Scamps on the weekend

The weather was superb on the weekend. We had a noodling at home day on Saturday, featuring some painting in the backyard. I just couldn't find the kids' paints, so they had a go with my acrylics, but they dry too fast in the sun. Continuing the paint theme, Elf and the boys started painting the timber balustrades with the left over "Tree of Heaven" green.

Sunday was extremely social with visits from Lana, Sharyn and Millie; Mary, Simon and Miranda; and Sally, Mum and Dad. After that we went up to Nick and Anna's. Then exhaustion set in.

Knackered 16 d Old School Muscle 11

We went into this game against an unbeaten side without Cam (gastro), but with the addition of a new keeper, Andy. We started well, getting out to 2-0. After about ten minutes the score as up to 6-6. It was a bit of a shootout after last week's tight 4-goal game. Paul was on fire after being goalless the previous week. He would have finished with about 8 goals this week.

We were down by a goal at half-time, and I thought we were going to be blown away. They were (as usual) younger and fitter than us, so I expected we would tire. Andy was having his first game after a couple of years out with knee injuries, and anything that wasn't aimed right at him was going in.

We managed to stay with them early in the second half. We put away nearly every chance we had, and with about 6 minutes to go we had a 2 goal lead. Suddenly Paul went beserk and we were five goals up. OSM pretty much went to water and we were able to ease through the last three minutes, knocking the ball around and playing it safe for a fantastic win.

Melinda played her second game for us and again was solid as a rock. Her fitness really told in the second half, when her second and third efforts regained lost possession several times. It was a great win and the team is building very nicely.

The Wolf Song

I mentioned finishing this back in May or June, but never embedded it here. Now with properly mastered audio. Find out all about the band here

The Wolf Song.

The Wherever Song

Finished at long last! : The Wherever Song by The Leonard Cohen Brothers

MJR Typography chapter 6

"Bowling Champions" in fact refers to The Bowling Shanes, I am proud to say. We once were champions, and perhaps may be again. The smell of new-mown grass, sausages and Wilgrip© is starting to waft once more.

"Graet Piglet" is inspired by a memory of Charlotte's Web. Michael said if he was a pig he wouldn't want a spider to be his friend as it might bite him.

Michael asked me how to spell "fields", then went away and produced "Cikamy Fields". No idea what/where they are. A bit like Elysian Fields perhaps.

Knackered 4 d Wilkins 0

Knackered welcomed another new player on Friday night: Melinda, a friend of Cam's. It was very satisfying to win a low scoring game for once - it was 1-0 at half time. We had a sub for the first time in ages, and were able to work harder on court with the promise of a short break when we needed it. Melinda is a very fit and capable defender, and she also scored one of the goals, as did Cam, who was best-on-court. Our defence was fantastic all night, and Wilkins had very few chances to shoot from close up.

Stonehenge technology

I dug out three fence posts embedded in concrete on the weekend. One had been sheared off just below ground level, and was starting to protrude in a nasty way. The others had just been deeemd to hard by the fencing guy, and left cut off at shin height. I felt a twinge of kinship with the builders of Stonehenge as I tried to get these massively heavy things up out of their holes, using leverage, ramps and basic physics. Thanks to our slope, once I had dug around the downhill side a bit I could work them out of the ground and roll them away to await eventual disposal. Or we might just bury them in the fill around our parking bay, when that ever gets finished.

Jogging through the brewery

The warm weather last week spurred me to go for a run in the morning. I have now done it seven weekday mornings in a row, so I am calling it a habit. It is a short gradual climb up Cascade Rd, between the brewery and the fruit juice factory, as far as the skinny paddock with two sheep and a truck full of firewood. I pant hello to the sheep then turn around and coast back down. I run through the smell of apples and malt and barley and the sounds of dozens of crows sitting on the apple pallets and swooping from the water tanks and whooshing steam and enormous muffled explosions. On the way up the hill I am looking at Mt Wellington, which has had a few overnight snowfalls this week. If I leave a little late I get to see the sun light up the mountain. It's a great way to wake up.

The Way Out

I was in the bathroom drying off after a shower when the door started opening, very slowly. Michael's nose appeared.

Me: Hello.
Michael: I'm looking for the way out.
Me: The way out of where?
Michael: The way out of Tasmania, to Australia.

Mum and Dad

I forgot to mention my Mum and Dad stayed with us over the weekend, and had their first look at the inside of the house. Dad is looking very bonny and is obviously recovering very well from his major surgery. Sally came up for lunch, and while she was there made this little movie of one of Michael's stranger talents. Sal took these photos of Mum and Dad a few months ago. Aren't they just the cuddliest most photogenic OAP's you've ever seen?

