Oh, hi. Remember when I used to do this blogging thing? Yeah, me too...
I actually finished this one about three weeks ago, and just kept on forgetting to actually review it. Whoops.
So. My Brilliant Career. It's the story of Sybylla, a teenage girl growing up in rural Australia in the 1890s. Her father makes bad decisions and ends up dirt poor. The family try to scrounge a living together, but the drought hits and all the animals start dying. So Sybylla's reasonably rich grandmother takes her off her parents' hands with the hopes of marrying her off or turning her into a governess. But Sybylla wants to do something more with her life, and starts writing about her life.
Sybylla was a FABULOUS character. She's sassy and fiercely independent and often talks in all caps. She'd rather hang out with the shearers and the grooms than with people of her own class. In short, she feels like a teenager struggling her way through a world where she's expected to be an adult already.
It's full of incredible characters and funny moments and amazing writing.
But then I hit My Career Goes Bung. And...it was not good. The basic gist of it is that everything we knew in My Brilliant Career was what Sybylla had written. In My Career Goes Bung, she tells us that huge parts of My Brilliant Career were fictional. There was no Harold Beecham. She had no siblings. Her mother and grandmother were both vastly different characters.
So basically? We had to get to know Sybylla all over again. And I didn't like Writer Sybylla nearly as much as the character she'd apparently created. Especially when she was dumped into an all-new environment with all-new characters.
In summary, I gave the omnibus book 4 stars, but it was more like 4.5 stars for My Brilliant Career and 3 stars for My Career Goes Bung.
On Saturday afternoon, Mum and I went to the matinee performance of Strictly Ballroom, which finishes in Melbourne this week. And while I found it thoroughly enjoyable, I also...had a lot of thoughts about it.
1. The staging was AMAZING.
The stage rotates, and the sets are all in pieces that can be moved and assembled as required. All the sets are also double-sided so that scenes can take place, for instance, inside the dance studio or looking through the windows, at Fran's house or out the front of the milk bar, on the dance floor or backstage.
2. The costumes are glorious.
A lot of them are basically copies of the costumes from the movie, but they're still great. Plus, there are so many on-stage costume changes that it's basically Eurovision. There are even some on-stage hair changes. Basically, everything about the costumes, hair and make up is great.
3. The choreography is great.
Obviously, they're restricted by the size of the stage, so some of the big dramatic moves from the movie have to be altered (like Scott spinning across the floor). But on the whole, the choreography was totally brilliant and far more individualised than musical choreography tends to be.
4. The music felt...disjointed.
Look, the music was such a huge part of the movie, and obviously they were never going to be able to get the rights to all the songs they used. And obviously, they needed to include original songs to progress the story. But the problem for me is that there wasn't a single choreographer. There wasn't even a single lyricist.
The original songs are split between about four main composers, with input from a range of others. Add in the fact that there are half a dozen songs that aren't original - including Time After Time and Love Is In the Air - and the whole thing just ended up feeling like there was nothing to tie it together.
There's a great quote from an episode of The Office where Darryl shushes Michael as the orchestra starts playing because "If we don’t listen to the overture, we won’t recognise the musical themes when they come back later." And I think that's part of the problem here. There really weren't any recurring musical themes.
5. The demand for new steps was weirdly turned into a Les Mis style protest-y song.
In the movie, the argument in favour of new steps is about 30 seconds of people chanting "new steps, new steps!" while dance newsletters spin on screen with sensationalist headlines, ending with Barry Fife saying "THERE WILL BE NO NEW STEPS". But in the musical, that somehow gets turned into two separate songs: one in which Barry has nightmares about people asking for new steps, and one in which the entire company wave placards and flags and Scott dances around encouraging them to protest. Basically, it was all a little strange.
6. Insufficient anger.
Don't get me wrong, Thomas Lacey was great in the role of Scott Hastings. But what shines through so strongly in the movie is Scott's anger. It's not just that he's bored of the steps, bored of doing what his mother and his dance teacher tell him. He's frustrated. He's angry. He's sick of other people dictating what he can do with his life. It's that anger and passion that makes that finale paso doble so perfect. And Paul Mercurio does that anger so brilliantly in the movie. But on stage - and it's totally understandable, because portraying that much anger consistently over two hours, eight times a week? NOPE - none of that really came through.
7. Fernando Mira's solo was FLAWLESS.
It was never going to be easy to follow Antonio Vargas' fabulous turn as Fran's father, Rico, in the movie. And really, Rico feels like a much smaller part in the stage production. But the "pffff, that's not paso doble" solo from Fernando Mira was pretty damned incredible. It's not entirely surprising that he and Natalie Gamsu (who played Abuela) got the biggest round of applause during the curtain call.
