UPDATE – All of the Daily Show stuff (and Colbert Report) seems to have been removed from YouTube, so these links no longer work. The Guns in Schools report can now be found on the Comedy Central Website here.
Upcoming Adelaide Events I: WOMADelaide
Around Jan-March is usually a busy and interesting time in Adelaide with things like the Adelaide Festival (not this year though), the Fringe Festival, the Tour Down Under, Melvofest, The Adelaide International Film Festival, WOMADelaide, Big Day Out, state elections (yes, I find elections interesting, but we already had that last year so not until 2010 for the next one) …. so I intend to blog about a few of this which are happening this year. As you can see I’ve already started on theTDU, I won’t bother with the BDO since I find the lineup to be quite lacklustre (a shame, I was looking forward to it after last year’s was so good), don’t know much about the Fringe yet – which has just changed to every year instead of every two years.
So I’ll start with WOMAD. I’ve only been to that once because it is pretty pricey – but that isn’t to say it’s a rip-off. The one time I did go was very enjoyable. This year I definitely plan to go , quite possibly for all three days. The lineup is here.
A few highlights for me:
– I’d love to see the Kronos Quartet, they are playing with Bollywood star Asha Bhosle and Wu Man (jeez, it’s a shame Brett Lee will be in the West Indies for the World Cup or he could have joined in)
– I’ve heard lots of good things about Gotan Project
– Femi Kuti, son of Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti.
– Sambasunda: an Indonesian gamelan orchestra, that is something I have to see
– Shivkumar and Rahul Sharma in a father and son santoor showdown, the santoor being a 100 string instrument apparently.
There are more announcements to come (some reggae would be good!).
Tour Down Under – Stage 2
Today they’re riding from Mannum to Hahndorf, the early part is along the plains so not too much action, but as they are getting towards the hills the attacks have started. Stuart O’Grady instigated one that ended up with a group of 20 riders, but the UniSA team chased them down just before the first sprint at Tungkillo.
First through at the sprint was Laurent Brochard (Bouyges Telecom). No points for the two leaders from yesterday. There will be another sprint at Mt Torrens.
One thing about the website commentary – as they left Mannum it referred to them riding alongside a pipe that takes water from “a nearby river” to Adelaide – the Murray is referred to as “a nearby river”!
UPDATE at 13:19 CST – Brochard went for more points at Mt Torrens but was beaten by Wesley Sulzberger of SouthAustralia.com. Looks like Gene Bates will keep the green.
Around Lobethal it started raining. Shortly afterwards Samuel Dumoulin of AG2R-Prevoyance picked up the KOM points at Fox Hill creek.
remember live updates are available here
UPDATE II at 15:15 CST: The Stage is over with Steven Caethoven (Chocolade Jacques) taking the honours. Second is his team mate Pieter Ghyllebert, with Stuart O’Grady third. Apparently it was looking like just a sprint between O’Grady and Hilton Clark (Navigators), but the Chocolade Jacques team made a last minute attack. Sounds like an exciting finish, I’ll have to check out the highlights tonight. The peloton was well behind the leaders again so there’s probably only a fairly limited number of riders with a shot at the overall win already.
Tomorrow they head down to Victor Harbor from a start in Stirling, which means it’s largely downhill, though there is a pretty steep KOM climb when they take a detour between Middleton and Victor to Kerby Hill.
Tour Down Under – Down Under Classic & Stage 1
Today was the first stage of the Tour Down Under, which takes place in Adelaide & surrounds. Before the race proper, there was the Down Under Classic, a 50 km race which takes place right in the city, with 25 laps of a 2km course around Rymill Park. It was a hot night, about 32 degrees celcius at the start of the race. Plenty of people came down to see it, great to see lots of people getting excited about bikes. The winner was Mark Renshaw of Credit Agicole.
Today they got into the serious stuff, fortunately it’s not over 40 like yesterday, but it is still over 30 in Adelaide, and probably hotter up in the Barossa where they finished (the stage goes from Mawson Lakes to Tanunda). I’ve been following the live (text) coverage on the tour website. There was a major breakaway of 18 riders who ended up about 10 minutes ahead of the pelloton. From that group, 5 got away in Tanunda, with Karl Menzies of the UniSA team the winner.
Haven’t got the full results yet, but it seems that 19 year old Kiwi Clinton Avery made a solo attempt to chase down the lead group, for quite a while he was about half way between the lead group and the peloton, not sure where he finished though. He’ll be beaten for the white jersey by 23 year old Australian Simon Clarke who was the only young rider in the breakaway.
There were two sprints, Luke Roberts of CSC crossed first at One Tree Hill and 2nd at Williamstown, while Gene Bates from SouthAustralia.com took the top points at Williamstown after being 2nd at OTH. (do they both get a Green Jersey?)[edit: actually it’s obvious – the one who finishes first gets it, that was Bates ]
There was one King of the Mountain climb, Humbug Scrub (great name!) with Serge Pauwels (Chocolade Jacques – Topsport Vlaanderen) taking the points.
