i'm coming out

This bizarre animal, having been a complete shut-in for five and a half years, rarely if ever venturing out of my bedroom and spending most of that time underneath my bed, has now decided for some reason to do the complete opposite, and to be perennially in public (well, at least, she has located permanently to the sitting room and as far as I know has not returned to the bedroom once). She sleeps in the sitting room, usually on the couch, sometimes with her face turned resolutely towards a bar heater that's here at the moment and turned on a lot of the time. 

It makes absolutely no sense to me - and I suppose both nothing and everything makes sense to her. 

I will say that Nancy is here too and does not venture into my bedroom anymore either.

Perry, who used to sleep in the sitting room, now sleeps in the spare room. 

 

park orchards

Yes we went to Park Orchards this afternoon primarily to see how the Chalet was faring. But we also went for a wander in the '100 Acres' which really makes me think about Pooh and Piglet but not for long. 

Here is as much history of Park Orchards as could be fitted on a plaque:

I think I propagated the name of 'Australis Sharp' and sometimes I worry that the one time I saw it, it was a typo, but I could never find evidence of either 'Australis' or 'Australia' Sharp, anywhere else.

Stop Press: Until now, because digitised newspapers, ha ha. This was in Construction for 16 August 1944, p. 12

 

So this is the Chalet, as it currently stands.

Elsewhere in Park Orchards, there are lots of things that need to be sniffed comprehensively:

And a lot of MAD houses. 

And the 100 Acres themselves, where we saw a wallaby (not pictured) and developed a special new bark for the event. 

begone demons

So all I do is go overseas for two weeks and when I return I have a week of craptastic jetlag (well, five days so far, because I was fine for two days and then it set in) and Helmi will not go back where she came from, but now spends every day on the couch, purring like a demon. WHAT IS THIS?! 

life of the party

Recently on a plane (more about that soon) I had the pleasure of watching the 2018 Melissa McCarthy/Ben Falcone film Life of the Party, a 'college comedy' in which McCarthy plays a mother, in the process of becoming divorced from the most unlikeable nonviolent husband ever (it is made clear that we are not to care about this at all, in the first few minutes) who decides to go back to college and finish her 'archeology degree'. 

I have zero beef with Melissa McCarthy, I think she can really make any tosh seem amusing if not hilarious (sometimes it can be hilarious if it's the right material). She's got that perfect mix of warmth and knowingness - knowing even if the character she's playing is a know-nothing - which suits light comedy pretty nicely. 

The film sidesteps a lot of the easy go-tos. For instance, that McCarthy's character Deanna's presence at university might cause friction with her daughter Maddie. Well, it sort of does very briefly, but then it works out pretty fast, and it's not a major element. That Deanna has a relationship with one of the teen-plus college boys happens, and I wouldn't say it is handled tastefully, but it doesn't go in the ways you'd imagine. That said, while the film does get into (light) drugs and sex, its heart and soul could have been a college comedy of the 1930s as much as the 20teens. It's interesting like that. 

Another way it's interesting is that it arguably wastes so many talented people along the way, probably because it's a Melissa McCarthy film and she's the one audiences are here to see. Presumably McCarthy and Falcone can reasonably surmise that they can afford to bring in the best of the best as supporting cast even if they're in rather dumpy roles, and it won't be to the detriment of the up-and-comers who are in there because apart from anything else they can very legitimately say they were in a huge box office hit and didn't embarrass themselves. So, actors like Heidi Gardner (Leonor), Maya Rudolph (Christine) and Gillian Jacobs (Helen) really don't get enough screen time but maybe it's good to leave everyone wanting more. Molly Gordon as Maddie doesn't really get to do anything funny, which is a shame. Amazing, as it always is when you have this in an American movie of the last 15 years, so see Jacki Weaver in a minor-ish (let's say: small but crucial) role as well. 

So you know I was on a plane and really grasping at what movie to watch and started a few and none of them really worked for me but this was the one I watched all the way through so kudos to all involved. 

Oh, one thing I have seen enough of: that trope of the packed, early C20 lecture theatre. No-one goes to lectures anymore and when they do, it's not in places like that. Oh well. 

delta 5 and helmi

When I was away recently (as I said, more about this soon) I picked up another copy of the Delta 5 album See the Whirl', yes, a naff title as anyone would point out and made even naffer by that apostrophe at the end, but I always liked the band. TBH the album is only a partial success, it makes no sense though - it should be a thorough success after however many (3? 4?) amazing singles. 

Why another copy? Well, I have long had a copy, but it has a big scratch on it, I can't remember where now, the last song on one of the sides. I found it a bit disheartening. This new copy is a Dutch pressing which is nice and so it's on the actual Charisma label, rather than the Pre label.* My Pre copy has a postcard in it (also naff) but my Charisma copy is actually playable and sounds good.

I saw a bit of writing by the late drummer Kelvin who seems to blame the big budget for the album's lack of spontaneity. Actually I suspect it might actually be the sequencing that is the problem, or at least, there is a weird disjunct between the tracks, it all seems so sparse. Maybe Delta 5 just weren't an albums band.

Meanwhile something very bizarre has happened here as Helmi, who has spent the last five or more years cowering under my bed, has suddenly decided it is time to emerge and be present. Not only is she now consistently in the living room out in the open not hiding from anyone, she has even ventured outside, the first time she has voluntarily done such a thing ever as far as I know (obviously there were quite a few years when I didn't know her at all). I can't imagine what would lead to such a change. 

*Pre was Charisma's new wave sub-label, like Mushroom had White and Virgin had DinDisc. I guess these labels did some market research and realised that the consumers of 'alternative' music liked to think that the records they were buying were on some kind of niche, perhaps independent, label, like it made the slightest difference. 

plastic bag

These shopping bags, which before 2019 we would actually get FREE every time we shopped, so you could have three or four of them in your hands when you left the shops and you would not have to pay ANYTHING, are now a rare sight and I found one in my plastic bag collection (a stash of bags used for getting rid of stuff) yesterday. I had a moment's vacillation: could this be rare? Now or sometime? Should I just destroy it? Yeah, I don't know. It's rarer now because it's been filled with junk and thrown in the bin.