Revelations

It's a completely cool, multi-purpose blog.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Noughty But Nice

So the “Best of the Decade” lists have started appearing in various meeja outlets, which has got me thinking about my picks. Here are some provisional thoughts on my favourite stuff from the past 10 years, but I’m sure I’m missing out on some very obvious things. Thoughts?

Albums

Funeral (Arcade Fire), In Rainbows (Radiohead), Let’s Get Out Of this Country (Camera Obscura), The Seldom Seen Kid (Elbow), Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (Wilco), Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (Flaming Lips), Franz Ferdinand (Franz Ferdinand)

Songs

Svefn–g-Englar (Sigur Ros), Do You Realize?? (Flaming Lips), All My Friends (LCD Soundsystem), Losing My Edge (LCD Soundsystem), Shoot Speed/Kill Light (Primal Scream), Hope There’s Someone (Antony & the Johnsons)

Movies

There Will Be Blood, 24 Hour Party People, Shaun of the Dead, Mulholland Drive, In The Mood For Love, Brokeback Mountain, Lord of the Rings

Books

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (Michael Chabon), The Line of Beauty (Alan Hollinghurst), The Secret River (Kate Grenville), Atonement (Iain McEwan), London: The Biography (Peter Ackroyd)

Lovin’ Summer

M&I are collectively taking a deep breath in anticipation of the entirely preposterous summer we have coming up. Can anyone offer babysitting in January – by which I mean ALL of January?

During the two months, we will be taking in:

The Whitlams at the Sydney Opera House
Jarvis Cocker at the Metro
2 family Christmases, prior to;
Trip to Switzerland for Christmas (journey there takes in 3 plane flights and 2 train rides)
3 days in Prague
12 days in the UK, with all the activity that implies
A.R. Rahman at Parramatta Park
The Horrors at Oxford Arts Factory
Camera Obscura at the Becks Bar
Dirty Three/Laughing Clowns at the Enmore
Zeeko at the Seymour Centre
Antony and the Johnsons at Sydney Opera House

Oh, lord. Later in the year there’s Yo La Tengo at the Basement, ACDC at the EnormoDome, Pavement at the Enmore, Franz Ferdinand at the Future Sounds Festival, Pixies at the Hordern, Wilco at the State Theatre, Wilco again at the Factory theatre…

Thursday, November 12, 2009

And the winner of the "Song Most Likely To Make Tom Grin Like A Loon" award is...

This one:

And the winner of the "Song Most Likely To Make Tom Cry" Award Is...

This one:

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Photojournalism

So I had the kids on my own in M's absence, and we had a great time.

We went to Rouse Hill Library:



We had lunch at the RSL:



We had dinner at the local pizza & pasta place:





We went to the local school fete:



And my mo grew some more (donate now!):



Onwards and upwards!

Saturday, November 07, 2009

Emotion through stick people

Beautiful stuff from the web comic xkcd:

Monday, November 02, 2009

Different Worlds

A thoroughly pleasant weekend but a bit of a jumble, so I'll just list what we did.

Friday: Drinks at Sydney Opera House with Lou followed by a so-so play (God of Carnage)

Saturday: Halloween! We had offered to organise the local kids to go round the close together. We ended up with 18 assorted ghosts, goblins, princesses and a SuperBarnaby trolling around the close in a big gang. Afterwards we hosted a sausage sizzle for children and grown-ups, and it was good to see everyone and meet some new neighbours.

That all felt very bourgeois, like one of those Australian films that nobody goes to see, so luckily our seldom seen mate Dale was on hand afterwards to lower the tone, work through some of the left-over beer and watch a very satisfying football match.

Sunday: To a local Posh School for their summer fete, which was very pleasant. I was amused when a couple of smiling older ladies asked whether I would sign their petition:

Me: "What are they for?"
She: "One if for banning pornography in petrol stations and the other is to stop same sex couples from adopting"
Me: "I don't agree with either of those"

Cue mutually baffled-by-warped-morality stares before I wandered off to put Beth in a teacup.