The inimitable Stephen Fry

 

 

I've always suffered from insomnia. At one time, my insomnia was so bad, I couldn't even sleep during working hours. Luckily, these days I have ABC Radio National to listen to during those dark and endless hours between 10 o'clock at night and 6 o'clock in the morning.

Last night's Radio National was an absolute treat: first there was Late Night Live featuring "Stephen Fry on life, last words and the things he can't do" followed by a commentary on the current high-stakes soap opera playing out in America, "What we're getting wrong about the US election".

All that insomnia didn't stop me from going to the pool at the crack of dawn for a few hours' aquatherapy and a leisurely lunch at the Thai restaurant. Now it's time for an afternoon nap on the sunny verandah.

It's a hard life!

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Made in Australia

 

Take heart! We're still making things in this country; not cars, not computers, not even tooth-picks, but watering cans! What we're going to fill them with, given the deplorable state of our Murray-Darling Basin Plan, remains to be seen but such minor detail is well beyond our self-serving politicians' three-year election cycle.

In the meantime, and not here but in America, they're already building robotic hamburger-flippers which will eventually deprive several generations of young Australians of their last job prospects unless they stop playing truant and start appreciating the great privilege of a free education.

But, hey, there's always Centrelink! We're such a lucky country!

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You made me do it; I didn't want to do it

 

 

Everybody claims to be a patsy these days, but not a Patsy Cline: "I played the poker machines until I was broke. I didn't want to do it; they should've stopped me do it." "I maxed out my credit cards. I didn't want to do it; they should've stopped me do it." "I made some shithouse investments. I didn't want to do it; they should've stopped me do it."

Ignorance has never been a defence before the law, but stupidity some-how has. I am tired of hearing people blaming them, "the government" or some other Big Brother, anybody except themselves, for being stupid.

They claim to fall to pieces and have their debts written off and their contracts annulled, with some of them then becoming 'counsellors' to similarly stupid people. Government- nay, taxpayer-funded, of course!

I'm tired of people who refuse to take responsibility for their lives and actions. I'm tired of them blaming them, the government, or imagined discrimination, or big-whatever, for their self-inflicted problems.

Yes, I'm bloody tired. But I'm also glad I am in my late 70s. Because, mostly, I'm not going to have to see the world these people are making. Thank God I'm on the way out and not on the way in.

Time for a cup of tea. It's still coolish outside. I wonder who I can blame for that? Isn't there a support group for shivering tea-drinking retirees on the South Coast of New South Wales? If not, why not? I want to know! I paid my taxes!

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Death of a Princess

Read the book online at www,archive.org

 

When I first came to this country, I couldn't understand the people because of my lack of English. These days I can't understand the people because of their lack of English, which includes my friendly GP who is a Pakistani who grew up in Jeddah where his father worked as a banker.

To keep his mind off my blood pressure and cholesterol level, I gave him my spare copy of Robert Lacey's "The Kingdom" which I had last read while holed up for two weeks in a five-star hotel in Bahrain as I waited for my entry visa to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to come through.

I never quite read all of its 668 pages because rather than being able to take it with me on the long flight across that sandy emptiness to Jeddah, I had to leave it behind as it was banned in Saudi Arabia, but I do remember reading in it about "Death of a Princess", a docudrama that had stirred up an international hornets' nest only two years earlier.

To keep up with my GP and to remind myself of what I had read forty-odd years ago, I re-read my beautiful hadcover copy of "The Kingdom" and also watched the docudrama which is freely available on YouTube:

 

Part 2  Part 3  Part 4  Part 5  Part 6  Part 7  Part 8  Part 9  Part 10  Part 11  Part 12 
(Part 13 not found)

Read the docudrama transcript here

 

Here's the gist of it: One noon-time towards the end of July 1977, Princess Misha'il, granddaughter of Prince Muhammad ibn Abdul Aiziz, was led out into a car park beside the Queen's Building in Jeddah and forced to kneel down in front of a pile of sand. She was then shot dead. Standing near by was her young lover, Khalid Muhalhal, nephew of General Ali al Shaer, special Sa'udi envoy to Lebanon, and, when the young man had seen the princess die, he also was executed - by beheading.

Nearly three years later, in the spring of 1980, a film dramatization of these executions and of one journalist's attempts to investigate them was broadcast by ATV in Britain, and this broadcast caused King Khalid such offence that he instructed Great Britain to withdraw her ambassador from the Kingdom. There was even wild talk at one stage in April 1980, of not only the ambassador but all 30,000 Britons working in Saudi Arabia being put on planes back to London.

