I'm not sure exactly what it is about the OPEN AI Medicare Hack that makes me feel so uneasy.

Over a week has passed, and it feels like the media has already moved on.

But I can't seem to let it go so easily.

Yes, it's all the obvious things.
Like the absolute ease which sensitive government information can apparently be hacked.
(And although the attack has been likened to a burglar using keys to enter a house, having a look around but not taking anything, this doesn't lessen how simple it apparently was for this AI Agent to 'get in the door')

The apparent weakness of Australia's cyber security, (not only that we can be hacked like this)-- but if it wasn't for an apology letter 4 months later, and a curtesy 'You've been robbed' card left by the burglar, we wouldn't have even known about it.
Then instead of a statement by ASIO, we get a prime minister talking about how he had very stern words with the head of OPEN AI, and he's told him the whole thing is utterly unacceptable. Is that it?

Maybe we shouldn't expect Services Australia to be the cutting edge of cyber security.
Maybe we should be grateful we don't live in a country, where the figure head is ready to fire a missile up our trespassers proverbial butthole as revenge.
But it's not even the interminable weakness of our response, compared to say the US reaction when Australian whistleblower Julian Assange leaked apparent war crimes of the US military. When we are hacked, we act with such soul shattering apathy.

And that to me is the really unsettling thing about the Medicare hack.

I've never been particularly doomsday about AI, in fact, to me the recent 'Agent escapes' narratives, like those of the 'Hugging Face' incident, and yes, maybe even the Medicare incident, look more like an elaborate marketing ploy by AI companies, (Who lets face it) After riding an almost 3 year high of industry excitement are now waking up to a real reality check.

With mounting dislike of everything AI produces, especially in the younger generation, so called 'AI slop', and severe debts that on paper seem impossible to resolve, these AI companies look like they could be at a real bubble burst moment.
Whilst they drum up fears of so called AGI, or 'super intelligence', the average person is starting to realise that most AI models are completely unreliable, and as impressive as the technology is in what it CAN achieve, its flaws and innaccuracy, alongside a population who increasingly crave human detail, rather than machine randomisers. I think people feel like they are really on the precipice of staring into the mirror of the future, and wondering, is this really what we want?

But, what scares me the most, isn't Skynet wiping out human beings, or the counter revolution of a new era of 1970s luddites casting off the shackles of inevitable change, to go back to growing their own vegetables, and listening to folk music. It's the apathy.

See, even writing and drawing this article, I sought to keep AI out of it. But it wasn't long before I found myself removing something in Photoshop with generative AI, then trowling the internet through Google's AI. It seems inevitable, honestly, that AI wins this battle, but is this the way the machines will really beat us?

Not with a bang, but with a whimper, the slow drudging apathy as we accept that nothing is safe, nothing is sacred, not our art, not our thoughts, not our personal information. That we will just lie down and surrender.

And the machines will win, not because of brilliance, but just because of their endless resolve, their inability to surrender, or give up.
Where we already gave up, years ago.

Free midday power is spreading across the country, but it’s not really free unless you figure out how to make the most of it when nobody’s home.

Victoria’s Midday Power Saver offer kicks off this month, finally catching up with the federal Solar Sharer Offer already available in NSW, South Australia and South East Queensland.

As a result, most Australian households with a smart meter now have the option of free power between 11am and 2pm every day.

Thanks to renewable energy sources, particularly residential rooftop solar, Australia has more power than we know what to do within the middle of the day. So it makes perfect sense to encourage households to shift some of their electricity usage to lunchtime, to reduce the evening peak demand after the sun goes down.

Keep in mind, three hours of free power isn’t available with every electricity plan. The new rule is only that electricity retailers must offer it on some plans.

Free power sounds great, but it’s very important to read the fine print. Those plans which offer free power at lunchtime make up for it by charging you more for power at other times of day.

They also slug you with a much higher daily supply charge. Some retailers hike it up by almost 50 per cent, adding about $15 per month ($180 per year) to your bill, just to pay for connecting to the grid.

It’s difficult to claw those extra grid charges back, especially if your solar feed-in tariff is paying less than one measly cent per kilowatt-hour.

Speaking of solar, if you’ve got panels on the roof then you’re already getting some free power during the day. So the only way to make a free power plan worth the expense is if you can use more power in the middle of the day than your panels produce. Or, even better, store that power to use later.

