A PLEA FOR HELP…

Or a raspberry for Blogger?

First up, I know Blogger is the most widely-used platform. I used to use Blogger. And you all know why I went to WordPress!

Since Saturday (this is now Monday down here), I’ve had trouble commenting on Blogger sites. Those with comment moderation and those not allowing anonymous comments seem to be OK.

What I’d like you lovely people to tell me is: have any of you had similar problems?

Kaz, for instance had about 40 comments by the time her blog came up in my reader so, clearly, people are not having any bother over there, but she might be wondering why I haven’t weighed-in with some pithy remark about giant fruit or helmet hair.

And this is what I got over at  http://chiaroscurochiaroscuro.blogspot.com/

The webpage at https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=23123441341079609&postID=5510601300010868367&isPopup=truemight be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.

Well, maybe someone else will report problems…

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Meanwhile…last week (after carefully avoiding all reviews!) I went to see “Invictus.”

Loved it! Well, I may have a slight bias, having grown up with the code

But the game aside, I wanted to see how Clint Eastwood handled the political and emotional angle.

Apart from the fact that the encouraging writing Mandela gave to Pienaar was not Henley’s poem of the title (it was from a Roosevelt speech), the film held my interest right through.

Even knowing the outcome didn’t detract from my enjoyment. Sure, Morgan Freeman looks and sounds pretty much like Morgan Freeman, but can anyone come close to Mandela?

I’ve heard some South Africans complain that Matt Damon “couldn’t do the accent, man!” His first few lines were, perhaps, somewhere between Capetown and Perth, but with so many South Africans in this film either Mr. Damon picked it up or I no longer noticed.

And the on-field details? Lots of close-up scrum shots, good behind the posts clips and enough open running to be convincing.  And I daresay having Chester Williams as a coach/advisor helped!

I watched the game on television and am not ashamed to say I was cheering the ‘Boks. After so long in that hateful racist wilderness, I, along with Nelson Mandela, saw the World Cup victory as a chance to unify the country.

And now South Africa will host the World Cup in that other code.

I still hope kicking a silly leather ball can provide some national glue!

WHO WAS THAT HANDSOME STRANGER?

Or:  girlish fantasy (almost) fulfilled.

But we’ll get to that shortly.

I caved in today and bought one of those evil-looking strap contraptions for my throbbing thumb. C’mon, thumb! I have a LOT of work to do and I can’t be parking my pen every five minutes!

Thumb screws -apparently, very popular at The Tower!

But mine is  more up-market (I’ll say! At $40 it;s very UP market!) but hardly a fashion statement.

Let’s start with the colour…a delicate, woodland mushroom shade, with straps in a toning taupe. Bull’s wool! It’s a hideous post-war beige. And it’s going to show every coffee drip, every wine slop, every squished mosquito…

And if any of you have ever been squeezed into a corset, either for medical or couture reasons (all you kinky people can leave now, please!) you’ll know what I mean by boning strips.

Yes, it’s a tad bulky. Yes, it sticks out like a sore thumb. But I’m hoping it will do the trick.

Heard on the news that J.D. Salinger has made his final exit.

91 years. And so many of them shut away. Seems a sad waste to me.

Bet there’ll be a Hollywood scramble for movie rights (which he would never grant).

Hollywood. Tinsel Town. Dream Maker. Heart Breaker. Sink of iniquity. It’s been called all those and many names besides.

How many of my peers had posters on their bedroom walls? How many had secret dreams of becoming a film star? How many dreamed of meeting their idols?

Well, I’ll share a couple of stories with you, since the people involved are no longer with us. Myself excepted of course. What! you think this is spirit writing?

When I was quite young* I thought Gregory Peck was the dishiest. Loved every movie he made, devoured all the interviews I could find. Decided he had a brain as well as looks, not to mention bucketloads of charm. I thought I would love to meet him. What happened to the dream?

I grew up of course. Still admired the man, loved his films. But never entertained any ideas of running away to Hollywood.

Instead, I went to London. Had a brief affair with the theatre. Wrote some excruciatingly awful poems. Worked some pretty ordinary jobs.

