The Dangerous Kettle

Christmas* wrap

2011-12-28T17:47:00.000+11:00

* I'm not sure if it's possible (or advisable?) to begin a post with an asterisk but look! It's where we find ourselves. I do hope you'll forgive me.

I've called on the asterisk in a half-arsed attempt to excuse away my laziness.

You see, I'm more (as in entirely) an atheistic type so wishing everyone a 'merry Christmas' is a bit non-sensical. But as we have just returned from a week interstate and I'm feeling, well, lazy the prospect of writing a few nuanced, sensitively worded paragraphs outlining a few nuanced and sensitive thoughts on the significance of multi- and non-denominational end-of-year celebrations is entirely beyond me.

Let us, in the absence of such commentary, agree to agree that there is something very lovely about getting to the end of the year, about eating wildly excessive amounts of food, and about watching the cricket (just joking Ramon. I haven't actually watched any cricket!).

So in the true lazy-montage-spirit of all B-grade films from the 1980s, here's a bunch of photos from my end of year/wildly excessive food/non-cricket celebrations.

There were martinis with lychee (singular) and blueberries (no way!).

There were a-happenings at the beach (where does the water end and the sky begin, and etc.).

There were ridiculously happy children at water parks.

And Christmas carols, performed ped-style.

There was a long discussion about which was the worst sheet music to admit to owning from childhood (our vote was tied; your thoughts?).

And another long discussion about 'couth' and 'uncouth', for which the Penguin dictionary was absolutely no help whatsoever (at least there were prawns).

There were neighbourhood Christmas lights by people with really, really too much time.

And of course, wanky hipstamatic photos taken willy nilly by lasses who really do know better.

There were badly framed Christmas trees, with surprise elbows!

And curious tins of biscuits at the local supermarket...

...in even more curiously labelled sections.

But best of all, there were lots and lots of happy, blurry photos (aww shit).

Now tell me about your break while I quietly vomit about the sentimentality of my own.

Completely self-indulgent photos from my trip to Melbourne (because I can, that's why)

2011-12-12T18:27:00.001+11:00

So I went to Melbourne on the weekend, and while I love my family dearly and couldn't live without them I would also be ok staying in Melbourne for ever and ever and never leaving. Ahem.

Anyway, I had such a lovely time. It was so good that I took a whole bunch of wanky hipstamatic photos and I would dearly love to share them with you. Will you indulge me a moment or two?

If you do not have a moment for such indulgences I thank you for joining me to this point and I wish you well for the rest of your day.

If you do have a moment, hurray. Let us revel in the awesomeness that is Melbourne together.

So, photo the first:

I think there's something in this for all of us. Yeah that's right, Melbourne's Environmental Management Team totally sucks. I took this photo around 8:30am Saturday morning; what kind of city leaves this sort of poetic detritus from the previous night's revelry lying around until that time of the morning? Sheesh.

This might be too small to see? The sign says, 'Captains of Industry: Gentleman's Outfitters and Cafe,' which I liked very much.

This shit is about coffee and ukuleles. Oooohhhh yeahhhhhh.

Gills Diner and The Commercial Bakery do the best of everything ever. You should go there.

Check out those cheeky tomatoes on the middle shelf. Poking their tongues out. I say.

Next suit I buy (following the next offer of employment I receive) I'm buying these cuff links for sure (unless I get a job at The Commercial Bakery, in which case I'm gonna get me some cheeky tomato cuff links).

So I went to the National Gallery of Victoria to see the Mad Square exhibition. Firstly, I still can't figure out how it can be the 'national' gallery of Victoria, and secondly, which is sexier: the hairy arm-pitted woman in the banner or the man-in-the-checkered-shirt's arse?

This is the other side of the gallery entrance. As you can see I accidentally bumped the filter on hipstamatic so we somehow landed in Copenhagen in 1957. Who knew time travel was possible with a $1.99 app?

These teeny weeny chairs were on display in the gallery shop. I have a thing for tiny chairs; I only wish there was time to go into it now but fortunately not. This is a shit photo and I couldn't get it to work but the tiny chairs were magnificent.

This was lunch at the gallery. I'm embarrassed to say I wolfed it down (and I may have sculled the wine too). It was the tiny chairs what did it to me.

This is the nicest piece of street art I've seen anywhere ever.

The framing on this kills me but what's not to love about a sign for an ocular prosthetist? Nothing, that's what. (And wouldn't you love to meet Mr Russell?)

And so we come to one of the trip's golden highlights: beer, lemons and chips with Ramon, Melba and Mr E from The Site Formally Known As. You three characters bloody rock. I was very pleased to meet you.

Then surprise jazz gig! With crepes and sangria! Who knew crepes and sangria went together? Well they don't, so no-one I guess, but the jazz was good.

Post-jazz it was Salman Rushdie and tempranillo at the Punch Lane Wine Bar. Fark. By the end of the night we three were totally best friends.

At closing time Salman and I stumbled along Bourke Street past our favourite bookshop in Melbourne, The Paperback Bookshop, where we bought the seventh edition of the Sleepers Almanac because we both love and support new Australian writing. Go Sleepers. Go Salman.

Sunday morning brought this, before anything else.

After a decent amount of time, Sunday morning also brought this: a chappy playing a 'hang' (Dave this is for you).

Then I met some darling friends for lunch and we planned a book we hope Littlefox Press at Alice & Co. will publish for us. I love Littlefox Press almost as much as I love tempranillo and Salman Rushdie.

There was more of the trip after that but I have clearly reached my wanky hipstamatic photo quota so will stop here. The end.

Late-night ramblings about Fourth Generation German-American writers (now deceased)

2011-10-17T23:47:00.007+11:00

I've just finished reading Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five for the first time (well, second; books that good deserve immediate second readings). Vonnegut's prose is the best I can remember reading for at least a decade.

I thought, after 354 pages, that I loved Vonnegut completely then I came across the following and fell in love with the dear man all over again and then some:

In the mid 1950s, Vonnegut worked very briefly for Sports Illustrated magazine, where he was assigned to write a piece on a racehorse that had jumped a fence and attempted to run away. After staring at a blank piece of paper on his typewriter all morning, he typed, "The horse jumped over the fucking fence," and left.

Mr Vonnegut, you're alright by me.

Motor Ace is still the shiz

2011-09-07T21:23:00.009+10:00

So I used to love Motor Ace. You remember Motor Ace? With their angsty pop-rock they were the perfect band for the melancholic early-twenty-something. I remember going to a gig (ok several gigs) at the Metro in Sydney where I clutched my BFF's [sero] hand and we screamed the lyrics of 'Budge' as Patrick Roberston, in all his diminutive loveliness, sang them just for us (we were so sure).

Anyhoo, so a recent wave of the nostalgias has inspired me to dig out Five Star Laundry, and sitting here listening to it and wondering what the shit happened to Motor Ace, I came across this on Wikipedia:

The individual members remain on amicable terms. Robertson now professionally scores for film and television, while Ong still occasionally performs around Melbourne with his Joni Lightning project. Costin continues to work in the music industry. Matt Balfe is currently a freelance lion tamer.

Matt Balfe is currently a freelance lion tamer? This is not so much what I expected as not what I expected? Can anyone verify this?

Survey this

2011-09-06T17:01:00.000+10:00

A long time ago (January?) I started a series of posts called 'Things I Don't Understand (But Wish I Did)' on another blog. It was meant to be an occasional series, and I must confess I have taken such liberties with it that I have not added to it since its inception in January (although there have been things, multitudes actually, and daily, that I have not understood).

So in an effort to address this terrible neglect I decided this morning to post the very next thing that mystified me, so here it is:

Not the easiest thing to read, is it? Sorry. I'll see if I can fix it.

Ok so apparently I can't fix it. Sorry about that (Alex help!).

Anyhoo, it's a survey that arrived today, one of those 'Tell us what it's like to live where you live, chump!' surveys. Now I love filling in a good survey, in fact I love filling in forms of all types (formgasmic), so imagine my delight when this giant 10-pager arrived.

I rattled through the pages, ticking boxes, strongly agreeing and mildly disagreeing everywhere. Then I got to the last two questions, above:

Question 42: How satisfied are you with the way democracy works in Australia?

and

Question 43: What is your favourite retail shop in your local area?

What the fuck? Seriously? Your thoughts on the effectiveness of Australia's political system, and oh, while we've got you, where do you buy your Tampax?

I'm guessing this is a State government effort.

Yeah I mean you, shitty business

2011-09-02T17:44:00.003+10:00

So here's the thing with Facebook: If you're a business and you have a Facebook page and you post things on it and people respond, unless those responses are unforgivably lewd (and you're not, ahem, a publisher of adult 'books'), THEN YOU SHOULDN'T DELETE THEM BECAUSE IT MAKES YOU LOOK LIKE A CENSORIOUS DICK of a business.

Just saying.

Polaroids of Ahem Hot Guys Reading

2011-07-26T05:40:00.019+10:00

Shameless, Kettle, shameless.

See more (more!) here, via Readings (thank you ever so much, Readings).

Oh go on then, here's another one:

Thank you Mr Dean and your Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley, now I can get back to work.

Your coffee or your love?

2011-07-16T17:09:00.025+10:00

There's a cafe up the road from our place where they're very serious about coffee. (Very. Serious.) If the term 'coffee shop' didn't sound so cutesy I'd call it a coffee shop because that's pretty much all they do: sell coffee, in its wet and hot, wet and cold, ground and unground forms. Sure they sell a few macaroons and the odd chocolate croissant but I suspect these items are more counter accessories than a major source of revenue.

So this cafe sells very good coffee which is, inherently, a very good thing.

By extension then, given the God-like status caffeine enjoys in my life, I consider the staff to be (inherently) very good people, and I would certainly have their babies and/or tweak their nipple rings if any were to ask.

(Please ask.)

But despite the centrality of these barista Gods to many of our lives, I worry they may not be altogether very happy people? In the year I've been frequenting this 'coffee shop' I have never seen any of these baristas crack a smile or share a familiar 'hello' with their devotees, nor (heavens!) engage in a spot of banter.

In fact, I was so desperate for an actual interaction with them last week that I mistook a barista chappy asking me how he could help me with how I *was* (existentially, I assumed). It was only when he looked away (embarrassed for both of us) that I realised he wasn't in the least concerned with how I was, just what form of coffee artistry was required of him. Ahem.

So my question is, can you be an expert coffee-maker and show your clientele the odd human kindness (a smile here, a 'see you next time' there), or does one preclude the other?

Marvellous!

2011-06-29T18:44:00.001+10:00

From here.

Teach me what?

2011-06-20T11:01:00.005+10:00

I have an exam today so I've been doing some practise questions.

I just came across this one:

True or False: Living in poverty affects a child's school achievement rather than their emotional or behavioural states.

My answer: False
Correct answer: True

I thought, in answering the question, no, living in poverty does not just affect a child's school achievement, rather than their emotional or behavioural states. I think living in poverty would affect all those areas; doesn't it?

Apparently not, according to my textbook.

There's a message there for policy-makers: Fix the poverty problem and you'll instantaneously fix the literacy and numeracy issues in Australia too. Sure we'll still have all our emotional and behavioural issues but 40 years in a mundane processing job should beat them out of us.

Dumb Word of the Day

2011-06-09T20:29:00.006+10:00

Webliography.

A bibliography of web addresses.

Amazing. I mean, seriously, wow.

If the person who came up with that had spent a few extra minutes sleeping in that day and thus had a few less minutes spare to ponder the cumbersomeness of 'web bibliography' (and to create the equally cumbersome 'webliography') the world would be a better place.

Don't you think?

How many feathers can a vego bear?

2011-06-05T19:19:00.012+10:00

I bought my son a new doona today, a feather one. It's lovely, very fluffy, just the kind of doona to keep a small child (or anyone who fits into a single bed) warm during the reclining hours.

But... [and I can't say this too loudly because I fear the answer: Should a vegetarian actually buy a feather doona?].

I'm assuming (on reflection, after the thrill of my trip to the local Westfield has subsided) that the 85% duck feathers and 15% duck down that make up my son's doona filling were collected pond-side by enthusiastic bird-watchers who did not rip said feathers and down from dear birdies' sides but picked them up, delicately, one by one, as they fell to the ground during sun-bathed morning wing stretches, right?

Right?

On the other hand, how many baby acrylics died to make his previous acrylic-stuffed quilt? Gah!

What a shame we can only metaphorically bask in the warmth of our parents' love; that would have solved my son-warming doona dilemma.

Signs that 35 may be closer to 40 than 30

2011-06-02T22:10:00.005+10:00

1. Watching Deadwood and saying to your partner, "I mean, really, do they need to say 'c*cksucker' quite so much?"

2. Realising that people who were born in 1993 are now eligible to vote. Sero?

3. Automatically picking up the locally produced, gluten and antibiotic-free, certified free range eggs with no added hormones at the supermarket.

4. Deciding amongst your pals whose house to hold the regular poker game at based on who has the most and/or youngest kids.

5. Enjoying a track called 'Blue-winged Kookaburras' on an album called Kakadu: A Celebration of the Wetlands.

6. Eating exactly eight almonds a day because your nutritionist told you to.

What. The. Fuck.

Then again, a darling twenty-something pal of mine who is a fully sick rock band drummer has just started knitting granny squares so hey, maybe 20 is the new 40.

How's about those southern states?

2011-05-04T19:10:00.013+10:00

I've just returned from a couple of days in Melbourne and am happy to report that Melbourne is a way much betterer city than Sydney. Here's why:

1. In Sydney I see at least four people a day picking their noses in their cars. Far as I know car windows are still transparent, people.

In contrast, I didn't see a single person picking his or her nose in Melbourne (not even at the conference I was at; not a one).

2. In Sydney I get caught in traffic jams all the time; in Melbourne, not once (sure I didn't have a car in Melbourne, and sure I walked most places, but I didn't hear anyone complaining about traffic jams on the 112 to Gertrude Street last night).

[2.1. In Melbourne they have a street called Gertrude Street. Awes.]

3. In Sydney people are still wearing short-shorts even though summer is well over. In Melbourne they spit on short-shorts.

4. In Sydney they have signs like this on escalators in Westfields:

In Melbourne they don't have Crocs (I'm not even sure they have Westfields?).

The only things Melbourne doesn't have are: Mr Kettle, my son, my dear friends, my lovely family, Campos Coffee, my PO Box, my favourite bookstore in Newtown, my awesome babysitting-swapping neighbours, our swimming teacher, our long established gainful employment, and my dear, irreplaceable pal Meredith. All I need to do is convince them all to move south; shouldn't be too hard, eh?

Bloody vouchers

2011-03-27T18:06:00.018+11:00

When I woke up this morning I had a wad of pre-paid movie vouchers that I need to use by Thursday.

