An Bhealtaine

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Geo: -33.8261, 151.199

May 08

Autumn continues with my birthday which seems weird as at home it is (or was before global warming) the 1st day of summer, it's just not right to be dark so early in May. After visiting my new nephew for the 3rd time in two days and getting to (bottle) feed him -the hospital is across the road from us- we went for lovely Indian dinner in 'Cumin' in Crowie with his uncle P (& A). If you are ever wanting a really good but expensive NZ wine: Cloudy Bay Tekoko is your man.

So I had a great birthday, everyone was really nice in work and they even all signed a card for me, we had cake, my kiwi mate insisted on buying me my morning latté, got nice pressies from C & the family, got lots of texts, emails, phone calls & cards even, the kids & bro-on-law sung happy birthday down the phone while I was at a new hair dressers (for a treat that turned out be a bit of a disaster but sure it will grow, how philosophical of me - must be getting old).

Went to a gorgeous new neighbourhood 'Hunters Hill' for yummy brunch with P&A on the following sunny autumnal Saturday to café 'Ricciotti' which they are actually in the process of buying (naturally Cate B. frequents it seeing as she lives in that hood, who is following who now I don't know) and then we saw Oz's answer to Eton but it's catholic & called 'Joey's'. And that was the end of our gallivanting for a while as C ended up in the doc's with an ear infection and then I got dosed with a cold, autumn eh? Everyone loves my Danish coat(s) though. So we have to put off our planned Darling Harbour birthday dinner part 2 with the Irish mates.

But I did start Hoolahoop classes this week mainly because the teacher is called Bunny Star and let me tell you it rocks. Loving the hoopla so far.

(5th May: new work rule - No Laughing on company time and I am not joking. Now appears we didn't have a merger but a reverse takeover. Also any new work seems to be called a mandate and every time I hear it all I can think of is that great big black voice of the guy, who sounds like Shaft, in a techno track saying "Mandate my ass"😉.

Random nice thing happened: One lunch time I was $2 short for a sambo in a shop and didn't cop it until I was at the till and a complete stranger insisted on paying! How nice is that?

Discovered two things in the North Sydney (work) neighbourhood which definitely fall into the category of quirky, Mary MacKillop place: a church, museum and tomb of Australia's 1st saint (catholic of Scots descent), but the bonus is there's a lovely empty café in an otherwise busy café area {am reading a book about a Dutch/Oz nun turned call girl which is making me notice all things catholic, have also read about a Croat/Oz serial killer and an Irish/Oz boxer, so you know keeping it intellectual}. Check out 'The boy in the striped pyjamas' by John Boyne though (v.g.).

And nearby is the 'Don Bank house' museum (named after somewhere in Scotland), a lone old wooden house built pre-1850 complete with Victorian garden (including a massive magnolia grandiflora tree) bizarrely surrounded by sky scrapers. It was originally called 'St. Leonards Cottage' as it was part of the Wollstonecraft {now the name of 3 neighbourhoods up} estate which once upon a time extended from what is now the suburb of St. Leonards to the harbour foreshores.

On 20 October 1854 the Sydney Morning Herald described it thus:

"A pretty marine villa with commanding views of Port Jackson"

Port Jackson is the name of Sydney harbour, which alas cannot be seen from here now due to aforementioned sky scrapers, but the house is only open on every 2nd full moon on even numbered years or something bizarre so I happened to stumble across it on the right day by accident and had a great chat with the old lady volunteer curator (I was the only visitor) who told me the Council's purchase of the site after 1974 was made possible by the sale of air space rights above Don Bank being transferred to other sites in the central business district, just gets weirder and weirder.

Another day I went for a walk down to McMahon's point (the next neighbourhood down from work) and all of a sudden I was confronted with a spectacular uninterrupted view of the Opera House which will always have a wow factor for me.

Apropos of nothing, I discovered how to make Anzac biscuits only 2 weeks late - yum though.

This month's activity for C is a photography course and hoolahooping for me of course and both of us are doing a 4 week course in wine appreciation.

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Wine course part 1: (skip past the lines here if you don't care)
The wine guy was British born and sounds like an Oz Chris Tarrant and could defo. talk for Oz, but week 1 was interesting as it covered the history (some of the oldest vines in the world are in Oz brought over by Europeans in 1860's), the ingredients, how they are made, keeping qualities, differences to Euro wines etc.

