When I was at battler school, in North West Tasmania…a state that this century has reaped extinction on not only the Tasmanian Tiger but also an entire race of people (Trugennini was the last Tasmanian Aboriginal and Terrance was the last Tasmanian Tiger) I learnt that you need a complete unit before you can call it one. Very simple really, half a unit is 0.5 and three quarters is 0.75. A unit is not one unit until it is complete ie. the end of January is only one twelfth of the year and a child is not one year old until she has been on the earth for twelve months. So, what I don’t understand is why when nine units have passed, that we now call it ten? How come at the end of 1999 years that we now count 2000 or when only 99 years of a century has passed that we say 100? I suppose that this is indicative of the truth versus popular opinion, or if you get enough people to believe something, that it becomes the truth…(like that there could be such a thing as a popular elected president under the Westminster system or that technology is the only agent of change, like many of the Internet-preachers tell us). I am still waiting for that computer-led leisure society so depicted in the 1970′s. The only people who share in this dream now are the unemployed.
I only have 19 dollars to spend on booze tonight, perhaps I can convince the barman that I really have twenty.
more to come….