My kitchen's rules.

 I have just eaten a bowl of microwave popcorn, possibly the greatest food invention of all time. How I love watching the bag swell up through the window as it goes pop-pop-pop all on its own. Ping! I like the sweet variety that comes complete with all kinds of cack that tastes delicious while you’re eating it, but leaves your mouth more than a little tainted. In fact, I feel as though someone has been raising battery chickens in mine.   Yet still, when I want a treat that’s naughty but not a complete disaster, it’s one of the things I reach for. This is because popcorn is one of the foods I have convinced myself is healthy. My thinking goes like this: how can something with so much fibre be bad for you? I have similar delusions about home-made cake. Shop cakes are bad. Full of colouring and flavouring, Trans fats and preservatives. But cakes I make are healthy.
 They have good eggs and good butter in them. Eggs are growing food, so I think a lovely cake containing four of them is good. I also think butter is good. It’s yellow and sunny-looking. It makes me think of milkmaids and happy cows in green fields and Heidi. It’s a happy food. Margarine is bad. Margarine makes me think of factories.
 Working on the same rationale, I am convinced of the healing power of home-made apple pie. This is a foodstuff that has the distinction of being the single worst thing you could eat on the Atkins diet. This made me determined to become a master of making it. Served with the good cream as well. Which is extra-thick double cream. The sort of cream you think of when you hear the phrase “peaches-and-cream complexion”.
 Cheese is good too. It’s a growing food. As is ham. Not slimy supermarket ham, but chunky butcher-cured ham. Proper salami is also good too. The more European-looking and smelly, the better. The fact that any salami I can buy clearly wasn’t made in my father’s cousin’s orchard in a smokehouse stoked with his own wood, but in a processing plant where it would have been well doused in nitrates seems not to figure in my food logic. I associate all smoked meat with vital European people who eat it for breakfast washed down with some terrifyingly strong moonshine liquor/vodka/grappa.
 Most ethnic foods have this healthy quality, and the more ethnic the better. Similarly while holidaying in any European country, white bread holds no fear. Generations of slender French children have been raised on a breakfast of hot chocolate and baguettes lavishly spread with butter and jam. In Italy it is cornetti (plain/cream/jam/chocolate croissant-type pastries) and cappuccinos for breakfast (mmmmmm…bliss!!), so if I’m in Paris or Italy that’s what I’m going to have for breakfast! All that lovely butter, so scented of fresh air and wild flowers. In France, even chocolate feels like a health food.
 I am fully aware that all of the above is deranged thinking. But the conclusion I’ve reached is that over the years, I’ve read so much contradictory crap about which foods are good for you or not, with the same ones moving back and forth between categories, that I might as well make up my own rules.

Show your true colours.

 According to paint spruiker Pantone, the colour for 2011 is honeysuckle. It hails the reddish pink as “a brave new colour for a brave new world”. Whereas last year’s turquoise served as “an escape”, honeysuckle “emboldens us to face everyday troubles with vitality and vigour”. Who writes this crap? And why do we need a colour of the year anyway? Can’t we choose our own? I’m betting Pantone had a squiz in its stockroom and figured it needed to shift a few units of red pigment.

 I’m all for directions in fashion, but homes are not fashion statements. You don’t take them off at the end of the day; they are your end of the day. Or, they used to be. Maybe I’m just miffed because we’ve repainted our kitchen light green, which is just, like, so 2010. But it’s also because homes are losing their character as we follow trends and stuff them full of plasma televisions, go-with-everything-beige and seascapes that owe nothing to a spot of beachcombing, but rather a trip to Jedo’s Beach House.

 Home porn is the fix of choice for many a Gen Xer, and I’m as beguiled as the next. But the increase in homewares stores has robbed us of our imagination. We no longer collect things lovingly over a lifetime. Instead, to steal a bit of interior decorator jargon, we ‘dress’ our homes as if to showcase them, rather than live in them.

 A friend and I laugh about these styling follies. I loathe bowls of limes – does the inhabitant really exist on a diet of margaritas? – and those signs spelling out ‘relax’ in jaunty cursive, usually positioned above the sort of gleaming kitchen in which no one has ever relaxed. Her pet hates? “Beds made with so many layers and cushions, it would be time to get back into it by the time you’d made it; shoes positioned as artwork; and council clean-up braggarts.”

