A Restaurant Review

The wife and I haven't been married long, just four years, got a two year old daughter.

We had dinner the other night at an expensive hotel restaurant while staying at a flashy hotel. We'd pigged out at breakfast so we skipped the entree so the wife could have a big overpriced slab of meat while I had fish. Then we shared a dessert so we didn't look like pigs. It was beaut.

The restaurant was fantastic but I almost barfed up at the view outside - the restaurant overlooked the hotel pool and some guest was going for a swim. Wouldn't have been too bad if she'd been young and horny, I'd have got off on perving at her, but let's just say I was glad I'd had time to digest. I mean, she wasn't that bad, it was just something you don't need to see while dining.

Will go there again when next in town. Maybe a 19 year old will go for a swim.

But seriously:

The only thing that is odd about this fine dining restaurant is that the hotel pool is your view from the windows and yes at 9 pm, a guest had a swim, now if he had been young and yummy, I would have enjoyed the free look, lets just say I was glad I had eaten, oh, he wasn't that bad, its just something you don't need to see while dining.

And if you can't see what's wrong with that, there's no point in one trying to explain it to you.

--Nick

Toughen Up

UK Telegraph columnist Melanie Phillips nails it on a subject that's been on my mind for quite some time:

...Campbell is reflecting the fact that it is only by emoting in public that so many people today believe you have any heart at all. We saw this most spectacularly over the death of Princess Diana, when an ugly public mood threatened the Queen and the Royal Family because of the perception that they were cold and heartless from the absence of public displays of their grief. It was only when the Queen let people glimpse signs of royal sorrow that this danger was defused.

This general attitude has its roots in the therapy culture, which tells us that it is bad for the individual to repress emotion. That doctrine has now developed into the belief that anyone who fails to display emotion is a bad individual. It has produced a culture in which genuine emotion, which is almost always private, is deemed not to exist, while inappropriate or vicarious emotion, or sentimentality, is mistaken for the real thing.

This has the pernicious effect not only of devaluing real feelings such as grief, but elevating histrionics such as self-pity and narcissism. Hence the obsession in our society with 'self-esteem'.

One result of exchanging the stiff upper lip for the trembling lower one is that people become less able to cope with the vicissitudes of life.

Branding the modern practice as 'our culture of emotional incontinence', Phillips goes on to quote the octogenarian Duchess of Devonshire about the generation that lived through World War 2:

As she said, grief was just part of life - people mourned and then got on with their lives. They didn't go on about it and need counselling; nor did they wear their grief like a badge of honour, or as their entry ticket to the human race. To that generation, not just grief but other emotions such as fear were both private and restrained. To be otherwise would have demoralised others and courted defeat or disaster.

Today's behaviour in parading in public ones private griefs is, indeed, something that weakens us. It is yet another symptom of the softening nature of Western society that may see it overrun by more resilient cultures before the end of the current century.

-- Nick

Just Because I Come From The Land Of Plenty

Larrikin Records Management are today rubbing their hands with glee over today's court ruling that said the flute riff from Men At Work's iconic song Land Down Under is from the folk tune Kookaburra to which they hold the rights.

While the ruling itself wasn't unexpected - anyone who was aware of the story when it broke in 2008, was expecting it.

The song's author penned it for a Girls Guide jamboree in 1934, she then bequeathed the song to the South Australian State Library a year before her death in 1988 and in 2000 Larrikin picked up the rights back dated to 1990 (still not sure how that works).

Eight years later the publisher takes legal action after the similarity was observed on a TV quiz show.

And Larrikin lawyer Adam Simpson is salvating at amount of money he reckons his client (and no doubt Simpson is in for a share too):

Larrikin Music's lawyer Adam Simpson says EMI and Down Under may be forced to hand over as much as 60 per cent of their earnings from the international hit record.

"It's a big win for the underdog," Mr Simpson told reporters outside the court.

When asked how much Larrikin would be looking for, he replied: "Obviously, the more the better but it depends - anything from what we've claimed, which is between 40 and 60, and what they've suggested which is considerably less."

Frankly Larrikin should entitled to exactly nothing.

What loss exactly are they suing for?

Did generations of school children sing Kookaburra less because of Land Down Under? Obviously not.

If the judge awards more than token damages (keep in mind it took Larrikin eight years to discover their 'loss' and would never have known if not for a TV show), then Australian songwriters (who are not millionaires by any stretch) will be the big losers.

-- Nora

Dancing With You In The Summer Rain

It's raining! And windy! With huge swells!

Well, the trip to the beach is cancelled for this weekend.

But it's never too wet for cocktails.

Purple Rain
1/2 shot grenadine
1/2 shot peach schnapps
1/2 shot white rum
3 measures lemonade
3 measures sweet & sour mix
1/2 shot Blue Curacao

Fill a collins glass 3/4 full with ice. Add grenadine and peach schapps and white rum into glass. Then fill with sweet and sour and lemonade. Drizzle around the edge of the glass with Blue curacao.

-- Nora

Still Planning How To React

It's discrimination!

Haiti's voodoo high priest has claimed believers have been discriminated against by evangelical Christians who are monopolising aid sent to the earthquake-stricken country. At the weekend hundreds of voodoo houngans, or priests, gathered in the northern town of Gonaives to plan how to react to the earthquake that left an estimated 200,000 people dead on Jan 12.

Dateline on the story:

By Nick Allen in Port-au-Prince
Published: 7:00AM GMT 01 Feb 2010

Maybe if you were quicker off the blocks, my Sorbonne-educated friend.

-- Nick

No Stranger To The Courts

A really good way to win people over to your point of view is to sue them:

RUGBY league international and gay activist Ian Roberts has joined legal action against the Nine Network over a controversial skit on the NRL Footy Show... Mr Roberts said he was offended by the sketch which he says vilifies gay men.

Then again, bullying has worked before.

-- Nick