So then we tasted 12 wines (all new world), 1st 6 accumulating gradients of colour as they went along:

#1 Semillon - I don't like the citrus smell but it tastes ok which is ironic seeing as smell has a lot to do with taste;

#2 Riesling - which is really lovely and damn that 'Bishop of Riesling' for putting me off here-to-fore;

#3 Chardonnay - am generally not a fan of chard but it was nice enough though all I can think of is 'Footballers Wives';

#4 Rosé - which the teacher said Aussies wrongly resist but I was always partial too in summer;

#5 Pinot Noir - which is in fact pretty watery but smells great;

#6 Merlot - had great legs or 'tears' as they are now politically correctly called and was gorgeous.

Later we had 3 other Chardonnay's of varying prices so we could do a comparison of what you get for your money and also 3 Shiraz's of varying cost. Personally I am not so big into Chardonnay but the dearest one $19 was defo. the nicest , the other two being tasteless and awful.

Only the really cheap Shiraz was out for me yuk, $11.50 lovely and $25 "awesome" also it was wine 12 so was a bit pissed.

So there apparently is no wrong or right as we all have our own tastes but it's good to find out some background and do taste comparisons. Naturally this all meant we were obliged to go home and stuff ourselves with triple cream brie. You get to bring home the leftover bottles plus we now each have 6 special wine glasses each, the kind they use for judging wines for awards but Jesus there was a few right knobs in the class (22 participants in total), time will tell how wrong or right I am with that observation. We were with a nice Lithuanian guy and a nice Aussie guy whose ancestors I am guessing were from over our way. This all inspired me to join 'the club' at the local fancy wine shop where I got to taste some $750 per bottle Grange (which turns out is Penfold's best Shiraz and is apparently Australia's best known wine, presumably that means in certain rich circles).
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We were invited for lovely everything-made-from-scratch Italiano dinner with our kiwi mates H&M & their little lad in their place Pyrmont one Saturday evening and also caught up with our old mate from home Mr. FC who we hadn't seen in months and was a great help to us in Oct. when we were moving in, not that I remember too much as neither us even know what time we got home, charming.

(Work news 12th May our Team Leader resigns.....).

At one point this month my nieces gave me a 'facial' (with soap and a freezing dripping face flannel) and the 4 year one (S) told me my eyes look horrible with no glasses but that I shouldn't worry cause I was still pretty on the outside...eeeekkk.

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Wine course part 2:

Everyone sat in the same seats, group behaviour in humans really is so funny! We tried 6 more white grape varieties and 6 reds, 3 of each were new to me. Wine is classed here by grape mainly and not by region necessarily and if does say it's from a region then 85%!o(MISSING)f the grapes have to come from that region e.g. Hunter Valley (NSW) or Barossa (SA), because of weather factors Australian wine can be made from the best grapes from wherever had the best harvest, whereas in France if a region has a bad year with weather they are a bit limited in their production options, so that's why years count more in Europe. If a wine has a few grape varieties then they have to be listed in order of quantity. Grapes are not crushed anymore but are pressed and like olives have a few pressings, 1st pressing is the best, 2nd pressing goes into the $10 wines and 3rd pressing goes ....can't remember but somewhere horrible one would think .....oh yeah my notes say brandy distillation.

So the whites were:

#1 Pinot Gris - Gris means grey which is a bit off putting I think but it's a wine for food as it minerally tasting, am told it is good with eggs and cheese;

#2 Verdelho - Portuguese grape and is more recognisable as 'Vino Verdi' in Spain to us Europeans, apparently its good mixed with Semillon;

#3 Marsanne - related to Chardonnay & smells a bit like floor cleaner to me (knob from last week agreed with me, still think he's a knob though) but is nicer than a unwooded chardonnay, and equivalent to grapes in Rhone Valley France in Europe;

#4 Sauvignon Blanc - Not one for the cellar, Equivalent Loire Valley or Sancerre (personally think Sancerre is better) and teacher says its good with Goats cheese, buffalo mozzarella, tomato, basil so Italian we'll call it (or as a friend of ours says about this particular one he has drunk this so often he feels like he has been to Oyster Bay);

#5 Viognier - This is a dry white, smells great, very nice taste and apparently even nicer mixed with Shiraz, "The white wine for red wine drinkers";

#6 Frontignac aka Lexie - This is a sweet white wine, one glass would be enough for me and apparently it'd be nice with fruit salad (also mint & coriander) but is not sweet enough to be a dessert wine, is used as a basis for sparkling wine though.

