Coraline

It's very sweet, gently amusing and not too terrifying. I was curiously not engaged by the movie, although I admired its style and the technical skill that clearly lay behind the production. I couldn't suspend disbelief so I watched as an exercise in 3D movie making rather than simply enjoying the story. The cat was interesting with a wonderful voice but it was underused. The Scottie dogs were, however, wonderful; the best joke in the piece by a long, long way and most definitely the scene stealers whenever they appeared. Seven out of ten maybe because this version of the story lacked heart. I'll read the book.

Happy Birthday Your Majesty ...

It's The Queen's Birthday public holiday in New South Wales. What a ridiculously colonial notion. At the moment though, I'll take any public holiday they give me.

Three cheers for Her Majesty: hip, hip, hooray ...

Spike was a bit under the weather, although to be honest I have no idea what that phrase actually means. So we lounged at home, Spike wrapped in a blanket on the sofa; me putting things away in places things are meant to be put away. We had a late breakfast / early lunch of apple pancakes. Later we supped on Spike's home-made parsnip, pea and potato soup. We nibbled on German rye bread with butter and smoked salmon then gingerly fingered baked pears. We past the time by listening to CDs 7 and 8 of Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys read absatively brilliantly by Lenny Henry.

There are much worse ways to spend a Monday.
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Stardust

We watched the DVD of the movie. Much better than I feared it would be. Claire Danes wasn't too bad at all, although I have no idea what Robert De Niro was up to.

Later Spike introduced me to Dexter Fletcher as Spike in Press Gang, neither of which were known to me (not even after discovering he had played Baby Face in Bugsy).

Mirror Mask by Neil Gaiman

Brilliant, as ever. And read aloud to me, perfectly, by one's very own Helena.

Perfect spot for a picnic

At Centennial Park the perfect spot for an Anansi Boys picnic is just over the grassy knoll that separates this pond from the lilly pond. It's there that Coots reveal themselves to be as daft as ... coots, I suppose.

For an Anansi Boys picnic the following components constitute the bare minimum requirements:

* orange juice
* tomatoes
* chedder chees
* yam
* anything Greek
* bottle of post-murder Chablis
* Jaffa cakes (or eqivalent)

Picture by Marie Robertson

Anansi Boys

Brilliant writing.

I want to run away with Maeve Livingstone.

Neil Gaiman' web site.

Anansi at Wiki.

Gifts from a friend

"... he had picked an extremely odd time to discover his inner Drifters."
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