NUT MANNNNN

NUT MAN is in, and even better we got a little more info about his job: he works for cup nuts vending machines. Would you like your nuts cupped?

Bad news: You-Can't-Sing-Ruffo got through, and intenso mini-Cruise went out. No respect for Mister Sebastian right now. None. Big big mistake.

Happy about most other people who got into final threes. Groups: Heavy Fringe girl in trio got them through plus they are all better looking than the other three; twins out (I confess, a smidge of disappointment. Ronan: Should I keep you in? Twin 1: Do we answer that? They were crack ups. Family Vixen had to go through but Mama Cass needs to keep it together. And Young Men Society; hmmmm not sure about them. Can they do anything other than smooth vocals? Can they wear anything other than rapper hats too high on their heads? Can they dance any other way than in-sync?

Young Boys: My tip is Side Hair Boy Reece will win if Fab Hair-Mighty Confidence-for-15 Christina from young girls doesn't. Also in young boys, Fluffy Declan. He. Is. Awesome. And the other unmentionable one. Mel B said it at the first audition: YOU CAN'T SING. Thank god someone told him to cut out the 'dancing.'

Young Girls: Apart from Christina there is va va voom redhead and meh blondie.

Then in the Old Farts category: Cleo, who is 27 and stunning (she has a shot); Tattoo Neck Man who is so shy but has a winning smile 'and the girls will love him' (as long as they can stop looking at the ink) and NUT MAN.

So my picks from each group: Reece from boys, Christina from girls, Cleo from oldies and Thick Fringe Girl's group from groups.

And Hug Man worked overtime in the show today. Flying between locations, warming up his arms in the car on the way to location, spritzing with body spray for those close up clenches.

And have I mentioned how much I love Mel B's accent?
That is all.

Just for Alex

Josh Brooks, aka Head Phone Boy. You can't see it but he always, always had a pair of headphones around his neck. Except for once, when he got knocked out of the competition by Johnny 'You Can't Sing' Ruffo (see below.) HP Boy's audition was awesome and I said: he's going to win.

Ruffo. Who had the audacity to ask Beyonce whether it was more important to focus on your dancing, your singing or both. Der. She graciously told him never compromise the singing. Not a problem for him, because he can't sing. How guy picked this dude over Josh I just don't know.

Nut man aka the nut salesman. He has a name and he has a fine voice and at every opportunity someone manages to say 'he doesn't look like a typical pop star but...'


He won't win. But going on my predictions maybe he should start practising his acceptance speech?


This is Hug Man. He is the 'host' or 'compere' or 'man who stands off stage and whose job is to give people hugs.' I bet it was in the job description: must be okay, even gleeful, about receiving full-body-contact with range of people.


Next post: The Freaks and Guy's Mr Bean Eyebrows.

True confessions

So I'm watching X-Factor. I've never watched it, though I have in the past (long time ago) watched some Idols. I have indeed flirted with reality tv - couple of Big Brothers, some Apprentice, Survivor for quite a while. And of course we do watch Masterchef. Or have done thus far. It seems the foundations of my current marriage lie on some of that reality tv. Clokes is a tv man, and he only reads because I do. He'd be happy to never read another word in his life, unless it was some twit's tweet.

The reason, firstly, I decided to watch the first X-Factor was Scary Spice. I admit it. I also think Natalie Batthingthwaiteth is kinda cute and I did think Guy Sebastian was also a sweetie. Ronan Keating I had no idea about. Never listened to his music that I've been aware, no nothing about the man at all.
The first episode hooked me. For this is what they do. It's like opium? Crack? It was embarrassing when the two female judges asked a couple of the guys to take off their t-shirts. Really embarrassing.
And of course now I have some really strident opinions about who is good and who is shit (Master Ruffo, I'm looking at you, man) and we have our catch phrases such as NUT MAN!
And then last night, there was Beyonce with her A-Team telling us all why this one was so cute, and how that one slid into his notes and wow, she just loved that one's hair.

Here is the rundown on a couple of the contestants.



I reckon if a girl wins it's likely to be this one. Christina. 15. Cute as a button and so confident I just don't know how she can be that cool.




This guy reminds me of a young Tom Cruise (not such a good thing) but he is SO confident and the ladies love him (ie Natalie and Mel B.) I think he's a potential winner.



I call this guy Fluffy, he's different, has a good voice and isn't your typical pop star type. He's 15. Beyonce loved him.



This guy is a serious contender. His audition was amazeballs and he is very cute. Girls will love him. He has a good voice. He's got the look. Blah blah.

These are the twins. Ronan likes them even though they are pretty embarrassing. Their performance last night was totally crap, flat and embarrassing. They're gone.

The smell of madness

Did you know that there is a substance (trans-3-methyl-2 hexenoic acid) that is unscientifically described as the smell of madness?

Is this not one of the most fascinating things you've ever heard?

Tech question:

(and it's post number 666, the old number of the beast)



So how do I make my blogroll left justified?

At the moment it looks like a fucking grade sixer has laid it out.

I can say that because I used to be a grade sixer and my three kids have all been grade sixers.

Help.

My Tech Dude is mowing the lawns so there's already enough on his plate.

I'm sure it was never centre justified.

At least it's not comic sans, world's most heinous font according to graphic designers everywhere.

Streets of Sadness

Googling around, trying to find a William Blake reference and came across this project:

Streets of Sadness at http://www.streetsofsadness.com/

They are wanting people to buy homeless and other begging people's 'signs' - you know the bits of cardboard (usually) that people write on to ask for help.

I'm undecided what I think about this, but am leaning towards 'nice one.' I don't give to people on the street, and tell them that when they approach me. It's pretty harsh but I got stung once and it made me angry. It really shouldn't be about me, though, should it? It's about giving and sharing, and making things a little easier for other people, even if that means making it a little easier for them to buy booze, cigs or dope I guess.

Link also to right on blogroll.

If you could have an annual subscription to one publication

what would it be?

If you could have two, what would be the second?

I want to be like Maggie

Look at her, isn't she darling? Do you think if I start now, I can be more like her when I'm her age? I'm not talking about her cooking, her tv appearances. I'm talking about her smile, her kindness, her humanity.


I want my grandkids to have a grandmother like MB. That requires me becoming like MB (unless the other side of the family has a MB and then I'll just have to be a better type of Maggie.)

Is there are shop where you can buy these ingredients?

(And I'm being 100% serious, apart from the last sentence. I really do want to be nice like Maggie Beer.)

The Monkey's Mask

This is the first verse novel I've ever read and it's amazing. I haven't been much of a poetry person, apart from the old faves. I guess that's what I thought poetry is, all rhyming verse, or if not rhyming, tedious at the least, as I always struggle to get the meaning. This could be my fault but really, when I read, I want it to be effortless and floating, not as if I have the fucking writer him or herself strapped to my shoulders, getting impatient with me, pointing out where my dullard brain just isn't getting it.

The Monkey's Mask combines a few things I usually don't like or don't seek out in my readings so it had its work cut out.  I don't tend towards genre (detective story); I find poetry had work (see above) and there's no reason for me to seek out 'lesbian literature' (if that's what it could be called) other than for pure curiosity.

But you know, I couldn't put this book down. I raced through the first half in one night, cosy in bed with my hottie (the rubber one, not the man of flesh and bones) and then finished it the next night (last night). It was incredible. The pace, the voice, the action. The mystery. Her choice of words, the way she was able to deliver the meaning and layers of meaning in so few words. Sometimes I get the feeling of true connectedness with a writer (not in a stalky way, well er maybe) but this was possibly the truest, clearest connection I'd experienced while reading a book. I felt I knew what she was meaning as she wrote it. Weird? Possibly. Does this make me gay or a detective fiction fan or both? I don't care, all I know is I loved this book and it made me want to collect her oeuvre and proceed from beginning to end.

Delightfully wonderfully incredibly pleasantly surprised is probably the best way I can express my reaction to this book.

I just can't help myself

Whenever I go into a bookshop, I come out with at least one book. Whenever I go into a second-hand bookshop, I come out with double, because I figure they are cheap.

Went away on the weekend to a small country town and I think I spent as much on books as I did two nights of accommodation (it was cheap accommodation.)

I picked up:

Hemingway, A biography by Jeffrey Meyers. it's hard cover and it cost $20.00. It's a biggun.

The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath. I don't read poetry really and I am going to start trying a bit more. Throw the old poetry a fricken bone, so to speak. This copy is hardcover, in good nick and cost $12.00. It also has a groovy pic on the cover, a photo of her typing on a typewriter. At least I guess it's her.

