I worked out the chords for the first verse and a half of “Amour jamais” (“No More Romance”) by Serge Gainsbourg.
I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions and the tuning was even worse than before Gian at Li’l Demon tightened the tuners. He suggested that I change the strings and I guess I can do that but the action is also too low again.
I weighed 84.95 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since October 29.
Around midday I rode to No Frills where all the grapes were too soft but they had cherries. Even though they were expensive I got five bags. I also got three packs of raspberries, a pack of five-year-old cheddar, a strawberry-rhubarb pie, a pack of Swiss rolls, a pack of frozen uncooked raspberry filled butter croissants, lemon detergent, pro-health toothpaste, a half kilo of butter, a jar of Italian sausage pasta sauce, chili sauce, a jug of orange juice, a jug of low sugar iced tea, two containers of skyr, Bistro style wedge fries, a bag of regular Miss Vickie’s chips and another of the jalapeno kind.
I had Cheez-it crackers and five-year-old cheddar with a glass of low sugar iced tea for lunch.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. It was minus 11 and my new winter gloves are pretty good for half the journey but the cold starts eating through on the return trip. I think I need to look for something warmer.
I weighed 85.05 kilos at 18:30.
I wasn’t able to catch up on my journal until after dinner.
I made pizza on two halves of a Montreal style bagel with a slice of salami over each hole, Italian sausage pasta sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 1, episodes 19 and 20 of Batman.
In episode 19, at night in the Gotham Art Museum a guard hears a cat and pulls his gun. A whip takes it away and a cat is thrown at him. Encased in shatterproof glass is a golden cat. Claws on a woman’s glove cut a hole in the top and then grab the cat. Commissioner Gordon receives a box containing a kitten with a newspaper clipping in its collar. It shows a picture of Mark Andrews with his two golden cats, but one of them has been crossed out. Gordon concludes that Catwoman is behind it and he calls Batman. At Gordon’s office Batman meets Mark Andrews who says his other golden cat is on display at the Gotham Exposition until tonight. Catwoman’s hideout is at the Gato and Chat Fur Company. Catwoman lashes the hand of one of her henchmen who is handling the golden cat. Catwoman is reading a book on the history of Gotham City and specifically a chapter called The Lost Treasure of Captain Manx. The text however seems to be taken from an entirely different book: “For the first time in years I realized that acting is my life, my only love. Somewhere on the way downhill I had forgotten that.” She paused with a dramatic touch, then added: “I hope GW never proposes. I’m one to remind her that acting, not alcohol, was her…”. If I paste these lines into a Google search I get The Landlady by Roald Dahl but these lines are not from that story, so I don’t know. Meanwhile in the Batcave, Batman prepares a radioactive solution to spray onto the other golden cat so that if Catwoman manages to steal it they will be able to track her. At the Exposition the spraying is done. Batman leaves Robin alone with the cat while he checks the exits, but while he is gone a cat is thrown at Robin that renders him unconscious and Catwoman grabs the other golden cat. Batman returns and she has her men attack while she gets away. The fight that Batman participates in smashes a lot of valuable artifacts. Batman gives Robin his universal antidote. Batman’s equipment tracks the radioactive coating on the cat but Catwoman knows that and has a welcome ready for them. She lays out the two golden cats back to back but with their heads in opposite directions, and then she puts tracing paper on top of them and begins to mark it. Meanwhile Batman and Robin enter her hideout. As soon as they step in, the exit behind them is sealed. A trap door sends them below into her catacombs. Two spiked walls begin moving towards them. Batman tries to hold them back but discovers the spikes are made of rubber. Catwoman speaks to them and says the time has come to separate Damon from Pythias (Greek mythological examples of the ideal of friendship). A pneumatic tube descends upon Robin and he is sucked upward and out of the room. Two doors are revealed to Batman. Catwoman says she is behind one and the other holds a hungry tiger. Batman chooses the door on the right and the tiger lunges. That’s the cliffhanger.
In episode 20, the tiger attacks Batman as he keeps avoiding it. Catwoman says “TTFN” (Ta ta for now) but Batman doesn’t know what it means. Abbreviations like that one became popular in the UK during WWII. The phrase was introduced in 1940 in the BBC radio play “It’s That Man Again”. The character Mrs. Mopp ends a scene with it. Batman puts on his bat claws for climbing the wall. Then he dons Bat earplugs and from his utility belt emits a high pitched sound that subdues the tiger so Batman can slip out of the chamber. But in doing so he becomes lost in a maze. Meanwhile Catwoman shoots some dust from the handle of her whip into Robin’s face and he is knocked out. He is strapped to one end of a board that is suspended over a pit containing two hungry tigers. She bastes Robin with catnip. At the other end of the board is a bag of sand that is the same weight as Robin. But Catwoman punctures it and Robin begins to slowly tilt downwards toward the tigers. Robin wakes up and tells Catwoman she is not a nice person. Catwoman leaves. Batman arrives at a barred window looking down on Robin’s plight. He cuts the bars then swings down at the last minute to rescue his sidekick. Batman and Robin fight Catwoman’s men but Leo escapes. The golden cats are left behind and Batman takes them to the Batcave. He discovers that despite them being identical there is different marking on each one. He remembers the legend that the cats once belonged to Captain Manx. He finds that put together the two cats form a map to Captain Manx’s treasure. Meanwhile out in the country Leo rendezvous with Catwoman. Robin surmises that they could track Catwoman with the same equipment they used to track the cats, since she handled them and the radioactivity would have rubbed off on her. In a cave Catwoman finds the treasure. Batman and Robin drive to her location but she has planted landmines along the way. They make it through. Catwoman knocks out Leo and takes the sack of treasure for herself. Batman and Robin enter the cave and Catwoman runs with the treasure. They chase her. She comes to the edge of a bottomless chasm. She tries to jump across with the treasure and catches the edge of the other side with her claws. She would be saved if she would only let go of the treasure but she refuses and so slips and plummets.
Catwoman first appeared as The Cat in Batman #1 in 1940. In the original comics she was not a killer but on the TV series she is always trying to get rid of Batman. She was a burglar and a jewel thief who at first disguised herself as an old woman until Batman discovered she was a beautiful young woman. In that first story she had no cat costume. In Batman #3 she wears a catlike fur mask. Her first full costume was a dress with a hood that had cat ears. Ten years later she is presented as a normal woman who turns to crime after suffering a head injury. Years later another version of the character confesses she only faked amnesia when she was really always Catwoman.
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