division 4 - a key to paradise

This episode of Division 4 was first screened on 11 August 1970. It's very, very loosely based on the Ronnie Biggs story (British train robber hotfoots it to Australia) but that's really only the jumping off point. One of the interesting things about it is that part of the episode takes place in the Ranelagh Estate in Mount Eliza. 

Ostensibly this house is in Mornington, and the street is Ozone street or something like that. But it's very clear where they are. 

The house number is 115, probably 115 Rutland Ave I suppose, although I checked google earth and that house isn't there. 

I have nothing else to say. 

division 4 - my mate death

This post is more like a note to self than anything. Interesting-ish in the Division 4 world. Although it is quite an intriguing episode in itself. It's about a smallpox scare with a criminal played by Peter Adams carrying smallpox around town with him as he plans a lucrative theft. It also has a weird gay subtext which may only seem like a gay subtext in the 2020s (the extreme hero worship that John Derum's character has for Adams') and a weird relationship between the character played by 'Judith' Morris and Adams' character which she facilitates on the advice of Derum's character's mother for reasons that just aren't clear to me. 

Here's the corner shop with the only newspaper on sale being Newsday. Poor old Newsday, by the time this episode came out on 9 June 1970 the newspaper had already gone under. It didn't die for want of Division 4 promotion. 

Ok but the real thrill here is that Hilda Scurr is the mother. Hilda Scurr!!!

Also, Peter Cummins, who sources tell me died earlier this year, also gets a very short and inexplicable look in for one brief scene. 

The other thing that is worth mentioning about this episode is that it's the first to feature a new, far more pumping, opening credit sequence.

As you know, I watched Homicide to the end earlier this year, so I perhaps became too used to more sophisticated, mid-70s Homicide, and that's why late 60s/early 70s Division 4 seems a bit amateurish, at best patchy. But also perhaps Crawford's were spreading themselves a bit thin, pushing the same writers (and actors) to do more work. That said, everyone has off days and this episode was a very fine one. It was shown in the UK the following year as well, at least on Yorkshire TV, as this from the Hull Daily Mail 11 September 1971 p. 6.

I don't know what Big Jack's Other World is but I have to say it seems likely to me that D4 was the best thing on that station that day. 

...and one more bit

This picture is from April this year, a bit of old 50s campus left lying around presumably with some ultimate destination in someone's mind. This is the western edge of the new student precinct which was the site of the Alice Hoy building - various decorative elements of that building got incorporated into the new one. 

Update: I note that a row of these have been installed outside the walkway around the building. I appreciate they are probably new but surely modelled on something much older. 

 

more campus art

Yep so Farrago in the late 1950s was thrilled by the new art being commissioned by university administration and never missed an opportunity to show its excitement. Here's an example. 

Farrago 24 March 1959 p.4. There were probably other responses. But how ho-hum is this now. And then there's...

Annoyingly, I failed to record the date/page on the above. I'm pretty sure it's 17 Mar 1959 p. 1. Sorry. Anyway, this statue was clearly a major thrill to everyone on campus in '59. 

This is Farrago 17 March 1959 p. 2. Below cartoon is from 12 May 1959 p. 6. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. 

Don't even start me on Tom Bass' mural for Wilson Hall. They really laid into that. 

what a relief

 From Farrago 21 March 1958 p. 3. A few weeks later (11 April) Farrago reported that the bas-relief was removed ('and smashed in the process'!) and a version of the drawing above, sans caption, substituted in its place. People were so weird back then. 

way to drops!

I do believe I have bored you stupid (are you stupid yet?) with details on my attempts to at very least get my foot in the door with the Finnish language via apps, duolingo until a few months ago and now Drops. I am now on the very babyishly simple topic of Finnish words for other countries and for the people who live in those countries (something I covered very extensively in duolingo so it's even less of a stretch). Right now I am on a couple of gripes. One is the use of what I always (following the lead of Spike Milligan I think, putting me in a minority) call 'talks balloons' but most people call speech bubbles. 

