Photos, finally

A selection of travel photos are now up here.

Theatre, theatre - and for a change of pace - theatre

I should blog about Fresher’s week, formal wear and my growing fear of my reading lists.

But I’m not, well, not yet.

I went to London yesterday to see one of the last productions for the season at the Shakespeare’s Globe theatre, the reconstruction of the Elizabethan Globe a few hundred metres from the historical site.

I had a £5 groundling ticket and scurried in fairly late, having got completely disoriented when coming out of a different tube entrance to the last time I went to the Bankside area, and then by not cutting through Southwark Cathedral gardens but blundering on through, and eventually around, the Borough Markets (which look really cool and worth a later visit).

Scraped in just before the play commenced (with a semi-Elizabethan warning about pagers and mobile phones), and could only wedge in near stage left, about a third of my view blocked by a pillar supporting the tiring house. Got centre stage after the interval, though, which was much better.

It was a period costume production of “Twelfth Night” complete with male actors playing the female roles, often with startling success – as in the vaporous, timid Olivia given to really funny bursts of enthusiasm tempered with self-doubt.

The best part of the experience though was its immediacy: in open air, daylight and with the “front row” of groundlings leaning on the stage, there was an easy exchange between actors and audience. Once, to great effect, a ring flung at the ground bounced into the audience, and had to be thrown back on stage.

I popped into the nearby Clink Prison Museum afterwards, which had some interesting taped narrations, but a slightly amateurish feel.

At the other end of the acting process, it was absolute auditioning madness in Cambridge today, with at least two dozen student productions casting over this weekend for the coming term.

So I screwed my courage to the sticking place and went auditioning. My first was a combined audition for two "fresher plays" (one a Stoppard, the other set in 1930s America). At the same theatre I also tried out for "Much Ado About Nothing" – discovering a bit too late that young hopefuls would have to sing something to the directors also. All I could come up with was an old school hymn “Guide me, Oh thou great Jehovah”, which given my lack of any church attendance and wavering agnosticism was rather funny.

I also did not realise until too late that the tour goes on tour to the continent for two weeks before Christmas at a cost of £100 - £300 to the participants. Would still jump at it if the opportunity arose.

My final audition was for “Under Milkwood” – which did not require accents, but I had one of those fierce instincts that the director really did not like me, but it was the first audition without an ample queue in which to prepare your readings. Indeed, I had no sooner picked up the compulsory readings than I discovered there was no line before me, and the last auditioner was just walking out of the room.

One of those situations where “no rush, in your own time” are simply not reassuring words. So, I just read everything through once, went in and got on with it. Not sure I varied my delivery enough, though.

I’m getting plenty of practice at the moment of dealing with small stuff that I’ve been a bit nervous to try again: cycling, auditioning for a play, returning to study.

What have you tried recently for the first time, or the first time in ages?

Reflections of a novice cyclist in Cambridge

(1) No-one wears a helmet. Don't let this discourage you. You need it (see (2)).

(2) There is possibly nothing more dangerous on the road than a timid, inexperienced cyclist. Pulling over when you hear cars behind you may slow your journey, but probably prolongs your life.

(3) The cars are more experienced at aiming to miss cyclists than you are at aiming to miss cars, trust the local drivers - up to a point. Even the homicidal taxi drivers don't want to damage their paintwork.

(4) This is, in many ways, a sleepy academic town: it therefore does not have a sufficiently developed system of roads to handle the traffic. It is, at times, busy and chaotic.

(5) Get a cycle route map. Do not be surprised that the routes don't always link up.

(6) It is not at all signposted, but between 10 and 4 riding a bicycle in the pedestrian area around the market square will get you a £30 fine. Avoid this.

(7) Remember to get a bicycle number from your porters.

(8) Always chain your bike to something other than itself. It is surprisingly easy for theives with vans to make off with large numbers of unattended bikes at night. Rumour has it they are sold in Oxford (while our black market trades in Oxford cycles).

(9) Buy some damn bicycle clips. You look like Tintin tucking fawn pants into long socks all the time. Cycling in in an old tee-shirt (even on a cold day) and then changing into law-student-wear is not a bad idea.

(10) Relax, breath out, learn to enjoy it. Eventually you too will be bale to cover the distance from law school to home in 15 minutes, not the present 35.

Just testing



If the picture above of me at the Musee d'Orsay is visible, I should be able to post pictures fairly frequently.

My Cambridge adventures are still pretty under-documented, as I have yet to get into the habit of carrying the camera everywhere.

Am sorry Naylor is not up for the week, will attempt to relaunch it next week - and to resume more regular posting.

Times when one should not be blogging ...

I've presently ducked out of a pretty inebriated Cambridge formal dinner after-party to clear my e-mail, the dinner to celebrate our "matriculation" (ie admission as members of the university).

Which I guess confirms my geek status. Hmmmm ....

Yes, I did wear black tie and a fairly expensive (poly-cotton) gown. Drinks were served beforehand in the masters' lodge. There was a photo where, due to the English lack of sunlight, the uni photographer had to use 0.5 and 1.0 second exposures.

There was a lecture on college history, bordering on the over-researched and interminably long, dwelling on the role of Trinity Hall in the British legal system, having been founded in 1350 to supply a chronic shortage of ecclesiastical lawyers after the Black Plague ravaged Europe.

The dinner was three courses, the fish was rather edible, and the port was tasty and passed to the left. There was a grace in Latin and a toast to the Queen.

My fellow 90 new graduates are presently dancing daggily to a mix of ceontemporary pop and 80s hits.

And continuing to drink.

As perhaps I should be.

I have had some new thoughts about what subjects I will be taking, and some adventures since I started trying to ride my bike to law school, but should - for the moment - get back to the party.

Man, these late nights in " freshers' week" are making me tired.

More soon.

Of sundries and essentials

So, I now own a bicycle.

