At home at RIVERBEND on the beautiful Clyde

Facebook goes public

2012-02-02T09:44:00.009+11:00

Facebook is going public to raise 5 BILLION dollars! This is important. Facebook has 800 million users (who pay nothing). The fact that the company is ready to sell shares to the public and Wall Street is underwriting the initial public offering can only mean one thing: the age of superficial communication devoid of real content and real meaning may be peaking.

The upside of going public for Mark Zuckerberg is that his equity in a private enterprise is now liquid and usually trades at a much higher value. That's the good news. The downside is increased transparency. Shareholders want to know how he makes his money and how he spends it. The public can see where he generates his revenue and how (or if) his business model works.

This is problematic for Facebook. The company probably makes some hefty coin selling space to advertisers. But Facebook's most valuable asset is harder to value. Its most valuable asset is the data it's accumulated on you ... what you look at ... what you buy ... where you live ... who your friends are.

The image above shows this tension between how Facebook is perceived and what is really going on under the hood. Facebook is valuable as long as users pour their time and information into it. The data you generate as a user is what's making Zuckerberg rich (and good on him).

Someone is making a lot of money - someone, but not the people whitewashing the Internet's fences! The world is full of Tom Sawyers!

The power of words

2012-02-02T09:36:00.001+11:00

Ahlan wa Salan to an old friend

2012-01-31T08:29:00.010+11:00

Thamer, I no longer need this t-shirt; would you like it? ☺

Some emails received from my late Saudi boss's nephew, Thamer Mofarrij, have dredged up a lot of old memories.

Such as the three most useful words in Saudi Arabia: Inshallah, Bukkhra, Malesh, meaning that something will be done if God is willing; with luck by tomorrow; if it is not done, then never mind. They were also the favourites among the expatriate community!

Rudimentary Arabic phrases such as Ahlan wa Salan, hello, welcome; Sabah El Kheir, good morning; Tisbah ala kheir, good night; Ma –salamah, good bye; and Kamsah dargigah, five minutes.

And who could forget the muttawa, the religious police? They had luxuriant beards and could be seen in brown gowns wielding a stick admonishing citizens to heed the call to prayers. There were five prayer calls a day; the first at sunrise (shurooq), then midday (zhuhr), in the afternoon at about 15:00 (Asr), around 18:00 at sunset (maghrib) and evening (eshaa). The shops were closed during prayer times and customers had to wait outside for ten to fifteen minutes before resuming their shopping. I got so used to the prayer calls that I kept listening out for them long after I had left Saudi Arabia.

But what occupied most expatriates' minds was sidiki (friend), an illegal bootleg spirit distilled from grape juice. All the ingredients and equipment for brewing wine, except brewing yeast, were available in the local supermarkets. The recipe was quite straightforward: into a 25-litre jerry can was poured twelve litres (bottles) of red or white grape juice. To this were added one to two kilograms of sugar and a spoonful of brewer’s yeast. The mixture was then topped up with water to twenty litres.

A hydrometer was used to measure the specific gravity of the brew to determine when it was ready for drinking. In the absence of a hydrometer, a rather ingenious method was to cover the top of the jerry can with a condom that had a small pin hole at its tip. When fermentation was taking place, the condom would fill with carbon dioxide that would leak out very slowly. Thus the condom would be erect. As soon as fermentation stopped, the condom would wilt like a spent penis. One then waited a couple of weeks before sampling the wine.

All this is now a very long time ago! Just look at Peter O'Toole of "Lawrence of Arabia" fame, then and now. Still, they are the memories which are now the sum total of my life. I drink to that!

My favourite Frenchman

2012-01-31T07:53:00.008+11:00

How to get on well with people, how to deal with violence, how to adjust to losing someone you love - such questions arise in most people's lives. They are all versions of a bigger question: how do you live? How do you do the good or honourable thing, while flourishing and feeling happy?

This question obsessed Renaissance writers, none more than Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-92), perhaps the first truly modern individual. A nobleman, public official and wine-grower, he wrote free-roaming explorations of his thought and experience, unlike anything written before.

He called them 'essays', meaning 'attempts' or 'tries'. Into them, he put whatever was in his head: his tastes in wine and food, his childhood memories, the way his dog's ears twitched when it was dreaming, as well as the appalling events of the religious civil wars raging around him. The Essays was an instant bestseller, and over four hundred years later, Montaigne's honesty and charm still draw people to him. Readers come to him in search of companionship, wisdom and entertainment - and in search of themselves.

This book by Sarah Bakewell, How to Live : A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer , a spirited and singular biography (and the first full life of Montaigne in English for nearly fifty years), relates the story of his life by way of the questions he posed and the answers he explored. It traces his bizarre upbringing (made to speak only Latin), youthful career and sexual adventures, his travels, and his friendships with the scholar and poet Etienne de La Boetie and with his adopted 'daughter', Marie de Gournay. And as we read, we also meet his readers - who for centuries have found in Montaigne an inexhaustible source of answers to the haunting question, 'how to live?'.

You can read Montaigne's Essays online.

And some of his quotes are worth repeating:

I have often seen people uncivil by too much civility, and tiresome in their courtesy.

Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head.

It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.

Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.

My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.

Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.

A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.

A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.

Rainy day at "Riverbend"

2012-01-30T08:50:00.003+11:00

A good excuse to take a nap with little Rover while waiting for the sun to come out again.

...

After the rain came the strong winds. Time to do some reading:

Were you born in a tent embassy?

2012-01-29T16:40:00.001+11:00

Finally, an actual hearing on eligibility

2012-01-28T09:23:00.005+11:00

For four long years, compelling evidence has been available that challenges the constitutional eligibility of Barack Obama to occupy the White House.

But it was not until Thursday that the evidence – any of it – was heard in a single courtroom in America.

Not until very recently has any of it been examined by any official public proceeding or reviewed by any agency of government.

They say the wheels of justice grind slowly, but this is ridiculous.

The good news for the rule of law is what happened in a Georgia courtroom this week and what is happening in the office of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department in Arizona. Justice may yet prevail.

In the courtroom of Judge Michael Malihi of the Georgia Office of State Administrative Hearings, sworn testimony was delivered rapid-fire over two hours to the effect that Obama is not qualified to have his name on the 2012 presidential ballot because his father was not a U.S. citizen, which precludes him from being a "natural-born citizen," a clear, unambiguous requirement of the Constitution.

Obama refused to honour a subpoena to attend the hearing, produce records answering the charges or even send legal representation to dispute the evidence. Instead, they sent a letter to Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp suggesting the judge was letting attorneys "run amok."

In response, Kemp warned Obama and his counsel that if they chose not to participate in the proceedings, "you do so at your own peril."

The judge is expected to rule in the case shortly. However, he has little choice but to issue a default judgment in favour of the challenge – potentially removing Obama from the ballot in Georgia in November.

That would be an astonishing development to the major media in the USA that have collectively scoffed at and caricatured the notion that there is any doubt as to Obama's eligibility.

Things are about to get very interesting.

STOP PRESS: Here's an update on the court proceedings.

Does debt matter?

2012-01-28T08:43:00.006+11:00

Angela Merkel and the rest of Europe's embattled 'leaders' would do well to read Lord Skidelsky's article "Does Debt Matter?":

"Fear of debt is rooted in human nature; so the extinction of it as a policy aim seems right to the average citizen. Everyone knows what financial debt means: money owed, often borrowed. To be in debt can produce anxiety if one is uncertain whether, when the time comes, one will be able to repay what one owes.

This anxiety is readily transferred to national debt – the debt owed by a government to its creditors. How, people ask, will governments repay all of the hundreds of billions of dollars that they owe? As British Prime Minister David Cameron put it: “Government debt is the same as credit-card debt; it’s got to be paid back.”

This, the official doctrine of most developed countries today, contains at least five major fallacies, which pass largely unnoticed, because the narrative is so plausible.

First, governments, unlike private individuals, do not have to “repay” their debts. A government of a country with its own central bank and its own currency can simply continue to borrow by printing the money which is lent to it. This is not true of countries in the eurozone. But their governments do not have to repay their debts, either. If their (foreign) creditors put too much pressure on them, they simply default. Default is bad. But life after default goes on much as before.

Second, deliberately cutting the deficit is not the best way for a government to balance its books. Deficit reduction in a depressed economy is the road not to recovery, but to contraction, because it means cutting the national income on which the government’s revenues depend. This will make it harder, not easier, for it to cut the deficit. The British government already must borrow £112 billion ($172 billion) more than it had planned when it announced its deficit-reduction plan in June 2010.

Third, the national debt is not a net burden on future generations. Even if it gives rise to future tax liabilities (and some of it will), these will be transfers from taxpayers to bond holders. This may have disagreeable distributional consequences. But trying to reduce it now will be a net burden on future generations: income will be lowered immediately, profits will fall, pension funds will be diminished, investment projects will be canceled or postponed, and houses, hospitals, and schools will not be built. Future generations will be worse off, having been deprived of assets that they might otherwise have had.

Fourth, there is no connection between the size of national debt and the price that a government must pay to finance it. The interest rates that Japan, the United States, the UK, and Germany pay on their national debt are equally low, despite vast differences in their debt levels and fiscal policies.

Finally, low borrowing costs for governments do not automatically reduce the cost of capital for the private sector. After all, corporate borrowers do not borrow at the “risk-free” yield of, say, US Treasury bonds, and evidence shows that monetary expansion can push down the interest rate on government debt, but have hardly any effect on new bank lending to firms or households. In fact, the causality is the reverse: the reason why government interest rates in the UK and elsewhere are so low is that interest rates for private-sector loans are so high.

As with “the specter of Communism” that haunted Europe in Karl Marx’s famous manifesto, so today “[a]ll the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise” the specter of national debt. But statesmen who aim to liquidate the debt should recall another famous specter – the specter of revolution."

To which I may add the preoccupation with the fallacious ratio of national debt to GDP: why express the national debt as a percentage of one year's national output (GDP) and go all gaga when it reaches 100% or - Heaven forbid! - 120% or 130%? Why not express the national debt as a percentage of two years' national output, or three years', or, for all it matters, six months'? When private individuals buy a house, they borrow the equivalent of several years' earnings and don't get sweaty palms over having a debt ratio of 600%, 700%, perhaps even a 1000% so why should governments who in fact print their own money and also determine their own income level through taxation?

Poor fella, my country

2012-01-27T09:19:00.012+11:00

This space is reserved

for the Australian flag which,

to avoid Ethnic Provocation,

cannot be shown.

Poor Fella, My Country indeed!

On Australia Day I received this email from one of my 'city cousins':

"Hope that you spent a pleasant Australia Day. Unfortunately no matter where you go now, well certainly in Sydney, there is the yobbo and ethnic factor to consider and no matter how it is glossed over, the latter is a very big problem. I do not know what it is like down in your peaceful area, but up here most Councils either actively discourage, or ban entirely, the flying of the Australian flag. Other flags are presumably sanctioned. One of my clients was stopped by Police as he was about to enter Lakemba on business, and told in no uncertain manner that if he did not remove the Australian flags that he had on his car, he would be charged with Ethnic Provocation. This is a business person but apparently Lakemba, like many other suburbs, are now a virtual no-go area. Great stuff! I think that we have lost this country and like Britain, it will not be long before we see Sharia Law proclaimed in these areas, as already very strong representation has been made for its intoduction. If the politicians think that there is votes in it, the result is foregone."

Is this the country I emigrated to in 1965? Is there anybody left with any common sense?

Cory Bernardi, Senator for South Australia, seems to be a lonely voice in the politically-correct wilderness when he writes on his website that it is "Time to stop the people smugglers" as follows:

"...recent media reports have shed a great deal of light on the plight of the Afghan economic refugee.

In many cases, their plan starts in Kabul with the purchase of a range of fake documents to enable them to ‘have a good story’. These documents include warning letters and death threats from the Taliban, which are promised as keys to a new life in the west.

For the princely sum (even by Australian standards) of $11,500, a one way trip to Australia is then arranged. This begins with a flight to Malaysia, a quick trip across Indonesia's porous borders and ultimately, a leaky boat to Australia.

Incredibly, somewhere along this route any legitimate travel and identification documents are lost, leaving little chance of confirming the identity or history of some of the new arrivals.

The advice to the would-be new Australian colonisers is to “have a good story”.

Of the Australian authorities, the experienced hands strategically advise “they will know you are lying, but as long as you say the same thing whatever they ask you, you will be fine.”

The entire process is disheartening to anyone that believes our welcoming nation and accepting nature are being taken advantage of. It is also an insult to the hard-working men and women who ultimately bear the cost of supporting these wealthy Afghans.

Surveys show that 85 per cent of accepted refugees live on Centrelink benefits for the first five years. They often receive priority services, some of which are not readily available to Australian citizens who are currently doing it tough.

Something has to be done to stop this obscene rort that one can only surmise is endorsed by some of our elected political representatives. Their refusal to re-enact legislation that has previously stopped the boats, stopped the deaths and stopped the abuse of our humanitarian program is an indictment on all of those involved.

Of course, we should maintain our very generous humanitarian refugee intake but in the enduring words of former Prime Minister John Howard, “we will determine who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come”.

To do anything less is to sell out Australia’s national interest."

You can subscribe to Cory Bernardi's updates or email him here.

George Orwell was right

2012-01-27T07:16:00.003+11:00

"The very word 'war', therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. ... War is Peace." (Nineteen Eighty-Four)

08/15

2012-01-26T11:24:00.005+11:00

Thanks to ebay, I have just discovered (and bid for) the 1954 black-and-white film of a favourite book of mine: 08/15.

08/15 was a WWI machine gun that was very unpredictable. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it did not. 08/15 became a German slang expression similar to F.U.B.A.R. or S.N.A.F.U. These films are a scathing black comedy based on the popular books by Hans Hellmut Kirst. Follow the hero Asch from basic training through Stalingrad to the end of the war.

Die Verfilmung des Erfolgromans von Hans Hellmut Kirst erzählt die Geschichte des Gefreiten Asch während der Zeit des Zweiten Weltkriegs.

Kasernendrill 1939: Gefreiter Asch und Kanonier Vierbein gehören der gleichen Korporalschaft an. In ihrer Gegensätzlichkeit verkörpern sie zwei ganz bestimmte Soldatentypen. Asch gilt als einer, der "mit allen Wassern" gewaschen ist, während Vierbein als Niete der Batterie gilt und immer wieder bei Vorgesetzten unangenehm auffällt.

Vor allem der gefürchtete "Schleifer" Platzek lässt keine Gelegenheit aus, dem etwas unbeholfenen Kanonier das Leben schwer zu machen. Immer häufiger wird Vierbein zu Strafdiensten herangezogen, bis dies schließlich zu seinem körperlichen Zusammenbruch führt. Asch nimmt sich des Kameraden an und beginnt gegen Schikane und vorsätzliche Schleiferei zu opponieren.

German Wanderlust

2012-01-26T10:57:00.004+11:00

In this four part BBC series, Julia Bradbury takes her boots and backpack to the Continent to explore the landscape of Germany and the cultural movement that made it famous, Romanticism. The Germans enjoy a relationship with walking that has lasted over 200 years. By walking in four very different parts of Germany (the Rhine, the Bavarian Alps, the island of Rügen, and Saxony) Julia explores river valleys, coastlines, mountains and gorges, following in the footsteps of Richard Wagner, Caspar David Friedrich, Johannes Brahms as well as British romantics like William Turner and Lord Byron.

