‘Wild China’ series on TV: a series of amazing views

Documentary series: ‘Wild China’

I’ve been watching the episodes of the BBC’s ‘Wild China’ series on TV over the last couple of Sundays and have been really impressed and fascinated each time. It’s another truly fine series by the BBC’s documentary producers. There’s an incredible range of habitats, natural and human histories, extraordinary stories of adaptation and continuity, and most of all – the scenery.

Episodes cover both a region (or more than one) and a mix of stories relating to people, fauna & flora and the environment & weather. e.g The rice-growing areas include the history of using cormorants for fishing, tonight’s episode featured rubber plantations and tourism impacting on bamboo forests -home to giant pandas and rare elephants – and next week is Tibet’s turn. It’s a six-part series of (approx.) 50-minute episodes, which gives enough time for masses of content without starting to feel like one of those ‘too long and too serious’ sorts of programs for a Sunday night.

All the narration is done by voice-over using a male voice (narration by Bernard Hill -can’t place the name just now) , at a steady rate and reasonably even pitch, which works well for the series content.

It’s all too easy to immediately think of arrested intellectuals, tanks & troops, crowded cities and poor farmers, whenever someone mentions “a documentary about China”, so this series is a welcome change from that kind presentation model. For at least some viewers it will also offer a relief from all the intense political and economic news about China, especially in lead-up to the Games in Beijing.

**Highly Recommended**

The BBC’s own website has a segment on the series: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/wildchina/

Manchester Utd vs Chelsea in Moscow: suspense! history!

What a night for the world game!

A few minutes ago I finished watching the replay of the European championship match in Moscow, between two English super clubs, Manchester Utd and Chelsea. SBS commentator David Bashir did a good job on the calling of action.

It would be very hard, if not impossible, to get a more evenly-matched game in terms of number of goals, the fact all goals in regular time were in the first half, a long-running stalemate that didn’t go stale because of near misses and…it has to be said, an increasing amount of tension between players, leading to more and more on-field dramas and the referee producing the yellow cards, then a red one for Drogba. Christiano Ronaldo did a classy header to put Man Utd ahead to start with, then Frank Lampard evened the score for Chelsea, with Roman was looking on. Rain started in the etxra time and settled in for the rest of play. Ryan Giggs set a new record for appearances (going past Bobby Charlton, who was in the stands) by going on for Man U in last part of the game, and scored on his effort during the shoot-out.

But the extra time still didn’t prove decisive, so it went to the penalty shootout. More suspense, of the good sort. When even that didnt get a winner, it was time for Sudden Death. In the steady rain, and after extended play time, the chosen payers had to keep striking until one missed. Chelsea missed just one time too many: Edwin Van Der Sar made his own bit of history by stopping Nicholas Anelka’s effort and in doing that became the winning goalie 13 years after achieving the same honour when playing for Ajax. Also, of course, this meant that Alex Ferguson’s men won by the narrowest of possible margins, exactly 50 years after the plane crash that forced the re-building of the team.

‘In Search of Great Coffee’ -a tempting book for coffee lovers

Book review

In Search of Great Coffee: fabulous cafes around the world, is a small-format coffee table kind of book that is fun to browse through and sure to start many daydreams about coffee and where to drink it.

The two author-editors, Dianne Clary and Jon Gorton, present an impressive range of coffee places in approximately 120 pages, and to help the reader-drinker they use a basic set of geographical regions before zooming in on particular cafes. For example, the first region of Europe and United Kingdom quickly breaks down into Greece, Italy, England, France, Netherlands, Turkey, Czech Republic and a few others, then to particular cities such as Venice and Paris, and then you get to the individual cafes. A featured cafe is generally given a concise and very readable description -of star blends, history of the cafe and where it is, a sketch of the main barista/manager/owner and a photo. Canada & the United States get the same kind of treatment, and specific places include: British Columbia/Vancouver, Whistler ski resort, New York, Boston and a pre-Katrina New Orleans. ‘The Far East and Asia-Pacific’ is the section that includes Australia and is, understandably, the smallest section in the book. It still gets some decent attention of its own, though. Turkey is as close as the authors get to the Middle East, given the political/social/military problems of the time and whatever production logistics dictated. Hopefully a future edition, if there ever is one [great fieldwork! ], could visit Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, even just to start with, as they are three countries that repeatedly feature in food shows.

