Dire Movie Review And Other Stuff

I got to hang out with the Cool Shite lads last night. It's been a while since I've been able to do that regularly... just too damned busy, or screwed on the schedule, to take that one evening in a week to do something for my own enjoyment.

It's always good watching films with them. Even if the films are awful, it's fun to take the piss out of them - and frequently, I get to see really nifty films I'd otherwise have missed. The Fall, Sauna, and The Brothers Bloom are three in the latter category, just off the top of my head. There are plenty more.

Still, last night was a cinematic failure. While I enjoyed the conversation and the mickey-taking, the movie was so disappointing I'm actually going to review it... like this:

Bruce dug out a pile of DVD's still in their wrappers. There must have been two dozen of 'em. He started going through, eliminating all the rom-coms and chick-flicks and documentaries about Eastern European armpit-hair growing customs. Quinny and I, meanwhile, made helpful comments about the films we thought might actually be interesting.

Of course, Quinny rejected Bloody Malory, a French monster-hunter film in which the Pope gets kidnapped and has to be rescued from demons before the world is annihilated... apparently it was too schlocky for Mr "I Teach Film, You Know" Q-Dog David Quinn. Pay close attention here. That's an important point.

A few more films went past. Several of them sounded interesting. Bruce put them aside for future weeks. But then we got to a thing called Chanbara Beauty. The cover depicted a Japanese lass in a red bikini and cowboy hat, holding a couple of katana. The blurb declared that she was Aya, and the movie was about her exploits slaughtering zombies in a post-apocalyptic setting.

Apparently, this isn't too schlocky for Mr Quinn, because he got all enthusiastic at this point. Yep. The mix of bikinis, samurai swords, cowboy hats, zombies and post-apocalyptic settings is obviously a weak point in his film-critic armour. Mind you, I'm not claiming to be innocent here. I liked the idea just as much. But of course, I'd also quite happily have watched Bloody Malory. I have no illusions about my cinematic tastes.

Tiarne got kind of excitable too. She decided she'd seen the character before, perhaps in a computer game. Tiarne's Google-fu is strong: within minutes, she had summoned up an Internet image of a computer-game character dressed very similarly to the lass on the front of the Chanbara Beauty DVD case. So... was this a game derived from a movie? Or was the movie derived from a game?

Neither. Apparently both were developed from one of those inevitable Manga series. Okay. Fine.

So, Bruce stuck the DVD in the player. The credits came up... and that was the last good thing that happened for the next eighty-six minutes, as far as cinema was concerned anyhow. (There were some pretty good lime-chili potato crisps. And some funny conversation. But neither of those reflects on the film itself.)

Chanbara Beauty... This movie is the cinematic equivalent of a cold coffee enema. If you're stupid enough to plan on watching it after you read this, please: remove ALL sharp objects from your person and your immediate vicinity, because the urge to gouge out your own eyes to protect your brain may be overwhelming.

How can a movie with a samurai-sword wielding, bikini and cowboy-hat wearing, zombie-slaughtering heroine have such an utter lack of fun? Was it the shitty SFX? Was it the fact that the lead actress had clearly been instructed to appear stone-bored and insomniac tired through the whole film? Was it the bleach-blonde Japanese fat bastard with a head like an animated bowling ball who supposedly supplied comedy relief? Was it the mechanistic, perfunctory, largely incomprehensible fight-scenes that rolled on endlessly, despite their shitty lack of anything like coherent choreography?

The film had all the ingredients to be entertaining. It sure as hell took itself seriously. Usually when a film aims to be serious and fails on this spectacular a level, it gains a life of its own, and becomes one of those movies you remember for years because of the lingering cramps in your belly caused by near-fatal attacks of hilarity.

But not Chanbara Beauty. Nope. Not even the random breasts of a female character introduced about twenty minutes into the piece solely to endure a single sex scene and then be slaughtered by unconvincing zombies were sufficiently interesting to make this film anything other than a brain-grinding, arse-numbing chore. By the end of the flick, Bruce was working on his i-Pad, Quinny was reading some sort of shit on his MacBook, and I was watching Tiarne play a peculiar computer game. Every now and again we'd look up, and beg the characters onscreen to die. Horribly. And quickly.

Mostly they did. But not quickly enough.

All copies of Chanbara Beauty should be rounded up in the name of humanity, and buried in that same landfill somewhere in New Mexico which contains all those copies of that infamously bad ET video game... Then the director, the producers, and the writers should be hunted down and publically executed. Only then can we truly feel safe about going back to the cinema.

And in other news:

Genghis has hit the zoom function with his reading. He didn't take off as early as his brother, but at eight years old, he's just discovered the Skullduggery Pleasant books by Derek Landy. These are young-adult fantasy, and they run to about three hundred pages each. Genghis is literally burning through these things at the rate of a book a day or so. At least, on weekends. On school days, he only gets through half a book.

