Naked Ironing People

I work in the city, on Level 29 of a high-rise. Most of the time it's fairly easy to forget the view as we remain glued to our computer screens, every so often startled when a window cleaner abseils against the glass. However the city is not only offices, directly opposite the side of the building where my team sits there is a fancy apartment building. These apartments have full wall floor-to-ceiling windows, so the views from the higher floors must be spectacular. Yet the glass is definitely not tinted, and we can see everything. It's kind of like looking at a dolls house, all the different little tables and chairs, and layout of the various rooms.

Enter the Naked Ironing Couple. It doesn't take much for us to see them - in fact, it would be hard not to see them, because they choose to do their morning ironing right up against the window of their apartment, facing outwards. We never see them together, it's always one or the other.

Naked Ironing Lady likes to iron on the floor. She puts the ironing board on the ground with the legs down and kneels down on the floor in front of it. The fascinating aspect is that she'll spend literally 30minutes ironing one item of clothing. She seems very relaxed and peaceful, as if she's performing a beloved morning ritual.

Naked Ironing Man is more of your traditional Aussie male. He irons standing up with the board in upright position, butt naked and using just one hand on the iron. Several of my coworkers have expressed concern re the obvious proximity of man-bits to hot iron. We've considered filing a health & safety notice with their building. Somebody should really do something about that.

The other morning Naked Ironing Lady was at it again. It's worth noting that my company provides all breakfast and lunch food for staff each day, and the area that I work in is near the staff kitchen. I was standing near the window with a coworker because we'd noticed a window cleaner on the wall of the apartment building and were discussing what might happen once they reached Naked Ironing Lady's window. Would they see her? Would she see them? What reactions would there be? As people came through the office from the kitchen they came over and joined in the conversation/observation. So before long we have our Sales Director standing there eating his cornflakes, a couple of guys from the Finance department with their toast, and various other people all in our cubicle staring out the window.

Suddenly I was struck by the absurdity and inappropriateness of what we were doing. Because it's one thing to have them doing it right in front of us and notice, but I can't see them from my own desk, and that's where I should be! So I got back to work, noting that we really were all quite perverted. The crowd dispersed.

The debate rages as to whether Naked Ironing Couple have any idea that we can see them. One of the Executive Assistants insists that they must know, and that it's deliberate voyeurism. But if that were the case I suspect they would glance up from time to time, curious as to whether they'd attracted an audience. They appear absorbed in their ironing, completely unaware of the world around them. I assume that our windows are tinted on the outside, so they can't see us even though we're very close by.

Oh, and FTR, she finished ironing and packed up before the window cleaners reached her level. So I guess we'll never know what might have happened....

There is a really cool view from our main office.

I don't *hate* Tuesdays

I have explained to my coworkers on many occasions that I don't have a problem with Monday. As stressful as it can be to get myself together on Sunday in preparation for the working week, there is an element of excitement in returning after a 2 day break and starting our working life anew. Seeing my coworkers and sharing stories of our weekends. Seeing what interesting new emails and dramas have entered my inbox since Friday*. (*due to my new resolution of never checking work email over the weekend. It makes it a very exciting experience on Monday to turn on my computer and see where the latest drama has arisen). There's things to do, people to talk to, plans to make for the week.

It's Tuesday that it really hits home. The weekend is now but a memory. The week still looms before us. Those plans that I made yesterday must now be actioned, and there's simply not enough time. The emails are starting to pile up, and my boss has just added 10 new items to my To-Do-List.

This, this is the day!!

There's no doubt about it. Tuesday makes every other day of the week look like paradise. Wednesday is at least hump day, there's a light at the end of the tunnel, we feel that we're about to hit a goal of sorts. And then Thursday arrives, with all of it's promise of late night shopping or perhaps a night out. Either way, it leads us to Friday, at which point we may as well be not working, given the fun we have. Yep, comparatively speaking, Tuesday is the devil.

So I googled "I hate Tuesdays" and promptly found numerous blog posts discussing this very point. Now I feel compelled to clarify: I most certainly do NOT hate Tuesdays. To commit to hating 14% of my life seems shortsighted and extremely drastic. I merely put forward that Tuesday is, in fact, the most stressful day of the week. There's a reason why it has long been the day that Shane cooks dinner while I take a nice bubblebath complete with iPod, magazine and glass of wine.

Tuesday is that little thing in life that gives us something to look forward to.... it says "hey, I'm your downer, but remember how good things can get?" ... it's highly necessary. And with that, I rest my case.

Ben Hur - Stadium SPECTACULAR (not)

So last night we took the special train to Olympic Park for the biggest theatrical event ever staged in Australia, the only event that makes the phrase bigger than Ben Hur pointless, Ben Hur. It was a fun night and I'm glad I went. I even managed to write most of the below review during the show without missing a single thing. (You'll see why shortly).

First let me get one thing off my chest: I'm sorry Australia, but "she'll be right mate" just doesn't cut it when you're playing a roman legionary. We expect precision and synchronization. Yes, I get that it's hard in such a large stadium, and often you're running not marching so that you can cover the space quickly enough, but you simply must rehearse it over and over until you get it right. From the stands we can see if you're spaced out at weird intervals and your heads are facing different directions, when you're supposedly in an orderly formation. Not good enough. It's not that hard to get something like that right, it's all about practice and caring about it.

