The Umbilical Brothers are an duo from Aussie, who combine mime and sound effects with fantastic results.  They’ve been regulars on Aussie tele for a long while, and in honor of the Edinburgh Festival (which is currently going on), which incidentally was the last time I saw them (BRILLIANT! LMAO!)…

Gentlepersons, I give you…

THE UMBILICAL BROTHERS!

I’ve just found out that the Umbies will be in NZ in Sept and coing to London in Oct – WHOOHOO!  Guess where I’m gonna be?! :)

xx

This caught my attention today. I’m having a retro day and listening to The Travelling Wilburys, and I happened to look at the sleeve notes..

The Wilburys are: Lucky Wilbury, Otis Wilbury, Charlie T. Wilbury, Lefty Wilbury, Nelson Wilbury – although we may know them better as Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne (ELO), Tom Petty, Roy Orbison and George Harrison.  The album ‘Volume 1′ is brilliant, and should be in everyone’s collection.  (Arguments accepted, but be prepared to be shot down :)

But the sleeve liner notes which caught my eye are as follows:

“The original Wilburys were a stationary people who, realising that their civilisation could not stand still forever, began to go for short walks – not the ‘travelling’ as we know it, but certainly as far as the corner and back. They must have taken to motion, in much the same way as penguins were at that time taking to ledges, for the next time we hear of they they were going out for the day (often taking lunch or a picnic). Later – we don’t yet know how much later – some intrepid Wilburys began to go away for the weekend, leaving late Friday and coming back Sunday. It was they who evolved simple rhythmic forms to describe their adventures.

A remarkable sophisticated musical culture developed, considering there were no managers or agents, and the further the Wilburys travelled the more adventurous their music became, and the more it was revered by the elders of the tribe who believed it had the power to stave off madness, turn brunettes into blondes and increase the size of their ears.

As the Wilburys began to go further and further in their search for musical inspiration they found themselves the object of interest among many less developed species – nightclub owners, tour operators and recording executives. To the Wilburys, whoc had only just learnt to cope with wives, roadies and drummers, it was a blow from which many of them never recovered.

A tiny handful survived – the last of The Travelling Wilburys – and the songs gathered here represent the popular laments, the epic and heroic tales which characterise the apotheosis of the elusive Wilbury sound. The message of the music travels, as indeed they travelled, and as I myself must now travel for further treatment. Good listening, good night and let thy Wilbury be done…”

Sleeve Note © Hugh Jampton, E.F. Norti-Bitz Reader in Applied Jacket, University of Krakatoa (East of Java)

Love the bit about the penguins ;)  Remember, Tweeter and the Monkey Man will come looking for you if you refute any of the above! ;)

xx

Anyone who’s been out of touch with the world for the last few days, I have news.  The Olympics have started.

Yep, that ritual athletic testing that started in an ancient foreign land as a way of challenging soldiers has returned once again.  (Which, by the way, means that I’ve been away over 8 years.  I arrived in the UK before Sydney 2000. Egads!)  The best of the world have gathered in Bejing for two weeks of testing before their peers and the world.

Talk about your stage-fright – estimated 4 billion people watching the opening ceremony?  Bloody Hell!  But from what I could see there was only one stuff up – and I imagine some poor little Chinese guy getting a slap around the ear for letting the torch-bearing air-runner guy catch up with the unravelling scroll.

All the athletes look lean & hungry.  That’s how they’re supposed to look, right? Lean & hungry?  Are we not feeding these people regularly?  They all look ready to defend their country and themselves from repeated embarrassment of failing dismally.  If there’s one thing I’ve learnt over my 30something years on the earth, there’s always someone better than you.  Sorry..  Maybe I’m feeling a little too reflective today.

But along with the lean & hungry come the joys of a fiercely patriotic crowd, and billions of televiewers everywhere, screaming and shouting, clapping, laughing, crying along with their team.  The Olympics is the only time people can be most vehemently patriotic with no fear of recrimination, verbal abuse or attack.  It is expected at the Olympics, encouraged.  Over two hundred countries coming together to wage mini battles with each other.

Question:  Have the Olympics become our pseudo world war?  Instead of taking out your emeny with bullets and bombs, you take them out with skill and expertise, with a fine throw or blistering speed.  You take them out honestly and directly, with no cheating or sly actions, no backstabbing or sabotage.  You do it directly in front of them, to their face, and you wait for the words ‘bad sport’ to start fizzing about between their ears, at which point they’ll come and congratulate you on a good match/race/battle.

And I even understand why it’s being held in China, despite their air quality and human rights record, despite their environmental and foreign policy.  It’s being held there because the IOC reached a point where it had to say yes for to be seen as being influenced by politics.  See, China is the most populated country in earth, they send ridiculous amounts of althletes to each and every games, they do very well in each and every games, and they haven’t hosted in over 100 years.  The IOC proclaims itself a non-political animal, and under that guise had reached a point where they could no longer refuse China’s application to host.  They had no choice.  To do otherwise was to rebuke China, which no-one seems willing to do.  I mean, geez, Moscow hosted in the middle of the cold war.  Germany hosted, Hitler opened their games.  The IOC had to do it to stay apolitical.  I’ll stop there, I don’t want this post to be an anti-China rant.

