As Promised, A Few Photos

It wasn't a big photo-op sort of expedition, this trip to Melbourne. But it was fun. Here's the Mau-Mau and Younger Son in the ute which features as both obstacle and decor (and even fairway!) somewhere around the fifteenth hole of the Glow In The Dark Mini Golf Course...

Shut the hell up! I'm driving!

Same location. This is Mr B, casually draped across some of the more unconvincing scenery.

What's that, Skip? My deodorant smells like ass? Well fuck you, roo! Where have you been shoving your nose, anyway?

And here, in the 'Lightning Show' at the Science Works Museum is the Elder Son, singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." I can't believe they didn't let him run with Vampire Weekend...

I don't care if it IS by Mozart. It still sucks...

Melbourne Weekend

Natalie has gone to her annual Big Folk Music Thingee, just outside Kyneton in Victoria. She'll be there a week, practising fiddle, going to evening music sessions, drinking, and taking a break from the world of medicine and children. This is a Good Thing.

I narrowly missed going with her this year. Turns out an old friend of mine from university is part of the team that runs the singing group at the music school -- John Thompson of Cloudstreet. Not having seen John for something like twenty years, I figured it would be a good way to catch up. Unfortunately, the planned parental babysitting did not occur.

However, it does not appear that this excuse will work twice. Not only did Mr Barnes' good wife volunteer (like a madwoman!) to look after all three Flinthart offspring for the necessary period, but it turns out I've got an old friend in Kyneton as well -- hi, Sam!

The kids and I visited Sam yesterday morning, after we abandoned Natalie to her musical pursuits. Sam looked the same as ever, despite being two small children to the good, and meeting her partner Paul was a real pleasure. It's nice catching up with old friends and finding they're leading a life that they enjoy.

Anyway: Sam's as mad as Mr Barnes' counterpart, and volunteered immediately to do kiddie duty.

Now, while I really wasn't prepared to lumber poor mad Madame Barnes with all three of my offspring, I feel obliged to say that the my boys got along very, very well with Barnes the Younger. Frighteningly well, actually -- particularly Elder Son. They discovered they're both huge fans of Artemis Fowl and the 'Horrible Histories' series of books; that Barnes the Younger practises Aikido versus Elder Son's Ju-jitsu... in fact, they had so much in common I swear the pair of them didn't shut up the entire time they were in each other's company. Seriously: they both just talked, non-stop, somehow absorbing the output of the other while simultaneously blaring away with their own narrative. It was spooky.

The Melbourne weekend prior to the music thing was lovely. Big thanks to Guru Bob for recommending the Hu Tong Dumpling House in Market Lane... holy shit, that was some superb Chinese food there. And the man himself came along, along with his Sweet Thang. Word has it they've actually found a house to purchase, and they're going through settlement right about now. Much more sneaky word has it that there's a certain amount of fixing up to be done on the place, and our man Bob is planning to get his hands dirty... keep an eye on the accident and emergency reports for the Royal Melbourne; Guru Bob will be the bloke with the claw hammer embedded in his forehead.

Greetings also to Struggers and the lovely Amy, who kept us company at the Hu Tong. I'd not met Amy before. Last time I was in Melbourne, I caught Struggers by surprise in his Lair, and Amy was not in evidence. This time I wound up sitting next to her at the table... the conversation went well, so hopefully she hasn't concluded that all of Struggers' friends are dope fiends and froot loops.

It was a good weekend, even though it had to be pretty kid friendly. We managed to fit in the Science Works -- Lightning Show and Planetarium Show. Elder Son enthusiastically volunteered to get up and sing during the Lightning Show, and duly had his voice put through various distortions and oscilloscope displays. And for some reason, Natalie decided we should take in the "Glow In The Dark Mini Golf" course out at the shoppingville they built when they thought that fucknormous ferris wheel was going to rejuvenate a stretch of Melbourne riverside. (For those not in the know: they built a ferris wheel the size of Tom Cruise's insecurities, to act as a long-lasting tourist attraction and city landmark. Of course, last summer was quite hot. After about five days, the truly fucknormous ferris wheel warped beyond repair, and was decommissioned. Brilliant planning there...)

