It's that time of year when you take stock

Check out the facts here

 

In an average lifetime you will celebrate 79 birthdays and receive 1,450 birthday cards, munch 1.5 tonnes of biscuits, wear out 2,064 suits of skin, 72 livers, and have lived in seven skeletons, beat just over 3 billion heartbeats, spent 144 days standing in front of a mirror shaving, drink 13,342 pints of beer, 1,385 pints of cider, eat 6,389 tins of food, 7,388 apples, 13,674 bananas and 1,094 tins of baked bins, visit hospital because of an accident every 22 years, receive 954 Christmas cards, and use 108m2 of wrapping paper, decorate 45 Christmas trees, eat 39 turkeys and 33 Christmas puddings and spend £658 on Christmas crackers, buy 14 cars, drive 524,773 miles, get 3.5 speeding tickets, have 1.6 children, spend £10,826 on babysitting, use 932 condoms, eat 4.4 whole cows, 13,842 packets of crisps, visit the doctor 316 times, spend 4 years, 2 months and 12 days talking, buy 3.5 washing machines, eat 13,878 eggs, blink 348,428,776 times, spend 502 days watching 5,609 films, eat 92 football-sized scoops of icecream, laugh 1,667,862 laughs, tell 57,782 lies, cut your nails 1,424 times, have sex 5,037 times with 8.8 different people, wear out 136 pairs of shoes, spend 802 days shopping, and a whole one third of your life asleep! - but not tonight when it's time to add to your average of 13,342 pints of beer and those 1,667,862 laughs. You may even be in a state to still improve on that average of 5,037!

Happy New Year! This is my last post and I'll soon be "doing a Mr Bean".

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P.S. Des, here's irrefutable proof that you're NOT average, especially on the scores of 13,342 and 1.6 and 932 and 57,782 and 5,037 and 8.8. As for the "whole one third of your life aleep", it's hard to tell as you're the only person I know who seems to be asleep with his eyes wide open!

 

"Und sie bewegt sich doch!"

 

Diesen berühmten Satz, den Galilei nie sagte, sagte ich gerade als ich auf vesselfinder.com die neue Position der MS "Seestern" fand. Kapitän Marlow in der "Roi des Belges" brauchte zwei Monate um in "Das Herz der Finsternis" zu gelangen, aber Franz und Sonja verschwanden für elf Tage in was laut vesselfinder.com ein weißer Fleck auf der Karte ist.

 

Leider konnte ich die deutsche Ausgabe auf der Internet nicht finden,
aber der englische Text ist auf www.archive.org
Vielleicht darfst Du Dir das deutsche Hörspiel auch beim Steuern anhören, Franz.

 

Die Weihnachtsfeiertage sind weg und die MS "Seestern" ist wieder da, und ich freue mich schon darauf ihre nächsten Fahrten zu verfolgen. Ich wünsche dem Franz und der Sonja (vom Hund ganz zu schweigen) ein Frohes Neues Jahr und immer "eine Handbreit Wasser unter dem Kiel"!

 

Neue Position der MS "Seestern"
Für die zuletzt angegebene Position, siehe hier

 

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Steal a little and they throw you in jail; steal a lot and they make you king.

 

In 2009, with the dust yet to settle on the financial crisis, a fraud of unprecedented gall and magnitude was being set into motion. It began in Malaysia and would spread around the world, touching some of the world's leading financial firms, A-list Hollywood celebrities, supermodels, Las Vegas casinos and nightclubs, and even the art world.

 

 

Now known as the 1MDB affair, the scandal would come to symbolize the next great threat to the global financial system. Federal agents who helped unravel Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme say the 1MDB affair will become the textbook case of financial fraud in the modern age -- and its fallout is already being credited for taking down the prime minister of Malaysia. To date, there are investigations in Singapore, the United States, and Switzerland, with money-laundering charges filed in Malaysia. Government authorities have seized assets including a mega-yacht, private jet, and millions of dollars in jewelry.

