Some Day My loooooove....

We'll meet again someday.....

Or something. It's Lara's Theme. Possibly.

Look, I get needled for dancing provocatively around the house singing

"I've got a sexy back.... YEAH!

take it to the fridge..."

That's what he says right?

Anyway, for the last week or so I've been putting on my best faux tenor & bursting forth with "Some day my loooove...." etc.

Because we watched, for the first time ever, Dr Zhivago.

And I don't know if you've seen it, but it was the David Lean version with Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Tom Courtenay, Alec Guiness & Geraldine Chaplin, amongst others. Oh, and a young Klaus Kinski has a small role as a mad-as-a-snake intellectual. No surprises there.

Sharif is the good doctor/poet Yuri Zhivago (Zhivago is, apparently, the Russian word for "life"). Guinness is Zhivago's brother, a Bolshevik general, he provides the framing device for the film, telling the story of Zhivago & Lara to Rita Tushingham, who he believes is his niece - ie, their child.

Set against the end of World War 1, and the Russian Revolution & civil war, Zhivago is the story of a doomed love between two people married to others, and the vicissitudes suffered by them due to circumstance & war. There is much more, much, much more.

Unfortunately, the version we saw was almost devoid of colour. Not the restored print touted in the picture above.

But that aside, there were some moments of rare beauty, such as when Zhivago scares a pack of wolves who are congregated outside the frozen house (above) he & Lara are sheltering in, in an unbelievably beautiful frozen wasteland. Maybe it's the dog lover in me. I wondered where they were going to eat. Or who.

I wasn't overly impressed with the film in the end. Christie is pretty hot to look at, but about as cold in presence as the Russian Winter. Sharif is OK. Wherever they filmed it stands in very attractively for sundry parts of Russia.

Interestingly, Tom Courtenay's character in the movie (Lara's husband) is based loosely on Leon Trotsky, which I'm told wasn't the case in the book. But there's the armoured train racing all around bolstering the Red Army. And once his character is gone, Lara & Zhivago lose a degree of protection, it seems that his possibly subversive poems have not gone unnoticed by the party, and it is only because she is Strelnikov's wife, even though for much of the movie she believes him dead, that they're allowed their freedom.

Although I have a slight logic problem with that - Lara & Zhivago are "protected" because she's married to a Bolshevik general, so why aren't they just as protected because his brother is ALSO a Bolshevik general? A lot f Bolshevik generals in this movie.

And the music! Look, half way through I was thinking "They're over using this overblown music.". Every time we see Christie, Lara's theme swells into your consciousness... and then every time she & Zhivago have been parted by some event, the theme gets cranked up to 11 so that you know just how tragic & heartrending this is.

And bloody hell, they get parted a lot.

But despite that, and despite my ambivalence to the movie as a whole... that theme has stuck with me all this week. No wonder it sold millions of records at the time.

Note: mercifully no-one sings the lyrics at all before, during, or after.

So. There're my scattershot thoughts on Dr Zhivago, really stick with Lean's Lawrence of Arabia for the real oil.

Meanwhile, in deference to the day & date, today's random link is to David Haywood's musings, last year, on Halloween.

Me? I'm going home early to re-affix the Beware of the Dog sign to our gate, the one with the picture of the rabid looking, drooling rottweiler. That usually ensures a quiet Halloween.

Public Address | Speaker

Health Warning

Just reading this article on Stuff may cause diabetes.

Latest fast food fad - Deep fried Coke.

An unlikely couple?

I'm not technically savvy enough to copy the picture in question, so you're going to have to click here... and scroll to picture number 42.

Well? Who does it look like to you?

Magnum Photos - marathon06

Hat tip to David Slack for pointing me to these photos. I reckon the guy might be Witi Ihimaera, David thinks it might be Kofi Anan.

I guess there's an outside chance it's Morgan Freeman.

Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir has a blog

We're fans of all things Rebekka at the moment, and to those to whom I mentioned the (sheep's) eyeball eating scene in the marvelous movie Cold Fever...

...it seems they really do it. Nice.

Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir

Time for a TV review or two.

