Ooop.

There's a certain snobbery surrounding pumpkins in gardening circles. This is because pumpkins are easy to grow. To me though, they are the king of vegetables. Food blogs are often party to the snobbery too: I don't seem to see a lot of food-porn surrounding pumpkins.

I don't know why, it's so easy to say nice things about something that sneaks out of your compost heap, mates with anything vaguely round and is easier to grow than a yeast infection.

I tried to take nice photos.

Because pumpkins are sluts, it's hard to know exactly what you've propagated. We have two on the go at the moment, an unsullied, well behaved Queensland Blue, and a weirdly shaped ginga. My sympathies lie with the second.

I harvested a couple of them last week, and discovered the first problem; nature has laminated them. I ended up on the front step whacking through this baby with a small axe. I collected the bits and roasted them. Like I said, self-propagated pumpkins are a crapshoot. I was still expecting this one to be watery, flavourless, slightly bitter or just boring. It was lovely. Sweet and nutty, like a butternut's reject, buck-toothed cousin.

The remaining shells were interesting. When you live on the south coast, it's important to treat rock-hard, structural, vegetable matter with extreme caution, lest you find yourself on a raw food diet and up to your armpits in an earthship.


I scooped out the pumpkin pulp, fried some onions, chucked in a few of our jalapenos, a little box of coconut milk, some garlic and WWHHRRRRRR wit the stick blender. It was lovely.

Teeev.

We got a new TV. I played no part in it. It's not that I am completely anti-television, it just seems so kind of brash to get a new one, like admitting something terrible to yourself.

It's the feeling of that day you buy that first whole packet of Styvies when you've actually given up except for every now and then when I'm at a party or something but that's hardly ever.

Where was I?

The old TV had its charms; for one, unless the action took place on a bright summer's day you weren't privvy to it. It had a cheery effect and pretty much ruled out all the fantasy rubbish like Torchwood, but also meant that many programs were a bit hazy on the murder or sex scenes. It was like having a Mormon inside the set-top box. The grainy mystery TV delivered the kind of content my Dad (who gets a bit eyebrowy about 'smut' on The Television) would approve of;

(Squinting into the television)

"Oh yes, I see, that's a bed. Oh, he's kind of leaning over the bed. He's making the bed! Yes, a fitted sheet, definately a fitted sheet....Hmmm, it's not going well though. Not well at all. Appears to be struggling. Must be a single fitted sheet, on a DOUBLE BED! Ah ha!"

The old TV also required smacking, and not just when Tony Abbott was mugging it. FOrsome reason, this felt really, really good. But no more. Now we can watch Midsomer murders without having to listen for heavy rain and the sound of galoshes, oilskins and a pedigree dog to figure out when someone has been walloped with a spade.

Random update

This week I've been home alone with The Possum who is doing her best to grow some teeth. I have very little to say about anything, really, so this is a magazine post.

(Here is The Possum speed-reading a magazine)

Most days this week have gone something like this;

'Christ. It's 3 o clock already. Darling...., oh no darling, it's OK, where's your kookaburra? Kookaburra is in the basket, kookaburra is out of the basket, in the basket, out of the basket, in the...Only winos are still in their pyjamas at 3 o clock in the afternoon....Maybe I should have a wine?....'

I can't decide if The Possum's malaise was due to sore mouth, or her vaccinations on Tuesday morning or a combination of both. Basically, there's been a lot of not getting anything done which translates as listening to ABC National.

There comes a time in everyone's life when you put down your piercing gun and realise that you've strayed off into the ABC National demographic. Often it begins with an overheard radio story about something like structural adjustment in south america, or a review of book you have read. By time you realise that Triple J is earnestly dealing with "important issues", the death knell is reverberating around the leaking plumbing in your warehouse apartment.

Last week though, the ABC's resonance with my life was spooky. They interviewed three authors I have recently read; Barbara Ehrenreich and Rachel Cusk, both about being pissed off women.

Also, there was an interview with the aptly named Keith Windschuttle, whose book I was discussing a couple of weeks ago. He's the guy who writes books about how the Aborigines didn't really have it all that bad, because in those days, being dispossessed and murdered was a lot more popular than it is today. So, three books in one week. Where's my tin foil hat?

Also, this week I was eyed, once again, with suspicion for undertaking what is now known as 'Elimination Communication' with my baby (used to simply be called "Watching for signs of taking a shit" but then squirmy Alexander Downer came into office causing a rethink).

