I'm a little disturbed about this - I note the Australian Government has sent a letter of support...

Gig Review

Radiohead were awesome! Now I'm not a big fan of the stadium-style show, and the radiohead ticket price was over my usual cut-off. While being fully in favour of buying entertainment, that kind of cover price can sting. Anyway - they started with some songs from Hail to the Thief, which I don't have, so the gig was just giving me a kind of big rock band vibe, without really stirring any emotions. Also there were some young 'uns next to me who had clearly dropped some party goodies, and had become intensely annoying with the smoking, chewing, sweating, chattering, incessent phone calling to friends, and the lighter (!) - word for new players: its really uncool to do the lighter thing these days. Its 2004 people.

But they know their craft those pommy boys, and throughout the next 90 min they managed to be totally in charge of the mood of 10,000 people. Awesome. Rock and Roll.

Some highlights:
- the giant digital flat-screens with the orange and green effect footage of Thom York shot from above
- the rendition of Fake PLastic Trees
- the live recreation of the always surprisingly musical bleeps and loops from Kid A/ Amnesiac.. it went all disco. How on earth do they do that?*
-Jonn Greenwood playing his computer touch-pad gizmo like a real instrument
- the totally memerising way Thom york put his face right up to the camera, and beamed out 50 times life size to the audience, his eyes and cheek filling the entire screen, then offered the screaming crowd back to itself.. (I guess you had to be there to get it)
- the sychronised drumming from 3 band members in (I think) "Climbing the walls".
- the perfectly timed encores - b/c I'm really over the excessively long times bands wait these days, when you know they're going to do and encore, as the house lights are all still down..


*just checked the tripleJ online forum and disovered the tracks in question were "idioteque" and "everything in its right place"...

Concert rating: double plus good. They took some incredibly introspective music and made it something that ten thousand people could enjoy together. Respect.

My dears, I am disturbed by the return of the 80's. I have seen far too many gelato-coloured shoes, white vinyl miniskirts and new-wave haircuts in my recent travels. As the frontrunner for "worst-dressed pre-teen of the 1980's" I beseech thee, fashion designers - don't revive it.

One of the great things about holidays is that one can marinate in lucious prose and have mental space to consider the ideas it raises.

I'll start that novel one day.

Yeeeeeehaar

'Ol "Buzzsaw" Aunty B rides again.... Into the arena to lasso me some more o' them jittery exec-ew-tives. Oh lordy, its like herdin' cats out thar! But this week its been a case o' jumpin' back in the ring and jist giving it another whirl. Fellas watch out, because before you know, that purty little unthreatening-looking lassy will have you dancing like a bear in Russia. You'll be runnin' to Aunty B to ask what to do about that big bad 'ol many-headed snake we call the meedja round these parts.


In other reporting

There has been rapid growth of the proportion of Australian worker in casual or part-time work. This means workers have "low hours and pay rates, limited job security, unpredictable earnings and hours, no paid sick or holiday leave, and limited access to other rights and forms of leave". (Chifley Centre). The report goes on to say how rates of casual employment leap in "feminised" professions like clerical (more than half). And concludes that "over time, an economy dependent upon a larger and larger slice of casual employees will face a deteriorating skills base, lower workforce stability and higher turnover costs. This is both inefficient and inequitable." Amen.

Monday wrap up.

Two friends now joined in legal matrimony. I could gush or wax lyrical, but really guys it comes down to this :
You are a pair of corageous, big-hearted humans and I am in great and honest admiration of your choice. The ceremony was honest and touching, the event was real celebration, and the families were beaming. Hope you have Have a most joyous life with lots of the things you love in it.

Train doors don't work like lift doors. When you stick your arm they don't open again, you just end up with a sore arm and wounded pride.

Navel gazing?

Really, who needs to do irony, when you've got The Onion to do it for you. Check out this useful new internet tool.

Haven't had a ..

..quote for a while. "Now what would the Dali Lama do?" . . The other stupendous Miss B In reference to being recently dumped by a boy. Bless you, darlin'.

Oh yeah - and Biz, word up, thanks for giving Buzz the lowbagger seal of approval. (Although you know Missy Sharp ain't seekin' no approval from any an-nee-body now, hear?)

And lo, regular reader....your fave ethernet-auntie is off on holidays to celebrate the ressurection of our Lord, JC. Hopefully there will be no posts for a while. And everyone can just shut-up about "mini-breaks"!

