Field Grey - much the same ambience as it's name

Field Gray by Philip Kerr

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This is the latest in the Bernie Gunther series, which for most people started with the Berlin Noir trilogy. I have been increasingly disappointed with the series and this latest is no exception. Starting in 1954, it switches back and forth between the 30s, 40s and 50s, leaving it feeling a bit disjointed and haphazard. It got somewhat confusing, and I found that I had to keep rereading sections in order to make sense of them. It also seemed to run out of steam, which it shares with the series as a whole.

If you're a Bernie Gunther fan you'll read it, but it's not nearly as enjoyable as the earlier books, which I had read and reread many times in the 20 or so years since I first came across them.



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The Gentle Art of Procrastinating at Work & What I Did On My Holidays

Well, hello blog, I've been away for a bit. And overseas for a bit of that bit. And we've moved house, and a few other things.

But I'm here now. And back at work, completing the advance module of How To Procrastinate at Work Without Really Trying. This has been made somewhat easier through the wisdom and good sense of office management, who have given all of us iPhones. Now I can procrastinate not just on parenting forums and Facebook, but also on Twitter and the political posts of Facebook, both of which were previously blocked by the internet filter at work. Not to mention Angry Bird, PvZ and numerous card games. Oh, and I can buy lotto tickets from the privacy of my own desk. That's got to be an advantage.

Other things that make procrastinating at work easy are having management that put you in the slow lane because you work part time. Before I left for Ireland, it wasn't so much the slow lane as the carpark, with a large yellow clamp on the metaphorical front right wheel. Seriously, for weeks I had nothing much to do. If I weren't such a good procrastinator, it would have done my head in completely, as opposed to only a small amount.

And now I'm back. So the slow lane has revved up a bit. It could more accurately be described as being stuck behind a learner in Centennial Park, Sydney. Except they don't allow learners in Centennial Park any more. But at least it's moving.

The trip to Ireland was great. Worst summer in 50 years, mind you, although they're having an Indian summer now. Thank you, weather gods. Cold and rainy while I was there, and cold and rainy now I'm back in Sydney. Cheers.

So to answer the second part of the title, what DID I do on my holidays? I slept. I read decent papers. I spent possibly more time than I would have liked in the country, and less time that I would have liked in Dublin. I ate a lot of bacon and cabbage. I bought clothes and shoes. I spent time with the family of Himself, and watched the Small Child have fun with her cousins and her grandparents. She was particularly enamoured of Deux, her French cousin a year older than her. Immediately after meeting him, they set up a complicated game involving the Small Child as a traffic light yelling variously "Rouge! Vert! Orange!" at her cousin, as she stood in the door or stood aside depending on what colour she was while her cousin zoomed around on Trixie Trunki. If nothing else, she's certainly shown she's got what it takes to be a traffic cop. In a foreign language.

We went to Dublin Zoo where Auntie Ha-Ha  anthropomorphised all the animals and I mentioned how venomous/human eating/viscious they all were, and privately compared it, unfavourably, to Taronga. I finally went to the Brazen Head pub in Dublin, after years of decrying it as a tourist trap, and was pleasantly surprised to find this was not neccessarily the case, despite the large numbers of Americans in trainers tucking into Irish Stew and Germans with backpacks sitting on a single glass of Guinness for the entire night.

I managed to get sunburnt twice, nothing short of a miracle given that we only had three days of sunshine. I ate my bodyweight in cod and chips, comparing them, favourably, with the inferior product generally found in Australia. I met up with my mates. I wondered, not for the first time, whether it really was the best thing to move back to Australia. Not for the first time, I failed to come up with a satisfactory response to the question.

But best of all, Dublin won the Senior Football All-Ireland Football Championship for the first time since 1995.  And how sweet a victory it was.

But Mum.....

I have been trying, with limited success, to persuade the Small Child to wear her pyjamas in bed. She's had a persistent cough and this is one of the few things I can think of that might help get rid of it.

So I tell her that pjs, must perforce be worn in bed in winter, to get rid of the cough.

Two innocent big blue eyes look up at me earnestly as she says

"but I like my cough mum".

My poor ma

We're in the process of moving up to mum's place, probably for about a year, while we get the new house built. If it ever gets built. The housing company we are using obviously skipped "Communicating With Clients 101"as they have been remarkably tardy about letting us know what is happening, and when we can expect work to commence. This is the same company that delayed the start by 4 months after the previous consultant managed to ignore a basic piece of legislation which lead to a modification to development consent having to be lodged. Thanks, thanks very much indeed.