I've decided that the time has come to stop talking about my kid's poo with other people. It's always bemused me that people often treat children as if they have no privacy. Kids pick up on how adults treat one another, and compare it to how they themselves are treated. This is because they are sentient beings which is probably the same reason they don't like crapping in their pants.

Besides, we all know those mothers, the ones who interrupt a conversation to gaze lovingly at their child and say, "Do you need to do a poo darling? Is it poking out a little bit? Tell mummy...is it peanutty or corn husky, you tell me darling OK, etc. etc...

In other news this week: Gardening.

Our garden represents exactly how busy we were three months ago. I went and stood in the garden on Wednesday. There wasn't much worth saving. I pulled a mission that Stalin would be proud of, and harvested the first of some of our pumpkins. I love pumpkin, as I have stated before, and I fully intend to make the same thing again.

This week I also transplanted the strawberries. By this I mean, I dug up a square meter of topsoil and chucked it on the rockgarden (which looks like an excellent place for testing out the top speed of a land-yacht) and then dug up all the strawberries and chucked them on top. It then rained, solidly for a whole week, which is something of a miracle. The strawberries appear to have survived. The strawberry transplant was such an unlikely surprising success I have resolved to tick the strawberry box on my drivers licence.

How's that for a boring, self involved, tedious blog post, written in five minutes?!

Hot Rodding

Saturday dawned bright and sunny in Melbourne, a perfect kind of day for a hot rod show, I always think. Luckily for us, the city surprised us with one it had prepared earlier.

Now, a few notes; hot rodding is not for purists. Hot rods are the fake-tittied, over-coiffed, plastic fingernailed tarts of the automobile world. Hot rods are about style over substance.

To wit;

Also, a warning. I've been made aware of the 'fact' that I can be a thundering bore when I get talking about cars.

But this is the internet.

Back to the story.

Most hot rods are based on American cars of the 40's through 60's. There weren't that many of these cars to begin with (compared to the amount of cars on the road today). Any of this small number that have not rusted into the dirt have been restored. However, demand outstrips supply and so most hot rods are replicas, either fibreglass or, more rarely, steel.

This allows fabricators a certain latitude. Check out the stretch Volkswagon;

The original 'hot rod' cars were hefty beasts. These days, a shiny V8 motor is both higher performance and generally powering something a lot less chunky than an ancient Oldsmobile. Most V8 cars on the market today have the power to weight ratio of a plastic lunchbox on nitrous.

Back in the day, it was a different story. The original hulking, inefficient V8s were barely enough to overcome the inertia of the paintwork. let alone a couple of ton or two of Detroit's finest. Cars today are so very much lighter, more streamlined and better suited to having cascades of ice cream dribbled down the seats.

Annnyway, where was I?

Oh yes, style over substance.

I like authentic things. I like the shiny hot rods, but as art, not cars. Let's be clear, there is nothing authentic about these machines; with engine belts almost thicker than the tyres, and superchargers peeking out of bonnet scoops like pissed-off meerkats.

For me, there's nothing particularly clever about dropping a 350 Chev into an engine bay so large that the drive train gets its own post code. One guy proudly told me he'd bored out his own engine (gentlemen, hold your puns, please), but again, machining out engines is not that hard, as long as you've got a micrometer/vernier calipers and a sense of humour.

There's also nothing complicated about four stroke, push-rod, normally aspirated engines, with TAC ignition and Japanese radiators. About the only vaguely inspiring thing are the people who build and machine their own carbs, because as anyone who has fiddled with one of these things knows, it's an infuriating art more than a science.

Like I said though, hot rods are art. And I was in greaser heaven, marveling at the sheer shinyness of the cars until I came across this Corvette:

This car has many of the original 'bits'. There is nothing more heartwarming than someone who will lovingly restore a three ton megalith and then expect the whole thing to keep moving on an antiquated 6 volt charging system (including a genuine generator*). It seemed fitting that the whole thing was painted purple.

Here is a typical picture from the day. The Possum waiting patiently for her mother.

*Cars nowadays have alternators, as did most of the hotrods I got a peek at.

Photo credits to Senior Possum.

Quinces

Theft is an important part of any good road trip. And Melbourne, with its temperate/sub-tropical/Biblical climate is dotted with millions of fruit trees, all begging to be plundered.

