tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43976400318864527992024-02-21T02:24:51.278+10:30Will's WarbleA personal diary plus notes about life on South Australia's Yorke Peninsula: music and books and moreUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger285125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397640031886452799.post-79221457069690930772012-03-20T20:22:00.001+10:302012-03-20T20:22:33.830+10:30Tuesday already<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A tough week... and it's only Tuesday. A friend's illness is a thing to keep one's own trivial things in perspective, since the friend goes to surgery on Friday for removal of a cancerous mass. There is a difficult prognosis. All this was unknown a fortnight ago.<br />
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We went to Port Vincent today and sang at the Senior Citizens' Club, a venue new to us. Was this set up as a a head-to-head contest? ... our singers had competition from the Stansbury Bush Band ... an all-girl eightsome of instumentalists. Can we learn to play bottle-top percussion sticks by next month? Can the leopard change his shorts? (as TP would say).<br />
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To cap it all, my Canadian client Rob is waiting for edit which I am sure I did at the weekend and which has got lost in cybervoid. But on the plus side I have invented (or perhaps re-discovered) a quince omelette, and also produced a port-wine jelly with banana. The week is not over.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397640031886452799.post-50764492195366194662012-03-13T17:28:00.002+10:302012-03-13T17:28:29.697+10:30Perhaps Denver<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Good report-backs on our last week's concert in far-off Minlaton (O.K., 29 km). And today, back at rehearsals for April May June July and August, talk turned to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=mV5cyNPiUdg#t=83s">John Denver's classic composition Perhaps Love</a>. In 1982 he performed it solo at the end of an eight minute interview on Pebble Mill at One. Either the interview or the song is worth 8 minutes of your time. With BOTH you're well ahead. Enjoy. Vale and thanks, JD.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397640031886452799.post-81585237073735465292012-03-05T16:21:00.001+10:302012-03-05T16:21:41.954+10:30life's a beach again<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>Funny old weather - but we are into autumn, so anything goes. However, perfect walking temperature on Flaherty's Beach on Sunday arvo. Tide in, so for once there were no acres of sand flats, and amazingly no dogs either giant or small, galloping from half a kilometer away and posing the question: is it going to lick us to death or merely swallow in a single gulp.</b><br />
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<b>The beach seems to bring out the beast in, well... beasts. The one thing dogs have in common, by this time of headlong galloping to meet one on the shore, is that they are well and truly, and with great delight, beyond an owner's control. But as I say, yesterday's dogs were surprisingly non-existent.</b><br />
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<b>I have enjoyed a borrowed read of Heather Eldridge's excellent book, Mosaic, a local, recent and photographically illustrated history of the Minlaton district here on the Yorke Peninsula. It is based firmly on recorded interviews with several dozen individuals who reminisced to the author about their families and themselves, often with anecdotes from seniors, along the lines "my grandmother told me". The result is a rich mix of authentic memory, first hand and second hand, covering much of the century up to the book's publication in 2011. Obviously a real labour of love.</b><br />
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<b>My other reading this past week was <a href="http://www.terrypratchett.co.uk/">Sir Terry Pratchett's</a> fourth novel in the Tiffany Aching series - I think I mentioned this before - complete with its cast of the kilted Nac Mac Feegle clan. The title is: <i>I Shall Wear Midnight</i>. Supposedly aiming at young-adult readers, Pratchett glares at the human race by dealing implicitly with important questions, wondering why it is our societies come to a point in their various histories when we burn people alive. Think witch-hunting. Ah, but the books are set on a fantasy world, So that's all right; can't apply to us. Pratchett's books have sold 75 million. You knew? The man was knighted three years ago, for services to literature, and is dealing somewhat remarkably with his encroaching Alzheimer's Disease. One distinguished reviewer said of this book (there's an even newer one, <i>Snuff</i>, sitting on my shelf waiting its turn) that it shows a writer at the height of his powers, and I can only agree. Deeply serious and deeply humorous. Satire is an inadequate word.</b></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397640031886452799.post-68378231297131292172012-02-29T20:27:00.003+10:302012-02-29T20:31:12.956+10:30happy coincidences<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>Came across this great one in an old issue of the hard-copy newsletter I used to send out in the letterbox mail (do you remember those days?).</b><br />
