Happy Australia Day!

This is the country I live in, and that I love. Today, 26th January, 2013, it is our national day - Australia Day.

In celebration of our very special day, I've been doing some baking :-)

First up, we have home made Damper, which will be eaten with Vegemite:

Add to this, we have home made Lamingtons. These originated in Ipswich, Queensland, and many a Queensland child will remember doing "Lamington Runs" for school (door to door sales to raise money for their schools). This is the first time I have ever made Lamingtons, so I wasn't sure how they would work out. They seem good though!

And last but not least....ANZAC biscuits! Normally these are made for ANZAC day (25th April), but they are Australian, and I thought it would be nice to make them :-)

Hope your day is great!

High Street Shop Closures

Firstly, Happy New Year!

Secondly...

I saw on the news that HMV in Britain has entered administration, with the very real risk of being shut down for good. We lost our last HMV shop in Brisbane in 2010, the Aussie side of things having been bought up by their competitors - Sanity. 

Sanity is a mish-mash of cds, dvds and such, and I have always found their shops difficult to navigate my way around. HMV were always neat and tidy and very easy to find what you were after. 

If HMV shuts its doors in England, it will be sad indeed, especially after it seems that two other well-known British companies have closed up shop in recent months - Comet, and Jessops.

I've also seen that in Ceramix' neck of the woods, Jacksons of Reading are to close down at the end of the year. Jacksons have been a household name in Reading for 137 years, and are best known for their money shute system (no electronic cash registers for them). I remember David Jones having this system in Brisbane when I was a girl. 

Closer to home, we recently lost Darrell Lea - a very long standing family-owned Australian chocolate making company. 

Before I moved house, I used to go out and buy my cds, dvds and such at the shops, but since moving house, I find myself in a position where it is very difficult indeed to get out much, so I find I am relying more and more on online purchases and downloads. While that is no fault of companies like HMV (I get off the property whenever I can), it does seem to be the way of things these days. People are becoming more insular, and less social. Children are getting technology much earlier than we did. Are we teaching our children to become anti-social, grunting, and rude by giving them things like ipods and ipads, tablets and laptops when they are as young as 7 or 8? 

I think I prefer the days when birthdays and Christmas guaranteed at least one book to unwrap....

Happy Halloween!

Giant Monsters continued

Two posts in one day! Will miracles never cease!

Anyway, I found a page just now listing the vital statistics of Godzilla and Gamera, and was surprised to find out that Gamera is bigger (at least in some movies) ! I always thought Godzilla was the biggest giant monster around, always and forever!


So here goes:

GAMERA (the giant flying turtle, Friend to Children, Guardian to the Universe):

Height: 200-275 feet
Weight: 30,000 tons

Abilities:
Toughness: impervious to conventional weaponry and the vacuum of space
Atomic breath
Retractable limbs and head
Flight

(not to mention the ability to shoot fire-like flames from his mouth, and from the holes where his head, legs, arms and tail go when he is retracted)

GODZILLA a.k.a GOJIRA (giant reptillian T-Rex-style super scary monster, Destroyer of Tokyo on a movie-to-movie basis): 

Height: 150-350 feet
Weight: 20,000-60,000 tons

Abilities:
Toughness: impervious to conventional weaponry
Atomic breath
Magnetism
Regeneration
Flight: used atomic breath for this purpose in a regrettable fight

I've always liked Godzilla - had many Godzilla-based nightmares over the years - and thoroughly enjoyed getting up at silly times of the night to watch Godzilla movies with my Dad when I was young.

But Gamera is just so terribly cute! I've never found him frightening (though he is supposed to be), and always loved watching movies where he is the star. I know there are annoying children involved, and a super-tacky and rather lame theme song, but he is just so cool. Even the 1990s movies, where he was a beefed-up version of his old self, and could be classed as seriously scary, he was just so adorable.

I would never describe Godzilla as adorable though! Terrifying, yes. Scary, most certainly. But adorable? Never!

Giant Monster Films

Way back in 2007, I posted a blog about my rather interesting film collection:

http://downpennylane.blogspot.com.au/2007/12/king-of-monstersgodzilla-gamera-or-king.html

Seems that some things never change!

Having moved house since that post was written, gained a new boyfriend, and been in my new place for well over a year, I've just yesterday finally got my "new-fangled" audio-visual stuff set up here (mostly because Dad bought me a new DVD player to replace the one he "borrowed" from me for two days, a year and a half ago). All this stuff has been sitting in the garage since just after I moved here, with the exception of the TV (and the borrowed DVD player, of course).

Prior to Friday, I was moderately happy with just my TV and Foxtel, but it did mean if I wanted to watch any DVDs I had to do so on my laptop. But then Dad bought me the DVD player (on Thursday), and I discovered that try as I might, the TV and DVD player wouldn't work together properly. So out came the 6.1 surround sound system, the subwoofer, and literally miles of cables.

