.. companions for a number of years, but it wasn’t till I got to the UK in the early ‘70s that I realised we were being short-changed in Australia – the range of chocolate bars was prodigious and Bounty bars and Amazin’ Raisin bars quickly became part of my daily diet round about the time we were recording the Rock & Roll Scars album at Abbey Rd..
I still quite like a chocolate honeycomb bar every now and then, but when I was a chorister coming back home on the bus after choir practice I used to stop off at the local milk bar and get a small paper bag of pure honeycomb (or hokey pokey as it’s known in New Zealand) and eat it till my mouth was raw. Eating a couple of tubes of Fizzy Fruits (Fruit Tingles here) consecutively had much the same effect and I was hooked on them too.
Dick and I were huge fans of Mackintosh’s toffees, although neither of us was particularly fond of the Harrogates - my favourites were the malt flavoured ones in the blue wrapper. I was partial to malt from an early age, probably because when I was young I was prone to bronchitis and my mum used to feed me Maltexo with added cod liver oil to build me up. I had another flirtation with malt in the ‘90s and found I still loved it.
Caramel was another essential taste thrill. There was a dangerously hard chocolate caramel bar I could buy at the Christ’s tuck bar that brightened up my day. I still have a soft spot for caramel (and butterscotch) and as a consequence sticky date pudding has been a favourite dessert for years, but its position maybe under threat with my recently imposed date boycott.
Coffee addiction came late for me. The coffee culture in Christchurch in the early ‘60s was in its infancy and, although the Stagedoor was pretty hip for the times in offering plunger coffee, I didn’t really enjoy it – it tasted to me as though somebody had left a cigarette butt in it, which, knowing the Stagedoor, somebody quite possibly had.
It was only a decade or so back that I started to cultivate a taste for real coffee and plot the daily search for the perfect espresso. I learned quite quickly that it’s a frustrating preoccupation. What’s perfect one day is perplexingly rubbish the next, even with the precautions of establishing it was the same barista and the machine was clean etc. As a consequence it wasn’t that difficult to give it up entirely when my heart started fibrillating wildly after just one indifferent short macchiato. I have returned like a chastened child to the safe and dependable bosom that produces only the ambrosia of tea.

I flicked over channels on Foxtel the other night and noticed that Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey was on again. I dipped into it briefly, just long enough to be reminded what a piece of work it was – and still is. I’ve mused on this before I think, so I won’t pursue it too much further, but while 2001 was regarded by some critics at the time as some sort of psychedelic hippy-fest, to me it’s a stunning evocation of what it must be actually like in space that’s never been equalled since – like NASA’s actual landing on the moon, even though we have the technology, we (well, we in the West anyway) no longer have the will to repeat it. If you’ve never seen them, Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon is just as technically ground-breaking, (although the choice of Ryan O'Neal to play the lead role is still surprising) and for different reasons you must see Dr Strangelove, if only despite the fact it’s Peter Sellers’ best comedic performance (by three), the movie - and the director - remain the stars
I’ve hinted at that I’ve been catching up with a few ‘sexy’ movies lately. To my surprise I recently discovered that I’d inadvertently had the parental lock on and so suddenly found there was a whole new x-rated menu available to me. The 1976 Japanese movie, In the Realm of the Senses, directed by Nagisa Oshima has been around for a long time but I believe it was initially banned for public consumption here in Australia. It must’ve been on at the film festivals though – Dick remembers seeing it on such an occasion decades ago.*
Anyway, I saw it on Foxtel and thought it very sensitively made and quite charming, if a little bizarre. It’s based on a celebrated real life case of a couple’s sexual obsession documented back in the early ‘30s.
Draw from this what you like, but one of the redemptive details from my perspective was that the bloke’s penis size was kind of average to small. One can speculate of course, but I don’t believe that it was an issue at the time.
I contrast this frank and worthy approach to David Winterbottom’s 2004 9 Songs, which I also saw recently. Well, to be honest, I haven’t managed to see the whole film although I’ve tried a couple of times. The concert footage of the 'nine songs' that’s interpolated between the sex scenes is amateurish and frankly worthless, even if you happened to be a fan, or maybe especially if you happened to be a fan of any of the featured bands. The sex scenes are explicit (and real) and the actor playing the climatologist (!) is hung like a donkey. I want to know if there was there a dick call.
There wasn’t any observable sexual (or otherwise) frisson between the two protagonists, adding to the clinically pornographic feel. I suppose acting can only go so far, but it seems to me that 9 Songs was simply an exercise in sensationalism which reflects the empty currency of the times. It’s shite in other words. I can’t believe Mr Winterbottom is taken seriously. To me he’ll always be just a cold, stern man..†

* Dick remembers some wag screaming during the penis-severing scene
† With thanks to Stephen Leacock - I've been patiently awaiting the opportunity..

These are a few of my favourite things..