BUT, IS IT LEGAL
John Ross ©
I am, and always have
been, an ideas man. My older brother Bertie, well just let us say he is
‘practical’. By that I mean he always poured cold water on my ideas and
ambitions.
At school I loved
science. I was never happy with the pathetic little experiments that the
science master demonstrated during class. I always wanted bigger and better. My
very first experiment was with the black powder that I had hoarded from the big
‘bungers’ that dad had bought for cracker night. My big brother prophesied
danger and doom and perhaps he was right to a certain extent. No one was maimed
or even hurt, but it did shatter the side window in our garage, shred mums
whites on the clothes line and earn me double helpings of spinach for a week.
Probably my next most
memorable experiment was to try to make my push bike rocket powered. I got the
idea from a book that described how to build a real rocket. Bertie said I would
probably end up in jail, either because I had nicked the book from the local
library, or because I would end up killing someone. Well this time everything
went smoothly, except, I started too close to the front fence of the old codger
who lived next door. It was a brush fence and the exhaust from my rocket set
fire to it. It didn’t take long for the fire brigade to put it out. Two weeks
of spinach.
There were many more
memorable and some best forgotten escapades as we were growing up in suburban
Sydney. I will mention just a few. An attempt to dig an underground bunker in
the back yard. A mortar constructed of a piece of gas pipe, a penny bunger and
a large steel bolt. Stink bombs made from rolled up negatives from my mum’s old
box brownie camera. I think you get the drift.
Ever practical Bertie
went on to become an accountant and me, well I never could abide working for
someone else and became an inventor of sorts. You may have heard of some of my
successes. The push bike safety belt. The all in one raincoat and umbrella. Shoes
with retractable roller skates, (saves energy going downhill). Double ended
cutlery (fork on one end and spoon on the other, sadly this was superseded by
the spork), and my most famous one, the edible school lunch box. Unfortunately
none of these life changing inventions brought me much in the way of wealth or
recognition.
I was rather at a loose
end just after my thirtieth birthday when my brother offered me a part time job
doing data entry in his accounting firm. On day one he gave me a list of
instructions. They included. Do not change the settings on the computer. Do not
interfere with the coffee machine, the electric kettle, the document shredder
or the photocopier or for that matter anything electrical, mechanical or
organic. He forgot to mention the phone system so I changed the ring tone to
play God Save the Queen. Unfortunately the first time it rang he had a
delegation from an important client in his office. The Australian Republican
movement.
After six months of
penance in the mail room, stuffing outgoing accounts into envelopes I had a
brilliant idea. Instead of Bertie’s accounting firm just processing his clients
accounts and income tax returns why not advise them of ways to minimise their
costs, especially their tax liabilities. I spent the next two months working on
the tax minimisation schemes before presenting it to Bertie. He, as usual, was
very sceptical. Over and over he interrupted my spiel by asking, ‘But, is it
legal?’ I really had no idea and was not bothered with the unimportant details.
One year later I was
back living and inventing in my parents’ garage and poor Bertie still had four
years and six months to serve.
