My library serves as a visual reminder of what I don’t know

At my house at Komin Kochin Avenue # 7 in Rangoon in 1975

 

I've been a reader all my life but I've only had my very own libary since I settled down here at "Riverbend" about thirty years ago; in fact, the mere existence of my library has kept me settled down.

Sometimes I feel guilty as I walk into my library and look at the ever-growing number of unread books. Those bookshelves, which seem to reproduce on their own, are a constant source of ribbing from friends.

"You’ll never read all of those", they say. And they’re right. I won’t. That’s not really the point. A good library is filled with mostly unread books. That’s the point. In his book "The Black Swan", Nassim Taleb describes our relationship with books using the legendary Italian writer Umberto Eco:

"The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with “Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have. How many of these books have you read?” and the others - a very small minority - who get the point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendages but a research tool. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means ... allow you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary."

There are some words out there that are brilliantly evocative and at the same time almost impossible to fully translate. Take the German word Schadenfreude, for example, or Backpfeifengesicht. And then there’s the Japanese word tsundoku, which perfectly describes the state of my library. It means buying books and letting them pile up unread.

As I write this, the post office emails me to say that Padma, who's in town, has collected another book parcel from my favourite online bookseller, booktopia. More tsundoku!

 

As with Japanese words like karaoke and tsunami, I think it’s high time that tsundoku enters the English language. It already has at "Riverbend"!

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Prisoners of Geography

 

Golf and sex are about the only things you can enjoy without being good at, which must be the reason why a certain friend in Fairfield has been at them for so long. However, even all things that you're not good at must come to an end, which is why, via this blog, I keep introducing him to books that may interest him.

Tim Marshall's "Prisoners of Geography" is one such book. I bought it several months ago, and shortly afterwards bought the follow-up "The Power of Geography". Both are essential reading if you've finally given up on golf and sex and want to know what else is going on in the world.

 

You can also read it online here

 

Go straight to page 64, Des, to read, "Location, location,location. If you won the lottery, and were looking to buy a country to live in, the first one the estate agent would show you would be the United States of America." The same chapter ends with the words, "The Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck, in a double-edged remark, said more than a century ago that 'God takes special care of drunks, children and the United States of America.' It appears still to be true." Feeling better already about having left Australia, Des? You owe me a Coke!

Finally, here are two more video clips - not based on Tim Marshall's books - which explain today's two major flashpoints, Russia and China:

 

 

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Real estate agents don't sell homes

 

To quote from this FREE book: "There is an annual poll conducted by Roy Morgan, which looks at the perceived ethics and honesty of various professions. Real estate agents consistently rank in the third lowest position, just above advertising people and car salesmen."

And it continues, "What many people don’t know is just how low the bar is set to enter this profession. For example, in Queensland, for about $600, almost anybody can become a licensed and practicing real estate agent within a few days of undertaking a very easy course." (the real estate "expert" who offers you a $30 taxi ride to a property on which he then wants to collect a $30,000 commission may not even be licensed himself but only works for someone who holds a real estate licence)

And it gets better, "In an article in the Daily Telegraph on 1 December 2015, Kathryn Welling quoted the president of the Real Estate Institute of NSW, John Cunningham: 'You have to do more training to become a barista than you do a real estate agent. There are stories of agents being trained in a matter of hours online'".

"You would never trust the wonderful people making your delicious morning coffee to sell your million-dollar house, yet there are many real estate agents out there with even less training willing to take around $30,000 in commission to do just that."

Of course, the book is preaching to the converted, as I rank real estate agents even lower than second-hand car salesmen, but it's good to have my opinion confirmed by someone from inside the industry.

I was never convinced that "Real estate agents sell properties", and the book confirms it: "Think back to when you bought your home. What made you buy it? If you were dealing with a real estate agent, did they actually do or say anything to sell you the property? Like most buyers, you probably saw the property advertised on the internet; you had a look at the pictures and thought they were interesting enough to justify a closer look."

