Cat got your tongs?

I'm sorry. Couldn't help it.

I think I mentioned it once...

Witnessed at Kingston markets on Sunday morning - small girl, probably 5 at the most, goose stepping, with her finger held up to her upper lip to form a Hitler moustache.

Girl's Mother: [in an angry whisper] Vanessa! Will you stop doing that!

I think Vanessa is discovering Channel 7's Saturday afternoon repeats of Fawlty Towers, don't you?



Wonderful.

This isn't about the cat

I think that personalities and personal expression are banned at my new(ish) workplace. I’ve only noticed a couple of other people with photos of loved ones or pictures up at their desk.

In any event, I decided to stuff that unwritten rule and have lobbed a few things up at my 'work' station.

To go with my deliberately provocative photo of TheLovelyWife and I in suits and ties and my figurine of comicbook guy, I have wall calendar featuring the art of Edward Hopper (not my first choice, but when one decides to buy a wall calendar in May, the choices are limited to this kind of thing or 12 months of Bichon Frise or freaking Anne Geddes - shudder).

ANYWAY, July’s picture is this somewhat pensive piece:



I’ve been staring at it for a while, and it may be a reflection of how disinterested I am in the subject matter of my work at the moment, but I’ve been trying desperately to determine whether it is morning, or evening light that is streaming in through the window. I thought I'd be all clever and use my skills of observation to work it out.

At first I thought it was morning light, but then I thought, no, the bedclothes are undisturbed. And to me, that orangey mellow light is reminiscent of about 5pm on an autumn afternoon – sort of just hanging there and making everything a little luminescent. You know, that is the best time of year for sunsets…

But then I thought that can’t be right. If it was autumn, she’d be cold just wearing that slight dress and with the window open.

And then I thought, so maybe it is morning after all. But it seemed too yellowy for the morning light, which is typically a whole lot clearer and a bit more pinky, if you know what I mean. The light in the picture lacks the specific crispness of morning light.

Unless of course the painting is of one of those some horribly skanky, humid summer mornings – you know what it’s like in February when the humidity barely subsides over night and the morning is a just a cruel hangover of the dense and oppressive evening you’ve just endured.

It was at this point that I suspected I might be thinking about it too much (and no doubt by now you think I've written about it too much, if indeed you've read this far), and I turned back to my work.

That lasted about 5 seconds before I turned back to the calendar and reconsidered the subject’s face.

It can’t be morning I thought, the subject looks as though she is wearing make-up. So maybe she’s just come in from a long day at the rat-races, slipped into something more comfortable and is taking in the cityscape whilst pondering the wastefulness of recent tax-cuts, or wondering how long before George Bush nukes Iran, or something like that.

But then, I thought that it probably isn’t make-up, that the boldness of her features is probably just a reflection of Hopper’s sometimes stark painterly technique.

And then I really thought I was thinking about it too much.

So I forgot about it for a while.

And then something happened to make it clear that I really do think about things too much. And also that I don’t pay attention to detail as much as I probably should.

I happened to look just slightly below the picture on the calendar, below the fold, and there it was, in small print:

Morning Light
Edward Hopper
1952 Oil on canvas

In this picture you might be able to see just how ridiculous it was that I missed it:



So much for those clever 'skills' of observation.

This kind of thing really gets me down.

Tobias vs teh interweb

By popular demand, here are another couple of gratuitously cute Tobias pics.



This next one titled "Tobias discovers auto-googling with pleasing results".

Mog-blogging

Meet Tobias.

One hour since coming home from the RSPCA and he's found the middle of the couch.

He'll fit in here quite nicely.

Life rewards cheats, yet again

I honestly don't understand people who say that Italy's World Cup win is solace for socceroos supporters. I'm sorry, what?!

When the team that cheated its way to an undeserved victory over the socceroos (who were playing all over Italy, just don't mention the lack of goals) goes on to prove better than all the other teams in the tournament, all I can think of is "that could have been the socceroos".

Which is a horrible, horrible feeling.

But, that's not as horrible as the surfacing of the inevitable claims that Camilla was asking for it.

Shudder.

Sportsportsportsport.

Do you ever find yourself wondering about how certain sports came into being?

I mean, when you think about it, it's not hard to see how something like soccer came about. It seems pretty instinctive to just want to kick something - people often just kick a rock or whatever is in their path when walking down the street.

Makes sense, right?

But who the heck thinks "I know, I'll stretch my arms out awkwardly in front of me and whack at a ball like a moron"?



I don't care what you say, volleyball is wrong.

I'm multi-tasking!

Puff puff ... blogging whilst riding my ... puff puff... exercise bike.

I'm such a modern woman.

Anyway, everyone just needs to settle down about this whole Big Baloney Brother malarkey. And by that I mean I think there is a predictable outcome to all the scary talk of increased Government censorship.

I know there are a lot of people out there getting upset about what the Government may or may not do by way of a regulatory response.

To my mind, the proposals for instant axing, or closer parliamentary scrutiny of television programming are coming from the real loony right of the Coalition (and some 'independent' loonies). The news media likes to give air to these loony proposals but at the same time, are readying their not insubstantial guns to fight like hell any move away from the de facto self-regulation their massive lobbying power has bought them.

In addition to that, Howard is (unfortunately) quite clever and knows that he has to be seen to be 'doing something' in response to the harping, screeching 'family' values types.

But at the same time, he knows how scared the average punter is of any kind of extremism, left or right. So, I reckon he has to let these extreme views get some kind of airing, but when it comes down to it, knows that no one is really going swallow a North Korean broadcasting model.

So we all just need to calm down for a while and let the hoo-ha pass over. Soon Howard will get back to one his many 'core' victimisation policies.

Or maybe the endorphins are making me inappropriately optimistic...?