 

Read the book online here

 

A stunning tale of hubris and greed, "Billion Dollar Whale" reveals how one of the biggest heists in history was pulled off--right under the nose of the global financial industry. If you can't be bothered to read this stranger-than-fiction story, at least listen to the book discussion here.

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I've booked myself in for a free chiropractic consultation in Cedar City!

 

In the last twenty-four hours I visited Hong Kong, then dropped in on Tristan and St Helena, before making a dash for the Falkland Islands and then into the more familiar waters around Pitcairn. And I've got another half-a-dozen places to go, from Gibraltar to the British West Indies, with an epiphany on nearly every page.

I did all this thanks to thriftbooks.com who sent me a second-hand copy of Simon Winchester's "Outposts - Journeys to the surviving relics of the British Empire", which included, at no extra cost, one of those "Your next appointment is ..." cards which also work so well as bookmarks.

 

J. Christopher Romney, D.C.,F.A.C.O., Chiropractic Orthopedist, Cedar City, Utah,
Red Mountain Integrative Medicine & Pain Center

 

With so many Mormons knocking on our door these days, I've always wanted to go to Salt Lake City, and saw this card as a divine sign to book myself in for a free consultation in Cedar City. GOOGLE tells me it's just three-and-a-half hours from Salt Lake City. More travelling coming up!

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P.S. to Des: NO, I'm not making a detour via Fairfield CT.!

 

Bali's Vincent Van Gogh

 

Most people, the vast majority in fact, lead the lives that circumstances have thrust upon them, and though some repine, looking upon themselves as round pegs in square holes, and think that if things had been different they might have made a much better showing, the greater part accept their lot, if not with serenity, at all events with resignation. They are like train-cars travelling forever on the selfsame rails. They go backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, inevitably, till they can go no longer and then are sold as scrap-iron. It is not often that you find a man who has boldly taken the course of his life into his own hands. When you do, it is worth while having a good look at him."

I was reminded of this paragraph in W. Somerset Maugham's short story "The Lotuseater" when I was introduced to a Dutch painter in Bali many years ago by another expat, Derek Hambling, who lived in a palatial residence named "Villa Mapati" near Kayuputih in the north of Bali.

Derek wanted to sell me an old house which he also owned and which, as it so happened, he had rented to this Dutch painter by the name of Theo Zantman, who in turn wanted to sell me some of his paintings. Neither the house nor the paintings inspired me, but I kept in touch with Theo after I had returned to Australia. That was in 2009 and, not having heard from Theo for quite a while, I thought I revisit his website.

 

From Theo's own website www.theozantman.com which is no longer active;
however, you can retrieve it at web.archive.org and navigate the menu.

 

It had disappeared! I was surprised as the website was one of Theo's few means of selling his paintings. Instead, all I could track down was his old facebook page whose heading had ominously been changed to read, "Remembering Theo Zantman born on 18 of April 1955 in Rotterdam".

And then there was this ...

... and then this:

 

Good ol' Theo Zantman put down his brush on 17 September 2020, aged 77 years if you go by the dates on his gravesite, or 67 years if his old website is right, or a mere 65 if you want to believe his facebook page.

Whichever year he was born, he still died too soon even though he'd beaten the old Vincent Van Gogh in whose footsteps he'd followed by thirty years - and with his left ear still intact! Rest in Peace, Theo!

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We were all citizens of the world

 

Why is it that whenever I hear Rick declare his nationality as "I'm a drunkard", I immediately think back to my character-forming years spent on the Bougainville Copper Project?

Of the thousands of men that worked there, and the scores I knew, there was only one who did not drink - alcohol, that is! - but then he didn't do much of anything else either. As for the rest of us, we were all citizens of the world and drinking responsibly meant not to spill it.

