limping into summer

Went out to the State Cinema to see the long-awaited movie of A Prairie Home Companion. I've been a fan of the radio show for many years and I was curious to see the film version.

Watching Garrison Keillor was strange at first. I'd experienced him only on radio or on the printed page, so actually seeing him was unsettling for a while. It almost seemed like somebody was miming to Keillor's soundtrack, even though it was obviously him on screen.

But this wore off after a few minutes and I was soon immersed in the film. It was classic Altman fare, with the rich ensemble cast making for a delightful experience. Kevin Kline was great. And seeing Meryl Streep sing a duet with Keillor was almost worth the price of admission.

Lindsay Lohan was fun as the daughter (this was the first thing I've seen her in - I don't think I'm in her target demographic).

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I went to see my endocrinologist last week. After having the flu last month my exercise regimen had gone by the board. I promised to lose weight before I saw him next time, but I certainly won't be exercising this week.

When I was at Julie's house a couple of days later, I was calling her dogs in when I put my foot on a piece of pipe. My other foot was already moving me forward, so I had no hope of stopping myself from going down with a thud. I lay there for a moment, wondering how I was going to get up, since I was lying on my left arm and there was nothing I could grab with my right arm to get up with.

Fortunately my mobile phone had survived the fall and I was able to flip it open and dial my sister, who was on the other side of the property. She came to my aid and I got to my feet.

It wasn't as bad as it might have been. I was muddy and had some cuts and bruises on one knee with some gravel rash on my forearm, but overall I came through all right. After two or three days I could almost walk without a limp.

---

Meanwhile the flow of vet bills for Julie's animals has slowed. She had a lot of trouble giving her cat the diuretic injections for her heart problem, so the vet suggested trying drops instead.

Not a good idea! The cat really, really hated the drops. In the end, the vet came up with a compromise: inject the medication into the meat we gave the cat to eat. It worked like a charm. Both we and the cat are much happier with this arrangement.

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National Novel Writing Month this year has been a bit more of a trial than I expected. After completing it last year, I thought I was half-way prepared, but the first week didn't go well. Halfway through the month I've only written 16,000 words and I'm supposed to hit the 50,000 mark by the last day of the month.

Part of it is that I'm not as fit as I was last year. I can't concentrate as well and I'm tired all the time. Let's see how I go in the next two weeks.

o bleakness!

Some days you're afraid of the sky falling; other days you're afraid it won't.

Monday I felt really dreadful. I woke up early, exhausted from not enough sleep and just lay there worrying for some time.

I was concerned about my health, my finances, my home.... and to cap it all off, my first few days in National Novel Writing Month felt like a complete disaster.

That really disturbed me; if I was doing so much worse this year than last year, it was obviously a sign that I was so run-down I couldn't even concentrate on doing something that I loved. I must be running on empty.

I sat at the keyboard and all my ideas felt so flat and useless.

But during the afternoon, while walking Julie's dogs, I fell to musing and came up with a completely different approach. Maybe that was what I should be doing -- perhaps things weren't competely hopeless after all.

Then in the evening we went out to the Irish Association's monthly quiz night at the New Sydney Hotel and our team managed to scrape into first place by one point. A narrow margin, but we did win.

Maybe life isn't so bad after all....

into November

This month's show at The Playhouse was OUTSIDE EDGE by Richard Harris. This play was first staged in London in 1979 and went on to spawn a television spin-off that won a Writers Guild award in 1994.

It's basically a drawing room comedy, except that the drawing room is the clubrooms of a small cricket team in the home counties of England in 1980. There are five couples involved in the story, ranging from the sport-obsessed captain and his long-suffering wife to the local businessman who plays cricket to get away from his wife.

Under the capable direction of Peter McIntosh, the first-rate local cast makes great entertainment out of the witty dialogue. By the curtain, the relationships of four out of the five couples have changed forever in the course of a single afternoon.

Another good night out from Hobart Repertory Theatre Society.

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Last month was the annual Royal Hobart Show and it's traditional that there's always at least one day of really dreadful weather. So guess which day we were out at the showground?

Thursday (a.k.a. People's Day) was notably fine and sunny -- ideal weather for a public holiday. As usual we waited till Friday, which used to be Family Day but is now known as Festival Friday; it rained, then it started to snow in the mountains and that night it even tried to hail.

I wasn't surprised.

We wandered about some of the attractions and ate at the lunch-room that has been operated by the same church group since 1902. Julie spent quite a while in the Fine Food Pavilion quizzing the food and wine stalls about their latest products, then we dropped in on the annual art show.

This is always full of remarkable pieces by local artists. It's never dull because there's an almost infinite number of combinations of subjects, styles and medium.

One of the organizers of the art show asked me which piece was my favorite (they were running a contest). I honestly couldn't answer -- there were just too many good pieces to choose from. It's like when people say "What's your favorite book?" or "What's your favorite movie?" What are you supposed to say...

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I got an early start on the NaNoWriMo novel-writing contest. You need to do 1700 words a day minimum, 2000 is better. I managed 2050 the first day, but I had some spare time. I'll have to make sure I don't get behind -- if you have two busy days and don't write anything, that can be the end of the project.

I've been using a different word processor this time. Last year I used RoughDraft, which is quite good though it lacks a couple of useful features. AbiWord is a free word processing program more similar to Microsoft® Word and seems to work quite well.

And like RoughDraft, you can set it to save the file at regular intervals, meaning that your deathless prose won't disappear into cyberspace.

You can get it at their website http://www.abisource.com/
click here

more tranquil times

My old school is now the headquarters of the polar council CCAMLR, but when the council is in session with all the flags flying it looks more like Camelot. CCAMLR is the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources which was formed in 1982, as part of the Antarctic Treaty System.




A shortage of catastrophe and crisis made this Thursday a bit better to take. The photocopier at the office seems to have settled down, so I only had the normal human vagaries to put up with.

The last couple of weeks had been vexing. I've found that I can take the uncertainties of my colleagues (take this out, put that in, move this there) a lot easier than the cold unrelenting non-co-operation of the machine world.