And it was as I was going to one of my night jobs (I thought I told all you kinky people to leave!), in a snowstorm….I was shaking snow from my collar and stamping my boots when a tall, smiling gentleman held the door open for me. I thanked him and he made some pleasant remark about my being lucky to be going in, not out. Silly, doorway banter. Then he turned up his collar and left.

Liz, my friend on the night desk, said, jaw somewhere near the floor,”Do you know him?” I didn’t catch her drift. “That was Gregory Peck!”

Moving right along….

Before I went to London…I earned some extra pennies in a telephone exchange (all you kiddies who don’t know what I’m talking about can go away and ask yer Granny!)

One of the girls I worked with had a crush? fixation? on a chap called Rock Hudson…hang on while I find a picture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Hudson

She had planned her trip to Europe, with a stop in Los Angeles. And she was determined to meet Rock Hudson. A pretty girl, with loads of personality and dance floor pizzazz, she figured she could get herself invited to a party. Or several.

Well, S. called us from LA, utterly crushed. ” Devastated, girls!”

Seems she had, indeed, wangled an invitation to a party, hoping to meet Rock. Yes, Rock was there. Sporting an ear ring. (“Jesus! He was wearing a bloody ear ring!” )

That was not the worst of it…before S. even managed to talk to her idol, a very effeminate young boy slinked in and made straight for Rock. Who welcomed him with the  sort of embrace that Doris Day is probably familiar with.

Poor S.

My thumb has had enough keyboard activity so I’m off to exercise my elbow…

* young , as in, too young for boyfriends.

THE RETURN OF THAT SWITHUN CHAP?

So far, I haven’t seen fridges floating down the road, but the cane field not far from my house resembles a rice paddy!And the pretty little stream that flooded dozens of homes two years ago was almost at their boundary fences this morning. Too bad I can’t send the wet stuff to friends in southern NSW!

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Does anyone recall the Naica crystal discovery? Several years ago, silver miners in Mexico accidentally broke through into a cave in Naica, discovering some amazing gypsum crystals.I was poking about on the Web looking for something else and found this. A difficult and dangerous place to film, the BBC nevertheless managed this spectacular footage. National Geographic has more pictures here.

I was reminded of my mother’s “coal flowers” although her kitchen chemistry was not quite on the same scale. Coal flowers? you ask. Why, yes. Google can find you several instruction sheets if you’d like to “grow” some for yourself. It’s a simple process, seeding a lump of coal with some salts.

from one of the instructional web sites

Mother also brewed beer, both ginger and alcoholic varieties. In pre-fridge days, an exceptionally hot summer put an end to the beer. Man! That stuff went everywhere!I used to make ginger beer, too. Commercial ginger beer’s alcohol content is strictly governed. I think mine might have exceeded that. I don’t make it these days, preferring either water or wine, but Jamie Oliver has a “quickie” version on his site

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I was back in the studio this morning, re-printing as some of last week’s prints were not “good enough.” Hopefully, this run will look OK when dry. They’d better – delivery date is next week!

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The Man and his friend spent the weekend tinkering with the Mustang’s carburettor. And other technical stuff. It was noisy and smelly. And the resident possum was NOT impressed.

On Sunday afternoon, he’d had enough and who could blame the poor critter, with that thundering 289 engine reverberating around his little iron cubby hole!

He headed out, along the beam to await the night in comparative peace on the far side of the house.

So… the “master mechanics” were engrossed in choke levers and and general gizmometry when The Man said:”Hold it! We’ve got  a fuel leak somewhere!”

Um…no, actually. What they had was a possum leak!

Ah! Revenge is sweet!

VENDREDI VISUALS

Well, Friday Visuals didn’t have quite the right “ring” to it!

I like Fridays. I suppose most people do, especially when it marks the end of the working week. Even when I worked peculiar shift hours, like a 12 hour day on Fridays, and more than one job,  I still liked Fridays. Probably something we learn in early childhood when we’re shunted off to that nine-to-three-Monday-to-Friday existence for 10 or 12 years.

We used to call it “POETS Day.” Desks would be cleared in time for Happy Hour at whichever watering hole was in favour.

In New Zealand and Australia, until the 1960s, pubs closed at 6pm, leading to the mad dash for a pint being known as the “six o’clock swill.”

