Today I explored worlds. There was the historical world of The Rocks, in Sydney. There was the world of characters I might build, expressed in the houses and the artefacts of the museums of The Rocks. There was... drabbit, I'm in danger of becoming pretentious. I spent this morning on a bus to Sydney and this afternoon in three museums, sorting out stuff that must be sorted. Also eating aniseed balls and swapping interesting historical tidbits.

I met a meat safe and two types of iceboxes, three historical varieties of toilet, and some cupboards made of packing boxes. I asked the museum (Susannah PLace Museum- very well worth visiting) staff if they minded me taking pictures and they were fine with it as long as I didn't publish them or anything. So I have lots of yummy photos for teaching. I also have a really good model of a corner shop from 100 years ago. Some of the contents in my shop are modern, for tourists, but the space and feel and the weighing machine are all authentic.

Then I was caught in a fabulous Sydney thunderstorm and my cousin had to rescue me.

More of my intrepid adventures tomorrow. maybe. Or maybe I'll stay indoors, looking over Sydney Harbour and gently working away.

I'll only have email access once a day, if you're trying to contact me.

Just sitting down to write, you know serious writing, and the thumber rumbles and the hail tickles the roof. Mmm... tossing up whether to switch off or not. Doh. It's very warm.

I've been hot all day. Not sure if it is the swine flu shot. Also have headache, sore neck, nausea and just plain blah. However, had to go to work. No fair.

As my other post on the Fiji trip was a bit long I thought I'd shower you with the highlights.

I forgot to say that the tease about Matthew being busted with a suitcase full of bras did eventuate. You see a suitcase full of underwire bras looks very interesting in the airport scanners. 'What is this? etc'

So we had our bags searched, offered our explanations and assurances that we weren't there to sell them, or the pencils or the exercise books. It was rather funny though. It was be nasty to Aussie week too so I was a bit concerned that they would be confiscated.

On Wednesday Kaaron had arranged to take us to a village associated with her housemaid. It was not too far from Nausouri, just out of Suva. It was really raining...lots and lots of rain. The road we turned off was dirt and a few times the bottom of the cab scrapped the road as it negotiated the pot holes and deep gouges full of mud. We were directed to the community hall. There were few people around, dogs, chickens. We sat on the mats and flowers in a couple of vases were brought in. Then after a while some people came in and then platters of fruit. (The most delicious fruit we had ever tasted). Ema and Kaaron did the talking. Kaaron convinced them to hold up the bras and we got photos. One of them tried a bra on so Matthew and Avi, the taxi driver, had to turn away, very red faced. It was funny.

It was great to sit there in that place, where people had no running water etc. The big hit was the couple of bars of chocolate we brought with us.

Then later that day we accompanied Kaaron to a book launch at the American Ambassador's residence. A lady named, Sheree Lipton, launched her book 'A Woman of the South Pacific', the story of her various sojourns in the islands, including, Fiji and Samoa. That was an interesting contrast to the morning's adventures. It was great meeting Sheree and her daughter Levani. We chanced to meet them again the next day at the Suva Museum.

The Suva Museum is set in some lovely botanical gardens. The collection is not very big but it is very interesting. I also got a shot of Kaaron being choked by a vine. Good shot.

Mmmm...on Thursday night Kaaron had arranged for Matthew and I to do a reading and a talk at the International School Suva. That went really well. I read from The Night of Masks and Spears from the CSFG Masques anthology. It has a Pacific Island theme so I thought it was appropriate. Matthew read from one of his Black Library shorts. There was a really interesting question and answer session afterwards. One key issue coming from that was how to Pacific writers get noticed, get published etc.

The world premiere of A positive, the short film based on Kaaron Warren's Aurealis Award winning story was showing in Kaaron's lounge room. We enjoyed that and the booze too. Thanks Kaaron.