Today was a public holiday (Royal Hobart Show day) and the roads were refreshingly clear of traffic when we drove into the city. The afternoon progressed to a satisfactory conclusion and when I looked at my watch it was only 5:07, one of our earlier finishes.

We got home in time to sit out in the yard and have a glass of wine while we watched the poultry and the cats wandering about. The sky was clear and the sun was mild. It was such a pleasant evening that we took a leisurely stroll down the street, pausing every few yards to sample the fragrance of the various flowers in the front yards.

After a while we gradually worked our way back to my house. Passing the house next door, we paused for a chat with the neighbours. They had been out to the Show and the little girl had bought some baby chicks. My sister was fascinated and the girl brought two of them out to show her. Nothing like a shared interest to bring people closer together.


Speaking of shared interests, Julie and I were picked up a DVD of the recent movie version of The Fantastic Four. Watching it certainly brought back a few memories. We started reading the comic book around 1962 during its first year and followed it all through the 1960s and into the '70s.

Sure it was a Hollywood version of the original plot, but enough came through of it to please us. But Jessica Alba as the Invisible Girl? I think all male viewers will agree with me – "What a waste!"

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Starbuck debut

Starbucks opened their first branch in Hobart this month. It's in the old bank building on the corner of Collins Street and the Elizabeth Street Mall, where the MBF office used to be.

Passing by, I dragged my sister in for a coffee out of curiosity. I'd never even seen a Starbucks, let alone been inside one, but you can't not know about the chain unless you live under a rock.

It was comfortable enough inside, but they need a little tweaking. For example, there was a rack of CDs that had no prices visible, the cappuccino had no chocolate on top(this may be a cultural thing) and Julie's Flat White was much too milky in spite of a special request for not-too-much-milk.

It wasn't an unpleasant experience, but I don't see any need to repeat it. I'd rather patronise shops like Ephah in the Bank Arcade.

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I was surprised (but pleasantly) to discover that you can now get free copies on-line of nearly all the stories of H. Beam Piper, one of my favourite authors of the 1960s. (One of his stories was on the cover of the first issue of Astounding Science Fiction that I ever bought.)

There's a whole shipload of great science fiction at sites like Many Books.

Meanwhile if you want to write your own novel, it's almost November. That means that it's time for NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month.

How many novels have been written through NaNoWriMo?
1999: 21 participants and six winners
2000: 140 participants and 29 winners
2001: 5,000 particpants and more than 700 winners
2002: 13,500 participants and around 2,100 winners
2003: 25,500 participants and about 3,500 winners
2004: 42,000 participants and just shy of 6,000 winners
2005: 59,000 participants and 9,769 winners.

A "winner" is anybody who successfully writes a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

I thought about it in 2004 but chickened out. In 2005 I took a deep breath and started typing on November 1st. By the end of November I'd completed my 50,000 word novel with a couple of days to spare.

It was a strain but I got it finished. I was glad I took it on; it seemed that I'd accomplished something even if nobody but me ever read the story (a science fiction story titled "Scorched by Darkness" – it took me about six months to notice that I'd borrowed a lot from Shakespeare's "The Tempest" for the basic plot).

Will I go in it again this year?

Why not!

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Last week I knew that Kay was very concerned about her power bill and the threatening letters she'd received from the power company. I tried to make some enquiries on her behalf, but I couldn't get her on the telephone to discuss the matter.

Finally I went round there and rang the doorbell. I've been trying to ring you, I said. "I haven't had any phone calls for a couple of days," she said in puzzlement.

I walked over to her phone and picked it up. "There's someone talking on it," she exclaimed.

Yes, I said, it's the television set in your bedroom – you didn't hang up the extension.

She looked surprised. I suggested that it might be a good idea to check the phone for messages every day, perhaps at breakfast or before she went to bed.

"I don't eat breakfast," she said.

Yes, but you could....

"I never eat breakfast."

In any event you might want ...

"I haven't eaten breakfast for 46 years."

I'M NOT SAYING YOU SHOULD EAT BREAKFAST, I bellowed. I'm just saying you should check for messages regularly!

"Oh. Right."

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ABC Roadshow comes to Tasmania
Saturday 21 October: York Park gates, Launceston
Monday 23 October: Campbell Town main street
Wednesday 25-Saturday 28 October: Royal Hobart Show
Monday 30 October: Huonville

"The ABC's Roadshow Trailer is coming to Tasmania, and will be travelling to communities across the state. Come along and visit the trailer: experience the magic of making TV and Radio for yourself, meet ABC faces and voices, all free of charge. The Country Hour will broadcast their program from the trailer from Monday 23 October; meet ABC Northern Tasmania's Shane Foley (Breakfast) and Roisin McCann (Drive) for a free BBQ during the Country Hour at Campbelltown; bring your children to meet the teddies Amy, Lou Lou and Morgan at the Royal Hobart Show."

I might go out and see them at the Show. Geoff Richardson from the weekend radio show The Coodabeen Champions will be broadcasting from the trailer.

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flaming days

"What an unusual day it's been," said my sister on Thursday night. Flames and disappointment. Stress and chaos. This week was not quite what we’d hoped for.

Wednesday I had hoped to get a major printing job over and done with, even if it meant a special trip in to the office for the afternoon. That didn’t happen - the photocopier was breaking down at least once a day, sometimes twice.

But those annoyances faded to nothing Julie and I drove down to Kingston for dinner with some friends. When we made the appointment a couple of weeks ago, we couldn’t have foreseen that it would be a day of high fire danger.

My sister was driving, since I can usually cope only with city and suburban conditions. As we left the city and headed south, we were wary of fires reported near Mount Nelson and it seemed that was right. The further south we went, the more smoke and haze there was in the air.

Traffic slowed to a crawl as we passed emergency vehicles stopped by the roadside. The smoke grew thicker and we saw a policeman trying to clear the smoke out of his eyes as we drove past.

I tried to snap a few pictures with my camera phone through the windscreen, but trying to capture such a big canvas was next to impossible. Then I looked sideways and gasped in disbelief as we passed a burning tree - the flames were less than ten feet from the car.

During the 1967 bushfires I didn’t leave the safety of the city heart, but I began to get some inkling of what it must have been like for the rural population on that day.