I’ve had my sport in the past with Logan & Brown & their Grillslinger™ and I’ve even had their supporters come & tell me off for it. And truth be told, I’m coming around to the Grillslinger™ idea. I think the tools themselves are marvellous, but the belt puts me off. It’s a bit like when I bought a massive sack of Eukanuba™ dog food & it came with a free bum bag & dog walking accessories. I love my free stuff, and Eukanuba™ have been very generous in the past, I have a free Eukanuba ™ travel pet bowl, a free Eukanuba™ self filling water bowl (with a European hose connector so that it doesn’t work in NZ, free Eukanuba™ doggy doo bags & on board carrier. And all sorts of stuff. And so I was really pleased with my free Eukanuba™ bum bag, with water bottle, another free travel bowl, and sundry clips to attach other stuff to. And a bum bag is a great idea in Summer, there is a lot of stuff to carry when walking a dog, during Winter I have loads of jackets & pants & pockets, and carabinas & the like.

And so I swanned around in my bum bag for a while, and several weeks later I realised that the drink bottle was for the dog, not me, hence the travel bowl. And then I had an epiphany of sorts, I realised that the Eukanuba ™ bumbag & accessories was all a bit CHiPs. So I stowed it in the cupboard.

Anyway, Logan & Brown… Logie & Brownie…

Did you all catch their TV series Hunger for the Wild? It was appointment viewing. Although I missed two of them & hope they repeat them (sorry, I mean encore them).

If you missed it, basically the boys, Blokie & Roundie… would head into the wipwops each week in a magnificent old car of some sort, with a wine cellar in the boot, truss up a local & have them take them to where the whitebait/crayfish/wild pigs/flounder et al hang out, show them how to catch dinner & then hoof it back to base where Roundie prepared a magnificent feast, all the while sporting his Grillslinger™ slung manfully around his hips.

And these two are just so charming & irrepressible that it’s impossible not to enjoy the show thoroughly & salivate over the food.

So guys, sorry about the Grillsinger™ jibes. I look forward to season 2.

And from quintessential blokes, we move on to The L Word.

Heh heh… Watched this last might. Mrs Llew spotted it was on & she’d been advised that it is solid viewing, plus, she’d heard that Jennifer Beals starred, and she is a huge Flashdance fan. I was sceptical, but as the credits rolled I noted that the ensemble cast also includes the fabulous Mia Kirshner, who you may recall from the marvellous Atom Egoyan film Exotica, and possibly from the very first episode ever of 24, in which she played the hot airline passenger who abruptly killed a flight attendant, then sky dived to safety just before a bomb detonated killing everyone on board. Wottagal.

Anyway, Mia is the straight chick who's moved into an LA neighbourhood populated by lesbian supermodels. She is then tempted away from her straight boyfriend by the stunning dyke café owner Marina, played by the stunning Karina Lombard, who we really should see more of, and we probably will.

It’s got nudity, sex, profanity, drug use. Man, I’m in! During the party scene, which featured lots of very attractive women making out, Mrs Llew nudged me & asked “How’d you like to be at a party like that?”

Since we have a few lesbian acquaintances, only one of whom is remotely attractive (I will admit that I’ve known her for decades & she really is beautiful), my reply was “But in real life they’d all look like Gerry Brownlee.”

A thought that spoiled the moment.

So anyway, the L Word, a glossy soap, with improbably beautiful lesbians.

I’ll keep you posted.

Exotica (1994)

may i have your attention please!

Please sign the petition.

No. Not that one (although by all means sign that one too, I'm told I have already). But then again, some very notable people have signed that one.

I mean this petition - "Stöðvum Kristján Loftsson!"

In essence... Save the Whales! Send a message to the Icelandic government.

may i have your attention please! on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

More loss

Lookie here, we came across an old friend last week...

The neighbourhood's been targetted by a diverse range of taggers recently. One strike that amuses me is that on the truck owned by a neighbour, no idea what it says or represents, but it is emblazoned in flourescent green right across the side of his truck.

I don't care because this neighbour is the cause of pretty much all the competition for parking spaces in our cul de sac. And not that it matters to us anymore, we've got off street parking now, and not before time, because this guy just went & bought himself a new truck, to supplement the fleet he already owns & parks in our street. He's got two trucks now, real big ones, and two very large vans.

he's also got two double garages, but they're so full of junk he can't park anything in them. The trucks wouldn't fit anyway.

I used to consider that this guy was part of what I called Team Landlord, there used to be two or three of them, they own a lot of houses in the vicinity and they tend to congregate outside all dressed in orange overalls.

And then recently, yesterday in fact, I realised that he & he alone is Team Landlord, the other guys were just going about their business & this guy was just being nosey & taking up their time.

Because that's what he does to everyone. Just as well we weren't paying our builders by the hour because I know that Team Landlord knows everything there is to know about every one of them. And their extended families. And possibly all their friends.

He is ever vigilant, and to be honest, I'm glad we have a large dog with a (very) loud & gruff bark, because the previous owner of our house came home one night to find Team Landlord snooping around her back garden. We know what he was looking for, we still have it.

