How to Travel with Hand Luggage Only

My former flatmate, Amanda, has a theory: everyone has a superpower. One thing that they do better than anyone else in the world. It might be small, but it's yours, and among your close circle, you are the authoritative expert on this one particular thing.

Amanda's superpower is upholstering. She's just a kickass upholsterer. (She's great at other things too, but you only get one superpower). Strummer is really, really good at wine. He's good at matching wine to food and intuitively knowing stuff about wine which most people need years of study to perfect. He is also extremely kind, which isn't a superpower but is a great thing to have around. My superpower is packing. I am always being asked for advice on what to pack and how to pack it. After being pinballed across continents between my parents since I was six, I have perfected the art of taking everything in an overnight bag. I once spent two weeks in the UK with only the following: two woolen dresses, a cardigan, a pair of leggings, a jacket, a cocktail dress, a pair of heels and a pair of ballet flats. Usually I bring a few more things with me, of course, but I rarely need more space than one piece of carry-on. Here is a collection of all the things I have learned about packing (mostly from Ami, who is an expert packer):

1. Really, you don’t need all that stuff. You really don’t. And taking all that stuff is going to cause heartache when you realise you can’t buy that gorgeous solid glass fishbowl in Venice, or that life-sized fertility goddess in Kenya, or that vintage Chanel coat in Paris. Here is what I take:

WINTER – CITY
One pair of flat, warm, sturdy, comfortable boots which both look nice and are COMFORTABLE (I cannot stress this enough). There will be walking.
Several dresses
Thick tights
Several scarves
One gorgeous coat.

SUMMER – CITY
Summer dresses
One pair of shorts
One cossie
Two T-shirts/singlets
Flat sandals, thongs
One cardie/light jacket and a pair of tights in case it gets unseasonably cold

That is REALLY ALL YOU NEED. You can take a pair of jeans and a jumper and tops and skirts if you want. I find jeans add unnecessary weight and bulk, are hard to keep clean/dry when you are travelling and lead to a whole host of additional packing (ie tops, jumpers, shoes) which adds more weight/bulk. Remember, weight is your enemy - you want to be able to fill your bag with many new things. You can take dinner dresses. Heels are beautiful but heavy and impractical and you probably won’t wear them (no matter how hard I try, I always seem to spend my holidays in flats)

If you’re going to the country or the desert, pack old clothes, pack for comfort and throw fashion to the wind. Trust me, you will look like an imbecile if you show up in the outback with heels and a floral dress.
And if you’re going to India or Africa, pack one loose, cotton outfit and buy local clothing when you get there. People will appreciate the respect that you show for local customs by wearing the local clothes.

I tend to pack a monochromatic colour palette with scarves or accessories in case I need to add a dash of colour and keep jewellry simple. Ideally, I would look like this photo of Sienna Miller when I travel: monochramatic, lightweight separates with a pop of colour in accessories. Plus, those boots are kick-ass. Unfortunately I do not look like Sienna Miller at any time, as I am a short, white mushroom and Sienna is a tall, golden, goddess.

As for packing itself: divide everything you're taking by weight (underwear in one pile, light tops and singlets in one pile, shorts and dresses in one pile, jeans and bulky jumpers in one pile) and roll EVERYTHING before you put it in your bag. Don’t fold the clothes.. Pack small items into shoes. Don’t take too many books (they’re heavy and you just accumulate them while travelling.) Pack shoes at the bottom and jam clothing around them, starting with the heavier items and working the lighter items into the smaller spaces. You’ll be surprised how much you can get in.

Also, I find it helps to start packing about a week beforehand, either by writing a list or just chucking everything you plan on taking in a corner as you remember it. At the end of the week, put everything in the pile on your bed. And then halve it.

My other big tip would be: if you don't wear it in your real life, you won't wear it on your holiday. In fact, if you don't wear it in your real life, sell it on eBay or give it to Vinnies. You don't become a different person on holiday.

