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

And with any luck that place will be far away. 
 

revolting day

Hard to believe that so many millions of people could be so resoundingly stupid in ways that are most definitely going to rebound on them later or perhaps sooner. Short-sighted provincial religious hicks with no desire to understand themselves let alone others. It would be fine with me if all they wanted to do was destroy themselves ('drink the Kool-Aid') but of course millions more will suffer. 

monetisation - end of

So as you will have seen, I no longer have ads on my blog. I felt it was a valid experiment but they are ugly and while clearly I never expected at all to make serious profits the amount of money generated was tiny.* All I really want is readers, and even then only because I am a writer, not because I have something super-important to say, and I think the ads probably detract from people hanging around to read (unless they are really immune to them). I think I also kind of suspect that the ads make the blog look like it's not actually active anymore, which I suppose most blogs aren't.   

So that's that. 

I'll still give money to Save the Bilby. 

*And it did not increase the amount of traffic here. 

halloween

Woy Woy a couple of weeks ago. 

the monetisation experiment

 

The impact on my blog of the adsense ads is just so ugly that I am blown away by it. I am 99% certain that I will end the experiment in a few days (so far I have earned around 1c from it, and that is not an exaggeration). Even if the rewards were, you know, a dollar a day I don't think I could hack it. (If the rewards were ten dollars a day, well, I'd leave this blog to its own devices for a couple of years to just earn money for itself and write a novel or something instead). 

more ryan - episode 21, first aired 13 october 1973

 

No huge anything to say here just wanted to celebrate once again the great supporting cast that the Crawfords shows drew together in the 60s and 70s such as the redoubtable Syd Conabere who shows up repeatedly in different shows and is here playing... god, I am not even sure, some man called Jacob Jones who faked his own death to protect his daughter from the 'syndicate' - ? I wasn't paying enough attention but I was pleased to see him. The daughter in question ('Anastasia') was played by Sally Conabere. Some relation? Well, I don't know for certain.* 

SC was born in 1918 so was 55 here. He died in 2008. His wife Betty was in eight Crawfords episodes in the early 70s. 

* Don't write in and complain, of course I do. 

the great australian bite

So I don't think I've mentioned that lately I've been watching Ryan, the Rod Mullinar private detective show which also has Pamela Stephenson in it. I'll tell you more about it sometime. But right now I just want to fill you in on an episode (Episode 21) I've been looking at in which a lot of the action centres around a locale about two minutes' walk from where I live, notably at a restaurant called The Great Australian Bite. It was on the corner of Molesworth St and, I guess, Harker St (though that corner seems to be exactly the spot where Harker becomes Curzon). 

Molesworth, looking south. 

Looking down Curzon. 

I think this is the interior of the Great Australian Bite, but maybe not. It's surely not a set. 

The actual establishment. Sometime soon I'll show you what it looks like today. 

Cornelia Frances in Harker st

And the flats across the street. So that's about it. Oh, except here's an ad.