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<b>"<i>A happy coincidence is a little miracle where God prefers to remain anonymous.</i>"</b><br />
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<b>I am actually culling a lot of old papers, photographs and ... stuff. It's harder than it sounds. </b><br />
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<b>But speaking of letterboxes, I am still reeling in admiration from the act of courtesy of two weeks ago, when Wayne the Postie with a parcel to deliver ignored my letterbox at the front driveway, came up to the "main door" which is NOT at the front of the house but at the side patio, still couldn't find me; so he came round into the back garden and hailed me as I guided a wheelbarrow between the plum tree and a vegie patch. Now I call THAT service. Well done, Australia Post!</b><br />
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<b>And today I was without electrical power in the morning - waiting for normal service to resume, as I thought - until it occurred to me to try the re-set the automatic trip switch. This told me that the problem had something to do with house-system. But by now I had had telephone conversations with an ETSA outage advisor and electrical contractor Richie in another town, and was about to call again with a simple message, "Help!" Lo and behold, Richie showed up unbidden (and I hadn't even given him my address ... go figure) and in a short space he diagnosed - and fixed - ANTS in the outside power outlet, exacerbated by heavy overnight rain getting under the dodgy cover. Impressive performance by all concerned, ants included of course.</b></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397640031886452799.post-53849916509513636852012-02-26T22:35:00.000+10:302012-03-05T16:26:15.329+10:30Dogs and politicians. Who's an honest boy, then?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>Today's <i>Sunday Mai</i>l in Adelaide - a separate weekly from <i>The Sun on Sunday</i> in the UK, please note - carries a cheerful page urging us to adopt a dog*, giving profiles of a few available pooches (and no, I am not actually looking to adopt, for practical reasons. I admit being tempted). What caught my eye was the large animal accompanied by a hopeful spin-line in the text, "Would benefit from obedience training". What a winner! The copy-writer might be hired by the spin-merchants of the contenders in Monday's ALP Caucus ballot for the leadership.</b><br />
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<b>THAT will make it an interesting morning in the nation's political history. Who will they choose? Also in the <i>Mail, </i>of eight members of the public interviewed, one said Neither! But two went for Ms Gillard, and five for Mr Rudd. OK, it was hardly a large enough sampling. My view is that the pro-Kevin camp reckon he's snaky enough in the dirty tricks department to take on Mr Abbot at the next General Election. I have much to take issue with Ms G. as the current PM, but I'm having a small bet with myself that she'll hang on. As for Kevin, does anyone seriously doubt that his grab for his old job back is driven - just a tad - by personal malice? Oops, I didn't say that.</b><br />
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<b>Did anyone watch ABC2 tonight and the 2003 movie (I last saw it soon afterwards, on the big screen) <i>Touching the Void</i>, a true tale of survival by two English climbers in the Peruvian Andes in 1985? Great re-enactment semi-documentary style. Even more amazing story... experienced climbers, but spot the several major mistakes they made.</b><br />
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<b>* Hey. Scroll all the way down to see today's Daily Puppy. Did you even know it was there? </b></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397640031886452799.post-2341622170597123552012-02-16T10:57:00.000+10:302012-02-16T10:58:14.772+10:30George Melies and clockwork<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>Another trip to the big smoke. Adelaide's Rundle Street East cinemas, the Nova and Palace (same owners) have been through a useful refurbishing. The complex incorporates the former Imax big screen now neatly renamed the Eximax. Faced with a choice of The Iron Lady or Hugo, the more suitable timetable-wise was Hugo, and besides it was in 3D on the big screen. Good choice. Ben Kingsley plays the French film pioneer Georges Melies, melancholy and neurotic 30+ years after his creative glory days begun in the 1890s. A brilliant and quirky firm, directed by Martin Scorsese and produced by none other than ... Johnny Depp. The Iron Lady, and Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher, will just have to wait.</b></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397640031886452799.post-42321190254536844582012-02-10T22:05:00.002+10:302012-02-10T22:12:47.336+10:30Scilly Isles and Singapore<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><b>Yes, I know, yet again I have neglected blog posts for well over a week.</b><br />
