ps

The following didn't make the final cut when I posted the initial series of outstanding posts.* But I have been inspired by More Dam Posts at This Public Address, and a thoughtful collection of Posts! at dirty beloved to include them for consideration, though I'm leaning towards most metaphoric to nail it.


Most retiring post

Most dramatic Post's

Most post modern

bluest post
double entendre

Most overlooked post

Saddest/ dead tree post

Post that could make it in the mainstream

Post that generated the most traffic

Best gender equity in the construction of/best Personal Post

gratuitous chicken post

Most poetic post

Most metaphoric post

Best last post
 

threshold

At the Threshold of Womanhood

best posts

Best post

Best post with a dog

Most typical post, topical post

Most observant post
 

incarnation

i was dying in new york city. a whole lifetime ago. now i'm into ultimate frisbee and my dogs. can take or leave the beatles. barely remember that incarnation, to be honest.

The Walsh Files: Let's tell each other where we were when Lennon was murdered.

via Incoming signals

dissolved

This is in response to RuTuLu's request for the Seven Minute Frosting recipe from the Sunbeam Mixmaster Cookbook. I have a 1962 version of the cookbook that came with my Sunbeam Vista Mixmaster my mother gave to me as a bride in 1969. Though the cookbook survived, the marriage did not, and was dissolved three years ago. I will copy it exactly from the book, and I hope this is what she wanted.

The Collector's Newsletter

spoke

Prompted by a question by Lunar Brogue* on the style of online image cataloguers, I was searching for a word for over-stating the photodata. I was thinking perhaps, you know, of Factimemoriativeness - The faculty of retaining previously attained knowledge - from my old favourite *

Or maybe Observativeness The quality or disposition to look closely and with rigid care at every object,
or even Ordinimentality The quality or endowment that inclines one to arrange and systematise thoughts, and ideas

Anyway, googling the book alerted me to: Physiognomics as she is spoke.


(Ogling the book again, I was tempted to scan some pages for images denoting Ordinimentality Large- Ambriose Parr (sic)- who first tied arteries with ligatures, and Ordinimentality Small (Ratasse, Prince of Madagascar) but am fearful of damaging the binding.)

the beetle

Christmas Beetle...



(Inspired by Laura's post, I wandered up the road to the local lights display)

verandahs

Some misc. verandahs found when looking for VERANDAH.

A GROUP OF PEOPLE ON THE BALCONY AND IN FRONT OF A TWO STORIED TERRACE HOUSE.

...THERE IS FURNITURE ON THE VERANDAH

...CORRUGATED IRON AND HESSIAN...

...a conversation on the verandah at Eel Creek...

shopping

Christmas song generator

(Update: by holly via kevan)

blogmeet

Pic from last night's blogmeet.


Well a pic from a magazine presented to me last night by Laura - a wonderful surprise.

And was that a caption-in-search-of-its-picture contender? Apparently this is: We took Julie to tea in Mayfair...In Her Undies."

From Today week ending April 23, 1950

pillioning

pillioning boy...

(or Bunaloo, db)

beside a bicycle

wordied

Wordie Like Flickr, but without the photos
via the presurfer

At (74) Schadenfreude is the Most Wordied. Beats defenestration (35)



I'd better not stand too near the pangrammatic window, especially at karaoke.

I sang, and thought I sang very well; but he just looked up into my face with a very quizzical expression, and said, "How long have you been singing, Mademoiselle?"

bats

Mary Gets Paul Out


(I almost forgot the cricket. It's lucky I just noticed a search request for do bats hiss )

shelters

H Bomb Haven
World Book Encyclopedia 1956 Annual Supplement via things

Fallout Shelter Handbook 1962 via the Presurfer
 

note

Hmmm... don't know what's going on with the recent comments. Looking at the list, the most recent are not the latest. The Latest have got stuck in a November time-warp. Hope it all settles down when December takes effect, probably sometime this afternoon.

penguin

Penguin are publishing 6 books without covers in a new series of books called My Penguin.
Draw Your Own My Penguin and submit it to the gallery.

We're throwing open six of our favourite Classics by publishing them with naked front covers and we'd really love for you to be involved - and to have as good a time coming up with covers as we've had in putting the series together.

via fimoculous

Here's my thinkin' on The Picture of Dorian Gray
 

liner notes

Listening to: The Girl From Ipanema
The Blue Parrots - Having a Wonderful Time

Each man in the popular sextet is a versatile musician who plays at least four instruments*

via PCL Linkdump


(Looking at: The Girl from Ipanema by Gilberto/Getz)
 

a lump

Flo had a lump on her chest removed the day before yesterday, and it’s a mass.
The rest is anyone’s guess.
She’s dumb with the Elizabethan collar, can’t negotiate it like other dogs.
I think it tests her patience, or that her herder peripheral vision makes it harder to lose corners, she knocks her head against the chair and gives up.
The big stitches make her look like a badly patched toy
baring her soft underbelly,
the side we rarely get to see.(Only when she’s scared by thunder
or sizeable phantoms, my anger,
when she drops her ears and defences, or barks arced up at fears)
Compared to the other dogs, in sickness she sits this side of submission.
But in a crisis she will still seek the shelter of a palm.

perfect pop

(Inspired by a comment by Disgusted and Drunk of StK*:)

The Perfect Pop

Something clicks, and somehow all the emotions swirling in your head are summed up in three quick minutes
NPR: Perfect Songs

I could

I like the sound of a pink champagne diet...

among the scans from Women's Household
at A Hole in The Head via Things

streeton art

Actually, speaking of blank canvasses and streams:

Last week I was cycling along the Artist's Footsteps trail, past the spot where Still Glides... was painted, according to the sign. But a little further upstream
 

Near Heidelberg* is nearly Blank.

