And I thought I lived with the most enthusiastic Christmas elf of all time. But no, a household in BrisVegas have synchronised their lights to music. Ye gods. Yes. That is some serious Christmas spirit. Not quite my taste, but they're raising money for charity so I won't say a word about Kath and Kim.
Merry Christmas, joyful holidays, have a lovely Summer solstice, happy Hanukkah – however you do or don't celebrate in December, I wish you a beautiful 2009.
I’ve always liked the word ‘pod’, a little kernel of potential awaiting a bushfire, or soil and rain, to explode into life. I was initially a little dismayed when Apple hijacked the word (even though iPods are wonderbunk), but I’ve come around again because podcasts are my hourly companions.
I still can’t read much in print form, I’ve almost abandoned audio books due to the difficulty of maintaining a regular supply, and podcasts are free and easy to get hold of. Radio National is my first love, but it’s mighty handy to be able to hear shows on demand. Like when I’m awake at 3am with a towel under my head, wondering what purpose night sweats have in the scheme of things.
If you’re listening to podcasts in bed I recommend ditching the crappy generic headphones that came with your mp3 player (esp. those hideous white ones from Apple) and investing in a comfy pair of canalphones like these, that can be used even if you lie on your side. If all headphones hurt, I suggest a cheap iBoom rip-off from somewhere like K-Mart so you can listen through tiny speakers on your bedside table.
I’m listening to a lot during the silly season. People keep asking me what I’m doing for the Christmas period. You know me, convivial to the end: short bursts of socialising and sugar-eating, but otherwise tucked up in bed in a dim room, soft cloth over eyes, with an earplug in one ear and a headphone in the other. Business as usual.
What are your favourite podcasts? If anyone feels a burning urge to recommend any, I’m always looking for more! The key is to have a nice blend of serious and silly. My list waxes and wanes, but some are listed below.My days and nights would be very much the bleaker without podcasts. I love you, little sound pods, little poddie sounds, little wonders of interesting international minutiae and mutterings of humans Out There. Go forth and multiply so I always have abundant listening mulch.
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Sunday Night Safran
Unconstructed radio ostensibly about religion, politics, and culture; hosts John Safran and Father Bob conduct shambolic interviews with guests, bicker with one another, and meander down rambling conversational paths. Bob is like an inquisitive prattling Australian Yoda, John seems to be more obsessed with ethnicity than religion, unless the religion involves magic underpants.
With Garrison Keillor. Soothing.
Andrew Denton gives good interview. They’ve just cancelled this show, so get 'em while you can.
Phillip Adams, Australia’s favourite leftie, talks to illuminaries and interesting persons from near and far. I get a little thrill just from the theme music.
Hilarious audio newspaper by two British comedians, Andy Zaltzman (London) and John Oliver (New York). Even has a cryptic crossword to make mere mortals feel foolish. I can’t do cryptic crosswords, but my Granny does. She’s a bona fide genius, I don’t compare myself to her.
Non-earnest coverage of disability issues, including a quiz called, “Vegetable, vegetable or vegetable?”
Tireless Melbourne social activist and maverick. Devotes every waking moment to helping people in need or brainstorming more ways to help people in need.
I’m all excited if they discuss a book I read in the past, it’s proof I once had a brain. (“I would while away the hours, conferrin’ with the flowers…”)
OK, it’s a bit masochistic listening to the book shows, but I like to keep abreast (abook?) of things.
I love Dr Karl. He's been described as 'an answer looking for a question' and his show is fascinating. I’ve heard the BBC one too (Naked Scientists) but this one’s shorter - Zan keeps things moving right along. Did I mention I love Dr Karl?
Great mix of topics and guests. Host Terry Gross is an intelligent and curious interviewer, and emits an endearing little snort when she laughs.
The Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry.
Substantial interviews with authors.
I’m of the generation that was intended to magically absorb grammar by osmosis. It didn’t work, so we need all the help we can get. Grammar Girl would choke if forced to read this blog.
With Susan Maushart.
Awesome and carefully crafted podcast of mp3 gooduns. I don't listen to normal music radio because I refuse to sit through five crap songs to get to the good. Plus I'm a softie for some warm vinyl crackle - our family had a massive record collection when we were growing up, my brother and I played them constantly.
Ms Geraldine Doogue...is a legend.
Hamish & Andy / Hughesy & Kate
Light listening! Amusing and sometimes puerile.
Always riveting, and hosts Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant are fantastic.
Apparently the most popular podcast in America. Beautiful and poignant.
As described.
2010 newies to my list:
Interior design.
Based in Melbourne. "We take stories by Antipodean writers and raconteurs from the page and make them audible. Paper Radio is divided into two distinct stations — FM and AM."
Short stories by Australian author Jennifer Mills.
I have in recent weeks been bragging to my partner that my tablet-taking skills are second to none, demonstrating how many I can get down my gullet in one go, like a boaconstrictor swallowing six pigeons.
I came undone last weekend. I was taking my after-lunch tablets, and was up to the acetyl-L carnitine - I always leave it until last and gulp it solo – it’s a whopper and deserves to be treated with respect. I don't know how it happened, but I choked on it. I’m not talking about the choking where you splutter and things sort themselves out. I’m talking about proper choking: complete airway obstruction and ungraceful neck grasping.
