The Physics Tramp

 

 

The "Itinerant Geophysicist" has kept an interesting and entertaining blog here which is worth reading.

 

 

Guavas and Bananas

GUAVAS AND BANANAS. Living Gay in Papua New Guinea from vladsokhin on Vimeo.

 

The sleepy coastal village of Hanuabada sits on the north western outskirts of Papua New Guinea's capital, Port Moresby, and is probably best known for producing half of PNG's national cricket team. What it is less known for is being a safe haven for Port Moresby's gay and transgender community. About 30 gay men, or 'Gelegele' in the local tongue, permanently live in the village, while others drift in and out.

When I first arrived on Bougainville as a young man in 1970, I hardly knew what a homosexual was and certainly had never seen one until several chaps in Camp 6 were pointed out to me. There was that queer couple, Owen and 'her husband' who worked in Bechtel's office. Before coming to Bougainville, they had operated a hotel on Espiritu Santo in what's now Vanuatu. They built themselves a 'sak-sak' at Camp 5 where they were going to live happily ever after until Owen's 'husband' died and Owen's little world was totally destroyed.

And then there was that tall half-Indian Matt who was a typist in Bechtel's Loloho office. He'd walk, hand in hand with a native 'boi' on either side, through the camp, with a strong smell of cheap perfume always wafting behind him. I saw him again, years later, when I set up the audit department within Air Niugini, in their accounts department in Port Moresby.

Undoubtedly, there were many more but, in line with the social mores of the day, they probably kept to themselves. I am sure they all would have been delighted with this recent 'coming-of-age' in Papua New Guinea.

 

 

An apropos-of-nothing message from the Blogmaster:

 

Remember the Poseidon boom in Australia in the late 1960s when some nickel stocks experienced spectacular increases in price? The best-known, Poseidon, rose from $1.85 on 26 September 1969 to its high of $280 on 10 January 1970. Some years later it went off the board. Its shares were worthless.

The address says it all: PO Box 187, Rabaul, New Guinea

In 1969 I'd just come back from South West Africa, rejoined the ANZ Bank in Canberra and then gone to Papua New Guinea to escape the hand-to-mouth existence of a banking career. I was totally ignorant of the Poseidon boom but my new colleagues in the chartered accounting firm of Hancock, Woodward & Neill in Rabaul talked of nothing else - when they weren't drinking which was most of the time!

PO Box 12, Kieta, Bougainville, New Guinea
(Bechtel's postal address)

First out of sympathy and then as a convert, I spent what little money I earned on VAM and Kambalda shares which, after I had bought them at several dollars each, went down to just a few cents and then to nothing.

Are those early years called the formative years because during that time one forms one's financial base? Well, my shiny VAM and Kambalda share certificates weren't even pliable and absorbent enough for the most obvious use, which is perhaps why I still have a few of them today. As the saying goes: I started out with nothing and I still got most of it left.

Ivan Iroro emailed from Papua New Guinea:

Hi,

I am a Bougainvillian and was a small boy at that time of construction days, I grew up and went to international school at Panguna in 1973 my father was a employment supervisor By the name of James Iroro. I am surprised to see that people like you are still recalling the good old days at Bougainville.

I am sending photos of Old Kieta Harbour and what Kieta harbour looks like now and also Loloho beach in the eighties. It’s a bit blurry but it will recall back some of the old memories back.

I would like to share stories from people whom have worked here on Bougainville Island, here is my Gmail address; iroroivan[AT]gmail.com and also my company email address: ivan.iroro[AT]anitua.com.pg

Thank you very much and hear from you soon.

Kieta now

Kieta then

Loloho Beach then

 

Black Tie Ball Friday 15th May 2015

 

The reunion this year falls on Sunday 17th May. On this special occasion of the 25th year of our departure from Bougainville`s shores we are combining the picnic with a formal ball, see flyer above. The venue is the Queensland Irish Association`s function rooms at 175 Elizabeth St. Brisbane.

Attendance for the picnic is not limited but for the Ball the maximum seating is 250. Half of the tickets have some claim upon them so they should be sold out by early next month. Payment for tickets will be accepted from the 1st March.