He's lived in the same place all his life I think, which is about 4 doors up from us. Or he possibly started life next door to that, because that's where his parents live now.

Anyway, he's a curse. He also parks & reparks his fleet at around 4.30am each morning.

SunnyO: What are we to make of this loss?

This just in...

Today's random Blog This link is the flickr page of a gorgeous person from Iceland. Well worth a browse, some amazing photos here.

Flickr: Photos from _rebekka

New Zealand's top toilets named

About time too. Expect hordes of tourists on organised tours of the nation's public toilets.

New Zealand's top toilets named:

"The toilets were judged on a range of criteria, ranging from signposting, cleanliness , lighting, mirrors and how good the hand drying facilities were."

Actually, I remember my very first good look around Sydney, probably around 1989... and it's not like I'm a frequent visitor to public toilets... no. Truly. ... but I do recall being super impressed with the lavvies at Circular Quay. They were light, airy, clean, and most unexpected of all... they were stocked with toilet paper & soap!

In 1989, I don't think there was a public convenience anywhere in New Zealand which had soap. What was it? Were people stealing the stuff or something? Anyway, seems those days are past.

On the other hand, I am (not) surprised that a public dunny I encountered in the depths of the South Island was overlooked for accolades. I would have to look it up on a map, but it was at a rest area, somewhere in the middle of a beech forest on the way South to Lake Ohau.

It was marked on the AA map we had, it was signposted a few hundred metres in advance. When we found the rest area, there was another sign pointing to a vague path into the forest. Everyone was desperate, I was sent into the gloom to find it & report back.

Some 50 yards into the trees, I spotted some used tissue on the ground, next to an ancient fallen log. On top of that log was a toilet sized hole...

I think you can see where we're going here. Or not going. We drove on until we found a garage.

More meals to impress men!

If memory serves, this is the 2nd in a series (which was itself a response to Dr Che Tibby's Meals to Impress Women - although Che's recipe is a little healthier for you than mine, because obviously, he's a doctor & it has to be).

I also emailed this to Graham Reid, who is collecting life-threatening recipes for his website, a feature called Meals from Elsewhere. So it may turn up online (literally) elsewhere, as Llew's Pork & Prune Medley from SunnyO. Or something.

And folks, much like, as someone somewhere online once said to me, there is no movie that could not be improved by the addition of a scene with Humphrey Bogart shooting a high ranking Nazi officer (I think we were discussing politics), is there any recipe that cannot be improved by the addition of bacon? Bacon is of course, as Homer explained to Bart, "from a wonderful, magical animal called a pig".

2 pork fillets, sliced lengthways & bashed flat like thick schnitzel.

Spoon a truckload of sausage meat mixed with pitted, roughly chopped prunes (that's right, prunes - this dish might not be the healthiest for you, but it doesn't hang around the system long) over one of the pork fillet schnitzels, and cover with the other piece of pork.

Wrap the whole thing up with enough rashers of bacon to hold it all together.

Bake in a medium oven for 45-60 minutes. When the bacon's crisp, it's probably done.

Serve with salad (you pussy), and new potatoes baked with chopped up chorizos & herbs.

This is a festive feast.

And in fact we had it on New Years' Eve last year. Just before getting really trashed.

Today's random link takes you to the downloadable trailer for the new James Bond Film, Casino Royale. It looks fantastic! I particularly like the scene of the calm, and extremely hot, young woman, descending into water in a submerged elevator. Will she live? Who can tell? Yet.

BTW: In my opinion, Daniel Craig looks like he'll do fine. We watched him & Dame Gwyneth Paltrow in Sylvia the other night & the female in residence deemed him "yummy".

Hat tip to Spareroom. From whom I stole this.

'Casino Royale' - Exclusive Videos - Moviefone

Prison books, a nice gesture

David Slack urges us to send Tim Selwyn any old books or magazines you might have to bolster the meagre library at Hawkes Bay Prison.

I think this is a great idea, so scour your bookshelves for some titles that might inspire, entertain, and possibly edify some poor (or perhaps deserving) lags.

Might I suggest you assign some relevance, or irony to your choices... for instance, do you have any of these titles gathering dust:

Anything by Lord Archer
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Shawshank Redemption, indeed by Stephen King
Escape from Colditz, by P R Reid
Mein Kampf, by one A Hitler
Long Walk to Freedom, by Nelson Mandela
Papillon, by Henri Charriere

Leave any other appropriate titles in the comments by all means.

