The Saturation Point of Bells

David Peace: Tokyo Year Zero

2011-03-21T16:41:00.000Z

Occupied City by David Peace
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In my review of this books predecessor (Tokyo Year Zero, I had a little rant about how much I admired Peace's ability to make crime (and its victims) matter. This book picks up on that theme early, with "The First Candle", written in the collective voice of victims of a mass killing:

"Do we matter to you? Did we ever matter?
Our mouths always screams,
already screams, screams
that mouth:
Your apathy is out disease; your apathy, a plague..." (p.6)

Notice a bit of repetition there? Just a smidge? Well hang on to your hats, people, because there is a lot more where that came from. Peace is not the first to use the technique, and while others have complained (and even satirised)it, until now I have always felt he uses it to good effect. With this one, though, I was cursing the geek who had ever invented the "cut and paste" function. When I should have been hanging on every word while my head pounded with the rhythm, my eyes were skimming over paragraphs I had read one, two or three times before, thinking "Okay, Dave, okay. I get the point, already."

The book opens with a writer fleeing with an "unfinished book of unsolved crime" and the collective dead telling him that "we are here (...) because of you, our dear sweet, sweet writer dear, because of you..." (p.4). The theme of story telling, truth and lies runs through the book (and lends it a structure), suggesting Peace continues to grapple with the morality and motive of mining the annals of "true crime" for his work.

While these reflections should, in theory, enrich the novel in this case it didn't do it for me. I ended up feeling it was a valiant but ultimately unsatisfying attempt at a very ambitious project.

I can't help thinking that if Peace has come to the conclusion that in bringing the victims back to life the writer is "their wound", "their plague",(p.287) then perhaps the author's own ambivalence about the task is this book's biggest enemy.

View all my reviews

Irresistible Istanbul

2010-11-30T08:10:00.001Z

Are you Australian? I know these things. I can see. yes, even from way over there, I can see. Your face. Freckles. You need to use my umbrella? But you are getting wet. Very wet today. You are sure? I am going to Sydney soon. An Australian lady I know, she invite me. She lives near the Opera House, I don’t really know if she has money or not, but she invited me. I helped her buy some carpets. For her house. I do carpets.

Anyway, I helped her to buy for the whole house. Sixteen million she said she paid for the place. Though it’s worth 18 now. Anyway, she wants me. Real bad. I know this. That’s okay, why would I mind? Maybe I like it. I’m married though. Not to this one here. She’s my cousin. I give you some advice. You listen to this you will not regret. When you are looking at the carpet, what you do, you ask them to hold a match to the carpet. If they refuse, you know they’re no good. It’s the fibres, you see. Natural fibres, they won’t burn. If it burns, its not good fabric. If its good, they won’t mind.

My pleasure, my pleasure, I am happy to help. You leave this place, you want to take something of quality with you. We’re Turkish. Well, I live in America, in L.A., but I’m Turkish. I’m here to buy carpets. Sellf or, say $7,000 in US, buy for 2-3000 here. I have a shop just down the road. Anyway, this Australian lady, she rings me up and says hey, why don’t you come and stay with me for a while? I say, thankyou, sure. Can my wife come too? She says Oh my god you have a wife? She really wanted me, you see, and she didn’t know.

But she’s a nice lady, so she says, okay, if that’s how it is. Bring your wife. So I will see where she put all those carpets I helped her with. I think she was a bit disappointed, because she really wanted me. Women want me all the time. You know why? It is because I am quite a sensual person. They can see that and they respond. Hey, I’m not complaining.

I’m just here to meet some American friends, show them around. I must go soon and meet them. But yes, women they are always chasing after me. Never leave me alone. Even lesbians. You know about lesbians? I tell you a story. I met this woman and her girlfriend. You tell them. Go on. Tell them. You tell them. It is better.

No, no, no. That’s not right. I’ll tell them. I’ll take it from here. I’ll tell it now. This one she is all over me, you know, oh your so great, I want you so much, you’re so sexy, you know, and I’m just saying hey, I’m married and she’s well that’s no big deal we can just have some fun. And I’m like, you are serious? You are telling me you never in your life have been with a man and you want to be with me? And she’s saying , yeah, I never been with a man but I want to be with you. So that was okay, but I say no.

But they beg me, you know, they saying come on, come on, it will be fun. But I am married, so no. Anyway, a couple of days later, the girlfriend rings me up and you know what she says? She’s begging me, she’s saying please come and sleep with us, me and my girlfriend, we can do it all together, you have to do this for us, and I’m saying no, no, I’m married and she goes on and on and you know what? Then she says but you have to. You have to sleep with my girlfriend. We want to have your baby. I’m not kidding. Can you believe it? This is how much they want me.

What? They just want me for my what? DNA? That’s um…my…Anyway, I must go and meet my friends from America. They are waiting just up at the gate for me. But they beg me, you know, They saying come on, come on, it will be fun. Of course I say no. But this is what I mean, you see, women and me. They just can’t resist.

Why? Well, who am I to say. You are a women….you can see. Something about me, maybe. The way I look. I mean, look at me. Look at this. I know I am not very tall, but I am strong. You don’t need height if you have a good solid frame, you know. Muscular, I am. Its because I look after myself. The women can see that. They respect it. They like it. You know what I think it is? It’s the way I move. Yes, its because I dance. I am a dancer. No, really. A very good dancer. You may not see it from my shape, but women, they can see it in the way I move.

But I must go and meet my friends. They will be waiting. So you are only in Istanbul for a few days? Then where? Bursa? You will take the ferry? Very good. Inegoll. Yes. Inegoll. I know it.Good meatballs. Yes, Inegoll is famous for the meatballs. So you will need to talk to someone you can trust about the carpets. Just to learn. I must go and meet my friends. From America. But my cousin here, she can take you to the showroom, its just round the corner. Ten minutes. Less. Five. You can have a look, she will explain everything. It will be nice. Have some tea. Have you tried Turkey tea yet?

It is just around the corner. Why not? No harm in looking. She will explain everything you need to know. Go with my cousin and she will show you. Nice things no rubbish. You can hold a match. Best rugs in all Turkey. My friends will be waiting for me now, but it will be no trouble, really. No really. Really.

No, I don’t know the best place for halva. Halva you get anywhere. There is no money in halva.

Lesbians.

Malta buses go green

2010-10-06T07:55:00.001+01:00

Image:Malta today

Its pretty hard to miss the Malta bus fleet. For a start, they make a hell of a racket. The major bus terminal at the Valetta gates is a swirling mass of very large vehicles lumbering around the magnificent central fountain, miraculously managing not to mow down the locals and tourists that squeeze through tiny cracks between them. I'm sure there was some kind of system operating in the whole parking, on-loading offloading thing, but it was pretty hard for the casual observer to discern.

Judging by the constant cacophany that greeted us whenever we opened our hotel window, leaning on the horn seems to be an essential part of the recipe. The noise usually ensued when a driver brought the whole circle to a shuddering halt by simply slamming on the brakes wherever they stood to let their passengers off. Some of them had very jaunty horns, though. At least two played a tune that went for at least five seconds. And I have never, ever, seen a more miraculous driving achievement than executing a three point turn in the midst of 70 moving vehicles in less than three seconds without killing anyone.

The drivers most admirable acheivement,though, is the buses themselves. This is the Elvis of bus fleets. Vegas era Elvis. Its big, its beefy, its got a deep voice, and its not afraid of a bit of bling. You can forgive a lot of a bus if its chrome grill is as broad and sparkly and its make-up is expertly applied.

The tourists love them. A lot of people love them. They have their own Wikipedia and Stalkbook and photo archive pages on the interweb. They drivers love them, too, not least because the driver's own them. This is key to both the loving care with which they have been maintained, and the divine diversity of a fleet. In an era where for some reason we tend to equate efficiency with monotony, every one is different. The owner operator model in Malta dates back 100 years, and as of 2009 stood at nearly 500 buses operated by 400 licensees.

But its all over now, baby blue. The service has been tendered and the old buses, and a great many of the drivers, are all set to shuffle off this transport coil. While the new consortium, Arriva, claims it will hire 1,100 people, resulting in a net gain in jobs, it remains to be seen whether the existing drivers will be kept on.

Commuters don't exactly seem to be rallying to the drivers' cause. Early comments bemoaning the loss of this iconic living museum were soon drowned by the complaints of disgruntled commuters complaining of unreliable services, fictional timetables, rudeness, dirt, heat, and smoking. Malta's Ombudsman recent found that the transport association had ignored 49 complaints of driver smoking. A quick scan through comments on news reports such as the one here gives a good summary. Unfortunately the only people defending the drivers seem to be the drivers themselves.

According the the Malta Independant Online the new fleet with include 230 brand new Euro V buses and an additional 86 buses with Euro V engines between two and seven years old. Their introduction will take the average age of the fleet down to two years, compared to its current average of 30.

The government and the tender winners, Arriva, are keen to promote the green credentials of the new deal. The fleet will include 13 hybrid vehicles for use in historically and environmentally sensitive areas. A report commissioned by the government has suggested that this, along with the replacement of the rest of the fleet, including fitting eco-driving technology to vehicles, tyre inflation monitoring and turning engines off between journeys aim to improve air quality, and deliver a 48 per cent in hydrocarbons, 94 per cent reduction in particulate matter, a 70 per cent reduction in oxides of nitrogen and a 55 per cent reduction in carbon monoxide.

Commuters have also been promised air-conditioning, on-vehicle destination and ‘next stop’ electronic displays, be wheelchair accessible and have improved safety standards in an effort to incrase bus passengers by 54 per cent over the life of the 10 year contract. Arriva Malta has also said it would support, a heritage bus museum for retired buses if one was to be established, though the extent of, and enthusiasm for, such a project remains to be seen.

Maybe taking a big gulp of clean fresh air will make up for the losing the spectacle of a hundred orange leviathans flaunting their their chrome and badges as they dance around the fountain.

GSOI world domination proceeds according to plan....

2010-09-29T19:53:00.000+01:00

My darlings hit the world wide interweb in all their glamour and gorgeousness and wit.

Pleased and proud to know you, I am. Pleased and proud.

Now all our good patrons at Sleepers need to do is release an Android version, and I will be happy.

Edinburgh on Lonely Planet

2010-08-08T17:00:00.000+01:00

Hello! Very pleased to have a little article on Edinburgh appearing on the Lonely Planet website at the moment. Swing by here to have a look.

I remember Paris ...

2010-08-01T12:07:00.001+01:00

I have a rather fraught relationship with Paris. Or rather, I have no relationship with Paris at all. I have the kind of relationship with Paris that I have with David Bowie: I am rather smitten with it, but it doesn't know I exist.

Paris thinks (and yes, I do think cities are sentient, in their own funny way) I am a rather annoying colonial bumpkin from so far away that it barely matters. A badly dressed one who can't speak French, at that. In fact, the only person I really spoke to was a chap from a French Ministry who turned out to be Argentinian born and raised. We bonded over being from The South.

We stayed in Trocadero. A rather chic suburb replete with elegant looking apartments interspersed by Embassies and such. The Eiffel Tower looms up at you from unexpected angles when you walk the streets. Purty.The hotel was small but good and it had, as Paris tends to, an open air market with very good looking food. We may well have stopped to shop if my tallish Beloved hadn't nearly impaled his brain on a low-lying scaffold. The supermarket was nearly as good. As for restaurants, we would have been fine if we wanted to sit outdoors drinking, eating oysters and being seen in tourist-traps where everything cost way too much. Apart from that, we were pretty much confined to Italian. Also good, but not exactly what I head to Paris to eat. At the high end of the scale, they managed to squeeze us in to Sgabetti, where the food, like the prices, were top-notch. It was a far-cry from my previous visit staying in the Marias, where we ate good provincial French food nearly every night of our brief stay.

The Trocadero, mind you, has a damn fine line in museums, including the Musee du quai Branly, which is an architectural wonder and had a fantastic exhibition of new artists incorporating folk/traditional practice into their work. The highlight for me, though, was an installation by Charles Sanderson. It was a light show set up so that the long, swirling ramp that led to the upper gallery spaces was flowing with words that twisted and tumpled over eachother on the floor. Earthy, geographical words and place names, they were. It was, literally, a babbling brook, and really quite beautiful.

If you are having a flying visit to France and don't get a chance to venture forth from the capital, Cite du l'architecture & du Patrimoine, is also well worth a visit. Here you can walk around faithfully rendered models of various architechural glories, including full sized medieval arches and doorways, spires and other assorted fiddly bits, as well as some subterranean frescoes. Modern architechture also gets a look in, with models illustrating key trends and changes in design.

Ah, yes. I remember Paris. It will never remember me.

Giving it away

2010-06-25T17:15:00.001+01:00

I am now officially enrolled in a beginners drawing class. The shopping list just arrived in the mail, with lovely things on it like "willow charcoal" and "putty rubber". I barely know what they are, to be honest, but they sound nice. The confirmation e-mail is very reassuring in stating that you don't have to know what you are doing. That's good, because it would be embarassing to be expelled from a course that is only five days long.

So, further to my previous about soul-selling, in the absence of a buyer for my artistic soul, I have just decided to go and give it away. Fans of Adam Smith out there may well conclude that this is a perfectly demonstrates the demand curve in action. Hence, I have started another blog. Well, less of a blog really than an on-line drawing diary. I don't actually expect anyone to look at it, but I probably will, occasionally, and you are welcome to if you would like. Its listed at the blog-list side thingy on the left here.

Its mostly so I can track what happens next. Having started at the absolute bottom with no knowledge or experience whatsoever, the improvement curve is still feeling steep, which feels good. This is in stark contrast to the whole Writing Thing, where the law of diminishing returns has cut in to a truly alarming degree. Drawing, I have no expectations whatsoever of producing anything of any value at all (again, unlike The Writing Thing) so its absolutely impossible for me to be disappointed by the outcome. I don't even care whether or not its original, so I can draw little pictures of Batman to my hearts content, if I like. So there.

More importantly, as my recent personal history has demonstrated, sooner or later all one's belongings end up in a mini-skip far away, so cyberspace seems a pretty good place to stow them. And you don't have to pay excess baggage.

P.S. Adam Smith is, by the by, another of Scotland's many contributions to the world.

The Athiest's Dilemma

2010-06-15T14:13:00.001+01:00

Here is my dilemma. To whom am I supposed to sell my soul if I don't believe in god or the devil? Because I gladly would for even a slither of the talent currently on display at the Edinburgh College of Art Annual Show, which runs until Sunday 20 June.

Particularly impressive this year were the offerings from the animators. I have stolen some of their images below to give you a little taste of the depth and breadth of brilliance. Click the hotlink in this para for further information about the whole cohort of talents, only a few of whom are listed below.

Congratulations to the whole talented lot of you.

Bastards.

Coyote and the Stars by Claire J. C. Stewart

If We Meet by Jaimin Lui (try www.missbowtie.com, but it didn't work for me)

Savage Mountain by Steve Warne

Noel by Peter Greeves

I also bought a couple of editions of a very fine and somewhat disturbing zine calle "Toasty Cats" by Magda Boreysza. You can find some more of her phantamagorical imaginings here.

Brontë Sisters Power Dolls

2010-06-08T09:33:00.000+01:00

Many thanks to the magnificent Ms Jane O for bringing this little gem to my attention.

Putting your best foot foward

2010-05-28T14:28:00.000+01:00

Question: What do you do when holed up in a hotel in a foreign land when both you and your partner have a gastro bug?
Answer: Sit there and draw your own feet.