In a Savage Land - a movie set in the Trobriands

 

Some interesting video clips

 

Taim Bilong Masta

 

Back in 1983 (or was it 1984?), when I flew into Adelaide from Saudi Arabia to finalise a grain shipment to the Middle East, I took time off to visit the local ABC Bookshop and discovered a couple of dozen cassette tapes of the ABC radio series Taim Bilong Masta, produced by Tim Bowden and first broadcast in 1981.

It was the distillation of 350 hours of tape-recorded interviews with Australians and Papua New Guineans who had been involved with Australia's colonial administration which ended with self government and independence in 1975. The result was a superb 24-program social history, so evocative of a time and place, revealed through a tapestry of voices from those who lived through it. These were first-hand accounts of the pre-war history in the early 1900s, the masta-boi relationships, the gold rush and the exploration of the highlands. In it, Australian men and women who spent so many years living and working in Papua New Guinea before independence in 1975 could be heard again, telling their own stories.

Of course, I bought the whole set and for years after I listened again and again to those tapes until they had worn out.

In more recent years I also found the book based on the radio series and containing 224 pages of informative text with many archival photographs, newspaper clippings and a detailed index but nothing could ever replace those wonderful audio cassettes - until just now when I found them as a downloadable 17-hour audiobook on Amazon's www.audible.com.

Of course, I immediately bought it!

Peter Goerman, Webmaster

 

 

Stanley Semery emailed from Port Moresby:

 

"Hello,

I was surfing through the net for some particular information and came across your site.

I am just curious to know what has happened to the public share ex-BCL workers from PNG have bought.

My father worked in BCL for almost 20 years and we left during the crisis in 1989. Up until now he has never pursue the agenda on his shares and I would like to help him as much out here.

If you could kindly provide some advice/info and direction on this matter will be greatly appreciated."

Unfortunately, I couldn't help Stanley Semery as I know nothing about BCL's share issue to PNG Nationals. What I do know is that BCL shares are still occasionally traded on the Sydney Stock Exchange (latest quote AUS$0.235); however, they don't seem to be listed on the Port Moresby Stock Exchange. If anybody can help Stanley with more information, please email me at riverbend{AT]batemansbay.com.

Stanley is the OHSE Manager of the PNG Ports Corporation (the former PNG Harbours Board) which made me reflect on how far the country has come and how long ago it was when we built Bougainville Copper as back in those days there was barely a mention of occupational health and safety. I mean, those thousands of Highlanders all proudly wore their safety helmets but hardly any of them had boots, let alone safety boots.

 

 

Happy New Year!

(don’t mind the German introduction — the video is in English)

 

T
here are myriad New Year’s Eve customs worldwide. In Japan, toshikoshi soba noodles are eaten to bring in the coming year. In Anglo-Saxon countries, finding someone to share a New Year’s Eve kiss with as the clock winds down has become a boon to the romantically-challenged. In Germany, however, a different tradition has taken form: every year on December 31st, TV networks broadcast an 18-minute-long black and white two-hander comedy skit.

In 1963, Germany’s Norddeutscher Rundfunk television station recorded a sketch entitled Dinner For One, performed by the British comics Freddie Frinton and May Warden. The duo depicted an aging butler serving his aristocratic mistress, Miss Sophie, dinner on the occasion of her 90th birthday. Although four additional spots have been set at the table, the nonagenarian’s friends have long since passed away, and the butler is forced to take their places in drinking copious amounts of alcohol while toasting Miss Sophie’s health. Hilarity, as it is wont to do in such cases, ensues.

Since its initial recording, the clip has become a New Year’s Eve staple in Germany. Although Dinner For One has never been broadcast in the U. S. or Canada, the clip has spread throughout Europe to Norway, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Austria, Switzerland, and beyond the continent’s shores, to South Africa and Australia. In Sweden, a bowdlerized 11-minute version of the clip has been produced, where, for decency’s sake, much of the butler’s boozing was excised alongside its attendant comedic effect. In Denmark, after the national television network failed to broadcast the sketch in 1985, an avalanche of viewer complaints has guaranteed its subsequent yearly appearance. Although the category is now defunct, the clip held the Guinness World Record for Most Frequently Repeated TV Program.

Above, you can view the original 18-minute comedic opus and celebrate New Year’s day in the same way that much of Europe will ring in 2015.

I wish you all a happy new year! Rest assured, it'll be the same procedure as last year.