Woo Australia Day! Barbeques, sunshine and whatnot. Now that I’ve experienced sunburn for the first time in my life (stupidity in leaving out key areas when applying sunscreen yesterday at the beach) and decided it’s not a pleasant experience (no, really, I mean, I understood that before, it’s just more personal now - the idea that your skin has had a slow-cooking process in the sunshine was never attractive, but to keep feeling it for literally hours after you’ve left the sun? Not fun.), I feel all that much more Australian. Barring the bit where I’m not cheering for Australia at the cricket (not until they’re the underdog, and I reckon (hah) that there’s nothing more Australian than that), there’s something unmistakable about the fact that we take the piss out of our national day by honouring such time-worn cranks as Sam Kekovitch and his message to go forth and slaughter the lambs. Other nations have parades, military and non, on their national days; we view it as a well deserved break shortly into the New Year, a chance to further soak up the summer, usually just before we bed down in earnest for work, what with the kids returning to school this week too. ...

In Bruges: Dark-as-pitch comedy about a couple of hitmen (Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson) who are banished to Bruges, an historic town in Belgium, by their boss (Ralph Finnes) to lay low after a botched hit. A few good laughs and a great performance from Farrell, but there’s little enough redemption for any of the characters. This movie is definitely not one for the queasy. ★★★★

High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby, an extract: I see a woman on her own, Saturday -night-smart, off to meet somebody somewhere, friends, or a lover. And when I was living with [the ex] Laura, I missed… what? Maybe I missed somebody travelling on a bus or tube or cab, going out of their way, to meet me, maybe dressed up a little, maybe wearing more make-up than usual, maybe even slightly nervous; when I was younger, the knowledge that I was responsible for any of this, even the bus ride, made me feel pathetically grateful. ...

Ah, Telstra. (via Kelson)

Not for the Australian cricket team, not yet. The incident: A. B. de Villiers, third ball of the second over, Australia v South Africa, 20-20 match, gets a Tait special in his gut, edging off his bat. In pain, he keels over and inadvertantly hits the stumps, out hit-wicket. The man is doubled over in pain on the grass, and the Australian team? Celebrating away, meters from the man. This is an image that will linger in my mind for a while yet - that the disgusting sporting behaviour continues, that not a man on the Australian team took a second to ask that de Villiers was ok. ...