Want to save yourself a trip to Germany? Sit down and watch this series. As they say, "(Armchair-)Travel broadens the behind."

Al Murray's Germany

2012-01-26T09:45:00.006+11:00

Making fun of the Germans has had 'Pub Landlord' comedian Al Murray's audiences laughing in the aisles, but behind the scenes Murray is a serious historian with a fascination for the real Germany.

In the second of a two-part documentary, Al sets out to discover the truth behind the wartime jokes and banter that still plague all things German. In a breathtaking journey through one of Germany's coldest winters, he discovers a country of warm and welcoming people and two centuries of stunning arts and culture.

From Bach to Bauhaus and the Brothers Grimm, Al falls in love with the true historical, natural and cultural beauty of this much-maligned land.

Enjoy, Manfred! And send it to your German friend in the arctic wilds of Canada.

Cutting Edge of Technology

2012-01-25T20:22:00.005+11:00

Click on image to activate
As a man already cruising at the cutting edge of technology, you may not need early warning of a new "must-have" I-phone App, but in case you haven't, here it is!

They're not sure exactly when the release date will be.

You should put your name on the list for when they do.

The sales rep said I was number 94,587,692!

What's the cost?

Does it matter what it costs?

Happy Australia Day

2012-01-25T13:49:00.015+11:00

A little over two hundred years ago a small contingent of convicts and their guards arrived in Sydney Cove and founded a nation. Within 40 years Australia had become such a desirable destination for migrants that transportation had lost its deterrent terror. Within 100 years great cities had grown up with all the accoutrements of European civilisation. Democracy was flourishing. The rule of law was observed. Freedom was cherished. Prosperity was the norm. Not bad for a penal settlement. Worth a party in anybody's language I would say.

But be careful this year if you are planning on proudly flying the Australian flag because it could turn you into a racist! Drivers who fly Australian flags on their cars to celebrate Australia Day are "more racist" than people who do not, according to sociologist and anthropologist Professor Farida Fozdar of the University of Western Australia.

I find this offensive, Farida! But I guess it makes for a good headline and perhaps pulls in a bit more grant money for your 'research'. According to your UWA staff profile, Australian taxpayers, directly or indirectly, have already given you grants totalling $1,913,924 for studies such as "Effectiveness of a Whole-School Approach to Creating Supportive Environments that Remove Barriers to Learning for Refugee Youth" and "Good Food for New Arrivals".

I shall proudly fly the Australian flag tomorrow and on any other day I choose, Farida! But then, of course, I came to this wonderful country almost 47 years ago and passed through the 'supportive environment' of the Bonegilla Migrant Centre where they knew I would enjoy lamb chops and mixed grill and steam pudding without first having read your "Good Food for New Arrivals" study.

Political spin

2012-01-25T10:40:00.008+11:00

According to hoax-slayer.com, this is no more than an entertaining tale but, heck, it's so close to the political spin we're subjected to every day, it may as well be true:

Judy Rudd, an amateur genealogy researcher in southern Queensland’s, was doing some personal work on her own family tree. She discovered that ex-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd great-great uncle, Remus Rudd, was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Melbourne in 1889. Both Judy and Kevin Rudd share this common ancestor.

The only known photograph of Remus shows him standing on the gallows at the Melbourne Gaol. On the back of the picture Judy obtained during her research is this inscription:

'Remus Rudd, horse thief, sent to Melbourne Gaol 1885, escaped 1887, robbed the Melbourne-Geelong train six times. Caught by Victoria Police Force, convicted and hanged in 1889.'

So Judy emailed ex-Prime Minister Rudd for information about his great-great uncle. Remus Rudd. Kevin Rudd's staff sent back the following biographical sketch for her genealogy research:

"Remus Rudd was famous in Victoria during the mid to late 1800s . His business empire grew to include acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and intimate dealings with the Melbourne-Geelong Railroad.

Beginning in 1883, he devoted several years of his life to government service, finally taking leave to resume his dealings with the railroad.

In 1887, he was a key player in a vital investigation run by the Victoria Police Force. In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function held in his honour when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed."

NOW that’s how it's done, folks!

That's real POLITICAL SPIN.

A book for honest-to-God atheists

2012-01-24T11:21:00.005+11:00

I've just bought Alain de Botton's latest leap into the dark, Religion for Atheists: A non-believer's guide to the uses of religion.

"It is when we stop believing that religions have been handed down from above or else that they are entirely daft that matters become more interesting. We can then recognise that we invented religions to serve two central needs which continue to this day and which secular society has not been able to solve with any particular skill: firstly, the need to live together in communities in harmony, despite our deeply-rooted selfish and violent impulses. And secondly, the need to cope with terrifying degrees of pain which arise from our vulnerability to professional failure, to troubled relationships, to the death of loved ones and to our decay and demise. God may be dead, but the urgent issues which impelled us to make him up still stir and demand resolutions which do not go away when we have been nudged to perceive some scientific inacurracies in the tale of the seven loaves and fishes."

Why then should secular society lose out on the benefits a religion can offer merely because it rejects certain of its catchphrases? Religion may offer empty promises of a happier afterlife, but we should not overlook its power in helping people to cope with the fact they are never going to be as rich or as clever as me ☺.

Costa Concordia

2012-01-22T12:01:00.005+11:00

When Winston Churchill after his retirement took a cruise in the Mediterranean and was asked by a bunch of Italian journalists why as an ex-British Prime Minister he had chosen an Italian ship, he replied:

"There are three things I like about being on an Italian cruise ship: first their cuisine is unsurpassed; second their service is superb; and then, in time of emergency, there is none of this nonsense about women and children first."

The Costa Concordia is probably the most expensive thing to go down in Italy since Berlusconi's last hooker. When her captain was asked if he knew where he was going, he replied, "Off course!"

Dedicated to my friend Manfred in Brisbane ...

2012-01-21T16:17:00.010+11:00

... who still dreams of going back to Tonga but perhaps never will. Here are two clips for the wheelchair-traveller, Manfred ☺ Enjoy!

The second clip is of Ha'apai with glimpses of my old favourite, Billy's Place, Pangai's main street, and Virginia Watkins' 'Smallest Museum in the World'. She'd just passed away, aged 77, before my visit in August 2006. Horst inherited one of her easy-chairs which now graces his house on Uiha.

The wheels are coming off

2012-01-21T10:45:00.011+11:00

The little woman has just reversed the car over the wheelbarrow!

Of course, by women's logic it was my fault, wasn't it? Never mind that she had to walk right past the wheelbarrow to get into the car and that she should have seen it in the rear-vision mirror when she reversed out of the carport. It was I who had put the wheelbarrow there and therefore it was my fault. MEA CULPA!

Reminds me somewhat of the traffic laws I had to live under in Saudi Arabia where every accident between a Saudi and an expatriate driver was the expat's fault. Why? Because if the expat hadn't been in the country, the accident wouldn't have happened, would it?

Who says women don't make the laws in Saudi Arabia?

Another siren call

2012-01-21T07:05:00.030+11:00

It has been some years since I received a message like this morning's email from the U.K.:

"Dear Peter,

I work for WYG International, a leading British consultancy firm working on development projects worldwide. We are currently preparing an expression of interest for the Asian Development Bank’s “Strengthened Public Financial Management Project” in Kiribati – please find attached the Terms of Reference for your information. I have found your profile online and wondered if you might be interested in one of the positions.

We are currently looking for a Treasury Specialist/Team Leader and an Attaché Specialist to be included in our team for this project – you can find the descriptions of the positions in the TORs attached. I only have a very brief version of your CV, so I wanted to check whether you had experience of using Attaché accounting systems and whether you think you’d be qualified for either of these positions?

The project is due to start in early April 2012, and will run for 21 months – the Treasury Specialist will have 10 months of inputs and the Attaché Specialist 3 months of inputs during that period. The ADB is following the Consultants Qualification Selection method, meaning that we will not need to submit a full proposal, and we should know relatively quickly whether we have been successful in our application (the deadline for submission of EOIs is 11th February).

WYG International has a specialist public finance management practice area, and we are currently expanding our work in South East Asia and the Pacific. We have a representative office in Cambodia and have significant experience of working with the ADB, including a current project in the Solomon Islands, large PFM reform projects in Papua New Guinea, Cambodia and Laos and previous experience in small island states, including the Maldives and Fiji. We are therefore confident that we have a strong chance of being selected for this assignment.

If you would be interested in being included as part of our team, please send me your latest CV (stressing your Pacific islands and Attaché experience as much as possible) as soon as you can – as I mentioned, the deadline for submission is the 11th February and we need to ensure that we have the right team in place before submission. Please feel free to contact me with any questions you might have in the meantime.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kind regards

Sara Breen
Senior Consultant
WYG INTERNATIONAL LTD
100 St John Street, London, EC1M 4EH"

Of course, there was a time (before email and the internet) when a single phone call was enough for me to give up a secure job, pack up my things, and follow the siren call of yet another challenge in yet another country. Alas, not anymore. I am now stuck in this big place called Domesti-City which won't let me step onto that "canoe that flies" and wing it to Kiribati (pronounced Kiribas), and so I sent this email in reply:

"Hello Sara,

thank you so much for your email. What you have to offer is indeed very tempting but, alas, I am no longer 'in the game'.

My knowledge of ATTACHÉ has also become somewhat dated even though I was one of the first to use it after Michael Rich, the owner, had bought out the rights from MICROTIGER in the USA and 'Australianised' it for the local market way back in the 1980s.

I am now a self-funded retiree and live on the beautiful South Coast of New South Wales in Australia. Under Australian tax law, being a self-funded retiree makes me entirely tax-free but also does not allow me to re-enter the paid workforce which is another reason why I can't answer this tempting siren call ☺

However, I know from my past assignments that consulting firms sometimes find that a member of a team suddenly becomes unavailable. Should you find yourself in such a situation, I would be happy to bridge the gap for a much shorter period of time and as an unpaid volunteer."

P.S. The name Kiribati is the local pronunciation of "Gilberts", derived from the main island chain, the Gilbert Islands. Gilbertese or Kiribati (sometimes Kiribatese, a mixture of both) is far from extinct, and just about all Gilbertese use it daily. Only 30% of Kiribati speakers are fully bilingual with English, meaning that the language is in no current danger of being swallowed by English. It is written in the Latin alphabet, and has been since the 1840s, when Hiram Bingham Jr, a missionary, first translated the Bible into Kiribati. Previously, the language was unwritten. Bingham had only a typewriter with a broken "S" so it does not occur in the language and "ti" is used for that sound instead. One difficulty in translating the Bible was references to words such as "mountain", a geographical phenomenon unknown to the people of the islands of Kiribati at the time (only heard in the myths from Samoa). Bingham decided to use "hilly", which would be more easily understood. Such adjustments are common to all languages as "modern" things require creation of new words. The Gilbertese word for airplane is te wanikiba, "the canoe that flies". Almost as good as the Pidgin Inglis word for helicopter: Mixmaster blong Jesus Christ. I just thought you might like to know ☺ .

Tinker, Tiler ...

2012-01-18T10:04:00.015+11:00

I ordered 32 square metres of Italian floor tiles from RIVOLAND in Canberra which arrived this morning. They will replace the old carpets in the two small downstairs bedrooms. Out with the dustmites, in with the tiles!

It will be a real pleasure to feel those cool, clean tiles underfoot as I jump out of bed in the morning. As they say in German, "Getiletes Leid ist halbes Leid.

P.S. To my Greek friend Nick: the boxes come with laying instructions in Greek (not that there are many in Greece right now who can afford them). I think they read, "Never on Sunday!"

Another enchanted morning at "Riverbend"

2012-01-18T07:10:00.024+11:00

I am so fortunate to live at "Riverbend" and yet, after eighteen years here (the longest I have ever been anywhere!), I want a change.

I want a change from static domesticity full of clutter and a return to a more peripatetic lifestyle with just the bare essentials, going wherever the mood takes me, recapturing some of my freewheeling past.

First stop would be Banjar Hills in the north of of Bali, after which I could easily spend a month or two trekking around Munduk, the nearest thing to the New Guinea Highlands sans the bows and arrows.

I feel that this will be the year when "Riverbend" finds a buyer. I will be both sad and happy to leave: sad for the memories I leave behind and happy for the things that await me in the next place, and the next, and the next ...

"I've never seen a sight that didn't look better looking back."

The tax system explained in beer

2012-01-15T06:40:00.004+11:00

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100…

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7..

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20″. Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men? The paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.

And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving).

The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving).

The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving).

The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving).

The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving).

The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,”but he got $10!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!”

“That’s true!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back, when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison, “we didn’t get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our tax system works. The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

These are possibly the five best sentences you'll ever read:

1. You can not legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

Worth listening to!

2012-01-14T08:01:00.001+11:00

And this:

Escaping into landscaping

2012-01-13T04:09:00.003+11:00

May I suggest that red woodchips be declared a prohibited substance? They are terribly addictive: you spread the first five cubic metres and say to yourself, "Bugga, that looks nice" (well, you don't actually say it; you just think it ☺), and so you order another five metres. And then perhaps another two metres because there's that small corner you want to chip over as well.

Before you know it, you've spent a thousand dollars on blooming woodchips and can no longer afford even fish'n'chips for lunch!

P.S. As a sufferer of triskaidekaphobia and today being Friday the 13th, I had better take it easy and just stick to spreading the remaining few metres of woodchip.

Older folks can be such inspiration to today's youth!

2012-01-11T17:49:00.003+11:00

Mr Kanwar, we want you in Australia!

2012-01-11T09:36:00.009+11:00

Mahfooz Kanwar

My Canadian friend has just emailed me a cutting from an article in the Calgary Herald.

What is Canada becoming? Canada 's tolerance misplaced?
By Mahfooz Kanwar, For The Calgary Herald, March 30, 2009

Canada's Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is getting flak from the usual suspects, but he deserves praise instead.

Recently, Kenney pointed that out while at a meeting in Toronto . Members of Canada's Pakistani community called on him to make Punjabi one of Canada's official languages. It makes me angry that such an idea would enter the minds of my fellow and former countrymen, let alone express them to a Minister of the Crown.

A few months ago, I was dismayed to learn that Erik Millett, the principal of Belleisle School in Springfield , N.B., limited playing our national anthem because the families of a couple of his students objected to it.

As a social scientist, I oppose this kind of political correctness, lack of assimilation of new immigrants to mainstream Canada , hyphenated-Canadian identity, and the lack of patriotism in our great nation.

Increasingly, Canadians feel restricted in doing things the Canadian way lest we offend minorities. We cannot even say Merry Christmas without fear of causing offence. It is amazing that 77 per cent of the Canadian majority are scared of offending 23 per cent of minorities. We have become so timid that the majority cannot assert its own freedom of expression. We cannot publicly question certain foreign social customs, traditions and values that do not fit into the Canadian ethos of equality. Rather than encouraging new immigrants to adjust to Canada, we tolerate peculiar ways of doing things. We do not remind them that they are in Canada, not in their original homelands.