Sheik it

2010-05-27T17:11:00.002+01:00

So, there I am in Wadi Rum. I have climbed down from the rock where I have watched the sun set behind huge monoliths of roll-topped sandstone, the spindly legs of camels throwing length shadows across the red sand. I have drunk hot spicy tea from a tiny cup.I have eaten hummus and tabouli and lamb slow-roasted by being buried in an iron pot deep in the desert sand. We have gone for a walk in the dark to look at the stars, until J started frightening me with stories of djinn that had be jumping at every moonlit shadow, and scurrying like a desert rat back to the deep reds and brown of the rugs spread around a warm and fragrant fire.

And then, in what should have been the pinnacle of an otherwise gorgeous evening, the music starts. This is the moment. But can I remember a single thing from my Melbourne CAE belly dancing lessons? No. I get up and jig about for a little while, while a travelling companion to my left flails his limbs so desperately that I have to duck to stop him taking out an eye. I retire from the fray as soon as it is polite to do so, just one more frozen-hipped anglo in a very fluid desert.

Whippet good

2010-05-25T13:56:00.000+01:00

Fashion Bulletin: Match making in Incheon Airport, Korea

2010-04-25T16:40:00.003+01:00

The first instance was while I was still wandering the bewilderingly indistinguishable halls of the Incheon Airport, dazed after the first 10 hour flight, and walking to stay awake until I got on the second. There they were: young, be-jeaned, and both wearing black zip-up hoodies. Nothing notable in itself, except that "All American Girl" was emblazoned across her chest in pink, and "All American Boy" in a baby-blue equivalent across his.

At first I assumed it was a one-off, a sartorial flourish that - from my cultural perspective at least - had decided to leap-frog "quirky" to leap headlong into "insane". Perhaps my lagging brain was seeing double? But no, as I headed to the boarding gate I spotted another couple, also locked in garmented betrothal, this time with white hoodies with "love by [heart symbol]" written on the front, which seemed to make made neither fashion nor grammatical sense.

I entertained myself for a while trying to conjure a mental picture of the shock and horror that would disfigure J's handsome visage if I came home with, say, a his-and-hers pair of "Hello Kitty" hoodies. I was mentally filing his likely reaction just after his likely response if I get Born Again and before his reaction to me committing some grisly forms of serial homicide, as a his-and-hers pair of matching Ralph Lauren orange polo shirts with green lettering sauntered by hand-in-hand.

Seated at my gate, the trickle became a flood. Now that I had my eye in, I could see they were everywhere. To my left, matching white bomber jackets with gold dragons. To my right, silky blouson baseball-style zip-up jackets. A couple near the plastic plant had eschewed the matching wardrobe, but gone with themed dressing instead: different clothes and colours, but both wearing jeans, converse sneakers, t-shirts, baseball jackets and baseball caps. Another couple had decided to go with the radical notion of swapping contrasting colours: his polo shirt was white with purple lettering, hers purple with white lettering. Some were closet (excuse the pun) match-making, hiding identical t-shirts under distinct and individual jackets. Another more shameless pair had decided that matching t-shirts weren't enough, and had paired them with identical jeans, right down to the black and red jewelled"V"s stuck on to the right buttock.

It went on and on. By the time the flight began to board, I had identified at least 15 couples committing public displays of purchasing unity. I could only speculate how this fitted into the complex rituals of young adult romance. Was there gender-based demarcations regarding who did the buying and the gifting, or was a mutual decision, a retail-based consumation? Did splitting up involve ceremonial return of the t-shirt? Or maybe it was de-rigeur to to keep each one so that in their respective dotages they could sort through their t-shirt drawer on wet Sunday afternoons and reminisce about youthful romance? Maybe it was just that they were all going to Sydney on a holiday, and that taken the whole "Aussies are sporty" thing a little bit too seriously.

On the return trip two weeks later, the airport was again littered with matching couples. But hitting the streets of Seoul that evening , there was nary a match to be found. The young hipsters cruising through the neon streets on a Friday night would have looked at home in any of the major cities of the world.

A better class of travel

2010-04-09T13:58:00.001+01:00

So here I am kicking back in the first class carriage on my way to London. Free wi-fi, as well as free cups of tea and biscuits. I also have a seat tucked next to the window with a powerpoint for my PC and a little table. Its a single seat, so I don't have to rub grubby shoulders with anyone.

Not that any of the shoulders here are grubby. There are a few occasional travellers - retirees with pre-GFC indexed pensions I would guess - and worker-bee types. Everyone is looking rather pleased with themselves, the retirees because they are getting their rocks off on the free tea (as am I), the businessy types because they travel like this all the time, and they are all so terribly keen for their success to be noticed. They keep looking around to make eye contact with eachother and establish themselves as "us" rather than a "them".

I suspect that a number of the retirees are also feeling rather pleased with themselves because, like me, they have paid less for the free tea, wi-fi, and big comfy seats than they would have paid for a seat down in the other carriage with the plebs and the free air. Its one of the wierd peculiarities of the ticketing sysetm here in the UK that the price of the tickets vary from day to day, depending on demand. For some reason - I suspect because they operate as totally different booking systems - this means that if you are lucky, you can score a first class seat cheaper than a bog-standard one. Such was my luck today. Ten quid cheaper, in fact. Happy as a dog in a side-car, I am.

It also reminds me, however, that I have a little stored up pustule of disillusioned rage that I need to lance....

You may recall some time ago I had a little rant about the arrogant class-ridden elitism which seems to permeate every nook and cranny of British politics. Well, it continues, even though we are now careening headlong into an election. That's similar to careening headlong in to a brick wall, except the wall is made of Tories. Recent recommendations in response to The Expenses Scandal suggested that MPs shouldn't travel first class. On planes, I totally agree. Trains, given the above weird pricing, I am ambivalent. At least I was, until I heard the response of one Tory MP, Sir Nicholas Winterton, who complained that this would prevent him from working on the train because "people would be looking over your shoulder the entire time, there would be noise, there would be distraction." (Welcome to our, world, sunshine! Apparently no-one has appraised him of the ubiquity of the open plan office.)

He added: "They are a totally different type of people." (my italics).

Apparently, ones that never need to work or concentrate. Perhaps its all that paying for our own transport to work that makes us so rowdy and unpleasant. The complete conviction that there is some qualitative difference between the 'them' and 'us' would be funny if it wasn't so sad. Well, in the words of The Great Jarvis "I don't see anyone else smiling in here".

Did you ever hear a more convincing argument for never letting any of the fuckers near any first class travel again? For that matter, did you ever hear a more convincing argument for never letting Tories near Government again?

I just wish I was a little more confident that Sir Winterton was an unrepresentative sample of the House.....

See the Beeb for further detail, if you need it.

A rose by any other name

2010-03-02T18:38:00.002Z

Cities smell.

In Vientiane, it was primarily woodsmoke. Wood is still the most common fuel, so the city always had at least an undercurrent of smokiness about it, though at mealtimes on particularly still days, it became so thick and heavy that it must be an asthmatic's nightmare. A nice smell, though. Probably terrible for your lungs but kinda homey.

Flying out of Laung Prabang, where the air is fresh and damp, except for the odd drift of incense coming from one of the many temples, we flew straight into Bangkok. I had only actually visited once before but the minute we got out of the cab it all came rushing back - mostly via my nostrils. Its a funny smell, Bangkok: complex and polyvalent as befits the massive, sprawling metropolis that is it. Its kind of sweet and kind of dirty. I would guess at a recipe that is 2 part sweet chilli sauce, 2 part fish sauce, 1 part lemon grass, mixed in with 1 cup of sump oil, a smattering of mildew, a burst of neon and seasoned with an occasional sprinkling of open drain and lightening. Not unpleasant, but not exactly something that you would dab behind your ears.

Just as homey as the aromatic woodiness of Vientiane is Edinburgh's distinctive but sporadic pong. One of the things I really love about Edinburgh is the smell that comes over the city - and I mean the whole city, including inside your own house if the window's open - when the brewery is brewing and the wind is from the west. Its a kind of yeasty baking smell, which always reminds me of the very fine beef burgundy pies that I used buy at the Schwobs in King Street decades ago as an indulgent winter treat. Its a kind of wholesome, warm smell which gives you an appetite. Makes your stomach rumble if you are hungry, though.

I am not sure the same applies to one's home town. I think you are blind to it, like you are blind to the distinctive aroma of your house. There are a few that stick in my mind though. One is the salty assault of a southerly change as it sweeps up the bay. The other is the smell of wheat or grass tinder dry and baking in the heat.

The third was responsible for one of the worst pangs of homesickness I have had since I left. I was out for a post-dinner stroll in the old part of Boulder City. This part of town is the deco era creation which sprang up as they were first building Hoover dam. Walking through the quiet streets with its palm tree-ed parks and deco houses in the dark, I guess I had already been subconciously lulled back into an Elwood frame of mind. Suddenly there was a huge, suffocating billow of jasmine blossom. How many evenings had I got off the train or tram, or stumbled home from parties and pubs and bands and friend's houses, or driven through a summer evening with an elbow hanging out the window of my faithful car, and known that once I started smelling jasmine I was home. Being hit with it there in Nevada seemed like some cruel hallucination intended to trick me into getting lost. I think I burst into tears.

An America Legion bowling hall appeared just in time to remind me that home was still safely where it belonged, down there at the bottom end of the southern hemisphere.

Lao PDR and the Lonely Planet

2010-02-28T19:29:00.000Z

Woo hoo! One of my Lao PDR photos in the Lonely Planet mosaic.

Share your favourite travel photos with Lonely Planet and win over $170,000 in prizes! | home

Tokyo Year Zero

2010-02-28T19:19:00.000Z

Tokyo Year Zero by David Peace

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A very long time ago, someone close to people I cared about got murdered. For weeks, every lurid headline made me shudder, hoping they hadn't seen it. I swore off crime fiction for years afterwards, no longer having any tolerance for the death of someone's loved one being reduced to a plot device. And for exactly that reason, there's a lot of crime fiction I still really can't bear.

What I admire most about David Peace his ability to convey what is real about these events: grief and hurt and loss. Yes, there are murders, but in a David Peace book they matter. And the fact that they matter, that they are tragedies, means that reading Peace ain't no picnic. He is a master of his powers, its his skill that lets the reader understand tragedy. Characteristic stylistic techniques such as intruding internal voices, section introductions using different font, layout and voice in almost stream of conciousness flashes, and stark, short-sentence prose all work so effectively that there are bits that are hard to read, because you know that you probably should look away. And, perhaps because Peace draws from history to write his fiction (in this case a real case in immediate post-WWII Tokyo), redemption is hard to find. It you read crime for the satisfaction of justice and order being restored at the end, then this is not the book for you.

If there is redemption here, it is in a book rendered powerfully enough to make the reader see things they would rather ignore, the things that will continue for as long as we continue to look away.

I would rank it as good as GB84, better than The Damned United. The rest of the Japan trilogy is now on my list. (Might recharge the psychic batteries with something a bit fluffier first, though.)

View all my reviews >>

Stephen Fry V Catholic Church

2010-02-24T19:22:00.000Z

Thought you might enjoy the attached YouTube clip of the passionate, eloquent and generally impressive Stephen Fry's speaking in support of love, and in opposition to the Church.

For all of my friends out there raised under the wing of the Big C (and most of you have been, lets face it), I would like to stress that I include this because of its succinct eloquence and passion. I would be equally happy to pick on the many other religious brandnames, protestant versions as well as ones with different other choices of deity, who are equally remiss on various matters of social and moral policy. Though generally speaking, they are not as powerful and therefore not as dangerous. And, yes, they do good things too....but I won't witter on. SF will explain much better than I can:

Bateman, you're a fiend

2010-02-19T11:18:00.001Z

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A recent review (of another book) raised the possibility that this was another example of a narrator who was utterly unrealiable, and that Bateman never harmed a fly. Could this be true? I wish I had a copy handy so I could go and investigate. All I can say is that it has the distinction of being about the only book that has ever made me view my fellow commuters with a high degree of wariness and suspicion, nay, fear. It scared me.

Ultimately though, the driving force of this book is, in my view, a righteous rage directed firmly AT Bateman and all he represents. Very satisfying.

View all my reviews >>

"That hurts, doesn't it?"

2010-02-02T15:37:00.000Z

In Vientiane, you can't go far without bumbing into an establishment offering massage. Of the wholesome, theraputic variety, I hasten to add. The most rudimentary menu will offer you a choice of 'soothing', 'Lao1 (meaning a little more vigourous), facial and foot. Depending on the size and ambition of the establishment, any number of variations may soon follow.

I had no real intention of indulging, having generally stuck to the principle of only sharing a massage with someone with whom I would be willing to share a bed. However, my firstThursday in the country, I woke to find my lower back completely dysfunction and the rest of me barely able to walk. By the end of the day, I could barely stand straight. It was disturbing. The next day, I was heaps better, but tap-dancing - or climbing in and out of large vehicles to go to my meetings, for that matter, remained completely out of the question. The top half of my body was tilting forward at 45 degrees like a giraffe in mid-stride.

Enter Mrs B. The minute our locally-based collegues heard of my demise, they had no hesitation in recommending her. She couldn't fit me in for two days, but it was worth the wait. A small Lao woman wearing jeans and a striped, long sleeved t-shirt, she agreed to meet me at my hotel. I later realised I had put her in a rather akward position with this request, as it was not becoming for a massuer to be seen visiting hotels. If I had been a man she would never have agreed. I so glad she did. Within five minutes, she had not only pinpointed the spot in my lower back that was misplaced, she had also identified two other spots, including this little one at the base of my skull which I gave up mentioning years ago because no physio I had ever seen in Melbourne had made the slightest iota of difference to it.

" Mmm," says Mrs B. "That hurts, doesn't it?"
"Yes, it does."
"That's hurt for a long time, hasn't it?" I could have hugged her then and there. By the time she proceeded to make me completely better with forty minutes of massage and gentle manipulation, I was ready to dedicate my unborn children to her Genius. All this for the equivalent of about $15US.

Ms B happens to be a trained physical therapist, as well as a great massuese, so the session included helpful information about what number vertebrae were needing attention, and a little lesson in stretching exercises to begin the next day and stop the problem from re-occuring. Excellent health care in anyone's world. Unfortunately, public sector salaries for health professionals here in Lao reflect the GDP: they are at rock bottom. A doctor's monthly wage is not much more that a single Medicare session payment in Australia, and other health professionals earm much less. As a result, this genius of life-giving goodness has to work in the private sector to earn enough to support her family, largely ministering to the aches and pains of the employees of international NGOs and aid organisations i.e. those with foreign incomes.

If I am ever lucky enough to be back in Vientiane, the first thing I do will be call Mrs B. I might have to borrow someone's house for my visit.

This is Wednesday, I must be in an elevator

2010-01-31T15:04:00.000Z

Locals here in Lao PDR will tell you that the PDR may officially be People's Democratic Republic, but in reality means 'Please Don't Rush'. And after ten minutes wandering around the capital, I was totally on board. Yes, drivers will ask you if you want a tuk-tuk, but chances are they will do it without getting out of the hammock that they have strung between the uprights of their vehicle. It would seem almost cruel to accept.

So, when the carpet in the elevator takes the trouple to remind me, in big capital letters that its Sunday, one can only sigh a sleepy little thank you to the proprietors. Here, I don't think it will take long to forget what day it is.

2010-01-02T10:35:00.000Z

Brasyl by Ian McDonald

My rating: 4 of 5 stars Who knew quantum physics could make such a good read. Slipping effortlessly as a Q-blade between the eighteenth century, an approximate present day and thirty years hence, this book is a great trip of sharp, riffing prose and well-rendered worlds (or should I say realities). Very much nestled in a S-F kind of tradition, and an enjoyable read. My only reservation is that I found the denoument did not quite live up to the impressive beginnings. View all my reviews >>

Oh, jesus!

