Lucky Winter.....Wish I lived in LA :-(

I've just been reviewing my gifts again..... Wrote a thank you to Marcia and Terry ...but must not have tapped the submit tab.... Anyway...thank you Terry....as ever, Our Knight in Shining.... And Million Mahalos to Hilo-Marcia**for the special lei (hey, white orchids aren't cheap!!)and the tiara from "The Man Himself".You sure know how to make a gal feel special. **there used to be a song "When Hilo-Hattie does the Hilo-Hop.."Is it still around. (Songs in Hawaii never fade away:-) )

yipppeeee!!!! And I thought my weekend was only going to be limited to do some plant-shopping! (anyone know if I can grow a hefty sized bouganvillea (sp?) from a pot alone? I want something for my patio, which is entirely paved over)

(anyone know if I can grow a hefty sized bouganvillea (sp?) from a pot alone? Winter, I have a bouganvillea (sp?) in a large pot, and it is flowering beautifully. I just take care to keep it moist (but not soggy) and in a sunny spot. I have it climbing on a trellis. It is gorgeous.

Indeed, even little kids do Hilo Hattie's Hula Hop! Thanks Evelyn =) My Bougainvillas are growing in cinder from a recent eruption. Mine like to be drained well. Sand is good - beware of too much mulch and peat moss. They do not like wet feet. And, to bloom well, the more sunlight the better.

. And, to bloom well, the more sunlight the better. REALLY?! my patio faces West, and has full-blown sunglight for the better half of the day! I'm so excited...But does it shed many petals? I don't want to have it shedding on my neighbor's patio.

Oh my, a courteous neighbor! I wish mine (the ones with the big messy tree that covers my backyard) thought the same or at least cleaned up after it... ;-D Can't help with bougainvilla. Only summer time potted pots on patios here like my hibiscus. Can't hand the snow.

For a little smile, from the Guardian: A disappointing Affair? The Coming Attractions web site has posted a first review of Neil Jordan�s adaptation of Graham Greene�s classic romance The End of the Affair. While the critic, called Cichlisuite, announced "I love Neil Jordan, Julianne Moore, Stephen Rea and especially Ralph Fiennes", he/she wasn�t impressed by the Irish director�s spin on this WW2 love story: "Well, folks, simply put this film is a world-class snoozer� A story so dull that even the actors looked bored as hell on screen". The story, laden with Greene�s hallmark Catholic guilt, calls on Fiennes, Rea and Moore to play the three corners of a love triangle between two old friends and the woman they both love. According to its first reviewer, the stars don�t cut the mustard. "Ralph Fiennes is a fine actor," we�re helpfully told, "but here he is going through the motions, as are the other actors, and it feels like they are all reading off of a tele-prompter (advice guys: drink some coffee before shooting your scenes). "What this film is," concludes the reviewer, "is a serious bid for Academy attention come Oscar time, that will fall flat on its face unless it's fixed up big-time. This film tries so hard to be the next English Patient�"

My popular request, I unlinked topic 120 in drool from the news conference and now it exists only in news, there was a fear that the conspiracy theorists might spill over in to other topics and I respect that! But you can still pay homage to John John in the news conference.

Just so there are no loose ends...from The Times: London filmed top to bottom BY DALYA ALBERGE, ARTS CORRESPONDENT LONDON is about to be seen in a new light, from angles that few of its inhabitants will recognise. Camera shots will plunge down the heights of buildings such as St Paul's Cathedral, hurtle along the tracks of a Tube train and travel through the maze of sewers under Ludgate Circus, using cinematic technology that can create the sensation of being there. A �3 million film offering the new look at the capital is to be made for the new �20-million Imax picture palace on the South Bank, near Waterloo station. Stephen Fry is co-writing and starring as a tour guide in a film that will be screened at Imax cinemas worldwide. Fry acknowledged the challenge of making a film that is intended to excite Londoners as much as its tourists. The fact that London has been "blitzed and bombed and developed makes it a multilayered place", he said. Filming will begin this summer. It is being produced by Peter and Marc Samuelson, who have been commissioned for the project by the British Film Institute.

Dearest Evelyn, I hope you had a great birthday! Sorry to be tardy with my wishes (and wish I could come up with something really creative to post for you!) Karen, I am LMAO at your gift of Darcy.

