I'm also still looking for my ticket

 

 

There's this cute little story about Einstein when he took the train from Princeton University. As the conductor boarded the train to check the passengers' tickets. Einstein began to search his jacket pockets for his ticket but couldn't find it.

He then looked in his trouser pockets and in his small carry-on suitcase, without success. Finally, he started looking on the seat next to him ...

Seeing this, the controller said to him: "Dr. Einstein, I know who you are, everyone knows you, and I'm sure you bought a ticket. Don't worry".

Einstein nodded in gratitude. The conductor continued punching the tickets of the other passengers, but as he was about to leave the carriage, he saw Einstein on his knees, searching under his seat for his ticket. Intrigued, the controller turned to him and said: "As I told you, we know who you are. Forget about the ticket; it's not a problem!"

Einstein looked up at him and replied: "Thank you, young man, I too know who I am. But what I don't know is where I'm going! That's why I keep looking for my ticket!"

I'm certainly no Einstein but there are days when I'm also on my knees still looking for my ticket to find out where I'm going - although, with advancing age, the destination seems to become ominously clearer.

 

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The must-have desert island read

 

 

Your ship is sinking, you’re about to be stranded on a desert island, and instead of salvaging something sane like food or materials for shelter, you rescue one book to read on the beach. What would it be?

To me it's what people these days like to call a no-brainer: Tom Neale's AN ISLAND TO ONESELF. It's the story of a life well lived, and even though the book owes a lot to the practised hand of some professional writer (possibly Noel Barber), it is so well executed that it recaptures the childhood thrill of reading "Robinson Crusoe". Here we go:

 

"I was fifty when I went to live alone on Suvarov, after thirty years of roaming the Pacific, and in this story I will try to describe my feelings, try to put into words what was, for me, the most remarkable and worthwhile experience of my whole life. I chose to live in the Pacific islands because life there moves at the sort of pace which you feel God must have had in mind originally when He made the sun to keep us warm and provided the fruits of the earth for the taking; but though I came to know most of the islands, for the life of me I sometimes wonder what it was in my blood that had brought me to live among them."

 

I found this book many years ago in an old second-hand shop that has since disappeared. For the sum of a couple of dollars I held in my hands one man's South Pacific island dream, lived out in just under two hundred pages and perhaps a dozen black-and-white photographs.

The eccentric author was a humble 51-year-old New Zealander, Tom Neale, former navyman, storeman, and world-famous hermit. He has never written anything else except for this singular work of a lifetime.

I always keep my copy of the book nearby, and every once in a while when I need some solitude I open it up and go back with Tom to his shack perched on Anchorage Island. And so can you by clicking here.

To read the full book, SIGN UP - it's free! - then LOG IN and BORROW.
Why not also make a donation to keep this amazing online library alive?

 

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My family tree is more like a bonsai

 

My parents in Berlin in 1948

 

I blame two wars - the World War from 1939 to 1945, and the domestic family war which led to my parents' divorce in 1952 - for not having much of a family tree; in fact, the only "branch" there ever was and which I climbed were my grandfather's knees shortly before he died in the early 50s.

 

Moi in der Augustastraße in Berlin in 1948

 

I was a less-than-welcome "Peter-come-lately", born at the end of the war - after my "big brother" (1932), and three sisters (1934, 1940, and 1942) - in what was then the Russian-occupied "Ostzone" which in 1949 became the "German Democratic Republic". We had already escaped the "Workers' Paradise" the year before, during the Berlin Blockade, and joined the long queue of destitute refugees in West Germany waiting for anything, including housing. Back in the East, my father had been a "Volkswirt" (economist) with his own large entry in the telephone book; in the West we didn't even have a house, let alone a telephone.

 

 

For the first two years we lived "on the edge" in an unheated metal shack without toilet, kitchen, electricity, or running water, literally on the edge of town, that town being Braunschweig in the more benignly British-occupied Lower Saxony from where I eventually emigrated.

That was still fifteen years away. In the meantime, it was an ongoing battle for adequate housing, enough food, and warm clothing. Nothing like today's claimed "poverty" sitting in front of a flatscreen television; that was real hunger and cold nights and shoes with cardboard soles.

