Centennial Park

Ban names

I'm not one who is into banning things willy nilly but one thing I sometimes wish was subject of banning orders is names. Particular sort of names. Those weirdly spelt given names like Jaxxsen or Caytie and so on which those poor children will have to repeatedly spell and explain for the rest of their lives. Those spellings would be a priority for banning in a world ruled by me.

But also high on my list is a short name that is not weirdly spelt but which always leaves me uncertain about its pronunciation. Marie. A simple name. Quite a gentle and nice name. But is the bearer a Ma-ree or a Mar-ee. I can never tell nor remember.

Ban it!

Bridge

Tonight, 37.70%, 11/11

Love is Strange

A mature age gay couple marry in New York after many years of partnership. When the income earning partner is fired from his employment the couple is forced to sell their apartment and spend time separately living amongst family and friends.

'Love is Strange' is not the film I expected from the trailer. It is quite claustrophobic and mournful in tone. Very slow with long, lingering French cinema style scenes, the film's plot raises many unanswered questions making it a somewhat frustrating experience.

The redeeming feature of the film is the fine ensemble acting.
★★★

Off my game

I've been playing reasonably well at Bridge in recent months making contracts that should be made and also making some that are, well, a little tricky and not necessarily makeable.

But last night I was off my game. I didn't get to play many of the early hands. About two hours into play a very nice couple reached our table. Their play was slow, oh so slow. They used most of the allotted twenty minutes playing the first two of three hands. Privately I was annoyed with them. I had to play the third hand with only minutes left and my private annoyance got the better of me. I was distracted, played the hand badly, really badly, and that was a bad result for us.

Next round I got to play a couple more hands. 'Focus', 'concentrate', I willed myself but my brain had shut down. The hands were makeable but not the way I went about playing them. Now I was annoyed with myself for becoming distracted but nothing was going to get my brain back on track last night.

I was simply off my game.

Bridge

Tonight, 46.80%, 7/11

Insurgent

'Insurgent' is the sequel to 'Divergent'. The same characters are still fighting the powerful controllers of what remains of planet Earth and are engaged in the race to decode a relic which contains secrets the controllers would prefer to have buried.

There isn't really much plot in this film which relies on computer enhanced images and wizardry to maintain interest.

Enjoyable enough visually but little else to recommend it.
★★1/2

Prime Ministerial chalk and cheese

Yesterday, Australia's 22nd Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, passed away.

Malcolm Fraser

Mr Fraser was not the most popular of Prime Ministers during his term of office yet at the end of his life colleagues and opponents alike have looked back with respect, even admiration, for achievements which included refugee resettlement, multicultural policies, Aboriginal land rights, the Human Rights Commission, the Special Broadcasting Service and the fight against the Apartheid policies in South Africa.

In the fashionable statement 'du jour', Mr Fraser ended up on the right side of history.

This week, Australia's 28th and current Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, provided - yet again - a contrast.

Tony Abbott

During the week Mr Abbott spoke against bullying in a speech to mark 2015 National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence. The sentiments sounded fine. What a pity that only a day earlier Mr Abbott had displayed all the hallmarks of a bully in referring to an opponent in Parliament as 'Dr Goebbels'. Did Mr Abbott even for one moment consider the irony of his words versus his actions?

Then yesterday Mr Abbott reflected on the achievements of Mr Fraser identifying a number of those that I mentioned above. The contrast of Mr Abbott's history of actions in the very areas he was praising Mr Fraser could not be more different nor damning.

Those of us who remember life during Mr Fraser's Prime Ministership could not have foreseen then that at the end of his life he would be the subject of deserved acclaim for his lifetime's work.

Many of us who are experiencing Mr Abbott's Prime Ministership cannot imagine there is a chance in hell of him being the subject of equivalent acclaim when his time comes.

Chalk and cheese.