I've always thought that all of us should have been commended for our services to the Australian brewing industry, and I can think of at least one who should have lived out his days as Sir Osis of the Liver. I won't mention his real name as a show of respect for the dead which he must be by now as no liver could have taken all that punishment for long.

All that was almost fifty years ago, and while I still enjoy the occasional glass (or two) of wine, my liver has never ceased to be surprised by the sudden stream of lemon-and-ginger tea it's been metabolising ever since I settled down. Speaking of which, remember the rumours about the stuff they put in our tea in the camp to keep our mind of it ...?

Well, fifty years later, I think mine is showing signs of beginning to work!

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Another magic morning

 

Another magic morning is coming up at "Riverbend". Just ten minutes earlier, the river had been hidden under a blanket of early-morning mist but, like Cat Stevens lyricised oh so many years ago, "morning has broken" and "mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning".

Mine is also the porridge, full of raisins and honey, which together with a cup of hot lemon-and-ginger tea should keep me going until lunchtime on the verandah rolls around. There are only two days left in this year - well, three, if you count today! - where has it gone? Did you ever hear yourself say when you were twenty, "Gosh. It only seems like yesterday that I was ten"? Me neither! But these days it only seems like yesterday when I was in my sixties and in my fifties, not to mention forties! I think it was sometime in my late forties when time strapped a jet pack to its back, lit the afterburners, and if you blinked you missed a whole month.

 

 

A bunch of youngsters to whom life is still eternity, last night parked their hired houseboat across from "Riverbend". I was expecting a lot of noise but whatever they were drinking did the job because they were out like a light by ten o'clock. And they still are as I type this with one hand on the keyboard and the other holding a spoonful of porridge.

I hope it'll stay quiet because I think I spend the rest of the day just lying on my back, chewing on a bit of grass, and thinking of nothing but what my final words might be. "Another magic morning" should do it.

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Saint Jack

What a brilliant movie! Now read the book at www.archive.org

 

Politically, Singapore is as primitive as Burundi, with repressive laws, paid informers, a dictatorial government, and jails full of political prisoners." Which is how Paul Theroux ranted about Singapore in his 1973 book "The Great Railway Bazaar", by which time it had been his home for three years, from 1968 to 1971, teaching English at the National University of Singapore.

It was also the setting for his first Asian novel, "Saint Jack", published later that same year. It was good he was elsewhere when it appeared, because Singapore's government didn't like the novel or its author any more than he liked the government, and banned the book.

It sold moderately elsewhere, until Peter Bogdanovich turned it into one of his best movies, shot on a low budget and on location. A phony script for a film called "Jack of Hearts" was submitted to obtain the official approval and this is what the Singaporeans on the cast and crew were told they were shooting as the cameras recorded the true grit of the waterfront, street markets, and notorious Bugis Street. The film, of course, was banned in Singapore when it was released in 1979.

"Saint Jack" tells the story of an affable American pimp who helped American GI's find companionship while on R&R in Singapore during the Vietnam War. Theroux has never said he knew any such individual, but his years of residence in Singapore give the novel a ring of truth.

Watching it decades after I had visited Singapore repeatedly while stationed in Rangoon in what was then Burma, it has more than a ring of truth about it: it is exactly how I remember Singapore from my days there in 1975 and again when my Saudi boss sent me back several times in the early 80s to supervise his transshipments through Sembawang.

 

 

Since then the world has changed, and so has Singapore, but a kindly soul, Toh Hun Ping of Singapore Film Locations Archive, went to the extraordinary trouble of splicing together yesteryear's street scenes in "Saint Jack" with today's equivalents. Thanks for the memories, Hun Ping!

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Der Mittellandkanal

 

 

Als ich noch ein Junge war in Braunschweig, fuhr ich oft auf dem alten PANTHER-Damenfahrrad meiner Mutter quer durch die Stadt raus zum Mittellandkanal. Dort saß ich dann für Stunden und träumte den vielen Lastschiffen nach, die langsam den Kanal rauf- und runterfuhren.