 

My first day at school in 1952

 

If this photo is anything to go by, things must've got a bit better by the time I entered school in 1952. Not that schooling ever interfered with my education: all I ever did were the compulsorary eight years of "Volksschule" (primary school), after which even the few Deutschmarks I earnt as an articled clerk helped to keep our bodies and souls together.

 

"Mein erster Schulgang" - My first day at school / Wouldn't it be fascinating to
know what happened to those forty-one eager faces in the past seventy-three years?

 

Ask me about geometree, symmetree, and treegonometree, but not about my family tree which is more like a bonsai which is like Chinese foot-binding except it's applied to a tree. Like foot-binding, my family tree kept me hobbling along for nineteen years until I hit my stride in my adopted new home Australia.

 

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The sun had barely risen ...

 

 

The sun had barely risen when I took this photo during this morning's walk past the turn-off to the Old Nelligen Road. There can't be more than a handful of properties along this road or hidden away in the forest, and three are for sale.

It's all very well to turn one's back on the world and live a life of self-imposed self-sufficiency, but when the money runs out or the wife or whatever else one runs out or low on, it's time to rejoin the 'real world'.

I suspect that the start of another ominous bushfire season may have something to do with it. After the disastrous bushfire on New Year's Eve six years ago, we drove up that road to see if an old friend who lived there was all right. We were stopped by burning trees that had fallen across the road. We couldn't get in and, of course, they couldn't get out.

The fuel load in the surrounding forest has only increased since then, and the smallest spark could see a repeat of that horrific event when we all thought the world had come to an end. Our walk hadn't yet, and we walked across the bridge and past the River Café which was already full of perfectly sane people who paid $5 for a drink they can make at home for a few cents - and don't even get me started on bottled water!

 

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Wenn wir den Krieg gewonnen hätten

 

 

Die andere Möglichkeit Erich Kästner   Wenn wir den Krieg gewonnen hätten, mit Wogenprall und Sturmgebraus, dann wäre Deutschland nicht zu retten und gliche einem Irrenhaus. Man würde uns nach Noten zähmen wie einen wilden Völkerstamm. Wir sprängen, wenn Sergeanten kämen, vom Trottoir und stünden stramm. Wenn wir den Krieg gewonnen hätten, dann wären wir ein stolzer Staat. Und pressten noch in unsern Betten die Hände an die Hosennaht. Die Frauen müssten Kinder werfen, Ein Kind im Jahre. Oder Haft. Der Staat braucht Kinder als Konserven. Und Blut schmeckt ihm wie Himbeersaft. Wenn wir den Krieg gewonnen hätten, dann wär der Himmel national. Die Pfarrer trügen Epauletten Und Gott wär deutscher General. Die Grenze wär ein Schützengraben. Der Mond wär ein Gefreitenknopf. Wir würden einen Kaiser haben und einen Helm statt einem Kopf. Wenn wir den Krieg gewonnen hätten, dann wäre jedermann Soldat. Ein Volk der Laffen und Lafetten! Und ringsherum wär Stacheldraht! Dann würde auf Befehl geboren. Weil Menschen ziemlich billig sind. Und weil man mit Kanonenrohren allein die Kriege nicht gewinnt. Dann läge die Vernunft in Ketten. Und stünde stündlich vor Gericht. Und Kriege gäb's wie Operetten. Wenn wir den Krieg gewonnen hätten - zum Glück gewannen wir ihn nicht!

 

I used to be a comic book character once

 

 

Charles Atlas's advertisement used to haunt me when I was still in Germany and still in my teens. I was the one who said, "The big bully! I'll get even some day" - in German, of course! - but I never became the 'Hero of the Beach' as I stayed skinny and self-conscious of it for most of my life.

Without Mr Atlas's workouts, that 97-lb. (44 kg) weakling from sixty-fifty years ago now weighs 72 kg and is still skinny but not self-conscious any longer. Every time I go to our beautiful warm-water pool to join those other geriatrics, I'm delighted to be still as skinny as a rake because the other alternative would be the grotesque weight and shape they are in.

Today's unselfconscious visit to the warm-water pool was followed by a roast-beef lunch at the Moruya Bowling Club and my usual support of the local charities by 'rehoming' an armful of their second-hand books.

