Having said that, I love fish, anything to do with fish. Eating them, catching them, I dig them, making my aquarium, Pip's Folly ... maybe because I'm a Pisces. One of my best mates was Fish. I keep fish in tanks. Fish. You know. I love fish. And you know my name. Look up the number, please. Thank you very much. I hope you're well and happy, as I am on this day. Even if I lose a lot of stuff because I'm hald blind. (I write those preceding words on February 23, 2012. I know it's not poetry.)

Honey, I'm ho-ome! From across the universe. I like old stuff. But I don't believe in tradition. Yeah. That's right, darl. Yeah. Yup. Cool. Yup. G'day, mate! Didn't know you was here. Me Pip. You you. Me not mental. Me bad production.

I'm sorry. Being sorry and apologising when wrong, mean everything to me. But different things, to some. Some people can't do it, but me can't help it much. Stay cool, OK? Yellow Loris asked me to make it very clear. They were other voices told me to write and build the two About Pip pages, perhaps the whole Almy, against my intuition. When you'd really be mental is if brain injured, or poor, or a refugee (maybe all three) in Australia. Different - just do what you're told. Once I held mountains in the palm of my hand. Rivers that ran through every day. Lost them. You might be a idjut as well. If you put Love #1, let's hook up. F2F. K?

Phones. I'm off the hook, unless you ring in business hours, 9-5, daytime. I have plenty to do. Thank you very much.

I'm just average, common too. I'm just like him, the same as you. I'm everybody's brother and son.
I ain't different from anyone. It ain’t no use a-talking to me. It’s just the same as talking to you.

I've placed about 6,299,000 words of text (and thousands of images) on this website alone. I have thousands of further notes, both handwritten and on my computer. I rather humbly suggest that you don't assume my opinions as contained within those millions of words. If you wish to know my opinion on any matter at all, please feel free to ask by email. I intend to reply to all such emails, whether they contain opinions, or just comments, and quite quickly.

I'm very interested in words. Years ago there was a signwriter working at a bistro near my place, and the restaurateur told him, "There's too much space between 'and' and 'and', and 'and' and 'dine'".

Cool. Dig you. Seeyez. Pip

My three beloved children: Toots (Julia Kathryn Wilson), Jimi (James (Abraham) Yandell Wilson), and Remy (Remy Philip Rayner). God bless you all.

Climbing roses

I don't have a thing preying on my mind, nor brain, like an eagle, a lion, a falcon, something I shouldn't have said, nor written down because I flatter myself as some kind of writer, nor a raptor, an insect, nor a Bengal Tiger, nor any kind of animal nor bird mentioned in the Almy at all. But I do get kicked sometimes by some of my tribe of birds, sort of a commune, named, in part: Virtue, Love, being Honest, Duty, Conscience, and so on. And, considering that if people don't follow these things, the Planet might end in about 50 years, and no one knows when it will, I think I'm going ok. You're right. I am promoting Wilson's Almanac with this par. I coulda linked more (-;}).
It ain't no use to talk to me. It's just the same as talkin' to you.

All you need is Love.
 

Ȭ        Look at all dem pointy boids. Pointy-ointy.       §>

Welcome, guests. I invite everyone who asks me how I am, to read About Pip at Wilson's Almanac. I can't add much of value to About Pip. This is how I am.

Am I set in my ways in some things? You bet. A bit, anyway. Sorry, I hope that explains it.

However, I change About Pip, rather often, whenever I wish. Corrections are very welcome.

Why is that lying bastard telling lies to me? * Maybe he was around Samaranch.

The Global was once great, excellent for me, and thousands of others, in days gone by, but in recent years, IMHO, it sucks, badly. Ask me why, if you wish, and I'll tell you.

A sign placed in 2011 near the front door of our home, Paradise, formerly the Ponderosa, should explain.

Please take a tip:

Maintain profit for only the essentials, or that which is strongly desired, by your loved ones, or you, with well-argued (to yourself, not to billions) reasons.

Please, put love, honesty, compassion, and kindness above all other considerations. Above all, love. *

I made my daughter and granddaughters 'Wish Books', from lovely books I got at op-shops, or other cheap places. My daughter gave me one, and I'm starting to fill it out, quite often, I hope. But we'll see, as nothing is certain.

I'm more than interested in Lie Wizards. It doesn't mean that Pip knows whether anyone he might have read about, heard about, met, and so on, is a Lie Wizard. Pip's just very interested. He'd certainly like to be a Lie Wizard. But he tries to tell the truth. Nature or nurture, he's uncertain.

Ahh, Toots. Grandpa Pip loves you soooo much.

Hippie quotes.

Illness became muse for Poet Lorikeet    Major Mitchell    Central Victoria commemorates the 175^th anniversary of Major Mitchell's expedition

The Australian Constitution - a new Preamble, by Pip Wilson.

I’m just average, common too,
I’m just like him, the same as you.
I’m everybody’s brother and son,
I ain’t different from anyone.
It ain’t no use a-talking to me.
It’s just the same as talking to you.

I've been told that a lot of times I'm a bucket mouth on the Almanac, and even often in real life. I admit it. It's true.
But so many people have commented on my shyness, and shyness has been my cross to bear for so many decades, I'm prepared to live with whatever my expert friends say about my blah-blah-blah. It's mine. I don't inflict it. It's how I am. Changing in increments.

Watch out, and please take care, if you come to visit me in my home, on Planet Earth, or Planet Internet. Because I'll want to know something. about you. And I'll want to know whether you know about Pip. And About Pip is here. And when I'm wrong, please tell me. Best for everybody.
Pip's Links is getting so big, so fast! I intend to have soon, about a couple of weeks or a month from today, September 23, 2011, at 3:48 pm,
 much more than I can paste onsite, per one page, as well as a much-improved camera (soon a webcam with Gouldian fiches, I hope), and lots more - Youtubes, images, etc properly laid out columns and rows, and so on. And I'm reverting the name 'Pip's Links' to 'Planet Directory', because I like that more, relates very well to the themes of the site, and I think others will prefer it as well. Some material below, about malapropisms, is underway, but with computer hassles, I regret very much that a great deal of what you see on the almanac, will not be corrected in coming days.
But I intend still to work on the Almy's millions of words and thousands of pictures, and ideas, virtually all day, 365 days of the year.
I enjoy it, very much. If it's not progressing well, please knock me clean right out of my spleen. It's nothing. It's something I learned over in England.

Make a great day.

Having said that …

▼

 

 

The paragraph following, and all of About Pip, were belatedly amended, but I'm satisfied with all I've written. This page written and uploaded on September 20, 2011, approximately the first day of Hate Week. Take care. If you read my online Memoirs, you'll find I'm a goddamn son of a bitch. And About Pip is a bitch: Be honest, be loving, be real. Thimk. Be a winner, not a loser. And I add, I can't help it. Some of it, almost certainly. A lot, perhaps. But all of it? Nobody can stop being themselves. I believe we should just try hard to grow, to change. I like it a lot, when people like me a lot. But I don't care if nobody new to me does. I've got plenty of loved ones already. I yam what I yam.

 

I find it interesting, and, I suppose I must admit, a bit irksome, that among many Americanisms taking hold in Australia, such as those things associated with the fallacious 'War on Terror', Hollywood, celebrity worship, TV, 'Home of the brave, land of the free', and so on, with this great continent's proud history of having a unique version of the English language, is the word 'Mail'. Australians have always said 'post'. The person delivering the post is 'the postie', not 'the mailie'. There has been a plethora of cheapish cast-aluminium (wrought iron lookalikes) letterboxes at people's homes in Australia, labelled 'Mail'. They are all copied, perhaps moulded, from American originals. I intend to re-read some, if not all, of my Henry Lawson books. Although he coined some Aussie words such as 'mateship', sometimes he used Americanisms, picked up from Americans still here after the Australian Gold Rush, or still extant in the idiom and slang, among Aussies generally. I'll post any info here, if I get an answer.
 

 

Rules

 

Rule No. ¹: Thimk.
Rule N^{o. 2}: Do it!
Rule No. ³: Don't worry what people think when you do it! You don't know what they think for more than a second, anyway.

Rule No. ⁴: I'm a late starter. I was 58 - quite a few years after I wrote Late Starters - before I knew I could do whatever I choose. I hope you won't be like me. But the good thing is, I found out, 'sisters and brothers', as the holy rollers - and hippies - say. Some never find out. Free will is definitely an endangered species. Somebody wants to control your mind. No question about it. There are always some incredibly powerful men, always wanting to control how you THIMK. That's not a paranoid statement, as you'll see if you THIMK it through, that's the truth. Keep virtue paramount, people, and you're free already. The Gates of Hell can't prevail, doods.
Rule No. ⁵: Read on, please. While doing all that stuff. And stuff.

Rule No. ⁶: Consistency, many say, is apparently all sorts of things. Consistency is a demon for idle minds. I said that.

That's the end of Rules. Thank you, beloved reader. Pip.
 

 

You're on this page, only because you chose to be here now, and because you've come here. I amire your choice, and not just because it's a trip for me to get new readers. It's a trip anyway. Please feel very welcome indeed, to come back in a few days. I add to, and amend, About Pip, virtually every day of the year, while it's on my site. Things mighta changed, for good or for ill, or in mind. But I look to the daily. And I really dig doing the Almanac. And what do I think about the forthcoming Apocalypse? We all just do the best we can, and fail more then we'd like. Any human being. All 7 billion of us.

 

And I'm not trying to lord it over anyone by anything which I write on the Almanac. That's precisely what my trip is not. I think everyone should do their own thing, practise all the virtues, and never hurt a living being in any way. LOVE RULES.

By God, I love this continent! And by God, I love the Bellingen Shire! And if anyone wants to come into our residence uninvited, they want a photo of themselves emailed to every media outlet in New South Wales, live, and to wake up the town and local police stations, also receiving the photos (as well as every police station in NSW, and the Minister's office), from tested cameras and an alarms system I built relatively cheaply - some of the parts came from Eco House. Slangevar.

