I was going to write a movie review but…

It seems nostalgia got in the way.

It’s school holidays on this side of the world and we decided to treat our grandchildren to a film. Being 8 and 11, it was always going to be one of those children’s films that we either didn’t understand, had minions, monsters, or bratty children.

This didn’t, but it had a baby elephant with large ears.

Dumbo.

Saw the cartoon version, read the book countless times at bedtime, but live action? I suspect with the advances in movie technology, anything is not possible, even flying elephants.

Yes, and somewhere in the film was the byline, ‘making the impossible possible’.

I guess only Disney and a handful of others could do that.

But…

What interested me the most was the train at the start, the circus winter home, and the manner in which the great circuses moved from town to town throughout the midwest, and other areas of e continental United States.

I may live on the other side of the world, but the magic and mystery of circuses has fed my imagination since childhood, and the notion one day that I might see the circus arrive, led by the steam calliope and followed by a parade of circus performers and animals on their way to the first vacant field.

And the thought of seeing that huge big top tent.

It never happened.

Except in the pages of a book I received one Christmas when I was about 7 or 8, called Toby Tyler first published in 1880, a boy who saw such a circus arrive, and hating his foster life on the farm ran away when the circus left town.

My only other memory of that story, Toby being called ‘the death-defying daredevil of the lemonade stand’ after being promoted from the concession stalls to bareback horse riding, for reasons I cannot remember.

But, today, seeing the film’s opening, it all came back.

Was it a good film? For kids, yes. It has the usual message of good triumphing over evil, and that you should follow your dreams. For those older people like me, well, it will bring back a few other interesting memories, some of which will not include running away from home to become a circus performer.

And the fact they don’t make circuses like they used to.

I was going to write a movie review but…

It seems nostalgia got in the way.

This didn’t, but it had a baby elephant with large ears.

Dumbo.

Saw the cartoon version, read the book countless times at bedtime, but live action? I suspect with the advances in movie technology, anything is not possible, even flying elephants.

Yes, and somewhere in the film was the byline, ‘making the impossible possible’.

I guess only Disney and a handful of others could do that.

But…

And the thought of seeing that huge big top tent.

It never happened.

But, today, seeing the film’s opening, it all came back.

And the fact they don’t make circuses like they used to.

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 3

I’ve had time to think about the next part of this opening sequence.

Long plane rides that leave in the dead of night are always conducive to working through plotlines because being on a plane in economy, the chances of getting any sleep is nigh on impossible.

And yet, this time the impossible is possible, which means that sleeping has overtaken the thinking process, and it will have to wait till I’ve woken up.

Of course, as usual, being in this interesting situation has provided another tangent, which is doing the impossible. It reminds me of a saying I once heard, ‘if you want the impossible it will take some time if want a miracle, that will take a little longer’. Temper that with ‘how long is a piece of string?’

When we last visited our intrepid wannabe hero, we were left with a cryptic ‘is anyone ever in the wrong place at the wrong time?’

Sometimes, but not for our particular hero.

It could be worse, I told myself, while the paramedic cleaned up my cuts and abrasions and gave me a concussion test, which, I suspect, might not quite discover if I was or not. But, at that moment, it didn’t matter.

I’d lost the person I’d been assigned to keep under surveillance.

It was meant to be a doddle, but of course, no one could ever predict what the conditions might be in any exercise, and whilst I was one part of a team effort, it had been on my watch, and I only realized what it was that I’d been doing when a voice in my ear started asking for an update, because it was coming up to the changeover.

I was surprised the noise of the explosion hadn’t been transmitted to the others. I waited till the paramedic had finished, a minute at most.

“I got caught up in an explosion, a couple of over-enthusiastic bank robbers, and taken down. The target was ahead of me.” I gave the team leader the exact location of where I’d last seen the target, then waited.

If the team was functioning properly, one of the other three should have been close enough to predict where the target would be at the change over point.

“Are you alright?” It was a question I’d expected earlier.

“Got caught in the aftershock, got a few cut and abrasions, and a ringing in my ears, but otherwise ok. The paramedics want me to go to the hospital to be checked over, mainly for a concussion, but I’m ok to resume if you want.”

A minute, two, of silence, then, “Do as they say. We have the target still under surveillance.”

And that was it, what I regarded as a massive fail, despite the circumstances.

I watched the paramedics load the battered policeman onto a gurney and head towards the ambulance. I went over to the cuffs and picked them up. A souvenir of the event, if nothing else.

Lights flashing and siren wailing it left, heading for the hospital.

I took a last look at the scene and started walking away in the direction I was originally heading, and once past the perimeter, walked through the group of bystanders who’d gathered to watch the event unfold. On the other side, I stopped, took another look back at the scene, and did the proverbial double take.

Standing not ten yards from me was the target.

And a quick look in every direction for the members of the surveillance team showed none of them was anywhere near the target.

I spoke quietly into the communication device.

“Target, I repeat, the target is in sight. Is anyone nearby by?”

Silence.

So we now have a dilemma, if there is no answer from the team, are they maintaining radio silence, or is something more sinister afoot?

Going to the movies – not the apocalypse

What do you call going to the movies where the power goes out?

A complete disaster.

For starters, the first problem is living in a cashless society where not very many people carry cash. When you fo to the movies, your mind is on the movie or elsewhere, so when they get to the box office and see the sign Cash Only. panic sets in.

Ugh. Now they have to go to the ATM and then get back in the queue.

By the way, this is the first time I’ve ever seen the box office open.

