Easy Behind

            On Wednesday morning I found the lyrics for “Ah! Si javais un franc cinquante” (Oh! If I Had One Franc Fifty) by Boris Vian. I need to make sure it's actually written by him and not a cover. It would only take a few minutes to learn though because the words are very simple.

            I found two sets of chords for “La ballade de Johnny Jane" by Serge Gainsbourg and started working out the instrumental intro.

            During song practice it’s getting easier for me to play the A chord.

            Around midday I washed and scrubbed the eight boards in front of the filing cabinet near the table. Next I’ll have to move the cabinet to finish that strip of floor and then I’ll have to move the credenza and clean the space underneath it. I realized today that I’m not going to finish the kitchen this summer. There will still be at least a couple of weeks worth of work left after school starts and so I might not finish it until April or May. The easy part is always behind me.

            I had a toasted cheddar and lettuce sandwich on Portuguese corn bread for lunch.

            In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to Amos and Andy. This story was somewhat recycled from previous shows. Kingfish’s upstairs neighbours moved out and so Kingfish as usual goes up to see what they left behind. He finds a colt 45 pistol and decides to try to sell it to Andy. Since Andy wouldn’t just buy a gun Kingfish makes up a story to convince him that he needs it. He tells him that when the circus left Madison Square Gardens they forgot to take their leopard with them. They didn't notice it until they saw it playing centre in the basketball game. He made three personal fouls by eating two guards and a forward. he tells Andy that the leopard is making his way to Harlem and Andy at first agrees to buy the gun for $50 but when Kingfish tells him he has to have a $20 licence to show the leopard before he shoots it he realizes there’s something fishy. Kingfish tells Andy the truth. They go together to the apartment upstairs and find some other things. They find the floor plan of a local bank and Andy concludes that the tenant must be a banker. They find two sticks of dynamite and figure he must have kept it in case he loses the combination to the vault. Finally they catch on that the former tenants were probably crooks but they don’t know that the cops are already staking out the apartment. They hear flat feet coming down the hall and hide in the closet but they don’t realize there's a cop hiding there already. They see him when they light a match and they run. Kingfish wants to get rid of the gun because it has his fingerprints but then finds out that his mother in law has turned it in to the police and she’d learned from television how not to wipe off the prints.

            I took a bike ride and saw that from Ossington to Shaw they’ve put up posts along the new bike lane. They are twice as tall as the posts on the older lane that starts at Shaw and they look a bit sturdier too.

            On young street I stopped at the light south of Gerrard and a woman was crossing. A Door Dash courier whom I’d passed a few minutes before was approaching and had no intention of stopping. The woman stopped when she saw him and held her hands palms up at her side in a gesture that meant, “What the fuck are you doing?" He held one of his hands up in a similar gesture but meaning, “What the fuck can I do?” as he went around her and continued on.

            When I got back to my building the door was open in the future Popeye’s downstairs and the booths are all set up so that it’s starting to look like a restaurant.

            I had a fried egg and two thin slices of toasted Portuguese corn bread with a beer while watching two episodes of The Adventures of Sir Lancelot.

            In the first story the father of Lady Helen and Lady Bragwaine has died leaving them a troubled estate beyond the powers of the two young women to maintain. Their Uncle Kafan wants Helen to marry King Balmain but Helen is betrothed to Sir Oringle of the Round Table and she says she has sent for him. But Kafan does not stand to profit from Oringle running the estate and so he arranges for his men to ambush the knight and put him in the dungeon then he tells Helen that Oringle has abandoned her. Bragwaine goes to Camelot to ask Arthur for help. Arthur decides to send the ineffectual braggart Sir Kay on the mission but with Sir Lancelot going along for company. On the way to Tremalon Castle Lancelot finds Oringle’s plume. When they arrive they find that Helen has decided that she will have to marry King Balmain but Lancelot tells her that he thinks Oringle is in the castle. Kafan overhears this and has his men knock Lancelot out and put him in the dungeon. But a drunken dungeon guard lets it slip to Helen’s maid that Lancelot has been imprisoned and she goes and finds him. She helps him escape by pretending that Lancelot is attacking her and when the guard comes running Lancelot knocks him out and takes his keys. They find Oringle and free him as well. While heading out of the castle Sir Kay gets lost and while fumbling about accidentally knocks Kafan off the wall and into the moat. Sir Kay ends up with Bragwaine because she likes a knight that avoids fighting and enjoys lounging in the garden.

            Helen was played by Margaret Anderson, who was in the films, “The Happiest Days of Your Life”, “The Barefoot Contessa” and “The Revenge of the Pink Panther”.

            In the second story Sir Richard is a former member of the Round Table who has his own estate known as Torrenton. He is about to marry Lady Margaret who has the estate next to his and when their lands are merged it will be one of the most powerful in Britain. The wedding will be in a week and Sir Lancelot will be the best man. Richard is on his way to meet his Uncle John, who raised him like a son after his own boy Alfred died. But at the place of rendezvous Richard is attacked by John’s men. He is beaten severely and left for dead and then Richard’s identical cousin, alive after all and coached by John, steps in to assume Richard’s identity. But the false Richard is immediately strange in his behaviour to Margaret. He is distant from her and drinks ale. John explains to Margaret that Richard was attacked on his way there and hasn’t completely recovered.

Meanwhile a peasant finds the real Richard and takes him home to nurse him. When Richard regains consciousness he asks for something to write with but the peasant thinks that writing is witchery. Richard finally convinces him to let him write a message on his back and for him to show it to Merlin in Camelot.

Soon the fake Richard begins imposing unreasonable taxes on his serfs. Lancelot arrives at Torrenton and wants to parry with Richard for sport but while Richard was a match for Lancelot the fake Richard is disarmed easily. A man comes with the settlement register for Richard to sign and the fake Richard asks where he should make his mark. Lancelot is surprised since he knows that Richard can write. The fake Richard explains that his right arm was hurt but Lancelot also knows that Richard is ambidextrous and can sign with his left. John says that Richard’s left side was also injured in an earlier attack. Later Lancelot’s squire Brian climbs into Lancelot’s window to tell him that Merlin has found Richard in a peasant’s hut. Lancelot goes to Richard. On the day of the wedding Lancelot has Richard carried in. John and the fake Richard draw their swords but Lancelot beats them both. Richard and Margaret are married right away.

Margaret was played by Australian actor Diana Fairfax.

Margaret’s handmaiden Gloria was played by June Sylvaine.