The Station Hotel, in Auckland, worked a neat little loophole in the law: because the Station had a restaurant, patrons could sign “the dinner register” and drink at the bar until “a table became available.” Lost count of the times I signed that book! Oh! I’ve just remembered that I actually did have dinner there one night.A “geen  u wine” business dinner!

But what about the visuals? I hear you clamour…how about a picture of an orchid? Dendrobium crenutatum, the dove orchid. You can stand all day with a hose running on it, but it only flowers after rain. And the flowers wither after a day or so, but they are incredibly spicy-sweet!

This one is wired onto a piece of a branch as they’re happy little epiphytes, but I’ve seen pictures of them in the ground.

I think some of my readers might be impressed by this art display. I certainly was! I wonder how long it took her to thread all those things!

Among the sounds I often hear at night, when neighbouring ghetto-blasters  and tyre-squealers are silenced, are the calls of Whistling Ducks.

This is a lousy poorly-lit photo I took last week  at my local green waste facility (poncey term for rubbish dump!). What about those tiger stripes!This pair seems to have made a cosy home in  the dump superintendent’s garden area. I say “pair” as they seem to be a ducky item and this is breeding season. I’ve never managed to get close enough to photograph them til now as wild ones tend to be on the skittish side. But the dump man says they are used to him and would not mind my presence. Too bad they wanted to stay in the shade! Here’s a better one.And here’s an audio clip.

But Fridays do have a down-side for me – it’s mowing day up the back. This means a VERY LOUD petrol-driven leaf blower (the wife hates any mess on her lawn), followed by a petrol-driven line trimmer(weed-eater, I think locals call it), also VERY LOUD. Sometimes, he uses a miniature chain saw to trim palm fronds and, yes, it’s LOUD. And for the finale, a !##**&!! LOUD lawn mower. And this morning, I have three neighbours in concert.A sort of four stroke roundelay. Suburban life…

A koel, through the screened (and rain-dirty) window – not bad! Of course, he flew away the minute I went outside!Probably fed up with the incessant bloody noise!

Here’s a little something to leave you laughing

A BIT OF A NASTY SHOCK…

Short post today as I’m feeling  somewhere between bemused and insulted.

Once upon a time The Man and I were categorised as DINK.

Then we became SINK.

I have just learned that a new demographic has pigeon-holed us as LINK.

I must have a lie-down…

corrected, thanks to ILTV.

MORE MUSICAL MEMORIES. (AND OTHER THINGS.)

Well, when the cats asked if anyone thought weather was a boring topic, no one knew that within the space of a few days warnings would have been issued around the world for extreme bushfires, floods, blizzards, marine stingers and a  tsunami!

Within the space of a few days, people! Welcome to the real world!

Not quite two years on from the flood that disprupted this town, we’ve had several heavy downpours (can one have an up-pour?) and I know some people have been a tad nervous! I wish I could send some south! Rain, that is, not nervous people!

My “toy” has been out of commission again, this time due to a malingering modem. But the enforced absence from this keyboard has allowed a little more time on the other keyboard (god! I’m rusty!).

I also made some attempt to sort out some of the CDs and old audio tapes. Sadly, some of my old tapes have not stood up well to more than 40 years of hard work. And, given that many of them were crude mixes taped from old flat vinyls…well, I think I’d better start making a wish list. In the meantime, does anyone know Ricardo Baliardo?  How about by this name ?

Among tapes that I can no longer play are, sadly, a couple of Joyce Grenfell’s monologues.

I’d long admired her and when I found myself at the same table at some literary luncheon…what a wonderful person she was! Genuinely friendly. I wonder what Joyce would have thought the night I “did” one of her comic songs and the Siamese cat hid in a cupboard on that final high note?

This gem was in my reader this morning. I wondered if it was a leg-pull, a wind-up, but then I saw which State had arrested the kid. No surprises there, they lurve brassy publicity and headlines like these pretty much guarantee that!

My mind wandered off on one of its own tangents…if the gas released by a 12 year child could shut down computers, could this be a moyens de faire quelque chose undetected by airports’ metal scanners?

But the school ma’am in me re-read the Sheriff’s report, mentally adjusting the punctuation.

