Open Forum
Weekend Open Forum
There's another weekend ahead and so much to talk about. Here's a safe space to raise whatever is on your mind.
Politics & Current Affairs
We Can't Afford this Nonsense Anymore
Our resident seafarer, Stuart Ballantyne has assumed the helm of the good ship Australia. Here's the course he's charting.
5 min read
It was instilled into me from my Labor voting Dad, a Presbyterian carpenter with a fairly black and white view of life, that “you don’t buy anything until you can afford it”
As a teenager I was enthusiastically viewing cars as my first acquisition target, and despite being offered 'finance terms' from a dodgy car yard in Geelong, my Dad did not allow it.
So after saving a meagre amount, I bought a Morris Minor convertible that was well past it’s use by date.
Being home from the sea only 4-5 days a month and not having a driver’s licence were two good reasons not to buy a car, but obsession trumps common sense any day.
The following month I was arrested at Ocean Grove for driving without a licence and had to sell the car to pay the fine.
Plan B was to find an older girlfriend with a car and licence. Little did I know, but cougars were prowling even in those days and that should have been my Plan A.
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