The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton. Two things about this. Does he not have the best name in the world? Also, this book is cleverly divided into sections which offer consolations for (in order): unpopularity; not having enough money; frustration; inadequacy; a broken heart and difficulties. And if that weren't delicious enough, then he has paired each section with a famous philosopher: Socrates for unpopularity, Epicurus for the money one, Seneca for frustration and of course Schopenhauer for a broken heart - "the darkest of thinkers and yet, paradoxically, the most cheering." I have another of his books, not yet read. I think it's Status Anxiety. This new book also is hardcover and cost $5.00

The Monkey's Mask, Dorothy Porter. It's a nice cover, female head tilted back so you can see the line of her throat. Cost $10.00

Ernest Hemingway, A Life Story by Carlos Baker. I can't get enough of Old Hem. Paperback, good condition, $6.00

A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. I wouldn't want to give the liar full price but this is paperback, good condition and was $10.00

Marcel Proust: A Biography by Richard H. Barker. Hardcover and has a painting of a face with a veree Franch moo-stache on the front. $5.00

Hazel Hawke's daughter's memoir of her mother with Alzheimers. Don't judge me. At least I didn't get the Diana and Charles one. $5.00

Yeah right, Roger David. This is not sexualised at all.

The only good thing about this ad is that the comments in The Age are disparaging, and with the brief browse I took, there were none that said something like: oh what are you all going on about, it's nothing. Nanny State blah blah, this is what we've come to? Starving children in Africa and you worry about this, it's just a bit of fun, etc.

Fact: the girl above has a barcode on her shoulder that says SLAVE
Fact: the girl above has something in her mouth that makes her look gagged or ready to receive a penis
Fact: the girl above may be eighteen, but she doesn't look eighteen.
Fact: the slogan New Love Club doesn't mean Buy Your Clothes at Roger David. What could it mean? Could it means she is so young, she is new to love? She is a virgin? She is a child? It sounds to me like a pederast's personal blog page.
Fact: the girl above isn't wearing any masculine clothes, garments that you might suppose a person might buy at a Roger David store
Fact: there is no male model wearing clothes that you might suppose you could purchase at a R D store.
I really wish that imbecilic marketing/ad agencies used things other than the sexualisation of children in their quest for controversial and high-profile campaigns and their pursuit of the dollar. They think we are idiots? No, they know that the response to this will put RD way up in the google returns list. It makes them edgy, funny that. RD always seemed so daggy. Oh, that means it's worked and all my moaning is completely irrelevant.
Link to Age article: http://www.theage.com.au/national/banned-ad-inappropriate-20110818-1j07e.html?comments=67#comments

Body punishing

Gail Dines, anti-porn crusader, describes gonzo porn as body punishing. I just got back from something body punishing:

trying on bathers.

I swear, I know every woman hates it but I tried on about thirty pairs and the second last one, was the winner. I've got a bad shoulder so that made it even harder, PLUS the girl in the store had the heating cranked up. By the time I finished I had to just come home and recover.

But I have new bathers and I'm pretty happy with them.

*

And a question: who says that I have to have an online presence if I want to be a published author? Oh, the publishers? I'm sorry, but I won't be tweeting for nobody.

Why hello

Been a while.

I've just been looking over old posts and one, about Inglourious Basterds I found so impressive. Did I write that? I wondered, laughing aloud.

Here it is in case you missed it:

http://melbgirltakeonthings.blogspot.com/search/label/Tarantino


In other news, Princess is away with school and has been gone 3.5 weeks. You can see how relaxed I am because there's been no moaning from me. How times have changed, compared to when she went to America.

Part of the reason I haven't been blogging (well the whole reason, really) is that I've been writing, making use of every minute like some chook scratching at the dirt, digging up seeds which then have all gone into a sack to go to the mill. Terrible analogy, I know, shut up.

I've been reading. Fabulous recent booky goodness Engleby by Sebastian Faulks (instant love, instant order of half of oeuvre on [unmentionable overseas internet book company]. Then, despairing after finishing Engleby and thinking what will I read, By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham. Similar paroxyms of delight. So I heartily recommend both. Engleby for the humour (genius) and the intelligence. By Nightfall for the absolute lack of indulgence by Cunningham and the brilliance of the twist, the protagonist's very human flaws. Loved both so much.

[I just tried italicising the book titles - it's not working. Fiendishblogger is not behaving for me these days.]

Movies. Just re-watched Leaving Las Vegas. I must have grown up a lot since last watching it. I remember wanting him to stop drinking and be safe; wanting him to love her the way she obviously deserved it. This time, however, I was mesmerised and moved by the tender way she gave him the space, gave him what he wanted. Even that freaking hipflask, after the orange shirt. The scene where he gives a laugh, in a bar, drunk. It's like some tragic Peter Pan call, where he flips his head up and drops it, and his voice has trilled. I remember that from the first time, remembered being amazed. Had he workshopped that in front of a mirror? Amazing stuff.

And before that, somewhere on some random obscure Internet page, I came across a list of the top ten movies (can't remember if they were scary/horror?) I don't like horror so I don't think it was that... anyway, Irreversible. Don't watch it if you haven't already, I'm not recommending it. BUT if you have seen it, how was that opening scene? I almost turned it off. It wasn't the tension or the violence (thought I couldn't look during the head>pulp scene) it was the swirling camera work. And then the rape scene that goes for 9 minutes: horrible. But overall it was compelling. I think. The Funny Games - a weird Austrian horror. Again. Horrible but made an impression. All I could think was 'why hasn't anybody said anything about the gloves?' Then the original Vanishing. Fan-bloody-tastic. And then Requiem for a Dream - and you know what? I can't even remember. Let me look it up.

Ah that's right. Kind of okay. A very emaciated Jared Leto and a quite beautiful Jennifer Connelly. But yeah, drugs drugs, addiction. Was okay but not as good as the other three.

So, what is going on with blogger? I couldn't use the url link function. Do I need to update or something? Weird.

So look at me

Two posts in one day. I have revamped my side bar. Now I have a new blogroll (I don't think I've had one for more than 2 years.)


The blogroll indicates my new'ish direction. Some of the blogs on there I don't read much and I just had at some point saved them into my favourites folder, so I'll try and read them more frequently and delete any that I don't want. This is a long-winded way of saying: don't blame me if you waste your time on any of them because I'm not exactly sure how quality they are.

I've included a few literary agent blogs. They are fascinating and generally far less self-indulgent than writer blogs. Can't stand most writer blogs. Probably including my own.

So that's it. Don't hold your breath for anything fabulous but I am trying.

PS Please let me know if any links not working. I'm too lazy to go through them all.

Some godly readings

So I finished 'The Book of Rachael' flicking through the last pages. It was a struggle to finish and I particularly disliked the sex scenes between Rachael and Judah (the Judas character.) Sex in literature. Hmmm. Another topic for another time I reckon.

*

Have also just finished Philip Pullman's book 'The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ.' I loved it, it was clever and original and so simple to read in its pared-down form. Absolutely no description, not an adjective in the whole thing (well maybe a few, but you know what I mean.) Even Hemingway was not so bald and nubby.

It's a short book with large print, organised into tiny wee chapters with headings that follow the new testament events concerning Jesus's life. It follows faithfully. Apart from the part where Jesus has a twin brother called Christ who is the one at the end to betray Jesus, and who has also become the secret agent of some dark force (this stranger towards the end says something like 'I'm not Satan, if that's what you're thinking.')

All the Bible folk are there. The disciples, the Mary's. And all the significant moments. From the turning over of the money-changers' tables in the temple right up to the crucifixion. Alot of the dialogue reminded me of 'Life of Brian' and it is clear to me now how biblically accurate that movie was.

Perhaps my favourite bit was when Mary became pregnant. This is how my version of the bible tells it (the Good News, must get a copy of the King James, it's better no?):

Matthew 1: This was how the birth of Jesus Christ took place. His mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they were married, she found out that she was going to have a baby by the Holy Spirit. Joseph was a man who always did what was right, but he did not want to disgrace Mary publicly; so he made plans to break the engagement privately. While he was thinking about this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, descendant of David, do not be afraid to take Mary to be your wife. For it is by the Holy Spirit that she has conceived. She will have a son, and you will name him Jesus - because he will save his people from their sins.

Pullman's version: The Conception of Jesus. At that time, Mary was about sixteen years old, and Joseph had never touched her. One night in her bedroom she heard a whisper through her window. 'Mary, do you know how beautiful you are? You are the most lovely of all women. The Lord must have favoured you especially, to be so sweet and so gracious, to have such eyes and such lips...' She was confused, and said 'Who are you?' 'I am an angel,' said the voice. 'Let me in and I shall tell you a secret that only you must know.' She opened the window and let him in. In order not to frighten her, he had assumed the appearance of a young man, just like one of the young men who spoke to her by the well. 'What is the secret?' she said. 'You are going to conceive a child,' said the angel. Mary was bewildered. 'But my husband is away,' she said. 'Ah, the Lord wants this to happen at once. I have come from him especially to bring it about. Mary, you are blessed among women, that this should come to you! You must give thanks to the Lord.' And that very night she conceived a child, just as the angel foretold.

Don't you love it?

Just for some balance, this is how the Koran tells the story:

S. III 42-49

42 Behold! the angels said:
'O Mary! God hath chosen thee
And purified thee - chosen thee
Above the women of all nations.

