I have been watching television for a long, long time, and a lot of it has come from either the US or from Britain.
I have Cable TV by satellite, an interesting contradiction in terms, and it has a channel that shows all of these old series, such as,
The Prisoner, a rather fascinating series that starred Patrick McGoohan about a man who became a number. Of course week after week we puzzled over who he was, and came to the conclusion he was an ex spy put out to pasture. Each week he’d try to escape, each week a big white ball would appear on the scene. And what was his number? 7 I think.
Years later I saw Patrick McGoohan in an episode of Columbo, so he must have been popular in the US.
The Avengers, which was my all time favourite because of Emma Peel. Yes, huge crush I’m afraid. But, then, I think Diana Rigg had a lot more men with crushes. Nobody really cared about the others, one of which was Patrick McNee, but I couldn’t tell you who his character was, or who Emma’s partner in the show was.
The New Avengers was not a patch on the original, but I did watch a few episodes because of Purdy, who, of course was Joanna Lumley, equally as intriguing as Emma Peel.
The Saint, only because I liked reading the book versions of the stories by Leslie Charteris, and that my mother liked Roger Moore so we got to see it. That came from when Moore was in Ivanhoe, a real knight rather than a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Roger Moore of course turned up later among other roles, as James Bond. Probably not the best contender for the role.
Upstairs, Downstairs, a forerunner to Downtown Abbey, the first introduction to the lost class system that gradually disappeared from the 1900’s onwards.
Rumpole of the Bailey, which starred an Australian actor, Leo McKern, who was a delightful claret drinking barrister that never had ambitions of being a judge, and hinged his success on the infamous Penge Bungalow Murders trial. I like reading the books too.
Are You Being Served, with John Inman, and others that made this show a riot of a comedy. We saw John Inman much later in a stage play in Melbourne, and when two people turned up late and interrupted the performance, Inman recited all the lines of all the roles up to that point so they wouldn’t be left in the dark about what was going on,
It was one of those rare performance’s when you just had to be there to believe it.
As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some months ago.
Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.
For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits I will run the series again from Episode 1
These are the memories of our time together…
This is Chester
Still hiding away.
Like any wise, old, skeptical cat, he’s not believing the good news.
We do not have a COVID 19 case in our house. Of course, we had to wait an agonizing 24 hours before we got the good news by phone.
It shows that our testing labs are getting through the tests, of which I heard in the news there were about 4,000, with only 10 or so new cases countrywide.
Queensland had none overnight, so if our case had been positive, we would have been in the news for al; the wrong reasons.
So, after broadcasting the news, that is, walking up and down the passage saying it was safe to come out, there’s still no sign of him.
But…
I have a cunning plan.
I bought a can of his absolute favorite food.
Come dinner time I’m putting it out.
Of course, food trumps fear every time.
He walks past me on his way to the tasty treats, the tail movements indicating he is not a happy cat.
The things I have to suffer at the hands of you humans, he mutters.
So, I say casually, we have guests for dinner.
He stops, turns his head in that dismissive manner of his.
What else can you do to me?
COVID 19, Grandchildren, I suppose you’re going to let me outside.
Do you want to go outside?
With COVID 19 lurking on every corner?
It’s under control.
Right. I’ve been watching TV. You do realize there’s good news and fake news, and there’s more of the latter than the former.
So, he’s going with the confuse the poor human with blather.
It’s working. I say, Go back into hiding. I was quite enjoying the silence.
After dinner, he says, ending the conversation with the angry tail swish. Yes, we are not amused.
I have a passion for visiting transport museums, to see old trains, planes, buses, cars, even ships if it’s possible.
This has led to taking a number of voyages on the TSS Earnslaw in Queenstown, New Zealand.
Many, many, many years ago on Puffing Billy, a steam train in the Dandenongs, Victoria, Australia.
The steam train in Kingston, New Zealand, before it was closed down, but hopefully it will reopen sometime in the future.
The London Transport Museum in London England, which had a lot of buses.
