A weekend on North Stradbroke Island

I have a soft spot for North Stradbroke Island. All through Primary School, it was where we went for our family beach holidays and I have wonderful memories of sandy houses and quiet streets, mornings and afternoons in the surf and packets of pringles popped on the beach at sunset. Mmmm...pringles.

So when Jane offered me a long weekend at Straddie I leapt at the chance.We caught the ferry over on a Wednesday afternoon, after I had been at work for a whole three days. We were in a house on Prosperity Street at Point Lookout, right next door to about three houses I had stayed in when I was younger. Point Lookout had not changes one iota from my memories of it. The shops, the houses, everything at least seemed identical.

Prosperity Street is easy walking distance to both Deadmans Beach and Cylinder Beach. Cylinder Beach is one of the most popular beaches at Point Lookout, usually crowded out with families and tourists. Only locals and holiday makers in the know go around the rocks to Deadmans. Less family friendly but not crowded and all around a more enjoyable place to spend a few hours.

Early morning on Deadmans Beach.

 Settling in for a swim and a bit of beach reading.

A tiny piece of bluebottle stinger washed on to my hand. I hadn't been stung for years and I can put it off again for another decade at least. It looked redder in real life than in this photo.

This old gent and his dog were having a great time. He was fully clothed complete with hard working boots and thick socks. You could have put him on a sheep station and he would not have looked out of place.

Five for Friday no. 42

A book for the children: an alphabet of terrible advice.

Another reason to go to Paris - like you needed one. An art installation of an inflatable trampoline bridge across the river Seine.
 

Fairytales for 20-somethings.  

Costume books released by the Metropolitan Museum of Art online. 

25 most devoted fan bases. Seriously interesting.

 Fans of the show 'Community' come in at no.13.

Today my fringe is long and sort of voluminous. I can almost kid myself it's a bit like Ariel's from The Little Mermaid.

Which is pretty much the fulfillment of a childhood dream, right there.

Happy Roald Dahl Day!

I was a big reader as a child – I still am, in fact – and Roald Dahl was and remains one of my favourite childhood authors.

His books have a delicious darkness to them that was lacking from the work of so many other great children’s writers. I couldn’t read witches before going to bed because I wouldn’t sleep from the fright.

His was a children’s author and a dark writer. Along with the utter delight of likable wallpaper and the marvel of George’s medicine, the magic in Matilda’s eyes and the BFG’s bottled dreams, he wrote about dark evil deeds done by mean and horrible people.

Mrs Trunchbull (Matilda), the Twits, Boggis Bunce and Bean (Fantastic Mr Fox) must rank as some of the most vile characters in literature. That’s without considering the head witch in The Witches. *shudder

I also adored his two biographies – Boy and Going Solo. If you overlooked these books when you were younger, they are must reads, so get them out of the library sometime.

All of this Roald Dahl cannon stills sits on my bookshelf today; spines cracked, pages yellows, thumbed and smudged and much-loved. A few years ago I was gifted a collection of his short stories – five books worth, hundreds of stories and not one of them suitable for children. Even now some of them give me the creeps.

So today is a day to celebrate this wonderful writer who delighted and continues to delight children young and old with his imagination and potent story-telling.

Happy Roald Dahl Day.

Books from your childhood

Yesterday on Twitter the Sydney Writers Centre posed the question: What were 5 books you grew up with? What 5 books – or series – defined your childhood?

This is a topic of conversation that comes up with my friends quite regularly; books from our childhoods, television shows, movies we grew up with.  We’re all of the same generation, I barely have a close friend who wasn’t born with 18 months of myself. Interestingly though, there are certain books / shows / movies we ALL were exposed to but for the most part we had very different defining experiences. 

What is almost certain is that when one of us discovered that the other has not read a certain book or watched a certain movie, we will be shocked and appalled at their deprived childhood and rave about how they MUST see it, you’ll LOVE it, it’s ESSENTIAL to life itself to have read The Railway Children or seen E.T.. 

For my part, I know that my choice of favourite books was influenced very heavily by my parents. Bookworms themselves, I grew up in a house lined with bookshelves but lacking in films. When I watched a movie, it was one I got out of the video store not out of the family collection. Books, however, were everywhere.

So, my answer to the Sydney Writers Festival question ran as follows:

The much anticipated Gatsby

The much talked-about, much-anticipated, much-discussed The Great Gatsby has almost arrived.

