All-Year Christmas

My dream of never-ending Christmas is now reality. Last year, I stockpiled so much festive food (Christmas cakes, mince pies, Christmas puddings), that I've been able to eke out the supplies till now. I finished the final Christmas cake last week, and one pudding remains. But now that mince pies are in the shops, and Floreat Forum has Christmas decorations up, I can proclaim victory. The desolate non-Noel period of January to September has been survived and conquered, and I can replenish my survives as we count down the remaining months until the number one day of the year.

Happy Christmas !

Information Science

Spending my lunchtimes in UWA's Reid Library, it's amusing reading old copies of the Times Literary Supplement. Particularly interesting are the positions vacant ads. Here are a couple from 1975.

The second advertises a salary starting at 

£2,395. That works out to a healthy £46 per week. 

And I'm surprised that the profession of Information Scientist existed 43 years ago. Perhaps it's a fancy term for a librarian who can operate a microfiche? Reading wikipedia, it was regarded as quite distinct from the role of librarian, and provided focused information to technical and research staff. much like Google does today. This might explain why you no longer encounter information scientists.

My Top Podcasts of 2018

My ears are never bored. Back in the 80s and 90s, local radio was so tedious that I spent long hours listening to the world through my Russian shortwave radio. But with the explosion in niche and fiction podcasts, my life is now spent thinking of ways to cram more podcasts into my day. Here are my current favourites:

1. Kermode and Mayo's Film Review
2. The Talking Dead - a podcast dedicated to the Walking Dead tv show
3. Sword and Laser - Science fiction and fantasy bookclub
4. Welcome to Night Vale - the one and only 
5. Pod Save America - US politics. Plenty of Trump idiocy to talk about
6. MonsterTalk
7. Beef and Dairy Network - cow news 
8. The Secret Cabal Gaming Podcast - board gamers with heaps of personality
9. The Slash Filmcast - geeky US film reviews
10. The Black Tapes - creepy fiction set in the Pacific Northwest
11. Geek's Guide to the Galaxy  - a science fiction podcast covering science and fiction
12. SAYER - horror set on a space station
13. Skeptoid - scientific debunking
14. The Folklore Podcast - a quaint UK show with the best theme

In the mountains

Although much of my time in the New Zealand alps was under clouds, when they did lift, the scene was breathtaking. Staying in Mt Cook Village, I was right amongst the towering pinnacles.

.. and the prettiest town in NZ is Arrowtown

I've rarely seem a more beautiful town anywhere in the world than Arrowtown. Although it's a tourist trap during daylight, with busloads of sightseers wandering around licking icecreams and taking selfies, later in the day, it's quieter and more relaxed.

Autumn Colours in New Zealand

Autumn must surely be when New Zealand is at its prettiest. Although their native trees are mostly evergreen, the introduced maples and beeches and other deciduous trees are gorgeous when the leaves start to fade and drop.

The maples in Queenstown were aflame

Super-Duper Blue Blood Mega-Moon

From the mosquito-ridden shore of Lake Monger, your intrepid photographer set up his camera and tripod to capture the moon last Wednesday.

Nedlands Apocalypse

Last Sunday, before the cyclone hit, the smoke from a bushfire shrouded Perth. This was the scene as I entered the Windsor Cinema.

A Little Wetness

Here are yesterday's rainfall figures for Perth metro sites.

Cyclone Joyce

For fans of extreme weather, recent summers in Perth have been wonderful. After last year's wettest summer in history, plus our coldest ever summer day (17 degrees in Perth, 13 degrees in Bickley), we have ex-tropical Cyclone Joyce to look forward to. If there's a direct hit, we could get over 100mm of rain by Tuesday. Here is the latest forecast.

My Top Ten Novels of 2017

I wasn't able to read as much as I hoped last year, getting through 201 novels, 19 less than in 2016. But there was plenty of quality among them. Here are my most enjoyable reads. These include fiction published any year, not just last year.

1. The Witchwood Crown (The Last King of Osten Ard, #1) by Tad Williams (FANTASY)
 

2. The Shuddering by Ania Ahlborn (HORROR)

3. The Ritual by Adam Nevill (HORROR)

4. The Mime Order (The Bone Season #2) by Samantha Shannon (FANTASY)

5. Mostly Void, Partially Stars (Welcome to Night Vale Episodes, #1) by Joseph Fink  (FANTASY)

6. Breakfast with the Borgias by D.B.C. Pierre (WEIRD)

7. A Suspension of Mercy by Patricia Highsmith (THRILLER)

8. Willful Child: Wrath of Betty by Steven Erikson (SCI FI)

9. Some Rain Must Fall by Karl Ove Knausgard (DRAMA)

10. The Barrow by Mark Smylie (FANTASY)

My Cats' Favourite Flicks of 2017

As is traditional, my two cats have been debating furiously which films should appear in their joint top ten list. And finally they've come up with the following, in no particular order:

Miss Sloane - (I must mention that I fell asleep in this movie twice, the first time in the cinema, the second time on a plane).

Guardians of the Galaxy 2 - I'm proud of my cats that they only listed one comic book movie. Any more would be an embarrassment.