In a multicultural society, it is the responsibility of minorities to adjust to the majority. It does not mean that minorities have to totally amalgamate with the majority. They can practice some of their cultural traditions within their homes -- their backstage behavior. However, when outside of their homes, their front stage behavior should resemble mainstream Canadian behavior. Whoever comes to Canada must learn the limits of our system. We do not kill our daughters or other female members of our families who refuse to wear hijab, niqab or burka which are not mandated by the Qur'an anyway. We do not kill our daughters if they date the "wrong" men. A 17-year-old Sikh girl should not have been killed in British Columbia by her father because she was caught dating a Caucasian man.

We do not practice the dowry system in Canada , and do not kill our brides because they did not bring enough dowry. Millions of female fetuses are aborted every year in India, and millions of female infants have been killed by their parents in India and China. Thousands of brides in India are burned to death in their kitchens because they did not bring enough dowry into a marriage. Some 30,000 Sikhs living abroad took the dowries but abandoned their brides in India in 2005. This is not accepted in Canada .

In some countries, thousands of women are murdered every year for family or religious honour. We should not hide behind political correctness and we should expose the cultural and religious background of these heinous crimes, especially if it happens in Canada . We should also expose those who bring their cultural baggage containing the social custom of female circumcision. I was shocked when I learned about two cases of this barbaric custom practiced in St.Catharines, Ont. a few years ago.

I have said it on radio and television, have written in my columns in The Calgary Herald, and I have written in my latest book, Journey to Success, that I do not agree with the hyphenated identity in Canada because it divides our loyalties. My argument is that people are not forced to come to Canada and they are not forced to stay here. Those who come here of their own volition and stay here must be truly patriotic Canadians or go back.

I am a first-generation Canadian from Pakistan. I left Pakistan 45 years ago. I cannot ignore Pakistan, because it is the homeland of my folks, but my first loyalty should be and is to Canada. I am, therefore, a proud Canadian, no longer a Pakistani-Canadian. I am a Canadian Muslim, not a Muslim Canadian.

I do not agree with those Canadians who engage in their fight against the system in their original countries on Canadian soil. They should go back and fight from within. For example, some of the Sikhs, Tamil Tigers, Armenians and others have disturbed the peace in Canada because of their problems back home. Recently, a low-level leader of MQM, the Mafia of Pakistan, came to Canada as a refugee and started to organize public rallies to collect funds for their cause in Pakistan . On July 18, 2007, the Federal Court of Canada ruled that MQM is a terrorist group led by London-based Altaf Hussain, their godfather. As a member in the coalition government of Pakistan, this terrorist group is currently collaborating with the Taliban in Pakistan. That refugee was deported back to Pakistan.

Similarly, I disagree with newcomers who bring their religious baggage here. For example, Muslims are less than two per cent of the Canadian population, yet in 2004 and 2005, a fraction of them, the fundamentalists, wanted to bring Sharia law to Canada. If they really want to live under Sharia, they should go to the prison-like countries where Sharia is practiced.

I once supported multiculturalism in Canada because I believed it gave us a sense of pluralism and diversity. However, I have observed and experienced that official multiculturalism has encouraged convolution of the values that make Canada the kind of place people want to immigrate to in the first place.

Here, we stand on guard for Canada, not for countries we came from. Like it or not, take it or leave it, standing on guard only for Canada is our national maxim. Remember, O Canada is our national anthem which must not be disregarded by anybody, including the teacher in Springfield , N.B.

Mahfooz Kanwar, PhD
Sociologist and Instructor Emeritus at Mount Royal College
Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

And there's more and more ...

χρονια πολλα, Nick!

2012-01-09T08:59:00.005+11:00

62? Definitely a transposition of figures!

χρονια πολλα!

Here are my last thousand drachmas, Nick, left over from the wonderful eighteen months I spent in Greece. They are yours; go and buy yourself something nice ☺

Travelling North

2012-01-08T09:01:00.011+11:00

I have always considered my return to the Deep South as temporary: when I came down to Sydney in 1985, I was always going to leave again for the tropical north; instead, I went to Canberra. Then I was going to leave Canberra again for the tropical north; instead, I retired to Nelligen. Twenty-five years after my 'temporary' return to the Deep South I am still 'temporarily' down here and still hope to leave again one day for the tropical north.

In the meantime, I enjoy watching my favourite movie "Travelling North", in which Frank (played by Leo McKern) retires with his ladyfriend to the distant tropical paradise of Port Douglas, where he only wants to meet the fish at the end of his hook. But Frank's road to paradise is paved with potholes in the form of new neighbours, old family ties, and a doctor's sad diagnosis.

This thoroughly enjoyable movie is based on a play by David Williamson who also wrote "Don's Party", "The Removalists", "The Club", "Emerald City", and others.

The Way

2012-01-08T08:12:00.004+11:00

Ever since my Austrian friend Rob Krenn walked the Camino de Santiago in 2003, I have been interested in this centuries-old pilgrimage. It forms the basis of this beautiful movie, filmed entirely in Spain and France along the actual Camino de Santiago, in which Tom, an American doctor, comes to France to collect the remains of his adult son, killed in the Pyrenees in a storm while walking The Camino.

Driven by his profound sadness and desire to understand his lost son, Tom decides to embark on the historical pilgrimage, leaving his California life behind. Armed only with his son’s backpack and guidebook, he begins the 800km historical pilgrimage but soon discovers that he won’t be alone on this journey – he meets other pilgrims from around the world, all broken and looking for greater meaning in their lives.

From the hardship experienced along “The Way”, an unlikely group of misfits are bonded and Tom begins to learn the difference between “The life we live and the life we choose.”

Another year has passed by now

2012-01-01T02:00:00.006+11:00

Another year has passed by now
and we're a bit older.
Last summer was too hot - this winter seems much colder.

There was a time, not long ago
when life was quite a blast.
I fully understand right now
about 'Living in the Past'

We used to go to weddings,
football games and lunches.
Now we go to funeral homes,
and after-funeral brunches.

We used to have hangovers,
from parties that were gay.
Now we suffer body aches
and wile the night away.

We used to go out dining,
and couldn't get our fill.
Now we ask for doggie bags,
come home and take a pill.

We used to often travel
to places near and far.
Now we get sore asses
from riding in the car.

We used to go to nightclubs
and drink a little booze.
Now we stay home at night
and watch the evening news.

That, my friend, is how life is and now my tale is told.
So, enjoy each day and live it up...
before you're too damned old!

Dear God,
My prayer for 2012 is for
a fat bank account & a thin body.
Please don't mix these up like you did last year.
AMEN!

New Year's Eve at "Riverbend"

2011-12-31T11:02:00.007+11:00

Even though to me the only thing significant about the new year is its insignificance, I wish all of you a very Happy New Year! (well, to the ONE person reading this blog - YOU!!! ☺ ) and may the new year unfold in a manner that will make you smile so hard the top of your head will fall off! And remember to be good to one another because at our age we need all the support we can get.

Walk into Paradise

2011-12-30T12:05:00.015+11:00

I spent the last couple of days of the old year in a contenplative mood watching an old movie, WALK INTO PARADISE. It hasn't much of a storyline but the New Guinea Highlands scenery is wonderful to watch!

As my old friend Noel used to say, "My spiritual home will always be New Guinea". He said it as he tried to settle at Caboolture in the late 70s, and he said it again after he had moved to Mt Perry, and was still saying it in Childers where he passed away in 1995.

After having spent his whole working life in New Guinea, Australia had become a foreign country to him. He, as so many others (myself included), had become lost souls after leaving New Guinea. We hadn't gone there because of a particular job but because of the country itself which offered something for everyone, be he missionary, moneymaker, or misfit.

Happy Birthday, Khin San Myint !

2011-12-30T08:58:00.001+11:00

Remember Lobo? You asked me once why I never listened to his songs anymore. Well, how can I tell you? His music takes me straight back to the wonderful time in Komin Kuchin Avenue. Those are bitter-sweet memories and only in recent years have I found it bearable to listen to Lobo again.

All my best wishes for your special day tomorrow. And all your other tomorrows.

Spare a thought this Christmas for those less fortunate ...

2011-12-30T08:35:00.008+11:00

... like my Canadian friend Chris who hunts the Arctic wasteland to feed himself and then returns to a snow-bound house which is lit up by no more than his computer screen.

Isn't life tough? No wonder he's dreaming of "Riverbend" ☺

Tidings of comfort and joy

2011-12-26T10:07:00.022+11:00

Manfred in Brisbane, another German "Auswanderer", emailed me this photo of his wet Christmas, both inside and out.

Theo Zantman emailed from Bali: "love to wish u a very happy - healthy 2012 ..it shall be an exiting year, a very special year .... go in the new year with an open mind ... be nice for each other ... and remember we are not alone ... start to work for a world without any border... warm greetings from hot bali"

And my Canadian friend Chris went orgasmic about his Christmas dinner consisting of "roast breast of duck, baked potatoes, buttercup squash, fresh green beans and a little gravy. The aprés was a chocolate cake roll iced with chocolate flavored whipped cream and filled with the same and all with just a touch of Tia Maria for extra flavour."

Bozenna in Greece seemed relieved that "two days of guzzle are over. I was invited for the Christmas Eve supper to a Polish family. Today, I had lunch at home of Polish/Greek family. Tomorrow is one more feast-day, as a friend of mine is celebrating her birthday. I drink herb-tea after each session behind a table to speed-up digestion. Then, there will be New Year's Eve celebration - less food, more drinks, music and dances (not for me). All my friends are much younger (friends of the same age have left Greece or died) than I am and they force me to participate in all events to avoid depression. To tell you the truth, I don't like to go out of the flat. Everything bores me. In addition, I don't feel well. It seems that the old age caught up with me. I complained to you and my mood improved."

And Brian's SKYPEd from Keppel Bay Marina where he's waiting for good sailing-weather to continue his voyage to "Riverbend" where a nearby building block has just been put on sale to make us wonder what this may mean to our peaceful neighbourhood in 2012.

Boxing Day is boating day on the beautiful Clyde River and the hills are alive with the sound of outboard engines to which I shall shortly add the soothing putt-putt-putt of my 8-HP YANMAR inboard diesel engine.

I leave you with the following message, outsourced this year to India to keep costs down, to wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

Wearing out old memories

2011-12-25T08:40:00.019+11:00

Remember the funny tee-shirt that reads, "My parents went to [insert location of your choice] and all they brought me back was this lousy tee-shirt"?

Well, for twenty years I lived all over the world, working in several dozen locations in some fifteen countries, and all I finished up with is a collection of tee-shirts.

Penang Port Commission, 1978
Selangor Club, Kuala Lumpur
Cambridge University, Summer School 1983
Saudi Arabia, 1982-1985
Air Niugini, Port Moresby, 1974
still with laundry mark "15" for my room in the Pilots' Mess at Six-Mile
Sid Deeky is my friend

I am sure you don't want to see the other fifty-or-so, do you? ☺

"Riverbend" is closed for Christmas ...

2011-12-25T08:37:00.014+11:00

... but that doesn't stop the emails from coming in. Here's one from Saudi Arabia:

Dear Peter,

Seeing your post while searching for historical information about my uncle Abdulghani Mofarrij was something made me feel good. I am delighted that you have good memories of Saudi Arabia and my family. I bet you don't remember me, I was maybe couple of months old when you were working with uncle Abdulghani. My father, Ali Mofarrij, recalled your name when I asked him about you, and he insisted to post his regards to you.

Truly thanking you for warm and kind words you said to Abdulghani's memorial.

Best Regards,
Thamer Mofarrij, MBA
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Well, thanks, Thamer, and what a pleasant surprise it was to receive your email. Of course, I remember your father Ali, Saudi Arabia's answer to Omar Sharif ☺ Please give him my best regards as well.

And, no, I don't remember you as I never came to your father's house and only went once to Abdulghani's place for a meal (to which I brought my own MARS bar as I'm not particularly fond of sheep's eye and tongue ☺). You must be in your late twenties now which means you've done rather well, judging by your MBA. Congratulations!

As for Saudi Arabia, I both loved it and left it - and still wear the tee-shirt to tell the tale. ☺

Last chance!

2011-12-24T18:34:00.000+11:00

31 Sproxton Lane, Nelligen, $750,000

"Last vacant block in Sproxton Lane. Moor your boat out the front and build your dream home. WON’T LAST!! Exceptional opportunity to own deep-water front on the banks of the beautiful Clyde River.

The land is situated in a rural setting but close to the historical town of Nelligen and only a few minutes drive from Batemans Bay CBD and beaches on the coast. ENQUIRIES: DAVID 02 4478 1105"

So runs the advertisement by the local real estate agent. $750,000 is a lot of money for a piece of dirt just 19 metres wide and 85 metres long. 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself' because you'll never be far away from them. ☺

If it sells, we can expect another six months of building noise. We will be somewhat insulated from it down here at the end of the lane, but spare a thought for the new owners of # 33 who've just spent close to a million dollars for a bit of peace and quiet!

In case you need some cheering up

2011-12-24T09:56:00.000+11:00

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non addictive, gender neutral celebration of the summer solstice holiday practiced with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious / secular persuasions and / or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2012, but not without due respect for the calendar of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our country great (not to imply that Australia is necessarily greater than any other country) and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms:

This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for others, is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. The wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher .

Best Regards (without prejudice),

Name withheld (Privacy Act).

Round the bench

2011-12-22T17:29:00.015+11:00

Was my previous blog about the 'last deed for the year'?

Well, there has been one more deed: the installation of a bench around a tree which perhaps is symbolic of my circular life in retirement. Why keep 'moving forward' when the final destination is all too certain? I shall be slowly going round the bench instead.

A bit more trimming around the edges with a little help from the 'Mexican', and I'll call it quits for the year!

The hills are alive ...

2011-12-21T15:48:00.015+11:00

... with the buzzing of ride-on mowers and whipper-snippers as everybody is getting their place ready for the Christmas holidays.

My last deed for the year was to 'de-ivy' the walls of the 'Bibliothèque' and to clear the 'jungle' surrounding it by removing much of the undergrowth and covering it in woodchip. Not exactly cheap as chips but it looks good, doesn't it?

Hidden under all that woodchip is my electrical work in readiness for the installation of a Bali lantern similar to the one that's lighting up the foothpath by the watertank.

Let Christmas come - and with it our first visitors!

Then and Now

2011-12-19T09:24:00.012+11:00

Of course, here in Australia we don't have any of these problems: while our finances and freedoms are being eroded, the Gillard government is debating the legalisation of same-sex marriages!

So while America’s decadent and degenerate empire is committed to finish up on the scrap heap of history, and while the European Union is about to break up as did the Soviet one before it, we here in Australia debate whether those born with an extra X chromosome, making them XXY, should be any better off than the rest of us. Let them get married and let them eat cake! I couldn't give a XXXX about it!

In the meantime (and apropos of nothing), an Italian driver was stopped by astonished police in the southern city of Bari on Saturday when they saw him speaking on two phones, with a handset in each hand and no control of the wheel. Asked to explain his actions, the 43-year-old driver said he was speaking to his wife when his mother called and he could not hang up on either of them. I know the feeling!

Christmas comes but once a year

2011-12-19T07:29:00.010+11:00

Which is almost once too many! I mean, why must I light up the river all night with kitschy Santa Clauses and listen all day to sentimental Christmas carols?