The Barnes Crew were quite good-natured about being dragooned into roles as navigators and drivers and so forth, and survived the mini-golf with good will intact. I believe I even have some photos, but they'll wait until I've sorted out everything else I've got to do.

For I am home now, yes. Having driven back from Kyneton, negotiated the horrors of two airports with three kids in tow, and the return journey over the mountains and all. Today I must reclaim the dog, pay various pet-minders, buy some supplies, replace a couple pillows we abandoned in Kyneton for lack of carrying space, and manage sundry other things. But it's sunny and cool and lovely, and I can see all the way to the horizon and beyond without all that weird hazy shit. The mountains are blue and purple, the sky is clear, and the kids are outside playing.

Good to be home.

"Avatar": Some Thoughts

Well, I went. Took the lads and a friend while Nat and the Mau-Mau went swimming for a while. It had to happen, I suppose.

James Cameron's Avatar is at once an amazing accomplishment, and a depressing disappointment.

Technologically and visually, it's stunning. Nobody's ever achieved anything like this on film before. The realisation of the complex living world of Pandora is fabulous. For the filmgoer, even with those clunky glasses perched on your nose, the immersion is near-total. I laid out my money, I bought my popcorn, I gave up two hours and forty minutes of my life, and honestly, I really don't mind. The sheer spectacle, the gorgeous imagery, the vocabulary-challenging technical mastery of the work is just off the scale.

But I won't be going back to see it again. Natalie will go in a few weeks, and she'll go along with the friend who came today. He reckons he can sit through it again. I know I can't.

Yeah, I know. I've got a freaky memory. Natalie's currently watching ST:TNG episodes that I saw just once, some twenty years ago, damned late at night on dodgy televisions in various share-houses -- and I can still remember too much of the plotlines and the action and the dialogue to enjoy seeing them again.

But so what? I watch the director's cut of Blade Runner once a year at least. Same with The Princess Bride, and Casablanca. The original Star Wars, with my kids: yep. Raiders of the Lost Ark: check. I just bought Sauna on DVD, and I'm looking forward to seeing it again as soon as I can find somebody prepared to sit through it with me. And I watched Memento for the third time just a month ago.

So you see, I can sit through repeat showings of certain films, television, etc. Just... not when I'm watching poorly written B-grade stuff.

I'm sorry, by the way. Anybody out there who just loved the Avatar story: more power to you. I don't begrudge you your enjoyment, nor wish to curtail it. But me? Well, I've got a few things working against my ability to enjoy the film.

First is that I'm a writer, and the various plot turning points of Avatar were... umm... not subtle, shall we say. It was a by-the-numbers story with a very ordinary script. I saw it maybe six hours ago, and I can't actually remember a single quotable line. You know the kind of thing I mean - the clever or quirky bits of dialogue that linger in the memory long after the film. "Game over, man!" "I'll be back." "Nuke 'em from orbit: it's the only way to be sure." (Notice I stuck solely to James Cameron films there? I'm playing this game as fairly as I can.) For anyone with a real involvement in the craft of writing, the Avatar script is frankly horrible.

Second, I'm a science fiction fan of long standing. Been reading the stuff maybe thirty-five years now. And I have read a great deal in that time. Everything from Jules Verne through "Doc" Smith, through the Asimov/Heinlein/Clarke era on to the New Wave and beyond. I read SF for the same reasons I always have: it allows writers room to be imaginative, and creative, and thought-provoking in a way that most genres do not seem to match.

And... uhh... sorry. Avatar was not imaginative. It was creative, but only in a visual sense. And the only thoughts it provoked were those of disappointment and irritation. This is not a smart movie. This a big, shiny, woo-look-at-me crashy boomy sort of movie full of egregious stereotypes in place of characters, full of half-assed preaching instead of genuinely thought-provoking concepts, full of cheapjack, bullshit plot devices instead of ideas.

