Since we don’t live by politics alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
Life, Culture and Politics from BrisVegas
Larvatus Prodeo is an Australian group blog which discusses politics, sociology, culture, life, religion and science from a left of centre perspective. more»
» SUBSCRIBE to LP updates.
I sat with the family and watched a DVD of The League of Gentlemen. It’s still amusing 12 years on …
One of the relatives, who knows of my keen interest in matters of climate science asked me why “it always rains on hot days when you put clothes on the line.”
In fun, I pointed out that all those wet clothes raise the local humidity as they dry, creating more local warming until the air is saturated and it has to rain.
Apparently, I hadn’t made it sufficiently clear that I was joking, even when I cited a bogus reference to the Urban Legends Institute paper on Localised precipitation in elevated temperature and use of line drying by Snopes et al.
Wow Fran, one observed, you just have way too much time on your hands! Who reads stuff about clothes lines?
Hmmm
I am helping out at a conference on public health that is full of examples of Japan’s positive aid influence. The poster session included a particularly good couple of examples:
1. a project to implement pain management centres for amputee victims of mines in Bosnia-Herzegovina
2. a project to improve the care of severely disabled children in Uzbekistan, that enables them to reintegrate with society and completely changes their lives.
It’s really cool to see the work being done by Japanese ODA and the benefits it brings.
I’m then off to the opening party at my hairdresser’s salon; he’s setting up his own business and the party is tonight. He better cut my hair soon, I’m starting to look like a yeti!
Reasonable day here and enjoyed a walk around the lake at sun-up then climbed Mackey’s Peak.
However I really must cross reading the Sunday Age off my list of things to do.
The League Of Gentlemen was another freight train I failed to “hop”. I suspect you need to get on board early. “Repulsive” is a word that floats to the surface, yet I suspect that an early dose would have helped me “get it”.
My friend Michael is over from Canberra and dropped by for lunch today. It was a very pleasant afternoon, much more so than what I would otherwise have been doing (driving north and slashing the Doomstead’s paddock). He’s been building guitars since he retired, and brought a couple over – a tenor guitar (8 strings, like a 12 string guitar) and a standard guitar that looks a bit like a Guild. They’re lovely instruments, very playable, excellent sound, and beautiful to look at. The 6 string guitar is as pleasant to play as my Martin, and sounds at least as good as well (although rather different).
Are you local?……………………
…………………………………………… (Is it **that** League of Gentlemen?)
Fran,
The work of Snopes et al is generally not highly regarded by the leaders in the washing line sciences; they are regarded as a rogue crew who garner much publicity mainly via the tabloid press and TV interviews.
In fact their main “findings” were discredited in 2008 at the Seventeenth International Congress on Washing Technology [see "Hung Out To Dry: Faulty Methodology in the Studies of Snopes", plenary lecture by Prof. Snipes].
The League of Gentlemen was a very good 1960 British heist movie starring Jack Hawkins.
The Americans remade it as Ocean’s Eleven.
The British sketch comedy series was extraordinarily over-rated, and just told the same joke over and over and over and over and over and over again throughout the series.
And I never thought it was even slightly funny.
SG @ 2:
Which particular yeti are you starting to look like?
Also, can you (SG) give me advice on places to go to in Kyushu in mid-April? The beloved wants to go there for her (our) honeymoon…
I feel like roadkill today after laying 30 sq metres of concrete yesterday by hand. Boy wonder 16 did a wonderful job on the mixer, 6 hours and 5 tonnes of mix without a rest.
I barrowed and screed hoping the afternoon would be easier with the hired Bull Float. Unfortunately the Bull Float was worn out and the rest of the day was spent on hands and knees finishing with a steel float.
The pain all over was a good excuse to hang around the kitchen making potato salad and preparing for a barbeque feast this evening.
The highlight was the fresh asparagus marinated in olive oil, garlic and seasalt and quickly grilled. Asparagus, once established, is a wonderful food. Quite low maintenance and those spears keep popping up.
Has anyone else got some favorite recipes for asparagus? I realise there are boggins on the net but personal recipes seem to carry more weight I think.