(Terry) I unlinked topic 120 in drool from the news conference and now it exists only in news, there was a fear that the conspiracy theorists might spill over in to other topics and I respect that! Thanks. BTW, I saw last night (it could have been on MSNBC; my nose has been glued to the set and various channels for most of the weekend) a brief piece about the internet and conspiracy theories. Was that the Spring they flashed, by any chance???

*******Please Read********* If topics are not showing up when there are new posts (and we have not had a date problem), then you might want to check on the main Drool page if you have accidentally designated a topic to "Forget." That is one of the settings above the listing with All, New, Activity Today, and Activity within 7 Days. Click on "Forgotten" to see if any of your current topics is there. Allison, who was having this problem, has figured it out. She said that: "All you have to do, is then list all those topics which are "forgotten" and there will be a "remember" button at the top of the page. If you do not want to remember all topics, I think you should be able to list only all/119/fogotten and then you can just remember the topic you interested in." Thank you, Allison, for figuring this out.

Thank you, Allison, for figuring this out. ] Geez, I figured that out months ago and posted it when I had the same problem!

I have just discovered that Austin, Texas - the home of our beloved Spring and Drool's parent - has an annual SPAM festival...Oh my goodness!

Oh my poor nerves! :-)

When is it? Maybe we can have our next reunion there? ;-)

Still checking on that. When I found out it was strictly LOLROTF time. Winter, yes, Bougainvillas they shed their pretty bracts) which are the pretty parts...and some leaves.

I asked William about it and he replied: Spamorama. A few years back, we made a decent (or so I was told by the customers who tried it!!!) a Spam Parmesan. I am still waiting for when it happens.

He thinks it was April Fool's Day...it figures!

Oh, alright... Maybe we can start a festival ourselves!

Oh, alright... Maybe we can start a festival ourselves! Just gather up your shower gifts and you've got one! Marcia, tell William that the words "decent" and "Spam" can't be used in the same sentence!

Too late...he suggested and I complied and now there is a place far from the lofty heights of Drool: http://www.spring.net/yapp-bin/restricted/browse/food/54/all Oh, and btw, the gentleman who used decent and Spam in the same sentence is a professional. If he says it that way, it iS that way. Now, join me down below.

Spam memorabilia should be posted there as well. Thanks one and all.

Thanks Jana for your good wishes... I'm still smiling :-)) ****** (Karen)Re; London Imax film of London to be narrated by Stephen Fry. Filming will begin this summer. It is being produced by Peter and Marc Samuelson, who have been commissioned for the project by the British Film Institute. They were the producers of WILDE, but also....PLAYMAKER!!

Sorry about the italics...the last sentence is my comment.

They were the producers of WILDE, but also....PLAYMAKER!! What a riot! This looks like one travelogue that shouldn't be missed. Can just picture it: Bosie and Ross come out of the glass shower... ;-D

From my London Theatre Newsletter: "BBC TV are producing a new 4 million ukp tv adaptation of Charles Dicken's "DAVID COPPERFIELD" and is expected to feature some of the UK's best known actors including DAME MAGGIE SMITH, ZOE WANAMAKER, BOB HOSKINS, DAWN FRENCH, SIR IAN McKELLEN, TREVOR EVE, MICHAEL ELPHICK, CHERIE LUNGHI, IMELDA STAUNTON, PAULINE QUIRKE, and NICHOLAS LYNDHURST." ****** Oh yeah...there's no one there I wanna see!! Stuff it!!

Geez, Evelyn, I could have come up with a better list than that under heave sedation. Oh well...Stuff it, like you said!

Oh yes, another thing. Got a lovely post card from Moon Dreams in Italy. She says hi to everyone from Tuscany and Umbria. She is looking out for DB and says it is lovely in Siena. Arrivederci!

Where's Jennifer, I would love to see her back on TV. Did Moon say if she liked JE in TRT and what she thought of it, Evelyn.

But Trevor Eve, Evelyn? Yummy!

(Laura)But Trevor Eve, Evelyn? Yummy! From whence is Trever Eve yummy? Pray tell. **** I have not heard from Moon....look forward to her comments on TRT. ****** (Marcia)I could have come up with a better list than that under heavy sedation. Hey,Marcia...that's a good line...mind if I copy it? I'd like to send it to BBC casting...

Trevor Eve is 101, I remember him in "Shoestring" and that was yonks ago.

sorry about that but it is so hot here 31degrees, unheard of and set to continue.

