what's it all about?

Hello, I need advice.

What is so freakin' good about Game of Thrones? I mean the book, not the tv show, which I haven't seen, but I have read about 2/5 of the actual novel. It is testimony to my appreciation of critics I admire that I have stuck with it thus far as to my mind it's confusing (too many characters and why should I care?), badly written (every time he gets a bit stuck he just shoves in a whole bunch of rambles about what happened tens of thousands of years before, presumably this relates to the days of old when knights were bold and toilets weren't invented), meandering, and stylistically totes irritating (this parallel universe stuff where the names are slightly differently spelled, etc; actually this borders on a kind of racism in places; the gypsyesque warriors and so on; the distant savage tribes with all those Ks in their names). Anyway, I'm on the edge of my seat throughout, wondering whether the next page will be the one where I throw the whole thing down never to retterne to ytte.

Or maybe it'll suddenly get good, though the 300 pages I've read so far have not set a precendent.

oscillate wildly

One thing I like about the campus where I work is the rather triste baggage of bygone discovery-learning-demonstration. I have no idea what this is but it looks like it once must have been pretty cool and everyone in the lab probably wanted a go.

my dream last night

I dreamt I was talking to Sophie Cunningham about how I and the two other former members ofWham! were going to re-record 'Wham! Rap' to publicise National Depression Week. Instead of the 'D.H.S.S.' bit, we were going to sing 'D.E.P.P.R.E.S.S.I.O.N'. The joke about misspelling 'depression' was either a joke about how stupid Wham! were, how stupid their fans were, or how stupid people with depression are, but in the dream it was just left hanging as something sophisticated and subtle. Sorry.

why it is important to know how to spell

Because you could spend a long time here and end up disappointed.

happy sixth birthday lorraine

Actually, this blog started a few months earlier than six years ago, closer to May 2006, I think, but I seem to have misplaced those earlier entries so this is as good a time as any to be the birthday. The laughs and cries we've had over that time! All the friends found and lost along the way. I'd particularly like to thank Danny, Marshall Stacks and Ann O'Dyne my three regular readers, though of course my particular partickler thanks go to Mia who has put up with all of this for so long. Also thank you to everyone who follows the 'birdshit-encrusted pub steps' label through blog posts, I don't know what it means either.

I imagine it is tremendously dull to read the meanderings of a 46 year old academic who finds himself so terribly fascinating for no obvious reason. I try to be funny but often of course this being the internet that is in itself no guarantee of nuthin'. Well, here's to another six - nay, sixty - years of this guff (how much longer will this blog go for? They have to stop sometime, apparently. I'm always amazed by people who do a few posts and then quit. I'm reminded of Sue Grigg, when she and I were about 20, marvelling at a couple about ten years older than us who had been together about ten years, who had broken up. 'I mean,' she said, 'why bother?')

watching in the line of fire

This happened a few months ago you might have heard about it already.

a couple of details from the mirka mora mural at flinders st station

nightmare scenario