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Saturday, February 27, 2021

Kangaroo

 

I woke up this morning thinking that I had dreamed about having gone out in the middle of the night to feed our resident possum and her joey in the possum penthouse, and then also feeding a second possum that had been sitting on top of the power pole.

Then I realised that it hadn't been a dream at all but that I really had been up at four o'clock in the morning to go outside to do just that: to give our resident possum breakfast in bed. It didn't stop me though from serving her a second breakfast just after seven o'clock, and as I did so while casually appraising the new day unfolding around me, I saw this huge eastern grey kangaroo leisurely grazing no more than twenty feet away from me. He was one powerfully built fella and so confident of his own strength that my presence didn't bother him at all and he was still there when we left "Riverbend" for our lunch at Raymond's at Malua Bay.

Which propelled my usually twisted mind towards today's re-reading of Lawrence's novel "Kangaroo" which took care of my usual post-luncheon nap on the old sofa on the verandah and of the rest of the day. If your own reading of D H Lawrence does go beyond "Lady Chatterley's Lover" - which would've been handed to you surreptitiously in a brown paperbag at the time you bought it - you'd know that the "Kangaroo" alluded to in the book's title is the nickname of one of the characters, Benjamin Cooley, a prominent ex-soldier and lawyer, who is also the leader of a secretive, fascist paramilitary organisation, the "Diggers Club".

The story of the book is extremely simple. An English writer named Richard Lovat Somers and his German wife, Harriet (who do not even pretend to be other than D H Lawrence and his wife), arrive in Sydney with the idea of settling in Australia. This simple story, however, is interspersed with long descriptions of the Australian landscape, with many penetrating observations on the Australian character and with typically Lawrentian reflections on Life and Politics.

Most of what he wrote in 1922 was still true in 1965 when I arrived here, and much of it is still true today, almost a hundred years later. Consider Lawrence's remarks about Australian society, and particularly its democratic aspect: "There was really no class distinction. There was a difference of money and of 'smartness'. But nobody felt 'better' than anyone else, or higher; only better-off. And there is all the difference in the world between feeling 'better' than your fellow men, and merely feeling 'better-off'." And again: "Somers for the first time felt himself immersed in real democracy - in spite of all disparity in wealth. The instinct of the place was absolutely and flatly democratic, 'a terre' democratic. Demos was here his own master, undisputed, and therefore quite calm about it. No need to get the wind up at all over it; it was a granted condition of Australia that Demos was his own master." page 17

As I myself found out when I came here fifty-five years ago, it is one of the pleasantest things in Australia that nobody does feel better than anyone else and, perhaps more important still, nobody feels worse (aside from the professional whingers strutting their stuff on the ABC). The working man who goes to mend a broken tap in a rich man's house may envy his wealth or, more likely, grin sardonically at its evidence, but he does not feel inferior. As Lawrence said: "... there is all the difference in the world between feeling better than your fellow man, and merely feeling better-off."

Lawrence's insightfulness is all the more astonishing when it is realised that he spent only four months in Australia, from May to August 1922 - a fortnight in Perth, a fortnight in the ship to Sydney, and three months living alone with his wife in a cottage on the coast about thirty miles south of Sydney in the then little mining village of Thirroul (in the book this is called Mullumbimby), where he wrote his book.

I leave you alone now so you can watch the movie while I go and see if the big boomer has turned up again.


Googlemap Riverbend

 

Thursday, February 25, 2021

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."

 

On Friday BHP closed at $47.32; on Monday it was $48.90; by Tuesday it had jumped to $50.43; the next day it sank back to $48.86. As I write this, it's hovering around $50.45 which means I'm still ahead of Friday by $3.13 - PER SHARE!

Is it market manipulation or short-selling that makes a behemoth as big as BHP jump by a couple of dollars from one day to the next? I don't know! All I know is that as a self-funded retiree I need to inhabit this "greed-is-good" world of global finance if I want to protect my savings and stay off the old-age pension which, while small, is government-guaranteed and would guarantee me that I can sleep soundly at night.