Dig 'em out, dust 'em down & send 'em off to:

Tim Selwyn
Librarian/Unit 8
Hawkes Bay Prison
Private Bag 1600
Napier, NZ

Public Address | Island Life | But Don't Attach a File

Mr & Mrs Hooter

At the Court of Appeal, the judge looked across the courtroom, and with some degree of trepidation asked Mr & Mrs Hooter if they had any closing comments in support of their second appearance in their quest for an appeal into the fraud convictions they are hoping to overturn.

"Damn straight" said Wee Hooter. He fixed his wife, sitting next to him, nipped & tucked within an inch of her life, and coiffed with what looked like a long haired Pomeranian perched on her head, with a lascivious eye, produced a leather bound booklet, and announced to the courtroom at large,

"These are some words I have prepared, they are written to inspire my people, and they came to me shortly after watching Wild On Striptease on the E channel while on home detention, I dedicate this poem to my damned hot wife! And no, I've never heard of the Black Eyed Peas..."

(La la la la la)
Hey mama, this that shit that make you groove, mama
Get on the floor and move your booty moma
We the blast masters blastin' up the jamma
(REEEEEEEWIIIIIIND)
Cutie cutie, make sure you move your booty
Shake that thing like we in the city of sin, and
Hey shorty, I know you wanna party
the way your body look realli make me really feel naunughty
Cutie cutie, make sure you move your booty
Shake that thing like we in the city of sin, and
Hey shorty, I know you wanna party
the way your body look realli make me really feel naunughty

I got a naughty naughty style and a naughty naughty crew
But everything I do, I do just for you
I'm a little bit of old, and a bigger bit of Nu
The true niggers know that the peas come thru
We never cease (NOO), we never die no we never decease (NOO)
We multiply like we mathamatice
Then we drop bombs like we in the middle east
(The bomb bombas, the base move dramas)
Naw y'all knaw, who we are
y'all knaw, we the stars
Steady rockin' on y'alls boulevards
And, lookin' hard without bodygaurds
(I do) what I can
(Y'all come thru) will.i.am
And still I stand, with still mic in hand
(So come on mama, dance to the drama)

Hey mama, this that shit that make you groove, mama
(Hey) get on the floor and move your booty mama
(Yaw) we the blast mastas blastin' up the jamma
(Hey) so shake your bambama, come on now mama
Hey mama, this that shit that make you groove, mama
(Hey) get on the floor and move your booty mama
(Yaw) we the blast mastas blastin' up the jamma
(La la la la la)

We the big town stumpas, and big sound pumpas
The beat bump bumps in your trunk trunkas
The girlies in the club with the big plump plumpas
And when I'm makin' love, my hip hump humps
It never quits (NOOOO) we need to carry 9mm clips (NOOOO)
Don't wanna squize trigger, just wanna squize t*ts
(Lubaluba) cause we the show stoppas
And the chief rockas, number one chief rockas
Naw y'all knaw, who we are
y'all knaw, we the stars
Steady rockin' on y'alls boulevards
How we rockin' it girl, without body guards
Now she be, Fergie, from the crew
B.E.P., come and take heed, as we take the lead
(So come on papa, dance to the drama)

Hey mama, this that shit that make you groove, mama
(Yaw) get on the floor and move your booty mama
(Wuh) we the blast mastas blastin' up the jamma
(NAWWWW, NAWWW)
Cutie cutie, make sure you move your booty
Shake that thing like we in the city of sin, and
no fakin I know you see me shakin'
and the way I break it down I got the whole world quakin
Off the Richter, off the Richter, off the Richter, off the Richter, off the Richter, off the Richter steady are you ready.

Hey shorty, I know you wanna party
the way your body look realli make me really feel naunughty

But the race is not, for the swift
But who really can, take control of it
And tippa irie and the black eyed peas will be thhhheeerre
til infinity, til infinity, til infinity, til infinity, til infinity
Tippa is onuunuut

Nosa dima shock, nosa dima ting
everytime you sit there I hear, bling bling
O wata ting, hear blacka sing
grinding, and winding
and the madda be moving in a perfect timing
and we dance and dance to the dancehall riddim
and we're really to nice, it finga lickin'
like rice and peas and chicken stuffing

Hey mama, this that shit that make you groove, mama
(Hey) get on the floor and move your booty mama
(Yaw) we the blast mastas blastin' up the jamma
(Hey) so shake your bambama, come on now mama
Hey mama, this that shit that make you groove, mama
(Hey) get on the floor and move your booty mama
(Yaw) we the blast mastas blastin' up the jamma
(La la la la la)

And hey, if he can't be arsed writing his own poem, I can't be arsed writing my own parody.

