PHILADELPHIA: "Thirteen stripes, thirteen stars, this we know," mulled PL Inkletter, "but I'd wager a quarter cask of the public wine 'twas Hopkinson…

Be all that as it may, meanwhile:

'In other news…'

14^th June 2010

Monday: Phew! It's 2 in the afternoon, and after waiting a year, six 180W PV panels have been installed on the roof this morning, and all wired up and are already producing power – despite the overcast and drizzly conditions – which is feeding into the house and when in surplus, the grid.

Clear Solar had quite a few delays to contend with, including the Federal Government's battle last year with processing the huge flood of applicants for its Renewable Energy Target legislation offers in the first half of the year. Anyway, I am very happy that it is installed and tested and functioning all within three hours. The installers were a family team, a father, Leigh, with his two sons and daughter, and they were most agreeable folk, a pleasure to have working on our house. The next fellow, Luke, another electrician, was most accordant also. And so, it's done, and even Cadbury survived the influx of tradespeople all around and on top of the place: she hid away behind the shed in a sheltered area from the drizzle, and thus wasn't under anyone's feet.

Where was Missus Inkletter did I hear a crowd of blog visitors ask in chorus? After making the family team a hot drink while they worked, she set off on a marathon Op Shop-a-thon and crawl, possibly all the way up to Yanchep with The Dear Leader, given that the less of us in the way of the tradespeople would be the better situation; thus she would occupy said hairy one, and get a badly needed fix from the Op Shopping, as well as do a bit of sightseeing up yonder.

Truth be known, it was also good that the impossible non-consanguineous contrarian left for the day, as we were getting mightily on each other's nerves after a testy half hour of: male member follows up a conversation of last night with a logical request for more information, should it be possible to have the tradespeople relocate inverter thingy; female member suddenly forgets last night's expressed preference for change of position of inverter thingy ever having occurred; no problem, unless one or either party then wants to make it become a problem; alternatives: quick acknowledgment by forgetful party of forgetfulness followed up by required information regarding new and preferred position, or, dig in and deny, defend, rewrite history, silence, you name it…

I heard the car pull in earlier than expected, and the wayfaring wanderlustrous was back, and ALONE, to my surprise, given the curiosity that the solar panels installation had stirred up in The Hoary One. She had decided not to venture further on to Yanchep, dilly dallying instead at Joondalup. We unloaded the spoils from her reconnoitring-turned-capture, lape, and pirrage, then had a mid afternoon snack together while I rendered the good woman an expeditionary debriefing (not what you're thinking!). And so, absence had made our farts grow stronger, or whatever the saying actually is.

I retired for a couple of hours napping, but maybe achieved only one. In a quiver of love for my Missus I had offered earlier to drive her to, and return to pick her up from, a knitting group get together at Caffissimo's in Mount Lawley tonight, for she would not drive herself until she'd been once, due to her anxiety with parking and such. And so that was the first job I attended to after arising, and I met one of her friends from her Dianella Spinning Group, Angeline, leaving her in what had every appearance of a friendly harmless group of anti-subversives, adding to the fragrance of our free society. Having said this, I wondered, as I drove home, whether they in fact are sending evil messages to each other by stitches.

On my return home about 8.15 I phoned Mum and relayed the details about her eyelid operation on Thursday, which I got from the Eye Surgery Foundation today by phone for her.

Then it was a hearty tuck in to the magnificent meal Janny had left for me before I took her to the meeting of knitting guerillas, and I barely got it down (I'm a slow eater, like most everything else) before setting off again to pick her up. The meeting was still raging, with about as many subversives still there as when I dropped her off, even though a couple of faces had changed (stashed in green wheelie bins out the back of Caffissimo's?) Janny said she had a most pleasant time, and would like to attend as often as we can manage. I would like for that to happen for her sake also: it is a little badly needed and deserved soul food for the poor overly-harassed thing.

Eyeliner-mascara can be too dark for some

We watched Lateline on our return, with Cadbury C.K. Inkletter on my lap, purring like a cat possessed. The (Leigh) Sales Graph: Wearing a simple sapphire blue shirt, no necklace, slender earrings, and convex flared hair with full forehead – thus far looking superb – tonight Ms Sales spoilt her potential for a knockout with heavy eyeliner-mascara. Some women's faces withstand the demands that heavy eye make-up make upon their faces better than others; it should be used with great care, in my arrogantly humble opinion, otherwise certain women's facial lines can so magnify their eye decorative exertions such that hints of the archetypical wide-eyed aliens or praying mantises and such like are suggested. Masterful subtlety is safest for many.

Hair and eyes would be the two most fraught regions for women from the neck up with their presentation endeavours, poor bloody things, which is one of the reasons I'd never swap to be a woman for all the panties in China.

The long interview tonight, about 11 minutes, was with Martin Indyk on-screen from Washington, former (twice) United States' Ambassador to Israel. Looking older than his 59 years as well as a good candidate for David Letterman's brother, Mr Indyk chose a grey theme, light grey for his jacket, a striped grey tone shirt, and a boldly striped dark on light grey tie, and while it looked neat and crisp, it needed colour to give some lift to the tired looking old negotiator.

Ms Sales' subject matter she discussed with Mr Indyk was based upon the recent Gaza flotilla raid. She gave him plenty of uninterrupted time to put his considered points of view across.

My view is that while the injuries and loss of life from that public relations disaster for Israel are awful (and surely were avoidable by a different approach?), there was not enough attention (was there any?) in tonight's chinwag to the impossibility of a two state solution when one state is committed publicly to the removal/annihilation of Israel in the land of Palestine. Two state solution yes – to me that means a form of sharing of the region given the tiny distances and areas involved – but both states must be civilised and credible, that is, have civilised and (humanitarian) mature views towards all other peoples. The Hamas Government doesn't hold such views; the Hamas Charter makes sobering reading.

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