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November 21st, 2009

05:17 pm - In the Swim
I have never been much of a swimmer. Paddling, fine. Wading, ok. Frolicking about in shallow water. Bring it on. But swimming? Nup.

Swimming lessons occupied a large part of my childhood. I had them every summer, from the age of five til about the age of 15. At first it wasn’t so bad. I had no problems with learning the freestyle stroke, or the breast stroke (I recall the instructor telling us to think of the arm movement as scooping out a giant ice-cream bowl).

However, putting these strokes into practice was a different story. The movements which seemed so easy when practicing on my towel by the side of the pool became so laboured once in the water. And when the time came to learn duck dives and tumble turns, I was sunk (no pun intended).

Swimming lessons at school were the worst. In primary school, lessons were compulsory from Grade Two to Grade Seven. Every February, we’d be bussed to Bold Park Swimming Pool in the afternoon. Bold Park was an outdoors pool which was not heated. As a result, we commonly used to refer to it as “Cold Park”. There’d be nothing worse than arriving on a mild day, with the temperatures in the low 20s, and a cool breeze wafting through-out the complex, knowing that in a matter or minutes I’d be jumping into the icy waters. Sometimes, after a lesson, I’d get out of the pool and my feet would be so numb that I would be unable to feel the pavement beneath.

To make matters worse, we were divided into groups according to our ability. Invariably, I would be in the bottom group. My fellow tadpoles and I would spend our afternoons draped over kickboards, flailing away, whilst our more advanced classmates would be in the next lane, competently practicing their Advanced Life-Saving, or Intermediate Butterfly or whatever it was the good swimmers learnt.

Interestingly, the swimming instructors at Cold Park would rarely get in the water themselves, which I thought was extremely unfair. Most of the time, they’d stroll up and down the pool wearing their yellow vests and white zinc on their noses, shouting instructions at us. Most instructors appeared to be well-intentioned, if not a little misguided.

One year, when I was 10 or so, my group was learning how to duck dive. The instructor – a young, sunburnt male - would drop his chunky set of silver keys to the bottom of the pool, and one by one, we’d do three breast-strokes, and a duck dive to retrieve them.

“Give the keys back to me, don’t chuck ‘em!” the instructor would scream. “Last year I had one young bloke throw ‘em at me, and they fell down the grating, on the sides! I couldn’t get into me car afterwards!”

The same instructor, upon witnessing my dismal attempts at duck-diving, suggested that he hold me upside down by my ankles, whilst I pick up the keys from the bottom of the pool. The idea flooded me with horror, until I realised that the instructor was actually trying to be helpful and friendly.

Every year, the instructors would grade us, and we’d either fail or pass the level we were at. And every year, for six years, I would fail the level. I’d trudge dejectedly back to the change rooms, clutching my “Participation Certificate”, trying to ignore the questions from my more successful classmates of “How did you go?” and “Did you pass?”

Every year, my mum would panic at the fact that my brother and I had not passed our current level. The following December, as soon as school was out, she’d enroll us for a course of vacation swimming, and we’d repeat the level we’d failed the previous February. Luckily, we’d manage to pass every summer. Just in time to join the following level next February and fail all over again. To make matters worse, vacation swimming was grouped by ability rather than age, so I’d invariably end up in the slightly humiliating position were most of the kids in my group were a couple of years younger than myself.

Things did not get better in high school. In Year Eight, during the first week of term, the PE instructor and the other 14 girls in the class reacted with amazement when I revealed that I had never been taught the Butterfly Stroke. Part of me died a little, when the teacher handed me a kickboard and suggested that I practice with that, while the rest of the class work on their tumble turns.

In Year 10, someone vandalised the school swimming pool in mid February, which meant that all swimming lessons were cancelled, and we had to play other sports. Although I normally don’t condone unlawful property destruction, I felt blissfully happy, as though autumn had arrived early,

Looking back, it’s unclear as to why I was so terrible at swimming. After all, I’d grown up in Perth. My parents did not have a pool; but my house was a fifteen minute drive from the Indian Ocean. Further, there were at least three or four swimming pools in nearby suburbs.

Perhaps it was a lack of natural ability – genetics or something? After all, my brother was just as bad as swimming as I was. Our dad was a poor swimmer too. He often told us a story about how he was forced to participate in a swimming carnival when he was in high school, back in the 1960s. He was such a bad swimmer, that by the time all the other competitors had reached the end and climbed out of the pool, and the next lot of boys were lined up on the blocks, ready to start their race, he was still struggling halfway down the pool. One of the masters had to pull him out of the pool, telling him “That’s enough. The next race is about to start and you’re holding everybody up.”

Or perhaps it was psychological? When I was five, I went to a pool party hosted by friends of my parents. Towards the end of the day, I found myself sitting on an inflatable tyre with my parents’ friends’ daughter, who was around the same age as me, but a much more adept swimmer. We were the only ones still in the pool. She suddenly decided to hop off, and climb out. I had exactly three seconds to think how cool it was, that I was on the tyre by myself, when the tyre overbalanced, tipping me underneath the water.

There was blue all around me. I didn’t know which way was up or down. I figured I’d better yell for help, and was amazed when my voice didn’t seem to work underwater. Then I felt strong hands grabbing at me. It was my dad, pulling me out (and obviously having long conquered his own school boy hang-ups of swimming).

Once out of the pool, my parents dried me off, with grim faces, and we left straight away. It was only when I was an adult that my mother would tell me that after that day, she’d woken up in the middle of the night, every night for the next week, shaking. Apparently I’d been under for longer than I’d thought. I remember the following summer at vacation swimming, being petrified of going in the “deep end” of the pool, of the cold waters closing over my head. It took me a while to get other that.

Or maybe that simply, once I’d figured I was no good at swimming, I didn’t want to try anymore?

I get no sympathy from Craig. He was an adept swimmer. Apparently he swam his first kilometre when he was just six years old, and he broke numerous school swimming records. Bully for you, Craig!

But last week I decided to go to the Tuggeranong Leisure Centre. It was a hot day, and I actually felt like swimming. After splashing about for a bit, I decided to get into one of the lanes and do some strokes. And you know what? It was actually good. I was actually experiencing something that I would never have thought possible in my childhood.

I was having fun, swimming in a pool. Actually swimming up and down, not just mucking about.

My arms felt sore at work the next day. But despite that, I have decided that I will definitely go back soon for some more swimming. I actually felt disappointed when I checked the website this afternoon and it said there is a Swim Meet next weekend, so the pool will be unavailable.

With a bit of practice, I’ll hopefully be on my way to becoming a regular ocean-going vessel (not the Titanic though!).

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November 15th, 2009

04:25 pm - Public school, Private school, and never the twain shall meet?
The other day, I was flicking though my high school’s alumni magazine. There were the usual articles about things like upcoming reunions, and how the school was doing at various sports and music competitions these days.

Then I noticed an article about how my old high school had welcomed its first intake of Year 7 students in 2009.

In my home state of Western Australia, primary school runs from Year One to Year Seven. High school goes from Year Eight to Year Twelve. Unlike the USA, there isn’t really the concept of a separate middle school or a junior high.

But it looks like all this has changed. I did some brief research on the internet. It appears that all private schools in WA are now starting high school from Year Seven (with all private primary schools finishing at Year Six). However, all state-run schools are sticking to the existing system, with the first year of all state high schools starting at Year Eight.

I attended a state-run primary school and a private high school. As did my parents back in the 1960s. So did my brother, and most of my cousins, and several friends I met in my adult life. In the graduating class of 1993 at W- Primary School, I estimate that at least 25% of my fellow students would have gone on to private high schools. I don’t know the exact number of students at my private high school who’d come from government primary schools, but there were definitely several of us around.

The decision by WA’s private schools to make Year Seven the first year of high school makes it harder for students to transfer between the state-run school system to the private school system. It means that parents of children in government primary schools, who wish to send their kids to a private high school have two choices.

One, they can pull their kids out of primary school at the end of Year Six, and make them start their private high school in Year Seven. The kids would start high school on an even footing, with all the other Year Sevens, with all of them being the “new kids”, the little fish in the big pool.

But it would mean they’d miss out on Year Seven in their old primary school. At my former primary school, Year Sevens got lots of privileges that the other years did not get. The Year Seven camp, two Socials, the right to be Prefects and Sports Captains, the right to graduate and have a special dinner. I loved being a Year Seven when I was in primary school. I would have found it devastating to have been forced to leave primary school a year early; to be thrown into a strange new big school, when my old primary school friends were still there, enjoying their status as Top Dogs.

The other option is for parents to let their kids do Year Seven in their state-run primary school, then send them to start the private high school in Year Eight. However, this would mean those kids would be starting as the “new kids”. Their high school classmates would have already established their friendship groups the previous year in Year Seven.

I realise a counter-argument to this is “So why not just choose one system for your kids – either private or government – and stick to it for all 12 years of your child’s schooling?”

My response to that is, there are several valid reasons why parents might want to send their children to a government primary school and a private high school. (Or vice versa, but I don’t know anyone who attended a private primary school and state-run high school, so I venture to say that scenario is pretty rare).

For one thing, my parents simply could not afford to send my brother and I to a private primary school. Further, they felt that we could receive as good a primary education in a government school as we could in a private school. High school was different though. They wanted us to attend a private high school because they believed private high schools had stronger academic records then government schools, and they wanted us to have the best chance possible at obtaining a decent university place and a career, etc. Another reason is that parents might be happy for their young children to attend a mixed-gender primary school, but would prefer to send them to a single-sex private school for their high schooling (obviously this did not apply to me as my high school was co-ed).

Another counter-argument is “Well, too bad so sad. If you want to attend a private high school, those are the sacrifices you have to make!”

I think this is somewhat unfeeling. Why should kids from a government primary school have to “prove” they want to be at a private high school, but students coming from a private primary school do not? In my experience, kids coming from government high schools were already at a disadvantage compared to those from private primary schools. Usually, kids coming from government primary schools knew less people (often, private primary schools are “feeders” to the local private high school, which means that most of the graduating class goes onto the same high school). Furthermore, students from state-run primary schools have to adapt to the private school system, which might include learning the religious aspects of that particular school. (I recall in my first term in Year Eight at my Catholic high school, in a Religious Ed class, pretending to mouth the words to “Hail Mary” because I didn’t know them, whereas my classmates who’d come from the junior school, or Loreto Primary, or St Thomas’s were expertly rattling the words off.)

So why compound that disadvantage by forcing parents of government primary school kids to make a tough choice that parents of private primary school kids do not?

I understand that the private schools have made Year Seven part of high school because recently, the school starting ages have changed. In my day, kids started Year One in the year they turned six, with a cut off date of 31 December. Now I understand that kids start Year One in the year they turn six years and six months, with a cut off date of 30 June. Which means that conceivably, kids could finish Year Seven aged 13 years and 6 months. Which seems too old to be attending primary school, in my opinion. In would make more sense for the government system to also make Year Seven the first year of high school.

So why am I writing this blog entry? Why do I feel strongly about this? After all, I’m not a parent. I don’t have a dog in this fight, so to speak.

I guess it comes down to the fact that if I do have kids (and my family and I are living in WA), I will not be able to give them the same experience that I have. They will not be able to experience the joys and superiority of Year Seven in a government primary school and start a private high school on a relatively equal basis with the rest of their year group. And that makes me sad.

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November 4th, 2009

11:13 am - Are You Experienced?
I am sitting in the cockpit of a 737. My mother and brother are on either side of me. My father is the co-pilot of this aeroplane. I watch as he examines the multitude of screens, buttons and levers in front of him. This is his first flight.

