LA GRANDE DAME*

 * The Old Girl in French

The Old Girl's birthday is coming up soon. On the 7th of January 2025 she will turn 70 - a real 'grande dame'.

To celebrate this we will of course share a bottle of Champagne but, given the significance of this date it has to be something special. We have a few favourites among the Grande Marques of Champagne and have visited many of them in France. These include Louis Roederer, Lanson, Taittinger,  Charles Heisdsieck, Krug and Pol Roger and we regularly buy these in both NV and vintage form although Krug has become ridiculously expensive in recent years.

For this birthday however I wanted something extra special and have been on the hunt for luxury labels of the Grande Marques. Most Champagne 'houses' have, at the top of their range a super-premium label that is carefully crafted and nurtured and of course is much more expensive than the other labels in the range. These are in a way vanity labels that are intended to carry the prestige of the 'house' and which are in relatively scarce supply making them sought after. All was in balance with these for many years until the obscene wealth of rockstars, rappers, film stars and 'nepo babies' of billionaire parents allowed them to move on to these from Coca Cola. These upwardly mobiles, fuelled by ridiculous spending power have pushed the prices of the luxury Champagne labels up past the normal wine drinkers' reach. Bastards. Some examples of luxury labels are:

Krug - Clos de Mesnil

Taittinger - Le Compte

Pol Roger - Winston Churchill

Moet et Chandon - Dom Perignon

Louis Roederer - Crystal

Charles Heidsieck - Champagne Charlie

Veuve Cliquot - La Grande Dame.

Over the last few months I've been searching on-line wine retailers websites looking for fresh examples of the various luxury labels at sensible prices. I've been often disappointed with most being at astronomical prices ranging from $400 to $1200 a bottle and often with no indication of how long the wines have been sitting in storage. Generally speaking Champagne should be consumed within 12 months of disgorgement (for an explanation of this please go to The Wine Guy's blog: HERE) but good vintages and the luxury labels have a lot more oomph and can be kept much longer. You don't want to take chances though of spending hundreds of dollars for a bottle and finding that it's been cooked by sitting in a hot container, warehouse or worse, in a shop window or on a shelf under fluorescent light.

I thought that I might have to make a special trip to Auckland to a good wine shop but then - like as said to have happened to Saul on his way to Damascus (another of those inventions that came from the Councils of Nicaea in the fourth century) I had an epiphany when spying an offer of Veuve Cliquot La Grande Dame. I'm familiar with the label and we've had a few vintages of this 'over the years' and knew that its current going rate was about $350 a bottle. The wine is superb and probably the reason that it doesn't sell in excess of $500 a bottle is because the rappers, hip hop crowd and rich kids are still guzzling (and vomiting up) Dom Perignon, Roederer Crystal, Taittinger Le Compte and Krug. Last weekend I spied an offer of the wine at $220 a bottle at a massive markdown from its 'normal' price from one of the smaller on-line retailers. Being a bit suspicious I checked out the offer, the vintage, the on-line blurb and the on-line image and am satisfied that the wine is fresh (it is in the most recent livery) and is the real McCoy.

Here's the offer:

I bought a bottle and the wine arrived yesterday (along with a couple of other Rose Champagnes that The Old Girl likes and a few bottles of Moet piccolo (200ml) Rose Champagne) which is prompt and damned good service Thank you The Good Wine Company. 

**********************

Now here's the kicker. You regular readers (up to single figures now) know that I refer to the love of my life as The Old Girl. This is a term of respect and incredulity as for example Richard uses when referring to his wife as 'Right. I'll do that immediately my love'. 'La Grande Dame' can loosely be translated from French into English as 'The Old Girl'. I was quite good at French at school (not kissing then as after all it was a single sex boy's school) so you can trust me - I was in the 'P' classes after all. The 'G' classes studied geography I believe so to Richard, 'La Grande Dame' probably means some canyon in America or a policeman in France.

So, Veuve Cliquot - La Grande Dame turns out to be the perfect birthday gift for The Old Girl's 70th. The Wine guy might write a report on it.

