#Australia trekking tours

[australiatrekkingtours]

Discover Wild Beauty: An Overview of Australia Trekking Tours

Australia trekking tours have some of the most beautiful hiking routes in the world, ranging from Rocky Mountains and thick rainforests to wide deserts and cliffs along the coast. Australia's trekking trips offer the ideal chance to get lost in nature, discover secluded landscapes, and take in the rich indigenous culture of the island nation, regardless of your level of hiking expertise.

Trekking Kokoda: Overcome Papua New Guinea's Legendary Trail

The Kokoda trekking is one of the most famous and difficult hiking routes in the world. This difficult 96-kilometer track provides hikers with a trip through history, culture, and personal growth in addition to a physical challenge as it winds past rural settlements, high mountain ranges, and lush jungles.

The Kokoda Track, which was first used as a military path during World War II, has come to represent bravery, tenacity, and the unwavering spirit of those who have traversed it. Numerous hiking excursions include historical commentary that narrates the experiences of the warriors who battled here, their struggles, and their eventual triumphs. Many people experience the emotional depth of the walk when they learn of the bravery and sacrifices made by these men while hiking across the difficult terrain.

A Journey Through the Wonders of Australia Is Awaiting

Trekking vacations in Australia are among the most varied and breathtaking in the world. Australia has a variety of trekking experiences to suit all skill levels, whether you're exploring the untamed wilderness of Tasmania, the red deserts of the Northern Territory, or the verdant rainforests of Queensland.

Trekking paths in Australia provide a once-in-a-lifetime experience, complete with diverse animals, stunning natural beauties, and cultural immersion in sacred Indigenous areas. Australia awaits you; gather your belongings, put on your boots, and get ready to visit one of the world's most distinctive and stunning nations.

The dry season, which runs from April to October, is the ideal time of year to hike the Kokoda Track. Because of the colder temperatures and decreased likelihood of intense rain, the track may become less slick and simpler to traverse. The walk may become more difficult and dangerous during the rainy season, which runs from November to March and brings increased humidity and more frequent showers.

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[nando161mando]

[spawksstuff]

Star Trek TMP Australia Promotion Tour Part 2/3

12 Dec 1979 The Sydney Morning Herald

15 Dec 1979 The Sun

[kulchurstudio]

िकसवी सदी ये रंडी की lor e k असली म���ती।

not qualified medical opinions

sarcasm

[himalayantrekkingpathpltd-blog]

Annapurna Circuit Trek Nepal is the Top choice Trek for 2024/2025

[overtake]

I'm really obsessed with your hockey AU and I was thinking if (when) they win the Cup, how do they celebrate their day with the Cup? I mean, if they're still having their relationship in private, they celebrate separately? I was thinking of them choosing correlated days so they could be at the other's celebration easily but I would like to know what do you think about it ♥️

I'm so grateful you're obsessed with it because I cannot get leafs maxiel out of my head. I actually talked about this some with @danifesting before and have many thoughts, so this is going under a read more

The day of the win

When they actually win, Max obviously passes the Cup to Daniel. However, Daniel is very caught up in the emotions and how beautiful Max looked with tears in his pretty eyes after he passed Daniel the Cup and used their raised arms to block his mouth when he said, "I love you" and Daniel said, "I love you too, I'm so proud of you." He does his lap with the Cup and then comes around and gives it right back to Max, who is temporarily very confused but does another lap, and then thinks about how beautiful and right Daniel looked lifting the Cup and gives it right back to Daniel.

This continues for another round before GP intervenes and says "guys, the rest of the team also exists." Max and Daniel aren't even sorry. They're too busy hugging each other and crying.

They get so many photos together and with their families all as one massive group, and people are side-eyeing them.

Max's Cup Day

They do separate days with the Cup. Max brings his to Belgium because he's learning how to belong back in the place he didn't get to be raised. He pays to have a bunch of nearby children's teams meet him and see the Cup and play one big, giant match together, and he announces surprise guest Daniel Ricciardo as the other team's captain. Also, the cats obviously made the journey to be in Belgium and they get put inside the Cup. They are NOT happy about it, but they do look adorable curled up inside there.

