Author: ian

We awoke to a leaden overcast. Light rain fell as we travelled to work and was followed by a heavy shower after which the weather became fine.

At lunchtime I turned on Channel Ten and listened to a panel of experts preview this afternoon’s running of the Melbourne Cup. This panel included the race caller, John Russell. Later I watched “Gold And Black” outstay the older “Reckless” and provide the trainer, Bart Cummings, with a record sixth victory in the big event. “Hyperno” finished third.

“Gold And Black” had started as the favourite at the odds of 7/2, with the bookmakers. The winner paid considerably better on the T.A.B. in New South Wales where, in return for an investment of fifty cents, one receives $3.10 on the tote for the win and $1.30 for the place. “Reckless” obviously had many admirers because his return on the place tote was $1.10, while “Hyperno” was the antithesis of this at $13.70. The winning margin was a length, with two and a half lengths separating second and third. The feature double on the Caulfield and Melbourne cups has paid $27.90 for a unit of fifty cents.

Tiki and I drove to Repco at Kogarah to collect two boxes which contained the air-conditioner that is to be fitted to her father’s red Chrysler ute. He had previously paid the two hundred and ninety-three dollars for the unit. Upon our arrival we saw that he had bared the kitchen save for a half of the underlay that remained glued to the floor.

As “Dad” was out on his feet, I took the bevelled-edge chisel from him and from half past five it took me fifty-five minutes to prise up the remainder.

“It’s like shearing a sheep!” I remarked.

“It’s harder than that!” he retorted, as he supervised my every move.

Before we departed at half past six with some indoor flowerpots from “Mum”, I helped him carry the old lino downstairs. It has been a sultry day with a maximum temperature of twenty-eight degrees Celsius.

“Luskin Star” has been purchased by the British pools magnate, Robert Sangster. Mr Sangster is to marry Susan Peacock, the now divorced wife of Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Andrew Peacock, before the end of the year. The horse is reportedly to do his future racing in the United States.

“Willesee”, at seven o’clock, included a segment on “Reckless” and his trainer, Tommy Woodcock, who is seventy-three years of age. “The Naked Vicar Show” followed at half past the hour and, at half past eight, Channel Ten screened the film, “Duel”, which bears the copyright of 1972. A motorist, played by Dennis “Gunsmoke”/”Kentucky Jones”/”Gentle Ben”/”McCloud” Weaver, is pursued by a maniacal truck driver.

I have inherited a large blister on my right thumb, the legacy from my usage of the chisel.

A partly overcast and humid day has contained a brace of heavy showers, this afternoon and a maximum temperature of thirty degrees Celsius. Tiki unintentionally reversed the ‘Galant’ into the paperboy’s barrow as she was leaving her place of work.

She drove to her parents’ and presented her father with the slender length of copper pipe, which he will need when he does the plumbing beneath their kitchen sink. As I helped him carry the kitchen table around the house in the rain and into an area downstairs, “Mum” told Tiki of how he had embarrassed her in the supermarket, Franklins, today. He had loudly passed wind in the supermarket and proceeded to portray her as being the culprit.

“Willesee”, at seven o’clock, included an interview with Robert Sangster and Susan Peacock, who are soon to marry. “Steptoe and Son’s Christmas Special” followed at half past the hour, and, at half past eight, the picture, “Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines”. This offering from 1965 stars, among many others, Sarah Miles, Terry Thomas, Robert Morley and Stuart Whitman. It centres upon the London-Paris Air Race of 1910, but for what is ostensibly supposed to be a humorous film, this quality is sadly found to be wanting.

We are experiencing the first worthwhile rainfall in months. Last month was the driest October in seventy years.

At Tiki’s suggestion we had slept on opposite sides of the bed. However, in spite of this, I still experienced a restless night’s sleep.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, as I made my way outside to the toilet, in the rain, I trod on a slug with my bare foot!

During breakfast, Tiki had tried to get me to sing as low as the voice at the end of Elvis’s last single, “Way Down”. Much noise and laughter was the result.