 In the wake of the floods, I find myself looking at my home and wondering what really matters: a comfortable bed, certainly; enough plates to feed friends; and the morning light through the kitchen window. That’s it. Even my mother’s antique tea sets are just ‘things’.

 One of my neighbours organised a garage sale to raise funds for a flood appeal and, as I filled boxes of belongings to sell, it was sobering to see how little of what we own is either needed or precious.

 I don’t know how it feels to lose your home to a natural disaster, but I doubt anyone who has is thinking much about paint colours. But maybe the people from Pantone are on to something – whether or not you fancy a pink wall, honeysuckle is a gorgeously scented climber that grows vigorously and tolerates hardship. What’s more, it symbolises love.

Trivial matters.

 A couple of weeks ago I went to a family friend’s dinner party and when the host of the dinner party announced we’d be clearing the table to play an alcohol-fuelled game of 80’s Trivial Pursuit, I wasn’t overwhelmed with excitement. Nor was I underwhelmed. I was just...whelmed.
 I don’t consider myself a child of the 80’s. While I was alive to witness the decade in its entirety, I feel no allegiance to it. When I read in the local paper that my nearest over-28s nightspot is having a retro night, I don’t rush down with my proof of age. And when I hear that a radio station is having an 80’s weekend, I feel more than free to change that dial.
 Having said that, I don’t begrudge the 80’s worshippers their cultish celebrations. An all 90’s weekend on radio would be worse – double plays of Ace of Base and M’People going back to a time when you were nobody without a Fido Dido t-shirt and MC Hammer moves on the dance floor. My lack of enthusiasm towards the decade is less about music and fashion, and more about content. The 60’s had Woodstock, The Beatles, Martin Luther King, JFK, Bob Dylan and a man walking on the moon. The only time the 80’s came close to a moment of similar historical significance was when Billy Joel sang through that list in ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’.
 The game confirmed my theory. When you limit Trivial Pursuit subject matter to the years between 1979 and 1990, you tend to cover the same ground a few times. Statistically you could be forgiven for thinking Michael J. Fox was more important than Michelangelo, or that Michael Jackson’s moonwalk was as groundbreaking as Neil Armstrong’s. But putting my Gen-X cynicism aside, I did learn a few lessons from 80’s Trivial Pursuit that will prove invaluable, especially the next time we play.
 Firstly, when in doubt, the answer is probably Duran Duran. Which New Romantic group performed the hit song ‘Rio’? Duran Duran. Simon Le Bon fronted which chart-topping 80’s outfit? Duran Duran. Which 1982 war with Argentina claimed 258 British lives? Duran Duran. Sure, it isn’t always the right answer, but it’s right often enough to make the questioner stop bothering to check the card whenever you say it.

 Secondly, if the good people at Trivial Pursuit are to be believed, it’s a foolish person who underestimates the contribution Yahoo Serious made to Australian cinema. You’d be amazed how many questions have his name as the answer. I also learnt that in “The Slim Dusty Movie” the part of the older Slim Dusty is played by none other than Slim Dusty. That’s right. It’s possible for a question to have the name Slim Dusty in it twice and for the answer to still be Slim Dusty.

 This, really, is the story of the 80’s. In a decade when the Cold War ended, the Berlin Wall came down and John Lennon was assassinated, what we remember is the bad hair and even worse music. When I was asked the question: “Andrew Ridgeley and George Michael formed which pop duo?” an opponent sang a Bros song to throw me off the scent. But I still answered Duran Duran, and I was right.

My take on Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Part 2 – movie review (SPOILER ALERT!)

 Today I went to the movies (16/7/11) and let me say this: ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2' was a great way to end a famous franchise. It had all the things necessary to make a final chapter an EPIC finale.

 The final chapter begins as Harry, Ron, and Hermione continue their quest of finding and destroying the Dark Lord's three remaining Horcruxes, the magical items responsible for his immortality. But as the mystical Deathly Hallows are uncovered, and Voldemort finds out about their mission, the biggest battle begins and life as they know it will never be the same again.

 The first scene of the film and before the Warner Bros. logo appears it picks up where the previous instalment left off: with a shot of the dark lord Voldemort’s (Ralph Fiennes) evil face in triumph as he steals the most powerful magic wand in the world from the tomb of Harry’s protector, Professor Dumbledore (Michael Gambon). With it he will become invincible.

