Down I go again !

 

Broke my glasses again.  Don't really know how it happened.   Last year when I had my first bad fall, I could sort of understand it -- I was walking uphill in the dark when I lost my balance.  But this time?  I went out to vote on Friday, got out of my car, took two steps and down I went.

I hit my nose when I went down, so a gratifyingly large number of people appeared from all directions when they saw me lying there bleeding profusely.  At the hospital, they gave all the usual tests - scans, X-rays, blood tests, and the old "I'm going to shine this light in your eye" standard.   A paramedic asked me if I knew the date and I replied less than enthusiastically "Yes, it's Friday the 13th !"

One young nurse leaned over me and said "I want you to grasp my hands and pull me towards you..."   I thought my luck had changed, but she was just testing me.

Later, when I was beginning to feel very dry, two nurses came in and one said
"You might be a bit dehydrated.  Could you drink these two bottles of water in thirty minutes?"   I said "I'll give it a go!"  I must have had a gleam in my eye because I heard the other nurse murmur "Challenge accepted."

They finally let me go home about 7.15  -  as I sat in the cab going home, I was vaguely surprised to see the sun was only just going down.  it felt like I'd been in the hospital for a whole day.  Needless to say I took two paracetemol and went to bed early.

 ---------------------------------------------

Once again I thank You Tube and the Internet Archive for uploading so many great movies.

 AGAIN THE RINGER  [1965]  Neues vom Hexer
Another German movie based on Edgar Wallace's novels.   This one features Heinz Drache as Inspector Wesby, the previous sleuth having been married off in the last movie.   A rich but unlikeable man is murdered and the killer tries to blame the crime on the notorious vigilante The Ringer.   Any reader of thrillers will know this is a bad idea and the Ringer is on the next plane to London to clear his name.  Two notable things  -  firstly, two of the leading ladies are played by Barbara Rutting and Brigitte Horney (really!) and secondly how did they do that scene where a young boy is locked in a room full of tigers but he makes friends with them???

PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES  [1966]
Hammer Films' only zombie movie and one of their better thrillers.  A visit to Cornwall in  1860 by an eminent doctor ends in the discovery that a local squire is using the reanimated dead to work in his tin mine!  Good perforances by Andre Morell and Jacqueline Pearce [pictured] who madc this movie back-to-back with THE REPTILE.  Michael Ripper is the village policeman.

 

RAID ON ENTEBBE [1977]
TV movie based on the 1976 hijacking of an airliner.  Packed with familiar faces.    There have been three or four movies based on this incident -- at two and a half hours this one is a bit long and I wasn't surprised to hear that 20 minutes were cut for the theatrical and home video releases.

LONDON BY NIGHT  [1937]
Amiable little mystery B-movie featuring George Murphy, better known for his song and dance roles.  Here he's an American newsman in foggy London who becomes involved in the hunt for a serial killer known only as The Umbrella Man.  With the help of his dog, a beautiful socialite and Scotland Yard man George Zucco, he tracks down the killer.   All Is Not What It Seems.

MAN BEAST [1956]
Reputedly the second movie ever made about the  Abominable Snowman, and debut production for director Jerry Warren.  Lots of stock footage spliced into the mountain scenes make this movie look better than any ultra-low-budget film has a right to.  Vexingly, the start of one vital scene seems to be lost (but you can guess what was said without much trouble).

THE SLIME PEOPLE   [1963]
A group of refugees battle for survival after Los Angeles is invaded by a subterranean race of reptiles.   Robert Hutton starred and directed, but the result is a thoroughly generic horror flick.   Most of the budget seems to have gone on the fog machine and the nasty-looking creature suits.

FROM LIFE  [2018]
Could you make a version of THE SIXTH SENSE that only runs 8 minutes?  Director Uli Meyer has done it.  See it on the Omleto channel on You Tube.

INVADERS FROM SPACE  [1965]
One of four "movies" edited from the Japanese television show about super-hero Starman.   This one is supposed to be the best of the four  -- heaven help us if that is true!

SHARKNADO 3
Following on from the inexplicably successful tongue-in-cheek action movie SHARKNADO,  it's clear that the law of diminishing returns has set in, as it often does with movie series.  Probably the stupidest film I've seen this year.

BRIDE OF THE GORILLA [1951]
Jungle film noir !  Barney  (Raymond Burr) kills his elderly employer in order to get to his beautiful wife (Barbara Payton). However, an old native witch witnesses the crime and poisons Barney, who soon after finds himself turning nightly into a rampaging gorilla. But is it real or is it all in his head?  Director Curt Siodmak also wrote the screenplay, perhaps harking back to his script for the first Wolfman film.  Also starring are Lon Chaney (the original WOLFMAN)  and Tom Conway (who had similar problems in THE CAT PEOPLE).    Tolerable B-movie stuff.

GHIDORAH THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER   [1964]
Lots happens in this one, but basically a princess prophecies the arrival of space monster Ghidorah and the possible doom of humanity.  Can Mothra persuade Godzilla and Rodan to unite and save the Earth?   Considered by some to be one of the best of the early Godzilla movies.

POLICE DOG  [1955]
Both my sisters would have loved this movie.  They were big fans of the TV series INSPECTOR REX.  In fact the dog in this one is also called Rex!  Supporting cast includes John Le Mesurier and a young Christopher Lee.

HOUSE OF THE DAMNED [1963]
Marketed as a horror movie, but actually a suspense story about a supposedly haunted house.  Ron Foster and Merry Anders are pleasant as the leads, and black-and-white Cinemascope makes the movie look good.  This is one of three movies director Maury Dexter made at the Greystone mansion in Los Angeles.

MURDER IN TIMES SQUARE  [1943]
Edmund Lowe is a struggling playwright who finally has a hit on Broadway.  But an irascible old woman puts a curse on him and he's soon implicated in a string of "snakebite murders".   Passable B-movie thriller with some telling dialogue about the nature of fame.  Imagine if Damon Runyon and Edgar Wallace had met and decided to write a script together......
 

A lethargic end to the winter months

 I haven't been well this last few weeks.  Long Covid?  RSV?  URTI?  Who knows.

Monday morning you might have expected me to be pleased I had nothing in my diary for this week, after days of appointments and functions last week.  Didn't quite work out that way.  The weather was pleasant enough, but as the afternoon went on I began sneezing regularly;  by the time it started raining at dusk, I couldn't lean forward to pick anything up without my nose running like a tap.  Swallowing cup after cup of hot black tea, I washed down some C-G-H tablets (Vitamin C, Garlic and Horse Radish).
I had the radio on and when the evening presenter took over, he kicked off the show with the Rolling Stones singing "I can't get no satisfaction"  --  I muttered to myself, don't tell us about your troubles, we've got problems of our own!
*
We always called her "Mrs Harris" -- my sister Julie and I often visited when Madeleine was in town, and she always told us to call her by her Christian name, but we usually slipped back after a few minutes.  The big house always impressed us and once I mentioned I'd been to Government House and that it had reminded me of the Harris home;  "Yes, I think they were designed by the same architect" she said in a matter-of-fact voice."  Ah.  Yes.  (Oops)  We always enjoyed our visits there, and she always made us welcome at Sunnyside whether for small gatherings or large parties.  (Mr Harris was the only person I knew who had a portrait of himself on the wall of the pool room.) It was a long time before our two families discovered we were related through our mothers.  I can't say it made a lot of difference - Julie and Madeleine had been at school together, so discovering they were cousins changed their relationship little.
But that was many years ago, in another century.  Now I am left to speak for our side of the family and say "Good night, Mrs Harris".

