Margaret Rutherford

English actress, Margaret Rutherford

A stalwart of the post-war British film industry, Margaret Taylor Rutherford was a memorable character actress. Adored by her fans, she exemplified much that was lovable about the English eccentric. Her comic skill, essential 'Englishness' and general oddball character translated well from stage to screen and during her career she enjoyed some plum film roles, notably as the credulous psychic, Madame Arcati in David Lean's film adaption of the Noel Coward play, Blythe Spirit but perhaps her most famous, ongoing role was as Agatha Christie's sharp spinster detective, Miss Marple in a series of films in the 1960s.

Sunnyboys, Smarties, White Knights, Choo-Choo Bars and Twisties

Ok, there's no real rhyme or reason for this frivolous commercial treatise, except that I happened to be reminiscing about the favoured junk food of my childhood (clearly I don't have enough to occupy my mind) and felt moved to jot my juvenile preferences down for posterity, though owing to my tragically sweet tooth, this is by no means an exhaustive list..

Robot Cushions

Those wide-eyed 50s style toy robots have developed some trendy cachet recently - to the point where they're appeal is now considered mainstream. Fans can acquire anything from designer retro robot wallpaper to cushions. Ah, our consumer society is so quick to capitalise on the shifting sands of retro fads. But I digress...check these beauties out from Ferm living. ...

Ferm Living toy robots

Short Perms

The Retro Perm
After the mass 1980s overdose on permed hair, there was a distinct backlash against perming and processed curls went seriously out of vogue for a decade or two. The anti-perm vibe was so strong that ultra-straight, smooth hair emerged as the fashionable style. It seems we went from one extreme to the other.

That was fine - we needed time to recover from those scary big hair perms that swamped the 80s scene. However, could it finally be time for perms to come out of the woodwork and be fashionable again? Enough permless time has gone by and super straight hair is looking a little stale.

French Berets

The beret is a classic style that never dates, perhaps because it is so simple a design - basically just a circle. It's also very old, dating way back to the Bronze Age and although we associate berets with the French, they were worn in some form or other by the ancient Minoans, Romans and Etruscans and in various military organizations the world over.

Classic wool beret.

The reason for the French association is down to a particularly style of "Basque" beret, which was originally worn by Basque shepherds in the Pyrenees mountain region between southern France and Northern Spain. This style of beret was produced commercially by local craft people as early as the 17th century in Southern  France and when industrialization hit in the 19th century, they were mass produced in factories.

Aeroplane Jelly

Aeroplane Jelly

In the annals of Australian commercial history, there are some brands that stand out as iconically Australian, although many of these are now defunct or have been commandeered by non-Australian multi-Nationals - Arnotts biscuits (now owned by Campbell's Soup), Golden Circle (now owned by Heinz), Peter's Ice-cream (now owned by Nestle) just to name a few.

The Harpsichord

A guide to all things harpsichord

Although it may conjure images of Lurch and elderly ladies in musty chintz-curtained parlours, the harpsichord was at one time the instrument of choice for hip young ladies in fashionable parlours. A woman who could display her musical accomplishments on an elaborately decorated harpsichord was socially ahead of the game.

The harpsichord appeared sometime in the Middle Ages and continued to be widely played for a few hundred years, however its popularity waned with the emergence of the piano in the eighteenth century.

The Baroque Period
 The distinctive notes of the harpsichord featured prominently in Baroque and Renaissance music and notably, in the the concertos of immensely popular composers such as Bach and Vivaldi.  It was Bach who arranged some of Vivaldi's concertos, many of which he (Vivaldi) had written for the young girls at a convent school in Italy, so that they may be played on the harpsichord.The Baroque period was a particularly vibrant period for music, breaking away as it did from traditional European religious and choral based music.