Legal profession -- "be nice"

Lawyers are supposed to be "professionals".  But it seems they need to be reminded!  On the same day in November, there were two such reminders.

First,  the Victorian Legal Services Commissioner sent out an "alert" to lawyers, to the general effect that he wasn't impressed by a rise in complaints made by lawyers to other lawyers, such as threats of legal action being taken against the lawyer for the other side.  An example is where a threat is made to pursue costs personally from the other lawyer.   The Commissioner said that the "aggressive and personal tone" of these interactions "demonstrates professional conduct which falls far short of the standard expected....".

And, on the same day,  the High Court handed down a decision to the effect that if documents are mistakenly provided to the other side (during the discovery process), they have to be returned.  In this case, the firm that had received the documents sent as a result of an obvious mistake was ordered to return them - and their client had to pay the costs of this part of the litigation (all the way to the High Court)!    The courts recognise that mistakes will occur in large commercial cases, and lawyers have professional and ethical obligations to support the proper administration of justice.

Now, all that remains is for some elements in the profession to take heed of the Court's  comments along the lines that "speed and efficiency" are essential in legal proceedings....!

Sunday lunch

We had a catch-up lunch a little while back with a group of old friends (the "Gang"......you know who you are).    Everyone brought something to both eat and drink and the conversation covered a lot of topics.

But. strange to say ..... one of the main topics of conversation was travel!    Health issues were mentioned, too!   Could it be the age group?

Locks

Southbank

It seems that the world-wide epidemic of attaching locks to bridges has arrived in Melbourne, particularly on the Southbank Footbridge! Perhaps there aren't as many at Southbank as at other locations....but who knows, with the passing of time....

Vrnjacka Banja

Paris

The Mountaintop

MTC's The Mountaintop is a bit surreal at times although the acting by the two person cast is great. It's a vision of Martin Luther King’s last night before his assassination, set in a motel room.   Camae - the bold young woman who brings his room service - forces him to confront his own fears and desires. The play assumes a basic knowledge of Martin Luther King, which I guess all Americans would have and as presumably anyone who is likely to attend an Australian production would also have.  Nevertheless, in spite of his fame, I understand that King was a private person behind his well-known rhetoric so of necessity the play is completely imaginary. 

Here's one review of it.  The performance we attended was followed by an open forum with the director and the actors.  One aspect of the discussion that struck a chord with me was a question about the "Americanism" of the play.   This is reflected in Woodhead's review, who refers to that fact that "it's a shade strong on US triumphalism and self-absorption".   The response to this was along the lines that it's an American play, and so that's the way it's been presented.  Fair enough;  on reflection, I don't think there would have been any alternative.

Just for the record, the gunshot that most of the audience were expecting doesn't occur!  However, the play does seek to exhort the audience to "carry the baton" in relation to a whole range of issues, in keeping with King's own work which extended over and beyond his civil rights campaigns.  I think I even recall a reference to "boat people".   Although the exhortation was impressive, the response from the audience was, well, muted.   In the discussion, LaBonté said something to the effect that on different nights, audiences had reacted differently.  There may have been pockets of enthusiastic response on the night we were there, but on the whole the response was fairly subdued.   Notwithstanding that a more enthusiastic result may have been "politically correct", I think it's unlikely that an Australian audience in a theatre would ever rise in their seats in the way that an American civil rights rally might have done!

The Smart Meter

When the first wave of smart meter conversions was occurring, the guy came to the door to do the work but took one look at our meter box and quickly retreated, telling us that it "was full of asbestos".   He was obviously a casual contractor but nevertheless in the months since then I have wondered what I ought to be doing.  My mind even turned to the possibility of Citipower arriving and demanding that I pay for the meterbox to be fixed so that they could have a "safe place of work".

That was some months ago.   Recently there was another ring of the door bell, and a man who identified himself as a Citipower person - which was certainly consistent with his uniform and equipment, and the van outside the gate - informed me that he was here to install our smart meter.   What about the asbestos, I asked?   The reply was to the effect, "Not a problem, I know how to handle that".  15 minutes later, the power was restored and the little red light on the new smart meter was flashing!

True, he said that there was asbestos there, and part of it wasn't in the best condition, so "one of these days" it ought to be dealt with - but for the time being, keep the door of the meter box closed.  Given that it is now no longer necessary for the meter reader person to open it, that shouldn't be a problem.

Via Fratelli

I was told that we'd been to Via Fratelli previously, but I don't recall it.....possibly got lost in the mind amongst the numerous other mid-range pizza and Italian restaurants around, all with similar menus:  pizzas, risottos, pastas, chicken parmigiana, veal scallopine. fish of the day and so on.   Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy choosing from this type of menu, and there's not a lot that can wrong.