At the end of a week of defending JE on the Pemberley Board re: being fat...awkward running etc ..(Great fun, really, no one takes it seriously...) Some guy posted this today: "All the criticisms of JE are well put... but I am simply unable to see anything wrong with Jennifer Ehle in any way, at any time, ever, period, nor do I ever intend to!" { LOL **** it is so hot here 31 degrees, unheard of and set to continue. I don't know what 31 degrees C. is..but we were 104F. yesterday....that's not just heat index...that real temp!! Can anybody top that? Makes one want to go and cool off on the Isle of Man!!

Human body temp is 37 C. (98.6 F). 31 C is ONLY

Human body temp is 37 C. (98.6 F). 31 C is ONLY about 88 F, but with their humidity, it's probably smothering!!!! ( For those interested: C X 1.8 + 32 = F) (If you remember your algebra, you can reverse that formula if you want to go from Fahrenheit to Celsius.) (I know, I know...SHEESH!)

I got this today from Breakfast with the Arts on A&E - maybe you could pass it on to Spring. They tried to get Colin but he was on location. Silvie Hey there Sunday Morning Music Lovers, This Sunday morning (8/1) starting at 9am/et on BREAKFAST WITH THE ARTS on the A&E Television Network, join me for: My interview with actress MARY ELIZABETH MASTRANTONIO talking about her new movies MY LIFE SO FAR and LIMBO . . . and my conversation with actor and writer BUCK HENRY talking about his current Broadway role in the play ART. Also . . .A Concert of the Berlin Philharmonic Concert at Waldbuhne: Russian Night. The annual summer concert set in the grand outdoors at Waldbuhne. Includes selections from Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker", Strauss's "Radetzky-March", and Stravinsky's "The Firebird Suite". See you Sunday morning,

Evelyn, feel free to use that comment (and thanks for cleaning up my typo.) Is that A&E Sunday morning with the arts a rerun? I don't think I will get up at 4 to watch it is ODB is amongst the missing!

Didn't you guys see the miniseries that bested P&P at the Baftas three years ago? The Politician's Wife? That was an amazing series and TE was the husband. Minnie Driver the mistress and a dazzling turn by Juliet Stevenson. Then there was the Taster's Choice commercial where he played the long-forgotten husband to the woman who was falling in love with now Buffy's Giles;) And Trevor Eve was also in a recent mini-series, The Heat and the Sun???? (or heat and dust) something like that. He is very yummy.

Whatever you say Laura, but not to my taste but I did enjoy Shoestring the series and although I can't think who the mistress was in TPW, I am sure it wasn't MD, will have to look it up.

I be your pardon Laura, MS was indeed the mistress, sorry.

We were just doing C to F and back conversions, as we were with relatives who live outside the US today. It is about 37-38 C. here base temp, without taking into account the humidity (which is abominably high). Here in the city it is hotter as the concrete canyons retain heat. So if I've done my math correctly, we had 43 C. yesterday. But I hear a break is coming. Marcia, you might tell Silvie that she can post her information to Springfolks. I would expect MEM to talk about MLSF and Limbo.

I must give Trevor Eve a thumbs up for sex appeal. If you saw Heat of the Sun, you saw Jonathan Firth in it as well. Poor baby brother has yet to set my hormones buzzing but Trevor did a fine job. (Susannah Harker was in Heat... too.)

I must give Trevor Eve a thumbs up for sex appeal. ] I knew I wouldn't be alone!

31 C is ONLY about 88 F, but with their humidity, it's probably smothering!!!! And we do not have air conditioning! But I am not complaining - I love it. Come on Ann, it has to be better than continuous grey skies 8-))

No air conditioning! :( You have my sincerest apologies and condolences.

Sorry Laura, can't picture Trevor Eve, but DAME MAGGIE SMITH, DAWN FRENCH, SIR IAN McKELLEN, and NICHOLAS LYNDHURST. I would definitely tune in for! Oh, btw... Hi everyone!! Karen, I heard that Chicago hit the world high temp the other day at 44 C. Not pleasant at all!!