I had to numb myself with several glasses of Pino More to endure the Carols by Candlelight at the Bay last night. Christmas is the season for stuffing stockings. Preferably into carolers' mouths.

And what about Silent Night? A silent morning and a silent afternoon wouldn't be so bad either.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas. Just don't drag me into it. Ho, ho, ho!

Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag, Karl-Heinz !

2011-12-17T04:14:00.000+11:00

von Deinem Bruder

My summer office

2011-12-15T17:50:00.005+11:00

Understanding Women

2011-12-15T07:31:00.004+11:00

Being a bit of a bibliophile, I can never resist buying the latest book.

Here it is: "Understanding Women" in paperback!

European bailout

2011-12-14T07:12:00.003+11:00

It is a slow day in a damp little Greek town. The rain is beating down and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.

On this particular day a rich German tourist is driving through the town, stops at the local hotel and lays a €100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night.

The owner gives him some keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the €100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher takes the €100 note and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer takes the €100 note and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel. The guy at the Farmers’ Co-op takes the €100 note and runs to pay his drinks bill at the pub. The publican slips the money along to the local prostitute drinking at the bar, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer him “services” on credit. The hooker then rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to the hotel owner with the €100 note.

The hotel proprietor then places the €100 note back on the counter so the rich traveller will not suspect anything. At that moment the traveller comes down the stairs, picks up the €100 note, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town.

No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism.

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is how the bailout package works.

BULLSHIT BINGO

2011-12-13T18:24:00.020+11:00

Here's an excellent game which shouldn’t be hard to win and you can play it by yourself. It will help make Gillard's speeches almost tolerable. Simply print and distribute this page to friends and listen to Julia's next speech (be sure to read directions at the bottom).

LET ME BE CLEAR	WE WILL BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE	THIS HISTORIC OCCASION	MOVING FORWARD
I’VE SAID TIME AND TIME AGAIN	I CAN'T ANSWER THAT QUESTION, BUT WHAT I CAN TELL YOU IS THIS	THE AUSTRALIAN PEOPLE WILL DECIDE	THERE ARE THOSE WHO SAY
WE WILL SET UP AN OFFSHORE PROCESSING CENTRE IN EAST TIMOR	INHERITED FROM THE PREVIOUS GOVERNMENT	THIS GOVERNMENT HAS CREATED THOUSANDS OF NEW JOBS	UNPRECEDENTED CHALLENGES
BACK FROM THE BRINK	IT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO	THE RIGHT FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY	WE WILL BE BACK IN SURPLUS BY 2012
WE WILL SETTLE FOR NOTHING LESS THAN TOTAL TRANSPARENCY	THE RIGHT MIX AND BALANCE	THIS IS A GAME CHANGER	RESTORE OUR REPUTATION
THERE WILL BE NO CARBON TAX UNDER A GILLARD LABOR GOVERNMENT	ACHIEVE GOOD OUTCOMES	ADDRESS ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS	THE BIGGEST ECONOMIC CHALLENGE SINCE THE GREAT DEPRESSION

Rules for Bullshit Bingo:

1. Before Julia Gillard's next televised speech, print your copy of "Bullshit Bingo"
2. Check off the appropriate block when you hear one of the words and/or phrases.
3. When you get four blocks horizontally or six blocks vertically, stand up and shout "BULLSHIT!"

How to get expelled from school

2011-12-13T09:16:00.010+11:00

Click on image to order this must-read book

I can remember reading warnings for a decade or more that we only had five years to act before the planet would become uninhabitable. About now we were told to expect that the few ‘breeding pairs’ of humans left would be living in a barren desolate wasteland practically devoid of water and food unless emissions were cut immediately.

Are pupils, parents and the public being fed political propaganda on climate change?Here is your chance to find out. Professor Plimer gives 101 simple questions with answers for you to ask teachers, activists, journalists and politicians.

The climate industry adjusts the temperature record and withholds raw data, computer codes and information from scrutiny. Computer predictions of a scary future don’t agree with measurements.

Past natural climate changes have been larger and more rapid than the worst-case predictions yet humans adapted. Is human-induced global warming the biggest financial and scientific scam in history? If it is, we will pay dearly.

You simply have to listen to this.

P.S. Remember the Y2K scare? That cute little con cost the world between $300 and $600 BILLION! Add a few more zeros for the global warming scam!

My new personalised number plate

2011-12-11T09:36:00.010+11:00

With most of my friends displaying personalised number plates on their cars, I have always wanted my own but the costs are rather steep: $220 plus an annual fee of $90.

By contrast, changing my name by Deed Poll to match my existing number plate would cost me a mere $154 with no further annual fees.

I have lodged my Deed Poll application and hope it will be registered in time for Christmas.

Merry Christmas!
AM81TQ

Saturday night at the club

2011-12-11T08:22:00.003+11:00

Australia has very strict laws about drinking alcohol and driving. Australian Police are authorised to stop any vehicle and breath-test the driver at any time. There is no absolute safe level of alcohol consumption for competent driving. For fully licensed car drivers the legal limit is 0.05 g/100ml. Get above the leal limit, and even a first-time offender can expect a fine of $1,100 plus an automatic six-month disqualification.

So last night, after a few drinks at the club in town, I did something I've never done before. Believe it or not, I took a bus home. Yes, a bus! And I arrived home safely and without incident.

This was really a surprise to me as I'd never driven a large bus before.

A Nightingale emailed from Londonderry

2011-12-09T19:38:00.006+11:00

Merv Nightingale, my boss on the Bougainville Island contract with the Camp Catering Services Group almost forty years ago, sent me this message:

"Oh I thought that I better let you know that I have been working my way through your various blogs and am both amazed and impressed by your ability to produce such items. I must admit to also being very impressed with your obvious computer skills and your excellent command of the English language. If all else fails you would have no trouble in switching to journalism such is your ability ... I was fascinated by the blog on the Islands, but still have not come accross the old camp office. Brings back a lot of memories, but looking at the areas and the people, I am glad that things turned out the way that they did as I think that it would have proven to be a disaster had we all stayed. Hope all are well down there, and while I think of it, you look well in your photos and obviously the area agrees with you. Best wishes, Merv Nightingale"

Thank you, Merv, but of course you were always most flattering of my abilities, as testified by the glowing reference you gave me when I left Bougainville to take up the position of Financial Controller in Camp Catering Services' head office in Sydney. This reference, together with some fifty other similarly glowing ones, is now slowly yellowing around the edges and fading away just as I am.

Click on image to enlarge
And here's a photo of the old office, Merv:

In memoriam

2011-12-09T07:05:00.001+11:00

VATI

born 9.12.1907
died 31.1.1984

Do not stand at my grave and weep;

I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn's rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush,

I am the swift uplifting rush

of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry;

I am not there. I did not die.

Steht nicht an meinem Grab und weint,

denkt an mich, wenn die Sonne scheint.

Ich bin nicht mehr an diesem Ort,

Ich schlafe nicht und bin nicht fort.

Ich bin der Wind über brausender See,

Ich bin der Schimmer auf frischem Schnee.

Ich bin die Sonne in goldener Pracht,

Ich bin der Glanz der Sterne bei Nacht.

Ich bin die Freude der Blumen die blühn,

Ich bin für Euch in allem was schön.

Steht nicht an meinem Grab und weint,

denkt an mich, wenn die Sonne scheint.

Ich bin nicht mehr an diesem Ort,

Ich schlafe nicht und bin nicht fort.

Happy Birthday, Helmut!

2011-12-09T04:06:00.011+11:00

Dreiundsiebzig Jahre, ach du Schreck,
die Jugend und der Lack sind weg.

Knochen knacken - Muskeln drücken,
manchmal hast Du's auch am Rücken.

Im Mund da sind die Zähne weg,
um 20 Uhr gehst du zu Bett.

Die Haare grau, wenn sie noch da,
und manchmal wirst du sonderbar.

Hattest Höhen und auch Tiefen,
warst stets da, wenn wir Dich riefen.

Doch das Eine sollst Du wissen,
ohne Dich da wär´n wir aufgeschmissen.

Wir wünschen Dir von Herzen Glück,
Denn Du bist unser allerbestes Stück!

Helmut in his former career as Camera repairman

I hope you didn't get all puffed out blowing out those 73 candles, Helmut! I'll have a beer with you next time I'm up there again!

Your friend

Cold Weather Work Ethic

2011-12-08T16:28:00.004+11:00

I sucked in the philosophical belief of the Protestant Work Ethic with my mother's milk and always regarded hard work as a component of my moral and spiritual duty and lived my life accordingly.

However, as I have been slaving away at "Riverbend" over the past few days and weeks in temperatures above 30 degrees, I have come to the conclusion that it is a belief strongly held only by people who have never visited hot climates.

A Christmas Message from my Canadian friend ...

2011-12-08T08:54:00.012+11:00

... who is also an ex-Bougie and now in (semi-)retirement, much of which he spends in this 'Hansel-and-Gretel' house, hammering, cutting, and drilling, and very occasionally, when not shovelling snow, writing some poetry.

Watching this clip, I am reminded of the time when I was sitting in the 'Grape Escape' in North Sydney with an old friend to whom I pointed out two old drunks sitting across from us.

"That's us in ten years", I said.

"That's a mirror, you dip shit!", he replied.

P.S. Oh, I forgot to mention that he's a good friend of Red Green's:

Things couldn't get much dulla ...

2011-12-07T20:04:00.008+11:00

... so we went fifty clicks up the Pacific Highway to Ulladulla.

It's nestled around a very picturesque harbour, with an ocean-water swimming pool, a harbourside seafood restaurant which gets its supplies fresh off the local fishing fleet, several good clubs, a good variety of shops, and one of the best second-hand book selections at the local Vinnies.

A commercial break

2011-12-03T07:37:00.011+11:00

Books in Australia are too expensive!

That's an established fact on which Bob Carr, the former NSW premier, wrote an insightful article in The Australian.

I buy many of my books online from the Book Depository in the U.K. whose prices are often half, and usually a third below, the Australian retail price. And they offer free worldwide delivery!

After my first acquaintance with Julian Barnes through The Sense of an Ending, I have ordered five more of his books - from the Book Depository, of course:

The first of the summer wine

2011-12-01T07:38:00.003+11:00

Today is the first day of summer and, hopefully, the last day of the winter blues.

We have guests arriving for Christmas and New Year and we also expect Brian Darcey to make landfall at "Riverbend" in his yacht TEKANI II sometime around the end of this month. Read about it at the Nelligen Yacht Club blog.

Don't call me I'll call you

2011-11-30T12:04:00.008+11:00

Mobile Phone Numbers Go Public next month.

All mobile phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sale calls.

YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS!

Below is a link where you can enter your phone numbers online to put an end to telemarketing calls. Don't just delete those calls otherwise you will find that you have been signed up for all sorts of extra services that you didn't want or know about. Like special chimes, music etc.

Register at www.donotcall.gov.au
or call 1300 792 958.

PASS THIS ON TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN.

This is another public service from your friends at "Riverbend" ☺

In memory of Tom Neale

2011-11-30T10:38:00.008+11:00

Islands have long held a deep, abiding fascination. Everyone who has grappled with getting along with their fellow human being understands the phrase ‘can’t live with them, can’t live without them’. Everyone has at some time mused on what life would be like on a remote deserted island, alone with only the sound of the gentle wash against the sunbleached sands.

Perhaps it’s because so few have dared make this daydream a reality that such men as Tom Neale and his book An Island to Oneself take on an almost mythical role in our collective consciousness, as though they carry upon their shoulders all our yearnings for a simple, solitary life in tune with the tides of nature.

Tom Neale's book still fires the imaginations of all those who have dreamt of a simple life of solitude on a remote deserted island. It may be true that no man is an island, but it is also true that many a man has desperately wished it were so.

Tom left his beloved island in December 1963. As he writes in the postscript to his book:

"I realised I was getting on, and the prospect of a lonely death did not particularly appeal to me. I wasn't being sentimental about it, but the time had come to wake up from an exquisite dream before it turned into a nightmare. I might have lingered on the island for a few more years, but soon after the Vesseys left, a party of eleven pearl divers descended on Suvarov - and, frankly, turned my heaven into hell. They were happy-go-lucky Manihiki natives, and I didn't dislike them, but their untidiness, noise, and close proximity were enough to dispel any wavering doubts I might have had. Then, when I heard that more natives might be coming to dive for a couple of months each year in the lagoon, I resolved to leave with the divers. I did so - and I have not regretted the decision. I am back in Raro now, and you know, having proved my point - that I could make a go of it on a desert island and be happy alone - store-keeping doesn't after all seem such a monotonous job as it did in the years before 1952. I have a wealth of memories that no man can take away from me and which I have enjoyed recalling in these pages. I hope you have enjoyed them too".

That's where the book ends but not Tom's fascination with his island to which he returned a third time, in June 1967, to remain there for ten more years until a visiting yacht, the "Feisty Lady", informed Rarotonga that Tom is seriously ill. The schooner "Manuvai" evacuated him from the island in March 1977.

He died on this day 34 years ago in Rarotonga where he lies buried at the RSL Cemetery. A life well lived!

I'm just full of beans ...

2011-11-30T10:09:00.004+11:00

... after my morning's work in the vegie patch. Bean there, done that, and now it's back to a cup of tea and a spot of reading.

Time for a commercial break:

I use Seasol on all my plants.

Here's another dog story

2011-11-29T20:24:00.008+11:00

Just in case there's a local re-run of the child-in-the-manger story this Christmas, I decided to run electric power out to the horseshed.

According to regulations, the cable must be sheathed in orange conduit 500mm below the surface. That's quite a bit of digging, especially on a day when the thermometer went above 30 degrees, so I called in the Dingo - the K9-3 Dingo, to be exact - and the whole thing was done within an hour.

The 'horseshed' now has power and lights as befits the unofficial 'Embassy of Papua New Guinea' as evidenced by the national coat-of-arms at the top of the shed.

Click here to zoom

The final stage of the European crisis

2011-11-29T08:34:00.003+11:00

Gloom and doom has gone mainstream but human beings are made to be resilient. And there is truly nothing new under the sun when it comes to human nature. Today's events may seem like the most important ever in human history, and our lives the most important human lives ever. But surely everyone alive has always thought that about themselves and the world they live.

Red Dog

2011-11-29T07:33:00.010+11:00

I just love Australian movies! The sceneries, the people, their laconic humour ... everything! Here's a heart-warming tale for every man and his dog:

Based on a true story, the film is set in the mining town of Dampier in the Pilbara where the real Red Dog lived in the 1970s, so endearing himself to those who knew him that his exploits have achieved the status of legend. A bronze statue honours his memory and his fame was further enhanced in the late 1990s when the British novelist Louis de Bernieres (the one of "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" fame) arrived on an author tour and stuck around long enough to hear some of the Red Dog stories. Two years later he was back for more and the result was a novella published in 2002.

Perth producer Nelson Woss (Ned Kelly) picked up the rights and Australian director Kriv Stenders and American screenwriter Dan Taplitz have worked de Bernieres's vignettes into an engaging movie about a town where red dust is such an indelible feature of the landscape that a red kelpie risks invisibility. Not that this happens to Red Dog, an animal intent on making an impression wherever he goes. He's just as dogmatic, so to speak, about the company he keeps. An intrepid hitchhiker, he has to approve of the driver before he'll accept the lift.