The book was published in 1996, so some places may now have been replaced by others -or, sadly, lost; the New Europe /Euro-era Europe has become much more accessible in the Eastern parts, especially since 2000; Australia has been working hard on improving its own range of offerings.

Happy brewing!

Simple pleasures in life

Some of my simple pleasures in life:a list in progress

Here’s a list from my original personal blog, with a few recent additions (in bold):

• Wading through rock-pools at a beach
• In a plane: the lifting feeling of the moment when the plane is half on the ground and half in the air
• Fish and chips in a park overlooking a beach
• Reading a new issue of a football/soccer magazine on a weekend morning
• Reading a new issue of a writers’ magazine on a weekend morning
• Finding a book that makes me think :”I wish I had found this before!”
• Going for walks in the Blue Mountains [in Australia]
• Cafe life on a weekend morning
• Reading a new issue of a travel magazine on a weekend morning
• The scent of real coffee when I open a new pack
• Discovering a cartoon that gives me a laugh and stays in my mind
• Daydreaming during my walks to and from work
• The smell of woodsmoke on a clear early-Autumn evening
• Visiting a beach after a year of living in an inland city
• The rose-yellow light of a very late Autumn afternoon in the Canberra area, especially when it shines through trees on a hillside
• Kicking through piles of Autumn leaves
• Eating fresh lemon gelati on a hot day
• A bowl of warmed fruit cake and custard on a cold night
• Discovering a fascinating blog, full of rich content, that matches one or more of my major interests and also inspires me to become an even better blogger
• A walking holiday in Blue Mountains in early Spring
• A string of postcard-perfect days for that same holiday
• Discovering a track I hadn’t walked before
  
• Looking through holiday photos I took myself and seeing the ones that really rewarded my efforts at composing a scene and learning about using the camera’s range of features

Magazines for writers and readers who write

Hi

I really enjoy spending time reading magazines aimed at writers and readers who write, especially the ones that provide a generous range of feature articles in each issue and/or a very high standard of them, plus practical information and/or space for new writing. I spent a fair bit of today, the second half of a weekend, reading through the May/June 2008 issue of Poets and Writers magazine -a US publication, checking out the magazine’s website that included podcasts and vidcasts. There was also a website for One Story, a fantastic New-York literary magazine/’litmag’ that is based on the concept of publishing a single story per issue, and each writer an only be published once. The complementing website has a wealth of recorded reading sessions in the Multimedia section, plus masses of author interviews. While I was feeding my magazine addiction, I took another look at Issue 10 of Adelaide-based writing magazine Wet Ink, and enjoyed it too; enjoyed it enough to decide on sending in a subscription form and ordering a copy of their first anthology of new writing. That’s one package I’m really looking forward to getting in the post.:)

Doing this post is a fairy easy way of sharing a bit of information about the magazines, making a few comments on why I think each of them is well worth the cover/subscription price and giving the website/blog addresses for anyone to check out.

1. Writing Magazine: a long-running UK magazine catering for both professionals and hobbyists, has competitions, lots of tips/advice, resource and event directories, major interview features each issue-with substantial established writers and new talents. Great source of information for Australian writers & readers wanting to see what’s happening on the UK scene. Website: www.writingmgazine.co.uk Price: $13.20 per single issue or UKSTG 55 pounds for rest-of-world rate for 12 issues per year plus 12 issues of related publication Writers News; accepts bank cheque in Pounds Sterling, Visa debit card or Mastercard (final total will be based on prevailing dollar/pound exchange rate when request is received). Look in big city newsagents, major bookshops and indie bookshops known for magazine content.

NB: the currency conversion factor also applies to the Poets & Writers magazine.

