Dick’s Toolbox cont. I normally don’t look after roses, relying on their sturdy ancestry to see them through the seasons. My theory has always been that if a rose has been around for a few centuries it must have a reasonably rugged disposition but, in truth, some have survived because they are so dammed beautiful…
Mike’s Pith & Wind cont. .. moderately galling to find something one had thrown out as worthless selling for a handsome price at such a market. Or not. I don’t know – presuming I have the cash to squander I have the same dilemma at markets as I do at shopping malls, perhaps even worse…
..condition, in this version at least, than just the specified young-man-driven-to-suicide-by-faithless-lover motif and of course the dancers themselves are simply spectacular, with Marie-Agnès Gillot imposingly impressive. I’ve watched it a few times now (I even showed it to Bill) and I’ve shed a few tears every time – it’s that sublime. An interesting sidelight; when…
..of two young ladies ( I am using the term ‘young’ loosely in the same way as you might describe the morals and ethics of the NSW Labor party) who rowed backwards below us for about an hour. The convention of rowing is that you face the blunt end (the stern) so that you can…
S P E C T R U M S P E C T R U M S P E C T R U M M I K E R U D D B I L L P U T T . C O MM M I K E R U D D B I L…
S P E C T R U M S P E C T R U M S P E C T R U M M I K E R U D D B I L L P U T T . C O MM M I K E R U D D B I L…
..on the street. Nevertheless, the lunch and the chat were great fun; the world’s problems with Intellectual Property and Copyright were discussed at length and the house pinot proved quite acceptable to boot, so I charged off back to the Casino car park full of bonhomie and anticipation. Perhaps I was cutting it a bit…
..Airport” as we started our descent in Whenupai, Auckland’s main airport until 1965. This inspired great confidence in the passengers, already frightened by the low altitude, turbulence, cloud and the single toilet. It was an age of muted optimism. Our father was a stock and station agent and would drive up from Eketahuna, redolent of…
..in our collective brain I had my subject. The first thing to do was listen to Ad Nauseam and see whether it had dated or indeed had retained any of the elements that made it funny – or shocking – in the first place. I’d heard the first in the series (Live) many decades ago…
..classed as actually employed. How one survives seven days on $13.50 is not explained. There are also many people who want to work – take many of those over 45 for example, who have given up seeking any job through not being able to take the endless frustration of hidden ageism denying them even an…
..driving-in-the-city impatience and exasperation. It’s a neat trick I jotted down the music that had become my soundtrack and I’ve just checked the dertails on the ABC Classic radio website. It was a guitar piece called Chamber Concerto by Shaun Rigney, whom I’ve not heard of before, played by one Antony Fielding*, whom I’ve not…
..a polished head emerging in a straight line from the type of neck generally owned by South African rugby hookers or Gestapo torturers. Those tight rolls of flesh extrude out of a too-tight collar and there is too much gold jewellery that once characterized used car salesmen or proto-Mafiosi. His legs look like Christmas hams…
..discovered it was written by George Bernard Shaw – we’ll call him GBS from now on – and the star, (and executive producer), was none other than Christopher Plummer, widely pilloried for just being in The Sound of Music, but a perfect fit for the role of Caesar. The GBS version of the relationship between…
..differentiates Melbourne from the rest of the world. Or maybe just Australia. It gives locals the joy of being the best in the world at a game that no one else plays or wants to play; in this it is like gridiron football writ very small. Rugby is at least played by more countries though…
S P E C T R U M S P E C T R U M S P E C T R U M M I K E R U D D B I L L P U T T . C O MM M I K E R U D D B I L…
..(Maybe that accounts for my neighbours breaking into fits of sniggering whenever they see me). It turned out that I’d cracked my left foot a mighty whack on the side board, but there was nothing much else worth reporting. My foot was sore enough, but it was obviously not broken, so I counted myself lucky….
..and Uzbekistan lie to the north, Iran the west, Pakistan to the south and the People’s Republic of China to the east. If you didn’t live there it would have little to recommend it and a large percentage of the population has become refugees from decades of conflict – mostly fleeing into Pakistan. Currently a…
Anyway, there I am looking so 1972 with a big shirt collar and a porno moustache to boot, being seriously assertive while saying nothing of any substance. Once I’d got over the shock of seeing myself looking so fucking young, I was immediately reminded of a number of similar interviews I’ve seen on telly with…
..when I find myself there. The lights are very weak and the shadows and dark and endless. The switched are old, round and made of metal and sometimes they do nothing. There are doors down each side of the corridor. Often the doors are shut. Above some doors is a glass panel where occasionally the…