Archive for australia
April 10, 2008 at 8:23 am · tag/s : amerika, australia, death, life, loss, love, people
a story is doing the rounds of the internets about an 80 year old man in new york who has been calling his late wife’s answering service every day since she died in 2005 just to hear her voice. unfortunately the phone company deleted the message and the old man was heartbroken. tough shit said verizon when he rang them asking if they could restore the message. then the story hit the internets and hey presto, the phone company found a backup of the message and restored it. where there is a will (or a potential public relations disaster) there is a way. there are a number of variants of the story, some of which claim the voice said : “the whitings aren’t home…” and in others “this is catherine whiting…” but no matter it is a great story. how long before there is service where you can record a message before you die so people can ring a number and hear your voice after you have passed away?
April 9, 2008 at 8:21 am · tag/s : australia, blog, blogs, melbourne, reading
letter to the editor
I love clocks, in fact I have 17 of them. But what a bore, having to get up at 2am to put them all back an hour. I mean, couldn’t they let us put them back at 10pm as we go to bed.
- Doug Jacques,
Nambucca Heads.
ha ha ha … doug : you are a genius. marieke hardy thought you were serious.
but then she is not very smart.
and she is annoying.
and she has a stupid haircut.
and her blog sucks.
November 13, 2007 at 6:50 am · tag/s : amerika, australia, love
here is one for your fuck off pocket :
They had made fleeting eye contact and then she disappeared. It was visceral, inexplicable, something beyond words. Little wonder the romantics were quivering.
what a load of bollix. she didn’t even notice him. but it certainly seems that it was beyond words if the quality of the writing is anything to go by.
but what is it about the ‘quality press’ in late capitalism that a story like this gets picked up? or more specifically : what is it about the desperado hacks at the age? was it the fact that “the pair” appeared on good morning amerika? maybe this is what made it newsworthy?
November 3, 2007 at 11:11 am · tag/s : australia, melbourne, music
oh great! sonic youth performing daydream nation in its entirety at the metro as part of the don’t look back series on the same night that pj harvey plays melbourne’s hamer hall on her australian tour. that’s sensible planning. don’t concert promoters talk to each other?
but polly jean will win. why? because she is not a boring old has-been just going through the motions for money. don’t look back indeed.
on the other hand low playing everything we lost in the fire in east brunswick will be very tempting…
August 27, 2007 at 7:07 am · tag/s : australia, blog, football, loss
as i am currently writing elsewhere football allows me to take pleasure in loss, but all good things must come to an end or so they say, and so next week brings the last games of the footy season, that is for those of us who support losers that don’t figure in the finals. the final eight (or final five as it used to be before football was hijacked by greedy capitalists) is a uniquely australian tradition, as far as i know anyway. in the rest of the football world whoever finishes at the top of the ladder wins the championship and thus the champions may be decided weeks before the end of the season. this year that would have been the cats who have been several games clear at the top of the ladder for some time. but of course the australians have to complicate things and the top eight teams (top five it used to be before the greedy capit… oh i said that already) compete against each other for the flag over four weeks, whilst the rest of the clubs go on holidays feeling sheepish. actually it is a brilliant innovation which adds a lot of excitement to the final weeks of the season. (the last time my team made the eight was about ten years ago and i marked the event by pointing a camera at myself as i watched each game on tv and drank myself into a stupor. i am thinking about releasing those tapes as a limited edition dvd box set if anyone is interested. handmade box!)
but next week whilst everyone’s eyes will be on the st kilda - richmond game because it will decide which team finishes in the coveted eighth position (adelaide, currently in eighth, has a difficult away game against the pies, and if adelaide loses and st kilda wins, the saints will go into the finals) the game will also decide the battle for the wooden spoon. the tigers’ glorious victory against the bombers on the weekend turned this battle into a minor drama involving the worst three teams in the competition (by a long shot) each having lost 17 games : melbourne, carlton and richmond, which currently occupies the bottom position, two points behind the other two. melbourne and carlton play each other, so if richmond wins, whoever loses the game between the other two contenders will win the spoon.
now why would anyone be keen to win the wooden spoon you may well ask? well gentle reader the reason is this : since the game is only played in australia, and then only in certain obscure parts of the continent often referred to by names of south american countries, stocks of new players are severely limited. the holder of the wooden spoon earns the right to recruit the best young player currently playing in the non-professional league, and this year everyone knows who that is. well everyone except me, but i have heard about him : he is big and tall and strong and fast, they say. with an exceptional pair of hands they say. he can play up forward or at the back or in the ruck, they say. and he can kick goals too. we need a player like that. urgently. so can everyone play badly to ensure we lose on saturday please? it shouldn’t be too hard. you have shown you can do it many times this season. go on lads drop that mark! kick that clanger!
stop press : wallace : “no tanking”
August 7, 2007 at 10:22 pm · tag/s : australia, eat-shit-john-howard
for some reason the kevin07 website stimulates my funny bone … maybe it is just the slickness of the campaign, so unusual for boring old aussie elections … they generally still think “it’s time.” is pretty cutting edge. and this is more like well think magnum … big kev … big mac, but who cares? go kevin! eat shit john howard!!
