Car Conversation

Driving home today Will is reading school holiday road safety tips from the school newsletter. One of the tips is keeping kids entertained with portable DVD players, digital games, iPods, etc.

I said aren't you kids lucky you have all those things for our long car trips.

"Yes," they both agreed.

I said when I was a child we didn't have that sort of stuff, we just had to look out of the window to entertain ourselves.

"That's right," Marianna says. "That was in the olden days."

"You are so smart'" Will tells her.

"Yes, I KNOW," she sighs, resigned to the burden of her own brilliance.

Just Kids: A Book Review

Just Kids is Patti Smith's autobiographical book about her relationship with the artist Robert Mapplethorpe. It is not particularly satisfying as an autobiography because it skims the surface, leaving me wanting to know more details, hear more about the nitty gritty of their fascinating lives. What it lacks in detail it more than makes up for in emotion.

This book is a deathbed promise realised; a gift of love and respect.

Their relationship, built on a chance meeting in New York City in the late sixties when they were both "just kids", literally starving artists, transcends love, lust, sex, friendship. It is the true embodiment of the term "soulmate", so easily thrown around for anyone one has known for more than five minutes.

This is what really touched me, moved me to tears and emotional pain. I am always fascinated by strong emotional attachment because I don't think I have felt it truly, powerfully since I was "just a kid" myself.

But this book also made me think about my own yearning for an "artistic" life as a teenager. Do all teenagers yearn for a bohemian life of creativity and social freedom? I know I did. But in hindsight my desire for stability was much more powerful than any artistic daydreams I may have harboured. Like Patti, my practical side took control. In her case she was able to balance and find room for both. But it was a different time.

She speaks of the artistic force which drove both her and Robert and it is certainly not something I felt very strongly. This force was everything to them; that they eventually found critical and financial success was more good fortune than pure talent. Many equally talented people fall by the wayside for a myriad of reasons.

I really enjoyed this book, it had a strong emotional impact on me. I haven't been Patti's biggest fan. Apart from loving her collaboration with Bruce Springsteen "Because the night", her "Pissing in a river" from the Times Square soundtrack and the recently discovered "Redondo Beach" from her first album "Horses" I haven't delved deeply into her music. But her story really surprised me, not only is she not who I guessed she might be but she writes beautifully; I was left wanting more yet emotionally both buoyed and devastated.

Cooking with DKG: Episode 742

I have so many thoughts swirling around, ready to pop out as a blog post, but no time to coherently master them into submission. So you'll need to put up with a quick recipe instead, because god knows there aren't enough recipes swirling about the cyber world.

This isn't anything ground breaking just a combination of some of my favourite flavours and the result of reading a dozen recipes featuring the words Smoked Salmon and Ricotta.

Quick Salmon, Ricotta and Tomato Pasta

500g pasta
200g Smoked Salmon
1 punnet cherry tomatoes, halved or whole (as you like)
2 cloves garlic, crushed or finely chopped
Zest of 1 lemon
1 Tablespoon olive oil + extra for serving
1Tablespoon butter (homemade in the Thermomix is nice - ha ha)
2-3 Tablespoons Ricotta
2-3 Tablespoons Sour Cream
Handful of parsley
Salt and Pepper

Cook pasta. Drain.
Return pot to low heat.
Add olive oil and butter and garlic. Cook for a minute or two, stirring.
Add tomatoes, zest. Cook for a minute, stirring once or twice.
Add smoked salmon, ricotta, sour cream, parsley. Stir until ricotta and sour cream have combined to a smooth sauce.
Add cooked pasta, salt, pepper, extra olive oil to taste. Heat through briefly while stirring.
Serve.

* This quantity gave us dinner for four plus enough for lunch for Big Jay. Probably we could have squeezed out two lunches if we weren't such greedy little piglets last night.

I love these flavours. The lemon zest really gives it a boost. It's a warmer months style of pasta for when you're sick of spag bol (I rarely get sick of it but...). Will said he wanted to eat it every night which is a pretty good endorsement.

