OMG, Mr Darcy!

Excerpts from 1-star reviews of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice on Amazon.com.

It just goes on and on and on, only to lead this sister ending up with that guy, this sister ending up with that guy, etc. — Adam Appleby

Personally I am disgusted. I think that they are all pompous and rather annoying. — A Customer

A terrible bore, really sort of a nightmare that never ends. — Laura “witchbaby”

I find this book repulsive. I am offended by every paragraph that I read. I have never felt such contemt for any work that I read. I pasionately despise this novel. The 17th century English aristocracy is offensive and without merit. — A Customer

Over two-hundred pages wasted on useless tasteless writing! It was a majority consensus in my senior English class that Pride and Prejudice was awful. — Elisabeth

Austen clearly never learned that readers do not like run-on sentences because the so called "novel" consists of run-on sentences that sometimes consist of more than one page. This novel is complete trash. — Mark Twain “Sam”

I hated this book. It was difficult to read, because Austen never seemed to get to the point, and everything seemed to happen so slowly. It was ridiculous. — cnyadan

this is possibly the boringest classice ever written, which is saying a lot considering the fact they're all quite boring. I mean look at the story, what a bunch of bull! What the hell...omg, Mr.Darcy! *rolls eyes* Could she not have thought of anything more exciting? — A Customer

This story was written in the early Victorian era, and hence it is quite old. I found it to be utterly boring. Maybe it was a big deal back in the time, but nobody cares nowadays. — krazykow@softhome.net

Making sense of the money mess

I suspect that most people outside the money industries don't really understand why the financial system collapsed and how pervasive it is. That's why all the various elements of it have just been put in one big conceptual box and called the "economic crisis".

This video, made by Los Angeles–based designer Jonathan Jarvis, is the best graphic visualisation of how this all came about I have seen, and I highly recommend it to you.



Jarvis is currently practicing in the Graduate Media Design Program at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. You can see some of his other projects – including a brilliant demonstration which makes all the mobile phones in a room ring simultaneously – at his website, here.

Why I love 30 Rock. Why I love Tina Fey. Why I love Alec Baldwin

Jack + Elisa = Jalisa. Because they went here for one second: Jack's pink and blue Jalisa T-shirts.

And as Liz and Kenneth came out of the subway: the X train to Zorgonia Avenue and a "coming soon" poster for Jenna's movie, Janie Jimplin.

Just because you can type, it doesn't make you a writer. Or a mathematician

In a rare moment of restraint, TMZ marked the passing of Mickey Rourke's beloved chihuahua simply:

Loki Rourke

1991 - 2009

"Sometimes when a man's alone, that's all you got ... is your dog."

-- Mickey @ the Golden Globes

The second and third reader comments on the story:

2. That dog did not live 28 years. No way.

Posted at 11:57PM on Feb 17th 2009 by Stephen

3. Umm... a 28 year old dog? Is that a typo?

Posted at 11:58PM on Feb 17th 2009 by Wow

It's no wonder President Obama's Massive Stimulus Package includes $53 billion for education.

恭喜發財

Another new year party! Sydney is going all-out for its Chinese New Year celebrations this year. The festival, which started on Friday, goes for another three weeks, so it overlaps with the Sydney Festival, still in full swing, by a week. Much to be seen and eaten and explored, in that case.

Oh – it's Australia Day today, as well, so for me it means there are going to squadrons of warplanes roaring overhead all day and masses of fireworks in the evening. We're going to get among the mayhem in Chinatown tonight: lion dances, street food and strings of noisy red firecrackers. Yay!

Welcome, Year of the Ox. 恭喜發財 - kung hei faat coi! Good luck and good fortune!

The angry man

My local supermarket is open until midnight. At about 11, two guys start to close down the deli section. It’s obviously a big job: they have to put away all that neatly folded ham, coleslaw, fish fillets and mystery meat.

I like to shop late when the place is pretty much empty. I shop fast and don't need obstacles like people hunting though the 50 different mouthwashes to get in my way. It’s just around the corner and I enjoy a little late-night retail therapy.

Last night there was a man standing at the deli counter. He was 50-something, about five feet tall, wearing shorts, a singlet and thongs. He was the very image of a short, fat Aussie man. He was barking at the deli guy.

