Patricia Laffan

            On Friday morning I memorized the fifth verse of “Barcelone” by Boris Vian. 

            I finished working out the chords for “Baby Lou” by Serge Gainsbourg and ran through the song in French and English. 

            For lunch I had canned beans with chili sauce and potato chips. 

            I took a siesta and dreamed I was hurrying to masturbate before some people walked back in the room. At the same time a video was playing of Connie Francis although I wasn’t masturbating to Connie and it didn't look like Connie anyway. She was singing a song that doesn't exist. It was a kind of a rocker and the lyrics were something like, “I've got a right to be great". 

            I read several pages of Icefields by Thomas Wharton. 

            In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to the last sitcom style episode of Amos and Andy which was broadcast in January 1955. The show continued on for another five years as a music and comedy variety show with interviews of famous guests but this was the last one with a story. 

            It began with a public service announcement asking for money to support Radio Free Europe and free the minds of those living under the yoke of Communism. Radio Free Europe has been financed to some extent by the CIA but has diminished since the end of the Cold War. It still broadcasts in some parts of Eastern Europe like Hungary and whenever the US is at war, such as in Afghanistan and Iraq it is used as a propaganda tool. 

            This Amos and Andy story was recycled from an earlier one. Sapphire and her mother get Kingfish a job at a flower shop delivering flowers. Kingfish tells Andy that the only problem with it is that it aggravates his hay fever. One time he delivered flowers to a funeral and he was crying so much the priest thought he was one of the family. He ended up bawling his head off in Hoboken over the grave of somebody he’d never met. It is only later that Sapphire learns that the owner of the flower shop is an attractive young woman. She insists that he quit his job but he refuses. She tries to make him jealous by having Andy over for dinner with the window open so the nosy neighbour could report it to Kingfish. Kingfish wants to beat up the man that’s been messing with his wife and Andy wants to help him. When Kingfish finds out it’s Andy he’s about to hit him with a lead pipe when Amos arrives and stops him. Kingfish realizes Sapphire was trying to make him jealous. Finally Kingfish tells Sapphire he will make the sacrifice and quit the job for her. She is happy until she gets a call and finds out that Kingfish had been fired ten days before and so he gets a vase over the head. 

            I still have a two part BBC radio documentary on Amos and Andy to listen to. I found some of the old Amos and Andy TV shows on Pirate Bay and I started downloading the earliest one. It's still at zero percent. 

            I grilled eight chicken drumsticks. I spent about three hours reading Icefields by Thomas Wharton and when it was time for dinner I had nine pages left. 

            I ate two drumsticks, a potato and gravy while watching The Count of Monte Cristo. 

            In this story, on Christmas eve a diplomat named Tallyrand is awaiting an envoy from the king of France to bring written approval of Belgium forming its own nation independent of France and the Netherlands. That envoy is the count of Monte Cristo. On the way to London he and his friends stop at a tavern where Jacopo senses danger just in time to prevent Netherlandian agents from taking the document. They take out the attackers and make it to Tallyrand on Christmas morning. But while the count is there the Duchess of Maastricht, an agent for the Netherlands, arrives to inform Tallyrand that his son Paul has been abducted. Paul's safety depends on Tallyrand not presenting the king’s letter to the conference. The duchess imposes on Tallyrand's hospitality and stays as a guest in his home leading up to the conference the next day. The count poses as a waiter and learns the location where Paul is being held. But the duchess’s ally Baron Garonne recognizes the count and he is captured. He is about to be taken away to be executed when he throws hot soup, acquires a sword and escapes. The duchess prepares a trap for the count at the manor house where Paul is being kept and he is captured just after freeing Paul. Jacopo come in disguised as men delivering wood for the fireplace and attack. In the fight Paul is seriously injured but he is well enough to come with the count to the conference and thwart the plans of the duchess. 

            The duchess, referred to by the count as “The most beautiful woman in Europe”, was played by Patricia Laffan, who tended to always play villainesses. Her two most famous roles were as the Empress Poppaea in “Quo Vadis” and as Nyah in "The Devil Girl from Mars". Se also played important parts in “23 Paces to Baker Street”, “Escape Route" and “Hangman’s Wharf”. She retired from acting in 1965 to produce and choreograph fashion shows around the world, drive sports cars, write short stories for French publications and breed bull terriers.