There’s a link, I’m sure of it, between this song, and the movie Midnight in Paris.

Don’t ask me to explain the details, but it’s got to do with romanticism.

Actually, maybe you should ask me to explain – because that clip certainly didn’t make things any clearer.

Honorary mention: Male models. Pedants may argue that these fall under the category of “not really sportsmen”, but c’mon. Have you seen those underwear ads?

10.
Jockeys. If you want a guy who you can throw across the room with one arm, jockeys are for you. If you don’t, then move to the next step. Then again, you might really like horses.

9.
Body-builders. Too much of a good thing is still too much – Lisa aptly named them “pumped up oompa-loompas”, and with the amount of fake tan going around I’d be inclined to agree. If only those protein bars were created by Willy Wonka, maybe I’d reconsider. Lisa’s train of thought: “Though if you want someone who can throw you across the room, you’d have come to the right place. And I mean that in a non-domestic violence kind of way.”

8.
Tennis players. Our unanimous judgment: Egoistical snobs. Not team players. Bad dress sense. Asymmetrical arm muscles. Occasional grunting. The only plus is that they are taller than jockeys and perhaps nicer to look at than body builders. (source: Leyton Hewitt.)

7.
Rugby players/water-polo players. We couldn’t decide between these two (admittedly quite different) sports. Neither have necks. Rugby players also have no brains, but polo players wear less clothes – but “not in a good way” (quote: Lisa). Water sport has an additional appeal on hot days, but New Zealand rugby players aren’t afraid to dance in public.

6.
Footballers. Well positioned in the middle-ish of the scale, footballers may not be renowned for their intellect and quick wit, but their bodies tend to be well proportioned and their ears are still attached to the sides of their heads.

5.
Cyclists. May suffer from similar lack of team spirit as tennis players and runners, but still rate highly for their nice legs and overall fitness. Cycling also appears to combine well with academic pursuits, which is a plus. (Swimmers, who we accidentally left out of this list, would possibly be ranked similarly to cyclists if you exchange “legs” for “shoulders”.)

4.
Yogi. We were initially very positively inclined towards yogis as a group, but then we realised the potential for ending up with the hippie/alternative/dreaded kind. Personal hygiene is non-negotiable, after all.

3.
Rock climbers. You would probably get the odd hippie in this group as well, but the outdoorsy adventure factor weighs up for that. Strength and flexibility are pluses, smelly shoes minuses.

2.
Rowers. Great bodies. Team sport. Outdoors. Water. No compromise on brains. Potential negative: private school boys. Potential positive: lots of money and a nice house.

1.
Test Cricketers. With a match that runs for five days, these guys have patience and stamina aplenty. They play a team sport, but also need great individual resilience to endure those long hot days on the field. Strength, speed and ball-handling skills are a given, and above all, it’s a gentleman’s sport. Now the only question is: batters or bowlers?

Reblogged from missaliblahblah:

Now I am known for never walking anywhere – I always seem to skip – dance or slide – it would be impossible not to dance up these stairs!

Olala! (And I’m new to this reblogging – hopefully it works!)

On holidays, I seem to do things that I otherwise wouldn’t. This series of blog posts is about I’ve been doing that I don’t usually do.

—

This Time, about Things I Do Alone.

I was surprised a while ago to read an article (again, in a glossy), about a woman “experimenting” with going to a bar, a restaurant, and the movies, alone. I’ve been to a restaurant alone, heaps of times. I’ve also gone to bars, gigs, debates, book launches, gyms, workshops, galleries, cafes, swimming pools, Italy and Scotland on my own, and although it’d all (probably) be worth writing about, it would not be for the “experimental” or “novelty” factor.

There are things that you might notice, or experience, or both, while traveling (as an umbrella term) alone which you mightn’t otherwise. Likewise, there are disadvantages in traveling alone, which need to be balanced out by the disadvantages of traveling with others. In Sydney during the holidays, I did something on my own which has so far, to me, been a strictly group-or-couple activity: I went to the movies.

None of my family wanted to come, but I went and saw War Horse, because Sam had told me about the children’s book. Ask me about it if you’re interested; this isn’t really a post about the movie. Instead, it’s a post in which I tell you that going to the movies on your own is completely pointless. Or rather, the only “point” to it would be if you had to see a particular movie within a particular time frame, and you could find no one else to go with. Baring those circumstances, I would advise you to just read a book, or go for a walk, or even – if you really wanted to watch a film – just hire something from Blockbusters. Then you can pause and get a bowl of icecream whenever you like.