“The sign says midnight. If you’re going to close sections down, you need to say it on a sign out the front.”

The deli guy was barely following where he was going, but I could see it coming a mile away.

“You know, legally I could sue you for false advertising.”

He screwed up his face, turned to the short, fat woman he was with and barked, “Come on. We’re going.” He marched out, hamless and muttering, past the checkouts, while she trundled along behind him.

As if he hadn’t made his point at the deli, he stood at the door and shouted, “Bloody hell, woman. Hurry up. We’re never coming back here.” He took a few steps outside and, as the automatic doors were closing, managed to bark out his parting shot: “Ever!”

Well, hello, fellow Grits to Glitz listeners!

 

There's been a spike in my reader numbers lately and it's all Amy and Bay's fault. Hello, Amy! Hello, Bay! Thanks for the shout out!

To all my fellow G2Gers, welcome to my sandbox on the web. It's a pretty random affair, and I do encourage you to try out the Lucky Dip button to the left because the more randomly you are willing to face it, the better. Just like life.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about – and believe me, your number is legion, at least in my daily life – I'll back up and explain. There will be a test at the end, so please pay attention.

Way back in the heady days of winter 2006 (remember, I live in the upside-down hemisphere), I was in the grip of The Devil Wears Prada fever. I was scooching around the net and there was a reference to a review on a tiny, unpopulated site. Just a single entry: "Episode ONE: July 12, 2006".

Abandoning what little caution I possessed, I clicked a link. Something strange was happening with my iTunes. What? This is an audio file? (Yes, I confess was a total podcast newbie.) I hit play and within minutes, an international love affair began.

Amy and Bay are sisters. They both lived in East Tennessee until Amy moved to Las Vegas. Life in Las Vegas is not like life in East Tennessee, and the differences between the two places, an eternal compare-and-contrast conversation, was worth broadcasting.

Since then, they've covered a lot of ground in their weekly podcasts. There have been dogs and Disneyland, cocktails and Vegas shows, holidays and birds and recipes and grammar lessons and pigeon-squirting machines, three seasons of Project Runway and weeks of obsession with Tim Tams – a very funny international saga that culminated in this moment – and a big-ass Christmas wreath. Contests and scrapbooking and April Fools pranks and lots and lots of dish. And I now know what grits are and what the boonies are, too.

They might be on opposite sides of their country, and I'm so far away that it takes a whole day to fly here, but their podcast always makes me feel like the three of us are just sitting around the kitchen table, drinking coffee, having a chat. I don't get to say much, but I laugh the whole time.

It's hard to believe that a tiny bunch of pixels could lift my spirits, but when that little blue dot turns up in iTunes next to Grits to Glitz, that's exactly what happens. Like standing in front of a birthday cake, I know there's some fun to be had.

For the uninitiated, start your journey into Amy and Bay's world at the Grits to Glitz site, here. Have a look around. Download an episode or two. Subscribe in iTunes. You'll be a better person for it – trust me.

Grind up some greasy, greasy coffee beans . . .

You guys are no fun

Some random Taliban prohibitions:

• anything made from human hair
• equipment that produces the joy of music
• pool tables
• lobster
• nail polish
• sewing catalogues
• pictures
• chess
• masks
  

Just Druitt

When news happens in the outer Sydney suburb of Mount Druitt, it’s never going to be a good thing. Here are the recent headlines from ABC News tagged “Mount Druitt”.

Man flips car during high-speed chase

Man charged over Sydney rape spree

Young crims face curfews in Australian first

Sydney serial sex attacker 'will strike again'

Sydney sex attacks feared linked

P-plater 'doing 110 in a 60km zone'

Teens charged over bus assault

26yo charged over weapons, cash haul

Teen 'holds up store with cleaver'

Police chase ends in front yard

NSW men arrested over boarding house murder

Security 'exceeded authority' in schizophrenic's death

Man jailed over teen boy's rape

Police seek help in finding missing teen, baby

Man targets phone towers during tank rampage

Driver impaled in car crash

Police probe school leavers' fatal crash

Teenage girl bailed on sexual assault charges

Screaming, falling down, cross-dressing, vomiting

Konstantinos Lagoudakis, the mayor of Malai, Crete, interviewed in today’s New York Times: “They scream, they sing, they fall down, they take their clothes off, they cross-dress, they vomit.”