I am always amazed what turns up. Today it was two in-mint-condition books by Douglas Murray, both of which I already have but still bought as they make a great gift for someone else who may also be interested and concerned about the fate of Europe. Then there was a well-read copy of "The White Divers of Broome", "A Shorter History of Australia" by the famous Geoffrey Blainey, Tim Flannery's "Here on Earth", and Robert Ardrey's "The Territorial Imperative - A personal inquiry into the Animal Origins of Property and Nations". All I need now is time to read them!

 

Click here and feel young again

 

Stacked away in a dusty corner were boxes full of old vinyls, including one by the "Two Beards and a Blonde", Peter, Paul and Mary. I spent my first pay cheque on this album and practically 'grew up' with them and the Seekers after I had come to Australia in 1965. I will never forget "Lemon Tree", "If I had a hammer", "500 miles", and "Where have all the flowers gone". Where indeed have they gone, and where have the days gone when even folk singers wore collar and tie? Some of today's diners at the Moruya Bowling Club wore baseball caps and rubber thongs.

 

 

One of those diners, wearing the same baseball cap as shown in the photo above but, thankfully, no thongs but shoes and socks, was Giovanni Carrus - and what a small world it turned out to be! He was born in Italy but moved to Berlin in the early 1960s where he married his German wife Ute and where his two children, Manuela and Claudio, were born in 1965 and 1967. All of them migrated to Australia in 1969.

 

 

At age 87, he's still fighting fit and living south of us just an hour's drive away in Tilba where we plan to visit him soon to look at his paintings.

You can already do it here and here.

 

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The power of words, imagination and Charles Dickens

 

 

You cannot pretend to read a good book. Your eyes give you away. So will your breathing. A person entranced by a book simply forgets to breathe. The house can catch alight and a reader deep in a book will not look up until the wallpaper is in flames." [From "Mr Pip", page 155]

 

 

With his rumpled tropical suit and wide-eyed look of perpetual concern, Hugh Laurie's Mr Pip – the only white man on the island – could be a character out of a Joseph Conrad novel. But it's 1991 and he has been caught in the midst of a civil war in Bougainville, where he's trying to lighten the spirits of the village children with readings from Dickens' "Great Expectations".

This unlikely but beguiling idea was dreamed up by New Zealand novelist Lloyd Jones after he covered the conflict between Papua New Guinea and Bougainville over the closure of Rio Tinto's copper mine in the 1990s. And it gave him a prize-winning novel, which has done more to expose the sufferings that the war inflicted on Bougainville's people than all the reporting done at the time.

It's not often you get a book - and a movie - that sings literature's praises so eloquently. Set it against the background of the conflict in Bougainville where my own career really took off and shaped everything else I did later in life, and you finish up with a brilliantly nuanced examination of the power of words, imagination and Charles Dickens.

 

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The internet is for people who can't sleep

 

Back Row (left-to-right) Volker Kluge / Wolfgang Ihlemann / Joachim Schumacher / Helmut Ullrich / Ulrich Schäfer / Andreas Morgenroth / Helmut Bolle / Volker Wisse / Hendrik Heinemann / Jürgen Kreul Middle Row (left-to-right) Klaus Kratzenstein / Herbert Becker / Dagmar Kroll / Jutta Veste / Heidi Werner / Christa Funke / Wenzel Tappe / moi / Joachim Stut Front Row (left-to-right) Gudrun Otto / Heidi Nabert / Petra Küster / Sigrid Röseling / Herr Sapper, teacher / Barbara Ziegert / Margret Brandenburg / Ingrid Behrens / Waltraud Häupler / Karin Käsehage
(No prize guessing where I am in the photo!!!)

 

I was still wide awake when this email came in late one night: "Ich hoffe Du bist etwas überrascht eine E-Mail zu bekommen, aber wir sind in die selbe Klasse in der Heinrichschule gegangen, auf dem Klassenfoto bin ich unter dem Namen DAGMAR KROLL. Würde mich freuen etwas von Dir zu hören! "

Let me translate before you rush out and enrol in a Berlitz German Language Course: "I hope you're surprised to receive this email because we attended the same class at primary school. My name is Dagmar Kroll and I'm the third from the left in the middle row in this photo taken on the last day at school. Would love to hear from you!"