I didn't think Streeton was so white on white, or Eaglemont so existential.

for more Streeton signage see

the stream

Still glides the stream

at various locations
 

quote

Of course...

The Movie Quote Generator
by Kevan

lost in glass

Please don't shoot insulators

I don't know, I was just seeking some Cullet* inspired by Ramage and found myself lost in Glassian for hours.



The purpose of this site is to share the author's collection of glass insulators, vault lights and other glass oddities-- and related paper-- in simple, searchable HTML, as true to the originals as possible
The Site Map shows 2463 pages and 5785 images in 449 rings including several pages of correspondence...

firemen

Modern Mechanix: Firemen Never Fiddle

Randy

musical

You may have seen this youtube already already, but I have a weakness for the palindrome:
Weird Al: Bob
via bifurcated rivets

And via FXH
Speedysnail: The Beatles’ Discography in Limerick Form

Sherry?

One thing that struck me about that second Morningtown (sic) pic link in the previous post was the price of groceries!!! As far as I can tell LtoR that's : Weeties 20c, Sqtyxlcs 33c, Carrots 10c, Pure Juice 12c, Round Steak 65c
Quite a balanced bayside diet if you ask me.
Alas, I can't determine what the mystery item is for 33c. Something halfway between Weeties and Meat I guess...

erroneous

Wiki: Songs erroneously thought to be about Melbourne

"Morningtown Ride" by The Seekers. The song was originally a lullaby written by Californian folk singer Malvina Reynolds in 1957. It is often attributed to Melbourne for depicting an old-fashioned train trip to the similarly-named beach-side town of Mornington (as The Seekers largely hailed from Melbourne).

rockin'
rollin'
ridin'


source:world of the seekers

yarra

Yarra Moments
Like all rivers, the Yarra is more than water. It flows with love and memories and rites of passage. Sample musings from those who know and love the Yarra

I was looking for photos of the Yarra. When I lived downstream, I'd walk around the high cliffs opposite the Breweries with m'dog every day, sometimes humming the Whirling Furphies' My Brown Yarra which was released when when Doug was about two. My black dog used to jump into the river collecting bacteria in his ears, sometimes retrieving frisbees sometimes running with the wolves bears. To have buried him within that well marked territory would have been quite fitting.
There is more on the song among the stories at Yarra Moments

Over 17 years the song that began as “a nasty little poem” has become Melbourne’s unofficial anthem. “Somehow it clicks with people’s memories and hearts. Expats have been in tears when hearing it overseas because, I think, it’s a song about home, rather than just about the Yarra

(you can hear it here)

And there is a great(dane) dog tale in Horace Sierak's wonderful My Half at Rudder

As time went on, Pete grew up alongside my brother and I. He would join us for swims in the river during the summer months when it was hot. He particularly enjoyed sharing in a canoe ride whenever anybody would take him.

considr

I like the way you've framed the shot. Nicely done.
Consider joining Boardwalks & Other Wooden Paths :)

nb: This group is NOT for photos where the boardwalk itself cannot be seen.

ander

Sometimes it's all in the thumbnails.

This series caught my eye as I was idly searching Picture Aust for rowing+boat.

it?s

 


Inspecting Real Estate ads for errors can be quite diverting. But I'm not sure if this is a common error, or a rare example of an irony mark. In fact, as a sarcasm mark, the apostrophe-transformed-by-formatting has an excellent multi-level contemporary feel about it really.


(And why are my apostrophes turning into question marks? sounds like a cry of the times.)

anniversary

(to mark the anniversary of this blog * with help from Google Images)

field glasses

Hmmm ...smells like sp*m, but I like the recent comment on a remote post by Binoc*l*rs F*n. Because I am also a fan of field glasses. So I checked out the blog:

Binoculars are the perfect viewing companion when at a concert or sporting event.

We didnt have any friends or family who owned a good pair of binoculars so we were forced to order a decent pair before the huge concert

You might locate a pair of binoculars that are suitable for you on line by doing a general lookup

And they are fully multi-coated when they are rubber armored for better grip and protection, this helps during bad weather conditions.

bearing

 

1. From the station bear left and pass through a new housing estate bearing right all the time until you reach North Lane, cross and go straight ahead into the Cauuseway...

Cycling directions for the The Country of the Magic River (Rubert Bear) ride

via Mary Tourtel - Rupert Bear
Storybook England - a literary map of English children's books.

via cartography
 

hot blogs

peacay sent me to Butterfly Rocket - museum of curiosities -
a lovely local blog with many gems like this one

(and so despite having a bad cold I had to hop down to the op-shop in case anything surfaced, but the thrifting wasn't so hot yesterday as it goes.)


And yesterday I read about Eating In The Air - a history of arline meals - on The Old Foodie

From Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, The Old Foodie gives you 400 words each weekday on a topic related to the day, plus a historic recipe, and sometimes a menu. And how much fun is that

Thanks to Ramage for pointing us there a while back.


