Jane Hylton

            On Friday morning I was ready to post “Bourré de complexes" (Buried in Complexes) by Boris Vian on Christian's Translation, but I noticed while singing the song that there is one line that I didn’t translate.

            I posted “Marilou sous la neige" (Marilou Under Snow) by Serge Gainsbourg on Christian’s Translations and began memorizing his song “Lunatic Asylum”.

            Around midday I cleared my futon out of the bedroom and did some more sanding of the old exit door. I didn’t use a sanding block this time because I wanted to work on smoothing out the decorative grooves of the upper half of the door frame.

            I had half a bowl of kettle chips with salsa for lunch and a spoonful of yogourt with honey.

            In the afternoon I did my exercises while listening to the 25^th anniversary episode of Amos and Andy. This wasn’t an Amos and Andy story but rather Freeman Gosden and Charles Corelle re-enacting the story of how they created Amos and Andy. They met in Durham, North Carolina just after WWI. Corelle had been sent down from Chicago to stage an amateur show. Gosden was working for the same production company and they sent him down to pick up some scripts and music. Corelle was directing the dancers from the piano and since Gosden knew the show Corelle asked him to show the dancers how it was done. They hit it off and became a team touring the south, producing, writing and performing in shows. Then this new thing called radio started to take off and they were invited to perform on a station in New Orleans. Three years later they started performing songs and telling jokes on a hotel radio station for free meals. One of the jokes was, “Say Goz I'm goin home tonight and given my father a bath!" "Given your father a bath?" "Of course! I've been spongin off the old man for years!”  Six months later they were offered by a Chicago station a chance to do a nightly dramatization of the comic strip The Gumps but they had another idea. They proposed that they do a couple of “coloured” characters and that became a show called “Sam and Henry" which became a local hit. When a national broadcasting corporation called NBC came into being they had the idea to create a show for the whole nation. Since the Chicago station owned the rights to Sam and Henry they had to come up with something else. They thought that one character should have a high voice and one a low one. During an elevator ride one man got on named Amos and another named Andy and so they chose those names. Their show got horrible reviews but Bing Crosby said he liked it. Jack Benny said he hated it at first but it grew on him. Eventually it grew on the audience. As time went on they created more characters, including the Kingfish.

            This show corresponded to Rexall’s first Amos and Andy half price sale.

            I took a bike ride. On Bloor Street west of Dufferin there are lines painted on the right side of the street that look like the city might be preparing to extend the Bloor bike lane west of Shaw.

            I rode to Bloor and Yonge, south to Queen and then home.

            I thawed the chicken parts that I got from the food bank and they turned out to be the chopped up pieces of a chicken breast, plus a drum stick. I added seasoned salt and cayenne and roasted them. I had two pieces with a potato, steamed bok choy and gravy while watching the first two episodes of The Adventures of Sir Lancelot.

            In the first story Sir Lancelot is on his way to join the Knights of the Round Table and in the mountains overlooking Camelot he encounters the hermit Leonides. Then he is confronted by three of King Arthur’s knights, Sir Kay, Sir Lionel and Sir Christopher. They challenge Lancelot and so he says he’ll fight them all at once because taking them on one at a time might cause him to miss lunch in Camelot. They all have shields but he fights them without one and beats them. He heads for Camelot with the three knights as his prisoners while Leonides sends a message with mirror flashes to Merlin. Merlin then goes to Arthur and claims that he has a prophecy that a knight with the skill of three men will arrive in a matter of minutes. Lancelot arrives as he and Queen Guinevere immediately make lust at first sight eye contact and he asks to join the round table. Arthur welcomes him but says he will have to prove himself to be a noble knight. Meanwhile Sir Gawaine's brother has just died from the wounds inflicted by the red plumed knight in the war that Camelot fought with King Gwyle. Gawaine has a piece of the red plumed knight’s sword and when he sees that it is the missing piece from Lancelot's sword he challenges him to fight to the death. The two men fight with lances and swords until Lancelot wins. Lancelot asks Arthur to let him spare Gawaine. He explains that he did kill Gawaine’s brother but it was in noble combat. He says that he is the son of King Ban but when his father died he was raised by King Gwyle. As King Gwyle was dying he released him from service to his kingdom so he could join the round table. King Arthur accepts Lancelot as a Knight of the Round Table and asks if he has a lady he would like to champion and to whom he would dedicate his deeds. Lancelot chooses Guenevere and Arthur accepts that choice.

            Lancelot is played by William Russell who, who along with Jacqueline Hill played the first human companions of the Doctor in the first episodes of Doctor Who.

            Guenevere is beautiful but she seems a bit old for the character, even though the actor is only twenty nine. She is played by Jane Hylton, who started off with major roles in films like Dance Hall, It Started in Paradise and The Weak and the Wicked but later worked mostly in B movies.

            In the second story Brian the kitchen boy comes to Camelot to ask for a knight to save the castle of his master Sir Urgan from siege by the forces of Sir Melias. Arthur decides to send Lancelot alone on his first mission, which seems unrealistic. Castles are usually under siege by armies and so one would think he would send all of his knights. When Lancelot arrives in the Black Hills he finds that the castle of Urgan is under siege by Sir Melias and a handful of men with a catapult. Lancelot takes on all of the attackers with a little help from Brian and defeats them, saving the castle. The grateful Urgan offers his daughter the Lady Helen to Lancelot. He’s too polite to say that he’s not interested and relieved when Helen tells him she is pledged to Sir Andred. Lancelot sneaks away and Brian follows him because he wants to become Lancelot’s squire. At their camp Lancelot is confronted by Andred who thinks that Lancelot is going to marry Helen. Suddenly they hear the noises of battle. Andred is the son of Melias and he says his father’s castle is under siege. It turns out that Urgan is using the same catapult to attack Melias’s castle. Lancelot learns that this has been going back and forth for years and began over a dispute over a fishing stream. Lancelot convinces the two old knights to fight it out one on one and they do so comically until they are both too pooped to continue. Lancelot points out that their children are in love with each other and the old fathers both give their blessings. Brian leaves with Lancelot as his squire.

            Helen was played by Norah Gorsen, who retired from acting in the 1960s.