Third: I'm widely read outside SF too. I've got a decent grounding in basic physics, chemistry, biology, evolutionary theory, and a bunch of other scientific fields. Not claiming expertise, no. Far from it. Just what I'd call "scientific literacy", you know? But even that much is enough to make me wince, time and again, at the slap-dash throwaway shit they tossed into that movie in place of science. I don't want to put in any spoilers, but I'd like to say first that "unobtainium" sucks the way even Disney's Black Hole didn't manage. And "flux vortexes" are the single worst piece of throwaway tech-talk crap since the Doctor first used his sonic screwdriver to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.

This isn't a review. If it was, I would quietly, bitterly, and skilfully eviscerate the storytelling and the scripting of this film in such a way that you would never, ever see the movie without remembering, precisely and involuntarily, why it is a piece of dreck - and you would then curse me, quite reasonably. But as I said, this isn't a review. This is thought, and opinion, and I don't intend to go through the long, painstaking effort of justifying and reasoning out what it is I have to say.

There are just two reasons for this: first, because if you're the kind of person who's going to groove on the Avatar storyline, then you're unlikely to be reading this anyhow, and in any case, nothing I say is going to change your mind. But if you have a love of good storytelling, or good science fiction, or good scripting, you're going to hate that side of Avatar no matter what I say.

And the second reason is simple: the film is beautiful. No matter that it's dumb as a bag of badly broken coprolites. It is gorgeous, and technically unparalleled, and worth taking the time to see it on the big, shiny screen.

Just... don't ask more than that, and you'll have a great time.

Younger Son, Elder Son, the Mau-Mau and some gigantic goon in a solar topee holding buckets full of fresh, perfectly ripened blueberries.

That was our morning, right there. Natalie is on call, so she's in and out and round about. I rousted the kids early. We packed away a bit of breakfast, and slathered on the sunscreen. (It's meant to reach 31C today, and I think we're just about there right now.)

It took us about forty leisurely minutes in the gentle morning breezes to load up our buckets. We picked something like eight and a half kilos of blueberries. I've shoved some in the deep freeze, to be brought out now and again through the year. But there's an enormous bowl of them on the table, and an unopened bag on the counter in the kitchen.

Tonight, in honour of the summery weather, we shall feast upon antipasto. There will be garden-fresh vegetables. There will be smoked pork, and cheeses, and ham. There will be olives and pickles. Indeed, I've pickled half a kilo of button mushrooms which will be perfectly cooled and ready to go come dinner time.

After dinner, we will have big slabs of melt-in-the-mouth shortbread, and piles of fresh, amazing blueberries, served up with big scoops of home-made French vanilla ice cream.

Meanwhile, I have to finish up what I'm doing here, and set up for a rousing game of Monster Apocalypse with Elder Son... but first, I think, another beer.

Life is hard.

The Long, Slow Days Of Summer.

Summer in a temperate region isn't the same as the summers I knew in Queensland for so long. Just for starters, we think of 31C as a terribly hot day. Everybody slows down, or comes to a halt. People move from shade to shade. They turn to each other at check-out lines in the supermarkets and say things about the heat, and the humidity, this terrible weather.

And why not? We get maybe one day like that every two or three weeks.

Today started cool and overcast, which didn't bode well for the birthday party the Mau-Mau was attending, down at the pool in Scottsdale. But she's a water creature, and no matter that it was chilly, she was delighted to suit up in preparation for a few hours splash time.

Not so the boys. I asked 'em a couple times, but they insisted they didn't want to swim. Luckily, Amazing Neighbour Anna's small blonde daughter -- the Mau-Mau's very best friend in the world -- was invited to the same party, so in the end, the Mau-Mau got a lift home, and the boys didn't have to hang around the pool reading their new books. That was a good thing, because the clouds parted, and it got seriously warm for a while there.

The clouds have closed in again, though. It's not cool; not really, by Tasmanian standards. But it's not really hot either. It's a Tasmanian summer's day.

I love 'em. The light starts at about 0400, and by 0700 it's hard to even think of staying in bed, unless you're reading. Oh, and you know how in Queensland it's too damned hot to lie in bed reading once the sun comes up? Well, not here. Night times, the temperature drops and you still need a light quilt to stay warm. Staying in bed an extra half-hour to read in the morning is a huge treat.