Once you crunch the numbers, three hours of supposedly “free” power won’t stack up for most homes. Not unless they’re filling a home battery and/or charging an EV in the middle of the day.

Running your dishwasher at lunchtime, programming a delayed start as you walk out the door in the morning, is a good start. But this alone certainly won’t save you enough money to make it worth the switch.

Making free power work in your favour requires a coordinated effort to run all your major appliances in the free window. That’s tricky if no-one is home in the middle of the day to switch everything on and off.

This is where home automation becomes very attractive. Not just for nerds like me who like to tinker with tech, but for anyone who wants to save money.

Many modern dishwashers, washing machines and dryers have built-in smart home features. Of course, the real power hogs are your electric heating or cooling.

Coordinating all these appliances using their individual smart home apps works in theory, but in practice it quickly becomes a nightmare. Thankfully, you can appoint a single digital overlord to boss around all your appliances when no-one is home.

For starters, Apple’s Siri, Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa might be able to talk to all your appliances. The next step up is to look at a dedicated DIY smart home control system like Home Assistant or Homey Pro, although it’s a steep learning curve for newbies.

The best way to save money in summer is to automatically turn on your electric cooling at 11am, even if no-one is home. Set it a few degrees cooler than you need, so it works hard while the power is free.

Come 2pm, automatically switch it back to your preferred temperature, so the cooling backs off but doesn’t let the house warm up. If you’ve got solar, you still might enjoy free cooling in the afternoon.

This way, when you walk in the door at the end of the day, the house is at the perfect temperature. Even better, you’ve spent a lot less on electricity than letting the house roast like an oven all day and then trying to cool it down.

Of course, you can do the reverse with your electric heating in winter. To work seamlessly throughout the year, your home automation must be smart enough to check the weather forecast and/or the temperature inside the house. This way it knows whether to heat or cool, and when enough is enough, to save you even more money.

This might all sound like more trouble than it’s worth but, as power bills continue to rise, more and more Australians will decide it’s a smart investment. Once your home is smart enough to take care of itself when no-one is home, three hours of free power really works in your favour.

I love sneakers. Always have.

I think my first really decent pair were black Adidas Sambas when I was about 12. I cherished them. I probably cleaned them more often than I cleaned myself.

But things really went up a level when I started earning my own money.

It was 1983. I was 15, football terrace culture was taking off in Britain and what you wore on your feet suddenly seemed extremely important.

At 15, I had a pair of Nike Wimbledons. At 16, Stan Smiths. At 17, my first Adidas Gazelles.

And I never really looked back.

Sneakers weren't just something you wore to play sport anymore. They said something about you. Particularly around football, where the emerging casual scene had young men becoming strangely knowledgeable about European sportswear and trainers.

This was before you could sit on your sofa and order virtually any pair ever made. Finding something different was part of the appeal.

I loved them then and I've loved them ever since.

Unfortunately, adulthood intervened.

And then I had to buy shoes

At some point in my thirties, I became corporate.

I'm still not entirely sure how it happened.

Suddenly I was working in offices where people wore trousers and shirts. Sometimes jackets. Occasionally I even wore a suit.

And you couldn't wear sneakers with those things, could you?

So I had to start buying - through gritted teeth - shoes.

Actual shoes.

Black ones. Brown ones. Shoes for meetings. Shoes for weddings. Shoes that needed polishing.

I'd stand in shoe shops spending perfectly good money on footwear I didn't particularly want, knowing there was a perfectly good pair of Air Force Ones waiting for me at home.

Sneakers became what I changed into after work.

Of course, the rules had already started loosening long before COVID. Trainers had been steadily moving from sportswear into mainstream fashion for decades. Designers embraced them. Offices became less formal. Even suits occasionally started appearing with sneakers underneath them.

But then COVID arrived and seemed to accelerate the whole thing.

Millions of us worked from home in T-shirts, tracksuit bottoms and comfortable footwear - if we wore footwear at all.
And when we eventually emerged again, the world seemed to collectively decide:

Fuck it. We're not putting the shoes back on.

Apparently I now need sneakers for everything

Look around now.

People wear sneakers to work. They wear them with trousers. Women wear them with dresses. Men wear them with suits. Celebrities wear them on red carpets. People wear them to expensive restaurants and bars.

They're everywhere.

At this point you may be expecting me to complain.

I've been wearing sneakers for more than 45 years. Surely I'm going to say they've become too popular. That everybody else has ruined them. That I was wearing Sambas before half the people currently wearing them were born.

