Book - True History of the Kelly Gang

by Peter Carey

I bought this book for a dose of Australiana and it was definitely quite surreal to read about the Australian bush in the middle of the Austrian alps. My knowledge of Ned Kelly's history is pretty sketchy, to be honest (despite seeing the Heath Ledger film, which was decidedly unmemorable) and I know that this is a work of fiction, but my understanding is that it is based around a lot of research on the actual events of Kelly's life.

The novel is written in Ned Kelly's voice, as though he had written the book as a series of letters to his daughter to clarify and defend the True History of the gang. Peter Carey has deliberately adopted the style of someone with minimal literacy, so punctuation and grammar are non-essential luxuries. At times, this frustrated me as I had to reread some sections to work out exactly what was being said. This is part of the joy of the novel, though. Carey has made Ned Kelly a very believable and sympathetic character - this is one of those novels that Nick Hornby would say "sticks to the sides".

I have not read much of Peter Carey's other work, (only My Life As A Fake) but I was surprised at how readable this book was. He spins an excellent narrative and as events unfolded, I always wanted to know what happened next. I think I expected his writing to be quite heavy and "literary", which it certainly isn't in this novel. I wouldn't list it as my favourite novel ever, but I definitely enjoyed reading it and it was nice to have a little piece of home in the middle of Europe. I've now donated the book to the library at the Aqua-Dome hotel, so someone else will have the experience of reading about the Australian bush while surrounded by the mountains. The power of contrast indeed...

Munich

As mentioned in previous posts, my last little excursion was to Munich. This was the first city in my European travels that I haven't been terribly impressed with, honestly. The weather wasn't great while I was there and when I arrived the tourist office wasn't very helpful in finding me a room (there was some trade show on and they told me there were no rooms in the whole city. I started looking for a stable, but then my first phone call found one...) and it was dirty, and I wasn't in the best mood ever... the list goes on.

After checking into my room, I decided I needed some retail therapy, so went for a bit of a shop, which turned out to be OK (bought a beautiful new Hugo Boss suit in my new size and it makes me look very thin! and they're much cheaper in Germany!). That night I headed to the opera (see Barber of Seville post) wearing the new suit - and looking great, may I say! Then went out for a beer or 5 to finish the night off (Munich is famous for beer after all!). It was really quite a good evening, but for some reason, it didn't really help me to love Munich.

The next day I halfheartedly went through most of the Lonely Planet walking tour of the altstadt and bought some CDs and a shirt before getting on the train back to work. I think maybe I'm reaching that point where all of the beautiful churches and town halls and city squares are blurring into each other. Or maybe Munich is just not the place for me. In some ways, it is refreshing to find somewhere here that I don't really like. Germany and Austria aren't all picture perfect after all!

Two things of note, though. Firstly the sign outside one of the churches prohibiting hands in pockets!

and secondly, the ongoing fascination with lederhosen. I really did consider trying them on and even purchasing some just for the laughs, but 179 Euro!!!!

Next week I will be in Vienna for 5 days, which I'm sure will be a totally different experience. I am really looking forward to seeing such a musical city and it will be nice to be able to take my time with the sightseeing (rushing through all of the sights in 24 hours is probably another reason for me not being too excited about Munich). I'm also seeing 3 operas, a musical and a play (both in German) while I'm there, so there will be plenty to write about!

Feeling A Little Guilty Now

After a google search for "Uluru meteor dinosaur", I turned up this article on the Quantum website (http://www.abc.net.au/quantum/rumble)

An extract here suggests its not a totally unreasonable thing that my Swiss friend was taught in school...

"5,000 years ago, aboriginal Australians witnessed the titanic collision of a meteor near Uluru in central Australia. The event was spectacular enough to have been passed down through 5 millennia of oral history. Only in the last decade has there been a serious attempt to collate the record of these events as written on the surface of the Earth. With the bombardment of Jupiter by the comet Shoemaker Levy 9, suddenly the mechanism that was probably responsible, not only for ending the rule of dinosaurs but probably other prominent biological extinctions as well, was on public display. With 'ground truth' from the jungle of Brazil, we will once again have to re-assess our lack of respect for cataclysms that fall from the sky."

Interesting... still a bit funny though - I had this picture of all of the dinosaurs in the world having a conference in the middle of Australia and this great rock falling on them, wiping them out entirely...

