Magazines

I'm not a big magazine reader.  For years I read "US News and World Report," but they stopped producing it every week and went to some on-line production, which was not the way I wanted to read it.  So that was that.  I read "Rider" every month - it covers the world of motorcycling.  I also steal a few glimpses of S.W.M.B.O.'s* stuff if I'm desperate.  But some months ago I suddenly started receiving magazines of a wide variety of type.  Even slightly pornographic stuff.

I called the company and after several referrals, I was promised that they would stop and that I had been selected to receive them as a marketing effort at no charge.  Also there still might be a few in the queue.  Finally they did stop all save one - "Popular Science."  I started reading it and I have to say I'm now hooked as it is really interesting.  I don't always understand everything I read in it, but I've just sent off the agreement to subscribe for the next two years at a cost of under a dollar an issue!  So the marketing plan must have worked!

*She Who Must Be Obeyed!

Music Track - Gould

Glenn Gould was famous for two things;  his unequalled performances of Bach on the piano, and also for his extreme eccentricity.  He died at aged 50 in the year we came to the US, in 1982.  He sustained a back injury in his home town of Toronto when he was a child, and his father made a special chair for him that allowed him to sit very low down at the keyboard.  His technique was to pull down on the keys rather than press down on them.  This 3-minute video shows him in his early life practicing his beloved Bach.  His constant humming while he played was the bane of sound engineers when he was in the recording booth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB76jxBq_gQ  His famous chair is on view at the Toronto Museum.

Beans on Toast!

One of the things about lugging an English accent around is that people often want to know where you're from.  Sometimes they recognise it (and it not being Australian!)  One lady the other day made a comment to me about being English, as she had once had an English boyfriend.  She told me: "I always remember he had this habit of eating beans on toast - revolting!"  Not surprisingly, Morgue File, where I get the pictures I don't take myself, does not have a photo of beans on toast, but with this one you can imagine it.  Now Heinz was the brand that we kids mostly enjoyed in this way, but Crosse and Blackwell would substitute from time to time.  As she was going away, I was forced to let her know of another Brit thing - Spaghetti on toast!  "Oh no," she cried.  "That's far, far worse."  I didn't have the heart to let her know that the most perverted among us would on occasions slide a fried egg on top!  Now that's what I'm talking about!

Movie # 3

We're down to the final three of my favorite movies and I fear some of you will be left wondering about them.  But I make no apology.  Number three is the 2001 movie Heist - not to be confused with The Heist, which is also pretty good, by the way. Heist stars Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito, and a terrific performance by Delroy Lindo who plays Hackman's buddy.  The music by Theodore Shapiro is excellent, and the plot has a number of twists to it that need to be watched carefully.  If you've never seen it get it out and run it soon, you won't be disappointed.

Mallards

We have perhaps one, or at the most two more trips on our boat this year.  Soon it will come out, be steam cleaned, and then shrink wrapped for the winter season.  It's always a slightly sad moment.  The last time we went out and had lunch aboard with the two boys, I noticed how few Mallard ducks there were.  Normally once we get the sandwiches out they detect it and they start to swim over to us.  It's hard to resist them.  I don't know where they all go to as the days dwindle down but in their places come an even bigger population of coots.

These are strange little birds who lack the brilliant colors of the ducks and who don't seem to be able to fly as well either.  They have a funny discordant cry and bobble about doing whatever it is coots do.  They are related to moorhens in other countries.  Later on in the year they will be the only birds out on the freezing lake and they'll fulfill one very necessary function for our soon to be visiting bald eagles; they'll become eagle snacks!  But it doesn't seem to deter them at all.  This year we had about six inches of snow on November 4th, which is very early.  And I still haven't got the boat out of the water.  I'm hoping to do it this Thursday as it's due to snow again over the weekend.  In fact the weather's so bad it's almost worth packing up and going to England!!!!!!

Accident

We had a tragic accident here a few weeks back.  Early one morning, a lady motorcyclist was riding westwards along one of Big Bear's main roads when a car came out of a turning having made or not made a stop first.  The driver ran straight into the woman and she was killed.  There is a rather sad little roadside tribute to her with crossed skis as she was one of the managers at Snow Summit ski resort.

Unlike the illustration above, where the bike has gone into the van, in this instance the vehicle ran into her and crushed her.  I wondered how such a thing could happen in broad daylight.  But the other morning I was driving along in the same spot and almost the same thing happened to me.  I was in the car and noticed another car about to come out of the same turning where the accident happened.  The sun was directly behind me and was streaming into the other driver's eyes.  He fortunately saw me and stopped, but had I been on the Harley he might not have seen me as he was momentarily blinded.  And motorcycles are not as large as automobiles or trucks.  Note to self: Remember to keep an eye on the sun's direction for other motorists!