*
Winter was a difficult season and by July things felt as though they were winding down.  But as often happens, there was a bit of a spike the following month.  In one week we had the quarterly organ concert, the monthly meeting at the church hall, the fortnightly study group in Sandy Bay and our weekly visit to the op shops.  By Monday morning I felt like I'd been put through a mangle.

*

Once again thanks to You Tube and Internet Archive for last month's movies.

GAPPA THE TRIPHIBIAN MONSTER [1967]
Explorers bring back a newly-hatched monster from a South Sea island to be exhibited in Tokyo.  If you've seen the British movie GORGO you'll be ahead of the plot  --  yes, the monster's parents show up looking for him and chaos ensues.  In spite of the less than original script, there's a certain naive charm about this one and you'll stay watching to the heart-warming finale.

SPARROW SONG [2021 short - 13 minutes]
A couple travel across a ruined world hoping to find food and water.  Lyrical filming with a feel that makes up for its downbeat theme.  I found it poignant that the only piece of humanity's art and culture that survives is the man's piano accordion.  Available on Omletto's you tube channel.

THE FANTASTIC FOUR  (1994)
No, not the one with Jessica Alba.  Back in '94 the conpany that owned the movie rights was contractually obliged to make a film, so they hired Roger Corman's studio to do it.  The result is actually rather fun, though film buffs might be aghast at the 1990s special effects and Marvel fans will probably tut-tut at some tinkering with the plot.  But overall, it's good comic-book style entertainment.

SOMETHING EVIL   [1972]
I've often mused on the fact that people in horror movies never seem to have watched any horror movies.  Darren McGavin and Sandy Dennis (New Yorkers who buy a haunted house in the country) certainly had never seen ROSEMARY'S BABY or they wouldn't have taken advice about the supernatural from Ralph Bellamy.
The second TV movie directed by Steven Spielberg, who complained  later that the budget was cut by CBS, who did not give him creative control of the filming.  How times have changed!

THE HORROR AT 37,000 FEET    [1973]
Back when they used to make scores of made-for-TV movies, someone obviously thought "Hey, let's make a haunted house story but set it on a Jumbo Jet!"  Hence this film.   A lot of familiar faces are trapped aboard an airliner when somebody decides to send a haunted altar to America by air freight. Fans of American TV will enjoy seeing Roy Thinnes (as an architect) and William Shatner (almost reprising his role from a certain Rod Serling show);  the rest of us, not so much.

THE MAN FROM PLANET X   [1963]
Cheaply-made science fiction film about an alien visitor landing on a fog-shrouded Scottish island.  First half moves along nicely but runs out of steam as it goes on.  According to producer Jack Pollexfen, director Edgar G. Ulmer did rewrites, designed the spaceship and the glass paintings to expedite production and cut down on expenses.  I like the Ulmer films from the fifties that I've seen but this is a sixties movie that feels like something from the fifties.

LADY FRANKENSTEIN  [1971]
If you came in after the credits, you could be forgiven for thinking this was one of Hammer Films' later productions, except instead of Peter Cushing we have Joseph Cotten.  In this atmospheric Italian production, the lovely Rosalba Neri (billed here as Sara Bey) vows to carry on her father's work after he dies.  The creature he created in his final experiment terrorizes the district and she decides to create one of her own making.   (Please note, if you watch this, don't assume there's a fault in the print;  the final scene simply fades to black, with no end credits.)

THE DAY REAGAN WAS SHOT  [2001]
No great shakes as a historical piece, but this shot-in-Canada TV movie makes an exiting story out of John Hinckley's shooting of Ronald Reagan in 1981
 (I clearly remember watching the actual event on the TV news).  Emphasis is equally divided between the doctors fighting to save the President and the chaos and bickering among the White House insiders.   Richard Crenna is Reagan and (of all people) Richard Dreyfuss plays General Haig.  

MAYDAY   [2005]
Explosive decompression at 64,000 feet is no joke.  But that's what happens in this edge-of-the-seat TV movie.  A trio of survivors have to do what they can to get the plane down safely. A few familiar faces but no big names;  however Gail O'Grady has a memorable cameo as the insurance executive who explains it would be cheaper to let the plane crash rather than try to save it.  (Based on a bestseller co-written by Nelson de Mille)

CHARLIE CHAN IN LONDON  [1934]
Sixth of the Chan films with Warner Oland playing the oriental super-sleuth.  Here he's working to a deadline  --  he has to track down a killer before an innocent man is                        hanged for the crime in three days time.  He spends the weekend at a stately home where his presence causes some alarm among the servants - "We'll all be murdered in our beds " declares a maid.  Barrister Ray Milland is there for legal help. The mystery is solved just in time, thanks no doubt to Philip MacDonald the scriptwriter (who was a popular crime novelist as well as the man who adapted REBECCA for Hitchcock).   Passable for a movie of this vintage.

ATRAGON  [1963]
The legendary lost continent of Mu reappears to threaten the world. While countries unite to resist, an isolated World War ll Captain has created the greatest warship ever seen, possibly the surface world's only hope.

THE SEVENTH VICTIM [1964]  a.k.a. THE RACETRACK MURDERS
A string of murders take place at a rich horse-owner's estate.  This is sort of an Edgar Wallace thriller - it's based on a novel by his son - and provides the required number of deaths, race-fixing and surprises.

FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD  a.k.a. Frankenstein vs. Baragon [1965]
Near the end of WWII, Germans transport the immortal heart of Frankenstein's monster to Japan, where it is seeming lost in the bombing of Hiroshima. Years later a wild boy is found, born from the immortal heart.
I saw this on TV when I was at school on a small black and white set;  this looks more impressive than that and the plot is more subtle (which could be something to do with the Australian TV censor).

A Winter not-so-wonderland

 

A while between updates.  Sorry about that.  Herewith some miscellaneous notes.

Watched movie THE BLACK RAVEN  [1943]
"The bridge is out, you'll have to stay the night." How many old movies has this situation turned up in??
In this B-movie from the PRC studio, it turns out to be an enjoyable low-budget drama benefiting from the casting of George Zucco as the sinister innkeeper and Glenn Strange as his not-too-bright handyman.  A group of strangers are isolated by a storm, despite their varying reasons for wanting to cross the border.  Thrills and mystery ensue.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.   Worth a look.
*

I didn't mind having a widow's peak when I was in my fifties (hey, if it's good enough for Doc Savage...), but now I am in my seventies my receding hairline makes me think.  The first thing that comes to mind are those Superman comics I used to read as a child.  Time travellers from the future always had bulbous heads, as though their brains were so large they made their skulls bulge.  That's my story anyway.
*
The lead-up to Easter was always going to be a busy week.  This year I had the weekly Tuesday night quiz, the fortnightly Wednesday study group, the monthly Missions meeting on Thursday, the annual Good Friday service, the weekly op-shopping on Saturday and the annual Easter Sunday service,  followed by a lunch with friends down the river. By the time I got home Sunday afternoon I went straight back to bed.
*
Winter draws near.  We had some showers in the morning and maybe some snow on the mountain (couldn't see).  By the time I set off for church there was a faint rainbow in the sky and I aimed the car towards it.  After the morning service, commiserated with other church-goers about the break-in we had at the church hall.  Apparently a man has been arrested for committing five burglaries in one night.   You may deplore his morals but you have to admire his work ethic.
Dozed in my chair for a while after lunch then did some boxing-up of stuff.  Books, movies, CDs, etc etc.  I had dinner and watched a Mexican horror movie  -- didn't enjoy it much, since it was the third in a trilogy and they spent a lot of time harking back to the first two in the series.  Meh, should have had an early night instead.   [May 22nd]
*
This Sunday had the feel of the winter months ahead.  I came home from church and had lunch, then dozed off for a while in my chair.  When I woke up, I had to rush outside and feed the animals before it got dark.  So far so good.  But when I got back inside I started sneezing and sniffling for over an hour (I must have gone through half a box of Kleenex).  Fortunately I remembered I had a bottle of tablets from last winter, so I took a dose of Cenovis Immunity (Garlic, Horseradish and C Complex).
I was all right by the time I went to bed, but I do recall that last winter I used to wear a mask not just to protect me from Covid but to keep the cold winds out of my face.  I suspect I'll do the same thing this year.
*
What is that strange humming noise?  It died away in the afternoon after being audible most of last night.  Puzzling. 

