all i want is some vintage philip brown knitwear as worn on the box

...and then I go searching on facebook marketplace* and things like this come up. What is the world coming to? 

 * to be precise, searching on the phrase 'Philip Brown knitwear'. 

foodies april 2021

Five years ago today Laura and I walked past the old Foodies on Nicholson St and, seeing that part of the fence had fallen/been pushed down I went on a quick detour to see what it looked like inside. I half expected a commune in there but no just a clean-ish empty space. That's OK. The pages taped to the outside are all council saying you have to make this property safe and secure, etc, dated September 2020. I can't remember when Foodies closed down but I am strongly of the opinion that when this post appears on my blog the Foodies building will not be here anymore.

Here's something else though. A few doors down from what became Foodies was The Bluebird, a 24-hour establishment that I remember in the early 80s as notable for its old cheap plastic toys and this unreplicable smell that I equated with old ice cream. When I came to know Mick Turner in, I guess, the late 80s he told me the hilarious story of the owner of The Bluebird trying to blow up the new 24-hour place up the road and the wires from the dynamite he'd deposited there going all the way back to The Bluebird. I'm not saying I didn't believe Mick's story, but I am surprised how 100% accurate his relay of the story was! This is from the Age 13 July 1987, p. 5:

I won't put the shop owner's name in text here, he seems to have a career in real estate now and he doesn't need the notoriety I suppose. He was sentenced to five and a half years in prison with a minimum of three and a half ('Man jailed for trying to blow up food store', Age 19 August 1987 p. 16). If he is the same person who currently works in real estate, he says on his facebook page: 'Riddle me this: When all is taken away and you have nothing left in your life. what are you left with?'

numbers (2)

Having had 'Alone' in my head all day yesterday I think perhaps I was too hasty in my 45-years-in-the-making outburst on the Numbers the other day. Perhaps what I'm really annoyed about is that they didn't have a proper trajectory in the vein of the Undertones, for instance, who packed so much progress and development into a few short years. Or the Buzzcocks, though they changed less. 

I suppose it's possible the Maybe Dolls fill this criteria (for people too bored by this to care to look it up, the Numbers was basically siblings Annalisse and Chris Morrow, and after the initial Numbers ended after two albums and some minor hit singles, they reconvened a decade later as the Maybe Dolls for another hit single and an album (actually they recorded two albums but the second one wasn't released).) (But if you were too bored by this to care to look it up, why have you read this far? Just silly).  

Picture stolen from the Maybe Dolls facebook page. I think it's a Tony Mott. 

OK I'm going to buy that UK Numbers album, what's money anyway, and I'm going to grab the Maybe Dolls album too, I'll get back to you. 

can't stop it

I was pleased to get my copy of the vinyl reissue of Can't Stop It in the mail today. I have played side 3 and side 4 (I had nothing to do with side 4, except insofar as Guy asked me if there was anything I thought should go on it and I said no, or perhaps I said yes the Chocolate Grinders but they're not on there). I wrote a sleevenote of sorts which is printed so tiny that my poor eyes can barely pick out the words but whatever that's fine. I am not unhappy with the collection, I think it holds up as they say. Or do they say 'stands up' anyway, it works. 

As I say in the sleeve notes, when Guy and I put this thing together 25 years ago, it was a genre people tended not to regard very fondly, and you could still get a lot of the records - particularly ones by people who didn't go on to be in the charts, etc - very cheap, it was a real IYKYK situation. It seemed like a weird thing to like. As I also say in the sleeve notes now you can go to the supermarket and hear 'post punk' music playing like it's something most people remember, but trust me, most people were listening to 'Old Time Rock 'n' Roll' and, god, I can't even remember, awful things. Most people loved awful things then. Most people also concurrently hated good things. Yes, I haven't forgotten. 

15 years ago a work colleague made me laugh by referring, somewhat but not entirely self-parodically, to her 'awesome taste in music', which I still find funny, but it would be as funny if I said it, because I don't have an awesome taste in anything, except perhaps close associates. But I am not unproud of being a part of this, as tiny an effort as it took. 

