The other reason why my reaction to your concerns about the state of the kerbing and channelling in your street or town planning issues in Cannonvale or Collinsville may fall short of what you thought it would be is that when I do get interested in something, my interests tend to be specific rather than general.

From the time I started buying music budgetary restraints meant that I couldn’t buy everything, while I’ve got the complete works of some artists there are gaps in the collection that you could drive a truck through, and when you’re looking at my Dylan collection you’ll notice that it’s pretty light on once you get past the mid-seventies.

On the other hand there are people who’ll collect every known Dylan bootleg and build up an extensive library containing every word that’s been written about the man’s life and work. In a parallel universe one of them could well be me, but I heard New Morning and wondered whether it was worth the effort.

When I was involved with kids’ cricket I discovered that I preferred to coach a team, and preferably a team I’d selected myself, rather than supervise the activities of a larger number of kids in an age group. While I had a reputation for obsessively watching the game on TV I was usually keeping an eye out for something that was useful in the coaching sphere rather than following the ball by ball flow of the game.

As far as computers are concerned, I live in a totally Mac-centric universe using a very limited number of software packages to do specific tasks rather than trying out new programs to see what they do and then figure out how they could fit in with what I’m already doing.

After a couple of years presenting music shows on community radio once it became obvious that it wasn’t putting me in contact with people whose tastes were similar to mine my activities were scaled back to the point where they became non-existent.

Similarly, once I’d handed over responsibility for the Radiokids program I kept listening for about as long as it took to satisfy myself that things were pretty well under control, then went back to my own musical interests.

As I’ve mentioned in a couple of places, this site is the result of concern about future developments in the current central business district of Bowen. Since those developments are going to be affected by things that happen in other areas those things need to be taken into consideration, so I’ve taken them into consideration and discussed the issues that they raise in the light of the impact on what happens downtown.

When the time came to build the Little House of Concrete I found a site that allowed me to walk to work that was also close enough to give me easy access to the Post Office, the newsagent and the supermarket.

I don’t drive, and when the designated driver in the household decides she doesn’t want to continue driving, we need to be within safe walking distance of the places that will supply our needs. Since personal security concerns are often a major worry for an ageing population I’m not very keen on living in an area where break-and-enter or other petty crime is rife, thank you very much.

Looking at developments around town I thought it was about time someone started talking about some of these issues. Someone needs to start those discussions. That’s why these pages exist.