We drove to work in varying degrees of rain. Although it was to cease, the sky continued to appear ominous. At half past one, “Behind The News”, presented by Barry Eaton, examined apartheid in South Africa; the American energy crisis; the mining of uranium in Australia; and the alternative sources of energy, namely those that pertain to the wind and the sun. The deserts of Africa are said to be expanding due to a lack of water on that particular continent.

As I walked to Tiki’s place of work I noticed that an Italian bicycle that bore the brand, Abeni, was being advertised in the window of a shop near to Sydenham Railway Station. The asking price was set at nine hundred dollars and a notice stated that the machine was for the professional cyclist only.

At six o’clock, the last progamme for this year in the series, “Country Road”, is screened on Channel Two. On “Willesee”, the Federal Leader of the Opposition and the former prime minister, Gough Whitlam, faces an audience, in the studio, that is comprised of fifty percent of those who support him and the same proportion of those who are hostile towards his leadership of the Labor Party.

The documentary, “The Lions Of The Serengeti”, is narrated by the American actor, Hal Holbrook, from half past seven. An hour later, on Channel Ten, “Benny Hill In Australia”, contains one skit in which the character being portrayed by Benny appears, to two nubile women, to be passing what they suspect to be two distinct streams of urine. This titillates their fancy and prompts them to believe that his character has been blessed with an extra appendage.

It is two years today since I proposed to Tiki. Foggy skies cleared to a nice shade of blue. As I walked to work between St Peters and Marrickville, jets’ engines were seen to leave cylindrical trails of vapour as the aeroplanes passed low overhead on their approach to the international airport, which is named in honour of the aviator, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith.

At half past ten conditions were gloriously sunny and calm, however, by lunchtime it looked as if we would receive a thunderstorm. Tiki drove to the parking station in Kent Street and in the Hoyts Cinema Centre bought two tickets, at a cost of three dollars and seventy-five cents each. These would enable us to view its screening of “Star Wars”, that was scheduled to commence at ten past five, in Cinema 7.

Upon our arrival we purchased two cappuccinos at fifty cents each from the Stage Delicatessen. Mine, for a time, made me feel somewhat unwell. We were seated at an ‘outdoor’ table, talking about the construction of our side fence when I mentioned the “bolts” and it suddenly dawned on Tiki that she had left them on her desk at work. She is going to get her mother to drive her there in the morning to collect them.

The film, “Across The River”, which contains old footage of Melbourne, was screened prior to intermission; at which time I paid forty cents for a packet of crisps, at Tiki’s request.

“Star Wars” only opened in Sydney on the twenty-seventh of October, that is, yesterday week. Although the cinema was only half full at the beginning of the session, it had filled to capacity by the time the main feature commenced.

We were surrounded by mothers and their young children, in spite of the fact the film possesses a NRC rating. Nonetheless, everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy the picture. The young boy seated to my immediate right did not bat an eyelid when some scary creatures appeared on the screen. If I had been shown them at his age I would have experienced nightmares for months to come!

It just goes to show how conditioned the young are to such scenes nowadays. Either that or I was just a scaredy-cat!

Whilst the film possesses the rating: Not Recommended for Children, in my opinion, it is puerile! Still, I have to give credit where I believe it is due and, therefore, I must admit that I could only gaze upon its special effects in wonderment. Only the performances of Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing (he looks frail — not that he has ever looked particularly robust — and quite wan) are worthy of mention.

At a quarter to eight we crossed George Street to eat at McDonald’s. Two fillet-o-fish burgers cost seventy-five cents each, an orange juice, thirty-five and a white coffee, thirty. The coffee was all that Tiki wanted. A lady had tried to push in front of me at the counter, but I merely uttered: “Excuse me, madam…” and gave my order.

Tiki and I sat close together and reminisced about the events of this very evening, two years ago. We presented the stubs of our cinema tickets at the parking station and received a discount of fifty cents on the parking fee of three dollars and ten cents. I drove home by nine o’clock via Newtown, O’Riordan Street and Botany Bay as we listened to Sam Gallea play such records as Rod Stewart’s hit of two years ago, “Sailing”, and Emma Hannah’s revival of “Angel Of The Morning”, which, he claims, is as good as Merrilee Rush and The Turnabouts’ success of 1968.

