Aircraft Safety 101

17.1.09

by SHELL SHERREE

Johnny Knoxville, star of 'Jackass', was detained last Thursday morning at LA International Airport for allegedly having a grenade in his luggage. Oops. There was no real threat, though, aside from the fellow passengers on his Miami flight succumbing to salted-peanut-induced sodium overload while waiting. During this delay, authorities ascertained that it was not a working grenade at all. No firing pin. No explosives.

If you are as concerned as I was that Quality Assurance is a thing of the past, don't worry. It was never intended to be a real live serious blow-your-Jackass off grenade! It was just a prop, which Johnny alleged was put there by a wardrobe girl after a shoot. (A turkey shoot?) He graciously apologised for the ruckAss and said he should have checked his bag himself, thereby deftly planting the blame in the wardrobe girl's carry-on luggage.

It led me to thinking, though: (Credit where it's due, I'd never have thought Johnny Knoxville would be brain food.)

Which souvenir movie props would be best left at home when travelling?

Here's my list so far.

  1. Gwyneth Paltrow's prosthetic head in a box ('Se7en') Kiss your connecting flight goodbye;
  2. Humphrey Bogart's bottle of gin ('Casablanca') Far exceeds the 100mL carry-on fluids limit;
  3. Michael J Fox's DeLorean DMC12 car ('Back to the Future') Tough on excess baggage, not to mention the 1.21 gigawatt Flux Capacitor playing havoc with the navigational instruments;
  4. The birds (Alfred Hitchcock's 'The Birds') Though one could argue they'd be less hazardous inside the plane than out in front of the engines;
  5. Carmen Miranda's fruit salad headdress ('The Gang's All Here') Head straight to Quarantine, do not pass Go.
Of course, there are many movie props that would be invaluable to have on the plane with you, like Audrey Hepburn's iconic black sunnies from 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' when you've mistakenly tried to hydrate yourself for the last three hours with white wine instead of water.

Make the most of that loophole, though. It's only a matter of time before they ban sunglasses in the aircraft cabin lest you snap off their arms and desperately try to cut your sweet and sour aircraft dinner chicken with them instead of the airline-supplied spork. Can't have that, can we.
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Misplaced: One Golden Globes Ceremony

13.1.09

by SHELL SHERREE

Does anyone know someone who knows someone whose hairdresser's uncle's accountant might know someone who works at the commercial TV stations and can come up with a logical reason why none of them showed this year's Golden Globes ceremony? I thought not.

Thank Heavens for pay TV.

Our special Economy Footy package usually only gives us permission to watch sports channels, black and white movies from the pre-Talkies era and lifestyle programmes that show you how to make a guest house from five years' worth of Paddle Pop sticks, twenty-one pairs of old pantyhouse and a hot glue stick.

This time, however, it came through for us. After cable surfing for long enough to see a frantically silent heroine rescued from the train tracks and a handbag fashioned from recycled fruit juice tetra packs, I located the elusive Golden Globes broadcast.

Imagine my chagrin to find that I'd already missed the first hour. Simon Baker presented an award in the first hour. I'm not sure which award he announced but it could have been Best Sandwiches by a Catering Van and he would have my undivided attention.

My hubby was grateful we didn't miss one of his personal favourites: Renée Zellweger. He said how lovely her gown was. (I said she could spend a bit more time eating the Best Sandwiches by a Catering Van.) He thought all his Christmases had come at once. (I thought her stylist was one branch short of a Christmas tree.) Then he put on his glasses and realised she was not naked under her diaphanous black gown but was wearing a flesh-toned corset. I rested my case. He decided life was better without glasses.

Lack of correct underwear aside, Globes for movie categories dominated proceedings. This was probably for the best, as the winning TV shows seem annoyingly absent from our commercial channels, thus rubbing our noses in what we are missing out on. Maybe the Mad Men at the TV stations hid them under the same 30 Rock that they used to hide one Golden Globes ceremony and a fetching black corset. I (and my hubby) live in hope.
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Warm and Fuzzy Tea Cosies

This possibly is better reserved for an autumnal post but comes under the heading of "Why didn't I do it when I first thought of it," so I'm not delaying any further!

If you have visited any fine bookstore in Australia and not seen Loani Prior's 'Wild Tea Cosies' book there, be surprised then ask them to stock it. I can only knit very basically (and sporadically) but it makes me wish for more. Even if you don't knit, you'll love poring through it if you have an eye for beauty and creativity.

Here's where I clarify my aforementioned procrastination. Some time after I saw Loani's book and blog, I thought, "Hmm, I'd love to draw some of her tea cosies." And didn't. Then lo and behold, as seems to happen when we put a thought out into the universe and drag our heels, talented Liz at The Adventures of Borromini went and did it first (and very beautifully, too - or perhaps Borromini gets the credit?). Better late than never, though. Here are a couple of my own humble 2D representations of Loani's masterpieces.






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Rearranging the Blog Furniture

12.1.09

As means of explanation for what appears to be a shocking gap in posts, here goes.

I've been rearranging my blog furniture during the holidays. Though I started this blog with all good intentions, like so many things started that way, it went off the rails. Posts with some relationship to things gorgeous and things for the home gradually morphed into places that were sometimes pedestrian and nowhere near home. So I've started a new blog to go where the winds of my brain take me and hereby frivolously declare that I'll do my best to stay closer to gorgeous and home from here on in.

