Best part of the rice
We had Eleanor's third birthday and Hugo's first birthday a month after. These are the best days of our lives.
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Paul Kelly is an icon of Australian music. We are about the same age. The title of his new album is Seventy.
In a recent interview published in The Weekend Australian, he said:
“I really like the number 70. It is biblical. The days of our years are threescore years and ten. For a long time this was the lifespan of a person. These days people tend to be older. But to me, 70 feels like, if you’ve got to 70, and if you die, you have not been cheated. You’ve had a good go. All the rest is gravy.”
His “gravy” reference is apt. Life is a dish we’re served at birth.
Mine is probably a pot of Turkish pilav with chicken and chickpeas.
As we grow older, fewer grains remain in the pot.
But in Turkish pilav, the rice at the bottom is the best—steeped in butter, soaked in chicken broth, and crisped golden where it touches the pot. Those are the grains to savour slowly, with gratitude.
His gravy is my pilav—the same idea, in a different kitchen.
Hugo’s Career Choices
Taylan and Yi held a party for Eleanor’s third birthday. Many of her friends came. Meliz and I were there, along with Shenming and Xuen. We were the proud grandparents, watching the children play and the parents chat. It was a joyful day.
A month later came another celebration: Hugo Halim’s first birthday.
As in Chinese tradition, we had a “career pick” ceremony. Several objects were placed in a row, and the baby was encouraged to choose two.
Hugo’s first pick was the abacus, and the second, the calculator—both excellent choices I am told.
Each object on the spread pointed to a different path in life, but that wasn’t really the point. What mattered was the gathering itself—the circle of parents and grandparents marking the first milestone of a young life.
As we did for Eleanor, Meliz and I are hosting a first-birthday party for Hugo later in November. We’ve invited the extended family—Meliz’s parents, her three sisters and their children—and our in-laws. Another chance to come together, to share, and to celebrate the year that has passed.
Good Morning, Pacific Ocean
I was in Wollongong last week and stayed, as usual, at the Novotel on North Beach. I woke early to watch the sunrise over the Pacific.
The waves were gentle. The horizon glowed red, then gold. I walked along the sand, collecting shells for Eleanor and Hugo:
There are beaches just as beautiful near Brisbane, maybe I should do this more often.
A web of sunny air
Borrowing a line from Emily Brontë, we help Eleanor and Hugo weave their “webs of sunny air” twice a week—on Mondays and Fridays. Most of the credit goes to Meliz. Here is the playroom she conjured for the kids from our old rumpus room:
I help Meliz through the day, mostly with odd jobs, like chopping seasonal fruits for the children:
By the way, all fruits except for the kiwi and blueberries come from Mt Gravatt Farmers’ markets, bought fresh every Sunday morning.
Christmas Beetles
Christmas beetles come out in summer—hence the name. In Brisbane, Christmas falls right in the middle of the season.
Some years we hardly see them; in others, they’re everywhere. This year, they’ve returned in abundance.
I often take Eleanor to the neighbourhood swimming pool. It’s indoors and well sealed, but last time we found a beetle floating in the water. Eleanor was not happy about that. We were swimming in the lane close to the suction vents. I showed them to her and explained that the pool water flows from one end to the other—drawn out through the vents and replaced with clean water at the opposite side.
She liked that idea—the thought that the water is always being renewed, refreshed, and kept in motion.
Like the last grains of pilav, these small rituals—sunrise walks, birthday gatherings, a handful of seashells, time with one’s grandchildren—are what make the years rich.
Books I read
Some of the books I read in the last three months:
Richard Osman, The Bullet that Missed ( ⭐️⭐️⭐️ )
Richard Osman, The Last Devil to Die ( ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ )
Robert Goddard, This is the Day they Dream Of ( ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ )
Ursula K Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven (⭐️⭐️⭐️)
David Brin, The Practice Effect (⭐️⭐️⭐️)
Han Kang, The White Book (⭐️⭐️⭐️)
R F Kuang, Katabasis (⭐️⭐️⭐️)
Jane Harper, Force of Nature (⭐️⭐️⭐️)
Alastair Reynolds, Halcyon Years (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
Grading:
⭐️ - You will not see this mark because I stop reading such books
⭐️⭐️ - Almost ⭐️ but there was enough promise to persist until the end
⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Ordinary
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - I liked this book. I recommend it.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - I loved this book. I strongly recommend it.
Comparing Istanbul and Brisbane prices - AT index
Based on my basket of goods, I compare Turkish and Australian prices. Both Coles (AU) and Migros (TR) prices are expressed in Turkish liras in the following tables. I converted Coles prices to Turkish liras at the exchange rate of 1AUD=27.52TRY.
I started this graph on 5 July 2024. The Turkish prices were initially rising faster than the Australian prices. The trend reversed in February 2025. Since then, the Turkish prices have been getting increasingly lower compared to the Australian prices.
Nevertheless, some items, e.g. beef mince and rice, have consistently been more expensive in Istanbul. Raw data can be downloaded from a github repository.
The following chart shows the variation of the total cost for the basket in each country separately taking 5 July 2024 as the base.
Wages
The Australian minimum wage was increased to almost $25/h on 3 June 2025. This corresponds to A$4000/month for a 160-hour month. The Australian workers being paid the minimum wage are about 2.6 million or about 18% of the total Australian work force.
The minimum wage in Turkey is 26,000 TRY/month. At the current exchange rate this corresponds to A$1018/month.
The code to create the above tables and the charts is in my github repository and can be downloaded if you are interested
Statistics
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