Tiki woke me at six o’clock by which time it was already twenty degrees Celsius. We breakfasted by seven after which she washed the dishes. “Dad” arrived at ten minutes to nine and said that “Mum” would arrive later, unnecessarily adding that she was being troubled by her “piles”.

He and I cleaned out the post holes we had dug a fortnight ago and aligned the pipe posts in them. Our neighbour was occupied elsewhere and, therefore, couldn’t assist us. Another appeared at our rear fence and introduced himself. He seemed keen to have that fence replaced, as well.

“Dad” and I began to bolt the bottom rails into place. The timber for these measured three inches by two and came from a house of eighty years which had recently been demolished in Dapto. We paused only to witness a hornet drag a large spider along the ground near to one of the post holes. Although the temperature only reached twenty-two degrees, it felt warmer. Perhaps this was due to the degree of humidity?

Two short sun showers followed lunch. These forced us to seek shelter for the electric drills and I hoisted in the long black extension cord.

The pair of us affixed the top rails too! Doing this drained us of much of our energy, which meant that we felt quite exhausted by the time it came to the point where we began to mix the concrete that was intended to hold the ten posts firmly in place. We used a larry — which “Dad” assured me was more than one hundred years old — to mix the combination of soil and cement in “Dad’s wheelbarrow. He told the cheeky boy from next door that we mix little boys into cement when he wandered too close to the action.

“Mum” and Tiki had, this morning, bought two bags of cement at a store on the Prince’s Highway at Sutherland. Each had cost three dollars and twenty cents and weighed fifty kilogrammes.

Our next-door neighbour arrived home and declared, ” I’d rather have been doing what you’ve been doing than what I’ve been doing!”

I felt like retorting, “Oh yeah?”. But somehow found the self-control required to prevent me from doing so.

Perhaps it was my sheer exhaustion and not my self-control that prevented me from so doing, for towards the end I splashed the grey powder out of the wheelbarrow and on to “Dad’s feet. It even entered his shoes!

Tiki’s parents departed by ten minutes to seven and after she had cut my hair in the loungeroom, as I watched the news on Channel Two, I endulged in a long hot shower. We commenced to watch “The 7th Dawn”, a film that bears the copyright of 1964. Its cast includes William Holden, Susannah York and Capucine. However, we had seen it twice or even thrice and this, coupled with the fact that I felt so tired, meant that we were in bed by nine o’clock.

 

We were awoken at half past six to the alarm, which I must have habitually set. My body was racked with pain. Stiffness pervaded many of my joints. Nevertheless, I was soon engaged in a wrestle with Tiki, who had informed me that she would soon take my mind off my ailing body and then proceeded to whip me with a pillow.

We arose at eight and shortly afterwards Tiki was heard to emit an ear-piercing shriek as I threw an ice-cream container of cold water over her as she showered.

At twenty past the hour, I left the house with twenty cents in hand to purchase a copy of “The Sun-Herald” from the paperboy. Tiki, still fuming from having had her shower interrupted, called me for everything for not having helped her as she tidied up the house. I had preferred, instead, to listen to 2GB and songs such as “Shannon” by Henry Gross, which had been a hit here in the early months of this year; a full twelve months after it had entered the charts in the United States.

“Mum”, “Dad” and Wendy, along with “Mum’s” sister, Ruth, arrived at about a quarter past one. Ruth looked well, especially when compared to how she had looked when we had visited her in hospital earlier this year. She presented us with an old, but seldom used, Sanyo electric fan and a small, circular, pink-rimmed plate which, she said, was over fifty years old.

Tiki washed the dishes whilst Wendy and I dried them. Once this was done, “Dad” walked into the backyard and we combined to fill in ten post holes. Ruth wandered up to say that she was leaving, so we walked her down to her Morris 1300.

I watched the closing stages of the N.S.W. Open from Pymble. Trevor McDonald carded three successive birdies to defeat Billy Dunk at the second hole of a sudden-death play-off and collect the winner’s cheque to the value of four thousand dollars. It is the Melburnians first victory as a professional.

