Around and About with Tony Goodman
Lockdown restrictions have eased and so Tony is tentatively thinking about getting around and about again, whilst respecting social distancing and hygiene advice, of course!
Opera
Verdi believed he really only hit his stride as a composer when he penned Nambuco. Watch and listen as Nambuco is punished for his hubris at the end of Act 2 before finally gaining redemption at the end of Act 4. Set in a more modern setting which worked well. French sous-titres were a good vocab workout. Every day a school day.
Black & white
Mickey Rooney’s Quicksand (1950) the obligatory femme fatale is Jeanne Cagney, Jimmy’s sister and Peter (Casablanca) Lorre. True love leads yet another young lad astray which as we’ve often seen rarely ends well. A one reeler it was a nice filler for a wet morning.
Invisible Ghost (1941), no idea how this ended up on the playlist. Perhaps it was an unseen spectre? Featuring Bela Lugosi as a psycho-maniac, while he seemed to have dialled in this performance, as always he is very watchable. I wonder as a youngster did he practice that look in the bathroom mirror? Murderous grief and mayhem, described as spine tingling at the time. Now head scratching maybe more apt.
Cranes & trains
It seems the region is getting back to work. Early in the week we saw a crane being erected over a long empty building site. Enjoying a mid morning coffee and chocolatine, we were entertained as the riggers, unencumbered with safety harnesses, hardhats nor face masks, wandered about 60 feet in the air assembling the jibs, loading counterweights and generally banging metal.
Then it seemed someone woke up the TER trains in the distant marshalling yards. They shuffled about no doubt stretching their legs after a nice long nap before settling back precisely where they started from.
Thursday market
Our well managed open-air market is becoming the place to be on Thursday mornings. Suitably protected with masks, gloves, barriers and striped tape (picture from pre-Covid period). Observing the required separation, it is nevertheless good so see our neighbours are fit and well. The range of fresh vegetables seems to be expanding and this week we had an additional treats of fresh made pasta and fresh made Gazpacho. A sure sign summer is not far away.
Shopping
Sporting a new homemade mask, I set off to secure a few absolute essentials including ink for the printer, all those attestations took their toll and the cartridges are bone dry. FNAC’s new store in Perpignan was the selected provider. Dreading the usual crush nothing could have been further from the truth. The orderly queue to enter moved quite quickly, security guards controlled the number of people allowed in to ensure good separation. Cheerful sales staff were on the prowl to assist you and to encourage browsers to browse elsewhere. Following the one way system to the cartridge section then the cashier saw me in and out in just over five minutes.
Car
After sitting for two months the car is looking forlorn and unloved. Thankfully the occasional light drizzle has helped keep the dust at bay. After checking oil levels, tyres and brushing the spider webs away starting required the use of an emergency battery which was no surprise. Once the weather clears will be take a local and slow first flight.
