Another year??

If I'm typing a little slower than my last post, it's probably because I'm a year older than I was last time. Wednesday I celebrated the 36th anniversary of my 21st birthday, if that's the word I'm looking for.

Even the cat gave me a break for once and let me sleep in for a few minutes without insisting I get up and feed him at the crack of dawn.

That evening we went out for dinner at the Mexican restaurant on the waterfront. I was joined by ten friends and/or relatives who toasted my health. I had my first Margarita, which my dictionary describes as "a cocktail made of tequila and triple sec with lime and lemon juice". Madeleine tasted hers and said it tasted just like a soft drink; yes, I said warily, a couple of those and we'll find you under the table moaning that your lips have gone numb.

I scored the usual round-up of gifts -- a CD from my favourite radio show, the DVD of a movie I missed on television last week, a bottle of French wine (from Caroline, natch), some home-made biscuits, some tomato relish and a new science-fiction paperback. The last came from Steve, who made a point of mentioning it came from K-Mart; I thought at first he was expecting kudos for his frugality but he actually meant it was an unusual place to find cutting-edge fiction.

Overall it was an enjoyable enough birthday, though if I had my druthers what I'd actually have liked as a present was an extra hour of sleep every night.



It never ceases to amaze me what you can find on the Internet. My newish hobby of collecting old radio shows has gone from strength to strength as I have discovered whole networks of fellow aficionados of this form of entertainment.

In the beginning I started out buying things over the net, but now I have but to ask "Does anyone have a copy of Jack Benny for May 4th 1948?" and somebody will instantly respond with "Sure, I've got a nice clear copy of that; I'll send it across to you tonight." No money changes hands - merely a combination of barter and sheer goodwill.

This is the way that the Internet was supposed to work before the Spam merchants and the sexploitation tycoons moved into cyberspace.


Speaking of IT, it was amusing to notice the chain of events when my boss wanted some letters sent out urgently last week. He wrote them out at home by hand, then scanned them into his computer. Turning them into a PDF file, he e-mailed them to the office, where I printed them out and typed the resulting manuscript to be printed out on our official letterhead so they would be ready for signing when he reached the office.

It worked, but it did seem to me that there must be a shorter way of doing this somehow!

---

The mouse problem continues. We have two traps in operation and have now captured and released 35 little rodents. I have been taking them down to the railway bridge and releasing them there, so if you see a news item about rail services to the northern suburbs being delayed by a plague of mice on the tracks, don't say anything.

It's reaching the point where the first thing you do in the morning is switch on the kettle, fetch the newspaper in and check the traps for little visitors. They are very small mice -- "tiny" would not be overstating it -- and while I can't bring myself to poison them wholesale I am not happy about the damage they do to anything edible we forget to lock up.

I haven't been game to ask the neighbours if they are suffering similar problems. If they are, that's one thing, but if they aren't then they may look at me askance, wondering what unhygenic conditions prevail in my household.

 

south by southwest

I threw a tantrum last week that would have done credit to a two-year-old. It was just too much to bear.



With the mouse problem in my place this summer, we've spent weeks using a humane mousetrap to catch and release dozens of mice. They've eaten every piece of chocolate in the house and I have to lock up the bread before I go to bed every night.

So you can imagine how I felt when I discovered my cat had a new hobby: catching mice outside and bringing them into the house alive!

I lost it completely. I ranted and raved while he looked unruffled.

Finally I levelled a finger at him and bellowed "That's it. You're fired!"

The cat yawned.

---

One saturday recently we took a family trip down the Huon and drove down to Cygnet.

The Cygnet area was first explored by Bruni D'Entrecasteaux who sailed up the Huon River in 1793 and named the narrow bay Port des Cygnes (the Port of Swans) because of the large number of swans he observed in the area.

The first European settlers arrived in 1834. In 1836 orchards were planted and by 1840 Port Cygnet (as it was known at the time) was surveyed and land blocks and streets were laid out. My ancestors arrived there in 1851 and prospered in the apple industry.

We ate lunch in the hotel that my great-grandfather had owned; there's a framed photograph of him in the back bar. Julie was impressed that she got ten different vegetables with the roast. Then we drove around the town while my cousin Winnie told us stories about her childhood. Stopped to photograph the little school where my father was educated during World War I.

Just out of town was the little farmhouse that used to be our family's home. It looks smaller than when I first saw it as a five-year-old, but that's not unusual. The property feels very different because it's no longer surrounded by apple orchards, but it was good to see the house looks smart and well cared for.

There are oak trees just next door, and Julie stopped and filled her pockets with acorns even though I don't think she'll live long enough to grow an oak tree from scratch.


We had an appointment to see local historian John Dance. He has a house full of memorabilia including a couple of photographs of my grandfather that we hadn't seen before. A few questions produced the unsurprising news that he was in fact a cousin by marriage.

Julie's genealogical research seems to be providing us with a never-ending supply of new cousins. So far two of her oldest friends have turned out to be distant cousins. I guess that isn't surprising on an island like Tasmania -- Iceland has a similar set of circumstances.

The drive there and back was enjoyable. The wooded hills looked as though they had changed little since my grandparents lived there. It didn't take much imagination to picture them making their way through the orchards and down Slab Road to the village of Cygnet, a long way from Hobart on those twisty 19th century roads.




Collecting old radio shows in the Internet era means you can graze freely through all genres and levels of entertainment, from the most banal comedy to the most engrossing drama.

Even different episodes of the same programme can be notably different.

Take for example episode #152 of DRAGNET 52-05-08 "The big gamble" -- in this one detectives Friday and Lockwood are on the case when a cop is shot during a raid on a gambling club.

Observe the three act structure marked by three differing styles of dialogue - first the detectives are shown in a low-key, almost sympathetic conversation with an informant.

Then after the shooting, the interrogation of a suspect is conducted at a sharp staccato pace, the words being shot out like bullets from a machine gun.

Finally the confrontation with the man whose negligence caused the shooting -- outwardly polite but their words practically drip with disdain.

Much imitated and often the subject of parodies, this is still a show that repays listening.

into April

Easter Tuesday there was a narrow window on ABC radio between the end of the cricket overnight and the start of the afternoon football broadcast. Tim Cox's morning show took the opportunity to throw away the playlist and have some fun with their music.