Daniel's Cup Day

Daniel brings the Cup to Australia. Hockey isn't big there and they had to make such a journey to get there that when Daniel politely requests two days with the Cup (one to try and grow the game in Australia, another for himself and his family), the keepers of the Cup and league agree.

On day one, way more people than Daniel thinks show up to see the Cup and meet him. People have flown across the country to see him and it, and he realizes all the good he could do for Australian hockey and spur of the moment decides he's going to build a new ice rink in Perth (of course, Max decides to invest too because "think of all the little Daniels the league could have!").

On day two, the camera crew treks out to the farm and shows up expecting to see Daniel's friends and family. They get the shock of their lives when Max opens the front door like he owns the place and invites them inside. Daniel has a party that night for all his loved ones and it's warm and lovely and happy and the camera crew/keepers of the Cup join in on the party like they've known everybody here their whole lives. But during the day, Max and Daniel take the crew on a tour of the farm ... they do dirt bike jumps over the Cup and give the poor keepers a fucking heart attack.

But there's also the night in between, where Max and Daniel get the full night alone with the Cup. They've made a million jokes to each other about what sex acts they're going to do when they get it. But then it's actually in bed with them and they realize the enormity of this thing they've done together. They just hold hands and cry a little and tell each other how proud they are, share stories of all the hard times and all their worst, cruellest thoughts they had toward teammates during playoff losses. They hold nothing back. It's this shared understanding of how much this means to them, and how much more it means that they got to win it together, and there's no embarrassment or judgment or shame, just a new kind of intimacy.

This is also when Daniel tells Max that he's only doing one more season because hockey is so hard on his body, his ankle is acting up, and he wants to be happy and healthy for their future kids. That he's going to stay in Toronto for as long as Max keeps playing, but that Daniel only needs one more season to say a proper goodbye and experience all his lasts with Max there, and then he's ready to be done. He achieved everything he wanted, and he's content now.

Anyway, when these Day With The Cup videos get released, fans are saying "I think this may not be a joke anymore. I think these guys might actually be gay for real. Max is in Australia giving a tour of Daniel's farm like it's his and telling stories of how he named the animals? Daniel was at Max's Cup day? Like what is going on here?" They're still not actually telling people, but some of the less oblivious players who can conceptualize that gay people exist definitely know.

[dotthings]

I put together an appreciation post for the casting on The Night Mothers, since the SAG strike is not yet resolved (but hopefully will be by next week. Hopefully), I thought I'd give these artists some extra appreciation in their extraordinary supporting roles.

Their screen presences left a strong impression as they portrayed Witches of Dathomir in live-action for the first time. Very mysterious and powerful. These three characters were crucial to the world-building and atmosphere on Peridea surrounding Thrawn.

As others have pointed out, the names Aktropaw, Klothow, and Lakesis evoke the fates of Greek myth, Atropos, Clotho, and Lachesis.

Aktropaw - portrayed by Jeryl Prescott

Jeryl Prescott has a long IMDB cv, working on many shows including The Walking Dead. She has a PhD in American Lit.

Klothow - portrayed by Claudia Black

Claudia Black is known to a lot of people as a sci-fi legend. She was in Farscape, Stargate, and a lot of other things. She was born in Australia and has also done stage work such as playing Portia in a touring production of The Merchant of Venice.

Lakesis - portrayed by Jane Edwina Seymour Jane Edwina Seymour also has a long list of IMDB credits in various shows, films, and shorts, and did the body acting (with voice by Alice Krige) for The Borg Queen in Star Trek: Picard season 3.