What up

Is there anything happening at our place apart from pre-school sans-serif experiments? Yes. I have been working hard on a film clip for a proper-length tune, The Wherever Song by The Leonard Cohen Brothers. It is "finished" so there's probably only about 6 - 8 hours of tweaking left to do. I will upload it here when I work out again how to do get it looking OK on the www.

Our man Rob is finishing off the back deck with steps to the lawn and a bench running along it. Elf is putting up pictures like there's no tomorrow.

Marcus patted a shark today at the Marine Discovery Centre. He told me this morning that "words are boring - they are only good for reading". I leaped to the defence of words, pointing out that they are great for asking questions, talking to people and for persuading someone of something. He acutely pointed out that that was just what I was trying to do.

Footy jumpers

I love footy jumpers. This site has the full history of AFL/VFL jumpers. I should also give a big plug to Full Points Footy, a fantastic footy history site. Read essays such as Norwood Magarey Medallists Between The Wars. Wacka Scott has not been forgotten.

MJR Typography next instalment

The continuing evolution of the next Erik Spiekermann. I initially put the "apostrophe S" down to Michael's photographic memory. Then I realised the film from which he got this is actually called Mater and the Ghost Light. So I guess he actually understands that "apostrophe S" is possessive. He calls it an "astropoffy". And if you don't think that's adorable, well, you must be a Stalinist.

Suspect stitch

Walking to school on Monday, Marcus was in a bad mood. He is not a lover of walking for the exercise. His complaints culminated in: "Whenever I get halfway there I always get a big pain here". This sounded plausibly like a stitch, but I thought that was unlikely in a fit 5 year old who has been walking downhill for less than ten minutes. I asked "Do you always get this when you walk this far, or only when you are on your way to school?". There was a telling little pause. "Strangely... only when I am going to school". Ah.

A sunny Saturday in August

MJR and MWR Typography

The master at work. "Ramones" refers to the custom car body shop in the movie Cars, not the rock band.


Marcus takes a more active macro approach to type. This was an attempt to help me out with the "Wherever Song" animation but I don't think my idea is going to work.

MJR Typography

"Gimaxey" is an old favourite but no, we don't know what it means. "TIGY" made of Lego is an old favourite too, now upgraded to "TIGY Bees" and beautifully arranged in the centre of a very ornate rug. Well done Michael.

Old drawings

These drawings are from the last exhibition I had in 1998. Hopefully not the last ever. I only sold one piece, so I still have plenty to decorate the new house with. Elf has the job of banging in hooks, as she a) better at it than me and b) much pickier about what goes where.

Look out for the Pobblebonk

The call is a short musical, explosive note producing a resonant "bonk" And hey - sorry to frogs.org.au for pinching one of their pictures. It was bad web etiquette. You and your frogs are the business.

the weekend wrap-up

Last night was Nathan and Rachel's wedding. It went off very well, Rachel looked beautiful, Nathan looked handsome and seemed to have recovered from the "pyromaniac stripper" incident at his bucks night. [I can say no more about it]. The bridesmaids were from Texas and all about 6'2". The speeches were pithy and heartfelt. Nathan declined to speak, with Rachel expressing his thanks etc for him as he sat looking appropriately grateful/misty eyed/blokey depending on who she was talking about.

Memo for future evening functions at Moorilla ( a beautiful winery and cultural centre hemmed in by suburban Claremont) - tee up a taxi/lift before the function ends and all the smart people who brought cars have disappeared as if by magic.

Marcus and Lana had a long discourse over the fence this morning. At one stage I heard "Well, that's what you say Lana, but everyone can think what they want to think".

Marcus and I went up to the reserve just behind the house to kick the footy this afternoon. All Michael wanted to do was run up and down the back deck, pushing his garbage truck. [It had been left languishing in the disgusting stagnant sandpit when we moved away, and has now been hosed off and is once again high in his affections]. After about twenty minutes of football we trotted back down through the hole in the back fence. Michael hailed us: "Hi, fellas!"

Cam, Sarah, Jasmine and Tommy came to see the new place and stayed for lunch. The kids all behaved, we moved a couch across to stop Tommy going down the stairs, and we were able to enjoy a few moments of The Good Life. It was just like a real estate ad - we weren't quite dining Al Fresco but we did get to laugh with freinds while our children gambled on the sun-soked deck.