On the way out of Melbourne we quietly filched a basket of quinces from some over-burdened trees in Northcote. Or maybe it was Fitzroy. Or perhaps it was Valpraisio.

Apples were also on the list, and when we got home from our Tour De Fleece I attempted to 'deal' with the quinces.

Quinces are an old fashioned fruit which means they actually prefer to be cooked the old fashioned way: boiling the bejeezus out of them for hours on end, while you smack your children a lot. I chose a gentle simmer, and sure enough, the flesh turned from white and floury to delightfully pink, and fragrant, as promised.

The best quinces I have ever eaten came from The Possum's Nana, who makes these gloriously piquant stewed slices. This is because Possum's Nana is privvy to an arcane wisdom available to wholesome garden-y, foody people, known as The Tricks (such as keeping the pips in, and only cooking them on a full moon when the compost is in ascendance).

My quinces did not measure up. Not even close. But, having a baby has taught me that the only thing standing between 'unappetising boiled mulch' and 'delicious treat' is a stick blender. And I've lived my life by the motto that if it can't be improved by a power tool then it probably wasn't much good to begin with.

Post-blending, I was left with this kind of pinkish paste that looked like it should have the words: 'Smoking Can Damage Your Health' written in big letters underneath it.

Hmm, still not good. But, with your eyes closed, it tasted incredible.

So today I whipped up a batch of buttery pastry (my favourite thing to do) and then smeared a layer of the pink gloop, followed by a layer of sliced apples, arranged a bit like the ones in the Woman's Weekly, but on the piss. With a spoonful of Greek yoghurt and a black coffee, this subtly flavoured, slightly perfumed, slightly spicey little tart was really rather nice.

Keeping it real with the Quinces.

Food

You can't go to Melbourne and not talk about food. There were a couple of stand outs - Vietnamese restaurant in north Fitzroy (I don't know where. Opposite the chinese junk shop. That should narrow things down). We had pho, again, narrowing it down. It was so, so good.

The next treat was in Brunswick. We were about to spend Australia Day in the most patriotic way; driving for hours through crippling heat with a thundering hangover. Heading out of town, our eyes were peeled for somewhere to have coffee and maybe a quick round with the heart-paddles. Nothing was open, until we got to Brunswick, and found, like a gleaming oasis in the Melbournian desert, a Lebanese bakery. As any true Australian will tell you, there is nothing more Straya Day than breakfast in a Lebanese bakery.

And what a bakery! So so good! I don't even know what we had, but it was toasty, sesame-seedy (like us) and haloumi-ish (like us after a couple of hours in a hot car). And then there were wee pastry baclava pistachio like things, so sweet, so good!

After some seriously good food and coffee we pooled all our cash and handed it to the nice man at the counter, like alms, telling him we were travelers from far, far away. He set us up with a magical bag of just cooked goodies, silky fresh fetta pastries with spinach and and and....

I won't go on. Anyway, I kept the bag, so I could look upon it fondly in weaker moments. Maybe curl up next to it from time to time. And then, when writing this blog post, I looked them up. They have a website!

So, if you are in Melbourne. Go there. Eat. Fill your boots! It's wonderful!

Lakes Entrance

Oooooo....What's the big yellow thing? I like it.

Hang on, we go in the big yellow thing? Yaaaay!!!

On the road...

But does it have a pool?

Melbourne: CERES Garden

I've been in Melbourne this week, engaging in a trip as diverse as the weather. I've only been to Melbourne once before, for a very brief stopover. This time, I got to have a bit of a poke around. And I found some rather nifty things. This is the first of a few blog posts about it.

On Sunday morning I left a noisy party for a walk in The Nature with the Possum, who was starting to look a little like she wanted a ciggy and a pair of spray-on jeans. Spying a footpath, we trotted along the bank of Merri Creek in Brunswick, admiring the exposed tree-roots festooned with drooping skeins of rubbish, overhanging a dark brown, almost stagnant smear of water. The charm of such an Edenic scene was not lost on the two young men locked in love's unforgiving, sweaty wrestle under a large Oak tree, and even the sleeping junkie had a placid smile to light his empty dreams.

It wasn't long before we came across a set of gates, a brightly painted sign, and a bike-path entranceway. I smelled hippies. Indeed, this was the entrance to CERES, a large, well established community garden. I had heard there was a garden here, but I was completely unprepared for what I found. It was staggering. Absolutely beautifully staggering.