The dinner was pleasant enough, but we turned for home afterwards with some trepidation. At first everything seemed normal, but as we passed the crest of the highway we could see off to one side a series of vertical orange lines in the darkness. Countless trees still burning after the fire had gone through earlier that day. An unsettling sight.

That night it was too hot to get much sleep. I tossed and turned a lot.

Thursday we stayed tuned to the radio for any updates. There were still remnants of yesterday’s fires and the Fire Service warned that conditions were the worst they’d been in years - strong winds, high temperatures and very low humidity.

We went out early to drop off Julie’s mastiff at the vet to have some stitches repaired. At least he’d be comfortable in the air-conditioned vet hospital. Then in to the church to spend the afternoon working in the office. The 19th century sandstone walls kept out the 33° heat [91° in the old fahrenheit scale], but most of the people there grew increasingly concerned about what was happening at home.

Rod left early in the afternoon when a major fire began menacing his suburb on the eastern side of the river. Robert left a while later; his wife had phoned to say that she could see smoke but no flames although the power was off in the entire area.

That left Julie and I with the photocopier repairman, who was grappling with the intricacies of the machine’s innards. (Our last repairman told me once that copying machines were more likely to go wrong than anything else because they were an unholy combination of the electrical, the mechanical and the chemical; it seems he was right.) After another hour he gave up and said he’d need to return the next day with more equipment.

The traffic out front was slow, with commuters heading down the southern outlet hampered by smoke. Fire Service trucks and volunteer fire fighters were heading across the river, taking up one lane on the bridge just for the emergency services.

You feel pretty helpless at a time like this. You’re perfectly safe, but there’s nothing much you can do for others. Certainly you don’t like to make too many phone calls of the “Are you all right? Are things OK over there?” type - people have got things to do.

We stayed in town and had a meal of wallaby at the hotel down the street, then picked up the dog from the vet. Fires were the least of his worries; he was still feeling the effects of the anaesthetic and slept most of the way home.

But turning into my street at dusk was a sobering experience. The end of the street faces across the river and we were looking right at the fires. There were bright specks all over the western face of the hills, and across the summit of one there was a row of fires, like a torchlight parade of giants marching over the hill and down the other side.

It was again another restless night, even though by midnight the smoke seemed to have cleared and the night breezes were soft and cooling. But that crown of flames could still be seen on the hilltop.

And this is October. I can’t remember ever hearing of such dangerous fires this early in the season.

The punchline about the weather is that by Monday morning the news bulletins were interviewing farmers complaining about frost damage caused by a cold snap on Sunday night!

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On my radio dial this week…

SUSPENSE “Heaven’s To Betsy” with Truda Marson, CBS 10/11/55

I haven’t heard Suspense venture into the science fiction field very often, but this low-key entry is not without interest. A run-of-the-mill suburban family find themselves in the spotlight when a glowing UFO crashes on their back lawn. “A man’s home is his castle,” says the husband. “This is my house, this is my backyard, and that is my flying saucer!”

The story ends on a sober note when the alien object’s glow begins to fade. The wife maintains that the UFO is in fact a living being, not just a vehicle, and that it is dying before their eyes.

Compared to much of the science fiction of the mass media in 1955, this is very sensible and restrained stuff indeed.

FIBBER McGEE & MOLLY 47-10-07 football story

Fibber plans a surprise for their anniversary. A highlight - running into an indecisive acquaintance who turns out to be the local weatherman.

RED RYDER 42-03-14 Frying Pan valley

Tolerable juvenile western which was also a long-running comic book. First one I've heard of these; maybe it improves on further listening, but I think I prefer Hopalong Cassidy and Wild Bill Hickok to the exploits of "America's famous fighting cowboy."

THE GREAT GILDERSLEEVE 48-05-26 Gildy drives a Mercedes

This one is fun - Gildy allows himself to be persuaded into driving a luxury car for the day ("It makes you look like a millionaire playboy") and misunderstandings snowball.

PHIL HARRIS 49-11-27 lady wrestler

Irked by Alice's investments, Phil decides to invest in something - and after taking Remley's advice he ends up with a wrestler called The Masked Mangler... a female wrestler in fact. (Did you know female wrestlers were illegal in California in 1949?)

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A lot of people know what to do, but not everyone will do what they know.

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Salmon Ponds

The Salmon Ponds, established circa 1860, is the oldest trout hatchery in the Southern Hemisphere. It's about 45 minutes drive up the Derwent Valley from Hobart, on the western side of the river. Drive in through the spectacular drystone walls on either side of the entrance and it's like entering a Secret Garden.




It's been a popular spot for family picnics since the late 19th century. The grounds are laid out like a classic English country garden. You can visit the wonderfully rough-hewn old building that housed the Trout Hatchery, the centre of the original operation.



The Hawthorn Arch was the original entrance in the 19th century. The old Keeper's cottage, built in 1865, now doubles as the Museum of Trout Fishing and as the Tasmanian Angling Hall of Fame. Even if you aren't a fisherman, there's a lot of interesting stuff about the problems of transporting trout and salmon eggs out from Britain 150 years ago (i.e. before refrigeration).



They actually encourage you to feed the fish, who are always happy to see visitors. If you want to feed yourself, there's a barbecue area or you can visit the restaurant (tweely titled Pancakes By The Ponds).




There's a lot of bird life around, including the Superb Blue Wren (first time I've seen one in real life – they are superb!) and the occasional sinister-looking raven.

On the way home we called at St Matthew's Church in New Norfolk, built in 1824. I've never seen a church this size with so many stained glass windows.

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slowly

One of the things about sharing a house with Julie is the unending stream of animals brought through the doors. This week she brought over a tiny duckling which looked like it wasn't going to survive. She nursed it along for a week but it didn't make it. If there's one thing my experiences with my sister's poultry have taught me, it's how frail and fragile life is.

This of course is the reason that I can't use any of the reading lamps in my house: they've all been pressed into service in makeshift incubators for ailing chickens and ducks. It would be interesting to check my electricity bill for before and after they arrived....

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Slowly I get better and better each day. The only sign of my flu now is the intermittent barking cough that sounds worse than it feels.

