"Do you remember those Hemingway Robertson text books?"

 

For sale on ebay at $29.95

 

During a recent WhatsApp-session with an old accounting colleague in New Guinea, I asked, "Do you remember those Hemingway Robertson text books we used in our studies?"

 

 

Memories came back of my employment with the ANZ Bank who paid half my study fees each time I had passed another subject successfully.

Working for the ANZ Bank allowed me to not only learn good, almost expletive-free English and mix with people a cut above the rest, but it also introduced me to Australian commercial practices which would stand me in good stead as I worked my way through a correspondence course in accountancy with the then Hemingway Robertson Institute.

 

 

Those were the days before computers, electronic calculators, or even electric adding machines! Everything was done manually and took many hours, like when it was 'all hands on deck' twice a year to 'do the decimals', i.e. calculating the interest on savings accounts. And you needed a strong pair of hands to shake a sorting tray full of coins. Rolling those coins into tightly-wrapped tubes also took some learning.

 

Yours truly outside the ANZ Bank Kingston A.C.T. in 1969

 

And what about pistol practice? Not that we ever fired a shot in anger! That small pistol in the teller's drawer and the red trip lever on the floor that would set off the alarm were our only defense against a hold-up that never came.

 

Here's proof of how big a Proof Machine was

 

There were some machines, like that huge beast of a 'Proof Machine' which was the size of a small room on which all incoming cheques were 'batched' by the respective banks on which they were drawn. And in those days there were many more banks than there are today: who still remembers the Rural Bank of New South Wales, the English, Scottish & Australian Bank, the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney, the Commercial Bank of Australia, or the Bank of Adelaide?

Once a day one of us juniors would be the Exchange Clerk and trot off to the Reserve Bank on Canberra's London Circuit to exchange cheques with the other banks. It was a much sought-after job as some of the exchange clerks from the other banks were of the female variety which gave us blokes a chance to chat them up ☺

For us ledgerkeepers - Kevin Sloan, John Julian, Jeff Bowdie, and yours truly - the race was on every morning to extract as quickly as possible our customers' overdraft balances and report them on blue O/D Cards to the Assistant Manager, Mr Bradford, who would then decide which to pass and which to do the dirty deed on. Back in those days a dishonoured cheque was a disgrace - well, to some; others were daring enough to attempt to 'fly a kite' - and a customer's cheque was 'bounced' for all sorts of other reasons first - Endorsement Required; Signature Unlike Specimen Held; Amounts in Words and Figures Differ; Post-dated - before his lack of funds was disclosed with a gentle "Present Again" or the more abrupt and very final "Refer to Drawer".

 

Female bank staff were demurely dressed in dark-blue smocks with detachable collars and an ANZ brooch fastened to the lapel. The absence of either resulted in a severe reprimand from the manager. As did swearing: Kay Atkinson once exclaimed, "Strewth!" Within minutes the phone rang and the manager wanted to know who had uttered such profanity.

Back then banks still bothered with small-time banking: we regularly visited schools and encouraged kids to deposit their play money into savings accounts with us. And we offered a variety of Special Purpose savings accounts: for holidays, for education, and, of course, for the eventual home purchase. No bank in those days gave out home loans to customers who had not been diligent savers over several years!

The ANZ Bank also encouraged its customers to save for Christmas with their Christmas Club coupon book which held 50 coupons of either $1, $2, $5 or $10. A customer could walk into any branch, deposit the equivalent of one or more coupons, and then wait until early December before he was sent his final balance, plus interest, in a cheque.

Some customers couldn't wait that long. They were given the third degree by the manager who demanded that they put their reason for an early withdrawal in writing. Once reluctantly approved, they were given back their money but without any interest - as our head ledgerkeeper John Burke used to say, "once you withdraw, you lose all your interest".

Speaking of third degree, woe betide you if, as a teller, you were short of money at the end of the day. All that grovelling and letter-writing to the State Manager who eventually, after you had started paying off the shortage from your meagre salary of forty-quid-a-fortnight or whatever, graciously forgave you the rest.

And I will always remember that small cheque I had sent to the Bankers' Association to pay my union dues. They had taken so long to cash it that I'd totally forgotten about it. When it finally came in, the balance in my account was less than the stamp duty on the cheque. I think turning up drunk for work or being caught out in some osculating activities with a ledger girl in the bank's strongroom would have been more excusable than uttering a worthless cheque. More grovelling and more letter-writing to avoid being given the sack! (By the way, having an account with another bank was also a sackable offense!)

