Fuel for thought

Fuel for thought

I’ve been a trifle busy this week – when I haven’t been contorting myself with pilates, I’ve been house hunting*, working insane hours**, studying, attempting to regain running fitness and attend to basic facets of everyday living. Needless to say my writing has once again fallen to the wayside.

Then this made me stop in my tracks and gave  me some fuel for thought. This is perhaps the most poetic press release of the week:

And that the letter of law has no top and no bottom. And everybody in the world knows who is responsible for the wrongdoing of News Corp: Rupert Murdoch. He paid the piper and he called the tune.

This chap sounds like a wordsmith! Perhaps I should start to incorporating some wordsmithery at work. Perhaps I should utilise lovely word images when educating my patients about their various ailments!

Two birds, one stone, eh?

Or I should just get more organised, ugh.

*Note: Word of the (newly) wise, perhaps don’t inspect the cheapest accommodation advertised – I tried that tact this week and found myself in the sleazy surrounds of a derelict squat. Lovely folks living there, somewhat spacey in demeanour, but not lovely enough to convince me to rent a room there. The black mole, damp and lack of a toilet also factored in on the decision!  

** I'm a physiotherapist

Big Scary in The Cross

Police patrol the streets as biker gangs and a crime king-pin ramble through Kings Cross last Friday night.


The same king-pin justified his presence with this comment in the newspaper the next day: "The Cross is in safe hands … It's disorganised crime that's the problem."


Scary stuff!


What wasn't scary was the band I reviewed in The Cross that night - Big Scary. With their impish grins they appear awfully approachable and as a two piece they aren't very big either! But their name isn't a complete misnomer; their sound is so big, board and lush - it’s spine tingling scary. Also on the bill were Mosman Alder (this week's Tunesday pick!) and Geoffrey O'Connor - a modern reincarnation of Spinal Tap. 


Check out my review to find out what zoolander would look like if he were in a band and why I feared I would pulled up by the police on patrol that night.  

A fraction of the process

I adore this book cover. However it got pulled before it went into print. You can find out the reason why here in this short interview with book designer Nathan Burton. 

Photo inspiration. Prague.

This is what I came up with for writing exercise number 2:

If Europe were a beehive come June 1^st, rain or shine, it gets mercifully hacked open. Everyone is on holidays and keen to get out and about.

Great swarms of people swoop onto anything that has been vaguely labeled as a tourist landmark. The calamity of foreign languages creates a heady hum in cobblestone streets across the continent.

Even if you’ve run marathons, walking five hundred meters saps your stamina. There’s the constant threat of getting sideswiped by a stroller, struck by a wayward elbow or suffocated by a swarm of tourists unexpectedly rounding a bend. The constant stop-start flow of foot traffic burns the calves,buckles the knees and causes cheeks to flush.

Crafty footwork

Big-ticket cities are like this all year round. Even in snowstorms Piccadilly Circus is literally a circus, Paris is packed and Rome is overrun. But there seems to be a round robin of popular alternatives.

Prague

Through the magic of cheap airline tickets, reams of overt and covert advertising, these alternatives sink into the collective conscious as 'The' destination to visit that summer.

This summer it was Prague and we were in the heaving heart of it.

Like any run of the mill travellers, we were keen to capture it all on camera. Though even Olympic level gymnasts would have struggled to contort themselves to obscure strangers from the photo frames. Yet we all valiantly gave it a shot. Ducking, weaving, kneeling, lying down on cobblestones or straddling lampposts, wildly angling the camera lenses.

Random on the Right. Aidan and I posing fountain side.

We gave up. Huffing and puffing we would mutter the now commonly thrown catchphrase 'photoshop. You can definitely erase them all.'

Sounded like a great plan.Yet even if you actually blissfully swipe strangers away with the click of the mouse, you wouldn't to be able to erase the haggard drag of your shoulders and sheen of sweat across your brow. You can’t help but look absolutely spent.

Though you'll get a hundred odd people in your photos, it's worth snapping away, Prague is truly picturesque. Simply stunning. Yet, it's not the Prague I imagined at all. For lack of a better description it was all a bit too...clean.

Through a strict plan of restoration and gentrification that facades are freshly painted and flawless. The cobblestone streets smooth. Even statues appear almost ageless.

Sculpture in Prague

I expected a bohemian ragtag attitude or a poetically caviler indifference. Perhaps an accordion player sitting on a street corner. Soft cap dragged rakishly low. Gypsy music slyly slinking out of bellows. Yet it was all too shiny. Too new looking. And absolutely exhausting.

Book cover lust

Joey Hi-fi