My sister, however, is being much slower to shake it off and retains many of the symptoms that plagued her all last month. This is regrettable because this weekend is her 40th anniversary school reunion and she'd rather not be coughing all over her old friends.

When I say I'm almost well again that might be a slight exaggeration. I do find that I no longer have the stamina or the concentration that I normally expect. Yesterday the photocopier went wrong yet again at the office and I all but threw up my hands and surrendered utterly. (Fortunately the repairman made a rush visit and got us going again – thanks to Dane and all at Prosys Office Equipment.) I wouldn't have folded up so quickly under normal circumstances; it seems I still have a little way to go.

For example, I was knocked for six by an unfortunate coincidence last weekend. Saturday was Grand Final Day, which unsettles me not because I'm a football fan but because that was the day my mother died. On Sunday I tuned in to watch Songs of Praise as usual and found that they were doing a special programme on bereavement. Out of 52 weekends in the year they had to choose this one. The first man they interviewed described his loss in terms that were so similar to my own that I almost burst into tears. My emotional reserves seem to be at an all-time low.

Likewise my memory is not good, though it's a lot better than Julie's is (I've lost count of the times she's mislaid her mobile phone this month). Last night I took the video cassette out of the VCR after watching the latest episode of Mythbusters. Tonight I went to use the same tape to record something after that show. Do you think I could find it? I trailed around the house for half an hour like a lamb that had lost sight of its mother. Never did find it.

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Slowly getting used to Daylight Saving. It always takes a week or so to get used to it. I do have some difficulty working out when to listen to the streaming-audio programmes on Internet radio – I know that My Word on KIPO is an hour later, but I seem to have trouble keeping track of when to tune in to WRVO's evening of Old Time Radio.

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Remember the haiku I sent in to the local radio station contest? Well, I didn't win, but they phoned up the other day to say they were sending me a consolation prize. I duly received a colourful 2007 calendar from Delicious magazine (value $16-95) which should look good on my wall next year. Not a bad result for a poem that took me five minutes to write.

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I see daylight

I think I'll live. The last couple of days not only have my flu symptoms abated, but for the first time in a couple of months my Blood Glucose Level has started to come down.

My BGL readings for the last five days have been 9.9, 9.6, 9.2, 8.3 and now 7.9 today. A good sign.

My sister, who got the flu first, has been slower than me to throw it off. I seem to be more resistant to it than her. Maybe it's genetic – my father had the most amazing ability to heal up wounds at twice the normal speed. If I could bottle that, I could make a fortune.

Julie's animals have been a surprise. We thought at first that her dog was mortally ill and the cat would get well soon. But things seem to have been the reverse. Saj, the mastiff, has survived an operation (in the worst possible spot, guys) and made such a quick recovery the Vets asked if we could pick him up a couple of hours earlier than planned. I guess a 56kg dog [120 pounds] can be a bit of a handful if he decides he's ready to go home.

The Rex cat Jezebel's heart condition has been slower to respond to treatment. She stopped eating for almost a week and has been very quiet. We hope that she'll come right in time.

Animals seem to be drawn to Julie. This morning she was woken by a bird flying down the chimney of her bedroom and then fluttering around the window trying to get out. I fetched the butterfly net that I use for catching wildlife that strays into the house, but it wasn't needed. Julie managed to reach up between the window and the Venetian blinds, grab him and just walk out into the driveway to release him. Simple as that.

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I've been listening to a few of the old radio shows this week – in fact if it was up to me I'd leave the television turned off most of the time. Programmes I listened to included Suspense, Abbott & Costello, Inner Sanctum, The Men from the Ministry, Dragnet, The Mysterious Traveller, Fibber McGee & Molly and a couple of less famous ones.


I did watch a couple of good science fiction shows on the tube though. Stargate SG-1 "Ripple Effect" was a fascinating plot in which our heroes end up playing host to their other selves from a score of alternate universes. Doctor Who "Army of Ghosts" is the next-to-last of the current series and really screws up the tension to the Nth degree (Cybermen and the Daleks!).

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Tonight is the start of Daylight Saving in Tasmania. For years we've been starting a month earlier than the other states, but next year they promise that everyone will start and finish at the same time. That will prevent the disruption to television schedules that tends to annoy people like my friend Kay.

Of course it doesn't take much to get her upset. Last time I saw her she flew into a rage because the International Astronomical Union had voted to strip Pluto of its status as a planet. I said it didn't bother me either way (after all, until Pluto was discovered in 1930 we only had eight planets), but she was furious.

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from my sickbed

Equinoctial gales lashed the city. Snow fell on the mountain. Inside the home, uncertainties of a different nature prevailed.

I lay in bed on Sunday afternoon listening to myself breathe and thinking what a strange week it had been.

My sister's flu had gotten worse over the last few days. I had begun to develop the same symptoms myself, to the point where it was difficult to get to sleep for the noise my lungs were making - a bit like an asthmatic baby elephant trying to tip-toe across a corrugated iron roof.

Julie spent most of the day in bed. Twice a day she would get up and I would drive her over to her place to feed the animals. Then while she slept I would go to work or do the shopping, stopping occasionally to cough or catch my breath.

After a few days I was almost as sick as she was. I had the feeling of being disconnected from the world around me - my internal clock had stopped working and it was always slightly surprising whenever I looked at my watch and found it was earlier or later than I had thought.

I became clumsy, as though I were trying to write my name whilst wearing mittens, and my concentration suffered.

Gradually the worst of it began to pass for me, though my sister's constitution was slower to throw off the virus.

She had worries of a different sort on her mind. A trip to the Vet Hospital for some tests on two of her animals had unwelcome results. Not only did her favorite dog have cancer, but her favorite cat was diagnosed with a heart problem.

To add insult to injury, veterinary science is now so high-tech that each visit to the Vet incurred a bill of hundreds of dollars.

Not a cheerful prospect.

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I had to go into the city on Monday, no matter how I felt. Even in this age of internet banking at the touch of a button, having a cheque in your pocket is no good unless you can get to a bank. When my bank account hit $1.52 it was obviously essential to go to town.

