gracious

me, OCTOBER was my last post.

What I do like though, is that every so often I get emails from the blog counter thingy, (lower right), telling me that another thousand people have viewed my blog, but that - according to the stats I so narcissisticly seek out - the only reason that people keep finding my blog is that they are googling "colouring in Jesus" and they find my post about visiting New York because I linked here while ranting about the history of Western Christian painting and it gives me a consistent ponderance as to what they think when it is my blog they find. Well, assuming they discover the link they think "well good, now I have a picture for the kids to colour on Sunday". But personally, I like to think I challenge their whole view of Western art history, the didactic nature of same, and really, everything that's happened, ever.

I hope they get those brass pin things that you can shove through paper and then spread out so that you can make cut out figures of Jesus where the arms and legs move. There are two things I remember from my early days as a Sunday School pupil and they are:
1) the metal chairs. supremely uncomfortable but with an appealing aesthetic that practically made me dance when I discovered the Exact Same Chairs at Tilley's 17 years later and a reasonably loyal - or at least repetitive - attendee of Tilley's ever since, despite hating almost everything about the place.*
2) The brass (maybe?) pins that did the splits so you could colour in and then cut out the torso & head section of Jesus (or other assorted religious figure) and then attach arms and legs, and hey presto, moving Jesus.

* Tilley's is often treated as a bit of a religion in Canberra - not inappropriate, given the stylistic heritage of their outdoor settings - but let me, if you will, rant, because, Oh My Word. The place drives me up the wall. Because yes, they have excellent, if uncomfortable chairs, that I obviously have a very personal connection with, and they have painted their ceiling red, which is always a plus, and they have velvet curtains, also good, and on occasions they have bands playing Canberra which means I don't have to see them at the ANU Bar which always makes me want to smack an undergraduate Because They Are Children And Can't Handle Liquor, and also wifi, even though they don't have enough powerpoints in the place to really make it a generous offer - and I think that's it: they promise so much, but refuse to deliver, right from the teetering brink of the cusp of we were about to single-handedly make Canberra a blissful paradise. Firstly, they set themselves up as a heavenly red roomed cafe where you can loiter for hours and study undisturbed bar for a regularly impeccable classics jazz soundtrack, but then, they can't make coffee. Just to smack you in the face: we have purpose built an ideal habitat for you, but denied you the very crux of the point of doing so: you will wait for longer than you took to gestate, order said beverage, and then we will give you a cup of bitter filth. Which brings me to, secondly, They Charge A Lot, refuse to offer table service, and frequently deliver below the standards of McDonalds. Seriously, I have had better coffee from a franchise that advertises with a clown. You have to queue with everyone in the place for AN INSANE AMOUNT of time, and then they deliver below the very proximity of goodness. Thirdle, okay, that's a typo, that I just corrected, but then had to go back and change because how much should thirdle be a word?, Thirdly, the staff. You order your beverage, knowing how truly awful it is going to be, and the staff give you the "I am doing you SUCH a favour, you should lick between my toes" attitude: if you hate working here so much - and clearly I would, so sympathy, sister (as it invariably is) - Get. Another. Job. At least up until recently, they have been around fairly plentifully. It's not like I think you have a great job and therefore should be enjoying it, but I've done jobs I haven't liked as well, but the point is: you're being paid to serve. So serve. You aren't doing me a favour, you're being paid to do this. In fact, I've just done half your job by standing here wait to ask for my "coffee" and then wait for an inordinate amount of time for you to make the damn thing, so Happy Faces. Fourthly, when you go to see a gig and they make you stand in the rain because they are incapable of managing a system whereby you've paid quite a bit for tickets and you don't have to stand in the street. Fifthly, the staff - bless their arrogant little hearts - don't ever seem to quite know what is going on, so whenever you call them, with those stumbling brainteasers: "What time does the gig start?", "What time do the doors open?", "Can we book a table?" or the brain-exploding "Will you be serving food at this event?" you get a different answer from every member of staff, none of which is conclusive, until you turn up to said event and just discover as you go whatever regime they have installed. Sixly, the imppossibility of keeping the kitchen open for an event. so: a) they are a restaurant. b) they have sold out (because, 6.i, they only put bands on they know are going to sell the venue out, and are still game enough to have that "Keeping music live" banner: long have I wanted to add a subtitle "as long as the musicians have proven their commerical value"), c) they know there is going to be an hour and a half between the doors opening and the band playing. So, in consequence, they offer cheese plates. Which sell out. And then refuse to allow you to bring additional food from the handily located supermarket "because we still have cake". I'VE JUST HAD A BOTTLE OF RED AND A WHEEL OF BRIE I CAN'T HAVE CAKE. I NEED SAVORY CARBS, SAVORY! DAMN YOU."