Friday was shopping day. We went downtown Suva. Went it GB Hari hardware and bought the vintage movie posters Kaaron had written about in The Guardian Weekly. Then Matthew found an Indian comic shop interesting and we went in. It looked like the stock was the same stock from 1948 when the shop first openned. I asked the interesting question. "how will you read them they are in Hindi?" To which Matthew answered. "interesting question." Lol. Then we spotted the Marabaratta (sp?) and other related books on the shelf in English. They were really good looking books and pricey. Matthew bought three (even though he didn't really want to). As the shopkeeper relieved him of $200, he advised Matthew to be very careful with his money, even telling him which pocket to put his wallet in. I thought it was a bit late for that advice because Matthew's money had already been taken. But we were happy with the purchase. Kaaron then took us the her favourite place, Value City. This is a second hand shop where Kaaron has found many beautiful designer outfits over the years. All three of us dove in and spent well over an hour trawling through the racks, books and other bits. We also did craft shopping etc. Oh and had the worst taxi driver ever.

Apparently in Fiji, Friday is Bula shirt day. We told Matthew he had to have a Bula shirt for dinner that night. So to cut a long story short, Matthew has over five new Bula shirts and two second hand ones and he wore one. I didn't think he would but he did and he looks very well indeed. Then we headed for the Teppan Yaki restaurant called ShabuShabu and ate food.

Saturday was horror movie night. We also went to the Pure Fiji factory shop and I spent all the money I had on me. There was a bbq at the Hight Commission. I took over the cookinig. Well it was just sitting there unattended. Also we managed a few fruit stalls on the side of the road and 'cost useless' Kaaron's favourite or least favourite grocery store.

Sunday we drove back to Nadi. The weather was sunny. The views were spectacular. We saw islands and beaches and sea and blue skys and distant mountains. The mood was different. It was great.

Sunday dinner. Mistake. We opted for the Fijian Indian themed buffet at the hotel. Yuk and yuk and boo. Beef like leather. Lamb fat and bones. Chicken bones. But Matthew tells me the fish was good. Highlight of the night. Matthew wrote 2000 words while I did my best to distract him. I fell asleep. We woke up in the morning at the correct time 5.03am. Matthew doesn't do mornings. hahahaha. Made breakfast and the plane no worries.

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/radio-books-violin-lessons-also-haircut.html

Went in to KNOW radio station in ST Paul today and recorded an introduction to the NPR MORNING EDITION "Open Mike" piece I've been recording on audiobooks, and heard the edit. Asked them to see if they could find a bit more time in the piece for Audible founder Don Katz, who did an amazing interview and was pared down to about a sentence in the current edit. It'll go out in the next ten days, and as soon as I know when it goes out I'll put it up here. I talk to David Sedaris, Martin Jarvis, Don Katz and veteran audio producer/director Rick Harris in it.
Hi Neil,

I just read about your event in January, where in you will be narrating Peter and the Wolf. My husband and I are over joyed by this. We will hopefully be bringing our three girls up to see the performance. We did have one question though. Will you be reading the original version where the wolf actually is killed, and not the "oh my goodness our kids can't hear about death" version in which they bring him to the zoo? We are both, obviously, really hopeful that being you, and not afraid to scare children (thank you for that btw) will be speaking the true to the story version in which Peter shoots the wolf and then his dead body is paraded through the town as a trophy.

Thanks for your time,
~Cecily

PS- Do you know if there will be tickets for the event or the reception afterwards? It will be a long drive, and it would be nice to be prepared for either staking out seats all day or having tickets in hand. (We could not find any reservation information on the website)

I'd forgotten - or never knew - that there was an alternative version. The script I was sent is the Zoo version. I'll investigate...

And no, I do not know about tickets. I will find out.

Dear Neil,

Your Web Goblin offered to post photos of Coraline pumpkins, and when they were told this, my 8 and 11-year old daughters decided to make some. Here they are, along with 2 emoticon pumpkins and a turnip.

http://www.steampunkfamily.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/IMG_01521-300x225.jpg

I used them to illustrate a ghost story: http://www.steampunkfamily.com/2009/10/philomenas-fright/

Three of the four of us were Coraline characters for Halloween. (The 11-year old went her own way as Susan Sto-Helit.)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37435081@N03/4077708519/sizes/l/in/set-72157622616148613/

The Other Mother is the scariest thing I've ever been for Halloween. All the children (even the 4-year olds!) knew who I was, and I elicited much nervous laughter when I offered to sew buttons in their eyes.

Thank you for being VERY SCARY INDEED

I love how many families were Coraline families, this year.