Of course, it wasn't always so. In the Australia I set foot in in 1965, no-one I knew owned shares, no-one I knew even talked about money. We all just seemed to have enough, and that was enough, even for the likes of me who was on a "youth wage" with the ANZ Bank which left me with just a couple of quid each fortnight after I had paid my boarding house fees. "The past is a foreign country: they did things differently there."

My train of thought came to a sudden halt when I discovered that someone had written a whole book about Australia in the late 60s and early 70s, and he'd done so without the help of L. P. Hartley’s immortal first line in "The Go-Between": "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." As it were, he jumped right in, "I'm on a quest. I want to visit a place that's radically different to the one in which I live. This, I know, is the dream of many Australians - people who head off to places like Vietnam, Kenya or Iceland. But I want more. I want to visit somewhere really different: a place that is scary and weird, dangerous and incomprehensible, and - now and then - surprisingly appealing. It's the Australia of my childhood."

What really drew me in was his description of Gus' Place, already well known in my days in Canberra, not only for being the only outdoor dining place but also a place where, as an impecunious youngster, I could sip on one 'cheap-a-chino' the whole day if I wished - and I did!

Click on image to enlarge

Did you know that places such as McDonald's will deliberately use hard, uncomfortable chairs so that diners are not able to sit and relax for a long length of time? Not so at Gus'! With typical Viennese charm, he encouraged you to stay longer, giving you access to the daily papers and weekly magazines, plus boardgames like chess and Chinese checkers.

Indeed, they did things differently then, and I promptly ordered my second-hand copy of "The Land Before Avocado" on ebay, for $8 plus $8 postage. Never mind the expensive postage; BHP is up by $3.13!


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Did you know?

Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a spacesuit damages the suit.

 

Nothing to Chauffeur it

 

My first 'real' job in Australia was as a 'Bank Johnny' which gave me a much-needed leg-up in the commercial world. However, the pay was lousy and many 'Bank Johnnies' made up for it by working on a milk run in the evening or a paper run in the morning, maybe even topping it off by driving a taxi over the weekend.

Well, milk runs no longer exist, and with everyone getting their news off the internet, I don't know about paper runs. As for taxis which at one time were considered "the best one-man business in town", with taxi licences regulated by State governments and fetching six figures, they're all but strangled to a slow financial death by all those Uber-drivers.

I just discovered this taxi-doco on YouTube which turned into a series of seven. Fascinating, entertaining, and hailing back to a lost time. Enjoy!

 


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Did you know?

The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.

 

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

The Haunted Bookshop

 

When you sell a man a book", says Roger Mifflin, protagonist of these classic bookselling novels by Christopher Morley, "you don't sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue you sell him a whole new life."

With "The Haunted Bookshop", Christopher Morley continues the story of the bookseller from "Parnassus on Wheels", Roger Mifflin, whose character underlines the wisdom and knowledge to be gained from literature and makes allusions and references to many famous works.

With a deep respect for the art of bookselling, and as much flair for drama as romance, he crafted another lively, humorous tale for book lovers everywhere. If you are a booklover, both "Parnassus on Wheels" and "The Haunted Bookshop" are a must to read.


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The Riddle of the Sands

 

Even if its author had died peacefully in bed instead of before a firing squad in a dingy barracks, "The Riddle of the Sands" would have been a noteworthy book. To many it was the classical Secret Service novel; to successive generations of amateur yachtsmen it has been the preeminent yarn about inshore sailing in fair weather and foul; while to its author and original readers on the eve of World War I it was above all a cautionary tale, admonishing the British Government and people to look to their North Sea defenses while there was yet time.

More like fact than fiction, it holds a special place in the affections of spy-novel fans for its richness of technical detail about inshore sailing, its highly sympathetic characters, a setting and plot that recapture the European political scene of the time, and an unsurpassed narrative style which is evident from the very beginning:

Want to continue? Click here.

