A Mother's Love

A good mate of mine has been living in Japan for two years teaching maths to Japanese kids. He recently decided to move back home to Australia. His mum wrote the following poem with fridge magnets for him and left it on the fridge to welcome him home.

Moto + Belle fille = Belle fille x 5

Having joined the Parisian scooter riding world this year, I can't help but notice that girls on scooter are super sexy.

They are a special breed. There are a lot of guys charging around on their bikes, cutting people off, swerving between cars, racing each other at the lights, revving past each other in what is essentially a chest beating exercise. "My bike is bigger than yours."

Enter la belle femme, petite et douce. She's calm, she doesn't need to put on a show, there's no strutting, no puffing out of the tail feathers, no false bravado. She just is - noticed. She is noticed because she's rare. In this masculine world, she stands out all the more.

There's something about a girl in high heels on a scooter, her hair flowing out the back of her helmet as she takes off at the lights. "Ciao boys."

I say yes.

Photo courtesy of David Gault

Clarke and Dawe: Et tu Brutus?

Another installment from the vault of Clarke and Dawe

Cick here or on the above image to watch.

By way of background, a minister in the NSW parliament resigned after it was discovered he had had an affair with a 26 year old woman. The Premier of NSW, who is constantly under fire from people in his own party, took advantage of the opportunity to knock off one of the circling sharks. Enter Clarke and Dawe...

Songs that make me smile

Elbow - Friend of Ours

I didn't really like this album when I first bought it, principally because I was listening to it through my ipod headphones, (the right ear doesn't produce any sound, and the left ear is pretty much just treble). A couple of days ago, I gave it another crack with my AKG recording headphones and BAM! - a world of difference. There is so much colour in this album. Yes it has some anthemic tracks, like Weather to Fly, One Day Like This and The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver, but for me, it is the attention to harmony that really got me fixed. This song, Friend of Ours, has a beautiful swelling violin riff, which I find just so simple and mournful. It's like a deep sigh. Can you hear the discordant brass at the end of the violin riff? Like the deft stroke of a master painter, it's so faint you don't quite know whether they meant it or not... but of course they did.

Turn the lights off, pour yourself a good red, turn it up and breath in.