8. I have mixed feelings about the audience participation elements.
Having the theatre divided into blocks of coloured seats and having the audience cheer for the performers wearing that colour in the "competitions" was a fun idea. And I loved the opening of act 2 in which a couple from the audience were pulled on stage to become part of the performance in Beautiful When You Dance, which was definitely one of the strongest songs.
But trying to recreate the ending of the movie, where the dance floor is flooded with spectators joining in the fun didn't entirely work for me. There ended up being maybe 50 audience members on stage, but many of them just swayed back and forth awkwardly, despite having rushed up on the stage. One little girl looked like she was about to cry. And then giving those audience members a curtain call was just...strange.
9. Mike Snell WAS Ken Railings.
He did an absolutely phenomenal job of playing a character who's sleazy and a total drunk but still incredibly funny and somehow likeable. If I hadn't known better, I would have sworn it was John Hannan, who played Ken in the film, up there.
10. I think I'd give it 7/10?
I know I sound like I'm being overly negative here. It really was a thoroughly enjoyable musical production. But. It's also not one where I left singing any of the songs, unlike when I saw Book of Mormon last year and spent the next three days with You And Me But Mostly Me stuck in my head. It's not one where I came out of the theatre and wanted to go straight to the box office for tickets to see it again, like I wanted to with Les Miserables last year (but didn't because tickets were $125). Instead, I came home and watched the movie. Which, strangely, does a better job of recurring musical themes...
So yeah. It was an enjoyable afternoon. But I can't help but think that it might be better if you had no prior exposure to the story and went in not expecting certain moments, certain pieces of music and certain characters portrayed in a particular way.
I've mentioned a couple of times in the last few days that I tracked my reading statistics last year and that I was going to be doing a full post about them. Guess what? IT'S STATISTICS TIME, Y'ALL.
Reading strategy
Okay, so first of all, I've mentioned a few times that I adopted a slightly different reading strategy during 2014. In the past, I've always been strictly a one-book-at-a-time reader. And when a book turns out to be dense or slow going or I'm just not into the story and don't really want to pick it up? It definitely had an impact on how many books I was reading.
But then I started my Classics Club challenge, which requires me to read a book a month through until 1 January 2019. And so that automatically meant that I was reading at least two books at a time, because I prefer to take my Classics Club books slowly and read them across the course of the month to get a true appreciation for them, rather than rushing through because I want to get back to more modern reads.
And one of my goals for 2014 was to reread more, so I decided to adopt a strategy of reading three books at any given time - one Classics Club book, one new book, and one reread. This meant that I was usually racing through either the new book or the reread, and I'm pretty sure this strategy is why I read 104 more books in 2014 than in 2013.
So. There you go.
Pages read
Another one of my reading goals for 2014 was to track how many pages I read a day. Sure, Goodreads tracks your total page count for you, but it inevitably ends up wonky because your edition isn't featured on Goodreads or it doesn't have the page numbers listed or the page count is out by like ten pages for some reason. Plus, I wanted to see what my average number of pages a day worked out to.
I read a total of 102,281 pages in 2014, an average of just over 280 pages a day. Obviously, I read more some days than others, and I generally read a lot less when I was travelling (partly because I was busy and partly because I was only reading one book at a time). The lowest number of pages I read in a day was 20 pages on our last day in Portugal, and the highest number of pages I read in a day was SEVEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY back in February on a day when I clearly had no life whatsoever...
Rating
Yes, I made a series of pivot charts to tabulate my statistics. You're welcome. The vast majority of the books I read in 2014 got favourable reviews. As you can see, I used half stars quite a lot, and other fractions of stars a handful of times. Clearly, I'm pretty generous with my four star reviews, and fairly strict with my five star reviews. On the plus side, I only read eight one star books, which is reserved almost exclusively for "things I want to throw at the wall".
Genre
I'm kind of surprised by how many contemporary books I read in 2014. The vast majority of those 69 contemporary books were young adult or new adult. I'm also a little surprised that I read 57 fantasy books, considering urban fantasies (which is my fantasy sub-genre of choice) generally fell under the paranormal category (42 books). Although that DID include 14 Discworld books, every Throne of Glass book, and a decent chunk of Tolkien, so...yeah.
Really, the one I'm most surprised about is the dystopian books. I only read five books that classified best as dystopian in 2014, and I'm not sure if that's because the trend is on the wane or if it's because at some point I decided that the real world was close enough to a dystopia at times and stopped reading them... And the dystopian books that I DID read? I rated 80% of them at 2.5 stars or less.
Setting
Welp, that's a little depressing. Just shy of 40% of the books I read were set in the US. And another 22% were set in the UK. That big fat "Other" category? That's reserved for fictional universes created by the likes of Terry Pratchett, Sarah J. Maas, Garth Nix, and J.R.R. Tolkien. I read a mere 14 books set in Australia, and yet somehow manage to read two books set in Antarctica?!?! Go figure...