The book was made into a German and an English movie (each with a somewhat different ending!), the English version starring Michael York and Simon MacCorkindale as Carruthers and Davies, who discover nefarious doings by Germans while on a yachting holiday off the Frisian Islands in the North Sea. For much of the time, you might be forgiven for thinking that the film might've been better titled "Two Men in a Boat", but I loved the detail about sailing and all the scenes of the sea and the German coast (it is the Dutch coast that was filmed, I think).

A perfect to book to read, a perfect movie to watch, a perfect radio play to listen to on a cool and grey day by the river! Here are all three:

- the book "The Riddle of the Sands" and "Das Rätsel der Sandbank"
- the radio play in English and in German
- the movie in English and in German (sorry, only trailers)


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Another top story

 

It's probably too much of a stretch to suggest that they waited with the Bougainville Copper Project until the ring-tab beer can had been introduced in 1965, but by the time I had moved into my small construction donga in Camp 6 on beautiful Loloho Beach, the length of stay - not to mention the depth of drinking problem - of a donga inhabitant could be judged by the length of his "door curtain", composed entirely of hundreds of clipped-together beer can ring-tabs.

These "mine-is-longer-than-yours" door curtains were so common that I unfortunately never took a photograph of this "status symbol" in a camp otherwise devoid of any differences, as we all dressed in the same T-shirt and stubbie, all wore the same thongs, all ate in the same mess hall, all crapped and showered in the same ablution block, and drove the same clapped-out and dirt-covered four-wheel-drive company ute.

Perhaps it's no coincidence that the end of the ring-tab beer can came at about the same time as the end of the Bougainville Copper Project?


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Tuesday, February 23, 2021

In the wake of Captain Cook

 

If you were to die later today and your brain was removed from your skull, it would weigh about 1,400 grams - roughly the same as a bag and a half of granulated sugar. Before being preserved for posterity by being marinated in a jar of formalin, about 75 to 80 per cent of your brain would be made up of water (or COKE in your case, Des!), with just over 10 per cent fat and about 8 per cent protein. If, once it was fixed, people came to examine it and poke it about a bit, it would appear rather crinkled and whitish, and have the slightly rubbery consistency of a large mushroom.

What's more, if I were to die at the same time and have my brain treated in the same peremptory fashion, it would be so similar to yours that any difference would almost certainly be undetectable (except for the COKE in yours, Des!) The chances are that no matter how closely our respective brains were viewed, there would be hardly anything obvious to show that what amused passers-by were gazing at were two totally different specimens of the most complicated structure on this planet.

There would be nothing to reveal that of these two rubbery objects, which to some bystanders would seem faintly disgusting, one had absorbed Sam Neill's six fascinating episodes of "The Pacific - In the Wake of Captain Cook", and the other hadn't.

So you have nothing to lose by watching the first four episodes here. I shall add the remaining two as soon as they become available on iview. After all, we want to keep our two brains looking the same, don't we?


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There's so much more to Norman Lindsay

 

So you know "The Magic Pudding" and maybe even have read the book or seen the movie "The Age of Consent", but what about "A Curate In Bohemia" or "The Cautious Amorist"? They are just two of Norman Lindsay's dozen-or-so novels, to say nothing of his vast work of paintings, drawings and etchings.

Right on cue, because he was born yesterday 142 years ago, I watched "Sirens", a 1994 film based on Norman Lindsay's life and set in Australia during the interwar period. You can watch it, too. Just click here!


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Monday, February 22, 2021

The Corporation

 

At a buttock-anesthetising two-and-a-half hours, "The Corporation" is a pretty tough sell — especially when you consider its big message is essentially ‘the world is fucked’. But what it covers is so fundamentally relevant, and its polemic so persuasively structured, it’s worth braving the two-and-a-half-hour runtime.

