and an Elmar 35mm 3.5 lens
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Urban Minimum
I was disturbed, while taking my weekly constitutional, by hordes of runners wearing Urban Max smocks, pounding the streets of Kings Cross and the Botanic Gardens. What are they doing? It seems to be a cross between orienteering, a treasure hunt and a pub quiz. Why can't people just enjoy Sydney at walking speed? Why does everything have to be turned into a race or a contest? Even drama has to be turned into Theatresports.
I don't care. I enjoyed my leisurely stroll after the usual coffee at Bar Coluzzi. It was oddly cold this morning and I had the tiny table near the door and got the draught (or is it draft?) coming in, spoiling my paper reading. No matter. I wandered down to Mrs Macquaries Seat via the Kings Cross library. It was so nice just to sit right at the edge of the water and look out over to Pinchgut and see the wind ruffling the surface of the sea and the ferries and tankers plodding back and forth. 
And being out of the wind it was almost warm. I had the Leica IIIa with me and took a few snaps, which I had developed when I plodded back up into town and got to Woolies. They weren't as bad as I thought.
Had lunch at a Korean hole in the wall near what used to be Planet Hollywood, and then perused the camping shops on Kent St in preparation for Christmas.
Been a busy week ... trying to get the newsletter out as well as sift through all those job applications. I was just overwhelmed and just couldn't do them justice .. so just ended up going for the very obvious two candidates. Who knows what geniuses I may have missed because they didn't shine in the CV ...? Also had poor Louise have her daughter break her arm near the wrist in exactly the same way as Paul. As Harry Hill would say - what are the chances of that happening?
So it was good to knock off on Friday and head down to the Chelsea for a drink or three to farewell Greg, who is going to set up a bar and dumpling place in Darlinghurst - and do real hand made jiaozi - good luck to him. It was nice to chat to the many attractive young females who now populate the online section - but they all seem to have been here for about three months. Makes me feel like an old fogey and long time resident.
In other news .. spent most of my downtime trawling through the marvellous Life magazine photo archives and pulling out some stunning colour images of Beijing and the Hump.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
No offence mate
Company football match on Friday afternoon. I somehow managed to get everything out by midday and biked down to St Leonards, on my 'push iron' as someone called it.
It was quite a muggy day with a bit of sun. Everyone else was really into the football but I just lay there on the grass under a tree trying not to look like a berk, listening to St Etienne on the iPod before it was 'our turn'. Fraid I wasn't much of a team player, but I did my bit, blocking a few of the opposition and vaguely kicking the ball in the right direction. Funny how some people who are always talking about football in the office are not as shit hot as you would think once they get on the pitch.
I still can't interested in sport, and all the joshing banter about winning losing and skill. But when you are actually on the pitch and battling it out with the opposition there is something almost primal about that fighting instinct, those few moments when you forget everything else and become almost an animal again. Just using your brute strength, speed and cunning.
What surprised me was how tired I got after just one or two runs around. All those remarks about me being fit because of my riding a bike, no sorry ... On the other hand I may have been one of the oldest there at 45, kicking around with kids half my age.
Took a few pics with the Leica R7 and the 135mm lens, which I should get back tomorrow - and saw a few old ozdockers - Nad and Bianca, for example, all in the process of expecting or pramming bubs.
It all petered out around 4-ish and I left rather sheepishly to take my bike back from St Leonards, having acquired a bit of sunstroke and just enough beer to make me feel dozy.
For whatever reason I decided to bike home from Central ... my original plan was to grab something to eat in Glebe, but I just didn't see anything I lliked, so I ended up going all the way back to Stratty via some back streets, and having too much curry at the local place.
Then a storm came on just as I heard that P was round at his friends house. When the lightning had passed over and the worst of the rain had passed, I went round to pick him up and got a really snotty reception from J's parents, wondering why he had been left there without anyone caring about him for five hours. It was all so unexpected that I didn't know what to say and just mumbled something about how his auntie supposed to pick him up.