Oh well, back to the salt mines. Here’s the delightful Joyce, doing one of her nursery sketches.*

*Joyce was rather flattered when she heard that the Kindergarten Association was using her nursery sketches in its Training Programme. It was somewhat deflating to learn that the y were used as a “don’t do this” lesson!

OUT WITH (SOME OF ) THE OLD…

…in with some new.

I’d been cruising through the WordPress collection of styles for a while, looking for something more streamlined, easier to navigate and easier to use.

One of the features I wanted to retain is the ability to change the header.*.But I also needed an archives section, both for myself (memory not quite as sharp as of yore!) and for any reader who might wonder what other drivel scintillating lit-wit I might have penned.

And WordPress does have a packed catalogue on offer! But it was when I was helping the girls set-up their blog that I decided I’d switch to the same theme.

It’s been running for a few days now and no one seems to have noticed so it must have segued painlessly from your side, too!

I’d also had in mind to set aside certain days for posting on certain topics. But I don’t think I can manage that, given my haphazard approach to most things! I do want to post more drawings and photos so maybe I could have a Pictorial Day.  But old magazine experience tells me that some readers will only come by on the day I post their favourites!

One of my aims this year is to “sharpen my quill” and get back to writing. It’s been a long time…

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When I stumbled into the kitchen on Sunday morning I thought I saw a faint purplish smudge in the area of the pergola. But it was still barely daylight and I’d not yet had my “heart starter.”

By the time I’d cut some mangoes, mopped up the juice and made the coffee it was light enough to see…

…wisteria! Crazy thing is flowering and flinging new canes out with gay abandon. So much for all those earnest garden writers who warn of pruning at the wrong time and sacrificing the next season’s (that would be Spring, by the way) blooms. After suffering drought and searing heat for months the recent soaking rains have given it a boost.

With some more tender plants I might be concerned that it is approaching death and needs to set seed before it goes. But look at the damn’ thing! Does that look like something about to expire?

The French call it La Glycine. And I don’t care if it is out-of-season – I love it!

I may have mentioned, once or twice, that I am in awe of those paper engineers who construct their masterpieces from paper and card. Pop-up books have always fascinated me. I have even attempted a couple of modest hinged lifts myself. And when I was a little girl I had a Meccano set. So it’s easy to see why this caught my eye:

http://www.glumbert.com/media/legopopupbook

Oh! Just a note to the Dobson girls – don’t expect anything on this scale, okay?

I’ve had a noisy day and wanted some soothing sounds. So… not head-banging rock. And the way I play the piano meant that was out, too. But I do have some lovely CDs and this is such a delight I went Youtubing so that I could share it. I suggest you pour a glass of something smooth before hitting the play button. Enjoy!

*Currently, it’s a crop of my photo of Mahurangi River in Warkworth,NZ. See the Flickr list >>>

ON BEING NEAT

Or not. And it must be said that I am not, on the whole, a neat person. Not obsessively neat.

I do like some order to things, especially when space is limited. But I am, by nature, an eclectic soul. See what I just did? I took a cue from those waffling interior design writers and said “eclectic.” God! I love that word!

But I am still trying to find things that were re-housed when we did the Big New Desk Clean-Up.

Here’s some of what I found:

a very dusty rental bus

I remember it was very, very hot. I walked across the street to by some cold water. The shop had none!

chubby child on a bike had a propellor on her hat

I drew boring car bits for a while, then listened to a radio interview with some legal eagle who is, apparently, an expert on computer hacking. That side-lined the drawing for an hour!

And then I resorted to memory…

my garden in Italy

Today was the first rain-free day since late last year. Even the dogs were silenced when people fired-up their 4 strokes! Yes, I mowed my meagre grass strip.

The cats had asked for a more purr-sonal banner for their blog. I told them it might take a while. They were not amused. But today …

Pop across and see what you think. And if you think it looks a bit wonky, please remember that I do this stuff free-hand and I do NOT have photo shop for fine-tuning. Anyway, it’s not my blog. Complain to the moggies!

Now…I believe The Man has a wonderfully frosted glass of bubbles for me. Bubbles! Oh, sod the blog!