The League of Gentlemen.
My personal favourite bike race of the year, the Stratford-Dargo road race, was on this Saturday.
For any Victorians looking for a scenic drive, you could do a lot worse than follow the route of this race (and if you’ve got a 4WD, you can continue to Mount Hotham across the Dargo High Plains).
Unfortunately, before the race even got serious, I had an argument with the side of the road, which the side of the road won on points (I’m fine aside from some minor road rash). Details here.
Salient Green, that is indeed a valiant effort. For that much concrete, I have to admit that calling in a cement truck would have been appealing!
Ambi said:
You’re obviously a denier working for the Hills Institute. I’ve got you pegged!
Terangeree said:
Humour is a very subjective thing. I thought the weaving together of the story and the many off-the-wall moments were very well done, and as OTT as it was, it caught something of the culture of the backwash of Thatcher’s Britain. As a vegetarian, I especially loved the story around the “Briss” butchers.
As always though, YMMV …
Salient Green, I hope you found the roadkill you felt like, and that it worked out OK on the barbie.
As to asparagus, aside from just steaming it, something I like to do is lay it into a baking dish, put a couple of slices of prosciutto (or bacon will do) across the stalks, grate some lemon rind on it, chuck a sprig of rosemary over the lot, and whack it in the oven for about 10 minutes.
Those of you objecting to League of Gentlemen could try Psychoville, which is really good. The clown trial is brilliant. It’s a new form of drama, in my opinion.
Terangeree, if you’re honeymooning in Japan in mid-April you need to do cherry-blossom viewing, right? If you’re coming to Kyushu I would guess the absolute best options are Yakushima, which has the ancient forests (watch Princess Mononoke before you go) and Nagasaki. I really like Fukuoka, but it’s not a special place for a honeymoon.
One thing I can definitely recommend is, if you go to Kyushu, you could visit Beppu for the hot springs and – if you’re on your honeymoon – the Love Hotels in Beppu are awesome. There are some by the beach that have $150 a night rooms that have their own hot spring and a view of the sea. There are even better hotels and ryokan that are very splendid, and Beppu also has “family onsen,” which I can recommend to you. Nothing else about Beppu is particularly good, but the hot springs are great.
Thank you, SG.
There will be two honeymoons — one for the beloved and I, and another for the beloved and I and the beloved’s two children (aged 10 and 6).
The beloved wants to go to an onsen or seven. The children are more interested in zoos and aquariums and theme parks…
Robert
I had a bizarre accident whilst doing a training run for next week-end’s Tour de Femme in Canberra. A group of us cycled behind the National Museum and just as I went into the staff carpark the boom-gate fell on me! Technically, the staff told me, this could not happen and indeed had not happened to the many other recreational riders using the route each week-end.
Miraculously, I survived the impact with a thick lip, a sore nose and a broken visor on my helmet. 24 hours later I exhibited signs of slight concussion but that passed after the next 48 hours.
Your reference to gradients on your very serious bike ride made me think of the neat map accompanied by an inter-active elevation graph on the Tour de Femme route map. You place your cursor on the elevation graph and a green marker appears on the corresponding position on the map. It gives the rider a very clear idea of where and when the hills occur.
http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/1085083
see also: http://www.canberracyclingclub.org.au
OK, Casablanca, that’s a pretty spectacular “off”! Glad you’re OK.
Enjoy the Tour de Femme.
Thanks David, sounds delicious, will try in a couple of days.
I went out to Victoria Point on Saturday and watched Contagion. Interestingly enough, I’m also currently reading The Plague by Albert Camus.
On Sunday I had the spicy seafood soup at the local Korean/Japanese restaurant. Hot hot hot!
Fran @13
I’ll neither confirm nor deny.
It’ll all come out in the wash, eventually.
Was Contagion worth a look beyond the usual catastrophe genre-style counterfactuals and hijinks? Hubby and I considered going but I heard a trailer on 2WS which made it seem a bit silly.
Snap asparagus spear off from plant.
Place in mouth.
Chew, swallow.
