Will I make Sarawak my second home?

 

Maybe you don't know too much about the Brooke family, the "White Rajahs", who founded and ruled the north-west coast of the island of Borneo from 1841 to 1946. It was their reward for helping the Sultanate of Brunei fight piracy and insurgencies.

 

To learn more about the Rajah of Sarawak, click here

 

So where is Sarawak, I hear you ask? Well, it's on Borneo, the world's third-largest island and Asia's largest island. Both Sarawak and Sabah belong to the Federation of Malaysia; the rest belongs to Indonesia (Padma was born in Samarinda and I worked for TOTAL - Compagnie Française des Pétroles in Balikpapan, both in East Kalimantan).

These days you no longer have to fight pirates or be a "Lord Jim" to live in Borneo; you click on "Sarawak, My Second Home" or get Aramaz to do it all for you. The requirements for a couple to obtain a permanent residency visa are as simple as this: (one Malaysian Ringgit = 32 Australian cents)

• a fixed deposit account of RM300,000.00 (RM150,000 for single)
• a monthly offshore income of RM10,000.00 (RM7,000 for single)
• a clean bill of health
• a letter of good conduct

So get off my back, Albanese and Chalmers, or I may go apes and live with the orangutans. In the meantime, I keep whetting my appetite:

 

 

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Overtaxed and over here

 

The country's biggest honey pot, the NDIS, lost $1.2 BILLION to overbillings and fraud last year; a staffer in Federal Parliament accuses another staffer of rape and collects a $1.3 million pay-out from the government; now the same government wants to add "gender-affirming" surgery to its Medicare rebate list. Plastic surgeons and trans-gender people of the world unite!

Am I a happy taxpayer? My latest tax assessment shows you just how happy I am. Having led a productive working life during which I paid large amounts of tax, I managed to build up enough of a nest-egg to finance my own retirement. Are they satisfied? Of course not! Now that I am "rich" - well, richER than those who didn't work much and didn't pay tax much - I am on the hit-list of a Labor government that thrives on envy: from 1 July 2025 they want to rob my self-managed super fund by imposing a tax on unrealised profits and doubling the tax rate to 30%.

If they think that I'm such a big dick that I will go along with all this, maybe I qualify for "gender-affirming" surgery myself? Or perhaps I won't and instead move my money to a more tax-friendly environment such or Malaysia or Bali where I can buy a house for a fraction of what it costs me here, live a comfortable life for a fraction of what it costs me here, get top-rate Western-style medical care for a fraction of what it cost me here, and live among neighbours who, in the unlikely event that they're as foul-mouthed as here, I will only understand a fraction of.

An Australian friend living permanently in Malaysia just emailed me. He's having breakfast at the local mall for less than the price of - what? (I've been trying to think of something cheap here but there's nothing left that's cheap here.) Go slow on that breakfast, Roy! I may join you!

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I just love a good fight!

 

I could sleep in this morning, as there was going to be no Pistols at Dawn duel. Instead, I received this short conciliatory email from Council, "Thanks for your time to discuss the installation on site yesterday. Please see a revised water plan attached for approval."

My reply didn't quite match their brevity:

 

I would have thought that it is a lot more than twenty metres from the eastern boundary, but as long as we are agreed that the physical spot is as indicated by you in person, namely, WELL to the right of the bottom gate on flat ground just below the young liquid amber tree, I am happy to sign off on it. Will there be any change to the sewerage pipe? I thought you expressed an interest to also run it diagonally across my front yard and somewhat parallel to my owner-installed water pipe; after all, if we can still trust old Pythagoras, the length of the hypotenuse is shorter than (a = along the outside boundary to the gate) + (b = from the gate to the house) and would save you some money - see www.omnicalculator.com/math/hypotenuse.

 

Which prompted this rather curt reply from Council:

 

20m is approximately what was agreed on site yesterday. I am familiar with Pythagoras’s theorem. See revised plan for the pressure sewer attached. If you approve, please sign the attached plans and return them via email.

 

And so he should! (be familiar with Pythagoras' theorem)

I just love a good fight - as long as I'm winning!

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So weit die Füße tragen

 

To watch the 6-part German original, click here: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

 

As prisoner of war, Clemens Forell, a German soldier during WW II, was sentenced to 25 years in a labour camp in far east Siberia. After four years working in the mines he escapes from the camp (in 1949) and tries to get home to his wife and children.

 

 

For three years he journeys through Siberia. An odyssey of 14,000 kilometers, set against a backdrop of desolate and inhospitable landscape, beset by danger (from both animals and humans). Constantly battling the worst nature can throw at him, Forell makes his way, step by step, towards Persia and the longed-for freedom. Sometimes riding on trains, sometimes by boat, mostly on foot, he never knows if his next step won't be his last. His prosecutor Kamenev is always right behind him, and more than once it seems that Forell is captured again ...

 

You can read the book online by clicking here
(SIGN UP - it's free! - LOG IN, then BORROW)

 

This film, first made as a TV-series in black-and-white in six parts of altogether 400 minutes in 1959, and remade in 2001 as a feature film in colour in both the German and Russian language, is based on the book by Josef Martin Bauer which has been translated into fifteen languages.

It is the true story of the German officer Cornelius Rost (1922-1983) who in 1949 escaped from the Siberian Gulag and for three years travelled 14,000 km, mainly on foot, to present-day Iran. After his return to Germany, Rost lived for the next 30 years in constant fear of being re-arrested by the KGB and died a broken man.

And yet, he was lucky to have come back at all! Of the 3.5 million German prisoners-of-war in the Soviet Union, the vast majority perished in the forced labour camps.

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Thanks for listening

EPISODE ONE – Theatre of the Mind – This episode examines how radio takes hold of our imagination, how it transports us to other places and times, and opens up new worlds of music and entertainment, creating powerful pictures in our minds.

 

This award-winning documentary series features incredible footage and more than 100 interviews with the stars of Australian Radio, stars who were rarely seen by their huge audiences.

From the early days of radio dramas and comedies, the success of the radio quiz show and on to the emergence of broadcast sport, music and talkback radio, "Thanks for listening" chronicles almost a century of incredible changes as they played out on the radios of a nation.

 

EPISODE TWO – We’re on the Air – How does it work? How did radio in Australia begin? These questions are answered, and we look at the emergence of radio networks, commercials and the important role of women throughout the history of Australian radio.

EPISODE THREE – Music, Music, Music – We all remember hearing our favourite songs for the first time on the radio. In this episode we showcase the effect of music on the Australian radio industry as well as the emergence and power of breakfast radio.

EPISODE FOUR – You Say You Want a Revolution – A look at the almighty talkback genre, as well as the introduction of the FM band and a new generation of FM radio stars.

EPISODE FIVE – Here’s What’s Happening – In radio’s early history, most Australians received their news and sport from the wireless. This episode highlights radio’s role in reporting the biggest news events and happenings from Australia and around the world.

 

I grew up with radio, and to this day I prefer listening to the radio rather than watching the old idiot-box. As soon as I hit the pillow after nine o'clock at night - I'm not a night owl; instead, I'm up with the lark - I switch on ABC Radio National - and many nights it stays on all night!

There is always something interesting to listen to, but even if there isn't, the soothing sound from the radio banishes some of the other niggling thoughts that one has to live with after a long and eventful life.

Where would I be without the radio? Dead, probably!

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