My experience of going to the movies on my own, was that I missed out on all the advantages of going to see a film with friends, and gained none of the advantages of “being alone”. Sure, I observed other people more attentively than I would have, had I had company. But then the lights went down, and the father and son in the row ahead of me stopped talking about war and how “guitars get girls”. Sure, I was absorbed in the movie for the whole 2.5 hours it went for, and didn’t have to address any whispered interruptions from a potential companion. But then the lights came up, and I had no one to turn to and go “well…!” Being alone in a restaurant means extra attentive waiters. Being alone in a bar is simply fascinating, on all (most) levels. Going to a gallery on your own means being able to take your time, and yawn or laugh or frown without having to justify yourself to fellow viewers.

At the movies on my own… the experience simply revolved around the film. Had it been a terrible film, I would have needed someone to rant to. Had it been amazing, I would have been bursting to gush. I guess I was lucky, then, that War Horse was neither great nor terrible. It had its cringeworthy parts (the whole start, and the whole end), its great parts (that scene by the barbed wire – how deliciously absurd!), and its segments of dialogue that made me go “hoooold on a minute… isn’t this supposed to be an anti-war film?”, but on the whole, it was just fine. Since it nicely complemented my list of “things to do alone”, the outing wasn’t a complete fiasco.

Earlier this week, though, I went to the movies again. This time I had company, and we saw Hugo. The lesson of this post, then, is that if you’re going to the movies, take a friend. And even if you’re after something with an anti-war message, see Hugo, not War Horse. The destruction of art portrays the tragedy of war better than the eventual survival of a horse. Oddly enough.

I want to spend many more adjectives trying to describe it, but in order not to bias you too much, I’ll stick to just explaining the two already chosen:

It’s brutal because it’s about war. It’s beautiful because it’s Salman Rushdie.

And while we drove through city streets, Shaheed looked out of windows and saw things that weren’t-couldn’t-have-been true: soldiers entering women’s hostels without knocking; women, dragged into the street, were also entered, and again nobody troubled to knock.

There’s a difference between that, and “letting my feelings run away with me”.

In the latter, it’s basically kidnap. I could understand why in such a situation, such a phrasing, you would think I wasn’t in control. Implied, instead, is the idea that feelings have the power to overcome what is usually “me”, that suddenly you’re dealing with a fiery ball of joy/despair/anger/enthusiasm/energy/frustration – behind which my reasonable, calm, cynical (well, sometimes), nihilistic, analytical and sensible self cowers in submission and Stockholm Syndromes. The thing is, that happens so, so, rarely, you can almost be 100% certain that when I say “you haven’t seen me like that”, I’m talking to you.
Yes, you.

But, when I’m letting myself run away with my feelings… that’s more like a holiday. “Running away” in this sense doesn’t mean an annihilation of a rational self; in this sense it means nothing more than a temporary excursion, exploration, an adventurous frolic in an exotic location, with the feelings as my companions and guides – not tormentors. Maybe some of the places we visit are less comfortable than others, that’s possible. But I’m always safe, and can always return, having gained something from the journey regardless of whether it was into welcoming, colourful, hostile, bizarre, hot, cold, intense or blissful territory.

The main point is that I could never get to those places without my feelings taking the lead. And so letting myself run away; letting myself be tempted and taken by the hand; choosing to follow feelings down untrodden paths, is something I will continue to do, fully aware of what it means to me.

If you can one day learn to tell the difference between this and kidnapping, I’d like you to come along too.

——

In case you were wondering – yes, this was inspired by the painfully earnest Thought Catalogue, in particular, this post. Writing in second person is fun, though you shouldn’t take it personally. There is no specific “you”, despite the above being completely true.

We also pondered what the world would be like if trees were sentient. Would they perhaps communicate with smell? What predators would they want to protect themselves from, and how? Perhaps things would be easier if their branches moved like arms – but at which point would they have changed so much that they wouldn’t be trees any more? The Ents may be able to answer.

Picasso, by the way, has not painted a horse opening a door. Even though it would be quite funny if he did.

There was a blob of red paint… on a painting that reminded me of the painting in What I Loved. Self-portrait, shadow of the painter, falling across a figure lying down… but Picasso, true to form (?), added another layer, because the figure is also in a painting, unfinished and resting on an easel.

When we got home, I made this from an exhibition hand-out: “Make Your Own Picasso Sculpture!”

Driven to abstraction is not really the same as driven to distraction, but it’s still kinda how I feel right now.

