An old view on NewViews

 

 

In the late 1980s, just after I started my Canberra Computer Accounting Software consultancy, I fell in love with NewViews! It had been developed and was sold by Q.W Page Associates of Toronto. Those Canadians are pretty smart when it comes to recording their loonies!

 

It was a dream-come-true accounting software for the accountant who had been handed the proverbial shoebox full of invoices, receipts, cheque stubs, and back-of-an-envelope scribbles from which to construct a set of financial books. One could dive right in and start recording from any point for any period as NewViews was totally flexible and non-modular. It offered the feel and flexibility of an endless array of spreadsheets while preserving the integrity of Pacioli's double-entry bookkeeping and an unalterable audit trail.

The flexibility came with a trade-off, however, as NewViews was perceived by some to have a long learning curve, and to require a greater investment of time and effort to create a customized accounting solution. In a software review published in InfoWorld, NewViews was compared to "going to a tailor and handing him a bolt of cloth and a pair of scissors. The result will suit you perfectly, but at a greater cost of time and effort than if it was ready-made."

I took to NewViews immediately and found it a pleasure to use and I did a lot of bespoke-tailoring with it! I am pleased to see that it is still alive and well today! For more YouTube clips, click here.

 

P.S. Graham, you could have gone straight to NewViews instead of asking that Singaporean to develop that speadsheet-based accounting software!!!

 

I never come back empty-handed

 

 

Early morning at "Riverbend". I'm busy cooking my porridge while keeping an eye on a lone navigation light shining through the early-morning mist across from the river. Another sailor having spent a peaceful night on the river. Not everyone goes fishing to catch a fish; some just want to catch a few hours of solitude. I know how they feel.

After yesterday's outing to Ulladulla I'm ready to spend the rest of the week in glorious solitude to read the books and watch the movies I found at my favourite op-shop. I watched "Into the White" many years ago but, based on true events in German-occupied Norway during World War II, it's worth another viewing. And then there is the book "Modern-Day Castaway" for those moments when I wished I was still young and energetic, and Julian Barnes' "The Only Story", a deeply moving novel centred around Lord Tennyson's famous line "Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all". As far as I'm concerned, Tennyson got it all wrong!

And then there is Dominic Dunne's Adventures of a Compulsive Traveller" and "The Ulysses Contract - How to Never Worry About the Share Market Again" - I did a long time ago but it's nice to have it confirmed - and, finally, my favourite, a beautiful hardback edition of John Humphrys' erudite "Beyond Words - How Language Reveals the Way We Live Now", which is an endearing treaty against poor grammar, inappropriate use of the apostrophe and poor use and understanding of the English language and how 'management speak' and insipid and inappropriate use of words, especially in politics, advertising, and public relations, ruins and devalues the language. As you can see, I never come back empty-handed.

 

 

The mist is gone but not the boat whose owner seems to be readying himself for breakfast as am I, after which I shall be all set for another peaceful day among the gumtrees. I wonder how the rich people live!

 

---

 

P.S. Of course, while in Ulladulla we indulged ourselves with a sumptious meal at the bowling club, followed by some coffee and cake at the Tree House Café - well, more cake, as I already had a big slice of the club's famous blueberry cheesecake. The Treehouse Café is now under new management but it's still the best business model around - click here.

P.P.S. I don't fish. I've read "Do Fish Feel Pain?" and feel sorry for them.

 

Literally as exciting as watching paint dry

 

 

In its purest, Norwegian-inspired form, slow TV is characterised by minute-by-minute footage of a culturally significant journey, event, or activity, edited together chronologically from numerous camera angles, resulting in an unconventionally long viewing experience.

While "The Ghan: The Full Journey" might sound long (16 and a half hours), this pales in comparison to Norwegian public broadcaster NRK’s 134-hour live broadcast aboard the cruise ship Hurtigruten in 2011.

I found my copy of the sixteen-and-a-half-hour-long "Ghan" at the Salvo op-shop and watched it, on and off, over several evenings until it was time to switch it off again and announce with a big yawn, "I'm Ghan to bed."

 

Am Zwölften hatte sie ihren 85. Geburtstag

 

 

Vor vielen Jahren als ich zum ersten Mal begann über meine lang vergangene Jugendzeit in Deutschland zu ruminieren, erinnerte ich mich an die Bücher des Heinz Helfgens die ich mir damals nicht erlauben konnte. Kurz entschlossen suchte ich sie mir auf dem Internet und da waren sie schon: "Ich radle um die Welt" Band 1 und 2.

