“You’re a great man; a genius.” Not true. Great men don’t chainsmoke, fart, pick their nose, aren’t rude to other great men, masturbate fairly often, sleep in their shirts, and swallow antacid tablets. Great men are upright, pin-striped, have ties and cuffs, several pairs of pants, pyjamas, cigars (or no vices), and are as boring as hell. They usually arrange to be found in baskets, having no human origin. I am not like that.

“Here is Bill Mollison, the guru of the Permaculture Movement!” Total bullshit! Gurus have lots of nubile girls climbing continually over them, 300 Rolls Royces, a few Toyotas, at least 4 houses in 3 tax havens, silly fat smiles on their fat faces, and a crowd of sycophants, some well entrenched, as a home guard. They travel in chartered planes, with clean windows, and tell a lot of silly people exactly what to do. “Wear rubber gloves, galoshes and condoms, if you even think about sex!” “Never eat meat, entrails, other people, or emus”. (They eat meat, but the very act purifies it.) Nobody takes any notice of me, and even my friends continually criticise me.

Nothing I touch is purified, more likely gets greasier, and I don’t own a car, a house, a tax haven, or a flock of bimbos. Gurus never get down in the dust and suffer the bedlice, and if they did, they would charter a plane to the nearest health resort. My students (ha!) are a mutinous rabble. God alone knows what they are doing tonight; it doesn’t bear thinking about. They all wish me dead, and frequently report my demise (ha!). Guru! Yuk! The very word wishes madness on me. Mad and dead.

Hear the instructions to a person who will pick me up at the airport: “He’s an old, fat guy with a beard, no shoes, flip-flops. When he gets off the plane, he’ll head for the bar, dropping money on the way. Just wait by the bar.” And that, says Jamie Jobb is just what I did. The ‘money’ was a $1000 cheque; in those days, I just stuffed any sort of money in my pockets, and let any surplus fall out. Today, my more efficient co-workers insist that I carry a credit card, and I always lose the pin (P.I.N.) number, so have to secretly stuff my pockets with money…and I usually scowl.