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
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Frist!
Overtime, at $70 per hour.
Then sleep.
Enjoyed a Sunday lunch with friends and took in a few walks about town, while listening to podcasts and music…
My server provider how a power outage this afternoon, which is why all the Ozblogistan sites were down.
Marked Honours theses and wrote reports, did housework, marked Honours theses and wrote reports, went to the shops, marked Honours theses and wrote reports, found a lovely bottle of Nepenthe sauv blanc I’d forgotten about and put it in the fridge. The day is looking up.
had a spirited discussion with friends about ‘The Legacy’ by Kristin Tranter.
The heat cometh. Adelaide 34
Went to a charity book sale and for once was not trying to find some impossible-to-locate book. I always find what I want at the first sale after I have ordered it online.
But there was much more classic literature than usual and I came away with some Chaucer, Joyce, Bronte and Waugh, among other things. It would have been easy to fill up two boxes of books but my eyes are bigger than my wallet. Now I get to read them!
“My server provider how a power outage this afternoon, which is why all the Ozblogistan sites were down.”
Splains everythink!
Attended the Trans Day Of Remembrance on Friday at The Gods cafe in the ANU’s Arts Centre.
On Saturday I went to a friend’s 50th at a delightful B&B situated in the bush north of Canberra. A beautiful location, superb weather, wonderful friends, plenty of food and wine and stimulating conversation. ( the Birthday girl is a former advisor to Cheryl and one of the guests was a former advisor to Gareth – ah, life’s little quirks)
God, another power outrage.
What’s the world coming to!
Trapped and ate two bunnies. Yum.
read about myself in Saturdays The Worst Australian, in an article about equal marriage. lazed around on Sunday. Thinking about cooking some dinner.
Spent most of the weekend reading and taking notes from Naval Documents of the American Revolution, Vol. 5. watched Little Island tonight. Good to see a show partly set in Jamaica. Set top box dropped out a couple of times, but I got it going again quickly, so didn’t miss much.
Had my Mum and boyfriend round to lunch yesterday. After they left I lay on the picnic rug under the Parramatta Wattle in the back yard, which always flowers in November while the one out the front flowers in August. I suspect the delay is due to a cooler, damper root-run. Did a bit of reading and I might also have had a kip…
Got part-way through ‘The Wild Garden’ by William Robinson (this is the new ed. with bits by Ric Darke). Love him castigating single-species hedges as boring. Wish he’d come back and haunt the Inner West of Sydney, where box and Murraya paniculata hedges abound, shaking a stern Victorian finger!
PB, I almost turned the tv off for Little Island, but I’m glad I ironed some shirts in front of it instead. It’s excellent, but I’m still not sure whether the little island is England or Jamaica (or possibly both).
Hot and muggy, and threatening a storm, so went down to the river to wash some boats for the rowing elite of my club, ANA(any excuse to get wet). I was rewarded for my random act of kindness by a display from a pair of black swans on the riverbank, and the even rarer sight of children splashing about in the high tide.
Trimmed a hole through the roses so we can get to the tap. Contribution to election campaign was donning the candidate t-shirt then going out to breakfast in walking billboard guise. Visited elderly relative. Took kid all the way out to Donnybrook for a party. Booked a flight from Seville to Paris.
Pleasant day.
” found a lovely bottle of Nepenthe… I’d forgotten about…”
Heh heh.
Just so ya know *some*body gets it… (not that I think you were joking, it’s “found” irony, etc etc …)
btw, a propos of nothing, there’s a neat restaurant in Big Sur, California called Nepenthe, perched on the coast. Quite a view. Of the scenery, I mean, not the people…
Oh and went to see HP7. My kids have grown up with this but are now more interested in catching glimpses of “Hermione’s side boob” than in the story itself!
I tawt I taw a puddy tat etc
DI (nr) @ 15,
I think its both. Have become more and more fascinated with West Indian history over the years, though more the 18C of course. Have a mate whose right into WI literature.
Really, could you be a little more patronising? My patrometer hasn’t quite exploded yet…
Pulled up (most of) the kikuyu invading the native garden in the front yard and put down layer of chocolatey-brown pine mulch. I only get around to doing this once or twice a year and I always forget how sensational it looks when I do it.
Friends had to put down their elderly dog on Saturday. It was her time. RIP, Winnie.
For the sake of fairness, equality and all that, could we desist with such condescending engendered terms. Otherwise my mamometer may blowout.
First time out on the motorbike for a while: a quick trip to La Perouse and back.
“Really, could you be a little more patronising?”
How on earth is (was?) that patronising? The original line was just plain ol’ good clean funny, and it’s a pretty recondite li’l korner of kulcha, so if you’re playing the odds… and besides, I don’t doubt that there really is a nice brand of sauv blanc w/ that moniker, and the good doctor most likely wasn’t making it up. Hey, I’ve got a little prescription for your tender nerves, but I bet you’ve already figured out what it is, so I won’t be, erm, patronising…
This is kid stuff. You want _actual_ patronizing, ya gotta subscribe to the newsletter…
@ 8:
What? You ate the bunnies alive?
