Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/mararie

April – the month started off like a pistol. Yes I am aware that it is already the 18th (though I have only rewritten this on the 17th) and that the month is almost at an end. Anyway, back to the pistol analogy. Things that had been on the backburner have now come to the fore, things that weren’t working either mended itself or finally broke apart (ie job situation, financial issues…relationships!) What is also interesting is that there was a regression back to old habits, in particular, bad ones. What is interesting is that this time around, there seems to be more will power to say no. Whether initially or eventually. The bill for the indulgences and, for some, delusions, of March had finally come. Some were able to pay it, some needed to get a loan, and others were tried and judged unfit for human association and a period of isolation occurred. And there are those special few who are rather disgruntled about the whole month that the only way to appease their wrath is to sacrifice the Ram and string up its bloody pelt as a warning to the Bull who happens to be coming up to tone down whatever shenanigans they have planned. Though if this were to happen, I suspect that it would goad the Bull into action rather than warn it.

The month also began in what is called a Shadow Period. Period of 2 weeks prior to the Retrogradation of a planet (it slows down and appears to move backwards from an Earth-bound standpoint). The planet in question is Mercury. Yes I can hear quite a few audible gasps and groans. For those who aren’t savy, Mercury is the planet of communication and all things associated with it. Ever wondered why when deals or thought processes that were going so well suddenly took a turn for the worst? Well check an ephemeris (planetary table), and you may find that Mercury was turning at or close to that point. Well fear not as not only does this happen only 3 times a year, but these are prime times for revision, self audits (great time to find possible tax deductions ), resigning leases, backing up data (I’m doing so as I write this!) and if in a iffy situation, it’s the perfect time to back out with less fuss than there would usually be. Mercury goes retrograde on the 18th of April to the 12th of May. Even so, the period following it is what I call a Haze. Everything seems to be okay but things are still a bit fuzzy around the edges. The dust really settles when Mercury returns to the degree it was at before it retrograded which will be on…the 29th of May. ….Long wait, I know…. Luckily, the next one won’t be till the 20th of August.

Editors Note: I was slack in getting to this in time.  I am a very bad man.

Aries:
• Headline: The self, appearance, spotlight time (no not the fabric store)
• Mercury affected area: Finances and movable assets. (watch that bank account)
• Verdict: Have fun but try to be thrifty about it. “Hey, Big Spender!” is what they’ll be yelling if you’re not careful…

Taurus:
• Headline: Seclusion and reflection. Time to hide away.
• Mercury affected area: Appearance. Watch that mouth. Not to mention that waistline
• Verdict: Indulge in private. It’s cheaper, more comfortable and if you say or do anything faux pas, it stays at home. Where it belongs!

Gemini:
• Headline: Groups, friends and dreams. Feeling lucky?
• Mercury affected area: Self-undoing. Luck can only be taken so far, Gemini. So can the patience of others. Don’t push it.
• Verdict: “Listen sister. If I wanted your opinion, I’ll beat it outta ya!” – Elvira. No unsolicited advice, Gemini. Thanks. Your friends do come equipped with both feelings and fists. Remember that.

Cancer:
• Headline: Reputation and public exposure. Do try not to embarrass yourself.
• Mercury affected area: Associations. Things may seem unstable. Shoulders back, eyes down, Cancer.
• Verdict: Don’t put too much stock in new associates. Enjoy them for what they are as they could cost you your reputation. Watch for bouts of possessiveness and jealousies. Whether others or, most likely, your own!

Leo:
• Headline: Higher education, spirituality, Long distance travel. Time for a trip?
• Mercury affected area: Reputation. Watch out for that temper.
• Verdict: I know , lately, you may be full of beans (among other things) Leo, but really. Knock it off. You aren’t the only firecracker out there. And there are some with far bigger bangs than you, so watch yourself.

Virgo:
• Headline: Debts and shared resources. Check to see that it all adds up.
• Mercury affected area: Spirituality. Crisis of faith? Or merely a revision?
• Verdict: Best to start sorting what needs to be sorted in regards to things that you share. You may have missed something.

Libra:
• Headline: One-on-one relationships and open enemies. They have been both of late, haven’t they?
• Mercury affected area: Debts. Stop pretending the debit card is a Platinum.
• Verdict: Love may be a battlefield, but that’s no excuse to play the bitch. Save it, Libra or you may find your usual charm won’t work later.

Scorpio:
• Headline: Toil and Illness. Time for those multivitamins…
• Mercury affected area: Relationships. That silent thing that you do? Keep it up. Suddenly having a mouth won’t help this month. Save it for May.
• Verdict: Been moody, have we? Yes we know. So do half the population. Wah, frickn’ Wah, Scorpio! Sort it on your own time. Not in the mood.

