If you're handy with a frypan, go and buy it!

 

 

To reach the extraordinary home of "King" Kai Hansen, owner, lord and master of remote Goat Island Lodge, you must take a two-hour drive from the city of Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory, followed by an hour-long boat ride through crocodile-infested swamps.

 

 

Hansen was born in a tiny country town in Denmark, a fine-furniture maker by trade. He moved to Australia at the age of 20, then worked in construction. And then came Tracy. Not a lady, but Cyclone Tracy, an enormously powerful and destructive storm which ripped through Darwin on Christmas Eve in 1974. "After that, there was so much work and good money to be made, so I got stuck here", Hansen said.

 

"King" Kai Hansen acting as airport security officer

 

"I've been on the island for over twenty years and lived in a rural area for 25 years before that. It was all good there, but then they put in a supermarket and traffic lights around the corner. I'm a country boy, I don't want bloody traffic lights. That's for city people! In those days I still lived together with my darling wife, we sat around having drinks and she said, 'I'll buy an island and there will never be any traffic lights.' The next day there was an advert in the paper with an island for sale, this one, the only freehold island in the Northern Territory."

 

This is a clip from fourteen years ago

 

Now in his 70s, it seems "King" Kai is throwing in the frypan, as Goat Island is for sale at a 'mere' one-and-a-half million dollars - click here.

If you're handy with a frypan, Hubert, why don't you go and buy it? "King" Kai promised to chuck in the infamous frying pan for nothing.

 

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Do I hold or do I fold?

 

US$66.02 at 0.6677 equals AUS$98.88 divided by 2 = AUS$49.44
(one American Depositary Share (ADSs) equals two Australian shares)

 

Mining shares are on fire! Some of the riskier ones have doubled and tripled in price in the last few weeks. Very tempting but I stay away from them, relying on the miners that already make a good profit and pay a very healthy dividend, such as my trusty old BHP.

 

Who knew copper could be sexy?

 

The New York market has just closed where overnight BHP went up by a hefty 3.17%. Looking at the pre-opening sales on the local market, it seems that the shares here will also rise by around 3%. Happy days!

 

 

Is this the start of a bigger rally? Do I hold or do I fold? Maybe I should hold and await the six-monthly operational results on 20 January 2026. (I did sell some on Tuesday at $47.20 which was two days too soon.)

I'll keep you posted of today's market movements at regular intervals:

 

10.00 am: up $1.02 to $49.14 (price started below expectations)

11.00 am: up $1.31 to $49.43 (matches New York's closing price)

12.00 am: up $1.50 to $49.62 (still 7 cents below Sydney's pre-market)

Then everyone went to lunch and the market took a bit of a tumble ...

1 pm: up $1.57 to $49.69 (touched $49.38, then gained new heights)

2 pm: up 1.41 to $49.53 (cooling off as lunchtime digestion sets in)

3 pm: up $1.21 to $49.33 (very much cooling off)

4 pm: up $1.11 to $49.23 (how the mighty have fallen!)

Final "mopping-up" price for the day at 4.33 pm: up $1.25 to $49.37

 

Today's intraday high of $49.75 is also an absolute 52-week high (a mere 300 shares changed hands at that price at 1.12 pm), but I'm still hoping for better things to come and keep holding — except for the ones I so foolishly and prematurely sold off on Tuesday, 13th, at $47.20. GRRR!

 

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Der Pfeil fliegt noch!

 

 

Der Dichter Jean Pau hat im 19. Jahrhundert geschrieben, dass bei der Geburt eines jeden Menschen ein Pfeil abgeschossen wird, der ihn in der Todesstunde trifft. Was für ein schönes Bild. Noch fliegt er. Also wird noch gelebt!