Having a few dollars in my pocket, I loaded up on the essentials - boxes of Kleenex, cough syrup, anti-histamines and Cold & Flu tablets. The latter have changed a little since I last bought them: instead of pseudoephedrine they now contain Phenylephrine Hydrochloride and Chlorpheniramine Maleate.

I haven't used those before (or even heard of them, come to that!) but they worked fine. Unlike my sister I rarely use pain-killers of any description, so they have more of an effect on me. These gave me the first good night's sleep I'd had in almost two weeks.

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harmonium

Performing at the Moonah Arts Centre this month were the Celtic music ensemble Ethereal. It was standing room only in the candle-lit hall for an hour of dreamy music divided between traditional favorites and original pieces.

The five ladies are certainly versatile. The run-down read as follows:

• Helen Morrison - cello and drums
  
• Fran Docking - vocals, folk harp and guitar
  
• Julianne Green - folk harp and tambourine
  
• Lynne Mitchell - flute whistles, harmonium and castanets
  
• Mieka Tabart -vocals, violin and cymbal

I think this is the first time I've seen a harmonium played. You couldn't see any of the controls from where I was sitting, just a big box that was apparently played by moving one side back and forth. (Curiously it bore a metal plate reading "Calcutta Music Depot.")

A close inspection after the concert suggests it has a lot in common with bagpipes or the piano accordion in principle. My dictionary defines it as "a free-reed instrument in which air is forced through the reeds by bellows".

There'll be a CD launch on the waterfront at 7:30pm on Friday December 15th at The Venue in Salamanca Place. Going on this night, there'll be quite a crowd there.

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Saturday night we were out to a dinner party in South Hobart. My sister groaned "I can't believe I'm so sick this week. I've been looking forward to tonight for weeks and I have a cough like a seal barking." This possibly contributed to her locking the keys in the car when we arrived for dinner.

They say you can't drown your problems, but she had a good try at making them swim for it. The retsina and the sambuca were flowing freely, but since I was driving home I confined myself to a couple of flutes of champagne.

The meal was Greek-themed, probably because our host was leaving next week for the Greek Islands. In fact judging by the conversation most of the guests seemed to be just about to leave the country and I felt like the odd one out in never having held a passport.

Julie wasn't too bad the next day, though I notice she did wear dark glasses to church in the morning! By that time I was started to develop the same symptoms as her, and we scrubbed a possible trip to the Playhouse to see Hobart Rep's production of Peter Pan in favor of resting at home. From the barking coming from my house, you would have thought a pair of over-zealous watch-dogs were in residence.


The congregation at church was a bit thin this morning. Nothing to do with the quality of preaching, merely that this was the first weekend of the school holidays and the exodus of families going on vacation always makes a difference. At least it meant that the kids next door weren't playing basketball while I was taking a nap in the afternoon.

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This may be a sign of the times - I notice in the local shop's stationery shelf that there is a choice of two or three brands of DVD-R discs, but they no longer stock CD-R discs. From this we may infer two things: the increasing prevalence of DVD burners, and the larger size of files that people want to save to disc. The days of 1.4MB on a floppy disc being any use are gone forever I suspect.

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Listening to the ABC Drive show on radio this afternoon, they were asking for poems about Spring. This is the haiku I wrote while listening to the segment:

At the equinox
somewhere in the underbrush,
a sneezing cat prowls.

If you knew Julie's cats, you'd understand it.

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from winter to warmth

El Nino is on his way back - it's official.

The National Climate Centre in Melbourne warns that the El Nino effect, warming of equatorial seas that usually means droughts for eastern Australia, is on its way. The effects this time could be even worse than usual, because water stocks are already low after a dry winter.

Warm blustery winds blow across the city, the sun is blindingly bright when I look out from the back of my house - certainly a big change to the icy conditions that prevailed only a month ago.

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I haven't updated this page for a few days. There always seems to be something to distract me. I'm frequently tired, since my resolution to put a stop to all those late nights has come to nothing.

When I do finally get to bed, I'm too tired to read, so I usually listen to half an hour of old radio shows on the MP3 player. I used to do most of my reading in bed, but between fatigue and my eyesight that doesn't happen very often nowadays.

Both of my days at work this week were fairly busy. Tuesday I ploughed through a backlog of some routine work, then on Thursday it was non-stop putting out weekly bulletins, special announcements and a big special edition for Prayer Week.

In fact the latter was taken out of my hands by my boss, who categorically pronounced that I'd done enough and he'd finish it off when he was in the next day. I was willing to stay until it was finished, but faced with a direct order I took him at his word.

By the way, he now wishes to be referred to not as Rob but as Robert. Since Rod joined our team, the misunderstandings have been rife and Rob has announced he is re-inventing himself as "Robert" to avoid any further confusion. But not Bob or Bobby please!

Julie and I never have any problems - we simply dubbed them R1 and R2, even though it makes them sound like the supporting cast of a Star Wars movie.

Not that Julie has been up to many witty remarks lately; she's been unwell for the last week, with some sort of yucky virus that makes me glad I had that flu shot. "Everything hurts," she groaned, "even my skin aches."

And of course she's been worried about her animals. Her aged mastiff Saj developed a suspicious lump and we won't know what the verdict is till they examine the biopsy.

While she was there, she had her Rex cat Jezebel checked because of a cough and they gave her some antibiotics. We can give the mastiff his tablets with no trouble at all, but you should see two adults hanging onto a tiny black cat fighting to get the pill down her very reluctant throat!

A pity she's not more interested in traditional feline pursuits, like chasing away that mouse that's hanging around my place. You may recall I was complaining about its expensive tastes - I've had to lock up all the chocolate in the house because it has a taste for it. The other day I came home to discover I'd missed one: there was the wrapper of a Cadbury's chocolate bar in the middle of the dining room floor, completely empty. You wouldn't think there were two cats living in the house, would you?

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PETROL PATROL REPORT:
Fuel prices are on a roller-coaster in Hobart this month. Some outlets are now changing their prices several times a day, with prices ranging from A$1.16 a litre to almost A$1.30. United Petrol has taken over the Mobil outlets in Hobart, leading to increased competition. I guess in theory it's a good thing, but it makes drivers very unsettled because they simply don't know whether prices are on their way up or down at any given moment.