Such were the bare essentials of the painful international melodrama that flourished for a season around "Death of a Princess". The outline of the princess's story was straightforward. Married off at an early age to an elder relative who took little interest in her, Princess Misha'il, the daughter of one of old Prince Muhammad's less distinguished sons, turned for consolation to young Khalid Muhalhal and enjoyed with him a romance whose flamboyance scandalized the rest of the family. The couple tried to elope. To effect her elopement, the princess staged a drowning, leaving her clothes in a pile on the shore of the Red Sea. Then she tried to escape with her lover from Jeddah airport, disguising herself as a man. They were caught, and both suffered the death penalty prescribed for adultery in Saudi Arabia's code of Islamic law.

There's a rumour that Princess Misha'il had a stand-in - or should that be a 'kneel-in'? - and that she's slowly growing old in a windowless room of the royal palace in Riyadh like some latter-day female version of the "Man in the Iron Mask". Will we ever find out? "Inshallah." If God wills it.

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How to live under a Labor government

 

Back in 1981 during my first attempt at domesticity in Townsville, I had a retired neighbour who confided in me that, after a lifetime of earning lots of money in mining, he had buried it all in kerosene tins in his garden - I kid you not! - so that he would qualify for the government pension. I pointed out to him that he missed out on more interest than he got in welfare but he was not persuaded because, as he said, "I paid my taxes for it!"

I have been searching for kerosene tins on ebay today because, if Labor gets in next year and starts fiddling with my self-managed super fund, I'll pull all the money out, stick it in kerosene tins, bury it in the garden, and leave a map in my will with a cross on it that says, "Dig here!"

Then I'll go, cap in hand, to Centrelink and apply for the government's age pension plus a whole bunch of other freebies: free medical treat-ment, free pharmaceuticals, free trains and buses, concessional postage stamps; why, even free housing, if I fill in the right forms.

If enough of us self-funded retirees follow my example, the whole thing may finally be seen for what it is - a totally rorted and unsustainable system for those who're footing it, mainly generations yet unborn; more here - and those of us who didn't piss it all up against the wall while we were still working may once again be allowed to provide for our own retirement without being robbed at every step of the way.

Incidentally, when I visited Townsville again in 1985, I heard that the retired neighbour had died and the house been sold. I was tempted to tell the new owners to start digging but they looked like Labor voters who were already drawing enough in benefits!

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The Trouble with Islam

 

 

Irshad Manji calls herself a Muslim Refusenik. 'That doesn't mean I refuse to be a Muslim,' she writes. 'It simply means I refuse to join an army of automatons in the name of Allah.' These automatons, Manji argues, include many so-called moderate Muslims in the West. In blunt, provacative, and deeply personal terms, she unearths the troubling cornerstones of Islam as it is widely practiced - tribal insularity, deep-seated anti-Semitism, and an uncritical acceptance of the Koran as the final, and therefore superior, manifesto of God.

 

Read it online here
(for the banned Arabic or Urdu version, click here)

 

In her book - subtitled 'A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith - is an open letter to Muslims and non-Muslims alike, Manji breaks the conspicuous silence that surrounds mainstream Islam with a series of pointed questions: "Why are we all being held hostage by what's happening between the Palestinians and the Israelis? Who is the real coloniser of Muslims - America or Arabia? How can we read the Koran literally when it's so contradictory and ambiguous? Why are we squandering the talents of women, fully half of God's creation?"

Not one to be satisfied with merely criticising, Manji offers a practical vision of how Islam can undergo a reformation that empowers women, promotes respect for religious minorities and fosters a competition of ideas. Her vision revives Islam's lost tradition of independent thought. This book should inspire Muslims worldwide to revisit the foundations of their faith. It might also compel non-Muslims to start posing the questions we all have about Islam today. In that spirit, "The Trouble with Islam" is a clarion call for a fatwa-free future.

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Thoughts to end the month on

This makes for rivetting reading - click here.
Published in 1986, things are a lot, lot, lot worse today.

 

Another month gone! Old accountant's habits never die and, more out of curiosity than necessity, I keep tabs on how much we spend each month, and I'm always surprised by what little money we need to live a comfortable life.