I planted asparagus on Sunday. I didn’t realise the lead time to harvest was four years …
As someone whose weekend activities are often less than inspiring, I had the best… weekend… ever. Took off on Friday in the old Mitsu-bashi with no family, just two old friends and guitar and changes of clothes and food. We stayed at the Meeniyan motel and went to see Joe Pug, Jordie Lane and Henry Wagons at the Meeniyan Hall. Yes, you read correctly. International acts in Meeniyan! (They have had Gillian Welch there and others of that calibre.) The setup was just like a school trivia night, you had a table and BYO food and booze. I made some cheese and spinach pies and we brought cheese and antipasto. Henry Wagons summed it up: “I love to see a whole crowd of people getting happily, warmly shitfaced.” Not only did we have a great time but all three artists seemed to have a ball as well. I just love Joe Pug and he just “gets” a slightly oddball gig like this. Wagons is probably familiar to most of you. Jordie Lane was new to me, he’s very good and held his own with those two giants.
Next day it was off to a walk from North to South Walkerville, the Magic Beach of the Alison Lester book, with interesting stuff to look at like the old lime kiln and cemetery, then over to Venus Bay to some artist friends’ magnificent beach house where I had a bed in a corner window with a sea of treetops and Anderson Inlet as the view – no need for curtains! There was even a party to go to in walking distance which I’m told went right off but I had hit a wall and wanted to enjoy the fabulous house and bed.
Sunday was all beer, novels and acoustic guitar on the deck among the treetops and a walk down to Anderson Inlet. Then a reluctant drive home. Wow! Haven’t packed so much sheer pleasure into a weekend for years!
Oh, and NEXT weekend,
Tess McKenna & the Shapiros
Union Hotel, Union St Brunswick
Sun 13 November
Stellar electric folk/rock & blues with pitch-perfect harmonies.
5pm
That’s us!
Fran @23, the short answer is IMHO yes.
Not so lazy. Compost pile taller than me. Wordpress ate my next post
Helen, sounds like an awesome weekend.
Outpost street art exhibition at Cockatoo Island. Enjoyable but rather safe and pretty, hard to see why so many of the knuckleheads seem to go incandescent with rage at the site of it.
ooops sight I meant
Asparagus Risotto is my favourite asparagus dish and my favourite risotto. Just put the tips in a little later than the chopped stalks.
I am horrified by the range of health issues suffered by tradespeople, we’ve had lots of people working in the house lately rejigging the bathroom to fit the idiosyncratic needs of the youngest and all of them seem to have chronic severe respiratory ailments, especially the chippies and the plumbers. The plumber calls his version “furry throat” and was sanguine about the likelihood that either the exposure to asbestos or fibreglass (or mould) would eventually carry him off.
Oh, Salient, I forgot to mention the splash of olive oil on the asparagus, but you probably would’ve done that anyway.
Fran, opinions differ but if you planted crowns you can harvest for 2weeks early in the second year and for about 8 weeks from the third year on. If you planted seed add another year.
I harvested some in the second year but still went easy on the harvest in the third, 4 weeks or so, but cut some of the rank growth in autumn which stimulated new spears for a few more feeds. It didn’t hurt them.
If I had planted asparagus the first year I thought of it and went “no, it’ll take too long to harvest”, I’d have it this year. Just saying.
Thanks SG and Helen …
When we moved into our house we told the then landlord that we expected to stay for 3 years or so. That was in October 1991.
If we’d planted asparagus then …
Asparagus grown from seed will take four years. I’m assuming that is what Fran is doing, as now is not the right time to plant crowns. The advantage of crowns is that they SHOULD be male plants, which produce better stems and (more importantly) don’t set seed – this means you don’t have to worry about the asparagus becoming weedy. Having said that I bought crowns and most of the plants turned out to be female…. my latest planting though was sourced from the kitchen garden of one of the local vineyards and I’m told great care was taken to get non-seeding ones.
Agree with Helen, fresh asparagus from the garden is worth the time and effort. I follow FDB’s recipe!
And because I can’t help myself….please if you live near bushland, and have seed producing plants, don’t let them go feral…it’s a very tricky environmental weed to get rid of once established.