Obviously you can add whatever you have in the fridge: frozen peas, rocket, baby spinach, capers, make it with sliced chicken or proscuitto instead of salmon. We had it with funky little pasta shapes I bought at Costco which look a little like shark eggs or alien pods but I think it would work with any type of pasta at all.

Enjoy!

Sorry Day

Yesterday was a very sorry day. I am sorry that such unspeakably bad legislation was passed by the government of the country I live in and love so very much. I am sorry that we have a government that continues to make bad decisions pretty much every day of the week. I am sorry that so many people believe this legislation and this tax will help the environment in any way. I am sorry that this government won't grow some balls and admit that this is little more than a tax grab. I am sorry that so many people believe that it's better to do a stupid "something" rather than a realistic nothing. I am sorry that people keep saying they now have hope for the future of their children and grandchildren. I am sorry that these people don't spontaneously combust. I am sorry that something magical didn't occur in the last few months to save us from this bad thing. I am sorry that I don't have the guts to have organised a coup and installed myself as the benevolent dictator of this woe begotten country. I am sorry that there isn't a federal election being held this Saturday.

I am sorry that in 20, 50, 100 years time when the Emperor's nakedness is revealed and history will show all this insanity for what it is, there won't be a Sorry Day and that Kevin Rudd or his future clone won't shed crocodile tears for the damage done.

Crazy, Stupid, Schlock

All the signs were good. Cute title. Great reviews. Solid cast, including Julianne Moore who I really love (or at least loved deeply in The Hours....but come to think of it I'm not sure what else I've loved her in...hhmmmm). A rare kid-free night out at the movies and a movie Big Jay was reasonably happy to see though it is definitely on "my" side of the movie choosing ledger being a chick flick.

Before the movie even started I experienced two conflicting emotions. Happiness at being in the comfort of VMax, which has a huge screen and super comfy "couple" seats, and an ice cream in hand. Anger at the ridiculously cold air conditioning which was blowing a full scale icy gale above my head. I sent Big Jay out to complain and he was assured it would be turned down once the movie started (???). Well it was and it wasn't. The a/c kept cycling between freezing and off meaning I was constantly aware of being uncomfortable.

Anyway, I've put off talking about the actual film long enough. Maybe it's me but I feel like I've written a variation of the same review too often in recent years "good idea poorly executed". Basically it was the usual "love is tough but conquers all in the end" schmaltz. I can stomach that concept if it has something else going for it. I want some wit, some great dialogue, some brilliant acting, a "twist" that I don't see coming from five minutes into the movie. Something, anything...

"Crazy, Stupid, Love" had none of these things. The script was cliched, the acting and directing clunky and dull, the story uninspired and unbelievable. I didn't "feel" anything and I didn't believe any of the motivations in the storyline. It was just plain boring.

If it wasn't for Ryan Gosling's Jacob and Emma Stone's (my goodness she has beautiful green cat eyes) Hannah I would have been tempted to walk out. They were the only two characters I vaguely cared about, the only ones that were remotely interesting. Even the minor part of Hannah's friend Liz was more interesting (and had better things to say) than the major characters of Steve Carrell's Cal and Julianne Moore's Emily.

I just didn't "buy" any of it, it didn't say anything to me... I am so sick of unimaginative dross being hailed as something new and wonderful. Speaking of saying anything Big Jay is away for the weekend and I feel I might have a date with John Cusack and Ione Skye coming up...at least I know that Cameron Crowe could write movies which mean something to me.

Anniversaries

This is the weekend for big anniversaries. The date 11 September has a lot of significance for us for two reasons.

On the Australian 11 September 2000 we arrived home from Guatemala with Will. It was exactly a week before the opening ceremony for the Sydney Olympic Games and we shared our flight from LA with the Brazillian Volleyball team. I'll ever forget the group of giants crammed into their cattle class seats, their knees awkwardly sticking out into the aisles.

Getting off that plane I was overwhelmed with so many different emotions. Mainly exhaustion. Long distance travel with a 16 month old baby we had known for less than a week was a totally new experience for me. I was probably bordering on hysteria, if I'm honest.