 

Bellingen has quite a few long driveways, and long lanes. The private owners of driveways, and sometimes the Bellingen Shire Council, don't always signpost their thoroughfares adequately, and lanes and driveways might look very much alike. I very much enjoy picking flowers for our home, and for friends and loved ones, and have often done it in Bello and Sydney, when the blossoms hang over someone's fence, and are public property. I was walking, as usual in my Scramble Suit, in what I believed to be a lane, and began picking some flowers. A woman came into the long driveway, and accosted me. "What are you doing?", I was asked. I'm picking flowers," was my response. "You can't do that. They belong to my neighbour over there", was the reply. I said that I believed it was a lane, a public thoroughfare. She laughed. I said that I apologised, and would not offend anyone deliberately, and certainly wouldn't steal. She laughed at both statements. I walked home, and, with no sense of malice whatsoever, packed a rather large bag with flowers from my own garden, and the local area, and quite a lot of food  and some cash, far more than the flowers were worth, and far more than was easy for me that day. I was about to use an old business card to write a note, apologising, when I happened to see the woman. I tried to give her money, food, and flowers, quit a lot more than the monetary value of the flowers, for recompense, hoping she would share some things or money with her neighbour, even though they weren't her flowers. I hadn't started writing, and saw the woman nearby. I showed her all the things I'd brought, and said that I had heard her laugh, twice, but I truly did not wish to offend anyone, nor steal. I gave her my card, and she said, "Pip Wilson. I've heard of you". I replied, "Sure. I was nearly murdered, and I'm half blind." She stopped laughing immediately, refused my gifts, and gestured with her hand for me to leave right away, which I did, and walked home, did Almanac work, refrigerated the gifts again, did a bit of gardening and some necessary housework, and fed and stroked Buddha, my good mate, the Sydney Silky dog. I wonder if the owner of the flowers got anything. It was a great lesson in being an 'invalid' in Bellingen, and in all of the Western world. For Pip Wilson, anyway, it was an excellent  lesson. As all of life is. Life is a teacher.

I'll do whatever I choose to do. I'm an idiot. (But not as much as Anders Behring Breivik. He's more of one). And I don't know anything at all. I come from China Grove, Gondwanaland, on the Mysterious Planet. And I just don't care.

Please excuse errors on this website. I know there are very, very many. But I'm half blind. Please give me some days. Or weeks ... or  months. Monday, April 16, 2012. Pip.

(Some blame Substance D.) Dunno.

I'm off to the Prov, then do some astroturfing. May all your days be blessed. Pip
 

Read to the end of page, please, then you'll have read to the end of the page.

I believe Tibet could be free and prosperous in almost no time, if all its people worked individually, and as a group, to do it.
all its people work individually,I warmly invite other webmasters to publish the following promotional images, sentences, paragraphs, and hyperlinks. Whatever. Please kindly acknowledge Pip Wilson and Wilson's Almanac. Thank you.
Thank you. May all your days be (which ipso facto must half not be) blessed. Pip.

If you look around Wilson's Almanac, you'll see I dig astrology, and I'm working on the Astrology page as I write. The Almanac has 'about 442 references' to Astrology. As in this below:

 

Aries  Taurus  Gemini  Cancer  Leo  Virgo  Libra  Scorpius  Ophiuchus  Sagittarius  Capricornus  Aquarius  Pisces

Sun enters Capricorn, 10^th sign of the zodiac
(Dec 22 - Jan 19). Be careful. Don't trip.

Capricornus is one of the constellations of the zodiac. It is commonly called Capricorn, especially in astrology. It represents a horned goat, although it is commonly called the sea-goat. Capricornus is one of the 88 modern constellations, and was also one of the 48 constellations listed by Ptolemy. Under its modern boundaries it is bordered by Aquila, Sagittarius, Microscopium, Piscis Austrinus and Aquarius.

This constellation is sometimes identified as Amalthea, the goat that suckled the infant Zeus after his mother Rhea saved him from being devoured by his father Cronos (Saturn in Rome) in Greek mythology. The goat's broken horn was transformed into the cornucopia or horn of plenty. Some ancient sources claim that this derives from the sun "taking nourishment" while in the constellation, in preparation for its climb back northwards ...

You'll see that I love its art, its association with our calendars, whether Euopean, Chinese, or whatever - everything about astrology is interesting to me.

But it's all rubbish otherwise. I'll be posting stuff about it here, from any souce. Because, as I said, I find it interesting, but utter, utter, utter shite. If I'm proven wrong, I'll admit it.

Through a long and complicated process, Pip, of wilsonsalmanac.com, decided to call the last Saturday of September, Y-Day, and the annual theme is bonfires.
It is perhaps be due to his various brain injuries. I found this at About Pip, and he invites all webmasters to use these images, and text.

In Spring and Autumn, there are few things I enjoy more than walking in Bellingen. To lead a better life, I walk here, there, and everywhere. I wish my love could be here. I can't drive with this appalling eyesight since the brain and eye muscles injury. I'm too old to hitch.

But who's gunna save me? Who's gunna pay me at work? Who's gunna shave me? At least I know there'll be food on the table tonight.

Pip. A Fool for Christ. I pray that visitors will use Search. And other stuff below. And the homepage.
Beware the self-doubt monkey. It's a weird monkey. Very funky. I'll try, and do my best. I'll trust myself. Should I trust someone else?
From some old book? From anywhere? By anyone? Not where I live? Not knowing me personally?
OK. So, please explain. Why? Think through it. Breathe through it. Be here now.
I dropped my harmonica, Albert. Imagine that. Just imagine that!

On September 11, 2011, as I commenced a significant period of the About Pip page, I decided to amend this page, without date and time stamps for any sentence or paragraph, nor significant amendments, in perpetuity. And that if any amendment seemed particularly significant, I would inform you with a *, which shall remain. Now on we go:

Pip considers himself to be an Irish, Buddhist, Celtic, Jewish, Aboriginal, religious, atheist, neopagan, Christian, hippie, well read, foolish, smart
(and other stuff) Australian. I shan't hyperlink all those words. I trust you can use Search, or contact me, and find out, if interested. If that bugs you, please feel free to ask Pip about it, by email, and he'll reply, without doubt. I trust we're all grown-ups. As for Aboriginal, Australia's Indigenous people have been here for 50, maybe 60 thousand years. It's not bleeding-heart liberal to be awe-struck.

Pip's addressed groups of people in Baptist, Pagan, Methodist, Charismatic, Anglican, and Roman Catholic churches, hippie communes, high schools, universities, the House of the New World, Jesus -freek hippie place in West Ryde. We played a lot of Peter and Gordon, Beatles, Lennon,Leonard Cohen, Dylan, Melanie, Dire Straits, 'reg', and such music at 'the House'. I managed High House, a Christian coffee house in Perth, poetry nights, urban and rural communes, Neopagan and Christian, Inter-School Christian Fellowship classes and camps, ABC Radio, the Mitchell Library, 2BBB-FM, and more. I've been in the main and best-known Australian place of worship of, or maybe had a meal with, maybe been a close friend of, Seventh-Day Adventists, Mormons, Tibetan Buddhists, Jews, Bahais, Neopagans, Assemblies of God adherents, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc, etc. I went to the Great Synagogue in Sydney and wore a handkerchief on my head because I didn't have a yarmulke, to commemorate the end of the Six-Day War in 1967. I have many associations with Bahais. Bahais co-founded and co-edited Maggie's Farm magazine with me. I share a house with a Bahai, and I was in Sydney's beautiful Bahai Temple when it was being constructed. (Search the Almanac, I suggest. As much as I find possible and necessary on all of these faiths, is there. Please advise.) But I'm a Pip Wilsonist. A human-racist. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow's a mystery. The one day we have is the present. And that's why it's called a gift. Seize it. We're not here for a long time, we're here for a good time. Carpe diem. Seize the day! Now, shall we chat over Almy stuff? So, that's it, thus far. Eternity. I go every, month, on the last day of the month, or earlier, if it's inconvenient, to restore the bbb sign I helped to restore some years ago. I like to get rid of the ficus. Sometimes I take a Swiss Army Knife, sometimes just a pair of scissors, and a kitchen scourer with some detergent. It's a very fine-looking sign, admired by many, carved from hardwood by Brian Keeys, and it looks much better when I've kept the restoration going. 

That, my friends, is Pip.

Ground Control to Major Tom:

If you, or any of your friends or kids, ever use a mobile (cell) phone,
please listen to this before you read on, or do anything at all.

Most of my friends and loved ones know that for many years I've hated using telephones, especially if it's not 9-5. I have a life, and like to be my own person outside of 'business hours', when I do most of my work. As a sales rep, and as a public relations officer, I was on the phone too much, and I've had enough. I especially hate chat. If you can't discuss 'deep and meaningful' things F2F (face to face) with me, because of the tyranny of distance, email is my preferred way.
 

Now, health. My theurapetic advice, is to read on as many occasions as possible about conventional medicines, and alternative medicines, and use both, if you're assured of efficacy and other patients' results. Much on that at the emergent Planet Directory, formerly 'Pip's Links'. Any suggestions are always welcome.

When I wake up,
In the morning light,
I put on my jeans and I feel all right.

I pull my blue jeans on.
I pull my old blue jeans on,
I pull my blue jeans on.
I pull my old blue jeans on.

 

You and me can go motorbikin’ ridin’,
In the sun, and the wind and the rain.
I got money in my pocket,
Got a tiger in my tank.
And I'm king of the road again.

I pull my blue jeans on,
I pull my old blue jeans on.

Pip's brain injury    RSS feeds    Ryde Royal

Almanac  Scriptorium    Book of Days    Pip's Bellingen pix on Flickr    Bellingen    Pip's Links    Pip's memoirs    Pip's pix    Pip's stash    Pip's Tips    Pip's Trip Tips    Pip's Toobs

Almanac at Facebook    Pip's Sky and Weather photos on Flickr     Articles    Faces in the Street    Daily Planet News    Louisa & Henry Lawson Chronology    Google    Google logos

Brain Injury links for survivors, sufferers, carers, friends and family   Wilson's Almanac Belligen and International Free Directory   Bello Bards    Having a baby?    Daily Absolutely Everything     Free subscription    Email

Australian free stuff    Australian and American English     Australian Idiocracy    Recently updated pages    More than 400 pictures per hour 

Pip's Pomes (Bello, etc)    Search    SiteMap    Support    Typo Heaven, Really!    A place in France that looks like it's in the Bellinger Valley, Australia, home of Wilson's Almanac   

Microminibliss    Recently updated pages     Julian day calculator     Corrigenda    Keef    Past caring   

Kroakin' Rosie     Lunar phase info   Memidex    Almost Prophetic Quotations    On which day of the week were you born?

