Kindle. Mostly read on the short (~6 hour) flight from Doha to Zurich. Somehow I mostly slept through the long leg (~14 hours) from Sydney to Doha. Qatar Airways must hire a lot of Russian pilots, and they seem less bothered about safety than any other airline I've flown with. The stopover definitely evokes this book, as did the previous one I read.
This is a tale of recent-day enslavery and possibly human trafficking in the Gulf states. It's at its best when talking about the harrowing conditions of the first-person goatherd / general dogsbody who was sold a visa for a construction company but got abducted by an opportunistic Arab ("arbab") with pens (essentially a feedlot) on the edge of the desert. The author claims to have sourced this from someone's direct experience (see Wikipedia for details). There's a lot of empathy demonstrated in his connection with the animals. My only real beef was the slow progress through the desert. I wonder if things are improving at all.
The Arabic translation was apparently written by an Indian expatriate in Doha.
Last gasp soak at Gordons Bay. I had some vague aspiration to see if the squid had come to say goodbye, but the water was too filthy to stick my head into. Quite a few people on the rocks, soaking up the sun, but only five or so in the water, and the surf lifesaver boat that seemed to be drifting out with the tide. A beautiful day, perfect temperatures all round. Had a snooze on the headland and lunch at Yen's afterwards.
Kindle. One problem with working full time is that it leaves little time to read, and makes it harder to plough through things that don't meet their initial promise. Shaj Mathew in the New York Times sold this to me as an innovative take on Indian guest workers in the Gulf states, which has vaguely fascinated me since mrak worked in Doha on the Asian Games with some skillful blokes from Kerala. Unfortunately this composition feels derivative, conservatively stuck in the usual transgressive ruts, and while there's some colour and imaginative licence taken there's not much new insight. Perhaps the highlight for me was the insurrection by the brown men grown on plants.
I should probably have treated Mathew's review with more caution: he holds guest workers up as "arguably the least privileged class of nomads", which on its face is indefensibly crass. The second half of his review (read just now) is accurate. I guess I'll have to see if Benyamin's Goat Days is worth a read.
Rode down to La Perouse in the early afternoon for a late lunch at Paris Seafood. Not much traffic in the city, but loads down on the peninsula, and the restaurant was packed. Went for a soak at Frenchmans Beach, placid as ever, decidedly unpacked despite the cars. Finished off my book on the sand to much relief. Perfect day for it, I only wish these were longer.
At the dear old Verona, 8:50pm session, spur of the moment, $16.00 for the ticket and another $4.50 for a coffee. Earlier I had a penang and roti at Time for Thai, tasty as ever. A scan of A. O. Scott's review led me to think it wouldn't be as dire as it turned out to be; so dire in fact that there were only two other people in Theatre 2. It finds many things to allude to (the abusive drinking evokes Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and the ending is almost pure Fight Club) while having almost nothing to say itself. Hathaway's solution to being on the receiving end of controlling violence is to get her kaiju avatar to dispose of the bloke in question. It's a bit like the utopians who propose technological fixes for everything, but I'm probably too obtuse (or disengaged) to properly interpret the metaphor. I found it strange to set some of it in South Korea but not have a Korean director. That might have been awesome.
On the bright side there's a movie about Brett Whiteley coming out: Whiteley.
Vale, John Clarke.
Late afternoon paddle at Gordons Bay after meeting my parents at Wentworth Falls for lunch. Rode over under blue skies. The water seemed fairly clean. Had dinner in the park just north of Coogee beach. I tried to time it a bit but still had to ride home in some moderate rain. The clip on my helmet that keeps the visor in is failing, which actually worked out OK as the extra airflow stopped me from fogging up. I mostly did 40-50kph and the light traffic was placid and didn't seem too bothered.
Third time around, last seen seven years past. The IMDB rating has gone for a slide, as has Mickey Rourke's revival. Time for another tale of the washed up?
Rode over to Randwick around 2pm for a late lunch, a haircut and a snorkel at Gordons Bay, off the scuba ramp. Quite a few people, many thoughtlessly blocking the ramp as if it were a child's play area. Visibility was OK, the waves not as threatening as on Thursday. Saw a couple of flutemouth, some large wrasse. Another totally perfect early Autumn day, a run apparently to end tomorrow with another bout of showers.
Working long days, and the sun is out, so I sneaked off for a midday lunch at Tum's Thai in Randwick and a snorkel off the scuba ramp at Gordons Bay. The tide was low and it didn't seem too rough getting in, but without my flippers getting out proved challenging. Didn't see much, just some large ludderick and small gropers. Warm in, warm out, no wind. Three people looked like they were going diving with some strange gizmos I didn't recognise. These turned out to be some kind of propulsion device, and as they weren't carrying air tanks I expect it was some kind jetski-like thrillseeking.
At The Ritz, 12:10pm, $16. Rode over from Glebe under grey skies. The queue was huge, loads of kids, but it turned out that most were going to see Beauty and the Best — theatre 3 ended up about two-thirds full. I was going to sit in the front row but really, even from the third the screen is too high. This was OK but not as fun as The Lego Movie; the default mode was to ramp up the frenzy and lay on the one liners at every opportunity, but it succeeded best when poking retcon fun at all previous outings. The Batman character was better in smaller doses ("First time!"), and they tried a bit too hard with the plot. Could they not say Dalek? Had a late lunch at Chao Praya, a coffee at Kokkino Kafe, tried to do some thinking/work at UNSW Library (some rain during), rode home under blue skies.