Pictured is a special Amoeba Records pressing in the US - I nabbed this photo from https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1112578207580551&set=a.620750710096639&comment_id=1088393409823998&notif_id=1749528796197367&notif_t=feedback_reaction_generic&ref=notif
 

ah fb

 

I have previously pinpointed the exact moment I first heard about facebook. It was when I was a contributor to Laura's excellent assemblog Sarsaparilla and one of the contributors explained the recent lack of content there... read my memory of that here if you wanna, it's coming up to 20 years I've been on it which is, like, a third of my life ffs. Speaking of my life, in many ways it remade my life. No doubt yours too, even if you have never been a member which, btw, makes you a bit of an outsider in western society, but it's OK.

I deleted fb off my phone about six months ago (but not my laptop... yet) and it made a big difference with my engagement, and the Meta bullshit re: Trump etc has made me want to completely leave (being on bluesky admittedly under Perry's name makes me appreciate how hard it is to build up a community afresh) and I'm still using it for various connections at the moment so it's going to be hard (a version of my strong resentment of the three main telephone companies here in Australia - which one do I hate the least so I can still have a telephone account? Probably Telstra, all they did was take money out of my account when I wasn't a customer and make it impossible to talk to anyone there to get it back). And then there's things like the above.

I have always had a soft spot for Jimmy Somerville. His single with June Miles-Kingston, a cover of 'Comment de dire adieu', is an absolute gem, a record I sincerely love.* I also of course could do with never hearing those Bronski Beat singles he made again because of overexposure but I fully admire him for them. Other things he's done have also really made an impact on me. But he just seems like a straight-up great guy. I tried to imagine him being rude to his PA or sullen in his manager's office or slapping a fan's autograph book to the floor or smashing a glass because someone confused him with Jimi the Human or Jimmy Hannan,** and I couldn't. So I like him. 

...And here he is, in my fb feed, uninvited but welcome, proudly showing me some ratshit thing like Brighton Beach, not the real one but the English one, where they have a beach made of kittylitter and fishtank pebbles, and I just think... fb can be so great when it connects me to a celebrity I have fond feelings for. 

I'm not going to follow him, just because I don't want to engage with fb any more than I already am, but I am going to feel a little bit better because somewhere, the algorithm thought hey, this 60 year old Australian man with a longstanding interest in pop music who likes Soft Cell and the Human League will probably want to see this post, and fuck it, I did. 

* In the old days I had a kind of pre-going out ceremony, sometimes, which by the way was semi-ironic but also semi-real, of playing some records I really liked that I thought of as my 'party records'. 'Comment te dire adieu' was one of them. Alongside 'Epic Merriment' by the Craven Fops, 'Roxy Roller' by Nick Gilder (or the Sweeney Todd version), 'All You Want to Do Is Dance' by Trevor White, 'Cool' by Pylon, 'Love by Numbers' by Ash Wednesday... I'm sure there were plenty of others but I can't recall them atm. All singles. My 'Comment tda' is a 12". 

** Or Jimmy Savile. I bet he gets that a lot, not because he's anything like Savile, but because the names sound so similar. 

definitely not in the mood

Laura's book is now officially out, and she sold a bunch of them at a comics fair in South Melbourne today - very impressive. More about this anon. In the meantime I went to (amongst other errands and Perry walks) a record fair being held at Northcote Theatre. 

Firstly, it was basically a secret record fair. I don't know how I found about it (facebook advertising I think) but there was absolutely no signage in the street or even once inside the doors - I just followed the sound of people prognosticating about surface wear and making jokes about Michael Jackson. Once inside, I just didn't feel it, one bit. Everything was highly priced (of course in some instances this is essentially justified - I don't mean in terms of 'collectability' but just in terms of - good records should cost more) aside from the David Dundas album I bought which was a sensible $5 and in the scheme of things not a bad purchase though it is a bit scratchy, but I can't be angry about that. 

I guess ultimately I'm just pissed off that there is a collector world.

You know, about five years ago I sold off a large swathe of my record collection to make money to record a record with my friend Art Rush and to be clear I have precisely no regrets about that. I am so glad I did it, because Art is no longer with us (if you don't know the story, well, it's a long story, but he didn't die) and we captured his real genius right at the appropriate moment. The point is, making art/music is more important - to the degree that it's about a thousand times more important, even if it's bad art which this wasn't - than fucking collecting. I mean it's nice to curate, and it's nice to own books and records and even art and there's no shame in it, but collecting with a view to acquiring something monetarily valuable, should be a crime. Maybe I should simmer down a bit because there's obviously something I'm not remembering about the real world. 

