Sara Leighton

           On Thursday morning I finished working out the chords for “Première symptômes" by Serge Gainsbourg but they weren’t chords in the conventional sense of a song. The background is mostly a drum and a didgeridoo and so I just worked out some chords that expressed the rhythmic changes in tonality of the didgeridoo. I posted the song on Christian's Translations and since there was no placing of chords in position with the lyrics I was done fairly quickly. It will be a relief to work on the next Gainsbourg song “Ma Lou Marilou" because it's actually sung rather than recited.

            I finished organizing and listing my books and put a pile of about ten aside to get rid of.

            For lunch I had a can of black beans with salsa and kettle chips.

            In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to the last Amos and Andy radio episode of 1952. In this story Kingfish and Sapphire are invited to an upscale New Years Eve dance and she insists that she have a new mink stole by any means. Kingfish takes out his life savings but can’t find a mink stole for $68.00. When he gets home he finds a mink stole in the closet and he panics because he’s recently read in the paper about the theft of a very valuable mink. He thinks that Sapphire has done something desperate to get a mink and so he takes the mink to the furnace and burns it. Later Kingfish learns that the mink was a rental. He tries to scam his fire insurance company to get the money to pay for the mink but it doesn’t work. Finally his friends raise $750 to help him out but Kingfish decides to buy a mink for $300 from a shifty dealer. The night of the party Sapphire is arrested because the mink he bought was the one that had been stolen.

            I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor, south to Queen and then west. I stopped at Freshco where I bought five bags of grapes, two pints of strawberries, a bag of potatoes, a can of peaches, some strawberry Greek yogourt, three bags of milk, a bag of kettle chips and some super fries. Behind me at the express checkout was a customer chatting with the cashier about the corona virus and how every place in Ontario has improved except for Toronto. The guy behind him said that Torontonians are so cold they should be good at social distancing. I wonder if that’s really true. Are the Portuguese, the black and the Latin communities in Toronto cold?

            For dinner I had a potato, a carrot, the last of my pork ribs and some gravy while watching The Adventures of Robin Hood. Both stories take place in Ireland.

            In the first story Marian’s uncle, who is the governor of an island called The Eye of Ireland, has gone missing. Robin, Marian and Tuck travel there to look for him. They learn on the ship taking them there that the residents of the island have gone back to the worship of the Norse gods. When they reach the beach they must climb a cliff to get to an inn but some people at the top roll a big boulder down at them in hopes of killing them. They get out of the way just in time and reach the inn. The innkeeper at first is very unfriendly but his wife is more welcoming. The innkeeper eventually apologizes and explains that they fear Rolf, the priest of Thor who would bring Thor’s wrath down upon them if they entertain strangers. That night Rolf and his men invade the inn and kidnap Marian. She and her uncle will be sacrificed to Thor at dawn. Robin makes use of the very strong local booze to create a pyrotechnic display and appear as Thor before the sacrifice. Then he and Tuck challenge Rolf to call down Thor and prove that he exists. It seems to me that the same challenge could be made to Tuck about his Christian god. Robin says that it was Rolf who set fire to their crops and claimed it was Thor’s revenge. When the people see that Rolf is a charlatan they turn against him.

            I hadn’t known that the Norse religion had been practised in Ireland but Vikings who settled in Ireland and Scotland became the Norse-Gaels and dominated the Irish and Scottish seas for three hundred years.

            The Irish booze on the island was called uisca beatha but pronounced "whiska baha" and it is the root of modern whiskey. It means “life water".

            Brigid, the innkeeper’s wife was played by Concepta Fennell who was in Tequila Sunrise.

            The second story has Robin, Marian and Tuck still in Ireland and trying to make their way through a storm to the coast so they can catch a ship back to England. They knock on a house to ask for shelter but the inhabitants refuse to open the door and so they sleep in the barn. In the barn they find a tray of food left out, which Robin explains was put there to appease The Little People. They wake up smelling smoke and find the house is on fire. They don't help because they are English and would be blamed for starting the fire. When the husband and wife come to the barn to take the cow out they argue. The wife believes the Little People started the fire and the husband believes it was English soldiers. Robin, Marian and Tuck leave by the back and Robin briefly thinks he sees Little People running away. They go to sleep the rest of the night at a haystack but they are awakened the next morning by angry farmers that plan to hang them for being English and for starting the fire. They change their minds about hanging a woman or a priest but decide to hang Robin. Robin tells Maeve Nolan that he is a friend of the Little People and they will take their revenge on her if she lets them hang him. Maeve asks Patrick to let Robin prove there are Little People and so he gives in and tells Robin he has twenty four hours, he can take Tuck with him but they’ll be keeping Marian until he returns. Robin goes to the sea to look in the caves until he is knocked from behind. The Little People are a group of children orphaned by a recent rebellion. They are led by Brian the son of King Brian Baroo and his little sister Dierdre, the daughter of Queen Dierdre of the Sorrows. Tuck tries to tell them that Robin is Robin Hood, who wears green to blend in with the forest but Brian says it’s a lie because the forest is white in the winter. They are held captive in their cave until they have a counsel meeting to determine their fate. That night Dierdre sings the children to sleep, "And the fair princess in the starry dress will take us by the hand/ Come with me she’ll say there’s a bright new day, come with me to a happier land.” She tells the children there really is a princess that will take them away to a better place. While the children are asleep Robin cuts through his ropes and escapes through a hole in the roof of the cave. He goes to get Marian and Maeve. He tells Marian to fetch something from her saddle bag. They go back to the cave and Robin goes back in followed by Marian and Maeve. Marian removes her coat to reveal a beautiful sparkling dress and she is wearing a jewelled tiara. The children wake to see what appears to be the fairy princess from the song. Marian says she’s not really a fairy but she promises they will be taken where they will be together. Brian attacks because he doesn’t believe they will be allowed to be together. Robin stops him. Patrick arrives and he and Maeve decide to adopt all of the children.

            Maeve was played by Peggy Marshall.

            Dierdre was played by Carole Lorimer who acted since she was one year old. She was the sister of Sara Leighton, who was also an actor but her greatest success was as a portrait painter. She painted Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. She turned down commissions to paint Elizabeth Taylor and Muhammad Ali because she didn’t think she could work quietly with all the people around them. She was renowned for her beauty and in 1962 she founded the Society for the Protection of Utter Femininity. She claimed she believed that women should give up voting and trying to succeed in business and just stay at home. She said that creative energy is sexual energy and that's why there are no great female painters.