LEGEND

After writing about Ridley Scott's 'Legend' I decided to go back and read his take on making the film. In one of the book sales I used to haunt when I had money to spare, I picked up Paul M. Sammon's book "Ridley Scott, Close Up, The Making of his Movies".

Legend was the first film he made after Blade Runner (another favourite) and was originally to be named "Legend of Darkness". After an extremely bad test audience review, Scott was forced to cut 20 minutes from the film ruining its continuity and in Scott's words making it "a bloody disaster".

It was disappointing in theatres but was popular with home video viewers, generating numerous websites with one of the best FAQ site being http://www.figmentfly.com/legend/index.shtml

One of the features that I loved was the ever moving golden wisps through the forest which added to the fairy/dreamland quality. Scott did this by chopping up duck feathers, letting them float against the backlight of the sets.

The film also has, in Annabelle Lanyon, one of the fairest fairies ever put on screen. She makes Julia Roberts' Tinkerbelle in Hook look like an elephant with wings.

Scott's idea for the make-up for Tim Curry's 'Darkness' came from Walt Disney's Fantasia. The winged horned demon from the 'Night on Bald Mountain' segment. While I love that music now it was another childhood nightmare for me.

Variety reviewed the film in August, 1985, calling it a lavishly produced but thin scripted fantasy but not condemning it altogether. The review also praised Jerry Goldsmith's score which had been replaced in the American release with a "New Age" score by the German electronic group, Tangerine Dream. Goldsmith didn't speak to Scott after that. There is a Director's Cut on The Ultimate Edition DVD and Goldsmith's score is restored.

I can't remembered whether I have the European or American version so it's into the video library to hunt it out. Even with Tom Cruise in it, I love the film, in fact it's the only film with T.C. that I do like.

WHEN BUDGIES GO BAD

I know I risk the 'curse of the ghey boy' in bagging our Kylie but lordie will you look at that dress. I'm aware that she's called the singing budgie because of her size not because her knees look like they belong on a budgie. I swear those knees could bend backwards and she wouldn't fall off a perch. Bleeech on the hair and the awful shoes.

I'm chuffed she looks grotty. This tart is the size of the lard I still have to lose off my bod. So money, botox and a figure still doesn't make for good taste. Did I mention that I'm chuffed she looks grotty?

Thanks to 'Gofugyourself' for always finding the right wrong picture.

FAT LADY DOWN again

Stupid wind, bloody gumtrees throwing gumnuts all over the place. Stupid me for not seeing the gumnuts, being the same colour as the concrete. Stupid me for not expecting gumnuts when the tree is over the other side of the street and four houses up which is why I never cross there until I pass the tree.

True blogger that I am my first thought was wishing for a camera phone as the sight of a landing blimp must have been spectacular. At least it was fast, one foot on a nut and the law of gravity was proven again. I didn't fall flat on my face, that's next to impossible with the rack I'm blessed with but my nose was close enough to count the ants getting out of the way.

Total damage, two grazed palms, grazed leg, something ligamental on the other leg with something anklely. Dignity, intact, since no-one was around to see the fall or the getting up part.
That hurt. I would have rolled over to the grass but the neighbourhood mutts had done their bit for the environment so it was the hard pavement or nothing.

I must be getting better at this falling lark. I only snivelled a bit, didn't go into shock and hauled myself up in a trice. I checked the knees first, gave the right one a bit of a bash to put it back on it's track and that's the one that's giving me curry at the moment. Neck's out a bit come to think of it, left side.

Now the next imbecile that tells me that walking is good for weight loss is likely to get a good kick, low down, I don't high kick as well as I used to. I was in a hurry to catch the bus thanks to the Taxi Directorate that sent me a letter telling me to make alternate travel arrangements since I was nearly out of my allowance. More imbeciles, as if I would use all that money out of a pension if I hadn't needed to. I was going to sneak off to see 'Pirates' because of computer troubles and I thought a bit of fresh air and Johnny Depp might do me good. HA! HA! double HA! I kept going, I was closer to the bus stop than home and Westfield had a book sale.

Now for the computer trouble, ever since the last dial-up 5 hour download for updates from microsoft, I've been getting this message when I try to print from the Internet.

Internet Explorer Script Error
An error has occurred in the script on this page
Line 93
Char 1
Error Access is denied
Code 0
URL res://c:\WINDOWS\system 32\shdoclc.dll/preview.dlg
Do you want to continue running scripts on this page?
Yes No

I located the file and I can't open it becausing it's a running program or something. Anybody know who I email to get this right? The only good thing, I found the font file I've been trying to back up on CD. Is it from my printer or HP or Microsoft? Please help the computer illiterate.

