Vale Swadlings

We were woken by sirens this morning, which turned out to be an eighth alarm fire at the hardware store two blocks down the road. Flames 15 metres high were shooting through the roof, fuelled by timber, paint, LPG cylinders and all that hardware stuff...

This afternoon the Dude and I wandered down on the pretext of buying the makings of dinner at the smoke-logged grocery store, to survey the damage. We just loved the irony of the smouldering remains, walls tilted at a precarious angle, behind the footpath sign proudly proclaiming "Now Open". It sure is.

Another great achievement for the fireys: the Swadlings Memorial Carpark.

It is what it is

I found Keri Smith's blog recently and made it one I'll check up on regularly. I love her list of 100 ideas for living a creative life. Why not try one today?

Today's entry has the slogan I've quoted in the title of this post. I want it on a T-shirt!

Easter reading

Sex is the balance of male and female in the universe, the attraction, the repulsion, the transit of neutrality, the new attraction, the new repulsion, always different, always new. The long neuter spell of Lent, when the blood is low, and the delight of the Easter kiss, the sexual revel of spring, the passion of midsummer, the slow recoil, revolt, and grief of autumn, greyness again, then the sharp stimulus of winter, of the long nights. Sex goes through the rhythm of the year, in man and woman, ceaselessly changing: the rhythm of the sun in his relation to the earth.

DH Lawrence, A Propos of Lady Chatterley's Lover

Earth Hour 2008

I'm getting excited about Earth Hour, on March 29th. If the weather's nice, I plan to go out to Sydney Park the night before and take some photographs of the city lights. Then, during Earth Hour, I'll go to the same spot and take some more photographs to see what the place looks like with the lights out. I'm hoping to get a good view of some stars too.
In my philosophy class last night we discussed the postmodernist view that large-scale change cannot be effected by individual agency. I'm not suggesting that turning the lights off for an hour will have any major impact on climate change, but to see the way that this phenomenon has spread across the planet (as shown on the map above) from its conception as a local event last year surely shows that small steps can lead to bigger things. There is hope for the future!
So don't succumb to postmodernist despair: sign up, and make a difference to the world.

More sad graffiti

This bemused old gentleman has appeared on the hoardings outside the former Nando's chicken shop that was firebombed a couple of weeks ago. I am not sure if he is the grandfather of the sad children or whether he is simply weeping for the loss of his favourite Portuguese chicken shop.
The Dude is getting worried. In the past 12 months, there have been three large fires in the vicinity of his school: first St Barnabas Broadway, then Nando's, then the Broadway shopping centre (His Dagginess' brother, Tiger, was the first officer on the scene at that fire). The Dude and various of his mates think their school might be next. If they're lucky.

Oh my god!

Since I'm joining the teapot cult, I thought I'd put up an image of my latest idol, bought in Taipei in January. It's not two storeys tall, but only a petite three inches. Yes, the cups do fit together to make a perfect egg.
I think I'll appropriate an ancient heathen festival to celebrate my new beliefs: how fortunate that there's an equinox in a week or two. Now, what would go nicely with a steaming sacred beverage? I know, soft fruit buns! Hmm, perhaps I could decorate them with a cross to represent the chicken's perch...

I got religion!

This morning's broadsheet had a story about a woman who worships a teapot. Forget the Flying Spaghetti Monster, where do I sign up?

On a serious note, I am not unaware of the irony of the situation: I can make jokes about the beliefs of all sorts of religions but the woman in this story once went to jail simply for saying she is not a muslim. A quick google brought up several recent news stories about similar cases. It made me give some thought to what I can do to help these people.

So here's what I did... it's not much, but I signed up for Anwar Ibrahim's newsletter in the hope that somewhere along the way I can learn enough about Malaysian politics to do something, even if it's just to write to the PM or my local member to encourage them to put political pressure on the Malaysian government.

In the meantime, I'm off for a steaming cup of ambrosia from my divine vessel. In-cha-lah.