 In the very next scene, we find Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) and Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), looking vulnerable and young, as they struggle with the vast responsibility of stopping Voldemort in his tracks.  Harry, Ron and Hermione are determined to track down the Horcruxes which contain fragments of the Dark Lord's soul and so destroy him. Enlisting the aid of goblin Griphook (Warwick Davis), they sneak into Gringotts Bank to raid Bellatrix’s vault, where they believe one Horcrux is hidden, plunging into an exciting roller coaster ride. Finding they’ve been double-crossed, they escape on the back of a massive fire-breathing dragon, one of the many dazzling special effects. The maimed beast gouges out bits of London’s rooftops, as it swoops across the capital’s skyline, before flying off into the wild, free once more.

After a revealing encounter with Dumbledore’s brother Aberforth (Ciarán Hinds), the trio returns to Hogwarts, now ruled by Severus Snape (Alan Rickman).

 There are brief reunions with the nerdy Neville Longbottom (Matthew Lewis) and Harry's girlfriend Ginny (Bonnie Wright) before the formidable Professor McGonagall (Maggie Smith) creates a shield around Hogwarts to try to keep Voldemort and his advancing army at bay. Hogwarts itself comes to life to defend itself (giving Maggie Smith, a lovely comic turn as she sends off an army of stone knights - “I always wanted to use that spell”). There is further wit from the weedy Neville Longbottom (Matthew David Lewis) who, having nearly fallen to his death, pops up with a cheery, “Well that went well”, and superb acting from Helena Bonham Carter as the crazed black witch Bellatrix Lestrange. But the invaders' arrival causes numerous casualties, and casts a funereal air over Hogwarts.

 After Harry and his nemesis’ first showdown in the Forbidden Forest, there are major revelations concerning Snape, Harry's mother and Dumbledore. An extended exchange between Dumbledore and his protégée Harry in what looks like a vast, empty, ghost-white railway station is absolutely stunning. The final duel between Harry and Voldemort is superbly staged. Amongst the spectacular set-pieces, there are occasional flashes of humour as when Neville mutters “that went well” after one close scrape, and Hermione hopelessly says “brilliant,” and of course, when McGonagall remarks “I always wanted to use that spell”.

 This is a film about the success of the weak, a theme captured in two of its most memorable scenes:

-      The first is when our heroes escape from the vault of Gringotts Bank on the back of a beautifully created CGI dragon.

-      The second, which is surely the most beautiful and important moment in the whole series, involves the mysterious Professor Severus Snape.

 Harry looks into Snape’s memories and sees his mother, Lily, as a young girl, making a flower blossom in her hand - the other children call her a freak, and run away. Hiding nearby is a young Snape. He animates a leaf and sends it towards her. Hardly anything is said, but the truth and pain of human relationships are here expressed with such tenderness that brings a tear to the eye.

 In all honesty, when the movie started I thought to myself, “OK, am I gonna get my money’s worth with this one or not?” And then as it progressed the answer was “F%^K yes!” It definitely left me wanting more. The special effects and CGI were mind-blowing and amazing. The storyline was 97% true to the book. What little bits they DID leave out, were absolutely non-essential to the movie and wouldn’t have made a difference to the telling of the story. What they DID leave out actually made the movie 10 times better. There was so much detail to the movie I was constantly turning my head back and forth to make sure I didn’t miss a thing and the sore neck was worth it lol.

 Only one negative comment – and at the risk of being picky, there are a few flaws. Screenwriter Steve Kloves had to cram in so many characters, events and flashbacks, a lot of actors who’ve been a vital part of the series are given short shrift in the finale. Jim Broadbent, Timothy Spall, Gary Oldman, Emma Thompson, Robbie Coltrane, Miriam Margolyes, David Thewlis and Julie Walters make the briefest of curtain calls while Helena Bonham Carter’s Bellatrix Lestrange and John Hurt’s Ollivander are extended cameos.

 As a side note:

 A few funny/curious things happened in the audience while the movie was going on:

-      I kid you not the grown man sitting directly behind me was sniffling loudly during one of the sad scenes and I know I heard him because the cinema was dead quiet during the scene. And then next thing I hear is him clearing his throat and blowing his nose – while his girlfriend who is seated next to him – pisses herself laughing at him and then him whispering loudly “Oh shut up will ya!” (LMAO).