But I digress. Yesterday, we were moving stuff up to mums and rearranging her stuff so that there was enough room for us all. Having had lunch, we were sitting down having a rest before cleaning out yet more wardrobes. The Small Child wanted to go downstairs to the rumpus room. None of the three adults were especially motivated to want to go with her. 

The bottom lip starts quivering "But I can't go down by myself! I have to have a parent with me!"

Himself asks hopefully if it might be possible to take a grandparent. 

"NO! It has to be a parent!!"

By this point, mum was heading for beet colour, as she tried, to keep the snort of laughter inside. She failed. 

My poor ma.

Just another of those days....

It's been cold and rainy. So very, very rainy. There is a leak through one of the ceiling lights, so we won't be turning on that for a while. Although, in fairness, we have only two weeks left in this house. And if it burnt down, it would probably be quicker than getting the demolition crew in. Not that I'm advocating arson, or anything.

The Small Child is still awake. She has inherited the Irish propensity for staying awake late, exemplified by her paternal Granny, whose family are known for visiting each other at midnight, on occasion. The mind boggles.  She's currently sitting up in bed reading books to two of her plush friends, pretending to be her French teacher.

A friend of Himself and other friends, the blogger and journalist Hossam El-Hamalawy, is being hauled before a military tribunal in Egypt for criticising the on-going torture of activists. Unfortunately, while Mubarrak has gone, the military is still very much in evidence.

I have to get a new passport. This involves getting photographs, that hopefully do not make me look like a deranged axe murderer only recently released from maximum security. I am not hopeful. They are for the British passport, and all my British passport photos have that one overriding theme, regardless of continent of origin or year of photo.

Did I mention the rain? 

And Fuck You, Chuck.

Word reached the Australian public last night that the BBC and Clarence House combined forces to tell the ABC that The Chaser was not welcome to use any of the BBC footage of the royal wedding and that if the ABC were not minded to agree, it wouldn't get any footage, full stop, which would leave it with 4 hours of static on a Friday night a a lot of disgtruntled viewers. Not, mind you, that this decision has made viewers gruntled, far from it. Many people, myself included were only ever going to watch the wedding through the commentary of The Chaser, just as football haters only ever watched the Grand Final for the wit and wisdom of Roy & HG. And to add insult to injury, it is highly unlikely that the Palace even knows the who, what or why of The Chaser.

But it has been determined that the fawning and forelock-tugging of the great event cannot be overshadowed in a sparsely populated country on the other side of the world by a bunch of middle age, middle class men making mild jokes about Prince Phillip's propensity for giving offence every time he opens his mouth and how long it has taken respective royal brides to walk down the aisle. Given that an English bookmaker is giving free bets to punters as to how long William will be left waiting by Kate, I fail to see what the offence would have been.

It's all becoming too drearily reminiscent of the night of Diana's funeral, in the days before Foxtel, when every channel was showing the funeral live, with the exception of SBS, who chose to commemorate the occasion with a documentary on landmines. It was always unclear to me whether this was intended to reference Diana herself, and her "work" attempting to eradicate landmines, or Dodi Al-Fayed, whose father made a great deal of money selling them to combatants in various warzones across the globe.

So there it is. But at least we can be glad that in this internet world we now live in, there are options other than sitting in front of the TV, bored witless and feeling a faint nausea, akin to having overindulged in a box of Cadbury Roses.  And we can quietly salute Brian O'Driscoll, Captain of the Leinster rugby team, who has decided that a training session with the team, in preparation for Saturday night's semi-final against Toulouse in the Heineken Cup, is more important.

As indeed it is.

This could be a disaster!

The other day we were at mum's place. It was a cold, wet and windy day with such low cloud that you couldn't see the far side of the water.

The Small Child was playing something with her dolls. She looked out at the weather and exclaimed "Oh, no! It's dark and cloudy! We can't see the water! This could be a disaster!"

She'll be a lawyer yet...

The Small Child likes bouncing on our bed. We don't mind this (the bed is old and fast approaching its retirement). The other day I heard the the Small Child bouncing, checked, and realised that she was not holding on to the bedhead like we tell her to.

So I yell "If you're going to bounce, make sure you're holding on!"

Two minutes later I look out and say "Didn't I tell tell you to hold on?"

And the reply? "But I am holding on Mum! I'm holding onto Puppy!"

There's a fine grasp of semantics there. Like I said, I think she's going to be a lawyer.

