We had a great weekend in Sydney over the weekend just passed. We hadn’t been up since Christmas, so it was good to catch up with the family and hang out together. We also managed to get into the city to catch up with old friends (well, old friends of Tim’s – new friends for Tegan) and to do some shopping, where Tim got to order a new Apple 15″ Powerbook, which, due to a special promotion Apple have on at the moment, meant that we got a new 20gb iPod as well for only $99 – bargain! So now, we’ve got one each, which is good for going to the gym, or when we’re travelling separately (like on Tegan’s upcoming trip to Hong Kong).

Mum and Dad also took us to the “Twilight at Taronga” concert at Taronga Park Zoo, which we immensely enjoyed.

This was a fantastic little outdoor concert, kind of like last night of the proms, but overlooking Sydney harbour and with a picnic. Basically, we took our own antipasto-style food, some wine, picnic rug and low chairs, sat in the open air and listened to some relaly good music from the Sydney chapter of the Australian Army Band with a couple of decent vocalists to boot (the soprano, Margaret Orr, was particularly good). And like the last night of the proms, the audience sang along with the prom-style classics, like ‘Land of Hope and Glory’, ‘Jerusalem’, and ‘Rule Brittania’. As you coul expect, Tegan carried the singing for our section of the audience, which didn’t go unnoticed or unappreciated by the people around us.

Unfortunately, back to reality and back to work today. But only a week and a half until we’re back in Sydney, ready for Tegan to fly to Hong Kong!

Last year I wrote a Heckler article for the SMH about how Andrew Denton should replace Simon Crean as leader of the ALP (this was before Mark Latham got the job, obviating the need for Denton to step into that role).

Just before Christmas Denton did a book signing in the Canberra Centre, promoting his “Enough Rope” book, which is basically transcripts from the TV series. Naturally, being a Denton fan from way back, I went to the signing, got a book, and while I was there asked him to sign my copy of the article. He said that he’d read it, but of course I was very wrong and he’d never want to go into politics, but he appreciated the vote of confidence. He signed it “Sorry, but you’re wrong”

The other funny thing was that because I was having two copies of the book signed he gave me his extra sincere signature, writing in my copy – “this is an extra sincere signature” – quite ironic.

In other interesting signature stuff, Tegan procured for me a signed photo of Gough Whitlam. She wrote to him and asked for a signed photo and to set up a meeting. Unfortunately the meeting fell through, but at last we know that it’s possible and we could arrange it in the future. How cool!