The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein is said to have remarked that he didn't mind what he ate, as long as it was always the same. Padma must've picked up on this, which is why I don't mind driving into the Bay at least once and often twice a week for lunch at the club or, as we did today, at the recently renovated Bayview Hotel.
On the drive into town I heard on the car radio the hyphenated word 'petrol-rationing' mentioned in a hushed voice for the first time. Thank you, Mr Trump! Now that petrol and sport are involved, Aussies may take the Iran war seriously and start to wonder if Napoleon and Hitler didn't have a better plan for invading Russia than you have had for attacking Iran, although all indications are that you will also suffer their fate.
As I have written many times before, no trip into town is complete without a visit to my favourite op-shop where I picked up "The Secret Lives of Hoarders - True Stories of Tackling Extreme Clutter" and a beautiful copy of Gavin Maxwell's classic "The Rocks Remain".
I almost also picked up "The Perfect Wife" but since it turned out not to be an instruction manual, I passed it up for a beautifully bound HERON BOOKS edition of H.G. Wells' "Kipps - The Story of a Simple Soul".
Satisfied with my op-shopping and having had our lunch at the hotel, we went to the Se7en Café in the shopping mall to discuss in German and, for the benefit of Robyn, the only Australian among us, also in English, our latest medical misadventures over cups of coffee and hot chocolate.
It's been an enjoyable day in town and we are home again, only to find that Trump must've uttered a few more stupidities or the Iranians bombed a few more oil tankers in the Strait of Homuz because the sharemarket is again a sea of red and BHP again dropped by 98 cents.