It's a must-see documentary for anyone concerned about the enormous influence of multinational corporations on just about every facet of our existence. Sweatshops, child labor, environmental destruction, product marketing to children, the limiting of people's access to information, and the privatization of the most fundamental resources -- and even the most basic building blocks of life itself -- are discussed in great detail, as are how brands are marketed to children and the sometimes shocking history of many corporations' relentless pursuit of profit and "the bottom line."

I bought the two-DVD set today at my loal op-shop for just two dollars. You can watch it for free on YouTube!


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P.S. It's also available in book form. For an audio recording, click here.

 

Sunday, February 21, 2021

Kids are like farts: you can tolerate your own but other people's are unbearable

 

People who know me know that I will go to an awful lot of trouble to avoid events such as barbecues, and children's birthday parties in particular. However, those same people who know me will also know that very occasionally I also succumb, if only to make enough of a nuisance of myself to avoid being asked to go again a few months later.

Today was one such rare occasion when I dragged myself along to a friend's daughter's sixth birthday party in the Nelligen Park and even took some photographs so that, if those little brats ever grow up, they can admire themselves in twenty years from now in these pictures:

For the first half-hour or so I just stood by the water's edge, envying all those other people doing sensible things like fishing or paddling their canoes. Then Padma came over. "What are you doing?" "Oh, nothing; just keeping out of the way." "You're not supposed to keep out of the way. The idea of the party is to mix. Talk to people. Relax." Which was a bit like telling Salman Rushdie to relax inside Lakemba mosque. Anyway, I joined in the 'fun', of which Padma took the following video clips:

 

 

Luckily, I met a fellow-German who, even though he totally failed being German by being far too friendly, made me feel just a little bit better:

 

 

Still, by the end of it all, I felt a bit like this little fellow:

 

I'm back at "Riverbend" now, and life is back to normal. Phew!!!


Googlemap Riverbend

 

Saturday, February 20, 2021

The movie Padma didn't want to watch to the end

 

April 8th 2009 began as just another ordinary day for Richard Phillips, the fifty-three-year-old captain of the Maersk Alabama, the US-flagged cargo ship carrying food and agricultural materials for the World Food Program.

Ordinary that is until - some two hundred miles off the Horn of Africa - Somali pirates, armed with AK47s, attacked and boarded the freighter.

 

 

Captain Phillips' astonishing story became a book ...

 

Read the book online at www.archive.org

 

... and a breathtaking film with Padma's favourite actor, Tom Hanks.

 

 

When the shooting started, Padma shouted, "Turn it off! Turn it off!"


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Friday, February 19, 2021

Seitdem ich Rentner bin, da hab' ich keine Zeit

 

Aber noch genug Zeit um von den Braunschweiger Originalen zu lesen. Was sind aber überhaupt "Originale"? Die Harfen-Agnes war ein Original, und so war der Rechen-August, der Deutsche Hermann und der Teeonkel. Und natürlich Teddy Wiener, der "älteste Teenager Deutschlands", wie er sich selber nannte, der musizierend durch die Braunschweiger Lokale zog oder bei seinem Freund Guido Schmidt aufspielte ("Seitdem wir Rentner sind ...")

Es wurde sogar ein Buch über sie geschrieben welches man auf ebay kaufen kann. Allerdings sind die Portokosten nach Australien zu hoch und somit genügen mir die Erzählungen die ich auf der Internet fand:

 

Eine recht umfassende Biografie über die Braunschweiger Originale hat Günter K. P. Starke 1987 geschrieben. "Mensch, sei helle" heißt das Büchlein aus dem Johann-Heinrich-Meyer-Verlag.

