The Deceitful Husband

All wives fondly imagine that although men generally are lying bastards their man is the exception. He would never lie to her and if he did she would know it in an instant. So it was with a sigh of disappointment that I discovered Jim had been concealing information in order to avoid incurring my displeasure. That he did it in order to save his brother from my wrath is small excuse.

Jim was preparing dinner (bless him) so I took it upon myself to open the wine. "I think I'll use my favourite Wolfblass glass," I commented as I rummaged in the back of the cupboard. Silence from Jim. "Hmm, that's odd, I can only find one." Further silence from Jim. I fixed him with a steely glare. The truth was revealed. A month ago Jim's brother was visiting, while I was out he broke a glass. Knowing it to be one of the few non-computer related items I am attached to, Jim decided to spare me this knowledge. David was all for throwing himself on my mercy. After all, how mad can I get with a guy who commits a crime whilst washing-up? He was right, I would have forgiven him in an instant and informed Jim that David had broken his glass. However, Jim chose to compound the crime with concealment. He placed the glass at the back of the cupboard and assured David that I spend so little time in the kitchen it could be years before the loss was discovered.

The glass was purchased as a gift by dear friends at the Wolfblass winery in South Australia. It accompanied me from Oz to Borneo and back without so much as a crack. That it chose a particular time to depart this earth is a sign it was weary of life. (The cricket season has that effect on me too, actually) It is not my place to query the final decision.

So the glass has been mourned and its loss accepted. David has been forgiven. The question which remains is how many scoops of ice-cream should I demand from Jim in compensation?

Any advice or similar stories welcome.

Smart card travel. Am I bright enough?

I completed a major chore from my list yesterday, namely the purchase of a smart card for local public transport. I admit I was fooled by the name and sort of thought that it might actually be an improvement on fumbling for coins to put into the machine as you get on the bus or missing a train because the tourists in front of you at the machine still have to debate the virtues of a two section ticket over a one zone before putting a dollar and fifty yen into the slot.

It's a new system and they have been heralding its arrival for 18 months now. Many transperth executives have been on junkets all over the world to inspect a variety of transport systems. In view of this I was hopelessly optimistic. It wasn't easy but I was able to track down the one newsagent within a 10 km radius of my house that is allowed to sell the cards ($10 just to buy the card and you need one each) and add value to it. "You'll need to fill in these forms to register it" the shopkeeper said. "But surely I can do that online?" I asked. He looked embarrassed and started straightening copies of the Kalgoorlie Boulder Chronicle. These smart cards would not have passed the 11+, it seems to me. (And if you understood that reference to the 'sort the sheep from the goats' exam we took to get into secondary school then you must be British and pushing 50) But I digress.

It seems to me that the cards are not very smart at all but in order to use one efficiently the average punter will have to be pretty damn clever, willing to deal with a lot of red tape and be alert enough to remember to tag off at the end of the journey as well as dexterous enough to get the card to register with the 'tag on' scanner at the start of the journey in the first place.

However, one benefit could be some additional exercise: getting home, realising you forgot to tag off and having to walk back to the station to do it or get charged till the end of the line.

With global warming and soaring petrol costs surely public transport is the way of the future. In which case, we have to make it easy, cheap and attractive. At present it is none of the above. We need to do better.