2. Wet Ink: an Adelaide-based magazine now past its 10th issue and looking good for the future. This magazine is as much about providing space for new writing as for any other writing-related purpose and claims to print more new pieces of writing per issue than any other even vaguely similar publication in Australia. Also features event-based and resource information and review pages. The design is smart/funky, the typeface is easy on the eye and there is a strong editorial/ publishing stance on environmentally sustainable printing – i.e, this magazine is not made on glossy paper and the matching website even has a link to the parent business’s carbon audit. Website: www.wetink.com.au Price: RRP:$14.95 per single issue/$54 per year for a 4-issue subscription (postage waived if making a subscriber order). Look in big city newsagents, major bookshops and indie bookshops known for magazine content.

3. Poets & Writers: look, the sheer wealth of content in this magazine makes it worth checking out for practically any writer and also any reader who enjoys reading about writers, wants to writes/writes sometimes and feels at home in bookshops and at writers’ festivals. Also see my comments above this list. This is an ideal magazine for weekend reading, wet weather reading and for just before heading off to a writer-related event. It’s hard to believe it hasn’t been going for decades already, but then it hasn’t needed to, as it draws on a truly massive infrastructure of agents, editors, publishing houses, university-based writing programs…you get the idea. The one minor gripe I have is simply that the subscription options can be a bit tricky and short on essential information or even enough address space for potential subscribers outside North America. Website: http://www.pw.org/magazine Price: $13.95 per single issue or US$51 per year plus postage for a bimonthly print magazine. NB: I haven’t seen any subscriber-only paid sections online. Look in big city newsagents, major bookshops and indie bookshops known for magazine content.

Happy reading, and all the best for any writing inspired by any or all of these magazines.

What I’m reading now

Hi

Weekend mornings can be a great time for catching up on reading, especially magazines and novels.

This morning I spent the pre-breakfast and breakfast reading sessions poring over the newest issue of New York-based Poets and Writers magazine, happily absorbed in the various feature articles and some news sections. It’s a generous, informative and classy read, and also full of so many tantalising ads for rich competition prizes, lavishly-funded writing projects including some specialised magazines, idyllic creative retreats and a truly awesome array of writing-related jobs, festivals and courses.

For non-fiction/self-education: Blogging for Dummies, to help learn various technical processes and features to help make my own blog better.

I’ve now nearly finished my first reading of a book group novel:The Quiet Girl, by Peter (Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow) Hoeg. It is bleak in a wintry way, intense, intriguing, full of detailed information about Bach’s music, circus life, recent history of Copenhagen and near-supernatural hearing abilities. The jacket blurb describes it as a philosophical thriller. It has plenty of philosophy in it. I’m curious to find out what other people might say about it in the book group meeting, especially as it will be my first meeting as a potential new member.

Earlier today, I also spent a fair bit of time skimming a heap of weekend-newspaper supplements and months-old magazines on various topics, as part of a very necessary clear-out. Now I have some room for new newspapers and magazines.

Hope you enjoy your weekend reading.

Easy recipe for stove-top stew

Hi

Stews and casserole-type dishes that can be made in a large frypan or saucepan on a stove-top/hot plate can provide tasty dinners, help your budget and any need to watch the Kilojoules, can give plenty of leftovers for next meals and can be made in much less time than the oven-cooked varieties. Sure, you might miss some of the deeper flavours and not all cuts or types of meat and vegetables are equally suited to stove-top/hot plate cooking, but you don’t lose much either. The quicker cooking times – maybe 13-1/4 of oven times or even less – make them much more feasible/attractive options for making after a work day or on a weekend if you’ve been outdoors doing lots of activities/indoors and not feeling like doing so much kitchen work before dinner.

Here’s one suggestion for a stove-top/hot plate stew recipe:

*Ingredients for 1-2 people plus leftovers:

1 medium brown onion; 200g mince; 12-20 kalamata olives; 1 400-450g can corn kernels; 1 400-450g can borlotti beans; 1 400-450g can whole tomatoes in juice; several dessert-spoon measures of tomato paste/pasta sauce; selection of dried or fresh herbs e.g sage, basil, oregano, cracked or ground black pepper, minced chili. Plus olive or vegetable oil for base of heavy-base deep fry pan/saucepan (with lid).

Optional extra side dish -helps makes the stew mix go further: rice/pasta/couscous in same proportion.

