Clancy Under the Milky Way.

I have to share with you this gem I found the other day.

Regular readers will know I love comedian/entertainer Adam Hills* (and I know I’m not the only one out there) so when I found this clip from his show In Gordon Street Tonight I was thrilled.

This clip has the unexpected combination of Adam Hills reciting the famous Australian poem written by Banjo Paterson, Clancy of the Overflow, alongside his talented wife Ali McGregor, who is singing Under The Milky Way Tonight, by The Church.

Who would have ever thought those two completely different things would fit together so well!

*Click here if you want to see other posts about Adam Hills I have done. Go on. He is very funny and he can sing too. Not as well as his wife of course…. 😉

R.I.P giant mushroom.

Remember the giant mushroom in my garden?

Big, big fungus….

Well, thanks to The Snail of Happiness who steered me in the direction of a Bolete when I didn’t know what kind of monster it really was I think I know what kind of mushroom it is now.

Apparently it is a Phlebopus marginatus or, something I am far more likely to remember, a Salmon Gum mushroom.

They are Australia’s largest terrestrial fungi and compared to some of the monsters reported the ones who grow in my garden are mere tiddlers, including one that was reported at 29kg (64 pounds). Hmmmm…. I might have to put in a bit of effort next year and see how big mine can get!

Similar mushrooms are found in other countries and, brace yourself people, they are edible.

Don’t worry, after regular visions of their slimy, maggot-filled aftermath there is absolutely no circumstance that will see me serving up one of them for dinner. Bleh.

Anyway, my post last week ended with me expecting that any more swelling might explode it, and a chance of rain.

See below for the accuracy of my forecast. 😀

And then there were none.

Worst taxi ride ever.

This is possibly every famous persons worst taxi nightmare, a cabbie who is a rabid fan.

I love this Red Hot Chili Peppers song, By The Way, and the frenzied clip is very funny. Especially the end where the only band member who hasn’t been caught up in the drama flags down the same taxi.

Have a good weekend everyone! 😀

Royal baby photo.

Yep, I have the scoop. Here is a picture of the new prince. Ok, this photo was taken in 1948 and is of the grandfather of the current ‘new prince’ but hey, a baby photo is a baby photo. 😉

The Mercury 31 Dec 1948 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27771063

I suspect that if we edited this picture to seem as though it had been taken surreptitiously on a camera phone we could make a fortune… a fortune I say!!

Good luck to the happy couple on their new arrival but I wouldn’t be them for a billion dollars.

As if there isn’t already enough pressure on new parents without having the paparazzi of the world lined up on your doorstep day after day.

Poor Kate, she is never going to be able to hang out in her pjs all day because it is just easier and she can’t remember what sleep is.

Public tantrum from a two-year-old?  What about when the new kid keeps her up all night screaming? Is the world going to sympathize with her?

No, all they are going to do is comment on her dark eyes and haunted look  (all mums have it at some time) and make up some story about her not coping.

Of course she will probably have a multitude of helpers for those late nights, and to do things like help scrape cereal off the ceiling and out of the carpet, so she will probably always look much better than the go-it-alone mums.

The poor prince too, is he ever going to get to do a nudie run under the sprinkler in the backyard on a hot day like normal kids? Fish and chips in the park? No. The paps will be all over the pictures (and he will never live the nudie run one down).

Yes, I know, he will be living a life of privilege. Money, education, travel, whatever he wants, but what a life. Under scrutiny every moment you are out of the house, photos taken of your every move.

The life of this prince will probably be the most heavily documented and commented on of pretty much anyone in the world. Most people in the public eye have a short burst of fame. Once their scandal dies down or their term of office is over they are forgotten and the public move on to the next victim.

This prince has the (mis?)fortune to have been born into a family who stay in the public eye at all times. Sure, their popularity waxes and wanes but they are never quietly going about their business without anyone noticing. What pressure!

Well, good luck to him. I think he (and any future siblings) are going to need it.

Lawn Fungus… again…

Every year at this time our front yard erupts with one or two huge brown fungus (mushrooms? toadstools? I don’t know, just fungus…).

These strange giants grow amazingly quickly and are eagerly chewed on by unseen critters. Even more quickly than they grow they collapse into a puddle of slime filled with wigglers hatched from eggs left by those who feasted.

I have done posts about them in the past, including one a few weeks ago when I wondered what one of them would look like if it managed to remain unmolested by the egg layers.

Well, this time we ended up with four of them growing in different parts of the front lawn (lawn is a term I use very, very loosely). They all went through the normal grow-be chewed-turn to slime life cycle and that seemed to be that.

Then, a few days after the last one turned to goo another one popped its head up, then another.

Fungus, unchewed.

Because all the critters whose munching and egg laying destroyed the other ones had already done their deeds and departed the two new ones managed to grow happily and unmolested to full size!

It was amazing to see them grow without being ruined and, as I suspected, they were a quite nice, although plain, brown fungus.

There was nothing special about them other than their spectacular size.

(The Lego man who modelled for me last time was roped in again to stand on top of one of them to show you how nicely it had grown.)

Shrivelled, but still mushroomy.

One of the two grew quite large and then instead of turning to goo like the rest have in the past it just shrunk.

Over a few days it went from a large brown mushroomy thing (of a similar size to the one above) to a small, blackened mushroom shape on the grass. –>

There it has remained for a week, a shrivelled reminder of its former glory.

The other though, (the one the Lego man was standing on) has gone on to reach an amazing size!

It was already quite large, then we had a few days of rain. Like a sponge, it seemed to suck up all the water and grow even more massive.

Like a spongy dinner plate. Don’t think I would want to eat off it though.

I went out today and took these photos to share with you as I thought it couldn’t go on growing for too much longer without swelling so much it would just fall to pieces.

Rain is forecast for tonight…. 😀

Big, big fungus….

Warning cones? Really?

Last weekend the Man and I spent our once yearly weekend in the city, staying in a nice hotel, getting frocked up, and going to a speeches-and-dinner event all thanks to his employers.

We spent Saturday afternoon wandering around the streets without purpose, just being stickynoses and having cuppas. Of course, before dinner we did what all couples do when they have dumped the kids with the Grandparents and have a king-sized bed and a hotel room to themselves. We went back to the room and had a nap. Oh yeah, we’re living on the edge… 😀

wall monster

One thing I do like to look at while we are in the city is the street art. I hate graffiti and tagging but I love the amazing pieces of art that people can create.

Melbourne is internationally famous for its street art and you can even go on walking tours to see the best of it.*

When I looked up some of the details on our street art I was very interested to find that it is controlled by a permit system.

After seeing these guys at work in a laneway off the Bourke Street Mall I shouldn’t have really been surprised that it is heavily regulated. After all, they had orange warning cones out….

*According to EllaDee Sydney is no slouch  when it comes to street art though!