If, like me, anybody else was intrigued by your mention of Kenneth Grahame's other works and wants to read them with a minimum of searching, they'll be happy to know both 'The Golden Age' and 'Dream Days' are available for free on the always invaluable Project Gutenberg:

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/291
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/270

Thanks for mentioning them in the first place; I'm always interested in children's lit of that time that has managed to slip through my net.

- B. Bolander

What a good idea. Two very beautiful, gently funny books by the author of The Wind in the Willows. I really enjoyed them, but stylistically they are, well, out of fashion, and will not be everybody's cup of Edwardian tea. Here's a passage that describes the illustration I put up yesterday, as small children steal through the house on a midnight expedition to obtain biscuits (ie cookies, if you are American):

The Blue Room had in prehistoric times been added to by taking in a superfluous passage, and so not only had the advantage of two doors, but enabled us to get to the head of the stairs without passing the chamber wherein our dragon-aunt lay couched. It was rarely occupied, except when a casual uncle came down for the night. We entered in noiseless file, the room being plunged in darkness, except for a bright strip of moonlight on the floor, across which we must pass for our exit. On this our leading lady chose to pause, seizing the opportunity to study the hang of her new dressing-gown. Greatly satisfied thereat, she proceeded, after the feminine fashion, to peacock and to pose, pacing a minuet down the moonlit patch with an imaginary partner. This was too much for Edward's histrionic instincts, and after a moment's pause he drew his single-stick, and with flourishes meet for the occasion, strode onto the stage. A struggle ensued on approved lines, at the end of which Selina was stabbed slowly and with unction, and her corpse borne from the chamber by the ruthless cavalier. The rest of us rushed after in a clump, with capers and gesticulations of delight; the special charm of the performance lying in the necessity for its being carried out with the dumbest of dumb shows.

Once out on the dark landing, the noise of the storm without told us that we had exaggerated the necessity for silence; so, grasping the tails of each other's nightgowns even as Alpine climbers rope themselves together in perilous places, we fared stoutly down the staircase-moraine, and across the grim glacier of the hall, to where a faint glimmer from the half-open door of the drawing-room beckoned to us like friendly hostel-lights. Entering, we found that our thriftless seniors had left the sound red heart of a fire, easily coaxed into a cheerful blaze; and biscuits—a plateful—smiled at us in an encouraging sort of way, together with the halves of a lemon, already once squeezed but still suckable. The biscuits were righteously shared, the lemon segments passed from mouth to mouth; and as we squatted round the fire, its genial warmth consoling our unclad limbs, we realised that so many nocturnal perils had not been braved in vain.

"It's a funny thing," said Edward, as we chatted, "how I hate this room in the daytime. It always means having your face washed, and your hair brushed, and talking silly company talk. But to-night it's really quite jolly. Looks different, somehow."

"I never can make out," I said, "what people come here to tea for. They can have their own tea at home if they like,—they're not poor people,—with jam and things, and drink out of their saucer, and suck their fingers and enjoy themselves; but they come here from a long way off, and sit up straight with their feet off the bars of their chairs, and have one cup, and talk the same sort of stuff every time."

Selina sniffed disdainfully. "You don't know anything about it," she said. "In society you have to call on each other. It's the proper thing to do."

"Pooh! YOU'RE not in society," said Edward, politely; "and, what's more, you never will be."

"Yes, I shall, some day," retorted Selina; "but I shan't ask you to come and see me, so there!"

"Wouldn't come if you did," growled Edward.

( Spoilers below cut... )


7.6/10 The Web Planet

Web Planet is a magnificently insane attempt to bring an alien planet full of giant insects to the screen. Even with today's effects technology it would tax a feature film. So trying to do it in 1965 on television with a tiny budget, in small studios, is unbelieveably ambitious. To give a sense of proportion, in 1966 the average cost of a 50 minute episode of Star Trek was US $180,000 (£75,000). The whole six part story of Web Planet cost £16,525.

The Zarbi are large and clumsy, however in an age where most aliens were humanoids, they are an interesting idea. The same can be said of the larvae gun. The Menoptera are also primitive costumes, but still striking and lovely. And I love the effort that has been gone into to give them an alien way of moving and talking. It may often seem a little silly, but at least some effort has been made to move away from standard speech.