The Hum

*
As they said on SEINFELD once, sometimes one of your friends is up and one of them is down.  That's certainly true today.  I spoke to Keith Curtis on the phone and he is quite unwell this week, so no visits to the op shops for him in the immediate future.  Then when I looked at Facebook this morning what do I find but Ian Grieve has been awarded the Order of Australia medal for his thirty years researching Australian radio history; probably the equivalent of an MBE in the old system.
So it's "Congratulations" to Ian,  and "Get Well Soon" to Keith.  God bless you both!

Movies from last year (You Tube)

 Fairly complete listing of the movies I watched on-line last year.

12 to the Moon   Ken Clark   Michi Kobi   Tom Conway.mp4     
40 Days&Nights - Full Movie HD Bizzarro Madhouse.mp4    
A Casualty of War (1989) Frederick Forsyth - Action Thriller HD
Abominable Dr Phibes.mp4     1.16 GB
Air Collision   Full Movie   Action Adventure Disaster.mp4     432 MB
Airline Disaster   Full Movie   Action Adventure.mp4     903 MB
ALLIGATOR PEOPLE and THE MONSTER OF PIEDRAS BLANCAS.mp4  
Arctic Blast FULL MOVIE   Michael Shanks .mp4     1.07 GB
Atomic Attack (1950).mp4     124 MB
Atomic Brain- Jan Wahl.mp4     985 MB
Attack of the Cat People and Cat Women of the Moon
Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959)   Ken Clark   Yvette Vickers   
Battle Beyond The Sun & The Terror - Roger Corman.mp4     
Battle of Los Angeles (Attack  L.A.)    Alien Invasion.mp4     391 MB
BATTLE OF THE WORLDS .mp4     536 MB
Biggles  Adventures in Time
BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS and THE BRAIN EATERS.mp4   
Bride of the Monster   Full Restored Movie   Ed Wood
Carnival of Souls.mp4     1.04 GB
Captain Video Master of the Stratosphere 1951, Colorized
Cat Women of the Moon & The Phantom Planet.mp4     952 MB
Colonel March of Scotland Yard    Episode 1   Boris Karloff
Cone of Silence     Flick Vault.mp4     623 MB
Creation of the humanoids (1962) Sci-fi full movie.mp4     233 MB
Creature From The Haunted Sea   Mark Siegel.mp4     749 MB
Damnation Alley.mp4     1.07 GB
Das Gasthaus an der Themse  1962.mp4     901 MB
Deadly Mantis 1957.mp4     5.98 GB
Der Fälscher von London 1961.mp4     991 MB
DESTINATION MOON 1950 REMASTERED Classic 50's Sci-Fi
Die Seltsame Grafin 1961 strange countess (German).mp4    
Die Weisse Spinne 1963.mp4     339 MB
Die, Monster, Die!   Classic Horror Movie   Boris Karloff
Doctor Bloods Coffin.zip     971 MB
Earth vs The Flying Saucers & Flight to Mars.mp4     1.5 GB
First Man Into Space & Fiend Without a Face (1958).mp4     589 MB
Gamera vs Monster X (Gamera vs Jiger) (1080p).mp4     949 MB
Gammera the Invincible (1966).mp4     298 MB
Giant Gila Monster & Terror From The Year 5000.mp4     1.38 GB
Hannie Caulder   Full Movie   Flick Vault.mp4     381 MB
Here Come The Huggetts 1948 Kathleen Harrison & Jack Warner.mp4     564 MB
Horror Express   Michael Berryman.mp4     833 MB
INVADERS FROM MARS (1953) Full Movie.
Invasion of the Animal People (1959)
IT Conqured the World & The Day Mars Invaded Earth.mp4    
Killer Shrews - Damian's Dreadfuls Se 03, Ep 02.mp4     959 MB
Killers from Space (1954) PETER GRAVES.mp4     219 MB
Kronos (1957).mp4     151 M
Lathe of Heaven interview.mp4     64.2 MB
LATHE OF HEAVEN.mp4     335 MB
Maigret S01E01 - The Patience of Maigret   full episode.mp4    
MAXIMUM IMPACT + DRONE WARS Midnight Screening.mp4   
MONSTROSITY  THE ATOMIC BRAIN a.k.a.
MOON ZERO TWO (1969) Full Movie Sci-Fi,
Night Gallery  the Often Forgotten Successor of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone(1).mp4     132 MB
Nightmare Castle - Full Movie in English (HD)
No Highway In The Sky 1951, Colorized, James Stewart
NOT OF THIS EARTH    Paul Birch, Beverly Garland, Morgan Jones    
NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT (1973) Classic Horror
Old Dark House-- John Stanley.mp4     974 MB
Our Town   OSCAR-NOMINATED   William Holden  
Over the Hill Gang   Full Movie   Comedy   Western
Over-the-Hill Gang Rides Again   Walter Brennan   WESTERN   
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman   
Paper Tiger   Full Movie   Flick Vault.mp4     532 MB
People City  Toronto’s Lost Anthem (2017).mp4     285 MB
Plan 9 from Outer Space   Ed Wood (full movie).mp4     179 MB
Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959) Versión Color
Planet Of the Vampires.zip     926 MB
Pterodactyl FULL MOVIE    The Midnight Screening.mp4     462 MB
Reptilicus    444 MB
Rocketship-XM  1950.mp4     376 MB
Sharknado 1 - Full Movie HD by Bizzarro Madhouse.mp4     1.22 GB
Sharknado 2  The Second One - Full Movie HD by Bizzarr
SHERLOCK HOLMES    THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1939)   
Sink the Bismarck! Kenneth More, Dana Wynter.mp4     946 MB
Son Of Monte Cristo (1940)   Full Movie   Louis Hayward
Strategic Command - 1997 action movie.mp4     558 MB
Superman And The Molemen.zip     404 MB
Tarzan and the Green Goddess   Bruce Bennett.mp4     1.08 GB
Tarzan and the Trappers .mp4     833 MB
Tarzan's Revenge (1938)   Full Movie   Glenn Morris
The Ape Man (1943) BELA LUGOSI.mp4     188 MB
The Atomic Brain (1963)   Full Movie   Marjorie Eaton
The Blood Beast Terror   Full Movie   Flick Vault.mp4     618 MB
The Brain Eaters (1958) Sci-Fi, Horror Cult Film.mp4     357 MB
THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE (1962)  COLORIZED.mp4     
The Cosmic Man    -    1959.mp4     193 MB
THE CRAWLING EYE 1958 Full Movie Sci Fi The Trollenberg Terror
THE DAY MARS INVADED EARTH (1962) Sci-Fi, Kent Taylor
The Drowned Giant Full Movie in English.mp4     32 MB
The Flood Part 1   Tom Hardy   
The Flood Part 2   Tom Hardy
The Forger of London    Der Falsher Von London(dubbed).mp4   
The Giant Gila Monster (1959) Colorized  
The Indestructible Man (1956)   Full Movie   Lon Chaney, Jr.  
THE LOST MISSILE 1958 Colorized Classic 50's Sci Fi, Robert Loggia
The Manster (1959) Horror, Sci-Fi Full Length Monster Movie.mp4   
THE NIGHT THE WORLD EXPLODED 1957 Full Movie
The Oblong Box.mp4     524 MB
The Quiller Memorandum.mp4     323 MB
The She Beast (1966)  Barbara Steele, John Karlsen.mp4     311 MB
The She Creature 1956 Horror.mp4     692 MB
THE SKY CALLS   Nebo zovyot   Battle Beyond The Sun  
The White Spider  (Eng dub of Die Weibe  Spinne).mp4     
UNKNOWN ISLAND and LOST CONTINENT.mp4     590 MB
Valley Of The Dragons.zip     858 MB
Voyage to the End of the Universe ( Ikarie XB 1  1963) [1080p]
World of the Vampires.mp4     248 MB