THE CHILD WITHIN

I should have said children since I feel multiple personalities live within my mind at times. 30 years since StarWars and I still watch it when I feel a bit crook or I want to get close to the son that's gone, birthdays and such.

So yesterday I put on Layby two DVDs with 6 of my favourites twitty movies. Beetlejuice, The Goonies and Gremlins followed by LadyHawke, Willow and Legend. Tom Cruise hates Legend which is a good reason to like it in my book.

I already have these on tape but in my obsessive compulsive way, I want back-up. The tapes are wearing out, I have to stagger the viewing times. My StarWars is original without the arty-farty things George felt compelled to put in later, just because he could.

Forget the multiple personalities, I just have an escapist personality. It's no good taking me to see anything that resembles "real life", "gritty" or people interacting like real people. Booooring!
I want fairies, way out costumes, space ships, intergalactic romance and most of all, happy endings.

I sobbed when ET died, I sobbed when he lived, I'm still doing it. There's nothing like a really good bawl after a happy ending. There are some films that I don't have to see right through, usually the end will be enough to set off the sprinklers. The only films I won't see are animal ones. I'm still traumatised from "Old Yella" not to mention Tarka the splattered otter. Black Beauty will live in infamy and will I ever forget 'Gallant Bess' swimming frantically through the surf after the departing naval ships. I mean they lowered the door at the back and she clambered on board but not before my heart broke in two.

Forget realism, the world needs more fairies, magic wands and a few lightsabres.

IT WASN'T ME

That's right, it wasn't me splashed over the pages of the Herald Crum today.

I didn't get fined for running a brothel without a licence.

My hair isn't short and blonde and I don't wear sunglasses.

I'm smart enough to make it legal.

MORE ICE

These are three views of the same green iceberg near the Amery Ice Shelf. I blogged about the breakup of this ice shelf in January which is a reasonable month for looking at all things ice related but not now when my feet are freezing.

I love icebergs which is strange because I hate the cold but put an image of a berg anywhere near me and I'm hypnotised. There's just something about the sculptured shape of a very old berg that's been floating with the current for five or so years. It's lost the raw edge of newly calved ice and this green translucent colour is so rare.

Phosphophylite is a crystal from Bolivia and in the raw state is the only thing in nature that I've seen that comes close to these icebergs. In fact I've only ever seen one specimen of this gem which I bought for a friend who was into crystal healing. I can still remember seeing it in the shop, pardon me while I wax poetic, but it truly did sing to me like a siren sitting on top of one of these bergs. It wasn't smooth, it was sharp, spiky and only in the very centre did the colour concentrate into this wonderful pale green.

GREEN ICE

Lovely object isn't it? It's a green coloured iceberg and very rarely seen. Scientists haven't been able to agree on what gives the ice its green tinge. It's been attributed to layers of very fine sediment particles or optical effects but since a green iceberg stands out among white and blue icebergs under a variety of light conditions, the optical illusion theory hasn't stood up.

Green icebergs become visible after "normal" looking icebergs have capsized, displaying the layer of marine ice underneath. Marine ice forms the floating ice shelves the underneath of which is a nursery for algae which is another theory for the green colour.

Another polar mystery which might be solved given the increased disintegration of the ice shelves due to the warming of the Arctic and Antarctic oceans.

BIRDS DO IT

Bees do it.

Even lesbians and gays do it.

Mikhela and Lovergirl from Badbandicoot.blogspot are eight weeks pregnant with twins.

Kelly and Sam Pilgrim-Byrne from TheMuriels. blogspot have reached their half way 20 weeks with their baby girl.

Talk about love in bloom.

THE SECRET

Apparently I'm fat because I'm thinking fat thoughts.

Oh righty oh!

I should be thinking better thoughts.

Thinking..........

That's better.

Anybody wanting a job in this Madam's high class establishment catering to middle-aged ladies and their needs, please apply to the blog. Must have good teeth, bathe in rose water and ability to keep a straight face is essential.

Damn, there goes my secret.

A LITTLE LIGHT

I have a wooden faux copper two light fitting in the study. One globe shines on the computer and the other on the desk until it fritzed last week. Up the ladder again and screw in light bulb which isn't screwing because the screw fitting is disintegrating as I screw. Damn. Drag the ladder round to the other half of the fitting and try to get it to shine down. That worked, for now.