Uluru


I was talking to a Swiss guy at the bar tonight and he was taught in school that Uluru was a meteorite that had crashed down to earth and could be the reason for the extinction of the dinosaurs...

Fact or fiction, people, I want to hear your opinions... Me? I laughed a lot and gave him endless grief for believing it... I hope I wasn't too unkind.

The Barber of Seville

Rossini's Barber of Seville has always been an opera that I have struggled with every time I've seen it. It has 3 great pieces of music in it (the Overture, Largo al Factotum and Una Voce Poco Fa) and a whole lot of fairly uninspiring music plus a plot that doesn't make sense (the end of Act 1 has everyone standing around being confused for no apparent reason allowing the main characters to get away with all sorts of things).

In Munich on Monday night, I attended a performance of Barber of Seville that didn't necessarily change my mind, but certainly made me laugh a lot (it is a comic opera, so that means it was succesful!) and made the Act 1 Finale make sense (a seemingly impossible task!). Even though the singing was only OK and some of the ensembles were extraodinarily messy, I still had a really enjoyable night in the theatre. "How???" you might ask....

Answer: Reinterpret Act 1 of the opera and set it with all the major characters and chorus as insects playing around a giant flower - kinda like A Bug's Life. Yes, insects... in Rossini...

The only reason the end of Act 1 made sense was because a giant can of bug spray descended from the ceiling and sprayed everyone on stage making them suitably confused.

Act 2 restored them all to human form (metamorphosed if you like) and the set was a police line up... Anytime a character was onstage but not directly involved in the drama, they were pressed up against the wall like they were in the line up. It looked a lot like the poster for The Usual Suspects.

After the puzzling thunderstorm music (again making no sense whatsoever) the curtain went up on a combination of the 2 sets (flower and line-up) and the characters wearing most of their human costume, but with their wings (or spider legs, or snail shell).

This really didn't make much sense to me, but I'm sure it was entirely justified in the extensive program notes quoting Nietzsche and the like... but all in German...

While it may seem extremely odd, it really worked and I totally enjoyed my night - despite the actual music and performances (which could have made me as grumpy as last week's Mozart concert.) And it was so nice to go to an opera for the first time in ages!

Accidental Tourist


Sometimes there is a reason that your travel plans go awry and things work out better than the original plan.

Last Monday I travelled to Munich for my day off. After carefully planning my train schedule and after getting up at 6.30am to be on a bus by 7.30am (a huge challenge for me - mornings are really not my strong point) I decided to go for a wander in Innsbruck and mistimed my journey back to the train station, only to see my carefully planned train to Munich leave as I reached the platform. I consulted the timetable and found there was another train for Munich leaving in a few minutes, so things weren't as bad as they seemed. Although, this train took an extra hour to get there!

I resigned myself to the extra long journey and boarded the train, only to be pleasantly surprised as the train started out to find that this route went up through the alps into some of the most amazing country ever. It was a really picturesque journey and made the extra time feel so much more worthwhile.



To quote Sound of Music (which I have been doing a lot lately - Salzburg affected me in ways beyond comprehension) "When God closes a door, he opens a window..." Cheesy, but in this case true!

The Milk-o-Mat

I have ridden past this little building every day since arriving here in Laengenfeld and have been so intrigued by it. A machine that gives 24 hour milk! How cool is that? And it is so cute. I've never seen anyone actually using it, which is a slight cause for concern, but I have been gathering the courage to use it for weeks now. I'm really not sure why it took so much courage, it really does look so inviting inside...

Finally, on my way home from work the night before last, I gathered up the courage to use the Milk-o-Mat (my name for it). 10c bought me a very delicious cup of fresh, cold milk! And it was so easy to use. I think it might also be my first time tasting milk that is basically direct from the cow (though I am assuming it's been through all those make-it-safe-to-drink processes first).

So today, since I didn't die from drinking a cup of milk the other night, I decided to go the whole hog and wandered down to the Milk-o-Mat (a 2 minute walk from my apartment - how handy!) wielding 80c and a sawn-off soft drink bottle (the only receptacle in the apartment that could hold a litre of milk).

So happy with my fresh milk - how convenient life in the alps is!