2009-12-15T08:06:00.003Z

On Sunday (appropriate, but accidental) P, V and I trotted off the the Opera House to see Handel's Messiah performed by the Sydney Philharmonic. I didn't really know that much about it beyond the 'Hallelujah' bits but the prospect of hearing all those voices in a purpose built concert hall was too much to resist.

I had never actually stepped inside the Opera House before, though I stare at it every day. I expected it to be a bit more velvety and chintzy and generally trashy inside, but that's probably just because you've had to battle through the tat of Circular Quay to get there. I didn't expect all that starkness and concrete and clean lines. On the inside, at least of the bit we were in, it was smaller, as well. Given the huge clean grandeur of the outside, it kind of seemed oddly cramped, like a reverse tardis. In a nice, industrial chic kinda way. The toilets sported plywood doors with a very groovy curve and steeply sloping ribbed concrete cielings.

I realised as soon as they began that I should reminded myself to prepare for all that christian praise palaver. Not a difficult thing to remember you would have thought, what with being called 'The Messiah' an' all, but that slipped my mind in all the excitement of the prospect of a 300-400 strong choir. Not least because of the subject matter, I had never listened to the whole thing before, so I was also a bit unprepared for the frequency and length of the solos.

I may be the only person on the planet that didn't know this, there are a lot of them, and a great many of them comprise of saying the same phrase over and over again with a different emphasis. I had understood that 'He was despis-ed' after the first or so ten repetitions and was ready to move on. Or just listen to the orchestra.

The tenor seemed to be doing a fine job, but the haughty tilt of his chin as he gazed at the audience like some low-rent prophet while he waited to be needed again was really getting on my nerves. The soprano was kind of like an upper middle-class kindy teacher who had finished her training before she realised she disliked small children. She was a little like an unfriendly version of Juanita from Playschool, only not as saucy. The bass, my favourite, reminded me of my brother's school friend Gareth, who none of us have set eyes on for decades. I couldn't help thinking that these reflections were not quite the kind of transcendent contemplation that Handel and those who commissioned him had quite intended to elicit. Mostly, I just wanted them all to shut up and let the choir have a go.

All of that was secondary to the real problem, though, which was a distracting Powerpoint - sorry, multimedia - presentation that was flashing above us all, presenting a bizarre gum-leaf and drenched sheep interpretation of the whole passion play. Opening with the dog on the tuckerbox. I kid you not. At first I though it was going to be some frightfully clever po-mo pastiche of christmas kitch, but when the indigenous theme was introduced my ability to go cheerfully with the flow pretty soon evaporated.

I cannot even begin to tell you the mish-mash of stuff that went on, but there seemed to me to be a number of images that were open to a very limited and rather unpleasant interpretation. For example, presenting a pair of young indigenous men with the 'lost' who apparently needed to be saved from darkness by a little glowing jesus appearing above his head? I would have thought that a long term view of the 40,000-odd thousand years of Australian residency would suggest that they were doing just fine on a spiritual level thousands of years before anyone had even dreamt up the christian idea of god, and given the various events that have occurred to communities and families since (with church involvement for ill as well as for good), the claim is dubious at best.

Later, the same young indigenous man superimposed over a crucified christ with barbed wire silhouettes across him while everyone sang. "And with his stripes we are healed". I'm sorry? We are now claiming that the suffering imposed on the indigenous community was a necessary part of "our" salvation? While I have no problem at all in acknowledging that the various assaults - both deliberate and accidental - inflicted on indigenous people in this country over the last few centuries clearly qualify as "sins", claiming that the whole sorry mess has any redemptive value is another thing altogether. Its pretty hard to see the idea of equating the story of Australian colonialism with the story of a man/god put on earth in order to redeem us as anything other than cruel and offensive.

Everyone stood up when they got to the 'Hallelujah' bit.

We move on to "And we like sheep", and lo and behold, we have a bunch of sheep being mustered for a good drenching by the look of it. A little literal, perhaps, but I see the point. Then a picture of a crowd shot. All white faces. When I was in South Africa recently I was struck by how every white south african I spoke to (some of whom were nuns, by the way) unfailingly spoke about their black compatriots as 'them'. "They like to do this... "They have a strong tradition of...". Hundreds of nations and family groups and different cultural traditions reduced to a single Other. This slide-show didn't seem much different. 'We' as Australia, 'they' as....what? Not 'Australia'? A symbol?

Maybe I just missed the point, and it was some clever-clever pastiche poking fun at exactly the types of things I complain about above, and I was just too obtuse to get it. But when the final group of shots appear incorporating a whole lot of national flags being waved, its hard to think positively about the interpretation.

I know that I've been away a while, but I have been fondly imagining that the fact that both our Prime Minister and our Opposition Leader are avowed church-goers of the christian variety was a pure co-incidence. Now I'm not so sure.

As for the four hundred people singing at the top of their voices, fucking fantastic.

Harbour-side Visitations

2009-11-18T09:11:00.000Z

Here I am back in the Sydney Sky Palace (where, incidentally, this whole blogging business began). All here is pretty much as it was before. Which is rather pleasing.

The main difference is that we have a daily, twice daily or sometimes even thrice daily visitation from the creature above. As least, I think its from him (or her). There may also be guest appearances by cousins and other tribe members. I haven't got to know them well enough to tell them apart, yet.

Thus far he or she has limited himself to a restrained tapping on the window to alert when I have fallen down in my responsibilities and allowed the window- ledge to become bereft of seed. S/he has been very polite. There is a restrained maliciousness in the glint of that beady black eye, however, that suggests any failure to fulfill my duties will be met with rapid and gleeful retribution. Though our acquaintance has been brief, cockatoos in general seem to me the kind of beasts that would find destroying the power lines or eating the locks, or, horror of horrors, coming in the window and eating the landlords beloved vinyls hugely amusing.

I am therefore strenuously resisting falling into demand feeding. Lines are drawn in the battle of wills.

The Butterflies of Sun Moon Lake

2009-11-09T06:02:00.001Z

Sun Moon Lake is the largest lake in Taiwan. Nestled up the highlands where the air is cooler and the humidity is low, it is surrounded by layer upon layer of steep hills that recede away into misty nothingness in the distance. Dawn casts an orange glow across the still waters. If you have a generous budget and a bit of luck, you can stay at The Lalu Hotel and watch the light shift and change from your private balcony, or slide back the walls and soak up the view from the bath.

It was apparently Chiang Kai-shek's favorite holiday retreat, and The Lalu is on the site of his former holiday residence. The newly constructed wing - designed by Australian Kerry Hill Architects - nestles unobtrusively into the surrounding greenery, and is simply the most gorgeous, tranquil and generally lovely hotel I have ever seen. Unfortunately, there are a number of high-rise monstrosities nearby. Still, if you are looking out at the lake, or strolling around the well maintained boardwalk that rings the lake's edge, you can forget they exist altogether.

On the weekends couples drape themselves decorously around the paths and groves, big powerpuff creations of white organza and sharp suits being snapped by wedding photographers among the bamboo, as massive butterflies gambol about overhead.

"We don't have many butterflies here," said the Hotel Guy. Was he mad? Spectacular flutter-bys were everywhere. "Oh, in Taiwan we do," he explained. "We are called the Kingdom of the Butterfly. But not so much here. Much more in the South"

The mind boggles. Its hard to imagine better butterfly action than we were getting at Sun Moon Lake.The highlights were probably the massive creature of black filigree with fillings of white, red, orange and yellow. This one took the prize for sheer gaudiness. It was flopping around amongst the Morning Glory Flowers, big as a dinner plate and frames by the azure waters of Sun Moon Lake like a little gravity-defying stained glass window.

The dull brown one liked having his photo taken. The rest insisted on hopping about in a very un-photogenic manner.My particular favorites were the huge black ones, as big as your hand, with metallic blue on lower wings fringed with a lovely rococco flourish of fiddly-bits. We had seen a number of these big black beasts, but I struggled to catch one on film. They flitted around in the shadows, hid behind ferns, pretended to be falling leaves and generally acted compulsively camera-shy.

We were at the end of our last walk before leaving for Taipei, and I had abandoned all hope of getting one on film when suddenly there it was, jet black a with dark green and bright blue splashes flashing in the sunlight. This particular one was lazier than all its cousins, and actually stopped on the lantana occasionally. All that fast-finger practice of playing arcade games on the plane came to the fore as I snapped away maniacally, though the rather blurry splash to your left is the best I could manage.

The Path of Enlightenment

2009-11-03T06:50:00.007Z

"Master, when can I call myself 'Traveller'?"
"When Grasshopper, you have found The Other Way"
"To where?"
"To the Path. To Nirvana."
"As in, 'Teen Spirit'?"
"No, Grasshopper. Not that Nirvana."

I was take The Green Bus. So it was written. From Exit 4, Zhongxiao Fuxing MRT. And yet, there I went and Green Bus found I none. Waiting for me in the mountains was respite from all wordly cares, bliss and comfort. Not to mention a 60 metre infinity pool. But how to reach it?

"O Reception, I beseech thee most humbly. The Green Bus is not more.How can I get to Sun Moon Lake?"
"Go to the bus station."
"And how to I get there?"
"By taxi." (subtext: 'Of course. Dummy.')"Give them this." She scribbles characters on to a note and hands them to me. I hope that they say 'Sun Moon Lake'.

"I am Leo." said the driver. "I take you to airport."
"But I need to go to the bus station."
"There, too."
I farewell Leo at Taipei Bus Station, and sentries at the gate point me to a Ticket Keeper. She frowns and points me back out the door. On the way, I pause at the Pool of Information & Enlightenment.

"No! Wrong station. Go this one." She hands me a little pamplet on a map and circles a yellow splodge a few blocks away. I wave feebly to the right, and she instructs me with elegant swipes of her ballpoint across the little printed map: right out the door, over the supermarket, down to he shopping mall,right again....

The wheels of my carry-on clickety clack on the tiles.Why do I insist on buying books? On the overpass, I give the bobbing man with no legs $50 NTD (about £1) for luck as our paths cross above a six lane freeway. Descending back to earth, taxi drivers call from left or right, but I can see no bus stop. Round the building site, past the front end loader, two blue-clad maidens swim into view from a brown cloud of billowing building dust.

"Bus to Sun Moon Lake?"
"Yes, madam. This way." I am not sure exactly when I became a madam. I think it was about the same time I turned 40.

The air clears to reveal another blue clad vision, an oasis of cool and calm, with perfect English. I can't even remember how to say "hello" in her language, though by now I am well into day 2.

"O Learned One, I seek a Bus. To Sun Moon Lake. There my lover waits, with a massive hole in his credit card."

With a beatific smile, a Timetable was summoned, but Alas, the next bus to Nirvana was not until 15:30. Happy as I was to bask in the glow of the Lady of the Buses, I was not sure that three and a half hours in her Linoleum House of Worship was quite what I had in mind. And it meant that I would not get to Nirvana before eight. This would verily speed me on the Path of Disgruntlement, when I sorely needed the Path of Delight.

"Is there no Other Way?"

"There are Two Ways you can choose. You can take bus to Sun Moon Lake at 15:30. Or, there is a bus to Puli. From There you get local bus to Sun Moon Lake."

Verily then did I "Woo hoo". The Bus to Puli arrived within 10 minutes. Lengthy discussion did the Lady of the Buses have with the driver have, telling him all. She also inscribed a parchment with rows of characters, strange and square, and handed it to me.

"Take this. Cross the road to the stop when The Driver says. Give them this. They will tell you the bus." The Driver did as he was bid, his mind as free and clear as the seats of the bus: I was the only passenger for three out of the three and a half hours of the journey.

I enter the Puli Bus station and pass the Holy Parchment beneath the glass. She reads, she frowns. She points at me, points at the clock,writes 15.45 on the paper.
I sit among strangers, in the highlands of Taiwan. Bhuddist nuns (apologies if that's the wrong term) with shaved heads pass in and out, on and off the buses. The loudspeaker calls names I can't understand. A tiny girl of about two is the only one that stares at my funny face and skin. I wait.

Next thing I know I am called by the Gatekeeper. She is waving a telephone receiver, gesturing to me. Who on earth is calling me at Puli bus station?

"Hello, Miss Weller. This is the Lalu Hotel. You are to take the 15.45 from Puli? The bus will take about 40 minutes. We will send a car to meet you at the station in Sun Moon Lake. It is a black wagon. You wait. It will bring you to the hotel."

Already the big hole in the credit card seems worth it. And so it comes to pass. The Gatekeeper and the Ticket Seller and a third woman who happens to be sharing my bench start waving at me madly when my bus arrives. Once again lengthy instructions are issued on my behalf. Along with a large bag of persimmons, notes are passed, bearing numbers and signs. Forty minutes further on, the driver waves me off, pointing to the numbers, the note and holding thumb to ear, pinky to mouth in the universal gesture of "calling" as he pats himself on the chest. I sit on my suitcase. He ends his call, and thumb and finger join in an circle of 'OK'. I reply with the thumbs up. We wave to eachother, and off he goes.

Within five minutew the car arrives, and the bag is whisked away. Within ten, I am seated in deep couches, a fruit juice in my hand and the lake stretched out before me, ringed in layers of steep misty hills

"So what have we learned today, Grasshopper?"
"That the very fast train to Taichung and a bus from there would have been quicker?"
"True. But no."
"That its the journey not the destination?"
"Mmmm.No bad, Grasshopper. But a little unoriginal."
"That I am finally 'Traveller?'"
"Hardly. What did you actually do, Grasshopper?"
"Fair point. How about 'Never to under-estimate the kindness of strangers?'"
"That'll do."

Dear Gordon,

2009-10-25T11:17:00.003Z

Dear Gordon,

A couple of things on my mind that I thought I should share:

1)Biscuits

I don't know who your media advisors are, but jesus! Next time some massive circulation newspaper asks you your favourite biscuit, just answer, for fuck's sake. You don't even have to do it yourself. Delegate the task to the person who fetches your tea if its quicker. But answer!

If you had compulsory voting in this country, you would recognise the importance of the biscuit. In failing to engage in this little bit of public banter, its like someone said hello to you at the busstop and you just ignored them. Bad manners, basically. But then, I bet no-one if your office has waited for a bus stop in a very long time. I think this would help.

2) Expenses

Hello? Have you lot never been to public adminstration school?

Rule 1)Fairness, transparency, efficiency.
Rule 2) The appearance of fairness, transparency, efficiency.

So, seeing that you seem determined to fuck this up, I though I would solve your expenses crisis for you, as follows:

1) No allowances for place of residence AT ALL.

2) A travel/remoteness allowance based on the location of the MPs ELECTORAL office. You remember those? They are where the people you represent drop in to see you.

3) Conditions of allowance as follows. If you electoral office is in Greater London, you don't get one AT ALL. If you live within a few hundred miles you get Rate A (to be determined). If you live in the fucking Shetlands or something, you get Rate B, which will be much higher than A.

4) You can give everyone a pay rise at the same time. A simple table (this is where the transparency comes in) can show The People (who are actually the whole point of you going to Westminster at all, and whose money it is, by the way) how the costs and adminsitration savings mean you can afford the pay rise and still save money.

That person who makes your tea could probably administer it for you. It might take them a day or two, but not much more.

Simples, as the meerkat, would say. That took about ten minutes. I am not sure why the Speaker took so long to come up with his idea, but I reckon I'm better value for money.

Please sort this out. If the Tories get in I might have to kill myself.

For my next trick, I will sort out the House of Lords for you, if you like (someone's got to do it, and you don't seem to have been making much progress on your own).

P.S. When discussing the expenses stuff recently, some woman on the telly - I think she was a labour Lord - said something along the lines that it showed a widening gap between "the governed and those who govern". The governed? To reiterate my points above about a) media, communication and good manners, and b)the Lords, it is, depressingly, no surprise that it did not occur to use a phrase such as "the people and their representatives".

No wonder no-one wants to vote.