I wrote some more of my essay describing and analysing the evolution of my views on the Israel/Palestine conflict, and had some important flashes of insight in the process.
BMITW
I’m going to await the sequel. I can’t stand watching a movie that finishes with TBC …
Nepenthe winery grow cool climate varieties in the Adelaide Hills. The Cat has exceptional taste it seems.
Tis white wine weather for sure. All I have in the fridge is some home made Ginger beer. Why is the iPhone capitalizing Ginger? Oh damn, it’s given me a z where I don’t want one too. Grah!
JPZ – I can’t speak for Helen, but your humble correspondent had to call uncle Google to work the joke out, and felt a little annoyed at having to do so.
There is such a thing as too clever, and it could be roughly defined as ‘cleverer than me’.
I think the fact that it isn’t a very funny joke is a bigger problem than condescension. Plus i wouldn’t be surprised if Cat was simply refering to the wine, because pretentiousness and Adelaide heat tend not to co-exist.
FDB — well as long as this whole thing ends in a cage match between you, Helen, and furious b., I’ll be satisfied. Hmm, that might even be worth breaking out a bottle of pinot grigio to watch. And apparently Linda McMahon has some time on her hands these days, so, y’know, ticket sales…
Meanwhile, back in Victorian London…
WATSON: I say, Holmes, here’s a bottle of Nepenthe that I forgot I had!
HOLMES: (with a superior smirk) From which I deduce, Watson, that until quite recently, you had two.
(awkward pause)
WATSON: No, honestly, old chap, I simply misplaced it a while back, here behind the filing cabinet. That’s why I forgot I had it. (beat.) Oi! Wait! Are you calling me a drunk?
HOLMES: Not in so many words, my good man. Not in so many words.
WATSON: (punches Holmes in the face)
Well, that certainly woke me up. Ugh, back to work…
My late mum liked the Nepenthe sav blank. I thought it was drinkable, but I don’t much care for white wine.
Japerz:
“not that I think you were joking, it’s “found” irony, etc etc …”
FB:
“i wouldn’t be surprised if Cat was simply refering to the wine”
Sigh.
That Vegemite and cheese combination thingey is pretty terrible. Just seriously tried it for the first time.But then, nowadays, so is Vegemite. The only way I can stomach it lately is to have it on bread with magarine or butter + lettuce. Am beginning to wonder if its an international con-trick that we all pretend to love it, just so we can watch the faces of people not born here the first time they try it. Or did it just used to be much better quality stuff when I was a kid?
No Paul, it’s still exactly the same, and I and many others genuinely love it.
Not iSnack 2.0 though (which is awful).
Yep. That Snack2 stuff is orrible. Got a small jar of vege yesterday ’cause I couldn’t stand the other any longer. Must be my age. (Or in might be the Pommy in me) but I did used to really like it.
I love Vegemite. And even worse than that, I have it on cold toast with butter. Excellent. It’s not a genetic thing Paul B. It’s a socialisation thing. Consider, when I was a kid someone told me it was made from crushed ants and I still eated it. Real ants just never tasted the same after Vegemite.
But Marmite and Promite sucks. I don’t know where they source their ants but they are just awful.
Yeah, WTF is it made from? Concentrated yeast extract is about all I can read on the label of the small, nearly full jar I have.
On another tack: a dear but naive friend about two hours ago sent me a chain-email full of good luck stories of wishes that came true if you made them while reading the letter. Not passing the letter on gives you a seven year bad luck curse. I have enough shit in my life, thanks, at the moment. So I sent it back to her with a brisk note not to ever ever send me a chain-letter again. At least with e-mails you know where the buggers come from.
Wow. Well, (a) I thought the Nepenthe thingy was in fact an excellent joke, in spite of the fact that (b) I did not (deliberately) make it myself; JPZ is right there. And the fact that it is in mythology a brew so wonderful that it makes you forget all your troubles, forget all your cares and possibly even go Downtown*, if only metaphorically, is why the winery calls itself Nepenthe in the first place, or so I assume.
So it’s true then — she really is a witch!
*Boomer nostalgia
And, on a more positive note, I got Charles Royster’s A Revolutionary People at War. The Continental Army & American Character, 1775-1783 arrived in the mail today. Have started reading it, though I can’t say that reading about and taking notes on early American Protestantism, as I am at the moment, is exactly filling me with excitement. It is, so far though, one of the better books I’ve read on the relationship of religion to the American Revolution. Though, mind you, the book deals with much more than that.
We used vegemite as an antidote for the brace and bits, a “ten day stew” condition in the timber camps just after WW2. Worked too. I like promite now and prefer it to the foreigners brew.
