Merry Christmas

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a happy New Year.  This Sunday's column is about Christmas up here in the mountains and you can read it at www.sbsun.com/trevorstravels

Florida

I recently spent a wonderful week down in Florida with my friend, Paul, together with his wife, Vivien.  We have known each other for over 40 years so there's always some catching up to do plus the opportunity to put a number of important international affairs to rights.  We solved the deficit problem and also most of the difficulties with the Middle East, so the time was not wasted.
At this time of the year as we enter winter, Florida comes into its own.  It was around 8o degrees and the humidity was up in that region too.  An interesting fact about humidity is that when it is high and the temperature is low, it feels just right.
Here are some of the pictures I took during my stay.  Many of them will be used in an upcoming article about it for The Sun.

Typical 19th century Sanibel house at the museum

One of the nicest pools I've ever swum in

Typical Sanibel fauna - lush and verdant

Seashells all over the beach

Sanibel Lighthouse

I guess we're not in Kansas anymore!

Music Track - Halleluia

There is really little choice for this week's music track bearing in mind the season.  The only difficulty is the choice of rendition.  I was tempted by Andre Reiu's performance but it is a little too fast and also somewhat over the top.  So this is the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  It's hard to beat. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4BWhvIlFVE  The tradition of the audience standing for this goes back to the reign of George II. Now, whether he stood out of respect or to stretch his legs has never been agreed, but the tradition of standing is still marked to this day 200 years later.  For more information on this click on http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081211152001AAozNqJ

New Layout

With the first day of winter, there is a change in the layout, which I hope you like.  The next change could be sooner than spring as I'm looking at a new Website/blog - stay tuned for that.

Movie #7 on the also ran list

Movie number seven on the "Also Ran" list is 1984.  Here is the link to it on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four_(film)  I'm indebted to my good friend Vanessa for the suggestion that I always put in a hot link to these movies.  (I'll try and remember in future, Dear Lady!)  1984 is a disturbing movie as is the book that was written in 1948.  George Orwell simply reversed the last two numbers of that date , believing that it would be far enough away in the future.  There are two actors who have a lock on tortured souls - Jeremy Irons and John Hurt.  The latter is slightly more dissipapated and plays the role of Winston Smith, who is rebelling against the party and its many manifestations, including the Thought Police.  He and Julia try and conduct an affair in an atmosphere where such behavior is severely punished.

I have a particular affinity with this work as I first saw it on BBC TV in about 1954.  It was the most shocking thing I had ever seen in my young life up to that point and I never forgot it.  In our innocence we had no idea that brainwashing and torture could go on in our modern world yet alone way into the future.  It gave me a visceral hatred and fear of totalitarianism which I hold to this day.

The movie itself is not the best, I have to say, and only makes it to this list becuse of its political importance.  I think it's time we did another version.

Coincidence

I had the most extraordinary coincidence the other day.  I was passing though airport security with all the usual stuff in bins for the conveyor belt - you know, shoes off, belt off, pockets emptied etc, etc.  When we got through to the other side there was the usual rush to put it all back together again, and I crammed my laptop into my carry on and retrieved my other stuff.  It was then that I noticed my belt was in a bin with - my laptop?

Now as you can see there's nothing particularly special about my laptop - it's a Dell Inspiron about five years old - and here it was on the conveyor again after I'd put it back in my carry on.  The fact that my belt was with it led me to realize I might have packed the wrong one.  I asked the lady behind me if that was her laptop and she said "Oh yes, that's mine!"  I then pulled mine back out of the bag and it was a complete match.  We went over to the tables where people can re-pack.  "My battery doesn't work, so if one of them fires up, it's yours," she said.  Sure enough the one I hadn't packed started up, and if it hadn't been for my belt we would have ended up with the wrong computers.  A nasty mistake and how would we ever have contacted each other?

Raccoons

One of the first posts I did on the blog was about the problem we had been experiencing with raccoons on our boat.  The little devils would climb under the covers and get into the very rear compartment.  Unlike a friend of mine whose boat was also targeted, ours was left in pristine condition - they didn't turn it into a party boat, which is really unpleasant.

We solved the difficulty with a new snap-down cover which stopped them dead as the snaps were too hard for their little fingers.

Now the basic problem with raccoons is that they look really cute.  They are like a cross between a dog and a cat, and you'd think they would be fun, but they are very aggressive as anyone who has accosted one knows.