I leapt from my daybed and turned the water-filter on, thinking to get some water. I started to feel faint – I'm familiar with this feeling and can estimate how long I have until I pass out. I thought maybe 15 seconds. Apparently orthostatic issues don't combine well with choking. Water from the filter gushed pointlessly down my legs and over my feet, and it occurred to my unoxygenated brain that if I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t drink.
My partner had his back to me, doing dishes at the sink with the tap on, and I couldn’t get his attention because I couldn’t make a sound. He would’ve assumed I was still on the daybed. I rushed towards him and grabbed his shoulder. He turned and saw my face turning from bright red, to blue, and shouted with terror, “What do I do? What do I do?”
I couldn’t answer, just clutched at my throat in a deranged manner. His CPR training kicked in and he belted me five times on the upper back, and when that didn’t work, successfully executed the Heimlich Manoeuvre with textbook aplomb.
Afterwards I was perfectly fine, though sore from being thumped. My lovely rescuer was freaked out, but found comfort in chocolate and double-checking the first aid book. The surreal interruption to domestic life was over as swiftly as it began; within ten minutes I was on the phone to my brother, advising him to choose the Sony Ericsson over the Nokia mobile phone.
I told you I like weekends – imagine if I’d have been home alone? I’d have had to throw myself over a chair like Liz Lemon on 30 Rock.
God songs from school, they stick in your head. Askew, but they stick.
I saw a bass clef today and it took me two hours to remember what it was. For a goodly while I thought it was a rest. Then I thought, no, it's a fermata; then I thought, well whatever it is, it looks familiar. When I did remember, I was horrified. Fancy not recognising a bass clef. In my very feeble defence it wasn't in context, it was a tattoo on the nape of someone's neck.
picnics in bed
ginkgo tea brewed in the little white teapot
cherries
white cotton sheets
Multicolr Search Lab - Idée Inc.
cool breezes
rose hip oil on dry skin
Christmas trees and fairy lights
beautiful news on the blog of Ciara
pelicans in flight
Sungha Jung rocking it
Just thought I’d mention I’ve been using the above program for blogging for a while now, and I love it – it makes everything so much simpler. You can write, save and organise drafts offline, which is faster than working online in a web browser: speed and ease of use are of the essence if you have limited productive time. Theoretically you could do this in any word processing program, but in WLW you can preview exactly what it will look like in your blog before you post it. I appreciate this feature because I used to have constant formatting problems which drove me round the twist.
It’s compatible with most of the major blog platforms. If you run Windows on a PC, or on Boot Camp if you’re an Appler, it’s well worth a go. (Though if you're an Appler you'll hate it because it's Microsoft, so I don't know why I even said that. Sometimes my Operating System Agnosticism seeps out in public.)
There are plenty of WLW tutorials around the place, too.
Awful news – Lynn Gilderdale, a young woman with severe ME whom I’ve briefly mentioned previously, has died. My heart goes out to her loved ones. Gill Swain, the journalist who wrote the article I linked to last time, has written about Lynn again:
In my 35 years as a journalist, the story of Lynn and Kay Gilderdale was one of the most affecting cases I had come across.
I thought the gecko was gone for good, but the other day I was on the phone to my brother, and absent-mindedly caressed a Christmas present I’d just wrapped. A brown speckled gecko scuttled out from beneath the red ribbon and I swore down the phone. I’m a bit scared of reptiles, even small ones with pretty toes. My shock didn’t impress my brother: he’d had a recent run in with a funnel-web spider in his bedroom. A funnel-web fright trumps a gecko.
Today I grabbed the tray that stores the IV equipment, and she darted out from beneath the cloth covering. I dropped the lot and she sat perkily next to the tourniquet, oblivious to the effect her sudden appearance has on my nerves.
I asked my beloved to please remove Geckofabulous to the balcony, so she could be an alfresco gecko and stop scaring me. Then I relented and decided I’d be happy for her to stay inside, it’s comforting to think there’s another living being at home with me. But I admonished her to stop jumping out from under things when I’m not expecting it, and also suggested she take up strolling. Scuttling is creepy.
I love the weekend, I look forward to it all week. On the weekend someone is home. He buys The Weekend Australian, and makes me lunch immediately before I eat it. Not to diss everyone’s generous efforts to keep me fed during the week, but I grow weary of the same-reheated-meal-every-single-day-and-by-Friday-it’s-sodden approach to lunch. A basic fresh sandwich is sublime. Today I had one made from a new brand of gluten-free loaf at Woolies. I’m obsessed with food – it makes or breaks my day. I read recipes and fantasise about ingredients. I dream about olives, quinces, camembert, pears, asparagus. To have culinary independence, to choose one’s own meals – it must be glorious.
I’m not the only piglet in the house: himself goes so far as to call his weekend lunch The Royal Sandwich. There’s nothing royal about it. It’s identical to the one he made me, pictured below, plain as can be, but on rye bread, the smell of which makes me sniff in the direction of the toaster like a dog. We have an agreement that I leave him in peace while he eats it and reads the sports pages - it’s his quiet time in a hectic week. I always forget, and read the interesting snippets on the front page aloud. I’m a great partner like that.