Sagittarius:
• Headline: Creativity and Pleasure. Feeln’ Frisky, are we?
• Mercury affected area: Work. Yeah best not to try and bed the new hottie at work. VD or the boss’s personal playtoy. Save it for after work drinks.
• Verdict: Just entertain at home. It’ll be safer for us all.

Capricorn:
• Headline: Home and family. Time to tackle fixing that toilet.
• Mercury affected area: Pleasure. Blockage? Change of scenery will do the trick.
• Verdict: The public knows you haven’t been a happy chappy. But what exactly are you going to do about it? Oh, and Oscar would like his trash can back.

Aquarius:
• Headline: Siblings and the Community. Should you stay or should you go? Pick up the phone and dial.
• Mercury affected area: Home. Spring cleaning! You’ll finally be able to get rid of useless old junk (actual junk or people)
• Verdict: Local minister or professor may have a viable solution for something that’s been nagging you. No, I’m not kidding. At least check it out.

Pisces:
• Headline: Moveable resources (assets/money/but not the house). Bought more than you could handle? Compensating for something?
• Mercury affected area: Communication. Just because you have a voice doesn’t mean you should use it without your brain…wait…brain?
• Verdict: Ask an Aquarian you know to help you out in regards to getting rid of crap you don’t really need. Flipside, you could also be helping them out with their issues. It’s proactive, cheaper than therapy, and far more entertaining.

When the fuck did this word become a negative adjective?

Why has it become an acceptable part of modern vernacular?

WHY ARE PEOPLE IN MY OFFICE SAYING IT?

Has anyone else experienced my grimace on hearing this?

Her conviction in 2003 for electoral fraud caught the attention of authorities who took her into a room at the international airport and questioned her.

“I explained I was Australia’s first political prisoner,” she said of the conviction, which was later quashed on appeal.

Hanson said she was questioned in front of other passengers.

“I felt terribly embarrassed,” she said.

The former One Nation leader was visiting New Zealand on a hiking holiday.

Authorities allowed her to enter after questioning.

Serves 4

Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/avlxyz/

Ingredients

• 200 g Rocket (Washed)
• 2 Pears
• ¾ cup Parmesan Cheese
• 2 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 70 g Walnuts (Sliced)
• 1 tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
• 600 g of beef strips

Instructions

1. Place rocket and sliced pear into a large bowl with shaved parmesan.
2. Drizzle with oil and balsamic vinegar adding walnuts.
3. Fry beef strips, drain and add to the salad
4. Toss and serve

This dish is so incredibly simple and popular at dinner parties that I’m loathe to give it out. Suffice to say, it’s a wonderful meal for summer, winter, or if you just can’t be shagged to cook lobster thermidor. The sweet dry spiciness of the lamb and couscous contrasts with the bite of the cucumber and yoghurt. Serve with a dry white wine if you’re so inclined. The vegetarian option uses eggplant soaked in salt water for an hour, increase step 4 to roughly 35 minutes.

Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/loridstone

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 1 Onion (Diced)
• 2 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 4 Lamb Fillets (Diced)
• 1 tsp Dukkah Spice
• 2 Cinnamon Sticks
• 1½ cup Cous Cous
• 1½ cup Chicken Stock
• 50 g Dried Apricots (Diced)
• 2 tbsp Fresh Coriander (Chopped)
• 400 g Chickpeas (Rinsed)
• 1 Lemon (Quartered)
• 1 large Cucumber
• 1 small tub of Greek yoghurt

Allow me to summarise by saying that nothing adds to the demise of a movie more than expectation or a second viewing.  Well, ignorant people co-viewing the film with their endless natter and commentary tends to have a similar effect…

The problem, I believe, is that I placed expectation upon the movie.  Tim Burton, Johnny Depp…  previews of immaculate costuming.  All signs to build my expectation.  Alas, I should have tempered it better with the fact that it was a Disney production.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, the plot, in a nutshell, has Alice at almost 20 years old and faced with a decision of marrying a Lord, and all that comes with it.  In her confusion and deliberation, she ends up falling down the rabbit hole and back into Wonderland.  All in Wonderland are heralding her as their saviour – one who shall defeat the Red Queen.

The theme of self belief is strong.  Sickeningly so.  It’s almost as though Disney used Alice to offset some of their other trite ‘damsel in distress’, teenage love epics they so fondly dish out annually.

It’s also hard to ignore the ‘love’ theme running through the film.  From the Red Queen commenting that it’s better to be feared than loved, to the odd love interest that the Hatter seems to show for Alice.  Well, at least this is how I saw it.

