BERNIE IS ON TV TONIGHT

Our son in law, Bernie, will be hosting "Beauty and the Geek, Australia" tonight at 8:30 on Channel 7.

Here is an "exclusive interview" in "New Idea" magazine. We are very proud of them. This was done while they were in Sydney filming. Now they are back in West Hollywood.

If this is difficult to read click here.

BIRTHDAY BEAR WRESTLES A CROCODILE

It was Paul's Birthday recently and we were all pleased to be attending his birthday lunch as he is fighting Mesothelioma. He recently completed another dose of chemo therapy and was well enough to go on an adventurous tour to the northern most tip of Australia, Cape York. This area is famous for its tropical wilderness and men like Crocodile Dundee.

As I thought Paul is a fighter like Crocodile Dundee that is how I dressed Birthday Bear for Paul. We celebrated at Hog's Breath Cafe at Garden City in Brisbane.

   Crocodile Dundee Bear wrestling a crocodile

Paul liked Bear's hat. Bear looks like he's having a nap after wrestling that croc.

 Crocodile Dundee's hat has crocodile teeth in the leather band. (beads from an old necklace). Bear also has Dundee's leather armbands and the famous, "That's a knife."

Bear woke  up when the steaks arrived. He is showing off his leather/crocodile skin vest and big buckled belt.

FESTIVAL FINALE

Every year in September, the Brisbane Festival takes place. It is a cultural event, which includes ; Music, Theatre, Dance, Visual Arts, Circus, Cabaret, Opera, Comedy, Film, Writing, Light Show and Riverfire.
Riverfire is a stunning choreograhed pyrotechnics and fireworks display for 30 minutes, held on the last night of the festival. It stretches all along the river, which snakes through the city. Explosions of lights and fireworks erupt from bridges, buildings and barges on the river.
People had been arriving all through the day to find a good spot on the river edge. There were half a million people expected so we decided to watch it on TV. These photos are of our TV screen.

 The river snakes through the city.

 The firefall from the Storey Bridge

 The Light Sphere is the most popular art installation with lustrous mirrors and shimmering reflections., designed by Tony Assness.

I can see why the show is called Riverfire.

DARK DAYS OF THE SEVENTIES IN BRISBANE.

I guess every city has its street of medical specialists. In London I think it is Harley St, in Sydney its Macquarie St, I don't know what it is in NYC someone reading this might tell me. Anyhow in Brisbane it is Wickham Tce. Last week we went to visit TOH's physician for a check up and after TOH* was given the all okay prognoses we went for a walk around that part of the city with our cameras.

Wickham Tce climbs up a steep hill, on top there is an old windmill which I featured on my last post. Opposite the old mill is one of our oldest hotels, "The Tower Mill" and as commenter Colin pointed out it was the scene of nasty anti apartheid demonstrations back in the seventies when the South African Springboks football team were staying in this hotel.

Tower Mill Hotel

Wickham Park opposite the hotel

The reason I say nasty is because we had, in my opinion an awful premier at the time. 

The Springbok tour party were staying at the Tower Mill Motel on Brisbane’s Wickham Terrace. They were separated from the 400 protesters by a line of 500 quasi-military style police officers. The turnout was poor partly because of the police intimidation and partly because Brisbanites bought the official line that “sport and politics should not mix”. That this cliché was a fiction easily exposed did not matter – the media at the time did not expose it.
Bjelke-Petersen, then still an untested Premier, used the tour to try out anti-democratic practices he would become familiar with over the next 16 years. Eight days before the game, he declared a State of Emergency to secure the Exhibition Grounds for the game suspending civil liberties for a month in the process. The legislation gave police carte blanche for the operation that followed against the protesting students.
On the night of the riot, the numbers of students, aboriginals and academics outside the Mill was swollen by plain clothes police as agent provocateurs. With no warning, the line of uniformed police marched forward and ordered the protesters to clear the footpath. The demonstrators were forced to flee down the steep and pitch-dark hill into Wickham Park. The police follow attacking with fists, batons and boots as their plain-clothes colleagues join in. Some protesters jumped an eight-metre high embankment into the busy traffic of Albert Street below. Others were simply thrown over.


