Ingeborg Von Kusserow

            On Friday morning I finished memorizing “Marilou Reggae" by Serge Gainsbourg. I looked for the chords but there were none posted in the song book style that I was looking for. People either just posted lists of the chords or the bass tablature for the 1979 dub version of the song. I wrote down the chords that were listed but when I started working out the intro the chords I heard didn’t fit with those versions.

            Around midday I cleaned the base and a piece of a metal sculpture that I’ve been waiting for years to find a welder to put it together.

            For lunch I had some of the soufflé that I’d made the night before with the liquid egg that I’d gotten from the food bank.

            In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. In this story Andy decides to go to night school and immediately begins dating his teacher, Theresa Thomson. Within a couple of weeks they want to get married but her father won’t approve of the marriage unless Andy guarantees he's never been with any other women. Andy lies and says he hasn't had any other girlfriends and so the wedding plans go ahead. Andy makes a list of all of the friends he wants to invite in a red book. He also decides to burn his little black book containing eighty pages of the phone numbers of all of his ex-girlfriends. Andy tells the lodge janitor and general helper, named “Lightning” for sarcastic reasons, to take his red book to the printer for the invitations and to burn his black book. Lightning of course gets the two books confused. He incinerates the  red book and takes the black book to the printer, inadvertently causing wedding invitations to be sent out to all of Andy's ex-girlfriends. Within a few days Miss Blue, Andy's former secretary knocks on the Thomson door and tells Theresa's father about how Andy jilted Her. He goes to see Andy but Kingfish is there and convinces the father that there are two Andy Browns and Andy is the good one. But later Abigail Simpson comes to the Thomson’s and also says she is Andy’s ex and proceeds to describe him before she lists his crimes against her heart. Thomson again goes to Andy but Kingfish convinces him that the other Andy Brown disguises himself as the good Andy so that he will be blamed for his actions. After that Andy finds Madame Queen, another ex-girlfriend is in town. He goes to see her to prevent her from talking with Thomson. She tells Andy how much she hates him but while reminiscing about the bad times she remembers the good times. Andy ends up getting engaged to Madame Queen again.

            It was a rainy afternoon and perfect for doing my income tax. It took a few minutes to dig up all the related papers. I used H & R Block online and it took me about an hour. My only complaint is that they don’t add up all the money that one is going to get in the end. They mentioned in the middle the tax credit for the carbon tax but didn't add it onto my refund when I was finished. I think I’ll be getting almost $500 altogether but they only mentioned the refund of $250 at the close. In addition I’ll still be getting the monthly Ontario tax return.

            Since today was the 15^th of the month I needed to send out my income statement to Social Services but they didn’t send me a form. I used a copy of an old form and sent it in, listing no income right now. Since I’m scheduled to start getting my Old Age Pension at the end of June, this might be the last time I have to send anything to Social Services.

            I made gravy from the drippings from the spicy pork ribs I’d made a few weeks before and had a little with a potato, a carrot and a steak while watching two episodes of Robin Hood.

            In the first story Little John meets an apothecary gathering poisonous mushrooms and other herbs in Sherwood Forest. He takes him to see Robin who learns that the druggist is making medicines for the outbreak of St Anthony’s Fire in Nottingham. St Anthony’s Fire is now more commonly called ergotism. It resulted from eating a fungus that grows on rye. The fungus is dark coloured and since the rich people ate a lighter kind of flour the condition tended to only infect the peasants. The dark fungus was harder to notice in the dark rye that was eaten by the serfs. Robin has his men gather the herbs for the apothecary and he and Little John disguise themselves to deliver the medicinal ingredients to Nottingham. But one of the sheriff’s informers on the street recognizes Robin as he's coming through the gate. Robin makes the delivery and wants to check on the families of some of his men. The apothecary tells him where the infected people are being treated and gives him some prepared medicine to take to them. While he is there the sheriff and his men attack. Robin and Little John manage to escape but Robin is wounded. Little John takes him to a physician who wants to treat his bleeding by bleeding him. The doctor writes a prescription to take to the apothecary but Little John doesn’t trust the physician out of his sight. He sends the same guy on the street that informed on them before. The man tries to tell the sheriff again but wants to be paid for the information and so the sheriff punches him. The informer then goes to the apothecary to give him the prescription. The apothecary reads the prescription with surprise and goes to the doctor's office himself, telling Little John that it was a prescription for belladonna that might have killed them. The doctor is locked in a trunk. Anselm the apothecary says he has friends from the Wagoner’s Guild to help him escape in a death cart. When the guards want to check the wagon they back away when told that it carries victims of St Anthony's Fire. The Wagoner’s Guild has a secret passage out of Nottingham's walls in order to avoid paying the gate tax and so Robin escapes.

            In the second story squires' homes are being attacked. Redmond Hall is burned and Hugh Redmond killed with an arrow that has feathers from a goose that only lives in Sherwood Forest and which Robin Hood and his men use for their arrows. The sheriff shows the townspeople the arrow and they begin to turn against Robin. Limpus the ironsmith who used to make arrowheads for Robin goes to warn him. Robin’s men look for a hunter that must be coming to Sherwood for the grey wild goose. They find him and Robin talks with him. He is Charles, a kinsman of Baron Hubert who has permission from Prince John to hunt in Sherwood Forest. Friar Tuck tells Robin that Baron Hubert is the new owner of Wells Castle. He’s learned that Hubert is having a betrothal party and so Robin and Little John crash it, posing as minstrels. The Lady Irina, who will soon be Hubert’s wife, asks Robin to sing for her and so he plays a song about Robin Hood. She asks why sing about Robin Hood and he explains that he is accused of recent vandalism. Hubert thinks the minstrel speaks too well for a peasant. He challenges him and is defeated. Robin and Little John escape, but too easily. Tuck concludes that it’s because Hubert needs Robin alive so he can continue to blame him for his vandalism, just as Robin needs Hubert alive so he can be exposed as the vandal. Tuck and Robin try to figure out the reason for Hubert’s actions. The first estate to be attacked was the Harrington estate next to Hubert's castle. Then the Redmond estate next to that was burned. Since then Hubert has bought both estates. They figure that the next estate to be attacked will be the Giles estate, which has the finest hunting in Nottinghamshire. Little John overheard Hubert tell Irina that soon they would have the best hunting grounds in the country and he heard they would be riding the next night. Robin and Little John are at Giles Castle to meet them. Robin fights Hubert while Little John fights the other two. Robin says, “Watch your foot. If you overreach yourself again you’ll catch your death of cold steel." Hubert is defeated, tied to the walls of Nottingham and forced to confess in front of the people.

            Lady Irina was played by Ingeborg von Kusserow, who started out as a singer, dancer and actor on the German stage. She worked as a film actor in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s and starred in Nazi propaganda films. She came to England in 1947 and began working in English films. In 1949 she published her memoir, “I Was Hitler's Mickey Mouse".