PS I bought: David Dundas Jeans On; Slapp Happy and Henry Cow; ELP; The Ritz A Diamond as Big as the Ritz; a Bikini Kill album as I am reading Kathleen Hanna's book; a Bryan Ferry solo album I can't remember which one and I'm too lazy to get up and check, sorry, but who cares really? and a compilation of Mouse and the Traps.  I really wanted to find some Captain Beefheart albums or Supremes records but yeah nah. 

last couple of days in hong kong - this time last week

I guess if there's a lesson to be learned it's something like either, don't try to find your way around HK on your own or if you do don't use maps on your phone to do it or some other thing that is something to do with general expectations about things being where they are 'meant' to be (I am n.o.t. not criticising HK by the way, not in this regard anyway, I'm just saying that I found it very disorienting etc - but of course - I am who I am). 

I'll probably post about the record shop I did get to go into soon enough but right now here's the one that was closed when I got there. Zoo records. A little peek through the window made me think, well, I'm kind of glad that it's closed so there's no need for me to awkwardly engage with the owner (there was almost no space in it do anything that wasn't awkward - and as it was there were two people waiting ahead of me to go in, so jeepers). I just hastened to the lift and hoped the owner didn't show up before I got in it. Of course the lifts were going up and down and almost making it to whatever floor Zoo records was on and then changing its mind and going elsewhere... whatever. I didn't get to Zoo records. I did get to go to Infree records, more about that sometime down the line. 

I don't know why I took this photograph - it is down the corridor from Zoo records outside the lifts. I don't know. 

Sleeping cat at Kowloon Park. I went to Kowloon Park to get some breakfast. I saw on google maps or mapsonmyphone if that's not the same thing that there was a place called something like Cafe on the Park which I imagined might be serviceable. It so wasn't that I initially went right past it, rather than being an actual cafe on the actual park it is the foyer of the boy scouts association with a lot of cake available. 

This (below) is just an amazing building, but they are all amazing buildings in their way, let's be fair. 

And below is where I did get my breakfast. Perfectly fine but not really a restaurant and if the woman who runs it got joy out of life this morning it wasn't through her interaction with me. 

Here are a couple of other curios.

Below ha ha, right? I should post that on facebook and get someone make a bleak, mundane acknowledgement post of the inherent humour. Or they will say, 'how long are you in Hong Kong? Be sure to go to Zoo Records and HK Bit'. Etc

 My wrap up thoughts will come later. 

warning gross adult content

This is not the adult content precisely though I suppose it depends on your adult imagination. Two things about this, which I saw this morning at I guess around 5:30 am, piss me off. One is that yesterday, there were a pair of women's track suit pants in this same place, and they have now been replaced by these trousers. I'm so irritated that I didn't photograph the pants yesterday. I am also annoyed that of course I will have to go back tomorrow morning to see what's there then. This by the way was in Gracie street North Melbourne - that's the dog park in the background. 

This was Perry last night in the doorway. 

This was him this morning when I got up. That's his water bowl. 

On Sunday we went to Solomon Heights to take pictures for a lecture I'm giving in a few weeks. In this one Perry's stance makes the background look fake - IMO. 

In this image, Melbourne just looks fake, off there in the distance. 

And this is whatever. I didn't look in the crate. 

Here's the gross thing. So, for my sins I follow Gyles Brandreth on facebook. Yes, I know he was a tory politician (but you know, Britain is right royally fucked whichever way you look at it) - I just find him very funny, I can't help it. 

Anyway for the last few days Gyles Brandreth's stories have been playing out in my fb feed, and he's obviously been hacked (or he's gone mad or something) and there's just this gross soft porn, it's been like that for days now. I would love an explanation, because I went to his page (tbh I didn't even remember I followed him until I started seeing this stuff) and at least one person has left a comment telling him he's been hacked. But it's been days now, and he hasn't done anything about it (or perhaps his password's been changed so he can't?). Anyway, I don't really care, but I suppose I should unfriend him because despite me just saying I don't really care actually this bugs me. 

in which I hit a new low on self-obsessed venting

But only a new low for me, I say in my own defence. Anyway, I don't know why I was in this stupid facebook group (yeah, I'll call it stupid now I've been booted out) but it got up my nose that they made a little post about the Magazine single 'Rhythm of Cruelty' and claimed the song was 'penned' by John McGeoch and Barry Adamson. Well, McGeoch and Adamson wrote the music, but Howard Devoto wrote the words. So I felt the need, for no good reason, to point this out. There then ensued an argument between myself and a fellow member who seemed to think I was debating that to 'pen' meant to write/compose; in fact this was how the original anonymous poster reset the terms - that 'pen' meant to write music. I mean this is demonstrably untrue. Anyway, the last person in this exchange, whose name I have scratched out, then went on to tell me (this is cute) to 'F. O.' because I was wrong about the meaning of 'pen', and that everyone knows to 'pen' is to 'write' something. Some more argy ensued accompanied by some bargy and then, as far as I can tell, I was booted out.* Works for me my dudes. 

