Glynis Johns

            After yoga when I opened up the doc that holds Book 4 of the new set of poems I’m working on, it came through in the old format like I wanted it to. I thought that I would have to set the old template for each document but every doc I opened up was in the old, editable format. So I guess changing it for one document changed it for them all, which is a relief and saves a lot of work. 

            I finished transcribing the set of chords for “La main du masseur” (The Hand of the Masseur) by Serge Gainsbourg that I found in La boîte à chansons (Song Box). I searched for more but none had been posted so I worked out the chords for the first line and part of the second. The chords for the first two lines are also the chords for the intro times two. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions. The B string still has the problem of going chronically out tune. 

            I weighed 87.3 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since November 28. 

            I looked up local bookstores and called a couple on Roncesvalles to convince them to order my book Paranoiac Utopia from Ekstasis Editions. Both stores said that Ekstasis is too small a publisher to be on their list. That’s three dead ends so far. I emailed Richard Olafson to ask him to send me a list of Toronto publishers that have actually ordered books from Ekstasis. 

            I weighed 86.75 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride and this time went as far as Ossington and Bloor, although the Bloor bike lane is either totally blocked or an obstacle course with a path through that’s about the width of a bicycle tire. On the way home I stopped at Freshco to take advantage of the fact that I could still do a price match on grapes with the No Frills price of $4.14 a kilo. Plus they had better grapes at Freshco. I also got a pack of raspberries, some Canadian honey and some spoon sized shredded wheat. 

            I weighed 87 kilos at 18:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:23. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Seven Shades of Blues” I continued to cut and shuffle the clips I’d made from the BBC documentary “When Hippies Ruled the World”. I might have enough video to make it through the instrumental, but then I think I’ll have to look for something else to import. 

            I reviewed the song practice video of my Gibson electric performance of “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” from September 19 but there were lots of retakes in that session and so I left off for supper at 41:15. 

            I had a potato with the last of my gravy and three pork ribs while watching season 3, episode 11 of Batman. 

            In Chuckingham Palace, in Londinium, the capital of the Old World, Lord Marmaduke Ffogg and his sister Lady Penelope Peasoup steal the queen’s collection of antique snuff boxes under the cover of artificial fog created by Ffogg’s Sherlock Holmes style calabash pipe (Apparently the books never described Holmes’s pipe but in theatrical representations it’s become traditional for him to smoke a calabash because of the visual effect of the dramatic curve). For some reason the recent thefts in Londinium of priceless possessions of the aristocracy have become an international incident, stumping Ireland Yard, and so the US president has asked Commissioner Gordon to call Batman. Gordon himself is already scheduled to go to Londinium for a Police Commissioners conference. He’s invited his daughter Barbara to come along but she finds the idea of being in the Londinium fog distasteful until she hears that Batman and Robin will be going and then changes her mind. Barbara and her father set sail for Londinium on a cruise ship and are surprised that Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson are also aboard. Alfred is also with them and an enormous crate is also loaded onto the ship. Bruce tells Barbara that he wants Dick to continue his studies while he’s there and so they have brought along his desk, his biological specimens, and a thousand works of literature. What they really have with them is the Batmobile and the Bat Computer. Meanwhile Ffogg and Peasoup steal Lady Easterland’s collection of jewelled Easter eggs. They are working their way up to stealing the Crown Jewels from the Tower of Londinium. When they get to the Old World (England is not mentioned), Bruce rents a country manor and in the former dungeon sets up a temporary Batcave. Later Batman and Robin meet Superintendent Watson at Ireland Yard. Barbara and Gordon are also there. When Batman and Robin hear about the fog trademark of the thefts they start throwing back and forth different words for fog and mention “aftergrass”. Aftergrass is grass that grows after a crop has been harvested but Bruce talks of it as if it’s something that would be cultivated in itself. I don’t think one would have a lawn of aftergrass but Watson says Ffogg House has the finest aftergrass in the world. Batman wants to visit Ffogg Place. Ffogg and Peasoup also run a girls finishing school. When Ffogg hears Batman and Robin are coming he tells his butler to dig two graves just in case. Batman, Robin, Barbara and Watson visit Ffogg Place where Ffogg always wears a fake cast on his foot, pretending to be immobilized by gout in order to throw off the police. The visitors meet Ffogg’s daughter Lady Prudence and her charges, the student boarders: Duchess, Kit, Daisy, and Rosamond. The daily students are on holiday. When Penelope hears Barbara is a college graduate she offers her to join the faculty. Prudence shows Robin around while Barbara makes a phone call to Alfred and puts an anti bugging device on the phone which is a good idea because Ffogg and several others do try to listen. Prudence tells Robin the school is greeby. It’s supposed to be a finishing school but it’s really a school for shoplifting. Penelope shows Batman a beehive containing Ffogg’s African death bees. One sting and you’re finished. Penelope says Barbara told her she might be interested in joining the faculty for a short while. She explains to Ffogg that with Gordon’s daughter nearby and because of her connection to Batman, if Batman and Robin get too close they will have a hostage. Barbara meets Alfred on a country road where he has driven a taxicab that he borrowed from his cousin. He’s brought Barbara a suitcase with her yellow bat symbol on it and containing her Batgirl costume. Alfred drives away and Barbara goes behind some bushes to change. The Batmobile heads back to Londinium but comes up against a roadblock. They are confronted by Ffogg’s butler, footman, chauffeur and two other members of Ffogg’s staff out of uniform and carrying clubs. The fight begins and then Batgirl steps out from the bushes to join in. She uses a bit of Yvonne Craig’s ballet skills between her kicks. While the heroes are distracted by the fight, one of the thugs places something inside of the Batmobile. When they get back to the temporary Batcave the bomb goes off clouding them with what may be poison fog. 

            Penelope Peasoup is played by the legendary actor and amazingly gorgeous Glynis Johns. She joined the London Ballet School at the age of 5 and by the age of 11 had a degree as a dancing instructor. She made her stage acting debut at the age of 8 in Judgement Day. She made her film debut in South Riding at the age of 14. She starred in Miranda, The Weak and the Wicked, Mad About Men, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Third Time Lucky, Josephine and Men, Loser Takes All, All Mine to Give, The Spider’s Web, She co-starred in Frieda, The Halfway House (co-starring with her father Mervyn Johns), The Court Jester, No Highway in the Sky, The Chapman Report, Perfect Strangers, This Man is Mine, Dear Mr. Prohack, State Secret, The Card, Personal Affair, The Seekers, The Beachcomber, Shake Hands With the Devil, Papa’s Delicate Condition, Don’t Just Stand There, Lock Up Your Daughters, The Vault of Horror, and Zelly and Me. She made her television debut in the 1953 production of Little Women. She starred in the short-lived sitcom Glynis in 1963. She co-starred in the sitcom Coming of Age. The songs “Sister Suffragette” and “Send in the Clowns” were written specifically for her voice. She won a Tony for A Little Night Music. One would have thought that she might have received a damehood in her 100 year life but she died last year without one. Her image is on the cover of Led Zeppelin II.