Well Pav I was most interested to read about the people employed as “prickers”
I’m sure JPZ will be relieved to learn you felt no condescension Pav.
“Concentrated yeast extract is about all I can read on the label of the small, nearly full jar I have.”
That’d be cos that’s all that’s in it.
It’s essentially a by-product of beer manufacture, salted.
Beer! I’m putting beer on me bread? Only in Australia.
The Hanging Rock Winery used to bring out a wine called “Picnic”, presumbly on the grounds that after several bottles, you’d vanish.
And Casey, wait till you find out what guacamole is really made from.
Oh hai Nabs. I was shocked and awed, by the way, to read about your WA cuckolding. I am not sure why you haven’t been desexed yet, but there you have it. There be cats – I am told – that do manage to evade the Cat Society. Good for you. But they will get you know. One day Nabs, they will.
Now:
2 aguacates maduros (cuidado que no presenten un aspecto negruzco)
1 pizca de ajo o chile, bien picado.
1 pizca de hoja de cilantro.
1 cucharada sopera de cebolla rallada.
1 tomate mediano a trocitos pequeños.
2 cucharaditas de zumo de limón.
I see nada on that list there to disconcert me. Of course, I don’t speak Spanish. So, go on, spit it out.
I’m a Vegemite fan, but I reckon it’s changed in the last couple of years. I need to use twice as much for the same taste, just aint right.
DI[nr], I never really liked white wine much either, but I met a wine-maker who suggested that I should try some aged reisling, he recommended Henshcke [sp?] and it was indeed extremely good and so I’ve started to drink a bit more white wine of late.
The wine-maker was quite generous with his knowledge considering I’d just told him that his Chardonnay smelt like fox piss.
I think wine-makers who amble up next to complete strangers at random gatherings and ask them what they think of the wine [without mentioning that they actually made it] are kind of asking for it but, four years on, I still feel really bad about that fox piss comment.
I was wrong – on further research, it appears the salt content has been reduced in recent years from 10% to 8%.
There’s your explanation Paul at al.
eek, so that explains it – I’m just missing the salt!!
heh, I do mix my ‘mite with about half a tonne of unsalted butter, so maybe I should just switch butter.
Yes, furious, salted butter is definitely required with Vegemite.
I might see if I can get some Henschke aged riesling, on your recomendation. About the only whites I ever drink are stickies, and then only when it’s too hot for port with the cheese and greens.
Help! I’m a salt addict!
I dunno, I reckon it could be a genetic thing because I find vegemite to be eye-wateringly foul unless it is diluted by at least 20:1. It was standard tuckshop fare for “little lunch” when I was a nipper, and we had to take turns helping out – even having to make those saos with vegemite turned my stomach a little. White bread sandwiches with tinned spaghetti left to fester a few hours in 32 degree heat and 90% humidity – now you’re talking, yum! My mother always put a teaspoon of vege in the gravy.
Oh come on. What are you Su?
You see, I’ve seen this only once before. And it’s never human.
Im putting my money on the stain of the faery blood. Now excuse me while I go back to Facebook. I’m putting pictures of my cats in a skating production video. Fantastic.
I feel the art of applying vegemite is not unrelated to Luis Bunuel’s observation about letting the sun add the vermouth to the gin.
So what you do is dab but not plunge your knife in the jar and then make just one very low but fast pass over the bread.
And Casey, obviously the recipe for guacamole has changed since the days when all us little kids wondered where snot eventually went.
Could be a touch of wyrm in there Casey. Faeries, I suspect, like cats and vampires, are protein only. Unnatural pallor, sharp little teeth, supreme egocentrism, ungovernable appetite, flashes of malice, yeah they’re peas in a pod. Peas fashioned by Heston from rabbit livers, painted green, and placed in a pod of intestinal membrane.
The site is charmingly borked at the mo. My screen is now offering me a new xhtml tag called rong>boldrong>. If you’re going to be rong, might as well be boldrong.
I remember those spaghetti sandwiches. Quite nice, actually. And cream-buns, apple turnovers, salad rolls – ie sliced tomato, cheese, beetroot, mayonnaise, etc, etc. Now, they were foul when the heat got to them. And lamingtons,custard pies, meat pies and tomato sorz, and pasties of course. And that’s going back a very long time. (They used to have these small bottles of milk in crates one bottle of which one had to drink about 11am. Think it was some kind of socialist hangover from the Chifley Government that Menzies kept going.)
PB, 50 years on, I still remember the warm, turned milk. I still don’t much care for it.
Vegemite, otoh, is another thing entirely. Food of the gods!
Casey (and Nabakov), guacamole is made mostly from guacas. (Poor little things, but they’re tasty.)
I’m too young to remember forced milk here, but my year at Coldfall Primary in Muswell Hill in 1983 gave me plenty, and some school dinner stories that’d turn your stomach – heat or no.