Which makes me absolutely livid when I hear all those do-gooders and social welfare bodies constantly belly-aching about "The Government" (meaning, other hard-working taxpayers) not paying enough when the current age pension is already a very adequate and indeed generous $1,725.20 a fortnight for a couple - or almost $45,000 a year - click here. And then there is rent assistance of up to $199.00 a fortnight - another $5,000-plus a year - click here.

Of course, there is the so-called 'Asset Test' but look at these crazy limits - click here: a non-homeowning couple is allowed assets worth $722,000 before they have their age pension reduced incrementally, and as much as $1,297,500 before their age pension cuts out completely (of course, most would have already transferred such wealth to their children while still having control over it). It gives WELFARE a whole new meaning, doesn't it?

But those cash payments are just the tip of the proverbial because there's also free housing, free medical treatment, free medication, free trains and buses, even concessional postage stamps, and enough other freebies and concessions to fill a whole book - in fact, there used to be a 'Dole Bludger's Guide to Australia' which taught bludgers how to squeeze more out of the system.

Don't get me wrong, every civilised society needs a welfare 'safety net' for the weak and vulnerable but that safety net shouldn't be turned into a soft inner-spring mattress with a cosy doona on top! It shouldn't be so generous or so easy to get that it ends up discouraging hard work and self-reliance. Those who can work must work and those able to provide for their own retirement must do so.

There are always those who claim that it's an 'entitlement' because "we paid our taxes for it!" Well, if this were so, then those who paid lots of taxes would get lots and those who paid nothing would get nothing. The fact that all get the same makes it WELFARE.

Even if ALL their taxes had gone towards their age pension - and who would then be left to pay for the running of the country? - it would never be enough to cover their age pension for another ten, twenty, perhaps even thirty years of retirement. Anybody who's ever tried to buy an annuity could tell them that! - more on it here.

I once tried to tell this to my retired neighbour in Townsville who confided in me that, after a lifetime of earning lots of money in mining, he had buried it all in kerosene tins in his garden - I kid you not! - so that he would qualify for the government pension. I figured that he missed out on more interest than he got in welfare but he was not persuaded because "I paid my taxes for it!" When I revisited Townsville in 1985, I heard he had died and the house been sold. I nearly told the new owners to start digging! ☺

Of course, under our crazy rules, people can live in multi-million-dollar mansions and still claim welfare which means that many put all their money into their houses and then cry poor. And I know of couples who separated - at least 'on paper' - so as to receive fortnightly $1,144.40 EACH instead of the combined $1,725.20. The length some people go to for another fifteen thousand dollars a year is amazing!

It's an insane and unsustainable system (for those who're footing it; mainly generations yet unborn) but perhaps no more insane and unsustainable than when Germany pays out $50-billion-plus every year to house and feed the same people that now terrorise the country.

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PV = P * [(1 - (1 + r)^-n) / r]

 

Every time I hear some of those well-to-do age pensioners thump the table and yell out, "It's my money; I paid my taxes!", I feel like saying, "PV = P * [(1 - (1 + r)^-n) / r]" and show them this table of the present value of an annuity.

So you're looking forward to a long and healthy retirement of twenty years during which time you expect to be paid an annual pension of around $23,598 ? How much would it cost you to buy such an annuity?

This online calculator will do the calculation for you: enter $23,598, an assumed discount rate of (say) 4%, and 20 for the number of payments, and you'd have to splash out $320,704.52 to secure such a single's pension (or $483,448.68 for a combined couple's pension of $35,573).

How much income tax did you pay over the course of your working life? Now reduce that total by a rather large percentage which went towards paying for all the things you rightly expect governments to provide you with. Here's a hint: lots of infrastructure, defence and police force, fire brigade, hospitals, schools ... I think you get the idea. So how much is left of all your taxes to "buy your pension", bearing in mind an annuity is fixed, whereas your free age pension is generously indexed to the CPI?

I'm absolutely convinced that the shortfall is far greater than your indignation that this is not really your money but rather welfare, paid for in part by today's hardworking taxpayers, with an ever-greater part passed on as an ever-mounting debt to generations not yet born.

You see, the age pension was legislated in 1908 during the Deakin administration and was unusual compared with other countries in that it was non-contributory (paid out of general revenue, rather than social insurance contributions). Retirement was set at 65 at a time when the average life expectancy was 55.2 years for males and 58.8 for females; today it is 81.2 and 85.3 respectively - see here. (I've my own theory on why women live longer but don't get me started ☺)

The system is bankrupt and you may be the last generation to be so generously rewarded in old age. To realise that, you don't have to be Einstein, just grateful!

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