I don't think I've ever heard Cole Porter's "Let's Do It" sung by Louis Armstrong with the Oscar Peterson Trio till that morning. And when one listener requested a Johnny Mathis ballad "The Twelfth of Never", Tim found it on his producer's i-Pod!

Along with a re-run of their visit from talented Canadian vocalist Serena Ryder, it made for some entertaining radio.

---

The Wine List for last month:

De Bortoli Sacred Hill Traminer Riesling 2006

spicy fragrant Traminer blended with fresh citrus Riesling to make this pleasant medium-sweet wine

De Bortoli Sacred Hill Rosé 2005

raspberry fruit flavours with a crisp finish, a medium bodied wine for all occasions

McWilliams Inheritance Semillon Sauvignon Blanc 2006

blend displaying floral and herbaceous aromas with hints of lychee, displaying ripe peach character and a crisp finish

Jabiru Classic White 2005

blend of Colombard, Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc from fruit grown in the Adelaide Hills region of the state of South Australia

Warraroong Estate Long Lunch White Wine 2005

blend of estate grown grapes from the Hunter Valley producing a light easy drinking wine with a fruit driven palate

Red Poppy Vineyard Riesling 2006

classic Riesling with touches of lemon, lime and citrus blossom from South Australia

Snowy Vineyard Snow Bruska 2005

soft red from Australia's coldest climate winery

De Bortoli Sacred Hill Semillon Chardonnay 2006

blend of mature Semillon and ripe melon Chardonnay has soft oak character and rich dry finish

---

Have you heard Tasmania's seas are three degrees warmer than usual -- oceanographers are saying it is a good time to go swimming.

Waters on Tasmania's east coast are the warmest they have been for this time of year since daily records began 14 years ago.

CSIRO oceanographer David Griffin says satellite images show the east Australian current is travelling further south than usual, bringing the warm water with it.

Researchers also want biological evidence of the warming and are keen to hear from any beachcombers who find unusual species washed up. (Sounds just like the first reel of an old horror movie doesn't it?)

quizzed by the under-13s

Equine misadventures continue. Julie was still tending the wounds from where Shadow fell off the bridge, when she got a phone call from one of the neighbours.

I'm going away for a couple of days, he said, but I thought I'd better let you know that your horse's eye is all swollen up. Aaaaagh.

We went over and examined him. He must have run into a branch or something, we thought. Julie had a bottle of saline solution that she thought might be useful for washing out the eye.


The horse didn't think much of this and it took us a while to work out that he was much happier if we took some warm salty water and bathed his eye. It makes sense -- would you like it if somebody sneaked up on you and squirted cold water into your eye?

After a few days the eye looked a lot better. Julie sent a text message to her neighbour to let him know that things were going OK.

I hope it's not true that things come in threes. Two mishaps like this are enough.

---

Meanwhile we were out at the monthly quiz night run by the Irish Association. The content of the quiz depends on who is setting the questions, and we've found in the past that the younger the quizmaster the worse for us old codgers.

You can imagine our feelings when we saw the two girls who were in charge of the questions. One of them looked about 12 years old (though I guess she must have been older than she looked). The second of the eight categories was The Wiggles!

After the first couple of rounds we were trailing the field. I think we were next to last.

You get to choose what you think will be your best category and play your Joker, meaning you get double points for that round. We looked at the list and went for Capitals And Cities, figuring that good old-fashioned geography might be safest. And in fact the Amnesiacs (our team name) didn't do too badly.

The night went on and one of our team went up to examine the scores on the blackboard. She came back and said we were equal second.

"What??" I said in disbelief.

"We're equal second," she repeated and everybody's jaw dropped. Had we really gone from second-last to second place? It seemed impossible.

After the last round, the figures were added up and we were tied for first place with a team of young women who called themselves The Beach Girls.

The organizers went for the tie-break questions. These turned out to be all sports related, which would have scuttled my chances but we did have one sports expert on the team.

One question. Both teams got it right. A second question. Both teams scored again. A third question. Both teams had the right answer, but our expert Caroline gave such a detailed answer that they declared us the winners.

Incredible. Somehow we had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. The Beach Girls took their defeat in good part, declaring "Next time you're going down for sure!"

I couldn't believe it.

It just goes to show the truth of Winston Churchill's speech which said "There are three things to remember. Never give up. Never give up. Never give up."

doctor doctor give me the news

The new coffee machine was a good omen I thought. I arrived at the hospital and found they'd finally replaced the machine they used to have in the old hospital.

It was pretty elaborate. If Doctor Who had a dalek barista, this is what it would have looked like.

A two-dollar cappuccino helped settled my nerves while I waited to see the endocrinologist.

What was I going to say to the doctor? I had made up and discarded a dozen excuses over the last week. It was obvious that I couldn't live up to the promises I made last time about improving my lifestyle and controlling my diabetes.

But when I got into his office I was stunned. He opened his folder and ran down the list of test results -- each was either "normal" or "improved."

"If you continue to make this sort of progress, I'll have to think about reducing your medication" he said cheerfully.

"I'm speechless" I replied. I honestly never dreamed that I'd have such a result. Even good news can be a shock when it's that unexpected.

---

"Pride is said to be the last vice the good man gets clear of." - Benjamin Franklin.

I was reading recently about Ben Franklin, who once embarked on a plan to achieve moral perfection, only to discover this was "a task of more difficulty than I had imagined."

He drew up a list of 13 virtues as follows:
temperance
silence
order
resolution
frugality
industry
sincerity
justice
moderation
cleanliness
tranquillity
chastity
humility

The interesting thing is that originally he had only put twelve virtues on the list, but a candid friend pointed out that Franklin was often overbearing in debate and conversation.

Franklin added humility to his list and did his best to remove words like "undoubtedly" from his vocabulary. He avoided contradicting people even when he knew they were wrong.

As a result, he found people were more receptive to his ideas and he became known for his tact and diplomacy.

Maybe there's a lesson here for us. We've often heard that "low self-esteem" is a problem, but the opposite extreme can be just as undesirable. We all know persons who are difficult to hold a conversation with because they are sure they're right and are only too willing to explain why at length.