My Friend Ed

I would like to tell you about my friend Ed. Ed was a teenager when I met him. I was also a teenager. We used to debate each other at school and frequent the same house parties, where we would drink goon from a Hills hoist (classy) and have intense conversations at three in the morning.

After school Ed moved to South Africa on exchange. I think he was only there for six months but he had the time of his life. He came back more tanned, confident and happier.

After I had known Ed for a couple of years, I dated his best friend, Joe. This lasted about five minutes. I was eighteen and confused. Joe was exciting and spontaneous and battling a host of mental health issues, including alcoholism and bipolar disorder. He broke up with me over text message with the words "I'm sorry darl, I'm not ready for a relationship at the mo." He was actually almost definitely right. Ed was more mentally stable than Joe and they had been friends for years.

One evening Ed had too much to drink and decided to drive to the service station to get some cigarettes. The service station was at the end of his street. He was pulled over on the two-minute drive, breathalysed, and had his licence confiscated. Some people thought that this meant he had a problem with alcohol, and he conceded that they might be right - although really he was just a nineteen-year-old boy. Most nineteen-year-old boys in Australia have what would be termed a "problem" with alcohol if it wasn't that everyone else of their age was doing it too.

Once, we drove with some friends to my parents' place, miles out of the city. It was quite a road trip. I drove; we giggled and chatted in the car as the windows fogged up against the winter air. My parents were out of town. We watched Four Rooms and Memento and went to sleep on the living room floor in front of the TV. We talked about our greatest regrets. I said that mine was disappointing my father. Ed lied about his. We talked about our greatest loves and our passions and plans for the future in the way that you do when you're eighteen and anything seems possible.

Joe moved away and Ed was finally able to emerge from his shadow. He played sport and moved into college; started working harder at uni and got a lovely girlfriend. I saw him around a lot, sometimes he came into my work and said hi, and we always said, "We should catch up for coffee." Soon, he was voted president of his college. Everyone said that he organised the best parties, but I never went.

One night in August one of the colleges held a ball. Everyone got really drunk. Ed got especially drunk and decided to walk home. He walked along the university oval at night. Maybe there was a rock, or maybe the ground was not quite level, or maybe he was just too slaughtered to walk straight. He fell and hit his head. He was dead within twelve minutes. He was twenty one, I think.

At his funeral Joe sang something by Coldplay. His father broke down. His brother said, "When I woke up this morning I was an only child", and began to cry, because it made me think of what life might be like without my brother. I sat in the back row with all my friends. He was the first of my contemporaries to have died. I wished we'd had that coffee.

Movie of the Week: X Men: First Class

Movie Of The Week: X Men: First Class
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Starring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender

Just putting it out there, I am a massive fan of X-Men. I saw the third one at the movies three times. Being that the third one has a pile of tripe in place of a plot, that's true commitment. I even enjoyed the hackneyed, overblown Wolverine spin off, although that might have been because of the triple leading-man whammy of Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber. When I heard Matthew Vaughn was following up last year's reboot of the superhero genre, Kick-Ass, with this, I pretty much actually wet my pants.

Vaughn, of course, is a fan of muscular violence and gritty realism, something which was much-missed from the last X-Men movie. And from the very beginning, he whips us into a fully-realised world. It's the 1960s, but not as we know them (actually it looks nothing like the 1960s, even though James McAvoy does say "groovy"), Professor X and Magneto don't yet exist, or rather they exist only as Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr, young men struggling to hone their mutant powers. Both are recognised archetypes: Lehnsherr a brittle and emotionally-scarred Holocaust survivor, hooked on vengeance as he travels the world to find the Nazi who killed his mother. McAvoy is the foppish and affable young professor, arrogant with success  and always capable. It was a real stroke of casting genius to ask two character actors to ham it up like this: their budding friendship and mutual appreciation provides the beating heart to the film, and they look like they're enjoying not starving to death in an Irish prison or suffering from gangrene on the beaches of Normandy. In fact, their chemistry is so palpable and their charisma so awesome that really, it would've been better if there had been no other characters in the film, save for Kevin Bacon's multilingual baddie. The other mutants, which clearly exist for the fan boys alone; the sometimes sloppy CG effects, a dull subplot involving Beast's burning desire to be human and Rose Byrne's boring love interest should really all have taken a backseat to the development of these guys' powers. Instead, we are left with a rather cluttered plot which, despite cleverly incorporating the Cuban Missile Crisis and being helmed by Vaughn, never feels truly real. When your current competition in the superhero canon is Christopher Nolan's Batman and Vaughn's own Kick Ass, realism is essential. McAvoy and Fassbender shine when they're allowed and when Fassbender remembers to drop his native Irish accent, and the rest of the time is just filler between the sometimes tense, sometimes touching scenes involving these two.

