PayPal credit card facility available now!

Just read the messages on the packets children..

Mike's Pith & Wind - Ballet good
I haven’t actually seen a lot of dance over the years – that is dance of the ballet type –although I remember being mightily impressed as a young chap with the dance scenes from the movie Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and, now that I think of it, from the movie of West Side Story as well. I wasn’t forcibly dragged along to ballet as a child, but the odd bits of classical ballet I’ve subsequently been exposed to on TV invariably have left me cold. What is the fascination with ballet? I wondered.
Recently, however, my position has changed and I’m now prepared to concede that some ballet at least can be not only engaging but spiritually moving and, well, actually artistic.
My first epiphany came when the Stvdio channel on Foxtel brought a short ballet called Le Jeune Homme et la Mort (The Young Man and Death) by Roland Petit into my loungeroom and I found it a revelation. There are a few versions available on YouTube, but perhaps because I saw the version with Marie-Agnès Gillot and Nicolas Le Riche first I still prefer it to the others, even to the Nureyev version. For the ballet uninitiated its brevity (less than 15 minutes) is an advantage of course, but I’d challenge you once you’ve watched it for the first time not to be drawn to watch it again. Everything about it is utterly compelling; the music, a pared down version of Bach’s Passacaglia in C Minor is claustrophobically mesmerising, Petit’s choreography tells a story that seems more emblematic of the human.. read more

You wanna learn guitar or buy a classic piece of equipment? Check the classifieds

Dick's Toolbox - Random thoughts..
I was perched in the Fairfield Boathouse thoughtfully munching some French Fries and looking down onto the turbid waters of the Yarra River. I had cycled from home with my wife on her new mountain bike whilst I rode her very old mountain bike that was a tad uncomfortable given that she is considerably shorter than I. The bike might be described as petite and the experience like riding through treacle. To be more exact, perched on a sharp 2H pencil whilst riding through treacle. The Fairfield Boathouse is what is described as a family friendly restaurant, meaning that there are a lot of children whose future holds some form of obesity to go with the Attention Deficit Disorder they already have.
Being a boathouse there were boats being hired to people to whom, in some cases, the concept and practise of rowing was a mystery. I was particularly taken with the determined eccentricity.. read more