That light. It lasts forever. It's not really dark until 2130 or so, and even then, there's still a twilight that you can navigate by, if you want to stroll around the yard. So much light... the kids love it. I have to hide them from it, sometimes. The depleted ozone makes sunburn hard to avoid. We use a lot of sunscreen, but the Mau-Mau was born naked and she takes every opportunity to remind the world of that fact, so even with copious sunscreen slathered on her, she's turning the kind of all-over golden-brown tan that can only be envied by most of the world's movie starlets.

Summer holidays and outdoors play. Does it get any better? Is there any part of childhood that's ever as good as this, ever again? Right now, my two boys are outside, playing "Explorers" with one of Amazing Neighbour Anna's lads. (Yes. I currently have five kids around the place. But they're doing their own thing, and I'm letting the reins rest lightly for the time being.) I have been told earnestly that they are charting an unknown region of South Africa.

Elder Son is wearing Younger Son's Christmas solar topee, and carrying a collapsible walking-stick. He has a sketchbook and a pencil, and he's noting down all of their discoveries. So far, they've breathlessly shown me a stag beetle, a protea, a fuchsia, a bucket of blueberries, another bucket of red currants, a handful of black currants, a green apple, a small green plum, a garlic flower, a caterpillar, and an interesting red rock. South Africa is being thoroughly explored.

Younger Son appears to be responsible for the safety and security of the expedition. He is wearing his Vietnamese conical cane hat, and carrying a bamboo flagpole to which a large Jolly Roger flag has been somehow attached. The third member would be Master T, of Amazing Neighbour Anna's brood. He has a walking stick which is an ongoing project for myself and Younger Son: shaped from a wattle sapling, it's been shod in galvanised iron, and is slowly being sanded and carved with a nice bird's head for the handle.

The girls are quietly watching a cartoon. They played for ages, and they're quite tired after their morning of sun and swimming.

I'll let them all go for another hour or so. Then I'll return Neighbour Anna's brood, throw mine in the bath, and cook up a big batch of chicken and sweet-corn soup. Afterwards there will be shortbread, and cream, and piles of fresh berries. (So many berries! This morning, it was all about fresh raspberries and pancakes. The boys have been harvesting blueberries and redcurrants. Sometime later, I'll go and pick a kilo or two of ripe blackberries. Tomorrow, we're going to a blueberry farm in the early morning, before it gets too hot.) Eventually, we'll play a few board games until the boys are getting too tired, and finally, sometime around nine in the evening, they'll go to bed.

And tomorrow, they start afresh.

I don't often envy children. But days like this...

Waiting For The Buttsplosion...

Well.

I'm tired as hell. I earned it, though.

New Year's Eve went pretty well. The usual suspects rolled into Chez Flinthart around eventide, and once there were enough kids on the ground, the watergunnery went off in a big way. I got very very damp, saturated a bunch of rug-rats, and then set about the cooking. I had my first gluten-free flour failure (or rather, incomplete success) with vegetarian calzones for Girlie Jones. They tasted okay, but the actual dough came out a bit thick and crumbly. Never mind.

We decided we'd watch Sean Connery lishp his way through Goldfinger to see the New Year in. And of course, Aurora Electricity came to the party - or more accurately, failed to come to the party. We had a big power outage, across a wide chunk of the north-east. Didn't really cause us much concern. We just delayed the start for a while, and sucked back a few more beers. It was a warm day, after all, so a bit of extra time for the shed to cool down was a good thing.

Girlie Jones didn't much like the ladder to the shed, mind you, so she repaired to her lair to catch up on Internetty stuff. She emerged late in the piece with a request for yours truly to massacre a couple of bodacious huntsman spiders that were eyeing her in a manner that made her uneasy. (I guess I can understand that. There's a lot of eyes involved in that process.)

The power did come back. It also went out again. And came back again. And went out again. We saw Goldfinger in installments, cheering at the appropriate times, and joining in with "No, Mister Bond - I expect you to die!" as one must. It was pretty cool. Bruce hooked his Nerdphone into the 3G Internet, and kept up a stream of interesting trivia regarding the movie, which added a nifty dimension so far as I was concerned, anyhow. Nice one!

