Friday 21 January 2011

2001 Three days of itching, work and a film

It is Wednesday 19th January 2011 at 7.25 and it feels a special day. I woke early around 4am and stayed in bed until 4,30 rising, switching on the computer but not the heating, although the air is chilly.

I had a difficult night on Wednesday although sleeping from 9.30 through to 5.30 but with constant wakings because of itchy shins. During the years of my previous attendance at the Leisure club I experienced athlete’s foot which I countered this time using the plastic poolside shoes. I also experience shin itchiness which I out down to the chemicals in the Jacuzzi so I stopped using and the itchiness stopped. This time of membership sometime after commencing and using both the pool and the Jacuzzi experienced the itchiness again but using some proprietary cream this appeared to work and I continued. There was one other incidence after Jacuzzi and then sauna so I stopped the sauna. Then on Monday there was some itchiness which appeared sorted with some cream but it came back yesterday to the extent that I could not rest in bed and tried various creams until this morning I found one which worked. I decided to make enquiries at the Club and both regular early morning ladies were present so I had a joint consultation. They agreed the location was an odd one. The only possibility that it is the chemicals, the chlorine used in the pool is that mention was made that greater strength is used in the Jacuzzi and perhaps if sufficient people then go into the pool without showing they have added to the concentration or a stronger concentration has been used. I will return tomorrow and see what happens before consulting my GP.

It is 7.20 am on Friday 21st. My legs seem better but I decided to leave the pool for another day and contrite on work today in the final or penultimate getting up-to-date and making further progress in the organisation for the coming year.
I had a good go at the top oven on Thursday morning and the effort has been worthwhile although I will have one or two more goes over the next weeks to see how close I can get the condition to the original pristine new. I washed the day room floor and then the toilet bowl. I must have over did the chemical because I now have cough after inhaling some fo the fumes when I went back to clean. The cough cleared as the day progressed. I must not make the same mistake again.

On Wednesday I washed up the crockery and eating utensils, drunk a cup of coffee with two slices of some pressed meat and then soaked by feet before cutting the toe nails, something I intended to do for several days but then forgot.

I reread and corrected the second part of my 21st century instant publication writing 2000 which covers beginning to read the Alexandrian Quartet and a book on the political activities of King George VI and the film of Eli. Together with the resurrection on a piece on the artwork project and its background, 2000 has 24 pages which makes an ideal special single Development volume.

I have also printed out the recent Google and while this was taking placed added another 5 level 2 chess games making the latest run 40, remembering that I recently got to game 98 before stuffing up, again. I will get myself washed and ready for going out at 8 with a visit to the supermarket around 8.30 for milk, some salad and some fruit. It will be fish for lunch today and then in Friday with a giant pork chop for Thursday when I will defrost the freezer before restocking in the evening. I will make a bacon roll now thus continuing the eating too well, especially as I opted out of the swim today in preference for completing the 2000 writings. I hope to feel fit enough to work on the cooker and wash the day room floor later this morning, before Prime Minister’s Question time at noon.

I have other practical things to address including making sets with available pages. I feel no pressure to continuing reading but will do so when I am in the right frame of being.

It is just before 5pm and the day has gone well with much work accomplished. I enjoyed the bacon roll and lunch were I added some tinned tomatoes and baked beans to the piece of breaded fish and four scampi followed by a £1 carton of melon slices. I will have a soup and then prawn salad and perhaps the banana with custard I deferred from yesterday. After the supermarket I visited B and Q for a replacement plastic handing basket after one of three outside the kitchen window split for not apparent reason only to find there were none on display. It is too early in season so I will wait a few weeks keeping the broken one going on the floor.

The main work task has been to reorganise the sets of project records and this work will continue in the morning. I made up sets with the material available completing 3 each of MySpace and Google writings and brining the record list up-to-date I appear to be missing 995 which I will check if I misnumbered missing or has not been uploaded. A four set volume of Culture 2010/2011 was also finished and recorded. I am making a special volume for the two 2000 writings.

I considered watching Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf but after the first twenty minutes or so decided I was not the mood and watched the end of the French Connection 2. Later I was able to watch the beginning before another episode of Portillo’s Journeys in the North East and Yorkshire and a further of episode of the visual diary of a naturalist spending various periods of the year living and filming in a remote part of the Shetland Islands with how second wife, also a naturalist and their two year old daughter. I was mistaken as tonight there was a different naturalist series, the location of the Tiger in the Kingdom of Bhutan. I then watched downstairs and listened in bed to Arsenal at Leeds in the FA CUP. Arsenal looked as if they had the game with 2 goals in the first half but then Leeds scored a scorcher and is was game on. Tired I went to bed and listen on the radio until Arsenal scored a third goal and I assumed game over. It was.