Then spent the rest of the evening going over what I wish I'd had time to say - ie about me not having my mobile, and Paul going round there without permission, and being locked out when he came back and his Nainai not being able to speak English, and us not knowing their phone number or address - ie lots of communication cock-ups. But it's all a waste of time because we are now slack parents as far as they are concerned. There's a certain kind of Aussie that just likes to put you in a box like that - the Daily Telegraph reading outraged of Strathfield. I couldn't help imagining how it would have been with a London family: they could well have said much the same thing initially, (ie the 'no offence mate' - or would it be 'you're aving a larf'?) but at least they would give you a chance to explain yourself instead of those self righteous grimaces of Aussie disdain.
Saturday: uniform shop first and then $700 later I was off neglecting my kids while I got a coffee down in the city. Well actually, buying sunnies in Paddy's market (some guy at the football picked mine up and I was too embarassed to approach him and claim them back) and going to the library. I had planned to go down to the art gallery but my feet were really stiff from the football, so I cut my walk short and ended up inthe posh food hall at David Jones buying Yorkshire tea and some marmalade.
Went out to Glebe in the evening for some Thai food with the mob - and I carried on to the Poms in Oz drinks down at the Argyle. Sat on the bus listening to Its Immaterial and gawping out of the window I was amazed how busy it was in town on a Saturday night ... all the girls dolled up. Just like Briggate.
The Argyle was one of those expensive German style bars. Kind of heritage, but it had bouncers with attitude. Drizzling outside and noisy inside, and I rediscovered how my Yorkshire droney/slurry voice just doesn't cut through the noise, so I have to shout and end up sounding like a parody of a Yorkshire yob.
Sunday, had an unsatisfying morning down on Norton St, hoping and failing to find a decent coffee and croissant amid the parking meters. Carried on to Newtown where I did find good coffee, but not much else.
Back to work this morning and I have to sift through 70+ job applications and I hate it - I just can't pick/see any suitable applicants. And I hate the idea of deciding on somebody else's destiny in such a peremptory way. Putting my pencil mark though those with spelling mistakes and those who live interstate or who just sound wooden or prissy or pushy. Which still leaves about 20 ...
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Olive Cotton and the perfect CV storm
Olive Cotton is one of my favourite Sydney photographers - I much prefer her work to that of Harold Cazeaux or Max Dupain. Dupain, who I greatly admire, was more of a documentary photographer and Harold of course was a 'pictorialist' - not that there's anything wrong with that. Olive Cotton's pictures, on the other hand, seem to come from the soul, and have an almost dreamlike quality about them. This one of her friend Jean Lorraine was a 90 second (count them) exposure by candlelight. I came across some of her work in a book at the Strathfield library yesterday and could have gawped at it for hours - well, minutes. But the library was closing and I used up all my library card quota getting books out for the boys.
Olive used a Rolleiflex and I wish she had done more pictures - the few I can find are brilliant. I think she's still alive too!
You can find more of her images by searching the National Library of Australia picture website here.
Meanwhile I am suffering under two great burdens - firstly, I have a rotten viral cold of the sinuses and feel absolutely wretched (do people say 'wretched' any more? It's like 'ghastly' and 'dreadful' - love it). Secondly, I am having to deal with scores of applications for the 'junior' journalist position we advertised on seek.com this week. Oh my, the quality of applicants is both very good and very bad. It's sad how so many overqualified and experienced journalists and media people have applied - some with ten years or more experience in completely unrelated fields. They must be desperate.
On the other hand, the applications from some of the journalism diploma and degree graduates are depressingly dull and often riddled with spelling mistakes and turgid prose. After the first ten or so CVs I just don't want to read about anyone's passion for this or absolute commitment to that. I wish they would just write like human beings. One girl looked very promising - she listed 'natural disasters' as one of her interests (better by far than the usual tennis, swimming, and music). Unfortunately, the rest of her CV was a bit of a natural disaster as well. Don't people READ their CVs once over before they fire them off? Or at least run spellcheck on them so they don't write competiter instead of competitor? Imagine someone applying to be a doctor and getting their caecum mixed up with their cervix.
Dealing with so many CVs (or resumes as Aussies sometimes like to call them) you soon notice a pattern, and see how so many are produced to a certain formula, with all the 'mission statements' and 'life objectives' written bold and positive to start them off. Some people list all their work experience in excrutiating detail - even the Saturday job at Baker's Delight. And yet they omit crucial and simple things like their date of birth or where they went to school.