And Creature of The Shade, who has moved to Sydney, writes about Perth and the unconsciously reproduced DNA of an Australian capital
 

life in l.a

Life in Los Angeles in the 20th century was not nearly as dull as you've been led to believe.

Top post, db.

doodles

In his doodles, though, (Eisenhower) seems a fan of the self-portrait.

On one memo with the heading "Cabinet Paper — Privileged," he covers a third of the page — including text about the executive branch's transportation responsibilities — with a massive pencil sketch of his head, with hair.

Another memo outlining the agenda for "The Legislative Leadership Conference, Monday June 28, 1954" is scribbled over with a gunboat and a rendering of himself with huge muscles, a bare chest, thick hair, and a much younger face.

The History of White House Doodles-and slide show - via J walk
 

blog meet

Pet food labels US collection from 1920s -1960s via exclamation mark

Perhaps if aftergrog had dressed like this, all the drama of the recent blogmeet (as reported by FXH) could have been avoided.

(update: more at TBP )

auto blog

___________ (artificial, one-word segue). Check out these ____________ (yet another adjective) links I found: ________________ (link to a dumb flash cartoon), ______________ (broken link), ________________ (link to a pornsite), and _______________ (link to the least funny cartoon evar!). They made me ___________(verb) my ____________(noun) off! But watch out for the ________________ (something horrible, or just annoying)! Until ______________(something unlikely), ______________ (regional mannerism which expresses goodbye)!

Fill-In-The-Blog via Making Light
 

a blog

 

 

a noun

Give him a break. Stepping out of a space ship onto the surface of the moon, I doubt many of us could even come up with a noun and a verb.

I Did Say 'A,' Blast It!


*Description may be subject to change without prior notice.
 

bark

Shakespeare's Sonnet 116: Eleanor

From a collection on YouTube via grow a brain

a point

At quarter time yesterday I took the dogs for a walk and saw a total of one person and zero canines out and about in glorious spring weather. Parrots held court in the trees as Eagles fans squawked and Swans supporters swore. I caught about 10 minutes of the entire game, as my sister, clad in the red and white, would not allow more than one-minute bursts of television, (between spells and rituals to will on the team) and we had a jetlagged Norabone just home to catch up with, who said it all felt like a dream, the football.
My sister and I hovered on the verandah desperately as the final siren was called by the enemy tribe across the street and we set about knocking off the cockatoo ridge fizz in defeat but not disagrace.
(well I had told various footyheads beforehand that we would lose a close one, so I had the half empty consolation of the pessimist's score, but then earlier when I walking alone in perfect still sunshine, football was put in perspective.)

brag

Yesterday I bought a big bag of bananas for five dollars from the discount shelf at Safeway.
That's cheaper than before Larry.

I've Got the Yes We Have no Bananas Blues no more.

To quote recent comment by anonymous fox: i AM NOT TO EXCITED ABOUT ALL THIS BUT NEED TO DEAL WITH IT ANYWAYS

swans

(well I won $10 on a bet with a footyhead that Syd would get into the Grand Final, a bet made many rounds ago when people were writing off the Swans. Sweet.)

corn

Corn Smut Lasagne via dirty beloved

crepes...

seducer's

I bought this book today.
"For the cover"
(as I said to the man behind the counter.
'Goodonya' he replied.)

I thought it would make a good companion to Len Deighton.


 

look and learn

Australia, with picture of girl surfing and prospectors. Original artwork for cover of Look and Learn issue no 410 (22 November 1969). Lent for scanning by The Gallery of Illustration

Look And Learn online
Thousands of searchable images! So that's my Friday gone. Thanks
Ramage
 

bells

Doorbell Instructions via As Above

Funny - my fave is not the photographer's fave.

As it goes, this picture is one of my least favourites because, in an odd way, the instructions are necessary. The completely unnecessary signs are my favourites.

But funny - the link to The Doorbell Instructions Pool led to this one, which is from a neighbourhood I knew well apparently. But didn't
(ring any bells.)
 

aunt I

OMG, my nephew turns 30 today.

Old Aunt I.

OTOH, my nephew turns 8 tomorrow.
 

palm oil

Palm Oil is the greatest threat to Orangutans. Vast areas of rain forest are cleared for Palm Oil plantations every day. Protecting the forests is critical to the Orangutan's survival.

This issue affects all Australians with almost 1 million tonnes of Palm Oil imported into Australia each year.

Grasp Palm Oil Crisis

How can we make a difference?
The simplest thing is for us to demand that any of our favourite products which currently contain palm oil, only contain palm oil from non destructive sources...
If companies fail to prove that their palm oil is from non destructive sources, they must be considered to be contributing to the extinction of the orangutan

Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation Palm Oil Report PDF. 2.1 MB

If you missed Foreign Correspondent on Orangutans, it's repeated: 1 PM Saturday

smelled

Vitamin Q: What British people smelled of in the early 1950s

Plan59 "Burning Man 1950
(see Aug 10 for text)
 

google guess

Guess-The-Google
Guess the image-search keyword.

via Invisible Shoebox

late

fans worldwide mourned exuburant wildlife master

I didn't see word news on Monday but suspect it may have been a one-word screen day. I did see Denton

ANDREW DENTON: A lot of people see you as this larger than life Steve Irwin... In some ways a one-dimensional, almost cartoon character. What they perhaps don't know is you've bought huge tracts of land in Vanuatu and Australia and Fiji and US. Why have you done that?