Dunkirk

Wind River

The Hitman's Bodyguard

Blade Runner 2049

The Death of Stalin

Neruda

Gold

Hidden Figures

It's rather impressive that cats can count to ten.

And honourable mentions go to:

Alone in Berlin

Life

The Dinner

Daddy's Home 2

Only the Brave

Why Him?

US Snow Cover

It's not yet winter, but look how much of the US is covered by snow. It even stretches over the border from Texas into Mexico.

Films of the Year 2017

Yes, I'm jumping the gun, but I just can't wait any longer. I need to tell you my ten favourite new release movies for the year. So here we go, in reverse order.

10. Personal Shopper - Kristen Stewart is haunted by the ghost of her brother. But it's no conventional haunting. 

9. The Exception - the German Kaiser Wilhelm is in exile in Holland during the Second World War, and is the subject of plotting from both the Dutch resistance, and the Nazis. Surely it must end happily.

8. Blade Runner 2049 - the best looking film of the year (aside from number 2)

7. Trainspotting 2 - more moving than the original

6. Mother - insane, but in a good way. 

5. The Death of Stalin - hilarious black comedy

4. It - having read the 3,000 page Steven King novel, I prefer this film. You care for the kids, so when the horror hits, it hurts

3. Dunkirk - relentless and moving. I'll never forget the Spitfire silently gliding over the troops after running out of fuel

2.My Cousin Rachel - is she evil or just misunderstood? Poor Rachel. The cinematography is painfully beautiful, transporting you to rural Cornwall in the 1830s. 

1. On Chesil Beach - terribly tragic love story, based on an Ian McEwan novel, starring Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle as the idiot who nearly ruined his life over nothing 

And honourable mentions go to:

Lion, The King's Choice, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Alien Covenant, Neighbourhood Food Drive, Thor Ragnorak, Mary Shelley and Atomic Blonde.

Dead Camera

For the second time in 18 months, my Olympus OM-D E-M10 has died. Last year an unnamed photographer we shall call L*wk dropped his camera onto tarmac, crippling the pop-up flash, and denting the body. The camera still lived on, but was no longer fully functional. So off to Hardly Normal Armadale I went to pick up a bargain-priced replacement camera, an identical one but less than half the price of the original.

All went well till halfway through my Chicago trip a few months ago, when my camera decided that it would over-expose all shots in sunlight. No matter how I adjusted the exposure, it was way off. I reset to factory settings, and still it malfunctioned. When home again, I took it to be repaired under warranty, but to no avail. The repair shop told me I didn't know how to adjust the exposure and said there was nothing wrong. I took it out one weekend, and again, the overexposure persisted.

So until Christmas I'm without a decent camera, and this blog is temporarily out of action. I know my thousands of fans (or at least my mum) will struggle to occupy themselves with no new photos from me for a while, but don't despair - I'll be blogging my top films and novels of the year very soon.

Laters,
Lewk

Monet's Garden

This is from May.

Yet Another Sunset

These shots were taken in Churchlands on Monday, over the playing fields of Newman College. The fiery colours only lasted for 5 to 10 minutes before they faded as the sun passed below the horizon.

Winter Wetness

This is the type of winter weather I love. Endless sky-water.

Cinema Bonanza

The future is looking bright for cinema lovers in Perth. Several developments will expand the number of screens near my home. Here are the plans I'm aware of.

Ace Subiaco is reopening in December 2016 with four screens

Luna Leederville have purchased a neighbouring property, and will double from four to eight screens

A brand new cinema will be built in Karrinyup as part of the shopping centre's doubling in size

The current Innaloo cinema will be replaced by a more modern theatre within the shopping centre

And a new 12 screen cinema complex will be built in Raine Square.

Totally Uncreepy Church Sculpture

Spotted in the Louvre's mediaeval section, these faceless ghouls bearing a coffin are freaky.

La Tour Eiffel

At 10pm each night, the Eiffel tower sparkles like diamonds, for five minutes only. But this was the view half an hour earlier, not long after sunset, from the hotel window.

Invader Sighting

While dining al fresco on my first evening in Paris, I saw a familiar piece of pixel art on the building across the street. This was a genuine piece mosaic from Invader, the infamous street artist fond of 80s video games. His website tells me that I scored 50 points for this sighting.

Paris in Springtime

This was the scene inside Notre Dame cathedral when I visited a couple of months ago. Despite extensive searching, I couldn't find any hunchbacks.

Endless Snowiness

It's the first week of May and the snow keeps falling in the US and Canada, even as far south as Texas. I hope some remains on the ground when I arrive in a month or so.

Pre-Holiday Bingeing

It's always entertaining using up the perishables in your pantry and fridge prior to a holiday. The aim of the game is to minimise the quantity of food that might expire while you're away, and to maximise the amount in your stomach. With a week to go, it's still possible to eat relatively normally, with a little attention to what ingredients are available when you decide on your meals. But in the final days, craziness reigns. You find you're left with a tub of whipped cream, some pitted prunes, three croissants, a fennel and some caramelised onion and a pack of marshmellows. I feel I'm on a Masterchef mystery box challenge, but without the skill to combine the ingredients into anything edible.