The Castaway

The Castaway

Edition 2 - July 1999

Read here about the Island, new stories, Nevil Shute, Ion Idriess, Big Cats, Roald Dahl, Travel, Genealogy, Music, and some personal updates and greetings, and more!

Web Site Update

There have been some minor updates to various parts of the site, some general cleaning up and a couple of new pages. The front "Index" page has been simplified and streamlined a little. There are also some new "Message in a Bottle" entries. Other items of interest as follows:

Killing the Cat

My first departure into fiction writing was submitted to the TableAus short story competition a while back. It didn't win, but it was the second story from the competition published in the magazine! See it at:

Killing the Cat

The Castaway

If you missed Edition 1, find it here:

The Castaway

The AFR/Telstra Australian Internet Awards

My nomination for the Personal Web Site award has been accepted again this year. Feel free to vote for me at:

http://www.webawards.com.au/

Mr. Norway

I am still looking for more info on Mr Norway. It has been years since I have seen the movie On the Beach, and it seems to be very hard to get a copy of it on video. It is available for sale over the 'net in the US, but only in NTSC format, which is not much use to me. I would love to hear from anyone with some knowledge of the car racing scene - was Nevil Shute Norway in the scene in his XK140 Jaguar? Was it filmed at Phillip Island, Australia, and if so, when?

By the way, On the Beach is being re-made in Melbourne now.

See the page at:

Mr. Norway

Hanne - Would you like to put in a link from your Norway page?

Ion Idriess

This page is still waiting detailed attention, but I did receive an e-mail from Ralph, asking about availability of Idriess books. Unfortunately, I lost the e-mail! (I have no idea how!) Please write back again if I can help further.

Gary - Are you going to get around to putting up a link to my page? Or are you waiting till I get some real info up?

As per my last update, I have found a large range of Idriess books at the Advanced Book Exchange, at:

http://www.abebooks.com/

As a result, the only Idriess titles I am looking for now are:

Challenge of the North
Cyaniding for Gold (yeah, right ...)
Madman's Island (The 1927 fiction version)
Onward Australia

Big Cat Update

Last edition, I mentioned the movie Alien Big Cats. The movie is now available for international sales at:

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ramm/

Mark Henson has set up a mirror site to my page in the UK at:

http://www.panther.org.uk/Australia.html

For more info see my updated page at:

Black Panther Sighting at the Prom.

Gremlins

I mentioned last issue that I based some of my Dahl info on "a BBC radio interview with Dahl". There goes my memory again! I have heard from Terry Lane again, and been reminded that it was an ABC (Australia) interview, and Terry was the interviewer. See my updated page at:

The Gremlins.

- and Terry's comments at:

A hundred million bottles, lying on the shore...

Travelling?

My Gates96 page - Melbourne Transportation - now has a banner linking back to The Island:

http://www.gates96.com/cam/Australia%20&%20Oceania/Australia/Melbourne/index.html?transportation.html

Genealogy

For those that are into genealogy, and haven't seen it yet, I recommend Andrew Croft's genealogy package - Fzip. Now in a number of languages, with copies sold around the world. Download it at:

http://www.ozemail.com.au/~acroft/

There is also a great new on-line resource at:

http://www.familysearch.org/

Music

See the Real Ross Ryan at:

http://www.coathanger.com.au/

Personal Update

Renée performed with my old band a few weeks ago. It was quite something - seven forty-plus-year-old blokes, and one twelve-year-old girl! She has now also got an 'A' for art for first semester. Lauren continues to do well with Callisthenics, and Scott is doing well at his part-time school. He is struggling to get much paid work, but seems to be surviving somehow.

It's only three weeks now before Marilyn and I are off to Darwin and Dunk Island. Some of my family are driving up from Geelong. We are looking forward to catching up with the family, and visiting old friends - Barry and Marg, and an old friend of Marilyn's as well. See Dunk Island here:

http://www.poresorts.com.au/dunk.html

People

Judy keeps sending e-mails from her trip around Europe. It's great to hear about it - I'm not really jealous (much). The European Internet Cafe business is booming as a result!

Steve & Penny - How are you? Haven't heard from you in a while!

Welcome to John & Barb and the Simpsons - just starting out in cyberspace!

Almitra - I haven't had a look at the Web site for a while. How are you going? Feet still holding up?

Cam - I seem to have dropped off your mailing list!

Helen - thanks for the newsletters. Always good to hear from you.

Thanks everyone for your attention - see you next time!

- Keith.

This is the second of an irregular series of newsletters. They are sent monthly at the most often; probably much less frequently! The contents include a brief summary of updates to my Web site, and any other interesting bits of trivia and ephemera that may be of interest to people that either know me, or visit the site.

Updated: 13 May 2000

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