Not everyone is a dog-lover, however, and the film's opening scenes have him in serious trouble.

He's been poisoned by a strychnine bait and while the vet is doing his best, the prognosis is grim. As they keep vigil, the miners of Dampier and their families reminisce about their friend for the benefit of Tom (Luke Ford), a visitor. So the flashbacks begin.

He arrived, we learn, with Jack the publican (Noah Taylor) and his wife, Maureen (Loene Carmen). They tell of having found him on the highway, waiting for the right travelling companions. Deciding that they'll do, he leaps into their car while they're still wondering where he's from and he doesn't look back. His inquiring gaze proves an instant hit and it's not long before half the miners in town have adopted him as a confidante - privy to all the secrets they're too macho to share with anybody on two legs.

Tone is all-important in a film as determinedly good-natured as this one. Make it too cute and the result is a very shaggy dog story. But Stenders keeps up a jaunty rhythm with a lot of help from his editor, Jill Bilcock, together with a soundtrack full of 1970s hits and a cast who all look as if they're having a great time. Setting the pace is Arthur Angel as Vanno, an Italian miner who has been banned from further boring his workmates with his effusions about the beauties of his home in Abruzzi. He turns to Red Dog and finds an instant cure for his homesickness in his unblinking and uncritical gaze. For a while, he cherishes the illusion that he's made the dog his own. But it's only when John (Josh Lucas) arrives in town from the US to become the bus driver that Red Dog finally chooses a master.

A star is born. And for once he's a redhead.

Australia's G.R.O.G. Party

2011-11-28T20:17:00.009+11:00

The Tea Party? Nothing as tame as that here in Australia where we have the G.R.O.G. party!

You haven't heard of the ‘Australian G.R.O.G Party?’ It’s a bumper sticker that’s starting to gain viral attention through the inboxes of many Australians.

What started as a joke over 6 months ago has finally gained momentum. Anyone can email Alex Werchon at australiangrogparty@gmail.com for stickers and shirts. Or look here. And you can also contact Alex via facebook and twitter.

The Sense of an Ending

2011-11-28T07:19:00.003+11:00

“In those days, we imagined ourselves as being kept in some kind of holding pen, waiting to be released into our lives. And when that moment came, our lives – and time itself – would speed up” recalls Tony Webster, now 60ish, middle class and middling, the ideal narrator in this book. He is bright, but not too bright; likeable but not a saint; and a survivor confident that he has stumbled upon most, if not quite all of the answers. “We live in time – it holds us and moulds us – but I’ve never felt I understood it very well.”

He is resigned to his ordinariness; even satisfied with it, in a bloody-minded way. In one light, his life has been a success: a career followed by comfortable retirement, an amiable marriage followed by amicable divorce, a child seen safely into her own domestic security. On harsher inspection, "I had wanted life not to bother me too much, and succeeded – and how pitiful that was." Barnes is brutally incisive on the diminishments of age: now that the sense of his own ending is coming into focus, Tony apprehends that "the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss", that he has already experienced the first death: that of the possibility of change.

“What did I know of life, I who had lived so carefully? Who had neither won nor lost, but just let life happen to him . . . Who avoided being hurt and called it a capacity for survival? Who paid his bills, stayed on good terms with everyone as far as possible, for whom ecstasy and despair soon became just words once read in novels?”

Who are you? How can you be sure? What if you're not who you think you are? What if you never were? These are the questions this book asks. You arrive at the end of this book breathless and befuddled, duped into the idea that a life's conclusion brings some kind of wisdom. Not always. Apparently sometimes there are simply just more questions.

Cleverly, Julian Barnes compresses a story with long temporal sweep into a scant 150 pages. (You can imagine a younger or a less confident author taking about three times as long to make the same points.) The cleverness resides not only in the way he has caught just how second-rate Webster's mind is without driving the reader to tears of boredom but in the way he has effectively doubled the length of the book by giving us a final revelation that obliges us to reread it. Without overstating his case in the slightest, Barnes's story is a meditation on the unreliability and falsity of memory; on not getting it the first time round - and possibly not even the second, either. Barnes's revelation is richly ambiguous.

Read this book. It may help you to make sense of it all, or at least realise that it doesn't make sense.

Australian Politics

2011-11-27T14:59:00.004+11:00

More

It's that time of year again when you wonder ...

2011-11-27T09:34:00.005+11:00

... what to give the little woman for Christmas!

My wife already has the latest iPhone, iPad, and iPod, so I thought I surprise her with a new iRon which nicely integrates with her iWash, iCook, and iClean.

If you want to visit me for Christmas, you'll find me in the Batemans Bay Hospital's Emergency Ward. Merry Christmas!

South Solitary

2011-11-26T21:33:00.010+11:00

South Solitary is another excellent Australian movie, set on South Solitary Island off Coffs Harbour on the New South Wales coast, about the lives of three lighthouse-keepers whose work was "unrelenting drudgery and tedium but you do catch the odd nice sunset ...".

Back in the 1920s, most lighthouse lanterns were in the form of temperamental kerosene mantles, and the revolution of the giant prism lens was controlled by a clockwork mechanism, which had to be re-wound continually throughout the night at regular intervals. The night was divided into three shifts, with the Head Lightkeeper always taking the first shift, thereby being responsible for the lighting up of the lamp, always fifteen minutes before sunset, and ensuring that it was indeed "all running correct". Each shift was between four and five hours long, and the Assistant Keepers would do a weekly rotation on the remaining two shifts - the least popular one being from 10 pm till 2 am. During his shift, a keeper had to maintain the burning of the lamp, re-wind the clockwork mechanism as required, and keep the pressure up in the kerosene cylinders. He would also check for passing ships, which were duly noted in the logbook, and note also three-hourly checks of barometer, wind and thermometer readings. The light would be extinguished fifteen minutes after sunrise, and a curtain pulled across the lantern room to protect the prism lens, and prevent fire. From 9am till noon, all the keepers were required to do routine work around the station.

Location map of South Solitary Island
A good story line and stunning photography!

This little pig went to the club ...

2011-11-26T12:56:00.005+11:00

... and, doing my best Sir Lunchalot impersonation, had a lovely big Sunday roast.

I thought I'd pass up the obligatory glass of wine as I didn't want to feel too good. But then I discovered Squealing Pig Pinot Noir, described by grape nuts as

"cheeky, bold, irreverent, but also really tasty! Drinkers can expect nothing but an unsurpassed taste. Having spent 10 months in French Oak, this Squealing Pig Pinot Noir is deep red in colour with vibrant purple hues and a hint of cocoa aromas on the nose. The palate is rich and generous with velvet like tannins, followed by an intense burst of blackberries, dark cherries and dried herbs with a wonderful length to the finish."

Well, I had a 'wonderful length to the finish' because I drank three whole glasses after which I drove home as I was too pissed to walk!

They've just written a book about me ☺

2011-11-26T08:37:00.008+11:00

Peter Watson's virtuoso sweep through modern German thought and culture, from 1750 to the present day, will challenge and confound both the stereotypes the world has of Germany and those that Germany has of itself.

From the end of the Baroque era and the death of Bach to the rise of Hitler in 1933, Germany was transformed from a poor relation among Western nations into a dominant intellectual and cultural force — more creative and influential than France, Britain, Italy, Holland, and the United States. In the early decades of the twentieth century, German artists, writers, scholars, philosophers, scientists, and engineers were leading their freshly unified country to new and unimagined heights. By 1933, Germans had won more Nobel Prizes than any other nationals, and more than the British and Americans combined. Yet this remarkable genius was cut down in its prime by Adolf Hitler and his disastrous Third Reich—a brutal legacy that has overshadowed the nation's achievements ever since.

How did the Germans transform their country so as to achieve such pre-eminence? In this absorbing cultural and intellectual history, Peter Watson goes back through time to explore the origins of the German genius, and he explains how and why it flourished, how it shaped our lives, and, most important, how it continues to influence our world. As he convincingly demonstrates, it was German thinking — from Beethoven and Kant to Diesel and Nietzsche, from Goethe and Wagner to Mendel and Planck, from Hegel and Marx to Freud and Schoenberg — that was paramount in the creation of the modern West. Moreover, despite World War II, figures such as Joseph Beuys, Jürgen Habermas, and Joseph Ratzinger ensure that the German genius still resonates intellectually today.

This study, at almost a thousand pages a real door-stopper, reminds us that our modern Western worldview has deep German roots. The U.S. and Great Britain, says Watson, “may speak English but, more than they know, they think German.” The book is comprehensive, erudite, ausgezeichnet.

What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.

Listen to the ABC Radio National broadcast.

The Ralum Country Club

2011-11-26T04:06:00.001+11:00

I've just read in the latest issue of UNA VOCE that he Ralum Club at Kokopo, just outside Rabaul, is celebrating its 50th anniversary next month. It brings back lots of memories of my time in Rabaul which was my first 'port of call' when I arrived in New Guinea in the dying days of 1969.

Rabaul was everything I had expected of the then Territory of Papua New Guinea: it was a small community settled around picturesque Simpson Harbour. The climate was tropical with blazing sunshine and regular tropical downpours, the vegetation strange and exotic, and the social life a complete change from anything I had ever experienced before! And to top it all, I loved my work in a firm of chartered accountants which offered challenges only available in a small setting such as Rabaul where expatriate labour was at a premium. The firm was small: the resident manager, his wife as secretary, and two accountants (both still studying) plus myself. One of the accountants was a real character who was destined never to leave the Territory. For him the old aphorism came true that "if you spend more than five years in New Guinea you were done for, you'd never be able to get out, your energy would be gone, and you'd rot there like an aged palm." He and an accountant from another chartered firm and myself shared a company house (which was really an old Chinese tradestore) in Vulcan Street and a 'hausboi' by the name of Getup. "Getup!!!" "Yes, masta!"

Each of us took a turn in doing the weekly shopping. I always dreaded when it was their turn as they merely bought a leg of lamb and spent the rest of the kitty to stock up on beer! We spent Saturday nights at the Palm Theatre sprawled in our banana chairs with an esky full of stubbies beside us. The others rarely spent a night at home; their nocturnal activities ranged from the Ambonese Club to the Ralum Country Club to the RSL. When they were well into their beers, mosquitoes would bite them and then fly straight into the wall! Then, next morning, they were like snails on Valium. How they managed to stay awake during office hours has always been a mystery to me!

Memories are made of this!

I am 66 and I am tired

2011-11-24T21:11:00.006+11:00

I am 66. I've worked hard since I was 14. I put in long working hours, and never - and I mean NEVER, except for one urgent appendectomy at Christmas 1973 ☺ - called in sick. I made a reasonable salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am.

I am tired of being told that I have to "spread the wealth" to people who don't have my work ethic. I'm tired of being told the government will take the money I earned and give it to people too lazy to earn it.

I am tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate.

I am tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses or stick a needle in their arm while they tried to fight it off?

I am tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of all parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught. I'm tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.

I am tired of people who don't take responsibility for their lives and actions. I'm tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems.

I am tired and fed up with seeing young men and women in their teens and early 20's bedeck themselves in tattoos and face studs, thereby making themselves unemployable and claiming money from the Government.

Yes, I'm bloody tired. But I'm also glad I am 66. Because, mostly, I'm not going to have to see the world these people are making. Thank God I'm on the way out and not on the way in.

An 'inverted roof' (in inverted commas)

2011-11-23T17:13:00.012+11:00

There's nothing quite like a warm summer's evening on the verandah, watching the river, with a glass of Pino More in hand, and wondering what the rich people are doing. ☺

I am weather-proofing it by covering the underside of the balcony above the verandah in corrugated iron.

The work is progressing well and should be finished sometime tomorrow. Send 'er down, Hughie!

Looking up to a great painter

2011-11-22T12:46:00.007+11:00

A cool and overcast day; a perfect day for painting the newly-renovated balustrades and rails on the upstairs balcony.

However, then came the rain and the big sleep:

Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?

You know how screwed up Europe is when you have a German Pope and an Italian central banker ...

2011-11-22T04:24:00.001+11:00

Plan B

2011-11-20T17:42:00.000+11:00

Another flashback to Thursday Island

2011-11-19T12:55:00.017+11:00

I had never heard of, let alone met, Gösta Brand when in 1977 I lived and worked on Thursday Island, commonly known as TI, although at that time he was still alive and living on Packe Island.

I came across his story many years later and had it confirmed by my old TI-friend David Richardson, now retired in Babinda. Balfour Ross, a long-time TI resident and regular visitor to this blog who now lives in Malaysia, may also be able to confirm it.

The story reminds me of Somerset Maugham's short story German Harry although that particular character is said to have been a Danish fellow by the name of Henry Evolt who lived on Deliverance Island and died there in January 1928, aged 79.

Extract from "Den överkörda kängurun" published 1975
Author: Tore Zetterlund (1915-2001)
Photo and photo texts: Eino Hanski (1928-2000)

Every boy's
dream comes true

I was sceptical until the last moment.

It was Eino who had heard about him and had contacted the man's brother in Sweden who confirmed that the story was true.

He had read the story in a book by a Danish travel writer. It was about a modern-day Swedish Robinson Crusoe who was said to live alone on a tropical island to the north of Australia. A real Jack London figure who had left Sweden more than 50 years ago and had lived a life of adventure as a sailor, pearl fisherman, crocodile hunter and hermit.

"It sounds like a piece of fiction" I said. "That sort of things doesn't happen anymore. It's as dead as the brontosaurus. It's just the boy inside all of us that still dreams of such adventures."

But Eino could produce evidence that this modern-day Swedish Robinson Crusoe existed. He had contacted the man's brother, a Viktor Brand, a farmer who had lived all his life on a farm in Simlångsdalen in Sweden. Viktor confirmed that he had a brother named Gösta who had left Sweden fifty-one years ago.

He had received the occasional short letter and card from his adventurous brother. The last one had been postmarked "Thursday Island", but that was more than a year ago. He thought he had been sick. Maybe he wasn't even alive any more.

Just in case we ever got as far as Thursday Island and found our modern-day Swedish Robinson Crusoe, we recorded a greeting from Viktor on Eino's tape recorder.

Thursday Island was almost as far away from Sweden as one could get. Our first stop after a long international flight was Sydney in Australia, then a domestic flight to Horn Island in the Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea. Then a short ferry ride across to Thursday Island. (There was also a Friday Island nearby which made me think of Robinson Crusoe again) We had brought with us the cassette recording of Viktor's greetings and a bunch of family photos.

The community on Thursday Island was as large as a Swedish fishing village. It reminded me somewhat of Byxelkrok on the island of Öland. The population consisted mainly of coloured people, not Australian aborigines but South Sea islanders from Melanesia. There were no racial barriers as there seemed to be on the Australian mainland.

On our very first evening on the island we freely mixed with snooker-playing and beer-drinking blacks and whites alike in the hotel bar and were able to ask questions about Gösta. Nobody knew a Gösta Brand but they had heard of an old Swede called Ron Brand who lived on Packe Island, an hour away from Thursday
Island by fast boat. But he was supposed to be seriously ill, and nobody knew if he was still alive.

