I hate football.

Went to visit Ma at the country estate on the weekend and as we left, we saw this koala bumbling along the roadside in search of a tree. It clambered over a fence and up this silver birch tree. Ooops. Nothing to eat here. Like a panda in a pine forest.

Squid went completely NUTS and wanted to claw through the car window to eat it. We drove off with her staring longingly out the back window at the tasty, eucalyptussy snack her cruel owners wouldn't let her have.

 

The Curmudgeon whisked us over to the other side of the river (don't worry, I washed my hands afterwards) last night to see the Short & Girly Comedy Gala and it was funnnneeeee. It was all funny but we liked Hannah Gadsby the best. Plus, we ate googleflugelkugel from Monarch Cakes which is now available by the slice, by the kilo. You can buy a piece as big your head, all you need to do is mime the size you want to the lovely counter lass with the spatula and lo, all the googleflugelkugel you could ever want is yours. It's also chocolateyer than the whole cakes - that's a golden tip from Counter Lass, straight to you. Use it well.

As we waited for the tram we were marvelling at Socialists Corner. You know the spot. The one with all the shouty young people with badges and banners. Issue of the week, etc. Then Tim Ferguson (you know, the pretty one from DAAS) walked up to us and said he thought they should spend some time shouting about North Korea which is rather a nightmarish dictatorship. Today's Left is making us look bad, he said. Those Trotskyites should go talk to some Sparticists. It was altogether far more pleasant than my last unsolicted interaction with a stranger on or around our fine system of tramways - earlier this week, a gentleman spouting religious babble was simultaneously enjoying a rather unholy transaction between his crotch and my left buttock. Since the enjoyment was not mutual, I departed quick-smart.

It's Talk like a Pirate Day! Curmudgeon is demonstrating how to talk like an internet pirate. Something about bitorrents and downloads. Dork.

I love Catherine Deveny.

Why?

Many reasons.

This is one of them.

LOOK!

You can scrounge junk for a living!

Cue career change...

 

 

Behold, a glorious 50% increase in the real estate devoted to the raising of tasty crops:

Thanks to some hefty digging, we got this little beauty done on the weekend PLUS we FINALLY dug the verandah out of the front garden.

Of course, couldn't have done it without the site manager:

 

 

I have a new obsession. A friend taught me to crochet last week and now I'm, ahem, hooked. Much in the same way that I can rollerblade but not rollerskate, it seems that I've finally found an exception to my general failure at yarncraft (I'm a truly shit knitter) and I now can't stop.

There was a very silly article in the very silly Sunday magazine of the Age this weekend which banged on about the heavy demands on today's women to be beautiful. Oh, lamented the author, it's so hard, you must work work work to be gorgeous, sacrificing all your spare time to pluck and tan and bleach and buff, in a way that previous generations didn't have to. Here's a direct rip with my emphasis on the silliest line in the whole article:

The other day, as I had my toenails pedicured as I sat in a vibrating vinyl chair, it occurred to me that three years ago, most Australian women didn't do this, save for special occasions. Today, it's not an option not to. Neither are leaving eyebrows untamed or skin un-honeyed. One friend lamented that she only had one day off a week now. "Saturday is spent attending to beauty catch-up," she said. "Our mothers were allowed to go grey at 35. And garden instead."

Seems I am simultaneously advanced for my age and terribly anachronistic.

 

 

I'm a recent recruit to the glory of Garden Rant but I recommend it to anyone who likes to grow things and likes ranting. Me, on both counts! Given that I just ordered some tomato seeds from Eden Seeds (and thanks to Eden for quick, easy and cheap ordering) and have been tending my germinating babies with obsessive care, I was interested to read this post on heirloom tomatoes.

A couple of things interest me about this debate. First is the tendency that anything painted with the glowing terms of organic, heirloom or (egads, crazy Steiner cow-horn-burying philosopy warning) biodynamic are supposedly Better and Holier and Saintlier than 'conventional' methods of production. Second is the quite hilarious belief that old varieties of crops are somehow static entities that perfectly encapsulate the good ol' days and are immune to basic biological principles such as mutation, genetic drift or hybridisation.

Another thought: my dad is nostalgic about kohlrabi which he ate in abundance during his stodgy eastern European childhood. I'm sure that was an old variety and the family saved seeds every year to continue their plodding peasant subsistance. I'm also sure that the bloody things were just as woody and unpalatable then as they are now. Personal preference is a big factor and, as ever, generalisations are pretty silly.

I like heirloom vegies because they come in wacky colours and are diverse and surprising. Sometimes surprisingly bad. I don't spray my garden because I'm cheap, I'm suspicious of subtances designed to kill other organisms being sprayed on something I plan to eat, and I'm a bug nerd. I don't mind the odd aphid in the broccoli because it means I get to watch ladyird and lacewing larvae rampage through colonies biting little homopteran heads off, like insect Godzillas. However I don't begrudge farmers who do, since I understand that Coles and Woolworths offering chump change for their hard-earned crops means they can't afford to risk unsightly damage or losses that erode away at their income. But I will never plant anything by the moon or bury a cow horn for its mystical fertility properties. I also don't think that an old variety I plant now is a carbon copy of a tomato grown in some Russian village back when Nicholas II was wearing all his fancy Tsar-bling.

By the way, I bought Amish Paste (Roma-style heavy cropper good for cooking and preserving), Black Krim (big black meaty thing), Grosse Lisse (default setting) and Pink Oxheart (um... pink... and heart-shaped). Expect updates on whether these heirlooms are any good. Maybe I'll let 'em all cross-pollinate and produce a brand new heirloom, the Krimisse Pastox.

 

 

 

Things I love about the Curmudgeon #56,263:

When drawing people who making a certain facial expression, he makes the expression himself as he draws. Not in front of a mirror. Just at the table, with his nose about 10cm away from the paper.