"In the beginning"

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this blog are not necessarily the views of the blog management, (on the other hand, they are not necessarily not the views of the blog management).

No effort has been made to stay within the bounds of the truth in this blog as it has always been the view of the management that the truth should never be allowed to stand in the way of a good story.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Kids and Money.


PLEASE READ THIS;

Recently I launched into a new (for me) piece of technology known as
Bloglines, this is a program that notifies you when your subscribers
have updated their sites.


With my expanding blogroll (no, I didn’t mean to type waistline!!)
this was viewed as a major technical break-through that would save
me hours of time each day.


For the first few weeks, with only a couple of hiccups, this proved to
be the case, just enough time to lull me into a false sense of security,
then the notifications slowed down dramatically… Hmmmm lots of
people seem to be taking a sabbatical I thought.


At last the penny dropped and I checked some sites manually only
to find I was a week or more out of date with their postings.. Grrrrr
so it looks like we are back to square one and destined to check
sites manually again, may also be time to do a little pruning sadly.


So if you haven’t had the pleasure of my witty comments of late this
is the reason, hopefully over the next few days I’ll catch up.

If anyone has a better solution than Bloglines for checking
sites I would love to hear about them.



A young businessman in Brisbane in 1947.




Kids and money.


I just love delving into history (recent history, say 150 years ago, not
that dry old stuff we were taught in school) my interest was caught by
this old photo in the Sunday paper.

It depicts an enterprising youngster who has hitched his pet goat to a
billy cart and is busily collecting returnable bottles to supplement his
pocket money, which is never enough to buy all the things a child
desires.

The photo was taken in an inner city suburb of Brisbane in 1947, for
any car buffs who may not recognize the car, it is a Vauxhall about
1938 vintage, cars were very scarce in Australia in the years after
World War 2 and those that were available were mainly of British build.

I may do a separate post on our Motor industry at some time.

Back to the important issue of pocket money (read allowance) and it’s
supplementation, there were many ways of earning some cash
available to those willing to look around.

During this period all Australian cities had morning and evening
newspapers (before the television news explosion killed of all the
evening editions, and a few of the morning ones too) so the home
delivery and street corner selling of newspapers was a big employer.

As well as home delivery of newspapers there was also many other
products brought right to your door, until PROGRESS killed them
off, we had bread, milk, meat, groceries and ice, pre refrigeration,
the packaging or delivery of these all offering part time employment
to those kids who wanted to work and earn money.

There was even the introduction to small time crime in some of
these ventures, like climbing the back fence at the store and
releasing some refundable bottles for a second round of refunds,
I am ashamed (but not very ashamed) to admit that I have
indulged in this activity.

There were also family enterprises like the supply of fresh eggs and
fresh chickens delivered to your door, one such enterprise had the
whole family involved in the process of killing, plucking, cleaning and
stuffing of chickens.

Due to an unprecedented demand at Christmas time the supply ran
out, determined that this wouldn’t happen the next year so extra
birds were bred only to find that “market forces” beat them again
and demand declined, (or maybe frozen chickens hit the market?)
the family ate a lot of chicken that year.



Lost in the Supermarket.

Two blokes are pushing their shopping trolleys around a supermarket
when they collide.

The first bloke says to the second bloke, "Sorry about that. I'm looking
for my wife, and I guess I wasn't paying attention to where I was going".

The second bloke says, "That's OK. It's a coincidence. I'm looking for my
wife, too. I can't find her and I'm getting a little desperate".

The first bloke says, "Well, maybe we can help each other. What does
your wife look like"?

The second bloke says, "Well, she is 27 yrs old, 5 feet 11 inches tall,
with blonde hair, blue eyes, big boobs, long legs and is wearing tiny
little shorts and a crop top. What does your wife look like"?

The first bloke says, "Doesn't matter.. let's look for yours."




People feel fame gives them some kind

of privilege to walk up to you and say

anything to you

and it won't hurt your feelings

like it's happening to your clothing.

19 comments:

Rachel said...

I loved the old photo and a glimpse into the past and some of your past too Peter!

That joke make me LOL!!

Granny said...

Nice. Bloglines shows your last update as 11-16 and I believed it because you don't always post daily.

Then I read your email and realized what happened.

wazza said...

Gidday ole' mate,
Ah, the ole' pocket money. I don't think we were ever given pocket money when we were young. Didn't even have a dad as we were too poor..boom..boom
I remember just prior to starting work I used to go into the city where I used to sell newspapers to earn a few bob.
Hasn't George Jones got such a smooth sounding voice.

Merle said...