No worries, right? Right. So off I went to some megaplex or other to see The Adjustment Bureau. I found it a very enjoyable film, but that's not entirely surprising considering I'm quite partial to anything bureau-related. And who doesn't love a love story? And also, Emily Blunt is well hot.

So The Adjustment Bureau was a good pick and my wad of vouchers has reduced to six. All good. So now I only have six vouchers to use before Thursday.

Should be easy, yes?

Should it shit.

The problem is that now I've seen The Adjustment Bureau, what else is there to see? I've run some calculations and am sorry to report that at least 87% of the movies out at the moment are shit.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Which bodes poorly for my wad of vouchers.

So please, will you help? Will you look into your good and generous hearts and advise me how to get rid of my vouchers? Here's what's on at the moment:

Rango: Johnny, Johnny, Johnny; what have you done?

Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (3D): This boy makes me want to vomit into my handkerchief.

127 Hours: An uplifting tale about a chappy hacking off his arm with a teaspoon (if I understand correctly).

Gnomeo and Juliet: Animated? At least visually, if nothing else. Shakespeare's play with a happy ending, and gnomes.

Conviction: Hilary Swank's character's brother goes to jail for something or other. She does something or other to get him out.

No Strings Attached: Natalie Portman pretends to find Ashton Kutcher attractive. I forget how it ends.

Fast and Furious 5: Five? They've made five of these abominations?

So shit, I don't know. What do you think?

Why We Should All Perpetually Babysit

2011-03-05T20:51:00.021+11:00

I'm a bit of a fan of babysitting; it's one of my favourite things to do of an evening. It's like you're Santa Claus: you get to hang out in other people's living rooms; you can leave without folding the washing or loading the dishwasher; and there's always a snack and something to drink left on the kitchen bench.

But the benefits of babysitting extend far beyond the sherry and carrot sticks. Babysitting gives you access to miles and miles of other people's book shelves. I would never have read The Science of Superheroes, or the less cheery but equally fascinating Mountaincraft and Leadership if I hadn't been a serial babysitter in some pals' houses. (Not to mention The Complete Kama Sutra - heavens! Life would have been the poorer for that.)

So I'd like to make a suggestion: I propose that we all establish households, have children, get guinea pigs, etc., then promptly head out our front doors and move into the house immediately to the left of our own. That way we'll have that 'Just here for the evening and ooh! Isn't the telly so much more interesting over here' feeling all the time.

Now if you'll excuse me my charges for the night are fast asleep, there's dark chocolate dipping sauce on the kitchen bench just waiting for me, and that couch in the loungeroom looks so much more comfortable than my own. Sweet gig or what.

It's Too. Bloody. Hot.

2011-02-05T13:24:00.022+11:00

Today is day seven of a bit of a heat wave here in Sydney. It's a record or something; most days in a row over 30 degrees since sometime or other. Fascinating really, or more accurately, not.

All I know is that standing absolutely still in your kitchen at six o'clock in the morning in a bikini you bought years ago (inside swimmers = always bad) and sweating means it's going to be a bad day, record-breaking or not.

So here's a few suggestions for what the hot weather can go do with itself:

Chill the fuck out (sorry, best to get the bad puns out of the way early, don't you think?).
Um.

Ok so that's all I've got, which is slightly disappointing but not all that surprising given how bloody hot it is.

So let's do another list. How about: Annoying Things The Heat Has Made Me Do:

Stick to the couch.
Wonder anew whether there is a god, and if so, whether he or she is completely sadistic, because how else would you explain the beginning of my annual beer-free period coinciding with the onset of a heat wave?
Wish I lived in Hobart, with a very reasonable (albeit boring) maximum today of 21 degrees.

On the plus side, this heat wave has led me to uncover one piece of meteorological hilarity. The SMH weather page has a current conditions section which very usefully lists the temperature right now (40.8 degrees), but then perhaps less usefully continues by listing the 'Feels like' temperature, which apparently at the moment is 42.4 degrees.

Actually it feels more like 43 degrees but whatever. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go stand in front of the fan in my vintage swimmers and sweat a bit more.

The National

2011-01-19T20:56:00.044+11:00

We're back from our South Coast sojourn, which was very lovely and everything, but fark, any chance someone could look into the whole South Coast telecommunications thing? Eight days is a looong time to impotently press buttons on your phone with nothing but a 'No Service' message staring blankly back at you.

By day six I was actually enjoying watching the wrens in the beach-side garden; imagine, wrens.

Anyway, we're back and I can now happily post some photos from The National gig I was very lucky to go to before we left last week.

Thanks to my dear friend Dave (who gallantly offered his ticket), I found myself on Saturday night gorging on a pre-gig dinner of nachos and excitedly spilling my beer at a pub a block away from the Enmore Theatre where The National (preceded by The Middle East) were taking the stage.

Mystifyingly (from this 11-day distance in time) I took photos of the band playing several of their songs, as though the photos could transmit images and sound. Nonsensical, yes, but surely I'm not alone in doing this?

Anyway, here they are during their opening number, 'Runaway':

And again during 'Bloodbuzz Ohio':

And once again, magnificently, during 'Afraid of Everyone':

Sure you can't really see anything in these photos and they could, for all we can tell, be shots of Roxette playing live at the Sydney Entertainment Centre circa 1988 (a concert I did, for shame, attend); but if you can take my word for it (given the absence of any submittable evidence), it was a very, very good show, and the music was very, very good indeed.

The only regrettable part of the evening was the presence of this woman, sitting several rows in front of me, who I came to think of rather spitefully as 'That Bloody Annoying Woman with the Radically Out-Dated Bowl-Shaped Perm Who Appears to be Suffering From Some Kind of Finger-Based Tourette Syndrome That May Or May Not In Fact Be Her Attempt at Gettin' Jiggy With The Music':

Seriously, she would have waggled that finger about at least 900 times during the concert.

Here she is again, many, many hours later, still at it:

The only thing worse than the perm-headed finger waggling woman was this guy:

But at least he wasn't waggling his big head about.

Can you marry a band?*

2011-01-07T21:10:00.009+11:00

I think I'm in love with The National, is all. They're playing Sydney tonight and tomorrow. How's this re: Matt Berninger, the lead singer:

The National's lead singer, Matt Berninger, is a baritone of the tallest order, a lurching, lanky charmer who awkwardly bumbles through live sets, yet somehow simultaneously exudes a cool, nonchalant attitude about the whole thing. Shambolic, metaphorically wart-ridden, and uncomfortably vulnerable, he's more interested in exposing weakness than projecting strength—more apt to stagger among us than tower above us.

[From here]

I would buy a ticket off a scalper just to see what "metaphorically wart-ridden" looks like. Wouldn't you?

Fark.

* Ramon, non-flibberty-gibberty hard-hitting political analysis about something to follow shortly.

Hello there, you're a very attractive blog reader and I'd like to buy you a drink

2011-01-05T16:28:00.008+11:00

Bad blog pick-up line? Sorry about that. You see I'm all flushed with my short-lived summer fling over at Rita and Margriet and I'm so awfully glad to be back and you look so marvellously erudite sitting there at your computer and I just couldn't help myself.

Anyway, a very happy new year to you and yours. What have you been up to? We've been all over; well, if you consider Canberra and Sydney all over. We've eaten way too much, put some considerable work into reducing our collective familial sleep deficit, and most excitingly ordered a mini-tramp (which was delivered this morning - my God what have I done).

I even, even, cleaned up some of my paperwork which has been lying all around the house for the last ten million years.

AND I've listed 53 books for sale on eBay. As soon as I figure what to do with the other 400 surplus books currently occupying the buffet, dining table, lounge chair and living room floor Mr Kettle may stop frowning and start smiling again (but that could be some time off; sorry Mr Kettle).

Anyway, enough about me. What have you been doing? Reading? Penning ballads? Dusting your 2010 trophies? Trying out your new scientific calculators? Sitting on chairs? Buying puzzle mats? Tell me, do.

2010-12-29T20:09:00.003+11:00

Hi hi,

I've moved over here:

ritaandmargriet.blogspot.com

Come with?

Until then

2010-12-06T22:25:00.005+11:00

This is my two hundreth post, can you believe? And coincidentally the one in which I say farewell for the time being.

I started here when I was 32, and now I'm 35. We were still relatively new to Sydney, my son hadn't been diagnosed with autism, and I hadn't read Homer (at all).

Now, so much has changed, and so much of it, from before, feels like I'm reading a postcard from someone in another land. Time has indeed passed.

I've had such fun here. Thank you to my dear bloggy friends for your hilariously erudite (and eruditely hilarious) comments; I'm so glad to know you.

I'd like to start a new blog in the new year, and will post the address here in January. I would love for you to join me there (if I may be so bold); it's you who makes this fun.

Thanks for coming here, and all the very best,

Kettle
Amanda xx

What a twit

2010-11-30T20:51:00.005+11:00

Me, that is.

As part of my Advanced Procrastination Program, I have set up a Twitter account. I don't really know who or what it is; other than I appreciate, very much, that it's another site for me to do things at/on/with instead of doing what I should be doing here at the computer.

I don't even know exactly what to refer to it/me as; do I say I'm @kettleschmettle? Does that sound right (to the under-35s)?

Anyway, what or wherever @kettleschmettle is, I'm there so get yourself a Twitter thing and come @ with me in Twitterspace.

Exercise can't be that good for you, can it?

2010-11-28T17:47:00.011+11:00

I hurt my back last week being foolhardy. Dear Mr Kettle had to take several days off work to look after things on the home-front (while I lay on the couch pointing and decreeing things, like "There, man, the boy needs a sandwich!" and "I need a vanilla Drumstick - quick quick!").

Now that I am on the mend I'm wondering whether perhaps I should take better care of myself and, heavens, maybe even give exercise a go?

I've heard about exercise. In fact, I think we even have an exercise bike? It's just that I can't tell where the clothes racks end and the exercise bike begins.

On the plus side, I do actually have a pair of sneakers now. They're so clean and white it's like they've never been worn, which makes sense because they haven't ever actually been worn.

Don't get me wrong; I love sport. I thoroughly enjoy watching the Iron Man series on telly, and I've even been to the Australian Open (where I athletically lugged the picnic basket around all day).

It's just that actually doing exercise seems like such hard work, and what with my bad back and all, I don't know, it seems better not to risk it.

Series, seriously

2010-11-23T19:41:00.039+11:00

Do you ever have those moments when you realise you've changed but you can't remember the change actually occurring?

Example: I used to giggle like an idiot whenever I heard mention of the delightful but hilariously named North American titmouse; now I find I am able to speak sedately (sometimes indeed morosely) about the respectful and respected Parus inornatus. When did such a fundamental change take place? I don't know; what I do know is that I used to be young and silly and now I am, well, old.

As I may have mentioned (or possibly droned on about), I turned 35 last week. On this otherwise happy occasion, a dear friend sadistically informed me that 35 is in fact the opening bracket of middle-aged. And so I find myself, newly early-middle-aged, suddenly aware that another change has taken place.

And that change is thus:

I used to hate series of books (same as the army: you're stuck against your will until the bitter, bitter end) but last night, settling down to read Peter Carey's Jack Maggs, I caught myself thinking "Deary me, I'm really not sure I'm up to meeting a whole new cast of characters; can't they all just stay the same as my last book? I mean, really?"

Then it struck me: if I was reading a series I wouldn't have to get to know anyone new! It would all be the same as the last book, with just a few details changed here and there.

'Marvelous!' I thought, in my newly minted, closed minded, middle-agedness, 'Never need I trouble the waters of my stagnating mind again!'

I quickly abandoned Jack Maggs and retired to the couch to dream about my ideal banana chair, safe in the knowledge that the last bit of actual thinking I ever need do is find the longest possible series I can. Bliss.

One of the world's greatest banana chairs, which is coincidentally and marvellously, currently available on ebay. I just wish I lived in Narre Warren and could pick it up.

A wrap of the slam

2010-11-19T23:06:00.023+11:00

Just back from the poetry slam thingo. It was great; no wait a minute, it was SHIT.

On the plus side, I now have a few answers to my questions from yesterday. If you're considering making your poetry slam audience debut, may I be so bold as to make a suggestion? Don't! Save yourself! A life lived without the experience of poetry-slam-competition-audience-membership is a very good life indeed.

* Are there special audience rules for poetry slams?

Yes, two: No person with perennially pursed lips should go to a poetry slam competition (or anywhere, for that matter), and when contestants ask for a topic to 'freestyle' about, don't yell out 'leeches'.

* Can you heckle?

I don't know if you can heckle at these things, but you should heckle. Bogan poets from Lismore should definitely be heckled.

* Does anyone do 'serious' poems at poetry slam nights? And if so, do they always go down like lead balloons?

My GOD! Serious poems yes. I nearly died from all the serious poems. We even had someone imagining their own funeral, as in: "You wouldn't say the mean things you say to me if you knew I was going to die tomorrow and you'd have to go to my funeral because then you'd be ashamed."

O...kay.

Also, yelling a poem does not make it more profound. It just makes you spittier.

* And finally, what does the winner of a poetry slam competition win, in addition to global public adoration, millions of dollars and a (hybrid) sports car?

Cash, can you believe? I paid $25 for the pleasure of being bored to death, and the organisers paid the contestants sums of money to do the boring. A very efficient system, I suppose.

You know what was more entertaining than the whole poetry slam evening? A sticker on the parcel I got today:

Gold. Absolute gold.

Your thoughts - may I have them?

2010-11-18T21:42:00.006+11:00

In my continuing campaign for quantity posting rather than, well, non-quantity posting, tonight I put to you an item I would welcome your learned guidance on:

I am attending my first poetry slam competition on Friday night. I can't wait! There's nothing I like better than a roomful of highly animated poets.

So my questions for you are:

* Are there special audience rules for poetry slams?

* Can you heckle? If so, must it be in blank verse, say, or can it tend more towards the bawdy limerick?

* Does anyone do 'serious' poems at poetry slam nights? And if so, do they always go down like lead balloons?

* And finally, what does the winner of a poetry slam competition win, in addition to global public adoration, millions of dollars and a (hybrid) sports car?

I went to my first theatre sports night last weekend and mercy! I wish I'd thought to prepare for that before the show.

Poetically Challenged, Sydney.

Gratuitous family shot

2010-11-17T21:33:00.003+11:00

Because why not?

I should explain. We're on the ferry; not watching the apocolypse.

We do look a little 'Terry Gilliam', and unfortunately I've got my 'pleasant face' on. Oh well.