Salzburg

There are two major reasons to visit Salzburg: Mozart and the Sound of Music - and I did both as thoroughly as any human being with only 25 hours in the city could do!

So I arrived in Salzburg at 11.30 am and after sorting out accommodation and getting a rough idea of the city (and a bit of book shopping - a few simple books in German to improve my language skills!), my first event was a Sound of Music bus tour at 2pm. There are 3 different companies that run essentially the same tour at the same times, which is really quite strange. The one that I went with claims to be the original and had letters of approval from the real Maria von Trapp, Christopher Plummer and Julie Andrews, so I was expecting big things!

To be completely honest, I was a little disappointed. Sure, we went to some of the places that were filmed in the movie, but there were several notable omissions. For example, the brochure said we go to the abbey where Maria started out in the film, but we drove past it quickly and the tour guide pointed it out - I couldn't even see it... The other things I really would have liked to see that weren't included on the tour were the open air auditorium where they make their final performance and the cemetery where the dramatic ending takes place. Also, I was promised atmosphere and people singing along and being generally silly - maybe i just got a dud group... but they didn't even start playing the soundtrack until 90 minutes into the tour and there were no video clips at all! I'm also still trying to work out why we visited a little town in the Lake District near Salzburg - it was incredibly beautiful, but really had nothing to do with the movie other than a gift shop that sold Sound of Music merchandise. In comparison, The Sex and the City tour in New York was a lot slicker, and had probably raised my expectations a little high.

On a positive note, the things we did see were great. Try to keep the songs out of your head while looking at the pics - they can get a little irritating (and I had forgotten how much Julie Andrews' over-enunciating really annoys me.)

The building and lake that were used as the rear of the Von Trapp house,

The Gazebo from "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" (though it wasn't raining...):

the wall where they filmed "I Have Confidence" (not pictured)

The Mirabell gardens from "Do Re Mi" (though this was where the tour started and finished and we had to explore them ourselves outside of the tour, so I'm not sure if it counts!):

and finally the Chapel where Maria and the Captain get married:

True to my travelling experiences so far, the inside of the wedding chapel was completely scaffolded...

The tour gave a really great overview of Salzburg and the surrounding area, so while I was disappointed, I certainly don't regret doing it.

After a quick dinner, I then headed to Schloss Mirabell for a Chamber Music concert in the Marble Hall. A spectacular venue (though overpopulated by tourists, of course) and some nice music programmed - Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusic and a Piano Quartet, and excerpts from Alban Berg's Lyrische Suite. Here is a pic of the marble staircase to the concert venue (which was equally spectacular)

Basically, the concert convinced me that I am going to become one of those annoying old men that sits and scowls through classical music concerts, convinced that they would have been better to sit at home and listen to the CD they have of the same pieces... There were several things about the concert that really irritated me. Firstly, the acoustic was incredibly ringy (lots of echo) so all of the faster sections of the music blurred together, especially in both Mozart pieces. It didn't help that the musicians took the final movement of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik way too fast, so it was just a muddy jumble of notes. Or that the pianist was playing a huge Bosendorfer grand piano that was much too loud for the strings - and she insisted on using the sustain pedal heavily throughout the piece, making it even muddier. The whole quartet was quite traumatic for me to listen to... though it did remind me how passionate I am about this music and that I do kind of miss it at the moment.

On the positive side, the Berg pieces were fantastic. Extremely well played (interestingly, the strings had a different 1st violinist for these pieces, and suddenly the quartet were musically unified - so different from both Mozart pieces) and very interesting pieces. I think I may have been the only one that enjoyed them, though, in the touristy "we came expecting to hear some nice Mozart pieces" audience...

A good nights sleep, and then the morning to explore the old part of the city and more Mozart!

The morning started out in Mozart's Wohnhaus, where the family lived from when he was 17 years old. The items on display were quite interesting and I really am growing to love the hand held, enter-a-number style of audio commentary. Also a very good gift shop, where my need for good Mozart led me to buy a 10CD set of the 4 major operas (surprisingly good recordings of the operas for 35 Euros!) and 2 DVDs of Mozart Operas done by the Salzburg Marionette Theatre (the puppets featured in "The Lonely Goatherd" number in The Sound of Music!)