Announcing The Almies Award. Free entry, $1,000 prize. Christmas, 2012. Email me.

RSS feeds

Notice to Bellingen area bookbinders
I own a 1905 Sir Thomas More's 'Utopia' , about the size of my hand.
The volume is of very great sentimantal value to me, as it has been since 1972.
It has 196 pages in a state of disrepair. Please phone Pip if you can help. 6655 2785.

I live only a couple of hundred metres from both the beautiful Bellinger River and 2BBB-FM, with which I have a long and close association.
The volunteer station broadcasts Pip, recorded, reading Wilson’s Almanac twice each morning of the year.
I recorded the episodes in about 2006, and am hoping to record new ones to ‘put on the can’ soon, as the Almanac has grown and changed quite a bit since then, although many items have quite  likely already been covered, such as Christmas, Lammas, Mark Twain’s birthday, Queen Victoria’s, Dylan’s, etc, and the Battle of Cajamarca, and so on.
I helped restore the carved, hardwood sign, and towards the end of each month I trim off the ficus and clean the sign with a plastic scourer and Windex or similar, because I think it’s really beautiful, and it was carved by an old mate. In September, 2011, the Bs wonderfully commenced streaming online, so if your radio's on the blink, as mine was, you can listen online.
On September 9, 2011, on its veranda, I was wonderfully entertained by two absolutely superb singer/songwriters, and within 15 minutes, it was on the wireless. 2BBB-FM is one of Bello's best things.

What is 2 BBB FM?

Local Bello breakfast National News weather flood reports rock talk lunch classical blues youth country French Slim Dusty late night Global electronic Jazz world hiphop Punk rockabilly poetry Latin late night rave ComRad Satellite. If you listen to BBB-FM, you might hear some ancient stuff like Johnny Mathis, or Doris Day. But there's some good stuff. Misty and Leo are my favourites, both very good broadcasters, I reckon.

BBC world service deadly Aboriginal sounds drama Community local characters ambient trance Transition Town.

Listen to the Live Stream here

Please read first. Or second. Or whatever. But please read.

Beloved readers, I tell just about everybody, if you want to know how Pip is, please read About Pip at wilsonsalmanac.com. It’s about Pip. I’m updating virtually every day, and things change. All for the good, so far. Any time I write a word or phase that confuses, you'll be fine with Search, given context.

Queries, corrections, suggestions, agreements and disagreements, new ideas for the Almanac, or me, are very welcome by email, but preferably face to face. Thank you. That's it.

That's Pip.

Pip Wilson of Wilson’s Almanac.

September 1, 2011 Your almanackist had a most interesting day. I walked to Bellingen shopping centre several times from 23 Dowle Street, largely to get some ‘folding money’ because I seem to be allergic to credit cards (like telephones, most of the time, and many such modern devices, being quite proudly an ‘old-fashioned sort of bloke’ when it comes to many such things as some modern communications technology, such as a formerly sick 'puter, and phone trouble, etc, and much prefer it F2F – Face to Face.

(* Writing this paragraph at about 1 am on November 11 (a very important and maybe auspicious day in the Almy, particularly for Australian history and culture), 2011, I mention that after about an hour's sleep I've yet again been woken by what Australians call a corker or corky, and North Americans call a charley horse or tommy horse, in one of my calves. They're extremely painful and I tried not to disturb my housemate downstairs with my groan. They've occurred all too commonly in 2011. I'm virtually certain I have enough vitamins and minerals in my diet, both in my food and in tablets and capsules. I believe it's because I find it necessary to walk more than I'm used to, and more than most Australians of my age do. I own a car, and I hope to be driving it again before too long. I had almost expected this to be possible by summer, 2011, as I believed by eyesight would be much improved by then. Perhaps it's somewhat improved since that assault on me last year when the muscles around my eyes and temples were so damaged, but I don't think so. Not yet, anyway. It's a very slow healing process, if happening at all.)

(* 6:25 am. Anoher corker about five minutes ago. Owch! It was pretty bad, but I've had worse ones, a couple of times being left with a limp for a day. Wanna drive!)

(* Sometimes I don't walk, although we must be jolly old-fashioned. Occasionally, Ming, Snubby, Pip the Fairy, Julian, Dorcas, Mr Potts, Fatty, and the rest of the Fable Five and I, cycle, via Mornington Cresent South, over to the next village for an ice, meet our funny friends, and have ginger beer, with lashings of ice cream.)

I dislike phones in general, and answerphones in particular. Some people don't seem to know how to use them, they don't get the bleeding obvious, so here goes, with an optional spin on any elements you choose. I think it's wise to give your name, message, phone number, date you are calling, and time you are calling. Some woman left a message on our answerphone, and asked for a return call. It might have been Meryl Streep or the Pope's wife, for all I know. It's just Me. And the message might have been left days ago. She might have died since. Maybe she phoned at 9 in the morning, maybe at 11 pm. If your friends don't know the basics of answer machine etiquette, please teach them, or ask them not to leave a message on my phone, ta. I'm not inclined to phone too many people called Me, nor take messages. Though I like Me a lot. Possibly too much.

When I wake up early in the morning, lift my heaed, I'm still yawning, and a lot of people think I'm crazy. Please don't spoil my day, and I'll try not to spoil yours. That's why the Almanac exists. The help everyone celebrate every day, and know more about each day. Seems like a good idea to me. What else is an idiot to do? TV? Stand for Parliament?

And I love spicy-hot seafood. I had cooked a very hot fish meal the night before, with some leftovers, but saw the mullet running in the river and prepared to catch one or two, knowing that one can often catch mullet with a bit of bread dough on a small hook. I was on my way to get some dough, if I could, from one baker or another, rather than make my own – by the time I walked back, the large run of mullet had disappeared, but I was happy that I had at one stage introduced a nice Dublin woman (explained to her my Irish heritage, and that because of it I sometimes talk too much, but sometimes I just happily sit and listen to others - she said she does both too) , and a young local man to my theory and experience is that dough is good bait for mullet, but they are a bit muddy in flavour very often, which you can overcome with hot sauce, and wash that down with some milk in order to neutralise it. (I do like hot food.) By the time I returned, the mullet had gone. Since my head injury, I have lost my very cheap plastic spectacles a few times, and made other arrangements with a neighbour to buy some at Serendipity, which is much cheaper than the chemist shop or newsagency. So on it goes.

The credit card arrangements I had made and waited for in the Bellingen credit union did not work for me – I even gave all the details to a very pleasant young woman and said I trusted her to use them, quite certain my password was correct, and she couldn’t do it either. We were too early. Those changes take some time. I’d hoped very much to give my friend Adelle very special greetings as one of the six women I love the most out of 7 billion people on the planet, but she was not there at the usual coffee shop. The rebels in Libya said that Gaddafi announced that the dictator had faked the death of his infant daughter for propaganda purposes, and I’d been duped because I’d been in his home one year after the American bombing and had lots of propaganda (apparently) literature about the baby who I’d believed since 1987 had been killed. I’m not usually such a dupe/dope. So, that was just part of an almanackists’ very fascinating Wattle Day in Australia. And I made a decision to very soon be back each day with the almanac ezine, if I can, maybe the Blogmanac and Facebook as well, having made many changes to the website, and enjoying watching it grow and improve – slowly but slowly asking its way through the underpants, as it says at About Pip and elsewhere. At exactly the moment my flatmate walked two hundred metres to have coffee with her friend Rosie for a coffee about 200 or 300 metres away, one of my Rosies phoned to say she was 200 or 300 metres away. At least, I presumed it was my Rosie. I was still uncertain. Some don’t sound entirely dissimilar. I looked for nearly two hours and I couldn’t see any Rosie. Life’s like that. Adidas, flamingos. Make a great day. Be strong, honest, loving, a bit wise, and independent, OK? Pip (PS: It wasn’t one of my several Rosies. So I developed what I believe to be the perfect solution. My housemate at the time asked her Rosie to give a surname or other identifiable name/description affixed, and I‘ll ask my Rosies shall to do likewise. No worries, chicken curry. So, please keep coming back. This page might be very different tomorrow. I’m fascinated by days, as all know, and things change. And today I met a nice bloke who said he would panel for my radio almanac on 2BBB-FM. I’d heard the name, and thought he might have been a former flatmate of mine, but he wasn’t. It coincided with my own hope to do a better show than before, and update with my new stuff. He said he’d drop round for a cuppa to discuss, soon. A big day, On the rare occasions I’m out, I’m usually not far, and will be home soon, friends.

Re: Gaddafi. In WWII, the Nazis led 340 Polish prisoners, some civilian, into a barn and set fire to it – forget the horrors of Auschwitz, etc. Never underestimate what ‘leaders’ can do. For example George W Bush's extraordinary rendition programme, which turned Libya into one of the USA's torture sub-contractors in Africa. When you consider that Gaddafi had supported the IRA, the recent help for him by the British government to torture people they don't agree with shows that in some awful ways, the United Kingdom hasn't changed since the colonial period. The claims of extraordinary rendition in Libya, with the complicity of the British and American masters of war, tend to confirm they can do torture and murder anywhere they want to. Everyone's at risk of being done in by the powers that be at some time - when they choose. So take care. I do. Nothing unexpected will ever happen to me again. In the very unlikely event that it something untoward does happen, if this par is ever not on Wilson's Almanac About Pip again, or if Search reveals any part of the Almanac has been altered in such a way that the CIA and that things I mistrust, such as ASIO, Mafia in New South Wales, and so on, are not exposed in some way, you'll know I haven't taken enough care. I intend to be around for a long time, like my parents and grandparents before me. I wrire on the day before the 10^th anniversary of 9/11. And in such a very unlikely event, I believe that people who care for the Almanac, will keep it going daily, somehow, for decades. But, please, reader, try to remember, as I try to do, despite myself, and not fulfilling all my intentions: anyone can have a mysterious death, and any place can be Ground Zero. So Be Here Now.) Some people have alleged to me that Mafia has some invovement in what happened to me, some blame the 'Dorrigo Boys', some, a few Bello lads. I can't make any allegation at all. If I had any clues, I'd talk with the Police about it, maybe share evidence. I trust they're investigating well.

