Category: Musings

Phew! Completely knackered now as just back from a run round the park and cemetary. It’s a really nice route, lots of green and a car free running path – very pleasent indeed. The run was made even better by eating little Chris’ lush pasta afterwards (thanks for that) – no idea what’s in it but it is totally awesomely lush. Will let you all know the recipe when I find out later.

Had a nice relaxing evening ‘in’ last night for a change. Went to Vera and Dom’s and watched ‘Animal Factory
, a Steve Buscemi film about life in a prison. Very watchable with some great characters but overall not a great movie. Good to relax though, especially with all the pre-Christmas going out plans for this weekend – huzah!

Dead famous – ben elton. Big brother and reality TV in general is the target of this Ben Elton satire, blended together with a murder mystery. The question posed is hence fascinating – how do you commit a murder and get away with it when you’re being watched all the time? Unfortunately the answer is quite obvious and although there are funny moments generally the book, though very readable, is not as entertaining as some of his earlier work. More interesting to read for some background insight into how TV works than anything else!

Travels with my aunt – graham greene. Never read any Graham Greene before so a big thanks out to Chris (the littler one) for recommending this to me from his huge pile of books. The story revolves around a retired bank manager who meets his aunt for the first time at his reserved, religious mother’s funeral. This meeting leads to a number of revelations about his family history and consequently to his travels with his aunt to various locations, never quite knowing what’s going on. It’s a highly readable book that pulls you along from page to page, and although the transition from fuddy duddy bank manager to international ‘criminal’ is maybe a bit far fetched at times it makes for a great story. Green tackles the uncertainty in the nephew’s mind about his new adventures wonderfully and it’s a great book to read if you’re not sure you want to go travelling…

Cleese encounters – jonathan margolis. – Continuing my biographical bent at the moment, I picked this 1992 version of the book up in a second hand shop. The contrast between these two comic greats is amazing – whereas Sellars went for the ‘crazed artistic schizophrenic genius’ style, Cleese constantly re-invents himself and grows around the ‘repressed English middle class’ medium. Fascinating stuff, and well researched given that Margolis was not allowed to talk with Cleese and this is all through secondary media.

Been another busy few nights… guess it must be Christmas, although I’m only really understanding that because I just spent a few days wrapping presents and sending them off to my family in all their various locations. Should all arrive in time the Post Office tells me…

Apart from wrapping presents the start of the week was filled with watching the final few ResFest films. Pretty intense watching 12 hour and a half long film sessions in fairly quick succession and have been on a film related ‘come down’ ever since (which was partly alleviated by watching a Chinese epic movie called ‘Hero‘ in the meantime – very good indeed in a Crouching Tiger stylee). Highlights of ResFest – the Michel Goudry retrospective, a short called ‘Japan Tradition: Relationships’ and a animated ‘Letter to Mr President’ done by painters on a large board filmed by above. Michel Goudry is the guy who did the Kylie video with many Kylies walking along roughly the same route, which is a culmination of many years of playing with how we perceive time variations. Amazing visual sense.

Had a fun session out on Tuesday night with Vera and Dom trawling from St Kilda back to the CBD where found a nice new bar called East 88 on Elizabeth Street and took some cool photos using a mix of their camera flash and my camera with no flash which I’ll try and post onto My Photos soonish under Aussie Friends. Big shout out to Sarah the bartender for topping the polls on most friendly barkeep in Melbourne thus far.

Last night was again busy – first watched a bit of the queues to get into Robbie Williams at the Telstra dome, since didn’t have a ticket to go see the man himself. Hugely busy. Then my friend Irene had an opening at Ivy Hope for her ‘Iggy and Lou Lou’ range of porcelin jewellery. Beautiful pieces, with a mix of animals, faces and more gothic elements. ‘Iggy’ is actually Irene’s nickname and Lou Lou is her friend Louise (who makes awesome t-shirts), originally they were working together but it ended up just being Irene – the name stuck however. Irene also makes these great kids plates, so both of these businesses are keeping her and her boyfriend Peter rather busy at the moment! Good to catch up with them both again though.

From there, fuelled by the opening’s free sparkling red wine we popped briefly into Robot before I heading on the No.6 tram down to Bar 116 to meet Holly and her pals. Last time I was at 116 it was to see Holly play guitar, but tonight she was just out to play. Lovely evening, meeting piles more of her friends and taking some more cool piccies. Also heard some more amazing music – a solo guy playing Irish whistle which was beautiful and this highly intense solo woman with guitar who had everyone in the room enthralled by her intense, passionate PJ Harvey/Gypsy style playing. Think all the boys in the room (and probably a lot of the girls) were in love with her by the end of the set she was so emotional and intense as she attacked the guitar and swayed back and forth singing her lungs out – I certainly was!

Party buses

Y’know how when you’re waiting for a bus you can sometimes wait for ages and then three will come along at once? Well last night was one of those nights for parties. Luckily parties go on for longer than bus journies – so managed to make them all and check out the first films of Res-Fest.

Yep, ResFest has started, all four days of it. First up was a series of films showing different aspects of going around the world – pretty interesting, with the best being ‘The Other Final’, a story about the two worst ranking international football teams playing each other on the same day as the ‘real’ World Cup Final. The match was Bhutan versus Montserrat, one a mountainous outcrop just north of India, the other a volcanic island in the Caribbean. Great idea and a lovely film which I won’t spoil by telling you who won.