 

Nehmen wir zunächst einmal Harfen-Agnes, die es inzwischen ja schon zu besonderen Ehren als Figur in einem eigenen Stück oder in den Eitner/Schanz-Stücken gebracht hat. Tragischer geht es kaum noch in einem Leben zu als es die Agnes Adolphine Agathe Schosnoski (24.1.1866 – 2.9.1939) durchlitten hat. Ihre Kindheit in der Erziehungsanstalt von Bevern wurde durch eine Dienstbotenausbildung abgelöst, die sie vorzeitig abbrach. Durch die Straßen und Kneipen Braunschweigs zog sie dann zunächst noch mit ihrem Vater, nach dessen Tod allein oder auch mit einem Gefährten. Ihre Lieder, teilweise selbst gedichtet, begleitete sie auf ihrer Gitarre, die sie mit bunten Bändern versehen hatte. Ihr Vortrag erfolgte in der Braunschweiger Mundart, das bekannteste Couplet dürfte das vom Schuster geworden sein: "Mensch, sei helle, auch wenn es duster ist (Mensch saa helle, un wenn’s auch duster is)". Während ihrer Touren erlitt sie gelegentlich epileptische Anfälle, was sie dem zusätzlichen Spott der Gassenjungen aussetzte. Meine Großmutter erzählte mir einst die Geschichte, dass ihr jemand einen "Pferdeapfel" ins Gesicht warf, der unglücklicherweise teilweise im aufgerissenen Mund landete und von ihr angeblich so kommentiert wurde: "So, dort bleibt er, bis die Polizei kommt". Naja, das im Dialekt und unter Sprachschwierigkeiten ...

Rechen-August wurde August Tischer genannt (8.8.1882 – 13.6.1928). August bewies seine einseitige Begabung schon im Kindesalter und war in der Lage, komplizierte Rechengänge innerhalb kürzester Zeit im Kopf zu lösen. Auch er war in den Braunschweiger Lokalen unterwegs, wo er sich seinen Lebensunterhalt verdiente. Gegen entsprechende Bezahlung löste er die Aufgaben der Gäste, wobei sein Auftritt fast schon professionell wirkte. Er trug einen schwarzen Gehrock mit weißem Binder, eine weiße Chrysantheme im Knopfloch und einen zerbeulten Zylinder. Während er die Aufgabe löste, tippte er sich mit dem Finger an die Stirn. Oft wurde er von Studenten herausgefordert, die das Ergebnis mittels Rechenschieber und anderer Hilfsmittel kontrollierten.

Tee-Onkel, auch 'Kühner mit dem Pappkarton', war Alfred Kühner (30.3.1872 – 10.6.1945), der Sohn eines Zigarrenfabrikanten und ein gescheiterter Drogist. Er lief als Straßenhändler stets mit einem Karton in der Hand umher und verkaufte daraus Schuhcreme und Seife, oft aber auch irgendwelche getrockneten Kräuter, die angeblich für Teeaufgüsse geeignet waren. 1943 kam er ins Altersheim der Neuerkeröder Anstalten.

Von allen tragischen Figuren scheint aber der "Deutsche Hermann" das schlimmste Schicksal erlebt zu haben, das ihn zu dem machte, was ihn schließlich zum "Original" werden ließ. Julius Skasa (21.4.1852 – 16.2.1927) war Teilnehmer des Krieges 1870/71 und wurde schließlich zum Feldwebel befördert. Seine Entlassung aus dem Militär erfolgte unehrenhaft, man warf ihm den Tod eines Rekruten beim Schwimmunterricht vor. Feldwebel Skasa soll den über Herzschmerzen klagenden Mann ins Wasser geschubst haben, der dabei ertrank. In den folgenden Jahren sah man Skasa, der dieses Erlebnis nie überwinden konnte, als Scherenschleifer durch Braunschweig ziehen. Irgendwann trug er eine Uniformjacke und -mütze, dazu ein Koppel, alles irgendwelche abgelegten und nicht zuzuordnende Teile. Fand er etwas Blinkendes auf der Straße, so heftete er sich das an die Jacke, egal, ob Münze, Kronkorken oder auch Orden. Gab man ihm ein paar Groschen, so grüßte er militärisch und schlug die Hacken zusammen.