The advantage of being in a stadium rather than a theatre is that it's noisy and fun. So we could freely mock some of the sillier or poorly executed aspects of the performance. Unfortunately a stadium is big. Very big. So there were looooooong waits while they walked out across the stadium and started speaking. The whole production was very disjointed. Russell Crowe would deliver a monotonous introduction to the scene, completely destroying any sense of excitement or anticipation with his toneless presentation. Then we'd wait while the performers made their way out across the stadium while music played. By the time they started to speak we'd have practically forgotten what was happening. Then they'd play a scene, often stopping for more bland narration in the middle, before sllooowwwlllly exiting and then the whole rotation would begin again.

Messala's script apparently had a full-stop after each word, because every line was over-enunciated and came out as a disjointed sentence. If that wasn't amusing enough, he accompanied this dialogue with very over the top hand gestures - I'm sorry, I should say arm gestures - to the point that he appeared to be a comical robot. I'm fairly certain the show is pre-recorded and lip synched, although Shane thought it wasn't and was just a delay. But that would explain to me how they got so carried away with over acting along to the soundtrack. Nobody else stood out particularly as being any good. They just weren't as obviously bad.

The chariot race was clearly the highlight. Each chariot was driven by four horses, and they looked spectacular. Shane pointed out the blocks on Ben Hur's chariot, and explained that these would drop to make the chariot jump - a key scene in the movie, and one we'd seen previewed in the "making of". Sadly, when the blocks came out it didn't work and there wasn't even a lame bunny hop. That was a major disappointment. One thing they did get very right was the bad guy's chariot falling apart. Messala was dragged around the stadium behind his horses so effectively that many of us did start to wonder if it was a genuine accident, not a carefully performed stunt. It looked painful!

We took off at the end as they processed out for the cast presentation and legged it to the station. It just wasn't good enough that we were willing to wait behind 10,000 people to catch a train. I'm very comfortable with that decision, as we caught a train quickly and were home within the hour.



Highlights:
The horses did a splendid job.
The atmosphere! The crowd was great fun and I chatted to a lot of people before the show.
The fighting was fun. The different sides of the stadium had been given different coloured scarfs to wave - red or yellow - which matched the tunics worn by the gladiators. We had to cheer for our colours and wave them on. It was quite spectacular seeing a massive wall of colour cheering and screaming. Like a rugby game basically! And the gladiators would rip each other's tunics off - some of them had nice abs, yay! But yeah, not exactly high class theatre.

Lowlights:
The long, boring periods of nothing during which we forgot what was happening.
Russell Crowe.



What: Ben Hur
Where: ANZ Stadium, Sydney Olympic Park

Film: Made in Dagenham

The very fabulous Amanda emailed me about another SeeFilmFirst release, but unfortunately I couldn't re-use her activation code. So imagine my surprise earlier this week to suddenly receive an email from them with an invitation. Yay!

DH wanted to know what the film was before he committed to attending, but as per my usual policy I preferred to know as little as possible before seeing it. Nothing ruins the viewing of a film more than preconceptions of what it's about, or expecting something particular to happen.

So I didn't know that this was a British film, that it was about women's rights, and that it was going to be a light yet serious feel-good movie. I was excited to see Rosamund Pike's name in the opening credits. She is simply fabulous in every way, so would liven up even the dullest film. Fortunately that wasn't necessary, as this film can stand on it's own two feet.

The film was a little slow in places, but had enough entertaining moments to keep us interesting. And overall, it's hard not to feel the tug at your heartstrings at how marginalised these women were, in our very recent history. There's suddenly the sense that we've come a very, very long way in a very short period of time.

The theatre was only 80% full or so. But boy were they passionate! There were a number of women in the 40-60 age bracket who could not contain their excitement, breaking into spontaneous applause and cheers at various intervals. I guess they know what it's like to have a husband who expects the wife to work outside the home but still do all the cooking and cleaning...!

I found myself angry at the unions. Shouldn't they be about grass-roots passion, run by the workers for the workers? Too frequently they have their own agenda, with union officials having a conflict of interest. After all, if they were good at their job they'd be out of a job. You'll see what I mean when you see the film. A union should be a for a specific purpose or goal, not just generally to impede the employment process.

Verdict: See this film. It's important not to forget about things like this, and the film itself is entertaining enough that you won't be frustrated. It's not a preachy history lesson, more of a funny British flick.

7/10.

Village People!

Ever since I was a little girl, I've loved the Village People. Let's face it, they really should be a children's show - the costumes, the fun yet simple dance moves, the catchy jingles.

So I was thrilled to attend their performance at the Enmore Theatre on 16th October. There are 3 original members in the group, so it's still an authentic VP experience despite the decades that have passed since YMCA first hit our playlists.

The vibe was fantastic - very relaxed, and quite a few audience members in costume. We went with disco hats and funky sunglasses to get our groove on, and there were several cowboys and police officers making an appearance. Although you can get good seats at the Enmore, we went with standing tickets, which are located behind the seating right at the back of the theatre. However, as the Enmore is a really small venue you still get a great view. The area is also elevated slightly, so even when the seated audience got into the groove and started dancing we could still see over their heads without any difficulty. Also, the area is conveniently located right near the bar, from where you could also see the stage. So getting drinks was quick, easy and not disruptive to the experience - BONUS!

The show was great fun, they clearly love what they're doing. The guys have great vocals, and still pull off the dance moves with flair. A good balance was strike between the big hits and the lesser known songs, and they gave us a YMCA dance tutorial before performing it as the finale. This meant the entire audience knew the moves correctly and performed in synch, which was an awesome experience.

Great night out, and I wouldn't hesitate to go again next time they head over this way!


What: The Village People concert
Where: Enmore Theatre
When: 16th October, 2010

http://www.officialvillagepeople.com