[apureniallsource]

Ahead of new album, The Show, Niall Horan on how he 'lives' for touring, his desire to connect with fans through his songs, and the challenge of going out for chips in his Irish hometown

It’s almost a cliché to call Niall Horan a “super-nice guy”, but really, there’s no getting away from it. He may have named his new album The Show, but Horan feels no need to put one on for a journalist. In fact, the Irish singer-songwriter is so laid-back and likeable when we meet at a smart London hotel – fresh flowers everywhere, bottled water waiting on the table – that I ask how he’s stayed so well-adjusted. “It’s probably a combination of the upbringing I had and the fact I already had enough character at 16 [to deal with it],” he says. “It might have been a different story if I’d started doing this when I was 10.”

Now 29, he has been scarily famous for almost half his life. After auditioning for The X Factor in 2010 as a solo artist, 16-year-old Horan was eliminated at the boot camp stage, then given a spectacular second chance as one fifth of a hastily assembled group called One Direction. He and his new bandmates – Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson – didn’t win that year’s show, but still used it as a springboard to become a chart-topping global phenomenon. By the time One Direction announced an indefinite hiatus in January 2016, they had sold 70 million records and debuted at number one in the US with their first four albums – something not even The Beatles achieved. When asked what he would say to his pre-1D, 16-year-old self, Horan replies: “Get ready. Your life’s about to change on a level that most of the world can’t even quantify.”

Horan says he still speaks to “the lads” on a regular basis, but like all of them, he has worked hard to carve out an identity as a solo artist. If Horan’s individual achievements still feel slightly underrated, that’s probably only because his flashier bandmate Styles is now a stadium-filling superstar. Released in 2017, Horan’s debut album Flicker was a deft blend of soft rock, folk and country that debuted at number one in the US and Ireland. His 2020 follow-up Heartbreak Weather added a dash of swagger to the mix – particularly on the Brit-poppy single ‘Nice to Meet Ya’ – and became his first UK chart-topper. Because it dropped in March 2020, just as Covid-19 was taking hold, Horan never got to take the album on the road. “I haven’t toured since 2018 – that’s wild,” he says. “I love live music and I love touring – I live for it. So, it’s sad that I haven’t done that.”

Happily, a few weeks after this interview, Horan announced The Show: Live on Tour, a 50-date trek across Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand that will keep him busy from February to July of next year. When Horan last toured five years ago, he mainly played large theatres, but now he is aiming to pack out arenas from Birmingham to Brisbane. During our conversation, he hinted that he was ready for the step up. “In my eyes, the bigger the venue, the better, because I fucking love looking out at an ocean of people,” he says. “For me, it feels like the bigger the venue, the better the show is gonna be.”

Horan also makes no bones about wanting The Show to become another UK number one after it drops on 9 June. “There’s nothing better than getting that little statue sent to your house,” he says with an impish grin. At the time of writing, he seems well on course for another express delivery from the Official Charts Company. The album’s breezy lead single ‘Heaven’ cracked the UK Top 20 in February, and its sprightly follow-up ‘Meltdown’ is now climbing the charts. A few hours before this interview, I watch him perform both songs in the Radio 1 Live Lounge. Horan is just as relaxed with his band during rehearsals, but when he spots that his vocals are getting buried in the mix, he quickly and calmly gets it corrected.

Horan began working on ‘The Show’ while holed up at home during the summer of 2020. The album title had come to him earlier in the year, but he “didn’t really know what it meant until the pandemic”. When he sat down at the piano that August, the lyrics that came out seemed to capture the confusion of the Covid era: “If everything was easy, nothing ever broke / If everything was simple, how would we know? / How to fix your tears? How to fake a show?” At this point, Horan says he realised ‘The Show’ was both “a metaphor for life” and an overarching concept he could run with. “When there’s no heartbreak [to write about], you have to come up with a different concept,” he says. “I realised quite quickly that what I wanted to talk about was the ups and downs and good and bad of life. That’s ‘The Show’.”