"You probably went to the open home, looked around and within about ten minutes decided that you liked what you saw. You probably made an offer to purchase and maybe it was accepted. Otherwise, there may have been a couple of counter offers, but in the end you signed the contract and bought the property."

"It is likely that even before you set foot in the property you knew what your budget was, how many bedrooms and bathrooms it needed to have, what general condition it had to be in, how large the living areas or the block of land needed to be, and what general area it had to be located in. When you inspected a property and it did not fit your criteria, was the agent able to say or do anything to make you change your mind?"

"Were they able to sell you a property that you did not want to buy? Were they able to convince you to buy something you didn’t like, especially when so much money was at stake?"

"Of course not. You went there with certain expectations and certain criteria, and if the property met them, then you made an offer to purchase. You did not need to be sold on the property."

David Kaity, the author of this book - well, booklet - finishes it with the florish, "Help somebody else join the real estate revolution and pocket tens of thousands of dollars by passing this book on to them."

Consider it done, David! - click here. And if you want to know more about him and what he's selling, go to revolutionaryrealestate.com.au.

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You never know what you'll find at an op-shop!

Hear two of Australia’s leading political journalists, Steve Lewis and Chris Uhlmann,
discuss their latest work of fiction (or is it?), "The Mandarin Code"

 

Remember my blog about the TV series "Secret City" - click here - which is based on the books "The Marmalade Files" and "The Mandarin Code"? Well, after we'd finished at the pool this morning and while Padma was doing some more shopping, I whiled away the time at my favourite op-shop, and what should almost jump out at me from the bookshelves? A copy of "The Marmalade Files"! You never know what you'll find at an op-shop.

 

My op-shopped copy is price-tagged "$29.99 Cammeray Bookshop"
Read the preview here

 

Should I wait for its sequel,"The Mandarin Code", to become available at my favourite op-shop for $2, or should I buy it from booktopia at $28.95?

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In Search of Lost Time

A drama/documentary of the great 20th-century French writer, starring Ralph Fiennes and Felicity Kendal. Based on the book of the same name by Alain de Botton, who also stars.

 

Legend - the beautiful elder sister of truth - has it that Ernest Hemingway wrote the shortest story ever written: "For Sale: Baby Shoes. Never Worn." Six gut-punching words! Compare that to the 1,267,069 words in Proust's masterpiece "À la recherche du temps perdu" (In Search of Lost Time), double those in "War and Peace".

If you've never heard of oceanic Proust's book, let alone read it - at three hundred words a minute, it would take the average reader about 45 hours and 27 minutes to read the entire novel, excluding meal and toilet breaks - then Alain de Botton's charming little book (it's a mere 200 pages!) "How Proust Changed My Life" is the perfect introduction.

To quote from Alain de Botton's little book, "Whatever the merits of Proust's work, even a fervent admirer would be hard pressed to deny one of its awkward features: length. As Proust's brother, Robert, put it, 'The sad thing is that people have to be very ill or have broken a leg in order to have the opportunity to read 'In Search of Lost Time'."

 

Read Alain de Botton's charming book online here

 

It's as much a witty and entertaining synopsis and commentary on Proust's masterpiece as it is a self-help book by giving the reader a new and richer way of looking at the world, and I've read it more than once (I've also read every other book by Alain de Botton more than once). By contrast, I haven't found the time yet to read "In Search of Time"!

 

 

An interesting chap on YouTube, Benjamin McEvoy, introduced me to Proust's book as a graphic novel - click here. What a great idea!

 

 

I'm quite tempted but I'm still in search of the money to buy them.

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God is not great

"Hitchens's razor" is an epistemological razor (a general rule for rejecting certain knowledge claims) that states "what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." The razor was created by and named after author and journalist Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011). It implies that the burden of proof regarding the truthfulness of a claim lies with the one who makes the claim; if this burden is not met, then the claim is unfounded, and its opponents need not argue further in order to dismiss it. Hitchens used this phrase specifically in the context of refuting religious belief.