Autumn

It is a fine and sunny autumn day today. Autumn days have a luminosity about them denied to other sunny days. On summer days,  the sun is harsh and abrasive and the heat comes not only from the sun, but the earth and the buildings and the road, suffocating waves from all directions,  and the intensity must be endured, rather than enjoyed.

But autumn is different - the land has cooled, buildings hold no fiery malice, the sun is allowed to take centre stage.

Today is such a day. To my right, a spider is busy repairing a small hold in a web that must be two feet across.  High up in the she-oaks and the cypress pine, I can see many more such webs, built by spiders more daring or clever than my small pet.  The  scent of Murraya drifts across with the sounds of a king parrot and chattering lorikeets. A skink darts into a hole on the verandah after an ant, while more of that creature's compatriots march in an unvarying line up the side of the verandah post. A soft breeze cuts the edge of the heat.

There is a laziness about the day, enhanced by suburban sounds, a distant lawnmower, the sea plane heading towards Broken Bay, the rrrsh, rrrsh of leaves  being swept on a concrete path, laughter from a distant party.

Soon we will lose the sun through the hills that surround this little valley, but for now it is a benediction, reward for the survival of summer.

Of Birthdays and other happenings

It was the Small Child's birthday this week, including a birthday party at a local playcentre, attended by a number of her closest friends. The cake has been well publicised in other forums, sufficient to say  that is was very impressive. But pride cometh before a fall. The cupcakes I made for daycare last night, although delicious, had a decidedly rustic and lopsided  air about them.

From her party, however, she received her first Barbie Doll (narrowly pipping her adoring parents to the punch) and various other assorted items guaranteed to gladden the heart of the four year old. One of the presents was a small pink electronic hamster which whizzes around the place squeaking a variety of noises, some realistic, and some very much from the realm of fantasy (hamster Greensleeves, anyone?)

It appears to be somewhat more intelligent than its real live counterparts, although it had attempted to shag Himself's toes a few times as well as the Small Child's foot. Better still, it does not require either food or a kitty litter and can be shut up when required. Pretty much the perfect pet, really.

The actual birthday was today. From her adoring parents, the Small Child received another Barbie Doll, Snakes & Ladders, a watch and various other items. The Snakes & Ladders has been a particular hit, with the Small Child appearing to have a winning streak in inverse proportion to her size. I confess, it is a humbling experience to be beaten by a four year old. The rules of the games were somewhat confusing at first, with the Small Child insistent that she had rolled a three because that was where the dice had landed, rather than, say, a five, which was what the dice showed. She also evinced a desire halfway through any game to change tokens, so that every colour got an equal go.

Bless.

Small Child in Bed

One of the peculiar joys of going into the Small Child's bedroom of a night to check she's OK is seeing just what exactly she had chosen to wear. While you may very well put her to bed wearing orthodox pj's/nightie/knickers, if she can't sleep and gets hot, cold or bored, you can bet she'll be wearing something different when you check her a few hours later.

Last night she wanted to sleep "just in knickers, mum". I checked on her later, and lo and behold, she's in a pair of pyjamas. Other nights she'll start off in pyjamas and end up in a skirt and t-shirt. Or her nightie. Or a fleece, in the middle of summer.

One particularly funny night I heard a plaintive voice calling "mummy, I need help".  Turns out she had decided that leggings and a zipper jacket, with nothing underneath were the thing to wear that night. Except that the zipper on the jacket had got caught, and then split, and she could get neither wholly into it, or wholly out of it. To add to the humor, the jacket was purple, with sequins. She looked just like a mini glam rocker after a hard night, only minus the booze and fags.

Damn I wish I'd got a photo.

Big enormous bed

The Small Child is going through another stage of not really liking her bed. Tonight she followed me into our room, which currently has a pink duvet cover and where she pointed out that after she had another bad dream she would come in here and get into the beautiful enormous bed with the lovely big pillows.... because girls like pink beds, mum!

Err, right you are then, Ted!

Small Child World

The Small Child has been talking a lot about different worlds recently. There is the general one, Small Child World, and then there are others, depending on how she is feeling on any particular day. On Friday it was Small Child & Mummy World because we had adventures in the park. Another day it was decided that "today is going to be Tomorrow World". We've had Best Friends World, and, this afternoon, Pikelet World, in honour of the rather delicious pikelets we made for dessert.

And for posterity, here is the recipe, courtesy of The Guardian circa 2003.