I especially like how each creature has its part to play in the planet's ecosystem, even the larvae guns, as is explained at the end.

There's no doubt that Web Planet's flaws are many, but the core of the story is solid enough if one can get past the visuals and slow pace.

So I was pootling down Hoddle St at about 9.30 this morning, having dropped Nigel in the city and heading out to Healsville when someone smashed, rear-ended my car.

If you look at Nigel's lj - you can see our car no longer has a rear end.

http://nigelw.livejournal.com/34493.html

The police, ambulance, vic roads incident truck and firemen showed up.

The driver of the car who's fault it was got carted away in an ambulance so I haven't got his details, but the police and ambo says they did.

I then hit the taxi in front who hit the mazda in front who hit a fifth car.

I then managed to exchange numbers with the other drivers. But basically I sat on the edge of the road while nice person who worked in an office near the accident got me a chair, a cup of tea and used my camera to take photos.

They got a second ambulance for me because I'd hurt my neck, leg and arm.

My car and the one that hit me got towed, I don't know if the taxi did.

I got taken to St Vinnies, and was xrayed - luckily nothing is broken, but I'm pretty bruised and sore and the doctor said to take it easy for the next couple of days.

Once they let me out of the hospital, we went down to were the car got towed to get our stuff out of Nigel's car. Basically the car is totalled and I'm very lucky to have walked away from that accident.

It's a good thing to have comprehensive car insurance.

You know who did that thing that you're talking about? Hitler, that's who! And therefore it's a good idea.

Good onya, Peter Abetz.

OK, it seems that maybe the half page updates were maybe too often, or perhaps just not long enough for people to get into the rhythm of each update, so we've made a few changes to the website. I was originally worried about people having to scroll around too much, which is why I snipped the pages in half, to make them more screen shaped.

I think that maybe made people expect it to be a gag-a-day kinda comic strip, like with a punchline at the end of each page, but it's not, it's a story comic. A funny story comic, but not a punchline-y comic.

Now they are full pages! I think this makes each entry more fun to read, and hopefully you will too.

Here's a link to today's double length instalment, and starting next week we'll update a full page like this every Tuesday:



The entire archive has been updated too.

Let us know what you think!

Someone broke my car (and 4 others in the same incident).



Opinion of those around (police, tow truck driver etc) is that it's a write-off, which means I need to start thinking about what to replace it with. Renee needs a four-wheel drive of some sort for work, anyone have opinions of 4wd work vehicles?

Oh, I can't believe it - my all horse web site is up! And, it is beautiful. Please visit and link it up to help me establish my presence on the web!!

http://www.equigraphic.com

King Arthur, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, directed by Antoine Fuqua and released in 2004, is a very hard movie for me to pin down. On the one hand it's an awful film - badly written, badly shot, badly paced. On the other it's filled with odd glimmers of promise, little scenes, shots and moments that make you think maybe there was a good film in there. Somewhere. Not necessarily on screen, which is what ultimately matters, but there enough for you to understand why they tried in the first place.

The core failing of the movie is that it takes itself so damn seriously. It strenuously pushes the line - both in the publicity and the film's prologue - that this is a King Arthur movie based on history. It's about the real Arthur, not some silly late medieval fantasy. The problem with this is twofold: firstly, King Arthur is a silly late medieval fantasy, and any attempt they make to tell us otherwise comes across as bald-faced lying. Secondly, if you are going to set Arthur in the Dark Ages and pit Saxons against Romans, then you don't get to include French medieval knights like Lancelot at the same time.

There's also something odd about the way the film is shot. Much of it has that very staged, wide-angle Bruckheimer "look", the kind initiated by Tony Scott and then refined and developed by Michael Bay. The problem is that the director, Antoine Fuqua, is best known for contemporary urban action thrillers like The Replacement Killers and Training Day. The film feels like Fuqua is out of his depth, or simply not adapting his filmmaking style to the epic story he's supposed to be telling. Whatever the cause, the result is a film that looks curiously disjointed and empty. There's a very poor sense of geography here, and since the film is dominated by scenes of people riding horses across fairly empty moors and hillsides this creates quite a big problem.