He's talking about British tourists.

“It is only the British people,” he said, “not the Germans or the French.”

The Times spoke to 21-year-old man from Essex who said that the night before he had drunk had five beers, six cocktails made with Baileys, tequila, absinthe, ouzo, vodka, gin and orange juice (mmm!), five vodka-and-limes and another five beers – all of which, he said, emboldened him to pick up a woman to spend the night with.

In July, a 20-year-old British tourist partied with her sister and a friend into the early hours, then returned to her hotel room and — although she had denied being pregnant — gave birth. Her friends say they returned later to find the baby dead; she has been charged with infanticide.

Of course, the badly behaved Brits abroad aren’t been confined to Malia.

Earlier this summer, flying home to Manchester from the Greek island of Kos, a pair of drunken women yelling “I need some fresh air” attacked the flight attendants with a vodka bottle and tried to wrestle the airplane’s emergency door open at 30,000 feet. The plane diverted hastily to Frankfurt, and the women were arrested.

In Laganas, on the Greek island of Zakinthos, where a teenager from Sheffield died after a drinking binge this summer, more than a dozen British women were charged in July with prostitution after taking part in what the police called “an alfresco oral sex contest.”

In Dubai this summer, a British man and woman who met during a drinking bout were arrested and charged with having sex on a beach, after repeatedly shouting abuse at a police officer who ordered them to stop.

A recent report published by the British Foreign Office, “British Behavior Abroad,” noted that in a 12-month period in 2006 and 2007, 602 Britons were hospitalized and 28 raped in Greece, and that 1,591 died in Spain and 2,032 were arrested there.

London 2012 is gonna rock.

Lumoava Suomi!

Every time I watch a DVD, I always sit through those endless copyright warnings in different languages wondering who on earth the one headed "Suomi" is for.

It turns out it’s for Finns. They call Finland Suomi, and their language is also called Suomi.

From Enchanting Finland: legends, feelings, experiences comes this list of the top 10 things that make a Finn happy. Number 6 is odd, but I know what they mean.

Finnish feel-good factors

1. A home of one's own
2. Sunny weather
3. An honest relationship
4. A trusting relationship
5. The freedom to be oneself
6. A freshly cleaned home
7. Friendship, gestures/words in a relationship
8. Friendship, actions in a relationship
9. Fidelity in a relationship
10. Security in a relationship

For some reason, the tango is huge in Finland. (There is an article which casts a little light on the subject here.) In fact, it’s so popular that in 1997 the Finnish Post Corporation issued a stamp celebrating the Finns’ love of the tango.

There's also a huge, week-long Tango Festival held every year in Seinäjoki called Tangomarkkinat, where the Tango King and Queen are crowned.

Here are the reigning Tango Queen and King, Johanna Pakonen and Mikko Kilkkinen. 

Aren't they sweet?

警警 and 察察

Meet Jingjing and Chacha, the adorable mascots of the Internet Surveillance Division of the Public Security Bureau of the People’s Republic of China. In other words, the internet police.

The bureau employs more than 30,000 people to monitor the internet, ensuring that anything to do with the Falun Gong, police brutality, the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square, freedom of speech, democracy, unregulated social or political commentary, Taiwanese independence, the Dalai Lama and the International Tibet Independence movement never appears on Chinese computer screens.

Its director says, “We published the image of internet police in the form of a cartoon to let all internet users know that the Internet is not a place beyond of law and that the internet police will maintain order in all online behavior."

Module behaviour

Which Sydney model has the stage-mother from hell? The chatter at brunch today was electric with tales of the pushy mom who’s riding roughshod over everyone in her daughter’s path towards – well, what?

Already chewing her way through agents, the model daughter had literary ambitions and engaged a writer who cooked up a concept, wrote two chapters and came up with a perfect title. Mommie Dearest was thrilled – until she found a better deal and took the whole package (complete with international rights) elsewhere. The writer’s “contract” amounted to a pittance for signing away all her rights and the threat, direct from Mommie’s lips, that if she went for anything more “we will destroy you”. Charming.