Nice to see you join us on other topics Teg! ;-D Re Temperature: Didn't realize that it was record-setting, but couldn't possibly be for the world. There are places in US that regular go up into the three digit area all the time. Bull Head City, AZ, for one. Hotter than Hades most of the time. Likely just a record for us. Coolness here or coming!! [haven't been outside yet] Electrical power is the issue for the last couple of days. Big outages, covering areas near me and tons of customers it includes many lakefront high rises (tower blocks). Com Ed is going take major HEAT on this from mayor and all the influential people who live in affected areas. Thank goodness, I've had no problems. *knock on wood* ;-D

(Allison).....And we do not have air conditioning! May you rest in peace!! ******* Nice to have you with us, Teg... Now get back to work and finish that story!!:-D ***** Like I said....can anyone top 104 degrees??!!

Yep, it hit 109 in Attleboro on July 5!!!! (well with the humidex;))

100 degrees F yesterday for me (without humidex) and don't know where it's going today. And I don't have air conditioning either.

Yes sorry to whinge (sp)Allison, its just that it goes from one extreme to another and I agree it is better than grey skies and wind and rain. I actually hope it continues for a while as we are having the outside of the house painted from tomorrow. Don't tell me I know the weather is going to change in the middle of the week!!

I say get thee to a cooling center or store and purchase one! My daughter has severe asthma during this weather, it's hell! *pun not intended!* WHAT is up with the weather pattern????? It's totally screwy!

Pop over to http://www.spring.net/yapp-bin/restricted/read/Geo/14 and find out. Link are there for your specific area of the world.

I sympathize with all of you that are having such hot weather. In the inland L.A. areas we typically have long spells of beastly 100 to 110 degree weather throughout the summer (although with low humidity)but the last few weeks have not been bad at all. It only got into the 80's today - I think all of you are getting our heat. I have only seen Trevor Eve in Heat of the Sun, but he did make my heart beat a little faster. Had sort of a charisma thing going on :-). But AnnW, your comment about him being 101 made me LOL! He did have a bit of an older man's paunch starting (well hidden by his costume).

..but didn't you like that ending? Dancing under the African stars? A bit bizarre, given but I'm a sucker for happy endings like that. He did have a bit of an older man's paunch starting (well hidden by his costume). I'd call him stocky. Very square-like in construction. :-0

This was in Sunday's paper: BY ROGER EBERT Q. My father, who is 6-foot-4, insists that today's movies are populated by dwarves. The sight of Tom Cruise or Dustin Hoffman sets him into apoplexy. He says tall actors are discriminated against because of some sort of Hollywood conspiracy. I try to tell him that there are plenty of tall actors and that the proportion of tall, short and average height is probably no different among movie stars than in the rest of the country. He tells me I'm not paying attention. Mike Holtzclaw, Daily Press, Newport New , Va. A. You are basically correct; actors come in many shapes and sizes. Closeups are a great equalizing device (consider what an amazing impact Danny DeVito has in anything he does). Actresses who are taller than average (Sigourney Weaver, Saffron Burrows) sometimes have trouble getting cast opposite insecure stars, but it says something for Tom Cruise (who is of average height) that he loves to work with his taller wife. Here's a theory to try out on your dad: Stars of both sexes tend to have larger h ads, in relationship to body size, than the average person. That allows them to dominate in closer shots. ************ Am going to have to rewatch Circle of Friends to check on this height thing relative to Colin. Also relative to Minnie; I've seen how tall she is too!

Am going to have to rewatch Circle of Friends to check on this height thing relative to Colin I watched this last week because I was reading the book (which, as usual, was much better than the movie although Simon is described as "small and dark" --yuck). Simon has only about two inches on 'Nan-oh-nan'. You can see it best in the breakup scene. At one point he puts his hands on her shoulders and says "you're really something" and they're nearly eye level with one another.

But doesn't Nan-oh-Nan look like she towers over dumpy Minnie? And Minnie is likely about 5' 10"!

Yes, to my recollection. She must be about 6'. She was probably barefoot in her standing scenes with CF and had heels on next to Minnie. Just read over at TV Now that CoF will be rebroadcast by NBC (tame version) on 8/14.

CoF will be rebroadcast by NBC (tame version) on 8/14. Sheesh!! Those non-rumpy pumpy versions aren't hardly worth one's effort, when you can buy a brand new CoF at Best Buy for $6 these days. ;-D

...when you can buy a brand new CoF at Best Buy for $6 these days. ;-D That's one we haven't done either...CoF.

