homicide 'rampage'

So I finally lost it with the DVD company in Qld which claimed to have a copy of Homicide volume 18 because, like, they didn't. All they wanted was to borrow a hundred dollars from me for a month (it was unavailable on the Crawfords website - presumably this company's modus operandi when it came to Crawfords material was/is to advertise it on their website and then, when people ordered it, to buy it from Crawfords and onsell it adding a big percentage. I suppose that's a thing that happens). 

So here we are at volume 19. The first episode is called Rampage and it's interesting on a couple of fronts. One is the use of George Spartels playing a man who is not Greek, Italian or in any way 'other' (aside from the fact he's a nutty murderer). His character's name is Simon, and he defs has a thing for Cornelia Frances, who's his psychologist. He kills three strangers for unexplained reasons which appear somehow to be related to his thing for Corny, though it's not spelled out (alright I wasn't paying attention 100% of the time maybe there was something). (You watch it and tell me). 

The other interesting thing to me is a lot of imagery of the roof of Princes Bridge station, which in my memory was always this kind of a desert. In fact three people using it was probably a bit of a crowd. 

(Also, the Gas and Fuel towers - whatever). 

I know it's mean to say this and not my place either but I am alway surprised when Cornelia Frances is cast as a glamorous hottie. Perhaps I am just more used to her cast, as she often was, as an older woman, stern and severe.

Anyway this was a decent enough episode I guess. There was a weird, somehow inappropriate, song played a couple of times - a ballad which seemed to be sung from the pov of a man let down by a woman. Which might have been Simon's mindset in some sense but in another, he was an insane murderer. 

perry at 3/4

Perry is 9 months old today. This is him at my mother's house in North Carlton where he may or may not have been disincentivising poor Kenzie for coming through the dog door (they have a terse relationship a lot of which involves Perry putting his paw on Kenzie's face and barking). 

So how's it going I hear you ask. It's not plain sailing, though he is a fine dog, with a lot of good ideas, affectionate (particularly in the morning) and focused, with intelligent and interesting takes on many things. He still barks too much at other dogs, and loudly. I am weaning him off the idea that barking gets him what he wants, also, that barking is necessary at every tiny sound heard outside the gate. Baby steps. 

We do training now, only a half hour session on Sunday morning, he is not the best behaved of the dogs but not the worst either, it's just... the sight of another dog can be intoxicating, you know. 

 

my time to shine

...not really. But I have done eleven or so pages of my second graphic novel and I am not unhappy with it so far, and having written the entire thing (with expectation of some elements being altered as I go) I know the best is yet to come. 

This is how it starts, anyway, in 1959. I probably made an error by not drawing anything on the newspaper (and really, if I was to be accurate it would be a broadsheet not a tabloid... I can't do everything) (or perhaps I just can't do anything). This particular character doesn't need any more backstory than this image gives us, though I have plenty of ideas. The main thing that worries me but doesn't worry me that much is that the orange cat who's sleeping in the doorway possibly looks like it is either a tiny, tiny cat leaping from the back of the chair, or that it is not lying but kind of arched in a weird prone position in the doorway - I don't know. I mean to the first possibility I have no problems with that, I like weird juxtaposition, but the second, well, that might be my problem with perspective although I used a google image search for reference and that, more or less, is what a sleeping cat looks like, I think. 

Well, anyway, I am getting somewhere though not as fast as I should I suppose. I keep changing my mind about bits, I am not sure if that's a good sign but ultimately I am happy with what I've decided (I have one more page of this first 'prologue' section to do, and I think then I'll draw the 2-3 other pages where the same 1959 characters appear (we also see them very briefly in the early C21). 