Diese vier Menschen werden heute gern als "historische Originale" bezeichnet. Dabei handelte es sich doch bei allen vier um bedauernswerte Mitbürger, denen das Leben nicht sonderlich gut mitgespielt hatte. Mit ihren begrenzten Möglichkeiten schlugen sie sich mehr schlecht als recht durch, und zu lachen war ihnen wohl kaum dabei. Gelacht haben die anderen über sie, aber auch über den Straßenfeger Gustav Karlanke von der Wallstraße und seine Art, ebenfalls in Mundart, die Leute zum Schmunzeln brachte. Der Titel "Cammerfeger" haftete ihm als Ehrentitel an, und wenn er zur Arbeit ging, hatte er seinen Besen wie ein Gewehr geschultert. Oder der Diener Andreas Stanze, über den Günther Starke in seinem Buch Braunschweiger Kinder ebenso humorig berichtet wie über Heinrich Noppe, ein echtes "Schlitzohr" oder Fritz Papendick, "Fritze", der sich stets beim Hoftheater am Hagenmarkt herumtrieb, oder Felix Balekowski, der ebenfalls in Uniformteilen gekleidet stadtbekannt war.

Ein Original war mit Sicherheit auch der Aufseher im Schlosspark Johann Julius Pieper, der aufgrund seines roten Uniformkragens nur "Pieper mit dem roten Kragen" genannt wurde. Er war der Schrecken der Kinder, die im Schlosspark tobten, den sie allein nicht betreten durften. Der Spottvers der Kinder: "Pieper mit dem roten Kragen wollte alle Kinder schlagen ..." Und ein leidenschaftlicher "Kippensammler" war der Parkaufseher. Herzog Wilhelm (gestorben 1884) warf nämlich seine teuren Zigarrenreste immer am Parkeingang weg – und Pieper sammelte sie auf, um sie genüsslich zu Ende zu rauchen.

Warum allerdings heute kaum auch noch Karl Christian Julius Oskar Fischer kennt, ist nicht zu erklären. Der stets nur "Oskar" gerufene Schauspieler am Braunschweiger Hoftheater (30.8.1840 – 7.4.1896) kam 1862 nach Braunschweig und wurde als Komiker mit parodistischem Talent rasch sehr bekannt und beliebt, auch durch seine plattdeutschen Couplets. In seine Texte flocht er auf der Bühne gern ein paar witzige, lokale Anspielungen ein und verärgerte damit auch einmal Herzog Wilhelm. Sein Grab auf dem Hauptfriedhof schmückt eine Porträtbüste von W. Habich. Überliefert von ihm wurden Späße wie beim Betreten des Schreibwaren-geschäftes Störig am Kohlmarkt: "Stör ich? Dann komm ich später wieder." Einem Kritiker mit dem Namen Schade heftete er nach einem Verriss einen Zettel auf den Rücken: "Durch Schaden wird man klug".

Man sollte sie vor dem Vergessen bewahren denn sie gehören zur Historie meiner alten Heimatstadt Braunschweig.


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On this day twelve months ago I wrote ...

Chris Mellen with his charming wife

 

Pete, I met you in the early '80s when I acted as a barley broker between various grain traders and Abdul Ghani. If this message reaches you it would be great to catch up, and I would like to get in touch with Abdul Ghani."

That email in October 2010 - see here - renewed an old acquaintance which morphed into a long friendship which lasted until - well, 'hier'.

Chris Mellen, with a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Affairs from the University of Sussex and and a Master of Science in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science, was a true renaissance man, multi-talented, multi-lingual, multi-marital (four at last count!), and, born a Jew and raised by the Jesuits and converting to Islam in 2000, even multi-religious.