Six things you could be doing on a Monday night instead of the thing you should be doing

2010-11-15T21:25:00.009+11:00

1. Finding an envelope and stamp for your entry into the Tyrrell's/delicious magazine competition.

2. Bringing the washing in.

3. Twisting your hair while looking at the ceiling in the right-hand corner of the room for a story idea.

4. Lying across the desk, prostrate-like, after the ceiling in the right-hand corner of the room has refused to give up any of its ideas.

5. Wondering whether exercise bikes can be used for exercise as well as hanging small pieces of hand-washing.

6. Deciding whether the saying 'Why put off until tomorrow what you can do today?' has any merit and confirming no, no it doesn't.

7. Miscalculating the number of items a procrastination list needs before you feel justified in going to bed.

Hurry up and finish, why don't you?

2010-11-13T19:21:00.010+11:00

The chap across the road from us has rebuilt his house. No, he's rebuilding his house; it's not finished yet. He's been rebuilding it for the past 18 months.

I don't think it's overstating the point to say I hate it when people rebuild their houses and that people who rebuild their houses and take 18 months to do so are worse, morally speaking, than Sarah Ferguson.

I remember the day the original house was demolished. It was awesome. There were sledgehammers everywhere. The whole thing was down in about 25 minutes. What I didn't realise, flushed with demolition excitement, was the disproportionate relationship between the pull-down and the put-up. By my best calculations, as of today, the ratio of demolition to remolition is 1:31,104.

Such a ratio augers poorly for said chappy's neighbours, namely freakin' me.

To make matters worse for the slow chappy the people two blocks to the left started a re-build on their place too. It's now almost finished after, ooh I don't know, five weeks. I love the people two blocks to the left; they are my new knock-down/rebuild heroes.

I think, though, I've figured out the slow chappy's problem: while the two-blocks-to-the-left people have been building their house by attaching one bit to another bit, the slow chappy must have started with a single chunk and is carving out his house bit by bit from the inside with a hand-held grinder.

At least that's what I'm sure it must be; he's been grinding away for 18 months now. Bastard.

One banana, two banana... chairs

2010-11-13T19:00:00.004+11:00

Just what I'm hoping for this Christmas. Anyone live in Murrumbeena Vic and can pick them up for me?

Far out they're beautiful.

And a very happy birthday to you too

2010-11-04T11:27:00.005+11:00

It's my birthday today. Share it with me?

Part one:

While there are many people who love to get the most out of each and every birthday, I'm probably ok not starting mine at 4:30am.

Thank you, dear son, for gifting me a full two hours more 'awake' time for this year's birthday. Really darling, you're too kind.

Part two:

One of the best bits about rolling onto the anniversary of your birth is that you get to choose 'special birthday food' all day.

Today, for a special birthday early lunch/late over-sized (savoury) morning tea I selected home-made pizza with glasses of milk and Berocca. Why? Because I can, that's why.

On reflection, it wouldn't have killed me to use a slightly larger plate. Oh well, next year.

Parts three through five:
...involve the fish tank at the chemist's, Eastgardens Westfield, rhubarb and polenta.

Suffice it to say they were all very good, and sometimes I worry I'm a partial bogan trapped in a social democrat's body.

Part six:
Dinner and a movie. Still to come...

Thirtysomething blogger realises chance of becoming Senator 'slim to non-existent', returns to blogosphere for comfort, companionship

2010-11-02T17:47:00.021+11:00

Ah time; where have you gone?

It's been a goodly while between postings, so a hearty thank you to the four dear people who have persisted, like kind parents, checking in each day. If you are not already Australians of the Year, prime ministers or MasterChef finalists you deserve to be.

What has the space of two months brought? Many a goodly thing:

1. I have started a collection of miniature driftwood. This piece is currently my favourite:

Sorry about the blurriness at the centre of the photo; I think my camera has glaucoma?

Anyway, this delightful piece of driftwood is sitting on the kitchen windowsill. I have chosen to present it, in this installation, next to that fine example of twentieth century technology, the 'rubber plug', for scale.

There are other pieces of my miniature driftwood collection rattling around the glove box, and others still in the cupboard under the fish tank. I haven't so much told Mr Kettle about my new collection yet as not told him, but I'm sure when he does finally realise all the shitty bits of wood around the place are *precious* to me he'll be stoked.

2. I have survived my histrionics about having the 'flu.

3. I have partaken of the berry of the mulberry bush (which isn't a euphemism for anything; I actually tried mulberries for the first time).

4. I made it all the way through Wuthering Heights again without wanting to kill myself.

5. I have discovered The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain (but not, unfortunately, purchased my own ukulele yet).

6. I have spent a few giddy moments wondering anew why my letterbox is shorter than a standard letter.

7. I have listened to some very, very good music and wondered anew (again) why I bought tickets to see Holly Throsby this Friday night.

8. I decided I wanted to write a libretto for a rock opera then woke up the next morning with a hangover and realised it was just a hideous drunken dream.

9. I have spent innumerable happy hours imagining what the builders responsible for the renovations in the three houses across the street can do with their freakin' sanders and grinders.

10. I have learnt that 'landfall' does not mean the moment your boat or space ships lands on Terra firma (which I have been espousing energetically) but the moment a storm reaches the shore. Who knew? Not me. But now I do.

But I go on. Tell me, what's been happening with you?

All things cat

2010-09-11T14:26:00.025+10:00

Some families are pet families. Some others, the sad, lonely minority, are not.

We were not a pet family. Sure I had fish, and at one point a rabbit (Mum and Dad, what did happen to Jenni the (male) rabbit?), but I never had a dog, or a guinea pig, or, for shame, a cat, all those perfectly normal pets every child at primary school has.

This absence of furry creatures (barring Jenni the male rabbit) from my life lead, inevitably, to an obsession with such creatures, and so it was that my best friend in year five, Katrina, and I performed 'Mungo Jerry and Rumpletezer' (from Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats, of course) for the 1985 talent quest at my primary school. Ahem.

Fast forward to September 2010 and I'm happy to report that quite the opposite is now the case re: furry cat things. I find myself today fairly inundated with cats. Sure they're less in the physical form than the poetic form, but cat-related they are nonetheless.

Here is a marvellous cat poem by the very fine internet poet, Mad Cat Lady:

I have a cat
She is fat
so fat,
she broke my hat
which I'd careless left lying on a mat
and as is commonly known, cats
are much attracted to sitting on mats
and the combination of hat and mat
was too much for the cat
to combat
she squashed my hat flat
its now rather like a hat shaped mat
so sod her if she thinks shes going to be getting any pats
feckin fat cat

Marvellous, Mad Cat Lady! Your poem (and a bottle of shiraz) helped me remember a childhood effort of my own, entitled 'My Neighbour's Cat'. It read:

My neighbour's cat
Is rather fat
For he loves his food.
He's white and black
With a high-arched back
And he gets in a fiery mood

When his owner is late
To bring in a plate
Piled with steamed and smoked fish.
When I come to play
He stalks away
And curls his tail with a swish.

T.S. Eliot's Book of Practical Cats probably comes close, quality-wise, to Maddie and my poems, don't you think? If you too have a cat poem that you feel would be right at home here please do send it to me.

Squib, Ramon, Ms Catast, Words and Wine, I have no doubt you have extraordinary cat poems just waiting for an appreciative audience; that audience is here! That audience is now. Let's hear your feline lines.

Serving suggestion only. Product may not actually look/act/taste/smell like this.

2010-09-08T19:59:00.039+10:00

When I was a kid, I loved the serving suggestions on Salada boxes. Growing up in Canberra, I had never seen such exotic things as smoked salmon, asparagus and red onion yet there they all were, laid out for me in all their food-based technicolour glory atop the full range of Salada biscuits.

They were magnificent, those serving suggestions, and far beyond what any actual parent would create for their child, regardless of how much they loved said child. I became convinced, over the course of the eighties, there was nothing you couldn't achieve in life with an olive pinned delicately to a fold of prosciutto, provided that it rested upon a bed of goats cheese and sat atop a Salada and was arranged just so.

What I liked so much about the Salada serving suggestions was that you knew they were the creme de la creme of cracker flavour combinations; they were the Julia Gillard of the biscuit world; they were the best there was.

Knowing this about cracker serving suggestions, when a CD of images for non-verbal communication that I ordered finally arrived today I figured the images chosen for the CD cover were similarly the creme de la creme of non-verbal communication images, representing the best and most complex sentences that can be communicated with such images.

Here is the cover:

If we take the string across the top we have:

Which I take to mean:

"I want, most in this world, to put on my grey t-shirt with the picture of the fusing/exploding atom so that my sweaty back will stop sticking to the vinyl couch I've been sitting on for a large part of this unseasonably warm day so that I may continue playing video games upon my video game system and become the ultimate lord and master of Toggle Quest, which I would like to achieve before my harp lesson with Mr Jeffries at the Con at 4pm."

Cool. That not only makes sense to me but impresses me as a very fine example of just how much can be communicated by such a pictorial communication system.

If we take the string of images across the bottom of the disc cover, we have:

Which I think you would use to say:

"Remember that big storm we had last week? Well the power went down and everything in my freezer was ruined. Thing is, I haven't just got one freezer: I've got two. One of them is a separate extra storage one, which I probably use most at Christmas, and the other one is part of a fridge-freezer combo which is more for everyday food. Anyway, so I found out later that the storm was caused by global warming and you know that Ross Garnaut fellow? Yeah, he lives down the road from this church which is in the same suburb as where that idiot on the bike knocked me off my scooter when he swerved to miss that pothole. Bastard. Anyway, so I was listening to this podcast on the bus of Ross Garnaut and I had my headphones in but seriously, the guy behind me was going on and on about pomegranates, my GOD he wouldn't stop and he was so loud and I couldn't concentrate on the podcast so I listened to it again when I was at yoga."

Again, that not only makes sense to me but is clearly another fine example of the complexity of thought that can be communicated with this system.

Here, now, is a string from the back cover:

I don't think we need to go through this one; it's pretty clear, isn't it? Ahem.

So my finding for today is that there really is no product that can't best be demonstrated with a 'serving suggestion,' an example of the product showing it at its very best. I can't wait to see what the hemorrhoid industry comes up with for their packaging.

Does Australia Have a Government Yet?

2010-09-07T18:13:00.007+10:00

The answer is just a click away:

doesaustraliahaveagovernmentyet.com

10 Very Good Things About People You Like Very Much Getting Hitched

2010-09-04T23:48:00.018+10:00

We went to the wedding of our dear friends, the German and the Dutchman today and it was a freakin' fine affair; you two rock.

And since we're still waiting to hear who will actually govern the country and thus have so cruelly and unnaturally been denied the opportunity of sharing a late-night, post-wedding, pre-Father's day political rant I have chosen what I'm sure you'll agree is the next best thing: a late-night, post-wedding, pre-Father's day list of ten very good things about people who you like very much getting married.

So here we go:

1. You get to see your pals all dressed up/wearing shoes/using serviettes.

2. You get to do a reading as part of the ceremony that starts: "Marriage: why bother?"

3. You get to dance to The Village People and the soundtrack to Grease without appearing mentally unstable.

4. You learn stuff (I had not heard the term 'fluffer' before tonight).

5. You get to eat all the things you bought for the babysitter that she didn't touch.

6. You get to add items to lists that are wholly unrelated to the topic under discussion: I'm very much enjoying The Avett Brothers' albums Emotionalism and I and Love and You at the moment.

7. You get to bail out of a list early if you're too tired to write anything else and just want to post one of those cacky "Let's take a photo of ourselves with my phone, yeah yeah! Because that'll be hilarious" kind of photos:

Mr and Ms Kettle, looking decidedly dishevelled and ready to go home to see what the babysitter didn't eat.

Oh, and if you're wondering whether our 'new' government is sorted out yet, this site will keep you up to date:

doesaustraliahaveagovernmentyet.com

Wish you were here...

2010-08-19T23:46:00.012+10:00

I had a long-weekend in Melbourne last weekend, by myself, bit o' Independent Ms Kettle Time. My lordy it's a top city, shits all over Sydney (classy, eh).

Here are my top six Melbourne discoveries, made during my weekend sojourn:

1. Melbourne trams have absolutely no suspension. Gave me a new understanding of how my son experiences the ride when I plonk him in a shopping trolley.

2. People in Melbourne have some kind of magical waterproof covering. I saw not a single person with an umbrella during my stay, despite what felt to me like mid-scale torrential rain.

3. Owners of wine and cheese bars who let you sit inside and read your book when it's cold and raining and windy despite the fact they're officially closed are very good people indeed.

4. Calling a laneway or side street a 'hidden treasure' then referring to it in every tourist brochure and guidebook means it's not actually hidden.

5. Discovering a wacky vegetarian restaurant you've been looking for all long-weekend while you're on the tram on the way out of town is less useful than discovering said wacky vegetarian restaurant on the way in to town.

6. Having twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep is freakin' awesome regardless of the city you're in.

Ah holidays: better than real life any day.

Sydney Biennale 2010

2010-07-30T15:43:00.004+10:00

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

2010-07-29T23:28:00.010+10:00

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

2010-07-21T21:35:00.025+10:00

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

2010-07-20T14:00:00.006+10:00

'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

2010-07-10T22:45:00.021+10:00

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

2010-07-05T18:30:00.006+10:00

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

2010-07-01T22:49:00.029+10:00

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.

Blog post the 176th, in which we meander through a range of fairly ordinary, barely related topics before I retire, respectfully, to bed

2010-06-21T00:07:00.020+10:00

Very occasionally, between the writing of a heading and the writing of a post itself, an hour can pass while you search for those images of antique eggs and banana chairs you've been meaning to look up.

These lost hours can, I'm afraid, lead to one of the most shameful of blog sins: Lying Through Heading.

In these sorry situations you'll find that whatever idea you had when you launched so cocksure and forthright into your heading has departed you, leaving nought in its place but troubling thoughts about the shape of catshark eggs and whether you really need a canopy on your banana chair.

Canopy: necessity or luxury?

So it is that I have indeed lied through heading as I no longer have any topics (fairly ordinary or barely related) knocking around in my head to meander through.

If you have any thoughts re: canopy or no canopy, I would be most grateful to hear them.

This just in: sleep is good

2010-06-09T04:58:00.014+10:00

I once read a biography about Francis Galton (Charles Darwin's half-cousin, tropical explorer, all-round over-achieving nineteenth century nerd, etc.).

Invented the system of finger printing, he did, as well as a few other tidbits like created the first weather map and came up with the phrase 'nature vs. nurture' (as well as pioneering the concept of eugenics - whoops).

Despite this last monumental lapse of good manners and shocking disregard for those of us more on the dysgenic rather than the eugenic end of things, Galton was a rather interesting chap, and I am, despite his less charming characteristics, a bit of a fan.

Why? Because Francis Galton had a foolhardy determination to prove his scientific hypotheses by conducting experiments on himself.

