Revelations

Bad aftertaste

2012-02-08T22:55:00.000-08:00

I had a slightly odd encounter with a patron at MPOW, and I feel I should have coped with it better. The guy was obviously a hippie type (woolly clothing, patchouli facial hair etc) and, after a straightforward directional enquiry, he leant over the counter and pointed at my bottle of Diet Coke.

"You don't want to drink that you know, full of aspartame."

I was slightly taken aback and muttered something about having drunk so much of the stuff it would have killed me by now, which he followed up thusly.

"I'm a nurse and all my MS patients drink this stuff. Seriously."

I said something else non-commital and he went on his way, but it's been bothering me since for a number of reasons. They are a bit of a tangle, so I'll revert to tried and tested list format.

I know the aspartame scare stories are bullshit, but I didn't want to offend the bloke by telling him so. This was partly natural reticence but mainly, I think, because I was trying to be professionally nice at the info desk. But hadn't he shifted the conversation onto a personal level in the first place? Should I have been more bullish in expressing my trust in evidence-based medicine and all the benefits it has brought the world?
There is an odious undercurrent in his attitudes towards his patients. "The poor woman has MS but, you know, if she hadn't drunk all of those diet drinks...". It sounds like a blame-the-victim framework to me. I also find it worrying that a professional nurse (if indeed he was) could weigh scare story internet memes above the medical literature.
Who looks at somebody as obviously overweight as me and thinks "You know what that bloke's main health problem is don't you? Nutrasweet." But he wouldn't have called me fat would he? That would be rude.

Cinephilia

2012-02-07T22:22:00.000-08:00

2012* has been a great year for movies thus far, has it not? The pre-Oscars period has always been a good period for the middle-to-high-brow releases but, thanks largely to large dollops of cine-nostalgia, the last couple of months have seen a number of films that really hit my sweet spot.

In particular, I have really enjoyed these four gems.

Hugo

Despite being pitched at the family market, you could pick this as a Scorsese film. It’s not just the visual flair and references to classic cinema, there’s also the moment where a character basically looks into the camera and states “Time has not been kind to old movies”. Marty spends a lot of time on film preservation, and it is interesting to see this passion appear in his fiction work.

I found it a wondrous experience, but younger viewers will likely be baffled by the second half, which concentrates on an old man’s regrets rather than the adventures of the preceding hour.

The Artist

More retro happiness. I’ve actually had trouble persuading people that a silent, b&w film can be so fun but presumably Oscar excitement will help box office significantly. I’m still trying to figure out how much substance lies behind the surface panache but, really, who cares? It’s a blast.

The Muppets

Like Hugo, a plot about the cost of passing time may be lost on the kids but my whole family enjoyed this classic Henson mix of daftness and sentiment. I’ll never forget the bit with the singing chickens during which all four of us were laughing together, a rare occurrence indeed. The early, smalltown USA musical numbers are a treat, reminiscent of classics such as The Music Man, and if Man Or Muppet doesn’t win the Best Song Oscar it will be a travesty of Driving Miss Daisy proportions.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

The three other movies I would recommend unreservedly, but this is a little more difficult. Several people I know have struggled to follow the plot, which is pretty byzantine. Having had the advantage of prior experience (both book and TV series), M&I had no problem keeping track of things; perhaps for others a second viewing would be rewarding? Plot aside, both the direction and the outstanding cast are top notch, and never has the phrase “It was nothing personal” felt more brutal.

*I am in Australia, release dates may vary

Old rocker

2012-02-03T15:25:00.000-08:00

Here are some bands I am going to see this year.

Cornershop (signature hit Brimful of Asha, 1997)
New Order (signature hit Blue Monday, 1983)
The Specials (signature hit Ghost Town, 1981)
The Pogues (signature hit Fairytale of New York, 1987)
Aphex Twin (signature hit Windowlicker, 1999)
The Wedding Present (signature "hit" Kennedy, 1989)

Other likely visitors to these shores include Bruce Springsteen (Born To Run, 1975) and The Stone Roses (Fool's Gold, 1989)

This is making me feel very, very old.

Lucky, then, that I am going to the St Jerome's Laneway Festival tomorrow, where I will see some artists that are popular with the young people. The headliners are M83. Who the jiminy are M83?

Sydfest 2012

2012-02-02T21:08:00.000-08:00

It’s been a busy few weeks, revolving around a variety of events at the ever-enjoyable Sydney Festival.

Festival First Night
Hyde Park was buzzing on the opening day, with lots of kid’s stuff in particular. It was peculiar to see the lead singer of The Presidents of the United States of America (remember them?) doing his children’s entertainer schtick, but it was when I ended up on stage playing live action Pong that caused the real hilarity.

Starspotting: Norman Jay stood on top of a London double-decker

Tis Pity She’s a Whore
I love me a bit of blood-drenched Jacobean psychohorror, and I’ve long been an admirer of the Cheek By Jowl company, so expectations were high. Happily, expectations were met and an adventurous and smartly restrained production flew by.

Starspotting: Andrew Denton chatting with Malcolm Turnbull, while Bob Hawke looked on with suspicion.

PJ Harvey
The divine Polly in finer fettle than I've ever seen her. Let England Shake was one of the albums of 2011 and this highly theatrical performance showcased it perfectly, all in the wonderful setting of the State Theatre.

Starspotting: Dangermouse – the record producer, not the nemesis of Baron Greenback.

AA Bondy
There was a terrific Spiegeltent in Parramatta this year, they seem to be making an effort to shift the festival's centre of gravity westwards which suits us. An ideal location, then, to see a fine singer/songwriter doing his thing, and in particular to see exactly how he accomplishes his astonishing guitar playing.

Starspotting: Celebs in Parramatta. I don’t think so, darling.

BUG with Adam Buxton
Basically a bloke showing some reallyreally good pop videos on a big screen with some amusing (or occasionally misfiring) bits of chat and silliness in between. This made me giggle:

Starspotting: Erm, does the acting editor of Madison magazine count?

Retroblogging; Christmas miss

2012-01-26T16:09:00.000-08:00

I have been intending for ages to create a series of Retroblogging posts detailing the various events of Christmas and New Year but it feels like rather a long time ago now and writing it all up feels like a chore. I’m finding it hard enough to motivate myself here, so instead I’ll go for a briefer style to cover the period and attempt to blog more fully from now on.

More pictures are available on the Flickr page.

So, memories of the festive season:

Nana’s visit. My mum was here for a few weeks including Christmas, New Year and her birthday, which made for a lively period. We also took in 3 nights in Adelaide and a trip to the cricket.

Bs. It felt like a real luxury to have a month away from work and spend nearly every day with the kids. B1 is learning how to ride a bike without stabilizers, B2 how to use a light sabre.

Food. We had some really amazing food at fancy restaurants. Honourable mentions to Apothecary 1878 and the hotel in Adelaide, but the best of the best was the Berowra Waters Inn. It was my first chef-hatted dining experience, a 4 ½ hour degustation lunch no less, but it was the location and service that really made the experience memorable. It’s in the bush so maybe the insouciant manner in which the waiter swept a huge spider of an unknowing customer’s arm before stamping on it shouldn’t have impressed me quite as much as it did.

Reading: One to Ten

2011-12-06T18:52:00.000-08:00

Haven't posted in an age, here's a meme post to try and the get blogging brain reactivated (via Con).

1 The book I’m currently reading: Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens and Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion. Fine books by writers I trust but I can't seem to get any reading done at the moment. Too tired, I think.

2 The last book I finished: Hell's Angels by Hunter S. Thompson. On a US journalism tip.

3 The next book I want to read: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, I try to keep up with Booker winners.

4 The last book I bought: See 3.

5 The last book I was given: Can't remember, but Val lent me All That I Am by Anna Funder which was flawed but the true story about Nazi activity in London in the 1930s is astonishing.

6 The last book I borrowed from the library: Room by Emma Donoghue, but it was a while back. I have a backlog of about 3 shelvesworth to get through. (Yes, I used the word shelvesworth.)

7 The first book I read this year: Can You Forgive Her by Anthony Trollope. I do keep a record of everything I've read, tragically.

8 What was the last translated book you read?: Notre Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo, splendid.

9 The book at the top of my Christmas list: Macquarie Dicionary (5th ed). The other day I noticed that my trusty old Collins does not contain an entry for "internet". Time for an update.

10 The so-far unpublished book I am most looking forward to reading: Arsenal - Champion's League Triumph 2012

More forte than piano

2011-11-15T20:17:00.000-08:00

I guess every parent tries to encourage their children to find interests for themselves, and we are no exception.

B1 is currently very taken with Junior Masterchef, a brazenly commercialised and overstretched TV show that we nevertheless tolerate because we want her to be interested in cooking and nutrition. The other day she helped me make burgers, and I want to keep that going with other recipes.

On Saturday mornings we have started taking the kids to Grasshopper Soccer, a non-competitive football class. B1 finds it a bit of a chore, unfortunately, but B2 has a wild time. We’ll keep it up for this semester, and probably keep it up for longer.

(On the non-competitive thing, I can’t help but be reminded of the Viz strip in which the Modern Parents buy their kids a non-racist, non-classist, non-sexist, non-militaristic chess set: sixteen grey pawns all on the same side.)

Finally, M has prevailed in a minor marital disagreement and we have picked up a cheap piano. I suppose the idea is to suffuse the house with harmony, in every sense. Here’s a video to demonstrate how that’s going so far.

Yes, this post is all an excuse to link to that Father Ted clip again

2011-11-06T20:19:00.000-08:00

Was that the most expensive weekend ever?

First, we had a and a Gold Class movie. Legitimate because it was our 11th wedding anniversary, though Contagion was perhaps not the most romantic film ever. Especially that bit where they open up Gwyneth Paltrow’s brain post mortem.

We are in the middle of redecorating our entire house, so we also splashed out on 8 picture frames, 5 light fittings and some fancy new blinds. Mmm, aesthetic.

While M was choosing the blinds, I snuck out to JB Hi-Fi and picked up a PS3 game and 3 CDs (yes, I still buy CDs).

M also decided she needed to upgrade her iPhone so we got a 4S, although she claims that this will save us money.

Finally, and least interestingly, we bought a car.

After this splurge, extravagant by even Mario Balotelli standards, M found time to question my investment of $9 in some healthy snacks for my children.

Perspective is a tricky thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vbd3E6tK2U

Scary monsters

2011-11-02T22:09:00.000-07:00

Halloween! As usual, our street organised for all of the resident kinder to march around en masse, which makes for a lovely community event.

B1 went for a vampire/zombie mash-up look, and got very excited about the prospect of eating my brain.

B2 is all about dinosaurs these days, and has the threads to prove it.

The mass of children made their way around the close like a swarm of sweet-toothed locusts, distracted only by visitation from this mysterious character (I think I know what neighbour this was, but I'm still not sure).

In the end, they were delighted with their haul.

I noticed a few churlish letters in the SMH this week complaining that halloween is a crass US import, but I did it as a kid in the UK, and what's wrong with taking the best stuff from elsewhere anyway? We always have a great time.

The Lady Barbara

2011-10-20T22:36:00.000-07:00

Not content with spending every Thursday evening reliving theHistory of World Cinema, I spent last Sunday on one of David Stratton’s complementary “study days”, wherein we spend no less than 10 hours looking at the work of a particular artist.

This time it was the splendid actress Barbara Stanwyck, who was a big star in her day but, judging by a few recent conversations with friends, is largely forgotten by non-film buffs.

The day suggested that her greatest asset was flexibility. We watched four films in full including an amusingly lurid sex drama, a paranoid melodrama,a turned-up-to-11 feminist western and one of the great rom-coms. That doesn’t include her most famous role as a femme fatale in Double Indemnity.

She was a contemporary of other greats including Joan Crawford, Bette Davis and (my favourite actress) Katherine Hepburn. These women were all A-listers who shared the quality of always looking smarter than anyone else in shot. To find equivalents today, for example Catherine Keener, you have to drop quite a way down the pecking order. What a loss.

I could be liter'n'this could be easier

2011-10-05T15:52:00.000-07:00

So, it turns out that my current weight may be suboptimal in health terms. Who knew?

Anyways, as my list-completion OCD style behaviour suggests, I work best when I have a strict regime to stick to, so my latest stab at dieting is the offensively ungrammatical Lite'n'Easy.

How it works is this. Every Wednesday, a big esky of food arrives containing all that I will eat for 5 days of the following week (weekends are a freebie).

Inside is a vast amount of plastic with some food tucked away inside.

I have set breakfast, lunch and snacks each day and a choice of various things for dinner. Here are my choices for this week:

And here's what last night's rissoles looked like:

Oh dear God.

Avocalypse Now

2011-10-05T14:56:00.000-07:00

We had a further guest at Avoca last weekend; Charlie the toy dog, on secondment from B2's daycare The idea is that we show Charlie a good time, take a few snaps, and B2 tells everyone about it when he's back.

Here's a rough idea of what we came up with.

We took Charlie to Avoca Beach:

He made friends with B1's dog, Buttercup:

We had a lovely time together:

We did some digging:

We learned about lifesaving:

We made some friends:

But we still fell in the sea:

And we re-enactedMerry Christmas Mr Lawrence:

Finally, we tried to perusade Charlie to hop on a board and ride some waves. Turns out, Charlie don't surf.

Stormy weather

2011-10-04T23:11:00.000-07:00

Long weekend here in Oz, which as usual sent us heading up to Avoca Beach with the kids, this time with friends Garry and Vanessa.

Lots of the usual Avoca shenanigans ensued, much of it based around alcohol and Trivial Pursuit, and I even braved the beach on a couple of occasions. It was an interesting weekend because of the mixed-up weather. On Saturday we were able to enjoy a stroll on the beach and the kids had a swim:

After a big storm on Saturday the place was utterly transformed. Check out this video:

flickr.com/photos/tomgoodfellow/6213581924/in/photostream

And these photos:

Later, we had some fun with Charlie the dog, more of which tomorrow...