Others commit sins of omission. If you're going to apply for a journalist's job, expect the nosey journalist employer to do a bit of investigative reporting - (ie typing your name into Google). One applicant forgot to mention how she'd stood for parliament for a major party. Another had a Myspace page which proclaimed that all she wanted to do was be a rock music reporter. OK, so we're just a stepping stone ...
It's also interesting to see how some people are so pushy - following up their initial emails with ingratiating asides, while others are just lazy ('tell me more about the position') and some or just plain barmy. Ironically, the best applicant so far is one from Germany. You also notice that the American applicants sell themselves so much better.
Other lessons I've learned are to include a picture with my CV - helps to put a face to the name - and to be more chatty in my CV - after reading 50 very formal lists you scream for something to stand out.
Meanwhile, this evening I am mostly listening to Lyndsey De Paul singing Sugar Me (Youtube link here), - what a dirty song! Makes Delta Goodrem etc look tame and subtle as a brick. Hat tip to the guy from the chippy
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Beauty and the Beast
The sun tried to shine today. Was intending to go over to Bondi but couldn't face the thought of the traffic and parking. So drove over the bridge to Cremorne Point and just revelled in the view and the fact that it was miles away from dismal bloody Strathfield. Was intending to give Paul a swim in the sea pool but it was closed, and anyway he had badly grazed his leg.
Had coffee and posh pies at the wharf watching the ferries come and go from the floating pontoon bit. And then mucked about on the 'crab beach', with Paul bashing shellfish to bits with rocks while I sat in the shade of a tree and just vegetated for a while. Funny how the most convenient beach for us is this posh place hidden beneath the millionaire's mansions.
Car still not working - and neither is the aircon, so a spluttery drive home with the windows down. Back to the ugliness that is Burwood, with the Kings Of Egypt cruising up and down the road in their blinged up family saloons pumping out the usual boom tish.
Today's cameras: Leica Minilux (with slide film), Leica IIIa with Elmar 50/2.8 and the Bessa with the 35mm Elmar.
This evening I am mostly listening to Ravel's Miroirs.
Saturday, November 08, 2008
A Sydney Saturday on two wheels
Another one of those dull grey weekends, when the weather is humid but the town looks grim and the light is flat and boring.
After work last night I took myself off to the Belgian Beer bar for a snifter before returning home. Ordered something red and fruity by mistake, which tasted like cough medicine - my reward to myself for the long week.
I must have been up early this morning because I managed to get the washing done and hung on the line and picked up the car from the repairman before setting off at 9-ish on the Dahon Boardwalk folding bike to take the train up to Strathfield and down to the city. Indecision, indecision ... where to go today? I fancied going to Balmain, but wasn't sure of the route, so ended up going there - via Redfern!
First stop was the Tripod cafe for a start up coffee, then retracing my steps (or treads) to go past The Block, complete with Hiillsong kamikaze volunteers. I headed for Cleveland St and Crown St, Surry Hills, passing all the trendies sipping their coffees outside the cafes, and via some back streets to Oxford St. Taylor Square - where that 'night' club seems to go round the clock and where there always seems to be someone in some kind of trouble with too much drugs and alcohol.
Further up the road I sighted my first ESBPy (Eastern Suburbs Beautiful Person) and carried on up the hill to my usual haunts - the bookshops and op shops. Chained the bike up outside Vinnies and scored myself a pair of Timberland shoes ($14) and a load of Horrible History etc books for the kids at $2 a pop.
Had lunch next door in Anastasias, where I got a massive Big Breakfast for only $7 - how does he do it? And why did he suggest I downsize from the big breakfast to save mysef even more money? I'm not complaining - great food at great prices, go there everybody!
It's great to sit there facing outwards and watch the people passing by. It's especially good at Anastasias because they have mirrors on the walls so you can see people before they arrive and after they've left, so to speak.
I sat out a brief rainshower and then got on my bike and returned to the Salvos op shop on Crown St, where I picked up a high stool chair for Linda for $15 ... and stuck it on the back of the bike and delivered it to her at Broadway. Freewheeling down the hill under the plane trees with the wind whistling in your ears ... Sydney has its moments.