Nope. I love it.

This is the world I've been waiting for.

I can go to work in sneakers. I can go out for dinner in sneakers. I can wear them to a meeting. I can travel in them. I can wear a reasonably smart pair with trousers and nobody looks at me as though I've forgotten to finish getting dressed.

I don't have to spend money on shoes I don't particularly like for situations where society has decided sneakers aren't appropriate.

Instead, I've done something far more sensible.

I've bought more sneakers.

Because obviously I can't wear the same sneakers for everything.

I have work sneakers. Smart evening sneakers. Gym sneakers. Going-for-coffee sneakers. Everyday sneakers. Sneakers that are incredibly comfortable but aren't quite smart enough for dinner. Sneakers that look fantastic but aren't going anywhere near mud, rain or anything else nature might throw at them.

I'm not suggesting this has saved me money.

If anything, removing the social restrictions on when I can wear sneakers has simply given me more opportunities to buy them.

But there's something strangely pleasing about it.

At 12, I had one really good pair of black Sambas and treasured them.

At 15, earning money from part-time jobs meant I could finally start buying the sneakers I wanted.

Then adulthood arrived and spent a couple of decades telling me there were places where grown men had to wear proper shoes.

Now I'm 58 and apparently adulthood has changed its mind.

I can wear sneakers virtually anywhere.

I own more pairs than I need.

And I have absolutely no intention of becoming sensible about them.

It took 46 years, but the 12-year-old boy in the black Sambas finally got his way.

We all want to be happy. Isn’t that what we’re ultimately working towards?

We chase the better job, the bigger house, the holiday, the relationship, the next achievement. And yet, somewhere along the way, happiness can start to feel surprisingly elusive.

Life isn’t always easy. There are bills to pay, relationships to navigate, children to raise, work to juggle and plenty of things happening in the world that are completely outside our control. Sometimes we simply wake up feeling a little lost and wonder, Is this it?

Of course, there are some fundamentals that make a huge difference. Financial security and good physical health matter enormously, and it would be unrealistic to pretend otherwise. But assuming the basics are covered, what else contributes to a genuinely happy life?

Over time, I’ve come to believe there are five things that make a bigger difference than we might realise.

Here are the five pillars of happiness:

1. Human connection

We need people.

And yet, despite being more connected than ever through our phones, many of us are experiencing less meaningful connection in our everyday lives.

You might have a wonderful famiy, but we actually need connection beyond the people we live with. We need friends we can laugh with, cry with and do absolutely nothing with. We need people who know us properly.

But there’s another kind of connection that matters too: spending time with people who are different from us. Different ages, backgrounds, personalities and perspectives. These interactions can challenge us, teach us and help us see the world a little differently.

2. Sleep

Sleep is one of those things we know is important, but often don't treat it that way.

I didn’t fully appreciate just how much sleep affects our mood until I experienced prolonged periods of broken sleep (hello motherhood). When you're exhausted, everything feels harder. You’re more emotional, less patient and far less equipped to deal with the little things life throws at you.

Sleep isn't laziness. It isn't wasted time. It's one of the simplest ways we can look after our minds and bodies.

So if you’re constantly putting sleep at the bottom of your priority list, perhaps it’s time to move it up.

3. Movement

You don't need to become a marathon runner. You don't need a gym membership. And you certainly don't need to spend hours exercising every day.

You just need to move.

A walk around the neighbourhood. A swim. Some stretching. Dancing in the kitchen. A yoga class. Whatever makes you feel good in your body.

I used to run regularly, including marathons. These days, I run when I feel like it, walk most days and do yoga or pilates. I’ve found that moving my body isn't just about physical health. I feel better mentally too.

Sometimes even a 20-minute walk can change the way you feel about the entire day.

4. Gratitude

When life is difficult, gratitude can feel almost impossible.

But even during the hard seasons, there is usually something worth noticing.

It might be your morning coffee. A funny conversation with your child. A friend who checked in. Sunshine coming through the window. A good night's sleep. Your favourite song coming on in the car.

Gratitude doesn't mean pretending everything is wonderful. It simply means making space to notice the things that are wonderful.

Try naming three things you're grateful for each day. They don't have to be profound. In fact, the little things are often the ones that matter most.

5. Giving to others

There's something surprisingly powerful about doing something kind for someone else, and it doesn't need to be a grand gesture.

Make someone a coffee. Check in on a friend. Let someone go ahead of you in the supermarket queue. Compliment someone. Help a neighbour. Send a message to someone you haven't spoken to in a while.