 *I realised later that I wasn't booted out, it was just fb being glitchy. There was more rancour. The other party has not conceded defeat as of 11/3. I have to not get involved in these idiotic arguments with nobody. 

electronically yours, special squad, kuolleet lehdet

This week I listened to the audible version of Martyn Ware's Electronically Yours, Vol. 1. As you know, Ware was the prime mover in the Human League in its first incarnation and then went on to be a central force in Heaven 17. The second Human League album, in particular, is one of my favourite records ever, it's called Travelogue and I agree with Ware's own assessment of it - that it sounded like nothing else when it came out and it still doesn't sound dated. It's a remarkable record. 

I was most interested in the early stuff here - particularly the HL material - though I was also disappointed by a lot of the approach. I couldn't help feeling that Ware really needed an editor, which I'm pretty sure he didn't have (someone to elicit more detail on some things and less blah on others). Ware was there, so he doesn't seem to appreciate what we would want to know. For instance, he goes into great detail about 'Marianne' which is, you know, an ok song, but says completely nothing at all about 'The Black Hit of Space', which is, of course, an amazing work of genius. He barely touches on 'Empire State Human' which is extraordinary, remarkable, and immense (actually, he might not even mention it, I can't remember). The rise of the HL is unbelievably fast and things like the release of their first record is practically an afterthought. I'm pretty sure, too, that he gets important things wrong - like John Lydon's review of 'Being Boiled' in the NME which I'm 1000% sure was two words: 'trendy hippies' but Ware says it was 'fucking hippies', in fact, he says it twice. 

Update 10 July: It also occurred to me how extremely little Ware says about '(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang' which was a revelation and an amazing statement of intent for Heaven 17 - it was their first single. The bass playing of John Wilson (inc. a hell of a solo) was a remarkable feature of this single and how Ware, Marsh and Gregory came across Wilson is entirely avoided, I am not even sure he's discussed at all. That's all pretty weird, right? It took a lot of gumption to launch H17 the way they did, and a lot was made of Wilson, in particular, at that point. Wilson appears in group photos etc (I'd never seen him before but I gather he's here second from right) and yet, not a mention. 

Of course it could be that I stopped listening/paying attention for a while and/or that I accidentally skipped a bit (I definitely skipped one section about football, so maybe he segued into discussing John Wilson then as well) so who knows?

Ware is a very dedicated socialist, which I approve of, and a football fan, which is a bore. He really likes art and values creativity and adventurousness which I admire. His book is full of the usual crapola about hot women and drinking too much which is a drag but apparently necessary in books like this. Simultaneously to H17 he became an extraordinarily successful record producer though he gives us precisely no information about what a record producer does or is (I suppose I'm fine with that). OK I think I've about said all there is to say about this. By the way it's hard to be sure whether he's providing his own interjections reading this book for audible or whether the interjections are in the original book, I guess I'll never know. 

Meanwhile I've been watching a lot of another Crawfords show made in Melbourne in 1984-5, called Special Squad. It's a peculiar production which apparently sought a certain measure of gritty realism. In one sense it might as well be Homicide '84; it's three men in an elite section of the police force, always in car chases, each episode a neat solving of crime with a lot of the usual moralistic elements (no crim ever gets away). One odd aspect is that the first episode absolutely does not even slightly bother to introduce you to the police characters - you are just thrown in at the deep end. I'm still confused about who these three men are. 

What else does it have? A lot of interesting actors. Red Symons as a terrorist (I'm not even sure he has a speaking role, but it's him) and Frankie J. Holden as an undercover cop, for instance. Norman Coburn is a corrupt cop in another episode (see below). The storylines are, on the whole, not magnificent* and if it wasn't for the intriguing mid-80s technology (phones and computers in cars!) the above mentioned actors and the locations I wouldn't really be bothering, I suspect. Oh, but every episode does end with someone making a lame joke** and the frame freezing, which is pretty amazing to see in the wild. 

