ballina

So a couple of days ago my mother and I flew to Ballina to visit her cousin to get some materials for a book I will one day write. But not for a while because I have other projects on the boil before then. Two planes to Ballina. That was actually fairly painless, particularly because we were fully prepped to have problems with inclement weather etc, etc, etc. 

The important grounding exercise on arrival was to visit op shops and this we did immediately. They weren't that amazing but it had to be done. In both the op shops we visited on the first day, hilariously, there were intensely drawn-out conversations between the woman behind the counter and the woman buying stuff. In both cases the women buying things were retired middle class people with a lot to say. In both cases they fussed over the money - the form of it, not the amount, so that in one instance thirty something dollars was paid in $1 coins. It was madness. 

I am sure (am I?) that not all of Ballina is an architectural letdown but I didn't see anything that exciting. 

Really, it could have been any country(-ish) town anywhere in Australia - actually as I said to my mother, it could be Greensborough. 

Nice bird outside the airbnb we stayed in. 

Can you believe this. 

Beach thing. Beach-ish. Actually I think this is a cove or perhaps an inlet. 

Nothing need be said. 

The next day it was back to the op shops. There are many of them. They all had something going for them. 

I really enjoyed this tea towel. All these kids are no doubt approaching 30 and complaining about how they are getting old. 

I can't even remember why I took this photograph (though it includes one of the op shops, a great one) but I do remember why I put it in this post - because it existed. 

I am just non-plussed about what stands in for print media these days. I mean I bet Australians are reading more now - probably 3 or 4 times more - than they were in (say) 2002. But they're not reading magazines. So what nonplusses me is the kinds of things that still do make it into print. Rolling Stone is the one that foxes me the most. 

This is flying out of Sydney. I mean, whatever. 

Very quickly - I don't think we were even out of metropolitan Sydney - it got very cloudy and stayed that way till we got to Melbourne. 

So ultimate feelings about northern NSW? Well, firstly, the trip was very successful I would say, and I think I got what I needed. Secondly, I am sure Ballina has secret pleasures and treasures (aside from the op shops) but these didn't necessarily reveal themselves straight away. Thirdly, my mother is an entirely agreeable travelling companion, though I guess I knew that already. Fourthly, travelling is a palaver and the older I get the more of a hassle it becomes. Yes, yes there are compensations and there are much worse ways to spend your time/money but I'm completely rooted today. But I almost always am on Friday. 

trip to europe (a month ago)

 2 Feb 9:35 pm

 

We are presently flying above somewhere in the middle east (there is a graphically super impressive guide available to where are are right now so we can’t claim that we are being kept in the dark but I find it dazzling and the way that it zooms out to show that we are just tiny specks on a stupid uncaring planet, makes me feel a bit uneasy). We are currently on the second leg of a three-leg journey. Melbourne to Singapore was, if not fine, at least there was novelty; this part, Singapore to Frankfurt, is just fucking gruelling dude. We were blessed with that most rare advantage of having three seats between us, but it is still really hard to get comfortable, as you know, in such a circumstance. 

 

Who knows how we got an empty seat but if it is due to the insane boarding practices at Singapore I wouldn’t be at all surprised – just a huge crowd of people milling around doing nothing at the boarding gate, and someone calling out seat rows and the sign flashing ‘last boarding call’ – like, no-one was in charge (it’s organised chaos, an English woman said to us, which it wasn’t, it was disorganised chaos. But whatever). I said to Laura that it felt like it had the makings of a riot which was as she pointed out overegging the pudding as there weren’t enough people to riot but still. Crowds.

 

Now we have been on this flight for I genuinely have no idea how long, as I am so disoriented, it seems like a lot longer than it probably actually has been. 

 

So far I’ve read a bad English detective novel, watched a pretty unexciting German film full of 70s morality and stereotypes and not in a good way, watched about 2/3 of The Untouchables, a film which of course I have seen before and might one day watch again from beginning to end, and started unsuccessfully a few other films that just straight up confused me, and watched the ‘Quilloughby’ episode of The Simpsons, which made a (pretty obscure in the scheme of things, but not insubstantial) point that you can really like things from long ago, but the people involved don’t stay the same and indeed might end up horrendous. The storyline is thus: all the kids are obsessed with some spotify-like app (I don’t think its ‘snatchify’ but something like that) and Lisa uses it to find something that doesn’t suck, and happens on Quilloughby and his band whose name I also forget but it’s a version of The Smiths obviously. Quilloughby himself becomes Lisa’s imaginary friend and educates her in withering put-downs. But then she goes to see him irl at a festival and he’s a gross boorish fat ractist who shoots raw (?) sausages at his audience. There’s a second plot running throughout wherein Homer gets a new truck – big fucking deal. 