Sitting on the throne last night and contemplating the expansion of the universe when the light above me went boom. Fortunately the globe is enclosed in the glass fitting. Bad luck that I can't get up the ladder to unscrew the fitting while holding a new globe and the glass.

Yesterday the leg on my favourite made to measure for my backside chair, splintered and the wheel fell off. It's now slightly off-side propped up by two books. When it stops raining I'll go out and fetch four bricks to use and take the rest of the wheels off.

The only light today was my weigh-in, 132 kgs, on the knocker. To celebrate I think I'll go and visit some food blogs.

DID YOU KNOW...........

No, I didn't know anything about this snippet of history and the last thing I would have thought about was teeth in the Army. I mean teeth in the old days were pretty chronic in everybody but who'd have thought that a good set was part of a soldier's equipment. Grenadiers had to have front teeth to bite open the fuse of the grenade before lighting it. Another snippet, I never associated grenades with Grenadiers. The Musketeers needed front teeth to pull the wooden caps off the powder cartridges before pouring the charge into their muskets. (don't read literature, I thought Musketeers had swords) When the times and weapons changed, muskets to rifles, front teeth dropped off the priority list at the same time as sugar consumption went up and dental health, such as it was, went down.

It came to the crunch (ooer, sorry) during the Boer War when soldiers' teeth had to face ration biscuits and tough beef. The British Army lost 8000 men in battle but more than 2000 were evacuated and 5000 were found unfit for fighting because of dental problems. Soldiers with bad teeth or none couldn't eat, starving soldiers can't fight or have enough stamina to recover from typhoid fever or dysentery.

Frederick Newland Pedley was a specialist in repairing jaws and a founder of the Dental School at Guy's Hospital. When he heard about the head injuries and shattered jaws suffered by the soldiers in South Africa, he offered his services. Always the bastion of wisdom, the War Office wouldn't pay him but let him go on the condition that he supplied all his own equipment and made his own transport arrangements.

His first surgery was a tent and he was overwhelmed by soldiers with dental problems. It was so bad that a Cheshire Regiment had to order mincing machines when it was found that hardly a man had a molar left to eat their meat ration. After 6 months, Pedley returned to England and started campaigning for an Army Dental Corps. The Army's reply was to send four dentists.

At the start of the First World War, no dentists went to France with the B.E.F. Pedley, once again, went on his own and reported that the troops' teeth were worse than ever. It took a tooth ache in the Commander-in-Chief's mouth to get things moving. Douglas Haig's staff was forced to send to Paris for a dentist. So the Army hired a dozen dentists and in 1918 it had 831 but it wasn't until 1921 that it created the Dental Corps.

http://www.bda.org/museum is an interesting site for the history of dentistry.

RELATIONSHIPS REGISTER

Back on April 27th I blogged about this gay couple and their little boy, Ethan. Jeff Chiang and Rodney Cruise are signing the Relationships Register of the City of Yarra and baby Ethan still looks beautiful with them.

MEME NUMBER 87

Thank you Sam, the Evil Queerpenguin of Doom, the lobber of memes on unsuspecting meme addicts.
I have to give up eight random things about me so I'd best start at the beginning.

1. Most kids have imaginery friends. I had an imaginery 2 storey Italianate mansion in Toorak, a racing horse stud farm and two imaginery twin brothers. Always the overachiever.

2. The only car I remember from childhood is a police car. My Dad used to sit me on the gate post as a lookout while he ran the SP business in the lounge room. He got caught once and decided to tell the truth, the Judge said he was an unmitigated liar. Lawyers!!!

3. Contrary to popular opinion, a man's eyes are the first thing I look at although I've been known to 'fly' south after that.

4. I don't have a belly button. If I get pissed I can't tell if I'm coming or going but I have a birthmark so I know which way is up.

5. I have a phobia about naked men. Ha Ha, you all cry as you count up the numerous pics of nekkid blokes I've posted over the years. It's therapy, honest. I've got them all over the fridge door so I have to face my fear to get to the food. It's therapy, true dinks. This phobia makes me laugh hysterically at naked men, you're all so funny looking in skin suits. This gets me in no end of strife, men are so touchy about laughter aren't they?

6. I hate listening to music with anyone else in the room. The music is mine. I don't want to share the moment. I don't want to hear anyone else breathing through it. I want to destroy Bo Derek for ruining 'Bolero'. I've been trying to memorise Ravel's adagio from his Piano Concerto in G major for a whole year and it still eludes me.

