Hic, Twirl, Peel, George

Couple of stories, couple of thoughts:

• When quizzes go bad

Recently M & I have picked up a habit of going to pub trivia quizzes with our mates Mark, Tanya and Dani. Tanya is queen of trashy telly, Dani is clued up on sports and the rest of us chip in more generally, although I get hopelessly confused on Aussie stuff of course. Anyway, we've tried various pubs and they all follow a similar format: 40 questions, 3 hard questions for a big jackpot and some bonus stuff thrown in. We're a pretty mediocre team all told, but for some reason we do very well on any bonus questions that involve an alcoholic prize. On average we win maybe 2 bottles of wine and a jug of beer. Given that 2 team members will be driving on a given night, you can imagine the consequences for the remaining 3. Hic.

• iPod dangers

I'm usually first in to work every morning at around 7.30 am, which means I set up the computers and so on while I'm there on my own. Having an iPod, I'm generally listening to a random selection of music as I do so. I must've had a spring in my step this morning cos I found myself doing the twirly indie dance when "What Difference Does It Make?" came on. Lots of fun and quite energising, at least until I span round and saw my colleague Noeline looking at me in a strange way.

• Teenage dreams, so hard to beat

John Peel: bummer.

• Countdown to Recount 2004

Please please please let Kerry win on Tuesday. I can't face the alternatives; 4 more years of the arch-crim or an interminable legal wrangle inevitably resulting in...4 more years of the arch-crim. Here we go, In God We Trust.

By the way, the only sensible US election stuff I've read is Sydney Blumenthal in The Guardian or, obviously, The Onion. "That's it. I'm voting for the candidate who would flip-flop on sending my son to die, rather than the one who'd do it without hesitation."

Wayne Rooney Is Evil

Good week capped in an infuriating manner. Bloody refs.

Happy stuff first: 2 great theatricals this week. First up was Gulpilil at the Belvoir, the autobiographical one-man show by the aboriginal actor of that name. You may know him from such movies as Walkabout, Rabbit-Proof Fence and Crocodile Dundee. Brilliant, charismatic performance of some interesting material; funny and smart. The real kick in the guts comes towards the end when he gets in a drunken argument with a cop and gets sent down for 6 months.

Friday night brought Twelfth Night from the ever-ace Bell company. Modern dress worked well, particularly the lovelorn Orsino’s opening line addressed to his iPod – “If music be the food of love, play on.” Neat.
Quiet weekend (breakfast out, reading Sybil, watching DVDs) topped by a shocker of a footie match. Arsenal were ripped off by a ref who’s given Manure 8 penalties in his last 8 trips to Old Trafford. My verbal response will not be repeated here, I suspect that would get blocked by even the most liberal of net nannies. Not happy.

No news is no news

Mucho apologia for anyone who’s been checking on this – preoccupied with, er, absolutely bog all at the moment. Just been a bit absent in the head I’m afraid. One possible factor is my current health kick, which at present consists only of not drinking beer. Not a big thing for most I guess, but I seem to be singly bereft of inspiration as a result.

Incidentally, I did have some beer on Wednesday but that was a free jug won in a pub quiz so that doesn’t count. To refuse would have been a rebellion against the gods themselves.

I had some study leave over the TAFE holiday, ostensibly to do more work on my waste-of-time online course, but of course most of my intended activity got wildly displaced, mainly but running through the Baldurs Gate computer game yet again.

Been up to Avoca a couple of times recently, which is always good. Last time we even managed a death-defying trek to the next beach up that involved blind leaps over terrifying precipices, swarms of malignant jellyfish and tides racing in to cut us off. Ate a lovely Magnum at the end of it all. That next beach, by the way, is called Copacabana, so we all had Barry Manilow stuck in our heads for the entire day.

Arts-wise its been big on movies (favourite: Before Sunset) and slow on books, largely because I’m wrestling with A La Recherché Du Temps Perdu. Still, by the time I’m through I’ll be able to summarise what Proust in his first book wrote about.* Nothing much musically due to lack of cash (yet to get CDs by Dizzee, Brian Wilson, Bjork, Wilco, Fiery Furnaces, Interpol, Tom Waits, Ron Sexsmith, Rufus Wainwright, REM etc etc sob sob). Then again, we’ve pulled it together for REM live and the Big Day Out (Beastie Boys, Chemical Bros, The Streets, lots of Aussie bobbins).

Today is M’s birthday (31st), which always gives me the guilts, cos we get lovely cards from people who we always forget to send them to. Just proves that all my friends are more admirable people than I am, I suppose, but then I knew that. Never forget, we love you all! Mwah, mwah.

* 6th-form style Monty Python references: are they back in fashion yet?