Obviously this is the kind of dorky thing you freak out about while wearing headphones, but six minutes and ten seconds into 'Station to Station', after the first 'it's not the side effects of the cocaine' couplet, after the first 'it's too late', enters a fucking tambourine of JOY. And later on, there are handclaps. And that wacky electronic drum-fill thingy. In fact, all ten-odd minutes keep getting better and better and better until you're kind of surprised by the song ending at all. (I think that *is* a side effect of the cocaine.) I'm also thinking that it must be love. Thank you so much for being a miserable cokehead in LA for that little while, Mr. Bowie.

Hee! I have just bought a Goblin Teasmade automatic teamaker with alarm clock!

I have a new and joyous, if peripheral, reason for loving Belle and Sebastian. We watched half of their DVD Fans Only last night and they certainly do love their dogs. Many *many* shots of dogs frolicking with sticks and yawning and being all doggy. Bless. Why haven't I got enough airpoints to hitch a ride with Lawrence to see them in Melbourne?

I saw Looper once in Houston. They were good. But it's not the same.

Give me a C! Give me an i! Give me a v! Give me an '-il Unions Bill'! In other words, it passed the initial vote. I, of course, can't believe that it was even in doubt, or that all these scary fundies seem to have wormed their way out of the woodwork to rail against it. We legalised prostitution with less fanfare! We have a postoperative transsexual MP! Come on, people! It's a crisis to give gay and de facto people some community property rights? Fingers crossed for the success of the Act itself, anyway.

Unrelated old-school moment of the week: I passed a girl sniffing glue outside the public library the other day. Yes, glue. Out of a plastic bag. Just like the 80s! It's a bit sad when glue-sniffing is charmingly retro, I realise, but we live in a crystal meth society now, and I haven't seen that for over fifteen years. Wow.

The comments following my previous post got me all nostalgic-like. In tribute to the last time Danni, Siobhan and I were in the same room, here's a shitty-quality polaroid of the three of us at my wedding in 2001. Bless.

Bad news: I have a cold. I am very sniffly and my head is filled with something which seems awfully heavy. I'm not talking about my brain, either.

Good news, which eclipses all minor bodily issues: Siobhan is coming home! In September! JOY!

The London Times calls it 'an old-fashioned hiding', and the Guardian had to resort to painting Dunedin as a city of gritty hardarseness to explain the All Blacks' magnificence. ('Carisbrook sort of sums the city up. It is a primeval rugby ground, an untidy pile of girders and concrete blocks on the edge of town, surrounded by a highway, railway tracks, coal yards, car repair shops and second-hand dealerships. It is cold and old, cramped and damp. They do not serve prawn sandwiches here; they sell meat pies, low on temperature, high on gristle.' Huh? Are you talking about the same city I am? You know, the broodingly pretty one with all those antique shops and espresso cafes and Californian bungalows?) I will spare you the most unladylike of my taunting, but the English sure didn't look much like world champions last night at Carisbrook. 36-3, beyotch! Now, if only we could salvage something out of the cricket...

Jane and I have decided that we need to use this expression far more often: 'I'm not as green as I am cabbage-looking'. Because I'm not, you know.

He hardly ever posts, but I suppose when he does, it's an event. I give you: my husband, one of his thousands of theories about popular music, and his 25 top albums of all time.

Brent is singing a loud r'n'b-esque original tune with a lot of falsetto, all about how our shower's water pressure sucks. He seems to have recovered a bit from having four teeth removed on Friday.

America's Next Top Model is back! Yay! I *love* this show. It combines so many different joys into one: my hatred for everyone on screen; groovy shoes; weird-but-occasionally-cool clothes; awesome hair; schadenfreude; sheer freakiness (Tyra Banks, Janice Dickinson, J. whateverhisnameis); narcissism; hot chicks; scarily skinny chicks; frighteningly groomed gay men; utter subversion of the laws of cause and effect; and above all BITCHINESS! I already know who wins, sadly, but it's not the destination, people. It's the *journey*. (See? I can talk just like a reality show contestant!)

Unrelated note: whenever I clean the house, I feel a profound sense of happiness and satisfaction. Yesterday, I finished every room but one. I even washed all our Yellow Submarine figurines and everything! I am walking from room to room gazing happily at the dust-free order I have created. So why do I avoid the cleaning for so long?

The night before last, we went to see Missy Elliott. Now, I love Missy deeply. I think her records are great. I love her videos. But her show was DEEPLY annoying. As it was, we had low expectations anyway: it was in the Supertop, which is in an industrial wasteland and is a grotty venue of the 'giant tent with concrete floor' variety; it was a Wednesday and I'm getting too old for this weeknight shit; plus, hiphop shows can really be a crapshoot anyway. As Brent says, you often end up watching a bunch of not-very-good backup guys draped in towels pacing the stage and angrily yelling stuff like 'make some noise!' at the audience. So when the show began I was pleasantly surprised: the stage set up was great (bi-level!), the dancers were terrific, the costumes were fabulous, the choreography was all that, Missy was in good voice, there was only one back-up rapper, all was well. I was tentatively encouraged. But any momentum the show could have gathered was completely hamstrung by a) cutting songs down into shorter versions or medleys. Just because 'The Rain' is an older song with a slower vibe doesn't mean I don't want to hear the whole thing! And 'Minute Man' was literally only a minute long; b) talking too goddamn much. Yeah, it's great that you know how to say 'kia ora', back up dude, and it's nice that everyone got tattoos here, but the lengthy discussions about how we're all now your 'family' and stuff is just cheesy. And stop making us do the wave and scream. We're New Zealanders. And we weren't too bad at making noise, frankly! Plus *each* of the dancers got an introduction and a solo spot. Now, some of them were *incredible* and well worth watching (one dude actually did an *elbow spin*!), but when your entire show is so short on actual music anyway... I swear, we were there 1.5 hours and there were only 45 minutes of music, tops, with about five songs played in their entirety. We actually left early, after Missy started signing tshirts and handing them to audience members from the stage. I read in the Herald this morning that the show ended not with a song, but with a record company exec handing her a gold record. Are you completely divorced from reality, Missy? Come on! That's possibly the lamest end to a concert, well, *ever*, with the possible exception of Altamont. Bah, humbug. Hometown boy Scribe was better. For free. In the AUT quad. With no lights, dancers, or costumes. I must go and see Jurassic 5 on August 1 in order to have my faith in live hiphop restored.

Believe it or not, these two chaps were on opposing pages. I am somewhat concerned about the welfare of the animal draped about his person. He could at least have had the decency to close its eyes first.

The book calls this fellow 'resplendent'. That's one word, yes.

Please note the book's caption for this little creation: 'Floating on her inner tube, the "baby" takes some of the austerity out of office work.' Um, yeah, she sure does.

There are a few things that are cool about working in a library. One of them is finding books that are... shall we say a product of another time? The most recent discovery was a 1973 publication by Jean Ray Laury and Joyce Aiken called Creating Body Coverings. I think we all deserve to share in some of the joy this work has given my colleagues and myself over the last few days. Stand by.