Alfred the Great

2011-09-22T17:10:00.000-07:00

One of the things I spoke about in my Dad’s eulogy was the joy we shared in trips to the Lake District. We would go up two or three times a year and I could still talk about favourite routes with some small authority.

An integral element of our walks was a close study of the marvellous guidebooks of Alfred Wainwright. He was an unassuming civil servant who spent his weekends tramping the fells and producing his series of Pictorial Guides, describing in great detail every route up every fell.

Crucially, he also produced his own drawings and maps, and the books reproduced his own handwriting.

The text itself is, most importantly, informative, but is ornamented with a great appreciation of the landscape, a poetic turn of phrase and the occasional outbreak of gentle humour. The effect is one of tremendous charm, and the complete set of guides that I have now inherited is a cherished possession.

Here he is about Haystacks, a beautiful mountain and the one on which his ashes were spread:

“Haystacks stands unabashed and unashamed in the midst of a circle of much loftier fells, like a shaggy terrier in the company of foxhounds… For a man trying to get a persistent worry out of his mind, the top of Haystacks is a wonderful cure.”

(The various - notoriously unreliable - quotation websites credit AW with the classic “there’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing”, which I first heard in a Billy Connolly routine and have repeated often ever since. Did AW really originate this?)

Oh the shark has pretty teeth, dear...

2011-09-11T19:31:00.001-07:00

On Friday we had a are trip to the theatre to see Brecht and Weill's The Threepenny Opera. Originally a condemnation of the Weimar Republic (think Cabaret performed by Tom Waits), this production has caused some local controversy for updating it to contemporary Sydney. Unsurprisingly, the themes of political corruption and moral bankruptcy among the ruling classes survive the transition just fine.

The plot revolves around the infamous villain MacHeath, aka Mack the Knife, who revels in the assertion of brute power and his apparent immunity from the law. His catalogue of crimes remains shocking, including numerous instances of rape and murder.

Weirdly, among the whirl of coke-snorting bishops and transvestite prostitutes, M&I both felt that the most transgressive moment was The Soldier's Song, including the lyrics "Black or brown or khaki/A darkie's still a darkie". We have become inured to everything, it seems, except the possibility that the Aussie Digger may not be entirely PC when it comes to dealing with the locals.

Meme evidently composed by a young person

2011-09-04T21:44:00.001-07:00

A meme post, via Con. Passes the time.

1. Name one person who made you laugh last night?
Dylan Moran, live at Sydney Opera House. He was pretty good.

2. What were you doing at 0800?
Piled up in bed with M&Bs, preparing to get up. It’s all been downhill since then.

3. What were you doing 30 minutes ago?
Checking email.

4. What happened to you in 2006?
I thought we had agreed never to raise that incident. Also, I started working at University of Sydney and watched B1 grow up.

5. What was the last thing you said out loud?
No.

6. How many beverages did you have today?
Water, diet coke, diet pub squash.

7. What colour is your hairbrush?
I remember hairbrushes...

8. What was the last thing you paid for?
Car parking.

9. Where were you last night?
See (1)

10. What colour is your front door?
No idea. You could probably find out on Google Street View. (This is a weird thing not to know, I imagine. Basically I don't care enough to use up the brain capacity.)

11. Where do you keep your change?
Front left pocket.

12. What’s the weather like today?
Boringly Australian.

13. What’s the best ice-cream flavour?
Boysenberry, mmm.

14. What excites you?
Sex and Arsenal FC, usually at different times.

15. Do you want to cut your hair?
Kind of a moot point.

16. Are you over the age of 25?
Well and truly.

17. Do you talk a lot?
Not so much as people think, somehow.

18. Do you watch the O.C.?
Never have. Ought I?

19. Do you know anyone named Steven?
Many. Incidentally, if you should ever find yourself talking to a creationist then Project Steve is an amusing fact to mention although it may earn you a less than Christian response.

20. Do you make up your own words?
As a rule, I think we have plenty to be getting along with. I am very careful to use words with as precise a meaning as possible.

21. Are you a jealous person?
No.

22. Name a friend whose name starts with the letter ‘A’.
Big Andy.

23. Name a friend whose name starts with the letter ‘K’.
The Lovely Kate.

24. Who’s the first person on your received call list?
Richard, the neighbour with whom I saw a radio show being recorded last week. I don’t get many calls.

25. What does the last text message you received say?
Xoxox

26. Do you chew on your straw?
I hate straws.

27. Do you have curly hair?
Look, stop making jibes about my lack of hair would you?

28. Where’s the next place you’re going to?
The computer shop next to work. I need to get some AV cables. Yes, my life is that exciting.

29. Who’s the rudest person in your life?
Probably my neighbour Paul, to whom I am equally rude in return.

30. What was the last thing you ate?
A couple of peanuts.

31. Will you get married in the future?
I think M would be both surprised and disappointed.

32. What’s the best movie you’ve seen in the past 2 weeks?
Deep End

33. Is there anyone you like right now?
Do you mean fancy? In which case M, obviously. In a more general sense, I agree with whoever it was that said, roughly, "I like people, it's humanity I can't stand".

34. When was the last time you did the dishes?
Yesterday.

35. Are you currently depressed?
Hmm, that’s a big word which I avoid because I am not clinically depressed and would not wish to belittle that terrible condition. I would say that I am of a melancholic disposition and have had reason for sadness recently.

36. Did you cry today?
Not yet, but I do cry a lot.

37. Why did you answer and post this?
Meme posts are more fun to write than to read, so I would be amazed if anybody has read this far. If you have, please write the name of your favourite fish in the comments.

The End

2011-08-29T21:09:00.000-07:00

On Sunday night I watched the very fine 1970 sexual thriller Deep End, and thereby completed my somewhat obsessive quest to view the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

I have the 2004 edition of the book but the earliest reference to the list on this blog appears in 2006, so I guess that’s about when I started taking the idea of completing the list seriously. I think when I first started I had seen 337.

It’s been a fun experience, if occasionally somewhat arduous (yes, 9 hour Holocaust documentary, I’m looking at you). Putting to one side my mildly OCD box-ticking urges, the main reason I did this was to encounter films I wouldn’t otherwise have tackled, like Bela Tarr’s epic of slow cinema Satantango.

Perhaps the single most memorable viewing was a screening of Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles at the Sydney Film Festival, a film in which basically nothing happens (compellingly) for 3 ½ hours, which created a level of suppressed anger-cum-hysteria I have rarely encountered among the usually placidly arty SFF crowd.

Best films: Too numerous to mention. There were lots of pleasant surprises, such as The Burmese Harp, Daisies and a whole bunch of silent films

Worst films: I think all of the experimental US films of the 1960s underground, which comprise mainly of men in leather declaiming profoundly shallow dialogue on horrible grainy film inadequate sound quality

Masterpieces not on the list: La Ronde, Swingers, Rififi

What next? Well I could catch up with the movies listed in later editions of the book (19 to go), complete the list of Best Picture Oscar winners (2 to go), the Time magazine Top 100 movies (9 to go), or - eeeek! - the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (649 to go)...

(Apologies for the paucity of links in this post, Blogger really is crappy software sometimes.)

The eulogy I gave at Dad's funeral

2011-08-24T15:36:00.000-07:00

It would be remiss of me if I didn’t begin with the joke Dad invariably opened with on social occasions:

“I suppose you’re wondering why I called this meeting.”

He only had about six gags, but they were all good ones, and they somehow became funnier with every repetition.

So many memories that Amy and I cherish about Dad stem from the family holidays of our childhood. Many is the happy hour we spent sitting in the back seat of our Dolomite on the hard shoulder in France or Italy whilst Dad laboured away under the bonnet fixing whatever it was that had gone wrong this time.

Then there were the golfing trips he would take with friends, which appeared to be largely an excuse for a competition of “Who can wear the most appalling trousers”.

Another of the great passions of dad’s life was for fell walking and in particular for the grandeur of the Lake District. Even as he led us through yet another downpour protected only by our Gortexes, he would be full of enthusiasm for the magnificent beauty of the mountains and the poetry of their names – Blencathra, Scafell Pike, Helvellyn. As well as Amy and me and many friends, he would regularly take groups of students from East London away for the weekend and share his passion with them. I’d like to think that there’s one of his former students halfway along Striding Edge right now – Wainwright book in hand – with his or her family, passing on that passion to a new generation.

Just about the only value that Dad failed to pass down to us was his support for the team his mother-in-law referred to as “nasty vanilla”, the team anybody can lick! Dad would regularly take me and a friend or two to matches whenever Villa were in London, carrying a milk crate with us so we could see over the adults on the terraces. Unfortunately for him the day he took me to Highbury to see Arsenal it was the home team I fell for.

It is very special to us that there are people here today that met Dad only in the last year and others who knew him from his childhood in Birmingham, or his university days in Newcastle and Warwick, who became friends with him in Brentwood, or who were work colleagues in London. We are all here because we knew the same John; his unfailing humour, his generosity of spirit, his desire to share his love of life with others. Every occasion was the merrier for his being there.

Perhaps the most remarkable relationship of Dad’s life was the one he had with Mum. Whilst their marriage ultimately didn’t work out, they remained devoted to each other as all of us who saw them together could never doubt. Amy and I would like to thank Mum for the support and companionship she gave to Dad so generously for so many years.

We would also like to acknowledge the wonderful care Dad received at Meadowcare in the past year. It was a great comfort to all of us to know that he was being looked after with such compassion, respect for his dignity and personal attention.

Michelle and I were fortunate to spend a lot of time with Dad just recently. I will treasure my memories of sitting with him in Amy and James’ beautiful garden; he was sipping on a glass of lemonade and smiling at his four grandchildren – Phoebe and Isabella, Beth and Barnaby - as they raced around together, shouting and playing. As usual, that terrifying creature the goose played a prominent part in the chasing and tickling. Dad had that familiar smile on his face, taking joy in their childish enthusiasm and feeling happiness from being with those of us who loved him so much.

I think the legacy that Dad leaves behind is a testament to him. This week Amy and I have received so many lovely comments from people who knew him. Some talked about his loyalty, some his sense of adventure, some his gentlemanly manner, but everybody – everybody – had stories to tell of the good times they had together and the laughs they shared.

So thank you all for being here. Please join us at the Victoria pub for some food and drink. We can re-tell some stories and share memories about our dad, jeg, “our Johnny”.

To finish I would like to read a brief bible passage, Philippians chapter 4, verse 8:

“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things”.

When someone great is gone

2011-08-24T08:38:00.000-07:00

My dad, John Goodfellow, died on 6th August 2011 aged 1969.

He was a wonderful man, universally liked, and the best father my sister and I could have wished for.

As a result, M&I took an unscheduled trip back to the UK for the funeral (leaving the Bs with the in-laws; thanks Val). Obviously it was a very emotional week for all of the family, but it was also a wonderful to spend time with everybody at such a difficult moment.

The funeral itself was a great occasion. There were over 50 people there from all stages of Dad's life, from school to his final months at the care home. Most of us retired to the pub after the service and gave Dad a tremendous send-off. He would have had a splendid time.

Retroblogging Big Trip 2011: Week 4 Bristol part b

2011-08-09T00:18:00.000-07:00

The fourth week involved Nick and Abby’s splendidly enjoyable wedding do, a 3-day driving-intensive trip to see family and friends in Manchester, Durham and Sheffield, and more time relaxing with Dad in front of the cricket. It was a great week for spending time with special people, which is of course the main purpose of the Big Trips.

Dad in the park:

Retroblogging Big Trip 2011: Week 3 France

2011-08-08T17:12:00.001-07:00

We flew out to Bergerac Airport to catch up with Amy and my nieces in the beautiful Dordogne area, which surpassed all of our expectations. Many of the lovely medieval towns were decked out for their Jours de Fete, and the markets were resplendent with cheeses, saucisson and interestingly coloured tomatoes.

Pretty towns:

Pretty hats:

Pretty people:

Pretty nice weather except for this night:

Retroblogging Big Trip 2011: Week 2 London

2011-08-08T04:20:00.000-07:00

For the first time we were able to afford a week in central London, staying in a ramshackle Victorian flat near Charlotte Street. We could walk to Regents Park, Soho, Covent Garden and the river. A dream!

At the river:

Somerset House:

We spent most of our time catching up with friends, revisiting old haunts and even snuck in a couple of gigs.

Nick’s stag do:

With Frances at Pulp in Hyde Park:

Retroblogging Big Trip 2011: Week 1 Bristol part a

2011-08-08T00:18:00.000-07:00

After an all-too-brief evening with Amy & family, they headed off to France and we inhabited the house in their absence (we being the 4 of us plus my mum).

The main theme of the week was spending time with Dad. I picked him up from his wonderful care home every day and he would spend a few hours with us playing with the kids, watching the tennis and sharing old, familiar jokes.

The Goose:

Matching hats:

We also spent some time in the lovely city of Bristol and took advantage of the gloriously lopsided exchange rate to indulge in a rampant shopping spree – M with clothes and jewellery, me with second hand books and Fopp.

A trip to a city farm:

B1 acquired a new best friend:

SS Great Britain:

Sydney Film Festival; Seriously Fantastic Fun

2011-06-20T19:43:00.000-07:00

8 more films to wrap up Sydney Film Festival 2011, which I enjoyed more than any of the festivals I have attended over the past few years.

Tyrranosaur
The directorial debut of Paddy Considine, one of my favourite actors, features two other excellent performers from the same generation, Peter Mullan and Eddie Marsan. So it was a surprise to me that the standout performance in this hard-hitting film came from somebody with whom I was previously unfamiliar, Olivia Colman. The story is a grim one involving graphically presented domestic violence, and the audience is left considering the limits and appropriateness of forgiveness in extreme circumstances.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams
I had been looking forward to this a great deal as a confirmed Werner Herzog fan and after some excellent reviews elsewhere. It was quite amusing to see the festival crowd uncomfortably putting on their 3D specs but the use of depth really pays off when the camera lingers on the amazing 30,000 tear old cave paintings that are the film’s raison d’etre. An interesting doco enlivened by some typical Herzog flourishes.

