Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Henry went fishing

OK .... here is the evidence - this fish won the fishin' competition at Dundee 
(25 minutes by light plane SW of Darwin) recently.
Measured 93 cm.....was released, of course.

Cheers and beers,

Henry B


He caught a whopper


and another


Sunday, April 25, 2010

Justine Finter writes:

Hi Bill and Diane,

Thank you for keeping in touch.  I would love to participate after viewing all the blogs. Would you believe, I have a new laptop but still haven't mastered any new skills.

I'm not even sure how to use the comment box.  Yes, I'm still alive - I do hate getting old- even slower at everything.  

Please forward my congratulations to Henry for his life membership.

Richard's reviews are great.  Diane, you still looking good. I'm insanely jealous.  

Bill and I are still working on with the final touches to our motor home before going on road to join the "Grey Nomads.  I do love all the clever e-mails Ian has been forwarding onto me.  My strengths lie in pressing the "reply button" on e-mails.   Wishing you all good health and keep smiling.

Mary(Justine).


How to comment:
Commenting on blog posts is easy, You see below each post a COMMENTS link, just click that and a comment box will appear where you enter your comment. Below that it says Comment As: click that and select Anonymous unless you have a blog account yourself in which case you select that. Then click Post Comment and your comment is up there. Don’t forget to write your name in the box with your comment.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (MA 15+)

Richard Jones reviews the following movie:

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (MA 15+)

FORTY years ago the beloved niece of a wealthy Swedish industrialist disappeared from a national Family Day celebration one summer.
Convinced she’d been murdered by someone from his mad, bad and very sad family, patriarch Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube) hires crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) to re-open the cold case.
The only problem for Mikael is that he’s in a spot of bother himself. Pinged by a court for publishing what it considers misleading revelations about corporate corruption, six months detention awaits the white knight.
Nevertheless he takes up residence in the isolated Vanger island enclave connected to the mainland by a single, long bridge.
Investigations proceed at a snail’s pace, with Mikael’s only real breakthrough a four decades old grainy press photo of the nearby town’s Family Day gathering.
On the day she disappeared, the missing Harriet Vanger is in the front row of the picture. But what is she peering at in the middle distance?
Fortunately for Henrik and Mikael, a Vanger family business friend has a contact. Lisbeth Salander is a 24-year-old anarchistic, goth-punk with sublime skills in computer hacking.
Things really start to move when Lisbeth (Noomi Rapace) moves into the estate cottage with Mikael.
Their joint investigations reveal that a number of murders of women across Sweden have remained unsolved.
Could Harriet Vanger have been a victim of this killer, or killers? And what is the meaning of an intriguing and mysterious five-line text  --- five, spaced capital letters on each line --- they find in Harriet’s Bible.
Journalist and crime thriller writer Stieg Larsson, whose world best seller formed the basis for this film’s script, was a crusader against Swedish corporate corruption and neo-Nazism.
And so, considering that a number of members of the Vanger family were fervent Nazi lovers during World War 2 and remained so in the decades after, there’s not much help for Mikael and Lisbeth on the home front.
It doesn’t bother Lisbeth. Only a fool would mess with this tough, tattooed investigator.

NOTE: as it’s a Swedish production, sub-titles are involved. Occasionally there’s snippets of English but remember, it is a European production.  

Monday, April 19, 2010

Henry Bodman (62/63) receives Life Membership

Bev Kenna (last Life Member recipient of PMARFC) presents HB with PMARFC Life Member Award(first in 35 years of Past Players Association) while Reunion Convenor Jack Moffatt looks on.



Janelle and Tom - March 2010

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Grey Nomads - Kathryn and Joe Crainean (62/63)

(from Kathryn and Joe's travel blog KERMIT)

The Craineans have been traveling around Tasmania for a few months where they have seen some wonderful sight according to their blog. 
On the Cam River at Wynyard in Tasmania was the perfect place to wake up.



The beautiful coastline of Tasmania overlooking the golf course at Wynyard. How players can concentrate when playing on this course, is anyone's guess.


Fisherman ordinare with a beautiful bream.

You can follow their travels directly on their Kermit blog Click here

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Our Movie Reviewer - Richard Jones (62/63)



I HAVE been a journalist for more than four decades, involved with both the print and electronic media.
Starting off as a ‘stringer’ or correspondent back in the 60s with the twice-weekly South Pacific Post in Port Moresby, I finished 25 years full-time service with central Victoria’s Bendigo Advertiser in the early Noughties.

My old boss from Moresby days --- the redoubtable Douglas Lockwood –-- had been posted to Bendigo, via Melbourne, following his days as managing editor of PNG’s only daily: the Post-Courier.