Meandering pathways linking beds and beds of fruit and veges, shady enclaves, and the hallmark of a good community-based project based on democratised scientific principles: an enthusiastic water recycling project producing dubious looking water.

The more I walked, the more it kept going. I felt like I'd walked through the back of the wardrobe into a sun-dappled version of Narnia. Turn one corner, and there's a fig tree, flourishing with bulbous, fruity little haemmeroids, turn another, and there's a whole bed of pumpkins.

At one point I wandered into a suspiciously healthy grove of fruit trees, sporting some of the most freakishly large Quinces I have seen to date. I live on the South Coast of New South Wales. I've seen this sort of thing before. I followed the grove's perimeter and discovered the silent toilet block.

CERES is more than a garden, it's a kind of touchstone for all manner of wholesome business, both practical and, well, wholesome. Whether you want to learn how to prune an apricot, or fertilise your wolf-spirit, there will be a course.

I loved CERES, absolutely loved it. I returned to the party and rabbited on about it in something approaching rapture. The following day I insisted we all return for a proper go.

And it was just as wicked the second time round.

On another note, I have come to the conclusion that I'm on the cusp of hippydom. Places like CERES reiterate this for me. One the one hand, I love them. I love the natural, garden based wholesome-y goodness, the earthyness, the earnest satisfaction of the happy hairy people. I am a woman who appreciates a good dry-composting toilet*. On the other hand, there is something deep in my nature that struggles with the kind of hardcore hippyness that often accompanies such endeavours. I believe in science, for instance, and I've little time for postmodern, relativistic notions of science and nature. Science, for me, is in the whole world. It is not pronounced with quotation marks around it and it's probably not even 'feminist'.

Sitting in the shade of trees at the CERES cafe, a little breeze presented me with snippets of three distinct conversations...

From table one: "Yeah, but it's got to be grass-roots...."

From table two: "....but I'm more of a singer-songwriter..."

Finally, my reverie was interrupted by the dreadlocked waiter approaching table three, asking who was having the Soy-Dandy.

This is where I come adrift.

*Because there's really not much to appreciate in a bad one. Even slightly damp will render your enthusiasm tenuous.

Chortle

Darwin was right. There is nothing funnier than a platypus. Nothing.

Flotsam

Iphone apps are taking over our lives, according to a recent New Scientist article. iphone apps are the most revolutionary life-changing technology since the last revolutionary life-changing technology. Whatever that was.

I would argue that perhaps the most apposite generalisation that can be made about new lifestyle technologies, from Facebook to Twitter, is their irrelevance.

Almost all my Facebook updates are related to gardening, coffee or the bowel movements of a wriggling infant. Most of my friends' are similar. Which is why they are my friends.

Remember back when Facebook causes hit the headlines for having hundreds and thousands of followers?

Is this a good time to mention that my Facebook group, ("Thin My Carrots: I planted them too close together") has 4 trillion members?

Some people, however, dedicate their status updates to causes....

Wow, Elanor cares enough about the plight of the Eastern Sumatran Shoehorn to press a button! And she's sent me a link to it as well, along with a growing flower, a youtube video of a mournful Jeff Buckley song, and a 'wifebeater'.

I like!

I care about stuff, I'm just not going to pretend that I do on Facebook.

Here's something really important. A link to the World Carrot Museum. Protip: a link to 'ask a carrot question'.

New Years

It occurs to me that I didn't write a post about New Year's Eve. It was pretty raucous, oh boy, yes. We decided to embrace our new parentness by meeting our equally knackered, recently baby-fied friends, Jamie and Claudia, in Mollymook for a knees-up. (All knees were restored to their proper positions for landing). 9pm found us sitting on couches staring at one another like museum exhibits.

"Is it midnight yet?"

"It's just gone 9"

"Christ"

That sort of thing.

Still, we were not to be beaten. We would make it to 12am. We would play Trivial Pursuit. Mostly what kept us awake was something approaching bewildering awe, as we watched one another while away New Year's Eve answering stupid fucking questions about 80's movies that NO-ONE should have watched in the first place. Tom Selleck is never, EVER the right answer to anything. Not on this planet, not ever.

I digress. The unutterable tragedy of the situation was not lost on us, and so, in light of the 19 year olds partying next-door, I proposed that all acquisitions of pie would henceforth be accompanied with a fulsome declaration, on the front lawn. All the way down near the letterbox.