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<b>Tree lopping; surviving a choir practice minus our pianist (but with competent reserve pianists); re-editing a doctoral thesis for an overseas client with some issues (I'm allowed to help with his English but not the subject matter); and making tiny inroads into my self-proclaimed 'de-clutter' at home. Now, for me a de-clutter mainly means finding a tidy home for everything, and being willing to fill a few bags of stuff to discard. I find that others (the hairdresser, anyway) take the word to imply a wholesale scrapping of half one's furniture and other belongings. Not quite, my dear. But OK, I give myself until next Christmas.</b><br />
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<b>By chance I came upon, among 15-year old papers - as happens in de-clutters - the notes I made for a totally fictitious Dungeons & Dragons campaign involving Vikings setting forth on a voyage from the Norwegian coast in the year 796AD. A novelette rather than notes. My viking crew after exploring the Scilly Isles off the Cornish coast recruited, as one does, a small orchestra of Hungarian gypsy musicians who had found their way to what is present day Latvia. I said it was fictitious, but who knows? This - the D & D Campaign, not the 8th century voyage - dates from my role-playing gaming phase which off and on lasted from 1987 in China until the mid-'90s. You may think that the Chinese were not big on role-play games in the late1980s. Neither they were. My exposure began with the bunch of friendly American post-grad students who were my neighbours in the (so-called) Foreign Experts Building of the Shaanxi Teachers University in Xi'an. We role-played every so often for social evenings and to escape into fantasy worlds which, on the whole, were more soothing and less crazy than the real-world Chinese bureaucracy of daily life. Hard to believe it was a quarter century ago.</b><br />
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<b>Now, strangely, tonight on the excellent series Coast being shown on SBS, where should the presenter be off to but the Scilly Isles, like my above vikings except that the modern traveller goes in the good ship Scillonian on the two and a half hour daily ferry trip from mainland Cornwall. The Atlantic waters are reliably sloppy on the trip, and the ship's nickname suggests the extent of the seasickness experienced by most on board. I would tell you the nickname but my latest senior moment has kicked in, and I forget.</b><br />
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<b>I fully intended to do some more de-cluttering but instead I stayed glued to the box and watched the doco on the WWII Fall of Singapore, with the excuse that I was there, even if it was as an anklebiter. Moving and deeply sad. Interesting as a newer look at events with accounts by now-elderly ex-combatants (and civilians), Japanese, British, Indian, Malayan Chinese, Australian, Dutch. Politically, too, the rift between Curtin and Churchill, and the foreshadowing of Australia's post-war re-alignment with the U.S., not post-empire Britain.</b><br />
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<b>Several readers of this blog commented happily on the recent link to Acker Bilk and his inimitable clarinet. You may find it de-linked now, but of course all you need do is go direct to YouTube.com, then type in Acker Bilk on the search-line, or even the title of a particular song. All-time best was <i>Stranger on the Shore</i>, which, as you probably know, was the musician's own composition. By its commercial success, he called it his "old age pension".</b></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397640031886452799.post-5188768108910684432012-02-01T19:02:00.000+10:302012-02-01T19:02:18.458+10:30Loch Lomondski<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">So, February already. First Minlaton concert for the year by our singing group, at the Melaleuca Court Nursing Home. Surprise addition was Don in his kilt for the spritely version, by us three men, of Loch Lomond ("By yon bonny banks..."). Since I am the Scot and Don is of Polish heritage (in his kilt) the audience were even more confused than usual, and that's saying something.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397640031886452799.post-50584342942472285282012-01-27T10:58:00.001+10:302012-01-27T11:00:10.323+10:30Oz Day ... wot a show<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><b>Oh dear, yesterday's Australia Day, 26 January 2012, celebrating the nation ... but not without hitches. OK, so the 4th Test in Adelaide keeps rolling along. That's cricket, guys.</b><br />
<b>The Australian Tennis Open in Melbourne, Men's Singles Semi-final, Rafael Nadal beats Roger The Fed Express by a whisker at the last gasp, and will meet on Sunday either the current Number One, Novak Djokovic, or my countryman the normally dour Andy Murray. Meanwhile that Aussie teenage tennis phenomenon Bernard Tomic is in trouble with overzealous police who say a P-plate driver isn't meant to drive an orange BMW. What's the world coming to?</b><br />