250 grams SR Flour
100 grams castor sugar
2 eggs
125 mls natural yoghurt
250mls milk

Sift dry ingredients into a bowl. Whisk wet ingredients in another bowl until well combined. Make a well in the dry ingredients, poor in the wet ingredients and amalgamate well. Heat frypan,  put in a small amount of neutral oil and poor in appropriately pikelet sized amounts of batter. Turn when bubbles appear on surface, repeat process until all batter used,  then serve with jam and cream.

Elections

Had a (very) brief frisson of excitement today when I realised that there are actually four candidates in our electorate in the upcoming NSW elections. This electorate is generally boring, what with being the safest Liberal seat in the state and all. The ABC says it requires a 29.8% swing to unseat the Liberal Party

Unforntunately, the additional candidate is none other than a member of the Christian Democrats, Fred Nile's bunch, who are to the far right of Hitler, only religious. Funnily enough, it's not going to sway my vote.

Faithful Place

Am currently reading Faithful Place by Tana French.  It's another murder mystery, set in The Liberties in Dublin. I'm quite enjoying it, despite the problem I've had with this and the previous book The Likeness, which is that Dublin is fundamentally too small for the events to really occur. In The Likeness, we are asked to suspend our disbelief that there could be two identical women, unrelated, wandering around Dublin for years, and no one ever twigs, allowing the protagonist, an undercover cop, to assume the identity of a woman who looks exactly like her.

It's not going to happen. Dublin is a small city, where if you don't know someone, it's a fair call to say that you know of them, or you know someone that knows them. Six degrees of separation isn't in it, it's more like two, maybe three degrees at best. Put it this way, the very first day, of my very first job in Ireland, I discover that Himself had been to school, same year etc, as the boyfriend of the woman I sat next to. That's the kind of place Ireland is.  So the basic premise of The Likeness, or that of Faithful Place, in which the protagonist cuts ties with his family and never sees them, despite living maybe a mile away, on the same side of the Liffey, doesn't really wash. They would have been more successful had they been set in a larger, more disparate city, such as London, or Sydney.

But they're still well written, with an ear for dialogue, and so very much better than the psychopath-serial killer-murdering-young-blonde-professional-women that seems to be the hallmark of so much American crime fiction recently!

Gems

This afternoon, when I went to pick the small child up from creche:

SC- I'm boring.

BFF - I'm boring too.

This morning, Himself told me that last night in bed the Small Child while totally asleep kept running her fingers over his stubble and saying "I'm here! I'm here!"

Rainy Day

Well, actually it's been more of a rainy weekend, so we didn't get to picnic with the Small Child's BFF and the roof has sprung another leak in the bedroom. We've had several different varieties of rain these last few days, from tropical style rain so dense we can't see the far side of the park, to the current variety, a fine penetrating Irish style drizzle that looks innocuous until you come in 5 minutes later to realise you're soaked to the skin.  Even the brush turkeys are looking bedraggled and even more desponded than usual.

The Small Child has been in fine form, the other day she told Himself that "you have a lovely furry chest daddy, just like Hairy Maclary." She's a fine turn of phrase, so she has.  At the moment she's playing an  game involving herself as Dora, Himself as Swiper the Fox, and one of her friends as Boots. Thankfully for the sanity of all involved, it's not Strawberry Goat.

Out in the wider world, NSW Labor are heading for a pasting in 6 days time. Earth Hour is on the same night. They must be fecking joking if they think I'm going to turn off my TV for an hour during what promises to be a very amusing election night count. Apart from anything else, I could have every light on in our house for a week and not come close to the electricity consumption of some of the monster mansions along Middle Harbour in one night.

Lord, Lord, Lord I'm so bored.

Pretty much as the title says really. I've an hour to go before I pack up for the weekend, and I'm over it. The high from the elections is dissapating, and while the Irish walloping the Poms in cricket is good, it's not matching the elections for sheer joie de vivre and excitement. Not even close.

The office is freezing, as per usual. I've got Beyoncé's "Halo" going though my mind, and  it's giving me big irritations. REALLY big irritations. Just on that topic, I never realised until now just how gob-smackingly ugly that name actually is. It's really, really bad. It think it's the emphasis on "yonce" in the middle. As a friend once quipped about the Fianna Fáil politician Royston Brady "sounds like something he'd do to you", so it proves with Ms Knowles.

