What are they trying to tell me?

 

 

That was the first thought that entered my mind when I received the above email. Or was it spam? After all, why would the Australian Taxation Office adress me with a simple "Hi", when they already know more about me than my wife does, including my full teutonic name "Manfred-Peter"? I checked the sender's email address and it was definitely 'no-reply@ato.gov.au, so what are they trying to tell me?

From the very beginning when, through too much hubris as well as inexperience, I suffered some very heavy losses, I have always bought shares as an investment, even though I could have declared myself a trader and deducted those losses from my other income and enjoyed many tax-free years. Instead, I quarantined those losses in 'Section 18 Capital gains' of my subsequent tax returns, carrying them forward from year to year, until I could apply them against some future capital gains.

That time came in early May when BHP finally lived up to its long-held promise and shot up to almost $60, and I was able to sell the shares, some of which I had bought as long ago as 2023, for a substantial profit.

 

 

I was cloistered inside "Melbourne" all day yesterday, using my trusty old 'Made in Germany' ARISTO-SCHOLAR slide rule, with which I had left the "Vaterland" in 1965, for nothing better than drawing up columns on sheets of paper, so as to match up all the buy-and-sell transactions to calculate the capital gains in readiness for next month's tax return.

I usually lodge my own tax return, but seeing how the tax office has taken a sudden interest in me, I shall present all those buy-and-sell contract notes and my own tabulations to the local office of H&R Block for their 'seal of approval'. After having considered myself an investor for over thirty years, I don't want to argue the case that I should not be treated as a trader. At last count, with an average of six transactions a month over the current year, and a total of just ONE transaction for the whole of the year before, I should think I can hardly be called a trader.

Although my focus is on capital growth and long-term dividend income, I am not a totally passive investor. World events - and recent Trumpian excesses - may make me seek safety in cash when I sell down some of my shareholdings, only to buy back in again when I consider it safe.

(Luckily, I did buy back in again after my sell-down in early May, because Trump said - once again! - that a peace deal with Iran was within reach, and BHP went ballistic, closing overnight in New York at the Australian equivalent price of $64.50. Sometimes, being careful will pay off!)

 

 

Now it's time I put away the slide rule and take a rest in my favourite chair outside "Melbourne". Thanks to those recently made capital gains, I may even be able buy a can of white paint and give the old chair a new lease of life. "If you dream big long enough, anything can come true."

 

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Al Murray's Germany

 

 

Making fun of the Germans has had 'Pub Landlord' comedian Al Murray's audiences laughing in the aisles, but behind the scenes Murray is a serious historian with a fascination for the real Germany.

In the second of a two-part documentary, Al sets out to discover the truth behind the wartime jokes and banter that still plague all things German. In a breathtaking journey through one of Germany's coldest winters, he discovers a country of warm and welcoming people and two centuries of stunning arts and culture.

From Bach to Bauhaus and the Brothers Grimm, Al falls in love with the true historical, natural and cultural beauty of this much-maligned land.

 

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My favourite Frenchman

 

Read it online at www.archive.org

 

At my age, I always try to read stuff that will make me look good if I should suddenly die in the middle of it - and Sarah Bakewell's book "How To Live" certainly qualifies for it.

How to get on well with people, how to deal with violence, how to adjust to losing someone you love - such questions arise in most people's lives. They are all versions of a bigger question: how do you live? How do you do the good or honourable thing, while flourishing and feeling happy?

This question obsessed Renaissance writers, none more than Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-92), perhaps the first truly modern individual. A nobleman, public official and wine-grower, he wrote free-roaming explorations of his thought and experience, unlike anything written before.

He called them 'essays', meaning 'attempts' or 'tries'. Into them, he put whatever was in his head: his tastes in wine and food, his childhood memories, the way his dog's ears twitched when it was dreaming, as well as the appalling events of the religious civil wars raging around him. The Essays was an instant bestseller, and over four hundred years later, Montaigne's honesty and charm still draw people to him. Readers come to him in search of companionship, wisdom and entertainment - and in search of themselves.

This book, a spirited and singular biography (and the first full life of Montaigne in English for nearly fifty years), relates the story of his life by way of the questions he posed and the answers he explored. It traces his bizarre upbringing (made to speak only Latin), youthful career and sexual adventures, his travels, and his friendships with the scholar and poet Etienne de La Boetie and with his adopted 'daughter', Marie de Gournay. And as we read, we also meet his readers - who for centuries have found in Montaigne an inexhaustible source of answers to the haunting question, 'how to live?'.

You can read Montaigne's Essays online.

And some of his quotes are worth repeating:

I have often seen people uncivil by too much civility, and tiresome in their courtesy.

Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head.

It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.

Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.

My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.

Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.

A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.

A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.

 

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A moment of "Strewth!"

 

 

The last time I heard the exclamation "Strewth!, once fairly common in Australia, was in the mid-60s. I was then a lowly Ledger Examiner with the ANZ Bank in Alinga Street in Canberra when Kay Atkinson, a ledger machinist, had just barely missed dropping a heavy metal tray of ledger cards from the mezzanine floor onto the heads of the unsuspecting customers below.

She voiced her relief with a resounding "Strewth!" --- and within minutes was before the manager, Mr Reid, who wanted to know how she could have dared uttering such profanity in his august banking chambers.

She returned red-faced to our guffaws and heckles of "Oh Mrs Jones!" which is what we had come to call her after her recent marriage to a chap by the name of Jones which coincided with the launch of a TV commercial that featured a margarine-buying Mrs Jones. Of such innocence were our jokes in the 60s!

 

A little bit of history from The Bulletin, July 2, 1966

 

I was reminded of all this when Ian Paterson, a colleague of mine from my Bougainville days in the 70s, who had trawled through my Bougainville website and blogs, emailed me:

"Pete, you have thought no doubt about writing a book, haven't you? I have lived half a dozen lifetimes in this incarnation. But you, struth [sic], don't need to come back for 2000 years! You have crammed in about 50 lifetimes!! Not only that, you have an amazing way of viewing life with extremely entertaining and interesting expression. So I will be buying a copy as long as you sign it with a suitable inscription."

No book - yet, Ian; I am far too busy already writing my own eulogy to make sure the bastards get it right.

 

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People often mistake resignation for wisdom

 

 

What if the peace you envy in other people is not wisdom but exhaustion? What if the simplicity in their lives is merely defeat? What if the people who seem free are those who merely have run out of places to flee to?

I found this literary drama about guilt, ambition, reinvention, and the human tendency to mistake resignation for enlightenment, "The Retreat in Bali", while looking for another "Banjar Hills" hide-away after I had just heard that Virgin has started direct flights from Canberra to Bali.

I loaded it onto a USB-stick and took it with me to "Melbourne" where I listened to it until I fell asleep. Given how difficult it is for me to still my mind and fall asleep, it must've been a good story, and I shall listen to it again tomorrow and the day after. In the meantime, Bali can wait.

 

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