However despite this, it's still X Men. Did I mention it's X Men? I am happy to ignore all its faults because, well, it's X Men...

Say Goodbye to the Great Australian Dream

My mum wants me to buy a house. She's wanted me to buy a house since I finished uni and got a "real" job. She wants me to have stability and to get onto the property market as quickly as possible. She sees it as an investment that will act as a guarantee for my future. Bless her, she worries a bit about what her eldest is going to do with her life, particularly as she seems more interested in sampling Melbourne's bar and restaurant scene and shopping online than putting money into a savings account.

One of my best friends has bought a house. She bought it for $115 000 or a similar unfathomable price about five years ago. It is probably now worth a lot more than that. Financially it's probably the smartest thing she ever did. Sometimes she finds it frustrating because now she's tied to that location for the foreseeable future, and all her spare money goes on repairing the gutter, and unfortunately the tenants with whom she shares the property turned out to be From Hell. But it was a very shrewd decision and in ten year's time she will be very glad she did it.

Unfortunately I am Generation Y and, as the newspapers are constantly telling us in a slightly patronising way, we are all about instant gratification. So telling me that it'll be a really great idea in TEN years really isn't going to do it.

You see, if I wanted to buy a house, there would be a few things which would need to happen. I would need to stop spending money on Asos and actually need to put some money into a savings account. I would have to make a decision about which city I want to live in. Unfortunately the city in which I currently reside is unlikely to make the final cut, so I would also have to more interstate/overseas and find a new job. So would Strummer, assuming that he would still want to live with me after I stop dressing in clothes from Asos and become consumed with saving money, Scrooge-style. Then I would have to move to the farthest reaches of said city in order to find a property I could afford. I would also probably end up boring my friends with stories about renovations, which has got to be the dullest topic of conversation ever.

And why, why would I want to do this? Granted, it would be nice to be able to have a dog. I get the whole "rent is dead money" argument. But I don't want to be tied down. I want to be free - to take off overseas for a couple of years, to spend my money on pretty nice things that make me smile rather than a dull grey mortgage, to enjoy my youth. I know I'm not twenty-one anymore and maybe it's time I learned some responsibility. But dammit, I like my life. I like living in a happening suburb. I like eating out and going to the theatre and shopping. I like that we dream about moving to Italy on a whim. I like that I'm not in debt to anyone, let alone a bank.

So what then? What if I never buy a house? Well, maybe when I'm forty I can stay on my friend's couch. Or maybe I'll regret not doing it in ten years' time. But I'm hoping that a more bohemian attitude will ultimately make me happy. And happiness is kind of more important to me than stability at the moment. I think of buying a house as something to do when I have done everything else. For some people, I guess they feel they've "done everything else" at twenty-one (they're probably the same people who travel to "get it out of their system") but for me, it seems like the boring option. And life wasn't meant to be boring. I don't want to live in Mordialloc in a half-renovated house for two years while I wait for the benefits of my shrewd financial decision to kick in.

So I'll take the hazardous rental market over the white picket fence, and live up to my generation's bad name.

