Dreaming in my donga

 

 

True isolation is very hard to find these days. Go backpacking in the Himalayas, and there'll be an internet café waiting for you at the end of the track. Take a boat down the Amazon River, and you'll still have reception on your mobile phone.

There's still reception in "Melbourne" but I won't take my mobile phone with me when I go there. I go there to relax or read or write, with the only disturbance being an occasional soft-footed thump-thump from a nearby mob of kangaroos moving from one grazing spot to another.

 

 

If I'm not immediately taken back to my time on Bougainville Island where we all lived in "dongas" on Loloho Beach, then I'm reminded of it when I open my eyes after a short nap and look at the photos on the wall. "Millionaires Row Dongas" says one of them, and "A quiet day at Loloho Camp 6 beach" the other. We'd never heard the word "donga" - which is Australian slang for a portable, modular building - but we all used it from the day we got there. "See you at my donga after dinner!"

 

... because, Roy, an electrical engineer, forgot to plug it in!
Photo courtesy of Roy Goldsworthy, now residing in Malaysia

 

We were happy without telephones, newspapers, and only a scratchy radio reception, but there was almost a riot on that night the "boozer" didn't open because they had run out of beer. Life was so simple then!

 

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Einstein's desk

 

 

Albert Einstein succumbed to heart failure on 18 April 1955, at the age of 76. The next day, Ralph Morse, a celebrated photographer for LIFE magazine, captured the untouched state of Einstein's office, freezing a moment in time.

Within this room filled with books, papers, and chalkboards adorned with equations, one can find a poignant glimpse into the daily life of this genius whose mind came up with the formula E = mc² which has been called "the world's most famous equation".

At the request of Einstein's son, LIFE's editors decided not to publish it, and for over five decades, it lay forgotten in the magazine's archives.

 

 

I'm no Einstein, and I'm sure that no one is going to take a photo of my library the day after I have died - if anyone would even take notice - but the photo of Einstein's desk has prompted me to take one of my library.

You may call it a bloody mess, but I call it an organised chaos because I can find any book within minutes - just don't ask me how many minutes.

It's all relative, isn't it?

 

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P.S. I've just realised that this is the long weekend: Australia Day, or as it is known now: Invasion Day. We'll be invaded by tourists. I will keep my gate shut and hang out my usual deterrent, a large sign that reads:

 

TRESPASSERS ARE FORCED TO WATCH A CEREMONIAL WELCOME TO COUNTRY

 

It sure keeps them away! Happy Non-invasion Day!

 

I love everything that's old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, and old wine.

 

This bottle of wine is fairly old: I opened it on New Year's Eve when I drank one small glass and gave a toast to the new year, after which I went to bed well before the fireworks started.

I have been taking no more than the occasional sip from it every few days since then. My heavy drinking days are well and truly behind me, although I still drank the odd glass on an almost weekly basis when a friend from up the road used to visit me. He liked his wine and I kept him company while we talked about "the good old days", his in Austria and mine in Germany, although we both knew that they hadn't been all that good, or why else did we bother to emigrate to far away Australia?

Then he shot himself - click here. He had been 85 years old and in poor health, so it couldn't have been the wine which we had always chosen carefully. Still, I can't help thinking of him whenever I lift my glass now.

On the rare occasion when I still drink, I drink to remember the many heavy drinkers I encountered during my career in far-off places, who drank to forget broken marriages or lost fortunes or abandoned dreams.

I hadn't got there yet, but now that I have tasted most of life's highs and woes, I have found my refuge in books and music and boring domesticity which, even though it's already lasted a quarter of a century, I still find hard to get used to at times. It is then that I pour myself a very small glass of wine to drink to all those whose only solace had been alcohol.

IN VINO VERITAS, or "A drunk person's words are their sober thoughts".

 

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Another abbreviated classic

 

 

Woody Allen quipped: "I took a speed-reading course once and was able to read 'War and Peace' in twenty minutes. It's about Russia". How would he have summed up Fyodor Dostoyevsky's not-so-short story "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man"? I would sum it up as a story that can save lives.

It begins with a man walking St. Petersburg's streets while musing upon how ridiculous his life is, as well as its distinct lack of meaning or purpose. This train of thought leads him to the idea of suicide, which he resolves to commit using a previously-acquired gun. However, a chance encounter with a distressed little girl in the street derails his plans.

 

 

In 1990, it was adapted by the BBC as a thirty-minute television special, “The Dream”, directed by Norman Stone and starring Jeremy Irons.

 

 

If you ever find yourself drifting into indifference, this small book may be worth an evening of your time. It can be read in a single sitting, perhaps with a cup of tea, yet it carries a weight that many much longer books never manage. Not that it makes any difference to me.

 

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If I were an American, I'd hand in my passport!

 

 

These days the news is no longer the news, it is the Trump news, because no day goes by without this man hogging the headlines.

But wait, there's more:

 

 

 

If I were an American, I'd hand in my passport!

 

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