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<b>Oh, and the PM and the opposition leader get bailed up by protesters at an Australia Day awards ceremony.</b><br />
<b>The news footage looked unpleasant, and I'm still unclear who was protesting about what. Supposedly linked to Aboriginal Rights. Maybe so. But it's sad, because that cause .. whether about Sorry Days or rightful concern at rates of aboriginal deaths in custody ... would appear much damaged by yesterday's events.</b></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397640031886452799.post-84773121303239542612012-01-20T19:39:00.000+10:302012-01-20T19:39:04.800+10:30Acker Bilk<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><b>Now for some lighter relief. The song is Only You.</b><br />
<object style="height: 390px; width: 640px;"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/G1-PDFEbvsg?version=3&feature=player_detailpage"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/G1-PDFEbvsg?version=3&feature=player_detailpage" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="360"></object></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397640031886452799.post-79984236145181351782012-01-20T17:49:00.004+10:302012-01-20T18:05:50.057+10:30Obituary of Rudi van Danzig<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">http://www.dutchnews.nl/features/img/rudi%20van%20danzig.jpg<br />
(image: Dutch News)<br />
<b>Rudi van Danzig died yesterday, age 78, at his home in Amsterdam after a battle with cancer. For almost a quarter of a century he steered the Dutch National Ballet and had the status of a national icon, and he choreographed over 50 works which placed ballet in the Netherlands among the world's best.</b><br />
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<b>I recently - not without a struggle - read the Dutch original of his novel To a Lost Soldier, considered to be partly autobiographical. To the disgrace of the Australian nanny state it is impossible to obtain the book in English in libraries or bookshops, because - shock and horror - it contains rude bits. Censorship is alive and well in Oz.</b><br />
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<b>Safer territory is the present Australian Open tennis tournament, one of the four annual "grand slams" of the game (others are the U.S., the French, and the U.K.'s Wimbledon). Because this year's Melbourne event includes Azarenka and Sharapova, we are faced with the horror of listening to these players' 90-100 decibel screams while playing every firmly struck ball. Sharapova has reached 109 decibels.</b><br />
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<b> Other players have ceased attempting to complain about "noise interference" because they get no support from umpires; and anyway, two decades ago Monica Seles led the way and got away with it, so the game now has to live with the phenomenon. True, certain sports have no problem with yelling by participants, and there are martial arts where you can yell into the face of an opponent. The New York Times in one article noted that "grunting" is an inadequate term, and the current (definitely inadequate) rules make no distinction between grunting, screaming or any other kind of vocalisation.</b><br />
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<b>There is quite an extensive debate to be found, if one looks, on-line and in tennis magazine. I have seen no strongly in-favour views expressed, except by the notorious grunters themselves, who of course recognize that the behaviour gives them an advantage. Nothing will change until the WTA deems the behaviour to be cheating.</b><br />
<b>On a scale of one to ten in world affairs, I suppose this is a one or a bit less.</b><br />
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PS Sources agree that the loudest tennis screamer is a Portuguese teenager, not yet known in Australia, called Michelle Larcher de Brito. She trains in Florida. On a quiet night, do you think we might just hear her...? Nah.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397640031886452799.post-29022837193554927842012-01-17T20:37:00.002+10:302012-01-18T18:57:50.502+10:30Little Concord off the Coast of Italy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><b>Since Friday 13th January the world has seen, when it could tear its attention away from other disasters around the planet, the tragedy of many deaths (20 and rising) in the capsize/shipwreck of the holiday cruise vessel Costa Concordia. This occurred on Friday evening after the ship (with 4000 passengers) had departed Civitavecchia ("Old Town") the port nearest to Rome, headed north through the broad channel east of the island of Giglio.</b><br />
