I, too, was a homeless person once

 

Sunday morning after the night before: chilling out on the front steps; "yours truly" in dead centre, wearing sunnies and checkered shirt. Notice the chap on the far right having a "hair of the dog" from a McWilliams flagon left over from the night before. If that didn't do it, there was always BEX powder and a good lie-down! Or take Vincent's with confidence for quick three-way relief. All things of the past now!

 

The Council to Homeless Persons says the people who live on the streets are just the tip of the iceberg as their definition of 'homelessness' also includes people living in rooming houses (smart move to increase their 'membership'! ☺)

Thank you, Council to Homeless Persons, for your "research" which is probably as 'quackers' as, and probably even dearer than, the 300,000-Pound taxpayer-funded U.K. study Why-Ducks-like-Water.

It's one thing to regard as homeless those who slip into a pair of cardboard pyjamas and only read newspapers they've slept under, but to include people who live in rooming houses? Really! They could've made even bigger headlines if they had included people who live in houses with fewer than four bedrooms and an ensuite!

Anyway, at least now I know that I, too, was a 'homeless' person once as was my immediate boss in the ANZ Bank and many other 'Bank Johnnies' who in the 60s and 70s lived, two to a room, in what was then Barton House, one of Canberra's many boarding houses - or rooming houses, if you will.

The 165-bedroom Barton House in the late 60s

Another boarding house I remember was the ORIENTAL PRIVATE HOTEL at 11 Milsons Road at Cremorne Point. In that esteemed establishment I occupied the dark, windowless end of a corridor which had been walled off and grandly called a "room". No window, no ventilation, just a bed and a wardrobe but it was all I could afford at the time.

These boarding houses were the sort of "homes" that prepared me well for the house I later shared in Rabaul with two fellow-accountants and the camp accommodation I occupied when I went to Bougainville Island.

I am glad I was a 'homeless' person once. I wouldn't have missed it for the world because it gave me the confidence to go out into the world and deal with all manner of people and situations in future years.

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

P.S. The ORIENTAL PRIVATE HOTEL has since been turned into twelve strata-titled apartments, each costing more than a million dollars. And that's the cause of the real homelessness today: the lack of boarding houses which became uneconomical to run because of ever-increasing rules and regulations, rates, property taxes and insurance costs.

11 Milsons Road at Cremorne Point today

 

Let's make America AMERICA again!

 

 

We already know that none of the great deal-maker's deals ever happen. No 24-hour deal over Ukraine, no deals over Greenland and Canada, or the Panama Canal. Now it seems he can't even throw his own birthday party. But wait, there's more!

 

 

Happy birthday, Donald! You're showing your age, so why not do us all a favour and go go go? Ring us on the Trump phone when you get there!

(This Chinese-made "Trump phone", which is being promoted by MAGA-influencers to unsuspecting subscribers who are then sold off at huge profits to other service providers, is just the latest deal enriching the Trump family - for some of the many others, view this YouTube clip.)

 

 

Let's make America AMERICA again! (I know it looks less catchy but I'm a stickler for the correct use of the apostrophe)

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

Will it get here before Padma leaves?

 

 

They say that if you can't sleep at night it's because you're awake in someone else's dream. I've just got up after another long and sleepless night, so if everyone could just please stop dreaming about me, that would be great.

The bright sunshine on the river makes up for the sleepless night, and I'm all dressed up with nowhere to go. I'm still sniffling and slightly lightheaded but otherwise on the mend, which is more than I can say about Padma who's now got the lurgy as well. She's still under the electric blanket switched to HIGH, and I'm serving her breakfast in bed.

Will she get better in time for her flight to Indonesia? And more to the point, will my new washing-up gadget get here before she leaves?

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

Das Boot

 

 

Today is "my day off" as Padma has gone into the Bay to help a lady-friend run a charity fundraising stall in the mall. It gives me plenty of time to watch once again the 150-minute-long German movie "Das Boot" which follows the crew of a German U-Boat during WWII at a time when there is already a sense that the Germans are on the losing side of the Battle in the Atlantic.

 

To read a preview, click here. To read the German original, click here.

 

Like Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front", Lothar-Günther Buchheim's book "Das Boot" was meant to be an anti-war novel. Though impressed by the technological accuracy of the film, the author was disappointed with the 1981 film adaptation which, according to him, converted his clearly anti-war semi-autobiographical novel into a blend of "cheap, shallow American action flick" and "contemporary German propaganda newsreel from World War II".

A sequel of the same name, in the form of a 280-minute-long television series, was released in 2018, with different actors. It was set nine months after the end of the original film, and is split into two narratives, one based on land, the other set around another U-boat and its crew. Like the original film, the series is based on Lothar-Günther Buchheim's 1973 book "Das Boot", but with additions from Buchheim's 1995 follow-up sequel "Die Festung". However, the original 1981 film is today regarded as one of the greatest German films ever made.

A full-length version of the film is not (yet) available on YouTube, but I have found an hour-long documentary about the making of it here:

 

 

If Padma stays away long enough, I might even start on the book again.

Googlemap Riverbend

 

P.S. Okay, I've tracked down four parts of the six-part TV series here:

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

 

Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret it either way.

 

Søren Kierkegaard

 

The dreaded lurgy is still rampaging at "Riverbend", but worse still, Padma is showing signs of early dementia. Only this morning she told me she can't remember what it was she saw in me when she married me, which allows me to smoothly segue to Søren Kierkegaard and my next topic.

"Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the world’s foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will regret that too; laugh at the world’s foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it; believe her not, you will also regret it… Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will regret that too; hang yourself or don’t hang yourself, you’ll regret it either way; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the essence of all philosophy." [Kierkegaard's 1843 masterwork "Either/Or: A Fragment of Life"]

Søren Kierkegaard's writing is not easy to penetrate but most men can probably relate to the first line of the above quote, although with the simpler words "damned if you do and damned if you don't". I stick with Socrates who said, "By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; you you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher".

With just a week to go to Padma's departure, which will leave me stranded for the next five weeks with a pantry full of 2-Minute noodles, I am also in two minds about it. Of course, I shall enjoy the peace and quiet in the house, and being able to do what I want to do on the spur of the moment, and sleeping in all morning or staying up all night, and leaving the toilet seat up and the sink full of unwashed dishes, but the fun may have worn out by the time my last pair of clean underpants has done the same --- don't even suggest I should turn them inside out!

Anyway, Kierkegaard broke off his engagement to Regine Olsen and never married, so he shouldn't have the last word on the subject.

As you were saying, Padma ...

 

Googlemap Riverbend