Review: Twenty-something.

I was keen to watch it. It was good. One of those things written and acted by the same little team. It reminds me of Spaced, which Simon Pegg and team wrote and acted in. Very similar subject matter, too (Spaced is not about space, take it from me). A lot of Melbourne hipster style (polka dot dresses, bike with basket). It was VERY perceptive, savagely so. I don't think I'm like them at all, but I could totally see the reality. The Jess character is scary but true: she thinks she only just left school and doesn't realise she's wasted so much time, she speaks her mind, she thinks hard work is unfair. She is a walking talking sense of entitlement. The Josh character is her follower, happy to drift in her wake. Although I mostly enjoyed the show quietly in my own head, I laughed out loud once, when Jess said "They're serving dip from a hollowed-out cob loaf, this party is going nowhere." because I love those cob dips, they do set a certain tone at a social event. 

Another dream house.

http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-nsw-east+maitland-107783401

Margaret Olley used to live here. Not recently though, from the look of it. It's very close to Maitland Evangelical Church. Would make an ideal single lady retreat. I've always NEEDED a bedroom with a fireplace and french windows.

The facebook group that made me giggle yesterday: "All the single ladies. All the single ladies. PUT YOUR CATS UP."

End of week update.

• I need to finish some projects. I am impressively productive at starting projects, cutting something out, buying a canvass, etc, but my overflow of enthusiasm and lack of attention span means I move from one thing to the next. I don't set deadlines is the main problem. So I must sit down and list finish dates for everything.
• You may be interested in my No Supermarket in September challenge. I shall track anything interesting here. For some reason the constant trickle of news about market dominance, ripping off farmers and customers, etc etc etc has suddenly tipped me over from apathetic disapproval to obsessive hatred. So I just need to prove something. Not very interesting so far, I've shopped at IGA instead of Coles.
• I have also cut morning radio out of my routine. I miss the weather report, but I don't miss the talking. I listen to ABC to fall asleep but that means waking up to it as well. I never liked Adam Spencer, he's not funny, and newsradio is too depressing. This is actually an application of John Piper's fight for joy stuff. When I woke up on Monday and heard about civilians locked in a warehouse being shot, grenaded and shot again, it was the final straw. I can't deal with that when I'm still waking up. I don't like a buzzy beepy alarm and I feel weird in the quietness afterwards but it's a good thing to get used to. I will look at some kind of gentle alarm, or maybe a second clock radio tuned to 2MBS.
• I'm back into Jillian. Sometimes in the morning, which is harder. I eat a spoonful of condensed milk to fuel up, so that I don't feel sick. I did Jillian after Jane Eyre on Wed night, and found it so easy that I did an extra circuit—skipped 6 and did 7. Each new one is the hardest. I also tried pushups without knees, and kind of did a couple, but they are about 5 times harder. But I'm getting there! Today my sides are sore.
• I've been recording my spending since the start of the financial year. July blew out, but August was cheaper. Groceries down from $240 to $130. Once I've done a 3 month record, I'll try setting a budget.
• And finally, I am rather excited about a show called The Joy of Sets. Get This was once the best thing in radio, possibly even better than James Valentine, and TV Burp which on one level was pretty lame was for some reason funny funny funny. The show starts filming in October.

Jane Eyre.

It's not disappointing. I personally prefer Austen to the Brontes, I find all the seriousness and passion a bit unrelenting and not exactly enjoyable. Jane Eyre is a very good book though, and it was a fine adaptation. Everything was just about as it should be, perfectly bleak and romantic. I always love Dario Marianelli's music.

While I'm reviewing things, the X Factor is terrible. Awful. There is very little singing ability and people who can't sing are either humiliated by the judges (which is sad to see) or put through (if they are cute enough: see the 10-yr-old boy who looks like a baby Mick Jaggar). Of course there is a sort of entertainment in people-watching; the variety of humility, ego, ambition, and delusion. What is mainly surprising is the number of 14-year-olds who look and sound like they are 18 or 20. And there has never been a TV show with so much internal self-promotion for so little content. You get a performance, than a preview of the next performance after the break, then a huge ad break mainly for Wild Boys, then another preview, then a recap of the previous performance, then some quick overviews of people who got in or missed out, then the drama of the next performance, then finally the next performance, repeat.