Week beginning 8 June 2022

Carlene Bauer Girls They Write Songs About Farrer, Strauss and Giroux 2022.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with this uncorrected proof in exchange for an honest review.

Carlene Bauer’s novel is a modern approach to women’s friendship. However, where I think of women’s friendship novels as underpinned by a notion of sisterhood that includes warmth and supportiveness, this friendship seems to be spiky, sharp elbowed and verging on envy that I found difficult to appreciate.  I read 25% of the work, dipped into a section on the way in which the marriage and motherhood of one woman impacted on her and the friendship, and read the end. The feature that I did find completely charming is the role of literature (Archie comics and Anne of Green Gables amongst the large range) feminist ideology (Betty Friedan and Shulamith Firestone feature, as well as ‘second wave’) and song, with Anne Frank as an imaginary advisor in the developing relationship. All of these impacted on the women’s conversations and understanding of events. See Books: Reviews .

After Covid in Canberra: Cindy Lou at Perth restaurants; art school in Perth; Brilliant and Bold; Tom Watson, Lose Weight 4 Life and congratulations and memory – PM Anthony Albanese; Gay Huzzar with Zoe Fairbairns.

Covid in Canberra

June 2: New cases reported, 874; hospitalised, 82; in ICU, 4.

June 3: New cases reported, 729; hospitalised, 81; in ICU, 1.

No records for this weekend, and Monday 6th June with apologies from ACT Health citing an IT issue. Free flu vaccinations are available for concession card holders. Pharmacies are continuing to provide Covid vaccinations, as well as flu vaccinations.

New Covid cases reported on 7 June – 722, with 92 people in hospital suffering from Covid. Vaccination rates continue to increase, with 97.3% of people over five having had two doses, and 76.8% of people aged 16+ having had three doses.

June 8: new cases reported – 821; there are 89 people in hospital.

One life was lost this week.

Cindy Lou visits Perth restaurants

Mr Walker, South Perth

It is easy to alight from the ferry from the city and walk straight to the restaurant. The staff are friendly and the food delicious.

On the last occasion I was at Mr Walkers we had a delicious and disgusting dessert – quite a major event on the plate. However, this time we enjoyed the prawns, cauliflower, lamb dish and courgette flowers. The dishes make delightful sharing meal, and it is lovely to have companions so as to be able to partake of a variety of options on offer. One problem is that everything is so delicious it is difficult to forgo favourites for something new.

Balti Restaurant, Perth

Balti is a fantastic Indian restaurant in St Georges Terrace. It is a particularly inviting restaurant , and a pleasant for groups as couples. The atmosphere is friendly, mild curries are served with as much panache as the hotter ones, the serves are very generous indeed. I was carried away with the choice of entrees so ordered one too many. This meant no dessert, and unfinished meals. However, the flavours were worth it – and if I had not been staying at a hotel I would have been able to accept the offer of a doggy bag.

Arbi’s Riverside Café and Bar, Swan River

Morning coffee at Arbi’s Riverside Café and Bar is always a pleasant experience. The black swans on the Swan River are beautiful to pass on the way to the café. The river venue itself provides indoor and outdoor seating which allows for really taking in the atmosphere of dining by the Swan River. The service here is very efficient, and although I have had only my morning coffee, the menu offers a good choice of meals.

Covid measures were in place when I visited, but were hardly onerous!

San Churros, Midland

I was fortunate to be part of a large family gathering in a shopping centre in Midland where there is a variety of food outlets. They are family oriented but warm and friendly rather than noisy. We began at Dome, where the menu seems to go on forever, but does not impact negatively on the food. My Asian squid salad was delicious. After Dome we walked the short distance to San Churros, where the children had churros with chocolate sauce (some added sprinkles) while the adults had excellent coffee.

A wonderful memory of art school days in Perth

Most enjoyable was outdoor sketching in the gardens in St Georges Terrace. Sadly, the huge Morton Bay Fig is no longer there, and the gardens are rather pristine instead of being the mysterious haunts of my childhood, or even those of rushing from James Street to the gardens to sketch. I still have my drawing board, full of drawing pin holes for attaching sketching paper!