Next day the postmaster confirmed that Ron was identical with Gösta - Gösta had simply been too difficult to pronounce for the local people. Two hours later we were on our way to Packe Island in a small boat owned by a South Sea Islander. About twenty minutes into our bumpy ride he yelled, "There is his boat! I am sure he is on it!"

At the risk of capsizing our little dinghy and turning us into shark-food, Eino took out his camera and started filming. The boat, an average-sized sailing boat with an auxiliary motor and a dinghy tied to her stern, lay at anchor a few hundred metres off Horn Island. We spotted the bare torso of a man inside the cockpit who disappeared into the cabin as we approached.

"I think he is sick," mumbled our boatman. However, as we got closer, he re-appeared from the cabin and we saw an emaciated, wiry, brownish man wearing a slouch-hat as protection against the sun.

I called out in Swedish, "Are you Gösta Brand? We have come from Sweden to bring you greetings from your brother Viktor."

He answered in a mixture of Swedish and "Sailor's English." Yes, he was Gösta Brand. He lived on Packe Island but had anchored his boat here because he was ill and had wanted to come a bit closer to civilisation. He thought it was his lungs, but he wasn't interested to go to a hospital. And he definitely didn't want our help to return to Sweden!

" I would die on the spot," he laughed. "I have lived far too long in the tropics. If I should die, it has to be on my island or on the boat here."

He was friendly and happy and not at all unsociable as we had anticipated. We suggested that he should follow us out to his island, so that we could film him there. He didn't seem unwilling but was probably too sick to be in front of a camera and also afraid of leaving his boat. With the help of a bottle of whisky
he finally agreed to wait for us until the next day when we would come back in a larger boat to tow him back to his island.

Next day we managed to hire a twin-engined speedboat that bounced along at more than 30 knots. I helped Ron lift the anchor and sat next to him in his boat while we were towed out to sea, with Eino filming from the speedboat. It turned out to be a more dramatic film than we had anticipated as the waves became bigger and wilder until they completely drenched us and filled the dinghy with water. Close to capsizing, we desperately waved our arms to tell the speedboat to turn back.

We were wet, depressed and angry as we dropped Ron and his boat back in the same spot where we had found him. So much for our efforts to film this modern-day Robinson Crusoe's existence on his tiny island!

I don't know whether it was the influence of the whisky or the prospect of appearing on Swedish television but suddenly Ron did agree to leave his boat and come with us to his island in our speadboat. "As long as you bring me back here afterwards," he said.

An hour later, after having passed other deserted islands, we stepped ashore on a South Sea island straight out of a "Boy's Own" setting. The calm waters of the bay in front of Packe Island were absolutely clear and blue, and the sand was soft all the way up to the palm trees. Palm trees that Ron had planted himself while he had built his hut and the bamboo fence surrounding it. The hut was painted white and had a roof of corrugated metal. For almost twenty years he had lived here totally alone after having cleared a piece of land and the beach in front of it. For all this he paid a peppercorn rent of ten dollars a year to the Australian government.

He regretted that a group of cultured-pearl farmers had moved in at the other end of the bay. We thought he would have welcomed having some other people nearby but he regarded them as trespassers on his island.

He told us about the many adventures he had had and showed us some nasty scars on his legs from crocodile bites. He had become an Australian citizen and for the last few years had been getting a government pension which took care of all his material needs. But he still went crocodile-hunting on occasions or fished for barramundi, always accompanied by a native from one of the other islands. "They are my best mates," he said.

On the beach sat his canoe, named "Minnehaha"", meaning "Laughing Water" in some Red Indian language. Yes, he had lived amongst Red Indians, too. That was in Canada, before he came to Australia.

"Why did you choose this life?" we asked.

"Because I love my liberty!" he answered quickly and without hesitation. He had obviously considered this question many times.

"Didn't you ever miss a woman?"

"Yes, of course, but then I also have to get hold of a woman. I have never lived with a woman. I love my liberty!"

It sounded self-assured but by the time we had finished our filming and were to leave, we thought we knew the price he had paid for his freedom - what he called his "liberty" - and his carefree existence. He had seemed strangely touched by our visit as we recorded his message to his brother in Sweden.

"You are both welcome to come back and stay on my island," he said as we were about to depart. "Bring your wife and kids with you."

We could tell that he meant what he said although he knew quite well how unlikely another visit would be. Not many people ever come this far.

I had one last look into the cabin of his boat before I climbed down the rail. There were three guns, two with telescopic sight, a cracked mirror, an old radio, some cans and a pair of old-fashioned spectacles. The sum total of his life, plus loneliness, hardship, and the occasional sickness.

As we left, the outline of where he sat in the boat waving goodbye was getting smaller and smaller. Very soon it would be hard to believe he existed at all.

But both Eino and I had the tooth of a crocodile he had given us to prove that he was real!

And here are some photos of my time on TI in 1977, and here is the story of my return in 2005.

Is Riverbend still for sale?

2011-11-19T09:19:00.018+11:00

You have to live somewhere - it may as well be Paradise!

People keep asking me. And here's my answer: YES!

A neighbouring cottage, a converted fishing shack on a mere 1900m² of dirt, has just sold for $950,000. So what should be the price tag on a very substantial double-storey brick residence, plus all the improvements and inclusions, situated on over 7 ACRES of absolute waterfront land?

As stated on my website, I invite offers over $2million! You have to live somewhere - it may as well be somewhere expensive! ☺

According to my insurers' Home Buildings Calculator, the cost to rebuild "Riverbend" 's main residence plus Cottage plus Workshop plus Utility Shed plus plus plus is well in excess of $800,000. Add to this the Land Department's $850,000 for the unimproved land (their valuations are always woefully behind market values), and the 'total package' is already worth $1,650,000.

Why do we do it? Why do we encumber ourselves with possessions? We are born with nothing yet the moment we emerge into the light of day we begin to accumulate things as if the possessing of things was an essential element of human existence. Stuff, and nonsense, and more stuff.

Where are the days when all I owned fitted into what was then known as a portmanteau? A change of clothing, a few toiletries, my trusty Langenscheidt Deutsch-Englisch/Englisch-Deutsch Wörterbuch, and, acquired much later from Breckwoldts in Kieta, my OLYMPIA portable typewriter was all I possessed for well over twenty years until I returned from Saudi Arabia and settled down, i.e. started to accumulate things.

Have pen, will travel was my motto then; Have too much, can't travel anymore may well be my motto now.

What's at stake?

2011-11-18T15:16:00.007+11:00

Tomatoes, that's what, and lots of them! So if you happen to be at "Riverbend" this time next month, be prepared for grilled tomatoes for breakfast and tomato salad for lunch. And ketchup. Which reminds me:

A family of three tomatoes were walking downtown one day when the little baby tomato started lagging behind. The big father tomato walks back to the baby tomato, stomps on her, squashing her into a red paste, and says, "Ketchup!"

Autsch!

The Mystery of the Missing Goldfish

2011-11-15T16:16:00.007+11:00

Yes, you've counted correctly: eight!
The ninth is hiding behind the rock
But where is the tenth?

When I set up my aquarium again, I bought ten goldfish: fantails, comets, and a shubunkin. I limited myself to ten so as not to have to take my shoes and socks off every time I did a roll call (not that I wear shoes and socks much these days anyway).

I've just done a roll call and there are only NINE ! I counted again and again and left no pebble unturned: one goldfish is definitely missing!

???

Keep five years' living expenses in cash - then invest the rest as though you'll live to be a 100.

2011-11-15T15:00:00.005+11:00

The GFC, the Eurozone bail-outs, this is just all so much static. Stay savvy, stay sane, and invest in Blue Chip dividend-paying stocks as though you'll live to be a 100.

Horst Berger's 25th Anniversary

2011-11-15T08:25:00.018+11:00

Self (left) and Horst at the Mariner's Café in Pangai on Lifuka Island

In September 2006, I visited the Kingdom of Tonga in the South Pacific where on the remote island of Lifuka in the Ha'apai Group I met Horst Berger from Austria (not Australia but Austria, that little country in Central Europe where they speak German with a funny accent), who had settled there some twelve years earlier - click here.

He'd come to Tonga in 1986 at the ripe old age of 30 following a workplace accident in Vienna which gave him a small pension to live on. Today, 25 years later, he has fully succumbed to the siren song of these remote and soporific islands which is that on this small and human-sized stage your life will count for more and even your smallest accomplishments will be remembered.

He doesn't seem to be ever struck by homesickness. And why would he want to leave? He subscribes to Louis Becke's sentiments - of whom he knows nothing - who once wrote about life in the South Seas, "Return? not they! Why should they go back? Here they had all things which are wont to satisfy man here below. A paradise of Eden-like beauty, amid which they wandered day by day all unheeding of the morrow. Why - why, indeed, should they leave the land of magical delights for the cold climate and still more glacial moral atmosphere of their native land, miscalled home?"

If you would like to contact Horst, write to this address

Horst Berger
Felemea, Uiha Island
Ha'apai
Kingdom of Tonga
South Pacific

but be patient as mail to and from the islands is very slow!

Oh, and by the way, when I write to Horst, I always enclose a small (and sometimes not so small) dollar-note to help him with the return postage and let him share a beer with me ☺

Another mad German

2011-11-12T18:23:00.013+11:00

While preparing for my trip to Thursday Island some years ago, I came across the almost forgotten story of Oskar Speck who had paddled his collapsible kayak 'Sonnschien' - a mere speck on the ocean, if you will pardon the pun - for 50,000 kilometres from Germany to Australia. The kayak's manufacturers, Pionier Faltbootwerft, would replace it five times during Oskar's long journey.

Germany was at peace (and in poverty) when Oskar, then aged 25, left in 1932. Seven years and four months later, on the 20th of September 1939, he coaxed his kayak through the surf and on to the beach at Saibai, an island 60 or 70 miles north from Thursday Island. It was two weeks after the start of World War II - but Oskar didn't know about that. At his bow, often smothered in the flying surf, fluttered the tiny Swastika which he had brought from Germany with him. Three Australian police were waiting for him to berth his kayak. If this was the German invasion, these cops could handle it. “Well done, feller!” they said, shaking his hand warmly. “You’ve made it—Germany to Australia in THAT. But now we’ve got a piece of bad news for you. You are an enemy alien. We are going to intern you.”

Oskar spent a month on Thursday Island. His arrival there was photographed by Siri Mendis, a young Sri Lankan living there (whom I remember from my time on Thursday Island in 1977 when he was the pharmacist at the hospital) who remembers the event and was also present when Oskar was interrogated by police before being transferred to the Tatura Internment Camp in the Goulburn Valley of Victoria.

We are lucky to have a record of his incredible seven-year voyage in his own words, as published in the Australasian POST magazine and reprinted with the POST's kind permission in the NSW Sea Kayaker Magazine:

Originally, it wasn’t my intention to write the story of my voyage. I only wanted to tell Australians about Faltboots (folding boats), which are the modern version of the ancient Eskimo kayak. But would Australians recognise my authority to speak about it?

In Germany, I was a recognised kayakist before 1932. As my voyage progressed and reports of it went home from Cyprus, from Greece, from India, I became acknowledged as the most experienced sea-going kayak expert in the world.

My old paddle was a trophy to the winner of the Marathon Canoe Race, Carl Toovey, who rowed 100 miles on the Hawkesbury River, NSW, in 18 hours, 32 minutes. Sailing men in Australia know me — I have been elected an honorary member of the NSW Canoe Club, and the kayak in which I arrived here has been presented to a member of the River Canoe Club. But the mass of Australians did not know me at all—except, perhaps, as a name appearing from time to time in local newspapers which briefly recorded the progress of the earlier parts of my voyage.

Only a fuller account of the voyage will introduce me. I hope that it will convince you that I am a skilled kayakist—if I weren’t, there were many perilous occasions on the voyage when I should have perished. But I am lucky, also. Only with luck was I allowed to survive to acquire the skill which brought me through hostile seas in the later parts of the voyage.

The original, primitively shaped kayak was used by the Eskimos for many centuries. More modern, streamlined kayaks, made of solid timber, have featured in the sport and recreation of Europe for many years. But these were no use to city dwellers. They could not cart a great boat home with them and park it in their town flats. And in Europe to hire a small boatshed or even to store a boat is too expensive for the ordinary man.

What was needed was a boat that would not only be safe for shooting rapids, and light for porterage, but which would collapse into a small bundle, easily carried by train or bus to the scene of the weekend’s sport. The inventor of the faltboot kayak fulfilled all these requirements. It consists of a framework of very light, pliable timber stays, over which the fabric of laminated rubber and canvas fits like a skin.

So ingenious is its design that, once put together, it becomes as rigid as its all-timber prototype. Taken apart and packed, it can be stored in any odd corner in house or flat. There are single and two-seaters, weighing 40 and 65 pounds, respectively.

Continental railways cut freights for faltboots, to bring this recreation within the means of the masses. During summer, faltboots in the tens of thousands swarm over the rivers and lakes of Europe. Dimensions? My double-seater kayak (I took the second seat out) weighed 65 pounds, was 18 feet long with a 33 inch beam and a freeboard of 9 3/4 inches. It carried a load of 650 pounds. With a good wind and a quiet sea it can do up to 6 1/2 knots. Loaded, and propelled by a lone paddler, it can do three knots. Currents, of course, affect these speeds. Its sail measures 16 square feet, but a strong wind makes sailing risky. The rudder is worked by the feet, wire lines linking rudder to the foot control.

For my voyage I carried a spare paddle, a prismatic compass, sea charts, and ‘coastal pilots’ which show every landmark, every depth, every tiny inlet and cliff. I had two large waterproof brass containers for my films, cameras, and clothing. Fresh water went into small tanks shaped to the sides of the kayak—they held five gallons.

Fresh water, did I say? In many tropical places on my route the ‘fresh’ water was lurid green. So I also carried young coconuts, dependable for a germ-free drink; and condensed milk. I have given the specifications of the faltboot. But my kayak proved to have qualities which even the maker never claimed for it. It won me friendships right across the world. It was a first-class ticket to everywhere. A little restricted while one was actually travelling, more than a little perilous, but it brought me privileges which your passenger in an ocean liner’s de luxe suite can never know.

I will always remember meeting the Governor of British Baluchistan, Sir Norman Carter. A shooting party had been arranged for him by the two local maharajahs, and a magnificent camp, complete even to triumphal gateways, had been erected near the beach. It was just chance that I had landed on that beach a little earlier. Sir Norman and his aides came walking down towards the beach. There to greet him, with colourful retinues and in all their regal splendor, were the Maharajahs of Kalat and of Las Bella. In turn, their names were announced to the Governor. He half-turned to his right, and bowed stiffly to the Maharajah of Kalat; then to the left, bowing just as stiffly to His Highness the Maharajah of Las Bella. Then he saw me, dressed in informal shirt and pants taken from my watertight tank. Sir Norman hurried forward and shook my hand warmly. “Let me congratulate you, Mr Speck,” he said. “A splendid performance.” He insisted on taking me to his marquee, and with his own hands served me with a drink while he listened to my story. Two jealous maharajahs waited outside for the shoot to begin.

Such welcomes are not guaranteed by the Pionier Faltboot Company, makers of my kayak, but they could be depended upon none the less. But let me get started on my journey…

In Hamburg I had been an electrical contractor, employing 21 hands. Then came the depression. In 1932 my factory had no work, and I had to liquidate.

