The news of the Dalai Lama's 90th birthday on the 6th of July brought back memories of my boyhood hero, the Austrian Heinrich Harrer, and his story of "Seven Years in Tibet", and I sat down again to watch the movie for the umpteenth time.
Of course, the history of Tibet is neither as shown in the movie nor as retold by the Dalai Lama, but instead has been dotted with wars. In the seventh and eighth centuries the Tibetans brought the great Chinese Tang dynasty to its knees. They sacked Xian. Their armies, wearing armour that was the finest in the world, reached the borders of Burma.
And even as late as the fifteenth century the great Tibetan monasteries weren't just places of worship and meditation, but also armed camps where monks from different sects would be at war with one another. Into the twentieth century the Dalai Lamas, if they weren't murdered in childhood, were sometimes complicit in violence. The idea of the Dalai Lama being a peaceable figure has arrived only with the present one.
I'm watching the movie on the sunlit verandah while I'm eating my Mongolian Lamb which I bought in town. As I was waiting for my take-away, I told the Chinese owner of the restaurant all about franking credits. Now that he knows about it, I hope he won't suddenly shut up shop and invest in shares full-time, as did a certain grasscutting-chap whom I told about shares and dividends and franking credits. He's since made so much money on a certain tip I gave him - Pilbara Minerals, if you must know! - he's given up the grasscutting business altogether.
It's wonderfully peaceful sitting here in the midday sun, although the quietness may have something to do with all the hair that's being growing out of my ears - as well as out of my nostrils - since Padma left three weeks ago. She used to give it a regular trim when she was here. I wonder if my sense of hearing and smelling will survive until her return.
It's time to take a look at the sharemarket. I've trained the parrot to screech "SELL! SELL! SELL!" as soon as he sees any red on the screen.
P.S. That was a false alarm! He just wanted some tea for two! (Des, that Coke was for you but you never showed up, so I finished it off myself.)