Sure, it’s a girl’s bike, and certainly nothing terribly new or fashionable, but:

(a) if you buy a new bike in this town you may as well pin a note to it saying “please steal at your earliest convenience”; and

(b) there are lots of men about on women’s bikes, so the lack of a manly cross-bar (or whatever it’s called) is no real issue.

Further, it only cost me £50 plus a bike lock, and you can’t get anything with two wheels for less that £45 in this town (there are even rumours abroad of a shortage of second hand bikes, but I think that’s just alarmist).

I have not yet, however, had either the courage or a helmet to ride it in traffic. In the seven odd hours I’ve had it, I did no more than take it for a “test spin” to see that I could still mount a bike, stay seated, push pedals and move in a straight line. That accomplished, I wheeled it home and chained it up behind our kitchen.

The local second hand bicycle shop was interesting: one guy, sole trader, with a yard full of second hand bikes out back. In his shop he does up about four a day, sells them on and deals with customers wanting minor repairs and accessories as he goes.

I walked in in the morning, looked about, and came back after an hour or two to claim “my” bike, at that time the last left on his “showroom floor”. In the course of making a few small adjustments and dealing with other customers, he had to turn bicycle-seekers away, saying he would have more tomorrow.

“Bit embarrassing,” he said sheepishly as I wheeled my red girly-girl bike out, “bike shop with no bikes to sell for the rest of the day. Only have one pair of hands though.”

I should also be able to pick up a second-hand computer tomorrow for under £500. I’d prefer a laptop, but need something that will be able to run the iPod. Still shouldn’t be too hard.

A lager problem looms on the horizon. I’ve a formal dinner on Wednesday requiring black tie and academic gown. Being an old wrinkly, ie over 24, I need to wear an MA gown, which has longer sleeves. The “Middle Combination Room”, however, ran out of MA gowns for hire (a mere £20 for the year, plus £40 refundable deposit) just as I arrived. They’re “looking into it” and may be able to scrounge up more.

The problem is size: length from shoulder to mid-calve, almost heel. I apparently thus need a 52” gown. They had nothing left in anything close to my length.

I may have to buy one second-hand, for a slightly galling £50. Harrumph. That or pretend to be a young, dynamic 24 year old and content myself with shorter sleeves.

However, there is a “gown proctor” who may bar you from your graduation ceremony if you’re improperly attired.

Also, on a previous post, it turns out that the University Motor Proctor, from whom one must seek permission to “keep” a car, was until three or four years ago still formally called the Horse Proctor.

And on yesterday’s post, with picture of King’s College: King’s chapel is apparently built on “our” land. It seems Henry VIII expropriated a chunk of Trinity Hall’s land to build it. The Hall has also had a poor history of real estate dealings and late-night poker with other colleges over the centuries and thus, instead of winding up spectacularly endowed, and owning nearly as much land as the Queen, is left with a cosy little sandwich of land between Kings, Clare and Trinity.

Still, it adds to the friendly, less institutional feel of the place that everyone has to kind of jumble in together and meet each other.

Right, off to a pub crawl. News of that later.

PS I am now posting my entries on “Cambridge time”, Lyn’s should still be “locally” dated.

The quality of Cambridge accommodation is often strained …

No, it's not where I live. It is not in fact, even my college.

It is though, a view of St John's chapel and Trinity College (kindly provided from the Burnt Toast photo log permission of Lisa), which is pretty close to the view I walk past most days on my way to check my e-mail at Trinity Hall. Especially the grey sky, after a few days of unseasonal sunshine.

Anyway, I am beginning to settle into the house, now that I can enter and leave at will. We lucky few, we band of brothers off Mill Road are, apparently, in the lap of comparative luxury in our pad.

Few students it seems, even lofty graduates, get brand new accommodation and a comfortable ratio of six students to two bathrooms, let alone a new kitchen with washer and dryer - and the college has given us an extra (albeit small-ish) fridge as the one we have is not really big enough for six men, though it has freezer space for an army.

There are contradictory rumours about whether we will get access to the College's broadband, or whether we will have dial-up only access from home. Still, we have the Middle Combination Room (ie Grad Student Society) computing officer in our house, so that should be good. Mind you, I've not yet seen him - he seems to keep late hours, but has apparently been preparing for a conference in Cyprus that he is now away upon.

Upsides of our unusual situation are that we have unusual freedom in running our own affairs and will not, after a slight panic attack on my part, be subject to £100 a year in laundry fees. We have to buy the supplied bedding, but can wash it ourselves without paying.

We have a college-provided cleaning lady who lives nearby, called the "bedmaker", despite the fact that she does not, in fact, make the beds.

On the downside, we apparently cannot put anything on the walls - the college is actually leasing this house from a private landlord for 3 years while they construct new buildings at Wychfield (where I had, at one stage, hoped to be). We also cannot smoke indoors, not a problem for me, but an issue for some of my continental compatriots who, in innocent ignorance, have been smoking in the kitchen with the windows open.

I wasn't super-happy about the cigarette smoke, but so long as they kept it to one well-ventilated room I was happy. Now seems they'll have to smoke outside.

Getting along very well with S. the Italian Sociologist, who I will call the Italian Sociologist as he shares the same first names as our Greek Mathematician. The Italian Sociologist and the Australian lawyer have already had some interesting cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary conversations and bonded over our mutual love of his two man coffee percolator.

We sound like a bar joke: two Italians, and Australian, two Greeks and an Englishman walked into a house off Mill Road and …

My room is small-ish, but not too bad.

It has more storage space than I know what to do with. My desk has three tiny old-fashioned letter drawers at desk level - despite the pull-out keyboard shelf making it's ikea catalogue origins abundantly clear. It also has a small cupboard with two shelves.

I have a plain pine chest at the foot of my bed, and two drawers pull out of the bed base. One of these is blocked by my three-drawer side table, which is just far enough from the wall opposite my bed to open the mid-sized wardrobe. To the left of the wardrobe is a six-shelf pine bookcase, which protrudes slightly into the desk nook.

