homicide 307 don't call the cops 308 expectations

 

These two episodes from August/September 1971 were a bit of a milestone for Homicide just after it passed its 300th episode mark. The team began moving into new offices, starting with the 31 August episode listed below in the Age for 26 August 1971. 

There's not a lot of sentimentality in the scheme of things but oddly enough Col Fox does unearth one of Inspector Connelly's old pipes, and it's agreed they'll send it on to him. 

I wonder whether the shift to 'new offices' was prepping for colour tv. Of course it was still some years away for Homicide but they were naturally looking to making their product repeatable long into the future and also, perhaps, hoping for overseas sales. 

This (307) is not a terrible episode in other ways, particularly because of the terrific madness of Wi Kuki Kaa, billed only as Kuki Kaa for this episode. 

It also features Jill Forster, who apparently made mean ladies her specialty, if this article from the Sydney Sun Herald 3 October 1971 p. 103 is to be believed.

The next episode, 'Expectations', concludes the office move. It's not that different but I suppose a little less 1940s shabby but not much. You still have to fit three or more people into frame in what amounts to a kind of stage. 

Lex Mitchell appears again in 'Expectations', in a minor role, playing a nasty piece of work and doing a good job of it. 

new zealand

Spending time in NZ for the first time in about ten years last week made me think the thoughts I'd thought for some time, that if Australia and NZ became one country, I don't know how much NZ would benefit but Australia definitely would. It's a far superior country to this one and it's been a little crucible of concentrated, smart, perhaps a little smug but maybe that's ok, cultural consciousness for a long time. I really like it there and it's kind of a shame that we Australians can't grab more glamour by association from it than we already do. 

NZ is quite a bit like WA in its dependence on the east coast of Australia to funnel its base culture which it receives sometimes resentfully but more commonly resignedly, the weird thing in WA being that the east coast is the same country but it barely even acknowledges the west, whereas NZ is an entirely different country but still has to hang off Australia's big cities in all kinds of ways, and when I say it 'has to', I mean just for lame mass culture rubbish that no-one really needs. NZ television is riddled (for instance) with trashorama reality tv shows from Australia. No-one should have to put up with that kind of sad secondhand cultural output as their main cultural diet and it's miserable that there is that aspect to NZ. 

Of course it's the anomalies that stand out. So the record and book shops are full of things you wouldn't see in Australian record and book shops. The record shops give every sense that NZ in the 60s-70s had a real propensity to receive (as ballast probably) the crapped out commercial detritus of the US record industry. The book shops are more classy in a sense but in another sense just a lot of English books, by which I mean, from England. I don't know enough about NZ to know from whence all of this derives. 

What I do know is this - this year I have written a lot about Finland, and in the last few weeks quite a bit about NZ, and no-one from Finland or NZ ever reads this blog (at least, if they do it's not from their home country). I mean that's kind of funny and cool, really. 

I really need to go back to NZ sometime, and get to know it better. I am very fond of it. It's naturally beautiful as well as intrinsically civilised in a way the country isn't. More classy and I think cleverer. That might have something to do with its comparatively (and I say comparatively - definitely not perfect) reasonable attitude to its indigenous people, which Australia seems chronically unable to manage. 

logically yours

So the Essential/Lora Logic box set Logically Yours showed up today. It cost a lot and as I might already have whinged here (whingeing about myself, self-whingeing) it was a stupid purchase insofar as I already own everything on it except the new album. But I did it anyway, just I suppose to affirm my support for a group/individual whose work has meant a staggering amount to me for about forty years, ever since I bought a copy of 'Music is a Better Noise' in I can't remember where but possibly Readings in Lygon St back when there was a special Readings record store separate from the bookstore, on the east side of the street. I bought that single entirely on the basis of the sleeve, and with completely no knowledge of what the content would be like: I had never heard of the group, let alone heard anything by them or had any knowledge of Lora Logic's background. My favourite singles are that, 'Eugene' and 'Popcorn Boy', actually I think 'Popcorn Boy' would be one of my two or three favourite songs ever. Because it's madness. 

I have looked at the albums, there are five, the original Beat Rhythm News and the LL solo album Pedigree Charm (which started life, it would seem, as the second Essential Logic album but then the group fell apart); a singles compilation which I think doesn't actually include everything originally recorded by the group; an LP of material recorded by LL under the EL name about twenty years ago in that staggeringly strange line-up including someone who'd been in Bad Manners and a former member of Blondie (I mean where people come from doesn't really matter but still, weird). And then the new album. And I have also read the booklet which comes with the albums, identified at least one bizarre error (there's always going to be at least one bizarre error - it's obligatory - in this case, it's giving the name of the Stranglers album LL played on, to the Raincoats album she played on. The Stranglers album is also correctly identified elsewhere so go figure).* 

They've also done this to Beat Rhythm News which is peculiar. Here's the back cover of the box set version:

Apart from being monochrome rather than blue and black, it's substantially altered from the original:

I mean in one sense, the odd black shape over LL's profile on the original is, yeah, odd, but I can't really see much point in making the change overall. The picture they've put in its place is a bit of a nothing picture (presumably from absolutely the same session, at least, she's got the same hat on, and when I say 'she', it doesn't actually even really look like her, but I guess it must be!) and then there are four different logos on there. 