Comment  from Andrew Murray
Bloody hell, that's awesome 👍 Very impressive list

A happy new year hopefully

 

These fifty two weeks
are all the time we can own;
value the New Year.
-- Haiku for January 2014  No.1

2022 was a difficult year.  I had Covid early in the year, then after I got over that I ended up in an ambulance after falling over and hitting my head.  On the national scene,  there were disastrous floods all around the country (though my home town was spared) and in the elections we had a change of government;  the right wing were right out and the left wing were left in office.  There was inflation, soaring power prices and shortages of all sorts of things.

Some of this was to do with world events.   Who would have thought we'd have an honest-to-goodness shooting war in Europe, but that's what we got when the Russians went into Ukraine.  This affected supplies of oil, gas and wheat to the rest of the world.  China meanwhile was having its own problems, but to paraphrase an old saying, when China gets a cold, we start sneezing.

The Queen died, which didn't shock me as much as I would have expected,  because the previous night I spoke to my friend Keith on the phone.  He had been listening to the BBC radio news and said that reading between the lines they had been saying Her Majesty's health was concerning.  So the next morning I was mentally prepared to some extent when the news came over the radio.

Locally,   Sue Neill-Fraser completed 13 years of her life sentence for murder and successfully applied for parole.  Sue isn't a friend, but she knew my sister and I recall meeting up with her in the car park at our local supermarket.  Her trial was controversial, and I know of no other case where somebody was convicted of killing her husband despite there being no body, no witnesses and no murder weapon.

I remember hearing someone say the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse symbolised Famine, War, Pestilence and Death.  Having lived through the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam and AIDS,  I had not expected to hear those hoofbeats in the distance again in my lifetime.

Here's something I wrote on a Christmas card last year.  Maybe it's applicable to all of us.

This year, may you be healthier, wealthier and happier than you were in the previous year.

year ending

 

Tuesday night our team was ready and waiting when the quiz started.  We made good progress, including getting a perfect score on three of the eight rounds, finishing with a respectable 84 points.  Alas, our rivals at the next table came in with a score of 85 points!   So near and yet so far.   
Oh well, there's another couple of weeks until the Christmas break, so watch this space.
*
Wednesday the last of three days of ferrying stuff to K's place.  I am glad for his sake that we got it done, but I'm grateful that there isn't any more stuff to shift.  Always happy to help a friend in need, but there are limits.  Checked my road map to remind me how to get to Royal Yacht Club for Mission Group's Christmas lunch tomorrow.
*
Lunch at Wrest Point on Friday to celebrate Helena and Julie joint-birthday.  Half a dozen of us dined in the Boardwalk room, then sat outside enjoying the sunny afternoon, admiring the view of the river and talking.  A pleasant time to meet up with old friends and discuss old times.
*
Friday night I finished writing up the quiz questions for the next day.  Saturday lunch time we all gathered at the Croquet Club and enjoyed a two-course lunch in the open-air with the annual Christmas quiz at half-time.  I kept it fairly simple, just 12 true-or-false questions about the Christmas season.  And I advised players "If you don't know the answer, have a guess. You've got a 50% chance  of being right."
*
BATTLE OF THE WORLDS [1961]  available on You Tube.
A stray planet, on a collision course with Earth, instead slows and takes orbit around our blue marble. After careful examination - and a few near-fatal accidents in space - what seems like a dead planet suddenly launches a fleet of flying attack saucers. Professor Benson and his team, along with the space fleet, must figure out how to destroy the invaders. In the end, the frustrated professor is forced to weigh the sacrifices that are required to save the citizens of Earth from certain doom.  
These Italian space opera movies always look stylish, though the scripts sometimes don't hang together too well.  Claude Rains, as Professor Benson, seems to be channeling the character he played in THE LOST WORLD, Professor Challenger.  Indeed, I have seen the American trailer and it even (ahem) declares "See Claude Rains in his most challenging role" !
*
I didn't check my e-mails on Saturday night, so I missed an update from the church office.   I thought I was reading from the book of Matthew, but when the minister introduced me, he said I'd be reading from chapter 9 of Isaiah.  I looked calm as I walked up to the lectern, but inwardly I was anxious to open my Bible and see what I was about to do a "cold read" from. I opened the Bible and scanned the passage while I announced the passage I'd be reading, then launched into reading aloud from the Old Testament.    I was lucky - there were almost no complicated names on that page and I got through without any visible problems.
A friend nodded to me afterwards and said "Good reading this morning."   I responded with "You have no idea!"
*
Watched the "mockbuster" movie BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES, made by Asylum studios to cash in on the release of the Columbia movie BATTLE: LOS ANGELES.  Lots of running and shooting doesn't compensate for the confusing plot.  Strange to see Nia Peeples as a Xena-style swordswoman who comes to the aid of the heroes.
*
Monday and Wednesday I spent the days relaxing, with no calls on my time to make me leave the house. Tuesday I got in one game of croquet at lunchtime,  then out to the final quiz night of the year. We shared a good dinner, paid for by the prize money from the last twelve months,  then ended up being narrowly nudged into second place by the people at the next table who won by a single point.

*
Thursday I was having a quiet day at home, watching the weather to see if we could fit in our last game of Bocce for the season.  Unfortunately friends descended on me and quizzed me about how my feet were going.  When I finally showed them, they were very concerned and insisted on calling a friend who runs a "foot nurse" service. There went my chances of getting to Bocce but I did finish the day with a nice pedicure.
*
I must remember to check these things before I sit down and tune in a movie on You Tube.   Tonight I started watching the movie THE EYE CREATURES thinking it was the American title for the well-regarded British movie THE TROLLENBERG TERROR.  Alas it's not;  I was thinking of THE CRAWLING EYE.   This one was a really dire flick about a couple who run over an alien invader on their way back from Lover's Lane and (surprise) nobody believes them.   I don't think I've ever said this before, but there's not a single thing of interest in the whole movie.
*
A columnist in the WASHINGTON POST mused on Richard Whateley’s satirical pamphlet, published in 1819, “Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Buonaparte.” In it, this future archbishop proves that there’s no way to be absolutely sure that Napoleon, who was then still alive, wasn’t actually a myth. Whately’s intent was subtly religious: He wanted to mock those who questioned the evidence for Christ’s existence.  
[Today we'd probably call this a work of "alternative history"!]
*
They have some dumb things on-line trying to get you interested in watching You Tube videos.  One trumpeted "Lucille Ball's grand-daughter looks just like her!"  -  what a surprise.  Another asked "Why was the coffin closed at JFK's funeral?"  -  well, it could be something to do with him being shot in the head.
*
Have never seen any Mexican horror T, though I know there are some, so WORLD OF THE VAMPIRES (1960) was something new to me.   Filmed in black and white, it used the old plot of the vampire count who seeks revenge on the family whose ancestors wiped out his family.  The twist is that the family have a guest, a music expert who has just returned from Transylvania, where he discovered which musical notes repel vampires.   This is actually quite an interesting little movie.
*
The Light Programme radio show has now moved to https://www.mixcloud.com/The_Light_Programme/
I'd been wondering what had happened to them, since their website seemed up to date.

