Month: August 2006

Will you do me the honour?

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There was a long thread (200+ comments) over at Pandagon last week about the pressures on both men and women regarding marriage expectations, which was quite fascinating. Amanda was reading a book about proposal angst and was worried that people might think she was reading “bridal p*rn” because of the picture of a woman in a wedding dress on the cover, and that they would then conclude that she was one of those who’d bought into the hype of needing to be married, the fear of being “left on the shelf”.

The post concentrated particularly on the romantic and dramatic expectations regarding the proposal itself:

Could I have a little less Islamofascism in my coffee?

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Deltoid takes a few more whacks at his favourite pinata, Tim Blair. Tim Lambert channels Monty Python’s Spam sketch in response to Blair asking his fanboys whyowhy couldn’t ABC science wonk Robyn Williams write a book on the flaws in fundamentalist Islam instead of on the flaws of Intelligent Design “theory”?

Indeed, to get all subeditorly as Blair so likes to do (inserted obligatory cliches start here in bold), what unmitigated gall from Williams, writing about anything other than The Greatest Threat to Western Civilisation Evah(TM).

Unseemly Squeal of the day (extra)

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My darling got me tickets to The Boy From Oz!

For any particular reason, dear reader?

Only for my (addendum) birthday, for which I have decided to photoshop a fantasy cake: (This text added to entice all the feed-readers who obviously were not fascinated enough by musical theatre references to drop on by yesterday. Sniff.).

The Cake From Oz

The first shots of the HPV vaccine

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Ian Frazer, the discoverer, is doing a bit of a whirlwind tour today for the cameras – vaccinating some girls and young women in both Brisbane and Sydney on the first day that Gardasil is approved for use in Australia.

As yet there’s no government subsidy for the vaccine (which protects against the virus that causes the main form of cervical cancer), so the full course of three shots costs over A$400. There’s nonetheless no shortage of takers, and a growing number of men interested in the vaccination as well so they can be confident of not infecting their partners.

A source of minor joy

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is just discovering that the Ermine Street Guard exists. It’s so peculiarly British to take one’s weird hobby involving dressing up in strange outfits so seriously that one’s group ends up as a respected resource for academics pursuing a proper understanding of Roman military engineering and craftsmanship.

Even if they probably wouldn’t let me play with the onager

Onager

I’m shocked-diddly-ocked I tell you!

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If a dad freaks out after his six-year-old innocently says the word ‘pen*s’ when reading a sign some teenagers have pranked, experience tells me that said six-year-old might just think it was enormous fun to say that word over and over and over again just to make daddy’s eyes bug out. Working out whether when his face changes colour like that it matches the crimson or the magenta crayon more exactly might be considered enormous fun as well.

But apparently, Bryan Flynn thinks such a reaction from his six-year-old indicates a “traumatized” child, and requires channelling Ned Flanders:

This has shaken the bedrock of our family. I made an emergency call to our church’s pastor about this bombshell in my daughter’s life and he is unsure how it will affect her future.

He didn’t like it, no sirree

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Peter MacCallum titles his review “A cruelty that extends to all within earshot” and opens with

First I need to be honest and say that I found Peter Goldsworthy and Richard Mills’s Batavia the vilest thing I have experienced in the theatre.
It’s an appallingly studied invectival tirade masquerading as a brutal-but-fair assessment. One is forced to wonder whether Messrs Goldsworthy and Mills ever tied MacCallum down and popped a ferret in his trousers, such is his spite.

The libretto of Batavia tells a tale of violence and brutal despair that is possibly unmatched even in the world of opera, but is that any excuse to cynically coopt the language of violence in order to produce hyperbole such as this?