Knackered 16 d Slim-Hipped Youths 3

That's not quite what they were called, I will have to look them up in the roster. A new season has begun (already), and we have gone up a division. The SHYs are a new team and were a bit at sea with the rules and the general 8-blokes-in-a-cricket-net vibe. My mate Cam made his debut for Knackered and was very happy to set up a goal for Paul with a deft backheel. This game went to a familiar script - young fit blokes with individual skills but no teamwork get clobbered by team of dads who know how to pass.

A great companion

I am extremely proud of this little award Marcus was given on Friday at after school care. He has had his ups and downs there. The play gets rough and rowdy at the end of a long day, and the carers sometimes have their hands full with Marcus and his strong feelings of right and wrong. He's been making a great effort lately to control his anger, and the carers gave him a little bookmark with this written on the back.

Recent works of the Rees Bros.

Michael loves letters. Although he doesn't draw very often, I hope his writing will lead him into it a bit more.


This is Marcus's beautiful diagram of the solar system (Sun on the right). Note the red spot on Jupiter.

What's going on?

I am finding blogging very difficult at present. It's not that too much is happening, or that nothing is happening. It's just too labourious to put it into words. But I'll try.

Rain is falling by the bucketload, making our precarious dirt slopes slip and slide a bit. Our front retaining wall has to wait for red tape. Our rear retaining wall has to wait for funds to be available.

We have bills aplenty, and our bank won't answer the phone. I am finding having debts all over town quite stressful. Although I am good at maths, I am absolutely no good at keeping many different figures in my head. Elf has given up trying to explain to me where the money is coming from and where it needs to go.

Some positive things - our final invoice has come from Greg the builder, and it was within what we are able to pay. We had a friendly real estate agent do a valuation on the new house. We were very happy with the figure he proposed, although he used a bit of artistic license regarding "cedar weatherboards" and rainwater tanks that haven't been bought yet.

There is so much to do around the new house, but I am not finding the extra time [outside of work, meals, clothes, dishes, kids and sleep] to do things. We really need a washing line and/or a working tumbledryer. The tumby is 30 years old, and it freaks out VERY loudly sometimes. The last three times I have turned it on its gone GGGGWWWWWAAAAAAAAH immediately. The spray-on-lubricant that might fix it is somewhere in a box. That box is probably also in a box, in a cupboard. We now have a total of 246 cupboards and drawers.

Notwithstanding the grizzle above about having no time, I am trying to put together a new film clip for The Leonard Cohen Brothers' Wherever Song. And lacking inspiration at the minute. The first song I took on was under 2 minutes, this one is 3-and-a-half. 210 seconds x 25 frames per second, I am feeling under the hammer.

House officially open

Our friends Cameron and Susan came over on Saturday to help us clean up the garden. Well, really we helped them. They are botanically gifted and also have all the right tools. They gave us a Mutsu apple tree as a housewarming gift, and wanted to have creative control over where it was planted. This meant they had to pull out a load of blackberry and waist-high weeds. Cam and Susan are very keen to espalier the apple tree. We just want it to boof out, give us a little privacy and lots of big apples, pronto.

We had our open day at the new house on Sunday morning. About forty friends and neighbours struggled up the bark-strewn slope (including babes in arms). Everyone was very complimentary about the place and no-one fell down the stairs. It was wonderful to see the big space upstairs cater easily for a bunch of people milling around.

Bird Monster by MWR

Marcus drew this a couple of days ago. He has got his own little desk space by the big front window and he loves it there. I saw this and said "Wow, what a great bird". I was informed that it isn't a bird, it's a monster. Hence the teeth I suppose. I like the green spiral on its tummy.

My workplace, his school and home are all within a 20 minute walk now, which is superb. We had run out of butter to make lunches this morning, so I am going to make him a sandwich here in the kitchen at work and trot up the road with it shortly.

Brisk house blog

Negatives
No phone for several days, now connected but with wrong number. No lino in bathroom or laundry. No curtains. No shades on lights. One toilet out of commission. Can't use parking space - surveyor claims our retaining wall is illegal. No washing line and tumbledryer broken. Washing machine wheeled outside every day in case lino man comes. Front yard pure sloping dirt with huge hole. Back yard 50% sloping dirt. Not enough storage. Money seriously low.
Positives
Views are marvellous. Living in South Hobart again is superb. Neighbours are welcoming. Boys are delighted with it. We can watch them noodling about from the kitchen. Kitchen is excellent. Visitors rave. It is lovely and warm. It is a good house, and we are going to be very happy there for a long time.

We're in!

Only four Kingston Beach sunrises left

House progress

We haven't got a key yet, so I took these while snooping around outside yesterday morning.

