Gladys Cooper

            On Friday morning I didn’t exactly get up feeling depressed but I started out with low emotional energy until I started singing.

I memorized the second verse of “Bourrée de complexes” (Buried in Complexes) by Boris Vian.

For the ninth day in a row I video recorded the first half hour of my daily rehearsal. I didn’t get as many songs as usual in the video because I made mistakes on a couple of my songs near the end and decided to do them all over. I perform the French songs a lot better than my own.

Around midday I finished washing and scrubbing the area under the kitchen table. Now as I continue my floor cleaning project I won’t have to move the table anymore.

I had a lettuce, cucumber and sunflower seed salad with ranch dressing for lunch.

In the afternoon I checked my bank account and saw that I got my Old Age Pension, which ironically made me feel young because there was enough money for me to get by comfortably. I assume there was some extra money in there because of the coronavirus, so I won’t know what I'll get regularly until next month. But I have a feeling it will be better than what I got from Ontario Works. Plus, if I get any modelling work I won’t have to worry about Social Services clawing half of the money back.

Now that I knew I could afford it I called Top Cuts to make an appointment with Amy for a haircut. She normally worked Mondays and Thursdays before the pandemic hit but when I asked for Monday the woman on the phone said Amy would just be answering the phone on Monday. I was told she was available on Tuesday so I got an appointment for noon.

I skipped my afternoon exercises so I’d have time to stop at Freshco and take out some money from the ATM on my way back from my bike ride.

I was riding along Bloor near Bay when a guy carrying a small terrier stepped off the curb in front of me. I pulled my brakes in time but the abrupt stop made me lose my balance and I fell over. I got up to check to see if my bike was damaged and saw the chain was off. The guy with the dog apologized and told me he’s a bike technician. He asked me to hold his dog while he checked to make sure my bike was okay. The dog struggled at first but I held it and massaged its neck and made sure it could see its caregiver while I was holding it. The guy put the chain back on and checked out my gears and brakes. He said everything was fine and told me that he works in a bike shop in the lower level of Eaton’s Centre. He told me his name was Sandford and that if I needed any parts or my bike cleaned I could come and see him there. If one is going to be knocked off one’s bike one of the most fortuitous causes would be a bike mechanic.

I was a little sore from the fall in my back and legs as I finished my ride.

I stopped at Freshco only to find that the bank machine was out of order. I would have to come back on Saturday.

I uploaded this mornings video to my computer but only had time to watch Wednesday's recording and half of Thursday's before dinner.

I had meant to roast the chicken that I had in the freezer but I’d forgotten to thaw it out earlier in the day and so I just thawed out the cooked chicken leg that I’d gotten from the food bank and heated that in the oven. I had it with a potato and gravy while watching "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime", which is the fifteenth episode of the 1957-1958 Alfred Hitchcock produced TV series, "Suspicion". The teleplay is based on the darkly comic short story of the same title by Oscar Wilde.

Arthur and his fiancé Sibyl are at one of Lady Windermere’s dinner parties where she has invited a palmist named Podgers to read the guest's palms. He impressively gives each subject intimate details about their lives and so Arthur also asks to be read. Podgers looks shocked at first sight of Arthur's hand, but then gives him a light reading. Later Arthur pulls Podgers aside in private and insists that he tell him what he saw. Podgers tells him that he sees that Arthur will become a murderer. Arthur decides that if committing murder is his fate then he should get it out of the way before he marries Sibyl and so he postpones the wedding until after he fulfills his destiny. He chooses to kill his elderly cousin the Lady Clementina, since she is not long for the world anyway. He buys an anodyne pill from the apothecary and brings it to her in an attractive little box, telling her that it is an American cure for her heartburn. She says she doesn't like American things and that she once read an American novel that was nonsensical. He convinces her to take the gift and tells her not to take the pill until she has an attack. Shortly after this she dies and she leaves Arthur her house and the effects within. While going through her things he discovers the box with the anodyne still inside. Clementina died of natural causes, which means that Arthur has to plan another murder to fulfill the prophecy. He decides his victim would be the Dean of Chichester. He goes to see a bomb expert named Herr Vinkelkopf and asked him to make a clock that will explode at noon and send it to the dean. Perhaps Vinkelkopf misunderstood since the clock produced a tiny toy explosion with a little puff of smoke in the top at noon which could be reloaded every day with gunpowder. The dean and his daughters were delighted. Arthur goes out into the fog late at night to think about what to do and chances upon Podger by the river. Arthur strangles him and pushes him in the water. But then Arthur thinks that Podger had only said he would be a murderer but had never said that he would only kill once. Arthur decides that he is going to commit suicide but first writes a note to Sibyl telling her the whole story. But when the note is finished he has a visit from Lady Windermere, who reveals that Podger was a charlatan who would research the invited guests before each party, which is how he would know the details of their lives. Arthur decides he is now free and he abandons the idea of suicide. He leaves the room to travel for the weekend and we see his note on the table. He comes back in the next second and grabs the note. He tosses it into the fireplace and leaves. But the maid comes in and finds the note had fallen short of the flame. She takes it out and puts it back on the desk.

Sibyl was extremely beautiful and was played with comic restraint by Rosemary Harris, who won two Tony awards for “The Lion in Winter” Lifetime Achievement and was nominated for eight more. She has also won five Drama Desk Awards. She's won a Golden Globe, a Primetime Emmy and two Obie Awards. She played the age appropriate Aunt May in the first three Spider Man movies.

Lady Windermere was played by Gladys Cooper, who worked as a model from the age of six and began performing on the London stage at the age of eighteen. At the turn of the century there was a craze for the images of actors on postcards and she became a very popular pin-up for WWI soldiers. Her first talking film in 1934 was a success. She was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar for Now Voyager in 1942. She was nominated for an Academy Award for "My Fair Lady" in 1964. She was made a Dame in 1967.

            

            Late that night there was a woman making ecstatic but probably crack induced noises and movements under my window. A lot of it sounded like joyful baby talk but she did shout out “Very nice!" as she did a strange noodly dance with a lot of wide squatting.