Finally, a wander through all the major sights of the old city - especially all of the incredible churches. The highlights for me were the Salzburger Dom (Cathedral - pictured), and the cemetery at St Peter's church (another incredible baroque church) which had catacombs and everything - it is said that this was the cemetery that the set for the final scenes of Sound of Music were inspired by - so maybe I did see them after all.

I really liked the way everything maintains the authenticity of the design in the old city - even a corporate giant has adopted the style of shop signs in the main street:

Overall, Salzburg is really a beautiful city and despite a few disappointments, it was another fantastic (but exhausting) overnight visit. Back to work for another week and then probably Munich next week, I think!

Book - The Complete Polysyllabic Spree

Nick Hornby

See, I told you I was reading things quickly.

This book is not a novel but a collection of essays Nick Hornby wrote for an American literary magazine (The Believer) about what he had read each month. My first experience of Hornby's writing was on a plane from LA to Melbourne after picking up About A Boy in the airport bookshop. I loved his writing so much that I read the whole novel on that flight, which is pretty good considering my attention span! Since then I have read almost everything he has written as soon as it was published. His relaxed, conversational style and endless pop culture references really appeal to me. He is passionate about football and popular music and always includes them in his writing. I think one of my favourite works of his was 31 Songs in which he wrote a series of essays about his favourite songs and why they are so important to him. It gives such a great insight to his character, which I find very relatable. So a similar collection about books was irresistable in the bookshop (especially given how much I have been reading lately!)

The great news is that this book has restored my faith in Nick Hornby's writing. For some reason I found his last novel A Long Way Down difficult to read and didn't make it very far through it at all. Surprising, since I normally can't put his books down. I suspect that my reaction to the novel had more to do with not really being in the right place or mood to read at the time, but either way, I was disappointed. These essays, however, are exactly what I love about his writing. The way his ideas tumble across each other like an overactive stream of thought that always tries to create half-baked analogies that he takes to a point and realises that they just don't work (and admits it with a lot of humour). The huge ironies that he always uses (and his common surprise that American readers sometimes take them as facts rather than the obviously overblown absurdities that they are!). The pop culture references (there are months where he doesn't read much at all because he's become too obsessed with a new band or because its been a big football month). If a were a writer (which I'm clearly not) this is how I would write.

He covers an enormous amount of literary territory in the 28 monthly essays from Dickens to graphic novels about growing up in the Iranian revolution, non-fiction about baseball to the letters of Chekhov (which are far more entertaining than I find any of his plays!). I think the point that he makes most clearly, and which I particularly like, is that reading should be a pleasure no matter what you are reading. That no-one should feel guilt for reading a "trashy novel" or feel obliged to read heavy literature all the time. That sometimes the things that are going on in a person's real life colour the way they view different books (like me and A Long Way Down!) And sometimes the themes and ideas in a "trashy novel" can be far more affecting to a reader's life than the deepest literary novel.

Of course, like a very real person, (and this is another thing that I really like about his writing) he then later contradicts and reviews ideas and opinions that he has written in the column and freely admits that this is a development in his views that has surprised him. Surely, this is one of the great things about reading (and any great art) - it challenges our preconceived ideas and opinions and brings us to different opinions. After spending many pages justifying the literary greatness of "trashy novels" and being frustrated at the sometime inaccessibility of literary novels, he then writes this about literary novels and his change (development?) of opinion.

"I have always prized the accessible over the obscure, but after reading Housekeeping (Marilynne Robinson) I can see that in some ways, the easy, accessible novel is working at a disadvantage (not that Housekeeping is inaccessible, but it is deep, and dark and rich): it's possible to whiz through it without allowing it to even touch the sides, and a bit of side-touching has to happen if a book is going to be properly transformative. If you are so gripped by a book that you want to read it in the mythical single sitting, what chance has it got of making it all the way through the long march to your soul? It'll get flushed out by something else before it's even halfway there. The trouble is that most literary novels don't do anything but touch sides."

(Note: To those of you that know me well, please note how well I must have enjoyed this book to even think of whipping out the post-it notes to mark a bit that I wanted to quote... either that or I am turning into the blogging geek that I fear)

One of the funny things he includes in his monthly column, is a list of books bought as well as the list of books read. He then goes and furiously defends his intentions behind buying each of the books, some of which he clearly admits he will never read. His description of the process involving the bookshelf of books he does intend to read, as opposed to the books that just get put straight onto the ordinary shelf, is very funny (and exactly what I do!) There is even one book that he reads because it gets rediscovered after his baby grabs it off the "will probably never read" shelf and he becomes interested in the book while putting it away. How many of us have that enormous pile of books by the bed that we will read someday?