Autumn morning

I often post photos of views from my balcony such as the two below but usually these are taken in sparkling sunshine. This morning at 7am the sky is filled with dark low hanging cloud, with showers forecast, and the light is darker to my naked eye than my camera (Canon EOS 700D) suggests. I needed a steadier hand for the second photo. Click on the photos to enlarge them.

Ovals

Westfield Bondi Junction

Focus

Will Smith and his team of pick pockets and con artists take on Margot Robbie as an intern and they embark on a series of ever wilder and complex heists from New York through New Orleans to Buenos Aires.

'Focus' is so full of twists that you start to foretell them the longer the film proceeds simply because by then you have been trained not to take what you see at face value. It is all increasingly implausible but fun nonetheless.
★★★1/2

Bridge

Tonight, 48.40%, 9/14

Biblical sails

The traditional Wednesday afternoon sailing races on Sydney Harbour today beneath the type of clouds favoured by Hollywood for its biblical epics. Passing storms (out of photo left) influencing this interesting late afternoon light.

St Patricks Day

Seemingly everyone has a little bit of the Irish in them on this day. I have no Irish in my ancestry but I'm happy to celebrate anyway.

May you be poor in misfortune, rich in blessings, slow to make enemies and quick to make friends. And may you know nothing but happiness from this day forward.

Bridge

Tonight, 45.80%, 8/10

Inherent Vice

A Private Investigator (Joaquin Phoenix) is asked by a former girlfriend to trace her missing boyfriend only for her to go missing too.

'Inherent Vice' is set in the California of 1971 and is full of 1960s hippy, surf and drug culture. The languid atmosphere of the film's design had me dozing off frequently. It's an overlong film noir 'wannabe' with some ironic moments.

'If you can remember the 1960s, then you weren't there' is a popular saying. If you can make sense of this film's plot and characters then you must have been high.
★★

Sleep art

Discarded mattress in Randwick

Eastern Boys

'Eastern Boys' is a French film set in Paris about a man who falls for a East European rent boy who is part of a gang of boys and young men who prey on and rob their pick up victims. The rent boys are themselves victims and hostages to their 'boss', a stand over pimp of a man.

In the French film style events move slowly with minimal dialogue and it is difficult to tell over what period the plot is set.

Despite potentially distasteful aspects the film manages a surprising tenderness between the lead characters.
★★★

Evacuate...evacuate......

Interlopers in Australia's best city.

There have been sightings of Highriser and his accomplice R in Sydney.

Worry not citizens, I am monitoring their movements. Yesterday they infiltrated Centennial Parklands  and even found their way onto an ivory tower in the Eastern Suburbs where they posed momentary threat to Her Majesties Mary and Victoria.

Once discovered they were quickly placed under guard in a safe house in a shady area of the city.

They should be eradicated by Tuesday at the latest.

Bridge

Tonight, 56.80%, 2/13

Political speak

My carefully calibrated policy...

...is your thought bubble

...and vice versa

Bridge

Tonight, 44.20%, 6/9

Kingsman: The Secret Service

I'm not particularly familiar with Kingsman the comic book series but a viewing of 'Kingsman: The Secret Service' I suspect gave me a firm idea of what the series is like.

A group of hand picked and tested mostly gentlemen using code names from King Arthur's court save or protect people from difficulty under the guise of a select Saville Row Gentlemen's outfitter. The self appointed group of nerdy looking individuals have access to an unlikely array of high tech weaponry that would be the envy of James Bond and his ilk.

I quite enjoyed the low key dry humour in the general premise of the set up. However the over the top stylised violence which probably looks OK in comic panels struck me as overlong and tiresome in movie form.
★★★

Strictly sugar

Oh dear how will I look my best for next week's visit by Andrew and R? (That's not Andrew R as in 'Elizabeth R' but Andrew and his partner R.) I've just experienced the sugar binge from hell.

An entire packet of party mix on Tuesday.

Another entire packet of party mix on Wednesday.

