Wanaka

Fancy Coffee?

View From The Top Of Mt Iron 548 Metres

Same Place - Another View

Contemplation

Down To Sea - Or Rather, Lake - Level at 277 Metres

Gay Auditioning For The Next King Kong Film

Is This Melon A Cure For Pancreatic Cancer?

I spotted an article under the headline "This Strange Little Melon May Cure Pancreatic Cancer" on the internet today. 

It goes on to say "A new study from the University of Colorado Cancer Center reveals that bitter melon juice restricts the ability of pancreatic cancer cells to metabolize glucose, thus cutting the cells’ energy source and eventually killing them.

The findings of the study were published in the journal Carcinogenesis."

This is potentially very exciting news.

Read the complete article by clicking here

Fruit And Veg

I mentioned recently that we won two prizes of a meat at a music club.

We went to a different music club last night and, as if to redress the balance, we won first prize of this magnificent basket of fruit and vegetables.

We are being urged to buy a lottery ticket while we are on a roll.

Arrowtown

We are in Arrowtown, which has the subtitle "Born of Gold". Like many places in New Zealand, gold was discovered here - in this case by a Maori who had no interest in it. But others did, and, as in so many other places, there was a gold rush. A town sprang up to service the miners and the town remains long after the miners have moved on.

Gold is still there for the finding. This man is looking for some. He has built a small sluice at the edge of the river and is just about use it.

Gay Searching For Her Heart On A Mountainside - Look Behind You!

Overlooking Lake Gay's - I mean Lake Hayes

Time For A Fry-up

Just because I am not telling you anything doesn't mean we are doing nothing. By the time we leave Alexandra on Friday, after spending two weeks here, we will have walked and cycled more than 400 kms on the Otago Central Rail Trail and its River Track variant.

This morning, for instance, we drove to Omakau then walked the 28 kms back to our accommodation in Alex. Tomorrow we shall cycle out to Omakau to pick up the car, if it is still there.

Here are a few sights seen today on the Rail Trail.

Believe it or not, that is a pond. What looks like a solid red surface is, we believe, red algae.

One of the many trestle bridges on this ex-railway line. I don't know how it felt in a train but riding across on a bike rattles everything you have. We suspect they are sponsored by the local dentists.

Does that picture need any explanation?

Some of the stations on this line were very small!

The whole area is a geologist's delight.

On Sunday we went to the Cromwell Country Music Club, as we usually do when we are in the area. We won some meat in a raffle. Then we won some more in the second raffle! Sausages and bacon both times. We are vegetarian.

Reunions

10 days ago, the night before leaving Oamaru after spending a week there, we were reunited with Andy Greene, last seen in this blog last March. Andy is an American, living in France, who is walking the length of New Zealand, from North to South, in 4 stages, one stage per year. When we met him this time, he was 3 days into his final stage. For a few days he was accompanied by his daughter Kristina, and we had dinner with them both at The Last Post (a former Post Office) in Oamarau. The next day we drove down to Balclutha for another reunion, with Lyn and Selwyn Cardno, who stayed with us at our home in France last July, and with whom we then spent a week in Paris - our first visit to that city. We arrived at the Cardno's new home at lunchtime. Lyn had made us a splendid lunch to share with Pauline and John Smith, with whom we were having yet another reunion. John and Pauline were part of the Pelicanos group with which we toured Peru a couple of years ago. They are currently touring New Zealand and Balclutha was the only place at which our paths would cross. Lyn rose to the occasion and hosted the meeting before Pauline and John went on their way for a visit to the albatross colony near Dunedin before spending the night in the city. We spent an excellent week with Lyn and Selwyn, accompanied by excellent weather, which is almost the only type we have seen here this summer. Believe it or not, we didn't take any photographs of any of these wonderful events. Friday we moved on up to Alexandra, frequently the hottest place in New Zealand in the summer (and the coldest in the winter). Here we were reunited with the delightful Denise of Alexandra, our hostess for the next two weeks. This area was the setting for the original conception of Vic's Big Walk, mainly because we do a lot of walking here. Our normal 25 kms circuit from Alexandra to Clyde and back includes a walk along the river bank, past much evidence of old gold workings, from the Alexandra Bridge to the Clyde Bridge, both of which are picture below. The riverbank path follows the course of the mighty Clutha River, only partly tamed by the Clyde Dam, which holds back the huge Lake Dunstan. Alexandra Bridge Gay Dwarfed In The Forest Clyde Bridge

Book Review - John Carter and The Gods of Hollywood

John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood by Michael D. Sellers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I first read the wonderful series of books by Edgar Rice Burroughs about John Carter of Mars (which he wrote before he got round to Tarzan of the Apes) when I was a small boy. They occupied my father's bookshelves which I was devouring at the age of 10 or so. My brother still remembers me excitedly telling him how great the books were and he became a fan too - and still is.

John Carter first arrived in print 100 years ago but Burrough's imagination was so stupendous that film-makers have felt unable, until the arrival of the digital age, to bring the books to the screen - although this has not prevented the extensive strip-mining of the books for such cinematic efforts as Flash Gordon, Star Wars and Avatar, all of which were heavily influenced by John Carter.

John Carter fans, who were legion, because these books dominated the paperback market for decades and are regarded as the basis for the whole science fiction market, have waited patiently all this time for a film company to be a) capable and b) willing, to put John Carter into the cinemas.

So imagine our excitement when, a very few years ago, we heard that Disney (?) had decided to do just that. And imagine our disappointment as it became obvious before the film came out that, despite spending $250 Million in production, Disney seemed to have no interest in promoting the film or supporting it in any way. Imagine our amazement when we saw the film in the cinemas (in my case both the 2-D and 3-0 versions - 2-D best in this case) and found it to be excellent, if not perfect, only to find that Disney publicly wrote off the film (after 11 days!) before it had even reached some of its major markets and while it was still in its first run at major cinemas - would you go to see a film which the manufacturing company had publicly labelled a flop? Despite all this the film brought in $300 million worldwide and when it came out on DVD it immediately headed the ratings.

But Disney have no interest in producing what should have been a trilogy because they have in the meantime bought the Star Wars franchise, which would be compromised by having the story which it copies coming out of the same company at the same time.

This very detailed book by Michael D Sellers, who is not only an author but a film producer himself as well as, interestingly, an ex-CIA operative, explains all the unfortunate political decisions and sheer incompetence, especially on the marketing front, which led to this long-awaited film being so publicly branded as no good, despite the fact that it is quite excellent. It also reveals the strong fan-based movement keeping alive the idea that it should be turned into a trilogy, and why the trilogy would indeed make money.

I commend this book to readers

View all my reviews