LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE OLDIES

Thia photo has very little to do with to-day's blog. It was taken at Fogg Dam out of Darwin where we went to look at birds and crocodiles. It's relevance to my blog is the age of the people.We are oldies,and I am discovering that to-day's newsmakers have some oddly old fashioned ideas about us. We are not all gaga with senile dementia. In the above photograph is a major Australian poet, a painter, a French writer seeing the world, an English writer, and me. We are educated, and not afraid to express our opinions.
What brought this on? I was cruising the NZHerald's web page to-day and found a story about an old lady who had 'fought city hall'and won. It appears that her WOF had the wrong expiry date. When the city council sent her a notice of fine she wrote and explained and refused to pay the fine. She was shuffled around through the bureaucracy (Greece is not the only country full of incompetent buck passers) and her initial protest, that the city council had made amistake , was ignored. Then she was told $25 per week would be taken from her pension until the fine was paid.
Now, the conventional model of a nice old lady would have accepted that. but not this one. She sent e-mails to her M.P. the Minister of transport. That brought results and the money already taken from her pension has been refunded.
(Google NZHerald for the full story with photo)but it surprises me that a newspapwe finds a computer literate, logically thinking eighty year old newsworthy. What is news worthy is that she defended herself and won against the system. I am not surprised to find it took an eighty year old woman to do it.
We octogenearians are the 'Beeby brats'. We were the first generation to get free secondary education, and we have made use of it. We are the products of the first experiments in running a 'Welfare State.' We got free education. free health care,
we were paid an allowance to raise our children. Also we were the first generation to see a different world, every Saturday afternoon at the Regent, or the Paramount we saw children who sang and danced, heard music from symphony orchestras and jazz bands and saw newsreels of events we knew had happened. We are a pretty clued up bunch.
When I get back to New Zealand I am going to raise some questions, relax Sergeant Anastakakis, you are safe, but I want to know why my e-mails to the consulate general for New Zealand in Athens were ignored. And I shall keep hollering until I get sensible answers,