There are more than 130 Almanac references to the September 11 tragedies. Do I know what really happened? No. I have no idea. I might fly a few kites of the many speculations. But I have no idea about what really happened to kill nearly 3,000 people in America. If I knew, I'd tell you. Maybe be a hero. But I have absolutely no idea.) But I know I saw one of the Twin Towers come down, live on TV, at 6:am, with Geoff. Geoff, aka Tim, as he liked for a while to call himself, and everyone) he even started a Yahoo! Group calld 'The Tims') was my excellent flatmate in Narrabeen. He came into my bedroom, a remarkable son of high-up Salvation Army officers from this place in Collaroy, woke me up, and said, "Wow! Look what's happening on TV!" And we watched for half an hour, before I had to leave to work cleaning flats in Queanbeyan. I learned a lot about house cleaning with Tim. He was honest, and presume will admit I had to. And a lot more about gardening and cleaning in Queanbeyan. And I always love to see a Salvo, and give them a few coins. Thank God for the Salvation Army.

My basic tenets are: (1) Whether you live in Australia, Somalia, or Canada, the USA or Timbuctoo, you don’t need a job to eat and live. (2) It will take some time, but not much. (3) If anyone wants you not to be free, and work for the rest of your life, read The Abolition of Work or read some Permaculture links at the Almanac. It’s all bullshit to be a wage slave. Stay on your own block to eat and work. And do whatever you bloody well want. Again, that other stuff is total bullshit. Be free and happy. It won’t take long.

The first thing I did when I got back to the mid-north coast after leaving that absolutely horrible, cruel ‘rehabilitation’ centre in Sydney, in very early December, 2010, was to go and pay off a layby I had on Ned Kelly bookends. Don’t forget Ned Kelly, murderous cutthroat though I think he was. He could still think well in some ways, as you'll know from the Jerilderie Letter. I hope you've read it. I’d try to crack onto Ned's great-great granddaughter, if I felt like it. As long as she didn’t look like a beached whale or something. And/or had a bloke. I love Ned Kelly memorabilia, news,and so on. I'm a Ned Kelly sort of bloke.

Something.

Independence rules, for us all, though some don’t understand. Independence and love.
I hope you’ve read Pip’s Links thoroughly. Much is there of interest to Pip, his loved ones, and Almanac readers in general. He’s one of the lost Skeptics, but cares little what others believe, if it’s reasonable.
As boring as not shopping:

About Rainbow lorikeets in the news

The ashtray I stole from Gaddafi’s loungeroom in 1987 is better than this, IMHO, if only for its historical significance, rather than its similar design, though pretty good, and it’s on my desktop when not lent to those I love.
My interest in the 2011 popular uprising in Libya was sharpened when it seemed to become more parlous than I had expected. On August 29, 2011, ABC  Radio National reported that the cruel lunatic had claimed to have captured “between 57,000 and 60,000 rebels, and released only 1,000”. Mass graves are being found. Libyan men on radio saying they were tortured and starved in prison, losing nearly 20 kilos. The mind boggles. Just imagine if 57,000 Americans, Britishers or Australians were in imminent peril of being tortured and/or shot. Some already tortured and shot. I hope you’re doing something about it. I am. I’ve written this paragraph. It’s the best I can think of doing. What’s the best you can think of doing? As Jerry Rubin wrote, in Do it!, I intend to leave this paragraph here regardless of the outcome of Gaddafi and the freedom fighters. Please do it for our brothers and sisters, their children and many others they love. A helluva lot of people to suffer and mourn. According to a rebel ‘leader’ (not my word), thousands of prisoners have been without good nor water for at least six days. The rebel leadership has announced that “at least” 50,000 rebels have already been executed, in six months. That men have been shot dead for coming close to Gaddafi’s compound. And I’ve been in it? And I only heard on radio on September 1, 2011, that rebels in Libya now claim that Gaddafi’s infant daughter wasn’t killed in that US raid on his compound in 1986, but it was propaganda. I still have all the glossy booklets I got in Libya. The thought had never occurred to me  - if it’s true, I was completely duped, and Gaddafi was even more or a crafty dictator than I new, and probably more dangerous. His CIA connections, now revealed. are spooky.
So, remember Kampuchea! I didn’t want him killed, but captured.

This page is big! If it fails to load fully, please click Refresh on your browser menu.
It's fully loaded when you see the purple menu bar at the foot of the page.

As of August 27, 2011, rather beset by computer problems, here’s an example of what you’ll find in the Australian Slang pages very soon:

Is my ass too big?: This is American slang, quite often heard on American radio shows, maybe on TV if I watched it. I hope it never catches on here. I’ve never in my life heard a woman in Australia ask if her posterior was too large. How big is one supposed to be? As small as a Big Mac or as an elephant’s? As little as a peanut, or as big as Ayers Rock? Anyone who knows the Almanac knows Pip Wilson is very tolerant of American culture, and some have suggested even too much. But I’ll say some of it is totally mental. Oh, America. Where nobody has bad teeth. And everybody has a job.

I'm a cat under a hot tin roof. I'd rather be a Catalyst Club member on a hot-tin roof. What a great club that sounds like. I heard a great program on Hindsight. Anyone who has been in my bedroom/loft/office, in summer, day or night, will vouch for that. Last summer I had two weeks in a row that it was 100° F, for two weeks. I feared I would slip on the stairs, and wake up dead on a hardwood floor 12 steps below me. I always hold the rail. Always. It's polished it nice, too.

Typos and other errors below? Guess why.

Open all links in a New Window
 

Welcome, guest. Nota bien, Ben Ean:

You might find errors below, but I hope you’ll keep coming back. Daily if you can. I’m working on them relentlessly, making changes. So please keep scrolling to the end, if you can, reading as much as you can, and informing me of errors as much as you can. Even after normal wear and tear, they’ll be there. Thanx heaps. I intend to be improving the Almanac every day for decades, and I find errors such as typos, or bits that might be improved, of some sort at least once a day. I consider myself, wrongly or rightly, an imaginician. I don't know if I'm any good at it, but that's what I do. The Almanac's my life’s work, just as a plumber, composer, or academic might have a life’s work. I don’t work a 40-hour week, so I’m lucky. I rarely sleep more than five hours a day, and I dig just almanacking, plus making sure that each day I make my bed as well as I can, do some housework and gardening, go for a minimum of two longish walks, and speak in person to at least one other human. Those are my personal rules.

I live upstairs. My friend Luka lives on the second floor. Please don’t ask me anything about Luka. I suggest you ask Misty. She’s one of my best friends, and knows me better than anyone. Bright are the stars that shine, and I was blinded by the light. And I love her. I love Misty and Jeff. But if they are together, I'm totally happy. I might still be in love with Misty, but I'm cool, she's cool, and Jeff's cool, and Life moves on, if you let it.

Pip had a lot of trouble building this page with a formerly sick computer. In all, 26,133 words were ruined by being all hyperlinked to prior hyperlinks. On August 23, 2011, he’d had enough, and decided to strip the whole lot, everything after the word ‘derros’,  and paste into .txt files. It simply became impossible. (The same problem recurred yet again that very day. I might even have to revise all this in my rebuild, if the problem recurs yet again.) As a consequence, you might find things below misaligned, not hyperlinked at all, photos missing, and so on. My attitude has been that you wouldn’t be an idiot if you wanted to read the Almy, especially about its almanackist. You’d know how to google, and how to use Search in the abovementioned almanac. The About Pip page might be in a state of disrepair for some considerable time. But we’ll get there. I forgot to save the previous page on Esmeralda Computer, under a different name, but you know I have had some memory damage because I was nearly murdered on August 6, 2010, by being beaten around the eyes and temples by persons unknown (seemingly of no interest to police. (I trow [trəʊ], it'd be very nice if PC 31 said they'd caught a dirty one, or even got off their pensions and malfeasant, disgusting  income, and even begun looking), papers in Bellingen, or Coffs Harbour, and I can rebuild it all some other time. I've been at the Prov, my local supermarket, asked for 600l ml of milk, and come back with enough groceries for  month, but no milk. In almost all ways, my memory’s not only good, it’s probably better than a lot of other people’s forgetteries. Some I know are pretty bright, but haven’t Pip’s skills of remembering. Memory is the almanackists’s stock-in-trade. The Almanac lives on, far better than it was on its 10^th birthday, namely January 1, 2011.

Sorry to some, the almanackist lives on, as well. Thank you a lot, friends, for your assistance.

Pip’s an unstoppable bloke. I trust you’ll see the page slowly improving, but he intends keep this preface up until one month after I think he’s completed the task. A reminder of how hard this job has been, although unbelievably rewarding and satisfying, to him, at least.

God, gods, goddesses, or whatever, bless. Keep scrollin’. Ta.

I intend not to start About Pip anew every two years any more, but update what’s here, for the rest of my life, if I live more than a nanosecond. One step at a time. But with tens of thousands of protesters marching in Tokyo after the tsunami, not only because of those poor souls washed away in the wave, or people living in fear of things going ashtray with genetics, or whatever, anything could happen. That's life. "Make it up as you go along," is what I tell myself, "just try to do your best, mate. And always try to be 100% honest, and otherwise virtuous. Always."

I have a good record for that, having been tied in beds and wheelchairs and taking a scalpel to cut my way out and escape (glad I didn’t, emerging from such a long coma).  Hard to keep a bad man down.