Suave and flamboyant Chris in better days - taken from his LinkedIn profile

We shared many interests - apart from our past commodity trading in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - such as a love for the writings of Julian Barnes - we both subscribed to his sentiment in "The Sense of an Ending" that "... the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss by wearing us down, by proving, however long it takes, that life isn't all it's cracked up to be" - and Hermann Hesse, with Chris sometimes calling himself Goldmund - as he confessed, "No savings left after a timetime of living beyond my means. My life has been rather self-indulgent. I rarely refused myself anything" - and, by inference, me being Narcissus.

More than a year ago, Chris was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer which confined him to months and months of hospitalisation and vicious chemotherapy as well as several bonemarrow transplants - "I'm due for my tenth spinal tap; the treatment costs so far are $750,000" - and a myriad of other 'medical advances', none of which worked.

As he wrote, "I'm struggling with the discomfort, the endless pain, and incipient depression." By 14 October 2019 he'd had enough. "I am home. The cancer has morphed into acute leukemia and is incurable. I hope to see another year but ... I am trying to seize the carp every day. It's challenging. I enjoy your news and admire your energy."

A fortnight later he'd found enough energy himself to get back in the saddle: "Took the old girl out for a spin today. It's my hormone replacement therapy."

But it was not to last and he was back in hospital for more treatment ...

On 31 December 2019 he WhatsApp-ed me, "Thank you for your messages and commentaries - much appreciated. The doctors have run out of ideas and I hope to be able to go home to die in the next few days. Sorry to admit this, but I love you old bastard, and I admire you, fucking fascist that you are ☺. I'm thinking of you, you crusty old dog."

And shortly afterwards, "I'm breaking out. I've had enough. My wife will take me home tonight. Halle-fucking-lujah. I wish we could celebrate the shit and derision of this dystopian disaster together. I feel so close to you, you miserable bastard."

Back in bucolic Bussy-sur-Moudon (population 198 which, until recently, he was still trying to improve on), Chris was a happy man: "I'm home, recovering from the trauma of the last year. I am a happy man. I am a satisfied man ... no regrets ... I have been true to myself and have accepted who I am and the choices I have made. My wife is the love of my life and my kids are very close to me. Good night, my dear friend."

We kept on exchanging thoughts and ideas and I told him about the devastating bushfires which had us almost wiped out as well, to which he replied in typical irreverent Chris Mellen fashion, "I'm praying for you, Christian, Jewish and Muslim ... I am mumbling incomprehensible guttural sounds on my hands and knees with my asshole aimed away from the south-east and towards the glittering heavens, all on your behalf. I have difficulty reading. These are the side effects of the chemo. I am damaged goods after ten cycles of chemo treatment. So my current challenge is to assess what's left and accept my new me and learn to live with both the cancer and the after-effects of the chemo instead of engaging in a head-on war with a disease that we do not understand. My treatment was not the fruit of a scientific analysis but the result of the doctors' hunches. I was unaware of the primitive methodology of this pseudo-science that we call medicine. I am planning to keep going for another decade. I am ready to make big compromises in order to remain active in this new life. It's the constant pain that prevents me from having a good laugh but if that's part of the deal, so be it. I'm far from ready to go."

Suddenly, on 4 February 2020, the decade had shrunk to just a few days, " I've been given a few days to live. I just want you to know how much I have appreciated your friendship. See you on the other side, brother."

What could I say to that, other than to pass it off light-heartedly, "Don't believe everything you're told, Chris. You'll probably still sell a few loads of barley before you go (although not to Abdulghani). 'See you on the other side'. That's what the surgical assistant said to me before they wheeled me into the operating theatre which confused me no end. When I woke up again and she was leaning over me, asking for my date of birth and how many fingers she was holding up, I was quite surprised because I had always been told that St. Peter had a long white beard."

Silence for a week, and then this morning's "Chris est mort hier", presumably from his wife. Je suis tellement, tellement désolé.

They say the only death we experience is other people's, and I've experienced Chris's slow demise for over a year. See you on the other side, you old bastard! We both know we're checking out just in time!

 

 

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.
And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.

                                   --Constantine P. Cavafy

 


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