This just in: sleep is good

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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.