Do banks these days still have an Opinion Clerk? I was one for a while, which was probably the only time when the ANZ Bank gave out opinions in a heavy German accent. My favourite one was 'Possessed of assets' (which in the vernacular meant "filthy rich") which I knew I would never achieve on my paltry bank salary (my penurious situation was best captured by the bank opinion 'Financial position unknown' aka "flat broke"), and so I left the bank again at the end of 1969 to seek my fortunes elsewhere - see here.

 

The tie that binds

 

But I still have my old Bank tie and my memories and, yes, I am now 'Possessed of assets' but rapidly running out of time to spend them all. Unless it is true that old bankers never die; they just want to be a loan!

I'm glad I could share those memories with an old colleague who needed quite a bit of jolting to bring them back. Thanks, Grahame with-an-e!

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

Stay-at-home weather

 

 

It's a cold and blustery morning. Perfect stay-at-home weather. Then again, every day at "Riverbend" is perfect stay-at-home weather: if it's cold and blustery as it is now, I have to stay at home; if it's sunny and warm, I want to stay at home because there's no nicer place to be than by this bend in the river.

Being a bookish person with two left hands when it comes to home repairs or anything mechanical, and with both thumbs missing when it comes to gardening, it didn't take me long to realise that my move to the country wasn't going to be easy, and so already in my first year here I entertained thoughts of selling up again. My best friend Noel, who probably knew me better than I know myself, and feared I would revert to my footloose days, wrote, "Whatever you do, don't sell Riverbend; that would be the ultimate sin."

Somehow I never sold "Riverbend", and somehow I learned to live with my shortcomings, and even managed to make a few repairs and add a few improvements, although we still don't grow our own veggies and, instead of keeping chooks, buy our eggs from a nice lady in the village.

Thirty-three years later, "Riverbend" has become my home like no other home before. Thirty-three years! Ever since I'd left home, I had never stayed put in one place for even thirty-three MONTHS! DULCE DOMUM.

 

 

"The weary Mole also was glad to turn in without delay, and soon had his head on his pillow, in great joy and contentment. But ere he closed his eyes he let them wander round his old room, mellow in the glow of the firelight that played or rested on familiar and friendly things which had long been unconsciously a part of him, and now smilingly received him back, without rancour. He was now in just the frame of mind that the tactful Rat had quietly worked to bring about in him. He saw clearly how plain and simple—how narrow, even—it all was; but clearly, too, how much it all meant to him, and the special value of some such anchorage in one’s existence. He did not at all want to abandon the new life and its splendid spaces, to turn his back on sun and air and all they offered him and creep home and stay there; the upper world was all too strong, it called to him still, even down there, and he knew he must return to the larger stage. But it was good to think he had this to come back to; this place which was all his own, these things which were so glad to see him again and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome." [Chapter V. DULCE DOMUM "The Wind in the Willows"]

If only you could be here today, Noel, and share a Glühwein with me!

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

James A. Michener Returns to the South Pacific

 

 

I wish I could tell you about the South Pacific. The way it actually was. The endless ocean. The infinite specks of coral we called islands. Coconut palms nodding gracefully toward the ocean.

Reefs upon which waves broke into spray, and inner lagoons, lovely beyond description. I wish I could tell you about the sweating jungle, the full moon rising behind the volcanoes, and the waiting. The waiting. The timeless, repetitive waiting." [Continue to read here]

So begins "Tales of the South Pacific" by that masterful story-teller, James A. Michener, who followed it up with "Return to Paradise" and "Rascals in Paradise". They have been my friends and companions since my own days in the South Pacific, and I have re-read them at different stages of my life. The stories never change but my perspective does.

They were my years on sweaty and muddy Bougainville Island where, as Michener wrote, "... pretty soon you hated the man next to you, and you dreaded the look of a coconut tree." As he points out elsewhere, "The South Pacific is not a paradise, in the sense that Eden wasn't either. There are always apples and snakes. But it is a wonderful place to live. ... many white travelers [have been enchanted to] built happy lives. Often on a cool night when the beer was plentiful and the stories alluring, we have envied the men and women of the South Pacific."

Unlike James A. Michener who in the above video clip returned to the island of Espiritu Santo the late 1980s, I will probably never see the islands again but I can read about them and remember. I am a reader not because I don't have a life but because I choose to have many.

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

The Art of the Dud Deal

 

 

Following the war with Iran, Trump's book will be reprinted under a new title: "The Art of the Dud Deal". After all, the "deal" he achieved is the worst deal for the USA and the rest of the world: the Iranian regime is still in power, it can still make an atomic bomb, and it now controls the Strait of Hormuz - and possibly the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

 

Passage through the Red Sea is now also under threat. Another dud deal.