A bonus about the book version (rather than the magazine articles) is that it includes some sections from some of the books referred to, which I found really interesting.

The last thing I really enjoyed about this book is that it's now given me a list of a whole lot of books that I want to read because of what Hornby has said about them. More for my reference than for the interest of anyone reading this blog, here is my list (again, made on the geeky post-it notes... what is happening to me??? I'm carrying them everywhere now... the original justification was to write down German words that I didn't understand or wanted to include in future vocabulary...)

How To Breathe Underwater - Julie Orringer
George and Sam: Autism in the Family - Charlotte Moore
True Notebooks - Mark Salzman
What Narcissism Means To Me - Tony Hoagland
Mystic River - Dennis Lehane
Chronicles: Volume 1 - Bob Dylan
Assassination Vacation - Sarah Vowell
Saturday - Ian McEwan
Gilead - Marilynne Robinson
Death and the Penguin - Andrey Kerkov
Then We Came To The End - Joshua Ferris

If anyone has read any of these, I'd love to hear what you think of them!

The Best Photo I've Ever Taken?

I think it might be!

This is where I am working at the moment - cycling through this every day really is pretty awe inspiring...

Innsbruck

This week my day off was spent in Innsbruck. The city had been much hyped by my parents (especially my mother) who claimed it was their favourite city on their European travels. As it is the nearest city to my current gig, it seemed an ideal place to start my Austrian adventures. The other consideration, though, was that I will be coming back to Innsbruck on the Contiki European Encounter tour that i am taking in November, so I wanted to avoid the major sights and do some of the more unusual things. So after consulting the good ole Lonely Planet and a few of the locals, I had my plan of sights to see.

The first thing that surprised me about Innsbruck is that it is much smaller than I thought. It is practically impossible to avoid the altstadt (old city) with all of the major tourist sights, especially since my hotel was right next to it. So, the walk to my hotel basically gave me all of the sights that I was trying to avoid (including the Golden Roof, which I was expecting to be much bigger - it is kinda cool though!)

I bought a fantastic tourist card that gave me free entry to most of the major attractions in Innsbruck in a 24 hour period as well as free use of public transport. Definitely a good buy at 24 Euro (I definitely saved money with all the things I saw in that time!). After checking into my hotel (and running into some Australians at the desk) I set out on my Innsbruck adventures.

First stop was Patscherkoefel - a tall mountain close to Innsbruck with a cable car that takes you to 2000 metres above sea level. It was used as the Winter Olympic ski and Bobsled run and it was the most expensive thing covered by the Sightseeing Card I'd bought, so I was already on track to saving money! The view from the top of the mountain was spectacular and I was lucky that it was such a clear day. From the top, you can see the whole city of Innsbruck and the surrounding alps and valleys. I am particularly impressed with this photo (I took it! I don't quite believe it either!)

Of course, on the cable car on the way down, I met another Australian...

Next stop was a wander around the altstadt (I had given up trying to avoid the major sights - I'll just see them again in November!). The highlight was definitely the Dom St Jakob (the Cathedral of St John). The outside of the cathedral is pretty unremarkable, but inside is really beautiful. I am always really amazed at the frescos on the ceilings of these churches - one of those things that is lacking in Australia - why is that?!? This is the high altar of the Dom:

Oh and did I mention that I bumped into even more Australians as I wandered the altstadt? We're everywhere! Actually, this group were on the Contiki tour that I will be doing in November, so it was great to ask them how they were enjoying it and allay my fears about being the oldest on the trip. They were having a great time and the age range was pretty well spread... feeling a little less anxious about it now.

A few good German beers, a great meal in a very trendy Japanese fusion restaurant (complete with piano player / singer doing all of my repertoire) and a really nice night out.

The next morning I woke early (always a struggle!) to head to the Alpenzoo. The map showed that it was a short walk from my hotel. Of course, it didn't show me how steep the mountains were to get up there! Eventually I reached the zoo and it was really very pleasant (another expensive attraction on the card, so more money saved!) Unfortunately their new eagle encolsure was being built, so they weren't on display. And they only had one bear. And one otter that I could find. And the wolves were hiding. But I did see an elk (not Anne Elk - nor a brontosaurus), some deer, a lynx, a few mountain goats (springboks), wild boar and the snow chicken... who knew there was such a thing!

