The Riddle of the Sands

 

When Charles Carruthers accepts an invitation for a yachting and duck-shooting trip to the Frisian Islands from Arthur Davies, an old chum from his Oxford days, he has no idea their holiday will become an investigation into a German plot to invade Britain.

Out of context, the story of Erskine Childers' "The Riddle of the Sands" sounds like a bog-standard thriller, but that's because so many books are pale echoes of this exceptional novel.

Published in 1903, it predicted the threat of war with Germany and was so prescient in its identification of the British coast's defensive weaknesses that it influenced the siting of new naval bases.

It is also credited as an inspiration to everyone from John Buchan to Ken Follett. The writing is gripping and it's a marvel that Childers manages to make the minutiae of sailing and navigation so engrossing.

Although "Riddle" was an instant bestseller, Childers never wrote another novel, concentrating instead on military strategy manuals before entering politics and eventually becoming a fervent Irish nationalist.

Carruthers and Davies are wonderful characters, the former a fop from the Foreign Office, the latter an eccentric sailing fanatic.

Davies is based on the author and reading about his courageous struggles for king and country is particularly poignant when you know that Childers was considered a traitor by the British government at the time of his death. He was executed by a firing squad in 1922, by order of the Irish Free State.

A gripping book in its own right; even more fascinating in the context of the life and times of its author. Click here to read the book online.

It was also made into a movie - both a German and an English version, each with a different ending - which appears full-length on YouTube once in while, so keep looking here.

(The completely remade German version has the literally translated title "Das Rätsel der Sandbank" whereas the original English version dubbed in German was released under the totally unrelated title "Bei Nacht und Nebel" and is available here.)

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Un petit dessin vaut mieux qu'un long discours

 

Oder tausend Worte. Und hier sind noch viertausend mehr:

 

 

Now it's back to work with my friend Stanley. He only speaks English.

 

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Riverbend's very own movie

 

The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said ‘Bother!’ and ‘O blow!’ and also ‘Hang spring-cleaning!’ and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat. Something up above was calling him imperiously, and he made for the steep little tunnel which answered in his case to the gravelled carriage-drive owned by animals whose residences are nearer to the sun and air. So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and scrooged and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, ‘Up we go! Up we go!’ till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow."

Okay, keep on reading! I know you want to! Click here.

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P.S. Why not go all 'willowy', pour yourself a glass of red, sit back, put up your feet, close your eyes, and listen to it here and here and here?

P.P.S. Long before "The Wind in the Willows", it was "The Golden Age" and "Dream Days" that 'made' Kenneth Grahame's name. They are stories written for children, and yet the adult can read the very same pages and find something else again ... I suggest you start with "The Olympians", those adults who have wholly forgotten how it feels to be young, before for you, too, "somehow the sun does not seem to shine so brightly as it used to; the trackless meadows of old time have shrunk and dwindled away to a few poor acres".

 

Three Men in a Boat

 

Jerome K. Jerome's hilarious story of what is probably the worst holiday in literature has an air of delightful nostalgia and is still laugh-aloud funny more than a hundred years after it what first published with this preface:

 

Here is the whole book

 

And yet, it is full of wisdom as well, "... not merely as regards the present case, but with reference to our trip up the river of life generally. How many people, on that voyage, load up the boat till it is in danger of swamping with a store of foolish things which they think essential to the pleasure and comfort of the trip, but which are really only useless lumber.

How they pile the poor little craft mast-high with fine clothes and big houses; with useless servants, and a host of swell friends that do not care twopence for them, and that they do not care three ha'pence for; with expensive entertainments that nobody enjoys, with formalities and fashions, with pretence and ostentation, and with - oh, heaviest, maddest lumber of all! - the dread of what will my neighbour think, with luxuries that only cloy, with pleasures that bore, with empty show that, like the criminal's iron crown of yore, makes to bleed and swoon the aching head that wears it!