Whenever I can, I try not to come out and tell people that they're wrong. If I think they are I'll say "I'm surprised to hear that." If I'm certain of it, I'll say "I'm very surprised to hear that." Let those that have ears hear, as the good book says.

Perhaps we should all take a leaf from Franklin's book. Resolve to be a little less dogmatic and a little more diplomatic. It might make the world a bit more pleasant for all of us.

hold that horse!

Unexpected midnight adventures can sometimes result from horse ownership. Just ask my sister Julie.

Monday night we'd been out to the monthly quiz night run by the Irish Association at the New Sydney Hotel. We'd finished second in line for the silver medal category, but it had been an entertaining evening as usual.

So there we were at Julie's house. I was playing with her cats while she got ready to give the livestock their late-night feed. Then over the sound of the radio, there was a loud noise from outside. "What was that?" we said and looked at each other.

We only discovered after Julie went outside that her walnut tree had unexpectedly toppled over in the lower paddock. And Shadow, her horse, was nowhere to be seen.

It took us quite a while wandering about the paddock in the dark with very small flashlights to find him standing by the fence in the upper paddock, completely silent and motionless. A bit of a change from his usual outgoing and demonstrative manner.

Apparently he had been standing down by the footbridge when the tree toppled over and he got such a shock that he spun around, slipped off the bridge and scraped his shin scrambling out of the creek. By the light of our torches we could just make out some nasty looking abrasions, but the blood seemed to be just weeping slowly as it ran down his legs.

Julie fetched the headstall and fitted it onto his head. She handed me the rope and told me to hold on to him while she fetched her First Aid supplies.

So there I am standing out in the paddock in the moonlight, hanging on to a large nervous ex-racehorse. I hoped for two things -- that Julie wouldn't be too long and that Shadow wouldn't take fright at anything.

At least everything was quiet. Standing there at the top of the paddock we looked down to the house and off in the distance the road. All the homes were dark and quiet, the neighbours unaware of our activities. At least I hoped they were -- anybody seeing our lights bobbing around aimlessly in the darkness might have been tempted to phone in a UFO report.

Julie returned and we led him over to the shed so we could see a little better. "Hold him ... if you can. Let go if you need to." said Julie warily as she picked up a bucket of water.

I watched as she threw the water over the wounds. The horse's head went up as the bucket of water hit him and he jumped sideways a step. Julie made soothing noises and he eventually decided nothing nasty was happening.

Julie looked over at me and said "That was all right. I wasn't sure about giving him to you to hang onto, but I couldn't pass on ten years of experience with horses in ten minutes."

"That's OK," I shrugged. "He wasn't too bad."

We inspected the wounds that Julie had washed down, then she sprinkled them with powdered sulphur. (This is basically the same stuff that people used to put on their wounds before antibiotics came along.) He definitely didn't like this, but we managed to get a bit on.

Over the next few days, Julie kept this up and the wounds gradually wept less blood and the swelling began to go down.

It just goes to show you -- most evenings I sit there with the cats while Julie takes care of the animals, wondering why I bother to accompany her every night. But every so often I feel that I might be needed after all.

---

I keep getting queries from people who want to buy my house. Not real estate agents -- these are people who wander in off the street and ask whether I've ever thought of selling the place.

One particularly persistent couple returned to add that if I needed any help in moving out they'd be happy to assist me. Well, thanks, (I guess) but I think that would be my responsibility.

It's always interesting to consider how you're seen by other people. In this case I suspect they may see me as one of those old codgers who might need a nudge to start thinking about moving from the family home.

I actually had one couple turn up who'd looked at the area on Google Earth and were impressed by the size of the backyards in my street... Sheesh!

A vague memory surfaced of someone on a television show years ago giving advice to house-hunters ... "Buy the worst house on the best street." Hmmmmm.

It's true that I haven't paid much attention to the house since my mother died. The grounds certainly have that uncared for look and the interior is even worse: literally every flat space is cluttered with bric-a-brac, while in some rooms there has been a desultory attempt to bring order out of chaos.

Perhaps this winter I shall be able to pull myself together and make some progress at last.

HEROES

Arthur C. Clarke obviously still holds a fascination for me, since I got through "Jupiter Five" last night between going to bed and putting the light out. I haven't done that for a couple of years.

It's a wonderfully entertaining story, though maybe a little low-key by modern standards. A scientific expedition to the moons of Jupiter makes an amazing discovery, as illustrated on the cover of IF in 1953.

Thanks to the Centrepoint newsagent for helping me get re-acquainted with Clarke. If it hadn't been for them including Reach for Tomorrow among their bargain paperbacks, I might have taken years to getting around to re-reading him.

One of my readers was surprised to see me write a piece about Clarke without mentioning 2001. I guess that's because I'd read all Clarke's novels and short stories before that famous movie was released.

I remember getting a letter about 1969 from Gary Woodman in Melbourne (whatever happened to him?) saying "I've just seen the most extraordinary movie. You've got to see it, even if you have to fly to Melbourne."

That wasn't necessary -- I was in the audience as soon as the film was released in this state, and sat there stunned as the end credits ran up. In fact I think I sat there for a couple of minutes before I could collect myself enough to leave the cinema.

---

The end of February has brought with it some milder conditions. And about time too. Last week not only were we plagued with an invasion of tiny little flies that followed us everywhere, but the humid weather made life very tiresome. One night the humidity reading was still 90% at midnight, which is almost unheard of.

Roll on autumn, that "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness."

---

"Hiro, there are tweleve and a half million people in this city. Not one of them can bend space and time. Why do you want to be different?!"

Yes, I've been watching Heroes on television. I've only seen the first five episodes, but it certainly is an intriguing show.

The plot is complex and involved, but what struck me was the whole ambience of the story.

Let me explain. Heroes makes no bones about being in the style of super-hero comic books, frequently referring to them in its dialogue, though it isn't based on a comic book itself.

And that's what intrigues me. Over the years I've seen many comic books adapted for movies or television and seldom have they captured the essence of the original. Lots of colour and movement and people in funny costumes seems to be enough, they feel. (The makers of The Flash television show had to fight the network every inch of the way to try and make their show more like the comic book.)

But Heroes succeeds to a surprising extent in replicating the experience of reading one of those complex story arcs that used to be all the rage in Marvel Comics when I was a teenager.