-      And then from somewhere in the corner of the cinema, someone’s phone rings and all you can hear throughout the cinema is the ringtone which goes ‘na na na na......nanananaaaa........waaaavvvee goodbyyyyyyyyyeeeeee!” It happens exactly at the point where Harry enters the Great Hall where they’re placing all the dead bodies and treating the injured and wounded and Harry walks up to the large table and sees that Fred and Remus are amongst the dead. I know it’s mean because it was so sad, but half the cinema cracked up laughing when it happened.

-      Then there’s the scene where Mrs Weasley duels with Bellatrix and actually swears and says “You’re not getting your hands on my daughter you bitch!” before killing her – the whole audience cheered and clapped at this part.

-      BUT! The best bit was when Harry kills Voldemort – as soon as Voldemort died one kid yelled out “About bloody time! Take THAT Voldemort!” The audience pissed themselves laughing and cheered on and gave “Harry” AND the child very loud applause for his hilarious outburst.

 In the last scene, as we watch Harry’s son go off to Hogwarts, we know that even if there will be no more books, these characters will live with us for ever. I am definitely going to go see the movie again – maybe in 3D this time. Who knows? I recommend you go see it too. I can’t wait for the movie to come out on DVD!  One last thing, if you see it at the movies, bring a few tissues – you’ll need them....I know I did. J

Women are at war with themselves like never before.

 Generally, I like being a woman. The conversations are great; breasts are both useful and attractive, if I do say so myself; and, we get to wear more interesting stuff than just jeans and variations on the blue shirt. But, lately, I’ve been longing for a gender opt-out. I’d like a day – actually make that a week – of being a man.

 From the outside, I’m sure it looks as if Girl World is all book clubs and mutual support, and long phone calls and caring, sharing emails. Which it is. Mostly. But while we weren’t watching, a serpent must have slithered into the Garden of Eve because, right now, we girls are in danger of critiquing ourselves to death. There’s barely an issue that doesn’t polarise us; breast vs bottle, caesarean vs natural birth, tramp vs virgin, Botox vs wrinkles, skinny vs fat, airbrushing vs real. And on it goes!

 Do you ever hear men argue about their ‘elective vasectomies’, or debate the merits of circumcised over uncircumcised? Nope, because they don’t. Live and let live, they say, then off they saunter to slay another deer. Not us. In recent weeks, Private Practice star Kate Walsh dubbed herself – and, in effect, any other women who’d left it too late – a “loser” for failing to have children by the age of 43. Jackie O (A popular radio host here in Australia) has been hounded off pedestrian crossings for having the nerve to feed her baby daughter. http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity/row-erupts-over-jackie-os-feeding-furore/story-e6frfmqi-1226032841515

 And the ‘too posh to push’ debate went mental again after statistics showed private hospitals perform more caesarean deliveries than public hospitals.

 Add to that the seesawing gossip mag headlines showcasing ‘shock slim-downs’ one week and ‘body blow-outs’ the next, and you have to wonder who’s driving these highly contrived catfights. I used to think it was men. Like Kyle Sandilands (Another un/popular radio host here in Australia) salivating over a bunch of bikini models getting stuck into jelly wrestling, male media executives undoubtedly used to light the fuse paper on these issues, then step back and watch us girls fire up.

 Now though, we’re igniting ourselves. A female editor chose to run the photo of Jackie O and, days later, the NSW Families Minister Pru Goward weighed in with the finger-wagging. It was a female TV presenter who said stay-at-home mums feel like “non-persons”. And we are the ones battling with our conscience and each other over birthing methods – not men. Sure, they may rally with the essential oils and the stress balls, but all they’re really thinking is, how can all this be my fault? Is there any chance of getting a cup of tea and a biscuit?

 One of the best things about being a woman is the support we give each other. Yet all that bra burning and glass-ceiling smashing will be in vain if we continue to view every issue as a gladiatorial battle that must produce a winner and a loser. A friend of mine still hasn’t been able to tell another friend that she had an elective caesarean, so fearful is she of the silent condemnation. And if I go to another lunch where all that’s discussed is who has and who hasn’t had Botox, I may have to shoot myself in the head – with more than a needle.

 I reckon it’s time we girls commandeered the barbecue. Leave the boys to the salads and let’s grill the steak, rather than each other.

Useful or useless?

 I’ve decided that shops can be divided into two categories: Useful Shops and Useless Shops. The event that has made this distinction clear to me is the switch in use of premises about ten minutes walk from where I live.  For years this shop was a hardware store. As well as the vast assortment of nails, knobs, screws, and hammers, the stock had extended over the years to include practical kitchen supplies. Nothing fancy with a chef’s name on it, but every size of plain mixing bowl you can imagine; cake tins big enough to make a match tea for several rugby teams, or small enough for a fairy’s birthday cake; every size and shape of wooden spoon.

