The Conversation

It's odd the things that come into my mind when I am showering, most of it seemingly unconnected with what is happening around me at the time.

This morning whilst showering I started to reminisce about my days of puberty and 'the conversation'. You know what I'm referring to; that occasion when your father sits down and tells you about the birds and the bees or how the stork really makes it delivery.

My father never engaged me in 'the conversation'. There I was, hit fair and square by puberty and responding to a strong sex drive at a very early age and yet incredibly naive about sex. I was an only child and therefore had no siblings to educate me about these matters. Perhaps sensing my sexuality or difference early on, I had few friends who might have educated me with their childish knowledge. I was blissfully ignorant about what it was that I was doing with, dare I write it, such gay abandon.

My uncle once attempted a version of 'the conversation' whilst he was driving me somewhere. Goodness knows why he attempted it as my father probably would have murdered him (metaphorically) if he had known. I don't recall much about what my uncle said except that he drew upon the work of some Psychiatrist or other (Freud, maybe) and mentioned something to the effect that humans were so distinguishable from other species because we were the only ones who made love face to face. In my naivety I found this quite a peculiar notion because face to face love was the least of what I was engaging in then.

I must have said something in response to my uncle that alarmed him because I recall he abruptly ended the discussion at that point and the remainder of the trip was completed in stony silence.

Formal education was little better for me. I went to an all boys school. More than a thousand boys at our school and the entire faculty bar just one also male. You can imagine the level of testosterone simmering away in that hot house. Ironically, the one female teacher in the school taught biology and it fell to her to deliver the sex education program to us all. This woman, Mrs L, looked like the archetypal crone and seemed to our youthful minds to be aged about 125 years.

I remember little of the day when it was my class' turn to receive the session except for her closing comment. We were aged about 13 years. That final memory clinching comment to the class was;

"By now boys all of you should find that your testicles have dropped. If any of you still hasn't had your testicles drop then stay back after class and see me."

Ahem. You've never seen such a rush for the door as when the bell rang to end that class.

Necropolis

I always try to visit my grandmother's grave around Mother's Day (this Sunday) both for myself and on behalf of my mother who no longer is able to make the visit to her mother's burial site. My grandmother's grave is at Rookwood Necropolis; also the resting place of my father. In time it will be the final home for my mother and myself too. The name Necropolis always makes me think of Dracula for some reason but it is the formal name of what is commonly referred to as Rookwood Cemetery.


(The old Rookwood Mortuary Station)

I try to avoid making the visit on Mother's Day itself because that is the busiest day at Rookwood with crowds resembling what you might expect at a football grand final. It is not surprising considering that Rookwood is one of the largest burial grounds in the world covering 283 hectares (700 acres). Established in 1868, more than 800,000 people are interred in the grounds.

I drove out after finishing work at the hospital at 3pm. Friday afternoon peak traffic may not be the smartest time to make the trip but it was still worth the crawl out and back rather than battle the numbers that will visit on Sunday.

I left flowers on both graves.

When I see Mum on the weekend I'll tell her about the visit but as is pretty always the case nowadays the information will mean nothing to her but I will know that the visit has been on behalf of us both.

Thailand to Peru

We had a beautiful day in Sydney today, surprisingly mild - in fact warm in the sun.

I had lunch with Ae, Hn and Ba, the last having just returned from five weeks in South America and the USA. We had lunch at the Thai restaurant in Victoria Street just up from the hospital in Darlinghurst paying the ridiculously low price of $10 each for our four dishes and entree apparently charged the lunch time special rate although we had chosen dishes from the regular menu not from the specials.

Then it was back to Ba's for coffee and a computer slide show from Ba's trip including her stays in Lima, Cusco (pictured), Machu Picchu and the Galapagos Islands. I was rather taken with the images in Cusco, a place I had never heard about previously.

Ae is pressing ahead with plans for us (Hn and I) to do a South American trip next year.

The Wonderful World of Dissocia

Mk and I saw this Sydney Theatre Company production last night.

Lisa has lost an hour of her life through a quirk of timing whilst flying home from New York at the precise moment that Daylight Saving time ends. She travels to Dissocia to retrieve her lost hour but finds the task more difficult than she anticipated in this Alice in Wonderland type world.

I doubt I have ever seen a play whose two acts are as different from each other as this one. To explain why would be to give away too much information about the play's underlying theme although that may well be guessed whilst viewing Act 1.

Justine Clark whose costumes almost successfully disguise her heavily pregnant condition is superb in the main role and she receives great support from the likes of Socratis Otto, Russell Dykstra and Matt Day.

I enjoyed the work although that was not the universal view of last night's audience judging by the number of non returning members post interval.