Take Shelter
This kind-of-thriller about a family man who gets prophetic visions of horrible future events works well in its early stages with some effective horror movie stylings and a sense of dread. Basically a study of male impotent terror in the face of global forces (the GFC, climate change), the mental illness plot trajectory develops promisingly before being horribly undermined by a terribly ill-judged coda.

Sacrifice
One of those lavish Chinese period melodramas, this is one of the less interesting examples of the genre that I have seen. The plot gets very tangled early on and never quite recovers, but the imposing performance of Wang Xue Qi as the baddie is never less than enjoyable.

There’s Always Tomorrow
On my film course, David Stratton occasionally gets grumpy about us laughing inappropriately at moments which, to a contemporary audience, would have been moments of high drama. After watching this admittedly hokey 1956 melodrama accompanied by the sound of constant chuckling at its earnestness, I see the bloke’s point. The noises off were a distraction from a handsome production that featured Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray in well-written roles as former lovers that meet again later in life. The result is a typically Sirkian critique of marriage; the family unit is subversively depicted as suffocating and dull, but ultimately social stability is restored by personal sacrifices being made.

Senna
The petrol heads invaded the State Theatre for this doco, which made for a lively and unusual atmosphere. I have about as much interest in Formula 1 as I do in automated pool cleaners, but this brilliant doco does such an excellent job of telling its compelling story that I was utterly gripped throughout. Superb, and the “Rosebud” moment at the very end had me floored.

Meek’s Cutoff
I’m not sure I exactly enjoyed this slow, meditative Western while it was unfolding, but the sudden ending really had me thinking about how much it had to say on an allegorical level. A conventional resolution would have had a reductive effect on the questions it raised about the nature of leadership and democracy.

Corman’s World
It seemed appropriate to end the festival with a shamelessly hagiographic celebration of a great film maverick, the incomparable Roger Corman. Much is made of his influence over those who he mentored, who went on to become the great Hollywood generation of the 70s. Ironically, it was films by this generation such as Jaws and Star Wars that put an end to the drive-in culture that was Corman’s lifeblood and exiled him to the slightly sad world of straight-to-video.

I was also supposed to see Stake Land, but by this stage I was exhausted and just wanted to head home to remind myself what my children look like.

14 movies in total, then, and 2011 was a particularly good vintage for female actors (Jessica Chastain, Olivia Colman, Michelle Williams) and documentaries of both the conventional and unconventional sort (Senna, The Arbor).

The best film of the year? A tie between Tree of Life (for its ambition) and Senna (for its emotional impact).

Book Meme

2011-06-16T23:58:00.000-07:00

Another book meme, this one’s from Con.

1. The book I’m currently reading:
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch. I have a vague mission to read all of the winners of the Booker Prize, and this picked it up in 1978. I’m about halfway through.

Also, see 5.

2. The last book I finished:
The History of Mr Polly by H.G. Wells. I quite like it.

3. The next book I want to read:
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. I’ve read it before, and really admired it, but I fear it may have been a clunky translation. I have since picked up a more recent version and I am looking forward to revisiting.

4. The last book I bought:
Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer. The title made me snicker and it had a bit of buzz, so I picked it up when I saw it in my local Vinnie’s. It wasn’t up to snuff.

5. The last book I was given:
The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker. This has been my bedside dipper-inner for a while now, I really should get around to having a serious attempt on its 700 pages.

Sydney Film Festival - So Far, Fun

2011-06-15T21:49:00.000-07:00

The Sydney Film Festival 2011 has been up and running for a while now, but I’ve only really jumped on board in the last couple of days. I’m going hard, though, 6 films so far and then 1 tonight, 3 on Saturday and 5 (five) on Sunday.

The movies so far:

The White Balloon
Actually a 1995 film, showing as part of the Jafar Panahi retrospective in recognition of the fact that the director is currently serving a six year jail term in Tehran for the crime of making movies. Anyway, The White Balloon was his debut and is typical of the Iranian films of the period in its use of children to act out allegorical political tales, its wry humour and its deadpan acting style. The plot in its entirety: girl tries to buy goldfish. It’s pretty good, and the final shot superbly undercuts all of the audience’s sympathies.

Tree of Life
This was the movie I was most excited about, simply because it is directed by the genius that is Terrence Malick. The film intercuts three main strands. One is the childhood of a group of boys in Middle America in the 1950s Midwest, whose parents are a brutal Brad Pitt and an ethereal Jessica Chastain. The second features Sean Penn as one of the sons, now grown up, trying to deal with his unresolved issues mainly by staring out of the window of his workplace skyscraper. The third, and most controversial among the group I saw it with, has extended sequences of natural beauty including waterfalls, undersea creatures, nebulae and even CGI dinosaurs. I was in a minority, but I think it worked together superbly and, even if you don’t get on with it, you have to admire the visual magnificence on display and the insane ambition it shows.

Win Win
Some light relief with a decent, predictable comedy from Tom McCarthy. It’s all fine, mixing together some amusing elements but with slightly too much stock humour of the swearing children variety. It’s a mild disappointment from the director of the gently sweet The Station Agent.

Microphone
Typical festival fare, this. A straightforward story set in an exotic locale with the odd arty flourish, the storyline loses momentum early on but the depiction of Alexandria’s youth subcultures retains interest. The film is at its best when the narrative stops and we can just watch the musicians, rappers, skaters and graffiti artists doing their thing.

The Mill and The Cross
An ingenious idea superbly executed, this visually ravishing film appears to take place entirely within Peter Bruegel's 1564 painting "The Way to Calvary". The characters move across a landscape blending outdoor locations and paintings in a way that I have never seen before in the cinema. The first half of the movie takes its time depicting the brutal life of the 16th century Dutch peasantry, oppressed by Spanish invaders, and then segues into an interpretation of the Passion. A fascinating insight into the work of a great artist, and a study of how old stories can be interpreted anew in different ages and using different media.

The Arbor
Oof, this was tough going. A sort-of documentary about the life of 1980s British playwright Andrea Dunbar, the film continues after her early death to chronicle the sad life of her oldest daughter Lorraine. A few keywords will give you a sense of it; racism, domestic violence, crack, heroin, prostitution, rape, child death. Grim stuff then, but the narrative technique makes it work. The film-makers use audio from interviews of the main participants which is placed into the mouths of actors who lip-synch whilst addressing the camera directly. Innovative and though-provoking.

Lots of fun so far, plenty more to come.

Knowing the Score

2011-06-14T19:23:00.002-07:00

Earlier this week I thoroughly enjoyed listening to a special edition of the BBC’s Kermode & Mayo ever-excellent film podcast dedicated to classic film scores. There were 11 pieces that got selected for performance by the BBC Philharmonic. All had to be orchestral and no composer could be represented twice (except John Barry, evidently).

The final list was as follows:

1) Star Trek – Jerry Goldsmith
2) Taxi Driver - Bernard Herrmann
3) Midnight Cowboy – John Barry
4) Blue Velvet – Angelo Badalamenti
5) The Godfather – Nino Rota
6) The Mission - Ennio Morricone
7) James Bond – Monty Norman/John Barry
8) 2046 - Shigeru Umebayashi
9) There Will Be Blood – Johnny Greenwood
10) The Magnificent Seven - Elmer Bernstein
11) Raiders of the Lost Ark - John Williams

A pretty good list, I’m sure you’ll agree. Midnight Cowboy is a huge favourite of mine, not least because M&I watched the DVD on our wedding night (no, really). The Mission and The Magnificent Seven both gave me goosebumps, and 2046 was a beautiful revelation, making me want to watch the film.

What was missing? Nothing blatant really, but personally I would have had Deborah's theme from Once Upon A Time In America for Morricone and Amarcord for Rota.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0jFrXO22_o&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAtraEGuHHk

What have I missed?

(irony) Another Quiet Sunday (/irony)

2011-06-08T17:28:00.000-07:00

Sunday was hectic.

1) Train ride to the city! The Bs rarely travel by public transport, so it’s a treat for them, especially B2 who has a very boy-ish love of all methods of transport. A nod of acknowledgement to CityRail, whose Family FunPass is ridiculously good value. A trip of around 32km.

2) Breakfast with Lou and Jon, always a pleasure.

3) Off to Prince Alfred Park for the National Day of Climate Action rally. It’s years since I attended a political do, but M suggested we go and I happily agreed. Reading the Australian press you might believe that Julia Gillard and Cate Blanchett are the only people who support a price on carbon, so it was great that a big turnout resulted in some media coverage of those that have a differing opinion.

4) 50km journey out to Kenthurst for lunch with the Player collective, largely to plan a 4WD trip next weekend. Irony acknowledged and noted.

5) 33km trip to a cinema to see Source Code. Really rather good.

6) 16km to Sydney Opera House to see Chris Cunningham perform his audiovisual spectacular. To be honest the visual was more spectacular than the audio but it was still a headshreddingly intense experience.

7) Finally a 67km journey home via Grandma’s to pick up the Bs and head home for a well-earned rest.

A total journey distance of around 200km going from the centre of Sydney to its most distant outskirts twice. Daft, really.

Biblical Revelations

2011-05-31T23:35:00.000-07:00

I’ve been reading the Bible in its entirety for a while (since 2005, on and off) in the Authorised King James Version. I’ve finally finished it, pleasingly enough, on the 400th anniversary of publication. It’s an experience I’d recommend to anyone, particularly Christians.

It’s a phenomenal book, a crazed mash-up of history, mythology, poetry, philosophy and law. It spans a vast range of human experience and ranges from the ecstatically beautiful to the downright vile.

From an atheistic point of view it is virtually impossible to derive a coherent morality from the entire stew, except maybe that circumcision is for some reason a Very Good Thing. For every "love thy neighbour" there’s a "slaughter the heretics", and the split between old and new testaments is not as clear-cut as mainstream theology would have you believe.

The various books can be broadly categorised as:

1) Rollocking good stories (Genesis, Exodus, the gospels)
2) Loony prophecies (Isiah, Revelation)
3) Gorgeous poetry (Song of Solomon, Proverbs) – KJV essential here
4) Obnoxious lawmaking (Leviticus, Deuteronomy, much of the Pauline epistles)
5) Really boring bits (the Apocrypha, most of the NT between John and
Revelation)

My favourite books are Exodus, Song of Solomon, Matthew and James – all highly recommended.

Also recommended is the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible, a somewhat OCD record of the bible with descriptions of every morally outrageous instruction, blatant internal contradiction and laughably idiotic claim.

Sprog Rock

2011-05-19T20:20:00.000-07:00

My iPod shuffle threw up a song I’ve never really listened to before the other day, "Charmed Life" by The Divine Comedy. It’s a very sweet song addressed to his daughter, and pretty well reflects my views on how life has turned out for me, ie extremey fortunately.

It got me thinking about songs addressed to musical offspring.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csef7e_2SUA

John Martyn ups the saccharine quotient even further, but just about gets away with it (if you have the aural equivalent of a sweet tooth) in “My Baby Girl”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNVq4ZvwCLM

Jarvis and co go for the self-loathing option in Pulp’s unutterably gorgeous “A Little Soul”, also featuring a guitar solo that I find inexplicably tear-jerking. If they play this when I see them on July 3rd my head may melt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1Nkq-NEyP8

And finally, trust Shaun Ryder to take us down to the gutter in the classic opening verse of Happy Mondays' “Kinky Afro”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3XIlEUO-VE

What have I missed?

Nana in Oz

2011-05-16T21:56:00.001-07:00

Mum’s visit was a pleasure for all concerned. It’s great that we see so much of her and she is such an important part of the kids’ lives.

She spent a few days acclimatising in Sydney before we headed off on a wonderful trip that took in Canberra, the ski resort Thredbo and Robertson in the picturesque Southern Highlands.

A few highlights.

Questacon is the wonderful science museum in Canberra. The Bs would have been happy to spend days there.

Thredbo is a lovely town in a gorgeous area, and out of ski season you can get a very swanky apartment at reasonable cost. The Bs are still talking about it several weeks later, the most common themes being the toboggan run (B1) and the chairlift up to Mt Kosciuszko (B2).

M&I have spent time in the Southern Highlands before, but it always a pleasure to reacquaint oneself with the area...

...with the notable exception of Robertson’s “Big Potato”, truly an abomination of a tourist destination and known to locals as the Big Turd.

Alright, I admit it, I kind of liked it.

Now to start getting organised for Big Trip 2011.

Many more photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomgoodfellow

Bye bye bats

2011-04-13T23:53:00.000-07:00

As a boy I always imagined bats as elusive creatures, occasionally glimpsed flitting by a street light on a winter’s night. They epitomised mystery.

Sydney’s flying foxes have always had a different idea. In the city’s botanical gardens, they hang brazenly from low-hanging trees in the glaring sunlight. I have enjoyed showing this sight to visitors, who are invariably gobsmacked.

I was sad, then, when I heard that the botanicals bat colony will shortly be no more. They are being “dispersed” because they are damaging the flora, which is understandable if regrettable.

I popped down the other day with my mum and the Bs to say farewell. Nobody knows where the bats will end up after the dispersal begins in a fortnight, but I hope it is a place where I can go and visit them.

Trippy

2011-04-11T03:53:00.000-07:00

Another blog hiatus, simply because nothing particularly noteworthy has been happening. Well, a few things but mainly along the lines of having a new kitchen installed which don’t even interest me, and it’s my kitchen.

All this is about to change, though, with a run of trips now imminent for me, M and the Bs.

