PRACTICALLY PERFECT

A nice addition to my Walt Disney Disney/Mary Poppins collection: the programme – in near mint condition – from the film's World Premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood fifty-six years ago on 27 August 1964. 

Here's the programme's cover with the iconic (uncredited) art by Disney studio artist Paul Wenzel that was also memorably featured on the early Poppins posters and the LP soundtrack recording.  

Although I don't think I was conscious of it back in 1964, I'm intrigued by the use of the 'neon marquee-light-bulb' lettering that suggests 'theatre' and 'musical' yet doesn't quite fit with the film's Edwardian setting.

As for the likenesses themselves, Wenzel's artwork is stunning, although I wonder whether, at the time of painting, the studio had still to finalise Julie's Poppins wig since the colour and styling are very obviously 'Julie' and not 'Mary'.

Here is Paul Wenzel's original artist's 'rough' for the double-portrait: bought in auction in December 2018 – not by me! –  for $5,520!

Below is a small selection of the interior pages, beginning with one focusing on the collaboration between Mr. Disney and Mrs. Travers...

Click image to enlarge

I do wonder what P.L.T. thought when she read: "Mrs Travers was invited to Burbank for story conferences. Elated with the treatment her beloved heroine was receiving, the authoress signed the formal contracts"   

ELATED? I'm not so sure about that!

 Click all images to enlarge

POST-SCRIPT
(One Day Later...)

I couldn't have guessed that posting details on Facebook of my having acquired this delightful collectable was just the beginning of a story...  

After posting these images, my Facebook friend and noted Poppins collector Mat Plendl posted the following images of an early Poppins LP and a Songbook featuring photographs of Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke that obviously provided a significant part of the inspiration for Paul Wenzel's now iconic illustration...

 

Images courtesy of Mat Plendl

Mat commented: 

"Dick Sherman told me, years ago, that this was the first run (maybe a test?), and that Walt thought it looked too much like a kids' thing and so they decided to give it a more grown-up, Broadway look. Plus, this photo of Julie is none too flattering. Very nearly impossible to find (along with a songbook with similar cover sold at Disneyland for a short time), a few escaped out to radio stations but they only appear on super-rare occasions, usually when a collector has died!"  

POST-POSTSCRIPT

(Later the Same Day...)

And still the story continues! 

Another Facebook friend, Chris Tassin, adds:

"Great to see the rare early pressings! A couple of years ago, I found the actual photos of Julie and Dick used as reference for the illustration."

Images courtesy of Chris Tassin

So there's the final link! It's now clear why Julie's hair bears no resemblance to her 'Poppins' look and it also shows that Paul Wenzel was a truly gifted illustrator! 

Many thanks to Mat Plendl and Chris Tassin for helping to solve what has been (for me) a 56-year-long mystery!

A SURPRISING GIFT

From the creator of Mary Poppins, P L Travers, a mystical story about that first Christmas and a surprising gift brought to the manger by an unlikely gift-giver.

The Fox and the Manger, which I dramatised for radio in 1990, stars Dame Wendy Hiller and Alec McCowen with Richard Pearce and Cast...

ON OF ALL THE GOOD DAYS OF THE YEAR...

As every reader of the blog probably knows, one of my all-time favourite books is Charles Dickens' "A Ghost Story of Christmas" better known as A Christmas Carol...

From my very first reading of the book (in my early teens) the story of Ebenezer Scrooge the "squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner", whose mean and miserly ways are reformed by visitations from the ghost of his dead partner Jacob Marley and the Spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Future has continued to delight, intrigue and annually haunt my life.

With every reading, my love grows for the modest little volume and its huge characters – the Bah! Humbugging Scrooge; his jovial nephew, Fred; the poor, put-upon clerk, Bob Cratchit and his endearing family caring for their frail child, Tiny Tim; the chain-rattling Marley who, too late, has seen the errors of his ways and is determined to share this knowledge with his surviving partner; the shape-changing Spirit of the Past, elusive and ethereal; the expansive Spirit of Present, Christmas personified and the silent, shrouded ghost from the Future revealing the desolate bleakness of Scrooge's fate...

My fascination with the book has led me to build a vast collection of many (too many!) different editions of the book, including everything from simplified abridgements via comics and graphic novels to lavishly illustrated editions and elaborate pop-up books; along with numerous recordings and movie versions – with their assorted attendant merchandise.

Everybody will have a favourite movie version of A Christmas Carol: for most people, today that would probably be The Muppet Christmas Carol...

