Finally, they've made a movie about you and me!

 

 

The story of Harvey Krumpet follows Harvie from a troubled childhood in Poland with a "schizophrenic" mother to his migration to Australia. Despite suffering from Tourette's, being struck by lightning, having his testicle removed, and contracting Alzheimer's, he remains optimistic, kind, and collects "fakts" about life.

It's the story about you and me — but mainly about me!

 

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INSIDE JOB

 

 

Charles Ferguson's documentary, INSIDE JOB, explores the reasons and the effects of the 2008 world-wide financial downturn, starting with an examination of the problem in microcosm - in the small country of Iceland, which was a model community until the banks were de-regulated.

 

Read a preview of the book here

 

Like others before him, Ferguson claims the beginning of the problem was in the 80s when President Ronald Reagan deregulated the American banking industry, but he goes on to demonstrate that executive greed and dishonesty have been rampant in recent years.

Ferguson's really well made documentary makes at least some of the puzzle clearer. There are graphs and charts and graphics and numbers galore, but the bottom line is that the poor old punter has been taken for a ride by greedy corporate business tycoons who have been hand-in-glove with government departments.

It's a horror movie, in a way, one designed to make you angry and want to do something about it.

The frightening thing is that the same people who were advising Bush and Clinton are now advising Biden and the bonuses keep on getting bigger and millions and millions of lives have been decimated, destroyed by these people and they are just making as many billions of dollars for themselves as they used to.

This is a film for our time. Everybody ought to see it and get angry.

 

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For Sale – 5 Lt Jerry Can of Premium 98

 

 

Solid metal 5-litre Jerry Can, factory-sealed, filled with Premium 98. Clean exterior, tight cap, no dents, no leaks, comes with a detachable pouring spout. All for the low, low price of $499.95.

Order now and you’ll also receive a second 5-litre Jerry Can, completely empty, at no extra charge. We’ll even include a full instruction manual and a pair of protective gloves to complete the set.

But wait — that’s not all. Be one of the first 200 callers and we’ll throw in a six-pack of 3-ply toilet paper for free.

That’s 1 metal Jerry Can + 5 Lt of Premium 98, 1 extra empty 5 Lt Jerry Can, an easy-to-read instruction manual, and a pair of protective gloves, all for $499.95 + postage & handling.

Hurry — call 0800 4377 9226 now.

 

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The year of living stupidly

 

Neuer Jungfernstieg 16 along Hamburg's Binnenalster

 

Lemmings have a better plan than I had when, at the end of 1967 and having completed my two compulsory years as an assisted migrant to Australia, I somehow decided to return to the (c)old "Vaterland" for no better reason than that I could.

I had started a new life in Australia and secured a new career which even a native-born could've been proud of, and yet, to twist a famous phrase, where to be and what to be was still the question. Decades later, when my first-ever girlfriend in Germany — who by that time had found herself a reliable husband and had two teenage sons — sent me a big DHL-package containing all the letters I had ever written her, I found in it a letter in which I had told her, just after a few months in the new country, "I've got a better job than I could've got at home, and I seem to be settled in for the rest of my life. It's all been too easy!"

"It's all been too easy!" has been my constant complaint. Whatever was given to me, I would refuse. Whatever was spread before me, I would turn my back on, the better to hunger for what I had denied myself.

And so it was with my next employers, the German-South American Bank in Hamburg, who offered me a transfer to South America if I did my time in their head office in that brightly-lit building shown in the above photo. It was taken by a friend a few days ago when it was already springtime in Germany, and not in that arctic winter of January 1968.

After only two months I resigned and moved back to my hometown Braunschweig where I found an equally promising welcome in the "Auslandsabteilung" of the Braunschweigische Landesbank, but not with either of my divorced parents who no longer wanted to be part of my restless life. It hurt at the time but, in hindsight, they both did me a favour because it would've been just too easy to return to a comfortable life of homecooked meals and my bed made and my washing done.

And so I moved on again to Frankfurt, where I not only found work as a currency dealer with the First National City Bank but also a girlfriend who seemed more interested in me than I in her. The "It's all been too easy!" warning bells were ringing again and I escaped to South-West Africa where I worked just long enough to save up enough money for my return fares to Australia. The bank in Australia welcomed me back with open arms, for which I repaid them by resigning nine months later to move to New Guinea. It had been a year of living stupidly, but perhaps it had also served its purpose of showing me that I was not cut out for an "Uncle Vanya" life, so aptly lamented by Sonya in its closing scene:

 

 

"Uncle Vanya, we must go on. We've no choice! All we can do is go on living ... all through the endless days and evenings, we will get through them, whatever fate brings. We'll work for others until we're old, there'll be no rest for us till we die. And when the time comes, we'll go without complaining and we'll remember that we wept, and that we suffered, and that life was bitter, but God will take pity on us!"

 

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The ebb and flow of the river

 

 

Early Saturday morning at "Riverbend" with a bowl of porridge and a cup of tea on the jetty. And only myself for company. Heaven on earth. Hell is other people, said Jean-Paul Satre.

I seem to remember from last night's television news that there are troubles in the world, that those millions of idiots who voted an idiot into the White House are having second thoughts, and that Bunnings have sold out of jerry cans to store petrol in, but it all seems irrelevant and even unreal as I sit here and watch the ebb and flow of the river.

 

 

Two canoists come paddling up the river. A short 'Hello!', then silence again. It's taken me all of thirty-three years to appreciate how special this place is, but I think I've got it now. Time for another cup of tea.

 

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