"You only had to look at your plate to know what day of the week it was."

 

 

Bonegilla, the migrant reception centre - my first "home" in Australia for just two days - has set up an online exhibition called "So Much Sky" which brings back memories of those uncertain early days almost fifty-five years ago - see here.

After only two days at Bonegilla, I worked for less than two months as "trainee manager" with Coles in Melbourne, followed by another two months as truckdriver for Ingram & Sons, a hardware store in Canberra.

Then, still penniless and "fern der Heimat", just four months after my arrival and having just turned twenty, I became a bank officer with the Australia & New Zealand Bank, starting a new career in a new country.

Not that this was the end of my privations as I faced - and, strangely, enjoyed - many more years in boarding houses and mess halls which is why the comment "There was always plenty to eat, but every now and then it got boring. You only had to look at your plate to know what day of the week it was" on the "So Much Sky" webpage resonates with me.

After Bonegilla came the Capital Hill Hostel and Barton House in Canberra, a couple of boarding houses in Sydney, the Public Works Department mess hall in Rabaul in Papua New Guinea, and by the time the Bonegilla Centre closed in 1971, I was still living in Camp 1 on the Bougainville Copper Project. Bonegilla had been a great introduction!

 

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(Armchair-)Travel broadens the behind

 

 

In this four-part BBC series, Julia Bradbury takes her boots and backpack to the Continent to explore the landscape of Germany and the cultural movement that made it famous, Romanticism.

The Germans enjoy a relationship with walking that has lasted over 200 years. By walking in four very different parts of Germany (the Rhine, the Bavarian Alps, the island of Rügen, and Saxony) Julia explores river valleys, coastlines, mountains and gorges, following in the footsteps of Richard Wagner, Caspar David Friedrich, Johannes Brahms as well as British romantics like William Turner and Lord Byron.

 

 

YouTube used to have all four parts but all that's left now is the Rhine; so I searched on ebay and ordered the set on DVD, which saved me a trip to Germany. Want to save yourself a trip to Germany? Sit down and watch this series. As they say, "(Armchair-)Travel broadens the behind."

 

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Tonight's Cultural Event at "Riverbend"

 

Read the book here or listen to the audiobook here

 

Tonight's movie screening at Riverbend's Cinema Paradiso is based on a novel by Somerset W. Maugham set in England, Hong Kong, and China of the 1920s, and is a beautifully written affirmation of the human capacity to grow, to change, and to forgive. Its title refers to Percy Shelley’s sonnet "Lift not the painted veil ..." .

 

Lift not the painted veil which those who live Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there, And it but mimic all we would believe With colours idly spread, --- behind, lurk Fear And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave Their shadows, o'er the chasm, sightless and drear. I knew one who had lifted it --- he sought, For his lost heart was tender, things to love, But found them not, alas ! nor was there aught The world contains, the which he could approve. Through the unheeding many he did move, A splendour among shadows, a bright blot Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove  For truth, and like the Preacher found it not.

 

 

Unfortunately, some of the most memorable lines in the book have been left out of the movie:

 

His lips moved. He did not look at her. His eyes stared unseeing at the white-washed wall. She leaned over him so that she might hear. But he spoke quite clearly.

'The dog it was that died.'

She stayed as still as though she were turned to stone. She could not understand and gazed at him in terrified perplexity. It was meaningless. Delirium.

...
...
...

(Kitty asking Waddington) 'What did he mean by saying: the dog it was that died? What is it?'

'It's the last line in Goldsmith's Elegy.'