However, having just tried to open the Fianna Fáil homepage in order to copy and paste those pesky fothars, I have discovered that at least my esteemed employer is an equal opportunities politics-prohibitor. Yet another of the multitude of irritating things recently is the fact that all the political sites I frequent, including, bizarrely, Counterpunch, are blocked by the internet filter. I might add that this also includes Hossam El-Hamalwy's blog 3arabawy. It makes the lunchtime reading of Facebook a very frustrating experience.

However, at least it includes the right wing. This is definite, albeit fleeting, satisfaction. And I am heartened by Eamonn McCann's latest article about cuts to the Health Service in Northern Ireland. He quotes a phrase from Nye Bevin "Tories are Vermin". So pithy, so pointed, so true.

And now I've only another half an hour before I can depart. Now that is good news.

We won. Oh yes indeed, we did.

Richard has finally been elected after the Labour Party demanded a recount. Serve them right. He's done a lot of work in the locality over a long time and Ivana Bacik was a blow-in aimed, I suspect, at ensuring that the ULA did not get the seat. It backfired. FF's Mary Hanafin is declaring that "politics is in her blood" and bemoaning the fact that there was only 1 Dublin TD, no women, and only 18 so far overall. They've dropped from 77 deputies elected in 2007 to 71 in January 2011, to 18 now.

Which means that the ULA now has almost one third the seats of FF. A decade ago, who would have thought that could come to pass?

All 6 Greens lost their seats. They reckon they can come back. I wouldn't be so sure, myself, not after legitimising the fiasco economics played out by FF is the last few years. And SF have 14 seats.

But most importantly, we won five seats, with Richard Boyd-Barrett, Joe Higgins, Clare Daly, Joan Collins and Seamus Healy all winning seats. This means that there will be a strong, focussed and principled left wing opposition in the Dáil, and will ensure that what I think will be the inevitable slide to the right by SF will be checked. It will also be a thorn in the side of what will not doubt be a cosy alliance between FG and Labour, which is good.

So here it goes!

Election Day - Vote 1 ULA!

It's election day in Ireland today. The Sydney Morning Herald has run the photo beloved of the international press, of an unidentified islander somewhere off the west coast, lugging a ballot box with a member of the Garda Síochána. The islanders always get to vote early due, to the unpredictability of the weather and the inherent isolation of living on a very small island off a slightly larger island in the Atlantic. This is a quaint notion to many less isolated countries. 


Fianna Fáil, the dominant party for the last decade will be going down in flames, as those responsible for the fiscal irresponsibility that has put Ireland in the state it's in. There are a number of parallels that can be drawn between them and NSW Labor, nepotism, cronyism,  incompetence and much the same ethics. 


The Greens, who supported FF through the last few years, after the good times went and the bank bailouts began, will be done like a dogs dinner, and will in future have much the same relevance. It's said that to sup with the devil you need a long spoon. The Greens appear to have been using a teaspoon. They'd have been better off with the worlds biggest parfait spoon. 


Mine you, Fine Gael won't be much better, and alas, they will be the next party in power. Enda Kenny is a sanctimonious ex-teacher who hails from Mayo. Many wish he'd stayed there, not least those of us appalled by his "joke" about Patrice Lumumba, the first president of the Congo who was subsequently assassinated. Lumumba's relative live in Dublin, so not only was it crass, it was stupid as well. 


Still, that's the kind of person he is.


The ULA should do well. I'm not going to jinx it, but we should get at the very least two, hopefully three seats and the potential for a few more. It won't stop the IMF 'bailout', but it will ensure that ethics and honestly have a place in the Dáil that has been vacant for far too long. 


But now I will digress into the lovely topic of Irish political party names. Labour,  the Greens, meh. The late, but certainly unlamented Progressive Democrats had an American style name to match their ruthlessly American Republican style politics. All the left wing parties have decent workaday names that tell their politics, Socialist Party, Socialist Workers Party, People before Profit, United Left Alliance.


But the three parties that have their names in Irish, now THOSE are names! Fianna Fáil's name in English is "Soldiers of Destiny". They have their destiny all right, but I suspect it will be more soldering the remnant pieces back together, than the mighty army soldiering on. Plus I'm looking forward to the inevitable headlines over the weekend proclaiming Fianna FAIL! It's great the difference a fothar can make. 


Fine Gael's name means "Tribe of the Gaels". Well, they certainly are a tribe all right, despite the fact that in the 21st century they prefer to present a somewhat more sophisticated face to the world. Turn them upside down though, and you'll still see the mud on their wellies. 


And finally, Sinn Féin, Irish for we ourselves, or ourselves alone. Which they have been in Irish politics for a long time, sensibly keeping a distance from the centre right. However, as the North has shown, it won't be long before they're cosying up in positions of power. 