So whenever someone suggests we have brunch at Tilley's on the weekend I have to make alternative arrangements.

*deep breath*

orright luv?

Lunched with the ladies at noon on Tuesday, who then deposited me at the airport for the flight to Sydney - on an aircraft that inspired the thought 'So this is what it feels like to be inside an insect.' Enjoyably named a 'de Haviland' - evoked images of the 1940s and phrases such as 'just going to pop in the de Haviland for a jaunt to Paris' - and the aircraft evoked the possibility that it may have been doing just that in the 1940s.
Flew out of Sydney at 5pm-ish, 7 hour trip to Singapore, apparently a time frame that requires two meals and numerous snacks. Tiny little softdrink cans - fun! Half an hour off the plane in Singapore, proof that airport terminals are basically identical - except that there are less semi-automatics draped over precision-groomed police officers in Aust and NZ. It was about 1.30 am according to my body clock, leading to an almost incident, but I fortunately quelled my desire to yell 'puppies!' and pet the sniffer dogs. Funny how the most ornamental looking dogs are the ones that have the best sense of smell. Or maybe just the precision-groomed officers wouldn't take anything less.
Back on the plane for another meal - it had been about 2 hours since we'd had a meal after all. Strange how noodles aren't food that can be prepared in advance and retain their appetising features. My new all-time favourite piece of technology is the seat-back entertainment console - have gotten myself up to date on films: Over the Hedge (don't bother, digital animation is not enough of a novelty anymore to justify having no plot. Apparently if it's digital you don't need an editor either.), Thank you for Smoking (enjoyed very much, see it), Jindabyne (v. good, although would have been a lot better on the big screen rather than the 5 inch screen), Friends with Money (a deeply bad film, I didn't make it to the end, one more minute of Jennifer Anniston and her cat's-bum-pout was going to make me attempt strangulation, and I don't think the guy in front of me would have appreciated it), RV (standard family-road-trip comedy, apparently Robin Williams is the new Chevy Chase, amusing moments). There was also a good range of tv and music on the system - arriving in London I was listening to George's polyserena which was launching me into a flashback of Sharehouses past and a strange desire to eat tuna pasta...
My knowledge of geography turns out to still be crap, flying somewhere at night I was peering out the window thinking 'so that's germany' only to consult with the flight path and discover, ah, now, that's Russia. Which really is large, everytime I look at a map I'm always surprised by it. Anyway, touched down at glorious Terminal 4 at Heathrow, which seems to be aiming for a 'East Germany circa 1975' feel to its décor. And succeeding. Had a happy moment of 'now which passport should I choose', - very international, continental even, don't you think? - went for the EU as the line was shorter, managed to get through Heathrow onto a train in about 30 min which was a whole lot better than what I was expecting. Got a train to Piccadilly, at about which time my exciting, high-pitched, and fortunately suppressed, squeals started: 'oooh Picadilly! a Tube station! They really do say 'mind the gap' a lot! a stall selling Paddington bear merchandise! a Bobby! wearing a hat! They actually wear those, not just on the Bill! Actually there seems to be about 75 Bobbies! A marks and spencer!' Had an hour to kill before my train left so wandered around a bit, briefly outside the station, again with more squeals: 'Huh, London, so you do exist, and this is you! Buses, red ones! Black cabs!' Since I arrived I have also been truly appreciating just how many english accents there are, and just how amusing so many of them sound.
Catching the train down to Cornwall ended up taking about 6 hours, which was rather entertaining having not slept for quite sometime, but probably the best way to avoid sleeping and creating the jet lag of death, and it kept me in the right frame of mind to continue my high pitched squealing (internal still): cows! black faced sheep! a duck pond! Oddly, it turns out that those plastic farm animal sets I played with as a child that had cows, sheep, ducks, geese, tufts of grass, stone walls, fences etc turn out not to be an idyllic recreation of farm life past but a highly accurate scientific representation of contemporary farming in the South West of England.