Hi Peter ~ Good post. Glad I didn't get into bloglines. I go manually and only tiredness stops me at times.
How come you are playing all MY fave
songs and singers? Hell, we must be more alike than we thought.
Take care, Merle.

Jeanette said...

Hi Peter
Kids and Money .I dont recall getting pocket money as such but every sat. we were allowed to go to Matinees at the local theatre.and the boys had a paper round and in footy season sold the records at the footy.Those were the days The Milkman,Baker.ice.and not forgetting the bottle o.
And i do remember the girls standing by while the boys jumped the fence for those refundable Marchants bottles.

Margaret said...

Hi Peter,Ditto with the bloglines. I have just arrived back this evening and it seemed that there were not very many new posts at all during my Hols. I remember the Saturday matinees and the refundable bottles loved reading about the good old days. Cheers Margaret

Anonymous said...

I really like the history lesson, but I'm still chuckling over the run in at the market.

DellaB said...

gd'day Pete - dang - I've been waiting to find time to get started with bloglines - it seemed like a good idea if I could get around to it! - oh well, I guess at least manually I get to read more of other people's comments, I can't help myself, if there hasn't been a new post on a site since my last visit, I usually click in to the comments anyway to see if there any new ones.

What I'd really like to see is some sort of 'visiting card' syatem, I don't always have a comment on content, but I'd like to be able to click on something that just says something like "Della B" was here - have you seen anything like that around?

This batch of jokes is really really funny - and yes, I can see the wizard.

About the scrub-turkey, I think he thinks we are the ones who are tame...it's really been quite fascinating... he had another female in his mound yesterday - looking like we just might get babies!

Christina said...

I like the idea of a "calling card" too, Della. sometimes I don't have anything to comment either , but i want the person to know I stopped by. I usually just post a "hello" so the person doesn't think I have abandoned his or her blog. I am not familiar with Bloglines, but right now that doesn't sound like I 'm missing much.

Hi Peter, I did enjoy the picture and story. There weren't many returnable bottles when I was a kid, but I do remember collecting aluminum cans for recycling (and a little extra change!)

DellaB said...

me again.
I am meant to be reading blogs; but, thankyou Peter! now I am off to find some George Jones music - what do you recommend?

Jim said...

That's a nice picture. Your post brings back memories. During the war and until 1949 my dad had a 1938 Ford. He bought a new Ford in 1949.
Sorry I got so far behind, Mema has been keeping us busy around here.
..

Anonymous said...

Don't give up on RSS readers like Bloglines, although I have the very same problem you had! It's spotty. Sometimes it works like a charm, and other times it lets you down. You might try Feed Demon. I am considering switching to that one. There is a free trial so you can see if you like it. Good luck!

Anonymous said...

Don't know a thing about Bloglines, but it sounds like a good idea if it works. I will wait awhile before exploring further.

I liked reading about kids and money and especially about the demand for chickens around the holidays.

Lee said...

My brother and I always took the newspapers and soft drink bottles back to the stores. This was our way of getting pocket-money for the Saturday matinees, the Gympie Show and, of course...fire-crackers for Guy Fawkes' Night. I never climbed over the back fence of the shops to recycle the bottles for refund, but I'm sure my brother did! Not that I'm pointing any fingers, mind you! ;)

The Heir said...

hey grampa, i love the quote about fame, v true. think we have a similar attitude to politicians and leaders in general.
hows queensland atm?? englands entering the next ice age, think ill migrate south for the winter and maybe then some!!

kenju said...

How about Technorati, Peter? I just signed up for it last night, so I don't know how well it works yet. I still check blogs the old-fashioned way.....LOL

I use Bloglines to have a second list of blogs I read (in addition to my favorites list) since I don't have a blogroll. That way, If I should lose my favorites somehow, I still have a way to get back to my daily reads.

Cazz said...

Hi Pete,

In answer to the question you left on our blog, I'm sorry, but I dont now much about blog roles etc or any other alternative, I just bookmark them, but I only have a few !!! Maybe it is time to trim down .. but the decission as to "Who has to go" is the hardest of all. Good luck and hope all goes well.

Love the music, this week, had never heard of George Jones, but I'm sure going to go look for more of his music .. thank you for the introduction.

Cazz
xxooxx

Granny said...

Bloglines just now showed you with 25 new posts. A friend of mine emailed me and said mine showed the same thing.

See what you see on mine when you have a chance. They may have fixed the problem.

I posted a solution for some of it on granny today as well.

Miss Cellania said...

Peter, Bloglines updates worked just fine up til the last month or so. They did a "major upgrade" and updates are screwed. Thats why I've got so much catching up to do, also! I hope they get it cleared up. I've found recently that once I "bump" a site and check it, it starts to update better afterwards.