It promises to be interesting.

Sheep are smarter that previously thought.

Sheep are Smart!

This brilliant little article gives the lie to those who claim sheep are dull, witless creatures, the four legged equivalent of the goldfish.

I feel vindicated.

Flabbergasted

This is a meme I did for a good friend of mine following something very funny she wrote last year. It's one of those happy examples of a time when a phrase and a picture just find themselves in beautiful harmony.

In other not so notable news, the Small Child was sick on Saturday. Thankfully, it was one of those 12 hour bugs and did not involve much in the way of copious amounts of vomitting, for which I am exceedingly grateful. Memories of the The Great Giardia Explosion of 2009 are still fresh in my mind, when the Small Child was much smaller and not of a sufficiently mature grasp of linguistics to be able to tell me she had a funny metalic taste in her mouth, which I gather is one of the principal methods of diagnosing the bug.

Alas, we had to do it the long way, which involved copious amounts of chuck, poo samples, a scarily limp and lethargic child and numerous trips to the GP/hospital/paediatrician, all in a two week period before we left to go to Ireland on our first trip back since we left in October 2006. I honestly never thought we'd make it. It didn't help that Himself was working for an utter dickhead of the I-employ-you-so-your-soul-belongs-to-me species, and working long, long hours.

We're still not entirely sure what caused the bug. Himself suspects it was dodgy blueberries, this being the first item heralding its arrival, and I am inclined to agree with him. The Small Child resolutely refuses to buy this in any way, shape or form, and chucks tanties when she sees what she currently can't have.

Oh, well, maybe tonight, when I purchase some fresh ones.

On Architecture

So much architecture is soul destroying. For me, Meriton is a prime example of this - buildings built to minimum standards, poorly designed and constructed, sapping the life of those living in and around them. Far too many buildings in Sydney are like this, boring, bland, identikit, saying nothing of the city in which they are constructed, indistinguishable from similar buildings half a world away.

Then there are other buildings, which are  inspiring, life affirming, buildings that speak of the time and place in which they were built, buildings that spark a sense of wonderment and awe, that make us marvel at  the genius of those who both created the vision and those who, more prosaically, put a physical form to the concept.

The Sydney Opera house and Harbour Bridge are two of the most internationally recognised of these. The Millau Viaduct for me, is another, the highest bridge in the world and a spectacular example of how beautiful a structure can be when it seamlessly combines both form and function.

And then there are the buildings that the world forgot, or has never even known about. I'm reading at the moment a book on the lost architecture of the Soviet Union - buildings that were commissioned and built in the last 20 years before the Wall came down and the Second World disappeared for ever. Frederic Chaubin photographed dozens of these buildings, forgotten and decaying on the edges of the old USSR and collated them in a book.

It is awe inspiring. At a time when the conventional image of the Eastern Bloc were of grey crumbling concrete buildings, leaching hope and individuality with last winters snow, the architects of these incredible structures were being given free reign. These men and women are getting old now, living in unjustified obscurity, acclaim being given to those whose imagination would never soar as high. Yes, Harry Seidler, I'm talking to you.

My favourite is that shown above, the Ministry of Highways Building in Tblisi, Georgia which was completed in 1974. The different levels, the way in which it appears to be part of, yet apart from the vegetation around, the juxtaposition of light and shadow, protrusion and recess, the simple fact that it is so utterly unlike anything else around all combine into an awe inspiring building that opens the mind to the possibilities that humans can create.

And this is not a singular example. There are flights of genius like this all over the former USSR.

Every Revolution Needs Sparkle

Egypt is certainly very sparkly at the moment. The fact that the unions have had a defining role, that the dodgier elements of the religious right are not really in evidence, but women are, the feeling that people are discovering their autonomy and are defining themselves and what they what to be. It's all contributing to the sparkle.

So now I'll try to explain bobthekelpie's theory of sparkle.

Not everyone sparkles. Some people are too dull, too ponderous, too lacking in humour, too serious. Sparkle adds levity, of a good sort. Sparkle is charm, lightheartedness, an ability to see the absurd, an ability to laugh at oneself and also at others. Sparkle makes you interested and interesting to others. Sparkle can be quite muted, perhaps a hint amongst the navy blue existence of your life, or it can be full-on glamorous gold and rainbows that would not be out of place in the Mardi Gras. How much you sparkle depends on your own personality.