The acting was, well, adequate.  Clearly no Oscar performances, nor a script that even gave scope for that.  To their credit, the actors embraced the caricature nature of the characters, though their make-up and airbrushing tended to remove much of the acting potential for my liking, especially for the Hatter.    This said,  Anne Hathaway’s White Queen-iness made me giggle.

Even the Tim Burton attraction was lost in the final production.  The scenery, the cinematography, all clearly Burton-esque.  Yet I can’t help but feel he was too tied into delivering the “Disney” dream to be able to have the creative direction this movie needed to shift it from being “meh” to “wow”.   This is most true with the ending where, without being a spoiler, it is clear that the movie was shown to test audiences who replied ‘we’d like the story to be spelt out further for us – as in completely spelt out in a clichéd, ‘girl power’ sort of way”.   Had Burton been paid too much to protest to this or did he realise upon signing that there would be no way around an all-American Disney ending?

So for me, the final outcome was one of a watchable, if not a little disappointing, movie.  It was OK.  There are no scenes that will remain with me forever, or even a fortnight.  Even Avatar with its mind numbingly insulting script at least achieved that!

I am left wondering… Why Disney made this production?  There is limited merchandise associated with it, the box office, although good, was it great?  More to the point, why did Burton agree to this production with Disney?   Was there really supposed to be sub-theme of the Hatter being in love with Alice, or was Depp aiming for ‘paternal’ which resulted on screen as ‘sexy?  If we were supposed to walk away thinking that the Hatter loves Alice and has been waiting for her, then isn’t that creepy?…  And why not just take the ending to a whole “Disney” ending and have a ‘Hatter’ appear on the boat?

With such questions, I cannot see how Alice In Wonderland will become either a Burton or a Disney classic, nor the role that Depp dies being renown for.   The 3D added so very little to the production that if you miss it at the cinemas, never fear – the dvd will suffice!.  It was a watchable 2 stars.

“I am proud to say that I am a fortunate homosexual man…This is just what I need especially now that I am the father of two beautiful boys that are so full of light and who with their outlook teach me new things every day. To keep living as I did up until today would be to indirectly diminish the glow that my kids were born with.”

Martin became a father in 2008 when he had two children by a surrogate. This decision to embrace his sexuality came with the decision to writer a memoir. Beginning to write brought him to a new place in life, and he reached what he describes as “an amzing turning point” in his life. It’s fantastic to see someone accepting who they are, not only for himself, but for his kids. If only it would have come sooner!

I normally wouldn’t want to stray into a habit of reviewing music that isn’t ‘up to the minute’ or currently in charts but I had to share this.  In the lead up to my trip to Spain next year, this budding  españa-phile is discovering a world of international electronica that sits outside current musical trends.  Gotan Project is one such discovery.

The group was founded back in 1999 by DJ and musician Philippe Cohen Solal and former members of Boyz from Brazil (Eduardo Makaroff and Christoph H Müller).  ‘Gotan‘ (an anagram of tango),  have pioneered a fusion of tango and spanish influences with downtempo electronica and dance beats.  ‘Lunatico‘ is a strangely sexy selection of seductive, sophisticated sounds.  Put that in your pipe and illiterate it!  Their next album ‘Tango 3.0‘ is due for release on April 19th 2010 and will surely be another success.

Check them out at:  http://www.myspace.com/gotanproject

4 Stars

Head First – Goldfrapp
Label: Mute Records
Release Date: 16 March 2010
Genre(s): Electronica, Synthpop

Too high to write a sentence! Love it! Love her! Buy it!

Twelve thousand stars shooting all over my face!

I left something in the oven!

The two letterboxes hint at the horror that awaits the discerning decorator, but more distracting is the giant green caterpillar / procession of triffids that are making their way to the top of the steps. Why would anyone do that? You’re not bringing the outdoors inside and you’re not leaving it outside either. Make your mind up. Maybe you could only afford a railing for one side? Here’s a tip, hand rails are easily affordable if you cut back on your giant black pot and ceramic lion budget.

This nature strip is so lack lustre; you have to wonder why they bothered. A punnet of small red bushes for “drama”, what looks like a couple of tired flax plants and an assemblage of weeds around a doubtlessly dripping garden tap, create a sense of urban hopelessness to rival any Russian housing project. Strangely enough there seems to be another letterbox in this picture. It’s white this time. Be afraid people, be very afraid.

A personal pet hate of mine is this driveway. I don’t think it would make it easier to get your car out (Oh, Darren is on a heroin binge right now, I’ll just reverse the car out instead) and it’s a great way to force rain water to rush down like a torrent across the already pathetic nature strip. Washing away your topsoil with gay abandon must be one of those ostentatious symbols of wealth I missed out on.