Sunday's Column - Pasadena History

I took my grandson Evan along with me on this visit.  Unfortunately, they had just had a huge party the night before, and it was the last day of this particular exhibit, which happened to be ladies' hats from the 19th century.  Not exactly high on either of our lists of things we wanted to look at!

There were other things for us to enjoy however, including an interesting display of ostrich feathers.  These had come from a local farm, which had imported the original ostriches from South Africa.  You can read the entire column here - hopefully they'll have it up by now!  www.sbsun.com/trevorstravels

Guy Fawkes Day

A Catherine wheel which we would fix onto the back yard fence with a nail.

A year ago, I wrote about the tradition in the UK of celebrating Guy Fawkes Day every November 5th.  It's been going on since 1606, which is a long time.  You can read about here - http://trevorsummons.blogspot.com/2010/11/november-fifth.html 
One year I was flying back from Copenhagen and it happened to be November the 5th at about 7 in the evening.  It had been dark for a couple of hours, but on this occasion the entire city was lit up with bonfires.  It was the time when people used to have their own fires in their back gardens and they would set off fireworks and cook potatoes "in their jackets," as we would say. On top of the bonfire would be a stuffed dummy representing Guy Fawkes himself.  As the plane circled to land it occurred to me that this was how it must have looked to the Luftwaffe in the days when they would fly over with the blitz.  It was a sight I shall never forget.  Sadly, most bonfires are now organized by the local authorities (when there's money in the budget, of course.)  But I'm sure it may not last much longer as the "enlightened" among us probably don't want people celebrating an event of such brutality as burning old Guy Fawkes on the bonfire.  In the meantime, "Penny for the Guy?"

Transformers

Shortly we are off to England for a short visit.  I'm hoping to manage a few postings while I'm away, but it may be difficult.  However, I'm now starting to think about what I need to take in order to sustain normal life.

To begin with there are a lot of electronics to go along.  And where there are electronics there are wires, and even more importantly charging devices to keep them running.  Even the standard camera needs batteries, usually of the rechargeable type, to make them work.

British Standard Plug

Years ago you needed to carry a transformer, which was a big box the size of a brick around to make sure everything worked.  So I've done a small round of the stores to check on whether or not I will blow the UK's grid by plugging in an iPhone to charge it up.  It seems that along with everything else today, huge improvements have been made. 
Nearly all charging chords into these modern devices convert the electricity from the 220/240 volts AC current, which is used in the UK, into the 5 or 6 DC needed to work with new devices.  Now if only we could convince the Brits to change their Neanderthal plugs to something approaching "normal." (See left!)

Music Track

This was very popular when we came out to California http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inrEPapTtMM in 1982.  Joe Jackson came in on the tail end of punk and I never quite figured out his niche, but he seems to have got one.  It still sounds good today.  See if you agree with me.

Pete and Dud

Last week's Music Track featured Dudley Moore playing jazz.  People in the USA may not know that Dudley Moore and his partner, Peter Cook, used to do a regular comedy series on BBC in the 70's.  They were well known for "pushing the envelope."  This is one of their classic sketches - the One-Legged Tarzan.  They reprieved it in 1989 during a live performance in London. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njK6zQp2Fdk  It lasts about 5 minutes, and will make you laugh.

Movie Number 4

Movie number four is what some consider to be a woman's film.  I think however that although it is definitely romantic, it is such a wonderful history of the early days of the Russian Revolution that it goes far beyond the romantic genre.  It is of course, Dr. Zhivago, with Julie Christie and Omar Shariff,  along with a ton of other actors and actresses of great skill.  It won the Nobel Prize for its author Boris Pasternak and I must have seen it a dozen times in the last forty years. It never disappoints and is always worth watching again and again.  Rod Steiger is particularly good as well, showing that corruption can live in all kinds of systems, no matter the political persuasion.  Tom Courtney also shows how zealotry can be turned to just plain badness.  An uplifting but also depressing story.

Sunday's Postings

The Sun missed the deadlines to put my columns on-line for the last two weeks..  This has now been updated and I'm sorry if you weren't able to read the entire columns when they were published.  You can now at www.sbsun.com/trevorstravels

Argentina

My friend Jim, in Pasadena, sent me a very troubling video presentation about the collapse of Argentina.  Unfortunately it was a power point presentation and it seems impossible to include a link here.  However there is a series of similar videos available at UTube about what has happened to that country.  This is the first of 12 of them http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH6_i8zuffs

It is a truly frightening story of what could be happening here.  Argentina was for the first 50 years of the last century only just behind the USA in its position in the world, with massive oil and agricultural reserves.  Today it is virtually a third world country.
I've always had an interest in Argentina.  My father was offered a job there after the war, and it seemed a very exciting prospect to me at such a young age.   But he decided not to take it up as he didn't want to raise me in a foreign country.  Having watched this series of videos, I think he made the right decision.