However, I'm sure there are still many devotees of Alastair Sim's 1951 classic, Scrooge, and others who love the Leslie Briccuse musical with Albert Finney or the TV interpretations by Michael Hordern, George C Scott or Kelsey Grammer. There may even still be some fans of Richard William's wonderful 1971 Oscar-winning animated film or sundry cartoon renditions featuring Mr Magoo, Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, the Flintstones and the Jetsons!

Much of this, often weird and wonderful material (Barbie's Christmas Carol?!) was referenced in my 1994 publication, A Christmas Carol: The Unsung Story and on the way to writing that book, I made a seasonal BBC radio programme entitled Humbug! 

Directed by Glyn Dearman (who had once played Tiny Tim to Alastair Sim's Scrooge), Humbug! led to my friendship with Nick Clark, another dedicated lover-collector of Dickens and his Christmas Carol; and that, in turn, resulted in our collaborating on a stage production of the story which I dramatised for the Lansbury Players and for which Nick wrote songs and original music.

My stage interpretation was something of a diversion from the all-too numerous stage versions that have proliferated since the book's publication in 1843 – in fact within the first few weeks of 1844, there were already several, unauthorised, productions playing in London.

My aim was to try and preserve something of the authorial voice – Dickens very real presence (his terror, anger, excitement and delight) in the many moods of the story he is recounting. This is something that is often lost when the book is pared down to the bones of its famous dialogue.

My idea was to begin with Dickens (a part I would play myself) telling the story to an audience at one of his celebrated public readings and to then bring that story alive by having the author make the members of the audience into his cast of characters, guiding and prompting them into their roles and, like a Victorian puppet-master, helping them tell the tale...

I relished the role of Dickens and (this is years before I was crippled with arthritis) leaped and cavorted around the stage, steering Scrooge through the crowded, snow-laden streets of London, enticing passers-by into the festive shops of bakers, poulterers and grocers and chivvying the young Cratchits into place around the dinner table... God bless us everyone!

The Lansbury Players production of 2003 opened with a prologue...

A man at the entrance to a London underground station attempts to make twentieth-century Christmas shoppers and revellers focus on the needs of a homeless man huddled and begging at their passing feet. Then, removing his own overcoat and putting it on the poor man, he walks across the stage – and back through time – to become Mr Dickens at his reading desk and, with the author's nineteenth-century words, shows how little has changed in over a hundred years...

Nick Clark recorded one of the performances and has now remastered it so that (I think) it sparkles afresh and, despite the obvious absence of clever staging by director Dave Millard, works as a piece of audio drama...

The cast is a fine one headed by my long standing friend (and Disney co-author) Richard Holliss as an incomparably unpleasant (and, later, delightfully reformed) Scrooge and Keith Cummings as both the timid clerk and devoted father, Bob Cratchit, and a deliciously genial Mr Fezziwig.

So, here it is – the old familiar story – offered up in the hope that you might enjoy it anew while wrapping a few last presents or stuffing your turkey for tomorrow's feast.

It was made – by Mr Dickens and myself – with love...

And here's the full cast to take a bow...

To read more Sibley blog-posts about Dickens' Christmas classic CLICK HERE

And...

There's another story for Christmas night available on BBC Radio 4 Extra today (and for 30 days thereafter via iPlayer): my 1990 dramatisation of––– 

The FOX at the MANGER

This enchanting, mystical, tale – about an unexpected gift given on the first Christmas night – is based on the book by Mary Poppins author, P L Travers.

Starring Dame Wendy Hiller and Alec McCowen, The Fox at the Manger has exquisite music by Dave Hewson and was produced by the aforementioned Glyn Dearman...

CLICK here to LISTEN

AWAY IN A MANGER

The author P L Travers has received a lot of attention this year (not all of it flattering) as the author of Mary Poppins became a character in a new Disney film, Saving Mr Banks.

Despite all the media coverage given to the film and the 'revelations' about the author's her childhood in Australia and her dealings with the Disney studio, the world at large is probably as far from understanding this complex woman as it was before all the hoop-la and shenanigans began...

The majority of people only know Mary Poppins via Walt Disney's 1964 film as opposed to the six books Travers wrote about the magical nanny. The chances are they are unaware of her other writing which includes a mystical fable for Christmas Eve.

It is called The Fox at the Manger and, in 1990, with the author's permission, I dramatised the book for BBC Radio with a cast headed by Dame Wendy Hiller and Alec McCowen and with a glorious music score from David Hewson.