Dad was a refugee, and refugee issues have played, and continue to play, an important role in my life. In 1975, as former Australian Director of the CACC – the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade, he was invited by the Bishop of East Timor, to give some lectures. He was in his hotel room one night and a man with a submachine gun poked it in his stomach. Dad didn’t know if the bloke was Fretilin, which had some close Marxist-Leninist associations, or what he was. He made his way to the docks. We lost him for nearly a fortnight. I tried the Portuguese embassy, whatever I could think of. But he was lost. He showed up two weeks later in Darwin, as brown as a berry. We have some ideological differences. Clear to both of us and well accepted by both, but I’m the very proud son of a boat person, and I just might grow up to be rich enough to be a politician. Then each hand will watch the other, and both will wash my face.

(And if Australians commemorated February 19, allegedly the worst day on which the Japanese bombed Darwin, during WWII in 1942, instead of Anzac Day, April 25, we'd be saying something on behalf of Australians, not British people and Americans, many of whom worked hard for peace, but, along with their countrymen and -women, didn't appreciate our cirumstances, and our unique status.)

Later, Dad’s close colleague and my close personal friend since our childhood, Dr John Whitehall, also active in the CACC, found he was on a Fretilin death list. Thank ye lords they didn’t get him.

Now I desist. I pray you’ll keep reading to the foot of page, and know About Pip. Let’s know each other a bit. Life’s short. Sydney University researchers recently announced that the richest 20 per cent of Australians live six years longer than the poorest 20 per cent. The rich/poor divide in the Wide Brown Land, Home of the (Southern) Brave is grossly underestimated. Sleeping ok?

Pip. A slender idiot from Bellingen, NSW, 2454, Australia.

Hello.

Having said that, still, as of late August, 2011, Pip's working on the estimable Wilson's Almanac Australian Slang dictionary pages, and intends to do so for some months, before uploading them. It's very much a work in progress. He knows this below contains many errors, for various reasons, including various exigencies such as a former eyesight impediment due to many dangers of murderous assault - now healed so he sees better than he did before the last deadly incident - please use the Almanac' Search page for more information about how he was nearly murdered several times in two years in Bellingen. But he's always uploading pages of the Almanac, and some material below will change, in what I intend to become the best Aussie slang/idiom dictionary in the world, and continue it all my life. Many errors are on this page, and around the Almanac, especially hyperlinks. Computer problems and eyesight problems combined, are the cause. One is fixed, both should be, I trust, very soon. Please be patient. And please come back. I’m rarely doing emails because of the problems with Esmeralda Computer. I hope you’ll stay in touch with each other, with love. Love is all. Thank you. Pip.

Having said that … my philosophy’s five miles wide and an inch deep. I’ve read many of the philosophers of the Western world. Lots of religious stuff in long books. I know the Bible backwards. I’ve read lots of newspapers, books and magazines on all sorts of stuff. I’ve had lots of people advise me on all sorts of things. I’ve advised many people on all sorts of things. I’ve been helped by an extraordinary number of people. I’ve helped an extraordinary number. OK, so I'm an idiot. Sure. But I might be smarter than you, cobber. We'll see. We'll see.

I believe, though many people I love and respect believe otherwise, that (a) being completely honest, even publicly, is a good thing, in virtually all circumstances, (b) I intend always to practise that in my life and writings, etc, and (c) love is the answer. In my humble opinion, if courts in my country have long required one to tell 'the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth',  (so help me God, Allah', and so on), and might be convicted of a minor or major crime by his peers, regardless of 'the whole truth', not known even to the defendant, and then perhaps be imprisoned, I should be pepared to do the same. It's a free country. If I was going to have not just mental torture, but physical torture as well, in some place, especially Australia, I have no idea what I'd do. I guess I wish I'd put up with it like some avatar or something. Or I might lie. I might lie like a dog. I don't know. I have no clue at all. I'm an idiot. OK. It's widely known. I still can’t think of the other thing I think I intended to do in such circumstances. Maybe #2. But I might go and do a Number Two now in the dunny downstairs. I'm busting. Excuse me.

OK, I'm back now. It was good. Oh yeah, Number 3 or whatever: Try, just a little bit harder, now baby. That's Number 3, I think. It sounds OK, with Janis, anyway. Number 4 still eludes me. Maybe it's, “I don’t care what you think about me. I care what I think about you.”  Yeah. That’s number 4. And utter, utter, utter bullshit. I care about Pip far more than anything. Number 5: Pip cares what you think about you. Not so much, that’s why it’s down the list. But I’ll try, just a little bit harder, and not turn my back on love. So I intend.

Welcome, guest. Most pages, and some photos at the Almanac are big. If any fails to load fully, please click Refresh on your browser menu.
It's fully loaded when you see the purple menu bar, usually at the foot of the page.  I'm adding to the page often, so kindly come back if you want to know 'About Pip'.
I'm largely, not entirely, into days, and unstoppable, as my mate Marky used to say (more at my Memoirs). It might be a flaw, but my kids and neighbours know it. I'm rather unstoppable, unfortunately. Me Pip Wilson. Who you?
I could try to be someone else. But I'm Pip. I don't think I'm a bad bloke. Millions might disagree. Maybe they can change. But I'm Pip. The name's  the same forwards, and backwards. Don't wear it out. And I don't intend to change. Don't want to be you. Don't want you to be me. I'm happy with stuff so far. I persist. Tenacity, that's why.
And this is the About Pip page. Whatever errors. Tell me and I'll change them, if I agree. Otherwise, they remain. I'm quite unstoppable. All my loved ones know it. Sometimes they disapprove. But I'm unstoppable. And I love people forever if I tell them I love them, or care.
I might have been in the last callup, the last draught, for the Vietnam War, but I like to think I 've 'still got it'. Others might disagree. My friends and family know I'm rather unstoppable, as people who know me know. Sometimes to their chagrin. But that's Pip.
And he's slowly but slowly asking his way through the underpants. Full stop. Period.
G'day, mate. You know my name. Look up the number. Me, Jane. You, Tarzan.

I advise you to read for a second time after a few days. I might have made errors both typographical and terminological, and cerebral as well, given my rapidly healing eyesight and "brain damage". Or I might have changed my mind. Like anyone, Pip's a bit like that, he's told.

Find errors? (Me too.) Wish to disagree with anything on the Almanac?  Please advise - with brief, reasoned arguments. I will respond in like fashion. I might or might not agree with you. But the response will be my best, brief, reasoned respose.

Thank you, belovèd reader. And my God bless. And may you get a name as cool as 'Pip'. But don't wear it out. And remain devoted to humility and virtues. With no virtue, I barely want to know you, but will, even be your friend if I may. Virtue first.

Only four years' prison for drunken murder attempts in this stupid, in many ways, bloody Commonwealth, reader. Even Brisbane Channel 9's director of news, and  three journalists being sacked for faking reports about the search for Daniel Morcombe's remains. So watch it. I've had enough. I’ve been nearly murdered enough by these kinds of I Love a Sunburnt Countryesque idiots. What about you? Maintain love and honesty.

Typos? Errors? Improvements? Errors? Ideas? Improvements? Suggestions? Brickbats? Bouquets? Anything at all, please email Pip. He's reasonable, he thinks.
Some 'profane' words below. If you scroll to them, and don't read any Recently updated pages, it's your choice, not mine. Warning has been announced.

On the dating of items in the Almanac Translate this page  Birthday star  Your birth day  Daily Everything  NNDB  Time/Date Change text size  Calendar converter  Almanacs, calendars, time, dedicated weeks, etc  Almanac screensavers  On this day  Dictionary Memidex  IMDB days IMDB years  Wikipedia days  Wiki decades  Wiki centuries  Timelines  Conversions  Calendrica  Lunabar  Birthday calculator Google When 'Source' links on this page move address or die, I might allow them to stay here, but the Wayback Machine might help you locate the original. Recently updated pages

Please advise webmaster of any errors. I find many, maybe not all. I invite any addiditions or improvements.
Have I blown it? Perhaps because of eyesight. Please tell me, thank you.

 
The exploding fireworks are from the Showground in Bellingen in 2011. I'm a fireworks sort of bloke,
and watched these just metres away from where I live, near my daughter and grandkids.
I'll make my own skyrockets in 2012, if I can get the chemicals from a nursery.

It's a long read below. I hope you'll scroll and read to the end, click some pix.

It's About Pip, the Almanac and stuff. It's his vocation, and one gift to the planet.
And I might keep adding bits to it. Changing stuff. I shall be doing lots of that, probably. Or deleting, if asked nicely, and I see a reason. Me am like that. Those who know and love me, know that. I’m Pip.

Greetings from Paradise, 23, Samadhi (Dowle) St, North Bellingen, Australia. Currently the centre of my universe. And, apparently, the known world. Me Pip. You Jane. I've decided that among other things, I yam what I yam. About twenty kids call me Grandpa Pip. I love kids, but they must have a note from their parents for chores, and they can't ever come inside. One day, some kids called me Uncle Pip. I said, “I’m Grandpa Pip. What’s your name, darling?” And Mum was standing at the window. I gave her a wave as well. I understand the concerns of some adults, but I believe they’ll get over it. I can easily say I’m walking to my grandkids’ place round the corner, and do so if I’m followed by a doubting parent. I would never harm anyone, particularly a child.