 

He went to war to ensure that Iran never acquired a nuclear bomb. The war ended — for now, at least — with a demonstration that Tehran possesses an arguably more powerful weapon of deterrence against future attacks, one that is cheaper to use, gives Iran enormous sway over the global economy, can bring in more revenue than its oil sales, and can’t be negotiated away: the narrow Strait of Hormuz.

For more than 2,500 years, the wealth of empires has often come down to one simple thing: control of chokepoints. In 405 BC, Sparta seized control of the Bosphorus — a critical trade gateway — and sacked Athens without throwing a spear or thrusting a sword.

In the 15th century, Denmark controlled both sides of the Øresund Strait, the narrow passage connecting the North Sea to the Baltic. Every ship carrying grain, timber, or metal between Russia, Sweden, and Amsterdam had to pass through it. King Erik of Pomerania saw the opportunity. He fortified the strait, built a customs house at Helsingør, and taxed every vessel under threat of cannon fire.

Again, after conquering Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman Empire controlled the Bosporus for four centuries. It was the only passage between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. The Ottomans treated the Black Sea as a private lake and barred foreign warships. Access was doled out through treaties. With each one granting limited rights to specific nations in exchange for political concessions. Early on, Venice was forced to give up territory and pay hefty fees to continue its trade. Access was never a right. It was a favour, granted on terms that served Istanbul. Even after the empire collapsed, Turkey retained control. Today, Ankara still collects transit fees. It hiked the fees fivefold in 2022, raising annual revenue from US$40 million to US$200 million.

And then there is the obvious one, the Suez Canal, an energy and trade highway that generates US$9 billion in annual revenue for Egypt. Denmark held the Øresund for 400 years. Turkey still collects on the Bosporus after 600 years. The Suez is a huge moneymaker for Egypt.

After this short lecture in history and geography, let's get back to Iran:

More than 12,000 U.S. missiles, bombs, and drones hit Iranian targets over the past five weeks, destroying the country’s navy and much of its military infrastructure. Several of Iran’s leaders and some 1,500 of its citizens were killed, including more than 170 who died in a strike on a girls’ school that was the apparent result of errant targeting. But twelve hours after Trump threatened to destroy Iranian civilisation and weeks after demanding Iran’s "unconditional surrender", the United States agreed to a two-week cease-fire with none of its demands met. Instead, Iran agreed only to reopen the strait, a global waterway that operated freely before the war began, in exchange for two millions dollars for each tanker that passes through it, payable in crypto currency.

 

 

Depending on the outcome of the negotiations over the next two weeks, the regime could actually be in a stronger strategic position than it was before the war. Iran may have lost every military battle, but the war appears to have ended on Tehran’s terms. What a dud deal!

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

"Is that really me? Have I really grown that old?"

 

Click on Watch on YouTube to view in separate window

 

There is a scene towards the end of Francois Truffaut's movie "Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent" (Two English Girls), that in its stark simplicity perfectly captures a moment of chilling awareness. In this scene, the by now middle-aged hero of the story, while passing by a group of schoolgirls, sees the reflection of his face in a car window. Shaken by what he sees, he mumbles to himself, "Mais, qu'est-ce que j'ai? J'ai l'air vieux aujourd'hui." [forward to 1:34]

I will never forget my Pakistani shipping clerk in the port of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia whom I had to eventually ban from my office because of his vile body odour. "Don't you ever wash, Akbar?" I wanted to know. "Why?" he replied. "There is no need for it. There are no women here."

Not wanting to be like Akbar, I still take my daily shower but I don't always bother to shave. The last time I did and I saw my face in the mirror, it shook me like it had that middle-aged hero in "Two English Girls". "Is that really me? Have I really grown that old?" I wondered.

All of us who have already waved our goodbyes to the prime of youth are likely to have shared that same shudder of recognition. The German philosopher Martin Heidegger in his book "Being and Time" referred to it as "death anxiety", although it is not death, per se, that provokes our fears but the fragility of our existence. As human beings, we know that our life's journey will inevitably arrive at its endpoint.

How each one of us deals with it is likely to be as varied and unique as our experience of being alive. Most of us go through life as though we were immortal, and while I regret some of the wasted years I can say, in all sincerity, that I would never wish to be a teenager again — but then, of course, I am saying this from the standpoint of one who already was one, and at a time and in a place when being a teenager was not much fun, hence my decision to emigrate to Australia when I still was one.

My last shave was on Tuesday, so it's time for another one before I sit down for lunch on the sunlit verandah. I still use the old safety razor, albeit a disposable, shamelessly adding to that huge mountain of other disposables. I may even give a thought to Akbar. Did he die a malodorous but very rich man after saving all that money by never buying any soap?

 

Googlemap Riverbend