Ich bestellte sie von einem Buch-Antiquariat in Berlin und daraus wurde dann eine lange Freundschaft (denkt man da gleich an "84, Charing Cross Road"?) denn die "Buchdame" in dem Antiquariat war ebenso an Australien interessiert wie ich an ihre Bücher. Ich bestellte noch einige andere Bücher aber zumeistens hatte sie mir mehr Bücher geschenkt als verkauft was hoffentlich nicht dazu beitrug dass sie schliesslich ihren Laden zumachte.

Aber unsere Freundschaft ging weiter obwohl die Emails in letzter Zeit weniger wurden. Wie in jedem Jahr wünschte ich ihr auch am Zwölften dieses Monats alles Gute zum Geburtstag, erhielt aber nicht wie in jedem Jahr eine Antwort. Da muss man sich dann schon seine Gedanken machen denn es war ihr 85. Geburtstag gewesen und da könnte alles möglich sein.

Ansonsten konnte ich von der allwissenden Internet nichts weiteres erfahren, obwohl ich auf der Seite "Die Geschichte Berlins" vom 27.5.2020 diese sehr lesenswerte Erzählung aus ihrer eigenen Feder fand:

 

"Ich bin ein Kriegskind, geboren wenige Tage nach Ausbruch des Zweiten Weltkriegs und einziges Kind meiner Eltern, aufgewachsen in einfachen Verhältnissen, die während des Krieges immer bescheidener wurden. Mein Vater wurde zur Marine eingezogen. Schick sah er in Uniform aus. Stationiert war er in Kiel, seine Zeit bei der Marine war kurz, er musste zurück nach Berlin, UK gestellt von der AEG. Aus der Traum von Seefahrt, von Schiffen, Häfen und den Hafen-kaschemmen. Zu der Melodie: "Wo die Nordseewellen trecken an den Strand ..." wurde gesungen: "Wo die Bomben fallen, und das Licht geht aus, da ist meine Heimat, da bin ich zu Haus." Bei all den Ereignissen des Krieges, den Bombenangriffen, den Christbäumen, Bündeln von Leuchtkugeln, die die Bombardierungsgebiete absteckten, der ausgebombten Großmutter, die völlig verstört mit ihrem Köfferchen auf den Trümmern ihres Wohnhauses saß, hatten wir noch Glück. Die Wucht der Bombenangriffe hatte uns in den Randbezirken nicht so hart getroffen wie die dicht besiedelten Bezirke Kreuzberg, Friedrichshain, Mitte und Wedding. Meine Mutter litt sehr unter den Bombardements, sie wollte raus aus Berlin. In ihrer Heimat Schlesien war nicht genug Platz für uns. Endlich fand sich ein entfernter Cousin in der Nähe von Kyritz bereit, uns aufzunehmen. Nach wenigen Tagen war meine Mutter von dem schlichten Landleben in dem kleinen Häuschen so genervt, dass sie wieder zurück wollte. Ich wäre so gern geblieben, es gab dort vieles, was ich noch nie gesehen hatte. Das Schwein fand ich sooo toll, dass ich in den Schweinekoben kroch. Wir machten es uns beide richtig gemütlich, für meine Mutter war es bestimmt einer der Höhepunkte dieser Wochen. Nun waren wir wieder in Berlin. Die nächtlichen Angriffe wurden beinahe zur Routine. Fenster mussten verdunkelt werden. Geweckt von der Sirene schnappte man sich Kind mit Teddy, Köfferchen mit den wichtigen Papieren und ab in den Luftschutzkeller. Auf jedem Treppenabsatz standen zwei Eimer mit Sand, Wasser zum Löschen war wirkungslos. Eine Luftmine traf uns. Als wir wieder oben waren, sahen wir den Sternenhimmel, Fenster raus, Tapete von den Wänden. Am 4. Mai schwiegen in Berlin endgültig die Waffen. Wir hatten uns so gut es ging verbarrikadiert, als der Bruder meiner Mutter in Uniform und mit Waffe desertierte und verzweifelt ins Haus wollte. Das löste Panik aus, alle sahen sich schon an die Wand gestellt. Uniform aus, über den Zaun, umgehend zurück. Wohin damit? Vergraben ging nicht, frische Erde fiel auf, also in den Schornstein verbracht, die Waffe ebenfalls. Der Bruder meiner Mutter verbreitete nicht nur Angst und Schrecken, er entwickelte ein ungeahntes Beschaffungstalent sowohl bei den Russen, als auch später bei den Franzosen. Der Eroberung der Stadt durch die Rote Armee folgte eine Welle von Gewalt und Grausamkeiten, Vergewaltigungen von Frauen aller Altersgruppen, Plünderungen, Mord. Ich erinnere mich der russischen Vorhut, der Mongolen, und des Schreckensrufes „Frau komm“ und „Uri, Uri.“ Die Frauen wurden versteckt, unkenntlich gemacht. Ich erinnere mich der Panje-Pferdchen in unserem Garten und der Russen-Frauen, vor denen ich mich fürchtete. Mein Vater wurde verhaftet und ins Zuchthaus Plötzensee verbracht. Er kam überraschend schnell wieder nach Hause, arbeitete auf dem Kohlenplatz hinter unserem Haus, zerklopfte Dachziegel, die dann als roter Stern um Straßenschilder und Laternen gestreut wurden. Ich habe meinen Vater gern besucht, es gab oft eine Kleinigkeit fürs Kind. Manchmal brachte er einen Henkelmann mit Essen nach Hause. Unsere Wohnung hatten wir noch, wenn auch mit Einschränkungen. Ein Tisch war uns geblieben, ein Bein stark angesengt, aber noch standfest, ein Sessel mit einer Lehne, eine Chaiselongue, überraschenderweise das Schlafzimmer und Teile der Küche. Unvergesslich ist das Loch im Fußboden, verursacht von einer Brandbombe. Legte ich mich auf den Bauch, konnte ich in das Wohnzimmer von Tante Anna sehen. Das wurde nicht geschätzt. „Ottoo, das Kind guckt schon wieder.“ Das Kind fand das toll, besonders, wenn Tante Anna sich erregte."

