Favorite Movies

For those of you who thought they had seen the last of this little indicator there is to be a reprieve.  Of all the posts that people seem to have enjoyed the most it was My Favorite 10 Movies.  Now among the younger set I know there was some disappointment with the choice of the last few as they were old ones and in black and white too.  However in compiling the list I had to review a lot that didn't quite make the "A" list.  This left ten more who almost did; so I'm going to run those backwards for the next ten weeks.  We'll call them the "follow ups."  Number ten is Gran Turino with Clint Eastwood in the main part.  When I grow up I want to be him, (and some say I'm pretty well on the way!)  Here is a man who has lived a little beyond his time and has to face some difficult changes in the neighborhood that he has always loved.

London - Jack the Ripper

On our visit to London, Evan (16)  had requested a tour of the Jack the Ripper area.  Now I had never done this, nor without his enthusiasm would I have been likely to have done so.  In that case I would have missed out on a unique experience and also the chance to meet up with Philip Hutchinson, the guide for the event.  Hutchinson is an authority on "Jack" and with a book under his belt about it, he's a serious "ripperologist."

Jack the Ripper did his dreadful deeds in the summer and autum of 1888 in the East End of London.  It was a difficult and dangerous sector of the city and one where immigrants and the very lowest order of society lived and tried to eke out an existence.  Hutchinson was nothing but realistic in his descriptions of how women with no income managed to stay alive and pay for a bed for the night.  It was not a pretty scene.
Into these cobbled streets and dark corners on the night of August 31st, a murderer took one of the women, Mary Ann Nichols, slashed her throat and eviscerated her body leaving the evidence of his crime in the gutters of Bucks Row, Whitechapel.  Even for a society inured and over-exposed to the basest side of life, the crime shocked.  When he struck again on September the 8th it sent the locality into a panic.  After five (or perhaps a couple more as today's experts are not totally sure) the killing stopped, leaving one of the biggest question marks in the history of unsolved crimes.
At the end of the two-hour tour, Hutchinson gave a round up of the most likely suspects that have been "found" over the century and a quarter of detective work.  Most of them are "way out there."  But read his book and find out for yourself. http://www.amazon.com/JACK-RIPPER-LOCATION-PHOTOGRAPHS-Collection/dp/1848687842
Oh by the way, the photo is not of one of the sites, but it was the best that I could find on the site under the heading "cobbled streets."
The site for the tour is http://www.jack-the-ripper-tour.com/  It cost 8 pounds and is well worth it.

Errata

I try hard to get posts right, but from time to time an error slips through.  S.W.M.B.O. the other day found a real horror.  Perhaps it was all that flying around over the pond that caused my tiredness and lack of concentration.  Anyway in the Aphorism section at the bottom, I mangled my favorite quote; it's by Horace Walpole.  It has been rectified for those of you who were confused.  "The world is a comedy to those who think and a tragedy to those who feel."

Birds

Recently at about 8 in the morning we have been visited by a large group of crows.  I believe the collective name for them is a "murder."  I wonder how that came about?  They are very big so perhaps they are ravens.  Maybe someone out there could let me know how to tell, or is it just a question of size?

I managed to take this picture out of my window, although they are quite sensitive to people and will fly off rapidly.  They are very large birds and have glistening black feathers.  My father used to call them "swaggering black rascals," and it seems they are.  The one here on the right has a piece of trash and we have to keep the lids on our trash bins or they will tip them over and spread the contents around.
In an aside, during our trip to London we went to the Tower.  Part of the tradition is the protection of the ravens there.  For it is said that if the ravens ever leave the Tower, England will fall.  During WWII, the Germans tried to poison them but the attempt failed.
My brother-in-law sent me this link, which is a short movie of an encounter two girls had in Ireland with a massive flock of starlings. http://www.boreme.com/posting.php?id=31278   The collective name for them is a "murmuration."  The one for Flamingos is, I believe a "flamboyance."

Sunday's Column - USS Midway

On our recent trip aboard the Sapphire Princess we visited San Diego and berthed close to the USS Midway.  This Sunday's column covers that visit.  When it was launched, the Midway was the largest ship afloat in the world at about 65,000 tons.  Today is it somewhat dwarfed by the Sapphire which is 116,000 tons.  Nonetheless it is an impressive ship with lots to see.  You would need several trips to cover everything there and that includes a lot of aircraft. You can read the entire column - provided The Sun gets it's act together - on www.sbsuncom/trevorstravels

An English Queen

Here is a wonderful statue of Queen Boadicea opposite the Houses of Parliament in London.  She lived in the first century and was queen of the Icini people out in the east of the country.  Furious with the Romans, she took her armies on the attack and in her march to Londinium, the Roman center of operations, her forces are supposed to have killed 70,000, and in an act of reprisal, the Romans killed a similar number.  Before she and her handmaidens were captured Boadicea took poison.  The statue is famous for its lack of reins - she commanded the horses with her voice alone.  Also for the long knives sticking out from the hubs of her chariot.  Recently acamedics have decided that her name was pronounced "Boudica."  How do they know?

