All my life's a circle

All my life's a circle, sunrise and sundown The moon rolls through the night-time till the daybreak comes around All my life's a circle and I can't tell you why The seasons spinning round again, the years keep rolling by It seems like I've been here before, and I well remember when I've got this funny feeling that we'll all be together again There's no straight lines make up my life, all my roads have bends There's no clear-cut beginning and so far no dead ends I've found you a thousand times, I guess you've done the same But then we lose each other, it's just like a children's game And I see you here again the thought runs through my mind Love is like a circle, let's go round one more time

 

Remember the old Harry Chapin song "All my life's a circle"? The years had kept rolling by, and suddenly, in late 1985, after twenty years in a dozen other countries, I found myself back in Canberra where I had taken my first few tentative steps as a migrant just off the ship from Europe.

My return to Canberra had been as totally unplanned and unexpected as all my previous moves, with plenty of bends and no straight lines and even a few dead ends, but this time when I was back where I'd been before, I at least spoke the Queen's English (albeit still with a slight Teutonic accent) and had enough professional qualifications and experience to immediately start writing computer software in the PICK language for a large mailorder business for the next twelve months.

Personal computers were slowly making their presence felt, and I began to specialise in PC-based computerised accounting systems, selling and installing off-the-shelf ATTACHÉ, SYBIZ, NewViews, and other packages, and also writing custom-built solutions in TAS, under my registered business name Canberra Computer Accounting Systems.

 

I was indeed Canberra's only Accounting Software Specialist until accounting firms
realised that there was a buck to be made by setting up their own PC consultancies

 

It was strictly a one-man business, just me and a telephone answering service. Those invisible girls at the answering service did a wonderful job for me as their ever-changing voices made my clients think they were dealing with a large computer software house. Only a few knew that I was working out of the spare bedroom in my house (later TWO spare bedrooms, with the wall knocked out between them).

 

# 7 Fanning Place, Kambah A.C.T. 2902

 

Those were the days when an IBM computer with just 20MB of harddisk space retailed for around $8,000, when a monochrome monitor (you had a choice of green or amber display) cost some $700, and individual accounting software modules such as General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, or Inventory Control sold for close to a thousand dollars - EACH! Dot-matrix printers (remember dot-matrix printers?) sold for almost a thousand dollars and connecting several computers with the help of LANtastic or NOVELL took hours and hours, if not days, and meant several thousands of dollars in profit!

 

 

More years kept rolling by, and there was still very little competition as my combined expertise in accounting software, computer hardware, and networking plus a degree in accountancy wasn't matched by anybody. It took several more years before accounting firms realised there was a buck to be made by setting up their own PC consultancies.

 

I looked very different then, and so did the computers!

 

Of course, all good things must come to an end: hardware and software prices kept dropping. Who was going to stump up hundreds of dollars for installation and training after having bought a small-business accounting package such as 'Mind Your Own Business' for less than a hundred dollars?

 

 

The clear-cut beginning of the end came with WINDOWS! Computers were no longer a mystery with low-level formatting, interleaves, BIOS, interrupts, system and config.sys and autoexec.bat files. Accounting software became more "user-friendly" with pre-configured charts of accounts and financial reports. It was just a case of "switch on and go".

Suddenly everybody was a computer expert and Canberra Computer Accounting Systems was no more! I went round one more time when I rescued a university college from certain bankruptcy - click here - after which I decided to go into retirement. Life had finally come full circle!

 

 

What had once been at the forefront of my life was now on the back of my workshop door at "Riverbend" in Nelligen: Canberra Computer Accounting Systems' car door signage with which I had driven my nile-blue Toyota Camry through Canberra's streets for more than ten years.

"All my life's a circle, sunrise and sundown; the moon rolls through the night-time till the daybreak comes around; All my life's a circle I can't tell you why; Seasons spinning round again, the years keep rolling by."

Googlemap Riverbend

 

When the shit hits the front gate

 

Well, the bottom gate, to be more precise! It's the coming of the sewerage system, to be followed some time later by the mains water. They call it progress! I call it a nuisance because the septic tank never failed us in over thirty years, and who wants to drink the town water laced with chemicals anyway?

 

 

As for that puny sewerage pipe which is just 40mm in diameter, we may want to go easy on the Indian curry! Short of bringing back the 100mm PVC pipe, the neighbourhood will have to take turns going to the loo.

 

 

And they call it progress!

Googlemap Riverbend

 

Required viewing on ANZAC Day

 

Instead of all that marching and parading and myth-making that goes with ANZAC Day, we could do a whole lot better by watching and quietly reflecting on the message in this, the most anti-war movie of all anti-war movies, "All Quiet on the Western Front".

 

Read the book online at www.archive.org
For a more authentic experience, read the book in its German original here
or listen to the German audiobook:

 

Not that I have much faith in us ever being able to defend Australia against a determined aggressor, certainly not since our defence forces are marching in Gay Pride parades and little boys, still too young to drive a car or vote in an election, are told they can be little girls.

Let's hope we can depend on Geoffrey Blailey's "Tyranny of Distance" to leave Australia unconquerable - although, becoming 100% reliant on imported petroleum by 2030, all they'd have to do is blockade the sea lanes and we'd all be watching television by candle light (not that this would matter all that much any more as by that stage our all-important world-wide internet access would already have been cut anyway).

As for the ANZAC spirit, I never thought I'd see signs on empty shelves in supermarkets saying 'Aggressive and abusive behaviour will not be tolerated; our team is here to help, not to be hurt', as panic-buying shoppers stripped shelves bare and fought over rolls of toilet paper.

Lest we forget!

Googlemap Riverbend

 

Da muss sich ja einiges in der (k)alten Heimat verändert haben

 

Ich wohnte ja damals in the fünfziger Jahren auf dem Cyriaksring # 47 gegenüber vom Arbeitsamt - Entschuldigung; gegenüber vom 'German Employment Center' - war aber nie drin gewesen und hatte keine Ahnung daß die alle englisch quatschen - oder hat sich das nur so in den letzten Jahren verändert?

Ist denen die deutsche Sprache nicht mehr gut genug? Ich bin seit sechzig Jahren weg, spreche aber besseres Deutsch als dieser Angeber.

Lieb’ Vaterland, magst ruhig sein, jetzt quatschen sie alle fast englisch.

Googlemap Riverbend

 

It's the only handrail visible from outer space

 

The new Nelligen Bridge has long been completed, and a very elegant bridge it is too, as it sweeps across the Clyde River, but they're still working on the pedestrian walkway leading up to it from the Batemans Bay side. And what a walkway it is: a wide concrete strip topped off with a huge handrail you couldn't jump over - come to think of it, that's probably the whole idea behind it.

 

 

It's a huge handrail which they are building at a huge expense, and it's all for the very occasional pedestrian fit enough to cross the 375-metre-long bridge on foot. So far it's only been us as we watch each morning with great interest all that concreting and earthworking going on.

Nelligen is now the only town with a handrail visible from outer space.

Googlemap Riverbend