Busy Busy !

 

Oct 28
Friday agenda:
1. inject 5 micrograms of exenatide subcutaneously
2. visit favorite coffee shop - eggs benedict
3. Pharmacist
4. Salvo store and City Mission shop
5. Newsagent
6. Supermarket
7. return home and rest before dinner
8. can't be bothered with TV, listen to old radio series before bed.
*
I filled a new prescription for my diabetes medication and the pharmacist ran through possible side effects and told me to take it an hour before meals.  For a couple of days, that's just what I did.  Then something started niggling in the back of my mind and I did a Google search.  Sure enough, it told me to take the drug  "2 times a day at any time within the 60–minute period before the morning and evening meals (or before the 2 main meals of the day, about 6 hours or more apart)".  So I did not need to wait sixty minutes till I could eat breakfast in the morning.
*
I went to the meeting at the church hall today and everyone laughed at me.   I don't know who thought of having a comedy segment in the middle of the monthly meeting, but it must have seemed like a good idea to somebody.  (I don't recall hearing of any other Presbyterian stand-up comics;  would it be better for my career if I converted to Judaism?)
*
What a week.  You know there are things you do every week, things you do once a fortnight, monthly things, quarterly things and once-a-year things?  Well, by some freak of the calendar they all coincided in the same week!  I had appointments, meetings, dinners and lunches every day.  By the time I got to the end of the week I didn't know if I was coming or going.  I felt like a Christmas tree salesman on December 24th.
Friday I had hoped to rest up for a bit,  only to receive a note on my door saying the RSPCA wanted to talk to me about my goat.  I phoned them and left a message asking them to ring me back, then waited apprehensively.  When they did ring back, they said they'd had a complaint my goat was looking thin.  Fortunately we were able to resolve the matter with no trouble after I sent them some recent pictures of the goat I had on my phone!
*
Nov 11th
After hearing this morning's radio interview with the Director of Public Health, I made sure to buy a new packet of masks before going to do the weekend shopping.  Cooler, with showers.  Stores beginning to clog up with Christmas stuff.  Puzzled by the reindeer around the Christmas tree in Coles;  when did reindeer grow manes like a lion?
Went home and had afternoon tea while listening to a 1944 episode of The Lone Ranger.
*
Nov12th
Saturday Keith and I went out to the South Hobart tip shop.  Keith happy because he found a book he'd  been looking  for since I-don't-know-when.
Watched a movie on You Tube after dinner.  What a difference nine years makes.  In 2013 when 500mph STORM was made, it was just another disaster movie. Looking at it now, the scenes of storms, floods and fires are uncomfortably like last week's news broadcasts.
*
A friend commented "I like your new glasses. They must have been expensive."  No, I explained, because I sold so much of their product when I was in the hotel business, one of the big breweries said they'd chip in for the cost of them.  "You mean...."    Yes, it was a Foster Grant.
*
Set out for church early but traffic was light and despite light rain I was there early.  Read from Matthew chapter 20 at the Communion Service without difficulty (aside from a tickle in my throat in the last paragraph).  Drove out to what used to be Animal Tucker Box;  the new owners started by repainting the outside, now they've re-organized the inside.  Home for lunch and debated whether or not to take a nap until it was too late to do so.  More light rain.
Served up dinner and watched another You Tube movie The Deadly Mantis from 1957;  not bad at all, with a semi-documentary opening reel about North America's radar network which is attacked by ... well, you can probably guess.
*
Here's a thought provoking quote:
"A movie is a novel turned inside out. A novel directly describes the invisible inner motives and emotions of characters and leaves [the reader] to formulate a mental picture of the physical world. A movie...depicts the visible and implies the unseen. Adapting a book to a screenplay thereby calls for a very difficult inversion: The explicit must be made implicit, and the invisible visible."
~101 Things I Learned in Film School. Neil Landau w/Matthew Frederick
*
Thursday I kept busy.  Downloaded some stuff from the Internet before lunch, then went out and  stocked up on my prescription drugs.  Spent two  hours clearing up the front porch so the electricity company can install a new power board tomorrow, then went out and played Bocce for two hours.  By the time I got home and ate dinner, I was ready for bed.
Friday was a madhouse on the roads.  Was there something going on I didn't know about?  If I hadn't known better, I would have thought it was Christmas Eve out there or that the Rolling Stones were performing in the next suburb.  I helped Keith move some stuff to his house and managed to fight my way through the traffic and got home eventually.  Saw OTR guru Ian Grieve in passing at favorite coffee shop. Our friendly neighborhood goatherd dropped in to see Mr Snuggles and share a cup of tea.    No sign of the electricians;  not that surprised - at least I hadn't been at home waiting for them.
*
29 Nov :  Spent nearly all day Tuesday out in the sun driving Keith around.  He's finishing up at the place he's been working for years and there was a lot of stuff to be moved.  We made two trips today, and two more tomorrow should finish it off.  I feel a little guilty that all I can do is the driving;  carrying stuff up and down stairs is beyond me these days but I do what I can.  Got home at 5 o'clock and drank a can of watermelon & pineapple energy drink.

The Color... Purple??

 