Autumn sunset

2009-10-23T21:00:00.003+01:00

Today, Edinburgh graced us with an amazing rainbow, just on sunset. The full semi-circle, and all pretty colours. After a slow (but warm!) start, autumn has turned out to be rather spectacular.

The sunset light was rather fine, too. These photos are taken in The Meadows.

Bridget of Arabia

2009-10-23T14:45:00.007+01:00

As you are probably aware, dear reader, before I turned thirty I had not stepped off the shores of the Great Southern Land. It was primarily laziness that did it. Not that I was too lazy to travel, I was just too lazy to do the working and saving required to pay for the tickets.

Anyway, in 2006 the stars started falling over themselves in their keeness to align, and I found myself suddenly in possession of a silver frequent flyer card. Fancy. And that was before I moved to Europe. Since then I have been doing my best to take advantage of the incredible proximity of wonders.

I am still a bit of a nuff-nuff as a traveller, I must say, but its not for want of opportunity. In fact, as I sit here procrastinating about finishing the three jobs I must finish before I head South on Monday, I am actually thinking rather wistfully about the idea of a good long stretch of solid, stolid stick-in-the-mudness.

Imagine my surprise, then, when on Wednesday a charming young man called Simon from Wanderlust rang me to say that I have won an 8-day trip for two to Jordon, courtesy of onthegotours.

Really. I am not making this up.

What makes is triply stupendous, is that it looks like there is a good chance that we will be able to book in for a trip that coincides with a very special event. I am not going to tell you what it is, though just in case all three of you that ever read this blog jam the switchboard and steal our spots before we have been able to snaffle them.

Stay tuned!

Now all I have to do is figure out which continent my copy of 'The Seven Pillars of Wisdom' is on....

GO SAINTS!

2009-09-25T09:34:00.005+01:00

Its Australian Football League (AFL) Grand Final weekend. And wouldn't you know it, the first time my team has made the big match in years - and actually has some chance of winning - and I am at the wrong end of the world altogether.

For any passers by that may be unfamiliar, the last (and only) time St Kilda Football Club won The Big One was 1966. That's a long time between drinks, my friends.

My team scarf is at the ready alarm is already set for 5.00 am when ESPN starts telecasting in the UK. Apologies to the neighbours in advance for any uncouth hooting and hollering that may eventuate.

GO saints!!!!!!!!

Thunderbirds Are Go!

2009-09-20T16:30:00.010+01:00

Iceland is an unstable place. It has volcanoes and earthquakes and big huge cracks running through the ground where the North American and European continental plates tear themselves asunder at a rate of 2cm a year. That sounds like quite a lot to me, considering we are talking the movement of whole continents. We are assured, however, that Iceland itself will not fall apart, as Mother Nature, like some dodgy property developer hiding evidence of a house's dubious foundations, is kindly excreting enough molten rock to fill up the cracks.

This, combined with the fact that urbanisation is a recent phenomenon in Iceland compared to other European cities, means that large tracts of the city are squat and square and sturdy, and made of concrete. And, it must be said, quite unprepossessing. Guaranteed to stay standing in an earthquake though.

Those buildings that do stand out, however, seem to almost exclusively inspired by the Thunderbirds, with perhaps a little James Bond circa early eighties thrown in. Almost every church and gallery I saw looked like it had just landed. I was also lucky enough to dine at The Pearl. This is situated in a large rotating glass dome, where I had the tenderest piece of lamb I have ever eaten, while Reykjavik circled below. Be foolish enough to leave your purse on the outer ledge of the table and it will take 2 hours to get back to you. This place had been built on a cluster of disused water towers, but had been converted into gallery spaces, and the rotating restaurant plonked on the top. You can see the light on the top shining down over the city as you eat your creme brulee. I kept an eye out for Blofeld and his fluffy white cat, but he was not to be found.

Let's Dance

2009-09-13T13:08:00.009+01:00

Dancing. I do it, or at least I used to (mostly after application of alcohol), but I don't watch it. Not often. So it was kind of strange to find myself sitting in the dark red interior of Edinburgh's Playhouse having brow-beaten J, M, L & JH into forking out £20 to attend Michael Clarke's new show Come, Been and Gone. I hoped they weren't going to be grossly disappointed. At the time I booked I knew nothing about him. I didn't care. All I needed to know was that his new show was to have a soundtrack provided by Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, and my patron saint David Bowie, so nothing was going to keep me away.

These tracks are not just part of my history, they are woven into my bones. You'd think in such circumstances disappointment would be almost inevitable. Surely it was impossible for a dance, even if made by the Golden Boy (and Golden Arm, apparently) of modern dance, to avoid clashing all those weighty preconceptions that I already had about what these songs meant, and what they should feel like?

The fact that I know nothing about dance probably helped, but throughout the night I didn't have a single "that's not right!" moment. From the silver-clad lycra visions of the early track to the red legs and slash-backed black and white blazers against an azure background of Jean Jeanie (photo above courtesy of The Guardian), I was mesmerised. Moved to tears more than once, as well. Whether that was because of the dance or my own resonances with the music, I don't know, but it doesn't really matter: if the dance hadn't been so right the connection would not have occurred.

All those lycra-clad bodies did make me wonder though, as I looked around the packed house, whether part of the appeal of dance was that it was the only forum in which one can legitimately perv the human body. The show we trotted off to the next morning would suggest the answer is yes. Daniel K's Q & A played around with notions of art and democracy and consumerism by taking a survey-based approach to dance production, with all the research documented in a very weighty tome distributed to us all, courtesy of funding from the Singapore Arts Council. According to Daniel's survey, 'appreciating the human body' was the most popularly nominated response the audience made when asked what the objective of modern dance was, and the second most important after 'enriching our souls/spirits'.

We saw the same piece three times, once to open, once after having the research presented to us, and once after voting on our preferences for key elements such as music and costume, by the end of which we all knew a lot more about the decision making process of choreography than we did at the beginning. It also did a great job in raising key questions about art and the artist's relationship with their audience. Do they want to be loved? If so, is giving people what they want the way to acheive it? And where does truth and honesty, versus craft and artifice, come in to the whole equation?

I feel an essay coming on. So I will stop and go and get ready to go to Iceland. No, really.

Ghostly pursuits

2009-09-04T15:53:00.009+01:00

To be honest, a ghost-writing workshop was not my first choice for Edinburgh Book Festival. However, being an aspirational little soul, I have not completely abandoned the notion that one day someone might actually PAY me to write something that I was going to write anyway. However much you tell yourself that whipping up a research document or conference report is a fine way to hone your writing skills, it hardly qualifies as "fun". There are people in the world who get paid for things they find fun. Its food for thought.

One such individual is sports journalist and ghostwriter Martin Hannan, who seems to make a pretty good living out of this ghostwriting lark. He's made a few quid out of NOT ghostwriting as well, thanks to the services of a good agent and smattering of canny contractual clauses. The moral of the story? Get a good agent.

There was much informative and entertaining discussion about the skills involved in writing someone elses voice. Many diverting factoids, as well. Did you know that Dick Francis's wife ghosted nearly all his books? I didn't. The need to sacrifice ego for craft was also noted, with due kudos going to Rebecca Farnsworth, Jordan's ghostwriter who, according to MH, has done a magnificent job of accurately capturing Jordan's pearls of wisdom in all their glory. With spelling. (Katie: "I talk into a Dictaphone and they go away and type it. I've got so many other things to do I couldn't sit there and type, plus I didn't pass English.")

I was getting quite excited. I've written for Ministers and senior executives, I thought. I can do empty rhetoric and vapid monosyllables with the best of them. A corporate voice is still a voice, however inhuman. In my head, I was half-way to being intimate friends with half the celebrities on the planet, trusted guardian of their images and secrets.

I was bitterly regretting that most of my idols were highly literate, and wondering what doltish stars I might be able to love, when a little fly in my fantasy ointment became apparent. We were asked to interview eachother and prepare a little ghost-written introductory paragraph to an autobiography, with a big glossy book on Scotland as the prize. One class member left early, and I had remembered Shelley Winters was in the Poseidon Adventure when no-one else did (long story), so I was to interview Martin himself. It was at about this point I remembered the inconvenient truth that I have never interviewed anyone in my life.

However, the bloke had just talked about himself for an hour, so I did have an unfair advantage. Nevertheless, I am enough of a suck not to want to seem like a twit to the teacher and well-established local journalist. With a ruthlessness born of desperation, I poked away at that most vulnerable of areas - childhood, family and religion, and within minutes he had helpfully confessed to seven years in the seminary training to be a priest. So there I had it, the Holy Trinity of popular autobiography, religion, journalism and football.

I left feeling rather pleased with myself, and with a big fat glossy book on Scottish history under my arm.

Recommended reading: The Ghost, by Robert Harris

Hackpacker's End of Melbourne Writer's Festival

2009-09-01T14:32:00.002+01:00

I think this means I have lost the duel: Hackpacker's already outnumbering me on the blog front. Muskets at the ready for his latest cross-post from the Melbourne Writer's Festival....

As well as a beguiling name, Wells Tower has one of those author photos that promise much. It has the look of someone who is either hurt or about to throw a punch. His Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned is a blistering collection of short stories where you want to hear precisely what inflection the author puts on every word.

His Friday free session was packed with folks who couldn't get one of the limited places in his Sunday workshop and although he spoke quietly he didn't disappoint. He was most interesting on his writing method citing the internet as 'lethal to writing and reading', because of its distracting power. He described his ideal writing day as working on creative fiction first thing in the morning when he was fresh, then giving the afternoon over to journalism then in the evening working on his screenwriting which he reckons comes easy to him. Sleep wasn't part of the equation.

He emphaised the importance of revision by talking about the need the 'grad school' wisdom that that you begin thinking revision "is like cleaning up after the party, but you learn that revision is the party". Except for Wells there is no party. His hard work ethic and dazzling writing made me put a small note over my desk: WWWD (What would Wells do?) to stop me from goofing off on the web instead of writing.

On Sunday there was a late (but free) addition to the program in the form of a chat with US editors hastily named "Are you a writer interested in submitting work to American magazines?". It just so happened I was, so I found myself in an audience of 50-odd other "interested" folks. Jessa Crispin characterised her Bookslut as for intelligent people "who won't be adjusting their monocle or putting on a faux British accent" while reading. She was intersted in writers with enthusiam and sincerity to write about books.

McSweeney's publisher Eli Horowitz and The Believer editor Heidi Julavits talked enthusiastically about their publications. They found it difficult to characterise the kinds of writing they were after (Eli was influenced by some crocodile jerky he'd just been given and said he'd accept anything to do with crocodiles right now), but welcomed submissions. The Believer has 'a pathetically long lead time' of six months which means timely articles require a lot of organisation. Julavits pointed to the themed issues (around art, music and film) as good targets for publication and talked about her bias against the first person pronoun especially when the author intervenes in the story needlessly.

A useful side point for publishers was that both areas had a good base of subscribers (Eli estimated that McSweeney's Quarterly had "about 8,000 subscribers" and "around 5,000" sales through bookstores). It means they know they're going to sell enough to pay the printer so they can swerve clear of advertising and can concentrate on content.

As the festival rolls up its banner for another year, it's exciting to think of next year's fest with new director Steve Grimwade at the helm.

Melbourne Writer's Festival: Future of the Book

2009-08-29T10:47:00.002+01:00

Today we are most honoured to be joined by Hackpacker, who sends us this missive fresh from the Melbourne Book Festival, as part of our duelling blogs series.

Thursday the MWF got all digital. There were sessions dedicated to marketing in the info age and showing off the latest e-readers. I got along to three sessions but the whole day proved too much of a test of stamina and battery life.

The opening was called the State of Digital Publishing. Victoria Nash and Elizabeth Weiss grappled with the huge subject from the publisher point of view. They were concerned about the rise of the $9.99 e-book and how it had pushed them into what Elizabeth refererred to as "Get all out books out there and have them competing" mentality. Victoria mentioned piracy and how they saw it as "protecting our authors' copyright and obviously our revenues". It all looked very industry-focussed and I felt like the author was out of the picture.

Thirty minutes in Bob Stein got a word in about the future. He pointed out that more than a million books are available on public domain and that the book industry was facing the same challenges that video and music had online. He characterised it as seeing the book as something unique that allowed it "a free pass - I actually think it's going to be worse". It wasn't all grim as cloud computing would change the way we read and Bob pointed to newer shorter forms of writing that would thrive in this environment. Get your flash fiction ready now.

The marketing session was interesting - apparently it's all about community and SEO. But no-one really had a good way to monetise community. Lonely Planet pointed to blogsherpa (sharing traffic with bloggers rather than pays them) and their new groups. While Brett Osmond pointed to sucesses they'd had like a Where the Wild Things Are Facebook page which offered fans (more than 40,000 of them last look) of the book new content. I couldn't help but thinking that a major movie might have pushed up the fan numbers a tad. The AirBourne project Random House conducted looked amazing with 28 chapters contributed by users and the whole manuscript bookended by thriller writer James Patterson. But again it was called "a marketing exercise" rather than a big moneyspinner.

Thank god for Liner Notes' Thriller edition which ended the day on a high. Nick Earls mashed up Beat It with Masterchef while managing to sidestep Weird Al Yankovic's Eat It. But Melbourne's own shone out with Emily Zoey Baker doing a Jeff Goldblum impersonation, Sean M Whelan working his poetic alchemy on "Ma ma se mama sa ma ma coo sa" until the phrase had a new meaning and Ben Pobje told us how long lost twins getting it on was all part of Human Nature. A fitting tribute to the King of Pop that brought tears to the eye.

Books and Brits

2009-08-29T10:41:00.008+01:00

My first Edinburgh Book Festival gig (the first I was let into anyway) was to see Ian Jack, who was impressively articulate and perceptive, as well as pleasingly rumpled, as a journalist shoud be. I could have happily listened to him chat with the venerable Ruth Wishart for some time, as I think could have the rest of the audience. Alas, it was not to be.The audience was completely white, mostly middle-aged, and entered with a kind of furrow-browed earnestness that said 'I'm not here to enjoy myself, my national identity is at stake.' It was wall-to-wall tweed and natural fibres. Until, that is, the speakers arrived. Enter stage left a very slim woman with perfect make-up, a blonde bob with edges as sharp as a knife, a short, red, body-hugging dress, heels and a broad patent leather belt. She had to be American.

She writes for the New York Times, apparently, but I have never read her. For a start,I don't read columnists in newspapers. If you want to witter on about nothing start a blog, I say. I did. I see no place for it in a publication whose function purports to be news. At least that's what I think until someone offers me a column, at which point I will be wholly and enthusiatically in favour.

Judging ONLY from the appearance at the Festival, one would conclude that her column consists of amusing little observations about those whacky English with their sexual hang-ups and refusal to use the word 'toilet' in polite company(really?). The overall impression was that she probably came from a part of New York that was solely inhabited by well-educated white people, and upon marrying an Englishman, now lives in an area of London solely inhabited by public-school educated white folk. Apparently, they love their dogs but have trouble expressing their emotions to humans. Well blow me down with a fucking feather.

Well, good luck to her, if she can manage to get a gig at Edinburgh festival to promote her collection of columns, she is clearly destined for great things. I am not sure that being part of a session billed as being a discussion of Britishness was the right place for her, though. In fact, having only glimpsed America through the prism of Vegas and Arizona (see above mentioned blog), I am not sure she was even going to be much use in a discussion of American identity. She claimed, among other things, that Americans - unlike the British - become Americans when they arrive on those shores, whereas the British are always looking back to their origins and staying exactly who they were in the first place (those naughty fundamentalist Pakistanis were cited as evidence).