We can become very focused on what we need to be happy. But sometimes stepping outside ourselves and doing something for another person changes our perspective.

And kindness has a lovely way of coming back around.

At the end of the day, happiness isn't a destination. Perhaps happiness isn't something we're supposed to find once everything in our lives is finally perfect. Maybe it's something we build, little by little, through the way we spend our days.

Connection. Sleep. Movement. Gratitude. Kindness.

None of these will magically make life easy. But together, they can make us better equipped to appreciate the good days, navigate the difficult ones and find small moments of happiness along the way.

And perhaps that's what a happy life really looks like. Not a life without problems, but a life with enough good things woven through it to make the hard things feel a little easier.

Most of my life I've been trying to improve it by adding things.

More money. More clothes. More success. Another relationship. Another night out. Something else that might finally make me feel I'd got where I was supposed to be.

It never occurred to me that the answer might be having less.

I didn't actually set out to simplify my life. There was no grand plan. I haven't read a book about minimalism, thrown away all my possessions or started wearing the same black T-shirt every day.

Things have just gradually disappeared.

I came off Facebook about three years ago. For a month I had withdrawals. Now I don’t miss it at all.

There are people I know considerably less about these days, which turns out to be absolutely fine. I don't know where they had for dinner on Saturday or what their dog looks like.

Somehow I've survived.

Deactivate your stress

Research suggests there may be something in this. One study in the US persuaded people to deactivate Facebook for four weeks and found they spent more time on offline activities and reported a modest improvement in wellbeing.

They also knew less about the news.

Which brings me neatly to the news.

I've largely stopped watching that too.

Not completely. I probably watch properly once a week and I'm not advocating ignorance. I still know roughly what's going on in the world. I just don't need somebody telling me what's going wrong with it every night at six o'clock.

I've started buying fewer clothes too. This one is a work in progress. I like clothes. I still occasionally convince myself that the right jacket will transform me into a slightly more stylish and interesting person. It never does, although this doesn't necessarily stop me trying.

But generally I'm buying less.

There's plenty of research linking materialism with lower wellbeing, although I'm not sure I needed a psychologist to tell me that the excitement of buying something new doesn't last very long.

There's always another jacket.

Just one more…

That's really what has changed for me.

For years there was never enough.

If I achieved something, there was something else to achieve afterwards. If I bought something, there was something else I wanted. If life felt uncomfortable, the answer seemed to be adding something that might make it briefly feel better.

These days I'm starting to wonder whether happiness has as much to do with what we remove.

My life has become considerably simpler through the art of subtraction.

I don't drink anymore. I don't smoke or take drugs. I'm not currently in a relationship. I live in a small apartment. I buy fewer things. I'm on less social media. I consume less news.

Looked at one way, I've gradually removed quite a lot of excitement from my life.

Except I don't think I've ever been happier.

And I don't want this to sound like I've achieved some higher state of enlightenment. I haven't moved to a monastery.
I still love travelling. I love restaurants, football, music and buying books considerably faster than I can read them. I still want things and get excited about things.

I'm also not suggesting being single is somehow superior to being in a relationship. A good relationship can make life immeasurably better.

It's more that I've stopped seeing the things I don't currently have as holes that urgently need filling.

Perhaps that's the difference.

Modern life constantly asks what else we need. What else should we own? Where else should we go? What else should we achieve? Who else should we connect with?

Very rarely does anybody ask: What could you happily live without?

I'm becoming much more interested in that question. My life is smaller than it used to be. Quieter too. Most nights, I'm perfectly happy in my little apartment, in bed by nine with a book.

For years I kept wondering what else I needed to make me happy.

It turns out the answer might have been less.

For more than a century, modern medicine has been built around a simple idea: develop treatments that work for the average patient.

The problem is, none of us are average.

Scientists are now entering an era known as precision medicine, where treatments are increasingly being matched to a person's unique genetics, lifestyle and even the genetic fingerprint of their disease. Combined with artificial intelligence, it's one of the biggest transformations healthcare has seen in decades.

It's a future where the question may no longer be, "What's the best drug for this disease?" but rather, "What's the best drug for this person?"

From average patients to individual people
For decades, doctors have relied on medicines that work well for large groups of people.

While that approach has saved countless lives, anyone who's taken medication knows the reality isn't always so simple.

One person experiences remarkable results. Another sees little benefit. A third develops troublesome side effects.