Having “no heartbreak” is about as much as Horan will say about his personal life. “Keeping that stuff quiet”, he believes, is one reason he remains so grounded. Since 2020, he has been dating Amelia Woolley, a designer shoe buyer who never appears on his work-focused Instagram. But when we discuss ‘You Could Start a Cult’, an idiosyncratic folk ballad from the album, Horan does offer a teasing glimpse into their home life. He says the song’s eye-catching title was inspired by the true-crime series they like watching. “I always try and write weird stuff like that, then see if I can flip it on its head and make the song [itself] not as dark as the title,” he says. In this case, Horan flipped it into a “love song, effectively”, albeit an intense one. “It’s about… not the desperation feeling, but the ‘I think you’re the best fucking thing in the world’ feeling,” he explains. “And if you started a cult, I’d follow you into the fire. You know, that kind of angst, though I don’t know if ‘angst’ is the word I’m looking for!”

Horan spends a lot of time in LA because his record label and producers are based there. His main collaborators on The Show were Joel Little, who he brought in because he liked his work with Taylor Swift, indie artist Noah Kahan, and long-time co-writer John Ryan, a veteran of four One Direction albums. “I think it’s really important first of all to be loyal,” he says of his enduring partnership with Ryan. “And you know, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” Still, working with Little felt just as comfortable, partly because they could pick things up at a moment’s notice. “If I get the green light at the top of my street [in LA], I can be at Joel’s house in less than a minute,” Horan says. “It’s a fucking dream!”

But during the pandemic, Horan was grounded at his main base in southwest London. “I’ve never been fitter in my life because I was cycling 80 or 90 miles around Richmond Park every week – it’s gorgeous out there,” he recalls. Like many of us, Horan has conflicting feelings about the way Covid placed our lives on hold. “I don’t want to say I enjoyed it because I didn’t – it was such a horrible time,” he says. “But I got to a point about two or three months in, where I was like: ‘This is the longest I’ve ever had off.’ He particularly appreciated having to stay in one place for a sustained period of time. “Normally, I’m packing a suitcase every three or four days,” he says. “At Heathrow Airport, the guards at the [security] desk just laugh when they see me coming. They’re like, ‘How do you do this?’”

Having lived in London since he was 16, Horan says “it’s definitely the best city on the planet”. But at the same time, he still regards Mullingar, the Irish market town where he was born and raised, as home. His debut solo single ‘This Town’, a UK top 10 hit in 2016, was incredibly charming because it harnessed his ineffable longing for the place. Horan reckons he returns to Mullingar “seven or eight times a year”, although walking down the high street is pretty tricky. “I can’t just pull up outside the chip shop, run in and get the chips, then run back to the car,” he says. “Everything has to be thought through. Like, where am I going to park? How many streets am I going to have to cross? What am I going to wear?” Horan says all this with no hint of frustration: by now, he knows what is expected of a homecoming hero.

Horan knew he wanted to be a musician from a young age and says he “tried to make this as clear as possible” to his parents. They were “supportive up to a point”, but because the family didn’t have much money and Mullingar wasn’t a creative hub like Dublin, his mother urged him to “get some sort of qualification”. “I still don’t have any,” Horan says with a laugh, “I didn’t do GCSEs or anything like that because I didn’t finish school.” At 16, Horan made the 50-mile journey to Dublin to audition for The X Factor and grabbed hold of the One Direction rocket with both hands.

Did his parents come up with any ideas for a Plan B? “We didn’t get that far. Honestly, I just packed my bag and never came back – that’s the way they look at it,” says Horan. “My father worked in Tesco for 35 years and my mother worked at a pewter genesis company making little bits and pieces – clocks and things like that. They both had very regular jobs.” Horan notes astutely that some kids from a working-class background “like to spread their wings and leave the nest” – as he did, quite spectacularly – whereas others “like to stay in their hometown, or maybe can’t get out”. Horan pauses for a second, perhaps to ponder what might have been. “I don’t know what they would have wanted me to do, but I’m sure it would have been a good life,” he continues. “Like, my parents are having a good time.”

