Since we don’t live by politix 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 was an Australian group blog which discussed politics, sociology, culture, life, religion and science from a left of centre perspective. more»
Nothing. It was wonderful.
Rode from Woodend to Wallan via Mount Macedon and Romsey. 65 kilometres, a 450 metre climb at the start of the ride, some very steep little climbs further on.
Was going OK until one of the group’s back seized up, couldn’t ride any further, and needed a good Samaritan to take them back to Woodend.
I’m going to start posting more detailed ride reports on my personal blog.
Recently a letter addressed to a family member who has moved on, arrived in our letterbox. It came in a fancy black gloss quarto envelope bundled with a brochure on 300gsm linen paper.
There has been no response, thus far to my reply reproduced below.
Mr Mark McInnes,
Chief Executive Officer
David Jones Limited
86 – 108 Castlereagh Street
SYDNEY NSW 2000
Dear Mark,
I am writing to you on behalf of my mother, to thank you for “pre-approving” her for the new David Jones American Express Card.
However, I am a bit uneasy that an old-fashioned firm like DJs would climb into a partnership with an American credit provider outfit in issuing “fast-track” credit, considering the recent ructions in that area, especially in America.
The document you attached to your kind, personally signed letter – a “fast track application” – asks my mum to “simply update” her details: i.e. provide her DJ card number, her name, date of birth, current address and mobile phone number.
Just between you and me, the word “update” is a bit of stretch in this context, don’t you reckon?
Anyway, be that as it may – you saw it coming, didn’t you? – my mother has been dead for six years.
I suppose she hasn’t run up any bad debts in that time, so that’s how come she has come up on DJ’s and American Express’s radar. I do understand such debt-free customers are hard to come by in these uncertain times, but in her current state (cremated) she wouldn’t be in a position to spend anything in your excellent stores, nor what is more important, make regular payments.
Therefore, in the interests of the global economy I feel dutybound to decline your generous offer on my late mum’s behalf.
Good luck in your further endeavours,
Henry Casingbroke
(son).
We don’t live by politix alone, but pretty high up there on the list is: knowing the ATM isn’t gonna say “sorry you’ve been pwned, we’re broke when you go to make a withdrawal. Kev has just set us all at ease that won’t happen by announcing
Non-political thread, dudes, not another open thread. The sorts of things discussed in comments @ 3 and 4 might be better discussed on the Saturday Salon thread. This one is meant to be about what people have been up to, and has the intention of shifting discussion away from teh global economy, credit and Kevin Rudd etc.
Thanks!
Fish and chips on the beach at Lorne.
The second instalment of a strange occurrence from last week happened today. The strange occurrence was being followed home by a bloke in a Jag — I thought I’d inadvertently cut him off when changing lanes in my old Land Cruiser, and so was ready for an incoherent and irate burst of road rage.
Nope. He just wanted to know if I wanted a bunch of spare parts for my Landie, as the previous owner of his house had left behind a stack of parts.
Anyway, he drove around today with the list of parts — clutch and brake cylinders (master and slave), axle bearings, brake hoses, radiator hoses, bypass hoses, contact sets, welch plugs, etc — still in their boxes, too.
The price? $150.00 for the lot.
Well, the old FJ40 is due for a refurbishment. It looks like it’ll be a bit less expensive now.
Don’t you just love that? Restores ones faith, etc.
Marking flipping undergrad essays… (sigh)
‘tho some of them have been very good indeed.
Lovely gossipy book club on Friday night and water aerobics with my mum on Saturday morning. Spent all day yesterday going through all my photos from our Europe trip and catching up on blogs and then went out for dinner with my fiance. Lazy lunch at our fave biker bar today, and started talking about real estate (eeek!). Followed it up with a virtuous trip to the gym. Now being appalling lazy and lowbrow and watching Idol. Good weekend.
Got outdoors for requisite dose of Vitamin D and nature infusion but extended highlight of the w/end would have to be the twice viewed first five hours of the HBO series, “In Treatment”, produced and directed by Rodrigo Garcia, the son of Gabriel García Márquez. It features the beauteous Gabriel Byrne as a psychoanalyst and among other wondrous things is about transference, including, of course, erotic.
Avoiding marking (first year)undergrad essays! I got disheartened after the last one I marked yesterday was highly plagiarised.
Went shopping for dressy shoes, which should be fun except that I refuse to wear high heels, and it seems that there is practically no such thing as a low heeled very dressy shoe (at least in my neck of the woods)!
Went to see The Duchess which I found deeply ordinary except for the skillz of Ralph Fiennes.
Far too much alcohol, quite a bit of weed, supplementary chemical mood-enhancers, two bloody good workouts on Friday and Saturday nights in the form of dancing to some damn fine beats, plenty of beautiful women, amusing encounters at 5am, shaking a bouncer’s hand and expressing appreciation for the sensible manner with which he handled things not directly related to my presence. Good times.