Next up was the first set of short films. Wide range of styles and topics covered, some with stories, some just weird. Best movie though (so far – another three days to go yet…) was called ‘Fast Film’. This Austrian guy has printed out lots of scenes from his favourite movies and animated them to make a new movie. Bizarre. You have bits like plane chases where the planes are all paper aeroplanes ‘folded’ out of different movies. Definately worth checking out if you get a chance.

I skipped the last movie of the day (Stoked) to go catch up with Rod and Shareen at the White Photography christmas bash down in St Kilda. The building is a huge studio space (oddly enough) that acts as offices for eight photographers. More importantly though it was free booze – huzah!

Next stop was Gretta’s party just up north of my house. Big thanks to Shareen for driving us over there, and stopping off for the quick guided tour of Rod’s huge workshop on the way. The house party was slightly more raucous than the photo party but no free booze – which was probably a good thing by that stage in the night. Lots of nice folk and bouncey music.

Finally staggered off to bed around 4am… feel a bit the worse for wear this morning but up anyway ‘cos there’s more res-festing to do – huzah!

Wet

Hmm. The Melbourne erratic weather outdid itself yesterday. I was sitting happily eating Bimbo’s pizza in their courtyard, baking in the amazing heat when suddenly it started to rain. At first it was that strange, tropical rain where it’s still sunny and warm and the smell of fresh rain is refreshing – but by the third hour it was starting to get a bit boring.

Then it stopped again. Then it started again. Then it stopped and started and started again (possibly because even the clouds were confused as to whether it had really started to rain already themselves). Then it stopped.

But then around midnight an almighty storm kicked in – rain lashing the windows, lightning flashing, hail, the whole kaboodle. There was supposedly around $5 million of hail damage last night as golf ball sized hail lashed the northern city. Cool! Well, it was cool until the water started coming in under the door and had to batton down the hatches with a towel.. little bit worrying but no major damage and everything seems to have dried out now. Had a few flashbacks to my Williamsburg loft with its leaky roof though.

Anyway – today it’s gorgeous and sunny today, although very humid as the rain dries out from the ground. Not too fussed though as bought tickets to res-fest so I’ll be indoors most of the weekend anyway watching the latest in electronic film making. Luverley.

Baked

Wow – what an amazingly hot weekend! Every day’s just gotten hotter and hotter with this crazy heat that stays in the air and with no breeze to cool you off. Doing great things for my tan – huzah! Strange thought that it’s not that long till Christmas and I’m sunbathing…

The barby was a great success – huhroo! Cooked much meat and the whole back garden was full of lovely folk enjoying themselves. Made a barbecue out of an old flower planter and the oven grills and that worked just fine – so definately going to do more of those. Next time I might just not buy quite so much food though.. got a bit over excited down at Vic market apparently. Ah well, lots of food in the freezer for a while.

One down side was revealed the next night went over to Matt and Denis’ old place to watch the European MTV awards (with dinner courtesy of the lovely Emma and Emmett). Turned out Matt had been bitten by white tailed spiders on both his ankles, which were are now swollen like balloons. Hmm. Strangely another guy at the party had been bitten by one a few weeks ago and was showing the lovely pustlating hole in the back of his calf – yeuch, bloomin’ Aussie animals.

Saturday was a much more chilled out affair ending in a major clubbing session down the Hairy Canary (which did not really live up to the hype – although was a very nice bar) followed by Bonds for some proper dancey dance type antics. Good fun. This left Sunday to recover and also to, randomly, buy a new acoustic guitar as I realised I was missing having one around a bit too much. Cheap and cheerful but I’ve been twanging away happily ever since… mmm. Other good Sunday news was finally met up with my ‘step-cousin’ Simon, over dinner at Nig and Stevie’s. Really nice to see him finally! It had been about 15 or 20 years since we last met I think, and both of us were a little bit taller.

Oh, and according to Nigel all the bites that had been evident over the weekend were not due to white tailed spiders! Apparently everyone has been blaming the little buggers for years but there’s a lot of new evidence indicating that their bite has no real effect. Trouble is noone knows what really is biting people… not sure which thought I find more scary but I’m keeping next door’s cat away from my legs just in case.

Aussie Traditions

Well since it’s coming up to Christmas and beautifully hot and sunny I’ve decided to have a barbie tonight chez 31 Freeman St. Yay! So busy day of shopping ahead down at Vic markets followed by some hectic construction work to make our multi-purpose metal box with legs into something resembling a barbecue… Luckily the Chrises have been on a mad chopping rampage over the last few days and we have a pile of wood the size of a small car in the back garden, the remains of an evil table and cupboard.

Also a bit of a strange day as paying final month’s rent on this place.. which means it’s only just over a month before I have to leave the country (my visa runs out mid-Jan sometime, better check when exactly!) Argh! Time just flies when you’re having fun. Can’t believe it’s almost time to go! Need to try and squeeze in a few scuba dives to see the local underwater flora and fauna for a start – there are some cool seahorse colonies near here that are supposed to be awesome so fingers crossed Vera and I will get out diving boots back on for a bit, and maybe squeeze in some surfing as well back on the Great Ocean Road.

Oh, and had fun night out in St Kilda last night replete with cheapo curry in a box for $10. Ended up in this strange place called the Library Bar where all the tables are made to look like huge books. Very odd.

New arrival

Well it’s been a year of big events in family life and this weekend was no exception… Oliver and Alena’s first child – Daisy Kathryn Giselle Green – was born on Monday 24th weighing 4lbs 13oz!!! She’s very keen to come see the world as she was due in 3/4 weeks time, so let’s make her feel very welcome indeed.

Ps, for those observant people who read my site regularly you may have noticed a slight name change since earlier… My father was a little bit sleepy when he heard the news so the text I got was slightly different. Hee hee.