Big Week

I haven't blogged for a while, as there has been too much going on to actually stop and write about it. This is the central dilemma of blogging - people doing interesting things are too busy to write about them. It's when life slows down that you have time to write, and then you write about lawn bowls.

Last week was quite dramatic. Marcus was sent to the principal on Monday, and again on Tuesday, for failing to keep his anger under control at school. We responded by taking away every privilege he has for a week. He definitely improved his attitude each subsequent day at school. He has a strong sense of right and wrong, and cannot resist giving advice even after being asked to be quiet and sit down. He is one of the youngest in his class, and sometimes his emotional development is clearly less than the older kids around him.

On Sunday Mum accompanied Dad to Melbourne for medical tests on some constricted arteries that were thought to need surgery in the next few months. When the results of the tests appeared it was decided to act immediately, and suddenly Mum was on the phone explaining that Dad would have heart surgery the next day. On Wednesday he had a double bypass, and a valve replaced. He has recovered very well and today was released from the ICU.

It's been hard for Mum, and quite lonely. Her relief when Dad came through the unexpected surgery must have been overwhelming. Sally is going over to spend a couple of days with Mum this week, our friend Vincent has taken Mum for lunch, and she is now generally feeling much more comfortable in Melbourne.

Vincent's wife Andy has been expecting twins to arrive any day, so we really appreciated him taking time to be with Mum. He has just called tonight to say that they were born today, a boy and girl, and they are all well. We are delighted for them - they have been wonderful friends to us, and they now children which they have wanted more than anything.

In house news, we are moving in on Friday 28th, that is five days away as I write. Elf has organised everything superbly. This weekend we went into top gear with packing up everything at the Beach House. We had our last walk to the beach today. The spare room is filled to shoulder height with boxes.

The new house is looking fantastic. The upstairs floor looks to be finished. The cupboards all have handles. There are steps to the back deck and balustrades everywhere. The new driveway has been poured - Greg has made it wider than we really wanted. It occured to me that in eleven or twelve years Marcus will need somewhere to park his Datsun 200B - it might squeeze in. By then the daggy old L plater car to have will probably be a Hyundai Getz.

In among all this my soccer team won the Grand Final 11-9. Now we have three weeks off and possibly go up a grade.

Roast chook & ballet

Last weekend we had an afternoon at Cam and Sarah's house, and stayed for roast dinner. Marcus and Jasmine get on very well, they were in the same room at daycare in their youth. At one stage I heard Marcus say to Jasmine "Hey - let's knock each other over!" I suggested Jasmine might instead teach Marcus some of her ballet moves. This was quite successful and they spent some time balancing, pointing their toes and generally bolshoi-ing about.

A few days later Elf took Marcus to a dance class, (she had been thinking of it for a while) and he really took to it. He often bursts into spontaneous tap-dance routines around the house, so perhaps channelling that tendency is a good thing.




Michael got to know Jasmine's little brother Tommy, and they shared their love of magnetic letters. Michael is obsessed with spelling out a few specific things at present: Sticky Heads (seen here), Monsters Inc, Dreamworks, and most recently Cats. He has been building letters out of Lego for some time, and lately has pestered us to help him build letters and assemble words out of Mega Bloks. M O N S T E R S I N C takes a long time and occupies most of the loungeroom floor.

A couple of days ago he made a quantum leap by assembling the letters himself and arranging them to spell C A T S. He announced what he had done, and while we all oohed and aahed and wowed, he did a neat little bow, like a conductor. We just don't know where this stuff comes from, but we love it.

Semi Final :: Knackered 10 d DOTWS 6

The DOTWS youngsters gave us a bit of a scare. We had a lot of trouble getting past them early on. When we did squeeze a couple of goals through they hit back quickly. It was 3-3 at half time.

Th second half started at a manic pace with goals at both ends. They kept catching us on quick breaks. We decided to slow it down, hold the ball and try to break up their momentum. It worked very well, and we caught our breath at the same time. We we felt by then that we had their measure, it just took us until about the last four minutes to translate that into a good lead. DOTWS ran out of time in the end.

Next week we will meet Guidos, one of the tougher teams, in the final.

House Update 29

Whither primary school footy?

Primary school football seems to be a thing of the past. Most ovals at the schools I am familiar with either have no goalposts or they are obviously not in use (one missing, for instance). Marcus was discussing this on the way to school this morning. I mentioned that I had seen a framed football jumper in the hallway at his school, perhaps the school guernsey from days of yore. He thought for a moment then said "I wonder what they were called - maybe the Hobart Hopelesses. If they weren't any good, I mean".