Thought this column from The Independent was pretty cute: Terence Blacker - Modern football: think Emma Bovary in a replica shirt 'Read books? Visited the Tate? Modern football is just another enriching cultural experience' You have held out for years. Your first memory was not sitting on your father's shoulders to watch the game against Preston North End. You were not given a rattle for your 10th birthday. The idea that true emotion can only be understood in the context of watching a game has always seemed idiotic. You are cultured, an intellectual. Football means nothing to you. But now you can no longer resist the pressure. The game is everywhere. No academic, artist or Cabinet minister can expect to be taken seriously if he does not support a team. Simply to prove that you are not socially inadequate, you need to become a fan. It is not as difficult as you might imagine. You have been to the National Theatre, haven't you? Read books? Visited the Tate? Well, modern football is just another enriching cultural experience. The game involves teams. Modern fans choose their teams on the basis of intellectual compatibility. If you enjoy jazzy, self-important glitter - you read Tom Wolfe, you genuinely enjoyed Starlight Express - you will support Chelsea. More introvert and complex fans - Paul Auster, Larry Sanders, Leonard Cohen types - might choose Spurs, while the kind of traditionalist for whom the revival of An Inspector Calls is a great night out might prefer Sheffield Wednesday or Ipswich. For this essential decision, yo should invest in The Cultural Guide to English Football Clubs, published jointly by the FA and Prospect magazine. At the game itself, you will notice an older man on the pitch, who runs backwards in a self-important manner, occasionally waving coloured cards. This is the referee. Until recently, referees used to wear black, but the FA decided that too many were suffering from Hamlet complexes and now put them in a dull, neutral colour. You should regard the referee as an alienated figure, like a sad yet faintly comic Chekhovian scholar: it is his inescapable fate to be part of - yet essentially dislocated from - the rama over which he officiates. He can allow a goal, or disallow it - but he can never actually score it himself. That is the tragedy of his existence. It is no more necessary to understand tactics, formations or positions of play than it is essential to appreciate the thematic structure of Wagner's Ring cycle in order to enjoy the music. Concentrate on the various actors and archetypes playing their parts in the drama. Your team may contain a want-away striker. For all his brilliance, beauty and flair, the want-away striker, like Emma Bovary or Nicola Six, has become restlessly aware that his destiny is elsewhere. The playing out of his inner conflict - every goal he scores makes his escape less likely and is, in a very real sense, an own goal - is one of the game's most gripping dramas. A more homely and recognisable character is your team's resident psycho - a term which only coincidentally has Hitchcockian connotations. The psycho is on the pitch to represent the spiritual bond between players and spectators. As he charges about, swearing at the referee, trying to break the legs of better players, he is a much-loved embodiment - somewhere between a medieval Everyman figure and Shakespearean clown - of the spirit, ambition and futility of the ordinary fan. In the centre of the drama, you will see a midfield dynamo, who propels the action forward with the driving, slightly dull relentlessness of a Steve Reich symphony, and a playmaker, the team intellectual who, like a Stoppard character, can put his foot on the ball and redefine the essential nature of human experience with a perfectly judged cross-field pass. Most teams have a doughty veteran, a Polonius figure who, at the end of each game, seems to be flat out behind the arras yet never quite dies. Occasionally, a callow teenager from the youth team might take the field to be described as one for the future, particularly if he has a football brain or a cultured left foot. Inevitably, the dark side of humanity will be evident in your team's troubled star. Like Jimmy Porter, or a Graham Greene whisky priest, or the minotaur in Maggi Hambling's "Minotaur Surprised while Eating", this character is highly volatile, a prey to inner demons, and more often than not has been to hell and back. There are attendant sub-plots: the existential agony of the back-me-sack-me manager on the bench, the ever-changing Greek chorus of the crowd and, above all, the subtleties of the post-match interview. To be fair. To be honest. All credit to the lads. Very much so. Soon these words will speak to you with the cutting, understated eloquence of a Harold Pinter play.

LOL, Karen! It shames me that you are the person who brings us selections from the British broadsheet press. All the way from the US. Here I am in the land of Firth and I only seem to find things in the tabloids! What does that say about my real reading habits.

