Nothing to be frightened of

 

In Richard Strauss's tender and sensuous opera "Der Rosenkavalier", the ageing Marschallin, who knows that her younger lover is destined to leave her, stops all the clocks in the palace so as not to be reminded of the passage of time.

Growing up in post-war Germany, with all the destruction and misery around me, with the knowledge that there were no great careers to be made, no glamorous possibilities of upward mobility or the seductive temptations of acquiring great wealth, I knew in my bones that life was a provisional condition and that it could be cut short arbitrarily.

 

 

'Birth, copulation and death' was T.S. Eliot's summary of human life. Paradoxically, it is in acknowledging the inescapable power of both Chronos and Thanatos, in accepting that life moves in only one direction, that each moment comes round just once, and that the number of such moments are finite, that we give meaning to our lives.

 

Read it online at www.archive.org

 

Julian Barnes begins his Grim Reaper book "Nothing to be frightened of" with the sentence "I don't believe in God, but I miss Him", and it gets better from there, for over 250 pages. Read it before it's too late! 😀

 

How many times can one watch 'Casablanca'?

 

Retirement would be a lot harder, were it not for Radio National, my large collection of books, and my equally large collection of movies, but how many times can one watch even as good a film as 'Casablanca'?

Radio National gets me through the night when sleep won't come, and my growing number of unread books give me something to look forward to, while those timeless movies of yesteryears are a welcome relief from TV's tedious cooking shows and home renovation programs (not to mention 'Midsomer Murders' with its endless supply of dead bodies).

It's the beginning of another beautiful day in retirement and I might watch 'Casablanca" for just one more time.

 

To all bean counters past and present

 

 

Bookkeeping by double-entry is amongst the finest inventions of the human mind. More than five hundred years ago, in the very first book published on the subject, bookkeeping was outlined in a form which still prevails around the world today.

The 'father' of double-entry bookkeeping was a Franciscan monk born near Florence in the 1440s which just goes to show that accounting can be habit-forming. His name was Luca Pacioli, just like this software.

 

 

In the highly unlikely event that you have an accountant amongst your friends, why not put a bit of excitement into his otherwise boring life by giving him a copy of Jane Gleeson-White's book "Double Entry"? It is a beautifully written history of accounting, one double-entry at a time.

 

 

As dedication in the front of the book, you may pen this little poem:

An Accountant's Life
He was a very cautious man, who never romped or played,
He never smoked, he never drank, nor even kissed a maid.
And when up and passed and away, insurance was denied.
For since he hadn't ever lived, they claimed he never died.

 

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P.S. No need to give me a copy: in true double-entry fashion, I already own two copies, one in paperback, the other as a beautiful hardcover.