Mikeatmainbeach

 If you're anything like me you would never even have heard of  Sain-Paul-lez-Durance in Provence, France, where a community of thirty five countries have combined their scientific knowledge in an experiment to master nuclear fusion and are building a reactor known as ITER International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. The World has been trying to master nuclear fusion since the 1930's. Something that occurs naturally in the sun but is difficult to replicate on Earth. They, the scientists, say fusion promises to supply a limitless form of energy that would do away with fossil fuels that are proven to be causing so much damage to our climate around the world and with no radioactive waste unlike nuclear power used today. This could be the saving of us all from the dreaded climate change which is happening rapidly today. And as 80% of all energy we consume is derived from fossil fuels something indeed has to change. It is said one gram of fuel created by this method is the equ...

I'm sure the families of those killed were NOT impressed....!!!!!! A makeshift memorial has been erected outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Picture: Chandan Khanna/AFP NRA Hosts Banned Guns Giveaway Highlighting Weapon Used by Shooter (businessinsider.com) “NRA is giving away 12 world-class guns that Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi want to ban,” the giveaway read. In addition, the ad also stated that each gun from the 12-gun raffle also came with 1000 rounds of ammunition While the giveaway was active on May 28, the website states it’s currently “temporarily closed”. Despite this, members can still enter by mail. https://www.businessinsider.com/nra-hosts-banned-guns-giveaway-highlighting-weapon-used-by-shooter-2022-5 NRA Hosts Banned Guns Giveaway Highlighting Weapon Used by Shooter (businessinsider.com)

 Megalomaniac: A person who has an obsessive desire for power..  With so much happening in the world Ukraine is slipping off the news! Three months in and Russians short range ballistic missiles, multiple rocket systems, heavy artillery and tanks continually pound eastern Ukraine.  Russia is now sending a horrifying rain of thermite incendiary rockets. (As shown in enclosed video clip) Thermite burns at 3,000C through metal. Ukraine's troops are facing some of the most savage, barbarous weapons ever devised. (3812) 9M22C Magnesium alloy clustered charges fired on Azovstal - YouTube The ongoing war is affecting world food supplies as Ukraine is one of the world's largest exporters of sunflower oil, corn and wheat. Russia is accused of genocide but shows no intention of stopping it's bombardment. Also it is depopulating parts of Ukraine and forcibly sending many thousands of people to remote economically depressed parts of Russia thousands of miles from their homes without ...

Another gun massacre in the U.S. 213 mass shootings so far this year and we're only 21 weeks into the  year. Averaging out to about ten a week! This time nineteen young, innocent, lives lost plus two teachers that tried to protect their young pupils. 693 mass shootings in 2021...the year before saw 611 and 2019 417. Are they all crazy as some seem to say? Doubt it. Many seemed well planned and thought out. Just seems far too easy to purchase a gun! I can understand owning a single shot gun...if you have to that is...but why a rapid firing gun shooting multiple bullets? What's the purpose? Even hunting...nothing requires that many shots to hit anything moving surely. Either that or you have to be a very bad shot and maybe shouldn't be owning a gun in the first place. As an outsider looking in it just seems mind boggingly strange that people want to kill each other so easily. Why do so many Americans want to kill each other? Something seems very very wrong somewhere...surely!...

 The following may not be a great deal of interest to anyone outside of Australia but it makes quite interesting reading and something I have been following for a while now so have many others : One very good outcome from the recent election here in Australia is a well publicised problem the previous government had regarding two people from war torn Sri Lanka. Priya and Nades came to Australia legally and separately in 2012 and 2013 and lodged claims for asylum under international laws that give us all the right to seek safety from persecution.  It is legal to seek safety from persecution, no matter how you arrive. Sri Lanka was a very dangerous place for Tamil people. Priya and Nades are Tamil.  Australia is signatory to the Refugee Convention Act which states people who come seeking safety without first seeking permission ( a visa) cannot be punished.  They abided by the conditions of their bridging visas, obeyed Australia's laws, worked and paid taxes and contribu...

                                                                                                      Australia has a new Prime Minister Ending nine years of conservative rule Anthony Albanese has led the Labor Party to victory in the national election in Australia. Whatever your thoughts on yesterdays election it proves one thing that in Australia an egalitarian country like ours can elect a Prime Minister raised in public housing as a child, from a working class background, by a single mother on a disability pension. No private school upbringing or rich surroundings but public housing...or as I would call it where I grew up on the other side of the world, a council house...or council flat, as in my case. For I was also raised in ...