When we called into Bendigo on a 1977 driving holiday Doug asked me what I was up to. Two sentences later he inquired what would be a suitable start date for me at the Addy.
“I need a sports writer and you fill the bill,” he said.
So we established ourselves in Bendigo and have been here ever since. Sadly Doug passed away in 1980, the victim of overwork and a heart attack.
I served 17 years as the sports editor, and then five as business/finance editor, after starting life in Bendigo as a council and politics roundsman.

In the late 1970s-early 1980s being called ‘sports editor’ was a mis-nomer. Jack of all trades would have been a fairer assessment.
Australian footy on Saturdays, and occasionally Sundays. Harness racing on Friday nights. Gallops meeting mid-week and greyhound racing on Monday nights.
Athletics and cycling carnivals all summer, interspersed with swimming and diving meets. And then it was time for the footy to start again. Not a very family-friendly occupation.

When a community radio station started up down near Castlemaine I was asked to help with Saturday morning footy preview shows and within the year to assist with live matchday calls.
As I’d done a lot of radio work in PNG (live boxing and rugby league broadcasts, as well as studio anchoring) I was pleased to help out.
Later on in the 90s the National Indigenous Radio Network, with its headquarters in Brisbane, became the Brisbane Lions’ dedicated radio outfit.
A Bendigo radio colleague was the commentating co-ordinator and our ex-station manager had been appointed manager of the NIRS, based in Queensland.
So the NIRS AFL calls which expanded from one or two broadcasts a weekend to Friday nights, Saturdays, Saturday nights and Sundays, had a distinctly central Victorian flavour. Until 2002 I was involved for three seasons, but only from Melbourne’s Docklands Stadium or the MCG.
I left the interstate gigs to other colleagues. It was getting very tiring, up and down to Melbourne every second weekend, so by mutual consent I called it a day in 2002.
My local footy calling continued on, though, until mid-2007.
Nowadays I write a Bendigo Football League match report for Monday’s winter and spring newspapers and submit my weekly tips for publication on Fridays.
There’s also the Look Back In History segment for the weekly Bendigo Football League guide to compile.
And on a separate community FM station, I’m involved with a Wednesday morning sports review and preview programme.

So, how did the involvement with writing film reviews come about? Well, my wife and I have always loved live theatre and classical music performances with a special fondness for the cinema.

We see up to 30 films a year. Not on DVD. Live, at cinemas where there’s proper surround sound.
When our former State Premier Jeff Kennett amalgamated a whole heap of local government authorities 15 years ago quite a few civic buildings weren’t needed any more.
The Eaglehawk Borough Town Hall was one of those structures. An enterprising lady took it over to run a community cinema there, complete with a projection room and box office.

When she relinquished the business a community group, of which we’re members, decided to run the cinema. Volunteers staff the box office and the projection room.
Paying patrons sit on plush velvet couches, sipping beer or wine, to watch the movies.

Other volunteers were needed to pen reviews for the Bendigo Advertiser’s Saturday Weekend magazine --- and I was asked to write one, sometimes two, every second week.
So, some three or four years down the track I’m still writing regular film reviews.
From time to time, some of these will appear on the Asopa Blog.

--- RICHARD JONES

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

The Bear & The Moose Dine With The Smoth.

Bob Davis (62/63) sent this report:


Mid March saw Col (Huggiebear) Huggins train south from Brisbane to Robina  where he was rescued from exotic peddlers of dubious items in and around the railway station by the arrival of Bob (Moose) Davis.

They drove south and headed for the delights of northern NSW and the sleepy town of Ballina in particular, where they descended on Brian (Smoth) Smith.  Brian these days leads a very relaxed, sedentary lifestyle in the place of his birth - (not too different from many of us (I suspect.)

Next stop was the Ballina RSL which is literally spitting distance from the broad expanse of the raging Richmond River -(well it seemed to be raging that day!)  A few beers chased down a tasty luncheon and seemed to make the Richmond rage even more fiercely. Yarns and stories (all gospel,) about common acquaintances and places and events flowed thick and fast.  We did agree on one thing and that was the need for some central means of collating up to date details of ex ASOPIANS and their exploits given that our numbers are only going to decline at an ever increasing rate.  (I believe that Diane and Bill Bohlen have taken this on board.)

Few people would be aware that Col and Brian shared a SOQ in Finschhafen in 1964 - I am
still not able to work out who slept where!!  Fortunately for both of them Brian was posted to Daru in mid year and this saved the pair too many domestic wrangles.