Lists ahoy

New CD's ....
Goldfrapp - Black Cherry. . . Not as many slinky booty-twitching pop gems as I had hoped, but enough to stave the cravings.

Little Birdy - Self-titled EP. Have been playing Relapse on repeat. Sad, I know.

The Sundays - Static and Silence. Ten bucks secondhand. Ten bucks! Well worth it for Summertime, the rest is a bit easy listening. Good for Sunday afternoons.

Robbie Williams - Escapolgy. Total rubbish. Only bought because it was on special and needed party pop songs. None forthcoming . . . anyone want the darned thing?

Living Colour - double CD Vivid and Time's Up. One for the old days, surprisingly still listenable. Remember Love Rears Up it Ugly Head? I'd forgotten.

Cat Power - What would the Community Think. Chan Marshal, indie music's favourite nutter. Not sure yet, giving it a few listens.

Things making Aunty B Cross . . .
The NSW Government. Just don't get me started. But it has to do with:
a) treating things like train travel as a revenue stream rather than an essential service, hence expending the bare mimimum on maintenance and new infrastructure
b) announcing a fantasitic credit rating and a surplus for few years running
c) throwing a giant tanty when the feds pull back on the GST gravy train
d) announding a big old deficit in their 3rd term, to pay for things like rail service repair and extensions
e) paying for the deficit through "belt-tightening" in areas like the Department of Women, The Carnivale multicultural festival, The Migrant Training Scheme, The Towns and Country Water Sewage Recycling Scheme, and the Urban Design Advisory Service.

Are any of these points related, Aunty wonders?

Biggest "dur" moment in the scientific media . . .
"Excessive television viewing may increase risk of ADHD" - University of Washington Researchers

That's Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder for the uninitiated. Well HELLO . . . TV is created in 30 second slots. The good scientist in me must note though that the findings have been queried by long-time researchers in this field, and treated with suspicion as being too simplistic. But crumbs any health science finding that ends with "The best thing parents can do is turn the television off and talk to their kids and read to their kids, which is a much more positive activity than watching passive television," is okay in my books. Thanks to Frank Oberklaid, director of the Centre for Community Child Health at Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital for that one.

Hey wideyedkid .. doin ya proud!

Swash buckling adventures of Cap'n Bsharp (episode six)

On realising that she was not in possesion of the fabled magnetised pass key that would let her through the barriers of the underground passageway...

In one sweeping glance the fearless B the Blighted took in the 3 members of the enemy crew who were posted at all possible exits ready to ambush the unwary adventurer. Quelling a moment of panic her seasoned campaigner's mind took over and she sighted a likely getaway route from the subterranean cavern. Avast ! Over there, the wee landlubber in the chambray shirt. See - he hesitates as he fumbles for his own legitimate pass to the freedom of the sunlit world above. Like quicksilver she sidled up behind him and most casually strode through the barrier within a hair's breadth of those unforgiving jaws as they clamped shut with menacing clunk, right behind her most shapley and pert posterier. And right beneath the noses of the be-bagded servants of the evil lord C Rail! Triumph again, and mistress B supresses a grin and verily skips up the stone staircase to spend another day wrestling with the forces of darkness and mediocrity in the dirty ship of fools governing the Emerald City.

Zzzzz

Hey here's a site full of Buzz. words (defn: A usually important-sounding word or phrase used primarily to impress laypersons). Okay so I can't get my site to show up on google. How did you guess?

Must. Not. Spend. Life. Savings. On. Funky. Shit.

I'm in London and I have an irresistible urge to purchase stylish stuff. At Topshop. At Knickerbox. At Muji. At Gap (and yes I know they're an evil multi, but they are the only makers of jeans in the shape of Betty Sue's bum) At Morgan. At Mango. At Paperchase.

Must stop - three months in India should have given me a new spiritual appreciation of poverty, but London erased it in 3 days. Must dash - shoe sale calling me

Woken

By the phone ringing. Dreaming that I was in a team debate. (A mass debate, perhaps). The audience was a large garden party-bbq-type arragement. Had thought up some good rebuttal to the other team, but in my turn the audience were all talking and carousing loudly no matter how hard I projected. Was about to wolf whistle to get their attention when the mobile shrilled from the back room.