What a surprise indeed! Dagmar found the photos another schoolfriend had sent to me previously and which I had put up on my German blog - here and here - and she's busy scanning some more to send to me. This seems to be a case of "good things come to those who wait" - for over fifty years! - because we were refugees from East Germany and had little money, and none at all for such frivolities as school photos.

Of course, she also asked the obvious question, "Why did you leave Germany?" Well, no one ever emigrates because of the success they've enjoyed at home. No one ever says, "Well, I have a happy home life, I'm rich and I have many friends - so I'm off." The only reason anyone has for going to live in another country is because they've cocked everything up in their own.

Being just nineteen years old, my opportunities for cocking things up had been rather limited by the time I left; in fact, my only - and certainly biggest - cock-up until then had been that I allowed myself to be born to parents who were so dirt-poor that they packed me off to work as soon as I had reached the minimum school-leaving age of 14.

Being the youngest solo-migrant on board the migrant ship FLAVIA, a television crew had asked me the same question before it left Bremer-haven. I had no answer in front of the whirring newsreel camera and still have no answer today. I mean, how do I explain the sense of dissatisfaction and frustration that affected me at the time?

We can't choose our parents and are born into the prison of our race, religion and nationality. I had no problem with my race which, being blond and blue-eyed, helped me to slip into Australia under its "White Australia" policy, but I'd already renounced my Lutheran upbringing and joined the German Freethinkers, and many years later also changed my nationality by becoming an Australian. Two out of three isn't bad, is it?

True to her word, Dagmar sent me three photos of a class reunion in 1983 which, come to think of it, I could've attended as I was at the time working in Jeddah and Athens. Another missed opportunity? Perhaps not, as my life had moved in a completely different direction from those stay-at-homes with whom I had little in common during my school days and would have had even less in common twenty-three years later.

 

Class Reunion 1983 - for names see last photo

Class reunion 1983 Get-together at Teacher's house after the reunion
from left to right: Joachim Stut - Dagmar Kroll - Franz Sapper (retired teacher) -
Barbara Zieger - Gudrun Otto - Volker Kluge

Class Reunion 1983
from left to right; back row: Volker Kluge - Herbert Becker - Wolfgang Ihlemann - Wenzel Tappe - Helmut Ullrich - Ulrich Schäfer; middle row: Heidi Werner - Ingrid Behrens - Jutta Veste - Dagmar Kroll - Christa Funke; front row: Gudrun Otto - Petra Küster - Sigrid Röseling - Franz Sapper (retired teacher) - Barbara Zieger - Waltraud Häuptler

 

However, I would've liked to have met "Herr Sapper" again before he passed away sometime in 1987. He was a great teacher who helped me overcome my lack of a tertiary education by giving me this personal letter which helped me into my first job after completing my articles.

My favourite author, Somerset W. Maugham, wrote a story entitled "The Verger" about a man without formal education who ended up more successful than he might've been with the right kind of schooling.

I count my blessings every time I watch the movie as I count my blessings to have had such a wonderful teacher, a real "Mr. Chips".
Rest in Peace, "Herr Sapper"!

 

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Wir sitzen alle im gleichen Zug

 

 

Wir sitzen alle im gleichen Zug und reisen quer durch die Zeit. Wir sehen hinaus. Wir sahen genug. Wir fahren alle im gleichen Zug. Und keiner weiß, wie weit. Ein Nachbar schläft, ein andrer klagt, ein dritter redet viel. Stationen werden angesagt. Der Zug, der durch die Jahre jagt, kommt niemals an sein Ziel. Wir packen aus, wir packen ein. Wir finden keinen Sinn. Wo werden wir wohl morgen sein? Der Schaffner schaut zur Tür herein und lächelt vor sich hin. Auch er weiß nicht, wohin er will. Er schweigt und geht hinaus. Da heult die Zugsirene schrill! Der Zug fährt langsam und hält still. Die Toten steigen aus. Ein Kind steigt aus, die Mutter schreit. Die Toten stehen stumm am Bahnsteig der Vergangenheit. Der Zug fährt weiter, er jagt durch die Zeit, und keiner weiß, warum. Die erste Klasse ist fast leer. Ein feister Herr sitzt stolz im roten Plüsch und atmet schwer. Er ist allein und spürt das sehr. Die Mehrheit sitzt auf Holz. Wir reisen alle im gleichen Zug zur Gegenwart in spe. Wir sehen hinaus. Wir sahen genug. Wir sitzen alle im gleichen Zug und viele im falschen Coupé.

