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I got some unsolicited vile diatribe in a series of emails from my long estranged younger sister sent on Sunday night and the fact that she is suffering severe depression (because of her own life choices) it’s a concern. The woman has devolved into some mad rant about shame and my being an ex-con and all the blitherings of a school child looking to throw arrows at anything that might stick.

First. Yes, I’m an ex-convict and served a sentence for murder. Completely true. Yes, I receive Disability Support (like about 800,000 other Australians). But it’s more correct to say I am the man frau in a single income family. Yes, I have a Twitter account that posts retro nude photographs and often includes vintage pornography. I’m a photographer and have an historic interest in these areas… read my blog closely, or go to my website. All that is true. If nude bodies offend you, I suggest you do not go there to look. Or blame me for your offended sensibilities if you do. And it’s probably true that I’m the shame of my family. But, seriously, why would I have a blog to rant on the Internet if I was ashamed of my name or my past? I’m not ashamed. Perhaps the question is whether it’s justified to be ashamed of me, a 54 year old man enjoying my own life?

Second. This is important. She is one hell of a nasty little bitch and we all know it. She inevitably turns on you like a cut snake and much like my late father would do anything, say anything, sabotage anything to destroy her perceived enemies. And I am that perceived enemy. Why? Well, we’re estranged for a decade and that shits her to merry tears – I took the piss out of her and fucked her off. No matter what she extrapolates, invents or contrives in her under-educated brain to create a story. She has been dead to me for many years. Seriously, cross a certain line (more than once, in fact) and we’re done. That bridge is well washed away.

Third. Church going non-swearing ‘good person’, my arse. How about that dole fraud I helped get her out of a prison sentence for because I knew a lawyer through my personal past that would fight for her. And that lawyer hated my sister’s guts, because she just kept trying to lie about it instead of copping it on the chin. To my younger sister it’s all a scam. A pretence. Even when the damning evidence was in front of her there was a constant list of excuses and denials like a desperate rat in a cage. And I’d suggest that psychopaths mimic the people around them, so when she’s in a room of nice Christians who don’t swear… guess what she believes is her real persona? She is an empty vessel. I pose that as a question, rather than an affirmation. But it does fit well to my hypothesis.

Fourth. Where the fuck does this girl get off saying that I told her she was the reason I went to prison when she was 10 years old? That’s where you slip a lie into your story one too many times and start believing it yourself, I’d suggest. And what the fuck would a 10 year old have to do with my committing a major crime on people she never knew? She was in Grade 5. More likely, my younger sister has tried to link herself to a notable event in the town to backstory her own existence and conflate her part around it. She was a child in bed three miles away unaware that an event happened. Smacks of crazy? Certainly, false memory. The fact she writes that shit at me means she believes every word that she says. Complete and utter delusion. Nobody asks ‘WHY’?? And God help us what that will elicit. It was entirely unrelated to her existence before and during the fact. Possibly, this is the problem. Irrelevance. Invisibility. She is a nobody in a small town.

She tried to do that same attachment five years ago when somebody in my life, along with his partner and unborn baby due to be born that week, died in the Westgate Mall Massacre in Kenya. And the absolute vitriol she messaged me on Facebook about that man’s death when it happened was disgusting, to say the least. Who the fuck does that shit? It’s purely venomous evil; a bloody shameful trait to have… and she calls me a parasite. How disrespectful of that man’s mother and family who were grieving. Callous. Unforgivable.

And, yes, 35 years ago I had a drug alcohol problem. True. A badge of honour, I survived. But only 20 years ago as I left prison her and her husband were growing pounds and pounds of weed in their shed (and got busted) because her husband had to pay his speed debt back to the bikers. And given the cops gave their hydroponic grow lights back and nobody faced serious charges in the end (beyond confiscation of the weed and $2,000 cash off the kitchen table)… dog.

I mean, seriously, this woman works as a teacher’s aide at the local Catholic school? The same girl dismissed under a cloud from a local old people’s home for mistreatment of people in care? The girl who has an endless list of family nastiness, lies and malicious vendettas – she really is an empty vessel. The same girl who has burned and lied her way through that town to the point she is now a lonely, sad and bitter island of emptiness sending vile emails to her estranged ex-con brother solely because she’d been actively stalking social media for ammunition to inflame Christmas… lucky her, finding something to take out of context for her own diabolical ends (just like our father would have if he hated somebody). I loved my dad, but he could be a toxic bastard.

Some of you might have wondered why I have nothing to do with the toxic cow. Every so many years she crashes and burns. It’s called mental illness. Clinical depression. It’s hard to live with for everybody, but I’m over it. And I’d suggest at least a degree of psychopathy might be under the hood. There is absolutely nothing wrong with all of that, but it needs professional mental services at some point. Currently, she’s flaring. What comes next, postal? And what does “yes I am bitter.. and one day.. I will see your face.. and you (sic) dred that day and I will be a 10000000 times the worst nightmare you have ever seen” … I mean, seriously, what does that even mean in an unsolicited email from a stalker? Should I call the Police today? I haven’t spoken to the woman for a decade!

The only shame my younger sister should have is for her own life choices and behaviour… including that last series of unsolicited emails and the vile crap she wrote in them. Taking some credit for a murder she wasn’t even old enough to know happened until after the fact, simply by way of blood relation… despicable. And if you care for her get her counselling, at the least. She sounds dangerous.

One of the more interesting photographers of the 19th and early 20th Century was a guy named Jules Richard (aka Julius Richard, Mohammed Reza, Riza Khan Richard, Richard Khan, Mirza Riza and Riza Kahn). The son of a French industrialist and the inheritor of his father’s struggling business, Jules Richard was, for example, the first Western photographer to work in the Persian court of Naser al-Din Shah (1831-1896). He changed his name when he converted to Islam.

Jules Richard was the inventor of the Verascope in 1893, a small three dimensional capture camera that allowed for easier stereo photography. His interest in women and photography led to a huge number of photographs being produced both by himself and hired photographers.

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A few weeks ago I brewed 46 litres of Oatmeal Stout based on the recipe on page 169 of Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainasheff and John J. Palmer. That beer is downstairs and I’ll bottle half of it next week and the rest on the following week. Mostly because I’m kind of lazy. One half received a Gigayeast Norcal Ale #5 starter and the other got a seasonal release Whitelabs WLP006 Bedford British Ale starter. The first bottles will be cracked for Christmas at an expected ABV above 5 per cent.

In the meantime the plan is sometime before Christmas to do another (46 litre) iteration of my British Golden Ale. This is a style I enjoy drinking because it’s a light and clean, easy to drink, sessionable thirst quenching beer; but, as is the want of someone who doesn’t like black boxes, it’s a matter of brewing this beer over and over until I nail down the exact beer that I’m looking to create. Half of this beer will receive a Whitelabs WLP023 Burton Ale starter and the rest will get a Whitelabs WLP013 London Ale starter with WLP645 Brettanomyces claussenii in secondary. Experimentation, fine adjustment one element at a time… it’ll get there in the end. This will be my third Golden Ale.

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