Gender of author
Admittedly, this category is a little problematic, because gender is a spectrum not a binary option etc etc etc. It's also a little problematic because in some cases, such as The Silkworm, the book was published under one gender but it was really the other. Or both (I'm looking at you, Ilona Andrews). But essentially, I read a crapton more books by women than men. Not intentionally, of course. That's just how it turned out. (Eight books into 2015, and I have yet to read anything by a male author. Whoops???)
Gender of narrator
Again, this is a little problematic because gender is complicated etc. But I still read far more books with female narrators than male narrators. Which probably says more about YA books than anything, I suspect...
Young adult books
This should surprise precisely no one. YA is my jam, and it's really obvious. I only needed to read five more YA books and five less other books (which, incidentally, includes middle grade books and new adult books), and it would have been a 50-50 split.
Australian books
38 books by Australian authors isn't too shabby, but it makes me a little sad that so many books written by Australian authors aren't set in Australia. Because seriously - only 36% of these books were set in Australia. I'm not saying that Australian authors HAVE to base their books here, that's crazy talk. And interestingly, this is one area where the books weren't US-based. Instead, the non-Australian based books were largely set in the UK or Europe.
Diverse books
I've talked about these already as part of my Diverse Books project for 2015, but it's worth representing in visual form because DAMN. That is pathetic. Especially when you consider the fact that those 24 diverse books? Twelve of them were only PARTLY from the perspective of a diverse narrator. Sigh.
Rereading
I reread a whopping twenty two books (out of 171 books) in 2013. And one of my goals was to reread more often in 2014. I still read far more new books than books I'd already read, but I think this was a fairly significant improvement! (104 rereads in 2014) I'd like to get this closer to a 50-50 split this year, but I'm not entirely sure that'll happen.
So. There you go. That's a break down of my reading in 2014!
Do you think there's anything else I should be tracking in 2015??
As you guys know, Nikki came to stay a little while back. And one of the things we did while she was here? Was to make a vlog together. We originally planned this like forever ago, and the idea was that it would be a weekly series. I'd talk about the history of a product and its significance in Australian culture, then the following week, Nikki would sample it and tell the internet what she thought.
Given that she leaves Australia next Tuesday, we had to cram the process into a much shorter space of time. This video is hella long, but considering I had 59 minutes and 30 seconds worth of footage to work with, I think I did pretty well to get it down to a hair under 15 minutes.
Please enjoy us eating all the foods and generally being ridiculous. You're welcome, internet. And yes, those facial expressions in the thumbnail are totally indicative of our feelings towards several of the foods we tried.
If you are Australian and actually like Chico Babies, please let me know immediately. Because I need to know.
Today's topic was to revisit a topic from a previous week, or to pick a topic you'd missed the first time around. There were a couple of past topics that appealed, but I ended up deciding to do a freebie - my top ten books by Australian authors!
1. Tomorrow, When the War Began - John Marsden
This series was the Harry Potter of Australia for a while there in the mid-90s (by which I mean that EVERYONE would be reading them and waiting with baited breath for the next one to come out and "OMG WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER???"-ing). They're still great, but this? This stands alone on a pedestal for me. It's absolutely brilliant from start to finish.
2. Saving Francesca - Melina Marchetta
Marchetta's Looking for Alibrandi is the book that tends to get more attention in Australia, and I think that's mostly because it ended up on the English curriculum in a lot of states. But for me, Saving Francesca is the stronger book. It's moving and funny and relatable and just flat out readable.
3. Van Diemen's Land - James Boyce
I read this book time and time again a couple of years ago for work, and it's completely fascinating. It's the history of Tasmania to the cessation of transportation and independence from New South Wales in 1853, but focusing on how the environment impacted on the development of the colony and its population (which sounds kind of dull, but I promise you, it's not). Filled with fabulous titbits and a focus on a number of the groups that history tends to ignore.
4. Newt's Emerald - Garth Nix
I adore the Old Kingdom series, but there was just something about Newt's Emerald that put it that cut above the rest of Nix's books for me. It was filled with magic and fun and wonderful female characters.Well and truly worth the read, especially as it's only 200 pages.
5. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
One that most people will already be aware of, but still worthy of being on the list. The narrator is brilliant, the characters are great, and the story made me feel All The Feels.
6. Leviathan - Scott Westerfeld
His Australian-ness may be sliiiiiiiiiiiightly questionable, but shhhhhhhh. This book was phenomenal. The world building is AMAZING, the illustrations are to die for, and the characters - particularly Deryn - are fabulous. I loved the whole series, but this one stood out a little from the other two.