However coming through the gates was amazing. My family was there and a whole bunch of friends, especially those who had recently brought home their own boys from Guatemala. In some ways we were all the walking wounded; survivors of an ordeal which had left us all exhausted, frustrated and confused. Yet we had all come through and triumphed....

It is hard to describe how I felt holding my gorgeous little boy, my longed for, dreamt of son. The little boy who had waited for us for 16 months, neglected in a dirty cot in an orphanage in Guatemala City. Disbelief that he was real, that we were together, that bureaucracy had been overcome and we were home.

There is a photo of our group at the airport, holding our children, beaming. I adore that photo. It is meaningful and poignant.

My dad drove us home to our little house in Lisarow. It was clean and peaceful and quiet. And strange. We had been fighting a battle over three long years and now we had returned with the "spoils". It was hard to accept. The anti-climax was enormous. How to live in peace when you have been slowly conditioned for war?

A year and one day later, in a different house, our new house, we awoke to the horror of what was to become 9/11. September 11 changed our lives and the lives of most people around the world.

What a surreal day it was. To this day, despite 10 years going past, I can't accept what I saw that day. I so clearly remember turning on the early morning news that day and looking straight into an image of the first plane flying into the first tower. My brain reeled, at first thinking they were showing something from a sci-fi movie, but knowing instinctively that something was terribly wrong.

The next few weeks went by in slow motion. I became addicted to CNN, staying up until 1, 2, 3am... then rising at 5 am to watch again. I felt I needed to see what would happen next. It felt so important to see, to know...

So for us 11 September has a double meaning. It is the day our family changed forever and the day the world changed forever. The day our dream came true and the day the world woke to a nightmare.

Lest we forget.

The heartbreak of a sad old cow

One of life's little pleasures for me is the Pocket Profile section in the AFL magazine "AFL Record". At each game we attend Big Jay buys the magazine and flicks through before the game. Will has also started reading it end to end.

I have a brief look but always look forward to the Pocket Profile, enjoying a moment to read about the selected player.

Well imagine my thrill when this week's player was none other than Jesse White. It's a well documented fact that I have turned into a dirty old perv in my old age, with a specific weakness for young Swans. This year ex-champion basketballer Jesse is my drool worthy object of choice. His tattooed arms often feature...oh, never mind.

Back to the Pocket Profile. Imagine how pathetically pleased I was when I read this:

How would your best friend describe you? Honest, caring and fun.

Oh, how sweet.

Three things you would like to do after your footy career. Travel the world, start a family, catch up with old friends.

Oh my goodness, where have you been all my life? In kindergarten... oops.

Can this man/god get any better? Well, no. It was all downhill at that point.

Best book read: The 50th Law by 50 Cent.

Holy shit. From such highs we hit the lows. 50 Cent! Really?!

But wait, there's more.

Favourite band/recording artist: Lil Wayne.

Bloody hell. Talk about a major bummer.

Luckily there's not a lot of literary criticism going on in my fantasies.

To quote Dianne Weis' character in the wonderful "Bullets Over Broadway": "Don't speak..."

That syncing feeling

Syncing has been on my mind a lot just lately. Mainly because I just can't get my damned iPhone to sync with my damned work PC. Technology is amazing except when it fucks up and leaves you bemused, confused and downright frustrated. One thing I've learnt though is that one way or another it will get resolved and life will go on.

But that's only one sort of syncing I've been pondering. Human syncing... now that's a much harder thing to achieve. Have you ever considered how difficult it is for any of us to connect, both in the bigger, deeper sense of the word but also just in the day to day to way?

I am sometimes awe struck by how it is that we meet the people who will become our significant others and also our precious friends; how those connections are made is a concept that never ceases to amaze.

Fate. I guess that's what human syncing is. The alignment of the planets so that two people can meet and not just pass each other by in the fast moving stream of our busy lives but acknowledge each other, connect, see their commonalities and develop a desire to explore who that other person is. It's a chemical reaction that is magical and intangible. Why this person on this day and not that person on that day?

