10 Pfennig BILD Zeitung

A good friend in Berlin informs me that the 10 Pfennig BILD Zeitung now costs €1.20

 

 

The German   Bild Zeitung    was like television in print: plenty of pictures (BILD means 'image') and sensationalised commentary. Sold for 10 Pfennig, or the eqivalent of a box of matches, everyone could afford it and, with just four pages, read it all in one sitting - literally!

Because, being just four pages, it could easily be folded - lengthwise to be slipped down one's trouser leg, or twice across to fit into one's back pocket - and taken to the office loo which in those days was the only place where one was allowed to take some time off from work.

Speed reading hadn't been invented yet and so, in an office with over twenty people and just one windowless loo, slow readers could be a bit on the nose, made worse on a Monday morning when the reporting of the weekend's footie results in the "Kicker Fussball-Illustrierte" slowed down some football-mad readers' bowel movements even further.

Such were the conditions in my office when I was an articled clerk in Germany in the early 60s, so is it any wonder I emigrated to Australia? - see here. But it wouldn't have happened without the   Bild Zeitung   which at the time carried advertisements by the Australian Embassy showing a smiley face in the shape of the Australian continent with rays of sunshine around the edges under the header "Come to sunny Australia!" - in German, of course, or I wouldn't have understood it.

 

"Do you know Australia?
Information about Australia, a young and aspiring nation, and the opportunities awaiting you there, are available from the Australian Information and Immigration Agency
2 Hamburg 1, Mönckebergstrasse 11, Phone 33 49 82.
For more information complete this coupon (in block letters) and mail it to us."

 

No, I didn't write to the embassy while sitting there in that windowless loo, but I did so shortly afterwards, which is how I finished up in sunny Australia, the land of wide open spaces - and plenty of loos with windows in them! - and the freedom to read a newspaper even at work.

As for the 10 Pfennig   Bild Zeitung  , it's still around today, albeit a lot dearer. And I am still in Australia, too, a lot older but still grateful for having read that ad in one of my "quieter" moments.

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P.S. Read also "Reading changed my life!"

 

Wherever we go, we take ourselves with us

 

Few things are as exciting as the idea of travelling somewhere else. But the reality of travel seldom matches our daydreams. The tragi-comic disappointments are well-known: the disorientation, the mid-afternoon despair, the lethargy before ancient ruins. And yet the reasons behind such disappointments are rarely explored.

We are inundated with advice on where to travel to; we hear little of why we should go and how we could be more fulfilled doing so. "The Art of Travel" is a philosophical look at the ubiquitous but peculiar activity of travelling ‘for pleasure’, with thoughts on airports, landscapes, museums, holiday romances, photographs, exotic carpets and the contents of hotel mini-bars. The book mixes personal thought with insights drawn from some of the great figures of the past. Unlike existing guidebooks on travel, it dares to ask what the point of travel might be – and modestly suggests how we could learn to be less silently and guiltily miserable on our journeys.

 

 

All my extensive travels before retirement were footed by my numerous employers who sent me from Germany to South Africa, from Australia to Papua New Guinea, from Papua New Guinea all over Australia, and then to the Solomon Islands, to Burma, to Iran, to Samoa, to Malaysia, to Singapore, to Saudi Arabia, to Zurich, to London, to Greece ...

No more free air travel in retirement, no more lounging in VIP lounges, no more "turning left" on big jumbos, no more stays in five-star hotels, no more free mini-bars, no more same-day laundry service with a cute cardboard bow tie in every starched and ironed shirt left at the bottom of the bed in a sealed plastic bag, and so I take consolation in Alain de Botton's audiobook "The Art of Travel", read by the author himself:

 

You may also read it for free on www.archive.org

 

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Early morning at "Riverbend"

 

Early morning at "Riverbend" and I'm considering which of the fifty shades of Earl Grey I'm going to have for my tea this morning. I've fed the ducks by the pond, the parrots on the verandah, the possum in his possum penthouse, and now it's my turn. Porridge with raisins and a spoonful of honey, all washed down with a hot cup of Earl Grey.

We've had some slight rain during the night which does nothing to improve my mood even though the ducks on the ever-increasing pond don't mind. Which is the keyword in this highly destabilised world we live in. Don't mind about the war in Ukraine; the trade wars between America and China; don't mind about turf wars between bikie gangs in Sydney; don't mind about drive-by shootings and knife-stabbings; don't mind about lying politicians and corrupt public officials; and don't mind about people complaining about banks lending them too much money (they used to complain about banks not lending them enough money).

It was so much easier to keep calm when I lived in New Guinea before the internet when there was no television or even a decent radio reception from Australia, and the only news was from a local station called 'Maus Bilong San Kam-ap' in Tok Pisin, New Guinea's lingua franca, where a helicopter is a 'Mixmaster bilong Jesus Christ' which made the latest news about helicopter gunships in Vietnam sound almost hilarious.

Then there was Burma which was under a 6-to-6 curfew and sealed off behind the "Teak Curtain", and where one couldn't even buy Western toothpaste, let alone hear Western news. The only 'television' to watch were those blue-light electric mosquito zappers which were on the wall of every restaurant and which we called "Burmese television".

And then there was the world's largest sandbox, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where everything was totally censored and a Western newspaper was as stiff as cardboard after all its 'offending' articles had been doused in black ink by censors armed with thick felt-tipped pens.

Of course, we could achieve the same now by simply turning off the radio, the television, the internet, but somehow we are all addicted to the news, especially bad news. Maybe I make today a totally news-free day and just concentrate on my Earl Grey tea.

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P.S. Speaking of which, I recommend you Alain de Botton's "The News".

 

The Lucky Country

 

Everyone has read "The Lucky Country"; I mean, I had read it even before I'd become an Australian in 1971 in the wilds of New Guinea - although perhaps I shouldn't be so sure, as I've just found out today that none of the lifeguards at the pool had ever heard of the Australian movie "The Castle".

 

 

Adding to "The Lucky Country", I picked up today Donald Horne's trilogy "The Education of Young Donald" - all 800 pages of it!; a copy of "Sydney - A Biography" by Louis Nowra; Jeremy Paxman's "The English - A Portrait of a People"; "Freakonomics" by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J Dubner; and Robin Waterfield's "Why Socrates Died - Dispelling the Myths". Enough reading to keep me in "Melbourne" for the whole weekend!

Having watched "Deception" last night - no, not this one - which is the story of a lonely timid accountant who lives only for his work, I thought I find out what I missed out on by watching "The Accountant" tonight:

 

 

And that should be it! I just hope it rains all weekend so I won't have to feel guilty about not cutting the grass which is growing out of control!

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Making peace with your past

 

Those dear ladies at the op-shop always have something interesting in store. This time I picked up a small book by H. Norman Wright, Making Peace with Your Past.

The blurb says, "Are you hampered by baggage from your past? Much of who you are, what you do, and how you feel is determined by your past. The memories of painful experiences and harmful early influences can come back to haunt you, causing negative behaviour patters that interfere with your life and relationships."

The first few pages are promising. Anyway, it cost me a dollar so if the Lord-Jesus-stuff gets a bit too heavy, I can always chuck it in the bin.

 

 

Mind you, if they ever start charging for emotional baggage, I'd never be able to afford another flight ☺

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