The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus

Enjoyable, visually sumptuous (arresting even) at times. It's the product of a splendid vision in search of a weightier idea. Tom Waites steals the show, of course (but, when you think about it, the Devil has been stealing scenes since before Milton's Paradise Lost). Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell do good jobs filling in for Heath Ledger beyond the mirror. My guess is their presence adds to the piece, although (obviously) we'd all rather the hugely talented Mr Ledger was still with us.

I've seen many worse movies (plenty of them this year). It's worth the ticket price.

Kirribilli House

I was part of the 'national housing dialogue' on universal housing design, which took place at the PM's official residence in Sydney. Apparently HRH Prince Edward was staying next door at Admiralty House. It appears that some of the participants in our event thought there was something remarkable / of interest about the Royal presence over the wall. God ... we can be colonials when we set our minds to it.

We've been working towards this event for months, years in an odd sort of way. There's light at the end of the tunnel ... possibly. It's not an on-coming train but the very real possibility that within three years, maybe five at the most, there'll be a national regulatory framework that will require all new Australian dwellings to be at least visitable; probably more than that.

I sat on the flagstones beneath the eaves of the house looking out across Sydney Harbour on an uncharacteristically chilly, gray day. I had just finished a small Prime Ministerial quiche and was about to start on a smoked salmon fillet sandwich with cucumber and maybe dill and thought there are worse ways to make one's contribution. I thought too that it has been a decent contribution ... to Parts T & M of the UK's Building Regulations in the late 1990s and to the Building Code of Australia now. That ought to be worth at least one salmon sandwich over the garden wall from one of Windsors.

By the way ... when I say "we've been working" that's the Royal We. My colleague Amelia did all the detailed, hard yakka. Mostly I said, "good job Amelia; keep going."

Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities, the Hon Bill Shorten MP, published this statement on today's work.
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Just write, Dougie

All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane. I cannot say with certainty which of my motives are the strongest, but I know which of them deserve to be followed. And looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally.

George Orwell, Why I Write

Orwell at Wiki
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A slow awakening

Nothing like a devastating earthquake
in the foothills of the uninhabited
mountains of lost memories
(which once we called experience)
a tremor starts

its epicentre
neither seen nor known nor understood
but felt with all the close intensity
of a lover's breath upon the back
of a neck bending towards sunlight.
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Up

Charming. It's laugh out loud funny at times and I can't recall the last time I was at a movie when the entire audience laughed together. it's impossible not to be impressed by the people at Pixar. They create modern fairy tales (in contrast to Disney, the grand-daddy of re-telling old tales). Pixar takes risks too. Up is a very good example: it's the tale of an old man who takes to flight in a house carried by helium filled party balloons; perhaps the most charismatic character, Ellie, leaves the stage after 20 minutes; there's realistic death (last saw that in Bambi). Loved it. The short film that precedes Up, Partly Cloudy, is another Pixar gem.

Oracle

Meryl Tankard's new work at the Opera House based on the rites of spring is brilliant. Paul White's dancing was astonishing. I ended the evening with panache ... tumbling off the stair lift on to the floor. No real damage done but one was almost crushed to death by the stampede of available young men who ran to assist. Cool is not the word for it but 5.7 for the artistic merit of one's dive. dickhead.

Sign of the times

First of two days of discussion by the Council I'm paid to support. We presented an enormous cake to Chevoy, one of the AUSLAN interpreters we use regularly. She has recently been the winner of an award as the nation's top interpreter. Chevoy seemed genuinely touched. My over-ordering means she'll be eating cake until next year's winner is announced. The image was laser-printed onto rice paper then Michelle's cake-shop ... national chain ... topped the sponge with the jpeg image. Ah, the wonder of the Internet.