7. Girt: the unauthorised history of Australia - David Hunt
This is a recent edition to my list of Australian favourites, and it's quite possibly the funniest book I've read in a good long time. It doesn't require any prior knowledge of Australian history, though if you DO have some understanding there are plenty of in-jokes in store for you. Funny and snarky and filled with fabulous anecdotes from the early history of New South Wales.
8. The Accidental Sorcerer - K.E. Mills
A Pratchett-esque story about a rather inept wizard who finds himself somewhere that he didn't quite expect. The characters are great, and the dialogue was a lot of fun. Completely and utterly readable.
9. Graffiti Moon - Cath Crowley
A quick read of a story that unfolds in a single night. It brilliantly delivers that sense of what it's like to be finishing high school and have the whole world waiting for you (along with a lot of expectations). Entertaining characters in a fun plot.
10. The Mystery of a Hansom Cab - Fergus Hume
The book that basically launched the mystery genre. A fairly standard whodunnit by modern standards, but Hume's character descriptions are such that the characters seem like actual people and not just little actors responding to their creator's demands. And it's also an excellent insight into life in post-gold rush Melbourne, back when the city was one of the richest on earth.
So there you have it - my top ten books by Australian authors! Have you read any of these? Or do you have other favourites?
Given that the 26th of January is Australia Day, it seemed only appropriate that - as that was the day I started my first book for Classics Club - it be something Australian. I went with Picnic at Hanging Rock, a book that I hadn't read in approximately 15 years.
Picnic at Hanging Rock is a somewhat notorious Australian classic, because many people are under the (erroneous) impression that it's a true story, despite the fact that it was published in 1967, and also because after Joan Lindsay's death a final chapter was released that was meant to explain everything but which instead was (apparently. I haven't read it and don't plan to) a bit of a trainwreck.
ANYWAY.
On Valentine's Day 1900, a group of schoolgirls go, as the title would suggest, on a picnic at Hanging Rock. The hot afternoon sends most of the party to sleep, but a group of four girls decide to go exploring. Several hours later, one returns in hysterics. At around the same time, it's discovered that one of the teachers is also missing. A massive search ensues, but no sign of the three girls and the teacher is found. A week later, a young well-to-do Englishman and his coachman - who had seen the girls heading off into the bush on Valentine's Day - conduct their own search and find one of the girls. The others are never seen again.
This covers the first half of the book. The second half details not so much the search for the girls - though it does include some police investigation - but how their disappearance impacted on those around them over the subsequent months.
For me, the story itself isn't particularly scary. Some teenage girls walk into the bush and don't come back, big whoop. Where things get scary is not knowing what happened. By leaving their disappearance open ended - did they get kidnapped? Murdered? Lost? Disappear into an alternate universe through a stone circle?? - Lindsay is forcing the reader to draw their own conclusions. But the story is such that - at least in my case - your brain can't quite decide what the most likely reason is, and you find yourself lying awake at 1.30am thinking about the story and trying to work out what happened for yourself.
The characters tend to be a little same-same-but-different - all the good characters are beautiful and thin and loved by everyone around them, and the bad characters are fat and ugly and universally disliked. My favourite character, hands down, was Albert. He's such a stereotypical Aussie country boy, from his language to his actions to the fact that he really doesn't care about class and just treats everyone the same. He's a fabulous counterpoint to all the well-to-do characters.
It's a quick read, clocking in at just over 200 pages and - despite giving me a somewhat sleepless night pondering the mystery - is well worth the effort.
It was Australia Day yesterday, and so it's only appropriate that I watch one of the greatest Australian films of all time - Muriel's Wedding. If you haven't seen it, SHAME ON YOU. Go and watch it immediately.
Reasons why Muriel's Wedding is awesome:
1. Toni Collette. She is absolutely fantastic from start to finish.
2. ABBA.
5. Watching Charles and Diana's wedding on a loop at work.
6. Brice's awkward attempts at dancing.
7. Matt Day. He's just adorable.
8. The Hibiscus Island talent quest.
9. Bill Hunter, even though he's an asshat.
10. Jeanie Drynan. She's amazing. Betty is the most completely and utterly heartbreaking character. She's effectively shat upon by every single character, and will inevitably give you All the Feels.
11. Being "rescued" by naked American sailors.
19. Muriel's insane wedding tiara thingie. It looks like it's made of tinsel.
20. The bridesmaids trying to walk down the aisle in time to ABBA. Hilarious.
Plus, the following quotes:
- "You're terrible, Muriel."
- "Can you look at that dry cleaners over there, please?"
- "I have to tell you something... I'm a parking inspector."
- "I've got a job interview next week. An apprentice locksmith."
- "What am I supposed to do? I'm a briiiide, I'm supposed to be euphoric!"
- "I hope the photos help your sister out of that coma!"
- "I'M NOT NOTHING!"