August 4, 2007 at 11:44 am · tag/s : australia, travel
last thoughts on ashfield : you’ve got ashfield, belfield, enfield, and strathfield - so what happened to canterfield?
future ashfield artists in residence looking for peace and quiet please note : when it’s not raining pratten park is a hive of activities morning noon and night : tennis, soccer training and matches and during the holidays hordes of enthusiastic budding tennis players descend on the courts to receive coaching - when there are no matches and there is no training, the grass has to be mown and other maintenance and repair work has to be carried out - and yay ashfield council has decided the winter months would be ideal for the demolishing of the old stand on the oval and their central services department like to get an early start - ah but wait you say, at three o clock in the morning it is surely quiet … no not necessarily, because this is the time when groups of young drinkers use the oval for drinking parties
on the other hand you’ll see some great (very quiet!) tai chi demonstrations if you get up early and if you are in need of coffee decolata in summer hill is less than twenty minutes walk away and you can pick up a french pudding or a pear and ricotta tart at the patisserie whilst you are there and … read more
anyway i am home : i love my little house and the quiet streets and the flocks of screeching white cockatoos in the frosty morning and the taste of the water and the wireless slow as hell adsl which is better than dial up any day
July 8, 2007 at 8:25 am · tag/s : australia, blog, film, free, travel
i like to go to events which are free, especially when its gratis status has not come about through sponsorship by a large multinational company. although often as not it is as much of a waste of time as an event where you do have to pay, at least i have only wasted time and not money, and mostly i am just looking for an excuse to get out of the house and to do some walking. making a decision to attend an event based on whether it is free and whether comfortable seating is provided and whether it affords an opportunity for a walk is as good as, or better than, deciding to attend on the basis of a review, or the reputation of the performer/s or director. however this only works in large metropolitan centres : in regional areas free events are just about always crap.
free films at the art gallery of new south wales
May 29, 2007 at 1:25 pm · tag/s : australia, blog, film, travel
a mouthwatering line up at the sydney film festival next month - unfortunately (or fortunately!) i am (only) going to be there for the last weekend. is the glass half empty or half full? well, i am going to miss a swag of goodies including david lynch’s inland empire which i also missed in new york last year; some very interesting looking docos : the killer within, a walk into the sea : danny williams and the warhol factory; and some intriguing music films : anton corbijn’s biopic on ian curtis called control, shut up and sing, a doco on the dixie chicks’ run in with the american media over the iraq war, a doco about a record the grauniad has called one of the dozen greatest albums of all time : born sandy devotional by the triffids.
on the other hand i’ll be there to see adrienne shelly’s film waitress, the feminist thriller red road (a kind of prequel to italian for beginners, which i loved), the bridge, a doco about the many people that suicide by jumping off the golden gate bridge, miss universe 1929 (For over 20 years, award-winning filmmaker Peter Forgács has examined the private histories of European families between 1930 and 1960, primarily using found footage.) and the monastery : mr vig and the nun (Mr Vig is the owner of a rundown Danish castle. His dream is to turn his rambling home into a Russian Orthodox monastery. The Russian Patriarch sends a delegation of nuns to assess the building’s suitability. Despite the leaking roof and dodgy heating, the nuns return the following summer lead by the young and determined Sister Ambrosija. She is alternately frustrated and charmed by Mr Vig’s recalcitrance and make-do approach. He, in turn, is struggling to accept that to realise his dream he must let go, forfeit his home and his vision.)
and then there is a thing called academy : R.Luke DuBois’ algorithmic programming technology enables an entire feature film to be shown in a perceptible way within the span of a single minute. Academy takes each film awarded the Oscar® for best picture over 75 years, compresses them, and shows them back-to-back in a magnificent play with memory and history. This fascinating project is simultaneously a savvy critique and a celebration of accelerated culture and diminishing attention spans. It also renders visible the historical changes in cinematic structure, timing and technologies.
woa … bugger twenty four hour psycho! this is what busy people need!
March 24, 2007 at 10:01 am · tag/s : australia, death, people
more than one aussie has been ribbing me this week following the loss of the netherlandic team of cricket minnows by 229 runs in their world cup match against australia - since then the event has become completely overshadowed by the murder of the pakistan coach following their loss against ireland - and no one is in the slightest bit interested that the men in orange booked their second ever world cup victory, against scotland - in an inspired and heroic move, the depressed and under-performing captain luke van troost (whose name coincidentally means solace or consolation) dropped himself for their final match in the tournament, with his replacement almost single-handedly destroying the scots batting
meanwhile, despite the win, van troost remains depressed, as do most people who have ever liked cricket, including the entertaining and articulate (if at times alarmingly right wing) commentator peter roebuck who, in the age today lyrically laments the passing of the innocence of a game in which
A bloke armed with a hunk of leather tries to hit three sticks protected by another fellow bearing a lump of wood.
ah if only it was that simple
next »
