I remember some years ago seeing a snatch of John Denver in concert. At the end of a song he opened his arms and said to the adoring audience, ‘He sings, he plays, he dances.’ He performed a few steps. ‘But can he juggle?’ Someone offstage threw him three balls and he proceeded to juggle them expertly. I thought at the time, and still think, how unfair it is for some individuals to have multiple talents. I tried, God knows I tried. A school friend tried to teach me to play chess and much later my eldest daughter had another go. I was hopeless. Couldn’t remember the different moves permissible for the pieces and couldn’t plan strategically. In the holidays between my first and second year at university, when I was working at some hateful unskilled job, I decided that I should learn to type. I saw a reconditioned Olympia Splendide portable typewriter for sale cheaply in a shop and bought it. Then I bought a manual on touch-typing. I loved the machine but impatience to use it got the better of me. I stopped doing the exercises, which I had found very difficult, and contented myself with a method of typing I’ve used to write millions of words ever since – two index fingers for the keys and the right thumb for the spacebar. It has served me well, because I’ve been able to write at the speed I can think but, particularly when I needed to transcribe something, I’ve often wished I’d stuck with the book. At a time when I was fishing around for a subject to pursue for my MA degree, I had an interest in Latin American history. I read a few books and bought, from the then popular self-help series, Teach Yourself Spanish. I acquired a vocabulary but as English grammar is more or less a mystery to me, I made no headway with Spanish and eventually chose a different subject that suited the monolinguist I’ve remained. During my postgraduate time at the ANU I had a girlfriend who was an accomplished bridge player, as were several of my friends. She attempted to teach me the game – a passion of one of my favourite writers, Somerset Maugham – but without success.  The strategic thinking and the mathematics involved defeated me. She was patient with me and, as a schoolteacher, could instruct. I later heard that she went on to play bridge for Australia. The fault was never hers. Like many devotees of folk, blues and rock music, I yearned to play the guitar. My fumblings were pathetic and one year Jean bought me some lessons with a guitar teacher as a birthday present. For a few weeks I drove from Glebe to Paddington for one-on-one sessions. It eventually became clear that my almost total inability to assign different tasks to my two hands (a brain thing?) meant that I was a hopeless case and I gave up. I have never tried to juggle. Happily, I discovered that I had a knack for writing light fiction and that only required powers of imagination, imitation and persistence, all of which I had. Lucky!  

Tags: ANU, John | Denver, Somerset | Maugham