The Odd Couple

 

 

Lat month, a neighbour and I visited the Killer Whale Museum. On the way, we called in at the Robyn's Nest Lakeside Resort at Merimbula, which a friend bought several years ago at great expense and keeps going at even greater expense.

 

The above video clip is from the sales pitch when the place was for sale in 2023. For a more recent video, click here.

 

It has everything: a waterfront as far as the eye can see, a fancy restaurant, a swimming pool, a tennis court, and a beautiful guest lounge with a huge fireplace. "But where are the books?" I cried out, visualising myself sitting by the blazing fire with a book in my hand.

My friend thought it an excellent idea to add a small reading library to the guest lounge, and sort of commissioned me to be on the look-out for some suitable books. What a great excuse to go book-hunting again without incurring Padma's displeasure, who's been telling me for years that we are running out of shelf space, which I already did several times, and which I always solved by adding another library room.

I have already accumulated quite a stack of suitable books for my friend's guest lounge, although I admit that the ratio of books I pick up for myself and of books I source for my friend's library is about 3-to-1.

 

 

Of the recently bought books I picked up for myself is Allan Behm's "The Odd Couple", which I read in one afternoon on the sunlit verandah. It's full of provocative ideas which everyone of our politicians should read.

 

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The Conquest of Happiness

 

 

This slender volume is an invigorating ice-cream sundae with a cherry on top. An uplifting and thoughful examination of what it means to be happy and how such a state can be obtained in the modern world. As its author, Bertrand Russell, sets out in the preface to the book:

 

Read the whole book here

 

His admission that he was not born happy, and indeed contemplated suicide many times, sets the stage for a truly unique examination of the subject as seen through the lens of his life journey. When you put down this wonderful book, you will be a new and better person.

The audiobook recording hasn't got the best reading voice - I suspect it was AI-generated - but I selected it for the happy picture it presents.

 

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Die Brücke

 

"Die Brücke" is based on the West German anti-war novel written by Gregor Dorfmeister under the pseudonym of Manfred Gregor. The book is based on a true event in Germany during the last days of the Second World War.

 

May 1945. Somewhere in Germany. Only a few days before the capitulation. Seven Hitler-youth, who’ve been stuck into Wehrmacht uniforms, are deployed to defend a bridge of no strategic significance, equipped with nothing more than a few carbines and bazookas. Abandoned by their senior officer, helplessly torn between a thirst for adventure and a confused belief that they must save the Fatherland, they take up the futile struggle just as the American tanks roll in.

 

Unfortunate for those who never got past "La plume de ma tante" in their elementary French language instructions, the book is available online only in French - click here

 

"The Bridge", which achieved worldwide success as a book in 1958, followed by the equally successful film in 1959 (followed by a television remake in 2008 - click for the trailer here), is a memorial to a duped generation that was sent to the slaughter in the final days of the War.

 

 

The publication of the book and the release of the film did nothing to popularise the "Wehrpflicht" (conscription) which began in 1956. My turn came in 1963 when I had turned 18. Despite fallen arches and prescription glasses, I was given the all-clear and a shiny new "Wehrpaß" with the instructions not to leave town (or worse, the country), and yet, I did, with the help of the Australian embassy, in 1965.

 

 

Better to serve two years as an assisted migrant in Australia than eighteen months under some sadistic "Feldwebel" in the "Bundeswehr".

Sixty years later, I am still here!

 

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The world's worst title for a book ever

 

Read the book online at www.archive.org

 

Heinrich Hoffman was a key part in the making of the Hitler legend, the photographer who carefully crafted the image of the Führer as a godlike figure. Hoffmann published his first book of photographs in 1919, following his work as an official photographer for the German army.

In 1920 he joined the Nazi Party, and his association with Hitler began. He became Hitler's official photographer and travelled with him extensively. He took over two million photographs of Hitler, and they were distributed widely, including on postage stamps, an enterprise that proved very profitable for both men. Hoffmann published several books on Hitler in the 1930s, including "The Hitler Nobody Knows" (1933).

Hoffmann and Hitler were very close, and he acted not only as a personal confidante but also as a matchmaker; it is Hoffmann who introduced Eva Braun, his studio assistant, to Hitler. Unlike millions of others, Hoffmann survived the war and died in 1957, aged 72.

 

 

The book also includes a photograph of Adolf Hitler that so embarrassed him he banned it from being published. It shows the Führer in his lederhosen, striking a more "camp" than "commandant" pose as he awkwardly leans against a tree with his hands in his pockets.

 

 

I haven't had time yet to read Heinrich Hoffmann's "Hitler Was My Friend", as I'm still trying to finish the one about his kampfy chair.

 

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Tell 'em they're dreamin'!

 

 

On this first day of spring, as warm and sunny as it turned out to be, I felt a bit flat, and so I turned to an old-time favourite to cheer me up: "The Castle", still considered one of the most iconic and greatest Australian films ever made.

It's all about every Australian family's dream. A quarter-acre block. A Pool Room. A barbie. And an airport over the back fence.

Shot in eleven days on a budget of just A$750,000, on its cinema release in Australia on 10 April 1997, it grossed A$10,326,428 at the box office. Some of the quotes from the movie have become part of the Australian vernacular, none more so than Darryl's "Tell 'em they're dreamin'!"

 

"How's the serenity?"

"That's going straight to the pool room!"

"It's the Constitution, it's Mabo, it's the vibe..."

"What are you calling an eyesore? It's called a home ya dickhead!"

"It's not just a house... it's a home!"

"Dad, he reckons powerlines are a reminder of man's ability to generate electricity."

"The real estate agent said 'location location location' and we were right next to the airport!"

"Dad still can’t work out how he got it so cheap. It’s worth almost as much today as when we bought it."

"We're right next to the airport. It'll be very convenient if we ever have to fly one day."

"He say plane fly overhead, drop value. I don't care. In Beirut, plane fly over, drop bomb. I like these planes."

"Dad reckons fishing is 10% brains and 95% muscle, the rest is just good luck."

"Tell 'em they're dreamin'!"

 

Michael Caton, who was 54 years old at the time, was paid $3,000 for his starring role as Darryl Kerrigan. Caton later said that the real value of the film came from the decades of career opportunities it created for him afterward, because it sent his career straight to the pool room.

 

 

There are only trailers and other bits and pieces on YouTube. And there's no point in hoping to find a cheap copy at your local op-shop, as over the years I must've have bought them all to give as a present to visitors to "Riverbend" and give to friends here or send to friends overseas.

If you want to see the full movie, you can still buy it on ebay, or by clicking here, after which you can take it straight to your pool room.

 

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