Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton (pic courtesy ABC)

Mike's Pith & Wind - Fractured flickers
Perhaps I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m becoming increasingly sceptical of David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz’s critiques on the ABC’s At The Movies show. It was on David Stratton’s recommendation that Dick and I decided to vary our Gentleman Bro’s night watching Mike’s accumulated Foxtel selections and meet early-ish at Cinema Nova to see Takeshi Miike’s 13 Assassins. Dick’s quite a bit more the student of Japanese film-makers than I, (although I do have the DVD of Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai) and he was fairly jumping off his bicycle seat to see it.
Before the movie I‘d elected to drop off some EPs at Audiophile in North Fitzroy and enjoy a late lunch with Suzanne from The Basement Discs, which pleasant diversion we’d been promising each other for the past couple of years. Public transport is not such a convenient option from Mt Waverley and since I’ve been successively stung $62.00 and $51.00 for the pleasure of parking a few meager hours in the CBD (not to mention a $62.00 parking fine from my arvo at the Melbourne Zoo), I determined to park at The Casino car park (for no more than $12.00) and incorporate a little healthy walking before and after lunch. Thus pacts with the devil are justified in the name of frugalness and a superficial concern for one’s well-being.
The walk from the Casino to the Block Arcade took a little more out of me than I was expecting and I arrived at The Basement Discs a little short of breath and damp with sweat, even though it was quite chilly.. read more

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Dick's Toolbox - Dress standards
For almost ten years, starting from when I was scarcely higher than a dining room table, my brother and I would be sent as unaccompanied minors from Christchurch to Auckland to stay with our grandparents with the ostensible purpose of seeing our father. We flew by National Airways Corporation Douglas DC-3, a plane noted for both slowness, lack of pressurisation and noise. We set off in our school uniforms with little name tags and the solicitous attention of the air hostess, whom we always adored. The memorable thing about the aircraft is that, because it had a main undercarriage and a tail wheel the cabin ascended at an angle of about thirty degrees, you literally climbed to and into your seat. The pilot then set off vaguely down the runway, which he could scarcely see because the nose of the plane partially obscured any forward view.
Mike insists that the pilot would announce “We will now attempt to land at Auckland.. read more