Janette Scott

            On Saturday morning my knee was still sore from my bike accident in the storm on Friday. I couldn’t bend it as far as usual and it was very tender under pressure. 

            I finished working out the chords for “Amour puissance six” (Love to the Power of Six) by Serge Gainsbourg. I ran through singing and playing it in French. Tomorrow I’ll run through it in English, maybe make a few adjustments to my translation and then upload it to my Christian’s Translations blog. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the final session of four. 

            I weighed 85.8 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning in nine days. 

            Around midday I rode down to No Frills and had no pain from pedalling. There was still lots of snow on the street and I was nervous about slipping again. In the store I was waiting for someone to finish using their two wheeled shopping basket when one of the cashiers noticed and kindly brought me one. I bought seven bags of grapes, a big bag of potatoes, Bavarian sandwich bread, cinnamon-raisin bread, an apple pie, mushroom gravy, a jug of lemonade, two packs of frozen fries, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s chips.

            I weighed 85.7 kilos before lunch. Like this morning it’s been nine days since I’ve been that hefty. 

            Although much of the snow was gone in the afternoon I decided to take it easy on my knee today and not take a bike ride downtown. I’ll give it a shot on Sunday. I went down the street to buy some ginger and an onion. 

            I weighed 85.4 kilos at 16:25. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:50. 

            I read chapter 6 of The Hobbit. Bilbo is reunited with Gandalf and their dwarf companions. They are attacked and chased up trees by wolves. The wolves are there to meet the goblins. When the goblins arrive they set fires at the bottoms of the trees. Thy are rescued by eagles because the lord of the eagles owed Gandalf a favour. The eagles agree to transport them over the mountains. 

            I sautéed an onion, some garlic, ginger, mushrooms and lima beans. I had half for dinner while watching episode 3 of Amos Burke: Secret Agent. But that episode is incomplete and only runs for four and a half minutes. All it shows is Burke in disguise as a stout older gentleman robbing a jewellery store. It doesn’t seem to be on YouTube either, so I watched episode 4. 

            A young woman reads a newspaper headline about a Russian satellite moving towards being positioned over London. She calls “London Bridge 2424” and asks, “Is this the South Kensington Science Museum?” Then a recorded voice kicks in to tell her to go to the museum, look for a black car and give the driver the password. She goes and gets into the car but the driver seals off the back and sends poison gas to kill her. She has time to scratch S-Day on the upholstery. 

            Burke is at the zoo and goes into a recording booth but the record the attendant hands him is pre-recorded and there is a message for him. It mentions the girl found in the river and tells him to investigate the girl in the print dress with the child at the polar bear sanctuary. The woman is Jennifer Robbins and Burke gets a date with her. Her phone number is London Bridge 2424. She takes him back to her place, which her boss Sir Tristan Voss found for her. There is a mirror that takes up almost an entire wall but she doesn’t seem to know that it’s a two way mirror, on the other side of which is a man with a gun. 

            Burke learns from headquarters that S-Day seems to have something to do with a sneak atomic attack. The Russians are not behind it. 

            Burke goes to see Voss, pretending he wants help to build a golf course and hotel in Cornwall. Burke wants Voss’s approval because he controls business in Cornwall. Voss invites Burke to his seaside house for lunch on Friday. After Burke leaves he tells his man Kauffman to tail him. Kauffman is the driver of the car in which the girl was poisoned. Burke goes on another date with Jennifer and comes back to her place again. She says she gets a lot of wrong number calls from people asking for the Science Museum. The young polish man behind the two way mirror is supposed to shoot anyone who says, “Hello, is this the South Kensington Science Museum?” 

            Burke is attacked by a masked man in his parking garage but he fights back and sends Kauffman on the run. But before he runs away he leaves a hand print in oil on the floor. The attacker is missing one finger. 

            At Voss’s house Burke meets General Rivers the commander of British Home Forces and Captain Aldington. Voss says he plans to reactivate the tin mines in Cornwall to mine for uranium. After leaving Burke does some exploring around Voss’s property. A woman comes running and cuts through the fence. She runs into Burke. She says she’s got to get to a phone to call London Bridge 2424. Burke hears the guards coming for her and tells her to hide while he fights them off. He does so but when he finds the woman she is dead. Voss arrives with the general and the captain. Burke says he doesn’t buy the uranium in a tin mine explanation. Voss explains that he plans to turn the Cornwall caves into an atomic bomb shelter complex for the British military. A car arrives for the woman’s body and the driver, Kauffman is missing a finger. 

            Burke explains the situation to Jennifer and has her call her own number. She gets the same instruction that the dead girl got. Burke and Jennifer go to Voss’s office and look through his files. They find a map of the tin mines. She says she spent her summers in Cornwall as a child and some of the caves are under water and won’t be guarded. Burke is reluctant to endanger Jennifer but she talks him into going there. They make it into the heavily guarded complex undetected. Burke saws open a pipe and poison gas comes out but he seals it again. They are captured and Voss instructs Kauffman to kill them both. They are taking Burke and Jennifer away when Captain Aldington walks in. Burke tells him about S Day, which is a fake nuclear attack that will be blamed on the Soviets. The military will take shelter in the caves into which Voss will pump poison gas. Burke says he made microfilm of Voss’s plans. Aldington disarms a guard and points the gun at Voss. Burke, Jennifer and Aldington escape but Voss calls for a gas alert. He closes off sections to trap the escapees and to send poison gas to kill them. They are trapped in room 805 but Voss oddly sends guards wearing gas masks to attack them. Aldington is shot and killed. All Burke and Jennifer need to do is wear the gas masks of two of the guards that Burke shot. Voss can’t be that dumb. Burke and Jennifer escape. Burke goes to Jennifer’s apartment alone and finds Voss there, looking for the microfilm. He gives Voss a note to contact Jennifer and he calls the number and asks, “Is this the South Kensington Science Museum?” That is the signal for the man on the other side to shoot and he kills Voss. Then Burke smashes through the mirror to knock out the assassin. 

            Jennifer was played by Janette Scott, who appeared in her first film at the age of two. Her mother was British comedy film star Thora Hird. Janette worked as a child announcer for various BBC children’s programs. She co-starred in School for Scoundrels, The Day of the Triffids, and Crack in the World. She starred in Now and Forever. Her first marriage was to Canadian songwriter Jackie Rae who was the uncle of former Ontario premier Bob Rae. She was married to Mel Tormé for eleven years. She is mentioned in the first song from The Rocky Horror Picture Show: “And I really got hot when I saw Janette Scott fight a Triffid that spits poison and kills”.