The nearest and dearest was suitably grateful, but I didn't hang around long in the Broadway centre ... too busy. I ducked into the next op shop, down on Broadway itself and got a pair of trainers for Andrew and another Country Road navy blue shirt for me. I was going to get Peter Finch's autobiography but reading it while queueing for the till something put me off it.
Down Glebe Point Rd next, amazed at how many studenty/arty trendy people there are in this neck of the woods compared to the dismal Korean and Indian hordes of Stratty... and amazed at some of the houses. I would like to live at number 234 or 244 please - those weird-eccentric Victorian mansions with castle-like domes and turrets and all.
Stopped off at the Sze Yup temple to take a few snaps and admire the langorous Buddhist cats, then down to Blackwattle Bay ... where I snapped the amazingly untidy marine scrapyard. There seemed to be a car pulling a boat on a trailer - on top of a container??!!
And then over another cultural fault line, towards Balmain. Under the shadow of that sinister looking disused power station at White Bay (the old sign reads: No entry except with written permission from the Sydney Electricity Board, 189 Castlereagh St ...).
After a bit of pedalling I found myself near the Exchange pub. I was tempted to go in for a quick one, but the look of the clientele put me off. That's because everyone in Balmain is a wanker. They are all twats. Middle class twats. I don't know why, but they are. Something smug and insular about them all. Balmain is a nice place with lots of historic old cottages and stuff - but the locals are the worst kind of insufferable liberal do-gooder NIMBY bastards.
I biked down to the end of Darling St and mosied around the Iloura Reserve, before heading back up into the centre of the 'village'. It seems to be full of the kind of people you get in Hampstead or Richmond - those pseudo-creative middle class business types - the architect who runs his own small practice (there was one called Gromet), or the designer/advertising types. Fifty years ago they would be wearing nifty suits and brogues - now these middle aged men with their grey locks wear dark blue T-shirts, designer jeans and boat shoes.
It's interesting to observe all this as you pedal past, and onwards I went through Drummoyne (two more op shops) and past Callan Park hospital, to another cultural geographic centre - Norton St. Italian-Australian Disneyland. I must go there for pizza some time. I was getting a bit weary by now so I stopped for a glass of Resche's rght down at the end of the street where it meets Paramatta Rd. Just opposite the Italian place where I used to go for morning coffee - the Bar Sports.
In Leichardt I always think of that Paddy McGuinness - wasn't he a councillor and whatever happened to him? Already forgotten - Sydney has a very short memory.
I sat in this horrible TAB bar, watching all these old guffers cheering on some horse in the 3.30 .. how pathetic and shabby it all is. Imagine if that was the highlight of your working week. I really am surprised that there is enough interest in the archaic pastime of horse racing and betting to make it such a big business.
And then on to the final drag home, up along Parramatta Rd for a bit, past yet more Italian restaurants (how do they attract customers?) and across the railway at Petersham, where a girl smiled (laughed) at me as I heaved my bike up the grass-tufted steps ... and the increasingly drab journey though dismal-land, ie Ashfield. Still looking tawdry and just plain ugly. I think the Wests Ashfield club sums up just about everything I hate about dull Sydney suburbia. Naff opulence. Betting. Sport. Cheesy entertainers. Crap beer.
The only highlight of the trip back to the deep west was the guy dressed as a joker performing twirls of his sign for motorists along the roadside outside a newly opened car wash.
This week Michael is mostly drinking Mountain Goat Hightail Ale and Wicked Elf Witbier
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Kathleen Byron - Black Narcissus (phew!)
Kathleen Byron plays one of the most erotic and highly charged scenes in a film ever. It's the part in the 1947 film Black Narcissus, where as Sister Ruth in a Himalayan convent she renounces her Holy Orders because she is besotted with the local English agent. In this scene she faces off with Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) who also fancies Mr Dean. The bit where she applies the lipstick is both sensual and very scary. She really does come across as unbalanced. Oh, and she's a hottie ...
Book of the week ...
One of the books I picked up at Berkelouw's second hand place last week was an amazing read. Prisoner's Bluff is the story of two Germans who escaped from an internment camp in India in 1944 and trekked overland to Burma, to seek 'freedom' with the Japanese. If that sounds familiar it is because they were colleagues of Heinrich Harrer, the Austrian who escaped from the same camp but who sought refuge in Tibet and went on to become friends with the Dalai Lama and write Seven Years in Tibet (now a major film with Brad Pitt).