Let us now consider the gum lined street. Aside from the fact that the blue-grey foliage makes this look like one of the starting levels in “World of Warcraft”, there is also the problem that if there’s one thing a gum tree likes to do, it’s catch on fire. I look at these delightful Australian natives and I don’t see a picturesque and slightly exclusive suburb. I see a firestorm and the charred remains of a family trapped inside a Volvo who didn’t make their escape because their tires blew out from the heat, and a procession of triffids.

This horror of the exterior pales when compared to the travesty contained within. People, I cannot repeat this often enough, monochromatic is not automatically tasteful, and shiny is not automatically tasteful. Put them together and you have an interior guaranteed to cause spontaneous abortions amongst your pregnant friends and neighbours. The theme du jour of this suburban palace is “metallic women holding stuff”. I count ten of them, and a bloody great metal swan too. For every three metallic women there is one chandelier, which seems quite generous. Decorating tip #2 Chandeliers are a sometimes food, like donuts or rendered pig lard. Putting one in every room doesn’t make you stylish or grand; it makes you repetitive and unimaginative.

I’d like to think that the curtains are an attempt at a post-feminist lesbian nod towards the metallic vulvic mysteries of the metallic women who inhabit every corner and surface of this room. The reality though is they probably thought that the shiny fabric looks expensive (but not when it’s on every surface) and the masses of draped fabric suggest a generous luxury (but not when you have meagre 7 foot ceilings). This room reached towards grand and instead fell short and ended up as cluttered, and remarkably tacky, and abortion inducing.

Aside from the fact that the statue in the foreground suggests a love of female anal penetration, or possibly a desire to throw naked women into quicksand, this picture demonstrates a number of classic mistakes. Too much gold, shitty bric-a-brac on pedestals, vases on floors, Doctor Who props hidden under chairs, overdone drapery, monochromatic colour schemes and ugly statues all collide together in a visage of hellishly bland Canberra living.

Another foray into female anal penetration, some women holding stuff and a deliciously piss weak oil painting. I can imagine the back story of this piece; a recently divorced friend has decided to honour their inner goddess by expressing an artistic streak that hasn’t got a look-in since a senior art class in the 80s. One TAFE course later and suddenly friends with money and no taste are nailing that crap to the wall. “It’s a circus! Life’s a circus! I realised that after Jason and I divorced and I got the beach house on the NSW north coast!” It’s not art, it’s a travesty.  The other blue seaside painting is decoration without artistic merit, unless of course you consider the fact that it was probably produced by a child in a sweat shop in Asia before it found its way into a tasteless middleclass Canberra abode.

White couches and ornate decanters on the sideboard proclaim “I’m very clean” but probably indicate that they hire an international student from an exotic locale who is working on a cure for cancer, when they’re not removing dark coloured lint from the white couch. The gothic candle stick holders are totally unusable unless the international student/cancer researcher/cleaner also removes scorch marks off the ceiling and resets the fire alarm. More likely, the hosts use tea light candles unaware of the gaucheness of such a manoeuvre.

The bedroom is meant to suggest luxury with its shiny window treatment, golden picture frames, foot stool and chandelier. However the effect is spoiled by the impractical use of tall lamp tables as bedside tables. There are no drawers in those tables. When the hell am I supposed to put my water based lubricant, prophalactives and tasteful white hand towel? In the foot stool? The devil is in the details though; the complete lack of a head board though leaves no doubt that this is less of a castle and more of a crack house, as is every third house in Canberra.

“We bought her very first painting” they boast “it’s called ‘feminist fantasy in purple’ and it really brings life to the den!” Bullshit. It’s like a “my little pony” decided to vomit up a storm, or possibly the blood splatter pattern from a cabbage patch kid. In front of it, is the requisite naked lady holding something. Considering her bum is exposed I’m surprised she’s not facing the other way. Maybe she couldn’t bear the purple horror either.  The asymmetric zebra couches make me suspect that this home is owned by someone who is either blind (it would explain the pornographic statues) or someone trapped in an 80s psychosis.

Two kitchens, I knew it! This palace was at one stage flats. No matter how big and golden your picture is, you cannot disguise the fact that some poor bastard is expected to cook on an electric stove. I suppose I should be grateful that it has four burners.  The white horror kitchen leaves nothing to the imagination, if you wanted to know what it would be like to be crushed to death in a glacier, then this is the kitchen for you. The uncomfortable looking white chairs in the kitchen cry out for a chandelier or three, but instead have to settle for more bric-a-brac on gold and glass display shelves. So if you have $2.5 million and are legally blind, maybe this is the house for you. If you have any taste or human compassion, or maybe you just think copper based anal pornography is wrong, then we at pinksheep salute you.