BRILLIANT & BOLD – BOLD & BRILLIANT CONVERSATIONS WITH ‘ORDINARY’ & ‘EXTRAORDINARY’ WOMEN

Sunday 12 June 11.00 am UK time

Brilliant & Bold! with Brilliant & Bold! women speaking on ‘Come the
Revolution – What Next for Women!’ … and please note, this is not a ?
but a ! … Women are real, not a figment of anyone’s imagination, and our
exploits, our efforts, our vigour in claiming our rights in the struggle
for the rights of all women are real!

Come for words of wisdom from –

Ahlem Akram of Basira – outspoken and speaking up for women’s rights
against the impositions of culture and religion …

Jennifer Bradley – staunch unionist and fighter for women’s industrial
rights, long experienced in government and union office and activism

– and more to come!

Jocelynne Scutt’s zoom meeting will be live on Facebook.

Lose Weight 4 Life Tom Watson

Tom Watson was a Labor Member of Parliament and Deputy Leader of the Party from 2015 – 2019. (As a member of the British Labour Party, I had the pleasure of voting for him!) He retired from Parliament, and the following is one of the activities that is filling his time.

Chapter Two of my Sunday Times best-selling book, Downsizing.

Tom Watson May 25

Living with a morbidly obese junk-food addict can’t have been easy. A couple of years before my diabetes diagnosis, I’d struck up a relationship with Steph – she worked for a trade union – and we’d moved into a terraced house in the West Midlands town of Cradley Heath.

I would catch the train up from Westminster most Thursday evenings (I often had constituency duties the following day) and, more often than not, Steph would drive over to collect me from the station since the half-mile, seven-minute walk was way beyond my capabilities.

My weight frequently brought about some awkward moments in our household. I remember breaking numerous G Plan dining room chairs, the wooden frames buckling and splintering under the strain of my 22-stone bulk. Once, to my eternal shame, I even cracked the bath, the plastic base caving in as I attempted to haul myself out.

Steph had a healthy relationship with food, and had generally tried her best to curb my wayward appetite, but her efforts were often in vain.

She would despair as the kitchen cupboards were emptied within days of the Tesco ‘big shop’, shaking her head as she watched me demolish a jumbo bar of Dairy Milk or an entire tube of cheese and onion Pringles.

I’m sharing a chapter from Downsizing every Wednesday, exclusively with subscribers. It’s an account of what worked for me on the journey to losing 100lb, reducing my blood pressure and reversing my type 2 diabetes. If you’re new here, subscribe!

Subscribe now

More from Tom Watson …

Congratulations Prime Minister Anthony Albanese

Congratulations to Labor leader Anthony Albanese, Australia’s new Prime Minister. He looks fantastic, having cut out beer and carbs and shedding 15kg. I’ll have to send him a copy of my new book when it’s published later this month!|

I have a very fond memory of Albo on a visit to the UK. Michael Foot’s birthday party was in the greatly missed Gay Hussar restaurant, Soho.* Revellers had consumed much wine to the bemusement of our sober and jet-lagged Australian guest of legendary former MP Fraser Kemp.

At one point in the evening, spin doctor Charlie Whelan decided to lift his kilt, in what at the time, I believed to be a derogatory and insulting fashion. There is a memory of a scuffle, a hazy mental picture of journalists Paul Routledge and Kevin Maguire intervening.

Fraser Kemp, ever the host and diplomat, persuaded Labor’s future Prime Minister and me that it was a good time to adjourn to a more civilised environment, Little Italy in Frith Street. They now do delicious keto recipes as well as their fabulous pasta.

*When Zoe Fairbairns (author of Stand We At Last, Daddy’s Girls, Benefits, Closing, Here Today, Other Names, short story collections, and more recently Write Short Stories and Get Them Published, invited me to a dinner there, I did not realise that our new Prime minister had been there before me. There were no kilts at our dinner – a bevy of writers and publishers.