Next day, there were a few sad and sorry victims lying around the place, so I rustled up a picking posse and we grabbed ourselves a load of blackberries for the traditional New Year's Day Flinthart Breakfast -- thick, fluffy pancakes, whipped cream, maple syrup and plenty of bacon on the side. Took it easy for most of the day thereafter... Tiarne and I teamed up as the Zombies in a game of "Last Night On Earth," successfully clobbering the small-town zombie-hunting team of Bruce and the Elder Son. Elder Son didn't quite realise just how many zombies were closing in on Nurse Becky and Father Joseph, and in one turn both of 'em got torn apart and eaten... thus fulfilling Zombie win conditions.

Happily, the game lasted long enough for Tiarne's hangover to move out of the red zone... she and Bruce were last seen disappearing over the Sideling at a very sedate rate of travel.

Yesterday, I packed up the kids and Girlie Jones, and we took off for Hobart to visit Tansy, whom I've not seen for an aeon. We stopped at Launceston for a new tyre and a few bits and pieces, then made the run through to Hobart with no more than a stop at Campbelltown for sandwiches.

It was a near-run thing. As we eased into Hobart, the kids began to show signs of boredom. Worst of all, Younger Son got the bug. And he started in on one of his surreal explorations -- what if the wooden horse of Troy had been a rocking horse?

First we decided that the Greek soldiers inside would probably have spent all night vomiting. But then, Younger Son just got more carried away. By the time we reached Tansy's place, Girlie Jones and I were literally begging him to stop telling us about the Giant Spiked Killer Rocking Horse of Troy. The kid is a LUNATIC!

It was great to catch up with Tansy et al again, though. I finally got to meet the new daughter - four months old, and cute as the proverbial button. And the Mau-Mau got together with Tansi's elder daughter, and the pair of them played for literally hours. The Mau-Mau even wound up sleeping on the floor of the daughter's room, sharing bedtime stories, and giggling and keeping each other awake as a succession of (increasingly inebriate) adults wandered in and told 'em to keep it down.

The boys mostly watched Justice League cartoons -- a huge treat for them. And better still, Younger Son discovered the plum tree.

Turns out Tansy & Co don't much like the little red plums on their tree, so they were being left to the birds. Younger Son thought that was a waste, and so for about three hours, he trooped in and out of the house, bringing in four or five plums at a time, spitting the pips into the bin in the kitchen.

After the first couple of hours, the 'adult' crew (we were working our way through champagne, Sea Breezes, and eventually Limoncello) noticed the number of plums going into the kid. In fact, it became quite scary. Honestly? I have no idea how many he ate, but it had to be up around the three dozen mark by the end... hence the title of this post.

We repaired to our bedding, somewhat the worse for wear, well after midnight. I had a hell of a good time drinking and yarning with the others, and the kids enjoyed themselves too. Even Natalie had a nice day -- home in a clean, tidy house, entirely alone for the better part of 24 whole, quiet hours.

We're back now, though, having said a slightly said goodbye to Girlie Jones, who is on her way back to Perth. The Mau-Mau and Tansy's daughter bonded very nicely too... we'll have to find ways to let them get together again.

Meantime, after the long, tiring drive home, all I want to do is rest for a day or two... and wait for the terrifying buttsplosion that would seem the inevitable consequence of Younger Son's plumgluttony. Did I mention that he favours the firm, somewhat sour, slightly unripe plums? Or that he brought home about two kilos of the damned things in a cardboard box... after eating his way through another dozen this morning?

This just can't end well.

A Day Of Mixed Success

Fuck I hate the way Blogger puts up photos. They appear in reverse order to the way you select 'em for posting -- and I never goddam well remember that. So. Fuck it. I'm not going to erase these and repost 'em.

Girlie Jones arose on Westralian time this morning, which was fine -- it let me kinda get a grip on the Louse Disaster before she came down the stairs. (Go check the photo at the bottom. That's Younger Son, with a hairload of louse mousse. I shaped it into a spike. He thought that was damned cool.) I must say that GJ took the whole louse situation better than I expected. Possibly that's because she was already shell-shocked by the gigantic Huntsman Spider I quietly removed from the guest room last night around her bed-time... I'm not at all sure that Girlie Jones is as fond of our eight-legged allies in the Great Insect War as am I, or my children. Spiders are nice, right?