Whether it manages to keep up this standard or not remains to be seen. But I for one shall certainly be watching next week.

---

Sheridan Morley died recently and his Sunday night slot on BBC Radio 2 has been taken over by Alan Titchmarsh to present Melodies For You. The programme remains, as ever, a pleasant mix of light classics and show tunes and has been extended to a full two hours.

But by the vagaries of scheduling, this means that there is now a news bulletin at the 135 minute hour mark before the show resumes for its final 20 minutes.

It seems to be one of the pillars of public broadcasting around the world that everything stops for the news. I remember the furore that was caused a few years ago when ABC television cut away from the final moments of a cricket test match because it was time for the evening news!

Reach for Tomorrow

Reach for Tomorrow, published back in 1956, was Arthur C. Clarke's second collection of his short stories. I read it about forty years ago but the other day I picked up a nice new copy on the sale table at the newsagents.

Like most modern paperbacks, it doesn't give you details on the date or origin of the stories, but fortunately these are easily accessible on the web:
--Rescue Party, 1946. (novelette) (Astounding, May, 1946.)
--A Walk in the Dark, 1950. (Thrilling Wonder Stories, August, 1950.)
--The Forgotten Enemy, 1949. (New Worlds, #5, 1949; Avon Science Fiction and Fantasy Reader, January, 1953.)
--Technical Error, 1950. (as The Reversed Man, in Thrilling Wonder Stories, June, 1950.)
--The Parasite, 1953. (Avon Science Fiction and Fantasy Reader, April, 1953.)
--The Fires Within, 1947. (as by E. G. O'Brien in Fantasy, August, 1947; Startling Stories, September, 1949.)
--The Awakening, 1951. (Future, January, 1952.)
--Trouble with the Natives, 1951. (as Three Men in a Flying Saucer, in Lilliput, February, 1951.)
--The Curse, 1953. (short short) (Cosmos, #1, September, 1953.)
--Time's Arrow, 1952. (Science Fantasy, #1, Summer, 1950; Worlds Beyond, 1952.)
--Jupiter Five, 1953. (novelette) (If, May, 1953.)
--The Possessed, 1952. (Dynamic Science Fiction, March, 1953.)

It's a bit strange to look at these stories again after such a long time. The one I remember best is the first story "Rescue Party", which was Clarke's first sale and still one of his best. Aliens discover Earth is doomed and come to our rescue, only to find that the human race has already made its own arrangements.

"The Forgotten Enemy" I remembered really well, but I sat down and re-read it anyway. A very low-key end-of-the-world story.

What I didn't remember was that some of Clarke's early stuff was horror stories. Tales like "The Parasite" and "Walk in the Dark" are far from typical Clarke, and some of the other stories (like "The Possessed") depend on the twist in the last line that was often found in genre magazines of the time.

However I enjoyed re-reading "The Fires Within" and I look forward to re-reading "Jupiter Five", which was written decades before space probes actually told us anything about this distant body.

I've been saying for years I'd like to go back and re-read all my early Clarke. Fortunately if I want them, I have them all still on the shelf in my library.

For some time I've been aware that replacing my collection of SF would be expensive or (in some cases) almost impossible. When I began collecting around 1965 there was simply less SF on the bookshelves and the classics of the field were reprinted regularly.

But today there is just so much in paperback that the famous names tend to be crowded out by wave after wave of new authors writing enormously thick trilogies. I saw a Murray Leinster collection in the shops last year for the first time in about 20 years.

---

Congratulations to Jazztrack on its 30th birthday: a vital part of the jazz landscape in Australia since it began in 1976 on ABC Classic FM.

Its first and longest serving presenter Jim McLeod brought sounds both new and old to listeners and also featured many exclusive recordings of local and international artists. Mal Stanley has continued that tradition since Jim's retirement a few years ago.

To celebrate 30 years of the country's flagship jazz radio program, ABC Classic FM presented a week long festival of jazz and jazz inspired programs, culminating with a live concert broadcast from Melbourne's legendary Bennetts Lane on Sunday 25 February.

Jazztrack aims "to cover the increasingly diverse styles of jazz from both international and Australian artists, and has been a beacon for music lovers for over 30 years." Long may it continue!

---

There's nothing the average Australian likes better than a good meat pie, but some of those ones you get in the supermarket freezer can be a bit mediocre.
But lately I've taken a liking to Sargents' Premium Steak brand. 23% beef, 5% mushrooms and 3% red wine. Not too bad.

 

I hate Hamlet

The first play for 2007 from the Hobart Repertory Society is Paul Rudnick’s 1991 comedy I Hate Hamlet. The central character is Andy, a television star whose series has just been cancelled and has landed a job playing the lead in the Shakespeare-in-Central-Park festival.

To his discomfort, not only does he find himself living in John Barrymore's apartment, but he is visited by the ghost of the great actor who informs him he is there to tutor him on how to play Hamlet!

So far so so-so. The concept is uncomfortably reminiscent of a sitcom put together by writers who've seen Blithe Spirit once too often.

But as we get into the second act, there are some interesting observations about the stage, the acting profession and life in the spotlight.

Trevor Gallagher is Andy, with James Casey delightful as Barrymorre

The supporting characters all have their good moments too -- Jennifer Gardner as the Noo Yawk realtor, Karen Kluss as the off-with-the-fairies girlfriend, Gillian Hunt as the agent, and especially Stuart Pearce as the crasser-than-crass Hollywood producer.

The evening ends with an amusing demonstration of how to give your final bow. The thunderous applause at the final curtain gave all the cast a chance to try it out for themselves.

---

As the summer comes to its end, the hot weather is finally becoming less common. This summer was so hot that even the cat lost interest in his food (he's started to show more appetite this week) and I had a lot of trouble sleeping.

Of course it doesn't help that the people next door have been taking a lot of family holidays, leaving their dogs to run amuck outside my window. And interruptions like early-morning deliveries or the friend who telephoned at 7:30 a.m. (who rings to discuss dinner parties at that hour?)

---

When Kenneth Horne passed away aged 61, he was described as 'the last of the truly great radio comics'. In a broadcasting career which spanned nearly 30 years, he had starred in three of the most popular radio series of all time. I remember listening to Beyond Our Ken in the 1950s and Round the Horne in the 1960s when I was at school though I was too young to remember the 1940s' Much Binding In The Marsh.