That's Pretty Freaky, Bowie

This is my current favourite picture. I. LOVE. IT. I love that Diana looks so simultaneously scandalised and peeved. I love that this could be because she can hear what Bowie's saying, or it could be because some drunk bird is dribbling on her husband's shoulder. I love how polite Charles looks towards the possibly plastered girl beside him. I love that it looks like Bowie, John Deacon, Brian May and Roger Taylor are having a cheeky bitch about the guys in front, emphasised by Taylor's secretive palm and Bowie's knowing smile. I love that between them, Diana, May and Bowie are keeping Schwarzkopf in business. And most of all I love the frumpy three women in the back row, who clearly have no idea they're being photographed despite the rock-star royalty in front of them, and the ACTUAL royalty in the front row. Brilliant.

Movie of the Week: Incendies

Movie Of The Week: Incendies
Director: Denis Villeneuve (which might just be the coolest name of all time)
Starring: Lubna Azabal, Melissa Desormeaux-Poulin

After her death, a mother sends her adult children on a mission to find the father and brother they never knew they had. Their journey takes them to the Middle East and the village where their mother was born, as they find the truth about her past.

I originally wanted to see this because I loved the play - also called Incendies, or Scorched in English, by Wajdi Mouawad. The story is an intriguing albeit formulaic "going back to my roots" one, but the beautiful performances from the mother and daughter leads - particularly Lubna Azabal as the mother, Narwan - and the washed-out, harrowing cinematography kept me riveted from the very beginning. The hard-hitting reveal unfolded with delicacy and grace and when the penny dropped for the majority of the audience there was a rustle of horror through the cinema. The film is a little too long and could have benefited from some culling of unnecessary scenes and the titles which separate each "chapter" are joltingly out-of-place with the stark beauty of the landscapes or the classic method of storytelling. However the end product rises above all this and puts this among the best films I've seen this year.

Letter to My Fifteen Year Old Self

Hi there. It's me, that is to say, you. I'm eleven years older now and probably a little bit wiser, and although I no longer think Darren Hayes is the most beautiful man to walk the Earth, I am still able to quote the entire fourth season of Blackadder by heart.

Anyway I'm not really writing for any reason other than to tell you this, and save yourself the heartache: By the age of twenty-six, you are not famous. In fact you probably never will be. You will not be discovered singing to yourself on a tram (oh, yeah. You live in Melbourne now. There are trams there and it rains a lot). You aren't going to go to NIDA, and even if you did it wouldn't guarantee you a one-way ticket to stardom (in fact you have a friend who goes there - a new friend, one you haven't met yet - and she has been unemployed since leaving). But the good news is this: you don't really care. By the time you are eighteen you don't really want to be an actor anymore. You have discovered boys (I know you already know about boys, but forgive me if I say you haven't yet worked out how GREAT they are) and would really rather be a historian. I know, what a turnaround.

I'm not sure why every fifteen-year-old thinks they're going to be famous, except that of course the only role models you guys are exposed to (apart from your mums, of course) are singers and actresses. I'm sorry to tell you that over the next ten years it gets worse and now the women young girls are supposed to look up to are all reality stars and "socialites." So really you should be enjoying it while it lasts because although, admittedly, Britney Spears and Spice Girls aren't exactly setting the most attainable goals, at least they have worked to be where they are and have some (debatable) talent. (You will be interested to learn that most of the people who are currently famous have since faded into obscurity, just like Mum said they would.)

On the subject of Mum, you might want to try being a bit nicer to her. This is the first time she's done this and she's learning too. By the time Siouxsie's turn rocks round she's fantastic. Also, it doesn't need to be such a drama. Give it a few years and you will actually choose to spend time with her, and miss her when you're away from her. I promise.

Now, back to boys. That boy you fancy? Gay. Actually, all of them are gay. You like them because they are articulate, intelligent and respectful towards you, and unfortunately pretty much all fifteen-year-old boys who tick those boxes are gay. The good news is that you'll still be friends, many years later. For your twenty-sixth birthday, that kid with the blonde tips in his hair will give you a photograph of the two of you, taken this year. You will go to pizza every Monday night and finally reside in the same city. Your friendship will last much longer than it would have if you'd actually gone out in Year Ten.

