Walked into the Spencer & Murphy Bookshop where Helmut Brix, an ex-German from Görmar in Thuringia, was minding the shop for its owner, the Welshman Tony. We talked and talked and talked ... about all sorts of things, including the first jet-powered flying wing, the Horten Ho 229 - designed by a German, of course! - of which Helmut was something of an expert. Here is Helmut's story
Helmut is looking to relocate permanently to Yungaburra from Melbourne where he's spent the last 50 years. He's well into his retirement but still minding other people's businesses, such as Tony's bookshop as well as the "Vienna Inn".
Yungaburra's only Husbands' Daycare Centre
Helmut is interested in buying into the Savannah Lifestyle Resort at Mareeba. I don't know, Helmut! You'd be buying yourself a very expensive house built on land which isn't yours! So who really owns your house - you or the people on whose land it is built? Page 3 in their March 2011 newsletter addressed such well-founded fears - rather unconvinc-ingly, I thought! What, indeed, happens if the development goes broke? What will that high-sounding 'Certificate of Ownership' guarantee you then? In any case, Helmut, why don't you wait until those plasticine people in the very slick promotional video are replaced by real people?
Before leaving this friendly bookshop, I bought a book on "Schaden-freude", John Portmann's When Bad Things Happen to Other People, which should keep me occupied for the next two evenings.
