The Book Whisperer

 

To watch the whole movie, click here
(There's something weird about 'wierd'; 'I before E, except after C' doesn't always work)

 

Remember that scene in "They're a Weird Mob", in which Nino for his first job as a builder's labourer wears his Sunday best? It's not in the book, but in the movie Pat's last words to his departing boss are, "Why didn't you bring me Prince Philip?"

 

To read the book, click here

 

Well, I was reminded of this scene when I walked into my favourite op-shop, Vinnies in Moruya, and met Paul, the book whisperer, who tends to the second-hand book section. "Where's your tie?" I felt like asking him.

 

 

As he told me, he's a retired high-school teacher in maths and history, and never lost his habit of being dressed like a high-school teacher. I, too, seemed to have been born with a collar and tie on, and for most of my working life I have worn both, and, if the climate allowed it, also a proper suit. It left me with a wardrobe full of business suits and dinner suits and even a tuxedo, and I have often wondered if I should wear them out while I'm driving my ride-on mower up and down "Riverbend". It'd finally give the neighbours something they could really talk about!

 

To read the book, click here
(Yes, I could've read it online, but I bought it for its beautiful slipcover)

 

The things Paul and I talked about were books and movies. Of course, as an ex-teacher, he had seen the movie "Wake in Fright", based on the novel by Kenneth Cook, after which we briefly touched on "Lord Jim" by Joseph Conrad, "The Shiralee", and "Doctor Zhivago" with Omar Sharif — whom Paul resembled, or so Padma insisted. I left with a beautifully produced slipcover copy of Okakura Kakuzo's "The Book of Tea", which is all about tea and Taoism and Zen, and Hermann Koch's "The Dinner", after which we had our usual lunch at the Moruya Bowling Club.

 

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H&R "Blocked"

 

 

I like to keep the taxman at arm's length, not because I have anything to hide but simply because I hate the aggravation he causes me with his silly questions, as he did several times in the late 1970s when I was still working overseas and he kept asking me what my "gross income from all world sources" was.

There had always been the ‘183-day’ test, which I easily passed every time, but the taxman kept asking away, as he had first done in 1978, when he asked me, "1. Were you born in Australia?" and "7. State your reasons why you consider yourself to be a resident or non-resident of Australia", and, of course, "14. Details of all income earned by you from sources within and outside Australia in the year ended 30 June 1978".

 

 

All this was done in those pre-computer days by typewriter, and so I would pull out my portable OLYMPIA typewriter, which I had bought many years earlier in New Guinea, and type, "Please explain your definition of 'resident' and 'non-resident' which presumably is quite different for tax purposes from the casual sense of the word" (which was long before "Please explain!" had become an iconic catchphrase).

Deafening silence for another year, until, like a dog with a bone, he trotted out the same questions the next year, and all the other years while I lived and worked in Papua New Guinea, the Solomons, Burma, Indonesia, Samoa, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Greece, on and on and on. Perhaps he thought I lived inside that PO Box 42 in Duffy in the A.C.T.

I've been back in Australia for decades now, but my distaste for the taxman is as strong as ever. To keep keeping him at arm's length, I still prepare my own tax return, but then let H&R Block lodge it for me.

Better them than me to "Block" the taxman's silly questions. This has been my first year with H&R Block, and I can highly recommend them.

 

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