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<b>No doubt much will emerge from proper study of the ship's salvaged "black box", satellite imagery and interviews with officers, crew and surviving passengers. The dominant impression so far is that of captain and owners - the Costa Line - vying with each other in disclaiming responsibility. The main consistency lies in the accounts of confusion and panic, and lack of organized response; that, and the glaringly obvious fact that the unfortunate ship had no business being where she was ... with dire consequences.</b><br />
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<b>We tend to generalize, and I'm no exception. I would not by choice set foot on an Italian-run ship ever since being a passenger with my family on the Italian Sitmar Line's ship Fairstar from Melbourne to Southampton, in 1971. I could cite three cogent reasons for arriving at such a negative view. I'd describe the faults I observed as systemic and cultural, and now I'm intrigued to be hearing things that remind me of my own experience: a sample -- reporting with radio frequencies what appeared to be a Mayday (<i>m'aidez</i>) distress call picked up on my own shortwave radio. Reaction from senior officers was complete lack of interest.</b><br />
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<b>Between 1940 and 1971, I sailed as passenger - a total of 20 weeks at sea - on six ships, Dutch, British, Finnish and the wretched Italian event above. I exclude several Bass Strait and North Sea ferry trips, but note in passing that the newest biggest North Sea ferry launched a year ago is bigger the the poor old ill-fated Titanic. Size isn't everything. In 1954 on the U.K. ship Orsova we sailed the Concordia's route southward past Giglio Island to Civitavecchia; thence to Naples and later the North African coast. In 1989 from the Italian naval base town of La Spezia - also on this famous coast - I enjoyed a great if short trip visiting "le cinque terre" which the five coastal towns are called. How sad that this glorious part of the world will now be associated with maritime ineptitude and death.</b></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397640031886452799.post-85218189117663216432012-01-14T18:25:00.000+10:302012-01-14T18:25:57.656+10:30Edgar Cayce<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Not my usual pointer to a YouTube item, but you might be interested in a talk-excerpt on the famous psychic Edgar Cayce's take on clinical depresssion... ahead of his time. For those who may not know, the surname Cayce is pronounced just like Casey.<br />
<object style="height: 390px; width: 640px;"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/KG7Zj9o43rE?version=3&feature=player_detailpage"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KG7Zj9o43rE?version=3&feature=player_detailpage" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="360"></object><br />
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<b>Stan was into showbiz early and understudied Charlie Chaplin in Fred Karno's Troupe before, just like Chaplin, trying his luck in America.</b><br />
<b>We forget the two comedians Laurel and Hardy were such pioneers. Hal Roach brought them together on screen. They did 300 movies, making the transition from silent film to talkies, and thus we have the wonderful legacy of thirty years of classic clowning (doing dumb things cleverly) through the '20s, '30s and 40's. Wartime audiences were entertained on several continents. The humour was always clean, the characters consistent, the mayhem guaranteed. Every showbiz person they worked with - that's a big number - maintained that they were wonderful to be with, loyal to each other and brave... many of those slapstick scenes were genuinely dangerous.</b><br />
<b>This early-talkies clip from 1932 is not in the usual disaster formula as the two <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=alGEw1Li5EU#t=5s">make plans for a bigger career</a> as fishing-boat owners. We hear Ollie singing like a true Cajun fishseller... a nod at his first training, as singer!</b><br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397640031886452799.post-29907350878825001152012-01-01T19:47:00.000+10:302012-01-01T19:47:20.215+10:30Happy New Year<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Welcome to 2012 and may your aspirations take a giant leap forward.<br />
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Cheers!<br />
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Will<br />
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<b> On return, Simon was about to leave to join his brother Darren at Marion Bay for the rest of the day. The Cliftons and then Donald (Santa Claus in last night street parade in Warooka) arrived for more food, talk, and brief encounters with Irish Cream for which we now have at least three recipes between us.</b><br />
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<b>Greetings to everyone who has sent email cards, messages, news of expeditions more exciting than mine.</b><br />
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<b>2012 draws near, regardless of its fate as the End of the World (21st December, isn't it?). Great, a whole year in which to catch up on all those yet-to-fulfil tasks, both actual and gunna-do. </b><br />