My window is over the desk, and provides plenty of light and an ample, nay unparalleled, view of the neighbour's shambolic back yard and the train tracks in the mid-distance. Still, the place is warm, comfortable, clean and new - though not very central. Apparently one is often lucky in college housing to get one of these, let alone four.

I have spoken to a friend at a BIG college who has described her accommodation as including a shower (no bath) where she is “afraid to touch the walls”. Ick.

Still, it is amusing that our house actually falls about two centimetres off the official (larger) map of Cambridge University mailed out to me. (I guess we are in “here be dragons” territory.)

The College itself is lovely, but more words and photos (once I have the technology) on that soon.

Cambridge: arriving with more whimper than bang
(travel blog from Doug)

So, I’m finally here. *gasp, pant* Arrived Monday, spent two days commuting to London to sight-see, and went to the first law orientation lecture this morning (though classes don’t start properly until the 9th).

There’s a goodly number of new graduate students wandering around with a “oh, wow” and “if I weren’t so overwhelmed right now, I’d probably be freaking out” sort of expression. Including me.

There’s a lot of administrative stuff to sort out before classes start. Not to mention sorting out the dynamics of living in a house with five other men (yes, a six boy, all-male house), with two bathrooms and three toilets.

But no-one wants that guff, they want narrative.

The baggage haul: escape from Paris
(or, “you’ll miss nothing if you skip this bit”)

So, my last day in Paris I’d built over an hour’s safety margin into my plan to get to out to Charles De Gaulle - and needed every minute of it. I just missed the 10.00 am transfer bus advertised by my hotel, and the next bus was at 10.30. (Proof you should make those connections by taxi, not metro.)

Still, my flight wasn’t until 12.25, plenty of time.

Wrong. I was on an Air France transfer bus, and British Airways (my Qantas partner) was their LAST drop-off. When I just made check-in, I simply couldn’t be bothered attempting to conceal the vast 38 kg extent of my luggage. I received a very sweet warning about “next time” from the charming French check-in attendant, who checked my bag and back-pack without blinking.

So much for all my scheming over hand luggage.

On arrival at Gatwick I whipped through immigration (after a slightly nerve-wracking three minute quiz) grabbed my bags and was told at the bus counter I could transfer to the 1 pm bus, leaving in 5 minutes. As this would get me into Cambridge at 5-ish not 6-ish, I seized the moment (and my bags) and ran for the bus.

Well, more scooted towards the bus with a fractious luggage trolley that constantly veered left, but whatever.

Cambridge, the Santa Porter and a towel

Four long hours later, I hit Cambridge, and managed to muddle my way down from the bus station, through the cobbled market square, to the Trinity Hall Porters lodge (at the end of a long alley beside the Senate House) and got some keys from a veritable English Santa Claus of a Porter.

My house, it turned out, was a fair bit out of the centre of town. I was solemnly advised by Mr Porter, on viewing my luggage, to catch a taxi.

A Cambridge black cab, with “hackney carriage” emblazoned on its side, got out to my house for £5 and – after struggling with a slightly stiff door key, I dumped my bags in my room and headed out to buy the vital thing I was missing – a towel.

Douglas Adams was right, a dude should know where his towel is. Had I had one with me, I would have been spared a good deal of drama.

Of towels, and keys

It was a half-hour walk into town and by 6 pm the only thing seemingly open was Marks and Spencers, which had a discount fluffy bath towel for £10. I grabbed it and some food, not realising the cheaper Sainsbury’s was open up the road.

After a 30 minute walk home, I could not get the front door key to work.

I was stupefied, towel-bearing and darkness was closing in. All hopes of hot bath or a soothing gin lay beyond the stubborn green door with its pretty stained glass panels. My previous experience of being locked out did not reassure me.

I went down to my major thoroughfare, Mill Road (a good place for cheap eats, pubs, bikes, wine, computers, pubs, and books – there may also be a pub or two) bought a chicken burger and the walked back to contemplate the door again.

It was still – despite both my efforts *and* the purchase of a chicken burger - locked.

No-one else was home. I did not have a number for the Porter’s lodge. I was facing another 30 minute walk into town.

My will snapped and I caught another cab.

“Can you drop me at the Senate House?” I asked.

“Where are you going, then?” asked the cabbie.

I explained my situation and said my landlord was Trinity Hall.

“I can drop you at Trinity Hall if you like,” replied the cabbie.

“Fine,” I said with faintly dubious gratitude. “If it’s possible.”

It is indeed, it seems, possible to hurtle a cab through a series of narrow cobbled alleys not seemingly wide enough to both park and open a door.

It can even be done without removing side-mirrors.

I was amazed, and happily parted with another £5 at the former coach-entrance to Trinity. (I later learned that busses are equally cavalier - or skilled – when I had to slowly back up against a wall to allow a bus to wiggle round a corner in the manner a large, blue, brick shaped cat might.)

The benevolent Santa Clause-like Porter swapped my door key, gave me the Lodge number and said to call if the changed key didn’t work on my return.

I caught another cab home (my legs still weak and aching from two weeks’ sight-seeing), and duly failed to open the door. After calls to the Porters from a phone booth, the college Director of Works was summoned. The sight of a large man struggling with my small key ensued.

He eventually won the battle and got me in

“It’s new, that’s what it is. Not your fault,” he grumbled.

Only in Cambridge could something’s failure to work be blamed on its being new (ie installed after Gladstone was Prime Minister).

I was then armed with a back-door key as an alternative, and promised that the front door lock would be changed in the morning.

I had a bath, a gin and tonic, and stepped out through the back door to walk down to the phone booth and call my parents. I put the key in the backdoor to lock it.

And there it jammed, in the lock.

I had gone from a house I could not open, to one I could not secure.