Hey, if the tabloids were on line, I'd be there also...seeking out info on ODB or visiting aliens. Just every once and a while, an article jumps out at me. Believe it or not, this article actually has some relevance to Colin, but maybe belongs on the film discussion topic. To wit, and a playmaker, the team intellectual who, like a Stoppard character, can put his foot on the ball and redefine the essential nature of human experience with a perfectly judged cross-field pass.

a perfectly judged cross-field pass. Now I shall have to watch the dreaded P film:-)

a perfectly judged cross-field pass. When he emerges from the shower. Doesn't get more perfect than that!! :)

Thanks Karen...that article is a winner...Kudos to the author for alluding to literature..feel he was stretching it a bit..purposely, of course...but all v. amusing. I esp. liked: Until recently,referees used to wear black, but the FA decided that too many were suffering from Hamlet complexes and now put them in a dull, neutral colour. LOL I bet none of our sport writers could write a column like that!!

Sorry forgot the tags. Last sentence is mine.

Re: referee Hamlets loved the part about "He can allow a goal, or disallow it - but he can never actually score it himself. That is the tragedy of his existence." Shame that the Arsenal suppporter is not defined. I'll leave that to you Allison or Bethan. Much to ponder as am going to a baseball game tomorrow. Will be on the lookout for the team psycho and back-me-sack-me manager and never-say-die Polonius characters.

Poor MIRAMAX can't win..... This posted at the INDIE- WIRE website: "Posted By: Dave Nicholls (Cultural Studies Yr.III, University of Portsmouth, UK) (nicholls@bigship.freeserve.co.uk) I have no objection to (and indeed, am not peeved by) US money financing essentially British/ European projects, it is just that other, often better, films cannot compete with the promotion and hype the US companies can generate, however much the British budgets are rising. There is no easy solution to this, my previous mail concerns rather that these 'other' films often necessitate interested members of the audience to search harder than merely their nearest Odean or UCI. In this way, you don't so much c eate an elite, as an enthusiastic community - and this is surely at the heart of the success of independent cinema, for which there will always be an audience. International cinema is alive and well, it just requires a bit more enthusiasm from it's audience than the general yearly output of Miramax, 20C Fox et al As for the PaintballerIV project - sounds ineteresting - but we students can't really afford to finance anything. Oh for my premium bonds to come up trumps... I can only hope that Labour do not deliver false promises, with regard to their film funding policy."

I cannot remember laughing so hard in my life. Well, maybe once or twice. I mean the shower you put together. Marcia, would that I had your wit. Everyone was hysterically funny but when you started with the camels I lost it. Then the space shuttle and all. The rowers, the ships. The whole thing was truly amazing. You could not all have been chemically altered for all that time, so I see that you are all breathtakingly funny. And the food! And the parties! And to think I happened to try this topi on a lark, not expecting much, except that there were so many posts. The honeymoon (was that you, Karen?) I'm glad I was able to read it all in 1 sitting. I was afraid to skip even one post; they were all that good.

Mustn't forget Moon was our chief hostess for the shower. She and Marcia did a fantastic job stirring up the fun. BTW, where is Moon? Shouldn't she be back yet? Maybe I'll give her a call.

So true. She was (is?) an excellent hostess.

(Karen) BTW, where is Moon? Shouldn't she be back yet? Maybe I'll give her a call. Pl. do...time to start planning for Colin's birthday....only a month away.

Isn't Moon in Lake Como? I think she said she always goes there in August.

They were there already. Maybe they returned after London?