- "Give her a blank cheque for the cosmetics." "A blank cheque? How much for?"
- "Why don't you come have a drink with us?" "You want to have a drink with me?" "Well, yeah. We wouldn't want you to spend the entire holiday alone. It's not like in high school where you should feel you're not good enough to talk to us." "I don't." "If I feel you've changed, I'll tell you. I'm honest. Unlike some people, I tell it like it is." "The truth? I tell the truth too. Nicole's having an affair with Chook. Muriel saw them fucking in the laundry room on your wedding day. Stick your drink up your ass, Tania! I'd rather swallow razor blades than have a drink with you. Oh, by the way... I'm not alone. I'm with Muriel."
- "I had cancer... it's all right, they cut it out." "You were so full of life." "I'm not DEAD, Cheryl."
- "Deirdre Chambers, what a coincidence!"
- "Did Perry interview for the police force yet?" "Yes, but they said he couldn't join because he was too tall."
- "Bikkie?" "Maybe after...later."
- "Mariel, how did you feel when Kieran Perkins took gold for Australia in Barcelona?" "...Who?"
- "I'm married. I'm beautiful!!"
Do yourself a favour and watch it immediately. (You can stream it on Netflix and everything, America!)
When I was writing up my bookish goals for 2014, one of them was to read at least one classic that I'd never read before. Shortly after writing that list of goals, I stumbled across The Classics Club. When it comes to classics, I have a tendency to stick to my safety zone and reread the same things over and over again - Persuasion, Jane Eyre, pretty much anything Dickensian. In short, nineteenth century English stuff, because the Victorian era is my jam. This, I have decided, is an excellent opportunity to branch out, and also to revisit some classics that I had to read in high school or university but which I haven't revisited since.
The goal of The Classics Club is to read at least 50 classic books within a five year period and review them all. I'm planning to read 60 in just under five years, so by 1 January 2019. I've tried to include a good mix of stuff, though I couldn't entirely force myself away from my beloved nineteenth century English literature. Still, I've included some stereotypical American high school reading, some things I was forced to read in high school, a decent dose of Australian classics, some "true" classics (in the Greek and Roman sense), and a little smattering of some of my favourites that I haven't re-read in years (and therefore haven't reviewed before).
Without further ado, here's my list (alphabetically by author's surname, of course):
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
Lysistrata - Aristophanes
Emma - Jane Austen
Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Lady Audley's Secret - Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Agnes Grey - Anne Bronte
Shirley - Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
The Seagull - Anton Chekov
For the Term of His Natural Life - Marcus Clarke
No Name - Wilkie Collins
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe
A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
Our Mutual Friend - Charles Dickens
The Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Lost World - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
Middlemarch - George Eliot
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
Passage to India - E.M. Forster
The Diary of Anne Frank - Anne Frank
My Brilliant Career - Miles Franklin
North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell
She - H. Rider Haggard
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Odyssey - Homer
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
The Portrait of a Lady - Henry James
Lady Chatterley's Lover - D.H. Lawrence
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold - John le Carre
Picnic at Hanging Rock - Joan Lindsay
The Prince - Niccolo Machiavelli
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery
1984 - George Orwell
Cry, the Beloved Country - Alan Paton
The Mysteries of Udolpho - Anne Radcliffe
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
Macbeth - William Shakespeare
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Dracula - Bram Stoker
Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe
Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
The Fellowship of the Ring - J.R.R. Tolkien
The Two Towers - J.R.R. Tolkien
The Return of the King - J.R.R. Tolkien
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
The Way We Live Now - Anthony Trollope
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
The Aeneid - Virgil
The War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
A Room of One's Own - Virginia Woolf
The Chrysalids - John Wyndham
Have you read any of these? What should I start with??
Ahem. On Monday, Deidre came over for another installment of Dessert Day. It ended up being a day of creating somewhat stereotypical Australian desserts, in the form of caramel slice and chocolate ripple cake. Sure, the second isn't exactly a difficult task - you take a packet of chocolate ripple biscuits, you smoosh them together with cream, you cover the whole thing in more cream, and then you wait 24 hours and eat it. But considering you can't buy gluten free chocolate ripple biscuits, things got a little more complicated!
We used this recipe from Smitten Kitchen, with the full amount of sugar because chocolate ripple biscuits are quite sweet. We used my cookie scoop to ensure they were evenly sized (and bigger than the recipe called for), but I think in the future I'd probably roll out the dough and use a cookie cutter instead. Keep a close eye on them while baking, because we accidentally let the first batch get a liiiiiiittle too brown. WHOOPS. Let the biscuits cool completely.