In fact, the atmosphere and food at Via Fratelli was just fine, and the service was good too --  it's just that there's a whole lot of restaurants in the this category!

Windows 8.1

I've previously set out my views on Windows 8 (here and here), which came pre-installed on a new computer.   I had heard that the updated Windows 8.1 addressed (in a limited way) one of the many issues that I (and apparently others) have, namely the lack of the "Start" menu.  So, without thinking too much about it, when I came across the Microsoft update site quite late in the evening, I plunged in and pressed the "Update Now" button.

I think the review on CNET got it right:  "Improved Windows still torn between tablet future and PC past".    Yes, there's confusion, and no wonder corporate buyers are sticking with Windows 7.   Whether 8.1 is actually an "improvement" or just makes a few "changes" is still very much a moot point in my mind.


Yes, you can now set it to boot to desktop, although just to make sure you don't accidentally set your PC to boot to the desktop if you don't really, really mean to, Microsoft has cleverly hidden this feature under "Taskbar > Properties > Navigation".
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Likewise, there's a token effort to re-instate the "Start" menu:  now you can click on an icon (instead of using the Windows+C keystroke) to get back to the so-called Start screen (but this continues merely to  present you with a whole series of tablets, not a conventional menu).

On top of this, I wasn't impressed with the fact that the total time to download and instal was about 2 hours.  The download took about 20-25 minutes (I'm not sure of the precise time because it then went straight into the installation process).  The installation process, which occasionally gave unhelpful messages about progress, including "Applying settings" and "Setting up a few more things", together with random percentages as to the progress of that particular phase, gave no indication at all of how many more phases were to come or long it would be before the entire process would be completed.   

Like Windows 8 itself (and, for that matter, the current version of Microsoft Office), 8.1 virtually forces you to sign up for access to Microsoft's big storage facility in the cloud.  I was only offered the option to skip  this when, late at night, it became obvious that I couldn't remember the password for my email account.

When the process was complete, I found that the background on my desktop had been changed to a revolting yellow (not that I liked the Windows 8 desktop, but the new one was far, far worse), that I had to re-set my Bluetooth connection and that I had to re-configure my printer settings.

To sum it all up:   the release of Windows 8.1 hasn't changed my negative opinion of Windows 8.

A Murder is Announced

Agatha Christie's play, A Murder is Announced, now on at the Comedy Theatre, has a few twists and turns, but we enjoyed this light-hearted and competently produced play.   Of course it's "entertainment" rather than "great theatre", and its appeal probably lies at the......errr.... "more senior" end of the demographic range (no "coarse" language, hem lines all below the knees!).   It builds on the success of The Mousetrap, but has a bigger tangle of  personal backgrounds, shifting identities, and possible motives for murder.   And that's after leaving out a number of the twists (and one of the murders) that Agathe Christie had in the original book!
 
The venue, too, is pleasant.  It's been many years since I've been to the Comedy, but even though not much seems to have changed over the years, it still has a nice feel to it.  And there are lots of bars, too!

Allergy?

I was in a restaurant with family members when, within a few minutes of eating part of a pizza shared with the table, I suffered some stomach discomfort, and then faintness to the extent that I was verging on unconsciousness.   I was rushed off to the hospital emergency department where with some reluctance on my part (but in hindsight, I suppose correctly) I was hooked up to a variety of wires.  They don't take any risks with "senior males" who present with chest/abdominal issues!    After a less-than-comfortable night (it's hard to sleep when you can't roll around because of the wires), I was released in the morning with the conclusion, "it was probably something you ate" (influenced, I think, by the fact that I eventually threw up in the middle of the night).

I can only conclude that I've got an allergy to goat's milk, and cheese made from it (the only slightly unusual ingredient in the pizza).    My limited research with google shows that while such an allergy is not unheard of in isolation from  allergies to other forms of milk, it has been reported (there again, with the aid of google, virtually every ailment is "heard of").  However, I can't see avoiding this type of food will require me to make big changes to my lifestyle, so no goat's milk cheese from now on.

Internet Banking security

I logged on to the bank's internet banking site, and was informed that I now had to register three "security questions".  Yes, I know that other banks have had this requirement for a while, so ANZ is catching up.  I have no objection to this - except that there is no provision to frame your own questions and the range of pre-set questions was quite limited.  Frankly, I struggled.

I think that the responses to such questions ought to be intuitive, but I'm afraid that the answers to questions such as, "Which city or town was your first job in?", "What was the name of the first album you bought or downloaded?",  "Where did your parents meet?" and "What was the first concert you went to?" just don't come easily to me.  True, there were other questions, and I managed to get there, but ANZ gives the strong impression that the questions were formulated by someone from Gen Y - or perhaps someone trying to appeal to Gen-Ys?  Pity about the rest of us.