43 O Mary! worship
Thy Lord devoutly;
Prostrate thyself
And bow down (in prayer)
With those who bow down.'

45 Behold! the angels said:
'O Mary! God giveth thee
Glad tidings of a Word
From Him: his name
Will be Christ Jesus,
The son of Mary, held in honour
In this world and the Hereafter
And of (the company of) those
Nearest to God;

46 'He shall speak to the people
In childhood and in maturity.
And he shall be (of the company)
Of the righteous.'

47 She said: 'O my Lord!
How shall I have a son
When no man hath touched me?'
He said: 'Even so:
God creatheth
What he willeth:
When He hath decreed
A Plan, He but saith
To it, 'Be' and it is!

48 'And God will teach him
The Book and Wisdom,
The Law and the Gospel,

49 'And (appoint him)
An apostle to the Children
Of Israel, (with this message):
" I have come to you,
With a Sign from your Lord,
In that I make for you
Out of clay, as it were,
The figure of a bird,
And breathe into it,
And it becomes a bird*
By God's leave...'


*

Now we come to James Frey's 'The Final Testament of the Holy Bible' which I have just started reading. It's rare to begin a book and love it from the first page. I have known of Frey's controversy (his first novel was presented as non-fiction and a memoir of his life and it was endorsed to the max by Oprah W. Then when it was revealed to be complete fiction, she reviled him publicly and he was in the poo. To the max. He has, it seems, recovered though I don't know what his reputation is like today. On the back of the copy of The Final Testament that I have here, this is written:

He's been called a liar. A cheat. A revolutionary. A genius. He's been sued by readers. Dropped by publishers. He's also a bestselling phenomenon. Beloved by readers around the world. - Time Magazine.

Wiki details the story and the annihilation of him by Oprah and the offer of RandomHouse to refund people their money if they wanted. People had bought the book under the impression it was a memoir when it turned out that much of it was fabricated. I wonder whether this has helped to reinforce the genre of 'creative non-fiction.' Apparently many publishers rejected the manuscript in its former guise of fiction, so obviously he reinvented it as memoir to get a contract.

*

Also, I need to finish a weird, posthumously-produced Hemingway, 'Garden of Eden.' I've stalled with this one but thus far we have a newly-married couple spending inordinate amount of time on the Riviera, and the wife has disclosed that she would like to be a boy. 'At least some of the time.' So she's cut her hair short and apparently does things to the husband in bed that are different, and he is not a little unsettled by all this.









* the chapter of Pullman's book titled The Childhood of Jesus talks about Jesus and Christ as children, Jesus is the more normal, naughty, ordinary of the two (while Christ can make strange things happen). On the Sabbath Jesus has made some figures of sparrows out of mud by a stream, and when it looks like he will get into trouble for breaking the Sabbath, Christ makes the sparrows come alive and they fly away, to stop the people punishing his brother.

Oh yay things are working again

Blogger has been annoying me lately because I haven't been able to post. I still can't italicise or copy and paste into or out of the 'compose' window it seems.

I've published a few posts that were in my drafts box. Since writing them, I still haven't finished 'The Book of Rachael'. I am tearing my way through 'The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ' by Phillip Pullman and it's interesting to be reading the two at the same time.

So is it bad form to be scathing about a book in public like this? Is it okay to do it if the author is international and therefore distance makes you feel buffered? Is it unprofessional to bad mouth a book if the author is in Melbourne? I'm not a professional anyway but do I need to be careful about opinion? Because that's all it is. Reviewers are brutal often, so I can be, can't I?

What do you think? Is it a case of 'if you have nothing nice to say, then say nothing at all?' Then you have no texture...

Hello one and all

This is seriously about the third time I have tried to post. It just wasn't freaking working. And now it is again. So. A quick update.
Yes I have changed my profile pic. And my 'handle' back to MG.
This is because:
a. it was time for a change
b. mean people on facebook might find me and be mean.
I know this sounds ridiculous and it is but hey. I've got to move with the times.
So what'cha reading? I'm battling through The Book of Rachael by Leslie Cannold and my feeling is that a brilliant idea has been wasted. It's a good effort though I suppose.
Last night I went to see Gail Dines talk at Melbourne Uni.
Gail Dines is the anti-porn crusader who needs a spandex suit of her own such is her fight against the pornification of society. She has written a book called 'Pornland' and in it she dissects the industry and the damage. And when she talks about porn she's not talking about what is now seen as 'porn lite' (ie simple images of people having sex, what people over 30 think of as porn, you know, pool cleaner-moustache-'70s bush) she is talking about 'body punishing' extreme stuff, like multiple penetrations, double anal, fellatio so rigorous to make the woman gag and even vomit (there are fetish sites catering to this shit) and worse. It's all there with a click of a button and kids are curious and they are looking at it. At work, we heard the story of a boy, 15 or 16, had his first sexual experience and thought he had to do anal, oral and vaginal sex all on the first time. There are kids out there watching this stuff before they have even kissed someone else.
Is this wowserism? She doesn't talk about censorship or banning. She talks about exposing the machine, the capitalist machine, that is behind porn and the pornification of society. She talks about education and exposing this stuff for the skewed respresentation of sex that it is.
So much good stuff last night, so much interesting stuff in the book. Not for the fainthearted but if you have kids, this is something you will need to talk to them about. She told her teenage son 'if you are going to look at porn, you need to know you will be handing over the development of your sexuality to this industry. Scary stuff.
Wow this was going to be a light catch up. To bed now.
Stay warm.

Sunday update

Hello all


Had a computer crisis last night seemed like it was dead but luckily, and thanks to Clokey, it resurrected. I had backed up all important stuff, so would have survived if it didn't rise like the Phoenix today. But it has. So that has to be good. You'll also notice I've changed my profile pic and name (back to MG.) This is just because I was a little nervous about trolls finding my peaceful little plot here. Also I'm considering making an effort to be a little more writerly here. I've done the social commentary in the past, and the news articles and politics, world events etc. but at the moment I am not interested in any (or many) of those things and it's All Things Writing.


When I started this blog back in, when was it, 2005?? Egads. It was a general, broad survey of all that interested me. This has narrowed down to a virtual pinpoint. I'm not interested any more, or at the moment, in many things. So I am going to indulge myself, and hopefully not lose any of the people who are kind enough to swing by, and follow my heart. Which is books, more books. Literary analysis and critique. Book reviews. Stuff about writers. Stuff about me and my process.

I intend to build another blogroll; I haven't had one for years. Not quite sure why I got rid of it, I think it was because seeing it made me think I had to do the rounds, and visit them all and read. It was far too time consuming. What I would like to do now, though, is make a roll of blogs and spots which fit into my new parameters. Slowly, slowly.


I'll keep up with the diaries though, as planned to 31/12/89. There's a lot to come.

Today, I'm going to see Water for Elephants with Princess, or she's coming with me. She wasn't that keen (she wants to see the new one with Gynnifer Goodwin (sp?) and Kate Hudson but I told her I need to see the elephant one, for research purposes. I had read one good review, then one bad one, then someone told me Margaret P said it was good, captivating from first minute to last and Miss Reece's best role? So, that's enough for me. It has a circus in it. Also enough for me.

Speaking of circuses (circii?) there is a new book out by Mark St Leon, on the history of Australian circuses. Don't have the title to hand, but I clipped the article in the paper last weekend. Suffice to say, I will be buying it this week.


Mum still hasn't bought a place yet, but there is one that we LOVE and I hope she gets it. She has to move out of her place in a couple of weeks, and go and stay with my sis. We shall survive the pain. If anyone had told us ten years ago that in 2011 our mum would be selling her flat, boxing up all her stuff, putting it in storage and buying a new place, we would have been seriously doubtful. If anyone had told us that in the last ten years she would have had THREE overseas trips (plus another to come this year, family holiday to Bali yayyyyyy) then we would have said 'tell them they're dreamin'.'

But if anyone had told us she would have a gentleman caller who would infuse her with energy and delight, we would have said 'you are seriously fucked, fuck off.'

Life is extraordinary and there to be embraced.


A dear friend of mine had a dreadful year last year, with cancer. She too has done amazing things since. She gave me a copy of the affirmations she is doing and which have helped not only her, but her brother and sister as well (they were having rough times, no luck etc.) I don't care what anyone says about this being woo-woo. The power of positive thinking cannot be underestimated.

I can't find the piece of paper though, so I can't transcribe them here. Will do when they come to hand again.


Happy Sunday to you.

Hello! Is there anybody out there?

I return shame-faced to my much-neglected little plot. I have tried to post a couple of times but became frustrated by blogger not uploading pics or videos or whatever, and so have sworn and closed down the screen.

But also, I confess, I have been unfaithful to blogger and any remaining readers (all two of you?) by becoming embroiled in a couple of facebook pages, on a particular social issue. For the first time I have seen trolling, and been abused, and threatened by faceless peeps who are really very nasty. It's all winding down though, and I have just spent some minutes going through some of my old booky posts and thinking to myself 'oh it's really just so much more urbane and pleasant over here.'

