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From its very beginning, radio signals have crossed borders and connected people and places. Radio Garden allows you to listen to thousands of live radio stations worldwide by simply rotating the globe. Every green dot represents a city or town. Tap on it to tune into the radio stations in that city.
This is what the internet should be about, an amazing free resource from a group in the Netherlands. You can search directly on the names and descriptions or simply browse through an interactive world map.
If you're looking for alternative sources of news and information in these troubled times, radio is a good place to start looking. There are no blocks, filters or paywalls, just radio stations from all over the planet.
I've just listened to CMC FM in Padma's hometown Surabaya, then swivelled the globe and tuned into Radio Okerwell in my old hometown in Braunschweig in Germany before crossing over to Ellinadiko in my last overseas posting for a bit of Greek music. Where would you like to go?
It is easy to mourn the lives we aren't living. Easy to wish we'd developed other talents, said yes to different offers. Easy to wish we'd worked harder, loved better, handled our finances more astutely, been more popular, stayed in the band, gone to Australia, said yes to the coffee or done more bloody yoga.
It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn't make and the work we didn't do, the people we didn't marry and the children we didn't have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out.
But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It's the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people's worst enemy.
We can't tell if any of those other versions would have been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on."
"A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us" wrote Kafka. We are the books we've read, the people we've meet, the places we've been to. For me, the axe for the frozen sea within was the above snippet taken from Matt Haig's book "The Midnight Library".
It is the regrets that make us shrivel, and while I could've developed other talents, said yes to different offers, worked harder, loved better, handled my finances more astutely, and been more popular - as for the band, I had van Gogh's ear for music - at least I had gone to Australia.
A noun all by itself is a lonely thing. It doesn't really tell us much. To really enjoy a noun, you need an adjective. An adjective is a word that describes a noun. When several adjectives describe a noun, they need to be in a certain order. If you didn't know this, then you are a native English speaker who instinctively speaks of “the big, red house”.
"The red, big house" sounds wrong, doesn't it? Just as “I bought a new, beautiful, leather, big black work bag” sounds terrible. And that's where OSASCOMP comes in: adjectives must be arranged in the order of Opinion, then Size, followed by Age, Shape, Colour, and Origin. Finally, Material and Purpose. So, instinctively, you bought yourself a beautiful, big, new, black leather work bag. And that made all the difference.
Another secret of your native language brought to you by your resident bloody wog - or should that be 'bloody resident wog'?
David Glasheen back in Sydney for his book launch five years ago - click here
David Glasheen, 81, has been marooned, by his own choice, on a remote island in northern Australia for 27 years. Before he moved to this island, he was a successful entrepreneur worth nearly $30m on paper. He had two yachts, owned multiple waterfront properties, and lived what they call "the good life".
Today, he lives alone for long stretches at a time, rarely returning to the mainland. He sports a sea-swept white beard and forages for oysters barefoot and shirtless. His only permanent companions are two mannequins named Miranda and Phyllis. Miranda was sourced from a junkyard for $10 and named after a character in Shakespeare’s "The Tempest". They reside in his main residence, but the relationship is strictly platonic ("I do not have sexual relations with them", he clarified in the book "The Millionaire Castaway" which he co-wrote in 2019).
Forty years go, David Glasheen was at the peak of a successful career in business. He raised $2 million in capital to start a mining exploration firm that later went public on the Australian Securities Exchange. In the boom of the 1980s, the shares in his newly-formed company soared from 25 cents to $1.40. On paper, his net worth was in the tens of millions.
But the good times didn’t last. On Monday, October 19, 1987, Wall Street crashed, wiping out more than $500 billion in capital in 24 hours. The next day, the Australian market followed suit and David watched helplessly as his shares dropped from $.140 to $0.28, then to $0.02.
And things got worse. Glasheen had been borrowing heavily on his properties to purchase more stock. The banks came knocking. By 1991, he was evicted from his home, rendering him "homeless and penniless". His marriage broke up and he started drinking.