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<b>I can attest that reindeer are real because in 1962 I visited the (then) annual fair or gathering of traditional Sami (Lap) people in Jokkmokk, Lapland. Didn't trade for reindeer, but later - sorry 'bout this - we owned a reindeer skin called Percy for many years and its most memorable characteristic was its hair-shedding nature. It got donated to the props department of the South Australian Film Corporation.</b><br />
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<b>You think THAT'S bad? Reindeer populations were significantly affected by the April 1986 Chernobyl disaster when radioactive fallout, carried to Scandinavia, damaged lichen-growth on rocks which the animals fed on. The lichen not the rocks.</b><br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397640031886452799.post-41585669832600858102011-12-20T17:56:00.002+10:302011-12-21T08:26:31.669+10:30Getting Along<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><b>Couldn't resist this one for sharing. Is it a message? Sure it is. Double-click the pic and get rid of the ad</b><object style="height: 390px; width: 640px;"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7ikm3o5hDks?version=3&feature=player_detailpage"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7ikm3o5hDks?version=3&feature=player_detailpage" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="360"></object></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397640031886452799.post-79615126581440300322011-12-17T08:12:00.002+10:302011-12-17T08:17:14.706+10:30Adelaide or bussed. Beauty in Eden.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><b>I have never actually travelled by bus to the state capital. My elderly Verada is looking at a serious timing-chain job in the new year now that it has hit the 200,000 kilometres. I wonder if they can do a similar job on humans.</b><br />
<b>Friday was another of my There and Back Again expeditions (7am to 8pm) to keep an appointment for retinal photography... one of those things that lets ophthalmologists refer business to other ophthalmologists and employ chirpy staff. It was a 35 degree early summer day with a breeze and pleasant if you're not standing in the sun. I even had time for some mild shopping with a Myer voucher from before I gave the flick to the Qantas Frequent Flyer program.</b><br />
<b>There was even time to fit in a movie at the Palace Cinema... I was the sole audience for a screening of The Ides of March, a review of which had intrigued me. Good film, horrible subject - chicanery in US politics in the Ohio "primaries", a fictional scenario with rival Democrat candidates in the lead-up to an unspecified Presidential campaign. From the play "North Farragut", the movie is the creation of George Clooney who directed, and also co-produced, co-wrote and co-starred (with Ryan Gosler and Philip Hoffman). Go see it if you need a downer after too much Christmas cheer.</b><br />
<b>I had the great pleasure of catching up with friends who have moved from Gawler to North Adelaide and have set up The Garden of Eden business in classy Jerningham Street. Rosie is a beautician of twelve years' experience and Jon has launched into Energy Work therapy. Both are inspirational to spend time around... a perfect antidote to the Clooney movie</b><br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397640031886452799.post-23252809392423814372011-12-12T23:30:00.001+10:302011-12-12T23:32:37.296+10:30A Weta Day, Danny Kaye, and Lebanese<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><b>You have to read the previous blog or this makes no sense whatever. I blame the Weta bush crickets. Yes, the New Zealand cricketers were triumphant and won the match in Hobart (drawing the two-match series for a fair and honourable result). A nail-biter, advantage see-sawing right up to the last-wicket win, with the Australians needing just 7 runs for the result to have gone their way. But then a two-nil series victory would have paid no respect to the fighting efforts of the visitors. If I sound pro-Kiwi you can put it down to my Scottish blood and the historical fact that any New Zealander who isn't Maori is probably Scots. Sort of. And the fact that I once had a house on the slopes of Mount Taranaki / Mt Egmont ( North Island), or started a round on the Dunedin Golf Course (South Island) with a pair of pars and a pair of birdies. Should've stopped there... it all went downhill after that.</b><br />
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<b>Today in Adelaide I had the slightly weird experience of an MRI scan on my right knee. The knee goes inside a big machine that goes Whirr... for twenty minutes. AND I remain attached to the knee all that time. Wasn't there a scene like this in the Danny Kaye movie<i> The Secret Life of Walter Mitty</i>? Later the orthopaedic doc decided that there doesn't have to be any surgery which, on the whole, is A Good Thing.</b><br />