After the zoo, my time was getting a bit limited so I caught the bus (for free!) back into the altstadt and headed to the Hofkirche which has a completely over the top tomb for Maximillian I (and he isn't even buried there). Quickly into the Volksmuseum with lots of Tyrolean craft, furniture, musical instruments and costumes - really didn't interest me at all (but I'd saved money on the entrance fee!). And finally to the Art Gallery with some great contemporary pieces by Albin Egger-Lienz and, of course, an exhibition of Rembrandt's Etchings...

A hectic weekend but a beautiful city. Quite looking forward to going back to see a bit more.

Lovely Etchings...

It's official. I am being followed around the world by exhibitions of Rembrandt's Etchings. This week in Innsbruck I accidentally stumbled upon my 3rd exhibtion of them in 2 months. It is the Dutch Master's 400th Anniversary, so it is suitable that his work is being celebrated worldwide, but I'm not really sure why there are so many exhibtions of his etchings! They are very good. Etchings are the sorts of thing that I can admire the technical brilliance of, but they don't move me or connect with me. Honestly, I'm not even really sure what an etching is. I know it has something to do with creating very fine lines in a piece of metal and then using it to print onto paper.

The first exhibition was at the Morgan Library in New York. I found it reasonably interesting, but it was quite a large exhibition and my relatively short attention span lost interest fairly quickly. I think the aspect of it that I found most interesting was the way the etchings developed as Rembrandt refined them. He would make changes to the original, occassionally major and then reprint. The exhibition in New York had a few works that showed the progression through the reprints. I would have liked to see the original plates too, but I guess these don't preserve very well or are destroyed quickly or something...

The second exhibition was in Schloss Gottorf in a small town in Northern Germany called Schleswig. The artworks on display throughout the Schloss (castle) were amazing, but the Rembrandt Etchings were really pretty dull (or at least very similar to the the first exhibition). I walked very quickly around the gallery and left. I was surprised that there was a second exhibition of Etchings and that it was in such a small place (with an admittedly remarkable gallery).

So to find a 3rd exhibition yesterday in Innsbruck was very strange. I mean, how many etchings did the guy make! And yes, they are very good. But if I've seen 3 exhibitions already without going to too many art galleries in that time, how many are there around the world?!?

Personally, I'd quite like to stumble across an exhibition of Rembrandt paintings soon...

Books - The Eyre Affair

by Jasper Fforde

One of the things I've really enjoyed about my travels in the last 7 months is that I have finally had a lot of time to read. Some books that might be classified as literary and others that are trashy (in some people's opinion, anyway - sometimes there really is nothing better than a good read!). I love reading, but in my hectic life in Melbourne, I never seemed to have time or brain-energy to read as much as I would like - even though I always felt a bit more sane when I had a book that I was enjoying. Like many people, there was always a big pile of books on the bedside table waiting to be read.

Well, now I have time to read them! I also want to write about them on my blog to help me remember what I've read and how I felt about them. And if anyone else reads about them and decides to read them too, then that is a fringe benefit (for the author and publisher more than me! Maybe I should ask for commission! haha)

Some of the books I have read in the last few months are (in no particular order):

Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts
Running With Scissors - Augusten Burroughs
Sellevision - Augusten Burroughs
The Brooklyn Follies - Paul Auster
Perfume - Patrick Susskind
The Human Stain - Philip Roth
The Plot Against America - Philip Roth
Abarat - Clive Barker
Coldheart Canyon - Clive Barker
The Devil Wears Prada - Lauren Weisberger
Not The End Of The World - Christopher Brookmyre
The Secret History - Donna Tartt

There were more, but I can't remember them right now - exactly the reason why I want to start blogging about the books I read. And don't worry, I'm not going to go through and retrospectively write about all of them. Amazing, though, that I have read more books in the last 6 months than I think I've managed in the previous 5 years! I'm really enjoying feeling well read again.

I do need to say, though, that Shantaram, Perfume, The Human Stain, The Plot Against America and The Secret History are among the best books I have ever read.