Researchers now understand that our genes can influence how we respond to medicines, how quickly our bodies break them down, and even whether a treatment is likely to work at all. That's helping doctors move away from a one-size-fits-all approach towards treatments tailored to the individual.

AI is speeding up the revolution
Artificial intelligence is accelerating that shift. Instead of spending years searching for promising drug candidates, researchers are increasingly using AI to analyse enormous amounts of genetic, biological and clinical data in a fraction of the time.

The technology is helping scientists identify new drug targets, predict which patients are most likely to benefit from certain treatments, and accelerate the design of new medicines.

In cancer care, this approach is already making a real difference. Many patients now undergo genetic testing of their tumours, allowing doctors to select treatments that specifically target the mutations driving that individual's cancer.

Researchers believe similar approaches will continue expanding into many other areas of medicine over the coming years.

The future is becoming more personal
This doesn't mean every patient will soon receive a completely unique drug made just for them. For most conditions, that future is still some way off.

But personalised medicine is already arriving in other ways. Doctors are increasingly using genetic information to guide treatment decisions, choose the safest medications and determine the right dose for individual patients. Researchers are also developing highly personalised therapies for some cancers and rare genetic diseases.

It's a quiet revolution, but one with enormous potential.

The idea of treating millions of people with exactly the same medicine is gradually giving way to something much more personal. In the future, your genes, your biology and your disease may help determine which treatment is most likely to work for you. After all, if no two people are exactly alike, perhaps their medicine shouldn't be either.

SOURCE
Nature Reviews Drug Discovery
Nature Medicine
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
National Institutes of Health

The pandemic lockdowns made me an online shopper. What started as a safety measure became part of my household’s routine. However, after more than six years shopping exclusively via the internet, I recently headed back in-store for a major shop. I was not prepared. Here’s why I’m heading back online.

Supermarkets Aren’t Made for Major Shops
My household has changed the way it shopped over the years. We began ordering fresh food from local producers and relying on supermarkets only for staple items. Instead of shopping weekly, we began placing a monthly order to avoid delivery fees and maximise our 10% monthly discount from Coles’ subscription service.

As I began my in-store shop, I quickly realised supermarkets aren’t made for monthly shoppers. Even the largest trolley filled quickly with boxes of soft drink, bottles of mineral water and milk, laundry liquid, olive oil, and toilet paper. I felt like I’d barely started my shop before I began running out of space.

And then there was the matter of moving the thing. Shopping trolleys aren’t known for their handling, but when you pile them high with heavy items, they’re an even bigger nightmare. Wonky wheels conspired against me as I wrestled with my overladen trolley at every turn. I covered my hands over the top of the cart as I pushed it around the store, determined to prevent products slipping from my mountain of groceries.

The Choices are Overwhelming
As I glazed over looking at the shelves packed with countless similar products, I longed for the simplicity of the online system. When shopping at home, I can simply enter my desired item and the one I normally buy comes up first. But faced with such overwhelming choice, I started to second-guess myself.

Should I try a new brand?

Which size is better value?

And where would I even find space for it in my already overfull trolley?

As my pulse pounded in my ears, I began understanding why a third of shoppers say supermarkets make them anxious.

That Post-Shop Regret
I felt a sense of achievement when I finally wrestled my bagged groceries into my trolley and headed for my car … until I remembered one more thing. If I were shopping online, I could simply edit my order and check out again. But here at the shops, the thought of going back through the aisles, locating that forgotten product, and queuing at the checkouts again was simply too much for me.

It could wait until next time.

It would have to.

The Sweet Relief of Online Shopping
Needless to say, next time I’ll stay home and place an online order. There’ll be no awkward trolley to manoeuvre and no worries about what I can reasonably fit in it. I’ll easily find the products I need, without any of the overwhelm that comes from being confronted with so many choices. And if I forget anything when I check out, it’ll take just a few clicks to add it to my order. Shopping in-store again was a massive stress, but it’s made me appreciate just how good I’ve got it online.

As a young music lover, I used to joke that I spent more time waiting in queues for my favourite musicians than seeing them play. I spent hours waiting to buy tickets, then waiting at venues to secure pole position at the rail. It might sound tedious to music fans today used to securing tickets online, but I look back fondly at that time. Online ticketing has streamlined our concert experiences, but has it cost fans a sense of community?