This month is Kenneth Horne's centenary and the BBC are featuring several special programmes about him. It's good to see that in today's digital age even the stars of radio (once the most ephemeral and easily-forgotten of the arts) can be celebrated in years to come.

Flash! Bang!

Wow, three or four hours of thunder and lightning. I can't remember a storm that lasted all evening like the one we had Friday night.


In fact the whole weekend was unprecedented. We had three days in a row over 30º and Sunday was a stifling 35° (which is about 95 degrees in the old Fahrenheit scale). Sunday night it was too hot for me to sleep; I kept waking up every hour or so.

You can imagine how relieved I was to wake up on Monday morning and find it was cool and cloudy outside. We just aren't used to this weather.

---

I dug out some information about broadband pricing for the office. The board is considering whether we need to upgrade to broadband but I'm not holding my breath.

One factor is that some members of the board not only don't have Internet access, they have never used a computer. There might be a certain amount of resistance to paying the $39 a month.

---

Meanwhile as usual I've been listening to a lot of radio programmes over the World Wide Web. The weekend shows featuring the Coodabeen Champions, for example, were only available on the net this month because there was cricket on the radio stations that usually carry their shows.

I was sorry to see that Brian Kay's Light Programme ended its five-year run on BBC Radio 3 on 8th February 2007 .

Host Brian Kay is still in demand as a conductor, especially of choral music. Brian is well remembered as the bass in the Kings Singers, with whom he made countless recordings, and concert appearances all over the world.

The axing of his amiably laid-back show about light music is apparently to enable Radio 3 to concentrate more on long broadcasts of classical music in the afternoons. A shame -- there are many shows about classical music but few about the "light music" genre.

Still going strong (and taped in front of live audiences around the USA) Says You! is the NPR radio show that claims to appeal to "crossword puzzlers, trivia fans, and the just plain intellectually curious". Two teams bluff, guess, and expound their way through brain teasers, literary challenges, and other stumpers.

Host Richard Sher introduces panelists including public radio personality Tony Kahn; television host Barry Nolan; television producer/writer Arnie Reisman; author, journalist, and executive coach Paula Lyons; arts and culture activist Francine Achbar; and columnist/critic Carolyn Faye Fox.

---

I wish I could be in London to see the new stage adaptation of The 39 Steps at the Criterion Theatre in Picadilly Circus -- I've seen every adaptation of John Buchan's classic novel but this sounds like a lot of fun:
"This nifty, comically bare-bones fringe adaptation of John Buchan's famous novel, best known as Hitchcock's 1935 movie thriller, slipped quietly into the West End and initially looked a little over-stretched. But with four actors playing about 150 roles in Maria Aitken's production, the pleasures of quick-change artistry and po-faced defiance in the face of impossible odds are considerable. Charles Edwards is Richard Hannay, the innocent 'murderer' on the run, and you really have to be there to believe you are seeing the escape on the Forth Rail Bridge (with a couple of chairs) and a magical death-defying finale in the Palladium."

in memory still green

This week was trying at times. I still have trouble getting enough sleep. The table above is supposed to show my natural rhythms, but I certainly don't get to sleep at the times it shows.

It didn't help that the people who live next door went away for the weekend and left their dogs at large in their yard. Their driveway is right outside my bedroom window, so whenever the dogs spotted someone passing in the street, they would run down the driveway barking -- sometimes at 3 a.m.

This often left me lying awake in bed, brooding over the approach of Valentine's Day. That had nothing to do with romance; my mother has been dead for a couple of years and I have come to terms with occasions like Christmas and New Year without her. But her birthday falls on February 14th and that's hard not to think about.

The last 36 hours, all the emotions I thought were safely consigned to the archives shelf have started welling up again. The grief, the regret, all that stuff. Every sale or commercial advertising Valentine's Day just rubs salt into the wound.

I remember John Bangsund saying that he found Easter difficult because his father had died on Good Friday. I can appreciate how he felt now.

But I try to concentrate on what my mother would have said if she could have commented on the situation. Don't be so silly, she would have said, get on with things instead of moping around dwelling on the past.

Maybe that's what I should try and do.

a memory of fire

My back gradually came right with rest and pain-killers. I was in such a rush to get out and about on Sunday morning I forgot to take any pills at all, so I decided I must be nearly OK.

I was in a hurry because we were helping a fellow parishioner drive a Sudanese family in to the morning church service. There are a lot of Sudanese refugees who've settled in Hobart and we have quite a few in our congregation.

Musing on their future, I was struck by how quickly the children have picked up perfect English. In a few years they will be fully acclimatised to the Australian lifestyle, and the struggle to survive of their parents' generation will be a dimly-understood story.

One woman we know slightly has given birth to twins since arriving in Australia; growing up here,they will never be able to fully comprehend what their mother went through. I can't help wondering about the divide that must occur between the two generations... but I suppose that has happened in any group of people that have had to uproot themselves and flee to another country.

Monday morning my breakfast was interrupted by one of Julie's chickens escaping from its cage and running into the kitchen. I managed to corner it by the refrigerator but while I was returning it to its cage a second chicken got out through the open door and I had to chase her around the room.

My sister was oblivious to this (though I informed her of it promptly!); she was sitting up in bed reading Charlie Chan Carries On. She has always loved pre-war whodunits but this is the first Charlie Chan novel she's encountered. It's just as well she doesn't know how to find the other novels in the series in my attic or she'd go through them all in about a week.

They should be in the low bookshelves on the right hand side of the attic. Yes, that would be right. Margery Allingham is in the first bookcase near the window and Leslie Charteris is in the third one, so Earl Derr Biggers should be in the second one. I'll dig them out and ration them out to her -- one every couple of weeks perhaps.

Monday afternoon Julie had visitors at her place -- our neighbour, science fiction writer Steve Lazarowitz and his partner Dana. Steve was interested in seeing her chickens with a view to raising some in his own back yard.

Like many people, they were amazed to find so many different animals living right on the edge of suburbia. Steve was especially taken with Julie's horse Shadow, who came cantering over to see if we had brought anything to eat.

"I've been around horses sometimes, but I never had much to do with them as a boy," he said. "You can't keep a horse in Brooklyn."

