Sunday Again Already!

the week has just flown past,

 so for this week we are off to the Punch & Judy for our Sunday lunch,

 there were two Ben 10 bikes outside,

 but no one it the smoking area,

 roast lamb and Yorkshire puddings for me,

 shepard's pie for Mr. Tony,

 'Cheers!' from all of us,

 I nearly forgot, Diana had steak and beer pie,

 then back to 388 where we were joined by Laura,

 well we just had to try out the 3D glasses,

 soon it was time for Steve and Laura to leave,

 Pattaya's answer to the Hells Angels!

 Mr. Tony, Diana and myself settled down to watch a couple of DVDs, Mr. Tony fancied this one Fargo, although the titles say it is based on a true movie it is not, but two similar events depicted in the movie did take place, an urban legend even says that people have gone to search Minnesota for the briefcase of money, but what did happen was that the plot has elements of two well-known Minnesota crimes, in 1962, a St. Paul attorney named Eugene Thompson hired someone to kill his wife, Carol, the sloppiness and brutality of the crime attracted great attention, then in 1972, Virginia Piper, the wife of a wealthy Orono banker, was kidnapped, a million-dollar ransom was paid, one of the largest in U.S. history, Mrs. Piper was found tied to a tree in a state park, two men were convicted of the crime, but were acquitted after a re-trial, only $4,000 of the money was ever recovered, so that, supposedly is why people are still looking for the other $996,000!

 The Time Machine was next, I have to say not as gripping as the original, but then we were not spoilt by the special effects used in this new version, after watching that we said goodbye to Mr. Tony,

and settled down for The African Queen, Rose Sayer takes on the German warship, the Louisa, on one of the great lakes of Africa, when watching this I was immediately reminded of Commander Geoffrey Basil Spicer- Simson, who by means of three small armed vessels, on Lake Tanganyika took on the German navy who had on the lake at that time, the gunboat Kingani, a vessel of 30 or 40 tons, (which was captured after surrendering), leaving the Graf von Gotzen, a vessel of 400-500 tons carrying one 4 inch and two smaller guns, and the Hedwig von Wissman a gunboat of about the same size as the captured one, the Hedwig von Wissman was attacked and sunk, leaving the Graf von Gotzen, but she did not risk an engagement, after being bombed by a Belgian aeroplane, she was scuttled by the Germans in Kigoma harbour, on the eastern shore of the Lake, but the real story is of how the British ships arrived on the lake,

after being landed, at Cape Town the boats had to be taken 2,300 miles by train, via Bulawayo and Livingstone, to the railhead north of Elizabethville in the Belgian Congo, next there followed 150 miles of haulage, over atrocious roads, across country varying in altitude from 2,000 to 6,000 feet, this was followed by another journey on trucks over a short section of railway, then the boats were floated 400 miles down the Lualaba River under their own power for part of the journey, and for the rest on lighters, shoals and rocks abounded, and barrels had to be lashed under the boats to reduce their draught, the final stage of the journey was by rail again to the small Belgian harbour of Lukuga, about half way up the western shore of the Lake, all of this with the limited use of modern equipment, well it was in 1915!

having enjoyed the last Waking the Dead we watched another, Burn Out, this series so far is so much easier than Midsomer Murders, after just 5 minuets I had it all worked out - really! but the episode was interesting neither the less, so we are looking forward to the next, with that we were off to bed.