The garden is looking somewhat chaotic at the moment. I got home on Saturday to find the owners had dropped in to do a little yard work.
To be precise, the Triffid-like plant that has been slowly taking over the whole house has been chopped down, removed entirely. Well, removed from the ground that is, not yet from the garden, obviously.
It’s said that kids used to watch Doctor Who from behind the sofa. Well in our house, it’s not possible to get behind the sofa, so we have to make do.
Jeremy watching the first of the new Doctor Who episodes.
We watched the first episode of the new series. The special effects were pretty good, the plot wasn’t deep but was worthy of what is essentially a pilot episode re-introducing people to the series, and there were some great quotes and humour. Good entertainment.
Some fans of the old series may claim not to like it, but it was a hit in our house. For such a show to succeed now, it was important not to dwell too much on the old show, to update it for 2005 (heh. Rose using a search engine to look for the Doctor), and to make it have mainstream family appeal. And I think they’ve succeeded.
Indeed, the premier on BBC1 pulled in more than 10 million viewers, which in the age of multitudes of pay TV channels is a huge number. And news of its early success made the Australian press, which just goes to show what idiots the ABC are for not sorting out broadcast rights quickly so they can jump on the publicity bandwagon.
PS. Thursday 7am: BBC announces second new series
PPS. Thursday 10pm: Aye carumba! Eccleston says he won’t do another series!
Pic: René Jonas / www.finnatics.de/Crowded_ House/
Update 8:30pm. I first read about this in the paper this morning. It didn’t quite sink in until later. It’s one thing when a musician much older than you passes away… it’s another matter when it’s one who is almost your own generation, and at only 46.
I never saw Paul or Crowded House play live, but I did see him some years ago, laughing and smiling, at the Elwood Beach House Cafe, which I think he co-owned with some other musician friends. I assume he lived around there; it was quite close to where he had gone to walk his dogs, and was later found, in Elsternwick Park.
To the slight indifference of my offspring, I dug out some Crowded House CDs and videos this afternoon to play them. The cover picture of their first album caught my eye, in the circumstances.
He will be missed.
Here are my keys. Well, all of them except those numerous unknown keys sitting in jars, their uses long forgotten.
Post a picture of your keys… Link in the Trackbacks or comments.
Somersault. Now maybe I’m going out on a limb here, since this thing won 13 AFI awards, but I couldn’t quite get into it. One of those films where you just can’t feel much sympathy for any of the characters. Maybe watching it on a small TV didn’t help, and maybe I wasn’t really in the mood for something so misery-laden, but it didn’t do much for me.
Shaun of the Dead. The funniest movie I’ve seen in ages. Not quite as peurile as Guest House Paradiso, but almost as silly, and certainly with a more rivetting plot than Somersault.
This Easter, while you’re stuffing yourself with chocolate, take a moment to reflect on the real meaning of the holiday. Cameron has a great summary here.
It’s 6pm, and you’re working back late. Outside the only shops left open are those such as the CD shop you have to run up to shortly to buy a birthday present, before heading to an evening co-curricular meeting.
Then you realise that your trousers are developing a hole in the seat. Not a huge gaping hole, but a hole nonetheless. What do you do?
Me? I put my jacket on, went out and finished those tasks I needed to do, while trying not to squirm too much while sitting. Then I caught the train home, occasionally glancing around to see if anybody was snickering.
Which nobody was, at least noticeably. Time to go trouser shopping.
Is it just my imagination, or are an increasing number of concerts for established acts in the big cities taking place on weeknights - “school” nights to be precise, Sunday to Thursday? It’s like the promoters know they can fill a venue in Melbourne, any day of the week, so they go for the weeknights. And they save the weekend night slots they aren’t sure they could fill during the week — lesser-known acts, and performances in smaller towns.
I’m not complaining about a specific concert… it’s just that it seems like there’s been a few recently scheduled on inconvenient nights. Oh well.