The cast are actually pretty good. If there's one thing Jerry Bruckheimer has absolutely mastered in his many years of producing action flicks, it's the method of casting a talented actor in an underwritten role and letting them craft something exceptional out of it. Here we get Clive Owen, Ioan Gruffudd, Mads Mikkelsen (Le Chiffre in Casino Royale), Joel Edgerton, PoutyfaceKeira Knightley, Ray Stevenson (Titus Pullo in Rome) and Hugh Dancy. As the primary villain he uses Stellan Skarsgard, who is a truly sensational actor in every film I see him in. Ray Winstone plays Bors in a performance notable for showing audiences exactly what Will Scarlet would have been like had Robin of Sherwood lasted another 18 seasons. Stephen Dillane plays Merlin, and with his gaunt face, long straggly hair and enormous beard you can actually have a lot of fun imagining he's actually comic writer Alan Moore.

Clearly there's promise somewhere for a movie about the King Arthur legend, but for some reason no one ever seems to pin that promise down. Excalibur was close but critically flawed. Camelot was pretty tedious. First Knight was absolutely wretched. You'd think making an epic movie about English knights and mass battles with swords would be a walk in the park to write and direct, but for some reason the legend's still out there, still not quite fully exploited to the best it could be. Sooner or later someone's bound to try again. Sooner or later someone's bound to get it right.

One funny piece of trivia off of IMDB - apparently Fuqua wanted to cast Daniel Craig as Arthur, but Bruckheimer pushed for Clive Owen on the basis that Owen was clearly about to be announced as the next James Bond and the resulting publicity would be good for King Arthur's box office.

Also of note is how in the film's one-sheet poster (above) the marketing firm tasked with preparing the art decided to Photoshop breasts onto Keira Knightley's chest. Obviously marketing firms do this all the time, but when your lead actress is fairly well known for being on the skinny side of "very slender indeed" it does become kind of obvious.

So it's end of term again. My students have their assessments due next Wednesday night and most were in panic mode last night. Monday night saw one of them dissolve into tears due to work/home/study stress compounding. She's speaking with a crisis counselor and we've worked out a way for her to still get through this unit without making things worse. I always get at least one student that's somewhat broken.

This semester is the worst completion rate for this course since I began teaching it - about half my students dropped out along the way. I blame it on my going overseas for a month in the middle of it and having 3 other teachers pick up my classes. If ever I felt continuity was important in a learning environment it's been well and truly backed up this semester. On a theoretical level it shouldn't have mattered that I went away. The lessons were planned, the work is not difficult just time consuming. Sadly my colleagues have a different attitude to evening classes. They see them as an imposition as they are full time teachers and don't really want to be there after standard hours. They also forget that evening students tend to have also been at work 9-5 and have family at home and they want a different learning experience to the full time day students.

The feedback I've received from my class is that they felt rushed and they didn't really understand what had been covered. Looking at their folders I can see that the students who needed an extra five minutes for something to sink in weren't given it. There's also the problem that the theory unit (that I wrote!) my relief teacher chose not to use my lesson plans as written. I put lessons in a particular order for a reason, not just for my amusement. He chose to teach things in a different order, used different resources and still hasn't marked their assignments from last term. I teach care labeling in week four because it makes sense to put it there, it's part of the TCF industry legislation section which we start in week three, after they've learned product flow from manufacturer to consumer. Teaching it in week one because it's an easy lesson (involves group work and dumping them in front of internet for most of the class) is poor form.

*sigh* I'm going to quit teaching at the end of this semester because it's ridiculously difficult to get support from my colleagues. I've made the same complaints to my supervisor about the same things every year for three years and nothing's changed. Every time I get the same answer "I'd love to but we don't have the time/funding/people to repair/replace/rewrite it". Not to mention I want my evenings back and I want to sew because I love it not because I have to show someone how to make a pleated cargo pocket for the forty-umpteenth time.

dear lj

I was in a car accident. 5 car pile up on hoddle st, some one rear ended me i hit the car in front and it domino'd. Currently in hospital awaiting xrays. Think i am ok tho.

angelique (celica) appears to have been totalled. Glad i was in a car with crumple zone.

Poater from phone.

This is pretty awesome.