So, you think a Pint of beer is a Pint?

Apart from having a "sip" of my dad's beer when I was very young, I had my first full can of Emu Bitter (Western Australia) when I was 16. Then I never touched a drop until I was 18 and moved to New South Wales (NSW) with the Air Force.

In those days most States and Territories allowed alcoholic drinks to residents 21 or older. I'd lived in the Northern Territory, so I never drank while underage.

The "age of consent" was 21 then, but changed to 18 and NSW was the first to adapt and change its legislation to allow 18 year-olds to drink.

A "Middy" of beer, 10oz was $0.10c on the RAAF Base and a little more in local towns. I took to it like a duck to water.

Years later, after I had married and was a father of two children, I decided I needed to set an example of sobriety and not drink driving. I morphed into what I call, a "responsible drinker". Also known as a "social drinker".

The days of binges followed by a wasted day while I recovered were over. In any case, what once took me one day to recover now took two. Middle age had caught up with me.

Long drinking sessions were fewer as the years passed and eventually, I got to the stage where I never woke up with a hangover. Halleluyah!

After work on Friday evenings, I'd head to a pub for a few beers with my work colleagues or golf buddy. In those days, my first beer was a Pint which would be followed by several Schooners.

That was mostly in the Territory where a Pint is a Pint and a Schooner is a Schooner. A Territory Pint is 570 ml, rounded from 568 ml which is the size of a standard Imperial pint.

When I moved to South Australia in 2018 I was to suffer "quantum shock".

I ordered a Pint and it looked a tad small. I asked the lovely barmaid about it and she said it was a "South Australian pint". When I enquired further, I discovered that the:

1. Standard Pint in all other states and territories is 570 ml
2. SA "pint" is in fact 425 ml, the same size as a Territory schooner
3. SA schooner is 285 ml, the same as a middy (half pint) in NSW

I don't know what the comparative prices are across the country, they vary between hotel and hotel, but I've had to get accustomed to ordering a pint and being satisfied with what I have always thought of as a schooner.

Whether we're being ripped off in terms of cost per ml in SA I don't know, but it sure feels like it. Maybe I need to do some further research.

Maybe I should be brewing my own.

What do you think? Where do you live and what size drinks to you consume?

Cochlear Implant Success!

Dale Henry

Our son has now had his cochlear implant for three months and the results are outstanding.

Born with a severe to profound hearing loss that was bilateral ie, one ear heard loud sounds, the other quieter sounds, he had struggled for years to communicate effectively in high noise environments eg, hotels.

He wore two hearing aids from the age of nine months, both of which gave him a very minimal level of hearing, but it was sufficient to enable him to communicate using lip-reading and the little bit he got from his hearing aids.

Fortunately, he was able to struggle through school gaining a good grounding in mathematics, computing, and English. 

But, over the years, the hearing in his right ear weakened, and eventually even with hearing aids, he couldn't hear.

His cochlear implant was fitted at the Royal Darwin Hospital ENT Department on 2 March 2020 and the outcome has been far better than anticipated. For a considerable time, he had not been able to communicate via telephone or mobile phone but several months after his implant, we can now talk on the mobile and use Facetime.

It's a wonderful outcome for which we are very grateful.

When you are hearing impaired and wear hearing aids, people expect you to be able to communicate normally as though the hearing aid resolves the problem. But unfortunately, that's not the case.

Hearing aids simply amplify sound. All sound. 

Our son's quality of life has now improved substantially because he can communicate almost normally, something we all take for granted.

To the designer of the cochlear implant, Cochlear Australia  and the Australian and Northern Territory Governments who made this implant possible, plus the medical and audiology staff, we say a heartfelt thankyou.

The Plague of Questionnaires

An actual questionnaire capture

Several times each week I receive emailed requests for feedback.

They come from the two banks, an internet service provider, energy supplier, and various other organisations with whom I have a business relationship. They also come from Australia Post with whom I do not have a relationship until someone sends me a letter or parcel.

As if there is only one person who writes customer satisfaction surveys in Australia, they are inevitably worded identically.

“Based on your experience today, how likely or unlikely are you to recommend Marty’s Widget Co to your friends and family?”

Well, for fuck’s sake, why do they think I’ll recommend anything to my friends and family?

My friends and family are well-educated, seemingly intelligent people who can make their own decisions about which companies to use for their products and services. I expect they have had accounts with banks for decades and don’t need me to tell them with whom they should bank or get an internet account.

When I banked a cheque recently, it took three minutes. I walked into the bank, the female teller asked what she could do for me. Once I had thought of the many possibilities, which weren’t what she had in mind, I responded that I wanted to deposit a cheque.

I passed it to her, slid my credit card into a machine and tapped in my pin number.

“Do you want a receipt?”

“No thank you.”

That was it. Whizbang - thank you M’am.

Then the next day a 20 question questionnaire arrives. I usually delete them, but on this occasion, I told the survey writers what I thought about their inane questions. 

Learning to be a Master Thermomix Chef

Dish too big!

For most of my life I've survived with minimal cooking skills. When my wife decided to buy a Thermomix TM6 I decided I needed to know how to use. No use having all this whizz-bang, internet-connected cooking stuff if you don't use it.

So, I started off looking at simple recipes. The first I created was a chili-con-carne. It went okay, but the quantity was a bit large for two. Not to worry, we're accustomed to making more than we need for one meal and freezing it for later meals when neither of us feels like cooking.

I needed help from my wife in relation to a couple of measurements and spices.

My second effort was a Shepherd's Pie and all went well until I had to put the pre-prepared mashed potato onto the mince and vegetable portion and found the dimensions of the casserole dish were too wide to cover with the potato mash available. Such is life.

Noted in my notebook: "Next time use a deeper casserole dish with less surface area on the top." Check.

It was an interesting exercise and the end result was a tasty shepherd's pie as good as I've tasted. There's enough tucked away for another meal too.

Since then I've cooked a buttered chicken meal and next is to learn how to cook a loaf of bread.

Naturally, while cooking of an evening, one has to have a liquid supplement. I chose a McGuigans Pinot Noir. McGuigans is one of my favourites. They cater for buyers in the top end with some expensive wines and people like me who buy cheaper wines.

Many of their less expensive wines have won multiple awards and are of top quality, so you can imagine how good their top of range wines are.

Although I live in the Barossa Valley, one of the largest wine-growing regions in Australia, I buy McGuigans produced in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales. However, I'm not a traitor to the Barossa as McGuigans has interests in most, if not all of the South Australia wine growing regions including Clare, the Adelaide Hills and Barossa Valley.

If you haven't tried a McGuigans, I highly recommend it.

Stay well.