There seemed no hope for me in Germany. But I heard there might be work that I could do in the copper mines in Cyprus. I did not dream of going on to Australia then. I had a little money - enough to equip my boat. So, one morning I took my folded kayak and the supplies to Ulm by train. There, beside the Danube, I put the ash frame together, and pulled the rubber-and-canvas skin over it. I loaded up, and, without any fuss or farewell from anyone, I set off to paddle down the river in the direction of the Mediterranean Sea.

By all sane standards I was mad! Faltboots are not built for the sea. If you must compare them with a land vehicle, there are most nearly related to the bicycle. On a bicycle you must keep pedalling and steering or you fall over. In a faltboot you may sail while the weather is kind, but you must be constantly active, constantly steering to bring the boat’s bow to the right position to meet every single wave.

Take just one wave wrong and your boat will spin sideways, you will turn over and be swamped. Your first capsize on the open ocean will be your last. When the wind becomes strong you must take in your tiny sail and paddle. Sometimes I have had to paddle for 16 hours on end without a moment’s cessation.

Life becomes a dreary, endless monotony of paddling, arms and shoulders aching, and your whole body longing inexpressibly for one thing—sleep. But you must not even doze for one moment. You must be constantly using the rudder, meeting each wave just right. In larger boats, sailors pray when they get into difficulties. In bad weather in a kayak one also prays, but with both hands cramped around the paddle, both feet tense on the rudder bar. There are no long prayers, either—just one cry for survival, and how often this is repeated only God knows.

Praying for survival and working up an emotional fury against the elements—that is how one fights a storm. I had luck with the weather in the first part of my voyage, and only that luck enabled me to live to gain the skill and experience that brought me through the rest of it.

On my voyage I had 10 capsizes, but they always happened riding in through the surf, never at sea. The kayakist learns that he has little to fear from oncoming waves taken at a right angle. But following waves must never come under the boat at a right angle. If one does, the tiny rudder will lift clear out of the water, control of the boat is lost, and it swings sideways and turns over. It is curtains!

My voyage was to last seven years. I rowed and sailed across the German-Austrian border, past Vienna, into Hungary. I reached the famous Iron Gate on the Danube! All the canoe guides are full of stories about it; all advise utmost caution. Here the Danube drives through grim, steep banks, and there are tremendous whirlpools to suck down any incautious rower. I kept a sharp lookout. The larger whirlpools I avoided. My kayak skimmed swiftly across the smaller ones. Luck got me through.

At the Bulgaria-Yugoslavia border I decided that the Danube was too tame. I wanted a new river to conquer, and just a short distance across country lay the Vardar River, which had never been navigated. Those upper reaches of the Vardar proved savage. The river plunges through steep mountains, with a succession of fierce rapids waiting to hurl the canoeist onwards and downwards through the gorges.

I reached Veles, in Macedonia, with half the kayak’s ribs broken. It was hopeless to go on. I sent the skin of the kayak back to Germany for repairs, and they made such a good job of it that when it came back to me, Macedonian Customs insisted that it was a new craft, and wanted to charge it as such. Then the Vardar froze over solid. Altogether, I was delayed five months in Veles.

It was spring when I finally got away. I crossed the Macedonian-Greek border, and landed on the opposite bank of the river from the Transcontinental Railway. On the railway side the river ran close beside steep banks. As I erected my tent (I carried a small tent until it rotted and had to be discarded) a train passed across the river— what I didn’t know was that the train crew at the next station reported me as a suspicious character. Around midnight I was awakened by shouting, and I pulled back the flap of my tent to find myself looking into two carbines, held by two frontier guards. Their two horses were just behind them. We shared no language, so I showed them my passport. After muttering over it for a while, one guard signed to me to mount the second guard’s horse. Leaving the second guard behind, the two of us rode for two hours across the wild hills, when we came to a fortress, and I was presented to the commandant. He was a charming young officer. Directly he saw the Greek visa on my passport, he offered profuse apologies, and followed this by insisting that I should come into his room and drink coffee and wine.

At Salonika I faced the sea at last. With few incidents, my voyage down the coast of Greece was a kayakist’s dream, and at last I was beaching my kayak at Andros.I was scarcely ashore when two little Greek girls in white Sunday dresses came across the sand towards me, carrying a round loaf of bread with three coloured eggs sticking out of it. So it was Easter Day, and this was Andros’ welcome! Andros is a wealthy island, and I was taken to a dance at the Ship Owners’ Club, where lovely girls who spoke English better than I did dance with them. There you have the contrast which the kayak can offer to her master. At one hour you can be fighting against a headsea. You are dressed like a tramp, you are stung my flying spray, you are in real peril.

The next hour, clad in clean, dry shore clothes taken from your water-tight tank, you are sitting in one of the windows of a magnificent club. There is music and girls, and the wines of the world to choose from.

On to Kastelorozo where the girls pay the men a dowry according to the status of the families. It is often substantial. A boy has to contribute to his sister’s dowry—it follows that a boy with a number of sisters will have his nose to the grindstone for many a year. But he must uphold his family’s status. It is the custom that, on the engagement night (which is very close to the wedding date) the engaged couple shall sleep in the same room for the night. But the young man must not so much as touch his future bride, to show that their union is an affair of the spirit, not of the flesh. Petting and necking are unknown terms on Kastelerozo, where a girl who was not a virgin would indeed be better dead.

By now I had decided that I did not want that Cyprus job (the cause of my starting the voyage). I wanted much more to make a kayak voyage that would go down in history. It was about now that I first said to myself: “Why not Australia?” I wasn’t so rash as to breathe that ambition to anyone else—yet. I sailed round Cyprus on the westward coast via Limassol to Larnaka. Since the kayak would have to be freighted either way, I decided that Suez offered a too well-beaten path — why not land on the Syrian coast and take the bus to Meskene, on the Upper Euphrates? That WOULD be something! There was no proper road to Meskene. That wreck of a bus just picked its own way across the desert, but it got me to my destination. The Euphrates is lined with date plantations. I saw many Arab men, but no women except the very old. At villages I would be invited into the men’s houses. There I would sit on the mud floor among a lot of Arabs. A great copper plate would be brought in and laid before us; on it the hard flat bread of the country, gravy, and meat of the goat or sheep. There are no utensils. You eat with your hand, but only with one hand, or you offend your hosts. In strange lands I bow to the local customs.

I made it a rule never to refuse hospitality — better a dirty meal and the lice and vermin of the men’s houses than a shot in the dark. And that is how the Arab expresses his resentment of hospitality scorned. One night I was drifting down the Euphrates with the current. The current carried me first to this side of the river, in bright moonlight, then to the other, in black shadow. It was only necessary to paddle occasionally. I must had dozed. Suddenly two shots rang out from the moonlit bank.

I came to with a click, and started to paddle - fast! In my haste I was paddling the wrong way, upstream, but it was not time to argue, and I made for the shadowy side. There were several more shots, then all was silence. But I had to paddle back past those riflemen. I sneaked back on the dark side of the river, using the current, and touching the water with my paddle only once or twice. I heard men talking on the bank there, but there were no more shots. I never learned who they were, or why they had shot at me!

My trip down the Lower Euphrates from Felludgah to Basra did not reveal its lurking perils to me. Yet a few weeks later two Germans, May and Fischer, hearing of my trip, decided to follow my course. They were well-equipped, far better than I. But, on the way down they made the mistake of refusing Arab hospitality — they just didn’t like fleas and lice. They were both shot dead in their tents on the river bank, and everything they had was stolen.

I could write a whole book about the next relatively short leg of my trip along the Persian coast to British Baluchistan — some day I will. I vowed then that never shall I visit Persia again. I say now that never will I so much as fly over that country lost in basest corruption. Arriving eventually at the first tiny Persian settlement, consisting of a dozen mud huts, but no shops, no bazaar— I had to present my starving self to the authorities, represented by two barefooted policemen. They were quite friendly, and obviously very poor. After inspecting my passport, which they held upside down, a fowl was killed, and with rice it was my first proper meal for weeks. How poor these people were was underlined when the bones that I threw away were snatched up by the village barber and carefully gone over again, the smaller bones being chewed up completely.

During the next 500 miles along the Persian coast to Bandar Abbas, I saw much of the life lived by the people of the Gulf. From the age of 12, all women wear masks made of black material. Only once did I see a Persian woman without this mask, and she was the wife—the very temporary wife—of a Persian Customs official. This westernised Customs officer already had a wife in Teheran. For the term of his contract to work in the Gulf, he married this local girl. She was 15, very pretty, but no match for her shrewd husband. To secure her, he had to pay her father 160 tomans (about £30). Half of this was paid cash down. But the balance was due when the official returned to Teheran. If she refused to follow him there, not only would the final payment of 80 tomans be revoked, but the original money would have to be refunded.It was a double-headed penny. She couldn’t go to Teheran. In Persia, apart from her husband, a wife only meets her own relatives. Others may not set eyes on her. When he returned to Teheran, no one except himself would see her again. Whether she lived or died only he would know.

One day I passed three Arab sailing vessels anchored at the entrance of a creek. They waved to me to stop— they wanted me to come aboard and drink with them. But I had a good breeze, and I sailed on. A shot rang out, and a bullet hit the water only a few inches away. Looking back, I saw the Arabs had launched a fully-manned rowing boat, which was chasing me. With that wind, I had no trouble out-distancing it. At that time the Customs was run by Belgian staff, under contract to the Persian Government. These sailing boats had been discharging a cargo of smuggled sugar.

On from Bandar Abbas I pressed to Gwattar, on the Baluchistan border — never was a sailor more anxious to shake the spray of these vile Persian waters from his kayak. Here, on a beach surrounded by high cliffs, I landed as darkness was falling, and pulled my kayak well up on to the beach. I badly needed food, and had noticed as I sailed inshore two Arab sailing boats beached further along. I walked to them now, but found them untenanted—indeed, they proved to be dismantled wrecks. I walked back to my boat to find it - GONE!

Panic took me then. Here was I on an unfriendly beach, cast among a lawless race of cut-throats, thieves, and smugglers. My boat was gone, and in it my money, my passport, my every possession in the world except only the shorts and shirt I was wearing. Dawn showed me high cliffs enclosing the beach, and perched on top of them a few miserable huts. I climbed up the cliff, and found the huts occupied by some fishermen and two Persian police armed with carbines. They were not helpful when I told of the disappearance of my kayak, but I insisted that they should send a boat out. I said that I should go to the Shah in Teheran, and that I was his guest — and that moved them to requisition an outrigger boat, and in it the police took me to the border village.

There the captain of police was intelligent, and, of course, corrupt. When I told him that there was money in my boat and that I would give half of it to the finder, he said confidently: “You will get your boat back.” There was great doings and discussion at the barracks during the night, and next morning the captain, his assistant, and I set out in another boat. Without great trouble we came upon a dhow, and there across its bow lay my kayak. Not a thing in it had been touched. The sailors aboard explained they had found the kayak drifting, and had taken it aboard — actually, of course, they had stolen it, having watched my landing at dark. In my wallet, in various currencies, was about £80. I gave half to the police captain, but that was nothing, so happy was I to have my kayak back.

Each night now, when I camped, I was far from lonely. Crowds thronged around my craft. The story of my voyage and my kayak, much distorted as it passed from mouth to mouth, sailed down the Indian coast faster than I could. I reached Colombo on May 13, 1935, exactly three years after I had left my home town Ulm, in Germany. At Rangoon, despite the approaching monsoon season, I resolved to go on Mergui. Before reaching Mergui, the monsoon was in full swing. Sudden squalls, with torrential rain, would sometimes blow the kayak miles off its course. There were times when, far out at sea, the wind would turn against me. Next morning would find me still ceaselessly paddling, still almost exactly where I was when the previous dusk fell. When at last I reached shore I would feel like a drunk. My hands would not open without excruciating pain after having been cramped around the paddle for 30 or 40 hours. I felt no hunger, only profound exhaustion. I only wanted to fling myself down and let my eyes fall shut. It was wise, then, to forget any timetable and recuperate for a few days, for I could never know what lay ahead on the next stretch.

A new kayak was waiting for me at Singapore. I transferred my luggage, and set out for Sumatra. From Batavia I followed the coast of Java to Surabaya. When in North Bali I again had a severe bout of malaria, and before I was more than halfway better I foolishly decided to try to reach Lombok. There was a strong current against me for most of that leg of the trip, and before I reached land malaria had the upper hand again and I was a miserable, shivering victim in its clutch. Some natives came down to the beach and half-carried me up to the village, where the Kepala Kampong (village chief) received me.

At Kissar there was an unpleasant change in the behaviour of the natives toward me. Many were arrogant, they tried to cheat me, some threw stones at me. I didn’t relish staying anywhere long. I crossed to Lakor, and landed on a small sandy beach with a coral reef protecting it. After my recent experiences I didn’t feel tempted to go to the nearby village. An hour later a number of natives approached. From them I tried to get information about prevailing currents between there and Sumatra. They said the best time for me to leave was about 5 am next day.

Some of them were keen to get a few of my empty water bottles, but these were essential to me on my voyage and I had to refuse. Some hours later I was awakened by a voice saying, very softly, “Tuan! Tuan!” I opened a flap in the canvas and looked out. About 20 natives were gathered there. The moonlight was so strong that, among them, I could spot some of my earlier visitors. I asked what they wanted, but could get no real reply. I asked them to let me get some sleep because I was very tired. I pulled the canvas back again as a sign that the interview was over. A few minutes later a native, kneeling beside the boat, started to talk to me in a soft voice, and at the same time his fingers tried to open the cover. I was angry. I sat up.

Now I noticed that all the natives had spears, swords, or machetes. In stern tones I ordered them to leave me in peace. “Pistol ada” (“I have a pistol”), I said, and let the moon glint on it. It was not loaded. It was meant to be so, and was only intended as a final threat to natives who would not let me alone. At the sight of the pistol, the natives around the boat retreated, but only a few steps. The native kneeling beside the boat did not stand up, but went on speaking to me in a soft, calm voice. As I laid the pistol down his hands closed round my neck and he uttered a wild cry. The other natives closed in. Five or six of them held me down, half in and half out of the kayak.

They all clung to me like leeches. Strong hands clutched my hair. With the strength of despair I tore one hand free from them and strove to pull the hands from my throat. My clothing — I wore only a sarong in those tropic nights—was torn off in the struggle. With strips of dried buffalo hide some of them tied my legs and hands, while others looted the kayak. By the hair, they dragged my trussed body some yards across the sand. They constantly kicked me. They picked me up, carried me a short distance, then dropped me a few yards from the water. To understand the terror of my position, naked and bound as I was, you must understand the ecstatic frenzy of those natives. They were used to the white man as master. Here was a white man in their power—and they were drunk with that power. Sometimes a gibbering, ecstatic native would hold his gleaming machete only a few millimetres from my throat. It was clear what he wanted to do.