Brampton Panda Brampton

The British Bulldog Pedigree index. Worth a browse if you need cheering up. These are my top twenty from just the As and Bs. I was going to do the "spot the one I made up" game, but its pointless. They are just too silly. A special mention to Merriveen Son of Satan, who is Balfour Action Man of LaRoyal's great great great grandfather.

Allithorne Rodney
Ambassadors Quite Amazing of Quintic
Ameswaite Starturn
Amurton Dirty Harry at Kingrock
Atomstone Scarlet Lord
Audstan Sigmund Snugglebutt at Aceeye
Axters Plum Pudding
Balfour Action Man of LaRoyal [pictured here]

Barranco Slack-Ma-Girdle
Baytor Greathill Bunty
Belushi De-La-Soul
Berrybrook Born To Boogie
Blockbuster Rawburn Fleance
Bowcrest Automatic Choice
Brampton Panda Brampton
Brenuth Bye Jings
Britishpride Cream Cake
Bronorn Cheeky Monkey
Bryneatons Bikini
Brumigum Stroller Boy of the Regions

Q:Where can I purchase snert?

A: Here.

A recipe for snert

We had the K family around to visit this morning. They were on their way to the Margate Train, a stationary but genuine old train, with the carriages converted into little shops. There is a cafe spread across about three carriages, which seems to specialise in Dutch food. Above the windows are white boards with the names of their specialities in caps. SERIOUS COFFEE. SPEK PANKOEKEN. COLD DRINKS. SNERT.

Littlest K is actually known by her parents as Snert, so this was very amusing. I have now found a recipe so for anyone who would like to whip up a batch of snert, here y' go. (From www.jewish-food.org/recipes/snert.htm)

DUTCH SPLIT PEA SOUP (SNERT)

500 gram split peas
Stock cubes
2 chicken breasts
500 gram meatloaf
Vegatables for soup
Some pepper
If you like it an onion

Put the peas in a pan, pour water on it and let it rest overnight. the peas will be swollen the next morning.

Use the water in the pan and add some more. You can use a big pan and fill it for 3/4 with (cold) water.

Put the pan on the stove, and let it heat up slowly on a low fire. Add the chicken breast, which are chopped.

I don't know how many stock cubes have to be used, that depends how much salt you like in soup.

Make little balls of the meatloaf and add that too. (we here in Holland have minced beef).

Let the soup boil for one hour on a low fire. Stir now and then. When the soup looks like a green smoothly porridge, add the vegetables and let it boil another 10 minutes. Don't forget to stir. It easily burns on the bottom.

You can add a chopped onion too, and if you like it some pepper.

Knackered 14 d Red Devils 3

We won again, finish top of the ladder and next week will meet Richo's Seven in a semi. Daniel played his last game for us and played very well. Ben flew in from Melbourne to keep goal, which was a luxury. We had 2 subs for the first time ever which felt weird. We have been cantering along pretty easily, but we are wary of unseen quality players who might suddenly bob up now that things are getting serious.

Noodle Snacks, Venom Ooze

Marcus brought home a copy of Just Kidding magazine from school. Somehow the publishers have managed to get one distributed to every kid at the school, or possibly every school in Tasmania. There is a bit of an issue there, as it is packed full of advertising for movies, toys and "JJ's Chicken Flavour Noodle Snacks".

However, I am only mentioning it here because the Spiderman 3 toy spiels are so funny. I haven't seen the movie, so my mirth is unsullied by any understanding of what the hell they are all about.

Battle Damage Spider-Man 
Features a swiveling torso for super-symbiote, double-punch action! Highly detailed and posable, this figure comes with a symbiote ooze figure and a Spider-Man peel-off sticker!

Spider-Man Vs. Venom Symbiote
Load the Symbiote with the included Venom Ooze and press the plunger to spew ooze from its mouth.

Punch Attack Sandman
This Sandman figure has interchangeable hands! Press the lever for smashing sand-punch action!

Michael explores

In his recent work Michael explores the grey area between typography and ikebana.

Its all going very 7004

Roar Film have moved to 2 Gore Street, South Hobart. We did the move on Friday. I have got a fairly nice corner of the old ballroom. It's very sunny compared to the old church in Hill St. We only had windows on the south side there, so the light didn't exactly flood in. At this time of year it was positively cavelike by 3pm.

We went for a walk up to Mondos for a pie for lunch, then across the bridge to Melinda's for a cup of tea. It's going to be terrific being so close. Tomorrow will be my first chance to drop off Marcus at school, then trot down the rivulet track 5 minutes to work (rather than over hill and dale for 35 minutes).