1) Road trip to Thredbo with Mum. She is visiting for a few weeks so I’ve got some time off work. Thredbo is bashttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifically a ski resort, so going off season means we could get some pretty swish accommodation on the cheap. It looks beautiful down there, if a little chilly, and we’re right next to a swimming pool if all else fails. Jigsaws, books and DVDs will provide relaxing entertainment in the evenings.

2) 4 wheel drive camping trip with the Player collective. I’ve never done anything like this before and I have no idea how either me or the kids will enjoy it but what the heck. I’ll try anything once except incest and country dancing, as they say.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

3) Big Trip 2011.Already very booked up for the next UK visit, involving 2 weeks in sunny Bristol with family types, a week staying in central London and a week in Toulouse. (London types, drop me a line). Also scheduled are gigs from the Flaming Lips and (yes!) the mighty Pulp, a possible flying visit oop north, and even a wedding. I love a good wedding, me.

Anger re birds

2011-03-08T17:40:00.000-08:00

So, we got a couple of chickens.

They live in our back garden, ostensibly confined to a corner with a coop. Unfortunately, despite repeated attempts to keep them in place they always seem to contrive a method of clambering onto a window ledge/cubby house/compost bin and launching themselves with a wild, ungainly flap into the garden. Here they are are free to roam and cluck and, most of all, poo away to their tiny little hearts' content. As a result, the lawn has become a no-go zone for me due to the risk of a soft grey ooze attaching itself to my feet following me around for the rest of the day.

M&Bs love them. They enjoy the notion of having pets, and make a ritual of heading into the garden to check whether they have laid any eggs that day (yes, usually).

On the other hand, I regard them as a semi-evolved pestilence, dim-wittedly squawking at me through the kitchen window as if mocking my attemps at a peaceful existence, whilst dementedly crapping all over my carefully nurtured grass.

I think we can all see who is being reasonable here.

A Question Of Upbringing

2011-02-09T16:41:00.000-08:00

That cliché about kids growing up too fast? It’s true you know.

B1 started school this week, which makes me feel extremely old (38 this Sunday in fact). She’s having a great time and is already taking stuff on board from class that we never pushed at home. For example:

B1 (hands dad a piece of paper); Daddy, what have I written here?
Dad; BLKDG HBSES…they’re very good letters sweetheart but I’m not sure they make up words.
B1; Oh well, I was trying to write Black Dog and Hobbes (2 of her cuddly toys) by sounding out the letters.
Dad; Holy moses….Shell! Shell! She can write!

Meanwhile, in “this never happened in my day” news…

We were having lunch at the pub a few days back but we had foolishly forgotten to bring coloured pencils and what-have-you for the increasing bored kids. M, all nonchalant like, said “Just download an app for them”. A couple of minutes and $1.19 later, they were both happily hunched over the phone playing a Wiggles game.

They'll never regard that as weird, will they?

Gigtastic

2011-02-03T00:03:00.000-08:00

2 very different gigs for M&I last weekend.

On Friday there was a cultured affair, Sufjan Stevens at the Sydney Opera House under the aegis of the Sydney Festival. Abstract art-pop played by a man in a dayglo outfit, 2 backing singers with knowingly naff dance routines and two trombone players.

On Saturday we were at the deeply unpleasant Coogee Bay Hotel for Primal Scream doing their classic Screamadelica LP, an album without which M&I would never have met. Rocked out version of drugged out classics played by scuzzy Glaswegian boys and a bass player with any number of claims to fame.

Totally different, as I say, but both already contenders for gig of the year. Magnificent.

Photomontage

2011-02-01T22:07:00.000-08:00

The last couple of weeks have been scorching hot here in Sydney, which has been great for the Bs. The pool at the end of our street has been getting visits two or three times a day (improving their swimming skills no end), with the odd trip to a shady park thrown in.

We had a fun outing the other night to the Botanical Gardens (right on Sydney Harbour)for the Australian Shakespeare Company production of The Wind in the Willows.

The story was an important one in my childhood, so I was delighted how engaged B1 was by the energetic highly entertaining show. She even got to meet the star.

B2 found it a little bemusing so he sat at the back with M&I and our friends Richard and Louise, munching away on cheese and crackers.

Retroblogging: The Ashes

2011-01-20T20:42:00.000-08:00

I am quite enjoying the one day series between England and Australia ( a good start in game 2 as I write), but it is as nothing compared to the all-consuming, life-enhancing, tantric joy that was the Ashes.

I have suffered a couple of dismal series since I’ve been living in Oz, and there’s no more drawn out misery than coming in to work from the end of November through to early January to a mixture of smirking derision and patronising pity. Test cricket is agonising to lose, but I was reasonably confident at the start and even retained a quiet smugness after Australia drew level in Perth.

I guess Boxing Day 2010 is one of the greatest days in the history of English cricket. The Ashes in the balance, a huge crowd at the MCG, and we roll the Aussies for ninety-chuffing-eight and proceed to 157/0 by the close. Joy unconfined!

The icing was getting along to Day 4 at the SCG with a collection of Aussies (M, Lou, Dani and Todd). By this stage the home crowd’s mood had slumped to jaded resignation, but we had a good time nevertheless and I tried to soft-pedal the gloating as much as I could. Question of the day: Why Is Hilfenhaus?

Retroblogging: New Year at the Q Station

2011-01-12T22:07:00.000-08:00

We spent New Year at the wonderful Q Station (nee Quarantine Station). In fact we stayed there for four nights. The kids had a whale of a time playing on the beach and in the sunshine, while I grumpily holed up in the cottage with a big fat Trollope or headed into Manly for a browse at the divine Desire Books.

The Q Station offers a magnificent view back along the harbour towards the city, so the view for the New Year’s Eve fireworks is tremendous. The kids stayed up for the 9 o’clock show and then collapsed into bed gratifyingly quickly so we could get on with the main business of the evening.

Retroblogging: Christmas

2011-01-11T15:30:00.000-08:00

We had a fine Christmas, lots of in-law based family fun and the Bs generally having a splendid time.

Favourite conversation:

B1 – “Where am I going to see Grandma sing in a choir?
Me – “In a church.”
B1 – “What’s a church?”

Favourite gift (given to B2 by Greg and Julia):

2010 Reading Review

2011-01-06T18:19:00.000-08:00

(Cross-posted from the book blog)

I've read 133 books this year, but that number is vastly inflated by the 33 books of the bible in there, many of which are barely more than poems. Once I'd set the precedent of Genesis, Exodus et al counting I was stuck with it. 100 is good, though.

Best Book: Revolutionary Road, with honourable mentions to Cannery Row, Anglo-Saxon Attitudes, The Woodlanders, Brooklyn, Bad Science

Worst Book: I'll go with The Slap because it's been so highly praised

Longest Book: The Last Chronicle of Barset

Shortest Book: One of those poems from the Apocrypha

Non-Fiction Books: 20

Australian Authors: 8

Female Authors: 12 (oh dear, oh dear)

The Complete List

The Autograph Man - Zadie Smith
Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons - Bill Watterson
Cannery Row - John Steinbeck
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
My Name Escapes Me - Alec Guinness
Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov
Traffic - Tom Vanderbilt
The Sign of the Four - Arthur Conan Doyle
Changing Places - David Lodge
The Small House at Allington - Anthony Trollope
What Is History? - E.H. Carr
Another Country - James Baldwin
The Sound of One Hand Clapping - Richard Flanagan
Helena - Evelyn Waugh
Parrot and Olivier in America - Peter Carey
The Spare Room - Helen Garner
The Small Back Room - Nigel Balchin
Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
Why Evolution Is True - Jerry Coyne
Solar - Ian McEwan
Flatland - Edwin Abbott Abbott
The Leopard - Giuseppe di Lampedusa
Asterix and the Soothsayer - Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and six other stories - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Martin Chuzzlewit - Charles Dickens
Heat and Dust - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Preacher: Gone To Texas - Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon
Pnin - Vladimir Nabokov
Offshore - Penelope Fitzgerald
The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
Unweaving The Rainbow - Richard Dawkins
King Solomon’s Mines - H.Rider Haggard
The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
Psalms
The Red Queen - Margaret Drabble
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
Anglo-Saxon Attitudes - Angus Wilson
The Shortest History of Europe - John Hirst
Rites of Passage - William Golding
Preacher: until the end of the world - Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon
Isaiah
Staying On - Paul Scott
Chocky - John Wyndham
Hitch 22 - Christopher Hitchens
Jeremiah
Anvil! The Story of Anvil - Lips & Robb Reiner
Lamentations
Last Chronicle of Barset - Anthony Trollope
Deaf Sentence - David Lodge
Voodoo Histories - David Aaranovitch
A Positively Final Appearance - Alec Guiness
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
A Fraction of the Whole - Steve Toltz
The Rachel Papers - Martin Amis
Ezekiel
Daniel
Hosea
Joel
The Night Watch - Sarah Waters
Amos
Obadiah
Hunger - Knut Hamsun
Jonah
Micah
Nahum
Habbakuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
Dry Store Room No.1; the secret life of the Natural History Museum - Richard Fortey
Breath - Tim Winton
Preacher: proud Americans - Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon
The Woodlanders - Thomas Hardy
Small World - David Lodge
The Slap - Christos Tsiolkas
Zechariah
Malachi
Black Mischief - Evelyn Waugh
1 Esdras
City Secrets: books, the essential insider’s guide - Mark Strand (ed.)
The Hours - Michael Cunningham
Metamorphoses - Ovid
2 Esdras
The Book of Evidence - John Banville
The Brothers Rico - Georges Simenon
Tobit
Judith
Additions to Esther
The Little Friend - Donna Tartt
The Idea of Perfection - Kate Grenville
Diary of a Provincial Lady - EM Delafield
Prayer of Mannaseh
Wisdom of Solomon
How Late It Was, How Late - James Kelman
The Secret of Father Brown - GK Chesterton
Trouble With Lichen - John Wyndham
We Need To Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver
The Iron Staircase - Georges Simenon
The Finkler Question - Howard Jacobson
Wisdom of Sirach
Darkness At Noon - Arthur Koestler
Baruch
Prayer of Azarias and Hymn of the Three Children
A Mathematician’s Apology - GH Hardy
Chess - Stefan Zweig
Susanna
Bel and the Dragon
Bad Science - Ben Goldacre
1 Maccabees
2 Maccabees
Tommy Cooper; always leave them laughing - John Fisher
The Razor’s Edge - W. Somerset Maugham
The Beautiful and the Damned - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Brooklyn - Colm Toibin
The Scandal of Father Brown - G.K. Chesterton
The Hard Shoulder - Chris Petit
Trick or Treatment?: alternative medicine on trial - Simon Singh & Edzard Ernst
Travels With My Aunt - Graham Greene
The Heather Blazing - Colm Toibin
The Ginger Man - J.P. Donleavy
The Age of Revolution; Europe 1789-1848 - E.J. Hobsbawm
The Siege of Krishnapur - J.G. Farrell
Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi
Appointment in Samarra - John O’Hara
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Violins of Saint-Jacques: A tale of the Antilles - Patrick Leigh Fermor
Greenmantle - John Buchan
Just One More Thing - Peter Falk
The Reader - Bernard Schlink
Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami
The English People - George Orwell
The Conversations at Curlow Creek - David Malouf
Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates

Top-grossing movie meme

2011-01-06T17:03:00.000-08:00

A meme to kick off this year's blogging, as seen at Ruminations.

Top 25 Box Office of 2010 (as of December 13, 2010)

1. Toy Story 3 ($415M) Excellent, but not the masterpiece some have called it
2. Alice in Wonderland ($334.2M) A massive disappointment
3. Iron Man 2 ($312.1M) As with the first movie, first half good, second half tedious
4. Eclipse ($300.5M)
5. Inception ($292.5M) The best Hollywood movie of the year by a mile
6. Deathly Hallows Part 1 ($259.2M) Pretty good, exciting sighting of the Dartford Tunnel
7. Despicable Me ($250.3.7M)
8. Shrek Forever After ($238.4M)
9. How to Train Your Dragon ($217.6M) Some good jokes, sweet-natured
10. The Karate Kid ($176.6M)
11. Clash of the Titans ($163.2M)
12. Grown Ups ($162M)
13. Megamind ($140.6M)
14. The Last Airbender ($131.6M)
15. Shutter Island ($128M) Interesting enough, but the twist was a damp squib
16. The Other Guys ($119.2M) Some good gags
17. Salt ($118.3M)
18. Tangled ($117.2M) (Planning on taking the kids to this over the weekend)
19. Jackass 3-D ($116.8M)
20. Valentine’s Day ($110.5M)
21. Robin Hood ($105.3M) (Saw the first half on DVD, rubbish)
22. The Expendables ($103.1M)
23. Date Night ($98.7M) Low-key jokes excellent. set-pieces embarrassing
24. Due Date ($95.4M)
25. Sex and the City 2 ($95.3M)

9 out of 25 is not great, but I have to say this is a lame list. I suppose my taste and that of the teenage masses are not in accordance. I managed to see 37 movies at the cinema in total.

Favourite Songs of 2010

2010-12-21T22:36:00.000-08:00

In no particular order:

Tightrope - Janelle Monae

Windstorm - School of Seven Bells

One Life Stand - Hot Chip

Fuck You - Cee Lo Green

Almost Nearly There - The Boo Radleys (a reissue, but what the heck)

Baby Lee - Teenage Fanclub

Go Do - Jonsi

What have I missed?

An intense bout of apathy

2010-12-14T15:26:00.000-08:00

Hello! It’s been a while. How you doing?

Me? I’ve been good, thanks for asking. Watched some good movies, saw Mark E Smith doing his thing, read some fine literature. Enjoying the Ashes and the Arsenal.

Kids are good, M is good, everything is good.

Haven’t got round to blogging much. Will strive to do better. New year, fresh start.

Photos on Flickr.

Holidays start on Friday. Merry Christmas!

Tom TAM - The Amazing Meeting Australia

2010-11-29T20:48:00.000-08:00

The Amazing Meeting (TAM) finally arrived in Australia this weekend, and it was a splendid event.