It is lumber, man - all lumber! Throw it overboard. It makes the boat so heavy to pull, you nearly faint at the oars. It makes it so cumbersome and dangerous to manage, you never know a moment's freedom from anxiety and care, never gain a moment's rest for dreamy laziness - no time to watch the windy shadows skimming lightly o'er the shallows, or the glittering sunbeams flitting in and out among the ripples, or the great trees by the margin looking down at their own image, or the woods all green and golden, or the lilies white and yellow, or the sombre-waving rushes, or the sedges, or the orchis, or the forget-me-nots.

Throw the lumber over, man! Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.

You will find the boat easier to pull then, and it will not be so liable to upset, and it will not matter so much if it does upset; good, plain merchandise will stand water. You will have time to think as well as to work ..."

There is so much insight packed into this little book - useful information indeed, to say nothing of the dog! - that you almost regret having come to their final toast, "Here's to Three Men well out of a Boat!"

But that's a whole 184 pages later, so sit back and enjoy! (or listen here to the audiobook)

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The postman's horse always neighs twice

 

And when it does, I know I'm in for a treat: a real letter. Not an email, not a rapid-fire, typed-with-one-thumb-on-a-tiny-keyboard communication, but a real letter, thoughtfully written by someone who had something worthwhile to communicate and took the trouble to shape it into words of more than one syllable.

Our modern-day culture streamlines our interactions with each other into bite-sized encounters. But we trim the beauty when we cut the fat. The case for writing old-fashioned letters is the case for slowing down. For doing a thing deliberately and allowing space for thoughtfulness to bloom. The practice makes us intentional because it requires a little more of us, even if the note we’re writing is only a short one.

A letter always arrives from the past. There is a waiting – a forced patience – built into the art of letter-writing. We wait for a letter to arrive. We wait for a reply. In the time it takes for the letter to reach its destination, anything can happen: births, deaths, and marriages.

There’s nothing nicer than opening the mailbox and seeing something friendly, something that’s not a bill or trying to sell you something. Think about being on the receiving end of a handwritten letter, actually opening the envelope, looking at the stamp, feeling the paper and seeing the written word — it's everything. Doesn’t it make you feel a bit special? Someone took the time to write to you. They value you. You can give that gift to others, too, because here's something I've noticed: people really do like having something to hold. Hold onto that thought!

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News from the Nelligen Yacht Club

 

As Commodore, Secretary, and Treasurer of the Nelligen Yacht Club, Australia's most exclusive Yacht Club with a membership of just ONE (me!), I've certainly got my hands full.

However, things got even worse when, against my better judgement, I relaxed the rules and admitted another member. Here's the new member's submission to the Club's committee:

 

Hi Peter, I really need your advice on a serious problem. I have suspected for some time now that my wife has been cheating on me. There are all the usual signs: if the phone rings and I answer, the caller hangs up; she goes out with the girls a lot. I try to stay awake to look out for her when she comes home but I usually fall asleep. Anyway, last night about midnight I hid in the shed behind the boat. When she came home she got out of someone's car buttoning her blouse, then she took her panties out of her purse and slipped them on. It was at that moment, crouched behind the boat, that I noticed a hairline crack in the outboard engine mounting bracket. Is that something I can weld or do I need to replace the whole bracket? Regards, Ray.

 

The Committee is still working on a reply.

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Wear your protective coverings!

 

I'm certain that many of you have ventured out without taking the proper precautionary steps to protect yourselves.