The tweedy audience, feeling increasing hurrumphy, kept her on her toes. They have been quite feisty this year. One pointed out that both on the stage seemed to be speaking solely about some white, Christain, tea-and-biscuits version of Britain that no longer existed, if it ever had. Another pointed out that in her 15 years of living in America the people she met were constantly referring to themselves as 'Irish' or 'Italian', when in fact that had not been the case for four generations.'Well,' our American friend replied.'People got very interested in their heritage after Roots was on television.'

Please.

One small editorial note on the program. It described her take on the English as 'waspish' when they clearly meant to say 'W.A.S.Pish'. Regardless, the most eloquent statement of national identity remained the appearance of the red dress and the shiny shiny black belt.

Held Breath

2009-08-11T17:15:00.006+01:00

Hackpacker just sent me a copy of the fiction issue of the (Australian) Big Issue where he takes his rightful place amongst the short fictionistas with his story Held Breath.

I thought I was going to miss it, not being there to collect my issue and all, so I am eternally grateful. Its fantastic to see this fabulous story in print, all taut and neat and beautifully written. And it made me cry. Again. I mean this in a good way. As The Troggs would say, Hackpacker, I think you move me.

And how good is it that the Big Issue did a short fiction edition? Well done!

P.S. Hackpacker also sent me a guide to finding all the Deuchars I want in Edinburgh. Beer and excellent short fiction. Can you conceive of a better package?

Thanks!

Homecoming Queen

2009-08-08T17:35:00.006+01:00

It's the Year of Homecoming here in Scotland. Three hundred events are scheduled between Burns Day on the 25 January through to November. Pageantry, pipers and tartan abound.

The official line is that the Homecoming Year will recognise and celebrate a unique cultural heritage and welcome "home" the estimated 100 million people in the world with a 'blood link' to Scotland.

It has also been pointed out that it is a good way for Alex Salmond, Scotland's First Minister, to incite a little nationalist fervour and further cement the Scottish National Party as the natural government of choice. Besides, finding another reason to fleece the tourists by offloading shitloads of tartan, whisky and Loch Ness monster hats never goes astray, especially when there is a recession lurking in the wings.

It has not gone unnoticed that many of these ancient traditions are in fact a Victorian invention, conjured up by Sir Walter Scott. Ever on the lookout for a good promotional opportunity, when the George IV came north for a "King's Jaunt" in 1822 Scott went out of his way to ensure that there was never a dull moment. As Stuart Kelly points out in his article (well worth a read), the grand tradition of fleecing tourists for over-priced tartan was born: the King paid the modern equivalent of £1,123,750 for his.

One of the biggest Homecoming events was the Clan Gathering (25-26 July). Hordes of visitors from New Zealand, USA, Australia, Germany, Canada (among others) wearing little laminated access passes flooded into to Holyrood Park. Despite the fact that J had spent the morning grumbling to his barber about the whole thing being a 'pile of pants' I made him trek into the Old Town to watch the parade at the end. A parade's a parade, after all. Besides, what better way to start to get my head around all this clan business?

Each clan carried a sign, like at the Olympics, and the names were announced by loudspeaker. The leaders were usually all tartaned up, but various codes of dress applied thereafter. Americans sported bum-bags, shades and tartan bandanas. A Maori sported a full set of facial tattoos and traditional ceremonial cloak. Everyone was waving, a few were staggering, some of the old folk looked like it may well be one parade too many.

Many 'homecomers' from the diaspora had brought their own ornate banners to declare their allegiance. In general, the non-Scots were looking either baffled or delighted to the point of tears. One large American man marched up the middle of the street waving to the crowd and, with his hand on his heart, kept announcing "I've come home! I've come home!" John Michie of Taggart fame was spotted in the front line of one group, and the crowd greeting him with an spontaneous chorus of "There's been a murrrrrderrrrrr!" It was a warm and warm and sunny evening, pipe bands were playing Scotland the Brave ad infinitum and people were waving and giving a a little cheer when their own clan passed by.

Suddenly the laughing was replaced by a loud, resounding and quite sustained booing. The Campbells had arrived.

Its a long and complicated story (see a short account courtesty of the BBC. Wikipedia has a longer one), but basically Campbell soldiers were being housed and fed under the laws of highland hospitality by a bunch of McDonalds who had failed, despite attempts, to declare allegiance to the King William of Orange by the specified deadline. The Campbell lads had been sharing the houses of the McDonalds for 12 days when they received the order to kill. On the night of February 13, thirty-eight McDonalds were slaughtered in their beds, with many others perishing when they fled into the blizzard outside.

The Massacre of Glen Coe, as it is now known, occured in 1692, but apparently there is at least one pub in the are that display a notice that they accept 'No Hawkers or Campbells'.

The booing was reasonably good natured, but it was there. It was the booing, as much as the pipe bands, that made you believe that Scottish history is alive and well.

A Novice’s Guide to Edinburgh in August

2009-08-01T15:15:00.013+01:00

1. It will rain

Persistently. In 2008, it rained every day, for the whole month. As a newcomer, I found this a little excessive. ‘Of course it’s raining,’ said my companion, ’It’s August. It always rains in August’. So why do the good burgers of Edinburgh invite the world to visit in the rainiest month possible? Well, it’s good weather for indoor pursuits. My own theory is that the arrival of legions of professional entertainers is planned specifically to stop the sun-deprived, vitamin-D deficient locals from throwing themselves in a lemming-esque unison from The Crags in damp despair. Bring an umbrella.

2. "I'm sorry, that was the July price"

According to Edinburgh’s Evening News, a record number of residents are putting their homes up for rental during the Festival. Rents are about two-and-a-half times the normal rate during Festival season. Those creatures you see in the alleyways are not zombie’s, but sleep deprived young locals with kinks in their necks from sleeping on their parent’s couch while they make the equivalent of four months’ wages renting out their inner-city flats to tourists.

3. There’s a little problem with transport.

Edinburgh is building a little tram line. Though modest by comparison to the networks of Lisbon or Melbourne, it is causing chaos of truly gargantuan proportions, including very many large holes in the ground and closure of the main thoroughfare of Princes Street. In the city centre, there are streets completely blocked to cars, buses temporarily diverted to alternative routes, and things suddenly going one-way that never have before. Temporary barriers and fencing feature heavily. It’s not all bad news, though. Getting around on foot is fine, and most Festival venues are within walking distance of each other. It is hilly here, though, so allow an extra ten minutes for resting half way up the hills if your gym membership has lapsed. If you get bored, you can play a quick game of ‘where’s my bus stop today’ to fill in the time.

4. You’re not the only person that thought this was a good idea.

During the Festival, the population of the city swells like a boil to twice its usual size. For those who live here and are accustomed to getting from A to B at their own pace with very little difficulty, Festival time can be a teensy bit trying. The pedestrian traffic jam that occurs all year around the statue of Greyfriars’ Bobby spreads like a tumour through the Old Town, until every tiny precipitous Close is bulging with bum-bags and Gortex. You may only see one t-shirt that says ‘Get out of my way: I live here,’ but you will see a few faces wearing the same message (including mine, I must admit). If they look like they actually have a normal job and are trying to get to work on time, it’s polite to oblige.

5. You will miss stuff you really want to see

Unless of course, you can swing some weird science and do some cloning or something. This is the key festival go-ers dilemma. With the Fringe, Book, International, Art Festival, Mela and the Comedy Festivals, and probably a few others I have forgotten, all going on in August, even the most anal planners among you will have timetabling clashes. It’s that good. Just remember that for every acclaimed genius, there are probably about three undiscovered ones at bargain basement prices testing their wings in some small venue around the corner, waiting just for you.

6. You will see stuff you really want to miss

I am thinking here chiefly of hen’s parties, bucks parties, and divorce parties. These tend to congregate around the Cowgate area. If you see a large fibreglass cow’s arse sticking out of a high wall, you are in the zone. The hen’s parties tend to feature stretch limos, little headdresses of sparkly stars wobbling on springs, feather boas, and a lot of hot pink and bling. The current fashion for buck’s nights seems to be dressing up in plastic superhero costumes. Both often involve specially printed commemorative t-shirts, and so much alcohol that any attempt in conversation from those outside the circle is doomed to fail.

7. There will be singing.

People do it quite a lot, here, particularly blokes after a few pints, and not necessarily because they are good at it. Football season starts half way though August so there’s months worth of pent up football songs waiting for lusty release. Bear this and the festival-time extended licences in mind if you are an early-to-bed, early-to-rise type are deciding between a room next to a pub and a room next to a haberdashers. (Tip: If you want to join in, make sure have the right song for the right pub. Many are shared territory, but singing Hibs songs in a Hearts pub is foolish. A Celtic song in a Rangers pub is downright suicidal. )

8. You will have a great time.

Chances are that everyone you meet will be having one too. Everyone is getting festive (festering?), and it’s infectious. Every theatre, church hall, school annex, nook and cranny hides a performance, some bizarre, some mystifying, but many truly remarkable.

9. There is respite.

If the unbridled hilarity all gets too much, you won’t have to go too far for respite. Take a walk up to Calton Hill or, if you are fitter and more ambitious, up to Arthur’s Seat and check out the 360 degree views. Chill out in The Meadows, or play a spot of golf at Bruntsfield Links. For a bit of quiet art, take a walk along the Water of Lieth and Visit Dean’s Gallery and the Gallery of Modern Art, or just slip into the National Galleries on The Mound, right in the heart of town. All are free.

Before you leave, pick a vantage point, like George IV Bridge, and take a moment to look at the city. It is handsome, grandiose, and ornate. With the medieval labyrinths of the Old Town and the clean Georgian lines of the New, plenty of fiddly Victoriana thrown in, and all perched on a dramatic steepled landscape, there’s plenty to look at.

10. Yes, they do wear kilts.

For those of you unfamiliar with the British Isles, this is not just something Prince Charles does when he’s trying to get down with the Provinces, but a standard form of formal dress. If you see a chap in the pub wearing a kilt, chances are he is on his way to a ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee) formal dinner, wedding, or a funeral. Or he might just be on his way to a rugby International. Unless he is one of the pipers busking outside St Giles Cathedral or the station, he is not doing it for entertainment. And no, he probably doesn’t want his picture taken.

http://www.edinburghfestivals.co.uk

WWW.EIF.CO.UK

http://www.edfringe.com

WWW.EDBOOKFEST.CO.UK

WWW.EDINBURGH-MELA.CO.UK

WWW.EDINBURGHARTFESTIVAL.ORG

The not-so-lonely Planet

2009-07-31T08:57:00.007+01:00

I am extraordinarly chuffed to announced that, as of this morning, I am officially entitled to refer to myself as 'Lonely Planet Author'.

The good folk at LP have today posted Edinburgh in Festival Time - For Free. Swing on by for a quick run-down of what to do in this fair city during August on a non-existent budget.

Stay tuned for further Edinburgh Festival news over the coming month....

It's a jungle out there

2009-07-23T17:00:00.011+01:00

This is Limpo the Elephant. See that nasty kink in his rear left leg? When Limpo was an unnamed baby elephant otherwise undifferentiated from the other little bundles of elephant joy, he was assaulted by an angry rhino, who had taken exception to him for a reason that probably only the elephants remember. Maybe he waved his trunk in an insulting fashion at the waterhole, or something.

The rhino in question went completely balllistic and though Limpo managed to escape with his life, his leg was severely damaged. They feared that the damage might be fatal, but he healed up alright and was able to move about and feed himself. Crisis over. Years went by, Limpo limped and ate and ate and limped and grew and grew and behaved in a generally elephantine fashion, as befitting a strong young elephant in his prime.

Then one day, Limpo went out and found the nearest rhino and beat it to death.

Well, the park people thought, its a jungle out there. Or a veldt, anyway. Shit happens. Disputes occur, hormones rage, tempers flare. Occasional tragedies ensue. A little while later, though, he did it again. Another rhino bites the dust. As months stretched into years, the park people realised that this was not a simple, straightforward crime of passion. As the death toll mounted, they realised they had a serial killer on their hands. Limpo was waging a one-elephant war on the rhino race. It was rhino-cide on a grand scale.

By the time the fifteenth rhino had died a violent and bloody death, capital punishment must have been looking like a pretty good option. Can't have your tourists coming across murder scenes when they are out to take their pretty pictures of the Big Five. Instead, though, they brought in a heavy hitter, in the form of in another elephant. A chilled old elephant from further North. An elephant with gravitas and wisdom. An elephant carrying the weight of a great many years and thus, seniority. Most important of all, The Grand Old Elephant Of The North got along extraordinarily well with rhinos.

In what must be one of the world's all-time greatest triumphs of criminal rehabilitation, after the two elephants had spent some time together, the slaughter ended. The old elephant eventually went back home, and Limpo, as far as anyone knows, hasn't harmed a hair on the rhino's head since.

I love a happy ending.

P.S. apologies to the people I sent photos to referring to 'hippo-cide': it was a slip of the brain.

Vale

2009-07-22T16:02:00.004+01:00

I have just been to a fireman's funeral. I stood in the rain and watched it pass by, anyway.

I'm not sure why I went, really. I didn't know him, but he was from the station round the corner, and died while fighting a fire in a pub not far from here. That seemed reason enough.

I actually had to call them yesterday when an alarm went off in the block of flats. Turned out to be a false alarm, but they were hear in minute and and they met my apology with a completely unperterbed 'Nae bother'. I wanted to say something to them then, but I figured they could do without getting reminded they were about to bury a collegue every time they tried to do their job.

We could hear the piper before we caught a glimpse of the parade through the teeming rain. It rained in a truly Scottish fashion, from start to finish: heavy, persistent and drenching rain. By the time I got home my waterproof shoes were full simply from the awater running into them down my legs.

Other fireman lined the route, standing in the teeming rain, and from what I can see there was more than a few burly fire-fighting types quite glad to have rain to mask the water on their faces.

The Art of Waiting

2009-07-20T18:35:00.013+01:00

On the plane to Africa, I read the following in Ryszard Kapuscinski's The Shadow of the Sun (Penguin (Australia) 2008):

"Therefore the African who boards a bus sits down in a vacant seat, and immediately falls into a state in which he spends a great portion of his life: a benumbed waiting."

Well, I thought, I can dig it. Sounds exactly waiting for the train at Richmond station, back in the day, when I had an office to go to.

Kapuscinski goes on:

"What does this dull waiting consist of? People know what to expect; therefore, they try to settle themselves in as comfortably as possible, in the best possible place. Sometimes they lie down, sometimes they sit on the ground, or on a stone, or squat. They stop talking. A waiting group is mute. It emits no sound. The body goes limp, droops, shrinks. The muscles relax. The neck stiffens, the head ceases to move. The person does not look around, does not observe anything, is not curious. Sometimes his eyes are closed - but not always. More frequently, they are open but appear unseeing, with no spark or like in them. I have observed for hours on end crowds of people in this state of inanimate waiting, a kind of profound physiological sleep:..."

I quote it at length because this is clearly not a passing aside or a throwaway line. (Though to be fair he does note elsewhere that any statement about 'Africa' is always going to be crap because there is no such homogenous place).

It didn't make me feel any better about my trip, though. The guy lived and worked as a journalist in Africa for years, so I figured he probably knows what he is talking about. Fuck me, I thought, I am gonna be BORED.

A week later, I am in a bare and unadorned hall, with a good forty minutes to go before the Conference's closing ceremony. Delegates have been listening to learned people all week, and they are about to hear just one more. There is plastic chairs and concrete, and very little else.

There is nothing to do but wait, but like everyone else I am getting there early, because I saw how the crowd waited before the Opening ceremony, and I am hoping to see a bit more waiting. I am hoping they will wait, spontaneously, in any spare patch of floor, in sync, starting with some simple melodies back and forth across the cavernous room, gradually adding harmonies, layer upon layer, three, four, five...