*Method:

1. Before cooking: finely chop the onion; drain liquids from each of the cans of corn, beans and tomato; defrost frozen mince (or just use new mince straight from shopping) and break into small chunks; if using fresh herbs, take leaves off stalks, chop leaves if preferred, or leave whole. Using pre-pitted olives can help cut down the preparation chores. Herb pastes in tubes can also be very handy.

2. Cooking: pour in a generous splash of the oil and heat pan/saucepan until hot enough to make the onion sizzle, then lightly fry the onion so it goes clear. Once done, set it aside in a bowl, put in more oil if needed and add the mince. Brown the mince.** Then add the beans, tomato, corn, olives and pasta sauce , mix all ingredients well then cook on medium heat with lid on for 10-15 minutes.

**Hint: At this stage, it can help to get the water boiling for rice/pasta/couscous side dish, or start cooking it in a microwave, using usual packet/oven directions. By the time this side-dish is ready, the stew will have had a good cooking time.

Next: add your preferred variety and ratios of herbs, and the onion. Stir well, add more pasta sauce if preferred, or same amount of water, then cook with lid on for another 10-15 minutes.

3. Serving: drain the rice/pasta or ‘freshen’ the couscous with a little butter and quick re-heating, then take off heat and stir with fork. Put the chosen side-dish in serving bowl/on plate then add as much stew as you and any company like. NB: if the pasta finished cooking some time before you turned heat off under stew, just pour some hot water over it in the colander and stir gently to loosen strands/pieces.

4. Any leftovers: measure out meal-sized portions into freezer-safe containers for storage in freezer or fridge.

Enjoy!

‘The Truth About Cats and Dogs’: one of my trusty Friday-night movies

Hi

A few of the movies in my DVD collection at home are the ones I can happily re-watch many times on an end-of-work-week evening, especially if I feel like some light comedy and enjoy the characters without caring about how many times I’ve seen the ending.

This evening was a ‘trusty Friday night movie’ night, and after ensuring the heater was doing its job in cancelling out the encroaching chill of Canberra’s late-Autumn nights, I ended up choosing ‘The Truth About Cats and Dogs’. It’s a charmer every time: humour that sneaks up on you, new friendships, everyday wisdom, painfully awkward scenes, discoveries of special qualities about a person, the way people and animals try to get along with each other…

The three main performers – Uma Thurman (before ‘Pulp Fiction’ finished making her permanently famous)  as Noelle the model, Ben Chaplin as Brian the socially awkward photographer and Janeane Garofalo as ‘Abby’, the Cats and Dogs expert on radio, all work very comfortably on screen together and really make the story live on screen. A pre-fame Jamie ‘Ray’ Foxx plays a slick but likeable supporting role as Ben’s close buddy, giving his own kind of practical advice that Ben finds very hard to take seriously or reconcile with his own much quieter and reserved nature. Noelle does the same for Abby.

I heard or read somewhere that the plot of the story was a new (in mid-1990s) twist on the old Cyrano fable, with assumed identities causing misunderstanding and a mis-directing of affectionate messages. OK, I can see it, but as far as I’m concerned it’s really the pet cats and dogs, especially Abby’s cat and Brian’s dog, that do the most to bring out the best in each character. Every so often, one or more of the characters manages to understand what they need to do next, and what they need to stop doing.

What is it about your own favourite Friday night movie/s that make them enjoyable for many repeat viewings?

Cheers, and have a great weekend.

Watching ‘Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade’ again on TV

The third Indiana Jones movie is great fun very time I watch it, and this evening’s repeat on TV was no exception. A mid-week work day had started to go downhill not long after lunch, so the adventure and laughs thanks to Indiana and his eccentric dad, played with such casual class and sense of mischief by Sean Connery, was just the right kind of story for a night in at home.

A few of the classic elements in the Jones series keep working: the fantastic score by John Williams, the indestructible whip and hat, Indiana’s trademark one-liners -especially “I’ll think of somethin’”, and the range of settings and bad guys he has to deal with. And then there are the stunts as a special element in their own right, even in this CGI age. ‘The Last Crusade’ has a wealth of them, from Indy’s simple escape from his crazed students to his Leap from the Lion’s Head, from Henry Jones’s chair-tipping that reveals the staircase to the fight on the speedboats near a ship’s giant thrashing engine blades. Not forgetting the tank driver who nearly manages to smear Indy against a rock wall, or the Jones’ escape from the fighter planes. Top it all off with a sip from the Grail itself, after making sure it’s the right Grail, of course. Brilliant!