STEVE IRWIN: I'm a conservationist through and through, Andrew, that's why I was put on this planet. Easily the greatest threat to the wildlife globally is the destruction and annihilation of habitat. So, I've gone, "Right, how do I fix that?" Making a quid here, people are keen to give me money over there. I'll buy it. I'll buy habitat ... So, whenever we get enough cash and enough - and a chunk of land that we are passionate about - bang, we buy it.

I'm a bit of a - I'm a wildlife warrior through and through ...

beta

I've made the switch to beta. The lure of categories was too much, even though I've misplaced the most friendly feature recent comments. Tweaking days ahead.

freshmen

Rather disturbing video that shows a librarian being stalked by four close-harmony vocalists.

From a collection of a cappella videos including classics and brand new clips.

compliment

Flo received her first ever unsolicited compliment the other day as we walked down the street. What a lovely dog, said a passing woman.
(I think the first inklings of spring had clouded her judgement)

She was once called a coffee-table by the vet, but this seemed to be a value-neutral observation. The vet may have been hinting that she had a classic Eames style about her, or she may have meant coffee-table in the rather huge, bulky, ugly sense of the word:

you could paint it, then cut foam for the top, cover with material and make a ottoman out of it. just a suggestion. or add wood to the bottom and you'd have some place to store baskets with tapes or toys in it. once it's covered with material you can't see what it hiding under it.

reconstruction

Post War reconstruction: Feltex, Botany
Post War reconstruction: Feltex, Botany
 

hazy dazy

The Semak recipe book included a section on “Adult party drinks” such as the “Sherry joy-maker” and the “Hazy-dazy.”

The rotary clothes line-- a wonderful idea ... You can heighten them & they whirl round in the wind.

The home - virtual exhibition

(Found along a lonesome feltex google trail)

stuff of blogs

This passage from Link is the kind of writing that makes me still love blogs for blogs' sake after all these link+tag years:

Just a lump of metal, and I'm reminded of this strange attachment to things and how when I was five or six and I lost a hair ribbon out the car window and noticed that I felt sad, but knew that it was a trivial thing, but something of me had blown away into the slipstream, a part of me was sailing away lost forever--a ribbon, a regulation blue school hair ribbon, but it was mine, possibly had a hair or two entangled in it and therefore carried on the breeze all the genetic information anyone would ever need to make another me, although I didn't know that at the time, I just knew that it made me feel sad but suspected it was silly and so I should shut up about it, until now. stuff of life

I loved the scan of The Head Office from Laputan Logic and was pleased to see it in a riveting collection of Industrial Anatomy assembled by Bib

and Exclamation Mark has a new blog: Site for Sore Eyes (via I like)
 

stock clearance

Some sort of vigorous stock clearance in progress in Shop, Bondi Junction

Was it to make way for the westerns?



I wonder what stock was corralled for Hopalong

(And if you see it in sequence, the plot thickens...)
 

plants

Spam Plants via the nonist

Nature's Call: Flower Urinals via daily jive
 

fab times

40th anniversary of Revolver at Making Light

What Flying Was Like In The 1960's via cynical-c
 

bol-

There were many moments when I felt I was watching The Benny Hill Show. I was dismayed by the line by the lead character, "Do you mind not farting while I'm trying to save the world" which was surplus to requirements and just lowered the tone further. There was a continual use of "farting" long after the joke had been made.

Complaint against the 2005 series of Dr Who
Complaint 3 - bad/sexual language, toliet humour

see also:

12. Oh, Bol-
I think it is reasonable to assume that this was an implied "oh, bollocks", cut short.

via bifurcated rivets

faq

Why won't a purple magazine reflect the inherent festival?

was my favourite random sentence in the first batch.
(via twists and turns)

magic

I agree with dirty beloved

fondue slide

Charles Phoenix Fondue Party, Los Angeles, 1968
via grow a brain

Fondue pot 1970 among its contemporaries.
(You have to go back to the 60's for the Lava Lamp which also appears in the Slide above.)


Better Homes and Gardens Fondue Cookbook

weddings

wedding announcements

via wind, sand and stars

plot 7

Plot 7, Wheat

Potato experiments etc

go ogle

Meggan Gould: Go Ogle

The images in the Go ogle series are composite images, mathematical averages of the first 100 images retrieved from a Google search engine query for a specific word or phrase. Each downloaded image relinquished its size, shape, and the clarity of its individual pixels in its merger with the other results from the query. The results, a visualization of intersections between Boolean logic and the popular imagination, are more often than not a hopeless jumble of unidentifiable pixels--but occasionally a recognizable form does emerge

via PCL

unfashionably

Gmail informed me that the word of the day was bon ton

bon ton \bahn-TAHN\, noun:
1. Fashionable or elegant manner or style.
2. The proper or fashionable thing to do.
3. Fashionable society; a fashionable social set.

Missed it by that much. (By Y and 24 hours. In Aust EST it was out-of-date already)

But then I missed it the first time round too.

alt movies

podcasts of director's audio commentary at the cinema via Rebecca Blood

Sync movies via the Ultimate insult

Now you can experience "The Dark Side Of Oz" like never before, with an all new Digitally Mastered Picture and Dolby Digital 5.1Surround Sound!

telephone books

Pages badly warped, spine dented, torn paper adhering to front cover
1967 Melbourne Telephone Book

Thumbnail Photos of Australia Telephone Directories
Photos of Telephone Books via Plep

For me, one of the best features of my collection was that it was a good ice-breaker. When a conversation lagged, I could say, "I collect telephone books," and it was usually good for at least a few minutes' chat. People might go away saying "What a weirdo", but the awkward moment had been dealt with.
Collecting Telephone Books

via the links: Telephone Directory Information Pages for more Vic pics.

get this

Yesterday in a dull moment I found myself checking the word affords, and was taken to a dictionary page with this offering:



I would if I could.