It's great to see him discover something like this. He's not as narrative/fiction oriented as Jake. More typically blokey, he likes reading histories and factual stuff. He adores his books on the Darwin Awards, for example. I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or not, but I figure it's good cautionary reading, at least. Anyway, he's well into the most current book in the SP series, so he's about to run out. We're going to point him to Artemis Fowl next, and probably Pratchett and the Discworld. Thirty books of fantasy/comedy should keep him occupied for a couple months.

Meanwhile, Jake has learned to make popcorn. He takes it seriously, and does it properly. No microwave bullshit for him: he's been raised right, and his few encounters with the awful shit that comes out of those prepackaged bags have taught him that popcorn has to be cooked in oil, and if butter is to be involved it must be real butter, not crappy yellow powdered toxin.

He's good. He gets down the beat-up old aluminium saucepan (because the thin layer of near-enough sapphire on the inner surface is smooth and strong, and you can scrub it clean. But if you burn popcorn into steel, for example, the carbon will enter the fine pores of the metal, and that pan will always burn things forever after, no matter how carefully you clean it.) and adds the oil and the popcorn. Then he fires up the stove, cooks the stuff, and pours it into the big serving bowls. He melts butter in the hot pan, and meanwhile, he adds salt and seasonings of choice -- citric acid, powdered beef stock, cayenne pepper, powdered chicken stock, parmesan cheese... there are flavours for every occasion -- and then tosses the lot together.

I have mixed feelings about this. I'm glad to see him learn, and I like the idea that he's taking this task onto himself. But it's kind of odd watching him do what has been the "dad thing" with our movie nights. I always figured there was a kind of gemutlichkeit comfort in watching movies or TV with your family, munching down on a big bowl of dad's special popcorn...

Still, he's very proud of himself, which is good. And it saves me the job. And I still step in from time to time, so I guess he'll keep associating all those memories of dad and family and stuff. I hope so, anyway. I want my kids to look back on their collective childhood, and be able to pick out things that made them feel like a family: close, and together. Movies and popcorn and rare late nights have those associations for me - so why not?

All right. It's a green and gorgeous spring day outside. I have stuff to write, more stuff to read, and stuff to cook. I also have a bunch of potatoes to plant, and an evening of martial arts to plan and then carry out.

I'm outta here.

What Day Is It?

Whoa.

Okay. The weekend was large-ish. Three extra kids, because the Double-Bangers weekended at Chez Flinthart. Their situation is complicated: mum and dad aren't really doing so well as a couple. Mum D-B works too damned hard, and her weekends are something of a nightmare, so the three kids were running short on a parent, what with Dad D-B being somewhere in NSW studying up on permaculture, or something. Anyway: Amazing Viking Neighbour Anna stepped in to make sure the D-B kids were okay on weekends... and Clan Flinthart provide the backup when Viking Neighbour Anna needs a break.

They're good kids, all three. Two boys, one girl: much like Clan Flinthart. However, when you get six kids under one roof on a rainy weekend, you have to expect things to run large.

Genghis and I started with the Saturday routine. He came to my sword class and watched, and then I took him to his double bass lesson. We picked up some stuff, had lunch, came home. And after that, it was a free-for-all. I'd planned to have a cook-out around the new(ish) fire pit, but the rain put the zap on that one big-time.

It didn't help that the DB middle child had a birthday on Monday. Remarkable Viking Neighbour Anna is fiercely protective of children of all varieties - so on Sunday, we had a proper birthday party. With cake, and presents, and vast chaos. Meanwhile, Natalie was packing: she's spending this week in Queensland, on the Medical Educator gig.

Which means, of course, that following the Weekend of Many Children, I am now doing Sole Parent Duty until Saturday. Or so.

Yesterday was Monday. That was the Day of the Wardrobes. It rained again, very heavily, and the temperatures plummeted. Somebody cancelled Spring, I think. I want my money back. Anyway, the guy put in a big built-in wardrobe in the Mau-Mau's room, and an even bigger one in the boy's room.

Oddly, it turns out that gigantic fucking mirrors for doors are actually cheaper than standard particle-board, or whatever they use. We spent the money for non-mirrored doors in the Mau-Mau's room... but the boys got mirrors. Big fuckin' mirrors. We're talking about 2.5m high, by nearly 2m wide.

Shit, that's a lot of mirror. I guess we wanted the wrestling matches in the boys' room to stop anyhow...

Today? Today was Cello Lesson day. Drive Jake into Launceston. Normally, we'd be doing Swedish, but apparently Natalie is trying to shift all musical lessons to Tuesday morning. Maybe we can do Swedish in the afternoon? I don't know. Pissed off, though. I'm enjoying learning Swedish, and I think a second language is easily as important as music.