Then, whip 300mL of cream with some vanilla and some icing sugar. Smear a little of the cream along the plate you want to serve it on, then cover one side of a cookie in a thin layer of cream and sandwich it to another cookie. Cover that in cream as well, then place them vertically on the plate. Continue smooshing cookies together until it's as long as you want it to be. Then cover the whole lot in cream, ensuring there are no ugly holes, and chuck the whole thing in the fridge overnight. When you're ready to serve, cut it on the diagonal so you can see all the pretty layers, and shove it in your face.
Before
And after!
In case you're wondering, the time in the fridge lets the cream make the cookies go soft and cake-like. It basically tastes like cookies and cream ice cream, but without the melting! And, according to my mum, you can add a slug of some kind of liqueur to the cream if you want to. It's not pretty, but it sure is delicious.
The caramel slice was Kat's mum's recipe, and the original included the fabulous instruction "Melt butt". Obviously, we had to make it.
For the base:
1 cup self raising flour
1 cup desiccated coconut
1 cup brown sugar
125g butter, melted
Mix everything together, then press into a greased and lined slice tin. Bake at 190 degrees for 10 minutes.
For the caramel:
440mL tin of condensed milk
2 tablespoons golden syrup
30g butter
Mix together in a saucepan over low heat until mixture thickens. Bring to a boil, then remove from the heat. Pour over the base, smooth, and bake for another 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool completely in the tin.
For the topping:
125g dark chocolate
30g copha/butter
Melt together in a double boiler, then pour over the slice. Smooth. When cool, cut into squares and serve.
We ran into a small problem in that we didn't quite cook the base enough (stupid gluten free, always requiring more cooking time...), which meant that the caramel mostly soaked in, forming a thin layer of caramel, and then a base that was half base, half caramel. So...that wasn't exactly ideal. That said, it was still completely and utterly delicious and I'd make it again in a heartbeat.
So over the past month, I've had quite a number of tweets that were all "WHAT DO YOU MEAN AUSTRALIA DOESN'T DO HALLOWEEN/PUMPKINS/THING I CONSIDER NORMAL FOR OCTOBER????".
I was going to write a blog post about it, but then it all got too complicated and long winded and I made a vlog instead. I'm not sure that it really explains anything properly, but my brain feels slightly less rambly so I guess that's a good thing?
Aaaaaaaaand I just realised that I left out this entire spiel I had planned about how Halloween makes no sense here because a decent chunk of the customs involved date back to Samhain, which was all about keeping your family and livestock safe through the winter and holding back the darkness. OH WELL...
Yes, my darlings, it's that time of year again. The time when I ask you all to please go and vote for me for the People's Choice award in the Best Australian Blogs Competition 2013!
There are over 1000 entries and I know I don't stand a chance against some of the big name blogs out there in the Australian blogosphere. But it would be nice to have at least a few votes........
If not for me, at least do it for Pathetic Looking Hiddles:
You give good puppy dog face, Future Husband. Also, source.
Voting is open until 5pm on the 30th of April. You don't have to be Australian to vote, and it literally only takes about 30 seconds - I'm on the first page and everything (I must confess, this is part of the reason why my blog title and my URL will never match. A Quick Succession of Busy Nothings will always be near the top of any list!! MWAHAHAHAHAHA)
You guys, Australian history is weird. I'm the first one to admit that. I mean, Melbourne was founded by a dude named Batman. Who had no nose by the time he died of syphilis only a couple of years after Melbourne was settled. And who we managed to LOSE when Melbourne's first cemetery was moved to make room for a market.
Hell, that's not all we've lost. We lost a Prime Minister in 1966. He went swimming at the beach about an hour from Melbourne and never came back. What did we name in his honour? A SWIMMING POOL.
And back in the days when Tasmania was Van Diemen's Land, it was under the control of a guy named Thomas Davey, who was basically the nineteenth century version of Captain Jack Sparrow.
He even LOOKS a little like Johnny Depp, you guys. Also, source.
According to Robert Hughes in his (rather long-winded, but still fascinating) book The Fatal Shore, Davey
"...marked his arrival in Hobart Town in February 1813 by lurching to the ship's gangway, casting an owlish look at his new domain and emptying a bottle of port over his wife's hat. He then took off his coat, remarking that the place was as hot as Hades, and marched uphill to Government House in his shirtsleeves. Nicknamed "Mad Tom" by the settlers, he would later make it his custom to broach a keg of rum outside Government House on royal birthdays and ladle it out to passersby." (2003:369)
And Davey is, according to Wikipedia, also known for inventing a cocktail called "Blow my Skull".
I honestly didn't think anything could beat Mad Tom Davey as my favourite bizarre thing in Australian history. But today? Today I was proved wrong.
Because in 1932, Australia went to war. Against emus. AND THE EMUS WON.
Can we just stop and process this for a second? A group of soldiers took a couple of machine guns and went into the desert to kill 20,000-odd birds. And they failed.
