Hot Fuzz — Saw this the other week. Very funny, very bloody, very enjoyable comedy, which pays homage to cop buddy movies. The only problem was that the trailer has far too many of the best jokes in it, and I found myself watching some scenes, waiting for the funny line. I suspect I’d have enjoyed the movie a lot more if I hadn’t watched the trailer. Still lots of fun though. If you liked Shaun Of The Dead, you’ll like this.

Robin Hood — So this is the new, hip Robin Hood adaptation? Sorry, but I found it a bit dull. Arrow sound effects with the captions and acrobatics during fights don’t necessarily make for good TV. I think I still prefer the old Robin Of Sherwood from the 80s. The Sheriff was amusing in this one, but not enough to get me to tune in again next week.

Broad focus: Don’t be a sheep. Make your own decisions.

Narrow focus: Don’t just follow those other people walking across the road against the lights. Look where you’re going.

(Yeah, I’ve talked about this before.)

The fuss over Public Transport Minister Lynne Kosky wanting to deflect complaints elsewhere should be a reminder of the big problems on the public transport network — which some would argue those in power are trying to avoid hearing about.

As it happens my commute home that night was a dream. From work to the front door in 39 minutes, aided by trains that were on time to the minute, they were inadvertently scheduled in such a way that allowed me to avoid going around the loop, I scheduled my trip right on time, and my fast walking pace. For me, that has to be some kind of rush hour speed record.

Why isn’t it always like this?

Because the trains often don’t run on time — to the extent that they’ve failed to meet their targets for the last three consecutive months.

Because almost all PT services run too infrequently. It’s not like some cities where you can enter a station platform without checking a timetable, and expect to be on a train and on your way within a few minutes, at any time of day.

Because so many places (even in a big, reasonably densely-populated city like Melbourne) simply don’t have PT services that are anywhere close to time-competitive with driving. (Don’t for one minute think I didn’t specifically plan to live walking distance from a railway station.)

Because many suburbs are designed to be unfriendly to pedestrians, having roads which make pedestrians wait inordinate amounts of time to cross.

Fix some of these things, and the dominance of the motor car, and all the nasties that come with it (pollution, emissions, obesity, road toll, dependence on foreign oil) will start to wane.

What “Keep left” sign?

Whatdyamean, “Keep Left”?

Tram stop? What tram stop?

It doesn’t apply to me.

I’ll go where I want.

(Sorry about the pic quality.)

The other week I dropped past Hattams in Elsternwick, where I worked part-time as a teenager. Had a good long chat with Ian, who runs the store now. Hattams is a family business, started in 1879. They’ve had clothing stores at various places around the state, with their last two (for the past few decades) at Hampton and Elsternwick.

Over the years the stores have been handed down through the generations, with in many cases the kids taking on the interests of the parents. Sometimes it happens in other industries too — Brian Henson is in town at the moment, having followed his father Jim into the puppet business.

But at some point, the tradition ends, if the kids take on other interests and don’t want to follow on from their parents. In the Hattams’ case, the kids aren’t that impressed with the long hours of small-business retail, and have gone into other things.

Richard, who runs the Hampton store, is reaching retirement age, and it’s uncertain what may happen. Ian is a fair way from retirement, but if both of them eventually retire and close-up shop, a long history of small-business retailing may draw to a close.

Heard: I don’t recall noticing it this time last year, but with Passover in full swing, the last few nights there has been some quite haunting singing heard from the nearby synagogue. It makes a pleasant change from the normal dull roar of distant traffic and toots from trains.

Seen: A lady walking along the street with her shopping. In a green shopping bag. Balanced on her head. Evidently not mucking about for the benefit of friends or anything, just walking along on her own, balancing the bag apparently effortlessly.

Seriously. Alas my Real Camera was at home. I managed to snap a pic, but only with my phone camera and at a distance, so I suppose the cynics could just claim it’s someone with a really big head.

Heard: Almost forgot about this. Last week on a Sandringham train, a lady who talked at someone else via a mobile phone solidly for more than ten minutes. Something incredible was obviously afoot — either someone had messed up a wedding floral arrangement in some spectacularly incredible way… or she was being incredibly anal about a wedding floral arrangement. Either way it was the sort of conversation that was not shouted or full of profanity, but still had some people on the train staring in amazement or — in the case of one man — so distracted that they moved carriages to get out of earshot.

I struggled on to read my copy of MX (thankfully it rarely has anything too thought-provoking), and as she and her phone and her conversation got off the train, I turned the page and found an article discussing the etiquette of mobile phones on public transport.

On Good Friday, it’s traditional for people of a Christian background to eat fish, rather than meat. So, with 68% of the country identifying with Christianity on the census, naturally last night it was pretty damn crowded in the fish’n'chip shop. A 40 minute wait, in fact, even with about ten people working behind the counter. I’m glad we rang ahead.

(No I’m not Christian, but I’ll happily latch onto any tradition that involves fish’n'chips at the end of the week when I don’t feel like cooking. Likewise chocolate eggs.)

Mind you, there was a pretty long queue at Olympic Doughnuts today, too. Is eating jam doughnuts a tradition for Easter Saturday?

10th of February to 5th of April. That’s how long the bug bombs lasted. 54 days.

Last night I found two cockroaches, alive and kicking. Not sure how they made their way back into the house, but there they were — one in the livingroom, one in the main bedroom. Yeuchhh. And I’d found a dead one the previous day.

Yes, they’re back.

Possible courses of action that spring to mind:

• Spray around likely points of entry: doorways, fireplace, windows that get regularly opened
• Find the special cockroach bomb (the last lot was a generic bug bomb) which would be more effective, particularly since there appears to be a local infestation somewhere
• Call in the professionals
• Napalm/firebomb the whole house. Raze it to the ground and build something else. Probably prohibitively expensive. And anyway, I like my house.