Another siren call I heard some years ago

 

 

It has been quite some years since I received a message like this from the U.K. I have kept it for all this time to remind myself of how life used to be before Domesti-City had swallowed me up:

 

"Dear Peter, I work for WYG International, a leading British consultancy firm working on development projects worldwide. We are currently preparing an expression of interest for the Asian Development Bank’s “Strengthened Public Financial Management Project” in Kiribati – please find attached the Terms of Reference for your information. I have found your profile online and wondered if you might be interested in one of the positions. We are currently looking for a Treasury Specialist/Team Leader and an Attaché Specialist to be included in our team for this project – you can find the descriptions of the positions in the TORs attached. I only have a very brief version of your CV, so I wanted to check whether you had experience of using Attaché accounting systems and whether you think you’d be qualified for either of these positions? The project is due to start in early April 2012, and will run for 21 months – the Treasury Specialist will have 10 months of inputs and the Attaché Specialist 3 months of inputs during that period. The ADB is following the Consultants Qualification Selection method, meaning that we will not need to submit a full proposal, and we should know relatively quickly whether we have been successful in our application (the deadline for submission of EOIs is 11th February). WYG International has a specialist public finance management practice area, and we are currently expanding our work in South East Asia and the Pacific. We have a representative office in Cambodia and have significant experience of working with the ADB, including a current project in the Solomon Islands, large PFM reform projects in Papua New Guinea, Cambodia and Laos and previous experience in small island states, including the Maldives and Fiji. We are therefore confident that we have a strong chance of being selected for this assignment. If you would be interested in being included as part of our team, please send me your latest CV (stressing your Pacific islands and Attaché experience as much as possible) as soon as you can – as I mentioned, the deadline for submission is the 11th February and we need to ensure that we have the right team in place before submission. Please feel free to contact me with any questions you might have in the meantime. I look forward to hearing from you soon. Kind regards Sara Breen Senior Consultant WYG INTERNATIONAL LTD 100 St John Street, London, EC1M 4EH"

 

Of course, there was a time (before email and the internet) when a single phone call was enough for me to give up a secure job, pack up my things, and follow the siren call of yet another challenge in yet another country. Alas, not anymore. I am now stuck in this big place called Domesti-City which won't let me step onto that "canoe that flies" and wing it to Kiribati (pronounced Kiribas), and so I sent this email in reply:

 

"Hello Sara, thank you so much for your email. What you have to offer is indeed very tempting but, alas, I am no longer 'in the game'. My knowledge of ATTACHÉ has also become somewhat dated even though I was one of the first to use it after Michael Rich, the owner, had bought out the rights from MICROTIGER in the USA and 'Australianised' it for the local market way back in the 1980s. I am now a self-funded retiree and live on the beautiful South Coast of New South Wales in Australia. Under Australian tax law, being a self-funded retiree makes me entirely tax-free but also does not allow me to re-enter the paid workforce which is another reason why I can't answer this tempting siren call ☺ However, I know from my past assignments that consulting firms sometimes find that a member of a team suddenly becomes unavailable. Should you find yourself in such a situation, I would be happy to bridge the gap for a much shorter period of time and as an unpaid volunteer."

 

Another faint echo of a siren call I heard all those many years ago.

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

P.S. The name Kiribati is the local pronunciation of "Gilberts", derived from the main island chain, the Gilbert Islands. Gilbertese or Kiribati (sometimes Kiribatese, a mixture of both) is far from extinct, and just about all Gilbertese use it daily. Only 30% of Kiribati speakers are fully bilingual with English, meaning that the language is in no current danger of being swallowed by English. It is written in the Latin alphabet, and has been since the 1840s, when Hiram Bingham Jr, a missionary, first translated the Bible into Kiribati. Previously, the language was unwritten. Bingham had only a typewriter with a broken "S" so it does not occur in the language and "ti" is used for that sound instead. One difficulty in translating the Bible was references to words such as "mountain", a geographical phenomenon unknown to the people of the islands of Kiribati at the time (only heard in the myths from Samoa). Bingham decided to use "hilly", which would be more easily understood. Such adjustments are common to all languages as "modern" things require creation of new words. The Gilbertese word for airplane is te wanikiba, "the canoe that flies". Almost as good as the Pidgin Inglis word for helicopter: Mixmaster blong Jesus Christ. I just thought you might like to know ☺ .

 

The School of Life

 

Go to www.theschooloflife.com

 

There is a quote that says, "it’s never too late for new beginnings in your life". We are all trapped in a myth that there is a certain age limit on when you can start to learn and when it is too late. This is a thought that needs to be forgotten. If you hate your job or career and crave a new change then it is never too late to start.

Many people assume that skill development is an ‘age sensitive’ thing and can only apply to people who are just starting their career. Whether you are 17 or 75, there is no reason why you can’t start now. Age is nothing but a number. In fact it is said that learners of the average age of 80 are less likely to develop brain-related illnesses such as dementia.

Learning is a necessity. It is simply a tool that nourishes our mind and relieves our soul. Learning new skills is a way of preparing you to feel more ready to take on new challenges and opportunities that will come your way. It keeps your mind engaged and allows you to explore new paths for your future.

It isn’t just about making money; it is about protecting your wellbeing, making sure you are enjoying what you do and allowing the world to open up new opportunities for you. Don’t be afraid to take on a new challenge, it could be the best thing that you ever do. Which is where "The School of Life" come in.