And the 6 reds were:
#1 Pinot Noir - not as watery as last weeks one but back in Europe this is the grape for Burgundy;
#2 Grenache - yum yum yum and is the grape for Chateau Neuf du pape and amazingly the basis for Rosé & is apparently good with pasta;
#3 Sangiovese - Opposite of Grenache and grape Chianti is made from and wouldn't be to my taste but is supposed to be good with creamy sauces;
#4 Durif - which is basis for Port in Portugal and is good with stews allegedly, personally I prefer Port;
#5 Tempranillo - grape Rioja is made from and is very much to my taste and can be blended with 20%!w(MISSING)hite wine;
#6 Petit Verdot -yum, great nose and grape of Bordeaux, it is blended in France and so can be better there.
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Weekend of 16/17th rented a car and went via very scenic Spit Bridge in Manly up to Narembeen, Mona Vale & Avalon beaches, very near Palm Beach where 'Home and Away' is set. We had lovely civilised lunch in 'Starfish' in Avalon. Gorgeous day, really sunny and warm and the first time I actually put my feet in the sea since we got here (8mths), so that's autumn this year for you nicer than summer. Mind you not too far away it was snowing in a place called Avondale someone said. But I kept hearing the Home and Away theme tune in my head, as I watched the surfers, not so good.

Saturday morning is a great time to go even if it means getting up earlier than you do for work, daw. Made many friends on the beach as I had my Hoolahoop with me (have so gone native), and an English woman who spent every summer in Donegal and whose daughter is called Indigo, (wow that's really going native) told me it took her at least 5 years to settle here and it was only at year 12 did her & Irish hubby feel they were coming home after a trip to UK/Irl.

Rest of weekend spent eating with various family and extended family members (Great Thai followed by Danish lemon cake and the next day Gorgonzola & fig pizza, yum and bread and butter pudding which hadn't had in 20 yrs) and got stuck into very funny new Marian Keyes book, which I know is probably very one-dimensional of me seeing as the last book (nun-whore) I read wasn't exactly taxing but even my journo friend and my well read sister-in-law likes her (Marian not the nun-whore), and I met her once and she was absolutely lovely and a part of the book set in Clare had me crying with laughter, Irish people have such a funny turn of phrase when you think about it.

We have booked an overseas trip, as they call it here, for 10 weeks time (in fact will be zipping through 4 continents in 21 days) so have decided we need to go on economy drive first, so am doing the thing I always dreaded and never did before .... making own sambos for work now .... if my old lunch mates in Dublin were dead they would be turning in their graves ...sure I may as well drive into work at 6 am "to get a good parking spot" so... I have crossed over to the dork side.

21st finally managed to apply for new Irl. Passports 4 months after they expired, in pop psychology that would say we must be feeling fairly comfortable here so, no? Or just lackadaisical more like. Photos now a nightmare - damn those bloody ePassports (required by US for all counties who have visa waiver with them, since Oct06 all such citizens' photos must comply with the ePassport standards even if they have no intention of going to US).

(22nd Work news they have introduced sweat shop type time monitoring system, is like being in school).

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Wine course part 3:

Seats changed slightly, we had the same Lithuanian guy and a Canadian woman this time, but she didn't say 'oot' for out or have a funny South Park looking head. So anyway this week's purpose was to compare the same grapes from different regions, whites were 3 Semillons and 3 Rieslings plus an extra mystery one and in the red corner 3 Shirazs and 3 Cabernet Sauvignons. So a lot of talk about how Trophies & medals are awarded, all very interesting - judging is not on individuals taste but what a grape should taste like, so standards and bench marking are in play. Also talked about climate if frost comes one year effects vines memory so the next year is fecked too. The teacher picked Semillon & Riesling as he says they are actually the best 2 white grape varieties produced in Australia.

So white by region we had:

#1 Hunter Valley NSW - which we also had on week one and it still tastes like cooking apples in lime;

#2 South Fleurieu S.A. - paler, nicer & less acidic than number 1;

#3 Hunter Valley NSW - so this is the good stuff and 2003 is the current vintage, so from same company as #1 but from individual vineyard 'Stevens' & is 10.6%!,(MISSING) smelt like oven baking food, tasted yum. This has won 2 trophies and 3 gold medals as did the 2002 version.

Semillon is good with sea food apparently esp. oysters or antipasto.

Hunter Valley NSW Semillon is absolutely unique, no where else in the world produces the same taste, used to be called Hunter River Chablis so it is close to Chablis but different, what with it being unique. However due to the type of rain they get there it can be as low as 9%!v(MISSING)ol. as they can't always wait for more ripening when 3 inches of rain is on the way. And 2008 was a bad year for Hunter Valley whites due to crap summer but good for reds, am not sure why. Semillon is a cold climate grape. Also apparently wood aged Semillon should be avoided.

