Let's get Skase

 

 

Let's Get Skase" is a 2001 Australian comedy. It is based on the life of failed Australian businessman Christopher Skase, who after the collapse of his Qintex business fled to Majorca, Spain. Skase died at around the time of the film's release. It was filmed in Melbourne and Perth.

For those of you who don't know who Christopher Skase is, he was a notorious corporate criminal who embezzled a great deal of money from a company in Australia named Qintex that filed for bankruptcy, and then fled to the island of Majorca in Spain. His crimes were overshadowed by the fact that the Australian government and his pursuing creditors couldn't get their hands on him due to the fact that Australia does not share an extradition treaty with Spain, and every time Australia came 'so close' to getting him back, Christopher Skase would have some sort of a 'medical emergency' at the last minute which would deem it unsafe to his health to have him removed from Majorca. He is probably known as one of Australia's most infamous criminals who didn't actually kill or endanger anyone, and his case was dogged by the Australian media for nearly ten years, right up to his death in 2001.

All this came back to me as I listened to ABC Radio National's episodes:

Skase: Fall of a Tycoon

The Confidence Man

Building a Mirage

Flying too close to the sun

The Chase for Skase

The end of the road

Some people insists that Skase even faked his own death and he's still alive, which makes "Let's get Skase" like a movie about Elvis Presley.

 

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All dressed up and nowhere to go

 

 

I was all dressed up to go into town with an elderly neighbour who needed help with some banking problems when the problem suddenly resolved itself through a simple phone call. Being already all dressed up, we decided to go somewhere instead of nowhere, and had lunch at the Moruya Bowling Club, and followed it up with drinks at the Soldiers' Club in the Bay.

Of course, no drive down the coast is worth its petrol unless it also includes a visit to my favourite shop where I found "PAPER, An Elegy - A celebration of the age of paper". It was priced at just a dollar since the op-shop's 'book whisperer' hadn't really expected to find a buyer for it among the local farmers and tradesmen. He clearly hadn't expected it to be found by someone for whom paper had been food and drink for most of his life, and who would gladly have paid full cover price for it.

 

 

To round off the bill, Padma picked up a mystery package priced at twice the money - two dollars! - which revealed itself as a hardcover edition of Stephen King's "Needful Things". As the message suggested, "Don't wish too hard for what you want ..." I wished it hadn't been a Stephen King book because my Stephen King days are far behind me.

 

 

Luckily, all this rather extravagant spending was well and truly covered by another 23-cent rise of my BHP shares which closed at $43.77 today.

 

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"Les clous!"

 

 

Erik Durschmied's book "The Hinge Factor" describes a moment when a French officer at the Battle of Waterloo shouted "Les clous!" ("Nails!"), urging his men to spike the allied cannons by driving nails into their touchholes. But not a single French rider had nails with which to spike the firing holes, and render the English artillery useless.

And so, on 18 June 1815, for want of a nail a whole battle was lost. And so it also happens in our personal battles in life when a small incident or a moment of sheer stupidity may change the course of our lives forever.

In my case, it was not the lack but use of them when, in a moment of unhinged stupidity, I drove another nail into my coffin in 1982 after I had returned from New Guinea and finding my house in Queensland still tenanted. Instead of waiting a few more weeks for the tenants to move out, I impatiently dashed off on another overseas contract with irreversible and quite catastrophic consequences to my personal life.

Or when, in another unhinged moment of stupidity, I resigned from my last perfect overseas assignment to go back to the same town I had so impatiently left only three years earlier. With enough money to see me through as many months as it would take to find another job, I instead impatiently dashed off to Sydney, until eventually I dug myself a hole in Canberra so deep that I could no longer hope to dig myself out of it. And, having become such an expert at digging myself into deep holes, I seem to have dug myself one last and even deeper one at "Riverbend".

Perhaps it's time to reflect on the many chances and stupidities that changed my life as I read Erik Durschmied's interesting book "The Hinge Factor". "Les clous?" I need them like I need another hole in my head!