Continuing my explorations down the rabbit-hole of You Tube movie sites, I came across one that had an old black & white movie that was marked as being colorized.  I took a peep at it, and indeed it was in color  --  the color purple.  The whole film had apparently been tinted purple, and the blacks and whites were now dark and light shades of purple.  I don't think this is what most people mean by "colorized" !
*
September 1st is the first day of spring in Australia.  As often happens, it decided to drizzle.  I am feeling a little run down, so walking back from the meeting at the church hall to the bus stop seemed a long way, even if it all downhill.  Stopped off for my periodicals in the mall, and had tea & scones at Beaujangles.  
Expensive detour though JB Hi-Fi even with their 20% off sale.  A boxed set of the DVDs of MURDER CALL, one of my favorite Australian shows from the 1990s, DVD of the new movie EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE, and the Blu Ray of Goddard's BREATHLESS (with lots of bonus features for we Nouvelle Vague fans).
Agonized for five minutes over whether to write "I was the only one on the bus wearing a mask" or "I was the only one wearing a mask on the bus";  decided in the end not to mention it at all.
*
Thursday I had nothing planned aside from pottering around at home, but Keith phoned and said "Let's meet for lunch". After a couple of hours dining and op-shopping, I called in at K-Mart where things were disappointing.  When I asked for a refill for my diabetes injections, the pharmacist just said "We are out of stock."  When I tried my new credit card in the coffee machine, it responded "Try another card" which is all it ever says to me.  Went home and made a coffee gratis - that'll show them!
*
For years people have been saying that social media is bad for you because it makes you feel inferior after comparing yourself with the wonderful time all your friends seem to be having.  All I can say is you must have a different lot of friends to mine.  I have a lot of Facebook friends who are having a tough time.  In fact over the years I've had several people comment "You have such an interesting life", a compliment I'm at a loss to know to respond to  ("Yes I do" or "No I don't"?)
*
I knew this would happen someday, now that I'm no longer wearing my glasses all the time I'm out of bed.  I watched a gripping disaster movie FLOOD on You Tube last night, then when I got ready to retire I realized I didn't know where my glasses were.  I looked in a few places, then decided it might be easier in the daylight.  So the next day I got down on my hands and knees and crawled around the chair I'd been sitting in during the movie.  After a couple of minutes, I spotted them next to the chair and muttered "Eureka!".  A relief, since a replacement set would not only have been expensive but would have meant a two-week wait.
*
This comment from Ted of California on a New York Times story about AM radio gave me a wry chuckle on this day 9 years ago:  
"One of the two classical-music radio stations in Los Angeles is on AM.
It used to be on FM, but the owner (an individual, not a media conglomerate) switched the FM frequency to country music. That was after the media conglomerate that had operated the one country music station in Los Angeles decided that they could better serve shareholders with yet another automated Top-40 station that could offer advertisers a more desirable demographic. Faced with declining revenues from the classical station, the individual owner figured that country music could be sufficiently profitable for him, even if it's not profitable enough to satisfy a media conglomerate's bean counters. He figured right.
Strangely, the relocated classical station is doing well enough to remain on the air, despite the very inadequate sound quality. I only recently realized how that's possible, when I went to a concert of a local semi-professional orchestra. The large hall was filled with gray-haired patrons, whose whistling hearing aids randomly added notes the composers never wrote.
That is also the audience for classical-music radio. And hearing aids, by design, have an even more limited frequency response than AM radio. So the AM signal carrying pleasantly listenable programming probably sounds just fine to its intended audience."
*
Sept 18 - I left for church the usual time this Sunday but I had so many supplies to deliver to the church kitchen that they were half way through the first hymn before I slipped into my pew.  During morning tea, I went over to one of the girls from the music group and told her I appreciated her singing in that morning's service.  I could have added "And you're very pretty" but I didn't think she would appreciate a guy 50 years her senior hitting on her.
On the way home from church, I stopped off at the pharmacy to see if they had any new stocks of my diabetic injections.  Nope, they didn't.  That makes three weeks I haven't been able to source my medication;  no wonder my blood glucose level is up.
I had coffee and a croissant in the cafe and a distraught individual shambled up to my table and said "I have mental health problems and I'm very upset but nobody here will talk to me.  Can I talk to you?"  I shrugged and said "Sure, sit down."  I listened to his problems for a while and asked him if he was seeing a doctor;  he said he was and he'd been prescribed Escitalopram.  I think he was a bit surprised when I nodded and said "Yeah, I take that once a day myself."  He looked a bit calmer when he left.
*
Sept 20th
Tuesday was a bit tiring.  I had to go out for my blood test before my doctor's appointment next week, and have an empty stomach.  By the time I drove around trying to find a parking spot near the pathology lab, and waited while the technician looked up my records because she couldn't read the doctor's handwriting, and drove home again,  I felt exhausted.
Some food and rest made me feel fit enough to see if there was anybody at the Croquet Club.  There was but they left just after Terry and I arrived, so we had one game then departed to our respective homes.  
More rest, which meant I was almost late in leaving for the quiz night.   Whew.
*
Sept 27th
A few things on this Tuesday, so it was a good thing I slept a bit better.  Started off the day with my first appointment for months with my psychologist.  She reassured me that the stressed feelings I've been having lately are just a normal response to some nervous tension.  Then on to the Croquet Club where one of the members took pity on me and stayed on to have a game with me - which I lost 7-3.
After a quick lunch, attended the funeral service for one of the grand old men of croquet, Maurice Woodmansee.  To put it in a modern perspective, he was the Yoda of Tasmanian croquet.  I still hear his instructions in my head when I prepare to hit the ball towards the hoop.
Quiz night tonight and the four of us were unfortunately unable to make it a hat trick.  Even with some inspired guesses from June, we ended up coming third, beaten by a team of newcomers who had never played before.
Then home for a 42 minute phone call from Keith about books and autographs he was hunting on the Internet.  After which I was ready to go to bed.
*
October 4th
On NPR this morning an American radio newsman sounded shocked that interest rates may go up to 7%.  Back when we were in the hotel business fifty years ago we were paying up around 17%.  At the risk of sounding like a a grumpy old man, may I just quote the old saying "Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it."
*
Keith looked a bit gloomy when we met for lunch last week.  He seemed preoccupied and distracted, though he did cheer up a bit when I brought the conversation round to one of his favorite subjects (old westerns).  In retrospect, he may just have been undercaffeinated; I noticed he had two cups of coffee with his lunch and when we emerged from the Salvo store later he muttered something about it was a shame the coffee shop was closed.
*
Tuesday I was too busy for croquet.  Mick and Helena said they'd meet me for lunch and we had a filling if not overly healthy meal down the road from my place.  Then we separated so they could visit the tip shop and I could go out to Glenorchy to pick up some stuff and call in to get some feed at Animal Tucker Box.  After that I visited my pharmacy for the first of my twice-a-week visits;  no, they didn't have any of my diabetes injectables.  It's now being reported as being out of stock till next year!   😕
I returned home only to have Mick & Hedlena turn up five minutes later.  Helena showed me the things she had bought, then started tidying up my back room.  At one point I had to wrest the groceries I'd bought this afternoon from her grasp.
Managed to send them home about 6.15, leaving me just enough time to feed the goat and high-tail it for the quiz night.  
I think I will have an early night.
*
Is it old age or just lack of concentration?  Whatever I'm up to, I always seem to be thinking about something else unrelated to what I'm actually doing at that moment.....
triangulation of quantitative data (factor-analyzed items) and qualitative data (semistructured questions) reveals that they are orthogonal and independent in nature.
*
Woke up early on October 11th so I made a cup of coffee and went back to bed to listen to the morning news round-up on the radio.  It was a Tuesday but there was nothing happening at the Croquet Club so I went into Moonah for lunch and a haircut  (now that winter has finished I do not need so much insulation).  I didn't have time for a nap before I went out and this evening consumed an energy drink, a cup of coffee and a gin & tonic.  No wonder I felt a little befuddled by the time I got home.
The postman delivered three issues of The New Yorker today; I must do something about catching up on my reading tomorrow.
I was a bit late getting to bed because Keith phoned and we talked about books for 68 minutes...
*
I felt tired Wednesday morning and spent the day at home.  In fact after lunch I nodded off in my armchair for a bit  (what I need is an app for my laptop that tells me how long it has been since I used it, so I will know how long I've been dozing).  With the days drawing out, I can't get away with not feeding the animals in the evening;  they are still wide awake and ready for a snack.
Had dinner and watched a series 2 episode of MY LIFE IS MURDER, planning on an early night.
*
Sounds in the Mall today:
1. Police siren
2. Running feet
3. Crash into fence
4. voice [stern] "Stay where you are."
5. voice [whining] "I didn't do nothing."
6. soft footsteps as I walk away minding my own business.
*
The only calls I get on my house phone are scammers and people wanting me to give them money.  This week I got a call from a woman with a very familiar voice.  "Hello this is Helen Murphy calling from the Fund Raising Centre.  I hope you're well?"  I replied "I'm find thanks, but weren't you Ann Fitzgerald last month?"  There was a moment of silence and I took the opportunity to hang up.

 

Onward and (maybe) upward

 

 I nearly always play croquet after lunch on a Tuesday, but one day was just too cold.  The following week I was asked out to lunch unexpectedly.  The following week I finally got out on the lawn, mallet in hand.  I lost, but they say that taking part is the important thing, not winning.

