Second Last Day in 2003 - 2:25 p.m.

Things Have Been Happening

The reason hardly anything happens at this time of year is because in the Northern Hemisphere it’s simply too cold to go outside and make news. In Australia – and probably the rest of the Southern Hemisphere (with the exception of certain parts of Asia, but most definitely here), we’re all just too lazy in the summer sun to make anything interesting happen. At all.

Farewell The Man Who Acts With His Feet

It’s true that it’s bad time of year for actors. They die off around Xmas and New Year. We were shocked and saddened to read that Alan Bates kicked off a week ago and that, bloody hell, David Hemmings carked it a few weeks back (getting in early before Xmas, we presume). There go two of the coolest guys to ever walk the planet.

Hemmings made a few weak late appearances in recent films – including an extended cameo in the execrable Spy Game - but most memorably as the bloke with the implausible eye brows, dress and ladies wig in Gladiator. He will be best remembered for starring in Michelangelo Antonioni’s cooler than cool Blow Up with Julie Christie. If you could only ever do one thing in your life, being in that film would be the best thing you could possibly do.

Alan Bates, was actually more famous than Hemmings at the end of the day (69 years old) and had been in a lot of very good films, but most of them are forgotten today – even Zorba The GreeK with Anthony Quinn is scarcely remembered and that won a swag of Academy Awards™!

We were lucky enough to see Alan Bates in a play in London in 1987. We can’t remember the name of the play or who else was in it. Mr. Oaf’s traveling companion at the time was Carolyn Osterhaus and she, being a super keen Alan Bates fan, insisted on purchasing tickets.

While having a sweet sherry, she advised Mr. Oaf that Bates was one of the very few actors who not acted with his entire body, but also with his feet. His feet? Mr. Oaf was somewhat confused but just put it down to another of Carolyn’s eccentricities. Carolyn explained that only Sir Ralph Richardson was another actor who acted with his feet and Mr. Oaf should keep his eyes peeled during the performance. Mr. Oaf drained his glass, and while scanning the room for Jeffrey Bernard, made a mental note to do so.

It was true, Mr. Oaf discovered while viewing said performance through a pair of shoddy 10pence opera glasses, that Bates did indeed use his feet. It wasn’t as though he just used them to get around the stage – which he did with ease and alacrity – but he also used them to make subtle gestures. Where someone else might have used their hands, Bates made use of his highly polished shoes to underlie the basic tenants of the plays subtext - or so Teddy would have had us believe as he ate a bag of “crisps” loudly during the play and as he guffawed at all the jokes – and in places where there did not seem to be jokes.

Farewell, Alan Bates, we shall miss your fleet of foot.

Standby For An Exciting Announcement Tomorrow!

Yes, going against the grain here at TEZNEZCO! (The Company Run By Bears™), and we’re about to make an exciting new announcement tomorrow morning. Along with our yearly slogan (“You Gotta Be Free In 2003” being an unqualified success this year), we’re also announcing a whole raft of new projects – including one or two entirely new theories, a business plan, a new service, and, for the first time ever, A COLOUR SCHEME. It’s so exciting we can barely wait.

bears in history - future bears

“This diary cracked me up, completely, perhaps the oddest diary I have ever read. I'm not sure if it's a takeoff on something or someone that I have somehow missed. Regardless, TEZNEZCO! chronicles the adventures of two bears and describe them as if they are a minority of some sort. The writing is disturbingly matter-of-fact as if it is perfectly normal to be writing about these bears as people. I like it; it's pleasantly novel" - Diaryreview

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