I trudged the block and a half to call the Porters, and assure them that tomorrow would be soon enough to call out the Director again to free the key I had wedged irretrievably into the lock.

But I called my parents first.

And sheepishly succeeded in un-jamming the lock again on my own on my return, though not without the sort of stupefied pride normally reserved for apprentices drawing swords from stones.

Not really such a bad moving to a new town story, what’s your worst?

Latest installment of Naylor
Guest blog by Lyn

Some of you may be aware that Doug has been posting a crime serial online – you can find it here. I received a draft of final chapter yesterday with instructions to post it here, as it is a work in progress. To aid new readers, I’ve included the last two sentences from the previous chapter, just to get you all in the mood. I think Doug will appreciate your feedback.

The conclusion of Naylor: pages 102 – 103.

I knew it wouldn’t be as simple as that of course. What I didn’t suspect was how much less simple, and how very much more painful things were going to get.

* * * *

“I wish I had a hacksaw”, said Marina pensively.

I’d found Marina. Or rather, she’d found me. I’d been whacked on the head with a shovel, and chained to a bathtub. Marina now hovered over me with a complete set of dental instruments, a blender, and what looked like a microwave wired into a lawnmower.

“Before you kill me Marina”, I said, trying to maintain an air of nonchalance, “I’d just like to know why.”

“Why?” she asked, grinning horribly. “Well, I’m glad you ask, Elliot. I’m starting my army of zombies, and you were getting too close to the truth.”

Ah yes. My zombie theory. She knew me well.

“So will I become one of your mindless minions of darkness?”

“Hardly”, she responded. “You were annoying enough when we were dating. Besides, I’ve got enough help for the present.” A shadow fell across the shower curtain, as Jenny walked into the room, a horrible blueish tinge to her skin.

“Hello, Elliot” she said. “I’ve come to watch.”

Jenny and Marina smiled at each other. “Jenny”, Marina said. “I just can’t find that hacksaw. You know, the blue handled one. It’s my favourite.”

“I think you left it out in the kitchen, after using it on that pizza guy”, Jenny said “I’ll go get it.”

She turned, and winked at me. “Don’t worry Elliot. We won’t be keeping you too much longer.”

Postcard from Paris
(travel blog by Doug)

Alrighty, prizes for anyone who catches a spelling mistake. (A shout out to my mother who caught my consistent use of "Dodge" instead of "Doge" in entries about Venice, now corrected.)

A cheap hotel, in the right neighbourhood

So my hotel - the Residence Mauroy - is cheap, in a good neighbourhood, being just off the Bde Madelaine (easy walking distance to Musee D'Orsay, Place de la Concorde, the Louvre, etc). The towels are more bare than thread, and the bathroom (which has an olfactory ambiance all of its own) has those pink and grey tiles of the 1950s, which also may have been about the last time anyone cleaned the grouting.

An 80s paisley beadspread hides the room's true colours, in the form of a blanket with a very 70s pattern of burnt-orange circles (think groovy hotplates). A seventies-style portrait of a peasant woman with a straw in her mouth looking drunkenly (I presume
"seductively" was the intent) over one shoulder completes the slight bordello ambiance created by the mirror occupying one entire wall of my room.

Still, given I am in the district of the Church of Mary Magdelene, and every third shop just back off the high-fashion strip seems to be a porn store, maybe the subtle nuances of my decor are appropriate.

The long, inward opening windows, are, however, very Parisienne. It's cosy, cute and mine. Cheap, clean and near all the big attractions and with friendly desk staff who let me use my French, just what I need.

First night in town - Thursday - I was pretty tired and did little more than walk around the neighbourhood, watch "Smallville" dubbed into French and fall asleep early.

Art-shock part I, and stereotypically "Parisienne" waitressing

Friday, I spent the morning at Sacre Couer, where I managed to get up to the tower and down into the crypt with absolutely no other tourists about. A very special feeling, being alone with that view of Paris' rooftops.

Then I completely did my feet and calves in at the Musee D'Orsay which was closed except for a special exibition when I was last here in 1993-4. The fact that it covers really the only period of art where I know my apples (1848 - 1950) proved a real liability: I was completely overloaded and went into art-shock pretty much by the time I got to the impressionists.

Had to bail before Van Gogh and bolt to the cafeteria for a bracing baugette before returing to the field.

My fellow art lovers seemed to be showing the strain also, towards the end of post-impressionism many looked as lively and coherent as survivors of Verdunne.

I went home for a little nap, then decided to hit the 5eme/Latin Quarter district for some dinner. Hadn't a clue what I was doing, but bumped into four Australians who took me under their wing. After walking all the way up to the Pantheon we desecended again to the Seine, where at 8.40 pm with exceeding ill grace a waitress seated us and condescended to allow us to order from the 15 euro tourist menu. The food was excellent, the service characterised by clearing a place through the expedient of flinging the cutlery across the room (I exaggerate, but not by much).

At half time a different waiter was called off the benches and service improved. Karma struck when we realised we'd not been billed for one of our meals. We paid up rapidly and got out, claiming the "karma discount on service" as I put it.

The journey of over 1,000 steps begins with a lot of climbing, and finishes much the same way

Saturday I climbed over 1,000 upward steps taking in the Notre Dame towers, the Pantheon, Dome des Invalides (Napoleon's tomb), the Eiffel Tower by the stairs (I took the lift all the way up last time) and the Arc de Triomphe. Each comes with a minimum 250 stairs. (Well, not Napoleon's tombs). Still you gotta love a good roofscape.

Also, after my dose of art-shock from just too many museums I decided I just needed a day of stuff I could climb and then go "ooh, pretty" while sweating profusely and cursing my limited water supplies.

Saturday night my will broke and I went to do some laundry, again in the 5eme arrondisement (there just isn't a laundrette near me), which involved taking the metro a total of 10 stops and changing train once. I should have put myself through too, as I was feeling pretty rank after all my stair climbing. Still, when I got home a bit after 10 pm, it was a good tired.

