VARIOUS

RATS
I was a bit confused today when I opened a link to the story, "Man punished for abandoning rats," to find a story not about Bush and Scooter Libby but about some Rhode Island rat collector who dumped his collection by the side of the road. Drudge needs to be more careful about his headline editing.

BEING AGE APPROPRIATE.
My dentist's assistant quibbled about my new cap last week. As it's a front tooth, and as I have to have several more done in the same location, I chose a gleaming white one. I call it my William Holden Tooth. She mentioned that this shade of tooth is not "Age Appropriate." To which I responded "And who wants to be age appropriate?" I could see that she thought I was making a mistake.

Later I thought, what is age appropriate in this time of manufactured body parts? Suppose my dental assistant friend had to undergo a mastectomy? When her plastic surgeon consults on her breast reconstruction, would she want Age Appropriate hooters or something in a, shall we say, later model? The same goes for hip replacements. Would she want a hip that functions like a twenty year olds, or one that is a bit stiff like the old one? The question answers itself.

So I suppose in future we will all have factory perfect bodies, and the appropriate age will always be in the showroom.

PATRICK MCGOOHAN
Patrick McGoohan died last week. His work on The Prisoner series was astoundingly original and will never be forgotten. We art students watched the show with passionate devotion and were stupefied at the last episode. It was all very 60'S but was genuinely new and serious. There is nothing like it now, because so much tries to copy it. You can only break ground once for the first time.

McGoohan belongs to that breed of actor who is on everyone's list of the under appreciated. He created characters like no other and was difficult to deal with. It comes as a shock to people that he was a deeply devote Catholic who stayed married to the same woman all his life. He was a bit puritanical about what he would do on screen as well. Talk show footage of him surfaced after his death which displays a man who seems inward and a bit dark. There is a reference to a cruel streak. I know of no biography of him and I doubt one will emerge since McGoohan's career was in supporting roles for the last three decades of his life. Perhaps it's better that way. He as they say, lives on in his work. Be Seeing You, Patrick. Thanks.