We are coming in to land at Sydney Airport. The captain – a youthful man with a crisp British accent – instructs my father on which controls to use, as the runway looms before us. It seems we are too high, too fast, the ground rushing up to meet us as my father manoeuvres the levers with sweat on his brow.

Just as it seems we must crash (the family that flies together dies together?) we touch down in s blur. My dad taxis the plane along the runway, and we come to a stop.

Of course, we are not really in an aeroplane. We are in a flight simulator in Newcastle Street, Perth, 4000 kilometres from Sydney. The crash function, we are later told, is switched off – the company that runs these flying lessons does not wish to traumatise its clients. Therefore, if the “pilot” heads towards a building, the “plane” will miraculously pass through the building like a ghost.

My father has been using a voucher which my brother and I gave him for his recent Milestone Birthday, which allowed him one hour’s experience in flying and landing an aeroplane. Which brings me to today’s topic: would you rather pay for an experience, or a material possession?

I know many friends who lean towards the “experience” side. They travel, attend concerts, and eat out at expensive restaurants a lot (I’m counting meals at restaurants as experiences, rather than a material possession, as you are partly paying for the ambience of the place). The flipside is, most of my “Team Experience” friends live in rental apartments, or share houses, drive beat-up cars, and don’t have a great deal in the way of furniture.

And I also have several friends who prefer to spend their money on material possessions. They usually own their own homes, and drive decent cars. They often have remarkable book, cd, and DVD collections too. But on the other hand, they rarely travel, and don’t seem to go out as much as their peers who mostly spend their money on experiences.

As for myself, when I reflect on the main purchases I have made as an adult, it seems I lean towards the Material Possession end of the scale. Notwithstanding this year’s fab trip to the USA, I have not travelled extensively, and Craig and I do not eat at restaurants or attend shows very often. However, we do have a house, and my car is of this decade’s vintage. I also own many books.

Both experiences and material possessions have their advantages and disadvantages. The most obvious advantage of material possessions is that they generally last longer than experiences. However, the counter-argument to that is, your experiences will also live on in your memory. (Although that counter-argument to the counter-argument would be that memory can be deceptive; it can change or fade. At the very least reliving your experience mentally will never be quite the same as living it in a physical sense.)

But material possessions have a permanency that experiences do not. You can live in a house, or drive a car, for decades (if you look after them properly). You can listen to that cd many times. You wear those clothes over and over again (but don’t forget to wash them, of course!)

The main argument in favour of experiences would be that they are often more interactive and engaging. For example, if you pay for the experience of bungy jumping, you are the one doing the bungy jumping. But if you pay for a book about bungy jumping, or a video about bungy jumping, you are experiencing the activity of bungy jumping vicariously. Thus, you are removed from the activity.

Sometimes experiences and material possessions converge. For example, when reading a book you have recently purchased, you are enjoying both the material possession (the tangible book, with the feel of the pages under your fingers, perhaps an interesting jacket design, and the faint spicy aroma of paper) and the experience (the act of reading the story contained within).

And sometimes spending money on material possessions enables future experiences. For example, purchasing a house has enabled Craig and I to throw several parties that we probably would not have been able to do if we were renting a tiny flat.

One thing I have observed (among the younger generations, anyway) is that people who prefer to spend their money on tangible possessions are often derided as being materialistic; whereas people who choose to spend their money on experiences are lauded for being adventurous and “living life to the full”.

I think it’s good to shake things up sometimes, and spend money on an experience where you normally would a possession (and vice versa). For that reason, my brother and I decided to give our dad an experience, rather than the usual books or gardening tools or shirts or wine that he normally receives.

So which would you rather buy – experiences, or material possessions?

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October 23rd, 2009

10:36 pm - Book Review - "Down the Road" by Bowie Ibarra
After immersing myself in the literary richness of ‘The Secret History’, I decided that the next novel I read would be from the camp of ‘genre fiction’.
And what better genre than horror? And what better sub-genre than zombies? Down the Road by Bowie Ibarra looked promising. “A bizarre plague of the walking dead. A nation desperate for survival. It could be the end of the world” reads the blurb on the back.

Unfortunately, Down the Road turned out to be disappointing. A potentially good story was let down by excruciatingly bad prose and poor characterisation.

The protagonist of Down the Road is George, a high school teacher living in Austin, Texas at the time of a worldwide zombie outbreak. The story focuses on George’s road trip from Austin to his hometown of San Uvalde. Along the way, he meets survivors, battles zombies, and is effectively imprisoned (and later escapes from) a civilian camp controlled by FEMA. (One of the few interesting aspects of this novel is the negative portrayal of the US military and government, and the gross infringement of civil liberties during the time of crisis).

However, Ibarra’s style of writing is from the school of “tell, don’t show”. The prose has the subtlety of a sledgehammer. The reader is constantly told how the characters are feeling. For example “Misty was still a bit of a mess, catatonic one moment, laughing the next, then weeping again… She seemed to be doing fine though, all things considered.” Clichés abound: “…hospitals had been pushed to their limits”; “…tempers flared…”, “…everything seemed to be falling apart…” etc.

Even the gory scenes are written in a style akin to a technical manual. Here is a passage depicting a zombie attack:

“One man had been trying to fight off the creatures with a pipe in the parking lot. He was overwhelmed. Two creatures bit into his face and neck. He was dragged to the ground, screaming. A creature bit into his arm. One monster grabbed his leg, which was still trying to yank itself free. Biting through the blue jeans, the monster tore at the pant leg.”

This pedestrian prose, with its rather repetitious sentence structure, has the effect of deadening (no pun intended) any tension that might have been derived from the scene. As a result, it is difficult for the reader to engage emotionally in the action.

The description of the sex scenes in Down the Road are spectacularly bad. In one rather bizarre scene, George has sex with one of his fellow teachers in a classroom, right after they have killed two zombies (and vomited over the stench of decay!). “She accepted his advance and their mouths began a passionate transaction of excitement and delight.” was one sentence which made me giggle. Again, even the sex scenes read like an instruction manual. Eg “She reached for his belt, unbuckled it, unbuttoned his pants, and released the zipper.”

I think I’ve read more sexier stuff in a Constitutional law textbook.

The dialogue in Down the Road is particularly banal. Here is George’s pithy response after being informed by a civilian of the assaults against young women by soldiers at the FEMA camp. “Aw, fuckin’ shit man… That’s bullshit.”

Other profanities which emit from George’s mouth during the novel include “What the fuck is this shit.”, “What a crock of shit.” and “Oh, what a horse-drawn carriage of bullshit!” It all gets tiresome after awhile.

Even the dialogue detailing the flirtation between George and his co-worker / lover is cringe-worthy.

“You’re a bad boy,” said Miss Lawrence. “I’m going to have to write you up.”

“As long as it’s lunch detention with you,” George boldly replied.

The characterisation is erratic, which weakens the novel’s credibility. George, we are informed, is a “kind-hearted person” with “chivalrous manners and schoolboy charm”. However, in the opening chapters of the novel, George is seen deliberately mowing down two police officers who are ticketing motorists on the blocked highway, with little remorse. Later in Down the Road George is attacked by four college boys, who try to beat him up and steal his car. George’s kind and chivalrous nature appears to desert him, as he responds by shooting two of them dead, and deliberately shooting the other two in the knee-caps and leaving them alive for the zombies to maul.

Such actions make George an unlikable character. It is hard to sympathise with a character whose vengeance is out of proportion to the provocation received.

All the other characters in Down the Road are largely one dimensional. On one page alone, three new characters are described solely by the clothes they are wearing and the types of guns they are carrying.
Without a strong, likable character to follow, the novel falls decidedly flat. Combined with the sloppy, uninteresting prose, this novel did not this reader’s expectations. Granted, Down the Road is Ibarra’s first novel. However, Ibarra is also a teacher, and as such, I frankly expected a better effort. Ibarra’s passion for the zombie subgenre does shine through the novel. With improved writing skills, this book could have been much better.

It is possible for a post apocalyptic novel to be well written and thrilling. Novels such as “The Day of the Triffids” by John Wyndham, and “Cell” by Stephen King are proof of this. Unfortunately, if you are looking for a well written and thrilling zombie novel, Down the Road is not it.
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October 11th, 2009

04:19 pm - Book Review – “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt
I bought this book at the Lifeline Second Hand Book Fair for only $4 a couple of weeks ago. As far as I’m concerned, it was $4 extremely well spent.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt, is a tale of murder and college life. Written in 1992, the novel is narrated by Richard Papen, a 19 year old from small town California who wins a scholarship to the exclusive Hampton College in Vermont. There, Richard studies Greek with a small, cliquish group of wealthy students – the twins Charles and Camilla, hypochondriac Francis, the mysterious and highly intellectual Henry, and the obnoxious, sponging Bunny Corcoran.

Eventually, Richard learns that his new friends are responsible for the accidental death of a local farmer during the group’s attempt to recreate a Bacchanal (an ancient wild revelry). Worse, Bunny (who was absent from the Bacchanal) has discovered his friends’ actions and is on the verge of exposing the group’s crime to the authorities.

The group then decides that Bunny must be killed. When Bunny is hiking in the nearby woods, Henry pushes him into a ravine whilst Richard and the others watch. The second half of the novel explores the repercussions of Bunny’s murder, and the eventual disintegration of the group.

The main plot points of The Secret History - the snobbish, tight-knit group of students; the frequent drinking and carousing; the murder of one of the students; the after-effects of the murder on the rest of the group – inevitably invites comparisons with one of my other favourite books, The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler.

There are also similarities in the narrative – both novels are narrated in the first person, with the narrators looking back at the actions of their younger selves. In both novels, the readers discovers in the opening pages that a murder has been committed. In fact, the captivating opening sentence of The Secret History tells us:

The snow in the mountains was melting, and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.

However, the Greek students in The Secret History are far more academic and calculating than the high-schoolers in The Basic Eight Whereas the murder of Adam State in The Basic Eight was arguably a Crime of Passion, the murder of Bunny Corcoran in The Secret History is more deliberate. The murder comes earlier too, halfway through the novel and the breakdown of the group is explored in greater detail than that in The Basic Eight .

Handler’s language is sharp, witty, and satiric. By contrast, Tartt’s novel is somewhat more lyrical, although the imagery is no less vivid. “Beauty is terror” is one of the first themes that Richard explores in his Greek class. The beauty of the Vermont landscape initially delights Richard.

“…I was happy in those first days as really I’d never been before, roaming like a sleepwalker, stunned and drunk with beauty. A group of red-cheeked girls playing soccer, ponytails flying, their shouts and laughter carrying faintly over the velvety twilit field. Trees creaking with apples, fallen apples red on the grass beneath, the heavy sweet smell of apples rotting on the ground and the steady thrumming of wasps around them. Commons clock tower, ivied brick, white spire, spellbound in the hazy distance. The shock of first seeing a birch tree at night, rising up in the dark as cool and slim as a ghost. And the nights, bigger than imagining: black and gusty and enormous, disorganized and wild with stars.”

However, this setting almost proves fatal to Richard. The harsh realities of his new life are revealed. During the winter break, he stays in an exposed warehouse and nearly dies from pneumonia. Later in the year, on the day of Bunny’s death, the scenery is described in more sinister terms:

“The woods were deathly still, more forbidding than I had ever seen them – green and black and stagnant, dark with the smells of mud and rot.”

Richard and his friends are “fallen apples”. The emotional impact of Bunny’s death proves devastating. The initial promise showed by the bright young students is ultimately never realised. In some ways, this book has parallels with The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald. Like Nick Carraway, Richard eventually leaves his previously exciting life in the east and returns to the west, disillusioned and saddened.

The Secret History is a large book, which rambles in parts (my 2006 Penguin edition is 658 pages). However, the novel is captivating. Tartt’s depicting of life at an elite college is absorbing. Her characters are believable and compelling. (Incidentally, Tartt apparently started writing this book when she was 19 and it was first published when she was 28, which makes me insanely jealous).

This book is far from being a conventional murder mystery; however I would strongly recommend it.
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September 27th, 2009

12:22 pm - Blog Club Topic: What is the worst job you have ever had, and why?
This topic is timely, as it has been approximately ten years ago that I quit the worst job I ever had. I was eighteen, in my first year of university, and worked part-time at KFC for several months so I could afford stuff like petrol, textbooks, photocopying, and other tertiary-education-related expenses. This was my first “real” job, and I’ve never had one like it since.

Despite the repetitious nature of the work, it was still physically and mentally exhausting. All new employees were put on the “Burger Bench”. This was where the Fillet Burgers, Zinger Burgers, Fillet with Bacon and Cheese Burgers, Zinger with Bacon and Cheese Burgers, Colonel Burgers, Junior Burgers and Twisters were made.

(Incidentally, the number of customers who pronounced ‘Colonel’ as “COLL-uh-nell” or “Coll-OH-nel” was staggering.)

Each burger involved a certain combination and amount of ingredients and a highly specialised process. For example, the (basic) computer screen above the Burger Bench would flash up the green letters “Fillet Bacon and Cheese Burger”. Put the wrapping down, two bun halves, squirt of mayo with the heavy gun, grab the tongs from the metal cup full of greasy water, stick some lettuce down, slice of tomato, piece of cheese, slice of bacon, open the oven door, careful with the tongs don’t burn your wrist on the door especially if the chicken patty is right at the back, balance the patty on top of the other ingredients, pop the other half of the bun on, wrap it up nicely, and stick it down the chute.

After a stint on the Burger Bench, Food Services Employees then “graduated” to working on the Drive-Thru, or on the front line – serving at the Front Counter. This was where I worked most shifts, taking orders, handling money, packing the food, restocking the boxes, straws, sauces, serviettes, cans of drinks and tubs of salads, and little packets of salt and pepper. In between all this, we also cooked chips, boiled corn, and made mash potato and gravy.

Our store was down the road from a Major Sporting Arena. During AFL season, the store would be flooded with people coming in and ordering food before the match. On Friday nights, if there was an Eagles or Dockers game, it was not uncommon for the queue to be out the door. I’d arrive at 6pm to start my shift, and for the next two hours at least, I’d be an automaton; a machine that just listened, packed and served, again and again and again.

During the quiet periods, we were expected to clean. This meant scrubbing and polishing the Bain Maries and the Burger Bench, washing dishes (such as the tongs and chip trays), mopping the floors, wiping the front doors, and cleaning the restaurant section and lobby. This meant wiping down tables and benches, shaking the mats, sweeping and mopping the floor, emptying the bins and stacking the trays. At the end of the night, the centre tables had to be lifted up, and stacked on top of the side ones. The first time I did this (with my skinny, girly arms) I just about gave myself a hernia.

Another reason why this was the worst job I have ever had, was because it was a customer service job. And inevitably, there were some lousy customers. Strangely enough, the worst customers were not the teenagers. Or the families with kids. Instead, the rudest and most unreasonable customers tended to be middle aged or older, well dressed and articulate, and unaccompanied by children. The most charitable thing I can say was that perhaps those types of people simply weren’t used to going to fast food restaurants, and hence had unrealistic expectations?

My worst experience with a customer came late one Saturday night. Our store closed at 11pm, and it was five minutes to the hour. We hadn’t had customers for the last half hour. I’d cleaned the restaurant area, and the burger ingredients had been put away (although there were still several warm buns and patties in the oven)

Then the bell above the door tinkled, and in walked a couple. They looked to be in their mid 30s. The man was big, blond, and wore an expensive looking coat.

“I’ll have a Colonel Burger combo,” he said, managing to pronounce “Colonel” correctly.

One of the (many) ingredients in the Colonel Burger was a slice of tomato. It just so happened that on that night, we had run out of tomatoes. I relayed this news to the customer, trying to look as polite and regretful as possible.

At this point, a strange look came over his face. It was a look of mingled anger and triumph.

“Aha!” he exclaimed. “In that case, I want a free piece of chicken to compensate! That’s only fair!”

Now, a piece of chicken was worth more than one slice of tomato. But after quickly conferring with the manager, I told the man that he could have the chicken.

The woman also ordered a burger combo, and I took their cash. “Will that be dine-in or take-away?” I asked, silently praying that they wanted take-away so we could close up and all go home.

“Dine-in” replied the man. Damn!

So I took the coverings off the ingredients, and prepared and served their meals (including the free piece of chicken). Ten minutes passed, during which I packed up the burger ingredients (again). Then there was a noise at the front counter. It was the blond guy, with his girl standing beside him. The man was holding his half-eaten burger in his hand, and when I approached, he slammed it down hard onto the front counter.

“These burgers are cold!” he shouted.

I opened my mouth to respond, but he continued “Get me the manager!”

The manager – a skinny, soft-eyed, nineteen year old boy called Dave – ventured out from the manager’s office. The man eyed Dave, and again, that strange gleam of fury and victory came into his eye.

“These burgers are cold!” he snapped. “It’s completely unacceptable!” Each syllable was punctuated by a slam of his open hand on the counter.

“If that’s the case sir, I am very sorr-” began Dave, but the man interrupted him.

“I want new burgers, free of charge!” demanded the man.

“Certainly sir,” said Dave, and turned to me. “Could you make these customers new burg-”

With a new slam of his hand, the man interrupted him again. “And in addition, I want our money back!”

“Yes sir,” said Dave quietly. He opened the cash register, whilst the man towered over him, scowling. Throughout this whole exchange, the woman said nothing. Just stared at us with cold eyes. She had long, blonde shiny hair, and was very smartly dressed.

The couple sat back down in the restaurant, and Dave and I unpacked the ingredients and made new burgers. After we served them, we took the man’s half-eaten burger around the back to see if it was indeed cold. We had a little needle that we stuck in, and told us the temperature. It transpired that even 15 minutes after the burger had been made, it was still well over the acceptable temperature. In other words, that burger was still plenty warm.

It was close to midnight when the couple finally left, and I got to put away the burger ingredients (for the third time that night) and clean up the restaurant area (again). The couple had also “cleaned up” too. Four burgers, two serves of chips, two soft drinks, and a piece of chicken, all for free!

But the main factor that made this job the worst I’ve ever had, to date, was one of my co-workers.

Two months into the job, and I was beginning to enjoy it. My co-workers were aged between 14 and 20, and they were all nice kids. Then we got a new co-worker, who I shall name “Melinda”, and my job satisfaction rate crumbled into a pile of gazoobies.

Melinda was only 16 or so, but she had a stud in her upper left ear, wore too much eye make-up, and smoked. She had worked part-time for three years in a different KFC store before transferring to ours. Apparently she was the “best friend of the girlfriend of Rob”. Rob being one of our managers, in his 20s. This meant that Melinda was buddyroos with Rob and several other managers (although not the mild-mannered Dave). They all hung out socially and went clubbing on their nights off (even though Melinda was underage).

It was unwritten policy that employees who had been working at KFC longer could give direction to the newer employees. Melinda quickly displayed a love of delegation. On the nights we were rostered on together, I’d find myself scrubbing the Bain Maries, washing the dishes, and cleaning the restaurant (these main chores were usually shared equally between employees) whilst Melinda smoked down the back and stuffed around doing god-knows-what-else.

Any protest to the manager was generally met with a curt “Do as Melinda tells you.” In their eyes, Melinda could do no wrong. There was one particularly busy night where we’d been cleaning until after midnight, and Melinda had conveniently disappeared. The manager, Paul (a man in his 30s, and another BFF of Melinda’s) came out of the office, and she magically reappeared, scrubbing at a dish, while he gave the rest of us a pep talk. “And if it wasn’t for Melinda working so hard, we’d be here until one o’clock!” he said, while I tried to keep my jaw from hitting the ground.

To make matters worse, Melinda was plain unpleasant, rude, and sarcastic. As a self-conscious, shy eighteen year old, she seemed to harbour a special contempt for me. “Have you #$%^ing finished yet?!” she’d bark, five minutes after ordering me to clean the mash potato bench. “Do you think you can handle one car, at least?” she’d sneer when I’d work on the Drive-Thru.

And I took it. This was in the days before I “grew a backbone” (to borrow a phrase from one of my favourite websites). Now I can look back and see her as a just big, dumb kid. But back then, she had what I did not – confidence and a strong network of friends. Oh, and mascara I guess.

Although KFC was the worst job I have ever had to date, it taught me some valuable lessons:

-Sometimes people will treat you badly, simply because they can , because they know that you are not a position to fight back.

-People love free stuff. Sometimes they will go to great lengths, such as lying and behaving badly, in order to get it.

-Favouritism can be a destructive, morale-sapping force.

-If the boss doesn’t support and defend his/her staff when required, employees feel disillusioned and alone.

-If you are in a position to stand up for yourself, do it. Don’t let people disrespect you for the sake of “keeping the peace”.

For these reasons, I think that every young person should take a turn working in a service capacity. I believe that society as a whole would learn a lot of empathy if this was to happen.

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September 20th, 2009

06:12 pm - Poetry Corner Volume 1: What I did on the weekend
Just when you thought this blog could not get any worse
I have decided to write this entry solely in verse
What has inspired me to do such a thing?
I can only blame the onset of Spring

Yes, poems have got me under their spell
As I also wrote one on Friday for Neha’s farewell
So indulge me, readers, as I proceed to outline
What I did on the weekend, entirely in rhyme.

After work on Friday, Craig and I went to Dendy
To see a film by a director who’s modern and trendy
‘Inglourious Basterds’ was really quite thrilling
Aldo Raine and his boys sure loved their killing.

Later that night we went to a café
To celebrate Neha, who is off to the UK
I read my poem after we all ate our food
And thankfully, I was cheered, not booed.

On Saturday Craig and I tackled the weeding
Then settled down with the papers for some afternoon reading
We had some drinks but did not get shambolic
Because the beer we were drinking was non-alcoholic.

After dinner we watched a two dollar DVD
Which was a silly Rodney Dangerfield comedy
‘Back by Midnight’ was the name of the flick
With production values basic, rather than slick.

For breakfast today we were both slackers
We just got McMuffins from our local Maccas
We washed our clothes so they wouldn’t be smelly
Then I baked a cake and made a jelly.

This afternoon we did some more yard work
The place is looking good, after lots of hard work
I’ve now taken the clothes from off the line
Resulting in a pile that I have yet to iron

Now it’s past six, and dinner is pending
This blog entry I will soon be sending
Before my tendency for dodgy poetry grows
I promise the next post will return to prose!
Current Mood: [mood icon] creative
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September 13th, 2009

10:51 pm - The 2009 Vogel Award shortlist: Are works of "faction" the new trend?
Yesterday, the Review section of the Weekend Australian featured the shortlist for the Vogel Awards. For those who are unaware, the Vogel Award is a literary award here in Australia, given to the best unpublished novel by an author under the age of 35.

Interestingly, four out of the five shortlisted novels were “faction” (this was the term used by the writer of the piece in the Review section, who is the chief literary critic of The Australia and also one of the judges). “Faction” is apparently the blurring of fiction and facts. That is, these stories are based on real life events and people. For example, one of the shortlisted novels is a “fictional reconstruction of the life of James Squire, convict and master brewer”. Another novel is “loosely based on the life of Clarice Beckett, student of Frederick McCubbin and Max Meldrum”.

I have mixed feelings about “faction”. On one hand, the guidelines for the Vogel Award state that the novels can either be works of fiction or biographies. But these works of “faction” seem to simultaneously be neither and both. I don’t quite see the point of it. If you want to write a story that is “loosely based” on the life of a real person, why not change the names, tweak a few details, and write a completely fictional story? For example, the movie “Citizen Kane” was purportedly based on the real life newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst. Yet “Citizen Kane” still manages to be an outstanding work of fiction in its own right.

And on the other end of the spectrum, if you want to write about a real life person or event, why not research the subject thoroughly, and do an accurate depiction? Biographies (and other works of non-fiction) still have the potential to be fascinating, if written well.

It is also interesting to note that whilst “faction” seems to be accepted in the literary world, fanfiction is often derided. For those readers who aren’t geeks like me, “fanfiction” takes already established characters from books, television, etc and creates new stories featuring those characters. For example, an author writing Harry Potter fanfiction might write a story about how Hermione and Draco fall in love and get married.

In my experience, the people who claim that fanfiction isn’t “proper” fiction, do so because they feel that fanfiction is not as original, because the authors are using characters and settings that have been created by someone else. But can’t a similar claim be made against “faction”? After all, isn’t the author using as characters people who already existed (or still exist)? Aren’t they writing about events that have already happened? Like writers of fanfiction, one could argue that their story is not purely original.

Another aspect of the Vogel competition that I wanted to write about, was the numbers. Do the numbers. According to the Review article, around 200 manuscripts were received this year. These were read by four judges. If I recall correctly, entries opened around late February or early March, and closed on 31 May 2009. The shortlist was announced yesterday, on 12 September 2009.

From the closing date, to the date the shortlist was announced, this is a timeframe of just over 100 days. This means that on average, the judges were reading two manuscripts per day. That’s two novels every day, for over three months. You’d have to be a pretty keen reader to do that.

Even if we assume that a whole slew of manuscripts were submitted as soon as the competition opened and the judges began reading right away, this gives us perhaps another 100 days. So let’s say, the judges had approximately 200 days in total, to read approximately 200 manuscripts. That works out to one manuscript per day. Not so hectic as two manuscripts per day, but still a time consuming load.

I thought that maybe the four judges divided the manuscripts between them, reading 50 each. That would have worked out to one manuscript every four days – a far more manageable task. But on closer look, the article states that the judges “rotated the manuscripts” and that they cross-checked their responses to each novel. So it appears that each judge read all 200 manuscripts.

Or did they? Did they really read each one from start to finish? Or did they skim through the boring ones? Did they stop at fifty pages when reading ones that were weak and clumsily written and obviously weren’t going to win? (I wouldn’t blame them for doing so).

Whatever the case, it seems that a work of “faction” stands a strong chance of taking out the award this year. Last year, a “factional” novel also won (the author wrote a re-imagined account of the Petrov Affair). Perhaps this is the new trend? Perhaps I should give it a go? Any suggestions on what famous Australian person or event I should “factionalise”?

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September 6th, 2009

06:20 pm - Spring has Sprung
Ah, Spring. September has arrived, and everything is bursting into bloom. I always liked September as a kid. It meant the warmer weather, the approaching school holidays, and the AFL finals.

It also meant the Perth Royal Show – my brother and used to pore through the showbag guide, figuring out the ones that offered the best value for money. The exception to this, was the one with the annual “Da ‘n’ Dill” comic. I used to love those comics – the wacky hi-jinks they’d get up to, the silly names they’d call Ian, and the stark dramatic black and white artwork. And you couldn’t get them anywhere else. Only at the Royal Show. One year, I paid $6 for the “Big Bang Bubblegum” showbag, even though I didn’t much like bubblegum, just because it had a “Da ‘n’ Dill” comic in it.

September also meant the mulberry season. Sometime in my early childhood, my parents thought it would be a fantastic idea to plant a mulberry tree in our backyard. For the first few years, it was great. The tree grew strong and mighty, and bore much, much, much fruit. We had mulberries and ice cream for dessert every night. Mum made mulberry jam, rows of bottles stacked neatly in the pantry cupboard. Kids would come to our house, and play in the backyard in bare feet, and leave looking as though they were wearing purple socks. My parents gave tubs of mulberries to friends and neighbours.

But by the time I graduated primary school, we were all heartily sick of mulberries. No one bothered eating them or picking them anymore, so every year, they’d just grow, ripen, and eventually drop onto the grass below. So for me, spring is always associated with the not-entirely-unpleasant aroma of slightly rotten mulberries.

Incidentally, my parents chopped the tree down a couple of years ago, leaving only the stump. But like a villain from a horror movie who just won’t die, a couple of saplings have somehow sprouted from the stump, and it looks as though the tree is going to be big once more.

Anyway, the point of this preamble is to say that, inspired by the onset of Spring, Craig and I went to Bunnings this weekend, and bought not a mulberry tree, but some purty flowers for our garden.

Craig shifted some dirt and built one flowerbed around the tree out the front, and another flowerbed out the back, underneath my bedroom window, and I dug little holes and planted the flowers.

Below are some photos of our garden.




The tree in our front garden




The pink blossom on the tree




Pansies in our front garden




The flowerbed in our back garden (Craig constructed it, I planted the flowers)




Close up of the tulips in the flowerbed

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August 30th, 2009

06:09 pm - Minority Report
Ever get those times when you seem to always be on the wrong side of the popular opinion?

Example 1

My department’s Collective Agreement – the contract between the Department and its employees – was due for renewal this year. The Agreement is normally renewed every three years, and finalised by 1 July of that year.

This year, the negotiations between management and the union (representing the department’s employees) have dragged out. From the start, the management team played “hard ball”. They wanted to reduce several conditions (such as the Christmas close-down that we get every year), and offered a 3.5% pay rise per annum, linked to performance.

When the union team baulked at this proposal, the management team agreed to not to reduce some of the conditions, but came back with an even lower pay offer, of 3% per annum, albeit not linked to performance).

To put this in perspective, the last time the Agreement was renewed, management agreed to a 4% pay rise per annum. Most other departments were offering 5 or 6%. This time around, management is claiming that the Global Financial Crisis is preventing them from offering departmental employees anything more. Yet other departments this year have managed to negotiate greater pay rises for their employees – most at least 3.5 or 4%.

To make matters worse, my department ranks in the bottom third of all public service department and agencies (around 90 in total) when it comes to pay. The fact that we’ll now effectively be getting a lower pay rise than other departments means that our ranking will slip even further. There is also the fact that we live in one of Australia’s most expensive cities, but I won’t delve into that (today, anyway!)

(Incidentally, the department for which I work also has one of the highest turnover rates in the public service. Think 25%, when the average is around 13%. Go figure.)

So last week, the new Agreement was put to a vote. “Do you endorse the proposed agreement?” I voted ‘no’. It would mean that both management and union teams would have to go back to the drawing board, and any pay rise would be delayed. (Basically, until the agreement is finalised, our current rates of pay remain static.) But I figured that given the above issues, it was worth holding out for something better than 3%.

Around 60% of employees voted. (I guess the remaining 40% just didn’t give a hoot).

75% of those who voted, were in favour of the proposed agreement. So I guess that’s what we’ll be getting.

The union has been claiming that their negotiations were “successful”, and that they’ve had several “victories” in relation to the other conditions. I beg to differ. Managing to retain a condition that we already enjoy, and have enjoyed for years, (such as the Christmas close-down) is not a victory. If they actually managed to negotiate better conditions, that would be a different story.

Example 2

Last week, the ACT Government voted to ban consumer fireworks on the Queen’s Birthday long weekend. As long term readers of this blog would know, I love “Cracker Weekend”. There is a simple, but immense joy in lighting the fuse and watching the pretty lights, and listening to the bangs and pops. Additionally, in the three neighbourhoods that I have lived in, since moving to Canberra, I have never once seen or heard of anyone being injured, or anyone’s pet escaping. And apart from a few fireworks being set off the night after, by some silly people, I have never experienced weeks on end of bangs and explosions (the most common reasons people cite for wanting to ban fireworks.)

So, I was really, really hoping that they wouldn’t ban the fireworks. But they have. And judging by comments in the newspaper and on on-line forums, it seems like lots of people agree with the decision.

Example 3

On Friday my team went out to lunch. We were going to an Asian restaurant that has delicious laksas. Then the day before, someone suggested that we order the banquet menu. The laksa – which I was preparing to order - was not part of the banquet.

A vote was taken. Do the banquet, or everyone order individually.

You guessed it. I was in the minority again. Banquet it was.


What really annoys me, whenever I’m in the minority, is that way that the majority (or the representative of the majority) often goes around beaming and saying “This was a fantastic result! Great outcome! The people really made the right choice.”

Just because the majority decides on a certain course of action, it does not always translate that it is the right course of action. In the 1930s, the majority of German voters made Hitler their new leader, in democratic elections. The outcome of that decision was not “great”. Similarly, about one hundred and fifty years ago, the majority of people living in the southern states of America thought that slavery was perfectly acceptable. Yet very few people today would argue that slavery was right.

Another thing that annoys me is when the majority make a decision, then later, as the full impact of that decision of that impact hits them, start whinging and complaining. Such as people who vote to keep a political party in power, then only months (or weeks) later, write letters to the newspaper complaining about what an awful job the government is doing. They had their chance to do something about it at the election. If they didn’t think things through, that’s too bad.

So by that token, I hope that none of the departmental employees who voted in favour of the agreement complain about their salaries. Or worse, leave for a new department, because that new department pays better. Of course, that would never happen? Right?
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August 23rd, 2009

10:06 pm - Tips for being a good host(ess).
Craig and I hosted a BBQ yesterday. We had five people over (we’d invited more, but several invitees had other things on, or were sick, or studying) and it was a good afternoon. I like to think that Craig and I are thoughtful hosts, and that people have fun when they come over. I’ve been to social gatherings where people are just sitting around on couches looking bored, and I think a large contributing factor is inept hosting.

Therefore, I’ve made this blog entry about my hosting tips. Hopefully readers won’t think me too presumptuous for posting on such a topic. But I have thrown a fair few gatherings in recent years, and attended many more. These are my favourite tips on how to be a fab host(ess).

Have a go

If you are asking your guests to provide the food, drinks, chairs, plates, glasses, cutlery and music, you’re an organiser, not a host. Many people bring their own drinks to house parties, and that’s fine. And it also seems to be a trend among many young Australians to request that guests bring their own meat to BBQs. But the host should provide the bulk of the sustenance at parties. Even with the “bring your own meat and drinks” type of BBQs, at the very least the host should provide some bread, butter, sauces, a basic salad, and some non-alcoholic drinks. People are giving up their time to come to your shin-dig. The least you can do is offer some hospitality.

When the party is one where gifts are expected, it’s all the more important to cater for your guests. An acquaintance once sent me an invitation to her 21st birthday party, where guests were expected to provide their own food and drinks. I did not attend.

Be adaptable

Sometimes you plan a big party, but don’t get as many punters as anticipated. When I was planning my 21st birthday party, about twenty people whom I had invited (who all belonged to the same group) had another function on that night. That changed the scope and nature of the party, from a large bash to a more intimate gathering.

But a different sort of party from what you originally intended can still be fun. It depends on the host’s ability to regroup and re-plan. This may involve a change in the menu, or setting, or atmosphere.

Thus, if you planned a party in the backyard, and it buckets down with rain on that day, you could throw a table cloth over the dining table inside and bust out the board games instead.

Try to have a comfortable and interesting venue

If you’re hosting a party in the middle of summer, put the air-con on. Or open the windows. Do not nail them shut. Likewise in colder and bleaker weather, have the party inside, and light the fire, or turn the heater on.

I have been guilty, when hosting BBQs when I’m back in Perth, of having a dog present who tends to bark like a lunatic at the rustle of a leaf, thus disturbing the ambience. But I always try to shut him up as best I can. On a similar topic of noise, it’s important not to have the stereo turned up too loud, inhibiting conversation. Choice of music is also important. Sometimes, eclectic music can add some spice to a party. Yesterday, Craig played his 1970 Isle of Wight Festival record, which was a huge hit with our friends.

That said, if the music is too whacky (and guests are covering their ears and looking pained), it’s best to change the record/tape/cd/etc.

Having an interesting venue is also a bonus, as it provides guests with topics to talk about. Craig and I have our own paintings hanging on our walls, which really brighten the place up. Even small touches, like a couple of colourful flowers in a vase on the kitchen table, or some interesting books on display can make a difference.

Again, don’t make the venue too interesting. I once went to a party where there was a guitar in the toilet. I spent the rest of the night wondering whether my hosts actually played it whilst sitting there, doing their business. I did not touch it.

Make sure there are plenty of non-alcoholic options available

My late grandmother used to host annual Christmas parties back in the 1980s and 1990s. These parties largely consisted of a crate-load of champagne, a bottle of orange juice, a couple of cans of lemonade, salmon pate and a few crackers, and perhaps some little saveloys and tomato sauce, if the guests were lucky. Looking back, it’s a wonder that her guests made it home without ploughing their cars into trees or the neighbours’ letterbox.

Instead, a host(ess) who is serving alcohol should stock up on the softies, and made sure there is plenty of food to line their guests’ stomachs. However, if guests still get hammered despite these initiatives, read the next point.

Don’t let your guests drive if they are over the limit

This is self explanatory. If a guest is really plastered, offer them a bed for the night. Even if that “bed” is the living room floor. If this is not feasible (for example, you live in a tiny, one-bedroom apartment), call a taxi to pick them up. Or if the drunken guest came with a group, see if one of their friends can drive instead.

Introduce guests and facilitate conversation

You want your guests to feel comfortable, right? So help them out by introducing guests who may be shy, or don’t know many (if any) people at your party. It’s not much fun being the lone guest who is hovering awkwardly on the fringes whilst the nearby tight-knit group of people roars with laughter at some private joke.

So take care of your guests. Making introductions helps to ensure that no one is left out. A lack of mingling and good conversation is exactly what leads to guests sitting around on couches looking bored. A good way of kick-start conversation between two guests who have just met, is pointing out something they both have in common. Eg “Jane, this is Jim. Jim is a keen gardener, and Jane – you recently planted some radishes, didn’t you.”

Try to spend roughly equal amounts of time with all your guests

(Or if it’s a large party with people from different areas of your life who are sticking to their own groups, try to spend equal amounts of time with each group. However, if you have successfully introduced your guests and encouraged conversation between them, they should all be mingling anyway).

In my university days, I once attended a party thrown by a friend from high school. There were about six or seven of us who went to school together, and a further 15 or so who went to university with the hostess. The two groups never really mixed (and the hostess did not make any introductions). In the three hours that I was there, the hostess spent approximately 15 minutes with the “High School Group” and the remaining 2 hours and 45 minutes chatting with her university friends. I left wondering why on earth she had bothered to invite people from high school. It felt like we were merely crowd fillers.

Don’t make a big deal of any spillages or other accidents that might happen

I went to a house party once where the carpet caught on fire. (It was a rental house too). I The hosts doused the fire with a minimum of fuss, and never said another word about it. Very classy.

That said, if someone is damaging your property deliberately (eg, poking holes in your collection of 19th century oil paintings) there is nothing wrong with the host(ess) chucking them out.

Be nice to your guests when they leave

When your guests depart, thank them for attending, and show them to the door. If the party was a smashing success, no doubt they’ll be back for your next event!

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August 18th, 2009

10:39 pm - I'm happy, hope you're happy too
As readers might recall, one of my favourite television shows of 2008 was “Life on Mars”. The premise of this show is as follows: Detective Sam Tyler is hit by a car, and wakes up in 1973. He has to adapt to the outdated police procedures and social and cultural mores of the era, as well as handle his new colleagues – the young and naïve Chris Skelton, the misogynistic Ray Carling, and the thuggish DCI Gene Hunt.

Last week, “Ashes to Ashes” (the sequel to “Life on Mars”) premiered on the ABC. This show is about police psychologist Alex Drake, who is shot in the head, and wakes up in 1981. (To the strains of Ultravox. “This means nothing to meeeee,” howls the soundtrack, as Alex stumbles past all the floppy haired, big-glasses-wearing, Sony-Walkman-listening people from the early 1980s)

Alex has to adapt to the social and cultural mores of the era, as well as handle her new colleagues – the still naïve Chris Skelton, the still-misogynistic Ray Carling, and the slightly more courteous (but still hard-hitting and hard-drinking) DCI Gene Hunt.

Although “Life on Mars” and “Ashes to Ashes” have very similar premises, the fashions, music, political climate, and attitudes are nothing alike. There is only eight years between 1973 and 1981, but in many ways, the shows present them as two completely different eras.

“Life On Mars” features early Bowie, the Sweet, flares, sideburns, fat ties, brown paneled police stations, brown Cortinas. “Ashes to Ashes” is all about later Bowie, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, Thatcherism, skinny ties, bright patterns, and Audi Quatros.

In “Life On Mars”, PWC Annie Cartwright is ridiculed and overlooked by her male colleagues in 1973. In “Ashes to Ashes”, WPC Sharon Granger is accepted as one of the team, in 1981.

Has the world turned more slowly in the last eight years? The average person can probably tell the differences between 1973 and 1981 fairly easily. But are the differences between 2001 and 2009 as distinct?

If you looked at a photo of a person from 1973, and a photo of another person from 1981, you could probably guess which photo was taken in what year. You’d be able to tell from the clothes and hairstyle. The person from 1973 might be wearing a fat tie. The person from 1981 might have a New Romantic haircut.

Similarly, if you played a typical song from the Top 40 from 1973, and another song from the Top 40 from 1981, without knowing the songs, you could probably still guess which song was released in what year. The 1973 song might be a glam rock. The 1981 song might feature heavy use of synthesizers.

But could we do the same for the years 2001 and 2009? If you looked at a person from 2001 and a person from 2009, would you be able to tell which person came from what year? And if you played two Top 40 songs – one from 2001 and 2009 – would you be able to distinguish, by the musical traits, which song was released this year?

It seems that the years are losing their distinctiveness. The changes in fashions and music are becoming less rapid and less discernible. In my view, this phenomenon began in the mid-late 1990s; a time that also resulted in the rise of the internet.

Perhaps the World Wide Web has had the unintended side effect of making each year more homogenous. Paradoxically, despite leaps in technology over the past eight years (including the rise of instant messaging and social networking websites) the world seems to have slowed in other ways. Trends in pop culture have become far less radical. The gap between eight years has narrowed.

In twenty years time, will people hold “Noughties” parties? I personally think not, for the simple reason that no one would know what to wear.

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August 9th, 2009

03:20 pm - Blog Club topic: If you could re-write any piece of fiction, what would it be?
This is another topic provided by the Blog Club. If you had the ability to re-write any piece of fiction – be it a novel, play, movie, or television show (or radio serial I guess, if people still listen to those), what would it be, and why? I can think of several pieces of fiction I’d like to tweak, if I had the chance. They are as follows:

1. Piece of Fiction: The Birds (Movie, 1963)

Why I’d like to rewrite it: The ambiguous ending does not satisfy me. At the end of the movie, the main characters drive away from Bodega Bay, hoping to find refuge in San Francisco. The film fades to black as the car inches through the bird-smothered landscape. Will the heroes make it to San Francisco without being attacked? Will they find the help they need in Frisco?

We don’t freaking know, because the film ends there!

How I would rewrite it: I’d provide a more definite ending. One that goes like this:

Mitch Brenner (as played by Rod Taylor): “We’re almost in San Francisco.”

Mitch’s mother (can’t recall the actress): “Hurry Mitch. Melanie is getting worse!”

Melanie Daniels (as played by Tippi Hedron) makes a whimpering noise. She is still sporting the cuts sustained when she foolishly entered the room full of birds back in Bodega Bay, and is still clearly in shock.

Mitch’s annoying kid sister (can’t recall the actress): “Oh Mitch, I’m frightened! And so are the lovebirds!” She holds up the cage containing the lovebirds that she’s been obsessed with through-out the movie.

Mitch: “It’s going to be all right. Here we are.” Pause. His face drops. “Oh my God. Oh no. Oh no…”

The camera slowly pans back to reveal the city of San Francisco. Bodies lying in the streets. Smashed cars everywhere. Buildings in ruins. And birds everywhere. The birds have taken over the world!


2. Piece of fiction: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book, 2007)

Why I’d like to rewrite it: In this book, rather than return to Hogwarts for their seventh and final year, Harry Ron and Hermione spend much of the year camping in a tent, searching for Horcruxes. I believe that the structure of the book suffers from the lack of Hogwarts.

For me, one of the biggest attractions about the Harry Potter series was the depiction of magical boarding school life. I was looking forward to seeing how Harry and the gang fared as Seventh Years, when they were top of the heap. The big fish in the little pond. How they would go in their NEWTs (Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests). Who would be Head Girl and Head Boy. What their graduation ceremony would be like.

And instead, all we got was the Golden Trio bickering in a tent, in some random forest.

How I’d rewrite it: Send them back to Hogwarts for their final year. Of course, this would mean making several other changes, to ensure that it was relatively safe for Harry to continue his schooling. Perhaps I wouldn’t make the Ministry of Magic fall to Voldemort’s faction, at the start of the novel. Perhaps I wouldn’t install Death Eaters at the school as teachers.

And Harry, Ron and Hermione could still research and search for Horcruxes during the holidays. For example, they could still visit Bathilda Bagshot and obtain the locket Horcrux during the Christmas holidays. The final battle would still take place at Hogwarts, after which there could be a rousing graduation ceremony, where we actually get to find out what all the kids intend to do in their adult lives.


3. Piece of fiction: Prison Break (TV Series 2006 – 2009)

Why I’d like to rewrite it: The first season of this programme was flawless. As in gripping plotlines, edge-of-your-seat type flawless.

The second season of Prison Break was pretty good, but not as thrilling or tight as the first.

The third and subsequent seasons got rather silly. The main storyline (with Lincoln being falsely accused of murder, and the gang escaping from Fox River Penitentiary) was mostly wrapped up at the end of season two. The remainder of this show consisted of Michael trying to break out of some dusty jail in Panama, followed by Michael and the others running around trying to find some digital cards called “Scylla”.

I stopped watching in the end, partly because of the late timeslot, and partly because the premise had become too implausible. I caught a few minutes of one of the last episodes when I was in America. It appears that Sarah was pregnant with Michael’s baby; Michael’s mother was not dead, but instead working for the bad guys; and Lincoln was adopted and not actually Michael’s real brother at all. Um, ok.

How I’d rewrite it: I wouldn’t so much rewrite this, but not write it at all. I’d end this show after the second season. The Company would be exposed. Michael would marry Sarah and live happily ever after. Lincoln and LJ would be exonerated. Sucre would get to be with his Maricruz (or whatever his girlfriend’s name was). T-Bag would be sent straight back to the slammer.

Other series that went on for longer than they should have include the Billabong books by Mary Grant Bruce; The X Files (should have stopped after Mulder left); and Sliders (why oh why did they replace the fantastic Professor Arturo with the irritating and belligerent Maggie?)

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August 2nd, 2009

05:29 pm - Blog Club Topic: What do you eat when you’re alone?
...and is it different from how you eat when you’re with other people?

This topic was nominated by Twinkletoes, a member of the Blog Club (see post further down this page). Given that my other half, Craig, will be away this week, I thought it would be an opportune time to address it. In particular, I plan to focus on the cooking aspect.

When I first moved out of home, not quite five years ago, I (obviously) had to cook for myself. Every night. It wasn’t exactly new to me. Living at home, I had baked cakes and biscuits. I remember when I was about 14 and going through a phase where I made stuff like “mock washed cream” (which involved sluicing cold water over the mock cream), and choco-orange marble cakes (which involved making a chocolate cake batter, and an orange cake batter, and carefully combining the two by mixing them with a knife, making swirly drifting patterns).

When my brother and I got older, our parents would occasionally go away on short holidays, and my brother and I would have to cook for ourselves. By the time I was in my early 20s, we had acquired the family dog, who also needed feeding. I remember cooking a plate of fried rice, and sitting down to eat, when the phone rang. (It was my parents, making sure we were looking after ourselves!). After the conversation, I turned around. There was the dog, standing on my chair, with his snout stuck into the pile of rice, chomping away.

But I digress. By the time I had moved out of home, my cooking was functional. For the first two years, I lived by myself. Breakfast was a bowl of cereal and a slice of toast. Sometimes an egg. Lunch was sandwiches made at home. A typical dinner would be something like chops, with pasta and some veggies – perhaps some carrots, broccoli, or cauliflower. It was a workmanlike menu, and the trimmings were few. Usually, I didn’t bother with sauces or garnishes, etc.

But then two factors made me change my eating / cooking habits. Firstly, I met Craig and we moved in together. This involved adjusting to one’s eating habits. Craig likes chicken. Lots of chicken. So I found myself cooking more chicken recipes. Craig also protested the absence of sauces on foodstuffs such as vegetables and pastas. So now I sometimes do a sauce to go over the food.

(And this raises the question “Why doesn’t Craig cook?!” Apart from the odd roast, chicken breast, or soup, Craig’s idea of a perfectly suitable dinner is sliced tomato on toast. Additionally, I find cooking mostly enjoyable, which leads me to the second factor.)

My work has become a lot more demanding over the past year or two. I’ve found that cooking has become my outlet. It’s a physical activity, which achieves instant practical results; both elements which are not found in the type of work I do. I’ve been experimenting more with cooking (and subsequently, eating) recently. Over the past few weeks, the food I have made includes profiteroles with chocolate custard, gnocchi, lemon-apple-and-cinnamon-muffins, butter chicken, and fish with a mushroom and leek sauce.

This week Craig is away for two nights, for work. Even though I’ll be by myself, I don’t think I’ll revert to my former solo eating habits. I’m planning on making a Spanish rice dish, which includes chorizo and spinach.

So I guess the short answer to the topic question are: (a), I rarely eat alone, but when I do, I eat a variety of home-cooked food, which may or may not include sauces and chicken; and (b) Nope, these days, I eat the same alone as I do with other people (ie Craig).

I’ll leave off with some photos I took last weekend, when I made potato gnocchi with a butter sage sauce.





From the start: the unpeeled potatoes, before they became gnocchi!




The recipe also called for prawn meat.




The gnocchi dough, consisting of the mashed potatoes, heaps of flour, an egg, and some parmesan cheese.




The gnocchi dough, rolled out and chopped up into little pieces.




Cooking the gnocchi - it rises to the top when done.




Finishing off the gnocchi in the frying pan with the chopped up prawns, butter, sage, and parsley.




Ready to chow down!

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July 25th, 2009

06:01 pm - Clubbing: A Memoir
My inspiration for this blog entry came from the fact that it’s been about 10 years since I went to my first nightclub. I can’t recall the exact date, but I know that it was sometime in late July, 1999.

I was eighteen at the time, which made me a late starter as far as the first-time-to-a-nightclub stakes went. Many of my peers (my female peers, at any rate), had already started sneaking into clubs since they were 16 or 17. From their conversations, it seemed that nightclubs were terribly exciting places. Growing up in suburban Perth, going “clubbing” was almost a rite of passage, like getting drunk for the first time, or making out with a boy. Not that I’d experienced those back then, either. As readers are probably aware by now, I was a conservative, sensible teenager, with the green badge of social immaturity stamped all over me.

My foray into the world of nightclubs was triggered when I received an invitation from a friend from high school (who I will call “Betsy”) inviting me to her 18th birthday celebrations at The Church nightclub in Northbridge. I was surprised, but pleased to receive the invitation, since I hadn’t seen Betsy for several months, since we’d graduated high school.

However, I soon learnt from mutual friends that Betsy’s parents were hosting a birthday dinner for her and several other friends on the same night at a nearby restaurant. Most of our mutual friends had been invited to this dinner – I was obviously not close enough to Betsy to make the final cut – and would be coming to the nightclub straight from the restaurant. Those mutual friends who (like me) had only been invited to the nightclub part of Betsy’s Birthday Festivities couldn’t (or wouldn’t) attend. So it appeared that I would be finding and entering my first ever nightclub by myself. I’m sure there’s symbolism in there somewhere.

My parents weren’t impressed. They thought that Betsy should have had the decency to have either (a) invited all her guests to the dinner; or (b) to have just invited everyone to the nightclub and not held the dinner. Of course, etiquettely-speaking, they were correct in this. But at the time I didn’t care much about being on the “B List”. I was going through a lonely year, and hadn’t made any close friends at university. I was glad to have the opportunity to catch up with some of my old school friends. Nowadays, I would not attend such an event, on principle.

Naturally, my folks were also unimpressed at the notion of their 18 year old daughter driving into Northbridge (which can be somewhat dodgy) relatively late at night, finding a parking spot (and on a Saturday night, that might have been a challenge) and walking to The Church all by herself. Consequently, they insisted on dropping me off and picking me up afterwards, thus further depleting my already small stock of street cred.

A fresh problem arose shortly before the Big Night, when I realised I didn’t have a clue what one wore to a nightclub. My wardrobe was full on functional clothing – jeans, t-shirts and jumpers, with a couple of skirts. Back then, the idea of going out dancing, wearing a tiny, cute top was as foreign to me as the notion of capering about, wearing a potato sack.

Being the geek I was, I logged onto the now-defunct www.talkcity.com and in one of the chat rooms, asked a bunch of strangers what they thought I should wear to the nightclub. The overwhelming response was that black was a great colour to wear to a nightclub (remember, this was still the 1990s!).

So on the night, I got dressed up in my black crushed velvet slacks, a dark t-shirt, and my black bomber jacket. My mother took one look at me, and offered to lend me a blue top of hers, instead. I agreed, rejecting the advice of my well-meaning TalkCity friends.

My parents dropped my off outside The Church at 9.30pm, the start time on the invitation. I proudly showed my driver’s license to the bouncer, and to my delight, got stamped on the wrist. I bounded up the steps… and into a nearly empty nightclub.

I was confused. Nine thirty was late . What time did people start clubbing anyway? There were a few people sitting at tables near the main bar, but the dancefloor was empty. I walked around the nightclub, but I didn’t spot anyone I knew. A couple of the side bar areas were roped off, clearly for private functions. Had Betsy hired part of the nightclub? I didn’t know. I didn’t recognise any of the people behind the ropes.

There was a flight of stairs, leading up to a mezzanine level. I could see a few people moving about. Maybe that was Betsy and the others? I walked up the steps. But before my foot hit the top one, a woman appeared out of nowhere, blocking my way.

“Who are you? What are you doing?” she demanded.

I tried to look behind her, and saw what looked like uniformed staff setting up chairs. Maybe Betsy had hired this level for her celebrations?

“Is this area booked for (Betsy’s name)?” I asked.

“Who?!” yelled the woman, over the bass of the music playing downstairs.

I repeated Betsy’s name.

“No!” shouted the woman. So I turned and went back down the stairs.

By now the nightclub was filling up. I did another couple of laps of the joint, feeling foolish and self conscious as I wandered around by myself. Everyone else seemed to be in groups, laughing and enjoying themselves immensely. There was still no sign of Betsy or my other friends. By now, it was 9.45pm, 15 minutes after the start time on the invitation. I decided to wait outside, as there was nowhere to sit inside. I figured that if Betsy and the others didn’t turn up by 10pm, I’d call my parents and ask them to pick me up. It looked like my first nightclub experience was a fizzer.

Fortunately, at 9.50pm, Betsy and several of my other friends came strolling up. (Incidentally, Betsy never apologised for being late to her own birthday gathering). Betsy got duly stamped by the bouncer, but the other friends were still 17. The bouncer wouldn’t let them in. So they went home. Why Betsy chose to have her birthday celebrations at a nightclub when half her guests were underage was unclear. To my disappointment, it also turned out that my other friends had decided to go straight home after the dinner. So it looked like it was just Betsy and me.

We entered the nightclub (in my case, re-entered)… and instantly, these two girls from school (who I’ll call “Cassie” and “Suzie”) jumped out and greeted Betsy. Where the heck had they come from? I was pretty sure I hadn’t seen them before, when I’d been wandering around. Maybe they’d been in the Ladies? Or maybe (I realised only much later) they’d simply been avoiding me? From their conversation, it seemed that Cassie and Susie had been to the dinner and left early to come to the club.

We hit the dance floor for awhile. I enjoyed the flashing lights and the bubbles that floated down from the bubble machines. Then the other girls decided that they wanted a drink. At the main bar, I watched as they leaned over and placed their orders. The barman fiddled around, and came back up with three complicated, fruity looking drinks. Clearly, they’d all done this before.

“What are they?” I asked Betsy. She responded with some exotic, incomprehensible name, which I didn’t properly catch over the music.

“Aren’t you drinking anything?” Cassie asked me.

I hesitated. The truth was, I had never ordered a drink at a bar before, and didn’t know what to ask for. My father and grandfather sometimes drank beer, such as VB or Tooheys. But was it acceptable for a girl to order a beer from a nightclub bar? Would it look too manly? My mother would occasionally have a glass of sherry. But somehow, sherry didn’t strike me as the type of drink one had at a nightclub. My parents also drank wine sometimes, but beyond wine being either “red” or “white”, I had no idea of the specifics. An image flashed through my head of me asking for the “wrong” type of drink, and the barman staring at me incredulously, and the other girls sniggering.

How did one learn these things, these social conventions? I was eighteen years old, and lately it seemed as through the majority of my peers were part of a secret club that locked its doors when I was around. There seemed to be an unspoken set of rules that everyone else had automatically absorbed, but no one had passed me a copy.

Of course, over the next decade, I discovered that the best way to learn is to observe and listen. Nowadays, I would have asked for a gin and tonic, or a glass of sparkling wine. But back then, I took the safest option.

“No, I’m fine.” I told Cassie.

Whilst the other girls were drinking, Betsy was grumbling about the lack of people who’d shown up. It seemed as though she’d invited about 40 people to the nightclub, but only three (including myself) had actually attended.

Betsy excused herself and went to the Ladies, and Suzie and Cassie shook their heads and said it was a shame, being Betsy’s birthday and all. “But at least the dinner was good,” Suzie said to me.

“I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t invited,” my 28 year old self would have said politely, yet pointedly. My 18 year old self responded with “Oh. That’s nice.”

When Betsy returned, the others suggested that we all go for ice cream. That was the best idea I’d heard all night. So we walked to a nearby café and ordered ice creams. If Cassie and Suzie had been avoiding me before, they were being affable now. We all relaxed at the little table, chatting and catching up on the past few months since graduation. Then it was midnight, and my parents were picking me up, and this rite of passage was over. I’d survived it, even enjoyed it towards the end.

Since that night, ten years ago, I’ve been to other clubs, both in Perth and in Canberra, but never really became enamored with the whole clubbing scene. These days, I go to a nightclub perhaps once a year, if that. Maybe my “clubbing days” are at an end? I can’t say I’ll miss them. Give me a decent beer, or a glass of wine at home, with Craig, any day.

Speaking of which, it’s a Saturday night here, and I’ve got some boutique beer from Matilda Bay sitting in the fridge. Until next time, readers.

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July 19th, 2009

04:59 pm - Photos from America
Here are some photographs from my recent USA trip:




This one is of Times Square at night, taken at the start of our night tour on the double decker bus.




The striking Chrysler Building, lit up at night.




Spot the following American / New York icons! A school bus, New York cab, Guggenheim Museum, and the Empire State Building.




The Empire State Building is much easier to spot in this photo!




A black and white photo I took of Capitol Hill in Washington DC.




The White House




The "Crab Sign" at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco




The hilly streets of San Francisco. This photo was taken in the suburb of North Beach.

You can see more pics at www.flickr.com/photos/heartstart
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July 12th, 2009

03:43 pm - The Blog Club is back
My favourite online forum has decided to get the Blog Roll up and running again. Here are the current members:

A Life With No Logic This blog includes some great photos of wildlife, food, and jewelry.

Addie Rambles

Adventures in Yurrup Recipes and impressions from an American in Europe

Akarui’s Random Bubble

AllyKat's Alcove

And then there were three Postings on family and assorted rants and rambles.

Balanced Anne A blog about learning to have a more balanced life.

Blueberry Scones Sweet in some parts, tart in the others.

Confessions of a Girl Gamer A Gaming Blog

daintier, smarter, better dressed

Delta

the Drunken Housewife

Ennui Herself

Food.Shoes.Travels.Thoughts.

Foureyesonemouth

kbaumanart Thoughts on art, technology and life from your average, every day graphic designer

KeenReader A professional blog about online writing

Lady J 3000 A look at cinema, gossip, television, literature, and much more

Mdefarge

Profusely

Pur Autre Vie

Rainhaville

Ramblings of a Grad Student A blog written by an American graduate student

Seven angels, three kids, one family

Small Town Girl, Big City Life A Southern girl living large in the nation’s (ie, America’s) capital.

The Joy of the Joy of Cooking This blogger is cooking her way through “The Joy of Cooking”, recipe by recipe!

The Isle of Khardas Where a Mom and Artist tries to make sense of it all.

The Life and Times of K

Wallydraigle

Members of the Blog Club can suggest topics. I'll attempt to address as many as possible (time permitting).

Next entry will be a proper one, promise.
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July 4th, 2009

05:53 pm - Things on TV that I Don't Understand...
There have been certain questions that have been bugging me lately, in relation to things I have seen on TV. Can someone come up with some possible explanations for my following queries?


1. Desperate Housewives

In almost every episode, the Housewives visit each other’s houses. Sometimes these visits take place on the spur-of-the-moment, when something wacky or dramatic has just occurred on Wisteria Lane, and one Housewife desperately (hehe) needs to talk to another Housewife about it. Other times, a Housewife might host a dinner, or margaritas, or a house party, and the other Housewives bring their husbands too.

My question is: who is minding the kids?

All of the Housewives (apart from Bree) have young children. Who the heck is babysitting the kids, when the Housewives are rushing over to each other’s houses, and attending parties? Surely not Porter and Preston Schavo (the only older teens we see on the show). Those boys are far too irresponsible. I mean, they ran a secret casino in their bedroom, for heaven’s sake! And surely not old Mrs McClusky. She usually attends the parties anyway, with a tumbler of whiskey in her hand. There also appear to be no grandparents close by – they are all either (a) dead; (b) estranged; or (c) live far away from the Housewives and their spouses.

Just for once, I’d like to see a Housewife mention the fact that they have to get a babysitter for their kids. Eg, “Carlos and I would love to attend your party Bree! But we have to get someone to mind the girls.”


2. That Ginger Room Catering advertisement

The Ginger Room Catering advertisements are played every night, during “Masterchef Australia”. There are two of them, and together they form a narrative of a couple’s courtship and wedding. Canberra readers will know what I’m talking about, but for those who live outside our nation’s sunny capital, I’ll elaborate.

The first ad features a gormless looking woman who meets a gormless looking man when buying fruit and veggies. (Their hands touch when they reach for the same red chili. Oh, the symbolism). Then they see each other again, in the same place (the Gormless Woman is wearing a weird cap). Then the scene cuts to some beer garden at night, where they spot each other again. Gormless Woman clutches the arms of her Gormless Girlfriends as if to say “That’s the one I was telling you about!” The ad ends when Gormless Man approaches their table, holding two drinks, and smiling at Gormless Woman.

The second ad shows Gormless Man and Gormless Woman (now clearly a couple), on a double date, then on a date by themselves, then giggling at their reception dinner, then slow dancing at their wedding, and finally, Gormless Woman throwing her bouquet to her Gormless Girlfriends (who are all still presumably yet to find themselves a Gormless Man). Incidentally, the camera angles used during the “wedding” scenes make it look as if there are about six guests there, maximum.

Both ads are set to some whistly upbeat tune about “How I can make the world I see / Exactly how I want it to be”. Er, ok then.

But I digress. My question here is – what is the place where they buy the fruit and veggies? It looks like a large room, with a long table down the middle with baskets of produce. It’s definitely not a supermarket. There is a cashier at one end, and the sign above reads something like “In Season Food”.

Is this a real place in Canberra? If so, I want to go there. Not to meet a gormless man, but to buy some of the food, which does look really lovely in the ad. Can any local readers help me out?


3. Masterchef Australia

Speaking of Masterchef Australia, my question here is: why have they brought back eliminated contestants?

Ok, I guess I do know the answer to this one. Ratings. But is that really a good idea. It’s a popular show, but do viewers really want the show to be dragged out any longer? It’s already been running for over two months, and we were just getting down to the exciting part, when there were only a handful of contestants left. Now they’ve brought back Justine and Poh (both of whom I felt deserved to be eliminated), thus delaying the finals for another few weeks. Could this backfire on Channel 10? Will the public get fed up (no pun intended) and switch off?


4. Talkin’ ‘bout Your Generation

There are several questions I could ask about this show. Why is it that the winners are chosen not by intelligently answering questions all throughout the show, but by being deemed the best at the “Final Challenge” in the last round (which usually involves something like icing a cake, or building a champagne tower, or setting a formal dining table).

And who is that blonde kid representing the “Generation Y” team. Where’s he from? What’s he famous for? And why is his hair always sticking up?

But the real question I wanted to ask was inspired by last week’s episode. The guest on the Generation Y team was Gracie Otto, a young female film-maker, daughter of Barry Otto and sister of Miranda Otto (both actors).

In what was to be a rather embarrassing moment, her question was “Who played Lois Lane in the 1990s television show ‘Lois and Clark: the New Adventures of Superman’?” It quickly became painfully obvious that not only did she not know who the actress was, but she did not know who Lois Lane was. “Lois or Lane? Which one? Is that the actress’s name or the character’s name?” she was asking, completely baffled.

Now I’m 28, and “Lois and Clark” was big when I was about 14 or 15. Granted, Gracie may be several years younger than I am, and missed the hoopla over that show. And granted, apart from “Superman Returns” there haven’t been any Superman movies in recent years. But I figured that pretty much everyone knows that Lois Lane is Superman’s girlfriend. Am I really that much of a geek? Is it perfectly normal for a person in their early 20s not to have the faintest clue who Lois Lane is?
Current Mood: [mood icon] curious
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June 30th, 2009

10:23 pm - Homeward Bound
This is the last USA holiday related blog entry. Promise.

Day 24 – Washington DC to San Francisco

On Day 24 we caught a United Airlines plane back to San Francisco. When we arrived at San Francisco International, we waited at the carousel for our bags. And waited. And waited. All the other passengers had left, and we were watching the empty carousel go round and round.

Just when we figured that our bags must have been sent somewhere else, and were wondering what the heck to do, we spotted a roped off area, behind which were several suitcases, including our own. We had no idea why they were there, or who had put them there. A porter retrieved them for us when we showed him our tickets. Then we discovered that United had managed to break Craig’s suitcase. One of the plastic bits that made it stand up had been snapped clean off.

We caught a taxi to the Carlton Hotel. After checking in, we went next door to the Fly Bar. We had a few beers (including Red Seal and Moretti Pilsner) and shared a warm and tasty spinach and artichoke dip, followed by a superb “Funky Chicken” pizza. While Craig drank on, I went for a walk down to Union Square. Had a look in Borders, and bought some undies from Macy’s (had no clean ones left, and we didn’t want to worry about finding a Laundromat).

Day 25 – San Francisco

Our 25th day in the United States of America was leisurely. We strolled down to Café Mason for a late breakfast. It was packed – no doubt due to the Memorial Day public holiday. I never did find out what Memorial Day was about. Craig and I had some idea that it was a bit like ANZAC Day. A day to commemorate the nation’s soldiers, but without the parades and two-up. Of course, we could have been completely wrong about that.

After breakfast, we did some shopping. We swung by Old Navy, where I got some t-shirts for my brother, and Bloomingdales to get some new socks for me (again, I had no fresh ones left). We also stocked up on souvenirs, including “SF” caps, and shot glasses with pictures of bridges and cable cars.

In the evening, we went down to the lobby, for the classy complementary wine tasting. Then went to Jack In The Box for some not-so-classy but no-less-tasty burgers.

Day 26 – San Francisco

Buoyed by our tasty dinner the previous night, we decided to revisit Jack In The Box for breakfast. Unfortunately, their breakfast burgers were quite heavy. Definitely the sort of food to make one sink, rather than buoy one up.

Caught the 71 bus from the corner of Stockton and Market, to the Golden Gate Park. It turned out to be something of a disappointment. To our consternation, the park was riddled with homeless people. They lounged on the green grass, near the pathways, with their shopping trolleys and sleeping bags. Luckily none of them approached us. We also saw a large group of youths (both male and female) all sitting on the grass (in the middle of a school day), and we suspected they were buying drugs.

The museums in the Golden Gate Park cost $25 to enter. We’d reached the stage of our holiday where we didn’t want to fork out too much money if we could help it. Even the Japanese Tea Garden cost $5 per person to enter.

All in all, the most brilliant thing about the Golden Gate Park was the green algae that completely covered the ponds. We decided not to hang around, and caught a taxi straight to Fisherman’s Wharf.

After a lunch of fish and chips at the cheapest place we could find (which was still pretty expensive by Australian standards, for fish and chips) we watched the sea-lions sleep and snort in the sun.

That evening, we kept our regular 5.30 appointment in the Carlton’s lobby. The wine tasting was supposed to run for half an hour. At 6pm, one of the younger hotel employees began wheeling the trolley with the bottles and glasses towards the lifts. I felt sorry for him, because he was suddenly bailed up by all these guests, wanting “last drinks”. One guy even grabbed a bottle and poured two glasses of wine for himself and his girlfriend, right to the brims (you were supposed to wait until you were served by the staff).

There was also a large party of New Zealanders, who looked to be in their 50s and 60s. One Kiwi picked up an unopened bottle off the cart, and asked the hotel employee if he could take it. I guess the hotel employee was too polite, or afraid, to tell him “no”; instead he nodded shyly. The New Zealander ended up carrying the bottle back to his cheering group, with a big stupid grin on his face.

Craig and I just shook our heads. “It’s people like that who ruin things for everyone else,” said Craig. I agreed that it was inappropriate. We both like our alcohol, but would never behave like that. “Complementary wine tasting” is not the same as “Completely take advantage of our hospitality and grab as much wine as you can get!”

Had dinner at the trusty Fly Bar, where I sampled a Blanco pizza, with artichokes and pepper-jack cheese.

Day 27 – San Francisco to Australia

It was our last day in San Francisco and the USA. We decided to head to Coit Tower in the North Beach district. Our plan was to catch the elevator up to the top, and take some “goodbye” photos of the city.

As luck would have it, when we arrived at the tower (after walking up some steep, steep streets), the elevator was out of order. And we weren’t allowed to use the stairs either. So after admiring the murals depicting the earlier life in San Francisco, and crushing one last penny in the machine in the foyer, we departed Coit Tower.

Had an “interesting” lunch at the Pinecrest Diner, near Union Square. I ordered nachos, and received some raw corn chips covered with a toxic looking cheese that was clearly from a can. Plus a few random chopped up green chilies. Very different from the baked corn chips, smothered with a meaty sauce, real cheese, sour cream and guacamole that we’re used to in Australia. What a rort.

Speaking of rorts (but this time, inflicted on American people by Antipodeans), we arrived back at the Carlton, and waited in the lobby for our shuttle bus to take us to the airport. The group of New Zealanders was also leaving. They were on the same shuttle bus.

Our jaws dropped when we saw the number of bags the Kiwis had. For a group of eight people, they had 20 suitcases. All enormous ones too. The shuttle bus arrived, and the hotel porter got busy, lugging all those bags and stowing them in the shuttle bus.

And not one of those New Zealanders tipped him.

Yes, I realise you don’t like tipping, and you think it’s a silly custom. Yes, I realise you are leaving this hotel and probably never coming back. But geez, show a bit of appreciation for the man’s efforts! And next time, don’t pack so much junk.

The flight back to Sydney was uneventful, apart from the idiot in front of Craig who reclined his seat all the way back, 10 minutes after take-off, and kept it back for the next 14 hours. And no, he wasn’t sleeping. He was just lolling back, watching movies, reading magazines, and chatting to his idiot mate sitting next to him. So inconsiderate.


So now I’m back in Canberra, at the end of an incredibly busy month at work, wishing I was doing it all over again (the holiday, not the work!)
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June 21st, 2009

11:44 am - Capital times in the Capitol
Day 21 – New York to Washington DC

It was time to leave New York. We caught a taxi to the bus stand, a block away from Penn Station. We had left ourselves plenty of time, so we stood and watched while the buses, emblazoned with the names of their companies, came and went.

We were traveling to Washington DC on a ‘Washington Deluxe’ bus. We’d pre-booked our bus tickets. Their website required us to be at the bus stop by 10.45am for an 11am departure. At 10.45 non-descript bus, with a different name to ‘Washington Deluxe’ turned up. Instantly, many of the people who were at the stop surged forward, and began crowding onto the bus. A porter got out and started stowing luggage into the compartment below the bus. At no stage did the porter, or driver, announce that this bus went to Washington DC.

By now, the bus was almost full. It was 10.55am, and the Washington Deluxe bus had not shown up. A thought struck me. I walked around to the front of the bus. In the window, was a tiny sign. “This is a Washington Deluxe bus.” Oh dear.

“This is our bus!” I told Craig. He replied with a naughty word.

We got our luggage loaded onto the bus, and went to the door. A few other people, who like us, had realised (almost too late) that this was a Washington Deluxe bus, lined up behind us.

But we couldn’t get on just yet. Behind us was a lady with a little girl. A female employee of Washington Deluxe, who was collecting fares, asked Craig and I to step back, to let her and the child on first. Fair enough. But then the rest of the line pressed forward, effectively sending Craig and I to the back of the short queue. That meant we were the last people to board, despite being among the first to arrive at the bus stop. The sun beat down on the backs of our necks as we stood on the pavement.

“This is ridiculous!” Craig declared deliberately loudly. “We should have taken the plane!”

“Hush.” I told him. I didn’t want them to ban us from the bus.

By the time we boarded, nearly every seat was taken. “There’s a seat there, and a seat there,” said the Money Collecting Lady, pointing to two separate, spare window seats right up the front, on either side of the aisle. The aisle seat on the left was occupied by a man who instantly stood up, so that Craig could get to the window seat. The aisle seat on the right was occupied by a middle aged, well dressed lady with a grumpy expression on her face. She had her stuff, books and shopping bag spread out across the window seat. She did not move.

“There’s seat there,” said Money Collecting Lady again, a little impatiently, pointing right at the window seat. Then she abruptly turned, and hurried off the bus. Still, Grumpy Lady did not move.

“Excuse me,” I said politely. Grumpy Lady slowly looked up and glared at me.

I gestured to the spare seat. “Would you mind…?”

She gave a really annoyed sigh and rolled her eyes. “Aren’t there any other seats?”

“I’m afraid not.” I told her.

Grumpy Lady rolled her eyes again, and very slowly moved her stuff off the window seat, and stood to let me through.

“Thanks,” I said. “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

In response, she gave me a filthy look.

The bus took off. Grumpy Lady crossed herself three times. Protection against the bus crashing, or being struck by lightning, or infected with Swine Flu. Then she proceeded to ignore me for the rest of the trip. Fine with me!

We drove through New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland, before arriving in the nation’s sunny capital. The trip took about four hours. I read “The House of Stairs” by William Sleator.

It was a short taxi ride to our hotel in the Capitol Hill district – the Capitol Hill Suites. Craig crashed into bed, still fighting his cold, and was snoring within minutes. There was still plenty of daylight, so I went for a walk. The Library of Congress, the Supreme Court and Capital Hill were all a very short walk away. After returning to the hotel, Craig woke up, and we ordered Chinese take-away in our room. Unfortunately, it was pretty average, and came with too much packaging.

Day 22 – Washington DC

We visited Capitol Hill in the morning. In the foyer, we were issued with visitor’s stickers that proclaimed we were part of the 9.30am group, and joined the queue that was filing into an auditorium.

I was struck by how dressed down some of the other visitors were. I saw one girl, in her early twenties, who was wearing a singlet top which exposed her bra straps. On one of her shoulder blades was a tattoo that said “ME” with shooting stars above it. Classy. There were also several school groups present. One boy was wearing board shorts and a surfie looking t-shirt. If I had a son who was visiting Capitol Hill, I’d be making him wear a button up short, and proper slacks, or shorts. I mean, it’s the most important place in the country. Show a bit of respect!

After watching a short film about the history of American democracy and Capitol Hill, we were split up into tour groups. We were taken to the Dome Room (right beneath the famous dome), and other rooms containing statues of significant people from each American state. Unlike Parliament House in Australia, we didn’t get to see the actual chambers where the pollies sit though.

We had an early lunch in a café around the corner from our hotel. It was an interesting set-up. It was essentially a buffet, with an eclectic assortment of food. One of the dishes I sampled was crumbed frog’s legs. Definitely the second-most strangest meal I’d had, after the battered okra back at Pagosa Springs.

After lunch, we walked to the Air and Space Museum. All the Smithsonian museums were free of charge. However, all had strict security. We quickly got used to emptying our pockets of keys and coins, and slinging our cameras and purses onto the conveyor belts (that is, I got used to slinging my purse – Craig does not have, and probably never will have, a purse.)

The Air and Space Museum had some interesting exhibitions. One was on the space race between the USA and former USSR (including displays of the uniforms that the astronauts / cosmonauts wore). Another exhibition was on the history early years of passenger flight, teaching us about the good old days when stewardesses wore high heels and funny hats, and everyone smoked during the flight. There were also flight simulators, but the queues were too long and it cost money, so we gave them a miss.

Back outside, we walked down the National Mall, past the Smithsonian Castle, and reached the Washington Monument – the needlepoint rock that overlooks the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. We also wanted to see the White House, and headed north, across the green lawns. But there was a perimeter fence several hundred metres away, so we had to make do with photos of the exterior, using our zoom lenses.

We walked back to our hotel, and being a hot sweltering day, stopped off at the Capitol Lounge for a beer. I tried a tap beer called “Starr Hill” which wasn’t bad. And no, I doubt it was named after Kenneth Starr.

We ducked back to our room to freshen up, then hit the town again. We had dinner in a nearby pub called “The Hawk and Dove”. I had ribs and Craig had chicken; both of which were smothered with a thick, barbeque sauce. Washington did not strike us as a particularly culinary town. After dinner, we ended up back at the Capitol Lounge for one last beer, and a look at the baseball (the Mets were playing the Red Sox).

Day 23 – Washington DC

It was our last day in DC, so we set off to see some more museums. It was the Memorial Day long weekend, and the National Mall was packed with families and school groups. Our first stop was the Museum of Natural History. Besides hordes of people, we saw fossils of ancient insects and fishes, and other creatures that would probably cause the average 21st century dweller to run a mile if they saw them today.

The museum also contained dinosaur skeletons, and remains of the massive anthropoid creatures that followed the dinosaurs. Then it was lunchtime, and we went next door to the Museum of American History, hoping it would be a little less crowded.

No dice. The cafeteria was crowded, but we managed to find seats. We had over-priced, bland food – chicken strips for Craig and burger for me. We did not linger there. After lunch, we checked out the museum. We saw exhibits such as a 1977 Kawasaki motor bike used by the California Highway Patrol (a hit, since we are both CHiPs fans), a Buick Eight, just like out of the Stephen King novel, and a fall-out shelter from the 1950s, among many, many, many other exhibits.

After awhile, Craig asked if we could go. The amazing array of exhibits was beginning to get overwhelming, and our sense of wonder was getting numbed. I guess we were suffering from too-much-sight-seeing-fatigue.

So we walked back down National Mall, waving to a grey squirrel as it scampered up a tree. We strolled on, past all the departmental buildings, so different from the ones we work in, back in Canberra. The lucky Federal Government employees in Washington get to work in grand, historic buildings – several with elaborate columns out the front. Working in a place like that would surely make you feel proud; part of a tradition. As Craig said, the bland, modern buildings we work in, in Canberra, might as well contain call centres, rather than government departments.

That night, we had a quiet night in, watching the Retro Channel. Saw “Dragnet”, “Airwolf”, “Buck Rogers” and “Battleship Galactica.”


Next blog entry will be the last travel update – I promise!
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