I think it's quite a decent story, particularly since I have never shown any capacity to write fiction before, so I'm starting from a low base. The main problem - unfixable and I have no desire to fix it - is that the first part of the story is a long, rambling party scene which has much more in it than is required for a setup, but which I am just relishing drawing, so why should I deny myself something so nice? You're right, I shouldn't. 

the bath and health and climate and character

Sydney Morning Herald 22 June 1923, p. 9: 

So global warming explains England in 2023? 

learning a language

I make no secret of the fact that I really wish I knew how to speak Finnish. Or at least, read it/ understand it (with all due respect there are presently no Finnish people who don't speak English who I want to talk to). I would really like to be in a position to do research on Finnish culture and related things with a deep knowledge of the place and its history. OK, so obviously, really wanting to do it is not going to get me far (more than not wanting to do it at all would, of course). 

I am well aware that this is a kind of pipe dream, but it entertains me and I can't really see how it does any harm. I suppose the only way it does harm is that I could be using my time to do great good, and instead I'm frittering my time away on a silly hobby that is highly unlikely to ever reap anything like a reward. Because, at 58, I'm already disadvantaged in (time-) terms of language learning and it's a very difficult language to learn. 

I did have a book on how to learn Finnish when I was a child, so it's been a longstanding interest, or at least, I was interested in it almost half a century ago and have become interested in it again. I only retain one memory from that book: the information that some (?) Finns might legitimately pronounce an 'n' as an 'm' when it comes before a 'p' (or maybe a 'b' as well?), the example given being 'menen pois': 'Minä menen pois' means 'I will go away'. The main thing I did with that book, which was a uniform language-learner's edition in a series I have currently forgotten the name of, was apply a coloured transfer of a line drawing of Rupert's friend Pong-Ping to the front of it. Meaningless. 

(Pong-Ping far left, looking more insane than I've ever seen him.) 

Anyway with any luck my enthusiasm for this idea will slink away (these passions have typically often subsided once the route to attaining them becomes clear, but I must say that is oddly less the case as I get older than it used to be). In the meantime I find Finnish on duolingo becoming more difficult as I re-do the exercises I breezed through a few months ago - my spelling's getting worse. 

I'm also well aware that Duolingo is not really teaching you a language, but it's keeping one's hand in, isn't it. 

clifton hole

 

I don't really remember all the details but basically about 8 or 9 years ago I had a blog called Clifton Hole, which was anonymous, and which I think was mainly images like the above - maybe just one at a time? Posted mainly without comment? 

I deleted it some time ago, and gave it nary a thought thereafter, but bizarrely I got an email a couple of days ago saying that my google something was about to be deleted so if I wanted to save the things in there I should follow a link and download. I am still unclear about how this stuff came to be there but I guess I might as well explore it a little. 

Admittedly a lot of it seems to be either pictures of the same thing, or the same pictures. 

44 years ago: marcia's music

I just got interested in Mona Lisa and Terry Young again and I thought I'd have a little check of newspapers.com for them. They were guests on the second season of Marcia's tv show apparently but that's all I've gleaned from this review. Christine Hogan is no fool so I'm gonna suggest she knew 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough' wasn't and never will be a question - blame a sub. Most revelatory in this review was the information that there was once a category known as '17-39 year olds'. Wonder what else they liked (aside from The Two Ronnies and Marcia Hines?). Also, how refreshing that there was a time when we could freely complain about three black voices trying to outdo each other in shrieking the high notes, lol lol (or not). 

Sydney Sun-Herald 18 June 1979 p. 25
 

Discogs suggests that Mona Lisa and Terry Young worked together on a few more things and then they stopped working together. She made a couple of albums, one in the early 80s and another (below) in the early 90s and he was in a band called the Jaam Bros. which released an album in 1990. The end (as far as the internet is concerned, I am sure there's more). 

clifton hole (ignore this)

Stuff from Clifton Hole. I do recall getting deeply interested in the Clifton Hill overpass (oddly enough often called a 'rail bridge' or similar at the time, but it's actually a road bridge over a railway). Also there's some bits from my brief interest in doing a murder tour of Clifton Hill. I think there is more shizzle on that somewhere in the file. Also a nice picture of Nancy...