collapsing the house.

NEW POST - THE RELIGIOUS SEE YOURMUDGEON

 

INQUISITION

I'M A HAPPY CHAPPY

 First of all I want to  commiserate with Richard having COVID. I've never had it but have heard that it's quite a nasty complaint. I hope that he gets better soon (two weeks?) and am pleased to see that he's doing the responsible thing and isolating himself.

Second (appropriately for those who are familiar with Robert's many aliases), I'd like to commiserate with Robert who has slipped back into the Catholic Church mumbo jumbo and posted some nonsense written by some French nutter many years ago - Bernard Clairvaux - which seems to me to be some made up name of some other later French Catholic nutter. I cannot understand how the Catholic Church and Robert buy into this stuff.

What I really want to tell you in this post is that the plumber came and fixed the under-house water leak. This is such a relief and I feel quite elated now - much better I'm sure than any ecstasy experienced by a nutty and most likely bi-polar 'saint'. I don't feel obliged to make up a silly poem to Jesus. I just celebrated with a vodka and tonic.

This is the pipe and connection I tried to fix with tape that didn't stop water pissing out.

This is the replacement pipe and connection the plumber put in which stopped water pissing out. 

"YOUR KIND OF PAINTING CAN DAMAGE THE BRAIN"

 Things are getting back to normal here after a bit of a problem during the weekend. I'm about to cook dinner (pizza - smoked salmon for her and tuna for me) and sat down to watch some old comedy on YouTube.

I'm feeling relaxed (but not washed - the plumber comes tomorrow) due to a glass of Stoneleigh Rose.

Talking of unwashed, actually 'The Great Unwashed' both what I've been reading on the blogs and watching on YouTube have come together like ... well, like things that come together.

On the blogs Robert has been banging on about his new aquarium which he has given to his stepson (check out for alligators Kylie! - A reference to Thomas Pynchon's novel 'V' there which I'm sure that readers will have picked up on). Robert has also confessed that he has rotten scrosha which is pretty brave but not surprising in this new, confess-all social media world. His more promising posts have been deleted and we are being subjected to his 'same old' Catholic missives - this time some fairy tales about angels and some classical images of Saint Michael, one of Christianity's made up super heroes like DC Comic's Superman and Batman.

In Richard's world he has managed somehow to suppress the more vitriolic and ignorant characters like Angry Jesus and Akish The Philistine but sheesh, he still comes out with some low-brow stuff like:

"I saw an image of the Mona Lisa the other night It reminded me of the look that all of my old girlfriend's gave me."

 To be fair, we all know that look and at least Richard had a go at Akish for his Philistinic values:

The YouTube videos I watched reminded me of the Philistines who run the other blogs. These are very funny and well worth a watch. They are old Peter Cook and Dudley Moore clips from Not Only But Also which thankfully weren't among the ones that the stupid BBC erased many years ago.

HERE WE GO AGAIN - DUX QUEST*

 * No, I'm not spouting Latin. The Curmudgeon isn't one of those pretentious 3G people.

Do you remember a couple of years ago I posted on plumbing problems (not mine - the house's)?

Oh, here's an idea - I'll give you a link or two:

HERE

AND HERE

AND HERE

Happy now?

Well, it's happened again. The latest energy bill showed a big increase from the previous month and we haven't been excessively using electricity. I had a thought that we might have a hot water leak so crawled under the house to look. No, that's all OK but I decided to scout further. And further it was. At the furthest reach of the under-floor piping there was a major leak from a PVC joint. This is one of those Dux Quest pipes that were installed in the 1970s and 1980s - a rort by the plumbing/building industry as while being cheap they failed abysmally.

The crawl space under the house is very tight so, to get to this latest leak I spent several hours digging and scraping away the dirt level to make a bit more room. This was hard work as the ground was hard with impacted mud (from the previous floods before we had the driveway ditches dug) and rocks and, near the water leak it was like pottery clay making it very difficult to dig and scrape.

Eventually I must have lowered the level by about 6 inches (two Phillip Nis's penises). I didn't want to dig too deeply near the house piles as the 'rule of thumb' (American, hence the non-metric scale) is one foot away from piles no more than 6 inches to dig.

Here are some images. I know that you like images almost as much as you like graphs**

I'd turned off the water and with difficulty, actually a lot of difficulty reached under two large drainage piped to get to the narrow water pipe to wrap Magic Wrap around the pipe and the join.

Magic Wrap, according to internet reviews is marvellous stuff:

That was from a Magic Wrap website but 'independent' reviews (probably written by themselves) say similar things. Unfortunately it's all crap. The product doesn't work.

I'd run out of daylight so made sure the water was turned off and gave up for the night. That was yesterday.

This morning I crawled under the house again and, as I'd bought two rolls of Magic Wrap from Mitre 10 I decided to use the other one as well, tightly binding the pipe and the joint. When I turned the water back on it still pissed out! Bugger!

I contacted a local plumber, well aware that it's a holiday weekend and arranged for him to come tomorrow to make the repair. Also I said I'd like to book in a time for him (probably a two or three day job) to replace all the Dux Quest and any other dodgy piping. It's a big house and access is restricted so it will be a long (and expensive) job. He asked if I'd tried to  wrap the pipe and I told him about Magic Wrap. He laughed and said that he'd tried it on his place and it doesn't work.

C'est la vie. ***

** Sorry I don't have any graphs for you.

*** That was French.

GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY

 I'm not going to bang on about the orange idiot being convicted of 34 felony charges in the NYC court - there will be enough commentary on that and besides, there's a zero chance that the criminal will be imprisoned or even properly punished in any way.

What I did notice however is how Trump's supporters - the MAGA red hat wearing dupes, the toadyish Republican arse-lickers and the far right media have come out whinging and complaining about the jury result:

"This is a disgrace"

"An embarrassment to our country"

"It makes us look like a banana republic"

"It's what totalitarian countries would do"

were some of the comments I read which just shows how ignorant these people are.

What the trial and the outcome demonstrates is not that USA is a 'banana republic' but the opposite in fact. It shows that USA is a proper democracy. If it was a totalitarian state then either Trump would never have been put on trial or, at the other end of the scale would have been summarily executed. Think Russia, China, North Korea and some of the worst African countries.

The USA legal system (apart from the Trump-ruined Supreme Court) actually works and this case and the result should be cause for celebration.