Maybe you're not what you yam. But I yam. Videlicit, brain damaged, some think. Can't help it. I didn't do it. And incorrigible. Any advice if you've tried not to yam what you yam, please inform me. I still yam. I have several catchcries. Such as, "You know me". And as Dame Edna said often, "I mean it in a nice way". When ringing anyone for assistance in matters, it is: "I'm one of the many people being beaten up, nearly murdered and half blinded in Bellingen by persons unknown, at least two carloads of them", etc. It must have been pretty scary. I'm still a bit afraid when I get into a car, and I never was before. So far, so good. I'll still leave this malarkey here, I think, if the police ever talk to me as promised over and over for almost a year. At least I don't live in Sydney, Coffs ('nice places to visit but I wouldn't want to live there', and Sydney's a great place to be from) nor Oslo. Stupid Norwegian fuzz. Glad it wasn't my grandkids screaming for help. But that's probly next. Watch it. They're mostly idiot liars in my experience. And I've had too much. Now we know the speed cameras are a rort for the government. Oslo might be a disaster, 76 kids calling for help to thousands of others on mobile phones, and cops not coming, but what's next for Bello? People who don't watch TV all day, and visit or phone nice, intelligent, well-read, affable blokes are nearly murdered? Give me a break! This town is so deteriorated, no? I'm not going to stop, all alone, if I have to. Yes, sheila or not. Oh, now I sound angry, maybe pissed, but I'm neither, though I could be, maybe walk in the dark, nearly get murdered for the umpteenth time and grab a pink lemonade or a glass of Scotch, chat with blokes and sheilas. I know I'm rational, and will remove any sentence if convinced I should, or locked up in an asylum as a nutter. I know I’m different. But not as mental as the people who allowed the Logan City fire. Not as mental as those who nearly murdered me. Hope you can bear with About Pip.

IMHO, they should hack Dubya's phone and find out what he knew about 9/11, or at least how he responded, with Dick Cheney et al, that bunch of shysters. And hack Gaddafi's phone and publish what he's thinking about. It might save lives. We already know what a lying crook Rupert Murdoch is. Furthermore, if the tsunami in Japan caused dangerous icebergs to float around the South Pacific, maybe people should read James Lovelock and do something about global warming. Please excuse over-hyperlinking there, but I have my views, and like stimulating opinions. I hope you'll use the Almy's Search. You might know About Pip even more. I often say "God bless you". But what's Pip's opinion? "Look it up!", my mate Julius Sumner Miller said. Or ask F2F. And, I'd love to see New Yok, but I wouldn't go to Manhattan in a fit. The idiot new owners are building it bigger than the old one! How many adults and their kids will die if that one gets Osama bin Laden'd?

I write this paragraph on 9/11, 2011, and am staggered by the stupidity of some poliicians and billionaires. If I could yon of a better and easier, economical way to get people to wak up is write it, hope you'll spread the meme. And fast. Maybe you can think of a good slogan, for T-shirts, stickers, posters and stuff, and make heaps of money. But you'd better get cracking, because somebody'll do it soon enough. They're probably not only in production today, just imagine how much dough the're making in Manhatten. If ydu would like the email slogans to me, I can't make t-shirts and stuff these days, but I intend to quite soon.  ... I'll use the motto and upload it, if you request it, and give you a credit, as long as you send the text.

I use personal pronouns and 'Pip' a lot on this page. As I said, this is About Pip. If you want a page called 'About Cheryl', or About George, About George, About Susan, About Misty, About Liz (alphabetical order is not as important as some think), About Marti, About Julia, About Jehoachim. But this is About Pip.

I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, and power throughout the universe displayed. Then sings my soul.

In order to save bucks and get fitter, we are creating a fragrant lawn. Forget gyms. Grow lovely herbs, often in flower with small, beautiful blooms, and running strawberries, or anything you really like, which is prostrate. The herbs, and so on, are amazingly easy to grow, if you put your back into it. In months, taste and smell the rewards. Please Do It!

I've shaken many hands and walked on hands and knees at 10 pm to create a fragrant garden so neither owners nor I will have to pay for mower fuel, and have a lot of fragrant herbs to walk on rather then pay for fuel. Someone told me she was allergic to the herbs. I said, "Well I'm allergic to grass. And you can always walk up my concrete driveway". People seem to have lost a lot of compassion. I can't read a phonebook because of those blokes/and/or sheilas. But Wilson is OK. Pip Wilson survives.

We 'begun' with prostrate herbs to save the owner and me more money, and all good when you walk on them. But little or no help. broken computer regardless. So the thought occurred to me that maybe my Bellingen friends want me to die, or at least don't care if I do. Well, sorry, I intend to be around for a very, very long time. And this paragraph stays until my next About Pip, intended for mid-2013. I do them every two years. That's the kind of hairpin I am. And if typos are everywhere, it's not me, but Esmeralda, my computer. From before she was fixed.

And if any more police, doctors, hospitals, editors and reporters from Bello and Coffs, radio stations I helped to start, friends, local bureaucrats of any kind, Centrelink, or any bureaucrats at all, get in my way, I’ll be polite but determined.  I have a record, and not a police record. It's the inhabitants who have had a mental breakdown. Don't try to be honest and nice in Bellingen. I intend not to remove nor edit this note until August 6, 2013, third anniv. of the assault that nearly killed me.

I intend only to alter or delete the Misty note if she requests, or anything else from the Almy. She’s co-owner of the Almanac, in my opinion. Stuff like that. Bello needs a shakeup, not me. Try not to get murdered. Too many liars and idiots around. If you can't walk, buy a car. Can't drive? Learn.

Every 29 minutes, an Afghan woman dies in childbirth. Sorry, I'm straying into weird stuff, and you're quite likely a Westerner. Back to important stuff. I know we're doing something about it.\

Pip has always liked to whistle a lot. It's a family trait. My dad likes to whistle.  A neighbour in Jesmond Cresent, Beecroft, in Sydney, called my father "the canary of Jesmond Crescent". I went to a primary school reunion a number of years ago, and the old headmaster had brought the class's Punishments book. I was in it a few times, having been caned for my annoyance by the various teachers, and I guess I deserved it, because I was what Australian boys call "a shit stirrer" ˗ I annoyed teaches, male and female with my

And why does Pip have no teeth? All his kids have got beautiful teeth. When I was a kid at Penno, we had a dentist named Mr Hodson. We never called them Doctor in those days, and this bloke didn't deserve it. I had an appointment very three weeks. He never used an anaesthetic - I didn't know they existed until after I was married. He told me how fantastic I was because I always gripped the chair. All the other women in Penno thought he was a crook and stopped going. But Mum stood by him - he had a surgery across the road from Dad's real estate office, which he'd done up out of the old Post Office - I cleaned the windows. Mr Hodson once commented to me that my father amazed him. He would run between moving cars in the traffic to cross Pennant Hills Road. God knows how much money Mr Hodson stole from a battling couple with four kids. I only found out in about 2009 that he was not only a crook, but a perv. A Pennant Hills man I trust as honest told me that when he was in the chair, clever Mr Hodson used to put a newspaper over the boy's lap and play with the innocent lad’s willy.  The other reason is that they were beaten out of me. I got my new dentures back when I was in hospital and even they were smashed in. I told a hospital that I'm sick of not being able to eat a chop, or speak properly. I want some new dentures that are good, and free. I'm sick of paying for bloody dentrifice when all this is not my fault. Anyway, I saw a very nice woman named Vanessa at Coffs Harbour Hospital, and she said I can get some free proper dentures, just some forms to fill in with my doctor. I expect to have proper dentures soon. And when I said I was writing about nicknames, and coyly asked if she knew one for Vanessa, she already knew the nickname Vanessa the Undresser, quite rare in my experience. Cool.

As Pip said on the Keith Richards's birthday page: He's known by his many fans, and the other stones, as 'Keef'. I hope he didn't come to greef when he fell out of that tree. Maybe it was near a rief, having been on an island.  I don't have many teef myself, due to bad dentistry, perhaps my sweet tooth. That is sincerely my beleef. Seeyez, around like a rissole, Keef. Don't be mischievious. Have some relief. Be like a leaf, Keef. I'll be breef: my cheef concern is for your wellbeing. No theeves or nothing. I don't want to breef.

I said to someone I know, “I know I love people, mate. Especially old and young. I just can’t help it. It’s like loving Australia. I can’t help it. I might have a small ego , or one as big as Ayer’s Rock. But you try changing either.  It’s how I am.”

I really like the name 'Pip'. But for a fleeting moment, I thought, "You've already changed your name by deed poll, Maybe you could be 'Bloke' when you're quite old. I love that name, Bloke, and I believe some blokes are already, 'Bloke'.

I intend never again to begin a sentence with "I might be wrong, but". It seems to me an unutterably foolish thing to say, like "I only want to say this".

And on we go. Here comes my ego again. I suggest you do about 30-40 pushups a day. That's my advice. I do as many like religion. Or even some days a week, I’m happy. I intend to get to 100, as I did in my 40s, but possibly I can't, at my age. But it helps if you stay alive when people want to murder you. It helps you with sheilas, I guess. But it helps you to stay alert, alone or with friends.

When Margaret Olley died, Edmund Capon, English-born art scholar, and leading light of the Sydney Art Gallery, said, on ABC radio, that she was wonderful, because she didn't call herself 'an artist', because she didn't want to be pretentious. Oh, Ted, four people who worked with you have told me you're pretentious. Anyone listening to you on radio can hear you're pretentious. I'm pretentious, Teddyboy. Ted, you even went in the Sydney Morning Herald to say you were appalled that my friend Peg, with a little, but minimal, help from me, cut up a signed Picasso print, virtually indistinguishable from this framed one on our wall (and sold them for $100 per one-inch square, breaking even, financially), I don't eschew being an artist and poet. I don't want to be an artist and poet. I am an artist and poet. Am I pretty good, maybe sometimes very good, maybe once or twice brilliant with a certain poem or drawing/painting, as I've been told? Or am I a shithouse artist and poet? I have no idea. It's not for me to decide, and, frankly, I don't care either way. I just keep plodding away at it as well as I can. That's all I want. I don't care much about many of the theories of art I've heard and read. Am I brilliant? Nup, that much I feel assured of. Do love writing, poetry, prose, media releases, novels, short stories, etc, etc, or whatever I write? Indubitably. Do I keep practising every day, and get better at each, every day? You bet. I strongly believe in self-improvement, and at 58, I've learned more about it even than recently. My intentions include, to cook a lot, learn knitting, no longer be the ten-thumbs idiot I was, twice, when I've tried to learn guitar, nor the idiot in typing classes, but now intending to type withe 9 fingers, not two. And learn Pitman's Shorthand. And I want to learn ukulele, stone carving, growing a fragrant lawn, all where I'm trying to contend with grass to cut, and weeds and bills for petrol, and repairs. I intend to sell my mower, or give it away to one of my kids, by Christmas, 2013. I'm also investigating a few other arts and crafts, visual, audio, the written word, and so on. Sorry, Edmund. See you on the wires, Ted. I'd love to reply to any email you send. Shall I explain it, Ted? Or is it verboten? In a strange way, it reminds me of the Perfumed Garden, but I'm not going into that. Step on it Velma. Step on it, Velma. Step on it, Velma. Velma, step on it. Velma ... Step on it Velma!!