There's was also lots of Green! Very very Green! They weren't kidding about that. And when I told someone later they responded with a shocked But we're having a drought! Ah huh, the kind of drought that doesn't involve loss of Green.
Anyway, it turns out the conference venue is kind of like having a conference in say, suburban Hornsby, and not giving people any directions of how to get there. Anyway, I got a cab from the tiny train station I was directed to, and this led to another of my English discoveries. You know all those shows set somewhere in a small town in the UK or Ireland and feature our two fetching heroes, whose sexual tension motivates the plot, and are surrounded by an array of quirky personalities? Turns out they're documentaries, those poeple exist. My cab driver proved this to me by being exuberantly barking: mouth full of teeth going in festively different directions, driving like a lunatic while loudly abusing other drivers, asking me where I was from and sharing that 'Now of all the places, Australia is one that I've never wanted to go to.' Goood, thanks for sharing. Then we got distracted, because, as he explained, 'OF ALL THE FECKIN EEJIT THINGS TO DO I'VE MISSED THE TURN OFF, WHAT KIND OF FOOL DOES THAT, I KNEW THIS ROAD IS BLOCKED OFF NOW WE'LL HAVE TO DRIVE RIGHT THE WAY 'ROUND, JESUS WHAT A FOOL I AM' Anyway, he gave a discount, amusement, and a short tour of Penryn, so I had no problems. Perhaps if I hadn't been so sleep deprived I would have transcended amusement into some level of fear.
Something like 38 hours after the ladies lunched, I arrived at the university and found a level of disengagement that was quite surprising - there was no one really around other than the staff who gave me my room key, and meal ticket and vague directions - this is where your room is, show the ticket to the poeple at the servery for food' - ah, where's the servery? is there dinner tonight? No. Is there food anywhere nearby? No, you'll need to catch the bus to falmouth. But they did make me come out the back so they could demonstrate close up how the window latch works. Thank goodness. I found my room, which is nice, and had one my most favourite showers ever.
In a feat that was quite spectacular I managed to miss three successive buses into town, which turned out to be a blessing as I ran into someone looking equally lost, and wearing a shirt with wattle on it, which alerted me to her nationality and likely reason for looking lost in Cornwall - so I showed her where she needed to be and then we joined forces for the trip to Falmouth. An entertaining bus ride, as apparently my cab driver from earlier on at some stage taught this bus driver to drive. Nothing like tiny narrow cobble stone streets and a bus driver who apparently drives as though there is a voice in his head saying Be the wind! Fly! Let your spirit free!
Falmouth is a tiny town, and a source of more internal shrieking Cobblestones! Swans! Wooden boats! Old things! Old! Look how old they are! We shortly found ourselves inside an English pub, a real one, you know, where the beams aren't hollow and the builders must have been five feet tall: 'ach no, why would anyone need more than a six feet high ceiling, preposterous.' Dutifully I forewent the tempting prospect of Fosters on tap and somehow convinced myself to try a local ale (v. good), then we went for food, and apparently I'll order anything that has 'Cornwall' in the title, food was nice, over looking the harbour, a very nice redemption of what was looking like a dire evening otherwise.
I am slowly coming to terms with the Cornish accent and refraining from smirking everytime someone speaks.
Discovered where the servery was this morning, and the bad news I have found the only university in the entire world (from my core sample of Aust, NZ and Cornwall) where there is NO espresso, or indeed any non-instantaneous variety of coffee. It's going to be an interesting few days.

I am here.