An entire block of Rum n Raisin chocolate on Thursday.

I am a wicked, wicked man.

Footsies

I visited the podiatrist today, an appointment I have every six to eight weeks. I have problem feet. I need to wear orthotics to improve my balance and without them my feet become sore if I have to spend even a moderate amount of time walking or standing. I've been attending the same Podiatry practice for about ten years now.

I suppose over that time I've been treated by about half a dozen different Podiatrists. All of them have been young; that is, aged in their 20s or 30s.

A 'model' Podiatrist from Newcastle University

None has been the senior, revered General Practitioner type of my youth. I'm not complaining, some of the men who have treated me have been almost as good looking as the smiling fellow above.

But I wonder why it is that someone fresh from school, or of similar age, decides that playing around with feet for the rest of their lives is the career for them? I don't think that any of my practitioners has been a foot fetishist as such. It's an interesting career choice but not one I would ever have contemplated.

Bridge

Tonight, 48.70%, 7/12

Unfinished Business

In a Jerry Maguire inspired moment Vince Vaughn resigns his job and sets himself up in competition with his former boss, would you believe Sienna Miller? He takes with him the aged retrenched Tom Wilkinson and a goofily naive Dave Franco. This trio end up in Europe causing and responding to all manner of mayhem; none of it especially tasteful.

I can't say that I have liked Vaughn in his recent films - most of his characters being nasty to some extent - but in 'Unfinished Business' he is almost decent which is more than I can report for the level of humour the film contains.

I did chuckle occasionally but I am almost embarrassed to admit it.
★★

Bridge

Tonight, 53.40%, 3/8

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

How clever is the film title 'The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel'? This sequel to the delightful hit 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' is clearly, disappointingly and perhaps predictably inferior to its predecessor.

Most of the earlier characters reappear in the sequel but for the most part very little of consequence or development occurs to them. This is mainly a rehash of the earlier film with a bit more focus on the Indians a little less on the interloper foreigners.

It is a mostly pleasant film and there is the occasionally humorous moment but neither element matches the charm and delight of the first film.
★★★

Jupiter Ascending

I'm quite open to the thought that somewhere out there in this universe or some other there is intelligent life and that it may an intelligence that surpasses mankind on planet Earth.

However, whatever and wherever that intelligence might be it is not the brains behind 'Jupiter Ascending'. In this mish mash of life in Russia, USA and Universes somewhere or other in times past, present and future a host of villains has selected the decidedly earthy Mila Kunis to be their Queen for cunning reasons which I couldn't care to remember the moment I left the cinema. They enlist Channing Tatum, made up like a refugee from A Midsummer's Night Dream, to transport her to her new realm. Computer generated pyrotechnics litter the film predictably at ten minute intervals.

Amongst the villains is the latest crowned Academy Award Best Actor, Eddie Redmayne, whose horrendous performance in this film appears to be modelled on an imagined love child of Noel Coward and Frank Thring. (Look them up, if the names are unknown to you.)

Redmayne's performance matches the quality of the film seamlessly.
★

A Most Violent Year

It is the 1980s and in New York an up and coming heating oil company is the target of violent attacks and sabotage. One of their competitors is suspected of being behind the attacks but which one?

Despite its title 'A Most Violent Year' is not that violent, well not directly anyway. However there is one very violent incident near the film's end.

The story unfolds slowly, languidly despite the many wintery scenes, a little like a flower slowly revealing itself petal by petal. The acting is excellent.

This may be too slow, perhaps even dull, for many but I think this is a terrific film.
★★★★

Growing up gay

WARNING: If you prefer not to read about illegal activities, please skip this post

Last night the ABC screened 'Our Gay Wedding: The Musical'. Two gay men planned and carried out their wedding as a musical. The wedding occurred on the first day that same sex couples could legally marry in Britain. Pretty well everyone involved in the wedding from the Registrar and the grooms, through to the relatives and friends attending participated musically in the ceremony (and some did so less musically). Parts of the ceremony were cheesy but there were plenty of moving, wonderful moments such as when both grooms' mothers sang a duet expressing honestly their feelings about discovering and coming to terms with their son's sexuality.

