#58 soundtrack to slumdog millionaire

when I saw the movie I wanted to get the soundtrack but I didnt get round to it. Now all the Oscars hype reminded me so I made my first iTunes online purchase (after failing to figure out how to download it elsewhere - i blame our firewalls) . hmm, I'm not yet convinced it was a great purchase but at least 3 or 4 great tunes - especially the MIA ones.

#68 capricorn coast

Cape Hillsborough and the Pioneer valley. Very very pretty. It was rather steamy which meant we didnt really do much except laze around, and consume good food and drink. just what we needed. Due to the floods the road to Finch Hatton gorge was closed so we didnt see the platypi, oh well, cant have everything. Only downside was that on packing up our tent we found a dead snake under it - eek! It wasnt there before so it must have crawled under and then we crushed it to death in our sleep, ugh. for some reason we didnt take any photos so these are stolen from the
web (shh), but it looked exactly like this

#52 basil, parsley, fennel and marjoram

I am considering this one done. its been about 5 months since they were planted and none of them are dead yet. Well, none of the herbs - the zucchinis didnt make it and the lebanese cucumber plants are still alive but only produced 3 or 4 cucumbers of which I think only 1 and a half were edible. anyway the herbs are all still going although I'm not really using them. I dont really know what to do with the fennel, I only ever use fennel bulb in cooking but if I dig it up to eat it that will be the end of it, no? which seems a bit odd. The basil leaves are very small and I can get big fragrant ones cheap at the market, same goes for parsley. The marjoram I have used a few times in marinade, although I dont know if it was really successful since I dont eat meat, but no one complained.
anyway, when we move I will also try again.

#9 things fall apart

Chinua Achebe. this was my pick for book club because it was on some list of great novels, or books you should read or something. anyway, again the main character was totally unlikeable - this seems to be a common theme for me lately, and yet at the end of the book you couldnt help feel empathy for him. The book was quite interesting and definitely thought provoking if not exactly captivating. Part of what made the story interesting was that it was all told so matter-of-fact, with no emotion, which left you to decide for yourself how to take it. This is so rare these days, even the News (especially the News?) takes sides and sensationalises stories from one point of view or the other.
I, being your standard over-educated lefty idealist, might be inclined to think of an idyllic African village life that was later ruined by white people. But this novel (written by a black Nigerian) told of village life and charatcer traits of the people in such a distanced style and described so many aspects that seemed so negative to me that it was hard to feel that this was a happy life. I guess it comes down to that an understanding of another culture is something very hard to achieve.

#9 Money

Martin Amis. I mentioned this in another post but forgot to actually write a post for it. These ones are pretty bring I guess, but gotta be consistent. In the end I quite liked this book, even though it didnt really make any sense and all the characters were detestable, esp John Self. I seem to remember reading stuff suggesting the Martin Amis is a real arsehole too (I could be misremembering though), but the guy can write and suck you in.

#32. home mechanic

I really wonder why I bothered with the stupid car service. Since then everything has started going wrong with the car. The boiling-over radiator, smoke blowing half way up the mountain and tow truck ride home were a bit of an adventure. The fan belt changing should have been simple, 5-minute job everyone said. uh huh. They werent taking into account shite quality bolts that snap off now were they. but it got done, eventually. After that we thought, OK thats enough car dramas for a while, but no, last week it decided that the battery had had enough. I spose its all good for me, to learn more about looking after the car myself and all that, home mechanics were never high on my priotity list, but I must admit its kinda fun being able to fix some things for yourself. So this weeks lesson was in jump starting (OK, I already knew that one), battery charging (to no avail), contact and terminal cleaning (also to no avail), battery purchasing and installing. I'm proud to say that I did it all by myself, didnt get any acid burns (although it was close) and the car is now running like a dream - assuming that you dream about 15 years old cars without heating or windscreen washers.

#9 spilling the beans

OK, this isn't a novel but a auto-biography by Clarissa Dickson Wright, one of the two fat ladies (the one who's not dead). At the beginning I didn't like the style but then it got quite interesting but the last few chapters (once the two fat ladies period started) were really boring. Nevertheless on the whole I'd say it was an good story and she certainly had an interesting life. Her attitude however often annoy me immensely, this may be partly because of me being vegetarian and her gleeful expressions of triumph whenever a vegetarian started eating meat, but actually I think its something about the attitude of upper class British people that really really grates on me. Its a certain brand of arrogance that is just offensive.

#56 gran torino

There were many things that weren't quite right about this movie, but on the whole it wasnt bad, I enjoyed it. Lots of things were kinda over the top and you got the feeling that Clint Eastwood was trying too hard to make a point that he's still a tough guy even if he is pushing 80. It reminded me very much of the Lorne Guyland character in Martin Amis' Money. But in the end it is Clint Eastwood and you gotta love Clint Eastwood. The most troubling thing to me is it brings home, again, the idea that America is full of places you just cant go because it too rough, too full of young moronic gang members who wanna beat the shit out of you just because you're in they're neighbourhood. Is America really so full of these no-go zones or is it an exaggeration? It leaves me thinking once again why would anyone want to live in America?