Thirteen years after he left to become a pop star, Horan’s own ambition remains undimmed. “I’ve achieved a lot in my young life, but I’m still fired up to do as much as I can,” he says. “My career has felt so good because it reminds me of everything I thought the music industry would be when I was a kid. I got the good end of the stick [in terms of] travelling the world and playing to millions. And I still want more of that.”

For this reason, the audience is always at the forefront of his mind. “When I’m writing, I ask myself, ‘Have I gone too specific to the point where it only makes sense to me?’” he says. “And then I try and broaden the thought to make it as relatable as possible.” ‘Never Grow Up’ from Horan’s new album was partly inspired by his girlfriend’s parents, who are “still madly in love”, but its lyrics will chime with One Direction fans who, like him, are close to turning 30. “Hope we still drink like we’re back in the pub,” Horan sings. “Hope we grow old, but we never grow up.”

In Horan’s eyes, the songs that fully stand the test of time – from Simon and Garfunkel to Whitney Houston and Adele – are “the ones that really mean a lot to the people”. It’s this kind of universal connection that he is always striving for. “These are the things that go on in my head when I’m writing,” he says. “I don’t want to alienate anyone, and I don’t want to be introspective to the point where I ruin it for everyone. So, if they can connect to it too, then we all get what we want out of this.”

[womensworldtour]

The weeks between the Tour de Suisse Women and the Giro d'Italia Women are quiet on the World Tour calendar, as most countries hold their national championships in this block. (A few, like the U.S., held them earlier in the season, for whatever reasons.) As we start to look forward to the Giro, let's take a look at some of the new road race champions for 2024 in no particular order. There's a mix of familiar faces and some new talent.

France: Juliette Labous (dsm-firmenich PostNL)

Slovenia: Urska Žigart (Liv AlUla Jayco)

Australia: Ruby Roseman-Gannon (Liv AlUla Jayco)

USA: Kristen Faulkner (EF Educaton-Cannondale)

New Zealand: Ella Wyllie (Liv AlUla Jayco)

Germany: Franziska Koch (dsm-firmenich PostNL)

Netherlands: Chantal van den Broek-Blaak (SD Worx-Protime)

Spain: Usoa Ostolaza (Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi)

Great Britain: Pfeiffer Georgi (dsm-firmenich PostNL)

And you may have heard of these last two riders:

Italy: Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek)

Belgium: Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime)

We haven't even mentioned Canada (Olivia Baril of Movistar), Austria (Anna Kiesenhofer of Roland), Hungary (Blanka Vas of SD Worx-Protime), Switzerland (Noemi Rüegg of EF Education-Cannondale), and plenty of other countries. And apologies to the ITT fans out there, but we haven't even listed the ITT winners, mostly because you don't have to know the national champs jerseys as much in the ITT to recognize a rider like you do in the bunch. The Escape Collective has a nice run-down of both lists.

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

EVANESCENCE's AMY LEE Is 'So Grateful' To Still Be Able To Make Music 20 Years After 'Fallen''s Release

In a new interview with Australia's "Today", EVANESCENCE frontwoman Amy Lee was asked how it feels to see the band's debut album, 2003's "Fallen", still resonating with so many people around the world and being discovered by new generations of fans. She responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Oh, great. This is a big year. It's an anniversary year, so 20 years since 'Fallen' this year. So there has been more focus on it again in a cool way. We've been through so much together. I think the biggest thing that I feel about all of that is really about the journey for us, for me and through the band, but also with our fans. We've all lived a lot of life in that time and it makes the songs more meaningful. It's not really just about like the initial meaning so much anymore. It's become something just so much bigger, because we've had so much time together. And new fans? You always want new fans. Come on."

Lee also talked about the music video for "Fallen"'s first single, "Bring Me To Life", recently surpassing a billion views on YouTube. She said: "It's awesome. I mean, it's crazy. There's a lot of milestones that have been happening lately with the first record. I never thought back then — I couldn't have imagined how far we've come and that we're here now still making music we love and earning new fans. Man, 20 years — it's a beautiful thing. I'm so grateful."