But on a day to day basis, with the people we already know, syncing is a different sort of challenge. It's tough being on the same page at the same time. Each day we go through a myriad of different emotions and energies.

You want to talk, I don't. I want to have sex, you don't. I want to stay home at the end of a long week, you want to go out to party. Each day we compromise, we make a supreme effort to sync or we withdraw and push away, the effort to sync beyond us at that moment.

I'm surprised by how much significance the word "sync" has in life. It's not just about iTunes and iPhones. It's about people connecting, and after all, what else is life all about.

Just saying "no".

I've been following Nancy Regan's advice and just saying "no", a lot... And bugger me sideways it's hard. Welcome to my pity party.

Big Jay and I are on a concert fast and it's driving me bonkers bananas. We've let ourselves go, concert-wise, the last few years and this diet is hard to tolerate. We have spent the gross national product of a small African nation (or roughly half of the money wasted on ridiculous Labor party schemes in recent years) on entertainment and it was time to reign in that wayward brumby.

In the last couple of months or so I've had to (so very reluctantly) press DELETE on emails offering tickets to the following performers:

John Cleese
Alan Davies
Dylan Moran
Eddie Izzard
Alan Ball
Tim Minchin
Meatloaf
Cold Chisel
Joan Collins (just kidding)
David Sedaris
How To Train Your Dragon (for the kids of course)
Any number of events at Crave (Food Festival)
A few others I have forgotten

I have even forgotten to buy tickets for Taylor Swift which I had promised Little Miss M and now there are only single tickets or seats in the high altitude section available (and I refuse to pay $140 each for those).

I know the Chili Peppers will tour sometime early next year and I won't be saying "no" to those particular tickets... Except if they tour in the first three weeks of April when we embark on the re-named MEDIUM sized trip to Guatemala and Orlando.

Which is the main reason we are counting the pennies... Harry Potter World won't pay for itself you know.

Things that make you go "Hhhhmmmm....?"

This email arrived in my In Box this morning. Just your run-of-the-mill scam email. I just found Category 11 interesting. All the other categories seem to include things which logically go together, but number 11? Any thoughts?


Sir/Madam,

The Government of Ghana under the auspices of ECOWAS, in West Africa , has published a bill recently inviting all reputable foreign contractors/manufacturers of high and good quality product which few of the needed items are mentioned below.

Please get back to me if you can handle any of the below mentioned items in a large quantity and if your product that your company are manufacturing did not fall in the scope of the few mentioned items below,please kindly send us your website and complete company details so that we can go through your website to check if you have any of the 72 needed items withing the range of your product in your website.


1. Hospital Wheelchairs,Bed sheets and Pilow cases

2. Lawn Mowers/Knapsack Sprayers

3. Pharmaceutical products

4.Aniaml Feeds/ingredients

5. T-shirts/Caps

6. Rugs and Carpets.

7. Medical and Laboratory Equipments.

8. Analytical scales

9. Surgical instruments:Syringes,Needles,Scissors etc.

10.Fishing Equipments/Tackles.

11. Condoms and breakable plates.

12. Treated mosquito net.

13. Water Purification Equipments.

14. Agrochemicals Products.

and many more other products not listed please send us your website.

Note that Tender is open to all eligible foreign contractors from eligible source countries as defined in the guidelines of the procurement Board of the Republic of Ghana.If you can handle the supply of any of the above items, get back to me for more detail, i am a commision and accredited agent.

Thanks,

Mr.Koffi Mensah
No:23 Airport Road,Cantonment
mensahkoffiagencygh.ltd.mailbox
Tel:+233-5414-37668

Cyber Dinner Party at Chez DKG

Since I'm suffering from total writers' block and don't want to be bothering you with my anti Climate Change bollocks, anti Labor government rants (enough of that on FB) I thought I'd write about my other favourite subject right now: food.

So here are the two recipes I'd make if you were popping over for a quick Sunday night dinner. Strangely these were the two things I did actually make today; the former for our dinner, the later to bring to playgroup.