On Thursday I continued the art work creation and registration of set work and then I undertook one more task which I had put of for several days . It was very very cold overnight with a severe frost on vehicles, against forecasts and has remained cold today but with a clear blue sky overhead.

Early on I watched Andy Murray have a very comfortable second round win of 3 straight sets in the Australian open. He looked in good form and with a good attitude.

I also watched once more the World War II film The Halls of Montezuma, words from the hymn of the USA marines. The film was made with the cooperation of the Marine who used the film for recruitment purposes to great good effect when to was released in 1951. The key passage is a letter drafted by the company doctor Karl Malden to the special unit leader Richard Widmark, which is read to the company after his death. He pleads that those who survive ensure that the reality of their experience is reported and protected so that every effort is made to prevent further bloodshed, however at the same time he make the point that sometimes the killing and dying is necessary to protect and further the greater good and that it was important that the USA was not afraid to take action that was right for the world in general rather stick to its narrow self interest as a single nation.

The film focuses on the taking of a large Japanese held island in the pacific. In the days before computer generated action the flotilla of ships and landing craft is impressive. The problem the invading force has is that the Japanese have built a secret launching site, something which is not anticipated. Widmark is sent out with some of his most experience men, only 8 of the original 40 have survived to this point, to try and capture some prisoners who are holed in a cave to try and find out the location of the rocket site before the main force fo 80000 begins to rake the island. The mission provides the opportunity to learn something of the lives of the men and of their enemy. Widmark needs pain killers to combat migraine which he said is based on his fear, yet he is able to help an experienced corporal to overcome battle stage fright reminding of the courage he has shown in the past. Jack Palance is a former professional boxer who has a stabilizing role and survives the special mission to join the main advance as the film ends.

Palace has taken under his wing a young boy, played by Skip Homeier, from a poor agricultural background who pretends he is from a wealthy family. He is full of nerves anxious to get on with it. He finds himself in person to person combat which he survives but this makes him even more emotionally unstable and he returns to the mission camp demanding that the prisoners are killed. In the effort to stop him he is accidentally shot and killed by Palance. Having captured one prisoner he leads the special mission to the cave where he says others are hiding and two men are brought out by the interpreter and the Sgt (Neville Brand). This turns out to be the Ambush they feared as an grenade is thrown killing the three Japanese and blinding the sergeant. Despite his disability he shows remarkable presence at different times, reminding of the need to note the precise locations of the dead as they are buried and attempting to prevent Wagner killing the prisoners. He survives to go home. Jack Webb plays Dickerman a war Correspondent and write to presses to be involved in the action and accompanies the mission. Before he dies the doc gives him the unfinished letter for Widmark.

In the cave they capture officer who manages to take a knife and commits Hari-kari (Seppuku). He explains beforehand that their is no honour in being taken prisoner, in defeat and that the Japanese do things in reverse, wanting a good death the right death as part of their culture from birth. They also find a map and from the prisoners they believe that the rockets could be in one area where it appears there has been a train. However the area has already been closely bombed without success. The possession of Homeier they find a small map overlay he has taken from the man killed and this appears to show the location of the rocket launchers but the map is large and find the where the overlap fits is a time consuming task. They have also captured a dazed old man in the uniform of a private. Later they find that he is not just an officer but the designer of the rocket site who refuses to divulge the location information. However from what he says and the other officer about doing things in reverse, they work out that the Japanese have created an underground railway to the front of the range of hills not the rear as usual practice suggests. This did occur to me separately. The site is heavily bombed and demolished thus significant reducing the death and injury toll.

Others in the film include Robert Wagner where although claimed this was his debut performance he had already appeared in a film the year before for another film company and Richard Boone as the commanding officer, also his first film and who went on to play in many films and TV productions, and was also the cousin of singer Pat Boone. For me the best character is Reginald Johnston who plays a British speaking eccentric officer, who is in the interpreter, uses a cigarette holder and ad hoc uniform. I will leave the French Connection 2 and Thursday night’s film, The Secret of Santa Vittoria.

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