My Memories of Buying Tickets
Before online ticket sales, music lovers like me would rock up to physical ticket sellers. I caught the train to my local entertainment centre hours before the on-sale time, often before sunrise if I expected high demand. In this pre-smartphone era, we naturally chatted with people in the growing queue about the performers who’d brought us together. We shared our nerves as we anticipated the seats we’d secure, and rejoiced together when we nabbed the best ones. Then I walked to school, late but never contrite, proffered the principal a note from Mum excusing my absence, and floated through my day buoyed by the experience.

Ticket Buying in the Modern Age
That’s a far cry from the modern ticket purchasing experience. We sit alone with our phones or laptops, watching the minutes tick over as we gather in the “virtual lounge,” a place that suggests community but offers none of the interactions of the past. Tickets go on sale and we join a “virtual queue,” another online step in the process that offers none of the camaraderie of those old-school ticketing lines. Rather than chatting with a human about exactly where we want to sit, we’re allocated seats from our preferred tier and told to check out before the countdown reaches zero.

At least, that’s what happens if the website doesn’t melt down and the bots don’t grab the tickets first. The process is designed to be convenient, but in truth it feels more stressful and more isolating than buying tickets in the past.

Early Access Tickets Threaten Another Opportunity for Community-Building
Now online ticket sellers have launched early access tickets, another initiative designed to save us time, but cost us so much more. They let music lovers skip the queues at general admission shows and claim those sought-after spots closest to the stage. On the surface, the premium price seems worth paying. Early access ticket holders can see their favourite artists up close without investing hours to secure the best positions. Not everyone has the time or inclination to while away the hours at the venue before the doors open. But skip the queue and you’re skipping the community-building that comes with lining up to claim a coveted spot.

Fans who queue for shows all day are a special breed. Their love of music runs deep and they welcome others to the fold. I’ve arrived at venues on my own and left with a collection of friends, including many I’m still close with today. We’ve shared our stories and snacks and whipped ourselves into a frenzy as staff prepared to open the doors. We’ve claimed our spots triumphantly, celebrating the payoff for time invested. We’ve looked out for each other as the crowd swelled, ensuring we all had the best nights of our lives.

Rage Against the (Online) Machine
After attending gigs for the last three decades, I’ve learned live music is always best shared with friends, both old and new. Interacting face-to-face with fans who share your passion is life-affirming, but modern ticket systems seem set up to rob us of opportunities to connect. I can’t see us ever returning to purchasing tickets from physical vendors, but we can still choose the type of tickets we buy and the access they grant us. Fast passes might sound good in theory, but when they stop you from spending precious time getting to know like-minded souls the cost may be too high.

It happens almost every time.

You scan the checkouts, carefully analyse the options, confidently choose what looks like the fastest queue... and within seconds the person in the aisle beside you has paid, packed their groceries and disappeared into the car park while you're still waiting behind someone searching for a rewards card.

It feels like you're cursed.

The good news? You’re not.

Your brain is keeping score
When you're standing in a queue, your attention naturally drifts to the lines beside you.

Every time another queue moves while yours stays still, your brain notices. But when your own queue moves ahead and the others stop, it barely registers.

Psychologists describe this as a form of selective attention, and it can leave us convinced everyone else is getting through faster, even when the overall waiting times are very similar.

There's another mental shortcut at play too. Once you've convinced yourself you've picked the slowest queue, your brain starts collecting evidence to support that belief. Every small delay confirms your suspicion, while the moments your queue moves quickly, tend to fade into the background.

The shortest line isn't always the fastest
It turns out there's another trap.

Most of us instinctively count the number of people waiting, rather than looking at what they're actually buying. A queue with five people carrying baskets may move much faster than one with just two shoppers pushing overflowing trolleys.

Researchers have also found that the way queues are organised can influence how efficiently they move. Some studies suggest dedicated checkout lines can encourage faster service because each cashier focuses on their own customers, while other research shows that single, shared queues can reduce frustration by preventing one unlucky shopper from getting stuck behind a particularly slow transaction.

In other words, there's no magic formula, and appearances can be deceiving.

Why changing queues usually backfires
Almost everyone has experienced it.

You abandon your queue for one that suddenly looks quicker. The moment you switch, your old line races ahead while your new one grinds to a halt.

While it feels almost supernatural, probability helps explain much of the phenomenon. Every queue experiences random delays, from price checks and payment problems to forgotten items. If you switch because another line has just started moving, there's a good chance you've simply missed your own queue's turn to do the same.