The Riesling here is much less sweet than the German variety, is a cold climate grape and keeps well but the older it is the more keroseney it's nose gets, which is not a bad thing it just is a fact. Is good with runny cheeses like Brie, Camembert but not hard cheese like cheddar.

So Region #4 Eden Valley, S.A. , slightly chalky smell, long palate, good taste, trophy winner (mind you if you don't like it trophies are irrelevant);

#5 Clare Valley, S.A. supposedly best area for Riesling, tasted nice like alcoholic lime juice, 13%!;(MISSING)

#6 Tasmania (Hobart) smelt good like burnt sugar, rose, Turkish delight, tasted like alcoholic grapefruit and was yum. Can keep for up to 10 yrs. 12.6%!,(MISSING) would be my favourite. Another trophy winner.

The mystery wine was a blind taste test (as they do at the wine show judging's) and it turned out to be what was awarded "The best old Riesling from the New World ever" or something like that, it was from Clare Valley, S.A. , if you like Old Riesling it's good, think I prefer younger vintage though, this one could be cellared for another 15 years though. Interestingly Rieslings can keep for 20-30 years.

The best red grapes in Oz are apparently Shiraz & Pinot Noir (but only the $70 a bottle variety for PN) and the best blend they say is Penfold's bin 389 and Oz Shiraz can be over valued he said. Shiraz is a warm climate grape and is originally from Syrah in Persia & European Shiraz now is from the Rhone Valley

#1 Barossa, S.A Was aged in French & American oak lightly toasted so not over oaked, smells of fruit, tasted tanniny, smokey but not burnt, long palate & delicious, allegedly good with casseroles;

#2 Clare Valley S.A. smokey oak, less palate not as nice as


#3 Hunter Valley NSW meant to go with food, aged in old wooden barrels so has earthy, slightly oxidized smell, more 'muscular' than #2, short palate, tanniny, had minimum filtration so sedimenty & would go well with cheddar cheese, smelt better than it tasted and was dearest at $26. Can keep for 15yrs.

Next 3 were Cabernet Sauvignon, like Bordeaux but blended with Malbec, Merlot etc.

#4 Margaret River W.A. , vanilla & veg. smell as opposed to red berry smell, mouth drying, made with slightly unripe fruit so sandpapery tannin;

#5 Coonawara S.A. possibly best area for this grape had an 'After 8' smell and was really nice when mixed with Shiraz#1.

#6 Nagambie, Vic tasted earthy, tobaccoy, liquoricey, Yum. This is the current vintage and it had minimum filtration so is sedimenty.

So I paid $195 for the nugget of info. which I give to you free: sniffing the cork is pointless as it tells you zero, anyone you see doing is just try to show off and doesn't know their arse from their elbow. The reason they show corks in restaurants is historically bottles had no labels and only the cork had the name (bottle from each area had different shapes so that's how they told if it was a Burgundy or whatever).

And we had the pleasure of finding a corked $48 bottle too , dank, wet, mouldy carpet smell. And nothing has changed since I last did a wine appreciation course 10 years ago in that 1 in every 8 to 12 bottles is corked bar if they have a screw cap of course and there is no reason to be snobby about screw tops, it's called progress. (Ended up on phone to my Mum for an hour that night, good only knows what I was saying.)
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On the last full weekend of May our 4yr old niece (S) slept over, great excitement she rang 2 days earlier to see "how many sleeps" until she comes to our house. A while after she finally went to bed - I was the only one who fell asleep during pre bed movie of course - I crept in to check on her at 21:10 (where I saw the teddy I gave her was fecked out the door) and she's still awake and goes "Any chance of a quick game of hide & seek?" (I declined). Then 6a.m. on the button she's up bright as can be, her: "why is there no blue in the sky", me: "cause it's the middle of the bloody night". After eating me out of house and home from 6.30 am to 11.30 am she then demands pancakes so by 2pm (after both of us disco dancing on the bed, brunch out and a trip to the play ground) I was exhausted but had arranged to go on the lash with her Mom (1st post baby drinks), so as one was collected the other was dropped off.

Got over my tiredness pretty quickly to go on the razz for the next 7 hrs with F&C, ah just like the old days! Been a long time but we had great laugh but ended up joining a rsl (rugby club) -you wha?- so we could go to 'Cabana bar' in St. Lens and a very nice venue it was too.