Elegy

Celebrity Professor and womaniser Ben Kingsley sets out to seduce his student Penelope Cruz in Elegy only to find more than he bargained for.

I love films set in New York. The apartment, restaurant and cafe scenes always are very attractive to me. How you react to this portrayal of a relationship across the generations will be a matter of personal taste but I think most people will be impressed by the performances of Kingsley and Cruz. Kingsley is always so convincing playing a range of characters and personalities regardless of whether he superficially has the looks for the part although in this film I think he very much looks and sounds the part. Cruz is impressive in a more restrained performance that I can recall seeing from her.

Peter Sarsgaard has a small role as Kingsley's son. Sarsgaard's sleepy eyed sonambulant acting style will not suit everyone. I have thought him very sexy even before he rather thoughtfully revealed himself full frontal in Kinsey and therefore I am happy to watch him in anything. However I felt several of his scenes with Kingsley seemed quite at odds with the rest of the movie.

There is something French about the style of Elegy, a tale of relationships and not much action.

Driving Miss Ditsy

On Saturday afternoon I was driving to Newtown to go to the movies. As I passed through Darlinghurst it suddenly occurred to me to run my camera and capture the drive.

That is the video below. Fifteen minutes of driving through suburban streets of Sydney. Nothing of any consequence happens. The camera falls over twice. You can hear a sports program on ABC Local Radio, the sound of my turn indicator blinking, my occasional coughing and the almost constant tapping sound of the camera as it bounces against the windscreen.

At about 5 minutes 40 seconds I am turning right at Bar Cleveland and suddenly notice James, whom I have never met but recognise from his blog photo, standing on the right footpath (out of vision). I attempt to open the window and shout out my introduction but miss the opportunity.

At about 10 minutes, as I drive past Sydney University, I notice almost too late that I am about to drive through a red light which fortunately for me turns green at the last moment.

At about 12 minutes and 20 seconds, the ABC Local Radio program starts to interview three Irish Priests who are to perform concerts in Australia.

The memory card runs out just as I reach Camperdown Park where I will park my car before walking to the cinema.

If you happen to want a virtual drive through Sydney or, for overseas readers, a sense of what it is like to drive on the left hand side of the road, watch the video. Everyone else may prefer to move on to the next item.

Mother of Dorothy

The highs and lows of parents with dementia.

Yesterday I visited Mum at the nursing home which is a regular Saturday morning activity.

Her smile as I approached indicated this was a day when she would recognise who I am even if it has been fifteen months since she last called me by my name. Within moments of joining her I noticed, by the smell unfortunately, that Mum had soiled herself. I called a carer over who took Mum back to her room to tidy her up and dress her in fresh clothing.

I remained in the general lounge reading whilst I awaited Mum's return. When Mum walked back down the corridor a short time later and sighted me as if for the first time that day she immediately broke into spirited humming of Somewhere Over The Rainbow.

My mother may not always recognise me but even in the fog of her dementia that is a mother who knows her son!

Stephen Spielberg...definitely not

I finally managed it; and yes the problem was the file was too large. I've taken and now publish my first video. Here it is. Bear in mind this was just for test purposes and is of no sophistication whatsoever.



So what is it?

A cloudy, cool Sydney day as seen from my balcony last Wednesday. The harbour looks better in the sun than it does here but never mind. You can hear the traffic noise, the tweeting of birds and only those with the best of hearing might make out the sounds of The Ellen De Generes Show which was playing on my television in the background.

And, oh yes, the zoom on my camera stinks.

Stephen Spielberg...still not

Thanks for the suggestions to my previous post. I tried resaving my video through Windows Movie Maker then publishing it on Blogger but still didn't succeed. I'm doing something wrong and will have to work on it some more.

I have tried Blogger Help, as suggested by Evol Kween but find that Help facility exceptionally difficult to fathom. I rarely find the form of words for the input question that produces the help answer to the question in my head.

Stephen Spielberg...I am not

It is time that I broadened my range of blogging skills so yesterday I embarked on a test run of creating a video for downloading to this blog of mine.

I don't have a video camera but my Canon Digital IXUS70 camera has a basic video facility which I used to create a simple video which I saved to my PC. Then, using the steps spelt out in dialogue box below, I attempted to download (or is it upload, as the box informed me) the video into a post that I intended to publish.


Five times I attempted the video download and five times it failed. Several times a message informed me that contact couldn't be made with Blogger and the other three times the 'upload wheel' spun around seemingly forever until eventually a failed message appeared.

My video opens in the Windows Video format on my PC and I assumed it's format would be acceptable to Blogger. But maybe it isn't?

