offspring evelyn jan 10

on the road again

Today, Boxing Day , we head down the road to Apollo Bay and the Otways. We'll stop at Werribee Park and have a lunch and possibly do a tour of the Open Range Zoo. Then on across the boring basalt plains to Geelong, city of hope, where we will visit a relative and then with the 3 hip Taiwanese lesbians self identified queer guests we will scandalise invade pick up our food supplies at an ordinary supermarket. Hopefully the carsick one won't feel the need to stop every 10 ks and we should make the Bay by nightfall without incident. Argueing over air con and music choice in either Mandarin or English will not be granted incident status. We all agree we can listen to Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave. So far so good.

The next 4 days look to be around 20c - 23c at the Bay - good for me - not so for the heat lovers and swimmers.

Televisual delights

I'm hoping for a bit of chillin' tv. If I can get decent reception, always a gamble at the bay, I'll be trying to grab the couch for these programs:

Fri Dec 26 - ABC1 Kylie Kwong China - 8 pm, maybe Miss Marple after that or more likely on SBS at 8.30pm is the doco - The Night James Brown Saved Boston . Later at 10.10 on ABC2 is soundtrack: Wet Wet,Wet followed by Rock Profile of Oasis.

Sat 27 - Iron Chef and Rock Kwiz on a lean night.

Sun 28 - Chan 7 - 1.45 - West Side Story, 7.30pm - Seven Wonders of Industrial World - Bell Rock Lighthouse - I've seen it before but it's a beauty, 7.30 on SBS Lost Worlds - Germanic Tribes followeed by Foolproof Equations for a Perfect Life - about the Brain. ABC2 ALL DAY is running great music - 7 am, Meatloaf, 7.25 Genesis, 8.25 Lou Reed, liver at Montreaux, John Lennon Live NYC,

10.20 Newport Folk Festival 1963 - 66 - yes the one where Bob was said to have been booed and unplugged.

Mon 29 Dec - 9.30 Crime Investigation - John Wayne Glover the North Shore Granny Killer.or on ABC1 @ 10.55 The Mafia - or Red Dwarf on ABC2

Tues 30 - 7.30 SBS The Doctor Who Makes People Walk again, Doco, then Return of the Bible Plagues, followed by Hot Docs - Respect Yourself - The Stax Story - or flip over to Rush Hour with Jackie Chan on ch 7 or Fr Ted at 8 on ABC2 followed by Hamish McBeth

Wed 31 NYE - won't miss Dinner For One on SBS @ 7.30 a 20 minute delight I always enjoy and then simply because I'm a wild party guy - Can't Stop The Music - Village People on 9 at 12.15

Reading:
On food and cooking : the science and lore of the kitchen  McGee
Little black book of stories A S Byatt
A question of upbringing   Anthony Powell - first of the series of 7 called A dance to the music of time
A writer's people : ways of looking and feeling  V S Naipaul
 Reading & writing  : a personal account V S Naipaul
Sir Vidia's shadow [text] : a fascinating memoir of Theroux's friendship with V.S. Naipaul
India [text] : a wounded civilization V.S. Naipaul
Four days in November : the assassination of President John F. Kennedy Vincent Bugliosi.
Where flavor was born : recipes and culinary travels along the Indian Ocean spice route by Andreas
Viestad
The cellist of Sarajevo  - Steven Galloway
The Irish story [text] : telling tales and making it up in Ireland / R.F. Foster
Modern Ireland, 1600-1972 / R.F. Foster.
Cultural amnesia : notes in the margin of my time / Clive James.
Modern Indian cooking : the next generation of Indian cooking / [Hari Nayak and Vikas Khanna
Beyond belief [text] : Islamic excursions among the converted peoples / V.S. Naipaul

Will also be searching for the perfect fish n chips at the bay and trying to buy fresh fish to cook - used to be impossible.

Best Wishes for the season, Drive safely - that stupid old prick you want to run over might just be me.

12 days of christmas

Frank Kelly plays Fr Jack in Fr Ted

motor industry

xmas catering

This year it's my turn to host the family xmas do. I calculate around 25 people for late lunch. I had the brilliant idea to bbq a pig.  No fiddly antipasto, cheeses and fancy salads. Simple earthy tastes with fresh bread. Sophisticated peasant. 

Last time I did something like this was years ago. I looked up hints. I found a lot of advice like this:

"Getting the spit through the pig is tricky, especially if it's a fat pole and you get to prise the little piggy's jaws open to fit it through the mouth. Getting the whole thing to stay on the spit while it's roasting needs lots and lots of strong wire.

If you use coal or wood, you will need more than you can possible imagine. More. More than that, even. No, get more. That's still not enough. You'll run out, the pig will be half raw, and you will look a git.

Controlling the heat is almost impossible. Ambient temps, breezes, fat flareups and the like mean that it's almost certain your pig will be charred on the outside and raw on the inside. Once the spit has been set, raising it and lowering it is a bitch. You will get the height wrong again and again. When you get it right, it'll only stay right for a while because the fire will change on you.

People will smell the pig for miles, and will come to ooh and ahh. You, on the other hand, will be intimate with this fucker for at least 9 hours, and you won't be able to smell it at all, let alone eat it. At the end, you'll want a celery stick and a good lie down."

After that, and seeing it's the weekend after next, I'm now drawing up a list of who will bring the fancy salads, cheeses and some sausages. And I'll do the antipasto.

females succeed at uni

An Australian study into the sexual history of 185 students at the University of Sydney found male science "nerds" were the least likely to have had sexual intercourse.

At the other end of the spectrum, female arts students ranked as the most sexually active.

The study of 16 to 25-year-olds, published in the journal Sexual Health, said: "Males in the study were less likely to have had sex as a group compared to the group of females in the sample.

"Science students were also less likely to have had sex compared to their counterparts in other faculties."

NB: Before anyone one sniggers - yes I did notice "Males in the study were less likely to have had sex as a group..." Group sex - no thanks I'm an engineer.

youth outa control

xmas blog meet from elsewhere

Ms Elsie Wear of The View From Elsewhere is visiting Melbourne. This is an excuse to hold a Blogmeet. The Blogmeet will be at The Builders Arms Hotel, in 211 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy from 1.30 pm onwards (yes daylight!) on this coming Saturday the 6th December 2008. Possibly running until much much later that day.

Ms Elsewhere is arguably in the top 5 of Alice Springs' Premier female, bike riding, cat loving, script writing bloggers.

A special welcome is extended to those who have never attended a blogmeet before. Commentors please come along. If you are a bit shy just lurk around the pub without declaring yourself, identify the bloggers, (they'll be the ones having breakfast at 1.30pm and asking if there's wifi). If you don't like the cut of their jib from a distance, just pretend you were there for some other reason and slink off, or get half tanked and come over and have a quick snark and run off. Just like blogging. Big things have come out of previous blog meets: like ...ah, er.. yeah some big things.

NB: There is no truth to the rumour that Cast Iron Helen picked the Builders Arms because it's on Ralph Magazine's list of top 10 Melbourne Pubs.