Meanwhile, I've been catching up with bills, building a gate for one of the fenced vege garden beds, handling laundry, cooking, cleaning, shopping, writing. I'm apparently supposed to put together some kind of paper/presentation related to my MA for sometime in November. That would be somewhere between a martial class for the school, preparation for the Xmas parade, the Ringarooma show, the work on the online programme for creative writing, the editing on two stories, visitors on a couple of weekends, a concert (for the boys) late in October, a trip to Melbourne to catch up with Prof Boylan, the work on the novel, and every other fucking thing.

Tomorrow... tomorrow I throw the kids on the bus. But I have to be down in Scottsdale by 1200, because somehow Jake managed to flake a chunk off one of his juvenile pre-molars on Sunday. How? Eating a fucking Cheezel. How the fuck do you flake a piece of tooth enamel on a Cheezel? He and the other two have only recently been past the dentist for a very clean bill of health. They have a good diet, and we drill dental hygiene into them. So... how the FUCK does he manage to flake a piece probably 5mm by 5mm off the outside vertical surface of a premolar?

This is what we will be trying to discover, of course. Is he lacking calcium? If so - how? He gets cheese, milk, and dark, leafy vegetables. Maybe not as much as I'd like of any of the three - but probably more than the vast majority of kids with non-flaking teeth out there. So... what the fuck?

You get the picture, though. If I have to be there by 1200 for his 1210 appointment at the hospital (where they have a nice dental clinic) then... let me see... probably not done until 1230. Which means that if I turned around and went home immediately, I might get back by, say, 1245. Unfortunately, I'll have to turn around and go back down the hill at 1430 so I can collect a gang of kids from the school, get some food into 'em, and then run the ju-jitsu classes from 1600 to 1830 or thereabouts.

At that point, I'll drive home. I'll have my two boys in the car, and probably two, maybe three of Viking Neighbour Anna's lads. I think I'll pick up some pizza, because I'm damned if I feel like trying to cook a meal after teaching two and a half hours of ju-jitsu.

Thursday... what's going on Thursday? Not sure. Must be something. Friday is orchestra. I know that. Oh... I have to get to the mechanic, apologise for the fact that Natalie completely forgot her appointment last week, and pay the bill for the tyres on the Mighty Earth King. Gotta fit that in somewhere. Ooh - better finish bracing the steps I built for the Movie Shed. They're not ready for use until they're braced. And shit - when was the last time I checked my university email? I haven't finished reading Spenser yet, let alone Ariosto and Milton. Fuck!

I totally fucking hate this time of year.

Head Down. Arse Up. Trying To Keep Up.

The pointy end of the year approaches. So much shit, so little time.

I took a morning off today. Necessary after the weekend. I took Genghis in on Saturday morning. His bass lesson was at 1015, and I went to sword training at 0900. I hope they keep the Saturday morning class. Genghis didn't mind hanging around the dojo... he even got the chance to learn a little, with a bokken, well out of the way from everything else. He thought that was pretty damned cool, and according to the sensei who was giving him tips, he learned fast, and well.

Sunday was more or less about music. The Mau-Mau and Jake both took part in a music competition under the aegis of the St Cecelia school, of which their teacher is a part. They did well - each got a second place and a 'highly commended' in their instrument class. The Mau-mau was tickled, and took her second place medal to school today. Jake tried not to let it show, but he was surprised and pleased as well. Good thing, really. He needed a bit of a boost with the music. His commitment has been flagging a bit.

Gardening: I put in tomatoes. The wallabies ate them, down to the soil. I looked around, and realised the gate wasn't fully closed. I closed the gate. I put in more tomatoes. The wallabies ate them down to the soil. Okay. So, the big enclosure is no longer wallaby-safe. So I banged in a bunch of star-pickets, and today I picked up 25m of heavy chickenwire. Now I'll enclose the raised garden beds, and put in a gate. Soon I can put in more tomatoes. In the meantime, the potted radishes are coming on, the rhubarb is picking up, the cabbage seedlings are going to need to be planted out soon, and the herb garden needs to be completely weeded. But I've given all the fruit trees a nice dose of blood and bone... and bugger, there's a lot of fruit trees these days.

Writing: behind on everything. Not stuck, just overrun. Gotta edit two short stories, finish the MS for ROR, put together a proposal to start an online extension class in English for the local high school, and work up the outline of my MA. Among other things. And of course, Jake and I are continuing to enjoy creating The Amazing Adventures of That Suave Guy. We just finished his first outing, and we're at work on the second.

Study: had a useful meeting a week or two back with my prof. We've reshaped the MA once again. Now I'm reading Spenser and Ariosto, and looking into some of the more interesting critical writing on modern fantasy.

