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David Harcourt
Administrator
| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 1127 |
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Posted: 18 Jun 2008 01:55 am |
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I remember...
...the first time I arrived at an airport in Australia. The man in front of me in the queue waiting to go through Customs was holding a dozen or more cartons of packs of cigarettes. "Goodness gracious," I said, "the duty on those is going to be colossal." "Oh, I doubt that," he replied. When he arrived at the counter he handed one of the packs to the Customs officer (who nonchalantly parked it inside the counter in front of him) and walked on through without a backwards glance.
Sidney Nolan: "Australian Customs official, 1878"
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David Harcourt
Administrator
| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 1127 |
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Posted: 18 Jun 2008 02:14 am |
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I remember...
...returning to New Zealand in 1986 after four years in Melbourne and opening with great excitement the many cases of fine wine which I had purchased there. One of the greatest of my treasures was a complete case of Penfolds Grange Hermitage 1975 (a wine which is currently worth $500+ per bottle). To my amazement, the case had been opened since I had put it into storage a year earlier. There were still twelve bottles inside, but two of them were bottles of plonk one could buy in any supermarket for $3.
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David Harcourt
Administrator
| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 1127 |
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Posted: 18 Jun 2008 02:23 am |
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I remember...
...one day in early 1964 arriving at the home in the northern suburbs of Sydney of Craig Collie, a school friend. (We had been in the same class for several years.) Craig had invited me to stay with him for a few days. His mother met me at the front door. "Your mother never invited me to any of her cocktail parties," Mrs Collie said, through gritted teeth, "so why should I have you to stay in my house?" She closed the door in my face. Craig was nowhere to be seen. I made my way back to the city, and spent the night in the YMCA.
Good afternoon and goodbye, Mrs Collie. It's been wonderful.
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David Harcourt
Administrator
| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 1127 |
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Posted: 18 Jun 2008 03:00 am |
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I remember...
...meeting a man in Sydney in 1970 who said that he adored vampire movies. In fact, he said, they were the only movies he liked. He said that he had seen a dozen or more of them within the past year. But, he said, he was quickly becoming increasingly disappointed in them. The first one he'd seen was wonderful beyond the power of words to express. The rest were not so good. In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, he said, they were rubbish. I was intrigued. What was the first vampire movie he had seen, I asked. After some discussion it emerged that the first movie had been Roman Polanski's The Fearless Vampire Killers.
(This is a story which will have resonance only in so far as the reader is acquainted with the Polanksi movie. It is to other vampire films as, say, War and Peace is to war comics.)
Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski in The Fearless Vampire Killers:
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David Harcourt
Administrator
| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 1127 |
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Posted: 18 Jun 2008 03:26 am |
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I remember...
...when I was thirteen years old, and Taupo was a village, with pumice streets everywhere except in the tiny commercial section. I went for a walk one day around the north shore of the lake. (I was a great walker then.) In those days great pine trees ringed the lakeshore but you could walk along the shore for miles. Eventually I came to a small, secluded beach stretching in front of the trees. Reeds were growing out of the pumice sand. The only sounds were the lapping of the lake on the shore, and lake gulls crying out over the water. A Maori girl of about the same age as me, beautiful beyond imagining, was swimming about thirty yards from the shore. As I watched in amazement, she stopped swimming and stood up very slowly in the shallow water. She was stark naked, and she was smiling. For the life of me, I can't remember what happened next. It's a very long time ago.
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David Harcourt
Administrator
| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 1127 |
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Posted: 18 Jun 2008 03:59 am |
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I remember...
...when I was seventeen years old, arriving or departing from Wellington Airport (I can't remember which), and seeing in the terminal an incredibly gorgeous blonde girl of about my age. Our eyes locked for a long moment, and then she was gone forever. All I can remember about her is that she was wearing jeans of a kind I've never seen before or since. They were of conventional blue denim, but were patterned in small squares - cross-hatched, if you will. They were wonderful, as was she. I forgot about her until I saw the movie City Slickers (1991), in which the Jack Palance character, Curly, is asked why he never married. Curly answers that he once saw a woman for just a few seconds, standing in a field, with the sun setting behind her, and fell hopelessly in love. After seeing her he never needed to get married, Curly says. He'd been in love once, and once was all any man was really entitled to.
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