I then spent some free time customising T-shirts with other commonly misspelt or misshapen words.

you cities

If:Book You Cities - “a short animated riff on Joyce’s Ulysses”
by Alex Itin

(The text from Finnegans Wake can be read - with Joyce - here.)

x-posted @ Sarsaparilla

lenses

It was the Sunglasses model that caught my eye in this collection of Novelty Transistor Radios via Incoming Signals
 

But seeing that my sunnnies usually end up looking like this:



I think my lenses would impair my senses.
 

before

The Night Before Cookbook


Link path 1957 Home Meal Planner (Set) via PCL

one percent

I was gratified to read this endorsement from anonreader:

I just wish that 1% of the interent community understood this topic as well as you did. Thankyou!

(Not sure if he is referring to my understanding of toy pianos or ballistics)

watches

from Vic Braden's Tennis For the Future Little, Brown 1977

When Vic Braden's Tennis for the Future first hit bookstores more than twenty years ago, it was hailed as the Wimbledon of tennis books.*


the wild and unnecessary follow through

the most

Jonathan Rosenbaum, critic, Chicago Reader
I'm very fortunate in being able to cite Jacques Tati's Playtime as both the film I've seen the greatest number of times and my favorite movie. I first saw it 38 years ago and suspect I've seen it somewhere between 30 and 40 times. I like to see it again and again because I find it inexhaustible, the way a favorite piece of music is, and something that never looks exactly the same when I see it again because I watch it differently; each time, my gaze dances in a somewhat different way to Tati's choreography

What movie have you seen the most? That's the question Slate asked a collection of filmmakers and critic

via cynical c

rocks

I missed a photo opportunity out walking the dog last weekend possibly when World Cup Fever was at its peak. There in the creek, at the base of the rocks, what did I see but a soccer ball resting casuallly like everyday pond-life or some optical illusion brought on by round ball square eyes.

I had no camera. But naturally the caption would have been Soccer Rocks

As a substitute and to move Widdle downscreen, I've uploaded this pic from Google Images Soccer Rocks*



And does Soccer anymore?..Even though the school holidayed parks are full of social dribbling, I passed a pleasant half hour this afternoon playing kick-to-kick with a non-round football with my niece and nephews.
Not diving, kicking.

title

I was lucky to add to my modest Blyton Collection recently with a 1963 anthology which includes the story:





I believe this is quite a rare title.

future artifacts

Is Your Smartphone Codependent and other Found Artifacts from the Future

Wired via As Above

musical proofs

Another curious piece with a pronounced syncopated effect is the Square Root Theorem.

In deeper proofs, a kind of tension sometimes builds up, with occasional partial relief but growing overall, until finally many subproofs come together. For example, you may want to sample the Axiom of Choice Equivalent, where a crescendo slowly builds up starting at around 2:20 minutes, reaching a dramatic climax at 3:11 minutes and then suddenly cascading down to the main theme.

Mathematical Proofs Set to Music (via grow a brain)
 

awakenings

I just discovered HaloScan has restored comments at my old Blogspot site. On this slow connection there's a nice moment of watching (0)'s turn to (3) (for example) on each page, which gives the whole thing a feeling of awakening. A revival of frozen archives and lost voices.

It seems I first installed comments here, a post about (what else) my (late) dog, which is appropriate for today, bloomsday and dougsday.

deaf ears

meanwhile...

most adults gradually lose the ability to hear high-pitched sounds

(Mosiquitotone - a high pitched ringtone that many adults cannot hear)
via Daily Jive

blunt

Weird Al Does James Blunt.


via bifurcated rivets

crowd pul

I got talkin' World Cup to Sternest Meanings
(My script came straight from the Channel Ten News)

webuser: What a magic start for Australia
sternest: I am a castigator as wrathful rat.
webuser: fans go wild as the world game
sternest: Old woman wriggles fatheads
webuser: the world game comes of age
sternest: Wotcha! Greedsome of gleam
webuser: biggest stage in world sport
sternest: Top-dog brattiness wriggles.
webuser: an excercise in keeping your cool
sternest: Loony, sick inexperience courage.
webuser: keeping your cool, literally
sternest: Croakily ugly, lonelier poet.

webuser: From Ten news
sternest: Now ferments.

Sternest Meanings via The Presurfer

physical expression

nobody's fault

 

The All Picture Book of General Knowledge Odhams

Cross posted at Sarsaparilla - a new group lit blog

 

information

From a book I purchased today: The New Illustrated Medical and Health Encylopedia

This vast storehouse of comprehensive, authoratative and outspoken information will serve you well by helping you to understand yourself better

not me

That's not me at the piano

debris

Two children sitting with a badly damaged piano amongst the debris from the Port Douglas cyclone of 1911

 

747 house

"We are trying to use every piece of this aircraft, much like an Indian would use a buffalo," says Mr. Hertz.