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This week on ABC Radio National's By Design programme, something different to their usual talks about art and design. Christopher Alexander is one of the most innovative architects alive. He's also a severe critic of contemporary architecture. He tries to express fundamental truths in books with such titles as A Timeless Way of Building and The Nature of Order. In this extended feature, courtesy of CBC's Ideas program, Jill Eisen explored his ideas about what gives life beauty, and how it can be expressed in our buildings and our towns. His opinions of the architecture of the last thirty years can be imagined.

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September

Sorry to see the Euro Café in the mall has closed. It will be re-opening after renovation as a health-food restaurant. No more chicken breasts in creamy pesto sauce – alas!

It will be interesting to see how the new owners go in reaching a whole new customer demographic. I remember the health-food hamburger shop that used to be in Murray Street; it lasted about six months.

My family had been patronising Euro for many years under the previous oswners Martin & Winnie. He was head chef at Wrest Point when my sister was a gaming inspector there and his Austrian background gave him an engaging Arnold Schwarzennegger accent (in fact I think he might have known Arnie in the old country.

But, as they say, the only constant in life is change.

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We're now into September and the geese are nesting at Julie's house. Over at my house, Zelda has repeated last Spring's routine and has built herself a nice little nest from scraps of this and that right at the far end of the house.

I remember last year we hardly saw her for a couple of weeks. Twice a day I would take her out some food and water. She would have a little bit then lose interest, driven by the overwhelming forces of instinct to care for those eggs.





One of our neighbors has returned home after a long trip away. Ted and his son went back to Poland to trace his roots. He told me that in his life he's spent more of his life in Britain and Australia than he ever had in his own country.

It seems unbelievable to us, but I guess it's not that unusual. For people born in a certain part of the twentieth century, being driven from your homes was a normal part of life.

He would have enjoyed his trip back home more if he hadn't slipped on the tiled floor of the hotel when he first arrived and hurt his hip.

When we saw him, he told my sister he brought her back some souvenirs – wooden silhouettes of barnyard animals and a carved wooden bird. Oh yeah, he's got her number all right!




The Fibber McGee & Molly Unofficial Home Page had an announcement to make recently:

Fans will be very excited to hear about a tremendous discovery: over 425 broadcasts from "The Fibber McGee and Molly Show," the fifteen-minute version of the program which aired on NBC between 1953 and 1956, most of which have been unheard since their original broadcast over fifty years ago!

Originally aired between January 1954 and February 1956, these programs are from the series' later five-a-week daily version. Most of these shows had been thought irretrievably lost, discarded along with thousands of other recordings when NBC's landmark Hollywood and Vine headquarters was demolished in 1964.

This is a tremendous "find" for fans of the McGees and also for radio historians. Original network disks are always a treasure, but to find this many of a single show - and one that has been considered lost for so long - is a real thrill.

The discs were found by the First Generation Radio Archives, an organization which, over the past few years, has become known as the source for some of the best-sounding radio programs ever made available. Working with original transcription disks and master recordings, their straight-from-the-source audio restorations have become the standard for just how wonderful OTR can sound when treated with care, respect, and state-of-the-art digital audio equipment and techniques.

The Archives has just released the first programs in this newly-discovered run: forty full-length shows dating from between January and April 1954, all fully restored for sparkling audio quality. (I've ordered mine!)

http://www.compusmart.ab.ca/agirard/fibber/589.htm

http://www.radioarchives.org/

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winter shuffles off

I thought I was improving - I noticed on Monday morning that I could no longer hear the crackling noise in my lungs when I took a deep breath, and my Blood Glucose Level got down around its normal level for the first time in weeks.

Alas, when I returned home from work on Tuesday I sneezed a couple of times and my sister looked at me askance. "Ugh, your left eye is all bloodshoot. When you looked up it's all red."

That happens sometimes when I sneeze, but it's a long time since the last time it happened. Let's hope it's the end of these problems.

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We are all looking for something of extraordinary importance whose nature we have forgotten.
EUGENE IONESCO, Present Past / Past Present

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Well, it's official – we've just finished one of the driest winters in Tasmanian history, and Thursday was the warmest winter day ever recorded. The official maximum was 23º but when I walked past the newspaper office their sign indicated 27º, which equates to 80º in the old scale. Hard to believe there was snow on the mountain just a few weeks ago.

The lawn in the backyard is still green, which is just as well since the goose spends most of her day wandering over it grazing and lolling about. There are around ten eggs in her nest now, but she's content to be a part-time home-maker since there's no chance of them hatching.

Over at Julie's place one of her geese met a violent end while trespassing on the property next door, presumably the work of the neighbor's dog. It was a couple of days before I get down the slope to where it was and remove the body; not a pleasant job but you get used to these little chores with the large poultry population at my sister's house.

The end of August also marks the start of a new quarter in the television industry, so we've seen a lot of new shows and the return of some old ones.

What is mildly disturbing is how many of them feature autopsies and serial killers. I've avoided most of them, though I have watched the new series Bones, mostly because it stars David Boreanaz from the Buffy/Angel programmes. Even so, some of the scenes are a bit too gruesome for me, leavened with humor or not.

La kato estas dormanta sur mia rondiro


Old-time radio programmes on my MP3 player this week include PHIL HARRIS, SUSPENSE, DANGEROUS ASSIGNMENT,LET GEORGE DO IT, DOCTOR SIXGUN, DUFFY'S TAVERN and DIMENSION X. And a big "Happy Birthday!" to the OTR website Zootradio which has just celebrated its first year on-line.


Meanwhile in Britain the BBC certainly know how to commemorate the great poets. This week marked the centenary of the birth of poet John Betjeman, and on Monday there was a string of Radio 4 programmes marking the occasion all through the day...

Woman's Hour Drama Betjeman's Women, five plays by Paul Dodgson, explore the characters in his poetry

The Archive Hour
Miles Kington traces Betjeman's progress from his early BBC radio programmes to his mastery of the television poetic documentary.

You and Yours The Bard Of Britain: The Shell Guides. The programme revisits some of the towns Betjeman wrote about.

Afternoon Play: Summoned by Bells A radio version of the best-selling verse autobiography, voiced by Betjeman from a recording made in the 1960s.