Menschen wohnten auf den Schiffen; Wäsche hatte man zum Trocknen aufgehängt; ein Fahrrad lehnte gegen das Steuerhaus; ein Hund sonnte sich auf einem Lukendeckel; jemand saß im Heck und schälte Kartoffeln.

Das Wort "Fernweh" kannte ich noch nicht, aber das Gefühl kannte ich schon. Und es blieb immer bei mir, bis ich schließlich der Gutbürgerlichkeit und dem schon vorgeschriebenen Leben - mach die Lehre durch, dann den Wehrdienst, find 'ne gute Anstellung - mit meiner Auswanderung entfloh.

Heute noch schaue ich Schiffen nach, aber es sind kleinere Schiffe die hier auf dem Fluß an dem ich wohne, entlangfahren. Mit dem Fernweh ist es vorbei denn ich wohne ja in der Ferne. Und die Ferne ist nicht mehr die Ferne sondern mein Zuhause. Aber manchmal denke ich noch an das alte Zuhause, denn aus dem ehemaligen Fernweh wurde das jetzige Heimweh.

 

 

"Irgendwo über den Bergen muss meine ferne Heimat sein" Hermann Hesse

 

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Of Christmasses past

In Camp 6 at Loloho on the Bougainville Copper Project
left-to-right: Neil "Jacko" Jackson, yours truly, Bob Green

 

We didn't use the word 'Christmas' then. Christmas came with too much emotional baggage. It reminded us of families and homes which we were far away from or didn't even have.

Of course, I'm talking of those many years - decades, in fact - spent in boarding houses, construction camps, hotels, and company housing. Come Christmastime, those who had families and homes had gone; those who didn't hadn't.

There was Barton House in Canberra, usually throbbing with life from its 300-odd - and some very odd - inmates, which turned into a morgue by Christmastime. The dining room was roped off except for one table next to the kitchen door. That table was large enough for those left behind.

It's hard not to be reminded of something when you're surrounded by half a dozen gloomy faces. So for my last Christmas in Canberra in 1969, just before I flew to my next job in New Guinea, I hitched and hiked to Angle Crossing where I spent a solitary weekend writing letters which is the only known device that combines solitude with good company.

Canberra's then Youth Hostel at Angle Crossing, over the hill from the Murrumbidgee River

Years later, and just one day before Christmas, I booked myself into hospital on Bougainville Island with acute appendicitis . "You'd better get on the next plane out and into a hospital at home", the doctor told me. He was already deep into his medicinal alcohol and had trouble remembering which side my appendix was on. "This is my home", I said. He made one long incision just to make sure he wouldn't miss it.

What I had missed was that my best friend Noel Butler was coming over from Wewak to spend - ahem! - Christmas with me. He must have got there while I was still under the anaesthetic, because there he was standing at the foot of my bed. He'd gone to my donga and waited and finally asked the hous boi where I was. "Masta bagarap long haus sik".

Yours truly and Noel hunched over a chess board in New Guinea

We tried again the following year by which time I had moved to Lae on the north coast of the New Guinea mainland. By the time Christmas and Noel had come, there was just time for a drink at the Voco Point yacht club and a game of chess before I flew out to my next job in Burma.

And so it went on, year after year, either coming or going or laid up with something, deftly avoiding Christmas. It's not so easy anymore!

 

 

Global empire or Soviet collapse?

 

Silent Contest is a Chinese communist military propaganda film produced by the People's Liberation Army's National Defense University Information Management Center, which sat online inside China for at least four days (and probably longer) before it was deleted on October 31, 2013.

It purports to expose and explain the secret battle, or conspiracy, the United States is waging against the People's Republic of China. The documentary runs for 92 minutes. Some analysts have called it a "masterpiece" of political propaganda, while others called it "eerie," "paranoid," "bizarre," or "alarming."