For several years, he slept on friends' couches. Eventually, he moved in with a beauty salon owner named Denika and tried to settle back into domestic life. Soon, he found himself yearning for some kind of escape.
Dave must've lived in McMahons Point because here he inspects my old watering-hole, the Blues Point Hotel
Then an old-friend-turned-real-estate-agent told him about a remote island. The island in question, Restoration Island, was near the northern tip of Queensland, a good 2,000 miles from Sydney. It could only be accessed via several flights in twin-propeller planes, a 25-mile drive over bumpy dirt roads, and a 15-minute boat ride from the mainland.
Glasheen first visited “Resto” in 1993, and he was at once enchanted and distraught. It was like an island out of a cartoon of paradise: white sands, palm trees, turquoise waters. It was also in a state of disrepair, strewn with trash and crumbling structures.
A consortium of businessmen had purchased a 30-year lease on the island in 1979 for $156,000. In 1989, they’d negotiated an extension to 50 years, in exchange for giving back two-thirds of the island that was uninhabitable to the nearby native Kuuku Ya’u people.
Now, these businessmen were looking to sell their stake for the sum of $1.2 million.
Glasheen didn’t have the money but he was able to convince a few investor friends to put up enough to sublease the habitable third of Resto. Eventually, he secured one of eight shares in the island, under the agreement that he and his partners would develop the land.
in 1997, Glasheen packed a small suitcase with a few shirts, some board shorts, a torch, and toiletries, and decided to move there on his own.
He never truly came back. Listen to his story here.
Wolters oder Wolters nicht? Er wollte es und blieb da!
Waldemar Bonsels in seinen Lebenserinnerungen "Menschenwege - Aus den Notizen eines Vagabunden" fand die richtigen Worte, "Eines Tages im Verlauf unseres Lebens kommen die Menschen unserer Jugend wieder zu uns, einer nach dem anderen, jeder zu seiner Stunde, und reden zu uns, auch die Toten ........ Die tiefere Bedeutung dieser Wiederkehr liegt in ihrer Mahnung. Es ist die letzte Mahnung aus einem versunkenen Abschnitt unseres Lebens, sie rieft unsere Erinnerung an und zugleich das Gedächtnis wach, so daß wir genötigt werden zu forschen und zu vergleichen ..."
Und vergleichen tue ich: zum Götz Tappe zum Beispiel, einem Klassenkameraden meines letzten Schuljahres in 1960 - siehe hier - der meine Heimatstadt Braunschweig nie verließ, der bei jedem Spiel der Eintracht Braunschweig dabei war und der seine Wochenende im Kleingärtnerverein Mutterkamp e.V. verbrachte.
Ist sein Leben deshalb weniger wert als meins? Durchaus nicht! Männer wie der Götz sind die wahren Helden des Lebens. Sie sind die roten Blutkörperchen die die Welt zusammenhalten. Jeder Idiot kann durch die Welt reisen und Abenteuer erleben. Es sind die Daheimgebliebenen die den Mut haben den grauen Alltag zu konfrontieren.
Ich habe dem Götz eine Ansichtskarte aus Australien geschickt, per Adresse des Kleingärtnervereins. Vielleicht erinnert er sich an mich wenn er dort am Dritten des Monats am Herrenstammtisch sitzt und sie liest - oder sie gleich auf den Kompost schmeisst und mich mit dem "Götz Zitat" bedenkt.
Ich fand dieses Buch vom Horst Wolfram Geissler in einem Antiquariat. Damals in Deutschland hatten wir viele Bücher vom Bertelsmann Lesering und "Der liebe Augustin" war auch dabei. Und somit nahm ich dieses 50-jährige Buch mit nachhause denn der Anfang liest sich ganz nett:
"Es geht die Sage: Einst war die Welt freundlicher gewesen als heute. Und wenn ihr die alten illuminierten Kupferstiche betrachtet, scheint das wahrhaftig zu stimmen.