…and now I feel like l’ve been through an adventure myself.

First comments on ‘Lars and the Real Girl’

Note: this post might contain spoilers if you have not seen the movie already.

**Comedy meets Life in ‘Lars and the Real Girl’ **

This evening I had a rare and fine experience at the cinema, by seeing the kind of comedy that really shows what the movie-making business can produce. The miracle movie? ‘Lars and the Real Girl’.

It helps to completely suspend your sense of disbelief if you’re to get the most out of this story, and even if that proves very difficult at the start, there are plenty of extra chances along the way. A whole small town of people find they can do it, and nearly everyone surprises themselves in some way.

Ryan Gosling does an amazing role as Lars, a very shy, self-isolating young man with a happily-married brother whose wife (a great Emily Mortimer) is hilarious in her well-meant campaign to get Lars to be more sociable. The brother, Gus, is totally thrown by Lars’ sudden announcement of new close company, but gets an even bigger surprise when ‘Bianaca’, the New Woman In Lars’ Life, shows up for dinner. Dinner marks the start of a tortuous adjustment and seek-help-from-doctor process for Gus (Paul Schneider)  and wife Karin, but as Bianca and Lars become known in the town, many more people start trying to work out ‘what to do about Lars’ and…his friend. Sunday church meetings and smaller ‘in’ groups (including a very patient priest) within the community, who meet at each others homes, are full of priceless unspoken gestures.

At work, Lars meets new the very personable new young employee, Margot (a winning Kelly Garner), who wants to be friendly but is not sure how to deal with Lars’ intense awkwardness about conversation and is soon even more puzzled about how ‘real’ his connection to Bianca is. She decides he’s a ‘lost cause for now’ and strikes up a partnership with another worker, Eric. When he sees this, Lars starts to feel a serious conflict of interests: the life with Bianca is very real and he wants it to continue, but there is a definite and increasing attraction to the Real Girl, Margot, who is genuine in a way Bianca cannot achieve. Margot, however, is wise and generous enough to understand that Bianca is real in her own way, and genuinely admires Lars’ dedication and consistency.

The town doctor/psychologist, Dagmar, is played with a brilliantly-judged balance of sympathy and detachment by Patricia Clarkson. Dagmar delivers a hard lesson for Gus and Karin to learn quickly: you don’t get a choice about trying to adjust to Lars and Bianca. She then advises them to go along with it if there’s to be any chance of helping Lars get ‘out the other side’ (if there is one) without breaking up the family.  She walks the talk by setting up weekly sessions with Lars and Bianca, takes case notes as for any other clients, keeps confidences and calms him during anxiety attacks. Dagmar is one of the truly fine and memorable supporting characters in movies l’ve seen in recent years, in any genre.

Ironically, the townfolk’s increasing acceptance of Bianca and their efforts to truly integrate her into the town life, start to cause serious relationship and confidence problems for Lars. He starts having ‘control freak’ anger fits and suspects even his sister-in-law is trying to take Bianca away from him.  A crisis develops and Bianca becomes seriously sick. Finally, Lars is pleasantly surprised by the generosity and patience of the people living around him; but it takes an invitation from Margot, for an evening at the local 10-pin bowling alley, to really show him there just might be a chance at a happy new life after Bianca.

IMDb feature at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0805564/

Another movie that could complement the themes in ‘Lars’: ‘Stranger Than Fiction’, showing Will Ferrell as Harold, a straight-laced tax accountant living on his own and happily dealing with numbers, until one day he discovers that a new voice in his head means that he is the central character in a novelist’s new project. Dustin Hoffman supports this perfectly, in his quirky role as a Literature academic who Harold turns to for help in trying to find his way out of the mess.  The unique Maggie Gyllenghaal has a few surprises of her own for the numbers guy.