The Workshops Railway Museum in Ipswich, Queensland, where once the many steam engines were built and maintained, and now had only a handful of engines remaining.
However, in the quest for finding and experiencing old transportation methods, we came across the Mary Valley Rattler, which runs out of Gympie, Queensland, Australia.
The ride begins in Gympie at the old Gympie Railway station, and as can be seen below, is one of the relics of the past, and, nothing like the new more modern stations. Thankfully.
If you’re going to have a vintage train, then you have to have a vintage station.
The Class of engine, seen below, is the C17, a superheated upgrade to the C16 it was based on, and first run in 1903. This particular engine was built in 1951, although the first of its type was seen in 1920 and the last of 227 made in 1953. It was the most popular of the steam engines used by Queensland Railways.
The C designation meant it had four driving axels and 17 was the diameter of the cylinder, 17 inches. It is also known as a 4-8-0 steam locomotive and nicknamed one of the “Brown Bombers” because of its livery, brown with green and red trimming.
Also, this engine was built in Maryborough, not far from Gympie by Walkers Limited, one of 138.
This photo was taken as the train returned from Amamoor, a trip that takes up to an hour.
The locomotive is detached from the carriages, then driven to the huge turntable to turn around for the return journey to Amamoor.
This is the locomotive heading down to the water station, and then taking on water. After that, it will switch lines, and reverse back to reconnect the carriages for the trip to Amamoor.
The carriages are completely restored and are extremely comfortable. It brings back, for me, many memories of riding in older trains in Melbourne when I was a child.
The trains, then, were called Red Rattlers.
This is the locomotive climbing one of the hilly parts of the line before crossing over the Mary River on a trestle bridge.
This is the engine at Amamoor near the picnic area where young children and excited parents and grandparents can get on the locomotive itself and look inside where the driver sits.
And, no, I didn’t volunteer to shovel coal.
This particular locomotive spent most of its working life between Townsville and Mount Isa and was based in Cloncurry, Charters Towers, and Townsville, before being sent, at the end of its useful days in the late 1960s, to the Ipswich Railway Workshops.
As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some months ago.
Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.
For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits I will run the series again from Episode 1
These are the memories of our time together…
This is Chester
Once again, it’s Sunday night, and he’s looking for a philosophical discussion. COVID 19 is off the topic list.
He’s suitably disappointed that the Trump Show is over, as far as we are aware, though he’s not surprised.
But he is worried that two cats have tested positive.
I try to tell him that it is in New York, about 18,000 miles away, where there are over 200,000 cases. We have just over 1,000 and they are all isolated so we cannot be harmed.
I guess it’s hard to convince a cat when his mind is made up.
We’ve also taken the grandchildren off the list of topics too,
They arrive a few hours ago, and studiously ignored him when they arrived. I tried to point out that he was in hiding when they arrived, but again, the stubbornness of opinion is amazing, or normal.
I should be used to this sort of contrariness.
So, what is on the discussion list?
Outlander, Season 5 Episode 10. Well, I say, we haven’t seen it yet, so don’t tell me what the plots is.
He looks at me as if I’m mad. I only get to see it when you do, he says. How should I know what the plot is? In fact, what is the plot?
Time travel, I say.
Pity we can’t do some of that, he says.
Why I asked, and really, I should know better.
Because I could go back to the day you came to the pet shop and hide. I have given you 18 years to improve, and you’re still the same as you were then.
Hohensalzburg Castle sits atop the Festungsberg, accessed by a cable car.
The castle itself dominates the Salzburg skyline.
Below is a view down into Salzburg from the castle walls.
We had lunch at a café, the Salzburg Fortress Café, that overlooked the countryside. This was where we were introduced to Mozart Gold Chocolate Cream added to our coffee.
The square below featured in the Sound of Music.
Among the more interesting objects to be seen, the gun below shows what some of the castle’s armaments might have been. These cannons, in the ‘Firing Gallery’ date back to the thirty years war in the early 1600’s.
As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some months ago.
Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.