I suppose I should do something dweeby like play the new pressing and see if it sounds different though these reissues don't discuss any particular remastering, I don't think Giles Martin had a go at it or anything. I may get around to that. Right now I'm still as they say post-covid and getting headaches and forgetting things so I don't think it'd be wise to embark on anything so ambitious. 

* To be entirely clear, I am aware these kinds of things happen and it doesn't matter how. Easy enough to make mistakes of this nature. 

and now (a week ago) I have covid

Putting my posts a week ahead means I am now stuck in this vicious cyrcle re: the relating of things. This new development is directly a consequence of (in a manner of speaking - I mean obviously I could have got it anywhere) my trip to Auckland. Yesterday I hadn't slept much and I suppose I figured that was why I felt a bit crumby and slept a lot in the late afternoon and also went to bed at 8pm and slept a lot then too. But it didn't occur to me that I had a disease until this afternoon when I just felt kind of crappy so for shits and giggles went and got a RAT (they're like PINs, remember - the 't' is for test, the 'n' is for number but really we should call them RA tests and PI numbers so we know what we're talking about). I assumed this would be so I could say yeah I don't feel great but it's not covid, I checked. Well it is covid, I checked. How bad is that. 

Oh look it doesn't feel that bad really right now, the annoying thing is keeping Perry entertained and active, but I'll manage. Did you ever read Greg Wadley's Diary of a Cold? It's a comedy masterpiece of the 90s. I wonder if I could ever compete. Nah. 

BTW I did go to the market this morning so I have provisions for a few days, which is good, who knows if I spread my disease though, maybe I have already killed people. I've been at a conference, to Te Atatu, on a plane/in an airport, to the Market... I didn't spend any time in close quarters with anyone though, luckily. 

auckland airport, a week ago

It's the usual shizzle, and I just like complaining. 

Auckland Airport gives no information about what time it's necessary to get to the airport to clear immigration etc, but when checking in Qantas says you should get there three hours early. OK. Has to be done.

Here I am an hour into those three hours waiting for security to open. LOL.

I know I should write to the paper or something but cbf. Even I won't care in a few hours.

auckland a week ago - sunday 27 november

Sometimes when you upload pictures they upload backwards, sometimes forwards. I'm frankly too tired to cut and paste these not very interesting images. But this is the upshot of today: 

Half a day of conference; fieldwork; walking around looking at things etc. 

This was the whisky I had at Te Atatu which signified for me, the turning point of the whole trip where I would thereafter concentrate only on getting home again. It's going to be quite a process (but worth it of course). 

Just in case you ever wondered what New Zealanders call supermarket trolleys. I like this term better. 

Superior op shop art. 

This place. I didn't eat there. 

This place. I couldn't have eaten there if I'd wanted to. It was closed. I think permanently. I don't know what on earth a Rugby Cake is, do you? 

Went to the art gallery and probably wasn't really meant to be photographing these pretty superior works by Robin White. They also had a Frieda Kahlo exhibition but I didn't go to that. I was all about the local experience. 

So that's my Auckland adventures from a week ago. Thank you to Laura for coordinating and caring for Perry, above and beyond, without a doubt. I will forever be grateful. 

Now I have to go to sleep (at 5:30 pm) wake up at 2am get in a taxi at 2:30 and go to the airport and faff around for three hours before the plane takes off at 6am. Wish me luck. 

auckland a week ago - (east) auckland market(s)

It was a great experience to travel a longish way on foot at either end of a long (but fast) train journey, to go to what was probably the most pathetic outdoor market I’ve ever been to, with the admission that a lot of it hadn’t been set up yet by the time I got there for the 7am start. It was the Auckland Market also apparently known by some as the East Auckland Market. While I stand by the ‘pathetic’ tag though of course I have already tempered that by saying that it probably hadn’t really got its shit together at just after 7am when I was there, I will also add that it was clearly a very local operation, a lot of really nice looking fresh produce which was of no value to me (leaving Auckland in about 20 hours). One man was there in his gumboots (but it wasn’t Wal). A stallholder was explaining to him that ‘Roumanian women just never get drunk. They never do. They just don’t.’ 

 

So I knocked that whole experience on the head quickly and was lucky enough to get back to the station with minutes to spare (I mentioned that the trains were fast but of course on Sunday morning they are few and far between).