 

 

So schrieb Elke Heidenreich in ihrem Buch "Altern" welches schon auf meinem Wunschzettel steht, obwohl der Preis und die hohen Portokosten von Deutschland mich noch etwas zurückhalten. Und dann lese ich Rezensionen wie diese hier im 'Writer's Pit': "... das Buch [besteht] zu fast einem Drittel aus Zitaten aus anderen Büchern, deren Zusammenhang mit dem umgebenden Text eher nebulös bleibt. Dass das Buch auf der SPIEGEL-Liste erscheint, ist wohl eher der Popularität der Autorin geschuldet, der Inhalt ist weder Autobiografie, noch nähert er sich dem Thema mit allgemeinem Bezug. Mir ist nicht einmal ein Untertitel dazu eingefallen, außer vielleicht 'Elke Heidenreich erzählt aus ihrem Leben'. Trotzdem ich selbst nicht mehr der Jüngste bin, konnte ich weder Heidenreichs Erkenntnisse noch die Zitatsammlung verwerten. Sorry für die Offenheit, aber dieses Buch kann man sich einfach sparen."

 

 

Meine alten Freunde im archive.org haben viele ihrer Bücher 'online' aber leider nicht dieses Buch um es ein bißchen anzuschnuppern ehe ich es kaufe. Also bleibt mir nur die obige Buchlesung mit Klavierbegleitung und das untere Gespräch (sagt man jetzt auch schon 'interview' in Deutschland?) mit Yves Bossart welches ich auf ein USB-'stick' (kann man das eindeutschen?) kopiert habe und mir oft im Bett anhöre.

 

 

Wie Elke Heidenreich sagte und schrieb: "Über das Altwerden habe ich lange gar nicht nachgedacht. Ich habe einfach immer weitergelebt und gemerkt, dass mir manche Dinge schwererfielen als früher, dass sich einiges änderte, dass ich keine High Heels mehr tragen mochte zum Beispiel. Hinter dem Bus herrennen konnte ich aber auch in flachen Schuhen nicht mehr, sieh da! Und das Treppensteigen fiel schwerer. Die Nächte waren unruhiger: Ich wurde früher müde, lag dann aber lange wach. Was passierte da? Ich habe alle Gedanken ans Altwerden lange verdrängt. Denn es ist ja wirklich so: Alle wollen alt werden, keiner will alt sein."

So geht es mir auch - obwohl ich gerne auf die 'High Heels' verzichte (so wie ich meine Schwestern überhörte, hiessen die zu meiner Zeit noch 'hohe Schuhe') Genieße ich mein Alter? Genießen würde ich das jetzt nicht nennen, es mischt sich schon viel Wehmut in den nahen Abschied, auch rückblickend auf all die falschen Abzweigungen, die ich genommen habe. Aber genau das darf man nicht zulassen: das Versinken in diesem "Was wäre, wenn ..." (oder sagt man jetzt schon "What if's"?).

Hier ist es früh am Morgen. Das ganze Haus schläft noch, aber nach einem Nescafé und einem Stückchen Toast mit Marmelade fliegt mein Pfeil wieder und ist noch nicht angekommen. Also wird weitergelebt!

 

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Einstein's Dreams

 

Listen to a preview only of an English version of the audiobook here

 

Unless you understand German, you won't gain much from this audiobook which is all there is on YouTube of Alan Lightman's book "Einstein's Dreams" — there's no point in learning German now; you blew your chance of learning it by total immersion by not letting us win the last war.

 

 

I can't even offer you a free online copy of the book, which is a fictional collage of stories dreamed by Albert Einstein when he worked in a patent office in Switzerland. As the young Einstein is creating his theory of relativity, a new conception of time, he imagines many possible worlds. In one, time is circular, so that people are fated to repeat triumphs and failures over and over. In another, it's a place where time stands still, visited by lovers and parents clinging to their children. In another, time is a nightingale, sometimes trapped by a bell jar.

Which is perhaps a better way to explain his theory of relativity as we grapple with wanting to press the undo button of life, to unwind the reel of experience, to edit out the word spoken in anger, as we wonder what we would have done had we known then what we know now.

The book offers a wonderful vision of what time has been or might be.

 

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Are you dead yet?

 

 

Are you dead?" may not be the most appropriate of questions, but it must be on the minds of many Chinese - judging by the popularity of a mobile app in China. So why has an app called, 'Are You Dead?' gone viral there?

The concept is simple: you need to check in with it every two days by clicking a large button to confirm that you are still alive. If not, for the low price of eight yuan a month it will get in touch with your appointed emergency contact and inform them that you may be in trouble.

There have been times when I have been wondering about you as well, and so I've built my own app which is freely available by clicking here.

 

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