 You could also buy unknown branded household products that would give senior shoppers a bit of a golden moment, just to see that particular packaging again. I loved that shop. Once my dad had taken in four torches that his then very young daughter had systematically found, played with and broken. He put them on the counter and raised an eyebrow. “Give me half an hour,” said the proprietor. One cup of coffee later dad had four working torches and change from $20.

 Earlier this year the premises – lovely old floorboards, walls of drawers, and rafters intact – were sold and now it’s a shop of great fabulousness, selling…well…crap really. When I say “crap” I’m talking about jumpers, Marseilles soap, greetings cards and scented candles, mixed in with vintage homeware “finds”, and scuffed pre-loved “objects”. It’s the sort of place that will feature in all the interiors magazines and probably increase the value of property within a five kilometre radius. It just shouts “up-and-coming-area”. Part of me would like to see it gone.

 As pretty as it is, I would much rather have a shop where I could choose between weights of picture wire and buy that squirty oil to maintain the garden equipment. The hardware shop was blissfully Useful. This lovely new one is utterly Useless. Of course, as the hardware was going anyway – the owner was retiring – I am truly, grateful it’s been replaced by a business that has kept the vintage interior intact, rather than a Starbucks, but it has got me thinking about the ever-burgeoning culture of these useless shops.

 This one is many levels up from the gift-fair boutiques that sell the same “lovely” (useless) mass-produced things the world over. It has original style and personality, but really it’s still just stuff. It’s shopping as an activity in itself, not a means to an end; to fill an emotional void; rather than a practical one. And I’m less and less in love with the concept.

 Shops of all kinds can be Useful or Useless. I would put Prada in the Useful category, for example, because – if you can stump up the investment – you will always find a pair of shoes of lasting glamour there, for a wedding or a new job. Equally, there are shops where I know I will always find the Perfect Dress for a big occasion and others you can rely on for the key basics that are the foundation of any wardrobe. Where you know you can get a good pair of socks. These valued stores range from top-end department stores to value chains, specialists, and even vintage boutiques. In any of them, it’s not about the price or prestige of the goods, it’s the attitude of the shop. The shops I love and appreciate now aren’t the ones aiming to seduce the customer with artful novelty, but to supply a need. To be Useful.

Maybe it’s time to let a man just be a man.

 A friend told me the other day that she’d met her almost-ideal man. He ticked all her boxes except one; the only thing she had to work on was his dress sense. Men may be disappointed to hear that women see them as potential design projects but, unfortunately, this is often the case.

 It’s an unspoken understanding among women that if your man has the underpinnings to sustain a loving relationship – honesty, fidelity, kindness, thoughtfulness – the superficial shortcomings are acceptable because they’re easy to correct. It may be as simple as pointing out to your man that Johnny Depp’s sunglasses would look good on him, or bombarding him with new T-shirts and jeans on his birthday. But, sometimes, a more severe intervention is required.

 Some women don’t tiptoe around, once their claws are in, they take over their partner’s wardrobe to the point of laying out what clothes he should wear the next day. The irony is, should a man suggest he’d like to see his lady in short skirts or low-cut tops, he’d be kicked to the kerb with a copy of Germaine Greer’s “The Female Eunuch” wedged in his pocket.

 Still, I know plenty of men who welcome being styled by their partner, primarily because they have no idea how masculinity is being fashioned at any particular time. One minute, we’re into metrosexuals – men who exfoliate, carry man-bags, and wear tight designer jeans. The next, we swing back to the retrosexual; think Indiana Jones – a man who balks at hair gel and doesn’t know the difference between fuchsia and magenta. Then, when we can’t make up our minds, we yearn for the neosexual, which is a bit of both. He’s rugged and not too obsessed with his appearance, but still has the style and sophistication of James bond.

 It seems women don’t really know what they want, so who could blame a man if he went around in a flannelette shirt and acid-wash jeans, sipping martinis while enjoying a pedicure?

 Maybe it’s time to let men be men. Let’s face it ladies, David Beckham is the only heterosexual man who can carry off blonde tips and a tartan sarong. We should just be glad if our man showers daily, embraces deodorant and occasionally washes his jeans.