For those who don't know, TAM is an international gathering of self-proclaimed sceptics, which in this context means those who apply rational ideas and critical thought to all aspects of life. We get a lot of fun out of yeti hunters and ufologists, but more importantly we look at the quacks of alternative medicine and the sinister, life-endangering anti-vaccination lobby.

Most of the weekend was spent at conference style speeches and workshops featuring the likes of Dick Smith and Dr Karl.

Here's a snap of the panel on scepticism and the law, featuring (l-r) Martin Hadley, Nicholas Cowdery, Simon Singh and Julian Morrow:

The event took place over the whole weekend, which gave everybody the chance to meet up with some luminaries of the movement, as well as a whole bunch of like-minded folk. Here's me with some famous-to-a-self-selecting-minority mini-celebs:

The Amazing Randi, godfather of the sceptical scene.

Steve Novella, clinical neurologist and podcaster.

Eugeneie Scott, anti-creationism campaigner extraordinaire.

Sadly, Embiggen Books ran out of some extremely useful products early on:

But we did all get given official Placebo Bands, guaranteed as effective as $30 hologram/natural energy pathways/mumbo-jumbo based Power Band.

It was both fun and educational. Most of all, though, I found it inspirational. Next time I come across some bullshit woo-woo pseudomedicine out to con some innocent and possibly put them in danger, I won't just shrug but I'll do something about it. After all, children's lives may be at stake.

Review: Uncle Vanya at the Sydney Theatre Company

2010-11-24T22:08:00.000-08:00

Last night was an outing to see Uncle Vanya at the Sydney Theatre Company. It's a star-studded production, featuring Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, John Bell, Jacki Weaver and Richard Roxburgh. I've seen the play once or twice before so while I'm hardly familiar with it, I had a sense of how things were going to play out.

The direction emphasises humour and physicality over the more elegaic aspects of Chekhov's writing. This generally works thanks to Andrew Upton's ocker translation, although the crucial shooting scene is overplayed and seems to come from nowhere.

Blanchett's Yelena also seems to generally take things a notch too far, and is somewhat ungenerous in taking the limelight from other actors at times. To be fair, the character is supposed not to fit in to the milieu and seem a little OTT, and the effect is exacerbated by a starstruck crowd guffawing at every minor bit of business.

Roxburgh's ramshackle Vanya and Weaving's cynical doctor work well, but the real star for me is Hayley McElhinney as the naive young Sonya who gets some big laughs while maintaining a painful vulnerability.

That sounds a bit negative: it's a great play done well, and I did enjoy myself.

A memorable moment from the evening for me was Ross accidentally toppling a full glass of red wine all over me at the cafe beforehand. I enjoyed the play with a slightly moist groin, smelling faintly of blackberries and tannins.

Growing up

2010-11-22T20:23:00.001-08:00

Nothing too much going on with us right now, but a few bits and pieces worth noting.

1) Summer is kicking in, so lots of playing outside

and at the pool.

2) B1 got to look after Charlie the, erm, dog from daycare for a week, which she really enjoyed:

3) Charlie even muscled in on B1's "graduation" (sic) from daycare. It was a big show with a whole bunch of musical numbers that she had been practicing for months. My personal favourite was "Doh Re Mi" from The Sound of Music.

She starts school in January. Scary...

Hooray for us!

2010-11-11T14:25:00.000-08:00

It was M&I’s 10th wedding anniversary last week. Phew! It really doesn’t seem that long ago that we were dancing to Cliff Richard records with many of our favourite people in a community hall in Brentwood. So many happy memories of that day.

We celebrated with a child-free weekend in the city, staying in a fancy apartment, eating at a too-posh-for-the-likes-of-us restaurant, watching a mediocre play and f o u r (count ‘em) splendid movies. It was very “us”, and we had a lovely time.

Incidentally, the 10th wedding anniversary doubled up as the 13th anniversary of the day we met, watching Primal Scream at the Metro. Guess who we’re going to see at the Metro in January? We’re gonna have a good time, we’re gonna have a party.

Boo!

2010-11-03T20:29:00.000-07:00

Our Halloween sausage sizzle is beginning to acquire the look of an annual institution. We send out invites midweek and come 5 o’clock we have an array of ghosts, goblins and ghoulies appear on the doorstep for a trawl around the close. Whilst the trick-or-treating is taking place, I get the barbie started and everyone ends up back at our place for a snag in a bun.

We enjoy it because it gets the whole community together for a kid-focussed event that the adults can enjoy too. People seem to appreciate our efforts, so there’s no reason that we can’t continue for years to come.

(The witch near the back is B1, by the way).

Uncle John

2010-11-01T01:56:00.000-07:00

Last week was a melancholy affair, a couple of deaths bringing an air of sadness to everything.

The most significant for us was M’s Uncle John, a lovely character whose company I always enjoyed at family get-togethers. He made it to 80 in fine fettle but he died quite suddenly over the weekend. He led an interesting and eventful life but the last few years were tough after the death of his beloved Joan.

The funeral was lovely. John had written a letter to his sons that they found when they were going through his effects, and Craig read it out at the service. It was so moving and really encapsulated many of the things I would like to pass on to my kids after I’m gone.

Vale.

$175 reduced from $632

2010-10-18T03:01:00.000-07:00

M was in Canberra this weekend for a girls' weekend, so I had the Bs to myself for 3 days. I was somewhat worried beforehand as their collective energy levels exceed mine by several quanta, so I had images of myself collapsed on the sofa as they charged around spraying ice cream on the walls and eating poster paint.

As it turned out we had a great time. I guess my parenting skills have improved (unlikely), or they have reached an age where we can all enjoy conversation and, crucially, they can entertain each other while I take a more, er, supervisory role.

Anyway, I took a few snaps (more on Flickr).

We went to the park:

Had lunch at the RSL:

Went to the shops where I briefly lost this...

...because I was distracted buying these:

And throughout it all the Bs remained thoroughly adorable:

Although I was relieved when M got home.

Gangster wrap

2010-09-30T23:03:00.000-07:00

As with most movie fans of my age, male ones at least, my first cinematic loves were probably the Star Wars movies, followed at a later age by a lot of 1970s stuff by Coppola, Scorsese et al.

The first person to really pull me into the age of black-and-white, classic Hollywood where I've been residing ever since, though, was Jimmy Cagney. I remember watching White Heat on telly with my Dad, and it was an exhilarating experience. The rat-a-tat dialogue, the amoral brutality and that iconic "Top of the world, ma!" climax have stayed with me ever since.

On Sunday I went to a day-long "study day" all about Cagney, but it was less study and more of an indulgence from where I was sitting. 10 whole hours of it, from 9.30 to 7.30, taking in 4 movies. I'd seen 3 before (The Public Enemy, Yankee Doodle Dandy and One, Two, Three) and one was new to me (the terrific The Strawberry Blonde), and I enjoyed every moment.

Apparently it was a beautiful day in Sydney.

Red Dead Redemption, Scott Pilgrim and the future of narrative cinema

2010-09-26T22:15:00.000-07:00

There’s been a lot of media chatter in recent years about the challenge that computer games offer to traditional forms of narrative, in particular movies. The consensus view is that kids raised on open-ended games in which they are active participants will not be so interested in the more passive form, in which they are simply viewers.

I’ve recently had a couple of experiences that got me thinking about this.

The first is my current obsession with Red Dead Redemption on the PS3. It’s my first real console game experience and I love it: immersive, addictive and huge fun. I’ve been surprised, though, at the linear storyline.

It’s a gritty Western in the Sergio Leone tradition. By all means you can steal horses, shoot lawmen and generally cause mayhem, but when it comes to the material that actually moves the plot along you are obligedto act in a reasonably ethical and occasionally self-sacrificing way. In game terms this is fine, it’s the most enjoyable thing to do, but I couldn’t help but feel that the outcome had been pretty well pre-determined.

So much for open-endedness.

The second experience was watching Scott Pilgrim vs The World, a highly entertaining movie based on a comic book but aesthetically inspired by classic arcade games. There was a lot enjoy, in fact I laughed a lot, but the film’s failings stemmed entirely from its adherence to gaming concepts; repetitive fights on a gradually increasing scale that soon become a bit boring, and the relegation of the female lead to something approaching a trophy awarded for completing the quest.

In short:

Games following movie conventions; good.
Movies following gaming conventions; problematic.

D

2010-09-23T21:52:00.000-07:00

This is the 500th post on this blog, which I started back in June 2004 as a way of keeping in touch with friends in the UK, Australia and elsewhere. I'm glad I've maintained it since, partly because people still look at it now and again and partly because it serves as a diary of sorts for my own amusement.

I have definitely begun posting less often, largely because its original purpose has been largely superseded by Facebook. I intend to keep it alive, though, both as a link to non-FBers and as a space for more lengthy/discursive content.

By coincidence, today also sees the 500th post on Wrapped Up In Books, my book blog.

The Worst Book I Have (n)Ever Read; An Anti-Review

2010-09-07T21:35:00.000-07:00

In the past I have tried to make a point of completing any book that I have started. Dan Brown, Stieg Larsson, Jack Kerouac – I have suffered them all at length in honour of this ideal. I even waded through Samuel Richardson’s 1600 page borefest Clarissa, despite the fact that the blurb on the back gave away the ending.

I have now discovered my breaking point and it is the the reprehensible, the lamentable, the despicable:

Lennon: The Definitive Biography by Ray Coleman (1995 ed) aka The Worst Book I Have (n)Ever Read.

The 1995 is relevant here, because I didn’t get past page 70 of the preface to the new edition. I’ll say that again; page 70 of the preface to the new edition.

The scale of the task ahead of me in articulating the nature of this monstrosity is beyond my modest writing ability, so I will revert to bullet points.

• A complete absence of structure, rambling aimlessly from topic to topic to no evident purpose, combined with individual paragraphs so garbled as to denude the text of any meaning whatsoever.

• The apparently random insertion of adverbs such as ironically or tortuously, without any understanding of what the meaning of such a word may be. Page 66 boasts a typical example: “he had always been ‘bitterly ashamed’ of his Twist and Shout vocal – coincidentally, this writer’s favourite Lennon rock’n’roll track”. In what way is that coincidental, exactly?

• Treating the reader like an idiot, as in the phrase “the drug LSD”. Dude, I’m reading a John Lennon biography, I am likely to know what LSD is without your help.

• A complete musical/cultural tin ear, including a complete dismissal of Paul McCartney’s talents. At one point he describes a charity concert including “rock stars of the calibre of Eric Clapton and Phil Collins” and the “Russian singer-songwriter Mikhail Baryshnikov”. Really? REALLY?

By this point I was physically hurling the book away with such force that I was endangering our home fittings/children. The ever-wise M calmly placed her hand on my shoulder made the radical suggestion that I really should just…stop reading the dreadful thing.

And you know what? She was right.

Daddyday

2010-09-06T03:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Father's Day in Australia, which is a blatant Hallmark holiday but I got to stay in bed until 11 so I won't quibble. Even better, I got to eat this in bed:

The afternoon was spent with Clan Player celebrating various paternal relationships and playing on a tractor:

Bring on more American-import, faux traditional, commercially inspired events, say I!

B2=3

2010-08-30T04:02:00.000-07:00

It’s B2’s third birthday today. He’s a great lad, always cheerful and ready for adventure, and he is so happy to share his happiness with others.

The Bs and my marriage are the only two things I can legitimately describe as proud achievements in my life (and they are both more than 50% to M’s credit) but I reckon that’s more than enough to be getting along with.

Labyrinths

2010-08-23T22:24:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy, bitty few days, so this post will reflect my current fragmentary existence.

The kids made a couple of cute videos:

Neighbour Paul and I gave each other rather severe half-cut haircuts after a bibulous Sunday afternoon get-together:

Tomorrow I'm popping into hospital for an operation on my sinus polyps. I'f I'm lucky it will just be day surgery, but an overnight stay is likely. After long consideration, I've gone with The Slap as my bedside reading. For the first time, I kinda wish I had the flexibility of an ereader.

B1 sings!

2010-08-19T21:24:00.000-07:00

Beth loves her music and she's just learned this little number at daycare. At the moment, I think her enthusiasm trumps her delivery:

A Bridge Too Far

2010-08-10T19:48:00.000-07:00

An incident from a couple of weeks back that I didn’t get to blog about:

I left work in my new little Toyota Yaris at 6-ish, and began the slow drive home through the darkness and the rain. I was still a little jet-lagged from the Big Trip, and I was also pre-occupied with planning for the imminent trip to Splendour.

(Can you sense me getting my excuses in early here?)

About halfway across Sydney Harbour Bridge, aka Australia’s busiest road, the car started acting strangely, not responding to the accelerator pedal and producing all sorts of incomprehensible lights on the dashboard. Realising that I wasn’t getting much further, I managed to coast to a sliproad just off the main highway before I finally conked out.

With my hazards flashing and the rush hour traffic whizzing past me on either side at 100 km/h, I stumbled out to the median strip and made for the blue Emergency Phone. Shivering with cold, I picked up the receiver and gratefully heard the sound of a ring…and ring…and ring…until it eventually rang out. No bugger at the other end! I trudged back to the car and hunkered down, trusting to the CCTV cameras to alert The Authorities to my presence.

Evidently they did – hooray for the surveillance society! I had been there for fewer than 10 minutes when the orange lights of a repair truck appeared in the rear view mirror and two nice chaps/angels from heaven appeared to tow me away.

The ensuing dialogue went something like this:

Nice chap: “Any idea what the problem is?”
Me: “I don’t understand anything about cars. Well…I may have, um, run out of petrol.”
Nice chap: “Whoops! (fiddles with keys and dashboard) Yep, we’ll take you to the nearest servo.”

I shrivelled with embarrassment and sat meekly while they sorted my life out in a good-humoured and entirely cost-free manner. A brilliant service for very stupid people, I must say.