Friday was a bit of a madhouse.  I had to be in town in the morning for a committee meeting;  this went all right and I was sent off with some leftover home-made scones for lunch.  On the way home, I detoured through the JB Hi Fi shop to look for a couple of movies I wanted;  I didn't find them, but I was pleased to spot the boxed set of television serials based on John Wyndham's novel CHOCKY for ten dollars less than I'd seen it on-line.
Taking the bus home was a bit of a drama.  The bus left late because police had to be called to remove a woman who was abusing the driver.  When we did start off, the bus turned onto the highway instead of taking the road through the suburbs and I realized I must be on the wrong bus.  After some thought, I waited till we got to a bus stop on the same latitude as my home, got off and started on a 45-minute walk through the back streets to my house.  
Spent an hour on hold with my bank so I could straighten out some irregularities with my credit card  (I googled a transaction I didn't remember, and it took me to a page with 300 complaints about the merchant!)
In the evening, my friendly local goatherd came round and we spent two hours after dark in the backyard rounding up the roosters, who were the subject of a noise complaint to City Hall.  I think we got them all, because it was unusually quiet when I woke up the next morning.
*
Feeding the chickens this morning, I noticed a woman and her little girl watching the hens pecking about.  I had to bring in the rubbish bin, so I ambled down the driveway and bade them a good morning.  The mother sighed and said "I'd love to have chickens, but I can't where I live at the moment."  "That's a shame," I said, "once every family had chickens in their back garden."  I waved goodbye as they went on their way and the little girl gave me a big smile.  I was reminded of something my sister Julie said about how sad it was that some city children grew up with no animals around at all.
*
Sunday was wet and windy, so I motored into town cautiously, driving to the conditions.  This had the usual effect  -  cars behind me who decided I was driving too slowly so they overtook me and zoomed off.  But I'm used to that.
The Sunday before, I was worried about other stuff.  It was my turn to stand at the lectern and read from the Bible, and I was down to read the whole first chapter of Samuel.  Not only is that a large chunk of text, but there are several unusual names in the first paragraph.  I started off all right, but halfway through I lost my place in the middle of a sentence and couldn't find it again;  A couple of people in the congregation were starting to look concerned, so I skipped to the start of the next paragraph and carried on.
Over morning tea, a woman approached me and commended my clear reading of Samuel.  But, she said, as a GP she had been worried for a second that I might have been having a mini-stroke.  I replied "Well, if you'd known I was recovering from a head injury, you would have been REALLY worried."
*
The doorbell rang at 7 a.m. and the phone rang at 11 p.m.  Nobody there either time.  Sometimes it's like living in a haunted house.
The meeting I was going to on Wednesday afternoon was cancelled.  So what did I do with all that extra time?  Fooled around with the laptop and drank too much coffee of course.  In the evening there were just two of us at the quiz night, but we did fairly well  --  at the beginning we solved the puzzle question on the first clue, and got a perfect score in the first round.  Unfortunately we didn't keep up that standard, especially in the Sports and Music rounds!  Still, an entertaining evening out.

Imaginary conversation:
"I'm not eating that, it's going green."
"You did order the Pesto Parmagiana, didn't you sir?"
*
Friday was a nice day but I spent most of my time resting up from the day before. Thursday had been one of those "perfect storm" days when everything happened on the same day.  It started straight after breakfast, when my friendly local goatherd stopped by to check on the goat.  Then I drove down to South Hobart for a morning tea with friends from church;  I'd never been to the Rivulet Cafe but it's a nice modern place with (of course) a view of the Hobart Rivulet.  Took a couple of minutes trying to get pictures of the ducks paddling around in the rivulet.
Not long after I returned home, got a call to meet visiting friends for lunch.  Grant doesn't get down to Tasmania often, so it was good to see him and meet his wife Cheryl.  Following that, I went around the bookshops with Keith, who took pleasure in showing me a couple of desirable items he'd picked up for two dollars a throw this morning.  I'm trying not to buy books these days myself, but I was happy for him.
Then I had about sixty minutes before I had to leave for the theatre.  Just time for a hasty meal before my lift arrived. I met Helena at the Playhouse and we saw the comedy 39 STEPS in which four actors play dozens of characters in a high-energy spoof of the Hitchcock movie.  Some clever stagecraft meant the pace never slowed down and the audience (mostly from the older age group) seemed to enjoy it a lot.
I returned home and sat down on my bed.  Looking at my watch I realised I'd been on the go for twelve hours, not something I'm used to these days.  Either a feast or a famine, eh?
*
Haiku for the TV serial of WAR OF THE WORLDS 20/08/2020
Robots a-scuttling
as a world goes to ruin.
The blind see again.
*
Free and easy?  Well...
I noticed one of my tyres was getting down a bit so I thought, no problem I'll just stop off and get some air while I'm out.  Nope.  First station I stopped at had a big Out Of Order sign on the air & water.  I traveled on to another station, but their air hose was missing altogether.  Third time lucky, at the United station in North Hobart I was able to inflate the tyre back to normal pressure.  I was so grateful I went into the office and bought coffee and a sandwich just to thank them for having a function air pump.  (And I noticed another car was waiting to use the pump after me - air may be free but it's not always easy to find)
*.
In 2020 there was an arts project in Huonville where your three-line poems were stencilled onto walls of buildings:
See those words on walls
a community haiku
for all Huon eyes
*
Clear weather, which means a fine afternoon but a cold morning.  No croquet again this week, but made it to two quiz nights. We went from the sublime to the ridiculous  -  Tuesday we finished second, the closest we've come to winning this winter, but Wednesday night we came second-last!  I will admit that the latter was the first time I've ever scored 2/10 in the TV and cinema round.
*
The following Tuesday, it seemed a bit wet for croquet so I went out for lunch with the goatherd and his partner.  Later she persuaded me to remove my shirt so she could rub arnica onto my shoulder after my fall in the garden yesterday.  Fortunately I haven't mowed the grass this month so it was a relatively soft landing.

Got ready for the quiz night.  There were five of us there tonight and we finished second out of nine teams.  Second week running - not bad.
*
I've been scouting around the various channels on You Tube and I've found several that offer a lot of old B-movies from the post-war period.  So far I've watched THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE, THE GIANT GILA MONSTER, THE NIGHT THE WORLD EXPLODED and EARTH vs THE FLYING SAUCERS.  These are actually better than you might think from the titles.  The last mentioned one is a triumph of special effects by the great Ray Harryhausen  --  if you came to it cold you'd find it hard to believe it was made in 1957!
*
I posted this on Facebook back in 2012 when I was younger and sadder:
Sometimes on a wet afternoon you leave the TV and the radio switched off and think.
You think about the past and the future.  The people you knew.  The people you never met but you felt you knew them.   The things you wish you'd done and the things you wish you hadn't.   The things that you know now that you'll never do.  
I guess that's life, in all its richness and heartache.  But every day we get a new 24 hours, to do with as we wish...

Wash the blood off my scarf

I've been a bit slow to write about this because I didn't want to worry people.  But a lot of you will realize something is up when I do not turn up for church tomorrow.  The fact is that when I left the quiz night on Wednesday I had a bad fall trying to walk up the hill to the car park.  Fortunately one of the other people leaving the venue was a nurse and she gave me first aid while an ambulance was summoned.
After a few hours in the ER at the Royal Hobart Hospital, they patched me up and gave me a bed for the night, letting me go home the next afternoon.
I'm not in any pain, but the left side of my face is like a jigsaw puzzle where they glued me back together. Oh, and I had a spectacular black eye the next day.  I don't think I'll ever forget the moment my head hit the asphalt -- I thought for a second somebody had hit me on the side of the head with a cricket bat.
So if you don't see me around for a week, you'll understand why.
*
Recuperation day 6. Can't remember the last time I spent the day in bed, but as my Quaker friends would say I felt a leading to it.  A selection of snacks on the bedside table, listening to the radio, reading my e-mails, dozing off every now and again.  As necessary go out and visit the bathroom and/or make a hot drink.  My left eye is coming good and I can now look in the mirror and see myself in 3D - not that this is a pleasant view at the moment.  I no longer feel like I am wearing a Phantom-of-the-Opera mask over the left side of my face.