My Dad isn't known for his patience. He's hyperactive at the best of times, and doesn't cope very well if things don't happen 30 seconds ago. But yesterday Dad became my hero. I'd spent most of Thursday afternoon, evening and all of Friday morning, trying various ways to get this dvd player and the tv to play nicely. When Dad had finished his work for the day, he came over to mine, to see if he could help. I expected lots of swearing and ranting (from both of us, actually), but Dad was patience-personified. Nothing upset him. He kept his cool for the four and a half hours it took us to set it all up, undo it, move it, and re-set it all up again (long story), and the final result was that it worked! Dad could see how upset I had been getting, not being able to make it work. He knew even less about what went where, but he was good at listening to what I said, and doing what I asked, after I had read carefully from the rather useless and unhelpful manuals for the various machines (most of which included the lines "you plug, it play") and coming up with good suggestions to make it all work.

So now that it is all up and running, onto the main content of this blog entry.

I decided tonight to restart my Saturday Night Movie Nights, beginning with a favourite genre - Japanese Monster Movies.

If you read the blog entry I posted the link for above, you will see who Gamera is, along with Godzilla and King Kong and the rest.
 

(Gamera)

I personally love Gamera. He's a giant flying turtle, and he's seriously cool. He also does a lot of city-stomping, much as Godzilla does. The picture above comes from one of the 1960s Gamera films. Tonight I watched "Destroy All Planets" from 1968. That's the US title for it. Its original Japanese title translates as Gamera vs Viras.

Things you should remember when watching any of these types of films though: 

1. It's seriously hokey, and the special effects aren't particularly special, but the movie was made in 1968, when men dressed in rubber suits and stomped on models of Tokyo and called themselves GODZILLA - King of the Monsters....and you actually believed them.

2. It's got two very annoying little children in it, who you soon learn to despise, but Gamera is known as the Childrens Guardian or Childrens Friend, so kids are kind of necessary where Gamera is involved.

3. Gamera spends a lot of time looking like a frizbee that shoots flames while spinning (it's how he travels between planets), or as a large scary turtle with pigs tusks coming out of his bottom jaw (probably why my dog freaked when he saw him close up - see below), who stomps around rescuing annoying children who get themselves into all kinds of strife, or fighting other giant monsters, to the (constant) adulation of said annoying children.

4. Gamera is always going to win....no matter how bad the odds.....

5. The monsters Gamera fights (or Godzilla, as many of the monsters are the same enemies) are always far more hokey-looking than Gamera (or Godzilla)is.

6. Dalmatians (especially sooky ones) don't mind surround sound (so long as it isn't much above normal speaking volume), but don't like the sound of monster against monster attacks (they sound like Star Trek phasers in this film), and will run away and hide under whatever is available in another room, generally as far away as they can get.

7. Dalmatians (especially sooky ones who find their beds right near a 30-something inch TV) find closeups of Gamera quite terrifying and will do their best to exit the house through whatever door or window is closest at the greatest possible speed. (I shudder to think what he will make of Godzilla or King Kong!)

8. 1960s Gamera (and Godzilla) films are best watched in the dark with proper movie fare (popcorn or similar), instead of in a well-lit lounge room, with the sound turned right down to barely audible (so as to not upset dalmatians (especially sooky ones) too much), with a ham, cheese and pineapple sandwich and a coffee.

I'm learning, where my dog is concerned, that movies with animals in them are okay so long as there is no crying, barking, howling, or other recogniseable animal noises in them, and that monster movies are acceptable, just so long as they are barely audible, and on a small enough screen so as not to frighten him.

Movies with children are perceived in much a similar manner to movies with animals in them, apparently. So long as his services aren't needed to rescue/protect/run away from whatever is in the movie, it's okay with him.

My cats don't care either way what I watch, so long as they get fed and watered. :-)

It's nice to be able to watch DVDs again, I have to admit. And so long as they have the dalmatian seal of approval, I should be able to enjoy Saturday nights at the movies (in the lounge room) for many more months to come!

Titanic

Again, an article about one person on board, this time an Australian girl. This comes from "The Advertiser," a now defunct Adelaide, South Australia newspaper, dated 20 Apr 1912:

Miss Evelyn Marsden.

Miss Marsden was a stewardess on board the ill-fated Titanic. She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W.H. Marsden, of Hoyleton.

Titanic

Something a little different today. Rather than an article about the sinking of the Titanic, you get an article about one of the crew. It's from "The Western Times", (an English paper), dated 26 Apr 1912:

(see below for a transcript of the article)

Devon Wireless Operator

When all the world was clamouring for wireless messages from the "Olympic" last week, few were aware that they were being sent by a Devonian and a Topsham man. Yet such was the case. Mr. E.J.Moore, whose home is at Monmouth-street, Topsham, is principal operator on the "Olympic," and he took the "S.O.S." message from the "Titanic." He was educated at St. John's Hospital School, Exeter, and was a friend of Mr. Harry Dyer, of Exeter, the young engineer of the "Titanic" who is missing.