Just being a tourist (art-shock II), and an unexpected afternoon

Today has been a bit nervy, a little anxious. I think it's realising that by this time tomorrow I will be in Cambridge. I tackled the Louvre in the morning (and can I say there is a special circle of HELL reserved for those who take cheesy flash-photo portraits of loved ones in the ruck before the Mona Lisa).

Yep, I did the tourist hit-list of the Venus de Milo, the winged victory and the Mona Lisa. I had more fun though getting out of the tourist menagerie and into the state rooms of Napoleon III. "Sumptuous" is not the word (and that's probably not how one spells it either). They were still in use for government functions as recently as 1989 by the Minister of Finance, and if I could throw dinner parties there at government expense, I'd have hung onto it as long as possible too.

Anyway, despite the "day of stairs" I lapsed back into "museum shock" pretty fast after clocking up a measly 3.5 Louvre hours. It was nap time again, and the afternoon was a bit grey and miserable. Still, I needed to do something.

I thought I'd hit the musuem of Paris history in the 3eme arrondisement. On breaking into daylight out of the metro, I discovered myself in one of the prettiest areas of Paris. Admittedly, BMW owning upper-middle class, "the poor don't come here to spread litter and disease in front of our antique shops, thank you kindly" kind of pretty, but pretty none the less. I got distracted from my mission by the signs pointing the way to the National Picasso Museum.

Picasso was a childhood hero (and not for his prodigous successes with women). Like the Guggenhiem in Venice, and the Musee D'Orsay, I felt surrounded by old friends in a calm and airy environment. It was a real boost to the spirits, as was the coffee and cake I had at a patisserie afterwards. (Tip: when looking for a good snack, follow the trail of locals clutching baguettes back to its source.)

I was even complemented on my French by a salesman at the Louvre shop today.

So, not a bad day at all.

"Convicts with a record": the fine art of the film review
Guest blog by Lyn

Warning! possible spoilers for a really crap film!

I've been enjoying a bunch of reviews for a film I haven't seen, and has only just been released in the US: Cold Creek Manor, a "horror" "thriller" starring Sharon Stone and Dennis Quaid, which is apparently neither horrifying, nor thrilling. It's bad, the kind of bad that allows reviewers to crack their knuckles, roll back their sleeves, and start slinging the mud.

My top three quotes:

1. From James Sanford: "Quaid and Stone look utterly ridiculous when they scream, a major debit in a movie of this type."

2. From Sean O'Connell: "It's only scary if a malicious redneck holding a grudge terrifies you".

3. From Roger Ebert - Cold Creek Manor is another one of those movies where a demented fiend devotes an extraordinary amount of energy to setting up scenes for the camera. Think of the trouble it would be for one man, working alone, to kill a horse and dump it into a swimming pool." I know what you mean Roger - I'm exhausted just contemplating it.

Cold Creek Manor is one of those awesome flicks, which every five frames focuses on a rusty dagger, a noose, a stained glass window or a dark well. Think those things will be Significant Later In The Film? Yes. Yes they will. Ah, the gloriousness of bad horror film predictability.

To finish on a better note: I've been enjoying some people's wit on the Four Word Film Review site. The top voted film review is currently this great one for the Blair Witch Project: "Tense. Intense. In Tents."

How about this one for My Girl: "Bees, 1. Culkin, 0."

In honour of Douglas, I also offer one for Batman: "Joker removed from pack".

The title of this blog entry is actually a four word review for a film. Anyone able to guess it without cheating?

Moments when you know you're travelling
(postcard from Doug 3)

(1) When the American business major opposite you on the train leans in confidentially and says:

ABM: "Is it just me, or is Italy full of beautiful women?"

Doug: "No, it's not just you."

ABM: "I mean, American women look good. But they just all get so big after about their twenties."

Doug thinks: And that would have nothing to d owith the US diet of 50% sugar and 50% meat.

Doug says: "Mmm."

ABM: "And y'know, I didn't expect Italy to be so full of graffitti."

Doug thinks: Coz they didn't, like, invent the word.

Doug says: "Mmm."

(2) When standing under the central dome at San Pietro Basillica and saying to oneself, "Ohmigod, 6 years of Latin class were not in vain! That reads, 'You are Peter and on this rock* I will build my church and I will give to you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.' Yeah, I rock!"

"Oh, look, there's a translation in the guidebook. Still at least I now get what these damn papists mean about the importance of Peter, and why everything in the Vatican has keys on it.

"What is that shrill whining noise?

"Ah, just my protestant ancestors revolving in their graves at my having set foot in this more than human scale Catholic church full of graven idols. Pipe down guys, it's beautiful and I'm not about to convert or anything."

*Insert chuckle at Latin play on words.

(3) When doing the maths in the shower and realising you're in Venice four nights, but have only booked into the convent guest-house for three.

(4) Hearing in a bar, or on a train - indeed, up to twice in one sitting - on announcing to a group of English speakers that you are Australian: "Man, you guys can drink!"

Yes, yes, we can. It's because our beer actually has a detectable alchoholic content.

And that we're all alchoholics too, anyway.

(5) Explaining in fractured phrase-book Italian to an elderly, non-English speaking nun at Convent 2 that you are not absconding on the bill, but have a train to catch, and paid the bill the previous day to the English speaking convent secretrary who has yet to clock on.

And do indeed have a reciept.

And that you have not made any phone calls.

Nor had anything from the mini-bar.

Okay, so not that last one at a convent.

Postcard from Venice II
(An innacurate note on Venetian constitutional history from Doug)

I did really love the Doge's palace yesterday, not just for the architecture and history - but for what both said about the system of government under the Dogate and the Republic. Yes, the geeky constitutional lawyer in me came to the fore and dammit, I'm gonna share.