Can any readers help me out?

My body has been corporatised...again

I've owned my apartment since 1990. I was 41 when I moved in to a building with a high proportion of owner occupiers and even higher proportion of geriatric residents. It was then, as now, a well maintained building with a stable Executive Committee whose composition only seemed to change upon the death of a committee member.

The two neighbours on my floor when I arrived were widows aged 92 and 77 both of whom departed the building through death. Over the years another two neighbours on my floor also ended their residence there through death, both aged in their late 80s. You can imagine the shock to the system when a married couple in their 30s spent a year on my floor and had a baby in that time. It was, I think, the first time in my nineteen years that a baby had lived in the building.

Well, going back to 1990 I was dragooned onto the Executive Committee within months, no doubt seen as young meat to bring innovation, energy and new thinking to the place. It was never likely to be. I am not an innovative thinker, I am not domestically inclined or aware and I have no aptitude for handy man activities and therefore not someone to come up with interesting ideas for building maintenance and improvements.

I muddled along on the committee for about fifteen years being re-elected, along with the rest of the committee, without opposition each year. The only way of leaving the committee seemed to be death; one committee member finally departing aged 101 and another at a relatively youthful 88. Despite its average age and the lack of any meaningful input from me the committee has always been active and effective thanks in great part to the President, a retired University Professor, the Secretary, a spinster retired school teacher and a third member, a retired Commonwealth Public Servant who, no doubt by virtue of his former career, is right into systems, detail and regulations.

Then, three years ago I did the unthinkable and refused to stand for re-election. It was an awkward moment mostly because no-one had done so in living memory and no-one seemed quite sure how to react. The remainder of the committee was duly re-elected and they continued on for three years until last month at the AGM when the now youngest committee member evidently emboldened by my precedent declined to stand again for this year.

I sat there at the AGM silently mulling over this show of bravery and minding my own business when I was I brought back from the reverie to discover that in that moment of day dreaming I had been nominated and elected onto the committee again.

Drat. Here I go again.

Size Queen

Assured Technical Madness

Don't you just love the convenience and efficiency of those ATMs?


There I was at my local bank this morning withdrawing money from the ATM to pay the plumber who was expected at my place just twenty minutes later. The ATM thoughtfully swallowed my ATM card without warning at the same time failing to produce any of my requested withdrawal.

The ATM beeped at me, closed it's shutter and cheerfully informed me I was 'timed out' and that it had retained my card. I raced into the adjoining bank branch and joined a suspiciously unhappy looking queue for service. I quickly learnt that most of those ahead of me had also had their cards retained by the recalcitrant ATM and what's more those joining the queue behind me were newcomers to the list of annoyed card retained customers.

A teller appeared after a while with a handful of retained cards which were returned to us once we proved identity and then we had to wait whilst they checked our unsuccessful ATM transactions one by one.

You'd think the Manager would have shut down the ATM in the mean time but when eventually my transaction was checked out and I left the branch I noticed it was continuing its card chewing ways with newly arrived customers.

Beatrice Arthur (1922 - 2009)

Golden Girl and gay icon Bea Arthur dies from cancer aged 86.

Safety First

Observing the instruction in this road sign in the Northern Territory of Australia could be interesting.

Anzac Day 2009

Mycoplasma Pneumoniae

...is the jazzy sounding bacterial infection that has laid me low for the past few weeks. This was the findings of the blood tests I undertook the other day.

Here is a pretty colour photograph of the bacteria.


It seems there is nothing much I can do about this but ride it out. Symptoms can persist for than a month and the doctor reckons I have a couple of more weeks to go.

Knowing

Is life on Earth a concoction of random, coincidental circumstances or is everything predetermined and calculated? This is the interesting premise of Knowing.

A fifty years old time capsule is recovered from a US primary school and one of the documents from it contains a mass of numbers. Do the numbers mean anything? As luck would have it (and indeed as part of the movie's premise) the document falls into the hands of Nicholas Cage who with remarkable clarity and skill during his drunken moments twigs to the fact that the numbers seem to relate to cataclysmic events in world history. Are there more to come and what can Cage do about it?

For about two thirds of its length Knowing remained entertaining and just about close enough to remote believability for me to care about what was happening. As always with this type of film, the longer it goes the closer you get to wondering how on earth they will bring it to a resolution. In the case of Knowing, the answer turns out to be - not very satisfactorily. That is a pity because until those last twenty minutes or so, I was having great fun going along for the ride.

Degrees of Separation

You probably know about the 'theory' of six degees of separation whereby everyone in the entire world can be linked to the American actor Kevin Bacon with no more than six people in the link.