Pasta with Chorizo Seafood Tomato Sauce

500g packet of curly fettucine (or pasta of choice)
Big dash of olive oil
500g green medium prawns, peeled and deveined
400g firm fish fillets (I used red snapper), cut into 3cm cubes
2 chorizo sausages medium diced
1 clove garlic finely chopped
6-8 tomatoes peeled and chopped or 2 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes or combination of both
1 large mushroom or 4-6 button mushrooms finely sliced
Dash of GOOD balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon dried Italian herbs
3/4 cup vegetable stock or water
Zest of 1 small lemon

Cook pasta and set aside.
In a large pot (I use pasta pot) heat oil and add garlic and chorizo. Cook on low-medium heat for a couple of minutes. Turn up heat to medium and keep stirring. Add mushrooms.
Cook until chorizo is becoming crispy and mushrooms have cooked down. Be careful that garlic doesn't burn.
Add tomato, stock, vinegar, herbs and cook for 10 minutes or so, until the sauce thickens and tomato cooks down.
Add prawns and fish, mix through the sauce and simmer for about 5 minutes. Be careful not to overcook.
Once prawns turn pink and curl it's ready. Mix the lemon zest through sauce. Then the cooked pasta. Keep on the heat for a minute or two.
Serve with a sprinkle of parsley or coriander.

Chocolate Orange Tart

1 quantity Almond Shortcrust Pastry (I use the Thermomix - doh! - recipe)
125g Philly Cream Cheese, softened
300ml Thickened Cream
120g Chocolate (I used good quality dark chocolate)
2 Tablespoon Caster Sugar
2 large Free Range Eggs
1 teaspoon Vanilla essence
Zest of 1 Orange
Optional: Pear Jam or Marmalade

Roll out pastry and line an oiled tart tin (20-22cm).
Place baking paper on the pastry and fill with baking beads (??) for blind baking.
Bake at 200deg for 10 minutes. Remove beads and paper. Bake for a further 10 minutes.
Turn oven down to 170 deg.
While the pastry is baking make filling.
Melt Chocolate in the microwave - in 30 second bursts at 80% power.
When chocolate is melted whisk through sugar until smooth.
Add soft cream cheese and whisk until smooth.
Add cream, eggs, zest and vanilla and whisk until smooth.
At this point I spread the pear jam in a thin layer over the base of the tart, then pour in the chocolate mixture. If you're not using the jam just pour in the filling.
Don't over fill. You need a couple of millimeters of visible crust at the edge.
Bake for about 25-35 minutes. You want it to be set but not dry or cracked, it should still look a little wobbly in the centre. Remove from the oven and leave to cool, then chill.
If I have leftover filling I bake in oiled patty tins or muffin tins. It's yummy.

There you go. I hope you enjoyed dinner.

If you give these recipes a whirl let me know how they turn out. The tart is a bit fiddly but I love the Jaffa flavours. The pasta is a real winner, those flavours really zing along.

Bon appetit.

Moving forward

It's easy in the day to day organised chaos of our lives to overlook the small things. I'm very guilty of this. We're so busy getting through each day, ticking the multitude of tasks off our mental lists, rushing from A to B and back again, that sometimes we don't even SEE each other anymore.

So it's beautiful when something stops me in my tracks and forces me to focus on my children and see them clearly.

I had such a day last week. Nothing special....an ordinary day. When we got into the car that morning Marianna got in, did up her own seat belt and closed the car door. She's never done that before. It gave me a little jolt; she's growing up. Of course she's growing up but I'm usually too busy to notice. It's so easy to fall into the trap of racing through each day, reacting to the negatives (with my own negatives), putting out the grass fires, meeting my family's daily needs but not really connecting.

The small act of doing up her own seatbelt made me look at my daughter, think about her as the little person she is and who she is becoming. She might drive me to drink most days but she is so bright, so feisty, so brave. She is no pushover and hopefully never will be. She is a little firecracker who will go so very far if she learns to harness her emotions.