Researchers have even found that people dislike being last in a queue so much that they'll often change lines, even when doing so is unlikely to get them out any faster.

So which queue should you choose?
If you're looking for the best odds, research suggests paying less attention to the number of people and more attention to what's happening at the checkout. A shopper with a trolley full of groceries, lots of fresh produce, or several separate transactions can take much longer than a handful of people carrying just a few items.

And once you've picked a queue, you're usually better off sticking with it. Though, that’s easier said than done!

SOURCE
Association for Psychological Science
Study on Queue Configuration and Service Time
Study on Last-Place Aversion in Queues
Study on Wait-Perception Bias

I like planning holidays.

Actually, that’s understating it. I really like planning holidays. I love lists. I like knowing which train I’m catching, where I’m staying and roughly how I’m getting from the station to the hotel. I can happily spend an evening working out detailed routes and itineraries.

I tell myself this is sensible preparation. Others might call it something else.

And technology has made it possible to plan almost everything.

Before we go somewhere, we can find the best restaurant, the best coffee, the best view and the best place to watch the sunset. We can discover 10 things tourists always get wrong, seven hidden gems and the one thing we absolutely MUST do in Rome.

We can look at photographs of our hotel room, walk virtually down the street outside it and read 846 reviews from people furious because the breakfast croissants weren't warm enough.

By the time we arrive, we can know almost everything about a place.

Which makes me wonder: whatever happened to just turning up?

When planning becomes the holiday

I recently travelled around Italy. Rome, Naples, Bari, Matera and Polignano a Mare. And I planned it all.

Of course I did.

Trains were booked. Accommodation was sorted. I knew most of the things I wanted to see. And I'm not suggesting we go back to arriving at railway stations clutching a phrasebook and hoping there happens to be a hotel nearby with a spare room.

Google Maps is brilliant. Online train tickets are brilliant. Being able to translate a menu by pointing your phone at it is borderline witchcraft.

Planning isn't the enemy.

In fact, research suggests that looking forward to a holiday can make us happier before we've even gone. A Dutch study of more than 1,500 people found holidaymakers reported greater happiness before their trip than non-holidaymakers, with the researchers suggesting anticipation could be part of the reason.

I completely understand that. Planning is part of the fun.

But I wonder whether we've moved beyond planning and started trying to eliminate uncertainty altogether.

And pursuit of perfection can be a disappointing business.

We don't just want to know where we're sleeping. We want to know where we'll have coffee at 10.15am on Wednesday morning and what we're going to order when we get there.

And social media has taken this to another level. Sometimes it feels as though we're no longer discovering places. We're arriving and checking whether they look like the videos we've already watched.

We're not travelling. We're executing an itinerary. Replicating blueprints.

Don’t tell me how it ends

The strange thing is, when I look at my life, almost all the really good stuff has involved uncertainty.

Falling in love.

Meeting someone who becomes important to you.

Opening a present you weren't expecting.

Having children and gradually discovering who these extraordinary little people actually are. You can plan to have children. You can buy the cot and choose the school. You can of course know what sex they are before they’re born. But you don't get to choose their personalities, their sense of humour, their interests or the people they become.

The surprise is part of the deal.

Imagine somebody recommending a brilliant TV series and your first response was: “Sounds great. Can you tell me everything that happens in every episode and exactly how it ends?”

Not knowing what happens next is the point. Yet increasingly that's exactly how we approach travel.

And apparently there may be something in leaving room for the unexpected. One study following travellers over time found that both expectation and serendipity contributed to travel satisfaction and were associated with happiness lasting longer after the trip.

I like that. Planning and serendipity. We don't have to choose everything.

Some of my favourite moments in Italy weren't on a list. Wandering around. Turning down the wrong street. Eating somewhere because I was hungry rather than because 4,000 strangers had awarded it 4.8 stars.

Sometimes this went badly. I ate a plate of Genovese pasta in Naples that I'm still not entirely convinced wasn't a practical joke.

But that's part of travelling too.

And then in Bari I discovered spaghetti all’Assassina. I just liked how it looked on a picture outside the restaurant. It became one of my favourite things I ate on the entire trip.

So I'm not giving up planning. Let's not get ridiculous.

I'll still book the hotel. I'll still check the trains. I'll probably still have a list.

I'm just going to try leaving a few more spaces on it.

Because the best things that have happened in my life weren't things I knew were coming.

Why should holidays be any different?