You know the sort of thing. A lives next door to B who once sat next to C on a plane who once saw saw D across a street etc, etc.

Well, I have a bona fide four degrees of separation with both Glenn Close


and, better still, Brad Pitt.


My co-worker (one degree)
has a son (two degrees)
whose girlfriend (three degrees)
has acted with both Glenn Close (four degrees) and Brad Pitt (also four degrees).

There. That's my spurious brush with fame claim.

Jerry Springer The Opera

Anyone who has seen Jerry Springer's television program will have an idea of what to expect from Jerry Springer The Opera; at least in Act One which recreates the frenzied, bizarre atmosphere and characters for which the small screen version is notorious.

Act Two moves into different territory as the Devil draws Springer into a battle with Jesus; an African-American Jesus who 'feels a little bit gay'.

This Opera, which at times sounds like an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, is not exactly Puccini, let alone a Verdi or Mozart work. There are some catchy, at the moment, tunes. The lyrics (libretto?) are packed with uncountable instances of 'fuck', 'cocksucker' and the like.

In case you are still not sure what to expect if you see this show there are early references to 'twin lesbian dwarfs who give excellent head' and the situations progress (or deteriorate, if you prefer) from there.

A fair proportion of the capacity first night audience whooped it up in the style of American television audiences. I found quite a lot of the show funny but I also was a little uneasy about aspects of it.

If you like your religion or are serious about it then you might want to give this show a miss.

Open a new window

Our Body Corporate is looking at a proposal to replace all the window fittings to our apartment block. The building is forty years old and most of the windows are the originals and no longer suitable for our environmental conditions. A significant proportion of the windows are subject of regular and ongoing maintenance and repair.

The proposal involves hundreds of thousands of dollars of expenditure and the Committee has put several options to owners as an initial survey for consideration and discussion.

I would have thought a proposal that involves major expenditure would generate keen discussion and that most owners would want a say. Just one third of all owners have responded to the survey. Two thirds of owners have not provided any response or input at all.

It is amazing to me how many people apparently have no interest in what happens to their home.

No trumps

For a variety of reasons I've missed about seven successive sessions of bridge.

First there was the CBD blackout which induced a traffic jam preventing us getting to the club on time. Then Ce went off to Hahndorf for a Doll Club Fair or some such frivolity. Later I had a family commitment and then Ce and I took it in turns to be sick.

I am scheduled to play again tomorrow evening and that will be my first game in weeks. I'm not certain that I want to play. I used to look forward to the games but am finding it harder to feel motivated nowadays although once I'm at the club I usually enjoy the game. I suppose having played 2/3 times a week for nearly twenty years now, the novelty has worn off a bit. Especially as I play mostly with the same partner. A bit like having sex exclusively with the same person for twenty years.

Of course, if there were the occasional streaker at bridge, my motivation would be far higher.

A toe back in the water...

...metaphorically speaking.


After a week mainly couch and bed bound nursing my chest complaint I joined friends for lunch yesterday at the Coogee Legion Club. I have written previously about lunching there. The club's restaurant has a great position on the balcony looking across at the beach and surf.

Once again we were blessed with terrific weather for our lunch. It might be Autumn and heading towards to Winter but yesterday was a flawlessly sunny day with temperatures in the mid 20s centigrade. There were plenty of sunbathers and surfers at the beach as you might just make out from the photograph above taken from our table towards the end of lunch.

Ce and Je had Blue Eyed Cod, Ae and I ordered Veal and Prawns in a Light Mustard Cream Sauce and Be stuck to his favoured Chicken Schnitzel. I was starving by the time lunch was served having fasted overnight in preparation for blood tests earlier in the day and gobbled my meal down as though I had never eaten one before.

All in all a very pleasant afternoon.

Doctor Matchmaker

I went back to the doctor yesterday having completed the course of antibiotics he prescribed but still suffering cough and sweating symptoms.

He checked my temperature which was OK and then poked and prodded around again as I breathed in and out for him as artistically as I could manage. In his view my infection was under control and what I was experiencing now was some left over inflammation and throat irritation. 'I am very happy with you', he pronounced which was all well and good for him but still left me with a discomforting cough.


You'd think that one of the perks of having a gay doctor with a practice in a gay area of Sydney would be a waiting room packed with attractive gay patients. I've been attending this Doctor for years and am constantly disappointed by the attractiveness quotient of his patient list. No doubt his other patients think the same when they find me in the waiting room.

That's not to say that there isn't an occasional stunner but I can only assume that the really good looking ones save themselves for appointments much later in the day. It seems mostly old Queens like myself in the morning and early afternoon appointments that I frequent.