Amongst his more endearing experiments were his investigations into whether you can change breathing from an involuntary to a voluntary process (yes), and whether you can read the newspaper for long under water (no).

Why you would do these things, I don't know, but I thought tonight I would try a Galton-esque experiment of my own.

My hypothesis: That it's possible to change the need for sleep (involuntary) to a voluntary process.

My method: To drink enough coffee and slap my cheeks enough times to stay the hell awake (with the larger purpose of finishing four pieces of work due Wednesday and to study for an exam on Thursday).

My findings:

1. Lying down on the couch at 11pm "just for 10 minutes" is not conducive to finishing work.

2. Waking up at 2:30am and finding no work has magically been completed while you slept is disappointing, and surprising.

3. Plaiting, un-plaiting then re-plaiting your hair will not aid in the process of idea generation.

4. Wishing you were somewhere else doing anything else will not make it so.

Incidental findings:

5. Vegemite toast tastes 63% better between midnight and 4am than at any other time of the day.

And what erudite conclusions can I draw from these vigorous investigations? That:

1. Messing with sleep is bad,

2. Going to bed is good, and

3. Galton was a very silly man.

Revelatory, I know. I've certainly learnt something today.

How to have a rockin' day

2010-05-26T13:42:00.022+10:00

Please find below nine jolly suggestions for how to have a good day, based primarily on avoiding the stupid things I've done in the last 12 hours:

1. Don't set your alarm for 4:30am so you can get some work done then wake everyone up in the process of getting up yourself. Remember there is an inverse relationship between the number of people awake in the house and the amount of work that can be done.

2. Don't balance your coffee on the arm of the couch if you're likely to knock it off straight away.

3. Don't forget your lifelong clumsiness (especially in relation to drinks) when balancing your coffee on the arm of the couch.

4. Don't wait until the rain is at its heaviest before walking to the corner for another coffee.

5. Don't fool yourself into thinking a dress you wore 10 years ago will a. still fit 10 years later, and b. be suitable for a charity ball you're going to in a fortnight's time.

6. Don't leave yourself a fortnight to get organised for a charity ball.

7. Don't sit next to someone for half an hour before they mention their wife and child are at home with hard-core gastro. Open every new conversation with a question on this topic.

8. Don't allow yourself to become disheartened by Kevin Rudd. Remember the Labor party still has Senator Faulkner and he's rad.

9. Don't be surprised, if you attempt to toilet train your child in the course of a single day like I am today, when you step repeatedly in little piles of wee around the house.

Won't you add to the list? I clearly need your help today.

Very Important World Event

2010-05-15T14:14:00.013+10:00

I've been meaning to write something about the UK election but something much more important has happened: we've bought a new fish.

While fish and politicians share many characteristics (they're both slimy, for example), fish are better at forming coherent arguments and are infinitely more endearing than your average Tory backbencher.

But while we have a name for the UK's new prime minister, we don't yet have a name for our new fish. Will you help?

Here's some footage to get your creative wires humming (please note: the new fish is the one that doesn't look like Count Vronsky or Karl Marx, which are the other two fish):

Sorry, I should have warned you about the clarinet. There's nothing like a small range of sample music in a video editing program to help you torture people in cruel and unusual ways.

If you can forgive me the clarinet, what say you for a moniker for this magnificent orange Carassius auratus auratus?

Watery charms

2010-04-28T20:38:00.005+10:00

My son and I spend a lot of time at the pool. What's not to love about the pool? There's all sorts of water-based play equipment, from slides to fountains to wave machines, the change rooms are plentiful, and the kiosk serves the best hot chips with sauce ever (perfect when you're tired and pruney).

Happy, happy pool days.

Well, mostly happy pool days. Sometimes, like today, the pool planets fall out of alignment and deliver us nothing but floating bandaids and hairy-man-backs, leaving us with a very unhappy happy pool day.

So what was there not to love about the pool today? Here's the list:

1. Aqua nappies. A perennial complaint. There's no leakage barrier I really, really trust.

2. The mothers who were milling around in the wading pool wearing their waist-length designer caftans and ignoring their children except to screech the occasional "For God's sake don't splash me! I don't want to get wet!"

Go back to your mansions, ladies, and spare us all.

3. When the lifeguards turned off the jets in the wave pool when we were half way around the circuit. It felt like what I imagine it must feel like to lose an erection: one moment everything's rocking along, then pfzz, nothing.

On the plus side, the chips were still good and the sauce divine; and who knows, the Caftans might be back at the factory having their touch-ups during our next visit. We can only hope.

Painterly thing-bits

2010-04-18T23:18:00.025+10:00

Pointillism - really very silly.

We've just returned from a quick trip to Canberra to see the 'Masterpieces from Paris' exhibition for the last time.

I don't mind a bit of art; in fact some of the nicest afternoons I spent while travelling around Europe were spent in art galleries, especially when it was raining and our tent was wet and we couldn't find a Maccas.

So despite a clear sky and the complete absence of camping gear (wet or otherwise) I found myself at the National Gallery in Canberra on Friday, with at least 15 trillion other people, checking out a truck-load of Gauguins and one or two by that other guy, whatshisname, van Gogh.

My Mum, who is actually a painter and knows many a thing about art, sacrificed three hours of her life to come with me, knowing full well the time would be filled with such un-funny gags as "Pointillism - what's the point?" and "Impressionism - I'm impressed."

Mum, I owe you a beer.

But while my comments may have been inane, they weren't altogether mystifying, unlike those I heard passing between another mother and daughter team. "Look!" said the younger one, "Lean forward, Mum, right up close! You can actually see the canvas under the dots; seriously, the canvas!"

I still can't figure out what else they thought might be there.

Warning: Shameless Objectification of Nice Boys with Brown Hair Below

2010-04-05T20:49:00.041+10:00

There's a new Doctor! Here he is:

Apologies, he's not just a well-lit cheekbone with a great ride, he does actually have a name: it's Matt Smith, and he's being hailed by critics in the UK as potentially the best Doctor ever.

I'm sure you're very good, Mr Smith, and I wish you all the best for your stint as the Doctor, but I'm afraid this man was The Best Doctor EVAH:

Oops! How did that get in there?

I meant of course to post this:

And this:

And, of course, this:

Sadly I'm no philosopher so can't tell you what beauty actually is with any authority but I do know it's got something to do with nice boys with brown hair. Look! Here's another one:

Oh Mr Whishaw, you would make a simply lovely Doctor.

But all nice boys with brown hair must come to an end so that we can get on with whatever it is we're supposed to be doing. So here's a little something less dreamy to help bring you back to earth:

Right then, pass me those spreadsheets.

Parlez-vous ... what?

2010-04-03T17:38:00.013+11:00

Once, in a camping ground in Florence, we were approached by a couple of tall, athletic Euro-types. They spoke to us first in Italian, then seeing our looks of stupefaction they tried again in French, then Spanish, followed by several other languages which were wholly unrecognisable to us.

Finally, realising we were ignorant of not only the Romance languages and German but most likely Bothno-Ugaric tongues as well, they decided to try English.

While they actually said: "Do you speak English? Can we borrow your rubber mallet?" I'm sure what they wanted to say was:

"Do you poor idiotic types perhaps know a few words of English, the native tongue of poor idiotic types everywhere? And do you linguistic amoebas have a rubber mallet we could borrow for a few moments to complete the sturdy erection of our award-winning European-designed tent?"

It was the moment I realised just how impoverished we are not sharing borders with any other countries, and just what a good thing immigration is.

Since that humbling experience I have tried to learn a few bits and pieces of various languages and am happy to report that if someone ever says to me: "El cajero antomatico se ha tragado mi tarjeta de credito," I can answer, with all confidence, "Tengo un pinchazo."

But none of this European phrasebook readiness prepared me for reading Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, which I can describe, with all confidence, as vastly incomprehensible.

May I give you the opening sentences?

There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry.

O...kay; I thought perhaps the second paragraph might make more sense:

Our pockets were full of deng, so there was no real need from the point of view of crasting any more pretty polly to tolchock some old veck in an alley and viddy him swim in his blood...

I did what I always do in situations of complete incomprehension: I quickly downed several glasses of wine and skipped to the end of the book.

Bugger, plenty of 'itty' and 'oddy knocky' and 'profound shooms of lip-music brrrrrr' there too.

For all I know A Clockwork Orange is a book about the rise and fall of rubber mallets in a post-apocalyptic Florentine camping ground. I only wish there was an Anthony Burgess phrasebook.

You might wanna check that

2010-03-22T20:41:00.028+11:00

An old friend of mine travelled to China once and brought back an ergonomically-unfriendly backpack stuffed with cheap market-bought goods.

It was a veritable goldmine of all that is craptastic, that backpack, and we spent hours pulling out all sorts of marvellous plastic treasures, from miniature stethoscopes to Zhu Zhu pets (perhaps better known as Go Go Hamsters, of course).

And while the cheap plastic novelty items gave us several minutes of entertainment, it was the cheap CDs I really wanted to get to. Ah China, before MP3 players and downloadable music changed the face of piracy forever, you were the motherland of knock-off CDs.

With great anticipation I took the first CD from the pile: Pink Floyd's The Wall, a two-disc set. Sure there was some separation of colours on the CD cover, and sure this particular set had two copies of disc one (but two copies is better than one, right?) but I still believed. I still believed that in the moments following the closing of the slot and the first fine spin of the disc (either one of the disc ones) I would hear, in all its Pink Floyd glory, track 1, 'In the Flesh?'.

Disc in.

Initial spin.

Loaded.

Track 1. "Oh my God what is this? Seriously what is this shit? Oh God don't tell me, no no no please don't be. Oh bloody hell! It is! Shit! This isn't Pink Floyd; it's the freakin' Beach Boys!"

There's nothing quite as disappointing as expecting something good and getting something shit. Pink Floyd = good; Beach Boys = shit.

Similarly, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde = good; The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, as retold by Jill Nevile (abridged) = shit.

This is all by long way of saying I grabbed what I thought was Wilde's Dorian Gray off the library shelf on Saturday but, failing to look at it properly managed to pick up Jill Nevile Does Dorian Gray instead.

And because I like to share, I thought I'd pass on a little something of both Wilde's and Nevile's work. First, Wilde:

The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.
From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs; and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of those pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of swiftness and motion. The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. The dim roar of London was like the bourdon note of a distant organ.

Now, if you'll bear with me, the same passage under Nevile's reductive eye (it won't take long, trust me):

Through the open windows of the room came the rich scent of summer flowers. Lord Henry Wotton lay back in his chair and smoked his cigarette. Beyond the soft sounds of the garden he could just hear the noise of London.

The only good thing about this kind of pared down re-writing is that it only took me 23 minutes to read the whole 'novel'. Thank you, Ms Nevile; you left me with enough time on Saturday to listen to the whole Beach Boys Do Pink Floyd album. Fan-freakin'-tastic.

Well hello there

2010-03-11T21:46:00.011+11:00

[I've got some thing-bits to do at the moment; sorry it's been so boring here (unless you just come by to read the comments, in which case we may all be in luck! Over to you, MCL, Ramon and Squibelline).

I'll be back next week, most likely Thursday, with a whole load of twaddle just ripe for twaddling. See you then.]

By any other name

2010-03-01T21:48:00.030+11:00

Many a year ago I travelled around Europe with a friend. She was fond of expectations and had many; I was not fond of expectations and had none. While my responses to most places we visited ranged from mildly ambivalent to ecstatic, hers ranged from deeply, personally disappointed to reasonably satisfied.

I maintained during our long journey that it was better not to have expectations because being expectation-less left you free to experience something for how it appeared to you in the moment. She maintained the wrong, oops, I mean the opposite view. This made for many interesting hours in our very-tiny-close-proximity-oh-my-God-I-can-see-your-nose-hairs 1.2 litre Renault Clio (not to mention in our two-person tent).

The Renault Clio, seen here in relation to the equally minute and irascible common house fly, or Musca domestica.

So I've always thought I was foot-loose and expectation-free but I've started to realise, to my horror, that I do indeed have expectations and they're rather easily upset.

And how have these hideous expectations revealed themselves to me? Why through an innocuous little misnomer.

I recently bought a book for my son: The Dangerous Book for Boys. I expected practical suggestions for jail breaks and jewellery heists (or, more usefully, jewellery heists followed by jail breaks), for how to escape a grizzly bear by sawing off your leg then using said leg to hit said bear, and surviving in a post-apocalyptic (i.e. Liberal/Coalition) world. So dangerous + a pile of folios folded, assembled and glued + son (fun for).

What did I get when I opened The Dangerous Book for Boys (so newly purchased and so erroneously titled)? 'The Greatest Paper Plane in the World,' 'Understanding Grammar - Parts One, Two and Three,' and my favourite, 'Five Pen and Paper Games'. So lame + lame + lame.

I expected something good and realised I'd paid top clams for, well, 'Some Australian Trees' and 'Growing Sunflowers'.

So what did I learn from this foray into the world of expectations? That it really is better to be perennially mildly ambivalent than deeply, personally disappointed.

This just in: parking fines still suck

2010-02-21T22:11:00.029+11:00

It has been brought to my attention recently by a silly local council-type that doing certain things in car parks is considered dangerous and that doing these certain dangerous things (and getting caught - bugger) warrants immediate recompense by way of handing over $84 to another silly local council-type.

While it's theoretically possible that the first silly local council-type (the one who left the sunny yellow fine notice under my windscreen wiper) was a. primarily concerned for my welfare, and b. a thoroughly reasonable person, it's highly unlikely, so it is that I call on you to join me, dear comrades, in overthrowing the local council parking dictatorship!

Sure the revenue raised from parking fines goes towards maintaining essential services, planting trees, saving baby fur seals et cetera, but couldn't I contribute in some other way than paying $84 for parking the wrong way around in a car spot?

Yes, that was my hideous crime. I did this:

When I should have done this:

Once more in case you missed it (unlikely, I know, given the intense danger inherent in the situation); this:

Instead of:

Mercy, I'm lucky to be alive. Imagine if Obama got it wrong just once and parked front-to-kerb instead of rear-to-kerb; heavens! The whole world would collapse.

So now I have to steal enough plants from local council gardens beds then sell them at the local council markets on Saturday in order to pay my $84 local council parking fine.

Ah-ha! So the system does work after all.

Irony! Irony! Get you irony here!

2010-02-15T20:39:00.025+11:00

Remember when Alanis Morissette released her song 'Ironic' back in 1995? And how it sparked a debate about irony and what makes something ironic?

There was rather a large carry-on at the time about how all the situations Morissette describes in her song are more just dirty rotten bad luck than ironic, and for the reductiveness and stupidity of the debate I blame Reality Bites entirely ("Can you define irony?" squeaked a nymph-sized Winona Ryder; "It's when the actual meaning is the complete opposite from the literal meaning," threw back the silly, bum-fluffed Ethan Hawke.)

