Sunday, February 5 2006, 16:56

Cheese, chocolate, and lobster skin

It's been a week of birthdays. No sooner had my big brother celebrated his birthday than we were celebrating the birth of his new little girl, Amy. My flatmate, Pete, has a head start of thirty-one years (go on, count 'em!) on my niece, and although his birthday isn't for another two weeks, we celebrated early last night with a cheese and wine party. Any hint of post-indulgent Christmas calorie restraint was swept away in a tidal wave of brie, goat's cheese, gorgonzola piccante, mexican cheddar, pie d'angloys, manchego, and lots, lots more. If that wasn't enough, I'd whipped up this tasty little chocolate "cake" made almost entirely of double cream and plain chocolate. Mmmm :)

It was just what I needed actually... After a long week at work, John and I had been helping his mum move yesterday; but by the time I got home, the cheeky little tan session we'd had in the morning was bearing lobster-bright fruit. If I'd had a t-shirt that said "overdid it on the sunbed", I would have worn it last night to avoid all the inevitable questions about my unnaturally rosy complexion. Bastien was kind enough to say I looked "radiant", and it's true, my skin was indeed radiating heat. Still, best to get the burn out of the way before I get to Sydney, eh? And sure enough, it's almost completely faded to bronze today ;)

Wednesday, February 8 2006, 10:13

Middle East flag-sellers do a roaring trade

I don't know if you've seen those cartoons, but you must have heard about them by now. I wasn't that impressed with them myself. Apparently Jyllands-Posten, the paper that published them, ran a competition for cartoons of Mohammed in response to a kid's author not being able to find anyone who dared to illustrate his book for fear of getting murdered like Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. What doesn't seem to be reported as much is that some Danish imams took these twelve cartoons and added another three to their portfolio before touring the Middle East to drum up some support. The extra cartoons are of Mohammed with a pig's snout, Mohammed as a paedophile demon, and a praying Muslim being raped by a dog. Akhmad Akkari, the spokesman of the imams who organised the tour said that they "give an insight in how hateful the atmosphere in Denmark is towards Muslims". Well how good of them to come up with that additional material...

You know I'm not a religious type, so I find it hard to appreciate all of this furore; I understand that to Muslims Mohammed is regarded as a symbol of their faith, and even equated with the Koran (which is essentially his dictations of the word of God). It is Islamic tradition (not the Koran itself) that strictly forbids the representation of Mohammed, and Islamic tradition has naturally raised the person of Mohammed to a rather elevated status (despite the line in the Koran that says, "I am but a man, like you").

I've read that some Muslims have said that they agree with freedom of speech, but that religion should not be insulted. Maybe as much as non-Muslims don't understand Muslims' outrage in this case, Muslims don't understand that insulting Jesus or Buddha or King David or whoever just doesn't stir us that much (although it does go on - some charming anti-Semitic cartoons here). I am outraged that the Saudi religous police stopped girls fleeing a burning school because they weren't dressed modestly enough; I am outraged that Iran still hangs children for being gay; but I'm not about to start burning flags or issuing death threats, and I consider anyone who does so a barbarian and an imbecile. But the difference is that, as a godless heathen, maybe these don't strike at my soul (if I have one) in the same way that a Muslim is offended by these cartoons of Mohammed. What maybe comes close is these Muslim leaders exercising their freedom of speech to say being a homo is wrong. But that's ok, I'm kinda used to it ;) I have nothing but contempt for them, but I defend their right to have an opinion and speak it (although I wouldn't defend it to the death, like Voltaire).

It seems obvious that these cartoons shouldn't have been published - partly in the spirit of avoiding giving gratuitous offence to one's neighbours, and partly to avoid unnecessarily antagonising a fringe of lunatic, violent fanatics. We constantly hear these days that Islam is a religion of peace - well it seems there are a lot of people out there claiming to be Muslims who don't seem to understand that, and give peace-loving Muslims a bad name and fuelling distrust and suspicion. Maybe that's what they want...

Wednesday, February 8 2006, 17:03

Thunderbirds are go!

Ok, so maybe not Thunderbirds... but BBC Two at least! That's the site I've been working on for the last two months, and although it's had a few tight deadlines, but we got there in the end...

So if you want to check it out, here it is: www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo.
Please don't break it ;)

Friday, February 10 2006, 10:37

Legend in your living room

John and I went to see The Phantom of the Opera last night - it's one of the shows I've always wanted to see but somehow never got around to, maybe because so many of my friends have already seen it. I'd heard the music many times before though, so I knew it would be familiar and fabulous, and it certainly was. It's the world's longest running musical, and one of Andrew Lloyd Webber's most well-known shows. It opened in 1988, and there are certainly some bits of the music that show their age, but the eightiestasticness of it all just made it even better!

Today, I discovered something that many of us knew already - Paul has long been a legend in my living room, and now he's going to be making an appearance in everyone else's! Everyone who gets BBC 1 that is... Determined to get more than his fair share of fifteen minutes of fame, Paul took part in The Weakest Link this week and rather stunned himself by winning! If you want to watch his moment of glory, the show will be on after the Winter Olympics, but you'll have to ask him for the date closer to the time...

Inevitably Paul's winnings somewhat dwarf my Euromillions haul; the biggest jackpot I've ever entered - the chance to win £125 million! Apparently each ticket had a 1 in 76 million chance of winning, which is a lot less likely than being killed in a road accident (1 in 6 million), but the huge prize at stake was too much to resist. I decided to be selfish and opt out of entering an office syndicate, so unlike John, I didn't have to share my prize. John's share was 69.9p, but I got to keep my £8.90 all to myself!! Woohoo! It all went straight back into tickets of course... ;)

Thursday, February 23 2006, 0:43

Sydney

It's warmer here outdoors at night than it is in our lounge in the daytime at the moment. It's great! John and I had a really quite pleasant flight, great food, lots of sleep (thank you Dozile!), and arrived in Sydney to be met by Beth (complete with whistle), Bryan, Scott, James, and Marty - what a great way to arrive :)

We pretty much just stopped to freshen up and have a beer before heading out to the Opera Bar to catch up with Brian and Darren - there couldn't have been a much better first night for John than to spend it outdoors in the warm summer evening, sipping beers at the foot of Sydney's famous Opera House, with the lights shining over the sails and illuminating the Bridge over the harbour.

Since then, we've been hitting the sand of Bronte and Bondi beaches, wandering through the Botanical Gardens, checking out Nemo and friends at the Aquarium, buying socks at Target... all the usual tourist things, as well as sampling the bars and catching up with friends.

Great holiday so far... and still two and a bit weeks to go!

Photos from Sydney, March 2006