The official trailer has just been released and from the look of it, this movie has all the elements that make a Baz Luhrmann movie great. Doomed love affair, out of this world sets and costumes, an escape into a seductive fantasy world we all want to be in; right up until the moment the protagonists, blinded by the glitter and the glamour, fall into self-destruction.




I read on twitter (which went crazy) that the trailer was giving one women Romeo and Juliet excitement flashbacks. Watching the trailer for the first time at home I understood. Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet was a major movie from my childhood. Not because we studied the play in English - that was long after the movie had been and gone. It was one of those movies every person my age saw and loved. It created iconic scenes and major stars. It made Shakespeare sexy and wild and dangerous. I own the DVD and I still love the film. Claire Danes and Leonardo di Caprio look so young now but they were of an age that I in my high school years could relate to. Not to mention that scene when you first meet Romeo and he's silhouetted against the sunset, smoking and brooding like an underweight James Dean. Even the soundtrack we all had to have with its mix of grunge, soul and disco.

Like Romeo and Juliet, Baz Luhrmann's Great Gatsby has hedonism, passion not to mention thrilling music and I cannot wait to see it. 

10 things kids of today will never experience

An age ago I found this listing on So Bad So Good: 10 things the kids of today will never experience and to be truthful, it got me all misty-eyed and reminiscent.

The ten things are:

1. Making mix tapes for your friends.
   Or your boyfriend / girlfriend. I remember the last two mixed tapes I was ever given. The penultimate one was when I got my driving licence and a friends with super-excellent taste made me a tape of songs to play while driving. The last and final time I ever received a mixed tape was when I started dating this awesome guy and he couldn't believe I only had a tape deck in my car. So he made me a super-excellent mixed tape. I still have them both.
2. Not actually knowing who is calling.
   For extra reminiscent points, I would change this to having to call someone's home number to speak to them. Remember before we had mobile phones and you had to call a person's house if you wanted to talk? You hoped that they would answer to avoid embarrassing parent conversation but that never happened. Worse was when you h
   
   
   ad to call someone you liked, you were calling a strange house and it was terrifying. My high-school boyfriend was a border at school and calling a boarding house main-line is beyond scary. Kids these days have it easy. You call a mobile,you know who is going to answer!
   
   
   
   
   
3. Flip phones.
   
   
   
   
   I remember when the slide phone in The Matrix was so cool. I got my first flip phone years after they came out but I was still excited. It was so much fun! Pretty much can't get them now.
   
   
4. Actually needing a watch.
   Before mobiles made us their slaves, we had all these different devises for different purposes. One was a watch. I still have a watch because I love watches, I always have worn a watch and I always will wear a watch. Plus, there are times when it's just too damn rude or obvious to check the time on your phone. Much easy to glance at a wrist.
5. Taking cool polaroid photos.
   This was a bit pre-my time actually. I was thrilled when I was given a polaroid camera for my birthday one year. So funky and retro! But that was back when normal people could afford to buy the film. If I could afford it, I would go polaroid-crazy.
6. Getting up to change the TV channel.
   Yeah, I never did this.
7. The sound of dial-up.
   Ah, that magical mechanical sound that meant your computer was attempting to connect you to 'the internet'. I almost don't recognise it now when I hear it. It reminds me of late primary school when 'the internet' first arrived in our house. Patiently waiting the couple of minutes it took to connect properly and get a strong signal. And then someone would call the homeline because we didn't have mobiles back then and you got kicked of and had to start al over again! Grrr...
8. Cool and unsafe toys.
   I'm a bit stumped here because I'm not on to what has been deemed 'unsafe' in the last few years. Can you still play with cap guns? Can you still jump on trampolines? Can you still play with toys that have small parts you can swallow? Or are kids not allowed to have fun anymore?
9. MTV – when they actually played music.
   Yeah, we didn't have MTV at home. But when I've overseas and I find the MTV channel, it never has music on it. What's with that?!?
10. Amazing cartoons.
    Oh my god. I could go on forever. Weekend cartoons now a days make me despair. They all look the same! Or that dodgy 3D rubbish. Or just … awful! The Flintstones, Ducktails, Captain Planet, Babar, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Samurai Pizza Cats, Super Ted, I could go on. Cartoons were SO much better when I was young.

Movie Review: The Muppets

Last night I went with a couple of friends to see the new Muppets movie. I had high expectations of this movie and I'm sorry to say they weren't met. It was gloriously full of one's favourite Muppets, it was cheesy and didn't pretend to be otherwise, it was light and cheerful and entertaining. It was everything it promised to be. I just didn't find it that funny. Which is a real shame because this cracks me up Every Time I See It!