For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits I will run the series again from Episode 1
These are the memories of our time together…
This is Chester.
He realizes we are now part of a different world driven by the events surrounding the COVID 19 virus.
The grandchildren are here while their parents are working, and they are going to school remotely, that is one is in the kitchen and one is in the dining room, remotely linked to their school, teachers, and classmates.
Chester finds this interesting because they are not trying to find him, so, he’s come out to see what they’re doing.
First, he jumps up on the dining table and sits next to the 13-year-old. She is hard at work. I hear him ask if there is anything he can help with given his vast knowledge of everything.
There’s a universal greeting from 30 others, and he tries to find where all the other people are. No, it’s not hide and seek, they’re all online she tries to tell him.
No, doesn’t get it. They must be in the room somewhere. And he’s suddenly miffed that he can’t find them, and then that his assistance is not required.
All too much to cope with, he comes out to join the 10-year-old sitting at the kitchen table. She had headphones on and doesn’t hear him.
This time he sits on the floor and looks up thinking, if they can’t see him, he’s not there. She ignores him. I don’t think mathematics is his strong point.
So, he wanders into the office, planning to annoy me.
I find some headphones and put them on. He gets the message, no interruptions today, everyone is hard at work.
A sigh, then he goes to his corner and lies down on his bed, yawns and closes his eyes.
I know he’s not asleep. He’s waiting for something to happen, ready to spring into action.
No, it’s not about whether the world is flat, though sometimes I think he has that notion, as well as all humans are basically stupid.
I’ve been thinking about the pandemic and how it might meld into a plotline for a story.
Chester is not happy that I should use China as the country with global ambitions, after using the term ‘global domination’ and got a very silky retort.
He doesn’t seem to think that by causing a pandemic, making each of the G20 nations basically launch themselves into insolvency in order to maintain some semblance of economic stability, that China, who miraculously recovers, becomes the nation who saves the world?
It sounded quite good in my head.
Particularly when you see nations like the USA, the only other country that could tackle China as a ‘savior’ state, is going slowly down the gurgler. Or so it seems, and it’s only a matter of time before something gives.
Chester and I now have mandatory viewing every morning, the Donald Trump show, where we lay bets as to whom he’s going to fire or lambast.
Chester thought the Doctor was gone for all money on Monday.
My money was on the reporter, who wouldn’t stop asking questions.
But today, it might be about Joe Biden and the Democrats, and the ramping up of the Republican’s political campaign. Who said the COVID briefings had to be about that mundane virus?
Still, it’s back to the drawing board. The overall plot is good, creating a virus that brings almost every nation to its knees, and one that rises out of the ashes to ‘save the world’. It’s like you don’t need bullets and arms to fight a war, just a hell of a sneaky virus; you know, infecting people when you don’t know you’ve got it and infecting others.
Hang on, Chester’s calling. It’s time for the Donald Trump show.
I hesitate to call this an animated cartoon because I think it’s something else.
But, having said that, whether real like or animation, or whatever the medium is, we were cajoled into seeing these by our youngest grand daughter, who has managed to talk me into endless episodes of Dora the Explorer and Barbie, who has transformed from Princess to Mermaid and everything in between.
The point is she likes these films and so, apparently, do a lot of others.
Oddly, in the cinema for the sequel there were older people than younger which tells me there’s probably more to the story.
Quite often these sorts of films, directed at children, sometimes have a message. This one, perhaps, was that people who are different can get along, and at a time when emotions are running high over the differences between us, it might pour a little cold water on a heated debate.
Or perhaps I’m writing too much into it.
For pure entertainment’s sake, and discounting the fact cave men would not have been so eloquent in speaking English, it was quite good. The first was a bit tedious, the second well, it’s a kids show, what do you expect.
For just under two hours, it held my attention, more than I can say for some other films I’ve seen recently.
Of course my favourite is the sabre tooth tiger. I can see one of those as a house pet, especially after being broken in by our former cat in residence, Chester.
I give this a four out of five stars for pure entertainment value.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 