Yes yes blah blah, one of the definitions of 'irony' is where the actual meaning is the opposite of the stated meaning, but irony can also mean an incongruity between what is expected and what actually occurs, thus it is (by this definition) ironic that you should find a black fly in your chardonnay (you didn't expect it to be there, did you?), and that you find yourself (or, more accurately, someone else finds you) dead the next day after winning the lottery.*

(*Please note, I'm assuming here that your death was unexpected to you, unless of course you had planned to commit suicide, or you were scheduled to be a sacrifice to some deity or other. In these cases it's not so much ironic that you won the lottery then died as rather bad timing. Or you have the wrong friends.)

Point is, the debate about irony surrounding the Morissette song, however imprecise and illogical it may sometimes have been, has kept the concept of irony front of mind so that when stories like this appear we all know what it reeks of:

Anti-Immigration Ex-Politician Pauline Hanson Set to Emigrate to the UK.

What's that, Pauline? There's something black floating in your frosty, hard-earned beer? Oh that's a fly, I put it there earlier. No it's not ironic; you must have expected it, surely?

Is it just me, or do you think I'm crazy too?

2010-02-08T22:02:00.030+11:00

Last week I spent some time with a 75-year old woman. We had only met that morning and had the whole day together so we started in the way that all new acquaintances start, with general pleasantries and the odd bit of social mapping ("So how do you know...?", "Oh I see!").

We had a quiet but productive morning, passing the occasional comment about the tennis (our appreciation of Roger Federer's fine legs, for example) and telling the odd joke about Descartes and politicians.

It was all going fine until we were about to break for lunch; at that point it all went hideously wrong.

I looked across the table at her and said, "Would you mind passing me that ... um ... thingummy. The little ... with the ... oh bum, you know, with the [insert hand gesture] ... Oh man, what's it called? The the the ... you know, to hold the ... with the ... MY GOD! To hold the freakin' paper together?"

She stared at me (as though I'd been babbling incoherently), and said, droll-as, "You mean ... paperclip?" Then she laughed so hard she snorted and had to put her foot up on a chair.

After she'd finished laughing her arse off, said "oh dear" a few times and coughed once or twice (for effect), she said, "I'm glad to know you have senior moments too," then she leaned forward confidentially and whispered, "You might want to see someone about that, before it's too late," and roared with laughter again.

So after this disastrous brain malfunction I'm pretty sure I'm experiencing the early stages of early onset senility.

But it's ok, I'm onto it: I've diagnosed myself via a range of trust-worthy forum-based medical websites, I've bought a jumbo-sized container of fish oil capsules, and I've made sure my Power of Attorney includes the words "reduced capacity" (it does). So all I have to do now is get started on this pile of Sudoku, crosswords and mind-bending challenging logic puzzles (as any good current affairs show would recommend).

Think you might be going senile too? Come stave it off with me; here, sit. We can share my puzzle book. Let's do that one, the one about the shopping. I'll read it out (have you got a pencil?): "Susan, Stephen and Stephanie helped their mother to carry the shopping home. Each child had seven pieces of fruit in his or her bag..."

I'm feeling better already.

'Ello 'ello, you're a very lovely TV station and I'd like to buy you a drink

2010-02-03T23:00:00.009+11:00

Over the last few months there has been a rash of new digital TV stations on air. There's digital-this and Go!-that and more kids' stations than you can poke a Justine Clarke at.

With all these new stations there's the predictable mix of crap from yesteryear (like the Flintstones; die, Barny, die) and more present-day bafflers like that extraordinarily bouncy version of basketball from the States that involves very tall men and trampolines.

Anyway, while most of the new stations are fairly unimpressive from 6am to midnight there is one that's gold all day: Teachers' TV. Oh my lordy it's like porn for nerds.

The first time I watched it there were shows about bullying, about leadership in the classroom, about how to survive (and thrive!) as a substitute teacher. Sure it took me a few minutes to figure out what 'permanent exclusion' meant when the Strategies for Inclusion show started, but I knew exactly what was going on in the show about Sue, the maths teacher from Birmingham, who had a bit of teacherly coaching from some mentor guy and then taught the best lesson of her life. Wow! What a ride.

The first time I tuned in I watched for three hours straight; I was enlivened, I was inspired, I wanted to enrol in a Dip Ed straight away.

Then I happened to flick over to Teachers' TV again about a week later and what ho! The same shows were running, the bullying, the classroom leadership, the substitute teaching. Sure I was glad I knew what 'permanent exclusion' meant this time, but I couldn't believe Sue was back there peddling her insecurities then soaring again to teach the best lesson of her life!

Teachers' TV: back on the streets as soon as you enrol in that Dip Ed.

I have seen the light

2010-01-28T23:25:00.003+11:00

One of my favourite and most evil friends is systematically attempting to convert all those within her sphere to vegetarianism.

Every couple of weeks she sends an email with a link to some heartbreaking video about baby fur seals being clubbed to death by cage-laying hens at some pig farm somewhere (if I understand right) and I send her back links to this kind of twaddle:

Most of our email subject headings include the word 'propaganda' with various combinations of capital letters and exclamation marks, usually culminating in "Now THIS is Propaganda!!!!!"

Sure we waste a lot of time and probably should be doing other things, but for all the to-ing and fro-ing of emails and Propagandising!!! her point is starting to make sense to me. Maybe it is time to lay down my steak knife, to say "No more!" to beef chow mein with crispy noodles, to demand a better life for bacon and all the other magical cuts of meat. Maybe it's time to go meat-free.

These were my thoughts tonight as I made a delicious and nutritious chicken stir fry (with ginger and garlic and Tamari sauce). At one stage, right towards the end when the snow peas were warm but still crisp and the Bok Choy was delicately wilted, I accidentally flipped a piece of chicken out of the pan and it landed, plop! on the stove top.

But all was not lost. With my newly emergent concern for animal rights I knew exactly what to do: I popped the chicken back into the pan, mixed it in thoroughly and said "I owe it to you, chicken, not to waste you. Amen."

So, does that make me a vegetarian?

The book I have most reread

2010-01-22T23:50:00.015+11:00

Years ago, before children and Sydney and Responsibility, I enrolled in a PhD. It was my dream, to be a tenured whatsit in a university, left largely alone in my first floor office writing pointless stuff (let's be honest) about books I loved.

I worked on my thesis for years. I wrote drafts, I researched, I even went overseas to do things in archives, but in writing every chapter I came to the same point: "Blah blah blah... [nothing]".

There's nothing worse than nothing.

So the book I have read the most, ever, was the subject of chapter four: The Biographer's Tale by A.S. Byatt. It is brilliant and awkward and short and boring but every time (of the fifteen? Twenty times?) I have read it I have found something new, had that experience of the sublime; a sentence here, a paragraph there, that is not in any way special but says something to me.

And I know that I am but one humble reader, but in that moment of reading the sentence is there just for me.

[With a good sleep I promise I'll be less melodramatic. Forgive me.]

[by way of apology]

2010-01-20T23:21:00.002+11:00

A big thank you to Maddie and Leilani for sharing their top five rereadable books last week.

Also, a big apology to you both for not responding sooner. All manner of things have conspired this week to wrench me away from the bosom of this blog, but such wrenchful things are almost at an end and I envisage a speedy return.

But also, and I say this in the most friendly, well-meaning way, damn you for undoing the very fabric of my being! Such a delightful, innocuous little question, like a spaniel with its head in your lap, looking up at you with its big doggy eyes, gently wagging its tail for a pat: what are your top five rereads, and can you scratch me under the chin?

After many days staring at my book shelves I can't say! The spaniel is a wolf and is hunting me down! What makes a good reread? How many rereads makes a book eligible for a top five reread list? What about books you've loved, reread and loved again, then reread and no longer love? What about books you were luke-warm about at first then reread numerous times (for study, say) and came to love immensely? What of books you haven't read yet but you're pretty sure will be friends for life? What of them!

And what makes a good book anyway? Why do people even write? Why are we here? Why oh why are we here?

Anyhoo, this is all by way of saying thank you, Maddie and Leils, for your lists and sorry it's taking me so long to do mine and damn you for posing this question!

All good things really do come to an end

2010-01-12T20:34:00.017+11:00

I read an article ages ago about a man who had read all of Jane Austen's novels except one. He considered himself to be one of Jane Austen's greatest fans yet despite this (or because of this) he wasn't prepared to read the last novel (Pride and Prejudice, as it happened).

At the time I thought the guy was a bit of a loon; why deny yourself the pleasure of reading every word published by your favourite author? What can't be gained by drinking deep of the Pierian Spring, etc?

It appears a great deal can be gained by not drinking deep, at least not at a second helping.

As a recent sufferer of nostalgia I've been revisiting some books and movies from yesteryear and found them to be, sadly, not what I remember them to be.

First I re-read what I thought was one of my favourite books, Possession by A. S. Byatt. While I loved the fictional poet (see my obsession with lovely poet-boys as per yesterday), I struggled with the heroine, the postmodern hurdy-gurdy, the late '80s fashions.

Then I watched what I thought was one of my favourite films, or trilogy of films, Three Colours: Blue, White and Red. It turns out they're a bit boring (except Blue, which still moderately bewitches me thanks to Juliet Binoche).

And don't even start me on music. An evening's home-DJing on New Year's Eve left me with no illusions as to the music I used to love.

So where to from here? Books will only be read once, films seen once, music listened to until I don't wake up each day dying to hear it again. At that point I'll put it all in a box and take it up to Newtown to sell at the Saturday markets.

So that Ian McEwan, nice hard-cover, hey; in fine condition too. For you? $3. What do you say?

A little less than bright, that star, eh?

2010-01-11T21:24:00.019+11:00

*Sigh*.

I've got this thing for poetic boy-types. Isn't he lovely? It's Ben Whishaw playing John Keats in Jane Campion's new film Bright Star, which I took myself to see yesterday (primarily because no-one would come with me; "Are you kidding? That looks like shit" being the most frequent response to my "Wanna come with?").

The best things about the film were:

1. Ben Whishaw playing John Keats
2. Ben Whishaw's lovely eyes and great hair, perfect for playing Keats
3. Ben Whishaw's ink stained fingers playing Keats (bless!)
4. Ben Whishaw reading 'Ode to a Nightingale' during the closing credits (after playing Keats), and
5. The 119 minutes the film gave me to look at Ben Whishaw.

Apart from Ben, the film was largely disappointing. No historical or literary context, no introduction to Charles Armitage Brown (or Fanny Brawne, for that matter), no pulling on the heart strings (and come on, this was Keats for chrissake: brilliant, dead at 25, great hair, and etc.).

Bright Star is a love story that didn't make me fall in love with Keats-and-Brawne (just Ben Whishaw).

Have you seen it? Would you see it?

And we have a winner

2010-01-06T21:37:00.011+11:00

A hearty thank you to Mad Cat Lady and Ramon Insertnamehere for their excellent suggestions of fish monikers.

Not only were the names they offered excellent in and of themselves, but I also suspect Rosalind, Orlando, Marx and Engels would make for a thoroughly good night out.

But the naming rights of our newest family members have been awarded to Squib who suggested Anna Karenina and Count Vronsky. Hurrah!

Not only is the suggestion of inevitable death appropriate for anything fish- (or plant-) related in my house, but we already have Anna's train, ready and waiting for her final leap!

In a crazy example of life imitating art, I can see now we were just waiting for 'Anna' and 'the Count' to drop into the tank.

So thank you, Squib; now I owe you for the Darwin badge AND the fish names.

What a pair

2010-01-06T08:21:00.017+11:00

Every now and then fate throws together two souls destined to make an impact on the social, political and cultural fabric of the day.

Across the world stage has danced such pairings as Kevin and Julia, Antony and Cleopatra, and Torvill and Dean, changing forever the state of social democracy, dramatic irony and spangly leotards (in no particular order).

Another such pairing has occurred of no less monumental import, and it is this to which I draw your attention today: this Christmas saw the arrival in our house of a duo of masters of the watery aesthetic, a couple of purveyors of aquatic order, a brace of caretakers of C class aquariums. This is they:

The only difference between this pair and, say, Achilles and Patroclus is that while the latter have names the former currently do not, and it is in this regard that I turn to you today. Two such fishy heroes must have names; how else will we refer to them in the annals of history?

So, what say you? Do they look like a Napoleon and Josephine to you? A Mork and Mindy? A Bang and Olufsen? Suggestions most welcome.

Christmas wrap

2009-12-29T21:18:00.046+11:00

We have just returned from a fabulous Christmas break in the southern climes, where we ate and were merry many days on end. Those days having now come to an end we find ourselves at home and hungover with uncomfortably tight pants; all signs of a Christmas well spent.

Since it has been a couple of weeks since my last post I do hope you'll indulge me this little Christmas wrap.

The season started brilliantly with the discovery of some irreverent Christmas artworks a few streets away from where I live:

Such tasteful composition, don't you think?

And I'm sure da Vinci would be pleased with the subtle enhancements to his half-smiling Florenzian:

I'm not sure who was originally responsible for the waif to the bottom left of Ms Lisa but I like the cut of her tights.

At a friend's work Christmas party I met the Santa Most Likely To Die From Eyeliner Exposure, which was a particular thrill:

Finally, a match for my drawing skills: this Santa couldn't draw his way out of a dot-to-dot. Happy days!

Some things have deeply mystified me this Christmas season, like this:

What in God's name is a 'glamour camper'? And who goes 'glamour camping'? And who pays $140 so their son/daughter can play pretend 'glamour camping' (whatever the hell it is)? This is everything that's wrong with Christmas.

Equally as mystifying as the glamour camper but $140 less expensive was the sight of this car, motoring along in an adjacent lane on the way out of town:

I like to think it's a tribute to a feminist rock-climber, on the horizontal for transportation only.

Less surprising was the damp end my annual attempt at filing came to:

But the best part of my Christmas break was that everyone was too busy rolling about to stay still for photos. Blurry shots are the best, don't you think?

The gentle art of selling crap

2009-12-14T22:06:00.011+11:00

I'm not very good at bargaining. In fact I really suck at it.

Here's me bargaining for a jacket a few years ago:

Me: "Yeah hi, how much is that jacket?"

Market Stall Shopkeep: "That one? $140."

[Me to friend: "Shit shit, that's heaps. Should I try to get him down?"]

Me to Market Stall Shopkeep: "Will you take $135?"

Market Stall Shopkeep: "Sure, ok."

[Me to friend: "Yes!"]

It's probably fair to say no government would want me working on their hostage negotiation team.