Black hands explored my naked body. It was a most revolting experience. I tried to bring them back to sanity, but white man’s words had no effect now. They only seemed to intensify their frenzy, so I decided that absolute silence would be the best course. After a discussion among themselves, the leader walked away with some others, leaving ten guards to watch me. For an hour I lay like that, with the guards softly talking among themselves. Suddenly, for no reason on earth, one came over to me. He swung at me with the flat of his hand, striking my left ear. Despite the shackles, I struggled up a bit. He sprang a couple of steps back, then kicked the back of my head a couple of times when he saw I was really helpless. He went back and resumed his talk with the others.

During that respite I discovered that my left ear was deaf. The drum of it was burst. After perhaps another hour the guards came back and placed me under a rock near the boat, and then they went off, following the same direction which the gang leader and his party had taken. When they last dropped me on the sand I had noticed that the hide gripping one leg seemed loose. After hard writhing and struggling, I slipped it down off my calf, and so eventually pulled one foot free. I was able to stand! I tottered to the kayak, hoping to find my knife there, but it had been thoroughly looted. Then I tried to cut my fetters against the edge of a rock. No good. There was one hope left. With my teeth I tried to unknot the thong around my wrists. At first the knot would not budge. But buffalo hide is stiff and harsh, and one end of the knot projected a little way towards me.

With my chin I pushed this loose end through the knot, forming a loop on the far side of my bound wrists. I twisted my wrists around, and with my teeth caught on the loop and tugged. Had their fetters been more pliable I would not have been able to do this. In ten minutes I had the first knot untied. The second knot was easier, and in 20 minutes my hands were free. But I was not safe yet. I dragged the kayak down to the water — it was a struggle after all I had been through. Now I could breathe!

There was time to spend a few moments looking around for my luggage. The natives had evidently thought that my largest tank contained only water—actually it held my camera, films, and much of my clothing. I got it back into the boat, and then paddled 30 or 40 yards out into the lagoon.

Not five minutes later I saw the torches of the natives returning to the beach. But I was safe here, and I sat looking on. They were excited, and then they found I had gone a new wave of frenzy seemed to go through them. I reached Sermata with my bruises as proof of a story, which, otherwise, no one might have credited. Then the Resident of the Moluccas arrived on his annual inspection of the islands. I had to repeat my whole story to him. With a boatload of officials, he promptly set off for Lakor to deal with the gangsters. He arrested six, including the leader. At the subsequent trial the leader was awarded six years’ hard labour, as were two others of his gang. Two got two years, and one got a year. As for me, I went first to the military hospital at Ambon, and then back to Sourabaya, where surgeons operated on my ear. I spent four months under treatment before the ear cleared up.

Exactly a year after the attack, I left Saumlaki in a new boat, crossed to the Kei Islands, and then faced the
longest lap of island-hopping to New Guinea. When I arrived at the first Dutch administration village, I caused a headache to the official in charge.
He did not know whether to arrest me or let me carry on. This permit came at last, and I sailed via Hollandia to Madang, Port Moresby, and eventually to Saibai, Australia’s northernmost island, which is also officially a part of Australia proper.

I had reached my goal, after seven years, and (as I mentioned earlier) I walked straight into internment, for Australia and Germany were at war. Australia has proved a good goal. I have many friends here, and I have built my home here, on the Pittwater, near Sydney. I hope to visit Germany again, but Australia is where I belong now.

But Oskar's amazing story doesn't end there. He was held prisoner at the Tatura Internment Camp for seven years during which time Oskar entertained his fellow-prisoners with talks about his kayaking exploits. On the 9th of January 1943, Oskar, together with another internee, dared to escape and tried to make their way to Sydney by bicycle. They were recaptured and returned to Tatura where Oskar was held for another three years. But Oskar spent his time of imprisonment developing a new machine for the cutting and polishing of opals and other precious stones which after the end of the war made him a very wealthy man. He was an opal miner at Lightning Ridge and followed a successful career as an opal cutter before retiring to a house he had built at Kilcare Heights near Gosford on the Central Coast of New South Wales in Australia.

After a long illness, Oskar died childless in 1995, aged 88, and on the death of his partner Nancy Steele, the notebooks and equipment from his expedition were bequeathed to the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney.

What an incredible man! What an incredible journey! What an incredible story! A real "Boy's Own" which deserves to be told and retold a thousand times - which is exactly what I hope to achieve by telling you about it.

Sail ho!

2011-11-10T14:03:00.004+11:00

Brian Darcey, an old PNG-friend, has just emailed to say that he'll set sail from Cairns on the 15th of November and should be anchored off "Riverbend" sometime in late December.

Fair winds, Brian, and see you soon! (And here are your sailing instructions up the Clyde River - in German, of course!)

Kuk Buk

2011-11-10T10:58:00.009+11:00

I've just come across this simple little cook book from my time in New Guinea. This little gem had been my haus boi's who answered to the name of Getup. "Get Up!"; "Yes, Masta!"

The book had been published by Methodist Mission Press in Rabaul which accounts for the many full-page adverts from businesses I used to know in Rabaul: Rabaul Sports and Music Store; Elvee Trading Coy; Croyden and Viggers; Rabaul Photographic; Rabaul Pharmacies (John Mills); Andersons; Paradise Bakery; AA Hopper and Coy; and many more.

The book's contents are listed under Kai Long Monitaim (Breakfast); Kai Kai Bilong Belo (Luncheon Dishes); Abus Nau Kokoruk (Meat and Poultry); Swit Kai (Sweets); and many others.

Here's a recipe for Kiau na Susu (Scrambled Eggs) which should need no translation:

"3 kiau, 1 kap susu, pepa na sol. Brukim kiau long sosipen, potim sus, na tanim wantain, putim, liklik pepa na sol, tanim wantain moa, kuk im long sosipen, tanim oltaim long pok, long taim i strong, tekewei wara long im, wok im tupela tos na putim kiau antap."

To which I may add, in my best Pidgin English, Bon appetit!

Travels with myself

2011-11-09T04:28:00.001+11:00

I have been in many places, but I've never been in Cahoots. Apparently, you can't go alone. You have to be in Cahoots with someone.

I've also never been in Cognito. I hear no one recognises you there.

I have, however, been in Sane. They don't have an airport; you have to be driven there. I have made several trips there, thanks to my friends, family and work.

I would like to go to Conclusions, but you have to jump, and I'm not too much on physical activity anymore.

I have also been in Doubt. That is a sad place to go, and I try not to visit there too often.

I've been in Flexible, but only when it was very important to stand firm.

Sometimes I'm in Capable, and I go there more often as I'm getting older.

One of my favourite places to be is in Suspense! It really gets the adrenalin flowing and pumps up the old heart! At my age I need all the stimuli I can get!

Confucius say

2011-11-08T14:13:00.006+11:00

Jin Liqun, the supervising chairman of the China Investment Corporation, China's sovereign wealth fund. says Europe's problem is that its incentives are making people lazy. Listen here!

"If you look at the troubles which happened in European countries, this is purely because of the accumulated troubles of the worn out welfare society. I think the labour laws are outdated. The labour laws induce sloth, indolence, rather than hardworking. The incentive system is totally out of whack.

Why should, for instance, within [the] eurozone some member's people have to work to 65, even longer, whereas in some other countries they are happily retiring at 55, languishing on the beach?

This is unfair. The welfare system is good for any society to reduce the gap, to help those who happen to have disadvantages, to enjoy a good life, but a welfare society should not induce people not to work hard."

What do you reckon he'd say about Australia's welfare society?

P.S. Another Confucius say:

If you are in a book store and cannot find the book for which you search, you are obviously in the ...

I couldn't have said it better myself!

2011-11-07T17:11:00.001+11:00

Remotely Controlled

2011-11-07T09:50:00.005+11:00

By the time you're seventy-five, you will almost certainly have spent more than twelve years of your life staring at the television. This book exposes how watching too much television:

- slows the body's metabolic rate

- stunts the development of children's brains

- may permanently hinder children's educational progress

- increases the likelihood of children developing ADHD

- is a leading cause of half of all violence-related crime

- lowers adult libido

- is a major cause of depression.

You need to read this book. Really.

On average we spend four hours a day in front of the television – more than anything else we do except work and sleep.

Television literally damages the brain, but, like all addicts, we are largely unaware of the true situation and probably will remain so until it is too late. And, as with the drugs industry, powerful vested interests try to hide the truth of what is happening in almost every home in the land.

If you care about mental health, turn off the TV and read this book. Then tell anyone you care about to read it, especially if they have children.

There's nothing to be lost by watching less television but a great deal to be lost by continuing to watch as much as we do.

This question, inspired by White Dot, might help: if you were on your deathbed and someone could give you back those missing twelve-and-a-half years to be with people you loved, and maybe do things differently, would you take their offer? Or would you say, 'No, thanks. I'm glad I spent that time watching TV'?

Done!

2011-11-05T11:45:00.016+11:00

Message to a Greek friend:
the trapdoor's dimensions make it an anti-Nicklear device!

All the hard work is done! After all the panting comes the painting: handrails and fascia board a deep Venetian Red, rails and posts in Provencal Peach, aka Babyshit Brown. (And just to show my age, I painted the underside of the trapdoor in good ol' Mission Brown.)

The trapdoor just needs a bit of a "Handel" and that's it!

And here are some 'topside' views to compensate for the steep climb:

Patent Pending

2011-11-03T07:17:00.009+11:00

It's a completely rained-out day but the beat goes on: the previously short-delivered timber has arrived and I have finished the horizontal balcony rails. I am now working on my latest brainchild: an external access to the balcony from the verandah.

Hitherto - I thought you might like the sound of this word - hitherto one - it's always one when one uses such archaic words - one had to go inside the house, climb the stairs to the upstairs living room, and exit from there through the sliding doors onto the balcony. Try doing that on a hot summer's day with a full carton of beer under your arm and you know what I mean.

Hence my external ladder-cum-trapdoor of which you can't see very much at this stage except for one light-blue upright post against the wall. However, all shall be revealed when everything is in place, including my patent application for this ingenious design.

The cerulean Clyde

2011-11-02T12:49:00.009+11:00

I know I have posted this clip before and, yes, Oyster Farmer was filmed on the Hawkesbury River but it's one of my favourite movies and the Clyde, on whose banks "Riverbend" is situated, looks even better than the Hawkesbury.

As for the Clyde River oysters, even though they grow big and fat on my jetty as I don't eat them myself, I am told they're the best!

Enjoy!

Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before

2011-11-02T09:32:00.006+11:00

After all the hard work outside, it's time to catch up with my reading!

Into the Blue: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before is just the sort of escape I need: Tony Horwitz, the author, follows in Cook's footsteps, and records two stories: Cook's original voyages and his own retracing of them, re-examining what has happened to the territories Cook discovered two centuries earlier.

Horwitz begins with a fine piece of reporting, as he spends a week as an ordinary seaman on board the modern replica of Cook's boat, Resolution. He vividly describes the horrors of climbing the masts to furl the sails, sleeping in a hammock, hauling on the anchor while the ship tosses and surges - thus setting the scene for Cook's far worse conditions two centuries earlier.

And he credibly explains the social background in England that lay behind Cook's first voyage to the Pacific. The privations of the crew appear all the more severe in contrast to the conditions for the one rich sponsor who was accompanying them, with a retinue of servants, in his own relatively luxurious quarters: Joseph Banks, the plant collector who would transform British horticulture. Banks's parallel accounts of the Pacific landfalls add spice to Cook's own diaries. Together the two records provide a unique insight into the psychology and motivation of explorers in the late 18th century, and - more important - into the isolated societies of exotic peoples before they first encountered Europeans.

It's a rollicking read and a sneaky work of scholarship, providing new and unexpected insights into the man who out-discovered Columbus.

Why Nelligen? Why not?

2011-10-30T18:27:00.007+11:00

Some people ask me why I retired at Nelligen, to which I reply, "Why not?" (I sometimes ask myself why I retired, full-stop, but that's a different story altogether.)

It all started in Canberra while I was still running my small computer consultancy Canberra Computer Accounting Systems and dabbling in tax and accounting work on the side. After I had solved a tax problem for a German friend, Tony Finsterer, for which I refused payment, he insisted that I stay at his weekend cottage at Nelligen.

For several months, I didn't find the time to drive to the coast. When I eventually did I had almost forgotten Tony's offer. Luckily, I didn't blink as I drove across the Nelligen bridge on the way to Batemans Bay and so spotted this tiny village nestled alongside the Clyde River.

I asked for directions to Tony's cottage at the General Store and was shown to # 21 Sproxton Lane across the river. (Tony has since died and his cottage has changed hands twice and is again for sale.)

The cottage was locked and Tony in Canberra. I phoned him and was told to look for the keys under the watertank and to make myself at home. Which I did and which set me on my own quest to find a little place in Nelligen.

At the time, Nelligen was a place forgotten even by real estate agents and nothing was for sale except a few empty building blocks. One such block overlooked the Clyde River from its location in Nelligen Place. I could imagine sitting there on the verandah and taking in the views. Which is exactly what a chap was doing just two blocks away. I walked up and asked if I could join him.

Soon we were not only sharing the same views but also memories of people and places we both had known as "Sandy" Sandilands and his wife Betty had also lived and worked on Thursday Island and in Rabaul in New Guinea. I felt at home at once! A few weeks later I was the proud owner of a block of land in Nelligen Place!

I wanted to build a beautiful little Classic Country Cottage. However, a retired public servant who occupied a small log cabin next to me did what public servants do: be a pain in the coccyx ! He objected to my building plans - TWICE! - on some obscure grounds. This delayed me long enough to find a much better place across the river. And that's how I came to buy "Riverbend"!

"Riverbend" had been auctioned in August 1992. I went to the auction as a spectator knowing that the reserve price was outside my range. It must have been outside everybody else's as well because it didn't sell. More than a year later, in November 1993, the owners accepted my much-reduced offer. The rest, as they say, is history!

(Oh, and I did go back to thank the public servant for objecting to my plans so that I could buy this much better and bigger and waterfront property. Last time I looked his mouth was still open!)

"Riverbend" has been my home now for over 17 years. As they say, there's no place like home and, as evidenced by the tee-shirt, Nelligen is right up there with every other great metropolis.

And the beat goes on

2011-10-27T20:27:00.041+11:00

The balcony's new handrails are well on the way but the work had to stop when I discovered that Cameron's Hardware had short-delivered the 90x30mm Design Pine horizontal rails by 54 metres.

While waiting for the timber - they've just phoned to say they are out of stock and cannot deliver until next week - , I got the lofty idea of building a loft inside the horseshed-sans-horses to house my armada of small boats.

Done!

And while the fires were raging to burn off all that Black Wattle, I also knocked together a small jetty for the small pond.

Done!

On Golden Pond - with no Doug McKeon to disturb the tranquillity!

After that Herculean effort, I was just a shadow of my former self ...

For the worn out and rapidly ageing real me, click on image
... and went indoors for dinner and the evening news.

P.S. My Fire Permit requires that " ... at least one person shall be present at the site of the fire from the time it is lit until such time as it is extinguished." Well, the fires kept burning through the night so guess who rolled out his swag and catnapped by the horseshed all night?

Outdoor chess anybody?

2011-10-26T18:01:00.014+11:00

Well, you may have to wait a bit because, although I have the chessboard set up, I am still deliberating if I should splurge on these 60 cem high chess pieces or wait until I find something a bit cheaper on ebay. You may use the time to brush up on the rules of the game .

In the meantime, work goes on with the renovation of the balcony.