I could tell you to stand by your bestie, the one who's going through a rough time at the moment, that she's 100% worth it. I could tell you to treasure the days with your brother because he is the best friend you will ever have. I could tell you that one day you will meet a wonderful kind man and begin to build a great life with him. I could tell you to follow your heart. But you don't need to hear it. You will do all these things anyway, with or without my input. Luckily, you will grow up and move on and live and love many and at times you will stumble, but you will never know as much as you do now.

So, I will leave you, my poor freckled gangly never-been-kissed fifteen-year-old self, with the following two pieces of advice:

1. You are not ugly. In fact, your skin and hair and waistline are only going to get worse from here. I know it's hard, but try to enjoy them. And at the same time (slightly contradictory I know), try not to fret about them too much. The less time you spend looking in a mirror, the happier you will be.
2. Darren Hayes? Yup, you guessed it. Turns out Mum was right after all.

Movie Of The Week: Source Code

Director: Duncan Jones
Starring: Jack Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga

Duncan Jones is a genius. I know this because he has excellent parentage. For those who believe that creativity and skill are due to personal ability, not hereditary talent, I direct you to his debut feature, Moon. And Source Code cements his position as a master of cerebral science fiction.

Like Moon, it opens on a man awakening in a disorientated state. Like Moon, an authoritarian, disembodied voice welcomes him back. Like Moon, all is not what it seems. But that is where the comparisons end - where Moon was restrained, Source Code is uninhibited; where Moon demanded focus, Source Code is irreverent, where Moon had character actors, Source Code has star power - in short, Moon is the kind of movie you make to get art cred; Source Code is the kind of movie to rake in the big bucks.

Captain Colbert (Gyllenhaal) awakens on a commuter train. A woman (Monaghan) addresses him by an unfamiliar name and strikes up a flirtatious conversation. He is disorientated and the last thing he can remember is being on reconnaissance with his unit in Afghanistan. He moves uneasily through the train carriage. And then it blows up. Colbert awakens again in an army facility, where he is told of his mission: he must keep going back in time to prevent the crash from happening - and each time he has eight minutes. I think this movie works best if you don't have too many preconceived ideas about what to expect - suffice to say there is time travel (of a sort) and parallel universes involved. But the story is firmly anchored in the real - every pockmark on Gyllenhaal's skin, every flick of black stubble, is rendered in high definition - and every time the train explodes the crash feels skin-splittingly, spine-joltingly real. Like Moon, Jones is interested in the minutiae of people's extraordinary lives - a coffee spill, a phone call from the ex, an altercation with a ticket inspector, all feel so normal that every time the crash comes, it doesn't fail to shock.

The movie has had the way paved by Inception (the two films are similar with their maverick male protagonists and deliberately ambiguous, potentially feelgood ending) and panders to the mainstream audience more than Moon with its familiar characters (Jeffrey Wright's hopelessly overblown scientist is a walking cliche). However, it is a satisfying thriller with an intelligent premise and a watertight execution. One feels that Jones is biding his time before he can hit us with his own Inception - a clever thriller which bridges the divide between mainstream blockbuster and cult success.

More Information Please

Facebook Gimp of the Week goes to my flatmate's brother's wife: "So CHN tells me that it's normal for babies to have just regained their birth weight by now (2 weeks 3 days) and that normal weight gain per week is between 100-200 grams ... our little chunker has put on 682 grams since discharge, grown a centimeter longer to 53cm and gained another 1.5cms to his head circumference at 35.5cm! Gonna be big like his Daddy!!!

Gosh, there's so much in there, where to begin? Well, putting aside the poor grammar and the needless length of the thing, there are a few elements I'd like to unpack here. First: the word discharge. Not a great word. Not a word one needs to see in one's newsfeed first thing in the morning. Particularly not when it refers to the DISCHARGE of a HUMAN BEING from a VAGINA (unwanted images of the John Hurt moment come to mind). Also, you know, there's just a little bit too much information here. Lots of numbers. And I like numbers. But these ones are all a bit unnecessary. There is a more concise way of doing this. You could say, "My baby is growing exponentially! This makes him better than all the other babies out there! Nyah nyah nyah." This, I think, conveys the general crux of what's going on here.