In the interest of your ongoing good health, here are a few ideas:

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It can stop at any moment

 

One day there is life. A man, for example, in the best of health, not even old, with no history of illness. Everything is as it was, as it will always be. He goes from one day to the next, minding his own business, dreaming only of the life that lies before him. And then, suddenly, it happens there is death. A man lets out a little sigh, he slumps down in his chair, and it is death. The suddenness of it leaves no room for thought, gives the mind no chance to seek out a word that might comfort it. We are left with nothing but death, the irreducible fact of our own mortality. Death after a long illness we can accept with resignation. Even accidental death we can ascribe to fate. But for a man to die of no apparent cause, for a man to die simply because he is a man, brings us so close to the invisible boundary between life and death that we no longer know which side we are on. Life becomes death, and it is as if this death has owned this life all along. Death without warning. Which is to say: life stops. And it can stop at any moment." From "The Invention of Solitude"

Today would've have been my best friend's hundredth birthday. It's doubtful he'd ever have received the Queen's telegram, but neither should he've passed away as early as August 1995, just two-and-half months short of his seventy-fifth birthday.

We'd been friends for almost thirty years which at that time had been for all of my adult life, and his passing left a vacuum which has remained to this day. He was that man who, "in the best of health, not even old, with no history of illness", died "simply because he is a man."

It was "Death without warning," and the suddenness of his passing left no room for thought at the time, but I've been remembering him ever since. Rest in Peace, Noel Butler!

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Have you ever asked yourself, "Am I crazy?"

Cambridge Dictionary: the action of tricking or controlling someone by making them believe things that are not true, especially by suggesting that they may be mentally ill.

 

If you have ever asked yourself that, you're not crazy. You're most likely being gaslighted. Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse aimed at controlling a person by altering reality to the point where the person will doubt their own sanity.

The term "gaslighting" comes from a 1930s play called "Gas Light". The main character in the play literally tries to drive his wife crazy by gradually dimming the gas-powered lights in their home. When she notices the lights dimming, her husband not only denies that the lights are dimming, he convinces her that she is imagining it to the point where she questions her own sanity.

We are living in a perpetual state of gaslighting. The reality that we are being told by the media is at complete odds with what we are seeing with our own two eyes. And when we question the false reality that we are being presented, or we claim that what we see is that actual reality, we are vilified as racist or bigots or just plain crazy. You’re not racist. You’re not crazy. You’re being gaslighted.

The United States of America, Canada, Europe, and Australia accepts more immigrants than any other country in the world. The vast majority of the immigrants are "people of colour", and they are enjoying freedom and economic opportunity not available to them in their country of origin, but we are told that we are the most racist country on the planet, and if we disagree, we are called racist and xenophobic. So, we ask ourselves, "Am I crazy?" No, you’re being gaslighted.

We see mobs of people looting stores, smashing windows, setting cars on fire and burning down buildings, but we are told that these demonstrations are peaceful protests. And when we call this destruction of our cities, riots, we are called racists. So, we ask ourselves, "Am I crazy?" No, you’re being gaslighted.

We see the major problem destroying many inner-cities is crime; murder, gang violence, drug dealing, drive-by shootings, armed robbery, but we are told that it is not crime, but the police that are the problem in the inner-cities. We are told we must defund the police and remove law enforcement from crime-riddled cities to make them safer. But if we advocate for more policing in cities overrun by crime, we are accused of being white supremacists and racists. So, we ask ourselves, "Am I crazy?" No, you’re being gaslighted.

Capitalist countries are the most prosperous countries in the world. The standard of living is the highest in capitalist countries. We see more poor people move up the economic ladder to the middle and even the wealthy class through their effort and ability in capitalist countries than any other economic system in the world, but we are told capitalism is an oppressive system designed to keep people down. So, we ask ourselves, "Am I crazy?" No, you’re being gaslighted.

Communist countries killed over 100 million people in the 20th century. Communist countries strip their citizens of basic human rights, dictate every aspect of their lives, treat their citizens like slaves, and drive their economies into the ground, but we are told that Communism is the fairest, most equitable, freest and most prosperous economic system in the world. So, we ask ourselves, "Am I crazy?" No, you’re being gaslighted.