"That would be a good title for your autobiography," I told him, but he was patting the horse and I don't think he was listening.

In the evening, it was out to the monthly pub quiz at the New Sydney Hotel. The line-up on our team varies from month to month -- this time it was me, my sister Julie, Caroline (who's just back from France) and Leon (who I think was once a member of the Royal Society). Between us we had quite a wide range of knowledge and we did better than our disastrous outing in January; I think we came in at equal third.

Of course there are always questions where you come unstuck. When they asked who was the actor from Bridget Jones' Diary who was nominated for an Oscar, I thought it must be Peter Firth. No, they meant Renee Zellwigger. Being an older guy, I took the term "actor" to mean a male.

Tuesday was a lot busier than I expected. The afternoon at the church office was the most hectic I've had in months. Sometimes I was talking to people at my desk, answering the phone with one hand and pushing buttons on the computer with the other. I had some sandwiches with me for lunch, but I didn't get a chance to eat them until 4:30 in the afternoon.

When I left work, I gave Kay a lift to the supermarket on my way home. After I'd taken the groceries inside for her, I installed a VCL media player on her computer for her; she has some television programmes on CD discs but has nothing to play them with. This seemed like a good freeware solution.

The main problem with her computer is that she is one of those people who are reluctant to delete anything unless absolutely unavoidable. I'm in no condition to throw stones, but it could do with a good spring cleaning.



Wednesday morning was a sobering time. After breakfast I listened to Tim Cox's show on local radio; they spent an hour reminiscing about the 1967 Tasmanian bush-fires, forty years ago today.

It was gripping stuff, if a little unsettling. I remember that day clearly. I was a teenager, living with my parents in their centre-city hotel. That afternoon the sky turned a dark blood red and ash blew in on a hot choking wind.

Even though we lived in the heart of the city, my father went out and got an extra-long hose in case we needed to hose down any embers that landed on the roof and threatened to start fires. This wasn't the countryside -- we had never before imagined we could ever be in danger from wildfire.


My sister was out with friends that afternoon and we weren't sure where she was. (No cellphones in those days!) When she returned home safely my mother broke down and wept with relief. She had spent an hour during the afternoon driving around looking for her, witnessing people trying to beat back flames with wet sacks and garden rakes.

Many small towns around the state were simply obliterated by the fires; the primitive fire-fighting equipment of 1967 just couldn't halt the conflagration.

62 people died.

1,400 homes were destroyed.

Forty years ago today.

A radio documentary on the subject can be downloaded from the Radio National "Hindsight" website.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/hindsight/default.htm

turn off that bloody television

There's more violence on television than ever before, and it's more graphic. That's what a new report from America says.

The number of violent scenes during prime-time programs has risen on all six US networks since 1998, found a study conducted by American organisation Parents Television Council and released last month. And an increasing number of violent scenes include a sexual element.

The report highlighted the 2005 television season as one of the most violent, with 49 per cent of all episodes in the study containing at least one instance of violence.

"Not only was there more on-screen violence than ever before," the study said, "but the discussions of violent crimes were more explicit and the violence depicted was far more graphic than anything TV viewers had ever seen before."

The report, Dying to Entertain, details more than 30 scenes from various episodes to support its finding of a growing number of "graphic autopsy scenes, scenes depicting medical procedures and extensive torture sequences".

"Violence has shifted from being incidental to the storytelling to being an integral part of the program," it said.

Similar thoughts had been going through my mind after watching the first couple of episodes of the new season of 24 (subtitled "A New Beginning" for some reason). Even for a show about terrorism, the amount of killing and torture in the first couple of hours was confronting.

Recently prime-time shows such as Bones and NCIS seem to spend half their time in the morgue cutting people up. Somehow it seemed in better taste when Sam Ryan did similar things in Silent Witness. Now I tend to go out into the kitchen and make coffee during the opening scenes of Bones and my sister tells me when it's safe to return.

Nowadays the heroes in television programmes do things that we would have once found shocking if it was the villains doing them.

In my childhood, the Australian television censors were scrupulous in removing any scenes involving knives or stabbing. Their reasoning, I suspect, was that no Australian had a handgun so cowboys and cops could blaze away with no impact on our psychology, but nearly everyone carried a pocket-knife of some kind. (That led to some strange looking stories where people would suddenly be inexplicably dead in between scenes - even Star Trek and Phil Silvers didn't escape the censor's scissors.)

Sometimes I pine for the days of Naked City, when the only things stripped bare were the emotions of the protagonists.




Years ago, whenever there were problems with television reception between Tasmania and the other states of Australia, the technicians would mutter about "bearer problems" caused by Bass Strait.

Recently someone on the BBC message board queried why a certain radio programme kept skipping. The answer was as follows : "These glitches are caused from time to time by atmospheric conditions interfering with the satellite feed to our listen again service encoders. We are working longer term to provide a more stable feed."
The more things change, the more they stay the same!


Of course there is so much more to listen to on the BBC.
Another contributor added up all the drama and readings aired in a week on BBC Radio 4:

Drama & Readings per week (in mins)
Afternoon play 225
Classic serial 60
Friday play 60
Saturday play 60
Book of the week75
Book at bedtime 75
Women's hour drama75
Sub total 630

Repeats
Repeat classic serial 60
Repeat book of the week 75
Repeat Women's hour drama75
Sub Total 210

Total air play of Drama & Readings per week
including Repeats 14 hours (840 mins)

Blimey!

And that's on just one of the BBC radio stations!

Ouch!

Those mice have a lot to answer for. We've trapped and released nine of them so far, but there are still plenty of them. I spent a lot of time on Saturday re-organising the kitchen and bringing in a big plastic crate to protect the bread and baked goods from rodent teeth.

It didn't seem like I'd done that much work, but I got up the next morning and went to feed the chickens outside the back door. Leaned over to get some feed out of the bin.

Twang!

"Oh no," I groaned. "Not my back again." Yes, after many months without any back problems, I was now hobbling about like an old man.

After 24 hours, I reluctantly let my sister dose me with some of her pills.

"How's your back?" she asked a couple of hours later.
"It feels a bit better," I replied.

"So it should with that amount of pain-killers," she said drily.

---

The postman staggered in this morning with two packages. There was a big envelope of CDs from the First Generation Radio Archives (mostly Fibber McGee and Phil Harris shows) and a box from AV Deals in Sydney.