 

To Christopher Hitchens it’s blindingly obvious: the great religions all began at a time when we knew a tiny fraction of what we know today about the origins of Earth and human life. It’s understandable that early humans would develop stories about gods or God to salve their ignorance. But people today have no such excuse. If they continue to believe in the unbelievable, or say they do, they are morons or lunatics or liars.

 

The whole audiobook, or, separately, Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4  Part 5  Part 6

 

Christopher Hitchens' book "God Is Not Great" is full of logical flourishes and conundrums. How could Christ have died for our sins, when supposedly he also did not die at all? Did the Jews not know that murder and adultery were wrong before they received the Ten Commandments, and if they did know, why was this such a wonderful gift? Why, if Jesus could heal a blind person he happened to meet, could he not heal blindness? On a more sombre note, how can the argument that only some kind of "intelligence" could have designed anything as perfect as a human being be reconciled with the religious practice of genital mutilation which posits that what God created isn't so perfect after all?

I agree with Hitchens that there is no need for us to gather every day, or every seventh day, or on any high and auspicious day, to proclaim our rectitude or to grovel and wallow in our unworthiness. You may well spend your time more productively by reading "God Is Not Great". I even think God would be flattered if you did because, unlike by those who're clamouring for his attention, in this book God is treated like an adult.

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Where's the river gone?

 

Having binge-watched last night the complete first season of "Secret City" - it's so secret that I didn't even know it existed until I found a 296-minute 2-disc set at Vinnies yesterday - we missed the weather forecast on ABC Television, but one look out the window onto the completely fogged-in river this morning told us all we need to know: it'll be a very hot day!

But back to "Secret City": this very interesting political thriller based (and filmed) in Canberra is an adaptation of the best-selling books "The Marmalade Files", "The Mandarin Code", and "The Shadow Game" written by journalists Chris Uhlmann and Steve Lewis. According to Wikipedia, it premiered on Foxtel's Showcase on 5 June 2016 and on Netflix internationally on 26 June 2018. A sequel to the series called "Secret City: Under the Eagle" was green-lit ('green-lit'? do I have to learn a completely new language?) in February 2018. It aired on 4 March 2019 in Australia and launched worldwide on Netflix on 6 March 2019.

 

 

The show has got it all: the tension between China and the U.S., Machiavellian politics, even a transvestite ("Transvestite Lives Matter", don't they?); everything I never knew while I lived in Canberra for fifteen years. It was so good that I want to see the sequel, so I had better keep visiting Vinnies in case it shows up on their shelves because there's only a very short trailer on YouTube and we don't have Netflix.

 

For a trailer of Season 2, click here

 

In the meantime, I shall keep myself busy with reading "Tell Me No lies - Investigative Journalism and Its Triumphs" and "The Best Australian Essays 2014", also picked up at Vinnies for a couple of dollars - I've since discovered there are a whole lot more on archive.org; when will I ever catch up? - and a beautiful hardcover of Pico Iyer's "Sun After Dark" which arrived in the post yesterday together with a letter from the nice people at the Australian Taxation Office telling me that they've sent me $146.19 in interest for having paid my whopping big tax bill a whole month early. I always get unpleasant things out of the way quickly!

In the meantime, the river has reappeared out of the fog to reveal a bright and sunny morning which raises the next question: where's the year gone? It's just four weeks to Christmas after which it's all downhill to yet another new year. Do you often get the feeling that life is like a roll of toilet paper: the closer you get to the end, the faster it goes?

 

 

I leave you with this picture of my life!

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Far from Surfside, and even farther from the surf

11429 Princes Highway, Surfside, NSW 2536, $2.65 million
(It did sell in January 2023 for $2.5 million - click here)

 

It's all relative, they say, and so I keep an eye on properties priced relative to what "Riverbend" might fetch if we put it on the market sometime next year by way of an early pre-Deceased Estate Sale!

