Not your average accountant

 

 

At around the time when the then Australian Society of Accountants (ASA) morphed into the Australian Society of Certified Practising Accountants (ASCPA), whose members henceforth called themselves "CPA" (not to be confused with "Cut-and-Paste-Artist"), they came up with this really gripping advertising slogan, "Not your average accountant".

At the time the slogan was on every accountant's letterhead and every accountant's office door; why, some accountants even stuck it to the back of their VOLVOs. It sank without a trace - even all-knowing and never-forgetting GOOGLE doesn't have it - perhaps because it was as misleading as "More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette".

I mean, could there be anything more average than an accountant with a wife, a mortgage, and 2.3 kids? (or was that a transposition error and should've been 3.2 kids?) Which is why I got all those exciting jobs: I wasn't average, I wasn't even all that good, but I didn't have a wife, a mortgage, nor any fractional kids to hold me back when they needed an accountant in New Guinea or Burma or Iran or Malaysia or Saudi Arabia. And so I moved on and on, occasionally reflecting on what life might be like if I were an average accountant but never regretting not being one.

Now that I am in retirement when I have even more time to reflect on it, I have just found this video clip of someone who has spent time on Thursday Island where I worked in 1977 and where the lure of being "average" had perhaps been stronger than anywhere else because I really liked the place, but I refused to let it get to me and moved on.

"Not your average accountant". I would've worn the slogan with pride.

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

What has the 110-metre long liquid cargo ship PIZ LA MARGNA travelling up the Rhine River on the last day of 2025 to do with me?

 

 

Which is what I thought to myself when an old shipmate from more than sixty years ago - see here - sent me this photo and email from Germany on the last day of the year:

 

Click here for a translation

 

PIZ LA MARGNA? But then I enlarged the photo and saw the inscription along its hull: "FLAVIA". Right! Good one, Jürgen! And you're not the only one who in his old age thinks back to those days and weeks aboard the "FLAVIA" when we were on our way to a new life in a new country.

 

 

You didn't stay but I did. Who made the better decision? Pointless to think about it now, but if as you write, "Sometimes I wish I could be back in Australia. Maybe it'll work out sometime soon. Before I get too old", you know you're always welcome at "Riverbend". Happy New Year!

As for the PIZ LA MARGNA, she's since moved on - click here.

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

Gone with the wind

 

 

Type Kolmanskop into YouTube.com and you find scores of video clips of this amazing ghost town in the Namib Desert, just a dozen kilometres away from Lüderitz where I lived and worked in 1968/69. I had no car then and Kolmanskop wasn't a tourist destination yet, as it was inside the "Sperrgebiet" of the diamond-mining company that owned the lease, and so I never saw it.

(I didn't have a car because I didn't have much money, and I didn't have much money because I wasn't paid very much and I wasn't paid much because I was still very young and inexperienced.  I could not make myself much older, but I could make myself more experienced by taking on jobs which didn't pay very much, and in so doing I was able to gain more professional experience than I could ever have gained through any formal studies, in addition to which I was also able to travel the world.)

 

 

Kolmanskop began as a railway stop in 1908, part of the new line connecting Lüderitz to Keetmanshoop. According to local legend, it was named after a Nama man named Coleman, who tragically perished at the site after his ox wagon got stranded and he succumbed to thirst.

 

Click here for GOOGLE Maps

 

Fate of this lonely outpost changed forever when Zacharias Lewala, a railway worker, found a curious shiny stone in the sand. He brought it to his supervisor, August Stauch, a hobby mineralogist. Stauch suspected the stone was a diamond and, with the help of mining engineer Söhnke Nissen, staked claims over a 75 km² area, launching one of the most remarkable diamond rushes in history.

When word got out, a town was built in the middle of the desert even though there was no water, no soil and also no rain - only sand, heat and sandstorms. Nevertheless, the town at one time had as many as four hundred inhabitants and was even considered the 'richest city in Africa', but after a little more than twenty years richer diamond grounds were found elsewhere and most of the residents left.

Today it is a major tourist attraction with guided tours regularly leaving Lüderitz. It has also served as background to several movies, including "The King is Alive" and, a little farther east, "Flight of the Phoenix".

 

 

Today being the last day of the year and with little more to do than putting a bottle of wine in the fridge, I like to think back to the many places I celebrated previous New Year's Eves in. The photo below shows what was the residence of the company's "Buchhalter" or book-keeper.