At a quarter to six, I turned the dial to view “Ask The Leyland Brothers”. It included a segment on the bouncing stones that are to be found on a beach to the north of Cairns.

Today’s maximum temperature was a cool seventeen degrees celsius and after we had completed our walk around the “block” we were content to snuggle up inside and watch an old repetition from the series, “This Is Your Life”, which had Mike Willesee as its compere and Smoky Dawson as its guest. The actor, Reg Hartley, also appeared and was seen to favour the foot he had struck with a golf club.

The first edition of “The Many Wives Of Patrick” screens from eight o’clock. This British comedy series stars Patrick “Father, Dear Father” Cargill as Patrick Woodford, who is hoping to divorce his sixth wife as he would like to remarry his first. It is followed at half past the hour by the film, “The Best House In London”. Produced in 1968, it stars Joanna Pettet, David Hemmings and the late George Sanders.

It has been a cool morning with a leaden overcast sky, which has culminated in some light drizzle. I visited the new branch of our bank in Marrickville for the first time. In doing so, I walked past the old Stamina clothing factory, which had been all but completely demolished since last I saw it.

This afternoon was the complete antithesis of this morning, being bright, sunny and warm. We decided to visit Nock and Kirby at Miranda Fair, where we purchased a wheelbarrow for twenty-four dollars. It had been reduced from thirty-one because its paintwork had been scratched. In addition, Tiki couldn’t resist the white indoor four-tiered plant stand at a cost of fifteen dollars.

As we could not fit either into the ‘Galant’, I decided that the only thing to do was to place the plant stand across the wheelbarrow and wheel them home. I placed paper tissues between the plant stand and the wheelbarrow and these prevented the former from being scarred during its bumpy ride. I certainly attracted some looks as I made my way home!

We have received a letter in the mail, which invites us to join the Property Owners’ Club. John Laws is a member. Another, from Cambergs, thanks us for having bought carpet from the company and informs us that if we present the letter at its store at Railway Square before the twenty-eighth of this month, we will be in receipt of a gift for Christmas.

Prior to nightfall and in our backyard, Tiki and I began to remove the farthest and largest of the mounds from beneath the lawn. Presumably, they were once garden beds and aren’t graves!

It soon became glaringly obvious that the large spade was far from the ideal tool for the job and this really tested our patience. Nonetheless, we did, eventually, view the goings-on with a sense of humour and were able to employ the use of the new wheelbarrow to transport three loads of soil; spreading them beneath the bottom rail of the partially completed fence.

It has been a pleasantly sunny, yet windy, morning. After Tiki had dried my hair, I listened to The Seekers’ new song for the first time. It bears the same melody as the group’s commercial for Trans Tours.

At half past one, on A.B.C.-TV’s Channel Two, I watched ‘Flight’: a programme of the “Scan” series for children. I helped “Dad” unload about one hundred palings from his red ute and, via the use of our new wheelbarrow, transported them up the slope to the framework of our new fence. “Dad” departed by ten minutes past five, but not before he had savoured a Scotch and dry in our loungeroom.

As I did not feel like doing any more of the digging, which I had begun yesterday afternoon, I turned on Channel Two and the “Wild, Wild World Of Animals”. It was about the animals that frequent an African watering-place. The hippopotamus can spend up to six minutes underwater before it requires the need to breathe.

“Willesee”, presented by Paul Makin, contained a segment that was devoted to a new perfume, Making Love, which one can actually taste once it has been applied. Paul jocularly renamed the perfume ‘Makin Love’.

“And Mother Makes Five” followed and, at eight o’clock, “Wilderness”, on Channel Two, followed hikers through the Himalayas to a height of fourteen thousand feet. The particularly humorous British comedy series, “Are You Being Served?”, screened from half past the hour. Tonight’s programme is actually the final one of this, the final series and centres upon the fact that the staff at the department store, Grace Brothers, is being instructed on how to become less formal.

I watched but a portion of the new British series, “Van der Valk”. Barry Foster is cast in the title role as a Dutch detective and the series features The Simon Park Orchestra’s 1972 recording, “Eye Level”, as its theme. The instrumental had reached No.1 in Britain, in 1973, and No.3, in Australia, in 1974.