Martial Arts: graded the junior blue belts last week. They did pretty well, all told. I need to see more focus from all of them, but little Genghis' commitment surprised hell out of me (and his grading partner!). Most interesting was the fact that where he didn't flat-out know certain techniques, he improvised... and his improv was generally on the money, utilising the principles of the art. He's only eight. He'll be nine in late December. If his interest continues, he's going to be a very effective, very dangerous person by the time he's fifteen. Meanwhile, I got halfway through grading all the wee ones and the newcomers: a bunch of youngsters at the yellow and orange level. Again, I'm pretty pleased with them so far, but it's a real handful putting them through this. On Wednesday, we have to do all the self-defense material, which will really try them (and me!) out. Also graded a couple of senior orange belts, both female. Very good work from both of them. No... correction. I didn't grade them. I made my senior student - a young brown belt - handle the grading, because he needs to be more confident with his communication and teaching. He did it well, and I'm happy with all three of them.

Music: teaching young Mister D the flute and Irish whistle. He's discovered Irish folk, and he's delighted. He even puts in enough practice that I can spot the improvements in his technique. I'm not qualified to put him through musical exams, but I play flute well enough to get him to a decent standard, such that if this town ever gets a flute instructor, he'll do well. In the meantime, it's nice to brush off my own technique. We're working on a duet (Danny Boy) for wooden flute and Irish whistle (I'll play the flute!) and I'm trying to arrange a duet score for the Barcarolle by Offenbach, to be played on cello (Jake) and flute (Mister D). I haven't done a lot of musical arranging, but there are enough clues available online that I think I can manage it.

Language: Swedish continues to be much easier, and more fun, than Spanish. Sure, the extra vowels can do your head in, and the umlauts are just all kinds of wrong... but the grammar and vocab and the syntax are so much easier that it's a doddle. We've found a satisfactory book full of readings and lessons, and we get down to Viking Neighbour Anna's place of a Tuesday morning to read all about the life and times of Erik Lindkvist, en ung Svensk student. At the moment, we suspect Erik may be gay. He lives in a flat in a fashionable part of the Old City, and he likes to throw parties and dance. Unfortunately, he only has about five friends, and they tend to bring just one gramophone record (!) between them... but Erik dances keenly anyway. The text says the neighbours are very forgiving. One would bloody hope so. Dancing to one single gramophone record would be extremely irritating after the ninth or tenth play-through.

House: spring cleaning. Among other things. We're getting some wardrobes put in, which should make keeping the kids' rooms tidy a little easier. Meanwhile, I've built some removable steps for the cinema shed, landscaped around the new firepit, made gates for various garden enclosures, and tomorrow I go up on the roof with (of all things!) a chimney brush. I didn't even know we had one until last week - found it under the top shed. It's warming up nicely, but there will probably be a few more nights where it would be nice to have a fire... and the chimney really isn't drawing all that well. Of course, it hasn't been swept since we got here, so this will probably be an epically filthy job. Oh goody.

Enough procrastination. I've got work to do.

Martial Arts As A Transformative Process

So I've been involved with martial arts since I was seventeen. Not constantly, mind you. What with moving around from here to there, and studying and working and everything there were gaps. From time to time.

Mostly I've practised ju-jitsu. I started with judo, in my first year at university, and I loved it. But it happened on a Monday night, and the next year my timetable changed, so I couldn't go on with judo. However, I'd heard that ju-jitsu was similar, so I found the class taught by sensei (now shihan) Mark Haseman at Milton.

In short order, I was a convert. Ju-jitsu didn't involve as much sheer, bloody-minded physical hard work as judo - but it was infinitely sneakier, nastier, and more efficient. As taught by sensei Haseman, it was a flexible, adaptable and astonishingly deadly practice of self-defense.

In the years that followed, I did most of my training under sensei Haseman, and he remains one of the most remarkable individuals I've met through the martial arts. Yet it wasn't just the teacher. What I enjoyed about ju-jitsu then, as now, is the constant challenge it presents. Sensei Haseman's approach was holistic, aimed at incorporating functional techniques and placing them in a framework of practical principles designed to maximise your chances of being able to avoid, deflect, or simply survive the possibility of physical violence.

The list of techniques is way too long to even start. But to give you some idea, back then just to do a full brown belt you had to have solid command over all the forty basic judo throws, plus the strangles, the hold-downs and the groundfighting technique. You also had to have essentially the same range of striking, blocking and kicking techniques that a black belt in something like Shotokan Karate might have. You also had to have the footwork and evasive body movements (tai-sabaki) of an Aikido practitioner, plus a range of armlocks, wristlocks, shoulderlocks and other joint-locking techniques, both standing and on the ground. You had to be able to name and locate all the major bones, muscles, organs and joints of the body. You had to be able to show attacks designed to work against something like twenty different nerve and pressure points, and explain the effect of each attack. Oh - and you needed a St John's Ambulance Certificate in First Aid, too.

That's brown belt, in case you didn't notice. I didn't mention all the free-sparring. And the judo-style randori. And the ground-fighting. And I didn't list all the self-defense stuff: the defenses against knives, sticks, chains, chairs, axes, pistols, broken bottles, multiple attackers, surprise attacks, attacks on the ground... seriously. You did a full brown belt in three separate stages. Good damned thing.