EVANESCENCE is celebrating the 20th anniversary of "Fallen" on an Australian tour, which kicked off last Thursday night (August 24) in Brisbane. The five-date trek marks the band's first Australian tour since their sublime run with local symphony orchestras in 2018.

[eopederson]

Village, Chiang Mai or Chiang Rai Province, Thailand, 2000.

Taken on a week-long trek through the highland villages, called the "hill tribes," in northwest Thailand. It entailed backpacking far from roads and sleeping at night in thatch roof shelters. Thankfully guides and porters provided by the Australian tour company did the bulk of the way finding and carriage of food - and we ate quite well. We were the "old folk" in a group of 20 somethings from Australia and Canada. It was, alas, my final expedition into territory where I was totally lost - I had no decent map or knowledge of the languages spoken. And it was exhilarating!

[australiatrekkingtours]

Ultimate Guide to Australia Trekking Tours: Must-Visit Trails and Treks

The untamed nature and varied topography of Tasmania, home to several excellent hiking and trekking programs, provide hikers an amazing trekking playground. Australia trekking tours are some of the most popular trekking routes in the world, including the Kokoda Trek, the Overland Track Tasmania expedition, and the Tasmania South Coast Track.

Australia is also home to ancient rainforests and stunning coastal cliffs, which combine to create some truly amazing scenery. Hiking South West Cape Track is one way to thoroughly appreciate trekking in Australia.

An Online Exploration of Some of The Most Popular Hikes in Australia:

Black Cat Trek PNG: Most seasoned hikers believe this path to be quite difficult, but they genuinely like the trip since they find it to be such a fun adventure. Because of its challenges and the potential for meeting bogs, river crossings, cliffs, ledges, and other such encounters along the way, this expedition may not be as well-known as others.

Kokoda Trek: The traditional Kokoda track journey is among the finest if you want to experience traveling through thick jungles, high mountain passes, and isolated communities. By following this path, which shows Australia's participation in the Second World War against Imperial Japanese Forces, one may travel through time and follow the history of the war. People just bring a daypack on this journey; porters assist carry the full backpack to support the local economy.

Tasmania South Coast Track: The South Coast Track provides access to the untamed wildness of Tasmania's untamed southwest coast and is well-liked by hikers worldwide. This trail offers trekkers an incredible wilderness experience as it passes by windswept beaches, ancient rainforests, and breathtaking coastal cliffs. Because this walk traverses several terrains, it requires significant experience before beginning.

Overland Track Tasmania: Trekking over diverse terrain from Lake St. Clair to Cradle Mountain offers breathtaking alpine views, serene lakes, and towering peaks. For people who love being outside, it's an experience they shouldn't miss. Take a legendary journey into the heart of Tasmania's outback.

If you've been waiting to go on an adventure with hiking boots, gather your adventurous spirit and embark on a once-in-a-lifetime experience with the best trekking tours. Schedule a meeting with the top Australian companies that provide trekking experiences, then relish your travels.

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[karmasreal]

"The tiaras were overflowing at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles on Tuesday night (Nov. 14). An ecstatic, sold-out crowd came together to witness the latest stop of Chappell Roan‘s U.S. tour, where the rising pop star performed the entirety of her Dan Nigro-produced debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.

Decked out in black and white lingerie, black knee-high boots and black latex arm sleeves, the flame-haired singer stormed and twirled across the stage as she performed a roughly 90-minute set composed of fan favorites like “Casual,” “Red Wine Supernova,” “Naked in Manhattan” and “My Kink is Karma.”

Roan is a powerhouse vocalist with a potent stage presence and a gift for banter, and she showed off the full breadth of her talent on Tuesday night. “Who brought their boyfriend? Raise your hand if you brought your boyfriend,” said Roan during one interlude — clearly referencing the scattered straight men in the audience as a nod to her largely queer and female fanbase. “Does your boyfriend know who I am?”