 

 

I haven't been to my favourite op-shop in the Bay for a while and I'm sure they're missing me. As soon as the verandah is done and the weather has warmed up a little, I'll be back in there but for the moment I'm still going through some past treasuries I picked up several months ago, one of which is Alain de Botton's Volume 1 of "The School of Life".

 

Read it online at www.archive.org

 

I don't know why anyone would surrounder such an engaging book to an op-shop because it's the sort of book that you'd dip into time and time again, as I've been doing this weekend while sitting on the jetty and facing the timeless river. My only regret is that I didn't read it fifty, even sixty years ago, although I'm consoled by the copyright imprint on the inside page: "First published 2012 by Macmillan Publishers Limited".

By that time I had already committed most of my life's biggest mistakes, but as they say, "it’s never too late for new beginnings in your life".

 

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Waterlog

 

 

I grew up far from the sea or even a river or swimming pool, when swimming was the thin line between waving and drowning. Now that I am old, and after having spent almost a lifetime near the ocean, swimming to me has become a moving meditation, a way to escape, to breathe, to find peace in the chaos of life.

Which is why I enjoyed Roger Deakin's book "Waterlog", which puts into words my own feelings about water: "When you swim, you feel your body for what it mostly is — water — and it begins to move with the water around it ... The swimmer experiences the terror and the bliss of being born. So swimming is a rite of passage, a crossing of boundaries: the line of the shore, the bank of the river, the edge of the pool, the surface itself. When you enter the water, something like metamorphosis happens. Leaving behind the land, you go through the looking-glass surface and enter a new world, in which survival, not ambition or desire, is the dominant aim ... You are in nature, part and parcel of it, in a far more complete and intense way than on dry land, and your sense of the present is overwhelming." [page 3]

 

Read the book online at www.archive.org

 

Perhaps our profound response to water appears to be our evolutionary inheritance — we came out of the ocean, of course, but never fully. As Roger Deakin writes: "We spent ten million years of the Pliocene era of world drought evolving into uprightness as semi-aquatic waders and swimmers in the sea shallows and on the beaches of Africa. We went through a sea change to become what we are, and our subsequent life on dry land is a relatively recent, short-lived affair. Apart from the proboscis monkey of Borneo, we are the only primate that regularly takes to the water for the sheer joy of it. We are also singularly hairless like dolphins and, alone amongst the primates, have a layer of subcutaneous fat analagous to the whale’s blubber, ideal for keeping warm in the water." [page 147]

There is something primordially powerful about immersing yourself into the water and propelling yourself into motion and silent thought, the daily bustle of the world left to the land. "As you swim," Anaïs Nin wrote in her beautiful meditation on leisure and the art of presence, "you are washed of all the excrescences of so-called civilization, which includes the incapacity to be happy under any circumstances."

Let these thoughts sink in when next you sink into the water. To me, the best thing about swimming is that water doesn't know how old you are!

 

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A piece of Nelligen history

 

 

It's been twelve years since Benny Housiaux sold his waterfront café and his 3-bedroom residence behind it for what was then a very expensive $710,000, but now looks like the bargain of the century.

We still miss his innovative merchandising of placing DUREX right after Chuppa Chups and before Panadol. He was right with the chronology!

 

 

Benny bought the old store in 1998 for $200,000, and constantly had his magnanimity tested by customers quoting "Blue fish blowing bubbles" which, according to his website, entitled them to a free Coke (I tried it and was nearly handed over to the authorities for verbal shoplifting ☺).

 

Quote the phrase; "Blue fish blowing bubbles", when you place any takeaway order over $4, to receive a free can of Coke!

 

He tried to sell it again in 2009 but no luck. Then, in April 2010, it burnt down and, with a bit of help from the insurers, a new store arose from the ashes which Benny then tried to sell for over $800,000. He had to wait three years before he found a buyer in October 2014 at $710,000. Eight years later, in 2022, it sold again for $1,450,000 - click here.

 

 

It's still going strong - but don't try quoting "Blue fish blowing bubbles"!

 

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Pondering the problems of the world

 

Same name as the Braunschweiger Feldschlößchen, but this one comes from Dresden

 

Sitting on the jetty and pondering the problems of the world, I suddenly realise that, at my age, I don't really give a rat's ass anymore. I mean, if walking is good for your health, the postman would be immortal. A whale swims all day, only eats fish, and drinks water, but is still fat. A rabbit runs, and hops, and only lives fifteen years; a tortoise doesn't run, and does mostly nothing, yet it lives for 150 years. And they tell us to exercise? I don't think so.

Now that I'm old(er), here's what I've discovered:

• I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it.
• My wild oats are mostly enjoyed with prunes and all-bran.
• Funny, I don't remember being absent-minded.
• Funny, I don't remember being absent-minded.
• If all is not lost, then where the heck is it?
• It was a whole lot easier to get older than it was to get wiser.
• Some days, you're the top dog, some days you're the hydrant.
• I wish the buck really did stop here; I sure could use a few of them.
• Kids in the back seat cause accidents.
• Accidents in the back seat cause kids.
• It is hard to make a comeback when you haven't been anywhere.
• The world only beats a path to your door when you're in the bathroom.
• If God wanted me to touch my toes, he'd have put them on my knees.
• When I'm finally holding all the right cards, everyone wants to play chess.
• It is not hard to meet expenses ... they're everywhere.
• The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.
• Funny, I don't remember being absent-minded.

Have I sent this message to you before? Or did I get it from you?

 

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