Plus, this "war" led to some completely amazing quotes:
"The machine-gunners' dreams of point blank fire into serried masses of Emus were soon dissipated. The Emu command had evidently ordered guerrilla tactics, and its unwieldy army soon split up into innumerable small units that made use of the military equipment uneconomic. A crestfallen field force therefore withdrew from the combat area after about a month." - Dominic Serventy
"If we had a military division with the bullet-carrying capacity of these birds it would face any army in the world...They can face machine guns with the invulnerability of tanks. They are like Zulus whom even dum-dum bullets could not stop." - Major Meredith
I don't think I really have much in the way of a point. Well. Except for these:
1. What the hell, Australian government?!
2. Those soldiers should be super pleased that they were only dealing with emus and not cassowaries... #velociraptorsofthemodernera
Once again, I AM still alive, despite the lack of blogging. I have so much stuff to tell you guys that I literally have no idea where to start. Plus, I don't want to tell you about all the Orlando and Phoenix stuff without telling you about the Washington stuff properly.
I fly out to LA - and, by extension, Melbourne - tomorrow afternoon, and I'm already dreading the whole having-to-write-three-major-assignments-before-semester-starts-in-a-month thing.
In the meantime? I'm hanging out with Gina. Yesterday, that involved a sing-along viewing of Les Miserables and a trip to the Outback Steakhouse. Obviously, I was suitably impressed by how authentically Australian it was:
Most flattering photo EVER.
I promise I'll hurry up and update you guys properly soon. For realsies.
Happy (belated) Australia Day, kids! In honour of the occasion, I thought I'd rewatch one of the most fantastic Australian movies ever: The Castle. If you haven't seen it, you need to find a copy. Like, right now.
5. Walking to the airport to pick up Con and Tracy.
6. Stealing gates.
7. Eric Bana. It's his first film role, and he's hilarious - he plays a tracksuit wearing kickboxer.
Check out the kickboxing cake topper! Also, source.
8. It's set in Melbourne.
9. Sal's hilarious crafts.
10. Bud Tingwell as the QC who comes to the rescue.
13. Tracy on The Price is Right with Larry Emdur.
14. Moving the Cortina to get to Camina to get to the Torana to get to the Commodore.
15. The ridiculously sidetrack-y questions that Dale always asks.
16. Dennis' total incompetence in Federal Court. It's all about Mabo y'all.
17. Giving the thumbs up to the high court judges.
18. They filmed the entire thing in eleven days with a budget of $19,000. It made over $10,000,000 at the box office.
Plus, the following quotes:
- "Tell em...to get stuffed."
- "This is going straight to the pool room."
- "He say plane fly overhead, drop value. I don't care. In Beirut, plane fly over, drop bomb. I like these planes."
- "Mum said it was funny how one day you're not famous, and the next day you are. Famous. And then you're not again."
- "And what Law are you basing this argument on?' "The Law of bloody common sense!"
- "It's the vibe of the thing..."
- "Dad reckons fishing is 10% brains and 95% muscle, the rest is just good luck."
- "Dad? I dug another hole! It's filling with water..."
- "I tell him you have friend, I have friend. My friend go to your house, put bomb under your car and blow you to fucking sky!" "What did he do?" "He get scared and he leave!" "I bet he did!" "I don't really have friend like this but people think all Arab have bomb." "You're a bloody ripper, Farouk! That's fuckin' fantastic!"
- "Now here back: all landfill. Not allowed to build there." "Has the soil been tested?" "Oh yeah, nothing too serious in there... what do you know about lead?"
- 'Well hello. How's this boys. Woo hoo. What'd you call this?" "Chicken." "And it's got something sprinkled on it..." "Seasoning." "Seasoning! Looks like everybody's kicked a goal."
- "It's a motorcycle helmet with a built in brake light." "You...are an ideas man, Steve."
- "We're goin' to Bonnie Doon. We're GOIN' to Bonnie Doon. WE'RE GOIN' TO BONNIE DOON!" "Darl'..."
- "How's the serenity?"
- "Dad... Guy's selling a pair of joustin' sticks." "Joustin' sticks? What's he want for 'em?" "Make us an offer" "Darl, what do you want with jousting sticks??" "I dunno. But I reckon they wouldn't come up all that often." "Yeah, but they're JOUSTING STICKS. What would ANYONE want with jousting sticks??" "Well, if you get 'em for half price, it's a bargain!" "Give him a call?" "Yeah!"
- "Dad? $450!" "For joustin' sticks?? Tell him he's dreaming!"
- "Dad reckons there's only one show better than Hey Hey It's Saturday. And that's the Best of Hey Hey It's Saturday."
