a gentle rain of biryani

Peta's birthday last night we went to her (mother's) house for drinks (I had great red courtesy Kerryn Hughes) and then to Tandoori Times in Gertrude Street which now has a wall of MTV-style videos of indian women smacking their own bottoms or Lionel Richie-style romantic songs, not that I could hear the music I was just able to sit there contemplating the visuals. The food was as usual excellent, although our waiter tripped or skidded or something and threw a whole lot of biryani over us. Later I found some on my tie which looked like it had fallen straight out of my gob and in fact it might have but thanks to the biryani incident I had a good excuse. We got Peta a subscription to a great magazine for her birthday so hopefully she will like it. Admittedly I decided on it on the basis that it was the kind of magazine I would like a subscription to (now that I have subscriptions to the two other magazines I really want) but that is henceforth always going to be my criterion for choosing a present.

Then to the Old Bar to see great bands Paper Planes and the ubiquitous New Estate (Love Cuts Kill also played and unfortunately we got there late). I was drinking whisky and soda a lot but sometimes I just went with soda. Apart from anything else I was feeling huger than usual from all that Tandoori Times so I needed to pace myself. I had good chats, anyway, with Shane about Elf, with James and Shane about Sandra Bullock (they both think she is marvellous), with Marc's girlfriend Debbie about... I can't remember, with Bianca's boyfriend Mark about his social work degree-in-process, with Brad about Tasmanian railways, with Peta about astrology, with Nina about whitegoods, and with Kerryn Hughes about... I can't remember. We got home at about 4.

On the Sunday we were up late and it soon became clear that we were not going to make Olivia's fourth birthday cake-cutting, because the Honda was still in Brunswick and we would have to rely on the train - not a bad thing in itself if we were just going into town, but we also had to come out again on the Sydney Road tram (or take a taxi across town from, for instance, Essendon) and considering Olivia hadn't personally requested our presence, I didn't see too much point. I have had her birthday present for some months now, a great Achewood 'here comes a special girl' t-shirt. She will probably dismiss it as ironic.

Mia watched Meet the Fockers in the evening but I was scanning pics for my lecture (the international students) this afternoon. Its title is The Lucky Country. I am going to play them 'Orstralia' by The Saints (not really one of my favourite Saints songs, but I'll cope) and then in tutorials I am giving them vegemite, tim tams and red lemonade - not really for any reason but I think I had made vague promises to force vegemite on them in the past. Maybe I am also trying to make up for the dream I had last night in which I shouted at them all. The class was taking place in a large Victorian potting shed.