 Have you ever been to an auction...an art auction? I have never been fortunate enough to actually be in that position or in other words rich enough to be able to bid at an art auction. I would love to as I just adore art; any art come to that. To own a famous picture painted by a great artist must be such a grand and wondrous feeling. I would just sit and look at it for hours...days! I was on Instagram this morning and it was Sothebys New York. A live cross to an auction in real time and it was indeed fascinating. I knew none of the artists. There were no famous names I had heard of but guess that's not really surprising as the majority of us would not know many of the collectable artists known and sought after. I was surprised watching this live auction just how much money is floating around that must be surplus to requirements for so many to be able to buy art. Paying 6.. 7.. 9 million dollars for a painting to display on a wall of a home. I can just imagine what the actual hous...

Well it's election time in Australia and I feel we could be at a cross roads... This weekend it's either keeping the current government for another term that has been in power since 2013 and now with a Prime Minister that carried a lump of coal into parliament...  and said not to be afraid of it or an opposition party with another vision and another direction and it's said a more greener choice. We have been called the lucky country mainly because of our richness in coal, gas and mineral riches which earns us huge export dollars. These fossil fuels which many of the worlds top scientists are now saying are adding to the heating of our planet. As the world is on the brink of a climate crisis, the last seven years have been the hottest on record, many still dispute the facts before them, many are disputing the use of fossil fuels. And it is said we in Australia have one of the worst records on climate action in the developed world. We have gone through some absolutely disastr...

How do you feel when you are out somewhere seated at a table, where ever, and you're talking between yourselves and know that other people are listening in to your conversation...and then they join in...aaahhhHHH !! That happened this morning. There were four of us and I knew the conversation was being overheard when the lady from the table just across from us turned around to have a look at who was talking. I just returned ''the look'' as she turned back to her husband, I guess it was, he then joined in our conversation.."Just follow the money trail," he said..."Just follow the money!" as the banter went back and forth between ours and their the tables. I honestly just wanted to fall through the floor and I find that embarrassing in the extreme😓..and also    quite rude to be honest. I would never do that..never..ever join in someone else's conversation. I mean I wasn't even in the conversation just sitting there, observing, minding my o...

  It's Loud...It's Brash...It's always over the top. It's Eurovision ! Watched by over 200 million people in Europe and around the world, including us in Australia. I watched from 5am our time and to wake up to flashing lights, loud music, and enough stage effects to feed a small nation and very strange costumes through tired eyes is, to say the least, a jolt to the system and quickly a wake up. 😃 For me it's something I have done all my life. Always watched Eurovision growing up in the UK it's more like a religion there to watch and famously it also gave birth to one of the biggest names in the music world, ABBA, with the song Waterloo in 1974. The time difference now makes it more of an effort but I still join in the craziness of it all.  Of course now I support Australia but the UK did well this year and came second place to Ukraine which was a very worthy winner and scored the popular vote if not the judges vote for music which made up 50% of the overall vo...

 As John Denver once sang...Some days are diamonds...Some days are stones. Just gong through some very unseasonal weather..high winds and showers...just relentless winds some stony days indeed! Needless to say we do get rather spoilt "usually" with sunshine. It WILL return 😊  Always feel sorry for people on holiday. There's always someone on holiday here on the Gold Coast, Australia; the holiday capital of Queensland. (see my blog dated April 12) When the weathers a bit down, rainy and not the usual sunny bright days we are so used to we miss that feeling of freedom, the need to be outside once again. Without that "burst into life" it can be a heavy feeling with so much sadness in the world it can almost be a bit overwhelming. I often think it must be difficult for people on their own with no one else to talk to for company. And there are many. The news doesn't help at all ! Why do we have so much news to contend with which is so often sad? The 24 hour news...