 

Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog Good people all, of every sort, Give ear unto my song; And if you find it wondrous short, It cannot hold you long. In Islington there was a man, Of whom the world might say That still a godly race he ran, Whene'er he went to pray. A kind and gentle heart he had, To comfort friends and foes; The naked every day he clad, When he put on his clothes. And in that town a dog was found, As many dogs there be, Both mongrel, puppy, whelp and hound, And curs of low degree. This dog and man at first were friends; But when a pique began, The dog, to gain some private ends, Went mad and bit the man. Around from all the neighbouring streets The wondering neighbours ran, And swore the dog had lost his wits, To bite so good a man. The wound it seemed both sore and sad To every Christian eye; And while they swore the dog was mad, They swore the man would die. But soon a wonder came to light, That showed the rogues they lied: The man recovered of the bite, The dog it was that died.         Oliver Goldsmith

 

Get out the popcorn! This is a beautiful movie that will sweep you away.

 

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A Summing-Up

 

 

So what's the best summing-up I can give of the verandah-rebuild? "All's well that ends well" seems to capture it all. A couple of months and five quotes later, it's done and looking good - in fact, very good, thanks to Troy's Handyman Service.

 

 

Here's a short chronology:

 

1. The first quote, material (with cheap treated pine) and labour, was for $14,400, but didn't include replacing the rotting beam.

2. The second quote, material (more expensive hardwood for the frame and Merbau for the decking) and labour, was for $41,747.43 - I loved that 43 cents! - but didn't include replacing the overhead beam, for which he quoted me $110 an hour.

3. The third one quoted me for material (hardwood and Merbau) and labour at a not-quite-so-outrageous $24,499,20.

4. Then came a delayed quote, again for material (hardwood and Merbau) and labour, at $17,316.20. I thought I was on a winner but we disagreed on some minor matter and the deal was off.

 

Tired of all this, I bought all the material (hardwood and Merbau and screws and drill bits and pieces), which cost me a total of $6,760.00, and had the old verandah demolished which took eight hours and cost me $480. With the brick piers still in place and level, it was a straight-forward carpenter's job and I looked around for a labour-only quote:

 

1. I received a quote for $18,800.00. When I replied that this was quite impossible, he texted me back, "1 apprentice $65ph + 1 carpenter $80ph + 1 builder $90ph x 80hrs (2 weeks) = $18800." And he hadn't even mentioned the GST yet! Pull the other one!

2. I then called the same handyman who had demolished the old verandah, and who again quoted me $60 an hour. He had the hardwood frame finished in two days, or sixteen hours, for $960. The decking, which involved some two thousand countersunk screws, was tedious and took another five-and-a-half days, or forty-four hours, and cost another $2,640. Replacing the rotting overhead beam may take another full day's work, but even if it takes TWO days, the total labour costs will not exceed $5,000.

 

 

So there it is: a brandnew verandah for under $13,000 (all materials $6,760; all labour $5,000; and a hefty bonus for a job well done).

 

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God Is Not Great

 

 

I have Christopher Hitchens' book "God Is Not Great - How religion poisons everything" in my library, but when I found this audio-book on YouTube, there was no way I was not listening; firstly, because his is the most beautiful voice I've ever heard reading a book, and, secondly, because his intellect and words are like a sword, beautiful, sharp and cutting. RIP Christopher Hitchens.

I dispensed with Christianity at the age of fourteen when I refused to do the expected thing and be confirmed into the German Lutheran church.

Since my childhood I have had only one more in-your-face encounter with religion, and that was with Islam during my years in Saudi Arabia, and so I cut right to the chase and started at the book's Chapter Nine, "The Koran Is Borrowed From Both Jewish and Christian Myth":

 

Continue by reading it online at archive.org, going straight to page 131.

 

What little I knew about Islam before I went to live and work in Saudi Arabia in 1982, I had learned from Peter O'Toole in the movie "Lawrence of Arabia". Nothing much seemed to have changed during the two years I lived there, although I have heard that since I left, women have been allowed to drive cars, as long as they - the cars - are properly covered.

 

 

Please don't bother to comment or send me any other sort of hate mail, as this blog entry is entirely for my own benefit. As I wrote, Christopher Hitchens' voice is the most beautiful I've ever heard reading a book.

 

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