Mr DeMille, I'm ready for my close up

Dipping into the Family 8mm Film Archive again for some swimming related hilarity to celebrate my rekindled love of swimming.

By the time I came along in the early 1970s, Dad's enthusiasm for recording our lives on 8mm film had dwindled. I can hardly blame him - he now had 4 children and precious little time for such nonsense. The movie camera was retired to the back of the cupboard and life proceeded apace.

The upshot was that there was no footage of me and as a typical youngest child, I registered my displeasure at this grave injustice loudly and often. Eventually, I wore my parents down and a suitable opportunity presented itself in which I could be captured in celluloid glory - our cousins were visiting and I had mastered (in my mind) freestyle. We were off for a day at the pool!

I remember this day so clearly - the smell of chlorine and hot chips with vinegar, the sound of the water sloshing into the overflow drain as I held onto the side of the pool, spluttering after swallowing an unseemly amount of water, the baking feeling of lying on hot concrete with wet togs on; and the squirming as mum caked our faces in the dreaded zinc cream.


While Dad was on camera duty, it seems that Uncle Brian was on 'pulling my eldest sister, S, out of the pool on demand' duty. Everyone is playing true to character - all the mannerisms are there - S is still a good diver, my elder sister, B, is still a comedian, my brother, C, still has that fabulous smile, although not quite so much hair, and I still sit like that from time to time and grin like an idiot.




It is now clear to me why I could never swim in a straight line - I seem to be unaware that I have a right arm - it just kind of flails around not contributing to forward motion at all. I'm pleased to report that my style has improved over the years.

The displacement of water

It appears I have been using cheese as a replacement for cigarettes for the last 2 years. In retrospect, not such a cunning plan.

So, it is back to the pool for me. My motto for 2011 is "fight inertia" because I often find the hardest thing is to get started. This project is no exception. What I've been calling research and planning - which pool, should I buy a season pass/multi-pass/single-pass, flippers/no flippers, is actually inertia. Really, it isn't hard to squeeze into a pair of togs and get to the pool.

So, no more research and planning:

• Swimmers (uncomfortably tight) - check

• Goggles - check

• Swimming cap - check

• Swimming companions - check and check

After a modicum of pubic topiary, I'm all set to test Archimedes' principle.

I can't wait for that after swim buzz.

42 lines

After living in this fair city for over three years, it is a little embarrassing to admit that Saturday 8th January, 2011, was my first visit to the Gutenberg Museum. Visitors have such a lovely way of encouraging one to get out and about.

I had visited the print workshop for a language school excursion last year and had thoroughly enjoyed inking, rolling, rubbing, type-setting and pulling levers to transfer designs and words onto paper (see some of my handiwork below).




The museum is quite impressive - there were demonstrations of a Gutenberg-style press and an old school newspaper cylinder press, exhibits on books from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, printing presses throughout the ages and sections on paper making and book binding. The jewels, of course, are two copies of the Gutenberg Bible, (one complete copy and one old testament - vol. 1). These 42 line wonders of the 13th Century are quite beautiful works of art as well as a stunning technological advance.

So, thank you Herr Gensfleisch, I can't imagine a world without the printed word.

Zombie Blog

In a reckless and ill-considered act of necromancy (and let's face it, it rarely ends well), I've decided to dust off this blog and attempt to write something this year. Zombies are so 2010, aren't they? I wonder what will replace them in the zeitgeist of internetland in 2011?



Care to place a wager?

I've got an each way bet on something involving Kanye West's twitter feed, a small Marmoset and a controversial Disney remake of The Battleship Potemkin.

Family Treasures

I went home for 6 weeks last year. People, I can't tell you how necessary that was.

Ostensibly, the trip home was so I could attend the Big Kahuna's 80th birthday, but a lovely side effect was that I found my sense of humour.

Thanks to my sister's excellent organisational skills, the family 8mm movie and 35mm slide archives were digitised to mark the occasion. My Dad was a prolific, if not overly skilled, practitioner of the moving image and photographic arts.

I present a snippet for your viewing pleasure.



Happy 2011.