I had a weekend in the garden mostly. Filling up any spaces with tomatoes, beans and collard greens. Also did some landscaping in the front yard, which I wish wasn’t taking as long as it is. Also did some paperwork and tried to get my summer work schedule organised.
I’m willing to help with that, nom nom nom nom
Good news and some bad news.
While switching off irrigation at dusk … hang on that can’t be a garden hose I just stood on … that is a Rough Scale Snake and it did not bite me! Well, it could be a Keelback too. However, it lacks the dark lesions on the lower scales and bugger if I go for another close encounter to check for loreal scales! Beautiful olive coloured with dark bands and probably pregnant too, judging by its swollen lower body. I am not one for killing an animal unless it is for eating or an introduced pest species. However, since this is my third encounter with it, I have readied pressure bandages just in case as well as got a tieable cotton bag and will have to get a snakeclamp now.
Am I the only one to lament the final encounter with Mma Precious Ramotswe? A traditionally-built beauty and a motho yo botlhale. Thank you Alexander McCall Smith for such a good portrait of the admirable Tswana people and their beautiful country. I miss their grace, humour and music so well captured in ‘The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency’ TV series.
Tsamaya sentle Mma!
Not alone at all Ootz. Last week I lamented the end of Scott and Bailey, the best example of its genre since the very early Dalziel and Pascoe for mine. It had an interesting genesis, born of Suranne Jones’ frustration that women were still playing decorous supporting roles. They consulted with Diane Taylor a former DI from Manchester police and Amelia Bullimore’s character in particular was inspired by Taylor. This did not prevent some sniffing reviews about its lack of “realism”. LOL.
I’ve got asparagus (recently joined by thornless raspberries) coming under the fence from the old dear next door’s veg patch.
Bless you, shoddy tradies, with your 50mm deep palings. Bless you Gwendoline, with your many many years’ planting and feeding and pruning experience.
Helen – how freaking funny is Henry W? It helps that he sings like a butch angel, but he’d be worth seeing as a comedian anyway. And if I wasn’t already booked to mix that arvo elsewhere, I’d be likely to pop down to the Union. Is that a residency? Lovely place, nice food, and they really know their emerging demographic. The only (non-pokie-barn) pub I’ve ever seen with a separate baby changing dunny!
FB,
I think you’re confusing edible Asparagus with Asparagus Fern
What I’ve planted are stalky things, not seeds.
I do know asparagus fern though — nasty stuff.
I think Duncan was correcting the other FB.
Incorrectly though – the edible type is a common weed, especially along watercourses (at least in WA).
Yeah, there are 4 or 5 species from the asparagus family that are major enviro weeds, and edible asparagus is one of them. Unfortunately, in my experience, it’s proving to be one of the more difficult to eradicate from one of the swamp sites I’m restoring. Bridal creeper, which most people in south oz know as a major weed was much easier to get rid of, ditto for blackberry….another weed I get to graze on while I’m working. :d
Helen, I’ll give you a call next asparagus season! There’s plenty to share ’round! Actually the swamp asparagus is more tasty than my home grown stuff so I reckon I need to up the anti on the organic matter in my patch.
Harvested some yummy new potatoes for dinner tonight.
(yes, Furious B, not Fran B)
Ah well.. there you go.
Around here, Asaparagus fern is a real issue.. the edible stuff not so.
Doesn’t appear to be an Official Weed
It’s OK Duncan … I thanked “SG” who AIUI is not the same as “Salient Green”.
Duncan, things get a bit tricky for weeds listing when the plant is a commercial crop. I think the Asparagus weeds guide is currently under review, but there is some basic info here:
http://www.weeds.org.au/cgi-bin/weedident.cgi?tpl=plant.tpl&state=&s=&ibra=all&card=H83
FDB – Not a residency, but we do keep getting rebooked, which is nice.
I helped the Union get their late licence years ago. They applied and there were heaps of nimby objections from the neighbourhood. We lived next door and had no issue at all, so I wrote a letter of support. Application approved.
Yay, Roger! There is a medium rise apartment development across the road now, hope NIMBYism doesn’t develop there.
Good on you Roger.