This week I have been

Reading

The 2011 Tour de France race guide.

Watching

An Idiot Abroad

Listening to

The xx

Discovering

(Or rediscovering) Hamlet - Nicki Greenberg's beautiful new version, thanks to the fabulous Snarkattack, who invited me along to see Nicki talk about the creative process behind the book.

Eating

  • An enormous serve of bangers'n'mash and a nourishing pint of Kilkenny at the Town Hall one dismal Tuesday evening.
  • A "Chachi" - chianina meatball sandwich - another brioche donut and some amazing chocolate tart at Beatrix, which Essjay has reviewed.
  • A lazy Sunday lunch at The Crimean. The Polish hunter's stew (bigos) was just the thing to revive me after a chilly bike ride.
  • Generous piles of fried food with oodles of chillies and sichuan peppercorns at Sichuan House
  • Succulent suckling pig at Liberteene.
  • An array of bright, zesty flavours at Chin Chin, where the only problem was having to choose only some of the items from what looks to be a menu that is all hits, no filler.

Links

The problem of violence, and the non-solutions

Violence is everybody’s problem, according to the Editorial page in Saturday’s Age. Violence might be “everybody’s problem”, but the bigger problem is that the government is currently spinning “everybody’s problem” to mean “everybody’s responsibility” and, in doing so, is avoiding taking any steps to counter it.

The full article is here; below are some items of particular interest to me.

Continue reading The problem of violence, and the non-solutions

Annoying the World’s Youth, one T-shirt at a time

What a fabulous idea:

Anti-World Youth Day t-shirts are selling fast, following the NSW government’s ban on ‘annoying’ pilgrims. Take a look at some of the most popular slogans.

- You can fine me $5,500… But I still won’t believe in God

- WYD08: We close 300 roads so 300,000 can close their minds

- Good luck Pope – I’ve been waiting for a miracle at Randwick for years

- “and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who wear t-shirts that cause annoyance or inconvenience…”

- I survived a Christian Brothers education

- Oh no, I stepped in Dogma

- Too many Christians, not enough lions – Randwick 2008

- annoying & inconvenient

- I’ve been touched by the Catholic Church, so where’s my $2 billion?

- World Youth Day: You can cross yourself, but not the city

Ah, the rewards of a little bit of tag surfing. From SBS via paperbackscrawl.

Caus(ing) annoyance and inconvenience

I know this is particularly childish, but as I’m on holidays and have nothing better to do I am seriously considering going to Sydney purely to annoy and inconvenience people.

As if last year’s APEC security hullabaloo wasn’t enough, now ordinary, non-God-fearing Australians in Sydney aren’t allowed to annoy people.  It’s probably just as well that extraterritoriality does not extend to the average person on a working holiday visa in the UK, otherwise Australians in London would probably lose most of their wages in fines for annoying the locals…

Anyway, what constitutes annoyance?

The head of the Rum Corps New South Wales Police Commissioner explains: “These are powers to stop people taking things in … like a paint bomb, all of those sort of things that … certainly you couldn’t take to the football on Saturday.”

What about condoms?

Improve the web with Nofollow Reciprocity.