SYDNEY - Cooking Skippy

I don't usually do a news review type thing with this blog. However, there are a few bits of recent news which gave me warm fuzzy feelings. Firstly the news that the afformentionned Kylie exhibititon in Sydney has been a roaring success proving that there are plenty of other Kylie obsessed tourists in town longing for their squiz at those overalls and hotpants. Secondly, the news that 'historians' Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh are suing 'writer' Dan Brown claiming that his 'book' Da Vinci Code ripped off their 'history book' The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail published some twenty years ago. An hilarious turn of events seeing as how, for several years, Baigent and Leigh vehmently defended their incredibly long and silly bit of fiction as historical fact (it had, like, eight pages of photos in it and everything) but surely any success in this current injunction would rely on their book being classified as fiction. Since it's hardly libel to write an historical fiction book based on actual history, is it? Hell, every mystery writer in Britain would be locked up if that were the case (we can't resist flinging in lots of funny historical sidebars). Sadly, the third 'author' of The Holy Blood... Henry Lincoln isn't involved in this class action. A pity since Lincoln is my favourite of these three: not only having stood by his work and subsequent books on the subject, but even having gone so far as to actually invent and destroy historical evidence to try and support it. A real class act. Actually, I'm being unfair to Brown since his book is a fun read. If I could write something which captured peoples' interests only half as much as his, I'd be a happy bunny. Needless to say, I'm betting he'll come out of this one unscathed.


Sydney Harbour Bridge looking all bridgey and lovely. Sorry for the unimaginative photos recently, I haven't been feeling very inspired recently. Roll on Hong Kong...

Anyway, back to me. Last weekend I could be found back at Darling Harbour doing all sorts of interesting duties surrounding the bi-annual Gift Fair. An exhibition of truly mammoth proportions spanning thousands of square metres of floorspace where the great and the good from the world of gift retailing came to see what's big in, uh, gifts and place their orders for the winter season. Which meant a whole lot of keyrings floating around the place, let me tell you. It also meant a whole lot of folks trying to get themselves in to the place. Goodness knows why they were bothering: surely wandering around aisles and aisles of wholesale homeware is enough to drive you insane, not giddy with excitement? But, excited they were and many an ammusing moment was had looking at business cards from 'Joe's Plumbing' and the like and listening to the wonderfully lame excuses they were giving to try and connect themselves to the gift industry. Long, long days (six hours standing and scanning, another five sitting and typing) but the five day stint paid well over a month's rent and food costs. These crazy corporations.

Speaking of food: let's talk kangaroo curry. My latest culinary obsession thanks to the fact that kangaroo is both (A) Delicious and (B) Cheap. And before you all get over excited by the fact that I'm slaughtering Skippy, just remember that the kangaroo is regarded as something of a pest in this country. Bronwyn and Chris regaled me with many stories of the detrimental effect these hopping maniacs had on their parents' farm whilst we were trekking the New Zealand wildernerness. Coupled with the lengths they would go to exterminate the things afterwards. And a good thing too, since kangaroo is without a doubt the most gorgeous 'ethnic' food I've had so far on my travels. I heartily recommend it.

The other fun activity I'm developing (and which I'm going to patent to hope it takes off with the kids) is the fine art of wasting time without wasting money. My job hours are fairly irregular so I tend to work eleven hour days for a week on a trot and then do nothing for the same period. Current favourite activities for passing the time include the perennial book shop skulking (I think I've gotten through most of the film section in Dymocks. Heartily recommended is the nine hundred odd pages of Disney War, a book I wished had been written a couple of years back when I was writing academically on the Mouse), art gallery mouching (you too can pretend to be pretentious by spending inordinate amounts of time in front of the canvas of your choice) and the puzzle page in the free daily newspaper, mX. I'm not a big fan of Suduko yet (after the initial logic spurt they're all very samey) but Scrabblegrams are probably what's keeping me sane. Or maybe the opposite.

I really need to start travelling again...