Like all great stage-mothers, Mommie is the über-agent for her charge, managing an ever-changing team of specialists in modelling, publishing, merchandising, film and PR. One of the agents, discarded for “not getting her face on TV enough” despite another agent’s instructions to “protect her from TV”, tells tales of hysterical midnight calls and threats of legal action.

One agent, still working for the model but cognizant of her own reputation, takes potential clients aside to warn them about the mother in advance.

The consensus has it that the module herself is undoubtedly pretty, but that there’s not much more than sweetly perfumed air circulating between her ears. She is also socially retarded; incapable of being engaged rather than looked at admiringly, she just stands there blankly while you talk. 

Photographers report working overtime to coax genuine-looking emotions from her and that even her natural smile looks rehearsed. One tells a story about asking her to smile, only to have her look at her mother, who demonstrated and had her expression exactly reproduced on her daughter's face.

Could the rumour be true? Mommie's suffocating presence serves the practical purpose of protecting the family secret: her gorgeous daughter, who's raking in the cash, has Asperger syndrome.

Mind your manners, please

Having just finished reading a series of books set in the 1920s and 30s filled with details of calling cards and dressing for dinner, I’m currently obsessed with old systems of manners and etiquette. I’ve uncovered some gems, including the English Manners And Tone Of Good Society, Or Solecisms To Be Avoided by A Member of the Aristocracy (1879) and the American Mrs John M. E. W. Sherwood’s Manners and Social Usages (1887), both tomes booming with authority and low opinions of interlopers, climbers and anyone who dares to ignore their advice.

Here are two enlightening extracts from others, more than a century apart.

From Society Small Talk or What to Say and When to Say It, by A Member of the Aristocracy (1879): Dinner-table talk
Pleasant, agreeable "small talk," necessary as it is on all social occasions, is more particularly so at the most important of all social gatherings, namely, dinner parties, and it is at dinner-parties that the greatest call is made upon the social qualities of the guests, and upon their powers of making themselves agreeable.
To make pleasant easy small talk is to pave the way towards pleasant companionship, and the slightest thread is capable of being woven into a substantial fabric. A matter-of-fact conversation often commences in this wise, "We must take care not to tread upon that smart train," referring to the dress of a lady who was preceding a couple to the dining room.
"Yes, that would never do; trains are very graceful, if they are inconvenient," To which her companion might observe -
"Oh, I admire them, of course; I am only so afraid of treading upon them, and of bringing down the wrath of the fair wearer upon my devoted head. "
"Are you very unlucky in this way? And do you think a woman could not keep her temper if her gown were trodden upon?"
"Well, if you ask me really what I think about it, I should say she was a very exceptional woman if she stood such a test - but here we are; we are to sit this side."
Or - "Have you been to the French plays? I suppose you have."
"No, indeed, I have not; we thought of going one night next week, if we can get stalls."
"If you want to see a really good piece you should try and see____" and at this point of the conversation the name of the "only piece worth seeing" would be mentioned, and if the lady were endowed with tact and cleverness, she would lead her companion to give her his impressions of the piece, and of the cast; by which means she would gain a certain knowledge of the subject, while he would gain, what men most appreciate, a good listener. On such slight foundations as the foregoing, does the matter of fact, or the commonplace small talk rest. The gossipy and the polite small talk have a still flimsier raison d'être and run very much after this fashion.

From Debrett's Etiquette for Girls (2006): One-night stands
The one-night stand (ONS) is a bit like fast food: tempting but with nauseating afterthoughts. Any dark alley gropery on the way home is just not ladylike and is bound to be viewed by an audience or CCTV. Also, don't force taxi drivers to witness any indiscretions. Once home, leave him to marvel at your record collection and superior taste in wine while you do a turbo-tidy. Conceal any embarrassing exhibits if bothered by such trifles, but if it's a true ONS, is shouldn't matter. Then attend to the lighting, play some music and sit together. Slip shoes off, gently shake out hair, nibble seductively on a cocktail cherry and chuckle at his jokes. Then stop talking and smile with your best come-to-bed eyes - intimacy will surely follow.
Once you're in the bedroom, forget all about your cleanse/tone/moisturise bedtime routine, Leave make-up intact and pyjamas in their drawer.
If you're at his, the ONS is not over until the walk of shame - going home in last night's dishevelled clothes. Steel yourself for the aftermath and hold our head up high. If you wake up early, it is acceptable under the circumstance to slip out without waking him. If you are possessed of any concern for good manners, then it's imperative to leave a cute note and a good excuse, with or without your telephone number.
If at yours, offer him breakfast and, assuming you want no more of him, say that your mother is on her way round. Bear in mind, however, that concerted maturity and politeness will ultimately lessen your own shame.