Last night returning from town in the dark, we saw a couple of them near our neighbors; they scurried off and we thought no more about it.  That is until it was time to put the bins out for trash collection.  The raccoons had been there first.  They had turned over a bin and spread the contents all around - lovely!  They left the "green" bin completely alone, of course. Note to self.  Next time make sure the lid is well fitted down.

Sunday's Column - Primm

Halfway to Las Vegas there was always a well-used stop called State Line.  Well, today it's called Primm, after its founder Gary Primm.  I was invited to come out, along with the redoubtable Mrs. S. to do a piece on the place. I have to say that the organisers of this little junket really pushed the boat out for us.  Not only was the room wonderful but the dinner was one of the best I've had since living out here.  I couldn't finish my prime rib and took it home and made two amazing burgers with it.

It was a little chilly when we were there but I could easily imagine relaxing around the pool and in the gardens of the Primm Valley Resort and Casino.  If you tire of the drive to Vegas, make sure you call in here, you won't regret it - particularly GP's restaurant.  To read the entire column go to www.sbsun.com/trevorstravels - provided they've got it up, of course.

Purchase

I don't often get a compulsion to buy something - one of the joys, or if you like, disappointments of aging.  However when we were in Bosham, Sussex and S.W.M.B.O. (She Who Must Be Obeyed) was on the way back to the car, I happened to stop and look in a small shop.  In the window was this model boat.  I've never owned one and something about it took my fancy.  I saw the price and it wasn't too much, so I went in leaving Madam to make her way to the parking lot.  It was a matter of only minutes to buy the boat which came in a nicely compact box.  Naturally I was quizzed as to what I had bought and I went vague about it.  As it added considerably to the contents of our one suitcase for the return journey, the item as yet unnamed was mentioned several times.  Once home I erected the boat and I have to say she was rather sporting about it and even suggested a site for its display.  It's been a few weeks now and I still enjoy it.

Hitchens - RIP

It is a great sadness to report the death of Christopher Hitchens.  He was 62 and had been fighting cancer for some two years.  He was a Brit who never lost his accent and although a radical from the 70's he somewhat modified his stance on many things.  He was a frequent traveler to the hot spots of the world where injustice and violence are the every day norm.  He could speak eloquently about such matters and the constant evidence of man's inhumanity to man.  His writing in Slate and Vanity Fair will be sorely missed as will his always stimulating voice on things.  R.I.P. Chris, 1942 to 2011.

Music Track - Scarlatti

For those of you music lovers with a short attention span, this only takes 1:38 minutes.  A young lady mentioned she was putting together a one-minute video on snowboarding, and needed some music.  I immediately thought of Scarlatti.  The performance is wonderful to watch and  made me think of the old joke: I'd give my right arm to play like that!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8UXXNLtXMM&feature=related

Riot Act

In 1715, faced with serious riots in London, the government needed a vehicle to disperse the crowds before they felt able to resort to force. With this in mind, parliament passed the Riot Act.  This was to be read to unruly mobs before force was used, and to give the crowds a chance to disburse safely.

One of the more unfortunate results of this act was in the case of angry crowds rioting in the outskirts of the Empire, where some poor soul was sent out to read this incomprehensible law to those who didn't speak English.  Their life expectancy in those cases was rather short.  However there is something amusing at the sight of a red coated officer (junior, of course) in full dress unscrolling the parchment before spear-waving natives worked up into a lather.  But perhaps it was good for the character! So next time the phrase "Reading the Riot Act" comes up, remember its history, and say a quiet thank you to those brave people who were sent out to enact a law, in the most difficult circumstances.

Movie Number Eight

Movie Number Eight on the follow up list is the Shawshank Redemption.  It is a long movie that shows off a great escape plot.  I quite like prison movies and maybe I should have put Cool Hand Luke in here instead, as that too relies upon the hero duping his masters and them getting soft in the process.

Tim Robbins does a great job as does Morgan Freeman, who rarely gives a poor performance.  It also mentions a Mexican resort - Zijuateneca - where I've actually been.

Electric Seats

We had owned our current car for about three months before we discovered that it has electric seats.  I mean by that seats that are warmed by electricity.  Now I've never had this before and as a rather warm bodied person, I wouldn't have ordered them as an extra.  But Oh, when that old north wind blows and the car is freezing, what a wonderful invention electric seats are.  If you've never sat in them you don't know what you're missing.  In my motoring career, which spans about 50+ years, I've witnessed a lot of improvements.  Automatic gears, power steering, electric windows, and the fact that cars are so much more reliable than they used to be.  But this latest invention surely promotes the saying: Happiness is a warm bottom!