 

Inscription reads "Buchhalterhaus Kolmanskop"
Not everyone has their house immortalised on a postage stamp

Four more stamps commemorating diamond ming at Kolmanskop
SWA stands for South West Africa or Süd-West Afrika before it became Namibia

 

The book-keeper's name was 'Herr Wiese'. His grandson, Dieter Huyssen, who now lives in Switzerland, speaks to Megan Jones of the BBC about his memories of revisiting in 2013 the town of 'Kolmannskuppe' which he and his family once called home:

 

And to think that in another time I could've lived in that house! By the way, may I suggest that just before the clock strikes midnight, you raise your left foot? That way you start the new year off on the right foot.

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

Same procedure as every year!

 

If access to this video is blocked in some countries, click here for an alternative

 

Dinner for One is watched all over the world on December 31st. The 18-minute British comedy sketch, recorded in 1963, holds the Guinness World Record for the most frequently aired television programme.

It is a particularly crucial part of Germany’s festive programming, where it has been broadcast since 1972. Around half the population still tunes in on New Year’s Eve to watch it; some Germans recreate the meal served in the skit, and serve Mulligatawny soup accompanied by dry Sherry, North Sea haddock with white wine, chicken with Champagne, and fruit for dessert served with a fine port wine.

In 2018 the German Post Office unveiled a set of commemorative stamps featuring its characters. One of its lines — "the same procedure as every year" — has become something of a catchphrase in the country.

 

 

Filmed in grainy black-and-white, the routine involves Miss Sophie (May Warden), who is celebrating her 90th birthday with James, her butler (Freddie Frinton). She has outlived her four closest friends and so insists that James impersonate them all in turn. They are an eclectic bunch. First is Sir Toby, a raspy-voiced northerner. Next up is Admiral von Schneider, who raises his toasts with a loud “Skol!” Then comes the turn of Mr Pommeroy, who speaks in an alarmingly high-pitched falsetto. The last guest is Mr Winterbottom, Miss Sophie’s "very dear friend", who is a booze-swilling lecher.

"Dinner for One" is the greatest cult film you’ve never heard of, but now, thanks to me, you have! Allow us to wish you Feliz Año Nuevo, Bonne Année, Boldog Új Évet Kivánok, Gott nytt år, С Новым годом, Felice anno nuovo, Prosit Neujahr, and Happy New Year. And don't forget: it's the same procedure as every year! (nudge nudge wink wink)

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

Did Ne Win read Norman Lewis' "Golden Earth"?

 

A rare signed First Edition from 1952 of "Golden Earth"
Read the book here

 

My year spent in Burma in 1975 shaped much of my personal and professional life like no other time before or since. Burma was then still under the regime of its military dictator Ne Win and his particular "Burmese Way to Socialism" (Burmese: မြန်မာ့နည်းမြန်မာ့ဟန် ဆိုရှယ်လစ်စနစ်)

Madman Ne Win, using a slaphappy mixture of Buddhism and socialism, eliminated all private enterprise, expelled all foreigners, and sealed up the country's borders. When he took over, the country had been the foremost exporter of rice, and even today it is rich in teak, vast quantities of rubies, even oil. Yet with one wave of his wand, he managed to put the entire country to sleep. In 1974, it had emerged from its solitary confinement just long enough to announce its willingness to enter into joint-venture projects. My new employers, TOTAL - Compagnie Française des Pétroles, were the beneficiaries of one such joint-venture, and I became their chief accountant.

Had Ne Win, who came to power in 1962, taken a leaf out of Norman Lewis' 1952-book "Golden Earth"? Then, Norman Lewis had written, "The Burmese way of life has never been based on unnecessary consumption, and there is no reason why it ever should. It is as good as any, as it is."

 

"Even in the present state of tragic disorder the Burmese can still export annually several million tons of rice. All that is necessary, then, is to cure the people of their infantile craving for manufactured trash from overseas that fills their markets, and to import only essential medicines, hospital equipment, means of transport and agricultural machinery. If necessary a little teak could be cut, and oil pumped to help pay for this. While the population stays at its present level the Burmese need neither kolhozes nor Boulder Dams (nor, since they cannot afford an atomic pile, do they need armaments), and there is no mysterious natural law which compels a country to produce a greater population than its own soil can support. Above all, they do not need the glittering baubles described in the advertisement sections of American magazines. The Burmese way of life has never been based on unnecessary consumption, and there is no reason why it ever should. It is as good as any, as it is ... Herein lies a simple blueprint for Utopia."
Page 270

 

It's been almost fifty years since I left Burma. I began to regret my decision to leave even as the creaky old "Union of Burma" plane was taxiing for take-off from Mingaladon, Burma's only international airport, and I have never really stopped regretting leaving this "Golden Land".

 

Googlemap Riverbend