If you can find yourself forty-five minutes to have a cuppa and a sit down, you might enjoy a very special story about this holiest of nights...

POPPIN' OFF

Tonight at 8:30 on BBC Two, I'll be contributing to a television special from The Culture Show entitled The Secret Life of Mary Poppins...

he programme will examine the author of the children's book famously filmed by Walt Disney in 1964 and now the subject of a new film from the Mouse Factory, Saving Mr Banks...

And here (excavated from a long-buried box of cassette recordings) is P L Travers herself talking about the famous nanny and much else besides – including an account of one of her encounters with the Irish poet W B Yeats that I somewhat inaccurately recounted during my recent appearance on Radio 3's Night Waves...

LAST WORDS ON DIANE

Today's edition of the BBC Radio 4 obituary programme, Last Word, featured a tribute by me to Diane Disney Miller.

 

The programme is repeated on Radio 4 on Sunday (20:30) and remains available on iPlayer afterwards.

And here are links to my article on Disney, Poppins and Travers for Wednesday's Evening Standard...

...and, on the same day, my appearance on Radio London's Robert Elms Show.

POPPIN' AGAIN!

Today, I'll be poppin' up on Robert Elms Show on BBC Radio London at 13:40 and those who live near the metropolis will be able to pick up tomorrow's edition of London's Evening Standard in which I'll have an article about P L Travers and her magical nanny.

And I'm not popped-out yet!

Illustration by Mary Shepard

SAVING MR BANKS – DEFENDING MARY POPPINS

I'll be on BBC Radio 3's Night Waves tonight from 10:00 pm talking to Matthew Sweet about P L Travers, Walt Disney and Mary Poppins and the film that explore the early life of the author and her later tussles with Hollywood's Cartoon King, Saving Mr Banks...

The programme can be heard via Listen Again on iPlayer for the next seven days.

POPPING IN ON POPPINS

I will be flying in on The One Show (BBC One) tonight to chat with Gyles Brandreth about P L Travers, Walt Disney, Mary Poppins and the new film starring Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks, Saving Mr Banks.

The programme starts at 19:00 at some point, after which, I will pop up!

THE (NEAR) RETURN OF MARY POPPINS

This year's London Film Festival closes this evening with the premiere of Saving Mr Banks, Disney's film account of the difficult time the studio's founder experienced, in the early 'sixties, when making what was to become one of his most successful movies – Mary Poppins.

The new film stars Tom Hanks as the Hollywood dream-merchant and Emma Thompson as P L Travers, the author of the Mary Poppins books, who was fiercely protective of her heroine and feistily determined to be heard in script conferences with the film's screenwriter, Don DaGradi, and the soon-to-be-legendary Oscar-winning song-smiths, Richard and Robert Sherman.

Saving Mr Banks, which skillfully interweaves, the Burbank back-stage story with that of Pamela Travers' difficult childhood growing up in Australia, has brought back many memories of this extraordinary – but far from easy – woman who was, for many years, a friend and, for a brief while, a collaborator when, in the mid '80s, we worked on a to-date unmade sequel to Disney's 1964 box-office triumph, provisionally entitled Mary Poppins Comes Back.

What followed (or, at least, some of what transpired) is revealed in an article by Vincent Dowd, who recently interviewed me for the BBC World Service –– Mary Poppins: Brian Sibley's sequel that never was.

At the time all this was happening, another friend of mine, Academy Award-winning Animator Richard Williams, was working for the Disney studio as Animation Director on Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Dick made me a drawing that still hangs on my wall as a reminder of a project that nearly-almost-might-have-happened...

In the end, like the hapless Roger, I (and Mary Poppins 2) went headfirst down that manhole, but it was a memorable trip!

You can read more in past blog-posts about P L Travers and 'our' film, here and here.

(AL)MOST FASCINATING!

Many thanks to all my readers who voted for my Ex Libris blog in the recent Most Fascinating Blog awards.

My posting about P L Travers and Mary Poppins scored 10th place out of the 93 nominated blogs!

TOP OF THE POPPINS?

There is only
one more day
in which to give my blog post about
Mary Poppins
your vote
for being
(if it is)
Most Fascinating...

CLICK HERE and follow the directions!

“I shouldn't wonder if you didn't wonder much too much!”

SUPERPOPPINSFASCINATIONBLOGGEREXLIBDOCIOUS!

