Sydney Biennale 2010

What's not to love about a biennale? Especially one with exhibits on an island in the middle of Sydney Harbour (called Cockatoo Island, which is, incidentally, infested with seagulls)?

The green colander seaweed forest was awesome:



My darling friend Nonesqua liked this, which she assured me was called 'Modern-day Easter Island Statues - With Nose Rings':




My boy liked the puddles:




There were exploding cars:




But my personal favourite was this: a Coalition campaign dogsbody appears to have confused Tony Abbott with Sir Joh. Oops!

That's so wrong

Last night I was pulled over by the police on my way home from the Grease Wrong Prom. I turned right at a 'no right-hand turn' corner (by accident, seriously) and happily the police-person gave me a warning instead of a fine.

Tonight I was pulled over on my way home from an autism communication course; this time I got a fine. Ironic, yes, because really the worse crime was going to the Grease Wrong Prom but so it is and I now have $512 to pay.

The stupid thing is I'm possibly the world's least threatening driver: pedestrians happily step out in front of me because they know they won't get hurt; bees and small spiders cling to my windscreen wipers (and enjoy the ride, man) because they know I won't squish them; and there's no-one who shows speed humps more respect than me.

Bah. I reckon the next police-person who pulls me over should just take me out for a cup of tea and explain the evils of Wrong Proms.

So very not cool

I have this rule not to acknowledge celebrities if I happen to bump into them.

I made this rule many years ago after a book signing with a very famous Australian writer. I waited in line, I thought about what I was going to say, I even tried my bit (witty! Erudite! Faultlessly worded!) on my fellow queue friends.

Then I got to the head of the queue and what I ended up saying was: "Yeah hi. I really like your stuff. It's ... um ... good."

Then my moment was over and I was left to begin despairing over the magnitude of my dim-witted-ness.

Since then I've steadfastly held to the rule that I only acknowledge celebrities if they acknowledge me first, and since none ever have I've been left to ignore all of Australia's celebrities completely unhindered.

When I walked past Tim Friedman on King Street in Newtown (looking marvellously rock and roll) I said nothing; when I saw Senator Faulkner at the Sydney Writers' Festival, nothing. Today, at my son's swimming lesson, when I noticed the instructor was a former Aussie TV great I SAID NOTHING!

Nothing to her, that is, but when we walked past the desk on the way out I said to the staff: "Oh my God, do you mind, can I ask? We just had a lesson with [insert name]; was that really [insert name]? Seriously? From TV? Oh my God I remember her! From TV! Yeah yeah! Oh man, cool. Well, ahem, see you next week."

I'm so very not cool.

New work by a non-emerging non-artist

'Shoe: down-trodden or leg-up(?)', digital photograph, Sydney 2010

Complex political analogy or just a way to keep the feet warm?

Why I go to the football

We went to see Sydney FC vs Everton tonight at Sydney Olympic Park. The game itself was utterly underwhelming; the only time I hurrahed was when they announced Tim Cahill was coming on in the second half.

I love Tim Cahill.

If it doesn't work out between me and Ben Whishaw, or me and Senator Faulkner, I'm going to marry Tim Cahill.

Here's a photo I took of Mr Cahill tonight:



I'm not entirely sure which one he is, but I reckon he must be one of these six chappies:


No matter. What matters is that he was there, somewhere, and he did stuff on the court that may or may not have contributed to Everton's basket, whether because of or despite the inclusion or absence of leg breaks or spikes.

That didn't sound right, did it? That's because nice looking, football-playing boys (ideally who read poetry) distract me no end from the game they're actually playing.

That's why I love Le Tour de France so much: never have I seen a pretty cyclist. I can sit perfectly upright, utterly sober, watching hour after hour of Le Tour and discourse freely on the mechanics of the peloton provided Cadel Evans is in the leaders' pack.

As long as Cadel stays up front it's just a matter of time until SBS contacts me to commentate the race. Just a matter of time.

Cadel Evans: not as pretty as other people.

And tonight, ladies and gentlemen, the comedy stylings of Mr Kettle

Yes that's right: Mr Kettle makes his stand-up debut tonight. On stage, down town, ready to crack some funnies.

Freakin' A, Mr K!

Carpe... that cheap wine

A couple of years ago I went on one of those chauffeur-driven wine tours around the Canberra wine region. Despite the lah-dee-dah way that sounds, what it actually meant was Mr Kettle and me cramped in the back of a Corolla driven by a balding middle-aged man named John who took us to Murrumbateman and somehow convinced us to buy half a dozen bottles of mead.

Awesome. Mead.

While I thought, immediately following the trip, that a happy life was one lived without such a trip, I'm delighted to find that finally, finally it's serving some kind of useful purpose.

You see, during the course of the day we did actually visit a rather nice vineyard, with real life wine makers and everything. At this vineyard I bought one of their signature wines, a shiraz viognier. For $75 a bottle I just bought one, and we opened it at the next auspicious occasion (i.e. when the balding middle-aged John finally dropped us back at the hotel).

And the wine? It was red. It tasted like wine. It was gone quickly and we slept well.

A couple of years, a different city and a tank of goldfish later, Dan Murphy's has opened one of their hyper-global-mega wine stores a couple of blocks from my house.

They sell plenty of bottles of wine. Some very expensive, some very inexpensive. Some, like Bowler's Run Cab Merlot 2009, for an embarrassing $2.89 a bottle.

When we saw this surprisingly inexpensive bottle during a recent visit we had a very large laugh then quickly picked up half a dozen of them. For just $17.34 we were the proud owners of six bottles of Bowler's Run's finest.

And the wine? It was red. It tasted like wine. And we had change from a twenty.

The point of all this is that I've decided it's more fun to blog like a $2.89 bottle of wine than to wait for $75 bottles to come your way. I can't tell the difference anyway.