canny granny

Three Cheers for magic Hari Puttar

Three Cheers for Hari!
A Bollywood movie entitled Hari Puttar will open as planned in India after beating off a legal challenge.

Warner Bros, which owns the rights to the blockbuster Harry Potter movies, argued the Indian film was too similar to its franchise. But lawyer Pratibha Singh said that consumers who read the Harry Potter books, written by JK Rowling, were sufficiently educated to know Hari Puttar was different.

“Our film bears no resemblance to the Hollywood film Harry Potter and it is a completely different story.”

Are you sufficiently educated to see the difference? I’m madly trying to think of an Australian version.

I hear a cry for help

This large, very large, home called ‘Clifton Hall’, was bought by Anwar Rashid for four million English quid ($8 million Australian) back in 2007.

A nice little place of 52 rooms, it dates back to the Norman conquest and is known as one of the ’stately homes of England’.

But Rashid says it’s haunted. Apparently, for the last eight months mysterious figures have been flitting along the corridors, tapping on walls and occasionally speaking gibberish in sepulchral tones.

Ghostly presences even took the forms of their children! (Ghastly indeed, but as a former parent I think I can explain that one)

Rashid says : “When we found red blood spots on the baby’s quilt, that was the day my wife said she’d had enough.”

He called in paranormal investigators but they couldn’t help. I’m offering to go and stay there for 6 weeks to do a spot of ghost busting. Maybe 10 weeks, it depends on the weather.

Another athletic record for Australia

Australian athletes are a funny lot these days.

In my earlier incarnation as a young woman I cheered Dawn Fraser, a big, hulking, plain girl from a working class Sydney suburb, as she thrashed her way through the water to win gold medals for the 100 metres freestyle three times in a row. No one came near her winning time in 15 years either. She also climbed a flagpole at Emperor Hirohito’s palace to steal the Olympic flag.

Dawn has a place in my heart.

And then there’s Cathy Freeman of course. She burst into the Olympic spotlight at the 1996 Games, the first Aboriginal athlete to represent Australia. Cathy didn’t climb a flagpole but she took her victory lap at the 1994 Commonwealth Games with the Aboriginal flag. Good for you, Cathy.

But now Australia has teetered into the record books for the number of competitors (256) dashing their way around an 80m track at Sydney’s Circular Quay wearing three-inch heels. And not all women either - take another look at that photo.

The race was won by 400 metre professional hurdler Brittney McGlone by several clear lengths, netting her $5000, and a pair of gold stilettos. I ask you, would Cathy stoop to this?