After collecting everyone I took them back to Gore Street to have a look. I don't do that family-socialising-with-work thing very often, so the boys haven't had many chances to talk to my workmates. My boss Steve quizzed Marcus about his football preferences. Turning to Michael he asked "And are you going to school yet Michael?" "Hmm, pretty much".

A nice touch - our new postcode is 7004, phone is 6223 7005, and fax 6223 7006. It's all going to look terribly tidy on the letterhead.

Knackered 10 d Richo's Seven 3

This game was very tight in the first half. Richo's is another team of guys younger, fitter and more numerous than us, who just can't score enough goals. They did pretty well to be 4-3 down at half time. My goalkeeping has improved, but they still scored two during my 5 minutes of custodianship. The ref was a) pedantic and b) frequently wrong. I am smart enough now to keep my mouth shut on the court, but I am happy to tell the whole www that he's a self-important little jerk who loves the sound of his own voice and if he had any friends would probably be otherwise occupied on a Friday night.

We closed the game out in the second half without too much trouble. I pinged three goals which were all very nice. I read something today that said the key to happiness was to forget about your weaknesses, and focus on what you're good at. So I am just patting myself on the back (publicly) for being able to score with both feet. It's not feeding the hungry or solving the water crisis, but as those are weaknesses of mine I'm ignoring them.

The Pulp

I just watched an old Roar Film documentary I had never seen, Pulp. It was the story of the Burnie Paper Mill, and the contemporary opera based on its' history which was put on there in 1996, by IHOS Opera of Hobart.

The Pulp was like a big smelly backdrop to my growing up years. They were also the No Dams years and Lake Pedder years, and young would-be greenies like me were pretty resentful of big industries generally. The low point was a front-page story in The Australian labelling Burnie "Australia's dirtiest town". Even Midnight Oil wrote a song about the grey sand and the effluent pipeline.

We would wind up the windows when we drove past to try (in vain) to keep out the smell. It was kind of meaty. The Pulp always looked very shabby, until 1988 when Burnie somehow scraped together 23,000 people to justify city status. The Queen popped over to officiate, and the whole massive site got a lick of paint, and all the broken windows were covered up by half a mile of aluminium siding.

Those are my memories of the Pulp. I really enjoyed the film as it gave a lot of old-timers who worked there for years a chance to tell their side of it. It was beautiful to see old footage of Burnie in the heyday of the Pulp. My brother-in-law Howard worked there, but we were not a Pulp family like many in Burnie. Kids left school and straight away went to join their dad in the machine room or their mum in the paper counting room. Younger kids went to the Pulp Christmas Party each year, and even got birthday presents from the Pulp.

I admire IHOS's work. I have been to a few of their operas, though I didn't see Pulp. The first time I attended one I was overwhelmed. Pulp was the first time they had done any community arts work, but they seemed to get the hang of it. There is a definite IHOS style to what they do - they could be accused of looking for themes on which to hang their greek-chorus-plus-sparks 'n' explosions style. But there were full houses every night, so the community support was certainly there. I saw a few faces I recognised.

Anyone who would like to see the doco, (featuring a slim Con Koukias) let me know, I'll send you out a VHS.

Fonz Facts

Straight from Wikipedia.

Censors initially refused to allow Fonzie to wear a leather jacket, thinking that it made him look too much like a hoodlum. Garry Marshall (creator of Happy Days) got them to compromise, agreeing to allow Fonzie to wear his leather jacket when in close proximity to his motorcycle (since a leather jacket is a legitimate piece of safety equipment). To ensure that Fonzie would wear the leather jacket at all times, Marshall instructed the writers to put him near his motorcycle as often as possible, even going so far as to have him ride it into Arnold's. Even so, for some first season episodes, he wears a white jacket. Eventually, the censors relented, and Fonzie was allowed to wear the leather jacket even when not near his bike.
Fonzie actually wore two leather jackets regularly - a black one and a dark brown one.

On an episode of Happy Days, Fonzie met Mork, a wacky alien. Played by Robin Williams, the Mork character proved so popular that he received his own spin-off series, Mork & Mindy.

Fizz

Since our recent visit to the Cascade Brewery Fair, (where he had a non-alcoholic cider) Michael calls the brewery "the fizzy place".

Tiges break through

I had a terrific night on Friday. Soccer had a late kick-off, so I was able to watch the first half of the Richmond v Melbourne bottom-of-the-ladder clash. By the time I hopped in the car, Richmond were ten goals up, and despite their abysmal record I knew deep down they couldn't lose. Marcus watched the first quarter with me, then went to bed a happy boy, having been assured by Dad that this time, it was really going to happen. Melbourne had the unmistakeable look of a team who thought they would just have to turn up to win - they were dire.

