Jon Whitely

            On Friday at around midday I washed one of the four shelves at the south west corner of my bedroom.

            I had a can of chickpeas with olive oil, seasoned salt and garlic for lunch.

            For the last few days a couple of guys have been painting my building on an electric scaffold. A couple of days ago they were level with my kitchen window and at one point I jokingly passed them a spray bottle of glass cleaner and asked them to clean my windows while they were there. One of them thought it was funny and the other guy said, “Nice!" I got the impression he thought I'd said something else. Today they were level with my living room window and so I closed my curtains for privacy.

A truck arrived and unloaded a freezer and some other equipment for Popeye’s. My neighbour Benji thinks they'll be opening at the end of the month.

I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. In this story Sapphire’s mother goes to visit her other daughter. Sapphire tells Kingfish that her mother had once almost married a man until she found he was a gold digger. Meanwhile Sapphire’s aunt comes to town looking for a husband through an agency. When Kingfish learns that she inherited $20,000 he decides to try to keep the money in the family by hooking her up with Andy. She falls for him but then Kingfish learns that she spent all her money looking for a man. The agency had found her a wealthy man with $200,000 but she’d broken it off so she could be with Andy. Kingfish convinces the rich guy to take her back and the wedding is arranged but then Sapphire’s mother returns and says that it's the same man that had jilted her before.

I took a bike ride. Up until the beginning of this week about a third of the people on the street were wearing masks. It looks like more are doing it now that everyone is required to wear one in indoor public places. I noticed there’s a ghost bike now at Queen and Bay. The homeless guy went over to the pole beside me to straighten it while I was waiting for the light.

I watched the videos of the rehearsals of several of my own songs. Sometimes they go well almost to the end before I fumble a chord.

Despite the heat I had to use the oven to grill a couple of pork chops that wouldn’t fit on the pan yesterday. I had one with potato chips and salsa while watching two episodes of The Adventures of Robin Hood.

In the first story Prince John requires one more young man from among Sir William’s serfs to fill the quota for his army. The next one on the draft list is Jack the son of Rolfe, one of Sir William’s soldiers. Rolfe does not want his son to be drafted and so he bribes Sir William’s scribe Bement to pick the next young man on the list. The next on the list is Peter, who is being tutored by Friar Tuck in preparation for university. Everyone knows that Jack was next and we also learn that Jack wants to be a soldier. Robin disguises himself and goes to bribe Bement with even more gold. He agrees to the deal but he secretly knows Robin’s true identity and arranges for a trap for the reward money with Rolfe. But Robin overhears the plot and comes back to tie Bement up. He disguises himself as the scribe and tricks Sir William into signing a document that frees Peter to attend university. The bottom of the document is underneath another document and made to look whole with a ribbon over the overlap.

In the second story a little boy named Davey is out with his pet goose Matilda, collecting mistletoe for Christmas decorations. Meanwhile the new lord of the estate, Sir Leon is touring the property with his bailiff and discovers Davey and Matilda. Despite the fact that Leon's uncle, from whom he inherited the estate, allowed his serfs to collect mistletoe and holly for Christmas, Leon says it cannot be permitted. He decides to beat Davey as punishment but suddenly Matilda comes to Davey’s defence. She flaps her wings and honks angrily under Leon’s horse, spooking it and causing it to throw Leon to the ground. Leon’s shoulder is slightly injured and so he arrests Matilda with the intention of putting her on trial for assaulting her lord. If she is found guilty she will be slaughtered, cooked and served as Leon’s Christmas dinner. Later Friar Tuck finds Davey crying and learns that Davey’s father is dead and that he has no friends other than Matilda. Tuck decides to defend Matilda in court but Leon serves as the judge and his bailiff as the prosecutor and despite Tuck’s arguments Matilda is sentenced to death. Tuck enlists Robin’s help and when Robin learns that Leon’s only child is a daughter named Susan whom he loves more than anything, he plots to get to Leon through his child. Meanwhile Tuck delays Matilda’s execution by convincing Leon that his chef’s plans for cooking a goose are all wrong. He says that a goose should not be killed until just before cooking and it should be made drunk on wine before the slaughter. Then it must be stuffed. Leon seems to have never heard of stuffing. Tuck persuades Leon to allow him to cook the goose. He arrives in the kitchen just in time to stop the chef from slaughtering Matilda. He has no problem talking the chef into helping him teach Matilda by example how to drink wine. They sit in front of her cage and cheerfully imbibe. Meanwhile Robin, pretending to be Sir Roger, one of Leon’s noble neighbours pays a Christmas visit to him. It is the day of that the serfs are supposed to come and give their lord presents and to receive in exchange a dinner of mutton stew but they all refuse to come because he took Matilda away from Davey. Sir Roger advises Leon to send his soldiers out to force them to come. They arrive looking very unhappy. Leon tries to get them to join him in singing “Time to Rejoice” but no one sings. Susan observes that people only sing when they are happy. Robin advises that he should attack the root of the problem. He never did beat Davey for trespassing and so he should do it now. Leon hesitates and so Robin says he’ll do it. He takes Davey out of sight behind a panel and tells him to pretend he’s being beaten while Robin pretends to whip him. As Davey screams, it’s too much for Susan and she begs her father to make it stop. Leon throws back the panel to only see a fake beating. Davey says he would have rather been flogged than to have Matilda killed. Susan says she wants Christmas to be like it used to be. Leon says he wishes he could give Matilda back to Davey but he is certain she is in the oven by now. Robin says that sometimes Christmas miracles happen and then Tuck comes to give Matilda to Davey.
            Davey was played by Jon Whitely who was a successful child star in British films He was one of only twelve recipients of the Academy Juvenile Award, first given to Shirley Temple in 1934 and last to Haley Mills in 1960, for his role in “The Little Kidnappers”. He went on to become a respected art historian in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. He was made a chevalier in the French Order of Arts and Letters in 2009. He died just two months ago.

It seems odd that Leon wouldn’t know about stuffing, since there are cookbooks from ancient Rome with recipes for stuffing birds.