 

So ähnlich ist es uns ja allen ergangen obwohl meine Erinnerungen daran nicht ganz so intensiv sind, da ich erst am Ende des Krieges geboren war.

Also, Renate, wenn Du dies liest, schreib 'mal wieder!

 

It's already twelve years ago!

 

Dave and I on the platform of Babinda Railway Station
when I was on my way to Cairns in early 2011

 

Just received this bit of sad news: "Peter, letting you know that David Richardson, married to June's mother, ex Thursday Island, now of Babinda, passed away on Monday 15th Oct. 2012. He was 82."

Dave and I had been friends since my time on Thursday Island in 1977 where he worked as carpenter for the Department of Aboriginal and Islander Affairs (DAIA) and also renovated the company house I occupied while working for the Island Industries Board (IIB).

 

David arriving in Australia in 1965

 

He was a tough little 'Pommie bastard' who'd come out east with the British army fighting the insurgents in what was then Malaya. After demob he moved to Australia (or did he first go to New Zealand?) and for many years worked on Thursday Island. He kept a shack on Prince of Wales Island (POW) which we sometimes visited. All good memories!

 

Dave was with the British Army as a 19-year-old in what was then Malaya during the Emergency in 1949. He described this photo as "we lived in tents, four persons to one tent, with electric lights and paved floors; local workmen having a meal in front"

Dave on his dinghy in April 1977 on Country Women's Beach, Prince of Wales Island

Dave on holidays in Sarawak (Borneo) in 1976 in a longhouse at Rumah Panjang

Dave at his last home at 22 Eastwood Street in Babinda which he described as "My favourite corner close to the fridge and tea and coffee and Milo"

Dave in his dinghy; beach at Hospital Point in background (1977)

Dave's shack on Prince of Wales Island (1977)

Waterfall behind Dave's shack during wet season (1977)

 

I'd only just mailed a postcard to him a few days ago. It'll no doubt come back as he's moved to a place even Australia Post can't reach. It was good having known you, Dave! Rest in Peace.

 

From page 16 of TORRES NEWS of 22-28 October 2012

 

Hör's Dir an!

