Post-Oscar thoughts

I was thinking about The Departed's wins, which lead me to think of Infernal Affairs and the much more understated performances, particularly Tony Leung, which then lead me to the sublime last scene of Days of Being Wild. He doesn't utter a single word but it had me hanging on every tuck, comb, fold and flick.

Some notes about eating in Budapest (try not to get your hopes up)

(+) Ordering delivery from Indigo, one of the better Indian restaurants in Budapest (though I've just now realised the prices have gone up a bit, along with everything else - my gas bill has increased by 30%).

(+) The Budai kremes from Szamos Marcipan. Something about the combination of cream, eggs, vanilla and the crispy pastry... appropriately sinful.

(A compromised -) I wish there were more decent Asian food around besides Momotaro's noodle soups and dumplings.

(Another compromised -) Natur Bake Rolls - when all else fails...


(+ /-) Iguana is somewhat uneven. Some days the food feels like value for money. Others, it feels like they're skimping on the sauce. Though never on the ketchup :)

Helter skelter

Our next gig is tomorrow, and it will be a bit lower key than this, though I will be singing about bears shitting in the woods. Not that that's not low key. Who knows, anyone ever been privy to that sort of thing?

Two latch songs

Christina...petit dej...

Soft core porn star

8:00 till the train arrives

Two guys waiting with hockey sticks sheathed in hockey stick shaped bags.

A couple, tourists, the silver-haired man snapping pics of his wife doing a bit of a pivot.

A very thin, curly-haired preppy boy reading the 4 pages of serious magazine framed on the wall.

Corn rows on a white boy wearing a blue football jersey.

Preppy boy no.2 wrapped in a woolly beige scarf, his blue, white red striped trainers perched one on the side of the other.

Bald-headed guy in black trench coat to my left.

Corn row gets out, unwraps a CD, turns, makes eye contact with me, and starts to turn and lift the CD to press the cover against the window, across from me.

I look down and examine the remainder of sky blue in the fringes of my pashmina, dyed black by the dry cleaners.

Burns and thighs

Two firsts for me this weekend. On Saturday I went to a Burns supper, to commemorate the life and works of Scottish poet Robert Burns. The rituals included the presentation of the haggis, fiddled in, followed by the address to the haggis, a poem written by Burns and rivetingly performed by our host who knived the haggis to smoking effect. I'd never had it before, and found it quite tasty, regardless of the ins and outs of what goes into it. After the meal different people gave speeches, read poetry and sang, and then we had a bit of a dance that involved linking arms and twirling - chaotic fun. Here's the song I sang, which I mucked up a bit, though my hosts graciously insisted I hadn't.

On Sunday, I watched my first rugby game, between France and Ireland. The pub was full of Irish supporters and a small table of French supporters who cheered more quietly. It was a thrilling game to watch, and not just for the thighs and calves on the players who wear shorts that are more like hot pants, but because of the sheer veracity of forward motion, ironically spurred by the ball being thrown backwards.

I hadn't expected the game to be so mesmerising. France took an early lead, and then Ireland started dominating and looked like they would win; especially when the score was 17-13 with a couple of minutes to go. But then France rallied and finished 20-17 with seconds to spare. The French side of the bar roared victoriously then, and though there was disappointment in the bar, there was not even the slightest whiff of discontent. The saying that rugby is a hooligan's sport played by gentlemen and football vice versa, might have some truth to it.

Open, step, close

Pushing the velvet curtains aside, I threw the door open with iPod in one hand and rubbish in the other. Among the various types of packaging in the bag were egg shells, onion skin, and the top clover bit of a tasteless tomato I disposed of last night for my customary omelette. Nothing like eggs with buttered toast and ketchup wolved down while reading a trashy novel.

The air outside was disappointingly uncrisp, overpowered by the heavy scent of the dregs of stale curry on the top, then immediately overpowered by the smell of porkolt being cooked somewhere on the third floor. The flowers in front of the flat opposite me were picture pretty against the white walls, the violet, fuchsia, buttercup yellow petals similar to the ones from my childhood that smelled of cow shit. Inside, the old lady with the toupee who waters them was probably fussing over her overfed grandson who stuffs his mountainbike into the lift while she looks on in concern. This is the same flat from which we are occasionally treated to a monologue of every imaginable combination of swear words, along the lines of you motherfucking cunt bitch - one side of a perpetually angry phone call.

The Big Brother flat downstairs looked empty - no girl with her hair in a towel napping on the sofa, or tall dude in a football jersey fiddling with his gadgets. It's better at night, when there are people at home and the darkness of the courtyard frames their bare windows like a living room and tv. Once, when I was smoking outside, I was watching the dude watching tv, and then he freaked me out by swivelling his chair to face me squarely to watch me leaning against the wall. As when I heard the blue streak screaming from the flat opposite, I quickly extinguished and exited back into my heavily curtained flat.

The curtain followed me out of the flat and lodged itself between the doors, so I had to set the rubbish down to close them properly. Except that I set it at the wrong angle, and lunged forward in scooping motion to prevent the curry from splodging onto the ochre tiles peppered with sand from the upstairs neighbour's potted plants. I succeeded, and smeared my white iPod instead. Sharon Jones saw what had transpired and sang just doing the *syncopated beat* Dap Dip as the song made its horizontol way across the curry screen.

C'etait un rendez-vous

Woke up this morning hungover and turned on MTV for some suitably mind-numbing fare when this video came into view.

I was utterly transfixed, first trying to make out which city it was - it looked like Paris, and I recognised the Louvre and Concorde, but then I couldn't figure out why there were so few people and cars, and where the ubiquitous brightly-lit corner cafés were. And then I realised that there were more of those quirky Citroens and VW Beetles than usual, and that I was watching someone speeding through Paris very early in the morning in the 70s.

Go here for more about the drive and film by Claude Lelouch, here to watch the original complete with a map tracking the route, and here for a smattering of the impassioned debate that seems to surround it.

It's put a shine to my Sunday morning :)