Judging by the energy of the packed audience — many dressed in red-and-black getups themed to the music video for “My Kink is Karma,” per Roan’s instructions at the outset of her tour — and the strength of the star’s performance, boyfriends across the country may well be learning Roan’s name before too long, whether they mean to or not. In addition to her own tour, which picks back up in Australia on Nov. 24 before resuming in Europe next month, the singer is slated to open for Olivia Rodrigo on a string of dates on the superstar’s U.S. trek next year while also embarking on a second U.S. leg of her Rise and Fall tour starting in February."

[spawksstuff]

Star Trek TMP Australia Promotion Tour Part 3/3

20 Dec 1979 The News

After this, De and Carolyn went to Hawaii for a vacation (told in an interview with Merv Griffin later).

[world-cinema-research]

I Was Always Me, In a Way.

I remember not liking the 1968 kids movie musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I found the kids irritating, and I was not interested in many of the songs.

The trailer is long on slapstick and sentiment.

I have memories of seeing it both in a movie theater and on TV. But I would have been six years old when the movie came out, and I'm not sure my parents let me go to movies alone that young.

I think I liked the one where the adults sing about candy and make whistles out of candy. I remember watching it on TV and feeling relieved and happy that a good number finally came on.

I was more interested in the villain than the kids. The villain (really the villain's helper) was the Child Catcher. he has a long nose, which is probably an anti-Semitic stereotype, which he uses to sniff out children. (Children are illegal in the kingdom where that part of the story takes place.) It's like the opposite of the Star Trek episode where adults are outlawed.

Reviews at the time were mixed to negative.

Reviewers thought the movie talked down to children, and as a child, I think I saw it that way.

"The $10 million film lacks warmth. No real feeling is generated between any two characters. As well as one star performer, from Mary Poppins have come all the musical talent – songwriters Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman and the choreographers [Marc Breaux and Dee Dee Wood]. But there has been no desire to reprise the Edwardian music hall tradition, aspects of which so informed Poppins.

Howes goes through the romantic motions with Van Dyke and the maternal ones with the kids, but there is no real sentiment between players."

Howes goes through the romantic motions with Van Dyke and the maternal ones with the kids, but there is no real sentiment between players."

Doing some research, I discover that the people who owned the right to Ian Fleming's James Bond books also owned the rights to his children's book about a magical car.

After Julie Andrews appearance in the musical My Fair Lady on Broadway, she was such a hot commodity that people fought over her. The producers of the film of My Fair Lady foolishly cast a movie star who couldn't sing (Audrey Hepburn), and so Disney cleverly snatched up Julie Andrews for their 1964 kids movie based on a book Mary Poppins, co-starring Dick Van Dyke.

The same year My Fair Lady was released, and Hepburn and Andrews both got Oscar noms but Andrews won for playing Mary Popppins.

So the Bond producers owned the rights to Fleming's children's book and made a kids movie musical featuring Dick Van Dyke. There's even a musical number ("The Old Bamboo") which is a lot like the chimney sweet dance in Mary Poppins.

The female star Sallie Ann Howes is basically a substitute for Julie Andrews. Andrews was busy working for Hitchcock and other high-profile things. She was not about to make another kiddie picture after having made a celebrated one.

The producers of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang also hired Roald Dahl to write the screenplay, and Dahl's children's book about a child and a chocolate factory was made into a much bigger hit in 1971: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

The director of Chitty Chitty worked a lot, but he did not have any major hits. Chitty Chitty was a flop. Which I didn't know as a child.

Things have changed since 1968.

Today (April 16, 2023) the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang DVD DVD gets 4.8 stars stars from almost 9,000 reviews reviews.

One Amazon reviewer says basically this: they made this for the wrong reasons.