 

 

Voller Wahrheit und Weisheit: die Schriftstellerin Elke Heidenreich, geboren 1943, spricht über das Alterwerden. "Man sollte einfach atmen und dankbar sein" sagt sie. Alle wollen alt werden, niemand will alt sein. Der Widerspruch ist absurd, das Leiden daran real.

Wie lernen wir, so gut wie möglich damit zurechtzukommen? Geht das, alt werden und ein erfülltes Leben führen? Elke Heidenreich hat sich mit dem Altwerden beschäftigt. Sie diskutiert es persönlich, ehrlich, doch nie gnadenlos, mit einem Wort: lebensklug. Sie denkt über ihr eigenes Leben nach, und das heißt vor allem, über ihre Beziehungen zu anderen Menschen. Im Alter trägt man die Konsequenzen für alles, was man getan hat. Aber mit ihm kommt auch Gelassenheit, und man begreift: "Das meiste ist vollkommen unwichtig. Man sollte einfach atmen und dankbar sein."

 

 

 

P.S. Und ihre Bücher sind auch sehr gut.

 

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!

 

 

3285 days to go!

 

Noticed something? At age 0, they give you 79.3 years, but when you get to age 79, they give you another 9 years. The longer you live, the longer you live.

 

Three thousand two hundred and eighty-five days to go! That's according to the above table which gives me another 9.0 years (or 3285 days). Of course, I could have a sex change to gain those extra 1.7 years but that would be a bit messy, wouldn't it? Anyway, who wants to be that greedy?

I mean, although it wasn't always cricket, I have had some terrific innings. Yes, there was some underarm bowling and ball tampering going on and I got caught out a few times but, although I dropped quite a few, I also had some brilliant catches and, as we all know, it's catches that win matches.

Still, it's a bit of an untidy number, isn't it? Maybe I cut back on coffee and Coke and marshmellows and retsina to round it out to an even 3500.

 

 

Medieval philosophers would often keep a human skull on their desktop as a memento mori to remind them that they too would one day die. I think that if we have an awareness of our own mortality it can help us to focus on what really matters. When we begin each day knowing that it is a unique opportunity, that this day has never happened before and will never happen again, then we will be more deliberate in how we spend it.

Skulls are a bit hard to come by and even harder to carry around with us. Why not print out the above life expectancy table to carry in your wallet?

Memento mori ! Remember you must die!

 

The Great Courses

 

 

Imagine my amazement when I found a whole big box of DVDs and textbooks of "The Great Courses" in one of my favourite op-shops, with the vast majority still in their shrink-wrapped plastic covers.

Not being greedy, I left plenty for the next knowledge nerd, and only bought, for a mere $2.50 each, "World History"; "Understanding the Dark Side of Human Nature"; "Classic Novels: Meeting the Challenge of Great Literature"; "A Brief History of the World"; "Great Utopian and Dystopian Works of Literature"; "The Addictive Brain"; "Writing Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and Techniques"; "Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft"; "Masterpieces of the Imaginative Mind: Literature's Most Fantastic Works"' and "English Grammar Boot Camp".

If you bothered to click on the above link, you would have seen that it retails for $339.95 instead of the $2.50 I paid for it. Arriving at Lecture 22 on page 149 I became convinced that $2.50 was a more fitting price because it opened its discussion on punctuation with the sentence "The 20th century witnessed some reigning in of punctuation." Really?

During the whole reign of Queen Elizabeth II and her English to whom I swore my allegiance, the word "rein" was never spelt "reign"! Surely, this was just an isolated oversight by a tired editor, but, no, the horse had bolted and could no longer be reined in when on page 156 the apostrophe was described as "... a French borrowing, coming into English in the 16th century ... It was then reigned in as part of standardization."

This wouldn't have been tolerated during Queen Elizabeth II's reign!

 

 

P.S. I have just watched "Great Utopian and Dystopian Works of Literature" and gained more literary insights in just thirty minutes than I had in all the previous thirty years. "The Great Courses" still reign supreme!

 

Cancer isn't just a constellation of stars

 

 

Tackling the almost six hundred pages of Siddhartha Mukherjee's book took me almost as long as the actual cancer treatment itself. That was six years ago and I'm still here to watch this documentary based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book. It's neither easy-going reading nor easy-going watching but then neither is the cancer treatment, so stay with me as you may learn something.

 

Read a preview here

 

We have come a long way in solving science's greatest mystery and have a very long way still to go before it becomes just a constellation of stars.