'Warrane' has a 12-metre solar-heated pool and is a lovely property on 3.35 acres at the outer reaches of what is deceptively called Surfside but is not even within earshot of the surf. It is for sale at $2.65 million and will certainly find a buyer as it has that unmistakable WOW! factor.

Since we lost our dogs, "Riverbend" hasn't even got the "WOOF! factor, and instead of a 12-metre pool we only have the 120-metre-long river.

However, we are on seven acres, and while 'Warrane' should've been advertised as "Not for light sleepers" because it is right on the Princes Highway with its constant stream of cars and trucks - and especially trucks at night! - "Riverbend" offers peace and quiet by the bucketful.

So, could we expect $2.65 million in a pre-Deceased Estate sale?

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Run, Rabbit, Run

 

The hills are alive with scores of cute, fluffy rabbit because they do what rabbits do best - breed like rabbits - and the powers that be have decided to do something about it: shoot them!

 

 

I've got up early in the morning, padlocked the front gate to keep the naughty shooters out, and sang my cute, fluffy friends this little song:

On the farm, ev'ry Friday On the farm, it's rabbit pie day So ev'ry Friday that ever comes along I get up early and sing this little song Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, run Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, run Bang, bang, bang, bang goes the farmer's gun Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, run, run Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, run Don't give the farmer his fun, fun, fun He'll get by without his rabbit pie So run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, run Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, run Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, run Bang, bang, bang, bang goes the farmer's gun Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, run, run Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, run Don't give the farmer his fun, fun, fun He'll get by without his rabbit pie So run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, run

There were others who didn't like to see these cute, fluffy rabbits shot either, and they made their opinions clear on another sign - or did they?

 

F#@king murders!!! she wrote

 

Anyway, I really tried to put the fright into my cute, fluffy friends by also singing them an old 1940 version. It scared the shit out of Hitler!

 

Read more here

 

Run, rabbit, run, rabbit, run, run, run!

 

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"Before printing think about the environment"

 

That's how I sign off all my emails, and to really rub it in I repeat it in three languages: "Vor dem Ausdrucken denken Sie an Ihre Verantwortung gegenüber der Umwelt"; "Avant d'imprimer, pensez à l'environnement"; and "Ayo peduli lingkungan, pikir dua kali sebelum mencetak".

A frequent reader of my blog who reads his books on a Kindle - pray tell, what's a Kindle? - reminded me of the apparent contradiction between my email signature and my obsession with printed books by reminding me that "Before reading printed books think about the environment".

Well spotted, Bill, but after a lifetime of reading books, you're not likely to kindle in me a love for Kindle. I am happy with my technical support!

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P.S. ... and if you want to know why digital Books wear out faster than physical books, click here. Long live books!

 

In bed with Phillip

 

Nothing is very much alive at "Riverbend" after 10 p.m. except ABC Radio National's 'Late Night Live'. Tucked up in bed, with the radio dial softly glowing, I am tuned into Phillip Adams' Late Night Live.

I've been a regular listener of LNL for more than twenty years, going back to its previous presenter, the redoubtable Richard Ackland, and as soon as I hear its theme music, the first movement of Brescianello's violin concerto no. 4 in e-minor, I know I'm in for an intellectual treat.

There's no other radio program anywhere on Earth that casts a wider net, so go ahead and spend a night in bed with Phillip.

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Do you want chips with that?

 

Tthe Biden administration has unilaterally severed China’s access to high-end computer chips, or semiconductors. Given that chips are now strategically more important than oil, the move has been described as nothing less than a declaration of economic war.

This smokeless war between the US and China, and why China can’t produce its own advanced chips despite its trillion yuan investment, is the subject of Chris Miller's new book "Chip War".

All I can give you of this recently released book is this preview, but you can read online "The Chip War" by Fred Warshofsky, published as long ago as 1989, so there's nothing new here except that it has become even more critical now because the West's lead in this area is under threat.