He says the eight buildings will be scattered across the terraced hillside as if it were a "crash site." As it happens, the site lies under a jet flight path into Los Angeles International Airport. That concerns the Federal Aviation Administration, which has asked Mr. Hertz to paint special numbers on the wing pieces to alert pilots that Ms. Rehwald's retreat is not a crashed jumbo jet.

West Coast Woman To Build Crash Pad Out of an Old 747
via grow a brain

best before

He added that a biscuit wrapper with a best before date of December 1986 was found under the piano, giving a clue as to when it was taken there, but not why

Piano Found on Britain's Tallest Mountain last week...
via the presurfer

principals

Conference of Principals of Secondary Schools

cool wax

A coupla lit links:
Feedback From James Joyce's Submission of Ulysses to His Creative-Writing Workshop
via making light

and Music to Read James Bond By


(And more good Spy Music at CTCW: Dick Hyman :: The Man From O.R.G.A.N.)
via PCL Linkdump.

fridges

Stonefridge A fridgehenge in Santa Fe
via cynical-c

whereas this lone fridge seems vintage Oldenburg

not really

John is not really dull


By the People, For the People: Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943 via Tiny Bubbles

your future

Plan59: 1956 Futurist illustrations by Fred McNabb. House of the Future

visibility

  

you can carry whatever you want in it
All round visibility


Fiat 128 Brochures and Magazine articles via things

revolutionary

So far you know it in such a way:
Kitchen work-with ways like a marathoner.
This belongs now to the past!
You don't need to walk to the stove the stove comes to you

Views of the Circular Kitchen

via J walk

halfway

Cities' characters accompany their advances as shadows attend the footsteps of man. An ordinary citizen knows but little of the poetry or the prose of his city's life. For example, there is the pleasure-loving watering-place, half-mermaid and half-siren, that lures man to lotus eating.
Then there is the city where industry is on the move like the flying shuttle of a weaving machine. That is the city of action. Within its walls are men with strong arms, brows damp with sweat, faces and hands grimed. Such a city is the embodiment of industrial manhood. Prahran is halfway between those two types of city.

The History of Prahran From its first settlement to a city. Compiled (1912) and revised (1924) by order of the Prahran Council. By John Butler Cooper

John Butler Cooper Online

100 bars

- and speaking of cricket...
Johnny Cash Ring of Fire

One Hundred Bars

A collective blog dedicated to short pieces of writing inspired by pop songs. Edited in Mexico City with contributors from all over the world.

The power of this song to make tough men sing has got me thinking of other examples. I did witness a whole pub of trivia-heads break into song once when The Proclaimers 500 miles was played. It's true. Everyone started singing. Not as much cred as Cash there I guess, but then what would I know. I've been singing If You Could Read My Mind plaintively since I heard it on morning radio today.

too much

click for a better view

I arranged this sequence from a Google Image Search Too Much Cricket.
As you do. As you do when you see a link to a Live World Cricket Map. (via things)
The world cricket map is also available as a Google Hompage Module.

(Of course, this is not so timely now that the cricket calendar has finally eased. Now there's too much football... but that's another story)

morris qotd

The years 1976-82 were absolute heaven for Morris dancers in Australia *

maypole

singing as they dance

I was inspired by the photo at wood s lot to find some local maypole pics.
The European Spring/fertility ritual was quite popular in the Antipodean mid Autumn.

I like this photo where the Gum is framed.

oi

some found oz content from the past week around the traps:

Dame Edna Tribe at Scrapiteria

A knitted room from Tasmania
Imagine a room with 50s decor where everything's made from wool.
via I like

and Melbourne: great baking from Australia
I've been trying to think "just why is the bread so good in Victoria?" and that epicentre of a good crust, Melbourne.
via as above, kevan

lists and mowers

Oh good just what we all need..............zzzzzzzz.... another Top 50..........zzzzzzzzzzz....Best......Top 50.........Lists....of the Top 50 listzzzzzzzz......zzzzzzzz.......Top 50 Lawnmower experiences........zzzzzzzzz
Top 50 paint drying moments.................

A comment at: Culture Vulture Top 50 adaptations: what do you think?

Film of the book: top 50 adaptations revealed
via a media dragon



(Actually, a couple of months ago I found my way to a lawnmowing forum and think this would make the cut at a top 50 lawnmower experiences list)

...I broke the pull rope. :eek: It parted at the knot on the starter pulley. So I pulled the top off. Cleaned out a couple of centuries worth of dried grass, then lost a screw. Found the screw and had a long, hard worry about replacing said pull rope. Couldn't see how it would work so tied it on as I thought best and reassembled.
The flamin' pull rope won't retract. It'll spring back a little but only by one turn of the flywheel.

I managed to get the old girl started by leaving the top cover off and rewinding the rope by hand. Got her hot. Refitted the top cover, and started her, then mowed the lawn with the rope hanging loose (coz it won't retract). So, of course, I managed to get the rope under the mower whereupon it chopped a good foot off the rope and destroyed that nifty little plastic handle...

proto blog

I cannot remember anything outstanding at my twenty-first birthday party held at number seven.