Meanwhile, today's random Blog This site comes from AC/DC & The Governor of California, and it rocks.

YouTube - ac dc-big gun

Bluff oyster fishery 'in ruins' - researcher - New Zealand news on Stuff.co.nz

Say it isn't so!

This is an issue of epic proportions.

Bluff oyster fishery 'in ruins' - researcher - New Zealand news on Stuff.co.nz

Pink Ribbon Day

The burly guy said "Nice pink sash pal".

I said "Thanks, I wore it with you in mind" I shook the bucket full of notes & change, "It's a good cause."

Breast Cancer Awareness Day today, please be generous when you come across the (largely, I haven't anything pink in my wardrobe) pink clad collectors.

For the record, my patch is the corner of Woodward Street & Lambton Quay, the whole office is taking turns, and for those who like to contribute on the basis of aesthetics... everyone else on the patch today will be really hot.

Say hello.

Cooked Straight

Just come back from the airport where I dropped off the young 'un, for her first unaccompanied flight not as an "UM" (unaccompanied minor - turned 14 two days ago, and in her own words "past the novice teenager year & now the real thing"). Which means that she's at the mercy of the random seat allocation system (I'm told it's Monty, the Air NZ seat booking chicken out the back, pecking at numbered corn kernels).

I just hope she doesn't end up next to the seedy looking bunch of teeneagers there loudly discussing the RockQuest competition that they've got into the final of. Or something. Because, as some random train conductor argued a few weeks ago - on an occasion she caught a train, asked for a child's fare, but didn't have her student ID on her... she "doesn't look 13." Luckily she bluffed the guy that she only had a few dollars on her, that was after she offered her 3rd form maths homework as evidence & was rebuffed.

All that's irrelevant though. Consider it padding.

Just before she boarded, we scoffed a bacon burger & chips from one of the cafes there. Then I left, visited Placemakers, for reasons too complex to go into here, bought a laundry tub, toilet seat, electric multi-boxes and assorted sealants (as you do), and filled the car with petrol.

Back in the office, because I'm one of those types who can charge all sorts of things willy nilly to my place of employ... I went through my sundry receipts for the day.

Do you guys know what the cafe at the airport is called? According to the receipt, it is called "Espresso & Cooked Straight Bars".

Is it just me, or is there scope for amiguity here? Is it a cooked straight-bar? Or a cooked-straight bar? Oddly we had neither the espresso, nor the bar, straight, cooked or otherwise. Is it some sort of offer for sexuality reorientation?

Next time I'm out there I might ask.

Meanwhile, I've decided to post links to random blog posts. Purely because I find the "Blog this" function the most convenient to use, but I usually delete the irrelevant link. No more!

I'm not sure what this post means, but if we afford some ambiguity to the title the "Blog this" link automatically assigns, we might guess that David Farrar has just been crowned Miss World. And very pretty he is too.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some work to do & a toilet seat to expense.

Miss World 2006 (David Farrar)

Breaking News!

Wi Huata is really Maya Angelou!

BEN HARPER LYRICS - I'll Rise

Ben Harper gets a cold Big Mac (TM) couriered to him later today for his services to setting poems to music.

Hat tip: Kowhaikiwi

Yikes, I'd better move fast on this one...

This strikes me as exactly the sort of thing David Slack would be hard at right now, either critiquing, parodying, or god help us, setting it to music.



Click on the image for a larger view.

So anyway, that's your challenge, Harve - you cast your academic eye over this work of sexy genius, anyone else, feel free to set it to music - any tune will do, so long as it fits.

Pipi offers Huata bonus of $60,000 - New Zealand news on Stuff.co.nz

The public speaks....

A few weeks ago I nearly posted about how the public appeared to swing in behind Dr Brash when news of his alleged affair broke.

I checked back with the Stuff site feedback page today & those dirty fickle public have just as quickly swung back out it seems.

Some nice letters though, one of which I've copied below.

According to Don Brash there are no Maori living in New Zealand. You're either 100 per cent Maori or your are what? Pakeha? Or maybe just an 'ordinary' New Zealander.

Next time people get excited about Maori crime, or moan about the increased use of the Maori language, you can all feel a lot happier knowing it is in fact New Zealand crime and the New Zealand language. No more Maori means no more scapegoating, because you can't have it both ways.

Yvonne Berland

Your say: Brash in hot water after 'evil' comments - Have your say on Stuff.co.nz

Winston gets a bit of stick too.