Last night my mother and I went to see Kuolleet Lehdet, a low-key Finnish film which surprised me no end by including Maustetytöt in one scene. 

Oddly enough I knew they were in a film because I saw this poster a few weeks ago on the Maustetytöt fan club facebook group but I didn't realise that this was the same film I had already bought tickets to. Just 'cause I'm dumb. 

They don't have lines or anything just a crucial moment in the action, where they convince one of the main characters to stop drinking by dint of their extremely depressing song. It's pretty cool. 

Overall the film is probably worth it. I am still thinking about it. 

* to be fair, I haven't been paying 100% attention

** or just a pointed comment. 

fools are idiots

So I am trying to wean myself off facebook but what do I do when I want to point and laugh at some fool's fool spelling error all out there in public? I really need to show how smart and educated I am, by making some kind of a bully joke about how it's not that good if you can break it just with your hand, where I think the handle actually is, ha ha ha. 
 

addressing the people on the things that matter

I’ve been interviewed by ABC journalists/radio presenters three times in the last three days, and it’s been really interesting, sometimes awkward, occasionally frustrating.  

The first was on my birthday when I was at the dog park with Perry and I was contacted by an ABC journalist in far north Queensland who wanted to talk about community halls. He’d somehow found me because I had co-written a chapter in a book (which I also co-edited) about a particular, successful, valued community hall in NSW, about ten years ago. He hadn’t read the chapter (I wouldn’t have expected him to, necessarily) but he’d read the abstract of it. I am not entirely sure why he contacted me and not any of my co-authors but I suppose I didn’t need to know that either. This was for an online piece, not for radio, and it was as far as I was concerned a good chat. When I saw the final article, I didn’t feel misrepresented at all, but the article was essentially about how community halls were on the way out as a phenomenon and people these days had, I suppose, broader horizons than what happened in their little corner of the universe.

 

Six days later I got contacted by the ABC in Sydney to talk on the radio with Josh Szeps (son of occasional Homicide actor Henri) about the demise of community halls. It was weird mainly because I was never setting myself up to discuss why community halls were dying, but rather hold the opinion that, if communities can only find ways to maintain and retain their halls/community centres/neighbourhood houses, they do have value and they can be made to work – in my opinion. Well, in this case apparently I was there to talk about why community halls were on the way out. I understand radio producers are very stressed and overworked and just have to pump content into the system, so I resent no-one in this regard – I’m fine with it. But I do kind of think that maybe the final product would be a bit better if there weren’t these assumptions that were not revealed to interviewees until the very last minute. Josh Szeps told his listenership that I was interested in the demise of the community hall. But the opposite is true (or at least, I am interested in ways to revive and retain them). On top of that, when I say ‘I am interested’… it’s not something I have thought about for a long, long time, notwithstanding the fact that I was coopted into the Save Kendenup Hall facebook chat last week, or that I posted the Cockatoo Hall picture last week from Homicide, and also posted the same picture in a Cockatoo neighbourhood group on Facebook and got so many responses I had to turn off notifications (yes, I brought that one on myself). 

 

So yesterday the ABC in Sydney called me again, this time to talk about pub rock. I told them I’d been on only a few days before to talk about community halls and the prepping producer I spoke to seemed a little baffled but ultimately unphased by this – though weirdly, there are crossovers of which much could be made, except that of course radio like everything is bang-bang-bang ideas of which there can only be one perspective at a time, which I suppose is either ‘oh, no, a terrible thing is happening’ or ‘yay, remember a wonderful thing?’ 

 

So I was surprised to be introduced by the ABC announcer this morning as someone who loves pub rock, which I absolutely do not, and if I had been asked yesterday to go on the radio and talk about why I loved it, I’d have to say – I can’t, because I don’t. I’m a historian though and I’m interested in it. But I’m not here to celebrate it (let alone celebrate it because it’s Jimmy Barnes’ 76^th birthday ffs). I would note also that the announcer gave me the wrong title (that’s not really important but I did wonder where she had got her information from) and the right faculty but then said she didn’t know what my position/faculty etc had to do with pub rock to which the only answer (I wasn’t asked) is: that’s on you really. I was talking with Laura about this particular appearance last night and mentioned that the person who originally contacted me about this seemed a bit confused about it all and I joked that the thing you probably need to say in that instance is ‘don’t you know who I am?’ – the joke being I’m nobody, but at the same time, nobody wants to be misrepresented even in a little bit of pissant radio. Also, it is of greater value to them if they know why I’m there, which apparently they didn’t. 