Although less frequently visited than this blog and with but six followers, my Ex Libris has evidently caught somebody's eye because it has just received a nomination for the Most Fascinating Blog of 2012 Award. 
It was this posting about P L Travers and Mary Poppins that won me a place on the list of 93 nominations chosen by librarians from a pool of over 2,300 submissions!


Having been nominated, it is now up to the voters to decide which of those 100 blogs is the MOST Fascinating – which includes, of course, my beloved blog readers!

I'd love you to read my post and - supposing you find it even the teensyist bit fascinating – consider casting your vote on behalf of the Practically Perfect Miss Poppins, her creator and this hopeful old blogger!

UPDATE: Voting is now closed for this award.

Let me express my gratitude to all my readers who voted for this blog in the recent Most Fascinating Blog awards.

Although it didn't win, my nominated posting earned Ex Libris 10th place out of the 93 blogs that were in the running for the award.


So many thanks to all those readers who voted.

SOMETHING ABOUT MARY

Over on my Decidedly Disney blog, I have posted the film treatment I wrote in 1987 for Mary Poppins Comes Back, an unmade sequel to Walt Disney's 1964 classic movie musical, Mary Poppins.

There rather a lot to read – probably too much for a blog-post really – but it is (I think) a fascinating story of a piece of Almost-Nearly-Movie-History: one of those tales from Hollywoodland of a film that might have been made if the wind had, for a short while, been blowing in another direction...

Whether it would have been a good film if it had been made is altogether debatable and, of course, we will never know now, but, as I explain in my post, a small fragment of the story which I concocted with the book's original author, P L Travers, survives in the script for the stage musical of Mary Poppins.

Which prompts me to share with you a selection of short educational films centred on the stage show in which I make an occasional appearance...

You might also enjoy my postings...
Tea with Miss Poppins
Tea with Miss Andrews
and
Mary Poppins and the Sea-Change

A FOXY TALE

At Christmas, it is nice to expect the unexpected. But, for many people this year, the appalling weather in Europe (and the gross inefficiency of the BAA) means that the unexpected may not be at all nice. Hundreds of thousands will not be spending this Christmas in quite the way they had hoped. We were due to fly to Venice today but, like many other travellers, have had our flight cancelled...

Happily, however, some things don't change: every Christmas, BBC Radio 7 generously keeps the memory green of my once prolific broadcasting career by repeating a few Sibley programmes from the distant and deeply frozen past.

First to get an airing this year is The Fox at the Manger, a radio play based on the seasonal fable by P L Travers.

I'll never forget the Christmas - too long ago now to attach a date to - when I spotted a book in my local bookshop with this intriguing title written, it said on the cover, by the author of Mary Poppins.

Although, at the time, I had yet to read any of the books about Miss Poppins, I knew and passionately loved the Disney musical film based on her exploits whilst serving as a "practically perfect nanny" in the household of Mr and Mrs Banks in Cherry Tree Lane.

The Fox at the Manger, I discovered, didn't have a lot in common with Mary Poppins - except that it was a tale shot through with magic and might just have been the kind of story Mary Poppins would have told her young charges.

It re-tells the events of the first Christmas - familiar from every nativity scene - but with an unexpected twist.

The animals in the Bethlehem stable - donkey, cow, sheep and dove - each give a gift to the new-born Christ-child, as described in the ancient 'Carol of the Friendly Beasts'...

Jesus our brother kind and good
Was humbly born in a stable rude.
And the friendly beasts around him stood
Jesus our brother, kind and good.

I, said the donkey, all shaggy and brown,
I carried his mother up hill and down
I carried his mother to Bethlehem town.
I, said the donkey, all shaggy and brown.

I, said the cow, all white and red
I gave him my manger for his bed
I gave him my hay to pillow his head.
I, said the cow, all white and red

I, said the sheep, with curly horn,
I gave him my wool for a blanket warm
He wore my coat on Christmas morn.
I, said the sheep, with curly horn.

I, said the dove, from the rafters high
I cooed him to sleep so he would not cry
We cooed him to sleep, my love and I
I, said the dove, from the rafters high.

Thus every beast, by some good spell
In the stable rude was glad to tell
Of the gift he gave Emmanuel
The gift he gave Emmanuel
The gift he gave Emmanuel

In P L Travers' version the animals witnessing the unusual birth in the midst of their straw-filled little world are dismayed and alarmed when an alien creature enters their domain – a red, furry, fox - the chicken-stealing outlaw of the countryside. But the fox has come to the manger to bring his own, unique gift to the Christ Child...