"I don't know how this movie wasn't sued into oblivion, especially by Disney. It takes so much from Mary Poppins, it's an abomination. And throw in The Sound of Music, Peter Pan, My Fair Lady, Wile E Coyote cartoons…bits of business, choreography, and the music, one song is a direct rip off of With A Little Bit of Luck! I just thank God DVD didn't try another British accent, bad enough we've had to listen to the English bang on about his bad Cockney for the last 60 years.

Talented cast, no mistake, but ill-used….

….I watched this in five sittings, I wanted to finish it, but I just couldn't stick with it for an extended period, and it is painfully long and slow -- that Toot Sweets number was like one of those bugs you keep swatting but it never seems to die?"

Talented cast, no mistake, but ill-used….

….I watched this in five sittings, I wanted to finish it, but I just couldn't stick with it for an extended period, and it is painfully long and slow -- that Toot Sweets number was like one of those bugs you keep swatting but it never seems to die?"

I later discovered that the Child Catcher was played by Robert Helpmann: a revered ballet dancer who danced leads and also played 'character parts' in ballet. He danced the role of Hamlet, which is one of my favorite plays.

And he has an important role in the movie The Red Shoes. This later became one of my favorite movies. It's about an empressario who falls in love with his lead ballet dancer and works her literally to death--or suicide, I think it's ambiguous.

When we are young, we don't know who we are or what we will become.

Some experiences from childhood later in hindsight tell us about the person we will become.

Movies don't change. People do, but maybe not that much.

[intheshadowofwar]

22 July 2023

Journey to the Front

Gallipoli 22 June 2023

I won’t lie to you; today was incredibly hard. It’s one thing to travel between countries, quite another to do so when neurodiverse, and another indeed to do so alone for the first time. If I’m not particularly erudite today, please bear with me. I am both physically and mentally exhausted.

I awoke at 2.15am and was on the bus by 3.15 to get to Heathrow. We flew out on a Turkish Airlines A220 and landed somewhat bumpily at Istanbul just after 12.30 local time, We then met our tour bus – which oddly enough has better internet then our hotel – and drove to Gallipoli, stopping at a rest stop by the Sea of Mamara for a discussion of the submarine AE2 and, more importantly, a cheese toastie.

We arrived at Gallipoli at roughly 6pm – due to our late arrival, it was decided that we’d make the most of the remaining light and ascend Plugge’s Plateau before checking into the hotel.

Plugge’s Plateau, named for a New Zealand officer, is a position on the ‘first ridge’ – there are three key ridges inland from Anzac Cove. To get to the top requires a short but arduous trek through Shrapnel Gully and up the cliffs that overlook Anzac Cove, the landing place of the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps. My first impression from climbing the ridge was to think back to my first thought upon viewing the battlefield at Culloden years ago – that this was an astoundingly poor choice for a battlefield. To get off the beach, one must ascend this steep ridge, then descend it into the gullies and valleys beyond and climb the second ridge beyond. Once you’ve taken this position, you still need to capture the third ridge, a task that eluded the Allies (for British and Indian troops also fought here) throughout the campaign. From our final position, just a little inland from Plugge’s, we could see ‘Quinn’s Post,’ the ‘Sphinx’ and Lone Pine – I never really appreciated just how close to each other they were, yet just how difficult it would have been to travel between these positions and the beach – and between each other, for that matter.

The path also has a very good view of Anzac Cove facing northwards – one can see as far as Suvla Bay and the salt lake there. I must admit to a little pride in noticing Suvla before I was explicitly told what it was – all that map reading wasn’t in vain, it seems. I think it’s still in the air as to whether or not we shall visit Suvla, but I certainly hope we do – it is one of the most interesting and misunderstood aspects of the campaign.

As a rare example of a mostly intact battlefield (the only others I can think of off the top of my head are Culloden and possibly Waterloo), we will be remaining in Gallipoli for five nights for a fairly in-depth tour. But if I’m going to have the energy to take part in said tours, I had better sleep, so I shall see you all for some more in-depth discussion tomorrow.