At the soccer we again won pretty comfortably. Sucking in huge lungfuls of air at half-time, I noticed on the TV in the bar that Melbourne were stacking on a comeback. Fortunately I had to direct my attention elsewhere when our game re-started.

We finished (11-3) just in time for me to get a beer and enjoy the last two minutes of the first Richmond win of 2007. In a beautiful bit of synchronicity, the Kingborough Tigers also posted their first win for the season with a stirring comeback against Brighton, in the SFL's bottom-of-the-ladder game.

To quote in full an SMS from a fellow sufferer: "Tiges. Richo. Win. Kickstart. Finals. Flag."

House Update 17

Look, no scaffolding! We are now only weeks away from moving in.

Organic Dog Kimonos

Are you sick and tired of wading through crappy non-organic dog kimonos, looking for one that is tender on Woofy's skin, but kind to the environment?

Well - here it is.

Roar goes grand

Roar Film is on the move. We had a chance to inspect our new premises on Friday. Note the wide range of door sizes.

The Denzil Don footy goes home

Back in February I found an old "Denzil Don" brand football on our lawn. It had some signatures on it. On inspection I worked out it was from King Island (home of Australia's only three-team football competition).

Coincidentally, only days after I found it, my employers Roar Film got the go-ahead from SBS to make a series about country football, featuring King Island. The first shoot happened earlier this month. The crew took my footy over there to see what they could find out about it.

They were blown away by the reaction. People gathered around and helped identify the names inscribed on it. Steve and Marie even met a couple of the footballers, now in their nineties. The ball was a memento of a game against either Flinders Island, or Redpa (near Smithton) - both of whom used to play annual matches against a K.I. combined side. One of the old blokes, named Snow Watkins, has just had his driving license revoked, as he is blind as a bat. He was caught one night driving his tractor to the pub. It's now in the middle of a paddock with its tires let down. Snow's brother Splinter has also had his driver's license taken away, but he's very proud that he's still got his Kelp License.

Roar will visit King Island again to film the grand final in September. I hope I will get a chance to tag along and carry some sound gear or something. It sounds like a really lovely, slow-paced place to visit. I have always got the impression that King is to Tasmania what Tasmania is to the rest of Australia.

Risking head and shin

Marcus is continuing his love affair with all things footy. Michael will sometimes come along for the ride - particularly if footy songs are involved. They both ask me to sing as many club songs as I know to pass the time in the car while Elf goes into a shop or something. A new song I have recently learned from King Island goes (to the tune of Yellow Submarine) "We all play for the Grassy Football Club, the Grassy Football Club, the Grassy Football Club..." They like that one. I can do North Melbourne, Melbourne, Carlton, Collingwood and Hawthorn, and bits of the others. The newer ones are unspeakably bad.

I like the sentiments of the old ones, like "The premiership's a cakewalk" and "Out we come to play, just for recreation's sake and pass the time away".

Tonight at bedtime the boys regaled Elf with When the Saints Go Marching In, and after lights out I heard a vigorous version of Tigerland. Its the first time I have heard them sing anything together, and it brought a tear to the eye.

Taxation Olympics

We went along to the Cascade Fair at the brewery today. It was a little shambolic, but the boys had fun anyway and scored matching black CASCADE beanies. There were something like 150 people there when we arived, trampling the lovely lawns to brown mush. Showbags were sold out long ago, and when we saw what was in them we realised it was a bizarre compendium of tat. Which I guess is what "showbag" means really.

The highlight was chatting to a lady Elf knew slightly, who mentioned the queue we were in was "nearly as long as the queue for the buses at the Taxation Olympics." She works in the ATO, and it appears every year the taxfolk descend on some spot (this year Hobart), and play volleyball. I asked if they argue the nitty gritty when a rule is in dispute? Apparently, yes.

Summer never ends

Here is a sight to gladden the heart of any Australian dad - the boys playing cricket. It didn't last long, but they organised it themselves and I was very proud. Michael got his first delivery right in the"corridor of uncertainty". You can see Marcus is treating it the way he treats everything, with a big heave to the leg side. I have tried to bribe him by offering double for every run he can get on the off side, but he won't be tempted.

Knackered 10 drew Red Devils 10

Daniel and Adrian were otherwise occupied this week, so we took the field as a tight-knit team of three. Our opponents numbered 8, and used the full-squad-transfusion tactic to swap the bench 4 for the on-court 4 throughout the game.