Maybe I don't need to know how every episode ends before I've watched it.

Chapter 5f

Earlier Chapters:
Synopsis
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4


Celina and Enzo were both gone for five days from the office towards the end of June – fishing for barramundi on the Mary River – some 100 kilometres south-east of Darwin. She was Kurt Cunningham’s guest and he was a guest of Kurt’s father, Bruce. It was just the four of them on this particular charter.

Bruce’s other regulars, most of them from interstate, were not interested in fishing ‘out of season’. By autumn’s end, there was little chance of bagging a metre long barramundi or 50-kilogram threadfin once the Top End runoff was over.

In Celina and Enzo’s absence, I set about finding accommodation for Hannah in Darwin and using one of my contacts at the Charles Darwin University to help enrol her as a mature student in the politics department.

We decided to document Hannah, for her university enrolment, in her real identity – as a retired Defence contractor, to see if this attracted the interest of Kylie Cunningham in any way. With the help of my contact, we were able to channel Hannah into Cunningham’s European politics course - attending the young academic’s biweekly lectures and weekly tutorial classes.

The second semester was due to commence for Hannah with an orientation program in early July, so she had time to find a one-bedroom apartment for herself in Darwin’s leafy water side suburb of Fannie Bay.
When July rolled around, Hannah had her first encounter with Kylie Cunningham at the university, a few days before orientation. She’d decided to familiarize herself with Charles Darwin University and its politics department and was away from the office for most of that morning.
When she re-appeared, she had a triumphant look about her.
‘Interesting young woman your Kylie,’ she began. ‘Intelligent, tense and very focussed.’

She poured herself a coffee and joined me in my office.

‘I was glancing at her department notice board,’ she continued, ‘when this tall, striking looking redhead asked if she could help me. We got talking and I discovered I was talking to my future politics lecturer and tutor whose family happens to own a fish charter business in Darwin. She gave me some helpful information about her Semester 2 course and promised to look out for me at Orientation Day next Monday.’
‘And the family resemblance?’ I asked.

‘Cheese and chalk, from what I can see. Physically there’s little resemblance and intellectually, she seems to be from a different planet.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Told me she speaks a number of languages but when I asked, she just mentioned what she called ‘the usual suspects – French, German, Spanish but also Russian.’

‘Did you pursue the Russian one?’
‘Early days yet, Michael. I didn’t want to sound too inquisitive. Also … ‘
Hannah reached into her purse with her right hand and extracted a glove which she applied to her left hand. I leant back in my chair and watched as she extracted a plastic cup from her purse with her gloved hand and set it in front of me.

‘I asked Doctor Cunningham where I could get a drink of water and she kindly filled this cup up from a nearby tap and handed it to me. I walked away with it, making sure I only held it around the upper rim. Her fingerprints should be on the rest of the cup.’

I felt myself grinning.

‘You don’t waste time, do you Hannah!’ I exclaimed.

‘If I was taking bets,’ she replied. ‘I’d wager there’d be no match between her DNA and that of her parents and brother,’ she suggested.


Celina and Enzo were back in the office the following Monday. Hannah was there for my debrief of them, before attending her university orientation day later that morning.

Clarence supplied the four of us with coffees before we popped into our usual spots around my tiny office conference table.

‘I’ll lead off ,’ suggested Celina - withdrawing a small notepad from her purse along with a biro.

‘I’ve just about filled in all of these pages,’ she began, ‘Luckily, I had the only single room at the campsite, so I was able to diarise the days’ events in private, even though Mister Testosterone tried a few times to make himself at home in my bed.’

Enzo interrupted.

‘Celina and I had a warning system,’ he said. ‘she would activate her cell phone’s ringtone if she needed me to come next door to save her. It only happened once.’

‘And did you end up saving Celina from Mister Testosterone on that particular occasion?’ I asked.

‘Let’s just say I interrupted an encounter that looked like it was heading towards an intimate conclusion.’

‘So you managed to keep Mister Testosterone at bay for the entire six days then, Celina?’ Hannah concluded.

‘I didn’t say that,’ the young woman replied.

‘What was the ringtone tune?’ I asked out of curiosity.

‘Live and Let Die,’ smiled Enzo.

Celina’s cheeks deepened.

‘I’ll start from page one,’ she said, flicking open the notepad.
‘Keep it to dot points,’ I suggested. ‘We no doubt will read about it all in your full report.’

Celina took a deep breath and cleared her throat. We were all ears.

Continued...