everything under the sun is in tune...

...but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

A roundabout way of introducing the notion of jinxes. I have a theory at work that some projects just get jinxed for no apparent reason. No matter what you do, silly little things will keep going wrong that cumulatively will turn the best idea to complete and utter shite.

Which is an even more roundabout way of introducing the story of the old man's Orbital shares. He bought them when Orbital Engine Co floated, about 1967 I think. Still close to the motor business in those days and so, with his engineering and physics bent, was interested in any idea that could make the internal combustion engine, with its highly inefficient bits of metal going in all directions, more efficient.

Of course Orbital did nothing over all those years but he hung on to the shares in desperate hope that one day....

Anyway, when we asked the solicitor to sort out his affairs for probate, the Orbital shares couldn't be traced. Computershare, who run Orbital's share registry, claimed no holding in his name. I thought it was odd but didn't have time then to chase it up.

When we came to close his bank account, the bank's records showed a safe deposit box still in his name in Canberra. Maybe the original share certificates were still there? After much to-ing and fro-ing and about thirty reams of paper, they claimed to have checked the box and it was empty. Hmmmm...

However, the shares still showed up on the assets list in his Vet Affairs pension so earlier this year, I approached Vet Affairs to see if they had a copy of the certificates or similar evidence which, presumably, he would have had to show when first claiming the pension. More to-ing and fro-ing, another forest of paper, but...nope. Nothing.

So eventually, I went to Computershare myself. Two days and two e-mails later, they confirmed the holding. (Memo to self: change solicitors). So I sent off the requisite documentation to get the ownership transferred.

At this stage I should point out, most likely superfluously, that this wasn't about money. Orbital had never paid a dividend and the value of the 1776 shares was $17.76. This was about keeping faith that one day Orbital, now without its founder Ralph Sarich, would vindicate the initial promise of a better mousetrap (which is pretty much what the prototype looked like).

Anyway, yesterday a letter arrives from Computershare. Beauty, we thought. Open it up: the shares were sold on 7 June. Now, Computershare had only confirmed the holding on 5 June, so how could this be?

So today we pick up the electric telephone and navigate the menu of options of who we want to talk to and what we want to discuss and eventually get a live person. So, how did this come about? Well, it seems that Orbital itself had a buy-back of 'unmarketable packages', such as dad's 1776. They had written to all holders. And of course, of all his half a dozen share holdings (the last of the red hot socialists, yeah, well the last of the pragmatic red hot socialists perhaps, given that most of his holdings were privatisations!!), the only one for which he hadn't notified a change of address was Orbital. The opportunity to maintain holdings had expired on 30 May.

If the solicitors had actually found the holding...

If I hadn't left it until 6 months had passed to start looking hard for the holding myself...

If he had actually notified the change of address as he had punctiliously attended to all his other personal administration...

Missed it by **that** much...

...pause...

Meanwhile, in today's Crikey, all politicians are beneath contempt and all writers are hopelessly biassed:

exhibit one: "In the parliamentary chamber this morning, Crikey understands Lennon spoke about the importance of the pulp mill to Tasmania, saying that without it the Tasmanian economy would be set back by three decades. He then recommended the Gunns pulp mill as a necessity for Tasmania."

Lack of a pulp mill, correction, lack of another pulp mill, will set the economy back by three decades? In terms of what, precisely? Certainly not transformation to a more sustainable and value-added economy, then.

exhibit two: Guy Rundle on our favourite Revered Leader: "Howard is a cynical professional politician and the polls would seem to indicate that most people now share this belief. Part of Howard’s problem is that public dislike of him is now categorical – if he donated blood folks’d say he did it to get the free biscuit."

Everything under the sun is in tune...