I think everyone is born with sparkle, but alas, some feel it neccessary to leave behind, like milk teeth, or braces, or that Star Wars collection that was your very most favourite thing ever, aged 11. Babies and toddles sparkle. That's why we (generally) are so fond of them.

Sparkle does not mean that you are a fluffy headed idiot without an idea in your head, not at all. Some of the most sparkly people I know are seriously intellectual revolutionaries.

It's part of joie de vivre, having an interest in life and in the people around you. It's knowing when to be serious and when to let your hair down and just have a laugh.

There are two things that sparkle cannot co-exist with, smugness and ernestness. Coincidentally, these two personality traits have long been sins which bobthekelpie thinks should be deadly sins. OK, the nine deadly sinds doesn't have quite the same ring as the seven deadly sins, but, hey, whatever.

Sparkle does tends to fade when confronted by these, because they have that ability to drag the life out of sparkle, until it is but a wan and pallid form of its previous self. This is why sparkly people do not have too many non-sparkly friends, because loss of sparkle can be contagious.

Conversely, I think that in many circumstances sparkle can be contagious, it just needs the right circumstances and ingredients.

Like the Egyptian revolution.

Beecause the world as a whole needs more sparkle.

People are funny

Took a look at Facebook today, in the allotted 2 hours per day we are permitted in this workplace. I suspect that for many people, Facebook can be a strange out of body experience, with so many sections of one's life all jumbled together like so many odd socks.

My own Facebook page is a fine example of this. Take the world around us. At this point in time Egypt is rising to free itself  from the Mubarak dictatorship, following in the steps of Algeria, Tunisia and Yemen. The Irish goverment, discredited and derisive, are bailing out to the tune of 6-figure pensions, while the average Joe wonders how they can possibly think they are entitled to this and a 30 year old woman dies of hypothermia due to the Council cutting off her heat during the cold snap.

Queensland has faced the most destructive floods in human history, and the clean up is barely started when Cyclone Yasi tracks towards the Cairns coast, with experts predicting the impact will be worse than Cyclone Tracy. The NSW government, heading for annihiliation in 6 weeks time following unprecidented corruption and cronyism and with a legacy that will probably outrun Askin's, still attempts to feather its own nest and rivals that of Ireland in the sheer number of corrupt and absconding politicians.

And Julia Gillard is getting grief because she is proposing an entirely reasonable and logical flood levy, to which the average Australia taxpayer will be expected to contribute somewhat less than a fiver a week, because somehow people seem to think that governments have little pots of gold, constantly replenished, to which the populace should have endless access but never have to contribute to.

It's an interesting time to live. Many friends across the left are posting about these happenings, sharing links and information, educating and informing others in a manner that would not ever have been possible previously.

And then there are my other friends, to whom politics is not so much their lifeblood, but something that happens on the evening news, when they watch it. Their greatest meaning is their children, their families These are friends I love, whose company refreshes me, and whose lives enrich mine. It's good having people around like this, to laugh and joke and be frivolous with, to discuss vital issues of poo and babies, and why they don't eat greens and will only go to sleep with 7 handpicked companions, or just what is the subtle allure of Dora The Explorer.

I love all of my friends. But the juxtasposition of status updates can make Facebook a bizarre place at times.

God the Builder

The Small Child attends a Seventh Day Adventist creche. It's not a religion I know a great deal about, as an atheist, and and atheist moreover who comes from a Catholic background. But I digress. The creche is good and I have no problem with the religion. So far as I'm concerned, people have a lot of differing views, and the sooner you learn to (generally) respect them, so much the better.

But I digress further. So the Small Child is sitting with her small friends, singing a song about "God The Builder". Her Granny watches for a bit, with an expression on her face that the carers no doubt interpret as loving the song, and a better person might interpret as deep cynicism.

In the car later, Granny asks the Small Child what the song was

"God the Builder, Gran. Mummy and me went to a special store and bought the DVD, didn't we mum?"

Err, no.

Enlightenment occurs. The Small Child is mixing up God and Bob, a natural mistake given that both build, but Bob builds better.

Especially in this house, where God builds not at all.

The Cast Has Died

Ok, so that was a really bad pun, probably unworthy of the name. But still, the cast has now left my right foot, and after about an hour in the shower yesterday, more or less successfully removing the accumulated gunk off said foot, it's right to go.