By the end of the Republic (ie Napoleon), the Doge - tititular ruler of Venice - was little more than a figurehead (think our governor general), though he was not allowed to miss a single one of a myriad meetings. He could not make decisions except with government members present, had very little actual discretion or authority, could not recieve ambassadors alone, could not leave Venice except on comission and could not go out in public without government minders. One wonders whether the poor guy was allowed to take a crap in private. Yet when he died, the business of government ceased for an interminably long, convoluted election process. (Think any of the models for an Australian republic not involving electing an Australian president by popular vote.)

Where later republics and deomcracies have had an entrenched separation of powers (legislative, judicial, exeuctive and ecclesiastical), Venice just seems to have believed in a proliferation of bodies with overlapping fields of power and responsibility. These polycentric and competing centres of power seem to have been the chief check on abuse of power, resulting in a web of inter-related judicial/administrative bodies with power to intervene in each others deicision making that would make Kafka, Focault or Centerlink proud.

A fantastic example is the Council of Ten, a temporary security body set up to thwart a plot to overthrow the dogate, which became a permanent "security council", with a counterintuitive seventeen members (10 councillors, 1 Dodge and 6 advisors to the Doge).

Anyway, while technically an aristocracy, it seems to have been fairly democratic. All aristocrat males over 25 (or something) - being between 1200 and 2000 people - met in the grand council and delegate power to various other bodies such as the senate and tribunals. There were an amazing number of jobs, including that of Public Advocates entrusted with upholidng the principle of legality. Really it was a magistracy, rule by officials invested with public power.

Also, one could inform anonymously by posting notes in "lions' mouths", carved heads on walls which had mouths that were - in effect - post boxes for tip offs for the magistracy.

Also, fascinatingly, Venice was almost unique in being ruled from a relatively open and accesible palace - not a castle. There is, in fact, no real defensive structure on the islands.

Postcard from Venice
(regular blogging from Doug)

When I was last in Italy I was five, and with a single masterstroke, I blew my parents food budget for three days.

Foolish, foolish parents, after the waiter had explained the specials - in English - they allowed me to order my own meal. I ordered the rainbow trout, the most expensive thing on the menu. They gulped, but expected I'd peter out part way through one side and that they'd get the rest. Nuh uh.

I steamed through one side of a huge trout and asked the waiter to turn it over for me.

As a commemoration, I treated myself to a decent dinner of grilled sea-bass, salad and house white this evening - as the Venetians are supposed to know their fish. It was a little restaurant between Campo Santa Margherita and the Accademia, and I stopped there because it had a crazy bric-a-brac filled courtyard and was playing jazz tunes I recognised. The fish was fine.

My time in Venice has been, by and large, poorly organised. This is in part due to the fact (which will surprise not one regular reader) that I have come down with a minor cold travelling. I have also found slugging round in an unseasonal mini-heat wave rather tiring. (A pox on everyone who said Venice was colder than Rome this time of year. I left my shorts and other sueful clothes at the hotel I'm returning to in Rome.)

Anyway, travel highlights, so far:

When strict planning falls down and goes "clunk"

Never back your interpretation of luggage rules against an airline. I checked the 25 kg wheelie-bag with my Cambridge winter wardrobe and expected to carry on my backpack at Sydney. Sure, it was a little large, but it strapped down enough to fit in the luggage-size tester if you took the day pack off. And the day pack didn't count, right?

Turns out it does if you're also carrying on a duty-free bag with a camera in it.

They checked the backpack for me, so at least I got round the weight restrictions (thus far - two flights to go).

However, I then had to collect the bag at Heathrow and make my connection to Rome. I did not realise on surrendering my bag that baggage claim was AFTER passport control. On panicking, and then assuming my best polite, befuddled young man deameanour I prevailed on a nice woman in a BA jacket to prevail on a nice woman from passport control to basically wave me through an empty EU-citizens only line so I could grab my bag, sprint for the train to Terminal 1 and dash up to check-in for Rome.

I was stressed, I was awash in an unsightly slick of my own sweat.

I was, in the end, over an hour early.

That's when the first nosebleed kicked in.

It pleasantly chose to return in the airport train-station at Rome (25 degrees, 80% humidity I tells ya, struggling with a big pack and wheelie bag). I was saved from utter humiliation by the donation of tissues by some Australian tourists, mind you I already had one hand that looked like it'd been in a knife-fight.

Still, I got weirder looks wrestling my luggage down Viat Ottavio, past Saint Paul's Basillica, to my hotel.

The desk manager at my swank hotel showed considerable sang-froid in allowing me into the place.

Rome highlights

My first afternoon in Rome I was a jet-lagged wreck. So I hit the nearest B-list attraction to my hotel, the Castel San' Angelo, once the Vatican fortress in times of trouble.

You expect fellow Canberrans to turn up in weird places, you do not expect to see a guy from high-school you've no desire to catch up with in the cafe near the top of the Castel San' Angelo enjoying what looked like a rather tense moment with his girlfriend. I slid anonymously by.

The Castel summed up my general impression of Rome. Rome seems to have the same attitude to its history as Australia did to natural resources in the 1950s - there's so damn much of it, no-one can see the point in environmental safeguards or proper maintenance.

Labelling veers from bilinigual, to erratic, to year 10 assignment paste-up jobs. Things are randomly screened off with orange webbing, or held together with extensive, ugly scaffolding.

That said, I loved the rooms restored by Pope Paulus III and the view from the top.

Day two was the absolute high point, where in a too-long line at the Colloseum a petite American woman turned to me and said: "Do you speak English? Okay, something is wrong here. I think we're in the wrong line. Hold my place while I find out."

She returned to tug me out of the line and save me half an hour of my life in getting to a line-free ticket booth. She was an architect from Georgia, three months into a long holiday. We teamed up for the day and blitzkreiged the Colloseum, Roman forum, Palatine hill, nearby piazzas and took a self-guided walking tour via the Pantheon to the Spanish steps area, where we stopped for dinner and too much Chianti. Great day.