Black belt? Well. All of that, but more, and with more intensity. And all in one grading, not three. You want to be nice and polite to anybody who's done a black belt under Mark Haseman.

Anyway, you see the point. Big curriculum, very challenging. The idea is to keep throwing technique at you until it blurs, and eventually, you start understanding the principles. Moving your body at the right time, in the right way. Practice long enough, and technique grows out of the basic principles, to meet the situation as required. It's endless, and it's challenging, and to this day I find it deeply interesting and rewarding.

I've tackled a few other arts along the way, of course. At various times I've held lower to middle-level gradings in aikido, a version of kung fu, a version of silat, and a version of karate. Currently I'm also practising Iaido. And why not? Ju-jitsu is adaptable. I've stolen the quick, flowing hand techiques that I met in kung fu, and I've kept some of the aikido body movement. And even though breaking boards isn't part of ju-jitsu as such, I saw how the students responded to it in karate, and brought it along for the kids that I teach... and they love it. And I use padded boffer-style swords to encourage the younger kids to duel with sword technique lifted straight out of aikido, and I stole some of the silat approach to changing the height of your attacks rapidly, and so forth. Always something good to learn.

When I got into martial arts, it was because I was a skinny, smart, mouthy kid from the sticks, used to being hassled by mouthbreathers and inbreds for no better reason than the fact that I could use words of more than two syllables. I was tired of being a target, and I wanted a way to discourage potential trouble.

I got a lot more.

You hear a lot about the 'confidence' that comes from martial training. And it is important, in terms of defense. When you're comfortable with the possibility of violence, and you're not intimidated by the prospect of aggression, you gain a relaxed quality that somehow tells the mouthbreathers that you're not really a target any more. (This isn't surmise. A study was done many years ago, on muggers. They showed a bunch of 'professional muggers' a series of photos, and asked them to choose victims. The level of agreement in their choices was extremely high. The muggers couldn't explain what it was about the 'victims' that made them likely targets - but they all saw something. So... simply learning not to be a victim turns away a lot of trouble immediately.)

But there's more to it than simple physical confidence. I think ju-jitsu was the first thing in my life that I really stuck with. And when you do it long enough, eventually all those crazy things you see the martial artists doing stop being crazy, and start being... well, just something you can do, if you want.

I can break a brick with my fist. I've done it. Yeah, it hurt. But it didn't break my hand, or even really leave a bruise.

I can throw a full-strength punch at a target - like a brick wall - and stop the punch absolutely dead cold within 5 mm of the surface. I can do the same thing with a kick. I can wrestleand throw while blindfolded far better than most people can with all their senses at once. I can fall, dive, or roll on concrete or tarmac and get up unscathed. I've had my jaw cracked by a wild punch, and all it did was piss me off; within limits, pain is just something you deal with, not something that controls or disables you.

There's a lot more, but you get the idea. But the real heart of it is learning that a lot of your own limits are illusory. If you can break one brick... maybe you can break two? Or three? Who knows? If you can kick as high as your head... maybe if you just add a jump and get the timing right, you can kick even higher. If you can break boards with your hand... maybe you can do it while holding an egg? (I've gotta try that. I saw footage of Jackie Chan doing it, and I have totally got to give it a try.)

What I'm saying is: like no other practice I know, a good martial art is transformative. You learn with every part of your body. You work on strength, speed, accuracy, balance, and confidence. You learn to practice alertness and observation. You learn to 'read' other people - their balance, their expressions, their clothes and language and actions and affect. You take on board an ocean of technique which can never be perfected... you just keep refining it and refining it until the errors are smaller and smaller.

And with all this learning and refining and all this 'taking control', your attitude to the world changes. It has to.

I've seen fat, unhappy kids learn to fall, roll, and wrestle like demons, and make friends in the process. I've seen small, skinny kids put their fist through a pine plank, and turn into wide-eyed little warriors, astonished and proud of their own accomplishments. I've watched a kid with physical disabilities learn to do a good, clean forward roll -- and then terrify his mother by happily showing off his new achievement at every opportunity.

There's a woman at the class right now. She's got kids, and she's moving towards middle age. She was tentative and nervous about starting, but tonight she did her second grading, and did it well. She's had to battle herself, almost, every step of the way - mostly her own reluctance to believe that she can do this crazy shit. But she's discovered that she can fall, and roll, and move, and get up again. She's discovered that she can dodge a kick, deflect a fist, and throw a man nigh twice her size over her hip. She's discovered that snapping a pine plank isn't difficult - and that she can do it without breaking her hand. She's had to adapt to the fact that she's training with kids less than half her age, some of whom can learn this stuff much more quickly than she does...