- "Hey Steve, can you move the Camira? I need to get the Torana out so I can get to the Commodore." "Sure thing Dad, but I'll have to get the keys to the Cortina if I'm gonna move that Camira." "Alright mate, just watch the boat."
- "Suffer in ya jocks!"
Seriously, if you want to understand Australia and Australians? You should watch The Castle.
In typical fashion, I still had no idea what movie to watch at lunchtime yesterday. But then 'Love is in the Air' came on the radio, and there was no competition.
I have a perhaps slightly unnatural soft spot for this movie, because it was the first thing I ever went to see at the movies WITHOUT AN ACCOMPANYING PARENT. I was 9, and someone's mother dropped us at the cinema about ten minutes before it started, and picked us up as soon as it finished. This, I should add, was in 1992 when it was acceptable to do such things despite the lack of mobile phones. We sat in the back row and thought we were SOOOOOOOOO cool, and were the youngest people in the theatre by approximately sixty years.
ANYWAY.
Reasons why Strictly Ballroom is awesome:
1. It was Baz Luhrmann's directorial debut.
2. Paul Mercurio as Scott. This was his acting debut (he was a professional dancer), and he's pretty phenomenal.
3. The costumes. Oh my GOD, the costumes.
4. Tara Morice. She's fantastic as Fran.
5. The dancing.
6. Bill Hunter. Almost every big name Australian film from the 90s seemed to star Bill Hunter. There's a valid reason for it - he's fantastic.
7. Scott's little sister, Kylie. She's HILARIOUS.
8. Scott's big entrance at the Pan Pacifics.
9. Gia Carides as Scott's dance partner, Liz. You may know her better as Robin Swallows from Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.
10. The documentary style at the beginning.
11. Barry Otto as Scott's father, Doug. He's BRILLIANT.
12. The hairstyles. OH MY GOD.
13. The soundtrack. I actually have this on CD, and it's awesome.
14. The scene where Ken Railings walks into the dance studio to see Liz.
15. Training in secret on the roof.
16. The scene where Fran's dad teaches Scott to do the paso doble properly.
17. SO. MANY. SEQUINS.
18. Doug's backstory.
19. Fran's grandmother. She's sassy as hell, even when almost all her lines are in Spanish.
20. Sonja Kruger and Todd McKenny. They're now both involved with the Australian version of Dancing With the Stars.
21. Dancing the rumba behind the curtain at the State Championship.
22. The cinematography is BEAUTIFUL.
23. The whole thing was made for $3,000,000, and they had to fight for almost every cent of it.
24. When Doug starts applauding in the silent stadium.
25. All the times Liz accidentally knocks Fran over or squashes her behind doors.
26. Dancing the paso doble at the Pan Pacifics. You have to see it to believe it.
Plus, the following quotes:
- "A life lived in fear is a life half-lived."
- [hissed between teeth while dancing] "You've been drinking!" "Bullshit. Bullshit!" "You bloody have!"
- "A little musicality, please!"
- "I find it hard to get the films now. It's all video, video, video."
- "If you're driving the engine, what's that in the thermos??"
- "I have to help Wayne with his bogo pogo."
- "What do I want? I'll tell you what I want! I want Ken Railings to walk in here right now, and say 'Pam Shortt's broken both her legs, and I wanna dance with YOU!'" "Pam Shortt's broken both her legs, and I wanna dance with you." "That was unexpected."
- "We had the chance, but we were scared. We walked away. We lived our lives IN FEAR!"
- "Where do you think we'd be if everyone went around making up their own steps?" "Out of a job."
- "SHOW me your paso doble!"
- "Well, of course, you can dance any steps you like. That doesn't mean you'll.......WIN."
- "Son, can I bend your ear for a tick?" "Not now, Dad!"
- "Where the man goes, the lady must follow..."
- "He doesn't CARE about winning the Pan Pacific Grand Prix???"
- "He started doing his own wild, crowd-pleasing steps. A bit like you, Scott. Not always...strictly ballroom."
- "Poor Tina. It's like dancing in a brewery."
- "You've a light in you, boy. Let it shine!"
I've just hit "Submit" on a 3,000 word catalogue evaluation and am now looking forward to a weekend spent NOT thinking about libraries. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
Ahem. In other news, voting is now open on the People's Choice award for the Best Australian Blogs competition for 2012. There are over 940 blogs in the running, including my little corner of the intertubes. If you've got a spare five minutes, would you mind popping over here and voting for A Quick Succession of Busy Nothings?
There are a TON of great blogs in the running, so if you're stuck at work and have nothing to do you have a spare half hour, there's plenty in the list to keep you entertained!
Voting is open until 5pm AEST on 9th May, and you don't have to be in Australia to vote!! Oh, and if you want to follow the action on Twitter, you can check out the official hashtag: #bestblogs2012
Thank you muchly - it's a huge thrill just to be involved! :)
