Month: November 2019

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Second-Hand Is Good Enough!: Monday, 14th November, 1977

Today heralds Prince Charles’s twenty-ninth birthday.

A downpour struck shortly before three post meridiem on this humid day that bore a maximum temperature of thirty-one degrees Celsius. On the way home from work I listened to the music that was being played by Keith McGowan on 2UW.

I helped “Dad” carry what he described as their “old” kitchen table, and the six chairs that accompany it, up the steep incline at the western end of their house, and loaded it into his red Valiant ‘Town And Country’ utility.

We unloaded the setting at our place, but not before I had experienced his vehicle’s new air-conditioning for the first time. He took away the aged, far lighter table and chairs that we had been using. “Mum” also delivered her old electric tin-opener for us to have.

After I had assisted Tiki to hang out the washing, and we had consumed dinner, she insisted that we partook of our daily walk. Although we had had the portable fan — that Tiki’s aunt, Ruth, had given to us — on during dinner, a chill wind blew strongly by the time we arrived home at five past eight.

We aren’t going to watch television tonight.

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Magenta Shores

The ban of October 2019 that was placed on tourists and travellers who wished to climb the sacred site, Uluru (formerly Ayers Rock), returned my memory to the day of more than a decade ago when we drove up from Sydney to peruse real estate at Magenta Shores, which is situated on the Central Coast of New South Wales.

As the agent showed us the through the dwellings that were for sale, and knowing that the estate was once a part of the adjoining national park, I could not help but enquire as to how the developer had managed to build it and its accompanying golf course of eighteen holes, on land that had been set aside for the enjoyment of the general public.

His answer surprised us, for he alleged that some indigenous people had laid claim to having located a secret site within the national park’s boundary, and, as a result, that section of the park, that pertained to this, was entrusted to them.

It wasn’t long after that, he claimed, that a developer(s) arrived to make offers that amounted to many millions of dollars and from that point on the fate of the segregated land was allegedly sealed.

Footnote: This recounting of what was told to us might or might not be factual. My telling of it is in no way intended to malign, disparage or otherwise vilify, any of the parties mentioned therein. However, what is indisputable, is that a large segment of a national park was converted into a resort.

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Katrina And The Waves

Katrina and The Waves was a quartet which formed in 1981 and consisted of two members who were American by birth, namely Katrina Leskanich and Vince de la Cruz. Its other members, Kimberley Rew and Alex Cooper were born in England.

The Waves had been a group from Cambridge, in England, which formed in 1975 and included guitarist, Kimberley and Alex, as its drummer. Katrina, a vocalist and keyboardist, and guitarist, Vince, came to this group by the way of another English band, Mama’s Cookin’.

Originally, also known as The Waves, the newly morphed group was renamed as Katrina and The Waves, in 1982.

Initially, its success was achieved in Canada, and consequently that was where its first album, ‘Walking On Sunshine’, was released. It was to be 1984-’85 before the single of this same name became an extensive international hit.

Regardless of the fact that Katrina and The Waves continued to record for years to come the quartet’s subsequent achievements on the charts were little more than sporadic and indifferent. That is, until 1997 when like a bolt from the blue the group, representing the United Kingdom and performing “Love Shine A Light”, recorded an emphatic victory in that year’s Eurovision Song Contest.

Despite the single of this victorious song reaching its zenith at No.3 on the British charts, it was not to be a global success in the vein of “Walking On Sunshine”. Katrina Leskanich departed from the band, in 1998, and before the birth of the new millennium, the remaining three members had also gone their separate ways.

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Screw, Not So Loose!: Tuesday, 15th November, 1977

Tiki dried my hair before I drove the two of us to work on a rather cool, sunny morning. En route John Burles played “I Need You” on 2KY. The single is the latest release from the Irish vocalist, Joe Dolan.

After work, I transported the hose to the front lawn in order to supply it with the water it so desperately needed. Whilst there, I set about removing the fixtures outside our bedroom window as they had been rendered obsolete with the installation of our new awning.

As they had been entirely covered with dark brown paint, they proved difficult to remove. One screw gave me particular trouble even after I had chiselled the paint from its groove. In fact, I have developed a sore back from flexing backwards in order to obtain enough leverage with the screwdriver.

On “Willesee”, this evening’s presenter, Paul Makin, sang a few bars of “Mean Woman Blues” during a skit he performed. “And Mother Makes Five” followed as per usual and once we had returned from our walk we watched the film, “The Private Eye”, which bears the copyright of 1972. Set in London, it stars the American actress and model, Mia Farrow and the Israeli singer and actor, Topol, who is cast as the private investigator.