To wit: "Yeaaaaah! Green Pie! That's science and motherfuckin' NATURE, fools!'

Just to show those sluts next door how to party.

We made it to midnight. Just. Parents New Year though, was actually sweet and I had a lot of fun, even though all newcomers were recruited to the opposing team which eventually ensured a draw. See; Tom Selleck, above.

In fact, when I think about it, it wasn't that different from many other New Year's Eves. Babies know how to keep it real; by 11 o'clock we'd all had our tits out more times than we could count, and I'd been comprehensively spewed on. The rest of the time it was hot and sunny, we barbequed, swam, drank, swam, chatted, ate and had a very, very nice time.

Books

My most recent breastfeeding book (as a prophylactic to having one's brain sucked out through one's boobies) was Gladwell's The Tipping Point.

The book describes the patterns of social phenomena in terms of 'tipping points', the point at which the velocity of their processes begins to increase in a non linear way. Gladwell uses well known social experiments, such as the six degrees of separation test, or the Broken Windows theory to plot his own trajectory of everything from fashion fads to crime waves (Gladwell prefaces his theorum; "What I call etc.,...") .

Early on, Gladwell tells us that us humans like to think of things unfolding in a linear, gradual progression. Apparently, we humans are inherently bad at imagining progress of processes that unfold in a non-linear way. This came as a surprise to me.

Most people I know are as comfortable with non linear progressions as they are with other simple, logical data qualifications, such as standard deviation. Gladwell though, is adamant. Humans are bumbling buffoons in the face of numerical data.

Gladwell's book puts me in mind of another instance I recently read about pop-behaviourialism, a New Scientist article telling us about another 'inherent' human trait; the tendency to look for cohesion and narrative from disparate information. We humans are embarrassingly open to suggestion. We are especially amenable to popular narratives, like the one 'I call the trivia narrative'.

That is, we like to be surprised and titilated by non-important information in an amusing way. Think: the trivial pursuit question; what wasn't invented until 40 years after the invention of the tin can? Ummmm...

I began to wonder if the trivia narrative was the ghost in Gladwell's text? He begins by drawing together a variety of topics we are familiar with. Then he tells us that things aren't quite what they seem: (contrary to our intuitive understanding, most processes are non-linear). Then he tells us he has a new new explanation (tipping point) that makes sense of seemingly disconnected but familiar data (smoking is popular with teens, crime sucks and most importantly, humans are buffoons). This data is then presented as information that seamlessly fits his theorem.

In this way, we find ourselves following a narrative (Oh, it's not quite what I thought, but I can guess the process), fitting otherwise banal or irrelevant information into a matrix that inspires interest but comforts us at the same time. By the time we are familiar with the narrative, everything seems interesting and relevant to this new way of thinking.

For instance, at the end of Gladwell's chapter on the epidemic of smoking he tells us that teenagers smoke because it is cool, and disseminating health warnings only makes it more appealing.

Well, no shit.

There is a lot of interesting information in this book but I couldn't help thinking it had been over-edited, the Gladwell's "novel" tipping point not much more than a contrived thread linking together what is already interesting information for the sake of popular appeal.

Or something like that anyway.

Best Christmas card in ages

From my nephew, Houston.

Paris Bogue

It's summer holidays on the south coast. I ventured into town today; Gridlock sunburned bogans, slick with rain and sausage fat.

It wasn't all bogans of course, but there were enough to make an impression. A friend once made the astute observation that bogans only come in two sizes; extremely fat or extremely thin. But a lap through Woolies today made me wonder if the fatties had eaten the skinnies: it was wall to wall pink hocks and squished jandals.

I am no fashionista* but it seems to me that bogan pretenders should heed a couple of simple fashion tips:

- Dress yourself according to your size. Your real size, that is, the size that makes you fill your trolley with boxes of diet coke.

- "Me smokes" is not a food group

- Don't wear clothes designed by a car company if the only thing you have in common with 'Holden racing' are low-profile jandals.

- Your hairstyle shouldn't match your dog.

- Sausages begets sausages.

- And for all those bumper sticker wearers out there; I'm pretty sure the ANZACS didn't have you in mind.

*A friend recently reminded me that when I met him my entire wardrobe appeared to consist of a pair of faded shorts and a tee shirt masquerading as a leotard with the crotch out of it.