I was taken with information displayed on a big screen during the ceremony which informed both the progress made in removing discrimination against homosexuals but also the many areas where discrimination, indeed persecution, against homosexuals still prevails. It brought back memories of my own passage through a gay adolescence to adulthood.

My experience would be familiar to many gay Australians now aged in their sixties and older.

It is as recently as 1984 that homosexuality was decriminalised in my state of New South Wales. I was thirty-five years of age at the time. Prior to then it was illegal for me to engage my sexuality. Considering that I began sexual activity at the early age of twelve that constitutes twenty-three years of illegal activity simply responding to the sex drive that nature gave me.

At any stage in those twenty-three years I could have been arrested, prosecuted and gaoled. Indeed I was arrested once. I say arrested but I'm not sure of the technical status. Perhaps detained by police for questioning might be the correct legal status but either way to me it seemed like an arrest.

I was only twelve when I was arrested. I hadn't engaged in sex, nor touched, nor even spoken to the other person when I was detained. The other person was a plainclothes policeman. It was an act of entrapment. After lingering at a public urinal he gestured for me to follow him outside where we were approached by another man who also was a plainclothes policeman. They identified themselves as police and ordered me into their car. They drove me to a police station for questioning.

No adult relative relative, indeed no independent adult at all, was present during the questioning. They instructed me to complete a statement 'helpfully' suggesting forms of words at points when I felt incapable of expressing myself. The completed statement was a factually correct account but using language that was not my habit to employ and that my parents had never heard me express before nor indeed afterwards.

You can imagine the shock my parents felt when I was brought home unannounced by two policeman who handed them a copy of 'my' statement, alien language and all, to read. I presume the matter was referred to a Magistrate or some such legal arbitrator. As I hadn't actually been observed by the policemen to engage in sexual activity I assume my offence was soliciting or perhaps it was loitering with intent. I was required to attend a Psychiatric assessment to determine the level of my mental health.

I concede that I was in the habit of engaging in what then was illegal sexual activity. However consider the actions of the police that day. Entrapment, detaining and interviewing a minor without any independent adult and/or legal representative present, and 'assistance' given in completing 'my' statement. I think the last used to be referred to as 'verballing'.

Six years later when I applied for my first full time job, with a Government authority no less, I was in fear that the obligatory police checks would reveal that I had a criminal record. To my relief that was not the case.

There are homosexuals around the world nowadays facing far worse treatment than I experienced. It was good to be reminded of that fact whilst rejoicing for the newly married couple in their more enlightened time and place.

In Australia, we have progressed but marriage equality is still not on the agenda.

Bridge

Tonight, 49.30%, 7/11

It's what parents do....

....sooner or later your parents will embarrass you.

At various stages in my life I felt embarrassed by something my parents said or did. But that was a long time ago. As I grew older and more understanding  - and most importantly, less concerned about what I imagined others think - I lost that youthful sensitivity to parental behaviour.

But a few memories came rushing back following an exchange on Andrew's blog. Somehow my comment on that blog caused Andrew to think about sex. Not just sex but 'hot sex', if you please. I wasn't thinking of sex at all when I wrote my comment. I've carefully re-read my words and don't see any trigger for sex in them. That my comment caused Andrew to turn to thoughts of sex, as the saying goes, says more about him than it does about me.

Anyway, having suggested thoughts of parental sex, 'icky' or otherwise, Andrew has stirred memories in me.

I recall, as a pre-teenager, that first thing each Sunday morning about twenty minutes was set aside for some personal activity behind almost closed bedroom doors. I was too young and naive to understand the nature of that activity although in later years I recognised that my parents were engaging in...ahem...some horizontal folk dancing.