The film found at the link below is my experience of an African crowd waiting. Possibly it is no more typical than Mr R's, but I defy you to listen without smiling (the vision is crap, but listen to the sound!). Better still, give it a go next time the 5.34 from Flinders Street is late.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPIh038Z3Sc

back in black

2009-06-19T09:40:00.005+01:00

My Mum tells be that the white on black is too hard to read. But I do so, so, so like black. I'm from Melbourne, after all. It's what we do well.

And the idea of reworking the whole colour scheme....! Readability is one thing, but there are already way to many pastel colours in the world for my liking....

However, my Mum generally knows best. If you are finding this hard to read because of the colour, please let me know. If you are finding it hard to read because of the content, you probably also should let me know. But break it to me gently.

You've been Googled

2009-06-18T19:55:00.005+01:00

I am hoping like hell that 'bing' turns out to be crap. Because I won't use it.

Not for any logical reason, just because I haven't forgiven them for Vista.

I will not bore you all the actual problems with running the dog of a thing. What really pisses me off is that it was forced upon me. I needed new hardware. Why could I not have my old operating system on my new PC? Windows Whatever It Was (pre-Vista) had served me perfectly well, and wasn't that old. Why was it so unreasonable that I should expect to be able to choose? Couldn't I at the very least be given the choice to buy with no operating system at all, so I could have put my old one on? Apparently not. I must be forced to purchase an endless supply of frequent crashes and inexplicable stalls.

Impotent fury festers. Besides, its rare to have the opportunity to happily nurture resentment and turn the other cheek to the advances of that harlot Forgiveness without hurting a flea. Why would I want to give that away?

I found myself with a dilemma, though, after the nightly news have furnished the Big M with about 5 minutes worth of free advertising. What if 'bing' is actually better? A lot of my work depends on internet research. If it was good, there was a very real prospect of being forced to comply. The very thought makes me break out in a rash.

So I thought I would run a simple test and ask them both to find something obscure. I 'binged' myself. It sounds like a mild assault, like having a ping-pong ball bounced off your head. Then I Googled myself. More of an aural tickle, I think.

To my everlasting relief, I found that 'bing' disdains me as much as I disdain it. It most ardently prefers an American sociologist of the same name. Google knows the sociologist, and the kindergarten teacher, and the lawyer in Ohio who share my name, but it knows me as well.

It wins. Phew.

Florence luxuries.

2009-06-17T17:49:00.008+01:00

Florence! What a luxury.

Its a luxury and a privilege for anyone to have an opportunity to go to Firenze for the weekend, obviously. As an Australian, who has spent most of one's life assuming that any trip to Italy will take a years worth of savings and probably two years' worth of accrued leave from work, I am acutely aware of just how great the privilege is.

In fact, when P first suggested I come and meet her there for the weekend, my instinctive response was 'no'. It's justs not the sort of thing one does, is it? It took J, a European and well-travelled one at that, to point out that I both could and should. So I did.

It took about the same time to get there as it used to do to drive to visit Mum and Dad in Gippsland. Andthe plane ticket cost didn't cost any more than the petrol would have, either.

And yes, the art was magnificent and the architecture grand (more of all that later). Yes, the view from the hotel window (domes and roofs and flying sparrows framed by foothills) was lovely. Yes, the food and the wine were great, and the people running the trattoria friendly, professional and often chic.

More glorious than that, though, was to have the opportunity to sit eating and drinking with family and friends. The main bit is the company itself, obviously. Lovely people who you like, who are family, whose friends and family are by extension and connection and varying degrees of separation also yours.

There is something else, as well. Its time spent with people with shared experience, shared acquaintences, shared context. Suddenly remembering what its like to skip all those laborious parts of polite conversation where you explain the backstory: where you come from, what you mean, who on earth the other characters in the story are.

The real luxury is to be able to speak in short-hand. To be able to say something like 'it was at that place in Alma Road', and have everyone there, know exactly what house you are talking about, in what suburb, who lived there, and exactly the kind of parties that were held there in the summer of 1988. All you need is one little phrase like that and the scene is suddenly peopled with the whole tapestry and characters and sub-plots that we share.

So thank you Penny, David & Romani and the Oxforshire Aussies. Thanks for the whole weekend, but especially for that lovely night at Gustavino on the Via della Condotta, where the conversation, like the wine, was full and rich and warm.

Silence in Disneyland

2009-06-09T20:00:00.010+01:00

Just one further thing that I have to mention before I stop crapping on about Venice.

Talk to people about Venice and the first reaction you tend to get is a 'wow' if they have not been there, or you get a kind of sneer and a remark about 'Disneyland for Grown-Ups',which is the precursor to the slightly embarassed admission that they have.

Its is true that the really touristy bits are genuinley and dismayingly awful. One night, when we where sitting in our rose garden, looking over the grand canal to the people dining on the opposite shore, we had a thought that maybe it would be nice on a sunny evening to eat while watching those glossy water taxis drift by. Perhaps, we reasoned, even though the restaurants in question were off the the horridist street we had found, once you were in looking out it would be alright.

So, we slipped past the African guys selling fake handbags and ventured over the Ponte Scalzi,the density of persons-per-square-foot increasing with every step. We peered past the glitter of gelati vendors, walls festooned with low-rent mini-masks and bad t-shirts and through to the restaurants mining the bottomless income-earning potential of their canal-side tables. The first three or four didn't warrant a second look. We were about to turn back, but dedided to creep ahead just a bit more.

Suddenly, to our relief,we were greeted with lovely old rugs draping over antique furtniture in a rather peaceful and elegant looking hotel lobby. With the confidence that stems from Green Coat Magic, we strolled in. Through the glass doors directly in front we could see white table cloths, tragically empty glasses and sunlight glinting on the water. This was more like it.

We had nearly reached the door to the restaurant when suddenly it came. With a pant and a crackle, a slightly off-key 'O sole mia'(sic) boomed out from the terrace, tune favoured of advertising industry gondoliers the world over (though apparently its not even a Venetian song). Worse, it was accompanied by the amplified puffs, clicks and crackles that accompanies bad cabaret acts the world over. Yes, there was a live (though possibly only just) singer in a bad suit creeping his way between the tables.

I looked at J. He looked at me. Without breaking silence or stride we pirouetted on our heels and walked straight out again, back through the souvenier stalls, back over the bridge, back to the safety of Santa Croce, on OUR side of the canal.

Which brings me, after that rather lengthy and unintended digression, to my point. Which is silence. In amongst all the Disney madness of a city that lives and breathes tourism, is was surprisingly easy to find silence. It was in in Santa Croce, San Polo and Dorsoduro, anyway. All the tourists didn't seem comfortable with the notion of getting lost in this maze of lanes where no car has ever rolled, so in that part of town all it took was a little wander down a narow lane,and suddenly you would be in the cool shade, with the old walls like canyons brushing your shoulders and geraniums glinting from widow-boxes in the top floor. A square opens in a glare of light and there is women playing with their babies, boys doing their best to skittle old men with their soccer balls, and old women watching over it all. Turn down another lane and you meet an old lady with a walking stick who waves and says something to you in Italian. You smile, continue on your way, and reach a dead end: canal and no bridge, and which point you realise she telling you that down there was only 'aqua'.

You thank her sheepishly as you return,and she smiles tolerantly in a way that looks like it probably translates as 'the idiots never stop and listen'.

Murderous Gulls and Eviscerated Pigeons

2009-05-29T00:11:00.012+01:00

We were concerned about the pigeons from the start, but we had no idea just how deep and dark were the perils they negotiated every day.

There's a lot of them in Venice. You don't need to go to the Piazza San Marco, where tourists stand with bags of grain and enjoy the sensation of being shat on simultaneously by hundred of Rats With Wings, to know that your average Venetian pigeon does not work very hard for its supper.

Initially, our main source of concern was their health. The squares and alleyways were dotted with pigeons so rotund that it appeared that they really couldn't be fagged trying to get airborne. We nearly trod on one more than once, but it didn't seem to bother them too much. A slightly irritated flap was about the most response we could get. And not many cats around, with all that water. J queried a Venetian collegue about it later.

'Ah, yes,' the chap replied sagely. 'We are the only city where the lions fly and the birds walk.'

Then we found remains. Curious ones, though. The pigeon in question had met a very sticky end, but whatever or whoever had killed didn't seem to have eaten it, as most of it was there on the pavement. Its not like we lingered or anything, but you could help noticing that this flying fatsos had not met a natural death. Way too much gore. Perhaps it had a coronary and exploded in the spasm? Unlikely.

Anyway, we hurried to the nearest church to check out some more pleasant portrayals of murder and mayhem courtesy of Tintoretto, Giotto et al.: a little nailing blokes to a stick here, a little Judith decapitating someone there... You know the kind of thing. We forgot our murdered pigeon.

By the time we remembered, our sympathy had worn off. We were sitting in the rose garden having a rather nice prosecco in the afternoon sunshine, when the people at the next table decided to leave. (I believe they were a father and daughter on a custody holiday. Jim believes I am, in this respect, a niaive idiot.) They left behind a half-empty bowl of chips. Within about 30 seconds the delicate porcelain was full of porky pigeons climbing on eachother, scuffling and squawking and executing some quite impressive hip-and-shoulder action to get to sit in the chips, as if it was a salty, saturated fat birdbath. When sparrows do it its kind of cute. When overweight pigeons do it, you just feel kinda soiled for even watching. And a little nervous, a la Tippi Hedren..

We were wishing they would go away. Then suddenly they did. A big gull had arrived to take a seat at the table. We didn't know why, because it seemed completely uninterested in the chips. The pigeons weren't going anywhere near it. It just sat there, looking at them. They sat on the canal wall a good three or four metres away, looking kind of hunched, like they were trying not to be noticed, and staying unnaturally quiet. I can't honestly say they were trembling, but their beady (and it has to be said, not very attractive)little eyes never left that gull. They were so scared that it took a full minute after the gull left for them to start swarming again.

I have to thank John Berendt for the answer. According to his gossipy little tome about Venice, the gulls are doing the pigeons in. The glossy gulls are nearly as well fed as the fat pigeons, so they restrict their diet to delicacies, like the Doges of old. (Obviously no-one made them eat their crusts when they were chicks.) Apparently when they fancy a light snack, they chase down a lazy pigeon, stab it through the chest and eat its still-beating little pigeon heart, discarding the rest for the Rats Without Wings to clean up later.

I don't know why, but it all strikes me as oddly Venetian.

The Bells, the Bells.

2009-05-26T16:18:00.006+01:00

The guide book told us that the best thing to do in Venice was get lost.So that was what we did first. Not exactly on purpose, but what the heck. Anyway, fortunately the whole joint is so tiny that you can't help finding yourself again. Pretty soon you bump into some orienting bit of water.

When we did find our hotel, it was the business. J had pushed out the proverbial Gondola on this one,it being my birthday an'all, and we passed through a stone gate of a rather stark square into a little oasis of quiet green walled garden, and proceeded to be led to a small room 'on the canal'. Unfortunately it was also right next to the breakfast room and opposite a blank wall, and you had to lean out the window to actually see the water. The piles of earplugs on the bedside table did not inspire optimism. In retrospect, we reckon they probably sent everyone to this room first,in the hope they's take it. They most kindly agreed to give us an alternative, and suddenly we were crossing under a massive chandelier over a marble floor and into a door which led us to walls of red and velvet curtains stretching up to cavernous ceilings, and a little wrought iron balcony that hung above the garden. There was also an extremely large Murano glass confection above the bed. It would have killed us in an instant if it fell.

Then the bells started. There are bells in Venice like you wouldn't believe. There was one rather large one in a tower about two doors away. That one, I must admit, did kind of hurt my skull a bit first thing in the morning. But I forgave it. You can't really beat sitting under blooming roses next to the Grand Canal with the water taxis cruising by all varnished and shiny like they just that minute dropped a white-suited James Bond (Connery version) off at the Casino, while bells assail you from every direction. None of them were quite in sync, so it would start with a single clanking. The one opposite that's in the above picture was often among the first. That first ring would get answered from some where on another island, until suddenly you are in the middle of a clanging cacophany coming at you from all points of the compass.

Many, many bells, but far from saturation point.

...things to remember not to forget, USA

2009-05-18T22:21:00.008+01:00

Time is getting away from me...there was a massive big canyon that dwarfed the clouds, there was a town full of ghosts perched on the hillside, there were massive mesa rising out of a baking plain dotted by numerous red columns of whirling red willy-willies, though they don't call them that. I don't know what they do call them, but they lasered their way across the flat expanse between the mesa and looked like they should be called 'Finger of God'. There was a little carpark off the highway with a lonesome toilet block, but when you got out of your car a cliff edge fell away beneath you and revealed a huge expanse of pink rounded hills in a grey dusty valley, like a jumble of giant pink and grey pearls.

There was a glassblower in Flagstaff who personally apologised to us for George Bush, and a biker in Williams who didn't like bagels. They were, he told his Vietnam Vet companions over breakfast, 'too tight. I prefer something looser. Like cake.' There was a bagel cafe in Flagstaff with every inch of wall covered in framed 'In Memorium' photos of dead dogs. If they came in alive they got a big biscuit.

There was baking dusty desert with Joshua trees, and pine forests with snow on the ground, and these two things were within an hour's drive of eachother.

There was a choice of eight dressings, but only one kind of salad.

Oh, and did I mention there was a bloody big canyon?

But there is no time for all that now, because last week, I went to Venice. I mean the real one, not the Vegas version. Stay tuned....

Who needs scriptwriters?

2009-05-07T08:09:00.006+01:00

Las Vegas, it will not surprise you to learn, absolutely excels in kitch. O, the money I could have spent on trash! The one I really wanted was a little reproduction of the famous 'Welcome to Las Vegas' sign that stood about eight inches high and had its own tiny little battery operated flashing lights. Gold, pure gold.

Not surprisingly, the Vegas souvenier shops are also absolutely chokkas with CSI t-shirts. (Here in the UK is there are a few episodes of CSI nearly every night, as long as you are not too fussy about what series, what order, and whether or not you have seen it three times before.)

CSI Las Vegas is the first, and many would argue the best. (Mystifyingly, the unrelentingly crap CSI Miami is apparently the most popular. I think this is probably because old Carrot-Top whips off his shades and looks into the middle distance so often that its perfect for drinking games.)Anyway,you can't help thinking about it when you are there, because the casinos look just like sets. Which is what they are, really: big real live sets for the punters to pretend in. The Mall in which where you can experience a fake Venice dusk, complete with gondola and opera singing, is a particularly fine example. Many cities build up around natural resources: mines,rivers, arable land. This one seems to spring straight out of the more prurient depths of the human imagination.

On occasions you couldn't help wondering whether everyone was following a script written a few hundred kilometers to the west in LA. So, when you are walking down an anonymous hotel corridor in the biggest hotel in the world,and you overhear a snippet of dialogue drifting though an open door like "No, man! We can't give it to the police. You know they jus' keep it for themselves," you can't help wondering whether or not you've seen this episode before.

Or, and this is the real beauty of the place, whether you should just sit down and write it.

Morning television, L.A. style

2009-05-05T16:44:00.006+01:00

There is a bunch of women on a beige/cream couch, framed by the T.V. screen in the LA airport business lounge. They all have sun dresses, teeth so bright they hurt your eyes, and hair with the same shiny lustre as a mid-seventies Barbie. They have been discussing products you can buy: dresses that will make you look a million. It makes them laugh - a lot - though there are no jokes. It includes assertions such as "I think nothing is as chic as all white!": A statement that as a Melbournite I must regard as questionable, at best.

Then they move on to What Lies Beneath:

Presenter 1: You know what's great? We love the control top underwear.
Presenter 2: Don't we?
Presenter 3: Oh, its fabulous! GOD, I love capitalism!

And, no, she wasn't being ironic.