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An einen guten Freund von meiner Jugendzeit

 

 

Lass nun ruhig los das Ruder Dein Schiff kennt den Kurs allein Du bist sicher Schlafes Bruder Wird ein guter Lotse sein Lass nun Zirkel, Log und Lot Getrost aus den müden Händen Aller Kummer, alle Not Alle Schmerzen enden Es ist tröstlich einzusehen Dass nach der bemessenen Frist Abschiednehmen und Vergehen Auch ein Teil des Lebens ist Und der Wind wird weiter wehen Und es dreht der Kreis des Lebens Und das Gras wird neu entstehen Und nichts ist vergebens Es kommt nicht der grimme Schnitter Es kommt nicht ein Feind Es kommt, scheint sein Kelch auch bitter Ein Freund der's gut mit uns meint Heimkehren in den guten Hafen Über spiegelglattes Meer Nicht mehr kämpfen, ruhig schlafen Nun ist Frieden ringsumher Und das Dunkel weicht dem Licht Mag es noch so finster scheinen Nein, hadern dürfen wir nicht Doch wir dürfen weinen

 

 

 

 

Twenty-nine years of Sundays

 

On the 23rd of November 1993 the purchase of "Riverbend" from Peter Alan & Alma Rose Freame was settled.

Mr & Mrs Freame had bought "Riverbend" on the 4th of September 1989 from Judith Gertrude MacPherson who - with her late husband Robert George MacPherson who passed away on the 27th of May 1989 - bought it on the 17th of July 1967 from Adelaide Neate.

Adelaide Neate née Schofield who was born in 1888 at "Orange Grove"
which is the adjoining rural property. Her father was Nelligen's ferryman.
Later she also became owner of the "Steam Packet Hotel"

Adelaide Neate of Orange Grove is the first recorded owner of the whole of "Riverbend". She acquired legal ownership on the 2nd of July 1956 by the simple expedient of swearing on a stack of bibles that she had occupied the land since 1942 and paying the outstanding council rates of £47.5.10.

However, according to an old parchment title deed (referred to in Delves & Wain's letter as "the title deed ... which you might like to retain for historical purposes"), a minor by the name of William Abraham Benjamin Richardson acquired allotment 2 of section 2, being a parcel of land three roods and twenty-three perches in size, on the 25th of July 1864. That equates to approx. 3,600 square metres, or just under an acre, of Riverbend's present-day seven-plus acres.
(A rood equals 1012㎡; a perch equals 25.29㎡; 40 perches make up 1 rood)

On the 21st of March 1941 William Abraham Benjamin Richardson sold this suburban allotment to Adelaide Neate, then of Greenwell Point, and already a widow.

Adelaide Neate sold it on the 1st of July 1952 to a Canberra public servant by the name of George Frederick Thomas. Then things get a bit murky because on the 2nd of December 1958 the retired Robert George MacPherson of Harbord shows up as the registered proprietor. Phew!

Anyway, I am now the proud and undisputed owner of Lots 1 through 7 of Section 2, plus Lot 1 DP 126109 (which is the old access road that runs along the back of the seven lots), plus Licence 199309 for a jetty 9.6m x 1.3m, sliding ramp 4.5m x 0.5m, and pontoon 5.0m x 2.5m (with supporting arms 6.0m long).

I paid a fair bit more than Adelaide Neate's £47.5.10 for all that and, after twenty-nine years, am the second-longest owner of "Riverbend" after William Abraham Benjamin Richardson (who's also the owner with the longest name ☺).

Twenty-nine years of Sundays! Maybe there's something in the water - or maybe it's just old age! ☺

According to war records held with the National Archives in Canberra, Adelaide Neate's husband James Wilkins Neate, born on 13th April 1883 and a bricklayer by trade, joined the Australian Imperial Force on the 26th of April 1916, served in France as a gunner, was invalided out suffering from broncho pneumonia, and returned to Australia on the 31st December 1918 aboard HMAT Sardinia, after which he was discharged on the 16th of February 1919 due to medical unfitness.

Here's a letter written by Adelaide Neate, dated 14th October 1917, which confirms that she already lived at "Orange Grove" at that time: