I am popular

Last weekend, it seemed unlikely that it would be a good weekend. Mark was going away canoeing and camping, and I couldn't go because my ears prevent water-based activities. However, upon making an unnecessary fuss one day in work, I suddenly found myself inundated with people wishing to entertain me!

It actually began on Thursday, when Mark commiserated my being left behind by taking me to see Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. I was so excited! It's had some bad reviews but I did still enjoy it a lot. I liked the darkness of it and I liked the bandersnatch. Afterwards we went for dinner at Atom Thai on King Street, sooo delicious. Best thai on King Street without a doubt.

On Friday we had a super early night and Mark left before 6am on Saturday. I got up when he left and at 7am met Dean (my boss) and Zane (his boyfriend) at Erko station and we caught the train to the city, then walked over the Darling Harbour bridge into Pyrmont for Pyrmont Markets.

Pyrmont Markets are a monthly organic produce market, where loads of farms and other food producers bring their wares to sell. There was so much stuff! Bread, honey, lamb, cheese, vegetables, all sorts of things. We had a good wander round and I bought an olive sourdough loaf from the Sonoma stall, Zane and I bought boxes of honeycomb and Dean bought me marshmellows from the Sweetness stall and then got some lamb.

After exhausting the markets, we walked back to Town Hall and caught a bus to Balmain to visit Adriano Zumbo's patisserie. Dean and Zane are obsessed with Zumbo, who is the new big name on the pastry/macaroon scene. He has a tiny little patisserie on Darling Street and we crowded in and stocked up on pain au chocolat, almond croissants (literally the best thing I have ever eaten, ever, and I don't even like croissants!), macaroons and cakes. All the little cakes have entertaining name and everything looks so finely crafted, yet it's not really that expensive. Mark and I are going back this weekend for more!



My macaroons, whilst waiting for the bus back to the city. Can you see I crushed the bottom one already? I fail. The flavours are, top to bottom, grapefruit and jasmine, strawberry and balsamic, pineapple.

We pootled off home via David Jones' food hall, where I bought pumpkin and lentil sausages for my breakfast (it was 10am now) and then I went back home to cook them.



I had them on my olive bread. DJ's vege sausages are SO GOOD. My favourite thing is that they are actually made in skins, like real sausages, rather than just being a clump of soy/whatever.

After breakfast I had a few hours before Aisling arrived in Erskineville, and I went to meet her at the station. We went to visit Shenkin for coffee and frappes and sat there a good hour or so before wandering up to Newtown and along King Street. Had a look in a few shops then into Max Brenner for a hot chocolate. Then we got wine in the bottle shop and went to Ice and Slice for pizza then to Madame Fling Flong for cocktails! Then all of a sudden it was gone 11pm and I was suddenly sleepy, so we rolled back down to the station for Aisling to get her train, and I went straight to bed.

On Sunday, I got up and got the train to the city for open doors day at Sydney Town Hall. They were having a special open weekend to celebrate the re-opening of renovated parts of the Town Hall, and were allowing access to parts that are normally closed to the public. It was really good fun to have a look round, I had no idea it was so impressive inside!





Centennial Hall, and the Grand Organ. The Organ is quite famous, considered to be the finest 19th century concert organ in the world and is the world's largest entirely mechanical pipe organ. It is HUGE!



Mosaic crest of the hall.



There was a room with a picture of every mayor of Sydney.

At the end of the tour, I had a look around the new exhibition they have on, called 'Unvaulted', which is a display of the City of Sydney collection of artefacts and treasures, many of which have never been seen by the public. There were some pretty good things there, various exotic gifts donated to the City from all over the world, as well as stories and photos of various state visits, including several by the British royal family. It's a free exhibition and worth dropping in on.

Following this, I walked back up through Darling Harbour to the Maritime Museum, which currently has an exhibition on Mythical Creatures on, again with free entry. This was brilliant! I am fascinated by mythical creatures and there was a lot of information there on the origins of the myths, appearance of the animals, different attitudes etc. All the well-known ones (dragons, unicorns, mermaids etc) were there as well as some lesser known ones like the Kappa, a Japanese water-dwelling creature that drags children into rivers if disturbed, and the Kraken, a sea-monster most likely inspired by sailors early sightings of dead giant squids floating at sea.



Barong costume - a creature that fights chaos in Bali.



This guy is HUGE. Giant apes existed in asia before becoming extinct around 300,000 years ago. Remains found possibly led to idea of Big Foot.



"Fiji Mermaid" - fraudulent model mermaid exhibited in side-shows in the late 19th century. It's made from a monkey stitched to a fish! I thought it was quite convincing? Haha.

Mark came back later that evening, all stinky. He wants to do all the same things next weekend, so I may have a repeat of some of the above!

whinging pom

Oh hello there.

I am so fed up of winter! It feels so odd complaining so much about it since it still hits 17-18 degrees most days which for most Englishy types in England is lovely and warm. BUT it is just SO COLD?? Things don't really get a chance to warm up properly because of the short winter days, so 18 degrees in wintery Australia feels significantly cooler than the same temperature in summertime UK. The house is freezing because all the older houses here are just made to not get too hot in summer, rather than stay all warm in winter. Mark has taken to wearing two jumpers, a dressing gown, gloves and a blanket whilst working at home, which is an amusing sight to behold. No washing dries and consequently everything just smells of damp the whole time. It doesn't help either that we are now well into our FOURTH WEEK OF RAIN. EVERY DAY. I can't actually remember what the sun looks like? Not good enough, Australia, not good enough. The house is dark and depressing all the time because, like most houses in Australia seem to be, it is built in a way that no direct sunlight comes into the windows (presumably again to prevent excessive summer overheating). WA WA WAHHH!!!!

Ok enough complaining.

We have mostly been sitting in and getting over our colds and watching DVDs. Last night watched Charade, a 1963 thriller with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant, that Mark's parents got me on DVD when I was in Paris, cus it's set in Paris. It's a good, silly film. Good but silly. I wish they'd remaster it or something though. The sound quality is quite poor, particularly in the first 30 minutes and in the scene on the boat, and the picture quality varies throughout. It's a shame cus it's a good film, I bet there's lots of good, forgotten classic films out there that could be rereleased quite successfully with a bit of polishing up.

Bank holiday weekend this coming weekend, for the old Queen's birthday, would you believe! I intend to do gardening - we acquired a passionfruit vine that needs putting out. I'm pretending it's Bank Holiday for My Birthday. One week tomorrow and I'm 25, officially a bit old. I suppose nothing much changes. I suppose I might have to finally accept the fact that I'm not going to grow out of my bad skin. I've been living for years in the mistaken belief that my greasy, blotchy visage will soon develop into nice, normal, smooth adult skin, and that I'll be able to gander about in public all fresh-faced without a layer of oil-control foundation coating my face for security. But no. Oh well. For any miserable 14 year olds reading this who are currently battling the terrors of adolescent skin, here's a bit of news: IT MIGHT NEVER END!!!!

Pootling and bumbling

After two weeks of running every morning at 7am (well, 90% of mornings!), I can now not only get all the way up the hill but half way down the other side without my heart and lungs feeling sick! Today is Saturday and involved a successful extra-long run. I will become healthy, I will! I feel much better already!

We went to see Mary and Max, Adam Elliot's new claymation film. I really enjoyed it, it was so funny but also really heartwarming and I almost cried at the end! It's about the friendship that develops between a lonely 8 year old girl in Melbourne and an equally lonely obese man with Asperger's Syndrome in New York.
She picks his address out of a US phone book and writes to ask him where babies in America comes from. Receiving her letter triggers an anxiety attack in Max, but eventually he writes back, and the film follows the ups and downs of their relationship and their separate lives over 20 years.
It's also quite funny in its send-up of Australian suburban life and you should all watch it. There's a bit where Mary sends Max a Cherry Ripe too and it reminded me that I must send EVERYONE a Cherry Ripe. Best chocolate bar EVER. UK Cadbury's should SO make them.

I went to the dentist on Wednesday and had my teeth prodded and cleaned to within an inch of their lives. It was so good, even if it did cost me $200 ! OUCH. I also got to go on the new Epping-Chatswood rail link which was exciting (yes I am tragic).

This week was SO cold. A couple of days were only 15 or 16 degrees and it apparently went down to 5 degrees overnight! Waa. The platypus, Mr L. Rogue, even registered a formal complaint about the cold with the platypus embassy, although we doubt he got very far. We bought a big electric radiator on Friday, and it is SO good. Heating me up all nice. Today the weather was much nicer though - it felt like a lovely English summer's day. After my run I did not one, not two, but THREE loads of washing and pegged it all in the garden. We had eggs and toast and coffee for late brunch and now Mark is working away on his shiny new Mac. I am going to work on a short story I have been poking around with for about 3 months. Spaghetti for dinner with Pie Special Tomato, Garlic and Basil Sauce, if I can remember how to make it!

Nothing of note

There is little of note to report of late. Mark has got a cold and was not feeling well at the weekend, so we stayed in bed until 3pm(!) on Saturday and 1pm on Sunday.

We went to see The Reader on Sunday evening, which is good but lacked impact I felt, and leaves you feeling slightly confused about which character to empathize with. Also, I didn't like how the actors spoke English with a German accent, even though they are mostly native English speakers (Kate Winslet etc). Yes the story is set in Germany and they are meant to be German characters, but they are speaking English because it's a Hollywood film. You can't convince us they are German just because zey haf a comedy aczent.
I liked it in Moulin Rouge where all the actors were allowed to use their own accents. I like how Baz Lurhrman didn't try to pretend they were all speaking French, he just sort of went "well, they can't speak French, so let them talk however they want".

Russell tomorrow night!! Aw I've been refreshing his twitter and basking in the love of him being in Sydney, "marauding through Sydney" even...he is so jetlagged though bless. "I love your country [Australia]. It's like a tidy bedroom in the sun."

Anyway. Oh goodness surely after however many days I can furnish you with a more substantial blogpost than this ?? Oh...errrm....maybe I can find you some pictures from the archives....



Here's my new (to me) Ghormenghast trilogy. I couldn't pass up such lovely editions in the secondhand section of Berkelouw Newtown.



Psammead! He'll grant you a wish, but remember....all wishes end at sunset!

Valentine's Milk

My valentine's flowers. Mark also got me an amazing tweedy waistcoat from Cue that I can't wait to wear to work on Monday!

Battled our way through the rain on Saturday to see a band called The Devoted Few perform at the Apple Store on George Street. I hadn't heard them before, but I was quite impressed. They weren't playing as a full band, just doing an acoustic set of slower songs, but the songs sounded good and the singer has a really good voice.

Following this, we went to see Milk at the cinema. I'd been looking forward to seeing this for a few weeks, and it didn't disappoint. It's a biopic of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, and on a wider scale, it's about the gay rights movement in during the 1960s and 70s.



In my opinion, Gus Van Sant makes better films when he doesn't go too 'art house'. His last couple of films, Last Days and Elephant were a little too self-indulgent in my opinion, although Elephant at least was actually a critical success. Milk is a return to a more conventional narrative. Although it has a similar feel in parts to those other films, it is held together better by the story being told. And Sean Penn is brilliant in it. And I must admit I do love Diego Luna a little bit...it's the accent? I might learn spanish...

It seems crazy that all the events depicted in the film happened so recently. It's distressing that as recently as the 1970s, people genuinely believed that allowing homosexuals civil rights was akin to granting civil rights to criminals. What is more distressing is the number of people still existing now, in 2009, who still believe this. The idea that a 'family unit' (I detest that phrase) made up of anything other than a man, woman and their own, biological children could lead to the downfall of civilized society is laughable. I have met gay couples with far more conventional home lives than Mark and I will probably ever manage and it is disturbing that just 30 years ago their lifestyle itself would have been illegal, and indeed still is in many parts of the world.

*inflammatory view on evolution alert !!!* One day we will all have mid-brown coloured skin, bisexual with the ability to reproduce a-sexually, physically a bit withered with poor eye-sight and hearing. [And if science keeps advancing, an average life-expectancy of about 768 years.] There will be no more need for war, and global warming will have made it too hot so we will all work from 'home' which will consist of specially built cool-boxes.

We are all the same and we are all doomed and everything is transient so in the meantime let's all love each other!

lost property

Another weekend is upon us, ahhh a much needed break. The weeks are rushing by so fast at the moment.

This week has been rather calm, not much to do at work, and not really a lot to report from the evenings. On Thursday a slight error occurred: I went and spent $40 after work on a Bodum ice tea jug and some turkish apple tea to make in it, only to leave it on the train on the way home!!! I was so annoyed. I emailed the lost property office at CityRail with all the details so I am now hoping some nice honest person will have handed it in, or at least left it on the train so the train guard could remove it. People in Australia on the whole do seem like quite nice honest folk compared to the average UK citizen.

So I got home all in a bad mood after witnessing my brand new $40 jug pootling off on its own on the train to start its new life in Hornsby. So to cheer me up Mark put me (and himself) back on a train to the city, where we took a trip to Chinatown to eat at Mamak, one of my new favourite malaysian restaurants. After a couple of their lime syrup drinks, some vegetable curry, noodles and a huge roti tisu, I was in a much better mood.

This is popping up on a lot of blogs at the moment, but I love it so: poladroid, a little app to make your photos look like polaroids....faux-laroids if you will.



I love the colours it turns the photos.

The only other things really to add are as follows:

a) Tom Stoppard is a genius;

b) I saw the most brilliant film last Saturday: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It is based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald story about a man who ages backwards - he is born old and gets younger. The idea suggested to Fitzgerald was that it would be great to be young but to have all the knowledge and experience of someone at the end of their life.
The story is so uplifting but also so sad. Benjamin Button falls in love with a young girl while he is an "old man", and after many adventures comes back to find her when they are the same age (their ages 'meet in the middle', so to speak). It becomes so emotional as the reality eventually hits them that they will not be able to grow old together, and she will essentially end up as his 'mother'. The story also really makes you think about the similarities between young children and elderly people. As Benjamin reaches the end of his life, as he becomes a young child, a doctor comments that he is showing signs of dementia. You then see the child Benjamin behaving in a typically childlike way, demanding to do irrational things and becoming unable to relate to adults properly.

It comes out in mid-Feb I think in the UK. You should all go and see it, it's one of the best films I've seen for a long time.

Cherry Ripe

This is Platypus. He came to live with us recently from Sydney Aquarium. He likes to sleep under my pillow at night.

We got a fridge and a washing machine delivered this week. Which was a relief. Considering how many thousands of years human beings must have coped without fridges, we found being without one for a week rather hard going. And the washing machine is a nice touch too. And it's nice to be able to hang washing in a garden instead of in the corner of an apartment as we have been used to doing for so many years.

The past weekend was so much fun. On Friday Mark and I went for drinks with the Sydney postgrads in Surry Hills. The weather on Saturday was so warm - I think it hit 25 degrees. We caught the ferry in and pottered around in the city, then saw Lovers Electric at the Apple Store. I liked them. Mark bought their CD today but it's not so good recorded - I don't like the production on it. Live they were much more raw and energetic. Then we got pizza at Hugo's Bar Pizza in King's Cross. The pizza there is so good but it's so swanky! Full of cocktail-sipping rich kids... tanned skin and designer handbags....and everytime we've been it's been kind of on a whim and I've always been looking a bit rough. Haha. I don't mind though.
Sunday involved sushi, Otto Dix at the Art Gallery of NSW, and the Fair Trade Cafe in Glebe. A good combination I found.

Last Thursday I watched a French film at the cinema called Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis. It was very good, very funny. Apparently it is now the most successful film ever at the French box office. I don't really know why, since this accolade is surely normally reserved for some kind of big budget Hollywood blockbuster trash? But, hey, I'm glad it is. It is deserving. It is about French stereotype of the inhabitants of very Northern France; Nord- Pas de Calais, who are known as Ch'tis after the dialect they speak. Despite the jokes about the dialect not always translating effectively into the English subtitles, and the dialect itself not being something that most English speakers would be familiar with, it was a good story, well written, and in parts hilarious!

I forgot to mention that I also finally saw In Bruges a couple if weeks ago. This was also pretty brilliant. Basically the premise is these two hit men, hiding out in Bruges under instruction from their boss after doing a hit. The dialogue was brilliantly written, and it had this way of being one moment laugh out loud hilarious, immediately followed by quite shocking moments as more was revealed about the characters' histories. Highly recommended.

I am also in love with this chocolate bar:



Like a Bounty, BUT WITH CHERRY! CHOCOLATE CHERRY COCONUT!!!! Why don't Cadbury distribute these in the UK? I would like to shake the hand of the person that invented this!!! GENIUS! I am actually quite addicted. I spend most of everyday thinking about when I might be able to get my next Cherry Ripe. There is also Cherry Ripe ice cream. I almost died of joy.