The Vatican and San Pietro's basillica the next day were mind-boggling, but more of that later. My room at Hotel Columbus, for an internet fire-sale special, was a dream: small, but quiet, comfortable and terribly atmospheric. Cluttered with just the right amount of old dark-wood furniture and a new (if teeny) ensuite in white tiles with a shower head virtually over the hand basin. A five minute stroll from the Vatican, perfect.

Venice impressions

Venice is like everything I loved about Melbourne, but multiplied and folded in on itself endlessly - alley-ways upon allies in a thick gorgeous tangle of history, canals, palaces, decay, gondolas, beautiful Italian women and loud American and German tourists.

I some respects, much like "Castrovalva" the Escher-inspired Dr Who episode about a town of courtyards and fountains where (not unlike Canberra) you can travel in a straight path and come back to where you started.

I simply adore Venice, but have not planned my time here well. Not sure that matters, enjoying the atmosphere as much as the attractions. Have managed the Piazza San Marco, the San Marco museums, the Doge's palace and the Accademia of fine arts. Should have gone to the the Peggy Guggenheim last night - in September they have late opening to 10 pm Saturday, but having gone out to dinner again my last night in Rome with "Ms Georgia" and being out way past my bed time, I decided extra sleep was the better part of valour.

Where the decay in Rome seems the result of near-criminal neglect, the decay in Venice seems part of its personality. In Rome the clutter of history elbowing the jowls of the modern seems overwhelming, in Venice - despite obvious historical layers and tourist-trap intrusions - it all seems made of one piece.

My convent-owned accomodation here is not bad, but not as good as Rome. No nuns - just very friendly tri-lingual desk staff - it's a fairly functional guest wing, and I'm in the less recently refurbished bit. The garden is mostly closed for structural repairs. Rooms are spartan, but functional. A little problem with mosquitoes off the river at night - but nothing drastic bad. My outer wall and wooden shutters appear original, which is lovely.

Tomorrow I have a good deal of ground to cover. Next time I'll try to blog more briefly and after less wine.

What Doug is really doing: part 1
Guest blog by Lyn

Doug has of course been lying to all of us.

He's not going to Cambridge on a scholarship. Oh, no.

On Monday morning (shortly after posting his last entry on this website), Douglas called me. Early.

"Lyn . . ." he said. "That is Lyn, isn't it?"

"Yeah", I said sleepily. "Wassup?"

"I've been brainwashed all this time!" he said hurriedly. "I'm not Doug at all! My last memory of my real life is that I was sitting in the back of a dingy taxi cab in Prague. I was posing as a bad-ass goth nightclub singer, in an attempt to penetrate an international drug cartel."

I yawned. "Really. What did you wear?"

"Black latex and . . . look, that's not the point. The point is that I don't know who I was working for, or why . . . but clearly, they are luring me to England to kill me. Horribly."

"You wanna avoid that, I think."

Silence. Then;

"You know, I really should have called Marissa."

"She is more of a morning person. So what are you going to do?"

"Stick with the Cambridge story for now. I'll even post up blogs pretending that I'm there, because that's what I want them to think. But I'll head deep underground. I know I have contacts. If I only I could remember their phone numbers."

"That's the problem with amnesia."

"Yeah. Thanks for that. Got any suggestions?"

"Do what Matt Damon did. You know. In that film. "

"Drive around in a mini?"

"No, sleep with Franka Potente. She's pretty hot."

"Good idea. I'll call you from the road. But hang up, then call me from an outside line."

"Sure thing, Tony Soprano."

Anyone else heard from Doug lately? Let's hear about it.

Quiz this!
Guest blog by Lyn

Last night I was at a work trivia night.

I mostly enjoy trivia nights, but they bring out the worst in some people. OK, the worst in pretty much everyone who attends. The guy who runs it is usually a megalomaniac. All the people who huddle, convinced of their intellectual inferiority. Those who smugly announce to the room their intellectual superiority (“Oh. That’s easy!” – to every question).

As most of the questions were about sport, music I don’t listen to, and TV shows I don’t watch, I did pretty badly. The question I was most embarrassed about getting wrong was: "for which three movies did Jack Nicolson win an Oscar?" I got two of the three, and I’m shocked – shocked! that he didn’t win for "Chinatown". If you can get all three without cheating and looking up IMDB, then you should have been on my table.

First thing I found at work this morning is a string of emails about all the so-called ‘correct’ answers that were actually full of shit. George Lazenby is so not the first James Bond – Sean Connery was in Doctor No. The capital of the Netherlands? Well we answered The Hague, and it turns out it’s Amsterdam – but most guidelines list both as correct. And some singer called Lulu did too sing a cover of Locomotion, but a workmate concedes it may not have been released in Australia.

The very worst question however was: “which film changed the way we see cinema?” I thought the answer would be the first 'talking' film, but I couldn’t’ think of the name, so we wrote down “Debbie Does Dallas”. The answer? Jaws. Jaws? Seriously?? I love the film, and it’s supposed to have changed the way we don’t go into the water anymore, but it’s hardly the first anything. Maybe "the first big motorised fish" film, or "coolest film score". I was expecting the next question to be: which colour is the best colour in the world. Yellow! Of course! A point to table nine!

So you can keep your damn quiz nights with your stupid professional quiz night punters. Next time I get the urge, I’m just going to curl up on the couch and ask myself questions from the 1980s Trivial Pursuit set about the Soviet Union and Michael Jackson. Good times.

Sex, lies and videotape: “Cunnamulla” still under siege
Guest blog by Lyn

In 2000, Dennis O’Rourke released his controversial documentary, “Cunnamulla”. The film concerns the town of the same name – 800km west of Brisbane, with a population of about 1500. He interviewed Cunnamulla residents about their lives – the challenges of the isolated community, the interaction of the locals, the racial mix and the various tensions. As this ABC article put it, “To this day, many of the townsfolk resent the way Cunnamulla was portrayed in the movie.”