That same day Will told me he wanted a mohawk. My instant (unsaid) reaction was "no way". ... and then I remembered who I used to be and what I used to dream about my own future and the biggest wave of pride flooded through me. My baby boy, my fragile, vulnerable boy, who I spent so long worrying about...would he ever walk, would he ever talk... is bravely and confidently facing high school next year and wanting a mohawk.

Before our eyes he is discovering who he is, developing a mind of his own, separating from us, becoming his own person. It is scary for me, there's no doubt about that that. But there's also a huge sense of pride and gratitude and relief. How far he's come!

Almost thirty years ago I dreamed about my very own punk baby and now I have one, sort of. Mohawks are hum drum these days, more Becks than Sid Vicious. But that's ok, it's not the haircut that's the real point. It's what his request represents.

Above all else a parent's job is to help their children become independent in the world, to find themselves and their place. Last week I had a few glimpses of my children's progress along the long and difficult road to adulthood. I don't know what the future holds but I'm filled with optimism and hope and a terrifying amount of love for the little people whose lives have been entrusted to my dubious care.

Today seat belts and mohawks, tomorrow the world.

Conceit

A moment of total conceit last week when the Chili Peppers released their first single from the upcoming new album. It's called (the single that is) The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie.

What's the first thought that pops into my mind? They must have got that idea from my blog. Because I'm sure there's nothing better that Flea, Anthony, Chad and the new guy like doing but making a cuppa and sitting down to read the inane, bordering on insane, musings of yours truly.

I can see the scene now... a song writing session... Anthony bursts in fresh from a yoga session with his current 18 year old girlfriend... Flea is picking out a new rift on his bass.

A: "I have the perfect song for that little bass line..."

F: "Really? Dazzle me, my friend in all things funkadelic..."

A: "Well you know that blog we all read and love...?"

F: "Of course, The Adventures of Deep Kick Girl Down Under... Love it, man... wonder why she hasn't written much lately. Really loved that New York stuff..."

A: "You know I think that's the chick I met when we toured Oz in the early 90s. The one with our asterisk tattooed on her boob. Your were off doing an interview so you didn't get to meet her, dude. She was a hot chick, man [hey, this is my fantasy, alright!]. Too bad I only like underage stick insects..."

F: "Yeah, OK, dude... get on with it... what's the song idea?"

A: "You know the name of her blog... The Adventures of... well we can't use that name ... copyright reasons, etc... but what if we had a song called The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie? Sort of a hommage to our mutual love of DKG's blog... What do you think?"

F: "Love it, man... Let's get down to work..."

If that's not enough "proof"... how about this line from the song:

"Tugboat Sheila is into memorabilia"

Sheila obviously refers to an Australian girl. That's me, I'm an Australian girl.

The rest of the song is funky nonsense, great tune but can't decipher much meaning from the lyrics. However, a new album means a new tour so there's a huge something to look forward to.

Anyway, what do you think? Am I totally nuts or am I so right it's scary?

Bring on the Nanny State

It looks like the anti-smoking pendulum has swung to it's highest extremity (short of a total ban) so the government do-gooders are turning their attention to the next batch of nasties: alcohol, gambling and fast food.

Why stop there I ask you. Do you have any idea how many potentially dangerous activities there are which have no government warnings whatsoever? A myriad of potentially lethal and/or cancer and/or heart disease inducing tasks any one of us could innocently engage in at any time without realising the possible consequences.

So I've come up with some warnings which in my opinion are long overdue:

1) DO NOT have a nap in the middle of this road, you may get run over by a truck or Bob Brown on a bicycle.

2) DO NOT tell your friends about how well your new diet is working for you. Quite possibly this diet will soon be found to be potentially harmful to your health. More than likely your friends will want to stick a fork in your eye which could also be bad for your health. [Guilty on all counts, officer.]

3) DO NOT have a job which requires you to sit at a desk for many hours at a time in front of a PC. You will develop an insatiable desire for milky coffee sucked through a Tim Tam "straw" and the need to check Facebook every 10 minutes; the former is bad for your waistline, the later bad for your employment status.

4) DO NOT have a job which requiers you to do any standing, bending, lifting, moving, using any sort of electrical or non-electrical equipment and/or interacting with other humans; all these things have been found to be dangerous to your health.

