Children of Men

What an...odd movie. It's not really an escapist exercise at all, this one. It reminded me a little of 'V for Vendetta', in the blatantly obvious links between current world affairs and a dystopic future.

I really didn't like all the spattering blood and random dying. You know, after the first dozen or so the point's pretty well made.

Simmo's just made the point that it is pretty '1984-ish' with Clive Owen's character starting off all jaded and not caring about the miserableness of the world but rather believing that he just has to go along with it.

The other thing was the backstory: there was none, beyond 'the entire world's gone to crap, and the human race has been infertile for the last 18 years.' Yep, I feel a real connection to this story. Bah.

Apparently it's based on a book by P.D. James. I hope that this is a case of the movie being a lousy manifestation of the book.

So: it's great in that it's an indictment of the conflict-laden paradigm of contemporary foreign policies, and of painfully xenophobic mentalities. It's not so great in that it's gross, blatant, and a little unengaging.

Thar she blows - all over the place!

That was a windy Saturday to be out in a little ol' boat. I'm not sure what the final score on the wind speed was, but I think it was up there on par with the day I got a black eye and broken glasses from a swinging boom.

I reckon there's about 8 guys at the club that handled it alright and completed the race - the majority of us headed for shore after a lap or so.

Strong winds compound the difficulty factors: 1) Really strong winds can be tough to handle. 2) Those winds whip up pretty neat waves that can be fun to surf down, or fly off the top of. They also break over the bow and spray which makes 3) things a lot wetter than normal, and 4) add in the winds and it gets pretty chilly. (I should get some more insulation!)

All that whingeing aside, it is freaking awesome hanging off the side of the boat on the knife-edge of capsizing, but just flying along (and actually believing that you are in control!)

Whew.

Bobbin Head Walk

Catch up time. One fine Sunday Simone and I had a stroll up in scenic Bobbin Head, part of Ku-rin-gai Chase National Park, about a 30 minute drive from lovely Meadowbank.

It was a bushwalk around Cowan Creek - we started a little late, but managed to walk for a good way. Wonderful having this nature reserve so close to the metropolis.

Took some pictures too.

Sydney African Film Festival

Well, Simone's gone and done it again and made me just a little bit more cultured and aware of the world.

We attended the opening of the Sydney African Film Festival, put on by a bunch of folks from the University of Sydney, and proceeds from the festival go to Hands of Help, which is one of those charitable organisations that sends caring wealthy(ish) Westerners to go and build schools and other civil infrastructure that governance-challenged dicators don't seem willing to spare funds for out of their corrupt practices.

So, it's all a good cause. We saw three featurettes, also known as short films, which were written, produced, filmed etc., by African filmmakers. Just a little confronting, particularly "Noura's Summer" starring Noura who's just done really really really well at school and is pretty much set to get a scholarship to university. As an added bonus she's been promised in marriage. WARNING: PLOT SPOILER. She suicides.

And that set the tone for the evening - stories of how crap life is in the poor parts of Africa (I know, that's most of it, but there are undoubtedly a delightful corrupt elite who are doing alright).

Anansi Boys - Neil Gaiman

Whee, this was fun! I'd heard about Neil Gaiman, but since it was all such fulsome praise, I avoided reading his stuff.

That was a bit of a mistake, I think. This was a very enjoyable introduction. Not strictly science-fiction, as I was led to believe was Gaiman's genre, but rather fantastical, or more accurately, I think, a translation of old mythic tales for contemporary times.

Wow, a bunch of great books in a row. I'm a lucky lad at the moment.

Believe it or not, there are lousy days to be on the water

What a miserable day... drizzly, overcast, cold (by Sydney standards). I hated to do it, but puttering around in a wind-powered bathtub doesn't appeal.

So, it's a day of household chores and errands instead.

The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

Here's a bit of an old book! Simone and I were chatting about books we had or hadn't read as littl'uns, and I could not remember if I'd read Wind in the Willows. So the only logical course of action was to head out the the friendly West Ryde branch of Ryde Library Services, and pick up a copy.

I still don't know if I've read it before - Mole, Toad, Rat and Badger seem strangely familiar, as do elements of the story (in remarkably vague ways), but I don't think I've actually read the book.

It's a great read, though. Heaps of fun, threads of morals and values running through it without being all preachy to turn off the kiddies. Great stuff. This was an older edition too, with delightful line drawings, with the added treat of some colour plates with line and watercolour illustrations.

Lovely.

The Calcutta Chromosome - Amitav Ghosh

Wow... anyone who's got an issue with non-chronological stories need not bother with this one, as the quest for a cure for malaria moves in and out of phase with a century or so long story of selective immortality set in, as the title might suggest, India.

Challenging and mostly fun to read - two good books in a row. Most excellent.

Storm Front - Jim Butcher

This was an engrossing quick read - and it is the first book in a series! That makes me pretty happy.

Call this a cross between a fantasy book and a detective novel. Fantasy elements with a detective-y style. Harry Dresden's a mortal practising wizard in Chicago, trying to make a dime working as, well, a wizard PI kind of guy. Weird things happen in that line of work, and this book tells the tale.

It almost seems like a silly little book, both in size and subject, but it is refreshing in its novelty. Magic is everywhere, it seems.

I'm looking forward to reading the next instalment.

Bit by bit, little by little

Spent a number of hours on the water yesterday, about half of which were actually fruitful, and the remainder were frustrating.

Early in the race I managed to stay with the frontrunners, and got up to third or fourth place on the first leg, and stayed in the top eight for the second leg. However, after that I seemed to go backwards, and once again finished after the scoring ladies left for tea. At least the first half of the race went better. It seems that as long as there is only very little wind, the club boats are on some sort of par with the 'good' boats owned by other clubmembers. That, or I have more time to copy their technique, and reap the benefits of being a little lighter than average. Once the wind picks up a bit, the good sailors on the good boats seem to leave little ol' me in the dust (imagine watery dust, for that metaphor to work).

Better luck next time.

Hurray, I re-found a couple of the books I've read

Some how, having my darling, beloved wife next to me on this fool's errand of a blog inspired me to figure out who the heck I've read lately. I remembered that apparently he's reminiscent of Carl Hiaasen (a highly touted American crime/comedy writer - he's alright)... but this guy is even better: Christopher Brookmyre. I read "The Sacred Art of Stealing" and "Be My Enemy". Both were great.

Nice, light, diversionary stuff that's a couple of intellectual cuts above the average crime novel.

Yay!

35 degrees today. Whew

It's been a while since I've been in front of the ol' Blogger dashboard. Looks just the way I left it.

Finally got a bit of a break from work - 10 market international study, things going wrong, working in Indian, GMT, and AEST timezones means being online from about 8 am until 3 am. That sort of sucks, but after three weeks of it, it's all over. Director's gone and presented the findings and recommendations while I take a couple of days off in lieu of something else, like say overtime pay. (Being on salary has its downsides.)

I did read a few books during the past few weeks, but I can't remember what they were, and I've thrown out the library receipt too, so no joy there. They clearly didn't sink in.

What I do remember is that there are heaps of interesting podcasts over at the ABC's Radio National. The Science Show is good, though a little stodgier than Quirks and Quarks, and Counterpoint is a delightful forum for battling viewpoints and ideologies. (Psst, Gov't? Stop spending money on innovation, and just cut taxes to let people have more money to be innovative with. Innovations are driven by the market, you know.)

Anyway, also started posting pictures on Flickr and the Goog's Web Album thingy. Should be here and here.

And now it's lunch time.