I am so in love with Ellen Page right now. Juno is about a 16 year old, Juno, who gets pregnant and has to deal with it in a way that only a sixteen year old could - professional detachment from the whole icky business. This movie is perfect. The humour is light-hearted and on target. The drama is poignant without dragging the whole thing down. The pace is incredible, keeping the action moving when it needs to and slowing when you need to absorb the moment. Clocking in just over an hour and a half, there’s barely enough time to get to know the whole cast, but the main players come across so well that it feels longer, but in a good way. The actors do so well - at first, I thought Jennifer Garner was a little over the top, but she comes around by the end, really stepping into her role. Jason Bateman and Michael Cera still remind me a bit too much of Arrested Development, but none-the-less play excellent support roles. ...

You notice more when you just shut up. The line of the eyebrows, carefully maintained, just under the line of the fringe. The waves in her dark hair, untied now. On the left, tucked behind ears too ordinary, stereotypical even, as one might find on a mannequin. Fingers playing with a loose lock, nails with a clear varnish. A small half-smile arrows into her cheek, eyes distant in thought. A foot kicking air absently, setting the skirt’s pleated hemline swaying. Careful black heels, enough to be fashionable, but not over the top, inoffensive for work. ...

Random idea: Inner-city multi-level caravan “park” Implementation: Build a big “car park” for caravans in the city, letting people stay in the city with their caravans, keeping it cheap but convenient. Astroturf it even. Up and down ramps will need to be wider than normal, and height of levels will also need to be more than normal, possibly. Width of parking slots would be wider too. Why it won’t work: I hate caravans. ...

Of Truth and Shame: Time (in 1947) on Mahatma Gandhi’s death: I was taking a look through the Time magazine archive, and wanted to see what some events were like being report just as they happened. Gandhi’s assassination is the one that struck me as particularly poignant.

A friend asked me the other day to name one thing in London that was better than it was here in Sydney. At first, I thought I could pull out a long list, having stayed there long enough to learn the city fairly well. But only one thing really stood out: the tube. The tube is a foregone conclusion, once you’ve used it for more than novelty value. Having now been to Tokyo, New York, London and Hong Kong, the transport systems of Sydney and Melbourne are quite obviously woefully inadequate. ...