We were not surprised to be 3-0 down pretty quickly. They offered us one of theirs, but as they had all taken the field for Red Devils already the ref wouldn't allow anyone to change sides.

Pretty soon we got on the scoreboard anyway. They were young and fit like most guys in the roster, but not all that skilled, and a bit lazy. Paul went wild and netted four goals in as many minutes. As goalies are confined to their semicircle, it was 2-on-3 in the outfield, and our 2 were running hard enough to shut down their 3, steal the ball, run with it, shoot and score.

I was pretty shot after about ten minutes of this, but we were keeping up on the scoreboard. We actually staggered in to half time in front about 6-4.

They came at us quite hard after the break, but never quite got in front. As time passed we started to believe we could do it. With one minute to go it was 9-9, and I was prepared to settle for the draw. Then Brett slotted another goal, and we tried to run down the clock.

I was keeping at this point, and the boys kept passing back to me. I took my time, rolled it out, got it back. Eventually Paul got sick of this, tried to make a break downfield, lost the ball and suddenly a powerful shot came back, took a deflection off him and cannoned past me for a goal. 10-10 with four seconds left. A bit disappointing but a pretty good effort all the same.

Skippy the Bush Kangaroo

I've taken the first week of the school holidays off work. Today at the library Marcus chose a DVD of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. It was probably first shown when I was about his age - I think it was made in 1972.

The credits are made up of Dons, Alans, Maxes, Bills, Kevins, Jeans, Bevs, Cheryls and Joans. Seventies Australia.

In the first episode, we see Bev at the beach put her baby's crib into a basinette (with wheels) under a tree. Bev and her hubby Alan go off in a kayak. His trunks have a belt. Shortly we see a possum nudge the bassinete and the wheels become unlocked. It rolls (yes, across a beach) to the waters' edge, in a homage to Battleship Potemkin. Baby floats away (in a homage to the Old Testament)and is rescued by the deft paws of Skippy. Sonny wonders aloud what to feed the baby - Skippy hops out the door, camera cuts to deft paws plucking a fat tuft of grass.

EH Kingswoods and XB Falcons abound. While the police and rangers search for the baby, Alan stares out across the water and smokes intensely. Police wear bad suits. Finally the baby is located with Skippy. A relieved Alan drives away in the Kingswood, with Bev holding the baby in the front seat.

Episode two - the big parade. The boys are on the back of the float as Ranger Matt and Ranger Jerry tow it behind the jeep. Unbeknownst, a diamond thief is hiding in the shrubbery of the float. No-one has ten cents for the toll when they go across the harbour bridge. Hand holding a coin emerges from undergrowth. After they have rumbled away, the tollbridge guy does the 3rd worst double take in TV history.

As they are cruising down George St in the big parade, past the Premier (Robert Askin playing himself I think) the thief emerges and Sonny and Mark fight him continuously for about seven minutes. Mark says "grab his leg Sonny" about four times. Mark and thief swap hefty punches, and a few elbows to the head. Sonny eventually joins in, "smack" sound effects to prove he is connecting. I don't think today there are any children's shows, or adults ones for that matter, that would show a ten year old and his 16 year-old brother in a punch-fest with a grown up. Matt and Jerry miss all this as they can't see anything from the jeep.

When they get home Sonny is asleep. Everyone laughs about his "big day", and there is no mention of concussion.

I have to declare that as a kid one of my favourite 45s to spin on the radiogram was the Skippy theme played by the Eric Jupp Band. I'm sure Sally and Jacki can remember the B side.

House progress 4

The house is only four weeks from completion date, and seems to be on track. Greg the builder seems happy, and the problems we are encountering are all fairly small and solveable. Elf is very happy and excited, which is great.

Future beard

We are trying to cajole Michael out of nappies.

Elf: When you are a big grown-up you won't wear nappies will you?
Michael: No. And I will have a beard on the bottom of my nose.

Dob one at lunchtime

From a terrific article by John Harms in The Age, on watching footy at the pub.

The pub was in that transitional period where the afternoon crowd, having done their lolly on the races, are half-tanked and trying to leave. I got talking to a local plumber from up the street. He was a Collingwood fan ("Mum was Collingwood").

"Did you play?" I asked.

"One game for the Fitzroy thirds in 1959," he said.

"Good year for the Royboys," I said. He missed the significance of it. [Fitzroy firsts won the night premiership]

"Yeah. Against Carlton at Princes Park," he said. "Kicked a couple."

I was impressed. "Kicked one at the MCG as well," he added.

He saw my puzzled look. "Did a job there once," he explained. "Took me footy. Dobbed one at lunchtime."