From Some Bods Move On

Oddbooks I like via Pk and Plep

e ship

...where the absence of the sharing of a physical dimension for the friendship may be seen as invalidating its essential currency, rendering it somehow artificial, it can also be seen as providing the conditions for a peculiar purity & intensity of communication

Dick Jones: Hello Goodbye - on the nature of ‘e-friendship’ between bloggers.
 

a peek

A recent searcher arrived here with the question who is peacay . I don't know, but I did get to meet the RL pk recently to talk tags over a quiet glass of white (of a quality that caused the barman to apologise). After a third glass maybe I could have been as lyrical about blogging as this recent rave about BibliOdyssey - translated from the Korean:

Oh. Oh. Oh. Once see certainly. Image one or two thing to scratch and with pwass there will not be also anyone use sleep and well! it is same. I so the eye disease shoes like this one especially the place where it is not, the electricity ccwak flowed in the body ... Oh my the absurd waste, picks to the world and the up luxury transfers to the world... But that with the sheep of absurd work, it lives and it dies ... Possibly magnificently tragedy it is same the weight quality where the outdoors and laugh are distant it is not... That way the picture the example bedspread. That way the pictures. That way highly many pictures. It loads patterns. Long the images which forget an end before... Neither the what kind of matter that sees is same a stronger thing. It is reduced with the system end and it does not do to sleep, Oh chi pu it is to, that Oh chi pu it is a ramyon end, but truth the good bedspread. we Right we right we.

MD

Post MD

1500 ft above

animal commands

and speaking of conversational grunts - or on matters onomatopoeic, I may try some of these animal commands in languages other than English when walking Flo. I like the sound of Fot! for Walk behind me!, although it's not so different from the sound of my native dog-walking dialect.

via making light

grunts

after some talk on the merits of goats versus llamas as pack animals in the context of the T being skeptical about the value of goats on a trek
Sound component: breathy voice

Sound Component: creaky voice
discussing who is likely to be at the party

Conversational grunts in English

pop

- because Bang! was what all the 4 year old boys said at the local Fireworks the other night, calling the display like seasoned football commentators. Bang! and Pop!

The singer battled the cold valiantly in skimpy dress and stole
which fell over her head when she took her final bow to the hip crowd decked out in parkas and beanies.

bang!

Batman sound effect cards Las onomatopeyas o Batsigns
via Incoming signals

niche enough

I have found some regularly updated websites that cater to my niche interests, but fortunately for me my niches are still niche enough and focused on relatively "uncool" old things that I dont have much worry that they will die of overexposure...

A comment on Why the Schadenfreude Dailies are "ruining" culture via things


(I think my niches may be getting niche-ier. Maybe this blog with it. If you can't stand the heat, link to a cardigan or something)

indignity

As longtime readers might know
walking with Flo regularly involves indignity
I haven't dog-whispered sufficiently to subdue her herder madness
of e.g. suddenly lurching onto a ricketty fence where a cat sits
witnessed by its family who until this moment could have been an ad for Insurance or Ford such was the sedate suburban tableau where blue uniforms exclude the feral,
or a madness that makes strapping young concreters cower as we pass
all down to the the power of a bark

but I was quite taken aback yesterday walking home from the park
when a couple of strangers go:
- Your Dog is SO FAT!!! He's SO FAT!!! poor thing hahaha So FAT!!!
He's a beautiful dog though
- Yes-thank-you, I snarl.


So now I'm looking at her trying to see if she is as fat as they say...
I don't know.
Relative to a labrador, which is the old diehard standard, she is svelte.



(of course some readers might not agree)

hostess

Some enchanted evening


Is it something to do with the lights?

The last image from Mock Duck
A Delicious Assortment of Thrift Shop Cookbooks

(via mod*mom as recommended by pk)

clock back

Good to see the computer clock has adjusted now that the extra week of Daylight Saving is over and we've turned back clocks, (without a Patch or registry hack for the overlap)*

Elsewhere, The Guardian got it wrong:

It is to be hoped that no readers took the advice given in the Guide, page 57, March 25, and put their clocks back at the start of summertime.

via Hooting Yard via Plep

acrobat

Acrobat in frog costume

see album page 3 Item 21

 

On Lawn Tennis In The Modern Cinema

tennis...

A Few Observations On Lawn Tennis In The Modern Cinema
By Major L. R.“Reggie” Pettifinger-Nabakov (rtd) - The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.

First of all, I wish to cordially thank Miss Boynton for letting me use her URL blog net site to advance a certain proposition that’s been preying on my mind of late. I don’t mind saying it’s actually damned sporting of the gel, given our recent little contremps over access to the “special” files of the Club’s photographic archives.

Now, I suppose I should cut to the chase. I often take the opportunity when the good lady is out for her bridge night to get an old chum or two over, open a few decent bottles of Beaujolais and the Cockburn’s, rustle up something from the pantry, crumble a bit of that dried herbal material I often confiscate off the ballboys into my pipe, and settle back to enjoy a good sporting film on the Digital Versatile Disc Player.

However something has struck me of late during these evenings. Why is it that it’s the Yanks who make all the good sporting flicks nowadays? For example, we were watching “Any Given Sunday” just the other night. Still couldn’t make head or tail of how the bloody game is played but by crackey that Stone chappie made it all look awfully exciting.

So I said to myself “Reggie, why the blazes aren’t we seeing films like that about lawn tennis.” I mean the game has so much there for dramatic and cinematic purposes. It is full of great personalities dueling in a small and clearly defined arena. It throws lithe sweaty men and women together on and off the court. And there’s simply oodles of money, glamorous locations and positive acres of tanned flesh on display.