So I henceforth vow to crank up the old engine and get going once more over here.

To kick-start, I have been reading as usual:

Under the Knife, Andrea Goldsmith. Am enjoying it heaps.

The Low Road, Chris Womersley (half way through this one, it's ok, don't love it like I loved Bereft, short-listed for the Miles Franklin. Hope it wins.)

The Book of Rachael, Leslie Cannold. (Half way through, it's interesting but not my usual read.)

Vampire Academy series - 6 books, as part of keeping up with Princess's reading world

How Fiction Works, James Wood

To read: 1915, Roger McxDonald (who wrote one of the other shortlisted M Franklin books, When Colts Ran. I also have that, haven't read it yet.)

Faulks on Fiction

Utopian Man, Lisa Lang

The Paris Wife, Paula McLain.

For research: Gallipoli, Les Carlyon.

*

My writing is going well. Have just made more revisions to MS #1. it's with an agent at the moment, who has had it for ages, but she is doing me and the person who recommended me to her a favour so I have to be patient but it's hard.

MS #2 I am writing sporadically but mainly researching/reading, thinking a lot. It's kind of formed in my mind (a new and strange experience) but I'm not rushing to get it out. Slowly slowly. It will take a long time to finish this one I think.

*

The family is all fine. We had a fairly awesome Good Friday yesterday and I'm thinking it needs to become a regular thing that we - have brunch all together at the table, take the dog to the park, play a boardgame all together, eat take away food (Indian last night, but could be Chinese next year) and then watch Life of Brian. Again.

*

Let me know your news.

All good if a little quiet

I've been busy and things have been distracting me, not the least Kurt and Blaine from Glee.

What a wonderful scene when they kissed on Monday night's show.

I'm having blogger trouble with uploading videos; haven't the time or inclination to update my technology to allow this and my IT guy is never around. Or if he is, he's watching tv or doing his own tech blah de blah thangs.

Otherwise things are ok. Yep busy. But yep good.

What news have you? I'm feeling out of touch.

Bloody hell

Oh, Japan now?

I have friends in Osaka, so they are ok but in-laws via my bro in Tokyo. Don't have any news yet.

What the fuck is going on?

My kids are the tsunami-generation. Hell they are the Disaster Generation. Forget Y or whatever they are up to.

It's just too awful to really contemplate for too long. Sorry, I have disaster-fatigue.

*

In other news, it's the long weekend (yay) and it's a nice day (also yay) and the long-running movie education of Princess is now entering the Horror Genre. We are about ready to head off to the video store, this is the list (we won't get all these...):

Silence of the Lambs - I know it's R but it's a good movie and I might pre-watch again (ages since I've seen it) then could maybe struggle through it again with her. We shall see. I don't want to break my no-R-ratings for another couple of years... But if we are to break it, shouldn't it be for Leo in Basketball Diaries rather than Ant Hopkins in SOTL?

The Omen - CLASSIC and she must watch it.

The Exorcist - another R rating that I won't let her watch but I wouldn't mind revisiting myself.

Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street

And then a few I've not seen or even heard of that she has heard of:

2012
Zombieland
Orphan

And then Clokes said The Vanishing is very scary. I think I've seen it and if it's the one I'm thinking of, not so?? But can revisit.

Last night we watched Sixth Sense and The Shining. She thought The Shining was funny/piss weak. Loved the Sixth Sense.

*

I am planning to work on my project this weekend, amongst horror movies. It's not a genre I love but she seems to be curious so rather than leaving her alone with it I am happy to watch them with her. She is particularly interested in Wolf Creek and I have said no. In fact, Wolf Creek was the last contemporary horror movie I saw; it completely put me off the genre. The Ring I couldn't watch with the sound up and without fast forwarding then rewinding and Blair Witch I watched from behind a cushion with the sound down. I am pretty wimpy when it comes to horror.

Enjoy the long weekend.

Good news

Gathered my cowardly guts together and called my NZ friend's sister who lives in Melbourne. They are all fine but it was a teary moment to hear a native Christchurch girl talking about her city; she sounded exhausted.
So it's a relief for me and us but still so terrible for so many.
*
In an effort to cheer myself up, I've been watching An Idiot Abroad, Ricky Gervais's new show. I must admit to a new-found appreciation for Mr Gervais after a fairly long hiatus (mine, not his.)
I don't know that I would call Karl Pilkington an idiot but the series is certainly amusing, interesting and Ricky's laugh is the most outrageous - in a top 3 ever heard during my lifetime, but I still wouldn't place it at Number 1.
After the Golden Globes scandal I googled around looking for stuff on him, and found the series, as well as The Ricky Gervais Show, which is a series of podcasts he, Stephen Merchant (co-writer on The Office and Extras) and Karl P, then with a cartoon created to overlay it.
If I may, I'd suggest you watch some of the podcasts first, then Idiot. That way you'll get a good intro to the character that is Karl Pilkington, as well as the dynamic between the three of them (basically Ricky and Stephen just want to laugh at Karl.)
Oh and Oscars tomorrow night. Can't wait.

Worried. Waiting.

I have dear friends in Christchurch, and the place they live is Spreydon which also comes up as Canterbury on maps, and Cashmere. These a suburbs that also are being mentioned in the news.

I've emailed her and hope to hear back soon. I'm too scared to call her sister who lives here in Melbourne.

I can't believe she and I were in the 1999 Istanbul quake together where 20,000+ died.
It must be so terrifying for them.

AOF I hope all your people are ok. You haven't anything on your blog.

Thinking of everyone who needs someone to think about them right now, and feeling damn hopeless.

Off to the mountains

We are leaving now for the mountains to go to a wedding tomorrow.

Funny thing is, I am on wifely strike. Have been since Monday and I don't think he knows what's going on, other than I am a bit moody.

I haven't cooked anything since then, I haven't washed his clothes, I have been doing things like he does (leaving things out on the bench, water cups around the place, my shoes here and there.) I've been doing things for the kids but not for him. (Apart from the cooking. I had to explain to Princess that it's not permament, just until he realises something and makes one teeny, tiny change. Then I'll go back to normal.)

My mum is coming to look after the brood and I have cooked some cauliflower soup to leave and there's bolognaise sauce in the fridge from Monday night. That bolognaise sauce was the catalyst for the strike, I might explain later but for now, let me away to a four-hour silent and tense car journey.

Methinks I'll try and read but then I'll feel sick.

Back Sunday night. Have a good weekend all.

Bliss turns to disappointment

Is the universe telling me something?
So I was really excited to take delivery of a package from overseas this morning.
Behold:

Is it not the most beautiful watch you've ever seen? I don't wear a watch, haven't done for many years and haven't mostly for my whole life.
But when I saw this in one of those glossy magazines at the hairdresser, I thought oh watch, you will be mine.
Came home. Jumped on the Internette. Ordered. Rubbed my hands together.
That was only a week ago. Today it arrived. Special wrapping. A big box, a ribbon. Two ribbons actuelement. Inside, tissue paper so beautifully folded. Inside that scrunched tissue paper, to make a nest and in the middle of that nest, the watch box. In that, the yellow beauty on a little pillow. All so divine.
I gasped. I noticed a tag on it saying 'Cannot be returned if this tag has been removed.' Thought to myself check it before removing tag.
Checked the watch and one of the plastic links in the band is busted. Cracked on one side, and with a chip out of it on the other.
NOOOOOOOOOO.
At least their return policy is solid and they even include a pre-paid DHL docket for you to send it back.
SO with a heavy heart, the watch goes back to London-Town. And they send me another.
It had better be fucking perfect.
Look at it again. Look how beautiful.

Turkey September 2010

view top balcony

my favourite hill

day boat trip

Kas 13.9.10

Woken at 6.15am by call to prayer. So beautiful, so sublime. And close. Are we on God's own mountain? Surely this is Eden, or Nirvana or Paradise. Or whichever place you want to call it.

Ali's house is a masterpiece, a work of art constructed, realised (I see) through sheer incredible creativity and single-minded persistence.

It stands three storeys tall. Made out of wooden boards on the floors and ceiling, huge cut round logs from the forest, stained brown. Big chunks of sandstone, the boulders placed as a wall with cement in between to hold it all together. Tiles. Marble surfaces. Windows that are huge and breezy. One tower (the Resi Tower) has no internal staircase, it's like a crazy Aspen ski lodge with huge rooms on each level. There's a central external staircase, wrought iron with balastrades. The other tower (house) has kitchen on the ground floor, Ali's room on the top and a lounge in the middle. Huge open fireplaces.

Two kittens appeared out of the night when we went down there before bed. Princess was to dream of a name for the white one last night.

*

Now, later in the evening. Princess is across the way, falling asleep on the floor with her nene (Turkish grandmother), 'watching' the news. They had an election yesterday and Meyve (nene) was calling Erdogan a dog.