.

Feel-goodness

Core competencies: Good at feeding dog.

Ah, summer programming. Today, a nice little interview with an anti-smoking advocate, advising smokers on how to make their New Year's resolution to give up smoking stick. The trick (and the cliche'd journalistic hook) is NOT to try giving up right now, whilst attending Christmas and New Years parties.

["Wait. He's telling me NOT to give up smoking? What an ironic twist! I had better listen closely to this interesting story!"]

Here's the real hook. Research tells us that it takes smokers on average 13 attempts to give up smoking. So the trick, according to the advocate, is not to think of each failed attempt as a failure. Because there are no 'failures', only learning experiences.

At the risk of coming over all Ayn Rand, isn't there some point to acknowledging something as a failure? It's not just about learning, it's about trying harder not to cock it up the next time.

Perhaps, instead of interviewing breathy, new-age, self-help wombles on the nature of failure, the ABC might instead get one of the Challenger engineers on the blower. Or a quick chat with the endlessly patient people at Three Mile Island.

Last week the ABC featured another 'feel-good' magazine story about a rural program that gives troubled young people experience with dog-trials. It's not about training them in dog-trialing specifically, mostly it's showing them how to look after and communicate with dogs.

Troubled young man; "Yeah, it's good. Shows us how to feed dogs and stuff"

Well, there's no crime in being challenged.

Seriously though, teaching 'troubled youth' that challenges are frightening and undesirable, and that failure doesn't exist is lame.

Now, I am running a community based course shortly called; Brushing for beginners (next week; Combing!). Takers??

Fadding

I'm not prone to attacks of "mommy-blogging", but today I make an exception. Because in the last few days I've met a number of people who have asked if I breastfeed my baby 'on demand'.

I'd never heard the term used before, but apparently it's just one of several feeding options. Which makes me wonder about the others.

What are the other answers to that question? Perhaps when my baby demands a feed I hand her a copy of French Vogue and tell her that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels? That she's already looking bulky in that nappy? That she thinks she wants milk, but really she wants a long black and a Gitane?

I suddenly realised that in the overfed, wealthy west there are many hungry babies, babies who can demand all they like.

For all the endless 'educated' agonising over baby-care, there seems to be little recognition of the fact that babies are relatively simple animals as long as you meet their needs. When they are hungry, feed them. When they are tired, let them sleep.

These are the inconvenient truths of motherhood; Babies want their mothers. Babies want to be breastfed. Babies do not care if you are attaining fulfilment in your field of work. Babies demand.

You might be a feminist, but no-one's let your baby in on the joke.

Ho ho ho!

Wrapping paper! Yess!

"What's that noise?"

"It's me, I'm singing 'Six White Boomers to the Possum. It's Rolf Harris"

"Well, he did work in an asbestos mine, I guess..."

"No no no! That's me on the imaginary wobble-board! Do try to keep up..."

Australia baffled the early British explorers, with its bizarre marsupials and opposite seasons. Christmas in the summer? Weird. The Brits got the hang of it, but the New Zealanders remain vexed. Because today in Australia, Christmas brought rain.

Christmas in Wellington involves an army of tiddly Aunties, negotiating their way around a collection of new bikes, forgotten toys and cheap tents, all pitched on a 45 degree angle into a roaring southerly. Imagine Everest base camp run by the CWA.

In Australia, it's a different story. This year, bushfires raging to the south of us were quenched by a galloping southerly deluge. According to the ABC this morning, your position in the Biblical axiom of fire or flood depended on your relationship to Cann River (which is widely acknowledged as pestilence).

By lunchtime today, Christmas celebrations stumbled to a halt as everyone stared out at the sheets of rain, sighing with blissful glee. Hushed utterances of "It's a Christmas miracle" and "Look at that, I mean LOOK at it!" floated around the living room. Someone got the weather radar up, and the greenish rain-lump was tracked by every eye in the house.

Wikipedia gamely describes New Zealand's climate as temperate, or "maritime", which is a euphemism for "underwater". And so, as I sit here in a jersey, so full I can barely make a fist, with rain dripping off the gutters, it feels a bit like a kiwi Christmas after all.

Comedy of the commons.

Fluffly and lightweight, the danish pastry is the perfect accompaniment.