I haven't carted those off-topic posts to the local RSPCA Thrift Shop but have relocated them to a lovely new home where they'll be very happy.
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When Hubby's Best Mate Has to Go

11.1.09

by SHELL SHERREE

My hubby has finally had a parting of the ways with his best mate. They'd been together for thirty years. And they were a tad too close for my comfort. After all, I've only known my hubby for twelve years. Even a rug rat (ok, a large one) could do the maths and figure it out; his best mate has been part of his life more than twice as long as I have.

Before the psychoanalysts amongst you tut-tut off emails of concern that I'm way too clingy and perhaps a touch paranoid, allow me to elaborate. If they'd just knocked around together in a typical semi-detached bloke way for a thirdish of a lifetime, I'd be cool about it. Peachy keen. Happy for my hubby to have someone with whom to share the highly overdeveloped sports stats sector of his brain (which has been the subject of much debate in government secret agencies because it shows up like Christmas tree lights on satellite pics of our region).

But no, it doesn't stop there.

His best mate has clung to him like doggie doo to a shoe. (And think of a Great Dane named Dumpster, not a Chihuahua named Princess.) His best mate has been there for all of my hubby's youthful Aussie Rules footy club post-match celebrations. These were back in the days when they bore a startling resemblance to 'The Club' plonked into the middle of 'Don's Party' - or so I hear. Fortunately, I wasn't there. Unfortunately, my hubby's best mate was, and serves as a constant reminder of my hubby's former beer capacity at the height of its glory. His best mate is also a walking Wikipedia on my hubby's previous girlfriends and has them and their bra sizes filed away in his memory banks to be drawn on at the most inappropriate times.

Of course, his best mate was at our wedding. But he didn't stay at the reception after we left. Oh, no, no, no. I concede that he refrained from shave-creaming our car with graffiti and raiding the loos to weave clumsy toilet paper macrame decorations, but it was probably just to save himself the embarrassment of motoring up the coast in a cream bun on wheels. That's right - his best mate came along on our honeymoon with us.

In spite of all this discomfort, I had learned to accept his best mate and it wasn't through any urging on my part that my hubby made his decision to cut the ties. After all, they'd been through a lot together and his best mate was unreserved in his affection towards me. No, my hubby had been tossing it around for some time. He thought he may have outgrown his best mate. He felt like a new lease on life. He figured if he really couldn't cope without him after a brief adjustment period, he could get him back.

His best mate has been witness to three decades of my hubby's life. And even though I was happy to have a fresh start, too, I could totally understand how bereft my hubby felt when he shaved off his moustache and washed his thirty year old best mate down the bathroom sink. At first, he felt like he'd rinsed away more than just whiskers. But as the days wear on, he's starting to realise those memories are still with him. They're dancing with his sports stats under the disco-ball in his brain.
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Up the Cotton Pickings

6.1.09

by SHELL SHERREE

Sorry for my absence during the festive season. I wish I could say I've been hunkered down in a garret in Paris, writing a smokey novel by day and pickling myself with some French pear cider by night. But there's a difference between poetic license and poetic larceny. The closest I came to that experience was writing inadequate grocery lists on the back of gravy-stained envelopes (don't ask) and sipping a shot glass of Mountain Maid Apple Cider Vinegar as part of my New Year's resolution to restore my digestive system back to its former cast-iron glory.

Before my days descended into a slothful blur of grazing on rumballs and watching test cricket (I blame the latter on my sports nut hubby who has stealthily indoctrinated me over the last ten summers), I undertook my annual pilgrimage with my mum and sister to the Boxing Day sales.

Contrary to the urban myth, Boxing Day is not an homage to Mike Tyson. The fact that it comes just one day after the most verbose family members take up opposing corners of the lounge room and chew each others' ears off is merely a coincidence. As is the occasional display of fisty-cuffs over the last size eight leopard print stiletto.

Actually, Boxing Day traditionally was the day that gifts were boxed up and presented to service people as a sign of gratitude for twelve months of hard work and care. Sadly, if you turned up nowadays at the post office with a large carton and presented it with a smile, wink and, "Here's a little something for you,", you'd probably be tackled to the ground and sat on while sniffer dogs and bomb disposal officers were called in. Ah, good times, good times.

We now have our Boxing Day sale routine down pat, securing early smug car parks and tuning our shopping spark plugs with caffeine before heading into the fray.

Following our Arabica-heightened female intuition, we happened upon a tray of half price cotton knickers.

If you live in the tropics or subtropics and haven't embraced cotton undies, you're on the fast track to embarrassing itches in the Brazilian rainforests. However, it's a challenge finding cotton undies that don't look like something displayed in men's prisons to circumvent the need for cold showers or a hose-down in the yard. There is a mass assumption amongst knicker manufacturers that only chaste girls with no sense of style and no hopes of romance bother wearing cotton. And they design these undergarments accordingly, therefore causing the 'lackanooky-belief' to become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Not in this case, though. Here in the midst of a major department store were piles of adorable little breathable treats decorated with all sorts of frills and frippery. I was in comfortably woven Nirvana! So was my sister!

Our mother sighed at how pretty they were and said loudly, "Sometimes I wish I wore underwear."

Lo and behold, this sent the other cotton pickers scattering, proving there is far more than just a quarter metre of fabric's difference between adding a few ruffles and subtracting the undies altogether. We found ourselves alone with the entire tray to browse at leisure. Is there no end to a mother's wisdom ...
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