 

Mein alter Rechenschieber

 

 

Call me old-fashioned but whenever I hear the word 'algorithms', I think of my old "Rechenschieber" with which I left Germany in 1965. It is still sitting on my desk, sheathed in its red-and-white plastic covering. Admittedly, I use it more often as a ruler these days, but there was a time when I was very adept with it and it was a powerful tool in my hands.

I thought of it when an email landed in my inbox from readings.com.au, listing a stack of non-fiction books which their internet algorithms must have told them would make me pull out my VISA card. Here they are:

 

Click on each image for a full review

 

Christmas comes just once a year, but when it comes, it better bring me some good books. The four books mentioned above may be a good start.

 

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Senate Blocks Burqa Ban, Then Enforces One!

 

AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM

 

 

Pauline Hanson tried to table a bill to ban the wearing of a face-covering garment in public, namely the burqa. The Senate said no. So she walked in wearing one. Then the same crowd that blocked a vote to ban burqas suddenly demanded a ban on a senator wearing one. You couldn’t script it better.

Greens leader Larissa Waters called it "racist". Independent Fatima Payman branded it "disgraceful" and, bizarrely, in a probably totally unintended "The Castle" moment, even called it “unconstitutional.” While countries across Europe have long grappled with the same issue, with some implementing face-covering bans garnering bipartisan support, the mere mention of it in Australia triggers hysterical censorship, shutdowns, and lectures. Where were the voices of reason from the other side of the Senate? This incident will only amplify Hanson’s visibility and reignite One Nation’s base at a time when trust in our major parties is eroding. I have been a rusted-on Liberal voter ever since I was allowed to vote but maybe for not much longer.

Hanson first walked in without a burqa, sought leave to bring on her proposed ban, was refused, then returned wearing the garment to force the issue into debate. The hypocrisy of the other senators in silencing her before she could even introduce her bill was breathtaking, given how they can delay far more important decisions on economic, housing, and security issues all year, yet organise her censure motion in hours.

If banks, post offices, and courts can insist on visible faces, why can’t the Senate debate similar standards in other public places? Why were previous stunts by Senator Lidia Thorpe not met with the same urgency, especially her past threats to burn Parliament House? If Pauline Hanson is punished for wearing an Islamic face covering in protest, why is Senator Fatima Payman allowed to sit wearing a hijab or headscarf?

Anyway, I don't see what the problem was. Pauline was identifying as a Muslim for the day. Identifying as anything you like is the new normal. I think I identify as an alcoholic for today and get myself another beer.

 

 

To read of another view on this, click here. Better still, subscribe to Confidential Daily here. It's a much needed voice in the wilderness!

And for possibly the best-reasoned argument AGAINST the burqa in Western Society is an article by the SPECTATOR AUSTRALIA - click here.

 

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Some facts: The burqa isn't a religious requirement, it's a cultural choice. Nowhere in the Qur'an is the word 'burqa' or a requirement for women to cover their face. The closest you'll find is that men and women dress modestly. That's open to interpretation. The burqa is the full-body covering, head to toe. That means the eyes, too, with a mesh for seeing. The niqab is a cloth facial covering, with only the eyes visible (which is often misunderstood as the burqa). The hijab is a modest veil that covers (around) the head and chest. It doesn't cover the face. The proposed burqa ban is about the niqab and burqa, neither of which are required by the Islamic faith.

These days CCTV is a vital part of security and identifying suspects of criminal activity. If it's not permissible to wear a balaclava, helmet or other facial coverings into a bank or government building, then this must also include a burqa or niqab. One rule for all.