GJ, the Mau-Mau and I trundled down to the berry patch and liberated a litre or so of blackberries and raspberries. Then I grabbed a couple of nice, fresh eggs, a bit of sugar and milk and some gluten-free self-raising flour, and made very credible pancakes. To top the pancakes, I threw some butter and brown sugar into a pan, and added a nice handful of blackberries. When they started to soften, I tossed in some rum, and flamed it off. The resultant melange of lightly-cooked blackberries, caramel and rum tasted pretty damned good, and I wasn't at all unhappy with the outcome. Why have I heard so many nasty rumours about gluten-free flour? It cooked up beautifully, and I'll have to make some blackberry muffins for GJ. (As well as the chocolate mousse, of course.) She also offered guarded approval of the coffee - which is good, because I don't drink the stuff so I have no idea what 'good coffee' is really supposed to taste like.

Poor Nat was on duty and on call today, so the kids and I loaded GJ into the Mighty Earth King, and we took off for the wine country. (With a brief stop at the chemist to get lots of exciting louse-discouraging materials first.) Pipers Brook didn't disappoint. GJ is working on the whole palate thing, but she seemed quite pleased by a couple of the bottles they opened, and even ventured into the scarlet end of the spectrum with two or three samples of Pinot Noir. Nice stuff.

Mind you, we had a difficult moment when Elder Son asked about the big barrel with the steel top. I told him -- quite truthfully -- that it was a spittoon, a repository for wine that people didn't actually want to swallow. And quite reasonably, he refused to believe me. (His mother has trained him well.) So GJ added her voice... and he wouldn't believe her either. The poor lad has had a number of exciting bridges sold to him over the years; he tends to regard myself and my friends with a healthily skeptical attitude.

The Jansz mob did okay too. They've got a nice line in bubbly rose-style wines... yum.

Anyhow, after that we zipped back to Scottsdale, had a bite of lunch, picked up supplies at the supermarket, and headed home. Briefly. Very briefly, because we had a Date with Some Fish.

There's this trout farm I know, see? The owner's a lovely chap. If you're polite, kind and co-operative, not only can you buy fish direct - but it's occasionally possible to extract your own from their ponds, using a rod and tackle. And seeing as how Younger Son got a fishing rod for Xmas, it seemed the perfect occasion.

I admit to a little dodgy judgement here. GJ is pretty solidly vegetarian... but I knew she eats a little fish. And when I suggested salmon or trout, she kind of looked at me, and asked something about "...where it comes from." She knows way more than anyone really ought to about wetlands and fish and waterways, and she likes to be very clear about the water from which she sources any fish she might eat.

So I giggled a little, and asked her if she'd like a personal introduction to her fish... and after that it all sorta went south. Wound up with GJ quietly occupying the car while my manic children went azy-kray with a rod, and we pulled in rather more fish than we could readily eat.

But that's okay. Tomorrow there will be visitors, and I have spare trout. Tonight's trout got cooked over charcoal and smoke, with onion and lemon and coriander and garlic and capsicum, and served up with a green salad over turmeric rice. A nice dose of the Pipers Brook gewurztraminer washed it down rather well. Tomorrow, there will be more people - and the fish will be properly dealt with.

I do hope poor GJ makes the distance, though. She just wandered off for a shower, then came and tracked me down. It seems that yet another Huntsman of immoderate size had taken up residence behind the bathroom door. I suspect that between all the fish-murdering, and the burrs in the socks, and the giant spiders and the wildly energetic kids and all the exciting allergens and cats and pollen and stuff -- she's going to need something of a rest from her holiday, when she gets home.

So: that would be the Mau-Mau's second-ever fish. She was so excited to reel this thing in that she could hardly form words. She was jumping and shouting and waving the rod about and Elder Son was snapping photos and I was desperately operating the landing net and trying not to get an earful of fish-hook...

That, of course, was the Mau-Mau's first fish. We let it go. She was very unhappy about that.

The Mau-Mau gets a bite...

The Mau-Mau, fishing.

Younger Son with a headful of Louse Treatment...note the fashionable spike.