This morning I fed the poultry in my pyjamas.  How they got in there I'll never know!
(You need to be a Marxist to appreciate that joke.)

Tuesday evening I ventured out to the quiz night.  The other members of the team surveyed me thoughtfully and muttered things like "Well, you certainly did a job on yourself."  When the quizmaster read out the scores halfway through, she commented our team might have done better but one of us had suffered a head injury!  There were eight teams and in the end we finished fifth with 78 points;  the winners were the Dawdlers who belied their name by coming home with 84 points.  But we did win a bottle of wine for solving the puzzle question and I got 9/10 for the Art & Literature round.  So not too bad.

I came home and made a cup of Nerada Detox tea. A blend of Dandelion, Lemon Verbena and Milk Thistle with a dash of Senna and Nettle.
*
July 11th I went to the eye clinic for a follow-up exam.  An orbital fracture sounds like something you worry about at NASA but my doctor doesn't seem to be worried about it.  I had lunch in town then went home and took a nap;  I didn't plan it, it just sort of happened.
In the evening, I got a big tray of snacks and drinks and settled down in front of the laptop to watch the first Garrison Keillor show any of us have seen in years.  Thanks to the Mandolin site for streaming it.
*
Temperature in my house in winter seems to sit on 40 F during winter according to my old thermometer, which I think is 4.5 C -- but then I live in Tasmania.
*
Watched two movies on-line.  

ANGELS OF TERROR (1971) was the last of the long-running series of Edgar Wallace movies made in Germany.  Karin Dor was no longer starring, but Uschi Glas makes an acceptable substitute.  An Australian woman arrives in London to search for her sister who she finds is involved with a drug ring. The gang itself is under attack from an unknown rival, who is methodically assassinating them one by one.
FOR A GOOD TIME, CALL... (2012) adult comedy about a girl in New York who discovers her room-mate is running a phone-sex business.  After her initial revulsion, she is tempted to take over the business and (as they say in the classics) hilarity ensues.  This is actually quite funny and both Ari Graynor and Lauren Miller Rogen are fun to watch.  An independent movie that had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

Caprine Collission

 

 

Tuesday 24th May
No quiz for me tonight.  Seventh day of isolation.  Weirdly, the last week has seemed like a never-ending  Saturday afternoon to me.  No beginning or end, just a long middle.  Hard to believe the world is going on as usual outside my front gate.  At least I'm saving a fortune in petrol  -- which reminds me I should st

art the car tomorrow to make sure it hasn't carked it while I've been in quarantine.     
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I don't contribute to many of the on-line fundraisers like Kickstarter and Gofundme, but now and again I do succumb to temptation.   Earlier this year I pledged a few bucks to a project that was bringing back into print new and old stories from August Derleth's famous Sherlock clone Solar Pons.  Today I received via email THE NOVELLAS OF SOLAR PONS and a  handful of new volumes like THE PAPERS OF SOLAR PONS and THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SOLAR PONS  (not forgetting THE NECRONOMICON OF SOLAR PONS !).   Enough e-books to keep  me busy for months to come.       *
Numerology isn't something that usually interests me.  But it's hard not to be startled by this week's quiz night results.  I went to two quiz nights in two days.  Both times we came second in the final results, and both times we won a bottle of wine for solving the puzzle question on the second clue.  Something felt strange about all that.
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The new survey is out for radio listening in Hobart.  As expected, the two big commercial FM stations are battling for the younger audience, but if you look at the numbers you will notice that the ABC picks up more and more listeners as the ages go up.  By the time we get to the final column (65 and over) the public broadcaster scores an unbeatable 39.5% and only one of the commercial stations scores more than 1% !    
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There are certain landmarks that show the progress of the seasons from summer to winter.  First week you start wearing a jacket outside.  First time you put on a beanie inside and outside.  First time you get out the Ugg Boots (June 3rd this year).  Next will be the first time you go searching for those gloves you wore last winter.
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June 7th was a Tuesday.  After checking the apparent temperature outside (2.5C)  I was glad I didn't have to be out early.    Dressed warmly before I went out to play croquet  --  the weather forecast made it sound as though I needed to be prepared for rain, snow or hail but actually there was enough sunshine for one game.
And I was happy to be able to buy some Ozempic on the way home, after the pharmacist scrutinised my prescription to make sure I was a diabetic and not some hipster wanting to lose a few pounds before they tried out their new swimwear for next summer.
It is also cheering to get a reminder in the mail for your overdue water bill when you know you paid it last week!  

At the quiz night our numbers were down, so the folk at the Minerva's Disciples table adopted Caroline and I.  But even our combined brainpower wasn't enough to defeat the unstoppable Jambag table and we finished second (again).   And the Wednesday night quiz ... second again???
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Routine visit to my GP.  Signed my form for the Transport Department, gave me my flu shot and asked "Are you still taking the Ozempic injections?"  "When I can get it," I replied.  He gave a wry laugh.     
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The winter weather is setting in.  Last night the wind was gusting and kept blowing my bedroom open.  "How can I keep that closed?" I said to myself.
And a little voice in my head said "Put a box of books against it."
I said "Where can I find a box of books in my house?"
And the little voice laughed and laughed....   
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We didn't do so well in the Wednesday night quiz, coming in fifth out of nine teams.  But I was amused at the puzzle question they gave us tonight.  The question was about a painting, and the first few lines of the clue were a vague description of it, followed by a passing mention that the artist had once been featured in a DOCTOR WHO story.  The result  --  five teams answered correctly after the first clue !  Including us, needless to say.  ☺
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I knew this would happen one day.  I don't know the technical names, but I've noticed there are two sorts of goats -- ones whose horns grow backwards from their heads and ones whose horns grow sideways.  My goat is the latter, so I'm always careful not to put my head down next to him.  But ... a few minutes ago he was standing at the fence, waiting for his afternoon feed.  As I leaned over to put the hay in his trough, he swung his head sideways and the tip of his horn whacked into my glasses, driving them into my cheek.  Ouch!
What I fear is that it will leave a mark visible beneath my spectacles and if someone asks what happens, I'll have to relate the whole unlikely story.  
Come to think of it, I am having trouble typing this.   Could I have concussion??
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My old laptop has been getting slower and slower - I think I've used it every day since the pandemic began - so I finally got round to setting up the new laptop I bought last year.  It's been sitting in a box in the corner of my room, while I kept thinking "I must get round to that" every few weeks.  One of the first things it did when I got it running was to update itself from Windows 10 to Windows 11.  A bit different to what I'm used to, but I seem to have figured out most things.  I suspect that I am having less trouble than a friend if mine will - he dropped his laptop and broke it, but one of his family has obtained a new laptop and is sending it to him.  The only stumbling block for him may be that his old machine was still running on Windows 7.
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We have had a few cold days this winter but not as bad as some years.  Usually by the shortest day I am shivering and complaining about the rains, mud and snow.  The other day I went to the Croquet Club and by the time we got into the second game it was bright and sunny, motivating me to discard my scarf and beanie for the rest of the game.
Some years at this time the grass is very thin and anemic, while the lawn we were playing on this week was like a very large piece of green carpet.
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So true.  "Nothing is as it was."
Linda Mottram on ABC Radio's THIS WEEK June 25th.