 

The Quilloughby storyline is pretty terrible but maybe mainly because The Simpsons is really terrible nowadays (I can usually hardly get through an episode). There was certainly nothing to laugh about. I think the fact that there is no recognition of The Smiths in the wider (US) culture that makes it really satire-worthy – they have to set up all the situations to knock them down. If I was any of the other Smiths I’d be very offended that they are caricatured at the end of the show as a reformed group and they are seen as just a backing band apparently happy to go along with whatever racist, pro-carnivore nonsense Quilloughby says. Anyway long story short, I could have done a lot better myself. 

 

It's a bit ridiculous that I harped on about this for so long but what else do I have to do on this flight lol. Still got 6 hours and 23 minutes to go. 

 

So far on this trip I have made the uber driver turn back because I couldn’t find my glasses in my bag (which led to him telling a story about a nurse who made him turn back for something crucial and it turned out to be a cup of coffee – I just hope I don’t end up being his next story about why he never turns back for anyone, because I did find my glasses in the bag). I did something else ridiculous too but luckily I can’t remember what it was. Oh I remember it wasn’t me doing something ridiculous but it was a bit of a farce, my car broke down earlier in the morning. Something to do with the alternator. I don’t know what that means, but I also do know what that means - $$$. 

 

a year ago today: publicity for the bogan delusion

I am writing on an aeroplane and watching Limitless at the same time, for my sins and guess what, I paid for it. Today I was in Brisbane to do a half-hour interview with Richard Fidler for his Conversation. I am pretty impressed with how I managed to find the ABC studios in Toowong, in a hire car, using nothing more than the gps in my phone and a very rough idea of directions in Brisbane which of the state capitals is probably the one I know least well. I got there with ten minutes to spare and then waited around for ¾ of an hour. But that was ok. I felt a bit frazzled anyway as I hadn’t slept well and the 2 hour flight + the rather fraught drive had made me more messy. Then we went and did the interview – it was originally slated to be live, but then for some reason it was recorded instead (while an interview RF had previously done was put to air) and will be played tomorrow.

I was pretty happy. I think I have the schtick down. Previously I’d done interviews so rarely, I felt I always wanted to be agreeable with things people said even if I didn’t technically believe them – or rather I would try and find common ground. Now, for whatever reason I am happy to contradict interviewers. I imagine once I go back to never being interviewed (which, honestly, is fine) I will return to my former state.

After the interview I had a few hours to fill so I went to Springfield, ostensibly a new town between Brisbane and Ipswich. I was just feeling my way around. I went to Springfield Central, which was just a shopping centre with a wavey street through the middle with cars parked either side of the main street, and I had some crappy coffee and arancini balls at a café there, and then I bought another coffee at a book shop there, and then I was really annoyed by both those coffees, so I went to Springfield Lakes which seems to be the most developed part of the area, very new nonetheless, and drove around a bit, and took some pictures and went to some display homes where a guy was very suspicious particularly after I stepped out and took two pictures from the verandah – he said, ‘You’ve been taking a lot of photographs’, which was a gross exaggeration. Then I started to worry that being so tired I was getting a bit reckless with getting my flight back, considering I had no idea how to get to the airport, so I started driving, and eschewed – foolishly, I now realise – the freeway to the airport because it was a toll road. Then I noticed there was a transponder in the car so that was cool.

So I got to the airport really too early and of course the plane was late to leave but at least I was on it and now I’m watching Limitless.*

I have a couple more radio interviews to do now, but nothing too special (sorry 6RTR and 3CR; I’m sure you’re very special; but you don’t reach millions like the Fidler interview; yes, this is what I’ve become).

* It still arrived ten minutes early, or so the pilot said.

mascot

Hi I'm at Sydney Airport about to catch a flight out of um Sydney after a four day event. I am having a second go at my second coffee at the day, the first was at The Hub in Bathurst and I drank about half of it but then the bus came and thought nah I can't do it. I shouldn't do it now (it's late in the day) but I tell you I'm that frazzled. I got the flight time wrong thought it was earlier than it was but it wasn't, so I took a 'tram' (which is what they call their trams here in Sydney, but they're not) to Glebe and walked up Glebe Point Road and had some udon or as they called it in the restaurant U-Don, which wasn't bad but I really felt like it was far too hot, i don't mean the food was too hot, I mean I got very hot eating that U-Don.

Anyway I am about to catch my plane, so if it crashes let's just remember the good times alright. There have been plenty of them and you will have many more, unless my plane crashes into you.

* NB next day note: the plane didn't crash. I sat next to a tall young American man who did some stupid 'logic' puzzles in a little book all the way - I call them stupid because I couldn't work out what on earth they were about - and his young chinless Australian partner. The only time he wasn't doing his logic puzzles was when the two of them were discussing the news which was being shown in the little screens on the seat backs and he was quizzing her about state and federal governors, which he seemed to be confusing with state premiers and prime ministers, and she wasn't helping much, though she did know Quentin Bryce's name, but she also thought Christina Kenneally was the premier of Queensland.