I’m sure I wrote about this before, some time ago, but I can’t find it right now.

I wasn’t there. I’m not to blame. But that doesn’t stop me expressing regret that it happened, especially if it helps to heal old wounds, and I applaud our new government in making a national apology.

Sorry.

…

Update 7:45pm. Well done, whoever wrote the official text to be delivered tomorrow.

Today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.

We reflect on their past mistreatment.

We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were stolen generations - this blemished chapter in our nation’s history.

The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.

We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.

We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.

For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.

To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.

And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.

We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.

For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.

We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.

A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.

A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.

A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed.

A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.

A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of my leaving high school, and the Old Boys’ Association has a reunion dinner organised which I’ll certainly be going to. I’m even thinking I might go early for the tour of the school, to see how it’s changed. (A teacher I knew at a different school is now principal, for a start.)

The MHSOBA web page has a summary listing of which ex-students they know about: name, years at the school, postcode. The postcodes are mostly in Victoria, with the odd UK (or possibly Canadian) format postcode, and one or two at five-digits, apparently in the USA. One I know to be Polish, and a couple in formats I don’t recognise. Some are blank - out of contact.

And there’s another column: “Dec”. Of the roughly three hundred names, three four have this column filled-in. If I’m reading it right, these are the people who — like my friend Charles (who attended another school) — didn’t make it to their 20th anniversary year. It was a big year group, and I didn’t know these guys personally, but that saddens me a bit.

Maybe we should toast them on the night.

Dream the other day: Dreamt we were thinking about converting the (small) spare room into a bedroom, and someone pointed out the house has a whole upstairs section that for some reason none of us had never noticed. We went up and found three more bedrooms (one tiny, with very narrow bunk beds) and a bathroom as well.

Something seemed funny about the stairs going up there, and when I looked, I realised they were very steep, but made of Lego, so they could be adjusted.

Many people like to whinge about the price of fuel, but Steve Fielding’s idea of cutting fuel taxes is a very bad idea — it would inevitably lead to more usage, and cutting prices is the last way you want to try and fight oil shortages.

This opinion piece for ABC Online goes into more detail.

Petrol tax cuts the road to ruin
By Daniel Bowen

Who can forget the Great Petrol Rip-Off of the late 1990s?

Outraged motoring groups pointed out that fully half of the pump price of petrol was made up of government taxes. It was a scandal and an abomination. Governments were punishing the motorist by making their petrol expensive - at a whopping 90 cents a litre.

Read the rest.

The van we hired on the weekend was to move my Dad to a new place. As he is getting older, he needed an upgrade.

He’s very well read, and it turned out he had way more books than I expected. So a lot of the time (and load) was spent shifting heavy boxes and bags full of books. There was a bit of furniture, some clothes and papers, but mostly books.

Eventually the van was full, and the three of us squeezed in. I was in the middle seat, with my knees knocking against the dashboard, and my head pressed against the ceiling.

We had a quick bit of lunch before unloading at the new place. (Oakleigh has a fantastic souvlaki place. I can’t remember the name of it, but boy did the lamb souvlaki and chocolate milkshake hit the spot.)

We got to work unloading boxes and bags and boxes and more bags. Wouldn’t you know it, the room turned out to be right up the back, so we had to traipse up and down the corridors, past the lounge and the dining room, with all the residents watching us going back and forth, like they were at the tennis. I’m sure I heard remarks about the large amount of stuff.

In the end there were way too many books for the shelves, and too much furniture for the room. So much so that we had to cart some of it away for another day, with Dad saying he’d sort through and cull some of the books.

Anyway, while going through I found some papers, including his old passport from 1969, with a fantastic black and white photograph of him. In this picture, he’s about the same age as I am now, give-or-take a year.

• See also: My grandad, circa 1946

On Saturday my bro-in-law Adrian and I were headed up to Coburg in a hired van. We were just getting onto the Bolte Bridge when Adrian noticed a warning light on the dashboard. We weren’t sure what it meant, so I reached for the van owner’s manual, which said something along the lines of:

1. Make sure the handbrake is off.

Well Adrian twiddled it as much as you can when driving at freeway speeds, and it was definitely off.

2. If the handbrake is off, immediately stop the vehicle and urgently contact your dealer as the brake fluid is low, which may lead to brake failure, your van crashing into something, and you and your passengers dead. DEAD!

Well, something like that.

Naturally, we panicked. I got on the phone to the hire place, and asked if the brakes appeared to be working. They were. Then they said to drive to their Preston office, in Murray Road. Okay. I hung up.

How do you get to Murray Road? Dunno, there’s no Melway in this van. Argh!

Rang my sister for directions. Got directions. Got off the freeway, headed for Murray Road. While at traffic lights, Adrian fiddled with the hand brake again, and… you guessed it, the light went out.

Blargh. So we didn’t die from brake failure after all.

I blame the indicator light thingy. Must be over-sensitive.

If you thought $494 million was a lot to pay for the new “Myki” smartcard public transport ticketing system, hold onto your hats… today it was revealed the actual cost is more than double that — $1 billion dollars, no less. Somehow the government are now claiming they needed to add the operating costs, which they didn’t mention before now, and certainly not when they announced the deal.

Zowee. And I thought it was expensive before. Now it’s exhorbitant.

And all so we don’t have to physically insert our tickets into slots. (That’s the major, tangible benefit to users.)

Seriously, you could spend a tenth of that upgrading Metcard (including providing the contactless cards it was originally meant to have), pay for staff to come back onto the system at every station and on every tram, spend a bunch more on service upgrades (maybe even a major new rail line) and still have money left over.

Stupidest commercial of the moment: that Fisher and Paykel washing machine advert with the woman continually bending down/standing up to empty washing out of a frontloading machine, and bemoaning “Surely there must be an easier way?”

Pah, some adverts just make me want to throw a brick at the TV, and shout at the screen. (I used to have a sponge brick for such purposes.)

Yes there is an easier way, you stupid idiot: put your basket on the ground in front of the machine, not on the top.