It's quite clear from reading Wilson's Almanac that I listen to radio quite a lot (if only in the background as I work on the Almanac, garden, and so on), and rather like radio. Perhaps because the first nearly seven years of my life were spent living upstairs in what many locals called "Wilson's radio shop". TV was launched in Australia until 1956, when I was aged three, and many still couldn't afford one, because televisions were so expensive then, even until the late-1960s I knew families which were still considering whether ever to buy one (or the first car the family had ever had) ˗ perhaps like laptop computers in the 1980s. It was through 'the wireless', as we called it, that I was introduced to things I still love, such as 1950s comedians like George Burns, Victor Borge, Jack Benny, and quite a few more. My dad had the radio playing in the shop's workroom constantly, and as a little kid I lived in that room for hours a day.

I hesitate to speak publicly of some of the symptoms I've experienced since I was so badly injured by assault upon me on August 5/6, 2010, in case some people think I'm mental, and eschew me. But some people seem to have been interested, and I concluded that if anyone thinks one can be beaten up around the eyes, temples and chest, and spend 71 days in Post-Traumatic Amnesia with Extreme Traumatic Brain Injury, and be symptomless, that person, friend or foe, is the one with the problems. I shouldn't hide the facts, in case somone's loved one has a brain injury, which is rather likely. In recent months I have met, not in hospital, several people enduring TBI, whether Mild, Moderate, Severe or Extreme (I was 'lucky' enough to get the extreme one), and they, too have had symptoms, whether to endure, or enjoy, or both. What's more, I think privacy is very important, but many make too big a deal of it. We're all human, and brain injury is not as uncommon as many think. I was such a person, but no longer am. I've met too many people putting up with brain injury from things as innocuous as a bump on the head, or severe injury of the head from a tree branch, a car accident, a motorcycle accident, and a host of reasons. In some ways, brain-injured people tend to be hidden away, and don't discuss it. But it might happen to you, a friend, a family member, or another loved one. I have mentioned them in various places on Wilson's Almanac, so, please 'stop me if you've heard this one' already. My symptoms have largely been very welcome. I believe it's because I was left on McNally St, Bellingen, at 0 degrees Celsius for seven hours overnight, and my body temperature was 4 degrees below normal. Supercooling an injured human brain is now being done by doctors to help injured people, with remarkable effects, all good, and is being studied at universities in Australia and New Zealand, perhaps elsewhere. I no longer dislike the tinnitus which bugged me since I worked as a lawnmowing man in the 1980s, and just as most lawnmowing men in those days, didn't wear ear muffs. And a child screamed into one of my ears though a plastic tube. Not expecting the scream, just a whisper, or soft words, it felt like my ear was bleeding. Now I quite enjoy my tinnitus, and listen to it with pleasure, like music. Perhaps a symphony orcestra. Sometimes, not too often, thank ye gods, at around dawn, I 'hear' the voice of someone, usually a neighbour, saying something like, "Are you there, Pip?" but when I go downstairs and open the front and back doors to check, the person isn't there. This part's a bit embarrassing, but here goes: when I was in a coma in Newcastle, I was incontinent for weeks. Occasionally, that recurs. I haven't had an accident, but I told one speech therapist at Coffs Harbour Hospital, I had "a turtle poking out", and needed a toilet quickly. I've never shat myself, and that symptom seems to be receding, but I've had to live with it. I often 'have to go and have a sit' several times quite early in the morning. The fact that I eat a lot of dried fruit, including prunes, probably has much to do with it. It doesn;t seem a problem to me, because I like such food. I was a vegetarian once, for about four years, and only went back to being an omnivore when I found the food preparation too slow and bothersome. I like eating meat, and seafood, very much. It reminds me of the time in about 1980 when I went on a fast in Bellingen. After six days, all I wanted was some meat, and I got in my car and went to McDonald's for a big, juicy burger. I still fast a bit. At least it's not enforced fasting, like at Ryde's Royal Rehabilitation Centre when I wan't fed for four days. I've written a special page about that place, on Wilson's Almanac, and I think it's worth reading where taxpayers' money goes. TBI is very important. It's not only devastating, in various degrees, but to be locked up, with an electronic anklet on, is rather demeaning. (I'm rather chuffed that I tried to cut myself out of my bed in Intensive Care, with a scalpel, and also from my wheelchair a few weeks later. I'm not too easy to confine, and I like that about Pip.) The only way I could get out of the Royal was to get family members to help me escape, because I had no money, even though they often promised to help me get some of my own money, which was in Bellingen. The doctors and staff telling me that I only believed I was 48, not 57 (because 'the notes' said I was), and I had two children, not three, so it must be my brain damage, and to be often mocked publicly by the head doctor for my coming from Bellingen, and for having bad sartorial sense (although I'd obtained my clothes from the laundry's discarded clothing shelves), and was too blind and destitute to go hundreds of kilometres home without money and a carer. Fortunately, I no longer need particular care, though a carer would be very good for me, if the carer is reliable and trustworthy. Damaged memory and eyesight have been quite a challenge to live with. I never would have considered it, until it happened to me. Losing things is just one example, especially important things. There are some matters I find quite difficult, with my poor eyesight. Making typos is an example (there might be some here, though I'm trying hard) - somtimes I simply can't see well enough, so I make errors which are unlikely for a man with my editorial experience. And I add my that my injured vestibular apparatus, which is the system of balance in the brain, means that I fall over from time to time, and even in bed, my whole room often feels like it's in an earthquake. That happens at least once a day, even lying down. Anyway, that's not the long and short of it, because ETBI has made its mark on me, but there are, in fact, some things I'd prefer to discuss in private with trained therapists, or friends I trust. Thanks, friend. I don't know if I got anything off my chest, but I hope it was useful, and might help someone else with TBI, their family, and loved ones.

But today some radio show hosts and commentators are exceptonally bad, yet somehow their position is still highly respected. Talkback radio has partly been resposible for much of the decline in radio's worthinesss. In November, 2011, I found that, as on most Sunday nights, there was almost nothing worth listening to, but I can have the radio near my head and listen to it turned down softly, not watch a movie on my computer and risk disturbing my housemate. And I don't like just lying there and listening to my own thoughts for hours on end. I listened one night to some talkback ABC (not ABC RN, which had an ultra-modern music show I found incredibly boring), and nothing but British footbalL on BBC World Service, which is usually very good. The topic the so-called journalist was asked by a caller was the origin of the term 'Mum's the word', a popular English idiom.  As you can see it is easy to google at Wikipedia, and you can also find in '0.13 seconds' 'About 1,040,000 results' on the Net. It is related to an expression used by William Shakespeare, in Henry VI, Part 2, and the origins of the phrase can be traced back to the fifteenth century Towneley Plays “Though thi lyppis be stokyn, yit myght thou say ‘mum’. ” One caller told the host of the radio show that the expression started in World War Two, and the journo accepted it. Why would anybody ask an idiot the origin of a term? Can't he google? Can't the talkback show host google? Can't ge get a computer for about 100 bucks if ABC is too stingy to give him one? I heard someone ring John Laws up on his show once and ask him the meaning of a rather easy word. I could hear Laws thumbing through a book, presumably a dictionary, while he fumbled for an answer. Did the caller not have his own dictionary, often sold for about three bucks in op-shops? Did he think Lawsy could tell him what he could find out privately himself, at a library, or in 0.13 seconds on the Internet? I the same week, I heard ABC and BBC variously call (and here I reluctantly go againt my own rule of not making too big a fuss about accents, but I'll try to depict the pronunciations as simply as I can), George Papandreou, 'George Papandrayos', 'Papandrow', 'Papandrou', 'Papandreos', 'Papandreo', and I think a few others.  Can't English-speaking journalists work it out with a Greek person? I've believed for decades (and have acted on my belief, elsewhere) that, at least in Australia, taxpaying citizens should demand that their elected representatives enact legislation to clean up radio, and insist that our radio writers. newsreaders and program presenters work out how to speak the Mother Tongue, this superb language, so long in the making, and died for by some who cared about it, and some other things, especially the Bible, in the Authorised (King James) version a good example of the beauty of English. And, rather preditably, I add Billy Shakespeare to my rant.

(Time out. Loving you has made me bananas. There are currently three (maybe more later, I don't know) 'About Pip' pages out of many hundreds at Wilson's Almanac. Even though I have a Memoirs section on the Almanac, this is something of a memoirs section as well, so here's a bit more about Pip. You might like to go somewhere else, but I hope you'll stay and read on - it might be of interest you, as it is to me. Just a few words about bananas, and coffee, in my life. To begin: my grandfather, Pampa William Lucas Wilson, had many endearing qualities which endure as guideposts in my life, such as pacifism, and a love of words and printing. The fact that I feel almost convinced that he took Henry Lawson (about whom I wrote a well-researched, historically accurate novel, Faces in the Street) home for "a feed", adds to it and is important to me. And I love the way Pampa spoke in old Aussie slang, and always say "a feed", not "a meal". He was a Victorian, having been born in 1890 when Queen Victoria was still to be on the throne for at least another decade, and his speech was redolent of old Australian idioms, like 'cobber', 'clobber', and so on. Real CJ Dennis language. Born poor, he'd grown up in Paddington, a Sydney suburb, long before it was gentrified, and he was dux of Paddington Primary School, as was his childhood friend, and later his wife, Mamma Wilson. Pampa taught Mamma Pitman's Shorthand, and she was incredibly good at it, as many in my family have been, and taught it in Sydney. (I intend to learn it as well.) They'd lived about 100 metres from each other in Paddo, in Norfolk St, where my paternal great-grandfather was a stonemason, and laid a big stone wall (still there, and I took a photo of my dad in front of it) near Victor Trumper Park. Pampa had a tendency to offer a banana to his grandchildren and their friends, whenever they visited. Dad used to say it was "Pampa's banana therapy".