But since coming along, she's also taken up the guitar, and gone back to studying, and a host of other minor things. And that's what I'm getting at. I claim absolutely no credit for any of these other things. She's done them entirely for herself. But... once you've discovered that what looks impossible is just something you do by practice, training, concentration and determination, why - suddenly, all those hundreds of other things you thought you could never do start to look a lot closer than before. A good martial art teaches you the habit of overcoming your own doubts, and marshalling your resources so that you can reach farther than you ever thought.

And maybe the best thing about it is that when you get to be good enough at it, you can teach it to other people and watch them change and grow, too. Because - well, while breaking a pine plank is no big deal, and doesn't make you a martial arts genius... seeing the amazement on the face of a student who does that for the very first time is a really humbling, wonderful experience. You can see it, right there in their eyes: I did it! That was me! And -- if I can do that, what else can I do?

And that, there: that's what a human being should be.

Insert Title Here

Heh.

Genghis is gonna be really pissed at me.

Today, Natalie was in Albury for some medical thingy or another. She left me with a raft of shit that needed doing; a lot of it specifically for this music competition thing into which she has entered our eldest and our youngest. The Mau-mau needed her pink satin birthday dress dry-cleaned, for example... because our washing machine didn't quite get all the poster paint out. The Mau-mau also needed some nice white stockings to go with her new black shoes.

Scottsdale couldn't take care of either of those things before the weekend, and we have to have this stuff by Saturday, apparently. Also, Jake needed some decent trousers, and some clothes of the sort that one might wear while performing on stage solo with a cello. And once again, Scottsdale wasn't up to the task.

You can just about guess my chances of getting lightweight workout gloves for the heavy bag around here, can't you? Or a couple of new blue belts for the boys, since they have a grading coming up very soon.

So, yes. Trip into Launceston. Obviously, I needed to take Jake for sizing purposes. Stockings or tights for the Mau-mau were a no-brainer, so I figured I'd send her off to school, 'cos she loves it. But Genghis... he really didn't want to go. He thought today was the Athletics carnival, you see, and he hates the athletics carnival. He's a very competitive kid. He's very fit, strong, and physical... but he's stocky, and small. He's rapidly becoming a good gymnast, and he learns the martial stuff very quickly and effectively - but he is NOT a runner, and (surprise, surprise!) the school's "athletics carnival" consists mostly of running. (There is some jumping. But you don't get to do that until grade five. Why? I have no farking idea. Apparently, grades 1-4 are incapable of jumping. Or something.)

Therefore, young Genghis pleaded at length with me to miss school and go to Launceston. In the end, I shrugged and agreed. Personally, I can understand his loathing of the athletics carnival. If he really needed to get off his ass and exercise, I'd maybe have another opinion... but I don't see the point in making him run a series of races he utterly hates.

Except, of course, that today wasn't the athletics carnival. As I found out when I signed him and his brother off from school, the athletics carnival is next week. He's gonna really hate that when he finds out.

Anyway. We got the white stockings. We got charcoal pinstripe trousers. We got a black waistcoat and a black bow tie. We got a copy of the cello book with the piano-accompaniment CD. We got wrasslin' gloves. We got blue belts. We got a bunch of heavy pine timber to build a small stairway for the shed. We got the makings of dinner. We got lunch. We found a couple of DVDs. (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Black Swan.) We put a tank of diesel in the car. We dropped the little pink satin dress at a dry-cleaner. We...

... uhh... yeah. I think that was about it for Launceston.

But when I got home, I planted the laburnum tree that Amazing Neighbour Anna gave me. And I did some laundry, and I cut the pine planks to length for the stair. I collected the Mau-mau from the bus stop. I grilled hamburgers and made all the trimmings and fixings, and I carved up a watermelon. I washed things and I stacked things and vacuumed things and cleaned things. I oversaw some music practice.

And now, I can go to work.

Another Busy One

Ruminations on Art and writing here... Battersblog Guest Appearance

Meanwhile: I managed to snaffle a quiet sort of day today. Natalie got herself involved in a social bike-ride down to Tomahawk, a little caravan-park of a town on one of the really sweet beaches down the coast. She'd been looking forward to it all week. There was a barbecue afterwards, too.

Unfortunately, it only became clear yesterday that my job was to be largely unsolicited Support Vehicle Driver.

Normally, I'd have sighed and taken it on the chin. A bit of barbecue with the kids down the beach would be a decent exchange for all the aroundgerfucken that goes with kids and bikes and long rides. But this time... well, Natalie's away tonight and tomorrow night, doing some kind of medical educator thing in Albury. Meanwhile, I've got a list of errands about nine metres long that I have to carry out in Launceston tomorrow... but of course, I can't leave until the kids are off to school, and I have to be back in time to collect them. Yep.

