and today's word is ...

bothered ...

as in ... i just could not be bothered, so I didn't. Instead, I spent a lovely day with Spike who now has a dreadful cold, which is definitely at the snotty stage. Is that too much information? Probably.

Spike wasn't well enough for us to attend the inspired reading at the MCA, which is a little frustrating because we turned up for the event last Tuesday, a week early. Not to worry. Worse things happen at sea.
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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).

Ashfield Library

Took a stroll in the afternoon sun with Spike. We were too late for the cobblers so Spike will continue to have boots that let in water. We made our way to the library where I signed-up to become a borrower. I found a couple of decent books of literary criticism for my university preparation course as well as taking out 1001 painting to see before you die. There are a few more Australian works in its pages than one might have predicted but I suppose you can forgive the nation's broadcaster for a mildly parochial tendency. Spike nabbed some graphic novels, including quite a few by Neil Gaiman.

It's easy to forget what a good idea a municipal library is ... until you remember.

Ashfield Library

Terminator Salvation

The robot doesn't know how lucky it is being shot in the head only a few minutes into possibly THE MOST BORING MOVIE OF THE 21ST CENTURY.

Did someone mention the word derivative?

Well ... there's the motorbike from The Dark Knight as well as the motorbike leap from The Great Escape. There's any amount of Mad Max rip-offs. There's the spaceship being chased along the canyon from Independence Day. There appears to be a transformer that's strayed into the wrong movie. There are prison camps from Schindler's List and Escape From New York. There are several Blade Runner towers or maybe it's Minority Report borrowing.

And testosterone?

Well ... John Connor shouts a lot and is very moody and Sam Worthington shouts a lot and is very angsty.

And the Terminators are stupider than kettles.

It's crap; cynical, money-making, piss-poor movie-making crap. The day you find yourself stealing ideas from a Michael Bay movie is the day you know you're in trouble McG. What kind of name is McG anyway?
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The Monkey's Mask

We turned up at the Museum of Contemporary Art for this month's book reading talk ... The Monkey's Mask by Dorothy Porter. Even as a backcloth to one of the exhibits in the Vivid festival of light, the MCA looked strangely dark. That was because it was closed. We had turned up a week early.

Still ... the book is a decent (if quick) read. It's a private investigator tale told in blank verse. The author loses the plot half way through, takes a less than interesting excursion to Brisbane for no discernible story reason and never truly finds her way back. It's not wholly surprising, therefore, that the verse novel peters out rather unsatisfactorily. It simply stops, unresolved; nobody paying any price for the murders (except the dead folk, of course) so that's a bit annoying, even if it is in keeping with some of Chandler's finest. But the poetry stands up throughout, which makes the work worth reading for that reason alone.

Macbeth

So ... I got my essay back this evening: 16 1/2 out of 20 or 8 2.5%, which is 1/2 a mark or 2.5 percentage points below a "high distinction". I assume that's deliberate, intended to make me try harder next time (with the Jane Austen question). Dr Morrison is probably right. An egotistical man rises to the challenge. Lay on Macduff indeed!!

Dickhead!

(Me rather than Fiona Morrison)
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