SOMETIMES,WISHES TAKE A WHILE…

But, if you wish hard enough…

http://www.weather.com.au/qld/mackay

So far, it’s all good, but I’m prepared to lay a sizable chunk of the housekeeping money on some folks in town looking nervously at the puddles!

And already there are roads underwater  and rivers over roads in some inland areas. And you should see the happy grins out there!

www.theage.com.au/…/02/17/1234632797397.html

Of course, had that cyclone crossed a more populated stretch of the coastline there’d have been much worse damage.

To put this in perspective for some who don’t know our geography -

Imagine, say, parts of Oklahoma battling raging fires while Florida battens down for a cyclone (I think they say “hurricane”).

Now imagine the cyclone crossing the coast, weakening to a severe rain depression and heading towards Oklahoma. That rain would be OK in OK.

But spare a thought for the southern part of West Australia which is ablaze.

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And now, a little self-survey. Your responses will not be shared with marketing companies, but I would like you to answer honestly.

during the Christmas break did you:

a   eat as you usually do

b   eat “special” meals

c   eat more meals per day than usual

d   prepare all meals yourself

e   eat whatever anyone else prepared

f    eat at home (yours or another’s)

g   eat at restaurants

h   gain (or lose) significant weight

And , since I’m sticking it to you, I’ll tell you my answers!

a   no

b   yes, but only one

c   yes

d   yes

e   see above

f   at home

g   no

h  hoo boy! See you at the Weigh-in?

And the tragic thing is that it was all such good food. None of that burger trash, no TV dinners-on-a-foil-tray, nothing so full of additives I’d need Ritalin*.

Hell! I even cooked some meals! That’s “cooked” as in not raw. In this climate we pretty much live on salads, but I did serve a couple of “hot” dishes. I even made that gnocchi that Marie swears is as easy as it is delicious. I’ll go along with the delicious, but easy…we..e.ell, not so much! I think the heat and humidity were its undoing; the gnocchi just wouldn’t hold their shape, despite having been locked in the fridge for a couple of hours.  I’ll make some adjustments and get back to you…

But I  was not chained to the stove, sweating into the gravy.  And, for the record, I haven’t made gravy for years! I did not eat cheesecake, ice cream, candy. No, I ate as I usually do. Just more often.

So how in the name of Escoffier did  my waistline disappear?

Back to the hamster wheel…

*Ritalin is the drug commonly used to treat Attention Defficit Disorder.

GETTING THE JUMP ON CHRISTMAS

Being on this side of the IDL means I have to “post early for Christmas.”

Mind you, even that isn’t working out terribly well this year, is it? Our postal people have been on strike. Well, we were told they’d be on strike, but I have had things in my mail box every day this week. Some of them mail!

The 10 hour time difference also means I’ll be starting before you northerners. I’ll also be reaching for the aspirin first!

But, wherever you are and however you celebrate the occasion, I hope you and those you love are safe and happy.

Now, not everyone believes in Santa Claus, but someone has been here and has left a collection of packages! Too lazy to trek all around the world, he (she?) expects me to distribute them.

Guess what, Santa? I’m a tad busy m’self so how about  everyone  collecting their own gifts?  Nicely, now. We don’t want that unseemly January-Sales-type crush…

Chris has had a rough time of it this year, but this might help to get him back in the fast lane.

Of course, a race is only a race when there’s more than one horse. So I’ve got a chariot for his best buddy

The artists among you can trawl through some of the biggest stores on the web. It’s OK – they accept Monopoly money! –  ; )

While she recovers from the horrors of spending time with that “Dreadful Dave,” Ziggi could probably find something for these fellows to do.

Another blogger (who’s been a bit busy lately) might find a use for this

And I’m pretty  sure several of you could think of something to do with the keys.

This would be welcome in more than one place! (not hinting, of course. Of course.)

Perhaps, for those in the Frozen North…

Maybe a little (or a lot!!) of this…

Fancy a night out?

But my personal wishes are for and

and, please, fickle gods of the weather…

especially where things are desperate

Idle Thoughts will be idling over the break , but as time allows, I’ll scoot around and see what everyone’s up to.

Merry Christmas to all and to all – a goodnight!