So, I've just finished The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. It is a detective story of sorts with a good dose of fantasy thrown in based around the character Thursday Next, a SpecOps investigator with the LiteraTec division. I picked it up in the library at the hotel that I'm working in and decided to read it because the Australian girl I met on the train between Munich and Innsbruck was reading it. We hadn't discussed the novel at all - it was just an association, so I really had no idea of what to expect.

It really is a very amusing novel. Most of the laughs come from the fantasy elements of the book. It is set in 1986 (ish). Wales is a communist state in the novel. Dodos have been re-engineered out of extinction. Literarature is highly esteemed in Thursday's England - there are vending machines on street corners that recite Shakespeare and there are huge social movements determined to prove the real author of Shakespeare's plays (including the radical Marlowians!).

The plot is based around the arch villain (Acheron Hades) working out how to kidnap characters from famous novels and Thursday's attempts to stop him. He completely removes a minor character from Dicken's Martin Chuzzlewit and moves on to plans to kidnap Jane Eyre. Once removed from the novel, the works are rewritten so there is no sign of them at all from the point they are kidnapped. Particularly disastrous in the case of Jane Eyre. It is a very clever plot with lots of amusing literary references and a wonderfully novel way (haha!) of combining fantasy with reality. The way the author twists facts about literature to have them resolved in his plot is one of the joys of his writing.

Overall, it was an enjoyable quick read with some great ideas. The plot moves quickly and the characters are very well drawn. It is not life changing literature but I would definitely read another Thursday Next book happily! Recommended!

James Taylor and Me

Tonight I got paid a massive compliment by one of the audience members in the bar. She told me that I sound just like James Taylor. I was pretty pleased with this cos I love the smooth buttery voice of Mr Taylor. This hasn't always been the case, though (or so I claimed).

When I was younger, my brother-in-law was a huge James Taylor fan and I used to taunt him about listening to elevator music because of it. Now as an obnoxious teenager, I'm really not sure I even knew who James Taylor was, let alone knew what he sang. I just knew that it was a good way to taunt my brother-in-law (and you all thought I was such a nice child...)

Of course, I later discovered his greatest hits album and quickly learned to love the man's voice and his songs - there is something about putting that album on that automatically makes you feel calm and happy. There was a period when it was on very high rotation in the car stereo.

Now, several James Taylor songs have worked their way into my repertoire - Fire and Rain being my favourite to sing. In fact, it was while I was singing it tonight that one of the patrons said quite loudly "He sounds just like James Taylor!" I was very flattered indeed but I suspect that my brother-in-law might snigger a little.

And rightly so...

Shameless Pic Posting

Have to put a pic in so I can use it as my profile pic... I think this one is amusing and appropriate enough. Taken in Mickey's house at Disneyland, of course. It really is a happy place!

Hilarious Gig Happenings

OK, I know I've gone overboard with starting my blog, but these 2 things are the reasons I decided I had to start blogging anyway.

My gigs this week have had a few unusual guests...

Firstly, on Saturday night, there were the guys in lederhosen standing at the bar all night. I mean I am in Austria, so I guess its reasonably normal, but for me, it was very distracting trying to play all night with men in hilarious outfits standing just to my right drinking lots of beer... Many people have suggested that I need to try some on while I'm in Austria. These guys inspired me to never wear lederhosen in my life under any circumstances... not a great look. And I don't think I have the legs for them...

The second one is a girl that has been in the bar last night and tonight. She is probably 12 years old, and clearly likes to dance. And wear leggings. Tonight's ensemble was entirely bright pink, while yesterdays were mulit-coloured leggings with a bright green tshirt. Now I am playing in the foyer of a 5 star hotel - not a normal dancing venue. But clearly she has decided that my show is not complete without a bit of movement. Normally this wouldn't worry me, but she seems to have taken all of her moves from watching Fame or Flashdance many times over and throwing in a bit of Britney Spears film clip dancing. She used the pole in the foyer quite a lot. And several chairs. And I had to keep a straight face through it all.

The things we piano players do!!!

Funny BBC Comment

Just heard on the BBC News

Does North Korea have any friends anywhere in the UN?

Certainly made me laugh!!

Entering the Aqua-Dome

(and the world of Blogs)

Well, here we go - my first blog - I hope you're all as excited as I am!