 

Anyway, very predictably, and true to its demographic, the segment I was on was just people calling/texting to say that the early 1980s were the best years of their lives etc, and being dazzled by the groups they saw or could see on any given night in Sydney in (say) 1981, with the obvious response being – yeah that’s amazing to you because you’re the age you are and etc etc. But whatever I suppose you can pull anything apart and leave it a husk can’t you. 

 

So let people have their fun I guess. I do hate (most) pub rock though.*

*I was mildly gleeful though that I got them to play a bit of the Celibate Rifles' version of 'Hot Stuff'. I am not entirely sure why but let me have my fun too thanks. 

homicide s11 e24 'no rhyme or reason'

This episode of Homicide which was shown 9 July 1974 includes a few shots of Cockatoo Hall - possibly including interiors. I don't know where this building specifically was (it appears to be on a main road and next to some shops) but I do know that in 1981 the Shire of Pakenham was hoping to rebuild it. Don't know whether they did or not but the 1983 bushfire probably put paid to whatever was there in that year.* 

Age 9 May 1981 p. 103

The episodes from around this time are pretty good (if grim). Lots of interesting locations as well including (for instance) a block of flats on the corner of Thistle and Richardson, Essendon (episode S11 E23).

Clearly McBride St Cockatoo, but looking at it now on Google maps I can't see any - and indeed I can't figure out where there were ever - shops on McBride St. 

*update 27/4/23 - I posted that picture on a Cockatoo facebook page and a few people had firsthand accounts of seeing it burn down in 1983. 

'we hope you enjoy looking back and sharing your memories on facebook...'

 I do, thanks facebook. So this is one of my classic 'English, you are a stupid language' posts. Tres clevs:

Obviously this just struck me as odd. I clearly photographed it with my phone from a microfiche scanner screen. No idea what it's from. It possibly relates obliquely to the next thing:

by which I mean, the 'what about you':

So this is an early birthday party of mine, I don't know how old I was but I do know that the women are L-R Pat Knox, Mavis Nichols (ie my grandmother), Judy Hogg and Eleanor Curtain. I am pretty sure it's our house in East Kew which was demolished a scant few years later:

I liked to pretend, when living in Albion, that Leo next door had a romantic interest in Nancy, but actually what he wanted to do was come in the house, pester me for food then hiss at me when I tried to make him leave:

This is funny-ish, I have no recollection what it was from:

I guess interesting:

This was a fine day:

I miss A+. Last I heard they still kind of existed but with a different line up and are recording an album. In fits and starts I assume:

lionel long in homicide, and phoenix

https://m.facebook.com/ThirroulHistoryInPhotos/ 

So I know you mainly tune into my show to hear about where I'm up to in Homicide and I apologise that other important work has got in the way. A few episodes ago (S5 E21) Les Dayman's character Bill Hudson suddenly got all sad and reflective (no mention of the fiancee Tink though, his back story i.e. she has completely disappeared) and when he had to shoot a madman out for revenge, he went on leave. In S5 E22 Lionel Long joins the cast as Bert Costello and in S5 E24 most recent episode seen, there is a very offhand discussion about Bill going back to forensic or something like that.

Lionel Long is not Italian or of Italian heritage, but he can do a decent couple of sentences in Italian, despite constantly insisting he was born in, I can't remember, Gundagai or somewhere. Anyway, I'll miss Bill but so far so great. New opening credits too which are very exciting. 

Long was a singer as well as an actor. Here he is post-Homicide using his Homicide fame to get a gig at the Ainslie Rex Hotel Cabaret. 

Canberra Times 2 May 1970 p. 16

Meanwhile, 

as per Richard's recommendation I'm watching Phoenix which is actually pretty freakin' amazing (there's Paul Sonkkila above, love to know his story). Obviously in one sense or another made in the light of Homicide and similar but 25 years later and by the ABC. A lot of very believable stuff here. Unlike Homicide a lot of glances and asides, no-one's out and out saying what they think for rapid exposition, but then, this is a long series story not 50 minute episodes. Well I don't like being distracted from Homicide which is a distraction in itself, but it's fascinating. 

...and like most of the best shows it has Peter Cummins in it. Can't wait till he shows up in Homicide (S7 E36 apparently).