Was für zarte, lustige Farben und Linien damals in der Welt waren! Die Leute trugen grüne Fräcke und mattgelbe Hosen, die Akazien flimmerten sanft in den blauen Himmel hinein, der heiter war, als lächelte der liebe Gott alle Tage darüber hin.
Es gab noch keine Eisenbahnen, keine Dampfschiffe, keine Kraftwagen und also auch weder Ruß noch Lärm, noch aufgejagten Staub. Es gab nur eines in dieser alten Landschaft: Ruhe."
At the end of my radiotherapy treatment in September 2018
You have no maps for Cancerland and no idea if your passport has a valid exit permit. A guide gets in touch with you right at the very beginning. He makes sure he’s got your name and date of birth right and then says, 'I’m from the cancer police. You’ve got to come with me.'
So what do you do? You say, 'All right.' You have no real choice in the matter, as he says if you refuse to follow he’ll kill you. I said, 'I prefer to live. Take me where you will.' I’ve been following him ever since 2018.
I'm no longer being bombed with radiotherapy, and today's visit to Sydney is merely a quick check-up with the cancer police to find out if I've collected any speeding tickets. I'll let you know when I get back.
I've just come back from a late-afternoon walk up the lane to inspect the messiness the bringers of the sewerage and water reticulation have left behind after their first day on the job.
A fairly recent newcomer to the neighbourhood called out to me and we started talking. "Oh, you're that German from down the lane?" he asked. Whoops! It seems that my reputation has once again preceded me.
Yes, I'm that German from down the lane, and I image the reputation that preceded me was courtesy of a neighbour's wife who, whenever she could spy the Australian flag hoisted up my flagpole, screamed from the mercifully far away gate, "Just because you fly the Australian flag doesn't make you an Australian." There's one in every town and village.
(There's another character across the river who refuses to shop at ALDI. He's quite a jolly fellow and I admire his misguided conviction which costs him money as he's limited to shopping at Woolies and Coles.)
Like Socrates, I'd rather drink my hemlock than deny my German-ness which has stood me in good stead in all those years: industriousness, thoroughness, punctuality, honesty, and perhaps a bit of arrogance thrown in as well; after all, arrogance is still better than ignorance.
I am German by birth and Australian by choice - and happy with both.
Tonight at 8.30 ABC TV shows the first episode of "Doc Martin" Clunes' "Islands of Australia" with a very cameo appearance of David Glasheen, the Millionaire Castaway on Restoration Island. Are you reading this, Hubert Hofer in Cooktown?
"Doc Martin" with David Glasheen and his woman, Miranda the mannequin
Last time I spoke with Dave, he was missing female company.
Be careful what you're wishing for, Dave - click here
David Glasheen's house on Restoration Island
And, yes, "Doc Martin" then visits my old "home", Thursday Island, where I used to work and live in 1977 and for which I still have a soft spot. (Why do we miss people and places only when they are no longer around?) He meets Diver Dan outside Mona's souvenir shop of which I wrote about in my travelogue when I visited the island again in 2005:
"Doc Martin" with Diver Dan, born 1929, outside Mona's Bazaar
"I called in at a souvenir shop in the main street where I was met by a young Ethiopian, who had somehow got himself married to a T.I. girl. His wife's mother owned the shop which he now managed. They had three lovely children but after five years on T.I., he seemed to be getting restless. He was enrolled in some business studies and wanted to become an accountant but felt that the longer he stayed on T.I. the more his self-confidence eroded. He didn't know that he was suffering from - nor had he heard of the term - "rock fever" which originated among servicemen stationed in Hawaii during World War II. It meant a sudden and desperate need to escape to the mainland."
Mr Kazu welcomes Martin to Friday Island. Beyond Friday Island lies the weekend.
And he went across to Friday Island where Leo the Hun lived (and died) - click here - but where "Doc Martin" visited the Kazu Pearl Farm. More memories for me because during my time on Thursday Island in 1977 I befriended a Burmese marine biologist, Victor Aung, who had worked there. The sheer isolation and loneliness finally drove him away from there and the last I heard from him was decades ago when he had taken a job as a mail-sorter at the Sydney GPO. Where are you now, Victor?