I am now neurotically conscious of my petrol meter and have assiduously learned what all of the dashboard symbols indicate.

One of the most humiliating moments of my life.

Crybaby

2010-08-10T19:46:00.000-07:00

B2 has a habit at the moment of bursting into tears at the slightest provocation. Most of the time he is a regular happy kid, but occasionally M&I will hear a desperate howl and rush to his side only to find that he has dropped something and is too overwhelmed to pick it up again, or something similarly inconsequential. It’s hard, because his distress is real but my initial reaction would be to laugh, which wouldn’t be very supportive of the wee fella.

Having said which, this picture has kept me amused for days:

Splendid

2010-08-02T22:16:00.000-07:00

I had thought my camping based festival days were behind me but when M&I saw the line-up for Splendour in the Grass 2010, we got on the phone to my mother-in-law and arranged baby-sitting (thanks, Val!).

We threw money at the situation, buying plane tickets up to Brisbane rather than doing the road trip, and paying for a pre-erected tent to save us any hassle:

The site was spectacular, a wooded area with a brilliant natural amphitheatre for the main stage. Not only was the amphitheatre rather beautiful, which meant that even shorter audience members had a great view. Yes, I am talking about M here.

As for the music, as is often the case we never saw many of the bands we were excited about prior to attendance but caught some great stuff that we had never heard of beforehand. Highlights included LCD Soundsystem, Hot Chip, Oh Mercy, Laura Marling and the divine Jonsi. Lowlights were the queue to get in, forgetting to go see Grizzly Bear and the flight home being cancelled.

Hell, maybe we'll even go again next year.

We're back! Briefly...

2010-07-28T00:09:00.000-07:00

Hello? Is this computer on? Oh, right, thanks.

Here I am, back in the land of the vaguely living and rushing to report on Big Trip 2010 before we’re off on our next adventure. To summarise:

1) M&Bs had a great time in the USA. San Francisco was as gorgeous as M has always told me it is (her third time there, grr...), and time spent with Sara and family in Utah is always a delight.

I spent my week alone watching the World Cup and playing the stunning Red Dead Redemption. Kinda pathetic but, sadly, when I'm on my own I am kinda pathetic.

2) My Dad was as well as we could have hoped. He's settling in well to his new home in Bristol near my sister. The staff seemed very nice and knew who I was without explanation, suggesting that they had a fair idea about his life and the importance of him as an individual. Amy has done a great job of his room, full of photos and familiar paintings.

In himself he is clearly being well looked after. He is frail and he cannot really lay down new memories, but he is happy in the moment. He is aware who I am straight away and figures out M&Bs by context, though we try and help him along with conversational pointers.

Inexplicably, his moustache was shaved off by somebody but it's back now.

3) Cornwall and Edinburgh were excellent trips with family. The kids particularly enjoyed the beaches near Newquay. I sat and grumpily read a book, of course. On about the third day I was finally brow-beaten into going for a paddle and after literally around 10 seconds in the water I had a hugely painful encounter with a weever fish, which caused everybody else no end of amusement.

4) It was great to see those friends we did, but horrible to miss out so many people. Sorry if we missed you! We'll try and be better organised next year.

5) We landed on Sunday morning and by Sunday night we were at the Hordern Pavilion taking in a stunningly good double bill of Hot Chip and LCD Soundsystem. Seriously, I'm not sure I could cite a better gig experience. Tomorrow we're off oop north for the Splendour In The Grass festival when we get to see them all over again, together with Pixies, Frightened Rabbit, Flo & The Machine and various others. Hoping for more transcendent moments like this one:

Flying solo

2010-06-22T19:39:00.000-07:00

I’m off to the UK tomorrow, but with M&Bs in the States already I’ll be doing the journey alone. In recent years I have become accustomed to travelling with the kids and all of the paraphernalia that implies, originally nappies and milk bottles and later lollies and activity pads. It’ll be strange to be going with just a big fat Trollope for company.

Two things meme

2010-06-22T19:29:00.000-07:00

Another meme post (via Con)

Two names you go by:
1) Tom
2) Wee Tam

Two things you are wearing right now:
1) Brown jeans
2) A weary expression

Two things you would want (or have) in a relationship:
1) She makes me laugh
2) We look after each other

Two things you like to do:
1) Scuba diving
2) Learning new stuff

Two things you want very badly at the moment:
1) Some sleep
2) Some more sleep

Two things you did last night:
1) Accidentally lassoed a sheriff when attempting to capture an outlaw, and consequently had a bounty put out on me
2) Laughed at Raymond Domenech

Two things you ate today:
1) Pumpkin and feta Turkish
2) Apple and walnut bread

Two people you last talked to:
1) Moko
2) Cassie

Two things you’re doing tomorrow:
1) Watching England and Australia both limp out of the World Cup
2) Catching a flight to the UK

Two Favorite Holidays
1) Any time in London
2) NYC

Two favourite beverages:
1) Beer
2) Diet Coke

Two things about me you may not have known:
1) My hand is visible in the video to Bruce Springsteen’s “Spare Parts”
2) I know all the words to Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. With my friend Blutakgirl, I once attempted a mash-up of Joseph and Hamlet called “Bodkin!”.

Two jobs I have had in my life:
1) Selling table linen at Selfridges
2) Cold call telephone surveys. Worst job ever.

Two movies I would watch over and over:
1) Vertigo
2) This Is Spinal Tap

Two places I have lived:
1) Forest Gate
2) Manor Park

Two of my favourite foods:
1) A good Indian curry, chicken dhansak maybe?
2) London broil

Two places I’d rather be right now:
1) Salt Lake City
2) BFI Southbank

What I Do When Nobody Is Watching

2010-06-21T01:31:00.000-07:00

M&Bs have started their Big Trip 2010 already, having spent 4 days in San Francisco and then gone on to visit Sara and family in Salt Lake City. M called me this morning and it sounds like they're having a smashing time.

Of course, I have had to keep myself occupied for five days, which is a bit of a challenge for me. I had a reasonably extensive to-do list(e.g. "clean the bathrooms"), but so far that has taken second place to more important things like "watch too much football" and "play Red Dead Redemption". I am comically bad at the latter, showing my age I guess, and my cowboy has a tendency to accidentally shoot sheriffs or ride his horse off a cliff. Really cool game though.

DVDs have had their place too, including the devastating weepie Make Way For Tomorrow and the 5h15m 1900, which features the unforgettable sight of Donald Sutherland headbutting a kitten to death (no, really). There is alo some sexual shenanigans featuring Robert De Niro and Gerald Depardieu that I won't detail here, but the Goofs section of the film's imdb page will give you some idea...

Sydney Film Festival 2010 round-up

2010-06-15T21:06:00.000-07:00

I got to 8 movies this year, my choices determined by a combination of what I knew about the films/film-makers and prosaic scheduling considerations. Here are a few thoughts on the films I saw.

White Material (Claire Denis)

Sight and Sound claimed last year that Denis is currently the best director in the world, so it wasn’t surprising how powerful this was. The always interesting Isabelle Huppert plays a coffee farmer doggedly staying at her plantation in Africa despite increasing social breakdown that soon encroaches on the family itself. Excellent stuff, though I was baffled by the denouement.

Lourdes (Jessica Hausner)

Pilgrims visiting Lourdes in the vain hope of receiving a miraculous cure from debilitating illness doesn’t sound like a natural subject for comedy, but this deadpan satire pulls it off. The horrible corporatisation of religion is demonstrated without it distracting from the desperate, doomed hopefulness of the characters. The cast is very good, in particular lead actress Sylvie Testud who has one of those wonderful cinematic faces.

Life During Wartime (Todd Solondz)

I missed the end of this due to an over-run, which should really disqualify me from commenting. From what I saw, though, it was far inferior to Happiness, to which it is a kind of sequel.

Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (Mat Whitecross)

This biopic of Ian Dury was overly derivative of the masterpiece 24 Hour Party People, but rescued by outstanding performances from Olivia Williams, Naomie Harris, Bill Milner, and an ebullient Andy Serkis as the great man himself. Afterwards, we all wanted to know more about Chaz Jankel who seemingly brought all of the musicianship to the Blockheads but had to put up with a horrendous amount of bullshit to do so.

Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno (Serge Bromberg & Ruxandra Medrea)

A delight for film nerds, this documentary details the disastrous, aborted production of a movie that just may have become a masterpiece. Certainly the unearthed footage of star Romy Schneider playing around while the technicians experimented with various lighting effects is startling. Sadly an excess of money sent the project spiralling towards destruction, but I couldn’t suppress a snicker when we learned that the moment that finally induced a heart attack in Clouzot was when he was filming a Sapphic clinch between his two leading ladies.

The Killer Inside Me (Michael Winterbottom)

The kerfuffle about its allegedly misogynist violence rather coloured my expectations of this noir, and even though the killing of Jessica Alba’s character in particular is really gut-wrenching I felt it was justified, unlike in a lot of exploitation movies and so on that don’t get the media so excited. There is a lot to admire here, including Casey Affleck’s fine central performance and the use of music, but as the subjective description of events becomes increasing detached from “reality” the film loses its way.

I Am Love (Luca Guadagnino)

Swoon! I loooved this, a slow burning, sensual treat that reminded me a lot of In The Mood For Love. It’s one of those films in which you can taste the food, smell the fields and touch the skin; I found it really intoxicating. There’s also lots of fun for cinephiles spotting the references to classics by Visconti, Hitchcock and others.

Wasted On The Young (Ben C Lucas)

This was a strange experience because I’m acquainted with the director, so as I was being impressed I also had a little meta-narrative in my head consisting primarily of phrases like “Holy shit, I can’t believe Ben made this!” Anyway, I posted a full review on imdb for your pleasure (short version; very impressive).

Having written all that I realise what a great festival it was. Barely a dud movie amongst them, and a few real treats.

TV meme

2010-06-12T23:26:00.001-07:00

(Some of the Australian library bloggers that I follow are throwing a few memes around at the moment, so if you don't enjoy such self-indulgence please forgive me. I'm not sure where this one originated, apologies)

Do you snack while watching TV?

Whyever wouldn't you?

What is your favourite TV show?

Impossible to say. It's horribly obvious, but The Wire is rather special isn't it?

What TV show makes you run to change channels?

A Current Affair is everything that I despise about everything I despise

How do you view your TV guide: online, on-screen, newspaper, magazine, other?

Online ususally

Have you ever been surveyed for your TV-viewing habits or do you know anyone who has been?

Nope

Do you watch TV news and/or current affairs regularly?

Not regularly, no. I have a radio in the car and I read the papers online so it would be superfluous.

Do you watch any TV “soaps”? (Truth please, even if it is embarrassing.)

Heavens no.

What other series shows do you try not to miss?

I "miss" everything (except sport) and come back to it later. It seems strange to lock oneself into watching a certain channel at a certain time each week. That's what DVD box sets are for

Any previous series or shows you really liked?

Loads, here's a sample. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; A Very Peculiar Practice; I Claudius; The Larry Sanders Show; The Prisoner; The Sopranos

Do you have pay TV or are the digital channels enough?

Much as I dislike handing my money over to Mr Murdoch, my scruples are as nothing to my need to watch Arsenal at strange times of night.

Do you only watch certain TV shows online?

ABC stuff including Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, QI, At The Movies and Mediawatch

Do you regularly use services like ABC catch-up or other online replays?

I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago.

Do you ever pay any attention to the adverts?

Not consciously, but they know what they're doing these people.

Do you multi-task while watching TV & if so what else are you doing?

Yep, especially if it's something in which the audio is paramount. None of your business what I get up to though.

Is there a TV show that makes you laugh out loud?

The Wire and The Sopranos are funnier than any comdies I've seen recently.

Have you ever said no to a social invitation to stay at home and watch TV? (Truth again please.) Mind telling us what the show was?

Not that I can recall.

Do you record TV shows & if so why and how (VCR, DVD recorder, TIVO, laptop, etc.)?

No need.

Least favourite TV personality/actor/character?

Off the top of my head...let's say Glenn Beck.

Most popular TV personalities/actors/character?

Alec Guiness doing George Smiley is hard to beat. For entirely different reasons, I'll also mention Christina Hendricks in Mad Men.

Have you ever seen anything really memorable on TV (not news/events - made for TV drama, etc.)?

A sex scene featuring Janine and (I think) Richie was kinda unforgettable...

Do you prefer TV series or stand-alone shows?

Series

Is there a specific show you find yourself recommending over and over?

All of the above.

Book meme

2010-06-10T22:21:00.000-07:00

Book meme (thanks to Con).

Do you snack while reading?

I am reading pretty well all the time, so I would probably suffer from malnutrition if I didn't.

What is your favourite drink while reading?

Beer is my favourite drink under any circumstances.

Do you tend to mark your books while you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?

Never, and I hate reading annotated books from the library. The notes are invariably irritating.

How do you keep your place? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book open flat?

Bookmarks. I try to pick them up wherever I go, but somehow always end up using postcards, shop receipts, old to-do lists etc.

Fiction, non-fiction or both?

Fiction mainly, I would guess to a ratio of about 6:1. It tends to be better written.

Do you tend to read to the end of a chapter or can you stop anywhere?

Anywhere, I actually stopped mid-word the other day (there was a page break and I was rushing to get off a train).

Are you the type of person to throw a book across the room or on the floor if the author irritates you?

I only remeber doing this with The Da Vinci Code. I got through the execrable The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo without doing so, somehow.

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop and look it up right away?

If I can. Latest example was "chid", which turns out to be simply the past tense of chide.

What are you currently reading?

Hitch 22 by Christopher Hitchens and Chocky by John Wyndham.

What is the last book you bought?

Solar by Ian McEwan.

Do you have a favourite time/place to read?

I actually really like reading in the pub. I think I picked this up because I am always the first member of a group to arrive, usually a little early, so I can grab a pint, pull the paperback out of my back pocket and settle in.