The second one contained a Philips MMS430 speaker system. I bought this over the Internet without seeing it in real-life and for once it was bigger than it looked in the photograph. The main speaker was as big as a breadbox and I haven't decided how to fit it into my living space yet.

Anyway, I don't think I'll be moving any furniture around for a while..

---

Listening to The Idlers on ABC radio on Saturday night, they opened with Lisa Miller singing "On the road again". I haven't heard this before; sure, it's light-years away from Willie Nelson but it's a lovely version. I must keep an eye out for Lisa Miller in future.

The Idlers and The Coodabeen Champions were both pre-empted for sports broadcasts this weekend, but I've discovered in recent times that the shows do still go to air for those tuning in on the Internet. All you need to do is go to the ABC Gold Coast website and you can listen to them regardless of what's coming over your radio set.

Australia Day

It was Australia Day and even Julie's dog was celebrating the occasion. (No Photoshop tricks here!) Julie and I shared a special dinner to mark the day -- a meat pie with sauce followed by a lamington. The only thing missing was a cold stubbie but I'm not a beer drinker.





The mouse plague hasn't quite reached the alarming degree depicted in some science fiction tales (for example the 1961 potboiler by R.L. Fanthorpe depicted above) but so far we've managed to trap and release five of the little critters.

Field mice are very tiny and very cute but we're heartily tired of them running around the place as though they owned it. I've had to learn to lock up the bread every time I leave the kitchen so as not to find that somebody has been sampling it when I pick it up next time.

We won't mention the ants. That's a story for another time.

---

A couple of interesting items on Thursday night television. The Archive Project on ABC was about the Melbourne Realist Film Unit. It wanted to spur political action by showing what life was like for the working classes after World War II. "This inequality must end," urges the film A Place to Live, about Melbourne’s housing shortage. But the Melbourne Realists were not fundamentalists and became increasingly sceptical about Stalin’s cult of personality.

The group believed first and foremost in film’s potential for social change and they soon broke with the Communist Party. This didn't stop them from being kept under surveillance by the security agencies. Indeed, that will be the most interesting part for many viewers; earlier parts of this special featuring footage rescued from the cutting-room floor set to sombre classical music will bore most laymen.

Keenly anticipated was the documentary on SBS titled In Search of Bony. This looked at the remarkable story of Arthur Upfield, dubbed by one critic Australia's forgotten bestseller. Starting in the 1920s he wrote a successful series of detective stories about Inspector Bonaparte of the Queensland Police. The unique thing about the character was that he was of mixed racial background at a time in history when the "half-caste" was routinely the villain or at best an unsympathetic bit-player.

Upfield's achievement in making this character not only acceptable but fascinating to the mass audience is mostly forgotten today. Those who remember the character automatically dismiss him because they are books about a black man written by a dead white male. This skips over the fact that at the time many aborigines were fascinated by the depiction of an educated professional black man.

The character of Bony was idealised, of course. But it's a tragedy that Australia is about the only country in the world where Upfield is out of print. In many countries, his are the only books about Australia that most people will have read.

Time to bring Bony back into print.

The Rains Came

Little did we know what was in store that Sunday. My sister and I went to church, came home and ate lunch. It was warm and humid outside. I had few plans beyond possibly taking a nap for a few minutes.

Then one of us looked up and said "I think it's raining..." and the other nodded, vaguely approving.

What we didn't realise was that northern winds had swept air from the monsoon areas up north; as it collided with the cooler winds from the southern oceans, the result was spectacular.

Accompanied by rolls of thunder, the heavens opened and rain bucketed down. Standing at the back door, awe-struck by the sudden change in the climate, I saw that the drain by the back of the house was partly blocked and water was spilling over.

I plunged out into the rain and struggled to clear the drain and prevent the back of the house being flooded. Almost instantly I was soaked to the skin. I had to discard my trousers because they were so heavy they were threatening to fall down around my ankles!

After a few minutes, the water was draining away and the rain had eased just a little. I came back inside and changed. I was so wet I had to take off everything except my glasses and my watch!

My brown suede shoes will never be the same again.

The goose was notable by her absence. She apparently didn't like the rain drumming on the roof and took refuge outside the laundry where conditions were less extreme. A contrast to her behaviour during last week's power cut when I thought she was going to join us in the house.




After the worst of the deluge was over, we drove over to Julie's house to check for any damage there. It was better than we expected, with few problems.

The creek, which had just barely been running that morning, was now a raging torrent. Julie (above) tried to get some pictures of it, but it wasn't easy. "That rock in the middle of the water looks like a loaf of bread surrounded by snow," she sniffed after looking at the snaps.

The next morning I inspected the boxes on the front and back porches for signs of water damage. Half a dozen books had to be thrown out; the rest seemed all right. The carton of Country Life magazines was more of a dilemma. The top half were OK, the bottom half were slightly damp along the edge with a couple on the bottom completely sodden.

I was less disturbed than I would have been once. In the last couple of years I've digested the fact that I simply have more books and magazines in the house than I'll be able to read during the remaining years of my life. OK, I do still have some volumes I would be very upset to lose, but I no longer feel the urge to buy as many books as possible wherever I go.


HISTORIC QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

As the free world grows stronger, more united, more attractive to men on both sides of the Iron Curtain--and as the Soviet hopes for easy expansion are blocked--then there will have to come a time of change in the Soviet world. Nobody can say for sure when that is going to be, or exactly how it will come about, whether by revolution, or trouble in the satellite states, or by a change inside the Kremlin.

Whether the Communist rulers shift their policies of their own free will--or whether the change comes about in some other way -- I have not a doubt in the world that a change will occur.

Harry Truman's farewell speech in 1953, showing remarkable good sense.

a hot time in the old town

I slept through the thunderstorm last night, though my sister reported her whole bedroom being lit up by lightning flashes. Wednesday morning was sultry and overcast. Even after a cold shower the weather soon felt unpleasantly close to me.

But it could have been worse. According to this morning's news, parts of the city Melbourne had their electricity supply cut by bushfires while suffering heat-wave conditions of 40° -- that's about 104 degrees in the old scale. I don't know that I could stand those conditions.