Thank you, thank you, if I could just have your attention....The future of the world's climate is very very important, which is why we have completely booked out this disused aircraft hanger for you. We've got it for the whole week. There's a tea urn up the front if anyone is feeling the cold. It's very important for us to reach an agreement on climate change, because if we don't make some kind of show in the face of the global capitalist juggernaut, people might fear the obsolescence of the nation state as we know it. ahhh....just quickly, I've just been told that Brian at the door now has a new felt-tip for those of you who missed out on your name badges...and if I could please ask you to write clearly, we don't want any more mix-ups.

Now, where was I?

Mr Rudd says we need to take decisive action, going forward, with a whole of government approach, in order to address and tackle the issues at hand. Mr Obama, feels we need to make climate change more science-y. He told us it's about America boldly going forward to deal with a common threat, in a way they haven't done before, and about America's sense of Enterprise as a new civilisation. Mr Wen couldn't be reached for comment but sources have confirmed that he has not been executed.

Poorer nations are watching their air-conditioned apartments and designer handbags slip through their grasp, really poor nations are facing the prospect of even more catastrophic warfare, the science is too damn science-y (there's no clear and definitive prediction on exactly what the climate will do) and the Americans still want to know what 3 degrees celsius is in hogsheads.

And it's important to keep in mind that we're not entirely certain that there will even be an agreement, because the world has never done this sort of thing before, except for all those times when we've done this sort of thing before.

Thanks to the ladies out the back for the spead.

Summer garden goodness....

Yum...

As readers may be aware, I struggle with cooking. Mostly, it's due to lack of attention. I put something on to cook and then go off in search of something to eat NOW. Therefore, my cuisine normally ranges all the way from from "well done" to "de-natured".

I like food you can eat raw. Luckily we have a garden. One can dig things up, wash them under the tap, and eat them. I've had a shower or two in my life so this level of preparation doesn't phase me one bit.

This week we got strawberries. Strawberries have suffered most heinously under the yoke of commercial farming. Most of today's berries are bland, bloated freaks, the Kerry Packer of fruit. Incidentally, It's a sad state of affairs when naturally grown (organic or biodynamic) fruit and vegetables have become boutique. When did a vegetable that tastes like a vegetable become such an outrageously gourmet item?

I digress...

Good strawberries are small and pungent. Their fragrance should steep in the back of your nose and throat like fresh garlic or truffle oil.

I bought four plants at the beginning of last summer, planted them and then treated them with abject disdain for months. They did surprisingly well, producing a few tasty little nuggets, but within a few short weeks they'd lost their sense of direction, running off all over the garden. The fruit dried up, and my interests wandered.

But, the runners were spreading and before long we had about 20 plants. 20 plants showing every chance of doing nothing at all. Until about three weeks ago, when they started to flower. And now we have heaps of fruit just beginning to ripen. The picture at the top is this morning's pick. Mmmmnomnom nom...

Very cool things

You might be thinking...what IS that? Well it's a bracelet, but more than that, it's a physical representation of one year of Canberra's weather data. The peaks and troughs come from highs and lows and the holes from rainfall. The technical explanation of this data representation is, at times, a little baffling for those of us who might represent one year of Canberra's weather as a seriously cracked dashboard and an eye-watering mound of very sweaty singlets.

Mitchell says; "3D print of a dataform based on 365 days of Canberra weather data (July 08 - June 09). Daily minimum and maximum temperature generate the profile of the outer edge; the holes show rainfall per week. Model generated with Processing, boolean operation in Blender, cleaned in Meshlab, printed by Shapeways."

This comes from Mitchell Whitelaw's blog; the teeming void.

Moko the not so friendly dolphin

Here's Moko the dolphin who is becoming quite famous for menacing Gisborne (NZ) swimmers and surfers. Moko is especially interested in women, harrasing female swimmers and perhaps, according to media-friendly soundbites, lining up in an attempt to mate with them. A bemused television reporter repeated the Department of Conservation's expert; "You mean, he might try to have sex with a female swimmer?"

What I want to know is, where the fuck is John Safran when you really need him??

Seriously though, I've always been amused at people's complete confidence in well behaved dolphins. Somehow we assume that every single one of them will be 200 kilos of good-natured plaything, instead of a heirarchically attuned wild animal. Putting something on a velour bedspread does not render the entire species 'cuddly'.

Although, that pic of Moko with the boogie board is CLASSIC. Those people were laughing their arses off, right up until they got nosed to death...