FA LA LA LA LALLA DEE

 

Readers have been clamouring for new posts, obviously being unaware of how busy I've been.

Over the last two days I've been painting the trellis - 9 sheets, double-sided - about 40 square metres worth. I used the new Wagner paint sprayer I bought from Bunnings which worked a treat and was able to use my new respirator mask. I was hoping to show you images of the installed trellis but I'm holding off nailing them in place until I hear from Northpower about the power line relocation.

I want the power line (supply line) that runs from the street power pole to the house raised for greater clearance above the deck. Options are:

• Underground line
• Another power pole on our property to bypass the deck
• Installation of a mast on top of the house

The underground option is out as it will require two easements with neighbours because there are two concrete driveways that would have to be dug under.

My preference is for a mast on top of the house. I checked inside the roof space at the furthest corner and established that there are sufficient supporting beams to carry a mast. The will require cutting a hole through the roof though.

The other option of another power pole is likely what will be agreed on between the power company, the electrician and the builder. As this will have to be installed inside our fence and alongside the deck though I don't want to affix the new trellis below the deck to enclose the under-deck area in case they need access there.

I'm afraid that readers will just have to wait for updates and photographs or go and read Richards or Robert's blogs. On second thoughts it's better that they just wait.

TRYING TO RELIVE ONE'S YOUTH.

Bruce Springsteen sung about it. You remember ... oh hell, here it is:

 Yesterday Richard wrote a post or two about his reliving past glories as a Murray Robert's van and truck driver. Frankly I'm just amazed that he can remember to put his pants on the right way around but that's another story.

Anyway, it's good to remember but reliving* can be another matter. Things are different 50 years later as Robert has found when trying to identify van manufacturers.

FORD (according to Robert)

No doubt Richard discovered that when you are a septuagenarian it's a good idea to stay near to conveniences whether private or public. Driving for hours away from these can result in a very uncomfortable feeling holding it in when needing a pee.

"When I said can you lend me a hand ..."

* Not relieving.

COMING UP ...

 

I bought a WAGNER W100 paint sprayer today and some white paint to spray the trellis I bought recently.

Thinking safety first for a change I bought a CITECO half mask respirator as well as modelled above.

This is cool. I might take to wearing it in supermarkets, concerts and churches instead of a COVID face mask. What do you think?

I didn't do any painting today. I'll leave that for tomorrow or later - no hurry.

GETTING THERE

 I know that you want an update on the path building - even that old knocker from Wherethehellareweoata. He's been making silly and scathing comments about my path building calling it the path to nowhere or something.

Well - here's where we are at present.

All the paving stones are in place and the surrounds filled in with the old lime chips. I just have to do a bit of levelling and tidying up before adding new lime chips.

Hey! I'll take some photos when that happens and post them for you.

That's it for today. We've been busy sorting and packing and, of course, I did some path work. The cricket is going well.

HERE WE ARE NOW - ENTERTAIN US

OK, I know that I've written about this before, see: 

HA HA YOU'RE DEAD

... and:

CALL ME AN OLD FUDDY DUDDY BUT ...

... but trivialising murder just isn't funny to me.

I have been watching, and am not sure if I'll continue to the finish, the Netflix series BLACK DOVES.

"Black Doves is a British spy thriller television series created by Joe Barton. The series, starring Keira Knightley, Ben Whishaw and Sarah Lancashire, is developed by Sister and Noisy Bear for Netflix. Ahead of its premiere on 5 December 2024, it was renewed for a second series."

There's some pretty good acting in this, especially from Ben Wishaw and the production is slick and accomplished but ... as often is the case nowadays the plot is a bit silly and the narrative has huge gaps in it. I guess this doesn't worry younger viewers who are unlikely to have read classic literature or watched high quality TV drama series and films and who are addicted to social media 'sound bites'. Often there is an unwillingness to show realism when it comes to violence and murder. Whether this has a connection to the silly fantasy films and plethora of vampire, zombie and super-hero entertainment over the last couple of decades - I don't know. It is becoming the norm though for murder to be shown as funny. In Black Doves the protagonists are flippant when it comes to killing people and there are a couple of 'Killing Eve'-type female assassins who make bad jokes when shooting, strangling or stabbing people. To me, this just isn't good enough.