 

Im Grund sind wir noch immer die alten Affen

 

 

Die Entwicklung der Menschheit Erich Kästner   Einst haben die Kerls auf den Bäumen gehockt, behaart und mit böser Visage. Dann hat man sie aus dem Urwald gelockt und die Welt asphaltiert und aufgestockt, bis zur dreißigsten Etage. Da saßen sie nun, den Flöhen entflohn, in zentralgeheizten Räumen. Da sitzen sie nun am Telefon. Und es herrscht noch genau derselbe Ton wie seinerzeit auf den Bäumen. Sie hören weit. Sie sehen fern. Sie sind mit dem Weltall in Fühlung. Sie putzen die Zähne. Sie atmen modern. Die Erde ist ein gebildeter Stern mit sehr viel Wasserspülung. Sie schießen die Briefschaften durch ein Rohr. Sie jagen und züchten Mikroben. Sie versehn die Natur mit allem Komfort. Sie fliegen steil in den Himmel empor und bleiben zwei Wochen oben. Was ihre Verdauung übrigläßt, das verarbeiten sie zu Watte. Sie spalten Atome. Sie heilen Inzest. Und sie stellen durch Stiluntersuchungen fest, daß Cäsar Plattfüße hatte. So haben sie mit dem Kopf und dem Mund Den Fortschritt der Menschheit geschaffen. Doch davon mal abgesehen und bei Lichte betrachtet sind sie im Grund noch immer die alten Affen.

 

 

A wise doctor once wrote ...

 

 

With my need for an annual medical to keep my driver's licence, I have come to depend on my local GP more than ever. Unfortunately, I seem to have strained our relationship since he gave me his last handwritten instructions which he told me to give to his nurse for further action.

"I'm impresssed you can write Arabic!" I commented, forgetting for a moment that we had both come from the same country, but he more recently so that he hadn't had time yet to acquire a sense of humour.

To make amends I bought him the above Christmas present which copies as best as I can recall those fateful handwritten instructions. If you see me doing a lot of walking in the new year, you will know that I have failed in making amends as well as passing my driver's licence medical.

 

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Armchair-travelling on a windy day

 

Marina Zeas in Piraeus in Greece

 

November is a windy month. The others are January, October, March, December, February, June, September, April, July, May, and August.

It's a good time to stay indoors with one hand firmly clasped around a hot cup of tea while the other does some armchair travelling on the computer keyboard with the help of GOOGLE Maps. I GOOGLEd for Boudouri # 2 where I used to live in Piraeus and found this:

 

Click on image to go to GOOGLE Maps

 

My apartment was at the end of the street in the building with views of Marina Zeas which at street level is obscured by trees.

 

The view from my balcony of Marina Zea

 

The photo below, 'stolen' from the Greek real estate site www.rems-hellas, advertises the old brownstone building, which is directly opposite the apartment I used to live in, up for sale and redevelopment. My favourite taverna, where I used to dine almost every night and where I had my permanent table and chair, was on the corner where the BERLONI-sign is displayed now. Whatever BERLONI is, it's no longer my old taverna!

 

 

And while I was at it, I also GOOGLEd for my old office building at # 3 Agiou NiKolaou in Piraeus:

 

Click on image to go to GOOGLE Maps

 

My office was on the top floor (not visible) in the brownish building towards the centre of the picture from where I had a 180-degree view of the harbour of Piraeus with its many tavernas in which I spent many hours, especially on a rainy day. The opening scene in the movie ZORBA THE GREEK takes me right back there - click here.

 

In my office in Piraeus

 

It looks so good now. Perhaps I should have stayed longer but hindsight comes too late ("Too late!" - an apt title for my autobiography? ☺)

All this and more comes back to me as I dip into George Johnston's "Clean Straw for Nothing". George, with Charmian Clift and their four children, for a time lived in Greece. As he came in to land at Sydney, he looked upon a country quite foreign to him, and wrote, "You are an alien here too, he told himself. You are an alien everywhere, because alienation is something you carry inside yourself, and all you can do is fashion little enclaves and try to live inside them. You are an alien because there is no one you will ever really know, not even yourself ..."

Words I might've written! Anyway, that's the difference between youth and age: when you're young, you invent a different future for yourself; when you're old, you invent a different past.

 

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