Do you prefer series books or stand-alones?

Usually stand-alones, but that's only because I tend towards literary fiction rather than genre stuff. Having said that, Anthony Powell's ten-volume A Dance To The Music Of Time was one of my greatest reading experiences.

Is there a specific book or author you find yourself recommending over and over?

This is hard, because my favourite books are often very wordy and very specifically English. I used to buy Iain Pears' An Instance of the Fingerpost for all and sundry, these days I might go with something by David Lodge or Evelyn Waugh.

How do you organize your books (by genre, title, author’s last name, etc.)?

To my professional shame, I don't really have a system. I have 2 dedicated "to read" shelves, everything else is grouped either by spine colour or by non-ficiton theme. That is to say, on one shelf I may have all of my orange-spined Penguins and on the adjacent one all of my movie books.

Big Trip 2010

2010-06-09T01:29:00.000-07:00

If it’s June, it must be time to start getting excited about the next Big Trip to the mother country. This year it’s going to be quite different for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, M&Bs are leaving Sydney 8 days earlier than me and taking in a little bonus trip to the USA, specifically San Francisco and Salt Lake City. The latter is to visit her old school friend Sara (after whom B1 is middle-named), the former having no function other than to annoy me on the grounds that it will be M’s third trip to that fine city while I’ve still never been. Grump.

Secondly, my Dad is moving to a home in Bristol this coming Thursday. This is tough stuff, obviously, but looking after him at his home has become too great a burden for the heroic combination of social services and my mum (who, after all, divorced him 20 years ago). The upshot of this in terms of Big Trip is that I’ll be spending more time in Brizzle and less in London/Brentwood. Still, I hope to see as many people as possible while we are around town. Get in touch if you want to book us up.

In the meantime, wish me luck for the 8 days on my lonesome. If only there was some kind of sporting event coming up that could serve as distraction.

A pictorial history of the last week or two

2010-06-03T17:59:00.000-07:00

A thoroughly pleasurable and variegated few days.

The Powerhouse Museum was ace, and the kids really enjoyed it:

M became a comedy hairdresser:

M & B2 looked angelic:

Until B2 became Satan:

Next up, the Sydney Film Festival.

Oh what a feeling of utter apathy

2010-05-24T02:10:00.000-07:00

I bought a new car yesterday, having wrecked my current one last week. I am so hopeless with both cars and money, I chose the machine that was the cheapest from the first dealership we visited. It's a Toyota Yaris and it's red.

I think the salesman was baffled by my evident lack of interest. He seemed to lose heart around the time I was handing out balloons to the Bs while he was talking about torque or somesuch. Still, I got a little bit of trade-in value for my unsellable lemon and I pick up the new one on Thursday.

I have also been trying to get sage leaves, but there appears to be some sort of shortage in Sydney. I swear I have spent more time this week failing to buy sage than I have buying a new motor.

How to kill your car

2010-05-20T19:28:00.000-07:00

Uh oh, looks like all this "having fun" business has caught up with me. I have been struggling with a heavy head cold for what feels like weeks now. I can neither smell nor taste a thing and I'm experiencing life's rich tapestry through a kind of narcoleptic fug.

I also managed to destroy my car by not immediately taking it to the mechanics when an insignificant-looking little light appeared on the dashboard. Instead I booked it into a service and kept on driving in the meantime. Outcome; an outpouring of smoke from the bonnet, disconsolate self on the side of the road for a couple of hours, my usual ritual humiliation at the mechanics and a $2600 bill. In fact, a complete restoration would cost another $6000, so we're now in the process of finding a new car, which is a real bore already and we've barely started.

I'll stop grouching now. Here's the kids playing "Freeze when the music stops".

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomgoodfellow/4623134371/

Too old for this shit? Not yet baby.

2010-05-10T18:13:00.000-07:00

I had kind of thought that my festival going days were behind me, what with being 37 years old and all, but that was before I saw the line-up for the spectacular looking Splendour In The Grass 2010. LCD Soundsystem, Pixies, Flo & Her Machine, Jonsi, Grizzly Bear, Broken Social Scene and so on and on and on.

Upon reading the announcement, M&I took a nanosecond or so to decide to go. Due to an entirely predictable website collapse, it took forever to get tix (2 hours pressing F5) but we got them and we are ON. 3 days in a field in winter? Yes!

Somebody may even play an appropriate song about feeling a little too old and out of place to be somewhere but doing it anyway to make us feel somehow melancholy and jubilant at the same time.

Wilco will love you baby

2010-05-03T03:08:00.000-07:00

The splendid Wilco were in town this weekend. They did a strange deal whereby you could buy a regular ticket for their show at the State Theatre or double down on a "Premium" ticket for the State and the much smaller Factory Theatre. "Bollocks to it" M&I cried as we recklessly picked up the all-inclusive version.

Saturday was indeed wonderful, 2 hours and 15 minutes covering nearly all of the classics, some hilarious stage business for the opening number and a happy Tweedy. I enjoyed the rush forward to the front of the stage from throughout the stalls which had the theatre staff in conniptions. By the time they were stopping people moving from their seats, it was the epitome of stable-door-horse-having-bolted.

The Factory gig was looser, took in more musical byways and lasted even longer. There was also even more between song banter, which Tweedy is very good at (second only to Saint Jarvis imho). The icing on the cake for M&I was an encore consisting of two Big Star covers, presumably in honour of the recently deceased Alex Chilton.

I'm still not sure which night I enjoyed more, but I wouldn't be surprised if more touring acts used this format in the future. Mind you, my back was killing me by the time the second show was finished.

Maybe you can suggest something. As a matter of fact, you do suggest something. To me you suggest a baboon.

2010-05-03T01:50:00.001-07:00

On Thursday I completed semester three of the ten year long odyssey that is David Stratton's chronological lecture series A History of World Cinema. In many ways its felt a bit dutiful so far, looking at the very innovative but occasionally dull films that invented screen grammar as we now know it. Obviously a lot of the silent comedy is still superb, but the drama....there are a few stone cold classics, but not too many (although discovering A Cottage On Dartmoor was a treat).

All of which is a preamble to my excitement that we have now reached the era of talkies and the 1930s golden age. Just glancing through the films that were made in 1931-33, the period covered by next semester, you've got Dracula, Frankenstein, The Public Enemy, M, Love Me Tonight, Scarface, Freaks, 42nd Street, Duck Soup, King Kong and so on. That's some good stuff right there.

Having said all that, I also got preposterously excited today at seeing the trailer for another silent classic, newly restored and re-released, Fritz Lang's astonishing Metropolis:

The spice of life

2010-04-18T23:33:00.000-07:00

Very entertaining and busy weekend with lots of different acivities.

Friday afternoon; Ness, Jem, Jack and Alexander over for a barbie.

Friday evening; Mad Men season 2 on DVD.

Saturday daytime; gaming with David, Andrew and Bryan.

Saturday evening; Mad Men season 2 on DVD.

Sunday morning; Eastwood with M&Bs.

Sunday afternoon; work.

Sunday evening; pub with Lou.

Sunday night; Arsenal on telly.

What larks!

Strawberry milk and climbing fences

2010-04-13T01:09:00.000-07:00

OK, naff all interesting happening so its time for a (drumroll...) Bs update!

B1 is being super sweet at the moment, really well behaved and loving. Unfortunately the one thing that sends her a bit doolally and uncontrollable is seeing other people, so she often gives the opposite impression when she's with friends or family. M&I are working on this behaviour but it will probably be a long journey.

Her numbers and letters are developing slowly but surely, and her creative skills are amazing (all from her mum I'm sure). She's into pink milk, Disney princesses and riding her bike.

B2 is very much the sporty type. He loves charging around the place and roaring, kicking balls and climbing fences. His language is less developed than B1 was at the same age, but still well within the normal range I think. He is also ridiculously cute.

Barrington Tops

2010-04-08T19:49:00.001-07:00

Barrington Tops
Originally uploaded by Tom Goodfellow

Barrington Tops really is a lovely area. The Bs showed great forbearance towards their parents as we drove around looking at spectacular views and finally using the 4WD for what is is designed to do. In return we stayed at a very kid-friendly resort for a few days and allowed them to run around with other children and play in a river. Seems fair.

Anyone know whether Austar carries Fox Sports?

2010-03-29T21:57:00.000-07:00

Last weekend involved canasta, movies and rather too much booze in the traditional Avoca fashion.

We were supposed to be attending the scuttling of HMAS Adelaide off the coast in order to create a dive site. As there were several divers in our party, it was a pretty exciting prospect. However, a last-minute legal intervention by a well-meaning but probably misguided group of protestors, er, scuttled that plan. Red wine filled the resultant gap in the schedule.

B1 got chickenpox of the most pathetic strain. No pain, no itching, no sympathy from dad.

After all this excitement, we need a break. For the long weekend M&I&Bs are heading north to picturesque Barrington Tops for a rain-affected holiday. A portable DVD player is on the shopping list in preparation.

Amazing what they can do these days...

2010-03-23T15:51:00.000-07:00

http://en.tackfilm.se/?id=1269384824574RA93

Utterly splendid, I think its promoting the Swedish licence fee or something. Make your own.

Too much

2010-03-18T14:43:00.000-07:00

I've had a very strange week. I've had to deal with the death of a colleague at work and the hospitalisation of my Dad, which has been rough but obviously rougher for other people so I can't pity myself. Plus, my Dad is out of hospital already which is a relief.

Obviously one finds oneself cleaving closely to immediate family in traumatic times and M and the kids have been great all week. I also take great comfort in the supposed ephemera of life that are actually very important to me; drinks with friends, books, movies and music.

Its a simple point of perspective I suppose, at which point the temptation to quote Nigel Tufnel becomes overwhelming so I'll leave it there.

Blue jumper

2010-03-09T21:25:00.000-08:00

B1 made me laugh like a drain this morning while we were watching the football.

In order to understand my hilarity, one must first be familiar with Father Dougal's second encounter with the fearsome Sister Assumpta:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLVrNht9q_0

Our conversation went like this.

Me: "Arsenal are playing a team from Portugal. Do you remember going to Portugal?"
B1: "No"
Me: "We were with Lari and Rob"
B1: ""
Me: "We stayed in a lovely house"
B1: ""
Me: "There was a swimming pool"
B1: ""
Me: "You attached some pegs to a goal net"
B1: "Oh yeah! Portugal!"

Absolutely gorgeous.

Range Life

2010-03-09T18:53:00.000-08:00

Busybusybusy times. In the last week I have crammed in a Pavement gig, a trip to Avoca, a dreadful music festival, get-togethers with pommie friends, get-togethers with Aussie friends, a couple of exciting Arsenal games and the usual family stuff.

So,

1) Pavement gig was amaaaazing. Only their second show in 10 years and they aced it. Lou says it was the drunkest she’s ever seen me. Which is a concern.

2) Avoca with C&V (see point 4) – canasta, beach etc.

3) The horrific festival was Future Music, at which we collectively felt extremely old, sober, and baffled by the young people's music. Why on earth would you want to stand in an overheated dustbowl with 25000 other people and watch a bloke playing somebody else's records? And when did I turn into my dad? Thankfully, the ever-reliable Franz Ferdinand provided some consolation and we got away early for dinner at Circular Quay.

4) Colette & Vanessa came to visit! Much jubilation!

5) Mark & Rachel came to town! Much celebration!

6) Arsenal keep winning matches! Much carefully considered cautious optimism!

Whole lotta DVDs

2010-02-21T23:53:00.000-08:00

Wednesday and Thursday were legendary.

Wednesday night was Yo La Tengo at The Basement, playing a fun and relaxed set and manning their own merch stand. Legends!

Thursday night was the mighty ~~Spinal Tap~~ ACDC at an enormous stadium, featuring a 55 year old man dressed up as a schoolboy and a 50 foot inflatable woman. Legends!

Also on Thursday, I found myself in a suburban pub at the next table to Doug Walters. Proper, proper legend!

The weekend was quiet, because M&Bs were up in Brisbane. I pretended to be a dwarf on Saturday afternoon, but spent the rest of my time ensconced on the sofa and watching obscure DVDs, to whit:

Salo, or the 120 days of Sodom
Taboo
A Christmas Story (not obscure if you're American)
The Brave Heart Will Take The Bride (fantastic Bollywood)
Yeelen
Le Dernier Combat
Sombre
The Story of Women
Peking Opera Blues (with terrible subtitles - "We are tossing for the president!")

All from "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die". 929 down, 72 to go!

Beth in The Behemoth (Video)

2010-02-15T22:32:00.000-08:00

URL; http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomgoodfellow/4361931950/

Featuring Big Daddy Don Bodine's truck "The Behemoth"

2010-02-15T18:56:00.000-08:00

We had a lovely, low-key weekend with various friends. Thanks to all who sent birthday messages.

I've mentioned before that the cul-de-sac that we live in has developed an increasingly strong sense of community. The Bs get to play with lots of other kids who are always in and out of each other's houses, and we get to do lots of neighbourly greetings and catchings up.

The other day a fellow called Richard mentioned that his daughter Kate had outgrown her toy car and asked whether we would like it for our sprogs. Picturing the kind of plastic pushalong thing the likes of us had to make do with we naturally said yes, only to be presented with the behemoth you see below. It has an electric motor and even 3 gears! We went for a spin around the close and I had to maintain a fair trot to keep up.

Kids today, eh? they don't know how lucky they are.

Quiet. Comparatively.

2010-02-11T17:43:00.000-08:00

Having spent most of January and early Feb in a haze of artistic hullabaloo, I have neglected to keep my avid blog readership up-to-date with the latest B related developments. So here you go.