Of course, no power means the pre-purchased ticket dispenser is out of action, all those people who pre-purchased tickets now have to join the long queue that’s getting longer by the minute, at the box office.

Those people who got their tickets ahead of time on the internet, namely us, have to join that long since there are no instructions to do anything else, that long queue only to discover they just had to show the e-receipt to the attendant at the entrance to the cinemas.

Ugh again. Thanks for not telling us earlier. We could have been in the snack bar queue.

As for snacks, the queue there is ten times longer than the box office, apparently without cash registers, so everything ordered has to be written down and manually added.

Let’s hip the juniors they employ can actually add up numbers in their heads. It’s a miracle these days to find anyone under the age of 18 able to do any mental arithmetic because it seems no schools teach it because everything is electronic.

Hello.

What do we do when there no power to drive the electronic devices.

Ugh yet again.

Ok, what’s the lesson here?

We’re in big trouble if or when the power goes down.

Electricity is one of those commodities we all take for granted because it’s one of those everyday essentials that drives every aspect of our lives. We might endlessly complain about how much it costs us, but what would we do if there weren’t any at all?

Could we live without it?

No. Emphatically.

I suppose the bigger question is how long before society falls into anarchy?

I hope someone somewhere is working on the problem.

Going to the movies – not the apocalypse

What do you call going to the movies where the power goes out?

A complete disaster.

Ugh. Now they have to go to the ATM and then get back in the queue.

By the way, this is the first time I’ve ever seen the box office open.

Ugh again. Thanks for not telling us earlier. We could have been in the snack bar queue.

As for snacks, the queue there is ten times longer than the box office, apparently without cash registers, so everything ordered has to be written down and manually added.

Hello.

What do we do when there no power to drive the electronic devices.

Ugh yet again.

Ok, what’s the lesson here?

We’re in big trouble if or when the power goes down.

Could we live without it?

No. Emphatically.

I suppose the bigger question is how long before society falls into anarchy?

I hope someone somewhere is working on the problem.

That helicopter story that kept me awake – Episode 45

Our hero knows he’s in serious trouble.

The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.

Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in, and because of it, he has now been roped into what might be called a suicide mission.

We flew north at low altitude, crossing the border into the Sudan, then ran along the border, heading back to the landing field we’d arrived on in Uganda.

It was basically a two-hour flight that in the end was eventless. After everything that had happened over the past 24 hours, it wasn’t hard to doze off, leaving Davies to get us back.

I was woken suddenly by a thump on my arm.

“Need your help landing this crate,” a squeaky voice in my ear said.

I could feel the plane losing altitude, and the engines not making the same noise as they had just before I’d dropped off to sleep. It seemed like it was only a few minutes ago we were taking off.

She leveled the plane at 1000 feet, and flew over the airfield, the landing lights on, and I could see the strip from start to end. It looked a lot longer than the one we’d taken off from.

Turning sharply, I could hear the landing gear being activated and saw green lights come on one the dashboard. Down and locked I assumed.

She then went through a series of landing checks and told me what she wanted me to do to assists, and then everything seemingly OK, we came in to land.

This landing was a lot bumpier than that in the C130 earlier, but she got us there, throttled back, and slowed the speed before heading for the terminal buildings.

Once there, she let the engines run for about a minute or so before switching them off.

Once the propellers stopped turning, the silence in the cockpit was strange. At the rear, the door was opened, and everyone was getting off, the Colonel first to make sure none of his men shot anyone by mistake, and then the rest of the team.

Davies and I were the last to leave. I got the impression she would have stayed, just a little longer, and it was telling that she patted the dashboard in what I would call a loving manner, thanking the aircraft for its service.

“I can see you like flying these old planes,” I said, still seated and taking in the moment.

“There’s something about them. You have to fly them, they don’t fly you, not like the F15’s or any of those other jets that have autopilots. No, this comes from the days of real flying.”

“You said your Dad has one?”

“Yep.”

“Then the art of flying is not lost on you. Perhaps one day when I get lost, somewhere where this plane lives, you can take me up.”

“Any time.”

She dragged herself out of the left seat and headed towards the rear of the plane. I took a moment longer, then followed her.

Maybe she could teach me how to fly.

Or maybe not.

I keep forgetting I hate flying in planes.

As I stepped off the plane onto terra firma again, I could see just inside the range of my peripheral vision, some activity by the terminal building.

Suddenly, a man was running towards us. He was also yelling out, words to the effect, ‘they’re coming’.

Who?

The Colonel looked up just as the man, almost hunched over out of breath, reached him.

“They’re coming. A helicopter, heading towards us.” Several more huge breaths, then, “An hour at best.” He looked at me. “You have to go.”

Then he handed the Colonel a sheet of paper, and he quickly scanned it.

Then he said, “Your friendly militia decided the ransom wasn’t enough and they’re coming to take them back.”

“How is that possible? Can they just cross borders like that?”

“This is Africa. Anything can happen. By the time their mission is done, it’ll be too late for us to scramble anything to attack them. You need to go.”

Davies had come back, assuming it had something to do with the plane, and after taking in what the Colonel had to say, said, “We need more fuel. Not much, but it’ll take time.”

The fuel truck had already come out and begun the refueling.

“Go tell the driver how much you need. You’ve probably got a half-hour, a little more before you take off and go before, they get here.”

She headed towards the fuel truck, muttering under her breath.

I yelled out to Monroe, “Round up everyone and get them back on the plane. Wheels up in half an hour.”

I could see her mouth the word why.

“Seems we’re about to get a visit from some very unfriendly people.”

Enough said.