7. I have a very placid exterior which hides a Krakatoa sized temper. I could never fire a gun but I can use words to poison, maim and kill but I try not to. Krakatoa blew itself apart, remember.

8. In reference to 7, never tell me that AIDS came from god to punish gays. Never tell me that same sex marriage is sinful. Never tell me that gays can't love, it's all about sex. Never tell me that gays and lesbians can never be good parents or don't deserve to have children. Never tell me your particular religion told you so.

There are a whole lot of rules and stuff that goes with this meme but the penguin didn't post them so I'm not. I'm supposed to name 8 bloggers, way to get beaten up at the next grogblog. But if your shrink is costing too much or soaking up the sun in Bermuda, feel free to unburden yourself to blogger, we will keep your secrets. Well, we'll keep your name secret but blog about everything you say.

I DONATE MY FAT TO.......

Thanks to TigTog at 'Hoyden about Town' blogspot for all the good links and especially this one
http://www.shakesville.com/2007/05/the_politics_versus_the_scienc.php (yes yes yes, one of these days I'll remember how to hide the damn address). I've been saying these same things for years and it appears I'm not alone.

I agreed with a lot of the commenters especially the ones who were told they were fat in their teens but on looking at those photos now have decided that they weren't fat at all. I did that myself and I was amply covered but not fat. Actually I was straight up and down but out in front. I have never had a waist and I want sainthood for the person who invented the 'princess line'.

I still think Australians have a more balanced diet than Americans and our portion sizes are better. This is on hearsay from friends who've been to America and couldn't believe what was put on their plates. I suppose you're as sick of hearing about my blubber as I am in trying to lose it but it's back on the diet horse tomorrow and try, try, again.

I've finally managed an email link but any diet tips will be totally ignored.

HAPPY ME DAY

In my alternative Universe where I am the Goddess of Agelessness, Beauty and Intelligence, this sweet thing has been bringing me breakfast in bed for the past week but tomorrow he'll bring me cake. I'm not fickle, I won't replace him for at least another week.

I FORGOT ONE

This is the floor of the Parliament House Vestibule which leads to the Queen's Hall. The work and the colours are stunning. You can buy a jigsaw puzzle of this at the gift shop.

Seeing this fabulous building has made me aware of how little I've seen in Melbourne in the last twenty years. The so-called 'Head of the House' was never interested in taking the boys anywhere like this. If he went anywhere it was for himself, the centre of the Universe. I sound a bit bitter and I am. Too many wasted years that I'll never get back. Sentimentality is over-rated, I should have walked away looking forward like he did.

This mood too will pass. I've been going through my Mother's things again because I refuse to do it later. All her things are mentally packed and labelled and it will take me 24 hours to clear the house. I'm doing the memories and crying stuff now because later on I'll be moving fast, the bonded servant will crunch the shackles and you won't see me for dust.

FIVE DAYS DOWN

Monday: all day Mummy day, packing, unpacking, stressing and pain in head.

Tuesday: meltdown which needed painkillers for killer pain in neck, shoulders and spine due to stress and several phone calls from Mummy. I should have put my phone number at the bottom of the call list which I would do if there was going to be another respite care which there is not as she is never again leaving her home except feet first. (her words)

Wednesday: Up, up and away to Mummy's house to let the council housekeeper in otherwise the council gets shitty and thinks we don't need help. She madly cleans without the usual instructions from the bedroom and I, once more unto the breach, throw out junk from the sewing room. This is the third time I've done this but before I always thought she would go back to some sort of craft work but she finds it impossible to thread any but the largest needle and then finds she can't move her left hand to do any embroidery. All the laces are put away in dust free bags and stacked on the shelves where she can look at them and that's it for now.

Thursday: Today is good. I get to meet Brownie and Lord Sedgwick at Parliament House for lunch in the dining room. Somebody should have taken a photo of my face as I realized that I would have to climb all those damn stairs from Spring Street which was a hell of a lot easier than climbing down later. Security was lax, they let us through. Lunch was nice and we kept Parliamentary hours, three hours before we decided we'd had enough. The wine chosen by His Lordship was an excellent red and thankfully it was the waitress who slopped it on the snowy whiteness of the starched tablecloth. I was wearing a red dress which disguised the raspberry coulis which I slopped down me. I can't believe I missed my mouth and the coulis was delicious.

This is where we lingered longer. The Queen's Hall where the portraits of the Premiers are displayed. I love this Hall, it's big and I look small in it. Ballarat gold glitters on the ceiling and I wanted to take home the light fixture.