The most egregious example of gaslighting is the concept of "white fragility". You spend your life trying to be a good person, trying to treat people fairly and with respect. You disavow racism and bigotry in all its forms. You judge people solely on the content of their character and not by the colour of their skin. You don't discriminate based on race or ethnicity. But you are told you are a racist, not because of something you did or said, but solely because of the colour of your skin. You know instinctively that charging someone with racism because of their skin colour is itself racist. You know that you are not racist, so you defend yourself and your character, but you are told that your defense of yourself is proof of your racism. So, we ask ourselves, "Am I crazy?" No, you’re being gaslighted.

Gaslighting has become one of the most pervasive and destructive tactics in politics. It is the exact opposite of what our political system was meant to be. It deals in lies and psychological coercion, and not the truth and intellectual discourse. If you ever ask yourself if you’re crazy, you are not. Crazy people aren’t sane enough to ask themselves if they’re crazy. So, trust yourself, believe what’s in your heart. Trust our eyes over what we are told. Never listen to the people who tell you that you are crazy, because you are not, you’re being gaslighted.

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Almost!

 

But not quite: there's still a bit of framing-up to do around the lattice work under the peak, none of which requires more than just one pair of hands - mine.

My helpmate Troy has been paid off for the week, and I won't see him again for at least a month while he builds more concrete watertanks.

Enough time for me to dream up more projects! Avagoodweekend!

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Mine is bigger than yours!

 

I stopped wearing my gold ROLEX® Oyster Perpetual ages ago (if you still need one to impress your girlfriend, Des, make me an offer!) What counts in the country is the size of your firewood shed. I've just finished and filled mine, and rang my friend across the river to tell him, "Neil, mine is bigger than yours!"

Time for a glass of red on the verandah, while my assistant keeps the ride-on going. It's a simple bargain: in exchange for her cutting the grass, I keep saying "Yes, dear!" and "Of course, you're right, dear!"

Now it's time to roll out the wheelie bins, and that's it for another day!

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Emoh Ruo

 

The Australia I came to in 1965 had screwed into countless facades the gilt ananym "Emoh Ruo". Indeed, the mock-Latin phrase was also an indie film in 1985, documenting the perils of our Great Australian Dream.

In theme and sound, the title evokes that great satire on Victorian society, Erewhon, a partially-reversed "nowhere" that Samuel Butler coined for his fictional utopia in 1872. For those who wish to appear educated but couldn't be bothered to read the book, there's an interesting clip on youtube.

Perhaps the most infamous ananym is Llareggub (work it out yourself!) of Dylan Thomas' "Under Milk Wood". You can read the book but the spoken word is more impressive, especially when it's Richard Burton's.

But in keeping with Dylan Thomas' "to begin at the beginning", what are ananyms, or the art of speaking backward? The ana– of ananym is the Ancient Greek word ana, which was variously used to mean “back”, “up”, “on”, “around”, “towards”, “throughout”, and just about every other preposition you can imagine. It’s the same root we find in words like anagram, analogy, and analysis, as well as in less obvious places like Anabaptist (literally “one who baptizes again”) and Anastasia (which means “resurrection”). The suffix –nym comes from the Greek word for “name”, onyma, which is same the root as in much more familiar words like synonym, acronym, pseudonym, and anonymous. So put together, an ananym is literally a “back-name”—a word formed by reversing another. Are you keeping up with all this, Des?

The corporate world is full of ananyms too. Oprah Winfrey heads up Harpo Productions, just as Yensid is the sorcerer in Disney's Fantasia. Then there's yarg, a sharp Cornish cheese first wrapped in nettles by the Gray family. While swimmer Michael Klim has now quit the pool to flog his skincare line called Milk. Even Count Dracula was an ananym fan. The sucker often hotel-hopped using the alias of Count Alucard.

There are towns called Adanac in Canada, and Saxet in Texas. Closer to home, there are the sister settlements of Colignan and Nangiloc just south of Mildura. Within Bundaberg's hinterland, you'll find the farming community of Degilbo, clearly a name born of municipal henpecking.

Sorry if I've moved forward too much about speaking backward, but that is what "Emoh Ruo" can do to me. Now it's time to watch the movie.

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