Yours Til Death A selection of newly discovered correspondence between Betjeman and those he worked with at the BBC. Written and presented by Stephen Games, with David Collins as Betjeman.

Doubts and Demons writer A.N. Wilson goes in search of the man behind the image and explores the lesser known side of the man everyone considered the most wonderful company.

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one eyed in church

Video cameras in church can be a bit distracting – not that I was being filmed, but I was sitting behind someone with a camera on Sunday morning. During a baptism, I could see the goings-on at the font out of my left eye, while my right eye kept straying to the viewfinder of the video camera as the owner panned and zoomed. It was a little hard to concentrate.

But it's nice to sit and watch people bringing their babies in to be baptised. It shows that the next generation of Christians is always being re-stocked.

Which isn't a bad thing at the moment. We had three families leave my church this year... as far as I can make out, two of them left because we were getting too modern and the other one left because we weren't modern enough!

I think it was Lincoln who said you can't please all the people all the time. For once there are some things the same in politics and religion.

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I haven't updated for a while, have I? The last week or so I haven't been feeling 100%. The flu shot may have kept the influenza at bay, but for the last few days I have been under the weather. I kept waking up in the morning with my mouth full of gunk, then coughing and sneezing my way through the day.

I am, I think, a little better this week.

However every second person I talk to seems to be suffering from some sort of virus or is caring for someone who is. It may be the end of winter, but I don't think this is Spring Fever.




The slightly warmer weather must be responsible for the abundance of flies that I find in the kitchen every morning. This isn't that unusual, but all these seem to be operating at half-speed and can barely be bothered flying off when you try and shoo them away. My sister summed it up neatly: "These are not blow-flies, they're slow flies!" Well put.

Speaking of vermin, I cleared out the rest of the pantry to see what that mouse has been at. He has expensive tastes, as I mentioned before. He ignored the whole box of two-minute noodles, but gnawed through the sachets of beef stew and consumed the contents. I just wish the cats would get their act together and run him out of town.

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My hours at work have reverted to the two-afternoons-a-week regimen. It may not be quite as convenient for those who used to drop in to the office to get things done early in the day, but there really isn't enough to keep two people busy. I did offer to come in a bit earlier, but for the moment it's back to the old schedule.

At least I made a few bucks extra out of last fortnight. But looking at my bank statement I shouldn't let this go to my head. For a start I refuse to buy any more new CDs or DVDs -- well, unless I really need them...




Old radio shows I've been listening to:

FRED ALLEN SHOW Leo Duorcher
MARTIN & LEWIS SHOW (2-15-52) William Holden
BROADWAY IS MY BEAT_49-11-19 Eugene Bullock
CANDY MATSON 49-10-10(Ep015)_DeepFreeze
PHIL HARRIS & ALICE FAYE
SUSPENSE 58-10-26 "Headshrinker"
DANGEROUS ASSIGNMENT
ABSOLUTE POWER s1 e5
PAUL TEMPLE "The Sullivan mystery" parts 1,2, & 3

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summer of the goose

The hens are laying, the trees are in blossom and the geese are starting to pair off for breeding. I sense that winter is coming to an end.

My goose Zelda has just laid her first egg of the year, though she isn't obsessed by it this time round. I guess she figures that since none of them hatched last year, she isn't too fussed by it all.

Though I have to admit that she's off her food a bit – not her usual M.O. at all!



So this week I'm back to working a full day twice a week rather than the afternoons I'm used to doing. It's not arduous work by any stretch of the imagination, but my movements are more constrained than I'm used to.

It makes a difference to my sister's nutrition too - without me there to tell her to get moving, she has trouble getting to lunch on time with her friends.

I'm not even tempted to use the office computer to surf the net, since they're still on dial-up and I have broadband at home. If things get dull I amuse myself experimenting with the audio-editing features of Audacity (cut files up into pieces, join other ones together, amplify them, that sort of stuff.).

And (I can't believe I'm saying this) the photocopier has broken down again. *Sigh!*

At least the extra money will come in handy this month. I looked at my bank balance on the internet today and I had even less money than I thought I did.

My mother always told me this would happen. "When I'm gone, you won't be able to keep a house this size. There'll be less money coming in and you'll lose all the discounts and rebates I'm getting now." That was undeniably true and I didn't try and persuade her otherwise.

Some months everything's fine, other months I just seem to get into a hole. Not an unusual story, I admit. But I get angry with myself because it seems to me that I should be able to make ends meet - I just take my eyes off the ball sometimes and it all goes pear-shaped.

It boils down to that old joke "What happened to my disposable income? I disposed of it." Buying things on impulse doesn't help, and I spend an inordinate amount on imported magazines (you wouldn't believe what a copy of The New Yorker costs retail every week in Australia).



The new TV series Twisted Two is a follow-up to the Twisted series from a decade ago. Both shows are attempts by actor-producer Bryan Brown to swim against the tide and resurrect that forgotten genre the dramatic anthology series.

The first episode contains two suspense stories very much in the style of the old Alfred Hitchcock Presents or Tales of the Unexpected shows. The first one is a ghost story featuring Melissa George, while Gary Macdonald stars as a nervous security guard in part two.

It's not perfect, but it's a pleasant change to the flood of reality programming and silly sitcoms that make up so much of the rest of the television week. Brown says his main goal was was to (gasp!) tell original stories.

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into August

Sunday afternoon I was so tired that I needed to lie down, but the children next door were re-enacting the World Cup in the driveway outside my bedroom window. So I moved into my mother's old bedroom and tried catching forty winks.

It wasn't completely successful. I found it distracting being on a different mattress with an unfamiliar pillow and the light coming from a different direction.

And if I opened my eyes, I could see my mother's medication sitting on the bedside table with the two tablets she'd put out for the morning on her last night. Alas, by that morning she was in hospital and never returned home.

I resolutely put that out of my mind. It would have been too easy to work myself into a bittersweet reverie, surrounded by all my mother's possessions and the suite of bedroom furniture that my father bought for her when they were first married.

Sometime I must have dropped off for a few minutes; I don't remember going to sleep, but I must have done. I tidied up the bed and left the room, consigning the question of what to do with it to its permanent home in the "too hard" basket.