Because really, what is the most offensive thing about this status update? Even worse than the poor grammar, the clinical information usually reserved for private conversations, the implication that Daddy is "big" (more unwanted information to digest with your cereal), is the suggestion that her baby is more advanced than other babies and therefore the BEST. Now obviously every parent thinks their child is more exceptional than others. But Facebook has unfortunately allowed us to share our narcissistic tendencies with the wider populace. Cue six sycophantic comments and 29 "likes".

Let's Dance To Joy Division

Went to the Wombats last night. Wombats must have seemed like a great name for a band "back in Liverpool" but unfortunately in Australia every second thing has a wombat attached to it (children's books, the military, even the Olympics) so here it's lost most of its zing. I am quite a fan of this band - I have both their albums (haha) but their live show was a little lacklustre. Not much in the way of audience interaction and there was an awkward silence between each song as they changed guitars/fluffed their hair/loosened the top button of their uber-skinny jeans to allow their heads to slightly deflate. Also the audience seemed to be entirely composed of twelve-year-olds in various states of vintage dress-ups. The girl behind me had on a psychedelic palzzo-panted jumpsuit which someone should really have talked her out of (what are your friends for??)

Also, some gimp had decided that the best place for a Wombats concert was the Palais, which is a lovely old theatre near the beach, perfect for an evening with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra or a stand-up comedy gig, not so perfect for kids who want to dance. Fire safety regulations ensured there was no dancing in the aisles so everyone was standing in front of their chairs, awkwardly shoulder-to-shoulder, so that the exits were clear (should we need to make a quick escape, Inglourious Basterds-style.) This would be fine if all you wanted to do was bop but in my case I wanted to dance and unfortunately my particular dancing style looks like Iggy Pop and Ian Curtis had a baby. Seat-dancing is not conducive to my personal expression, man. So I ended up doing the pogo rather than risk taking out the eye of the person next to me.

By the way, it's still cold (I realised I ended my last post talking about the weather and this is a bad move, blogging-wise. Is there a good move, blogging-wise? All blogging is essentially self-indulgent so really I suppose you can talk about whatever you want.) I have decided it is probably going to be cold for the foreseeable future. This fills me with dread (hard to believe that technically I'm English, isn't it?) but on the upside, it is an excuse to go shopping...

California Dreaming...

You know how in He Died With A Felafel in His Hand Noah Taylor keeps trying to play California Dreaming on the guitar and keeps getting the chords wrong? I love that movie. I love Noah Taylor. He has a such a sad monkey-sad face.

Well anyway my house is a little bit like that at the moment as Strummer keeps playing the first chords of Ziggy Stardust (the chords he knows) and then trying to play the rest by ear. I could be annoyed but I have decided to be very Zen about it all. Plus so far there aren't any cane toads, moontanners, Nazis, gothic postmodern lesbians or Nick Cave at 3am so really there's nothing to complain about...

Other things that are happening at Kelvin Mansions include: we are getting fruit and vegetable deliveries every Friday from Aussie Farmers Direct. They give you a random box of fresh produce which we are hoping will lead to inspiring ideas from Trixie "self-proclaimed world's best cook although his flatmates rarely see evidence of it" Fraganza. Last week we got Brussels Sprouts which I fried with parmesan and breadcrumbs. Delicious. (Why do Brussels Sprouts have such a bad name when they are really so awesome? Like little tightly-wrapped mini cabbages.) This week we got a pineapple. My good friend and former flatmate Amanda says you should always have a pineapple in your fridge, just in case a vegan drops round.

Amanda likes to be prepared.

So far no vegans have appeared but I am thinking I will eat the pineapple tonight. It will probably be the last chance for tropical fruit as winter is really settling in now. This morning I could see my breath, and I hadn't even left the house yet.

Stolen ... But Pretty Cool

I stole this from someone else, but it's cool ...

Ten Reasons Gay Marriage is Un-American

1. Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

2. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

3. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

4. Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

5. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

6. Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.

7. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

8. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.

9. Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.