It has no English subtitles but watching it with the translation provided by Chinascope.org in another window works - click for Part I or Part II.

 

This is a subtitled commentary on the 92-minute clip "Silent Contest"

 

The conflict between China and the West is hotting up. "Thoroughly expelling 'color revolution’ from China will be a long war," the video warns. At the end it declares, "If there is war, we will answer the call."

Read a preview here.

What to make of it? Perhaps China's economic woes will solve the China problem. I ordered a copy of "The China Nightmare". Know thy enemy!

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The remarkable home of Erich Maria Remarque

The book shown at the beginning of this clip, "Opposite Attraction", can be read here

 

Erich Maria Remarque has been my favourite writer almost since I started reading serious books. His landmark novel "Im Westen nichts Neues" (All Quiet on the Western Front) (1928), about the German military experience of World War I, was an international best-seller which was adapted to film in 1930 and again in 1979 - click here.

On 10 May 1933, at the initiative of the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, Remarque's writing was publicly declared as "unpatriotic" and was banned in Germany. Remarque left Germany to live at his villa in Switzerland. In 1938, Remarque's German citizenship was revoked. Just before the outbreak of World War II in Europe, he left Porto Ronco in Switzerland for the United States. In 1948, Remarque returned to Switzerland, where he spent the remainder of his life.

For my friends at the Erich Maria Remarque Readers facebook page, I've pulled together all the books by Erich Maria Remarque which can be read online. Here is the list which I hope to be able to add to in time:

 

To read these books, simply SIGN UP (it's free!), LOG IN, and BORROW.

Books by Erich Maria Remarque in their English translation

All Quiet on the Western Front 1929

The Road Back 1931

Three Comrades 1937

Flotsam 1941

Arch Of Triumph 1945

Spark of Life 1952

A Time to Love and a Time to Die 1954

The Black Obelisk 1957

Heaven Has No Favorites 1961

The Night in Lisbon 1964

Shadows in Paradise 1972

Books by Erich Maria Remarque in their original German

Im Westen Nichts Neues 1929

Drei Kameraden 1937

Liebe deinen Nächsten 1941

Der schwarze Obelisk 1957

Der Himmel Kennt Keine Günstlinge 1961

Schatten im Paradies 1972

Books about Erich Maria Remarque

Understanding Erich Maria Remarque

Erich Maria Remarque

Erich Maria Remarque : The Last Romantic

Opposite Attraction

 

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Australian property prices are going through the roof, but you can always go underground

For another look at the "White Man's Hole", click here and here and here.

 

The hammer has fallen on more than 33 properties that the District Council of Coober Pedy auctioned off to recoup unpaid rates in hotly contested bids attended by 70 people - with 40 more joining online - at the Desert Cave Hotel.

The council's CEO, Dean Miller, said the highest-selling dugout fetched $36,000. For anyone who has missed out on their dream of desert living, Mr Miller said there would likely be another twenty properties that would go on sale before the end of the year.

You'd probably want a bigger television screen, Des, but other than that I can already see you sitting in that reclining chair with a can of COKE in your hand! I'll visit you as soon as you've dug out an extra bedroom!

For more bargains at below-ground prices, go to realestate.com.au.

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The Road Back

 

Erich Maria Remarque ranks with Hemingway, Mann and Faulkner as one of the great novelists of the twentieth century. His anti-war novel "All Quiet on the Western Front" is now part of our permanent heritage.

The Road Back is not just a sequel to "All Quiet on the Western Front" but its necessary completion. Even more than the earlier book it shows how much more was lost in the war than men killed in action. Rough-edged, bowdy, coarse, lyrical and tragic, it has been acclaimed as the most gripping story told yet of soldiers in the post-war years.

Like the 1930 movie adaption of "All Quiet on the Western Front", it was also made into a movie. Perhaps because it is not as powerful as its predecessor, it was never released on DVD and is now almost forgotten.

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