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As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. - Albert Einstein

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Well that explains it!

The last couple of weeks I kept hearing a mouse somewhere in the pantry, scuttling away whenever I went past but always returning sooner or later.

Tonight I was in there looking for something and I moved some things on one shelf. And there was the reason for all the noise.

An unopened box of liqueur chocolates had had a hole ripped in the side and when I opened the box it was completely empty. Not a scrap of chocolate or a smear of filling to be seen.

No wonder the rodents had been so persistent. I just couldn't decide whether they were chocoholics or alcoholics.

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It was a beautiful sunny afternoon on Wednesday last week, so where was I? Sitting in a darkened cinema watching the last day of Superman Returns.

It's a long movie - about 2 hours 40 minutes I think - but I didn't get bored or impatient (though it was probably a good thing I took a sandwich with me, since the days of the interval in a long film seem to have gone for good).

One of the local film critics harrumphed that it was little more than a "gussied-up re-make of the original movie" but that didn't worry me. Maybe that's because I've seen the origin of the Man of Steel reworked so many times in my life.

I started off as a child reading the reprints of the Superman comic book and listening to the radio serial, then over the years there were no less than four different television series plus the four feature films with Christopher Reeve.

So I'm quite used to seeing the basic story reprised in various ways over the years.

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winter winding down

The goose seems to be spending a lot of time sitting under the wattle tree at the end of the garden. It must be a sign of Spring - all the trees in the street are in blossom and the bulbs are coming up at Julie's house.

Not to mention the horde of blowflies buzzing around in the sun in the kitchen Saturday morning. Where were they when it was snowing on the mountain a few days ago?

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About 26 million Americans tune in to public radio weekly and they are spending an average of eight hours listening to non-commercial stations - that’s one of the findings from an Arbitron study about public radio.

Last year, the estimated number of people who tuned per week was 26.9 million, and they spent 8 hours listening.

“While people of all ages listen to public radio each week, the majority of public radio listening comes from adults, age 35 or older, with slightly more men listening than women,” it states.

News/talk is the leading format, as it is in commercial radio. Classical, jazz and album adult alternative are the leading music formats, compared to Adult Contemporary, Christian and urban for commercial outlets.

"Among public radio listeners who tune into the news/talk format, 44 percent are Democrats or are independents who lean Democratic, while 36 percent are Republicans or independents who lean Republican.” The numbers are reversed among commercial news/talk listeners. (I suspect the same would hold true in Australian audiences.)

- During the workweek, listening is strongest in morning drive, remains high through midday and resurges in afternoon drive. “A significant number of people do their public radio listening between midnight and 6 a.m.,” Arbitron stated.
- During the week, most early-morning listening to public radio is at the home. “Beginning around 7 a.m., as commuters hit the road, the out-of-home share of public radio listening grows and overtakes in-home listening until things even out in the early evening.”
- People in different age demos listen to public radio at different times. “Peak listening times for most men and women occur weekday mornings between 6-10 a.m. and in the afternoons from 3-7 p.m. Older demos tend to listen most during the midday daypart. Older listeners tend to listen to public radio the most on weekends.”
- “Listeners to public news/talk tend to be younger than listeners to most other public formats, and they’re also younger than listeners to commercial news/talk stations.”
- Public classical listeners are more likely to be at home when tuned to their favorite station than listeners to other public formats. Listening is strongest during midday and evenings.

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"You're so clever - but you hide it so well."

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THE BIG BROADCAST
heard July 30th on WAMU-FM:

7:00 Jack Benny
11/28/43 Barbara Stanwyck Subs for Mary (NBC) (28:49) (Grapenuts)
7:30p Dragnet
#59 07/27/50 The Big Gent Pt. 2 (NBC) (26:51)
8:00p Gunsmoke
203 02/26/56 Who Lives by the Sword (CBS) (20:58)
8:20p Calling All Detectives
#230 07/28/48 Jerry Hunts a Dangerous Killer (8:01) (Syndicated)
8:30p Four Star Playhouse
08/28/49 Corey (NBC) (29:40) (Sustained) w/Fred MacMurray, Janet Waldo, Jeanne Bates, Jack Edwards
9:00p Information Please
06/07/38 (NBC) (29:10)
9:30p Frank Merriwell
10/19/46 The Clue of the Numbers, or Justice Triumphants (NBC) (29:30)
10:00p Hear It Now
12/15/50 #1w/Poet Carl Sanburg, Red Barber and an audio Portrait of General Douglas MacArthur (CBS) (Sus.) (59:12)

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Old Time Radio programmes this week:

FIBBER McGEE & MOLLY

Fibber thinks he's forgotten Molly's birthday, so hastily tries to arrange a surprise party for her. As you might expect, he's the one who gets most of the surprises.

SUSPENSE 51-03-08 "Vision of Death"

The ever suave Ronald Colman stars as a nightclub mind-reader who finds his wife is having genuine visions - of her own murder. Neatly written and well presented.

WORLD ADVENTURERS CLUB "Manchurian Limited" ep2

15-minute ripping yarns - this one is about getting a train-load of munitions across war-torn China in the 1930s.

ARCH OBOLER'S PLAYS 45-06-14 "Mr. Pyle"

Even I've heard of the famous war correspondent Ernie Pyle. In this docu-drama Burgess Meredith brings him to radio and paints a picture of the average GI whose stories he captured for posterity. A fine production.

ABBOTT & COSTELLO "The Andrews Sisters"

Bud & Lou banter with the singing trio and do admirably in a sketch on a film set involving a string of nonsense words in the dialogue.

ADVENTURES OF SAM SPADE 51-02-16 "The soap opera caper"

Hilarious episode in which the unflappable gumshoe takes a case involving the highly-strung denizens of the soap opera world, where everyone seems perpetually on the verge of breaking down in tears. A barrel of laughs for us cynics.


THE WHISPERER 51-09-16 "Never the twain" ep11

Despite a convoluted and unbelievable backstory (how does the announcer keep a straight face during the rundown of the show's premise?) some snappy dialogue and competent performances make for an entertaining half hour (although the file I downloaded seems to be lacking the last few seconds of the show).