But while it's a little disappointing to realise the extent of my lack of bargaining skills, this knowledge has allowed me recently to take control of the buyer-seller relationship, to turn the tide on exchange, to grab capitalism by its hairy balls.

That's right, my new life goal is to become an eBay Super Seller. Selling, I see now, is the side you want to be on.

So I've created a naff eBay user ID, written some extra naff copy (including the lines: "With all the features a computer-desk-needer needs" and "Go on, take it home; you know you want to"), and what ho! I've made a sale. Here's how my auction went:

6d 23h 17m: $0.99 listing price, no bids

1d 10h 42m: $0.99 listing price, no bids

7 h 23m: $1.25, 1 bid

33s: $1.50, 2 bids

8s: $2.25, 3 bids

0s: $5.50, 4 bids and sold.

Extraordinary. What a ride. So minus the listing costs ($2.13) I'm $3.37 ahead AND someone is going to come and take my junk away. You couldn't pay for this kind of satisfaction.

Ruddock again in 2010? Bwahaha!

2009-12-08T20:48:00.013+11:00

From the SMH on Tuesday:

Tony Abbott has returned Kevin Andrews, Bronwyn Bishop and Philip Ruddock to the coalition frontbench, unveiling a marked shift to the right in his first shadow ministry.

The three controversial Howard government-era ministers have been given key portfolios in Mr Abbott's new-look team.
As the face of welfare for the coalition, Mr Andrews will take on families, housing and human services and Ms Bishop, who was involved in the famous kerosene baths scandal as former ageing minister, will be responsible for seniors.

I had resolved yesterday to spend the vast majority of my leisure time in 2010 reading political commentary and watching The 7:30 Report, it being an election year and all.

Then I read about Abbott's awesome new frontbench and figured my time would be better spent unpacking my hammock and throwing Cheesels at the tv instead, just for yucks.

What will you be doing now we don't need to worry about the election?

[insert test pattern]

2009-12-07T10:19:00.006+11:00

We apologise for this break in transmission.

It has been brought to our attention that Ms Kettle's household clutter has reached dangerous levels. In order to ensure the ongoing safety and well being of her nearest and dearest she has been instructed to get rid of some of her crap, or at least put some of it away (for God's sake).

It has been reported that as little as a 10% reduction in her clutter will increase the lifespan of her fellow inhabitants by five to eight years.

Please forward any suggestions regarding the treatment of surplus books and novelty moustaches to the comments section below.

Thank you for your co-operation.

The Crap Police

PS, we understand that any instructing, implied or otherwise, mentioned in this post is entirely the product of Ms Kettle's internal Doris Day (the surly Doris). Mr Kettle and Little Kettle couldn't be reached for comment (presumed buried under magnetic travel games and spherical jigsaw puzzles).

This is not a review

2009-12-01T19:13:00.036+11:00

A few years ago I wrote a review of a novel for a journal. It was one of the worst writing experiences of my life. I suck at writing reviews. My reviews have two lengths: haiku or thesis, and I can't, no matter how hard I try, write anything in between. This made the 921 words of this particular review the most agonising 921 words I've ever written.

My haiku-length reviews are borne out of a theory of mind issue I seem to have: somehow (in my mind) if I'm thinking about a book I figure everyone else is too? In which case, what is there to say? We've all read it, had the same thoughts and come up with the same conclusions (surely, eh?). All that's left to do with these reviews is list where and when I bought my copy of the book, and perhaps whether I had my umbrella with me that day or not (I most often do).

My thesis-length reviews are margin-to-margin verbiage. I don't know why the sentences go on and on like they do sometimes, but I do know that I once used the phrase 'literal and symbolic violence' which still makes me want to crawl under my kitchen bench and stay there.

All this is by way of telling you that I went to see Lone Scherfig's An Education at the movies yesterday, which I quite enjoyed but which I can't, as a dysfunctional review non-writer, tell you anything useful about.

This being the case, here's a list of some random movie related things I thought about over the course of the day:

1. The very best movies in the whole wide world are set in schools and focus on characters whose favourite subjects are English and Latin (and better yet, contain lines from ditsy, well-meaning friends like: "Forget about Latin; soon no-one will be speaking it, not even the Latins.");

2. Going to the movies in the mid afternoon messes with the whole daylight/real people alignment I have going on in my head. This makes for confusing and slightly embarrassing dinner table conversation when you blurt out to your family: "Hey guess who I saw today! Peter Sarsgaard! No wait, he was the guy in the movie. Was he? No yeah, it was him. Bum, I felt like I'd seen him at work today. How weird. Anyway, whatever, he's sort of hot. So... um... pass the salad?"

3. After going to the movies in the mid afternoon, and after the ensuing confusing and slightly embarrassing dinner table conversation when you get real life and movie land mixed up, it's good to go to the fridge and find a bottle of Little Creatures pale ale just waiting for you, all frosty and friendly.

Trust me, this ridiculous list is better than if I'd written a review. For shame.

Introductory Procrastination

2009-11-26T22:14:00.024+11:00

Do you ever have those days when you do everything but the thing you're meant to be doing? I'm having one of those today, which is why I'm here blogging instead of, you know, doing the thing I'm meant to be doing.

It's not that I haven't given this thing a lot of thought. I have. I thought about it then started it, then thought about it some more then scrapped what I'd started, then re-started, then thought about the re-start and scrapped that too.

At one point this afternoon I had worked my procrastinatory thinking into an absurd circular argument, which didn't help with progress at all.

On the positive side, I've learnt over the years when to abandon something and go to bed. The abridged sequence is as follows:

1. Sigh regularly while sitting at the computer for several hours: type something, sigh, delete it, type something else, sigh, delete it, type something else, sigh, and et cetera.

2. Lie on the couch because you may have better luck thinking over there.

3. As soon as you realise lying on the couch makes no discernible difference to the quality of your thought (this usually takes two to three minutes), return to the computer and do something completely unrelated to the thing you're meant to be doing.

MCL, this seems like a perfect time to show you the piccy I came across in Frankie of that great cat-print suit:

I'm sure you would look totally hot in this and I vote you dedicate your next pay to the purchase of it (or else get work to pay for it; it's clearly an office essential).

4. Having done something completely unrelated to the thing you're meant to be doing, return to the thing you're meant to be doing and say out loud: "Screw this, I'm going to bed," then go to bed.

Works for me every time.

"Dear [Complete Stranger], let me tell you all about me..."

2009-11-23T23:36:00.023+11:00

Have you ever, inexplicably and uncharacteristically, loathed someone or something? I have, right now in fact; this very minute I am loathing someone for the something that they do. This person and this thing make me so mad I want to hurl mud pies at some Coalition backbencher. No wait, that's a pretty normal day. Let me try again:

This person and this thing make me so mad I want to dash off a whimsical limerick damning her and the thing she does.

[Wow, that was completely lame but I'm really not a violent person and the thought of doing things to eyeballs (say) with sand and such kind of grosses me out, so unfortunately a limerick is as nasty as I get. This is disappointing on many, many levels.]

So what has this fiendish person done to warrant my (very gentle and quite well-meaning) wrath? Why she sends out a little email newsletter, advertising herself and CRAPPING ON.

Crapping on isn't bad in itself, it's just you can crap on about vaguely interesting things or you can crap on about totally dumb things, and she craps on about totally dumb things.

So far, through her email newsletters, I've learned what she's serving at her Christmas party, that I can follow her on Facebook (yay), and what her cat thinks about, you know, stuff.

AND she invites people to write in and answer questions etc but then never writes back. Not so much as a blank reply.

AND her silly email template only puts my surname in the greeting, so it always starts along the lines of "Hey [SMITH (say)]," which makes me feel like we're totally best friends... not.

I bet you're thinking, "Jeez, unsubscribe and get over it, you crazy nutbar," but the truth is I wouldn't fully appreciate how good some stuff is on the net if I didn't have her newsletter reminding me how totally shit it can be. So, loathsome chick with your loathsome newsletter, I salute you.

Canberry good times

2009-11-19T22:07:00.019+11:00

I was going to start with a specific apology for leaving that annoying photo of the bubble-wrapped man-boy at the top of the page for a whole week, then I thought it's probably best if I throw in a nice general apology because this loose collection of paragraphs is almost entirely bereft of ideas and I'm sure your time could be more valuably spent (especially if you are a cardiologist, or work at Dolce and Gelato on King Street).

My small boy and I are in Canberra at the moment: finger painting (small boy), drinking too much (me), and running around the backyard (both of us). It's very hot but my parents' house is cool, and there's very little we need to do (other than finger paint, drink, and run around the backyard).

I did venture out to buy Turkish bread and hummus this afternoon and managed to discover a bookshop that made me realise how little I know about Communist revolutions, *sigh*. I joined their book club mailing list so hopefully my days of being a Communist revolution ignoramus are all but over (hold onto your seats, dinner party guests).

In other exciting news my parents have some great posters hanging on their toilet walls at the moment, most notably one of a sketch by Donald Friend (noice), and another advertising the 'Treasures of the National Library' exhibition opening at the National Lib in 2010 (which is VERY exciting). But that's not the end of the mind-blowing news: I'm happy to report I had a short nap on the couch this afternoon, after which I found some nice smelling flowers in the garden, and we finished the day with a very pleasant stir fry for dinner.

I know, the fun never stops; how glad are you that you read all the way to the end? Not very? Fair enough. But in my defence I did warn you about the complete lack of substance that was to follow; hopefully next time you'll take me seriously and watch Question Time instead.

Some inanity from the day

2009-11-13T01:00:00.002+11:00

I meant to write something tonight about the process of reverse gentrification going on in my suburb but fell asleep on the couch at eight o'clock and have just woken up now... in time to go to bed.

In lieu of anything actually worthy of your time, please find below a photo of something we saw at the park this afternoon:

Surprisingly it's not a giant, disfigured cotton bud but some wacky man-boy wrapped in bubble wrap hanging upside down on some ropey play equipment with his two friends.

Here he is again launching himself down the hill between the slippery dips:

Why anyone would do this is a mystery to me.

On the plus side, we saw some pretty ducks:

Then we looked closer and realised they were crazy alien zombie ducks:

You'd think with all the red lines I draw on photos I'd be better at it, but no. On the other hand, I'm not sure I made the duck look all that much worse, considering his/her zombie status.

So overall and in summary (as I used to start the concluding paragraph of all my year seven essays), it was a largely mystifying day.

Share the love: what's mystified you this week?

A question regarding those writerly types

2009-11-08T20:10:00.029+11:00

I sent an email recently to a Sydney writer's literary agent inviting both said Sydney writer and agent to my Christmas party; everyone loves fruit mince pies, a nice brewski and some Christmas cheer, right? And even if they don't, I love sending emails so my invitation was going to happen regardless of the consensus on fruit mince pies, beer and Christmas cheer.

So off my email went, and I wasn't actually expecting a reply but this has just turned up in my inbox from Mr/Ms Literary Agent:

Many thanks for the invitation. If I hadn't had to say no to so many invitations for [insert name here] I might be able to accept. Alas, it isn't possible.

In terms of logic, there's no particular reason why saying no to other invitations precludes the acceptance of mine, right? Just like if a waiter asks you if you'd like to order something from the specials menu you're not automatically barred from ordering off the full menu as well, yeah?

On the positive side, I like any email that includes the word 'alas'. It is a seriously under-used words these days; join with me to bring back 'alas'! (In fact, if you have a spare moment today I would love it if you joined me on one of my other campaigns: I am currently most concerned with disengaging 'augurs' from 'well'; do not go 'auguring well' into that good night, I say!)

But back to the email, my questions to you are:
1. Should I reply?
2. If so:
2.1. Should I reply knowingly, like I'm on top of the fact I've been bumped for no logical reason but with all the good cheer implied by 'alas'? OR
2.2. Should I respond with 'tude?

Or:

3. Should I quietly and humbly accept that I am not a unique and beautiful snowflake but in fact simply one of the Christmas-party-inviting hordes?

What say you?

Not a good couple of days

2009-11-02T15:57:00.021+11:00

My son broke his arm early this morning.

My Grandad died a couple of days ago. The funeral is on Thursday.

With each draft this post has gotten shorter and shorter so that now there is barely anything left. I can't figure out how to put an ache into words.

Stumbling around in the sunshine

2009-10-30T13:15:00.011+11:00

I'm a big fan of Spring.

Even though I spent rather much too long at a wine bar with Senji last night I was still able (when I was finally able) to enjoy a late morning ramble around my suburb. And look what we found! A ridiculously good-looking tree proclaiming the ridiculous goodness of spring.

Note the house on the left is two storeys. Whoa that's a big tree!

Now we're off to the beach to see what Spring is doing to Sydney's winter-pasty bodies.

Squib and Kettle's Latest (And Possibly Greatest) Business Idea

2009-10-27T01:08:00.009+11:00

If you flip through The Financial Review of a morning no doubt you're familiar with the story of Squib's and my meteoric rise through the ranks of Australia's, nay the world's, business community.

Taking the SOHO (small office home office) scene by storm in late 2008 we've been steadily building momentum with sales across our unique product ranges, from our doomed children's books to our carnation-coloured tents.

At the cutting edge of Sciuridae HR reform, Squib is a leader in the Squirrel-crafted hair button field, and enjoys broad support from the Association of Artisan Squirrels. My recent work in the home-based/backyard holiday sector has dramatically reduced Australia's carbon footprint and, some drunken idiots suggest, has initiated the reversal of the global warming process.

After this giddy catalogue of successes, where could we possibly go from here, you may well ask?*

The answer is clear: postcards.

Recently titillated by a nice bit of leg in a 'Hat Head New South Wales' postcard we have realised the time is right for a postcard boom of mammoth proportions.

And due to the Elephantine size of our aspirations we don't want to dick around with postcards for every little town with a giant prawn or over-sized sheep. No: our great postcard innovation is to design a range of cards centred around the globe's principal oceans and smaller seas. It seems so obvious, doesn't it? That way we can kill thousands of kilometres of coastal towns with one postcard-stone, so to speak.**

Take, for example, this early Pacific Ocean prototype, suitable for sale right along the 1,338.3 km between Bega and Tweed Heads:

Apart from the obvious profit-making potential of such a versatile postcard, imagine the sense of community and connection it will spread from one end of coastal New South Wales to the other.

But the genius doesn't stop with principal oceans and smaller seas of the globe; how about postcards of water and marine animals of any kind, like this delightful example, suitable for sale anywhere there may be, or may once have been, water and/or a dolphin:

Simply take off the reference to Australia and this little puppy has global appeal, don't you think?