So I begged off, and took a bit of a mental health day. I wrote maybe a thousand words, did some reading, had a nice lunch, took a walk... of course, I also did the shopping, prepped for dinner, handled a bunch of laundry, etc. And after they got back from their ride I unloaded the trailer and fed a bunch of hungry kids (mine plus two extra) and Chrissie the Medical Student (happily, I had three litres of leftover Chicken Sweet Corn soup which was easy to heat up on demand).

Really, I have to get down to this blog thing more than once or so a week. I hate recapping. On the other hand, I've been busy enough that the only way to contemplate the bloody week has been in recap. Back to martial classes; teaching another basic class at the primary school; working up the proposal for an online high school extension class; reading for the MA; catch-up at Iaido classes...

We went to a wedding yesterday, did Natalie and I. Damon the Mad Piper has married Tanya, and it was a fine ceremony at the Holy Trinity Church in Launceston. Luckily, Chrissie the Medical Student makes a very fine babysitter... I left her with the ready makings of chicken won-ton soup, and a chocolate shortcrust flan thing, and Jake can now make popcorn, so they were well set.

"Mawwiage. That bwessed event. That dweam... within a dweam..." I can't help it. Every time I see a priest dressed up in those nifty robes, I flash on Peter Cook in The Princess Bride, and I start sniggering. It's not a good look.

The other problem for me is the bit where the priest does the blessing. He has to raise his hand in front of him, you see... and invariably, I find myself thinking: These aren't the droids you're looking for. You don't need to see his papers. Move along.

Pop culture. It can really fuck up your ability to take a church wedding seriously.

It didn't help that they were piped into the church by Highland pipers, and that an Irish piper played while the register was signed. Don't get me wrong. The pipes were lovely, even with the pipe organ in the background. But the thing is that Nat and I were sitting among other musicians from the regular session she attends, and... well... they have a sense of humour.

As the piper was playing an phis fliuch (a well known Irish piece) we were giggling about the possibilities. You see, a lot of Irish trad pieces have... odd titles. After a bit of discussion, we decided that there ought to be a "Wedding Set" of tunes to be played at these occasions. We figured it would consist of the following three pieces, in order:

Dick Gossip; then Cock Up Your Beaver; and then Oh, Hag You Have Killed Me.

I should point out that the second tune was named in the era when a 'Beaver' referred to a fashionable hat, which could be 'cocked up' at a jaunty angle. (What else could they possibly be referring to?)

So, there we were, giggling like naughty schoolkids. Then Andrew the Piper came over to us after the ceremony, and we let him in on the joke. Or so we thought.

Turns out that Andrew and Damon had a better joke for us.

An phis fliuch is a lovely piece of music. But I've only ever seen the name in Irish Gaelic. And that's odd, since virtually every trad piece I've seen (and I've seen well over a thousand) has an English name, or an English translation.

Well, it turns out there's a reason it's not usually translated. Apparently it translates directly as "The Wet Vagina". (It's not crude in Irish.) It's more often referred to as "The Wet Kitten", or even "The Wet Pussy". Sometimes it's coyly called "The Choice Wife". But the actual translation is very much as shown...

... well played, sir. Well played.

Where'd That Week Go?

Okay. The LOTR marathon went off beautifully. We finished at about 0200, and didn't wind up with any overnighters, so by and large we got to sleep in a little the next day. Except Natalie... she had a long and busy weekend putting people with bronchitis into the hospital.

Seriously. This f__king plague of bronchitis has been a vicious bastard. It's a week later, and Natalie is still waking up at 0200, thrashing about and coughing several lungs worth of crap. It's horrible. She's feeling much better, but the bloody cough lingers in a truly hideous fashion.

The week was flat-out, though. I caught up with my prof at the university, and we got the whole masters degree thing pushed into a more sensible shape then before. I also did the student ID thing, and checked out the library, etc.

The boys and I hung with Bruce and the Cool Shiters on Tuesday night. Watched... umm... some movie or another. Heather was back from Queensland, though, which was nice. She finished her film degree, and is now apparently ready for unemployment - although I'm given to understand she's quite gainfully employed in the industry, which is odd. But not surprising: Heather is smart, and determined, and I suspect anybody employing her will get more than their money's worth.

And in other news, Chrissie the Medical Student is back down this end of the country. This time she's doing a month at Launceston, on surgery. She came out for the weekend, and so of course, yet another weekend dissolved into a mess of cooking and entertainment, 'cos Linda turned up, and brought with her Em the Mad Scientist, and I cooked much more food than I really needed to: grilled cardamom chicken, slow-grilled spice-rubbed pork belly, salads, baked potatoes... finally, I poached some beurre bosc pear halves in port and spices. Then I wrapped the pear halves in puff pastry and baked them, while reducing the spiced port down to a piquant sauce, and served the lot with lashings of sweetened whipped cream.

