david thomas died

It was of course sad to hear that David Thomas died a few days ago though without wishing to be glib it seems like the last few years - quite a while before I took this picture of him in Oslo on the 11 October 2019 - he was on borrowed time, whatever that literally meant. I was a huge fan since my late teens particularly of the Pere Ubu albums mainly from Dub Housing through to Song of the Bailing Man and his subsequent solo career up to Monster Walks... though there was plenty of incredibly good stuff after that time with and without the PU name, of course. 

I didn't know him, but I did really enjoy his output. 

twentieth anniversary

Hi, and welcome to what is not really the 20th anniversary of this blog. I started some time a little earlier than the 27 April 2005 but I can't remember when. I have nothing more to say. It just is. And yet at the same time it also isn't, for reasons explained above. Enjoy! 

graphic novel progress five years ago

There have been a lot of false starts but I finally feel like it's getting somewhere. I'm doing this long chat show sequence because I think it'll be the easiest to draw and hopefully then I'll have worked up the chops to take on the harder stuff. I'm enjoying this now. My plan at the moment is to scan this in and photoshop greys into the background so it's more like TV (whereas most of the time it'll just be black and white, no grey).

The line was actually supposed to be 'It cuts at my skin like tiny piranha teeth you shits!' But I was hoping to find a way to make it one of those things, in the days of live television, where you wondered if someone swore but you weren't sure, it was indistinct. Well I don't know how to make that happen here.

I'm pretty pleased with the audience picture.

rozo the roo meets mr fleesum

 

Frankston and Somerville Standard 23 April 1937 p. 1

other places

Whether it's on foot or in cars, one of the great elements of every Crawfords show - and almost always obligatory - is (at least one) chase sequence. One more element that testifies to the quality of these programs: it never seems rote or bolted-on. 

But even in a time before, you know, online banking and surveillance and similar shit, the question still really remains - where are they running to and why? I guess there's an innate impulse amongst human beings, when in trouble, to get out of the immediate situation and worry about the details later. Nevertheless, it's silly. If they're ever pressed for their plans they're always about to shoot through, to Sydney or Adelaide or Surfers.* Presumably until the heat dies down, and I guess if I think about it I assume that police resources (or lack thereof) do mean that a lot of things, then and now, get put on the back burner or even dropped down behind the stove, so you have to assume that if you do get away on the day you only have to stay away a short time and they'll move on to something else. The perps in D4 and Homicide of course don't know that the detectives remember every crim they've ever met, whether it's the next day or the next decade. 

The small but effective sequence above is from an episode from 4 August 1975, 'Just for Kicks', which is the first time we really get some backstory/ storyline with one of the 'new' uniform cops to (essentially) replace Ted Hamilton: John Hannan as Paul Gray. Gray is in a relationship with a girl called Jan (JAN!!! So old school) played by Noni Hazlehurst in her third (of four) Division 4 episodes. 

By the way I wish I had kept better track of the paintings on the wall since D4 went colour, because the one on the left here is in every second house. Maybe they bought special new paintings for colour TV, but not many. 

*In this case, the teenage hoodlums initially plan to go to Surfers but it's later suggested by the mothers of one of them that he is going to Adelaide, by which Vickers deduces he is either going to Sydney or Brisbane. 

division 4: life's a gamble

Just wanted to mention how much I enjoy it when Janne Coghlan makes an appearance in Crawfords shows. What do I know about Coghlan? Really not much, except that she was on the stage a lot in the 50s-60s and then in Crawfords programs and a few other minor films up until the very early 90s, then nothing heard of her thereafter. Somewhere along the way there, for some reason, she lost the extra 'n' in 'Janne'. Here she is in the ABC Weekly for 15 May, 1954. 

 Let's say she was twenty then, so I guess she's 90 now if she's alive, and she was 40 or so in 1975 when she played loyal-wife-to-a-loser with Tom Oliver in the episode of D4 'Life's a gamble' (7 July 1975). 

You can (well I can) imagine them looking at these scenes in the Crawfords meeting, or whatever they did, and saying 'this is real Janne Coghlan stuff' - a lot of domestic two-hander with Oliver where it's like, they have a deep attachment but he is a terrible man. 

This is a rare D4 where you can actually go back and watch it again and it's different all over because you (or I - gullibly) believed that Oliver's character had killed the underworld identity. Actually he hadn't. But when she shows him this paper and he's all like 'the papers are full of lies', it's actually really interesting to see it a second time. 

Yeah, yeah, I know. The real crime is that beard. 

Well, that crime is solved about half way through the episode. 

Anyway, I wonder what happened to Janne Coghlan? I suppose she retired. Let me know if you know.

Also a nod to Luigi Villani, who has a small role in this episode as a boat hirer. It's always best for him when he's not affecting some sort of Chico Marx accent. He was Mick Moloney in The Box the previous year, but usually he's got a kind of bastardised Italian name - he had ten roles in D4 including 'Pastrani', 'John Zammitt', 'Tony' (twice, but I think different Tonies), 'Mario' and 'Musso', but here he's 'Bert Williams'. Villani was born in Wangaratta, don't know about Bert. 

division 4: the human factor

The final year of D4 was patchy. 

This might be (I haven't looked it up - yes I just did - and it is) the last of 13 appearances of Keith Eden in the show. This time he's an older man in a car accessories firm who sets fire to a computer because he can't stand progress, or whatever. 

He's good. He has a twinkle in his eye. I have a lot of time for him. He's gone now. He died in 2003. 

I'm guessing this opening shizzle was shot from atop the Crawfords building in Abbotsford. I haven't compared anything but it looks familiar. All of this. 

This is not the greatest episode, particularly given the weird bit where even though Eden's character commits arson, then steals some car radios to try and cover it up then dumps them, then tries to do himself in, the company still wants to redeploy him to personnel (!!!!!!!!). Explain why!

OK one more thing of note: this twenty-year-old. It wasn't her first TV appearance, she'd already been in The Box for six episodes as 'Office Girl' and 'Debbie - Office Girl' and now here she is: 

For some el weirdo reason IMDB thinks she is reprising the role of 'Office Girl' and also that this is true: 

But it is not true:

I don't think she says anything, but I didn't notice her in the show until I noticed her name in the credits. I am looking forward to seeing her in The Box though.