Victor Aung on his visit to Thursday Island in 1977
If you're too busy tonight to watch "Islands of Australia", you can tune in again on Sunday at 3.55 in the afternoon or, if you have access to iview, go to iview and click on Episode 1.
Say hello to mad-as-a-cut-snake David Glasheen and his sidekick, the lovely Miranda. Tell him I sent you.
Martin's last night on Restoration Island, dining on freshly-caught trevally
We live in troubled times and the world’s largest economy is failing miserably in its role as 'global peacekeeper'. America once ruled as a moral leader, liberating Europe from Hitler’s Nazi regime and defeating the Japanese Empire which inflicted atrocities all across Asia.
While publicly preaching restraint, behind the curtains the US continues to hand out a colossal $95 billion in military aid to Israel alone which will no doubt fatten the purse strings of the likes of Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Raytheon, among others.
All this will be highly inflationary and affect the supply of basic minerals over the coming years. The outbreak of WW1 witnessed one of the most prolific price surges on record for copper. The graphic above shows its 120-year price history, adjusted for inflation. Copper reached the equivalent of US$9,878 per tonne in 1914 as the demand for bullets and other war munitions rose. The same thing occurred over the Vietnam War throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Demand for copper is currently outstripping supply, driving up prices. Copper supply has been strained by operational and political instability in regions where it is mined, including Congo, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Latin America. There are no quick fixes as copper's supply response is notoriously slow. A typical copper mine takes about 10-15 years to explore, develop and bring online.
Today's copper price is $9,654
Proof that metals will be a strong performer amid political chaos and geopolitical chest beating. While I truly wish the reasons were different, history tells us that major geopolitical tensions and the build-up to war are extremely bullish for metals. These are the real reasons commodity prices are embarking on a new era of price inflation. I'm buying BHP!
You are travelling along in Germany, and suddenly on the side of the railway tracks there is a cluster of fenced-in tiny houses surrounded by small gardens. Are these actual homes? Are they camping grounds for seasonal workers? Or is this where the garden gnomes live when they aren't in your garden?
Actually, these little plots of land are called "Schrebergarten" but how did this idea for tiny gardens get started? Because so many Germans live in apartments without yards, the Schrebergarten, a little plot of land usually at the edge of a city, gives them a chance to get out in the fresh air and work in the garden.
This movement, which is now nationwide, was the brainchild of Dr Moritz Schreber, a Leipzig University Professor who specialised in childen's health. He worried that the children growing up in the cities would be stunted physically and emotionally if they could not go out to play in the countryside, and insisted that playgrounds be built to ensure that childen would properly socialise.
After his death in 1861, Leipzig school principal Ernst Innozenz Hauschild established the first Schrebergarten as a playground for children on the outskirts of Leipzig. To supplement the healthy air and exercise, vegetable gardens were planted. Slowly, the adults took control of the green spaces, and planted family gardens in the plots. Then fences went up to make sure that their place was theirs alone.
The Schrebergarten movement spread all over Germany and beyond, with pieces of land on the edge of cities zoned for Schrebergartens which were leased out to families. There they could spent their evenings or weekends puttering away, growing their own vegetables and watching the sun set over their little patch of land. My Opa would sit there in his shorts and socks and sandals watching the world go by while Oma tended her flowers and served us "Muckefuck" and "Kuchen".
Each little plot had its own "Gartenlaube" or tiny house. It wasn't meant for sleep-overs but many people did sleep over on warm summer nights, as did my Opa whom I sometimes accompanied on his trips out to his Schrebergarten. That was in the 1950s. Much later, Schrebergarten were thought to be antiquated "Kitsch" where garden gnomes multiplied.
However, there has been a renaissance in Schrebergarten, not only in Germany but also here at "Riverbend" where I have my own little Schrebergarten and sleep-out on my own acreage - click here - where I can wear my socks and sandals and practise my German orderliness.