We also had a snoop in the library. I wanted this light as well, in fact I wanted the whole room carted off to my place and tacked on the back. The Brownie and Lord Sedgwick checked out the books while I gave a thumbs up to the Ladies Powder Room.

I've lived in Melbourne all my life and have never been inside Parliament House and probably won't again. The view from the top of the steps, looking down Bourke St. was fantastic until I started to move. The knees protested, I sidestepped to the handrail and clung on for dear life.

Thank you to the guys sitting at the bottom who would have broken my fall. It took me another two hours to get home because I had to stop and shop for the cat.

Friday: Shopping because I didn't do it yesterday. The ingrate that I fed expensive food to last night had regurgitated it the entire length of the hall. No wonder he wasn't snivelling for breakfast at 7 o'clock. There will be no weigh-in tomorrow. I couldn't walk that far to be shown the bad news on a large digital scale.

My shoulders are loosening up at last. The tension is decreasing. I've become aware of just how much of my life is taken up with my Mother. Today should have been about wandering around for me but I kept thinking, "did she need this or need that?" until I mentally slapped myself and spent the grocery money on beads and baubles. So all is well, no I've found a leaking filling in my back tooth so it's a visit to the dentist but not until after next week of freedom.

IN LOCKDOWN

I left home again before nine and got home near to two. It has taken a bottle of coca-cola, a large rocky road block, 1 oazapam, 2 painkillers and an ice pack to unlock the muscle spasms, stiff neck and rigid upper body. My mother is safely in respite care for two lovely weeks. For the past week I have been labelling clothes, marking hostel forms, collecting medication, organizing doctor's visit and trying to keep her on a even keel.

It took twenty minutes to get her into the front of the car and pack everything bar the kitchen sink in the back. I had lists on the back of the front door, the bathroom door, the phone and the back of my hand. The stress came from trying to keep everything low key so she wouldn't have a panic attack at the thought of leaving home even though I made sure the coming home date was on every calendar in the house.

I am not angry about having to do this. I don't have the right word to put in place of angry but I shouldn't have had to cajole then threaten to leave her until she went to respite to give all of us, (all of us is a joke, we are three) a break. Okay so she's not rational enough to really make this decision but then she was rational enough to refuse to go whenever it was suggested.

Children should not expect a parent to support them beyond a certain age and Parents should not expect children to be their support beyond their capabilities. I have read many times that single women without children have been asked "Who will look after you when you're old?" If you have children for that reason, you're not thinking far enough ahead. You don't have children to be slaves to age. You give them life, education, the skill to succeed in whatever they choose and you watch them grow into (hopefully) great human beings. You do not give them a balance sheet with what you did for them from the day they were born and on the other side, what you expect them to do for you in return.

We three, have looked after Mum because we wanted to but it has given us a dread of having to ask for help of any kind from anybody. That's not to say we won't turn round and help somebody who needs it, we've just made a pact that we won't ask for help for ourselves. Hopefully I'll make 100 and be independant but if I feel I'm not going to make it, then it's into a hostel with a nursing home attached and the decision made rationally by me.

DOOM HOUSE

Count Crapula and the Bimbo bride of bleachness have bought a house.

Why he didn't think I'd immediately google earth the address then look for the Estate agent?

I did just that because I wanted to see if his taste had improved in anything. Nup.

It has hectares of white square tiles. This is hilarious.

The man turned dragging dirt into this house into an art form and I have cork tiles, earth coloured.

There are white tiles in the bathroom and a huge mirror. Good luck La Bimbo with getting the shaving cream off that.

Shabby chic as the witch's haven is, it's still a home not a McMansion.

SECRET MEN'S BUSINESS

I have New Scientist delivered every week by email and this bold headline caught my eye

"Erectile dysfunction probed with engineering tool"

*sniggers*

The article was very informative.

It took an aerospace researcher to apply the principles of structural engineering to find the scoop on droop.

After I read it I was very sympathetic.

Bwahahahhahahaha.


It's too good not to read http://www.newscientist.com/channel/sex/dn11770?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=dn11770

FAT WOMEN CAN'T JUMP

I'm not kidding, I can't jump. I've been putting more photographs in the one cupboard over at Mum's trying to keep them all together and at the same time getting her to give me dates for the early ones. I came across my sister's ribbons for high jumping and I remembered how brilliant she was at sport.

Sport was not my forte. Telling lies to get out of doing sport was my real talent. I was made to play hockey and it didn't take me long to work out if I played way on the boundary, all I had to do was run (not very fast) and look as though I was in the game. No way was I going anywhere near hard and fast balls being shot at me with hard wooden sticks.

