Christopher Lee

            On Tuesday morning I finished memorizing “La petite rose” by Serge Gainsbourg and looked for the chords online. I was surprised that nobody posted them because it's a nice melody sung by Nana Mouskouri. I only had time to figure out the first chord.

            The morning got away from me again and so after shaving off my full beard, taking a shower and doing the dishes I didn’t have much time for any of my home improvement projects. I just washed the twisted bicycle rim that I’m going to try to hang from my kitchen ceiling.

            I had canned chickpeas and faba beans on lettuce for lunch.

            In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. In this story Kingfish, Sapphire and Ramona have just received an eviction notice. Sapphire says they gave Kingfish $100 to pay the rent and now they want to know what he did with it. He says he’ll tell them the truth but hesitates. Ramona tells him to spit it out. Kingfish tells her to be patient since he’s an amateur at telling the truth. Kingfish tries to sell his car but even the junk dealer won’t buy it and tells him to get it out of his yard before it brings his property values down. Later he is looking out the window and sees someone stealing his car. He doesn’t stop it because he has $100 in theft insurance. In order to make his claim look good to the insurance company he puts an ad in the paper offering $100 for the return of his car. The insurance company pays him $100 but then someone returns the car to get the $100 he offered.

            I took a bike ride. On Bloor Street there are now posts dividing the new bike lane from Brock all the way to Shaw. I don’t know how far it extends west of Brock, but I’m guessing it goes as far as just past Lansdowne to connect with the Toronto Rail Path.

Near Bay about ten cop cars came from behind with their sirens blaring and took over the bike lane.

I spent a half an hour synchronizing the audio from the camera and the voice recorder from the recording of my July 3 rehearsal. They were still a few seconds apart when I had to stop for dinner.

I had a potato, sautéed onion and green pepper and a chicken breast with gravy while watching two episodes of The Adventures of William Tell.

In the first story Tell stops to visit his old friend Heinrich but finds that except for him and his son Peter the whole village has been abandoned. The place had been a community of hunters until an eccentric Austrian prince named Maximilian took over the island and prevented the people from hunting there because he wanted the deer for himself. Tell takes a boat to the island and chases Maximilian from the island. Tell goes to sleep back at his friend’s home and the father and son decide to go and bag a deer since Tell has cleared the island of the oppressor. But Maximilian has returned to the island with soldiers. The soldiers serve Gessler and they consider Maximilian to be out of his mind but Austrian royalty outranks the governor and they have to follow his orders. When Tell wakes up he finds Heinrich and his son gone. He sees their boat missing and takes the other to the island. There he finds Heinrich and Peter caught in a bear pit. For some stupid reason rather than just finding a way to pull them up he goes down into the pit to help them. Maximilian springs the trap and a big wooden cage swings down over the pit. Maximilian tells the men that he is going to hunt them to the death. Heinrich argues that animals have the weapons of teeth, claws, horns and tusks and so Maximilian lets them each have a knife. He gives them a head start and then Maximilian and the soldiers, with their hunting dogs follow. Tell sets a trap that disables one of the soldiers but Maximilian leaves the man to suffer and continues the hunt. Tell throws off the dogs only briefly by going  through water. They split up with Heinrich going one way and Tell another. Maximilian follows Heinrich and Peter to a cave and then begins to smoke them out. Meanwhile Tell jumps three soldiers, gets one of their swords and kills them, so he now has a crossbow. Heinrich and Peter are forced by the smoke to leave the cave. As Maximilian prepares to fire Heinrich steps in front of his son but Tell kills Maximilian. Tell simply orders the soldiers to run and they do so. Heinrich and Peter join the resistance.

Maximilian was played by Christopher Lee. Lee said the three films that made him famous were “A Tale of Two Cities”, “The Curse of Frankenstein” and “Dracula”. He considered his greatest performance to be as Muhammed Ali Jinnah in “Jinnah” and his best film to be “The Wicker man”. That original version of “The Wicker Man” was a great movie. He said he was emotionally blackmailed into doing most of his horror films because the producer would tell him that all of his friends would be out of work if he didn’t do them.

In the second story Tell has been selling some of the food donated by the Swiss people to Austrian soldiers. They willingly pay twice as much as the market price because they are forbidden to deal with the Swiss and their army rations are not enough. Tell uses the money to buy more weapons with which to kill Austrian soldiers. Tell’s strategy is controversial with some of the Swiss because they are also hungry. Tell’s man Klaus goes to the local Borgomeister, who represents the Swiss people during the Austrian occupation. Meanwhile merchants that are supplying food to Tell are being stabbed to death by a mysterious figure cloaked in black. The burgomaster and other Swiss officials meet with Gessler to ask for law enforcement in response to the murders. Gessler says that merchants that help the resistance get what they deserve. When everyone leaves the landburgher but the burgomeister, he drops the pretence and reveals that he is in league with the Austrians.  When Gessler learns that Tell is selling the food to his soldiers he plots to make it look like Tell is keeping the money for himself and arranges for the burgomeister to “find” Tell’s hiding place. Later at a meeting with Swiss leaders the borgomeister and his wife Anna reveal to them that Tell is not only the thief but that he is also the mysterious killer. The “hidden” gold is found. That night after another Strauss gives grain to Tell he is killed just as Tell is leaving. Tell confronts the dark figure but is surprised when his knife breaks against the attacker’s stomach the murderer escapes. Frau Strauss finds Tell kneeling over Strauss’s body holding the dagger. The burgomeister thinks that in discrediting Tell his part is finished but Gessler insists that he must kill Tell. Gessler says he didn’t buy the borgomeister the finest chain mail just so he could kill a few peasants. The burgomeister needs one more farmer to use as a trap for Tell and so he sends Anna to talk to her father, who has always wanted to be of service to the resistance. Anna’s father sends for Tell and he comes to get the food. In the barn the dark killer attacks Tell but while they are fighting Anna’s father tries to help Tell and is stabbed by the disguised burgomeister. Tell unmasks the burgomeister but he escapes. Tell sneaks into the burgomeister’s house to find proof of his betrayal. He is confronted by the burgomeister and Anna. Tell informs Anna that the burgomeister killed her father. She is very upset and grabs her husband. Gessler and his men break in and Tell escapes. Gessler has the burgomeister arrested and sentenced to death. Anna says it serves him right.

Anna was played by Monica Grey, who guest starred on several British TV series, including “Quatermass”, “The Jazz Age”, “The Guardians” and “The Archers”.