Mother's Little Helper goes to Vegas

2009-05-02T21:56:00.007+01:00

We were looking for something edible in Vegas airport. Plenty of slot machines to while away the hours, not a lot to eat. Well, that's not strictly true. Shitloads of stuff to eat, but none of it edible.

We settled on a shop that sold fresh baked cinnanmon scroll thingies, plastered in a sticky toffee-like substance and really thick white icing that at that hour,before we had managed to find a coffee, looked vaguely terrifying. Still, to only alternative was Starbucks, which we refused to patronise, and the small young woman (who looked about twelve) behind the counter very helpfully offered to bringing us a bun fresh out of the oven before she put the icing on, so we stayed. We were hoping that the lack of icing make it palatable, but it was soaked in a thick chemical-flavoured syrup. It was kind of like sucking on a syrupy kitchen sponge.

We took our seats and tried the coffee, which was unfortunately on a par with most of the coffee we encountered in that little patch of the US - i.e shit (more on this later). Still, we were in an airport. Nothing else to do but play the slots, but the coffee was dispiriting enough without compounding the disappointment by posting parcels of cash to an unseen strangers who gave you nothing in return but tacky coloured lights and unpleasant beeping noises.

So, we staying where we were, watching while the small woman worked away baking and icing and serving behind the counter, while four of her colleagues sat on the table next to us, wolfing down the heavily iced bun thingies as fast as their desultory conversation would allow. Each one of them was about three times the body mass of the little one working away behind the counter. Three out of four wore the same blue uniform. The fourth, who seemed to be the boss, wore beige.

A fifth arrived (we will call her #5) said "hi" as she passed the table, and disappeared through the doors at the back. Eventually she joined the small one working behind the counter, though whatever it was she was doing it didn't seem to involve either making the buns or serving the customers. This went on for 20 minutes or so, until one the uniformed Bun-eaters (we shall call her #1) got up with a huge sigh, and with five or six very slow and laboured steps, joined her companion at the counter.

Having arrived at her destination, #1 sighed, looked at something behind the counter, sighed again, and then bent down and emerged with a pile of about ten baking trays. The same routine was repeated, and this time a stack of pre-cut baking paper appeared. She began joining the two together. Picking a piece of paper off a pile and putting it in the baking tray did not appear to be a complex task, but it seemed to take a great deal of contemplation. Pick up paper,look at it, put paper in tray, look at it. Sigh.Put hands on tray. Sigh. Pick up tray. Look at it. Move arms to left. Put down tray. Look at it. Sigh again. Move eyes towards paper. The process was hypnotic without being in any way calming.

Anyway, turns out she didn't acheive that glacial pace without help. (In my own defense, I would like to point out here that I wasn't actually trying to eavesdrop, but it was hard to avoid becoming unwilling witness when a conversation is being hollered half-way across a stark shiny linoeum floor):

#5 - You okay?
#1 - Yeah. I jus' tired. (lengthy pause) How you doin'?
# 5 - I doin' good. Oh yeah. I got these new ones. I feelin' fine.
#1 - Are they red? I got red ones.
#5 - No, they blue. Blue with, like, yella in the middle. Right roun' the middle there.
#1 - They got a hole in the middle?
#5 - No, they blue with this like yella bit. They not like pills. They like...what's the word (she looks over to Ms Beige). Capsula? Capsula? What's that?
Ms Beige - Capsules.
#5 - Capsula?
Ms Beige - Capsules. That's right. Its 'capsules'.
#5 - Capsules. Blue and yellow.
#1 - Oh. Right. Okay.
(#5 leaves)
#1 - (to Ms Beige)I got these red ones.
Beige - Yeah?
#1 - Yeah. They red.(pause) They help me relax. Like for stress, you know? (yawns)They help you relax? (long pause) But they make you tired. (pause). I tired.
Beige - Okay.
#1 - I real relaxed, though. (long pause) I guess.

Well, there are worse ways to spend your minimum-wage working day than heavily medicated. Possibly even paid for by your job-linked health-care plan. I predict a bright future for the manufacturers of the blue ones with the yella stripes.

Invest now.

The Grand Canyon.

2009-05-02T21:45:00.003+01:00

Yes, I know. Back a while and no word on the jaunt to the US of A. Hard to know where to start, really. Strange place.

Its kinda hard to convey the sheer scale...

Check-In

2009-03-29T16:50:00.008+01:00

The packing does it for the Hackpacker. My own realisation of imminent travel came with an impromptu purchase of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Its a book that I have long held close to my heart, and one of a very very few that I have read more than once.

The first time was at Uni, natch. The second was when I was doing a week long residential course on 'leadership' as part of a Masters. This basically consisted of a Gulag-style Canberra mind-fuck during which the presenters (who were a couple, incidentally, which made it creepier) seemed to have adopted 'No. of People Made To Cry Per Diem' as their main KPI.

Personally, I did not want to be made to cry. I was heading home from that little jaunt on the Friday to sell my house on the Saturday, under circumstances which had caused quite enough weeping for one year, thank you very much. It was not a time in my life when getting in touch with my Inner Sook was going to do me or my professional reputation any good at all. However, in a moment of all-too-rare genius (if I do say so myself) I took Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with me. At breakfast each day I filled up on caffeine, sugar, and Hunter S. Thompson.

Apart from being a great pleasure in itself, it was magnificent preparation for the days Programming. By the time I made it to the morning's first session, I had already dealt with hallucinatory bats and all manner of other adventures. After that, the rest of it was water off a duck's back. I did find myself imagining the presenter as a giant walking iguana a few times, but I don't think that was a bad thing.

Seeing me through that little trauma is reason enough to love it, but I also think it has one of the best opening paragraphs of any novel ever written. I haven't actually read every novel ever written, but you get my drift. If you have not had the pleasure, I urge you to turn off your computer and rush out and find it, right now.

I left all my books behind when I came North (it still smarts), but I was very pleased to find an edition with the same cover I had in the 80s in Waterstones, though it seems to be rather more 'flouro' than I remember. I stood there in the queue of the Princes street store, watery sunshine bathing the newly-hatched daffodils across the road, wearing only four layers of clothing (it is spring, after all)thinking, in three days, I will be there. I will actually be in Las Vegas. I am in delicious anticipation of fear and loathing ensuing forthwith.

I really wish I still smoked. Etcetera. I will just have to satisfy myself with rolling down the window and screaming:

"Holy Jesus! What are these goddam animals?"

"And then it was quiet again."

People That Impress Me#3

2009-03-16T16:14:00.007Z

When I was a small and innocent child, I was raised to be a revolutionary. Or at least that was how it was supposed to turn out. I am yet to live up to the expectation, I am afraid. I like to think I have an appropriately vigilant eye for injustice, but I am not sure how much the hearbreaking experience of having to be the the 'token aboriginal' in a game of rascist Monopoly (no property ownership, pay double rent and if you go to jail you never get out) really contributed to the outcome.

It did mean, however, that while my friend Jenny was sticking posters of the Bay City Rollers on her wall, I was dutifully mounting earnest and informative little pamphlets about Ned Kelly. We glossed over the whole murder bit, back then. Sacrifices had to be made in the midst of class warfare. It was the 70s, after all.

Anyway, the hero worship didn't really stand more adult scrutiny, though I still think he writes one helluva letter. Nevertheless, it gives me a particular flush of pleasure to see that our own and much beloved Paula Hunt is making sure that the latest generation of whipper-snappers get appropriately acquainted with this little bit of Victorian history, by producing a wee volume on the Bearded One himself, called Outlaw Son.

This follows fairly hotly on the heels of a very lovely volume Wild Colonial Boys.

All this relentless publication is acheived, mind you, while she also looks after all those punters (and Hunters) at the MCG in her spare time.

Impressed? Not 'arf.

Yeah, fuck you, too, Richard!

2009-03-12T21:34:00.006Z

It all started because I have a terrible deadline looming that I am struggling to meet. Spending four hours on the internet searching looking for good mobile phone deals was therefore inevitable. I have always been a pre-paid kinda gal, but I do love a gadget so, and there was these lovely ones, all shiny and lovely. All I had to do was sign up to a little teensy weensy little 18 month contract and pay them a little bit of money up front. Just £8.50 a month and a new Lovely Shiny Shiny would be mine. Delivered straight to my door. Easy. Nice. Shiny.

Besides, if I actually purchased a phone, it meant that the four hours that I had just spent tooling around on the internet was not time-wasting, but responsible, well thought out consumer research. I was good, not bad.

I filled in all the little boxes on the screen, and they said they Lovely Shiny would arrive the next day. I would have a new Lovely Shiny and a phone contract, just like a grown-up. I was excited. Then, a couple of hours later, they sent me another one saying that I wasn't allowed to give them my money. Not this week. Last week, of course, Virgin Media was happy to sign me up and install cable internet, TV and telephone for about three times the amount we were talking about now. This week, nada. They were kind enough to offer me the opportunity to pay some credit check agency in Essex twelve quid for the priviledge of telling me why I was no longer worthy, but apart from that, I could fuck off.

I was a little hurt.

Resilient little bunny that I am, I found another deal with another company the next day. In fact, this one was WAY cheaper, so the day before's events seemed like a little caress of luck(so much for my consumer research of the day before). All went well. They asked me more questions, which I found encouraging. The address bit took some time,because they wanted three year's worth. I decided to gloss over the Sydney flat and the brief soujourn in Morningside and stick to just three addresses for the last year. After that,there was just the Elwood Hibiscus Palace.

This time I got two e-mails. First, telling me that they got the form. Secondly, telling me my order had been lodged and I could expect my Lovely Shiny forthwith. Gadget greedy, I dreamed of all the things I could do with my new gadget. I couldn't actually think of any that would be particularly useful, but whatever they were I would be able to do them in style.

Having run out of distractions, I actually did some work. Then another email arrived. And a text. They didn't want me either. A double-barelled rejection from this lot, just in case I was in any doubt. The odd little episode of rejection I can handle. The mini-series, however, I was finding unpleasant. To give them their due, though, they at least had the good grace to tell me that the problem was not having lived in the UK for three years. And they didn't try and charge me twelve quid for the knowledge.

Then another e-mail arrived. Right back at the start, I had sent Verging Meanier an e-mail to ask if I could just add a phone to my already purchased bundle. Yesterday, they hadn't replied. Today, 24 hours after Virgin Mobile had told me to fuck off and take my business elsewhere, they replied. They advised, in that annoying Virgin chirpy-chappy prose that makes you want to slap the little fuckers, that they would absolutely LOVE to help me. Was I aware they had a deal for as little as £8.50? All I had to do was call their Sales Department and they would sort it all out. They would have rung me, they said, except I hadn't given them a phone number, i.e. the phone number that they had provided me with the week before.

I toyed with the idea of writing back to tell them that I was aware of their £8.50 a month deal, having tried to purchase that very deal the day before, but by this time I was half convinced a balaclava-clad swat team was downstairs in an unmarked van preparing to storm the flat and take my internet away.

A minor aside. I was allowed to VOTE here from the moment I arrived.

To cut a long story short, I therefore remain a pre-paid girl, and by all accounts am doomed to remain so for another two years. No Lovely Lovely Shiny for me.

Fuck you, too, Mr Branson.

A funny thing happened in Prague

2009-02-20T16:03:00.012Z

It started at a little gallery in the Old Town, not far from the street full of puppets, not far from the doorway where the stone blokes were wearing stone lion skins. I don't know whether the woman in the gallery was desperate for a sale, or just desperate for someone to talk to, but she was desperate for something. Expressing interest in a rather cute painting called 'Marauders' (or something) in which two dogs played tug-of-war with a typewriter had led to a lengthy but completely uneccessary discussion of how postage costs to the UK were undeniably great value.

I ended up with a handful of brochures that I really didn't want, and finally stumbled out into the cold street. I gazed at the top corner of the opposite building for a while. That is the appropriate thing to do in Prague, as every top corner is flouting some kind of groovy accoutrement that begs for your attention.

I turned around and saw a largish bloke kind of loping towards us down the cobbled street, and immediately got that little tweak of vertigo you get when your contexts unexpectedly go awry. I had the peculiar sensation that my TV screen had just taken on a very impressive big-screen, 3-D kinda quality. Suddenly Law and Order had gone medieval. The lighting was even right.

I swear it was him. Jesse L. Martin. I looked at him. He looked right back. He was looking kinda friendly (I was wearing the green coat: it has that effect), and if I could have only remembered his name at the time, I could have quite happily said hello. I didn't think 'Hi, love your work. Can't remember who you are, but love your work' would quite do the business, though. He looked like he was having a nice day, so gratuitous ego-deflation seemed inappropriate. The Green Coat Magic also completely prevented me from engaging in the sleeve tug and the accompanying 'Look, its the guy from Law and Order' stage-whisper without both spoiling the moment and shamelessly exposing my tragic un-hippness.

As a result, J. kept gazing at rooftops, oblivious. We passed like the proverbial ships, Jesse L's personal space intact, and any chance for independent verification of the sighting lost forever.

I was left assuring J.that yes, I was really, really sure, and wondering whether, if I was just a bit more opportunistic, that little encounter could have been the start of...of ...um...something. The lucrative sale of that unfinished undergraduate (and let's face it shithouse) film script? A sudden, unsought invitation to a glamorous cocktail party teeming with commissioning producers from HBO? One of those out-of-focus'look who I met on my holiday' snaps? Ah, the golden opportunities that slip through your fingers for the want of some good old-fashioned chutzpah!

For the record, its not all a trick of the light. He really is quite handsome.

Information is power: Save the net

2009-02-20T10:21:00.001Z

Housekeeping

2009-02-11T17:09:00.002Z

I think you should be able to leave comments without having to sign in, now. Have a go and see if it works.

Ten things I learned in Prague

2009-02-11T16:07:00.011Z

1) 'Don't cry for me Argentina' sounds rather odd in Czech. The taxi driver seemed to like it, though.

2) It's full of stone people, and most of them are naked. Not naked in an Adam and Eve clothes-haven't-been-thought-of-yet' kinda way, but naked in a 'hey-baby-let's-get-it on', kinda way. No demure draping of sheets for these dudes. Seriously, its wall to wall breasts in this place. In a nice way. Lucky they're made of stone or they would be fucking cold.

3)If you are an English speaker, you should pay attention to your grammar, because there is a good chance that the Prague residents you speak to have better English than you do. (Better than I do, anyway.) We had quite an interesting conversation with the woman running the cloak-room in the Museum of decorative arts, who wanted our advice as to the correct British equivalent of the American 'You're welcome.' We were struggling a bit, but after some discussion settled on 'It's my pleasure', though a little more formal. Meanwhile, I had to take a surreptitious peek in my guide book to even get the Czech word for 'thankyou' right.

4)There is live classicial music to be had right, left and centre. And much of it is free.

5) Little golden pointy stars are de rigeur for your average halo. If wearing stars, stone people are also likely to be wearing clothes (cf. point 2, above).

6) The Time Out city guide is crap.

7) If you are a fan of Art Deco, and Art Nouveau, Prague is the place for you. Decorative arts, architechture, furniture glasswear. Its all there in its stylish glory, happily nestled in amongst the more expected medieval and baroque flourishes.

8) It's a beatiful city, full of very beautiful things. I include in this category a long line of large yellow penguins.

9) The Bohemians were making extraordinarily delicate engraved glasswear at a period in history when, my beloved Scot reminds me, technology in the UK largely consisted of 'struggling to hammer a pair of logs together'. What is even more extraordinary is that it is that many pieces of the aforesaid glasswear is still in one piece. If this is possible, why do I find it impossible to keep a set of six wine glasses intact for more than about six months?

10) You can buy cannabis vodka. And yet, I practically had to wrestle the barman in our hotel to the ground before he would give me any absinthe. Nice girls in nice hotels don't, apparently. I did.