I played cricket but since it was a "Gel's school", we bowled underarm. I couldn't do that after playing street cricket for years and developing a fast overarm. I couldn't bat, I never saw a ball coming at me until teachers and parents discovered I couldn't see anything and I got glasses. After that I could see every ball and I wasn't standing there waiting for another hard fast ball to wipe me out.

Basket ball involved running and getting elbowed by grotty little sheilas out for revenge. A basket ball, while not all that fast, is damned hard when it hits the back of the head. Athletic afternoons were a nightmare. PE was torture on a Gitmo scale and not helped by having Olympic champions teaching us.

So to the jumping. PE was about vaulting on to a springboard to land on a vaulting horse to forward roll into jumping off. I couldn't jump high enough to make the springboard spring. I couldn't jump onto the vaulting horse and I couldn't jump off it. The one time I did manage it, the teacher pushed me into a forward roll before I was ready and I fell off the horse. The bitch almost broke my neck and that finished me forever. That woman also left me on the ground when I fell from the uneven bars and landed flat on my back on a hard floor. It was the first and last time I was winded and I thought I was dying. I wonder how many school girls can trace their spinal disintegration from sports days and dragging home a tonne weight of books before back packs.

Back to the subject of my not jumping. Athletics, running for the unco-ordinated involves falling over, running and jumping over hurdles involves terror and pain. Even when the teacher up-ended the hurdles so they were only a foot off the ground, I still remained earthbound. Why she just didn't give up then and leave me to count the bruises I can only put down to her being a sadistic skinny bitch who hated slightly fat school girls. She made me attempt the high jump. If I could have left the ground to the jumping height, I would have stayed in the air because the landing was on a thin mat not those lovely big air bag things they have now but a very thin mat. Not that it mattered, the Intelligent Designer had left out the springs in my feet. I couldn't even jump or dive into the pool for swimming but I put that down to my past life experience of trying to get off the Titanic.

I developed some good strategies in the war against sport. The first one was not to put my name down for any of the school houses. I turned up for the one I was assigned to but it took them a whole year to work out that my name didn't appear, nor did I on the annual sports day.
I used my over active imagination to invent a range of excuses so famous that I was named in the school year book. When I was forced to take up a sport, I chose the Javelin. It was a match made in Heaven. I didn't have to run fast. I didn't have to interact with team mates. I threw so erratically everyone else didn't want to interact with me.

My sister, on the other hand, was a natural. She practically sailed through the air on invisible wings. She could jump her own height from a standing start. She could run like the wind and jump hurdles as though they were twigs. She won ribbons. She threw herself around the gymnastic equipment without fear. Later in life, one of her party tricks when horrible pissed was to do back flips without throwing up. She had conquered gravity, I had concrete feet. I still hate sport and I still can't jump.

HOW CAN I DIET?

I mean to say, honestly, the thin world is against me. I get out of bed with resolve in place to keep the cravings at bay and Taste.com lands this in my Inbox.

Amaretto cheesecake with chocolate melts and thankful for small mercies, no dollop of King Island Cream beside it, it's inside it but what's another truckload of calories so let's go with the King Island whacked over the top with the chocolate.

I love Amaretto, in cakes, in ice-cream and in my coffee. I loved the little reminder in the 'Notes and tips' - Amaretto is from bottle shops. Another tip, Amaretto is from friends who are going overseas and can get to a duty free shop. It took me a year to down the last huge bottle from travelling persons.

I can't give up Taste.com, they have terrific diet recipes and tips. I zip through those on my way to the good stuff.

I NEED REMINDING

This is the dress I made from the valance on my bed. It didn't look too shabby and I was very inventive by using the ruffle for the bottom. Even though it's gathered on to a yoke, it still almost completely covers the bedroom door. Reason No. one for reducing the body mass index. That reminds me, why is it that every woman I read about that's lost a huge amount of flab wants to rush out and fit into a pair of jeans? I lose enough and I want Chanel.

Which brings me to my lovely striped black chiffon, slightly less coverage of the bedroom door but tight across the broad beam of a broom vrooming witch.

It has a floating lace panel down the front which I've hand beaded. I even fluted the sleeves with nylon thread for the first and last time, it being a tedious rotten job which causes bad language.

The will power isn't going so well. My fault because I'm blogging from the Greek Islands where I am having a wonderful time on the stolen proceeds of my mother's pension account.

Is it an offence to araldyte a person's false teeth together?