 

 

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 the book was banned in Saudi Arabia, but I do remember reading in it about the "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 hardcover 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.

 

Shaw's famous writing hut

 

 

More than seven decades after his death, George Bernard Shaw is remembered for his prodigious body of work as a playwright, but also for his personal eccentricities, such as his shed which he commissioned in 1924 to serve as a private writing space on his property in Hertfordshire.

The hut was designed to be easily camouflaged and hidden from view, giving Shaw the privacy he needed to work without interruption. The circular steel track on which the hut was mounted allowed it to follow the sun throughout the day, providing optimal light for Shaw's writing.

 

 

Shaw wrote several of his most famous works, including "Pygmalion," "Saint Joan," and "Major Barbara," in the hut. The space allowed him to work undisturbed, and the natural surroundings provided inspiration for his writing. Today, the hut has become a popular destination for fans of Shaw and literature in general. It is a testament to the power of a peaceful, secluded environment to foster creativity and productivity.

 

 

Shaw himself was clearly very happy here. Of it he wrote:

 

This my dell and this my dwelling. Their charm so far beyond my telling. That though in Ireland by my birthplace. Here shall be my final earthplace.

 

He named it after the English capital so that unwanted visitors to his home could be told, not untruthfully, that he was in London. Today it is such a popular tourist attraction that you may have to book ahead - click here.

Should you wish to visit my cosy "Melbourne" instead, click here.

 

Before the coffee gets cold

 

Read it online at www.archive.org

 

Don't leave anything for later. Later, the coffee gets cold. Later, you lose interest. Later, the day turns into night. Later, people grow up. Later, people grow old. Later, life goes by. Later, you regret not doing something ... when you had the chance.

Life is a fleeting dance, a delicate balance of moments that unfold before us, never to return in quite the same way again. Regret is a bitter pill to swallow, a weight that bears down upon the soul with the burden of missed chances and unspoken words. So, let us not leave anything for later. Let us seize the moments as they come, with hearts open and arms outstretched to embrace the possibilities that lie before us. For in the end, it is not the things we did that we regret, but the things we left undone, the words left unspoken, the dreams left unfulfilled."

In Toshikazu Kawaguchi's book "Before the Coffee Gets Cold" we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café's time-travelling offer, in order to confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer's, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.

This beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?

 

I'm back in Australia ...

 

 

I spent the morning watching Michael Palin travel from Alaska to Kamchatka to Japan to South Korea to China to Vietnam to the Philippines to Borneo to Java ... and I've finally returned to familiar territory, the Northern Territory, in Northern Australia. Phew!

And I did all this from the comfort of my armchair, sitting close to the blazing fireplace while watching Michael Palin's "Full Circle" and the gyrations of the stock market, and eating a pizza and drinking a Coke.

Even a mental traveller gets hundry and thirsty, and you may want to stock up on pizza and Coke before you start watching Episode 1 Alaska and Russia, Episode 2 Japan and Korea, Episode 3 China, Episode 4 Vietnam and the Philippines, Episode 5 Borneo and Java, Episode 6 Australia and New Zealand, Episode 7 Chile and Bolivia, Episode 8 Bolivia and Peru, Episode 9 Peru and Colombia, Episode 10 Canada and Alaska.

 

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.

 

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.

 

Cosy "Melbourne"

 

Where do I go when I want to curl up with a book? To cosy "Melbourne", that's where! 'Cosy', this untranslatable word, derivation unknown, came to us from the Vikings via the Scots, coined by two peoples who knew all about appreciating a warm nook out of the weather.

 

 

Quasimodo found his nook in the belfry; I found the right place to lose myself in a book in cosy "Melbourne". There I can forget time, forget the room, then the chair I sit on or the bed I lie on, and finally my very self.

 

 

Books can take us to a better place; they help us to get through what Nietzsche called 'the horror of living'. Being curled up with a book can be a chrysalis experience from which we emerge a different creature.

 

 

"Melbourne" is far enough from the rest of house which is full of inter-ruptions, or simply not cosy enough. And, like the book itself which is of paper from trees, it is halfway to the forest, that great source of myth.

 

"Melbourne" is the green roof at the bottom of the photo

 

It's a beautiful morning and I'm off to "Melbourne". In case the phone rings, I've told Padma to tell the caller that I've gone to Melbourne.

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!