(26th Work news: another team lead resigns, very clever fellow been here 5.5 yrs, Irish as it happens, will be a great loss.

Morale at work not exactly ecstatic - for the 1st time ever we did a syndicate for the 'powerball' (something to do with lottery), we didn't win though 😞

Work leaving do's this month: 4.

Network down all day 29th didn't notice anyone (employees) being too upset).

Writing would appear to be on wall with work, is a pity as it was a great company to work for up to 7 weeks ago, turns out was not a merger with other company but a reverse takeover with aim of to be "largest broadband supplier in Australia".

So just putting out the feelers so far with agencies, awful business, hate it, not good at selling self but don't want just any old job so need to think this out well.

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Wine course part 4:
This week's focus was on sparkling wines & fortified wine. Trivia: Cork is made from the bark of an oak tree; modern fridges dry out cork so bottles not to be left in there indefinitely and a bottle of unopened champers has 3 times more pressure in it than a car tyre. The opening of a cork should not make a pop sound and spill out a quarter of a bottle, but should sound like "the sigh of a contented woman" or "a nun farting" and not spill at all.

Decanting is only necessary for reds ages 8-10 years as you are trying to get the sediment out, best to leave bottle upright for preceding 24 hrs, then catch the sediment in the crook of the bottle when pouring into decanter. If you let old wine breath too long it will only get more oxidised.

Temperature for serving white = 12-14degrees and Red=22-25max, so in Oz its best to chill white for 24hrs and take out 30mins before use and chill red 30 mins before use.

So Champagne is a sparkling wine style unique to the Champagne region in northern France. N.V. (non vintage) means it's a blend of years. Most champagne is N.V. as there is only 3 good grape years a decade. But French Champagne houses often have 'joint ventures' with overseas vineyards and even many French wines are made by the Champagne method but cannot carry the name.

More Trivia: Champagne is sedimenty so hollow stemmed champers glasses were originally intended for catching the sediment but only rich people could afford them so frosted glasses were invented to cover up the sediment. Champagne was accidently invented by the brits (improperly cleaned oak barrels) who then asked Dom Pérignon to refine it, who then brought in using bottles instead of barrels. Do not chill champers glasses as condensation only waters it down. The smaller the bubble the older the wine.

Champagne grapes are varieties of chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier. Usually made from 3 grapes, amazingly 2 red but without skins and 1 white. Spanish Freixenet is a different grape altogether. It is a cold climate grapes so Tasmania, Hunter Valley NSW, Montana-deuts NZ & Clare Valley SA Grande are the best producers here.

Parlez vous champagne?

Cuvée=Blend
Brut =Dry
Veuve=widow

So my own favourite the widow or Veuve Clicquot(current M.D. of "French women don't get fat" fame) invented a technique called Disgorging (or traditional) in 1800's where she used a brine solution to freeze the sediment in the necks of upside down bottles. Also the book says V.C. is good with pizza, I concur.

Another method is called Transfer aka 'Fermented in the bottle', must age 6 months then filtered and re-bottled under pressure.

#1 Italian Verdi Raspberry Sparkletini N.V. 4.8%!$(MISSING)7: Like something teenagers would drink, smelt & tasted of cheap sweets;

#2 Italian Bosca Asti Spumante N.V. 8%!$(MISSING)15 (Bosca is grape in English white Muscat, Asti is region), Spumante is an old wine style around since 1300's and Brown Bros. do a version., naturally sweet and good with fruit or marinate fruit salad in it. Unusual taste which I need to ponder.

#3 Oz Yalumba Angus Brut Premier Cuvée N.V. $10, made by transfer method from Semillon & shiraz, dry, nice, acidy (sign its good quality).

#4 Oz Seaview Pinot Noir Chardonnay Brut '99 $22 made by disgorging method aka traditional. Smells soapy, yeasty, honeyed, more PN than Chardonnay, distinctly drier than #2, nice enough.

#5 French Piper Heidsieck Champagne Brut N.V. $65, made by disgorging method, 65%!r(MISSING)ed grape but looks white. Smelt bready doughy yeasty. Tasted Bitter and Acidy, again nice enough.

#6 Seaview Sparkling Shiraz N.V. made by transfer method, dries the mouth, bitter. Personally would prefer still Shiraz. (Red sparkling more likely to explode than white). Good with Peking duck apparently.

Then the fortified wines - the range of colours here very autumnal

Note: Tawny port is usually N.V. and in Portugal is made out of grapes that were not much use for anything else.

