noom

 
I have thrown away my Noom subscription again. I was grappling with it for a while but ultimately I cannot stand they way they measure things (often imperial measurement, but also, ridiculous cupfuls and half-bowls for things that don't belong in cups or bowls, and many, many perverse-sounding fast food products offered and also constant imprecations that I should eat things I would never ever eat, like chicken). Possibly I got something out of it but in the end I think it has got too much. 

Also I hate that when you write down that you ate pickles Noom insists on 'dill pickles' and then wants to measure them in spears. Spears. Fuck off with your 'spears'. 

Also I have had an annoying cough for two and a half weeks now, and also, my foot still hurts often. What a time to be alive. 

yarraville to tottenham along stony creek

Perry and I decided to take a walk from Yarraville to Tottenham today. Actually, we decided we would walk to Sunshine but my foot hurt too much (don't ask) and I abbreviated the operation. Perry didn't mind. He was at the stop and sniff everything stage of the walk anyway. 

As so often happens when I uploaded the photos here they all came out in the reverse order I took them, but whatever, doesn't matter does it. Here are a few pictures from the Tott end, a bunch of houses I like to imagine are Anders Hansen homes from the late 20s-early 30s but I don't really know that, except he was the main builder in that area and these houses are all more or less the same dimensions and same age. This boarded-up one is interesting...

I love this brick 'n' weatherboard creation it's rad as:

This 'is what it is'... 

I'm in a guessing mood (after about 3/4 hour of fruitless research) so I'm going to say this could once have been the premises of Riverside Manufacturers. It was apparently a big concern in Paramount Rd, Tottenham, in the middle of last century. 

I like to document Pam the Bird wherever/whenever. 

I have a very soft spot (as Rowena Wallace's character on Cop Shop, Pamela, said to George Mallaby as Glenn in an episode I just watched - 'in the head' - for late period Housing Commission homes, which is what I think these might be, in a dead end street in Yarraville. They're nice.

A-a-a-a-anyway, it was a decent enough walk, Perry was extremely well-behaved, it was too hot and glary, which is just life going forward I suppose, I mentioned the bit about the sore foot, fuck that, 

walking tour

I took students (and anyone they wished to invite along - even a couple of former students showed up!) to a walking tour of Coburg this afternoon. It was informal. I had worked out the route in advance the week before but I was still doing research up to an hour before it started. I stopped them every 10 mins or so at key spots and gave them a spiel - combination of site-specifics and general tie-ins to the planning scene. I thought it went pretty well, the only real bummer was I had planned for us to all have coffee at the Victoria St Mall in Coburg at the end and when we got there it was not the thriving place it had been the previous week - it was mainly closed and empty. But the students didn't mind much, I gather they all went off to the pub en masse. I think on the whole it went well.

Another good thing was my right foot, which has been giving me gyp for the last couple of weeks seems finally on the mend. It got a bit tetchy late in the walk but it feels fine now.

like an old man

Like an old man, I fell over running for the train yesterday. From this the lower palm of both my hands are sore and my right thumb has a small red blemish on it that threatens to crack open and spurt something out when I do something manly with my fists eg turn taps tightly.

People were very solicitous when they saw me fall and this just confirms I am an old man. If you saw a young man fall he would probably be falling into a commando point a gun at you position. Or some other killing attitude, with a knife or vampire teeth or something.

As an old man I have to go and get my foot x-rayed (I am an old man so I tend to call them röntgen rays). This is because it has been hurting for some months now and the doctor thinks I might have arthritis. This seemed particularly so in her mind because the foot hurts when I wake up, but not after I walk on it for a while. I see a positive: I like walking and it is good for me and now perhaps no-one can stop me walking as they are always trying to do, as it stops me having pain. The other possibility is I suppose I might have to have the foot removed and replaced with something bionic, hopefully, a bionic foot though a duck’s head as per umbrellas might be nifty. I always thought that was an extraordinary idea and charmingly humorous. Did they use real ones.

There are so many advantages to our fine multicultural society and one is that when, for instance as now in my proximity (at Glenroy station) people have loud conversations in a language other than English, I can’t understand them and so they don’t annoy me. I bet whatever these youngsters (girl ‘n’ guy) are talking about loudly it would annoy me a lot if I understood it and felt compelled to follow its narrative. They are surely talking about driving fast cars and eating mcdonalds.