O’Rourke was hit first with a defamation action, which you can read about here. But a second, more recent challenge has emerged.

Two teenagers, at least one of whom was thirteen at the time of filming, were interviewed by O’Rourke. Their parents claim that O’Rourke discussed the content of the interview prior commencing – and it was agreed he could speak with their daughters about particular subjects, including the “Miss Maid Contest” and racism.

The discussion which took place in front of the cameras was much broader. One of the girls frankly discussed her sex life: “I would prefer to use protection but most boys out here don't like using protection. You just tell them to watch what they do.”

Their parents are suing O’Rourke. The surprising thing is that they are doing so under section 52 of the Trade Practices Act – a section more commonly associated with second hand cars or supermarket advertising. Section 52 relates to conduct in ‘trade or commerce’ that is misleading or deceptive. The parents’ argument seems to be that O’Rourke’s conduct was misleading or deceptive because he went outside the (allegedly) agreed subject limitations.

It seems odd that interviewing subjects for a documentary is activity in ‘trade or commerce’, but a majority of the Full Federal Court has just confirmed this view – you can check it out in hard copy law reports under Hearn v O’Rourke (2003) ATPR 41-931. The majority’s reasoning is that if a documentary is ‘commercial’, anything essential to creating that documentary is activity related to trade or commerce.

So what does this actually mean?

This decision does not mean that O’Rourke has lost, it just means that they can try to sue him using this avenue. A major point of contention is likely to be the allegation that he promised to confine the interview to any subject – I can’t imagine any documentary maker agreeing to such a hard and fast rule before an interview.

I do think O’Rourke may have taken advantage of his youthful interview subjects – it’s so typical of a thirteen year old to talk tough, and then think – crap! People will watch this! But that’s a separate issue to this scary legal precedent.

Although I’m resorting to The Castle style ‘it’s the vibe’ rambling, this just feels off to me. If I have to come up with a legal argument – I’d say that this construction of ‘trade and commerce’ is too broad. As for a non-legal argument: if people are really worried about how a documentary maker or journalist could portray them, then they should watch what they say in front of a camera.

To finish with O’Rourke’s own words, back when the first defamation case began: "It's the truth. It's not just the truth for the people depicted in the film but for thousands of other people like them all over Queensland, all over Australia for that matter. I don't feel I have to defend that position." Well, it looks like he may have to defend it all over again.

Hello, Sandbox!
Guest blog by Lyn

Greetings. I'll be surfacing every now and then over the next few weeks, just keeping Doug's seat warm for him. Likely themes which may recur: B-Grade horror, copyright, bad poetry, and really embarassing stories about Doug from uni. Ha! the power!

As this is a bit of a test entry, I'll keep it short - but I had to share this great article about the alleged break-up of J-Lo and Ben:

"In the meantime, we'll have to console one another by engaging in intimate chats describing what went through our minds when we heard the devastating news. Personally, my thoughts ran the gamut from Who Gives a Crap? all the way to Seriously, Who Gives a Crap?"

I also liked this bit: "What is the world coming to when Hollywood's biggest stars can't even be relied upon to go through with their sham marriages? At least Elizabeth Taylor was a professional about it."

I love the smell of backlash in the morning.

"Are you having a sea change, sir?"

I like windfalls. The change in the back of the sock drawer. The unclaimed raffle prize that’s been waiting at reception so long someone finally snaps and harangues you about not collecting your rotting fruit basket. That kind of thing.

In a series of misguided attempts to straighten out my financial affairs before leaving Australian legal practice for a return to student life in the UK, I called my former superannuation plan managers from when I was working with the firm in Sydney.

This wound up being a good thing. A much better thing, in fact, than filling in almost all of my e-tax forms for internet lodgement of my tax return, but packing all my papers away in my parents shed before realising I need last year’s notice of assessment to lodge over the internet had been.

And when I say “packing away”, I mean placed in a file in a box, inside a bigger box, wrapped in plastic, buried under other boxes, wedged between the spare fridge and table and buried behind my sister’s dining suite (she moved home again recently too, but for a longer spell than my two weeks).

Anyway, there was much confusion with the superannuation people who’d thought I’d left the firm a year and a half ago when I took extended leave of absence (given that the firm had not paid me a salary in eighteen months I suppose this was not unreasonable). The result being that an (on my part, completely forgotten) insurance policy I had through the firm had been paid out to me as a lump sum, and when the fund managers couldn’t reach me at my old Sydney address, it was put in some kinda managed investment thingee where it’s been compounding at a pleasing rate ever since.

It seems I’m a financial somnambulist, leading an unconscious life as an (albeit minor) investor. Sleep-investment, if you will.

Anyway, in the course of untangling all this, I had to explain my parents’ weird rural address.

“Where’s that?” asked the woman from the fund manager’s office.

“Um”, I replied, “I’m one of these people who live just over the border from Canberra. It’s a rural address, near Lake George if you’re driving to Sydney. It’s only about 30 minutes out of town.”

“Oh, are you having a sea change, then?”

I had to laugh. What does it say, considering that she manages the account for a very large law firm, about the state of the legal profession that she assumed at 27 I’d dropped out of the rat race to become a vigneron, or to raise alpacas or something?

Anyway, I’m having me a three-day holiday in Sydney before flying out to Rome. It was meant to be a low-key opportunity to stay with Rob, indulge in a little low-key madness and see a few old friends.

So, naturally, I wiped myself out staying out until 4 am on Saturday.

All right, I’m off to buy more luggage locks and window-shop digital cameras before I hit the airport duty free store tomorrow. I may post from the road, but Lyn – Sydney lawyer and occasional guest-blogger at fridaysixpm – may be posting some fresh material in my absence.

See you soon.