Clocks

            On Thursday morning I worked out the chords for the first line of “Ah! Si javais un franc cinquante” (Oh If I Had A Dollar Fifty) by Boris Vian.

            I finished working out the chords for "Raccrochez c'est une horreur!” (Hang Up! You’re a Horror!” by Serge Gainsbourg but I still have to figure out where to place them during the talking parts of the song.

            Around midday I took my washing to the laundromat. There were quite a few customers not wearing masks. Even I forgot to put mine on when I came back to put my stuff in the dryer and only remembered when some customers came in without masks. The female attendant, who I think might be married to the male attendant, doesn’t mind changing money directly into the customer’s hand. The male attendant always asks the customer to put the money on the table and then he puts the change down there too.

            I had my last chicken drumstick cold for lunch.

            In the afternoon I skipped my exercises and took my bike ride early so I could stop at the supermarket on the way home. There were a lot of cars parked on the part of the Bloor bike lane where there are no posts. I was about to go around one of them when one of the parking cops cut me off and parked in the lane too. As I was about to go out onto the street to get around him he apologized and told me that he had to park there in order to give the other guy a ticket.

            I wonder if all the restaurants that have special licenses to have little patios on the street during the pandemic are going to get the patio bug and want to have patios when the pandemic is over.

            At Freshco I bought three bags of cherries, two pints of strawberries, a four and a half kilo box of Ontario peaches, a pint of blueberries, some raspberry skyr and a box of spoon size shredded wheat.

            I cut up a partially frozen whole chicken into six pieces and roasted them. I had one of the legs for dinner with sautéed onion and green pepper, oven fries and gravy while watching two episodes of The Adventures of William Tell.

            In the first story Landburgher Gessler is being kept from sleeping by a cuckoo in a tree outside his window. On top of that he is coming up short for the tax money demanded by the Austrian emperor. He sends his soldiers with a donkey carrying what gold he has collected to Austria. But Tell knows that there is only one shack where they can stop to sleep on their way through the mountains. Tell, accompanied by Hedda and their son Walter get to the shack first and somehow have time to dig a hole under the floor and to build a trap door in the most logical place where the soldiers would put the gold. Tell hides in the hole until the soldiers are asleep, then he ties the end of a long rope to the bags of money. At the other end of the rope is the Tell’s donkey and when Tell tugs on the rope that is the signal for Hedda to have the donkey start pulling the money away. The soldiers wake up and try to stop it but are dragged until they let go. While the soldiers are chasing the donkey, Tell just leaves the cabin. They take the gold to the home of master Conrad, who seems to be the inventor of the clock. When they come in he's just finishing a masterpiece that not only tells time but chimes on the hour. He hides the gold for them inside of his bee hives. The soldiers come to look for the thieves but they are able to hide. One of the soldiers however decides to take Conrad’s new timepiece as a gift for Gessler. When the soldiers leave, Conrad tells William that it would take him years to rebuild that clock and so Tell plots to get it back. One of Conrad’s clocks is a cuckoo clock and Conrad lets Tell take it. They notice that their donkey is almost identical to that of the soldiers except that the Austrian mule has a spot on its forehead. They paint a spot on their mule and then Walter chases the soldiers’ donkey away so that the one the soldiers catch is Tell’s mule. So they catch the soldiers' mule and get the clock back and then when they whistle for their own donkey he escapes. Later when the soldier meets with Gessler he presents him with what he thinks is the clock that he stole from Conrad but it is the cuckoo clock that tell took. When the alarm goes off and Gessler hears the cuckoo he smashes the clock on the ground.

            It’s unclear who built the first spring driven clock but the oldest surviving one was given to the Duke of Burgundy around 1430, which is around the time the stories of William Tell began. But the first cuckoo clocks came out of the Black Forest in the 18th Century.

            The second story introduces a thief known as The Bear. He comes to William Tell’s camp to get his son Bruno back but Bruno refuses to leave. The Bear thinks that Tell has brainwashed his son and that when he steals from the Austrians he doesn't give the money back to the Swiss taxpayers like he claims. The Bear challenges Tell to hand to hand combat but Tell only accepts the challenge if the Bear agrees to leave his son alone. Tell outmanoeuvres and defeats the Bear and the much bigger man accepts that Tell won fair and square. But when Tell sends Bruno and another man to deliver the gold back to the people, the Bear robs them. He takes the money to his place in town and shortly is confronted by his son, who demands the money back. The Bear says he can try to take it if he wants but Bruno refuses to raise a hand against his father. Upon leaving however he is stopped by Gessler’s soldiers and arrested as a member of William Tell’s band. The Bear sees the arrest and goes to Gessler. He gives him back the gold but Gessler says he will still hang Bruno unless the Bear brings him William Tell, dead or alive. The Bear goes to ask for Tell’s help and William immediately offers to rescue Bruno, but on the way through the mountains the Bear tries to push Tell over but slips and is only kept from falling by Tell. His attempt to kill Tell was not obvious and so they continue on together. When they get to town Tell decides that the best time to attempt a rescue would be while Bruno is being taken from his cell to the scaffold and so Tell sleeps at the Bear’s place overnight. The Bear makes one more attempt to kill Tell, this time by stabbing him in bed but Tell has anticipated this and stuffed the covers. The Bear confesses to Tell that he no longer wants to kill him but Tell uses the pretence of Gessler's offer as a rescue plan. The next morning while his son is on the gallows with the rope around his neck, the Bear walks up carrying the body of William Tell over his shoulders. Gessler has him bring Tell into his chamber and the Bear drops him on the floor in front of the landburgher. Gessler tells his men to go and release Bruno and the Bear leaves. As soon as Gessler is alone Tell is behind him with a knife. He forces Gessler to give him back the gold and then fights his way out of the castle. As the Bear is walking away with Tell he asks to join the resistance.