So there was some relief from my coughing bouts yesterday when one quite attractive man was in the rooms for a while. I stole glances at him but he seemed less interested in me. Nonetheless he rather thoughtfully stretched several times to display some abdomen for me; not exactly a six pack but more than enough for me to be in his bed before he could say 'hello' if he had been so inclined.

From bits of conversation he exchanged with Doctor and receptionist I gleaned that he is from North America and probably only visiting so there is no chance of me building on the one-sided relationship I was developing in my daydreams.

Oh well, there will be other illnesses ahead to draw me back to the Doctor's rooms and the always hoped for dreamboat patient waiting there to sweep me away.

Bang bang

Two very cute tradesmen are banging away on my landing at this very moment.

Errr no, they are not having sex. Our apartment block is installing new lighting and exit signage in the common areas and these two are doing the installation.

I wouldn't mind plonking myself down in a chair on the landing and admiring them from close-up but that might be a tad obvious.

Departure gate

For those who wait and wait...


(The New Yorker)

"Shooting through...

...like a Bondi Tram".

No, not some gay metaphor but what used to be a common saying in the days when Sydney had an extensive tram network which included a service on which these old rattlers raced down the hill to Bondi Beach. The saying went the way of the network which was closed down in 1961.

The Museum of Sydney has a small exhibition on Sydney's old tram network which I looked through this morning. It was fun to stand in the cabin of a tram and play with the driver's handle and to press the conductor's foot pedal bell. Apart from me only children played with the bell whilst I was around but I wasn't about to let embarrassment prevent me having fun.


(The foyer of MoS with the old tram destination rolls hanging from the ceiling.)


Information panels provided some indicators of the size and capacity of Sydney's old tram system which in it's day was amongst the largest in the then British Empire and, by extension, in the world.

I was amazed to read that at King and George Streets in the city 564 trams crossed the intersection every day between 5pm and 6.30pm. As the panel states that is a tram every 10 seconds!

Elsewhere the MoS was screening newsreels from the 1930s and 1940s about Sydney Harbour and the Bridge. One quaint reel showing activity on the Harbour on opening day of the Bridge in 1932 stated that the pageantry included gay sailing boats. Mmmmm, I'd like to see that.

Thinking of that noted tram aficionado High Riser I picked up a souvenir, so Andrew if you would email a postal address I'll pop that in the mail to you shortly.

Explosive diplomacy

One of the explosive untold stories from the recent G20 Summit in London, now revealed.

President Obama arrives in London for the G20 Summit, and is met by the Queen.

She escorts him to the Royal Carriage, where they travel to the Palace.

As they are travelling along through the streets, one of the horses lets fly with a tremendous fart - so powerful the entire carriage shakes violently. Both the Queen and the President do their best to remain composed.

After arriving at the Palace, the Queen says “Mr President, please forgive me. But there are just some things that even a Queen cannot control’.

Obama replies “It’s fine, Your Majesty. In fact, if you hadn’t said anything I probably would’ve thought it was one of the horses.”

(Stolen from Spatula City)

Piece! man...

Advertisements for a forthcoming concert tour trumpet that the artists are backed by a thirty piece orchestra and....a twenty piece choir.

That must be some new fangled type of choir if it comes in pieces.

How may I help you?

So there I was today at the bank waiting for my number to appear on the screen and for the electronic voice to direct me and my number to a teller. Which bank was I at? I'm not saying but Sydney readers may recognise the heading of this posting as the form of words this bank once used to greet customers in the days before screens and electronic voices provided a less personal greeting.

Whilst waiting I perused the range of available tellers noting that only one male was amongst them. But he was enough for my antenna to beep SAMAQ in my head; ie Somewhat Attractive Mature Aged Queen. My intuition seemed immediately confirmed when I noticed his eyes carefully appraising his next customer as that young man approached his counter. My gaydar clearly was working.

And I continued to wait my turn. I was waiting to deposit two cheques. One cheque, made out to my name, into my account and one cheque, made out to my mother's name, into her account. Should all be easy peasey I thought as I wondered whether the screen and electronic voice would allocate my number to SAMAQ.

And so it came to pass as screen and electronic voice summoned me to SAMAQ's presence. No appraising eyes scanned me as I approached SAMAQ but I wasn't disappointed as I didn't really expect him to be waiting for an EOMAQ; ie Even Older Mature Age Queen. SAMAQ proceeded to tap away at his computer processing my cheque with quiet and effortless indifference.

Then SAMAQ turned to my mother's cheque. At that point I apologised for not providing her account number but I added, somewhat dangerously, I assumed he could confirm this from the bank's computer system.