As I've mentioned earlier, my pre-Deceased Estate Sale is now up and running! So far the online advertisement at www.realestate.com.au had 510 hits, of which some 400 are probably my own as I keep admiring my handiwork.
As I put in parentheses at the bottom of the advertisement: (This is a pre-Deceased Estate Sale by the owner himself who wants to sell while he can still drive his own car before being driven out in a hearse. His negotiating skills are hopeless, so to save himself all the frustrations, he's set a very realistic sales price. His photography is also pretty crappy, so you will be pleasantly surprised when you see the real thing.)
The resulting inquiries were just four: a promising one from a real estate mogul in Milton who seemed to be interested in adding to his portfolio, and another three from people whose arithmetic must've been way off when reading "most residential properties sell at a price ratio of 75% for the house and 25% for the land; 'Riverbend' has an inverse ratio of 25% for the house and 75% for the land (1 July 2022 Valuer-General's Valuation of the LAND ONLY was $2,637,000)". They never replied after I had told them that the price would be over $3 million.
Perhaps my home-made advertisement lacks the misleading hyperbole employed by fast-talking real estate agents; it also lacks all that tricky photography employed by fast-talking real estate agents that makes the sky look bluer and the grass look greener and the house look bigger.
It's just an honest advertisement for a house which over thirty years has become a home which I will be reluctant to leave but leave I will while I'm still able to drive my own car instead of being driven out in a hearse.
Ich wanderte im Jahre 1965 vom (k)alten Deutschland nach Australien aus. In Erinnerung an das alte Sprichwort "Gott hüte mich vor Sturm und Wind und Deutschen die im Ausland sind" wurde ich in 1971 im Dschungel von Neu-Guinea australischer Staatsbürger. Das kostete mich nur einen Umlaut und das zweite n im Nachnamen - von -mann auf -man.
Australien war der Anfang und auch das Ende: nach fünfzig Arbeiten in fünfzehn Ländern - "Die ganze Welt mein Arbeitsfeld" - lebe ich jetzt im Ruhestand in Australien an der schönen Südküste von Neusüdwales.
Ich verbringe meine Tage mit dem Lesen von Büchern, segle mein Boot den Fluss hinunter, beschäftige mich mit Holzarbeit, oder mache Pläne für eine neue Reise. Falls Du mir schreiben willst, sende mir eine Email an riverbendnelligen [AT] mail.com, und ich schreibe zurück.
Falls Du anrufen möchtest, meine Nummer ist XLIV LXXVIII X LXXXI.
Notice to North American readers:
This blog is written in the version of English that is standard here. So recognise is spelled recognise and not recognize etc. I recognise that some North American readers may find this upsetting, and while I sympathise with them, I sympathise even more with my countrymen who taught me how to spell. However, as an apology, here are a bunch of Zs for you to put where needed.
Zzzzzz
Disclaimer
This blog has no particular axe to grind, apart from that of having no particular axe to grind. It is written by a bloke who was born in Germany at the end of the war (that is, for younger readers, the Second World War, the one the Americans think they won single-handedly). He left for Australia when most Germans had not yet visited any foreign countries, except to invade them. He lived and worked all over the world, and even managed a couple of visits back to the (c)old country whose inhabitants he found very efficient, especially when it came to totting up what he had consumed from the hotels' minibars. In retirement, he lives (again) in Australia, but is yet to grow up anywhere.
He reserves the right to revise his views at any time. He might even indulge in the freedom of contradicting himself. He has done so in the past and will most certainly do so in the future. He is not persuading you or anyone else to believe anything that is reported on or linked to from this site, but encourages you to use all available resources to form your own opinions about important things that affect all our lives and to express them in accordance with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Everything on this website, including any material that third parties may consider to be their copyright, has been used on the basis of “fair dealing” for the purposes of research and study, and criticism and review. Any party who feels that their copyright has been infringed should contact me with details of the copyright material and proof of their ownership and I will remove it.
And finally, don't bother trying to read between the lines. There are no lines - only snapshots, most out of focus.
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