Music Track - Kaplan

The number two movie of the top ten was The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.  The music is particularly emotive for the atmosphere of the movie and here it's played as a simple piano study.  It was conmposed by Sol Kaplan.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_mC1zMuFAw

Thanksgiving

This chap has his eye on you!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Americans.  At the moment I am in England and therefore it will be an ordinary day for me, as the English have so little to be thankful for!

Movie # 1

And so we come to my favorite movie of all time.  It wasn't a hard choice as it's been my favorite since I saw it in 1950, I think it was.  It is The Third Man, with Orson Wells and Joseph Cotton.  I saw it at school during a brief attempt to hold a movie night once a month.  It was played on a rickety projector but it didn't matter.  The film is so great it can withstand just about anything.  I note that it also seems to be one of Roger Ebert's favorites.  I don't think he's ever posted a list though.  The Third Man is shot in post-war Vienna and the haunting zither music by Anton Karas was so popular it was a huge hit record for a long time.  A lot of the music is Johann Strauss, but it has a bleak sound that compliments the black and white atmosphere of a broken and bomb-damaged, war-weary Europe.  Orson Wells' entrance into the film is one of the most famous of all times.  Impossible to replicate.  The gradual unfolding of the plot is never upset by actually knowing it beforehand.  The characters are all full and each has a quality that even the really minor ones develop.  The director, Carol Reed was in constant conflict with the producer, David O. Selznick, but won out and the result is without doubt a masterpiece.  If you have never seen it you should.
Here's a very short trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEAxoytNLTY&feature=related

Arundel

For his first exposure to "old stuff," we introduced Evan to Arundel on Saturday. The castle was begun in 1067, so that should be old enough. 

He was a mite disappointed in that it "didn't look that old."  He felt the maintenance might be slackened off a bit in order to help it look older.  I suspect the authorities will not take the advice.

Sunday's Column - Alcatraz

This Sunday's column was about our trip to Alcatraz, which was covered here on the blog a few weeks back.  It was a part of our inter-coastal cruise aboard the Princess Sapphire.
This view is a little misty as it often is across the San Francisco Bay, and one of the reasons that the prison was too hard to keep going with all the corrosion.  It was closed in 1964, but not before Frank Morris and two friends made a daring escape by digging through their cell walls with spoons.  It took them a year and they have never been found.  Since it's closure it has become one of the country's top tourist attractions.  It's always crowded so book up early.  Even with the people, it's possible to imagine how bleak it must have been if you were incarcerated there.  But in order to do so,  you had to have been one of the "worst of the worst," which as a reader of this bog I am sure you are not!  You can read the entire column - when the Sun decides to get it up! at www.sbsun.com/trevorstravels

RV's

Recreational Vehicles - the Brits call them caravans

A few years ago we visited the Pomona RV fair.  We thought that it would be a fine idea in our retirement to buy a rig and explore the country - I had a slight wish to visit Newfoundland, where I had never been.  As we were lining up to go in, an old man, who overheard our accents, uttered the dreaded words: "Where y'awl from, then?"  It's hard to avoid this and there often follows a long list of questions and statements which we try to answer before tiring of it all.  That often only takes a few seconds, and it's immediate when asked if we know the queen!
After our time at the exhibition, we were driving home, and I asked She Who Must Be Obeyed (S.W.M.B.O.) where she wanted to travel to in the US.  She said she didn't like driving, and by the time we hit Running Springs she confessed to only wanting to go to Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Cost: one trailer  -$20,000; One truck to haul the aforementioned - $35,000, plus the continuing problem of answering the question: "Where y'awl from, then?"  Result, I shan't be driving to Newfoundland anytime soon!

Music Track - Lark Ascending

When this is posted I will be in England. This is truly English music by Ralph Vaughan Williams - the Lark Ascending.  Out in the countryside, on a hot summer's day you can see larks circling over corn fields.  The violin towards the end of the piece represents this small bird as it flies higher and higher until it eventually disappears from sight. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKz6XJlI_jk  There is a serenity about this music that is unique.

England

Later on today we will be climbing aboard the big silver bird and flying to England.  Yvonne and I are taking Evan our 16 year old grandson to show him something of his heritage.  Leaving Yvonne down in Sussex, I will take Evan up to London for three days to show him the sights.   We will certainly look at Big Ben, although it's the bell that goes by that name and not the 19th century clocktower.  We also are booked on The London Eye (The Millennium Wheel) which is in the background here.  And there's a trip to see The Mousetrap, the world's longest running play.  I feel exhausted already!  I plan to take lots of pictures and I'll try and do some posts while I'm over there as I'm taking the lap top. (Of course!)