At this point SAMAQ transformed into MAQWA; Mature Age Queen With Attitude. MAQWA informed me archly that my mother's cheque couldn't be deposited into my account; only into her account or a joint account. Now the deposit slip I was submitting clearly stated that the deposit was for her account by name and I could have been equally arch in response by drawing this to MAQWA's attention but I held my discipline and simply said 'yes, I do want it paid into her account'.

MAQWA now pounded his keyboard with pouty irritation as he took on the onerous task of obtaining my mother's account number from the bank's computer system. This took all of several seconds to accomplish at which point he hissed back at me that 'she has two accounts'. I hesitated momentarily to absorb this news, which was all that MAQWA needed for a sneer to appear across his face until I realised and commented 'well, one of of those is her account and the other is the joint account with me.

MAQWA's sneer disappeared as he said 'yes, that is correct'. My head was now saying to him 'look dummy, I've told you twice now, once in writing and once orally, that I want the cheque deposited to her account so why mention the joint account' but my discipline held again and I said 'into her account please'.

MAQWA completed the transaction with every inch of his body language shouting 'why do I get all the loony customers?'.

My discipline held to the end when I told MAQWA that 'I will make sure I have my mother's account number with me in future' whereas what I was actually thinking was 'next time dickhead I will bring the number to save you the trouble of putting yourself out to assist a customer'.

How may I help you indeed!

The Doctor's Bargain

Sorry to focus on illness but having been largely house and bed bound for four days there is not much else I can blog about at present.

On further thought I suppose I could report about bleary eyed television viewing of daytime shows like The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The View and The Bold and the Beautiful but what can I say? Well now that I'm on this tangent I could say that I rather like Whoopi Goldberg on View who clearly doesn't take the show as seriously as some of her panel mates and even more interestingly doesn't think very highly of some of those panellists. That brings a nice edge to proceedings. Ellen is fun although her interviews aren't especially revealing of her guests but her quick dry wit is a pleasure. And as for B&B seeing Brooke arguing with Stephanie and about to marry Ridge (or are they already married yet again) is not much of an advance on story lines when I first came across this series twenty-two years ago.

But back to the Doctor. The earliest appointment I could get for him yesterday was 3.45pm which was far later than I hoped for. My doctor always seems to be running late and by that time of day I fully expected him to see me 45-60 minutes late. To my amazement and, I think, the first time ever he called me in right on time. After the usual prodding and poking, breathing in and out and coughing for his entertainment he pronounced that I had a slight temperature, something or other that I didn't decipher on the throat and other sundry chest related complaints.

He has prescribed a week's worth of antibiotics and possible side effects of nausea and diarrhoea.

Great. I went in with one complaint and he sent me home with the possibility of two others. What a bargain.

The ups and downs of illness

Day three of feeling unwell and I am waiting for the doctor's rooms to open so I can make an appointment to see him.

I slept the last two nights rugged up with the two tops, two bottoms and socks in an attempt to sweat myself back to health. Normally I sleep naked whether it is summer or winter. If a night is particularly cold I might concede to wearing a T-shirt top but I never wear bottoms. I don't like the feeling of my dangly bits getting caught up in the fabric of clothing as I toss and turn during the night. I tend to sleep like a rotisserie.

Despite all that clothing it took a long time to get a sweat up. On the other hand with all the tea I have been drinking I found myself visiting the bathroom regularly through the night. Whilst I wasn't comfortable wearing all that clothing one side benefit from the body heat it generated was that I was dangling more impressively than ever.

So during the nocturnal bathroom visits I took time to admire my unusually low hanging assets in the bathroom mirror. I may not have felt better but I sure looked better.

Seafood...sun...sand...sickness

Fs was up from Canberra for the weekend and we had lunch yesterday with Bn at the Watsons Bay Hotel. It is a stunning location for visitors to Sydney, the small bay dotted with colourful maritime craft in the foreground and the city skyline and Harbour Bridge in the distant background.

We were particularly lucky with the weather which after a week of grey rainy days was sunny and quite warm, ironically as yesterday was the first day after the end of daylight saving time and winter is around the corner. Indeed today is much cooler, windy and wet again.

Lunch itself wasn't anything special. I've always thought the reputation of the food outlets at the Bay rested more on the location and view than the actual quality of the food. Nothing seems to have changed there.

After lunch we wandered down the Bay and across to Camp Cove located just inside the Southern Heads of the harbour entrance.

As a child my parents brought us to Camp Cove on weekends during the summer months where we would spend close to ten hours each day burning away in the sun. Camp Cove is also the place where I lost my cherry at a very young age but that is another story.