So when you're voting for joint Australians of the year, don't forget Squib and me: keeping Australia's economy afloat, we are.***

****

* Or not, if you have a lick of sense.
** Chroist sorry. I couldn't sound the mixed metaphor/crap line alarm in time.
*** It's possible Squib was harmed in the writing of this post.
**** There will be a prize if you can list all the cliches and wallyisms here. That's right: a prize!

All Good Things

2009-10-22T22:12:00.019+11:00

I've just returned from five days here:

That there are places like this makes me very happy; there should be more places like this. There should also be less need to exchange units of money for goods and services so there can be more time spent in places like this. I'll swap my pumpkin for your gluten-free chicken stock if it means neither of us has to go to work.

But in addition to this fine opportunity to bemoan our current economic system, my trip to Hat Head also gave me the opportunity to rub stubby-holders with some of the NSW north coast's most charming locals, a band of whom I came across fixing a fence on the street up from the caravan park.

They regaled me with tales of frisky dolphins and unsuspecting tourists, gave me the inside sticky on the best battered foodstuffs at the bowling club, and gently dispelled my expectations (high) of catching a marlin in the river.

After a short period of footpath bonding I felt comfortable showing them the postcard I had just bought at the shop up the road. Did they recognise any of the locals, I asked, featured in this 'Hat Head New South Wales Australia' postcard?Apparently not. They assured me the people pictured must have been ring-ins because no self-respecting Hat Head local would wear this to go fishing/climb the rocks/breathe:

I like to think that's a little piece of Sydney 458km from home.

Holiday

2009-10-17T18:20:00.005+11:00

Camping. We're off to do it. I've packed:

1. The Glass Canoe by David Ireland;

2. A bike with twelve-inch wheels adorned with little purple stars and the following warning: "Not for off-road or stunt use"; and

3. A pack of seven novelty moustaches.

See you back on Thursday.

How I Learnt About Internalisation and Found My Childhood Innocence in Pieces Behind the Couch

2009-10-16T01:10:00.000+11:00

The first time I was locked in a police holding cell I was four years old. I was with my preschool class and we were getting to know the local community. Why we couldn't have just gone to the post office or the newsagent is a mystery, but there we were, behind bars at the local police station, wailing and blubbering because we were never, ever going to get out.

It's hard to be four years old and keep incarceration in perspective, but I understood the lesson: you must be good otherwise you will end up in here.

Bloody preschool teachers. As if I didn't have enough going on, what with worrying about the economics of the tooth fairy and whether we were heading into another ice age (yep, Canberra was an awesome place to grow up). So I internalised this lesson and got on with self-regulating, and have suffered ever since.

For how else can you describe a 33-year old nervously hunched over a photocopier in a university library, casting furtive glances over her shoulder, absolutely sure the Copyright Police will arrive at any moment?

It was probably ok to photocopy those first few chapters; there are certain acceptable limits for copying from published works, provided the copied material is but a small percentage of the overall work and is properly accredited. It was probably ok to copy a few bits from the middle as well, after all the beginning makes no sense without the middle.

But when I reached the end of the book I had most certainly gone too far. The copyright notice at eye level on the wall above the copier was put there just for me, I'm sure, with its menacing list of fines and imprisonments. And when the alarm sounded across the building for closing time, I was sure, for a split second, the photocopier had given me up: the counter had gone too far too fast, every sensor and camera in the library knew I had broken the law.

So congratulations, preschool teachers of Canberra, 1979. Your easy way to pass an afternoon led directly to the fettering of my previously unfettered mind and the end of my childhood whimsy (and free and easy relationship with photocopiers). I say take kids to a petting zoo and let them chase chickens instead.

And the winner is...

2009-10-07T21:51:00.020+11:00

I used to think literary prizes were silly, no wait, I still do, but I do like the person who just won the Booker (oh, my apologies magnanimous corporate sponsor, I mean the Man Booker prize).

Hilary Mantel just won the sash for her weighty tome Wolf Hall. I don't know Hilary Mantel from a stick of licorice, but given her prize-related soundbites I'd be honoured to shout her a beer and bowl of peanuts if she's ever in Sydney.

According to the UK's Telegraph, Mantel professed herself “heartened, delighted, encouraged, strengthened and a little bemused” to be the favourite. Yes yes heartened, yawn yawn delighted, but bemused! I do so love a bemused writer (Bob Ellis would be constantly bemused, don't you think?).

Moving on to Mantel's post-prize soundbites, she said: "I hesitated for such a long time before beginning to write this book, actually for about 20 years."

Boom tish!

And, she was good enough to provide a soundbite for the morbidly-inclined amongst us:

"If winning the Booker Prize is like being in a train crash, at this moment I am happily flying through the air."

Exactly.

And because my life plan is to sunbake and snort cocaine when I retire, I'm delighted to hear Mantel (who's 57) has quipped that she plans to spend her prize money on "sex, drugs and rock'n'roll".

So I'm happy to announce that the delightful Ms Mantel is my new hero (or literary prize anti-hero hero), but this doesn't mean there isn't any room in my heart for the judging, ah, intelligentsia. "Our decision," the chair of the judging panel has explained, “was based on the sheer bigness of the book, the boldness of its narrative, its scene-setting, the gleam that there is in its detail."

Yes that's right, Mantel's book won because of its 'sheer bigness'. Tell that to Coetzee.

A weekend in Canberra

2009-10-05T19:51:00.019+11:00

I spent most of the long weekend in Canberra visiting my darling parents. Given I live in a shoe box in Sydney surrounded by many other shoe boxes I tend to spend the first twenty-four hours of any trip to my parents' house (how fabulous, an actual house) carrying on about the space. I make lame jokes about intercoms and east wings and airplane hangers, and my parents, God love them, just smile at me patiently and hand me cups of tea until it passes.

But once I've finished marvelling at the possibilities of space in Canberra I start whingeing about everything else about Canberra. And I can because I used to live there, that's why.

Only in Canberra would you find brochures like this:

And this:

Only in Canberra would you find parks with rather pretty blossom trees and absolutely no people:

Only in Canberra would you find signs that make you laff when you really, really shouldn't:

And what luck! I managed to snap Canberra's only two cars in this photo. You can see them centre right. Here they are enlarged for your viewing pleasure:

Was it a long weekend where you are? Do you see my 'Dog and Cat Laws in the ACT' and raise me a lamer brochure?

Islands in the stream

2009-09-28T23:47:00.011+10:00

Every now and then you come across pairings that just work, like Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers, Marieke Hardy and Bob Ellis, and Nick Cave and me. There's something so right about these couplings that it's hard to imagine a world without them (especially after you've worked so hard to conjure them up).

So it is with some of the Western world's greatest love stories: Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Iseult, and Queen Elizabeth and her corgis.

But if we split the pairs and consider each individual separately, what do we have? A metrosexual man-boy, a whiny tween, a lad who doesn't know when to let go, a chick whose propensity to drink leads her to all sorts of trouble, and Queen Elizabeth and her corgis (I can't make it any worse than it already is).

So considered together the partners work, but if we separate the blissful pairings it's like waking up the morning after.

But what of the stories where you fall in love with one half of the pair (say, hypothetically, the dashing, serious-browed poet-scholar Randolph Henry Ash in A.S. Byatt's Possession) yet find the large-toothed, sharp-nosed heroine (say the poetess Christabel Lamotte in the very same Possession) hard to take?

What if you think, hypothetically, that you'd be a better match for Randolph Henry Ash than Christabel Lamotte?

Is it wrong to object to a fictional pairing? Is it insensitive to prefer one spunky fictional love-nut over the other not so spunky nutter?

And logistically speaking, how would one actually intervene in a pairing between an obviously ill-suited fictional nineteenth century couple who exist in an archive romance that was published in 1990?

Important questions, I know. So tell me, which fictional character would you bump to get closer to their squeeze?

How to survive a dust storm

2009-09-23T12:43:00.018+10:00

So there are dust storms all over NSW today, as you may have seen reported in some of Australia's finest news outlets. Because this kind of thing shits me (the melodramatic reportage, both from media outlets and the population generally) I thought I'd put together a brief 'how to' on surviving the dust storm who-ha.

1.Watch out for people who show you pictures, thus:

then say: "Seriously, it really looked like that."

They are stupid and don't understand that, provided your white balance is right and your shutter speed ok, a photograph can be a realistic representation of the external world.

The best thing to do in this situation is avoid all people holding cameras or phones with cameras or indeed any device with a screen. Just to be safe you might like to avoid all people with hands that could hold such devices or gesture to such screens, as well as those with mouths that look capable of forming the first 's' in "seriously".

2. Or, if you can't escape having images of the orange sky thrust before you, make sure you don't look at cropped images like this:

Ask to see the full image, thus:

If this is the Armageddon I want to at least have one last look at a hot guy.

3. When you hear soundbites from people across NSW using the word 'Armageddon' to describe the orange sky, throw something disrespectful at the tv or radio, like a tampon* or a used tissue.

Or, for those of a more verbal persuasion, when they say "When I looked out the window this morning, oh my! It was just like the Armageddon," you say "When I looked out the window this morning it looked like what I imagine the Armageddon to look like, because of course I haven't actually experienced any Armageddons myself."

Ach, don't listen to me. I'm just sore that I don't own a dust removal company; this could have been my lucky day.

* I've got nought against tampons per se, power to them; I just suspect it would be disrespectful to throw one at someone. Similarly lolly wrappers or cotton buds as well as shoes and boom mikes.

From Ramones reject to t-shirt queen in 15 easy years

2009-09-20T14:27:00.021+10:00

The first time I went to Homebake I had t-shirt issues (as you do) so a friend lent me one of hers. It was black and fitted, with a rather nice design on the front. It was for some band called the Ramones; I hadn't heard of them but my friend assured me they were quite good, as far as bands go. So on went the t-shirt and off we went to Homebake.

That I was wearing a t-shirt for a band I didn't know apparently incensed my friend's younger sister who said (quite rightly, I see in hindsight): "You can't wear that. You don't even know who they are."

To which I answered:

"Well... um... so what? Yes I can."

Not my finest moment, that. So over the many years since then I've had this thing with t-shirt authenticity. Since that moment I've wished, wished for a chance to right my karma in the t-shirt universe.

Finally, my moment arrived last week.

I was in the park with my boy. We were hanging out on the swings and beside us was a gorgeous Goth chick, dressed head to toe in black just like her gorgeous Goth baby. We got chatting, as you do in the park, about parenting and tv and what we did before our sticky, busy children arrived.

It turned out she had studied Comparative Literature and Classics at uni in South Africa so we nattered about the books we'd read and the poetry we were forcing on our poor children. We chuckled about how great but economically worthless our liberal arts educations had been.

We laughed, we sighed, we smiled at our kids.

Then it came to me, in a flash of t-shirt brilliance. I knew exactly what to say. Never before had the stars of conversation come together like this. I turned to my new Goth friend, straightened my t-shirt and said: "My worthless degree means I can wear this t-shirt and mean it."

Lame? My lordy yes, but for that moment I ruled the t-shirt universe.

So tell me, how do you get on with the T-Shirt Gods?

Democratically challenged

2009-09-18T01:25:00.001+10:00

The votes are tied!

Danielle Steele's scholarly masterpiece, A Bon Port, and Victor Hugo's piece of fluff, Les Miserables, have matched each other aye for aye carumba throughout this exciting electoral process.

Which will be the ultimate winner? Which will claim the mandate to delight and entertain? Only you know.

One more vote, peeps, that's all we need to break this never before seen deadlocked pairing. What'll it be?

[I'm very tired and a little nuts. Can you tell?]

Un Vote

2009-09-12T05:20:00.008+10:00

I had lunch with a dear friend this week who, after the avocado and bean salad but before the jaffa slice, excused herself and took a call; "Ah bon jour, ma cherie!" she answered, pricking my newly Francophiled interest.

[Please note, I've left the acute accent off the first 'e' in 'cherie' for authenticity as she was speaking rather than writing and I thus couldn't see it. Also, I can't figure out how to do it in blogger.]

My friend, it turns out, speaks and reads French fluently and has taught her daughter the same during long car trips and chilly winter evenings. They now converse, entirely for fun, entirely in French. They are my newest dual heroes.

I asked my friend if there was any merit to the idea of learning French by translating a novel and she answered enthusiastically "oui oui!" (sorry, I promise that's the last bad French-word joke; it's also the end of my current French vocab). My friend said that she knew of someone who had translated all seven parts of Proust's In Search of Lost Time into English for precisely that reason.

Happily I'm nowhere near that masochistic so have shortlisted but two novels:

1. All those who vote I translate Hugo's Les Miserables, say 'aye'
2. All those who vote I translate Danielle Steele's A Bon Port, say 'aye carumba!'

So, what'll it be?

Frenchy, Frenchy, haw haw haw

2009-09-04T19:40:00.009+10:00

I was 21 when France conducted what turned out to be its last nuclear 'test' at Moruroa in 1996, and I remember saying (with all the wisdom of a gangly-legged 21 year old): "No-one's gonna wanna learn French now," like that was the most important part of the whole ugly situation.

[When I first launched into that sentence I wrote "I was 11 when France conducted..." then I ran the numbers again and realised that I was in fact 21 at the time. I don't know what's worse: that I can't add up or that I was 21 when I made such a lame comment.]

Anyway, now that I'm older and heavily under the influence of cliches I must tell you I'm all hot and bothered (in a va-va-voom way) about France. I bought the corniest two-CD set today, Cafe De Paris: 50 Grands Succes Francais, which I think translates to If You Are Suffering From Brain Softening, Buy This Product. In my defense it only cost $10, but that aside, it's all part of a new project: I want to teach myself French.

I've always been put off learning a language because I have zero capacity for mimicry, but today (around the time I bought the CD) I thought maybe I could learn to read French and never have to utter a word. Sure it's a weird and isolating way to do it, but it might just work.

So of course I rushed home and pulled out the kids' French book my darling Mum gave me last time I had a wacky French language-related idea and came across this on page one:

This is my kind of learning! I was pretty sure I knew what "Waf! Waf!" meant, and absolutely positive I was on top of "Krwak!" having uttered it myself in similarly corn-ball situations. This language learning thing is going to be a breeze. I reckon I could skip straight to Les Miserables, provided it's illustrated.

Darwin rolls over in grave following gross trivialisation of life's work

2009-08-27T13:26:00.014+10:00

When I was in year 10 I spent a week at the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the ANU. It was work experience, you see. I have no idea how I ended up there; I have a vague memory of not wanting to do hairdressing but I'm not sure how that made medical research the only other choice.

I suspect my week's placement may have had something to do with my childhood love of all things science and vet-related thanks to the triangle of happiness formed between Vicky from A Country Practice and Rob and Dean from The Curiosity Show but I really can't be sure and I don't want to lead any future biographers (especially of the psychoanalytic kind) astray with wild triangle-related speculations.