 

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"Don’t Let The Old Man In"

 

As heard in the Clint Eastwood film, "The Mule"

 

Story goes is that Toby Keith met Clint Eastwood at an event. Keith asked Eastwood what the secret was for staying so active and healthy at his advanced age. This is what Clint Eastwood said:

"Every day when I wake up, I don’t let the old man in. My secret has been the same since 1959 — staying busy. I never let the old man into the house. I’ve had to drag him out because he was already comfortably settled, bothering me all the time, leaving no space for anything other than nostalgia.

You have to stay active, alive, happy, strong, and capable. It’s in us, in our intelligence, attitude, and mentality. We are young, regardless of our ID. We must learn to fight to not let the old man in.

That old man awaits us, stationed and tired by the side of the road to discourage us. I don’t let the old, critical, hostile, envious spirit in — the one that scrutinises our past to tie us up with complaints and distant anxieties, or relived traumas and waves of pain.

You have to turn your back on the old murmurer, full of rage and complaints, lacking courage, denying himself that old age can be creative, determined, and full of light and projection.

Ageing can be pleasant and even fun if you know how to use your time if you’re satisfied with what you’ve achieved, and if you still maintain enthusiasm. That’s called not letting the old man into the house."

These words immensely resonated with Toby Keith. They inspired him to write "Don’t Let The Old Man In" which is dedicated to the legend who is Clint Eastwood. Here are the lyrics:

 

Don't let the old man in I wanna leave this alone Can't leave it up to him He's knocking on my door And I knew all of my life That someday it would end Get up and go outside Don't let the old man in Many moons I have lived My body's weathered and worn Ask yourself how would you be If you didn't know the day you were born Try to love on your wife And stay close to your friends Toast each sundown with wine Don't let the old man in Hmm-mm Hmm-mm Hmm-mm Many moons I have lived My body's weathered and worn Ask yourself how would you be If you didn't know the day you were born When he rides up on his horse And you feel that cold bitter wind Look out your window and smile Don't let the old man in Look out your window and smile Don't let the old man in

 

I hope this gets you out of bed, if only to watch any one of Clint Eastwood's more than sixty movies. Don't let the old man in!

 

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It was a slow start to a busy day

 

 

Padma had a 'Kaffeeklatsch' with another Indonesian lady in town while I had an appointment with my Irish dentist to look at one of my few remaining teeth. Having been taught that half an hour early is better than ten minutes late, I had time to stop at my favourite shop but they were relocating.

 

The Salvation Army op-shop is relocating to larger premises

 

The dental work didn't take longer than perhaps twenty minutes which, at a total of $420, worked out at twenty dollars a minute! No wonder I am reduced to shopping at op-shops! Which didn't stop me from giving Ian Lawrence outside K-Mart a donation. He's been sitting there for as long as K-Mart has been there but, after a recent medical episode, will call it a day at the end of this year. K-Mart wont' be the same without him, and I will miss him as we always have something interesting to talk about. He's South African and used to live in Swakopmund just "up the coast" from Lüderitz where I used to live and work in 1968/69.

 

With whom am I going to 'praat Afrikaans' after Ian has gone from K-Mart?

 

With Padma still shopping, I did my own at my second-favourite shop, Vinnies, and came away with Orson Welles' "The Stranger" on DVD and two books, "History's Strangest Deaths - A Half-Arsed History Book" by Riley Knight and Professor Stewart's " Hoard of Mathematical Treasures".

 

 

I am back home now and checking on my emails and the state of the share market. It's not that I'm greedy but it gives me an interest in life, apart from which I do the occasional trade to cover our monthly living expenses. Right now BHP is up by thirty cents which is less than I had expected as its overnight New York price is up 1.27%, or seventy cents up on the local price; still, I can afford to sling Wikipedia another $5.

 

 

It not only makes me right; it also makes me feel right!

 

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