Who on earth is going to read this? I have no idea (and I wonder if I did a search, how many people's blogs started in a similar way to this?!? One day I will do something truly original...)

So today I went into the Aqua-Dome for the first time (I'm starting out making a completely false assumption that anyone knows what I'm talking about - so first, a bit of background...)

I am a piano bar entertainer - I play piano and sing all sorts of music including pop, rock, jazz, showtunes etc... I play songs by request whenever possible and this can lead to some hilarious contrasts (last night, as an example, I played Don't Cry For Me Argentina, Benny and the Jets and Sweet Child of Mine!). I am currently travelling the world going from gig to gig and this has currently landed me in a tiny town in the Austrian Alps called Laengenfeld, working in the Aqua-Dome Therme and Hotel. No doubt I will write a lot more about this place in the next few blog entries. The aim of my blog, though is to record the funny things and interesting things (and probably outright mundane things sometimes) that occur during my travelling piano player days. Probably more for my record than anyone else's actual interest, but time will tell...

So, back to my original intent...

Today I went into the Aqua-Dome Therme for the first time... (cue suspenseful music)

The Aqua-Dome is a series of pools and spas filled with thermal water and is quite well known throughout the Tirol region, Austria and its surrounding countries. I have been told its the best Therme in the Tirol... I have also been told it is the best Therme in Austria... who knows which is true??? Maybe both?!?

Lucky me has free access to the Aqua-Dome (and yes, i do giggle a little every time I say the name - I expect Mad Max and Tina Turner to pop up at any minute - that's why I'm writing it so often...) as I am an employee for the month. Normally it would cost me 15 Euro for 3 hours, so I think it's quite a good deal really.

They give you an electronic locker key when you enter and you head into the changing rooms. Now, prudish Australian that I am, I was fully expecting separate changing areas assuming that my locker would be in the male area etc... but no, communal, of course (ah the Europeans!). So after a whole lot of hiding behind towels and locker doors I get into my bathers (the flashy short-style Speedo things I bought just before leaving Australia as an incentive to lose weight - very European, and may I say, I am quite impressed with how decent I look in them now! Gotta keep up the Pilates... you'll probably be grateful that there are no pictures, though! No-one deserves to see someone that white in skimpy bathers...)

Heading into the actual pool area was really great. The pools are heated (around 34 degrees) and there are indoor and outdoor pools (I didn't take pics, though so can't post any... you can check some out at www.aqua-dome.at) Outside there are several different types of pool all linked up by a corridor of water, or by a groovy pyramid with stairs up the middle.

The corridor of water stops first at the "Whirlpool" which propels you slowly round and round - kinda fun! Second stop was the Air pool (or something like that - my German isn't quite extending to Thermal Pool terminology yet) which was basically a spa / jacuzzi. Up the pyramid a little further to the Salt Water pool (lots of floating - and a slightly scary sign warning people with sensitive skin to not spend very long in this pool!) and the final stop up the pyramid was the Massage pool, with various rotating air jets on the sides, the bottom and finally a big fountain / waterfall in the middle (called a Sodium shower... not quite sure why, but I suspect it was pure Thermal water, straight from the underground... skin ok so far...) There was also an outside pool with cooler water (a definite shock to the system, but nice) and the indoor pools have waterfalls and fountains to stand under which were quite fun.

In all, it's a really great place - very relaxing and quite fun. Always nice to spend so much time in warm water, though I'm not quite sure how people spend 3 hours and up there. I was in and out in just over an hour and was quite shrivelled up and damp by then, so I probably didn't fully appreciate the experience.

The definite highlight, though is the environment. They market the place with the slogan "The power of contrasts" and it really is amazing sitting in a warm jacuzzi outside with cold air around you and looking at the incredible alps that surround the valley. Cue my first picture!

This place is so breathtakingly beautiful that I have to stop my bike every time I go outside just to enjoy it fully. The Aqua-Dome certainly takes advantage of the beauty of the surrounds, and I am sure to spend a lot more quality time there in my month here.

And maybe one day, Mel Gibson and Tina Turner will pop up. Until then I'll just have to sing "We Don't Need Another Hero" to myself as I float around the pools!

I promise future posts won't be so long... oh well, they probably will be cos I do have a tendency to over-describe, but that's part of my charm... And do I use brackets and ... too much???