Whatever the origin, I'm pleased to say my early foray into science has served me well in the conundrum my wardrobe presented me with earlier today.

You see, this morning I pulled on a top I haven't worn since last year and found that the sleeves are now half-way up my forearms.

I understand, as a basic principle of biology, that carbon-based life forms experience periods of growth throughout their lives. I understand, also, that these growth spurts may be augmented by too-frequent trips to Portuguese chicken shops on Marrickville Road. But while these additions may increase my girth, are they also responsible for increasing my arm length?

The most plausible explanation I have come up with is that over winter I have experienced an accelerated, intra-seasonal evolutionary advancement. Sure it's improbable that such an advancement could occur over the course of three or four months, however it's not impossible thus I maintain that I am now a more highly evolved version of the me that I was in the late days of autumn.

You may be wondering what kind of evolutionary advantages my longer arms have delivered to me (you and Darwin alike), but clearly my new-found abilities to carry Ikea flat packs and lift suitcases atop my wardrobe make me a very desirable catch for, um, short-armed men everywhere. Go me.

What wacky scientific explanations have you been tossing around today?

Are we there yet?

2009-08-24T18:44:00.026+10:00

I've just made a flying visit to Brisbane and couldn't be happier to be back in the smoggy environs of my beloved Sydney. While I'm sure there are many travellers who revel in the getting there bit (like those crazy brother and sister/re-united divorcees/large-breasted cheerleading best friends on The Amazing Race) I'm more of the "thank flippin' chroist we're there" persuasion; enough with the trains and timetables and hoo-flippin'-rah we got ourselves from Cooma to Budapest without a lick of English.

(Actually that's not really true, or at least it's only partially true. With sufficient time and imported beer I'll look back with fondness on my 48 hours of planes and automobiles; "what a journey," I'll say, "it's all about the getting there, isn't it?").

But at this post-immediate minute I can say with certainty that I would have had more fun listening to John Howard performing Equus (all parts) non-stop for the last 48 hours than I have had. But happily the flight home provided three delights to unfurrow my deeply furrowed brow.

Travel Delight Number 1
The woman sitting in front and to the right of me was reading a book called The Artist's Way. What caught my eye was this italicised heading: "Crazymakers are expert blamers". Perhaps they are, I don't know; who can say? But crazies reading crazy books make me smile so a big thumbs up to the lady in front and to the right.

Travel Delight Number 2
I love those maps with the little aeroplane marking your route so you always know where you are during the flight. I love that on domestic routes there's not enough distance to fit the aeroplane in between the origin and destination so at one point of my trip the tip of the plane was indicating we were in Dubbo while the tail was suggesting we were in Armidale. When we landed in Sydney the tip was in Canberra and the tail in Newcastle. Mercy!

I'm all for miniature vehicles of all descriptions marking routes on maps (after a happy childhood with such maps from the Indiana Jones franchise) but perhaps a little work needs to be done on scale.

Travel Delight Number 3
The chap two rows ahead on the left swiped his credit card and paid $4.90 to watch an entire episode of Jerry Springer. I tried desperately to read the issue of the day but the tiny screen and my myopia conspired to deny me comprehension. It could have been "Meet and Kill Truckers" or "Matt and Lynn Thingos" but neither a. made any sense or b. fitted the footage they kept showing of a rather muscular woman barging into a pole dancing joint and throwing a bottle of red liqueur at the guy behind the bar. At one point she started swinging a baseball bat but that didn't make the situation any clearer. Oh well. I love that there is someone left in the world, and on my plane no less, with absolutely nothing better in the world to do (work towards global peace, cure for cancer) than watch an entire episode of Jerry Springer.

From this handful of travel delights allow me to turn to one quick travel suggestion and one even quicker travel directive:

Travel Suggestion Number 1
I wish the plane speed was displayed in kilometres rather than miles. A speed of 507 miles per hour is, yawn, pretty unimpressive, but a speed of 815.937408 kilometres per hour - wow!

Travel Directive Number 1
No ad, displayed on the ground or at 40,000 feet, should contain the word 'chillax'. 'Chillax' is not cool; 'chillax' is lame. No more 'chillax'!

Hurrah for homecomings. Where would you rather be: home or away?

A meaty issue

2009-08-10T21:48:00.014+10:00

There are many areas of life I know I come up a little short, like not being able to hit the sweet spot on the toaster dial, but one thing I pride myself on is not being easily surprised.

There have been plenty of times when I could have sent my eyebrows sky-ward and cried "bejesus!" but instead have chosen to simply share a few quiet moments with a bottle of beer and settle back in my hammock.

Like the time when the manager of the camping ground in Stuttgart told us to put up our tent on a cement slab and I just shrugged my shoulders and grabbed my trusty mallet. Or the time when I fished a trio of giggling two-year-olds out of the bath on the arrival of a mystery poo. Or when Big Brother hit our screens for the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh seasons.

But on the weekend I came across this little piece in the SMH's careers section that had me surprised all over the place:

In this photograph, taken on March 22, 1967, a butcher tidies a display cabinet at Super Meats, Wollongong Arcade. Retailers, processors and smallgoods manufacturers are represented by the Australian Meat Industry Council.

So far so good, we've got a date, mention of some ye olde arcade in Wollongong and something about a meaty council. All good. So we move on to:

According to joboutlook.gov.au, there are now 24,400 butchers working in Australia, earning an average weekly wage of $877.

All good here too. We've got some numbers, something about an average weekly wage which lends the whole piece a certain amount of economic gravity (or gravy, whichever you find most tasty), and one of those whacky we-are-so-like-a-government-initiative-with-personality,-man websites. Then comes the eyebrow-raiser:

A recent survey has revealed butchers are the happiest employees in the Australian workforce - and they're having the most sex. Forget counselling, the answer for frustrated couples is a certificate III in meat processing.

! and !! In five easy sentences we move from a happy happy joy joy skip down a memory lane inside an arcade in Wollongong to couples counselling through butchering, well, through butchering. And why are they the happiest? Because they get to talk about sausages all day while giggling like school kids?

Mercy. What do you think: would you enrol in a certificate of meat processing if it guaranteed more sex and/or a fulfilled and satisfying relationship or does that just sound like a meat-up to you?

This is what happened

2009-08-01T06:04:00.006+10:00

Last week I bought Sarah Blasko's new album, As Day Follows Night. I love it, it's given me real pleasure this week. It's like a dark forest and when I close my eyes I'm there, in the Grimm's fairytale, an imaginative world away.

I was going to write something frippy about it but the words keep evaporating. You see, my son was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder about two months ago and with this knowledge came sadness and worry, a different kind of worry than before which was just about colds and eating vegies and whether he had his hat on.

Now I worry about lots of things, but mostly whether he'll be happy in this life.

I've debated for weeks whether to write anything about it here because this blog is frippy and my son isn't. But if I don't say anything about it I don't seem to be able to say much at all.

So there it is.

Neighbourhood curios

2009-07-25T14:47:00.014+10:00

I woke up this morning into a moment of terror, then I remembered the week was over and it was Saturday (true story, for shame). So in an attempt to put the madness of the working week behind me I decided to drag everyone out for a walk, under the guise of having an 'adventure' (my Mum used to say this as a rallying cry before we did something unpleasant like the time we had cold, coin-operated showers at that caravan park in Austria).

Unlike that Austrian winter, today it's sunny and bloody lovely outside so I wouldn't entertain any 'adventure' complaints, and didn't we have a fun outing? We found out our suburb has Australia's largest weekly bicycle auction. Who knew?

As a community we harbour escapee balloons, saving them from certain high-altitude death:

We are the victims of nutbars from Burleigh Heads (where?) posting massive signs that make no grammatical or metaphysical sense:

We are a suburb of random pot plants under random trees:

We are also the suburb with Australia's loveliest shop that sells both (and only) textiles and classic bikes. Usually my nose is pressed against the glass but I couldn't do that and hold the camera.

Could this day get any better? What did you do today?

On the map

2009-07-21T22:05:00.031+10:00

The unfortunately named Titwillow, of Gilbert and Sullivan fame.

Last week Bundanoon became the first town anywhere to ban bottled water. Bloody good, I say; do away with all that unconscionable landfill and pop a few bubblers into the footpath. A fine way to save the planet.

While such a ban is indeed cause for celebration, I must confess my water-related euphoria was rather quickly replaced with wistful child-based recollections of time well spent in Bundanoon. Ah, for a town of one's family-holiday experience to be so fully in the world's gaze; exciting times indeed.

My parents were keen on weekend adventures and could list, without stopping for breath, the 47 towns within two hours drive of Canberra (they were also big on all things wholemeal and carob but that's another story). So it was that we discovered Bundanoon, not two hours drive from Canberra, that proved the site of so many delightful childhood experiences.

So what did I learn during our trips to Bundanoon?

1. All about the lyric genius of Gilbert and Sullivan, whose cassette of greatest hits we liked to play on a loop. Bear with me; these eight lines are really worth the journey:*

On a tree by a river a little tom-tit
Sang "Willow, titwillow, titwillow"
And I said to him, "Dicky-bird, why do you sit
Singing "Willow, titwillow, titwillow"
"Is it weakness of intellect, birdie?" I cried
"Or a rather tough worm in your little inside"
With a shake of his poor little head, he replied
"Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow!"

Mercy!

2. That small bar heaters in large old houses are almost entirely ineffectual.

3. That an eight and nine year old together can construct a fully functioning, multi-level tree-house with faux smoking chimney.

4. That sometimes parents are prepared to forego their children's company so they (the children) can make finger puppets with other children while they (the parents) must resort to quietly reading the paper and eating croissants.

5. That tennis courts planted with daffodils look flippin' awesome.

Ooh! I'm off to wipe up all this sticky sentimentality before someone trips in it.

* Not really. Don't be a chump; skip them!

Hi, my name is Kettle

2009-07-16T22:01:00.030+10:00

This picture of a woolly mammoth has nothing to do with this post. It's a fine looking woolly mammoth, though, don't you think? I did see an elephant at the zoo on the weekend, and elephants are quite similar to woolly mammoths, so there you go.

...and I have a problem (in addition to my propensity for posting entirely unrelated pictures).

I am addicted to courses.

I, for shame, am a course junkie. I feel more alive receiving an enrolment pack than I would wrestling a cow. I have spent more money on HECS and enrolment fees than I've earned in my lifetime. And, for shame, one undergraduate year I even rang the uni bookshop to find out exactly which day the shipment of handbooks for the next year's courses was due to arrive, then rushed in and bought one that very day (as if they'd sell out).

Why all this course craziness? To provide meaning and structure and stave off the herdy gerdy of modern life, of course. Oh, and to fund whole conglomerates of resource centres through donations to photocopy machines and to keep Australia Post afloat through correspondence study. Good on me.

Like a dealer with a little baggie my new job is tempting me with all sorts of courses too: compliance courses and continuous improvement courses and database systems courses, all neatly listed in my very own training plan (or Key Performance Indicator Skills Enhancement Plan).

And wouldn't you know a friend of mine owns a registered training organisation! Forget hunting down a mechanic, a lawyer and a cabinetmaker for your circle of friends; give me a registered training organisation owner any day (of course I've just enrolled in one of his most delightful courses and have spent a very pleasant week reading all about occupational health and safety, *sigh*).

I couldn't be happier in my semester-based world.

On reflection I can see the precise moment when I crossed the line, but ooh ooh look! Advanced Spreadsheeting! Where do I sign?

Why three-year-olds should concentrate on picking their noses

2009-07-08T21:06:00.011+10:00

Arrr, 'tis a fine ship for a shanty adviser.

On Sunday I took my small boy on a child-sized odyssey. We had a great day and many things were learnt, including that if you drag a small child to a ticket window you can buy a 'family funday' ticket which gives you unlimited access to Sydney's buses, trains and ferries for a whole day for $2.50. Ker-ching (I've gotta run the numbers but I'm pretty sure I'm close to making a profit on this whole procreation thing).

So not only was I delighted to be walking around with the giant discount coupon that is my son (who also manages to get me onto planes first and into movies for half price) but he seemed to be having a ball too. He had chips and lemonade at Circular Quay, screamed "wow!" 47 times on the ferry across to Pyrmont and spent exactly six minutes running through the Darwin exhibition at the Maritime Museum; a pretty good three-year-old day.

It wasn't until we were leaving the exhibition that I thought perhaps we could have made more of the day's learning opportunities instead of pegging chips at seagulls and making foghorn noises on the ferry. A Dad and his kid (who looked three to me but could have been four to six years older) were walking in front of us back to the ferry terminal when the Dad said to the kid: "It wasn't until Darwin that scientific rationality and the concept of evolution entered the discussion of the origin of humankind," to which the child answered: "What did people believe in before evolution?" "God, son," came the answer, "divine creation".

They walked on in silence, no doubt deep in un-childlike thought.

Then the kid looked up and saw the sign on the restaurant we were passing. "Y-O-T-S," he cried, triumphant, "that's not how you spell 'yachts'!"

I looked down at my son and pulled a face. My son looked up at me and picked his nose. We said "wow!" all the way home on the ferry.

A sport for kings and kettles

2009-07-06T21:23:00.028+10:00

Several years ago some friends of a friend of mine decided to pick a sports team to follow. The two halves of this couple had grown up in different cities so rather than having one ardent supporter and one meh-whateverer they decided the best and fairest thing would be to choose a new team to love and cherish together.

They spent considerable time figuring out the criteria for their new team, none of which I can remember other than the team had to have the potential for greatness but not actually be too great at the time of choosing (so they could enjoy its rise), and it had to be based in a town with a population over 135,000.

That's right, because they were going to move there.

These friends of a friend were looking for a little more than a team to support. They were looking for team colours that matched their skin tones, a supporters' club that knew a bbq wasn't about the sausages, and a place to bring up their kids. They were looking to fill the void of modern life.

It's possible I made fun of them at the time. It's possible I called them crazy nutbars, but now the void has come whistling around my neighbourhood so I too have decided to turn to sport for salvation. My sport of choice? Le Tour de France.

Sure I only just figured out it's started already (who knew?), and sure I know nothing about cycling, but what's not to love about a sport that uses words like 'peloton', 'rear cog cluster' and 'derailleur'?

But my desperate over-justification doesn't end there: I had a pale blue Malvern Star all through primary school, I enjoyed The Triplets of Belleville when it first screened in 2003, and I even saw what could have been Le Tour itself when I was driving around France in July 2002 (or else the French have a crazy habit of motoring through narrow streets in small towns with bikes on their roofs):

Note my nascent fandom peeking out from under the front tyre of the second bike on the yellow car.

So unlike my crazy nutbar friends of a friend I feel well qualified in my sporting choice. I'll report back on Le Tour's void-filling capabilities; what fills your void?