Revisionist editing

2009-02-10T00:04:00.005Z

I have taken the snowy post with the husky off. Breaks my own rule about revising history, but given that I have spent the last hour on the internet watching my home state burn, both header and the picture seemed disgustingly trite and insensitive.

Hoping for rain and some better news.

People that impress me #2

2009-02-02T11:24:00.002Z

Hello again. My brother just sent me the link to his latest page, and his latest music. I am so f*cking impressed that I urge you to swing on by. Start with a listen to 'Once was the sea' and go from there, I suggest.

So unfair that we can share so many genes and I got none of the talent!

Enjoy.

Yes, We Can!

2009-01-25T22:59:00.010Z

Far be it from me to sound even vaguely critical of the new President of the Western World. I am a fan. I really am.

However, I have been rather puzzled about the curious silence about the fact that he stole his campaign catch-phrase from Bob the Builder. As you can see from the clip, the general vibe is not dissimilar.Is it just too obvious a joke, or was this the the elephant in the room we are all too polite to mention? Surely it's not genuine reverence that is preventing wholesale exploitation of this all-too-obvious source of mockery? That would just be wrong.

A little look on YouTube suggests that the answer may be more prosaic. All of the clips by people that look like they may be trying to use the joke seem to have been withdrawn. The sad little messages left behind suggest that Bob's owners may have been throwing threats of legal action around rather liberally.

I wonder if Hits Entertainment are planning to sue Obama for stealing it in the first place? I hope not. I am sure that The Pres will have asked Bob if he can borrow it first. I think they might be cousins. They do have the same ears.

Comments etc.

2009-01-21T12:24:00.004Z

By the way, you may have noticed that I have added some little tick boxes down the bottom for reactions. Please use them. I am hoping you can do so without all that signing on palaver that you need to do to leave a comment. Let's face it, most of you are far too sensible and time-poor to do that. It would be nice to know whether anyone out there is looking, though, so tick away, my friends, even if its to bombard me with so many frowns that I have to stop....

Hot?

2009-01-21T12:18:00.004Z

Hot? I hear you've had a spot of hot weather down there in Melbourne (finally!). Tempted to drive around all night because your car has an air conditioner and your house doesn't? Wishing you got around to installing those fly wire screens? Tripping over old ladies to squish yourself onto the one train in a hundred which is not broken?

Thought this view, taken from my kitchen window on Monday, might help you all to think cool thoughts. Its rather chilly in the North. Quite nice, though.

Gypsy memories

2009-01-15T01:03:00.009Z

Ms J. sent the e-mail in the afternoon. What happened to Dirty Three, she wondered. Weren't they on the bill? Well, I thought so too, and a quick check on last.fm showed we weren't alone.

It didn't matter. The night had a Saintly Mojo all its own. I was heading to the City from the ragged heart of Footscray when I suddently recollected that Ms J., Southside Supreme, worked in Footscray herself. Lo and behold, instant door-to-door transport and a happy journey in the J-mobile. When we arrive, Ms. J's famous Parking Fairy (bless her little cotton socks) finds us a spot.

We head towards the New Gold Mountain.Only one day till I leave. We wonder about a rendevous in New York. How did I start having such surreal conversations? Maybe it can happen, maybe it can. Hunger diverts to the neighbouring Japanese, Horoki, where my sashimi salad (with daikon, seaweed and a light tangy dressing) proves to be spectacularly good. The Saki Samurai (saki, ice, and a fat wedge of lime)are pretty damn good as well.

JL the Magnificent turns up to find us, and we all head to The Forum. Ms. J. and I discover that A., the waitter that always looked after the CSBM (Children's Service's Branch Mafia) at Nudel, just happens to have been a friend of Ms J's for 20-odd years. The delicate little threads that tie us all together flicker into view in the soft evening light. I ask her to relay our regards.

I collect the tickets at the Box Office, nearly tripping over a member of Blue Ruin in the process, and head on in. JL says that X are making her ears bleed, and heads for the seats at the back. I can't sit down at a gig, though, and head to the standing area with Ms. J. We soon find B., former collegue whose rock pig instincts have snaffled him a great spot against the railing. He is happy to share. X are great, and the bass is making my breast-bone vibrate just the way I like it. There is still at least one bass-player in the world who goes with the open-shirt look. It's good to know. The big vertical spit into the air is also particularly impressive. Not everyone can break the 6-foot barrier with a big gob of slag.

In the break between bands, B. confesses that he started the rumour that Dirty Three were on the bill. Says it serves us right for trusting networking sites and other scurrilous gossip. Meanwhile, JL comes down from her pew and is soon is having deja vu about Ms J's cat, though she has met neither Jane (or the cat) before tonight. Invisible threads are suspected.

The Saints come on, and I finally see Chris Bailey and Ed Kuepper in the same place at the same time. They open with Stranded. Can't get better than that. Chris Bailey keeps berating us all for being stupid enough to pay $60 to hear an album played that we could all listen to at home: ("I hate fucking matinees.Don't worry, it will be over soon.") Ed Kuepper looks earnest, Chris Bailey shows of relentlessly and occasionally remembers to pretend he is not enjoying himself. We yell and scream and coax them out for a great couple of encores, complete with a little diversion into a river deep rendition of River Deep Mountain High. The sweat and beer eases the collective creak of our old arthritic bones, and we dance. Someone even musters a stage dive. Sweet.

Ms J. spots Jimmy G. through the crowd, who was not only with us at RMIT years ago, but also was a primary school with me.

Hello, hello. How are you? Good to see you.

L. is here somewhere, but I can't see him. We walk to a bar off Bourke for a post-gig drink, talking about Otis Redding & Stevie Wonder. KC walks in the door, a face from another time: flashbacks of a party in her tiny Balaclava flat, dancing in a tiny living room.

Hello, hello. How's things? Whatcha up to? Yes, I heard you'd gone.

KC & JL start hatching plans for a Big Day Out. Conversation breaks off suddenly "Neil!". JL has seen a face she used to work with. She doesn't know it's the same Neil that I did my Masters with, and with whom I have shared many a beery chat.

Hello, hello. You know eachother? Can't believe I bumped into you. How's the family? How's the life?

I need to write this down, try and capture it lest the threads stretch and break. I sit down in the State Library this morning to write this blog, and look up Horoki. The review says the name means 'gypsy memories' or 'tastes of the wanderer'. Who knew?

See you soon, Melbourne. Look after yourself. I'll miss you.

Make Love Not War

2009-01-11T11:17:00.006Z

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the CIA or some some other spooky U.S. agency (all cats are grey...) have had to get inventive with incentives.

They found themselves in need of a new kind of bribe to get the local warlords on side and chatty. Apparently, they had been relying on the well-tested approach of money. This not only left them with a very low score for imagination and creativity, it also had the problem of rendering itself ineffective in a relatively short period of time.

You see, the thing about money is that it has no inherent value. It is a medium of exchange; nothing more, nothing less. If you are rendered unable to exchange it for anything, you are completely stuffed. Like dead, for example. No shopping opportunities in the after-life, hence the expression 'you can't take it with you'. Example 2: You are an Afghan warlord in a small community whose expenditure of large amounts of money, whether it be on land or livestock, cows or clothes, bongs or bling, will be instantly noticed by your compatriots and peers. In this situation, experience has shown, the prominent display of a new gold watch a month after that mysterious Western fellow has passed through town is so instantly recognised as an 'Example-2-type-situation' that you very quickly find yourself in an 'example-1-type-situation' i.e. dead. Either that, or your mates decide you are a dirty dobbing dog in which case you become 1) very lonely, and 2) cut off from the very source of information that you were hoping to make a nice little earner selling in the first place.

What to do? Create a pay-packet they can consume, use and abuse to their heart's content without anyone complaining. Better still, if someone does see the change in behaviour, suddenly you are not only a warlord, but a stud.

Seems life is hard for an ageing warlord who is into polygamy. Or, more accurately, making life hard gets harder and harder all the time, especially with a stressful war to stay alive in, foreign agents to talk to, etc. Last thing you want is for word to go around the market-place that you are not up to (excuse the pun) meeting your conjugal obligations. The guys might start thinking you are a wuss or something.

The answer? Viagra. The warlord looks south and is proud of what he sees. With any luck the wives benefit as well. No-one beyond the boudoir need ever know, and if they hear anything, its likely to make your macho reputation go up, rather than down. That's the plan, anyway. Suddenly half the village is walking around grinning like idiots. With just a smidge of swagger. And maybe, just maybe, the little kids grow up, surrounded by a little less frustration and anger and a little more satisfaction, and a little more belief in humans' ability to bring each other joy, every now and again.

I know, I know. I am being flippant. One can't assume that your average middle-aged warlord will spend their new-found 'wealth' either wisely or kindly. By the same token, I am sure that the women in question are perfectly capable of generating their own joy if and when they need to, one way or another. In the scheme of things, though, its gotta beat trafficking in narcotics, weapons, or nuclear isotopes.

I like to think they include a complimentary Barry White CD.

Getting a bit fruity.

2009-01-08T02:57:00.011Z

Once upon a time, I belonged to a novel workshopping group that was one of the lovely little green shoots that sprang out of the fertile ground of RMIT's Professional Writing and Editing course.

In the few years since that group ceased, two of the four of us have had new work published. Pretty good average, I reckon.

Adam Ford's new book of poetry 'The Third Fruit' has just been published by Picaro Press. Although I haven't got hold of a copy myself yet, I am sure it will live up to the stellar standards of his previous work. More info at his website. Stay tuned for launch details.

Last year, another member of that little cohort, Caroline Hamilton, published Consumed, (ABC Books) which was gestating away during that brief period. We even discussed the manuscript occasionally, and not very helpfully, when we weren't eating and drinking and generally conversing in a not particularly focussed way. The cover features a particularly fetching looking apple. I am not sure what number fruit that is. You can read an interview with Caroline about the book in the view from here magazine.

I find them all very impressive. I find my short story workshopping group, which is still going strong, even more impressive. But that's a story for another day....

Happy New Year, everyone. May it be full of joy.

No shortage of shiver

2008-12-17T05:43:00.007Z

I am delighted it has rained. No, really. Rain is good. Parks look nicer dressed in green. Things grow and such. All good, really very, very good.

I live in a very cold place, now. There is no lounging about limbs akimbo in the naked darkness wondering whether the buzzing in your head is a mosquito or the sound of the sweat sizzling on your skin. There is no slipping down the beach early before the sand gets too hot to stand on, then holing yourself up in a darkened room to watch the cricket until the sun stops doing its 'hammer and anvil' schtick on the pavement. There is no ritual slathering of sunblock before you step out the door of a morning, nor inspecting the sun-damage on your skin before you go to bed at night (a rather depressing aside: I look like a wisened hag, skin-wise, compared to the average person of about my age over there). There, if it should ever hit 25 degrees, the people go all pink and flustered and keep saying the word 'scorcher' to each other. I kid you not.

Don't get me wrong, there is a lot to like. There is (or at least was in my former residence and I trust will be again) curling up by the fire. Pubs with lead-light windows give of a friendly glow in afternoon darkness, and in summer you can stay in the glowing pubs until 11.30 and still stumble home in the light.

And the sky is big. There are places have small skies, but I don't think I could live in one. Snow falls, occasionally, which is hilarious. Besides, it makes the hills over the Firth go all white on their little rounded heads, and if the sun ever does come out they give a little blinding sparkle of joy. August (a.k.a. 'summer') was cloudy. Unrelentingly cloudy. There was not a single moment when I saw even the tiniest sliver of blue in the sky for the whole month. Not once.

To be fair, August was also reasonably un-cold. Nothing wrong with cold, per se, but in my new home there is rather a lot of it. It's cold all the time. I am cold all the time. There is cold a-plenty. My friends, I have no shortage of shiver.

So, despite being utterly delighted that the rains have finally come in the nick of time to save all of Melbourne, nay Victoria, from blowing away in a puff of dust, I must admit to being a little peeved about the fact that I ride in on the big flying horse this morning only find myself sitting at a kitchen table shivering. I had to rifle the cupboards of this house to find a jumper, because I didn't pack one.

Yes, I know, it's Melbourne. I should have packed a jumper as well as an emergency Heat-Stroke Resucitation Pack. I am an idiot. A shivering one.

The Definition of Panic

2008-12-05T05:06:00.005Z

The definition of panic, dear friends, is when your stupid Windows Media Player (let the guilty be named) tells you that all of your music is on your computer twice, and then you remember that you put stuff in a 'public' folder, because your stupid computer thinks that your part-time worker self and your fooling around freelance self are two different people altogether (which they kind of are, I like to think, but I digress..).

The definition of panic, is when you do actually check, and Windows Explorer shows you a happy little list of folders in BOTH your 'music' folder and your 'public music' folder, clear indication in anyone's language that there are files in both. Deluded, I was. Deceived and deluded. So, in order to keep your little laptop the lean mean fighting machine that it needs to be in this dog-eat-homework world, you press 'delete' to erase the material in your 'public' folder, ignoring the little voice in the back of your head that is querulously murmering 'Hang on. No way is your hard disk big enough to fit all your music twice.'

The definition of panic is when the warning that the thing is about to delete 8,136 items makes no impression on you whatsoever except to make you feel rather smug and self-congratulatory about the fact you have accrued 8,136 items of rather eclectic and diverse musical joy. This vainglorious buzz lasts just long enough to quash any uneasiness prompted by your computer telling you that it will not put these things in that safe little Half-way House for Wayward Files, the Recycle Bin. It will instead delete them - completely and irrevocably - without further ado. This is precisely because it is a rich and lovely collection of such impressive volume. This is because you are now homeless and all your CDs are stored away in an asbestos-soaked shed in the middle of Brunswick, and your only access to your music, lovingly collected over years, is via your computer. Yes, it seems size does matter.

The definition of panic is when you check back in your music folder to find everything gone.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Everything, that is, except one empty Beck folder. Oddly, the Microsoft gods decided to let that stay, as a hollow reminder of all that had been and was now no more.

But wait. No need to send flowers.

The definition of relief is when you realise that you acually backed up your computer before you left the UK, because you remembered that if your laptop got nuked by some feral device bent on protecting the world from Terror you are fucked, both professionally and personally. Professionally for obvious reasons. Personally because all your photos and music, and therefore the best parts of oneself, would be erased forever.

So, as I write, a shiny little back box about the size of a Moleskine notebook with a reassuringly steady blue light on the side is painstakingly giving my machine back its soul - or at least 6,812 parts of it. This is going to take it 59 minutes apparently, which seems a little unfair given that the accumulated musical wisdom of 41 years of listening pleasure took me a maximum of two clicks and well under 59 seconds to destroy. I am a little concerned about the mysterious attrition of about 1,200 items but, hell, seven eighths of a soul is better than no soul at all.

Back up, my friends, back up. Disaster is but a mouse-click away.

I told you it was going to be a nice sunset.

2008-12-02T05:24:00.002Z

The Saturation Point of Bells

2008-12-01T07:15:00.002Z

I probably owe you an explanation. But you're not going to get one.

There are some blog names that are so self-evidently right that not an iota of explanation is necessary. Take Hackpacker, for example. Now there you have a name that is neat and taut and witty and completely fit for purpose. I have but mentioned the word and off you go positively tingling with a soon-to-be-fulfilled expectation of the pleasures you will find when you mosey on by (which you should, by the way).

Alas, I can offer nothing so deftly apt.

At this moment, though, I would like to tell you that the storm clouds are getting angry behind the bridge and turning the harbour a shiny electric grey, boding well for a spectacular sunset. The sun still shines, though, making the little row of pink, purple, white and red spinnakers that are sailing past my borrowed window glow like birthday balloons.

It is beatiful here, and you gotta love a desk that requires sunglasses.