But the story of Rolf Magener and Heins von Have is just as interesting. They were businessmen, not soldiers, and make no mention of the Nazis in their story. They don't look very 'Nazi' - in their photographs they look like a Graeme Chapman (complete with pipe) and John Cleese from Monty Python.
They seemed to be more inspired by boredom and frustration than any wish to return to the fatherland and fight the 'enemy'. However, it seems odd that they thought they would be welcomed by the Japanese. They managed to evade capture while posing as British soldiers and sahibs in wartime India. Their real troubles started when they got near to the front and had to trek through the bush and cross rivers. Even here they make it all sound like a Sunday hike, despite having to scale jungle peaks and evade capture by Gurkhas. It all sounds too far fetched but yet it is true. And the best bits are their descriptions of their reception by the Japanese, with the front line troops treating them roughly and [not surprisingly] not believing their tale of being German escapees. They were lucky to survive and make it through to Rangoon and eventually Japan.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Sunday, November 02, 2008
NSW Government House
Erjie is here from Guilin. We picked her up from an almost deserted Sydney airport at 9.45pm on Saturday night - and she was as young looking as ever. It was hard getting back into talking Chinese again, and I kept falling back on my few stock phrases and the usual ah's and uh's - but I understood what she was saying. Ironically it was Andrew who was able to speak more clearly to her than I was.
She'd only been back ten minutes when Linda had her helping out in the garage, sorting her stuff out for the new store.
With my one free day off today I took her don to Bar Coluzzi to show her what real Sydney coffee tastes like. I saw it as payback for all those awful Chinese meals (or more accurately all those awful pseudo-western meals) I've been made to endure while staying with them in China. But she liked it! And it felt really weird to be sat in Bar Coluzzi gabbing away in Chinese and getting a few strange looks from the other patrons. Likewise on other parts of Sydney we got a few stares from Aussies who obviously weren't used to seeing a whitey chatting with an 'Asian' in their own tongue.
It was a crap day for weather - that heavy overcast cloud and a dull humid atmosphere, but I dragged them all down through Wooloomooloo, buying Paul a pie, and down to Mrs Macquaries Seat ... and eventually - after a quick whiz round Government House (see pic) down to Circular Quay, where we took a moaning Paul back on the train to the car at Kings Cross.
Had the usual slurpy noodles at Sea Bay in Burwood - and off to see Linda at the store.
Erjie's only observation was that everything in Australia - parks, museums and even healthcare (she kept asking if we'd had insurance when Paul broke his arm), was free.
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Was it really 21 years ago?
Can't believe it was 21 years ago that I spent the lead up to Christmas sitting in a bed at the Sydney Hospital waiting for an operation to drain an abcess that had developed on my neck. I had just arrived in Sydney - and Australia - on a working holiday visa and had been staying at the Travellers Rest Hostel in Kings Cross while doing a temp job at the Government Supply Dept warehouse in St Peters. It was a rubbish job and I was living a crap lifestyle - living in a hostel bunk bed and trying to save money to travel. Maybe it was the poor diet (chiko rolls etc) but I soon developed a high fever and this awful lump on my neck, which turned out to be an infected cyst or abcess.
Ah well, I got a few weeks free accomodation and food out of it, thanks to Medicare!
I was out that way again last night after work. It was a stinking hot day and after work I headed up through Martin Place through the 5pm evening commuter crowds up via Wooloomooloo to Kings Cross. A hot wind was blowing and I needed a cool beer by the time I got to Darlinghurst. My reason for heading up that way was to see the film Burn After Reading, which was quite funny, but a bit lightweight. I also had a terrible curry on Oxford St and couldn't resist buying a couple of second hand books from Berkelouws.
After the film was over I walked smartly down Oxford St trying to stay out of trouble. It's funny being sober while everyone else around you is pissed - and there was a slightly threatening atmosphere about many of the boozers. Some of the blokes especially seemed determined to get roaring drunk and were full of this wild aggressive attitude. I was glad to get home.
To calm things down, try this nice soothing bit of Ravel, Gaspard de la nuit.
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