nude

Well.

Movan' did not turn out to be be quite the joi i had been expecting. That Beatnik thang about the journey being more than the arrival: that's bollocks. And, to introduce a historical perspective, let me say that when i write my 'History of the Real Estate industry' it will be a one-word affair. And that word? A noun; plural.

Here's a thing: Though it grieves me, as a very competent historian, to do this, i must. I read this mos' excellent book one time and now i forget the source. So i can't tell y'all... I can't cite, and that's upsetting. And unprofessional. But it's such a great story.

So here's what happened: This guy, from the Ravensthorpe district on the south coast of Western Australia, goes off to fight in the First World War. He goes through a bunch of shit, but survives, and comes back a changed man (no surprises there). In the early 1920s he self-publishes a book about his experiences, in which he, firstly, shreds the British officer he had served under (the aphorism that WWI Tommies were bulldogs under the command of rabbits comes to mind). Thus far, standard fare, very popular in Aust. But then he lays into the Aust Army - critical of their lack of organisation and rationale on the Western Front. The Aust Army tries to ban the book but people are having too much fun.

So this guy has, in time-honoured style, upset the authorities, including his assault on the Aust Army at a time when pride in our fighting guys was at its peak (didja know we started celebrating Gallipoli in 1916 - just twelves months after the landing took place). And i like that. But it gets better. In a fit of pique the guy returns to the Ravensthorpe district, takes up a returned soldier's land grant some miles out of town and stop there the rest of his life, doing the minimum amount of farming to keep himself alive. And he strips off. He spends the rest of his life out there on his block, naked. The locals joke about how you have to sound your car horn when you go visit, so he can put a shirt on (1920s car horn - toot, toot!!). It's a great story, and when i relocate the book i'll tell more.

I completely endorse the notion that we are pygmies, standing on the shoulders of giants. It just gets a little ick when one realises some of those giants were starkers.