My son had been wanting a guitar for several years and my being a musician meant I have been keen to encourage him in this. I always had the dream that out of my kids one of them would be a concert pianist, or a principal violinist with the Berlin Philharmonic someday…but of course only dreams as kids always have ideas of their own and I don’t believe in pushing them in directions they don’t wish to take.

So I bought him a guitar and have been searching for somewhere for him to take a course in acoustic guitar lessons so he can get a good grounding in the basics – theory is important. The cost of these lessons can be prohibitive but the benefits are many, I am a great believer in children having music lessons. So now I dream about having spawned the next John Williams, or Segovia…but he’s a long way from that right now!

The time has really flown since I began university studies back in February – six assignments under my belt, two more to go and then that’s one module behind me. I’m planning a party for myself to celebrate whatever end of module assessment I get as it has been a journey for me and actually I have done pretty well. Any suggestions as to what I could buy myself for a cheap grad present would be welcome.

My next module begins in October – level 2 – and to make things even more complicated for myself I went and signed up for a language module – beginners German – which will mean I will be running modules 2 and 3 in parallel. I’m looking forward to the German especially as my daughter-in-law is German and obviously any future grandchildren will be German-speaking so having a nanna who can speak to them will be a good thing!

As my son also speaks decent German himself now I will have two guinea-pigs to test my skills on, lol.

It was just a week ago that we were reading about yet another performance fiasco where Amy Winehouse slurred and pitched around the stage in a drunken, confused state. After all those pictures of her in the Caribbean last year looking so relaxed and well seemed to give hope to her fans that maybe, just maybe, this wonderfully talented young woman was finally on the straight and narrow – that she had beaten her chemical demons and was ready to start living again. Did any of us though really have the feeling she had done it…? I think we wanted to believe it – but it was not to last.

Sadly Amy Winehouse is dead at the young age of 27 – found beyond help this afternoon in her home from what appears to be a drug overdose. The devastating journey of self-destruction finally completed and what a loss she is the world of popular music. What a loss it is for her parents to lose their daughter in such a tragic, though not unpredictable way. Maybe now it is time to identify and go after those cretins who corrupted this young woman at a time when she had the world at her feet – those who sold her the drugs which reduced her little body to that of a wasted skeleton and ate away at her talent turning her into almost a caricature of her former self. They are out there, somewhere, and they must be known. I hope they pay for their part in this young woman’s tragic departure from this world.

Queen Elizabeth’s recent visit to the Republic of Ireland was an outstanding success and it was great to see her and Prince Phillip receive such a warm welcome – plenty of good Irish hospitality was in evidence this past week. But while reading an article about her ancestor, Queen Victoria, I was surprised to learn that there could be good reason to believe that the Queen may not actually be ‘The Queen’…

Victoria: note the nose...

It is all about where the haemophilia came from that affected Victoria’s son Prince Leopold and his descendants. The gene for the condition never existed in the Royal line before it emerged in Victoria’s offspring – the chances of it being a rogue gene that simply appeared out of nowhere are so remote as to be not worth looking into. The gene was also not found to be in the family of Leopold’s father, Prince Albert. That leaves us to consider the royal line of Victoria’s father the Duke of Kent, but as we already know haemophilia was not identified in the Royal family prior to Victoria. This is where doubt is cast on Victoria’s paternity and that it is thought that her real father was Sir John Conroy. Conroy was assigned the role of Comptroller of the royal household after the death of Victoria’s father, the Duke of Kent. It was widely rumoured he became her mother’s lover and even more interestingly that he fathered Victoria during an affair with the Duchess of Kent while her husband was still alive.

Conroy: identical noses...?

This is incredible stuff to consider. Another interesting aspect is the Porphyria that afflicted her German ancestors, namely King George III, was not inherited by Victoria or her descendants…the disease suddenly vanished from the royal line at the same time of Victoria’s birth – a fact that Princess Margaret once raised in conversation with a doctor friend after watching the film The Madness of King George. So, what if rumour is fact and our lovely Queen is not really our Queen…who would be the monarch today? I think you have only two choices; the first being the most practical and that would be the eldest son of King William IV from whom Victoria inherited the Crown. His only two legitimate children were girls who died in infancy before their father died. His other ten children were illegitimate but, and this is if illegitimacy was not a barrier to succession, his eldest son George FitzClarence, Ist Earl of Munster would have succeeded him as King. His descendants today would be sitting on the throne. The second option would be the present Prince Ernst of Hanover – he could well be the rightful monarch today.

Of course, it would be very easy to prove either way – a simply DNA test would settle things decidedly, as they did when identifying the remains of the assassinated Romanov family a few years ago, who of course are descendants of Queen Victoria. But then again – is it something we really want to know….?

Australians to a man are proud of the great talent that was our Bill Hunter, and now we have lost him to cancer. His screen career was launched as an extra in ‘On the Beach’ filmed in 1959 in Melbourne with Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner, and his talent proceeded to rise in stature and class during a time when the Australian film industry was beginning to earn the worldwide respect it so deserved.

Bill Hunter was as Aussie as the Opera House, Uluru, the Simpson Desert and the Holden Kingswood. Each character he portrayed – whether the stoic and dependable Major Barton in Gallipoli, or a shady two-timer such as Barry Fife in Strictly Ballroom, or Muriel’s corrupt politician dad in Muriel’s Wedding – you saw a strength in the man, an innate quality that made you wish he was one of your mates. A fine actor and a very fine Australian, I’m not sure he’d be all that fussed about being referred to as a legend because everything about Bill Hunter was real and genuine. I reckon he’d prefer everyone just have a beer on him and toast a man who was very much one of our own.

Bill leaves us with so many fine moments on screen but for me, his portrayal of Major Barton preparing to lead his young Anzacs in the doomed ‘over the top’ assault at Lone Pine in the final scene of Peter Weir’s film, Gallipoli, embodies just what an instinctively fine actor he was.

He will be very, very deeply missed.