There was a group of divers at the western end of the Cove one of whom had a stunning body but sadly I wasn't game to photograph him directly.


Although we had an enjoyable day I had woken feeling off colour and gradually felt worse during the afternoon. By the time I returned home I had a bad dry cough and pains in the lower back. I took my usual medication for those symptoms, lemon tea with honey and was in bed by 8.30pm.

I am feeling better this morning but will stay at home and try to get over the symptoms altogether.

Curries from Kolkutta...or was that Cambridge?

Last night was Rockdale dinner night. A group of us who worked at the now defunct Rockdale office of the Government agency that employed us gather for dinner about every six months. One of our number, Jn, fancies himself as a gourmand and usually selects the venue. For the most part his selections are successful although I didn't fancy a Japanese restaurant somewhere out in the southern suburbs that we went to once. That would have been me rather than the restaurant though because I am not good with seafood and most of the menu naturally was seafood; and exotic seafood at that.

Last night's venue was an Indian restaurant in Bondi Junction. We had tried it once previously and it was OK. Nothing exceptional but it seemed acceptable for food and service.

Afterwards I thought I would check the restaurant on the Internet and looked up one of those sites where anonymous contributors record their comments. You never know whether favourable comments are planted there by the owners and critical comments by their competitors but often what is recorded can prove revealing.

This restaurant had attracted polarised comments, either highly critical or fairly favourable. What intrigued me though was that about half the comments were by people claiming that they had come to Australia from the United Kingdom and were rating this venue against their favourite UK Indian restaurants. Why would that be relevant? I would think the best comparison would be against Indian restaurants in India.

Last Chance Harvey

The basic story in Last Chance Harvey is essentially similar to the classic An Affair To Remember but whereas the two lead characters in Affair were self assured, social individuals the corresponding characters in Harvey are outsiders in a crowd.

The first section in Harvey where we see Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson in separate, unlinked scenes battling the heartache of rejection and loneliness is nicely handled and realistic. I have been in similar situations and could really relate to the portrayal.

Once the two meet and a relationship evolves Harvey moves inevitably to its predictable outcome. A pity that life doesn't always unfold in this way but we live in hope.

Not only this...but this...

Have you completed your shopping list yet?



Cock Shot from Invisible Engine on Vimeo.

Still raining

No, it's not an Aprils Fool joke..it is still raining in Sydney.

The view this morning from my kitchen.

Simply Sydney

Yesterday was a typical Sydney day.

I woke to the news of the latest bikie shooting.


So frequent have these shootings become that news of them doesn't necessarily lead the bulletins anymore.

Later in the morning Qantas baggage handlers went on a four hours' long strike disrupting airport operations nationally and traffic around the airport.


Shortly after noon a giant explosion in the penthouse apartment of a thirty stories Bondi Junction high rise badly injured two workers causing major damage to the large block requiring it and the major shopping precinct below to be evacuated. Hundreds of residents could not return to their apartments for the remainder of the day and overnight whilst investigations and repairs continued. Traffic in the area remains disrupted.


Then shortly after 4.30pm, a major electricity failure, still unexplained today, caused blackouts across the Central Business District and parts of inner east and inner west suburbs stranding thousands, closing the cross harbour tunnel and eastern distributor.

My bridge partner's apartment building was blacked out for some hours and our attempts to get to bridge last night were abandoned after we were stuck in traffic jams for nearly an hour.



To complete a memorable, for the wrong reasons, twenty-four hours the rains have returned to Sydney today soaking the city.

Summer Hours

Three adult children, Juliette Binoche amongst them, inherit their mother's house packed with artifacts created or collected by their great uncle. The three have to determine what to do with the estate.

There are many films like Summer Hours that come out of France. The characters enjoy leisurely hours spent over meals and in the coffee shop and they live stylish lives in stylish surroundings. And nothing much happens.

Despite the lack of action, drama and any real conflict I quite enjoyed vicariously viewing these peoples' lives. Jeremei Renier as one of the brothers and Clint Eastwood's son Kyle, in a very small role, are attractive distractions.

Totally safe for those on blood pressure medication.

Saturday in the park

It is Autumn but with daylight saving time still in place and the temperature in Sydney today more like Summer it was a beautiful late afternoon in Camperdown Park at Newtown. People lazing about and then...


...a young wedding party from the adjacent St Stephens Church assembled for their photos.

Grand Prix and Grand Pricks

I have sympathy for High Riser who doesn't like having the Australian Grand Prix on his doorstep.