One of those students, Peter Beattie, eventually became our premier and cleaned up the state and allowed demonstrations.

Wickham Park is a steep park dropping down to the lower part of the city. It is a clean cool place.

Unfortunately some people have made it their home. 

We have another new premier, Campbell Newman,who is axing thousands of jobs in the public service to try and get the state's finances out of the red. He has been likened to Joh Bjelke Petersen of the riots era. Heaven forbid.

*TOH (The Other Half) 

THE OLD WINDMILL

The Old Windmill minus its sails is the oldest surviving building in Queensland.













It was built by convicts, supervised by the commandant, Captain Patrick Logan in 1828. Logan realised the penal colony of Moreton Bay needed a mill to grind the wheat and maize grown in the settlement, which is now the city of Brisbane.

Even though the windmill sits on the top of a hill, there was rarely enough wind to push the sails to power the mill so convict labour was used to turn two treadmills. In 1842 the penal colony closed and free settlers arrived to develop the city.

In 1861 the sails were removed and the windmill became an observatory and signal station. A time ball was added which fell at 1:00pm everyday until 1930 when the City Hall clock took over.

Later it became a fire tower and later still in 1934 it was used as a radio and television research station. Now it is maintained as an historic icon of the city of Brisbane.

SURPRISE CAR SHOW

Summer has arrived in Brisbane. Today we went to explore a Farmers Market that we haven't been to before. It is held in the nearby town of Beenleigh. When we arrived we saw hundreds of people flocking into the show grounds. We had to park a long way off but a good walk for TOH*.

When we arrived at the grounds we saw a sign saying "No Market Today." Instead it was a car show. Secretly I think TOH was quite pleased.

I took lots of photos of cars but then I noticed that some of the people were more interesting. I liked this matching dress and car.

 I was amused at the high heeled shoes tripping through the grass, which is almost dead due to the lack of rain over the last 3 months.

The lady on the right had leopard skin dress and shoes she also had a glittering handbag on the other arm. I just couldn't capture it as she ran off to greet someone.

These two were happy to pose for me 

Yum

 No comment.

 This guy was leaving  but happy to give me a wave. I wouldn't mind being beside him.

TOH found a Fairlane the same as he had as a young man in Switzerland. It was too big to angle park in his street. The police told him to move it.

I found a Morris minor for sale. It is the same as our first, second car. We scraped together enough dollars for a car for me to go shopping after we had our first baby, who used to be put on the back seat in a basket.  No child restraints in those days.
(*TOH The Other Half )

SEA RANGERS

In 1961, when I was 19, my brother came home on leave from working as a Patrol Officer in Papua/New Guinea. He was home for 3 months and he bought a car, a Herald Triumph. When he went back to work he let me use his car as long as I paid for the registration and insurance and maintenance.

Well I was like the cat that ate the cream. Here I was, still a teenager and I had my own car. I enjoyed taking my girlfriends to the beach and to the Saturday night dance. Boys didn't believe us when we said we didn't need a lift home because we had our own car. If we fancied the boys we would offer to take them home. Role reversal was pretty rare in those days.

 When I was eight, my best friend, Kerrie, asked me to join the Brownies and later the Girl Guides. In our teens we belonged to the Sea Rangers. One weekend four of us went camping at Engadine. We pitched our little tent in the bush overlooking the river. We wore our camp uniforms. It was fun being independent. We went swimming and hiking.

                       

Left to right: Kerrie, Jean, Jeanette, me.

 Left to right: Me, Kerrie,  Jeanette.

The next morning we got dressed outside as there was little room for four of us in the tent. Just look at those stylish 60's knickers, no g-strings or bikini briefs in those days, at least not in my world.

Kerrie was the chief cook. It is interesting that much later in life she was camp cook for her outback fencing contractors.

I remember we weren't that impressed with the meal but we were hungry enough to enjoy it.
Left to right: Kerrie, me, Jeanette

It was a great swimming hole and we had great fun that weekend. I lost contact with Jean and Jeanette but I kept in touch with Kerrie on and off over the next 50 years. Soon I would be leaving the Terrible Teens, my awful secret and my adopted country to fulfil my dream and embark on an exciting chapter of my life.