Drove to Dubbo NSW via Coolah where the country is lush.
http://www.golden-highway.com.au/coolah.htm
(To paraphrase Churchill, touring parts of liberated France in 1945, where the cattle were so contented, well fed, and lying down chewing their cuds with their “paws crossed.”)
Oh and Charlotte Rampling was wonderful, too.
Actually, if they’d taken the slightly annoying Duchess and her tedious young lover completely out of it and made it a Fiennes-Rampling movie about the weird Duke and his worldly mother-in-law, it would have been a cracker.
After three days of mowing the lush spring growth, watched Insiders to get a laugh from rusty Bolt (he reckons that Palin willbe the next Prz candidate after one term Obama – sorry no politics). However that brief rest this morning allowed the grass to start peeping through theunraked swathe. The old description of slowness “watching grass grow” does NOT seem to apply here, am i going to be at it constantly?
#11 – jinmaro, are you still around? Are you the same jinmaro? Praise the day.
Looking for work. Trying to understand and decipher public service “selection criteria”.
yesterday, we wandered around an antiques fair for an hour or so. today, my 4 year old nephew’s birthday, and then the closing movie for the Pride film festival – a camp romp called “Another Gay Sequel”.
Thanks to Yom Kippur (two of my profs are Jewish, so classes were called off) and Canadian thanksgiving… I have a five day weekend. Though most of that has been dedicated to reading Aristotle and Herodotus. Have a short paper to write on Aristotle’s conception of citizenship, and a looong paper to write comparing Deioces and Cyrus in book one of the Histories. Then tonight I am attending thanksgiving dinner at a friend’s place. Not a lazy sunday pour moi.
Saturday : spent most of the day reading and note-taking from Oliver M. Dickerson’s The Navigation Acts and the American Revolution. Major advance in recovery of health. Saturday morning waliked up and back to the corner shop (about 3/4 of a big sized block, parts of it very slightly hilly, without running out of breath. A major achievement as I had to do it by taxi just after I came out of hospital. Think having successfully given up smoking because I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in hospital might have something to do with it. Sat night, watched Rough Diamond – of course the horse will go on to be a champion etc, oh, well – then The Bill. Now that was good!
Sunday: reading and note-taking on same book. Also dipping into Schlesinger’s A Birth of A Nation – a pioneer (in 1968) in women’s and black history. Also the Hanoverians – somwhat sensationalist bad history, but fun to read so long as you don’t take it seriously. Friend visited in the afternoon, brought round Socialist Alliance membership form, which I will renew on Thursday. Might be going down as a delegate to the Socialist Alliance National Conference in Geelong in December if I’m well enough to fly. Cooked up mongolian lamb stir fry. Sunday night TV. Quite intrigued by Galapagos – hated seeing the dragon killed by the hawk. Thought Midsomer Murders was ridiculous. Its getting worse – I’m glad its over.
And, today, if you’ll grant me the indulgence, have just received 3 books from overseas – Bernard Bailyn’s The Ordeal opf Thomas Hutchinson, Pauiline Maier’s From resistance to Rewvolution, and Bernhard Knollenberg’s Origin of the American Revolution, 1759-1766.
If the Aussie dollar continues to recover, might even be able to order more books on Thursday if I don’t have any bills.
Had a marvellous time unpacking boxes in fabulous new house with fiance (and managed to construct an ikea bed together without causing the wedding to be called off) and finished off the day by finding out that our local fish and chips is a quality establishment, and discovering that champagne is exactly the right thing to go with fried fish
PC,
The biography of the Duchess of Devonshire, published about four years ago, is apparently a fuller portrait, especially the politics, It hasn’t turned up in the bookshops in Armidale yet, but I’ve no doubt it will, as a film tie-in, so I’ll buy it then. Apperently its in a newish type genre of tell-all historical bios, including salacious details of subjects’ sex lives, according to the little bit I’ve read about it in Brirish newspapers. (I think I’ve got that interpretation right.)
I’m fortunate to have picked up an edition of Gergiana’s letters at a second hand bookshop, carefully selecxted by the family, though. Still, they are a delight. Looking forward to the movie when it gets up here.
PB, the Duchess’s life story (if the film’s basic facts are accurate) is indeed intriguing. My disappointment was with the superficial treatment of the subject matter in a lacklustre, pedestrian movie, rather than with the subject matter itself.
PC,
That seemed to be the complaint in the Guardian in an article comparing the biography and movie. It was a while ago now – at least two months or so, so I don’t know here it is.
Down and Out, those selection criteria (and how to address them) are the precise reason I no longer bother to apply for jobs or contracts if I know they’re public service, even if they look interesting.
You spend about three days you’ll never get back in the certain knowledge that the whole thing’s theatre and that the next incumbent in the job you’re after is already acting in it.
@18: My sentiments exactly, Papageno. The days are gods.
@ 28: Hey, jinmaro, I looked for you on the cross of the street, and saw you there walking, hard as a headline in black-and-white.