When I was less than a year old, I cad some unknown malady, and I couldn't digest food. Even Mother's milk was a problem. Mum used to mash up bananas and slowly spoon feed me, in my cot at Sydney's Camperdown Children's Hospital. The doctors told my parents I had Coeliac Disease, and on two nights, they told my mother I'd die during the night. She only talked to me about it two or three times, and wept each time. Like me, my mother, and my paternal grandfather, sometimes used to weep, as I do. It's a family characteristsic, not one I'm ashamed to have, although many Australians think it's unmanly, self indulgent, weak perhaps. (But I never forget that Jesus didn't say "Blessed are the weak". He said "Blessed are the meek." And I feel blessed, for all my faults.) In about the early-to-mid 1970s, two things to do with bananas were in my life. A few mates of mine, including Marky, drove from Sydney to the Great Barrier Reef, with no money, in an old 'bomb' of a car, barely roadworthy. They knew Marky could fix it if anything went wrong, because he could fix anything mechanical. They couldn't buy food, so they lived on bananas and water. Bananas are wonderfully nutritious, as you'll see if you google Banana nutrition. One night, Marky ended up under a big tree on a beach, and woke up the next morning, incredibly sunburnt.

In about 1972, I was living at 'The Bridge', a coffee house for teenagers run by Epping Baptist Church, a church which my family attended. I had incredibly pains in my stomach all the time. I had some ENO, or a bottle of Mylanta, next to my bed, and consumed a lot of each. I went to a doctor, who prescribed a barium meal test (very unpleasant). The doctor was appalled that after so many years I was still eating food with gluten in it, which Coeliac people shouldn't do. When the results came back, he said that I'd never had Coeliac Disease. The doctor said it was very fashionable among doctors in 1953. He said that my stomach ache was probably from too much coffee.

Some years later, I worked as a sub-editor (see Express Yourself - my mate and co-'subby' was smart, with a degree in classical literature (unable, like me, to get another job, both of us made unemployed in the publishing industry at the very time that Warwick Fairfax had taken control of the Fairfax corporation, and sacked 1,000 journalists in NSW and Victoria), and we were surrounded by idiot editors, working for them and fixing their errors constantly, on up to 14 magazines at a time, to make the illiterate boss even richer) with a man who's still a good friend of mine. My mate would often poke me from behind, sticking two fingers in my ribs, and I'd jump. It wasn't pleasant, but frequent. He drank an incredible amoubunt of instant coffee, and talked about 100 to the dozen (really fast) so I told him he might feel much better if he drank less coffee. He took my advice, and tried it, and within a fortnight, he was like a differednt man, settled down, and not worried by life as he was with all that caffeine. I like coffee very much. As a child, Dad always used to make a jug of coffee on a Sunday morning, and we'd have it in Mu and Dad's bed before Sunday School. Many of my friends thought it was weird, as Australians still were tea drinkers, very few of them drinkning coffee in the 1960s. One day, he tripped on the staircase and the coffee percolator's contents spilled all over his arm. It raised a blister as big as Uluru on his arm. As a real estate agent, he was showing some customers over a house, and trip on that staircase as well, an painfully broke the blister, and tore the skin off.

I still love eating bananas. I usually have one on my desk. If I have nothing else, or with no teeth, can't chew meat, I have a banana. I have some banana trees growing in my garden, and look after them pretty well.)

Deep breath. I continue. I don't want to die soon. I want to live until at least my 120s, go back in time and sell paints to Jeanne Valment , who could blackmarket them, catch tuberculosis and run away with some bloke named Diego (but in my Episode 16, you'll see it was a Diego lookalike by the name of Mustafa, who gets busted for it, and bribes a judge, then get cheated on, divorced, etc, then dies in Tsunami Leonie or Margaret, almost, but not quite, which has not been generated by an earthquake, but by long squiggly aliens from Ayers Rock, with a brother with bad breath named 'Harold', who was kidnapped by mentally mad trees, then took a loyal oath that he'd be a pirate, but was proven by an Inquisition just to be lying, or pretending, then was badly Raptured, and use my imagination all the time, until the day I die. When I croak, aka kick (not 'pocket') orf aka off aka the bucket and float off to Heaven and change my mind. That's what I'd like to do until the day I die. Stuff like that. That sort of thing. But I might change my mind. Done it rarely, but Pip's been known to do it. Sorry. I've got this office down to 30 degrees Celsius, and I'm making sense.

And you'll be much better off if you work on your memory, whether short-term, long-term, Preterm, on Third Term. Wiork ohn memory, get it well-exercied. Begin today, and don't quit. That's my advice.

So here's the usual palaver:

Welcome to this Red-Letter Day. Below you will find today's global celebrations, birthdays and events.

First time here?  See the Book of Days Index for how it works. If anything's cached, please fret nyet, and don't blame me.

Celebrate each and every day with a free subscription to the daily ezine. You can apply by form or send a blank email. Please read what the 'Almaniacs' say about the Almy.

I request your support if this website pleases and informs you, as this is my livelihood. Thank you, from the bottom of my fridge. 

Inquiries from publishers are welcome, but, dear reader, please don't use my work without my written permission. If I've inadvertently used something of yours that you consider not to fall under the fair use and copyleft doctrines, please tell me and I'll gladly and quickly remove it. See you tomorrow! À bientôt, j'espère.

Carpe diem! (Seize the day!)

Pip Wilson

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I collect free or cheap stuff, like ashtrays from around the world. I had one that looks just like this one above at left. I sometimes stroked the monk. You can't have too many close friends. I put him somewhere safe in July, 2011, but he ran away - I searched inside and out about six times, thinking I might have lost the friar. But he'll come back - he likes me. (I think I know who abducted him and hope the monk'll show up on my verandah some day. He was an heirloom - not worth much in dollars, less than $20 on ebay - from my departed mother. I won't say a word, ask no questions. Remain on good terms. I'd like the monk back, and so would my father, three children and five grandkids.) Each ashtray costs only about five bucks. Older Aussies will remember the McWilliams monk. Unrelated to this theft, I beef up every day when I can. And I bet I'll be the only Mr Universe in the world who collects ashtrays. And souvenir teaspoons. And old stationery and comics (especially comix, especially Robert Crumb, having discovered his work in 1970, and loving it straight away). And wooden cigar boxes. And coins. And Bello stuff. And old little boxes covered with shells and maybe coral, like I used to make with putty on flotsam when I was young. And who writes a daily Almanac. And has 5 grandkids. And darns his own socks. And walks everywhere. Every now and again, but with decreasing occurrence, rarely now, since his incontinent days in a coma, hoping he hasn't got a turtle poking out. Then I'll be standing - excuse me, 'running', as our American cousins say - for presidency of the USA. I might walk, not run. Nor stand. Maybe sit on it, put a sock in it, and take it like a man - lying down, watching pirated movies and TV on my flatscreen. When not busy. Someday. Perhaps when I move to Royston Vasey ... maybe before. And, I might I add, I keep anything of any value whatosever, in my bedroom, apart from kitchen stuff. I've had too much stolen.

Some very welcome (given my circumstances) PayPals have come in since I wrote below, thank you people. My flicker has expired, and it'd be good to have various 'lost' things again. Memory loss is a symptom of my TBI. I have real lost things. I lost my phonebook four times one week, again today after using it for Jezza. It's not in the house, nor garden, as far as I can 'see'. And I intend soon to acknowledge them quite soon in the usual fashion. Slowly but slowly ... and I ain't proud, I'm Mary. And having had a high school headmaster, Tom Pearson (aka 'Chromedome'), at Normo, who would stand 1,200 boys in the hot sun on a concrete quadrangle, in black blazers (almost exactly as in the movie, Dead Poets Society, from which motto I obtained and purloined the Almanac's motto, Carpe Diem!), or just a shirt, and cause skin cancer, I think I can do anything I want. I do my best, and shall continue. Pip's no quitter. Sorta. Kinda.

In 1968, I went to the Billy Graham Crusade at Sydney Showground. Some very interesting anecdotes emerged - more in my Memoirs. And I still love this album. Twenty years ago it changed the face of the music industry. Never mind - still a good disk.

The English teacher for my final two years of high school at Normo, 1969 and 1970, was a published poet, Dave Malick, a man who was a big influence on my life. Among other poets, Malick taught Gerard Manley Hopkins very well, and I loved Hopkins. I think I shall always read that poet, and books about him. Some of we boys were very influenced by nonsense poetry. My father had introduced me to the works of Edward Lear when I was a young boy, and when we were into our teens, some of us had read John Lennon, a doyen of nonsense poets. A Spaniard in the Works and In His Own Write were derigeur. Naturally, nonsense is a favourite writing style for me. Some say they don't get it, but my readings to poetry clubs, poetry entertainment nights, and other groups are always well received and quite successful, I'm told.

OZ magazine covers. The magazine started in Sydney,
and led to one the longest trials in UK history, for obscenity.
John Lennon attended the trials with Yoko, and wrote and sang a song on Oz magazine's behalf, Free the Oz.
Richard Neville was one of the editors, and I worked with him later on a new TV show, about esoteric and other matters, and still have his reference for my CV.
Martin Sharp not only gave me an hour in his Eastern Suburbs of Sydney home at about the time people had burnt to death in the flat under his house,
he signed a Tiny Tim record which he'd produced, and gave it to me on my way out. I still kep it as a treasure.
I recall that I didn't know at the time that Martin has a strong association with the Fink family - which expains why
there is so much Martin Sharp work regarding Luna Park, which Leon Fink had owned.

Living in Leon and Margaret Fink's places around Kings Cross was fascinating, and Leon gave me free rent in the Cross.
I had a good time living with John Fink and his brother Ben at Bronte. Ben's partner was Solly ˗ she was a stiltwalker. All interesting, and good for a name drop.

Lerve. The Nazis commence this war, as a very nasty war. Take care, whether it happens or not. Just take care of all things, friends.

End of About Pip, Part the First. On to Part the Second. Curiouser and curiouser.

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