I just finished watching The Day of The Jackal series on TVOne with Eddie Redmayne

"The Day of the Jackal is a British television series, based on the Frederick Forsyth novel of the same name. It stars Eddie Redmayne and Lashana Lynch. It is written and created by Ronan Bennett, produced by Christopher Hall and directed by Brian Kirk, Anthony Philipson, Paul Wilmshurst and Anu Menon. The first season began airing in November 2024. That same month, it was renewed for a second season. The Day of the Jackal received positive reviews from critics and received two Golden Globe Awardnominations, Best Television Series - Drama and Best Actor for Redmayne."

 This is classy stuff with outstanding acting from Redmayne (although Lashana Lynch doesn't add anything at all). The plot is a bit stretched and has no connection with the original story by Frederick Forsyth and the subsequent film but it is crisply directed and filmed in stunning locations. In some ways it reminded me of the good films and TV series based on the John Le Carre novels. In this series the protagonist is a contract killer, an assassin with no conscience and he murders a lot of people. In no way does he or any of the other characters think that this is fun and the killings are not trivialised. They are brutal and evil. The series is all the better for this.

We are living in fast-changing times and I fear that basic human values are slipping and are being replaced by expediency and entertainment.

As a counterpoint I also just finished watching a National Geographic documentary on Disney. It was

9/11: One Day in America and was done very well in a far superior way than many of the trite American documentaries that are churned out. The interviews and commentary were poignantly and sensitively  handled with the result that a strong sense of humanity came from the senseless violence and 3000 lives lost. Does it take real catastrophes to make us think? Sadly I think it does.

WORK IN PROGRESS

 I know that you're wondering what I've been up to. 

I have mentioned that I've been digging and paving but didn't go into sufficient detail for my news-hungry readers. I'm sorry about that and that you've had to satisfy your cravings by reading about Robert's garden pool extension. Never mind - here's an update on my excavations.

I laid a path with concrete pavers and lime-stone chips after digging out a channel below the deck about couple of years ago. See: HERE

I've now decided that the path is too low and, after the landscaper terraced the front garden, I built up the edges of this path with some left over wooden edging posts.

I lifted the concrete paver, scraped away the lime-stone chips and have been filling in with more earth to an extra depth of about 15 to 20 centimetres. I then cover with more weed mat and put the pavers down as you can see in the photos (3/4 done). I'll let these settle and weather in before adjusting the levels and orientation later.

I'm doing this because, although the deck has been compliant with regulations (minimum of 1.5 metres from the ground) I wanted the height to be even lower to the ground so as to be well within regulation. I've closed the gaps between pavers as well, having bought three extra ones and 3 more bags of lime-stone chips which I'll spread liberally.

It doesn't look like much but there's a lot of work to do here digging up about 3 cubic metres of dirt (about 16 tons) from below the deck and raising the level of the path. The concrete pavers are bloody heavy and manhandling them (The Old Girl didn't qualify for this job) into position has again munted my back. The rain yesterday and today has allowed me to take a breather but I'd like to get it finished by the end of the weekend.

I'll take some more photos then for you to drool over.

No need to thank me.

"DO THE BULLETS GO IN THIS END DAD?"

I note that Richard, who has been experimenting with humour has now given cartooning a try. 

The drawing reminds me a bit of the old Victoria University's monthly comic 'Craccum' in its naivety but does show promise. Obviously he's given up on the humour thing as the narrative shows and on-line designers need have no fear that he will oust them out of a job in photo-editing.

I do think however that it's best not to fiddle about with things you don't understand. Best to leave that to the big boys eh.

"Don't touch that son. Best to leave that to the big boys eh."

SNAKES

 Ha ha, my eyesight must be worse than I thought. I thought I was writing a post on this blog but used the Religious History Curmudgeon’s blog instead. See here:https://thereligiouscurmudgeon.blogspot.com

NEW POST - THE RELIGIOUS CURMUDGEON

 

'JESUS CHRIST' WILL SOON BE 1700 YEARS OLD