The school holidays have ended at last, and we're down to the sharp, pointy end of the year. They're already making noises about the ju-jitsu club appearing for the Christmas Parade festivities again, and I have to get on with the gradings over the next week or two, then devise some kind of a Christmas show, I guess. I saw a lovely clip of Jackie Chan breaking some concrete slabs while holding an egg, unbroken in his hand. Concrete slabs are hard to come by... but surely I can take out a stack of boards while keeping an egg whole, right? Better practice first, I reckon. This could be tricky.

Desperately putting finishing touches to a story for one small press anthology, and carving a second story into proper shape for someone else. Meanwhile, I'm supposed to put together a proposal to start an online teaching group for the local high school - drawing on the work I did for years with Dr Virginia Little, in the USA. The online forum would allow advanced English students a place to practise skills in writing, criticism and critical thinking for extra credit. There's a fair bit of enthusiasm from the students with whom I did the 'Write A Book In A Day' project, so hopefully the school will be prepared to listen.

Meantime, the primary school wants me to do another series of martial arts 'taster' classes for their October Options. I mentioned that it's still September, but apparently the 'October' part is just for the alliteration this year. Who knew? I've also got to catch up with the principal, to discuss the restrictions placed on Jake's computer. I can understand the need for security for most of the students - but the computer Jake uses is issued to him alone, and it was issued because he's in the "gifted and talented" category. The very existence of that computer is proof that the system has been altered for him... so why is he restricted to the idiotic fucking "Bing" search engine like all the other students?

That's not the only restriction, of course, but the point is clear. 'Bing' is noticeably inferior to Google as a search engine. I don't know what obscure goddam deal the school or the education department has with Microsoft such that the students are actively locked out of Google on the school computers... but I'm not impressed. I'm guessing it's related to some kind of net-nannyware designed to keep potentially naughty students from seeing naughty stuff, but it doesn't matter. The point is that Jake's already an exception to the rule, and they need to think about that when they do this kind of thing. So - meeting on Thursday. Lucky, lucky, lucky me.

What day is it? Still Monday for another forty minutes or so. Right.

I read an odd thing the other day. It was a newspaper article which said that despite the proliferation of TV chefs and cooking shows, most Australian families still eat around a basic menu of about five recurring dishes.

Five? How the fuck does anyone survive the boredom?

Since the longterm purpose of this blog is to keep a sort of diary for my kids, I'll put down the list of dinner menus that my kids rattled off when I read the article at them this evening. In no particular order, these are the most frequent, regular dishes:

San choy bau (either pork, or prawn and chicken)

Chinese dumplings (pork, chicken, beef, prawn, scallop: all steamed, or pan-fried, or both) with steamed vegetables

Thai beef salad

Nasi goreng

Mee goreng

Char kway teow

Chilli chicken and tamarind

Tacos

Spaghetti bolognese

Grilled khofta (lamb or beef or even chickpea) with flatbread and salad

won-ton soup

chicken and sweet corn soup

rich tomato soup with spiced meatballs

Thai fish stew

Laksa

curried pumpkin and coconut soup

creamy mushroom soup

Winter pea-and-ham soup

summertime Gazpacho soup

sushi

baked stuffed mushrooms

polenta-crusted baked salmon over sushi-dressed noodles and salad

grilled cardamom chicken

smoked vegetables with balsamic vinegar

poached salmon with cheese sauce and pasta

shashliks/kebabs (lamb, beef)

satay (chicken, lamb, beef) with spicy peanut sauce

stir-fry (just about anything, really)

poached scallops on croutons

grilled haloumi salad

curried lamb, fish, chicken, beef, or vegetables

Vietnamese-style spring rolls (with the soft rice wrappers and the spicy pork balls)

Charcoal roasted lamb or chicken,

Char-grilled fish or steak

pizza

There's probably more. I forget stuff from time to time, and dishes fall off the menu to be rediscovered after a few months.

There's also a bunch of stuff I do less often, for occasions. Things like the poached pears, or chilled prawn and avocado soup, for example. Mix it all up with a range of pasta or Asian noodles, steamed vegetables, roast vegetables, and salads; allow for variations on dishes (how many different ways can you curry lamb? I don't know 'em all. I tend to vary it as the whim takes me); incorporate seasonal produce (scallops are winter and spring; berries and cherries and plums are summer; apples are autumn... garden vegetables vary with the weather and the temperature and how much energy I've put into planting and weeding); throw in snacks and dips and side-dishes; allow the occasional wallaby to appear on the table... desserts, random bits of baking (pretzels, sourdough, doughnuts, biscuits, cakes) - you get the picture.

People don't really still work around five dishes, do they? I can remember the staple diet my sister and I grew up on: stew, green salad, macaroni and cheese, spaghetti bolognese, breaded chicken or veal, pork chops, the occasional steak... umm... yeah. Actually, that was it. My mother didn't like cooking.

Ah, shit. The cat's brought a rabbit in. I'd better go deal with it or there'll be half a bunny and a lot of blood and guts on the floor in the morning.