What that gift is you can discover for yourself by listening to The Fox at the Manger when it is broadcast today on Radio 7 at 11:15 and 21:15 or tomorrow morning at 02:15. It can also be heard on BBC iPlayer for seven days after the final broadcast.

The play stars Dame Wendy Hiller as the Storyteller and Alec McCowen as the Fox. The haunting musical score was specially composed by David Hewson with whom I collaborated on several projects including the short story recently posted on this blog, The Man and the Snake.

Speaking of P L Travers, if you haven't already read it, you might enjoy my account of having Tea with Mary Poppins.


BREAKING NEWS!

There are more up-coming Christmas Sibleys on Radio 7 in the form of the tirelessly repeated ...And Yet Another Partridge in a Pear Treestarring Penelope Keith broadcast on Monday 27 December at 14:15 and 21:15

And there's my four-part dramatisation of E T A Hoffman's classic children's story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, starring Tony Robinson on 27-30 December (05:30 and 10:30). Again all these broadcasts can be subsequently listened to via the BBC iPlayer.

And, if I haven't either exhausted or bored you, there is "yet another" vintage Sibley programme over on my Decidedly Disney blog, entitled The Fairest of Them All.

ALPHABOOKS

I just recover from answering one meme (the one asking me to list my frequently watched movies) when, knock me down with a feather, along comes another one: this time courtesy of my friend SCB at Where there are Meadowlarks...

Here are THE RULES (for there must always be RULES) as laid down by SCB:

1. Go through the alphabet, and for each letter, think of a book you've read that starts with that letter (A, An, and The do not count).

2. You must write down the FIRST book you think of for any given letter. This may make for some odd choices, but them's the breaks.

3. You must have actually READ the book. (I thought of lots that started with some letters, but I hadn't read them.)

4. If you think of a more impressive-sounding book for a particular letter, but you've already written your first thought down, you CANNOT change to the more impressive-sounding book. As an example, you have to leave "Fifty Famous Fairy Tales" (the Whitman Publishing pink and white one) on the list, even if you come up with fifty more impressive books afterwards.

5. If you can think of a book for X, you win... my lasting admiration (I can't afford real prizes!)

6. You can then tag as many people as you like. The more the merrier.

So, here's the list I drew up...

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

Doctor Dolittle – Hugh Lofting

The Exploits of Moominpappa – Tove Jansson

Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury

Gormenghast – Mervyn Peake

The Hobbit – J R R Tolkien

It's Too Late Now – A A Milne
(The autobiography of Pooh's creator)

Just So Stories – Rudyard Kipling

A Kid for Two Farthings – Wolf Mankowitz

The Lord of the Rings – J R R Tolkien

Mary Poppins – P L Travers

Noddy in Toyland – Enid Blyton
(Nostromo by Joseph Conrad would have sounded better, but there it is!)

The Once and Future King – T H White

Peter and Wendy – J M Barrie

Quentin Durwood – Sir Walter Scott

Ring of Bright Water – Gavin Maxwell

Something Wicked This Way Comes – Ray Bradbury

Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson

Utopia - Thomas More

The Voyage of the 'Dawn Treader' – C S Lewis

The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Graham

EXterminator! – William S Burroughs (Oh, well, it was worth a try!)

Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories – Dr Seuss

Zen in the Art of Writing – Ray Bradbury

I suppose it's not too surprising that there are two titles by Tolkien and three by Bradbury – plus, of course, Carroll, Milne and Peake – but the preponderance of children's books suggests that I have already entered my second childhood which is, I guess, pretty accurate!

I hesitate to tag anyone, but (if they'd like to do it and have the time) then I'll tag Gill, Sheila, Sharon, Suzanne and anyone else who fancies having a go...

OH, BROTHER(S)!

Still on the subject of Disney...

Browsing an auction-site the other day, I spotted my face!

OK, it was very small - minute actually - but there I was on a poster for the 2001 documentary film Walt: The Man Behind the Myth

In truth, I only make the briefest of cameo appearance in the film (talking about the relationship between Walt Disney and Mary Poppins author, P L Travers) compared with such notable names as Dick Van Dyke, Ray Bradbury, Buddy Ebsen, Robert Stack, Dean Jones, Chuck (Bugs Bunny) Jones and a number of legendary Disney animators including Ward Kimball, Marc Davis, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston.

Anyway, along with the other interviewees (all of whose photos, by the way, somehow got a bit squashed!) here I am on the poster...

Click image to enlarge

"WHERE?" You ask. OK, penultimate line, three-in from then left after Mary Poppins songwriters, Richard and Robert Sherman. Found me?