We had a black-out here last week but it only lasted for an hour. Just as well we still had those candles on the mantlepiece, left over from when we had a series of power cuts a few years back.

The weirdest part about it was that Zelda (the goose who lives in my yard)panicked and started running about as though she wanted to force her way into the house. Maybe she was freaking out because of the sirens from some burglar alarms that had been set off by the black-out.

This afternoon we stopped for petrol and while I was inside my sister was fascinated by the passing parade. First two girls on bicycles called in and let their golden retrievers have a drink of water. Then a dapper middle-aged man at the wheel of a big sedan drove in and got out to fill a bowl of water. He placed this on the floor of the car next to his dog and drove off. I hope he didn't have to make any sudden stops on his way home!

The hot weather makes the pest problem worse. The new screen door has kept out most of the flies, but there are ants everywhere and the mice are always sneaking around (they're very cute but there's a limit!)



The neighbours at Julie's place have a high proportion of animal-lovers among them. The woman at the top left corner of the paddock feeds the horse regularly. He enjoys the attention (and the food) -- in fact I think he's starting to put on weight.

gurgling on

Water restrictions mean that I can only water the garden every second day. Over at my sister's house, the creek that runs through her property usually has some water in it, even in the middle of summer. But in the picture above it is as dry as dust at the end of last month.

Fortunately a few days with some rain saw it start running again. But January is the middle of summer in Australia (it hit 33° today - the equivalent of 91.4 in the old scale) and I don't guarantee that the water will stay around.



Some things that are amusing in retrospect weren't so funny at the time. This evening I finished watching something on television and reached for the remote control. Not there.

I looked around me. No sign of it. I moved things around, while the television chattered away to itself on the other side of the room. I suppose I could have gone and turned it off manually, but so many functions nowadays can only be accessed through the remote control.

And why, oh why, do they always make these small and black? They're almost designed to blend into the background -- a sort of stealth remote. Next time I have a new one, I'm seriously considering decorating it with some of that fluorescent yellow tape.

I fetched a flashlight and looked around to see if it had fallen down next to the armchair. Finally I racked my brains and recalled that I'd had to feed the cat in the middle of West Wing. I wandered out into the kitchen and there it was, sitting on a box in front of the spice cupboard.

It was, as my sister consoled me, out of my eye-line and in a place I never have the remote.

This has been one of a continuing series of anecdotes in the series "How I knew I was losing my marbles."

Taste of Tasmania 2006

The end of the year is always the time for the Summer Festival and the jewel in the crown is the Taste Of Tasmania. For several days a gloomy old warehouse on the waterfront is transformed into a culinary wonderland, with stalls selling an amazing variety of food and wine.

My mother used to put a little money aside every month so she could indulge herself at "the Taste." We come from a less frugal generation, but we managed to make a few visits to this temple of the gourmandizers.

We feasted on such items as hare, ostrich, buffalo, and even Senegalese Calamari. A large choice of wine, coffee and soft drinks was available to wash it down with.



The normally dark and dour interior of the building was festooned with wall hangings painted by local school-children, and the colourful signage of the stalls brightened up the place. Sitting inside, we could see out across the waterfront and watch yachts and boats coming and going.

In fact the Taste started 18 years ago as something to keep the public amused between the start and finish of the annual Sydney-to-Hobart yacht race. Today I suspect it is as big an attraction as the race is, perhaps even bigger in some circles.

The weather was good for the festival, but became a bit oppressive later in the week. The temperatures soared to around 30 degrees (about 86 fahrenheit)and my sister Julie had to resort to hanging wet towels over the cages to keep her poultry from suffering heat stress in the sultry afternoons.

One night the humidity was still at 73% at 2 a.m. I found it difficult to sleep as you might imagine and stayed awake late reading and listening to the radio. And wouldn't you know it, the following morning I was woken first by an early-morning phone call then by a visitor ringing the doorbell.

It was after midday before I felt human again. Not an experience I'd care to repeat again.

It was a relief when a change came over at the end of the week and we were able to enjoy a cooling breeze while light rain pattered down on the roof.

I'm dreaming...

My favourite talk-show on ABC radio, Tony Delroy's Nightlife has moved on to the summer program and the show will be presented by Bernadette Young for the next few weeks. (Bernie Hobbs will take over then, and Tony will return early next year.)

The summer month is always known as "the silly season" in the media, and sometimes it's not hard to see why. At least Nightlife is still listenable to, though many of the usual features are absent.

One of the problems with a stand-in host for this show is handling the midnight quiz segment "The Challenge". This is an institution for ABC listeners and it doesn't take much to rile them if you get it wrong.

Bernadette seems to be doing fairly well, even though one night I think she equalled Rod Quinn's record for the longest time to get through the quiz. They started after the midnight news and ran till 1:30. I think that why Tony manages to keep to schedule is that he knows the rules but he knows when to break them; it's no good sticking to the no-clues-after-halfway rule if you're going through 20 or 30 contestants with the same question.

Of course she has some additional difficulties. The show this month is coming from the studios at ABC Perth and apparently the studio is not generally in use at that time of night -- so the air-conditioning automatically switches itself off. Bernadette and her producer have had to resort to switching off some of the lights in the studio to keep the summer heat at bay. Hence her rather informal attire in the picture above.

---

Christmas Day was pleasant enough in itself, but the lead-up was a tiring time. December 25th I was up early to get to the 9 o'clock service -- the church was packed and I was glad that I hadn't cut back the number I printed for the bulletin as I have sometimes at Christmas time.

At lunch time I went out with my sisters Julie and Pauline for a meal at Rydge's, a stylish hotel in North Hobart. The food was fine, though I think the jokes in the Christmas crackers could stand improvement.

The weather took a right-turn over the last couple of days. A week earlier we had heat waves and bush fires, then this week the temperature plunged and we actually had snow up on Mount Wellington (though we couldn't see it through the snowclouds from ground level).

I think they've got Bing Crosby working at the weather bureau.

Boxing Day I felt completely washed-out. I had a nap after breakfast and another one after lunch. If I could have figured out how to fit one in, I probably would have taken one after dinner as well.

I can't remember a time when I've been so tired for so long. It just seems that all the energy has been drained out of me. If I don't start getting more rest, I won't be able to think of any New Year resolutions, let alone try to keep them.