I realise from the above that it may seem I sneer at the Olympics.  But I don’t.  Honestly.  I’ve got nothing but admiration for the athletes who can devote themselves so completely to their sport.  I don’t think I could do it.  And I’ve nothing but admiration for the medalists themselves.  To be the acknowledged best in the world at anything must be a fantastic feeing and worth every second of that seemingly endless training.

And, of course, there’s the fact that I’m Australian and we love and respect sportsmen and women.  We’re a sporting nation.  Comes with the sunshine and being able to go outside.  The Australian press are whipping up a patriotic frenzy, I find myself trying to program my tele-watching to times when there’ll be coverage of Aussies (and I understand totally that the UK coverage is all about the UK team, I just wish they’d interview a winner every now and again!  Oh, but they did interview that Zimbabwe swimmer with the american accent, thought I’m not sure why..)

I find myself digging my wee aussie flag out of the box and drapiing it proudly around the house.  I find myself suddenly shouting “Go Aussie!” at the screen, freaking out cat and flatmate.  But I can’t help it.  And gorram it, I shouldn’t have to!

So GO AUSSIE!  Go, you good things!  Enjoy yourselves and bring us back some neckwear, huh?

Oh, and..  ahem..  good luck to everyone else too. :)

xx

Saturday night Miguel and Begonia came for dinner. I cooked razor clams with chorizo and wine followed by vegetarian lasagne, both of which were very well received (especially considering Miguel is not a seafood afficionado like me and Bego). A couple of bottles of very nice white later I was feeling no pain at all! Stayed up very late chatting, and Sunday was a bit painful indeed!

Was going to a film on Sunday night, or possibly visiting Sarah and Pim, but I was truthfully in too delicate a state.. It’s been a good while since I was like that! ;)

Monday to Wed 6th I was on holidays – trying to use the last of my paid holiday before I leave for my new job. Monday was recovery day, though I did make a run to tesco for supplies. Tuesday was cleaning day, and I got a haircut. No change, just a bit shorter. Wed 6 August the two people I’ll miss most from this job took the afternoon off and took me to Mersea Island for a seafood lunch at The Company Shed.. (photos now up on Flickr)

Now, we’ve been here before and loved every minute, and we always promised ourselves that we’d go in summer when it was warm, and go in Sarah’s convertible beetle just to make the day complete. Well, the day started muggy and rainy, so there was only a little topless driving, but about 5 mins after we arrived at The Shed the sun came out and stayed for the most glorious afternoon at the seaside!

We had to wait for a table for perhaps 30mins, but we were happy enough with our lovely wine and chatting to fellow ‘waiters’. Once inside and situated on the end of a table of ‘ladies who lunch’, we ordered the seafood platter, tiger prawns in garlic and lemon, scallops with bacon and lemon, green-lipped mussels with herb coating and a salad to share. All of it was fresh off the boat, all of it was fantastic, but the tiger prawns and scallops were so good we got another helping!

A lovely couple of hours spent before buying fishy for home and setting off back to The Beagle (Sarah’s topless beetle) for the 90min drive home. I sat in the back, drunk and a bit giggly by now but incredibly happy, and Sarah & Christine put the top down! YAY! Oh, it was a lovely drive home. I do like topless cars, I have to say.

Got home about 4:45pm, finishing off a bottle from The Shed that Sarah couldn’t finish cause she was driving, and ended up in bed fairly early – as you can imagine.

Work on Thursday was a bit of a trial, but I was more tired than anything else.. Could’ve been a whole lot worse!

So I’ve got fresh scallops for dinner tonight (they’ve been in the freezer for a day and then out last night) which I’m going to do with bacon and lemon, try and get them like we had at The Shed. A bit of fresh bread to soak up the juices, a nice glass of wine.. fantastic!

xxx

When I originally signed up to Facebook, it was so I could get in touch with my travelling pals, people I’ve met travelling who’ve since moved on, and keep in touch with old colleagues etc. In this, Facebook excels. In other things, such as those damn applications that never seem to die, (some people obviously have too much time on their hands!) and the endless emails, Facebook bites the big one. But seeing as I’ve not signed up to MySpace because Ihave this here blogge, at the time I thought Facebook the lesser of two weevils.

However, back to Faebook’s good bits. Over the last few days I’ve discovered another 3 good friends who I haven’t heard from in years, and am back into the joy of Facebook thanks to the find your friends facility and the application “Tom Waits’ Magical Trunk”, which has to be one of the best ‘useless’ ideas I’ve heard of in a long time. (Sign up & dig through Tom Waits’ trunk which includes such fantastic items as ‘travel to the unknown, carnival lights, a broken piano, old bottles, red wine, a priest… almost as good as digging through the man’s head!)

So welcome back into my life Stu Broughton, Jason Jux & Toni Kronenberg. Glad you’re all still alive, and (seemingly) happy. Also to all my Facebook mates, new, old and those yet to come, a heartfelt ‘cheers’ from me..

xx