Speaking of Dick and Bob Sherman - prolific composers who, between them, wrote the most memorable songs of all our childhoods - I've received the following invitation to a special screening in Hollywood tonight (but obviously I'm not going to be there!) of The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story - another documentary in which I make a guest appearance...

Click image to enlarge

What is really fascinating about the Sherman's story is not that they wrote standards like 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang', 'I Wanna Be Like You', 'Winnie-the-Pooh', 'The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers', 'A Spoonful of Sugar', 'Feed the Birds', 'Chim-Chim-Cheree' and (let is not forget) 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious', but that these men who together created so many memorable musical moments were, most of the time, consumed by sibling rivalry. As the poster has it: Brothers. Partners. Strangers.

Anyway, on this occasion, as you can see (or, rather, can't see) I'm, regrettably, not on the poster! BUT I am in the trailer --- well, not exactly, 'in', but - towards the very end (so, do be patient) you will at least hear my dulcet tones!

And here's the Sherman's most-played song (probably the most played song ever in the history of songdom): the endlessly repeated theme to the 'it's a small world' attraction continuously played (on average) 12 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year in Disneyland, Walt Disney World's The Magic Kingdom, Disneyland Paris, Tokyo Disney Resort and Hong Kong Disneyland. Don't blame me if you're left humming it all day long!

BRIDGEWORK

Do you know how many bridges there are in Venice?

FOUR HUNDRED AND NINE!

Although, to be fair, some sources say 378 and still others 400, but then we are talking about the city of mystery and - in any case - there is, as of last year, a new bridge, so it may well be time for a recount...


The Ponte di Calatrava (designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava) is Venice's first new bridge in seventy years - and only the fourth to cross the Grand Canal - but it has been the subject of ceaseless debate and criticism, chiefly for its design which uses traditional Venetian materials of glass and stone but a great deal of chunky iron underwear and has a functional modernity that is at odds with the classical architecture of most of the city...


It has also been slated for its lack functionality: unevenly placed steps on the ascent and descent that are a tripping hazard and also - since many of the steps are glass - a slipping hazard in wet and icy weather...


Then there is the cost: several times beyond the approved budget (even without the decorations that were originally intended for it, but which, somehow, got left off drawings!) and which is destined to rise even more as the bridge now has to be adapted to provide wheelchair access under modern-day Italian laws relating to disabled access...

As for all those other bridges (however many they are): they span some of the 150 canals that divide the island city of Venice into what are, effectively, 118 smaller islands...

After eleven years of visiting we still haven't crossed all those bridges, but here are a few we have traversed, some of them many times...

***

Meanwhile...

Did you know that at midnight tomorrow, New Year's Eve, Greenwich Mean Time will be given a Leap Second? As Wikipedia explains...

A leap second is a one-second adjustment that keeps broadcast standards for time of day close to mean solar time. Broadcast standards for civil time are based on Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), a time standard which is maintained using extremely precise atomic clocks.

To keep the UTC broadcast standard close to mean solar time, UTC is occasionally corrected by an intercalary adjustment, or "leap", of one second... When a positive leap second is added at 23:59:60 UTC, it delays the start of the following UTC day (at 00:00:00 UTC) by one second, effectively slowing the UTC clock.

So, at midnight tomorrow, there will be seven - not six time - 'pips' and just before you get to shout HAPPY NEW YEAR, you'll have one whole second of extra life!

Make sure you live it -- to the full!!

Oh, yes, and still on the subject of timings... I know that Christmas is been and gone and that the shops are full of New Year Sales (instead of the Pre-Christmas Sales) and that the Radio Times contains more summer holiday advertisements than programme details, but there's still time - although not much - in which to catch Wendy Hiller and Alec McCowen in my Christmas radio dramatisation of The Fox at the Manger.

Based on the story by P L Travers, the author of Mary Poppins, it can be heard, on-line, until 31 December via the BBC's Radio 7 iPlayer (you'll find The Fox on the alphabetical listing of shows) but you've only got today and tomorrow to tune in!

***

And FINALLY...

A FOOTNOTE on the Ponte di Calatrava...

The original glass steps had - at more expense - to be made opaque as voyeurs were (apparently) photographing up the skirts of women from boats passing underneath...

These Italians! Any excuse!


Images: Brian Sibley & David Weeks © 2006/8

For more Venice imagery, visit my website to view the album Venice Observed and then follow the links at the foot of that page to three further albums of photographs.