Although I am a sports enthusiast, as a spectator that is, I have little interest in racing sports whether of the motoring or equine variety. When I lived in Hong Kong from 1977 to 1980, we used to travel across to Macau each year for their Grand Prix weekend. The weekend was always unbelievably noisy and dusty and the race itself this extraordinarily boring event in which a flurry of cars raced past our static viewing position in a complete blur at approximately 2 minute intervals.

I wasn't won over. In recent years though I have to concede that the one saving grace of the sport is the handsomeness of its drivers. Some are seriously sexy looking. Although I think he may have retired, Kimi Raikkonen (above), is one who has remained saved in this gay man's memory bank.

Watchmen

I went to see Watchmen solely on the basis of all the blogging about its blue penis.

It is the 1980s...and the 1940s...and the 1970s...and some futuristic parallel time as well and the world is descending into anarchy against the background of the threat of nuclear war. Our retired costume heroes are being targeted by a murderer. Will the murderer be found and can war be averted?

I am no aficionado of comic books and apart from several episodes of the Superman and Batman franchises I have generally been unmoved by the attractions of the films that have been made from them. I thought the Spiderman series was seriously boring apart from the opportunity to gaze upon James Franco.

So Watchmen came as a surprise to me. The film is packed with historical, political and cultural references. So many are there that I am sure I missed more than I picked in this viewing. Watchmen also features references to movies past. The sequences where President Nixon is in his war cabinet mimic Stanley Kubrick's Doctor Strangelove and shots of the bug-eyed spacecraft flying through the clouds brought back memories of the Saturday afternoon serials I used to see at the movies back in the 1950s.

The music and songs featured in the film are interesting and the opening credits sequence, also packed with historical references, is simply terrific. The cinematography is excellent as are most of the special effects.

But I would not be game to return for a second viewing just to check on missed references. Watchmen is also overlong and the scenes of our costumed heroes in plain clothed retirement are often dull, perhaps deliberately so to contrast with the eccentricity of the action sequences. And the film has some very violent moments.

Oh, and the blue penis? Well all I can say is that whoever, or whatever, is the model for Billy Crudup's blue body is very impressive.

Open a new window...

...as my Auntie Mame might have sung.

This spectacular photograph is of a window in my dining room. If you look closely you will see that the bottom edge of the top half is overlapping the top edge of the bottom half. My apologies for using highly technical window language but I do like to be precise.

Well, for reasons unknown and in just the past couple of days I noticed this window no longer closes properly. It falls just short of closing at the top and at the bottom and the problem as my highly technical mind has divined is that the two bits (very technical terminology) of the window are sticking in the middle and nothing that I have tried so far has prised them apart.

And I have tried. I've poked around with the ends of brooms, curtain rods and the full force of my bare hands but nothing has separated them. It looks like yet again I have to turn to a repairman to do something that others handle as a hobby.

Travesties

We saw the Sydney Theatre Company's production of Tom Stoppard's Travesties this evening.

The play set in Switzerland in 1917 is the reminiscences, faulty or otherwise, of a British Consular official of his relationships with James Joyce, Tristan Tzara and Vladimir Lenin. Woven into the play are references to Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.

I first saw Travesties in 1974 during its world premiere season when I was working in London, ironically as an Australian Consular official. My recollection of the play was that it was wordy, dull and over my head. I had just turned 25 at the time.

I was interested to see how I found the play now, 35 years later and on the verge of my 60th birthday. Well, there obviously is a big difference between being 25 and 60. This evening I was in awe of the beauty of the language, the cleverness of the ideas canvassed and the humour of the piece.

I loved it tonight. The STC production was well acted and beautifully staged. The only downside to the evening was the outbreak of a chorus of coughing from the rear of the auditorium such as I cannot recall hearing previously at the theatre. Now I understand why Marcellous comments about this phenomenon when he attends concerts at the Opera House.

I can heartily recommend Travesties especially if you are closer to 60 than 25 unless you are a more worldly 25 than I must have been.

Duplicity

Clive Owen and Julia Roberts are former Government secret agents in Duplicity who take on jobs for rival commercial companies. One company has a secret which the other wants to discover. Can the two former agents be trusted? Can they trust each other? Does a double cross lay ahead? Almost the entire two hours of Duplicity is a set up for 'the reveal' at the end.

This is the type of film that MGM would have made in the 1930s/40s and they would have used Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in the roles. However in those films the screenplay would have been filled with wisecracks, the characters would have had more fun but travelled less widely and the storyline would have been less complex.

The few laugh out loud moments in Duplicity come as a relief. There are other humorous moments but the screenplay tends to hide them in a cloak of secrecy and subtlety.

Whether Owen and Roberts click as a couple in this film is a matter of personal opinion but for me they were more like colleagues in their scenes together.

I liked the premise of the film but it could have been so much better.