Smock? Belt?

Here's the lovely Cate Blanchett (with a couple of hangers-on) at the screening of the new Indiana Jones film in Cannes yesterday, wearing a grey gown by Armani Prive.

And here is how the reporter from AAP/AFP described it: "Blanchett looked radiant in a purple and black smock, tightly belted at the waist to reveal her trim figure."

The moral: don't let Sunday stringers anywhere near fashion.

Naughty Goths

Because I am a dedicated a journalist, I’m reading the Plan of Management for Hyde Park. The usual bureaucratic ordinariness, until this:

Saturday and Sunday afternoons bring a lot of Goths to the War Memorial. They hassle the Salvation Army Band.

Now I have to wander up there to check it out. I’ll take photos.

Anonymous delivers

“For its part, Scientology is seemingly powerless to stop this underground warfare because members of Anonymous could be anyone.”
— reporter Bryan Seymour, Today Tonight

The /b/ thread that led to today's anti-Scientology actions is archived here.

The Queen’s small talk

I don’t know how she does it.

I was watching a documentary about the Queen. She was in Estonia, of all places, and was being introduced to 200 people at a reception. The British Ambassador to Estonia was flapping around – “This gentlemen is the inventor of the philharmonic chamber choir; this lady provides foreign policy advice to the prime minister” – and there she was, making small talk with each and every one of them. She had 45 minutes, which works out at 13 seconds per person.

It was getting close to dinner time and someone had to switch her off because, apparently, until someone intervenes, she will just go on meeting, greeting and thinking up questions. It’s done quite simply: “Your Majesty, the time has come.” She just stops, turns and walks away.

Of course, she’s been doing it at Buckingham Palace day in, day out, for more than 55 years. Endless diplomats, clergy and heads of state. The president of Ghana, the retiring Dean of St Paul’s, members of the Royal Welsh, ancient charity workers.

As a result, she has a ton of boilerplate patter in case someone clams up.
– Is this your first visit? Is it like what you thought it would be like?
– Was it difficult for you to travel here?
– Really? How marvellous!
– Comes around terribly quickly, doesn’t it?
And on and on and on.

When she’s over it, she presses a discreet buzzer in the arm of her chair. Two giant doors are suddenly flung open and, while her astonished guests have their heads turned, she just stands up. Audience over.

I also learned that she drinks gin and Dubonnet, 30/70, with a de-pipped slice of lemon under two ice cubes. At parties, all she has to do is spin around and someone will be standing there with a single glass, etched with “ER”, on a tray. Maybe that’s her real secret.

Jewelled palaces

Another dreary wet night in Sydney last night but relieved by a very pleasant outing to the State Theatre. The Taj Hotels screened a dreamy travelogue about four of their most opulent properties followed by cocktails.

I met three members of Indian Royal families, all with glorious names. They are, left to right, Prince Rajkumar Vijit Singh from the Royal Family of Jaipur, Princess Bhargavi Kumari Mewar and Prince Rajkumar Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar from the Royal Family of Udaipur.

Prince Rajkumar’s family calls this palace, floating in the middle of a lake, its summer home. Sweet.

禁止吸烟！

Beijing's trying to turn smoke-free for the Olympics in 200 days, but it's not going very well.

Authorities wrote to 30,000 restaurants asking them to put a ban in place, and only one took up the suggestion – and it's going out of business.

The Meizhou Dongpo chain of Sichuan restaurants trained its floor staff to discourage people from lighting up only to have them locked out of private dining rooms while customers had a quick ciggy.

Diners are abandoning the restaurants in droves. Numbers have dropped to "about 80 percent of that enjoyed by other restaurants across the street" said Guo Xiaodong, deputy director of the chain.

"We figure that if we're going to die, at least we're going to die honourably," he said.

Smoking in hospitals and schools was banned in October 2007.