So Drops is all about little pictograms which I suspect is the reason it can go in far greater depth with a super-minority language like Finnish - the pictograms are the same for every language course, but the answers are different depending on what language you're studying. Here, the answer is 'portugalilainen' i.e. a person from Portugal. In most instances, the pictogram for 'a person from...' is just a standard white (I guess) man wearing a t-shirt with that country's flag on it. But in this case, this is a cliche/icon of Portugal, with a talks balloon coming out of it with the flag in it. Why? 

Here are more examples. The pictograms for Italy; Spain (this time, a talks balloon coming out of Spain!); Brazil and Belgium.  

But the pictogram for Belgian person is a talking glass of beer, presumably saying 'I am Belgian'. 

Whereas the pictogram for Italian person is below - and most of the others are the same. Well, it's confusing! 

This is the first glitch of this nature I've encountered, by the way. The answer is 'italialainen'. I started to trace the word out and realised it was going to get me in a corner I couldn't get out of, but persisted because I thought well maybe - for the first time - it would let me reuse the 'i' on the second row. But it didn't, and I couldn't go forward (or back, but what would be the point). The lessons are typically 5 minutes long, and as you can see I was on 4:19 at this point. All I could do was wait it out. 

 Ridiculous! Hope this doesn't happen again or, you know, I'll never get to speak fluent Finnish :-P

who gets the time to take drugs

Look, I do know how to procrastinate - don't worry about that. But for crying out loud, this life is so full of tiny little stupidities that need to be done, and no time to do any of them. I just logged on to the ARC site to wrap up an assessment to find they've actually given me two to do - I had no idea about the second one until just then and I had to 'accept' it, to see when the due date was (today as well).* I mean that's not fair on anyone, including the people who have put all the work in to making an application. Anyway I was walking Perry and thinking about medicinal marijuana gummies, something I know precisely nothing about except that they exist, and I thought, who the hell has the time to just give away an evening to doing nothing, knowing that they will pick up real life again in the morning? I know I used to routinely get drunk at least one night of a weekend, probably more during the week, and the next day would largely be a write-off. I know that 'intellectually' (to the degree anything about me is intellectual) but I just can't recall what it was like or  how I thought I could manage it, but I guess I am in responsible employment now. 

I do know how to procrastinate, and I am also continually creating projects for myself which mean I never really have time at all, but seriously, I am amazed that there are people who can put themselves into a situation where they are unable to do anything (alright, I will admit I do know some people for whom being pretty stoned is actually an ideal state to be creative - that's not possible for me, but that would of course make all the difference). 

The real thing is I guess the drive to create, whether it's an ARC assessment (some creation, huh) or something more substantial. I have that. What I have lost, however, which was always tenuous, is the drive to create something to completion. It's a different kind of procrastination - in my fifties I have just started overthinking everything. It's super weird. Must do better. 

*don't worry if none of this makes sense, it's not important at all. just 'get it by context' OK? Also I should point out it's very likely they emailed me to tell me about the second one but I just saw the email and didn't read it because I thought it was a reminder about the first one. I've requested more time to do the second one, will probably get it. By the way that cartoon is from the Montreal Gazette 30 June 1984 p. 19

bluey at the gasworks

This is episode S1.E37 of Bluey - called 'Tit for Tat'. The only listing I can find for this episode is 11 June 1977. I interpret its title correctly it refers to Graham Rouse's character Joe Fulcher (Tat) being exchanged in a kidnap deal with Gerda Nicholson's Monica (i.e. Tit). Anyway the reason I'm interested really is that the exchange takes place at the South Melbourne Gasworks, which are now a park in South Melbourne. 

Here's that building as it is now from the park's website. I will go down there sometime and get the proper lay of the land OK. 

 

what they call a photo du...

...mp

I just liked seeing all the maths on my banh mi. 

Gorilla in the mist

Community. 

This led to an unfortunate argument about whether Marmalade was just shitty jam. 

Someone from Jet lives in that house.* 

 * true