Still, it was a good film that just delivered on what it promised and I hope children going to see it love and get to re-discover the old Muppets too. Not that the Muppets have stayed still all these years. Living on in a series of mediocre movies and through work on Sesame Street, TV specials and the of course the marvel of YouTube bringing the old classics and a few new ones to the desks of bored office workers all around the world.

If I were to sit down and watch the Muppets' original TV show today, would I find it funny or would it have all paled now that I'm discovered sarcasm and other less innocent forms of humour? I suppose at least now I would understand what Waldorf and Statler were saying.

All videos courtesy of YouTube, Copyright of the origianal owner.

The unshakeable beliefs of childhood.

A couple of weeks ago I found this article; 11 silly things you probably believed as a kid. Some of the ones they list I really did believe. Not about the dogs and cats; but everyone knows that blankets make the monsters go away

So I got thinking about other 'silly' things I believed as a kid. I put 'silly' in inverted commas because some of them Should Be True.

1. If you don't eat your crusts your hair won't go curly. I believed this with a passion, which is why I never ate my crusts. That didn't work and my hair is still curly-ish. Mum LIED!

2. That I could run as fast as Road Runner from Loony Tunes.

3. That there were little men somewhere who watched every traffic intersection and decided when the lights changed. So if they didn't like you, they'd turn the light red and leave it that way for a really long time.

4. That there were monsters under my bed.

5. That if I lay under a sheet and squashed myself into the bed, I would be flat and no one could tell I was there.

So now I've shared. Anyone else game to 'fess up to what they used to believe?

Is it really too much to hope for? Image courtesy of Warner Bros. / Loony Tunes.

When childhood movies are just as good as you remember them.

In the last month I have watched 2 movies from my childhood that were every bit as good as I remember them.

The first was Babe. When I first saw Babe in 1995 aged 11, I LOVED it. I laughed at the mice, I cried, I got so excited in the thrills of the end competition. It was a great movie. It was nominated for Best Picture in the 1996 Oscars, if that means anything to you. Didn’t to me at the time, like the rest of the world I was just in love with the talking pig with the heart of gold.

On holiday in Vietnam recently – and yes, holiday blogs are coming – Jane and I were relaxing in our hotel room one afternoon, escaping the heat of the day and flicking through the TV channels. We’d seen some really terrible movies in our daily down time – The Jerk Theory, Post Grad – so when Babe came on we both quite excited. 45 mins in to it we were both lying on our stomachs on our beds, close up to the TV, face in hands with rapt expressions of enjoyment as Babe charmed his way to fame.

It was brilliant. It was magical. I laughed and *almost cried and we both agreed it was still a great movie.

Everything about this movie was good. Especially the mice.

The next childhood movie I watched was Jurassic Park. I have very vivid memories of the first time I watched Jurassic Park. My parents had refused to allow me to go and see it in the movies because it was too scary. So when it came out on video, the kids down the road rented it out and one Sunday afternoon we kids all got together and watched it. I remember so well sitting there on their brown carpet, clutching a pillow to my chest being scared out of my mind by the T-Rex and the car scene and then when the Raptors came along I lost it completely. Scare of my life until I saw Alien a few years later.

Then a week or so ago, I found myself sitting on a brown couch watching Jurassic Park for the first time since 1993. Even though this time around I knew that the T-Rex and the Raptors were coming, it had been so long since I’d seen the movie that I’d forgotten all but the most obvious details. I am not ashamed to admit it scared me good and proper. I might even have screamed on a few occasions when Raptor heads suddenly burst through walls. At one point I clutched a pillow to my chest in memory of that first illicit viewing, but it only made me more scared. There was a supply of wine accompanying the viewing and that a definite improvement on my 9 year old self's 1993 viewing.

If you didn't find this scene scary, you're a dirty dirty liar.

If I watched Jurassic Park again this weekend, it wouldn’t scare me so much. It’s not so terrifying really; it was only the time span that made this second viewing so potent.

Totally forgot this guy was even in the movie. It's ALL HIS FAULT.

So while there have been many occasions when I’ve gone back and watched a beloved childhood movie only to find that it’s lost the magic as I’ve aged (Men In Tights, I’m sad to say), there are some films that are good no matter what age you are and if they can make you feel the way you did when you first saw them at 8 or 10 or 11, then so much the better.

Have any of you re-watched a movie from your childhood and it’s been just as wonderful as you remember?

I might have yelled at the TV sometime around now...