Vertical folk dancing

Many years later when my parents were probably not much older than I am now I recall the three of us were on a long car drive. Father behind the wheel, me in the passenger seat and mother on the backseat. My mother leant forward, tapped me on the shoulder and with an odd look of dreamy smugness on her face, informed me that she and my father had 'made love' that morning.

Like Andrew's comment I have no idea what caused my mother to disclose this personal information. I suspect that by that time their participation in folk dancing had entered a long hiatus and so this return to the dance floor, so to speak, was worthy of announcement.

My father clearly was uneasy with my mother's disclosure. Later on I thought he might have puffed his chest at this confirmation of senior virility. I had no idea what to say in response, so I said nothing. I don't know why the thought of one's parents having sex should cause embarrassment. Most of us wouldn't exist without that act of sex. Anyway, it was probably the last time my parents caused me to feel embarrassed.

Bridge

Tonight, 49.70%, 5/10

Fifty Shades of Grey

Well what can I say? I attempted to read the novel a couple of years back and gave up about a third of the way through. The novel was just so silly, irritating and badly written. For those who don't know, a young handsome billionaire, Christian Grey, is drawn to a university student and he seeks a sexual domination/submissive relationship with her, bound by contract. The book was written from the student's point of view.

Could a good film be made of 'Fifty Shades of Grey'? Maybe, but this isn't it. The story is just as silly on the screen. Actually the story is boring. Grey (Jamie Dornan) is distant and unappealing. The abrupt ending - designed presumably to link seamlessly with a sequel - is unsatisfying except as a blessed relief from the nonsense preceding it.

They got the greyness right.
★★

Kill the Messenger

'Kill the Messenger' at Belvoir Street Theatre.

A play about race and family relations. A sister tries to lead her brother, Paul, away from a life of crime and then faces battles with the hospital where he seeks medical treatment. A young playwright seeks information about Paul whilst struggling with her own boyfriend relationship.

This short play has a simple but very effective staging. There is no set, just a lit area on the performance space and the occasional image projected on the back walls. The author of the work also performs and at times steps out of character to explain elements of the play and its narrative.

The performances are natural. An interesting work.
★★★

Dress circle view

The view from the rarely opened Dress Circle of the art deco cinema at the Randwick Ritz. For most sessions in this cinema only the downstairs Stalls section is available.

The large and the small of it

Vessels of the Royal Australian Navy steaming up Sydney Harbour on a grey Sydney morning.

Bridge

Tonight, 49.50%, 9/17

Suddenly Last Summer

Sydney Theatre Company

'Suddenly Last Summer' by Tennessee Williams. A widowed mother recruits a young doctor to perform a lobotomy on her niece to silence her from revealing the circumstances of her son's death. What secrets does she fear?

This is the third stage production in recent months in Sydney after The Glass Menagerie and Calpurnia Descending to utilise digital video to provide screen images of the performers during the theatrical presentation.

I didn't think either of the earlier productions was improved by the digital element but this time around the big screen provides powerful enhancement of the drama. The performances are top notch.

An excellent production.
★★★★

Cruise; day and night

On the way to the Opera House this afternoon.

Celebrity Solstice

Departing the Opera House two hours later.

Celebrity Solstice

My valentine

Enjoy Valentine's Day all my anonymous, and some less anonymous, readers. Maybe you will receive a hoped for card from that special someone. I'd be content with candy.

Valentine's Day has a significance for me but it has nothing to with love or admirers. In 1968, aged 18, I was struggling a bit after two years at University. On my father's advice I took what was intended to be a year away from studies and acquired a full time job. That job commenced on Valentine's Day.

I never went back to University. The job turned into an enjoyable public service career with the one employer from which I retired much the wiser and very contented 37 years later.

A fluke, or was it fate, proved a turning point in my life 47 years ago on Valentine's Day.