Today we went out on a boat. Princess had cake for her birthday. We swam, had a gorgeous lunch. It got windy, poor Meyve got sea-sick and had to lie down and couldn't eat anything. It's amazing how (Son #3) is like her personal attendant. Also Son #4 and Ali as well (Son #2). Princess said it has been strange to see her dad laughing with his brothers. I've always liked #3 - he's the most normal of them all perhaps.

Meyve is the same as always. It's like no time has passed. We have 'talked' about all the children and grandchildren, she gave Princess a lovely gold blue eye necklace for her birthday.

Ali is still at work (?). Not sure about dinner but he said we'd have another celebration tonight because his mum was so sick on the boat. She's 62 which means she was 42 when I first met her. Younger than I am now and already with married adult children.

*

Woken this morning by call to prayer, then I could hear roosters, dogs and some sort of bell (goats?) And a single, sudden loud moo.

*

There's a woman beating a tree with a stick to make the almonds fall. The goats came running from another area along the road and she talked to them.

*

Driving in the car last night from Antalya (airport) to Kas. Hurtling. Getting out of Antalya, Ali was driving CRAZY. Almost missed the turnoff, screeched the tyres as we made the corner.

*

Son #3's name translates to Sky King. I feel sorry for him, he has to spend all his time with her.

He's trapped. He's 35. He's nice but she treats him like a wife. We are eating, he's in the kitchen doing the dishes. Preparing the meal. My god.

*

Princess got sunburned today. She is regretful. Might teach her a lesson. Not that it's ok to let her burn but there was attitude when I tried to tell her to put cream on. She has picked up on how the family (ie Meyve) sound like they are angry and arguing even when they are just talking.

*

There's a sheep's head in the fridge. It's still got its teeth in.

*

Tues 14/8/10

What was going to be a quiet day, ie just hanging around the villa didn't happen. Maybe tomorrow? We got up early. I woke again before 6am for toilet, then mosque call to prayer. Then sunrise. Mum gave me her torch to read with. Princess woke, we read some Hercule...

Then down to breakfast. Made fruit salad, bread and honey (honeycomb the others bought from the side of the road while they were driving here). Coffee.

Had a swim. Moved mum into downstairs room. Looks great. Ali and Princess rigged up a reading light for mum out of an old wooden milk churn.

Went to town. Sat in the shop. Went to supermarket, bakery and fruit and veg shop. Went to lunch me, Ali, Princess and mum. Had manti (Turkish ravioli) and the best dessert - kadifye. So delicious.

Ali and #3 are making something (a table?). We have a mosquito net for tonight (not up yet). We are having kofte for dinner.

I want a few days of just being here - doing nothing, going nowhere. Just swimming, resting and enjoying this fantastic place. What a house, it is simply amazing

There's talk of Meyve and #3 going to #4's flat because she wants to watch tv and Ali's tv is on the 3rd floor. 'Hard for anyone to look after her there.' That is, I guess, carry food to her and cold water.

She does nothing. Hasn't yet. Sits at the table when ready to eat and people bring her things and wait on her. She cracked a few almonds today for mum and Princess. We are sitting with her, spending time with her but communication is hard so often it's just silence (and her Turkish is mixed with Arabic and with a heavy accent so it's hard for me to follow her.)

*

Thurs 16.9.10

8am. Rejigged mosquito net last night, it worked well but my old bites are re-itching. Princess still asleep, all is quiet outside except for the roosters and occasional dogs. No people bashing the almond trees like yesterday morning. At 7am yesterday there were loud voices and a woman was right in the middle of the tree just outside our front door. I could see her through the window near our bathroom.

We got up, had breakfast, Meyve already sitting in place downstairs. The night before there'd seemed to be an argument/fight between her and #3? Or a 'situation.' Loud talking (different to the usual loud talking). In the morning, he didn't appear until later and told me he was going into Kas and did I need anything. I asked for rice and bread. He said he wouldn't come back until the evening I said that was okay. Then after Meyve said she didn't know where #3 was, I said he'd gone to Kas. She spent some time on the outside platform and mum sat there too. I took mum a breakfast plate and they 'chatted.'

A bit later #3 and #4 turned up, sat a while. We took some photos then they all went out somewhere, to another village to visit #4's friends. Mum had commented on Meyve's headscarf - a pretty, handmade floral cotton scarf with edging in delicate lace flowers. Beautiful. Meyve gave it to her. Said she had many back home, mum was so thrilled, it was a gorgeous moment.

We swam and sunbaked. It's so beautiful in the pool. Ali came around 6pm bringing chicken and showed me how to start the BBQ with a gas flame thrower! We made salad, rice and had a nice meal just me, mum and Princess.

The white cat has a name now. First she was Pamuk (means 'cotton') then Eylul (September) and now Ayse. She has a little nazar boncuk (blue eye) collar and two bowls for water and food. P is feeding her, she's a sweet and very affectionate kittne. Some other cats hang araound but we only like Ayse.

*

Meyve and #3 kept saying they were scared in this house - it was too big and empty of people for them. I think mum's a bit nervous but we can lock our doors so it's fine. Not sure where the keys are for the front door though, I was unable to lock the middle section door to the stairs. I had a snooze yesterday afternoon which was nice, and P taught mum scopa (Italian card game.)

*

Fri 17.9.10

The worker from the shop just arrived and carried in a plate of rice pudding. We (me and P) are sitting downstairs outside at the table platform. The guy put the pudding down and is now leaving.

As P said, he drove all that way to deliver us rice pudding.

Yesterday at the shop we were ready to leave. Ali tried to push me into driving the Jeep. I said no and had to repeat it a few times. Finally #4 drove us but I don't think he was too happy about it.

*

Sunday 19.9.10

We went and had a late lunch with Ali at a kebab place. It was hot yesterday we just wanted to swim. Ali again was saying why don't I want to drive the jeep. I told him I'm scared of heights - it's not the Jeep it's the high road and I might not be able to drive even a normal car. He accepted it and understood. There is a history with this Jeep.

Weird how I am developing such a phobia. Long time coming I guess? So #4 drove us back up the mountain. It's so fucking high in parts and the road pretty narrow. Either way we go, it's full on in parts.

*

Ali told me and P that he was having people over for a BBQ today. He had mentioned a barbecue the day before but I'd thought that was jus tus. He hadn't said anything about customers. So P and I tidied up and cleaned everywhere because he said he wanted to show people the house. They arrived, lovely people. One though mum was Ali's mother because she was wearing Meyve's scarf. It was a nice day, beautiful food, the best thing was stir fry chicken, rice and peppers, and Adana kebabs. Salad. Bread. Wine. Swimming. Even singing and clapping care of #4's friend as they sat on the platform by the pool.

*

It really is beautiful countryside here. Biblical. Rocky and dry with the almond trees a particular shade of green. Soft, lilting breezes and the sound of tonking goat bells.

Have I mentioned the hill I'm going to climb? There is a hill. I'm hoping with no fences but as there is a cluster of houses on the side I'm thinnking maybe no fence. Mentioned it to mum this morning and she said she doesn't want me climbing the hill by myself. But I do want to go by myself. I want to walk up it and sit there and look down. It is a very attractive hill.

*

4.30pm Sat 25.9.10

Princess upset this morning re cat situation. (Last night we even had a puppy come to visit. Just appeared from nowhere...) She and Ali are having a few difficulties as well with him wanting her to go to the beach with him and her saying ok but wanting to meet him there later. H drove the Jeep up here last night so that it would be here this morning for me to practise. The 'make practice' consisted of me driving back to the main road and along further up the mountain to the petrol station. Then I drove back again and that was enough to get me back in the saddle.

Driving home this afternoon there were goats on either side of part of the cliff road. Mum did very well, kept relaxed. It's a shuddering jalopy of a car.

*

Next morning now, 6.45am Monday. Call to prayer was so beautiful today. I want to tape it before we go.

Then the roosters started. And someone is now doing something with wood (building?) in a house quite a way away but the sound is carrying so it sounds like it's in our back garden.

Couldn't sleep well, the thing with Ali bothered me. Couldn't fall asleep, then didn't sleep well.

*

Now it's Wed 29.9.10

Peaceful house - empty house. Need to update from Monday.

The others went kayaking. Mum and I stayed here. Quite windy and overcast but still warm. The wind increased until around 2.30 - 3.00pm I was thinking 'gale force.' Upstairs I lay and read and wrote and the wind was keening. Amazing sound, made me think of the Mistral in the south of France.

*

Now it's 40 minutes later we are at the beach. There are loaves of bread along the shoreline, and chunks adrift in the water. Just went for a quick swim with P. Nice and cool and refreshing. The pool back at the house is a murky olive green. Ali hasn't chlorinated since just before P came. H and I brushed the sides yesterday but it's revolting today. I must get Ali to show me how to chlorinate and how to do the vacuum. Then I can do it every 2 or 3 days.