I was hoping for nightly highlights on TV, but that’s only for people with Foxtel. Channel 10 should have some coverage in Sports Tonight.
Tomorrow they’ll be starting out on the Murray at Mannum and heading through the hills to Hahndorf. I’ll have to follow the next couple of stages online, but I’m hoping to get out to see the final two stages (in Willunga and North Adelaide respectively)
Mask Blogging
This may look like I’m desperate for content but I know for a fact that certain readers will find this amusing. Certainly the first picture will bring back fond memories for some. I’m experimenting with the use of masks to keep birds away from stealing all the grapes off our grape vine …..
… it’s a bit early to tell whether it’s working.
UPDATE: It does seem to be working, the grapes are very close to being ready to eat and they’re mostly still there. Not much sign of bird activity (though the regular visits by the infamous cat that wears a bib may be a factor in that as well.)
Subscribe to my RSS Feed
A few people have been concerned at no longer getting regular gig updates now that I’ve moved from email to blog. Well, it turns out there is a way you can keep track of updates – the RSS Feed. Now, I wasn’t born yesterday, but I did only start using RSS yesterday, so I may well know less about this topic than anyone who ever reads this (hardly a groundbreaking moment in the history of blogging though). About the only advice I can offer is that I’ve started playing around with Sage and it seems alright. Other than that you’re on your own, but at least I’ve pointed you in the right direction if you’re after regular updates.
If any of the more experienced RSS users want to make recommendations on the best way to read & manage feeds then your contribution in comments would be most welcome.
Heaven’s Gate on TV tonight
I possibly should have called this “the short notice blog”, but anyway, I just noticed that Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate is on free to air TV tonight (in Adelaide at least). Since it goes from 12:10 to 4:30 it’s looking like the proper version too. It has the reputation of being a major disaster (and I believe that financially it was), but the panning from the critics was mostly directed at a shorter version which apparently made very little sense.
I was fortunate enought to see the full length version at the Adelaide Film Festival a couple of years ago, and it really was rather good. I’m not sure that it really does need to be quite so long, but on the other hand I never really felt that it dragged. It’s an epic anti-western starring Kris Kristofferson, Isabelle Huppert, John Hurt and Christopher Walken. Hardly the first movie to put the old west in a different light (Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs Miller comes to mind), but overall a fine film and not deserving of it’s poor reputation. So if you weren’t planning on sleeping tonight, check it out. Can’t help but wonder if these means that they’ve run out of infomercials though.
Whilst on the topic of TV I’d like to put in a favourable mention for the Shakespeare Retold series currently showing on the ABC on Monday nights. I really enjoyed last week’s retelling of Macbeth, with an excellent performance from James McAvoy (who is also appearing in the repeats of the superb “State of Play”, but not the new series of “Shameless”), and word has it that this week’s “Much Ado About Nothing” is even better. Being an uncouth cretin I’m not actually familiar with that particular play, I think I’ll go into it without looking up the plot to see what I make of it, which will make a change from last week when I was constantly wondering how they would interpret various aspects of Macbeth (incidently I thought the “pigs will fly” was a bit of a weak point)
Autistic Daughters tomorrow night
I’ve had a copy of dB lying around but hadn’t had a chance to read it because I was busy marking algebra assignments – so this gig is a bit short notice (and really should have been in the final gig guide email).
Autistic Daughters play at the FAD Cafe tomorrow night (Sat 13th) with support from Hit the Jackpot and Interzone Express. Autistic Daughters are the trio of Dean Roberts, Werner Dafeldecker and Martin Brandlmayr. I’ve seen the first two play an improv show before, and would be interested in seeing more.
Also, Roberts plays at the Exeter tonight with support from Kynan Lawlor.
In other gig news, Camera Obscura will play at Rocket Bar on the 28th of Feb. I don’t know them too well, but I have heard a track on Rough Trade’s Indiepop compilation and it’s not bad – sounds like they won’t be a million miles from the sound of their compatriots Belle & Sebastian, so I may well be keen.
Welcome, gig guide readers
The only traffic at the moment should be those following the link from my final gig guide email, so welcome gig guide readers! I’m afraid there’s not much here, but I’ll be working on it. Pretty soon there should be lots more links (if any of you have a blog let me know and I’ll link to it). Actually, I note that the passing of the gig guide has already been observed on the blogosphere (not sure how to link to post, so scroll down to Dec 15).
Still working on the overall appearance … design is not my strong point. Neither are stylesheets.
Why a blog? Well apart from trying to help out with the desperate worldwide shortage of blogs, I’ve been reading blogs more & more and have been feeling left out, so time to get involved – enough with the lurking. Also, I want to write about more than just music and the gig guide was not really the forum for that.
So, I encourage you to bookmark and keep checking back because you can still find out about all the best Adelaide gigs here, but maybe some other stuff of interest as well.
Of course I should throw in a thanks to Mr Frogworth for hosting, and for providing assistance in getting this thing set up. Also for lots of great music advice.