Not to mention the fashion. If only my old oppo Teddy Tinling was still around. Queer as a coot of course but bags of fun and with a real eye for how the ladies could be becomingly clad. He would have reveled, absolutely reveled in the opportunities afforded by the modern game to dress one of those Williams lasses or this new crop of nubile young Smashanovas.

(Ahem…the bowl of my pipe appears to have caught on fire. Excuse me for a just a tick.)

That’s better. Where were we? Ah yes. Why are there no decent films about lawn tennis? Damnit, if you can make golf sexy on screen then why not the only game where love is a score! Heh, heh. Good one! Even if I say so m’self.

Yes, yes, there have been a few attempts like “Players” with Dean Sinatra’s son and that recent “Wimbledon” movie which was downright namby-pamby. That Miss Dunst is no Gussy Moran. And Mr Bettany is no Navratilova either let me tell you. I also understand Mr Allen has just made a film called “Match Point.” But let’s face it, his earlier motion pictures are always funnier.

Look, I’ve thought about this conundrum and jotted down a few notes I’d like to share with you. Basically it’s all about stroke production and ball control. (Yes, very bloody droll Archie. Now belt up and open another bottle, there’s a good chap. I’m trying to type on the Personal Computer here and it’s thirsty work I can tell you.)

You see, in sports like baseball, golf or American Football, it is the ball that is in motion and not the player. Yes, they run around an awful lot in the Gridiron game but they are carrying the pigball almost all the time. Except when the quarter wallah throws or kicks it. But only when he’s stationery.

Stationery! That’s the secret. Oops, I meant stationary. Y’see, you can get any old bod to look convincing on film if they’re just hitting or throwing from an immobile position. Just matter of coaching, posing, appropriate body language and editing.

But when both the ball and player are in rapid motion, it gets much trickier. The human brain is an absolutely superb computer, far superior to any gunnery calculator that I’ve been warned away from playing with. It can instantly assess velocity, vector and temporal and spatial awareness, fit that data into tactical and strategic appreciations of the situation and respond in milliseconds while also keeping the sponsors’ shirt-borne logo in frame. But this takes years and years of hard won skill based on relentless practice. Or if you are an Australian, apparently being raised in a paddock or on an antbed.

And we see such skills in action on the box so often. All the ball and net cams, slow motion replays and zooming cameras have made us intimately familiar with how a good tennis player goes about their job of work. Or a cricketer for that matter, another sporting type sadly absent from the modern cinema. Which is noteworthy too in the context of my argument, given that the subcontinent alone is home to over a billion people whose main passions are cricket and the flicks.

(Archie, watch it. You’re treading stilton into the carpet. Clean it up now or Lucinda will have my guts for garters.)

Look basically I think it boils down to this. No strolling player or Hollywood mummer is going to be able to produce a convincing service action, a deftly flicked half volley, a backpedaling smash or a whipped crosscourt forehand on the run unless they have actually spent at least a decade practicing this kind of thing.

Yes indeed I agree they can do amazing things with computers on screen these days. Why only recently I watched some of those Matrix productions that seem to be all the rage among my nephew’s set and I could swear it seemed Mr Reeve was actually acting at times.

But with an extremely mobile sporting discipline like tennis, utterly dependent on sequences of highly complex physical actions performed very fast on the run, and where we are so often exposed to the real thing, I do think that any discernable false move on court immediately undercuts your character’s raison d’etre for appearing as the central figure in a lawn tennis-oriented photoplay in the first place.

But look here chaps, this is just a theory and I would be happy to enter into any correspondence about the matter.

Now I really must return to the box as Archie says he has a new sporting Digital Versatile Disc I really should see, called behind “Behind The Green Door”. It sounds like it must be about billiards or some such.



tennis...

incommunicado

Indeed, this was a good image to view just before my communication crashed.

My monitor is on the blink and now is not even talking to the computer.

Blogging where and when I can...

word for word

What is the word for a word which is another word spelt backwards?

One of the AskOxford FAQ via J walk

(I liked the sound of that lyrical frequent question)

boot cup

Lord Byron, with his love of the bizarre, was also the possessor of a black leather boot which he used as a drinking vessel.

One among the caudle, fastening and fuddling cups at

Drinking Vessels of Bygone Days
Some time ago, while rummaging through my usual group of second hand bookshops I stumbled across a book on the history of drinking vessels, titled "Drinking Vessels of Bygone Days"... The book is long out of print, and presents a great insight into the cups and glasses that we all drink out of, but never think of how they originated. After considerable effort we have re-assembled this distinguished work for your education and enjoyment.

daily life

Seated women with men standing while watching the presentation of a Ruton vacuum cleaner at the Home show in the Rai.
Amsterdam - March 30, 1958

From Collection Algemeen Hollands Fotopersbureau / Ben van Meerendonk

This presentation is comprised of digitized images of over 150 photographs - organised under seven topics: Amsterdam, Daily Life, Famous Dutchmen, Royal Family, International, Sports, and, Flood Disaster 1953...
It was founded by photographer Ben van Meerendonk (born July 20, 1913) in 1945. Although the agency started with several employees, by the fifties it was a one-man business of Van Meerendonk and some assistants.

(I found via this photo of Brigitte Bardot lookalikes...
Because apparently I look 66% like BB according to the face recognition thing as seen on crazybrave and toph. When actually I look maybe 22% like 10% of the hopefuls in that shot. Or 11% on an average St Patrick's Day.)