The night they went kayaking, we were getting dinner ready. Ali arrived with two people who he introduced as his friends from Istanbul. (A man and a woman.) He took them upstairs. They were up there a little while and we were all thinking different things (he's showing them the house, he's giving them something?) Then he came down and said they were staying the night, in his room, and that he would stay at #4's.

Fine, I said. Would they like to join us for dinner?

No, he said. They are shy.

Ok. So we carried on. Ate, played a game of Boggle. Went to bed around 9.30 or 10pm. Next morning they came down, had some breakfast. Then Mustafa got in his van to go to Kas and there was the sound of tyres spinning and then he came back saying there was a problem with his car and he'd called Ali and #4 was coming to help. #4 came and drank some tea then they got a tractor from somewhere to pull the car out. Meanwhile, I had tried to engage the woman, Nadia. She was unresponsive, I'm thinking 'she's pissed off, she's been brought to a house in a village and didn't know we'd be here.' Anyway, later once the car was out, Mustafa left and Nadia and me and P were in the lounge. We put on the tv, chatted a little. She warmed up. Found out she's from Uzbekistan, has been in Istanbul 5 years. They have a carpet shop in Sultanahmet. And they were on a driving tour to buy stock (Konya, Gazientep, Urfa, Mersin etc.) and then to Marmaris from here.

So then I asked if she wanted to play Okey (tile rummy.) She didn't know how to play but wanted to learn. So I taught her and it broke the ice, made good practice for P's Turkish.

Later, Pablo and I went on our walk up The Hill. It was a great walk, I loved it. I knew I would. The landscape was beautiful. Harsh, rubbly, very rocky. All the fencing was of stone, high in some places but lower in others so you could climb across. Dry plants including some tall, vertical flowers that I'd noticed but not really looked at. Rabbit droppings, and larger spoor - goats?

One paddock we walked through was littered with lots of rocks that looked like small heads. Volcanic rock? With holes for eyes, they were amazing. Pablo and I spent a little time choosing a rock to keep. I chose two and later let Princess take one. They are cool and kind of chalky and orangey. The colour of the soil was very red-orange, like Central Australia. Interesting. Dramatic. We walked in the direction of The Hill. Climbed about 1/2 way up, didn't think we had enough time to do the whole thing. It started to get more difficult and scrubby bushes made it hard to walk. We made our way back okay via what might have been an old, now-dry river bed with terraced steps downwards. The whole way Pablo walked carrying a bit of PVC piping from Ali's house 'in case we met bad dogs.'

On the way home we passed a house and two cats joined us. They walked with us like dogs. Back on the main road, some goats, we saw a dilapidated jeep, the cats were still with us. We picked some of the vertical flowers to take back. And I found and carried a big egg-shaped rock which I have put in Ali's garden.

H, mum and I had planned to go to Kas for dinner after the walk BUT Mustafa had arrived while we were on our walk. He had heaps of food and was going to cook for us.

We still went into town, he needed some onions and eggplant, we got wine, beer, sutlac and dondurma. We raced home before the ice cream melted.

Mustafa worked like a madman in the kitchen, cigarette dangling, drinking tea manically. He made Adana kebabs, eggplant and mince kebabs, salsa bowls, salad, chicken drumettes and wings, pide. Cooked in a frenzy on the BBQ, the cats launching themselves at the skewers laid out across an old wooden wheelbarrow. We had to lock Efer (small fearless black kitten) in our bathroom until after we'd eaten.

When Mustafa served it all out - by hand - he plated up a piece of bread, a line of 4 chicken pieces, portion of Adana kebab, cooked tomato and some onion. Amazingly delicious, like restaurant fare.

He had his Adana and other sis (skewers) in this amazing, metal rounded 'quiver' with a cap, like a silver poster tube but made of metal. It was beautiful.

SO we ate and then they went to bed. We had planned some Sound of Music hijinks but didn't do it. Pablo and I sat up a while singing 'the worst songs in the world'.

*

Woke early this morning to see off the others. Pablo gave his last spoon of breakfast yoghurt to Efer. (Efer was hilarious yesterday - wanted to go in the pool, went on the lilo, I put a towel down for his claws, they are so sharp!) The others left and shortly after Mustafa and Nadia went to leave.

How is the car? I said. All okay?

I hope, Mustafa said. Inshallah.

We laughed.

He went out to the car and backed it over the edge of the ditch again and it got stuck. As soon as I saw where it had ended up, I knew he couldn't drive for shit! He called Ali and came into the house telling me Ali said for me to drive the Jeep and pull him out. We tried that (mum being Mrs Jessop and peeping through the gaps in the pool fence.) We broke the rope and then a strap thing no way was it going to work.

I looked under his car, it was totally fucked. Huge rocks that we couldn't hope to move by hand, and THE CHASSIS WAS RESTING ON THEM. FLUSH. At least one of his tyres was spinning in the air but still...

So he went and got the same farmer and tractor. Came back, hurtling along the road. And it eventually pulled the van out but not before several failed attempts and me thinking the fucking tractor was going to flip and kill the farmer. Then we had to get a spade and fill the 2 big holes made by the tractor tyres spinning in the rubble of Ali's driveway (unsealed.) Finally they went with me waving goodbye, but not before he had almost driven the van off the driveway edge again and I had to stand behind him and direct him

*

So we're at the shop. P and Ali sitting in the front section having mercimek soup together just like they did when she was one and two and three. I've just had some here in the back. DELISH.

*

3.12pm Same day. Back at the villa. It's really windy, the lilo has blown over the pool fence twice so I've put it in the downstairs room. Little Efer is complaining about the wind but he'll be on his own in less than 2 weeks and Ali really doesn't like him so he probably will be even more on his own.

Got the tick out. Yay. Used dishwashing liquid on a cotton ball and it backed out, then I picked it up with tweezers. Ayse then had a green, soapy head. She was very good while we did it, Princess held her and patted her and it was quick and easy. Texted Ali NOT to get the tablet from the vet.

Wonder if it will rain. Hope so, pretty cool. Then it might be swimming weather tomorrow. Pool is being treated anyway today and we'll vac and swim tomorrow I hope.

So I'm upstairs on the bed. If it rains I have to get Ali's mattress in. It's outside airing. I've already brought his clothes horse in, it had fallen over up on his balcony and stuff was on the ground. I'm glad we didn't drive up in this weather. Too, too, too windy. We have leftovers for dinner, I'll make koftes, rice, we have chicken etc. Salad, salsa.

*

Saturday 2.10.10

Down at the shop, fan on, a little humid/warm but windy, overcast, looks like rain.

Ali was showing the house to the Californian Meditationiste. We were told to be out by 2.30pm and we can go back at 5pm. P is checking email, we just had coffees and some food at the square. Really nice food but the service awful. Brothers, one set of twins and a younger bro I reckon. He went to pick basil for the dishes and gave me a sprig on the way back past our table. They were checking P out but I claim him as my beau!

Ayse (cat) we think was/is on heat. Hence the 'wound' and bleeding. As P said: 'I don't think it's a wound, it's her vagina. One, it's in the middle, two, Cem [a third cat] was trying to mount her.'

Yesterday we swam in the morning. The pool is beautiful and crystal clear now. Went to Friday Market. Bought some food, some dvds, and fake designer t-shirts for Clokes. Ate gozleme, then #4 picked us up which was nice. Ate sardines and pasta last night, almost finished Lord Edgware Dies.

*

10.20pm Same day. We ended up playing OKEY in the shop. Me, mum, Princess and the worker (Eyup.) I was playing pretty badly, Eyup was correcting us and helping us on a couple of things with the game.

*

Now it's Tuesday 5.10.10

It's about 8.50am we are leaving in 10 minutes to go to Meis. Have to put the passports in at 9.30am and the boat leaves at 10. It will cost 40TL to go and come.

Catch up Sunday - Ali didn't go into the shop as normal. Sunday afternoon he left when Eyup drove up and told him that customers were coming. Eyup had called Ali's phone but of course it was upstairs and he didn't hear it ringing. P and I went down with him in the Jeep. Customers didn't arrive, P and I sat in the shop.

Monday, we got up early again so P could go diving. We got to the shop just before 9am. Ali took us to the marina, we got on the boat and had a pleasant couple of hours, P did a 'discovery dive' - with an instructor got kitted up with wetsuit, weight vest, flippers, mask and oxygen tank. Went into the water, practised de-pressurising, hand signals, then went down for about 20 mins. She said it was really good and would like to do it again. She was pretty nervous beforehand.

*

So we went to Meis (Greek island about 20 mins away by ferry.) There was a big group of expats who weren't particularly friendly to us apart from a Norwegian woman. Meis was beautiful, we visited the ehtnographic museum, lots of people from Meis went to Melbourne after the second world war. At the museum there were great displays and a film about the history. Did some shopping. Caught the boat back, hilarious when the boat workers handed around a tray of white wine and kept giving refills out of the wine box bladder. We were knackered. Had to wait for our passports to be returned, they just kind of put them on a table in the cafe for people to rummage through.