—

Hands up if you’ve seen me in a suit? Or, anything even remotely resembling one, like a long sleeved shirt with buttons and a collar, and pants with a pleat and no pockets? The closest I’ve been, I think, takes us back to year 7, when I proudly wore the WHS school uniform and tucked my polo-shirt into those horrificlassic dark blue slacks. (At this point, I feel I should preempt Lisa and Martin’s inevitable comments about how I never learnt not to tuck myself in. I have excuses, but they won’t listen anyway! )

Anyway, all that changed this holidays. Now I have a suit (well, half) and I’m allowed to tuck my shirt in! Joy!

This is how it happened: since starting Masters I’ve wanted to find a sort of “style” for clinic – basically, none of the clothes I usually wear (oh-so-predictable t-shirt dresses, leggings and long tops or black skinny jeans with singlets or loose t-shirts) seemed suitable to me. What does and did seem suitable, was and is a long sleeved shirt and suit-pants. (By the way, I don’t believe this applies universally; it’s just the kind of thing I want to wear as a psychologist.) Dilemma, then: I, having never worn such an outfit before, would have to find one I liked.

As mentioned earlier, I can’t blog about fashion. (Here’s more proof.) I care about (my) clothes enough to warrant this post (and the issue it describes), but not enough to know much about it, or get particularly inspired by a shopping trip. On this particular shopping trip, however, I had a secret weapon: Martin. Martin knows stuff about suits. Following his relaxed lead around David Jones, I eventually – and with a minimum of stress! – found my shirt. And my pants.

Tada!

Even if suit-shopping is an activity I’m still happy to confine to the holidays, almost-suit wearing will soon become an almost-daily occurrence. At least if someone (not mentioning any names) will answer the following question in the affirmative: would you give this woman a job?

—-

Another thing I rarely do outside of holidays is read beauty magazines (but no, it’s not because they make me feel ugly; it’s because I object to their existence, more or less as a matter of principle). Even on holidays, by “read” I generally mean I look at the pictures and sigh in boredom. On this occasion though, I came across a November edition of Harper’s Bazaar, with Miranda Kerr on the cover, in which there was an article about the one-piece, featuring pictures of Loren, Taylor, Fawcett, Basinger and MacPherson. You’ve probably all heard about my moonwalker – it’s a long time since I got that much pleasure out of a piece of clothing, and so this article at first glance interested me, since it was about one woman’s search for the perfect one-piece. Actually, she sets her sights somewhat lower – the writer says her bathers simply have to flatter her pear shape, and make her feel “foxy”.

Spoiler: she ends up with a cream “Marilyn Monroe sort of swimsuit – sexy, but with its miracle-working halter neck, slightly retro too”, as well as “a fantastic one-shoulder snake-print suit with subtle boning on the bust-line” which “will look great by the pool or for lunch with my tobacco-colored flares”.

The power of holidays is not so strong that I’m suddenly able to blog about fashion, though, so the only other comment I’m going to make about the article is an unusually critical one: cross my heart, it is the worst article I can ever remember reading. The weird thing is, there wasn’t anything particularly bad about it, nothing I could put my finger on. The problem was more that everything about it was bland and unexciting, from the B-grade celebrity name-dropping to the complete lack of humour in the writer’s tone. Nor did it have any redeeming features – apart from, if I’m being self-centred, inspiring this post, and thus somewhat validating the 20 minutes it initially stole from my life.

- or (to continue this critical tone)

…and thus continuing the cycle of discontent, by leading me to steal 5 minutes of your time, with this equally mediocre post. Zing!

—-

First example: I was sitting on the beach, wondering what formula would describe the angle at which my legs come to rest when I’m sitting on the edge of a pool dabbling my feet in the water up to the knees. From experience, it appears to be between 45 and 30 degrees from the vertical, but it would be more interesting to work it out using maths, rather than a protractor, don’t you think?

The answer would have something to do with the buoyancy of my legs (which depends on the relative density of them/the water), their length/weight and the friction in my knee joint, I think. Something like this:

But, there are heaps of pieces missing – for example, I can no longer remember how to apply the formula for torque. And, I have no idea about the density of water vs leg – I think that was covered in chemistry, not physics, and I only did chem for a semester in year 8. Finally, I don’t know how to weigh my leg (though I suspect Archimedes could help), and I obviously can’t draw my leg either, unless I’ve grown some strange cankles while I wasn’t watching.

In short, enjoyable though this is, it is clearly an activity confined to idle days of sitting around doing not-much… except dabbling my feet in pools of water.