Australia Day. Still…..

I don’t know how it works in the rest of the world but here in Australia if a public holiday falls on a weekend we get a normal weekday off in lieu of the one we should have had. We love our public holidays 🙂 That means although Australia Day was on Saturday we are all getting another Australia Day off on Monday.

Because of that I am doing my patriotic duty and I am chucking a sickie. I scheduled this post just so I can have the day off for no reason at all.

I am hoping my lazy post today will give you a laugh when I share a clip of the lovely Adam Hills (again) with his take on Aussie accents and what Captain Cook might have said when he first got here.

Hope you have a great day and I will be doing… ummmm…. Nothing. Feet up, good book, relaxed. 😀 Happy (extra) Australia Day everyone!

The Dish. A great Aussie film.

Today is a public holiday in Australia, the Queen’s Birthday, so I am taking the easy path and not doing a proper post, actually there is a good chance that as you read this I will still be in bed hoping in vain for someone to bring me breakfast and a cuppa. The weather isn’t forecast to be the best and after a sleep-in we will be likely spending the day dagging around and smooched up together on the couch watching telly.

Because of that I thought I would take this chance to introduce you to one of the best Aussie films ever, The Dish.

The Dish was released in 2000 and is (loosely) based on the role a radio telescope in the Australian town of Parkes played in the Apollo moon landing in 1969.*

Yeah, I know that doesn’t sound like a very exciting idea for a movie, but as a Working Dog production you just know it will be funny and the cast are some of the best actors in Australia. Bille Brown was born to play the Prime Minister, as was Roy Billing as Bob the Mayor, Sam Neill, Tom Long and Kevin Harrington as the scientific team managing the dish are the perfect group.

The other little stories going on in the background, like Glen awkwardly trying to win over the beautiful Janine, Cliff’s sad back story, and the love Mayor Bob has for his family really make this film the wonderfully sweet, funny and ridiculous thing it is.

*Despite the fact the Parkes radio telescope was built in 1959, and is in the middle of a sheep paddock, it has at times in its history been at the cutting edge of space exploration. It has discovered quasars and pulsars and has held records relating to the furthest distant object located. It also played an important role in monitoring the radio signals of the astronauts during the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission. The dish is regularly upgraded and is still an important scientific instrument.

Something that always makes me laugh. Australian sign language, as told by Adam Hills.

This Friday, in the hopes you will have a chuckle all weekend, I thought I would do something different and share one of my favourite Australian comedians with you, the lovely Adam Hills. He is one of those comedians that is unfailingly nice and always hilarious.

Everything he does amuses me, but as a person that loves words and language this show about Auslan (Australian sign language) he did at the 2010 Melbourne International Comedy Festival has a special place in my heart.

My favourite part of this clip starts at about the 3:20 mark, and is about a very Australian phrase loosely translating as ‘I am very annoyed with you, and everyone around you’.

I will give you a language warning before you watch it in case you are of delicate sensibilities.

Awww, it’s not that bad, go ahead and watch it. I guarantee that you will laugh, and possibly be tempted to make up some of your own sign language. If nothing else you will have learnt an amusing Australian phrase that should not be used in polite company.

If you enjoyed that clip, here is a link to another show where he has an Auslan interpreter on the stage with him. He incorporates her into the show wonderfully, saying things just to see what she will sign through her laughter. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtW-RtMJkwY (I love the bit where he asks if there are any deaf people in the audience and a bloke calls out ‘pardon?’)

I can’t go to work, my ipod is sick.

My ipod has not been working properly for a little while so I have been going to work each day without it. This is a problem. You see, I do a job that involves very little thinking, lots of heavy lifting and being surrounded by noisy machinery. My ipod distracts me and means I don’t have to listen to the terrible commercial station the guys leave their radio on. When ipod first got sick I though I wouldn’t miss him too much but today was the first day he has been (mostly) fixed and boy, I certainly welcomed him back!

The days without ipod have dragged and I seemed to look at my watch every 10 seconds. When ipod returned I put on something with a good beat and just got on with it. The day flew by.

It prompted me to do some posts to share the music that kept me happy, my playlist leans heavily towards Australian music and often Aussie music finds it hard to get air time overseas. You non-Australians are missing out!

I am starting with the artist that made me smile the most today with the song ‘Rock and Roll Nerd’, the wild haired, guy-liner-wearing Tim Minchin, comedian, poet and musician. The song is about his struggles with his average upbringing and life not being rock and roll enough. Hilarious.

If you have never heard of Tim Minchin you are so missing out. His music is not mainstream but is actually intelligent and will make you laugh out loud. The first time I heard ‘Lullaby’ I was in tears of laughter, the tears only a parent with a non-sleeping child would understand.

This is the part where I should tell you my favourite song but I love pretty much all of them!

Ok, apart from the aforementioned, I always chuckle at ‘If you really loved me’ and ‘If I didn’t have you’, Tim writes a mean love song…..

‘White wine in the sun’ is a sentimental song about his love of christmas and you can almost hear the gasps of horror at the first half of ‘Cont’.

The songs of Tim Minchin are at times controversial as he sings about racism, atheism, refugees and other current issues. The best way to first listen to him is to watch a live performance. When he sits barefoot at his piano and starts singing you never know where he is going to lead you. Whenever I hear his music I see him singing that song in my mind’s eye and it makes the music all the funnier. He is a performer, not just a musician.

Click on this link timminchin – YouTube to get to the Tim Minchin you tube channel. As Molly would say, do yourself a favour!