*

Wednesday.

There was something wrong with Ayse this morning. Her jaw seemed to have disappeared. Was pulled back, there was a little bit of blood but I thought it can't be gone because there would be more blood. She was kind of sitting really weird and looked really Evil, and pulling at her tongue with her paws. P was so distressed, it was awful to watch. P was crying and I was saying I had to go to the shop to help Ali. We'd had a nice moment before he went to work on the platform. Peaceful and quiet with all the cats. Then whatever happened to Ayse happened really quickly. I told P she had to decide whether to stay (mum was staying) or come with me. We drove down the mountain, her crying most of the way. Asking if Ayse would die, asking what we should do, feeling really, really bad that she'd been unable to even look at her because she was so scary ('What kind of mother am I?' she said.)

As we were driving I had the thought maybe something had happened to her collar, maybe somehow it had hooked her jaw. We rang mum (after much fucking around with phones) and asked her if she could bear to try and look and see if the cat's jaw was hooked back.

IT WAS! So she said she'd try and cut it off.

Then we had a 3pm appointment with the Muhtar's office to get all sorts of things prepared and stamped. I had to provide a passport photos, so we got some done and I look really sad. It was pretty upsetting but the photos made me laugh and cheered me up. I drove home to get mum and brought her back down for dinner. Then drove home in full dark for the first time. It was ok. Also forgot to mention, after signing and lodging all the papers, I think for property settlement and also I have appointed a lawyer to act on my behalf here and also Ali and I have both appointed a friend of his to act on P's behalf to 'do something' which is make an offer to buy the house from #4 because it's in #4's name. So the idea is the house will be transferred into P's name. Strange but true. I hope it fixed the problem but I doubt it will.

*

The day before we leave. One final boat trip, P wanted me to go. I was happy to stay home but she pushed so I went for her. Mum stayed home. We got up early to be at the boat at 9.30 because Ali said the last two times we were late. But there was no sign of him. P went to ask Ali and he said the boat was leaving 10.30 but that we should go at 9.30.

Drove down. We went for a quick walk to get a new t-shirt for P because the one she had one was dirty. By the time we got back, Ali had customers. We walked to the boat. We got on.

We set off. Ali was already on board, I hadn't noticed him sneak on and take position on the front deck. And then entailed a weird day.

And so it went on. I had a good chat to the grandmother, and her husband. Enjoyed time with the two expat women. It got very rough going back, we have video. The grandmother's sunglasses went off the boat. So did the little boy's BenTen watch, Ali went back to found it. I was nervous going back, we had to motor fast over the waves.

Back at the shop it was hard to get away. Had a beer with the girls. Then others came back from the photo shoot (long story). We finally got away, said our goodbyes, to #4 and Eyup.

But no time to go and say goodbye to anyone else. P was unhappy but I knew it was getting to 7.30pmish and I knew mum would be worried, she didn't have a phone so we couldn't call her.

Drove up the mountain, mum annoyed/worried. Made me annoyed.

We had fish and calamari for dinner. I started throwing back the wine. P disappointed we hadn't said goodbye to other people.

I asked her if she'd said goodbye to her uncle #4 and Eyup. I told mum and her that Eyup hadn't let go of my hand and #4 pulled me in for a big bear hug.

P started crying again.

Okay, I said. I'll stop drinking. Let's have our dinner. Start packing. And we'll drive back down at 10pm and say our goodbyes properly.

P was happy. So we did that. Mum came too. One last time, down the mountain. Saw S at his shop. Said goodbye. Saw F at her shop. Said goodbye. Parked at Ali's shop. Mum went to the cafe for a coffee. P and I to the fabric shop to buy a couple more towels. The girls from the boat saw us in there and so we went to the restaurant they were having dinner at and saw them once more. Was nice. Said goodbye to Y at his shop. #4 was at the barber but P said goodbye to Eyup and then Ali drove us home.

We packed. Slept at 1.30am. Up at 3.30am, driver picked us up at 4am. We drove through a storm with lightning to get to Antalya airport. We caught all our planes and got back home, back to reality.

Wah wah wee wah

So, my mum sold her apartment and might buy in the CBD. Funkarama.

She also has a gentleman caller, she met at the Third Age. They study Shakespeare and do choir together and now they go to the pictures and hold hands and swim at the beach. It's a beautiful thing and a great reminder to live in the now, live every day, grab life with both hands and give it a big hearty kiss on the lips.

Long-term readers will know my mum was diagnosed with cancer in 2000. She fought it and sometimes it didn't go away, and sometimes it did, only to come back again. That's the type of cancer she has/had. It's one of the 'better ones' to have if you're going to have cancer. Not nasty like breast or ovarian.

The most recent relapse was early last year, then it went away very quickly after only 1 or 2 chemo rounds. We had planned to go to Turkey and that became doubtful. However once she finished treatment the doc said ok and we went.

We went to Turkey in Sept/Oct and when mum came back it was action stations. Within a month or two she was 'dating' this lovely gentleman and seriously talking about putting her flat on the market. Bim bam, it's done. Sold yesterday.

She is moving from St Kilda to, like I said, CBD or St Kilda Road.

She is an inspiration.

Night night QLD

Feel bad going to bed while northern QLD is about to get hit by something quite terrible.

To my QLD friends, hang in there.

x

2011

I've heard a few people say 2010 was a terrible year for them, personally. For me it was fine. I've had my own annus horribilae (any Latin people, please correct that abomination of a conjugation). Things for me are settled now and I have to say a la Larry David: pretty, pretty, pretty good.

I haven't been blogging so much because I've been doing my 'real writing.' But I don't want to let this spot go, I know I have put it out there that I will still be blogging in my 80s. There's always plenty of material. I have to keep it short and sharp I think. And maybe not talk about films and tv and books so much.

Heh.

We are now watching True Blood, and it's so stimulating that I can't go to sleep within two and a half hours of watching an episode. But fuck me, how boring is Bill? And unattractive? Sheesh.

We finished Lost. The ending, again. Sheesh. Nowhere near as moving as the final episode of Six Feet Under. Methinks I need to revisit that. And Dexter, we are behind a season.

I'm half-way through re-reading Dirt Music by Tim Winton. I like it heaps better than Breath I've decided. I got sidetracked from it, though, by Russell Brand's My Booky Wook (which I just finished yesterday) after having read My Booky Wook 2.

I also picked up a copy of Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. What a tome and seemingly so digressive. Not sure how I will tolerate it. But at least I've got it, along with other great unread/partially read classics (The Brothers Karamazov, Anna Karenina, Ulysses and some of Old Hem old chap old man.) I think as I get older I realise my reading cannot be hard work. I want to fall into a book, not scale it like a mountain. But I DO NOT WANT to read shit. I am struggling with a Jodi Picoult book en ce moment as well, my oldest daughter has just read it and because she doesn't read much and I want to encourage her, I thought I would read it and we would discuss. Not sure if I'll finish it. Too many characters, too much cliche, too wordy. Give me MJ Hyland any day. God I can't wait for her next book.

*

I'll do a diaries over the weekend. Try to pick up the pace there and do them once a week.

Happy Very Hot Day tomorrow, fellow Melburnians.

Movies and books

Books and movies.

Some of you will remember that I often like to educate Princess in the ways of movies that I have loved or that I have though significant at the time even though a re-look sometimes makes me shake my head and think 'what the fuck was I thinking?'

A prime example of this is The Highlander (1984). When I first saw it, I thought it was fabulous. Now we need to consider the context - Harry Potter free and before good digital special effects, it was pre-Terminator 2 (1991) but post Terminator 1 (1984).

When I watched it again with Princess and Clokes (who had never seen it!) it was so scarring to the eyes of my daughter (by way of terrible special effects, bad fight scenes and all-round badness) that we had to turn it off half way through. I was embarrassed. How could I have gotten it so wrong?

That was earlier in the school holidays. Now, whenever I trot out another '80s movie Princess's first question is 'are the special effects.' My dignity is only assuaged by the fact she doesn't physically make the hand-quote movements.

Eighties movies that have impressed her thus far are:

St Elmo's Fire (largely because of Rob Lowe's face) and About Last Night (his torso.)

She quite liked Pretty in Pink despite the absence of any parts of Rob Lowe's anatomy, and watching it now I had a new-found appreciation for the character of the Duckman. I think back then he was too out there for me. I always liked the boring characters, the Andrew McCarthys, if you will.

We also had a Tom Cruise retrospect. Risky Business (she liked, she said he was hot. I was surprised, I never thought him attractive even back then. I'd forgotten how sexy the sex scenes are, oh well, she's fourteen now.) Top Gun, The Firm and we are trying to get Jerry Maguire. It's obviously a popular movie because it's never in the shop.