B1: Beth is sociable and confident, bordering on bossy. She loves craft, and can content herself for hours with drawing or making beds for her various toys. Recently she has developed a bit of mum-specific separation anxiety, meaning a whole lot of wailing when she’s dropped off at daycare but we’re assured that she calms down very soon after we leave. She has an amazing memory, remembering people and events from years ago (“I vomited when Lou and Bruce were here”). She’s at the endearing age when everyone she meets is automatically her friend. My favourite thing is to take her to the movies, last weekend we enjoyed The Princess and the Frog.

B2: Barnaby is a very kinetic child who enjoys racing around the place and kicking footballs. This can lead to over-physical behaviour such as hitting – last weekend he whacked my gout-afflicted toe with a rubber baseball bat. He has begun to talk in short sentences, but many of the words remain unrecognisable to all but his immediate family. He is obsessed by The Wiggles. Like his big sister he likes nothing better than being in the pool, and last week he graduated to a higher level of swimming class with a teacher as opposed to with his mum.

I haven’t taken any photos for a while, but we have a family-oriented weekend coming up so I’ll take a whole bunch then.

(btw, Tex Perkins as Johnny Cash was heaps of fun, Yo La Tengo and ACDC next week. My film course started last night, we’re up to 1927 which means The Jazz Singer and the birth of the talkie. You ain’t heard nothing yet!)

I need another world

2010-02-04T21:10:00.000-08:00

Well, St Jerome's on Sunday was a blast, but we had to leave early to hare across town for Antony and the Johnsons at the SOH. I was a bit pished/sunburnt/tired by then, so it was a testament to Mr Hegarty's brilliance that I even stayed awake, let alone really enjoyed it. We had to keep track of Murray v Federer on M's iPhone.

The Bunnymen on Tuesday were disappointing, but support act Frightened Rabbit were thoroughly splendid and will be famous very soon. Lou & I also befriended the singer from the third act on the bill, who was sitting on his own in the bar and looking forlorn after playing to a few disinterested passers by. He was a nice chap (used to play keyboards in Panic At The Disco, you know) and I think we cheered him up a bit. He liked my t-shirt, anyways.

Barbecues, pub quizzes, movies, etc.

This weekend is thankfully looking much quieter. I need a rest.

It's that time of year again

2010-01-28T18:25:00.000-08:00

Every year I promise myself that I’ll rein in my January activities, but every year it goes off the scale again. It's the coming together of the Sydney Festival, various pop festivals and a few other afctors that always produces mayhem.

In the last 10 days I have taken in;

- The Horrors at Oxford Art Factory (exciting)
- Camera Obscura at the Beck’s Bar (swoonsome)
- Laughing Clowns (disappointing) and The Dirty Three (affecting)at the Enmore
- Florence and the Machine at the Metro (ace)
- 3 movies at the cinema – Avatar (clichéd and overlong), Nine (bizarre but unsatisfying) and Up In The Air (literate and well-performed)
- 1 movie on DVD that was 7 hours long, black and white, Hungarian and superb (Satantango)
- A trip to Avoca

Obviously I need a rest, so over the next four days I am confining myself to Zeeko at the Seymour Centre, Todd’s birthday barbie, St Jerome’s Laneway Festival, Antony & the Johnsons at the Sydney Opera House, and Echo & the Bunnymen at the Metro.

On the benefits of not doing very much

2010-01-18T16:34:00.000-08:00

It was a weekend where most of plans became a bit too hard, so we scaled back and had a great time. Instead of the enormous AJ Rahman concert, watching a Sydney FC match and a trip to the movies, we settled for yum cha, a wee bushwalk and a DVD on the sofa with a bowl of rainbow popcorn. Most relaxing.

2009 Reading Review

2010-01-14T21:08:00.000-08:00

(Cross-posted from my legendarily unread book blog)

2009 was the Year of Reading Dangerously with no library borrowing and no new purchases (well, one) so that I could get through the backlog of material on my bookshop. In the end I read a new record of 107 books, which meant that my bookshelf went from a double layer:

To a single layer:

Which is quite good, but 2 weeks into the new year and already it’s back up to this;

Best books: The Alexandria Quartet, The Go-Between, The Human Factor, Fingersmith, Framley Parsonage, The Restraint of Beasts, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The Poisonwood Bible

Worst book: Either Alice's Masque or The Private Patient

Longest book:Not sure...Framley Parsonage, maybe?

Shortest book: Nehemiah

Non-fiction books: 17

Australian authors: 13

Female authors: 14

The complete list

Miss Lonelyhearts - Nathanael West
Churchill and Australia - Graham Freudenberg
Joan Makes History - Kate Grenville
Inside the Whale and other essays - George Orwell
The Brooklyn Follies - Paul Auster
The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
The Child in Time - Ian McEwan
Silas Marner - George Eliot
The Human Factor - Graham Greene
Mr Darwin’s Shooter - Roger McDonald
Intimacy - Hanif Kureishi
The Map That Changed the World - Simon Winchester
The History Boys - Alan Bennett
Bob Wilson’s Ultimate Book of Peculiar Sporting Lingo - Bob Wilson
If This Is A Man - Primo Levi
The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
Kowloon Tong - Paul Theroux
Siddhartha - Herman Hesse
London; A Pilgrimage - Gustave Dore and Blanchard Jerrold
Gould’s Book of Fish - Richard Flanagan
Bone; eyes of the storm - Jeff Smith
The Go-Between - L.P. Hartley
The Viceroy of Ouidah - Bruce Chatwin
Fingersmith - Sarah Waters
The Pianoplayers - Anthony Burgess
The Private Patient - P.D. James
Bound For Glory - Woody Guthrie
Justine - Lawrence Durrell
Balthazar - Lawrence Durrell
Mountolive - Lawrence Durrell
Clea - Lawrence Durrell
The Meaning of Liff - Douglas Adams & John Lloyd
Bone: The Dragonslayer - Jeff Smith
Brave New World Revisited - Aldous Huxley
Kingdom Come - J.G. Ballard
The Subterranean Railway - Christian Wolmar
Sabbath’s Theater - Phillip Roth
1 Samuel
Leviathan - John Birmingham
2 Samuel
The Eye - Vladimir Nabokov
The Biographer’s Tale - A.S. Byatt
Seats In All Parts - Leslie Halliwell
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Into The Wild - Jon Krakauer
Bone: Rockjaw, master of the eastern border - Jeff Smith
The Europeans - Henry James
Bloody Margaret: three political fantasies - Mark Lawson
Shakespeare Wrote For Money - Nick Hornby
Absolute Friends - John le Carre
1 Kings
2 Kings
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
Humphrey Clinker - Tobias Smollett
Framley Parsonage - Anthony Trollope
The Steep Approach to Garbadale - Iain Banks
Timequake - Kurt Vonnegut
Wake Up - Tim Pears
All The Conspirators - Christopher Isherwood
According to Queeney - Beryl Bainbridge
Stone’s Fall - Iain Pears
Mary - Vladimir Nabokov
The Lieutenant - Kate Grenville
A Walk in the Woods - Bill Bryson
The Restraint of Beasts - Magnus Mills
The Third Man & The Fallen Idol - Graham Greene
King Rat - China Mieville
1 Chronicles
Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins - Rupert Everett
Bone; Old Man’s Cave - Jeff Smith
2 Chronicles
Shakespeare - Bill Bryson
Ezra
Bone; ghost circles - Jeff Smith
Carter Beats the Devil - Glen David Gold
Nehemiah
Esther
The Rip - Robert Drewe
The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid
The Riders - Tim Winton
The Millstone - Margaret Drabble
Alice’s Masque - Lindsay Clarke
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers
Lush Life - Richard Price
Doctor Sally - P.G. Wodehouse
Illywhacker - Peter Carey
The Devil’s Pool - George Sand
Shepperton Babylon - Matthew Sweet
The Light of Day - Graham Swift
Jonathan Wild - Henry Fielding
My Life as a Fake - Peter Carey
The Service of Clouds - Delia Falconer
Bone; treasure hunters - Jeff Smith
Job
The Plot Against America - Philip Roth
A Long Way Down - Nick Hornby
Cloudstreet - Tim Winton
Bone; crown of thorns - Jeff Smith
Red Harvest - Dashiell Hammett
The Constant Gardener - John Le Carre
In The Winter Dark - Tim Winton
Choke - Chuck Palahniuk
Rebecca - Daphne DuMaurier
A Big Life - Susan Johnson
The Comedians - Graham Greene
The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
Talking It Over - Julian Barnes

Ladies and Gentlemen...BRENTWOOD!

2010-01-14T16:13:00.000-08:00

I was amazed that the snow of Europe followed us to England. And in a big way:

Of course the Bs loved lobbing snowballs, building snowmen and other such frozen water based fun. I, too, was enchanted at first but by the end of the week I had had enough. Some of our meeting plans were disrupted, and rugging up for every brief trip got a little tiresome.

Nevertheless, we were able to have a great time doing the usual stuff; catching up with mates, hanging out with family and visiting old haunts.

A big bonus was the absurdly generous exchange rate which made this trip unusually cheap and encouraged us to buy lots of stuff. M bought clothes, and here’s my haul of books, CDs and DVDs;

Sadly my Dad’s health was not good, and we are now looking to move him into sheltered accommodation in Bristol. Perhaps we will never stay in his house again if it gets sold, which is strange. It was desperately hard to say goodbye to him this time, but we’ll be back in July and I have to remember how extraordinarily lucky we are to have that freedom.

Bavaria & the Czech Republic

2010-01-14T16:06:00.000-08:00

In retrospect we should have flown home from Zurich but such was our enthusiasm to see Prague that we then embarked on a 3 day bus trip across Bavaria to the Czech Republic. The long journeys were tough on the Bs, and they found the delights of medieval Mitteleuropa architecture a less than adequate reward. It was a tricky job to keep them entertained, but M&I enjoyed revisiting Neuschwanstein (aka the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang castle) and B1 enjoyed the horse and carriage ride up to the gates.

I couldn’t help being disappointed by Prague. Having visited in around 1990, the decline of a beautiful city into an overcrowded tourist town dominated by money-grabbing touts and stag/hen groups was disheartening. The best moments where when we got off the beaten track and found, say, a groovy little sculpture park for the Bs to clamber around.

This suit was a struggle to get into, but;

Then we bid farewell to the Player clan, who were continuing with travels around Eastern Europe, and rejecting the oh-so-obvious option of visiting Vienna, Kracow, Bratislava and Budapest we headed for…Brentwood.

Switzerland

2010-01-14T15:58:00.000-08:00

(Pommie readers will find their reading of this post significantly enhanced by listening to this music while reading the post:

)

Thanks to the generosity of my parents-in-law we were able to spend a wonderful white Christmas with M’s family near Interlaken, Switzerland. We were staying in the alpine resort of Wilderswil with a view from our hotel window of the legendary Eiger and Jungfrau peaks.

I’ve never spent time in the Alps before and I was absolutely blown away by the staggering beauty of the place. Snow and ice made delicate patterns everywhere you looked and the imposing mountains evoked the awestruck aspect of the sublime that I learned about when studying the Romantic poets.

The great cliché about Switzerland is efficiency, and we came to value it greatly. The railways going up to great heights, often tunnelling through the rock itself, were extraordinary feats of engineering and we were never late by a minute. Then there were the ski fields with the supremely well run lifts to take you exactly where you want to go for your fun that day.

We don’t ski or snowboard, so we went for the muppet option of hiring a sledge and hurtling down the slopes on a barely controlled lump of wood at high velocity. The bloke at the hire shop had blithely assured us that it was easy and that taking the Bs would be no problem, so off we went with them on our laps. I started with B2 on my sledge, and within a couple of minutes his weeping face was entirely caked in snow and he had heard me swear more in a few seconds than in his entire life hitherto.

After a reorganisation, B1 went with M and B2 with Karen while I went solo. That went well during the more forgiving stretches of the path but then we missed a rather important sign that read “Run Closed”. We realised we were in grief when we found ourselves sledging down a road with a bus coming in the other direction.

Then, after crisis talks, we decided to try and descend on a ski run. Bad idea. I will never forget hurtling along and seeing my wife, sister-in-law and both children slam into a wooden fence as I sped past. I had to stack myself and run back up, in genuine fear for my family’s safety. Luckily everyone was fine although both kids were very shaken and B1 ended up crying about “the worst day of my life!” through a bleeding lip.

Anyway, we got down okay in the end, and next time we put the Bs into kid’s club and had a fantastic day. sledging without them. Now we’re talking about learning to ski as a family once B2 is old enough.

Lots of photos over at the Flickr site.

Beth swimming (video)

2009-12-17T15:09:00.001-08:00

Beth swimming (video)
Originally uploaded by Tom Goodfellow

Tomorrow we head off to Europe for a white Christmas in Switzerland, followed by a whirlwind trip to Prague and, er, Brentwood. So excited!

Consequently, we've had to cram in a lot of our Christmas socialising this week with all of the expected toll of increased alcohol and decreased sleep. On the weekend we had M's work do on Friday night, Saturday breakfast with friends, Saturday lunch at a kid's birthday party, Saturday night hosting a barbie for friends, and Sunday family Christmas with M's family.

I had lots of fun despite having to hold my tongue a fair bit; acupuncture, Catholicism, horoscopes, climate change denialism and racism all featured at various stages. I sacrificed principle for social harmony and let it all serenely wash over me, then had a rant on the sofa on Sunday night.

The video is from the family Christmas. B1 was a slow starter on the swimming front, but as you can see she's really enjoying it these days. By contrast, B2 is a natural fish.

Catching Up

2009-12-08T20:50:00.001-08:00

Bs (video)
Originally uploaded by Tom Goodfellow

Ridiculously busy at the moment. The Whitlams was good, Jarvis Cocker was better, Christmas socialising is reaching fever pitch and we're off to Europe in less than 2 weeks.

As for the Bs, well, they're just gorgeous and more fun than ever as you can see from this wee video.

Noughty But Nice

2009-11-25T21:36:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-25T20:59:00.000-08:00

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…

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

2009-11-12T22:54:00.000-08:00

This one: