New Zealander Paul Cato; French Freediver Guillaume Nery

Artist Paul Cato contacted me to affirm that he is a genuine New Zealander born and bred. I apologise for a careless reading of my reference-source, and have removed the mis-information from Thursday's blog post where I accused him of being "originally from England". He was good-natured about it and didn't even ask for any correction or apology. A perfect gentleman. Sorry and thanks, Paul.

I've never had the pleasure of visiting Queenstown where Paul is; the nearest in my travels was Dunedin, circa 1992, where I thought from the accents that I was back in Scotland.

Now to another artistic link: this link takes you to an extraordinary vision based on - hey, that's a pun - a short art-film of supposed "underwater base-jump diving", performed by real-world champion FREE-DIVER,  Frenchman Guillaume Nery. Free-diving is a recognized extreme sport (no problem, simply hold your breath for several minutes and descend vertically into appropriately deep water): Nery goes to 109 metres, which frankly should not be possible for a human. For the REAL record dive go here.  For the fantasized and very beautiful edit from many filmed sequences by Julie Gautier, go to the link at the start of the paragraph, or here again.

Yorke Peninsula Coast

Here's your link, below, to a 30-second slide show of several coastal views I took on my little Nikon Coolpix camera. These were still images but they have been mixed and cross-faded to a music background (legally acquired).

Only so much can be done in thirty seconds: watch out for more to come soon. YP has a lot of coastline! Thanks to the neat software from Animoto. You can get it too, not a cent to pay for the basic program. I am planning to upgrade to their no-limit program, after I play around some more with the freebie.

Here's the clip, which I've just called Yorke Peninsula Coast:

Watched it? What did you think? It was a try-out, really. After all, you got only the briefest of glimpses of the south bay at Edithburgh, then Coobowie causeway, one shot of Ardrossan's loading jetty taken from the BHP lookout, and Chinaman's Hat island in Innes National Park. Actually, the close-up shot of four tiny crabs attempting to open a shellfish was at Flaherty's Beach, on Hardwicke Bay. They were in about five centimetres of water. I did not wait to find out who ate whom, but left them to it.


Here's my link to the Animoto website.

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Paul Cato NZ artist - and LOTR

It was a delight to find this website of a first-rate artist, Paul Cato, working from his studio in scenic Queenstown, South Island. [ Oops. I wrongly had thought and written that Paul had come to NZ from the UK.  He set me straight. Red face, Will.]

Take a look:

http://www.paulcato.com/artists-bio.html

Read his account of being in the first two of the three Lord of the Rings movies from the JRR Tolkien epic yarn. The films' outdoor scenes were shot in several NZ locations, some of them right at Paul Cato's doorstep.

What's more, he was hired as a 'big body double'. Why? He is six feet eight and a half inches in height! (I won't bother converting to centimetres.) It's TALL. You'll recall that the hobbits in the tale are meant to be about three feet tall. The human star-actors were NOT that size, and one of many tricks to make them seem small was to film them next to oversized doubles who dressed as the normal-height humans in the story. This works for shots where the audience isn't looking at the normal-height human actor's face.

But Paul tells his own story:
http://www.paulcato.com/artists-bio.html

Chainsaws and rain; Alice in Wonderland

Now I have a heap of logs from dead branches of the biggest of my three almond trees. Don't use your chainsaw in the rain - but there was a break in the weather, so I got some outdoors jobs done.

Sun's out, but the temperatures are heading for our southern hemisphere winter. OK, so Antarctica is southern hemisphere, but I'm talking about our balmy South Australia where it very seldom gets to freezing. I mean - once in every ten years around here, anyway. Is that balmy enough for you.

Yeah, I saw Johnny Depp's cool Mad Hatter in the recent Alice in Wonderland movie when it hit the big screen. Now you can get it on DVD, so I've added a link to our friends at Amazon. I buy DVDs and books online now as much as in an "offline" store; you know - the kind you can walk around in. The nearest real bookshop is a three-hour drive from my place.

Here's a personal bit of nostalgia. Once upon a time I owned a copy of The Nursery Alice which the author - the Reverend Mister Charles "Lewis Carroll" Dodgson himself - had inscribed as a gift to a friend for his kids: and he'd inked a small drawing of a cat, BUT sadly Lewis Carroll didn't SIGN IT. Darn. Would have been worth a lot. I sold the volume years ago to a dealer for a few hundred dollars, or double what I paid. But, ah well, we always wish we'd hung on to such gems.

Minlaton once More

Yes indeed, earlier today our singers rehearsed for July and August concerts, and not only was Denis back with us courtesy of a borrowed wheelchair (he can  walk but gets dizzy) but he sang in two or three numbers with me and Don.

In contrast to our full strength male voice number, namely, THREE, on Sunday afternoon in Minlaton Town Hall  the Metropolitan Male Choir fielded over fifty grey-uniformed stalwarts all the way from their Adelaide base. Local man Neil Forrest acted as MC as well as singing: he travels weekly to rehearsals in the state capital. They were great. The concert was in aid of the Stansbury aged care nursing home Elanora, where our little group performs every three months. John Hill the lead tenor was splendid and did a couple of solos, but everyone did brilliantly.


Also on the stage for two sessions was Sassy, a classy group of three female singers who all reside on the Yorke Peninsula, known personally to several of my friends but not to me. We were privileged to hear such high quality vocal talent. And imagine, twice to Minlaton in under a fortnight for cultural purposes!

The Mays kindly took me with their small party, but unsurprisingly the audience - a full house - included others from our own singing group. Clearly we were there to offer advice, had anyone asked us. No-one did. But no matter.

Looking Brighter

The spell of pleasant early winter weather lifts the spirits: sunny days and overnight rain.

The best news is that Denis was allowed home from hospital at the weekend. He is using a walking frame but a good recovery is on the cards. The medical consensus appears to be that his stroke-like first symptoms reflected a "transient bleeding"; and the bleeding ceased before more serious damage was done. I expect to see him in about an hour's time.

Yesterday I was pruning dead limbs from an old almond tree. The wood burns a treat - unlike the wet and smoky swamp oak. Hardly a surprise.

June

June has not begun well. Our friend Denis was taken ill on the morning of June 1st as our singing dozen gathered for weekly rehearsal. He's in hospital and will undergo further tests in days to come. Isobel and daughter Denise have spent much time with him. Denis is one third of our male voice section, and is a well-known and respected man, with a great sense of fun. All our thoughts are with him. In his absence the rest of us did the monthly concert at the Minlaton nursing home in the showbiz tradition - the show must go on, etc - including extravagant dress-up items involving Elsie and Joan and Wendy, and Maureen whom I did not recognize at first in the wig - but there it is, captured on the DVD - and of course the irrepressible Don in a kilt of sorts ("Donald Where's Yer Troosers?") despite his not having a drop of Scots blood. Correct me if I'm wrong, Donald.

The gloom continued with word of a former colleague's recent death from motor neurone disease. Very rapid. Just three months from onset to the end. Another colleague rang to tell me this, or I would not have known because I don't read the obits ... well, I don't buy the paper. My main reason for avoiding obituaries is the usual one: scared of reading my own name there.


And three other letters or emails from old acquaintances within the past two days have held news of reverses in health or fortune. What's going on? Jeez.


Of course, international events (move over, Iceland volcano) include the Near East mayhem we come to expect. The story of the moment is of that flotilla running the Gaza blockade, soldiers from helicopters, people dead. The deaths are real and indeed tragic. The circumstances intractable. Spin from all sides. Yet how sanctimonious is the wide condemnation of Israel which, beyond question, needed to find a different formula. Were there armaments aboard some of those vessels? Very likely. Did the Israeli side, as claimed, express willingness to allow through any genuine humanitarian aid? And did they mean it?

If our Australian boarding parties from border patrol boats are opposed with force, is armed response allowed? You betcha.  Bit of a reality check is in order here, guys. Would YOU want to whack a commando, down the bloke, take his weapon, and NOT expect his mates to open fire? Not me.

This morning the Turkish Prime Minister is quoted saying his country "will never forgive" Israel (the boats carrying supplies to Gaza were organized mainly by Turkish-based groups). Umm. Never is a long time. If long memories are OK then I am heartened to think the world may now expect imminent acknowledgment, apology and reparation from Turkey for the twentieth century massacre of a million Armenians.


But you get the picture. We as political animals get ourselves locked into hate crimes forever. Two wrongs make for ... more wrongs. Heaven help us all.


One small mercy. I also heard from Julie again. She and Shin the teacher from Korea enjoyed their trip to the South East (the S.E. of South Australia, that  is: that's what we mean here when we say "the South East", where they actually get reliable rainfall and can grow radiata pine for the building industry).

On the way back Julie and Shin visited Monarto Open Range Zoo after I had raved about it. Shin liked the meerkats. Monarto, you owe me a commission for two discount entry fees: the girls used their Youth Hostel cards for child-price admission.