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<b>Nice catching up with friends on Sunday, with a meal at Lebanese Restaurant Kibbi's in King William Road. I chose the barramundi, even though I had never heard of a Lebanese barramundi before.</b><br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397640031886452799.post-44758558844838354892011-12-10T14:57:00.003+10:302011-12-12T23:04:27.684+10:30Lord of the crickets<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><b>First there was William Golding's Lord of the Flies -- quite spooky in its own way -- then Peter Brook's film version in atmospheric black and white. Can it be true... no screenplay? Yes, with amateur cast Brook worked directly from the pages of the novel.... a tough call, but I heard it from Golding's own lips in the flesh.</b><br />
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<b>And the singers and dancers among you will register the name Lord of the Dance... rather impiously used by Michael Flatley for his own company after he parted from Riverdance. That's Chicago Irish for you.</b><br />
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<b>But we're not talking of any of those. As I blog, New Zealand looks to have a slight upper hand in their second innings in Hobart at cricket (where the heck is THIS going?) and a New Zealand native bush cricket is a wee animal called, on its home turf, a WETA. It gave its name to Richard Taylor's Weta Workshop, in Wellington, which did most of the incredible models and sets and creature-prosthetics and (rea!) armour for those three amazing Lord of the Rings movies, directed by Peter Jackson (and co-produced and co-written) from J.R.R. Tolkien's epic tales.</b><br />
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<b>Are we there yet?</b><br />
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<b> Here's the hook. In good company I've been viewing those films again, along with their informative DVD special features. Wonderful trivia. Who would have thought that the flying Fell Beast's swishing tail is there in the film as a sound effect created by a cheese-grater whirled on a piece of string. If that kind of thing interests you, then you're my kind of film fan.</b><br />
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<b>And though it's now a decade since the movies were released, their re-watchability is a sign of a classic job.</b><br />
<b>Stand-out for me is composer Howard Shore's music. Trivium: for the second film, The Two Towers, only 12% of the music soundtrack from The Fellowship of the Ring was used; the rest was all new. Similar stats for the last, The Return of the King. 'Nother - and last - bit of trivia: Tolkien always objected to the dividing of his monster novel into three parts, each given its own title. Rayner Unwin did that, and good on 'im. JRRT especially didn't like the title The Return of the King... because it "gave away the ending." :)</b><br />
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<b>Now back to the cricket.</b><br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397640031886452799.post-20522528027953840132011-12-03T22:01:00.002+10:302011-12-03T22:04:43.892+10:30Partnerings<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><b>Refreshing to see the ALP National Conference join the 21st Century and move away from its homophobic stance on same-gender lifelong relationships. For those who are upset or uneasy, or merely locked into an unhelpful mindset which they grew up with (possibly encouraged by an affiliation with some church or other - whose history includes the torture-killing of women called witches), let me say this: the term "gay marriage" is something of a misnomer. The deep issue concerns any persons, regardless of gender or orientation, who choose to live as life-partners, and the natural justice that they shall have access to the same rights of bequeathing property (the shared home etc) and recognition in other ways.</b><br />
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<b>There is some amusing irony in the fact that in the 19th Century (to cite only that era) it was regarded as entirely respectable - and even necessary for social propriety - for a woman, when neither married nor still in the parents' home, to share a place with another woman. So also for men. It was "not OK" for men and women to co-habit unwed. And what misery and abuse that frequently led to, in the bonds of matrimony. What have we learned? Sadly, not a lot.</b></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397640031886452799.post-41391683813143470392011-12-02T19:39:00.000+10:302011-12-02T19:39:51.607+10:30The Cat of Simon<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">If you don't know about the famous Simon's Cat videos, here's an entry to the whimsical world of artist Simon Tofield:<object style="height: 390px; width: 640px;"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/AYdDRTRaWr8?version=3&feature=player_profilepage"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/AYdDRTRaWr8?version=3&feature=player_profilepage" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="360"></object></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0