Has anyone taken the time to study the vast array of non milk or plant milk products, as they're called, on the supermarket shelf. Next time in the supermarket just stop and take a look...it's amazing the selection and also a bit confusing. There are around 17 different kinds of milk alternative products here in Australia from Soy/Rice/Oat and on it goes.. I know many will not agree with me and that's fine but I think people gradually, and it will start with the young, are becoming more aware in these days of a changing world climate that the way we have been living is now becoming less appropriate, less sustainable for the future, for the ever growing world population in the production of milk... and meat come to that. The same as the meat substitute products now on the market...even a fast food conglomerate is moving into a choice of meat or non meat alternative products as the demand continues to grow. That would have been unheard of even.. say.. ten years ago. Also they...

 I live in an a garden apartment with a courtyard but that doesn't mean that wildlife has no place here. We have a visiting Water Dragon that calls in for lunch, mince the favoured dish. He..I guess it's a he..really have no idea but anyway he runs in and often scares the whatsit out if me as he jumps up on the arm of the chair or runs across my feet as I sit outside....with those huge claws😧 He's big at around two metres and not always sure of his eyesight or whether he may think my fingers or toes are a feed. Not risking it that's for sure 😀 Then there's the Bush Turkey...she.. I know that as she laid a couple of eggs.. has been calling in for a few years now. There used to be three but the others wandered away as they tend to do and now we just have the one.   I think she was hit by a car recently as she came in and appeared to have a broken leg. I was concerned so made some 'phone calls and was prepared to catch her and take her to the vets. Then she just ...

Just recently I had to have a skin check for the dreaded skin cancer.....  It's just something that "goes with the territory" as we say living in this part of the world with so much sunshine. Although saying that I can remember when I was very much younger living in the UK I would lay and play in the summer sunshine so much that I could ...however revolting it sounds now...I could sit in the classroom and peel skin off of my back I used to get so sunburnt. Where was sunscreen then...non-existent.  It's not until we are older that the damage comes to the surface and returns in skin cancers or such. I've heard it often takes years to show up and cause trouble on our skin. Although I love to see and feel the sun on my body, I remember it well, I do think what those that are now laying on the beach will go through in a few years time. Goes without saying I never lay in the sun now for any length of time. Just enough vitamin D to keep well and healthy. Does anyone else...

 I find it so annoying as I'm sure many do when the 'phone rings and we race inside, as I just did, to answer it before it goes to the answering  machine..and it's a caller from India (and it's always India!) telling me there are problems with my internet. I know it's a scam...they now it's a scam...we all know its a scam and they just want our details...bank details or some such thing or to renew the contract or search our computer for a fault. I was receiving at least one call a week...every week...until I lost patience and said something...I forget now what I said exactly and then they stopped. I wasn't rude just forceful and said please stop calling me. It  must have got through I guess, or just sounded desperate, and they stopped calling for a while. Now it's started again. I do feel sorry for older people on their own there are just so many out there on some kind of a scam after money. It is truly frightening and so easy to get hooked into. I'm...

 For any Downton Abbey fans out there.... We went to see the Latest Downton Abbey film last evening. Love the pace...the scenery...the grandeur. I feel it takes a while to actually "slow down" to the pace of the time, the slowness and almost reverence of that beautiful home and the characters that live and work there.  Oh I know it's only a film but it takes us away from the rush and panic and stress of these current times...  A couple of hours to "take us away" to another place another time. A more refined...more gentle...more genteel.. time. I know we've all moved on from the days of servants and the "upstairs downstairs" way of living but just love that lifestyle. I wont give away any plot twists as that would spoil it for Downton fans that are yet to see the movie but many loose ends are tied up. So much so that I wonder if this will be the final one in the Downton series. I hope not. It certainly pulls at the heart strings. Wonderful cinematog...

I always like to "people watch" and wonder what their stories are....  Does that sound creepy😐? Maybe. Just sitting in the sunshine enjoying a coffee and watching the passing parade. Different shapes and sizes...ages and genders, What have they been through? Are they happy? In this Instagram age many younger ones aren't it seems...or so we are told.  So many young girls dislike the way they look ..feel they are not pretty enough or the right shape, size, height, where certain influencers they may look up to may, most likely have, used apps to make them look slimmer or more beautiful than they really are. Any flaws in their complexion magically, digitally, wiped away. Out there enjoying life, party after party, mixing with other "beautiful" people on social media making others feel somewhat lesser.. rather inadequate. Are some passing by super wealthy? Some of the richest people look just "every day" doing what we all do. Just what's their story? A...