#1 Westend '3 Bridges' Golden Mist Botyrtis '05 , is golden and has glycerol in it, smells divine of marmalade, burnt apricots. Tastes Oily, sweet & yummy.

#2 Angove's Vintage Port '99 $19 (could last another 20yrs), once opened lasts 10-14 days. Made from Shiraz, smells of cedar, tobacco, liquorice, smokey after taste, nice. Good with crumbly cheddar, not stilton!!

#3 Penfold's 'Club' Tawny Port N.V. $12 Made from Grenache, smells of raisin, is soft and has lost tannins, nice.

#4 Campbell's Rutherglen Tokay N.V. $16 a half bottle, another golden coloured one, made from Muscadel grapes, smells of honey & barley water, tastes sweeter than tawny port

#5 The prize winning De Bortoli Show Liqueur Muscat N.V. (Liqueur does not mean liqueur here), Made from red Frontignac grape, really dark colour with green hue at rim, the more green the older it is, tastes of sugar & figs, yum. Good with chocolate mud cake or King Is. Cheddar (aka double clotted cream cheese). Very Nice.
Decadent Recipe: 1 layer Dehydrated strings of figs on a baking tray, half bottle brandy, half/three qtrs bottle Muscat, star anise, cinnamon, cover in foil. Lowest oven heat with oven door a jar for 8-10hrs!!! Serve with Muscat & double clotted cream cheese.

#6 Would have been sherry but he forgot it! However from our own research we can defo say Spanish Jerez Valdespino Pedro Ximenez (grape) is awesome, like alcoholic liquid chocolate raisins.

Knobs in class update: all males, 1 middle aged (British who we noticed from week 1) & 3 oul lads (just annoying and not listening and being contradictory to the teacher but you'll have that), middle aged one didn't know what a contented woman sounded like, surprise surprise! Most vocal females one of the ould lads wives and an American (you don't say) but they were ok.
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Was talking to an english girl this week who as been here 6 yrs and it took 12 months for her before she felt she could phone any aussie friends to hook up.

30th Oh my God new evil management have just stumped up $100 for office party at 4pm today! Probably gonna fire us when we all pissed.

Last weekend of autumn is our 2nd bbq in 8 months! At in P&A's with S&F for "Super 14" which is some kind of sporting event (rugby).

So Autumn ends with a bang, massive thunder storm when I was walking home at end of month, very impressive (bearing in mind its dark by 5p.m.) and I didn't get too soaked, seems like ages since it rained actually after all my cribbing in summer. I see in The Sydney Morning Herald it was driest May on record (150yrs). So Oz Autumn lovely season and I can see why it is many peoples favourite.

Movies:

*La Dolce Vita (It., grainy);
*After the wedding (Dk. Really good, and a different story to what I thought it would be from the title, only the implication that Danes don't have kids outside wedlock is soooo contrary to reality, and it has loads of great shots of Copenhagen and that cool Arne Jacobsen ex-dept. store designed hotel);
*The Hours (US. the opposite of uplifting but well executed (and had Meryl Streep always good) - Virginia Woolf inspired so what did I expect).
*No Country for old men (new Cohen Bros -also C. McCarthy book- & this years Oscar winner, fantastically tense for 1st half and then frustratingly inconclusive in 2nd half, also don't watch when you are tired as you have pay good attention, I had great difficulty figuring out what the sheriff & deputy were saying in their Texas accents, I had to be a real girl and press pause and get C to translate.)
*Wallace & Gromit: The curse of the were-rabbit (a past Oscar winner, very cute & of course v.g.)

On 'Fox Classics' there is a mini Clint Eastwood fest. The criterion for how they were picked evades me but I didn't remember he was such a horn dog & he was my Dad's favourite actor so now am a bit shocked! (I can just hope he only watched the cowboy ones.)
Anyway they were:
*Coogan's Bluff '68 (randy devil, vaguely remembered the hippies, good shots of Central Park though);
*The Beguiled '71 (seemed like a plot for a porno and was very lusty witches coven, vaguely remembered the wanton young one);
*Play Misty for me '71 (more sexy psycho shenanigans, saw it about 10 times before but still couldn't resist!);
*Joe Kidd '72 (more on the cowboy end, well disreputable bounty hunter but he still managed to snog someone else's bint!);
*The Eiger Sanction '75 ( a mountain climbing one, where he managed to bed a black chic and red Indian chic, I mainly remembered the dog called 'faggot' ), just googled him, he has 7 kids by 5 women... life imitating art....

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