Except it's not. It's still incredibly swollen with a weird little red patch of broken capilliaries in a very prominent position on what used to be my attractive and slender right ankle. Nothing attractive or slender about it now, my boy! It has a 4 inch scar up the back, a host of little black dots caused by ingrown hairs around the entire ankle and calf, against which war will be waged, and the aforementioned capilliaries. I also have a right foot like Barbie's (leaving aside that hers are slim, hairless and brown) and so currently cannot wear flat shoes. This is more problematic that I once might have imagined.

Still it's gone. And it ain't coming back again. No. Oh, no no no. And I'm enjoying the subtle pleasures of being able to stand up in the shower, roll over in bed without a dead weight on my leg and the fact that I no long feel like I am wearing a winter boot in the middle of a hot and humid Sydney summer.

Ah, the heat.

Let me pass now the other issue of note at present. According to the Herald, it is currently 32 degrees, although hotter earlier in the day. This is, however, only the start of an entire week of hot weather that is not predicted to end until Sunday. And it will be humid, so it will be sweltering at night as well. The joy. Those who posit the theory that hell is a furnace have ignored the crucial element of water. Hell should really be described as a humid furnace if maximum torture is required for the masses interred therein.

Goldilocks & the Three Bears - as told by John Donne

The Small Child and I were at Granny's yesterday, this being easier for both of us while my leg is in plaster. Wandering round, she chanced upon an old copy of John Donne's Love Poems, one of those Penguin 60s they were selling in the mid-90s. This, thinks the Small Child, is great little book and she promptly starts "reading" the story of Goldilocks to Granny out of it. Granny lost it a bit, but not wanting the Small Child to see her in stitches, tells her to go read it to mummy.

I suppose I can be glad that it wasn't Alan Clark's Diaries. There's a copy of that floating around somewhere and all.

Hee-re comes the Wagon!

The wanderly, wanderly Wagon! Here comes the Wagon!

No prizes for guessing what we've been watching recently. Yep, that classic of Irish childhood, Wanderly Wagon. The Small Child adores it. Needless to say, Himself, who was reared on it, does too. I suspect that Uncle Skinny, who gave it to the Small Child, had his big bro in mind when he bought it. I must say, it's even grown on me.

Vintage 1970s, it has sets similar to the wobbly ones beloved of Doctor Who. There is cutting edge 70s computer technology, and a bunch of puppets, of whom Sneaky Snake (or Snicky Snek, as the Small Child used to call him) is the household favourite.

And it has Frank Kelly, aka Father Jack. Apparently he ad-libbed the majority of his lines in the show. This led to such memorable lines as "Doctor Who? Nein, Doctor Who ist BBC! Dr Astro ist RTE!"

But possibly the item I love most in this show is Dr Astro's time travel machine, which runs on runny custard. Blue runny custard, topped up with popcorn. A triumph of the clearance sales in whichever was the closest department store to Donnybrook, I recently counted the following components:

A tea strainer
A number of wooden spoons
A wire frame milk bottle holder with milk bottle and dial showing how many bottle were required the following day
Quite a number of vegetable peelers
An equal amount of spoons
A collection of orange glass canisters and bowls, all self illuminated via standard electric globes
A vegetable basket
A cutlery holder
A funnel
A lot of pegs
A dustpan brush
A wine rack

Truly, they don't make TV like that any more.

Then Dora went exploring

The Small Child has now decided that her name is Dora, after she went exploring with Himself yesterday, which included a crossing of the Harbour Bridge. Granny raised her eyebrows at this last one, having been reliably informed that the expedition only went as far as South Mona Vale headland. Which it did. The Harbour Bridge in question is a small wooden structure over a little ravine. But it was all very exciting.

She has also, for some reason, decided that she must sleep with all her tights in the bed. Being hampered by the cast, I cannot magic them back into the appropriate drawer when she is asleep. There is also a torch. I discovered the torch when I sprung the Small Child going into our bedroom with it lit. The Good Lord Above only knows where she got it from. But torch is now back with mummy torch on the top shelf of the press, having had a wonderful holiday.

Loving the Lemur

King Julien, that is. From The Penguins of Madagascar, a children's show based on the movie Madagascar. Not that I've seem the movie or anything. But I'm growing quite fond of the TV show.

The small child adores it. She is having Penguin obsession right, left and centre. All other shows are foresaken for the opportunity to watch the penguins and their lemur sidekicks who include King Julien, a cheerfully amoral lemur with a middle European accent, a large ego, a bouncy castle and a habit of getting others to rescue him, in particular the Penguins, Skipper, Rico, Kowalski and Private.

I'm now also back at work. Ho hum. Thank feck I only have to work four days a week from now on.