Other things we have watched:

Some 30 Rock.
Vampire Diaries - 1st season. Once the first season was nearing an end I'd become a bit meh about it but she loves it.
Notting Hill - she liked it
Sleepless in Seattle - not so keen on it, she said it was 'alright' but because we'd watched When Harry Met Sally first (which she loved for the humour) I think Sleepless was a bit soppy and sad.
My Best Friend's Wedding - she confirmed my memory that the best scenes were the Cameron Diaz karaoke as well as Rupert thingo's scenes. Julia Roberts's character was appalling and we both hated her. There's Something About Mary - she liked it. Who wouldn't?

Now to John Cusack. I have always loved Cusack and like others for me the love began with one movie - The Sure Thing. There was also Say Anything. I can't remember which one I saw first but they are both good, with TST better overall. What a wonderful movie. Wonderful.

We watched Stand By Me and she loved it. LOVED IT. Which is good because it is so awesome.

We watched Almost Famous which I enjoyed more this time than when I saw it previously.

And for some contemporary viewing, we watched Superbad and Thirteen. I was prepared for Superbad to be, well, super bad, but I loved it. What a glimpse into the male brain. But what fantastic characters they were, and the party scenes with sex and alcohol, there are some really fine messages there. It wasn't like American Pie at all (which is just fucking stupid.) Thirteen was about two 13-year-old girls. Confronting and frightening and not at all funny. Holly Hunter was good, the kids were good who played the girls, they were 13 and 14 when they filmed.

SO if it sounds like all I've been doing is lying around watching movies you'd be pretty right. I went back to work a couple of weeks ago but just 2 short days a week. We went to the pool once, we have't been away, I've been painting shelves today, not much writing going on really, I haven't got the space. Reading: at the moment I'm reading Russell Brand's Booky Wooky 2. It was on special at Borders and I just grabbed it. Unlike the rest of the world I haven't really known much about him. I knew of him but didn't realise what the fuss was about. Clokes and I saw Get Him to the Greek recently and talk about charisma. The Man Has Charisma. Is it the androgyny? The height? The chains and belts and leather? I don't know but you know what. The man can write. He is clearly quite brilliant and he could be a writer if he wanted to. I reckon.

I bought Peter Carey's My Life as a Fake and Theft: A Love Story. Also Camus's The Plague and The Fall. Also I'm mid-way through Rosalie Ham's Summer at Mount Hope (like it more than her first The Dressmaker) and have also gotten myself a copy of Winton's Dirt Music. Read it years ago but it was a borrowed copy. Time to re-read I think.

So that's about it.

Oh we are also still working through Lost. We are in the final season, about 8 eps to go? Princess has lost interest (heh) and I know it's gotten silly BUT I JUST WANT TO SEE HOW IT ENDS.

Ciao ciao.

Christmas Vortex

So I'm running a bath, yes right now. On 27 December 2010 I am running a hot bubble bath. What is with this weather?

It's been a really strange few days. I got sucked into the St Kilda Scandal vortex that is the internet forums and facebook sites. I've been doing my best to try and bring education to the masses about the age of consent and other 'topical' issues, as well as trying to encourage people to be less trollish and more compassionate.

Last night I watched Gangs of New York with Princess. It did not improve on second viewing.

And Christmas Day sucked balls. It was the least festive Christmas evah and by the time I went to sleep I wasn't talking to Clokes and he was starting to realise that maybe me complaining about it to him and then him NOT SAYING ANYTHING LIKE You know babe, sorry I know how you're feeling, the food was great was not the right way for him to play it.

That's all it would take. A little rub on the arm and a sorry, the food was delicious, thank you. Which he did the next morning after he noticed I still wasn't talking to him. But me spelling it out and then not getting any support? Hmmm.

Christmas has been complicated for me since the age of 14. It's the bane of many a child of divorce. But try adding a blended family into the mix and it becomes hell. Diarama when I can be bothered.
Hope all your Christmas Days were better than mine.

PS And I haven't even mentioned my father and the pathetic phone call Christmas afternoon, that I had to make after lack of contact for two weeks, and weak way he goes AWOL at Christmas most years.
See? The fourteen-year-old sad and disappointed little girl is still inside of me. BATH TIME!

Nude saints scandale

I'm all over it. It's an interesting case of sexual politics, media feeding, scorned woman, stupid doofus men.

But what's really shocking (though not surprising) is the speedy willingness of people in forums and commenters on news articles who want to call her skank, ho, slut.

And woman are their own worst enemies.

Why is a man called a 'legend' if he is sexually successful?

Why is a woman called a 'slut' if she acts the same way?

I have to say I admire her for standing up to what would be an intimidating and powerful behemoth (AFL, a bunch of grown men with money and power, Demetriou etc.) The vitriol and support she has on the Internet seems almost balanced so far; depends on the forum. Her formspring is loaded with supportive comments, her facebook everyone is mostly slagging her off. I've read her twitter as well, and seen the photos and her video responses to what's been going on.

I hope she comes through it ok. I'm embarrassed for Riewoldt, that people like me have seen his junk. He looks furious in the still photos, and he would be. No matter how she got the pictures, what on earth was he thinking? It's a posed photo but he's fully nude standing there next to another guy (wearing jeans and no shirt, holding out a wrapped condom) and in front of someone with a camera.

What was he thinking?

What's the definition of "spy"?

My Macquarie Dictionary 3rd Edn says:

1. one who keeps secret watch on the action of others

2. one employed by a government to obtain secret or intelligence, especially with reference to military or naval affairs of other governments


So the reason Mark Arbib is not being described as a spy by The Age is because:

1. we don't know whether he was in the employ of the US Government

2. we don't know how secret his observations were

3. he wasn't obtaining and passing on military or naval information; simply the internal workings of Labor party politics

4. he would sue The Age for defamation.

And is a spy someone who works for an enemy or opposite entity? That could also be a reason he can't be called a spy.

So informant then?

My Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus defines informant as:

See informer.

1. a person who informs against another
2. a person who informs or advises

1. informant, tell-tale, taleteller, stool-pigeon, US tattle-tale, colloq. supergrass, weasel, hist. beagle, sl. snitch, finger, squealer, nose, shopper, Austral. sl. fizgig, shelf, Brit. sl. grass, nark, Brit. school sl. sneak, esp. US sl. ratfink, US sl, fink, stoolie, US & Austral. sl. dog; traitor, betrayer, fifth-columnist, spy, rat, colloq. mole.
2. informant, source, reporter, correspondent, communicator, consultant, adviser, counsel, counsellor, guide, mentor.

Under the entry for "inform" -
2. turn informer, name names, colloq. scream, sl. sing, squeak, squeal, Brit. school sl. sneak (inform against or on), accuse, incriminate, inculpate, implicate, identify, betray, denounce, colloq. tell on, rat on, blow the whistle on, split on.

I'd settle for rat. It's pretty low and seems different to a sharing of resources which one might expect allied governments to engage in. I reckon it stinks and it stinks even more that he was one of the people who 'handled' the Rudd toppling.

How do we feel, knowing that one of our senators is in such close contact (for want of a better expression) with the US Embassy, and who might be influence by them and therefore influence our government?

I think it stinks.

Obligatory Julian Assange post

I'm not a little disturbed by the fact that there has been American communication (seedy? manipulative? undercover? pushy? instrumental? meddlesome?) with Mark Arbib who was instrumental in bringing down Rudd.

I'm also quite disturbed by Julia Gillard making the statement she did about Assange; using words like illegal in one breath while in another saying it wasn't clear whether it was illegal. Shades of David Hicks in a way; our country deciding a person is a Bad Guy without trial and leaving them to the mighty forces overseas.

What are we? A fucking back-water? New Zealand has bigger balls than we do.

I think I've voted for the ALP for the last time. I cannot respect a government who doesn't do the right thing and say the rights things in these circumstances. That's the only thread that kept me in ALP's camp, and while I swung out occasionally to vote Greens, last election I voted Labor.

Gillard's no better than Howard or any other of the tools that preceded her. Where's her integrity, strength, ability to drive us properly? The car is careening all over the road and it is so disappointing. I'm let down, disappointed but somehow, unsurprised.

I'm not someone who thinks Assange OR HICKS are heroes. But they were both hung out to dry and we didn't do anything about it. Sure, we give them access to consular support like with any other citizen arrested overseas. Like we would have with Chambers and Barlow (Hawke also made a plea for compassion that they not be executed), and Corby and the Stupido Nines or whatever they're called. (no one bothered pleading for them that I know of.) I know Australia cannot interfere with foreign law but we can still make strong statements that show us as evolved and intelligent. No wonder people think we are idiots, stupid, dumbos, soft.

We have to get over our post-colonial shakes and realise that we can keep close ties with the countries that matter while also retaining our independence of thought and speech. And respect.
If not, ie if America is strong-arming us, well that just supports the rhetoric that they are the bully boys of the world. Maybe we can't have it both ways. Maybe we can't stand up for what's right without bending over and taking it up the arse.

But really, do we have to be an accessory to America's world domination? Do we want to be friend with them? Do we need to? Can't we pull away a bit more and be more like Switzerland? (Or New Zealand.)