Brian's quiet existence in Ballina is punctuated by frequent visits from his two children,
(both in their early twenties or thereabouts and both living in or around Ballina.)
Brian's mother (now in her nineties and ex Lae) lives in South Tweed and he catches up with her frequently.

Back on the road northwards after lunch and overnight at Hausdavis in West Tweed. Colin declined a ride to Brisbane early the next morning, preferring to sleep in instead and train back to Brisbane at a more civilised hour.

Friday, April 02, 2010

Henry Bodman (62/63) recently returned from Canberra






Henry Bodman has recently returned from a reunion in Canberra, he writes:- 



PMARFC Reunion – The First of the Fiftieths


. What a vice like grip PNG has on all of us when we snatch at every opportunity and excuse to share more time with those who know PNG as we did and do.

1960 saw the first of the many premiership trophies won by the Port Moresby Australian Rules Football Club and from this start followed those of 1961 (Lightning, summer and main seasons) 1962, 1964, 1966 and 1968.

With the last of the 40th reunions conducted at Maroochydore in 2008, Jack Moffatt offered to host the first of the 50ths in Canberra. And thus, as Captain, Coach and sole selector, Jack turned on a weekend which will be well remembered by every one of the 100+ in attendance. From the collection at the airport by Hughie Maher, Wally Cook and  Roger Evans .to the final evening under the gum trees,  the weekend flowed smoothly from one venue and ambience to the next – in all, three;  and each quite different and catering to all tastes and expectations..

The ever present and reliable Brian “Tangles” Pearce and Max Palmer ensured everyone was properly welcomed, watered, fed, and informed on the three day programme.

Of interest is the fact that not one of the five members of the triumphant 1960 Demons’ side -. Captain Brian Sherwood, Barry Whish-Wilson, Rod Sergeant, Derek Sholl, or Noel Kenna - could remember playing a draw in the grand final and having to win a ‘play-off’ the following weekend to claim the cup. Fifty years can do things like that but all remembered being personally presented with the “Best Man Afield” trophy in the same game.

By contrast, George Bottriell played in Moresby’s  first team in 1955 and his memory remains as sharp as a tack which it needs to be to keep up with wife Dulcie who, approaching 90, is still playing competitive tennis on the Bellarine Peninsula. Equally impressive was Jim Thomas, resplendent in a mint condition Papuan Rules Blazer of 1956 vintage. It fitted him like a glove and there is no stoop evident in this youthful 80 + year old. The opportunities for the ‘newbies of the seventies’ to meet these ‘legends of the fifties’ was not lost and was particularly exploited on the second evening which was conducted at the swank Gungalan.Golf Club where the all important tucker was a further reflection the great management of the Canberra committee.

Henry and crew

The initial reception and gala evening of the weekend was conducted at the Ainslie Australian Rules Club which had all of the facilities and service needed for  the exceptional night which followed. Club memorabilia was spread over a number of tables. With the original burnt in the Colts Club House in Boroko,  Bill Vivian’s replacement Honour Board was on show for the first time. With the discovery of some of the ‘legends of the fifties’,  Bill had to start from scratch after his first completed Board was, necessarily, revised.

At this function all in attendance were issued with a copy of the PMARFC story  “Long Taim Stori Bilong Port Moresby Australian Rules Football Club 1955-1975.” This expensive 60 glossy paged production is already a collectors’ item – anyone looking for one will need to approach Jack Moffatt.  Those who can remember John  Ilian (DIES) will know what a professional job has been done of this important record. John’s efforts were recognised on the weekend with the award of the coveted “Red Ribbon Award”.

While the opening night and weekend will be remembered by all as an enormous success and thoroughly enjoyable, few will remember it as fondly as Henry Bodman who was awarded a Moresby Past Players’ Association Life Membership – the first issued in 35 years.

Predictably, there is a Grey Nomads component to the Demons ranks and on the third night all gathered  under the gum trees on a hill behind Canberra and got stuck into the rich brown suds and pizzas. Rose and Jock Collins, for the third successive reunion, presided over our ‘last supper event’ and  co-ordinated the regular and constant supply of suds and pizzas This was probably as near as the weekend came to parties as we remember them in Moresby - though this occasion remained ‘couth’(versus uncouth) to the end.   Such was the enthusiasm engendered,  that Kerry and Graeme “Moose” Tilyard offered to host the 2012 Demons Reunion in Tasmania.

Late press indicates another case of blood rushing to the head with Noel and Bev Kenna looking at 2014 in Warrnambool.

Those years in Papua New Guinea can be blamed for a lot - including these great get togethers. Don’t you pity those who didn’t experience life and living in Papua New Guinea?

Thanks for that submission Henry.