Since Julie Andrews is somewhat relevant, thought you might find this interesting from your Times tabloid: ;-D The racy past of Mary Poppins by Paul Ham FANS OF Mary Poppins will be shocked to learn that the creator of the magical nanny was a sensual Australian woman who wrote erotic verse and took a string of lovers during her long life. Pamela Travers, or P L Travers as she preferred to be known, is portrayed in a new biography as a pleasure-loving, bohemian young woman who later tried to conceal her Australian past. Like Mary Poppins, Travers travelled the world. But unlike her prim heroine, who has delighted millions of children, Travers preferred the company of rebellious Irish poets and eastern mystics. In Out of the Sky She Came, published next month by Hodder Headline, Valerie Lawson traces the character of Mary Poppins to Travers's own nanny, Helen Moorhead, a matronly Australian spinster. In her will Moorhead left Travers and her sisters little trinkets and baubles, including Sunlight soap, flannel nighties and a tape measure - items that would emerge, miraculously, from Mary Poppins's carpet bag. Moorhead was even said to have owned a parrot-headed umbrella, the design Travers chose for Poppins's magic brolly. When she was in her late twenties, Travers knew W B Yeats and fell in love with his friend, the poet George William Russell who was 40 years her senior. Travers was born Helen Lyndon Gough 100 years ago tomorrow in the small Queensland town of Maryborough, where her father, just like Mr Banks in the Mary Poppins stories, was a bank manager. He died when Travers was seven and she moved with her distraught mother and two younger sisters to Bowral, New South Wales, where she had a difficult adolescence. At one point Travers's mother, depressed by her husband's death, threatened to drown herself. To calm her sisters, Travers started inventing stories about a winged horse which turned into a headstrong young nanny borne along by a magic umbrella. In her early twenties she fell out with her mother and left home to become an actress and dancer. The heroine immortalised on film by Julie Andrews was conceived in 1926 during a visit to New Zealand. By then a 25-year-old travelling actress, she fell in love with a young reporter on the Christchurch Sun who encouraged her to write for the paper. The result, the first Poppins story, related the scene in which Mary and the Banks children leap through the pavement to a fantasy world beyond. The story was published but Travers's nameless lover disappeared from her life and she left for Britain, never to return. Before her departure Travers wrote poetry for The Bulletin, then Australia's most eminent literary magazine, and for Triad, another journal. Much of it was too explicit to be published. "She wrote very erotic poetry," said Lawson. "It contained much overt phallic symbolism and sexual references to swords, hooped skirts and the joy of losing her clothes." In one poem she wrote: Again feel your fingers in my hair Bending my half unwilling back . . . and back . . . Until the fortress of my womanhood Is shattered by your crushing, conquering arms. "She was a little nymph to look at," said Lawson. "She had red springy hair and blue eyes - an Irish look. She was slender, but not a beautiful woman. But she had so much vivacity." Her love for Russell, a father figure, is documented in effusive letters and it was she who alerted Yeats as Russell lay dying in 1935. In 1934 she had completed her first book of Poppins stories. Their success was not immediate, but she was slowly recognised as a gifted storyteller and her fame spread. In 1939 Travers adopted a son, Camillus, who became an antiquarian bookseller. She sought solace in eastern religions and became involved in the Krishna Murty sect. In later life - she died in 1995 aged 96 - she affected a grand manner and took the title doctor after an American university where she was writer-in-residence gave her an honorary doctorate. Travers was opposed to the Disney version of Poppins. According to Lawson, she accused the film company of producing a "saccharine version" of her book which failed to reveal the darker side of the heroine.

Thank you, Karen, I never thought I might be interested in Mary Poppins again, but a "darker side"... I may look up those stories.

Looks like a remake of Mary Poppins is in order but will Cate Blanchett be available? ;-)

I heard that one of the spice girls is up for the role... :p

LOL!! Puts me in mind of the Tom Lehrer lyric: "When correctly viewed, everything is lewd. I could tell you things about Peter Pan and the Wizard of Oz was a dirty old man."

Today is Kirsten's Birthday: HAVE A HAPPY ONE!!

One more time :-D Have a Happy One!!

Happy Birthday, Kirsten! Now be a good girl and stay off those cannons...;-D

Happy Birthday, Kirsten. I don't know how many it is,but you look 21!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KIRSTEN!! Have an ice cream on me and give that Firth spoon an extra lick. Yum yum!

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, KIRSTEN!

Happy Birthday Kirsten!!!

Kristen is not on my list...I need all the help I can get...Happy Birthday, Kristen, and I am sorry for the oversight.

Quimby, dear, thanks for the comments on my travels in behalf of Gi's shower. Now go to 113 and read about SPAM. That is terrific, and I was just a contributing poster on that one. Enjoy!

Ooops, I nearly missed my own party here! Sorry, grils! I needed a little hint from Renate to take a look at #72 because I do not often check this board. Thanks a lot for all your good wishes. Evelyn you're flattering me! But thanks anyway, you made my day! (May I quote Mme de Merteuil: "More! I want more!" ) (Heide) give that Firth spoon an extra lick. Yum yum! You bet! And more than one, I can tell!! Karen, I couldn't see your little pic, but I suppose Eileens mentioning of those cannons has something to do with it?

For you, Marcia, this is our Hawaiian cow on Michigan Avenue:

And here's London cow:

I had no idea there were Hawaiian bovine specimens in Chicago. (Who says the internet will rot your brain?! *lol*) I note the London one is a female as is the Hawaiian one. Have you no Chicago Bulls in your collection?

Marcia, They had to retire Michael Jordan to stud!

THAT is where he went?! What a retirement package That must have been!

Your cow for the evening is PiCOWsso: