east

the way eastlink shrinks your long-held sense of distance.

One minute you're driving along at Doncaster
you go through the tunnel and next thing you're at Cadbury Canterbury Road?

Not to mention what the roadscaping does to your until now reasonably stable mental map.
Who knew Ringwood would ever look this?





So anyway, suddenly being in Bayswater North, we thought we may as well go to Bunnings to source shower rails
Just before I entered the store I saw I was wearing Bunnings colours.
I don't normally dress like a Leprachaun, but there you go.
In that vast cold barn was I paranoid to think Security was tagging me, with my ploy to impersonate a shop assistant and snaffle screws under my crismon hoodie?
(At least I didn't get asked about stationery lines as I did once when I accidentally wore Royal blue into Officeworks.)
 

dolittle

Harris writes with a wit that's sly, not show-offy. He can encapsulate the woes of shooting "Doctor Dolittle" in four words: "The rhinoceros got pneumonia."

Charles Matthews, Washington Post
Amazon review of Pictures at a Revolution

recommended by Self Styled Siren
 

barbie birds

The Birds Barbie Doll

via As Above
 

update: psycho We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock.

 

book care

Last Fri I met Zeppo B to take in the manuscripts on display at the SLV.
Along with many many Melburnians. So many that the queue stretched out the door and onto the steps, with that strange weather thing happening that we Melburnians have almost forgotten - the unfolding of the umbrellas.
Inside, there were so many people in the room we were advised by the sentry to forget the linear journey and navigate via available space over the glass encasements. (This is often my preferred pathway as it turns out)
And it was beautiful.


And this is not especially related, but it did occur to me as we talked about the remarkable feat of history and preservation. I mentioned that recently I had seen a technique demonstrated very soberly on an instructional film from the fifties, Books and their care (see 03:24)
The ms in question is The World of Pooh

(And for ZB and others sans broadband, the technique is explained lo fi here - Opening a new book - along with the Improper use of a paperclip.)
 

mov 2 live

Elsewhere, my musical taste has been questioned.
I took this to heart and sought out one of my top ten fave live hits of the 1790's for consolation.
 

oranged

6. ORANGEMEN: Forget the Big Three. The most eye-catching grouping on Friday at the U.S. Open was Miguel Angel Jimenez, Shingo Katayama and Boo Weekley.

Strictly by coincidence, each player stepped to the first tee with an almost identical bright, burnt orange polo shirt.

Commenting on the colorful triumvirate, ESPN anchor Mike Tirico, a Syracuse Orangeman himself, came up with this gem: “Are they rooting for the Dutch?”
Golf week

I think I caught a glimpse of this phenomenon on TV over the weekend, but there is no trace of it anywhere online. (Well, if you search through getty images for CA: U.S. Open - Round Two * you can see the ensemble but not the ensemble.)

See also: Bad jumpers, dodgy strides
The Very Worst in Golf Fashion
A look at golf fashions through the years
 

metres

 

hitching

This was one of the photos I found through searching for Muriels + wedding at Picture Australia. The hitching appears to be an accidental pun...

Anyway, after this, an email from Ann O'Dyne * inspired me to go browsing for more:

Hampton
Trehare (Treharne, Trahar, Trahare ?)
Tallangatta
mandolin
marquee
methodist H & C
 

blog wars

There's a comment over at Troppo on old blogwars*, siding with the
people who neither know nor care about the history of this matter

One thing that's been interesting to observe in the recent great big blogwar shakeout of the cyberbullies of old* is how quickly people forget. Even with with google. Or maybe your google-fu is only as good as your inclination to remember.
It used to seem that the blog in question was one of the major blogging players, here to stay. I witnessed the rise and rise of it, and was always baffled and dismayed that its essential nastiness, that for me negated any cleverness, drew such a big crowd. I always suspected that Snark would run its course - in the end it's a reductive slide to a place where everything is meh. But I didn't predict this ending. Also, I could not have predicted the extent to which people forget, blogs disappear, communities move on.
So we're all ephemeral, and blogs feed off the present despite the permalink that presumes a record of the past.
And I suspect that a history of oz-blogging (if it ever gets written) will be a fairly standard chronicle of clusters and stats that will forget the gossip and the various spats and brain-snaps of maverick voices.
Does anyone care? Yep - I think it's all fascinating, and as always history is enlightening.
And maybe it is more fascinating because of the sense of historical proof that permalinks provide, it strengthens the inklings of memory into a gotcha.
 

something good

About 20 years ago a friend observed:
We've given up on op-shops now. Dimmeys is cheaper.
Well if you're talking best of popular music CDs, he was right.
Herman's Hermits Greatest Hits for a dollar was pretty good.


and this is good too
 

outdo

comments policy update
 

sagas

well, we love the Aga Saga woman.

(along with with Pru and Trude, we're surrounded by 'em)
 

the searchers

Your Search is Over
Fed by birds responds beautifully to the googlers.



(see also the Tugboat files)



meanwhile this might be the best answer to my most requested...
 

football stories

Via Brownie, in a comment at AGB



"The Goal Umpire’s Assistant (Leitchville)


Football Stories from Country Victoria
21 Films by Malcolm McKinnon

mind map

via the Presurfer, I've enjoyed sampling Text2Mindmap
a web application that creates a mind map out of a list of words



(Click for better view)
 

qotd

I drove past Bogan Avenue in Sylvania Waters the other day on the way to Bunnings.

first line of a comment at Are you living in Coconuts via ABC Melb
 

green man

Red was wondering whether Gumby (the original) was ever on television in Australia...



Yep. Mid to late sixties. I was a big fan.
And sometime between kinder and school, I was given the 'bendables'.
Gumby and Pokey and a coupla hats and gloves.
My favourite was the guitar combo.



Gumby survived the fate of most forsaken childhood toys by being so stylish. He has always adorned my bookshelves.

Feats of Clay

tv 9 to nought

Continuing my random tv countdown begun here

9: I'm over the treechange/seachange dramas where jaded city souls are healed by rolling hills and bucolic quirk. I'm still waiting for the obvious: treechangers find life in the country much the same as before, or sometimes a bit dreary unless they do sport. Not accepted by locals for at least 25 years, which is of course outside the time frame of most TV shows. Until then cityblowins may be loitering with intent to mine their experience for story lines for a future ABC drama series.
Diver Dan the bottomless pit

8. But I did enjoy the rural view in Love's Harvest

The beauty and serenity of rural life is jolted regularly by the reality of hard work and uncertainty

Funny how this review can get it so wrong:

Victoria and Gilles seem like a nice enough couple but there's not a lot going on here. It's like watching a well-produced home movie - sweet, but of little interest if you're not part of the family smh

not a lot going on here? It's all in the beautifully observed detail. These 'home movies' are telling universal tales.


7. OMG. I watch Ladette to Lady. (It was on the ABC first, y'know.) Can't say why this staged piece of realityshite appeals. Catchy theme? Memories of schooldays and unresolved issues with Home Economics?


6. Lines from my latest Google Poem compilation:

a retired Australian rules football
jock Sam Newman manhandled the doll

full version

5. and I'm just about over football. Culture. I'm over the wisecracking.
Football analysis should be earnest, like Talking Footy and Football inquest .



(A childhood staple. An enduring memory of host Mike Williamson biting into an Arnott's Teddy Bear biscuit between bouts of inquest. Or maybe it was Butternut Snap - the presence of Teddy Whitten may have confused me.)

Football should be earnest.
(well, if it has to be Entertainment it could at least aspire to be Drama/Crime Thriller and not a telethon.)

4. Meanwhile newbiscuit has the dirt on Grand Designs

‘Every time you were trying to dig foundations or pour cement, this posh bloke kept getting in the way going on and on about the bloody ‘integrity of the materials to the natural setting’ or some other bollocks. One of the lads threatened to deck him, but he just turned to camera and said something about tensions beginning to show on this high-profile and controversial project.’

See also Sustainability Blog on Grand Designs Craziness

where people you inevitably become irritated with try to rebuild a Middle Aged church tower/divert a river and create a pastiche castle/dig a massive £300,000 hole and then plonk a German prefabricated modernist house in the middle of it. On a hill in Bath. With traditional stone cladding.

3. That Armstrong Miller Flanders and Swann Show
(My companions found the A-M scatological take on F&S amusing, but I sat "po-faced" throughout)

update - po-faced out of a sense of nostalgic loyalty to F&S, one of my father's favourites, and who I loved listening to.

2. (It was disturbing to watch the Armstrong Miller Dentist sketches on the eve of dental appointments. (an inappropriate dentist, who treats his captive audience to tales of the state of his dog's prostate and swinger parties *).
Luckily my Dentist favours Foxtel over Confessional. Although, as I noted in a recent comment, I didn't find Life After Humans a particularly relaxing progam to watch in that position.)

1. Humans are Dead?
Flight Of The Conchords was heralded by os blogs I like, and I was not dusapointid.
 

p123s5+

Ann O'D tagged me with a new 5th sentence meme, which seems to have gathered 100 pages in 4 years (see p23s5). I always take these things literally, so the nearest book to where I sit blogging is a recent op shop find: The Penguin Book of Women's Humor

"Not my son, assuredly!"
Heathcliff smiled again, as if it were rather too bold a jest to attribute the paternity of that bear to him.
"My name is Hareton Earnshaw," growled the other; "and I'd counsel you to respect it!"

fang

Players wear masks (which are included) and try to break the other players' snakes with their own snake's metal fangs.

I was all set to link to the wonderful TV commercial of this 1967 game, but alas, a day later and it has been removed due to terms of use violation.

Update! Fang Bang is back: Lost Toy Commercials for Boomers (around 02:30.)

"Working for Marvin Glass was wild...The atmosphere was a cross between James Bond & the Playboy mansion"

Oh! Dr Kinsey!
A Photographic Reaction to the Kinsey Report, by Lawrence Lariar, 1953.
via grow a brain

cool

thinkers

Smits's work equips him to bring the orang-utan's plight to a global audience. His tales include that of a female orang-utan who stumbled from a burning forest with her child. She waited until a human drove by then remained deathly still as the man raced from the car, rescued her baby and drove away.
Only when she saw her child was in the hands of humans did she turn around and clumsily go back into the smoke of the burning forest," Smits says. SMH

Willie Smits Thinkers of the Jungle: The Orangutan Report
Melbourne launch (see BOS)
Sydney

baked

I purchased this heavy tome on Cakes:




It sells for about 75 dollars, (insert thrifty disclaimer here about vouchers and discounts) and is rather swish in the manner of these thick as a brick, sensitive new age manuals, with fabulous triple-tested recipes and beautiful photographs. I like it very much.

Not sure if the history has been triple-tested though:


Eventually, in the early 19th century, electric and gas stoves were introduced...
 

ex jewelry

Ex-Boyfriend Jewelry via bifurcated rivets

The thumbnails create a strange gallery where iconic imagery is given a new script.





(Or where semiotics is given the finger)

car 30

- and this clip set my lift-phobia back a few years/floors.


Update Nick Paumgarten on Late Night Live

misc links

Bakelite doll's house furniture
bakelite museum I like


also via I like, and The Lark,
Ladybird prints
contains over 4000 images from the Ladybird Books, now available to browse and buy

and I googled my way back to The Lark after searching for Topsy and Tim.
I grew up with Monday and found Tuesday recently on a Friday.



After seeing the map cape, another cloak via fed by birds
The hood could be used to carry shopping or other possession, or even a young baby, as in the 1814 print shown below.


Kombi sidecar at the Presurfer

clusters

I've been in the reading, not posting lurking mode, which means an accumulation of things seen, and a couple of musings on the nature of blogging (by two of the finest) were noted:

...the ausblogosphere is simply not one sphere at all. It’s built like a minimally overlapping bundle of 3-d venn diagrams. We all form our own clusters and tend to think of the one we live in as the ‘real’ blogosphere. When all the time there are dozens of other gangs rubbing along out there just as self-sufficiently. It’s not just generic clusters either. There are christian knitters and lefty knitters, diy aestheticians who are more interested in the concept of knitting than in extreme technical proficiency; conservative and progressive lit bloggers; and there are people who just blog about whatever but run together because of temperamental affinities
Laura at Troppo

...fortunately one of the beauties of blogging is in the delicate balance that one can maintain between self-presentation and the cerebral.

But whatever the nature of that balance, a sense of common cause and fellow feeling is what motivates the interaction between bloggers. There will be, at the least, a seepage of data from even the most tight-lipped of writers and with those a little more ready to transmit the odd signal or two, much will go inferred by a reader on the same general wavelength.
Dick

(something of an aside in a post concerning the most fundamental verities that drive my life forward, but I love that phrase: "a seepage of data")

where-able

Wish there was a Melways version of this analogue gps map cape.
I could wear that.

whistlin

When are they going to release Great Bicycling Songs on abc records?

A family favourite for riding our Malvern Stars around the garden was I love to Whistle as seen (on black and white tv saturdays) in Mad About Music

cousins

and only now have caught up with The Cousins

beach dogs

A blue heeler does not love the ocean



- well this blue heeler, anyway.
When I used to take my labrador to the beach, his joy was visible.
His joy was audible.
But Flo can take it or leave it.
She may look like she's enjoying the water, but she's merely doing a low-key scan of the horizon as always, on the lookout for something to herd.
She was more interested in the foreshore, walking on a leash.
She had a bit of a paddle, because it was there.
But she didn't leap, dig, swim, wag or cut loose.
A labrador belongs here.
A blue heeler turns her back on it.

holiday snap

power dressing

...an electric headlight to help her to find an honest man...


YouTube at cynical C: a 1930's futuristic look at fashions for 2000

quiz

Quiz Night
Esquire Napkin Fiction


via Grow a Brain

unmitigated

I like Unmitigated England A Country Lost and a Country Found
via I like.


(Not many blogs make me read through all the archives)

inspection

Did an Open for Inspection on Saturday, inspecting memories, a place I used to live in 20 years ago.
Naturally the house has been given (to quote Meredith) the Gut-n-Smeg.
All Victorian character gone, now generic townhouse in innercityville with decking and succulents and OSP.
Now worth a cool mil in this overheated market.

I used to love the view from the upstairs window looking east- sky, terraces, treelines. It was a good writing place.
Now you can't see out.
Smoked glass means you can't see through the privacy.

Gone for good: the bad wiring, the 'Victerranean' aqua paint, the outside toilet.
(And the Rottie next door who'd leap against the fence barking whenever anyone went)
And gone for good is heritage, a sense of connection.

mon oncle

 
PCL: Theme from "Mon Oncle", by Latin Combo.


(meanwhile over at yootoob the trailer)

bernie

... in Street

in Footscray


(on behalf of Bwca)

wiki

...it just feels good to find something there—even, or especially, when the article you find is maybe a little clumsily written. Any inelegance, or typo, or relic of vandalism reminds you that this gigantic encyclopedia isn't a commercial product. There are no banners for E*Trade or Classmates.com, no side sprinklings of AdSense.

The Charms of Wikipedia via things

- this was via mefi who saw parallels with mefi, as I did with blogging

...It worked and grew because it tapped into the heretofore unmarshaled energies of the uncredentialed...
...the point of convergence for the self-taught and the expensively educated. The cranks had to consort with the mainstreamers and hash it all out—and nobody knew who really knew what he or she was talking about, because everyone's identity was hidden behind a jokey username.

floats

Images from the Moomba Parades from 1962 - 1965


(prompted by Tim's Sars post)

knees up

One's google referrers can be useful, or alerting and alarming. Yesterday as I was checking the hits for my two staples - pachabel's canon for bagpipes and doorbell rings by itself - I noticed a search for Let's Knock Knees

I blogged about this gloriously goofy number a few years ago, in pre-YouTube yore. I was even inspired to write some lines about it.

Prompted by that referrer, I checked to see if it had made the yt cut - et voila:



Loverly.

I don't think I'd write about that sequence in quite the same vein again, (a simple wtf might suffice) although I still like these lines ok:

and then the chorus of odd choreography
all patellar reflex and kneeing in groin
flirtation of bathing suits and cravat dudes
dancing dud sex

and I do like the cricket pads/who knows what it all means ...

xxxx

I was speaking to x, a neighbour I sometimes see when I walk xxx.
We got yxrning the other day, and she said that she had once lived in xxxxsx,
had lived there for xx years in fact, when she first arrived in Australia.

"I love xxxxsx", I said, "Well xxxxsxxxx in general, really. I'd love to live in xxxxsxxxx one day."
"It was a lovely community" she said, "I still get the xxixxxxxxx paper, so I can keep up to date with things."

Coincidentally, I had just being reading a book on the area, xaxx and xxxexxxx! by xxxsxxx xxxxe, which I mentioned.

"But I’d be reluctant to lend this to you, because the first half is filled with rather xxxxuxxxx language. It’s very ... xxxx "

"Oh I had to get used to that, living in xxxxsx! It’s a very xxoxx community."
 

teh blog

via The Man She Forgot To Google via Relevant History
 

fab blog

 
Hey Dullblog
People Who Think About The Beatles A Little Too Much

via Making Light - who linked to this post
 

internet

 
a huge internet following


via J-walk

rockets

R was for Rocket


I remember spending a couple of goggle.hours looking for an image similar to this once.
I was after the everyday rocket-ware that adorned Dickens or the playgrounds of chadstone past.
Part of a great Flickr set

14th

What a Difference A Day Made

Shirley Temple non-fans look away now.
(But you'll miss Alice Faye at 0.55-secs-in singing But Definitely)

and this version sports a splendid karaoke orchestral intro.

13th

yes, it was the best of speeches, followed by one of the worst.

barbie

more of yesterday's yore, for Genevieve*

barbie
on the barbie

2 Bedroom
Dwelling

al fresco

Welcome to the Australian barbecue, 2008. Not everyone grills in the shadow of an architect-designed mansion, of course, but today's typical barbie barely resembles the simple snags-and-chops affairs of yore...

Sgarbossa, a property developer, has also seen the change. "When clients give me the specifications, they now include the barbecue," he says. "They think nothing of spending 50 grand on an al fresco dining area. That wouldn't have happened a few years ago. A barbecue was something you just put on the veranda."
Toffs 'n' tongs. The Age

I'll take the yore, thanks.

yore
yore
yore
 

quoit

 




meanwhile, the township of Koroit
 

off line

And speaking of Crocs, I had one of those awkward I read it on the internet moments at a family gathering yesterday, that went like this

- I think I read somewhere that Crocs were banned for setting off electrical equipment...

(Pause. Faces look skeptical. Scientist neph. unimpressed)

...Yes ... I think they were banned for setting off electrical equipment...

But what I should have said is

Static electricity caused by the popular footwear has been implicated in the malfunctioning of electrical medical equipment at hospitals in Sweden

(I think I read this via As Above originally)

over et

recent googler arrived looking for

overcoat

ettiquette


(Sic. Apparently I'm at the top of the misspelt google tree for this nice ensemble)

au flo

croc-ery

Lone croc seen in local park while walking dog



Within cooee of popular children's playground.
Only metres from junior cricketers bowling in the nets.
Within a foot of free-running dogs.





Meanwhile, Bumper book snared at op-shop not so casual:

crockery

China update: I spotted Kontiki doing a turn in The Chatterley Affair last Sunday. That thrilling glimpse of crockery occurred just before I switched off.

"Is it a television drama that you would even wish your dinnerware to see?"


(Update: A bowl of K variant seen in Romulus my Father.
This crockery ain't shy.)

fl-ying

Flying high in Melbourne

(I think it's more Melbourne FL than Melbourne VIC though)


Ephemerally Yours via Ramage

wrap

Why is it so...

Did the Channel Nine News really spell it School Chaplin?

and while we're talkin' marbles

Wild reading in bed.

Surprising. I guess all the doll dirt squarely outstrips the trousers

A surge in my stats from this search was curious, and suggests a puzzle or quiz in the US that leads to a quick google-squiz? Who knows.

And speaking of dogs, nice lines and tumblers, Impending dog disaster might be a useful phrase to unleash

Q: Is it time to stop playing pub trivia when the answer is Labrador and I say Alsatian?

After the chainsaw massacre, they left a note on the nature strip.

Learnt recently at Trivia: The difference between a King and a Queen is a foot

Last night I dreamt I watched Rebecca again

It was certainly raining cats and dogs and cattle dogs were whining.

2007 @ boynton in first lines, via a first line meme @ Genevieve's.
Bit late off the mark, of course, since 07 is so last week.
And 07 was pretty slim pickings around here.
I cheated on the last first line. That was actually the third line.
And alas, I couldn't include my favourite line of the year, which was not mine, but such a nice found line I'm thinking of nominating it for a martini:

A Tudor is the sacred cow of house styles
 

08

Oh ate

and oh drank





A Cordial New Year.
 

gladys

My band is Un Sospiro and our new album is Gladys the Swiss Dairy Cow.

1. Music of Uruguay
2. Constabulary
3. David Messas
4. Russell Blackford
5. Abu al-Walid
6. Llandyfaelog
7. Milan Decree
8. Kitty Winn
9. Camp Century
10. Harold Volkmer
11. Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006
12. Louisiana Purchase
13. Salt Lake City Angels
14. Pre-caudal gland
15. Mark Roosevelt

This was autogenerated from random Wikipedia article names. Get your own Wikipedia Album.

Track 11 is sure to get the feet tapping.

by Kevan, via As Above

cheers

I nominated myself for this award. (From here via the presurfer)


But I am honoured to receive it on behalf of my readership,

this informal collection

of like minded soles.
 

stormy day

Did we just have the worst storm in a hundred years, or in four years, to the day?

(this latter fact was pointed out by a 774 listener, to whom I was listening via battery-powered radio)

It was certainly raining cats and dogs and cattle dogs were whining.

retro metro

Further to biopics...an abandoned post from early October.
It was going to be a big sarsy post on Melbourne, memory, history and nostalgia (# 233)





from Graham Kennedy's Melbourne Nelson 1967

I watched The King on TV recently, and it was pretty good.
But Biopics always seem ...
The mood of the times is greater than ...
Post-war Melbourne can seem like a Retro Chrysler


(I've cut all metaphors but the link. Here the post became bogged in outer suburban roads of greater childhood memory. eg:)

... but TV stars were BIG in the 50's and 60's. They lived above us, glamorous, and made fleeting forays with footballers into the suburbs to open shopping centres.
 

one liners

Don't put off your happy life

No girls laugh at me


Spam One-liners via Daily Jive

TV 20-10

Was inspired to do this after aftergrog was whingeing about 20-1, which I never watch, but I did hear Debbi Enker roast on 774 (such dumbed-down shows are cheap oz-content filler apparently). So this post of loose ends is likewise ez-oz blog-content filler.

20. Graham Kennedy biopic, The King. Well crafted, expert reproduction, but lacking a sense of authenticity evident, say, in any home movie of the period. The gaucheness therein. These suave doppelgängers are actually 21st century aliens stranded in a sovereign hill of decor.

19. Is that the dilemma of all biopics? The faithfully-enacted chronicle where everyone knows the ending? Do the best narrow the focus to a key incident or relationship? Famous Person and the case of the Close Shave?.

18.Love My Way series one: contains some of the best television drama I've seen. Series two was very good. Series 3 - overall, didn't do it for me. I lost sympathy with most of the characters whose drive seemed directionless and victim of soap stasis.

17. But I did see this in the new style - by the box-set load, which can skew both appreciation and tolerance.

16. Often though in later series of TV shows, the stories move away from the smaller everyday moments of revelation, and the world and characters arc up (in order to jump the shark I guess)

15. ditto Kath n Kim. Despite the exotic locations and product placement courtesy C7, the best scenes still often happen around the kitchen. Though I did love the very visual moment when the big rainwater tank rolled off the car.

14. Despite the corn, I enjoyed Rain Shadow. I liked the slower pace and the novel relationship of the two female colleagues. I enjoyed seeing the younger woman's quietly assertive negotiation of bullying boss. Time slot was a killer, no one wants to deal with drought-despair on a Sunday night, even though the story proved to be redemptive.

13. The Abbey was OK. A call to gardening for me as I feel guilty about my lack of horticultural attendance.

12. Summer Heights High deserved the hype- mainly for Jonah and friends.
Good blend of fiction and real-life, on location and in location.

11. My favourite show at the moment is Grand Designs, or castle-building for cashed-up couples.

11. The cricket is too early.

10. And too much.
 

prison alphabet

At first I thought- well, this is a strong contender for the dumbest use of a highlight pen in a school or university text award.



(Having once seen a history textbook in the library with 5 entire pages green-highlighted, nothing surprises me)
But further thought (and the annotation) suggests it's a script for a school presentation.
Still, I think I would have photocopied before striping my book.



(Update The poem is from Sometimes Gladness. Collected Poems of Bruce Dawe 1954-1997
5th Edition (Longman, 1997)

The teaching of poetry in schools is, after all, variously done, sometimes good, sometimes not so good. BD

rebecca

Last night I dreamt I watched Rebecca again.
Actually it was Sunday night, in the middle of a November heat wave, when the lounge was so hot the only thing to do was watch an old favourite.
(And what's not to like? Cinderella nervosa.)
A couple of days later, I savoured some of the chilling moments in matching climes, wearing a jumper.

Googling, I found my way to Self-Styled Siren, with a recent post on Joan Fontaine and Rebecca.

ben been

Last Saturday as I'm getting my hair cut, a woman rushes up and declares:
Ben Cousins is downstairs!!!!...
My hairdresser is (like totally) indifferent, and the woman retreats.
A pause before I ask:
Did she just say 'Ben Cousins is downstairs'?
- Yeah so what who cares he's a bogan.

- a line which inspires a Google poem

ben cousins
Compiled 11/19/2007 5:31:41 AM GMT

WITH the late-night behaviour
these days hey starro. spose, ur

Cousins drove through an underground
will arrive at AFL House in suit and

jetted into LA, where he was met by
in - From Consciousness Explained by

as What do you get when you cross
DRUG SCANDAL - In other news: grass

has bumped Britney Spears and Lindsay
team down at the cat bowl from a play

BEN Cousins will need AFL approval
was allegedly admitted to hospital

been forced to defend his wayward
is (your northern Have you heard

he was met by two attractive blonde
Cousins got picked up drunk outside

the football future of former West
grass is green, sky is blue – Post

haiku

poorly placed chew toy
above the old cabinet
lonely but not dead

protagonist gone
soft-singing baleful ballads
what did I do wrong

Javascript Haiku generator via Twists and Turns
 

up there

My sister acquired a pianola recently. Of all the rolls I could choose to play, from the old June Balloon Moonlight Foxtrots, all the thirties ballads I love, all the forties songs I know by heart, at that moment I had to choose Up There Cazaly.

And maybe youtube is the pianola of the neo-noughties, but when I saw Up There Cazaly was up there, I had to play it 10 times. I love this clip.




In 1979 this gesture did not mean this guy's on his mobile. This crowd is a mobile free zone.

And the football was better in 1979 of course, "in those days when going to the football was not like going to the cinema..." Brian Courtis (When footy players have to pause on the field to let the ads run on telly you know they've lost the plot) But also part of my strange nostalgia for this clip may be that I was at the grand final in 78, the one featured in the ad, and I'm watching my past zoom in and out with the balloons in the aerial shots of the MCG where I stood in the standing room section with my brother and sister and their friends and my first crush.

But I also love the blend of words and images, the unpretentious verite of the crowd, the heritage stanza of champions in slow black-and-white, the rise and fall of the music matching the choreography of marking, that by Billy Picken becomes quite beautiful.

".....Cazaly" can still make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up even after all these years. To say that it is outdated or old fashioned is missing the point. Football is about memories of winters past and ".....Cazaly" will always be a part of that for me, regardless of what some soulless bureaucrat might say. Posted by: Buck Buckaw of the real world 7:59am October 02, 2007 Readers' comments: Cazaly may be benched

critical

well if I were a single issue voter, a single issue that might swing my vote would probably be orangutans.
It's sad that the tragic and desperate plight of these gentle creatures has become lost in the gesturing and jesting of electioneering

We need to recognise the massive amount of suffering being inflicted on a species that is 97% genetically identical to humans. AOP

lolinate

LOLinator
via grow a brain


Update: so thiz is how I shoulda written this

post cup day

My punting was dictated by a bird, that woke me at 5:30 with the call: Purple Moon, Purple Moon.

Well that's what I heard. It was actually saying: Don't be an idiot. As if I'd know anything about horses.

know your

via Mefi and via the US (Northeast Film History), I was idly seeking some AU home movie sites, when I finally sampled some offerings at Australian Screen .

Once there though, it was hard to go past Know Your Melbourne c1945
 

gilbert

He hates teabags with a vengeance.

Gilbert O'Sullivan FAQ/ What is Gilbert's favourite drink?

fido friday

Have only just caught up with this classic Pan's People clip on PCL Linkdump.


See also: Pan Speak and The Top 5 most literal dance routines

cameo

In the tradition of Laura's Woods Ware Beryl (see footnote), I'm happy to report that my china Kontiki was seen guesting in Love My Way series 2.

Glad it turned up in such a kool milieu as Frankie's place, but I hope the retro boho chic trip doesn't go to its head, or it may never speak to me again.
 

the parakeets

Years ago, I had four pet parakeets. They enjoyed listening to the radio, and would occasionally chirp along with the music. However, when a Beatles song came on, they'd engage in flights of full-fledged, full-throated, frenzied singing.
I've often wondered why The Beatles had this effect on them, and how they were able to differentiate The Beatles from other artists.

User Comment, TNR What The Beatles Backlash is All About cached

chicken

Women outside the chicken house

(An off-cut, for dirty beloved, and his blogger's eye)

bib book

Bibliodyssey - the book

It is my privilege and pleasure to announce that a book based on the this humble website is now in release and available for purchase by the general public

five ride

So it's Ride to work Day and one's five year bloganniversaire.

Five Ride To Work Day.
Five Ride To Work Day.
Five Ride To Work Day

f!v3 r!d3 70 w0rk d4y
Five make for the scene
Five wait for a hit


Meanwhile one's audience numbers have been consolidating.
 

foot notes

Learnt recently at Trivia: The difference between a King and a Queen is a foot.

Also: Buy boots in the afternoon when the foot is at its biggest size
Lawnmower boots

fibremakers

qotd

Q I have been seeing this wonderful guy for seven months. I have fallen in love with him. He loves me, too, but there's one problem. Last month, I yelled out a man's name in an intimate moment - although I know no one of that name. The Sage

(I think it's more dumb than oops, but then, dumb might have been wiser)

thread

I'm closing this thread.


(Not really. I've always wanted to say that, along with: I've turned off the comments on this post, and I don't think I'll ever get the chance)

word smith

"you must never rest on your morals"
 

punnies

Also on a dramatic note, this was a recent literary query that sent a googler to boynton .

eureka

You wrote a play about Lalor - my cousin informs me.
No I didn't
Yes you did. Lalor. I read about it in the paper.
Lalor?
Lalor.
Good idea for a play, but I didn't write it.

(I think of the suburb rather than the historical figure during this exchange. A play about the suburb is more appealing to me as a play I didn't write)

random

For example, this image can be described by the labels: sky (50 points), bird (60 points), soaring (120 points), or frigate bird (150 points).

Google Image Labeler, a new feature of Google Image Search that allows you to label random images to help improve the quality of Google's image search results.



Is this the end of civilisation the random pun and poetic compound of the Google Image Search? It is the random quality of Google Images that I appreciate, and in honour of its odd surprises, I compiled a collage from the search "I prefer random images"




(Click for a better view)
 

birthday plains

Tour of Birthday Plains

On the slippery slope

Over the hill

 

wood's

After the chainsaw massacre, they left a note on the nature strip.
At first I thought it was a grocer's apostrophe happening, but perhaps it's a ...

Free Fire Wood's... a sign of the times.
 

was here

 


I did not expect this thumbnail story of a roo and a zoo and a family walking off the land when I went looking for Whelan*

name that

boynton's looking a bit half baked lately, in the #85C4CC sense of the word, anyway.

This is one of the the dropdown list of 1500+ colors at Name that Color (via the presurfer)

Interesting names include My sin, Neon Carrot, Wistful, Half Colonial White and Gossip, but it was the more prosaic Dingley that caught my eye today.

I suppose I had never really thought of the colour of Dingley before,

or of   having a colour.
 

no gnomes

There were no gnomes to be seen in the snooty nursery with Vivaldi, and why would there be.
So we went downstream to the garden centre where polymer cockies and budgies happily hang out with the medium shrubs and climbing roses.
There were about six footy gnomes gracing the terraces,
but none in red and white. So I asked the saleswoman:
- Do you have any Swans Footy Gnomes?
- Did you see any about?
- No.
- No. I think we only stock the Melbourne teams...
I don't mean to be racist.

I was more offended on behalf of South Melbourne Football Club. As a dyed-in-the-wool Victorian, I agree with the sentiment: NSW is a different country. But as there were a couple of non-Victorian gnomes in the cluster, a Crow and a Docker, I don't think this was an official policy.

faq

Q: Is it time to stop playing pub trivia when the answer is Labrador and I say Alsatian?

(OTOH - was it the time, two years ago, when I didn't know the middle name of J.B.Priestley)

needed

[citation needed] Sticker

Cut this sticker into three strips, and start flagging inadequately-sourced objects in the world around you

via As Above


(High on my list of top ten phrases of our times)
 

exotic

From Australian American Cookbook 1958 p70

On behalf of
 

dental tv

More dental as

Remember: the television is there for you.
said my dentist, as I stared up at Foxtel on the ceiling.
Is this OK?
It was Chefs in a kitchen so I said yep casually before my mouth went numb,
Because talking Chefs in a kitchen seemed innocuous enough, despite the dollop of reality-tv competition, British not Iron.
But then suddenly it was all about meat.
And not in a discreet ingredients way, but MEAT, the full-on butchery thing with slabs and lumps and rumps and sides of MEAT in Catering quantities.
And close ups of chefs carving into carcasses was not the most relaxing thing.
I squirmed. The dentist looked up and went into emergency mode -
Turn it off, turn it off! he said to the assistants,
who had to leave the proceedings to fetch the remote.
What do you want? History?
I think I nodded.
Because it was all Pocahontas from there.

geographic

Pom-pom

Photos from national Geographics from the 1950's photo-set
 

qotd

Property expert on Channel 7 news:

"If you're not on the merry-go-round, you're going to miss the boat"