5) DO NOT have children and/or spend time anywhere near children; it hasn't YET been proven that they directly cause cancer but they really fuck up your mental health and self esteem.

6) DO NOT watch MasterChef; the corny and completely over the top production style and pathetically stomach churning use of celebrity chefs will cause you to scream obscenities at the tv and fight an overwhelming urge to throw a heavy object at the screen (the former could result in a brain anurism, the later in putting your back out - you have been warned).

7) DO NOT eat or drink ANYTHING. At all. Ever. All food and drink can cause you any number of health problems. It is impossible to tell what is the right amount of any type of food or drink. Apart from making your body sick eating and drinking will also drive you mad as every day a different report appears claiming eating pasta is good, tomorrow it's bad; today salt is good, tomorrow it will be bad; red wine will stop you getting heart disease but it will increase your chances of cancer. So best to avoid it altogether, much easier that way.

8) DO NOT breathe (just to be on the safe side). Air contains lots of bad stuff, pollution, particles of possibly cancer causing materials which haven't been identified yet, farts which will melt the hairs in your nostrils.

I'm no fan of smoking (had a few puffs around the age of 13 but haven't touched the stinky stuff since). I don't drink apart from an occasional glass (or three) of Bella or a cocktail with an umbrella in it while on holidays. I don't gamble apart from a few sweeps tickets for the Melbourne Cup and the odd MultiPick card for the big Lotto draws. But I overwhelmingly resent the creeping Nanny State we are living in. Laws and regulations are aimed at the lowest common denomenator and it is quite simply an insult to our intelligence.

I especially hate the two faced governmental approach; we are happy to take your taxes you smokers, drinkers and gamblers, but we're going to treat you ALL as pathological, rather than accept the reality that only a small number of people have a problem with these habits that seriously effect their lives or health.

Stay out of our lives beaurocrats and "researchers". Life is dangerous, it's risky, it's there to be lived and enjoyed and suffered through; it's not a risk assesment task to be "managed" and controlled.

As you were.

Movie Review: Bridesmaids

Everybody is loving Bridesmaids and I wanted to love it too. I was out with mums from school, a rare week night outing, a chick flick...it felt so right. The woman sitting next to me (not a school mum) was laughing constantly and hysterically, making me laugh along; often I would stop mid-laugh realizing I was laughing because of my neighbour not because anything genuinely funny was going on.

Sorry, let's backtrack. The opening scene featured my favorite Blondie song "Rip Her To Shreds" and I felt I was going where I wanted to go with this movie. But I wasn't. Don't get me wrong it was OK, a big solid OK, but nothing more. I hate it when I see the potential of a film but the script just doesn't allow the story to be everything it could be.

And another thing, why two hours? Unless a film features hobbits, boy wizards and/or creatures from the planet Pandora there is no reason why they need to exceed 90 minutes, 100 minutes tops. There is nothing you need to tell me about the hilarious goings on of a bunch of bridesmaids that fills up 125 minutes.

While I love Maya Rudolph I found Kristen Wiig slightly annoying. Sure there were a lot of bang on moments but there were a hell of a lot of ho hum moments. I especially struggled with the relationship between Annie and sweet Officer Nathan Rhodes. Just didn't sit well with me, again I blame poor writing.

I'm also probably reaching the end of my tether with bodily function gags; the shock horror disgust factor is starting to wear a little thin. Enough already.

Bottom line: Bridesmaids is reasonable entertainment with potential to be much more so. Unlike a Snickers bar it just didn't satisfy.

Realisation

I've had a moment of clarity today. My life is no longer "Say Anything" or "Sixteen Candles" or "The Breakfast Club" or even "Reality Bites". It's much more in the neighbourhood of say "Ordinary People" or "Steel Magnolias" and heading towards "Cocoon" and "Driving Miss Daisy".

Hmmm....

New York Picture 14: WTC Site

New York Picture 13: The Big Day - Part 3

New York Picture 12: The Big Day - Part 2

New York Picture 12: The Big Day - Part 1